Speaker 1: Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of You're Wrong
with Molly Hemingway, editor in chief of The Federalist and
David Harsani, senior writer at The Washington Examiner. Just as
a reminder, if you'd like to email the show, please
do so at radio at the Federalist dot com. Molly,
let's talk about auto pens or an autopen this week
the well. I mean, there's been an investigation ongoing, but
the New York Times, I think, reported that Joe Biden
and unsurprisingly was not I mean this was kind of
buried in the story actually, but that Joe Biden was
not really aware of all the people that he pardoned,
the massive number of people. I think it was one thousand,
five hundred on one day, even though I believe there
were eight thousand or more gardens overall, and Clemency's that
he gave in the last days of his presidency. I
think it's a pretty big story. I think it's a
giant scandal. I don't think we're going to be able
to do anything about it. What were your what'd you think?
Speaker 2: So this might seem like a really weird way to
get into this, but back during the the hoax, against
Brett Kavanaugh. There was this piece written by Ronan Farrow
and Jane Mayer in The New Yorker. And Jane Mayer
is someone who's just had like her life's goal to
be to say horrible things about any member of the
Supreme Court who's not doing what she would like them
to do. She's written books against Clarence Thomas, and so
she jumped on the Kavanaugh hoax fully. And their story
was about I think it was about something that happened
in their under in his undergrad years, and I think
I've read that story like thirty times and I still
have no idea what they're trying to say. He did
literally no idea. And I'm not a dummy. I know
how to understand stories I read, but I do not
understand what Ronan Pharoh and Jane Mayer were saying about
the story. And that's what I felt when I was
reading this New York Times story about the autopen I
actually didn't understand what they were trying to say, but
it seemed to me like they were trying to say,
like the way I interpreted the story was actually Joe
Biden and his team are in massive legal jeopardy. Over
how they ran the autopen, and they have no evidence
to support the claims that he was like fully competent
in ordering the autopens. And so it was this like
convoluted story in which there were some admissions that occasionally
they ran the autopen without his permission, like they would say, oh, what,
we didn't ask for him to sign off after a
bunch of edits were made to the list of people
who were being pardoned or whatnot, which seems like a
pretty huge admission. But again, I wasn't like a I
wasn't totally sure what they were trying to do other
than lay down the like it's not under oath or
anything like this. But sort of like before Joe Biden
maybe dies, he could be on record saying that he
authorized some of what he did at the end of
his term. Does that make.
Speaker 1: Sense, Yeah, I mean there was a subsequent interview with
Joe Biden. I believe it was subsequent, and there's actually conflict.
There's a conflict of what they're saying, and Joe Biden says,
I don't have the oh yeah, that he made every
decision on his own. But then there are people on
record in the New York Times story that say that
there were broad categories where he simply could not go
over all the people, even those conflicting things. I mean,
if there are such broad categories and there's auto pens
and what's that guy's name is, Zience, Jeff, I think
sent an email saying that the autopen use was okay approved.
We don't know if it really was approved. This seems
like a pretty big scandal to me, and I disagree that.
I think that he's in any legal jeopardy. Presidents have
the ability, for instance, to give pardons to classes of
criminals like J six defendants, for instance, without I just
don't see how it's such an awesome power given to
the president in the Constitution. I don't know how it's
one of the most it's one of the only powers
that anyone has in government that is not subject to
sort of the other branches. There's no there's no.
Speaker 2: Really, I disagree with you there. I don't think that
this is about pardon. I think this is about whether
there was a grand criminal consnspiracy to hide a president's
inability to perform the functions of his office from the
American people. But I do want to defend the pardon here.
I think that the political process is fine to handle
abuse of pardons. I do think there has been some
abuse of pardons, like I first became aware of it
under Clinton. I'm sure it predates that, but there is
a political process. You can impeach someone. And yes, if
you do them on the way out the door, like
some of these were done the morning of inauguration, right
right like the day before, well you can still hold
a political party accountable for that. And there are sometimes
abuses in our legal system for which there's no easy remedy,
and a presidential pardon takes care of some of that.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 2: I do think also that there's no need for a
p You know, George W. Bush didn't use the auto
pen because he was really worried about the legality of it,
and I think that was prudent on his part. But
if you're going to talk about broad categories of pardons,
if you think that some law had like over punishment
or something for breaking it, and you pardon everybody who
was convicted under that sentencing guideline or something, that's going
to be a broad categorical pardon, and it's you know,
it's okay to have changes to the category or I
don't know to quite explain what I'm trying to say.
As you're deciding who fits under that pardon, you might
have slight changes. And so that wasn't my problem with
the New York Times story. My problem was that it
seemed to be hiding that they had done things without approval,
and they were trying to explain it away. But it
didn't work for me how they were trying to explain it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I agree, Setting aside the pardon itself being any
kind of criminal act, the overall conspiracy to hide and
cover up the president's mental state and run the country
though you're not elected to do so, it's problematic. I
don't know what kind of legal jeopardy those people could
be in, or how you can really prove something like this.
Maybe you can, that's fine, but I mean, people the
media got very pedantic about the autopen use. Right, So
it's not the impersonal So I mean, it's not the
like you say, it's not the impersonal nature of the autopen.
That's the real problem here. Other presidents have used it.
It's the impersonal nature was used to abuse and tran
and circumvent the proper authority because only the president can
give consent for a pardon. I think maybe they should
get rid of the autopen for pardons. I mean, the
truth is, if they needed to just grab Biden's hand
and make him sign eight thousand pardons, they would have
done that too. You know, it's just was you know,
it's not the auto pen so much as what's happening
behind the auto pen. So I think that that's important
to remember. You remember Jake Tapper, and who's the guy
who wrote that book with him at the New York
Times anyway.
Speaker 2: Alex Thompson.
