4/4/25 Matt Taibbi on Government Censorship, Russiagate and Why he’s Suing a Congresswoman

4/4/25 Matt Taibbi on Government Censorship, Russiagate and Why he’s Suing a Congresswoman

Released Saturday, 5th April 2025
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4/4/25 Matt Taibbi on Government Censorship, Russiagate and Why he’s Suing a Congresswoman

4/4/25 Matt Taibbi on Government Censorship, Russiagate and Why he’s Suing a Congresswoman

4/4/25 Matt Taibbi on Government Censorship, Russiagate and Why he’s Suing a Congresswoman

4/4/25 Matt Taibbi on Government Censorship, Russiagate and Why he’s Suing a Congresswoman

Saturday, 5th April 2025
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0:09

All right, so welcome to the Scott

0:11

Horton Show. I'm the director of

0:13

the Libertarian Institute Editorial Director of

0:15

Anti-War.com and author of Provoked, how

0:17

Washington started the new Cold War

0:19

with Russia and the catastrophe of

0:21

Ukraine. Sign up for the podcast

0:23

feed at Scott Horton.org or Scott

0:25

Horton Show.com. I've got more than

0:27

6,000 interviews in the archive for

0:29

you there going back to 2003. And

0:31

follow me on all the video

0:33

sites and X at Scott Horton

0:35

Show. Alright you guys once again

0:37

I got on the line the

0:39

great Matthew Taibi from racket news

0:41

racket dot news and of course

0:43

he wrote a bunch of great

0:45

books including Hate Inc which I think

0:48

you'll really like and he does a

0:50

podcast with Walter Kern called America

0:52

this week and and he's suing a

0:54

Congress lady and I think it's

0:56

hilarious welcome back to the show

0:58

how you doing Matt? I'm doing great Scott

1:00

how are you doing? I'm doing good

1:03

really happy to have you here man

1:05

so... Why would you sue some lady

1:07

who's elected to the Congress by

1:10

somebody? Well, I mean, I

1:12

don't want to go on too

1:14

much about it because, you

1:16

know, it's litigation, but

1:18

I testified in a hearing

1:20

earlier this week about the

1:22

Global Engagement Center

1:24

and censorship and at

1:27

the very beginning of the

1:29

hearing, the ranking member of

1:32

this House subcommittee, who

1:34

was a... Los Angeles Democrat

1:36

named Sydney Comlayer

1:39

Dove. Wanted it entered

1:41

into the record that the

1:43

star witness was a

1:46

serial sexual harasser. And

1:48

at the time I was sort

1:50

of fiddling with something in

1:52

my bag while she was

1:54

talking and I heard that

1:56

out of the corner of, you

1:58

know, out of my... my ear and

2:01

I couldn't believe it you

2:03

know I've never been accused

2:06

by anybody of you know

2:08

even one act of sexual

2:10

harassment alone seriously so but

2:13

I also knew that the

2:15

members of Congress have an

2:18

immunity it's in the constitution

2:20

believe it or not I'm

2:22

sure you know this right

2:25

the speech and debate clause

2:27

sure so I didn't I

2:29

felt like it wasn't I'm

2:32

going to be productive to

2:34

say anything, but on the

2:37

way home, I saw that

2:39

she had retweeted the exchange

2:41

and then implied that because

2:44

I didn't answer, that was

2:46

tantamount to sort of endorsing

2:49

it. And so I filed

2:51

suit for libel because I

2:53

can. And you know, we'll

2:56

see how that goes. And

2:58

I read the lawsuit. I'm

3:00

sure your lawyer doesn't want

3:02

you to say too much

3:04

about it, as you sort

3:06

of implied there earlier. But

3:08

I read the lawsuit and

3:10

I already know the story

3:12

anyway, that it's a bunch

3:14

of crap. It's all something

3:16

that Mark Ames wrote that

3:18

was always make-believe. And you

3:20

know, your old writing partner

3:22

from backwind and Russia and

3:24

all this stuff, as everyone

3:26

knows. And not only that,

3:28

but this has been brought

3:30

up and... officially debunked and

3:33

retracted and rescinded and apologized

3:35

for by numerous publications over

3:37

the time I guess I

3:39

don't know what I guess

3:41

but they keep bringing it

3:43

up and so good luck

3:45

to you they got it's

3:47

completely crazy that they would

3:49

try that but it's surely

3:51

actionable as described in the

3:53

lawsuit which everyone can read

3:55

at racket dot news and

3:57

so good luck to you

3:59

man and uh I hope

4:01

you bankrupt her, although now

4:03

that she's a congressman, I'm

4:05

sure she's filthy, stinking rich,

4:07

so... I don't know if

4:09

10 million will even make

4:11

a dent in her earnings

4:13

or, you know, potential near-term

4:15

future earnings here, but we'll

4:17

see how it goes. Well,

4:19

I have to see, you

4:21

know, I mean, the one

4:23

thing I will say, Scott,

4:25

is that, um, what's so

4:27

surprising about this? And, you

4:29

know, I was treated in

4:31

a pretty roughly the first

4:33

time I testified before Congress

4:35

by Democrats. You know, they

4:37

called me a so-called journalist,

4:39

then I was threatened with

4:41

jail. You know, I had

4:43

the IRS come to my

4:45

house. And, you know, I

4:48

was a Democrat. I'm a

4:50

lifelong civil liberties advocate, free

4:52

speech advocate. If they had,

4:54

you know, asked me questions

4:56

about other issues, I might

4:58

have even agreed with them

5:00

about a few things. But

5:02

instead, you know, they... They

5:04

continually treat people like me

5:06

or Glenn Greenwald or you,

5:08

as enemies. I don't know

5:10

why that's necessary, do you?

