In this episode I address the liberal media’s latest panic attack over devastating new information about this prominent Democrat. I also discuss Jim Comey’s disturbing appearance on CNN yesterday. Finally, I address the latest revelations about the FBI’s spying operation and an interesting piece on inflation.
News Picks:Former AG Jeff Sessions stands by Bill Barr’s spying statements.
The FBI claims they “lost” notes from the Clinton email investigation.
The FBI’s story is falling apart.
The Democrats in Congress look absolutely ridiculous with their contempt of Congress stunt.
Either Christopher Steele lies to the FBI or the Russians played the FBI.
Copyright Dan Bongino 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 the Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Well, you know, it's Friday.
Yes, Joe's going very well.
Very mellow.
It's Friday for Joe.
We'll add that to our compendium of Joe Armacost openers.
Hey, first, before we start, I have to dispel a major controversy.
I have to knock this in the teeth.
A major controversy in yesterday's show.
Major?
I was wearing a shirt yesterday.
And people, if you watch yesterday's YouTube show, episode 976, people said, oh my gosh, how could you wear such a dirty shirt?
That was not dirt.
That was, it's an aged shirt.
That shirt is only like six months old.
It is, it's not, it wasn't dirt.
I mean, even my mother-in-law, who I love to death, called my wife and said, how can you let Denny wear such a dirty shirt?
It was not dirt.
I did the same thing to you.
It was aged.
Remember?
Is that Inside Out?
Did you notice it, Joe?
I said, yeah.
Was it Inside Out?
No, it wasn't Inside Out.
It was a Fender guitar company, which you know well, shirt that was aged.
My wife's like, I'm answering emails all day.
How can you let your husband go on the air with a dirty t-shirt?
It was not.
Dirt.
Okay, I'm a lot of things.
Dirty's not one of them.
Unless I'm coming out of the gym in the sauna after that.
Other than that, I'm a pretty clean guy.
Myth dispel.
Myth busting number one.
Alright, listen, I got a really stacked show today.
A lot of important stuff going on.
John Solomon, again, bringing it.
I got that inflation story from yesterday.
It's really interesting, if you're even remotely interested, why our economy's doing what it's doing.
And I've got some other stuff about journalists now trying to cover up the biggest scandal out there in another pathetic attempt to be activists for the media.
They have surgically attached their lips to media.
Surgically sewed them to the collective rear ends of the Democrat Party.
It is so disgusting.
Permanent.
Media people, nobody takes you seriously anymore.
Nobody.
Nobody takes you seriously.
I don't know why you think people take you seriously.
Nobody does, and this is why.
All right, I'll get to that in a minute.
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All right, let's get right into this.
Nice, now that the shirt scandal has been dispelled.
So, journalism is at an all-time ebb.
We are in the vicissitudes of trust in the media.
We are clearly at the valley.
The peak is long gone.
Nobody trusts the media anymore.
Republicans, I think, upwards of 90% of Republicans don't take the media seriously.
And the media has done this to themselves.
They're a joke.
So what's going on?
Well, last night I was on Sean Hannity's show.
I'll be on Tucker Carlson's show tonight for my news roundup, the News Explosion, which I love.
It's on Tucker Carlson's show to watch.
It is the best segment on TV.
I love it.
I'm sorry, self-praised things, but it's really cool.
Me and Tucker just go at it for like five minutes.
It's great with the News Explosion.
But last night I was on Hannity.
I was on talking about Joe Biden's Ukrainian scandal, how Joe Biden looks like at this point.
Well, it's early.
I get it.
Polls at this point are kind of worthless.
But Joe Biden is a head heavy in the Democrat polls for the Democrat nomination to run against President Donald Trump at his reelection efforts.
Biden's got serious problems.
I brought up the fact, number one, that he's been in office, Joe Biden.
Joe Biden got elected to the Senate before I was born.
Not a joke!
Not a joke!
I am 44 years old.
This is not figurative.
Literally, Joe Biden has been in office longer than I've been alive.
Joe, how old were you in 1973?
I don't know.
I was born in 56.
So, there you go.
Come on!
Simple math!
Joe was...
You tell me.
We need Jay's advocates for this.
Joe was a young man, believe it or not, because I put him on the spot when he's trying to operate the soundboard, okay?
I'm lost.
Joe Biden has been in office before I was even born and since Joe's been a young man.
Is this, I made the joke last night, is this the change agent you've been looking for?
These are not the droids you're looking for.
This is the guy.
Second, Joe Biden happens to be a white male.
I don't care.
Joe doesn't care.
Paula doesn't care.
Hannity didn't care either.
But to the identity politics left, that's a big deal.
But most importantly, number three.
Joe Biden has a very, very serious Ukraine problem.
I've covered it on the show before in one sentence.
Joe Biden, the evidence is overwhelming, colluded with a foreign power to get his son, Hunter Biden, off of a corruption investigation for a business deal he had in Ukraine.
Simple as that.
We've covered it before on the show.
I'm not going to beat it to death because I want to move on.
I've got a ton of stuff to get to.
But it's hilarious.
Absolutely hilarious.
Now that Rudy Giuliani One of Trump's lawyers on his legal team that Giuliani has uncovered information that Joe Biden's involved in this very serious collusion scandal with a foreign government that the media
Instead of investigating the collusion scandal, Joe has attacked Giuliani for getting the truth.
Keep in mind, ladies and gentlemen, this is the same hack, discredited, debunked, conspiracy theorist, tinfoil cap media.
Yeah, exactly.
I know.
Like, You gotta like hold it back a little, keeping it family friendly here, or trying, right?
These are the same media hacks, the tinfoil cap wearers, who told us for two years a collusion hoax which any sane person knew was a hoax, this Russian collusion nonsense.
Anyone who looked at the evidence I mean, amateur hour people on Twitter who had no journalism experience turned out to be better in the end, much better, by the way, and I applaud them, than the professional journalists who missed the biggest story of our lifetime, how the collusion hoax was advanced by Democrats and their sycophantic, boot-licking, surgically-attacked lips to the rear ends of the Democrat Party media.
