In this episode, we delve deep into the resurgence of James Comey in the media as he targets Kash Patel with sharp criticisms. We explore Comey’s remarks on Patel’s competency and break down Patel’s unapologetic response. Our discussion also spans the intricacies of FBI operations and the wider implications of the leadership tussle. Furthermore, we highlight the troubling undercurrents of political bias and anti-Semitism in prominent institutions like Harvard, framing these within the broader context of free speech and dissent. Join us as host Logan Sekulow navigates these significant topics through insightful commentary and listener interactions. The episode also
SPEAKER 05 :
We’ve got breaking news. James Comey targets Kash Patel as ill-equipped in tirade ahead of his own investigation.
SPEAKER 13 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. 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. It’s Thursday. We’re going to keep things rolling. We got some fun breaking news. Of course, who’s back in the news? James Comey’s back in the news. That’s right. You can’t get rid of him. He comes back with another banger over and over. Banger after banger after banger. James Comey comes in. He’s like, last time you liked my shells. Guess what? Next time, I’m going to go from shells to Patels. That’s what I’m doing here. And I’m going to drop something on y’all. I’m going to say Cash Patel, he is ill-equipped. I actually feel bad for Cash Patel. And of course, Cash responded pretty aggressively saying, I don’t think I’d be taking any advice from James Comey right now. That’s right. Comey, don’t play that. Let’s go to bite number 14. That’s right. This is James Comey on MSNBC just yesterday.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hard to tell for sure from the outside. Obviously, you start with the fact that the guy has literally nothing in his entire adult life that prepares him for this role. And so that’s deeply concerning to start with. In a way, I kind of feel a little bit sorry for the guy. He’s barked at the FBI nonsense for years, and now he not only caught the car, he’s got to drive the car. And so that is a daunting task for him. I hope he lets the career people do their jobs, but they’ve already forced out a bunch of good career people and sent a chill through the organization.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, that’s a good call for you, James Comey, saying they sent a chill through the organization. All while also calling Kash Patel a dog. Right. Which is, I think, you know, problematic at best in this culture, James Comey, to be calling Kash Patel a dog, saying that he barked at the car and now he’s got to drive the car. You know what, though? That sounds like a good commercial. Like a good commercial for like a state farm or something being like, yeah, now that dog drives the car.
SPEAKER 14 :
I don’t know where to go. You’re on fire today, Logan. This is your own tirade.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s Thursday, man. It’s what happens on a Thursday, holiday Thursday. Let’s go ahead, though. Kash Patel, he responded. So let’s hear from Kash Patel. This was an interview on Fox News. Brett Baer kind of, they talk a lot about the Epstein stuff too. We’ll talk about that a little bit later because we know, look, y’all love to talk about that. We won’t hide that from you because they said there’s more content coming in that world. But let’s hear Kash Patel’s response. And that was, of course, again, for those just joining us right now, that was after James Comey said, you know, I feel bad for the guy in some ways. You know, he barked at the car. Now he’s got to drive the car. He has nothing in his career. that should lead him to be running the fbi and here we’re at let’s go take a listen to cash patel
SPEAKER 01 :
If he wants to come after me, no problem. I’ve been living rent-free in that guy’s head for years, and that’s just a bonus. Do you know how many copycats we’ve had to investigate as a result of that beachside venture from the former director? Is that right? Do you know how many agents I’ve had to take offline from chasing down child sex predators, fentanyl traffickers, terrorists? Because everywhere across this country, people are popping up on social media. and think that a threat to the life of the President of the United States is a joke and they can do it because he did it, that’s what I’m having to deal with every single day. And that’s what I’m having to pull my agents and analysts off because he thought it was funny to go out there and make a political statement.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and of course, that also comes on the heels. Yesterday, we were talking with Rick Grinnell, who’s running the Kennedy Center. Patti LuPone. Patti LuPone’s been out there saying, even in the New York Times, they had to put, look, we’re going to put this in here because she said it so many times, that she wants to explode, to blow up the Trump run, if you will, Kennedy Center. Rick Grinnell’s Kennedy Center. Again… Hyperbole? Sure. Do I think Patti LuPone is actually out there playing, you know, playing some sort of terrorist regime? No. But does it encourage bad actors? Absolutely. We’ve seen that over and over again. We have seen the wrong people hear the wrong message. And when you start and you continue to include violence in your message, this is what happens. And of course, you have Kash Patel saying if he wants to come after me, no problem. He’s been living rent free or I’ve been living rent free in his head. for years and that’s just a bonus a great response we’re going to have more from that interview with cash patel i want to hear from you your thoughts on this at 1-800-684-3110 1-800-684-3110 my dad jay seculo will be joining us in uh the back actually in just two segments so he’ll be in in just a moment and then harry hutchinson will be joining us as well later in the broadcast we’ll be right back welcome back to seculo hey i want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110 and maybe this will get you to respond a bit as well obviously we had that back and forth now between james comey your favorite and kash patel of course this comes on the heels of james comey getting himself back in the news from just being that sweater vest loving grandpa walking down the beach as he said to finding a strange shell formation that just happened to threaten the president of the United States. And now he’s saying Kash Patel has no business being the head of the FBI. Now I will say Kash Patel has himself been under some fire from the right, from the conservatives who said, you’re not fulfilling a lot of the promises that you kept specifically related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. And he came out and said, look, we have pretty definitively know Jeffrey Epstein now did take his own life. That is oddly controversial from him and Dan Bogino, who both have been maybe on the front lines of saying we need to investigate this further. And when they did the investigation, sometimes you get the answer you’re looking for, and sometimes it’s the answer you don’t want. You don’t want that answer to be that. You want there to be corruption, to be conspiracy. And I think you do have to realize who you’re trusting, who you’re listening to. There was, though, direct response. You got to give it up to Brett Baer. He asked the questions that you wanted, including about the Epstein list and the files in general. And I think Brett Baer gave him this question. Kash Patel answered it interestingly. I want to hear from you what you think. 1-800-684-3110. Let’s hear from Brett Baer and Kash Patel.