5:12

Well, it proves their purity

5:14

to people inside their cult,

5:16

but they find themselves in

5:18

a shrinking cult. That's the

5:20

way that goes. And by

5:22

the way, I want to

5:24

stipulate here in parentheses because

5:26

I was probably unclear the

5:28

way I stated that. So

5:30

just to be clear Mark

5:32

Ames did not accuse you

5:34

of anything. He wrote a

5:36

funny story that was a

5:38

fictional satire thing that had

5:40

you saying something funny in

5:42

it the fictional you and

5:44

that was it so I'm

5:46

it may someone might have

5:48

mis inferred there that I

5:50

was saying that that Ames

5:52

had said that you had

5:54

done anything at all when

5:56

the whole thing was a

5:58

joke in the first place

6:00

is the real point but

6:02

yeah right exactly yeah he

6:05

was he was recounting a

6:07

fiction a scene from the

6:09

office that was let's just

6:11

say massively exaggerated there it

6:13

was there was never any

6:15

workplace harassment there were there

6:17

were conversations about You know

6:19

whether or not we were

6:21

always professional in the office

6:23

in terms of like some

6:25

of the jokes that we

6:27

told even to each other

6:29

but that wasn't it was

6:31

never anything like Harrisman and

6:33

you know in my personal

6:35

life I'm an extremely reserved

6:37

quiet person and you know

6:39

to be a gentleman towards

6:41

women so that it's been

6:43

it's been tough that whole

6:45

thing. Yeah, well, good. Stick

6:47

it to her, man. She

6:49

deserves it. And, you know,

6:51

legally, I'm not saying, say

6:53

mean words to her, I'm

6:55

just saying let your lawyer

6:57

handle it. Exactly. So, good

6:59

for you. And anyway, what

7:01

were you doing on Capitol

7:03

Hill again, Mr. Tai, you

7:05

be there? So this was

7:07

a hearing about the Global

7:09

Engagement Center. This is the

7:11

House Foreign Affairs Committee, and

7:13

they were essentially meeting to

7:15

decide what to do about

7:17

this wing of the State

7:20

Department. that does counter messaging

7:22

and content moderation issues. They

7:24

were a big character in

7:26

the Twitter files. The Washington

7:28

Examiner also did a bunch

7:30

of stories about them funding

7:32

foreign agencies that do media

7:34

scoring, right? So essentially, it's

7:36

the United States government. kind

7:38

of deciding who gets to

7:40

have advertising revenue and who

7:42

doesn't and so we were

7:44

testifying about that because they

7:46

were supposed to go to

7:48

be defunded but they didn't

7:50

they just scattered the employees

7:52

throughout the building and renamed

7:54

it and but that's how

7:56

it goes. Cool and then

7:58

but you have a couple

8:00

of good congressmen on your

8:02

side trying to do something

8:04

about this and I guess

8:06

in the majority party huh

8:08

or not? Yes, and this

8:10

has been a thing that's

8:12

been going on for years

8:14

now across multiple committees. Yeah,

8:16

this Global Engagement Center with...

