Speaker 1: And we're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist, and
your experienced Shirpa on today's Quest for Knowledge. As always,
you can email the show at radio at the Federalist
dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST, make
sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and of
course to the premium version of our website as well.
I'm joined today by Mike Howell, executive director of the
Heritage Foundation's Overside Project. Launched in January twenty twenty two,
the Overside Project is Heritage's investigative and oversight arm. The
work is primarily in ten to drive successful federal, state,
and local oversight and accountability of the destructive work of
the radical progressive left. Successful oversight means shaping successful policy victories,
and let me tell you, the Oversight Project has indeed
achieved successful policy victories. Mike, thanks so much for being
here on today's edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: He thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: You guys are doing fantastic work. I know that because
I use your work. In fact, we had a story
up at the Federalist last week talking to some of
the fine folks in your project at the Heritage Jeff Foundation,
regarding the thousands of documents that you have obtained, and
it has been no easy feat, believe me, from the
Biden administration on what is commonly referred to as Biden Bucks.
It's the executive order that he signed, one of the
first orders of bil business, if you will, for the
Biden administration in March of twenty twenty one. And what
it did was it directed the federal government to use
taxpayer resources effectively to drive a get out the vote
effort to re elect at that time Joe Biden. That's
no longer an issue, but his successor, Kamala Harris, of course,
and Democrats, I mean, the documents and the people behind
it are they're troubling, to say the least. Let's start there,
because I don't know of anything much more important than
election integrity as we move within one hundred days of
this election.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, what's happening now is absolute corruption. I mean,
a very red line was crossed by this administration. We've
taken for granted the United States of America that the
president is not allowed to use the executive branch to
ensure his own reelection, particularly you know the rules of
the road and the way elections are conducted. That is
a long held principle of America's constitutional republic is that
the voters get to decide who the president is. And
this rubicon was crossed very early in this administration where
basically the Biden administration, and this is spearheaded by Susan
Rice and really is derivative of Obama world, decided that
they were going to do all the things they could
not do legislatively. Remember there was that HR one bill,
the Pelosi bill for the voting bill they wanted to
push cross they decided that removes much of that activity
inside the executive branch to ensure that Biden or whomever
would be re elected. And it's playing out really on
steroids right.
Speaker 1: Now, on steroids. Indeed, in fact, I wrote a piece
several months ago at the Federalist talking about if you
thought Zuckbucks or Zuckerbucks, however you want to phrase it,
was bad, just wait you get a hold of this.
I think some folks, perhaps in your organization, but certainly
one of the watchdogs looking into this described it as
zuck Bucks on steroids. Is that a fair descriptor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, steroids might be you know, a little small.
I mean, when we talk about zuck Bucks, it was
about four hundred million dollars to privatize you know, local
election systems in a few areas. What we're talking about
now is the entirety of the federal government apparatus, you know,
across the country and everywhere engaged in directional voter mobilization
and get out the vote experts. And so this dwarf
zuck Bucks in terms of its size and scale. The
originators of this a group called Demos, who again is
derivative of Obama World brad that they could get three
million more Democrats registered and activated to vote for them
if they use the federal government towards this end. And
so when we look at twenty twenty, an election that
came down to, you know, forty thousand votes if you
trust the final public tally, we're talking about three million.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: It's a real sleeping giant that Americans aren't aware of,
despite you know, us putting out the word, you putting
out the word. It's really outcome determinive.
Speaker 1: No doubt about it. In what is scary about this
once again, is just how deeply this goes the federal government,
the Biden administration tied in to the leftist organizations that
tell you innoculously that Executive Order fourteen zero one nine,
as it is officially listed, is nothing more than a
noble access to voter registration, the idea of expanding voting
for all Americans, and so it's presented that way, but
it seems, based on the documents that you folks have obtained,
based on the stories that we've written at the Federalist
and some pretty damning information, that it's more than just
this innocuous idea of expanding access to voting.
Speaker 2: That's absolutely right. The directional is the word we use.
