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A Fox News report revealed a massive investigation into former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan for possibly lying to Congress about President Donald Trump and the Russian hoax. What will the new DOJ under FBI Director Kash Patel uncover? The Sekulow team discusses the irony that Comey and Brennan are under investigation for the same Russian probe that led to Trump’s impeachment, the ACLJ’s legal work – and much more.
SPEAKER 03 :
we got breaking news the fbi launches criminal investigation of john brennan and james comey keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is seculo we want to hear from you share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110 And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 05 :
Welcome to Sekulow. This is Logan Sekulow. Will Haynes is in studio with me. My dad, Jay Sekulow, is joining us in the next segment. You’d think this was a rerun, but I’m going to tell you, a rerun from like five years ago. I’m just going to state the date, Will, so people know. You know, like when you hold up a newspaper? Right. July 9th, 2025. James Comey is the headline of the day because the FBI has decided maybe it’s time we look into this. Actually start an investigation into what’s going on with Russia and with James Comey and everything that played into it. Again, Comey don’t play that. It’s going to be a great show. Coming up next, my dad, Jay Sekul, is going to join us. But Will, why don’t you go over that breaking news?
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. So we are now finding out that both the former CIA director, John Brennan, and the former FBI director, James Comey, are under criminal investigation. Whoa. The former CIA director, John Brennan, there was a criminal referral sent over to the Department of Justice by current CIA director, John Ratcliffe. They referred evidence of wrongdoing by Brennan to FBI director Kash Patel for potential prosecution. And sources have also said that there is an investigation into James Comey. Now, With James Comey, he was in the news with his 8647 seashells a few weeks ago.
SPEAKER 05 :
Always finds a way to work his way back in.
SPEAKER 04 :
This isn’t about his seashells. Not yet.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’ll be in five more years.
SPEAKER 04 :
This is about the Russiagate hoax that was perpetrated by John Brennan and James Comey. And we know that just a few days ago, right before the holiday, the 4th of July, the CIA declassified a review of the internal tradecraft that the CIA used in their review of the 2016 election. And they found a lot of issues. They found that there was a lot of abnormalities like John Brennan himself. Getting into that review, being normally directors and senior staff like that, look at the work product after. They don’t become a part of that work product. There is an abbreviated timeline because the Obama administration wanted to get something out before President Trump took office. And things like John Brennan himself pushing for the inclusion of the Steele dossier, even at the protest of some of the other intelligence community members saying, So we’ve got this breaking news. They’re under criminal investigation. There’s some caution there, obviously, Logan, because… It’s a source. It’s a source. The FBI and DOJ don’t normally talk about investigations. One of the anomalies to that was James Comey himself when he gave lots of primetime announcements about Hillary Clinton. He was always out there. We’re going to see where this goes. We’re going to get your dad’s take in the next segment because obviously he lived through this and fought this for a long time. So we’ll see what he has to say.
SPEAKER 05 :
He’ll be on the next segment. And I’d like to hear from you. Do you think this is good? Do you think we just need to move on? What do you think? 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Should we be looking back at these situations and making sure people who are doing things unethically, unjustifiably are brought to justice, including people like James Comey and John Brennan? I think this is an interesting moment. Will and I were on the phone last night when this broke. You know, it’s nice. It’s nice we know what the topic’s going to be, even a few hours before. Will was very giddy in telling me, lead topic, lead topic.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I mean, when you get a criminal investigation of the former CIA director and former director of the FBI that pushed this Russia collusion hoax, yeah, I get excited to see justice may be served here.
SPEAKER 05 :
These guys are born for this. I mean, what kind of names? John Brennan, James Comey, Ratcliffe. I mean, John Ratcliffe. These are like… They feel like they’re from the olden times, these names. They were meant to be CIA directors and FBI and intelligence. All right. Phone lines are open for you. 1-800-684-3110. My dad, Jay Sekulow, is joining us because not only are we going to talk about this, but we are celebrating 35 years of the ACLJ during our 35 years of Justice Drive. All donations… are effectively doubled right now. All you got to do is make a donation of any kind, and another ACLJ supporter or champion, someone that gives monthly, is going to unlock their pledged donation. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. My dad, Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, and obviously someone who is deeply involved in this situation, is joining us for his commentary. Will, why don’t you give us a little bit, like if people are just joining us, give us like a 30-second recap, and then let’s get our thoughts.