8:18

signed into law by Obama

8:20

at the end of his

8:22

presidency. It was meant to

8:24

do counter messaging against ISIS

8:26

and al-Qaeda and ended up

8:28

being directed almost entirely at

8:30

Americans in English, you know,

8:32

tweeting and English. So, you

8:34

know, that's kind of the

8:37

point of the exercises. We

8:39

can't have the State Department

8:41

doing counter messaging against Americans

8:43

in America. Like, that doesn't

8:45

make a whole lot of

8:47

sense, I don't think. Yeah,

8:49

well and importantly always to

8:51

enforce lies things that weren't

8:53

true at all all of

8:55

their ridiculous narratives about COVID

8:57

and Ukraine and I'm sorry

8:59

I'm skipping one after the

9:01

terrorists what was first oh

9:03

Russia gate of course and

9:05

then COVID and then Ukraine

9:07

and then what were the

9:09

other major themes where it

9:11

was all about kicking off

9:13

people for telling the truth

9:15

and bolstering voices that were

9:17

steering everybody wrong Brexit was

9:19

one. You know, they were,

9:21

they were a big partner

9:23

in what they called the

9:25

election integrity partnership with Stanford

9:27

University. So there was a

9:29

lot of, a lot of

9:31

content about, you know, Trump

9:33

in the 2020 election with

9:35

Biden. You know, I, I

9:37

don't know exactly what their

9:39

role was in the Hunter

9:41

Biden story, but I would

9:43

imagine that that. that came

9:45

into play there too. So,

9:47

but they were a big,

9:49

they were a big player

9:52

in the Twitter files. They

9:54

were one of the main

9:56

groups that was, you know,

9:58

leeasing with the company along

10:00

with the FBI. So Matt,

10:02

where does that leave us

10:04

really with all this censorship

10:06

regime? I mean, is it,

10:08

you know, kind of mummified,

10:10

but still waiting there? Or

10:12

is it still active against

10:14

us? Or is anybody doing

10:16

anything about it enough that

10:18

it's... you know really set

10:20

back or even canceled somehow?

10:22

I think it's... still there

10:24

and probably since the last

10:26

time that we talked the

10:28

situation abroad has gotten a

10:30

lot worse so you know

10:32

there's there's this huge global

10:34

European law called the Digital

10:36

Services Act which when I

10:38

started working in the Twitter

10:40

files was kind of in

10:42

a tadpole stage. But the

10:44

whole idea that was to

10:46

create a pan-European censorship law

10:48

That would apply to every

10:50

member state in the EU

10:52

and That you know it

10:54

also applies to every internet

10:56

platform that does business in

10:58

the EU so companies like

11:00

Facebook meta Twitter You know

11:02

Instagram all of them have

11:04

to spend enormous some staying

11:07

in compliance with the DSA

11:09

just for starters and that's

11:11

one of dozens of laws

11:13

like that. Now the United

11:15

States has some of these

11:17

things still in the pipeline

11:19

and some of them are

11:21

still there but not necessarily

11:23

active but that doesn't mean

11:25

they can't be started up

11:27

in a moment's notice and

11:29

you know if the Trump

11:31

administration decides it wants to

11:33

go that way it can.

11:35

Okay and now that Nina

11:37

Jankowitz from the Ministry of

11:39

Truth showed up at this

11:41

same hearing as you? Did

11:43

I read that right? Yeah,

11:45

she was the other witness.

11:47

This is the former would-be

11:49

head of the Disinformation Governance

11:51

Board. And what she had

11:53

to say? And how funny

11:55

was it? Well, you know,

11:57

she talked about how the

11:59

Twitter files were fiction and

12:01

conspiracy theory and the disinformation

12:03

governance board. uh... that was

12:05

about protecting civil liberties and

12:07

protecting freedom of speech and

12:09

not not about uh... you

12:11

know censoring anybody at all

12:13

and look she's she's people

12:15

make fun of her I

12:17

mean that sounds like disinformation

12:19

I would say so call

12:21

me honest but like isn't

12:24

that a lie what she

12:26

just said then yes the

12:28

whole idea that there needs

12:30

to be something called disinformation

12:32

governance is I don't know,

12:34

Scott, would you say that

12:36

that's an anathema to the

12:38

First Amendment, I think? The

12:40

whole idea of the Constitution

12:42

is that the government doesn't

12:44

have a role in preventing

12:46

misinformation. And of course, the

12:48

beginning of political wisdom is

12:50

that everything that the government

12:52

says is a lie. They

12:54

are the worst liars out

12:56

of everybody always. George Carlin

12:58

says so. Everybody knows that.

13:00

Right. And that's why the

13:02

First Amendment is so valuable.

13:04

because the most damaging lies

13:06

are always official, right? You

13:08

go back to a million

13:10

years ago to remember the

13:12

main, to, you know, the

13:14

missile gap, the Gulf of

13:16

Tonkin story, WMDs, Russia Gate,

13:18

COVID, right? And COVID was

13:20

a great example because what

13:22

happened there was kind of

13:24

the... dystopian future example of

13:26

what happens when you don't

13:28

have a vigorous First Amendment,

13:30

when the government has a

13:32

monopoly on information and can

13:34

impose an incorrect version of

13:36

reality, and also can suppress

13:39

people who are saying things

13:41

that are true, you know,

13:43

it's a recipe for disaster,

13:45

right? And, you know, we

13:47

had a situation where people

13:49

like Jay Bata Charia were...

