The Comey Revelations

On May 9th, 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey was fired. His most well-known recent investigations involved the Clinton campaign's email scandal and the allegations of Russian election interference in 2017. In the aftermath of the dismissal, he wrote "Higher Loyalty", a book depicting events and experiences that he believed the public needed to know. So what exactly did he reveal? Is this a man sincerely pursuing what he sees as transparency and the truth, or a cynical ploy to sell more books? Tune in to learn more about the Comey revelations.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello,

(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel. They call me Ben. We are joined,
of course, with our super producer Paul Mission Control decond.
Most importantly, you are here. You are you, and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. When
Before we get into it, Ben, Um, I have to
ask you about the bag of chips that's sitting next

(00:45):
to your computer. Yes, okay, yeah, So I like my compatriots.
I do many things here at How Stuff Works, and
one of them is True Story, a show wherein I
go live with how Lauren Vogelbaum, who you remember from
this show, and eat strange snacks from around the world. Matt,

(01:05):
the thing you are asking about. Everyone can hear the
crinkling sounds, so you know what's real? Can you do
right in the mic for the A s mr fans?
All right, we'll do it slowly. We'll do an A
S m R voice Cream cool cream cool dot. Okay,
way too many people liked that way too much. Well,
So this this bag of chips have been carrying around
like a lucky talisman. It's a Japanese company that's called

(01:29):
Lonely God. Would would you guys like to describe the
symbols on here? Well, I'm seeing some kind of angelic
perhaps cherub but fully clothed. Yeah, but it's more of
a magic wand than any kind of aerobone arrow situation.
It looks almost like noodles. That's probably a fairy then

(01:49):
if it's got a magic wand, that's but also it's yeah,
these are vegetable flavor potato twists twists exactly. That's what
the jap knees translates to. But I'm in love with
it because the name Lonely God is the best, most
melodramatic name for a snack I've ever had. And also
the little the little I'm assuming this is the Little

(02:11):
Lonely God. He is hovering above a landscape of towers
with little flags, sort of like a like a medieval village. Um.
And then there's also a little spokes creature that appears
to be a tiny bock choy bock choy waving hello. Um,
this is not what today's episode is about. Though, but

(02:32):
we do want to leave people with a question. When
you you can see a picture of this, we'll put
it up on our Instagram or conspiracy stuff show smooth
plug there. But the big question that I have, and
I don't know if you guys noticed this, it's named
Lonely God, but he's smiling, very happy joy. I have

(02:52):
a theory, Okay, later on, I think the chips represent
humanity with the Lonely God is getting really sided about devouring. Yeah,
I mean I thought, yeah, I like that because I
thought it was a comment on mortality. But I think
most things are the comments on mortality, aren't they all?
Oh boy? But you may be asking yourself, uh, is

(03:12):
it true? Have the guys finally realized my unspoken dream
and decided to do a podcast just on a particular
brand of Japanese vegetable flavored potato twist? Yes, it was
the Uh Unfortunately for the maybe how many people do
you think that is? Three? You never know, man, it
takes all kinds. Yeah, unfortunately, we uh, we are focusing

(03:36):
on something different today, but this is information you need
to know. Uh. So trigger warning if you were someone
who is very very easily offended by non biased political reporting.
If politics have sort of for you become a religion,
this might not be the episode for you. Or if

(03:58):
you're just one of these people that's just try everything
in your power to shut yourself off from politics entirely. Also,
maybe not the episode for you because things have gotten
a little a little divisive out there. Yeah, but if
you don't want to listen to it, my request would
be just hit play, let it run all the way through. Uh,
and then you know, put your headphones back in when
it's finished, so we still get the clicks, yeah we uh.

(04:20):
And of course our commercial our commercials are also always hilarious. Yeah,
so maybe skip to the commercials. Maybe they're you know, what,
do you think there's someone who listens to this show
just to hear us talk about commercial stuff. Yeah, Kevin's
out there, he knows who he is. This ain't no
commercial ship. That's yeah, that's old, dirty bastard. So we

(04:44):
have given you so many fun things to fall into
internet rabbit holes. Here's the point with political stuff. Whether
you consider yourself politically apathetic, or you say I'm a
far far left socialist marks did not go far enough,
or you're a hardcore porter of the current presidential administration,
the Trump administration, or you're a disillusioned uh formally politically

(05:09):
passionate person, or you're a foreign observer or anything in between.
There's one thing that's absolutely certain. Domestic US politics are
more unpredictable now than they have been in decades, regardless
of what side of the the aisle your favorite mass
media is telling you to bucket yourself in. As of

(05:29):
April tenth, the current White House administration has lost twenty
two people, and that number may change by the time
this podcast comes out. Five of them more fired, the
rest resigned, and it's not unusual to be left by anyone. No,
it's not unusual for officials to leave an administration while
the current president is still in term. This can happen

(05:51):
for any number of reasons, and just because that happens
doesn't automatically mean something is sketchy or nefarious. You know,
people sometimes just retire, you know, like I love this job,
but I'm seventy six. Also sometimes get fired one day
before retiring. That's a thing that happens. Yes, one would
hope that happens less in the highest offices in the land.

(06:13):
But you know, it's a tough economy all around, and
some some of these people leave their government position positions
for private sector positions. That's a common thing. Yeah, they
get a better job offer somewhere else, whether that's purely financial,
whether it's better for their families, or it's something really prestigious.
Like sometimes you'll hear about, uh, someone serving in a

(06:34):
presidential administration who gets a really sweet prestigious gig as
an Ivy League professor. You know, that's that's something that
that's when you start thinking about your capital l legacy,
and you know, there are high stress positions. In some cases,
people might leave because their doctor says, this is going
to kill you, you know, So they get a sweet
job as a consultant right there at a there at

(06:58):
a think tank or a foundation or no secret they
flat out disagree with their peers and the president. As
you can imagine, the White House is a very competitive place.
All politics are at that level. Uh. In other words,
happens as as it tends to do. Today's episode is

(07:19):
about a particular firing, that of former FBI Director James Coomy,
along with the aftermath, the controversy, and according to him,
the stuff the White House doesn't want you or us
to know. So let's go ahead and get into the
background of Mr James Comy. His name. His given name

(07:39):
was James Brian Comey and he was born December fourteenth,
nineteen hundred and sixty. I gotta say, les, this is
the typo his middle name Brian, kind of a funny
spelling b R I E n. Yeah, that's right, that's
up with that. Maybe it's an old family name. Maybe
it's a life lesson his parents baked into his childhood.
Isn't conan O'Brien's last name, I E n. I think

(08:03):
that's different though, O'Brien versus perhaps, But maybe there's something
Irish in there back in the DAEs. Call me sounds Irish,
call me call me okay, sweet lot. He was born
in Yonkers though, Yeah, he was born in Yonkers. Yeah,
is it so? It's it's Is it considered a burrow?

