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April 1, 2022 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
01:01:05
Episode 34 LIVE: Laptop From Hell (feat. Vish Burra) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Thank you.
Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing the laws.
So we're going to keep running the stories to keep hurting him.
If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
You are in the right place!
This is the movement for you!
You ever watch this guy on television?
It's like a machine.
Matt Gaetz.
I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.
Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
They aren't really coming for me.
They're coming for you.
I'm just in the way.
Welcome.
It's the biggest story in the world right now.
Hunter Biden's laptop submitted to the Congress, submitted to the Judiciary Committee, and everybody's wondering how did we get the laptop?
What was the chain of custody?
And I've got the guy right here who brought the laptop to me, and he's going to walk through all that information and answer all of your questions.
We've got major updates regarding Hillary Clinton, the DNC, the fines they've had to pay, new toys from the FBI, how they're potentially using them.
But first, I thought everybody would want to know that the Biden administration has recently released one of the worst Russian cyber criminals that we knew about.
One of the very worst.
And you have to wonder, like, what did we get for that, releasing a Russian cyber criminal right now?
I mean, everything you hear out of the Biden administration is how tough they are on Russia, how they're exposing Russia.
And so what would it be that would cause them to release Alexei Berkov?
Alexei Berkov.
Now, here are the key points on this particular cyber criminal that the Russians got back.
In 2019, the Trump administration secured his extradition to the United States.
He was pursued for years on hacking charges, identity theft, wire fraud, computer intrusion, money laundering.
He had a website called Card Planet that sold credit card and debit card information, 20 million in fraud purchases.
And then in August 2021, the Biden administration released him from federal custody.
Our good friend, the leading Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, asked the FBI Cyber Chief about this decision from the Biden Administration.
Take a listen.
Why did the Biden Administration release Burkoff?
Sir, Mr. Burkoff was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service, not by the FBI. I don't know specifics.
What I do know is that there was no swap or concession, and it's my understanding that his release...
We didn't get anything for it?
Sir, to the best of my knowledge, there were no swap or concessions.
Why do you think we...
I mean, you've said Russia, your statements today, formidable foe, foremost adversary, and the threat is current.
Mr. Burkoff has been described as an asset of supreme importance, one of the most connected, skilled, malicious hackers ever apprehended by U.S. authorities, and you don't know why we let him go?
Sir, it's the Department of Justice question.
But you're the Director of Cyber at the FBI and the Department of Justice.
It's part of the Department of Justice, right?
Sir, yes sir it is, but obviously we're our own agency.
I read your bio, and other than the degree from Michigan, it's pretty impressive.
You've worked at the FBI for like 20 years, right?
You've held all kinds of positions, you're the Director of Cyber, and you can't tell me why we let the most notorious Russian hacker go, and you don't know what we got for it?
No sir.
Were you consulted?
It's not an FBI investigation.
But you're the cyber man.
Mr. Gates just talked about it.
You're the key guy.
You're the guy the administration sent here today to talk about cyber in light of the fact that last week President Biden said the threat from Russia is imminent.
You've confirmed that today.
You said it is current.
It's as we speak.
And you can't answer if it was a good idea or not, whether you were consulted?
Sir, I don't actually...
No, to your question, I was not consulted.
Not consulted.
Okay.
Do you think it was a good idea?
Sir, I'm not in a position to comment on that.
You always know when the FBI or DOJ or any other element of the national security apparatus say, not my department, not my purview, that there is something going on.
There is something shady.
And here you actually had the FBI cyber chief, who was not consulted on this, saying, oh, well, that's a Secret Service investigation.
How could I possibly answer this question?
Here's the real issue.
Like, did the Biden administration send this guy to the Judiciary Committee explicitly because he didn't know?
Because he couldn't answer these questions?
See, the American people deserve robust oversight.
It's the oversight that I think should embody every committee when Republicans take control of the Congress following the next election.
But here you see how they're going to try to evade, send people who are ignorant.
Send people who, maybe purposefully, maybe otherwise, are deprived of the facts.
And we can't let the American people be deprived of those facts any longer.
Now, he talks about the fact that there's no swap.
I'm not aware of any swap for this Alexei Burkoff guy.
Let me posit one hypothetical.
We are so desperate for an Iran deal right now because Joe Biden knows that these crushing gas prices are going to result in a wipeout for Democrats in the midterms.
So they're so desperate to lower oil and gas prices, and they've posted up the way they have vis-a-vis Russia, that they've now backed themselves into a corner where they have to do a deal with Iran.
They're dying to do the Iran nuclear deal.
That very deal that floods Iran with money to be able to not just continue their nuclear program, which they definitely still would, but also to engage in other malign influence not just throughout the Middle East but even here in the Western Hemisphere, especially in South America.
While posting up on Russia over Ukraine, the Biden administration is giving the Russians their hacker back so that they can potentially get favorable treatment from Russia to try to back Iran into a nuclear deal because of those poor foreign policy choices.
That is how Americans are at risk from these decisions.
It is not just that we have a person who you saw Andy Biggs yesterday call a degenerating human in the Oval Office.
It's that the decision-making process is Puts our financial system at risk, our critical infrastructure at risk, our businesses.
Everything that Americans hold dear is endangered by the cacophony of strategic failures from the Biden administration giving back Alexei Burkoff, undeniably one of those failures.
