While Jared Yates Sexton is off this week, Nick Hauselman welcomes stand up comedian Pete Dominick, host of the Stand Up! With Pete Dominick Podcast, to discuss the guilty verdict of 5 police officers for the killing of Tyre Nichols. They then dive into what Bill Barr and John Durham did to cast aspersions on the justice department itself before trying to pull apart this web of deceit from Charles McGonigal, the FBI agent indicted for doing business with a sanctioned Russian oligarch.
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I am on my own, Jared is not with us today, but I am extremely lucky, and this is Nick Halseman by the way, and I'm extremely lucky to have as our special guest Pete Dominick, who is a comedian and host of Stand Up With Pete Dominick, his daily podcast of which you should all be listening to and tuning in.
And he's also the warm-up comedian for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
So, Pete, maybe you can get me warmed up as well right now.
It's a little bit chilly over here in L.A.
Yeah, you're not alone.
I'm right here, buddy.
I'm right here with you.
Thank you very much for having me, Nick.
I think, yeah, Jared is lost in the woods.
I'm taking his place.
He's irreplaceable, but I hope he gets lost for a long time, because I like talking to him.
Well, listen, we don't want to speak ill of anybody behind their back, but I'm looking very forward to having this conversation one-on-one, so I don't have to share the mic with anybody else because, you know, you're too valuable to be shared with anybody else.
Yes, go ahead.
Nobody really thinks that, but I am flattered.
I appreciate that.
Well, hey, listen, that's why you're here.
I'm here.
We got to talk about some stuff.
On a serious note, we had five officers charged with the brutal killing after pulling over Tyree Nichols.
And I thought we would discuss that in a little bit and figure out, you know, what you felt about that.
And, you know, if there's ever going to be a way to stop having this from happening.
I think it's a really very, very, very intractable problem in America, especially the idea of police violence and brutality in general, not only against black bodies and not only killings, but just corruption and violence.
I mean, I've been the subject to police violence like three, four times in my life, and I'm a white guy.
I feel like we don't talk enough about how too often law enforcement Is abusive to everybody.
And there's so much that we need to discuss about this because the issue has been happening for years.
But obviously, in marginalized communities, especially in black minority communities in this country, policing is done much differently.
And of course, There's a huge history there, and it's really tough to challenge, Nick, because the police union is so, so strong in your town and at elections and as a lobby.
And if you want to get legislation passed at the local, state or federal level, you somehow have to work with or get around the police union or the PBAs.
And it's just so, as I think people understand, really difficult to get around that, much less work with them to get something meaningful done.
And a lot of people think something meaningful would be to completely reform the system and even abolish law enforcement the way it is right now and remake it in a more progressive or appropriate way that fits our times.
You know, I was thinking about this because I was a teacher in a big public high school in LA in my late 20s.
This would have been, you know, late 90s.
And talking to the kids about how they felt when they saw a cop car come around the corner, even like in the vicinity of where they were, not even like close or that thing.
And, you know, a lot of the kids I'm teaching were minorities and they were all, to a T, would describe being scared and nervous and not being able to feel comfortable at all.
when they would appear.
And it was strange to me at that point in my life and at that point, I think in our country, before we had so many cell phone cameras and just the sheer evidence that we now know, I'm sure we know what was happening this whole time in our country.
I'm concerned because no matter what you want to argue about what happened in this specific case, nobody should be getting killed for a traffic violation.
I think this is the biggest issue that drives me insane, is that these are the things that are leading, that the escalation is uncontrollable with the way they're being trained.
And I suspect that a lot of times these cops are getting off Because when they look back at how they process this, they're going to say, oh, that's the training.
They were simply following the training and that way they're immune from any prosecution.
Yeah, well, I mean, to some extent, the training is a huge part of the problem.
I mean, the problem is at the root, of course, but the entire law enforcement system, the training that goes into it, I mean, a lot of times, a lot of communities, there's a great documentary about the militarization of police years ago, I think 2016, called Do Not Resist by Craig Atkinson.
People should go watch that.
But I mean, they're training these police officers, Nick, to treat the public like they are terrorists, like they are the enemy And instead of serving and protecting the people that they're policing, they are dehumanizing and treating them like enemy and militarizing police around the country.
And that is a huge part of the problem.
But, you know, talking about the difference between, let's say, white communities or more suburban, more affluent communities and a lot of black communities, even ones that are affluent or upper middle class, Is the experience that you talked about, I mean I used to do a joke in my stand-up actor just talking about the difference of the white community.
When I was little, remember when we played with guns when we were little that looked very, very real.
Remember they had wooden stocks and black barrels, they looked real.
And when the cops in my neighborhood would see me out there with a real looking gun, they wouldn't stop me and shoot me or yell at me, they would walk up to me and tell me how to hold it better.
