Speaker 1: And hello, welcome to the Big Podcast. On this Friday,
the thirteenth of March, year of Our Lord, twenty twenty six.
My name is Tom Sullivan. I don't know anybody have
a Friday the thirteenth problem, So, oh my gosh. I
was ready to get this all put to bed and
post it a little bit earlier today. But right late
this afternoon there was a man alive, I mean an
episode that really jumped out at everybody. And that is
that late this afternoon, a federal judge ruled a brother
scathing ruling blocking the subpoenas issued by a grand jury
to the Federal Reserve is part of their investigation about
the chairman, Jerome Powell. So well, the judge said that
this has zero evidence that there is any sort of
criminal activity. And this is not the first time that
this US Attorney's office, run by Janine Pirot in Washington,
d C, has been shut down. She went after James Colemy.
She lost that. She went after well, that was the
Eastern District of Virginia. They went after Letitia James and
all of this. They all always come back and say, sorry,
Department of Justice, but you are targeting these people and
so this looks like it is the same that the
judge said that there's zero evidence and that essentially the
Department of Justice is targeting Jerome Powell. Now let's go
back to why Jerome Powell. Just reminds you he's a
chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve Board
is an independent agency. They were created by Congress and
they have to report to Congress twice a year, which
they do. But that's it. They are not a government agency.
They are not funded by taxpayers. Your dollars, in mind,
do not go to the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve
is the central bank of our nation, and all of
the banks have to be members of the central Bank
and they pay fees to the central Bank. And that
is how the central Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank, gets
their money. There is no taxpayer money. And this is
what's so crazy about this. And every television reporter, anchor,
you name it, they all say about, oh my gosh,
there's an investigation into a billion dollar overrun on their building,
which is crazy, and so somebody internally should be fired
for that. But they go on to say, and the
abuse of taxpayer dollars and there are no taxpayer dollars involved. None,
So I guess they should probably fire the person who
managed the remodeling of the Federal Reserve buildings in DC.
But since j. Powell is the chairman of it, they're
going after him. And Donald Trump has made it abundantly
clear that he does not like Jeroam Powell and that
he disagrees with Powell. He thinks interest rates should have
been dropped a lot lower, a lot sooner. Disagree with
the President on that, but presidents and FED chairmans have
had disagreements for as long as I can remember. So
the judge issued the ruling today basically blocking the subpoenas
by a grand jury regarding the Federal Reserve. So Janine Piro,
who is the US attorney for DC, I know her,
but I used to work with her. I will tell
you how do I do this kindly? She has a temper,
and I mean it is a hot one. I've seen it.
She's made a lot of enemies over the years by
her demeanor. So she came out and she decided to
hold a news conference, and for seven and a half
minutes she went after the judge and how he is
an activist judge, and she went over the law and saying,
you're stopping the people's right to a grand jury to
look into these crimes and all the anyway, she went
through all of it. She complained vociferously about the judge,
and then she took questions. So here's a I think
it's about five minutes or so of Q and A,
and she I wanted to play it for you, and
then we'll play also the former US Attorney Ellie Honig
also who maybe has a more relaxed view of what happened.
So anyway, seven minutes of her complaining about the judge
blocking the subpoenas, and then she took questions, and here's
where it starts.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, sir, you think that your office is failures
elsecuse six numbers. So I'm not here to talk about
six members of Congress. I'm here to talk about the
fact that the grand jury has a job. They look
at evidence, they decide whether they want to indict. If
they don't indict, so be it. And if you want
to know what the judge, thanks, go ask him.
Speaker 1: Next question, Tidy, your reaction to stamens from Senator Tom
tell Us, you know has been blocking and vowed to
continue blocking.
Speaker 2: You know, honestly, I don't know, and I don't care,
and I'll tell you why. I am in a legal lane.
All of the rest is white noise. I don't care
what they say. I have a job, I have the
ability to go into a grand jury. There are questions
that the American public and people in DC are entitled
to know where a billion dollars has gone, and that's
my focus.
Speaker 1: But he is asking for an assurance that the investigation
into power has this has ended it.
