Speaker 1: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to
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your support. All right, let me welcome to the program.
Benjamin Winegarden. He is the author of a book called
American Ingrate elon Omar in the Progressive Islamic or Islamist
Takeover of the Democrat Party. He is also a writer.
His work appears at The Federalist, the New York Post,
and this at realclearinvestigations dot com as well. Benjamin, welcome
to the program, sir, how are you?
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me?
Speaker 3: Doing well?
Speaker 1: Good good. So you've got a piece at Realclearinvestigations dot
com titled a Weaponized FBI. It's real, say whistleblowers, boasting
scars to prove it. It's a pretty lengthy piece. You
detail a lot of the stories here, so First off,
let's start with the quote unquote purge that the evil
Orange Man has been doing at the FBI. What is
this purge?
Speaker 3: Well, we know that at DOJ you've seen a lot
of these prosecutors who worked on the Get Trump lawfare
prosecutions pretty much immediately removed at the outset of the
Trump administration. And then as well, of course, FBI weaponization
has been something that the administration has said it wants
to reverse, it wants to hold people accountable for. And
that really started with a memo that came out of
the DOJ eleven days into the Trump presidency calling for
the ouster of eight senior officials, some of them running
several of the branches within the FBI and then the
heads of a couple field offices as well, including Miami
and Washington d C. Eight top officials, many of them
promoted by Christopher reet to those positions, were forced outs.
And this was as part of a memo which also
called for the FBI to provide the DJ information regarding
all of the agents and all of the FBI officials
who had anything to do with January sixth prosecutions. And
this is all in line and again with the President's
executive order calling for ending the weaponization of the federal government,
which starts with, of course, probing for weaponization of those
currently in office and then looking at ultimately remedy when
they engaged in weaponized acts. So there was an uproar
among senior Democrats, for example, on the Senate Judiciary Committee,
from the vice chairman of the Intelligents Committee, send an
Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, and others basically saying Donald Trump
is purging the senior ranks of the FBI, Our national
security is going to be threatened, this is retribution, this
ISN'TUS justice, etc. And what we did dug into was
the fact that at least three of the eight ousted
senior FBI officials themselves had been involved in allegedly weaponized acts.
And we walked through the story of what they did.
And that story tells the trials and tribulations of FBI
officials who were whistleblowers who came forward, some internally and
then others to Congress when those doors were closed with
reports of misconduct within the FBI, including pertaining to the
January sixth prosecutions and other issues as well, and they
faced severe reprisals for serving as whistle blowers, and then
those who championed them, those who defended them internally and
said these people are being railroaded, they themselves were retaliated
against as well. And we tell what that retaliation looks
like in this story at real Quaer.
Speaker 1: So the three people that seemed to be among the
worst of the worst, and they were in that quote Purge,
Jeffrey Veltrie, Dina Perkins, and Timothy Dunham. And there's a
story that you tell about a Charlotte connection here in
North Carolina. One case that the Inspector General highlighted involved
Marcus Allen. You also included this clip from a House
Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government from back
in September with Congressman then Congressman Dan Bishop, who is
from our area. And he's talking with Marcus Allen, not
the football player guy, but he's a decorated Marine corpsvette
and a former FBI guy and he suffered some of
these reaper cuquestions that you're talking about. Can you kind
of go over because I think it's instructive and it's
indicative of like the common tactic that I saw play
out in the stories you were telling about how they
basically just like slow walk these guys and starve them
of finances.
Speaker 3: Yep, so it's your point. Marcus Allen, decorated veteran, was
posted to the Charlotte Field Office, did work with the
Joint Terrorism Task Force folks there, and like a lot
of these people who we profile have stellar records, you know,
they've been awarded for the jobs that they've done at
the FBI. And Marcus Allen was in part responsible for
helping gather intelligence and work with a Joint Terrorism Task
Force in connection with January sixth investigations and was helpful
in having certain people prosecuted in connection with those investigations.
