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March 29, 2022 - Epoch Times
17:21
Truckers Encircle Washington DC Beltway, Will Continue Daily Until Convoy's Demands Are Met
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This is your daily Facts Matter Update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times.
And now let's begin today's discussion by talking about the trucker's convoy right here in America.
After traveling for 11 straight days, on Friday night, the people's convoy, they reached Hagerstown, Maryland, which is a city approximately 70 miles from Washington, D.C. And then, while in Hagerstown, the convoy held a rally.
Now, of course, our team was there on site talking to all the people and taking it all in.
And this rally, it included things like fireworks, it included music, it included food, as well as speeches from doctors, from pilots, from truckers, as well as from the organizers themselves, who finally revealed the next steps that the convoy was going to take.
Because by that point, by the time everybody was gathered in Hagerstown, a lot of people were wondering about what exactly the plan was, now that the truckers had reached essentially the nation's capital.
Were they going into Washington, D.C. proper?
Were they going to just disperse?
It was all unclear about what the plan actually was.
All people knew was that they had traveled several thousand miles in order to get there and that they had a lot of popular support just based on the number of people who were waving them throughout the country with American flags and signs.
And so, during his speech, one of the main organizers of this convoy, Mr.
Brian Brassi, he explained that, for one, the convoy was not going into Washington, D.C. proper because he said that that was just like going into a trap laid by the federal government.
Here's specifically what he said during his speech.
And follow the process of diplomacy, which America is supposed to be doing all around the world and failing half the time lately.
We cannot fail at that!
That doesn't make us any better than that if we do.
So I'm asking you, I'm begging you, I'm pleading with you to please hold the line and be patient.
Be patient as we develop this plan going forward.
We will not leave.
And then secondly, Bryan announced his plans to take a more diplomatic approach, wherein the representatives of the trucker convoy, they will begin meeting with federal lawmakers in order to discuss ending the national emergency surrounding COVID. Here's specifically what he said on that front.
We're not going to go away.
We are going to take a stand.
We are going to attempt to do it diplomatically.
Through, hopefully, bipartisan meetings with these legislators, with some of you in the meeting.
I agree with that.
I agree with that.
Most likely they're going to just lie to us.
But that's why we don't go anywhere, sir, until they actually start to do something.
Now this whole business regarding the national emergency requires a bit of explanation.
Back in March of 2020, you might remember that President Trump announced a national emergency surrounding the COVID pandemic.
Specifically, back then, he issued two national emergency declarations under both the Stafford Act as well as the National Emergencies Act.
Then, since assuming office, Joe Biden has extended this emergency declaration twice.
He extended it once in February of last year, and then again, last month, he extended it in February of this year.
And it was this second extension that was met with a lot of blowback.
Because Joe Biden, he made this extension of the emergency declaration at a time when local leaders throughout the United States are actually dialing back their various COVID restrictions.
Even the governors of very deep blue states like New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Connecticut, Delaware, and Oregon, they have recently announced that they are ending their mask mandates.
And then likewise, within the last few weeks, you have cities like Boston, Washington, D.C., and New York eliminate their vaccine passport requirements.
But despite this trend, Joe Biden chose to renew the emergency declaration anyway.
However, four days ago, the U.S. Senate, they actually held a vote, and they voted in favor of ending the national emergency.
Specifically, the resolution to end the national emergency, it passed the Senate 48 to 47 in a straight party-line vote.
And even though the Democrats currently control the Senate, there were five senators in total who missed the vote, including three Democrats, and therefore the resolution was adopted.
Here's specifically what Mr.
Roger Marshall, who is a Republican senator from Kansas, and he's also the one who introduced this measure to the Senate.
Here's what he said regarding the emergency declaration.
With COVID cases and hospitalizations on the decline, 94% of Americans having immunity to COVID, mask mandates falling by the wayside, and 70% of Americans agreeing it's time we accept that COVID is here to stay and that we just need to get on with our lives, it's clear we need a new approach to COVID as we learn to live with it.
Now, since the measure to end the emergency declaration has officially passed the Senate, it's now making its way to the House of Representatives, which at this moment is also controlled by Democrats.
However, here's the thing.
Even if the resolution somehow passes the House, Joe Biden has already come out and he made an announcement that if it does pass the House, well, he will veto it if it ever reaches his desk.
Here's specifically what he said when he announced his intentions just a few days ago.
Quote...
Although we have made tremendous progress in combating the virus and are moving forward safely, the virus continues to pose a risk to the American people and our healthcare system.
We must also be prepared for possible future variants.
Terminating the declaration would unnecessarily and abruptly curtail the ability of the administration to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
And so it looks like without having two-thirds of the lawmakers being on board, the emergency declaration will remain in effect because it requires two-thirds of Congress to overturn a veto.