Now, you find this remotely ironic that the same lunatics in the media who totally blew the collusion story fell for the biggest hoax of our time, willingly by the way.
They lapped it up like thirsty dogs drinking from a water bowl.
They lapped it up despite the story being so obviously false.
Now that there's hard evidence of Joe Biden's collusion with Ukrainian officials to help his son.
Hard evidence.
Lawmakers in Ukraine talking about it.
Trips to Ukraine.
Appointments to boards.
Money changing hands.
Corruption investigations.
Tapes.
Actual evidence of Biden.
Here's the tweets we get.
Here's one from Ken Vogel from the New York Times.
This is great.
This is hilarious.
He's trying to laugh and cough at the same time.
Scoop.
This is an actual tweet.
Scoop.
All caps.
You'd think he'd say, Scoop, Joe Biden, big time Ukrainian collusion scandal coming soon.
That's not the story.
Scoop, Rudy Giuliani is headed to Kiev to urge the incoming president to pursue probes that could help Trump politically by casting suspicion on the origins of the Mueller probe and the Manafort case, as well as the involvement of Joe Biden's son in Ukraine.
This, again, this is a classic, classic Republicans pounce.
Republicans, pounce, what is that?
Oh, some of you new listeners who aren't on Twitter and who just started listening to my show recently, you may not be familiar with the hack, sycophantic, bootlicking media and how they operate.
Here's what the media does and what Vogel's trying to do here.
Just the saddest, sorriest piece of pathetic journalism, journalism air quotes I've ever seen.
When a story pops, About how awful the Democrats are.
And they're awful.
You should be embarrassed to be a Democrat right now.
I'm sorry.
Your party's a joke.
Infanticide, 90% tax rates, voting rights for terrorists, free college, socialism.
The party's just gone off.
It's a party of complete, utter lunatics right now.
Whenever one of these stories breaks, The governor of Virginia talking about how babies die on the table after abortion.
No, that happened.
That actually happened.
We have the video.
Yeah.
When Bernie Sanders says he wants the Boston bomber to be able to vote.
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposes a Green New Deal, exactly zero senators, even the co-sponsors, don't vote for it.
That's never the story in the media.
The story is always how the Republicans pounce on it.
You tracking?
Big time.
In other words, it's not Virginia governor describes infanticide, it's Republicans pounce on Virginia governor's comments.
It's not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposes a Green New Deal, which exactly zero Democrats vote for.
The story is Republicans pounce on AOC's environmental plan.
When the story is Joe Biden, there's hard evidence, is involved in a massive corruption scandal with Ukrainians and his son and money transfers and evidence and tapes have emerged to this, including Ukrainian lawmakers who are going public to John Solomon of the Hill about it.
That's not the story.
The story is scoop.
Rudy Giuliani and Republicans pounce on the story about Joe Biden.
Nice!
Nice!
That's what my brother Jimmy used to say.
Nice!
When we were kids.
Now, this guy's not a journalist.
He's another conspiracy theorist.
But here's this guy Miller, Matt Miller at MSNBC, another conspiracy theorist.
Again, the story here is not about Joe Biden and the corruption.
This story about the Trump administration firing the ambassador to Ukraine this week after she took the prosecutor Giuliani has been buddying up to merits a lot more scrutiny.
So now again, Joe, amazingly, the story is not about Biden's corruption.
It's about the Trump team looking into their corruption.
Republicans, pals.
Now, the lead conspiracy theorist of all of them, who can never stay out of embarrassing himself, the biggest hack... I shouldn't say the biggest.
Nadler and Swalwell are definitely in competition for the gold medal of hackery, no question about it.
Nadler and Swalwell are moving up the rankings quickly.
But the lead hoaxer up on the hill, Adam Schiff, look at him, he had a pile on too!
Today, Giuliani admitted to seeking political help from a foreign power.
Again, his defense?
We're not meddling in an election, we're meddling in an investigation.
Someone, somebody could say it's improper.
And look at Schiff.
Yes, it's immoral, unethical, unpatriotic, and now standard procedure.
Again, Schiff makes no mention whatsoever.
Of Joe Biden's kid being involved in this massive corruption investigation in Ukraine, appointed to it on the board of a natural gas company, Hunter Biden, Joe's kid, with no experience in natural gas, right after Joe Biden went over to visit Ukraine.
Biden visits Ukraine.
Hunter Biden gets Ukrainian natural gas appointed.
By the way, I've got from a very good source that those events are definitely related.
But no, no.
Creepy, sleazy, conspiracy theorist, tinfoil cap wearing Adam Schiff.
Don't focus on that.
Focus on the fact that Giuliani's exposing the corruption.
Republicans pounce.
Gosh, you know, this leads perfectly to my next story.
I literally have this story titled... probably can't read that.
Can you read that?
I can't.
You must be an idiot to be a Democrat.
Okay.
That was the only way I could think to segue to the second topic of the day.
Okay, first topic, Biden corruption isn't the story from the collusion hoaxers.
The story is that Republicans pounce on it.
One more thing before we move on to the you must be an idiot to be a Democrat segment.
I had no other way to title this!
I'm sitting here stewing, I'm like, how do I keep this straight in my head?
I'm like, let's just say what you're thinking.
You have to be an idiot to be a Democrat.
But on a very serious note, what's going on with this Biden thing is...
The media is not a serious entity.
The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, this Matt Miller guy and others.
If you take them seriously, I genuinely feel sorry for you.
You've been made to look like an idiot over the last two years.
They told you a collusion hoax was real, that the spying scandal was fake.
They totally got both stories wrong.
They're not rational people.
If you're taking them seriously as news, I'm serious, I really feel bad for you.
But what's happening now is, this Biden story is devastating.
It's devastating to the Democrats, it's devastating to Biden, and it's devastating to their efforts to take down Trump.