Speaker 2: Lady Conceived, did you hear what I just said? I
just said that this decision will be appealed by the
United States Department of Justice. That's the answer to your question.
We're looking at one thousand and one and we're also
looking at a statute having to do with fraud. But
it's up to the grand jury to make that decision.
We're a billion dollars over in cost overruns. Are you kidding?
A billion dollars? We're not talking about huge buildings. Here,
go ahead, Trump stick though I don't even know who
he is.
Speaker 3: So isn't this just essentially holding up President Trump's pick
or any forthcoming picks?
Speaker 4: Since Senator tell Us say he will not vote.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know how to explain this, but I'm
going to try it. I've been a prosecutor, a judge,
a DA and now a United States attorney for well
over three decades. Politics is not the lane I'm in
right now. And I have a charge and an oath
to the Constitution, and my job is to present evidence.
And I can do so when I can merely on
the suspicion that the law is being violated, or even
just because I want assurance that it's not. I'm not
in those lanes, and I will not allow myself or
my staff to be in those lanes. And that's why
we brought crime down in this jurisdiction. We are focused
on the law. We're focused on the people of the district.
We are not focused on politics.
Speaker 4: Go ahead said that you toply complied a parent direction
to prosecute power. Can you just stay for the public
record you have the idea or you know the impetus
to study the same.
Speaker 2: First of all, he's totally wrong in his assessment of
the dates, and that's why we're doing a motion to
recon sitter because he got his dates wrong. And as
far as I'm concerned. This was something that was a
public interest, It was something that the Senate Banking Committee
wanted information on, and it is something within my jurisdiction
and my charge. But I want to tell you a story.
When I was a young prosecutor, I was one of
the first people to investigate child abuse as a crime.
Everyone thought it was a social problem and not a
criminal justice problem. The kids are better off with their parents.
There was an organization, and that organization didn't have a
very good reputation, and it was one of the societies
that was out there trying to prevent cruelty to children.
And I set up a relationship where they would bring
me cases. And people were outraged that I would deal
with this organization. And my answer to them thirty forty
years ago, I'll deal with the devil. I'll take a
case from the devil if you can give me information
that will lead me to possibly find a crime. It
doesn't matter where a case comes from. It doesn't matter.
I can have a suspicion, I can read the newspaper.
I can just want to make sure he didn't commit
a crime, So don't make the judges wrong on his dates.
He is wrong that's why we're not only appealing, we're
making a motion to reconsider. Okay, I want to say
one more thing, and I think it's important that you
hear this from me, that there's another way of looking
at this, and that is that it's not just the
public being fed up with this stuff. It's the fact
that what we've got a grand jurors who are supposed
to hear this, and they haven't been able to hear
any of this because someone has decided that they're not
entitled to hear this. Can you take this thanks? This
process has been arbitrarily undermined by an activist judge. We
have a process. We have been asking for information about
a matter that has raised questions in many people's minds. Senate, Banking,
the public, the papers, it doesn't matter. So give me
the information so I can assess it. Give me the
information so the grand jury comprised of regular Americans to
say there's nothing here, and I'll accept it the way
I accept other cases. Okay, whatever it is, we'll abide
by it. What we don't accept is a judge standing
in front of the door of a gre jury blocking
our access, a role that has never been envision a
role that will now be used by other defense attorneys
around the country. Who's going to come in with a
client and say, Oh, my client is being targeted. Don't
do darego in the grand jury, a judge says, yes,
the guy's bathed and washed in immunity and you can't
go after him. The process should have been allowed to
run its course, and it wasn't. And shame on them. Oh,
cut it out. Do you know how many convictions we've got.
Cut it out? You're in one lane. We have cleaned
up this city yet. Historic. Really, I'll tell you what's historic.
What's historic is that I prosecute everything other than ten
percent of the cases, where the United States attorney before
me didn't prosecute sixty seven percent of the cases. That's
what's historic. I'm willing to take a not guilty. I'm
willing to take a no true bill because I'll take
all the crimes and put him in Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 4: That's all the time we got.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: She was not happy. She was really really bad, and
I can't I'm not going to take the seven minutes
where she lamb based at the judge, the judge in
this case, ready, judge Boseburg. Boseburg is a guy who
went up against Donald Trump, and so Trump doesn't like Boseburg.