Speaker 1: So they wrote a book about the cover up right
without naming any names, incredibly and made a lot of money,
and everyone was just talking about it openly. But it
hit me as I was reading about this story that
the cover up's not over. They're still engaged in the
cover up, as that New York Times soft pedaling story proves.
And by the way, that was the most aggressive investigation
of this, right. The NBC News jumped into action immediately,
not to investigate this perhaps one of the biggest presidential
scandals in history, but to tell us that James Comer
was investigating this, so used a digital signature on his
PDF documents. Now, isn't that the same, Molly. It's just
the same exact thing, right, Like anyone who works in
an office knows you have a PDF. And I assume
that these congressional offers has send out tons of tons
of letters. You're gonna have to now sci print the letter,
sign the letter, scan the letter, send the letter. No
use a digital signature. It's not the same thing as
someone doing a constitutionally approved pardon. An autopen is a
different thing.
Speaker 2: Well, hold on even that, you know, leaving aside the
use of an autopen by a president, The problem again
is that people aren't sure that President Biden had his
full faculties during his presidency. So to compare that with
James Comer who goes on TV every single day to
talk about how he's subpoenaing this person or that person
and then saying, oh, but he used a digital signature
for that subpoena, It's just not the same unless you're
saying that James Comer, who constantly talks about his subpoena
and his investigation, isn't aware of his subpoenas at his investigation.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, of course, James Comer knows exactly where all
those letters are going. He's completely in charge of himself.
By the way, when they interviewed Biden, they didn't ask
Biden questions. Let's quiz him on some of these pardons
and sees see what he knows about them in these cases.
That would be a way to kind of confirm whether
he was in charge or not, wouldn't it. And no
one asked him any of those questions when he did
this interview with The Times. I don't know. I'm pretty
skeptical we're going to get to the bottom of any
of this. I mean, a congressional congressional investigation is fine,
but you're going to need journalists to do their job.
Speaker 2: Well then I will. Actually, I just want to say
I didn't really think much of this investigation until the
New York Times ran that story. I know enough from
the Russia collusion hooks to know they ran that story
because they're scared. They're very worried, and I do think
there are people in legal jeopardy. The other thing that
was interesting about that story is it said that there
are a bunch of really well known white shoe law
firms that are providing pro bono legal help to these
Democrat elites who may be engaged in this criminal conspiracy
against the American people. And I find that interesting because
when Democrats were engaged in just wild lawfair to take
down the entire Republican Party top to bottom and were
charging everybody within an inch of their life, a lot
of the people who were charged could not get competent
legal help to save themselves. And yet these very fancy pants,
very connected, highest echelons of power DC folks in the
Biden administration are getting free legal help from white shoe
law firms. Like that seems sketchy, as I'll get out.
And I get that Trump and his administration are a
threat to the permanent DC establishment that has made so
much money in so many ways off the American taxpayer,
you know, through like not just the government but all
of the government funded entities that are in this town.
But I was like, that's interesting, free legal help for
the people who maybe conspired against the American people from
these top law firms.
Speaker 1: For me, the pardons in clemency and preemptive and blanket
partons he gave political allies on his family or already
the most corrupt pardons in history I think. I mean,
there's like maybe Mark rich or there's a one person
here or there where you can say might be as
corrupt as one of these pardons. But when you take
it as a whole, I just don't think anyone has
done anything of this nature. Indeed, I think his pardons
of all his political allies has created a mortal hazard
and precedent that is incredibly dangerous. Donald Trump, any president
can just now we'll go back ten years, pardon everyone
in his administration. Nixon could have done this right, and
then no one will be held accountable for the crimes
while they're in government. I mean, actually corrupt.
Speaker 2: What bothers me more than anything of all of the pardons.
For some reason, and I want to remind you, he
pardoned Liz Cheney for her crimes against the country, But
it was the pardoning of Anthony Fauci that one, to
me was the worst. Not his family members who are
involved in his corrupt family business, but Anthony Fauci, because
what Anthony Fauci did to the country deserves real accountability.
And to say to the American people, you're not allowed
to hold someone accountable for destroying so much, that's just
oh that's like in public threatening stuff.
Speaker 1: I agree. I mean that the family stuff's just personal corruption.
The political stuff is much worse. Even Mark Milly who
admitted on record that he spoke to Chinese generals and
would undermine the Commander in chief's orders. I mean, these
things need to be investigated. And now what incentive do
any people, anyone, does anyone have to actually tell us,
tell Congress truth or anyone. I mean, it's just it's terrible.
Speaker 3: We're at the worst level we've seen in thirty five years.
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Speaker 4: Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street,
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Speaker 1: Be informed.
Speaker 4: Check out the watch dot on Wall Street podcast with
Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcas.
Speaker 1: As against my better judgment, Molly, I think that we
have to mention the Epstein. Yeah, it's a big topic,
even though I am still I am still somewhat skeptical
that it matters to the average voter as much as
we think on what's going on with Twitter and a
lot of the activists class. I think a lot of
Trump's fans out there aren't plugged into the internet trust
him in general, and I don't think they're going to
care one way or the other. For instance, just quickly,
I saw a poll the other day. It was a
monthly poll, I forget, one of the better posters, I guess,
and it showed no movement after the run bombing. You know,
it basically was flat, not up, not down. I just
don't think. I think people like success, and if Trump
is being successful with what he's doing, I don't think
it's going to bother them very much. But it's not
to say that there aren't a lot of people who
seem to care very much about this.
Speaker 2: And I just before you go into it, I want
to talk about polls for just one second. Which is
the top pole recently that was purporting to show that
never in the history of America has there been like
a more positive view toward immigration. Yeah, something I don't
remember what the numbers were, and I was like, I
don't know who conducted that poll or what they're sampling was,
and I just know it's not true. You know, I
have never in my life seen so many people questioning
mass immigration, particularly mass illegal immigration. You know, in the
eighties and nineties and oughts and teens, there was a
lot of just pro immigration sentiment, even as people opposed
illegal immigration. And to be told that never in the
history of the country have people been more gung ho
about mass immigration, I was like, that's just not true,
or like, you see these even the polling on there
was no change for Trump before and after the Iran strike.
