https://youtu.be/Xi9IJbRhKWU
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Hi welcome back to the Bird’s-Eye view
where we talk about what’s missing in
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the news. Today Brad Johnson’s gonna talk
with us about the FISA abuse that’s
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happened in the FBI, the IG Horowitz’s
report & he’s gonna break down kind of the
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procedural processes that happen and
what are his suggestions for improvement
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within the intelligence agencies and
what are our potential problems that we
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have in the agencies as well. Here’s our
interview with Brad Johnson. Hi Brad
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thanks for joining us today, so just to
get started we are going to ask you the
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the first question which was what was your
reaction to the IG report and what about
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the inaccuracies that have been pointed
out by AG Barrand others? Yeah it’s
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interesting I would say it’s the
Horowitz report or the IG report, the
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Inspector General report for the
department justice so it’s actually
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worked out to be a lot more interesting
than I thought it was going to be I
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expected a pretty much watered down
version but was I would say pleasantly
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surprised now Horowitz did pull things
in there that were kind of interesting
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he actually he didn’t precisely
recommend somebody be prosecuted but he
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laid out the details of what Jim Comey
had done on those memos and said this
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needs to be looked at and considered you
know for possible prosecution and didn’t
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make the commendation but pointing it out
to something that should be considered
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now I personally had not expected him to
even go that far in an IG report.
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Now the IG report is actually in the house type of document. It’s made by that produced
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by the DOJ Department of Justice & the FBI
is under the Department of Justice so
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technically there while a separate
agency they’re also part DOJ so the
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Inspector General does this in-house
type of report he doesn’t have the
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ability to call on people from outside
the FBI to provide information nor can
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he force people to testify out of the FBI, so
basically, it’s they go around and question
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everybody get whatever they get on
volunteer basis, now something that has
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not been essentially reported by anyone
other than myself that I’ve heard there
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maybe a few people so there is
an actual whistleblower in this IG report
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that has not been previously reported on
by almost anyone that to my knowledge
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and this is by comparison to the whistleblower who was trotted out by the two
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committees, the judiciary, and intelligence
committees, of the House, provided by the Democrats now what they did is
they have this internal person that was
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part of their system & he had worked
with the Democratic Party and so on they
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brought him out to report on the
president now what’s wrong with that and
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why that’s not actually a whistleblower
as the whistleblow statutes and
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regulations are very specific and
whistleblowers somebody who is within
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the IC, the intelligence community, who
reports on fraud or waste or abuse or
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something within the IC that is not what
he is supposed to do to the executive
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which means the president but it is what
he’s supposed to do within the community
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so there was a whistleblower in this
case and this is how the IG got on to
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this particular line of information
and that was on the seven memos that James
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Comey now out of those memos he had
classified information now not huge
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amounts of classified information and
this was presented to US Attorney
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General Barr who declined to prosecute
but that’s how that whole line came out
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clearly there was somebody within the
system that looked at this and said this
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is not right and took two areas in that
one he was treating these as if they
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were personal information and they were
clearly designed if you read through
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them there in the IG report the
documents the small portions that are
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redacted out that contain the classified
information are almost completely
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irrelevant you can even kind of semi
guess what’s in them but you know it doesn’t
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matter for what we’re speaking up but
clearly these were designed to keep tabs
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on the President and be used against the
President at a future time I mean you
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can see the vitriol as the way that they’re
written about the President, they’re very critical
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of the President throughout and in peg
ways, so he was treating these federal
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documents that belong to the federal
government because he was meeting with
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the President in his position
Director of the FBI and so as
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Director of the FBI everything he does
is federal property government
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property so writing of these memos he
was treating as as ‘personal property’
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something that he had spoken about
publicly many times warning people you
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know this is all government property, it’s not your personal property and every single
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person who worked around him& even people on his side were shocked and dismay with the fact
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was saying “oh this is my personal
property”, they’re going no he doesn’t
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believe that so clearly I mean you have
to go into thinking it’s pretty much he
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got caught lying on that one and that’s
how this has been time after time after
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time and even though on this past
weekend he was hitting the news shows
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and on Fox News and different media
outlets and was confronted with some of
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the things & he’s be saying “oh no well you
know there was no wrong thing” and then
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the reporter would say to oh wait a
minute it reported says blah blah blah
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blah 17 cases of this as well but it’s
this and confronted again and each time
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he’s having to back off but well yes I
mean I was in charge therefore I’m
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responsible it kind of would fall back
on that so he’s been caught lying over
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and over and over and over now I think
he’s just trying to build a defense in
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the anticipation of the John Durham Report and which is an actual investigation where he does have
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subpoena rights and he can how you know
basically force people to come in and
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provide information or whatever they do
but his report is going to be far more
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extensive. So I think Comey is trying
to get out ahead of the bad information
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coming and says “well see I’ve been
cleared twice” and now they’re saying something else
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to burn on him or that this is a
witch hunt this is political. I think
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that’s what he’s building it in because
it’s such a he’s in so much trouble over
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this. So your organization is about
reforming the intelligence agencies do
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you think these kinds of reports like
this one about the FISA abuse being used
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with fake information are a symptom of
the problem within our agencies or are
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our agencies being politicized?
