When Whistleblowers Become the Target of the FBI. Kash Patel, Dan Bongino & the Blunders | 12/18/25

KEITH MALINAK (00:00.034)
Me and you with wings on our feet

KEITH MALINAK (00:10.376)
I'm an elephant up the stairs I'm tossing up punchlines that were never there Over my shoulder a piano falls Crash into the ground

I'm breaking through, I'm bending spoons, I'm keeping flowers in full bloom, I'm looking for answers from the great beyond.

KEITH MALINAK (00:59.704)
Want the hummingbirds to dance in bed Sweetest dreams of you I'm looking to the stars I'm looking to the moon

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs I'm tossing up punchlines that were never there Over my shoulder, piano falls Crash into the ground I'm breaking through

and spurs are keeping flowers and for bloom are looking for answers from the great beyond

I'm breaking through, I'm banned as bones I'm keeping flowers and forklow I'm looking for answers from the grave Answers from the grave Answers I'm breaking through, I'm banned

I keep them flowers and the bloom I'm for answers from the great beyond

KEITH MALINAK (02:27.918)
I'm breaking through abandoned spoons I'm keeping flowers in full bloom I'm looking for answers from the grave Answers in the grave, answers I'm breaking through abandoned spoons I'm keeping flowers in full bloom I'm looking for answers from the grave beyond

KEITH MALINAK (03:01.23)
you

you

KEITH MALINAK (03:29.848)
you

you

STEVEN FRIEND (03:40.11)
She's got a road map of Jupiter, red offix on the stars, all along the highway. She's got a liquid crystal compass, picture book of the rivers, under the Sahara.

you

KEITH MALINAK (04:00.974)
Desert Highway straight to the bottom of the sun Like lovers and heroes Out the restless part of everyone We're only at home and we're on the run On the run

STEVEN FRIEND (04:25.409)
He's got a star map of Hollywood, a list of cheap motels all along the freeway. She's got a sister out in Vegas, promise of a decent job far away from home.

you

KEITH MALINAK (04:39.062)
town.

We travel on the road to redemption Highway out of our cast again A tomorrow we'll Life lovers and heroes Birds in the last days of spring We're only at home when we're on the way On the way

you

KEITH MALINAK (05:12.43)
Wondering the face of the earth Wondering what our dreams might be worth Learning that we're only immortal We are young Wondering the face of the earth Wondering what our dreams might be worth Learning that we're only immortal We are young

Love it.

STEVEN FRIEND (05:37.911)
You

KEITH MALINAK (05:44.79)
Time is a gypsy caravan. There's a way in the night to leap and stranded in a dreamland.

you

STEVEN FRIEND (06:02.186)
Travel in the dark of the...

KEITH MALINAK (06:33.966)
you

KEITH MALINAK (06:47.022)
you

We are young, wandering the face of the earth, wondering what our dreams might be worth, learning that we're only a mortal for a limited time. We are young, wandering the face of the earth, wondering what our dreams might be worth, learning that we're

and

STEVEN FRIEND (07:31.55)
you

We travel on the road to adventure On the desert highway straight to the heart of the sun

Like lovers and heroes, I'm the restless father of everyone. We're only at home when you're off the road.

you

KEITH MALINAK (08:29.538)
Cause all it could see is the hardest to learn All of the morning pills will cover your eyes

you

KEITH MALINAK (08:56.094)
She gave up her ghosting song Just like a whiskey bottle drained on the floor She got no future just a life to endure This piece of narrative shaking her heart Too late to leave and now the songs in her head give it up

KEITH MALINAK (09:26.114)
She's not the star

KEITH MALINAK (09:33.002)
She gave up, the ghost in the sun

KEITH MALINAK (09:48.84)
children never pull a punch for free you ever wonder why they had to move on it's funny on a code that put you on your throne but standing here in brooklyn you won't

you

KEITH MALINAK (10:12.29)
She's a star

KEITH MALINAK (10:19.2)
She gave up the ghost inside Was it all official? Turned into one hell of a man Turned into no-

KEITH MALINAK (10:38.542)
T'was the dawning, carving a moat through the dust in your town

KEITH MALINAK (11:07.086)
Welcome to this edition of at the mic. I am your host Keith Malinak and This is the deep dive Edition of the program we do this every Thursday afternoon at 3 p.m Eastern and we're grateful that you joined us here on X now later tonight at 8 o'clock Eastern this show will appear on our rumble and YouTube channels and then tomorrow morning It'll be available in podcast form Spotify Apple wherever

You like to listen to podcasts and every show can be found on the web page at the mic show.com as you can see right there. Okay I'm grateful with the team that I have here. I got to get this see this is my new I got new and improved computer graphics y'all Wes follow him on X at second floor Dallas Gabby at Jeffy apologists on X Wes handles all of the

fun stuff at the website at themikeshow.com. Gabby handles all of the Instagram stuff for at the Mike show the page over there. And of course, I'm not only grateful for them, I'm grateful for you for making time and joining us here today for tuning in. And if you want to support, hey, by all means, there's some links at the top of my ex page at Keith Malinak. I tell you the support that I get from people that that just repost this.

Whenever we do, I love seeing those. That is so helpful. And several of you have already done that today. So thank you so much for doing that. Today is a show topic that I don't take lightly because I think it deals with how we treat those who stand up for what is right. And if.

the American government can't defend those who stand up for what is right and for our constitution, then do we even have a system of government worth protecting? That's where I am on this story. And this story has bugged me for as long as I've been aware of it. In a constitutional republic, we elect individuals and we entrust them.

KEITH MALINAK (13:28.946)
with our constitution and with our government. And then we entrust them to then go out and hire the staff and the employees to go and protect this country as well. And it's up to us to call out injustice wherever we see it. And when we see those that are standing up for what's right get abused by the system, then

If they weren't paid attention to and treated properly after they did the honorable thing, then we have to. And then if it's still corrupt, man, we've got a big problem, America. And that's where we're at today. So with that, want to bring in my guest. He's been on this show half a dozen times at least. I don't even have any idea, Steve Friend. Thank you so much. Usually we're talking about any number of issues. Today, I wanted to have you on

because you, you sir, are the issue. How you doing, first of all? Let me ask you that.

I'm living through some interesting times. Let's put it that way. It's certainly been more interesting than normal. I've been kind of in a strange phase of the multiverse anyway the last three years, but it took a strange, even stranger term. Yeah.

Yeah, that's what we need to talk about. Follow Steve, at real Steve Friend on X. Just a great guy. It's an honor to know you, sir. And I've gotten to know your story over the years, like you said. And yes, it's been a wild ride for you. I don't think it's over for you yet. And we can pick up the story wherever you want. I'll just quickly just thumbnail it. Where I learned about you was you stood up.

KEITH MALINAK (15:20.494)
because you saw that the January 6 cases, they were political prosecutions, not criminal prosecutions. And you blew the whistle on the FBI as an FBI agent. And I guess that gets us to early 2023. You went in front of Congress. You explained what was happening. But anyway, I'll let you just tell your story from here. And I have so many questions for you today. And so take the floor, sir.

Well, I think we can just churn and burn through 2023 till now. mean, a whole lot of nothing happened on behalf of the Congress. They had the weaponization committee that took our testimony, myself and Gerda Boyle and Marcus Allen. And then I don't even know if they put out a strongly worded letter at the end of it, but essentially functioned as a way for them to get Twitter followers and fundraise and then try to have electoral success, which they certainly did. And then the 2024 election came around.

and you had Donald Trump, part two, get into office and there was a transition period. There was questions we were filling up the cabinet and one of the big questions was who was going to be the FBI director because Christopher Wray was definitely on his way out. And my buddies and I, all the suspended FBI whistleblowers, we call ourselves the Suspendables, we campaigned and we threw our weight behind Cash Patel extremely hard and we were enthusiastic.

Me too, man. I'm with you.

He said all the right things. mean, it wasn't just like I had a parasocial relationship with him through podcast I'd actually talked to him on the phone and text messages met him in person and he seemed to be the guy for the moment and He actually was in communication with my my buddies and I behind the scenes We gave him a PowerPoint slide deck on potential reforms to bring about potential personnel decisions that could be made that just the major things that had to happen in order to reform the FBI and he took those and then got

STEVEN FRIEND (17:16.43)
into the position of director of the FBI in February of 2025 and promptly stopped communicating with all of us entirely. And then we were been kind of sitting in limbo for a while. We saw Damanjito become the deputy director, now the co-deputy director and soon to be the former co-deputy director of the FBI. And no reinstatements, nothing was happening. And finally, there was an announcement in mid August, Cash Patel put out on social media that

The FBI had come to terms with 10 whistleblowers for full reinstatement, which was news to the whistleblowers since we had no communication with him or with the Department of Justice. No agreement was actually in existence. And I think that's what it got into the ears of the White House. And they said, you need to leave the country. And he promptly did. And he went to Scotland for a week on vacation while the DOJ negotiated a reinstatement settlement with 10 FBI whistleblowers. That agreement was reached August 26th.

2025, the terms essentially being reinstatement of security clearance, reinstatement of duty, all back pay, medical insurance and benefits, all of those things due in 30 days.

August 20th. That's a date people need to remember, right? As we go along here, August 26th, 2025, correct? Okay.

Yes. 30 days to put us into September 25th and no whistleblower has had their back pay reinstated. Only a couple have been moved into duty with security clearances. I was not one of them until recently and even then it was partial.