(08:24):
But sort of it's a it's it's an own township.
It's it's out of the way. It's not a burrow, though,
I don't think. I don't know if it is. I
don't think it is. But still a lovely time when
I went there. I've heard good things. He also attended
College William and Mary, originally majoring in get this chemistry
and religion. Which is interesting because you notice he doesn't

(08:46):
really espouse a whole lot of overt religious ideas, which
may well be a product of his stature and the
type of job that he has inhabited, types of jobs
that he has inhabited. Right, pretty important for a guy
like that to remain neutral. There's a reason. Yeah, but
that comes into play, this idea of remaining neutral. Well, yeah,
his a lot of his convictions are rooted there, I

(09:08):
would say, yeah, yeah, and we we say his personal convictions,
not his convictions. During his time working as an attorney,
he got his jurors doctorate from University of Chicago and
eighty five. Why I say Chicago, in Chicago, that's where
it happened. That's what happened. Uh. He's been in public
service for a long, long, long time. He was at

(09:29):
the U S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of
New York from eighty seven to ninety three. Uh. He
then served as Managing Assistant U S. Attorney in charge
of the Richmond Division for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Imagine that business card and they say, we have long
names here from nine to two thousand one, and he
was professor of law at the University Richmond. At the

(09:51):
same time, he served as U s Attorney for Southern
District of New York from two thousand to two thousand three.
And he had, you know, he had some adventures. He
was making some splashes. He really was UM. In addition
to tackling the notorious home cook and crafting impresario Martha
Stewart for Inside of Trading UM, he also tackled the

(10:14):
notorious Gambino crime family of El Costin Nostro with the mafia,
Big Big Deal. He was responsible for prosecuting UM and
indicting numerous members of the Gambino crime family fourteen. I
believe he has taught him a lot, I believe, and
he's he's stated that recently. But this time in his

(10:35):
in his career taught him a lot about the things
that he holds dear. Now. Yeah, one of one of
which is is truth. And I joked about the Martha
Stewart thing. But he in an interview UM, in this
very interview we're talking about today with Stephanopoulos, talked about
how he considered not bringing that case against Martha Stewart
because she was a rich and famous person, and that

(10:56):
he might be you know, looked askance at, or people
give a hard time. But he realized, no, there was
this other guy who was an African American um pastor
who had done the same thing. He had lied to
the FBI regarding some other matter. Martha Stewarts was inside
of trading and that guy went to jail for a year.

(11:16):
And he looked. He said, he was standing in his
office in New York looking out over the Brooklyn Bridge
and said, I'm probably the only person in this city
that knows this man's name. Why should Martha Stewart be
treated any differently. So he did bring the case against her,
so obviously a man of conviction. Yeah, and you have
to you have to respect that. One thing I found
that was interesting in the Martha Stewart research was doing

(11:39):
that was that there was this idea that he might
be seen as too much of a show boat and
people might say, you know, you are not doing justice,
you are grabbing headlines for later in your political career,
And that's a very viable concern. So the fact that
he at least according to him again is the fact
that he is prizing ugly truths and the slow grind

(12:01):
of justice over the quick, ephemeral pop of the headline
is going to be very important as we go further
in here. And he did some things that people found
contradictory during this time. We can't forget too that he
is the one writing this narrative. I mean, the interview
we're talking about today is part of a book tour. Um.
He is writing a book about his life that he

(12:22):
says it's not a memoir, it's moments in his career
that are teachable and he considers valuable for understanding what's
going on in the political climate right now. But we
have to understand this is all through the lens of
James Comey at it right, and it's seen as despite
what he may or may not say, it is seen
as a memoir by mass media and journalists. And it's

(12:44):
also um a philosophic, philosophical work, at least again in
his opinion, the way it's framed. Uh, he did, he
did some big stuff though he also investigated uh controversial
pardon by President Bill Clinton of a fellow named Mark Rich.
You guys knew this is yeah, this is a dude. Um,

(13:07):
this is a dude that Bill Clinton pardoned. We're gonna
get into it a little later in the episode, like
full details. But it's a dude and his confident or
his partner that Bill Clinton pardoned. And he was involved
with a huge tax fraud scandal and also possibly selling
things to the enemy geopolitical crimes. That's why he's major

(13:27):
involved with and it made him a billionaire. Yeah, and
then he scooted away to Switzerland to hide out, and
Bill Clinton as he's leaving them, he's just like, right
before he closed the door, he's like, oh, by the way,
these two dudes, they're good. And that guy died in Lucerne, Switzerland,
in a place known as the rose Villa the Pink Villa,
probably in a giant pile of cash. M So, while

(13:52):
while he's working his Deputy Attorney General James Comy or
Jim to his friends, he does things that, as I
said before, might sound kind of controversial. So, for instance,
he fought against domestic surveillance under the n Essay and
refused to approve some of these requests to the point
where he said, I will resign if you don't do this,

(14:14):
and a lot of this fight was outside of the
public purview because this stuff was still classified. So it
sounds like a good guy. However, this is the same
guy who endorsed several quote unquote enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding,
though he did go back later and say he considered
waterboarding torture, but the legal definition was such that it

(14:37):
was tough for him to pin it down. And he's
also all about legal definitions and following the letter of
the law. He does not look at it us and
it's up for interpretation, as we'll see played heavily into
his fight against the surveillance state. Kind of situation. Well yeah,
I mean, he's one of the top attorneys in all
of the land, the real hot shot, getting real big.