You know, like, we were friends with them.
They didn't see us as an enemy to them, and we didn't see them that way either.
And I think it's worth always reminding white folks who are listening what it's like through the lens of many in the black community.
Ellie Mistal tweeted over the weekend about this.
The black judicial correspondent, Harvard lawyer from MSNBC, The Nation magazine, Ellie tweeted, I feel like people who are surprised that the cops who did this are black are about to learn a part of the talk that my parents at least always emphasized.
The race of a cop is cop.
Never be under the illusion that a black cop is less likely to brutalize you or kill you.
And there's been just so much written about about that.
And it's really hard, I think, for white folks to understand not only how black folks see and live in this world, but certainly specifically how they see law enforcement. - Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I grew up in Chicago in the city.
So we were sort of well aware of, you know, there's I mean, there's a long lineage of like, there's sort of the Irish influence of the Chicago cops and how they would appoint themselves and oversee themselves that way.
And even into like, from the 68.
Democratic Convention and the riots that they were having at in Grant Park.
Like it was always sort of in the DNA.
These cops were going to we're not going to follow, you know, the basic tenets to get to prosecute a case or to investigate.
And we've seen these movies even, right, where all that you see the rife corruption in the police, like Dog Day Afternoon.
Oh, sorry, not Dog Day, Serpico, right?
New York.
But they've never really done one in Chicago, but the point being that, like, we were sort of aware of this to some degree.
And I think what hits at home, and it's the same thing that turned everyone against Vietnam, for instance, is that when you finally have video footage and you can see exactly what is going on here, this is where we start to realize how corrupt it is and it can turn folks, you know, change their minds.
Have you seen the footage that was released over the weekend?
You know what, it's funny you ask that because I haven't.
I almost always watch this stuff.
I don't know, I watch violence on the internet.
I watch it all the time.
Because of the way that these videos were posted and they were really long and they were released over the weekend, You know, I was like, I'm not watching this long, awful, horrible, brutally violent video.
I'm not watching on the weekend.
I usually take the weekends off of news because I cover news for a living.
So as much as I can, I turn it off.
So I wasn't going to watch it.
I haven't watched it, but I don't need to watch it.
You know, it's like a snuff film.
Did you watch it?
I did.
Well, I mean, you know, there's a couple different pieces.
One is when they're already kind of trying to yank him out of the car.
Yeah.
I don't think that there's the footage.
I don't see it where he gets away.
You know, they kind of yank him out of the car.
They're going to try and, like, chase him or something.
And he runs and then they chase him, which is where a lot of the conservative people and, you know, you could say white conservative people will say, all bets are off.
You're going to run.
You can get shot.
You're going to get killed.
Doesn't really matter.
And it won't be it'll be justified.
and you know when you realize what's when you take a step back and look at the whole thing here and who this guy was what was going on uh you know he he was yards from his mom's house he was he was actually just trying to get to his mom's house he was calling out for his mom and they're just taking turns beating the shit out of him you know hitting him punching him over and over again five cops while he is completely dancing out of it
The statistics around cops chasing people and getting in and accidentally killing innocent bystanders, people should look into them because they're absolutely horrific.
And, you know, you can understand anybody saying like, listen, if this guy just steals a watch from the watch store, the jewelry store or anything else, and, you know, cops are chasing him, cops, you can't just do that.
Cops got to be able to chase you.
And I think that, I think that law enforcement has to be able to have The ability to make a judgment call.
And in this case, if someone's not dangerous and they run away, you know what?
Let him go.
You got his car, you got his license plate, let the guy go.
Because you could chase him in your patrol car or even on foot, and you could accidentally kill somebody.
And it's something that happens quite often in this country.
Police chasing people that don't need to be chased is a dangerous idea.
And a horrible way to be killed, Nick, or injured.
You're just walking home with your groceries or something, minding your own business with your kid in a stroller and some patrol car comes flying around the corner chasing a guy because, you know, he stole a gallon of milk.
It's not the way we should do things.
And that's all tied up with ego and how dare you run away from me.
I'm the authoritarian policeman.
Forget all of that nonsense.
That's not how it should work.
And I think we should be able to have a conversation about that.
But you can't even start to have a conversation about those types of reforms because of what I said earlier about the power of police unions.
It's very difficult.
And I'm very pro-union.
I mean, unions are usually sort of a very important function.
And you would think it would be reasonable to sit down and say, we need to kind of change, going forward even.
We don't have to like, you know, go back and prosecute people after the fact, but we can go forward and say, we need to change these techniques.
And in fact, you'll see a lot of different parts of the country, they do have those techniques, you know, legislated out of the thing, the chokeholds.
I just wanted to differentiate.
