Lincoln Project Scandal: Washington Corruption As Usual?
The Lincoln Project was founded by a group of "never-Trump" Republicans, including the former presidential campaign manager of John McCain. While the anti-Trump "resistance" types wrote big checks, the Lincoln Project founders banked big bucks for themselves. Some of the founders did even more repulsive things. Is this a singular scandal or is this just business as usual for the grifter class that exists alongside big-spending political campaigns? Also today: Newsom and Cuomo both in trouble; McConnell - what did he say?
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, welcome to the program.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you?
I'm doing fine.
We're all thawing out here in Texas.
Pretty good warm last night, even though I was born and raised in the North.
It's supposed to be warm down here.
And I'm really hacked off a little bit about those global warming people because I was anticipating that my fruit trees would live through the winter and I'd have my grapefruit trees.
But when it goes down in the 15, you know, the fruit trees do a lot of damaging.
So I guess we'll have to just wait a while before we get to global warming.
But it just shows such hypocrisy on some of the people who make these predictions.
But we will fall out.
And now we want to warm up with our subject today because there's lots to talk about.
Most of it is the dust is settling, you know, from the impeachment process.
The people who didn't win, so to speak, even though I don't think from the very beginning they expected to win, and that is the Democrats who filed the impeachment charges.
They haven't given up.
They're just in the middle of a fight that went on a long time before Trump was sworn in, and it happened throughout his whole term, and it's still going.
Even though they impeach twice and lose twice, I think they're just going to continue, continue, continue because they can't stand it.
Now, Daniel, one of the things that fascinated me the most, sort of entertained me a bit, was there was a quote of a Democratic participant in the trial, and they were quoting him what he said behind the scenes.
He said, we have to get this guy out and make sure that he never runs again, because if he does, he'll probably win.
And that might tell you the real thing.
I think it's outright fear of Trump rather than saying that we're looking for justice.
And I've been pretty darn disappointed with the few Republicans that have turned on him because they didn't turn on principle.
They turned on a little bit of pragmatism and power mongering.
And specifically, I think the leader, the Republican leader in the Senate has not done the world any benefits.
And yet they're still gunning and they're working together.
And that kind of talk that we heard from him reminds me of my persistence in making the point that there's a lot of bipartisanship.
So when you look at what's going on, you can see that on the surface, they have to take certain positions, but behind the scenes, I think they work together.
And the power structure stuff, one thing for sure, there was a lot of bipartisan opposition to Trump.
In spite of all his problems, the exaggerations that were made during the trial were outlandish.
But they're going to continue.
And as I've mentioned before, I think things are actually going to get worse because they're going to go into civil court and they're going to work hard to see what they can do to bankrupt Trump.
So his troubles aren't over.
And since it involves the rule of law and the normal process, I think it's going to be a burden for the American people.
Yeah, I think so.
And there are certainly many, many differences, thankfully substantive differences between your presidential campaigns and the presidential campaign of Trump and style.
But what I think this shows, what McConnell's statement shows, and it's not just him, there are many like him, but his was just so out in the front.
These people would rather lose than to embrace a populist and popular candidate.
You know, they would rather have lost in 08 and 2012 than to have allowed you to continue the momentum that you were developing.
And that's why they scrambled to change the rules late in the game to prevent you from getting any delegates.
And you're seeing that same impulse now.
You know, someone like McConnell would rather lose the Senate, which he's done, than embrace truly populist and popular people and populist and popular ideals for them.
It's all about the process and maintaining power.
Yes, and there are a few other items that I want to bring up today that it looks like you could argue they're a setback for the Democrats, but that doesn't mean a lot because they have a lot of powerful allies in the media and in the social networks.
But a couple things like, you know, the governor of California and New York, they're in a little bit of trouble.
And then there's another project, a political project of the Lincoln Project, which doesn't show that it's smooth sailing for them.
But let's start with the one that shows such irony and such hypocrisy that in California, they had to get a million and a half names, as I understand, signed on a petition to get an election going.
They have more than that, and they're going to get a lot more.
They're probably going to have 2 million.
But you know what?
The odds are going to be very, very tough for them to get that passed because everybody in the administration in California are liberal Democrats and they support the governor.
So that's up for grabs.
And yet they're arguing that, you know, in looking at these, there's a lot of people.
You know, they're gathering every vote.
They're doing exactly the opposite of what they were doing in the election.
In the election, they were including everybody.
Now they're trying to exclude everybody because they don't want to get that numbers up.
It's so hypocritical.
And it's a good reason why people are cynical and disgusted and sometimes just throw up their hands about it.
