071724 John OConnor

Episode Transcript

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Talking to the show Everybody. Finalhour of today's broadcast Tonight's Big Speech by

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JD. Vance. I will watchand look forward to seeing what mister Vance
has to say. Not that familiarwith him, but I look forward to
hearing him speak, and hopefully hedoes a good job. I'm not that
familiar with him, but not alot of track record. And the guy
just got to send it a coupleof years ago. He's an author,
and obviously he made a film.Well, Ron Howard produced the film based

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off his movie that you can findon Netflix. But anyway, Tonight's shady
Vance Tomorrow Donald J. Trump asthe Republican Convention is now halfway done in
Milwaukee. I am not in Milwaukee. I'm behind the broadcast microphone in my
own studio the Lakey Entertainment Towers andCigar Palace, and I'm pleasured to be
here with you today. All right, what a lot of things to get

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to in the news. I stillwant to dive into and read some emails.
Some people are a little further onmy I guess the Facebook page.
One of the trolls is back makingcomments about a dead boy, a dead
cat. I've got advice to banthe person. It's just it's just the
hatred, the vitriol. I'll lookat it. I'll look into it.
I'm getting messages from some moderators saying, yeah, I just got to ban

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this person, referring to the speechmade by last night about a little boy
that died of fentanyl poisoning, andrather than being able to just be wow,
that's sad, it's a horrible storythis person's making, making all sorts
of nasty comments on the page it'sbeing reported. It's kind of like Donald
Trump gets shot and rather than justsay wow, that's not good to look

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for our country, some people puttingout some very nasty things out there.
So yeah, it's a deranged mindsetis out there when you can't separate your
politics from just a moment of beinghuman. But well, let it stand
to that. I'll check it out. Delilah, thank you very much.
All right. John O'Connor is myguest next, and he's joined me on
the hotline. He is a formerUS attorney and also legendary case you might

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have known as the Watergate situation.He was Deep Throat's attorney back in the
day. Mister John O'Connor, it'sbeen a while, John, how are
you, Yeah, so a whileJimmy good, I'm good, very good.
Well, I'm glad to hop outhere on the program. And a
lot of things you might want tocomment on. You feel free to kind
of venture as you want. Iactually scheduled you initially though, to talk

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about the ruling of Judge Cannon outof Florida that the special counsel that had
been appointed to look at this documentscase was not constitutional. Help us understand
this ruling and who can be aspecial counsel and who cannot be a special
counsel? Well, the Constitution providesthat for officers in the United States,

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they have to be confirmed with thevice and consent of the Senate. You
can't just have an attorney generally,you guy have to be confirmed. Likewise,
for Terry of the Interior, anyof the any of the offices where
you're really exercising the power of thepresident, you just can't put anyone in
there. They have to be decentpeople and the Senate has to eyeball them

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and confirm them. So what happenshere is, uh, they appoint Jack
Smith, Biden and Merrick Garland tryto make it look like they're independent in
this, so they're going to hirethis special counsel as independence. But he's
not a person who's been confirmed bythe United States Senate. He's by office

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really, I mean experience as aprosecutor. But at the time he had
nothing to do with government. Hewas not confirmed by anybody. So why
should he Now he's in charge ofindicting and prosecuting a former president. He
is exercising some tremendous power of thegovernment. And who is he? Who?

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You know what? What checks andbalances do we have on him?
We don't have any. It makesno sense really to allow that person to
exercise the power of the people.Really, I mean who elected Jack Smith?
Yeah. John O'Connor is my guest. John. Your phone's a little
wonky. I don't know if you'reon a cell phone or a tilt your
head the other direction maybe, Butwe're picking up most of what you're saying.

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Author of a new book called TheMysteries of Watergate What Really Happened,
and also a book we've talked aboutbefore the show, Postgate, How the
Washington Post betrayed deep throat, coveredup Watergate, and became today's partisan advocacy
journalism, also the host of apodcast called The Mysteries of Watergate. John
O'Connor is my guest, John,is there We've had other special counsels or

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independent councils. Is there any ashas ever worked before that they just hire
someone. I mean, every otherspecial council we've ever known has been confirmed
and in a position in the government, confirmed by the Senate. So this
is just new territory. They justkind of made this rule up, Jack
Smith, just to hire somebody offthe streets. Well, I don't think.

