Kash’s Corner: Sam Bankman-Fried Bribed CCP Officials With Over $40 Million; Moderna’s $400 Million ‘Kickback’ to NIH Scientists?
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the NIH, received $400 million from Moderna in a “catch-up payment,” according to a newly disclosed contract that The Epoch Times obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.So where is the money going? Which government officials are getting the money?Kash Patel argues that it poses a major conflict of interest for scientists at the NIH to be able to receive royalties from patents.“Do people in the Department of Agriculture who work with private-sector farmers and come up with some new seed receive millions of dollars from the farming industry? No,” Patel said.“What about the army guy that comes up with the technology for our next aerial asset, [and] we enter into a contract with Lockheed Martin or Boeing to make billions of dollars worth of this? Is he going to get a royalty from that? Absolutely not,” he said.The NIH received up to $2 billion in royalties from 34 drug contracts between 1991 and 2019, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.We also take a look at new allegations of bribery in FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s case. On top of the 12 counts he was already indicted on, he’s now being charged for allegedly bribing Chinese officials to the tune of over $40 million to get his accounts in China unfrozen.Follow EpochTV on social media:Twitter: https://twitter.com/EpochTVRumble: https://rumble.com/c/EpochTVTruth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@EpochTVGettr: https://gettr.com/user/epochtvFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/EpochTVusGab: https://gab.com/EpochTVTelegram: https://t.me/EpochTV
Jan, we've had an interesting episode today, some quick fire subjects and some long-term subjects.
Where do you want to start?
Authorization for use of military force.
The Senate has just passed the rescinding of it for Iraq.
This has some pretty incredible implications if it actually goes through to the end.
So we definitely want to touch that on that.
Sam Bankman for you did a new indictment.
Fascinating, but the big thing I really want to talk about is this 400 million that uh we've discovered Moderna, you know, paid out in the not too distant past to uh NIH, to NIAD actually, uh Fauci's at the time agency.
Yeah, that's a lot.
So we'll try to simplify it.
So AUMF, the authorized the authorization of use of military force, we call it the AUMF.
Legally, Congress has to act under the law every time the United States commits its military to a theater of war for operational purposes.
That's the law.
If we go to war, Congress must act.
That's a very oversimplification.
But that's what the AUMF is for.
The Defense Department or the United States government goes to Congress or the President usually and says, hey, I want to conduct operations in X. I'll give you an example.
9-11 occurs, right?
The attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania.
Very swiftly after that, in order to invade Afghanistan, Congress passed a resolution, a law, the AUMF, the authorization of use of military force to hunt terrorists in Afghanistan responsible for the 9-11 attacks.
Now, every what's supposed to happen is every time you enter a new theater of war, a new area of operational review as we call it, you're supposed to do another AUMF.
So like in this instance, you're talking about the AUMF for Iraq.
On a little bit of a side note, the 9-11 Afghanistan AUMF has been stretched and some people believe overstretched, if not violated, to allow United States military operations in other countries such as Somalia and Syria by continuing the manhunt for terrorism.
And so whatever your thoughts are on that pursuit itself, it's it's different from the legal component.
So to me, as a former chief of staff of DOD, of course I want to do everything out there to protect American citizens and the world from terrorist activities and war that will bring harm to America.
What's interesting about the Senate's move here is they're saying we don't need an AUMF in Iraq anymore.
And if the House agrees with that, that will be a full rescission of the authority to conduct military operations in and around Iraq.
Now, on a technical basis, that doesn't mean that we can't still do things in Iraq from a military standpoint because we could bootstrap to other AUMFs that are currently active, i.e.
the 9-11 one, to say we need to under this authority are going in here and staying in this region to do X, Y, and Z. But I think it sends a strong message to Americans in the world that we've been Iraq a long time.
Um it started in the first Persian Gulf War.
Um and then we've just sort of stayed there after 9-11 and we have a massive base of operations throughout Iraq.
I've been to most of our platforms there.
So it'll be interesting to see how the defense industrial complex reacts because when you shut down a massive theater of war like we just shut down Afghanistan, they stop producing equipment and machinery pursuant to whatever contracts were outstanding because those authorizations are gone.