I actually think probably a lot of people didn't even
know about the Iran strike. I know that's weird to hear,
but I was out in the wild when that happened,
and nobody was talking about it or even really knowing
about it. So I'm not shocked if there wouldn't be
a change. But Poles have routinely shown, for instance, with
Donald Trump, that he's like underwater with favorability even as
he keeps getting elected president. And I'm just kind of
sick of Poles. I don't know how to do that
digression and go.
Speaker 1: On, no, no, it's fine. I like to talk about
it for a minute. So I think polling, I don't
treat it as any sort of scientific number, for sure,
but I do like to just get a sense of
what direction are they going in or whatever. So the
immigration poll I think was complete BS because the question
is misleading. Is it illegal immigration? Immigration? You know, if
you're not making distinctions like that, then I'd actually.
Speaker 2: Think David, even if you I can see that. But
I don't think people are more favorable toward legal immigration
right now than they've ever been in their history. But
even that question, I think people are like, I don't
like what's happening to this country, and I kind of
see mass legal immigration as being a big part of it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, I don't know. I know there's a
lot of that going on in political debates. I think
that most Americans feel like they have to say they're
pro immigration because they view it as they are pro
the idealistic or the ideal of how we're supposed to
do immigration, assimilation, all of that. It's not always happening.
That's problematic, I'm sure they admit. So, yeah, I agree
I don't even you know, I didn't take a deep
dive in that poll. The favorability number is I sort
of believe in a sense that, yeah, maybe people don't
love politicians, but favorability numbers that I've said forever don't
mean anything. It's a comparison, who do you favor more?
I think Trump has a group a number that's going
to stay consistent, and then who are you if you're
going to put Kamala Harris up against him? It doesn't matter.
His favorability number could be like twenty and he's still
going to win the election because no one likes her
and no one thinks that she knows what she's doing.
So I don't know that. The favorability polls have always
seemed ridiculous to me. I know people like to push
him right all.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, okay, sorry, backed it nor favorite topic, Jeff.
Speaker 1: You know what Epstein's favorability is? Uh, listen. I have
kind of avoided this in general, like it was on
my radar slightly. So I took, you know, a deeper
dive and a lot of this you know stuff that's
going on. I'm not going to pretend that I know
what's in a file or not. But I think that
a lot of the MAGA right, it's making a big
mistake hitching their wagon onto this conspiracy theory that either
the US government is being you know, is manipulated by
this guy, or that there's some big client list that's
going to have all these name on it of people
who were pedophiles. There's just no evidence for that sort
of thing. There's been twenty four I could trials already
civil and criminal about this. They've looked through a lot.
We have client lists in the sense that we know
who was on his planes, we have his black book,
we have was a witness, who's in jail now, all
these things. I'm not saying that we know everything, but
the idea that there's going to be these huge bombshells
or that he's an intel asset, nothing backs that up. Now. Again,
could be something in there, but nothing that people are saying,
at least that Tucker was saying or others are backed
up by facts. We can go through it or not.
But I don't know what are you thinking now after
a week ago?
Speaker 2: Oh oh, I don't know. I feel like I'm in a
very annoying place in between the extremes again, which nobody
likes people who are in the middle. I am so
sick of the topic. I understand why people aren't satisfied
with the answers they've been given, and then I'm also
annoyed with those same people for not understanding that they
can't get the answers that they seem to think they
can get. Like a stop asking the government to settle
things for you. If you believe, and I do, that
the FBI and dj are corrupt, why would you be
acting like the release of files from them is going
to somehow like settle everything. What do they think are
in these files? Like, yes, there have been multiple investigations
of this person, and when you're investigating, you gather information.
Some of that information, in fact, a large portion of
the information is probably not real, you know what I mean.
Like you talk to people and they'll be like, oh, yeah,
I heard this thing, and I heard that thing. You
don't get to release files that say like I heard
Nancy Pelosi was taking money from Jeffrey Epstein or I
heard Donald Trump was taking money. Like, you don't just
get to release things because someone said it. That is
completely anathema to our understanding of rule of law. And
presumption of innocence, right, And then also like confusion about
what would be in the files. Let's say there is
a list of phone numbers from his phone. Does that
mean that every phone number in his phone was involved
in the trafficking of young women? No, presumably not, you know,
maybe no one, maybe, maybe all, maybe some portion. How
do you divvy that up? Like, where do you think
a list is. I'm just frustrated with people not understanding
the limits of what is achievable. Now. Do I think
that the answers about what he was doing, which was
trafficking quite a few girls, and not just for himself
but for other people. Do I think there have been
sufficient answers? Not at all, But I don't know if
you can expect to get them this side of heaven.
Speaker 1: Well, well, people want those names so they can go
out and smear the ones they don't like. The left says, oh,
Donald Trump was on his plane, Donald Trump knew him.
The other side says, you know whoever was on that plane?
And I agree with everything you said. It's really I
think we spoke about this last week. But you know, investigations,
you know, they just write down everything everyone tells him.
Doesn't mean it's true. But all the conspiracy theorists will
take all those names, cobble together some big conspiracy and
we're going it's not going to help anyone. But we
said this too last week. I think the administration, where
many people in it, are at fault for this. They
brought this on themselves. You cannot tell people there's a list,
as Pam Bondi did, and then say there's no list
and say you misspoke. You know. I do want to
stress again that Donald Trump, from what I saw, was
not a big player in this thing. Before the election,
he said, yeah, if there's something there, we'll release it,
which is what he said the other day as well,
there's something pertinent, will release it. I don't think there's
any there and there, honestly, But to think that this
is going to now tear apart, you know, maga is
something else. I mean, it's just not that important issue.