Speaker 3: They're taking all of the powers of the federal government,
the money, the resources, the access, combining it with only
far left progressive nonprofits, and then pointing those efforts at
key demographics that they think, numbers wise, will turn out
for them. And the documents we've uncovered prove this over
and over again, and it's predatory in nature in terms
of who it points to the machine at. We're seeing
a huge uptick in Native American reservations, prisons, college campuses,
any key demographic that is associated with the left is
a target for the government to activate and to roll
into the DNCS get out of the vote program. They're
wholly ignoring any sort of demographic that traditionally would lean right,
and so they painted in these kind of neutral terms
of voter registration and mobilization because they know that's kind
of hard to argue with.
Speaker 2: How can you argue against that?
Speaker 3: But what they don't tell the American people is that
this is only pointed in areas that they think benefits them.
And it's really outrageous how ham fisted they've gone about this,
and they're absolute desperation. You know, we uncovered some documents
about the Bureau of Indian Education where they're basically picking
Native American reservations only in.
Speaker 2: Deep blue areas.
Speaker 3: Believe it or not, there are plenty of Native American
tribes that lean right, you know, the Lunkies North Carolina
or one of them. But they're picking the hardest left
demographics in the Swing states and doing things as looney
as sending kids home with packets to get their parents
to fill out there, enlisting the children to go after
the parents. It's just really really predatory.
Speaker 1: That's very disturbing, you know that point, and I looked
at those documents and have a piece up at the
Federalist on that, and excellent work on the Oversight Project's
part for looking into this. Reading the communications between the
Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Education,
it is clear exactly what they are doing. You have
officials saying, hey, can we meet next week to talk
about how we can get voter registration cards in the
hands of school kids, kindergardeners, elementary school kids, you know,
high schoolers, middle schoolers, and get those voter registration cards
home to mom and dad. And it's not just as
you mentioned, a widespread effort across these government run Native
American education programs and systems. It is specifically targeted in
deep blue areas of swing states that will make the
difference ultimately in November's election.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely right, And another dramatic illustration of this is
what we found in Michigan. So basically the small business administration.
You're probably rightfully thinking, what the heck do they have
to do with elections? Well, think about all the money
that's going to flow through these entities in terms of
jobs and whatnot to juice the economy before the election
and those massive trillion dollar bills that you know Biden
jammed through the Congress in the first half his term.
But if you look in Michigan, the Small Business Administration
has a memorandum of understanding with Jocelyn Benson, one of
the hardest left Secretaries of State out there, and they
basically picked twelve job sites in deep blue areas. And
you know, Michigan there's kind of a divergent political setup
in that the Upper Peninsula is deep red. Obviously they
picked no job sites up there, and so they're just
deploying all these resources in the area that Benson and
the radicals that the Biden administration pick to use the
government money and resources to connect people to you know,
get out the vote efforts. You basically show up, help
get a job through the Small Business Administration. Next thing
you know, you're in a DNC voter database that's being
solicited for get out of.
Speaker 2: The vote purposes.
Speaker 1: Amazing. You know, we've heard in recent days since Kamala Harris,
Vice President Kamala Harris has been the presumptive annoyed in
one of the Democratic Party to take over where Joe
Biden has obviously left off, backing out of the race
after a disastrous debate and the vast majority of Americans,
including Democrats, not wanting him to seek reelection or even
serve in the office because of the well stated, well
seen problems that he is facing as an octagenarian president.
But it's interesting to, you know, look at this kind
of information that you've obtained, that you've uncovered, and then
look at now over the last week where the polling is,
and you hear the Democrats and the accomplice media talking about, oh,
look how Kamala Harris is. Must you know, this really
recharged a broken spirited Democratic party. She's closing the gap
that Trump had over Biden. But I guess my question
to you is, no matter where the polling stands, even
if Kamala Harris is five six points down or more
to Donald Trump, will it ultimately matter if the Democrats
have this kind of constitutionally suspect operation running again paid
for by you, the taxpayer.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So that's the open question and the million dollar question.
I mean, unfortunately, the way it stands now, there's zero
percent chances of free and fair election, and this is
because of things like Biden Bucks or what we're calling
Kamala campaign cash, or things like trying to imprison your
chief political opponent or you know, shooting them into phase.
