Speaker 1: Jess and New Yorker who's.
Speaker 2: Toxi around? This is the seventy seven WABC Mini Cast.
Speaker 1: I want to bring in some of the smartest people
Speaker 1: I know to fully understand this thing and to see
Speaker 1: where we go from here. Eric Eggers is one of
Speaker 1: those great people from the Drill Down podcast, from the
Speaker 1: Government Accountability Institute and so much more. Eric Eggers, Welcome back.
Speaker 3: How are you, buddy, Greg? It's great to be witty.
Speaker 3: Happy Friday, Happy Friday.
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, if this were nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: four and these were documents that emerge from the Nixon
Speaker 1: White House, you know, there would be a drum beat
Speaker 1: to resignation and we'd be watching, you know it. Just
Speaker 1: this is huge and it's getting no attention. But anyway,
Speaker 1: what was your reaction to these documents when you saw them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, my first reaction was, oh man, Greg cal is
Speaker 2: going to love this.
Speaker 3: And it's funny to you.
Speaker 2: It's funny that you mentioned that, you know, investigations into
Speaker 2: things that are not illegal things since you're allowed to do.
Speaker 3: When you're president United States.
Speaker 2: What becomes more and more clear is that the idea
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump might have become president United States is
Speaker 2: the thing that the Biden Department of Justice wanted to
Speaker 2: make illegal. I mean, that's the bottom line, right, and
Speaker 2: we've actually documented. I mean, so my current reaction is
Speaker 2: it is disappointing, It is unsurprising, you know, the one
Speaker 2: I wish I could say I'm surprised at how blatant
Speaker 2: this was, although I think we're well past that.
Speaker 3: But remember, you know, this kind of falls in this
Speaker 3: larger line of pattern.
Speaker 2: Joe Biden basically signaled to law enforcement officials in the
Speaker 2: New York Times that because he feared what Donald Trump
Speaker 2: would be as a political opponent, that he wanted to
Speaker 2: see investigations begun. And he basically called for it, right,
Speaker 2: called for Merrick Garland, called for other people, and people
Speaker 2: left Merrick Garland's office to go join the Southern District
Speaker 2: of New York. So this latest thing is unfortunate, just
Speaker 2: consistent with that pattern of behavior. You and I've talked
Speaker 2: about Chris krab and other corrupt you know, law enforcement officials.
Speaker 2: So you know, this is this is more evidence that
Speaker 2: there continues to be more there there, despite the fact
Speaker 2: that mainstream legacy media wants to cover it up.
Speaker 1: I mean, if I may, I think this is a
Speaker 1: little bit. It's singular in its egregiousness. Let's see here,
Speaker 1: the FBI is opening a full investigation based on articulable
Speaker 1: factual basis that reasonably indicates that President Donald J. Trump
Speaker 1: maybe or has been wittingly or unwittingly involved in activities
Speaker 1: for or on behalf of the government of the Russian
Speaker 1: Federation from May of twenty seventeen. So President Trump is
Speaker 1: actually president at this point, which makes this different to me.
Speaker 1: It's the FBI initiat initiating it for the standard, you know,
Speaker 1: benign reasons. And I've never seen anything quite like this.
Speaker 1: The Russia collusion with the Special Council, that was you know, public,
Speaker 1: and it was into the campaign, not President Trump as
Speaker 1: an individual, right, he always said I want a statement
Speaker 1: that says you're not investigating me and call me. Would say, well,
Speaker 1: we can't do that because of this, that and the
Speaker 1: other thing. We don't say we are, we don't say
Speaker 1: we're not. And now we know that they were. And
Speaker 1: I I you know a lot of guys I'm saying,
Speaker 1: well that's kind of old. No, this is this is
Speaker 1: new and different. I think this is new. And one
Speaker 1: other thing I gotta say when you mentioned Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: There's a caveat to that, because Joe Biden did say
Speaker 1: out loud, you know, through the New York Times and
Speaker 1: even said publicly at one point in November twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: that I think Donald Trump is a threat and he
Speaker 1: should be investigated. Forget everything I just said, weirdly, Constitutionally,
Speaker 1: that's an okay thing to do.
Speaker 3: Do you do? You do?