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Let me just give you one example. Now, when John Durham was
appointed as a Special Council to investigateall of this stuff with Russia Gate,
he was already a US attorney,so he had been confirmed, and then
they give him special Counsel's power,which is some level of independence, but
he still could act that way.Now, there was a time when there

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was a law called independent Council.An independent counsel was the creature of the
legislation of the of the Congress andwas overseen by judges, So that sort
of satisfies the requirement. There Thereis one exception when there was a special
Council that was not confirmed and thatwas in Watergate, and nobody really questioned

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it. However, in Watergate youhad you had Leon Jaworski and Archibald Cox
were the special council, and theywere not confirmed by the Senate, but
the Senate demanded of the Attorney General, Elliott Richardson, in order to get
him confirmed. They said, inorder for us to confirm you, Richardson,

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we demand you agree to appoint aspecial counsel. So even though they
really never confirmed that special counsel,it was taken for granted that the Senate
approved it. So nope raised theissue. It seemed like a hyper technical
issue at the time. Now whenthey challenge this Jack Smith thing, that
is a very very valid objection.And you've got to hand it to a

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former Attorney General, Edwin mess Andthere's another law professor I don't know his
name who started talking about this acouple of years ago when all this was
going on, Hey, where's theconfirmation of this guy. So and then
it turns out, of course JackSmith comes in in the indictments. He
puts out of the most sprawling,ridiculous things you've ever seen. There's a

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good reason to bring a guy likethis in because they're really absurd criminal cases.
How did meee was talking about thisa couple of years ago. I
heard some of the talk show hoststhat dived deeper into this talking about it
a couple of years ago. Whydid it take so long for the judge
to say, yeah, this isa point the appointment's clause. Was this
a slow move by the screw upby the Trump legal team? Is this

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something that the judge didn't catch?Why does it take a couple of years
in all the damage and all thedrama and all the stuff going on,
why does it take a couple ofyears to do this? Well, there
was already a challenge at one point, and I'm just trying to think.
I don't know what case it was. But in another district the Court of
Appeals that no, you're wrong,this doesn't require the consent. It's in

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another context. I don't think itwas in the context of a special council,
but it has been sort of Ithink people are afraid to go where
no one else has gone before.This issue has never come up in our
two hundred and fifty years in thein the country, at least in terms
of a special council, which waskind of something that's really kind of invented

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around the time of Watergate. Thisthing has come up when there have been
appointments to other positions where people said, no, you're you can't be in
charge of the FTC unless you getour approval. That sort of thing has
come up, and generally the courtshave sided with the people that are objecting
to the appointment. So but it'sjust it's one of these things, Jimmy,

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in which nobody's done it before,and then everybody's afraid. Gee.
We see the words on the pagehere in the Constitution, it seems to
apply, but gosh, gee whiz, it seems like we've always done it
the other way. So it reallyis sort of a weird, you know,
let's all get together and act aslemmings. It's sort of that herd

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mentality. Yeah, the was ofJohn O'Connor. I will talk about his
podcasts lead this book here in justa moment, John, If I'm not
mistaken, Judge Cannon also side ofthe appropriations meaning Congress did not appropriate money.
This is just a random guy hiredoff the street and you're spending money
on him. There's also it wasalso brought up in some level that you

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don't even have that budget for this. This is not even included. This
is just a random, made upprosecutor and you're spending money on And Judge
Cannon also reference that if I'm notmistaken, well, that's right. I've
always wondered about that. Who saysthat these guys can come up and spend
any amount they want, They canindict anybody they want. Just go at

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it, indict somebody. Spend whatevermoney you've got. It really doesn't pass
the smell test, and you know, you really can create a monster in
there. Yeah, it's kind oflike walking around and handed out plastic badges
and deputizing people to say, let'sgo get the bad guy. Barney fIF
out there. You get a badge, We're going to go out there.
The text of the clause that saysthat the President shall nominate, and by,

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with advice and advice and consident ofthe Senate, shall appoint ambassadors,
other ministers, consuls, judges ofthe Supreme Court, and all other officers
of the United States whose appointments arenot herein otherwise provided for, were established
by the law. The Congress maylaw may law the best appointment as inferior
officers as a thing proper in thepresident alone, in the courts of law

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and the heads of departments. Soit's very clear what the text of the
thing is. It's just never beentried before, unfortunately took a long time.
Do you think that the Jacksmith hasobviously appealed? Where do you think
this goes? Well? The realquestion is is whether or not Judge chuck
Did in the January sixth case isgoing to go along with this ruling.

