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Speaker 2: We're going to begin on an interesting discussion that has
been taking place over the weekend nationally about whether the
FBI's raid on former National Security Advisor John Bolton's home
on Friday was political retaliation or political retribution. Those have
been the two terms that I've seen all throughout cable
news over the weekend on the Sunday news talk shows
that air Sunday mornings in all of the usual places
that you would accept expect at the Washington Post, the
New York Times, so on and so forth. Was the
raid on John Bolton's home political retaliation by the Trump administration.
We'll get into that. Love to get your comments and
feedback as well, but let's start off with some of
the backs of the story. I would think if we're
going to have an academic discussion over whether the FBI
carrying out its duty conducting its businesses political retaliation or
some sort of political retribution, that we would get. Oh,
I don't know, maybe the facts of the matter out.
So let's go back to where we were on Friday
when agents FBI agents rated the DC area home of
John Bolton. They did this around seven o'clock Friday morning.
Federal agents went to Bolton's home, which is just outside
of the district in Bethesda, Maryland, in an investigation ordered
by FBI Director Cash Patel. Now, Patel confirmed this on
his x account shortly after the fact by saying, quote,
no one is above the law at FBI agents on
a mission. That was followed up a little bit later
on by a quote tweet from Dan Bongino, who is
the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, saying
public corruption will not be tolerated. So those were the
two posts from Patel and Bongino kind of laying out
this situation. And all of this stems around a probe
which is said to involve classified documents, which should be
something that the Democrats have no problem with right. We
were told that raiding the home of former President Donald Trump,
his mar A Lago estate was all done over classified documents,
and it was to save democracy. Right, to save the
United States of America as a sovereign nation, so it
didn't collapse and fall into ruin. Right, it was all
above board, all just in order to save the democracy,
and that involved classified documents as well. So I guess
there shouldn't be a big issue there. That was launched
back a couple of years ago. However, the Biden administration
shut it down, according to senior US officials, for political
And you might ask yourself, Okay, well, you know this
is a Trump national security and former Trump national security advisor.
Why would the Biden administration, according to US officials, shut
it down for political reasons? Well, if you have listened
or read or seen any of the commentary from John
Bolton over the last couple of years, it's not a
surprise or a shock that Biden's DOJ the Department of
Justice under that under the previous administration, would not want
to cause any problems for John Bolton. I mean, you
could turn on cable news at any point throughout the
week during the Biden administration and see over and over
again that it was John Bolton on TV bashing Trump,
bashing the Trump administration and everybody that was associated with them.
And the reason that that is relevant, the reason that
that is an important fact in this story is because
we know when we understand. But those on the political
left love having that tool available to them. Right. It's
easy to have a Democrat on TV and talk about
how terrible and awful Donald Trump is. You can see
that twenty four hours a day on CNN or MSNBC.
You don't have to stretch very thin to see that.
But to have a former Trump administration official, to have
a guy that worked in the administration, wrote a book
about his time in the administration, going on cable news
as a so called close advisor of President Donald Trump,
him bashing the former president at the time, that's a
really good get. That's a really powerful political tool for
those on the left to have access to. So when
a senior official tells The New York Post that the
previous administration allowed this thing to fall by the wayside
for political reasons, I don't think that's an absurd conclusion
to draw. I mean, John bolt was a great tool
for a great resource to continue their Trump hatred twenty
four to seven. So no surprise at all that it
was shut down for so called political reasons. So now
we get onto what is going on. Bolton had also
previously been accused of including classified information in a book
he wrote a couple of years ago called The Room
Where It Happened. He also got rich off of a book,
Surprise Surprise. President Trump at the time tried to stop
its publication over the inclusion of national security secrets, saying
that John Bolton broken NDA signed as a condition of
his employment, but was unsuccessful in doing so. That case
is now said and done. So this story, however, is
one that is completely different. The raid that took place
on Friday has to do with evidence from those in
the FBI, Cash Betel, Dan Bongino, and other folks that
have strong evidence to back up the fact that while
Bolton was Trump's National Security advisor, he was actively transferring
classified private information from his desk inside the White House
to outside email servers, particularly sending it to his wife
and daughter. Now why was he sending classified information to
his wife and daughter? I think you can probably draw
the lines and make the connection right so that he
could have access to that information not immediately tied to him.