SPEAKER 04 :
30-second recap is that there are sources telling Fox News that the former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey are under criminal investigation for potential wrongdoing related to the Trump-Russia probe. In addition to that is that There was a criminal referral sent over by the current director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, to the FBI about wrongdoing by Brennan. We don’t have a lot of details. Obviously, the DOJ and the FBI don’t comment publicly on investigations. This would be early stages of a criminal investigation. But let’s go right to your dad. And just knowing what you know and what you lived through, do you think this is a long overdue investigation?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, let me tell you a couple things. Number one, if there’s two lawyers in America that know something about the situation with Comey and Brennan, it’s Jay Sekulow and Jordan Sekulow, because as you both said, we lived it. Look, I think this is long overdue. The question’s going to be, is there an action that took place within the statute of limitations that would then justify going from a criminal investigation to a criminal prosecution. We know that the entire issue of the Steele dossier and the way they tried to basically shake down the then president-elect of the United States, we now know of course with the evidence that we gathered during the course of the impeachment proceedings and Bob Mueller’s investigation, more particularly the Mueller investigation, we know that there was no violation of any law by the president. We know also that there was no collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. That was the conclusion of Bob Mueller. Now here’s the issue that is important. James Comey oversaw the fbi at a critical time it was during crossfire hurricane which was the first investigation we now know of the sitting president of the united states or then the president-elect and also uh the candidate remember though once he was elected president in 2016 it was james comey the FBI, James Brennan, and John Brennan, these others, that decided that they would meet with President-elect Trump and brief him on the discredited dossier. It was a shakedown. That’s what it was. It was an attempt to intimidate a president. It was a move to try to curtail the president’s initiatives by distraction. And we also know that James Comey leaked a memo that he prepared in a government vehicle about a conversation he had with the President of the United States and he leaked it to a law professor friend of his to get to the press. So should this be looked into criminally? You bet.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I think a lot of people are commenting, saying, hey, is this a distraction? Is this something we need to actually be focusing on now? Should we just move on, let history tell the story and move on? But you’re saying, no, that’s not the way it should be. It should be looked into because these were egregious acts that happened time and time again. So you can’t just let these things slide or whether it’s a Republican or Democrat. these kind of moments from the FBI and the CIA can happen again.
SPEAKER 06 :
Look, James Comey has got a record of intervening in presidential elections. He did that also, remember, it’s, I think, important to remember, he did it to Hillary Clinton with announcing an investigation opened, an investigation closed, and then reopened four days before the general election, none of which he had the authority to do. He did it around the Attorney General’s back. So look, there’s a whole host of issues that need to be looked at because what you cannot have are these rogue agents or rogue leaders trying to basically terminate, stop the actions of the duly elected
SPEAKER 05 :
president of the united states so what’s the real consequences of this i think that’s going to be a question too because look we’re here james comey uh someone who we’ve known who who’s never been really good at the final consequences he’s always someone who tells you all the horrible things someone has done and then of course uh couldn’t actually get anything done now we have the reverse here uh what should people be anticipating on what this investigation actually does look like in terms of a result okay so we should not hear about the investigation while it’s ongoing
SPEAKER 06 :
What we should hear is that the conclusion of the investigation, if the Department of Justice decides to make a move for a grand jury in paneling and then a prosecution. Do I think there’s evidence of it to move forward? I think there’s certainly enough to take it to this investigatory stage. I suspect that there will be enough for the investigative stage to merge or morph into a prosecutorial stage. and then, of course, ultimately a trial. But they should be held with what they did. They tried to stop the government of the United States from operating according to the Constitution of the United States. So you bet they should be held accountable. And it’s going to be, you know, the interesting thing is the Ratcliffe, his decision to make a referral to the FBI, which is within the Department of Justice, of course, that means he had seen something. I don’t know this, obviously. But I’m just looking at it from a the referral coming. The reports indicate the referral came from the Department of Justice to the Department of Justice, rather from John Radcliffe over at the CIA. That tells me they saw something or he saw something that concerned him enough to know. that there has been a violation of the law and moving that to now a criminal stage.
SPEAKER 05 :
There is about three and a half years left in President Trump’s term. Is this something that can get done in that? I know that sounds like a long time for a lot of people, but with the justice system, with the legal system, we know that’s not always the case. Is this something that can get done within his term?