He came to his superiors after seeing story in the
New York Times and at Real Clear and elsewhere about
the fact that there were FBI assets on the ground
on January sixth, and said to them, look, you know,
there's sort of a counter narrative that's forming about what
transpired on January sixth, and I'm not sure that Washington,
d C. That is kind of headquarters, is being fully open, transparent,
forthcoming about what happened that day and whether or not
there any ties to the FBI. And then He cited
to his supervisors the fact that chrispher Ray was not
forthcoming in testimony before Congress on this very issue, what
didn't show full candor, and so this was sort of
an fyi and he viewed it as it's part of
my job to let people know who are dealing with
these cases, what is coming out in reporting and disclosures,
and is there potentially malfeasance occurring inside the bureau in
connection with it. This kicked off twenty seven months of
hell for Marcus Allen, where his emails to his supervisors
were forwarded along to the Security Division at the FBI.
And the Security Division holds a ton of power because
if someone's security clearance, if there's some grounds for calling
for investigating someone with respect to their ability to hold
and maintain a security clearance, security clearance can get suspended.
During this time a person's investigated, they're twisting in the
wind because their employment is suspended as well, and they're
left without pay because you need to have the security
clearance obviously to do your job as an FBI agent.
And only after potentially this investigation finishes, then you get finality.
Are they going to revoke your security clearance? Are you
going to be reinstated or not. If it's revoked, then
you have to appeal it, and you might have to
wait months to get the information the Security Division was
using to justify a revocation to then be able to
even defend yourself and plead your case and try and
get a reconsideration, and you might fail there too.
Speaker 2: And basically what we.
Speaker 3: Find is that Marcus Allen is targeted as a January
sixth conspiracy theorist, essentially as a consequence of these emails
as well, he's one of a couple people in the
Charlotte office who won't attest to the fact of the
time that he had gotten COVID nineteen vaccine as was
mandated by the Biden administration. And the pattern that you
see throughout these cases is that especially people who are
skeptical of COVID nineteen vaccine are resistant to it, especially
people who are conservative, especially people ex military. In a
lot of cases, they end up finding themselves where there
are these predicates so called for cases brought against them
to investigate their security clearances. Security clearances get pulled and
they go through this horrific process where their finances are drained. Obviously,
they're left distresses, and it's a Kofka esque sort of
process of trying to fight to get reinstated. And some
of these people are still twisting in the wind even now.
Speaker 1: Yeah you can't yeah, and you can't get work, like
they can't pick up a side job.
Speaker 3: Right, You're not allowed to seek outside employment, not allowed
to seek gifts to support yourself. So your life is
ruined and the process serves as the punishment, and a
lot of people say essentially to hell with it, I'm
going to leave my job. In many cases they're dream jobs.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of the point I suspect, get them
to quit.
Speaker 3: That appears to be the point of it is force
people out who don't toe the line of the superiors.
And so there was a rationale for forcing out at
least three of the eight people who are either high
level at sec D, the Security Division, or they're overseer
in the human resources branch of the FBI. And we
thought it was worth telling that story because this has
been presented as Trump is just per the upper ranks
of the FBI and it's totally political. No, there's actually
a rationale to it, based upon this raft of allegations
from a slew of whistleblowers like Marcus Allen who have
been targeted.
Speaker 1: Accordingly, I highly recommend that people that are interested in
this topic to read the piece. It's at realclearinvestigations dot com.
Ben Winegarten is the author. You can also see his work.
He's a senior contributor at The Federalist and The New
York Post. He's got his book and also a substack
Winegarden dot substack dot com. Benjamin, thanks so much for
your time, sir. I appreciate it. Have a great weekend.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Absolutely take care all right. If you're listening to this show,
you know I try to keep up with all sorts
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only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News
as they make the media landscape more transparent. Thanks again
to Ben Winingarten for making time for us today. I
do appreciate it. There is a Charlotte connection I mentioned
in the interview with mister Winegarten there about this House
Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. This was
from September of twenty twenty four, so a few months ago,
and you're going to hear Congressman Dan Bishop talking with
the witness Marcus Allen, who was stationed here in the
Charlotte FBI office, about the retribution that was exacted upon
him as a whistleblower and what it did to him.
