December 15, 2025 • 32 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 2 (12/15) - Michael Monks comes on the show to talk about the re-election campaign kicking off for Mayor Karen Bass. Jamie Paige wrote an article in the New York Post heavily criticizing LA City Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez for ruining MacArthur Park. More on the EDD fraud scam during COVID. Another LA City Council member has violated gift laws.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I am six forty.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
You can hear the show every day from one to
four live on Camfi or.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
On the iHeart app.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
And also you can hear the podcast after four o'clock
on the iHeart app. It's John Cobet Show on demand.
It's the same as the radio show, and you can
pick up what you missed. Where is Michael Monks?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
He's right here. Wow, So you're up in the ether today?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
All right, I'm in the downtown Lakfi Bureau.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We have one, Yeah, we do.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Oh, it's got a couple of cats running around right now.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Ok, all right, Michael's coming on because a couple of things. Well,
let's start with Karen Bass's re election Saturday, re election
rally Saturday, she started her campaign. What what is this
about here?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
What is she running on?
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Well?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Why is this happening? Well, it won't come.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
To a surprise to you what her talking points are,
because we've talked about it repeatedly on your show whenever
it comes up. I mean, you condemn the homeless environment
here in Los Angeles and the amount of money that's
been spent on it, the amount of money that's unaccounted for.
All those look like negatives, but what she points to
is a reduction in the homeless population.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
So that's step one.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
That there's been a modest drop in the number of
homeless people according to data from an organization that has
been heavily scrutinized by even the courts for its poor
accounting practices. So she does tout that.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
And the Rand Corporation numbers exactly, So I mean that
that Bass missed buy up to forty percent in some districts.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
What she has to do is take every one of
these negatives, whether it be the homeless environment, the fight
with the White House, or the fires in January. She's
got to twist that and turn that into positives. And
that's what it sounds like she's trying to do. Even
with the fire in the Palisades. I mean, gosh, just
eleven months ago, she appeared dead in the water because
(02:02):
she was in Africa at the time that the Palisades
fire broke out, and she dealt with the fallout from
that for weeks. But she was kind of saved in
a lot of ways by Donald Trump when he became
president and when he deployed all of the federal agents
here to crack down on illegal immigration.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
She had a foil.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
That a lot more people in Los Angeles could rally
behind her.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So it's more important to people that she fights Trump
than it is that a big chunk of the city
burned down.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I think it was certainly more important for her because
she needed some headlines and she got them because she
did get to stand up to the President. Look, I
mean both sides, the mayor here and the governor here
and the White House. They've gone to court against each other.
Both have won some victories, but it gave the mayor
(02:55):
an enemy that more people could support her for. Whereas
even though the fire back in January.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Even the city, the city itself is literally falling apart.
The road conditions are terrible, the garbage is piled up,
the homeless are still out of control, and she's lying
about the numbers. The palisades is gone, and yelping about
Trump is more important. That's impossible for my brain to digest.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I think just from a campaign strategy perspective, it's something
that was working for her. This got her a lot
of national attention. She was on a lot of the
national news shows, and she got to talk about something
other than widespread homelessness and the fire that burned down
the palisade. So it just gave her something when she
really didn't have much of anything for a while. Now
one of her opponents, former deputy mayor and former LAUSD
(03:45):
Superintendent Austin Butener, is hitting her on a lot of
the points.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
That you just made.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
That these you know, there's not been enough done for
a variety of issues, or the efforts that have been
done are not good enough or they are questionable. So
she's not coasting to reelection here. But this rally on
Saturday to officially kick off her campaign though she had
announced several months ago and started raising money several months ago.
She had five members of the Los Angeles City Council there.
(04:12):
Wish I think showcases that the mayor is not dead
in the water.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Let me guess the names.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Sure, did she have Unices Hernandez there?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
She did not, But one of the DSA members was
Hugosta Martinez yet there And it's interesting that you mentioned
council woman Unisses Hernandez and we've got council in Hugosota
Martinez who were there they're both up for reelection next
year as well, and you know, when you look at
the candidates that they're up against, it's not going to
be a walk in the park from them. They are
(04:43):
going to have to campaign, especially Councilman Hernandez, who has
seven opponents right now and all of them actively campaigning
against her.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Look to take a drive through her district. That's exactly
what those candidates are saying. It's one of the.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Most disgusting places you'll ever see in America.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I don't know if you saw the article in the
New York Post over the weekend about Councilman Hernandez, but
you would probably enjoy reading it.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Is there you know what? I might have missed that.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, I have Eric find that for you because I'm surprised.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Okay, well, you know, I'll just look for it on
my iPad.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Here.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
This is I mean, yeah, it absolutely blasts Councilman Hernandez,
especially for her governance of MacArthur Park and not showing
up to these campaign forums that have been held in
the area in recent weeks. There was a cardboard cutout
of her that attended the last one, but it didn't
have much to say. But this article had a lot
to say, Oh what the New York Post report. Keep
(05:41):
in mind, the New York Post will be opening next
month the California Post.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Oh, I know. So this is a little taste of.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
What type of coverage we can probably expect from them,
that sort of gritty, antagonistic reporting they're famous for New York.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I'll just read the headline here I found it.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Meet the socialist LA leader making two hundred and forty
thousand dollars to reign over drug infested park as a crumbles.
That's the reality of the park, and that's the reality
of much of LA and all the other things we
were talking about. I don't understand why bitching about Trump
is more important than this. We have to live here
(06:19):
and he's got nothing to do with most of these issues.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Well, nor what any president.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
You see that these campaigns are obviously supporters. So she
had some supporters, including those five members of the City Council,
including council President Markquis Harris Dawson, council member Soda Martinez,
current Price who is under indictment facing some serious penalties,
and council members had their hut and Adria Nazarian. They
were there. Members of the state Legislature that they were
(06:46):
there as well, So she's not dead in the water.