SPEAKER 06 :
Certainly the investigation, and if there’s a grand jury impaneled and indicted, the answer to that is yes. Could it go to trial from this day forward, three years? Tough, unless the investigation is much further along than we anticipated. But remember, the previous administration indicted the former president of the United States. They’ve been trying to take this guy down for 10 years.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s one other angle as well. You mentioned that Comey admitted, even bragged about leaking that memo to the press. He bragged about sending spies in. I’m seeing a lot of comments from people on both Rumble and YouTube saying they remember you saying these very things back in real time when it was happening and calling out these specific actors. But in addition to the report of the criminal referral, John Ratcliffe, just a few days ago on July 2nd, released a declassified Intel Tradecraft review. And it gives a little bit of color to this because it appears John Brennan, either at the behest of the President of the United States, Barack Obama at the time, or on his own volition, got deep into this process in December after Trump was elected, before Trump would take office in that first term, and he was making decisions that were outside of CIA norms. And he was the one that insisted, even at the protest of other members of the intel community, of including the Steele dossier in this report. We’ve got about two minutes left, but I just want to get your take on that. Could that be an angle that maybe arose when they reviewed how this took place?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, certainly. I mean, we don’t know the evidence of what they’ve seen or what new data they have gathered. But the nature of what happened justifies the investigation. There’s no doubt about it. But remember this also. They were trying to take this guy down before he was elected. They were trying to take him down once he was elected. They were trying to take him down once he served in office. Then they did it all again and tried it again this time. It didn’t work. Trying to remove him from ballots. So look, Comey and Brennan and a host of others. What they did was outrageous for the American people. It was a violation of the Constitution. And at the end of the day, this is why the ACLJ exists. We’ve been dealing with this up front for seven years. It took that long to get attention to it now. I’m glad we did. I’ve been saying, if you went back and traced how long I’ve been saying this, it would be almost a decade, eight years, seven, eight years.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, Dan, I wanted to bring that up because, of course, this month is our 35 years of Justice Drive. Our match, our donations are doubled right now during this month because we are celebrating 35 years. And this is just another example about how the ACLJ team members, not just the donors and supporters, but also people like you and like Jordan and like so many of others, have been involved on the front lines, whether that is for people who have a Bible club they want to make sure they can have in schools or representing the President of the United States.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, look, I mean, it was an incredible time in our nation’s history. And the ACLJ, if you look back on it, whether it’s President Trump or other times, we’ve been there for all the major events globally. So your support of the ACLJ right now, as we celebrate 35 years of working for justice around the globe, to do it. To support the work of the ACLJ, your donation will be doubled. Do it today.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you so much, Dad, for joining us. We’re going to have a packed show, lots of other guests joining us throughout the next half hour, so stay tuned. We do have a few lines open for you still at 1-800-684-3110. Kerry, Gary, and Steve, stay on hold. We’re going to get to you, but again, three lines are open, 1-800-684-3110. You’ve heard about the incredible work our team has been doing around the world. for so many years, now so many decades. Be a part of that team as well. Celebrate with us 35 years of justice and help us get to 35 more years. Go to ACLJ.org. Your donations are doubled. Welcome back to Secular. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. But Will, you wanted to cover something or you want to wait?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I think we can do this real quick before we get to the callers. So we talked yesterday about this lawsuit by Planned Parenthood and the temporary restraining order that the judge granted for two weeks on the defunding of Planned Parenthood. It’s something our lawyers are focused on. They’re writing a brief right now for us to be able to get into that case as well. But the Planned Parenthood attorneys filed yesterday a brief with the court on the restraining order asking for it to basically extend the temporary restraining order and move back the preliminary injunction hearing because one of their attorneys out of nine had a schedule conflict with the hearing date. And then the government, the attorneys for the United States filed and said, this is ridiculous. Like you’re basically wanting more time under the temporary restraining order, which can be issued without any rationale from the judge to get more time. This doesn’t fall under any legal norm. And so we’re sitting here thinking, as I’m talking with our attorneys this morning, they’re thinking, well, the way the judge has already laid things out, knowing some of the earlier rulings on funding and the injunctions she had put in place, that this may be something where she grants this to the Planned Parenthood attorneys and say, OK, yeah, I’ll give you extra time under the TRO. Well, the Trump attorneys or the government attorneys rather argued, said, hey, if they have a schedule conflict, move it forward to the 18th instead of the 21st. So it won’t affect the attorney’s schedule. Just in the original briefing schedule can stay the same. But let’s have our hearing early. This just happened. This is entered into the docket that the judge has said that the hearing is now rescheduled for July 18th. Moved it up, called Planned Parenthood’s bluff to some level, and also agreed with the government attorneys. Okay, fine. If you have a scheduling conflict… I’m not going to extend my TRO. I’m going to shorten it effectively by having the hearing early.
SPEAKER 05 :
Maybe that means there is some hope for Massachusetts. That’s good. That’s great news, in fact, that we can get this done hopefully sooner than later. Now let’s take some calls. Phone lines are open for you. We’ve got four lines open. I’d love to hear from you. We’ve got a second half hour coming up after this segment. We’re going to take calls throughout that as well as have special guest Mike Pompeo joining us. But let’s first go to Steve in Texas. Steve, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 08 :
Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’m happy to talk to you.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m going to throw you back on hold for a minute. Let’s check Steve’s line. I like your comment, so if for some reason we can’t get to you, call me back. But let’s check Steve, make sure his quality is good enough to get on the air. I’m sorry, though, for that. Let’s go to Carrie in Montana, who’s an ACLJ champion. She should have gone first anyway. He should have gone first. You broke your rule.
SPEAKER 01 :
I know.