Now you're telling me, Oh, I get like you don't
care about pedophiles. Yeah, I do. The guy's dead. There
was an investigation. What do you want? What do you
want to happen here?
Speaker 2: I think a there haven't really been twenty something trials
on it. There have been lawsuits from different women or people, right, Yeah,
and they said a lot of things. The criminal when
youre talking about criminal trials there there wasn't even didn't
he plea out in his Florida situation, there was like
a deal so he didn't even really.
Speaker 1: He made a deal in two thousand and eight or nine.
Speaker 2: So there hasn't been you know, the proper airing of
But how do you know that.
Speaker 1: I'm just asking, like everyone always says, well, there's all
these things, all these things that he did that were
never prosecuted. Well a lot of that was hearsay too,
really from one witness for my from what I can
gather that she could not really back up many of
the things she said. Now, I think this guy was
a terrible human being. Obviously, I'm not saying he wasn't terrible,
but I think people have blown this up into something
that there's no real evidence that it was. And if
there is evidence for that, I'd like to see it.
But I mean, it's hard for me to believe that
cash Pattel. All these people in the government and maybe
there's something going on. I don't know, because obviously there
was some riff, right, but all these people are putting
their reputations on the line in this way to hide
what Epstein did. That just doesn't add up for me.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think a lot of this does go back
to what people call a sweetheart plea deal that he got.
Like we had a listener write in a note about this,
and her client her thing was just like normal people
don't get treated like Epstein got treated in this. He
was accused by someone of prostituting her fourteen year old daughter,
and so they do, like they look into it, and
it turns out that he's doing this with a lot
of people, and then he gets a plea deal where
he's immune from federal prosecutor on the trafficking, even though
there were allegations that the trafficking involved crossing state lines
and international boundaries and things like that. And this immunity
from prosecution also resulted in him basically having like not
the hardest sentence. I think he was in jail like
one day a week or something, you know, for thirteen months.
And so her point, I don't remember what the You'll
get mad at me that I don't know the details,
and I should know the details if I'm going to
be talking about it. And I respect and understand that,
but point being cushy deal immune from federal prosecution, why
why would you do that? Why would that wouldn't be
something you or I would get Why did he get it?
And people think that it was because of his ties
to very powerful people in the US and abroad. And
there has always been like a weirdness about how he
was able to avoid accountability for his trafficking of children.
And you can say, well, he was sentenced, and by
the way, I have said it myself, like, I think
it's weird that everyone gets mad at that sweetheart deal.
It is the only successful prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein we
ever saw you. No like he is hard to prosecute.
He was hard to prosecute, it apparently. And then the
other issue is that his own attorneys dispute that he
killed himself. I think I told you about the time
that I got all the angry mail because I said
I had seen no evidence that he hadn't killed himself.
But his own attorneys say that they don't buy that
he committed suicide. And so there's that additional air of
like he was killed rather than to have some of
the things come to light. But as you note, it's
very speculative without a lot of substance to back it up.
Speaker 1: Well, the sweetheart deal, this is speculation by me a
lot of times very rich people who are powerful people,
And it's no doubt that he knew a lot of
rich and powerful people himself our heart to prosecute because
they can get an army of the best lawyers on earth,
and a lot of times the government will plea those
deals out because they fear that they won't get any
guilty plea in the end, which happens in high profile
cases relatively often. Actually, that could have been the reason
for it, and it could have been that he made
calls to people he knew. There's no doubt of it.
I'm certainly not saying you didn't have powerful friends. But
people take that and they go into weird, weird places where,
in essence, they seem to believe that this guy had
a honey pot, you know, honey trout, whatever it's called,
thing going on where everyone on his phone and everyone
he knew was being blackmailed. And essentially he's running the
US government, and a lot of people, you know, in
certain factions of the right, think that another country was
helping him do that, which makes zero sense or there's
zero evidence for I just think you're when you're get
so deep into something, you start convincing yourself it has
to be true because there are unanswered questions. You think
that the answer has to be something completely dramatic and conspiratorial,
when that is not the case. If we release the files,
like you said, do you think that's going to help
anyone in this regard. No, they're going to take every
name there and they're going to come up with massive,
bigger conspiracies. There's no ending it. And if they don't
release it, and by the way, if they do really
see and there's nothing there, they're just going to say, oh,
the FBI lies and they're not releasing all them. There's
no way you can playcate or modify this faction.
Speaker 2: Did you read the Dershwitz piece in the Wall Street Journal? Okay, So,
Alan Dershwitz was a longtime acquaintance and attorney for Jeffrey Epstein.
He himself was falsely accused of engaging in the sex trafficking,
and he won his suit against the person who falsely
accused him of that or something like. Somehow there was
a settlement where he won the day. He was very
blaciferous about it. He's like, I have had sex with
one person my entire life. It's my wife. I've never
done anything, you know. Like, he was very non loyally
in his denial of the claims, and he ended up
winning the day. So he goes through all of the
different conspiracy theory angles that people have about Jeffrey Epstein
and kind of dismisses them, like, for instance, that there
were you know, a lot of people think there must
have been a black mail operation going on because of
his closeness to powerful people and how he was able
to kind of skirt getting in trouble for it. And
one of the pieces of evidence they have for that
is that there were cameras in his house. Dershowitz says
the cameras were actually in the public areas of his
Palm Beach home, and maybe there was one in a bedroom,
but that was because something had been stolen from there
or something. I don't know. But he said this other
thing which matches with what I think. So I do
think Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, but or I have no reason,
I have no evidence to support that he didn't right,
And Dershowitz says that too. He says, I believe he
killed himself, but I do wonder if he didn't have help.
And the and the information he gives for why he
thinks he had help was the video, the tampering with
the video, evidence of the of the jail, the both
guards claiming they fell asleep, the transfer of his cellmate
before the suicide, and there was one other thing, but
I forget what it is. And so I do think
that that maybe this very wealthy man somehow made it
so that he could kill himself under favorable circumstances, right
being suspicious when the bureau presents a the Department of
Justice says, we saw nothing wrong, and you're.
