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Kash’s Corner: Whistleblowers Expose Retaliation; Congress Should Ask Durham to Testify

In this episode of Kash’s Corner, we take a look at the alarming pattern of retaliatory conduct across the DOJ, FBI, and IRS. IRS whistleblowers say their entire team was removed from the Hunter Biden tax fraud case.

We also take a look at a letter from Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asking Special Counsel John Durham for more details about the former FBI officials who declined to cooperate with his investigation into the origins of the Russia probe.

“We need to find out why John Durham failed to call in the likes of [James] Comey, [Peter] Strzok, [Bill] Priestap, [Kevin] Clinesmith, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, and others,” Patel says. Sens. Grassley and Johnson should call John Durham to testify under oath in a publicized interview, according to Patel.

Lastly, we take a look at recent reporting in The New York Times that the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton Foundation for alleged corruption was not only closed in 2021, but that all the evidence was “returned or otherwise destroyed,” the New York Times writes, citing the FBI.

 

Interview trailer:

 

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Kash Patel: Hey everybody, and welcome back to Kash’s Corner. We have a bunch of different topics to talk about this week. Jan, we are going to go with dealer’s choice. Where do you want to start?

Jan Jekielek: We want to follow up on the Durham Report. It seems that Senators Grassley and Johnson are asking some questions of the DOJ. Perhaps it’s because they watch our show, or perhaps they just have the same ideas. We’ll talk about that. Let’s talk about whistleblowers. There are these pretty stark FBI whistleblower commentaries, and even your name came up in those testimonies. Also, there’s the IRS team that was investigating Hunter Biden that is being dismantled, and then, a second whistleblower coming out. Let’s talk about all of that. Let’s start with Durham, because that’s what we talked about last week. Let’s follow up on it.

Mr. Patel: I like all those topics, Jan, and I’m looking forward to it. I want to add one more quick one at the very end, what happened to the Clinton Global Initiative investigation? We’ll get to that.

Mr. Jekielek: That’s a very good point. Let’s make sure we cover that as well, a series of investigations that were dropped. Let’s jump into the Durham Report. We have Senators Grassley and Johnson asking questions of the DOJ, because there are certain people that just declined to testify for the Durham Report. How is that even possible?

Mr. Patel: It’s shocking for a seasoned prosecutor like John Durham to just bend a knee and say, “A target witness or a target of our investigation doesn’t want to comply with our investigation, so we’re just going to take their word for it. They have politely told us, ‘No thanks.’”

That’s it? That’s not how prosecutors work. We talked about it on the show last week. That is what compulsory process is for. That’s what subpoena power of the executive branch is for. I’m glad this letter has been written by Senators Johnson and Grassley, and let’s put it up for our audience to see. It’s very well done. It mirrors some of the aspects of our show last week, and I’m glad they’re on this analysis train.

We need to find out why John Durham failed to call in Comey and Strzok and Priestap and Clinesmith and Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS and others. These are critical players in the Russiagate investigation. A lot of them should have been targeted criminally for their unlawful conduct and lies under oath and for their conspiracy to commit Russiagate.

It’s not like John Durham didn’t know this or didn’t have that information. That’s why this letter is a correct step to ascertain those answers. But if Senators Grassley and Johnson are listening, “Hey, you guys are United States senators, just ask John Durham to come in and sit down for an under oath publicized interview so the world can learn these answers.”

Because here’s my worry, Jan. Remember, John Durham’s report is out. His investigation is completed. There is no moss. Now, he must consult with the DOJ and Merrick Garland before he does anything with Congress and gets their approval. Why not just invite him and shorten the window for more government malfeasance from the DOJ and FIB? Their pattern of doing that has been well established on this show. Let’s get to the truth. This is a critical step.

You know how surprised and disappointed I was to find out that John Durham had basically bent the knee to whatever overlords he has in the U.S. government, especially at the DOJ and FBI. It’s saddening because he has allowed the two-tier system of justice to march. He had the chance to break that wheel and failed.

Mr. Jekielek: I want to touch on one other thing here. We have this great piece from Jeff Carlson at The Epoch Times; “Analysis: How much did Brennan, Obama and Comey Actually Know Before FBI Opened the Investigation into Trump?” That’s the title. Basically Jeff is looking at the timeline, and this is an analysis in a similar vein to something you’ve been talking about for a few years now.