(14:57):
But it's yes, quite tall, yes, very tall. But he
he has to look at the letter of the law.
That's what the whole point of his role is is
there are people who want things, and he goes, well, okay,
let's see what we can do. According to the presidents,
and also during in in public service at a federal level,
when one is supposed to be politically agnostic or politically neutral,

(15:21):
you have to put in a lot of effort to
tow that line. Even if, even if you use your
position to bend the rules in favor of your ideology,
you never want to be seen doing that publicly, regardless
of you could be like a Green Party attorney general,
and it's still your job to prosecute Peter if they

(15:43):
do something out the line. But I don't think that's
ever happened. I think people for the ethical treatment of
animals are probably not getting prosecuted by the New York
Attorney But you know what, I'm going to check that
out after this show. So he leaves public service. He
goes into the private sector from two thousand five to
two thousand thirteen, working for Lockheed Martin for a lot

(16:03):
of that time. But he's never far from politics. He
also testifies in Congress he's he's in He's in it.
He can't really escape it. He was even briefly fluted
this was news to me as a replacement for an
Associate Justice h David Suitor. And in two thousand and
thirteen he returns the public service. He becomes the seventh

(16:26):
director of the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, replacing
a guy called Robert Mueller. Sounds familiar and that's an appointment,
so it requires confirmation, right, yes, and he was confirmed
by a nineties three to one vote for a ten
year term. Two senators voted present. I love that. I
still love the that they could do that, Like I'm

(16:50):
in the room. That's I don't know, you know, it's
like I wish you could do that in your personal
life sometimes stand up and be counted, literally just me
and saying I showed up. And it always reminds me
of those videos, scandalous videos of US Congress where you
see the one guy who showed up for the vote,

(17:11):
who knows what other people are supposed to vote, just
like hitting random buttons for the vote on these desks.
How how's that? I'm sorry, how's that? Okay? Uh, it's
it's it's not okay. It's legal, but it's not okay. Interesting.
Is there a name for that? There should be like
some sort of like derogatory name for that. We should Yeah,

(17:33):
we'll make one up. We'll make one up. Send us
your suggestions. Button fingering that's not bad. That's button fingering
is not bad, And we'd like to hear your suggestions
for that too. Will post the video so you can
check out in full. But that is that that's his
life up to that time. And then the plot twist occur.
During his career as an FBI director, two of his
biggest investigations concerned allegations of illegal activity in the Clinton

(17:58):
Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, as well as allegations of Russian
interference in the most recent presidential election. And he was
fired as director of the FBI quite recently. Uh then
President Donald Trump dismissed him on May nine, seventeen, and
that's when things take a turn, a turn that we

(18:21):
will explore after a word from our sponsors. Okay, so
the timeline. You've probably heard a lot about this if
you if you have followed this story on your media
of choice, right, which, of course Facebook hopaxes them. And

(18:44):
the day after May nine, the day after he's fired
by the Trump administration, he sends a letter to the
FBI staff and he says, I have all believed that
a president can fire an FBI directive for any reason, Well,
for no reason at all. I'm not going to spend
time on the decision or the way it was executed.
I hope you won't either. It is done and I

(19:05):
will be fine, although I will miss you and the
mission deeply. And this also occurred while he was out
of the office. Yeah, on the other side of the country.
I believe you may tenth. Also, Trump had two Russian
visitors to his office and he told them, Hey, I
fired the FBI director. So yes, quite interesting to break

(19:27):
that news two people on the day you did it.
I guess it was already in the news as it
was occurring. But right. But again, the thing is, it's
so easy if you already have a pre existing bias
to say, boom, there's our smoking gun that proves any
president is going to have a really busy schedule. And
those people may have already been like locked in the

(19:50):
visit for whatever twenty six minutes or something, or or
were they coming to visit, and he knew it, and
he was like, oh, I better fire this guy before
they show up. Well that's you know, that's interesting because
when all three of us were separately looking at timelines,
it's incredibly clear that there was so much tension beforehand,

(20:12):
like as FBI director Comy was avoiding the president, which
seems weird, like avoiding moments alone with your boss, you know,
because there was the question of loyalty that appeared to
come up earth impropriety. Well not only came up, but
it's it's the title of Comy's book. I mean, that's

(20:33):
like the whole his whole thing is a higher loyalty.
Because he claims in this meeting that he had with
with President Trump that was meant to be in his
mind and business meeting involving multiple parties, it ended up
just being showed up and it was just him and Trump.
He's like, what gives And supposedly President Trump asked him

(20:55):
to pledge his loyalty. Um, and Comy's whole notion here
is it's not mine to pledge to you, sir. My
loyalty is to the mission, as he said, the thing
he would miss when he was let go, and and
to the country and the people and do the truth
and justice and all those lofty ideas. He's you know,

(21:17):
we're not in some kind of monarchy where you kneel
down and pledge your loyalty to some sort of you know, king.
That's just not how we do it, right, right, Well, yeah,
that's the idea. That is the idea, and that is
certainly the way Comey looks at it. Yeah, yeah, And
one would assume that's the way that all federal officials
are supposed to look at it, right, Uh, and we

(21:40):
know things started going weird in seventeen January six right,
that's when Trump gets intelligence briefing, and it's also when
he meets James Comey for the first time. James Comey
visits along with CIA director John Brennan now Intelligence Director

(22:01):
James Clapper, and a couple of other folks to brief
Trump on the ongoing investigation into Russian interference with the election.
At this point, they're briefing Trump on what they see
as a continuing developing story. Here's what we know. Yeah,
and it's right before he officially like takes the oath

(22:22):
of office, but he's he's president, like he's been elected president.
He's president elect, but he's not officially president yet. So
it's one of those things where you get him up
to speed kind of, I guess, right, which seems like
it would be a necessary and crucial thing because as
as we've seen in earlier examples or earlier episodes, one

(22:43):
thing that people in the US take for granted all
the time is that there is still stability during a
transference of power, and that doesn't happen in many other countries,
and many other countries, as soon as the titular head
is week or compromised or gone, then it's every anybody's

(23:04):
game and people die. So a peaceful transfer power is
an amazing thing and one that we often take for granted.
But this transition had some bumps, at least with come me.
So then, UM, on January, President Trump takes the oath
of office. And I was actually in Washington, D C.

(23:27):
On that very day for a work thing. I went
to the Women's March on Washington that was the next day,
and we flew in. I got out of the plane
at the airport hearing Trump saying that oath. Um. It
was very interesting um. And that day I we didn't
go to the inauguration, obviously, but we experienced the aftermath.

(23:48):
And that aftermath was some very interesting stuff. There was
a lot of things on fire. UM, there were riot
police everywhere. There were low flying helicopters. There were um
just gangs of people kind of wearing like black masks
and and and black clothing, UM, kind of chanting with
megaphones and turning over newspaper boxes and and there was

(24:11):
this chemical smell everywhere was It was the closest thing
to a post apocalyptic hellscape that I'd ever experienced as
as a as a grown boy. Yeah, yeah, I remember
seeing pictures, but that's that's all to be there. It's
a whole different thing. Then we jumped forward in really
Comy here is dealing with a lot of the Russian

(24:35):
investigation for quite a while. They're looking at the possibility
that Michael Flynn was vulnerable to blackmail by Russia, uh,
specifically by the by the intelligence community there. Um. Then
we jumped to January, and this is when Comy and

(24:55):
Trump have a dinner together, and this is when the
whole loyalty thing comes up. One thing to Pepper in
there too, and we have to if we're passing around
the clown moments, we have to give Comy his own
as well. Uh. He was desperate not to see him associated,
uh in an ideological way with Trump as a lifelong Republican. H.

