Title: RUSSIAGATE — A Major Dividing Line w/ Matt Taibbi
Show: The Deep Focus Show
Date: 2025-07-26
URL: https://youtu.be/KfS3KjUGE4I
Duration: 46:00

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[00:03] The issue here is that it's the office of the presidency, right? So, look, if you have a whole bunch of intelligence officials get getting together and a lame duck president and setting up this time bomb, which is really what it was, like the this this whole thing, I think, was designed to create this avalanche of um problems that were that would come down the road. Welcome to Deep Focus. I'm John Kuryaku.

[00:35] I have watched MSNBC's Morning Joe every day for the past week, mostly so you don't have to. Seriously though, I've been watching Morning Joe to try to get a sense of where the Democratic Party stands on the issue of alleged debunked Russian intervention in the 2016 election. You'll recall that the Mueller report said that there was no meaningful intervention in that election, whether it was Russian or otherwise. But mainstream Democrats, including self-described progressives,

[01:06] are holding to the falsehood that the Russians somehow installed Donald Trump as our president. Well, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has raised the issue to a higher level by announcing an investigation into the actions of former CIA director John Brennan and former FBI Director Jim Comey, both of whom pushed that Russia narrative. Officially, the two are alleged to have lied to Congress during testimony on Capitol Hill. That would be a misdemeanor and a minor misdemeanor at that. But some Republicans are alleging

[01:40] far more serious crimes. They say that what Brennan and Comey tried to do was to carry out what was essentially a coup against a democratically elected president. We're going to talk about all this with one of the country's leading experts on this issue, and I'm proud to call him a friend. Matt Taibbe is an award-winning journalist, author, and podcaster. He's a former columnist with Rolling Stone, where his hard-hitting columns focused on politics, the culture wars, and current events. And now you can find his work both on his Substack

[02:11] and at Racket News. Matt, so glad to have you with us. Thanks for joining us. >> No, thanks for having me back, John. Good to see you. >> It's good to see you, man. It always is. Matt, wa walk us through this. Honest to God, I thought this uh this issue was done. It was behind us. Uh we know what the Mueller report said. We know what these various congressional investigations said. And now that there's the possibility of even minor criminal charges against two of the people who really pushed this narrative

[02:41] the most, now we're getting this push back from the Democrats just asking us to forget everything we learned over the last 8 years. What exactly are we looking at here? Well, I mean, criminally, I'm not sure. Um, we know it's going to be they're they're aiming for some kind of conspiracy charge, but what exactly is not clear. Uh, I've actually been trying to find that out. Um, it's one of the remaining mysteries in this whole thing. But just to pull back about the

[03:14] significance of what happened this week, um, this story, and I'm I'm sure this is probably true for you, too. This this Russia Gate story changed my life. Before it happened, I was a lifelong Democrat. I had just voted for Hillary Clinton. I was working at Rolling Stone magazine. And then this thing happened where suddenly we were told that the Russians had interfered in the election and pulled off what sounded like the biggest intelligence coup in history, that they had a Manurion candidate as

[03:44] president-elect. Uh, and I remember thinking as a journalist, either that's true or this is the biggest fraud of all time. there's really no other option. And we went through an extraordinary ordeal with three years of mania uh that ended with the Mueller business uh with no indictments and it but it was never fully debunked. The the people who brought the case against Trump never

[04:14] admitted that it was fake, that it was a mistake. Uh, and there was never a reckoning like there was with the WMD issue where at least the press admitted that there were some screw-ups. And what happened this week is that we finally got a peak at the actual evidence that they used to create this intelligence community assessment that you and Aaron Mate and myself and many others have been trying to figure out. What exactly

[04:45] substantiated the claim that Vladimir Putin quote unquote aspired to help Donald Trump because he had a quote unquote clear preference for him and now we know and it turns out nothing is substantiating it and it's it's an incredible shock. I don't know what what's your reaction as as a former you know intelligence person. I think this is on the order of the WMD saying maybe even worse >> easily and maybe worse. You know, when I read this account, um, I think it was at