Naga doesn't like Boseburg. And Boseburg is the chief judge
in the federal judge system in the DC CIRCU DC courts,
and so we'll see where this goes. She says she's
going to appeal it. The problem with her appealing this
is President Trump has selected Kevin Warsh to be his
next SPED chairman. Now Tom tell Us, who is the
Senator from North Carolina, is blocking that until the charges
against the investigation against Jerome pal is dropped because he
thinks it's bogus. But and let me just give you
an analogy. You're my next door neighbor, and you decide
to remodel your house, and you start your remodeling and
you find yourself going way over what your budget was
to remodel your house. How would you feel if I
came over and called the called the cops on you
try to commit say that you committed a crime. What
is it my business about you spending your money on
your house and if you go over budget? What's it
my business? That's what the judge is kind of pointing
out is that this doesn't have any criminal element to it. Again,
I repeat the Federal Reserve, if they went over budget
by a billion dollars, it's a pri ivad bank. No
taxpayer dollars involved. Not a single penny. Oh, we don't
make pennies anymore, not a single nickel. So, I mean,
it's fascinating to watch Elig Honi, who was former Federal
Prosecutors Southern dist victim New York, was asked his reaction, yeah,
boris So.
Speaker 6: First of all, that press conference in itself was extraordinary. Ordinarily,
whenever you see a US attorney call a press conference
and address the cameras, it's because there's been an indictment
or a conviction or a sentence. I don't think I've
ever seen a US attorney or an Attorney General call
a press conference to complain about a ruling that he
or she did not like. That was essentially a public
temper tantrum. I want to start with that. Second of all,
you heard Jennie Perow say that this judge, Judge Bosberg,
is a quote activist judge. Now as Paula said, this
judge was elevated to the district court by Barack Obama.
But before that he was put on the local DC
Superior Court by George W.
Speaker 2: Bush.
Speaker 6: And in this judge which is passed, he has actually
denied emotion years ago to try to get Donald Trump's
tax returns. He ruled in favor of Donald Trump on
those tax returns. And then finally, most fundamentally, we just
heard Jennie Piro complain that the grand jury subpoena is
an important tool of prosecutors, which it is. You heard
Jennie Piro say that the judge quote has taken that
tool away from us. That's not quite right.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 6: The bar is very low here, but what the judge
has said is you don't have absolute free rein to
issue whatever grand jury subpoenas you want. The judge was
right about that. There is a very low bar that
prosecutors have to clear, very low. However, in this case,
Judge Bosberg said, you simply have not cleared that. And
in the opinion, Judge Bosberg says, there is a mountain
of evidence that there's bad faith behind this investigation intended
to pressure the FED. And on the other hand, there
is quote essentially zero evidence of a crime. So that's
really important to keep in mind when we're digesting Judge
Piro's comments right there.
Speaker 1: So I know it's a it's it's a it's a
it's a fight, really is what it is. And again
I know Janine. I've seen her temper before and she
has a hot one. So she is really mad about
the fact that the judge ruled against her. And if
she wants to appeal it, of course, go right ahead,
but it will delay the appointment or the even the
nomination process of Kevin Warsh, who President Trump wants to
be the next FED chairman. Now there's there's another problem
with this, and it had nothing to do with Janine
Pierrot today or anything along those lines. The question comes
down to Kevin Warsh and the fact that, well, the
Fed's meeting next week. I don't know if he's going
to attend that or not because he's not confirmed. Confirmation
hasn't even started. It's blocked in the Senate, but he
is expected that he will get through. But here is
the problemm Tillis has a block on all federal nominations.
