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Nov. 9, 2023 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
32:28
Episode 130 LIVE: Congress Backs FBI – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Thank you.
Matt Gaetz, the biggest firebrand inside of the House of Representatives.
You're not taking Matt Gaetz off the board, okay?
Because Matt Gaetz is an American patriot and Matt Gaetz is an American hero.
We will not continue to allow the Uniparty to run this town without a fight.
I want to thank you, Matt Gaetz, for holding the line.
Matt Gaetz is a courageous man.
If we had hundreds of Matt Gaetz in D.C., the country turns around.
It's that simple.
He's so tough, he's so strong, he's smart, and he loves this country.
Matt Gaetz.
It is the honor of my life to fight alongside each and every one of you.
We will save America!
It's choose your fighter time!
I'm sending the Firebrands. - Welcome back to Firebrand Live.
We're broadcasting out of Room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building here at the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C.
And a big dispute over the willingness of Republicans to continue to back a corrupt FBI with all of their whims and demands has just brought down a major government funding bill.
We've been talking about these single-subject spending bills.
The single-subject spending bill that deals with general government appropriations, buildings, facilities was not brought up today as planned because of a big fight over the FBI.
You've heard me go over their abuses, their problems.
We're going to revisit some of that now.
Wherever you're watching from, in the live streams, thank you for tuning in from North Carolina, Wyoming, Florida, Arizona.
When I was in Arizona last, I was with Congressman Eli Crane.
And in the many stops we made, people consistently were focused on why money and resources continue to flow to DOJ, FBI, ATF. And folks said, use the power of the purse.
Stop it.
And what Eli Crane and I had to tell those folks at Stop After Stop in Arizona is that when we bring up the amendment just to stop giving the FBI a new headquarters larger than the Pentagon, Republicans will betray us.
They will vote against that amendment and they will stand with the FBI. Won't matter how many illegal searches.
Won't matter how many unjustifiable queries.
Won't matter what Inspector General reports say.
Won't even matter what whistleblowers say.
Republicans will bail on us and they will vote with the FBI. And that is exactly what happened.
I bring you now to the floor of the House of Representatives for my amendment to stop the FBI from being able to have a new building, a new headquarters, a new Washington field office.
Take a listen to what happens.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The FBI wants a massive new complex for their Washington, D.C., area-based activities.
They want to spend more than $300 million on that complex.
Though the FBI has an employee base that's about 2.3 percent of the United States military, Mr. Speaker, they're literally asking for something that is larger than the Pentagon.
For the FBI, and so my amendment would disallow any planning, spending, distribution of funds for that purpose.
I don't believe that the FBI deserves a massive new headquarters or Washington field office.
The activities inside of Washington, the greater Washington metro area, have really driven a lot of the investigative work we have done.
It's not bad folks from the FBI out at some field office in middle America or elsewhere in the country.
It is the Washington, D.C.-based activities that have pressured other field offices for no good law enforcement reason.
It's the D.C.-based entities that have suppressed credible investigative leads into criminal conduct over the objections of other bureaus and offices, and they've initiated investigations into American citizens Merely for engaging in constitutionally protected speech.
They've attempted to entrap members of the United States Senate by holding false classified briefings.
That's testimony we got from Senators Grassley and Senator Johnson.
They've also worked hard to censor factual information harmful to their preferred political candidates, notably the Hunter Biden laptop story that the FBI, based in the DC metro area, were involved in cajoling censorship of.
Building a new headquarters would condone, reinforce, and enable the Washington field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's nefarious behavior.
We shouldn't do it, and we should adopt this amendment to ensure that's the case.
I reserve.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and my thanks to the minority side for giving me an opportunity to speak.
I rise in opposition to the gentleman from Florida's amendment.
We're not always going to hate the FBI. But what I do know is that when I toured the FBI headquarters, I saw it in a state of disrepair that is going to need the attention of the owners of that property.
And that's us.
The fact is, the building is crumbling.
And there's going to be a need to do something.
What that something is, I'm not an expert on.
But I think it would be wrong for us to be taking this action today, pursuant to this amendment, without having at least a hearing and an opportunity for the people responsible for the facilities, FBI, GSA, any other stakeholder, to be able to help us understand what the situation is today and what the needs are of tomorrow.
