Ep. 2104 - The Race Rape Hoax That Started It All…COLLAPSES
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Folks, one of the things that's sort of amazing about the industry that I inhabit, the news industry, the news commentary industry, is that so many stories that have an outsized national impact turn out to be completely the other way upon further review. And one of the sort of incentive structures for the news business is being firstest with the mostest. Get to the story fast, report it incredibly quickly. And then it turns out that much of the reporting ends up being false. And then in retrospect, it has done significant damage.

This is true with a lot of the reporting about, say, COVID or Black Lives Matter. One of the signal examples of this is now being exposed for all the world to see. If you remember all the way back to 2006, this is 18 years ago. So a lot of my listeners or younger people don't remember this case. This case, the Duke Lacrosse rape case, was actually the inciting event for a wide variety of movements that would come into full flower over the course of the subsequent 10 years, particularly over the course of the Obama era.

The Duke Lacrosse case was an inciting incident for things like Black Lives Matter. This idea that black people in America had a boot on their throat from a justice system that did not care about it, that white privileged people were beating up on underprivileged black people. This was the source of an enormous amount of the Me Too movement. This idea that a stripper who accused a series of rich white Duke Lacrosse players of having sexually assaulted her, that she had not been given a fair shake. You sort of believe all women movement.

And this is one of the biggest cases in American criminal justice history, specifically because of all of its ripple effect. Well, now the stripper at the center of that case, a woman named Crystal Mangum, is admitting that she lied back in 2006. She had never publicly admitted that she fabricated the rape allegation before the revelation now, which, again, is 18 years after the original allegations were

There were three men who were actually arrested and then put on trial briefly before the case was dismissed. Their names were David Evans, Colin Finnerty, and Reed Seligman. Well, this woman obviously had tons of holes in her story, huge problems with her story. So her original allegation was that she had been performing at a team party off campus in March of 2006, and that she had then been sexually assaulted, raped by a series of white Duke lacrosse players. And it turns out that the facts were not there for any of this.

She was indeed at this party, but apparently she engaged in none of her sort of career activity, shall we say, because she was apparently high on drugs or on alcohol or on prescription medications. And she ended up leaving early. And then these accusations were filed. And there are many problems with this story. One was that there was no DNA on her. She had claimed that she'd been raped by a bunch of men, none of whom used protection, and there was no DNA on her.

Other problems included the fact that she could not identify any of the Duke lacrosse players except for one in a photo array, and that one ended up not having been there. So tons of problems with this entire process, but that did not stop everyone, everyone in elite media, everyone on the university campuses from jumping to conclusions. The attorney, the district attorney from Durham County, a man named Mike Nifong, said in a March 2006 interview with CBS News, quote, there's no doubt a sexual assault took place and that the assault was racially motivated.

Here was Mike Nifong, the Durham County District Attorney, back in 2006. I am not going to allow Durham's view and the mind of the world to be a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl in Durham.

Nye Fong obviously had other political motivations. He wanted to possibly run for higher office at some point. At this time, Nye Fong said, quote, the circumstances of the rape indicated a deep racial motivation for some of the things that were done. It makes it a crime that is by nature one of the most offensive and invasive, even more so. So he said this wasn't just a rape. It was, in fact, a racist rape. The former Duke University president, a person named Richard Broadhead, actually took immediate action against the team following just the allegations.

He accepted the resignation of the men's lacrosse coach, a man named Mike Pressler. He canceled the remainder of their season. He suspended the three players from school after they were indicted for rape, according to the New York Post, despite having asked the public not to prejudge the criminal case. Eventually, this case was dismissed. David Evans, one of the players, stridently denied the allegations at the time. Here he was.

I'm absolutely innocent of all the charges that have been brought against me today that Reed Seligman and Colin Fennig are innocent of all the charges that were brought against them. These allegations are lies. Now, again, that did not stop The New York Times from running 100 pieces about the Duke lacrosse allegations. Many of them were think pieces about the deep embedded nature of American racism and sexism. A tremendous number of Duke faculty actually paid for an ad that was put in The Duke Chronicle.

Talking about this particular case, the following departments at Duke University signed on to this paid advertisement. The African and African-American Studies Department, Romance Studies, Psychology, Social and Health Sciences, Franklin Humanities Institute, Critical U.S. Studies, Art, Art History, Visual Studies, Classical Studies, Asian and African Languages and Literature, Women's Studies, Latina Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, European Studies, Center for Democracy Studies.