13:51

trying to tell us no

13:53

the disease is way more

13:55

infectious than we think. Lockdowns

13:57

aren't going to work. The

13:59

risk factor for people under

14:01

a certain age is almost

14:03

nothing. healthy. You know, we're

14:05

pursuing all these terrible policies,

14:07

but you couldn't hear that

14:09

because there was a basic,

14:11

basically a monopoly on information

14:13

control. And that's what the

14:15

person is supposed to design

14:17

to avoid. Yeah. Now, so

14:19

great transition into a anonymous

14:21

writer that I know that

14:23

you admire, Unded FOIA. Sluth

14:25

News is the sub stack

14:27

there. Sluth dot news and

14:29

I subscribe to him as

14:31

well and he has one

14:33

here from yesterday exclusive Clinton

14:35

plans long in the making

14:37

and so this is a

14:39

new development in the Rushgate

14:41

story and by the way

14:43

so then I had read

14:45

I guess it's just in

14:47

the margin of this one

14:49

is one called New,

14:52

shocking from Taibi. And it

14:54

was one of the Twitter

14:56

Gate files that you had

14:58

posted about Russia Gate and

15:00

a recommendation from someone named

15:02

Lindsay. And we want to

15:04

kick these 14 accounts off

15:06

of Twitter because they are

15:08

Russian controlled accounts. And Unded

15:10

FOIA here, the reason he's

15:12

saying shocking is because he's

15:14

saying, wait. Three of these

15:16

guys are friends of mine

15:18

and I know them and

15:20

they're Americans and they're patriots

15:22

and then they're just like

15:24

independent investigator Twitter sleuth type

15:26

dudes One of them was

15:28

a Poya mentor of his

15:30

And he's saying what how

15:32

dare they do this accuse

15:34

these Americans of being Russian

15:36

controlled? Where's the accountability for

15:38

that? Well, right and and

15:40

this is right and if

15:42

I remember correctly that person

15:44

that that Lindsay person was

15:46

actually a global engagement center

15:48

employee who I I I

15:50

think identified himself as a

15:52

Republican at GEC. But either

15:54

way, it's a government employee

15:56

reaching out to Twitter asking

15:58

them just willy-nilly to take

16:00

down some accounts, which, you

16:02

know, it doesn't get more

16:04

direct than that. I mean,

16:06

that's clearly censorship or that's

16:08

clearly an attempt at censorship.

16:10

And this is the point

16:13

I was trying to make

16:15

at the hearing, is that,

16:17

you know, or... Agencies like

16:19

GEC, their method is to

16:21

try to justify removing somebody

16:23

by claiming that they have

16:25

some kind of tie to

16:27

a foreign hostile power when

16:29

they don't, right? In some

16:31

cases, they even don't even

16:33

assert that there's a relationship.

16:35

They just say that their

16:37

point of view aligns, and

16:39

that's bad enough. So I

16:41

don't know. I think that's

16:43

nefarious, don't you? To me,

16:45

that's like McCarthyism, but digitalized.

16:47

Oh yeah, it's totally evil.

16:49

And of course, again, in

16:51

service of suppressing people who

16:53

are getting to the truth

16:55

about how Russia Gate was

16:57

a lie. And so it

16:59

was in order to enforce

17:01

this disinformation on the most

17:03

important thing, again, where the

17:05

president of the United States

17:07

of America... had been framed

17:09

for treason with the Kremlin.

17:11

I mean, you couldn't make

17:13

that up. It's the most

17:15

unbelievable thing. And so here's

17:17

where I got questions for

17:19

you, because you're the most

17:21

important journalists that I cite

17:23

in my Russia Gate section

17:25

of my book, and I

17:27

cite a lot of great

17:29

journalists, and I omitted a

17:31

lot, because I only got

17:33

so much time in the

17:35

world, and I already had

17:37

75 pages on the dang

17:39

thing. I'm- By the way,

17:41

great book, by the way.

17:43

And I think you're the

17:45

most- Well, that's a quoteable

17:47

quote right there. Thank you

17:49

very much. I desperately seek

17:51

your approval on this issue,

17:53

so I hope you enjoyed

17:55

all your cameos in there.

17:57

And especially on Russia Gate,

17:59

because... What you report on

18:01

Rushgate is just crucial, I

18:03

don't think anyone else had

18:06

this, where you have, I think, sources

18:08

and documents saying that

18:10

we know what we long

18:13

suspected and there were other

18:15

indications already, but I think

18:17

you really nailed down. You

18:19

know, and therefore we know, that

18:21

John Brennan kicked this thing off

18:23

at the end of 2015, and

18:25

that was the origin clearly

18:27

of the... the frame up

18:29

of Papadopoulos and some of

18:31

this other stuff where, but

18:33

then I think that means,

18:35

I don't know exactly what that

18:37

means for who hacked the DNC,

18:40

if, you know, or what, but

18:42

it means that even this story

18:45

here about what we're learning

18:47

about the role of the

18:49

Democrats in the Clinton campaign

18:51

in getting started earlier

18:54

than we knew for sure before

18:56

before. a new email about from

18:58

March of 2016. That would still

19:00

mean that this really was begun

19:03

by the CIA and or FBI.

19:05

I'm not exactly sure when the

19:07

FBI first is involved with the

19:10

counter intelligence division or

19:12

whoever involved, but then the

19:14

Clinton campaign, they must know

19:16

about this. I don't know if

19:18

we know how they know about

19:21

this, but they've decided that they're

19:23

going to make hay. on the

19:25

same narrative, we're framing Trump for

19:27

some kind of relationship with the

19:29

Russians. So then when the DNC

19:31

League comes out and whatever, it

19:33

just falls right into place for

19:35

what they're already saying, is that

19:37

this is all a Russian plot

19:40

to help Trump, because that was

19:42

how they were going to try to

19:44

cheat, to rig the election against

19:46

him, right? Yeah, look, the timeline

19:48

for this is all, as you've

19:50

pointed out, and you point on

19:53

your book, it's all messed up,

19:55

messed up. So the official explanation

19:57

for the official investigation which is

19:59

the FBI's crossfire hurricane investigation of

20:02

Trump and Russia. And that was

20:04

started on July 31st of 2016.