Speaker 2: You do?
Speaker 1: You know where I'm going with that. Forget about everything else,
Speaker 1: just focus on the Biden Biden saying that, do you
Speaker 1: think he has a constitutional authority to do that?
Speaker 3: Are you suggesting that he does?
Speaker 1: Yes, I am suggesting that that he actually did. Part
Speaker 1: of the problem was what.
Speaker 3: I would say. We'll go ahead, Okay, what's the problem?
Speaker 1: Well, sorry, I wanted to hear from you, and now
Speaker 1: I'm just bombarding you with.
Speaker 3: My cuckoo theories.
Speaker 2: It's not my first time on the show, Greg, I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, do me a favorite before we do that. All right, Well, look,
Speaker 3: I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: I mean, forget about everything, forget about the moment, forget
Speaker 1: about all of these documents. One of the problems with
Speaker 1: Biden was he could if he had been honest about it.
Speaker 1: He would have been It would have been bad. It
Speaker 1: would have been wrong for a lot of different reasons.
Speaker 3: Look.
Speaker 1: Article two of the Constitution says the President of the
Speaker 1: United States is the one to make sure that the
Speaker 1: laws are being enacted faithfully. So say when President Trump
Speaker 1: picks up the phone and talks to a US attorney
Speaker 1: and says, you know what, I think this guy is
Speaker 1: dirty and you really should look into that. Look, I'm
Speaker 1: the President of the United States. A lot of people
Speaker 1: have confident in my judgment. Seventy five million people voted
Speaker 1: for me. This is something that I ascertained to be
Speaker 1: a problem, and I want you, as an employee of
Speaker 1: the executive branch of government, to look into that. That
Speaker 1: is legitimate, and that is valid, and that is constitutional.
Speaker 2: Now, I hate to disagree with you that the problem
Speaker 2: is Donald Trump was impeached basically for doing that, right,
Speaker 2: so that so to me, it's less about like was
Speaker 2: not okay for Joe Biden. It's just a double standard
Speaker 2: of the hypocrisy because again, your president of the United States.
Speaker 2: There's lots of things that would presume fall under your purview.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's been more aggressive and expanding or exploiting what
Speaker 2: he believes to be the expanded purview of the executive
Speaker 2: than other presidents have been previously. But no, I don't
Speaker 2: disagree as it relates to this specific investigation that happened
Speaker 2: under you know, under while Donald Trump's psident. You know,
Speaker 2: it's funny because of what would happen with Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: People would ask me all the time, you know, because
Speaker 2: you could just see evidence of the cognitive failing, and
Speaker 2: they say, well, who is really run in the country?
Speaker 2: And I said, and I think, you know, to me,
Speaker 2: this just that kind of validates it. It's the collection
Speaker 2: of lawyers in the Department of Justice, and it's the
Speaker 2: you know, the SBI agents and these kind of the
Speaker 2: intelligence apparatriic that's kind of a holdover from the Obama era,
Speaker 2: and this just shows you, like the president might have changed,
Speaker 2: but the aim and the ideological bent of our national
Speaker 2: you know, security apparatus with the FBI, the CIA, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Clearly did not.
Speaker 2: So whether it's the guys that signed off on the
Speaker 2: Russia dossier, whether it's the guys that signed off that
Speaker 2: said the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian misinformation, whether it's
Speaker 2: the people that okayed this investigation. By the way, it's
Speaker 2: worth pointing out they okay this investigation at roughly the
Speaker 2: same time that they shut down which was, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: a very legitimate investigation into the Clintons, based in part
Speaker 2: on the work that we did. Peter Schwizer wrote the
Speaker 2: book Clinton Cash. I traveled to Haiti, helped work on
Speaker 2: the research for it. I mean, there was legitimate reasons
Speaker 2: to wonder about the Clinton's relationship ship with the Russians,
Speaker 2: right Vladimir Putin's paying half a million dollars for a
Speaker 2: speech Bill Clinton is helping to you know, they're getting
Speaker 2: lots of money and transferring US uranium assets that ultimately
Speaker 2: ended up in Putin's hands. So there were real things
Speaker 2: to look into. So anytime you talked about the FBI
Speaker 2: looking into things on behalf of Donald Trump and Russia,
Speaker 2: especially while Donald Trump as president, you know, there are
Speaker 2: finite resources in these agencies, So they chose to look
Speaker 2: into this. It's especially gone because we have evidence that
Speaker 2: we know what they chose to ignore, which I think
Speaker 2: was obviously much more legitimate and credible.