SPEAKER 05 :
It was my fault. I didn’t see that. Carrie, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 01 :
Happy anniversary, brothers and sisters. Anyway… I definitely agree with Jay and Jordan and Logan that you guys have lived through this James Comey and others nightmare. And believe it or not, there’s some of us clowns, if you get my drift, ACLJ champions, partners. We’ve also been fighting some FBI and corrupt officials that we believe are terrorists. And so I may be filling out a form pretty soon since this is going to open another can of worms. I think every official in every state that has been in some way or another corrupt and doing police blackmail and other things, they need to be taken down. They need to be investigated as well. I don’t care how small or how big.
SPEAKER 05 :
Gary, Will, I can tell you got something.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I was going to say, that is also part of, if you follow Dan Bongino, and he’s very transparent on X with updates of, one, the timelines, because a lot of people are like, okay, why haven’t people been let go? Why haven’t some of the corruption been cleaned up? He gives periodic updates of, here’s where we’re at, remember. I was just confirmed at this point. Kash Patel was only confirmed a little bit before me. When you have a bureaucracy as big as the FBI and with bad actors and deep state officials that lived with the cover of people like James Comey for so long, that’s not something you can walk in on day one, flip a switch and completely clean out corruption within a bureaucracy. And I would say that’s the same across the government. It’s a fight. You have to fight against people that have the protection of some of the laws that protect government officials and the hiring practices that they can hide behind in order to say, oh, I feel like you’re retaliating against me just because I worked under a previous administration. So it takes time. And unlike some people that seem to be a little fair weather with the picks that are wonderful picks to lead these agencies, realize the task at hand. Realize what James Comey was doing. And then Chris Wray did really nothing to clean up in the follow of that. There were the director of the FBI sent spies into the White House. A covert op into the White House. And his excuse was, because I could. Because they weren’t ready for me yet. That is like bordering on a coup. If someone in a bureaucracy thinks I can go and do whatever I want in this government because they’re not ready.
SPEAKER 05 :
I could leave documents to my friends in the press.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
They’ll take care of it. And I’m not going to have any consequences. Well, this is what happens. President changes back. And you have that. I do see a lot of clowns now showing up in the chat. So you know what? She mentioned the clowns. Of course, that was a reference. What, Governor Hochul? Yes. Who called Trump supporters clowns back during the campaign. Of course, we did a whole send in the clowns, I would say, every day. So you know what? Let’s send in those clowns again. Just for old time’s sake, let’s do it. She did say Christian clowns. That made me think of a whole different thing. uh group there is there is a subculture clowning my buddy rob who you know listens every day he was a christian clown maybe still is let’s go to uh quickly let’s try this one more time let’s go to steve in texas online too steve you’re on the air thank you sir i just wanted to comment real quick on brandon comey i think it’s a yes they should be investigated but i think the more important investigation should be in a
SPEAKER 08 :
is the Epstein files, bringing those people to justice that misused and mistreated and abused children and women. I think that’s very important.
SPEAKER 05 :
Steve, it’s all over the comments. It’s all over the comments. I’m looking at our chat. A lot of people are saying, hey, this is fine. We can go after Comey. We can do what we need to do here. But let’s not forget about the Epstein files. Now, when President Trump was addressed about it yesterday, he kind of dismissed it and said, why are we still talking about this guy? Of course, that opened a whole other can of worms with people feeling that there was more controversy to this than there is. You know, I don’t know where we’re at with that, Steve, because I do have some trust in a Pam Bondi. I do have trust in Kash Patel and Dan Bongino in this group. I actually really like this group. Do I think it’s always going to be as clear and as transparent as we’d like? No, but I think that’s probably what you find out when you work in the federal government. But this one seems to keep coming back up. And I certainly, again, see it in the comments. People’s concerned about it. That’s right. And we only have, what, 50 seconds here at the end of the segment.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thanks to pitch to me, Logan.
SPEAKER 05 :
If you’re an Epstein person, that means stay tuned. We’ll cover it in the next segment as well.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right, because this is something I’ve actually followed personally. Too closely. Too closely. We can get into that. But, Steve, keep listening because we’ll get more into that in the next segment because I have some thoughts I’d like to share on it as well.