[05:15] Axios a week or so ago that John Brennan had called together all of the the most important, most seasoned Russia analysts at the CIA, brought them all together to write what was essentially a sense of the community memorandum. Um, and then they found that there was no Russian interference, and then Brennan said, "No, the analytic line is there was Russian interference. This is what we're going with." What shocks me is that they didn't run physically run on Mas to the

[05:47] office of the inspector general to report him. And then just to make matters worse when he insisted that they add the steel dossier as an appendix to this politicized analysis and they refused and then he added it as an appendix. I was disappointed again that they didn't run to the office of the inspector general. We shouldn't have had to wait this long as a country to know exactly how this played out. This is exactly what they teach you on your very

[06:18] first day at the CIA not to do >> as an analyst. Yes. >> If if you have somebody trying to push you to to put an unsported claim, go to the IG. Is that is that what you're supposed to do? >> It's all about evidence. And if there's no evidence and somebody is trying to force you to politicize the analysis, you have to go to the inspector general and you have to report it. >> I mean I mean so in in that case that makes what happened even more egregious and and you

[06:51] know there's there's new reporting even now at the end of this week. So, there were four major pieces of evidence that they used to substantiate this um Putin preferred Trump claim. And I didn't realize this until yesterday evening um that the the aspired line came from um a discussion that Brennan himself had with a Russian defector in Virginia and that the he never put it in writing. He only

[07:23] orally briefed the president. There is a suggestion that he gave different different accounts of that conversation to different people. And that's in the report. They say that that we're concerned about this because uh the key piece of evidence that we're hanging this whole thing on is a discussion that he had that John Brennan had and the the original source is not even known where uh this person got that from. People are saying that it's this like small and cuff person. Um, but that sounds like

[07:56] terrible tradecraftraft to me. John, you you tell me. Uh, you know, you don't know where it's coming from. Like, how can you put it in there? Well, I'll tell you, and and forgive me if this is getting too far down in the weeds of of CIA analysis, but often times analysts will be called upon to go meet with defectors and just have a conversation. Just see if your analysis is consistent with their real life experience. Now, if you write up your notes, which you're supposed to do, you cannot use those

[08:29] notes in a piece of finished intelligence. you have to turn the notes over to the director of operations to what's called a a um a a cat. It's called a reports officer and um the reports officer puts it in a formal channel and releases it to the entire intelligence community. Then you can use it because you can cite it as a source and under on the source line it'll say according to a recent defector or according to an unpolyraphed source or

[08:59] whatever, right? um he just took it from from the horse's mouth and ran with it. There's no written evidence anywhere that anybody ever said this. We're just supposed to take his word for it. And that's not analysis. >> And it's certainly not finished intelligence. >> It wouldn't get into a junior high school newspaper. >> No way. >> No way. And another thing too, Tucker Carlson said a few weeks ago >> um that he asked Putin, "Who do you

[09:31] prefer?" >> And he said, "Well, I prefer Trump to Hillary. Trump is a little bit hard to gauge because he changes his mind." But he said, "Hillary, I just know I can't work with." Okay, that's not top secret, you know, Russian government information. He just came out with it. A journalist asked him a question, he gave an answer. There it is. No big mystery. Right. Right. But but >> there's a difference between that and they interfered with active measures to

[10:03] help to to help uh Donald Trump. And at that time Trump was a political un more of a political unknown and from what I understand reading the accounts that they had they had significant intelligence going in both directions saying that on the one hand yes they would have preferred uh a Republican candidate uh because they're Republicans have traditionally historically it's easier to make deals with them. They're less concerned about human rights. Um,

[10:36] but there was also intelligence saying that Trump was mirial. He was unpredictable. Uh, with Hillary, we at least know where she stands. Uh, you know, we think that it either way we're well positioned to outmaneuver. That was the quote. That's a direct quote from from Putin. By the way, this is the other thing about the report that came out. And just for for background, what we're talking about is this House Intelligence Committee report that's been locked away for uh since 2018 at Langley. Um