And if we're not committing forces to military operations, then we don't need any more of that.
And that to me, the defense industrial complex, while I've always said they provide one of the most valuable services of any sort of private sector industry, I've also said that they are, in my opinion, the worst in terms of overusing taxpayer dollars and literally lighting them on fire for purposes that I cannot understand.
And we took them on when we were in the Pentagon and we said you guys provide great valuable services, but you're also providing programs and things that we don't need.
And why are we doing that?
Why are we allowing that?
And that's a conversation for another day with the Defense Industrial Complex, but we will see their reaction play out in the public square.
Look, a third of the United States Senate still said we want to maintain operational control and lawful authority to execute programs in the Iraqi theater of war.
That's not a small number Jan.
So I don't know where it's going to, I don't know what the House is going to do and when and if they'll take it up and put it on the floor for a vote remains to be seen.
And then do they have enough votes in a bipartisan fashion or maybe the Republicans will just take it on its on its face and move the entire block behind it remains to be seen.
So until both houses act there's still a long way to go.
So this isn't going to be resolved next week or next month.
We're looking at probably the rest of this year to see where this goes.
Fascinating.
Well okay so let's put on your legal hat here now and let's look at this new indictment.
I mean I was kind of surprised or I guess not surprised that there's yet another indictment of Sam Bankman Freed at this point.
And this one has to do with China.
So give us a picture.
Yeah well first of all I it just hit me this week that Sam Bankman's freed's name is Bankman and he's committing some of the largest fraud in the banking history of the United States and the world.
And Sam Bankman Fried was already charged with I believe a dozen counts of wire fraud bank fraud conspiracy etc.
What the DOJ did and what they're allowed to do is supersede.
So they issued a superseding indictment meaning they added a charge or charges.
So that means they have been continuing the investigation into bankman's case even though he's already been charged.
So they didn't stop.
And that happens frequently it's not an unusual tactic.
I want to be clear about that.
We we charge people all the time and continue the investigation and tactically speaking sometime and I don't know if this is the case with bankman what I would do as a former federal prosecutor is I would go up to the target and say okay this is the current indictment or I go up to his lawyer and say here's a current indictment would you like to work out a plea agreement on this indictment and if they say no you would make them aware of a possibility of a superseding indictment which exposes them to more criminal liability longer prison sentence bigger fines etc.
I don't know if that's the case here but that's generally a strategy prosecutors utilize because resolving a case short of trial saves the taxpayers and the judicial system an enormous amount of time and money.
And remember less than 10% of federal cases ever go to actual jury trial.
So they mostly resolve in plea agreements.
So I don't know what the behind the scenes maneuvering is here but likely those conversations in some fashion happen.
This guy bankman as if it wasn't bad enough it's alleged that he committed all this multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme bank fraud mail fraud wire fraud conspiracy and defrauded so many you know thousands if not millions of people around the world he bribed the Chinese communist party to perpetrate this scheme.
This guy Bankman and his colleagues they're identified as CC1 and CC2 in the superseding indictment just a quick offshoot they don't the DOJ on purpose doesn't identify those individuals because it's unlikely that they are charged at this time.
They could be unindicted co-conspirators they could be cooperating witnesses we don't know so they just label them CC1 and CC2 but identify them as senior level executives at FTX which was the bank and or Alameda Research Company which was the two organizations that bankman ran to conduct this scheme.
So bankmen had billions of dollars in a Chinese financial institution in mainland China.
And for some reason the Chinese Communist Party and we don't know this because this information has come out yet froze those funds.
So what does that mean?
That means bankman his company and his executives literally could not get that money out.
So that's a lot of money.
And remember his whole thing was like a cryptocurrency deal which isn't necessarily my wheelhouse but there are banks that do trade in crypto specifically and it monetarily sinks up with the dollar for evaluation.
So that's how we're talking about it and that's how it's talked about in the indictment.
So if you look at the indictment and the facts alleged are true, he's been at it for some time.
First, he tried to stand up what we call dummy corporations or dummy companies to try to siphon the money out of the frozen accounts into straw man accounts, as we call them, to trick the Chinese government into saying, no, no, no, it's going from this to something that has nothing to do with me.