I just want to say, yeah, I appreciate you splitting the hairs and generally being pro-labor, but you can support a union or a company, in this case we're talking about, you know, public sector unions, police officers unions, up until the point of what it is What it is building and what it is creating and what it is protecting.
And so even if it's a, you know, a union of fossil fuel, you know, coal miners, well, we hate coal, but these are people who are working in the coal mines and they should be able to advocate for as healthy of a situation and wage benefits as possible.
Same thing for teachers unions or private sector unions like the UAW.
Or nurses unions, but we're talking about a union that is protecting an organization that arguably, in my opinion, in the opinion of a lot of other Americans, is doing more damage than it is good, and it's not protecting people, endangering people.
I'm simplifying it for the sake of the argument, but I think that union is benefiting and advocating for, I think, a lot of things that are doing harm to the public.
Oh, absolutely.
And by the way, this reminds me when you were talking about the race of the police is police.
You know, there was a white cop who was involved in this.
Right.
Yeah.
They somehow they they found the white guy that was also involved.
It took a little while, but they got him to.
Yeah.
But not punished in the same way as the black cops were.
Yeah.
So it's, um, I agree.
I don't know, you know, and by the way, the chasing thing, you know, probably goes back to the origin of police in general when it relates to like slavery or post-slavery.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, the origins of modern-day policing can be traced back to the Slave Patrol, which was created, you know, in the 1700s with one mission, which was to establish a system of terror, basically, and to destroy any slave uprisings and have the capacity to pursue, apprehend, and return runaway slaves to their owners.
I mean, people should read all about that.
I just interviewed, for my show, Kidada Williams, who's the author of a new book.
She's a black history professor at Wayne State University.
Her new book is I saw death coming, a history of terror and survival in the war against reconstruction.
Not to go off on too far of a tangent, Nick, but you said it.
Absolutely.
Now, before we move on to the next subject, I'm kind of curious.
There were demonstrations and people were really upset, but nothing along the lines that we'd seen in St.
Louis and other places around the country.
So, I'm wondering if you feel like there's a connection between the race of the cops that were involved and or the fact that they were fired and there seems to be some punishment for them.
And the severity of the demonstrations, or the lack of severity of the demonstrations.
I think that all those are fair and valid points.
I think that, as Tim Wise writes, white supremacy or anti-blackness are taught to everybody within the culture, directly and indirectly.
They always have been.
As such, even black folks can, in certain cases, act to uphold systems of domination and subordination aimed disproportionately at other black people.
So black cops, Don't give these kinds of beatings, he says, Tim says, to white people, no matter how those white people behave when they're encountered by black officers, which I think is a really interesting point to note.
And everybody should read Tim Wise.
But the other thing is, I think that the thing that changed this specific situation was that they immediately fired these guys.
They immediately made these tapes transparent.
You have to wonder why they don't in so many other cases.
I don't think it hurts that there's a black woman in charge of the police force there and to some extent perhaps the community thought that there would be more accountability with the fact that they addressed it pretty much as soon as you know they possibly could and I think that that matters and and a lot of these times these protests are as a result of frustration that we know that they're dragging their feet We know that they're letting these police officers get their, you know, their defense ready.
We know that they're not investigating.
We know that they're finding ways to get around it.
And in this case, this police department, not to defend them, but handling it quickly, I think probably diffused some of the emotion around it.
But that's just me whitesplaining.
Yes.
Well, you know, the January 6th supporters want to point to the Black Lives Matter protests and how when they was got violent as equating the same thing.
And I think that they also want to shade it in the sense that these are not really protesters.
They're just people opportunists who want to loot.
That's sort of what I think they are saying behind the scenes.
But I think what this proves is that it's anger.
When we see violence break out in protests, it is directly related to the anger they feel for the injustice that's happening.
And perhaps in this one, when we do have justice and they've done it better than the other situations, you don't have the exact kind of anger where then you don't have the violence.
So it's never about like any kind of opportunists and looting.
It literally is about the anger against injustice.
Looting is as a result of chaos and anywhere, you know, and But that's it's just a preposterous idea.
I mean, the riots around or riots, the protests around these types of incidents in every city and every community in the country over generations of American Life and civil rights and demands for equality and really, forget equality, just ending violence on our neighbors.
This has been going on for the entire time that our country's been in existence, of course.
And it is about a real injustice, a real abuse that is taking place in communities all across the country all the time.
January 6th, of course, was about a fake injustice.
It was about a thing that didn't happen.
So generations of people in the streets demanding justice because of a real, actual, daily situation versus the screams and cries of fairly well-off people apparently on January 6th because of a lie that they were told by their cult leader.
I mean, that's...
That's the difference.
If I believed that the election was stolen, I would be in the streets as well.
But I didn't believe that.
Because I knew it didn't happen.
And so it's a preposterous idea to compare the two, and always will be.