SPEAKER 01 :
The other thing on the internet is the Epstein files. What’s the answer to that? The answer to that is the same as everything else. I’m not going to withhold information from the American public ever. But I’m also not going to rush to get it out there in a format in which they can’t rely on it. So on the Epstein matter or any other matters, we are diligently working on that. And it takes time to go through years of investigations, years of political maneuvering, and years of cover-up to get the American people what they deserve. And that’s what I’m going to give them on everything.
SPEAKER 05 :
I mean, again, I think what he’s also not addressing is the sensitivity of the topics that are at hand. Well, we talked about this offline earlier, which was just saying, look, some of the names, some of the places. Sure, you want to know the information of who was corrupt. Remember, there was a lot of people who were abused, a lot of children that were likely abused. And I’m sure there’s a lot of information about them as well. You don’t want to make it any worse for these families that have had to go through what they went through. So yes, it’s going to take some time, but he’s saying he’s going to get it done. But remember that the government doesn’t move fast. And I would say that’s probably what happened with Elon Musk. Elon Musk pretty much said, my job here is done. All respect, all love to POTUS, but I am out. And I’m going to go run my businesses. And there is some reports that he was a little disenfranchised with Washington, D.C. I think that’s something a lot of us have learned over the years, which is you have a lot, especially if you’re a businessman. You have run a business before. You understand how to go in, clean up a business, trim the fat, if you will, get to work. And then you realize Washington, D.C. is such full of pork and so full of all of these red tape and things you can’t get done that it almost gets impossible for an administration to make those changes that they want to. Now, we can say he made some big ones. He got a lot done, Elon. However, I’m sure it wasn’t as quick as he wanted. I’m sure he thought, I could go in like I did on X. and just say, all right, we don’t need 80% of these employees for this to be running. We don’t need no more work from home. All of those things could happen, but we know with government employees and government-run businesses, that’s not how it always run. I do want to take your phone calls, though, coming up at 1-800-684-3110. Once again, 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 14 :
That’s right. And when you look at this interview as well, whether it be about the topics of the January 6th pipe bomb, the Epstein files and things of that nature, what you are seeing is transparency. You don’t see a ton of interviews from Kash Patel. This is probably the second, unlike some others in the administration that are constantly on media. But I do like the seriousness that he takes this job because what you saw even from – Christopher Wray or James Comey is that that was a different type of FBI director. Obviously, James Comey was weaponizing the FBI, used it to send people into the White House early because he could get away with it, leaking things to the press so that he could get a special counsel. But even Christopher Wray, and this is something we’re going to talk about in the next segment, had information about people lying to Congress and obstructing Congress in their investigation of Crossfire Hurricane. And no charges were brought. That is one of the most high profile cases that the FBI and the special counsel have taken on in maybe in American history. I mean, there are a few others that can go up on the top of that list, but it was so high profile and they have evidence. of someone committing a crime, obstructing Congress or and even lying before Congress. And they did nothing about it. What Kash Patel is showing is that one, we are going to do this by the book. We are going to do this properly, unlike previous leadership.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, he had a little snark, obviously. I understand that. I appreciate it saying, hey, look, I’m living rent free in his head. But I think what we’ve seen from Cash Patel is a very different person than maybe our audience or the Rumble audience, I would say, expected. That’s someone who was a bit of a firebrand, was a bit more out there, was a bit more a party kind of character, if you will. a lot of people did not look at his background understood. A lot of people got introduced to cash Patel, as I would say, like a voice on rumble. Uh, I’d been to parties and events, uh, where he was there, uh, This guy that we’re seeing as the FBI director is probably closer to who he really is, a serious person who is taking this job with full respect. And I think that maybe some of the Trump administration could actually look a little bit to Kash Patel and go, okay, we don’t have to be the outlandish characters maybe that we were beforehand because a lot of that is to get attention, to get an audience, to build that. Now you are in charge. Now you’re running the show. Show us that we made the right decision. And I think he is doing that. I actually am very excited about some of the things he said. And I think answering those questions, like you said, bringing it up, knowing the Jeffrey Epstein questions were going to come and knowing that it wasn’t going to be the answer that a lot of the American people want to hear. That it’s going to be slow. We may not have all the answers. And that he believes he took his own life. That it wasn’t this master conspiracy. And allegedly, they’re going to be releasing a video that sort of proves that. The reason why you have Dan Bongino and you have Kash Patel being so, I mean, specific and so direct about that. Not at all. It’s 100% certainty with that.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, and I think we should play this bite from Kash Patel as well. This is bite three. Because while James Comey, for some reason, he has the hubris to think that he needs to be going and doing these interviews at this time.