Mr. Speaker, it is not my grave concern that the FBI's building is crumbling.
It is my grave concern that the civil liberties of Americans are crumbling, and I wish we were more worried about that and less worried about whether or not we got new carpet and wallpaper at the FBI building.
My colleague from Arkansas says that the FBI headquarters is in a state of disrepair.
Mr. Speaker, it is the FBI itself that is in a state of disrepair.
And so, while my colleague from Arkansas may be right that we may not always hate the FBI, how about, while we are most concerned about the things they are doing, we not go build them a new $300 million building?
My colleague says there needs to be a hearing.
Well, let me tell you about the hearing that mattered to me, and frankly, many of my Democrat colleagues who were also worried about civil liberties.
The hearing where we learned That the FBI has conducted over 278,000 illegal queries on the FISA system.
Or the hearing that said that the Inspector General found that 38 times an hour these people were violating FISA. The notion that we would stand here and defend them, frankly, is deeply disappointing.
And I think those folks deserve to sit in the rat-infested J. Edgar Hoover building until they get their acts straight with America's civil liberties.
Our reserve.
We are back live, and the person you heard debating against me wasn't a liberal Democrat.
It wasn't a Democrat at all.
That was Arkansas Republican Steve Womack.
So a Republican was leading the debate against my amendment to not allow these hundreds of millions of dollars to go out the door for a new FBI headquarters.
Now Lisa on Facebook says it's time to dismantle the FBI and start over.
I agree.
I think if we started with a blank sheet of paper, even with the concept of federal law enforcement, it would look so different than the FBI today And we would build in, I think, a lot more of the capabilities at the state and local level to be able to solve crimes, and we wouldn't have this intelligence-gathering, political, predictive apparatus at the FBI that's been corrupted.
DEMA on Facebook says they need to move out of Washington, D.C. There actually was a proposal to move them out of the D.C. metro area to Huntsville, Alabama.
I don't know how I feel about that.
I wonder how my fellow Florida men and women feel about that.
I think we should have all of the SEC states as like a buffer.
They shouldn't be in any SECs.
That's too close to our beloved Florida.
I hear Nome, Alaska is lovely.
Never been myself.
Maybe the Mariana Islands or Guam.
That'd be a better place for the FBI. And Minnie on Rumble says, Minnie wants names who were the 70 states 70 Republicans who voted with Steve Womack and against my amendment.
These were the 70. I'm going to read you their names right now.
Don Bacon.
And again, these are all Republicans who voted with the FBI. Don Bacon.
Andy Barr.
Cliff Bentz.
Stephanie Bice.
Mike Bost.
Vern Buchanan.
Ken Buck.
Ken Calvert.
Mike Carey, John Carter, Lori Chavez-Darimer, Tom Cole, Anthony D'Esposito, Mario Diaz-Balart, John Duarte, Chuck Edwards, Jake Elzey, Randy Feenstra, Drew Ferguson, Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike Flood, Andrew Garbarino, Tony Gonzalez, Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike Flood, Andrew Garbarino, Tony Gonzalez, Jennifer Gonzalez-Cologne, Kay Granger, Sam Graves, Brett Guthrie, Ashley Hinson, David Joyce, Tom Keen, Mike Kelly, Kevin Kiley, Young Kim, David Kustoff, Darren LaHood, Nick Leloda, Doug Landborn, Mike Lawler, Laurel
Darren LaHood, Nick Leloda, Doug Landborn, Mike Lawler, Laurel Lee, Julia Letlow, Frank Lucas, Blaine, Luca Meyer, Nicole Malliotakis, Richard McCormick, Patrick McHenry, Daniel Muser, Max Miller, Blake Moore, James Moylan, Greg Murphy, Dan Newhouse, Zach Nunn, James Moylan, Greg Murphy, Dan Newhouse, Zach Nunn, J. Obernolte, Mike Rogers, Hal Rogers, Maria Elvira Salazar, Austin Scott, Pete Sessions, Mike Simpson, Jason Smith, Chris Smith, Lloyd Smucker,
Dale Strong, Glenn Thompson, Michael Turner, David Valadeo, Dale Strong, Glenn Thompson, Michael Turner, David Valadeo, Derek Van Orton, Ann Wagner, Brad Wenstrup, and of course, Steve Womack.