Mr. Patel: Yes. I’m glad Jeff wrote that piece. It’s very well done, our audience should read it. As the chief investigator for Russiagate, we had said time and time again during our investigation and in our reports that it was a lie that senior intelligence and government officials at FBI and DOJ were saying, “It didn’t start until the fall of 2016.” We knew that Christopher Steele had met with the FBI in Rome in early July of 2016.

That means someone had to pay Steele to put the Steele dossier together that he had handed off to the FBI in the beginning of July, 2016. That doesn’t happen overnight. We know who paid for it—the DNC and Hillary campaign, through Fusion GPS and their crooked lawyers at Perkins Coie, the law firm for the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Party, dropping millions of dollars to do so.

Jan, all of that takes months. We’ve known this the whole time, but now Durham has at least helped us seal this one, that the Steele dossier is totally bogus, unverified, and fraudulent information. Steele had to come up with this fictional narrative and put it in a format that the FBI would accept.

Here’s the kicker. As I always say, Jan, there are no coincidences in government. How is it that in July of 2016, Christopher Steele is handing over his dossier to the FBI? In the same month, July of 2016, John Brennan, then the head of the CIA, was receiving information and knew the Hillary Clinton campaign was up to a dirty trick? How is that possible, Jan? Of course it started beforehand. What Jeff’s piece highlights is the fact that we now know it happened months and months and months before July of 2016.

That’s a whole separate series of questions that John Durham has to answer when he testifies under oath. Why didn’t he get to the bottom of this? More importantly, this Congress must subpoena everyone that John Durham should have subpoenaed, like the list we just had up.

The House of Representatives, whether it’s Judiciary Committee, Weaponization Committee, Oversight Committee, it doesn’t matter to me. Have them testify under oath and ask these hard questions, “John Brennan, how did you know in July of 2016 about the Steele dossier? James Comey, how is it that you said FBI main headquarters didn’t receive the contents of the Steele dossier until the fall of 2016, when your agents were receiving it in live time in July of 2016?”

It’s critical because it shatters whatever remaining these guys have. I don’t think they have any credibility—Comey, Brennan, McCabe, Strzok, Priestap, and everybody who tried to obfuscate and block our investigation from the beginning. They said, “No, we didn’t know anything up until the fall, and the Steele dossier wasn’t really even a thing. Then, they went into hyperdrive and lied to the FISA court. None of those things add up. Those are all lies in my opinion. This is a great expose on them, done succinctly by Jeff Carlson.

Mr. Jekielek: We’ll see if there are further subpoenas sent out to bring some of these folks in for a chat under oath. Let’s go to a different series of testimonies that happened last week. I’m talking about the FBI whistleblowers. There were three of them talking under oath about the reprisals taken against them. What’s your reaction to that?

Mr. Patel: These whistleblowers came in and provided credible information to the American people, in order to see waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption at the FBI and the DOJ. They each had methodically laid out credible pieces of evidence of different types of corruption, which we’ve covered in the past. And after submitting this information.

Let’s remind the audience, with these whistleblowers who testified, it wasn’t the first revelation of this information. They had been on this path for months and months and months. They produced it to Congress under whistleblower protections and under the false auspices that Chris Wray had guaranteed Congress under oath that no whistleblowers would be retaliated against. He lied, and I’ll get to that later.

When these whistleblowers came forth to Congress and swore under oath, with the information that they had provided Congress in a little more detail during their testimony, they were taking a very direct step towards executing the whole purpose of the whistleblowers’ statutes and regulations. It’s critical in government to have that. They did a very credible job of putting that information out there.

True to form, certain members of Congress didn’t like the truthful narrative that was being advanced that the FBI was putting up a retaliatory system against whistleblowers, who were putting out information that showed the statistics related to January 6th and domestic violence extremists were false. This critically hurt the narrative that some on the radical Left want to push. You have some members of Congress attacking them personally, and somehow, making up wholesale allegations against me as well. But it’s not really surprising, given the member of Congress who did that.

