The Scott Adams School - 04/21/26 Lisa De Pasquale Joins The NEWS CREW. WHITEBOARD DAY!!!!
Scott Adams hosts "The Scott Adams School" with Lisa DePasquale, dissecting political hoaxes via the "Tucker rule" and analyzing 2 million alleged anti-Trump documents in FBI burn bags. They examine Shamim Mafi's LAX arrest for Iranian arms trafficking and debate DHS funding failures amidst a $70 million drone contract. The discussion covers JD Vance's Pakistan trip regarding Iran negotiations, conflicting ceasefire reports, and Iranian leverage claims, concluding with Marcella's court-related absence and upcoming NATO and wind power topics. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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The Essential Cup of Coffee00:02:07
I know it makes me happy.
All right, let's do the song.
Ready?
I'm like, ready?
You can even lower it.
There you go.
I'm ready.
How would you like to take it up to a level that you've never seen before?
Yeah, ready.
All you need for that is a cup of mug or a glass.
Take your chills aside.
You can't even enjoy the glass.
A vessel of any kind.
It's time for Scott Adams' school.
Be useful is the primary rule.
Owen is here with the news.
Marcella brings the legal views.
She runs the show Who's the guest?
We wanna know Got your glass, your mug, your cup.
Pour your coffee.
I like coffee.
Oh, yeah.
It's cool.
So good.
I love it.
I think it's all working today.
Funky vibes to get us started.
I know.
I mean, listen, Owen and I, we love that kind of music, don't we?
Okay.
So, you guys, I'm so thirsty.
I can't wait to tell you who's here.
But first, let's do it.
You came to the right place.
Yes.
If you would like to enjoy coffee with Scott Adams, all you need is.
A cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stein, a canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dope of the meat of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
The simultaneous sip.
It's going to be a good one.
Go.
Ooh, super bullish, I must say.
Oh, I like that.
All right, you guys, here we are.
Another day at the Scott Adams School.
Unwrapping Candy with Michael00:02:44
And we are so lucky because joining us for the first time on the morning show is Lisa DePasquale.
Do you say DePasquale?
I say DePasquale.
I thought so.
When I said it, I'm like, that didn't sound right.
You guys, we're so lucky to have Lisa joining Marcella and Owen and myself.
It is April 21st.
2026.
And oh, you guys, I have Lisa's book right here.
Lisa joined me on Locals one night and we had Kev on with us and we were chatting.
So, this is the Gen X Handbook for Middle Age.
And Lisa, I was watching you and Michael Malice talk about it and all the trippy stuff that he was like getting tripped back into.
But then I was cracking up because I always tell everybody on here how much I love Malice forever and ever and ever.
And then I saw this clip of the two of you from six years ago.
And this is how, like, I first remember Michael.
And he's like thin and he always has some weird assortment of candy or soda, right?
Always with his shows.
And you're talking and he's just unwrapping ring pops and putting one on each finger on both of his hands.
How was that for you?
You know, it was really great.
It was really, you know, inspirational.
Made me want to keep going on my weight loss journey.
I know you're talking about weight loss and he's got a table full of candy.
I'm like, what's happening, Michael?
Always a troll.
Always.
You guys, he is the world's best troll.
And if you don't get that, you just don't get him.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's funny because it was also kind of like an ASMR thing going around because it was also audio and people that were just listening on audio had no idea what was going on because, you know, I never responded to it.
Because he didn't want me to.
Yeah, he's like, I'm just going to be unwrapping candy and you just keep talking.
Yeah.
So this whole journey is now somehow, I don't know what possessed me to want to start and end, well, not end because there's no end, start my weight loss journey on Michael Malice's show and continue throughout it.
I mean, whatever, but I love him.
He's great.
He's, I wouldn't say he's a neighbor, he's in Austin.
But, you know, it's fun to hang out with him.
And, you know, I don't want to ruin his reputation, but he is a very nice guy.
He is.
I'm obsessed with him.
And you guys, Michael Malice will be on with us on Thursday.
So you will get to, if you have never seen him or met him, you will meet him on Thursday right here at the Scott Adams School.
A Race Scott Would Love00:02:48
Okay, you guys, before we get into it, we have a whiteboard, you guys.
Do we love whiteboard day?
Yes, we do.
And we sort of have a little theme going with the whiteboard.
It's about hoaxes.
But first, I wanted to give you.
An update.
Remember our robot race the other day?
Well, I was curious who happened to win that race.
Apparently, it was Marcella's favorite racer.
My robot.
Yeah, it was her robot.
And I want you to see what happened at the finish line.
It's so good.
Watch the guys in the background, too.
It's so good.
That's how I run.
Yeah.
Medics, look at the medics, baby.
Look at the back.
Oh my God.
Is it okay?
The medics coming over with this stretcher was my most favorite part.
Oh, that's amazing.
This is exactly why I don't win marathons because I, you know, like you have to open that, and what if I hurt myself, you know?
That's the only reason.
That's the reason, yeah.
Well, Marcella, you can say, like me, we've never lost a marathon.
That's true.
I joined the marathon.
Reframe.
My wife has run several marathons, and I don't understand the mindset.
I don't know why people want to do that.
Oh, I like your wife now.
It just seems like you're damaging your body.
Right?
I only run if I'm being chased.
And I always say to Marcella, and I'm like, and I think if I was being chased, I would just give up.
Up a fight, but I'd be like, I'm not going to run.