SPEAKER 05 :
Second half hour coming up. If you don’t get us on your local station, find us broadcasting live every day, 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time. So we got another half hour. That’s at ACLJ.org, YouTube, Rumble. Of course, later on on the podcast feed, you can find us wherever you need. But we encourage you to watch us live, be a part of the chat, be a part of the conversation. Of course, you can give us a call because we celebrate 35 years of justice. That also includes this broadcast, which has been on the air of that 35 years, I believe close to 25 plus years of that, maybe more so, I believe since 1996. So you know what? We’re about to celebrate 30 years of this show next year. Another celebration. So give today, have your donations doubled. keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is seculo and now your host logan secular phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110 as we have a second full half hour of this broadcast coming up of course coming out of that segment we were talking for a caller that came in talking a bit about jeffrey epstein of course the epstein files and everything that that’s kind of going on in the last 24 hours but that is on the heels of the conversation we had of whether you think this is worth time investigating, as there’s been an announcement that the FBI, or not official announcement yet, sources have claimed the FBI is launching a criminal investigation of John Brennan and James Comey about the Russia hoax, the dossier, everything that was involved in that, and all of the potentially illegal behavior that went on behind the scenes. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. But our last caller called in and said, hey, I think they need to be brought to justice. I think they do it. But hey, let’s not get distracted from what’s going on with Epstein. Now, when Epstein was brought up, President Trump yesterday, he dismissed it and said, we’re still talking about this creep. What are we doing here? This has been a decade. We don’t need to worry about this anymore. Will, I know you, like I said, got pretty involved in following this case. And now it kind of got to a breaking point yesterday. or the last couple days, where the administration is saying, hey, a lot of that information you want just simply doesn’t exist.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and I think, one, you have to think about they’re looking at the evidence that previous FBIs and previous U.S. attorneys had compiled for a trial against Jeffrey Epstein. So, one, if they’re saying the evidence that the people want, that there’s a broader conspiracy of blackmail and things of those natures, if the previous regime was not investigating that… There is a good chance that does not exist. So you cannot create evidence out of thin air. It’s not like they have been doing their own investigation on someone who is no longer alive. That would maybe, maybe there are departments and you wouldn’t talk about an ongoing investigation. But I think, Saying that Pam Bondi, who did a bad PR move early by going on TV and doing that, that she is compromised, that Kash Patel is compromised, that Dan Bongino is compromised. I think people need to listen to themselves sometimes and think they are some of the best people. parts of this cabinet, of this team, of this leadership, in that the things that you may want may not exist because of who did the investigation, but also when she says, I can’t release more, the nature of the crime itself… The evidence of him perpetrating those crimes. Yeah, himself. You cannot release to the public because of victims, because of laws that govern material about minors. That is what you also have to realize, that there are tens of thousands of things they cannot show you and should never show you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I mean, there was the reference of like, it’s on my desk, and I think that was the concern, but I actually understood, I feel like, and again, I’m not just here as a Pam Bondi apologist, but her saying, it’s on my desk right now, she meant the files, not necessarily the list, not necessarily there even was a list, just that she had it as something that she was looking into that was on her desk. I understood what she meant when she said it. So now to say, yeah, that list doesn’t exist. I understand how that can feel like you’re speaking out of two sides of your mouth here at the same time. But I think I kind of understood it and I understand where we are right now. I also never fully anticipated there to be this list that people wanted to in their minds. It’s like when they got all the JFK files, they expected there to be like a one paragraph summary that just said, here’s who did it. Right. And it’s not who you think it is. And it’s like, that’s not how this all works. You got to get in your mind. Look, I think that’s one of the reasons I told you that I think Elon had his issues and the reason he started his own political party is because you get inside of Washington and realize it’s simply not how it all works. We only have one minute left in this segment. Ronald, stay on hold. We’re going to get to you later on in the show. Bradley, also phone lines are open. Mike Pompeo is going to be joining us in the next segment. 1-800- 1-800-684-3110. As Will said, I don’t think this is a time to lose hope in a lot of these people. These are some of the best of the best that we can have. So again, 1-800-684-3110. I encourage you also to go to ACLJ.org. We are just what? How many days in, Will? What day is this?
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s the 9th of June. The 9th of July. 9th of July.
SPEAKER 05 :
So we are not quite halfway through our ACLJ 35 years of justice drive. Of course, we’re going to be celebrating 35 years of the ACLJ for the rest of the year, but this is the big moment. I encourage you, if you ever thought about supporting the work of the ACLJ or you thought about doing it this year, these are the months that really, really can impact our future because we have those pledges, those matches ready to go with any donation made. Scan the QR code, go to ACLJ.org. Mike Pompeo coming up. Welcome back to Seculo. It’s a great show today. We’ve been packed. We’ve been talking about a lot of topics. We had my dad, Jay Seculo, join us. Now we have Secretary Pompeo, Mike Pompeo, joining us. Will, I’m going to let you kick off this with some questions for Secretary Pompeo, because these are some interesting days, and it feels like every 24 hours, we always know what we’re going to be leading with. Will, the stories kind of break, and this one is the one we’ve been talking about all day, and another person… who really I’m sure has invaluable commentary on this, Secretary Pompeo.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. So we found out last night that the FBI is investigating both James Comey as well as the former CIA director, John Brennan. That’s a title that our esteemed colleague here also shares his former CIA director. While we don’t know too much about the details of this, and that’s as it should be, because when there’s an investigation, typically the DOJ and FBI should not be talking about an ongoing investigation. But it’s allegedly about their role in the Russiagate matter, the probe into collusion between President Trump and Russia. What are your initial thoughts when you saw this break?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, my initial thoughts, Will, were that I was unsurprised in the following sense. Director Brennan, John Brennan, who was the CIA director immediately before me, had deeply politicized this thing that became known as the ICA. It was associated with an investigation and some data and then the Steele dossier that the FBI had found under Director Comey. And they had created a process that was very unusual. They had put some people on it that were outside the normal process. And then they had gone to the White House with this information when it was way too preliminary to have done so. And then they ultimately published it, which is also very unusual. The CIA usually does analysis and analytics and provides that to decision makers in a classified setting. And instead, they chose to go public with this at a very critical time around the election. And so I don’t know what they’ll find ultimately, but I do hope that they complete this investigation in a way that is not politicized, but deeply, deeply reported. reported and well done, and that the FBI and DOJ will do their best to make what they can of this public. And if there are prosecutable offenses, that they will do that as well.