Well, you know, this is the other thing we really want to talk about today, which was, it's the appearance of some sort of corruption that can trigger people and shift mindsets very easily.
And what we ended up seeing with, like, for instance, when Trump wanted to shake down Zelensky in Ukraine, and he asked him just to announce an investigation into Biden before the 2020 election.
Just announce it.
You don't have to actually do anything.
Is enough and when we see what happened recently in this revelations with the Bill Barr and John Durham's investigation of the investigators I think we see the same exact method here where they simply wanted to cast doubt and give enough nuggets of half a sentence here and there to someone like Sean Hannity To just simply shift the narrative enough in people who are already wanting to not believe that Trump was corrupt.
And that was the point of these investigations, never to actually find anything and then waste, I suppose, all millions of dollars in our taxpayers' money.
It's been so...
So frustrating, so hard to watch this lack of justice so far, this vacancy of indictments, and hopefully that will change.
I really do believe that it will be, but it's been very hard.
It's been painful to watch Bill Barr try to rehabilitate his reputation post-January 6th, basically, and terrible to find out how deep the corruption went.
I mean, the Italians tried to tell Durham, who was investigating the FBI, basically.
So Durham gets hired by Bill Barr to investigate the investigation, to find out where the FBI was surveilling the Trump campaign, etc.
But they couldn't find anything because it wasn't a thing, of course.
Of course that wasn't happening.
Instead, they go to Italy and Bill Barr and John Durham are told by the Italian government that they should take a look at something else that was really stunning and important.
We're just learning this is absolutely crazy, Nick, but that the Italian government told Durham and Bar that there was I'm trying to look it up here an explosive tip linking Mr. Trump to certain suspected financial crimes and then they had to go investigate that but we never knew about that.
We never knew that they investigated that, and we finally have figured that.
We finally just learned that, and seeing all these dots being connected, it's so hard.
I mean, some things obviously were happening that are only now just being reported, and we're learning those as facts, and other things make you think that.
We're going to learn so much more about all of these players in this between Manafort and Deripaska and now this FBI agent that I know you wanted to talk about as well.
It's hard to follow.
So people listening should feel relief that it's hard to follow.
But there's such a flood of real important corruption.
And then, you know, finally, you've got all of these investigations, Nick, I mean, into the former president, in addition to January 6th, criminal investigation, classified documents, criminal investigation.
Criminal investigation into Trump's alleged financial crimes in New York.
Criminal investigation surrounding his special purpose acquisition company.
And the criminal investigation of Trump's pre-election hush money payments.
Remember that one?
The porn star?
And he's also facing a criminal investigation from Durham's special counsel probe.
And this, I'm not even talking about the civil disputes that are currently surround the former president.
And so you are forgiven for not being able to follow this, but this isn't made up.
These are real crimes being investigated by a real criminal.
And it's, it's really overwhelming for the public.
And so I, I'm done talking, but the point is it's, I'm relieving people of their, feelings of confusion and overwhelm at all of this.
Yes.
If only we could entertain and make him laugh.
But there isn't a lot that's funny about this.
We'll find something in there, I'm sure, because, well, first of all, Barr creates a special counsel to investigate, you know, the investigation of the FBI.
Because obviously, remember, he auditioned for this role by writing this ridiculous op-ed that said that the president can't be prosecuted for pretty much any crime he does while he's in office.
And by the way, whatever we're doing with this investigation of what Barr was doing, getting all this background, Someone needs to ask a question about the Mueller report and find out why it just so happened that the Mueller report ends or his investigation ends about three weeks after Mueller, after Barr takes over, right?
Very interesting, very curious.
And then he ultimately so mischaracterizes the report before it comes out that Mueller had to write him not one, but two letters, you know, exhoriating him for being such an asshole and a liar.
But let me just say this.
The reason why Barr would have created a special counsel in John Durham is because this was such a sensitive investigation of which he'd gone in front of Congress and lied, Barr did, and said that they were spying on Trump's campaign, using the word spying, which is like ridiculous.
But he creates a special counsel because you're supposed to have an independent investigator who doesn't have any, is not influenced by anybody.
So, then you cut to this private plane flying the two of them to Italy for a nice little sojourn while they're crossing Tuscany or wherever they're going under the auspices of investigating what's going on.
How is it possible that these two assholes are shipping champagne on a plane together?
He never should have even been anywhere near Italy.
Bar should have.
If it was Durham, great, but not Bar.
No one wants to point that out.
I mean, you just did.
It's such an important detail that we're just learning.
You know, Bill Barr has been out doing all these interviews and I wonder if he'll do another one because he's now going to be asked only about this story that the New York Times broke about Durham and Barr go to Italy via Italia.
I mean, this really should be a movie.
About the two of them traveling there together.
Bill Barr and John Durham travel to Italy and they're just doing, you know, Bellavita, all kinds of wonderful Italian things.