Like, I can't stand that kind of being chased feeling.
I think I would just turn around and be like, let's just have the physical fight right now.
And I've never been in a fight in my life, but I feel like that's what I would do.
And there's my dream of running a marathon with you and Owen.
Oh, blessed.
Shattered, shattered dreams right here.
Yeah.
And then one other quick clip because you guys, I couldn't stand it.
It was so cute.
And I just know this is something Scott would have loved.
Scott loved when two different species of animals were friends.
And so this is just, just humor me.
Lady and the Chimp Hoax00:14:38
That's the clip.
Lady and the chimp.
Oh, Lady and the chimp.
So that was it.
But I hope that wasn't actually milk, or there's going to be explosive issues later.
But all right.
So, you guys, not to just shut us right down again, but better than us is Scott.
And the best thing we all love are his whiteboard lessons.
So, this is about, I think, an eight minute lesson.
And we're going to discuss it on the other side.
And buckle up, grab your mugs, and let's go.
All right, now let me show you on the whiteboard how to identify a hoax, how to create a good hoax, and then I'm going to predict the summer hoax.
There's always a summer hoax for Trump.
So we'll start with how to create a good hoax.
If it was your job to do a dirty trick and create a Trump hoax, what criteria would you use?
I would use first the Tucker rule, Tucker Carlson.
You remember the Tucker rule?
That whatever the Democrats are doing themselves, they will blame you of.
So rule number one, the hoax has to be something that Democrats are doing that's sketchy that they're going to accuse the other side of doing.
So it has to have that quality, accusing you of what they're doing.
It needs to be unverifiable.
The alternative to that is a video that they can clip.
So there's two kinds of main hoaxes they use against Trump.
One is the anonymous source, and the other is the anonymous source goes along with, I've seen something that you haven't seen.
Oh yeah, I was in this GIF, and I saw something secret that you can't see, but oh, it's bad.
Oh, it's bad.
Until you see it, and it's not.
So the unverifiable sources are good because all summer long the pundits can say, well, we don't know what's true, but if, if the reports are true that he urinated on a hooker's bed, ho, ho, ho, if they're true.
And so all summer long when it's slow news, you could have if it's true stories.
So that's the other requirement.
Now, as you know, a good hoax would play to people's biases.
What do I mean by that?
Well, remember when Trump was running the first time, and even when he was president, the claim against him was he was a big old racist.
So the best kind of hoax would be a hoax that shows him looking racist.
That's what the fine people hoax was.
So the fine people hoax was to play to the bias.
Oh, you already think he thinks this way, so we'll create a hoax by leaving out some of the video that makes him look like he was praising neo-Nazis.
Of course he wasn't.
If there's anybody here who still thinks that really happened, you need to do your homework.
He never called any neo-Nazis fine people in the real world.
He said the opposite.
The video was edited to make it to reverse it.
Now, likewise, do you remember when the pandemic hit and the big complaint about Trump was?
What was the biggest complaint about Trump when the pandemic hit?
Well, he's not a science guy, right?
What does he know about science?
So you need a hoax that plays to the bias that Trump doesn't know enough about science.
So they did the drinking bleach hoax.
Oh yeah, he recommended drinking bleach, which of course never happened.
Nor did he recommend ingesting a household cleaner of any kind.
That never happened.
He was talking about light therapy that was a thing.
It was edited to take out the light part, and so people thought he was talking about drinking bleach.
So whatever the new hoax will be, It's going to be Tucker Rule.
It's going to be unverifiable or it's a video that they edit misleadingly.
Could be the one.
It plays to the bias so you're already, the people who don't like Trump would already be primed to accept it because, ah, that's what we thought.
That is exactly what we thought he was like.
And here's the best one.
It should be designed to remove a Trump advantage.
What would be an example of that?
Well, I would say that a Trump advantage would be his ability to work with Putin, wouldn't you say?
Trump's ability to get along with Putin would be a Trump advantage.
But you can take that away by saying that he's actually colluding with Russia.
So you don't just say it didn't happen.
You don't just say, oh, that's not a good idea that he could get along with Putin.
You go right at it and you say, oh, it's not only a bad idea, but he's colluding with Russia.
He's an actual treasonous president.
So, given all these things, can you predict what the hoax will be this summer?
You should, because it already started.
Trump is trying to help Iran with secret documents that would be bad for Israel.
Who's the prime minister of Israel right now?
Who's the prime minister of Israel?
Benjamin Netanyahu.
Who gets along with Benjamin Netanyahu better than any president?
Trump.
Trump and Netanyahu are classic buddies.
So if you are, if you're the Democrats, you want to put some distance between Trump and Netanyahu, but also Trump and Israel.
You'd like Jewish voters in the United States to say, whoa, that Trump guy, he's kind of anti-Israel.
But Trump is the most pro-Israel president of all time.
And the only way they can take that away from him is with a hoax.
So they're going to have to come up with a hoax that a document you can't see, but somebody did.
Oh yeah, if it's what we think it is, if those boxes, we don't know for sure, but if those boxes have an Iranian attack document, and if he took that, it was to give it to Iran because he's not really on Israel's side.
What do you think?
And already we're seeing it, right?
If I had made this up just a few months ago, you would have said, that's crazy.
Come on, that's just crazy.
Yeah, and he also had the success with the Abraham Accords.
So, but it's already happening.
This is literally in the news already that there was some Iranian attack document that's really the one that's sensitive in these Mar-a-Lago boxes.