SPEAKER 05 :
He loves it.
SPEAKER 14 :
But he wants the attention, obviously, and he wants to bash the Trump administration. But this, I think, is one of them. I call him Bash Patel. He likes to bash Patel. I get it. You’ve got some zingers today, Logan.
SPEAKER 05 :
Banger after banger.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, let’s play how Cash Patel kind of responds to his previous criticism of the FBI and what they are doing differently. This is Byte 3.
SPEAKER 01 :
What I was a critic of was the leadership, people who sat in this seat before me and people who were the deputies and the very senior portions of the bureau who manipulated and weaponized the bureau. I was a fierce critic of it because I led the Russiagate investigation and I proved that my predecessors went to a federal court and lied to them just to weaponize the FBI and the DOJ. That is 100% true. I think one of the things that surprised me the most, and pleasantly so, was that the amount of men and women at the FBI that hated that they did that to the Bureau. And that when I got in the seat, when Dan Bongino got in the seat, they said, we want to fix this place. We want to work with you. We’ve been trying to do it for years. We’ve been trying to increase training. We weren’t able to. We’ve been trying to take the technological advancements around the world and import them into the FBI. That hasn’t been done. And so we’ve just seen a void in the in terms of long range planning at the FBI that all the men and women at the FBI wanted to do and their leadership wouldn’t let them.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I think that that is something that should be exposed even more. And I think that’s probably a bit of what Elon Musk dealt with as well, which was there’s probably some good people. We kind of overgeneralize. Maybe you’d say the FBI and the FBI the last four years, the last eight years, you could say bad, bad FBI. I mean, James Comey called him a dog, so I thought, you know.
SPEAKER 14 :
I see what you’re doing. I’m very impressed with your monologues today.
SPEAKER 05 :
But there’s a lot of people in these departments that really want to do a good job. that really want to lead successful careers and do what they got called to do, what they felt like is their duty, but now they actually have a leader that will allow them to maybe explore those opportunities instead of just shutting down because it’s Washington bureaucracy that always brings you know issues and troubles to all of these is why you see very little it is very sad i mean i think the trump administration the first go around you can actually say maybe you saw more of that and now you’re seeing it adjusted which is there are a lot of people specifically like i said business people who get involved in washington dc get involved in politics think they’re going to come in and make all these big swooping changes and four years later what happened everything got blocked nothing moved nothing progressed in fact things sometimes get worse more wars break out promises aren’t kept they’re swept under the rug but now you at least have an administration that is kind of exposing that even when they can’t necessarily fix it or can’t get it done or they’re trying And that’s even what happened, I think, with Elon Musk, because he’s officially stepped down from the Doge Department, Department of Government Efficiency, which is, you know, I know he was supposed to end right now. Sad. Phone lines are open for you. 1-800-684-3110. My dad, Jay Sekulow, will be joining us in the next segment. Talk more FBI and a lot more coming up. You’re not going to want to miss this. Again, my dad, Jay Sekulow, next segment. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you. We got three lines open right now. 1-800-684-3110. My dad, Jay Sekulow, is joining us right now. Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice. Will, I want you to set this up a bit because it does tie in with some FBI issues.
SPEAKER 14 :
That’s right. And these are names that we probably thought we would never have to hear again. But Bruce and Nellie Orr, these are individuals that were kind of pivotal figures in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Nellie Orr worked for Fusion GPS, which was the opposition research firm that was doing opposition research on President Trump when he was candidate Trump. And there was a lot of… theory and questions about her involvement because her husband was a senior official at the Department of Justice. And she was believed to have worked on the Steele dossier and also funneled information to her husband, Bruce Orr, at the Department of Justice. She told Congress that she did not. do any of that she didn’t work on this she didn’t funnel information to the government about this but now a new document that is from the FBI has been obtained by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Chuck Grassley and it’s been declassified at his request And what this document from the FBI in 2019 shows is that what the FBI knew and what Nellie Orr told Congress were completely different. And what it appears, and we’ll go to your dad, Jay Sekulow, chief counsel, is that Nellie Orr lied to Congress, obstructed a congressional oversight and investigation. The FBI knew about this and did nothing about it.