(25:17):
He thought it would compromise, it would make him look
bad due to the fact he's also investigating the Clinton
email controversy. So this is where you may remember, Uh,
he was he was mocked for wearing a blue blazer
and apparently trying to blend in with the drapes. Uh,
that was on that was on the twenty two. But

(25:39):
what you're saying is such a titular moment. He's being
asked in what he feels Again, there's a guy who
has a history of prosecuting gangsters. He's been asked about
loyalty and what to him feels like a very Godfather
esque moments, very kissed the ring kind of moment. Right, Yeah,
pay obesience or let me you don't let me know

(26:03):
that not just that I can trust you to do
your job, but that you will be loyal to me specifically,
not even to your office. At least that's how he
took it, and that's how he still sees it. We're
not saying that that was the president's intention. We're saying
that's how Comey interpreted it. Yeah, And in the rest

(26:26):
of that discussion was basically Comey saying, look sir, you're
not officially under investigation for this whole Russia thing. And
then Comy states that allegedly Trump was saying, well, maybe
you should investigate it just to make sure nothing nothing
bad happened there. So we kind of are led down
this road of will Comey be looking further into the

(26:49):
Russia and you know the Russia thing with the election,
Um will he won't he? How much? To what extent
and how much does Trump really care? And it sounds
like they were almost engaging in negotiation type tactics and
in a transaction of sorts in the conversation, because Comy

(27:09):
says that he felt, uh, he was being manipulated into
what he would call a patronage relationship like that there
was again in his opinion, uh, he he interpreted this
as a way to make him ask for his job

(27:31):
and then feel like it was being done some sort
of favor, and that an attempt to make him feel indebted.
And so this tense relationship continues. What Matt just described
is the defining moment for the book that Comy will
later write. And without going into too much granular detail

(27:58):
about the different backs, backs and forths flural they had
over the course of this increasingly rocky relationship, can say
that it does come to a head even before the
official firing. There's a there's a lot of stuff happening.
You can follow the president's tweets where he says, you know,

(28:21):
he's blaming comy for giving the Clinton campaign quote a
free pass. And this is historically he does go out
and say, especially on Twitter where there's no handlers or
pr filters, he he has set a precedent where wld
go out and openly disagree with some of the people
working for him, which, regardless of how you feel about it,

(28:42):
it's something he does. So this on basis might not
be anything different. Right before we get into the what
happened after the firing and all that fun stuff, Um,
can we talk a little bit about the what he
did to investigate those allegations of Russian interference with the
president presidential election? You mean after McCain gave him the

(29:03):
Steel dossier or the process of I don't know. I mean,
like I guess I'm a little fuzzy on the details
of of which thing he was most involved in because
everyone knows that is involved in with the Clinton campaign.
But I don't think of him as much as being
involved in the Russia thing. Um, So I'm throw it
to you guys, what do you think was what role
did he play that? Because if I'm not mistaken, Trump's

(29:24):
ultimate rationale outwardly at least for firing him, was that
he poorly handled the Clinton investigation, that he botched it right,
that he essentially took what would have been an open
and shut case and either through in action, incompetence, or

(29:48):
malicious design, made it, made it disappear, and focused on
the fake news of Russia interference. I see, okay, So
what what was the fake news is that he focused on?
So the Russia matter goes into a couple of different areas.
One we mentioned the Steele dossier. That's the one that um,

(30:10):
that's the one that you'll hear a lot of cable
news networks say is either completely fake made by a
British intelligence officer named Christopher Steele. I mean, it's a
real thing, but they'll say that this dossier contains fabricated claims.
But since often cable news will cater to the lowest
common denominator, you will probably recognize it more easily as

(30:33):
the quote unquote pe tape memo, which is coming back
to me now now that you mentioned this prurient trash,
my mind is just lighting up like a switchboard. That's
the that's the thing that's uh fascinatings. Because President Trump
directly addresses this, there's like no way no, I would
never do that. You think a guy like me has

(30:54):
to pay for hookers? The pee on him? Apparently that's there.
That was one of the first conversations they have. Also,
he said he's a germophobe. So he was like, look, buddy,
you got the wrong guy. I the idea of someone
urinating on or around me is weird. That's a paraphrase,
but yeah, germophobe. And why would I pay someone for sex?

(31:16):
So Russia and the and we'll get back into this
after after a break, But the information that he's receiving
about Russia. One of the things that the FBI has
to do whenever they receive any kind of information is
they have to first discern whether it's credible. And determining

(31:38):
whether something is credible is a lot trickier than it looks,
especially when we live in a world where I mean,
you hear that loathsome phrase fake news being thrown around
all the time. But other countries have been doing this
to each other for centuries. You know. Uh, we just
started talking about it on Twitter a few years ago.
But this this is interest him because he's receiving stuff

(32:01):
that he has to verify and say, is this a
fake report about Russian interference? Is this a credible threat?
And you know as as you would know it said
the President himself said, look, just investigate this. Get this
miasma of bad vibes and unfounded rumors away from me.

(32:22):
Everybody knows Trump hates bad vibes. Every I mean, who
is pro vad vibes? That's that's great. No, I just
mean pro bad vibes. Is hard to say pro pro
vad vibes, pro bad vibes, theater exercise. Yeah, it's a
tongue twister. Welcome theater theater officionados. But the emails, we

(32:48):
mentioned these, Matt, what's going on with these emails? Well,
but her emails, Well, this is ah, this is tough
even for us because we've had a whole episode on
these emails, on the Clinton conspiracy. That's right, we did,
but we didn't have the information we have today. We
that is correct. At the time, we were going on

(33:09):
a lot of things that were coming out from the
FBI speaking of this thing that was the Hillary Clinton
email review. It was called a few times. It was
called the matter. I believe James Comey called it the matter. Um.
Then it was a security a security something or other,

(33:30):
and then it became an investigation. And the reason why
it was so important was because the presidential election of
was occurring. Hillary Clinton was running in that election. If
you're a call, and James Comey, the head of the FBI,
came out eleven days before the election, and he sent
this letter to Congress and it stated that in light

(33:52):
of new information, the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server
was going to continue and be reopened because up until
this point it had kind of been shut down. There
were like nothing else to see here, It's fine. Yeah,
And the eleven days before the election, Comey sent a
letter to Congress. And that's the part that's interesting, right,
because that, to correct me if I'm wrong, was that