I'm sure eating their faces off.
But the fact that that happened, that we all know that, he's going to have to answer for that, Bill Barr.
Absolutely.
They're eating a lot of cheese.
They look like they eat a lot of cheese.
I'm sure that's what they're doing.
I guarantee Bill Barr has a cheese platter every afternoon served to him by a servant in his stately manner and somewhere.
Yes.
And, you know, the other thing about that is now before I know, I'm forgetting what I wanted to say about that.
But so, yeah.
So the oh, I remember I have a question for you.
I don't want to pimp you or anything, but like, oh, can I even use that term?
It's a you know, pimping would be a term.
I can tell you, you can use it in reference to me.
Go ahead, pimp me.
Great.
All right.
So I'm going to ask you, if you remember, there was a reason why Loretta Lynch was not really involved or had a lot of control over the investigation to Hillary's emails 10 days before the election.
Do you remember why?
What's his face?
The tall guy ahead of the FBI.
This is my COVID brain.
Comey.
Remember why Comey really wouldn't let Lynch be involved?
Didn't she recuse herself from that?
Yeah, well, kind of, yeah.
And remember why she kind of felt like she had to?
Because she thought it looked bad, I thought.
Because she spent a bunch of time on a plane, on a tarmac, with Bill Clinton.
Oh, yes, that's right.
She was on the plane, Bill Clinton, Dirtily, filthily, like, put her in that position, by the way.
Like, she was minding her own business and the former president just walks into her plane and that put her in a situation the moment they are alone in a room.
Which is true of any woman who's alone in a room with Bill Clinton, to be fair, but she was the Attorney General at the time and I don't think he was there For anything sexually inappropriate.
He was there for an inappropriate suggestion.
Potentially.
We don't know about the conversation.
But your point is that she thought that looked bad.
The optics.
Meanwhile, these two assholes are flying around the world.
That's my point, exactly.
I'm so glad that we connected on that and maybe that actually even made some sense because, again, it's also a nice dichotomy between, like, you know, Democrats tend to want to have an air of, you know, non-corruption.
What's the word I'm looking for?
They want to have ethics.
And there is no shame on the other side.
They don't care.
You know, that wouldn't even bother them now.
It's almost quaint.
Can I give you my diatribe as to why I generally think that is?
Because do you mind?
I mean, I don't want to go off on too far of a tangent, but the way that Democrats and Republicans see government is the reason for that.
I mean, I am generalizing here, but Republicans see government as taking their money, They're hard-earned tax money, too much of it.
And they also see government as the bank, as a way to make money, as a way to get a contract in your local town for the development, the senior housing development.
It's government money.
Taxpayers pay in.
There's money to be paid out if I'm working on this shopping mall build or whatever.
That's how they generally see government.
Democrats are more likely to see government For what it is supposed to be set up for, to serve the public's interest, to protect people, to hold people accountable for public education and transportation and clean water and so on.
And that's, therein lies the reason as to why we're, you know, I'm not saying Democrats aren't corrupt, certainly Democrats have been and are corrupt.
It doesn't excuse you from corruption and power and greed, it does not.
It's just that how you see governments function really, really matters if you go into it Wanting to somehow make money or keep more of your money, you're more likely to end up doing something I think that's completely corrupt and antithetical to what's in the public's interest.
Okay, I'm done.
Okay, and I guess in their mind that'll also connect to the shameless, you know, ignoring of any kind of ethical structure there as well, right?
It's all dog-eat-dog world, you know, bottom line, capitalism, and that's all acceptable.
I think that one's simply like, I'll do whatever it takes to win.
It's the ideology that you and I are playing golf.
You'll cheat all day to win, and I'll generally play by the rules and hope I win, but I can't live with myself if I cheat to win.
You'll do whatever it takes to win.
So, I mean, it's less about the economic structure or your spiritual journey.
It's like cheating to win.
Anything to win.
I'll kill you to win.
Whatever it takes.
We're not playing by the same rules in that case.
No referees.
Let's go.
The one justification they do like to say, and it kind of gives me a little bit of a thrill vicariously, is that they will accuse the left or the Democrats of doing the same stuff and being even tougher and being more ruthless.
And I kind of always enjoy that, even though it's so not true.
I almost wish we were that ruthless.
Yeah, I mean, generally speaking, we can point to examples.
You're from Chicago.
We can point to examples where Democrats have been ruthless and corrupt.
There's no doubt about it.
But, like, if we're talking about the modern day Democrats in the House, increasingly, I would say progressive Democrats are really there in the public's interest.
I think this young generation of women of color, I mean, I don't think that they wanted to become congressmen for power.
I think that they saw what was happening in their community And and they stood up and they ran for office.
And I'm seeing that happen all over the country.