But these are supporters and there will be an election.
Right now, she has at least one very serious opponent,
and obviously we are still waiting to see what Racruso
decides to do. I think if you end up with
a race with incumbent mayor Karen Bass and Austin Butner
and Rick Caruso, you're going to have it's definitely not
(07:08):
going to be decided in the June primary. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
All, let's spend a couple of minutes on the arrests
out in the twenty nine Palms region. These four people
who belonged to this terrorist organization that wanted to blow
up these incendiary devices on New Year's Eve?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
What was this about? The feds busted this operation.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
It sounds really scary in fact, because the Feds say
that these four people are members of an organization called
the Turtle Island Liberation Front and First Assistant United States
Attorney Bill A. Sale said today that this investigation was
spurred on by President Trump's demand just a couple of
months ago that the federal law enforcement agencies start pursuing
(07:55):
left wing terrorist groups, namely Antifa. But they found themselves
to this and have been surveilling them for weeks and
found that four individuals allegedly were meeting to plan to
produce their own pipe bombs that they were going to
plant around Los Angeles and Orange County and detonate them
at midnight on New Year's Eve. They didn't say exactly
(08:17):
where they were except to say that they were businesses.
Bill A. Sale said that they would probably be Amazon
type logistical centers. So not exactly sure what the motive
there is, except that this group is known for its
anti government and anti capitalism positions. So these four were
arrested out in the desert as they were meeting to
(08:38):
build their bombs and test them.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
And they had known about this or they got winded
this back in November I read, and they're arresting them
just days ahead of the planned detonation of the bombs.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
You know, with an investigation, you get a tip, you
start to follow, you need some sort of probable calls.
They did follow them throughout multiple meetings, including one right
here in downtown Los Angeles that was held in person,
and they were able to get some very critical information
that ultimately led them, bust them on the scene Lucern
Valley just Friday, so we were getting very close to
(09:19):
when this attack.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Was SNA happen. Are they coming to get you here?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
That's the Los Angeles National anthem that's playing in the
background here in downtown LA.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
You live downtown, how many times a day do you
hear the sirens go by?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
It's constant. It's absolutely constant. And I'm right next to
the firehouse that serves skid row, so it's constant.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yes, re elect Karen Bash. All right, very good, Michael,
thank you, thank you for going. All right, Michael Moss,
Michael Monks rather CAFI news. All right, I've the article.
The article he recommended here Jamie Page in the New
York Post. Meet the socialist LA leader making two hundred
and forty one thousand dollars to reign over drug infested,
(10:03):
a drug invested park as it crumbles. This is this
is a really entertaining read. I will I will read
it to you, or at least part of it coming up.
This is good. This is good stuff here. This is
what was published in the New York Post over the weekend.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Yeah, you're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Only outsiders can describe Los Angeles in the media. Nobody
in the Los Angeles media wants to do it. Last hour,
I played for you a truly absurd piece done by
Aaron Myers from KTLA Channel five, who went to Karen
Bass's re election campaign kickoff Saturday morning and talked to
(10:47):
two of Karen Bass's supporters, and it was it was
just an hysterically absurd interview because Aaron Myer is saying thing, well,
I know, I know what the mayor is interesting in
homelessness and interested in homelessness. Here's the way the media
ought to be covering Los Angeles and Karen Bass and
(11:09):
Unices Hernandez, who is really really a stupid person, who's
the councilwoman for that MacArthur Park district. It's in the
New York Post and soon there's going to be a
California Post, a sister publication, so maybe people here in
LA will be more aware of what's happening. So the
(11:31):
headline is meet the socialist LA leader making two hundred
and forty thousand dollars to reign over a drug infested
park as it crumbles.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
JB.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Page wrote this, I'm going to read you this as
is meet unices. Hernandez, the progressive, permissive councilwoman, raking in
far more money than the average Angelino each year, plus
gold plated benefits, even as MacArthur Park, the historic heart
of her district, rots into a fentanyl soaked nightmare. The
(12:03):
Post spent last week inside the park, witnessing and reporting
on open air drug use, pipe smoking, hand to hand deals,
city funded paraphernalia, needles, crack pipes, and food handouts being
distributed in broad daylight. That scene now defines the park. Hernandez,
(12:24):
who makes two hundred and forty thousand dollars a year,
had an opportunity to make nice with her district Thursday
at a pack public meeting with the very constituents forced
to live with the consequences of her policies, and she
was a no show. MacArthur Park parents were there, neighborhood
residents were there, local small business owners were there, but
(12:46):
she wasn't there. I need to introduce someone to you,
said a challenger named Maria Klatch. They call her Louke,
and she hoisted a life sized cardboard.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Cut out of Hernandez.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
This is our current council member who's Mia and the
room erupted in laughter. This district is too important for
a no show. She skipped three in person debates. Meanwhile,
encampments have swallowed our streets. Let me go back to
Aaron Meyer's report on Channel five. She's talking to the
BASS supporters and she says, well, I know you know
(13:26):
the mayor has inside safe, which is getting encampments off
the streets. Walk through the MacArthur Park neighborhood. Talk to
this woman who's running against un This is Hernandez her quote.
Encampments have swallowed our streets. Parents can't even take their
kids to the park. There's human waste on the swings.
