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March 21, 2024 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
49:10
Episode 160 LIVE: Hunter's Business Partners – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Thank you.
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.
I want to be crystal clear.
From my direct personal experience and what I've subsequently come to learn, it is clear to me that Joe Biden was the brand being sold by the Biden family.
His family's foreign influence peddling operation from China to Ukraine and elsewhere sold out to foreign actors who were seeking to gain influence and access to Joe Biden and the United States government.
Joe Biden was more than a participant in and a beneficiary of his family's business.
He was an active, aware enabler who met with business associates such as myself to further the business, despised being buffered by a complex scheme to maintain plausible deniability.
I ask this big question.
If there's no evidence of corruption here today, if Joe's conduct and the conduct of his family were fully legal and proper, then why are they so dishonest about it?
Not just slight misrepresentations of fact, but deep untruths about the entire corrupt enterprise.
Hunter Biden gave his transcribed interview on February 28th and lied throughout his testimony.
Here's just one egregious example of Hunter's perjury.
He lied to the committee on important details concerning his money demands and threats to CFC in text messages on July 30th and 31st, 2017. He leveraged his father's presence next to him in that infamous text to strong-arm CFC to paying Hunter immediately.
Jim Biden also lied extensively throughout his transcribed interview on February 21st and perjured himself.
An example of that, on page 100 of his transcript, Jim is asked specifically, do you recall having a meeting with Hunter Biden, Tony Bobulinski, and Joe Biden?
Jim's response, absolutely not.
The committee was so shocked by his perjury that they asked him the same question multiple times, each time he denied meeting with me and Joe Biden.
After the committee showed him text messages confirming that I met with Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and Jim Biden at the Beverly Hilton in May 2017, Jim Biden, with a former U.S. attorney lawyer sitting next to him, still denied that meeting took place.
Hunter Biden, in his own transcribed interview, confirmed that that meeting took place.
Hunter confirmed his uncle perjured himself in front of this committee.
I'm simply here to tell the truth to the American people, and I hope each and every one of you, congressmen and women, give me the opportunity to do that instead of focusing on Russia or smearing my family's name or focusing on facts that are irrelevant today.
Welcome back to Firebrand.
We are live broadcasting out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building here at the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. And what a week it has been.
We put on the full Biden family crime operation in the House Oversight Committee meeting yesterday.
I am not on the House Oversight Committee, but I was allowed to wave on, they call it, for the purpose of asking questions.
And here's what we saw.
We saw a fusion of Between Joe Biden's public service and Hunter Biden's business transactions.
And I believe that you can bribe a public official by paying off their kid or their spouse or their brother.
And in this case, you've got a lot of Bidens getting paid off.
We traced that back to the money.
Tony Bobulinski, for those of you unaware, former Biden business associate, really out there exposing a lot of the lies that the Bidens have told regarding the way in which Joe Biden specifically was used to close some of these business deals.
Here's my questioning of Tony Bobulinski.
Take a listen.
You're a serious business person, Mr. Bobulinski, right?
I am.
Unlike the convicted felon next to you, you've served in the military, right?
Correct.
You've done big deals, complicated deals, deals that involved foreign businesses, right?
Correct.
And so what I'm trying to figure out is when you came to realize that you showed up at the wrong party, Because you kind of strike me as a guy who showed up to do a legitimate business deal and you ended up instead at a bribe.
And so as you're looking at CEFC, as you're having this meeting with Joe Biden, as Hunter Biden is introducing you to his web of contacts, when did you go from serious businessman Tony Bobulinski working to make a buck in a capitalist system to a guy worried that you had been unwittingly ensnared into Hunter and Joe Biden's bribe operation with the Chinese Communist Party.
I appreciate the question.
It wasn't an aha moment.
It was more of a process.
I am a serious businessman demonstrated by the different deals I've done around the world and the success of them.
But it started, remember, the Biden family wasn't my entry into this.
James Gillier, who I'd known for over 10 years, who traveled the world doing business, kept trying to get me involved.
I really had no interest, no interest.
I sat down in the spring of 2017 to walk through things, and then I quickly put together two businesses, Sino Hawk and Oneida.
After the meetings in Los Angeles with Hunter and Joe Biden, It started to sort of bells and whistles started to go off when Jim Biden used the term plausible deniability.
Plausible deniability is the first moment straight from the lips of Jim Biden, right on the heels of your discussion with Joe Biden, where you start to think this might not be legit.
Correct.
And my lawyers at the time could attest to that because I reached out to them saying, listen, I'm a former naval officer.
I held a Q security clearance.
I couldn't collect.
Somebody couldn't take me to dinner for $50.
This just does not make sense to me.