[11:09] apparently um no, they they they had almost no good intelligence at all about Russia. That's one of the things that's striking about >> that's an ongoing theme, >> right? So you're reading this and you're like, "Wow, they they just don't have a lot of penetration at you would think if you if there was more stuff they could manipulate it, right?" Right. >> But they they did. One thing jumps out in the report is that they have a what they call significant intelligence from a confidant of Vladimir Putin and he's

[11:40] quoting Putin directly and Putin is saying I don't really care who wins e either either way and no matter what this we're not going to have good relations with the United States that they're not interested in it but we think we're pos well we're well positioned to outmaneuver uh either candidate and then and that he would uh recount the flow of both of them. So, but they suppressed that. So, they used they used the unsourced, unverified steel dossier and Brennan's whatever

[12:12] conversation, but they suppressed that. That sounds like good intelligence to me. >> It actually sounds like pretty good intelligence. Yeah. And again, this is exactly what they teach you at the farm in the in the analytic tradecraftraft course not to do. Not to do. You and I had a conversation ages ago about the Steel Dossier, >> and I I remember part of the conversation being that you can't blame Chris Steele >> for this complete screw-up on the

[12:43] American side because Chris Steele was a collector. He was a case officer and his job is to just cast a wide net, ask his sources questions A, B, C, and D, and then report back on what their answers are. And then it's the analyst's job to vet the answers and you know present the final analysis to whomever the consumer happens to be. In this case it was the Clinton campaign. Well to cherrypick intelligence and say like

[13:14] oh my god uh Trump hired prostitutes to pee on the bed that Donald Trump slept in. That's not that's not intelligence. That's just a rumor that somebody threw out and and Steel reported it back and said, you know, you can take it or leave it, but this is what people are telling me. I'm not the expert here. You guys are the experts. So, here's what I've collected. But they didn't take the the they didn't make their own analysis. They didn't take the best of the

[13:45] intelligence. They just went with what was ugliest and then pointed the finger at the Trump campaign and pointed the finger at Vladimir Putin and said they were in bed together. It was intellectually dishonest. >> Oh, ex extremely right. I mean, but I think there's still some mystery about why they did that. Like to me, it feel it feels to me like they wanted to investigate Trump. this this for the f from the FBI side the the utility would have been using it to get a FISA warrant

[14:16] on Carter Page but then you know later on suddenly you know it they have to go to Broadway uh with this whole thing and there there there's apprehension they they tell the New York Times to back off of it just before the election they don't endorse it publicly and then all of a sudden that there's this moment just before um you you know the second week in December there just December 9th 2016 where all of the sudden they get

[14:49] ordered to do this new assessment and they they they all have to publicly back it. Don't you think there had to be some kind of thing that happened to justify all of those chiefs getting behind it? >> There there has to be there has to be. And you know, we we have heard the rumors about Maniffort and his contacts with the Russians or with somebody who who happened to be a Russian um intelligence officer. We heard about the screw up uh involving Carter Page. I actually spoke to Carter Page about it

[15:20] and he's still very bitter >> that that they tried to sacrifice him for this political goal. But with all that said, there's never really been any justice for people wrongly accused. You know, um George Papadopoulos is another example. George went to prison for, I don't know, 6 weeks or whatever it was and um and tried to rehabilitate himself by running for Congress. He was unsuccessful. He's out there on the speaking circuit. But

[15:51] there's never been an apology to George Papopoulos. There's never been anybody to come forward and say, "Wow, we really did this guy wrong. You know, we owe him an apology." Never. In fact, if you just watch Morning Joe in the morning, they're all doubling down and they're they're asking us and I I would laugh it if it wasn't so serious. They're asking us to just forget everything we've learned in the past several years and go back like default back to their original

[16:21] accusations. I I think I mentioned to you one time that um back in 20 uh 2017, a cousin of mine um uh set me up on a blind date and lovely lovely woman. She happened to be an attorney for the DNC and we were at this bar having a drink and she looked me right in the eye and she said, "I believe in my heart that the first thing Donald Trump does when

[16:53] he wakes up in the morning is he calls Vladimir Putin on the hotline to get his instructions for the day." And I laughed. >> And then I said I said, "Oh my god, are you serious?" And she said, "Yes, he's a Manurion candidate." >> Wow. >> And I said, "Yeah, this isn't going to work." >> Yeah. >> Yeah. This isn't going to work. She was very nice. But but you know, that was the first indication that I had that >> that oh my god, people actually believe