20:06

And the official predicate for that

20:08

was this weird conversation between an

20:10

Australian diplomat who just walked into

20:12

the. American Embassy in London and

20:14

told a story about a conversation

20:16

he had with Papadopoulos, but that

20:19

was way way way after all

20:21

this other stuff had already taken

20:23

place with Russia Gate. You mentioned

20:25

that letter in March. There was

20:27

also an informant who was at

20:29

Oxford in Cambridge and who was

20:31

asked to essentially spy on Michael

20:33

Flynn. way before any of that

20:36

stuff. If you look at actually

20:38

there's a story, there's a profile

20:40

of Christopher Steele that was written

20:42

by the New Yorker. I believe

20:44

it was Jane Mayer, was the

20:46

author. She talks about how Brennan

20:48

and the CIA heard from the

20:51

Brits. and their counterpart GQ, which

20:53

is more like the British NSA,

20:55

but they said they had a

20:57

stream of illicit communications with Russia

20:59

dating back to somewhere in the

21:01

middle of 2015. Now we were

21:03

never told what that was. Brennan

21:05

later testified that he had alerted

21:08

the FBI to some of this

21:10

stuff, but we never found out

21:12

what that was either, or how

21:14

that related to the... to the

21:16

FBI investigation. So kind of the

21:18

origin story of how this all

21:20

got started, it's never been clear.

21:22

And to me, that was always

21:25

the most important thing about Russia

21:27

Gate is, what do you have

21:29

on him? How did you start

21:31

investigating him? Forget about what the

21:33

investor... the issue is, like if

21:35

you've got something, I'm all for

21:37

it, but what is it? Right?

21:39

Hmm. Hang on just one second

21:42

for me here. You guys, I'm

21:44

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21:46

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21:48

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21:50

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21:54

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21:59

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22:01

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22:03

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22:05

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22:07

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22:09

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22:11

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22:16

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22:18

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22:20

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22:22

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22:24

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22:26

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22:31

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22:33

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22:35

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22:37

even though they did not get

22:39

their pipeline, as Vogler demonstrates, the

22:41

Neocons and their Lakudnik bosses figured

22:43

out an effective plan B anyway.

22:45

You are going to love Israel,

22:48

winner of the 2003 Iraq oil

22:50

war by Gary Vogler. available everywhere.

22:52

Check it out along with our

22:54

other great books at Libertarian Institute.org/books.

22:56

Hey y'all, let me tell you

22:58

about Robertson Roberts, brokerage, Inc. Nobody

23:00

trusts the US dollar anymore. Foreign

23:02

governments are stocking up on gold

23:05

instead of $100 bills. One, they

23:07

know they need to, and two,

23:09

that means you need to too.

23:11

Interest rates are up, but for

23:13

some reason not much for savings

23:15

accounts. Park your money there and

23:17

watch Uncle Joe Biden just counterfeit

23:19

its value away. You can see

23:22

how the Fed is afraid to

23:24

raise rates to beat inflation for

23:26

fear of popping the current bubbles,

23:28

at least before the election. So

23:30

more inflation it will continue to

23:32

be. Gold is your shield against

23:34

monetary and price inflation, just like

23:36

it always has been. Now Tim

23:39

Fry and the guys over at

23:41

Roberts and Roberts are recommending gold

23:43

over silver since the world's almost

23:45

200 governments are putting their own

23:47

pressure on the price, which should

23:49

help everyone else who makes similar

23:51

calls on their own. Of course,

23:54

Roberts and Roberts can help you

23:56

with Platinum, Palladium and Silver as

23:58

well as gold. Don't let the

24:00

Fed in the war party inflate

24:02

all your savings away. Look up

24:04

Roberts and Roberts at r rb

24:06

i dot co. Yeah, I mean,

24:08

I have to wonder if that's

24:11

just made up after the fact

24:13

or what? Maybe it's wrong for

24:15

me to presume that when Brennan

24:17

sent, I think the way you

24:19

reported it, what they called it

24:21

was, he sent these informants out

24:23

to bump into Trump campaign people.

24:25

and see for me I'm just

24:28

like yes see just to set

24:30

them all up but maybe okay

24:32

I don't want to presume too

24:34

much maybe he's investigating them just

24:36

to make sure because he heard

24:38

something but we still don't have

24:40

whatever that original predicate was as

24:42

you say there if it exists

24:45

at all seems obviously no predicate

24:47

then that then that tells you

24:49

everything yeah yeah and Look, I

24:51

mean, like if you read the

24:53

Durham report, the whole thing is

24:55

about the FBI pretending not to

24:57

know that what they're investigating isn't

24:59

true, so they can keep pretending

25:02

to investigate it longer, you know,

25:04

and it's all very deliberate. So

25:06

it's pretty hard to not just

25:08

extrapolate that backwards, you know what

25:10

I mean, that's the origin of

25:12

the whole thing too. And of

25:14

course, because it's all based on...