Mr. Jekielek: Let’s talk about that. We have Congressman Goldman bringing you into this whole scenario.

Congressman Goldman: Mr. O’Boyle, do you know who Kash Patel is?

Mr. O’Boyle: I do.

Congressman Goldman: Have you received any money from Kash Patel or his organization?

Mr. O’Boyle: I have.

Congressman Goldman: When you previously met with the majority members and/or majority staff of this committee, was Kash Patel present for that meeting?

Mr. O’Boyle: No.

Congressman Goldman: To your knowledge, has Kash Patel ever spoken to the committee members on your behalf?

Mr. O’Boyle: Not that I know of.

Congressman Goldman: Not that you know of? Was anyone present for your previous meetings with committee members and staff on the majority that were not members of this committee or staff of this committee?

Mr. O’Boyle: My counsel.

Congressman Goldman: Your counsel? Anyone else?

Mr. O’Boyle: I don’t think so, no.

Congressman Goldman: Is Kash Patel helping you finance your counsel?

Mr. O’Boyle: Not that I’m aware of.

Congressman Goldman: Okay. Mr. Friend, what about you? Do you know Kash Patel as well?

Mr. Friend: Yes.

Congressman Goldman: And did you receive any money from Kash Patel?

Mr. Friend: Yes, he gave me a donation last November.

Congressman Goldman: A donation?

Mr. Friend: Yes.

Congressman Goldman: Are you a charitable organization?

Mr. Friend: I was an unpaid, indefinitely suspended man trying to feed his family, and he reached out to me and said he wanted to give me a donation.

Congressman Goldman: Was he present for any of your meetings with committee members or staff?

Mr. Friend: No.

Mr. Patel: I’ll just stay cool, calm and collected on this one, Jan, and give our audience the facts. Congressman Goldman, I should remind our audience, previously served as senior counsel for Adam Schiff in the January 6th investigative committee. Then, he was elected to Congress just this last election cycle. That’s the quick background on who he worked for and where he came from.

For him to allege what he said in that video is an outright lie, and it’s absolutely disgusting. One, Kash Patel has never paid for testimony or individually funded any of these whistleblowers. Two, Mr. Goldman’s statement insinuates that I’m going out there and proactively looking for people in the United States government and giving them money ahead of time to come forth and bring out information. That is wholesale false.

Three, when he brings in my charitable foundation, The Kash Foundation, which has a board which works as a 501(c)(3) and which abides by all the laws, he denigrates the foundation improperly and is hurting our charitable endeavors.

Let me make this abundantly clear. After these whistleblowers came forth and provided testimony to Congress and information over the course of months, the Kash Foundation became aware of these individuals as did the rest of the world through the media. They were retaliated against improperly by the FBI—their salaries were taken, their homes were taken, and their livelihoods were put at stake for them and their families.

Our foundation was specifically set up before these guys ever became whistleblowers to help anybody that became a whistleblower and produced credible information. Since they satisfied that criteria, as a foundation we reached out to them. The board made a decision and decided to help some of these individuals financially. That’s what happened.

Kash Patel is not paying anyone’s legal bills. That’s another lie. The fact that you have a United States congressman who has such a personal vendetta against me that he would make up wholesale lies shows you the exact intent he had during these proceedings. It was to denigrate people personally, because they did not like the narrative that these whistleblowers were putting out, which was backed by facts.

Maybe Mr. Goldman learned that from his former boss, Mr. Schiff. That’s for the rest of the world to decide. But I appreciate you letting me clarify that. Our foundation’s work won’t be stopped because Mr. Goldman stands before the well of Congress or in a testimony setting and lies about our charitable endeavors.

Mr. Jekielek: Congressman Goldman also put out a tweet saying that you’re under some kind of investigation. This was news to me, and I think you would’ve told me.

Mr. Patel: Let’s put the tweet up, Jan, because it speaks for itself. Let’s remind our audience, this tweet was put up almost immediately after these whistleblower hearings ended. Obviously, this was something that was lingering in his head. Many of my friends have called me and said, “Kash, it looks like you’re living rent-free in Representative Goldman’s head.”