[17:25] this. >> Oh, I thought it was just a political thing. We're going to go out there and we're going to really screw them. And no, they believe this. >> Evidence be damned. Yeah. And and and it was obviously it wre tremendous havoc with the news media business too. I mean there were a lot of us who were kind of pushed out and never never came back in. Right. like um this story I I think people underestimate what a major

[17:55] dividing line in American society this story was because uh it was a gigantic PR/advertising campaign and I to this day I think the major schism in American society is between people who believe it and people who who came not to believe it. Right? There were obviously sort of Trump partisans who resisted it for other reasons, but there's a significant population of people who were disenchanted over the years and also

[18:27] because of other things that happened with COVID, right? Where they realized they were being lied to. But this is the big one. This was the one where they they threw they said, "Trust us, we all, you know, all 17 agencies, right? Like we're we're all behind it." And then it turns out it's not 17, it's three. Then it turns out this week that it's not three, it's one. Uh, and you know, and it's not even really one agency, it's one guy. It's John Brennan who had one conversation and it's a a fragment from

[18:58] that. That's >> it's like a joke. Like you you if Jonathan Swift wrote this, he couldn't have done a better job. It's it's that ridiculous. >> Matt, when I was still at the CIA uh in 2004, I was in the director of operations. My wife was in the directorate of intelligence, so she was an analyst. She was actually a very senior analyst. And she came home one day and she said, "Did you hear about the president's new order?" And I said, "No." And she said, "He ordered us to add a paragraph to all

[19:29] of our analysis for the president's daily brief." I wasn't following. Well, she says, you know, that the president's daily brief, you have fact and then you have analysis, right? She says, 'Now we have to add a third paragraph, which is policy recommendation. And I said, 'Oh my god, that's a violation of the CIA's charter. You can't make a Yeah, you can't make a policy recommendation. The whole idea of intelligence is you present the intelligence to the to the

[20:00] policy makers with the best informed analysis and then they make the policy decision. But here's the president saying, "Okay, so tell me the news. tell me what the news means and then tell me what I should do. Like, it's not the CIA's purview to tell the president of the United States what he should do, but that's exactly what happened in this case. And to make it worse, the recommendation was based on a lie. >> Yeah. I mean obviously and that and

[20:32] that's very ironic that story because that really mirrors the exact same development in journalism where you know our mandate was find the stuff get it together put it out let the public figure it out right um now we have to have the message here's how you should take this >> yeah I hate that so much >> right and >> here's what you need to know it's like no you no you don't tell me what I need to know lay out the story and I decide what I need to know,

[21:03] >> right? >> I hate that so much. >> And as and as you know, like finding out the stuff is is a pretty hard job already like you know and you ask all these B minus or C++ brains to try to come up with well what does it mean and what should we do about it? I think that's just taxing them beyond their capabilities. And you I think we see that very clearly with this Russia story where, you know, it's a combination of incompetence, inertia, but also clearly

[21:34] at the root of it, deep corruption. I mean, I I don't know the bottom line what the the what prompted this order uh why >> Barack Obama suddenly decided to commission this assessment. Um but whatever it is, it's a bad reason. I mean, unless he was deeply misinformed about the seriousness of the intelligence, um I can't there's no innocent explanation I can come up with. Is is there that you can say? >> No. Makes no sense to me at all.

[22:06] Especially when when Obama was a lame duck and he was he was leaving anyway, >> right? >> It just doesn't make any sense unless you know John Brennan when I was still at the agency. John Brennan was was pretty senior by then. He had been the executive director. He had been the first head of the transnational terrorism information center which became the National Counterterrorism Center. but he was telling everybody who would listen back then that he wanted to be secretary of

[22:37] defense. So he had this interim stop as CIA director under under um Obama, but he was ready to move up to SEC death. And I wonder if that's what the motivation was >> that that he wanted that other job. So he was going to be absolutely indispensable to a president Hillary Clinton. >> I see. Right. >> Or whoever happened to follow her.