There is also breaking news regarding the 2016 election.
Imagine that.
Hillary Clinton's problems with fines and other issues, but really what I thought was quite telling about the spying and the lying came from my colleague Dan Bishop in the House Judiciary Committee.
So we're all very well aware We've got these Durham indictments that specifically go into the methods that the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign used to engage in illegal spying.
Remember, while they were accusing Donald Trump of being an agent of the Russian government, just take a listen from Dan Bishop to what they were up to.
Director Vornham, has the FBI taken new steps since 2017 to ensure that private government contractors do not abuse access to sensitive U.S. government data stores for self-serving purposes, including political purposes?
Sir, I'm not familiar with the background of your question.
Well, the DOJ claims in court that Rodney Jaffe, a.k.a.
Tech Executive One, exploited sensitive DNS data reflecting internet traffic to and from Trump Tower, to and from Donald Trump's personal residential apartment building, and the Executive Office of the President.
He allegedly affiliated with Clinton campaign officials including Michael Sussman, who had been a cyber lawyer at the DOJ, And tech researchers at Georgia Tech to fabricate plausible-sounding but false allegations about connections between Trump and a Russian bank before the election in 2016 and then after the election about the use of a Russian-made phone.
Both of these were scams.
Mr. Sussman fed them to the FBI at the highest levels while concealing his political motives.
So that's the background.
And the question is, has the FBI taken new steps since 2017 to see that These awesome stores of sensitive data that US has are not being exploited for political purposes by private contractors.
Sir, I mean, compliance is obviously important to us and, you know, just taking a little bit broader view, we've obviously taken a lot of reform steps over the past couple years.
Many of them have been in the public, whether it's FISA, WUD, 702. So, I can't speak specifically to your question, I don't know the answer, but the Bureau has taken a lot of reform steps through that time period that all have been discussed in public forums such as this and in the media.
You mentioned FISA, Woods, 702. So I think you're talking about the Woods file abuse in the FISA applications.
I don't think I'm asking about that.
Can you think of any reforms that have been taken specifically to see to it that this kind of private contractor abuse of these data stores can't happen?
Sir, not at this moment.
I cannot.
What are the cybersecurity implications of a private company being able to intercept Internet traffic to and from the White House?
Sir, I'm not here to talk about those matters.
Look, you've said what you're here not to talk about.
A member of Congress asking you for something within your knowledge is a question you're bound to answer, sir.
Do you know what the cybersecurity implications are of data being intercepted into and out of the White House?
Do I know what the cybersecurity implications are?
If you're asking me if I know what the policy is, that backs up when we can and cannot.
That's not what I'm asking you.
I'm asking you what the implications are, the national security implications of intercepting data in and out of the White House and a private company having access to that.
Yes, in general terms, yes.
There are exposures from that, wouldn't you agree?
Yes, sir.
This article from the Wall Street Journal entitled, Durham Probe Reveals Government Access to Unregulated Data Streams, February 26, 2022. Have you seen that article?
No, sir, I have not.
It relates that the latest developments in the high-profile criminal probe by Special Counsel John Durham show the extent to which the world's internet traffic is being monitored by a coterie of network researchers and security experts inside and outside of government.
There are concerns, obviously, about the privacy implications of private cybersecurity companies being able to tap into the web traffic and then give that data to government at any particular level without warrants or court orders.
In what ways does the FBI rely on this kind of data in their investigations?
Sir, as I said earlier today, when you look at private sector broadly defined, but when you look at private sector a little bit more narrowly defined about who provides infrastructure for networks, servers, computers, etc., those network providers obviously see a lot of traffic.
They see my personal traffic.
They see your personal traffic on a very routine basis.
We have subpoena processes that we go through.
To request that information when it's relevant to an investigation.
So that is how we interact with those companies on a routine basis from an investigative perspective.
Well, my time's about to expire.
What this article relates is that a lot of that information can be accessed without warrant.
And that's exactly the problem I'm talking about.
You've spoken two times to the priority given to the FBI at the highest level to the imperative of protecting the rights of Americans, particularly First Amendment rights, Fourth Amendment rights.
And I'm looking for some indication that those are more than empty words, more than just a platitude.
I'm stunned that, above all the things we've talked about today, that you can't even speak to an abuse that is out in public based on allegations of the Department of Justice involving the use of cyber data.
Is there anything that you can offer to the American people to improve their confidence that the FBI is indeed protecting their rights beyond just platitudes?
The time is expired.
The witness may answer the question.
Sir, you're very familiar with the legal process that we have to go through to obtain information from any number of companies or even from victims in certain cases.
That is our baseline protocol of how we do business.
I'm unfamiliar with the article, so I cannot speak to what it actually says in there.
Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to submit, for the record, the article from the Wall Street Journal entitled, Durham Probe Reveals Government Access to Unregulated Data Streams.
We're back live here in my house office in the Longworth office building.
That was withering questioning from Congressman Dan Bishop of North Carolina.
And it showed that these people were so hell-bent to get Trump that they were actually willing to jeopardize other critical data, other critical infrastructure, things that our country has to keep secure.
But see, none of that mattered to them.
They want to piously tell you that this is all about protecting our country.
That's why they had to go after Trump.
Trump was some great threat to the country.