In the 24-hour cycle after that, I was the number one trending name on Twitter, which is surprising, since I’m not even on Twitter. That doesn’t show you anything about me, but it shows how much people are focused on these whistleblower investigations. To me, that’s a good thing.

Returning to that tweet, Jan, I’ve never been under DOJ investigation. They’ve never told me that. I’ve spoken with the DOJ through counsel many times, and I have not ever leaked classified information, nor would I. That’s another false insinuation and narrative.

Unfortunately, some individuals in the House and many in the media have tried to put it forth, such as David Ignatius of the Washington Post, when he did his expose on me with the cheeky headline which suggested that I might be under investigation. Because that’s what the radical Left wants. They want the headline, “Kash Patel is under investigation by the DOJ.” It’s totally false.

But let’s just play this out, Jan. As a former federal prosecutor and a former national security prosecutor, with any individual under investigation involving classified information, that investigation is by law classified. Let’s just play out Mr. Goldman’s tweet. Either he’s lying, which I believe he is, or he just disclosed that he, Representative Goldman in the United States Congress, in a live setting before the world to see, just disclosed lawfully classified information. The question is, how did he get that information? Who at the DOJ or the FBI, if anyone, unlawfully and improperly, gave it to him?

Through my counsel, I’m going to refer Representative Goldman for investigation by the DOJ and FBI for his possible leak of classified information. Although he may think he has the ability to lie in the well of the United States Congress without any recourse, since he is a member of the House of Representatives, I will also be sending a letter and referring him for investigation by the House Ethics Committee. As with the DOJ and the FBI, I will ask, “Did he disclose classified information?”

Here’s the thing, Jan, when the DOJ and FBI tells him there is no investigation on me, then the Ethics Committee can investigate the fact that he blatantly lied from the well of the United States Congress to the world and attacked me. If he wasn’t hiding behind the same thing Adam Schiff has hidden behind, which is a speech and debate clause, that is a defamatory statement that’s actionable by me as a private citizen against Mr. Goldman. We will be making those referrals because we will not sit by and allow such egregious and unlawful and improper conduct by a member of the United States Congress.

Mr. Jekielek: We’ll see how all this plays out, Kash. I was also surprised to see your name trending on Twitter all of a sudden.

Mr. Patel: I do want to thank Mr. Goldman for one thing. Thanks to your political stunt, the Kash Foundation has received an overwhelming amount of support, so we will be able to continue our charitable endeavors, allowing us to help financially active duty soldiers, veterans, children, whistleblowers, and so many others in need. So, thank you.

Mr. Jekielek: Kash, we’ll see how all this plays out. Maybe there will indeed be other whistleblowers that do come out. Let’s jump to this situation with the IRS investigation into Hunter Biden being dropped, and it looks like the whole team, from what I understand. Now, we have a second whistleblower giving us some more details. Give me the breakdown of what happened.

Mr. Patel: Yes, we continue with the theme of this show, which is the importance of whistleblower testimony. But unfortunately, we’re also continuing with the theme that the United States government retaliates against whistleblowers who provide credible information if it helps advance a narrative they don’t like. Just a reminder, we’re not fully sure if the entire investigation was shut down or dropped or not. I haven’t seen anything publicly from the IRS or DOJ on that side of it.

Let’s just remind the audience, we are only talking about the IRS side of Hunter Biden’s investigation, whether or not he’s liable for taxes or fraud related to taxes or possibly far related to all that stuff. That is handled by the IRS Criminal Division and the DOJ Tax Division together. We’re not talking about Hunter Biden’s laptop. We might be talking about documents on it, but we’re not talking about other criminal activity that is maybe being analyzed by the U.S. attorney in the District of Delaware.

With the IRS, just to get everybody up to speed, they had one whistleblower and we’ll call him the supervisor, because that’s how he’s labeled in these media reports. He came out and said there has been, for a number of years, a throttling of the IRS’s ability to investigate Hunter Biden related to the tax and tax fraud schemes that they were looking at. That’s pretty chilling, Jan.

That is no longer just an allegation. You have the second whistleblower that has come forward. This is an individual who worked on the Hunter Biden IRS investigation for five years. He’s just come forward and used to work under the supervisor. He has laid out with detail the fact that his entire unit was shut down at the request of the DOJ. The DOJ has essentially confirmed that to the media.