STEVEN FRIEND (18:51.832)
problems with medical insurance. So those guys are back. Other guys don't even have medical insurance. So they have been in material breach for nion 80 plus days of this agreement. They were unable to onboard us. And then things took the real hard turn for me in the multiverse. The weekend of December 7th, September 7th being Sunday, I got a phone call at 5 p.m. from an assistant special agent in charge of the Jacksonville field office at the FBI. They said,

You have to report to duty tomorrow. You are on administrative leave and now that's no longer in place. You can come tomorrow or you can use your vacation time. And I said, I don't even know what my vacation time balances are. says, I can't access them. I guess I'll come to work. And was transported from my house in Daytona about 90 miles to Jacksonville where they told me that I didn't have an active security clearance. So I couldn't have a gun and I couldn't have access to computers. I couldn't have unfettered access to the

buildings themselves, had to be guarded at all times. No job, no phone. They couldn't even give me a credit card to fill up the gas in the vehicle they gave me, which had police lights and siren in it. But it would have necessitated me to drive 180 miles round trip to gas up my car because the mechanics in Jacksonville would have to do it. And they said, we're working on your security clearance, but you're

badge and credentials, here you go. You're a special agent without a clearance or a gun. Was in Jacksonville the following day for about an hour, then met with another suit, assistant special agent in charge, same guy, from Daytona on Wednesday for an hour, and he said, you have 420 hours of vacation time. It must be used the next 12 months. We suggest you liberally take vacation. I did, Thursday and Friday, and then on Friday evening around 5.30, got a phone call that said, we need you in the office.

now. You have to sign some very important paperwork. And I told those guys, hey, look, I'm out of town. I'm at a Christmas party for my wife's company. So I'm unable to do that. They said, no problem. You can get squared away on Monday. And an hour later, I was contacted by the New York Post that they were about to break a story that I'd been fired by the FBI. But the FBI hadn't fired me yet. So it seems like they leaked it to the media in anticipation of my firing. It didn't happen. Might be some privacy concerns and employee law concerns there.

STEVEN FRIEND (21:16.782)
Went to bed that night, woke up 730, 830 in the morning, got phone calls. You gotta come on a Saturday to sign some very important paperwork.

Did you sleep? You said you went to bed. Did you sleep?

Man, I've been living in this world so long. just... That's true. I mean, you think it's an earthquake and I just stir my coffee with it,

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Yeah, I have thought many times and I've told you this privately if I were in your shoes, there's not a chance in hell I would be smiling. You have such a poker face and it's just a calm demeanor that I would not have for five seconds, man. bless you.

Well, I mean, it kind of actually bored itself out in that way on Saturday because I wound up driving from Tampa back to Daytona to go meet with the bosses the whole time, knowing that this is coming and meet them at the office where they tried. They try to set up a ruse for you to get there. And they said, it's it's security clearance paperwork that has to be signed on a Saturday. Okay. And, by the way, there's some work going on in the office right now and you can't bring your phone in.

STEVEN FRIEND (22:22.158)
I'm like, there's no cars in the parking lot and that's not true. And I looked at the guy who told me that and I said, I know you're bringing me in the office to fire me right now. You don't want my phone in there to record it. So let me just call my wife, tell you you're going to fire me. And I can't have my phone on me for a little while. And he looked at me, jaw agape, like, how did you see through this ruse? Went inside, signed the paperwork, signed by Casper Tell, a summary dismissal, summary termination from the director himself. He didn't even outsource it to the human resources.

folks at the FBI. It was that personal to him. They fired me around noon time, officially, is when I signed it December 13th. And then at 1.50 PM is when the New York Post story dropped to coincide with that so that they can besmirch my reputation. So they brought me in as a humiliation ritual and then try to do it across national media. So solicited some support from their online buddies to push that out there. But now we're finding out that the number two, the code number two is on his way out.

And I think at the end of it, when we have to stack all of his achievements up versus mine, I think I'll probably come out ahead. I think I probably have more sick time accrued than he spent in the office.

Well, we've got a lot of ground to cover today and I'm grateful that you're spending this time with us. Okay, so I just want to go back to August 26th because Around that time there was a tweet that cash put out I should have had it ready here as a visual aid but I feel like most people and understandably so probably saw that tweet in August and Thought awesome the day has come

Now I can stop stressing about that. Everything's fine, right? But lo and behold, imagine that our government broke a written legal agreement. And as soon as the clock hit September 27th, they were in breach of contract, obviously. And you just talked about how an earthquake happens, you stir your coffee.

KEITH MALINAK (24:34.534)
This has been, you have been in a purgatory, an employment purgatory now for going on almost three years now, right?

Hey.

STEVEN FRIEND (24:47.328)
Over three years, I was walked out September 19th, 2022.

Well, OK. All right. Let's see here. You got the letter that was signed by Cash Patel. What did it say, Steve? Like, what justification was on this letter terminating your employment with the FBI?

The allegation is that I violated the FBI, or actually the Department of Justice's social media policy, which was amended in April of this year, which would have been around the time that there was a lot of criticism from myself and others about the FBI elevating Stephen Jensen, the J-6 architect, to become the assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Office. But the social media policy essentially says that no employee of the Department of Justice

can comment on any issues related to anything going on in the Department of Justice that includes liking and sharing and even includes press releases from the Department of Justice itself and the contention was that I was violative of that which is pretty funny because the Deputy Director and the Director violated on an almost hourly basis.

say that this they are so cash Patel and Dan Bongino are so social media minded. It's like they are like you would almost think that their job is to be the social media coordinator for the FBI. It's really stunning. And the stresses that they seem to have on people that are speaking negative about them. I'm sorry, you're a public figure now. Okay, I mean, that's

KEITH MALINAK (26:26.914)
That comes with the territory. So they obviously didn't like the whole social media thing. And I know for a fact that you were on a podcast, Kyle Seraphine's show just a couple of weeks ago, right? And you guys were, did a brilliant job going over the J6 pipe bomber case and the problems that you have with Brian Cole being named the suspect there. And I thought y'all did a great job with that. And I guess was there something, cause I have a clip here.

Is it a specific clip, the one that people keep sharing? Or was it more than that? Because I can play that if you want to address that and kind of go

Explicitly that was in the termination letter. So it's about a 90 second clip. I think it's fair to play that so people get a full context for it because this is these statements that I made, which I stand by and I don't really need to elaborate on them much, but I will, is that that was a veiled threat according to the New York Post and a shocking threat according to some in the MAGA Inc.

Okay, yeah, and if you want me to stop this at any point because you want to address something specifically, just holler at me and I'll pause it here. So here we go. Here's what you said that was so offensive.

Now, if there are people back there who are Marilyn Melky style at the FBI, worried about what our foreign adversaries might think if it came to light that the FBI was actually involved in a Reich dog fire modern day and they hadn't covered up and I don't care what the justification is, we're worried Marilyn Melky style. Maybe this guy was a, this Cole character was a entrapment playbook person who you already had on the hook and what does it matter what sort of case we put him in this one or the other.

STEVEN FRIEND (28:10.414)
Maybe he's a Chester the molester pedophile who you've got on a kiddie porn case and you said, Hey, why don't you just plead guilty to this one? Because the time will go easier for you in prison as a WMD guy rather than a pedophile. Or maybe you're in a position of executive leadership and you're just so damn thirsty to get a win for dad. The president will be proud of you finally. And your fans will return and have devotion to you.

That's a good line, by the way.

Whatever the motivation is if you were doing another put-up job on this guy I think we spelled out a pretty compelling case that this probably ain't the guy Then may God have mercy on your soul, and I'm gonna end with this

I think it shows benevolence actually.

And for a little bit of context, earlier in the show, Kyle had made a joke about me being comedist from Gladiator and yelling at human resources people. So my reference to comedists was for comedic effect in a very serious conversation.

KEITH MALINAK (29:21.036)
This is heavy, you and Dennis Miller, man. It's very brainy commentary here. But what I would say is what you're about to say, you're showing mercy to the guilty party here. And so anyway, people are just glossing right through this.

I'm going to bring out my inner comedists. You better pray to Gaia or Vishnu or whatever your maker is that real Steve friend is never in a position to be an instrument of God's wrath because I will be merciful. I won't give you a trial in a hanging. I'll allow you to breathe every breath that your body will have for the rest of its natural life inside of a box. And then when it ultimately fades to black, that's when real wrath begins.

Not from you! Not from you!

No, think wrath is above my pay grade, but it's a conditional logical statement that if you did something wrong, like put an innocent person in jail, if I'm in a position of criminal justice where I have the ability to inflict some sort of sentencing on you, I will put you in prison for the rest of your natural life, which is, I guess, perceived to be a threat to the FBI director. Maybe there's something on his conscience. Does he want to tell us something?

Okay, yeah. I tell you, man. All right. So obviously he took offense to that. And the next thing you know, you're getting fired. And how's your attorney's been during this whole process? Because you've obviously had legal representation, yeah?

STEVEN FRIEND (30:57.91)
Yeah, up to and including that day when I made that statement and within a few hours my attorneys said that They were terminating their relationship with me. They sent me official notification that due to those comments that they were not going to represent me anymore and Further that they considered to me to be fully reinstated with the FBI even though I was without back pay Security clearance actual jobs responsibilities all those things that I was lacking

They said that they still considered me fully reinstated, which was interesting because it seems to me that there could have been collusion between Empower Oversight, Jason Foster and Tristan Levitt, those attorneys who have fundraised on the backs of FBI whistleblowers, IRS whistleblowers, but particularly the FBI guys, particularly me as much as they gave me a hard time about being a public facing person. They raised lots of money.

for their organization in order to represent whistleblowers, which basically means bring fresh meat to Chuck Grassley so that other people can have their lives destroyed. And they severed representation with me, probably colluding with the FBI, notifying the FBI that that was the case, which is why the FBI saw fit to call me two days later at five o'clock on a Sunday and say, you got to come right back to work. And I think the last thing is worth noting is I issued some sort of veiled threat to the FBI director and within 72 hours was handed a badge and credentials.

I think that makes me legendary.

That is, what a fun twist to this. that, I can't even begin to put myself in your shoes. But every time I think about how you haven't been given back pay while you've been in this limbo, still to this day, it just, I mean, it enrages me and I can't imagine. And I just hope that, I hope your family's doing okay. And I hope that you have strong people in your world because what you've,

STEVEN FRIEND (32:27.469)
I

KEITH MALINAK (32:51.37)
gone up against this beast is just it's what a challenge man. So are you getting any kind of legal help at this point? there somebody is there a firm or somebody representing you now?