Almost 100 professors at Duke University signed on to this statement. What did the statement say? Quote, we are listening to our students. We're also listening to the Durham community, to Duke staff and to each other. Regardless of the results of the police investigation, what is apparent every day now is the anger and fear of many students who know themselves to be objects of racism and sexism, who see illuminated in this moment's extraordinary spotlight what they live with every day. They know it isn't just Duke, it isn't everybody, and it isn't individuals making this disaster. But it is a disaster nonetheless.

These students are shouting and whispering about what happened to this young woman and to themselves. We want the absence of terror, but we don't really know what that means. We can't think. That's why we're so silent. We can't think about what on the other side of this. Terror robs you of language and you need language for healing to begin.

This is not a different experience for us here at Duke University. We go to class with racist classmates. We go to gym with people who are racist. It's part of the experience. If it turns out these students are guilty, I want them expelled. But their expulsion will only bring resolution to this case and not the bigger problem. This is much bigger than them. And throwing them out will not solve the problem. I want the administration to acknowledge what is going on and how bad it is. Everything seems up for grabs. These are all quotes from anonymous students.

Everything seems up for grabs. I'm only comfortable talking about this event in my room with close friends. I'm actually afraid to even bring it up in public. But worse, I wonder now about everything. If something like this happens to me, what would be used against me? My clothing? Where I was?

Final quote, I was talking to a white woman student who was asking me, quote, why do people, and she meant black people, make race such a big issue? They don't see race. They just don't see it. Again, you can see here the seabed for the entire DEI woke movement that would reach its full flower in 2020 with the Black Lives Matter riots. The staff at Duke University took out this ad. They put out this ad, again, signed by dozens and dozens and dozens of members of the faculty, I'm sure many of whom are still working at Duke University.

The ad says, what does a social disaster sound like? The students know that disaster didn't begin on March 13th and won't end with what the police say or the court decides. It doesn't matter what the truth is. Like all disasters, this one has a history. And what lies beneath what we're hearing from our students are questions about the future. This ad printed in the most easily seen venue on campus is just one way for us to say that we're hearing what our students are saying.

We are turning up the volume in a moment when some of the most vulnerable among us are being asked to quiet down while we wait. To the students speaking individually and to the protesters making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard. Again, you can see the seedbed here. And it turns out it was all lies. It was all lies beginning to end. Eventually, the North Carolina Attorney General, Roy Cooper, would announce that the charges had in fact been dropped. Roy Cooper would go on to become the governor of the state of North Carolina.

Our attorneys and SBI agents have interviewed numerous people who were at the party, DNA and other experts, the Durham County District Attorney, Durham police officers, defense attorneys, and the accusing witness on several occasions. We have reviewed statements given over the year, photographs, records, and other evidence. The result of our review and investigation shows clearly

that there is insufficient evidence to proceed on any of the charges. Today, we are filing notices of dismissal for all charges against Reed Seligman, Colin Finnerty, and David Evans. The result is that these cases are over and no more criminal proceedings will occur.

The problem is, where do you go to get your life back? Philip Seligman, who is the father of one of the Duke Lacrosse students, spoke about this, spoke about what happens when false allegations are lodged and they become national news stories. And again, this is the way the left-wing media run with pretty much every allegation. Now, here is Philip Seligman talking about this, about his son Reed, who was falsely accused. If you had a chance to say something to Mr. Nifong today, what would it be? For what he did and the...

Nye Fong himself ended up being disbarred for making false statements and for hiding evidence from the defense. Well,

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First and foremost, I regret our failure to reach out to the lacrosse players and their families in a time of extraordinary peril. Given the complexities of this case, getting the communication right would never have been easy. But the fact is that we did not get it right, causing the families to feel abandoned when they were most in need of support. This was a mistake. I take responsibility for it, and I apologize for it.

But here's the thing. What was the fallout from this case? Was the fallout a lesson learned about people making false allegations? Of course not. Was the fallout about the rush to judgment by a media deeply desperate for a race case that they could actually magnify? Of course not, because we've had dozens of those since then.

The actual fallout in terms of policy was that in 2011, the Obama administration changed Title IX regulations that basically made it so that you could not actually defend yourself against a sexual harassment or sexual assault allegation on campus.

In 2011, the Obama administration had outlined guidelines for schools on how to handle sexual assault allegations in a Dear Colleague letter. It's from CNN. The letter reminded schools of their legal obligations to address sexual violence amid concerns schools were not taking the issue seriously enough and called on schools to step up investigations of reports. It also provided guidelines for investigations and hearings. And it gave the actual accused no due process.

