Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Truth with Lisa Booth, where we get
to the heart of the issues that matter to you.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Today.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm joined by Senator ran Paul, the chairman of the
Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
We've got a lot to get into.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
We're gonna have a hard hitting conversation about the failures
and the corruption inside of our government. Will dive into
Polisi Gabbard's explosive new report accusing the Obama administration and
top intel officials of manipulating intelligence on Russia. Does it
amount to treason? That's what she says. Senator ran Paul
weighs in on that. We'll also talk about his call
(00:33):
for the Department of Justice to charge Anthony Fauci for
lying to Congress and whether Biden's parden would hold up
in court. Plus, his Homeland Security Committee produced a report
investigating the security failures surrounding Butler, Pennsylvania when President Trump
was almost assassinated. So what stood out to him the
(00:54):
most in that report? We'll ask him. Stay tuned for
Senator Rampaul. Chairman Rampaul, it's great to.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Have you on the show, sir.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Obviously no shortage of things to discuss these days.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
A lot happening in the news.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I wanted to start and get your take on sort
of the information that the Director of National Intelligence, Tulci
Gabbard has been releasing, particularly this report highlighting well what
we already know about the manipulation of the intelligence by
the Obama administration in regards to Russia. In twenty sixteen,
she said that it amounts to treason. What do you
(01:34):
make of what we have seen so far? And is
it treason?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Well, you know, some of this was reported even back
when it happened. I remember the initial news stories coming
out saying that the Obama administration had information and that
were spreading it.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Throughout the new throughout the different facets of government to
try to make sure it wasn't lost.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Now, the implication at the time was that it was
actually true information. But it's not a big stretch to
believe that they would change or alter intelligence estimates to.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Try to further their cause. You know.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Molly Hemingway wrote a book Rigged, and in it she
talked about how many Democrats came out in early twenty
seventeen and said the election was stolen, that the election
was rigged, and that it had been stolen by the Russians,
and it was all part of this big scam to
get Russia, you know, to get their presidential pick. And
so it's pretty easy for me to believe that they
(02:27):
did did do this, and that they would use intelligence. Look,
I think John Brennan is a basically dishonest person, a
person who also abused the power of his office. I
think he also, in all likelihood used foreign intelligence assets
to spy on the Trump campaign. You know, when you
had those random meetings at bars in England where Trump
(02:48):
official campaign officials were sort of being you know, information
was being gleaned by them by like an Australian ambassador.
I don't think any of that was random. I think
that was directed by John Brennan. I think, you know,
because it's illegal for the CIA to do this on Americans.
I think he employed or encouraged or somehow got foreign
(03:10):
intelligence to do his dirty work for him. But it
was an abusive power and I think John Bennan should
never ever be close to the reigns of power again.
He should have no access to class I've fed information.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
He's a danger.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Well, if memory serves me correct, any spy on members
of Congress.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Well, there were there were times during some of the
January sixth where they looked like members of the members
of Congress's phones were tapped and looked into. So I
don't put anything beyond him. And I actually remember sitting
in the Oval office in the first Trump administration and
giving the president the advice that he should take their
(03:47):
security clearances from him and Clapper and all these other clowns.
And at the moment Trump's said you're right, he called
somebody in and said take away their security clearance.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And that's the way it happened in the first administration.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
It was in twenty fourteen Senator Diane Feinstein accused John
Brennan's CIA of spying on her and spying on Congress
and getting away with it when they were looking into waterboarding.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
That's what it was.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yep, that was true. That was absolutely true.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
So to your point, just to underscore your point, like,
it's not out of the realm of possibility for him
to have done what you just laid out, considering his past.
