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Jan. 25, 2023 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
25:41
Episode 84 LIVE: Russia Hoax Fed Indicted – 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 those 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 cancelled 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 back to Firebrand.
I'm Congressman Matt Cates, broadcasting live out of room 2021 of the Rayburn Office Building here at the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. We've got a short show for you, but key updates we've got to get through.
Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell booted from the House Intelligence Committee.
I'm going to react to that.
We're going to get some of the greatest hits from the lying that we saw from those two on the Russia hoax and beyond.
And Ilhan Omar is probably up next.
I would expect that a vote would be upcoming on the floor of the House of Representatives regarding her service on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
The reason that vote was not required for the Intelligence Committee is the Speaker of the House has broad authority over who gets to sit on the Intelligence Committee.
So Kevin McCarthy, keeping a promise, being the best version of himself, Swalwell and Schiff off the Intelligence Committee, Ilhan Omar, very likely soon to follow.
Tomorrow, the House of Representatives will have its major energy bill on the floor.
I'm going to talk about that, why it's important, why there are some Florida-specific issues that we're going to be leading on and addressing.
And I see we got the live stream up and running, folks watching from Florida today.
Ohio, Kentucky, thanks for letting me know.
Even Red Rural Oregon watching on Rumble right now.
Great to have your feedback.
Great to have you as part of the movement.
But the main thing I wanted to discuss today, the big news.
Charles McGonigal, a Fed, indicted for his illegal work on behalf of a Russian oligarch and the receipt of illegal payments.
Now, this is how this all comes together.
Back when the Russia hoax first started against President Trump, you'll remember that there were reports saying that a friendly foreign government had information that Trump was potentially working with Putin or working with Russians in the campaign.
It was, of course, nonsense that was just bar talk from George Papadopoulos at a London pub, but part of the team that did the initial intake on that information that ignited the Trump-Russia hoax, Charles McGonigal.
He was working in the D.C. office of the FBI. Now, after he was a part of some of that investigative work that destabilized the presidency and was just totally nuts for years, he gets a promotion.
And who promotes McGonigal?
Jim Comey.
That's right.
And where does he end up?
at the new york field office as the special agent in charge of counterintelligence now you know this isn't topeka kansas right this is new york city some of the most Really competitive kind of intelligence and counterintelligence space on the planet Earth.
It is a highly contested intelligence domain, New York City.
Charles McGonigal gets this job.
And so his job there is to hunt people like oligarchs who are trying to compromise our government.
Influence us in illegal ways.
Launder money.
Get positions in businesses that they shouldn't have.
Avoid sanctions.
He's supposed to be stopping all of that.
Going after the Russian spies and assets.
Now, one of the most famous Russian oligarchs is a guy named Oleg Deripaska.
Oleg Deripaska, rich history, don't have time to get through all of it, but needless to say, a guy that our own government was watching very closely because we know he is, in many ways, an appendage of Putin.
An appendage of that system that has corrupt, crony, klepto-capitalism.
Not even capitalism, really government control of the economy.
But they're allowed to then go and take these ill-gotten gains and plow them into capital markets and participate in capitalist systems.
And that is where guys like Oleg Deripaska...
Fused the kleptocracy of the Russian Federation with what we see going on in cash transfers, real estate transfers, buying stock positions in businesses.
So McGonigal's supposed to be going after this guy.
And he's just got his indictment unsealed this week, where in fact, instead of going after him, he ended up working for him, trying to help Oleg Deripaska evade sanctions.
Money laundering.
Conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Of course, everyone's innocent until proven guilty, but I'm telling you what the charging documents say, what the indictment says, that the feds are having to acknowledge about one of their own.
So McGonigal goes up to New York, and he works there up until 2018. He retires in 2018. Then he goes to a law firm, and this happens all the time.
Where the law firm is giving legal advice and consultation to this Russian bank or Russian entity about sanctions compliance, but really it's sanctions evasion.
And then McGonagall, for setting the deal up, is getting paid $25,000 a month.
Then, soon thereafter, after that relationship with the law firm, the Russians and McGonagall are saying to each other, well, why are we using a law firm to move the money through?
Why don't we move that money through our own shell corporations that we create with our friends and allied interests?
And so the Russians start putting money that ends up being about a quarter million bucks into this New Jersey bank account run by a cutout of McGonagall's, one of his friends.
And there's a lot of work done in this indictment from the FBI and the Department of Justice to suggest that Look, McGonagall, he was a Boy Scout pretty much when he was with the Bureau.
It was only after the Bureau that these specific allegations about sanctions evasion, money laundering, conspiracy to commit money laundering, lying to the federal government really emerged.
That's when the criminal conduct reaches a chargeable level of acuity.
But here's the tell.
The business entity that ended up taking the corrupt foreign money when McGonagall didn't want to use the law firm anymore, It was set up while he was the special agent in charge of counterintelligence of the New York field office.
He had already set it up.