SPEAKER 03 :
It even goes, and to our audience, you know, folks, those are names we didn’t think we’d hear again, but those are names of the ACLJ and I dealt with, of course, as counsel to President Trump. And this was a basis upon which, remember, a lot of this was the basis of the whole Mueller probe, and that’s where the Steele dossier came in. But it ties exactly into what Kash Patel said and what others are now saying. The FBI was run with a political agenda. That political agenda… had people like, I mean, just think about this rationally. An investigation of the first candidate for president, and then the president of the United States, is conducted by a guy named Christopher Steele, an agent of the FBI, not an FBI agent, but paid for operative of the FBI, who funnels information, supposedly, to who? Nellie Orr from Fusion GPS, who happens to be Bruce Orr, who was he? He was the number four at the Justice Department. And then, of course, the statements to Congress that were made during the course of oversight hearings. But here’s the fact. The fact is, that’s why you have to persevere in these fights, and that’s why you have to stay engaged, because it takes a long time. We did Freedom of Information Act requests on a lot of these topics, remember? And now, of course, Senator Grassley, who we’ve worked with closely, getting it declassified. That’s why we know what we knew all along, and that the whole thing was a setup and a put-up.
SPEAKER 14 :
And when you see this and all of the loss of trust that the American people have now for these institutions, that is what Kash Patel and Dan Bongino and everyone else in the administration is trying to rebuild that trust with the American people. But if you talk about one of the most high-profile investigations that the FBI would have been involved with, investigating a candidate for president that then became president, And they have evidence that an individual lied to Congress about this. And there’s no repercussions. They sit on it. They don’t do anything to try and uphold the law. That, tells the American people that we are not a country of law and order and that people aren’t held accountable for bad actions in one of the most high profile cases that the American people have seen in their lifetime. And what is it going to take to rebuild that trust?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, look, I think Cash Patel is working hard. Bongino is working hard. Pam Bondi, they’re working hard to do it. What’s going to rebuild the trust is action, not talk. And that goes for even our friends that are now running these agencies. It’s got to be action. And that’s what we do at the ACLJ. It’s action. But, you know, there’s something to this that needs to be, I think, taken a step further. And this is where I want to thank our ACLJ champions and ACLJ members. You have to realize what was going on. As you said, they were investigating by then the president of the United States using these intermediaries and an FBI agent. Remember this. A lawyer for the FBI actually falsified an email, submitted it to a FISA court to get warrants. That’s how corrupt the situation is. But now the good news is we’ve exposed it through our work, and now you’ve got people in these government positions that are trying to make it right. But it’s going to be action, not words.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and they’re trying to make it right. Like you said, they’re trying to take action. And I think what you’re maybe seeing is the frustration from some people, not only just our listeners and viewers, but even people like Elon Musk. is that working in the government takes time. It’s not always fast. It’s not always get done, but the ACLJ team were able to push forward.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, you’re exactly right. And look, I was a government lawyer. I’ve been, and then I represented, you know, including presidents of the United States. So I represented government officials. It’s a very difficult politics. It’s a tough business and pop process works. Look, it’s like when all the Kennedy assassination stuff was coming out, did we really learn anything that new? No, You and I learned something new, Logan. That was where the gun was purchased. My father worked for that company, but that was way before. Let’s not encourage people to keep digging in that. That’s not great. Yeah, I’m his client. But is there any question, though? in reality we didn’t learn anything new and some of this is going to be that but here you got something that is new now that it’s been declassified and it shows exactly what was going on here and this is exactly why we with vigilance stay engaged on all these issues yeah that’s why the aclj team is always hard at work we talk about it all the time we obviously cover the breaking news that’s happening around the country around the world but the aclj is always involved in the breaking news that’s happening around the world whether you we talked yesterday about so go ahead
SPEAKER 05 :
No, you’re exactly right.
SPEAKER 03 :
I mean, I look at the news headlines and say another thing that we’re involved in, and that has been our practice for now over 40 years.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yep, absolutely. Look, coming up in the next half hour, we’re going to be joined by more ACLJ team members. It’s going to be a packed half hour, and I want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. I also want to encourage you, by the way, if you haven’t yet done it, download the new ACLJ app. It just released a few months ago. Thousands of you have already done it, tens of thousands of you. are part of the ACLJ app family. If you do that, it’s a great experience. It’s a great way to get engaged, sign petitions, make donations, watch the show. You can do it right now by just scanning the QR code on your screen or just go in the app store on Apple devices or it’s on Android as well. It’s on Android as well. Let’s type in ACLJ. It’ll come right up. And if you’re an ACLJ champion, someone that gives on a recurring basis, you actually get a bit of a different skin, a bit of a different experience there on the ACLJ app. You’ll get, again, our expert analysis here on Seculo. You’ll shape the future through our petitions and you’ll get a custom ACLJ experience because you get to pick what issues matter most to you. And we’ll send you breaking news alerts based on those issues as well. So there’s a lot of great ways to interact with the ACLJ through that app. So I want to encourage you to do that. It just makes it a little bit more seamless. If you are watching right now on YouTube, I know a lot of you are right now. And when I’d see these numbers go growing, I know that a lot of you have never seen us before. Sometimes it’s 50, 60%. And we can see in the back end analytics. I’ve never seen this before. If you’ve never seen this before, I’m not asking you necessarily to make a donation and support the work of the ACLJ. I’m going to ask you to do those. Hit that subscribe button. It’s free. Hopefully you’ll get alerts saying when we’re live, which is every day from noon to 1 p.m. Eastern time. If you lose this right now, if you are listening on terrestrial radio, some of the terrestrial radio stations don’t carry the full hour. Number one, they should. So tell them they should. But even if they don’t, there’s a great free way to get the rest of the show. Go to ACLJ.org. All your favorite podcast apps, it’s there later on archived if you’re listening to this later. Or you can find it, again, live. ACLJ.org, YouTube, Rumble. However you get your content, we are there. Make sure you’re following us. We’ll be right back with the second half hour. Less than a minute.