SPEAKER 04 :
You mentioned that ICA, the Intelligence Community Assessment, which is what kicked everything off. And that was the work product post-election in 2016, but before the transition from the Obama presidency to the Trump presidency. And Director Ratcliffe put out a declassified statement internal tradecraft review of that work product just a few days ago, and it showed anomalies in the way that the CIA would typically produce a work product like that, including the director himself being very heavily involved, not listening to dissents when it came to some of the opinions that were in there. When you look at something like that, and obviously you have a lot more knowledge than you can probably share on air when it comes to even the workings of this. But is that an important transparency, being able to share something like that? Or is it once again something that the CIA should be more closely guarded about?
SPEAKER 09 :
I’m very comfortable with what Director Rackbluff released. I think he did so in a very careful fashion, a very thoughtful fashion. The Intelligence Committee has an obligation where it can share information with the public. It ought to. And when it can’t, it has to protect it vigorously and prosecute people who violate that. idea of confidentiality or classification. And so I think Director Ratcliffe is in a very measured way trying to make clear to the American people that he’s working on this project and that he’ll do his best to release the results. But let’s be certain of this, that what came out when that ICA was ultimately released by the Obama administration at an unclassified level It was intentional. It was intended to undermine the Trump presidency. I wrote in my book about the fact that Director Comey briefed President Trump on January 6th of 2017. I remember the date expressly now that January 6th has become such a big deal. January 6th, 2017, and essentially told President Trump that we have information that suggests that you are a Russian asset or too close to the Russians. That was not true. The Steele dossier has proven to be nearly wholly fabricated, and it set back our administration greatly. And that is a, at the very least, a failure of the intelligence community, the FBI and the CIA, but in the worst case, an intentional politicization of it. And if it’s the latter, the individuals who did that need to be held accountable.
SPEAKER 04 :
You also mentioned just even the trust in these intelligence agencies that we saw suffer, one through the end of the Obama presidency, and then under others in the previous administration. Yes. But I wanted to get your take on this because I remember very distinctly when you became the director of the CIA, you said the CIA, something to the effect of the CIA is getting back to secrets and kind of refocusing the mission on what the purpose of the CIA is. And do you think… And I’m sure you have many thoughts on this and could probably write another book just on the shift in the IC from protecting secrets and doing espionage and things of that nature and becoming this political machine. Do you think that is expressly why the public has lost so much trust in the IC community between the Obama years and the Biden years as well?
SPEAKER 09 :
I absolutely do 100% believe that when these organizations stray from their mission, right, to protect us all, right? The FBI’s mission is to keep criminals off the street and to protect us from foreign espionage and the The CIA’s job is to get good intelligence so presidents and secretaries of defense can make good decisions. When they walk away from that mission, when they say, we’re not going to take any risk, we’re not going to go out and do espionage, we’re not going to keep secrets, we’re instead going to go engage in political behavior. And we saw this, by the way, we saw this with the 100-byte laptop. We saw the same characters, Clapper and Comey and Brennan. We saw these same characters go sign a document that was fatly false. Right. And they knew they knew it was intended to mislead. So President Biden could succeed in his debate, had a talking point in his debate. When when they engage in that kind of behavior, these institutions lose the trust and credibility that they need to perform a vital American function. And they will be you know, they will be limited in what they could do because American people said, we just don’t we have no confidence in you. And that’s really dangerous if they’re out. They perform important functions. They should stay focused on their mission. And when they lose that, the American people will rightly come to doubt them and ultimately restrict them from their ability to perform their mission.
SPEAKER 04 :
One final question for you today, as I know the work you did was trying to restore one, the core mission, but also the trust as well. And I know that Director Ratcliffe shares that same vision of restoring the good work as well as the public trust. What else can be done? for not obviously with Tradecraft, with the things that the work they’re already doing, but to re-engage the American public to have trust in these institutions. Because many times the work getting back to it, when you’re doing it right, No one will ever know about the good work that the CIA does and these intelligence community agencies perform. So you kind of have this competing interest when doing the right thing means people don’t know what you’re doing. How do you think we can start to rebuild the trust in many of these institutions?