And he got email credentials under a fake name.
He got a cell phone through this business under a fake identity.
And you just wonder, like, why would a special agent in charge of counterintelligence need to have fake email credentials?
Burner Phone, Shell Corporation in Jersey, and then they start collecting Russian money.
The other tell.
And it's here in the indictment.
It's actually on page 7 of the indictment.
It's the 12th paragraph.
So while McGonagall is in this big counterintel position at the New York field office, one of Deripaska's buddies needs a daughter to go get an internship at the NYPD, and McGonagall sets the whole thing up.
He goes to the NYPD and establishes this relationship with this daughter of Deripaska's close associate, someone who actually, they believed, was a Russian intelligence officer.
So we know this.
One of the top counter-intel people, promoted by James Comey, involved in igniting the Russia hoax, was turned, if these allegations are true.
And what we don't know is when he was turned.
And that is what I think the Judiciary Committee needs to find out.
I'm working with Jim Jordan now to demand that Director Wray answer questions about the monitoring, the screening, and what assessments are being done now.
Now that our own government has had to charge McGonagall with working for this Russian oligarch, Are we looking at the decisions that he made along the way?
What investigations had resources deprived where there could actually be a threat to our national security?
What investigations weren't open?
What investigations were shut down?
What investigations were advanced on behalf of Oleg Deripaska or crazy Russian oligarchs?
Some of the work that McGonagall ends up doing after he leaves the FBI on behalf of Deripaska is to dig up dirt on some of Deripaska's oligarch competitors.
And so it makes you wonder, was every investigation, was every referral for criminal prosecution truly based on evidence developed?
Or did you have circumstances where this guy was essentially moonlighting for the very Russians that he was supposed to be getting, While allowing this government to accuse President Trump of being a Russian agent.
Really something.
We'll continue to follow this, and we will soon have the answer back from Director Wray to Jim Jordan and I regarding the threat to national security exists as a result of this betrayal.
Absolute betrayal.
Want to talk now about some of the folks who absolutely were at the forefront of the Russia hoax Beyond McGonagall, they sort of took the baton.
Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, Kevin McCarthy today, taking them off of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and I fully support Speaker McCarthy's decision.
Let's actually pull up the Schiff Face the Nation.
This is Adam Schiff on Face the Nation in August of 2018. Take a listen.
Can you agree that there has been no evidence of collusion coordination or conspiracy that has been presented thus far between the Trump campaign and Russia?
No, I don't agree with that at all.
I think there's plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy in plain sight.
Now, that's a different statement than saying that there's proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a criminal conspiracy.
Bob Mueller will have to determine that.
But, of course, the entire meeting at Trump Tower...
Right, so you acknowledge that the FBI has not presented it thus far?
I'm drawing this distinction because this is what the White House is arguing here, that the president is drawing a distinction, that he is saying when he says hoax and witch hunt that he means one thing and that it's not really trying to disassociate himself from what his national security team says.
Well, first of all, we haven't seen what Bob Mueller has produced in terms of the evidence yet.
So, in terms of FBI proof, they're not going to present proof to the Congress.
We're doing our own investigation, and we have revealed evidence, I think, that certainly goes to the issue of conspiracy and collusion, a lot of which is now public.
But I do think that the president continues to cast doubt on whether he accepts the fundamental conclusion that Russia intervened.
Of course, those claims were never evidenced, and Adam Schiff's pronouns are now booted and removed.
But the lies continued.
They disgraced the House Intelligence Committee.
They tried to gussy up political dirt as evidence of some sort of crime or threat to the nation.
Play the February 2019 clip, Adam Schiff.
Take a listen.
This question derives from New York Times reporting saying that the FBI opened an investigation into the possibility that the President was a Russian asset.
Do you believe the President of the United States is a Russian asset?
What matters most is the President's actions.
Whether he's compromised or not, he is acting like a person who is compromised.
You know who is compromised?
The FBI! The very national security people empowered to protect us, especially in the counterintelligence space.
So think about this.
Adam Schiff had an actual responsibility on the Intelligence Committee to have oversight over the FBI to stop people from being turned, to have the right policies and legislation and review in place so you would never be reading an indictment like this of a person like McGonagall.
But instead of doing his actual job, They had to go create the hoax that somehow Donald Trump was compromised.
It's like my friend Jim Jordan always says, they always accuse us of the stuff they're doing, and we are not sorry to see Schiff go.
Matter of fact, I will be introducing legislation not only to see that he is removed from the Intelligence Committee, but to express the sense of Congress that he should have no access to classified information at all.
I'd rather give George Santos access to classified information than Adam Schiff.
And you know what?
This guy has abused that power to such an extent, we don't have to wonder what he will do.
We saw it during the Russia hoax, and we saw it during the knockoff Ukraine sequel thereafter.
But it wasn't just Adam Schiff.
Look who swallowed the hook completely during the Russia hoax.
Play Eric Swalwell and Ari Melber.