(34:14):
that move that really gave Trump of ammunition he needed
to call him incompetent, was that he did something that
potentially swayed the election, even though it was in Trump's favor, Like,
how do you guys see that? Yeah? I knew it
was something that he felt was a very big ethical
dilemma because he felt it was his duty to report it,

(34:36):
but it also felt that there was no way he
could do that without intervening even even reluctantly in the election.
And so, you know, imagine it from the Imagine it
from the perspective of someone who has been keeping your
eyes on the story and is already convinced that there's

(34:57):
something really, really shifty going on here. The fact that
the FBI reopens the thing eleven days before the election,
that's huge. Feel like you're voting for, Like who are
you voting for? You know what I mean? That's spooky stuff.
So he even though he knew specifically what this was,

(35:19):
and he felt that maybe there wasn't any any fire,
or even maybe even he spoke, but regardless of that,
he felt again honor bound, he felt a higher loyalty
to report this, and it's pretty much inarguable that it
did sway the election. But regardless, if you want to

(35:40):
learn about his opinion of this, you can check out
his book. He released a book. He's talking to the press,
everybody and anyone. So what's he saying. We'll get into
that right after a quick word from our sponsor, and
it's going to get crazy. Here's where it gets crazy.

(36:00):
Comy's book, A Higher Loyalty, Truth, Lies, and Leadership was
released on April seventeen, two days before that. Uh, he
gave which I believe the unedited version of this was
five hours an interview with George Stephanopolis was edited down
to a single hour. That's insane. That doesn't that it
isn't insane, Just the stamina of that on both sides.

(36:20):
I would have a rough time with that. Um and
he he dropped some bombs, dropped a few bombs, right, Yeah,
he has Uh, well, he has a great quote that
I think you've held me sure. He says, we can
fight as Americans about guns, or taxes or immigration, and
we always have, but what we have in common is

(36:41):
a set of norms, most importantly the truth dot dot dot.
The foundation of this country is in jeopardy when you
stop measuring our leaders against that central value of truth.
And we talked about that early on, about his dilemma
he had with like Martha Stewart versus this no name
pastor who both got in trouble for lying to the FBI.

(37:02):
And he says, the reason that's such an important thing
for him is because quote, when when you lie, quote,
the rule of law breaks down. He says, you can't
or the rule of law breaks down. And there once
was a day when people were afraid of going to hell.
This is interesting. This kind of contradicts what I said
earlier about him not being overtly religious going to hell.
If they took an oath in the name of God
and violated it, we've drifted away from that day. And

(37:25):
so in its place has to be a fear that
if you lie and the government can prove it beyond
a reasonable doubt, they will prosecute you. In order to
send a message to all the others who might be
called upon to give evidence, you must tell the truth.
It matters enormously. And he also details both in the
book and the interview, his experience fighting the the government

(37:48):
behind the government in pursuit of the inessa expanding abilities,
well expanding publicly acknowledged abilities to wire tap US citizens
and surveiled them domestically without a warrant. He has a
very tense meeting with VP Dick Cheney, who is UH,

(38:11):
who was obviously bullish about this, and then he just
barely manages to save a debilitated John ash Cross dying
in the hospital the hospitalized at the time UH, the
Attorney General UH. He manages to save him from being
exploited by in his opinion exploited by White House counsel

(38:34):
Alberto Gonzalez and Bush's chief of staff Andrew H. Card,
That is this is the most crooked stuff I've ever
heard in my life. I was shocked. I had not
heard the story, and the way he tells it is fascinating. He,
you know, has this meeting with Cheney where he shuts
it down and says, look, because Cheney looks him in
the eye and says what he say, thousands of people
will die if you don't sign off on us doing

(38:56):
this warrantless wire tapping, taking time by our a bit
like torture. And he says, well, look, dude, I mean
that doesn't make me feel very good, but the law
is the law, and this is what the law says,
and I cannot, in good conscious, as the number two
Injustice Department, cannot sign off on this. Yeah. And then

(39:17):
he gets this. This meeting, as you can tell, doesn't
go well. He gets an urgent call and says, you know,
your boss, John Ashcroft is in the hospital and right
now there's two men I named earlier, Card and Gonzalez
are on the way to essentially force him to sign this. Yeah,
or while he's yeah, while he's down and out, like
can go buddy, sign this as grab your hand there. Yeah,

(39:41):
But he ends up showing up, beats them to the
hospital and he basically he didn't even have to be there,
at least according to the the way he told the story,
John Ashcross, he was with it enough that he, you know,
used every last bit of strength. Yeah, he said, no. Man.
So the this conference Tatian led to Yeah, Ashcroft supporting

(40:02):
Komey um formally and completely co signed him. So from
Komey's side and form the side of people who were
against warrantless surveillance. At least this battle worked out in
your favor. And it sort of makes him look like
a bit of a friend of freedom and liberty. And
again it's him telling the story, because man, what an

(40:23):
apocryphal sounding story, right, have a dying attorney general with
his last breath, points at you and says you are
the one you know and everything goes in slow mo
as the hand with a pen gets closer to the
pair and you have them. Yeah. Boom, boom boom. That's

(40:44):
the heartbeat that always shows up in the well, of course,
wasn't it. Robert Mueller, the guy currently investigating the Russia situation.
He also shows up at the hospital to show up.
He talks to him on the phone. Okay, I talk
to him on the phone, UM telling him U that
they didn't support this. And then Mueller said, well, if
you the Justice Department doesn't support this, then we the FBI,

(41:05):
which is admittedly a separate entity but yet still part
of the machine that is the Justice Department, we cannot
rightfully support this either. So he said in the interview
with Stephanoplus, they weren't really pals. They respected each other. Um,
but man, what a crazy flipper rooney. Right, Seriously, they
were work friends. I guess that just mean that this

(41:26):
interaction they had and then the way things would come
to pass with Mueller being, you know, the guard dog
sent after Trump after you know, Comey was just act
or after rushing connections at least exactly. But still the
perception in the public and um perpetuated by the Trump

(41:46):
administration is that Mueller is unfairly doggedly chasing after Trump
himself and in his administration and ignoring the real issues.
I think the phrase they threw around his witch hunt, right,
that's the phrase that's around. But we Um, we know
this is an important point to acknowledge. It's not like
these guys were hanging out and getting milkshakes or smoothies

(42:09):
every day after work. They didn't call each other to
be like, hey, what are you thinking about? Nothing you
They weren't on that level. So this is a very
important point. They weren't working in concert towards some kind
of which hunts, at least from their perspective. Another interesting
thing that came out in this interview Ben La something
we've talked about before on that same episode about Hillary Clinton.