(13:48):
The homeless are sitting on the children's swings and defecating
and leaving the waste behind. And then somebody's little girl
jumps on the swing splat. Klangi said she makes two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. The least she
(14:08):
can do is show up. It's her job. She's being
paid for it. This is sad and we need change.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
If you in.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Interviews with local business owners, longtime residents, community members, the
message was consistent. The chaos is not random. It's the
result of deliberate political choices who say the blame is
squarely in the lap of Hernandez. That's important. They deliberately
the Karen Bass and this is Hernandez model is to
(14:36):
deliberately choose all this disgusting, dangerous chaos. Alex Fionoeva, who's
running for sheriff again, she says, He says it's ideological.
The political establishment in Los Angeles is so knotted up
in the ideology. They refuse law enforcement. Where you have
an absence of law and order, everything follows, drug trafficking,
(14:59):
sex trafficking. It's embarrassing. The experiment has failed and the
people living there are the ones paying for it. Rick
Caruso says, there's this idea that there's a right to
have drugs. I don't agree with that. This is a
public park intended for families. He says, we've created a
(15:20):
drug haven. This has destroyed the small independent businesses in
the area. This is on purpose. They're anti they're anti
a normal, decent way of life. They don't believe in
(15:41):
people going to work, raising families, playing in the park.
It makes them crazy. So they have destroyed and destabilized
everything there's no police, defunded fire department, defunded drug paraphernalia
(16:02):
hand it out. And you know they'd hand out the
drugs too if they can get away with it. And
it just goes on and on this way, and Caruso
says the men and women in the fire station nearby
are exhausted. The exhaustion level and mental fatigue is extreme.
(16:26):
According to the Post, fire Station eleven, which covers MacArthur
Park has logged one three hundred and eighty five overdoses
this year, almost four a day last year is the
busiest firehouse in America. And all they do is treat
overdose drug addicts who would die if they didn't show up.
(16:48):
And some of them do. And they chose this. Karen
Dath chooses this, Unitus Hernandez chooses this. They get paid
hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring this life to
normal people who just want to take their sons and daughters,
(17:08):
little kids for a ride on the swing without sitting
in a pile of human poop and stepping in a
pile of needles.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I just flabbergasted by this. More coming up.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
You're listening to John Cobels on Demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
We're on every day from one till four o'clock. After
four o'clock John Cobelts Show on demand Moistline.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Have you had enough? You want to let it out?
One more time?
Speaker 1 (17:37):
This year we're doing a moistline this Friday eight seven seven,
Moist Steady six eight seven seven, Moist st eaighty six.
If you like numbers, it's eight seven seven sixty six
four seven.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Eight eight six.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Or use the talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app and
we'll do it twice three twenty and three point fifty
on Friday. Do you remember I told you often about
the Unemployment Department in California. Its official title is the
Employment Development Department.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
That that title makes no sense. It's the unemployment Department.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
It's who you contact when you're out of work and
you need unemployment benefits. And famously they blew over thirty
billion dollars during the pandemic, giving unemployment money to fraudsters
around the world. In fact, they were so bad at
(18:32):
their job they sent unemployment unemployment checks to everybody on
death row. For example, Scott Peterson got an unemployment check
from this department. Most of the money has never been recovered.
Most of it was stolen by fraudsters overseas because nobody.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
In the department check.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And if I remember correctly, the reason Scott Peterson got
his check was that Gavin Newsom has had decided that
the department could not cross check names and social Security
numbers with prisoners because that would be a violation of
the prisoner's privacy.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
I'm not making that up.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Apparently Scott Peterson had a right to privacy, so when
somebody used his name his identity to get unemployment money,
Newsom didn't want that confidentially confidentiality violated, and that's why
Peterson got unemployment money tax money. Well, there's another story
(19:49):
about the unemployment Department. I mean, this place is just
rife with idiots and thieves. The Unemployment Department bought more
cell phones than it needed for remote work. Again, this
was during COVID. Thousands more than they needed, and they
kept paying for thousands of unused lines. The Unemployment agency
(20:15):
paid cell phone bills for four and a half years
without checking whether it's workers were actually using the devices.
In fact, there was a photo colmatters dot org. You
can go there's a photo of all these mobile devices
stacked up in a storage room, thousands of them unused.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
See.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
During the pandemic, the call center employees were shifted to
do remote work. They were working from home, and they
were under pressure to release benefits to millions of suddenly
unemployed Californians. Except, as I said, it wasn't just unemployed Californians.
(21:00):
It was anybody who bothered to fill out the form online,
no matter where they were in the world.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Nobody was checked.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Nobody at all was ever checked, and they looted over
thirty billion dollars of tax money. Well, it turns out
that all these Unemployment Department workers were sitting home in
their bathrobes and fuzzy slippers. They needed cell phones. That
was their work phone, and the Unemployment Department acquired seven thousand,
(21:34):
two hundred and twenty four cell phones and wireless hotspots. Now,
after doing an audit, they found that half the devices
were unused for at least two years, a quarter of
them were unused for three years, and about one hundred
(21:58):
of them were never used at all. But still every
month Unemployment Department is using your tax money to pay
the phone company a fee. Seven two hundred and twenty
four cell phones mostly unused. They got a tip, and
(22:19):
they said that the department wasted at least four and
a half million dollars when they got the cell phones.
When they originally purchased the cell phones, they purchased two
thousand more cell phones than call center employees.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Why was somebody getting a kickback.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
With some of the money getting returned to a unemployment
department employee?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Was the deal over the phone?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
It's like, yeah, you know, if you buy an extra
two thousand, I'll cut you in fifty to fifty. Maybe
that was it. Why would you do that? Would you
do that if you had the job? Woun't you count
the number of employees and whatever that number is, that's
the number of phones you buy. Maybe a few extra
(23:06):
to account for lost or stolen phones, right, but it
would be pretty close.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
No, they got two thousand extras.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Then the pandemic ended, the staff returned back to the office.
