Transcription
You're watching the Legal Breakdown. Glenn, it looks like Cash Patel is in some hot water. FBI director for using SWAT agents, FBI SWAT agents as a security perk for his girlfriend. I'm going to put a quote up here on the screen from a former uh senior FBI agent.
"There is no legitimate justification for this. This is a clear abuse of position and misuse of government resources. She is not his spouse, does not live in the same house or even the same city."
So, first and foremost, what happens in the event that you have a clear abuse of government resources and yet you are the person at the top of the food chain in an administration that seems perfectly content to abuse their positions?
What happens is exactly nothing, Brian. Unfortunately, what should happen, this should at least be taken up as an administrative matter. The person who is misusing government resources, government property, government funds or government employees should be investigated by, for example, an inspector general, many of whom were, you know, fired unceremoniously, if not unlawfully, by Donald Trump when he took office for his second term. Um, there should be sanctions, there should be consequences.
Um, however, and even beyond that, Brian, if this is a violation of federal law, misuse of government property, um, it should be investigated by whom? By the FBI and the Department of Justice. Of course, when you're the director of the FBI, do you think you're going to order an investigation into yourself, even if there is adequate predication, enough evidence that you may have violated federal law? Of course not.
But you know, this is not just an abuse of power, an abuse of government property, a potential abuse of government employees, these SWAT team agents who, you know, what they should be doing in Nashville, where they are apparently um providing security for Cash Patel's 27-year-old girlfriend, who is reportedly a country singer in Nashville. This SWAT team should be available at a moment's notice, on a second's notice, to respond to things like mass shooting, terrorist incidents, and other things that require immediate attention from FBI SWAT teams. But instead, they're providing security for Cash Patel's girlfriend.
And as that former senior FBI agent said, as you just quoted, he happens to now be a law enforcement analyst on cable news. He said, you know, there is absolutely no um basis for security to be provided to an FBI director's girlfriend. Now, if it's an FBI director's wife, they happen to live in the same household and there is a security need attendant to the FBI director's status or position, that has been done. But, you know, this is really not something the FBI is in the business of doing. taking SWAT teams and, you know, assigning them to security details for an FBI director's girlfriend.
And and that's the thing I want to the part I want to dig into a little bit. This idea that that the FBI's resources are not unlimited. like there there there are a finite number of of officials of SWAT team members and and so if you are in an administration that promises the return of law and order and yet you use the limited number of FBI SWAT agents sitting down with a 26-year-old uh girlfriend of the FBI director, what does that do uh when you do need people to go and respond to an actual emergency, to an actual school shooting somewhere, to an actual uh terrorist threat, whatever it may It endangers national security and puts all Americans at risk.
But do we think Cash Patel, Pam Bondi or Donald Trump care one wit about the safety of the American people? They have shown time and again that they don't that is not their motivating concern. You know it reminds me of the old saying to the victor go the spoils. Usually that refers to when, you know, one side of an armed conflict wins a war. They get to steal and pillage all they want from from the other side, from the the side that was defeated in the armed conflict. You know, that's what it feels like here.
And Brian, let's not forget this is on top of some more criticism that was heaped on Cash Patel when he did what? He used the FBI's $60 million government jet for what was described in the media as a date night. He used it to go see his girlfriend perform the national anthem at a wrestling event in Pennsylvania. In how many ways does that sound wrong?
And yet this is a recurring theme in this administration. The bait and switch that happened at the hands of all of these Trump administration officials. Remember, Cash Mattel was one of a big chorus of voices who were singing about uh uh this idea that they're going to get accountability as it relates to Epstein. And not only have we not gotten accountability, but he's part of the administration that's right now suppressing all of these files.
And of course, then you've got Donald Trump who promised all of these uh this this populist agenda on the campaign trail. Lower cost of housing, of rent, of groceries, of eggs. First thing he does when he gets into office starts a trade war that raises the cost of everything. promised to to give free IVF. There is no free IVF. Promised to end the Russia Ukraine war on day one. That war is still raging. Uh uh promised to release the Epstein files. He is the sole impediment to those Epstein files actually being released.
And so on issue after issue after issue, Donald Trump, Cash Patel, Dan Bonino, all of these people who had promised one thing are showing that now that they've got what they need from people, which is their votes, they don't give a about them anymore. and they're perfectly content to completely roll them, make fools of them for even thinking for a second that they would govern in the same way that they campaigned.
