Former TYT colleague Ken Klippenstein has just disclosed that the FBI knocked on his door. He wrote a piece about it in his Substack titled the FBI Knocked on My Door. The powerful federal agency tries to edit me. Now what would they want to edit him on? [00:00:17] It turns out that last Friday, a special agent with the FBI showed up to his home, knocked on the door, and apparently, as he writes, the bureau told me that I had been the target of a foreign influence operation [00:00:32] with regard to a news article, I had written a clearly, clearly a reference to the JD Vance dossier, which he wrote about on his Substack. That was the same dossier that ended up getting him banned on Twitter. He was later unbanned, but he claims that there was no subpoena, [00:00:52] no search warrant, no prior announcement, no claim of illegality, just a concern that Ken Klippenstein was the victim of a foreign influence campaign when, in his original piece, he makes abundantly clear that it is likely that [00:01:09] the dossier was a hack from Iran, so he was clear about that. Nonetheless, he says that the FBI visit provides a clue. Powerful organizations like Twitter, meta, Google, and now the FBI have appointed [00:01:24] themselves arbiters over the news. You can consume, you get to consume. They decry threats to democracy in the form of foreign interference, influence, disinformation, misinformation, and even conspiracies. That ultimately undermines the most powerful engine of our democracy, [00:01:42] which is freedom of speech and expression. So he also talks about the special agent. You know, he's a young blond guy who might have tripped over his umbilical cord on the way over, looked stumped when I asked him what the point of the visit was, [00:02:00] given that I had been careful in my article on the Vance dossier to stress that Iran had likely hacked it. He confessed that he hadn't even seen my article asking when I had published it. About two weeks ago, I replied, adding, what took you so long? [00:02:18] Two weeks ago. Two weeks is pretty fast for the federal government, he said. The special agent flashed his badge to identify himself, but would not let me photograph it. He declined to provide me with a business card. So before I continue. Jake. [00:02:34] Yeah. Super creepy. No. Yeah, 100%. In fact, if you're a Trump supporter, you should actually be supporting Ken Klippenstein more, not less. I'm going to explain why at the end. In fact, Ken explains why at the end. And it's really a great point. But first, on the two things that Anna mentioned there. [00:02:51] Pro tip to the FBI. If you're going to investigate someone because of an article they wrote, read it. You had two weeks you were given the assignment. Read it. It was not a long article, I read it. Okay. [00:03:07] Be on your way in the car at some point. I mean, you're going to tell him, you know, we think you might be. You know what? Ensnared by a foreign government because of what you wrote. Oh, great. What did I write? I don't know. [00:03:23] No, this is. Guys, this is crazy. Okay? This is a government agency seeking to intimidate a journalist over his reporting. - That's what this is. - Second pro tip. He flashed his badge and he said, can I take a picture of your badge? [00:03:39] And he says, no, no, no, no, no. If you're from the FBI or you're the police, we're allowed to see your badge. We're allowed to see your name. In fact, we have to. Otherwise, how do we know you're from the FBI? Any bozo can go. Oh, yeah. Here's my badge. Here's my. No, I'm not going to. You know, that's not how the law works. [00:03:55] So if you're embarrassed about what you're doing, then don't do it. If you're proud of what you're doing, then no problem. Show the badge. Right. This is not complicated, and it's not arguable. So but this goes to what I was what I've been saying to the right wing guys. You think that there's some sort of nefarious deep state that is super [00:04:12] competent and they are somehow, you know, assassinating, trying to assassinate Trump, but always missing, creating hurricanes and manipulating this and that. No, it's a bunch of bureaucrats. They take two weeks to read an article, then don't read it. They show up with no plan at all. [00:04:27] They don't know what the hell they're doing. They're government bureaucrats. Okay, while true and I agree with your incompetence point, it's also true that at least in a very specific case that we're talking about right now that Ken Klippenstein is outlining, [00:04:44] they do have some nefarious intentions. Well, it depends on what you mean by nefarious. That's going to get us to the what I was saying about Ken's ending, which is really interesting. And and look, I, I partly definitely agree with this. And then there's a part that I want to have a conversation with you about. [00:05:00] But if you don't mind, I'm going to read the last couple of paragraphs of Ken's piece because I want all of us to