January 5, 2026 • 33 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 3 (01/05) - Royal Oakes comes on the show to talk about the legality of the operation that ended with the arrest of Nicolás Maduro. More on Tim Walz dropping out of his re-election campaign to be Minnesota's governor for a third time. More information comes out leading people to believe there is a massive cover up going on with the rebuilding and recovery of the SoCal fire burn areas.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I am six forty.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
We are on from one to four every day after
four o'clock, John Cobelt's show on demand on the iHeart app,
and that's where you could listen to whatever you missed.
Today's big story has been well nationally internationally. Nicholas Maduro,
(00:23):
the alleged president of Venezuela, which he wasn't legally. He
and his wife they were removed, extricated, confiscated from Venezuela
by a large chunk of the US military, flown to
New York City and they appeared before a judge today
where he insisted he was innocent. And a lot of
(00:46):
Democrats are screaming and crying, even though they had supported
this kind of action in the past, Now that Trump
did it, they're claiming this violated the Constitution, it violated
US law later the international law, and violated treaties. It
is terrible. He should be impeached. Well, was anything wrong
(01:07):
done here? And even if it was, does it matter?
I'm going to talk to Roylos. He's good at analyzing
these sorts of situations.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Ryle, how are you I'm great, John, Happy twenty twenty
six to you. And yeah, it's people are asking, well, gee,
a Supreme Court you know, said it's okay to kidnap
a leader. Actually, yeah, they have. The Supreme Court has
said that you may extract somebody from overseas even if
you you know, don't have a warrant, you can kidnap them.
(01:39):
Now they can make some argue it and try to
get out from under it in trial, but the bottom
line is the trial will go forward. You had a
ninety two year old judge named Alvin Hellerstein presiding over
this case. He acts like he's going to keep the
case because when they were done with the raiment today,
you know, the charges not guilty. Is fine, have a
nice day, come back see us on March seven, and
(02:00):
that's fine. But this thing could drag on for years,
so who knows if he's actually going to be handling
the case start to finish. Bottom line, though, is the
legality of the arrest doesn't seem to be in much question.
You could argue, John that the United Nations says you
can't do this kind of thing. Well, so what you know,
we have a veto in the security Council of the
UN so they can't do anything to us anyway. So
(02:21):
it looks very much like this is going to go forward,
and the DOJ, you know, we'll argue, you know, he's
a narco terrorist and he should go away forever.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, he's in the United States position and position what
I've read sixty other countries is he's not even the
president because he was voted out of office in the
last election in twenty twenty four. He just didn't leave,
and he's got the military on his side so he
didn't have to leave. But he's still not officially the president.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
That's right. And he of course he says he is,
a lot of his supporters say he is, but you're right,
he isn't. But the good thing for the DOJ is,
let's assume for the moment that he really is the
legally elected president of Venezuela. Their answer is going to
be it don't matter, because we're not arresting him and
putting him on trial for doing something in the course
and scope of his job as president of Venezuela. We're
(03:12):
arresting him, arresting him for being you know, breaking bad.
You know, he's a drug king pin, he cocaine, importation,
machine guns, killing people. So none of these arguments really
is going to be of any help. What the real
problem that the DOJ may have, John, is that in
order to put somebody on trial, you have to be
really fair and hand over all the evidence about what
(03:33):
you had on him. And sometimes that involves sources and
methods and secret stuff. And you know, you can have
a judge that maybe will help keep stuff under wraps.
But in the past, some of these cases we've allD
foreign nationals, the cases of haven't gone as well for
the DOJ as they hoped because and push comes to shove,
the judge says, hey, to be fair, you've got to
tell us everything about what you knew about him and
(03:54):
any smidgeon of evidence that might be in their favor.
And sometimes we just don't want to give up, you know,
our spies and our ponage methods, and.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
There's no way to seal that kind of information or
would get leaked out anyway, and they want to they
don't want to take that risk.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Can Yeah, you can try to seal it, and also
you can try to convince the judge to prove just
summaries and some redacted stuff. Now this judge, you know,
he seemed like a pretty solid guy today. He you know,
Maduro started talking about, hey, you know, there's a kidnapping
and I'm still the president. And the judge said, hey,
you know, cool your jets. Pal. You didn't say that,
but he said, you'll get your chance to make your arguments.
(04:29):
Like today, it's just a matter of hey, do you
played guilty or not. Now, this judge, Hellerstan, you ain't
a big friend of Donald Trump. He actually upheld the
power of New York City's da Alvin Bragg to try
Donald Trump on the hush money Stormy Daniel's stuff. But
a lot of people thought that was really flaky. But
here he seems to be pretty solid about making sure
(04:49):
that you know, he knows the whole world is watching
him again, and you know he's going to try to
make sure that this guy, you know, is safe. Although interestingly,
I've heard seen reported John that they're not actually isolating him,
they're not putting him like in solitary confinement. I don't
know that. I doubt that he's in the exercise yard,
you know, I mean, that would not look good for
(05:09):
America if somebody sticks a shiv in him, right.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I was going to say, are they hoping that the
inmates will administer their justice and relieve the us of
the burden.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, this is not as Jeffrey Epstein's situation. Hopefully we're
not going to have to hear a report. Oh you know,
Maduro killed himself. You know, there's nothing to hear see here.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
And the cameras didn't work, and the and the guards
were asleep, that whole routine, and and and the possible
sentencing if he was convicted of all these crimes.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
This this is life.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, oh yeah, life several times over. I mean, you know,
narco terrorism and a bunch of people murdered and so on.
The interesting twist there is it does not involve the
death penalty. But if you changed it up, if you
added so some fentanyl charges, for example, where people actually
died because of his transmission of these drugs, that could
(06:08):
kick it up to a federal death penalty. It's rarely used.
You know, that might give a little more leverage. I think,
you know, this fancy criminal defense Larry Arry Pollock was
going on board, so he's going to pull out all
this stuff. He's the guy that helped Julian assage. You
stole like hundreds of thousands of pages of confidential US stuff,
and so you know he's going to say this is immunity.