There was no need for the cell phones. So more
and more of these cell phones went unused. Like I said,
half of them unused for at least two years, a
quarter from unused for three years. But we all kept
(23:35):
paying the fee for each phone. They never canceled the contracts.
They never canceled the service. As of April, the audit
said the department had about seventeen hundred coll Seter employees
but was paying service fees for over five thousand phones.
(24:00):
Seventeen hundred employees, five thousand phones every month. We're paying.
The audit says, although obtaining the mobile devices during COVID
nineteen may have been a good idea to serve the public,
continuing to pay the monthly service fee for so many
(24:21):
unused devices post COVID was wasteful.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Thanks for that.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
We did a thorough review and study of the situation,
and we discovered that all these phones that were unused
for years and years, thousands of phones, paying that monthly
free was wasteful.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
But they did it.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Somebody paid that bill every month. There was no oversight
over that either. Department officials told auditors they were unaware
of the spending the way they were unaware of all
the criminals stealing the thirty billion dollars. But the auditor said, well,
(25:05):
you got an invoice from Verizon every month, every month
which showed the phones were not being used. The audit said,
we would have expected Unemployment Department management to have reconsidered
the need to pay the monthly service fees for so
many devices that had no voice, no message, or no
(25:25):
data usage.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, so many.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
That'd be five thousand of them. It's incredible, how stupid
and how wasteful they are. When we come back, we
have another councilman who is being accused of violating of
(25:54):
taking gifts.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
That he shouldn't have taken.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Another one who repeatedly violated the city's gift laws, and
he's under investigation by the City Ethics Commission.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
What is that about half.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
The city council by now has gotten into legal trouble
or ended up in jail or is on their way
to jail.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
We'll talk about this when we come back. You'll find
out who it is.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
sixty Conway.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Coming up in minutes, and then after four o'clock we'll
release John.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Cobelt Show on demand.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
That's the podcast and you can hear whatever you missed today.
We spent a lot of time on the Rob Reiner
murder case. In the first hour before I talk about
the latest city councilman to be accused of violating gift
laws here in Los Angeles. I wanted to remember. I
(26:59):
want to remember to play this. Chuck Schumer, the Senate
Minority leader. He is Jewish. In fact, he's the highest
ranking Jewish government official ever. And he came out to
speak about the terror attack on those Jews on Hanukkah
(27:21):
in Sydney. If you remember there was there was a
massive terrorist attack and many were killed and injured. Well,
Chuck Schumer came out to speak against it. Here's how
he opened.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
And of course I'm going to say a few words
about the terrible shooting in Sydney, Australia.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Okay. So and first of course, as I always.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Say, no matter what, go bills, they beat the patriots today,
it's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
That it's that's not that's not doctored. That that's real.
How many people were killed in that fifteen killed and
then there was like forty others that got shot right.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
And injured.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So fifteen people get slaughtered. He comes out to make
a statement, but first, go bills. They beat the patriots.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
That it was a comeback when the bills were down
twenty one to nothing.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
So he was very excited. Yeah, quite the timing of him.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Had no dementia there all right, here we go, LA
City councilman. His name is John Lee, represents the northern
San Fernando Valley. He used to be the chief of
staff for Mitch Englander, who we had on the show
a number of times. And Mitch Englander got caught up
(28:50):
with some developer who took him to Las Vegas and
it was party time. It was it was gambling, chips, booze, food, hookers,
he got the whole menu. Well, John Lee was on
that trip as well, and he accepted some of the
goodies and other prizes from the developer. This is twenty
(29:16):
sixteen and twenty seventeen. An administrative law judge for the
City Ethics Commission said that Lee committed two counts of
violating a law governing the size of gifts a city
official can receive three counts of violating another law that
the gifts be publicly disclosed, and recommended a forty three
(29:39):
thousand dollars fine. Now, Englander was accused of accepting fifteen
thousand dollars in cash from a businessman lining the FBI
agents obstructing the investigation, and he pleaded guilty and got
fourteen months in prison. Now they're going after John Lee,
(30:02):
and it was food, alcohol, hotel rooms. Lee is claiming
he tried to reimburse and in some cases never ate
the meals he got, not only the food and the booze,
and the hotels and the free rides. It was one
(30:23):
thousand dollars in gambling chips, and it was provided by
three men who wanted business with city Hall. A lobbyist
named Michael Bay, an architect and developer named Chris Pack.
And then and then this guy named named Wang. The
(30:46):
hell's his first name.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Here he.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Sold Italian cabinets and smart home technology and facial recognition software.
Andy Wang's his name, And he was the one giving
England or the cash and the goodies. Lee said he
didn't remember eating during his meetings. Two of them were
(31:12):
in downtown LA at the Water Grill and a Mexican
restaurant with a complicated name. The judge said the denials
were not credible. Says his testimony was evasive and self contradictory,
and also in conflict with the information he gave to
the FBI. UH it's strange credulity to believe that Lee
(31:36):
would join Englander, Buy and Wang for lunch and dinner
without eating any food during the meals.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
He actually said that that's like Bill Clinton's old line
about I didn't inhale.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, I sat with the other guys and the developer
and the and the other businessman, but I didn't eat
the food. I just sat there. Everybody else say I
didn't eat.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
I didn't need anything, didn't even nibble on a breadstick.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Nothing. All right, I've got to go. I'm really really
going insane today. We've got Conway coming up in minutes.