Speaker 4: As far as I'm concerned, you're the person I'm most
interested in hearing from I'm from Charlotte. I've been to
the Charlotte Field office. I know some people there. I
was extraordinarily impressed by you and the other whistleblowers when
you previously appeared before the subcommittee. I'm impressed by you again.
I haven't been able to be here the whole time.
I'm going to yield you some time just if you cared,
if you have things that you wish to say in
just a moment. But the first thing I'm going to
say before I do that, and then I'm going to
give you, mister Jordan, the rest of my time is
I'm just overwhelmingly troubled by the fact that no one
seems to be able to do much about what has
happened to you. You got the Inspector General, very respectable person.
You've done a lot of things have been historic. But
you know, you issue a management alert, and to me,
it sounds ridiculous to say. You don't think these guys
at the FBI, the senior managers, understand that they shouldn't
retaliate against somebody by putting under extreme personal hardship while
they engage in a completely baseless persecution over their security
clearance and they leave them in limbo for twenty seven months,
and to this moment haven't paid what I understand to
be the consideration the under the settlement that's been reached.
That is astonishing. And if it's not, that's not astonishing
enough that all you can do is issue an alert.
Congress does absolutely nothing in the majority party, not one
thing to impose on the on the Department of Justice
of the FBI and an appropriate sanction for what they've done.
And we have a hearing about it, and everybody in
the minority party there's some time they're fearing what Donald
Trump would do in the next administration while they sit
here and they look at the guy who's been persecuted
by the FBI, and everybody in the room understands it.
Mister Allen, do you have comments you wish to make.
I'd give you about a minute minute and a half
and then I want to turn the rest of my time,
mister Jordan.
Speaker 5: Yes, sir, I would just say that I consider the
hearing today my last active service as a public servant
for the United States of America, and I'll give you
my professional opinion. I was an intel professional for our
country for many years, and I would give recommendations, and
I'd also look at indications and warnings. So I would
offer this to the American people as my warning to them. Says,
this is a warning the American people, I say, I
personally have no confidence that the FBI will reign in
its own conduct. I've been persecuted along with Garrett, Steve
and Kyle and countless other whistleblow horse. It is my
opinion that the Bureau used reprisal and fear to control
the workforce, and it's been a seemingly effective tactic. I
personally believe that there are no current effective checks and
balances against them conducting lawless action with any type of
correction in a legitimate time frame. I welcome the work
of the IG, but I think any type of lawless action,
there's no legitimate time frame to rain them back in.
Their ability to overclassify information can allow them to stonewall forever. So,
the American people, you have a duty as a citizen
to vote, and I strongly.
Speaker 2: Urge you to do so.
Speaker 5: It's how you participate in the American experience. I know
people have doubts about election integrity, but you must vote.
It is your claim, state your claim and don't forfeit it.
Willingly have your voice heard. My other recommendations are in
the natural order first vote. The second is the second Amendment.
Arm yourself and know how to defend yourself. Make three
to four friends in your neighborhood and promise to come
to each other's mutual aid and times of harm hardship,
and join the great depression. People stocked up a pantry,
so I think that's a good practice, especially in our
economic times. And make sure you have three to four
months of food. As a person of faith, I'd say
pray the Rosary, go to the first Friday devotions. That's
for everybody, all my brothers and sisters of all faiths.
And I know I'm Catholic, and read the Gospel of
our Lord and Savior of Jesus Christ and live it
every day.
Speaker 2: And that's all I have to say. Thank you for
the time.
Speaker 4: You know, mister Allen, the fact that there are servants
like you who have borne up under persecution that a
lot of political leaders in this country do not care
about is the thing that heartens the American people. And
I'm confident the American people will resolve the situation no
matter how weak Washington is in response.
Speaker 1: So if you are confused by what you are seeing
at the FBI, hopefully this shed some light on it.
The American people are, through Donald Trump and now Cash
Battel are attempting to fix a broken agency. Me personally,
I'd say take it all apart. That's my personal view
on I mean, I don't think you get to come
back after the corruption that we have seen at the
highest levels for a decade, but it goes back beyond that.