(06:29):
He was the president. You know, there's no jurisdiction here.
You're breaking the law, and his ACE card might be
you know, you've got to hand over all sorts of
secret stuff, raw intelligence files, you know, from the CIA
or the FBI, or it just isn't fair to us.
So that's that's probably going to be his best hope
to get some sort of plea deal going. Otherwise, it's
(06:49):
going to be hard to imagine this guy seeing the
light of day again.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
And we've done this before, Manuel Noriega of Panama, we will, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
And that's a great that's the press of exactly we
extracted him. He was the leader of the company at Boom,
put him on trial, and you know he was in
prison the rest of his life. So yeah, it's going
to be really hard to say that this immunity or
this thing was done illegally. I think most people's focus
is going to shift to, well, Venezuela going to descend
into chaos and civil wars? Is it going to be
our fault? You know, Boots on the ground. That's a
(07:19):
much bigger threat of the Trump administration than all these
technical legal arguments against Maduro.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
All right, very good, Royal Oaks, ABC News, thank you
for coming on.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
You bet thanks.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
All right, he's our legal analyst. And when we come back.
Over the Christmas break, the La Times issued a series
of articles about the Palisades fire, and we are going
to commemorate the Palisades fire here on KFI. There's a
special that Michael Monks is hosting at seven o'clock on
(07:55):
Wednesday night and it's called La Wildfires One year Later.
So that's a on Wednesday evening seven o'clock hosted by
Michael Monks. We had Michael on earlier in the show. Also,
when we come back, I'm going to tell you about
a special event they're having in the Palisades and it's
called they Let It Burn Uh and it's run by
(08:19):
Spencer Pratt and Jerry Patawa, and they have a large
crowd that's going to be coming and listening to speakers
and people are going to air their frustrations and anger
with all levels of government over the way this fire
was allowed to happen. It was entirely preventable, bad. It
(08:45):
was just a failure of government in the extreme at
all levels, in many different ways, prevention, execution, the follow
up investigations. They let us burn. They let us burn
is the name of it. I'm going to tell you
because we're going to cover it here on our show.
And it's ten thirty in the morning on Wednesday, and
we're going to record a lot of interviews with people
(09:06):
who are affected by the fire.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
That's all explain.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Next you're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
You probably heard that Tim Waltz, the governor of Minnesota,
has dropped out of the reelection race after being well
after being exposed for running a massive scam operation within
his government allowing the Somalian community to steal nine billion
plus dollars in various welfare fraud operations. And Gavin Newsom,
(09:44):
who is the Tim Waltz of the West, I just
found a post that he put out two hours ago.
Tim Waltz is a man of character, strength and compassion.
He has served Minnesota with heart and dignity. Minnesota and
America is better off thanks to his lifelong public service.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Wishing him all the best in this next chapter. Thank you,
Tim Waltz.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
That is the drippings of Gavin Newsom, who has committed
has allowed ten times or more the fraud that Tim
Waltz oversaw. Waltz knew exactly what he was doing. You
don't have a fraud operation that leads to ninety arrests
and sixty convictions in counting.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
You knew what happened.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Many whistleblowers had reported the Shenanigans going on, and Waltz
had those people disciplined and retaliated against. He was protecting
the Somalians because he wanted their votes. They vote as
a block, eighty to one hundred thousand of them, and
he needed those votes in order to be governor and
keep Democrats in power.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
End a story, That's.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
What it was. So they were allowed to steal whatever
they wanted to steal in as many different ways, and
they did and went on for years, and Walts said
didn't care, and he got caught, got caught red handed,
and that's why he's dropping out. He got to resign entirely.
And the Minnesotan's at least created enough of an uproar.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
What are the California's going to do that? Honest to God, we.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Know for a fact there's over seventy billion dollars worth
of fraud just covering the homeless, industry, unemployment payouts, and
high speed rail.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
So what's up?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Walts is falling on his sword here, but Newsom no nothing, really,
no wonder he's empathizing with Waltz's pain because if there
was a this was a just world, Newsom would be
next Newsom, Newsom would be in handcuffs, and not for
(11:57):
his pleasure.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
What do you take a thing about? I thought he
sounded very presidential with that little tribute.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Yeah, thank you for your They always you know when
these criminals are caught in cornered, well, you know, we're
public servants.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
We have sacrificed so much.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
All right, we got just a minute here, but I'll
get into depth in the next segment. La Times trying
a serious of stories over the whole Christmas break.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
But I was upset that this was released during the break.
Well you should have been here, then, Yes, I should
have been here. You're right, I absolutely should.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Well you know we were a little bit yeah, what
kind of was not?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Really? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Because I wasn't available for you.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Well, I'll give you a teaser here the battalion chief
who wrote the Los Angeles Fire Department after action Report.
How many times did you hear? Oh, you just wait
till the after action report comes out. You'll say that's
what Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom used as a dodge
to not answer any questions for the last year. Well
there's an after action report. Well, the after action report
(13:16):
was written by a battalion chief, Kenneth Cook, and then uh,
it was rewritten and re rewritten and re re rewritten
and so on and so on. There's like seven different
drafts of this and by time it all the rewritings occurred,
Cook looked at it and said, I'm not endorsing this.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
I want no part of this report because what they
did is they lied.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Karen Bass got a hold of this thing and said, well,
we're not going to admit to this. Are we tell
you about it when we come back, And I noticed
the big yawn right in the middle.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I'm sorry, I'm tying peace.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Uh you you're listening to John Cobels on demand from
KFI AM.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
We are on every day from one until four o'clock
and after four o'clock John Cobelt Show on Demand on
the iHeart app moistline is eight seven seven Moist eighty
six for Friday eight seven seven moist eighty six or
usually talkback feature. All right, I want to get it.
Let's see, I got so much here I wanted to
do and I only got maybe a half of it.