It wasn't his personal email account he was sending it to.
It was his wife and daughter's email addresses that he
was forwarding or sending this information to. According to a
high ranking official who spoke anonymously to The New York
Post on Saturday morning, the alleged crime was first identified
in twenty twenty through a quote very specific intelligence operation
that helped produce This is a direct quote from the
article Damning Intelligence that Bolton had answerred classified documents to
his wife and daughter from his Oval Office desk before
Trump fired him in September of twenty nineteen. Investigators, as
you would imagine, classified documents big deal, opened the case
entirely separate from the investigation into his book The Room
where it happened. But with this second investigation opened, which
of course carried into the first part of the Biden administration,
that investigation was shelld according to officials. So now you've
got Trump back in the Oval Office, You've got Cash
Mattel and Dan Bongino over at the FBI. You've got
Pam Bondy over in her position, and so now Trump's
DOJ is questioning if the Biden FBI's decision to not
further go into this case was politically motivated, and with
everything that we've got publicly available. I'm not in John
Bolton's head. I don't know exactly what he was thinking,
but with all of the public information that we've got,
it doesn't seem like it's that far of a stretch
to say that John Bolton in his position, using him
being used by those on the political left as a
tool as a weapon to attack at the time former
President Donald Trump. Why would Biden's DOJ want to throw
the book at him, no pun intended. Why would they
want to muddy the waters with a guy that had
become a very useful talking point on the political left.
To me, it makes perfect sense. Why would you prosecute
a guy that's providing you some level of political cover
even though yes, he wasn't the Trump administration, but because
he's now anti Trump, seems like a win win for
those on the political left.
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Speaker 2: We're talking about the FBI raid on John Bolton's home
that happened to Friday morning, just outside the district of
Columbian Bethesda, Maryland. And the question is is this political retaliation?
Is this some sort of retribution being put forth by
the Trump administration, and with what I've been able to
gather over the weekend, this seems like it's a pretty
clear case that the FBI has made. According to a
senior FBI official talking to The New York Post in
Fox News on Saturday, this is their quote quote. The
Biden administration had probable cause to know that he had
taken material that was detrimental to the national security of
the United States, and they made no effort to retrieve it,
noting that this was a friendly administration to Bolton. They
kept bashing Trump, that kept bashing Trump the entire time
for weaponizing law enforcement, and they politically stopped this investigation.
And they, in fact are the ones who weaponized law enforcement.
The case, described as air tight by some of the investigators,
was so bare that FBI Director Cash Patel did not
find out about it until a month or so after
his February confirmation, when he doing his due diligence, asked
agents for a briefing on sensitive cases, and this was
one of them. Among those addressed was the Bolton case,
which the director or initially thought had to do with
the prior closed investigation into John Bolton's book, but investigators
encouraged him to look closer, explaining that it was an
entirely new case that they were stopped from pursuing over
the last four years by the Biden administration. So with
that information available, being told, it's an air tight case
that this is something that the previous Federal Bureau of
Investigations knew about, did some early preliminary investigation of then
no surprise, completely brushed it off to the side. Why
was John Bolton's house rated by the FBI, Well, seems
like like he had access and was potentially holding classified information.
And what I'm struggling to wrap my head around is
how this is a bad thing. Right, we have been
told for years now by those on the political left
that nobody is above the law. Whether you're a president,
a judge, a member of Congress, maybe even your local town,
city council, school board members. Nobody is above the law,
regardless of whether you're in elected positions or not. The
law should be handed out fairly to everyone. Now. I
agree with that statement, but the left obviously does not,
because they use it when it is politically expedient for
them to do so, when they can get some cheap
hits in on those on the right. They claim that
the rule of law is saying, is this sworn thing
and nobody is above it, so on and so forth.