SPEAKER 13 :
Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 05 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. I want to reset what we’re talking about a little bit because a lot of you just joined us here for this second half hour. That’s right. You may have seen it in the titles or maybe the pitches you saw. James Comey. He’s back. That’s right. James Comey’s back. He couldn’t get enough from that seashell gate. He had to come back and now make some insults to the current FBI director, Kash Patel. I think we should play that for those who didn’t hear it. So let’s kick off with that first comment that we had. Again, this is a conversation that happened on MSNBC with James Comey. Take a listen to this Byte 14.
SPEAKER 11 :
Tell for sure from the outside. Obviously, you start with the fact that the guy has literally nothing in his entire adult life that prepares him for this role. And so that’s deeply concerning to start with. In a way, I kind of feel a little bit sorry for the guy. He’s barked at the FBI nonsense for years, and now he not only caught the car, he’s got to drive the car. And so that is a daunting task for him. I hope he lets the career people do their jobs, but they’ve already forced out a bunch of good career people and sent a chill through the organization.
SPEAKER 05 :
So again, that came from James Comey, who decided he needs to make another grandstanding moment for himself. And Kash Patel responded. Here’s his response on Bret Baier just yesterday.
SPEAKER 01 :
he wants to come after me no problem i’ve been living rent free in that guy’s head for years and that’s just a bonus do you know how many copycats we’ve had to investigate as a result of that beachside venture from the former director is that right do you know how many agents i’ve had to take offline from chasing down child sex predators fentanyl traffickers terrorists because everywhere across this country people are popping up on social media and think that a threat to the life of the president of the United States is a joke, and they can do it because he did it, that’s what I’m having to deal with every single day. And that’s what I’m having to pull my agents and analysts off, because he thought it was funny to go out there and make a political statement.
SPEAKER 05 :
Again, that was Kash Patel’s response. Let’s quickly take a call about this. I want to go to Bill in Wyoming on line three. Bill, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hi, thanks for welcoming me today. I’m just kind of wondering, does Comey feel either guilty or embarrassed about what he did in the FBI? Because it seems to me He’d be extolling how great a job he did, and yet he’s busy bashing Kash Patel instead.
SPEAKER 05 :
I think he’s just happy to get the TV time. I just think he’s happy his name is back in the news. He’s got a crime novel that he’s got to sell. I don’t think he cares that he’s now being investigated. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was all some sort of elaborate plan to get more media attention. you know post something that he knew was going to be controversial and then go i didn’t know 86 meant kill i never heard that before that was your former fbi director though he’s going after the current fbi director kash patel saying he’s got no background in this you feel bad for him he calls him a dog so they used to bark at the car now he has to drive the car deal with that Real good. Real good on you, James Comey. Look, when we get back in the next segment, Harry Hutchins is going to be joining us because we also have some conversation to move on about what’s going on at Harvard. And of course, it’s a continual battle with the Trump administration in the fight against anti-Semitism. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. I’m going to take as many of these calls as I can towards the end of the broadcast. So make sure you call in. Get in line right now. Rob and Joshua. You guys are both on hold right now. Both of you been on hold for a long time. I will get to you, but we do have a few lines open at 1-800-684-3110. And again, I’m going to encourage you today. If you’re brand new subscribe, if you’ve been here for a while support, if you haven’t done it yet, download the ACLJ app. I just gave you three things you could do that helps us out. Okay. Two of those are absolutely free downloading the ACLJ app. and getting the ACLJ or be subscribed to the ACLJ channels. And know that the reason that we do this, the reason I push this so hard is I want to make sure ACLJ content is always as free as possible. that it’s not behind some paywall. You’re not going to send your friend an article that he needs to read or she needs to read because you want them to be engaged and informed on what’s happening. And they get hit with some pop-up blocker that says, sorry, you got to pay us $2 a month to get. No, I don’t want to do that. I hate that. I want you to say this is important. I’m an ACLJ champion, so I encourage you to become one as well at any level. Whether that’s $5, $500, you can do what you can do. And of course, the freeways. Hit that subscribe button. Join the nearly 500,000 people that are on our YouTube channel alone and so many millions more around the world. We’ll be right back with your calls, comments, and Professor Harry Hutchinson. Welcome back to Seculo. Harry Hutchinson’s joining us right now in studio. And we’re talking today, we’re moving this topic just a little bit, and then we’ll get back to James Comey. Because Harvard decided, who should we have as our commencement speaker? Who should we have be speaking to our students in this moment where we are being accused of anti-Semitism? We’re being accused of anti-Israel. Sentiment being really… infiltrated him on our campus. Let’s bring in CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. Now, another year, you’d say, okay, she’s been a journalist forever, respected international war correspondent. However,
SPEAKER 14 :
never really been a big fan of Israel known as that so you’re just adding more fuel to this fire well that’s right and you were correct this was at the Harvard Kennedy School commencement ceremony so this is the school of government so she’s speaking to people that want to get into public service potentially or or want to probably if it’s this class of graduates push back against the current administration But this is what she had to say about dissent and pushing back against what they see. And this is the time that Harvard, the Kennedy School, decided to have this person speak while they are in litigation with the current administration in the current White House. Let’s go ahead and play this for people so we can frame what we’re talking about here. This is Byte 17, Christiane Amanpour.