Okay so Americans for intelligence reform is one
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of the main reasons that this
organization was was created and and
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were both a 501 C 4 @ a 501 C 3 which
nonprofits organize both research and
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politically politically active in in
order to try to lobby for reform on
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these issues yes this creates a lot of
impetus and there’s already a little bit
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of discussion some of which we’ve
contributed to about the FBI for example
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following World War II everyone
recognized that we needed intelligence
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so a separate agency was created which
was the CIA in the 1950s
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following World War II. OSS was demanded
disbanded and the CIA was created and a
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great deal of time, effort & thought went into how to do this because we had
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observed the Soviet Union where the KGB
was the CIA, the Secret Service, the FBI
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and a bunch of other things all rolled
into one super powerful organization
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which to this day don’t underestimate
how much power they had. Putin who’s the
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whatever you want to call him, the
strongmen of Russia, the Premier
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President whatever he came out of the
KGB so they still have influence to this
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day and that was where they felt fell
apart a long time ago so the United
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States we decided to do that quite
differently and things that we did that
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now is being discussed as perhaps
mistake. Now one of the things being
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discussed currently and this is
something we’ve contributed to that
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needs to be looked at is too much power
and too few hands and I think that’s
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what we see clearly there was just
runaway absolute abuse coming out of DOJ
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an FBI and that was a relatively small
number of people that were able to do
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this we saw the FISA system be
completely undermined by a very few
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number of people and that’s an extremely
important thing because it allows for a
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great deal of abuse because it allows
you to target US people and don’t forget
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now FISA up is not, I mean everyone who
talks about it when you talk here on the
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media discussions of it they talk about
FISA
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as a legal document and yes it is a
legal document but it’s also an
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intelligence document and what it is what FISA was created to do was to create a hand
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between intelligence and law enforcement
so that when intelligence sources
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revealed criminal activity of one any
sort whether it’s espionage or or
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narcotics or whatever it is taking place
in the United States you have that
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handshake so it can be passed off so
while yes it is legal document with
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legal implications it’s not purely that
so that’s one of the things that’s often
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forgotten. So it lends itself to abuse
and that’s why it was abused here
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because it was easy to do that with now
what’s the problem the problem is you
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have the intelligence functions of the a
taking place side by side law
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enforcement functions of the FBI and
that lent itself to this this problem
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that we see today as soon as you have a
group as small as maybe ten people at
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the leadership levels who are intent
upon doing their personal political goal
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that their duties and work for the
nation you see these types of abuse take
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place so the you know the discussion now
which which we also push forward
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Americans for Intelligence Reform not
necessarily conclusively it needs to be
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done but it is something that needs to
be debated at this point and looked at
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is what let this abuse of the FISA system take place? Some things that certainly lends self to
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it is the FBI abuse and when tensions functions together now their CI
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counter-intelligence department is does
a lot of Intel across the board and
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there’s been the mission creep it’s
gotten bigger and bigger and bigger and
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that is part of what lends itself to
this to creating this problem this abuse
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that we have today this corruption so
maybe that means to be separated out of
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the FBI maybe it meet needs to be
reduced in scope and size and power now
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it’s still a smaller brother to the to
the law enforcement aspects of FBI that
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represents roughly two-thirds of the FBI
where the CI shops only about a third
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maybe that needs to be greatly reduced
and a lot of those responsibilities are
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in the FBI in the CI stop need to be
moved out. FISA, I’ve read the way it
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was set up and it’s a very nicely
designed system I don’t think there’s
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any particularly wrong with FISA itself
if the rules and regulations and laws
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are being obeyed, the problem is they’re
not and it was such a small group of
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people that were able to you know warp
this into something that’s not meant to
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be and use it for personal political goals
rather than the nation’s business so it
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that made that that have to be looked at
the solution there’s a number of ways to
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skin a cat as they say but this this is
one of them needs to be discussed
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there’s too much power in too few hands
at when you combine the DOJ and FBI
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alright that is our first part interview
with Brad Johnson he’s going to be on
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another day with us to continue with a
few more questions we want to talk about
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the Durham report we also want to talk
with him about you know how should we
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hold our intelligence agencies
accountable he’s also going to talk a
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little bit more about the impeachment
and how he feels that’s going along as
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well so join us on our next video where
we talk with Brad about those few other
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questions that we had for him thanks for
watching the bird’s eye view
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hope to see you next time
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you
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