(14:22):
But there's there's always tomorrow. I do want to mention
Wednesday is going to be a special show Wednesday at
ten thirty in the morning. There is a group organized
by Spencer Pratt and Jeremy Padawer and they are putting
on a rally demonstration called they Let Us Burn. Newsom Bass,
(14:43):
the LEDWP, fire officials, California State Parks, and they they
list other agencies they let us Burn.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
That is the theme.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
It's a demonstration on January seventh at ten thirty that
was approximately the time of the fire a year ago.
And it's at Palisades Village corner of Antioch and Swarthmore,
and there's going to be many speakers, homeowners, business owners, politicians,
and they're going to talk about all the failures, failure
to prepare, failure to execute, to fight the fire, and
(15:15):
then this massive cover up, this criminal cover up that's
going on. This is like Watergate stuff here as far
as I'm concerned, undoubtedly orchestrated by Karen Bass. The La
Times has had three stories in the last two weeks.
I don't think they got a whole lot of attention
because of the holiday, but I'm going to give it
the attention. We're going to do it here, certainly now
(15:37):
and then in the coming days. Let's get to the
gist of it. There was an after action report that
Bass constantly referred to as she was trying to avoid
questions on why the preparation and execution sucked so bad?
(15:58):
Why did thousands of home burn? Why did a dozen
people die? None of this had to happen, And we've
told you about you know, the origin of the fire.
It was the January first fire that was whipped up
by the winds of January seventh. We had a massive
number of warnings. The fire department simply did not respond
(16:18):
and it got out of hand and went crazy. And
the whole thing could have been the whole thing could
have been avoided. And I don't think there's anybody credible
who can say otherwise. So the La Times. Among the
stories they published, here's a headline. Author of the key
(16:40):
report on the Palisades Fire was upset over changes that
weakened it wen it. The changes created a big lie.
This is the LA Fire Departments After Action Report. The
author of it was the battalion chief Kenneth Cook. He
(17:02):
made he wrote what he thought was a final draft.
It ended up getting revised six times. There were seven
different versions of the report his and all the rewrites
from the Bass administration, and it eventually downplayed the failures
of the city and fire department leaders in preparing for
(17:26):
and fighting the blaze. The battalion chief Kenneth Cook His
complaints reached Mayor Bass's office in mid November, after the
fire department had publicly released the report, and The Times
(17:47):
had an article analyzing the seven drafts. The most significant
changes included the fire department's deployment decisions. You remember they
deployed nobody to the hotspot from the January first fire,
the Lockman fire, nobody and nobody was deployed there the
(18:09):
night before the morning of the wind warnings got increasingly
extreme from the National Weather Service, Bassett decided to go
to Africa. The number two guy in her administration, Brian Williams,
was unpaid leave for calling in a bomb threat. The
(18:29):
lunatic a bomb threat, so he wasn't available as Deputy
mayor to oversee the fire department's response. Kristin Crowley sent
a whole shift of firefighters home rather than stay on
for a second shift. It was a complete and utter
(18:52):
abdication of responsibility, a complete disaster. So here's an example
of how they rewrote the world. Cook had originally written
saying that the decision not to be fully staffed and
pre deploy all available crews ahead of the forecast did
(19:13):
not align with the department's policy. In other words, this
is not our policy not to deploy before fire warnings
wind warnings of this nature. But instead they rewrote the
report to say that the number of engine companies rolled
out ahead of the fire went above and beyond the
standard fire pre deployment matrix.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Above and beyond. It was zero.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
At the hot spot in the Palisades where the fire
ignited the same spot as the old fire a week before,
there were zero firefighters, zero fire engines deployed, and the
report said it went above and beyond the standard pre
deployment protocol. You could not possibly imagine a bigger lie.
(20:03):
This was approved by Ronnie Vanueva, the interim chief, and
Karen Bass. That's really all you need to know. There
was nobody there. Obviously, we've seen the video, We've had
(20:24):
the eyewitness reports, We've seen the depositions. Roger Bailey, the
attorney representing many of the homeowners, has shared the depositions,
has shared the text messages, and the La Times got
text messages with firefighters. It was the Lockman fire. It
wasn't entirely put out, still smoldering, there were still hotspots,
(20:45):
and the Alley Fire Department quit the fire, and they'd
been kicked out by the State Parks Department, who didn't
want the milk That's plant to be trampled by the
firefighters instead.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
The rewrite of.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Kenneth Cook's report said the number of engine companies went
above and beyond the standard pre deployment matrix.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
So when Cook saw that, he wrote to the.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Interim fire Chief, Ronnie Vienaweva, and other fire officials the
subject line Palisades after Action Report non endorsement. He wrote,
having reviewed the revised version submitted by your office, I
must respectfully decline to endorse it in its current forum.
The document has undergone substantial modifications and Kine contains significant
(21:44):
deletions of information that in some instances altered the conclusion
originally presented. In other words, they rewrote the report and
lied after Cook submitted it. Then Away in Basque got
a hold of it, somebody rewrote the report to say
the opposite of the truth, and then Cook really zeros
(22:07):
in on what's going on here? While I fully understand
the need to address potential liability concerns and to modify
certain sections in consultation with the city attorney to mitigate
litigation risks.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
In other words, what hide the evidence?
Speaker 3 (22:27):
We reporters were told for a year, residents were told
for a year when they were badgering Bass and ving
in a way event everybody else with questions, I wait
till the after action report. They never intended to have
an after action report that was truthful. They never intended
to lie for moment one. And if it wasn't for
(22:49):
these La Times reporters Aileen check Midian and Paul Pringle,
we still wouldn't know. They've done one of the best
jobs and journalism I've ever seen, and it's the La Times,
(23:09):
he says. The current version, this is again, Battalion Chief Cook,
the current version appears highly unprofessional and inconsistent with our
established standards. I strongly urge you to reconsider publishing the
report as it stands. He was being polite. This is
a steaming load of horsecraft, is what he should have wrote.
(23:29):
These are out and out lies, and that's what they
plan to do. All along. The deletions and other changes
began behind closed doors. The Time says it amounted to
an effort to downplay the failures of the city and
(23:50):
the fire department leadership. Another deleted passage said some cruise
waited more than an hour for an assignment the day
of the fire, an hour, so the firefighters were standing
around doing nothing while the palisades was burning, burning, burning.