But nevertheless, there's a tinge of hope with these things going on in the recall in California.
And we've talked about that on the program several times.
That should give us a little hope.
The people need to speak out.
And hopefully, in the end, some good will come of that.
Yeah, it's interesting.
In the article that we both read quotes Richard Crinnell, who was the director of national intelligence for a time under Trump, and also, I think, Trump's ambassador to Germany for a time.
And he's pretty active in California politics.
And there's some rumors that he might try to run if they recall Gavin Newsom.
But as you say, the recall effort has passed the minimum 1.5 million signatures on a petition, which will trigger a special election, a special recall election later this year.
But Grinnell pointed out in this article that we both read how ironic it is that, as you say, the Democrats had no interest in verifying ballots that were mailed in the presidential election.
But all of a sudden, they've gotten religion.
They've gotten some old-time religion, Dr. Paul.
And here's what Grinnell said.
The state of California is controlled by a whole bunch of Democrats, one-party rule, and they're going to go through every single signature we have and throw out one.
The verification process is going to be unlike anything we've ever seen.
So it's, again, irony, hypocrisy, whatever you want to call it.
And my governor from the other end of the country in New York, I think he's in a little bit of trouble because we do hear that Democrats are actually saying, hey, enough is enough and he might hurt us someday.
And that takes a lot for them to get heard over and above all the support they get from the media.
But, you know, Cuomo and having to do with the nursing home fiasco that they had, it was well known early on about him forcing the nursing homes to take people in.
A lot of people died.
But now this cover-up, a lot of times people say the crime sometimes aren't nearly as bad as the cover-up.
In his case, I think both are horrible because the people who were forced back into the nursing homes, you know, many of them died and the families are upset.
And guess what?
Democrats died as well as Republicans and they are joining together.
And Cuomo is pretty unconcerned.
It just seems like it goes over him.
He doesn't express anything.
He just goes along as if this was a little setback, but they just have to pursue it because people die, he says.
And what can you do about it?
So he's rubbed people the wrong way.
And I guess they don't have a recall or we would have it.
Maybe his recall will come with the next election.
But anyway, there will be people talking about serious charges on this.
How far can you go?
You compare what he did to the things that they concocted and claimed that Trump did.
You know, it makes Trump stuff look rather minor.
And as we said so many times, Trump was no angel.
But these clowns up there in New York, that is so bad.
And yet it's a struggle to get the information out.
I think fortunately, you know, eventually the people do wake up and it looks like the people of New York are waking up to what kind of an individual Cuomo really is.
Yeah, remember how he was basking in the universal praise of the Fauci and he was even given an Emmy Award for his handling of this crisis.
He had a best-selling book or he had a book, at least, I don't know if it was a best-selling book, about how wonderful he was in handling this.
It turns out the real scandal is that he conspired, I guess you would have to call it, with his top aides to conceal from the federal government the true toll taken on folks in rest homes because he ordered sick people into the rest homes with non-sick people from COVID.
And of course, they spread like wildfire and so many of them died.
But as you say, the cover-up is in many ways, at least for him politically, worse than the crime.
But, you know, I wouldn't just blame Cuomo.
He's a monster.
There's no question about it.
But one of the legislators in New York and in places like Texas even, who have given Cuomo dictatorial powers, total dictatorial powers with no oversight whatsoever.
You know, they've been sleeping down here in Texas.
I'm sure they're sleeping in New York.
They're starting to wake up because they're worried about their political futures now because the scandal is so enormous.
But what is wrong with these people?
And what is wrong with the media and what is wrong with the citizens to allow one person to have such unbelievable dictatorial power?
Yeah, and you're pointing out so well something that I've been concerned about is the apathy and the people who do it.
And they figure they're either going to get a little bit or they don't care and they don't get involved until it gets really over the top.
But that's generally a rule, but it doesn't mean that people can't be awakened.
And I think that's what's happening right now.
I want to mention an interesting comment made by Lindsey Graham.
And then we're going to go on to the Lincoln Project because that's big in the news.
Very fascinating politics there and atrocious stuff there.
We look at all this.
Lincoln Project may be bringing about some real trash that is almost embarrassing to have to bring it up.
But Kamala Harris has been involved in the law enforcement in California as the attorney or the district attorney prosecuting people and putting them in jail for minor drug offenses.
And she was inconsistent.
She was called on in the campaign.
And then she's also been involved in an organization that raised money that got to work on releasing and getting people amnesty and pardons that have been in prison for justifiable reasons.
Libertarians don't like prisons.
There's way too many people in there because there are too many laws.