(42:32):
I believe the whole Whitewater scandal case, which we still
never did an episode on we I think we mentioned
it in that episode, but we never We didn't go
into it. But it was interesting to find out that
Tomy actually worked that case briefly for about five months.
He was looking into specifically the suicide of Vincent Foster.
He was a White House Council membrights who was implicated.

(42:58):
And then he also speaks about the pardon of Mark Rich.
Mark Rich, what Mark Rich did, and he has a
lot of fans out there in the world, what he
did that is a crime and has proven as that
he violated sanctions against Iran. There are a lot of
people who think there should be more sanctions on Iran.
There are a lot of people who think there should

(43:19):
be fewer sanctions on Iran. But regardless, what he did
was uh use those sanctions or the violation of them
for his own personal profit and he made a ton
of money. Then he later got pardoned and this was,
according to Comy, massive tax fraud case. Hard to fight

(43:41):
a pardon. And then we got back to the emails, right,
and he if it correct me if I'm wrong, guys,
But he didn't start this, right, He kind of inherited
this investigation. Yeah, he said. He said it was part
of ordinary intelligence collection and he just it was part
of the ordinary course of action that was occurring there.

(44:03):
So like they were looking into things, they found something
that had a lead, and they just started doing it.
And he's the director, so it's just kind of occurring
below him. And then he gets briefed, Oh, by the way,
we've also opened this investigation. You know, one thing that
you told me that I thought was remarkably shady is okay,
let's just say because there are a lot of people

(44:24):
say this email thing is the fake news, right, and
that the real problem is Russian interference, and that you
they can't both have something shady going on. But you
told me that they actually the staff was messing with
stuff before they turned it over his evidence. Right. Yeah,
it was a known thing that the Hillary Hillary's I

(44:45):
don't know what you call them, not the administration. They're
just her staff, the campaign staff and Clinton Clinton campaign. Yes,
as she's secretary of State, as all this stuff is occurring,
she let's say, her staff broke mobile phones, the blackberries
they were using to communicate using this email server or
a private one. Uh. They cleaned out computers and hard

(45:08):
drives and servers before handing it over for evidence. Um,
there's a lot of shady stuff going on. And Comey
saw that and he knew that. He was like, m m,
it doesn't prove anything, but it definitely doesn't look good.
The optics. Yeah. Do you remember for a while when
everybody was saying the optics of something? Uh? Yeah. So
he also suggests that this could be a common practice,

(45:30):
and the difficulty or the sorry, the crucial thing to
figure out is whether this is just to safeguard sensitive
information or whether it's too How would he put it
obstruct justice. Yeah, which you know, let's just put out
a reminder here. Whenever you're getting rid of an old
hard drive or a phone or anything that has a

(45:50):
hard drive with information stored on it, be very very
careful in how you handle that. You should also probably
recycle it if you can, but remove that sense it
of data. First, make sure you print out all the
pages and then paste them on a wall. Yes, so
you won't forget rent a warehouse. Paste, put a ribbon

(46:11):
on your pinky to remind you to get the least
to the warehouse, and then make sure the keys are
hidden one of those fake rock looking things. But then
you have to write yourself a note somewhere that you
remember which rock is the fake one, and set a
Google reminder with just part of the coordinates to the rock.
And again he's been he's been doing this for a while.

(46:32):
He also, in the interview I believe, addresses the situation
with former Director of the CIA David Petreus. Yeah, and
he discusses how there are similarities and differences between the
Hillary Clinton email thing and David Petraus's case, where he
um he was doing things that were a little more severe,
which would be in the to the tune of bringing

(46:55):
highly classified material printed out and had handwritten no back
to his living quarters where he was living with a woman,
or at least staying with a woman who was also
a writer slash reporter and maybe sharing that highly classified
information with her. Well, I mean, it's been said, it's

(47:18):
been written that that he was she was photographing, and
he allowed her to photograph it. Um. And so this
was a case that was used by a lot of
critics of Comy's handling of the Clinton email scandal was
that he's going soft on Clinton. Um, but he was
horrid on Prey, was hard on Petrayus. But you know,

(47:40):
to hear in the interview, Stephanopolis kind of sets up
the question um bringing up the Petreus case, saying that
a lot of the conservative critics of Comy's handling of
the Clinton email scandal was that the Petreys case was
like less of a big deal, which seems crazy to me.
And we'll get into that as again then the Clinton case.

(48:01):
And yet he chose not to prosecute Petraeus, So that
that that's the that's sort of the crystallization of the
um conservative criticism of of his handling of this. Um
to that, Comey responds that because people were saying that
they were very closely related. Um, he's saying no, no,

(48:23):
he said it was not a close call. In fact,
I thought David Petreus should have been prosecuted, not just
for them as handling of the classified information, which obviously did.
He took it, you know, in hand in a notebook home,
which not supposed to do, and with for the intent
for the purposes of giving it to somebody to write
a book to use, you know, totally off off base there. Um,

(48:43):
he says, not only should have been prosecuted for them
as handling of the classified information, but also for a
line to the FBI, because lying it strikes here he
is again strikes at the heart of our rule of
law in this country. He is really pushing that that
line home. And in the end, the Attorney General at
the time, Eric Holder, is the one who decided, UH
to only charge him with the misdemeanor mishandling of classified information,

(49:05):
a much lower crime in the tier of offenses. You guys,
you guys, one of the things that he was sharing
in there, and I didn't really understand this fully. With
the Petrays case, a lot of the information had to
do with special access programs, which we've learned over the
course of this show with other interviews and research. Those
are some of the top level like black budgets, compartmentalized information. Yeah,

(49:28):
you have to be read onto it. Yeah, stuff that
you don't share, and he's just like, check it out, look,
I'm cool. They were also in the nitty gritty of
the Petrayas situation. He was also I think the way
they were communicating at times was they would write drafts
on a Gmail address and then never send them. But

(49:49):
you if you had the password, you could go check
the drafts, and that's how they communicate. Do you guys
see the connection between these cases though? Do you see
them as being in any way even on the scale?
I mean, I'm I mean he had b I should
investigate them. They have that in common. There you go.
That's again not to sound like a like a Clinton apologist.
I think I have serious beef with with many things

(50:10):
about about this person. But it certainly feels like the
use of the private email server was not nefarious at
its heart, in the same way as taking home a
secret dossier to share with a third party is at
its heart and insteads yeah, yeah, and instead of doing
a whole episode on it, I'm gonna I'm going to

