Summary:
In this episode I address more stunning revelations about the relationships between key officials involved in the Trump investigation, the Clintons, and the judicial system. I also cover the new liberal narrative being used to attack Trump and how it is a Trojan Horse for government regulation of the internet.
News Picks:
The Mueller investigation continues to act in an unusual manner outside its mandate.
More connections between the Australian diplomat whom media accounts portray as the initiator of the Trump investigation and foreign intelligence.
More on Mueller’s out-of-control investigation.
Read this December piece, and the recent revelations about Judge Contreras and FBI Agent Strzok are even more disturbing.
Government is looking to regulate the internet; here’s one avenue they’re looking at.
More on government’s desire to use the Cambridge Analytica case to regulate the internet.
The bump stock ban in Denver didn’t go as planned.
Copyright CRTV. All rights reserved.
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Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
All right, welcome to Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, you're not doing very well today.
You have some bad news to report to our audience.
Your identity was stolen or something?
Yeah, yeah.
Somebody got my number off my debit card and racked me up real good.
Well, folks, listen, I told Joe to bring this up during the show.
Here's why, right?
This is what I used to do in my former career as a federal investigator, and one of the ways people steal Your credit card number and your debit number, I investigated tons of these cases on the Secret Service Financial Crimes Task Force, is they use these skimming devices in restaurants.
So you'll give your card to a waiter or waitress, whatever it may be, and they'll walk back to the register with your card, and they have a little device, it looks like, Like kind of like a, it looks like the swiping portion of an ATM machine, when you swipe your card through.
Not the one you insert the card in, the one you swipe it through.
And it's in your hand, it's like a handheld piece.
They swipe the credit card or the debit card, it steals the number.
Oh joy!
Yeah, that's how they do it.
So Joe had said to me, well, I don't know what happened, but I was in a restaurant or something.
I mean, it may or may not have been, but that's typically the case.
So the way we used to investigate him and the Financial Crimes Task Force, Joe, is I'd say, you know, a guy would call, he'd say, oh my gosh, I got this, you know, a bank investigator would call.
He'd say, hey, listen, I'm from whatever, Bank of America, Chase, whatever it may be.
And I've got 40 or 50 credit card numbers that were stolen.
Can you guys take a look?
I would say, do me a favor.
Run like a batch report on it and tell me the last charge on each of those cards.
And of course, they'd be like, oh, was that Joey Bag of Donuts restaurant?
You go to Joey Bag of Donuts restaurant.
Who is the server who served Joe Armacost?
It was Joey Bag of Donuts.
Hey, Joey, let me see the skimmer, Joe.
Thanks, Pat.
It was the easiest case.
So I'm just warning all the mopes out there and criminals.
You're so easy to find.
It's pathetic.
Don't think you're getting away with anything.
Don't do it.
They are super easy cases to crack.
So that's my public service announcement for the day.
Thank you, Dan.
Yeah, no, they're easy to crack, Joe.
You'll get your money back, too.
I know it's a pain in the butt, but don't be an idiot.
You are unbelievably easy to find.
It is the dumbest crime known to man.
Seriously.
All right, man, I got a lot to get to.
I hope a lot of you listened to the special show this weekend.
I'm not going to redo it.
I do have to, unfortunately, hit on some of it to get to some other stories that are going on.
And a huge, huge, to steal the words of Donald Trump, it's huge, huge, a huge scandal brewing with the FISA court.
A sound cut, Joe, cut for me.
But I pulled some old articles on this that are going to just blow your mind.
Also, some more revelations about how this entire case started and stuff that's just going to be like, whoa, by the time you're done with this.
So don't miss a minute.
All right.
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Okay, um, first...
Joe, let's just get right into the Contreras story.
So, I told you folks this case, there was more coming out.
Now, one of the reasons that I've been asking you to be patient with Sessions is that, number one, the Inspector General report, Mike Horowitz, that is looking into this entire Hillary Clinton email investigation debacle, crimes that may have occurred as a result of it, may have spiraled out into the Russia investigation as well.
The report hasn't been released yet.
So that's one reason.
But the second reason to be patient is the DOJ has been stonewalling the release of information on this case for a long time, and the release of information they have been engaged in has been redacted.
In other words, they've been blacking out significant portions of information that OH!
Oh, some of the pieces that are blacked out, Joe, are super critical pieces to the investigation that make the FBI agents involved in the case look awful.
Now, one of the pieces of information that was blacked out were text messages and redacted between Lisa Page and Peter Stroke.
Two of the critical, one was an investigator, one was a lawyer, critical pieces of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton.
They released some of the text messages that were damning enough about insurance policies, about how they hated Donald Trump, about how Hillary could be the next president.
But one of the redacted pieces, the congressional investigators finally got their mitts on Joe by going to DOJ themselves, reviewing it in person in unredacted form.
And one of the exchanges, remember I always say remember the names, one of the exchanges between this guy, Peter Stroke, who was a senior level manager at the FBI involved in the Hillary email investigation and was later on the special counsel investigation of Trump before he was removed.
One of the critical exchanges with this lawyer, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, was about a FISA court judge.
The FISA court, the court used to spy on Trump.
A FISA court judge by the name of Rudolph Contreras.
Stroke nose Contreras.
How do we know stroke nose Contreras?
Because the text messages he says, hey, Rudy's on the FISA court.
Folks, I'm not making this up.
Rudy's on the FISA court.
Lisa?
He's talking to Lisa Page, also his love interest.
They were both married, by the way.