to think about it together, he said. The FBI, in its subtle way, and the mainstream news media wants to stop people knowing about these stories. Right. And he explained earlier, look, there's always stories about a China, [00:05:17] Iran, Russia meddling in our elections. And sometimes it's small, sometimes it's big, etc. But if they reveal information that is true and actual news, are we just supposed to not report the news because it came from there? And that's an interesting question. [00:05:33] And he's saying the FBI and mainstream media are saying, yes, do not report the news if it if we think there's something wrong with it. He continues, that's the reason why the news media is one of the most despised institutions in America. It's constantly putting its thumb on the scales of a free flow of information, deciding what's news, [00:05:50] slanting coverage, ignoring what they find objectionable or too ugly or too difficult or too boring. Yes, I agree with him wholeheartedly on 100%. And ironically, MAGA agrees with him, right? No. Yeah, that's that's the main critique of mainstream media, [00:06:06] which is you're not doing the news. You say you're doing the news, you say you're objective, but you're going to give us your version of the news where it's slanted in some ways, it's leaves out a bunch of things, etc. The too boring might cause you to go, What do they mean by too boring? [00:06:23] Every time you want to talk about money and politics and mainstream media, and almost all of us who have been on air or have been reporters or have been editors have lived through this, someone above you will say, oh, that's boring. Nobody wants to hear about campaign finance reform. Nobody. It's just a detailed technical issue. [00:06:39] And I would say, and Ken and many others have said, what do you mean it's corruption? It's like the number one issue. People care about it a lot. It's number one issue in almost every country. It's the main thing that people talk about in the news. Now it's boring. It's boring. We don't want to talk about it. Are you doing the news or are you just doing the the part of the [00:06:57] news that you like and helps your agenda? So and then he continues, now apply that to the Vance dossier. The federal government and subsequently the news media don't want you to see it, not because it isn't authentic, not because it isn't newsworthy. It's because they ultimately want to decide what you should [00:07:12] and should not see and read. Yes. Yes. And again, if your MAGA guys, what's in the dossier that you're so afraid of, you already like what JD Vance stands for. And all it is is the Trump team that collected information about JD Vance, and somebody got their hands on it. [00:07:28] But I guarantee you, if you're MAGA and you read it, you'll go, oh I love this guy. Like I don't love the guy. I think a lot of stuff in there is him talking about what Trump did in the past and etc., and you get the sense that he's a skeevy guy who's going to change his mind depending on what's advantageous to him. [00:07:43] But you probably won't perceive it that way. You'll probably perceive it as rock n roll. By the way, it it is no one's job if you work in journalism. If you consider yourself a journalist, it is not your job to determine, you know, whether or not the report, [00:08:01] the accurate reporting you're going to put out there is going to have an impact on the election or the way voters perceive the various candidates. Like that's the main problem here, right? Like the media overall has become incredibly partizan, and they're afraid of [00:08:17] putting their thumb on the scale in a way that would hurt their preferred candidate. Which is why when it comes to legacy media, which I do believe has a liberal bias and a pro-corporate bias, they tend to omit certain details that give you a whole picture, [00:08:32] a real holistic view of a story, because there are some details that might make the Democratic candidate look bad. Okay, look, I don't know how anyone else feels. I'm only speaking for myself. I regret not reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 because I, like [00:08:49] everyone else, was a sucker and I fell for the lie that it was a Russian influence campaign and nothing more than that. You shouldn't draw any attention to it. Did anyone really think that the Hunter Biden laptop story was going to convince Biden supporters to stop supporting Biden? [00:09:04] No, but you're remembering wrong. We did report on it. We had long conversations about whether it was real or not real. And Rudy Giuliani had dropped it off at the we. Did report on it, right? But I guess the guy that did the found the laptop was blind [00:09:20] and we were kidding around. We did, we did. Thank you for mentioning that. I had actually forgotten about that. But I do remember for some time actually believing, oh, well, this is a this might actually be part of a Russian influence campaign because