Do you think there'll be any consequences here, because it
seems like the intelligence community they were saying one thing
obviously prior to the election, Prior to this meeting that
took place on December ninth, twenty sixteen. What all these
(04:38):
people convened at Obama's White House, including Brennan Clapper, Susan Rice,
you know, the whole nine yards, Loretta Lynch, all of
them to discuss Russia. And then it seemed like the
narrative after that really changed. Do you think there'll be
any consequences for any of this, Well, you know.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
As someone who believes that the intelligence agencies have too
much much power, I think one of the consequences should
be reform of these agencies, that we should strip away
power and have more oversight. But you know, I thought
that's what would happen. You know, when the abuses of
Donald Trump first came out, there was a movement. There's
always been libertarians like myself who wanted to reform these agencies,
(05:20):
but there was a stronger movement and we almost got there.
Like on FISA, the PISA system is data that is
collected without a warrant, supposedly for spies and threats to
the national security, but it is part of the information
that's being used for many other nefarious reasons other than
national security. And we got to a tie vote and
(05:41):
it was Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, who
killed reform of PISA. So that was really disappointing, and
I hope we could bring it back up again. But
the establishment, you know, the establishment Republicans who love surveillance
and don't seem to have much concern for the individual
killed FISA reform. It's the same with the CIA. We
(06:01):
auto reform them, but they're protected by conservatives. Some of
these conservatives who are these national security conservatives who really
don't care about individual liberty and care more about surveillance.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
You've also called on the Department of Justice to charge
Anthony Fauci with lyne to Congress also to test the
President Biden's pardon of Fauci. Obviously, there's a lot of
questions surrounding the autopen controversy. Did he authorize these pardons?
You know, was he aware of them or not? We
had Chairman Comer on the show last week talking about
(06:36):
the issue. But what did he lie about in you know,
do you think the pardon of Fauci will hold up
in court?
Speaker 4 (06:44):
We you know, I asked him directly if he funded
gain of function research in China, and he adamantly and
repeatedly and heatedly said that he never ever funded gain
of function research in China. But we have documents from
the company. It was called EcoHealth Alliance. They got NIH
money and then they secondarily granted it to Wuhan. We
(07:06):
have a thank you note from EcoHealth going back to
NIH after their money had been turned back on.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
It was paused for a period.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Of time because of gain and function research, and when
it was turned back on, EcoHealth wrote a nice letter
back to Anthony Fauci and said thank you for turning
back on our gain of function research funding.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
So we have that. But we also have other acting heads.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Of the NIH who have admitted that the research was
indeed gain of function, and we've been looking through documents
now at a committee to see if we can find
evidence of them admitting it as well.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
But the bottom line is see lied. It's a fairly
simple case.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
You can't always get convictions on this, but they did
it several times with Trump administration and Trump friends who
they went after for lying to Congress, So I think
it's an easy one to go after. If the pardon
had been signed by Biden, I would say we'd be
wasting our time because I don't think you can penetrate
through the pardon.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
But the fact that the pardon was signed by an auto.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Pen and that the I don't know college intern that
was running the autopen says he got the permission from
Jill Biden's chief of staff doesn't sound like anybody running
the autopen really had a direct line to the president.
So I think there is some doubt whether it's valid,
and only a court could deside.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Do you think voters still care about you know, as
we look into the previous administration and Joe Biden's mental decline,
do you think that resonates with voters.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
I do think what resonates with voters is a hypocrisy
and things that seem to be unfair, or when the
government uses the law against somebody for personal reasons. So
I think all of the court cases where against Donald Trump,
where they changed the statute of limitations in the court,
that one prosecuting him was a prosecutor ran on a
(09:00):
campaign pledge to get Donald Trump individually as an individual,
and the fact that they strung together misdemeanors to make
them a felony.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
People were mad about that.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Part of the election was decided by people mad at
the Biden administration and Democrats using government to go after
an individual. Likewise, I think it's why people are upset
and want more information about the Epstein thing. A woman
goes to jail for twenty years, This other guy, Epstein
was probably going to go to jail for twenty years.