It made it so that you didn't actually have a right to face down the person who was accusing you. That was the actual legal implication that was drawn from the false allegations of the Duke Lacrosse case. And again, this would repeat itself later with similar allegations that were made about the University of Virginia frat members in 2014 accused by Rolling Stone of engaging in a gang rape. And it turns out that that was completely false as well. But that didn't stop the momentum of the MeToo movement. See, false allegations...

are unfortunately the lifeblood of movements that require gas when there is no gas in the tank. So as I say, yesterday, why is this in the news? Because yesterday, the accuser in that Duke Lacrosse case, who again is serving time for murder right now and who has serious mental health problems, she came out, Crystal Mangum, and finally admitted nearly 20 years later that it was all made up and it was all a lie. I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn't.

And that was wrong. And I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me and made up a story that wasn't true because I wanted validation from people and not from God. And that was wrong. And I hope that they can forgive me.

Again, the fact that it was false, and everyone knew it was false at the time, and yet it led to another string of these sorts of cases, ranging from, yes, the University of Virginia false rape allegations, to the false allegations regarding Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri, which led to riots in 2014, to the case of George Floyd, which is, in fact, a false case. This idea that Derek Chauvin, in racist fashion, attempted to murder George Floyd, that that

To the Daniel Penny case, it stretches forward. It stretches forward because the media need these opportunities. They spin up these opportunities. They rely on these opportunities in order to, quote unquote, have the discussion. They're constantly looking for a news hook to have discussions on the issues that they find most interesting, regardless of whether the underlying data is there or whether the underlying data is not. And it's quite terrible.

By the way, you see this in pretty much every aspect of how the news media covers stories. So to take another example that's seemingly unrelated, this case of the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter. So this person, it now turns out, Luigi Mangione, 26 years old,

The original allegation was that this person had had an unsuccessful back surgery and maybe was covered by UnitedHealthcare and got denied. Turns out this person never had UnitedHealthcare coverage. It also turns out that this person may have had successful back surgery, according to his social media posts. At this time, it was not about pain in his back. He'd had a successful surgery.

Now, the story may turn out that the person got high on psychedelics and it screwed with his brain. We still don't know the full story. But what has this spurred? It has spurred a broader conversation about the health care system. Now, that's precisely what terrorists want. What terrorists would like is to, quote unquote, start a conversation about the topic that they think is important by killing people. And the media are perfectly willing to jump into that particular conversation. However, there are conversations the media are not willing to jump into.

If there is, for example, a false allegation of rape after Duke La Crosse, was there a widespread investigation into false rape allegations, which was the actual story with regard to Duke La Crosse? Absolutely not. Was there a full scale media blitz on the question of race hoaxes, which is what happened in Duke La Crosse? Absolutely not. The way that the mainstream media work, their way of deciding whether something is a national story or not, is not based on the truth or falsity of the statement or the good or bad action of the people in question.

They have a preset narrative, and then they look for a hook for that narrative. And that is how you end up spinning movements up out of nothing, out of a lack of evidence. This is how you end up polarizing the American body politic. You want to know why Americans are sick and tired of the national legacy media? Because going back for decades at this point, the national media have a preset narrative agenda, and then they look for a news hook for that agenda that allows them to spin it up into a national story. And you can see that pattern everywhere.

That, by the way, is precisely how, for example, Russiagate happened. If you recall, the so-called Steele dossier, this compendium of absolute sheer garbage nonsense that was put together by Fusion GPS at the behest of the Hillary Clinton campaign and then laundered through America's law enforcement mechanisms.

That only became a national story and became public. Why? Because James Comey, then the head of the FBI, went to Donald Trump to present him with the allegations. And then that was used as a news hook by BuzzFeed in order to print the full steel dossier. And that became the subject of a four-year investigation. Now, if there are false allegations that were made in a compendium about Joe Biden, do you think that would become a national news story for four years? For four, I highly doubt it. And this is why the national legacy media are completely falling apart.

This is why. But this is, again, the goal here is take an incident, regardless of who's guilty or who's innocent, who's lying and who's telling the truth, and spin it into a broader narrative that you want to talk about. So, again, with regard to this UnitedHealthcare CEO, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, for example, she's speaking the way that left-wingers speak when it comes to these questions. She says, sure, murder is never justified, but now we can finally have those crucial conversations about nationalizing American health care.