Mueller used a legal term and did not find a chargeable Russia-Trump conspiracy.
You talk about collusion, and I'm going to play this for you.
Talk about it pretty directly as if there was a personal link, a personal activity by Donald Trump established.
Take a look.
All of the arrows continue to point to a personal, political, and financial relationship that Donald Trump had with the Russians.
Do you believe the president right now has been an agent of the Russians?
Yes.
I'm still not hearing the evidence that he's an agent of Russia.
Yeah, I think it's pretty clear.
It's almost hiding in plain sight.
Do you believe that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians in the 2016 campaign?
Yes.
Do you believe the president himself colluded with the Russians?
Yes.
There was certainly evidence of collusion, not evidence that met the beyond a reasonable doubt standard, but this president in no way is cleared.
Do you accept the findings in the Mueller report that do not support some of those claims?
Well, I accept that I probably should have been out there a little bit earlier because who knew how many links there were, 200 pages of links.
I accept also, Ari, that prior congresses did not have an imagination to see a president or a campaign have so many concerning conduct and not write laws to prohibit it.
But it didn't meet the standard beyond a reasonable doubt.
But here's what we know.
The Russians helped Donald Trump.
Sure, but to be clear, so you're no longer maintaining that he is effectively a, quote, Russian asset?
No, I think he acts on Russia's behalf, and I challenge him to show me otherwise.
Do you know who was acting on Russia's behalf?
The federal agents that were taking money from Russia.
The people who had been able to influence the direction of investigations That at some point were turned and we have an obligation to the country to figure out when they were turned.
But Donald Trump was never a Russian agent.
And Eric Swalwell?
How did that guy even get on the Intelligence Committee in the first place?
You would think you would have to have some intelligence to be on the Intelligence Committee.
But yet, Swalwell found himself there and is now not going to be there anymore.
Great job, Speaker McCarthy.
Coming up this week also we have the House energy bill and I want to talk about this because this was one of the major issues discussed in the midterm elections.
Republicans believe that inflation is crushing people.
It's especially crushing middle-class people and rural folks have to deal with compounding inflation because to get to their job they often have to drive farther.
Their goods have to come From farther away places in the interior of the country.
And so that additional fuel charge you see stacked and restacked at every level of the supply chain.
And so if we're able to lower gas prices, then we believe we have fulfilled The initial step of attacking some of this inflation.
We also have to curb the government spending that is causing this inflation.
But H.R. 21, which I do intend to vote for, would stop President Biden from essentially playing politics with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Now, you've seen Biden try to manipulate gas prices by digging into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
That is there for our national security.
To protect our country.
God forbid if anything went on in the world where we couldn't get energy, you would see quality of life in this country plummet immediately.
And so that is for all of us, and yet he used it for politics.
We don't want to see that happen.
We also want to make sure that we have common sense when it comes to where we are utilizing American energy so that we are not subject to the whims of dictators like those in Iran or Venezuela.
And that we're not overly reliant on Russia or any other country.
We should be working to ensure American resilience and American dominance like we had under President Trump.
Now that does not mean that we have to drill in every conceivable place.
There are places where drilling is popular, where drilling makes sense from the topography.
Places like the Dakotas, Pennsylvania, Texas, where they want all the drilling they can get even off the coast of Louisiana.
But off the coast of Florida, we have sensitive military missions that cannot coexist with drilling.
Specifically, we take air-to-air shots that are hundreds of miles long to ensure that our country always holds the high ground against China.
And I can't even believe I have to say this out loud.
But it is a terrible idea to shoot experimental missiles over oil rigs and all of the transit that goes to and fro to service those rigs and the people who work on them.
So we have legislation that will be an amendment to HR 21. That will simply reinforce the policy put in place by President Trump that created some drilling exclusion zones off of Florida.
But the overall effect of the bill undeniably will be terrific for our energy posture and our economic posture and we'll make sure through our amendment that it does not compromise national security.
Speaking of President Trump, Just getting breaking news as we're on the show that Facebook and Instagram are gonna let Trump back on.
And we celebrate that decision.
Though the timing is interesting, right?
I mean, they had this guy kicked off for years, and then right as Republicans are taking over the Judiciary Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee, right as Elon is providing documents and information and access to witnesses, all of a sudden you see Instagram, Facebook, the meta entities deciding they're going to let President Trump back on.
Don't think that just because you let Trump on, our investigative oversight will not continue.
We are going to find out what is happening at these companies because they shape the access of so many millions of Americans to the digital world.
And as we've often said, we do not believe that the Constitution ought to be playing second fiddle to the terms of service on big tech.
Thank you guys so much for joining me.
Our podcast is doing really well.
I saw in the ratings we're top 100 in news.
We were top 25 in politics.
So very much appreciate everyone listening.
When you engage with our content, when you share our content, when you leave us a comment about the stories and topics you're interested in, it only makes the product and the update better for all of you.
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We'll be back soon.
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