Speaker 1: Like, well, I want to make this clear. So I
want to make this clear on the record, just so
that when people write me emails or attack on Twitter,
I'm I don't think that it's crazy to have suspicions
about certain things here or to want questions answered. In fact,
I would like all those questions answered myself. Did he
kill himself? I don't know. Did they tamper with the
video because there's one minute missing that supposedly always I'd
like answers to that more clarity on what happened that
night in the jail. Also, it is not beyond comprehension
that a very rich person might bribe some people to
get him, you know, to be able to commit suicide
because he doesn't want to be subjected to this prosecution.
He doesn't want to go to jail and all that stuff,
for sure, But it's the other stuff, you know, and
keep bringing him up, you know, I just have such
a disdain for him now. But Tucker Carlson says he
knows that Epstein was a foreign you know, we know
what country's talking about intellivision. Well, Dershowitz says that it
is not there's no real evidence for that. So I
think people use this case to kind of pedal the
paranoia they have about certain people that bothers me, not
that people have legitimate cure. I have curiosity about what
happened to Epstein, but I think that the most obvious
thing is that he maybe gave someone money so he
could kill himself and not subject himself to this sort
of thing. Why didn't he trade in on his intel?
You know, if he really had all this blackmail and everyone,
why was he even going to be prosecuted. Why was
he in jail? Why didn't Biden really he did?
Speaker 2: Maybe that's how he got the sweetheart prosecution.
Speaker 1: Deal in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and maybe I don't know. There was something about
the intel angle, Oh, I believe so. Dershowitz mentions this
in his Wall Street Journal piece on Epstein. He says
he would have known if he was working for any
intel agency, which I'm not sure is entirely true. Thing
to say, Like one of the marks of being an
intel asset is sometimes you don't tell people that, right
or yeah, I actually just don't think that that's true.
That you would definitely know if he were, you.
Speaker 1: Would definitely not know. But it seemed very likely that
if you're in a lot of trouble, or real trouble,
and that you could be in jail for a very
long time and you have a lawyer who can't divulge anything,
that you would tell him some of your connections to
an intel agency.
Speaker 2: Maybe yeah, or maybe he had I don't know. And
then he says he thinks that this rumor got going
because Galaine Maxwell, his partner in crime, her dad was
a massad agent, and I do think that's partly why
people say it. I just wish people would understand that
saying that the dad is a MASSAD agent was a
MASSAD agent, is not the same thing as saying that
he's that Jeffrey Epstein is an asset of a particular
intel agency. Well, first of all, it's also true that
Jeffrey Epstein reportedly, like there is someone who says this
on the record, but who knows because it's hearsay, right,
that he told people that he was a CIA asset,
and that there were certain things that had substantiated that
there was there was like a weirdness about like things
he could do that seemed like trafficking a weapon or
something like that that people wondered how he was able
to do stuff. But again, that is not the same
thing as saying we have evidence that he is an
intel asset of this country or that country, or this
entity or that entity. Like it's not the craziest thing
to think someone like that who traffics in those circles,
who traffics women who you know, like, it's not crazy
you think he might be selling information. But that's not
the same thing as saying you have evidence that he's
selling information, and I wish people would go more for evidence.
Speaker 1: Can I go through some of these so? Yes, absolutely,
I would not be surprised if he approached some intel
agency selling something or not. He obviously fashioned himself some
kind of like James Bond type or something, because there
are stories. But this idea that Galaena is if that'
say pronouna Maxwell would follow in her dad's footsteps is
nonsense because there's zero proof Robert Maxwell was a most
spy to begin with. Everyone keeps repeating like it's a fact.
Speaker 2: Would say that too.
Speaker 1: She said there was credible, some credible evidence, but he's wrong. Sorry.
There was one book written by Seymour Hirsch that says
that Maxwell was a spy. He was a big British
media mogul. I guess that claim came from a guy
named Ari Ben Minasha, who was found out to be
a con man who never worked for Mozart. He was
a fire translator for the Ideaf. There is no other
person who's ever said that Maxwell was openly pro Israel,
did all kinds of things for Israel. Leaders showed up
at his funeral. State leaders from Israel. If you have
a big spy, you're not hanging out with him and
celebrating him and inviting him to Israel. This is just
not true. But even if that were true, his daughter
was just a party girl. She met Epstein long after
Robert Maxwell was dead. The idea that that makes her
a spy or him a spy is ridiculous. And the
Acosta stuff, I don't know his first name. I'm sorry, Alex,
Alex he was, he was the attorney made the deal.
The other day, Megan Kelly said that he's on the
record saying Epstein was an Intel agent, right and told
to get rid of the prosecution. This was from one
Daily Beast story from twenty nineteen. Hearsay third hand hearsay
under oath, I believe Acosta said it wasn't true. Now, listen,
you could be lying, and maybe someone told him that.
But even if someone didn't, wait.
Speaker 2: You said, under oath, you believe he said it wasn't
true because I looked up in exactly what you just said, right,
Megan Kelly says he's on the record. So I was like, Okay,
where's he on the record? And I looked it up
and as you note, he's not on the record. It's
a third hand hearsay that supposedly he said this to
the Trump people. But then I did see also an
interview where he was asked about it. He didn't say
it wasn't true, like this was just a c Span interview.
It wasn't under oath. He didn't say it wasn't true.
He just said I would urge people not to believe
everything they hear. And I was like, okay, I don't,
but I wouldn't care a little bit. More like.
Speaker 1: I thought he was in front of Congress doing something.
But maybe right if I'm if I misspoke there, sorry,
but he has never confirmed this. Let's say it. Put
it that way. Certainly, he's not on the record, it's
doing it, saying it, And just because he heard it
from someone doesn't make it true. Wouldn't make it definitively
true anyway. I mean, what I'm saying is this is tenuous.