And the CCP didn't go for it.
They basically, after months, said, no, we're not allowing any of this money to be siphoned to this other institution or financial account.
So then he, Bankman, directs his executives to go out and literally send through the cryptocurrency exchange 40 million U.S. dollars to CCP officials to unfreeze the money that the government in China froze.
And shockingly, they do it.
So it's literally, as the indictment alleges, the money is shortly thereafter released from the frozen bank accounts due to this bribe that's what it is and that's what he's been charged with and then that money was utilized by bankmen to continue his fraud and his scheme and this conspiracy that's outlined in the indictment so it's kind of interrelated to the bigger criminal enterprise that they've charged him with.
But one of the things that caught my attention in the superseding indictment was not just this that he bribed CCP officials and they went for it.
It's that after the bribe was successful he continued and the the indictment doesn't define an exact quantity but bankmen continued to spend tens of millions of dollars to continue the bribe.
So that means you have the 40 million he paid plus the tens of millions the DOJ hasn't exactly defined.
Is it a hundred million?
Who else in the CCP did he pay?
Did he pay anyone in America?
Because did any of that money from the frozen accounts in mainland China come back to any American coffers, any super PACs, any politically oriented organizations, any candidates we know from the indictment that bankman Friedman's organizations gave to both Democrats and Republicans.
Some folks have returned some of that money a lot of that money is unaccounted for we don't know where it exactly went to uh I would believe the DOJ does at this time know where it went to but um this guy's in a lot of trouble.
We've talked about it it's been a couple of years but the when you're charged in federal court with a fraud unlike a bank robbery or a narco trafficking case the amount of time you are subjected to and for incarceration purposes is based on the value of the fraud so if you commit a fraud for like 10,000 bucks you're looking at less than a year.
The DOJ has charged bankman with committing a fraud of billions of dollars that literally doesn't score on the sentencing guidelines.
It's so high which means he can face up to life in prison for these charges.
This indictment shines a light onto a bit about how business is actually done with the Chinese communist party and number one that whatever you invest into China is not something you can pull out very easily at all.
Right.
And, you know, this billionaire Mobius recently is on record talking about he can't get some of his investments out.
A lot of people, I mean, this isn't a new story.
This has happened to all sorts of people.
In some cases, you never get it out.
Right.
But it turns out, well, if you if you grease the right palms or allegedly grease the right palms, let's say, OK, the palms of the CCP, that you can, that you might be able to get it out.
Of course, it's a whole different question that they don't have the money to pay out all of those all of those investments.
anyway but now let's jump to the bond okay this is this is something that I was really curious about because it seems like his bond is quite low given the reality of of the crimes that are alleged.
So this is this is a s still a substantial addition right so what happens to that?
Yeah so just to remind our audience when he was originally arrested on the original indictment he was he was found in maybe the Bahamas and had to be brought back to the United States of America.
The judge at the bond hearing gave bankman a bond in New York City he's residing supposedly at the multi-million dollar home of his parents in Manhattan or something like that.
So that judge made a determination based on those facts that bankmen under the law and these are the only two factors that matter for bond poses no flight risk and is not a danger to himself or the community if you can satisfy those prongs under the law you're entitled to A reasonable bail commensurate with your circumstances.
And so I I said last time, I don't think he should have been given one because this guy was literally caught in some foreign nation on some island and can literally go anywhere in the world because he has the economic means to do so.
If his scheme is proven true, he's already destroyed countless lives.
So to me, he's a threat in that fashion.
When you have a superseding indictment, there is a there is an automatic by definition change in circumstances.
So every time you charge the defendant with another crime, like they did to bankman here, you have to be brought before the court for arraignment.
Bankman has to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty and set either take a plea agreement, work towards a plea agreement, or set the case for trial.
That change in circumstances is supposed to be taken to the judge and he's supposed to re-evaluate whether or not bankman should remain out on bond, should the bond increase, should he be detained and incarcerated in jail pending the outcome of the trial or his sentence, etc.