You've heard all the talking points. But when somebody like
John Bolton, according to multiple sources within the FBI, when
he's being investigated for taking classified information away from his
post as the National Security Advisor, of which I'll note
he was fired from in September of twenty nineteen, when
he is investigated for having classified documents, what is it.
It's not the rule of law. It's a threat to
democracy to those on the left. It's the end of
democracy in some cases. To those on the left. It
is weaponization of the federal government to some of those
on the left. And so I struggle to wrap my
head around how those two things can exist at the
same time. And the very short and sweet and simple
answer to this is you can't. It can't be okay
to raid Trump's house to get classified documents back, and
that be a good and just and fair thing. Rule
of law, nobody's above it. But when John Bolton is
being investigated for sending emails to his wife and daughter
from his desk inside the Oval Office, or not inside
the Oval Office, but the White House sending them outside
to private email servers, and he's investigated by the FBI.
It's a threat to democracy, folks. The two things cannot
exist in the same universe. And this is yet another
trap that those on the left have set for themselves.
They've never been of the mindset, never been of the
opinion that they're ever going to be held responsible or
accountable for the things that they do. So for example,
with President Trump, they think it's okay to raid his
property to get classified documents back. They believe that in
the state of New York it is a politically right
and just to change the statute of limitation to prosecute
the former president. These are real things that have happened.
And then when the coin is flipped onto the other side,
when they are no longer the one in power, when
they are no longer the ones that hold the political
power that exists within government, whether we're talking about the
executive branch or the House or the Senate, whatever branch
of Congress, they don't want any part to play in it.
And that's why I claim that it's a trap that
they've set for themselves. There's never been any sort of
thought that they're ever going to have to face the
same scrutiny that they hold those on the right to.
And once again it's a major misstep, and I would
argue a major miscalculation from those on the political left. Now.
The goal was, as you are well aware, to make
Donald Trump such damaged goods that he could never be
elected again, and then they wouldn't have to worry about
That's why they charged him with like what seventy something
felonies or ninety felonies in a variety of states New York, Florida, Georgia, Washington,
d C. Try and make him unelectable, try and make
it so that he can never get back to a
position of power. Then they don't have to worry about it.
They can wash their hands clean and say mission accomplished.
We weaponize the DOJ, we weaponize the FBI and all
of our other ancillary three letter agencies against Trump, and
we won. He lost. He's not going to get back
into power. Mission accomplished. But the plan didn't roll out
that way. Trump won. The Republicans won in November of
last year, in an overwhelming victory, I'll note, and so
now the Democrats are having to face this.
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Speaker 2: We're talking about John Bolton and the FBI raid of
his home Friday morning as a probe from Cash Battel,
and the FBI looks into whether John Bolton emailed or
sent to classified private secure documents to outside parties, predominantly
his wife and daughter, while he was at Donald Trump's
National Security Advisor And the question and the commentary that
I've seen all weekend long has been that this is
political retaliation, that this is political retribution being handed out
by the Trump administration, and I could not disagree with
that anymore. I don't know how we look at this
situation as retaliation or revenge or retribution. If John Bolton,
in his post as the National Security Advisor emailed or
sent classified private information to outside parties, presumably his wife
and daughter do not have the same security clearances that
he did. He does. Now if we find out that's
the case, then maybe the story changes. But they don't.
They weren't members of the National Security team. They have
from all reporting that I've been able to gather, neither
of them held any sort of security clearance. So he
is being investigated by the FBI, and I don't know
what part of that is retaliation or revenge or retribution.
Donald Trump made it very clear during the campaign over
the last You back in twenty twenty four that one
of his main goals and main objectives was to clear
up what's going on in Washington, DC. We'll get into
some of the crime a little bit later on in
the show This Afternoon, but he talked about cleaning up
the government, draining the swamp, so on and so forth.