[23:07] >> Well, that makes a lot of sense. Uh and Obama obviously would have trusted Brennan or probably was politically deeply in debt to him. I mean, Brennan was the first big >> Yeah. >> name in the intelligence community to back him. >> That's right. So, you know, but I just don't understand what that transaction was because they they were on course to kind of let it let it go. Like all the Crossfire uh investigations had kind of

[23:37] petered out by then. They didn't really have any more leads. So, all to suddenly just floor it and order this thing with this incredibly aggressive conclusion. And the leaking too, that's the other thing that's shocking about this. like when you see the the one of the things that Tulsa released this week um were the actually it was over last weekend were the emails talking about the from the DNI uh saying you know per request of the

[24:08] president you we're all going to have to get together and put together this new assessment and it's dated like December 9th and we're going to find out what happened. Well, while they're uh giving that assignment to find out what happened, they're that very minute they're leaking to the New York Times and Washington Post who put out stories that night. So, they already clearly had the conclusion and this was just for show. Um, and which is just shocking to me like but they they say they so

[24:39] aggressively came out with this. Also, it's it speaks I mean it's obviously a huge indictment of the news organizations that just ran it, >> right? >> And and I'll add as an aside, it's also a violation of the Espionage Act. >> Is it? >> Yeah. In in my case, the judge set a precedent by defining espionage as providing national defense information to any person not entitled to receive it. Period. And so if the information when it was

[25:11] leaked to the Times and the Post hadn't been formally declassified, that's an act of espionage. >> Oo, that is interesting. That is very interesting. Do you think that might be u one of this one of the >> I've been thinking about it for the last couple of days. That's why I was so excited to have you on because because you you go so deep on on these issues and I was disappointed to see at least in the initial reporting that what the

[25:42] criminal referral was to the Justice Department was that they had lied in their testimony uh on Capitol Hill. Well, that's a misdemeanor and it calls for zero jail time. It calls for like 12 months probation, I think, uh for a first time offense. But if we're talking about conspiracy, which is what they're talking about this week, or even better, if if the word espionage creeps into the national conversation, then it's a whole new ballgame. And I was just wondering if you had heard anything about

[26:14] about what crimes they may be looking to charge. We're not really seeing reporting on it, at least not in the mainstream media, but people have to be talking about it at least at some level. >> So there there's a lot of chatter about it. Um I'm sure you saw um Devin Nunees this week was was talking about the Mara Lago raid and intimating that >> that was somehow tied to all of this, >> right? There are a lot of stories being

[26:45] circulated about people in um in Trump's 2024 campaign who were um placed under investigation allegedly uh and surveiled and that there so there's a there there are there are rumors that there are they're going to allege a pattern of conduct um you know to jin up Russia gate and then conduct phony political

[27:16] surveillance. So violation of maybe FISA, you know, that that could be in there. I mean, but the Espionage Act, what you're saying, that makes a lot of sense, too. The because leaking is clearly a huge part of this whole thing and and that was a consistent >> feature of this entire scandal. They and they didn't just do it in one time. They they did it repeatedly. Uh so I mean they and they leaked signals intelligence, right? Like they they leaked all kinds of stuff, you know,

[27:47] this stuff that even journalists aren't allowed to do. >> Yeah. >> Um and so I wonder if it's that. I don't know. I mean the leaking about leaking the FISA court results like I I mean they already charged that. >> Um and they had one case involving that Senate aid, the head of security. Yeah, the head of security. That's right. >> But but there has there's got to be more meat on that bone, I think. And there's more. So, >> that's right. There has to be. I will

[28:19] warn these these guys. >> If you think you're under surveillance, you probably are. >> And I I'll give you an example. >> In January of 2012, my mom's sister died. So, uh, the funeral was going to be in Western Pennsylvania where I grew up. And so I got in the car and I drove up there. Warren, Ohio is where my mom and her brothers and sisters were all born. And it's only 20, 30 minutes drive from my hometown. So I thought, I'm going to go