But now that we're getting the indictments, now that we're getting the information, we see that they were willing to endanger everyone just to appeal to their desire for power.
It's a very sickening thing.
And speaking of sickening, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the DMC, back in the news paying $118,000 in fines for lying about what they were doing all over the place to curate lies about President Trump.
Take a listen.
The Federal Election Commission is now fining Hillary Clinton and the Democrat National Committee over the way it paid a firm to produce the notorious Steele dossier.
The Clinton campaign has been fined $8,000 and the DNC slapped with a $105,000 penalty after a 2016 letter revealed that they violated campaign finance rules.
The FEC says both parties failed to properly report payments for opposition research and the production of the dossier, instead labeling the payments legal services.
Former President Trump now asking, where do I get my reputation back?
I'm joined back here in the Longworth office building by Vish Burra, and Vish is going to get into the Hunter Biden laptop.
Some prior segments we've done on the show regarding what was going to happen, how these events were going to unfold.
It was all very predictable, very predicted by this guy.
But before we get into the laptop, the chain of custody questions that everyone in America is asking, you're a New York man.
Hillary Clinton, I guess, is a New York woman, certainly not an Arkansas woman.
I mean, what do you make, Vish, of this dynamic where when people like George Papadopoulos are accused of lying, they go to jail?
You know, when people like Mike Flynn are accused of lying, and I don't even think he did.
You see a life destroyed.
You see a career tarnished.
But when Hillary Clinton and the DNC, they didn't lie on some innocuous matter.
They lied about how they were characterizing the private intelligence network that they had set up to go and bamboozle the media and the government and Nellie Orr and Bruce Orr at the DOJ. And you know what?
Just pull out the checkbook, write a check, $118,000.
Your reaction.
Well, I think it's very important to take the signal out of all these actions that were taken by the FEC. The idea here is not necessarily to even be punitive directly to the parties involved.
These are signals to the apparatus that would get involved in the future.
If you go and work for Donald Trump and help him in any sort of way, we're going to bring down the House in how we penalize you and how we go after you.
Now, if you help Hillary and the DNC break the law, just make sure you have a checkbook ready.
Yeah, so if you purposefully jeopardize our data, like Congressman Dan Bishop demonstrated, if you purposefully go and hire a private intelligence network, hire the wife of a senior DOJ official to shuttle your nonsense through DOJ leaks to the New York Times and whoever else, if you do all that stuff, The consequences of fine.
And then, you know, look at the people who on January 6th showed up with no intent to break any laws or do any violence to anyone, but because barricades were taken down, they get booby-trapped in the Capitol.
And we still do have Americans as a consequence of January 6th who have been convicted of no crime.
But that are held behind bars.
Deprived of their rights.
And that's the whole idea.
But you think that's on purpose.
You think that all of this is a coordinated effort to say that if you are kind of on the populist right of the political spectrum, the entire apparatus will be weaponized against you.
And even when you get busted doing the will of the regime, being a shill for the Clintons, hey, nothing, 100,000 and change can't solve.
It's all about setting the example.
This is the example when you work for a populist president, and then this is the example when you work for the regime-approved candidate.
When the punitive measures are dropped, this is the disparity, and they are signaling that openly so that the apparatus and apparatchiks around here know that for the future so they can feel comfortable doing these things in the future.
It's infuriating, but honestly, Vish, I've got to tell you, I was surprised the FEC even did it.
I mean, how low do our expectations have to be that when you're like, oh, my goodness, Hillary Clinton and the DNC had to pay a $118,000 fine, you're actually glad that at least it's documented that we were telling the truth and that they were lying.
I mean, when I said that it wasn't Trump colluding with the Russian Federation, it was the Clinton campaign shuttling and nurturing and fostering these lies with their own lying distribution network.
I mean, people said that I should put a tinfoil hat on.
That should be removed from the Judiciary Committee.
And at least now, even though the punishment isn't there, the fact pattern is there.
And the question is, when Republicans get power back, are we going to be able to bring sufficient accountability?
I'm here with Vish Burra.
You're the Executive Secretary of the New York Young Republican Club.
You're very active on matters of policy.
You think about these things a lot.
What's your confidence level that Republicans will be able to administer accountability for the facts that we are seeing come out now?
Well, I would hope that the Republicans, when they take back control, that they would pursue these matters of accountability, especially amongst our investigative agencies, where we want to believe that when they are taking actions against folks, that those actions are backed up with integrity and logic and facts.
We have lost faith in that many times over.
Can we just think about the juxtaposition of the Steele dossier story compared to the Hunter Biden laptop story?
The Steele dossier story was sprung out of...
A BuzzFeed report.
And think about that when the Hunter Biden laptop story was sprung out of the New York Post.
The New York Post is a 200-year-old newspaper started by Alexander Hamilton.
Oh, that's right-wing propaganda.
Blah, blah, blah.
Can't trust that.
51 intelligence officials come say that's baloney.
But the BuzzFeed article that reports the pee tapes, that gets media to carry its water all across the landscape and for years.
And special counsel, all sorts of stuff was set up and justified based on this.
And it's just the American people can see it.
Well, what you're describing is that it's not a fair fight.
No.
That when they get lies, those lies get wrapped up and packaged up as truth, and that when we have the truth, that gets suppressed, deplatformed, and siloed away from the national conversation that we have about these important things.