This election has been interfered with in so many substantial
ways that there is a delta that President Trump will
have to overcome. So he's going to have to win
by more than you know would be required in a
free and fair election. I will say on the polling industry,
which is a fraudulent industry. You can buy a poll
to say whatever you want. The play right now on
the left is to try to keep this election, you know,
close for public purposes, in terms of they need to
condition the public that you know, it's expected to be close,
so that when did cheating schemes kick in, there's an
element of believability to it. And so that's what we're
seeing happening right now with the media fully in you know,
cahoots with the Democratic Party to keep this illusion of
you know, this upshot Kamala Harris alive when you know
reality is that she's no different than you know, President
Biden in terms of his fundamental flaws and his handling
of policy over the last few years.
Speaker 1: Indeed, based on what you've seen based on the documents
that the Oversight Project has uncovered. You know, these are
documents that date back last few years. But from what
you've been able to take in and what you've been
able to see, does it look like the Biden Bucks
machine is ramping up even more so for Kamala Harris,
the if you will, accidental presidential candidate, So.
Speaker 3: A lot of her boy returns are you know, by
very definition delayed a few months, so we wouldn't be
able to detect it up rising that fast. I will say,
I think the program is virtually candidate you know, agnostic,
as much of the machinery is. It really doesn't matter
who the Left nominates as a presidential candidate when they've
changed elections not into gathering votes, but collecting ballots. The
quote unquote election system in the United States of American
twenty twenty four is a competition of machinery to collect ballots.
And so it really doesn't matter whose names on it
if you're just going out and you know, running the
game of collecting them. And that's what camel a campaign
cash or Biden Bucks is really all about getting as
many unaccountable ballots out there as possible. And this is
where the invasion really plays in. We're talking about ten
million plus people who have stormed across our border. That
creates an absolute pressure on the number of ballots going out.
When we have basically an honor system in terms of
illegal alience registering to vote, there's going to be tons
of more ballots out there that are collectible, whether the
illegal alien intends to vote them or not. And it
doesn't matter for the purposes of the machinery whether that
ball it's being collected for Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.
It's all the same scheme at the end of the day.
Speaker 4: Weird how no one's going after CrowdStrike after their transportation meltdown.
The watched Out on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski.
Every day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and
the economy and how it affects your wallet. While Pete
goes after airlines like Delta. No one's saying a word
about CrowdStrike. Remember when CrowdStrike also said Hillary's server was
hacked by Russians. Whether it's happening in DC or down
on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially.
Speaker 1: Be informed.
Speaker 4: Check out the Watchdout on Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Well, that's scary. We're going to get into the non
citizen illegal immigrant issue coming up in just a moment
as we take a closer look at Biden Bucks in particular,
or Executive Order fourteen zero one nine once again that
gives the federal government, the federal agencies the full ability
to run a get out the vote operation for Kamala
Harris now and the rest of the Democrats. There is
something called the Anti Deficiency Act that I think we
should pause and talk about. It's important because it says
specifically that federal agencies cannot use money that is appropriated
by Congress not designated for the purpose stipulated in the
funding package. Where does it say anywhere that the federal government,
the Biden administration here in this case, can use the
federal government as a get out the vote operation.
Speaker 3: Well, it says exactly opposite of the United States Constitution,
where it leaves elections to the states and their legislatures
to determine the time, place, and manner, And so it's
explicitly forbidden for the executive branch to do this in
the Constitution, not to mention two hundred and fifty years
of customs, norms, and practices where the president does not
manipulate the government.
Speaker 2: To ensure his own re election.
Speaker 3: So we're already far, far far downfield on this right now,
I will say about the Anti Deficiency Act, we're in
a lot of trouble if that's what we have to
point to. The Anti Deficiency Act is largely administered by
the Government Accountability Office GAO, which is a legislative branch office.
It takes years, it rarely is successful, and the recourse
there is basically the government spent money that they shouldn't
have spent. It's a financial kind of, you know, remedy.
It's not going to change the outcome of an election.
The remedy here was for Congress to act. And I'll
tell this to your viewers. When Speaker McCarthy you know,
was getting oriented as the new you know, a majority
leader at the beginning of this Congress, we were asked
what is the most important thing for oversight purposes and
what should we be focused on defunding as number one,
And to a lot of people's shock at that moment time,
we said this is it EO one four zero nineteen.
You're guaranteeing a you know, not only Joe Biden or
whomever reelection, but down ballot as well, and people aren't
going to have confidence in the outcomes of those elections.