However, this is where the truckers come in.
Because just yesterday, the convoy was mobilized, and the approximately 30 miles of semi-trucks, trailers, motorhomes, SUVs, vans, and cars, they rode into the D.C. Beltway, and essentially, they encircled the city of Washington, D.C., just based on their size alone.
You can see the footage on screen for yourself.
Our team was there on site.
And as you can see, the convoy was slowing traffic to a crawl, while at the same time, there were onlookers gathering on the sides of the road and on the overpasses, waving signs and waving the American flag, sort of like what you saw throughout the entire country as the convoy was making its way to D.C.
The convoy made its way slowly around the D.C. Beltway twice, before heading back to their staging area at Hagerstown, Maryland.
And according to Mr.
Brian Brassi, who is again one of the main organizers of this convoy, he said that the plan moving forward is to, starting on Sunday, which was yesterday, drive slowly around the D.C. Beltway before going back to Maryland every single day.
That's right.
He said that this move will be repeated each day of the week until the convoy's demands are met.
Here's specifically what he said.
Quote...
Sunday is a show of just how big we are and just how serious we are.
We're going to be a huge pain.
We are trying to work with our local law enforcement communities because we want them to understand that we are law-abiding citizens that are just exercising our rights to this protest.
But every day is going to elevate what we do.
We want to show the American people how large we are.
And we want to show our congressional leaders that we're serious and we are here to negotiate.
We are here to talk.
We are law-abiding.
We are peaceful.
We don't want to shut anything down, and we're not coming downtown.
And so what it looks like will be happening is that during their negotiations with the lawmakers, the convoy plans to increase the number of trips around the Beltway each single day in order to put pressure on the lawmakers.
However, given the situation that we discussed earlier with the Senate bill, the House bill, and Joe Biden's plan to veto the entire thing, Well, what the truckers will need to do if they hope to succeed in ending the emergency declaration will be one of two things.
either convince about half of the Democratic lawmakers to support ending the emergency declaration, that way they could override the veto, or they would have to somehow convince Joe Biden himself to end the emergency without Congress.
As to whether that is feasible or not, well, only time will tell.
Now, if you'd like to watch the full, uncensored live coverage of The Convoy, as well as all the rallies, including all of our interviews on site, you can do so over on Epic TV, which is, of course, our no-censorship video platform.
And if you use the link in the description box below and then use promo code Roman, you can get a 14-day free trial to watch everything there for free.
If you like it, you can subscribe, but you don't have to pay anything to watch for 14 free days.
It's not only a great way to support the journalism, but at the same time you'll be getting access to uncensored live reporting.
Again, the link will be right there in the description box below, which is by the way next to that like button, which I also hope you take a moment to smash.
Now, let's switch gears just a little bit and talk about John Durham's investigation.
That's right.
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And now let's head back to the studio.
Now, while I was down in Florida just a few days ago, I took the unique opportunity to sit down and speak with Mr. Jim.
Jim Jordan, who is a congressman from Ohio, and we discussed the, you can say, deeper implications of what was presented in John Durham's most recent court filing regarding the spying that was done against both the Trump campaign and potentially against the Trump presidency.
Take a listen.
In the Durham filing with Michael Sussman's case, it was revealed that that whole mess was going on behind the scenes, behind the whole Alpha Bank narrative, right?
So...
After that came out, the lawyers representing both Rodney Jaffe as well as Michael Sussman, they came back and they said, hey, you know what, everything was on the up and up.
We had this contract.
We just happened to find this information.
So let me ask you this.
From your perspective, being on both the oversight and the Judiciary Committee, how common is it for someone to find evidence of stuff like this and then hand it over to the lawyer for the opposing...
No, you hit the nail on the head.
If this was all legit, so they had a legitimate contract to be doing, to monitoring this, looking for concerns or whatever they had, and they saw some concern, if that's the case, take it to the FBI. They didn't do that.
They took it to who?
They took it to Zussman.
They took it to the lawyers for the Clinton campaign.
And what did they do?
Zussman then took that information to the FBI. So why did you have to run it through the campaign?
And remember, Zussman didn't just take this information.
Zussman is lawyer at Perkins Coie, the firm hired by the Clinton campaign, as their campaign lawyers, along with Mark Elias, who's this Democrat lawyer going around, you know, suing Republicans all over the country, trying to keep one of my colleagues off the ballot in North Carolina.
So, if this is all the case, and you get the information to Zussman, Zussman then takes it to who at the FBI? He takes it to Jim Baker, the Chief Counsel.
Jaffe, the tech executive, there was a concern, take it to the FBI. He didn't do that.
He takes it to Zussman.
Zussman takes it to the FBI, but not just anyone at the FBI, to Jim Baker, the chief counsel.
I think that's interesting.