I don't see how you reform it. But maybe Cash
Betel will be able to make some headway there. And
Marcus Allen, he is just one of the whistleblowers. You've
heard several other He mentioned a couple other names there.
There are many of them inside the rank and file
that have been targeted by the leadership of the FBI.
And that's who was quote purged, those leaders that weaponize
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aspect of the FBI corruption, the way they have targeted
their own for you know, traditional views, conservative views, not
getting the vaccine, raising a question, hey, did we actually
have informants? And maybe the DC Field of the DC
Headquarters is lying to us here in the field office,
as they have us track down all these J sixers.
And for simply asking that question, now you get targeted.
They yank your security clearance, They slow roll the investigation
for over two years, so you can't work, you have
no income, you can't do a go fundme, nothing. This
whistleblower stuff was raised at the nomination hearing for Cash Patel,
and yesterday they took the vote. The Senate took the vote.
Charles Grassley, the chairman of this committee, Senate Intelligence Committee,
he referenced these very things in his opening statement.
Speaker 6: Because the FBI has been infected by political biased and
weaponized against the American people. Mister Patel knows it. Mister
Patel exposed it, and mister Patel has targeted for it.
And I've got plenty of examples to show what's wrong
with the FBI. Mister Patel was instrumental in exposing Crossfire Hurricane.
He showed during that investigation that the Democratic National Committee
funded false allegations against President Trump, that the Department of
Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation hid information from
the FISA court to wiretap a presidential campaign, and then
an FBI lawyer lied in the process. As reward for
his efforts to uncover this truth, he was attacked by
the media and the Department of Justice secretly subpoened his records. Now,
I and my staff know a thing or two about
this kind of retaliation because my staff receives similar treatment
during our investigation. Sadly, as I've said at mister Patel's hearing,
Crossfire Hurricane is but one example.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people forget, by the way, I did not edit that.
That's their automatic microphones going on and off. So when
he when Grassley pauses too long, the mic shuts off
and then it comes back on. So that was not
me doing any editing. That was his comments. But people
forget the FBI targeted the staff of Chuck Grassley when
he started looking into whistle because Chuck Grassley has a
long career, long history and track record of defending whistleblowers,
and the FBI targeted him and his staff for that.
The issue has been going on for a while.
Speaker 6: Whistleblowers are treated like a skunk at a picnic. And
I hope my Democrat colleagues will learn a lesson about
how the FBI has previously treated whistleblowers, both under Republican
administrations and Democrat administrations, so that we don't have this
happening again. One whistleblower said, quote, people like the have
harmed the noble nation of the or of the bureau.
They've created turmoil, and their personal agenda has spread throughout
the bureau over the last decade in service of the country.
We should insist on removing them from the FBI, not tomorrow,
but right now.
Speaker 2: End of quote.
Speaker 6: Remember he said the last decade that covers presidents of
both parties.
Speaker 1: Indeed, the rot runs through the entire organization and it
has for decades. I'm not sure if it ever stopped.
You know, people talk about ja Ed or Hoover and
all of the corruption there and targeting political enemies and everything.
And see, we can talk about all of that because
Hoover targeted some Democrats, right, oh, they But I guess
if you're targeting Republicans then it's different, it's okay. And
that's the thing. Like these whistleblowers, I don't know their
political affiliations. Marcus Allen. You just heard Ben Winingarten say,
Marcus Allen was involved in investigating the JA sixers, but
when presented with information, he then did what he is
trained to do by the FBI, which is to ask
some follow up questions, and simply asking those questions ended
his career at the FBI. In Winegarten's piece at Real
Clear Investigations, he says, the terminations that we have seen
so far like this quote unquote purge of the people
that did the targeting of the whistleblowers. These terminations may
be only the beginning of efforts to remedy alleged malfeasons
pertaining to whistleblowers. Attorney General Pam Bondi, in establishing the
Justice Department's Weaponization Working Group shortly after her confirmation, indicated
that one of its focuses will be examining the retaliatory
targeting and in some instances, criminal prosecution of legitimate whistleblowers.
And just think about the mindset that one would have
being a top official at the FBI. Hearing somebody come
forward with a whistleblower complaint and then retaliating against that person.