(50:32):
uh friends and neighbors, do uh provide you all a
wonderful opportunity and make my co host very irritated with me.
One word pizza gate? What do you think? Conspiracy at
House of Works dot com? Oh, here we go, Here
we go right in. Let it, let us know because

(50:53):
we we have looked into it in the course of
other investigations, just haven't done an episode on it. Yep,
what do you say? We move on to good old
Lauretta Lynch. Lynch's my favorite country and Western singer. Yep.
Put a at the end and you're good to go. Yep.
So what yeah, what happens we mentioned this earlier in

(51:15):
the show. Well, this is late two years before Mr
Komy finds his fate. Um. He meets with the Attorney
General LAURRETTA Lynch to let her know that he's planning
on making it public that there is this official investigation
into the Hillary Clinton email thing. Now, a lot of

(51:35):
people thought this was a break in precedent, but Comey
says it was not at all. Why I want to
I'm putting this to you guys and also to to
um you folks at home. Why did he do it?
How is it not a break in precedent? I'm confused.
Was he just trying to because because isn't it his
job to be a political And yet it seemed like

(51:56):
a decision that was informed by the need to not
influence the political process, but to make sure the political
process was on an even keel kind of because it
was during an election, a very big, heated election, and
it was almost like he wanted to make sure the
voters were informed. But it's not his job to do that.
So why why did he Why did he come out

(52:17):
and say it like that? So, I mean, the investigation
is three months old at this point, right, it's I mean,
it's been going on for a while. He he said
it was important for the public to know, is in
their best interest that this was occurring, because it allows
him to make a more informed decision, That's what he's saying.
And yet he also says all along that he was

(52:38):
pretty sure they weren't going to prosecute her. So if
he can go so far as saying, hey, this is
going on, why I'm confused? The lines here are really
weird to me. He also doesn't say specifically concretely why
he chose to do this, Not only that Lynch tells him,
orders him, in fact, not to refer to it as

(53:00):
an investigation, but to refer to it as a matter
and the FBI interviews. Uh. Then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
on July two, James Comey is not there. Yep, it's
a good quote. He says, he wasn't there because I'm
the FBI director at this point, and the FBI director

(53:21):
only on TV is the director jumping out of helicopters
and conducting interviews. His job, he says, is to make
the final decisions. Um, the people on the ground will
do the interviews. They have been, he says, actually investigating
her and crawling around her life for a year. Uh.
And he says that's the way it should be. Who
makes sense if Conal made all the decisions that did

(53:45):
all the interviews here with people for shows, I mean,
what kind of organization would we be? Conal Conald Byrne
is our boss. I don't remember if we've mentioned him
on this show specifically. I think so. But you can
check out some of his films. I'll drop I'll drop
that bomb and is it career. You can probably find
something about that that's been wiped from the internet, my friend. Yeah,
that's that's Uh. We don't like washed. The truth changes,

(54:08):
as they say in The Pentagon, we don't lie. The
truth changes. He who controls the past controls the future. Well,
if anything, watched The Vault on Netflix and see him
as a bank manager. He actually has my favorite role
in that film to fit the old. Thing that scares
me is bad loan, good line. No spoilers, but we're
just you know, we're getting close to time and we

(54:32):
have so many revelations. It's probably fair to say that
came out of the book. Do you guys want to
launch your list of you? Sounds like a plane and
we've certainly like listed some already. But man, it's just
I wouldn't exactly call it an embarrassment of riches, um,
but it's there's some gems. Uh. What's one that really
stuck out to you know? Um? Well, that he is

(54:53):
against impeachment, That comy is against impeachment. I was going
to bring that up earlier, and we talked about the
Watergate scandal, um and all of that, and you know,
the Clinton administration. Um, it's just and you know, even
given the fact that he another revelation is that he
said Donald Trump was unfit for office, he still doesn't

(55:14):
think that he should be impeached because of the the
inherent stability that brings to a political system or the
way it touches upon rule of law. He says he
would prefer that the people remove an unfit president via
an election, via the vote. Recall, it makes sense to me. Yeah,

(55:37):
but that's uh, that burden is very high on the people,
it really is. And he also says, quote, as a citizen,
I think we owe it to each other to get
off the couch and think about what unites us. Yeah.
I mean, that's a very difficult thing to disagree with,
regardless of what you think should be uniting people. And

(55:57):
then earlier, knowl you had also mentioned Donald Trump's motivation
as Comy saw it for investigating the allegations of Russian interference.
You said it wasn't all, um, just a political concern. No,
he I mean he quoted Trump and saying that if
there's even a one percent chance that Milania thought that

(56:22):
this was true, he wanted it quashed. And like we
mentioned earlier, in the show. This was one of the
first conversations they had. And one thing that's interesting about
all of this stuff, stuff in the book, stuff in
the interview, is it could be argued that comy is
he's he's not really practicing what he preaches. He's he's
being a little purient. He's he's throwing he's slinging mud here.

(56:45):
He's he's not exactly he's sort of descending from his
place on the shining mountaintop, you know, to kind of
wallow in the muck here a little bit. And he
says some petty things. One great example of this would
be talking about hands, which was such gold for comics
and comedians and comedy shows leading up to the election. Uh.

(57:06):
He he comes off pretty petty, a lot of his
critics would say in the book where he says, uh,
I made as he extended his hand, I made a
mental note to check its size. It was smaller than mine,
but did not seem unusually so usually. So again we're
talking about like what is he six something, and just

(57:27):
just back on the p tape thing real quick, and
then we'll move on here. This is what he said,
and I just feel like this is a little snipy.
He says, I honestly never thought these words would come
out of my mouth. But I honestly don't know whether
the current president of the United States was with prostitutes
peeing on each other in Moscow. It's possible, but I
don't know, And it's just become on. Come on, bro.