Michael Krozer with the News now live in the KFI
twenty four hour Newsroom. Hey, you've been listening to the
John Covelt Show podcast. You can always hear the show
(32:24):
live on KFI AM six forty from 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 1 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
You can hear the show every day from one to
four live on Camfi or.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
On the iHeart app.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
And also you can hear the podcast after four o'clock
on the iHeart app. It's John Cobet Show on demand.
It's the same as the radio show, and you can
pick up what you missed. Where is Michael Monks?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
He's right here. Wow, So you're up in the ether today?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
All right, I'm in the downtown Lakfi Bureau.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We have one, Yeah, we do.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Oh, it's got a couple of cats running around right now.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Ok, all right, Michael's coming on because a couple of things. Well,
let's start with Karen Bass's re election Saturday, re election
rally Saturday, she started her campaign. What what is this
about here?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
What is she running on?
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Well?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Why is this happening? Well, it won't come.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
To a surprise to you what her talking points are,
because we've talked about it repeatedly on your show whenever
it comes up. I mean, you condemn the homeless environment
here in Los Angeles and the amount of money that's
been spent on it, the amount of money that's unaccounted for.
All those look like negatives, but what she points to
is a reduction in the homeless population.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
So that's step one.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
That there's been a modest drop in the number of
homeless people according to data from an organization that has
been heavily scrutinized by even the courts for its poor
accounting practices. So she does tout that.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
And the Rand Corporation numbers exactly, So I mean that
that Bass missed buy up to forty percent in some districts.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
What she has to do is take every one of
these negatives, whether it be the homeless environment, the fight
with the White House, or the fires in January. She's
got to twist that and turn that into positives. And
that's what it sounds like she's trying to do. Even
with the fire in the Palisades. I mean, gosh, just
eleven months ago, she appeared dead in the water because
(02:02):
she was in Africa at the time that the Palisades
fire broke out, and she dealt with the fallout from
that for weeks. But she was kind of saved in
a lot of ways by Donald Trump when he became
president and when he deployed all of the federal agents
here to crack down on illegal immigration.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
She had a foil.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
That a lot more people in Los Angeles could rally
behind her.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So it's more important to people that she fights Trump
than it is that a big chunk of the city
burned down.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I think it was certainly more important for her because
she needed some headlines and she got them because she
did get to stand up to the President. Look, I
mean both sides, the mayor here and the governor here
and the White House. They've gone to court against each other.
Both have won some victories, but it gave the mayor
(02:55):
an enemy that more people could support her for. Whereas
even though the fire back in January.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Even the city, the city itself is literally falling apart.
The road conditions are terrible, the garbage is piled up,
the homeless are still out of control, and she's lying
about the numbers. The palisades is gone, and yelping about
Trump is more important. That's impossible for my brain to digest.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I think just from a campaign strategy perspective, it's something
that was working for her. This got her a lot
of national attention. She was on a lot of the
national news shows, and she got to talk about something
other than widespread homelessness and the fire that burned down
the palisade. So it just gave her something when she
really didn't have much of anything for a while. Now
one of her opponents, former deputy mayor and former LAUSD
(03:45):
Superintendent Austin Butener, is hitting her on a lot of
the points.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
That you just made.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
That these you know, there's not been enough done for
a variety of issues, or the efforts that have been
done are not good enough or they are questionable. So
she's not coasting to reelection here. But this rally on
Saturday to officially kick off her campaign though she had
announced several months ago and started raising money several months ago.
She had five members of the Los Angeles City Council there.
(04:12):
Wish I think showcases that the mayor is not dead
in the water.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Let me guess the names.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Sure, did she have Unices Hernandez there?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
She did not, But one of the DSA members was
Hugosta Martinez yet there And it's interesting that you mentioned
council woman Unisses Hernandez and we've got council in Hugosota
Martinez who were there they're both up for reelection next
year as well, and you know, when you look at
the candidates that they're up against, it's not going to
be a walk in the park from them. They are
(04:43):
going to have to campaign, especially Councilman Hernandez, who has
seven opponents right now and all of them actively campaigning
against her.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Look to take a drive through her district. That's exactly
what those candidates are saying. It's one of the.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Most disgusting places you'll ever see in America.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I don't know if you saw the article in the
New York Post over the weekend about Councilman Hernandez, but
you would probably enjoy reading it.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Is there you know what? I might have missed that.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, I have Eric find that for you because I'm surprised.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Okay, well, you know, I'll just look for it on
my iPad.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Here.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
This is I mean, yeah, it absolutely blasts Councilman Hernandez,
especially for her governance of MacArthur Park and not showing
up to these campaign forums that have been held in
the area in recent weeks. There was a cardboard cutout
of her that attended the last one, but it didn't
have much to say. But this article had a lot
to say, Oh what the New York Post report. Keep
(05:41):
in mind, the New York Post will be opening next
month the California Post.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Oh, I know. So this is a little taste of.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
What type of coverage we can probably expect from them,
that sort of gritty, antagonistic reporting they're famous for New York.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I'll just read the headline here I found it.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Meet the socialist LA leader making two hundred and forty
thousand dollars to reign over drug infested park as a crumbles.
That's the reality of the park, and that's the reality
of much of LA and all the other things we
were talking about. I don't understand why bitching about Trump
is more important than this. We have to live here
(06:19):
and he's got nothing to do with most of these issues.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Well, nor what any president.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
You see that these campaigns are obviously supporters. So she
had some supporters, including those five members of the City Council,
including council President Markquis Harris Dawson, council member Soda Martinez,
current Price who is under indictment facing some serious penalties,
and council members had their hut and Adria Nazarian. They
were there. Members of the state Legislature that they were
(06:46):
there as well, So she's not dead in the water.