[28:49] to the cemetery and put flowers at my grandparents graves and drive by the old house and just see it. So I go to the house and I pull over to the side of the road and I noticed there's a guy behind me. So, I rolled down my window and I went like this, you know, to wave and pass me because I'm just going to stop and and look at the house for a minute. But he didn't pass me. He just sat there behind me. And I thought, "Okay, that's weird, but all right." I drive up to the end of the block and I make a big

[29:19] illegal U-turn in the intersection. And then he makes the big illegal U-turn. So, I call my wife in DC and I said, "I'm under surveillance. I'm sure that I am." And she said, 'Oh, come on.' I said, 'N no, I'm sure.' And I told her what I just told you. She said, 'Well, what are you doing now? I said, 'I'm going to drive over to the cemetery. If he follows me into the cemetery, I'm going to confront him. So, I drive over to the cemetery. And it's like this 19th century cemetery that still has a little bit of room, and that's where everybody

[29:51] goes in the news section. So, I pull in. He pulls in behind me. I go to my grandparents graves. I put the flowers. I stand there for a couple of minutes. And then I thought, "Ah, my my ex-in-law is back in the uh in the back part. I'm going to drive back there." He follows me. So, finally, I get out of my car and I was like, "What? What are you doing?" And he takes off. I was arrested 4 days later. >> Oh, okay. All right. And it turned out

[30:21] we we saw in Discovery, >> they didn't know that my aunt died. >> They thought somebody had leaked to me that they were going to arrest me and that I was running to Canada. [Laughter] >> Morons. >> That's embarrassing. >> So my my message to these people who are under surveillance, if you think you're under surveillance, you are. Relax. >> You probably are. Yes. >> Call a lawyer, >> right? call a lawyer. Uh well, I mean

[30:52] that's that's terrifying. I mean, did having gone through this though, uh what's the significance of, you know, for instance, a CIA director being under criminal investigation or an FBI director, is that something that could ever realistically happen? Um like they the the pattern is they they go after somebody like you and Right. I mean >> well they they've gone after they went after John Deutsch.

[31:23] >> Um I mean he >> he took his CIA laptop home. He essentially stole it so he could write his his memoirs and look at classified documents to remind him of stories. And he ended up taking a plea. They they bargained it down to a misdemeanor which they always do. Sandy Burgerer is another one. He was the national security adviser. He went to the national archives to the classified reading room. >> Oh, didn't he stuff something in his shirt? >> In his underwear underwear, right? >> Classified documents.

[31:54] >> They also pushed that down to a misdemeanor. Um, I'm unaware of any FBI director ever being in that kind of trouble. But this seems to be such an assault on democracy that if if there's a crime that's been committed and a crime that will be charged, it's got to be a felony, right? I mean, what we're talking about here, seriously, is an attempted coup. >> I think that that's what we're talking about. >> I've used that word before for this and

[32:26] I think it's appropriate. I mean like too >> the >> when the four intelligence chiefs see Yeah, remember they they do this intelligence community assessment, they stick the steel stuff in there that they know is fake. Uh then they've had trouble, right, generating uh press around the whole blackmail angle, all the salacious stuff, but they can't just put it out there either because they don't want to be the sources for it, right? >> So what do they do? They put it in the

[32:57] annex. Then they then the news leaks that there's a briefing, right? And I while they're still investigating him like the the the Comey talking about how he was investigating Trump's reaction to being presented with this. I think that that's some kind of weird like insubordination. Yes. Right. Is >> I have to agree. I have to agree. And the buck has to stop somewhere. Right? Otherwise, we have chaos. Chaos

[33:30] at the top echelons of government and we can't live like that. >> And I think people, one of the things that's distracting for people is that they just don't like Donald Trump or it's they think, well, even if he didn't do that, he must have done something. Well, you can't do that. Like, this is >> the issue here is that it's the office of the presidency, right? So look, if you have a whole bunch of intelligence officials get getting together and a lame duck president and setting up this

[34:01] time bomb, which is really what it was, like the this this whole thing, I think, was designed to create this avalanche of um problems that were that would come down the road. Uh you know, there were news stories uh coming out. I remember there was a story in Harets saying from MSAD sources saying the United States is has told us not to share intelligence um with the new president, right? Uh