Is really republic threatening behavior. And so the remedy was
for Congress to defund that. Instead, Congress, as you know,
waltz through funding cycle after funding cycle, maybe with a
couple of messaging letters or hearings in between, and you know,
doubled down on funding all of this activity. So if
the election is rigged on the basis of this executive order,
it's not only you know, President Biden and his administration
who's at fault, but the people who we've allowed to
have power on our behalf are representatives in Congress who
funded this. And that's just a story across the board
for the weaponization of this administration, which has only gotten
worse since Republicans took the gabbles and the majority in
the House.
Speaker 1: Indeed, but you know, you talk about it, maybe the
states are the salvation of this. You talk about the
constitutional side of this thing, and what clearly is stated
in the Constitution about states being in charge of running
the elections because it's not a national election, it's an
election of fifty states and territories and districts, all of that.
And so that said, we had some very courageous constitutional
law adherents, and that's difficult to find these days, it
seems so often, certainly on the left. But some folks
in Pennsylvania, the state legislature that took this Biden Bucks
case to the US Supreme Court, and they had a
very compelling argument. They took it to the Supreme Court
because it was rejected not on the merits of the
case in Pennsylvania Federal court District court. It was rejected
because of a long standing standing issue. The Supreme Court
was mulling it and then ultimately decided, for whatever reason,
it would not take it up until they get back
into their next session come late September. That seems to
me too late. The damage will mostly be done by
the time the Supreme Court gets back in. We're going
to have early voting already starting. Any hope that the
Supreme Court will will offer some sort of respite or
relief from this. Clearly to me, seems an unconstitutional act
by the Biden administration.
Speaker 2: No I have no hope.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I mean, the Supreme Court in the judiciary red
large has virtually proven to not want to touch election
related issues at all. And we saw this in the
aftermath of twenty twenty where the basic, you know, judiciary
theory was Okay, if it's before the election, you can't
come to us because the damage hasn't been done. And
then after the fact they'll say, well, it's too late
to do anything about it. And so we're in this
catch twenty two area where the judiciary is into a
place to really hear these disputes, and that's really really unfortunate.
And so where that leaves us is a lot of
the swing states are complicit in this. They like the
federal interference in it because it's a part is an issue.
So in a state like Pennsylvania with the Democratic governor,
they're not going to kick these folks out. But you
do see some activity in some deep red states. In Indiana,
for example, Secretary of State Diego Morales told the Feds
they weren't allowed to do this at all, which was
our recommendation when we wrote a letter to all the
Secretaries of states, and so that's great, but Indiana is
a red state, right, And so we're in trouble in
a lot of the swings where there is complicit conspiratorial behavior,
you know, no different than Jocelyn Benson working with the
Biden administration up in Michigan. And so it's really a
dangerous territory. And then the question obviously is, well, then
what is the remedy? And this is what I fear,
and I got in some trouble for these comments a
few weeks ago, but we hosted an event and I
basically said, I'm formally accusing the administration of creating the
conditions that no reasonable policy maker can certify an election.
And so I think we're going to get into some
seriously hairy certification issues. What is a policy maker to
do when they're asked to certify an election that there's
this positive proof the Fed's interfered with and illegal aliens
voted in. And so that's why we see preemptively right now,
a lot of the litigation efforts of Mark Elias and
others are trying to turn the certification into a ministerial
duty where basically people have to certify, and that's really
where the fight is. They're trying to jam corrupt elections
down our throats and to force it on the certification stage.
Speaker 1: Very scary. I said, we were going to get into
the non citizens' aspect of this, the illegal alien portion
of it, because it is a significant portion of this
argument coming up. Indeed we will. We're talking today with
Mike Howell, executive director of the Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project.
These folks are doing some great work in shining light
on the records, the documents, the communications regarding Executive Order
fourteen zero one nine. What is commonly referred to as
biden Bucks and biden Bucks is exactly what it sounds
like in reference to Zuckbucks using your taxpayer dollars to
operate a get out the vote machine to elect or
re elect Democrats. The last several years in this country,
on Joe Biden's watch, we have seen what are the estimates,
ten million plus illegal immigrants coming over the border. That
wasn't an accident, that was policy, it was by design.
How much of that is going to factor into fraudulent
voting in this twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Election massively, absolutely, massively, and it's almost incurable at this point.