Well, I am getting some assistance. see. I don't have an actual lawyer of contracted with it all, but Kurt Soustak, who is a retired FBI agent who's represented a lot of FBI whistleblowers. He helped me actually draft a formal whistleblower disclosure, a new one that we submitted to Thomas Massey's office yesterday. And it basically regales the congressman and all the weaponization guys with what went on.

as far as my lack of being reinstated and the way that I was treated. So that's being brought to their attention. And then I've actually had some outreach online and in the process of trying to get in touch with that, Robert Barnes reached out to me on X and said he was interested in talking to me about that. And I'm sort of in this weird limbo, or limbo, just two tiered track here where you have the settlement agreement that's, they're clearly in breach of. don't care if I did issue a threat, they still owe me.

the items that are in that settlement agreement that's supposed to be legally binding. And secondly, it's the termination here. So we'll see where that brings us. But the new whistleblower disclosure, think, will be interesting. And hopefully, we'll gain some traction here. I've reached out to Miranda to bind. And then she's traveling. She's in Australia. But maybe she can elevate it a little bit. And I know that Joe Hanneman at Blaze was looking into it as well.

Okay, so you did mention Chuck Grassley there. From my perspective, and correct the record if I have this wrong, if my perception is incorrect here, he seems like he has genuinely cared for whistleblowers. Am I wrong in that assumption or how has Senator Grassley and his staff been through this whole process?

STEVEN FRIEND (34:51.33)
Well, I haven't had any communication with the Senator or his staff directly. I mean, met Senator Grassley once very briefly. His staff had brief conversations with when there was a whistleblower appreciation day over the summer and I went out there. Essentially everything has flowed through my representatives at the time over at the power oversight, Jason Foster, Tristan Levin, both worked on Grassley's staff. Here's the problem with Grassley. He's a politician.

who has benefited from the promise of doing things, not actually doing things. That is the course that you're encouraged to go through. So you go to him or you go to these attorneys that purport to have connections to him and access to him and they are experts on how to navigate the course of being a government whistleblower. But what winds up happening is they essentially tell you, over all your information so that the grasslees of the world can go out and bang the drum and make

That sounds familiar.

STEVEN FRIEND (35:46.4)
hey, well, the sun shines politically and say, I have this great information. We're going to have a hearing. We're going to get to the bottom of it. And then this whistleblower is being mistreated. But then you're encouraged to go through all of the experience of being a mistreated whistleblower. There's no intervening force that just actually stands in the gap and protects you. You go through the rigmarole so that they can say, see, the system is broken. We ultimately need to have reform. And the only way to get reform is to vote for me in the next election.

There's never any reform and I'm sick to death of seeing Chuck Grassley and his ilk go out there and say we're tired of whistleblowers being treated like skunks at a picnic. Three plus years bro, three plus years I'm sitting here in a non-restricted way span when apparently you're the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Where was the air cover ever for anything that I went through or any of the other whistleblowers went through? You're supposed to have an enormous amount of power and you can't even ...

force an agency like the FBI to onboard one dude in 30 days.

Who and the answer to this question may be absolutely nobody, which would be totally fair. But if someone's watching this right now and they're thinking, man, we got to get justice for the whistleblowers. Which which DC politician, which congressman, which senator, if it's not Chuck Grassley, who is it up there? If anyone that you, Steve Friend, look to as maybe this is my best hope here.

I don't know if there is an institutional best hope to actually get protection. that's probably by design at this point, because regardless of who's in power, the system doesn't want any disruptions. They want to discourage anybody from throwing a flag on things that are going wrong very clearly. if they can show just how bad things get, then that benefits everybody as a whole as far as keeping the status quo going, which is why I sell anybody now.

STEVEN FRIEND (37:44.704)
If you have a reasonable concern of waste, fraud, abuse, risk of public safety, a violation of rule policy procedure, violation of the constitution, whatever it is, do not blow the whistle on it. Quit your job, go find other employment and move on because all you will do is take it to the right person and, or your perceived right person. Not only will your life be destroyed, your concern itself will never be addressed. I brought forward a reasonable concern. It was.

Right!

STEVEN FRIEND (38:14.67)
actually revealed by Tulsi Gabbard in June of this year that everything that I said was 100 % accurate in 2025. And nobody actually noted that because it was given to Just the News, is a relatively small news outlets that nobody pays attention to. And at the same time, you ruin your life, you ruin your future career prospects. And who benefits? Well, the politician does. They're able to exploit you to have hearings or go on cable news and fundraise and tweet out of it, whatever it is.

They will milk you dry and then leave you in the dust. There's really not a good actor in this at all. And that's not to say that you don't bring that information out afterwards, but at the same time, like, that's, what I'm doing right now. I mean, I brought the information ahead to Thomas Massey. He seems to be the one that's willing to just kind of throw the birds to both sides. And I'm all for somebody who wants to be a system disruptor, but I am not going to hold my breath. I'm going to see any modicum of justice in my own life.

Yeah, so your advice, I guess, to future whistleblowers, potential whistleblowers is what? Get to dry ground. Make sure that you have your bases covered before you even stick your head up, if at all.

Well, yeah, that I think you just have to come to realize that your personal values being someone who took their oath of office seriously, don't comport with the organization that you work with. So you just leave under those pretenses. Hey, look, it really wasn't a good fit. You don't have to tell the next employer it's because they're doing illegal stuff over there. Just say, look, we had a different view and different ethics and a different morality. And it just wasn't a good fit for me. And you could leave on relatively good terms without having to burn.

your reputation or actually have to weaponize the institution to allow that institution to career its ugly head on you, which is what happened in my case, not once, but now twice, where we had these leaks to the media in the last week to me and compare it to May of 2023, the night before I testified to the House Select Committee and the weaponization of the federal government. Jim Jordan, the last time I talked to him was that day. The day before is when the FBI leaked to mainstream media.

STEVEN FRIEND (40:20.462)
that they had formally revoked my security clearance so that they could disperse my reputation the day before I testified in a national television.

Okay, I swear and not to minimize what you're going through because what you are going through could continue to go through is just a travesty and it makes me heart sick for you and your family man. But I would say additionally, the more macro terrible thing that is happening is listen to what you just said. You are telling future whistleblowers don't do the right thing. Don't because it's not worth it.

It's not worth it. And that damage to our country is long lasting. I can't think of any whistleblowers that have had smooth sailing, that have done the right thing, spoken out, and then, you know what, we're going to go fix it. We'll take care of you. Do you know of anyone that has a happy ending to these whistleblower stories?

I will, think that the IRS guys, Joe Shapley, Gary Ziegler, or Gary Shapley, Joe Ziegler, those IRS guys have been now elevated to positions that can actually impact Treasury because they're over at IRS.

Is that the difference between Cash Patel and Scott Besson?

STEVEN FRIEND (41:35.83)
It is a difference between those two plus IRS doesn't have a security clearance protocol. So that there was those actual mechanisms that the FBI uses to remove people who are problematic to it weren't at the disposal for the IRS. Those guys never actually missed a paycheck, which is great for them. Maybe they missed out on promotion opportunities or they had job stress. And I don't want to belittle those experiences, but it wasn't like my buddy, Garrett Aboil, who didn't get any paycheck in for over 1100 days. So I think that

Just the organization that they happen to work for wasn't as equipped to retaliate against them. And that also goes for like an old time guy, like John Dodson, John Dodson, the fast and furious whistleblower over at ATF. I have a relationship with him. I've spoken to him and he flat out told me the only reason that he was able to make it. And he did. He re he made it to retirement was that the ATF wasn't good enough at retaliating against whistleblowers yet in his day, because it was in the late aughts early, early 20 teens.

They hadn't perfected the, I don't even know what to call it, man. It just pisses me off. So you said over 1100 days for Gared O'Boyle. How far did you go without getting a paycheck?

Well, I resigned from the FBI under advice of counsel. I would say very poor advice of counsel in February of 2023. At that point, it been about five months and had some work over at Center for Renewing America, a think tank as a fellow there. then, I mean, it seems to the storm seems to have followed me everywhere I go. I wound up being terminated by them because of my friendship with Kyle Seraphine, who's now cost me two jobs, by the way. Thanks a lot, Kyle.

They terminated me actually over an FBI matter, which was that Kyle disputed the Mar-a-Lago search warrant on Donald Trump. The use of force document that was in the operations plan, which is in every single operations plan. Right. And we pushed back on Julie Kelly's reporting on that. And Dan Bongino came to Julie Kelly's side on that.

KEITH MALINAK (43:19.566)
Not to Kyle.

You go over there by the way, Kyle.

STEVEN FRIEND (43:48.886)
And as a result, I was told I couldn't be friends with Kyle anymore. And I told Center for Renewing America that that's not something that they could dictate to me. So that ended in termination. My question now is, did Dan Bongino in his 15 minutes at the FBI ever look at an operations plan so he could report back to Julie Keller that they were both wrong? But I won't, again, hold my breath on that resolution. was terminated by Center for Renewing America and then have had no employment for the last

because this follows you around. Okay, so.

KEITH MALINAK (44:28.75)
Cash Patel and Dan Bongino actually offered you employment. Is it that accurate?

Yes, they both did. So Kash Patel offered Garrett a boil and the positions in the administration if they were going to win the election. So there's some ifs there. I went to Las Vegas for an event for Kash Patel's government gangster film. I was invited out there to speak Q &A with Garrett a boil. He and I both went there, met with cash and he said, give me your resumes. We're going to bring you in and we're going to have a place for you. And then also in the transition that was strongly implied, we'll say.

And then secondly, Dan Bongino, when he was named to be the deputy director, reached out to me in March. She was sworn in March 17th. He reached out to me March 1st, called me over the weekend and said to me and sounding completely earnest that he fully expected to go into a very hostile environment where people were going to be speaking past him and trying to manipulate him. And he did not trust them. And he knew one thing about me is that I would tell the truth. I would call BS. And he really wanted me to be on his staff. And I accepted that. And

He never replied to me again after I formally accepted it and he acknowledged that he saw that. And apparently went to Chuck Grassley and told him that he'd seen my personnel file and I have character issues.

the hell, man? Okay, well, Were you, on election night, were you thinking, my gosh, the nightmare is over? Or are you smarter than me? Because I had such high hopes for this administration, specifically for how the whistleblowers such as yourself had been treated.

KEITH MALINAK (46:15.17)
But now we're going on, it's almost three months now since the expiration of that agreement for them to honor that. I mean, I run out of words to say because it's it's shocking, but it shouldn't be. Shame on me for being shocked by these kind of developments. Okay, so they terminate you.