And this lawyer for the FBI who are working on this Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Trump Special Counsel.
Strokes says, hey, maybe we should set up a cocktail party where we get together with about, what, six people or so, and we talk to Contreras.
He's my buddy.
Contreras is later the guy who accepts the guilty plea.
From who?
Mike Flynn, Lieutenant General Mike Flynn.
Now, I got more in this, but before I go on, I want to play this cut just to set this up.
This is Bob Goodlatte, who's running this investigation from the House side.
He's a representative.
Congressman.
He is running this from the House side, this investigation.
He is a very calm, measured, deliberate guy.
He's not a flamethrower at all.
He is a Republican, to be clear.
But he's interviewing with Maria Bartiromo from Fox, and he says something that's really critical here about this Contreras thing.
Listen to this sound cut.
Play that.
We need more documents, and we need them now, and we need them unredacted, by the way, Maria.
These latest revelations about Peter Strzok and Lisa Page talking about a federal judge, a Judge Contreras, who was appointed to serve on the FISA court, and they're talking back and forth about how good that is and how Peter Strzok needs to be catching up with him and talking to him.
That was made available to us earlier in a redacted form.
And it was only just recently that we had the opportunity to see that text unredacted.
That clearly does not draw any conclusion about what that judge and Peter Strzok may
have done or not done, but it's clearly material to what was going on in the FBI regarding
how they were treating this court.
As I said, and I can't say enough, quoting my old friends from Queens, my Italian buddies,
Take it ease!
Take it ease!
I told you with Sessions there were things going on here.
They are dealing with unprecedented obstruction.
Now, you may say, well, Sessions runs the Department of Justice.
Why are they just now unredacting redacted documents and texts that are clearly indicative of, at minimum, some sense of misfeasance?
Folks, Sessions is in a bind right now.
He did make a bad call with the recusal and recusal is hurting him in a way, in a number of ways.
But there are things going on and there are pushes being made within the DOJ, I believe from Sessions and people he has appointed to clean this mess up finally.
I'm not saying he's made all the right moves, I'm just saying take it easy on this.
Now, I said to you during that sat there, Sound on.
So we're using like industry lingo here.
During that sound clip there, that there was something important in that.
What was important in the takeaway from that, if you listen to it, was he said Goodlatte, Goodlatte, who's the senior House of Representatives investigator on this, in charge, he just got the stuff.
He just got the stuff.
They are dealing with on this committee unprecedented DOJ and FBI obstruction.
They don't want to give up.
He just got this text from Stroke talking about how they want to set up a cocktail party to talk to the Fisk judge who is ultimately going to be responsible for sentencing Mike Flynn later on.
They just got this.
Folks, a lot of this stuff is just coming out now.
The Bureau does not want to give it up.
Now, I will put in the show notes... Do you have a cough button, by the way, Joe?
How do you not use your coughs?
I watch him cough and I don't hear anything.
I'm potting myself down on the board.
Oh, look at this guy.
Mr. Sophisticated Sound Guy.
I watch him... and I don't hear anything.
I'm about yakking my butt off.
Yeah, I can tell.
So Contreras, this is what's important about this too, they're just getting the information, but I went and looked and researched some older articles here, and a couple people sent it to me too, so thank you, but I had already gotten this from another, let's say, entity.
I'm gonna put in the show notes today a must-read story from December.
That's the difference with our show notes and anywhere else out there, aggregators.
We pull old stuff that's relevant again right now.
I'm gonna pull and put in the show notes a Washington Examiner piece from December.
Here's a quote from the piece about this same FISA court judge that Stroke and Page are texting each other about influencing.
We gotta have him over at a cocktail party, a small cocktail party.
The same judge, by the way, Who conveniently was responsible for the Mike Flynn sentencing to the nonsense false statements garbage.
Here's a quote from the Examiner piece, talking about the Judge Contreras.
Listen to this one, Joe.
This is December.
Contreras told the former Army General that prosecutors will request less punishment than sentencing guidelines recommend.
Oh, isn't that nice of him?
Yeah, that's big of him.
That's big of him.
But here's where it gets great.
If and only if he, Flynn that is, provides substantial assistance in the prosecution of another person.
Gee, who could that other person be?
Bring out the thumbscrews!
You're darn right!
Get those thumbscrews ready!
So let me get this straight.
The prosecution of another person, who at this point there was a high, high probability is someone within the Trump team, if not Trump himself.
So Contreras, who's this FISA court judge, who now we know the FBI agent and the FBI lawyer are trying to influence.
It's not in question anymore.
You have Goodlatte on tape talking about the text messages where they're discussing this influence operation.
Yeah.
The FBI hid those texts from the DOJ until just recently.
They finally get them, and now we look back over what Contreras did in the public reporting on this in a Washington Examiner in December, and apparently Contreras, the same judge who Stroke and Tex were trying to influence, He told Flynn, hey listen, you're only going to get off if and only if you provide substantial assistance in the prosecution of somebody else.
Folks, this is a witch hunt.
This thing is out of control.
This is a total, complete government witch hunt.
Hat tip to one of the listeners out there who sent me an article from Law and Crime.
It's a blog that, you know, I don't know what ideological direction they're in, if any, but they seem to have articles which are pro and anti-Trump.
But there's a very good Pro law and order piece in there today.
I'll put the show notes to Joe about how this case is totally out of control.
Totally out of control.
It is this Mueller special counsel is way, way past their mandate.
They are so far out over their skis.
This thing is a disaster.