25:16

All falsehoods, the rest of the

25:19

way down, say they had some

25:21

intelligence in the middle of 2015

25:23

that we've never seen. The rest

25:25

of it was all a bunch

25:27

of crap. So what does that

25:29

tell you? You know? Right. It

25:31

didn't lead anywhere. So... uh... you

25:34

know and and even the popadopoulos

25:36

story uh... you know sorry i'm

25:38

sorry to go on about this

25:40

but you know that didn't go

25:42

anywhere very very quickly didn't go

25:44

anywhere so that that's why they

25:46

had to readjust as early as

25:48

august of twenty sixteen like less

25:51

than a month after they started

25:53

the investigation they had to switch

25:55

to a new target uh... carter

25:57

page right uh... because the the

25:59

first one was a dead end

26:01

So that tells you a lot

26:03

too. Yeah, and especially when the

26:05

new predicate, they had a memo

26:08

from the CIA saying, this is

26:10

our guy, he's a loyal American

26:12

patriot who tells us everything whenever

26:14

he meets any influential Russians in

26:16

government or business. And so don't

26:18

worry about him. And they redacted

26:20

it in one of their own

26:22

guys. This is the only guy

26:25

who got in trouble in any

26:27

way, slap on the wrist, of

26:29

course, but was actually convicted for

26:31

deleting that out. of the filing

26:33

to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

26:35

So what does that tell you,

26:37

you know, about this whole thing

26:39

being a frame up? And by

26:42

the way, you can check the

26:44

date. It was April Glassby Day,

26:46

July 25th, 2016, which is actually

26:48

kind of late in the game.

26:50

This is the controversy on Twitter

26:52

had been going on for a

26:54

couple of weeks by that time,

26:57

I think. But I interviewed this

26:59

computer security expert Jeffrey Carr, who

27:01

said just assuredly goes listen. Nobody

27:03

can look at a server and

27:05

tell you who broke into it.

27:07

It's just too easy to leave

27:09

false fingerprints behind and no way

27:11

to, you know, you really know

27:14

what you're doing. There's just no

27:16

way to prove whether they've been

27:18

faked or not. And so no

27:20

one can tell you with real

27:22

certainty. Except for one organization, and

27:24

that would be the NSA, and

27:26

they could tell you with total

27:28

certainty, because they can rewind the

27:31

whole internet, they can watch every

27:33

packet in the world go wherever

27:35

they want, they are, you know,

27:37

the computer God. So... They can

27:39

tell you 100% whether it was

27:41

the Russians who did it or

27:43

not. And they're not saying that.

27:45

They're the ones giving medium confidence,

27:48

meaning whatever you guys say, we're

27:50

going along with it and not

27:52

causing a fight here when the

27:54

FBI and CIA are taking the

27:56

lead on this stuff. But it

27:58

was not their claim that, and

28:00

in the Mueller report, he doesn't

28:02

even pretend to demonstrate a chain

28:05

of custody to wiki leaks. So,

28:07

there's your beyond a reasonable doubt

28:09

or your... your failure to convict

28:11

standard right there big time no

28:13

that medium confidence thing buddy NSA

28:15

should have been a major tell

28:17

for anybody who was paying attention

28:20

to the whole thing but oh

28:22

and i meant to emphasize about

28:24

that july twenty-fifth that was before

28:26

they launched crossfire hurricane right i

28:28

had to bunk that on my

28:30

show before they had even launched

28:32

the official FBI investigation anything incredible

28:34

Well, one, all credit to Jeffrey

28:37

Carr, two ours, he's the guy.

28:39

Mm-hmm. I mean, and look, this

28:41

is, you know, it's kind of

28:43

an esoteric subject for people who

28:45

don't particularly care about Russia Gate,

28:47

but it actually goes along with

28:49

the kind of larger problem of

28:51

junk science used to convict people

28:54

that, you know, that we only...

28:56

recently learned was kind of an

28:58

epidemic problem in the criminal justice

29:00

system. You know, things like, you

29:02

know, bullet casing analysis. I mean,

29:04

not even casing analysis, but like,

29:06

which package it came from, you

29:08

know, thousands of people were convicted

29:11

on stuff like that. And then

29:13

it turns out it's not true.

29:15

This is exactly the same kind

29:17

of thing. It's not a fingerprint

29:19

determining who hacked the DNC. uh...

29:21

server it's it's a subjective determination

29:23

and you know not even a

29:25

particularly good one from what I

29:28

understand. So, yeah. And by the

29:30

way, Radley Balco is the one

29:32

who's really done the best on

29:34

that, the bite marks and the

29:36

hair matching and all that stuff.

29:38

Even though he's at the Washington

29:40

Post, he's a pretty libertarian guy

29:42

decent. He's been really good at

29:45

him. Look, he knows his cop

29:47

stuff very well. Yeah, for sure.