Right.
I filed legislation to strip those 51 people who made false claims about the Hunter Biden laptop of their security clearances.
It's called the Spook Who Cried Wolf Act.
You can look it up.
You can check out our co-sponsors.
I'm particularly glad that we got Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene with us on that legislation as well, in addition to a number of members of the House Judiciary Committee.
I'm joined here by Vish Burra, former investigative journalist at The War Room Podcast, producer there, used to direct this show, Firebrand, Former member of our congressional staff and Vish Burra plays a key role in this entire laptop saga.
We're going to get to that, but I want to give you all the background.
I want to make sure you understand what went down this week in the House Judiciary Committee that set up the biggest story in the world.
Take a listen.
At the risk of making some enemies on this committee, I'll draw a comparison between the FBI's role in the cyber ecosystem and an event I attended 30 years ago yesterday When Duke beat Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA Men's Eastern Regional Final.
Sometimes we're Grant Hill throwing the pass, and sometimes we're Christian Laettner taking the shot.
Having said that, for the FBI to continue supporting our partners and executing successful operations ourselves, we need your support, even the Kentucky and North Carolina fans amongst you.
As one of our key oversight committees and allies, your backing is crucial for our continued growth of authorities and resources.
So where is it?
The laptop.
Sir, I'm not here to talk about the laptop.
I'm here to talk about the FBI cyber program.
You are the assistant director of FBI cyber.
I want to know where Hunter Biden's laptop is.
Where is it?
Sir, I don't know that answer.
That is astonishing to me.
Has FBI cyber assessed whether or not Hunter Biden's laptop could be a point of vulnerability, allowing America's enemies to hurt our country?
Sir, the FBI cyber program is based off of what's codified in Title 18, or Title 18, Section 1030, a code which talks about computer intrusions, right, using nefarious intent...
Well, you've talked about passwords here.
I mean, Hunter Biden's password on his laptop was Hunter02.
He drops it off at a repair store.
I'm holding the receipt from Max Computer Repair, where in December 2019, they turned over this laptop to the FBI. And what now you're telling me right here is that as the Assistant Director of FBI Cyber, you don't know where this is after it was turned over to you three years ago.
Yes, sir.
That's an accurate statement.
How are Americans supposed to trust that you can protect us from the next colonial pipeline if it seems that you can't locate a laptop that was given to you three years ago from the first family, potentially creating vulnerabilities for our country?
Sir, it's not in the purview of my investigative responsibilities.
But that is shocking that you wouldn't, as the Assistant Director of Cyber, know whether or not there are international business deals, kickbacks, shakedowns.
That are on this laptop that would make the first family suspect to some sort of compromise.
Mr. Assistant Director, have you assessed whether or not the first family is compromised as a result of the Hunter Biden laptop?
Sir, as a representative of the FBI cyber program, it is not in the realm of my responsibilities to deal with the questions that you're asking me.
Has anyone at FBI cyber been asked to make assessments whether or not the laptop creates a point of vulnerability?
Sir, we have multiple lines of investigative responsibility in the FBI. They're all available in public source.
I would think you'd know this one.
I mean, I would think that if the president's son, who does international business deals, referencing the now president with the Chinese, with Ukrainians, I mean, have you assessed whether or not the Hunter Biden laptop gives Russia the ability to harm our country?
Sir, again, We can do this back and forth for the next couple of minutes.
I don't have any information about the Hunter Biden laptop or the...
But should you?
I mean, you're the assistant director of FBI Cyber.
By the block and line chart?
No, sir, I should not.
Who should we put in that chair to ask questions about this laptop that FBI has had for three years?
Sir, I'm not in a position to make a recommendation.
So you don't have it.
You don't know who has it.
You don't know where it is.
You're the assistant director.
You talked about whether or not you were the Grant Hill or the Christian Leighton.
It sounds like you're the Chris Webber trying to call a timeout when you don't have one.
So, who is it?
Do you even know who has it?
Do you know who we should put in that chair to ask these questions to?
No sir, I don't know who has it.
Well, could you find out and tell us?
You're gonna have to give us briefings thanks to Mr. Lew and Mr. Massey's question about whether or not the FBI was taking a five million dollar test drive on the Pegasus system that was being used to target People in politics, people in government, people in the media, people in American life.
So will you commit to give us a briefing as the Assistant Director of FBI Cyber as to where the laptop is, whether or not it's a point of vulnerability, whether or not the American people should wonder whether or not the first family is compromised?
Sir, I'd be happy to take your request back to our office.
Gosh, I mean, will you advocate for that briefing?
As in, you will?
I will be happy to take your request back to the FBI headquarters.
Well, do you believe that that is a briefing that the Congress Is worthy of having, I guess.
Sir, I'm not going to answer that question.
I'm here to talk.
The invitation says, oversight of the FBI's cyber division.
It does not say anything.
Well, right, but I mean, this is a cyber asset.
This is a point of vulnerability.
If there are passwords, if there are business deals, if there are References to things that could harm our country.
Like, you can't even sit here right now and say that you know that there's not a point of vulnerability.
Maybe there are other crimes, maybe there are tax issues or whatever.
But as it relates to, I mean, is the first family sufficient cyber infrastructure to protect?
You don't even know if they're compromised.