And the only way that you begin the process of
doing that is by going to the FBI, going to
the Department of Justice, and other agencies that are actively
working on investigations, have tips, have information, and act on
that information. The Biden administration had evidence that John Bolton
was email and classified information, and they didn't do anything
about it. Why Because John bolt was a good tool
for them to use. He was a good asset to
roll out on cable news and talk about how to
terrible and awful Donald Trump was. Donna is a texting
in This Afternoon on our WBT text line driven by
Liberty Buick GMC. She writes, I do not believe that
this is political retaliation. We were told from the get
go that it was going to be cleared up from
the top down. If we don't investigate, how do we
know what has been going on? And rather, how do
we verify it? Corruption needs to seize. Political operatives need
to know that we will stand for it no longer
great commentary this afternoon, Donna appreciate it at seven oh
four five, seven eleven ten. How do you know unless
you're investigating, How can you know whether John Bolton is
guilty of doing this or not? If you, oh, I
don't know, suppress the investigation. Tell FBI agents, which is
exactly what happened under Biden's DOJ, that they're not allowed
to continue looking into this. I thought this was all
about the rule of law. I thought this was all
all about holding people accountable. I thought this was all
about democracy being killed by people being above the law.
With all of that being true, how can you be
against the FBI's actions on Friday? And the simplest answer
really is the only reason that this looks like retribution
or revenge or retaliation is because you don't like it.
That's the only reason that it looks like revenge or
retaliation because you don't like the fact that the same
game rules that you have changed are being used against you.
That's why it feels like revenge. That's why it feels
like retaliation from the Trump administration. Let's break this down
even further. We'll use a football analogy the season kicking
off here in a couple of weeks. If a team
rolls into Carolina and tells the Panthers, normally ten yards
is a first down, but we're gonna play with five
yards being a first down, and the Carolina Panthers respond
to that and say, okay, well, we're gonna do the
same thing. Would you consider the Panthers retaliating against their opponent.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't.
Speaker 2: I'd say they're playing the game by the same rules.
And I think that's exactly what you're seeing out of
the Trump administration. I don't want frivolous investigations from the
DOJ or the FBI. I don't want the Department of
Justice being weaponized against those on the political left. While
I disagree with them, while I think many of their
policies are ridiculous and don't make any sense and are
arguably destructive to our country, I don't want frivolous investigations.
I don't want the FBI showing up at people's houses
in the middle of the night, ramming indoors and pulling
out people in cuffs. I don't want that at all.
And that's not what we're seeing. We are seeing an
active investigation that was documented during the previous president and
Joe Biden being now played out by Cashptel. And so
for all of the hand ringing and the pearl clutching
by those on the political left, this is the game
that you guys want to play. You are okay with
federal agencies and federal departments like the FBI, like the
dj like others acting in this manner. How can you
be so appalled or beside yourself when your people in
this case John Bolton faced the same level of scrutiny.
It just it completely. The entire argument completely falls apart
when you begin the process of walking through how we
got to this situation. Republicans and conservatives did not change
the rules of the game. It's those on the left
that did. And they were under the impression and under
the mindset that there would not be any repercussions for that,
that there would be no consequences to the law fair
that you and I and everybody else across the country
has watched roll out over the last couple of years again,
because the objective was to politically bankrupt and ruin Donald Trump,
to cut the head of the mag of movement so
that it would stop the left. Was unsuccessful in doing that.
They re engaged the movement. I would argue they set
a larger fire under Donald Trump's rear end than he
had beforeen he won in twenty sixteen, and now they're
having to face the same game rules that they wanted
to roll out to those that they politically disagreed with.
And really, the only way that you stop those on
the left from targeting the rest of us, for me
from you, is to make some level of guarantee that
there's a cost to this kind of behavior, that there
is a political cost to this kind of lawlessness, this
kind of lawfair that you've watched unfold in front of
your very eyes. Without it, the next time democrats are
in power, they feel emboldened once again, and they ratchet
up the pressure once again. And every single time the
pressure builds and builds and builds and builds. Because there's
never been any consequences for it, they are allowed to
change the rules of the game consistently, and nobody ever
calls them out on Donald Trump is not taking it,
and I'm sure that's part of the reason why you
saw the FBI rate of John Bolton's out on Friday.
And I hope, unlike the previous administration, that this is investigated,
that this is looked at. If John Bolton is not
guilty of sending classified documents, then he should be exonerated.