What was the date on that? I'm just checking the calendar here.

So the letter was signed December 12th, which was a Friday that they were hoping to fire me on, but I didn't actually get it until noontime December 13th, which was a Saturday. I technically worked an extra day that week. Hopefully that'll be reflected in my severance.

That's not the only charity day that you've given the FBI, right? No. Sorry, that's not funny, Keith. OK, so any developments then in the last six days with what's been going on with you?

Well, I mean, just working with Kurt Soustak, pushing that whistleblower disclosure out to Congress was a big deal. I'm also trying to navigate how, if I'm even able to, and in real life, if I can or can't, I think it's worth administratively going through the Merit Service Protections Board just to send to their awareness, which they rule 99 % in favor of the government. So I'm not going to count on them to do anything, but just to exhaust all administrative avenues before I'm going to have to pursue some sort of legal action for

STEVEN FRIEND (47:42.878)
wrongful termination the way that I was treating it was being brought back for some sort of humiliation and and certainly there was a privacy concern there you're not allowed to tell the New York Post that you're firing this guy and They did so I think there's some concerns there that they should have about their liability here And it would just be finding an attorney that's willing to do that which is also another thing I don't have a team right on the left they have the marks AIDS of the world They just thousand dollar an hour attorneys can't wait to work pro bono to help them on the left

On the right, don't really view me as being on their team, right? I I went against their guy, I went against Cash, I went against Dan. I mean, I'm on Team Truth, so I'm not really on a team. If you're not on Team Truth, then you're just being dishonest, which is sort of what I said. If you're willing to lie, then I think there's consequences for that. So I'm not seeing anybody jumping around to come to my assistance on that, but that doesn't mean they're not out there. Maybe they just need to be poked and prodded, or I just have to do a little bit more research.

Team Truth has nobody blocking for them. No offensive line on Team Truth. And it just shows every time. OK, so other than you being friends with someone they don't like, did you have a full understanding of why they turned on you so sharply as they did?

That's essentially it. Essentially, there's no other explanation for that. I've been on pretty good authority that the Kyle Seraphine show is the number one rated podcast on the seventh floor of the Hoover building. Listen continuously to him. He's just slaying chivalrous over there. And I have a regular spot that he has me. He's gracious enough to have me on on Fridays. We call it Friendly Friday. I'm always quick to

issued the qualifier or I was at least at the time that I was not there representing any particular agency, department, bureau or arm of the federal government there as an American citizen expressing my first member right. So definitely not representing the FBI and then their termination letter to me was that I was always presumed to be an FBI agent according to them, even though I didn't have credentials or a badge or a gun or duties, responsibilities or even access to the portal, which would let me look at the pay stubs.

STEVEN FRIEND (49:55.886)
So I don't consider myself never did consider myself an employee even when they gave me access to the building when I would be accompanied. They didn't treat you. This is so

Typical, right? I mean they they they give you the definition of being an employee when it suits them But yet nothing in their actions has demonstrated that they looked at you as an employee. It's it's just absolutely depressing Steve So How you grading this new and improved FBI, huh?

Well, in light of the recent developments that the co-deputy director might be leaving, mean, maybe you give them an addition by subtraction, but it's way, way, underwater as far as being a failing grade. It's not even close to a deal.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, and I do want to spend some time talking about yesterday's announcement from the Deputy Director, Dan Bongino. So we'll definitely get into that. But in addition to just the disappointment that has been Cash Patel and how he has dealt with the whistleblowers and yourself in particular, it's not been a smooth year for the FBI in general either.

it

KEITH MALINAK (51:12.62)
the travesty of your case seems to be playing out in a lot of investigations, we'll say. You mentioned, is it Steven Jensen, you said?

Steven Jensen, who's now actually got a formal lawsuit against the FBI because they did terminate him when they got enough PR pressure to do so.

And he was, you call him the mastermind of JSA.

The architect of J6, he was the section chief of the domestic terrorism operations section, DTOS. He was the guy who architected the entire bureau response to January 6th. And then they laundered him out to the training unit and then they laundered him out to Columbia, South Carolina. And finally, when Cash and Dan got in there, they saw fit to promote him to become the assistant director in charge.

What did that happen?

STEVEN FRIEND (52:03.116)
I'm sure it was by those people that Dan Bongino was worried about trusting when he reached out to me about being on his staff. They probably recommended him and said, hey, look, this guy's got background in terrorism and Washington DC is a target for that. He's got a background in leadership. You should just trust the people that were there when Christopher Wray was. Those are the most likely people you should elevate. And they did. And then when there was heat on that, you had Julie Kelley get activated and go out there and say he was great somehow for.

reasons unknown. You had the dual interview with Bongino and Patel with Maria Bartiromo when Cash Patel was asked directly about it and he said that that man, I think he said something to the effect of that man literally did what he was told to do, just followed orders and that's why we had to elevate him. So good Germans, good Americans were what the Patel-Bongino regime were in search of, which was diametrically opposed to what

was represented to the American people when they were doing a thousand podcast interviews in the lead up to them taking off.

Well, I bought it. Shame on me. Okay. You mentioned, and I wasn't really going to talk about this, but you just mentioned Julie Kelly was activated. has something happened to her? Was she always this way? Like, what do you mean by that? Like, because I just see her running interference for the FBI constantly.

Well, her benefactor is Dan Mangino. So whatever he wants her to do, she goes out there as a mouthpiece for that. And look, I reached out to Julie Kelly years back. I thought I had a good relationship with her. I told her very early on, I just want to be a resource for you on FBI matters. I've worked there. You haven't. Saw the work she'd done on the Whitmer kidnapping and some of the January 6th stuff. And it's come to pass, it's come to learn.

STEVEN FRIEND (53:51.406)
Julie Kelly is a major donor to the Democrat party. She was donating to Biden for president, to Kamala Harris for president at the same time that she was profiting on the backs of the very people, the January 6 victims that she was saying that she was standing up for. And when that was called out, Dan Magino came to her defense on that because she's the great Julie Kelly that nobody could ever assign anything that nefarious that she could possibly be engaged in. She she grifting? Is she trying to get attention for ourselves for her substack? I don't know what her motivations are, but I knew

up until the point where we had the Mar-a-Lago raid happen. I had a good relationship with her. She actually wrote a blurb from a book, as did Bongino, which is hysterical, because Bongino is, if he was part of the leaking authorities on my termination, there were questions to me about things that were transcribed in that book that he gave a blurb for, so maybe he should have read it. But during the Mar-a-Lago raid, Julie Kelly came out very strong about the use of force.

paper that was in the operations plan. It's a use of force, deadly force. They said deadly force was authorized. It's always authorized on every single operation. Not saying Mar-a-Lago was appropriate. It was very inappropriate. It should never have happened. But if you send in the guns, you have to have a deadly force policy because what if they start shooting people, right? So you have to have that there and explain that to her. That is a standard form. It wasn't anything unique. And that's when she just

turned totally on all the FBI whistlers and started calling us either feds or some we were involved in. Well, she accused Garrett Boyle causing a January six subjects wife to have a miscarriage because she miscarried after an arrest in which Garrett Boyle's SWAT team was involved in the arrest. She accused me of being, I don't know, some sort of involved in the cabal of the Gretchen Whitmer fed napping hoax because my SWAT team was sent there after they ran that entire hoax.

So she's not a nice person, we'll say. Actually, I'll go further because I'm kind of unchained now. She's a piece of trash. She's a filthy human being who's a mouthpiece who probably needs a welfare check now that Dan Bongino is no longer going to be giving her her scoops.

KEITH MALINAK (56:00.75)
Okay, so now man And and see you're such a nice guy so you know that that that it's said with conviction When when you make a statement like that about someone and it's just so sad that that people that I have trusted as a source in the past just you know her her her work and I trusted cash Patel to go in there and and clean house, I mean just whoops, I mean

Shame on me, right? let's go through some FBI failures here. Let's get to the Epstein files. And I don't want to get off onto the Dan Bon Gino conversation just yet, even though this may take us into that. I'll come back to that if that's the case. But what the hell happened?

there. Well, let's just go to when it was offered to the American people, because that was one of the big promises of the incoming administration. Patel is the world, Bargeno is the world, the Trumps are the world, right? J.D. Vance was saying, we got to get the list out there. And then on July 4th weekend, when nobody was paying attention and we had massive flooding going on in Texas, we had the leak or not the leak. had the story handed out to Axios, a left wing source.

I remember it well,

STEVEN FRIEND (57:20.078)
Which apparently Donald Trump actually reads, maybe because it's bullet points. But that was pushed out and I can only surmise that, all right, it's going to hit the MAGA base really hard, but if it comes from a left-wing source, maybe a sizable contingent of them will just dismiss it outright and say, I'm not gonna read access or I don't even bother reading it. And it just won't come to their front of mind when they're distracted with the 4th of July and if they're paying attention to news, there's a life loss in Texas, that sort of thing.

So we learned that not only did he kill himself, and we had all the video, even though we didn't have all the video, that there were no co-conspirators. There was no list that Jeffrey Epstein, according to Cash Patel, who's testified to this under oath, he trafficked everybody to himself. Thousands. He had a voracious appetite, which thankfully did not pass muster with anybody at all with the above room temperature IQ. We said, we need more.

And Donald Trump resisted it, was saying, well, why are we talking about this? We should be talking about the flooding. And then I think licked his finger a little bit, put it in the wind, and realized that they're going to have to do something. And they're going have to be a little bit more transparent, even though they like to say they're transparent and it doesn't mean anything. That's their favorite word, saying, we're being transparent, talking to you about how the Clinton Foundation was something that we should have looked into before, even though the statute of limitations does up on it. That's what they like to do.

And then you had the movement in Congress that was resisted all along the way until finally Donald Trump gave his approval. And then the Republicans, the Mike Johnsons of the world snapped to attention like they're Smithers to Mr. Burns and said, all right, sir, we'll give it to you. And we're still waiting. We're still waiting. I think we're up against the deadline.

Tomorrow is the deadline. Yeah, and you had to go around and get the petition signed just to get it voted on. mean, it's just incredible. And like I said, we'll touch on this again when we get to the Dan Bongino questions that I have for you. But again, this is is the Cash Patel FBI. Talk to me about who is the who's Peter Stinson?