Tell you what, Mr. Chairman, I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record of this committee the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop, which I'm in possession of.
I'm not...
There's no objection to that.
I've never had some.
They will object pending further investigation.
What's the basis of that objection?
It's the unanimous consent request, and I object pending.
I have a subsequent question.
Mr. Chairman, I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record the receipt...
It may very well be entered into the record after we look at it further.
Mr. Chairman, I have a subsequent unanimous consent.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Mr. Chairman, I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record the receipt from the Department of Justice...
Mr. Chairman, this is Ms. Deming.
Am I next?
Without objection, Gentleman is recognized.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
After a consultation with majority staff, I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record of this committee content from, files from, and copies from the Hunter Biden laptop.
Without objection.
Thank you.
Yield back.
There it was.
And everybody started asking how in the world Hunter Biden's laptop contents on a disk drive ended up in the House Judiciary Committee and now has ended up as part of the permanent record of Congress.
So we're going to get into what happens next with the laptop, how its contents are going to be Probably utilized in other congressional hearings.
But first, Vish, take us from that laptop getting dropped off by Hunter Biden to its contents showing up in the House Judiciary Committee.
I would love to tell this story.
So April of 2019. Hunter Biden goes into John McIsaac's laptop repair shop and hands him the laptop and says, hey, I need this fixed.
From there, John Paul McIsaac says, yes, I can fix it, but it will take me two weeks.
So leave it with me and I'll fix it.
Hunter says, okay.
Now, once John Paul McIsaac says, okay, I'll fix it, He hands Hunter a form.
And this is standard practice in Delaware.
And I think it's actually legally described in Delaware.
but standard practice in this industry where the laptop repair shop owner will take the laptop and repair it, And then once he tries to return it to the owner and seeks payment for the services, if that laptop repair shop owner tries to get paid and after 90 days doesn't hear back or doesn't get a response for the repair property, if that laptop repair shop owner tries to get paid and after 90 days doesn't hear back or doesn't
So the ownership of the laptop actually changes according to Delaware law based on non-payment by Hunter Biden for the repairs and based on the duration of time between when that was dropped off and ultimately was in the ownership legally of McIsaac.
Right.
And if it wasn't the legal statute, there was a written, a form that Hunter filled out at the spot right there.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
So it may have been a function of his agreement to engage in that repair.
Right.
Exactly.
Got it.
There was documentation on that.
So once that happens...
Now the laptop legally belongs to McIsaac.
After 90 days, Hunter doesn't return.
He doesn't return the calls, doesn't pay for it.
It becomes McIsaac's.
Now, fast forward a few months later, impeachment one buzz starts.
And that is when McIsaac starts hearing on the news about impeachment one, Hunter Biden, Ukraine, Burisma.
That's when he remembered, oh, wait, I do have a Hunter Biden laptop.
Or something like that.
Let me just go log in.
So, until the Democrats kicked the hornet's nest with this phony Ukraine impeachment, I mean, this laptop was just collecting dust in a repair shop.
Exactly.
And probably never would have been opened.
Exactly.
But because McIsaac Is starting to hear this stuff as if it is like current, real, actionable news.
Biggest story in the world, right?
If you remember at that time, the impeachment one was the biggest story in the world.
We had Adam Schiff down there leaking out every day.
Oh, there was some new damning thing.
Exactly.
All right, so he goes and gets into it.
And so he goes and gets into it, sees salacious pictures, bank stuff, Burisma documents, all that.
And he says, oh...
I am pretty sure this is pertinent to whatever's going on on my TV. It ain't exactly like Burisma's Coca-Cola.
Exactly, right.
So that's when he says, okay, you know what, I'm going to turn this over to the proper authorities.
And he then decides he's going to turn it over to the FBI. So he doesn't go to the press?
No, he doesn't go to the press.
This was not about partisanship or anything like that.
He's just trying to do the right thing.
And he's seeing that there might be trouble in the country around something called Burisma and a Hunter Biden or whatever here.
If this laptop can clear up some things, that's it.
When does McIsaac give the laptop to the FBI? In December 2019 is when...
And that's what generates the receipt that people just saw in the House Judiciary Committee.
Correct.
And he gives them the original laptop, the one that he took from Hunter.
But it's very important here.
The faith in our institutions was already so detrimental at that time that John McIsaac isn't even sure if he turns over this laptop that it's going to be okay.
So he makes a few copies.
Disc images of that laptop.
Brilliant.
By the way, if McIsaac doesn't make those copies, we might still be hearing what you heard at the beginning of that question series, you know, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.
Exactly.
But this guy, pretty smart.
Right.
He just, some suspicion, some doubt, he says, let me make a few copies.
So in December 2019, he turns over the original, has the receipt that you held up during the committee hearing, and the FBI takes it, doesn't hear back from them again.
And then he's still seeing the buzz going on, and not only that, he's seeing Rudy's getting slammed in the media over this Ukraine stuff, and Burisma stuff, and Hunter stuff.
Doesn't hear any words.
Finally, he gets fed up.
He says, well, if nobody's going to do anything about this and Rudy's still taking flack and all sorts of other stuff...
You know what?
I'm going to turn over a copy of this to Rudy himself.
