Episode Transcript
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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
so proud to announce the publication
21:46
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21:48
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21:50
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21:52
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21:54
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21:56
deputy senior oil advisor for U.S.
21:59
forces during Iraq War II. Remember
22:01
how I wrote in enough already
22:03
about how Ahmed Chalabi sold the
22:05
neo-conservatives on a plan to rebuild
22:07
the old British oil pipeline for
22:09
Mosul and Kirkeh, Iraq to Haifa,
22:11
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22:13
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22:16
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22:18
bought it, because they are as
22:20
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22:22
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22:24
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22:26
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22:28
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22:31
Neocons and their machinations on behalf
22:33
of Israel before and during that
22:35
war. And it turns out that
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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