Oh, sure, maybe the other stuff was just souvenirs, but oh, oh, the Iranian attack document that you've never seen and can't be confirmed and it's not even in the SCIF so anybody can look at it and say what they saw.
Oh, but what if it exists?
What if?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the summer Trump hoax.
Now, I hope you've also learned how to make a hoax.
I'm giving the DNC ideas.
No, I'm not.
You don't think they thought of this?
This is the classic Trump hoax.
And they always do it in the summer.
Ideally, they want to do it in the summer because there's nothing else to talk about.
So people would just talk about this all summer long.
You have to admit, you have to admit, this is good hoax spotting.
You've seen all the hoaxes, you know how they do it, but now I've pulled it together so you can see all the elements of it.
And by the way, you might see a lot more of this.
I mean, this might not be the one you see.
You probably see lots of them.
And that is why you follow me because you won't see that on CNN or MSNBC.
You're welcome.
You're welcome.
I love it.
All right.
Owen, I'm going to toss this to you first.
And I can't wait to see what this summer hoaxes will be.
We'll have to follow along and see if they play out the way Scott said.
What say you?
I mean, I think we're already seeing a bunch of hoaxes.
We had the whole Trump is, you know, affiliated with Epstein hoax that was bandied about, and that he was trying to hide all the Epstein files because he was involved in it.
That was one of the hoaxes.
And now he's trying to, Or the Democrats are trying to take away the military support.
And then the first one, of course, was the hoax about unlawful actions and trying to get the military to essentially revolt and not follow his orders.
And then the latest, I think, was that the aircraft carrier food was bad.
And that was after saying the military food was too good with the surf and turf dinner or whatever it was.
Oh, yeah.
And so now they're complaining about the food no matter what in terms of that.
And that's all a hoax, too.
That was debunked today.
In a story I posted about, you know, the food is fine.
It's a high quality food and it's not, you know, overly good or overly bad, either one.
But so they're trying this all the time.
But I think it certainly will ramp up in the summer, especially this year because we got the midterms coming up.
So there's going to be all the October, you know, surprise type things coming later on.
And I'm sure we'll see a bunch in the summer too.
Yeah.
October surprises seem to come all year round.
Marcella, I'm going to jump to you next.
What would you like to add on to that?
And then we'll go to Lisa.
I mean, all the Democrats have is hoaxes.
So, I mean, I guess there will be a summer hoax.
One of the hoaxes that I caught, because I watched Morning Joe, I watch it so you guys don't have to, unless now.
One of the hoaxes now is that even if he reaches peace with Iran and signs some kind of deal with the nuclear deal, What the hoax now is, is that everything that he's going to do, President Trump, is what Obama did already.
And Obama did it better.
And that's completely false, but that's what they're trying to sell to the Democrats and to the rest of the public because they're major media.
That's the new one.
Everyone's thanking you for watching it so they don't have to.
I know, because my next question was why do you do it, Marcella?
Because it makes me understand where they're going because their talking points are usually what the rest of the talking points are everywhere else.
So, and as soon as I saw the Obama thing, you hear it everywhere else.
Yep.
Okay.
All right.
Lisa, let me toss over to you.
What did you think about the whiteboard, the hoaxes, what's happening out there?
Yeah.
I mean, I think he hit a good point about usually it's something like they accuse.
Us of doing.
And, you know, Owen was talking about the midterms.
And I'm wondering, you know, with today, the thing that's up for vote in Virginia, my former state, oh, yeah, about the gerrymandering.
I mean, I feel like we're going to start seeing, like, this is what Republicans are doing to, like, carve out, you know, votes and get rid of what was the last thing, like, married women can't vote or something like that.
Which is funny because, if anything, I would want to get the unmarried women to not vote.
100%.
So I think it's probably going to be something that they think will move, you know, in the midterms.
They always tend to go back to, you know, the thing with women.
So that's what makes me think it might not be foreign policy related, but I do think certainly whatever MS Now is saying is what we should really be concerned about is probably one of the most egregious.
Yeah.
And the other thing about Iran is there'll be, say, a peace deal, but then it's all to line the Trump family's pockets.
So there'll be like the Gaza Strip hotels and Iran hotels, and somehow.
Um, you know, we'll own the oil or Trump will own the oil or oil rights, or you know, whatever those things are.
That's right.
But don't forget, you also have James Carvel out there, like, make Puerto Rico a state and let them vote.
And you're like, oh my God, you hysterical maniac.
It's just like, any way they can redraw, redistrict.
Go ahead, Owen.
Well, I would just go say, by the way, that election for that gerrymandering referendum is today.
So if you happen to live in Virginia, make sure you get out and vote today to vote that down.
Yeah.
It's important.
I mean, you got Spamberger there, so she's a wackadoo.
And it is, of course, worded completely wrongly in terms of how that ballot question says Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections while ensuring Virginia's standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?
So it kind of conflicts with itself.
It's like, wait a second.
If you're restoring fairness, why would you have to go back to the other one later?
Voting Fair in Virginia00:02:47
Right.
Like, it doesn't make any sense.
But it seems like they've been very crafty in terms of trying to make it think, make you think, oh, this is just making it more fair when it's doing the exact opposite.
It's just basically saying, okay, only Democrats are going to get elected now in Virginia, even though so many of the voters are not Democrats because they're just going to carve them up into little pieces so they can't really elect anybody.
Yeah.
I mean, their use of fairness is like the definition of inflammable.