Jan, how is it that an entire investigative team conducting a lawful investigation can be shut down by the Department of Justice? That question can’t be answered today, but it’s going to have to be asked of Merrick Garland. Another interesting point about this second IRS whistleblower is that due to the retaliation against the investigative unit at the IRS Tax Division at the behest of the DOJ, he alleges that Attorney General Merrick Garland lied to Congress when he said that he would not allow any interference in the investigations into Hunter Biden.

That puts the AG in the direct crosshairs with this whistleblower. We’re going to see how all this hashes out Jan. According to the press reports, through their lawyers they have provided documented information to Congress as whistleblowers, and they’ve been retaliated against. Unfortunately, that’s the way it goes if you provide information about FBI and DOJ waste, fraud and abuse that cuts against a political narrative. The people in charge of those agencies don’t want it out there.

It’s just shocking that we have so much corruption at the DOJ and FBI and we have to jam it into one episode. Usually, this would be the story of the year, or the story of the years, plural. As a former federal prosecutor and public defender and the guy who’s been in government for 16 years, I’m not excited about this. It shows how much further we have to go to fix these agencies and departments. It highlights why so many Americans have distrust in them.

Mr. Jekielek: Kash, before we continue, I want you to tell me about this whistleblowing process. On one end you just imagine someone coming out saying, “Hey guys, I know something,” by going to the media, going public, and posting something on social media these days. But this whistleblowing process is actually quite an involved process. Could you give us a breakdown?

Mr. Patel: I will. I want to add one thing, Jan, that is important and directly ties into your question. The leadership at the head of the IRS, Commissioner Werfel and his team, had an interesting response to the whistleblowers’ lawyers. The IRS notified the whistleblowers directly and said that while they were providing the information to the government, it was improper for the whistleblowers to break the chain of command and provide this information to others.

But Jan, that’s the contradiction. How can you provide evidence of corruption that your superiors are committing to your superiors and then say, “Hey, I’m going to blow the whistle on you guys?” Who else are they supposed to give it to? Do you see the conundrum that the IRS leadership team has set up here? They’ve done it intentionally. They want a narrative out there saying, “These guys broke the chain of command. They’re bad actors.”

They’re saying that they are bad actors and they went around the chain of command because actually, the whistleblower protection statute and regulations affords these individuals and any whistleblower in the United States government the right to A; call whistleblower hotlines, or B; provide that information directly to Congress themselves or through counsel. In this instance, they’ve chosen to do it through counsel for the most part. They have followed the whistleblower process.

Before the information is even adjudicated, the very people that are saying they are corrupted and possibly broke the law and regulations regarding the Hunter Biden investigation are coming out in the public and saying, “You broke the chain of command.” That’s not how the whistleblower program works. That’s the whole purpose of the whistleblower program. Because if you’re at the top, you can act downwards. But if you’re at the bottom, you can’t act upwards and fire your superior, hence the whistleblower program.

Between the FBI whistleblowers and the IRS whistleblowers that we’ve talked about today, you’ve seen how it’s supposed to work in some fashion. They take information, they give it to Congress, they use their attorney and they give it to the right committees in Congress, or there’s a whistleblower hotline. Sometimes, they can go to the Office of the Inspector General, which some of these individuals did, and get this information out there.

Then, they can come in and testify like the FBI folks have done. What’s been put out in the media is that these two IRS whistleblowers are going to be testifying behind closed doors on Friday, the same day this episode airs. It’s going to be interesting to see the more detailed information that Congress collects from these individuals.

That’s how the whistleblower program works. It’s not rocket science. It’s pretty simple. To see the established pattern of retaliatory conduct, be it at the DOJ, the FBI, the IRS, or elsewhere against individuals who are bringing forth credible reporting, that in and of itself to me is grounds for dismissal of the superiors participating in this process, and possibly even launching a criminal investigation. But that’s going to have to be left to Congress, because you can’t have this DOJ, FBI, IRS investigate itself. We’ve seen what happens when they do that.