But moreover, the third one just to say is that
people note that he had this big relationship with Ahud Barak,
who was a former Prime Minister of Israel. Well, again,
the former prime Minister Israel would not be hanging out
publicly with a super asset deeply embedded in the American government.
That's just crazy. But moreover, Epstein invested in his startup.
He's a Barack was a you know, rich guy who
had some kind of tech startup homeland security stuff, and
he invested and they knew each other. They met in
Harvard where Epstein it was a big donor. People think
that this is how MOSAT operates, that they're just openly
sending the Prime Minister to hang out with one of
their assets. It's so dumb. It's you know, listen, maybe
I'll be proven wrong, but on the on the from
what we know, this is very dumb. And by the way,
Epstein went to Saudi Arabia all the time. He knew
royalty there. No one ever talks about him being a
Saudi asset. He knew the what's that guy's name, the princes.
Speaker 2: But didn't he do business with Adam Kogi?
Speaker 1: Yeah he did. Well. My point is this that the
guy obviously was involved in a lot of things around
the world, and you know, and that sparks these conspiracies,
but there's really no evidence that he was some kind
of spy.
Speaker 2: Now, do you want to point out that who himself
requested an investigation into Epstein's ties to the former prime minister. Right, Yeah,
it's not crazy to be like, oh, these people are connected.
When net Yan who's also it, what's he saying?
Speaker 1: He's saying there's criminality there. I don't think he's saying
Natagnyao would know if Epstein was a part of a
Mosad spy operation, and he would not bring attention to it.
Do you think he would?
Speaker 2: I wish people, I wish our intel agencies would have
done a better and invested law enforcement agencies would have
done a better job of handling this top to bottom.
And I think that the Trump administration has really done
a poor job here. I also think that Trump said
this thing that was interesting to me, where he was like,
why would you expect you know, the people who were
running the CIA and the FBI during all of this
were like Komey and Brennan and Clapper or whatever, like
why would you expect them to have accurate reporting on this?
And I just want to reiterate that, like, stop expecting
our federal agency to be able to answer all of
your problems. In fact, just stop asking or expecting the
government in general to handle all your problems, whether it's
the courts or the Supreme court or agencies, like, yes,
they do have some responsibility here, although a lot of
what Epstein was accused of was more of the local variety,
like even the Acosta thing. People get mad at me
for defending him, you know, on this stuff, because and
I do understand the critiques of his of the plea
deal he agreed to, but he had said at the
time that he stepped in in part because the local
authorities were about to just basically brush it under the carpet,
and so if he, as a US attorney kind of
stepped in to have some accountability, like that's better than
none that he would get at the local level. Having
said that, still, rape tends to be a local crime
that you prosecute as a local crime, not a federal crime.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 2: If you're going to get mad at government agencies, don't
just get mad at the federal government, but also the
state and local authorities too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but none of the people are going to write
us angry emails about this or care about that anymore.
And they're just so obsessed with this thing that it,
I don't know, it's just weird to me how conspiratorial
everyone has become out there, And just think they're captured
by drama that isn't real.
Speaker 2: It is real that this man trafficked young women. That's
totally real.
Speaker 1: For sure, but that's not the mean I mean. I'll
give you an example. Massy House member Massey sent out
a tweet that said, we need to know, you know,
all the corruption and crimes that we're here. That's why
we need to know the files. I meaning he knows
already that these files are going to prove things about
powerful people and stuff. It's not no one's like, we
need to see this because you know, we need to
know if there's more. They know there's more. Everyone knows
there's something big there when they're talking about it. They
just need it proven so their preconceived notions will be upheld.
And I think that's a problem when you approach something
that way when there might not be anything more and
more there.
Speaker 2: Well, you mentioned this point about again the costa deal,
that understanding that this guy had a lot of money
and could fight whatever charges were there. I actually think
that's the real issue here. People are really sick of
how there are that were not you know, ruled by law,
but by men that if you are in a certain
class of people you can get away with murder, and
if you're in a different class, you can get totally squashed.
And so this Epstein thing is a proxy for that
very real frustration that people have. But it's also a
way to avoid fixing the problem. You know, like if
you're focused on this and not on different standards of
rule of law or how like, if the federal government
comes out after you, as a normal person, your life
is over. But if you're wealthy, then you might get
out of it. You know, there are ways, there are
many ways to handle that. In addition to just yelling
about Epstein, there's always instead of yelling about Epstein, I.
Speaker 1: Get that anger. I mean, rich people, wealthy, powerful people
get away with it a lot more than a normal
person just want to whine about something. Right now, did
you watch the USA conference stuff?
Speaker 2: I don't watch the whole conference, but I did watch
the debate between Josh Hammer and Dave Smith, moderated by
Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The way that there's this the way the TPUSA,
for instance, just allows anti u Isral people, but in
my view, anti Semitic people to participate. It is gross. Now.
I think Josh, from what I saw, decimated Dave Smith,
but I thought that Douglas Murray decimated Dave Smith, who
knows he's an ignoramus on this topic. My problem is
that we lift these people up into perch them into
positions of prominence when they don't deserve it. They don't
know anything about the topic. All they do is they
have these credulous numbskulls who follow them, who like to
hear that the blood libels they spread, and they put
them up there. So I think it's problematic. Also, Tucker
gave this ridiculous speech. I keep talking about him because
I guess he's the leader of that faction. In a way,
today or Thursday is going to have on that Hitler
apologist to explain the Epstein files. It's completely normal, right anyway,
So yeah, Josh did a great job because Josh knows
what he's talking about, and Dave Smith did a terrible
job because he doesn't know what he's talking about. It's
all emotional stuff. But anyway, it's just really off putting
that these people are lifted by the right and it's
completely alienating to me, at least, not that anyone can.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I disagree. I thought it was a really
well done discussion, like, really really well done. I was
impressed with how Charlie Kirk handled it and even that
it was discussed. I am much more open to debate
on these things than you are. Like We've discussed this
for years about whether you should engage with people you
know of the Dave Smith variety or not, and I've
even gone back and forth on it a bit myself.