So the defense attorneys and prosecutors are scheduled to go before the New York judge on Thursday of this week, which is a day before our show airs, and there'll be a decision.
It'll be interesting to see if the judge and or what the prosecutors asked for.
I'll just remind our audience that he is now charged with committing a fraud on top of everything else, bribing the Chinese communist party at a minimum of 40 million dollars, plus the tens of millions of dollars that followed.
That is a massive fraud in and of itself, if he wasn't charged with the other dozen counts he's charged with.
And in my opinion, if that happened to most other individuals who weren't Sam Bankman freed, they would be detained.
So it'll be interesting, in all likelihood.
Um we should follow this case closely because my interests are where the money from mainland China and the CCP went, where the fraud, where the proceeds of his fraudulent conspiracy and crime, did they flow to politicians, to political action committees, to charities, did he bribe other officials in the US, other financial institutions to go along with this scheme?
This is a massive, massive, massive, massive scale fraud that we haven't seen since the likes of Bernie Madoff.
And this guy is like what, 30 something years old, if that?
So assuming all these allegations and the indictments are true, like so my bird's eye view here is that he had an uncanny ability to know who to give money to to avoid scrutiny.
That's a fascinating point that we haven't talked about.
It's not like he called the CCP hotline and said, here's 40 million dollars.
He knew exactly who to send that money to, directed his associates to do so, and with almost immediate effect, the billions of dollars that were frozen were released.
That's a fascinating point, and I hope the DOJ provides us with the American public with that information because I want to know who he was dealing with over there.
I want to know who those CCP affiliates, because they're a part of the crime.
They can be charged in America.
That's an American crime.
And the CCP affiliates that were involved should be charged.
Is the DOJ gonna charge them?
And who are they connected to?
And just as a kind of a final little twist in all of this, you know, just the fact that this was revealed might be enough to put whatever officials involved, you know, in a very difficult position with respect to the broader, the bigger CCP.
So anyway, it's just it's it's the whole thing is just absolutely fascinating.
We'll follow this very closely.
So most recently, you know, through some of our work, we found that there's been this 400 million dollar payment from Moderna to NIH, specifically NIAID.
That was uh Fauci's agency when he was still, you know, running things over there.
And this is part just of this broader, I guess, approach of people working for NIH.
And I think there's something like open the books last year found there's uh 1,600 plus of these sorts of people that are getting some kind of money as inventors from patents that they've developed while in the employ of NIH.
Okay, the royalty payments.
So, but $400 million, that's a sizable chunk of change, and it suddenly came through, according to this contract.
So what are you seeing here?
I am seeing my mind light itself on fire in this, what I call this kickback conspiracy between government servants and the private sector.
Thanks to the great reporting of Steber at Epoch Times, Epoch requested through the FOIA process, the Freedom of Information Act, directly to the NIH agencies and its parent companies, organizations, I should say.
Hey, Moderna, it's been attributed to Moderna that they, Moderna, were somehow paying royalties to government officials to the tune of $400 million in relation to Moderna's vaccine for the COVID virus.
In and of itself, I was kind of blown away.
I was like, wait a second.
First of all, Moderna made $37 billion on the vaccine for COVID.
Just Moderna.
I don't know what Pfizer's numbers are or any other company out there.
Now I'm learning that government officials who enter into government service have been on the books with Moderna to get royalties for whatever they invented during a certain stretch of time to the tune of $400 million.
Even though the FOIA requests were granted in this instance, it was redacted.
don't know where the money went to where did the kickbacks and I don't I will call them a kickback because that's what it is where did they go?
Who did Fauci get it?
Were other people at NIH involved and how much did they get I don't agree with the NIH response that they were justified in their redactions because it protects personal information.
That's garbage these people were made rich by the COVID vaccine whatever your thoughts on that aside through a privately funded organization Moderna one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world while on the government payroll as a government servant just put all this stuff aside for a second when you enter into government service me or anybody else it's an intentional decision.
You know you're going in and you're going to take a massive financial hit, whatever sector it is, agriculture, law enforcement, medical, the military, what have you.
I have never heard of a system in government where employees get a kickback or a royalty scheme because they were part of some novelty or invention.
I mean, think of it.