But these are supporters and there will be an election.
Right now, she has at least one very serious opponent,
and obviously we are still waiting to see what Racruso
decides to do. I think if you end up with
a race with incumbent mayor Karen Bass and Austin Butner
and Rick Caruso, you're going to have it's definitely not
(07:08):
going to be decided in the June primary. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
All, let's spend a couple of minutes on the arrests
out in the twenty nine Palms region. These four people
who belonged to this terrorist organization that wanted to blow
up these incendiary devices on New Year's Eve?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
What was this about? The feds busted this operation.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
It sounds really scary in fact, because the Feds say
that these four people are members of an organization called
the Turtle Island Liberation Front and First Assistant United States
Attorney Bill A. Sale said today that this investigation was
spurred on by President Trump's demand just a couple of
months ago that the federal law enforcement agencies start pursuing
(07:55):
left wing terrorist groups, namely Antifa. But they found themselves
to this and have been surveilling them for weeks and
found that four individuals allegedly were meeting to plan to
produce their own pipe bombs that they were going to
plant around Los Angeles and Orange County and detonate them
at midnight on New Year's Eve. They didn't say exactly
(08:17):
where they were except to say that they were businesses.
Bill A. Sale said that they would probably be Amazon
type logistical centers. So not exactly sure what the motive
there is, except that this group is known for its
anti government and anti capitalism positions. So these four were
arrested out in the desert as they were meeting to
(08:38):
build their bombs and test them.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
And they had known about this or they got winded
this back in November I read, and they're arresting them
just days ahead of the planned detonation of the bombs.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
You know, with an investigation, you get a tip, you
start to follow, you need some sort of probable calls.
They did follow them throughout multiple meetings, including one right
here in downtown Los Angeles that was held in person,
and they were able to get some very critical information
that ultimately led them, bust them on the scene Lucern
Valley just Friday, so we were getting very close to
(09:19):
when this attack.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Was SNA happen. Are they coming to get you here?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
That's the Los Angeles National anthem that's playing in the
background here in downtown LA.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
You live downtown, how many times a day do you
hear the sirens go by?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
It's constant. It's absolutely constant. And I'm right next to
the firehouse that serves skid row, so it's constant.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yes, re elect Karen Bash. All right, very good, Michael,
thank you, thank you for going. All right, Michael Moss,
Michael Monks rather CAFI news. All right, I've the article.
The article he recommended here Jamie Page in the New
York Post. Meet the socialist LA leader making two hundred
and forty one thousand dollars to reign over drug infested,
(10:03):
a drug invested park as it crumbles. This is this
is a really entertaining read. I will I will read
it to you, or at least part of it coming up.
This is good. This is good stuff here. This is
what was published in the New York Post over the weekend.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Yeah, you're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Only outsiders can describe Los Angeles in the media. Nobody
in the Los Angeles media wants to do it. Last hour,
I played for you a truly absurd piece done by
Aaron Myers from KTLA Channel five, who went to Karen
Bass's re election campaign kickoff Saturday morning and talked to
(10:47):
two of Karen Bass's supporters, and it was it was
just an hysterically absurd interview because Aaron Myer is saying thing, well,
I know, I know what the mayor is interesting in
homelessness and interested in homelessness. Here's the way the media
ought to be covering Los Angeles and Karen Bass and
(11:09):
Unices Hernandez, who is really really a stupid person, who's
the councilwoman for that MacArthur Park district. It's in the
New York Post and soon there's going to be a
California Post, a sister publication, so maybe people here in
LA will be more aware of what's happening. So the
(11:31):
headline is meet the socialist LA leader making two hundred
and forty thousand dollars to reign over a drug infested
park as it crumbles.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
JB.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Page wrote this, I'm going to read you this as
is meet unices. Hernandez, the progressive, permissive councilwoman, raking in
far more money than the average Angelino each year, plus
gold plated benefits, even as MacArthur Park, the historic heart
of her district, rots into a fentanyl soaked nightmare. The
(12:03):
Post spent last week inside the park, witnessing and reporting
on open air drug use, pipe smoking, hand to hand deals,
city funded paraphernalia, needles, crack pipes, and food handouts being
distributed in broad daylight. That scene now defines the park. Hernandez,
(12:24):
who makes two hundred and forty thousand dollars a year,
had an opportunity to make nice with her district Thursday
at a pack public meeting with the very constituents forced
to live with the consequences of her policies, and she
was a no show. MacArthur Park parents were there, neighborhood
residents were there, local small business owners were there, but
(12:46):
she wasn't there. I need to introduce someone to you,
said a challenger named Maria Klatch. They call her Louke,
and she hoisted a life sized cardboard.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Cut out of Hernandez.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
This is our current council member who's Mia and the
room erupted in laughter. This district is too important for
a no show. She skipped three in person debates. Meanwhile,
encampments have swallowed our streets. Let me go back to
Aaron Meyer's report on Channel five. She's talking to the
BASS supporters and she says, well, I know you know
(13:26):
the mayor has inside safe, which is getting encampments off
the streets. Walk through the MacArthur Park neighborhood. Talk to
this woman who's running against un This is Hernandez her quote.
Encampments have swallowed our streets. Parents can't even take their
kids to the park. There's human waste on the swings.
(13:48):
The homeless are sitting on the children's swings and defecating
and leaving the waste behind. And then somebody's little girl
jumps on the swing splat. Klangi said she makes two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. The least she
(14:08):
can do is show up. It's her job. She's being
paid for it. This is sad and we need change.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
If you in.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Interviews with local business owners, longtime residents, community members, the
message was consistent. The chaos is not random. It's the
result of deliberate political choices who say the blame is
squarely in the lap of Hernandez. That's important. They deliberately
the Karen Bass and this is Hernandez model is to
(14:36):
deliberately choose all this disgusting, dangerous chaos. Alex Fionoeva, who's
running for sheriff again, she says, He says it's ideological.