Here's Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez effectively justifying murder because after all, our health care system is so flawed that it's just predictable if people decide to go kill people. It's really important that we take a step back. This is not to comment and this is not to say that an act of violence is justified. But I think for anyone who is confused or shocked or appalled, they need to understand that people...

interpret and feel and experience denied claims as an act of violence against them. People go homeless over the financial devastation of a diagnosis that doesn't get addressed or the amount that they're gonna have to cover with a surprise bill and things like that. And when we kind of talk about how systems are violent in this country, in this passive way,

Our privatized health care system is like that for a huge amount of Americans. Okay, first of all, it's psychotic to suggest that there's no denial of care in nationalized health care countries. That isn't true. These are very complex issues, as we've been discussing for the last several days. But that's not the point. The point is she's using the murder of an innocent man, regardless of what you think about how he ran his business. This guy did not commit a criminal offense.

You're talking about the murder on the street by a person who was a very upper class, very rich white Ivy League graduate on the streets. You're using that as a lever to talk about the issue you want to talk about. This is the way the left wing uses issues like Duke Lacrosse. Again, the normal outcome of a Duke Lacrosse case, when you have a person who is presumably psychotic,

who commits a false rape allegation. The conversation should then be about due process. How is it carried out? Maybe we need to strengthen due process so we actually don't have cases like this again. That's never the conversation that takes place. There's always the preset narrative that takes place. And I think all of that is going to change. I think it's all going to change because I think that the American people are tired of this. They're tired of being told that left-wing priorities are always the priorities no matter what happens.

That no matter what the antecedent, the conclusion is the same. No matter what happens, we now have to have a conversation about what the left wants to have a conversation about. So if a left winger shoots a right winger, then the conversation is about how the left winger is somehow victimized by the system. If a right winger shoots a left winger, then the conversation is about how right wing ideas are wrong and terrible. If you have a false rape allegation, then the conversation is about why America is over sexualized and why we need to take claims of rape more seriously if they are cross-racial.

And if the rape allegation is true, then the conversation is exactly the same. Now, that is the lesson from what happened here, that for the media, individual victims don't matter whatsoever. They don't matter at all. The only thing that matters is the story. The only thing that matters is the narrative. I don't know what happened to these Duke lacrosse players. I know that some of them ended up going to different colleges. I don't know what they do now. But the bottom line is for literally the rest of their life, they will be linked to that false allegation.

And meanwhile, people who make false allegations, they go on to fame and fortune as well. Al Sharpton still has a show on MSNBC. He is visited by presidential candidates after leading the greatest race rape hoax of the latter half of the 20th century in the Tawana Browley case. That dude is still a well-respected public figure who receives donations from Kamala Harris right before he interviews her on national TV. And that entire infrastructure needs to be destroyed.

An entire media democratic human centipede needs to be destroyed full scale. And this is just another example of why. Well, this entire corrupt system needs to be destroyed. But I'll tell you what else needs to be changed. The way that light flows into your home. I know, pretty wild to...

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If you lose a presidential race and then you are basically cast out into the nether regions and then you somehow make a comeback all the way back to the presidency, that's pretty incredible. The interview that he did with Time Magazine is kind of fascinating. Again, the thing to notice about how Donald Trump is actually approaching the issues is that he's being quite moderate about it. Donald Trump is not interested in promoting what the media would term an extremist agenda. He's interested in metrics of success. And so that means that much of what he says in this interview is

seems more moderate than many of the stuff, many, many of the things that his opponents are saying about him. So for example, when it comes to immigration, he says the country was angry because of immigration, because of the people, you know, millions and millions of people. It could be 21 million people. They were saying a much less number, but it wasn't a much lesser number. Even if it was, it was irrelevant because they were allowing anybody to come into our country. They are right now. They opened it up again. You see what's going on. They're coming, they're pouring up through Mexico and other places, and they weren't using common sense. And then later in the interview,

He said, it doesn't stop the military if it's an invasion of our country. And I consider it an invasion of our country. We have criminals coming into our country that we've never seen. We've never seen before. We have people coming in at levels and at record numbers we've never seen before. I'll only do what the law allows, but I will go up to the maximum level of what the law allows. Hey, that does not sound particularly extremist to me. As far as family separations, he says, it wasn't my policy. It was Obama's policy. I didn't build jail cells for children. He did, which of course is true.