SPEAKER 02 :
Dissent is actually an invaluable part of our democratic process. We cannot surrender to any system that deems only power-approved speech or thought is allowed. The whole point of journalism and any other academic enterprise is to investigate power, speak truth to power, hold power accountable, without fear nor favor. And this is not the first time the press, the Fourth Estate, has come under such sustained threat from the executive branch. After President Nixon’s reelection in 1972, and amid the Washington Post’s remarkable Watergate reporting, The Nixon administration challenged TV licenses that the Washington Post had, as well as a whole lot of other pressure. There are tapes of Nixon telling his people to ban the Washington Post reporters and photographers from the White House press room. A New York Times article quotes publisher Katherine Graham from her memoir. She said, the administration’s power and anger were at their greatest after the landslide election, and we were at our weakest. We were scared, and yet they continued. I understand that. I am scared when I go to war zones, for instance. I’m sometimes scared when I talk truth to power.
SPEAKER 14 :
So, Professor Hutchison, obviously, Christiane Amanpour, I think, is talking about the current administration. But you could say the same thing about the press not covering. They obviously decided not to cover much of the previous administration’s failures. They’re the cover up. And now you have one individual, Jake Tapper, actually, who wrote the book about it, talking about what a poor job they did. But this is seen as some brave, defiant thing. speech about how important it is to speak truth to power even when you’re scared but it feels like this could be equally applied to the previous four years
SPEAKER 12 :
Absolutely, and one of the things that I would suggest to Christiane Amanpour is that she read her speech carefully before delivering it, because if you take the text of her speech literally, it points a direct finger at CNN’s coverage of President Biden and Kamala Harris. Voltaire has said that if you can get people to believe in an absurdity, it opens the door to atrocities. And so I think Harvard speaker Christiane Amanpour, in her address to the students, has proven her capacity to believe in absurdities. And so in her attack on the Trump administration, she gets it exactly backwards. Where was Christiane Amanpour when the Biden administration cracked down on freedom of speech? Where was Christiane Amanpour when a group of intelligence officers put together a memo suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian information? She was nowhere to be found. She perhaps was shopping at Harrods in London or wherever. And so I think her approach to the Trump administration is absurd. That’s number one. But number two, her willingness to attack Israel, I think, is also absurd. She attacked Israel’s coverage by CNN suggesting that it was pro-Israeli when most observers make the point that CNN’s coverage of Israel is anti-Israel and pro-Hamas.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, of course, a lot of people feel that way. I do want to take a call that’s related to this. I think it’d be good to take in this segment. Let’s go to Joshua in Illinois. By the way, by opening up this line, we now have quite a few lines available for you. So if you want to call in, great time. Joshua, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 15 :
Hi, yeah, my son attended Harvard and he faced plenty of anti-Semitism, so I’m really happy with what President Trump’s doing. But I’m a bit confused because he’s hired anti-Semites like Darren Beatty, Paul Ingrassia, Kingsley Wilson, Ed Martin, and his attorney general went on Stu Peter’s show eight times, who’s a flaming anti-Semite. So what is he doing about that?
SPEAKER 05 :
I mean, look, we’d have to go, and that’s not what you told our phone screener, but I understand that you feel this way. You said that your son went to Harvard, faced a lot of anti-Semitism or Jewish, I understand. Look, I think there have been some voices within that world that I have said very openly that I really disagree with. I think there have been some leading voices in the conservative movement that decided not only to take anti-Israel stances, but to take anti-Semitic stances. And I don’t say that in the way that people are like, you can be anti-Israel and not be anti-Semitic. I don’t really necessarily believe that, but I’m not talking about those people. I’m not talking about people who are calling out for humanitarian aid in Gaza. I understand the heartstrings that get pulled for that. I’m talking about those that are bringing up tropes that have been around for thousands of years, specifically 100 years in this country that are still in this, you know, control the universe, you know, control the media, control the everything. Big leading voices. You know who I’m talking about. I don’t want to dignify anyone with giving them any credit, but you know who I’m talking about. People who were maybe some of the most intellectual, pretended at least to be the most intellectual in this conversation. So those are the ones, look, I don’t disagree with you. I think that I’d like to see those people not be involved in politics in general and certainly not involved in a conservative pro-Israel administration.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well, and to the caller’s point… I don’t know about the specific people you mentioned.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and there have been…
SPEAKER 14 :
Questionable decisions made by individuals that decided to go on a show like Stu Peters that is awful, just frankly awful Nazi rhetoric and is a voice on the online right. And it does bring into question. why individuals would go on a program like that now obviously the topics that were discussed a lot of times the people that are on the right that they also talk about the corruption of the fbi they talk about the corruption of the justice department things of that nature but there can be times when you can call out and say maybe you should not have gone on that program but at the same time uh i think the actions of the trump administration going after harvard The way that, and frankly, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York just announced that they have arrested a U.S. citizen that attempted to burn down the branch office of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. They are taking action against people that are spreading anti-Semitism. And I think that that is what we are proud of. And Professor Hutchison, when you have tens of thousands of people in the government, there are probably people with bad views. But at the same time, we do look at the actions and they are taking the actions we approve of to combat this.