So I think that's definitely changing for in so many ways, in so many positive ways.
OK, that's great, because it only serves to balance out the Marjorie Taylor Greaves and the Boberts and the Gates and the murderers.
Yeah, I mean, they are.
They are.
And that's that utter category of whatever it takes, whatever it takes to win, to divide people, to get attention.
You know, but they're also they do have an agenda more than anything else.
I think it's Christian nationalism.
I think they're all really, really very right-wing evangelical white supremacists.
Their agenda is focused on that.
Anti-gay, anti-black, patriarch, you know, the handmaid's tale people, as I call them.
Yes.
Okay, well, you're channeling Jared now.
We're getting into some of his... Hard to deny.
Now, let's talk really quickly before we wrap up about an interesting case that just came up because, again, it relates to the tarmac, it relates to Hillary, it relates to the emails, and pretty much why we're here, right?
Without Comey's interference 10 days before the election, you know, Trump probably doesn't win.
And then we don't have to go through this whole, you know, alternate reality for the last seven or eight years with him.
But we found out that Charles McGonigal, which is a really good name, Charles McGonigal would be like in the Harry Potter, right?
He'd be one of those characters.
I haven't been able to pronounce it.
You're nailing it.
Go ahead.
Oh, okay.
Well, if you want to channel Jared Moore, then you need to mispronounce every name that comes across the wire.
He even got Davos wrong the other day.
Well, that shows that he's not a rich asshole.
Right.
Although, wait, he was saying it's Davos.
Wait, is that what I was saying?
No, you mispronounced it.
But he does, I have heard Jared say Aspen with his teeth clenched.
Aspen, and mean it.
So I'm confused now.
Maybe he just likes the mountains.
Right, we'll have to find out how he pronounces the state where Las Vegas is in, and that'll be the decider.
Okay, so McGonagall is arrested because he was working for a sanctioned Russian oligarch, a guy we know, Oleg Deripaska, who keeps popping up.
You know, it's kind of like the Star Wars movies where it's like one family wreaks havoc across the entire universe for decades and decades.
It's amazing, right?
I guess it's like the Bushes and the Clintons, right?
Yeah, I mean, there are always these families and they are sometimes generational, you know, cross-generational.
I mean, the Trumps is a family like that now.
But yeah, all these Russian oligarchs are also hard to keep track of.
But yeah, Deripaska is involved with everything.
He's got, obviously, a relationship with Putin and a relationship with Paul Manafort, who owns him money.
Manafort owes Deripaska like $12 million and says, quote, how can we make this right?
And the the situation that a lot of people make is how he made it right is he gave them the the data that uh they needed from Cambridge Analytica gathered by Cambridge Analytica to create Facebook trolls and farms directed at communities where they thought they could affect people's thinking and voting.
I mean it's a in whether or not It, through the election, is hard to say, but there's a lot of evidence, including from 2017, even Nate Silver argued that the Comey probe disclosure cost Hillary Clinton as many as three to four percentage points, and at least one percentage point, which would have flipped Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, handing her, of course, the Electoral College.
So you can make the argument That the Russia, you know, involvement, or rather I should say the two are separate, that Comey's announcement investigating Hillary Clinton affected the election.
And you can also make the argument that obviously Russian interference, of course that there was.
People shouldn't deny there was Russian interference with a clear goal.
To help Trump and hurt Clinton.
That's what the Mueller investigation found.
That that too had an effect on the outcome.
And of course, Derek Poska is connected in it.
And I think you're probably going to say, now we find out that this FBI agent and Derek Poska had a relationship as well.
Oh, it gets worse, because it's actually two different things.
One of them got buried, but the first thing, the top line item was, yes, Deripaska had hired McGonigal, but while he was an FBI agent, to help him get off the sanctions list.
Because again, if you're an oligarch and your worth went from like $7 billion to like $2 billion, God, that hurts, doesn't it?
When you lost your $5 billion, Pete, was that bad or was that okay for you?
I can't fathom that kind of money, nor would I ever want it, and I think it's disgusting that people have it, but go ahead, yes.
OK, right.
Because, you know, we know that if some kind of financial security for my retirement, which our generation doesn't have.
So go ahead.
Yes.
So think about that.
He's paying him to get him off of the sanctions list, which is interesting because I would have thought that Trump, while he was president, would have gotten would have had that.
And we did see evidence of a couple other oligarchs getting special treatment, doing end arounds on the sanctions anyway.
But they're not so not so lucky on this one.
But there's another charge that was also filed against him for taking a couple hundred thousand dollars from what appears to be an Albanian spy and while he was also an FBI agent.
And so the interesting thing about this is that McGonigal was in charge of the FBI's Cyber Counterintelligence Coordination Section and then also the New York's Counterintelligence Division in New York of the FBI.