And I'll have another piece from Andy McCarthy there as well, and the Andy McCarthy piece is even better.
It discusses how they can't seem to charge anyone with an actual crime related to collusion or related to the crimes they talk about in their own indictments.
I said that confusing.
I'll just sum it up for you, the McCarthy piece, because it's so good.
It'll be in the show notes today as well, appongino.com.
And also, we're going to have original content coming very soon, by the way, at Bungino.com.
You're going to really like it.
It's going to be a debunk-a-thon.
Also, if you subscribe to my email list, I'll email them to you.
But the gist of the McCarthy piece, Joe, is that you read all of these Mueller indictments of Manafort and all these other people, and you're horrified.
You're like, oh my gosh, they did all this stuff.
And I'm not defending what they did.
But McCarthy makes a fascinating legal argument that if you read the indictments and the information and everything further, They don't actually charge people with those crimes.
They charge them with this otherworldly conspiracy to defraud the United States charge.
You gotta read the piece how it's not really, none of this is related to collusion.
Folks, the thing is totally, completely out of control.
So let me just sum that portion up again before I move on, because I really do have some other information that, please don't go anywhere, that is going to open your eyes to what a disaster this thing has become, a total witch hunt, and a complete violation of the fidelity to law and order in our constitutional republic.
So just to sum it up, we have Stroke and Page, senior FBI agent, FBI lawyer.
Texting each other about an influence operation against a federal judge who is appointed to the spying court, the FISA court.
They are the spying court at this point.
It's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
We should call it the Foreign Intelligence Spying Court, right?
They're trying to influence this judge.
This judge, conveniently, later on, is the same judge appointed to oversee the hearing on Mike Flynn.
Mike Flynn, who was prosecuted, by the way, And pleads guilty, even though the FBI doesn't think he lied.
He pleads guilty to false statements to the FBI, even though the FBI acknowledges in public records, Comey and others, that they don't think he lied.
Who is the agent who interviewed Mike Flynn?
Oh, Peter Stroke.
No!
Peter Stroke!
Peter Stroke, the same guy texting his girlfriend about how they want to influence Rudy Contreras, the judge, who is the judge who then accepts the guilty plea from Mike Flynn.
Oh, and by the way, Contreras tells Flynn, hey, yeah, we'll let you off a little bit on your sentencing, guys, if and only if you provide substantial assistance in the prosecution of another person.
Folks, Liberals, where are you on this?
Where are you?
Do you understand?
The Law and Crime piece I have in the show notes today, the blog piece?
Yeah.
The author in it, Joe, says something interesting, and this is where I've always been puzzled about where liberals have completely disappeared or why liberals have completely disappeared on this.
Liberals, this is the destruction right now.
Of any semblance of law and order and fidelity to the Constitution.
Do you understand this discretionary power of government to target people like Flynn?
To turn on others despite there's very little evidence of an actual crime can be turned on you in a heartbeat?
Are you not worried about this?
You know, I'm going to get to another story in a minute about the new, new, new narrative here and I'll show you how this affected me in a negative way, but I don't support intrusive government.
Folks, we're in a lot of trouble here.
These FBI agents who interviewed Flynn tried to influence the judge who then took Flynn's sentence, who then pushed Flynn to testify against other people or turn state's evidence to other people in the Trump team.
Oh my gosh, and nobody seems to care.
It's amazing how watching this all fall apart, Joe.
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Okay.
All right, moving on here.
So this story, Joe, just blew my mind.
This weekend I've been doing some homework on Downer, because remember, now we've already established now that the case against Mike Flynn has clearly been corrupted, all right?
The investigators going after him, we're colluding with each other on how to influence a judge.
The same judge winds up taking a sentence from Flynn, winds up encouraging Flynn in the sentence to cooperate against other people in this case.
But I said to you that this case had started with Alexander Alexander Downer.
Alexander Downer is the Australian diplomat who meets up in the bar with third-rate backbencher George Papadopoulos in this London bar, and according to the New York Times and a number of other officials, Glenn Simpson from Fusion GPS has acknowledged this in some way, shape, or form as well.
This is what starts the whole investigation.
The Trump team, because Papadopoulos, this third-rate Trump team backbencher, tells Downer That he thinks the Russians have dirt on Hillary.
Which, by the way, I think is ridiculous.
Not that he said that, but everybody in the world knew that the Russians had dirt on Hillary.
But again, I can't say that enough, that I think that the whole initiation of the investigation is a farce to begin with.
Folks, Downer is the key to this.
Downer is the key.
I've become more convinced by the day that Downer is the key to this.
Now, Downer, keep in mind, you're going to remember, if you forgot this, you're going to need this in a minute.
Downer is an Australian diplomat.
Australian.
What is he doing in a London bar, talking to a Trump team member, and who set this meeting up?
Now, there is some evidence, if you listen to last week's show, some reporting on the subject, I should say, that the meeting was set up by a girlfriend or some female acquaintance of Papadopoulos.
Who is this woman?
Who sets this meeting up?
Now why am I asking you this?
Why does any of this matter to you?
Folks, this is what starts the FBI investigation.
The formal FBI investigation is of critical distinction.
I've been making the case to you over a series of months now that they were investigating Trump through foreign intelligence spying on Trump for the United States, way prior to this, and that they needed a legal face of this.
They were conducting an operation into Joe Armacost and investigating him for felonious mopery, right?
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
All of a sudden, this thing starts to get serious and they're like, hey, what if we lose this election?
People are going to find out we're investigating Joe.