But you proceed.
But you proceed, and then later this thing starts to get a lot uglier.
What's the moment you go from, okay, your spidey senses are up, you're analyzing this, to now you know this is a crime that you are bearing witness to?
The end of July.
When the Biden family put them right front and center in the middle of a $9 billion transaction between the Russian state-owned energy company Rosneft and CFC, a surrogate for the Chinese Communist Party.
And was there ever a time in the deals you were involved in where you started to see the money move around the legitimate business enterprise and toward the pockets of the Bidens?
Well, the challenge, Mr. Gates, with that is, at the time, They moved the money, right?
You guys have the text messages where Hunter Biden shook down Director Zhang, but I was not aware of that.
I spent a year asking questions of, this doesn't make sense to me, where's the money?
I stepped in and had lawyers work to dissolve the two entities.
I didn't know until years later that they had defrauded me, they had gotten paid all this money, and all this craziness.
It just seems pretty simple.
This is either a bribe or a business.
It was a bribe from the Chinese Communist Party.
And I don't say that lightly.
There's 1200 pages...
Eight days of testimony in the Southern District of New York.
I encourage everyone watching me, hearing me say this.
They're publicly available.
Go read them.
Our Department of Justice outlines in intimate detail the corruption and bribes that CFC was deploying to political officials all over the world.
It wasn't just in the United States.
So I'm here to believe that they did this in every other country, but with the Biden family, it was pristine.
It was an actual clean business.
That's absurd.
And you came to know that, and that's when you blew the whistle, right?
That's when you started to get worried, when you saw Joe Biden...
I stepped away from it.
There's the whistleblowers, I can't give them kudos enough for the bravery and the risk they put their family in.
They publish stuff where I am voicing the concern of the Rosneft deal directly to them.
And you animated your concerns when you saw that this wasn't just a corrupt bribe, a corrupt business deal happening to a guy who used to be vice president.
When you see that Joe, everyone's made a big deal, like you're a bad guy that you showed up at the debate, or you're trying to give life to these facts that you've observed, that it's so bad that you did that during a political contest.
But Observing this, it kind of seems like it would be unpatriotic for you to stay quiet.
Of course.
And so, I mean, Joe Biden running for president clearly motivated the Chinese to consummate this bribe.
Did it also motivate you?
Well, I didn't want to go public.
I wanted to simply unload all the facts, personal experiences.
It's funny, there's 18 People on this committee with law degrees, including, I think, Mr. Swalwell.
Evidence, first-hand testimony, is the most powerful evidence you have.
I've given it, Mr. Galanis has given it, along with a whole host of other witnesses.
Then, on top of that, I have thousands of documents and pages of legals and stuff like that.
I wanted to simply give this information Yeah, but that's the thing.
No one questioned any of your facts.
No one brought a single piece of evidence that even for a moment discredited any of the truthful testimony that you've given us.
No, they did not.
My time's expired.
I yield back.
All right, we're back live.
Heather on Facebook says, this is a waste of money and I am ridiculous.
Will on Rumble wants to choke out Bill Gates.
Not sure what that has to do with this, except that we are not related.
And SoCal on YouTube says, there are no consequences for Democrats.
Republicans are weak.
We have to build the case.
We have to deliver those consequences.
One person who I thought really developed the evidence well regarding the direct link to the Biden family and Joe Biden was Congresswoman Nancy Mace.
Take a listen.
On March 1st, 2024, Joe Biden stated he did not interact with Hunter or Jim Biden Business Associates.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask unanimous consent to enter into a record New York Post article.
Biden insists he did not interact with.
Without objection to order.
We're going to go fast here.
I have strictly yes or no questions.
On that note, the New York Post article, Joe Biden also said, read the record of every single witness.
So I did.
I first read Devin Archer's deposition, and he interacted with Joe Biden.
Then I read the transcripts of Rob Walker, Eric Schwerin, George Burgess, Kevin Morris, Tony Bobulinski, and Jason Galanis.
And every single one of them interacted with Joe Biden.
And that's just the people we interviewed.
Mr. Galanis, my first questions are for you.
Did Hunter Biden call Joe Biden with Elaine Baterina on the line on May 4, 2014, yes or no?
Yes.
In that call, did Hunter Biden state on this call with Joe Biden that everything is good and we're moving forward?
Yes, he did.
Okay.
On the same call, did Joe Biden in the call was saying, okay, then you be good to my boy?
Yes, he said that as well.
Okay.
Did Botterina agree to put $20 million into one of Hunter Biden's business projects days later after this phone call?
Yes.
Okay.
Did Hunter Biden ever take a call from Joe Biden while at the Peninsula Bar in New York?