And what's interesting about that is that this is the sort of centerpiece of where everything grew out of the Anthony Weiner's laptop.
And then that becomes Hunter Biden is connected to that as well as part of the investigation.
And it also becomes the emails which then come up in Comey's reopening the investigation before the election.
And we know that the FBI office was the office that was pressuring Comey into announcing that they were reopening the investigation.
I love conspiracies.
Does it sound reasonable to assume or to think that McGonigal, since he was so willing to basically be a spy while he was with the FBI, is it unreasonable to assume he probably had some effect on what was going on with Hillary's Hillary Sings during 2016?
I think it's unreasonable to assume that until there is information to assume.
It's, it, it, yeah I know, I know, but I think that we have to be respond, that's where I'm like a little bit less fun than like Jared or Sarah Kenzie or Rachel Maddow who would say, or even you, is it reasonable to assume?
Because I want I want facts, and I think that what it is reasonable is to have some really important questions answered as a result of a thorough investigation.
Is it reasonable to think we'll have a thorough investigation?
Maybe not.
It raises so many questions, and those are, you know, questions that should be asked, but I don't want to jump to conclusions until we have answers or else I become A little too Tucker Carlson-y for me.
But I think there's just so much smoke here around this FBI agent and taking money and who he took money from.
But I am heartened by the fact that we caught this guy.
To me, I don't get as jaded and as cynical as many people do because I think there are a lot of good people working even In the FBI to root out corruption and spies and espionage and doing what they're there, what they're supposed to be doing.
I think that's probably, I want to believe it's most of them, but you know, maybe your audience will get mad at me for believing that.
No, no, it's very reasonable.
And I really appreciate you, you know, saying it that way, because, right, we need to be patient.
That's why this is, you know, he committed these crimes four or five years ago.
And here we finally are with an actual indictment and, you know, and charging some crimes.
So they are very methodical and they're going to make sure they have it, which partly addresses what you were saying about how many investigations Trump is part of.
You know, they don't get to as far as they get now without really, really detailed methodical investigation to make sure, which is sort of why, like, when Garland appoints the special counsel Jack Smith, like, you don't get that far unless you kind of know that you have the case locked down.
Exactly, yeah.
You know because but but that said it's a nice dichotomy compared to what Barr did right?
He let Durham go for years and they've all these investigations are just going to end up just ending with a whimper with nothing no like you know they got one statement of a guy they got uh you know of a lawyer who got um uh acquitted and that was it like nothing else uh and by the way they did remember you mentioned that there was uh indication of uh a
A crime that Trump committed and the Italian were trying to tell the bar that leaked out a little bit, but if you remember both Carlson and Hannity were trying to make it seem like whatever the revelation was was about Hillary.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And I mean, I think the Philadelphia Enquirer's Will Bunch has a great column about all of this, which ends up, you know, really wanting questions from the New York Times, because the headline is the New York Times should tell readers whether it helped crooked FBI agents get Trump elected in 2016.
The arrest of a high level FBI agent on Russia tied corruption charges raises stunning new questions About how Trump really won the election.
It's a very interesting column.
I think that raises quite a few questions.
But I also just think that, you know, if we're going to If we're going to make certain kinds of casting certain aspersions, mine would be on Bill Barr and his political idealism or ideology.
You could argue that the attorney general has a tremendous amount of power, obviously has a tremendous amount of power.
And we can go back and look at former attorneys general in this country and see what their legacy is, good, bad or terrorist.
And but I think that Bill Barr, we knew who he was after the Iran-Contra affair when he tried to cover that whole thing up.
Anybody who'd follow that knew how terribly corrupt he was.
Of course, we knew how terribly corrupt he was because Donald Trump picked him.
And we saw how terribly corrupt he is as Attorney General.
And his thing was, his thing has always been, Nick, that his biggest fear isn't the loss of democracy or anything.
It's the progressive agenda of ideas around, I think, LGBT equality and feminism and things like that, even though he whispers certain support for him.
I think he is a hardcore Catholic, and that is what he believes, and he'll do anything to maintain, you know, the status quo, as opposed to lose to a, quote, progressive Democrat.
I think that's who Bill Barr is at his root, and I think that's important.
And we have to top that off with an imperial presidency.
And there's no question that what happened to Nixon and how the president's power was severely curtailed for a long time after that was a triggering thing for a lot of these guys who felt like the president was neutered and needed more power.
And we saw it slowly from Reagan on into Bush and the wars that Bush W.
Prosecuted was that's all in direct real reaction to, I think, what happened to Nixon.
And again, you'll see these guys say, well, you know, Nixon probably didn't deserve to have, you know, to have.
He didn't need to resign.
And if he'd had, you know, Fox News then that he wouldn't have.
Right.
You know, Watergate does look kind of quaint.