Well, we better get a warrant, get some legal face on this.
They needed a legal face to start an investigation.
That's why this Downer interview... Joe, if I lose anyone, stop me.
No, you're cool.
Okay, good.
They need somebody, somewhere, to give them, air quotes here folks, the dreaded air quotes, a tip to start this investigation legally because they're already getting information on Trump.
The Obama team's already spying on him.
Downer's the guy who starts this whole thing.
According to the New York Times, I'm not making any of this up.
Downer is the key.
Downer's the key because the narrative I'm trying to get across to you folks, Through all the homework and research I've been doing on this and through sourcing, good sources, is the Trump team is set up.
They were set up.
They needed a legal face.
They were being framed for an operation that was already ongoing.
Downer's the key to this whole thing.
So Downer meets with Papadopoulos and now we have a new piece of information to add to this puzzle that's stunning.
Puzzle piece number one.
Showing you that this guy Downer is tied to the Clintons deeply.
Puzzle piece number one, which I've already reported, but it's worth repeating.
He signed a Memorandum of Understanding, otherwise known as an MOU for obvious reasons, with the Clinton Foundation for $25 million while he was an Australian senior government official.
And Audit is still unable to account for the funds and the way these funds were spent.
It's according to a Mark Tapscott piece in Lifeset, which will be in the show notes today, which is a must-read.
So Downer, while an Australian government official signed this memorandum of understanding, giving $25 million to the Clinton Foundation, an audit is unable to account for how these funds were spent.
Now is it starting to make sense, folks, why they needed Trump to go down if he was elected?
All of this stuff they had, all of it, Uranium One, the Iran deal, this all needed to go away!
The Clinton Foundation investigation, this all needed to go away.
Point number two about Downer.
I mentioned this one a couple weeks ago.
Downer served on the Australian board of a company called Weiwei.
H-U-A-W-E-I.
Weiwei was guilty of, excuse me, Weiwei was accused of being involved in Chinese espionage efforts on behalf of the Chinese government.
Now, Hillary Clinton's brother, Tony Rodham, was caught up in a scandal here for helping seek a visa, visa approval, for the vice president of a company to get into the United States.
The vice president of a company who was involved with an investment in a company run by the Democratic, now Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, a friend of the Clintons.
Tony Rodham was seeking visa approval.
One of those people was for the vice president of a company.
That company was Weiwei, where Alexander Downer sat on the board of the Australian branch of this.
Folks, the connections to the Clintons are endless.
By the way, according to Dick Morris, who made the intro?
Between Tony Rodham and the investors in this company that were investing in the company of the now Democratic governor of Virginia, who got that position with the help of Hillary Clinton and her fundraising network, Bill Clinton made the introduction between Rodham and the investors in Terry McAuliffe's company, according to Dick Morris, just days after Hillary was nominated as Secretary of State.
So just to be clear, Downer signs an MOU, $25 million to the Clinton Foundation.
People don't know how the money was spent.
The money's under investigation.
Downer sits on the Australian board of a company called Weiwei, a Chinese company accused of espionage for the Chinese government.
They have a tough time getting in the United States.
Who intervenes to help one of their VPs get in?
Oh, Hillary's brother, Tony Rodham.
And why does this VP of this company want to get in?
Oh, because they're looking at a project in conjunction with Terry McAuliffe, who at that time was a old friend to the Clintons.
Who makes the intro?
Oh, Bill Clinton, right after Hillary's nominated as Secretary of State.
Here's the piece I got this weekend from Tapscott, the Lifesat piece, which is just stunning.
So, turns out Downer also sat on the board, formally on the board, of a company called Haglitt & Company from 2008 to 2014, Joe.
Haglitt & Company is described by this investigative reporter's outlet.
It's described as, quote, a retirement home for ex-MI6 officers.
Who are MI6 officers?
These are spies for the British government!
Downer's an Australian.
Now, this is a global company.
I'm not trying to invent things to make... But Downer's an Australian.
Downer's not British.
He sits on the board from 2008 to 2014 of Hagleton Company, a retirement home for ex-British officers.
Joe.
Christopher Steele, the ex-MI6 officer who was responsible for the fake dossier on Donald Trump and was paid by the Clinton team after they washed their money through Perkins Coie and then sent it to Fusion GPS and then sent it to Steele.
Christopher Steele, was he British or Australian?
He was British.
He was British!
He was British and worked for the MI6.
Yeah.
Awfully convenient how these coincidences, again, keep adding up.
Now, you may say, well, Dan, you just said he sat on the board from 2008 to 2014.
This clearly happened after 2014.
Oh, yes, you'd be correct.
But according to a News Corp's Australian news network, Downer has, quote, still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group.
Of Haglitt and company.
Guys, ladies, this guy is the key to this whole thing.
The number one outstanding question right now in the framing of Donald Trump and his team is going to be who set up the meeting between Downer and Papadopoulos, whose idea was it, and how did it happen?
Oh yeah!
Oh yeah, Randy!
Oh yeah!
That's the key!
That's the key!
Who set it up?
Who's the girlfriend?
What did the girlfriend know?
Why is Downer meeting with this guy?
Now, adding further to this.
Federal records, Joe.
According to the Tapscott piece.
Yeah.
Show that this Haglitt & Company were down or sat on a board and is still attending meetings.
Right, right.
That a lot of their US reps for this company made rather large campaign contributions to... Who do you think they made them to?
Joe, if I said to you, Hillary Clinton, would you be shocked?
No, Dan, I would not be.