Like, it means the opposite.
Oh, yeah.
Mm hmm.
They're always looking in the mirror when they're projecting.
Fairness to them, which means they just want to have all the votes.
And now I like how they want fair elections and this.
Oh, okay.
Where were you before?
All right.
So that, you know, hoaxes, we're going to watch them.
We watch them all the time.
I think we see them every single day.
You know, I mean, you just, anyone that's standing in front of a lectern, like Cory Booker screaming yesterday, and like everybody just wants to be like heard.
And I'm the drama, the drama queen of the day.
And they just keep getting more animated and ridiculous with every passing day.
It's like clickbait, right?
Like I have to outdo yesterday's lunatic with today's lunacy.
So, you know, they're really backing this country into a corner.
And yes, Spartacus.
So we have to be careful, you know.
But I feel like this group here, it's going to be our job to help our friends understand that a lot of what they're seeing are hoaxes in the making or already established hoaxes.
So let's help our neighbors and friends understand what's happening and maybe even preemptively, you know, maybe show them Scott's whiteboard and just like, here's how a hoax develops.
Like, let's watch together and see which ones we can spot, kind of like.
Punch buggy in the car.
So let's buckle up because I have a feeling it's going to be more epic than the time before.
And also, Trump is done after this term.
Like everybody calmed down again.
I tell you.
Is he?
Or I know.
I think for the Democrats, they want to neutralize Trump for the last two years.
And then they want to obviously try and keep Vance from winning next.
They want power.
That's what it is.
And so they're doing everything they can to rig the system.
In their favor.
We need to come up with a new fashion for hoax season, something that goes with it.
You know, we'll come up with that.
And you want to have an idea, drop it in the chat, DM me, we'll wear it.
Okay, so.
You may wear it.
Well, yeah, Owen will.
Sure.
I was like, no problem.
I'll just whip that up.
So, keeping in theme with the hoaxes, so this is outrageous.
Investigating Burn Bags00:14:51
Owen, we're going to go to the FBI story.
I want to play the clip.
Do you want to brief it or should I play the clip first and then talk about it?
You could probably just play the clip.
I think the overall thing, though, is that there are about 2 million pages of anti Trump FDA documents.
That's the headline.
I mean, I don't know if it's all anti Trump, but there are 2 million documents that were found in these hidden burn bags.
So that's what the story's about.
But we can talk more about it after the clip.
All right.
You guys, it's a good, thorough clip.
It's five minutes and it's really important.
So let's dive in.
We'll be right back.
An unbelievable story at the FBI dating back to the James Comey era, a secret room at FBI headquarters in Washington that is allegedly filled with piles of documents, the majority anti Trump documents, all deliberately hidden in burn bags.
When the United States government and agency heads want things to disappear and want things to be buried and hidden, they know how to do it.
But what they didn't count on was President Trump winning, him electing leadership across the United States government to say, go find out how they corrupted and weaponized law enforcement.
So burn bags are common at like embassies to burn sensitive documents you don't want the public to get, you don't want adversaries to get.
But typically, you don't hear about burning documents at the FBI because those documents are typically needed in both current and future investigations, not to mention for the historical record.
But our next guest says it goes way beyond that.
There are nearly 2 million pages of records from Obama to Biden related to Jack Smith, Russiagate, elections, and the lawfare they used to try to take down Donald Trump for more than a decade.
Tom Finton is the president of Judicial Watch.
He uncovered this entire story and went public.
Tom, good to have you on.
I know you filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit with the FBI, and they confirmed the existence of all of this.
So where are we now with releasing these documents?
So, Dan Boggino and Cash also, as you can see, talked about these records that were either in burn bags or in hidden rooms.
So, we said, Well, give us those records, right?
And we were stalled and we didn't get the records.
We sued.
And to their credit, the FBI disclosed specifically just how many records were at issue, generally what they covered, as I said, Jack Smith.
And it could go back who knows how far in terms of other investigations that were political into Trump or related issues.
Who knows?
What other special counsel investigations they're hiding or other IG investigations they're hiding could be Russiagate, for example.
And they said they need about a year to kind of go through it all and get a handle on it.
And I compare this to the Epstein files, right?
The Epstein files with three and a half million records.
This is upwards of two million.
And if I were the FBI and Justice Department, I would make this a priority because, as far as I'm concerned, the Epstein records had a lot of interesting revelations.
But what the lawfare.
Lunatics were engaged in was a plot to undo our republic by trying to jail President Trump when he was president and then when he was running for president.
So that ought to be a problem.
Let me just stop you so I can just, I want to get everybody on the same page.
Just so, and there's been a lot of changes at the Department of Justice in the last several hours, so we'll see where this goes.
These were in burn bags.
That's really, really unusual.
Can I ask you, do we have any insight into why Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland didn't burn them?
We don't know who put them in there, why they were hidden, what was the purpose of hiding them from other.
The incoming FBI leadership had to figure out they were in either the burned bags or in the secret room generally.
And to me, that ought to be subject to a potential criminal investigation, and they should be questioning people closely as to how that happened.
And that kind of goes to the issue of Pam Bondi was essentially fired by President Trump.
You know, I think in the end, the FBI can investigate the FBI.
The Justice Department can investigate the Justice Department.
We can get the transparency.
I think we're getting more transparency.
But in the end, to the degree there are criminal actions by the Justice Department and FBI at issue in terms of the lawfare against President Trump, I think there should be outside agencies or independent counsels outside those two agencies looking at what went on here.