If they're running a sex ring there, you would think
(09:32):
there have to be customers, you know. If there are
no customers, how do you call it some grand conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
It's just her and Epstein.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Everybody has always implied that this was a ring, this
was sex trafficking for more than one person, and so
people understandably look at it, and they hear all these
names of super wealthy connected people and they're like, well, gosh,
did they get off because they were rich?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
And I think that it resonates. Even though that was like,
who knows, some of.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
That's ten twenty years ago, it still resonates in the news.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So I think people do.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
Dislike unfairness and they dislike dishonesty, and so I think
the Anthony Fauci thing and the pardon thing will resonate
for some time. We'll see, we'll see, But I think
it's worth, it's worth a challenge.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
You released a extensive report as chairman of the Senate
Homeland Security Committee about everything that went wrong last year
in Butler, Pennsylvania, when President Trump was almost assassinated. You
accuse the Secret Service of inexcusable negligence, communication breakdown, systemic weaknesses,
(10:40):
and limited accountability and preparing the report and in investigation.
I guess what stood.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Out to the most in all of that.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
What stood out most was that in the months leading
up to the rally and Butler, the Trump campaign and
the Trump Secret Service repeatedly requested for additional security. They
repeatedly requested for counter snipers, the people on the roof
that would take out some kind of threat, and they
(11:10):
were denied over and over again. What shocked me most
about that day was that nobody was in charge. No
Secret Service agent would say they were in charge. And
probably what shocked me the most was that the shooter
with a large backpack and a range finder was deemed
to be suspicious at least forty five minutes in advance,
(11:30):
and yet no Secret Service person had the wherewithal to
take the President from the stage even when they couldn't
find him. With about three minutes left, people were shouting
man on a roof.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
They still didn't remove the president from the stage.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
At some point it's man on a roof with a gun,
and I think they still have a few seconds left,
and still no one gives the order.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
To remove him from the stage.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
When we were completing our report in the last year,
we didn't want to issue it until we know who
had been punished and how much. Now, we agreed not
to put their names in there, but we wanted somebody
to have gotten punishment for bad behavior here. We wanted
to make sure those people were not in charge again,
because we think they showed enough incompetence that they would
(12:14):
put someone in danger.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
The Secret Service refused.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
And refused and refused to give us this information until
we finally subpoened it. Then they issued two week suspensions
to a couple of people after we subpoenaed the information.
So really, I think the punishments were inadequate, and I
think there's still a possibility that some of the people
involved in Butler could be in charge of another president
(12:39):
or another presidential campaign security, and I think they showed
by their behavior.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
That they're not capable of that job. So I really
think they should not be in that position.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Again, I hate to ask us, but given all the
security failures and the breakdowns that you just laid out
and that you laid out in your report, and then
you look at sittings like Joe Biden leading up to this,
Trump shall be putting in a bullseye, or you look
at Democrats on Capitol Hill, including the ranking member of
the House Homeland Security Committee, Benny Thompson, trying to strip
(13:09):
you know, Ben, Donald Trump obviously now President Trump of
his security detail. You know, it begs the question where
these security lapses intentional?
Speaker 4 (13:19):
You know, we saw the accusations of that, We've heard them,
We've tried to look for evidence, but you know, intention
is in the mind of the one making the decisions.
We found nothing in writing to support that. We do
know that it was report that was denied several times,
and to get this information from the Secret Serf Service
(13:39):
was like, you know, pulling teeth.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
They didn't want to give us any information.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
So almost everything we got was sort of under duress
as far as you know, the denial of security requests
by the Trump campaign and the Trump Secret Service that
was not willingly given. That took months and months and
months to get that information, and so that makes one
wonder about the motives. I definitely believe in the aftermath
(14:03):
there was a circling the wagon's mentality to try to
obscure their culpability, and you know the mistakes and failures
that almost led to the death of Donald Trump and
did frankly lead to the death of one of his supporters.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Senator Ran Paul, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, You're
always great. Appreciate your candidness and taking the time to
be with us for the show.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Thank you, sir, You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
That was Senator rand Paul. Appreciate him for taking the
time to come on the show. Appreciate you guys at
home for listening every Tuesday and Thursday, but that you
can listen throughout the week. Also want to make my producer,
John Cassio, for putting the show together.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Until next time.