And then asked about deportations. He said, well, I mean, if you're talking about family separations and you're talking about kids who could stay here and their families are going to be deported, I'd rather just keep the family together. He said, we have 325,000 children here during Democrats, or right now, slaves, sex slaves dead, they were allowed. What he's talking about there is the fact that the Department of Homeland Security and ICE basically put children into the system and now they don't know where the kids are. Many of those people are with family, but some of those people, we have no idea where they are. When it came to inflation,

One of the things that he talked about is that the grocery prices, he's going to bring those down. He said the left is trying to claim that he lied about inflation because he says that inflation is difficult to reduce. But he does say that that is his goal is reducing inflation. He says energy prices were going through the roof. And now people just want to go back to Trump's policy. He says tax reductions are going to reduce inflation as well.

because people will have more competition in the marketplace. Again, this interview with Time Magazine is fascinating mainly because of the moderation of the interview. He is taking a very pro-markets stance, for example. So President Trump says, for example, that he's going to lower the corporate tax rates if you build in the United States, which seems like a pretty sensible proposal.

We're going to do things I think that haven't been really done before. We're going to be cutting taxes still further. You know, we got it down to 21 percent. We're going to bring it down even below that. You pay 21 if you don't build here and meaning your product or whatever it is you're building. And if you do, we're going to try getting it down to 15 percent. But you have to build your product, make your product in the USA. Again, this seems fairly commonsensical. Right now, Donald Trump is enjoying a polling honeymoon like he has never seen before in his entire political career.

He's even seeing Democrats who are starting to come around to his side on some of these issues, particularly immigration. Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, he says, listen, there are 500,000 migrant children in this country we cannot find. We have 500,000 children who have sponsors in this country that we can't find.

We can't find them. We don't know if they're doing child labor. We don't know if they're doing sex crimes. We don't know if they've been exploited. 500,000 children. There's a level of hypocrisy that everyone in the states, they want to protect everyone but innocent individuals who are victims of crimes and children.

I want to support and protect children and innocent people that are victims of crime. And those who don't understand that, it's not up to me to try to convince them. I know what my job is, my goal is. And I was clear of that while running and when I became mayor. Safety means everything to me. 500,000 children. We don't know where they are right now in this country.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration continues to pursue an insane policy that is utterly disconnected from reality. So, for example, yesterday, Joe Biden launched the greatest wave of commutations in American history. According to The Wall Street Journal, President Biden is commuting the sentences around 1,500 people while he considers more clemency actions before he leaves office, including possible preemptive pardons of officials who have clashed with President-elect Donald Trump.

The White House said the commutations were for people who were released from prison and placed in home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic. He pardoned 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes, but we're talking here about drug offenses, which means that they are now considering drug distribution a nonviolent crime, which is kind of an amazing thing. Some of the people who are having their sentences commuted are pretty controversial. I mean, you have people who are connected with terrorism.

People who are convicted of connections with, for example, the Holy Land Foundation, a front group for Hamas. You are looking at, for example, people who have completely robbed, I mean, legitimately robbed entire municipalities of money who are now being given commutations by the Biden administration. I don't even know what the logic here is. It makes zero sense at all why Joe Biden would do this.

He, for example, has now commuted the sentence of the notorious kids for cash judge convicted of imprisoning juveniles for $2.1 million in kickbacks. This would be former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan. That was, again, among the 1,500 commutations. He had pled guilty to racketeering conspiracy charges for his role in the scheme. He was sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison in 2011, and he was released to home confinement. So Biden is now commuting the rest of his sentence. Again, I don't know if Joe Biden's

desire here is to actually destroy the entire credibility of the party that threw him out of office. But if not, he's doing an amazing job of it. Karine Jean-Pierre is cheering the fact that Biden has issued more commutations than anyone. So today, President Biden announced that he is granting clemency to approximately 1,500 Americans, the largest act in a single day.

who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation as well as a strong commitment to making their communities safer. The president is commuting the sentences of 1,500 individuals who were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities

He's also pardoning 39 individuals who were convicted of nine nonviolent crimes. The president has issued more sentence commutations at this point in his presidency than any of his recent predecessors at the same point in their first terms.

I mean, what the hell is Joe Biden doing? Why is this supposed to be a good thing? Speaking of terrible things that Joe Biden is doing, a blockbuster story from Daily Wire. Apparently, Joe Biden has been racing to sell off parts of the border wall before they can be erected. Here's some of the report from our friends at the Daily Wire.

You can see here trucks that are literally hauling away unused border wall materials. They're being hauled away from the Arizona border. You can actually see this happening. It's being taken north to a government auction site where bidding for an entire segment of wall starts at just $5. Again, the goal here is just to hamstring the Trump administration from coming in and completing the actual border wall. One border patrol agent estimates up to half a mile worth of wall is being transported every single day away from the wall.