I'm sorry, I didn't hear the...
Did Hunter Biden ever take a call from Joe Biden while at the Peninsula Bar in New York?
Yes, he did.
During this call, did Hunter Biden update Joe Biden on progress in a landing, a business partnership with Harvest Fund Management?
Yes.
Okay.
Was Harvest a $300 billion Chinese financial services company closely tied to the Chinese Communist Party?
Yes, it was.
Okay.
Is Hunter Biden involved with Harvest?
Yes or no?
Was Hunter Biden involved with Harvest, yes or no?
Yes.
As part of the deal, did Hunter Biden want the company to reserve a board seat for Joe Biden?
Yes.
Did Henry Zhao, a Chinese businessman, want assurances Joe Biden would join the board, yes or no?
Yes, he did.
He expressed that in emails as well.
Okay, thank you.
Did Hunter Biden draft an email stating, please also remind Henry Zhao of our conversation about a board seat for a certain relation of mine.
Devin and I golfed with that relation earlier this week, and we discussed this very idea again.
And as always, he remains very, very keen on the opportunity.
Here is a photo of Joe Biden and Devin Archer and Hunter Biden golfing days before the alleged email draft.
Do you believe a certain relation of mine refers to Joe Biden?
I don't think there's any question.
It was based on firsthand conversations with Devin Archer who was in that picture and at that golf meeting.
Did you ever meet with Devin Archer where Hunter took calls from his father?
Yes.
Okay, during one of these phone calls and Hunter Biden tell Joe Biden that he and Henry Zhao needed help getting, quote, getting across the finish line.
Yes, that's correct.
Okay, Mr. Bobulinski, do you recall receiving an email that followed the possibility of giving 10% ownership of Sino Hawk to Joe Biden through Hunter Biden?
Yes.
Okay, my questions, my last questions are for both of you very quickly.
Mr. Bobulinski and Mr. Galanis, you both stated you were told not to use Joe Biden's name in communications, correct, Mr. Bobulinski?
Correct.
Mr. Galanis?
Yes.
Okay.
Did Joe Biden participate in phone conversations and meetings with Hunter Biden, his business associates, and foreign interests, yes or no?
Mr. Bobulinski?
He clearly did.
Okay.
Mr. Galanis, yes or no?
Yes.
Okay.
In Hunter Biden's deposition, he said he did not involve his father in his business.
Did Hunter Biden lie under oath, yes or no?
Mr. Bobulinski?
Yes.
Mr. Galanis?
If that's what he said, yes.
Okay.
Is Joe Biden lying when he says he did not interact with Hunter Biden, Jim Biden, their business partners or forward interests?
Yes or no?
Yes.
Mr. Galanis?
yes all right in a debate on october 22nd 2020 joe biden denied hunter biden made money from china then hunter biden his business associates and foreign interests include money from chinese businesses business partners and or interests yes or no mr babulinski i'm sorry that did the the did the biden family make money from chinese business interests mr galanis did hunter biden receive money from chinese business interests yes or no Okay,
thank you.
Joe Biden has repeatedly claimed that he was not involved in In Hunter Biden, Jim Biden or any other Biden family business deals.
Today our witnesses have proved otherwise.
Today we've established Joe Biden lied about interacting with Hunter Biden's business associates.
It is my belief Joe Biden is the closer for Hunter Biden, Jim Biden and their business associates and foreign interests.
Good luck to the left proving otherwise.
Thank you and I yield back.
We're back live.
A lot of love for Congresswoman Mace on the live stream.
Amy on Rumble saying, Mace to the point.
Couldn't agree more, but on the opposite side of the spectrum, we had a member of Congress in the hearing who embarrassed herself because she did not know that RICO was a violation of federal criminal law.
Here's Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez getting corrected by Tony Bobulinski.
Take a listen.
RICO, you're obviously not familiar with.
Excuse me, sir.
RICO is not a crime.
It is a category.
What is the crime?
It's a category of crimes that you're then charged.
You have charges.
You have charges.
Sir, please name the exact statute under RICO. Well, it's funny.
In this committee room, everyone's not here.
There's over 18 lawyers that went to law school.
I'll leave it up for you guys to define the statute under RICO. Thank you, sir.
I reclaim my time.
The time can be reclaimed, but the dignity cannot be.
That was spilled everywhere.
Tony Bobulinski just needed an opportunity to tell his story because he was the inside man.
He saw the way a business apparatus was created to be an illusion, when in reality, this was just all about the payment of bribes from the Chinese to the Biden family.
There was great questioning on this point from Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee.
Take a listen.