The fire keeps advancing and starts consuming homes and went
(24:14):
past the point in overturn, and the firefighters were standing
around just like the residents said they were. They didn't
show up. If they showed up, they didn't do anything.
And now Vinaweva and Bass got this rewritten to hide
the truth. A section on failures was renamed primary Challenges. Oh,
(24:41):
they weren't failures, there were challenges. There was an item
in the original report saying that cruise and leaders had
violated national guidelines on how to avoid firefighter deaths and injuries.
While that was eliminated, other changes in the report, which
the Time says was overseen by then interim fire chief
(25:04):
Ronnie Vianaweva, seemed intended to soften its impact and burnish
the fire department's image. Two drafts contained notes written in
the margins, a suggestion to replace the image on the
cover page, which showed palm trees on fire against an
orange sky, replace it with a positive one, such as
(25:26):
firefighters on the front line. The cover ultimately just displayed
the seal of the La Fire Department. The Times obtained
seven drafts of the report. Do you imagine how many
times this thing was emailed back and forth and back
and forth and back and forth, with changes and deletions
(25:47):
and rewrites. Two versions are dated August twenty fifth. There's
a draft from October sixth. No names are attached to
the edits. It's unclear if names were in the original
documents and then removed.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
They're outright liars.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
This is a massive scandal, a massive cover up. This
is what Karen bass is gonna run on that she
made sure the truth about the Palisades fire was going
to be covered up in the after action report that
she had sold for a year. By the way, let's
not forget that Karen Bass erased hundreds of her text messages,
(26:31):
most of which were not recovered. Remember she was in
Africa and she landed here and most of the text
messages she destroyed, all her communications in those first in
those first days. That was part of the cover up too.
She lied when she said she wasn't aware of the fire.
(26:53):
That's simply not possible. She wasn't aware of the fire warnings.
Excuse me, We've researched this seven days worth of fire warnings,
wind warnings. Extreme language was used by the National Weather Service.
We went and found them all over again just the
other day. She continues to lie compulsively, obsessively, and she's
(27:18):
gonna run for reelection. I mean, that is such a crime.
How these people, How you don't end up in prison
for allowing all this to happen, not preparing, not executing
to fight the fire, and then covering it up and
lying on these reports and all that is cool.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Wow, we have more coming up.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
We are on every day one to four, and then
after four o'clock if you go to the podcast, you
can hear everything that you're missed on the show. Today
spent the first hour a lot on Nicholas Maduro and
his wife getting getting indicted facing charges today before a judge.
And in this hour we've been going over the Los
(28:09):
Angeles Times series of reports about the fake after action
Palisades fire report by the LA Fire Department. There was
an original, truthful report by the battalion chief, Kenneth Cook.
It looks as if it was rewritten at least six times,
(28:31):
because there's seven drafts of the report, and they started
writing lies claiming that they went above and beyond with
pre deployment of fire engines in personnel before the fire. No,
there was zero fire engines, there was zero firefighters, and
(28:52):
nobody was sent to the hotspot of the old fire.
After Newsom's State Parks employee has kicked LA Fire Department
off and the fire department just folded up and quit,
and nobody told the public, and Karen Vass has been
lying about not knowing about the fire warnings. It is,
(29:14):
it is so so horrible. These people ought to be
in jail. They ought to be in jail for allowing
this to happen. So I'm looking further into these stories
here about about all all the all the changes. Let
(29:39):
me turn and go to these pages. They went to
all the principles to get comments after The Times uncovered this,
and nobody, nobody wants to comment again. The battalion chief,
Kenneth Cook, his email about all the lies in the
report that was rewritten reached Bass's office in mid November.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
They're pretending Bass had nothing to do with this.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
That's what Clara Carger, a Bass spokeshole, said, And Carger said, well,
the mayor has inquired with Chief Moore. He's the new
stuoge running the fire department. Himimore, he's the new fire chief.
He's the one who accused the media of smearing the firefighters.
No to you guys, to you guys in charge of
(30:28):
the fire department. You lied in this report. You rewrote
all the bad stuff. That was a nice dodge on
Biden Himimore. Turns out the La Time submitted a public
records request last month for all of the mayor's emails
about the after action report, but this city has not
yet fulfilled it.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
The city has had withheld Cook's.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Email from its response to a separate records request since October,
one hundred and eighty of Cook's emails were posted, but
not the one where he protested the rewriting of his report,
so he did it on purpose. Bass did this on purpose,
(31:15):
holding back the complaints by Kenneth Cook because he was
writing the truth. Only after The Times asked about it
was it posted last week. The Fire Department did not
respond to a Times query about why the email was
not released with the others. Bass's office did not respond
(31:35):
to a query about Kenneth Cook's concerns. Genethia Hudley Hayes,
president of the Board of Fire Commissioners, did not respond
to a request for comment. She said she'd heard rumors
that the author was unhappy, but she did not look
into the matter. Thank you, Genethia Hudley Hayes for working
(31:59):
for the people. July email thread reviewed by the Time
showed concern over how the after action report would be received,
so the fire department formed a crisis management work group
to manage communications for public relations issues that may arise.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Oh, the public is going to be upset.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
That the city and the fire Department was so badly
prepared and so badly executed. It's battle against the fire,
and so we got to somehow cover it up, soften it,
water it down, rudder all the stupid cliches. The primary goal,
according to an LA Fire Department Assistant Chief Kyrie Brown Kairi,
(32:48):
the primary goal of this work group is to collaboratively
manage communications for any critical public relations issue that may arise.