[34:34] think think about the implications of doing that to your own country, right? like you're you're uh advertising to the world that uh you know a foreign power is now in control of the White House. That's I mean it's it's not a crime. That's one of the things like I talked to to one of the people kind of around this investigation who was saying there isn't a crime for what these guys did. It's like it's so it's so big that uh it's not really described. But you're right. It has whatever it is has to be a

[35:06] felony. It's got to be It's got to be a felony. Yeah, I think so, too. Um I I'd love to get your thoughts, too, on these on these attacks against u uh Tulsi Gabbard. Again, Morning Joe, they evviscerate her. They call her um well-known conspiracy theorist Tulsi Gabbard. Well, I I follow Tulsi Gabbard. I follow these issues. I'm not seeing any

[35:37] promotion of a conspiracy. >> It's I mean they should know they're the promoters of the conspiracy theory. If you go back and look, I think it's February 2nd of 2019 when she announced her run for the presidency. It was a weekend. uh NBC and MSNBC timed a gigantic hit piece uh that was going to assert that she she was the new favorite of the Kremlin to the date of

[36:09] the launch of her presidential run. And if you look and see who the sources are in that story, it's fascinating. Remember you and I talked about Hamilton 68. >> Sure. >> Uh so it's the Hamilton 68 people. It's a new knowledge uh whose CEO was the creator of the Hamilton 68 dashboard and then Clint Watts who was a an FBI agent but who was the public face of uh the Alliance for Securing Democracy, this Hamilton 68 project. Uh, and they set

[36:44] her up with basically phony intelligence, you know, like like they were using the whole bots are following uh Tulsi Gabbard uh thing to to make her look like a, you know, some kind of favorite of the Russians. And then, you know, for Hillary Clinton to come out later and call her a favorite and and a Russian asset. >> A Russian asset. Very pointed words. Those words have real meaning in the intelligence community. It means that you are taking money from the Russian

[37:14] government to report back to them classified information. That was defamatory >> and and does it also mean taking direction too? Like I was unclear about that. >> Yes. So >> yes. >> So >> yeah, I mean that's absolutely defamatory. She lost that action if I remember correctly, right? She sued. Yes. >> But yeah, so NBC is complicit in this whole thing as far as I'm concerned. like for for them to come out and call her a conspiracy theorist. And you know, I I I I know Tulsa a little bit. I I I

[37:46] covered her campaign. I saw her around that time um in New Hampshire a little bit before that. And um I I think it affected her deeply that this happened. I mean, you can um as you know, like if you serve your country and then they turn around and they you make claims about you, uh it's it's you know, it cuts you to the the core. And then she finds out, of course, that she's under surveillance. >> Yeah. >> Through this crazy TSA program um last

[38:19] >> I forgot about that. >> Yeah. >> Yes, you're right. >> The Quiet Skies program. Um, and you know, when I found out about that, I I was stunned that this thing even exists, like for people who don't know, the you can have as many as 15 people in an airport following a single person. Uh, and it's it's three marshals per person per flight, uh, with dogs and everything like that. And you don't have to be even accused of a crime. There's there's no predication that's necessary for you.

[38:51] You just have to there's some kind of thing where if you if you show up in the same room with somebody else who's in who's on some kind of list, like you get on it automatically. >> Oh my god. >> So, um yeah, if I were in her shoes, I I understand. You can you can tell that she's mad in the right. So, >> yeah. >> Um and which actually she should be. She has every right to be. And that actually leads to my next question. Do you envision this moving with some speed or are we

[39:22] going to have to start facing congressional investigations and you know a two-year long uh DOJ investigation and subpoenas and because it seems to me that that this could go either way depending on politically how they want it to to unfold. I think it's going to end up with a special prosecutor is my guess. Um, obviously Cash Patel has put together cases before.