On July 30th, 2017, Hunter Biden wrote to his Chinese business associate, Raymond Zhao, I'm sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.
Mr. Bobulinski, why did Raymond Zhao work for the...
Who did Raymond Zhao work for when this message was sent?
Raymond Zhao worked for Director Zhang at CEFC. Is CEFC connected to the Chinese Communist Party?
It is.
Is CEFC a corrupt organization?
It was.
From your perspective, what had occurred with CEFC from the end of May to this July 30th text message?
Well, it's tough to go through all these details in 20-second clips, but at the end of July, it's important to note Jim Biden was broke.
Hunter Biden was broke.
Published by the Brave Whistleblowers, Shapley and Ziegler.
And Hunter made the conscious decision to basically Defraud the partners of Sino Hawk Holdings and Oneida because he needed money immediately.
They've published pages of text messages where he's trying to get money into his bank account.
And so that night, for whatever reason, on the 30th, when he asked why hasn't the commitment been fulfilled, the commitment he's talking about is actually the $10 million funding into Sino Hawk Holdings LLC. Really key point.
But the next day, He decides that he's going to defraud Sino Hawk Holdings and Oneida, create a new entity called Hudson West 3, well actually change Hudson West 3, it had already previously been created by the Chinese, and make himself a 50% owner in that entity, so when the Chinese did send money, he would have instant access to it.
Really important.
Backed up with tens of pages of communications.
He wanted to get access to the money the second it came in.
And in Sinohawk Holdings and Oneida Holdings, he did not have that power.
I just want to address one thing real quick.
Hunter Biden represents.
He's a governance expert.
That's why Burisma put him on the board.
Well, he obviously can't do basic math.
The board of Oneida Holdings had seven votes.
Each one of them, Hunter, Jim Biden, James Gillian, Rob Walker, had a single vote.
I had three votes.
I have a master's degree in electrical and nuclear engineering.
I think I can do math.
I had three.
They had four.
They controlled Oneida Holdings.
So Hunter Biden's representations that I was trying to take the business from them or I didn't know is all a sham and a misrepresentation.
He wanted money in his account instantly and that's why he shook down the Chinese and they were willing to send him that five million dollars because they viewed it as a bribe to the Biden family.
They say it in their own communications.
Are you aware or not that they pay taxes on any of that?
I can only go from public testimony.
I was not involved in their taxes.
Okay.
On July 31st, the next day, Hunter says he hopes Kevin should know that the plan to speak is highly confidential.
And Raymond Zal responded, CEFC is willing to cooperate with the family and the priorities to solve the problems mentioned last night.
What family was Raymond Zal talking about?
Well, the family was the Biden family, and more importantly in that text is what is he talking about is the confidential manner.
The confidential matter he's talking about were four sealed indictments in the SDNY where they were about to indict executives of CEFC that we now know.
I didn't know that in July of 2017, but the SDNY knew.
Charles McGonigal, who's now apparently going to serve 78 months in prison, ran counterintelligence for the FBI in New York City where Chairman Yee was dropping $50 million of cash for penthouses in Manhattan.
So who you should be asking all these questions are the Department of Justice, the SDNY, the FBI, because they have troves of evidence that back up what was going on in July 2017 and in August 2017. So I apologize, Congressman, to be so passionate and to take your time, but this is what I need you guys, or the focus has to be of your oversight committee.
This involved the Chinese Communist Party.
They were doing a transaction with Rosneft, which was a Russian-sanctioned U.S.-sanctioned company at the time, and the Biden family was right front and center in the middle of it.
Thank you.
I'll switch gears for a second.
I wish Hunter Biden were here because I'd like to ask him about his taxes.
I want to know if he paid his fair share, just like his dads asked Americans to do.
I want to know if he's current on his taxes, and if he isn't, I'd like to ask him when he plans to pay up.
Mr. Bobulinski, you're a businessman.
Did you pay your taxes?
I did.
Mr. Bobulinski, he actually pays his taxes.
Unlike the President's son, and yet Democrats on this committee act like Hunter is a believable one out of you two.
Joe Biden has no right to lecture the American people about their taxes until he gets his own house in order.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We're back live and Frank on Getter asks the question, well actually makes the statement, DOJ do your job or get out of the way.
So the DOJ has a role here that's not just protecting the Bidens, but in the words of some, They're actually retaliating against some of the people who speak out against the Bidens.
Jason Galanis is a former Hunter Biden business associate.
They were in some of the same corrupt deals together, and when they were exposed as corrupt, Jason Galanis went to prison, where he was giving his testimony from at the hearing this week.
But Jason Galanis believes that the DOJ indeed is not just hands-off, but they're acting in a malicious way against the interests of justice.