(57:48):
At that point, after you make such a repeated and
consistent habit of telling people that you have a higher loyalty,
you've got the rule of law, it comes out. It
feels a little off. Regardless again, where you fall in
the argument, it feels off to, Asnal said, descend from
that point to drop to drop some hot shade about

(58:12):
hands and urination tapes. Well, one thing that was less petty,
but a really interesting observation was pulling in his experience
with the Cosa Nostra, with with the mafia and then
how he interacted with Trump. And we kind of mentioned
this earlier, but just comparing his initiation ceremony that he
had with Trump, the whole coming into the office asking

(58:34):
for loyalty, and comparing that to the initiation rituals of
the Cosa Nostra where they have this silent circle of assent,
where everybody around them just gives them their loyalty and loyalty.
Yeah they're yeah, exactly, the loyalty and code to that
thing rather than what they're in office for. It's fascinating
to me, It is fascinating. But that being said, Donald

(58:56):
Trump has been linked to the mob through his casino deals. UM.
There there are on record links between Donald Trump and
the mob, especially in the nineteen eighties, UM through the
mafia's control over unions UM in New York City. This
is a known thing. Labor supplies, building construction supplies, UM,

(59:20):
and you know, and Donald Trump is all about getting
a good deal. And it's been pretty clearly linked that
he had connections with Actually a guy by the name
of James B. Jacobs, who's a mafia expert. UM was
part of a task force on organized crime. UM went
so far as to say that was the fact of life,
that was the way it was. Is him talking to PolitiFact.
The contractors and developers weren't pure victims. You could bribe

(59:43):
the mob controlled union leaders and get relief from the
more arduous conflicts. But we had no information that Trump
was any different as a building impresario. So I'm just
saying he's it's a little bit of a cheap shot
still though, isn't it right, Because that's for all intents
and purposes, how business was done in those days. If
you're a building magnate, you're you're probably in some respect

(01:00:06):
to New York City crossing paths with the mafia in
some way. So but he he knows that, and he
uses that in as a way to throw more shade
at Trump, especially in the way he characterizes this kissing
of the ring kind of meeting. Yeah, this is definitely
the most epic takedown of a boss in a while.
But when I say epic takedown, I just mean like
getting to air your grievances about your boss in public

(01:00:29):
and then make money on it. Well, yeah, that's the
other thing, is he is making money. This is I
think due to uh certain his activities. Says net worth
was already estimated to be around fourteen million dollars, so
he's not desperately sweating a mortgage. And that's fair, Ben,
that's a very good point. Um. I I just wonder

(01:00:49):
what Trump was thinking when he fired this man, Like
what what must he have been protecting for the risk
of having this man out in the world. Spewing all
this stuff. Well, it may it may not even be
that kind of calculation. May just be I need a
unified team that goes when I say go, you know

(01:01:09):
what I mean? Like I can see that, because, um,
the only other how rare is it for an FBI
director to get fired? The only other uh director he
got fired was doing the Bill Clinton administration. And out
of out of the seven FBI directors that have ever
existed here in the US to have been fired, the

(01:01:31):
odds are not looking great, like because you see how
weird it is the frame that that fact. You can
say he was only ever the second fired, or you
can say out of seven to have been fired. It
makes it. I don't know, it makes a big difference.
But here's one thing that's stuck out to me on

(01:01:51):
that still freaks me out just a little bit. And
I hope it's not a permanent thing. This may sound
a little bit like dry medical stuff and might fade
from the national conversation, and it might even for some
some of us in the audience, sounds like there's no
stuff they don't want you to know other than those memos.
But this could not be further from the truth, because
you see to this day as we record this, the

(01:02:15):
same day that the original night Stalker was finally caught
in Sacramento, uh or for his crimes. Uh This, this
fact remains. James Comey has a secret. In his book,
Comy cites a quote development still unknown to the American
public to this day. This mysterious development, he says, was

(01:02:38):
central to his decision to intervene publicly in the Hillary
Clinton campaign email scandal. But wait, you might be asking,
didn't all the big secrets already come out? Didn't we
already know all about this email controversy? Doesn't? Pretty much
everyone admit that Russia hacked the U S Election system.
I mean Comy himself does, obviously, and he maintains the

(01:02:58):
threat of this sort of interview arts will only increase
in the future, mainly because, in his opinion, again according
to him, it works so well in twen but nope,
with a hard p in his book, you see, Comey
insists that this secret, whatever it is, will likely remain
classified for decades, and this led journalists and newspapers to

(01:03:19):
speculate that the secret must be deeply embarrassing whatever it
is to f the FBI to Comy, maybe to the
intelligence agency that presented that intercepted likely fake document um
or the one that he thinks is not of credible providence.
We don't know which US agency supplied this information to

(01:03:40):
Comey and the FBI. Did the FBI only discover it
was likely fake after questioning the U S citizens named
in the intercept. Does he think the U. S Intelligence
officials were being sincere or were they trying to play
him too? And who did he speak to about intervening
and making that announcement. Did someone encourage him to do

(01:04:01):
it with an earlier We don't know the agencies we
rely on to fight these intelligence wars. But in this regard,
if all this stuff is true, either fell for Russian
info or knowingly exploited it even though they knew it
was fake. And Yeah, and it looks like this kind

(01:04:22):
of stuff will continue off air. As we were recording
this episode, we were talking about whether or not this
is a two parter, and at the very least, it
sounds like we'll have to make some sort of update
because the story is not over. Yeah, I completely agree,
and I'm I'm just gonna give you my not prediction,
but this is what I think happened with that secret.

(01:04:44):
I think they uncovered something when going through the Clinton
email service, especially with the whom Aberdeen stuff. I think
they discovered something in there that's really embarrassing but cannot
come out because it would too many people would be implicated,
and would it impair rule of law? I think it might. Yeah,

(01:05:05):
one last thing for talking about secrets, there's one other
bomb that was dropped that I only saw reported on
Fox News. It was that Comy kind of hinted um
at there being a secret regarding Attorney General former Attorney
General Loretta lynch Um and he said that should it
come out, it could potentially have been used as political

(01:05:26):
um ammunition um to cast serious doubt, he says, quote
on the Attorney general's independence and connection with the Clinton investigation,
implying that she had skin in the game, and her
telling Comy to call it a matter. He was not
cool with that instead of an investigation. So there you know,

(01:05:48):
secrets abound. So yeah, is that a secret? Different from
what I detailed about likely remaining classified for decades? How
many secrets out there? We really don't know. To take
that famous quote, we have some unknown unknowns, right, so
you will probably see continuing updates regarding this, this account

(01:06:11):
of the investigation, and surely I would predict that there's
going to be uh, someone else coming out that has
either new information contradicting this or adding to this, maybe
even personal information about Comey himself. It's difficult to call
right and at this point we want to hear from you.
Do you think do you think that anything will come

(01:06:33):
of this? Do you think that James Comey has a
solid motivation for what he believes to pursue what he
believes to be the truth? Do you think he's just
trying to sell books? Do you think this is legitimate
stuff or do you think it is, in the words
of so many journalists, a witch hunt. We'd like to
know what do you think that big secret is that

(01:06:53):
he has hinted at, either with Loretta Lynch or with
something else and someone else. Honestly, we we'd love to
hear from you. You can find us on Facebook and
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(01:07:14):
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