Okay.
Next step in the process, I've got.
30 seconds, Tom.
Well, the FBI says they need a year.
I'm hoping leadership of the Justice Department and the FBI recognize that this is a priority issue and they speed up the review of these documents.
The Epstein file shows it can be done where there's a political will.
And I'm hoping there's a political will to expose these lawfare documents.
Very good point.
And I'll just add to that that because of your work and you coming on tonight, the White House is aware of this.
Donald Trump is aware of this, whereas A couple of weeks ago, he didn't know about this.
So now he knows.
So I think that there will be something done to expedite that process.
A year seems like way too much time.
And I think that that is something that will be addressed by the new attorney general, hopefully.
Tom Finton, great to have you on tonight.
We'll have you back.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ron.
Thank you.
God bless Tom Finton.
The man is tireless.
Tireless.
Do you know he's not an attorney?
Little known fact.
No, I didn't know that.
Yep, he's not an attorney.
So, Owen, like, kind of bring that all together for us.
Cause I, I, all right.
So, all the questions in the chat are like, why wouldn't they have burned it?
Like, what is this secret room?
If you know, who says you can burn that?
You know, what the hell?
It's a great question.
I think it's a mystery at this point as far as how these things ended up in this secret room.
And I think that we did hear earlier on in this saga that, um, Somebody told Kash Patel about this secret room.
Like somebody led him to it and said, Hey, by the way, there's all this secret stuff here.
So I have to imagine there were some good guys in the FBI that somehow intercepted these things or said, You know what?
I'm not going to burn these.
I'm going to put these aside and tell them I burned them or something and preserve them essentially and just said, We're going to wait until somebody else is in office and then we're going to bring this stuff back out.
And, you know, I don't know if we'll ever know who those people were, but whoever you were, I consider you a hero for doing that.
And, um, You know, I think it is really incredible, and I think it is criminal in my opinion.
I mean, I don't know the law, but it would seem like it would have to be illegal to say you're not following the record procedures that normally apply to these things, that you didn't log them the way they're supposed to be logged.
You didn't put them in the record systems that the law, I think, requires for the FBI.
And so it does seem like they had this really extensive secret system for saying we're going to document what we're doing, maybe so we can pretend we're following the letter of the law, but we're not going to.
Put them in the places where they can be found.
And I think we heard separately that they had some special way of coding stuff so that it was hard to find.
So that when you did searches in the FBI system, you couldn't find certain records.
And that even the stuff that was logged in the computer systems ended up being kind of hidden unless you knew what to look for or you knew how to get through the coding systems that they used.
Which just makes it more sinister.
Yeah.
It just, I mean, it seems egregious.
It seems criminal to me.
And I'm hoping this is going to be used in some of the cases coming up that we're hearing from Todd Blanch that we're going to have because he's claiming that we are going to see.
Indictments coming soon.
I've heard that Comey is one of them, but he's not the only one.
And Brennan is rumored to be on the chopping block in terms of indictments.
And so I'm really hoping we will see some real accountability and maybe this documentation will be part of that.
Those cocky mofos, Comey and Brennan and Clapper and that.
I don't know about Clapper.
I'm just throwing him in.
Where's all my signs?
Allegedly, my opinion.
Lisa, I'm going to come to you first so our attorney can wrap us up in the end.
But, you know, doesn't this just Piss you off so bad.
What do you, you know, what's your feeling and your take on this?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I guess as a Gen Xer, I would say thank God we still have like an analog world where they were like something, something there.
Right.
I think Nancy asked in the chat, like, I really kind of just want to see what a burn bag looks like because I'm kind of imagining it like the money bags, like where it says, me too.
It's like people holding them.
But I think what's interesting about this is in a way it restores faith in some agencies.
Because I think when we think about deep state, we think about the whole agency is corrupt.
And I think we have to remember there are people that get into it that are patriotic and they're still there.
And so I'm grateful for that.
But you just have to hope that the people like Brandon and all the people that are really just.
You know, seeking power or using it as a political perch will be rooted out, allegedly.
For sure, rooted out, but allegedly those people.
Yeah.
All right.
Marcella, our attorney extraordinaire, what, I mean, what is going on here?
Well, as you know, like Scott would say, you know, government is so big, so you're going to have the Dilbert filter where people are quite.
Sometimes it's not the deep state, like Lisa was saying.
There are good people in there, but it's also there's a lot of incompetence.
I worked in California government, so I would know what that looks like.
But so the standard procedure I learned of it is that you part only classified documents in these burn bags, and then there's a secure, most of the time, it's sent with security.
To incinerate them.
So there's a process that you have to follow, which wasn't followed here, which then leads to this being perhaps whoever left it there can be criminally liable if they intentionally did it.
Now, with government, one hand doesn't know what the other is doing.
It needs to be investigated.
So beyond the fact that it needs to be investigated, what the documents are within the burn bags.
One of the things that Judicial Watch is complaining about is that the government says it's going to take them one year to go through all these classified documents to redact them in order to give it through the FOIA requests.
I understand it looks like it's like millions of documents.
So, if they don't have AI or a faster way of doing it, then obviously it's going to take time.
But my, you know, even my own cases, which is like this many, has taken like two or three years' litigation, you know?
So it's not surprising to me.
The surprising thing is, has there been an investigation opened by the DOJ to see who is criminally liable for this?
Right.