Take a listen.
The Democrats could have sent anyone.
They could have sent Hunter Biden.
They could have sent Joe Biden.
They could have sent Rob Walker.
They could have sent Devin Archer.
The Democrats could have sought any person to come and refute the direct evidence backed up by bank statements, backed up by calendar entries, backed up by emails, backed up by text messages.
And who did the Democrats send to clear the name of Joe and Hunter Biden?
They sent Lev Parnas.
Lev Parnas, who was charged with enough crimes and violating our campaign finance laws to, like, serve 50 years, but he gets four months.
And, like, the big, like, grand criminal conspiracy Mr. Parnas is involved in is using Russian oligarch money to try to get marijuana licenses, which seems odd, and then using that Russian money to plow into campaigns in order to achieve that objective.
But the fraud he committed wasn't just on our election system by plowing Russian money.
It was also a fraud on his own investors who didn't get it.
So I guess, Mr. Bobulinski, as you hear, Maxwell Frost, my colleague on the Democrat side, say that Mr. Parnas, fresh off of his prison time, is the most credible witness we've had to address these business dealings.
What's your reaction to that?
I think it's laughable that the Democrats are asking Lev Parnas to weigh in on my credibility, a convicted felon that served jail time.
I have an impeccable record.
Now, he warned me earlier in this hearing that they're coming for me.
I look forward to that, Mr. Parnas.
Keep lying.
You'll be there soon.
Well, and is that a threat, Mr. Parnas?
No, it's just the truth.
No, did you say they were coming for me?
No, I said if you keep lying, you will end up in prison.
I'm not lying.
You're the one who was lying.
You're the one who went to prison for lying.
What am I lying for?
Tell me what we're lying for, Mr. Bobaranski.
You don't even know what you're talking about.
What am I lying?
You went to prison for lying and defrauding your investors?
What am I lying here?
Oh, the list is long.
We don't have enough time.
I think Mr. Gates only has a minute.
I think you're a little scared, just like Mr. Gates.
Because Mr. Gates doesn't even ask a question.
You're filibustering.
I've been here for six hours and not one of your committee members has asked me one question.
I asked a question about your illegal business dealing.
I've been here for seven hours.
Ask me some questions.
Fraud is a crime, right?
Correct.
Fraud is a crime.
Fraud is a crime, and you observed fraud on the part of the Bidens, right?
I did, crystal clear.
So much so I had an independent law firm spend $300,000 to analyze that fraud.
And put together a fully ready, fileable lawsuit against the Biden family.
And bribery is a crime, right?
Correct.
And what you observed with Joe Biden trying to get you into this business deal with Hunter Biden, what you later learned about that business deal and how the money was flowing from the Chinese Communist Party to Hunter Biden, to other members of the Biden family, did that concern you as a potential feature of money laundering?
It did.
It did.
I started to grow concerned after I met Joe Biden, and then I sat down with Jim Biden and he used the term plausible deniability with me, and that's documented because I went back to my lawyers and I asked them, something is starting to feel unright, and they went and hired another law firm to give me a full FCPA workup to go through the details of what could be done and what couldn't be done.
Sounds like high crimes and misdemeanors to me, Mr. Chairman.
I yield back.
Hunter Biden's deposition.
Question, do you think some of your business associates we've spoken about today, Mr. Archer, Mr. Bob Yulinski, Mr. Galanis, do you think they had an expectation that your dad had any role or involvement in any of your joint business dealings?
Answer from Hunter Biden, not an expectation from me.
There was never a single time I can remember saying, hey, we'll get my dad involved.
Hey, let's get my dad on the phone.
Hey, let's, you know, what can we get out of dad for this?
Mr. Galanis, what's your reaction to that testimony from Hunter Biden in light of you describing the Biden lift?
I think it's patently false.
It's belied by emails, and I think that there's documentation that says that that's just an untruthful statement.
What I'm trying to understand, Mr. Galanis, is there you are sitting in a prison cell for a financial crime Where you were an associate with Hunter Biden and some of the other players there, and they're out enjoying Southern California, and you're sitting in a prison cell, and they've got the ability to come and give this false testimony to Congress.
Is it your belief that the Biden Justice Department retaliates against people who speak out against the Bidens and their crimes?
I'm living that.
I think, to clarify, I took responsibility for my crimes.
I pleaded guilty.
I've served eight years of clean conduct, and I think I've rehabilitated myself quite a bit in that period of time, and evidenced a track record, but I would say that there is unquestionably a pattern of two tiers of justice, and that's become a popularized term, and it's something that I've lived experience that I've gone through.
You'll back.
We are back live.