Of course you wouldn't because it's true!
Oh!
They made rather large donations to one Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Now may I remind you, for the 52nd thousandth time, I will read a headline, updated at 12.49 a.m.
Eastern Time, April 14th, 2017.
It was a Friday.
A headline from CNN Politics.
April 14th, 2017, it was a Friday, a headline from CNN Politics. Remember, the board
Downer sits on and still associates with, the guy who starts this whole
investigation, Downer, who is an Australian, sits on the board of this
company described as a retirement home for ex-MI6 British intelligence
officers.
Quote from CNN, April 14, 2017.
British intelligence passed Trump associates communications with Russians on to US counterparts.
Folks.
Folks.
This thing stinks.
Yeah, boy.
This thing stinks to the heavens like no case I've seen him.
Now do you see why the Democrats are so desperate Praying by the minute to make sure this Mueller operation never goes away.
Because if Mueller's operation goes away and the attention, the spotlight is highlighted and shown on the people guilty of this massive spying operation on the Trump team, the framing operation on the Trump team, the set them up, it was a set up the whole time, that this is going to be the biggest scandal in US history.
Now, as I always say, because we always get some conspiracy theory leftist goons on this show, who then go and write about it afterwards, just check the sources.
What am I telling you that's inaccurate?
Is anything about the memorandum of understanding between Downer and the Australian government, is any of that false?
Prove it false!
He signed it!
Is anything I told you about Wei Wei, anything I told you about Tony Rodham, Any of those, Hillary's brother, any of that false?
No?
Of course, it's very troublesome, right?
Is anything I just told you about Hackleton Company?
Hackleton Company, the home for MI6 officers.
British, you know, British Intel guys.
Christopher Steele, former MI6 guy.
Reports of downer at these meetings.
Just look at the research!
Look at the data, look at the links.
The evidence is overwhelming that there's something wrong here, folks.
Again, I just don't know where the liberals are on this.
I don't get it.
I don't understand how you're not horrified that this could turn around and absolutely backfire on you.
Just unbelievably troubling stuff.
All right, I want to get to this other story, too, because this is really important.
But again, just to sum up where we've been, so Stroke and Page now have summoned bevolvement with an attempt to influence a federal judge.
Federal judge sentences Flynn.
As he sentences Flynn, obviously there's a push to get Flynn to testify against others.
Very disturbing.
That's just coming out now.
That's going to be a shoe to drop again in the future.
Also, one more thing on that story I neglected to mention.
The judge, Sullivan, who's been assigned to look into the sentencing of Flynn and they delayed it, Joe?
That's going on behind the scenes as well.
I don't think Mike Flynn's story is over by a long shot.
I think that the plea deal can and will be vacated against Mike Flynn due to all the shenanigans that went on in the background with this judge and everything else.
So that's going on in the background.
Secondly, Downer, just remember that name.
Downer's involvement in this is going to grow and grow because at every turn there's some new reason to believe that this meeting, this meeting in that bar...
In London.
In London!
We've now seen the connection between Downer and Australian, with British Intelligence, a company that's involved with British Intelligence.
We've also seen CNN reports about British Intelligence passing information on Trump.
They meet in a London bar.
That starts everything.
Way, way, way suspicious.
Okay.
Should I get to this one?
Because there's two critical stories I want to get to here.
On the McCabe thing, I know I covered a lot of it on the special edition, but yeah.
On the McCabe firing, just a couple quick notes on this one.
One, liberal hypocrisy on this.
I find this fascinating and I'd like you to bring this up to your liberal friends who keep, oh, McCabe, he was fired.
This is unbelievable.
The government's out of control.
Donald Trump, look at him.
He's a tyrant.
Your first response to them should be, let me get this straight.
You want Donald Trump impeached.
Many of you want him arrested and prosecuted.
For a collusion crime, not one of you can produce an iotus until a drop of evidence even happened.
None of you.
Nobody has it.
Nobody, even some hardcore Democrat lawmakers have been forced to acknowledge on the record, I'm thinking Adam Schiff and the Meghan McCain interview on The View.
They can't acknowledge that there's any evidence at all that there was any collusion with the Russians between Trump, his team, and the Russians.
They can't!
Because no evidence exists!
So you see where I'm going with this Joe?
So you want Trump impeached and prosecuted over a crime that didn't happen, but when McCabe is terminated from his job for what arguably was one of the worst run trifecta of cases I've ever seen.
Flynn, the FISA court, and the Hillary Clinton email investigation while he was the number two.
He's terminated from his job.
I'm not even getting into the leaks which were potentially criminal.
And all of a sudden, you're upset.
So there's mounds of evidence of McCabe's malfeasance and misfeasance, right?
He gets fired.
He's not entitled to a government taxpayer pension.
He gets fired, and you're all upset about it, yet you want Donald Trump impeached, fired, and prosecuted for a crime you can't even prove happened.
Your hypocrisy is pathetic.
And I've been getting a lot of questions, by the way, about McCabe and his pension.
From what I know from me working in the government, Here's what I think is going to happen.
So he's fired.
He's terminated from his FBI position before he can collect his pension.
There are some who've said to me, well, in a few years he's going to be eligible to collect a certain portion of it.
This is wrong too.
Be careful with that, folks.
The way the federal government works, they have kind of what resembles a 401k program.
You don't know what it is.
You put an amount in, and that amount accumulates over time.
If it's a Roth, you pay taxes up front.
If it's a deferred, you pay the taxes later when you take it out.