Mr. Jekielek: When it comes to these three FBI whistleblowers who are testifying under oath, they are making some pretty serious allegations. You believe they’re credible, but what would be the cost to them if they were lying in this situation?

Mr. Patel: If any one of these folks comes into Congress and lies, then they should be prosecuted and investigated like anyone else. These guys know that. They’re actual law enforcement agents. They’re actual employees of the IRS and investigative criminal agents at the IRS. They know the consequences. There should be consequences for anyone who acts unlawfully, Jan. They are well aware of it. We’ll see if one of these agencies or departments uses that as a missive fraudulently, to continue to personally attack the whistleblowers.

Mr. Jekielek: This is the point. There’s something very significant about testifying in front of Congress. There’s severe penalties if you’re lying, at least in theory. Although we have seen that contravened when it comes to certain high level people.

Mr. Patel: Absolutely. Brennan, Clapper, McCabe, Strzok, and the list goes on.

Mr. Jekielek: Do you think that with this whole testifying in Congress under oath, the gravity of that is somehow being compromised?

Mr. Patel: It’s not only been compromised, Jan, it shows you that the two-tier system of justice operates in the legislative branch. When the radical Left had credible whistleblowers that came forth that supported their narrative, they loved them. But when they have whistleblowers that hurt their narrative, they denigrate them and attack them personally and lie about them.

You see it not just in the courts of law, but you see it in the halls of Congress. There’s a lot of remedies that need to be put in place. It’s going to take a long time for us to get back on the level, and I’m not sure that’s happening any time in the near future.

Mr. Jekielek: Kash, as we finish up, I do want to jump to something that you mentioned at the outset. You want to talk about these investigations into potential misdeeds by Hillary Clinton prior to 2016. Those investigations were canceled, and that evidence was destroyed. You wanted to mention this.

Mr. Patel: Yes. The Clinton Global Initiative, the charitable arm of the Clinton family, Bill and Hillary Clinton, has been under investigation for years for fraudulent activity. I’m not saying they did it. Now we know, Jan, that there was an ongoing investigation for years. What we also know, since we’re talking about investigations during this episode, is that this investigation was shut down by the Biden administration.

Not only was it shut down, but all the evidence that was unearthed was destroyed or returned to the Clinton Global Initiative. That calls for the question, “What happened? Congress, maybe you want to act. Why did the Biden administration shut down a year’s long investigation and destroy the evidence it had collected?” Those are going to be some stern questions going forward.

Again, I don’t know what they did, if anything. But it’s not a normal practice for an investigation of that magnitude to not only be shut down, but to have the evidence destroyed. That will not sit well with many who already know that Hillary Clinton had a habit of destroying evidence when it came to her emails, with that investigation of her personal server and the classified information therein. The media’s going to end up covering this. Congress does need to take a look at it. Again, maybe nothing bad happened, and maybe there were no crimes committed. But those actions taken together don’t add up.

Mr. Jekielek: Are there any circumstances where evidence would be destroyed? There is the implication, and people might say, “There was nothing here, and so we ended it.” But this destruction of evidence I find confusing.

Mr. Patel: Yes, files are closed, and investigations are shut down. I used to do that all the time as a federal prosecutor. But I never heard of evidence being destroyed. You know why, Jan? Because you use supposedly lawful investigative tactics to collect information, and then you might use that years later for another investigation, or some investigation might spawn out of that six months to a year later with new intelligence you received about the old investigation. You don’t go and destroy it.

That is literally why the FBI has files and rooms full of evidence and intelligence, and the same with the DOJ, and the same with any investigative agency. They’re not out there having a bonfire with the intelligence they have collected and information they have collected. That piece, as reported, is very troubling. I know Congress is already doing a lot, but maybe they can start asking questions about that.

Mr. Jekielek: Kash, it’s time for our shout-out.

Mr. Patel: This week’s shout out goes to Raelyn Mathis. I’m going to borrow a word from her comments on the board for Kash’s Corner. She used the word honest, and that’s exactly how we try to be with you each and every week. We try to do credible reporting based on facts and leave the hyperbole for everybody else. Thank you, Raelyn for noticing that. We really appreciate everybody’s comment and participation in the live chat, and we’ll see you next week on Kash’s Corner.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

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