Lev Parnas, you'll remember, was the individual involved in financial campaign crimes.
He was taking money for one purpose and using it for another, and this was the criminal the Democrats brought in to defend Hunter and Joe Biden.
Really remarkable.
Lev wanted some questions from me.
It seemed from the last clip that he was a little bored, so we gave him some questions.
Take a listen.
Mr. Parnas, how much time do you spend in prison?
Four months, but you were indicted for crimes that could have resulted in you spending 50 years in prison, right?
Right, there were false crimes.
The judge saw through it.
Well, you went to trial and you were convicted, right?
I went to trial, correct.
And the crime was that you were trying to acquire marijuana licenses and you took money from a Russian oligarch and you tried to use that money to go give political donations and do what you had to do to acquire marijuana licenses.
Is that about right?
That's what the crime was.
That's what the indictment was.
Sounds like everyone here today, the only one working for a Russian oligarch was you.
Right?
I mean, I just heard you wax.
It's public information.
I got paid $200,000.
You know how much I got paid.
You were really worried about our democracy and you were here to warn us, but you were working for a Russian oligarch.
On behalf of President Trump.
But then you didn't even do it.
The fraud you committed against the Russian oligarch was that instead you spent the money on yourself.
So was that what you were doing to fight against Russia's aggression, just taking their money?
Well, that's what you were convicted of.
But instead of spending 50 years in prison, you got four months.
As this hearing continues, I look forward to hearing what Mr. Galanis thinks about how he was treated by the DOJ for telling the truth, as opposed to how you're treated for lying.
The DOJ didn't listen to the truth, because if they would listen to the truth...
The question Mr. Gates had is for Mr. Galanis.
Look, the truth for you is taking money from Russians to buy marijuana businesses and then going to jail and then coming here to lie about Trump.
You should know better than anybody.
what the VOG is about.
You should know better than anybody.
Gentlemen's time's expired.
That was the star Democrat witness.
We got a chance to question and I think expose.
So tell me why it took three years.
Tony Bobulinski has been making a lot of these claims for quite some time, even before the last presidential contest.
Why did it take House Republicans until now to get this hearing with Hunter Biden's business partners out there?
And the answer is simple.
It took too long to get the subpoenas out to Hunter Biden.
Kevin McCarthy would never authorize a subpoena to Hunter Biden.
For all of Mike Johnson's concerning disappointments on spending, and we'll get to that later in the program.
He did authorize the subpoena to Hunter Biden, and that's what finally got the Hunter testimony, which allowed us to bring in these business associates and to show how Hunter was lying.
Now, we, of course, invited Hunter to be there as well, but he didn't want that.
He didn't want to be exposed in public.
In front of his business partners that would just turn to him and say, that's a lie, dude.
And the American people would see, just with the incarnation of Hunter there alongside Bobby Linsky, who was lying.
And it wasn't Bobby Linsky.
And you know why it wasn't Bobby Linsky?
How I know that it wasn't Tony lying?
Because the Democrats never really pushed into the facts.
They didn't bring contravening evidence.
They didn't say that Bobulinski wasn't sufficiently corroborated.
They just complained about Trump, which is really all they do, and probably why the American people are wondering why Democrats don't address their challenges, their needs.
Now, there was one Democrat during this hearing who made some interesting points, and I know you're not going to like this, so just get ready to be triggered, firebrand audience.
But Katie Porter...
Democrat from California, if you take this next clip I'm going to play you of Katie Porter and filter out all the anti-Republican, anti-Trump stuff and just focus on the ethics changes and legislative reforms she's proposing.
Going after the revolving door between lobbyists and members of Congress.
Stopping members of Congress from being registered foreign agents.
Tightening up the bribery laws.
Again, not the rhetoric.
But this is your assignment.
Listen explicitly to the policy prescriptions that Katie Porter lays out and tell me what you disagree with in the live chat.
Take a listen.
We should have a policy discussion about how to stop government officials from using their positions to get money or favors.
Now that is a real hearing, one that nearly every American, regardless of party, wants us to hold.
We could start by talking about how senior executive branch officials can leave public service, wait just one year, and then legally become lobbyists for big corporations, scoring their new employers' profitable government contracts and favorable regulations.
They can even be Paid by the big corporations during that short one year while they are waiting to become lobbyists as a down payment for their future ability to peddle influence.
That's wrong.
For the panel of witnesses, by show of hands, as Americans, would our witnesses support extending this one-year waiting period to at least two years?
No, I would.
Okay, so there we go.
Republicans, Democrats, even convicted criminals, everybody supports that we should do more to stop influence peddling.
This is the kind of good government reform that Americans of all political stripes support.
