"Worse than Watergate" (10-30-2025--Hour1)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to vpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. Alrighty, so did you hear about the worse than Watergate announcement? Yesterday? Chuck Grassley, US Senator from Iowa was joined by I don't know, probably half a dozen maybe more of his senate colleagues in releasing another trove of documents tained through a whistleblower inside the DOJ. And this is once again connected to the Biden era FBI investigation called Arctic Frost. Arctic Frost was a pro was an investigation into President Trump and the broader Republican Party's role in the January sixth riot. Right, So apparently it was more wide ranging than previously disclosed. According to newly released documents showing that the FBI issued almost two hundred subpoenas targeting more than four hundred Republican entities and individuals as part of the probe. Mike Bens, who is the host of a podcast called The Gray Zone, and he has a screenshot here from the This is from I think this is from the Yeah, this is from the report that was put out. So here are some of the names that were targeted. Okay, I don't know all of the people on this list. Larry Weitzner, the RNC, Save America, Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, Trump Make America Great Again Committee, Make America Great Again Pack, Donald J. Trump for a President, Jason Miller, Jared Kushner, Carlos Cruz and or any other person that worked for or with Jamestown Associates. Benjamin Angel, Gary Kobe, Alex Cannons or At Croslin, Boris a feistein whatever, James Fitzpatrick, Newt Gingridge, Rudy Giuliani, Ken Curson, Jared Kushner again just for good measure, I guess Ron McDaniel, John McLoughlin, Mark Meadows, Molly Michael, Jason Miller, Tim Murtau, Zach Parkinson, Michael Roman. You get the idea, but get this any media buyer. So another media buyer is like an ad agency kind of a role somebody who like if I were a media buyer, I could go you know, have some clients and I would go place their ads. I would I would deal with the media companies like we deal with media buyers. They place ads on WBT usually you know, national level ads. So any media buyer or representative or agent thereof, and or any media outlet or representative or agent of any media outlet, including but not limited to, CBS, RFDTV never heard of it, Fox News, Fox Business News, o AN and newsmax and or Sinclair. So they were subpoena ing media companies and people who worked in media companies. Oh and by the way, when they went to they also went to telecom companies AT and T, Verizon to subpoena records from people's phones, and a judge allowed that to be hidden from the targets of the subpoenas for a year. Mm hmm. You know who the. Judge was, Bosberg, Yeah, Judge Boasberg as I call him. Senator Chuck Grassley released the records yesterday, showing one hundred and ninety seven subpoenas were issued to individuals and businesses during the FBI's Arctic Frost investigation targeting four hundred and thirty GOP individuals and entities. He obtained the records through protected whistleblower disclosures. So keep this in mind. This did not come from the DOJ. This did not come directly from anybody inside the DOJ. This came from a whistleblower. Financial institutions, Trump aligned political organizations and operatives, conservative think tanks, and payroll companies were all among the subpoena recipients, according to a list compiled by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Federal investigators sought communications between the targeted individuals and media companies, prominent Trump World officials, even legislative staffers. The investigative efforts also encompassed MAGA fundraising efforts and donors. Let's get to some audio, shall we? I watch the press conference actually twice and these were all members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. These are Republicans on the committee. Ron Johnson from Wisconsin said the Judiciary Committee needs to do everything it can now to help Cash Betel and Pam Bondi take control of their respective agencies because they are being sabotaged from within. I think it's important to note that the records that we are now making public and personal transparency were not obtained from the agency. They are obtained through a whistle blower. So from our first point is we need more whistle blowers. We need people men and women inside these agencies who have integrity, who want to see the integrity, incredibility, credibility of the Department Justice of the FBI restored. Come forward because right now, I think cash Tail, Pam BONDI are overwhelmed by all the messages they're trying to clean up. The agencies have been lost, a lot of personnel. People simply couldn't serve the Trump administration. It's hard to hire people because of all the lawfare, and they're still partisan actors burrowed in trying to sabotage their efforts. So we need whistle blowers. The reason they come forward to Chairman Grassley is because he's been such a champion of whistleblowers, So again I thank him for that. Johnson went on to say that what is revealed in this latest trove of documents is nothing short of a Nixonian Biden administration enemies list. The best way to describe President Biden's attitude his exact quotes. He thought basically half America were domestic terrorists. In September twenty twenty two, in front of in Penn's Hall, he said, Donald Trump and the Maga Republicans represent an extremism that thrends the very foundation of our republic. You later in New York City, Donald Trump is meg Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy. Now, nothing could be further from the truth. As a level of paranoia, that's actually astonishing. Right, I mean, well, that's assuming that Biden actually believed any of that, or as speech writers actually. Believe any of that. And I don't know. I mean, I guess everybody is different. I don't want to ascribe motive to every single person that uh, you know that agreed with Biden, but those who do think that that's true. Yes, that is a level of paranoia that is astonishing. That there are a lot of people that are just using these rhetorical devices in order to gin up anger in a base that is otherwise you know, searching for a leader is discouraged and dispirited. That the orange hitler man has has been you know, re elected. The Arctic Frost investigation looked into the role President Trump played in the Capitol riot. That was ostensibly what the purpose of the probe was about. This is according to an article at National Review by James Lynch. The probe eventually, though, morphed into Special counsel Jack Smith's Washington DC criminal case against Donald Trump, and the timing is, as the kids would say, a bit sus. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash p. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check Dot Ground, dot News slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Piece at National Review by James Lynch. Then Attorney General Merrick Garland, and then FBI Director Christopher Ray personally signed off on the investigation This Arctic Frost investigation when it was launched in twenty twenty two. According to a decision memo that Chuck Grassley revealed last week, Frost investigation has come under Republican scrutiny because of its wide ranging scope. The FBI targeted eight GOP senators that they believed may have been involved in a scheme to install fraudulent electors to secure Trump's victory, subpoenaing phone companies for the lawmakers records from January fourth through the seventh of the year twenty twenty one. Which would have been obviously right around. The certification of the vote January sixth, and so those records show who the target of the subpoena spoke with on the phone, but not the contents of their calls. Representative Mike Pelley was also mentioned. He's a Republican from Pennsylvania. He was also mentioned in the FBI records that Grassley disclosed now at the press conference yesterday. Senator John Cornyn from Texas. The prosecutor in this case, Jack Smith, did not act alone, after all, he was appointed by Merrick Garland. And here, to me is the most troublesome part of all this. If they would do that to the President of the United States, if they would do this to United States senators and members of Congress, what would they do to you? That's a fair question, which, by the way, Senator Ashley Moody, who is the newly appointed US Senator from Florida, she said, they did do it to you. This is not a hypothetical. They did. Because this list of hundreds of targets include just regular people donors, just people who donated money to a think tank or a nonprofit or a political action group or a campaign account like they were targeted as well. Senator Ted Cruz, one of the targets of the subpoenas. He called Merrick Garland and Jack Smith both fundamentally corrupt, and he said this is worse than. Watergate one hundred and ninety seven subpoenas for four hundred and thirty Republican entities and individuals. That is an absolute and egregious abuse of power. The Biden Justice Department signed off on issuing subpoenas for the phone records of at least nine US senators, twenty percent of the Republicans in the United States Senate where the target of this fishing expedition. They did so in complete contravention of the Constitution of separation of powers of speech in debate clause of free speech of basic rights of privacy. This is an executive who believes it is justified spying on their opponents in the legislature because they convinced themselves the ends justify the means. Does this sound familiar, this kind of tactic? Does this sound familiar? I feel like this is familiar. I feel like I remember, Oh that's right, crossfire, hurricane, right, this is this is what the DOJ did to Trump the first time, and they did it again. They did it again. They used J six as the predicate, and then they went after not just Trump, but all sorts of other people that are now in you know, Trump's wider orbit, because in the first round it was just you know, Trump's campaign. You had to get people that were really close to Trump at that point. But after he became president and then you've got you know, these lawmakers and everybody kind of coalesces around MAGA and Donald Trump. And so now that that universe becomes much bigger. Ted Cruz, who I would point out Ted Cruz, and this is important to note here when listening to this next clip, Ted Cruz has argued in front of the US Supreme Court. Right, Ted Cruz is a lawyer. Ted Cruse is a constitutional lawyer. He's had a lot of experience as an officer of the court. And listen to this. He says that AT and T refused to comply with the subpoena based on legal grounds. Accompanying the subpoena was an order which I have in my hand right here, an order that was signed by Judge James E. Bosberg Bosberg who is Bosburg. Bosburg is that radical leftist judge who is out of control, who has been issuing nationwide injunctions one after the other, trying to stop President Trump from carrying out his mandate. From the voters. Judge Boseburg issued an order to the US to AT and T and sign that order prohibiting AT and T from informing me of this subpoena for at least one year. And Judge Boseburg gave the basis for that order. And I'm going to quote from the order Judge Boseburg signed. The Court finds reasonable grounds to believe that such disclosure will result in destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, and serious jeopardy to the investigation. That's an order a judge sign. Now. I can tell you right now there is precisely zero evidence to conclude that I am likely to destroy or tamper with evidence or to intimidate potential witnesses, Zero evidentiary basis for that. This order is an abusive power. This order is a weaponized legal system. That's amazing that the grounds, the reasonable grounds that the judge ordered AT and T to not disclose the subpoena to Ted Cruz. Was that doing so. Reasonably could be predicted that the result would be that he would intimidate witnesses and destroy or tamper with evidence. That's nuts. Again, this is Ted Cruz, this guy like people have talked about him as a Supreme Court nominee. What grounds do you have to make that an assumption? It's just nuts. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. 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Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at cabins Offashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Talking about the latest dump of documents came from a whistleblower inside the DOJ someplace about the Arctic frost investigation started off investigating you know, Trump's role in January sixth, and then expanded out to hundreds of targets under Merrick Garland's DOJ and the Biden administration. The prosecutor in charge of it all, Jack Smith. Yesterday, at a press conference, Chuck Grassley was joined by the other members the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now, Grassley had previously released records showing the FBI investigation targeted more than ninety two Republican organizations as well as Republican linked operatives, including Turning Point USA, as well as the Republican National Committee. Yesterday or on Tuesday, rather, the House Judiciary Committee released records indicating that the FBI was potentially investigating dozens of GOP operatives and former Trump administration officials. The House panels revelations were similar to the disclosures that Chuck Grassley unveiled back in March about the scope of the anti Trump investigation and the FBI's acquisition of the government phones used by Trump and then Vice President Mike Pence. The FBI conducted more than forty interviews and collaborated with field offices all across America to carry out the Arctic frost probe. Back in September, FBI Director Cash Patel fired agents in the Washington field office and closed the unit that was responsible for conducting the Arctic frost investigation. Patel has worked closely with his Senate and House counterparts to release FBI records and root out what he considers institutionalized corruption at the Bureau. Again, this is from National Reviews write up a piece by James Lynch. At the press conference yesterday, Lindsey Graham, I know, I know it's Lindsey Graham. But Lindsey Graham sometimes like you never know with Lindsay, sometimes you get the Lindsey Graham that it's like yes, and sometimes it's like, oh, you know, well, this is one of the yes Lindsey Graham moments. He wondered whether or not if Trump had run for reelection, would any of this have happened. Within several days of him announcing I'm going to seek the White House again, an avalanche began to form. And I really do believe that none of this would have been happening if Trump had set out the twenty twenty four cycle. Well, once he announced I'll have my own chart one day, we'll show you what happened, and when it happened good. In about eight months of announcing, he had ninety one felony charges against him and Georgia and New York and other places. So here's what I think that when he said he wanted to have a political comeback, it triggered the democratic machine to destroy him before he could ever get started. And in their effort to destroy him, there were no boundaries. The goal was to stop Trump and to look at anything and everything that could stop Trump and ignore the Constitution. I agree. I look forward to seeing the timeline that is I think going to be very illuminating. He said he wants to see how system wide this really was. Was there contact between Jack Smith and Fanny Willis? I got caught up in that crap. I'd just been over a million dollars. Now she's been kicked off the case. Was there coordination between Jack Smith, Fanny Willis, Alvin Bragg, Letitia James? Did they talk? Did they share information? Is it just an accident that all this happened within days of Trump announcing and within eight or nine months the Republican candidate, one of the candidates for president, had ninety one felony charges and the deepest blue districts in the frigid country. You think that happened by accident. No, I don't think so neither. And we're going to get to the bottom of it, and I want to know. Was there any coordination between Fanny Willis and New York by Jack Smith. We're going to get every piece of paper we can get, and I want Jack Smith to come forward, but I want the information first. He's not coming and testify when we're in the dark. To the Justice Department, please expedite the requests made by Center, Grassley and Johnson to give us any information that may exist between Jack Smith and Fanny Willis Alvin Bragg and Letitia James right. So his reference there to hearing from Jack Smith. That's a response to the offer that Smith has made to come testify, but to do so publicly before the House and Senate Judiciary committees so he can defend his record from what he argues are these unfounded Republican attacks. So he wants to come, but he wants to do it publicly, and he wants to do it soon. And what Graham is saying there is like, no, I'm not going to let you walk in and spend some tails and we don't know all this information, and so you get to then ignore stuff and omit things, and we don't know what we don't know. So he wants the Justice Department to expedite the investigation into these connections, and I think that's completely appropriate. Smith has defended the Arctic Frost Investigation's decision to obtain the phone records of GOP senators, calling it lawful activity permitted under Justice Department policy. Lindsey Graham also noted that if this can happen to Trump, it can happen to anyone that the system doesn't like, and it can come after you. He said. People need to pay a price for their behavior in this be it firings or imprisonment. And if he finds that his own rights were violated, he said, he will quote sue the hell out of these people as he should. Right. If you do not punish this kind of behavior, it will continue. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Minhill North Carolin. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, Videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creative video dot com. Two more sound bites to get to from the press conference that was held yesterday by Senate Republican Republican Senate Judiciary Committee members is this. Next one is from Eric Schmidt. He is the senator from Missouri, I believe former attorney general down there. He pointed out that three days after Trump announced his re election campaign that the DOJ system was weaponized against Trump. It just it took three days. He says, Jack Smith, who is notorious in prosecutor world as being a stalin. Like show me the man, I'll show you the crime prosecutor. That's the guy you appoint when you want to get your political opponent. He's a dirt bag. Nope, a dirt bag. And I hope he comes before this committee. He's got a lot to answer to. He not only went after President Trump, he went after sitting senators at the time, I was the chairman of the Republican Attorney's General Association. Ashley Moody was also on the executive board. He came after us and also hundreds of other people who happened to be Republicans in the United States of America. What else happened? The number two prosecutor in Atlanta a state prosecution of President Trump, which was ridiculous to begin with, somehow meets with the White House. The number three person at the Department of Justice leaves the number three job at the Department of Justice to go work for Alvin Bragg, a state prosecutor. Why is that this was an effort to go after political opponents in America like we have never seen before. It can never happen again. And let me pull a couple of people out outside of Jack Smith, Judge Boseberg. Judge Boseberg gave a speech about how he was going toward the Trump agenda before he got those cases. He was not the assignment judge at the DC courts have a daily assignment judge. He wasn't the assignment judge. He's on vacation. Somehow gets these cases at one in the morning. Was he tipped off. Did somebody tell him these cases against President Trump and his agenda now we're coming. I don't know, we should find that out mm hmm. But Judge Boseberg that what he did to President Orts, what he did to Senator Cruz and maybe other centers, absolutely, and I don't say this slightly, absolutely is worthy of impeachment proceedings. There has to be accountability. The American people have heard a lot about this, and you're gonna hear more. We should have Watergate style hearings on this for months. If we're ever going to root this out, we have to be serious about it, and consequences have to follow. Resignations, firings, criminal prosecutions. Here here I agree, Will it happen? Don't know it? Should it? Absolutely should. You have to force the legacy media outlets to cover this stuff. You've got to force them to do it because they will just move past this stuff because you know, in the news cycle that we live in, you know, it's drinking from a fire hose. There's stuff every day, all the time. A lot of that is, you know, driven by Donald Trump. So you've got to you've got to do something to make this thing stand out and for a lot of people on the right, they're pretty sick and tired of just having press conferences and hearings that don't lead to any kind of actual punishment. All right, and here's Ashley Moody. She's a former federal prosecutor, former attorney general. She was also a judge for over a decade. She says she has been shocked since she's gotten to the US Senate and seeing these developments. Here. You heard Senator Cruz tell you that a judge said that he may destroy evidence. This is one of the pre eminent lawyers in our country, who argued in front of the Supreme Court, who has dedicated his life to service, who fights for the future of this country, and you had an administration go after him. If you are issuing subpoenas, you're saying they're related to a criminal investigation, and you had a judge say that he could destroy evidence, think about that. They were trying to wipe out the leaders of a cause for a next generation, from elected leaders to news media, multiple outlets, journalists, even donors. If you're watching this right now, oh yes, there were even subpoenas issued on donors your information if you believed in a cause and thought so highly of it, those things that we stood for. And you put your money where your mouth was, your information was sought. So when you hear them say, imagine that they're doing this to us, They could do this to you. They did do it to you. And we only know this because the president was elected again. And I can tell you right now you've heard them say, we need to do our jobs and peace needs to be on the table. Impeachment wasn't just a theory or an idea or some hypothetical. One day, if there was ever an instance to root out judges that were not following the law or not being independent, or we're not living up to their oath, this is it. Impeachment cannot be a scarecrow. We must use that tool to make sure the public can trust in our judiciary again, can trust in our justice system again. Because if you ask the Supreme Court justice, the justices that fled to the United States from Venezuela, they would tell you when their justice system went, when the people no longer trusted that it was independent, they lost their nation. What a great line. Impeachment cannot be just a scarecrow. It's a great line. I'm going to use it from now on without giving her credit, of course, no, it is it. This is the thing people talk about impeaching officials all the time, and nothing ever seems to come of it except if you're Donald Trump obviously and Democrats control the House. But other than that, it never happens. And it probably needs to start happening now because for my entire lifetime, and it seems like, you know, for most of American history, there was this sort of understanding that you don't want to be impeached and that this would be something that would be shameful to you. But nowadays and doesn't seem like there are any guardrails left, and people don't fear these ramifications because they haven't been employed, and maybe we need to start employing them. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the Peak on our show dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything. While I'm gone,