Do people in the Department of Agriculture who work with private sector farmers, come up with some new seed, receive millions of dollars from the farming industry?
What about the army guy that comes up with the technology for our next aerial asset that we enter into a contract with Lockheed Martin or Boeing to make billions of dollars worth of this?
Is he going to get a royalty from that?
Absolutely not.
It's unheard of.
So I don't know why we allow this.
That's another conversation.
And I think we need to fully investigate that.
And hopefully somebody will.
But first we need to find out how much money was gotten, who got it, why, and then then someone needs to go to Congress and ask for subpoenas from congressional committees if the NIH won't release this information and say we want to know not just Moderna and this one specific royalty because here's a thing that's just like has my head on fire NIH has received two billion dollars worth of royalties since 1991.
Who got all this money and let's remind the audience when you go to work for NIH you use taxpayer dollars to enter into research and I'm not saying they don't do amazing work.
They do but they use taxpayer funded dollars to enter into research to create these patents and what have you and work with the private sector big pharma what have you to come up with things that are supposed to be used to save lives not just in America but around the world but I know of no other sector of government where you are allowed to profit from it.
And I think it needs to be seriously looked at and probably in my opinion shut down I just I don't understand like there's no way an FBI agent um can work with a gun company and say hey if you would make this adjustment to the barrel and do this on the scope, it's gonna be just great for us.
And once you're done doing that, since we created a new patent, give me 10 million dollars.
What would you what would your response be to that?
Why is the or are these officials at NIH treated any differently than everyone else in government who does similar work in a different sector?
The only way it's allowed is because Congress legislated for it or created a regulation thereafter that permits this.
But I don't agree with it at all.
And I think a lot of Americans will probably be just as ticked off as I am upon learning this, but now we have to figure out the depth of it and how far back it goes and to who it goes to.
Well, I remember like about a year ago, we had uh Adam Aniewski from open the books on the show.
And uh we were talking about you know, not this specific piece, this is a very large one single kind of lump sum payment.
It's a very kind of strategically important time, I might add, which I think makes it particularly interesting.
But it's it's something to the tune of 1,600 plus uh individuals that have received royalties of very a various amounts, some of them are pretty small, some of them are quite a lot bigger.
But if I recall correctly, all the names were redacted as well there.
And that's and and for me, that's just unacceptable.
These people chose to go work at NAH.
Nobody forced them to work there.
They could have worked in the private sector if what they wanted to do was make money.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
I'm not knocking that.
But when you choose to go into government service, like so many millions of Americans do, you don't benefit from it financially because you create something that's of value to everyday Americans or the rest of the world.
It's unlawful.
You you literally, we're just talking about bribes with bankmen and kickbacks.
That's literally what would what this is.
If I received a monetary benefit because I ushered through a program with the private sector industry and the defense industrial complex, and they said, Oh, hey, by the way, we're gonna give you a couple million dollars.
I would be put in prison, as I should be.
My question is, I don't know the legality behind the NIH regulations and law there.
My question is why is it permitted and it needs to be looked at in Congress.
Congress needs to subpoena all of these records involving these kickbacks and these royalties, let's call them, who got them, how much and why, release that to the American people, and then revisit whether or not that should be the policy going forward for the NIH.
You cannot be in government service and make 10 million dollars.
So basically you think that the money from these patents should basically just go to the government coffers.
That's a great point.
I'm not saying don't take the money as the United States government, right?
But if we use taxpayer dollars, and that's what has been reported, taxpayer money was given to these NIH employees, they utilize that money to create something new in partnership with the private industry, then they got paid for it.
It's like getting a loan from a bank for free and saying, don't worry, we don't have to pay that back, and then when you profit off of it, someone else pays you even more money.
That money should go into the treasury or at in in the least should be used to donate medical supplies and equipment to people in need across America, if not the rest of the world, or fund some sort of charitable endeavor like that.
It shouldn't go into the pockets of the American government employees that signed up to serve and are now monetarily bet benefiting from it to the tune of seven figures.
You know, it it's just speaking with you right now, right?
It you can see this conflict of interest, right?
I I and it frankly it makes me actually wonder.