It grows tax deferred.
But the federal government has a system called FERS, the Federal Employee Retirement System.
In FERS, you put your money from your salary in there.
Am I being clear on this?
It's almost like a 401k.
It doesn't work the exact same way.
Like it's already his money.
Yeah, it's his money, folks.
Now, listen, for as much as I dislike what Andy McCabe did, that's, I think, where people are getting confused.
The government pension component show, the part of it where he would get paid as a guaranteed benefit.
rather than a guaranteed contribution, which the 401k type FERS program would be, the government benefit he's going to lose.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
You know, he's not going to get that pension, but he is going to be allowed, from my reading of it, to collect his money.
And you know what, folks, I'm sorry, I have an issue with that.
I don't mean to upset people, but it's the right thing.
It was his money I mean, you know, listen, if he gets sued later on and has to pay, then hey, too bad!
But you can't go retroactively take his 401k type money and his FERS.
It's going to be a really difficult haul.
So that's where the confusion is.
He's not getting a pension.
It's the FERS program that works differently.
It's the money he put into a 401k type program.
Now, there is some government matching.
I get that.
But there's been some questions on that.
I just wanted to explain that.
But the McCabe thing, remember this.
The three takeaways from this weekend.
They botched the Hillary investigation, folks.
They drafted up an exoneration letter while he was at the upper level of the FBI, exonerating Hillary before they interviewed her.
Number two, the FISA court case.
They brought a case to the FISA court to spy on Donald Trump, I believe under a false predicate.
I believe in an effort to frame Donald Trump.
Now I'm not suggesting here, That people in the Bureau even knew they were part of the operation.
This was an operation pushed by the Clintons from the start.
To set up the trial.
I told you, Downer started this thing.
Downer is associated with the Clintons.
The Bureau and people at the Bureau may have been suckers the entire time.
But it does not excuse, whether it's misfeasance or malfeasance.
Either they did something dumb and didn't know, or they did something dumb and did know.
It is still a feasance!
There's a feasance!
Like a pheasants with a pheasants.
They screwed up.
They brought a case to the Pfizer court.
They did not properly vet the information.
The dossier was false.
McCabe was the number two.
Finally the case against Mike Flynn.
You see why I brought up the Contreras case now?
So they screwed up the email investigation into Hillary.
Exonerate her or draft up a letter.
Before they prosecute.
The FISA court, they bring false info.
And in the case against Mike Flynn, the guy underneath him, Peter Stroke, who's working underneath Prestep, is talking about a collusion conspiracy to influence the judge, who sentences Mike Flynn for a charge, by the way, that the FBI acknowledged didn't exist because they thought Flynn was honest and charged him with lying to the federal agency.
Yeah, I just said that right.
The FBI thought he was honest in his interview and then charged him with lying later on.
And you're, really?
You're losing sleep over McCabe being fired.
Please, liberals, give me a break.
Give me a break.
We get it.
We get your political hacks and your principles went out the window a long time ago, but give us all a break with the crocodile tears, huh?
This was an obvious case of judicial abominations here and investigative abominations that have to be corrected.
Man, that's a funky, cold medina.
Remember that song, Tone Loak?
I used to love that song.
That was a great tune, man.
In fact, Tone Loak.
Loak!
I remember Loak.
He was Wild Thing was his other one, too.
Little known fact about Dan Bongino.
I'm doing a Bob Dole.
Bob Dole.
Talk about yourself in third person.
Little known fact about old DB here.
When I was a kid, you know, we grew up in New York City and You know, in New York City, there were only really two things that mattered when I was a kid.
You played basketball, and everybody wanted to be a DJ.
Did you know that, Joe?
So my friend Baz, his name was Jimmy, but we called him Baz because he used to write graffiti, and that was his, like, you know, that was his name, Baz.
So my buddy Baz had DJ equipment in his basement, and, you know, in the summers out of school, we'd go hang out in his basement watching MTV and stuff, and we'd be watching, like, MTV raps and things, and we'd all get our turn at the DJ booth, And this is true.
You just reminded me of this.
My go-to every time was mixing like some hardcore gangster rap song with Funky Cold Medina.
And I would always, you know, you have the two turntables so you can, you know how you mix it, you go back and forth and you fade one in and out.
I would play some like hardcore gangster rap song.
Imagine me with the thing in my ear, you know Joe, leaning with the headphone in my ear, you know the look?
And I'm scratching, I'm tearing it up, I'm...
And then all of a sudden, Funky Cole Medina.
And everybody goes crazy.
That was me when I was a kid.
I'm not kidding.
And everybody used to think I was a great DJ.
But the funny thing is, I was the worst DJ ever.
That was my only pull.
Funky Cole Medina.
And I was hoping someone didn't say, hey, didn't you do that last week?
Sometimes it'd be a different crew over at Baz's house.
They would forget that.
Thanks for reminding me.
Sorry.
Once in a blue moon, I have these stories from my childhood.
It kind of puts the show in context a little bit, right?
I'm such a different person now than I used to be.
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All right, this is another one.
Here's the new, new...
New narrative for the Trump-Russia case.
I know we're doing a lot of this today, but so much broke over the weekend.
And again, as I always tell you, this is never about Trump-Russia.
This is about the Constitutional Republic, the distortion of the FISA courts, the spying on Americans, the pollution of politics, money in politics, everything.
This is going to be the Trump-Russia case.
It's going to be now a vehicle to regulate the internet.
Wait, what?
What's going on, Dan?
You're all over the place.