they put out anyway. Yeah, but. [00:09:35] Look, I'm just sick of the Partizan media, right? It's so hard. And look, the Partizan media has done a lot of damage in regard to news consumers and what they expect from the media as well. Yeah. And but what we actually did goes towards proving your point, which is. [00:09:51] So we did talk about the Hunter Biden laptop. I thought it was largely BS. We said to my recollection you guys could look it up online. We said like we don't know where it came from. And and I expressed great skepticism about it. Right. Because why why did I express great skepticism about it? [00:10:09] Because Trump makes up things 24 over seven. So Giuliani makes up things 24 over seven. So if you cry wolf 24 over seven, don't be surprised that the one time you're telling the truth, people aren't going to believe it. Okay, so second of all, even if everything in the laptop was true, I said, if I remember right again, you could look it up. [00:10:26] I was like, so what? And I was 100% right about that. And so I didn't need the media to keep it from me. So I looked at it and I said, even if it's true, and in fact, later on, not during the campaign, but when we got even more information about it, the Republicans are like, look at what's in the laptop. [00:10:41] And we did, and we saw that in the laptop. Hunter Biden says, now remember, don't promise anyone that we can control what dad's going to do because he won't listen to us. It was actually exculpatory. And that's why. Why is the FBI and the mainstream news media keeping [00:10:56] the JD Vance dossier from you guys? Are you going to look at it if you're MAGA and go, that's it. I hate JD Vance, but why would the FBI not want mainstream media, not want you? Why don't you just look like I don't even care if you do or don't look at it? Okay. My point is, you're not so precious that it has to be kept from you. [00:11:16] And, like, oh, you can't handle what's in there. Your head will explode. You'll be blinded by bias immediately. I don't even think our job is to report the news. But honestly, why don't we all do that? But honestly, Jake, I'm not even seeing MAGA freak out about the dossier. Okay, no, but that's my point. It's like, who are they hiding this from? [00:11:34] Exactly right. Like, why is the FBI, by the way, the FBI under the Biden administration knocking on Ken Klippenstein door to protect the Trump Vance ticket? So. And how is that deep state against Trump? - Come on, guys. - So insane. [00:11:50] All of it is. Let me just give you one last paragraph from Ken, because I think he put it really well. He said the FBI and the federal government has now successfully enlisted the mainstream news media into being some kind of adjunct national security agency that is a major threat to our democracy. Not some foreign government hijinks. Totally agreed. [00:12:10] When the mainstream media says, I declare this non-news, I declare this to be important news. Very, very important news. Be wary. Be wary. That's much influence. Our elections 2000 times more than any meddling by foreign governments. [00:12:27] And I don't like the meddling. I'm super clear that I don't like the meddling. And I would, you know, take action against it. ET cetera. But that doesn't mean I want meddling from mainstream media telling me what I can and can't see. I don't want either side to meddle. And if we're really talking about foreign governments, as I've said many times [00:12:43] before, oh, the Iranians might have hacked Trump's campaign campaign and gotten a 100% accurate dossier about J.D. Vance, which now, after having people read it, doesn't have anything spectacular [00:12:58] in it anyway. Does that affect the election more, even if it's true, or several hundred million dollars from Israeli supporters gone straight into campaigns of Democrats and Republicans, [00:13:13] so that all of a sudden we're sending 4 billion, 26 billion overall, 300 billion to Israel. Gee, I wonder what affects elections more. Well, some foreign influence campaigns are okay. Yeah. And by the way, if you go to say on mainstream media that the politicians [00:13:32] are affected by a PACs money, they'll say anti Semite, get him off the stage. And that's why no one in mainstream media is allowed to talk about the donors, whether it's AIPAC or Big Pharma or the banks or oil companies or, God forbid, defense contractors. [00:13:49] An unbelievable monopoly on the news where they say the donors don't influence the politicians at all. What a load of. And that is exactly what mainstream media is telling us. What is and isn't news. I got news for you. [00:14:05] The donors who run this place, they run all of Washington, D.C. They run the whole government. And you doing your blockade of reporting on the donors is what's driven MAGA nuts in the first place. And that's why they're going to Donald Trump, [00:14:21] because they're desperate for truth, since all you guys do is lie to them.