You know, right now the United States is suffering. It's
third and a half year being invaded, and for the
first time in our constitutional republic, the president is on
the inside, on the side of the invaders. I mean,
this is really a historical, unprecedented that the president and
administration gave up sovereign control of our border, you know,
which has led to just pouring across people from mental institutions, rapists, pedophiles, drugs, crime,
everything they bring with them, all for a political trade
off in their mind that this would help them win
elections because they're importing a new voter block. They've the
Left has opposed every single measure to protect our election
infrastructure against the legals voting. Right now, we basically operate
off an honor system where, you know, due to the
motor voter registration and a legal alien when they go
to the DMV simply just has to say they're not
an illegal and they get registered to vote. And then
there's very little way to audit that system. I mean,
DHS holds some databases which aren't even perfect about who's
a citizen and who's not that states have to pay
to get access to on like you know, per use.
There's simply not a way to just audit the system.
Right now for these these things, and then after the fact,
there's not a way to look at an election and
to detect, you know, rates of non citizens voting at all.
They design the system so they can't be audited. And
you know, even if you could audit them, the timeframe
between an election and certification is so short that no
full scope or investigation can occur.
Speaker 2: And then making.
Speaker 3: Matters even worse is there's not even a body to
do those things. Most states don't even have full time
election crime prosecutors.
Speaker 2: They aren't looking into these things.
Speaker 3: We have investigators going around the country right now simply
just asking the legal aliens if they're registered to vote,
and the response rate and the affirmative is.
Speaker 2: Absolutely through the roof.
Speaker 3: And so this is a really tough situation, and that
you know, the Left is basically hitched there a political
wagon to winning on the backs of the illegal aliens
in an unapologetic way. They're openly opposing any measures to
pret tack the system from foreign influence via the illegals.
And I think ultimately they're going to have to live
if they win quote unquote an election with the vast
majority of this country believing they did so on the
backs of illegal aliens that they imported to replace Americans.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a headline we're dealing with today, and you
know what I'm talking about. That headline involves Venezuela. The
Washington Post headline, World leaders cast out on Maduro's claim
of victory in Venezuelan elections. How close are we mirroring
what's going on here, what we've just been talking about
for these last several minutes, what's going on in Venezuela.
Speaker 3: I think Venezuela's behind us and closer to us. I
think the question should be flipped on its head. After
twenty twenty, I think this country lost all international standing
to basically lecture anybody else about their their elections. And obviously,
the United States has a long history of interfering in
those elections, and I'm sure Maduro will have some claims
about the US role in the election down there. But
this is what happens when you run fraudulent elections in
you know, the United States of America, as you lose
your international standing to lecture people on their democracy and
all this while you know, we're pretending that Ukraine is
some aspirational democracy when they've canceled elections, and so you know,
I don't think we're catching up to Venezuela. I think
Venezuela is catching up to US.
Speaker 1: Motor Voter Act goes back now more than thirty years.
Do you think that that was the long term strategic
plan of the left Democrats at that time. Conservatives got
some things, a few things they wanted in that vote,
but ultimately you ended up getting, along with some other things,
just this, as you say, honor system when it comes
to status, citizenship status in America.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I don't think the designs at the time were
as you know, sophisticated and criminal as they are now.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, during the Clint.
Speaker 3: Administration there is the least kind of bipart is a
consensus that illegal immigration was bad. But obviously the intent
of the Motor Voter was to loosen the registration requirements
and less an election integrity in the name of the left,
hopefully getting more people on their side registered on their behalf.
Speaker 2: So those exploitable loopholes were.
Speaker 3: Put into place and taken full advantage of by now
a political party and movement that has placed the legal
aliens in winning well above the well being of not
only this country, but the citizens that should occupy it.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the Hatch Act, because
some documents that I looked at from the oversight project
that you obtained show some real problems, if not stepping
up and looking over the edge, actually plummeting from the
edge into Hatch Act violations. Again. I go back to
the Department of the Interior. The secretary there lauded, lauded
again as being the first Native American to serve as
secretary of any agency. Andy, But you have a Secretary
of the Interior who has written op ed pieces and
made speeches, and, according to the documents that you've uncovered,
really pushing a targeted agenda, a political agenda. It's it's
really hard to argue as their attorneys in these communications
keep trying to do that they're somehow inside of the
Hatch Act provisions that prevent, you know, overt partisan politicking,
you know, in a very political way. But it seems
to me, based on what you've uncovered, that they've jumped
over the line of the Hatch Act.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And well, what listeners should understand is the Hatch
Act is administered by an agency called the Office of
Special Council, not to be confused with you know, the
various other special councils in Jacksmith.