And I should know, in 2022, I passed that exact reform as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act with a bipartisan majority vote.
What happened to that amendment?
Why didn't it become law?
The answer is simple.
Nearly 500 former members of Congress worked for lobbying firms.
And too many people around here want to follow in their footsteps, and so don't want to make it harder for government officials to become lobbyists.
Ultimately, Democratic leadership under then Speaker Nancy Pelosi let the amendment get stripped out of the final bill.
When I offered up the amendment again during this Congress, Republican leadership under then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy never even put the amendment up for a vote.
Both parties have let us down on fighting influence peddling and tackling corruption.
But I'm hopeful we can begin a new approach in this very committee.
Let me give you some facts.
I don't even need a whiteboard for this one.
495 former members of Congress worked for lobbying firms.
467 members of Congress take corporate PAC money.
78 members of Congress violated the Stock Act last Congress.
Clearly, we have our work cut out for us, so let's start the conversation today on what a bipartisan ethics reform package could look like.
Here are the organizations that could have come today as witnesses so we could have had a productive conversation.
Oversight staff, do you have your notebooks ready?
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, Project on Government Oversight, Public Citizen, with the right witnesses, And the commitment to doing what the American people want, this committee can have a real conversation about the problem of influence peddling.
And we can pass legislation to create badly needed ethics guardrails.
That would be real work, not a real circus.
I yield back.
I recognize Mr. Timmons.
Ms. Porter, I think you are sincere and I look forward to working with you on that legislation.
Bravo, Katie Porter!
We should have an extended cooling off period.
Frankly, I don't think members of Congress should ever be able to be lobbyists.
I think if you get the privilege of making our nation's laws, you don't get to then enter the transfer portal and then go and influence lawmaking for money.
Just a mercenary instead of a patriot.
And far too many do, and I'm glad Katie Porter brought that to fruition.
And she can count on me as an ally in any effort to try to clean this place up from the corrupt influence of money, and it affects both sides.
And any of you who try to say, well, you know, the whataboutism of, well, the other side does it worse than we do...
It's the uniparty.
It is totally the uniparty who keeps this corrupt system in place, and there are few voices that speak out against it, and so we have to band them together even if they come from different places in the ideological spectrum.
One voice that was deeply concerning to me was one we heard today on TikTok encouraging illegal aliens to break into people's homes.
The Biden border policies have gotten so bad that your home is at risk of invasion, promoted, And put out by TikTok.
Take a listen.
And right now, there is this TikTok going viral.
This TikToker is telling illegal migrants to invade Americans' homes, take them over.
He tells his half a million followers that U.S. squatting laws allow it.
We're back live.
We've heard how the openness and acceptance of our country has often turned against us in great power competition with China, with Russia.
But here you see just the fact that we have this viral nature to our society allowing someone to spread a message of deep destruction and hate and concern.
And you know what?
I wouldn't screw around and do that in Florida.
F-A-F-O, baby.
We got the Stand Your Ground law in Florida.
We got the Castle Doctrine.
So you break into my home, you break into the home of my fellow Florida man and Florida woman, and you're likely to be catching some hot lead.
So if you got plans to break into people's houses and commit forcible felonies against them, I suggest you do that in a state that does not have the Castle Doctrine and a well-armed citizenry like we do in the Sunshine State.
Today in the House Armed Services Committee, we had the leaders of U.S. policy on Africa.
And you've heard me talk a lot about the continent on the program, not because I think that there is some natural linkage of African culture and society to ours.
That's the argument other people make about Ukraine.
I do it because it is a microcosm of the Biden administration's The terrible decision-making, the lack of a strategic envelope for how we're going to generate outcomes based on the pipeline of our actions, and one of us truly,
and I don't say this lightly, but truly one of the dumbest people I have ever questioned is General Langley, who is in charge of AFRICOM and doesn't know basic things about the continent or government or warfare.
It was something.
Take a listen.
This is Colonel Mamaday Dumbuya, and this is a photo of him.
Did we train and equip him?
By name, I cannot identify that.
Well, that's him with a bunch of U.S. service members outside of our embassy.
And just months after this photo was taken in 2021, he led a coup in Guinea and threw out the leader.
Does that concern you?
Congressman, Core values is what we start off with in IMA programs.
Do we share core values with Colonel Dumbuya?
Core values.
I will repeat that.
He let a coup?
We do.
So I guess four months after that exchange, General Langley, you had General Musa Bamu overthrow the government in Niger.
It won't surprise anybody here that we trained him.
The person who overthrew the democratically elected government in Niger went to the National Defense University, trained at Fort Benning, Georgia.
So, do we share core values with Musa Bamu?