And that is when John Paul McIsaac reaches out to Rudy's lawyer Rob Costello, hands it over to Rob Costello, one of the copies, gives the proper documentation as well, the chain of custody documentation from Hunter, from the FBI, everything, turns it over to Robert Costello, gives the consent to use it as they see fit.
Costello gives it to Rudy.
Then Rudy comes and seeks out Steve Bannon because Rudy's a great legal mind but doesn't really understand the environment of the Chinese companies and the Chinese players and a lot of these other characters that pop up on the laptop.
So he goes to Steve Bannon, who's doing the War Room at the time, and I'm the producer there for Steve.
The founding producer.
One of the founding producers.
One of the founding producers of War Room Pandemic.
Quick shout out, War Room started on impeachment.
The impeachment once.
So that all flowed in and now...
So as part of the war room journalism, talk to me about how you and Bannon get a hold of this thing.
So we get a hold of it in conjunction with Rudy, and Steve hands me the laptop and says, I need you to go through this thing, make it your best friend, know where everything is.
I start going through it.
I find a bunch of things, and we're working with Steve and Rudy.
So you were essentially Bannon and Giuliani's Indian tech guy.
It's not essentially, it's literally that.
That's exactly, I was their IT guy.
And so we're going through all this stuff, and then I learned how to make a copy there in that process.
And once I learned how to make the copies, then I started making copies for whoever was asking, and that knowledge stuck with me to this day.
So you guys weren't trying to hold this information close?
No, no.
You were trying at this point in time to proliferate the information.
To disseminate the information.
What kind of reaction did you get from the media?
Well...
Biggest story in the world.
Clear chain of custody.
So, I mean, I don't think I need to really explain it, but just to go over, it was immediately, you know, nuked by Twitter, where you couldn't even share the story through DMs, right?
You couldn't share...
The distribution was limited on Facebook.
You know, eventually, then the deep state comes out, and you have these intelligence officials saying it's Russian disinformation.
Then the media takes that...
And runs air cover saying, it's Russian disinformation.
We can't cover it.
We can't talk about it.
You'd think it was Russian disinformation.
They could at least find it.
Right.
What a joke.
Now I have copies.
I make copies for other people.
After I left the war room, I still have my own copy.
And that's when I came and worked for you over the last year.
And then I got a phone call last week saying, this guy's coming in and we're going to need a copy.
And that's when I made the copy, my copy.
I made one for you, handed it.
Actually, I handed that copy to your LD, Isabella, who then handed it over to you.
And then in the committee, that's what you held up.
And that's how it ended up in that committee meeting.
There's the chain of custody.
The most suppressed information in the world.
Every powerful entity that we warned you about in the first episode of Firebrand.
Big government, big media, big tech.
All working together to deprive you of the truth.
To be the arbiters of the truth themselves, and then you get McIsaac, to Giuliani, to Bannon, to Burra, to Gates, to now all of America.
But you know, Vish, when you were working in this congressional office, you kind of called this.
I mean, we went through some of the features of the laptop substantively that really concerned us.
So if you're interested in some of the specific deals on the laptop that gave Vish concern as he was going through this, you can go back and watch the episode of Firebrand called The Hunter Files.
But when it comes to what you're now seeing today in the media as a reaction to our work earlier this week, this is what Vish told you was going to happen.
Have we heard the last of Hunter Biden?
Absolutely not.
So what I will say is that I am probably still the only person on this side of America that could competently make a copy of this thing.
And I've distributed over 40 copies to multiple outlets that have Their interest has peaked after, you know, Joe Biden has won.
He's firmly in place.
And now people are looking for ways to make their own bones now, now that, you know, they don't have to worry about being the pariah.
And so the interest level has gone up in the Hunter Biden laptop since.
And I believe you will start seeing more mainstream outlets verifying this thing and coming out and saying that, you know, this thing is real and these are things that have to be addressed.
You know, as being from New York, I kind of see, like, what is happening with Biden could also sort of harken back to what happened with Cuomo, where at the right time he kind of needed to get rid of the guy, and that these stories would now be deployed to get somebody else in place.
Ah, so they could be tools waiting in the wings.
Waiting in the wings indeed.
Now you see a couple things happening in the mainstream media.
First, they're doing exactly what you predicted, and they're starting to walk back the challenges on authenticity.
Well, yeah.
Well, look, I saw this cover four months ago, but I think that now would seem like the right time.
I totally believe that the actions you took to enter it into the congressional record...
Definitely raised the temperature up on the necessity to do what they did, which is verify or authenticate the laptop through mainstream sources.
But I also think that there's a lot of malaise through the country right now about Joe Biden and his poll numbers are the lowest in his presidency right now.
And so I think that all these things...
The confluence of all these events now have led to this laptop being verified.
Wait a second.
Is it your statement that you believe that these things are coming to fruition now because there's a coordinated effort to take Joe Biden out?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I believe that it's one of the shows that they might need to deploy today.
Before the midterms to maybe save a few seats.
I totally disagree with you.
Okay.
I believe that they are gaslighting their own protection of Joe and Hunter Biden.
I don't think there's anybody at the DOJ or FBI thinking they're going to make their career out of convicting Hunter Biden of anything, short of like some little slap on the wrist to sort of inoculate him, right?
Like a vaccine one.
Yeah, but that's what I think.
I mean, I think that also, if you look closely at the Washington Post, the Washington Post did two stories.