The political establishment in Los Angeles is so knotted up
in the ideology. They refuse law enforcement. Where you have
an absence of law and order, everything follows, drug trafficking,
(14:59):
sex trafficking. It's embarrassing. The experiment has failed and the
people living there are the ones paying for it. Rick
Caruso says, there's this idea that there's a right to
have drugs. I don't agree with that. This is a
public park intended for families. He says, we've created a
(15:20):
drug haven. This has destroyed the small independent businesses in
the area. This is on purpose. They're anti they're anti
a normal, decent way of life. They don't believe in
(15:41):
people going to work, raising families, playing in the park.
It makes them crazy. So they have destroyed and destabilized
everything there's no police, defunded fire department, defunded drug paraphernalia
(16:02):
hand it out. And you know they'd hand out the
drugs too if they can get away with it. And
it just goes on and on this way, and Caruso
says the men and women in the fire station nearby
are exhausted. The exhaustion level and mental fatigue is extreme.
(16:26):
According to the Post, fire Station eleven, which covers MacArthur
Park has logged one three hundred and eighty five overdoses
this year, almost four a day last year is the
busiest firehouse in America. And all they do is treat
overdose drug addicts who would die if they didn't show up.
(16:48):
And some of them do. And they chose this. Karen
Dath chooses this, Unitus Hernandez chooses this. They get paid
hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring this life to
normal people who just want to take their sons and daughters,
(17:08):
little kids for a ride on the swing without sitting
in a pile of human poop and stepping in a
pile of needles.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I just flabbergasted by this. More coming up.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
You're listening to John Cobels on Demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
We're on every day from one till four o'clock. After
four o'clock John Cobelts Show on demand Moistline.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Have you had enough? You want to let it out?
One more time?
Speaker 1 (17:37):
This year we're doing a moistline this Friday eight seven seven,
Moist Steady six eight seven seven, Moist st eaighty six.
If you like numbers, it's eight seven seven sixty six
four seven.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Eight eight six.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Or use the talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app and
we'll do it twice three twenty and three point fifty
on Friday. Do you remember I told you often about
the Unemployment Department in California. Its official title is the
Employment Development Department.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
That that title makes no sense. It's the unemployment Department.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
It's who you contact when you're out of work and
you need unemployment benefits. And famously they blew over thirty
billion dollars during the pandemic, giving unemployment money to fraudsters
around the world. In fact, they were so bad at
(18:32):
their job they sent unemployment unemployment checks to everybody on
death row. For example, Scott Peterson got an unemployment check
from this department. Most of the money has never been recovered.
Most of it was stolen by fraudsters overseas because nobody.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
In the department check.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And if I remember correctly, the reason Scott Peterson got
his check was that Gavin Newsom has had decided that
the department could not cross check names and social Security
numbers with prisoners because that would be a violation of
the prisoner's privacy.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
I'm not making that up.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Apparently Scott Peterson had a right to privacy, so when
somebody used his name his identity to get unemployment money,
Newsom didn't want that confidentially confidentiality violated, and that's why
Peterson got unemployment money tax money. Well, there's another story
(19:49):
about the unemployment Department. I mean, this place is just
rife with idiots and thieves. The Unemployment Department bought more
cell phones than it needed for remote work. Again, this
was during COVID. Thousands more than they needed, and they
kept paying for thousands of unused lines. The Unemployment agency
(20:15):
paid cell phone bills for four and a half years
without checking whether it's workers were actually using the devices.
In fact, there was a photo colmatters dot org. You
can go there's a photo of all these mobile devices
stacked up in a storage room, thousands of them unused.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
See.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
During the pandemic, the call center employees were shifted to
do remote work. They were working from home, and they
were under pressure to release benefits to millions of suddenly
unemployed Californians. Except, as I said, it wasn't just unemployed Californians.
(21:00):
It was anybody who bothered to fill out the form online,
no matter where they were in the world.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Nobody was checked.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Nobody at all was ever checked, and they looted over
thirty billion dollars of tax money. Well, it turns out
that all these Unemployment Department workers were sitting home in
their bathrobes and fuzzy slippers. They needed cell phones. That
was their work phone, and the Unemployment Department acquired seven thousand,
(21:34):
two hundred and twenty four cell phones and wireless hotspots. Now,
after doing an audit, they found that half the devices
were unused for at least two years, a quarter of
them were unused for three years, and about one hundred
(21:58):
of them were never used at all. But still every
month Unemployment Department is using your tax money to pay
the phone company a fee. Seven two hundred and twenty
four cell phones mostly unused. They got a tip, and
(22:19):
they said that the department wasted at least four and
a half million dollars when they got the cell phones.
When they originally purchased the cell phones, they purchased two
thousand more cell phones than call center employees.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Why was somebody getting a kickback.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
With some of the money getting returned to a unemployment
department employee?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Was the deal over the phone?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
It's like, yeah, you know, if you buy an extra
two thousand, I'll cut you in fifty to fifty. Maybe
that was it. Why would you do that? Would you
do that if you had the job? Woun't you count
the number of employees and whatever that number is, that's
the number of phones you buy. Maybe a few extra
(23:06):
to account for lost or stolen phones, right, but it
would be pretty close.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
No, they got two thousand extras.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Then the pandemic ended, the staff returned back to the office.