But I think this was a really useful, worthwhile discussion,
and I actually liked I liked it all. I thought
it was much better than the awful Joe Rogan one
between Dave Smith and what was that guy's name again?
Speaker 1: His name's Douglas Murray. Oh.
Speaker 2: I agreed with Douglas Murray, and I still just felt
like he had a very like punishable thing about him.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you something. If you debated someone and
you were coming on a show what Joe Rogan has
on all kinds of Candice Owen whoever is on that
show alone and debates him. But you show up and
all of a sudden there's another person in ignoring Himus
who's there too, So you're not having an interview anymore.
You have to debate two people. Does that seem normal
to you. Why doesn't Joe Rogan have an antie when
he has on that fake historian hitler apologist. Why doesn't
he have a second person on there to grill him.
Speaker 2: You just asked me a question, and I'd like to
answer it, which is, I'm quite used to this. I
am frequently debating three or four people on TV and
not even expecting to have a debate when I show up,
and then finding out that I'm like outnumbered quite a bit.
And I think you just can handle it without being
smug and condescending. And I just said I tended to
agree with that guy, Douglas Murray on his discussion of
Israel versus Hamas, but I just didn't think he handled
it well, whereas I thought Josh Hammer did handle it
very well, including just by treating it like he'd said
at one point something you just said, which is like,
I don't think this guy should even be here. But
he kind of got over that and just focused more
on his arguments, and I thought that was good and
much more persuasive to a younger crowd than like, much
more persuasive and compelling to a younger crowd than just
being like you have to you have to accept what
I'm saying, and I'm going to be smug about it
like it was. Also, I thought Charlie Kirk did a
great job of asking tough questions of each person and
eliciting interesting responses and even like some concessions, not concessions,
but like Dave Smith was, who's uh. I did not
realize he's Jewish himself, but clearly very what do you mean?
So he says, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know that he's Jewish or not. And also it's
irrelevant being Jewish. There are self hating Jews all over
the place. There were coppos in concentration cams, and so,
I mean, it's always bringing it up like it matters.
I mean, we're split brending blood, libels against people and
lying and you don't know what you're talking about. And
then you say, oh, I'm Jewish. I don't know anything
about him. It doesn't even matter anyway. I'm sorry, And
that's just me being angry.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I've like one of the things that
Charlie Kirk asked him to do was to condemn October seventh,
and he did, which definitely did not come through in
the Joe Rogan interview, you know, and so it was
digging a little deeper and for a very short debate
or discussion, and I thought it was great, and I thought, again,
Josh Hammer was much more effective.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you a question? Yeah, So why is
Dave Smith there? Like what credential does he have? Or
what like has he done or what book has he written?
Or what has he done to deserve to be up
on that stage other than having a lot of followers?
Speaker 2: I don't know if I even like, what are you?
Speaker 1: My point is his potentials over He doesn't have any credentials,
and he doesn't never written anything important, He's never said
anything new. He has a lot of followers. He's up
there because he says disgusting things that people anti Semites
mostly like, so he's up there. So if there's a
Holocaust denier who has two million followers, should he be
up there? I mean, what gets you on the stage
at TPUSA.
Speaker 2: I think this gets to why I thought Josh did
a better job than Doug Murray, Like you can wish
this warranted debate about American relationship with Israel or Israel's
handling of Hamas, but it is. And so if you're
gonna if you're gonna, like if you can either acknowledge
that there are a lot of people, particularly young people,
who don't support Israel's approach with Hamas post October seventh,
or like, to me, it's just better to recognize that
there are some problems there, recognize that unfortunately the problem
side has had quite a bit of growth in the
last couple of years, and engage it head on, or
just sort of wish that they weren't there and say,
these people don't have a right to talk about it,
or they don't have the experience to talk about it,
or the credentials. Like Dave Smith has talked about it,
he's willing to do a debate. There probably aren't that
many people who are willing to do a debate this
way on either side, to be honest, and so it's
edifying to the people gathered to hear what the sides
are and make their own decision.
Speaker 1: I think, well, there are plenty of people out there
who are critics of Israel, who know about this issue deeply,
who would debate it. I'm sure you don't have to.
But so there's no real answer other than Dave Smith
has a lot of followers.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm trying to think, like if I don't organize events,
but if I were organizing an event for young people,
I would probably pick someone like him because he's a
representative of his side that can communicate with young people.
And they were both well chosen for that. I mean,
they did get a little fiery and hot with each other,
but Kirk kind of kept it, kept it civil and
worked very hard to keep it civil and also bring
out where the underlying disagreements were, and I thought it
was very worthwhile, Like I hope. I think there's a
problem with young people on the right of not just
opposition to Israel, which is a totally legitimate thing to
feel or believe, but actual like growing anti Semitism, and
I think it has to be addressed head on. And
Kirk did a good job of that too, calling on
Dave Smith to repudiate what some of his fans have
done in terms of jew hatred and stuff like that,
and he did and I thought that was good too.
Speaker 1: I think it's completely empty. And also he plays foot
seat Kirk with these people quite often.
Speaker 2: Do you actually watch the debate, and I think it
would about Kirk.
Speaker 1: No, I he's been I've heard him in other situations
defending Israel incredibly passionate way, in an incredibly smart way.
There's also a point is yeah and Antisemet. I don't
think he's an anti semit at all, but it bothers
me that Listen, there are a lot of other issues.
Young people believe in socialism, they love socialism and that too.