I think that's probably more than interesting, and I think so does Mr.
Durham.
That's why we got the filing that we did.
What's the significance of him bringing it to the top lawyer?
Well, because right now, based on what we've seen in the press, it looks like Baker is saying that he didn't know that Zussman was working for the Clinton campaign.
Really?
Works at Perkins Coie, works with Mark Elias, not working for the Clinton campaign.
He didn't know that?
And he gets this information given to him?
I find that hard to believe.
Maybe that's the case.
Maybe it's true.
But the whole thing doesn't feel right.
And certainly, you know, you go back to 2017 when President Trump said, they're spying on me.
And, of course, the mainstream press and all the Democrats, no, no, no.
And then a few years later, Attorney General Barr said, spying took place and there's a basis for my concern about the spying.
Oh, no, no.
The same reaction.
Well, now we have Mr.
Durham's latest filing two weeks ago.
what we all knew was happening.
They were spying.
Looks like they were spying on candidate Trump, looks like they were spying on President-elect Trump, and potentially spying on President Trump, what he's already taken the oath of office.
So that is not supposed to happen in our country, and it's why Durham's work is so important.
Yeah, so looking at this, and maybe you can really give it give the insight to the viewers from your angle, one person could say, I'm always looking at the areas of plausible deniability here, so they could say, well, hey, I have this lawyer friend of mine who works with the Clinton campaign, and he can fast-track it through the FBI.
all these crazy things we found, because we really found them by accident.
We weren't looking for them.
What would have been the proper channel for him to go through more technically?
I think you give it to the FBI. I mean, I think if there's something that, you know, such a concern, you give it to the FBI. They didn't do that.
They ran it through lawyers for the Clinton campaign?
Come on.
I mean, really?
I mean, but again, this whole...
I mean, I remember when we deposed Jim Comey a few years ago, and Comey said up to the point he was fired.
Remember, he gets fired in May of 2017.
A week later, Bob Mueller gets named special counsel.
So Comey said up to May of 2017, after they'd already been investigating President Trump now for 10 months.
He said, up to that point, during our deposition, he said, up to that point, we still didn't know if we had anything.
Because there was never anything there.
It was never true.
It was all made up.
And understand what this latest filing from Mr.
Durham, he also said in there, he used his language about an inference and creating a narrative.
I mean, think about that, creating a narrative.
That's what we used to call framing somebody.
They were out to frame the President, the candidate for the President of the United States, President-elect Trump, potentially even President Trump.
They were out to frame him?
That is frightening that that was taking place, because if they can do it to a major party's presidential candidate or President-elect Trump or President Trump, they can do it to them.
Imagine what they can do to you or I or all the folks who watch your programs.
Yeah, it's a frightening prospect for sure.
What do you make of this, sort of the line of investigation?
Because I think, at least for myself, I was looking forward to seeing more of the developments surrounding the FISA spy warrants that were being issued against Carter Page.
But it seems like with the recent filing and the recent lawsuit against Sussman, it seems like the investigation maybe has shifted a little bit to something I thought was a bit more almost tangential.
But it seems to now kind of, you know, all the people...
No, I get what you're saying.
Look, I don't know.
We don't know where it's going to lead.
It does look like the focus is now more on the campaign side of things and how this all sort of started.
Remember, Zussman got indicted not because he lied to Durham in his investigation, which is the typical 1,001 lying to the FBI type of indictment.
He didn't get indicted for that.
For that, he got indicted for the original lie, the lie clear back in 2016 that started this whole investigation into President Trump based on nothing.
So we'll see where it all shakes out.
I do think it's interesting when you step back and look at all the things they did.
They first go to the FISA court.
They altered evidence.
Mr. Klein-Smith altered evidence in front of the court.
They knew the dossier was baloney, but they used that to get the warrant at the FISA court to go spy on Carter Page.
Ezra Turk to go bump into Papadopoulos when he was in Europe.
So they're going to a secret court to get a warrant to spy on an American.
They're using a spy, using an alias, that's a spy, to go bump into another American, George Papadopoulos, who was associated loosely with the Trump campaign, to spy on him.
And now we find out they're also working with the Clinton campaign to spy on the actual president of the United States.
Now that's a pretty elaborate scheme they all had going.
And again, Jim Comey tells us after 10 months they still didn't know if they had anything because they never had anything to start with.
Yeah, it looks like at the very least all the evidence is coming to light.
I just hope, well, I mean the media is covering for everybody involved, but maybe the justice system will work and we'll actually get some justice.
Now, that was not the full interview.
If you'd like to watch the interview in its entirety, well, you can do so over on Epic TV. The link, again, will be down in the description box below.
And again, if you use the promo code Roman, you can get a 14-day free trial so you can see if you like it.
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And then lastly, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from The Epic Times.
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