SPEAKER 09 :
I have a number of thoughts. I’d begin with this. It’s very important that individuals who violate that trust, who behave in ways that are inconsistent with what they’re supposed to be doing, are held accountable. And I’m not talking about just junior people who make a mistake or what have you. Fine, they should be held accountable too. But in the end, the political appointees, the folks that the President of the United States appoint have to be held accountable if they do that. And so I hope that what Director Ratcliffe will be able to achieve It’s sufficient transparency to demonstrate real accountability. And then second, you’re right. Sometimes you just have to keep your head down and nobody knows the good work you’re doing. That’s the nature of the work these institutions perform. But then they also have the obligation when they can and when it’s appropriate to share with the American people what they’re doing, why they do it, how they do it, how this accountability is built into the system. And when you do that, people will come to trust these remarkable young men and women who risked their lives on the streets to keep us safe in the United States for the FBI and then doing this abroad for the Central Intelligence Agency.
SPEAKER 05 :
Secretary Pompeo, thank you so much for joining us. Of course, Senior Counsel for Global Affairs here at the ACLJ. We couldn’t have invaluable voices like Secretary Pompeo. I mean, you’re talking about people who were in the trenches, who have been a part of this, who know really what it’s like. I always want to make sure we have people like that on our team who can educate you as to what actually happens behind the scenes instead of you trying to guess and figure out, like I said, the government does not run like a business. It does not run how you expect it. It runs in a very different way. But when you have people, whether that’s Secretary Pompeo or Rick Grinnell or my dad, Jay Sekulow, joining us earlier, you get all these perspectives that have been inside of it and understand it better than any commentator you’re ever going to hear. We can’t have those people on our team without your support at ACLJ.org. But phone lines are open for you right now. We have three lines open. I encourage you to call in. I want to hear from you. We’ve just heard from, again, former Secretary of State, former head of CIA, Mike Pompeo. You heard from my dad, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. You heard from Will Haynes. Now I want to hear from the most important voice in the room. And that, of course, is you. So phone lines are open. We’re going to take as many calls as we can. This is the time. 1-800-684-3110. We’ll be right back with the last segment of the day. back to secular i do want to hear from you and we still have three lines open but we have three lines that means taken as well 1-800-684-3110 if you want to be on the air today thousands of you are watching on just our social media platforms alone on just uh platforms like youtube and rumble so i know you’re watching so if you want to call in great time to do it if you are watching on youtube by the way and we know about half the people that watch have never seen us before which is wild you may be watching us live or later on hit that subscribe button Over half a million people have done that. Know how important that is for us. It’s a great free way to support the organization. Now, obviously, when you make a donation right now, it’s matched. So that’s an incredible time to make a financial donation. But if you’re brand new and you don’t know anything about us, maybe it’s the first time you’ve seen me or Will or our team here, know we do this show each and every day from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time. And, of course, we put out other incredible content. Our media team is top-notch. They put out great content throughout the day, every day. So be a part of that team. Easy way to do it. Subscribe. I don’t know. Do people still ring the bell? Is that still a thing? You can ring the bell.
SPEAKER 03 :
You can ring the bell.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’ll tell you when we put up a new video or when we go live. That really helps out. And we love seeing that number grow. We’re halfway to a million. I’d love to see us cross that million. Understand when you have even an audience. And look, we have millions that watch already. That’s what I’m saying. Half of you don’t subscribe. That is bigger numbers than a lot of your major media. We’re able to create this new alt media because of people like you who want a different perspective. They want people who are going to tell them the truth, and that is what we do here. Whether you like that truth or not, we will always tell you the truth. Let’s go to Ronald in South Carolina, watch it on Rumble, one of our favorite free speech platforms. I met a family in the UK. The first questions they asked me was, hey, you guys on Rumble? It’s making still some big waves across the country and around the world. Let’s go to Ronald. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, thanks for taking my call. I enjoyed the show, and especially right now from all of the things that are literally coming to light and having to sit on hands and just waiting to finally see the house of cards crumble with all those like Comey and Brennan and all these others in the swamp just literally trying to destroy Trump and everything. And so I see that certainly there is a change coming, but yet… Maybe you can comment on this, but yet there are those liberals who are still there saying, well, as far as I’m concerned, the end justifies the means. And I was okay with what they were doing just to keep Trump out of the office and stuff like that. Keep things as they were.
SPEAKER 04 :
very much rhetoric that was going around well i mean it’s the double standard you’re seeing even now when it comes to some of these supreme court decisions that when they say they want to protect our democracy what they mean is they want to protect their political party and in the ideas and ideologies that they push they don’t want to protect The Constitution. And so when it goes back to a lot of this, this is kind of the roots of when you really saw the deep state or the subversion of our constitutional norms become put on full display for a lot of people. It roots back to this when they decided, you know what? We can throw out all the rules as long as it achieves our ends. And that is not American constitutionalism.