It's insane. You can see this border wall lined up along the road, just stacked up along the road. Unreal. What exactly is the logic here? I mean, the logic can only be to hamstring the Trump administration's efforts to actually, you know, build the wall. According to one border patrol agent, they're taking it from three stations, Nogales, Tucson, and Three Points. The goal is to move it all off the border before Christmas.

The government contractor, DP Trucking LLC, is transporting the pieces of the wall north on Interstate 19 to Penal Air Park in Mariana, Arizona, where it is being auctioned through Government Planet, a surplus government equipment auction marketplace. The agent said, quote, they just started taking all that wall that was not used, which is still totally good and usable, and they started taking it northbound. They're pulling it all off the border. Harold Lambeth, the owner of the trucking company, confirmed to the Daily Wire in a phone call his company is transporting the unused border wall sections north away from the construction sites.

The auction website shows that sales occurred as recently as December 4th for precisely the types of material being pulled off the border. The bidding for each section of wall panels is set to begin at $5, according to the website. Representative Eli Crane, whose congressional district borders the penal air park where the material is being sold to the Biden administration, is purposefully hamstringing Trump before he takes office.

He said they're well aware they shouldn't have reversed the construction of the border wall. If it's true, they're purposefully hamstringing an incoming president. It wouldn't be shocking. Why would they want to see President Trump succeed with policies they aggressively sabotaged? An absolutely insane story. Trump is expected to use an executive order to unlock the funds to restart construction of the border wall pretty much immediately.

So it appears that the Biden administration is actively attempting to prevent the building of the border wall as sort of a final FU to Donald Trump as he enters office. Absolutely unbelievable stuff, but just another indicator of how badly Joe Biden has screwed up the country. In just a second, we'll get to Joe Biden's foreign policy, which continues to be absolute trash, plus new details on January 6th. First, time is running out. Behold.

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We will handle the rest. 40% off Daily Wire plus gift memberships. Go to dailywire.com slash gift right now. Meanwhile, Joe Biden's foreign policy continues to be a complete scrap heap. It's awful. John Kirby, who is his national security spokesperson, he says, guys, you know what the thing is? We're handing over a better world to Donald Trump. That's weird because the world is getting better as soon as people know Trump is coming into office. Here is Kirby suggesting that we're handing over a great relationship with China.

We believe that as we get ready to turn over things to the Trump team, that we're turning over a U.S.-China relationship that is in better shape than the one we founded. And that doesn't mean that we don't have disagreements. We do and we will and I'm sure they will too. But we're working hard on this relationship and we'll do that right to the end.

Well, with that said, Donald Trump has invited Xi Jinping to the actual inauguration. Xi turned it down. It's an attempt, presumably, to get other world leaders to come and recognize that he is, in fact, the most powerful man on Earth. And again, the world is reshaping itself because Donald Trump is coming. So, for example, the chief of NATO, he is now saying something that is obviously true, which is that Europe needs to start taking the lead on its own continent.

Here, for example, is the NATO chief Mark Rudy saying, you know, it's about time for us to shift to a wartime mindset. You mean now it's time? Where have you been the last, you know, couple of decades, my friend? We are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years. Danger is moving towards us at full speed. We must not look the other way. We must face it. What is happening in Ukraine could happen here too. And regardless of the outcome of this war...

We will not be safe in the future unless we are prepared to deal with danger. We can do that. We can prevent the next big war on NATO territory and preserve our way of life. This requires us all to be faster and fiercer. It is time to shift to a wartime mindset and turbocharge our defense production and defense spending.

Again, why exactly is that happening? The answer is pretty obvious. It's because Donald Trump is coming into office. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, the outlines of President-elect Donald Trump's initial efforts to end the war in Ukraine last week are starting to emerge for the first time. The main takeaway, Europe would have to shoulder most of the burden of supporting Kiev with troops to oversee a ceasefire and weapons to deter Russia, which makes perfect sense since Europe is actually quite a rich continent. It turns out the GDP of all of Europe combined is about that of the United States.

At a meeting in Paris on December 7th, Trump told Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron he doesn't support Ukrainian membership in NATO, but he wants to see a strong, well-armed Ukraine emerge from any cessation of fighting. That is the exact proper response. OK, all of this talk about Donald Trump is going to completely abandon Ukraine to Russian predation. So that's not true. It was never true. He just says Europe should take a lead since, you know, this is happening in Europe.