Because it's not just that Biden's involved in this foreign collusion scandal, it's that some of the same Ukrainians involved in this scandal with Biden were some of the same people trying to take out Donald Trump's team.
Who were feeding information to the Democrat Party, Chalupa and others.
Meaning what?
That this story is bad for two reasons.
It's foreign collusion, and it's foreign collusion in our last election, but with the Democrats.
Which not only is going to make the media look ridiculous, because they bid it on the Russian collusion story, they bid it on the spying story, but now they're going to have missed the third biggest story of our time intentionally.
They are trying to get out in front of it by saying, look, Republicans shouldn't pressure anybody to investigate this conspiracy theory.
It's garbage.
Dismiss these media people.
They're not serious people.
George Costanza over at CNN, whatever his name is, Brian Smelter.
You have Rachel Maddow.
These are not rational.
Chris Cuomo.
These are not sane, rational.
But the New York Times, the Washington Post, they've gotten exactly zero important stories right.
They're only running interference for the Democrats right now.
Okay, moving on to our you-must-be-an-idiot-to-be-a-democrat segment.
Kim Strassel, I just want to kind of double down on a story yesterday because this story is going to explode soon.
And it's so important.
This contempt thing against Barr.
Strassel has a piece up in the Wall Street Journal today titled, What Nadler Really Wants.
Kim Strassel is an excellent, fantastic reporter, opinion person, journalist.
She's fantastic.
I know Joe likes her work too.
It's great.
I do.
I'm going to put up a couple of portions of her piece in a second here.
But I want to tell you what's going on here.
The Democrats drafted up contempt charges against our Attorney General, Bill Barr, on the Mueller report because there are certain redactions in the Mueller report.
I discussed it a little bit yesterday, but just know this.
Bob Mueller issued a report.
The report is a joke.
It's basically a 400-page op-ed written to attack the Trump team.
You know the report.
It said there was no collusion, that he couldn't prove obstruction.
Now, Bob, according to the guidelines of Justice Department federal guidelines, Federal Rule 6E, there's information in that report, grand jury material, that has to be redacted.
I discussed it yesterday.
Just know this, if something was said in front of a grand jury, it's secret.
The grand jury is secret.
By law, it has to be redacted.
Nadler, snake number two, rapidly encroaching on snake number one, Adam Schiff.
Jerry Nadler, hack running this committee, has now filed contempt charges because he says he wants to see these redactions.
Knowing full well it would be illegal, absolutely illegal, for Bill Barr to disclose that grand jury material.
Bill Barr, the Attorney General, would have broken the law if he did that.
Nadler knows it.
This is why I say you have to be dumb to be a Democrat.
But from Strassel's piece, she just nails this guy to the wall.
Making it even worse, why you have to be a moron to be a Democrat today, right?
So they're asking Bill Barr to break the law by disclosing grand jury material in Mueller's report that's totally illegal.
She says, already on April 18th, Bill Barr made available to senior members of Congress the opportunity to view a version of the report more complete than the one released to the public.
It contains the minimum redactions required by law.
Only 1.5% is redacted, compared with about 10% for the public version.
Mr. Nadler could have weeks ago obtained a flurry of new detail about Mr. Mueller's investigations and evidence.
But neither he nor any other Democrat has even visited the Justice Department to view the full report.
Again, ladies and gentlemen, you have to embrace moronhood to be a Democrat.
Do you understand what she's saying in that last line?
The Attorney General's already offered these knucklehead Democrats the opportunity to come to the Justice Department and review the documents.
They said, no, we don't want to see him, but we want to charge you with contempt.
Wait, it gets worse.
Put up the second part of the Strassel piece.
Nadler did it again this week, turning down offer after offer from the Justice Department to give him most of what he claims to want.
The DOJ offered to expand the list of Democrats who may read the minimally redacted report.
In other words, they're saying, you guys, come on over and view what you want to see.
It goes on to piece, it offered to bring the material to Congress.
Okay, you guys are lazy slobs who don't want to come over.
We'll bring the material you want to you.
It gets even better, Joe.
It even offered to accommodate prioritized requests for additional documents based on a committee review of the less redacted report.
Mueller said, uh, Nadler said no each time.
Oh my gosh, we are dealing with people who are so epically stupid.
Oh my gosh, I can't.
If you're listening out there in a public space and you're a Democrat, how are you a Democrat?
How are you sane, rational, and a Democrat at the same time?
How can you balance a checkbook and be a Democrat now?
Barr has literally offered them everything they want, offered to bring it over within the legal constraints of the document.
They say no, and then they're charging Barr with contempt of Congress.
Now, Andy McCarthy, as this piece is in the show notes today, it is definitely worth your time.
At FoxNews.com, Andy McCarthy's a great guy.
Congress's Contempt Stunt Against Attorney General Barr, that's the title of the piece, where McCarthy, who is one of the most skilled lawyers I know, former federal prosecutor, I know Andy for a while now, he's a terrific guy, but listen, Andy McCarthy is no, you know, big Trump cheerleader.
McCarthy's very sober on his analysis.
He plays it straight every time.
Not that we don't, but he plays it right down the legal line.
There's two takeaways from McCarthy's piece about this ridiculous contempt stunt.
In case you doubt anything I have to tell you, we can produce the evidence.
Number one, about the McKeever case.
There was just a case that went to court about can a judge even let the grand jury material out?
Hold on to that for a second here.
The case is McKeever v. Barr.
Right, right, right.
A case just went to court.
The case was about grand jury material in the Mueller... It was the grand jury material, but the grand jury material in the Mueller report is subject to the same federal guidelines.
As I just said, you cannot disclose secret grand jury material in the Mueller report or any report.
So a case went to court where they said, hey, can a judge order it?
McKeever v. Barr.
In the case, Joe, they said, no, a judge can't order it outside of the rules.
There you go.
From the peace.
The first thing a judge would point out, they're talking about if this contempt case from Nadler goes to court, is what Congress is demanding Bardu is illegal.