No, no, I'm not.
So the original narrative, Trump colluded with Russia.
That narrative is garbage.
Everybody knows it's garbage and it's falling apart.
We've been saying now for how long, Joe?
Six months?
That when that falls apart they're going to move on to obstruction of justice.
Yeah.
That narrative is falling apart for them as well.
So their new, new narrative is going to be The regulation of the internet because Trump colluded with like Facebook to influence you and that's how they won the election.
You're seeing it start to break this weekend.
They are rapidly moving on to this narrative now.
Here's what happened.
Adam Schiff, up to it again, Shifty.
Shifty Schiff, the most dishonest man in Washington D.C., was on a weekend cable news show.
And now they're starting to shift to Cambridge Analytica.
What is Cambridge Analytica?
Why does this matter?
And how is this now their third or fourth or twentieth narrative about what Trump did wrong?
Cambridge Analytica was a research company whose data was used in a number of election campaigns, one of them the Trump team included in that.
They're like a marketing firm that uses Facebook profiles and things like that to market information to you.
What's the big deal about this?
Well, the Democrats' new line of attack is that information was taken off Facebook disingenuously under false pretenses to market political ads to you that were targeted to your profile.
A little background.
Cambridge Analytica worked with this professor over in England who developed an app, Joe.
The app was a personality profile thing on Facebook.
So, do you ever go on Facebook, folks, for those of you who are users, and it says, take this personality quiz?
Oh, yeah.
You know what I'm talking about?
I know what you're talking about.
Don't take those personality quizzes, folks.
A lot of them are third-party apps working with Facebook, and what they do is they harvest your data.
When you take the personality quiz, it uses the quiz to access some of the data from other people in your Facebook profile as well, including your friends.
There's some dispute between Facebook and the company about the privacy agreement and if that was allowed or not.
I'm not going to get into that.
I frankly don't care.
Really, if you're on Facebook and you're clicking on third-party apps, I have to generally assume that you're understanding at some point that you're giving up something.
Now, I don't agree with it, but...
It's beyond the scope of the podcast.
But do you see where the disagreement is?
Facebook is saying, well, we didn't allow you, um, you know, to get access to all this other stuff.
And we demanded that you delete the data you had on the friends of the people that downloaded the app.
Okay.
The company saying we deleted it.
We didn't use it.
I, you can read the piece yourself about that dispute.
I don't, I don't find it that, What I do find interesting is that the Democrats are now using this narrative, Joe.
They're using this narrative that Facebook was involved with the Trump team and this company to target political ads to you.
They're going to use it to regulate social media and the internet.
Again, you think I'm making any of this up?
Hold on.
I got some headlines for you.
Hold on one second here because I pulled them up.
I never say anything, I can't back up, okay?
Alright, this is from Paul Bedard today, Washington Secrets.
Thewashingtonexaminer.com, it'll be in the show notes.
Online political ads surge 780%.
Demand regulation!
There we go, more government online now.
Where's the other one I saw?
Let's see, this is another sweet one.
Hold on one second.
Oh, here we go!
Here we go, Reuters today!
Reuters.com, March 19th, 2018.
European Union lawmakers to investigate alleged misuse of Facebook data.
Folks, this is coming next.
Now, let me just be crystal clear on this.
I have been a victim of what I feel is Ideological discrimination by social media.
I'm not, listen, I shouldn't say, I hate the word victim.
I sound like a liberal.
I've been targeted by Twitter.
I think, I don't know if I told you guys the story on the show and ladies out there, but I was running Twitter ads.
We actually forgot we were doing it, but Twitter ads for the podcast, where we advertise the podcast.
We did some on Facebook too.
I mean, it's pretty standard advertising for a show.
We were banned from running Twitter ads for quote, inappropriate content.
We were never given a reason why.
My wife and I were never told what the inappropriate content even was.
We scoured our Twitter file.
We have no idea what they're talking about.
Now, in case you think, oh, well, Dan's just making this up.
Maybe there were really inappropriate things.
Folks, I don't know what they're talking about.
I really genuinely don't know what they're talking about.
Other people out there have been targeted as well.
Prager University was banned from running ads, too.
Stephen Crowder was just suspended temporarily from YouTube for another, for some expose he did at South by Southwest.
The war against conservatives on Facebook and Twitter is heating up.
Liberals are going to use this Cambridge Analytica case.
Just to be clear, it was the Trump team working on political ads targeted at Facebook, which is done, Joe, by everyone out there.
Everyone.
They are going to use this now as their new, new, new narrative to finally target and get the government involved in the regulation of the internet.
I am begging Conservatives, even conservatives like me who have been targeted by Twitter, there's no doubt in my mind I have been discriminated against because I'm a conservative.
Do not, do not fall prey to the government regulation trap.
There would be nothing more convenient right now than for me to play liberal snowflake and say, oh, Twitter, they went after me.
Government, go get them!
Listen, Twitter sucks.
I hate it.
But I have to use it because I'm not forfeiting the platform.
I'm not forfeiting the way to get my ideas out there until an alternative presents and then I'm full force going somewhere else.
But I would never ever suggest the government fight my battles for me.
Twitter's a private company.
For as badly as they've targeted me and others.
And I'm disgusted by it.
I sold my stock.
Anything I had to do with Twitter, I'm done with.
I'm never running ads again.
I'm making my own personal statement.
The government solution is never a solution and will always, always backfire on conservatives.
You have to remember.
The cultural Marxism war going on against conservatives, anything they can do to gain political power in addition to cultural power will always backfire in your face.