STEVEN FRIEND (59:31.704)
So Peter Stinson was the Coast Guard sharpshooter who was arrested. I don't know if you remember that headline. It was a ways back. Do you remember Douglas Mackey?

yeah, the meme guy, right?

He was the meme guy who said text your vote for Hillary Clinton and then Biden came in. They charged him arrest him for five year old tweets, right? He fought it and he'd actually got got tossed out in this year. Yeah, he got convicted and then appealed and they were trying to pressure him to just take the time and do the first step back and just do a couple months, but he refused to do it.

Man's Serve time.

KEITH MALINAK (01:00:02.726)
A very UK way of handling social media was Douglas Mackie.

So the Bizarro version, the 180 degrees polar opposite version, that is Peter Stinson, who is a far leftist, hates Donald Trump, was tweeting out things that were First Amendment protected. I don't think I want to be friends with Peter Stinson. He's saying like, somebody should take out Donald Trump. I can't do it. Somebody should do it. It was almost like he was a First Amendment expert, right? And the Heritage Foundation found these five-year-old tweets, reported it to the Department of Justice.

And they charged him with threats to the president. The exact same thing. these, again, five year old tweets that were first amendment protected activity. And now we're outsourcing that not to the sedition hunters, but to the heritage foundation. Same side, same coin, just a different side. The mechanism is there. The institution is there to do this to people. So that begs the question of.

Can it be reformed? think it's quite clear that it can't be, even if you get your guys in there. the, that only leads us to one thing and that is we have to take out the institution. It has to be removed because so much of what it does is actually legal. was a legally obtained arrest warrant signed by a federal magistrate, but it wasn't appropriate. wasn't being done by people who were vetted as having fidelity, bravery, integrity, or if they were, they probably lied on their application and somehow got through a polygraph, which Dan Bongino apparently didn't have to take.

So to me, the ultimate conclusion for all of this is the institution cannot exist because it only operates outside of what our expectation of the law and a constitutional republic is.

KEITH MALINAK (01:01:46.158)
We've talked about Arctic frost on this program. Why don't you talk to us about that as far as it relates to the FBI?

Well, Arctic Frost, if you look at the first page of it, I think it tells a lot of the case file that was handed over. There are six names that are blacked out, that are redacted. That's because they still work there. So total personnel warfare never happened at all. And here's the thing about Arctic Frost. And I'm back to the exact same point I just made. Every single jot and tittle of that investigation was constitutional. It was legal.

It was within policies and procedures. didn't violate the domestic investigations operations guide or the attorney general guidelines for domestic investigations or additional guidance from the attorney general himself, Bill Barr, that he issued in the lead up to that. Pages upon pages of the opening of that case, spell out just how buttoned up it really was. So the comparison I like to make here for you, Keith, is let's say you have a speeding ticket and you just don't show up at traffic court. The judge might issue a bench warrant for you, right?

Is it legal for me as a police officer to come to your door with a SWAT team and arrest you? Yes, it is not appropriate. And that puts us back to personnel. Same thing here. Nobody was willing to use any modicum of integrity and say, we're doing here is not within the spirit of a constitutional republic. We don't go after political enemies this way. We don't weaponize the systems to go after all these other folks.

Like they did, which essentially was the entire Republican caucus. looked like. So that leads us to the final question to this is let's not that perfect be the enemy of good. If I told you, had two options. One dissolve the FBI entirely. Or two, allow an agency. If you knew nothing else that engaged in Arctic frost to exist and say, well, hopefully our guys can fix it. I think that you go for the former.

KEITH MALINAK (01:03:26.316)
Mm-hmm.

KEITH MALINAK (01:03:39.126)
Yes, please. I don't care.

KEITH MALINAK (01:03:48.066)
STEVEN FRIEND (01:03:52.0)
and say it's not perfect, but as it comes to combating crime, I'd rather have that.

My goodness, you're right though. It's no longer fix the FBI. It's dismantle the FBI. What was the Chinese server farms story as it relates to the FBI?

story is broken over at Blaze, Steve Baker, Johanna on that. uncovered these Chinese server farms with thousands of these SIM cards in them. And those had the ability to infiltrate different infrastructures. could...

What do you think ultimately was going to happen there with those?

I think that they could put bots out online that would infiltrate and encourage people to engage in their worst ideas. And they could radicalize people like maybe what happened out in Utah for Charlie Kirk. Who's to say that that wasn't radicalized by a Chinese bot, right? But to me, the relation to the FBI was that those were uncovered by a secret service, is underneath the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:04:57.804)
the logical place that you would bring that sort of investigation to is the FBI. And yet Department of Homeland Security refused to cooperate with the FBI because they don't trust the FBI. And that was in the early, late summer, early fall of this year. So well into the Patel-Bongino regime and there is no trust between DHS and FBI. They're saying we're just gonna handle it ourselves.

Should there be? Have they given any reason to be trusted?

No, I that I could really think of I mean all the press releases they like to put out are Laughable. I mean, I like to send to you Keith or highlight them. I mean we're talking about we're going after child Exploitation and human trafficking. So we're gonna do operation restore justice, which was a big big talking point for Patel Well operation restore justice was not a new concept. There's an operation in cross-country which did the exact same thing

and it had been going on for 20 years. So all he did was rename it and then take credit for it. Similarly, you had Operation Summer Heat, the Dan Bongino. That was going to be his swan song. He solved crime, all violent crime in America, essentially, was what the contention was. Operation Summer Heat, look at all these gigantic numbers that we have, the statistics of the arrest stats. Well, a very healthy portion of those were ICE arrests that they just took credit for because they were on the removal operation. They just double counted it. And then

Another healthy component of that was local arrests of local criminals for local crimes on local warrants. And the FBI was just present for it to claim credit for.

KEITH MALINAK (01:06:34.814)
I love that stuff, man. You do a great job on your own hobby podcast that you do that going through all these press releases. It's very entertaining and it's also sad at the same time. Okay, let's see here. Got my list here for you. What is the deal with the Butler assassination in the black hole that that has gone into?

So I have to work my way into the area of speculation here, but I think it's pretty well founded. My hypothesis on Thomas Matthew Crooks has been since the beginning that he was the subject of an entrapment scheme that the FBI was running on a terrorism case. Now let me substantiate this. The playbook for counterterrorism cases for over 90 % of them in the FBI, because people are not predisposed to actually commit these acts.

but for the involvement of the FBI is they find a vulnerable person. Let me see if, does Crooks meet this out? A vulnerable person like maybe on the spectrum, socially awkward, lonely, financially indigent, down on their luck, something like that. And then you introduce a human, confidential human source, CHS, the snitch, and they become their friend, their only friend in the world. And they encourage them to go about doing their worst ideas.

And then they introduce an undercover employee. And then finally, after a number of years, a lot of times it's with the juvenile and you wait till they turn 18, they say, okay, let's go do the thing. And then when the person feels some sort of social pressure to do it, says, okay, I'll go do the thing with my only friend in the world, the FBI says, boom, we're arresting you for providing material support to terrorism. Now there's a lot of hubris attached to that.

because the FBI thinks that they are the greatest law enforcement agency in the world. They'll tell you that. They hurt themselves on the shoulder, patting themselves on the back as being the preeminent premier law enforcement agency for the entire world. So they never for a moment considered that maybe that person, like Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was relatively smart going to junior college, seemed like he wasn't completely a double digit IQ guy, might say, you know, this whole plan that's coming into place here.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:08:42.702)
It seems like it's taken a really long time. Maybe I'll just go grab my dad's rifle and I'll go take a shot. And then we've had recent revelations about his radicalization online. And then do you remember?

Is that person online that was communicating with him a federal agent?

A lot of the times it is. It's a federal agent. It's a confidential human sources, not a W-2 employee, but is a principal of the government. And they will maintain that relationship as long as necessary in order to encourage the person to do that. And then in the aftermath of the Butler assassination attempt, there was a hearing where the deputy director of the FBI, Paul Abbate, told Senator Ron Johnson that the FBI was investigating Butler as potential domestic terrorism, which didn't make a lot of sense to Senator Johnson.

And Paula Bate pointed out, well, after the congressional baseball shooting, we made some mistakes because that whole Bernie Sanders supporter showed up to the ball field and said, we're the Republicans. And then when he found out that the Republicans were, he went and tried to shoot the Republicans. The FBI determined that wasn't an assassination attempt, that it was suicide by cop. So we're sorry. We're really sorry. We're going to investigate his potential domestic terrorism. Okay. Well, what if there was already an open terrorism case?

Incredible.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:09:56.728)
So now we've justified having that case open from the beginning and everything is classified. We can't talk about it, Senator. I'm sorry. Classified material ongoing investigation. And the last component was the FBI started to muddy the waters even further and they talked about Iran potentially being involved. This could have been a foreign terrorist organization. And they leaned on an arrest on July 12th of a man named Asif Merchant, who was an Iranian who came via Pakistan to the United States.

Now, before I give you briefly on what happened to a thief merchant, realize he got arrested on July 12th, the day before Butler. So if you foiled a thief merchant, you would think you foiled the Iranian scheme on the 13th, yet it happened. So it doesn't really hold water. again, the FBI doesn't want you to pay attention to the details. They just help you think like, I ran. OK, I get it. But a thief merchant came to the United States through Dallas, Texas. He was given a parole. He was crucial.

to the country. He was given parole by the FBI. Not to arrest him when he arrived, because he was doing something overseas and we had to get handcuffs on him. No, he arrived to Dallas. The FBI allowed him to travel to New York City. He went to New York City and met with two undercovers and unveiled his plot. His plot was to hire multiple assassins by traveling to New York City nightclubs and also to employ dozens of people to do pretend protests outside various politicians' houses to distract them while

a woman who was unknown would somehow sneak into their houses and steal classified material that they must have around their houses because they're all Joe Biden, apparently, and then sneak out. And he was going to get all this done for $5,000 that he didn't have. He was going to have to ask his cousin in Pakistan to loan him because the thief merchant is a vulnerable person. He's a low IQ guy. He's retarded. And the FBI loves to entrap those guys. And that became very convenient for them to say, Zeke, Butler could have been an assassination or it could have been terrorism because

I ran.