There was no need for the cell phones. So more
and more of these cell phones went unused. Like I said,
half of them unused for at least two years, a
quarter from unused for three years. But we all kept
(23:35):
paying the fee for each phone. They never canceled the contracts.
They never canceled the service. As of April, the audit
said the department had about seventeen hundred coll Seter employees
but was paying service fees for over five thousand phones.
(24:00):
Seventeen hundred employees, five thousand phones every month. We're paying.
The audit says, although obtaining the mobile devices during COVID
nineteen may have been a good idea to serve the public,
continuing to pay the monthly service fee for so many
(24:21):
unused devices post COVID was wasteful.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Thanks for that.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
We did a thorough review and study of the situation,
and we discovered that all these phones that were unused
for years and years, thousands of phones, paying that monthly
free was wasteful.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
But they did it.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Somebody paid that bill every month. There was no oversight
over that either. Department officials told auditors they were unaware
of the spending the way they were unaware of all
the criminals stealing the thirty billion dollars. But the auditor said, well,
(25:05):
you got an invoice from Verizon every month, every month
which showed the phones were not being used. The audit said,
we would have expected Unemployment Department management to have reconsidered
the need to pay the monthly service fees for so
many devices that had no voice, no message, or no
(25:25):
data usage.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, so many.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
That'd be five thousand of them. It's incredible, how stupid
and how wasteful they are. When we come back, we
have another councilman who is being accused of violating of
(25:54):
taking gifts.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
That he shouldn't have taken.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Another one who repeatedly violated the city's gift laws, and
he's under investigation by the City Ethics Commission.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
What is that about half.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
The city council by now has gotten into legal trouble
or ended up in jail or is on their way
to jail.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
We'll talk about this when we come back. You'll find
out who it is.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
sixty Conway.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Coming up in minutes, and then after four o'clock we'll
release John.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Cobelt Show on demand.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
That's the podcast and you can hear whatever you missed today.
We spent a lot of time on the Rob Reiner
murder case. In the first hour before I talk about
the latest city councilman to be accused of violating gift
laws here in Los Angeles. I wanted to remember. I
(26:59):
want to remember to play this. Chuck Schumer, the Senate
Minority leader. He is Jewish. In fact, he's the highest
ranking Jewish government official ever. And he came out to
speak about the terror attack on those Jews on Hanukkah
(27:21):
in Sydney. If you remember there was there was a
massive terrorist attack and many were killed and injured. Well,
Chuck Schumer came out to speak against it. Here's how
he opened.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
And of course I'm going to say a few words
about the terrible shooting in Sydney, Australia.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Okay. So and first of course, as I always.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Say, no matter what, go bills, they beat the patriots today,
it's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
That it's that's not that's not doctored. That that's real.
How many people were killed in that fifteen killed and
then there was like forty others that got shot right.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
And injured.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So fifteen people get slaughtered. He comes out to make
a statement, but first, go bills. They beat the patriots.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
That it was a comeback when the bills were down
twenty one to nothing.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
So he was very excited. Yeah, quite the timing of him.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Had no dementia there all right, here we go, LA
City councilman. His name is John Lee, represents the northern
San Fernando Valley. He used to be the chief of
staff for Mitch Englander, who we had on the show
a number of times. And Mitch Englander got caught up
(28:50):
with some developer who took him to Las Vegas and
it was party time. It was it was gambling, chips, booze, food, hookers,
he got the whole menu. Well, John Lee was on
that trip as well, and he accepted some of the
goodies and other prizes from the developer. This is twenty
(29:16):
sixteen and twenty seventeen. An administrative law judge for the
City Ethics Commission said that Lee committed two counts of
violating a law governing the size of gifts a city
official can receive three counts of violating another law that
the gifts be publicly disclosed, and recommended a forty three
(29:39):
thousand dollars fine. Now, Englander was accused of accepting fifteen
thousand dollars in cash from a businessman lining the FBI
agents obstructing the investigation, and he pleaded guilty and got
fourteen months in prison. Now they're going after John Lee,
(30:02):
and it was food, alcohol, hotel rooms. Lee is claiming
he tried to reimburse and in some cases never ate
the meals he got, not only the food and the booze,
and the hotels and the free rides. It was one
(30:23):
thousand dollars in gambling chips, and it was provided by
three men who wanted business with city Hall. A lobbyist
named Michael Bay, an architect and developer named Chris Pack.
And then and then this guy named named Wang. The
(30:46):
hell's his first name.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Here he.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Sold Italian cabinets and smart home technology and facial recognition software.
Andy Wang's his name, And he was the one giving
England or the cash and the goodies. Lee said he
didn't remember eating during his meetings. Two of them were
(31:12):
in downtown LA at the Water Grill and a Mexican
restaurant with a complicated name. The judge said the denials
were not credible. Says his testimony was evasive and self contradictory,
and also in conflict with the information he gave to
the FBI. UH it's strange credulity to believe that Lee
(31:36):
would join Englander, Buy and Wang for lunch and dinner
without eating any food during the meals.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
He actually said that that's like Bill Clinton's old line
about I didn't inhale.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, I sat with the other guys and the developer
and the and the other businessman, but I didn't eat
the food. I just sat there. Everybody else say I
didn't eat.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
I didn't need anything, didn't even nibble on a breadstick.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Nothing. All right, I've got to go. I'm really really
going insane today. We've got Conway coming up in minutes.
Michael Krozer with the News now live in the KFI
twenty four hour Newsroom. Hey, you've been listening to the
John Covelt Show podcast. You can always hear the show
(32:24):
live on KFI AM six forty from one to four
pm every Monday through Friday, and of course, anytime on
demand on the iHeartRadio app.
The John Kobylt Show News
Host
John Kobylt
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