And the last piece of this puzzle, you know, is Carlson.
Tucker's been on a rant recently, kind of a real, a real bender.
And he did a thing, I don't know if you saw it, about JFK and Nixon in the deep state.
And I got to tell you, because I'm kind of a JFK, you know, amateur expert on this.
Everything he said about the deep state taking Nixon out was right.
You know, Deep Throat was number two in the FBI, Mark Felt.
And he knew with all the corruption that was going on in the background that Nixon was committing and that no one knew about.
So he was the backstop of democracy.
And that's why he started leaking to the, you know, Woodward and Bernstein.
And so there is that notion that that was what the deep state was doing back then.
But in to service, you know, an anti-corruption, pro-democracy Yeah, to call it the deep state has always, I feel like, been an injustice.
We only just recently started using that phrase in reference to American intelligence community.
I mean, and it started, I think, with Alex Jones, like, you know, Turkey has a deep state, China has a deep state, a real powerful Organized intelligence, you know, Pakistan, but the United States has independent, you know, individual FBI agents who come and go in powerful places, no doubt about it.
But the idea that, you know, maybe, you know, a bunch of them in the New York office were in the bag for Trump, which is why they leaked to Giuliani or something like that.
But then you've got so many other people, and they've all been demonized at this point, but there's been a whole bunch of FBI agents that did really important work during that time, McCabe and Peter Strzok and others, and they destroyed them, obviously, and fired them and destroyed their reputations and so on.
But that's always been the case.
Alex Vindman, the guy who blew the whistle on the phone call that Trump had with Ukraine, or else we never would have known about it.
There are people in powerful places that do, you know, heroic work in the end.
And these days they get their reputation destroyed as a result.
But hopefully history will see them as the whistleblowing heroes that they are.
Absolutely.
That's the sappy, romantic narrative that I like to believe about people doing the right thing.
And, you know, they get rewarded by cushy MSNBC and CNN, you know, jobs, which, by the way, they deserve.
They're not that cushy.
I've had them all.
A one-year contract does not buy you a house.
But, you know, yeah, I hear you.
I take your point.
Fair enough.
And they absolutely deserve to be in those positions because they are they are experts and really know more than I did.
Yes.
Yeah.
I mean, Andrew Weissman is now a congressman based on his work with the impeachment.
So no question.
Weissman, you mean.
Oh, what did I say?
I'm thinking.
Andrew Goldman?
No.
Goldman.
Goldman, yeah.
Anyway, forgive me.
Yes, that's who it was.
But Weissman is actually on MSNBC, you're one of those two, so he gets in there.
So, that is, I think we solved, I don't think we solved any problems, I'm not so sure, but I think we coalesced the vapor of human existence a little bit here.
No, it was great.
It was a great conversation.
We covered a lot of ground about all of these different things that are happening and really hard to keep track of as they take place over, you know, generations, much less just the last few years.
I think we did a pretty good job of coalescing it all together and certainly giving our take.
I think Jared's going to really have a hard time coming back to this seat, having my brilliance take place.
Yeah, it'll be very difficult.
I will have to do my best to get his confidence back.
But don't worry.
How can people find you, by the way, before we wrap up?
Well, I haven't written as many books as Jared, that's for damn sure.
Just my podcast.
I do a daily podcast where I talk with the smartest people I can find, new guests each day about important issues that help, hopefully, that are in the public's interest and help you lead a life that you can understand what the hell is happening in the world and in your own life as well, because we talk about a lot of personal stuff too.
Absolutely.
Well, it's a great show.
Everybody definitely has to listen to it as much as they can.
You know, every day, man, that's a grind.
Big respect to be able to do that.
Thank you, man.
I love it.
It's pretty much the only thing I do.
My daughters are teenagers now, and I built the shed that I do podcasts out of, and I absolutely love it.
So hopefully I can keep it going, because it's really very fulfilling.
Absolutely.
Well, thank you so much, Pete, for coming on the show.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you all for listening to our show here.
Go buy The Midnight Kingdom, A History of Power, Paranoia and the Coming Crisis by Jared Yates Sexton.
Great book.
I started reading it.
I don't know if you have.
Yes.
I believe that the term is a page-turner, and it spurns... I was taking notes just because my mind was starting racing with ideas coming directly from his text.
It really is a terrific book.
Everyone should get it where they can get any... Yeah, it was just kind of fun, I think, probably for both of us to be talking with Jared regularly throughout the researching of this book, and you just talked to me like, I've been researching history all day, and, you know, it's kind of like you saw him doing the work, and now to see it out is really amazing.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Well, Pete, thanks again for joining us and everybody else out there.
And stay tuned, we'll be back again for our Friday Weekender episode on Patreon, which you'll get part of as a freebie on the Apple Podcast or wherever else you get them.