29:49

Okay, so, let's see the Rushgate

29:51

thing. I think we beat that

29:53

horses' death for... for what I

29:55

have on my mind about it

29:57

anyway. I guess, well, I wanted

30:00

to say, or give you the

30:02

opportunity, I guess, to remark on

30:04

this. I'm sure you've seen this.

30:06

That this is the new thing

30:08

that I referred to that's come

30:10

out, I'm not, I'm sorry, I

30:12

knew it yesterday, but I'm not

30:14

exactly clear anymore. Where this comes

30:17

from, but this is an email

30:19

from Palmieri who worked for... uh...

30:21

hillary clinton and and they call

30:23

it the trump swift boat project

30:25

so what can you tell us

30:27

about that this i didn't i

30:29

didn't know about it oh no

30:31

okay i'm sorry so this is

30:34

it has to do with the

30:36

clinton plan intelligence is what john

30:38

duram the investigator of the investigation

30:40

called it's jennifer pomeri i mean

30:42

to say uh... but so is

30:44

the clinton plan intelligence is where

30:46

john brine briefed Obama And we

30:48

have his notes from when he

30:51

briefed Obama, and I think Biden,

30:53

that the Russians have intelligence, or

30:55

we have intelligence, that the Russians

30:57

have intelligence, that Clinton is framing

30:59

up Trump for a plot with

31:01

Russia. And so he didn't know

31:03

nothing about that, which is, that

31:05

whole thing is a little odd.

31:08

I think I've heard people rationalize

31:10

it by saying, well, it was

31:12

too big of a thing for

31:14

him to keep from Obama, like

31:16

he had to tell him. But

31:18

I guess must have been with

31:20

a wink and a nudge that

31:23

like, you know, this is that

31:25

the Clinton's apparently the Clinton campaign

31:27

is gloming on to and in

31:29

and elaborating our plot to frame

31:31

this guy's Yeah, no, I mean

31:33

I remember that whole thing with

31:35

the intercepts and Brennan going to

31:37

Obama about it and his notes

31:40

about it and everything, yeah. And

31:42

so apparently that intelligence came from

31:44

the Dutch who had infiltrated the

31:46

Russian groups and that's what undead

31:48

FOIA is writing about here. Oh,

31:50

wow. So anyway, I'm sorry, I

31:52

should have reread this today. I

31:54

got Biden brain, man. No, I

31:57

get... We all get a little

31:59

bit of it. Yeah, too bad.

32:01

Okay, so you know what? I'm

32:03

going to let you go, but

32:05

first I want to ask you

32:07

about the racket news library, because

32:09

that seems important. Yeah, so, I

32:11

don't know when you first noticed

32:14

this, but years ago I started

32:16

to notice that newspapers were no

32:18

longer linking to... primary source materials.

32:20

They would mention a court case

32:22

or a hearing. Yeah, New York

32:24

Times always been real stingy about

32:26

that. Yeah, well, well, they weren't

32:28

always. That's the weird part, right?

32:31

They used to give you the

32:33

opportunity to go look at the

32:35

source document. Well, they may have

32:37

gotten worse, but I never thought

32:39

they were good at it. I

32:41

mean, you know, I started writing

32:43

for antiwar.com when I started writing

32:45

and the ethic there was, this

32:48

is the internet. dare you make

32:50

a claim and not link to

32:52

evidence of it? You don't have

32:54

the right to make a claim

32:56

without proving it. What are you

32:58

doing? How could you? What would

33:00

even be the point of making

33:03

a claim if you're not going

33:05

to demonstrate it? So I just

33:07

feel that way about every little

33:09

thing. That's why my book has

33:11

7,000 footnotes. Yeah, but the thing

33:13

is you wrote a book. Once

33:15

you buy a book, you have

33:17

it, right? The problem with the

33:20

internet now. is that, you know,

33:22

there's been this phenomena of link

33:24

rot, right? You go to Wikipedia,

33:26

you look for the sources and...