Namely, to disclose grand jury material to Congress.
In Wednesday's Circus of a Hearing, Nadler pointed out there was a time when federal prosecutors would have joined with Congress to seek a court order permitting disclosure.
Yes, but what Nadler conveniently neglected to mention was this was before last month, when the D.C.
Circuit Appeals Court, whose jurisprudence controls disputes between Congress and the Attorney General, decided McIver v. Barr, which said they can't even disclose it by a court order if it's outside the rules.
In other words, Nadler can't even sue about it.
Nadler wants the information.
It's illegal for Barr to disclose it.
Barr would be breaking federal law.
Nadler knows this.
Nadler knows the courts have already decided this.
And he's filing a contempt charge anyway.
Because he's an idiot.
And idiots follow idiots.
Second from McCarthy's piece.
This is even more embarrassing for these congressional zeros.
District judges in Washington are bound to follow McKeever.
So a court order couldn't even order disclosure.
Even if they go to court, it doesn't matter.
Then there's this other embarrassing point a judge would make.
Rule 6e, which just to be clear, is the rule that prohibits disclosure of the grand jury material in the Mueller report.
This is great.
If you're watching us on YouTube.com slash Margino, you're probably reading ahead.
Rule 6e, Joe, is Congress's own law!
This is classic!
Meaning Congress has the power to amend the rule!
Any judge would therefore have to ask these idiot House Democrats, I added idiot in there, that's not McCarthy's
piece, but I'll throw it in.
Have to ask these idiot House Democrats, hey while you're doing all this ranting and raving and holding the Attorney
General in contempt, have any of you fine lawmakers proposed a two-line amendment to Rule 6(e) that would
authorize disclosure to Congress in special counsel investigations?
It's their law!
Ladies and gentlemen, you have to be a moron.
You have to be an idiot.
Aren't you embarrassed?
Are you embarrassed at all to be a Democrat?
Bill Barr disclosed the grand jury material in the Mueller report.
Sir, that would be illegal.
I'm not violating the law.
That law is BS.
Mr. Nadler, that's your law.
I'm going to sue.
Actually, sir, someone sued last month and you lost that case.
You're a racist!
There it is.
Guys, ladies, listen.
I get it.
As I said to you yesterday, with people like Richard Burr and, you know, Republican sellouts everywhere, the alleged Republican from North Carolina subpoenaing Don Trump Jr., I am not suggesting to you, and I never will, that every Republican has every answer to your problems.
I'm not.
But I register as a Republican because I know this, there are a lot of good people out there that I know personally who are really fighting for the cause.
And I know our Republican and conservative ideas are the right ones.
But being a Democrat requires a level of stupidity, frankly unparalleled at any time I can remember being a sentient being in my lifetime.
Do you understand how stupid this case is against Bill Barr?
Give us the info.
It's illegal.
I don't care.
What's your law?
I don't care about that either.
We'll sue.
Somebody already did.
You lost.
You don't like immigrants.
You hate puppies.
I mean, this is so stupid.
I'm sorry to bring this up two days in a row, but it's just indicative of a larger problem we have in politics, which is general stupidity infecting the populace.
Listen, you don't like Trump.
Whatever, man.
I support the president.
I think he's been great on conservative policies.
That's not a mystery.
But I'm not going to lie to you.
Ever.
I take a beating.
That death penalty show we did, Joe?
The tariff show?
People email me all the time.
I can't believe it.
That's not what people are saying in the White House.
Listen, I don't agree with everybody all the time.
But do you understand that being a Democrat on this issue and insisting you're on the right side of it?
It's like, it's not even horse blinders.
It's like openly professing you have the IQ, you know, of a rodent.
It's their law in Congress.
They can change it.
They don't want to.
May say, then, why are they doing all this?
Because they're all about the show, Democrats, ladies and gentlemen.
They're all about the show.
They hate Trump.
They don't have the cojones to impeach him.
So what do they do?
They want a show trial.
They want to keep these congressional hearings open non-stop, endless subpoenas,
Richard Burr playing the game with Don Jr. You know, fake Republican Richard Burr.
Paula just threw up a picture of Mr. Bigglesworth.
I did not ask for that.
Richard Burr, Mr. Bigglesworth, from the Austin- you know Dr. Evil's cat?
Come here, Mr. Bigglesworth.
That's Richard Burr.
Mark Warner is Joe Sebi.
Thanks to our listeners, by the way, who sent that over the meme.
Mark Warner, the Democrat on the Senate Intel Committee, is the effective chairman of the committee, even though he doesn't run the committee.
He owns Richard Burr.
Richard Burr's Mr. Bigglesworth.
Thank God Burr's not running for re-election.
What a disaster that guy is.
Alright, moving on.
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You have no idea what you've done for Saturday nights.
Paul is horrified right now.
He's laughing.
I'm hoping I'm not paying for this after the show.
He's like, I'm cancelling date night tomorrow on you.
Alright, moving on.
So I have some just insane video of Jim Comey who is just losing his mind.
You know, Sean Hannity has the best advice for Jim Comey.
Jim, you have the right to remain silent.
Please, please exercise that right like every other citizen in the country has exercised it.
The more Jim Comey opens his mouth, the more he discredits himself.
Now, Jim Comey did it ridiculously at town hall on the Clinton News Network yesterday, CNN.
An hour long town hall where he, you know, proceeded to humiliate himself for an entire hour, right?
But I had, it was hard picking just two pieces of video and audio out of this, but I know Joe liked him because he sent me an email saying, these are great cuts, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So this is Comey humiliating himself on CNN yesterday, but I just want to set this up.
I'm going to play three bits of audio, two by Jim Comey and one by Alexander Downer, who mysteriously reappeared.
Why are Jim Comey and Alexander Downer, the Australian diplomat who is a lead player in the collusion hoax, right?
Right.
Why are they reappearing now?
Hmm.
Pregnant pause.