One of them was a story just about how they authenticated the laptop.
And in that story, they tried to sow a lot of discord and confusion by saying that we can only authenticate some stuff.
Can't authenticate the other stuff and what I think this is is an attempt to control the landing of how this case goes and basically make sure that whatever is prosecuted is whatever stories that they're okay with having prosecuted.
Like a planned release.
Like a planned release.
You're controlling the crash landing.
In Florida, Lake Okeechobee sometimes gets so many pollutants in it that the people around there decide to release some water because the environment can absorb and clean those pollutants.
You're describing the Lake Okeechobee factor politically through the DOJ and FBI as it relates to the Bidens.
Yes, and I think also one of the ultimate— Well, that's not then to get him, right?
No.
Because the whole goal of that would be to preserve the Biden regime with just some low-level maybe charges or investigations of the Biden crime family, when if you really go back and look at the Hunter Files episode that we did previously, you're going to see gambling deals, deals with the Chinese— you're going to see gambling deals, deals with the Chinese— You're going to see all kinds of stuff that I think rises way beyond what you're hearing about on mainstream media right now.
Honestly, I also think that this play that you're seeing now is an attempt to...
I think that at the end of this, Hunter Biden will be pardoned by Joe Biden.
I think that's what this is, is to get it into the mainstream.
I don't think it ever gets that far.
I think that part of what they're setting up to not charge Hunter is this notion that, oh, you saw it in, I think, the Washington Post.
Oh, the people who had this laptop before, the things they did would jeopardize any utilization of that evidence.
What's your reaction?
Why am I the one looking at your evidence?
It should be the best investigators in the FBI. And they had it first!
And they had it!
December 2019!
Why am I looking at it?
And why is anybody before, in my circles, looking at it?
The FBI had it.
It was turned over in good faith to do the right thing.
And nobody did anything.
Let this man run for president.
You know, and then want to say, oh, well, you know, after 20, we started this investigation in 2018, but then it fell off.
But then all recently, it's picked up steam, you know?
I think the only reason that this is picking up any steam is because we introduced those contents into the congressional record, and their authenticity is not going to be challenged.
It wasn't challenged, by the way.
Eric Swalwell, Jerry Nadler, David Cicilline, Val Demings, Hank Johnson, none of these Democrats you know from the House Judiciary Committee even objected to me putting Hunter Biden's laptop into the congressional record.
It went in under a unanimous consent of the Judiciary Committee.
So we will not hear questions about the authenticity or viability.
Now the sole question is what criminal conduct, what disqualifying conduct, What points of vulnerability are exposed as we see the contents of this laptop?
Now, the number one question I get is, how'd you get this laptop?
How'd it get there?
The number two question I get is, so what next?
When can the great sleuths that are out there watching this program and really just advancing the cause of transparency throughout the country going to be able to look at this data, analyze it, When are we going to be able to have the information from this laptop available to ask questions in every committee, really?
It's hard to think of a committee in Congress that wouldn't benefit off of probing potentially corrupt connections that go directly to the first family, directly to the White House.
Here's the answer.
Right now, our office is working with IT professionals to get the PDFs done, to get the files perfected, and the House Judiciary Committee has an obligation to produce a report based on that hearing that we've been going over in today's episode with the FBI Cyber Chief.
Now, they're not exactly limited on when they have to produce that report.
But I will say this.
I have to give some credit to the majority staff on the House Judiciary Committee in all of the workings that we've been just undertaking over the course of this week with our office and their offices.
They are working with us to ensure so far That this is information that the public has access to.
So if that changes, if there's any funny business, I'm going to come on this show.
We're going to talk about it live.
But so far, it is my expectation that in the coming days, maybe weeks, all of America is going to have access to this.
And you know what?
You tried to give them access to it Many, many months ago.
Yeah.
You were producing copies.
Exactly.
Sending them out.
Well, how did I know?
That called shot.
That's not just because Vish has a crystal ball.
It's because I was the one who made the copy that ended up in the hands of Tom Hamburger over at the Washington Post.
So that copy that he has that he used to verify and the Washington Post used to authenticate the laptop is the same copy that you just entered into the congressional record.
It's the same thing.
Oh, but democracy dies in darkness, right?
Yeah, well, if the democracy is in the Washington Post's hands, maybe.
But thank God we have brave patriots like you on the Hill who are ready to put your name to your action and say, I'm going to put this in the congressional record.
I appreciate that.
You're a brave patriot, too, for playing your role in this from an investigative journalism standpoint, from your service on our congressional staff, and certainly your efforts this week to get this information before the American people.
And information is indeed the new domain of intelligence collection, warfare, so much of the conflict that we see.
And so for a moment, just imagine a computer program that can hack into your phone Requiring a single click on your end.
It's called a zero click exploit.
All they need is your number and they're in.
Undetectable.
And it self-destructs remotely.
This is not science fiction.
It's Pegasus.
Pegasus is the name of a Trojan horse spyware program created by the Israeli cybercrime company NSO Group.
And as of 2022, Pegasus was capable of reading texts, tracking calls, collecting passwords, location tracking.
Accessing, targeting a device's microphone and camera, and harvesting information from apps, WhatsApp, Signal, even peer-to-peer.
Essentially, once they're in, they have total control of your phone.