33:28

a lot of them are just

33:30

error messages now because you know

33:32

when you're linking to things it's

33:34

usually to a page the actual

33:37

thing is not uploaded you know

33:39

on the site even when you

33:41

go to the wayback machine which

33:43

is images of things Well, it's

33:45

copyrighted. So if somebody who has

33:47

a copyrighted thing goes to the

33:49

Waybeck machine and says, I want

33:51

you to take that down, they

33:54

have to do it. So there's

33:56

been this epidemic of sort of

33:58

disappearing history. And what we're doing

34:00

now is when a new story

34:02

comes out, we will do like

34:04

a timeline where you. we just

34:06

upload all the key videos or

34:08

documents or whatever they are and

34:11

we're not linking to them they're

34:13

actually there on the page they'll

34:15

be there forever and you can

34:17

take them if you want and

34:19

we're trying to inspire other people

34:21

to do the same thing because

34:23

my worry is that in the

34:26

future and I don't know if

34:28

you heard this but Amazon is

34:30

also switching to a model where

34:32

when you buy a book you're

34:34

not Buying it forever. You're just

34:36

buying temporary access to it. They

34:38

can retrieve it change it at

34:40

any time Yeah on your Kindle

34:43

Yeah, exactly. You know I swear

34:45

to God this is true man

34:47

in like 1983 when I was

34:49

in third grade I remember getting

34:51

an argument with a teacher because

34:53

we read a story in class

34:55

where it was the future and

34:57

all the books were little computer

35:00

tablets and I don't know if

35:02

I've been watching the outer limits

35:04

or what was going on with

35:06

me at that time. But I

35:08

remember saying her, aha, see, they

35:10

could then, they could change it

35:12

and they could make the history

35:14

whatever they want. You wouldn't have

35:17

a permanent record of what had

35:19

happened anymore. And I remember her

35:21

looking at me like, what is

35:23

with you? Like, what is with

35:25

you? been like this since I

35:27

was a little kid but I

35:29

still remember that happening like that

35:31

discussion that was my first impression

35:34

if the teacher is teaching off

35:36

an electronic tablet they could change

35:38

the history you know exactly look

35:40

it's fire night 4-51 right yeah

35:42

which and I hadn't read Orwell

35:44

yet I mean I was a

35:46

precocious kid but I wasn't that

35:49

far ahead so I don't know

35:51

where I what I was it

35:53

may have been I was watching

35:55

the outer limits or something like

35:57

that you know I don't know

35:59

yeah yeah but You were ahead

36:01

of your time, definitely. I've been

36:03

stuck like this for a while

36:06

now. I do think, I think

36:08

this is the next big thing

36:10

after censorship is gonna be disappearing

36:12

history. Yeah. Hey listen, I think

36:14

this is so important and not

36:16

to talk about myself more, but

36:18

working on this book, that was

36:20

the hardest thing. I mean, there

36:23

were times where I spent days

36:25

on one footnote. I have to

36:27

find this, I have to prove

36:29

it. Some guy came to me

36:31

last week on the Twitter and

36:33

was like, hey man, you have

36:35

this article from the London Times

36:37

about the war in Serbia and

36:40

the SAS trained these terrorists and

36:42

stuff, but where's the original? And

36:44

I was like, man, I don't

36:46

know anymore, I'm sorry, wherever, I

36:48

mean a lot of times, you

36:50

know, some of these books that

36:52

I read like about the Balkan

36:54

Wars. Like, bless those authors for

36:57

including the text of the URLs

36:59

in their books. And I had

37:01

to take the URLs out of

37:03

my book just for space, but

37:05

I have a file online where

37:07

I kept the URLs there for

37:09

you. But a lot of these

37:11

times, like I would have to

37:14

Google just parts of URLs and

37:16

then find a message board that

37:18

linked to a thing that linked

37:20

to another thing and then there's

37:22

a, you know, it's really... adventures

37:24

in especially this stuff from the

37:26

90s on the Balkan War stuff

37:29

and then you know the further

37:31

back you go the harder it

37:33

is but then yeah a lot

37:35

of times you know the wayback

37:37

machine even you know you would

37:39

think it'd be easy to find

37:41

on there. It's on there somewhere

37:43

but you got to really like

37:46

work hard to get it to

37:48

pull up the right thing and

37:50

whatever. I don't know. And it's

37:52

not their fault. They're doing the

37:54

best they can, but you know.

37:56

It is. It's a it's a

37:58

horrible phenomenon. Like you know the

38:00

saying used to be the internet

38:03

is forever and whatever. No it

38:05

ain't. Linkrod is horrible. That's a

38:07

great project that you're doing there.

38:09

You is forever, the stuff about

38:11

the government is not forever. Yeah,

38:13

exactly. Yeah, yeah, you're embarrassment. I

38:15

mean, that time you got drunk

38:17

and did the thing, you know.

38:20

But yeah, no, I'm trying to

38:22

do this at the Institute and

38:24

at my own website as well.

38:26

I try to reprint ancient lost

38:28

articles and hope nobody makes me

38:30

take them down, you know. Awesome.

38:32

Awesome. Let's make it a thing.

38:34

Yep. Okay, well, that's great. And

38:37

that's at Racket News. And it's

38:39

Racket Library is the link right

38:41

at the top. And that's a

38:43

great new project. And check out

38:45

the great podcast. I love watching

38:47

you and Walter in your great

38:49

show. Tell them about my book.

38:52

I'd like to hear what he

38:54

thinks of it. Yeah, and maybe

38:56

we should maybe we'll do a

38:58

little read-through sometime. That'd be fun.

39:00

That would be cool, man. All

39:02

right. Thank you so much for

39:04

your time. Thank you so much

39:06

for your time. As always, Matt.

39:09

Thanks for listening the Scott Horton

39:11

Show, which can be heard on

39:13

APS Radio News at Scott Horton.org,

39:15

Scott Horton Show.com, and the Libertarian

39:17

Institute at Libertarian Institute.org.

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