What's coming out, Joe, in a couple of weeks?
This is a trick question I don't expect you to answer.
Don't worry.
In a couple of weeks, there are a couple of documents that are going to be released, and one of those documents is the Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on the abuses of the FISA process that Jim Comey was part and parcel to.
I ask you this, is it possible, just possible, That Jim Comey and others in the intelligence community may have warned Downer, Comey, and others that, hey, this inspector general's report, it's essentially our government's internal affairs operation that's about to come out about your abuses of the spying process on the Trump team,
It's really, really bad, Jimbo.
You might have to go out in the forest again and take some of your stupid Twitter pictures with the Redwoods, where he's like, looking, who takes him?
By the way, Jim Comey, he takes pictures of himself in the forest, staring at trees.
Who does that?
Who does that?
Just take a picture of yourself like you're in it, like, hey, thumbs up.
You got your hand around, you know, your arm around your daughter or your wife.
You know, who does, hey, take a picture of me staring at a tree in the forest.
What a dork.
What is that?
I mean, that is the dorkiest thing I have ever heard.
I love people who take pictures looking... This happened to me once when I was running for office.
Let me write... Joe, you know the picture.
I'm going to demo for you now.
When someone tells you to look off into the distance so you look serious, someone asked me during a political campaign to take this picture.
Watch for those of you on the YouTube channel.
Right?
Paula knows what I'm talking about.
The side profile?
Take a picture of me, my hand on my chin, looking off into the distance.
You look like a dork, okay?
You look like a dork.
Don't do it.
General rule, don't take pictures staring at trees in the forest, pretending to be some kind of Descartes-like deep thinker.
You're not Socrates, you're Socrates from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, okay?
You're not Plato, you're Plato.
You look like a dork, dude.
Stop trying to be, as Hannity calls you, this super patriot deep thinker.
You're a discredited, debunked, former hack who drove the FBI's reputation, you know, six feet underwater.
Comey knows exactly what's coming from the IG.
That's why Comey's out in public saying really stupid things, which he's great at, like this.
You said it's not spying.
Why do you think Attorney General Barr used the word spying, which is obviously a word that the president has used as well?
I can't explain it.
I mean, the only explanation I can think of is he used it because the president uses it, which is really disappointing.
He knows better than that and knows that the FBI conducts electronic surveillance by going to federal judges and getting warrants based on probable cause.
But sending an investigator undercover to meet with somebody who is connected to the campaign, they claimed he was later on just a coffee boy.
That is an extreme step, no?
No, it's a reasonable... That was the guy, Papadopoulos, who was the subject of the information we got from the Australians, that he had talked to the Russians.
Did you sign off on the investor getter going?
I don't remember talking about that particular step on my team.
I knew they were trying to see if they could check it out.
That's a totally normal step.
See if you can get somebody close to the person and see if they'll confirm what we heard from the Ostrava.
Oh, what a hack!
He's such a liar!
There's so many takeaways from there, but in the interest of time here, I want to just hammer a couple.
Number one, he again noticed when the spying question comes up.
Listen, ladies and gentlemen, I'm not going to argue euphemisms.
There were spies.
Comey's an idiot.
Euphemisms are the tools of the stupid, which Comey's an expert at, okay?
The campaign was spied on.
You call it whatever you want.
It was a spy.
When the spy question comes up, what does he do, Joe?
He goes right to... Oh, the courts!
It was court-ordered!
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Folks.
For the 15,000th time on the show.
Okay, not that many, but close.
I was a federal agent.
The judge does not have the faintest idea what your case is about when you go in front of a judge.
Whether it's a FISA judge, a magistrate, a circuit court judge, they have no idea.
Please tell me you understand this.
The judge sits on the bench, puts his or her glasses on or off or whatever, reads through the- if they have questions, they ask them.
If not, they ask you to raise your right hand, swear that it's true, and they sign off on the warrant.
The judge has no idea what your case is about.
How does the judge find out?
Because the FBI and the investigator tells them in the warrant application.
In other words, Comey, this idiot, who thinks you're as dumb as he is, wants you to believe now that they were spying on a political campaign, which they were, as Anderson Cooper finds a journalism bone for a second and actually asks him.
I'm stunned.
I shouldn't.
Anderson's been nice to me.
That doesn't matter.
This is a war of ideas here.
Being nice to me doesn't carry any water anymore.
He's trying to blame the judge.
Yeah.
Oh, well, we spied on them because it was court-ordered.
It was not court-ordered.
It's court-approved.
The court did not order anybody to do anything.
They approved a warrant the FBI asked for.
That is a lie.
What does he do next after blaming it on the court?
Because he's a hack.
Oh, picture.
Redwoods.
Look at the Redwoods.
Oh, they're so beautiful.
Hey, somebody get the pictures?
Look at the Redwoods.
They're so great.
Hey, you guys getting a picture?
Look, Redwoods.
Oh, so stupid.
The court didn't order it.
Then what does he do?
He goes right to Papadopoulos again.
Yep.
Oh, Papadopoulos did it.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Papadopoulos tip to Alexander Downer.
That this Trump campaign team member George Papadopoulos told this Australian diplomat in London that the Russians had information they were about to release on Hillary did not initiate the FBI investigation.
The FBI had met with Steele weeks before this tip even opened their investigation.
You understand what I'm saying?
The FBI was talking with Christopher Steele, the dossier guy, before they opened their investigation they said was open because of Papadopoulos.
This is a cover story to cover up the fact that the FBI was spying on the Trump team before they opened an investigation via Christopher Steele and others.
Whether it was by proxy or not.
They were funneling information in from foreign spies, from Russian sources, into the FBI.
They're trying to cover that up.
I said, no, no, we didn't open up that case.
We waited for Papadopoulos.
Then he says something absolutely stunning at the end.
Takeaway number three.
Blames the courts, blames Papadopoulos.
Anderson Cooper, who again discovers journalism here, Says, hey man, isn't that kind of an extreme step?