Speaker 2: Of the World r.
Speaker 3: And so this is a federal executive brandan entity whose
leadership is appointed by President Biden. And so this is
in some agnostic, impartial agency, although that's what they like
to present themselves as. The fact that they signed off
on this executive order is so lappably absurd. It goes
against the very purpose of having this you know, quote
unquote independent agency, which is not independent at all. And
so they've really, i think ruined their credibility for a
long time going forward. And we really need a credible
Office of Special Counsel because they deal with whistleblower complaints
all sorts of things, and they have some sort of
you know, power or to remedy those things. But when
you see basically the one nsteam federal government who's supposed
to police this activity, saying that one of the most
egregious constitutional abuses of our time is all fine in dandy.
I think Americans have a lot of right to question
their government and the weaponization trends that they're seeing.
Speaker 1: Well, definitely, it's just further proof and exhibit a of
what we're talking about with the way that this administration
has used federal agencies, particularly the Department of Justice, to
go after their political enemies. Let's talk Act Blue for
a moment. I'm wondering if the Oversight Project has looked
into the growing controversy. It's not a new controversy, but
it certainly is getting a lot of attention now about
some very suspect massive donations. And I think it's really
coming to light. We're told by the Democrats, were told
by their friends in the accomplice media that Kamala Harris
in twenty four hours raised what some one hundred million
dollars and that was all driven by the exuberance, of course,
people who are excited to see Joe Biden being thrown
off the Democrat Party train and Kamala Harris getting on
board and serving as the conductor. But there are some
serious concerns about foreign in es, lots of money being
dumped in you. Can you talk a little bit about that.
If the Overside Project has been looking into the Act
Blue donations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely we have.
Speaker 3: But I should credit the folks who've really brought a
lot of this to to light. I mean, James O'Keeffe
and you know his group have put a lot out there.
There's a lot of other citizen reporters, all outside of government,
by the way, which is really what's happening right now
is the institutional right, in terms of its elected class,
has fallen down on its oversight investigations and you know,
accountability functions. So it's left to people like the Oversight
Project and other you know, you know, citizen journalists or
actual journalists like you all the federalists to do this
type of stuff. But yes, we are closely tracking it
is obviously beyond the pal suspect. Where I'm targeting our
efforts now is basically gathering up stuff to refer to
state attorneys general because they're the ones who can go
out and serve subpoenas. I mean, I think enough has
been done in the exposure lane that it's time for
actual legal consequence. And I don't know why no one's
taken that step thus far, but this is the pattern
we see. You know, our state ags aren't willing to
get into these spaces. It's almost like the complete opposite
of the weaponis left. They won't even touch legitimate areas
if they think it smells too much of politics. And
so when you see foreign money flooding into our election
infrastructure through Act Blue, you got to wonder how they're
allowed to get away with this. And the short answer
is because you know, we don't stop them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about it. I'm curious. I've got some
emails out to some folks in, for instance, Senator Marco
Rubio's office, but I recall in about this time twenty
twenty three, the Senator's office was looking into is going
to investigate some of this stuff? Do you know what's
ever come of that? I'm not just picking on Senator Rubio.
I know others have been talking about investigating as well.
Where does that stand congressionally?
Speaker 3: So Congress, Senate, or House is incapable of investigating and
solving anything. I think one of the biggest things that we,
as you know, a base and a public can do
is to stop appealing to those people. If you can
name me one problem that Congress has solved by virtue
of their investigations, all shut up. But I don't think
you can, because they are only interested in getting on
TV or cameras or presence. They'd like to associate themselves
with the controversy, but never see anything through this. This is,
you know, unfortunately, what Congressional Oversight has kind of devolved too.