And then, like you were saying, the person who put the burn bags aside was criminally liable.
Is that what you're saying?
Yes, he could be criminally liable if they intentionally removed them from the process.
Because that means, one, they had access, perhaps, you know, obviously, and burn bags are just like paper bags with documents in them.
So they would have access.
There is, you're not facing a hard time.
You're facing possibly five years.
I mean, there could be a whole conspiracy beyond that, but it's the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents.
I think he'd get pardoned.
Yeah.
Does that even get that fall under like a whistleblower clause?
Potentially, he'd get pardoned.
I mean, that's like, I mean, if we're thinking that he's trying to help Trump, that's, that's, there could be different people, one that's talking about it.
In my mind, the crime was trying to destroy these documents to try and hide them.
And that, you know, you might be right that technically speaking, it might also be a crime to say, instead of burning them, I didn't burn them and I put them in this secret room.
But I think, you know, to me, that is kind of like the actions of a whistleblower.
I don't think you could officially call it whistleblower because he never made a complaint, as far as we know.
But, I think the, you know, the, I would certainly hope that Trump would pardon anybody if they were charged with anything for that.
I agree.
I mean, I can see Marcel, yeah, Marcella, I get what you're saying.
Like the guy screwed up his job, and we're like, thank God.
Well, it could be different people.
So the person that eventually told Kash Patel, the FBI director, about the burn bags could have been a different person than the original people that put it in there.
You never know.
So, but it needs to be investigated.
Like the Owen makes a good point.
Why were they set to be incinerated?
Now, it is common practice to do that for documents, however, the procedures are.
So they have to look into the procedures and it takes time.
And my take is, is like something that serious.
I mean, that, you know, it does seem like it was a cover your ass type of thing, whoever said burn this, because that's such a high.
Profile, high level thing that there's a bajillion other things you would burn before burning that stuff.
So it seems very sus, but it's interesting.
You know, Tom Fitton will hear stories from him where he takes, you know, he'll just keep going at it and it'll take six years to get the thing he's asking for sometimes under FOIA, but he'll just keep going.
He's like a dog with a bone.
Suspicious Arms Deal Allegations00:16:16
Thank God.
You know, I love seeing people like that because, and also like Brian Romley said, and like, you know, Lisa is saying, like, thank God there's analog stuff.
And this is why you need to, you know, preserve and save the microfiche and the old files and everything else because you just don't know what is being burned and destroyed.
And it seems so easy to manipulate things once they're digital.
All right.
So we're going to keep our eye on that.
It's a huge story.
And as it updates, Owen's going to bring us updates on that because personally, I'd love nothing more than to see those people go to freaking jail and hard.
Because they're disgusting.
Sorry, I'm getting excited.
Okay, so I want to move on to another story that we promised you we would talk about today.
Let me bring this up.
Let me see if I can expand it.
Okay, so Marcella, do you want to start this one?
And then we do have a quick clip, and Owen will wrap it up too.
So, an Iranian woman was busted in LAX when they captured her.
She was about to take a flight to Turkey.
She often took many different flights to Turkey or different places.
What she was busted for was trying to sell arms, and she did that this often.
She sold, she represented, it's interesting.
Her name is Shamim Mafi.
She's 44 years old.
She She was trying to negotiate a deal between the IRGC, the Iranian army, and Sudan.
So she was selling Iranian arms and bombs and I believe other types of weapons, Mohajir 6 armed drones, to Sudan.
So basically, she was being the one that was networking and having the talks between both.
Countries.
Now, the reason this is illegal is because Iran is under sanctions.
Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, she's being, this is all alleged.
Of course, she's innocent and guilty.
And she's been charged under 50 USC Section 1705A and C, which means that she is under the section you're not allowed to do any transactions.
With Iran or helping Iran do any kind of transactions because there are sanctions against them and any arms sales of Iran.
I mean, isn't that just kind of like, duh?
I mean, does it have to be illegal because it's illegal?
It has to be proven that she did it in the US, that, you know, she is a green card holder.
She is a resident alien.
The talk is that she received her residency while Obama was in power.
Now, we don't know if.
How she came about becoming a resident of the United States.
Maybe it was through marriage.
Maybe it was through this million dollar deal where you buy yourself into an American green card.
But that needs to be investigated as well.
But obviously, she made it to court yesterday at the U.S. District Court in L.A.
And because it's federal court, you don't have any video of it.
So, all right, I have a quick clip.
I'm going to play the clip and then I'll come to you, Lisa, and then Owen, we'll let you wrap this one up.
But let's, I forget what the clip is.
It's short.
Let's just take a look.
This story just entered our newsroom this morning.
A Los Angeles woman arrested for trafficking arms on behalf of the Iranian government.
Correspondent Max Gordon is in the Southland with more on that for us.
Max, a crazy story with incredible pictures from the airport.
Yeah, absolutely, Kevin.
Last night, 44 year old Shamim Mafi, an Iranian national now living in the LA area, was arrested at LAX just before getting on a flight to Turkey.
She's accused of trafficking arms on behalf of the Iranian government.
According to the FBI's Iran counterintelligence squad, Mafi is accused of selling Iranian manufactured bombs, drones, assault weapons, and millions of rounds of ammunition to Sudan.
Mafi was allegedly coordinating with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
According to the federal government, one of the contracts was worth 60 million euros, brokering the sale of Iranian made drones between Iran's defense ministry and Sudan.
In another instance, Mafi is accused of selling 55,000 bomb fuses to the Sudanese military.