Those are the people who have not yet been sufficiently convinced that there is corruption in Washington, D.C. that would warrant not giving the FBI hundreds of millions of dollars in additional resources to have a massive headquarters here.
Now, is this an indictment of every single person who works for the FBI? No.
But what we learned in our investigations is that good people who worked at the FBI and other places, Wichita, Boston, They were getting misinformation, disinformation, bad information, bad instruction, and bad intentions that was all coming out of the rot of the swamp of Washington,
D.C., where people here in the FBI actually think that their job is to function as some sort of political enforcement wing, not a law enforcement wing.
And you don't have to believe me, as we've showed you before, but it is worth visiting again on the heels of that vote Here's George Hill, an FBI whistleblower, talking about how the badness comes out of Washington.
Take a listen.
The SSA in Boston said they were going to a political rally, which is First Amendment protected activity.
No, we're not uploading.
We're not starting cases on these people.
To which they said, well, we're going to call your SAC. And the SSA said, go right ahead.
Because...
When you're pushing back, you want to make sure that you have your six covered.
So the SAC and the ASAC were intimately aware of these kinds of exchanges that were going on.
And again, to his credit, Joe Bonavolante said, no, we're not opening up cases on people who went to a rally.
And I forgot a key part.
The SSA for CT2 said, happy to do it.
Show us where they were inside the Capitol and we'll look into it.
To which WFO said, we can't show you those videos unless you can tell us the exact time and place those individuals were inside the Capitol.
To which the SSA responded back and I was privy to these conversations firsthand.
Why can't you show us Why can't you just give us access to the 11,000 hours of video that's available?
Because there may be UC's undercover officers or CHS's confidential human sources on those videos whose identity we need to protect.
Don't you see?
We need more George Hills in the FBI. People who just want to get the facts.
But you had all kind of gamesmanship and politics and even seeding the January 6th riot with confidential human sources, perhaps undercover agents.
Not perhaps.
It's been functionally acknowledged.
The problems arise when more of the decision making in the FBI is made within the beltway, within the influence of D.C., not when good patriotic Americans sign up to be part of a premier law enforcement agency and are just trying to do good.
We saw that from so many whistleblowers.
We also saw systemically how the FBI has just blown through our civil liberties.
Used to be Democrats cared about civil liberties.
But when I think about the abuses of the FBI, I cannot get past their illegal queries of the FISA system.
And again, you don't have to believe me.
Listen to the Obama-appointed Inspector General Michael Horowitz talking about how abusive the FBI is to the Constitution and our civil liberties and our laws.
Take a listen.
I want to get into the 3.4 million backdoor searches that the ranking member pointed out in his opening statement.
Mr. Inspector General, how should the public think about those?
Well, I think what we've seen in the various public reports, and I'm limited in what I can say about what's public, which I think is one of the issues, by the way, that's worth talking about is transparency here.
It's obviously very concerning that there's that volume of searches, and particularly concerning the error rate that was reported on in the last two years in the public reporting.
And that error rate was what?
I believe it was around 30 percent.
I think, fellow members, I think it's around 30 percent.
I'm a lawyer, not a mathematician, but 3.4 million, about 30 percent, you're talking about Seven figures of error in terms of these searches.
I'm wondering how many people can perform these backdoor queries?
I'm going to defer to board members because you have the review ongoing.
I'm afraid I don't have those figures at my fingertips in terms of the number of people that can conduct those types of searches, but I share the concern expressed in the question that we need to Have greater safeguards, and I urge Congress to incorporate a requirement for FISA Court review of these kinds of searches to protect Americans' Fourth Amendment rights.
Yeah, 3.4 million backdoor searches, more than a million of them in error.
If I represent to you that we believe there may be north of 10,000 people in the federal government that can perform those queries, would anyone here have a basis to disagree with that assessment?
No.
10,000 people violating the law 38 times an hour for the period they were reviewed to get your information without a warrant.
Sometimes they were searching their neighbors, other families that went to school with their kids, their exes.
This is devious stuff.
So, when we had...
That amendment failed by 70 votes, and you all seem quite worked up about it.
Preg Mima on Getter says, Lord protect George Hill, and I agree with that.
But when our amendment went down, we got the conservatives together and said, well then guess what?