Now the left doesn't play that way. The left gets
the job done. They're right, just you know, the only
problem they run towards is, you know, if a camera
is right there, and they'll get their five minutes in
and leave. And the same things playing out with this
task force that they announced for the Trump assassination, which
I think you know, when they issue their final reporting December,
is going to leave a lot of Americans with the
final consensus that Congress is just not a serious entity
in terms of investigative and accountability measures.
Speaker 2: And so I put no stock.
Speaker 3: I spend very little time thinking about what the Hill
is or is not doing to me. They can wake
up one day and start start doing things correctly, but
I'm not holding my breath. That's why we launched the
Oversight project. We're innovating beyond what they're capable of doing.
And I think that's why we've had such success, not
only getting documents out that they can't get in Congress,
but getting results that they can't get either. And that's
because they choose not to get them, they choose to
be losers.
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right, and that's, you know, that's
the disappointing part to a lot of Americans, be they grassroots,
conservatives or independents looking for some accountability. If you're looking
for accountability coming out of the halls of Congress from
Republican members of Congress, you have ultimately come to the
wrong place. I want to step back again and talk
about an issue that the Oversight Project has clearly looked into,
and it's obviously we're talking about that in the main.
That's voter fraud and something that you had just mentioned
how the state ags are not willing to get into
the fight, not willing to step into the fray. And
that's problematic, but I think it points to a bigger
problem when we get this constant narrative from the left
and the accomplice media that there are very few incidents
of provable election fraud. It's a very rare thing. One
thing that's never pointed out in context is prosecutors across
this country are loath to take on these issues. And
so there are many more I can tell you, having
investigated this front, many more cases of actual voter fraud
what we traditionally think of as voter fraud, not just
the irregularities and some of the other things that we
saw actual law violation from election administrators, particularly in swing
state it's in twenty twenty, but actual election fraud. It's
just we don't see prosecutors engaging. Why is that it's
such an important topic for Americans? Why do prosecutors not engage?
Speaker 3: Right, Well, there aren't that many election prosecutors in the
country at all, at least full time. I think Texas
is one of the only states that has a canful
of full time election crime prosecutors, and so the system
is designed not to investigate it, and then we're you know,
the absence of those investigations is held up to the
American public as proof that the dirty system is in
fact clean. Now, obviously that needs to change. So why
isn't the right pushing there? And I think it's because,
you know, there's a lot of problems on the right
in terms of you know, our different kind of professions.
You know, I could go on about the consulting class
and the pollsters, which are basically just parasites on the rights.
Speaker 2: But we have a huge.
Speaker 3: Problem in our legal apparatus, which is often heralded as
the conservative legal movement. These are people who aren't interested
in these types of issues. They're viewed as you know,
low status issues. They'd rather be dealing with things that
touch on regulated industry and you know, corporate power. And
this is a problem as old as time for the right,
and it's reflected in who we put on the bench,
who we put into you know, the Supreme Court, who
we put in you know, a USA jobs, in a
Republican administration, or even in the state ags. We just
do not have fighters on the legal side on the right,
and we need to fundamentally change kind of you know,
our recruiting structure and the people that we hold up.
Speaker 2: And that's across the board too.
Speaker 3: It's not even just those prosecutors that we don't have,
but even in Congress, the people we hold up, as
you know, the titans of oversight, we give a pass
to for not getting results. And I think that's probably
the biggest change the right needs to have. You know,
it's not arguing over the policy issues, whether you think
it should be a six week abortion ban of zero,
a twenty whatever. It's whether you're willing to fight or
not is the litmus test of our time, and I
could say without a shadow of doubt that the conservative
legal movement as a whole is not willing to fight.
Speaker 1: Well. What we know from twenty twenty one on in particular,
and we learned that a long time before these seminal
moments in our American politics is that conservatives go to jail,
Conservatives go to prison, Liberals don't. That's just the way
things stand in this country. Take a look at the
record and you'll see it. When liberals actually do go
to jail or prison, it's because the evidence is so
overwhelming that they can't possibly escape it. But that's a rarity, Mike.
We've talked a lot about the Oversight Project as it
relates to that critical issue Executive Order fourteen zero one
to nine Biden bucks. But there's a lot more that
the project is doing. Let's talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we're really focused in the election integrity space
right now. We have teams around the country actually internationally
investigating threats to our election systems. We've put out a
lot of critical bombshell investigative material on this, particularly in
illegal aliens, whether it's a legal alience obtaining fraudulent residency
documents in New York, whether it's flyers being distributed in Mexico,
encouraging illegals to remember to vote for Joe Biden, whether
it's a legal alien you know, quote unquote shelters or
apartment complexes full of illegals who say they're registered to vote.