SPEAKER 05 :
I see a lot of comments coming in. This is going to end up being another nothing burger. That’s what’s going to happen. That’s what always happens. It is easy, Will, to get… you know, jaded in this. You think that these investigations are always going to lead towards nothing because it does feel that way.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and remember what your dad said as well earlier in the show. One of the biggest blessings that people like Brennan and Comey got was the issues and abnormalities in the 2020 election, whether it be the whole country shut down or whatnot, that Joe Biden became the president of the United States. because it put enough distance between them from the time so what we don’t know what’s in the investigation and that’s good we shouldn’t know while they’re investigating but if they can and they can prosecute these people then and there is the evidence to do so and a grand jury returns an indictment that is a good thing for the country but one of those things when you have that four-year gap and that pushes out beyond the statute of limitations for
SPEAKER 05 :
many of the things that could be brought against them we don’t know what they are we don’t know when they’re alleging it happened but if there is something that can be prosecuted i think that would be good for the country all right let’s continue on taking calls hey last time you can call and be right now we just lost a call that was on hold for a very long time and i feel bad but that means there’s a line open for you right now 1-800-684-3110 we’ll try to get you up very quickly tom in california watching on youtube go ahead tom
SPEAKER 07 :
Howdy, folks. Appreciate everything y’all do. God bless you. I’d like to say God bless those poor victims in Texas from the flooding. Point is, we need to investigate all this corruption that’s gotten really bad ever since Clinton. Go back to Clinton and Obama and bring it forward and pursue it. Therefore, Comey is arrogant and pompous about his corruption. He needs to be taken down. And if I could say this, I would appreciate it if you folks would do a week-long or however long you think is appropriate series on explaining the swamp to us that don’t fully understand it because it’s just a nasty place. But that’s all. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you so much for calling. It’s not a bad idea because I think we start, we use a lot of vernacular, a lot of terms. I always try to slow Will down when he starts throwing out a TRO and I’m like, most people don’t understand some of these terms. But again, the sort of swamp of Washington, D.C., I’ve always been talking about it. Rick Grinnell talks about it a lot. You hear about it because when you’ve worked there, when you’ve been there, when you’ve lived it and you’re maybe, I don’t know, somewhat normal, you start realizing how it’s being run and how murky it can be and how dark it can be. And it’s unfortunate that that is where we’re at in society. And I really think when you have a lot of these people like an Elon Musk or someone who gets in these systems, they think it should be operating the way, I don’t know, a billion dollar, multi-billion dollar business operates. And it doesn’t. It operates in its own unique universe. But you’re right. Maybe we should break that down more. And look, we only got a couple minutes left in the broadcast today. I want to thank everyone who’s been watching and everyone who’s been supporting the work. We have spent, like I said, 35 years on working on the incredible topics here at the ACLJ. And we have a lot of fun here. We’re also able to keep you entertained, hopefully, and keep you informed because this kind of information, you’re not going to find anywhere else. Will just said in the last segment, where else? What other show? And whether you love Secretary Pompeo or you don’t, what other show are you going to have 11 minutes of unfiltered conversation with a former Secretary of State, former head of the CIA, who can really give you an inside look into what’s happening? And I mean, that is pretty remarkable.
SPEAKER 04 :
You don’t get that anywhere else. Right. And on a day that we are covering another former director of the CIA who is being investigated, who else has that insight? And really, it’s not just the legal work. It’s not just the show. It’s everything we do here at the ACLJ and have done for 35 years and will continue to do for another 35 and beyond. That is why now is the time to support our mission, support this work and stand with us.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. It really is a great time to support the work of the ACLJ. So I encourage you right now, as we have one minute left in the broadcast today, to consider supporting the work of the ACLJ. We talk a lot about the names they call you. We talk about a lot of the things that they do here. So I’m going to ask you to put up that QR code right now. That’s right. Go to ACLJ.org. Support the work. Hey, Will, look. It’s our very own official clown of the ACLJ. A lot of people have said, yeah, that’s our buddy Rob. Send in the clowns. Send in those clowns. We call him Bobo Hogan. That’s his name here. So support Bobo Hogan right now. He’s our ACLJ clown. Scan the QR code right now. Send in those clowns in the chat. Look, we’re having a lot of fun here. You can put up the real one now. But you know what? The ACLJ family is such, I don’t think we can. The ACLJ family. ACLJ supports some incredible, incredible things. And I mean, just looking at this just makes me happy. It’s great. There we go. There you go. The ACLJ celebrating 35 years of justice. And hopefully we can bring you some entertainment along the way. Thank you so much for your support. Be a part of it today. We’re going to be back tomorrow taking your phone calls. And wow, we have an amazing week planned for you as we’re celebrating 35 years of the incredible work here at the ACLJ. Send in those clowns. Talk to you tomorrow.