You let the place burn, you didn't show up, and
then you've been lying about it and covering it up
ever since.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Here's your public relations report.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
You're a bunch of incompetence and a bunch of wars
Or did you want this to happen? How could you
ignore seven days of wind and fire warnings? Conway's next
We'll see you tomorrow. Michael Krozer has the news live
in the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Hey, you've been
listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always
hear the show live on KFI Am six forty from
(33:31):
one to four pm every Monday through Friday, and of
course anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I am six forty.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
We are on from one to four every day after
four o'clock, John Cobelt's show on demand on the iHeart app,
and that's where you could listen to whatever you missed.
Today's big story has been well nationally internationally. Nicholas Maduro,
(00:23):
the alleged president of Venezuela, which he wasn't legally. He
and his wife they were removed, extricated, confiscated from Venezuela
by a large chunk of the US military, flown to
New York City and they appeared before a judge today
where he insisted he was innocent. And a lot of
(00:46):
Democrats are screaming and crying, even though they had supported
this kind of action in the past, Now that Trump
did it, they're claiming this violated the Constitution, it violated
US law later the international law, and violated treaties. It
is terrible. He should be impeached. Well, was anything wrong
(01:07):
done here? And even if it was, does it matter?
I'm going to talk to Roylos. He's good at analyzing
these sorts of situations.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Ryle, how are you I'm great, John, Happy twenty twenty
six to you. And yeah, it's people are asking, well, gee,
a Supreme Court you know, said it's okay to kidnap
a leader. Actually, yeah, they have. The Supreme Court has
said that you may extract somebody from overseas even if
you you know, don't have a warrant, you can kidnap them.
(01:39):
Now they can make some argue it and try to
get out from under it in trial, but the bottom
line is the trial will go forward. You had a
ninety two year old judge named Alvin Hellerstein presiding over
this case. He acts like he's going to keep the
case because when they were done with the raiment today,
you know, the charges not guilty. Is fine, have a
nice day, come back see us on March seven, and
(02:00):
that's fine. But this thing could drag on for years,
so who knows if he's actually going to be handling
the case start to finish. Bottom line, though, is the
legality of the arrest doesn't seem to be in much question.
You could argue, John that the United Nations says you
can't do this kind of thing. Well, so what you know,
we have a veto in the security Council of the
UN so they can't do anything to us anyway. So
(02:21):
it looks very much like this is going to go forward,
and the DOJ, you know, we'll argue, you know, he's
a narco terrorist and he should go away forever.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, he's in the United States position and position what
I've read sixty other countries is he's not even the
president because he was voted out of office in the
last election in twenty twenty four. He just didn't leave,
and he's got the military on his side so he
didn't have to leave. But he's still not officially the president.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
That's right. And he of course he says he is,
a lot of his supporters say he is, but you're right,
he isn't. But the good thing for the DOJ is,
let's assume for the moment that he really is the
legally elected president of Venezuela. Their answer is going to
be it don't matter, because we're not arresting him and
putting him on trial for doing something in the course
and scope of his job as president of Venezuela. We're
(03:12):
arresting him, arresting him for being you know, breaking bad.
You know, he's a drug king pin, he cocaine, importation,
machine guns, killing people. So none of these arguments really
is going to be of any help. What the real
problem that the DOJ may have, John, is that in
order to put somebody on trial, you have to be
really fair and hand over all the evidence about what
(03:33):
you had on him. And sometimes that involves sources and
methods and secret stuff. And you know, you can have
a judge that maybe will help keep stuff under wraps.
But in the past, some of these cases we've allD
foreign nationals, the cases of haven't gone as well for
the DOJ as they hoped because and push comes to shove,
the judge says, hey, to be fair, you've got to
tell us everything about what you knew about him and
(03:54):
any smidgeon of evidence that might be in their favor.
And sometimes we just don't want to give up, you know,
our spies and our ponage methods, and.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
There's no way to seal that kind of information or
would get leaked out anyway, and they want to they
don't want to take that risk.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Can Yeah, you can try to seal it, and also
you can try to convince the judge to prove just
summaries and some redacted stuff. Now this judge, you know,
he seemed like a pretty solid guy today. He you know,
Maduro started talking about, hey, you know, there's a kidnapping
and I'm still the president. And the judge said, hey,
you know, cool your jets. Pal. You didn't say that,
but he said, you'll get your chance to make your arguments.
(04:29):
Like today, it's just a matter of hey, do you
played guilty or not. Now, this judge, Hellerstan, you ain't
a big friend of Donald Trump. He actually upheld the
power of New York City's da Alvin Bragg to try
Donald Trump on the hush money Stormy Daniel's stuff. But
a lot of people thought that was really flaky. But
here he seems to be pretty solid about making sure
(04:49):
that you know, he knows the whole world is watching
him again, and you know he's going to try to
make sure that this guy, you know, is safe. Although interestingly,
I've heard seen reported John that they're not actually isolating him,
they're not putting him like in solitary confinement. I don't
know that. I doubt that he's in the exercise yard,
you know, I mean, that would not look good for
(05:09):
America if somebody sticks a shiv in him, right.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I was going to say, are they hoping that the
inmates will administer their justice and relieve the us of
the burden.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, this is not as Jeffrey Epstein's situation. Hopefully we're
not going to have to hear a report. Oh you know,
Maduro killed himself. You know, there's nothing to hear see here.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
And the cameras didn't work, and the and the guards
were asleep, that whole routine, and and and the possible
sentencing if he was convicted of all these crimes.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
This this is life.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, oh yeah, life several times over. I mean, you know,
narco terrorism and a bunch of people murdered and so on.
The interesting twist there is it does not involve the
death penalty. But if you changed it up, if you
added so some fentanyl charges, for example, where people actually
died because of his transmission of these drugs, that could
(06:08):
kick it up to a federal death penalty. It's rarely used.
You know, that might give a little more leverage. I think,
you know, this fancy criminal defense Larry Arry Pollock was
going on board, so he's going to pull out all
this stuff. He's the guy that helped Julian assage. You
stole like hundreds of thousands of pages of confidential US stuff,
and so you know he's going to say this is immunity.
(06:29):
He was the president. You know, there's no jurisdiction here.
You're breaking the law, and his ACE card might be
you know, you've got to hand over all sorts of
secret stuff, raw intelligence files, you know, from the CIA
or the FBI, or it just isn't fair to us.