We're not going to pass a bill to continue this type of funding.
So the entire general government bill did not get voted on today.
Not exclusively, but in large part because of the way these guys were treating our conservative amendments.
People on this list of 70 continuously vote against the amendments to reduce spending and provide accountability offered by Republicans.
And so we're not going to vote for government spending bills that continue the status quo and the problems and that don't showcase that the accountability and oversight work we do has to be lashed to Money consequences to these different fiefdoms within our government.
That's how it has to happen.
So the bill that was planned to be passed off the floor today did not get a vote because it did not have the votes because too many so-called Republicans keep voting against actual Republican conservative amendments.
Speaking of so-called Republicans, we're now going to address the curious case of Carlos Jimenez.
Carlos Jimenez had quite an interesting reaction from a From a crowd last evening in Miami-Dade County when President Trump mentioned his name.
But before we get to that, we have to get to the backup.
During the speaker contest, there were some people who disliked me so much for whatever reason.
They wouldn't vote for Jim Jordan.
They wouldn't vote for some other conservative options that we'd put together.
And just so that you see how personal This was take a listen to Carlos Jimenez as we were ousting McCarthy and replacing him.
I think it's despicable.
I think that Matt Gaetz is looking for clicks.
A lot of the things that he said that were wrong were actually going right.
Look, I don't think it has to do with Kevin McCarthy.
I think it has to do with anybody who was there.
This would have happened because Matt Gaetz wants attention.
And so Matt Gaetz is Joe Biden's favorite Republican, without a doubt.
What this has caused, this is causing damage to the Republican Party.
People are calling me, not calling me, but there are tweets about me that somehow I'm going to vote for Jeffries for Speaker of the House.
I was one of the guys that voted to keep Kevin McCarthy, all right?
The only way that Jeffries can become Speaker of the House is because of the chaos that was caused by Matt Gaetz.
And so, no, look, I've been very consistent.
Congressman Gates tweeted this out.
He said that picking up on something that Congressman Ro Khanna put out, that they'd raise the motion to vacate threshold up if there were certain compromises like a ban on congressional stock trading, term limits to 12 years, ban on political donations from lobbyists.
Would that be a framework that you would be interested in, in raising the threshold to vacate?
No.
I'm not going to be held hostage to eight people.
Sorry.
Ain't going to happen.
So no negotiation in your mind?
No outcome on the strategy?
We can negotiate.
Maybe.
But no, this is like, again, a gun being held here in the head.
Hey, we can create chaos anytime we want.
We want these things.
Well, let's debate those things inside the conference.
Does the conference want those things?
Just because eight people, four people, five people want that, that is not the American way.
That's hostage-taking, and you don't negotiate with hostage-taking.
We're back live.
Did you not see Carlos Jimenez?
They're shilling to block a ban on congressional stock trading.
Shilling to block a vote on term limits.
Shilling to block a vote on a balanced budget amendment.
These are substantive policy issues, but you just see in his tone and in his reaction, he's just so personally worked up over his dislike for me that he's unwilling to engage in good faith negotiations to try to change Washington.
And fix the House of Representatives.
So he went on.
It's quite something when someone criticizes me for attention-seeking and then goes and seeks every opportunity to launch that criticism.
But you know what?
I think it's okay.
I think the marketplace of ideas requires us to put our vision and our viewpoint Before the public.
And then guess what?
We have elections and we have opportunities to see how the public will react to the positions that we take.
And we got to see last night how a Republican MAGA crowd in Miami-Dade County reacted to even the mention of Carlos Jimenez.
Take a listen.
And your Congressman Carlos Jimenez.
Do you know him?
Carlos Jimenez.
Some people say Carlos Jimenez.
Oh, you don't like him?
What's going on?
Carlos.
Come on, Carlos.
We got to get that straightened out.
Carlos Jimenez.
Really?
Wow.
Carlos.
I don't think President Trump really appreciated how negative that reaction would be with just the mention of Carlos Jimenez.
If Carlos Jimenez had been on that stage in Miami-Dade County, he would have been booed off of it.
And maybe it's the fact that in 2016 he said that he was voting for Hillary Clinton.
And maybe in 2018 it was that he voted for Andrew Gillum.