If he is guilty, if there is evidence that, in fact,
he was sending these emails outside of the White House
to unsecured email servers, then I hope he's prosecuted to
the fullest extent of the law. That's how our system works,
not when it's just politically ec expedient or politically convenient
to enforce the law. That's not law in order. That's
not the rule of law. That's nobody's above the law.
That's not how that process plays out at all.
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Speaker 2: Talking about John Bolton the Raid of his house on
Friday by Cash Battel's FBI, Dan Bongino's FBI, and the
discussion over political retribution, political retaliation, and Jason is texting
in this afternoon and he says, it doesn't matter if
you're a liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat, military, or government contractor.
Leaking classified information is illegal and should be consistently investigated
and charged where appropriate. Exactly, Jason's That's why I don't
understand what all the outrage is that Donald Trump is
in Cash Battel are weaponizing the FBI against John Bolton. Well,
I mean, there seems to be pretty good evidence from
the fact that the Biden administration completely tamped down the
investigation into Bolton while Biden was in the Oval office
that he's probably guilty of something. But again, the only
way you figure that out is by oh, I don't know,
conducting or concluding an investigation, because it wasn't closed, it
was shelved by the Biden DOJ. It was shelved by
Biden's FBI, meaning that it did not likely get the
scrutiny that it should from individuals that are sworn into
those offices and are responsible for upholding the law. One
of the things that is I think a part of this,
and I haven't really seen this discussed a whole lot,
is the fact that Donald Trump is conducting himself in cash.
Mattel and other folks pambody are conducting themselves in this
manner because it's something that the left is not used
to seeing. As I was mentioning in the last segment,
there's this concept that the left is always changing the
rules of the game. Right, They're constantly moving the goalpost,
and they're used to being able to do that and
not really have to face any repercussions, consequences, or any
sort of retaliation for that. Right, they're allowed to change
the rule of the game, change all of the things
that we understand as normal or standard, for their political expedients,
for their ability. In this case, it was to go
after Donald Trump and folks closely associated or aligned with Trump,
So they changed whatever rules necessary. In the case of
New York, literally changed the statute of limitation so they
could prosecute Donald Trump over allegedly falsifying business records. They
changed the statute of limitation to do that. Right, you
don't change the statute of limitation just out of nowhere.
You do it when, of course there is a means
that justify the end, which is going after and ruining
Donald Trump. And for the longest time, Republicans and Conservatives
have been of the mindset that we need to take
the moral high ground here, we need to take the
high road, and we're just going to allow the Democrats
to continue to do this. We're going to allow them
to change all of the rules, do whatever they want,
and when we're in charge, we're gonna, you know, talk
about judicial reform, We're going to talk about holding the
moral high ground on all of this. And I think
Trump is really broken through to the Republican Party and
said enough is enough. If the left wants to change
the rules and play by a different game, then we're
going to do the exact same thing. And that doesn't
mean that you completely concede any sort of moral high
ground or morality, not at all. Again, if Donald Trump's
DOJ is starting to just go after people on the
left with no evidence and for no reason, I will
have a significant problem with that. I will be calling
the Trump administration out and holding them accountable. But that's
not what this story is at all. John Bolton was
in hot water over his book in twenty twenty for
the exact same issue. So this is not just some
random guy on the left that Cash Battel and Dan
Bongino are going to try and turn the screws on
to make him squeal and prove a political point. There's
nothing to back that up at all. This was a
case that was opened during the first Trump administration, shelved
by Biden's FBI, and is now being reacted upon by
Cash Battel, Dan Bongino and the Trump administration. And so
I just don't see it as any sort of retribution
or retaliation or anything of that nature. And I strongly
believe the only reason that you're hearing so many people
and news outlets and publications cry about that over the
weekend is because they don't like that they're being held
to the same standard that they want to hold us to.
And to me, that's just that's not a good response.
It's a very morally bankrupt response, and it's incredibly weak.
It really goes to show you that the left has
nothing to stand on at all. It's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: All Right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you
so much for listening. I could not do the show
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