KEITH MALINAK (01:11:56.27)
What's the overall motivation for the FBI in setting up stuff like this? Is it just so that they can say, at this, huh? Look how valuable we are. Is that the motivation?

entirely entirely is for them as a bureaucracy because they can always go see you're welcome America. Look what we did. It's also a really good break glass in case of emergency. So we had the Halloween terrorism plot that was foiled that Cash Patel trotted out when he was getting a lot of heat about his abuse of the FBI jet. And then you had the arrest that was the new New Year's terrorism plot in Los Angeles that was just announced to cover up the Brown.

Fiasco that's going on if I don't know if you looked into the Los Angeles plot it is

Yeah, the five bombs or something

It this organization calls themselves the Turtle Island Liberation Front. And they there's their small faction is called like the Black Lotus. They had an eight page handwritten document that he gave directly to the FBI agent because it was their only copy. And there were points where there were five people in the room and two of them worked for the FBI. Not capable at all, but.

KEITH MALINAK (01:12:51.788)
as TILF, yeah.

KEITH MALINAK (01:12:57.688)
huh, yeah, yeah, that's right.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:13:14.742)
unless you read into the affidavit, which was signed by, or it was sworn to by an agent who's only been on the job for 11 months, just following orders, you would think, we averted a attack. And the actual plot was to blow up pipe bombs that they call, the FBI called them sophisticated pipe bombs at closed businesses on New Year's Eve. So loss of life, not quite, but they're convenient for that purpose. And then the political element to it as well.

whatever the ruling regime wants, we'll go after. So if Joe Biden's in charge, Merrick Carlin's in charge, we're gonna go after moms at school board meetings, Catholics that go into Latin mass. We're gonna go after people who are agaves, anti-government, anti-authority, violent extremists, which the FBI defines as having a perception of government overreach or negligence or illegitimacy. Any of those three, they can open up a case on you or now. And now the FBI's new term is nihilistic violent extremists.

which is trying to jam child exploitation into and say, they're radicalizing kids into stomping on puppies. And they like child porn because they're hoping that the MAGA base is going to say, I don't care what you call them. Just put those guys into feet first into a wood chipper or into prison, whatever it is. They're hurting children. I'm fine with it. But a nihilistic violent extremist. Did you see the big Lebowski? Nihilism means you don't have any beliefs. So that's a very broad term that the next president, Gavin Newsom, the American psycho,

can just say, they're all nihilistic violent extremists and cram you into that one. It's just always growing and making themselves available to please dad.

I'm sorry, I'm still recovering from hearing President Gavin Newsom. You ever do that again, I'll kick you off the show.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:14:57.218)
Well, I mean, I'll make you happy when you can't unsee it. He looks like Christian Bale in American Psycho. So I always call him President of American Psycho.

Okay, all right. need to go into a side by side and see that out there. Okay, talk to me about the James Comey indictment.

Well, the indictment has been tossed out for now. But again, perfectly legal, everything you did. And it was the break glass in case of emergency. We need good press. We're going to indict James Comey. The indictment of James Comey is twofold. One, did you leak to the press? Two, did you tell somebody in the FBI to leak to the press? He asked, he answered both those questions. No. And the charges he committed perjury. All right. Well,

Did you leak to the press? Barack Obama signed an executive order that said that the leaders of all of these different organizations, the FBI included, are allowed to leak to the press. So by saying no, James Comey was being honest. It's impossible for the FBI director to leak because he's authorized to do it. So that was an honest answer. It was manipulative. Two, did you assign somebody in the FBI to leak? And James Comey said no. Well, because he gave the information to his buddy, which he's allowed to do.

who didn't work for the FBI. So he answered no, again, was honest but manipulative. So that indictment will not stand up. Plus he's charged in a very favorable venue and even if he did go to trial, he'd be thrown out.

KEITH MALINAK (01:16:31.542)
Yeah. All right. Talk to me about the FBI's involvement with Corey Mills. He's a piece of work.

My representative, Cory Mills, Congressional District Senate.

no.

And before you throw it out there, Keith, it is illegal for me to run in congressional district seven because I changed my party affiliation after April of this year. Ergo, it's illegal for me to run in the next election. I didn't know. didn't know. Otherwise, I mean, I think I probably could have given a run for his money. you serious? Well, if would be Corey, Corey Mills to see that things like it's kind of kind of vulnerable. Yeah. So.

no.

KEITH MALINAK (01:17:01.802)
about running for co-

KEITH MALINAK (01:17:10.357)
man!

I mean, the FBI is involved in that. That guy's involved in a lot of different stuff. But to me, the ultimate sin from the FBI standpoint was that agent shady. That's really her name. Shady. Tally Bradley was weaponized, was activated to go and try to recruit a woman to inform on our friend, Jill Savage, when she was reporting on this. And agent shady still works at the FBI. Steve friend at real Steve friend.

No, he can't work there. Shady, she's there. She's a really, really great employee.

I'm not familiar with, why don't I recognize that name? Alexis Wilkins? What's that?

He's the girlfriend for Cash Patel.

KEITH MALINAK (01:17:57.978)
wait a minute. I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. Continue please. Brain fart. Continue.

She's brought multiple lawsuits for defamation against people using attorneys who work for Cash Patel's charitable foundation, the Fight with Cash Foundation, which raised over a million dollars on my name, Garretta Boyle's name, others, saying that they were supporting whistleblowers and they wound up giving like 60 grand out in charitable donations to all the whistleblowers. A lot of overhead there. Those attorneys, which is Jesse Vinal and company, his organization.

they're providing free legal services funded by charity, which people donate to help whistleblowers to Alexis Wilkins so that she can bring out these lawsuits for defamation for people who are engaged in First Amendment protected activity. even if doesn't, the lawsuits don't progress, it still costs time, money, and stress for those people to defend themselves, which is, I think, a pretty good example of government weaponization, if you ask me, because it's the FBI director who's doing it. And then also, he's giving

By he, mean, Kash Paddell. He's giving her a SWAT team to protect her, which is outside of policy when she goes to sing the national anthem. The most recent example I found was she went to the NRA convention. So I guess Kash Paddell doesn't trust gun owners to sing the national anthem. And he sent a SWAT team to protect her. He's also been using the jet to go and travel around and visit with her, trying to nail it down, believe she might've actually flown on the jet. If that was the case, that's a violation of policy. Again, if, if that was the case, that's a violation.

I mean that's the jet that he said should be grounded right before he was the director.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:19:33.358)
He's guaranteed that he's saving you, the American taxpayer, money because he doesn't make it fly from Manassas to Reagan and pay the landing fee anywhere. He only makes it fly from Manassas to Andrews Air Force Base so they don't pay the landing fee, but he just doesn't want to sit in traffic like Chris Wray. So he flies it he's flown it more than Christopher Wray. So not really saving us any money. Back to Alexis Wilkins and Cash Bratel. They just did that sit down meeting.

I got the trailer here with Katie Miller here. I wanna see this, let's see.

We are so excited to be joined by Ash and his beautiful girlfriend, Alexis. So I just want to clarify, you're not Jewish. I'm not. You are not from Israel. No. So how did we get to, are you a Mossad agent? You know, that's a great question. Here's her ring. Just to clarify, how often has he traveled to see you since January 20th? Has there been one moment where you're like, can't make this up?

Okay, so that looks exciting. Came out today, I need to go and watch that, huh?

that looks like you would jam a pencil into your ears if you had to hear the fake laughter. That was a Walmart great value, generic yellow tag, discounted price version of Taylor and Travis, right?

KEITH MALINAK (01:20:59.726)
That's gonna be fun to watch. I'm gonna...

It would be fun to do a Mystery Science Theater watch for hats.

Hey, thanks for the idea. I'm always trying to think of ideas for my subscribers here. might have to do. Maybe you join me for that? Maybe we wanna do a...

But you're

If we could be mutually suffering together, I think I could probably sign on for that.

KEITH MALINAK (01:21:21.752)
Okay, all right. Yeah, I don't have, I don't even have a follow up to that, man. Okay, there's a couple other things here. What's the firing of the Pride flag employee and the BLM Neilers? What's that?

Well, these are the firings that they're touting over the FBI because they're doing the personnel warfare thing. They're all going to lose in federal court when these guys sue and there's active lawsuits. I don't have one because I don't have a lawyer and they're leftists, so they're going to get lawyers. the BLM activists, Neil Team Six, they took the knee for BLM.

They were terminated about a month ago,

They were terminated about a month ago for an affraction that happened five years ago. So, statute of limitations maybe? mean, what you should do is, hey, we identified these people, they're problematic, let's make them the supervisor of a broom closet in Anchorage, Alaska. Which you could do, and not get sued for. Similarly, there was this guy who was support staff, some kind, I don't know what his role was in Los Angeles.

He hung a pride flag in his workspace because it was safe to do back in the bad old days during that FBI. And that came to Cash Patel's attention and he wound up firing him while he was at Quantico in process of becoming an FBI agent and he was a probationary agent at that point. So I guess they could probably lean on the probationary nature of it because you don't need a cause to fire somebody. But at the same time, that's what I was wondering. Statute of limitations, why don't you just say, leave your politics at home and just do good work.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:22:54.184)
Or we'll assign you to somewhere that might not be really desirable to you if you want him to self-eject, which is what my buddies and I encouraged Casper Tell to do. Do not fire these people. You'll be just bogged down in lawsuits. you can just say, hey, look, you're signed to San Juan. Go work violent crime. Or you can...

transfer laterally to another law enforcement agency or you can move on to greener pastures particularly if you've got your 20 years in just put in your papers and retire. Those sorts of resolutions, I know it doesn't scratch the id because we really, really want to fire those people. Dr.

You know, when you talk about the statute of limitations, we're about two and a half weeks away from the five-year statute of limitations running out on all things connected to January 6th. Is there going to be any movement from this FBI against anyone? Are there things out there that you're aware of that they could make a case for?

No, think they will see that at all from them. think that they're gonna try to run this clock out whether or not it's.