[39:54] That's this th this is the case that got him this job. Uh, and I imagine he would want to be personally involved, but I can't imagine being FBI director and personally doing the case. There's no way, right? So, um, you know, they they've put together a team. I think there's some confusion from what I understand as to, you know, what they're going to charge or what they're going to try to charge. Uh, but it's probably going to be a process for

[40:24] sure. But the thing is, the one advantage that they have is that most of the stuff has already been done. The only the only thing that's that that's outstanding would be um interviews with people who previously refused. Uh there were 30 people that this uh House Intel Committee group tried to interview who said no apparently at the direction of Andrew McCabe. Um and so the there's a little bit of work to be done there, but almost everything else is on paper. Uh

[40:55] and so I don't know. What do you think? I'm curious to know what you like. I'm not a lawyer, so you know. >> Yeah. And nor am I. But I think you're right here. I think that I think that Donald Trump is serious about prosecuting and because he's serious about prosecuting, he's going to want it to go off without a hitch. And you do that by appointing a special prosecutor or whatever they call it now, special counsel. Um, I think you're also right in that a lot of the leg work has been done and the information is, you

[41:27] know, it's still relevant and so I think a special prosecutor will be named. I think that Republicans will be told by the White House to stop talking about this and let the let the prosecutors do their job. And I think we're going to see felony charges in the end. They may be process charges, but still felonies. >> Well, look, uh, I'll take it. Right. Yeah, me too. Frankly, >> because even just to see people admit the truth of it. Um, one other thing I

[42:00] wanted to ask you about, uh, there's a really fascinating detail that kind of came out this week in this report. um in this report as well as a declassified annex to um the midyear exam I IG investigation. The one of the things that the this declassified house intel committee report says is that there was a a huge trove of hacked information that

[42:31] apparently the Russians had. >> I saw that. and and the uh the implication of the report was Putin had a lot more stuff that he could have released if he had wanted to. And uh this contradicted the previous report that said um you know that he he had uh when possible uh helped Donald Trump. So it it turns out that this material that they're talking about is the same material that was at issue in the Clinton email investigation. the stuff

[43:02] that was delivered back to the United States by this source they're calling T1. And it's eight thumb drives worth of stuff, mostly correspondents from American politicians, a lot of DNC correspondents, but also Obama's office, State Department. How big of a security failure is eight thumb drives worth of American correspondents all the way up to the president? like yeah it would story is it >> gigantic yeah enormous and again again

[43:34] again I come back to the to the espionage act definition >> you know this is something that that Jason Leopold and I discussed after he broke the story and I said oh this is an espionage act case he said well how do you figure if if if nobody else had access to the to the server and it was in her basement or whatever it was how how would that be an espionage act case and And I said, "She has house staff. She has a cleaning lady, a cook, uh maybe an an intern that

[44:08] doesn't have access up to uh top secret sitkma uh information. Anybody who may have walked past her desk when a classified document was sitting on it is providing national defense information to any person not entitled to receive it." So, it's one of these situations where they're not going to charge it 99 times out of 100, but if they really want to get you and they want to be serious about it, they'll charge it.

[44:39] >> Well, in that case, I mean, they got like she directed that person from that Denverbased company that was doing the work to delete delete all of her stuff. So, >> right. Um, and but it's just striking to me that that there had to be other people who mishandled that material as well. >> Absolutely. >> And um I I I just don't understand why that I guess it's because it it's part

[45:09] of the Clinton email investigation and people have kind of written it off as oh but her emails, but it's it's not about Hillary Clinton to me. It's just it's about the fact that there was that big of a security failure, >> right? It seems like that that would be a serious thing to look at. >> Oh, man. I agree. I agree. >> So, anyway, >> there are standards. They have to be standards for everybody. I I feel very strongly about that. >> Definitely. >> Well, Matt, we'll uh we'll end it there.

[45:40] I want to thank you again for for being with us. It's always such a a treat to have you. >> Thanks so much, John. I really appreciate you having me on and good luck with the show and uh talk to you soon. >> Thank you. Matt Taibbe is an award-winning journalist, author, and podcaster. He's a former columnist with Rolling Stone. And now you can find his work both on his Substack and at Racket News. And as always, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. Please do me that favor of hitting the subscribe and like button. Share it. Tell your friends. I appreciate it very much. Take care.