That is not a crazy statement at all. It is one thing for the United States to lend a helping hand to our allies. It is another thing for us to take the lead when our allies should be doing so. Trump said Europe should play the main role in defending and supporting Ukraine, and he wanted European troops present in Ukraine to monitor a ceasefire. He hasn't ruled out U.S. support for such an arrangement, even though no U.S. troops would be involved. That makes perfect sense, of course. And Europe is immediately responding as well they should. Okay, meanwhile...

a piece of breaking news courtesy of the Department of Justice. So there are two ways to read a report that was put out by the Department of Justice yesterday. This would be an Inspector General report from Michael Horowitz, who's done some interesting work before at the DOJ. There are two ways to read the report. It's all about FBI understanding and oversight with regard to January 6th. One way to read the report is the way that some people in the Twitterverse are reading the report

Which is the idea that there are lots and lots of FBI, quote unquote, sources in the crowd. So a lot of this comes down to the definition of what a confidential human source is. A confidential human source is CHS, according to the Justice Department. That is a person believed to be providing useful and credible information to the FBI and whose identity, information or relationship with the FBI warrants confidential handling.

So the claim has been made by a lot of people on the right side of the aisle that January 6th was essentially a put-up job, that it was either entrapment or that there were people who were working with or for the FBI who were encouraging people to commit criminal activity.

So this DOJ report says this, quote, while the FBI undertook significant efforts to identify domestic terrorism subjects who plan to travel to the capital region on January 6th and to prepare to support its law enforcement partners on January 6th if needed, we also determined the FBI did not take a step that could have helped the FBI and its law enforcement partners with their preparations in advance of January 6th.

Specifically, the FBI did not canvas its field offices in advance of January 6th, 2021, to identify any intelligence, including CHS, that's Confidential Human Source Reporting, about potential threats to the January 6th electoral certification. Several FBI officials told the OIG, the Office of Inspector General, it is common practice for the FBI to ask field offices to canvas their sources for information in advance of a large event, such as the inauguration, Super Bowl, or other events with significant attendance, and to report that information to the requesting field office.

FBI Deputy Director Paul Abadie, who was the associate deputy director at the time, described the lack of a canvas prior to January 6th as a basic step that was missed and told the OIG he would have expected a formal canvassing of sources to have occurred through the issue of an intelligence collection product because it would have been the most thorough approach to understanding the threat picture prior to January 6th. So, in other words, the FBI did not go to its field offices and ask them to canvas their confidential human sources, people who say were members of

the crowd on January 6th, or were going to be, about what they thought was going to happen on January 6th. Hello, everyone. It's your favorite president, Donald J. Trump, here to introduce something really special. You're going to love it. My new Trump watches. It's one of the best watches made. Wear it proudly on your wrist, and everyone will know what it's for, who it's for, who it represents.

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At the same time, quote, we found no evidence in the materials reviewed or the testimony received showing or suggesting the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds or at the Capitol on January 6th. And so that's been the accusations that you actually had members of the FBI, like hired members of the FBI in the crowd, spurring people to go into the Capitol. The OIG says we have no evidence of that.

We reviewed the documented CHS reporting the FBI had prior to the riot and breach of the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. We determined that three confidential human sources had been tasked by FBI field officials in the days leading up to the January 6th electoral certification with the required approval of the WFO to travel to D.C. for the events of January 6th to report on domestic terrorism subjects who were possibly attending the event. So they had people who were effectively informers in the crowd.

who they had told, at least three of them, to go there and monitor people who were in the crowd. Specifically, one FBI field office tasked a confidential human source to travel to D.C. to report on the activities of a predicated domestic terrorism subject who was separately planning to travel to D.C. for the January 6th electoral certification.

A second FBI field office tasked a confidential human source to travel to D.C. to potentially report on two domestic terrorism subjects from another FBI field office who were planning to travel to D.C. for the events of January 6th. And a third confidential human source would inform their handling agent that they intended to travel to D.C. on their own initiative for the events of January 6th, which was similarly tasked by their field office to potentially report on two domestic terrorism subjects.

Our review concluded none of these three FBI confidential human sources were authorized to enter the Capitol or restricted area or to otherwise break the law on January 6th, nor was any CHS directed by the FBI to encourage others to commit illegal acts on January 6th. In addition to those three confidential human sources, again, this is the Inspector General report, we found that 23 other FBI confidential human sources were in D.C. on January 6th in connection with the events planned for January 6th.