No, no, no, I'm not saying that I expect them to do anything. I'm asking you, do you know of anything that they could pursue in a perfect world or is there nothing there anyway?

STEVEN FRIEND (01:24:14.68)
Well, in a perfect world, and it's been my contention that there were government actors who were involved in January 6th in a nefarious plot to deprive people of their rights. Now, you could argue that there's an ongoing criminal conspiracy. So maybe the statute of limitations doesn't expire on January 6th, 2026. But again, we're dealing with the venue problem because anything that goes in front of Judge Bo Asberg is probably going to be tossed out. And, and I think that

The status quo is the status quo and they're going to protect it. So regardless of who's in charge, the appetite is going to be, we need to move on. We need to go back to business as usual. And any sort of allusion to a government conspiracy that might potentially make Donald Trump or any of his voters or supporters look sympathetic is something that we just can't abide. Let's just go on and move on from it, which is also even to the Brian Cole being the subject. And I have my problems with him as the pipe popper subject.

I don't think the evidence is there. think there's a lot of evidence contrary to that. My contention is that I think what will happen is if a prosecution is brought forward with him. And again, I don't think one will because there's a lot of evidence that it's not him. If one is brought forward, I think you'll put it in front of a Bo Asberg and he will rule that the January 6th pardon that Donald Trump issued applies to Brian Cole. This thing is over.

this thing.

and we can just close this case out and, dag nab it, that darn Bo Asperg, maybe we'll impeach him. We just need to get more Republicans.

KEITH MALINAK (01:25:45.908)
Everybody wins. Except for the truth.

Yes, team truth. Yeah, you're right. We don't really have a line.

You need an office. Start investing in it. So, um, yeah. Oh my gosh. December 30th, Brian Cole, uh, I'm going to be in front of a judge and, you're hypothesizing that this thing could be done right then.

If that yeah that that pardon is ruled to have applied to him, I mean, I don't know how you overcome it that is And he'll be happy to do just move on with his life really Because the pardon is everything it's not even a commutation. He would have

It have been Christmas behind bars.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:26:28.524)
Yeah, and does he worry about his name being ruined? It doesn't look like he's fully functional.

No, have you seen the traffic stop video? I'm sure you have, yeah.

So if he's in the care of his family and he's within the family business, what are they really worried about? His future earnings prospects? So I think they just kind of move on with their lives. Now, is there potential for some sort of civil suit that they could file? No. I mean, if they take the pardon, then maybe not. I don't know. I'd have to get briefed up on my civil law.

Yeah, I want to I'm going to circle back. Jen Psaki style in just a second to the pipe bomber story. But first, one last issue with the FBI is what the hell is going on at Brown University, whether it's the locals, whether it's the FBI. mean, Cash himself is quoted as talking about that that cell tower team or what have you that tracked an individual to a hotel room turned out not to be.

Anyone involved in the Brown University shooting? You had the Attorney General of Rhode Island throwing cash himself under the bus. mean, that quote was, ooh, scathing. Talked about his experience in law enforcement and all that stuff. First of all, what's that cell tower thing and how could they have screwed that up so poorly?

STEVEN FRIEND (01:27:47.79)
Cast cellular analysis survey team They look at the the cell phone towers and kind of try to triangulate locations It's not like you see in a born Supremacy type of movie right it they give you like the grid coordinate down to the inch, right? I mean they're general like cones that are overlapping you can get a general idea I've seen some relatively good ones I've seen some other ones where it's like, ah, well he's somewhere in this town of 80,000 people, right so

It's not that exact, but they have screwed up in the past. mean, from my understanding, the cast guys screwed up during the Boston Marathon where they flipped it the wrong direction by 180 degrees. And that's why that college police officer wound up getting shot. He went to the wrong location. So they're they're hardly infallible. Now, the FBI is not totally incompetent, but I think that we most not we, you and I, we're we're

I guess exempt from this because we're at the mic here and talking about just how they're not uber-accompanient, but they're not totally incompetent, but because of TV and movies and pop culture, people ascribe to the FBI way more competence than they actually have. And the FBI is happy to enrich themselves off of that, to get their advanced budgets and acclaim and nice press for themselves. And then when they're put for a manhunt, which is not what the FBI does, it's sort of exposed.

The FBI is an indoor dogs. They all are on cubicles. A lot of them don't even have the gun on their hip. They're supposed to work complex financial crimes and public corruptions, slow evolving things. And they're given the funds and the tools and the goodies to do that. That's the expectation. But now when we have to do something in exigency and snap to do it, they're just not equipped. And that's why they're sending the evidence response team out there that's just like kicking snow. Apparently they didn't think, hey, can we run the

Home Depot and get a rake and then it's being led by people who are a career managers. personal anecdotes, managers raising their hand to go into management about five years in. So they don't really have a lot of investigation experience. Investigatory experience is really, they're bereft of that. So those are the shot callers that are telling people what to do and the people on the ground are like, boss, what do I do? I don't know.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:30:12.302)
I really can't say. All I know what to do is my default setting is how do I make the bureau look good? And I make the bureau look good if I give content for my boss or eventually the director to brief. So we can say, how many man hours did we devote to this? How many people did we devote to this? How many leads did we run down? How many terabytes of data do we analyze? Videos.

many tweets did we post saying we got our guy we got him. just kidding

He's and and I think there's actually a not zero probability that ultimately this is being done purposely to make cash Patel look bad You can and look you just send not the a team send the B team out there, right? Has he gotten to any one of these right? He got the Charlie Kirk call wrong. He the Brown call wrong He got what's the other man one that he got he either says that are in custody when they're not and he says they're not in custody when they are

He's being briefed on that. He's not on the ground.

Yeah, somebody's given him he's not just a whole cloth just you're right. You're it's a good point that I hadn't considered. He could have somebody sabotaging him. Okay, well, let's go back to j six the pipe bomber story. It's just a silly coincidence that they had that press conference on Dan bronchino's birthday, right?

STEVEN FRIEND (01:31:34.398)
birthday Dan who he recounts this story which if you actually take a moment and think about it is ridiculous. He says that he got sworn in which was March 17th and within the first few minutes he wanted a full briefing on the January 6th pipe bomb and he looked at that case agent and he said you're gonna get this guy for me and apparently that's all the motivation the guy needed right like that was the turning point.

They went back and looked at all the information that they already had.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:32:11.886)
Motivation they just don't mind you know and they they really introduced new tools like the wanted poster and cell phone analysis and They want us to believe that Brian Cole who I think we both agree he there's not a full deck of cards up there, right? There's there's some sort of cognitive problem that he has

Wait a minute, hold on, you're telling me this video right here that shows allegedly Brian Cole adjusting his bra strap, you're saying that that would not, that wouldn't fit, huh?

No, no, I'm just physically Brian Cole. Have you seen him? He's got those those really sloping shoulders very long arms Not the squarish shoulders and the arms that reach around the pelvis his reach to almost his knees I mean the guy could basically tie his shoes without bending over that it's just anatomically doesn't make sense He's like 60 % torso 40 % leg. doesn't have a limb or anything like that and you want us to believe Let's just facts of this case

that he's a criminal mastermind who eluded the FBI, the preeminent premier law enforcement agency for the entire globe for five years when he used his own credit card, his own vehicle and his own cell phone in order to do this. And he's such a mastermind that he built two pipe bombs that didn't actually explode. And he purchased the bombs for this because he's clairvoyant. He purchased the materials for this and he's really angry about the 2020 election. He purchased

the pipe bomb components in 2019. what do you think his picks are for the college football playoff? Because I gots to know if he's got the over and under. That would really be helpful.

KEITH MALINAK (01:33:57.454)
That's the thing! Now look, I've never made a bomb, I wanna make that clear. I've never... I have a... Oh no.

Do you have a garage? Because if you have a garage, the ATF will say that you have a bomb making factory. Just saying. Right.

But see, but that's the thing. I feel like, this is what I started to say there. I feel like if I was ever in a position where I wanted to make a bomb and I had my little bomb to-do list to take to the store, to Home Depot, I feel like I would just get them all at the same time. Because I don't like loose ends, man. I don't want to have to go back and then, oh crap, now I'm have to go get this. feel like, and let's just say I forgot something, Steve, in my bomb making escapade. I feel like I would.

get back to Home Depot maybe later that day or within the week, whenever I got to that point in the bomb, not six months later.

Would do you think I mean, I know you're not a bomb maker Keith full accountability here I mean we have to make sure that we had the issue this qualifier. Do you think that purchase of something like black powder? Might be necessary for your pipe bomb to explode because that was a one component that wasn't listed in the charging document and just saying

KEITH MALINAK (01:35:10.178)
I remember you saying that on Kyle Seraphine's podcast. It's like, this is such, it's, mean, we're laughing at it, but it's like, there's a guy behind bars right now and it's not right. It's wrong. And I hate to see this. It's the same.

it

STEVEN FRIEND (01:35:28.206)
And here's something else to consider. They got him with a complaint. The FBI used a complaint, not an indictment, which is extremely rare in the FBI. Unless you are working on an Indian reservation, which I did, and complaints are a little bit more useful. Just for folks' clarification, there's really two ways that you can charge people with a crime in the FBI. One is the regular way. That's the indictment. You build a case.

You go to a grand jury, the grand jury hears the facts of the case and they issue an indictment. Then you go to a judge, give you warrant or you can typically issue a summons to the person and say, hey, look, this was a five year investigation of some sort of stock trading fraud. You need to report to be arrested. Right. The other way implies exigency. Like we got to get this guy now because he's going to go do something. And Brian Cole, the criminal mastermind who never laid down another pipe bomb over five years.

We got to go get him with a complaint. So the agent himself will swear to the facts of the case. The judge will issue the arrest warrant. And then by policy, you're required to go arrest him. You can't call up an attorney and request that they self surrender. And that was interestingly the mechanism that the FBI used to go after a lot of January six. There's like almost all of them. Let's go get the complaint.

So that we could make the process the punishment on January 6th there's send in the SWAT team send in the arrest team to go and get this person to send that message but to brian cole the exigency There was no bombs for another five years, right? And it was such a crucial issue It was such a matter of public safety that they didn't evacuate his neighborhood, right?