So that's that's probably going to be his best hope
to get some sort of plea deal going. Otherwise, it's
(06:49):
going to be hard to imagine this guy seeing the
light of day again.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
And we've done this before, Manuel Noriega of Panama, we will, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
And that's a great that's the press of exactly we
extracted him. He was the leader of the company at Boom,
put him on trial, and you know he was in
prison the rest of his life. So yeah, it's going
to be really hard to say that this immunity or
this thing was done illegally. I think most people's focus
is going to shift to, well, Venezuela going to descend
into chaos and civil wars? Is it going to be
our fault? You know, Boots on the ground. That's a
(07:19):
much bigger threat of the Trump administration than all these
technical legal arguments against Maduro.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
All right, very good, Royal Oaks, ABC News, thank you
for coming on.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
You bet thanks.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
All right, he's our legal analyst. And when we come back.
Over the Christmas break, the La Times issued a series
of articles about the Palisades fire, and we are going
to commemorate the Palisades fire here on KFI. There's a
special that Michael Monks is hosting at seven o'clock on
(07:55):
Wednesday night and it's called La Wildfires One year Later.
So that's a on Wednesday evening seven o'clock hosted by
Michael Monks. We had Michael on earlier in the show. Also,
when we come back, I'm going to tell you about
a special event they're having in the Palisades and it's
called they Let It Burn Uh and it's run by
(08:19):
Spencer Pratt and Jerry Patawa, and they have a large
crowd that's going to be coming and listening to speakers
and people are going to air their frustrations and anger
with all levels of government over the way this fire
was allowed to happen. It was entirely preventable, bad. It
(08:45):
was just a failure of government in the extreme at
all levels, in many different ways, prevention, execution, the follow
up investigations. They let us burn. They let us burn
is the name of it. I'm going to tell you
because we're going to cover it here on our show.
And it's ten thirty in the morning on Wednesday, and
we're going to record a lot of interviews with people
(09:06):
who are affected by the fire.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
That's all explain.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Next you're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
You probably heard that Tim Waltz, the governor of Minnesota,
has dropped out of the reelection race after being well
after being exposed for running a massive scam operation within
his government allowing the Somalian community to steal nine billion
plus dollars in various welfare fraud operations. And Gavin Newsom,
(09:44):
who is the Tim Waltz of the West, I just
found a post that he put out two hours ago.
Tim Waltz is a man of character, strength and compassion.
He has served Minnesota with heart and dignity. Minnesota and
America is better off thanks to his lifelong public service.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Wishing him all the best in this next chapter. Thank you,
Tim Waltz.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
That is the drippings of Gavin Newsom, who has committed
has allowed ten times or more the fraud that Tim
Waltz oversaw. Waltz knew exactly what he was doing. You
don't have a fraud operation that leads to ninety arrests
and sixty convictions in counting.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
You knew what happened.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Many whistleblowers had reported the Shenanigans going on, and Waltz
had those people disciplined and retaliated against. He was protecting
the Somalians because he wanted their votes. They vote as
a block, eighty to one hundred thousand of them, and
he needed those votes in order to be governor and
keep Democrats in power.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
End a story, That's.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
What it was. So they were allowed to steal whatever
they wanted to steal in as many different ways, and
they did and went on for years, and Walts said
didn't care, and he got caught, got caught red handed,
and that's why he's dropping out. He got to resign entirely.
And the Minnesotan's at least created enough of an uproar.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
What are the California's going to do that? Honest to God, we.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Know for a fact there's over seventy billion dollars worth
of fraud just covering the homeless, industry, unemployment payouts, and
high speed rail.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
So what's up?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Walts is falling on his sword here, but Newsom no nothing, really,
no wonder he's empathizing with Waltz's pain because if there
was a this was a just world, Newsom would be
next Newsom, Newsom would be in handcuffs, and not for
(11:57):
his pleasure.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
What do you take a thing about? I thought he
sounded very presidential with that little tribute.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Yeah, thank you for your They always you know when
these criminals are caught in cornered, well, you know, we're
public servants.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
We have sacrificed so much.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
All right, we got just a minute here, but I'll
get into depth in the next segment. La Times trying
a serious of stories over the whole Christmas break.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
But I was upset that this was released during the break.
Well you should have been here, then, Yes, I should
have been here. You're right, I absolutely should.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Well you know we were a little bit yeah, what
kind of was not?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Really? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Because I wasn't available for you.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Well, I'll give you a teaser here the battalion chief
who wrote the Los Angeles Fire Department after action Report.
How many times did you hear? Oh, you just wait
till the after action report comes out. You'll say that's
what Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom used as a dodge
to not answer any questions for the last year. Well
there's an after action report. Well, the after action report
(13:16):
was written by a battalion chief, Kenneth Cook, and then uh,
it was rewritten and re rewritten and re re rewritten
and so on and so on. There's like seven different
drafts of this and by time it all the rewritings occurred,
Cook looked at it and said, I'm not endorsing this.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
I want no part of this report because what they
did is they lied.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Karen Bass got a hold of this thing and said, well,
we're not going to admit to this. Are we tell
you about it when we come back, And I noticed
the big yawn right in the middle.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I'm sorry, I'm tying peace.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Uh you you're listening to John Cobels on demand from
KFI AM.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
We are on every day from one until four o'clock
and after four o'clock John Cobelt Show on Demand on
the iHeart app moistline is eight seven seven Moist eighty
six for Friday eight seven seven moist eighty six or
usually talkback feature. All right, I want to get it.
Let's see, I got so much here I wanted to
do and I only got maybe a half of it.
(14:22):
But there's there's always tomorrow. I do want to mention
Wednesday is going to be a special show Wednesday at
ten thirty in the morning. There is a group organized
by Spencer Pratt and Jeremy Padawer and they are putting
on a rally demonstration called they Let Us Burn. Newsom Bass,
(14:43):
the LEDWP, fire officials, California State Parks, and they they
list other agencies they let us Burn.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
That is the theme.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
It's a demonstration on January seventh at ten thirty that
was approximately the time of the fire a year ago.