SPEAKER 12 :
I think you’re precisely correct. I think at the end of the day, actions by the Trump administration speak much louder than words, even though I think we should continue to call out those individuals that go on controversial programs with speakers who have anti-Semitic views.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, thank you, Professor Hutchinson, for joining us today. We do have four lines open for you right now, so this is a great time to call in. I hope we’re able to get you a bit more informed on what’s happening and all these important issues. If you have a question or comment related to that Kash Patel situation, the FBI, even the Jeffrey Epstein stuff, you can feel free to call in at 1-800-684-3110. We’ll try to get to as many calls as we can. Rob and John, stay on hold. You’re going to be first up when we get back. I want to encourage you right now, though, if you haven’t downloaded the ACLJ app, it’s a great time to do it. You can watch this show on here. So not just listen to it. If you’re just listening, if you’re listening on Sirius XM or you’re listening on your local radio station, your terrestrial radio station, know that we produce this show as a full television style experience. You can do that. You can find it for absolutely free on the ACLJ app on ACLJ.org on YouTube. But on the app, you not only get this show, you get to shape the future of the country and of the world. Again, that’s at aclj.org. Download the new app. Just search for ACLJ. You get to customize your experience. When you open it, it’s going to ask you the issues you care about the most. Of course, you can say, I care about everything you guys do, and we appreciate that. But you can get a customized experience. You’ll get breaking news alerts. They’ll send straight to your… They have a cool ACLJ inbox feature. I really like that feature. And then you can help support our efforts with an easy click of the button. Great. So whether you have an iPhone, Android, however you get your apps, just go to it. Go to ACLJ.org. Make sure you’re updated also if you’ve already downloaded. We’ll be right back with your calls. Welcome back to Seculo. We got one or two lines open for you right now at 1-800-684-3110. I just want to be clear for those in the chat. You know, I don’t usually do this, but Pat, Pat, we talked the other day. I didn’t like some of the stuff you were saying, Pat, you weren’t paying attention. And then we didn’t take your phone. You were saying, I don’t take phone calls. And then you said, you’re going to call in yesterday. You didn’t call in. You said, you’re going to call in today. And you didn’t call in. We want, and we know you’re a champion. So, you know, I usually don’t call out one. You wouldn’t get to the front of the line, right? I don’t usually call out one individual listener. But I want to make sure our team knows this. And maybe you don’t have the right number. But you’ve been listening long enough. I feel like you should. Let’s go, though, to Rob, who is calling on line one. Rob, you’ve got to hold about 40 minutes. I appreciate it. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, thank you. Thank you for what you guys do. Um, I, uh, I want to recommend, actually, I’m going to add a book too, because, uh, the center for security policy did the book launch of a book by Diana West, who is a great investigative journalist. The book is called the red thread, a search for ideological drivers inside.
SPEAKER 05 :
Cause I don’t know anything about this book and I don’t want to like run in an ad for a book that I don’t know, but can you go ahead with a comment without a book endorsement? It’s just cause we’re on a lot of radio stations, a lot of places. I don’t know what we’re talking about here, but go ahead with your comment.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, she actually revealed that James Comey, if you had asked him what his politics was when he was in college, his answer was communist.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, cool. So Rob’s saying that James Comey, according to that book, is a communist. I think you can at least look at some of his record and maybe have some of that, but I’m not really sure. But I appreciate you, Rob, for calling. Thanks for staying on hold for so long. Know that I appreciate it. Let’s continue on, take some more calls. Let’s go to John, who’s calling in Maryland. John, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, my comment is just that as far as Bongino and Kash Patel go and any other people who Trump’s put in power, you know, this is a microwave society. You want everything done, boom, put it in, pop it, two seconds, it’s ready. And it’s not going to happen. It’s been over four years, 12 years more like, you know, that’s been corruption. So it’s not going to happen overnight. So I just ask people to be patient and give them a chance to get these things resolved.
SPEAKER 05 :
Like I think president Trump, uh, for all of his positives and all of his maybe hyperbole, we need to at least understand when he’d said a lot of things would happen day one, you know, day one, you’re going to find out this day one, they’re going to have the end of the war. Look, I think when you actually get into it and everyone knows this, when you get into politics, You can keep those promises, but sometimes it takes a little bit more time. And I think, John, you’re right. I think he brought people in who are serious about their job. Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, serious about their jobs. They’re not just going to overnight risk security clearances, risk all of these things. Risk the people, by the way, they’re involved in things like the Epstein situation. Maybe these are sensitive material with child trafficking. It’s very sensitive material. I understand it can take some time. And I think that the problem is people get confused. They get a little confused on… what can actually get done in a quick pace. Now, I do also think Washington is tied with red tape that is really disturbing. And really, when you start working in that world, that’s why I do not live there. I do not care to live there. It’s why you hear Rick Grinnell always saying, you know, I want to get out of there as quick as I can.