I wonder if this these structures exist elsewhere.
I have I have not seen or ever heard of that.
I know when those structures existed as a federal prosecutor, I would prosecute that individual in government for accepting a bribe or a kickback, even if it was masqueraded as some sort of royalty, even if they agreed to do it while they were in government service and received the money after they left.
That's still a crime.
And we've exempted supposedly the NIH and its employees from doing that.
And again, I'm not attacking the workers at the NIH or anyone that chooses to enter service there.
I want to know why we as a government permit this.
And if it's permitted there, why isn't it permitted everywhere else?
In my opinion, it should not happen anywhere in government service.
You know, and just I'll I'll just ask this one question as we finish up here.
Um, you're aware that industry funds these agencies substantially, right?
To the tune of many millions of dollars.
I mean, it's just it's like add another layer onto the already on the problem.
I mean, just because it's been done for so long doesn't mean it's legal.
And that takes me to uh the last thing I want to touch upon.
I did say Congress should issue subpoenas, but I also think there's another track that uh that I hope some organization takes up.
They need to challenge, not just for uh NIH uh and NAID and et cetera for the unredacted versions of this information on this one FOIA, but expand the FOIA to all these other royalty payments that have come in and demand the unredacted versions of that.
Then someone needs to take them to federal court and sue, whoever has standing, sue to say, is this law or regulation constitutional?
Because as we know, just because Congress passes a law and the president sign it doesn't automatically always make it constitutional.
Our Supreme Court is the final arbiter of that, and not a lot of times, but frequently they come in and say that law that was passed on the books related to X, Y, or Z is actually unconstitutional.
So I think we need to test the constitutionality of whatever regulation or law the NIH folks are receiving these royalties.
I can't believe it hasn't happened.
Maybe it has, but I have never heard of it.
I've never heard of them being taken to court.
I've never heard of anyone examining this at Congress.
I think it needs to be reevaluated there.
I think someone needs to take them in federal court.
I think the subpoenas need to go out at Congress to expose all this uh monetary benefit, and I think more FOIA's need to go out the door immediately.
This isn't just like a one-off story.
This is something that I think um needs to be investigated as thoroughly, if not more thoroughly, than some of the things that the committees in Congress are focusing on right now.
I'll add one last thing, okay?
I've heard this argument before that you know it's very difficult to track quality people into government because of the payment limitations, right?
Sure, I know that.
Yeah.
So well, and so people had said, well, we we need to make it attractive.
And so that this might have been one way to make it attractive.
Maybe it is, but you can't make it attractive for one sector and not for everyone else in government.
That's the whole point.
The same rules have to apply for every government employee.
And again, it's a decision to go into government service.
No one's forcing you.
It's also a privilege, in my opinion.
Um, that's why it's so hard to enter into government service.
And yes, of course, we're always we're always underpaid, whether you're at DOJ or FBI or DOD, certainly our military, more so than any other in my opinion, is drastically underpaid.
But that's not why you engage in that.
You can have a career after your lifetime in government service and go on to make some monetary benefit thereafter.
But to me, to do so while you're in government is just, I don't know, something, you know, innate in me just strikes uh a friction with this concept or this regulation that's been allowed at NAH.
And maybe I'm totally wrong.
Well, but but your point is very good that that there's an obvious significant conflict of interest here that is just becomes obvious the moment you really sit down to think about it for a moment.
Yeah, and look, it looks like you know, Fauci has gone up to Congress or is going back to Congress to testify.
Maybe someone can just ask him these questions under oath.
How much money have you gotten?
Where did you get it?
Who gave it to you and why?
And I'm not necessarily, and this might shock a lot of people, I'm not necessarily blaming Fauci if that's the law and regulation on the books.
My focus point is attacking and analyzing what is on the books and whether or not it's legal, and someone needs to analyze that before we allow more private sector companies to literally pay government employees millions and billions of dollars.
Well, Cash, I think it's time for our shout-out.
It is.
This week's shout-out goes to Michael Kalovoski.
Thanks for your kind words on our message board.
Thanks for participating in our live chat, and thank you everybody for making our live chat so much fun on Friday nights during the show.