Speaker 1: What makes this investigation so damning, though, is the reasons
Speaker 1: they cite which are and you you you mentioned that
Speaker 1: I mentioned that they were legitimate political activities that the
Speaker 1: president was engaged in.
Speaker 3: They're in the predicate.
Speaker 1: And on its face, this memo falls apart, like you
Speaker 1: can't investigate somebody for practicing politics.
Speaker 3: You know you can that it turns out, and it
Speaker 3: turns out you can.
Speaker 1: Right, It turns out you can. And that's why it
Speaker 1: should be well, it should be a massive scandal. But
Speaker 1: look in my defense of President Trump on whether it
Speaker 1: was the phone call, whether it was you know, hey,
Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani, you know, I just saw I just saw
Speaker 1: Joe Biden yelled and scream and brag about how he
Speaker 1: turned off the investigation and had that prosecutor fired. You know, Zelensky,
Speaker 1: I would look into that if I were you. And
Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani is the guy. He can talk to you.
Speaker 1: He knows that stuff. I mean, that's not a political mission.
Speaker 1: I mean, forget it.
Speaker 3: It could be political. Political is not bad.
Speaker 1: He could and as the President of the United States
Speaker 1: saying hey, there's a problem here, that is a problem.
Speaker 1: If what Joe Biden boasted about before the Council on
Speaker 1: Foreign Relations is true, that's a problem. And if my
Speaker 1: own Justice Department ain't going to look into it, well, uh, Zelensky,
Speaker 1: you guys should look into that. And Rudy is a
Speaker 1: free in private citizen. He's allowed to look into it too.
Speaker 1: These are legitimate activities. And that's why I circle back
Speaker 1: to Biden, and Biden did a lot of wrong things.
Speaker 1: I'm not defending Biden, but under the constitution, he is
Speaker 1: allowed to say I think he's a threat. He should
Speaker 1: be investigated. That's not impeachable, that's arguably not even inappropriate.
Speaker 1: The problem is when they find the evidence that is
Speaker 1: either completely exculpatory or not there, then you have to
Speaker 1: call off the investigation. And they kept it going. So
Speaker 1: it's just a weird place that I find myself in
Speaker 1: because they're getting on President Trump's case now and I'm saying, no,
Speaker 1: he's allowed to do it, And interestingly, so was Joe
Speaker 1: Biden in terms of calling for investigations.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Remember a time, Greg when you could just like disagree
Speaker 2: with what the member of the opposite party did and
Speaker 2: not think that they were a criminal because of it.
Speaker 2: I mean that's what you're speaking to you, right. The
Speaker 2: people can do things you don't agree with. It doesn't
Speaker 2: mean they need to be impeached. It doesn't mean they
Speaker 2: should be prosecuted. I know that we live in a
Speaker 2: world and you know, with the outrage fatigue, and so
Speaker 2: I hear it all the time. I'm sure you do too,
Speaker 2: because we live in the business of exposing scandals and corruptions,
Speaker 2: and so people want to see justice, They want to
Speaker 2: see accountability, and for a lot of people that does
Speaker 2: mean criminal charges, but not everything has to result in that.
Speaker 2: But but it speaks to the you know, the law
Speaker 2: fair that was I think clearly amped up onto the
Speaker 2: Obama administration and then continued in many respects under Joe
Speaker 2: Biden and Donald Trump was singularly the focus of it,
Speaker 2: unlike I think anytime in American history. It's it's so
Speaker 2: funny because you reference Nixon, and you know, it's it's
Speaker 2: weird to think that we're getting to a place where
Speaker 2: people won't remember that as a frame of reference. But
Speaker 2: you kind of hold what the Obama administration has done,
Speaker 2: some of the things that the Biden administration has done
Speaker 2: that we know they've done, and compare that to what then,
Speaker 2: you know Nixon was responsible for with Watergate, I think
Speaker 2: it pales in comparison