But in this case, they had put away some really bad people.
And so what did she do?
She got so many of them released, and many of them went on to commit more heinous crimes than they had before.
Now, Lindsay has come up with a suggestion.
Her crimes far surpass any of the accusations that were made against Trump.
And you don't have to be in office, you know.
Of course, she is in office.
She's a vice president.
She can be impeached, and there's no technicality there.
So she, and Graham says she should be impeached.
But of course, you can't impeach somebody with a Democratic Congress and a Democratic House.
So he's a whale for two years.
So it was an interesting thought to make people, you know, realize it.
And that just goes to show that people on both sides are anticipating that this fighting is going to go on forever, not forever, for a long time.
But it also, to me, makes the point that the country's bankrupt.
That's why we're not going to settle our economic, inflationary, and monetary problems in the next month or two or a year or two.
And this is why we're not going to solve these political social problems either.
They're going to continue because this country is bankrupt.
It's bankrupt morally and it's bankrupt financially.
And you don't get out of it until you liquidate the malinvestment and the distortions.
And that's what the market and the people are trying to do.
But unfortunately, it's just prolonged by people making things much worse.
And I think that's what's going on.
Republicans are lining it up.
But it makes a point.
It does make a point of the hypocrisy that was going on in this trial.
Yeah.
And what Senator Graham says is that opens the Pandora's box, this impeachment of Trump.
And I don't believe for a second that Graham would do anything like this because, frankly, I think he's all talked.
And Republicans, for better or for worse, have shown they have no taste at all for exercising power.
The Democrats understand how to use power, even if it blows up in their faces.
But it does.
You're right.
I mean, I think what Graham says is right.
And a lot of people made the point that, you know, bailing out people for violent crimes, the antifotypes, and having them go out and beat up people afterward is certainly up there on par with what they claim that Trump did on January 6th.
So we'll see what happens.
Right.
Liberals and the Tea Party Money Maze00:05:36
Now, on the Lincoln Project, this is something that sort of snuck up on a lot of people, including myself, because it's been around for a while and they've raised a lot of money.
And you never, I didn't know, and a lot of other people didn't know exactly what are they up to?
You hear about them.
And sounds controversial, but it sounded like they were raising money from Republicans, specifically the Republicans who hated Trump.
And they raised a lot of money.
It was said that they raised $80 million last year.
But boy, now they are in a scandal.
They're in a monetary scandal because nobody knows exactly where the money went.
Their goal was, and their promise was that the money would be used to support the never, never Trump position and be anti-Republican.
But it also now is involved in a sexual scandal, abusing young boys.
And it's just sickening on what's going on.
But it looks like they've been caught, but not even, you know, all the supporters have given up on that.
You know, it's interesting that Bain Corporation, it happens to be, you know, associated with Romney, they gave money to this outfit.
But that was Fit.
He was consistent because Romney is pretty consistent about that.
He's anti-Trump.
He's a Republican, has a never Trumpo.
So he puts money.
Now, he might have just been conned.
Well, this is what we're really wanting to do.
We want to help from a Republican position.
We'll have more credibility than being a Democrat.
So they've done this.
But it looks like that incident was just a tool for raising money and getting powerful and getting wealthy rather than them really running a practical organization that was really going to contribute in any way.
But their goal was to distort things that, well, this is what you need to do.
Support us and we'll make sure Trump will be impeached and never be elected again.
So, but this looks like it's just really starting.
And the Republicans and Democrats are starting to wake up to the seriousness of this project.
It reminds me of the old saying, a fool and his money are soon parted.
Because what they really raised a lot of money from is liberals because they portrayed themselves.
And in fact, it was founded by someone who probably did some attack ads on you, which is the campaign manager for McCain back in 08, Steve Schmidt.
It was founded by a group of Republicans, and basically they appealed to the resistance liberals: hey, we are going to deny Trump the presidency.
We are a group of Republicans.
We're going to come at him as Republicans and undermine support in his own party.
And so the liberals said, How much do I, where do I make the checkout to?
And they did write a lot of checks.
They wrote up, oh, I think it's actually they raised over $100 million.
But what I saw, aside from the sexual stuff, which unfortunately there is a lot of that in Washington too, anyway.
But what I saw really is the normal Washington business as usual, but on a much larger scale, you know, where these organizations crop up.
And I have to say, you know, when the Tea Party came out, which you started, there are a lot of groups all of a sudden call themselves Tea Party because they believe there's a lot of money involved.
And so they believe there's a lot of money involved in this and they raised a lot of money.