They already discriminate against us in advertising, on social media, in academia.
If you give them political power, they will make it formal.
And what they'll do is they'll make some kind of a hate speech law like they have over in the European Union.
And the hate speech law will only be conservatives.
They'll define hate speech conveniently as something conservatives do, and you will be banned from social media altogether if you allow the government to get involved.
Don't fall prey to it, folks.
I know it's tough medicine.
Believe me, there's a part of me that desperately wants revenge against Twitter.
Government, go get them for me!
Don't fall prey to it.
The Democrats are going to use this Cambridge Analytica case, this company, this marketing company that was used by the Trump team to target political ads based on Facebook profiles.
They're going to use that narrative to get their liberal friends to push for government regulation and they are going to try to sucker conservatives into this too.
I think that is why You are seeing right now a renewed effort by YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to squeeze conservatives out.
Ban their ads.
Suspend them.
To get them... I know this sounds crazy, folks, but I can't see any other logical explanation.
To get them to join the liberal calls for government regulation of the internet, which is going to blow up in our faces the minute it happens.
Don't fall prey to it.
Don't fall prey to it.
I think Twitter would like nothing more than a hate speech law they can fall back on to ban conservatives from their platform, which would do conveniently what, Joe?
Would protect Twitter from lawsuits.
We are being baited.
Don't fall prey.
I know it sucks.
You're like, well, what are we going to do?
Do what I do.
I'm not running ads anymore.
I don't lose anything.
Twitter loses my, what do we do, $99 a month?
Twitter loses my money.
I don't lose, I sold their stock.
I lose nothing.
Yeah, it sucks.
My feelings are hurt, but I'm not a snowflake.
Deal with it.
Dance, as we always say.
You got to dance a little bit.
There's going to be another platform.
This is not going to last forever.
We will find a way.
We found Fox when we only had the media.
They found Facebook when they had MySpace.
Now Facebook's turning a corner.
Twitter's turning a corner.
YouTube will find something else.
It may not be there, but there's a way.
But government intrusion into the internet is going to be a disaster for conservatives.
Please don't fall prey to it.
One more final thought on this.
Folks, with social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, please understand, you are not the consumer.
You are being sold.
You are not the consumer.
Russ Roberts makes this point over and over and over in his Econ Talk podcast.
You are the product, not Facebook!
Understand, when you go on Facebook, the solution is not the government, the solution is you wising up!
Whatever you put in Facebook is going to be sold!
You're the product, not Facebook!
You!
You're being sold!
It's not Cambridge Analytica's fault or anybody else!
It's us!
We do it!
Understand when you sign up for an E-ZPass or a SunPass here in Florida, that that information is tracked!
Not by David Duchovny and the X-Files, but it is an electronic record!
You don't want to be tracked?
Listen, you have to, I'm not lecturing anybody.
Please don't take it, it's not the goal of this show.
I make dumb decisions every day of my life, okay?
We do, we're all human beings.
I'm just telling you, you like the convenience of Facebook, right?
For what?
You like to talk to your friends, see their pictures, whatever?
Yeah.
The trade-off in the convenience is you're the product.
The information you put in to communicate with your friends, you're being sold.
You!
You're not the consumer of Facebook, you're the product!
I never thought of it that way.
It's a... Hat tip, Russ Roberts.
It is a genius point.
I heard it, he mentioned this eons ago, but I thought of it in light of Cambridge Analytica.
We're blaming Cambridge Analytica for what?
Harvesting data we've already given to Facebook?
Folks, you don't want to be tracked?
Get off Facebook.
No, I'm serious.
I don't know any other solution.
You don't want to be tracked by Facebook?
Delete your account.
You don't want to be tracked by Twitter?
Delete your account!
It is a trade-off I have willingly made.
I know they're going to discriminate against me.
I know Twitter's a liberal platform.
James O'Keefe's already exposed them.
I know they banned me from ads.
But the trade-off I make is I get conservative content out to conservatives who have taken this platform over, who have forfeited a certain amount of information to get on that platform, understanding they're the product.
It's not the Yellow Pages, where you had to pay to get in there.
Now it's free!
But it's free because you're being sold.
You.
You don't like it.
Get off.
You don't like the convenience of a SunPass?
You don't like being tracked, I should say?
Right.
Then pay cash!
No one will know where you're going!
They may still because they probably have license plate readers.
That's the irony of the whole thing.
But in a perfect world, you may have to sit on that line and pay cash every time you go to a Florida toll.
You're paying for the convenience, but understand you're creating an electronic record of where and when you travel on the Florida Turnpike down here.
I have no easy answer for you other than if you don't like it, get off.
That is what they are doing to you.
This is not Cambridge Analytica's fault.
It's our fault for giving information to these companies.
Now, more reasonably, you don't have to get off, but go in and all those preferences and stuff you have in Facebook, delete them.
Get them out of there.
Facebook, I read these books.
I listen to this music.
I wouldn't give them a dime.
You're being sold.
Never ever forget that.
The things you like, the things you comment on, everything.
You are the product.
Do not fall prey to this government scam to use the government to regulate this stuff now.
We can regulate it ourselves by regulating what we give them.
You are being sold.
All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate it.
Please check out the show notes.
I'll have all these articles in there today.
It's a really good ensemble of pieces and original content coming very soon.
You're really going to like it.
I'll talk to you all tomorrow.
Thanks a lot.
You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.
Get more of Dan online anytime at conservativereview.com.