But maybe it was his most recent attacks against our efforts to try to improve the House of Representatives that were met With a righteous ire in lovely Hialeah in Miami-Dade County.
Stay strong to Miami-Dade and to our great MAGA friends, and we will continue our work up here to change Washington.
One person who seems to have changed his view on Ukraine, this next clip, I don't even know how to introduce it to you because when I first saw it, I thought it might have been an AI deepfake.
This is Senator Lindsey Graham Talking about his perspective on Ukraine.
And this is a real video.
Take a listen.
This is the same administration that is having more illegal immigrants cross our border illegally than all presidents combined.
They don't know what they're doing on the border.
They don't know what they're doing when it comes to bad guys.
If you had Donald Trump as president, we would secure the border tomorrow.
People would listen to him in Mexico and other places because they're afraid of him.
If he were president of the United States, this stuff with Iran would end.
The only thing that works with bad guys is to be strong.
Our border is broken.
Our policies don't work.
It's a matter of time that a bunch of Americans get killed.
I will not vote for one dime for any country, including Israel, until we first secure our own border.
We're back live.
I never thought I'd hear those words from Lindsey Graham, the prioritization over our border or Ukraine's or Israel's or any other country.
It's welcome news!
And guess what?
This shows that the feedback that people are giving right now to their elected representatives and to their senators is getting through.
We are moving the Overton window on all of this unpaid-for foreign aid that subjugates our priorities to some sort of secondary status.
The people will not take that anymore, and we'll see if the things that Senator Graham says on Hannity I hope they are, and I hope that we're able to get that border legislation up, and we should pressure Schumer on it, because they're getting hammered in New York.
Turns out when you invite all of the third world's problems to New York City, it's no sanctuary.
It's a hellhole, and the people are living in that hellhole, and they should be contacting Senator Schumer, and maybe he'll make...
A pivot or a move like we saw from Senator Graham.
One person who's had to make a move is Kevin McCarthy, former speaker.
And honestly, I hadn't thought about him in a while, but it seems I'm on his mind.
We're just getting this report from CNN. They asked McCarthy if I ought to be thrown out of the Republican conference.
And he said that the GOP would be better off tremendously if I were no longer in the party.
McCarthy, directly being quoted here, says, He doesn't have a conservative bent in his philosophy, just the nature of what he focuses on.
Matt's goal was his goal to be the TV congressman.
I think if you go and line up the number of TV interviews I've had with the number that McCarthy's had, he was sort of the TV speaker in the absence of substance.
See, this is what they do.
When I want to talk about budgets that balance, term limits, releasing the January 6th tapes, real accountability over the deep state, over the Biden family, they want to just say, oh, it's all personal.
It's all personal, but they can't address the substance because they would be greeted a lot the way Carlos Jimenez's mention was greeted in Miami-Dade County.
And here McCarthy again on whether or not he thinks the GOP should expel Gates.
Here's McCarthy.
That's up to the conference.
But I mean, I don't believe the conference will ever heal if there's no consequence for the action.
Mr. Former Speaker, thoughts and prayers as you're going through all of your stages of grief here.
I know that you mocked and made fun of Tim Burchett for praying about his decision to vote to remove you, but you're still in our prayers.
And maybe if you didn't mock prayer and engaged in some, you would have better peace and comfort.
At the end of the day, we all expect Kevin McCarthy to go back and return to the people who he's always represented in Congress.
On K Street, of course, not in Bakersfield.
I don't think you'll be seeing him walking the streets of Bakersfield anytime soon.
But the notion that the Republican conference is going to kick me out for doing something that was exceedingly popular seems unlikely.
The decision to fire McCarthy and replace him with Mike Johnson has been popular.
Popular with Democrats, popular with Republicans, popular with Independents.
It may be one of the most popular things House Republicans have done.
Now, the potential with Mike Johnson is admittedly unfulfilled.
I think we've got to give this guy the opportunity to lead.
We've got to work with him.
Where we disagree, we've got to present our ideas.
We've got to demand that we be heard.
We've got to seek not just process, but outcomes that advance the American people.
And I know that's what Mike Johnson wants.
But if what Kevin McCarthy wants is to make a motion to throw me out of the Republican conference, I guess all I can really say is bring the effing motion.
We'll be back next week.
I'll be on assignment tomorrow.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
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