SPEAKER 14 :
Rick likes to flee DC for California.
SPEAKER 05 :
So I think that tells you all you need to know about the swamp. Yeah, exactly. All right. Let’s continue on and take some more calls. Leah is calling on line three from Texas. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hello. Hi. I just wanted to say that I used to be part of the mainstream media. And one of the things that they tend to use that Christina Amapour used in her speech was the phrase truth to power. And there is nothing bigger than a lie about truth to power. You do not speak truth to power. You speak truth to a lie. And if the lie happens to be powerful, such as Hamas is using our media to sell, that’s what you have to speak up against. And in this case, it’s about the Jewish people in Israel.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, Leah, I think you’re right. I think there is a lot of that. When you can be the loudest voice in the room, you can spread a lot of lies. I talk to a lot of my friends and I try to be honest with people and I try to argue well and engage well and not just write someone off for some of their views. But what I have learned is if you pick at their views, even just a little, it all falls apart because you realize they’re not informed. They’re informed, like you said, by the headline. They’re informed by the speaking truth to lies. It is a move that is easy and you can play people’s heartstrings a lot. I think that’s why you had success a lot of times with the Democrats because you look at the heart of the matter. And a lot of us, if they were telling the truth, A lot of us would have that empathy, that feeling towards people that want to help those who are in need, the homeless. But what we learn is that that’s not actually what they do. They use those as dog whistles. They use those as talking points. But when it comes down to it, they’re not actually getting it done. The difference was in this last election is that people started waking up to that. had a lot of people on the left saying I am not voting for Joe Biden this time. I’m not voting for Kamala Harris this time. We have seen what they put us through and also we have seen that there are lies in the the heartstring tugs.
SPEAKER 14 :
Well and to the caller’s point as well if Christiane Amanpour was being honest with her statements about speaking truth to power What she should be talking about is the story we talked about with your dad earlier, that Nellie Orr, who was working for Fusion GPS, was lying to Congress, was working with Christopher Steele and her husband at the Department of Justice to fabricate this investigation against a sitting U.S. president. Because she talks about Watergate in her speech, about speaking truth to power and not being scared of that. That is such a public corruption issue, a hoax that was put on the entire country, making us live through the Mueller investigation that James Comey kickstarted by leaking his notes to the press. That’s what our media should still be talking about. And another, Christiane Amanpour, generations from now speaking to Harvard’s Kennedy School, should be using that as an example of that we, the press, were bold enough to talk about this. But they’re not. This isn’t front page news today. It should be. This is such an outrageous scandal that no one has been held accountable for yet. that it should be still something that the press, if they really care about speaking truth to power, what’s very powerful? The FBI. Speak truth to that. And what the failures of previous leadership to prosecute people and put them in jail for real serious crimes and a hoax that they made the entire country live through for years. But no, instead, it’s because President Trump is trying to stop anti-Semitism at Harvard. She’s got to speak truth to power to that. That’s the absurdity. And to the caller’s point, it should be the real phrase, speak truth to lies, but they’re not.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right. Ronald’s calling in New York. Let’s quickly take you, Ronald. We only got a minute and a half left on the show. So, you know, give me your thoughts in about 20 seconds. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, sir. Thank you. I believe James Comey knew what he was doing when he was on the beach. It wasn’t like he wrote 86 with a stick in the sand. He used it like a picture puzzle to come up with the word phrase. And I believe seashells represented gun shells.
SPEAKER 05 :
Ronald, I mean, he said that he just stumbled upon this political speech and thought, oh, how interesting. Someone taking a moment. And by the way, if you’re that obsessed with politics to where you’re on the beach and you’re like, man, I’m spending this beautiful time with my friends and family. I’m going to make a political statement. Yeah, get your head checked. Re-evaluate yourself because, man, don’t let it obsess over you. That’s where you’re supposed to not think about politics. That’s where you go to look out into the ocean to heal. The ocean heals well. I’ve heard you say that before. It does. Some people worship the ocean. Same. Not me. I’m glad you clarified that for everyone. I like the feeling. I like the feeling of water that travels millions of miles and then is absorbed by me. I think that’s a powerful moment. I think that’s a powerful spiritual moment. We’re going to keep talking to you, but maybe not Pat. Because Pat never called. Pat, either you’re calling the wrong number. I’m just going to keep calling Pat out every day. You’re either calling the wrong number or you’re not being truthful. And I appreciate that you’re a champion. I appreciate all the champions. Try us again tomorrow. ACLJ.org, by the way, if you want to support the work, if you want to download the app, just look in the app store. Scan that QR code you see on the screen right now. Thanks again for watching. Sekulo will be back with you tomorrow.