If confirmed, worsh would take over Powell's term, which concludes
in May. The problem that Kevin Walsh is going to
have is Trump wants him to lower interest rates immediately
and a lot Well, last time I checked, we have
a war going and oil prices and gas prices are skyrocketing,
and that leads to higher inflation. So about the time
that Kevin Warsh, the new FED chairman to be, gets
in there, is he going to be able to lower
interest rates if he's looking at inflation taking off? See
the problem that he's in, He's going to be He's
going to be in a pickle. And I'm sure if
he doesn't lower interest rates, because inflation is starting to
flare up again, and you don't lower interest rates when
inflation is going up. You raise interest rates when inflation
is going up to try to calm it down. So
if he doesn't lower rates, or if, oh my gosh,
if he raises interest rates, expect Donald Trump to have
a major coronary. So I wasn't planning on starting about
the Fed today. It's on my list, but I had
no idea that Janine Piro was going to come out
and have a hissy fit day fourteen of the war.
A lot of people are asking about the fact that
I don't know if the President knows what he's doing.
And I don't know if the Trump administration knows what
he's doing. And they made a big mistake. All the
Democrats are coming out and saying all that sort of stuff.
Not at all. The war is being run by the Pentagon.
The Pentagon. I know he's the commander in chief, but
the Pentagon, they have exquisite plans for just to pout
any scenario out there, and they have a three to
five or three to six week plan, and it's a
punctionalist and they're going down the punch list and taking
care of things one thing at a time. It's going
to take a whole bunch of things in order to
stop the threat of hitting the ships going through the
port of hohere moves. General kin Raising Kane, the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs, had these comments this.
Speaker 7: Morning, today will be our heaviest day of kinetic fires
across the operating area. Sant Com continues to attack ballistic
missile and drone capabilities so that they are no longer
a threat to US forces, our bases, or our partners.
Speaker 1: And then General Jack Keene was asked what he thought
about all of this.
Speaker 8: Well, we're succeeding quite well in terms of achieving on
military objectives, and so is the IDF. And here war
is always fundamentally a test of wills, and you can
see that and played out right before our eyes. The
Runnings are determined to survive. That is their objective. They
believe that they can survive, then they eventually will be
able to recover and then restart everything that they hold
dear to them, their weapons programs, nuclear et cetera, support
to the proxy, So that is where they're coming from.
Their means to do that is one inflict casualties on
the United States and create opposition to the war by
doing that. That has not happened. The casualties are light.
Not that we take lightly the seven losses that we
have taken and now four more crew members killed in
a crash. Certainly we honor all those service people who
have given their lives here for this cause. But the
reality is the casualties are light. Secondly, what they're trying
to do by attacking the Golf States is again put
pressure on the United States from the Golf States to
terminate this war prematurely so they can survive. That has failed.
The Gulf States remarkably, How are you united around this cause.
And look at the vote in the UN the resolution.
They all voted for it, as did one hundred and
twenty plus other countries. In addition to that, and opposing
what Iran stands for and what and what they're doing.
And then the third thing is the one that has
really captured the media, and that is the straits of
a Mouse. And they want that focus on the straits
of a moves to put max pressure on the United States,
so that becomes the pacing item for the war, not
the achieving of our military objectives. You got to stop
this because we got to get the flow of oil
going out of the straits of a Moves again ended
as soon as we possibly can. And that has to
be the objective. And they surely have got the media's
attention here. They have not. They have not taken away
Prime Minister Netal's attention, President Trump's attention. Not that he
doesn't understand that's an issue, but it's not our primary focus.
What is our primary focus complete our military objectives. Take
their military equipment, all that capability away from that exists
now and in the future. In terms of manufacturing companies
destroy as many of the organizations that sustain this regime
as possible. So this regime has no capability and is
fundamentally crippled when we end hostilities against them. That is
the path we're on. The byproduct will be relief for
the straits of a moose if we are able to
accomplish our objectives, and your chart indicated we're well on
our way to do that that straight some of a
moose's problem will be resolved as a result of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's my impression. I totally believe it that
they are just going down their list of basically checking
the boxes, and when they get there there won't be
anybody to bomb the ships as they're going through the
straight of horror moves. That will all be solved as
they go along. Well, one of the points out of
this is about the question about is Iran going to
try to use sleeper sales here in the US. Let's
go back and review, because we had in Austin, Texas,
the guy with the property of all a T shirt
in the Iran flag that shot a bunch of people
at a bar in Texas, killed some That was a
couple of weeks ago. Then you've got beyond that, you've
got the two guys here in New York City that
threw IEDs and they would have killed a lot of
people if they had gone off, but they made the
mistake of how to make the bomb. So you got that.