And it's at Palisades Village corner of Antioch and Swarthmore,
and there's going to be many speakers, homeowners, business owners, politicians,
and they're going to talk about all the failures, failure
to prepare, failure to execute, to fight the fire, and
(15:15):
then this massive cover up, this criminal cover up that's
going on. This is like Watergate stuff here as far
as I'm concerned, undoubtedly orchestrated by Karen Bass. The La
Times has had three stories in the last two weeks.
I don't think they got a whole lot of attention
because of the holiday, but I'm going to give it
the attention. We're going to do it here, certainly now
(15:37):
and then in the coming days. Let's get to the
gist of it. There was an after action report that
Bass constantly referred to as she was trying to avoid
questions on why the preparation and execution sucked so bad?
(15:58):
Why did thousands of home burn? Why did a dozen
people die? None of this had to happen, And we've
told you about you know, the origin of the fire.
It was the January first fire that was whipped up
by the winds of January seventh. We had a massive
number of warnings. The fire department simply did not respond
(16:18):
and it got out of hand and went crazy. And
the whole thing could have been the whole thing could
have been avoided. And I don't think there's anybody credible
who can say otherwise. So the La Times. Among the
stories they published, here's a headline. Author of the key
(16:40):
report on the Palisades Fire was upset over changes that
weakened it wen it. The changes created a big lie.
This is the LA Fire Departments After Action Report. The
author of it was the battalion chief Kenneth Cook. He
(17:02):
made he wrote what he thought was a final draft.
It ended up getting revised six times. There were seven
different versions of the report his and all the rewrites
from the Bass administration, and it eventually downplayed the failures
of the city and fire department leaders in preparing for
(17:26):
and fighting the blaze. The battalion chief Kenneth Cook His
complaints reached Mayor Bass's office in mid November, after the
fire department had publicly released the report, and The Times
(17:47):
had an article analyzing the seven drafts. The most significant
changes included the fire department's deployment decisions. You remember they
deployed nobody to the hotspot from the January first fire,
the Lockman fire, nobody and nobody was deployed there the
(18:09):
night before the morning of the wind warnings got increasingly
extreme from the National Weather Service, Bassett decided to go
to Africa. The number two guy in her administration, Brian Williams,
was unpaid leave for calling in a bomb threat. The
(18:29):
lunatic a bomb threat, so he wasn't available as Deputy
mayor to oversee the fire department's response. Kristin Crowley sent
a whole shift of firefighters home rather than stay on
for a second shift. It was a complete and utter
(18:52):
abdication of responsibility, a complete disaster. So here's an example
of how they rewrote the world. Cook had originally written
saying that the decision not to be fully staffed and
pre deploy all available crews ahead of the forecast did
(19:13):
not align with the department's policy. In other words, this
is not our policy not to deploy before fire warnings
wind warnings of this nature. But instead they rewrote the
report to say that the number of engine companies rolled
out ahead of the fire went above and beyond the
standard fire pre deployment matrix.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Above and beyond. It was zero.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
At the hot spot in the Palisades where the fire
ignited the same spot as the old fire a week before,
there were zero firefighters, zero fire engines deployed, and the
report said it went above and beyond the standard pre
deployment protocol. You could not possibly imagine a bigger lie.
(20:03):
This was approved by Ronnie Vanueva, the interim chief, and
Karen Bass. That's really all you need to know. There
was nobody there. Obviously, we've seen the video, We've had
(20:24):
the eyewitness reports, We've seen the depositions. Roger Bailey, the
attorney representing many of the homeowners, has shared the depositions,
has shared the text messages, and the La Times got
text messages with firefighters. It was the Lockman fire. It
wasn't entirely put out, still smoldering, there were still hotspots,
(20:45):
and the Alley Fire Department quit the fire, and they'd
been kicked out by the State Parks Department, who didn't
want the milk That's plant to be trampled by the
firefighters instead.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
The rewrite of.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Kenneth Cook's report said the number of engine companies went
above and beyond the standard pre deployment matrix.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
So when Cook saw that, he wrote to the.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Interim fire Chief, Ronnie Vienaweva, and other fire officials the
subject line Palisades after Action Report non endorsement. He wrote,
having reviewed the revised version submitted by your office, I
must respectfully decline to endorse it in its current forum.
The document has undergone substantial modifications and Kine contains significant
(21:44):
deletions of information that in some instances altered the conclusion
originally presented. In other words, they rewrote the report and
lied after Cook submitted it. Then Away in Basque got
a hold of it, somebody rewrote the report to say
the opposite of the truth, and then Cook really zeros
(22:07):
in on what's going on here? While I fully understand
the need to address potential liability concerns and to modify
certain sections in consultation with the city attorney to mitigate
litigation risks.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
In other words, what hide the evidence?
Speaker 3 (22:27):
We reporters were told for a year, residents were told
for a year when they were badgering Bass and ving
in a way event everybody else with questions, I wait
till the after action report. They never intended to have
an after action report that was truthful. They never intended
to lie for moment one. And if it wasn't for
(22:49):
these La Times reporters Aileen check Midian and Paul Pringle,
we still wouldn't know. They've done one of the best
jobs and journalism I've ever seen, and it's the La Times,
(23:09):
he says. The current version, this is again, Battalion Chief Cook,
the current version appears highly unprofessional and inconsistent with our
established standards. I strongly urge you to reconsider publishing the
report as it stands. He was being polite. This is
a steaming load of horsecraft, is what he should have wrote.
(23:29):
These are out and out lies, and that's what they
plan to do. All along. The deletions and other changes
began behind closed doors. The Time says it amounted to
an effort to downplay the failures of the city and
(23:50):
the fire department leadership. Another deleted passage said some cruise
waited more than an hour for an assignment the day
of the fire, an hour, so the firefighters were standing
around doing nothing while the palisades was burning, burning, burning.