Sure did they did they do a debate on did
they bring in someone who's pro gender affirming care? I
mean Dave Smith? And you keep saying young people are
anti Israel. I don't know that that's true. Do you
have any real polling to show that young conservatives have
turned against Israel just because you've met a few that said,
I didn't say that.
Speaker 2: I said there's a growing problem with anti semitism there.
I do think that's a problem, and I do think
it needs to be addressed. And so I just thought
it was great that Kirk did them.
Speaker 1: We need more gatekeeping. And people get so mad when
you say that, but there's gatekeeping all the time. You
don't invite people to a federalist conference who have or
crazy right or have anti Semitic positions. This idea that
we have to like engage every person who has a
Twitter following, no matter how uneducated they are on a topic,
just because they're saying things that drive anti semits to
their sites. I think it's a big problem. I don't
know how to I don't know how to fix it.
In fact, I think the very bad things are coming
down the pike.
Speaker 2: But anyway, it's just you're negative today.
Speaker 1: You called me an old man before we got on here,
right because I am pretty old. Well, I couldn't go
pretty cranky.
Speaker 2: I couldn't get my computer to work. So I'll see
your old man and raise you with boom.
Speaker 1: Are we done?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about culture. Okay, I don't have much.
Did you have anything?
Speaker 2: I've seen absolutely nothing. I did find a new old
band that I like. It's so weird. I don't like
American pop music, but I love French pop music. I
don't know if it's pop. I don't even know what
this genre is, but it's kid Franciscoli.
Speaker 1: Never heard of it.
Speaker 2: And it's I think a French duo, but maybe it's
just one guy. And there's this song called Moon and
it went like and I just love it. And then
there was another song that he did. I think it's
called blow Up, and it has a beautiful film that
goes with it, like old school video, but a great film.
So I've been listening to that while I write.
Speaker 1: No, that's it, that's it.
Speaker 2: Sorry, we'll look it up.
Speaker 1: No, it's okay. I don't have much. I while I
was on vacation the other week, I watched I rewatched
as I was waiting for people to do things. I
started rewatching the Godfather movies, so I'm like, you know what,
I should watch the third one. I haven't seen it
since it came out, and there's a recut version by
Francis Ford Coppola called Coda. I think it's called Godfather Coda,
and I watched it. Andy Garcia is great in it.
I think you know, Sunny's bastard child. But I have
to say, and I'd like to be contrarian on these
sorts of things, but it is not a good movie.
The Sofia Coppola acting is so off putting that is
almost unwatchable. The scenes with her, I didn't know if
people know or you know, and you may that win
on a. Ryder was initially in that role, but she
had some kind of nervous breakdown and they had to
bring in Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, who I think is
actually a very good director, but as an actress she
needs she has a lot to be desired. The story
is very dumb about the Vatican and everything, and it's
just it's not a good movie, sadly, even the recut version.
Speaker 2: I have a slightly different take on that, which I
haven't seen in a while. But Godfather one and Godfather
two are so brilliant that Godfather three is a little
bit unfairly criticized. I'm not going to say it's a
great movie, but I think that it's just so much
worse than one and two that it gets more hate
than it deserves.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably fair. The expectations, obviously would be
incredibly high for a movie like that, but and maybe
it's because I've read about it so much, but it
feels like someone making a movie for money, you know
what I mean. It feels like we don't really have
a story here. It ended so perfectly in the second one.
I did want to quickly do I've been reading a
lot of books, so I quickly want to go through
what I'm reading. I'm reading a novel called The Maniac
by Benjamin Labatut. It's called it's about basically theoretic physicists
going crazy. It's a novel. Now I'm not saying it's
for everyone, but I am loving this book. I wish
I could credit the person on Twitter who recommended it,
but I can't. I read the book When the Going Was.
Speaker 2: You can't because you don't remember their name, or I.
Speaker 1: Don't remember yeah, yeah, no, no no, I don't remember
who did it. I wish I could give them credit.
When the When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter,
who was like the editor of Vanity Fair I believe
for many years and Spy Magazine, which I liked when
I was young, And if you ever read it, he's
just like name dropping left and right. It's very funny.
I don't know if you're into that sort of thing.
I like to read books about by you know, newspaper
editors or you know magazine editors. And then The Genius Myth,
A Curious History, We Have a Dangerous Idea by Helen Lewis.
I think she's a writer for the Atlantic, and it
just kind of I haven't read I've just started this one.
It's kind of interesting. Debunking the idea of genius. I
felt like I needed to give more material the culture section,
so I went into my phones library. These are the
books I'm reading right now.
Speaker 2: So since you mentioned books, I can mention a couple
of books I've been reading by Alexander Bickell. I can't
remember his first name, but Bickell is the last name.
And he was this Gale law prof constitutional law prof
who was very influential about the Supreme Court. So the
books are the Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress,
and the other one is the least Dangerous Branch. He's
written more than that, but that's what I've been reading,
and it kind of goes into what the role of
the court is and whether it should be more whether
it should be restrained against so like whether when Congress
passes law what they should be doing, they rule it
unconstitutional or what they shouldn't be doing. It's something that
was interesting that used to be considered a progressive idea
when FDR was pushing through all of his stuff about
the New Deal and the Supreme Court was ruling it unconstitutional.
It was this idea that you should just basically let
Congress do what it wants to do and be much
more limited in how you rule against it. And then
once the progressives got complete control of the court and
they got frustrated with the pace of change in what
was happening through legislatures or at the ballot box, then progressives,
most of them not all, started pushing for this activist court,
and so the bikel type ideas became associated more with
the conservatives. Anyway, it's been.
Speaker 1: Interesting, interesting, sounds like some light reading, like cultural reading
of it.
Speaker 2: It's also fiction.
Speaker 1: Just kidding, well, that's great. If anyone has any suggestions
for us as far as bookscope, they can email us
at radio at the Federalist dot com until next week though,
and the Lovers of Freedom of a picchus for the
FRAY and it went like