According to the criminal complaint, Mafi is a lawful permanent U.S. resident, though not a citizen.
She was born in Iran, relocated to Turkey, but most recently has lived in Woodland Hills, California.
Mafia travels frequently to Iran, Turkey, Oman, and other countries, and according to the feds, executed her illegal weapons brokering scheme from multiple locations, including right here in California.
She's currently charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
If convicted, Mafia faces up to 20 years in federal prison.
Kevin, back to you.
Oh my, she is crafty.
So, Lisa, is your first question that you, or your first comment that you wish you could see Marcella since she's in California, that Marcella could have like taken this chick down, like, bam.
I would pay for that.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I don't know if anybody's a fan of Shahs of Sunset on Bravo, but, you know, LA, Beverly Hills is the largest concentration of Persians, Iranians, you know, in the US.
It might even be, you know, A lot of those people came in after the Shah fell in 79, 76, something like that.
But yeah, I mean, what always strikes me about these people is when I see her mugshot, you know, allegedly, it looks like she's getting filler in her lips.
And, you know, these people are working so hard for a regime that, you know, they don't seem to follow.
And, you know, I think at the end of the day, it's always some kind of power that she's getting.
I mean, it's just like, you know, the 9 11 terrorists that went to strip clubs and drank alcohol.
You know, It just makes you wonder what these people are working for.
And I think it just comes down to money and glory, regardless of your religion or where you come from.
Yeah, because you're like, oh, you're going to live here and enjoy freedom and a lifestyle you could never have over there, but you're going to keep helping arm up these people.
And they're our biggest enemy.
Yeah.
And I should say, when I'm talking about Beverly Hills and the concentration there, these are people that supported the Shah.
They are not for the Islamic regime.
And that's a media story that you're not hearing these people celebrating in the streets as America does some Americaning.
I mean, also, how many times do we say, look at people's passports and where are they going?
Don't you feel like why do we even bother having these passports that there's like no red flags going off?
I mean, look at how she's going back and forth to and everything else.
I mean, Owen, make it make sense, please.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, she apparently came in under the Obama administration.
So it's clear that the vetting was not happening the way it needed to be during that time.
And of course, there is alleged suspicions about Obama being Muslim and maybe being affiliated with some of those causes.
And that's been alleged for a long time.
But I think, you know, it certainly raises the question to me to say how many of these people are in our country.
And, you know, with the threat we have now, it's an even bigger problem.
But I think, you know, even back then, it's like how would someone who was an arms dealer just, you know, skate under the vetting that might come in when someone comes to this country?
And I don't think there's really any excuse for that.
I think it seems to me like they have plenty of surveillance of all these foreign people that they'd be able to tell, hey, there's some weird financial transactions happening here.
And let's look into this before we just let this person into the country.
So, I don't know.
I mean, I think, you know, it seems like she's been, in this case, selling Iran's weapons to other countries, but I think obviously to benefit the IRGC and so, you know, funding the terrorism that's been happening over there.
So, it seems like an unconscionable thing.
And I'm hoping she's put away.
I do notice in the story that it mentions she apparently is claiming to have extensive information about.
The Iranian financial system and money laundering channels used by the government of Iran.
So it sounds like she might be trying to flip and make a deal.
I don't know what's going to happen with that.
But she doesn't want to go back.
That should be the punishment.
They just go back.
Yeah.
Marcel, I'm curious.
Is there a reason they always seem to catch these people at the airport?
Is it just because that's their last chance before they go off?
I think that's part of showing that she wanted to escape and part of her guilt as they put it in front of a jury.
Like they wait until it shows.
Okay, so you were totally innocent, but yet you were leaving to Turkey right when this was happening.
So that could be more potentially to show to meet the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Kind of like Scott, I don't know if you remember the Scott Peterson case.
He took off, killed his wife who was pregnant, and then he took off to Mexico, dyed his hair, everything differently.
And so that kind of shows kind of like intent to.
Evade justice.
So perhaps they had tried to reach out to her.
And she was, from what the story says, that she was trying to leave Turkey to escape prosecution.
Well, according to the pictures, though, she had a suitcase full of cash.
So that might be a suspicious thing as it goes through security.
Unless she gives some cash to the TSA agents that haven't been paid for quite a while.
Hand to God, is our government still closed?
Are we still?
I think we are.
Yeah, we are for DHS.
No, there are parts of the DHS that are still shut down.
Yeah, yeah.
But the TSA, there was some kind of executive order that he figured out something.
They're funding them.
Yeah.
Yeah, they were funding them.
I just never hear anyone talk about it anymore.
I guess we don't need it.
So, all right.
No, it is going on.
And I think it is.
There was a story I believe I posted about that maybe a week or two ago about basically saying we are, you know, DHS is kind of crumbling from within and it's suffering from this lack of funding.
So there is a problem there.
Get this though, one drone contract that she did alone was worth over $70 million.
I'm in the wrong business.
Well, I'm obviously free as well.
So, but $70 million for one drone.
That's amazing.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah, we're in the wrong business.
No way.
That's what you said, Matt.
That's what I think with all these NGOs and sweetheart deals with government contracts.
It's like, how do I get one of those?
Right.
She was a small business under like an NGA or you said, uh, thing small minority business.
Yeah.
How come our American women aren't this crafty when they're in politics?
They're just like, duh.
Sorry, sorry.
I'll take it back.
Are they?