That you get this random tip about how people may have negative info on Hillary, newsflash, everybody had that, and you send a spy over?
And Comey, remarkably, is like, no, no, this is just how I do business, how we did business with the FBI.
Ladies and gentlemen, Comey's either a liar, or in this case, I believe he's telling the truth.
And man, Joe, this is not the constitutional republic you and I thought it was.
My gosh.
We're now spying on opposition political teams because some random diplomat alleges that a bottom-level guy at the Trump team thought that the Russians may have had information.
And he disputes this account, by the way.
We're opening up massive spying investigations now?
All right, here's part two of Jim Comey's stupidity, him outside of the Redwoods trying to make himself sound somewhat intelligent.
How involved were you overall overseeing the investigation?
Because again, this is an investigation where at this point on the Papadopoulos, you know, Donald Trump had already been named the candidate for the Republican Party.
I was involved the way the director should be involved, briefed on it on a regular basis, but the director never runs an investigation.
But they kept me closely informed because I told them, this is important, I want it kept very close hold, but do what you need to do under our authorities to figure out whether... So you're saying you're not sure if you knew they were sending somebody undercover to talk to Papadopoulos?
Well, I don't want to confirm.
I want to leave it to the FBI to confirm what investigative steps they took.
That news article wasn't, I don't think, based on an official release.
So I don't want to comment on particular steps.
But in general, they would tell me we're following through to try and understand whether there's evidence to establish this.
Oh, what?
Here we go, Redwoods time.
Look at the Redwoods, someone get a picture.
Comey, this guy is such a wordsmith.
He is the most gifted, deceptive liar I've seen in a long time.
Listen, I'm serious, this guy's got issues.
Real issues.
The fact that he lies so fluidly and comfortably should really disturb you.
It's evidence of some underlying trauma there.
Notice what he says.
Anderson Cooper says, are you telling me this story about the FBI spying, you were aware of it, or you weren't?
He goes, well, the FBI, they, in other words, not him, haven't released that officially yet.
Ladies and gentlemen, Comey signed the first FISA application to spy on the Trump team.
He signed his John Hancock signature to a document to spy on the Trump team.
He's now admitting, what, to Anderson Cooper, that he didn't know about the spy thing?
So you're spying on a presidential campaign without even knowing you're using spies?
And when the idea that he may know about it comes up, he goes, well, I don't know what they did.
No, no, it wasn't they.
It wasn't they.
It was you.
You took a pen and signed your name to the first FISA.
You, Jim Comey.
Did you know you were using spies or not?
Oh, I don't know what they did.
There's no they.
There's no they.
It's you.
You signed off on the first Pfizer.
You didn't know you were spying?
Unreal.
All right, I want to get to Downer here, but I'm going to explain to you how Downer fits this whole thing, again, while it's going on, but it just gets better.
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Okay.
So we now have Comey doing a couple of things.
We have Comey, who's worried about the IG report that's going to expose his spying operation that he claims not to know about.
Oh, they did it.
I don't know.
They did it.
Real brave, Jim Comey.
You were the director of the FBI, you fool.
Then he says, well, we didn't do it.
The courts approved it.
The courts ordered it.
Courts ordered it as if a judge showed up in the FBI and said, spy on Carter Page!
Why is Comey doing this?
Because he's afraid he's going to be exposed and outed for the hack he was.
Now, somebody must have gotten Alexander down or two.
The FBI's cover story here for a long time has been, we weren't spying on the Trump team.
We just got a tip from this Australian diplomat in London who told us he met with this Trump team guy, Papadopoulos, who said something about Russian, you know, Russians having information on Hillary.
Papadopoulos disputes this story, by the way, and this is so innocuous of a conversation that the fact that this started the biggest spying scandal of our time is ridiculous.
As my friend Buck Sexton put out on Twitter this morning, who was in the CIA by the way, you're seriously claiming that a random conversation for a few minutes in a bar in London about people having negative information on Hillary is enough to spy on political campaigns?
And you're saying that with a straight face?
Well somebody got to down her.
This clip's a little over a minute.
Maybe a lot over a minute, but closer to two minutes.
But ladies and gentlemen, this clip is worth your time.
This is a brand new appearance by Alexander Downer.
He just pops up, Joe, out of nowhere.
Wow.
Yeah.
Right as the IG report's about to come out, showing what a hoax his whole story is.
And all of a sudden, he's a warrior for Western civilization again.
No, that's a quote.
I'm not making that up.
Play Alexander Downer.
This is the guy at the centerpiece of this whole FBI cover story.
There was no suggestion from Papadopoulos nor in the record of the meeting that we sent back to Canberra.
There was no suggestion that there was collusion between Donald Trump or Donald Trump's campaign and the Russians.
All we did was report what Papadopoulos said.
And that was that he thought the Russians may release information, might release information that could be damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign at some stage before the election.
Now he didn't have to tell me that.
I didn't go to the meeting thinking he was going to even mention Russia in a context like the election campaign.
I had no idea what he would say.
He chose to say that to me and he apparently says he said it also to the Greek Foreign Minister a week or two later.
I have no idea why he was blabbering this.
But if you say that sort of thing to somebody who is part of the Five Eyes intelligence community, I mean, I would regard myself as a warrior for the Western Alliance.
If it had drawn to my attention that the Russians might be hacking into the campaigns of major candidates in Western elections, And then using that information to try to influence the outcome of those elections, that would really worry me.
I mean, Russia is not a friendly power when it comes to Western interests, and if they're hacking into our elections, that's something we should try to stop.
I don't know why he told me this, but he did, and we reported it, and the rest is history.
But there's no defence for him saying it's some sort of weird conspiracy.
I mean, it's what he told me.
Oh, Downer.
Somebody got to him.
Somebody got to Downer before the IG report said, man, you better come out and defend our story that you started this whole thing.
Couple of takeaways from this.
George Papadopoulos told Alexander Downer absolutely nothing about Russian hacking.
No, nothing.