You know, Brian, it's hard to believe that the gullible are still falling for this. I would think his base, you know, many of them who seem to be gullible because they continue to believe Donald Trump's transparent lies. The gullible must be saying to themselves at this point, "Wait a minute. I think this guy may be trying to pull a fast one on us because as you say, what is Donald Trump focused on, laser focused? Well, tearing down parts of the White House that offend him for some reason, putting a ballroom on the White House grounds that will frankly end up dwarfing the White House, at least in some renderings, and demanding that it be named after him, even though he has denied those claims. He has been saying he wants a new sports stadium built in Washington DC and he wants it to be called, you know, Trump stadium. He's even trying to get his face, his likeness put on a $1 coin. It's like he's trying to create, you know, an America that is nothing but a bunch of um Trump chachkis that will forever haunt us, you know, in all ways, large and small. This is what Donald Trump cares about. Not to mention, he's trying to get the Department of Justice to provide him hundreds of millions of dollars because he was investigated for his suspected crimes. I mean, the pattern here is unmistakable and it has nothing to do with serving the American people.
Glenn on on this idea of these blatant abuses that are happening at the hands of these department heads and agency uh and agency heads like Cash Battel, is this something that would normally fall into the purview of an inspector general? And kind of as a follow-up to that, might this be why Donald Trump cleaned house of all the inspector generals uh uh when he first took office?
Yeah, he not only cleaned house, he fired a number of the inspectors general unlawfully. He violated congressional laws that were designed to ensure that inspector generals who are the internal watch dogss looking for fraud, waste, abuse, corruption, and crime inside the executive branch. He dismissed them without cause, which is contrary to federal law. He dismissed them without giving Congress the requisite 30-day advanced notice. So yeah, that is part of the reason I have to believe he got rid of the internal watchdogs so they couldn't keep watch over what he was doing, how he was grifting.
And of course, there's another agency, there's another component inside the Department of Justice called the Office of Professional Responsibility, OPR, that is also empowered, authorized to look into misconduct by, for example, DOJ prosecutors or FBI agents. And what happened there? Well, Pam Bondi and Donald Trump fired the head of OPR, a gentleman named Jeff Ragdale, who I worked with for decades at the DC US Attorney's Office before he headed over to Maine justice. Walked him out. And as best I can tell, they haven't even replaced the head of OPR, who would be the person responsible for heading up probes, internal probes of any impropriy by the FBI, by DOJ lawyers, by Pam Bondi, by Todd Blanch. So listen, again, you can only fool a gullible at this point, Donald Trump, because what he's doing is unmistakable. He's trying to get all he can for himself, and the American people be damned.
Well, I think the the interesting part from my perspective as somebody who does political commentary on social media is to see what it looks like for Cash Patel in the aftermath of this administration because this guy built his brand on this idea that he actually gave a about uncovering uh the corruption at the highest levels of government. The Epstein files are a perfect distillation of that because it perfectly encapsulates all of the corruption that's happening among a trunch of people at the highest echelons of government who seem unaccountable to the laws. Like talk about two tiers of justice. These people are are constantly protected and Cash Patel built his brand on on promising to expose those very people and now he is an integral part of the administration.
You know, in one of his interviews, he said that the person responsible for keeping uh uh uh Jeffrey Epstein's black book was the FBI director. Now, Cash Patel is the FBI director. And we don't have any of the information being released. And so it's going to be so interesting to see how a guy who built his brand um promising to expose corruption, who is now engaged in the very protection racket that he once condemned is going to be able to have an ounce of legitimacy when he when he tries to, you know, pick back up on his podcast show in the aftermath of this after spending I mean, we're 10 months into this administration right now. There isn't an ounce of information that's being released as it relates to Epstein thanks to this administration. They are the ones suppressing it. Thank god we've got the Epstein estate dropping these files. Thank god we've got the House Oversight Committee dropping these files. But if if it were left to Donald Trump and Dan Bonino and Cash Patel and Pam Bondi, we wouldn't see a single piece of paper as it relates to Epstein. So it' be very interesting to see uh whether Cash Patel thinks that he could pick up where he left off after basically uh becoming the very villain that he used to condemn.
I actually think Cash Patel and frankly all of Donald Trump's um appointed officials, cabinet members, flunkies, um will have their hands full when the rule of law comes back into the light of day when Donald Trump leaves office. And those of us who devoted our entire professional careers to serving the American people, to enforcing the rule of law, to remaining loyal to the Constitution, I was one of those people as a career federal prosecutor. when those people go on the cleanup and accountability mission and all of the folks who may have committed crimes as part of Donald Trump's cabal um hopefully will have their hands full dealing with criminal investigations and prosecutions where the evidence supports those investigations and prosecutions.
Well, we'll leave it there for those who are watching right now. If you'd like to follow along with legal news, whether it relates to Cash Vetel and the FBI or any other legal news in this administration, please make sure to subscribe. I'm going to put the links to both of our channels right here on the screen. If you're not yet subscribed, that is a great way to support our work, a great way to support independent media, and it is and always will be 100% free. So again, those links are right here on the screen. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen, and I'm Glenn Kersner. You're watching the Legal Breakdown.