Then yesterday, while we were doing this podcast, there were
two I only knew one. Yesterday there were two incidents.
One of them we reported to you about the synagogue
in West Bloomfield, Michigan. And by the way, that wasn't
just any old synagogue. That was apparently the biggest synagogue.
I'm not sure if it's in the state of Michigan
or the whole country is huge. They got twelve thousand
members in any case, So the synagogue was hit. And
yesterday I did something that I've been bothering me taking
myself ever since I fell into that trap of going
The guy looked like he was just anti Semitic, He
just hated Jews and he was going to attack Jews.
So he drove his car or truck whatever he had
right through the front doors of the synagogue and it
caught on fire and he got into a gunfight with
his security guy there. A security guy killed him, or
at least the guy's dead. The security guy was injured,
but he's going to be okay. So it looked like,
I hate to say it a basic attack on a
Jewish institution, but instead we find out after that that
this guy, it may definitely be tied in with the war.
The guy is originally from he was born in Lebanon,
the naturalized citizen. He apparently had targeted Jewish institutions in
the past and or wanted talked about it, and that
he had explosives in his car and he was armed
to the teeth. So it was in fact, well we
don't know his motive positively, but it looks like it
was tied in with the war because he was upset
about the fact that he said he had relatives in
Lebanon that were killed by Israeli bombs of late. So
then we've got in Norfolk, Virginia at Old Dominion University
where there was a guy there who walked into an
area where they were the Reserve Officer Training Corps ROTC
where their classes are held, and asked is this the
ROTC and they said yes, and he opened up fire
on them. He killed the professor who was a lieutenant
colonel in the army who's professor in charge of the
ROTC program at Old Dominion and he injured two others,
but the rest of the ROTC students jumped the guy
and stopped him from killing anybody else. So good for him. Now,
the question is this guy has a background he Well,
let's listen to Dominique Evans. She is the head of
the FBI in Norfolk, Virginia.
Speaker 5: In twenty sixteen, Jallo was arrested and pled guilty for
attempting to provide material support to Isle now known as ISIS.
Jallo was sentenced to prison in October twenty seventeen and
was released from prison in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: He was let out early. But this is a guy
who he was in the National Guard, but he had
some beef. I guessed with the military and at Old Menion,
as most major universities have ROTC programs, that is, Reserve
Officer Training Corps, and apparently wanted to get even. There
is a guy who wrote a book about the Enemy
of ISIS in America and his name is Alexander Hitchens,
and it's about the homegrowing ISIS problem that we have
here in the US. Oh and in this book he
actually wrote about this guy who went in and shot
and killed the professor of Military science at Old Dominion
a few reasons.
Speaker 9: So our book gathered as much data as possible on
the Americans who tried to join ISIS, who we tried
to act in isis's name in America, and part of
that was interviewing as much as possible the FBI field
agents who investigated the cases. So in Jallo's case, there
were three issues that made him a problem. One was
that he had fairly significant military training as a member
of the Army National Guard for a few years. Shortly
after he left the Army, he actually travels to Sierra Leone,
his country of origin, and he tries to join ISIS
in Nigeria and make contact with ISIS members there. Then
he comes back to the United States and he then
gets in touch with what we call a virtual plotter,
an ISIS virtual clutter. Essentially, these are people who are
based who were based in ISIS territory, who were using
their online contacts to reach out to Americans and other
Westerners who are interested in carrying out attacks for ISIS
and kind of act as their handles. These were essentially
the sort of gray area between the un sort of
lone actor with no training and the actual terrorist actor
who knows how to direct and help plan attacks. So
the way Jallo came across the FBI's radar was they
were actually watching this virtual planner and they thankfully had
an FBI infemant who was in touch with this plotter
who the plotter then said, you need to speak to
this other speaking.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So he was arrested and served seven years of
a longer jail. Sense I think it was well John
Miller knows. We'll play him here in a second. But
he was arrested for basically trying to join ISIS, serve
some prison time, got out early, and this is what
we get. He shows up at Old Dominion yesterday and
kills a lieutenant colonel and injures two others. Here's John Miller.