You notice how the end that we leaves that, Joe?
But that's what he told me.
That's what he told me about Russian hacking.
No, there was nobody has said that.
Downer has not said that in the past.
Papadopoulos denies that.
There is no evidence at all that Papadopoulos ever said the Russians hacked anything.
The fact that Downer is jumping to that conclusion, that Papadopoulos, according to follow me here, this may get a little confusing.
All right.
Papadopoulos' story, he denies all of this, so let's assume for a second, assume Downer's telling the truth.
Downer's story is only that Papadopoulos told him the Russians had negative information on Hillary they were going to release.
That's it.
Period.
Alright.
This hacking thing, that was never in the story.
Not in the FBI story, nobody's story.
Downer's just making this up.
Why would he be making it up, Joe?
Because the Russian allegation that they hacked the DNC came out after Downer met with Papadopoulos.
In other words, it's Downer making a connection Papadopoulos never did.
You understand, Joe?
Yes, sir.
Papadopoulos never said anything about Russian hacking.
Right.
Downer read a story in the media weeks later about allegations that the Russians hacked the DNC, and it's Downer who was like, well, Papadopoulos must have been referring to that.
That's not what Papadopoulos said.
Papadopoulos made a questionable, but relatively benign statement that the Russians may have had information on Hillary, according to Downer, by the way, not even to George.
So he's making that up, number one.
Number two, he says, well, I had a reportage.
Joe, if you had what you deem to be, according to Downer, such serious intelligence about a hacking operation and all this other stuff, Joe, do you go to a bureaucrat or do you go to an intelligence official?
Just ask.
Yeah, well, I'm going to... The intelligence guy.
I mean, Joe's like astounded.
I'm asking him dumb questions.
You go to the intelligence guy.
I can tell you think I'm setting you up.
You don't go to the bureaucrat.
What did Downer do?
Instead of going to his Australian intelligence counterparts and saying, hey, reach out to the CIA.
We've got an intelligence problem.
That's not what Downer did.
Downer went to the DCM.
The number two at the American embassy in London.
Elizabeth Dibble, a bureaucrat, a State Department official.
To make sure, Joe, that information went through political channels first.
Now do you understand when Devin Nunes says things like, information never came to us through official channels?
It didn't.
Information came into the U.S.
government through political channels.
Ladies and gentlemen, it was supposed to be intelligence.
The reason Downer never went to his intelligence counterparts is because he knew he'd be laughed out of the building.
Wait, Mr. Downer, you're saying that a Trump guy said that the Russians may have something on Hillary?
Well, what did he have?
I don't know, he didn't say.
What was he talking about?
I don't know.
Alright, thanks, have a nice day!
Even worse, Downer says in that piece, you can rewind it folks, you have a rewind button.
I can't rewind myself in live time.
Downer says in the piece, Papadopoulos made no claims whatsoever about Trump colluding with the Russians.
So what's the... That's the FBI's whole case!
Jim Comey, this case was started because of Downer's tip.
Downer.
There was no collusion with the Russians.
What were you investigating then?
Does this make any sense to rational people?
You understand why Comey's in a panic right now?
And Downer's out there talking about Russian hacking that Papadopoulos never talked about?
They are desperate to frame their story.
So when the IG report comes out, you already have a preset notion of what happened, even though it didn't happen.
Alexander Downer never alleged collusion.
He's making up this hacking stuff and he never reported this to intelligence channels.
Yeah.
Okay.
Last part of this, but I'm going to get to my other story here.
What are they hiding?
They're hiding the origins of this case.
It was not Papadopoulos and Downer.
Stop the nonsense.
They're hiding communications likely from John Brennan over in our Intel community, CIA director, as I told you yesterday, regarding information they had about collusion, which originated from Christopher Steele.
Why is the FBI hiding that?
Because as a source of mine pointed out this morning, and it was a very good poll, Lisa Page has already indicated, follow me here, it's a little confusing.
Lisa Page from the FBI in her sworn testimony has already indicated that she didn't know Christopher Steele's real name.
Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you in law enforcement, when you use a confidential informant or an undercover, they frequently have an identity in reporting.
Why would that be, Joe?
If you're an undercover, Joe Armacost from the police department, do I want your name out in public documents, Joe?
You want to keep it undercover, baby.
Thank you, because Joe's the undercover and they don't want people looking him up on Facebook.
Hey, that guy's a cop!
Informants get numbers.
Lisa Page, in a brilliant point by my guy, didn't know Christopher Steele's identity because she only had likely his CI number, his confidential informant number, like a license plate.
Some of the people in the FBI not handling Christopher Steele, ladies and gentlemen, likely didn't know his identifiers.
Therefore, when the information came in from the Central Intelligence Agency, from John Brennan, that they had information about collusion, that I'm telling you came from Christopher Steele, there are people in the FBI who probably didn't realize that the information they got from Christopher Steele was the same information they got from Brennan!
Alright, alright.
Now does the scrub the list text make sense?
There you go.
Hey, have we checked our confidential informant list against the CIA's?
Uh, no we haven't.
Guys, we may have a problem.
This information we got from Steele, whatever, CI number 96272?
That we just found out is from Steele, because I just found out his identity.
This is the FBI talking.
We thought this information confirmed the CIA source's information.
It didn't?
No, idiots, it's the same guy!
He's CI number 6422 with the CIA!
Who is that?
It's Christopher Steele!
It's the same guy!
You didn't confirm anything!
You just repeated the same information twice!
That's what they're hiding!
That's why they're saying, oh no no, it didn't start with any of that!
It started with Downer.
Secondly, John Solomon's piece yesterday, another bombshell at the Hill.
This is important.
The FBI's steel story falls apart.
False intel and media contacts were flagged before the FISA.
Solomon goes on in a piece.
Even worse, in October, 10 days before the FBI and Jim Comey signs off on the first FISA, Even worse, Joe!
They find out from the piece that Christopher Steele's been talking to this woman, Kavalech, Ms.