Congressman, let me just go ahead and state that core values is what we start off with.
But there is no syllabus for overthrowing the government, not in our institutions.
Well, they're learning it pretty well even in the absence of a syllabus, right?
Because if you look at Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, in a lot of these countries, the coup is led by someone we trained.
Now, I put in the National Defense Authorization Act a requirement for you to issue us a report as to how many coup leaders our taxpayers have funded the training for.
That report is due tomorrow.
Will we be getting it on time?
I'll do a follow-up on that, Congressman.
Well, this was the follow-up, right?
Because first I asked you in that clip, how many coup leaders did we train?
You didn't know, and so then I put it in the law for you to tell me.
The law requires you to tell me by tomorrow, so can you give us a preview of coming attractions?
You'll get your answer, Congressman.
But let me say, there's no correlation and there's no causation of U.S. training to these members.
Well, that's what I'm trying to find out, because in like a dozen countries, the coup leaders are people we trained.
Like, what a difference a year makes.
March 16th, 2023, Secretary Blinken calls Niger, quote, a model of resilience, a model of democracy, a model of cooperation.
One year and one day later, Dr. Wallander, the spokesperson of the Nigerian military, Colonel Amadou Amabramay, says, quote, the American presence in the territory of the Republic of Niger is illegal.
A year and a day after our government said they were the model of resilience and democracy, they are throwing us out by the scrubs of our neck.
And so, is it safe to say that this failed, General Langley?
It's safe to say that there's no correlation or causation of U.S. training to a coup happening.
Period.
It certainly isn't.
There's no causation or correlation to the training we do, creating more stability.
I'm trying to ascertain whether or not all this money we spend in Africa makes the place less stable or more stable.
And just for a country lawyer like me, if we're funding the coup leaders, that probably strikes me as making it less stable.
Now, are you aware of the Iranian efforts to now mine in Niger?
General Angley?
Congressman, we could talk about it in a classified section on that.
Well, I mean, Fox News is reporting it.
They're saying that Iran is working on economic arrangements to get uranium from Niger.
Well, in a classified session, we're going to talk real intel.
Yeah, I guess.
I mean, we've spent more than 500 million in the country.
What can you say we've got for that 500 million as we sit here today?
If it's like being turned into an Iranian mine, The Russians are the preferred security partner, and we're training the coup leaders.
There was a buy-down on an insurance policy for protecting the homeland.
I don't think we're doing that though.
I don't think there's evidence to suggest that.
That's your opinion.
You went to Niger.
I respect your opinion.
Okay, but General Langley, you went to Niger and you went to have a meeting with the people we trained who overthrew the democratically elected government and Fox News is reporting that you didn't even get a meeting with the principal decision-maker.
Is that right?
I had a meeting with my counterpart.
Well, here's the quote.
Sources say last week's meeting with the Junta was extremely difficult.
The administration's envoys did not get to meet with Niger's principal decision-maker.
Is that a true statement, or is that a false statement?
My responsibility is to meet with my counterpart, not...
I would just hope that if we were two leaders, we could at least book a meeting, you know, since it's the model of democracy.
We are back live.
Those are painful discussions, but they need to be had because, as you heard, you have invested $500 million into the country of Niger.
And what we have for it is an opportunity for uranium mining expansion for Iran, military expansion for Russia, and our opportunity to train the next generation of coup leaders.
That's basically what you got for $500 million.
And by the way, that's where things are going best in Africa.
That was the place Tony Blinken said was the centerpiece of our strategy for democracy and cooperation.
Unbelievable.
And it's happening everywhere in the world.
Now, before we go, I want to make mention of this trillion-dollar spending bill that the House of Representatives is set to vote on tomorrow.
I will be voting emphatically against this.
Continues to advance an unconstitutional process, unconstitutional agencies.
It doesn't secure the border.
It funds Planned Parenthood.
It funds earmarks for all kind of LGBTQ, AI, XYZ stuff.
And what does it do for the American people?
Higher prices, more inflation, higher prices.
Larger debts, growing deficit, and no political courage to take it on.
Now, I know we only have like a one or two seat majority on a given day, but I would rather die on the field politically than continue to surrender to America's defeat and demise.
And surrender is precisely...
What this omnibus spending bill does.
It surrenders on the border.
It surrenders on the budget.
It surrenders on the bureaucrats that are choking out the economic freedom of our citizens.
I will vote against it.
I will speak out against it.
I will debate against it.
I will do everything I can to encourage my colleagues to join me.
And you know what?
Those who don't very well might see me in a different context that I cannot discuss from my congressional office.
But they'll see me.
And so will you.
Thanks for tuning into Firebrand today.
Much appreciated.
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