I mean, we're really illustrating this problem for the American public.
But we're also really focused in now on this assassination
attempt into President Trump, because what we're seeing is the
system pretending it can investigate itself. Whether it's you know,
Jenna Napolitano, a longtime Trump critic, leading the Department Fullman
Securities investigation, whether it's this you know, absurd task force
by partisan task force that Congress just rolled out to
investigate the Secret Service. And so, knowing that the system
cannot investigate itself, we've been investigating it. We tracked Matthew
Crooks's cell phone data to put out a map of
his known connections and pattern of life in the days
leading up to the shooting or the years leading up
to the shooting rather and really broke new investigative ground there.
We have a ton of ongoing investigations as it relates
to some of the more flagrant abuses of this administration,
including of course the invasion of the United States, but
also just your standard waste brought in the abuse. There's
no shortage of investigative targets into that end. We've done
something that no one else has been able to do
in terms of the scale and ferocity of our push.
We have well over twenty five thousand floyas out there,
and you know, only a small subset of those, about
one hundred we're actively litigating on.
Speaker 2: But we're everywhere and all at once.
Speaker 3: And again it's innovating these new techniques and personnel to
fill the void that Congress has purposely left wide open.
You know, Congress would like us to think, you know,
with our bread and circuses, that they're actually conducting oversight.
You know, we were awake to this along before the
general public and decided we can't sit around and wait
for them to do it. We got to get out
there and do it ourselves. And you know, so that's
exactly what the Oversight Project is doing.
Speaker 1: And it's not easy. We can tell you that of
the Federalist I mean heritage, the Federalist other watchdog organizations,
the countless Foyer request and the open records request and
states that you put out there, and particularly this federal government.
This administration is absolutely I've been doing this longer than
I want to admit. This is the worst administration. When
we talk about open government, it is absolutely closed government.
So ultimately you send out a lot of foyas, but
you get a lot of stonewalling, I would imagine as
we do as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 3: I mean FOYA should be the most egalitarian statute of them,
all right. It's a reflection that the information belongs to
the people and the government has.
Speaker 2: To give it to the people.
Speaker 3: That's the purpose of FOYA as a transparency tool. What
it's been perverted to over time is that only those
with resources can get information. I had to build our
own custom law law firm here at the Oversight Project
just to sue and that's, you know, unfortunate. Like people
should be able to get information easily out of their government,
especially in a time where we have advanced back end searches,
you know, technology, artificial intelligence. It should be the easiest
time ever to get information out of the government with
the tools available. But they've turned the statute on its
head and basically said, no, you have to be a
sophisticated actor willing to sue to get information out. And
so that's what we do, and it shouldn't be that way.
But you know, while it is that way, we're suing
a lot and soon as much as possible to get
all the information out.
Speaker 2: But if you know, that needs to be reformed totally.
Speaker 3: It's there needs to be criminal penalties for non responses
and things of that nature, and information by default should
be available to the American people. I mean, when we
talk about you know, this just complete clown narrative of
defensive democracy. The fact that this government is paying lawyers,
you know, tons of money the Department of Justice to
refuse to turn over information is absurd.
Speaker 2: That all of us are paying.
Speaker 3: To have information hidden from us, and it's just really
turning the concept completely on its head.
Speaker 1: Sounds a lot like Venezuela to me, quite frankly. Well,
it's critical, critical work, and nobody's doing it better than
the folks over at Heritage the Oversight Project. And I
really appreciate you joining us today.
Speaker 3: Hey, I appreciate it. Appreciate the kind words and all
the Federalists. You know does we do a lot of
stories with you.
Speaker 2: Guys. Keep up the good work.
Speaker 1: You've been looking forward to work as listen, you've got
to keep shining that light. That's the only way we're
going to get people to fully understand the sort of
abuses going on in their name and their government. Thanks
to my guest today, Mike Cowell, executive director of the
Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project, you've been listening to another edition
of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior correspondent
at the Federalist. Until we speak again, we'll be back
with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom. I'm anxious
for the fray