One of these cases, there is an allegation that these
same people, the same purged FBI officials, that they timed
their retaliation to freeze pay and access to security clearance
and stuff of another FBI employee, that they timed it
just as he and his pregnant wife had sold their
home and were fixing to move to I think the
Virginia area, and they froze him out right after he
sold the home, so now he couldn't buy the new home.
They left the guy homeless, he and his wife and
I think two kids and a third on the way.
Think about what kind of a mind does that to
a colleague at a law enforcement agency. All right, I
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Cashptel was a staffer for Devin Nunez, and he was
the guy who uncovered the crossfire hurricane plot, the conspiracy
and gave it to his boss, Devin Nunez, you recalled Nunez,
then went over to the White House told Trump all
about it, and for that he was punished. Cash Betel
was punished, So he knows firsthand about the weaponization. As
Chuck Grassley said, something happened though. At the confirmation, they
were waiting on Adam Shift for Brains to appear so
he could cast his vote, to make his speech or whatever.
So they had a bunch of time to kill before
he got there, and so they were just like sitting around,
waiting around, and then Tom Tillis opened up the mic.
Chuck Rastley had left. Tillis took over chairing the meeting,
and he made some comments and I pulled a portion
of him here because I think they're pretty important to hear.
Speaker 7: I think mister Patel is going to come and fix
an agency that I have great admiration for that I
still believe is the gold standard for law enforcement agencies
in the world, in the history of the world. But
to suggest that others should not be put under a microscope,
I think his naive. I supported Chris right, and yet
he disappointed me, and that he is at the top
of the age and there were inappropriate.
Speaker 2: Investigations going along.
Speaker 7: I supported maryck Garland when he was put forth by
Senator Biden, and yet he's disappointed me with some investigations
and activities in the DOJ that were absolutely inappropriate under
his watch.
Speaker 2: Did he know about it.
Speaker 7: I don't know, but what I do know is he
was the head of the organization, and at some point
you have to hold people in these organizations accountable.
Speaker 2: I trusted mister call Me until he gave me a
reason not to.
Speaker 7: So for people to think that we should keep the
FBI as it is and not question some of the
politically motivated activities, whether a Democrat or a Republican is
in power or either being naive or just waiting for
the opportunity when that slant is in.
Speaker 2: The favor of their own their worldview.
Speaker 7: I for one, want the FBI to do the job
it does very well and nothing more. Never to be
motivated by political retribution. I said to yesterday to a nominee.
This needs to end the political physics. And for every action,
there's an opposite and an equal reaction. Is what is
tarnishing the reputation of the finest law enforcement agency. Recognize
that way worldwide, and we can do better. There were
other people that were saying that mister Patel condone the.
Speaker 2: January sixth attacks.
Speaker 7: I asked him when he was sitting right there, does
he agree with me that people that attack Capitol.
Speaker 2: Police officers are thugs?
Speaker 7: And he said that if he were asked by the
President to have given pardons to those thugs that attack
Capitol police officers, that.
Speaker 2: His recommendation would have been no.
Speaker 7: And yet people want to pretend that he was okay
with that coming in as the head of the FBI.
Speaker 2: So, folks, let's just be honest here.
Speaker 7: There was someone else who said there was a Republican
that said this is the shirts and skins exercise. I'm
the one that said it, because when you see Pam Bondy,
who has personal relationships with people on the other side
of the aisle, not get a single Democrat vote from
this committee, then clearly we're in a shirts and skins posture.
Not always, probably not even for the remainder of this Congress,
but right now I stand by that characterization, and we
saw it play out again here today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hoover Institution. Senior fellow Victor David Hanson, he went
on Fox News a couple of days ago. He said
that the FBI says there's a new administration now and
there might be some exposure or culpability. So they're afraid
that if they were Donald Trump and they had suffered
what they did to him, they would be very frightened.
That's the way that they think, right. They expect there
to be retribution because that's what they would do. So
they think Donald Trump is going to re examine a
lot of this, and for me personally, I hope they do.
I mean, now that they found all those extra jfk
assassination files and stuff, all right, that'll do it for
this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could
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