None of these confidential human sources were authorized to enter the Capitol or restricted area or to otherwise break the law on January 6th. Apparently, 13 entered the restricted area around the Capitol. Nine did not enter a restricted area or enter the Capitol or otherwise engage in illegal activity. Four entered the Capitol itself. None of the CHSs who entered the Capitol or restricted area were prosecuted.

So possible reasons are that they are confidential human sources. The FBI is still using them for information and all the rest. So two things as always can be true at once. The FBI had people who worked with them, not for them, in the crowd. Those people, at least three of them, were told to go to January 6th and monitor what was going on. There are a bunch of other people who the FBI used as informers who are in the crowd. Some of those people entered the Capitol building and none were arrested. Those are the facts we know. And then whatever speculation you draw from that, that is your own opinion.

That is the thing that we know from the OIG report, unless you think that they're just plain lying and there actually were paid agents in the crowd. Again, there is no evidence of that. We do know that there were informers in the crowd en masse.

So that is what we know. And again, it was true that there were lots of informers in the crowd. And that is not exactly a shock. It turns out that FBI informants, FBI confidential human sources, have in fact been involved in really spicy ops before. Of course, the supposed alleged kidnapping of Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, which was actually spurred. That wasn't an entrapment case. It was actually spurred by people associated with the FBI who are attempting to spin up the entire plot itself.

The evidence is still lacking. These confidential human sources were apparently getting people to go into the Capitol. This is why Ray Epps has come up so much, right? Ray Epps was suspected by many people of being a confidential human source working with the FBI, which they say is the reason he wasn't prosecuted. He says he was not a confidential human source. People say that he wasn't a member of the FBI. And I'm just giving you what we know from the report. You can draw your own conclusions. Meanwhile, the FBI is about to be taken over by President Trump. He's going to put Kash Patel in position.

As you can see, there are lots of questions about the FBI. The biggest question that emerges just directly from the text of that FBI report, the report about the FBI from the Office of Inspector General,

is that they made a huge signal error at the very least in not canvassing their confidential human sources on what they thought was going to happen on January 6th. And I can say they overlooked it deliberately. They didn't make that obvious step, if you're going to speculate, because they knew something bad was going to happen and they were fine with that bad thing happening. You can also say that just like everything else, they effed it up. That is possible as well. Bottom line is that the FBI under Christopher Wray has made an enormous number of mistakes. Wray himself is stepping down. He announced that he is going to avoid the fray for the FBI by leaving.

After weeks of careful thought, I've decided the right thing for the Bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down. My goal is to keep the focus on our mission, on the indispensable work each of you is doing every single day. And in my view, this is

is the best way to avoid dragging the Bureau deeper into the fray while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important in how we do our work. - One of the big problems here is that really he should stick around until he's fired. Actually, what you could see here is something very much akin to what happened with Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Sally Yates. So if you recall, after Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 20th, 2017,

The Attorney General Loretta Lynch resigned specifically so that a deputy could take over briefly and then do a bunch of dirty work. That would have been Sally Yates. Donald Trump then came in and then fired Sally Yates, but not before she'd done some damage. So this could be one of the problems that is being set up here by Chris Wray, and it can all be undone, but it could be a problem. This gap that's now being created. House Democrats, for their part, they're mad. They wanted Trump to actually have to fire Chris Wray so that they could fuss about it. Here, for example, is Jerry Connolly of Virginia, very angry at Christopher Wray for leaving.

I think for the rank and file FBI, I think his decision to resign prematurely under pressure is tantamount to abandonment. Abandonment of the FBI and abandonment of them and their protections, exposing them to a political purge.

Okay. Yeah. Again, like, of course they want him to stick around. Why not? I mean, he's done such a bang up job in faith in the FBI is at all time lows and for pretty good reason. Meanwhile, we do bid a fond farewell to Cori Bush. Cori Bush is the St. Louis congressperson who is a Black Lives Matter congressperson. She was elected on the back of that movement. No one showed up for her finale speech. Literally the entire chamber was empty except for Rashida Tlaib, Alexander Ocasio-Cortez and friends.

And here's Cori Bush paying homage to Hamas in her in her farewell speech from St. Louis to Gaza and everywhere between beyond and in between. Always remember this congresswoman loves you and will always have your back, even if it means I lose something. So until we rise again, St. Louis, I love you.

I yield back my time to the chair. And Rashida Tlaib is in tears in the back. Oh my gosh, so much. Look at the chamber. Everyone's like, bye, catch you later. So many good things happen in politics this year. Alrighty, coming up. Speaking of good things happening in politics, Javier Mille in Argentina, he's having the last laugh. If you're not a member, become a member. Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.