You've got the Pelosi's and, you know, people doing the insider trading.
So I think some of them, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
How about Ilhan Omar?
She said her net worth was between like six and 30 million dollars.
And then she's like, oh, That was an accounting era.
It's like, that has been out for a year.
And now suddenly Nick Shirley shows up and she's like, nope, nope, I'm not a millionaire.
We got to fix that.
Okay.
Watch her use it as like the Trump economy has been so bad.
I've lost, you know, $90 million in the last year.
That is a good one.
Wait, I like how it's between like six and 60 million, like these broad numbers they come up with.
Like, I don't know, six to 60 million, somewhere thereabouts.
Like, oh, okay.
How does she pay estimated tax payments?
I'd love to know.
I think that might be the forms you fill out.
It might give you those ranges and just have you check a box.
So I'm not sure, but.
Someone's accountant's in trouble, that's for sure.
That's all I know.
All right.
So, who wants to give us another story?
We have at the top of the hour coming up.
We have five minutes, but let's do another story.
Owen or Marcella, you guys shoot it out.
Well, we can talk about Iran.
Vice President JD Vance is going over to Pakistan.
The Iranians are still denying that they're going to be going.
But they actually have asked for JD Vance.
I would too, instead of just doing, just meeting with Kushner and with Kauf, because I think what they were, the experts were explaining it as, you know, he's the vice president.
So you're basically taking it more seriously if he actually shows up.
They are obviously aware that President Trump is not going to show up.
So it's going to be in Islamabad.
Because tonight, if maybe I'm wrong, Owen, but tonight the ceasefire ceases.
And today, CNBC Morning Squatbox interviewed Trump and he said that Iran can get themselves into a very good deal if they come to the negotiations.
But what is being reported is that Iran is in the game of endurance and they're willing to wait and see what they can get out of Trump when he's desperate to end this war.
So that's, we'll see.
Yeah, it's kind of up in the air.
So, what's going to happen now?
I think it's really hard to predict because I think, you know, to me, it does seem like we want to move things towards peace and we want to make a deal, but there's all this conflicting information.
I think I saw a story saying Iran was denying that they were doing these negotiations.
So, you know, it's hard to know until you actually see something happen what's real because, you know, Vance does seem to be saying, we're going over there.
We're going to do this next round of negotiations.
And the last I heard was Iran saying, no, we're not.
So, you know, it seems like there's a lot of that with this Iran conflict where, um, There's conflicting statements coming from both sides in terms of what's actually happening.
And it seems to me like most of the time the Trump administration is telling the truth, and that it might just be that for whatever PR reasons, Iran doesn't want to let people know that those things are happening, even though they are.
So they just kind of deny reality and say, we're not doing that.
And then they are.
But we'll have to see what happens this time and how Trump responds.
He's made the same threats, I suppose, of blowing up power plants and bridges.
And we'll have to see if he follows through on that.
You know, so it is kind of dicey right now in terms of what the next steps are.
Wrapping Up Tomorrow's Show00:03:35
Lisa, anything?
Yeah.
Wasn't there's the last I saw, I wrote about on my Substack this morning, was there was, I don't know if it was a commander or someone from the parliament was saying that they still had cards to play, you know, on the battlegrounds, which I just thought was, you know, so amusing because, you know, now is the time, not before, before everything else got destroyed.
Now they want to play those cards.
So, you know, I think there's a lot of, You know, posturing of, you know, we're still in this when that's probably, you know, not the case.
And they don't want to admit really the only card they have left is to show up and give in at, you know, a table.
I, yeah, I just don't know what's left.
I mean, I don't know what's left.
I don't know why they want it to, that to be blown up too.
Can we, can we end this, please?
Please, please.
All right, you guys.
So I'm going to just kind of wrap this up.
Lisa, you're such a good vibe and like, Totally part of this trial.
You guys, Lisa has been a friend of Scott's forever too.
She has authored other books.
And Lisa, when we make a post after the show on X, will you drop in your sub stack and links for all of the things you do?
Because she is just, she's the most.
She has got quite the talent stack.
And we're so happy that you can join us and that you will again, I'm sure.
Yes, Lisa is great.
She's the best.
So tomorrow, you guys.
Good news, bad news.
I'll give you the bad news first.
It's sad.
Brace yourselves.
Our Marcella won't be on the show tomorrow because she'll be battling it out in court and she'll be winning.
So we're going to miss you, Marcella, and kick some butt tomorrow.
However, the good news is that we will be joined by Steve Cortez.
So that will be a fun show.
Oh, Freebird.
Look at you.
And tomorrow, so tomorrow we're going to go, it'll be Owen and myself and Steve Cortez, and we will be talking about NATO.
We'll be talking about Oh, you guys, if you know me, you know I do not like this wind power nonsense.
And it's Earth Day, and we have a wind topic for you.
And whatever else comes up, maybe something about Sheridan Gorman.
He did a documentary about her.
But tomorrow will be a fun day, even though our Marcella won't be here.
But you guys will be here, we'll be here, and we look forward to it.
And Thursday, we have Michael Malice.
So that'll be fun too.
Okay, and more to come the days following.
You guys, Love you.
We love you.
We all thank you so much for being here.
We're going to do a closing sip to Scott.
And we just, we thank Shelly and Scott for having this show go on and on and on.
And we thank you for showing up for us.
And YouTube, I'm sorry, we don't know what's going on with YouTube, but we will post a show to YouTube in a little while.