It's a little more background.
Speaker 3: We know he was the subject of a case where
he was charged and convicted with being someone offering material
support to ISIS buying guns for what he believed was
going to be an attack on US soil, something he
admitted to in his statement when he pled guilty. He
was sentenced to eleven years back in twenty seventeen. Out
in twenty twenty five, so it's not clear as to
whether that was for time served, good behavior or some
other reason. And then is the kind of subject that
the FBI probably would have kept on their radar in
terms of spot check social media and so on. But
when he turned up today an open fire in that
ROTC class, this is an individual who was a former
member of the US National Guard. So he was clearly
asking students is the ROTC class and when they said yes,
he started shooting, clearly targeting the US military. And I
would suspect likely stirred by the news of the war
in Iran and likely stirred on behalf of ISIS, even
though ISIS and Iran are not friends.
Speaker 1: So James Gagliano, former NYPD, was asked about the threat
that you and I face here in the US from
the sleeper cells.
Speaker 10: I should have gone to jail for twenty years, and
I believed it somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred
and thirty two months. And again it goes back to
that suicidal empathy. The judge here decided that somebody that
was tried and convicted of providing material support to ISIS
deserved the second chance, and this was his second chance,
we are going to see more ISIS related and inspired attacks.
Speaker 1: And why is that.
Speaker 10: Well, propaganda and attention is the coin of the realm
in the tear business, and ISIS doesn't want Hamas and
HESBLA getting all the attention. So I think now more
than ever, we need to pay attention to these potential
lone wolf attacks.
Speaker 1: Similar information also from former NYPD Lieutenant Paul Moore.
Speaker 11: Well, a couple of things we have to recognize. First
of all, these are likely homegrown attacks by people who
were self radicalized. I see noaendisha at least on to
the facts that we have right now, that these attacks
were directed by an overseas adversary. I know we're all
thinking Iran right now. I don't see Iran directing any
of these. It doesn't mean that the Iran War didn't
have a role. I don't assess it had a role
in what happened here in New York City that seems
to have been an ISIS aligned attack. But we have
to recognize that we are in a space right now
where people can self radicalize quite easily, especially if they're
inclined that way. You have encrypted apps, you have a
home front right now, that is undermined by the fact
that we're in defund two point zero DHS. Vital federal
partners for the local police or with the point of
the spear on this stuff are not going to be
there for some of the state and locals who need
that help. It also impacts things at the border, and
we all know what happened over the last four years,
so we are in a very fraught period relative to
what I would argue is the most likely place they're
coming at us, and that's going to be these home
self radicalized individuals. We've been doing the kind of stuff
that we've been seeing.
Speaker 1: So they are starting to add up. You've got the
shooting in Austin a few weeks ago. The guy had
the property of Allah and an Iranian flag. The New
York City Gracie Mansion IEDs that were thrown a couple
of days ago. Thank goodness, they did not go off yesterday.
You've got Old Dominion University and the Michigan Synagogue that
we're both attacked, So you've got to keep your eyes
and ears open. You've got another big event coming up
Sunday night, the Oscars in Los Angeles. That's always full
of lots of security, but I'm sure they're going to
step it up for something like that. The markets today,
well it's still very unsettled. Let mean just that's I
guess the kind way to say it. The Dow Jones
industrials started off positive this morning, went up, and then
just worked its way down until we got to about noon,
and then it went under water. And it finished. The
Dow down one hundred and nineteen to close at forty
six thousand and five point fifty eight, the SMP down forty,
the Nasdaq down two hundred and six, Gold down one
hundred and three dollars to five thy twenty three, and
oil just keeps marching higher today, up to ninety nine
dollars and twenty two cents just under one hundred. That's
up three and a half dollars from where we started
this morning. So have yourself a wonderful weekend. Put your
head on a swivel. We'll be back here on Monday,
and I hope to see you then