The fire keeps advancing and starts consuming homes and went
(24:14):
past the point in overturn, and the firefighters were standing
around just like the residents said they were. They didn't
show up. If they showed up, they didn't do anything.
And now Vinaweva and Bass got this rewritten to hide
the truth. A section on failures was renamed primary Challenges. Oh,
(24:41):
they weren't failures, there were challenges. There was an item
in the original report saying that cruise and leaders had
violated national guidelines on how to avoid firefighter deaths and injuries.
While that was eliminated, other changes in the report, which
the Time says was overseen by then interim fire chief
(25:04):
Ronnie Vianaweva, seemed intended to soften its impact and burnish
the fire department's image. Two drafts contained notes written in
the margins, a suggestion to replace the image on the
cover page, which showed palm trees on fire against an
orange sky, replace it with a positive one, such as
(25:26):
firefighters on the front line. The cover ultimately just displayed
the seal of the La Fire Department. The Times obtained
seven drafts of the report. Do you imagine how many
times this thing was emailed back and forth and back
and forth and back and forth, with changes and deletions
(25:47):
and rewrites. Two versions are dated August twenty fifth. There's
a draft from October sixth. No names are attached to
the edits. It's unclear if names were in the original
documents and then removed.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
They're outright liars.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
This is a massive scandal, a massive cover up. This
is what Karen bass is gonna run on that she
made sure the truth about the Palisades fire was going
to be covered up in the after action report that
she had sold for a year. By the way, let's
not forget that Karen Bass erased hundreds of her text messages,
(26:31):
most of which were not recovered. Remember she was in
Africa and she landed here and most of the text
messages she destroyed, all her communications in those first in
those first days. That was part of the cover up too.
She lied when she said she wasn't aware of the fire.
(26:53):
That's simply not possible. She wasn't aware of the fire warnings.
Excuse me, We've researched this seven days worth of fire warnings,
wind warnings. Extreme language was used by the National Weather Service.
We went and found them all over again just the
other day. She continues to lie compulsively, obsessively, and she's
(27:18):
gonna run for reelection. I mean, that is such a crime.
How these people, How you don't end up in prison
for allowing all this to happen, not preparing, not executing
to fight the fire, and then covering it up and
lying on these reports and all that is cool.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Wow, we have more coming up.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
We are on every day one to four, and then
after four o'clock if you go to the podcast, you
can hear everything that you're missed on the show. Today
spent the first hour a lot on Nicholas Maduro and
his wife getting getting indicted facing charges today before a judge.
And in this hour we've been going over the Los
(28:09):
Angeles Times series of reports about the fake after action
Palisades fire report by the LA Fire Department. There was
an original, truthful report by the battalion chief, Kenneth Cook.
It looks as if it was rewritten at least six times,
(28:31):
because there's seven drafts of the report, and they started
writing lies claiming that they went above and beyond with
pre deployment of fire engines in personnel before the fire. No,
there was zero fire engines, there was zero firefighters, and
(28:52):
nobody was sent to the hotspot of the old fire.
After Newsom's State Parks employee has kicked LA Fire Department
off and the fire department just folded up and quit,
and nobody told the public, and Karen Vass has been
lying about not knowing about the fire warnings. It is,
(29:14):
it is so so horrible. These people ought to be
in jail. They ought to be in jail for allowing
this to happen. So I'm looking further into these stories
here about about all all the all the changes. Let
(29:39):
me turn and go to these pages. They went to
all the principles to get comments after The Times uncovered this,
and nobody, nobody wants to comment again. The battalion chief,
Kenneth Cook, his email about all the lies in the
report that was rewritten reached Bass's office in mid November.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
They're pretending Bass had nothing to do with this.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
That's what Clara Carger, a Bass spokeshole, said, And Carger said, well,
the mayor has inquired with Chief Moore. He's the new
stuoge running the fire department. Himimore, he's the new fire chief.
He's the one who accused the media of smearing the firefighters.
No to you guys, to you guys in charge of
(30:28):
the fire department. You lied in this report. You rewrote
all the bad stuff. That was a nice dodge on
Biden Himimore. Turns out the La Time submitted a public
records request last month for all of the mayor's emails
about the after action report, but this city has not
yet fulfilled it.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
The city has had withheld Cook's.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Email from its response to a separate records request since October,
one hundred and eighty of Cook's emails were posted, but
not the one where he protested the rewriting of his report,
so he did it on purpose. Bass did this on purpose,
(31:15):
holding back the complaints by Kenneth Cook because he was
writing the truth. Only after The Times asked about it
was it posted last week. The Fire Department did not
respond to a Times query about why the email was
not released with the others. Bass's office did not respond
(31:35):
to a query about Kenneth Cook's concerns. Genethia Hudley Hayes,
president of the Board of Fire Commissioners, did not respond
to a request for comment. She said she'd heard rumors
that the author was unhappy, but she did not look
into the matter. Thank you, Genethia Hudley Hayes for working
(31:59):
for the people. July email thread reviewed by the Time
showed concern over how the after action report would be received,
so the fire department formed a crisis management work group
to manage communications for public relations issues that may arise.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Oh, the public is going to be upset.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
That the city and the fire Department was so badly
prepared and so badly executed. It's battle against the fire,
and so we got to somehow cover it up, soften it,
water it down, rudder all the stupid cliches. The primary goal,
according to an LA Fire Department Assistant Chief Kyrie Brown Kairi,
(32:48):
the primary goal of this work group is to collaboratively
manage communications for any critical public relations issue that may arise.
You let the place burn, you didn't show up, and
then you've been lying about it and covering it up
ever since.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Here's your public relations report.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
You're a bunch of incompetence and a bunch of wars
Or did you want this to happen? How could you
ignore seven days of wind and fire warnings? Conway's next
We'll see you tomorrow. Michael Krozer has the news live
in the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Hey, you've been
listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You can always
hear the show live on KFI Am six forty from
(33:31):
one to four pm every Monday through Friday, and of
course anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
The John Kobylt Show News
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John Kobylt
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