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I think she's going to rule theother way because she wants to get comped
so badly. So you're going tofind both of these cases going up on
appeal, and I would suspect thatJudge Chuckin may get affirmed by the appellate
court over and her neck of thewoods, whereas I think Judge at Cannon

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is going to get affirmed by herappellate court. So this thing will eventually
wind its way to the Supreme Court. In my opinion. Wow, it
is fascinating that they may have hada case or could have a case against
Trump, but in their haste orwhatever, they've just made some legal blunders.
From the case down in Georgia,the prosecuting people there colluding and having

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sexual relations behind the scenes to everything. The lawfair was not really thought out
that well, it's just kind ofthey've brought a lot of unforced errors on
their part. It seems like,well, yeah, and here's what happened.
Biden really put a lot of pressurein Garland to have these prosecutions.
But no matter what anybody says,Garland didn't want to really end ice Biden

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pressures and then Garland to try tomake it look and I think the White
House wanted this too, to makeit look like this these ridiculous prosecutions weren't
really done by Garland slash Biden.They tried to give this appearance to the
public eye. Oh this is anindependent guy. We're bringing you boy,
he's an independent guy, just aprofessional and all this stuff. Well,

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they didn't think it out. Itwould have been much better if they would
have said, yeah, we're goingto indict Trump. If it's really a
good charge, you shouldn't be ashamedof doing it. It really was the
fact that they were ashamed of indictingTrump because these are really weak charges they're
going after for the most part.For the most part, now I'll say
this. There are were some threateningwhen the Trump's biggest threat came from the

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January from the mar Lago and diapen. I'm sorry those were eight of the
forty. Some charges were pretty darnscary. And Trump dodged that bullet.
And he did dodge a bullet,Jimmy, because they have really had really
good evidence on Trump on that one. Now, I don't blame him for
fighting the government on this classified documentstuff. You just can't lie to the

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government, and they caught him.But now he's out of that one,
so hey, I said, morepower to them. You know, Hillary,
when you have a major presidential candidate, it's not good sport to indict
that person. And Hillary Clinton couldhave been indicted when she was running for
president. I think they had hercold. I was in favor of her

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not being indicted, just because you'retaking away the candidate of a major political
party and it seems like it's notfair play. And I think there's a
lot to be said for the JohnO'Connor is my guest, John, real
quick, I'll let you give alittle plug of your latest book, The
Mysteries of Watergate, What Really Happened? Kind of give us the skinny on

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this book. Well, the realkey here is, like so many things,
the public just doesn't hear about them. It's what the media tells you
is true, but it's not what'sactually true. And one of the things
I've done in Mystery of Watergate isI did in Post Gig I tell people
what really happened in Watergate, oneof our most important historical events, and

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yet the essence of Watergate has neverbeen stated to the public. Most people
don't know it. And it's fascinatingand it's much more fun. The reality
is much more fun than you know, the the unreality of But it's a
way they the Post Washington Post gotrid of Nixon by hiding the truth.

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That's what's scary about Watergate journalism thing. And they've tried to do it to
Trump, and he's sought back.But the media has seen itself as a
power. And this is the mainstreammedia, the Washington Post, the New
York Times, and the major televisionstations figure they can control politics. It's
not you, the voter they're controlling. And it's very scary, Jimmy,

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you real Quickly about sixty seconds,people can pick up a copy of the
book anywhere good books are sold.The Mysteries of Watergate also your podcast.
But when you see even now theNew York Times is asking Joe Biden to
step beside, they're trying to controlthe Democratic party process. Here is that
kind of a little parallel that you'reseeing in modern day. They're trying to
get rid of Joe Biden. Well, sure, and what they've said is,

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look, we the New York Times, have covered up his age problems
for the last four years, andwe knew he was demented four years ago.
But we've lied to everybody. Butnow that everybody else is figuring out
we lied, we better correct ourerror. So now, sorry, Biden,
you got to go. Now we'velied to prop you up and get
all our people in positions, butnow you have to go because they found

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out, Well, you know something, Maybe you guys should just tell the
truth, how about that and letthe people decide. So they are really
victims of their own making. Allthese Democratic people who are running around stroking
their chins getting excited, they're thepeople that were lying to you for the
last four or five years. Bidenwas demented when he ran for president in

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twenty twenty and they knew it,and they didn't tell us, and they
hit him in the basement, andhe wasn't quite as bad back then,
but Brittain said it. If youwant to learn more about John O'Connor and
his writings and his podcast, allyou gotta do is go to postgatebook dot
com. Postgatebook dot com. Thepodcast is up there. You can find

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out his books, all the detailsthere postgatebook dot com. Hey John O'Connor,
it's a heartbreak. I gotta goappreciate you hopping on. Thank you.
Six hundred kcol stand by more Lakycoming up, six hundred KCl