Kavalech, at the State Department.
Kavalech, she takes notes on this.
We just found the notes yesterday.
It's covered in John Solomon's piece.
She's talking to Steele 10 days before the FISA.
The same CIA and the FBI are using, although I don't think they know it.
They think it's separate sources confirming.
This is crazy!
At the end of the paragraph I have up on the screen, Kovalev's taking note on what Steele's telling her.
Christopher Steele, who's putting his information everywhere, tells this woman at the State Department that the Russians are running this big collusion scheme with Trump through the Russian consulate in Miami.
She writes Kovalev in her notes, it is important to note, there is no Russian consulate in Miami.
Oh!
Oh!
Boya!
Oh boya!
A State Department bureaucrat in the snap of a Thanos finger from Infinity Wars figures out that there's no Russian consulate in Miami and the FBI, using CI number 672.5, can't figure out it's the same CI the CIA's using and can't figure out their CI, Christopher Steele, is lying.
They're running this operation through the Russian consulate in Miami that doesn't exist.
What does Jim Comey do though?
It steals information?
He literally stamps verified on his information and walks it into the FISA court.
Now you see what Jim Comey's hiding?
Holy cow.
Joe, the dude is running the FBI, Comey, and he can't even figure out there's no consulate in Miami.
The State Department lady figured it out.
Ten days before the FISA.
Also in Solomon's piece, he indicates that Steele was adamant he needed this out before the election.
Meaning what, Joe?
His motivations were political.
Yes, sir.
Not intelligence-oriented.
My gosh, Jim Comey, you couldn't figure this out?
All six foot nine of you?
Staring at the forest.
In the redwoods.
You got a picture?
Socrates, Jim Comey.
Socrates.
He's Ted from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
That's Jim Comey.
Play-Doh.
Maybe Bill on a good day.
Plateau.
He's Plateau.
All right, last story of the day, so I want to leave you with some kind of a good note.
I've teased it yesterday.
It's just a really cool story.
It was an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about inflation.
Listen, here's the deal, folks.
Old school economists would tell you we don't believe inflation is exclusively a monetary phenomenon, which it is, by the way.
You know, they want you to believe that a hot economy is going to lead to inflation.
That's not always the case, and the economy is hot right now.
So there's an article in the Wall Street Journal by Todd Buchholz yesterday.
It's called Airbnb Helps Slay Inflation.
It's fascinating.
So, in a nutshell, you know, old school ridiculous economists who don't know what they're talking about want you to believe that a growing economy is going to create inflation because it's going to create more products, it's going to create more money, it's going to create more jobs, and those more jobs are going to create less products, are going to chase the same amount of products, productivity won't be able to keep up, it's going to cause the prices of those products to go up.
I don't want to waste your time with this dopey theory because it's stupid.
Inflation is a monetary phenomenon.
You print more money, More money chases the same amount of products, the price goes up.
Here's inflation in a nutshell.
You know, the United States has a hundred iPhones and it prints a hundred dollars?
Well, one dollar could chase an iPhone.
If it worked out that way, right?
There's a hundred iPhones and a hundred dollars.
If you print $200, that's $200 still chasing 100 iPhones.
Which means upwards of $2 could chase every iPhone because there's $2 for every iPhone.
Very simple explanation, granted a little oversimplified, but in the interest of time, inflation's a monetary phenomenon.
You print more money, you're gonna get inflation, okay?
The problem is, a lot of people have been wondering, where the heck is the inflation in this really hot economy?
Well, the answer is, it's twofold, and I'll just cite quickly two pieces from this journal article.
Number one, fascinating point.
When you create a more supply, what would be the way to tame inflation in that example I just gave you, Joe?
It would be to make a hundred more iPhones.
Therefore, you'd now have $200 and not $100, but $200 iPhones, which would be the same dollar for each iPhone, right?
So as they say in the Wall Street Journal piece, which is brilliant, well, the supply of iPhones or other things must be increasing, but where is it increasing?
He says, wait, how can we have more land?
There's more supply of land?
No, it's the same planet.
But he says, thanks to companies like Airbnb, which take idle real estate and make it available, Joe, this effectively increases the supply of land, allowing more money to curb, to chase more land, Joe.
And curbs the price of vacations, keeping inflation down, right?
Airbnb has increased the number of available rooms by more than 25% in U.S.
cities.
With that massive influx, the hotel industry's favorite measures, average daily rates and revenue per room, have lagged economic growth.
Excuse me, it goes on.
How can physical capital grow?
Like, how are we getting more capital?
Like, in other words, if it's the same $100, excuse me, if it's $200 chasing the same 100 iPhones, where are we getting those more iPhones to curb inflation?
And things like capital.
Well, it says in the piece, how can physical capital grow?
Well, upstarts like Dozer and Yard Club have boosted the supply of equipment by creating a kind of Uber for dump trucks.
Caterpillar trucks used to sit idle at construction sites awaiting the next task.
Now they're all being used up, Joe.
We didn't really make a hundred extra iPhones.
We just took a hundred iPhones that were sitting in people's desks and had them put into the supply chain for people to rent.
It's a brilliant point.
He goes on later in the piece to talk about how the strong US dollar is keeping imports relatively cheap too, and it's curbing inflation.
I'm not suggesting this is a be-all end-all to the where's the inflation question, but I brought it up in the show a lot and I'm fascinated by it as well because we have printed through quantitative easing effectively so much money that sooner or later we're going to have some type of an inflationary event But what's curbing it now?
Well, this may be the answer.
Uber, Airbnb, Dozer, and companies like this that are effectively making those 200 extra iPhones available when nobody built them.
They've been there the whole time, Joe.
Someone just found a way to get them to the people who need them.
Very cool.
Really, really cool piece.
Very nice job, Todd Buchholz.
Great piece.
Go check it out on the Wall Street Journal.
All right, folks.
Thanks again for another great week.
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I will see you all on Monday.
Good day, sir!
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