Well, they paid themselves massive salaries through shell companies and consulting fees and everything.
This is kind of business as usual there, but on a much, much larger scale.
So while these guys, I think, are scoundrels and criminals, it is sort of fun.
It's sort of funny to see these liberals writing these massive checks to this organization where they're just basically pocketing millions and millions of dollars.
You know, that reminds me of a little story, excuse me, incident that occurred during the campaign.
Excuse me again.
That was when we had a fundraiser, spontaneous fundraiser, where we raised a million dollars one day, which made headlines in the news.
That was really the beginning of the so-called Tea Party movement.
And it was on that celebration for the original Tea Party that that occurred.
Anyway, we raised $6 million.
It made a little news.
And I can remember that shortly after that, I went back.
I was in Congress in the house.
So I went back.
I was voting.
And several members came up to me and they wanted to talk about that.
They said, wow, we didn't know you were an expert on the internet.
How do you do it?
What's the technique?
We need to do that.
You know, well, help out us Republicans.
You know, how do you do that?
Anyway, which is ironic.
I had no idea.
I didn't have much to do about it because it was all spontaneous.
But I believed in my heart that we raised money because I was, you know, speaking a message and talking about liberty, and they were supportive of it.
And I still think that's what raised the money.
But to them, it was just a technique.
And they wanted to know how it was done.
I've learned a lot about the internet since then.
But at that time, you know, it was spontaneous, which was fantastic.
People that knew a lot more would get together and they'd organize and the various organizations would come together.
So, yes, they're always interested on how to raise money, but they're not interested in what the background might be.
It may be the reason, maybe it's because they hate Trump.
Why They Supported Us00:04:11
Maybe it'll be because they love liberty.
Yes, maybe.
You know, that is what terrifies them the most, though, is the ability to raise money on philosophy, on something that they feel threatened by, which is we need less government.
What do you mean?
You're not going to need us.
We have to run your lives.
But that's why, of course, they had to change all the rules on you at the last minute.
But I just see this, Dr. Paul, as kind of business as usual on a grand scale.
Right.
So do you want to go ahead and close, Daniel, because we'll be moving along?
Yeah, I will.
I just want to thank our viewers and thank them for being patient with us.
We are not used to driving in icy weather down here in South Texas.
It doesn't happen very often.
So we may be marooned at home for a day or two at least.
We'll see what happens.
But I still want to thank everyone for tuning in, and we'll be back in our studio as soon as possible.
Very good.
Thank you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
Thank you.
And I want to thank the viewers and listeners just as well because we depend on you.
We depend on your responses and your comments.
But also helping us spread the message and getting more people to endorse it because we talk about the importance of leadership, the small number who are thought leaders versus also you have to have a large number of people who will motivate the government.
The people stand up.
And that's what we're seeing today.
There are some people finally standing up to these governors and things are changing.
So that is good.
But it's something to me that is very, very important.
I do believe that we're through very, very unusual, serious times.
And it comes from what I write about and talk about the bankruptcy.
It's a financial crisis.
But bigger than that, it's a moral crisis because people's minds and values are just twisted around.
And people say, well, how can they do that?
How can they be such hypocrites?
And how can they do that?
They're fibbing and all this stuff.
It's because they have a different standard.
And this is true when you have the extreme authoritarianism, whether it's a fascist or communist system.
And they recognize the fact that truth is established by the state.
And we're getting so much closer to that.
And the distribution of that truth is through the social media.
They will determine whether you can say certain things.
Now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been banned from certain social media, it tells you, you know, the bigger the name, the more they enjoy trying to close somebody down.
So we're drifting so quickly away from freedom of expression that it gets dangerous.
So that has to reverse itself.
We need a lot more people.
I saw something, it was sort of sad.
I don't know what it means.
But we do know that Edward Snowden has not found refuge in the United States.
He's in Russia.
Well, you know, they did that, give them the benefit of the doubt that they're not the communists that we dealt with for so many years.
And now we hear that they might be trying to help Parler get back on the internet.
Well, which is, you know, people say, well, you can't be an ally of them.
Well, I've been on Russia today.
They allow me a freedom of speech that I don't get from a lot of other stations or even on the internet.
So, yes, the Russians may have something up their sleeve.
They may be, you know, sneaking it in.
Maybe they have a soft spot for the heart, or maybe it might be just pure politics.
But pure politics means that they see an advantage of gathering up people and get support from people who might like the idea that Edward Snowden was given some consideration and also that Parlor is getting some help from the Russians.
Really, really ironic.
I just hope that's a good sign, not a distortion.
But once again, I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.