And getting in no longer even requires human error or even human action by the target.
This would be the end of phishing exploits.
Well, thank goodness this technology wasn't just like created by our greatest ally, Israel, right?
Not so fast.
NSO Group has sold this technology to countless state actors and even local police forces all over the world, from Mexico to Saudi Arabia.
And recently, it has been confirmed that our own FBI paid $5 million for the Pegasus software.
It's even likely that Mexican drug cartels are using Pegasus through their corrupt collusions with Mexican government officials.
And these are just the customers that we know about.
There's probably non-state actors too.
It's safe to say that Pegasus isn't being sold responsibly.
It's certainly not being used responsibly.
And now Israel won't sell the tech to Ukraine because they don't want to piss off the Russians, but they'll send it to a narco state on our southern border.
It's just beyond irresponsible.
So what does it mean for us?
Here's what Edward Snowden had to say.
What needs to happen now?
We have to stop this.
Inaction is no longer an option.
If you don't do anything to stop the sale of this technology, it's not just going to be 50,000 targets, it's going to be 50 million targets, and it's going to happen much more quickly than any of us expect.
The way we do that is to halt the trade around this technology.
It doesn't matter who you are.
It doesn't matter what you do.
Your position isn't going to protect you.
If you're a minister or prime minister, guess what?
You're on the list.
You're Supreme Court Justice.
You're on the list.
If you're an ordinary person, guess what?
You're on the list, too.
All you have to do is come to the attention of somebody with the money to pay any one of these companies for the tools to break into your phone.
We know right off the bat that unfortunately we can't trust our own intelligence agencies.
The FBI, NSA, CIA, ATF, and DEA have just a piss-poor track record when it comes to protecting individual liberties and respecting the Fourth Amendment that's supposed to bind them.
They don't think so all the time.
We know how the FBI spied on the Trump administration before and during the Trump presidency.
We know about the robust surveillance state that the FBI has to entrap poor boomers who entered the Capitol grounds on January 6th.
Was Pegasus involved in that?
We don't know.
We know the FBI had it.
Paid $5 million.
And we can't really say for certain how the FBI has used this technology.
But we know our allies and adversaries have used it.
According to the Pegasus Project, which is an investigative initiative by Amnesty International, Forbidden Stories, and dozens of other news organizations, authoritarian governments have been using it, and we know, to surveil and kill anyone who doesn't fall in line.
As many as 14 heads of state, countless government officials, journalists, they've all been targets of Pegasus.
There is no way to tell how many.
We do now suspect that targets of Pegasus did include Jamal Khashoggi.
He was assassinated and killed.
But we're just getting started.
Like, was Hunter Biden a target of Pegasus?
How could he not have been?
Was I? But we are going to get these answers.
Allies spy on allies, sometimes more than they spy on enemies.
This is a well-known fact.
Israel spies on the United States more than you might think.
And of course, Israel is not an enemy.
They're our friend.
But the question remains, how many journalists, politicians, lobbyists, how many of them are impacted by this Pegasus software?
And does it impact our foreign policy?
Blackmail can be a very powerful tool.
Was Hunter Biden the target of foreign intelligence?
We've seen the contents now of the hard drive.
Who had access to it before we did?
If a family member or a politician is compromised, don't you think we should know?
How many Americans have been targeted by foreign intelligence agencies, or our own intelligence agencies for that matter?
To get these answers, I'm glad that we've got Thomas Massey asking some of the tough questions.
Here's that clip from the House Judiciary Committee.
Are you aware of a piece of software named Pegasus?
It's provided by NSO Group, Israeli Software Company.
Yes, sir.
Does the FBI use this program?
It looks like they had a license to it for five million dollars.
So, the FBI has not and did not ever use the NSO products operationally or in any investigation.
We did buy a limited license for testing and evaluation.
Those limited licenses are part of our normal exploratory process to understand what other technologies are out there.
But again, we have never purchased it for use operationally or in an ongoing investigation.
So your division hasn't used this spyware domestically?
No, sir.
Have you detected the use of this software domestically?
Sir, there's reporting in the media about Apple filing a lawsuit against NSO, and there's a lot of information in that article.
I can't comment further on your question truly due to classification, but if that is of interest to you, we could consider a background briefing.
Does the FBI itself exploit the SS7 flaw to access cell phone contents?
Sir, I'm not in a position to answer that question.
I don't know the answer.
Previously, Congressmember Massey asked you about a briefing.
I just want to make sure, will you commit to a bipartisan briefing classified on Pegasus and the NSO group and the SS7 issue?
Sir, yes, and if I can expand.
I mean, it's very important for me personally as a representative for the cyber program at the FBI to keep that as an open invitation in both directions between all of you and me, and from me to all of you, that whatever information that you would want access to, we would try to facilitate that.
Just think about that.
When Ted Lieu, not someone I quote often, asked the question of the FBI cyber chief whether or not federal law enforcement was breaking into people's phones, the answer was, gosh, he just doesn't know.
We're going to get these answers.
The briefing that Congressman Massey and Congressman Ted Lieu just referenced is going to happen, and I'm going to have updates regarding legislation, changes in authorities that we might be taking following that briefing on Pegasus.
Vish, thanks so much for joining me today on Firebrand Live.
We're here in the Capitol.
We're bringing the news.
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