Right. Well, I think you're also overlooking, Steve, if we're being completely honest here, is that he had an evil sidekick chihuahua that he would take all over town. And I'm back. I got one down here sleeping at my feet. You know, you got to look out for them. Anybody's got a chihuahua.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:37:26.77)
He was also a brony or is. don't think he was. He is. He likes my little pony. That's right. He's the Brony Bomber.

Just... Okay, so... And that's a good point that TJF Denver made. people committed suicide because of rogue government actions. Amen. There's such a human cost in all of these actions that should never take place. just your people's lives are ruined in a best-case scenario. I you're self-included, by the way. I mean, you probably would. I'm saying that for you.

I just I just I'm so pissed for you still. OK, so so they do the J6 arrest of a couple of weeks back. And here we are as that moves forward. It came out on Dan Boncino's birthday. Do you think that the way the Epstein? Case has been handled or even the J6 pipe bomb. You think any of that had anything to do with this?

KEITH MALINAK (01:38:32.664)
post yesterday, Dan Bongino on Twitter, I will be leaving my position with the FBI in January. I want to thank President Trump, A.G. Bondi and Director Patel for the opportunity to serve with purpose. Most importantly, I want to thank you, my fellow Americans, for the privilege to serve you. God bless America and all those who defend her. What are your thoughts on his resignation, number one? And number two is when do think he actually decided he was going to be resigning?

I think that he was like Michael Corleone after the Epstein information came out. I think that he was expecting it to go over better than it was. And when he saw the pushback and he realized that he wasn't going to be there for a very long time anyway, he was already looking to step out at that point. That was his moment. There was reporting that he didn't come to work and he was meeting with Pam Bondi.

And that was right after that, right? I've been trying to rack my brain the last couple of days here. I couldn't remember when he went radio silent for a while on X. Was it right after?

That was when and that was when he was I'm out of here because I'll never have a podcast audience again I'm gonna lose my audience on this and I think that there was probably a message sent to him or a conversation had that said the president will put one true social truth out that says you're a loser and destroy you if you do this right now make us look this bad so you got to be a team player and come back and We will find an exit for you as quickly as possible, which is why shortly after that they brought in Andrew Bailey

to be the co-deputy director of FBI because Dan Bongino was just killing it. He was doing so great that he needed a co-deputy director. You predicted it at the time. bring in a co-person because you're doing so well. And he wanted out and they're trying to find a place to do it. They set him up with a narrative with Operation Summer Heat. You had Cash Patel saying that he was the architect of Operation Summer Heat. He solved crime for the entire country. Thank you very much, Dan Bongino. And then they, damn it.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:40:23.938)
had to come out with a pipe bomb and that didn't make sense. And he realizes it at this point, he was maybe in the process of convincing himself that it was the right guy, but you can hear him in the interviews. I'm pretty sure we kind of maybe sort of have the guy.

I'm pretty sure we got them again.

And he doesn't believe it. He's, he's out and he's, he's got a good opportunity over the holidays to say, you know, I've got family and I'm going to leave. and then he just hit eject here and they're going to try to run cover for him. They're going to try to use MAGA, Inc. And all the influencers types to thank him for his service when he doesn't have a single achievement that is legitimate. Now you might think operation summer heat was legitimate, which is, don't know the details, but we were promised the Dobbs leaker, which isn't illegal.

We were promised the White House cocaine, which was investigated by the Secret Service. We were promised the Epstein list. We were promised James Comey. Well, we got a James Comey burn bag and nothing, and a tweet from Bongino that said something to the effect of, am shocked and stunned by the amount of corruption that goes on here and stay tuned for next week's episode. He's gone. He wants to go back to his podcast.

Okay, so let's talk about this because I feel that Dan Bongino going back to his podcast, he's almost, I feel like he's gonna be a man without a country, quite honestly. Cause if he goes back to it and he is constantly saying, I can't talk about that or, I'm saying like, he's not gonna give the goods to his audience and they're not gonna, I feel like he, cause he didn't.

KEITH MALINAK (01:42:07.246)
He went to the FBI, he didn't get done what he said he wanted to get done. And what are you gonna go back to your podcast in that controlled environment and do what and tell them what? Because the guy who was doing the show before is not the guy now. You're go back to that because if you go back to being the same guy there, then why the hell didn't you accomplish anything over here? I don't see a place, a way he can win.

I think that he's betting on it being February of next year. So we're coming out of the holidays and now we're in full swing for midterms. So he'll get the sugar rush at the midterms. got, we got to win. We got to support president Trump. We got to get the Republicans elected. And he's not as dumb as Brian Cole is. He knows that they're going to, Republicans are going to get destroyed next year in the midterms. And then he'll make a lot of money and get a lot of audience by saying it's the Democrats fault.

in 2027 and the entire time be able to say I have NDA with the FBI. It's classified material. I can't discuss it. But I'll talk about new things as they come in that are open source that I don't have access to.

I mean, that's probably the plan. hope it doesn't. I hope it doesn't. And look, mean, unlike Dan, I'll say where my biases are. I am extremely biased in this. The man called me up while I was boiling hot dogs for my kids to eat on a Sunday afternoon and offered me a position. I mean, the finances behind it would have been great. I would have been separated from my family or as he would say, divorced from my wife. Maybe that's why I can't pass the polygraph.

I don't

STEVEN FRIEND (01:43:47.374)
It would have been a hardship on our family but it would have been the opportunity to do the thing that we've been talking about which is to try to fix this thing that clearly can't be fixed and then he turned around and told elected members of Congress that I have character issues and Was most likely involved in my termination because the New York Post Came out and approached me and was using the back of my book

to ask me questions, accused me of crimes that occurred in 2022 that I wrote about in a book in 2023 that Dan Bongino gave a blurb for. So was he involved in that? I don't know, but Cash Patel or Dan Bongino or Eric Knight, the special government employee, one of those folks was somebody of that. So it is very personal for me and I don't hope he has success after doing that. He owes the American people this and.

And we'll take it back to Brian Cole if nothing else You know that there's an innocent man right now sitting in detention. You've deprived him of his liberty And I'll go back to and I'll summon my inner commonists. She better get right with your maker You better get right with your maker and if you know and if I'm ever in a position To give dispense some sort of sentencing. I will be merciful

and I will allow you to also exist in a box for the rest of your natural life. And then after that, that's above my pay grade.

my goodness, man, this is, this is a man. What kind of hot dogs were you boiling, man? What brand do you go?

STEVEN FRIEND (01:45:32.128)
I use the great value from Walmart because I don't have a job.

no. All right, so Dan saying sayonara, is that the most honorable thing that he could do? Or if you were Dan Bongino, how would you bow out?

Well, as a background, one of the first people in media who I talked to was Dan Bongino. And he told me to never stop being loud, because the moment I was quiet was the moment I was really vulnerable, which is very interesting because the reason that they were moving from the FBI was being loud about how bad things were under Dan Bongino's leadership. I think the most honorable thing he could do is actually read the case file for the January 6th pipe.

Not say that he's been briefed on it every jot, tittle and tendril and nugget, whatever the term de jour he likes to use. That's always what he says. I've been briefed on it. That's it. the case file.

Pick up there, Steve. That's interesting.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:46:33.952)
And then he should honestly say what happened there, even if it is to his own detriment. That's what he should do. He should have the courage and the conviction that he was screaming about for years and years and years on radio and podcasts and television because cutesy time is over. Instead, at the end of it all, he's just a simp for big government because Dad was in charge.

Well, there OK, let me let me give you some possible thoughts here. Not not an offensive Dan, but just possibly where he could be coming from. Could it be that that he saw what was happening to you and he he realized, you know, this weekend I can't be a part of this organization that's going to do this to Steve Friend, somebody that I have clearly respected in the past. Any chance of that? What do you think percentage chance of that is?

I can't.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:47:28.052)
I think he probably would have called me. He's got my number. I know I've talked to other people who he's reached out to and said he was fighting to get me reinstated and get everything back for me. And then at the same time, he talked out of both sides of his mouth. He went out and trashed me to other people like Julie Kelly. you know, that's a rosy view of it, but it's pretty easy to me that he could text me anytime he wants.

That's fair.

KEITH MALINAK (01:47:52.952)
That's fair. What do you think, and now let's play the speculation game. What do you think the relationship is like between Dan Bongino and Cash Patel? What do you think Dan thinks of Cash?

That's, that's tough because the dynamic is really weird anyway, in that relationship, the, the, the, the Trinity of Pam Bondi, cash Patel and Dan Bongino is a completely inverted as far as popularity and influence over the MAGA movement, because Pam Bondi is the highest in power in our government, then cash, then Bongino, but really it's inverted when it comes to influence over the movement. Dan Bongino is the highest profile person, right?

So that's an interesting wrinkle in the relationship. Is he really taking orders from Patel or from Bondi? I mean, I think he did because he kept his mouth shut after the Epstein fiasco. But I find it hard to believe that they're really getting along swimmingly. Particularly because the job of the director is very easy. Very easy. The job of the deputy director is extremely time consuming. It's stressful. It's difficult, which is why

Bonjino probably would have been better as the director. And we would have cut Patel out entirely. And then the deputy director could have been a career person or somebody who was more trustworthy, who had recently retired, who knew the mechanisms, right? So maybe there's a little bit of resentment for, I'm coming in and getting called in to sign emergency documents over the weekend, which I know has been going on in Bonjino's world as he's being purposefully exhausted and stressed out. And Patel is just...

flying all over the country with his 30-man protective detail and his whiskey bar that he installed in his office and his reupholstered seats on that Gulfstream jet. And then being really mad that the transponder and the tail number are publicly known and people are seeing that he's flying down during a government shutdown to the boondoggle ranch in Texas or go to see Alexis Singh up at Penn State at some third tier mixed martial arts events. And he lives in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is his home.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:50:00.488)
no, you're from New York. You have some contacts in Florida, but you rent a house in Las Vegas from somebody. No family there, no wife, kids. You should be living in Washington DC, which you're working in and you have a 10 year appointment, but instead you're flying all over, jet setting to Nashville to visit the girlfriend, Scotland, going out to, to China, Korea and Japan for no apparent reason whatsoever. Is that, mean,

That's the life of a prince, of a billionaire, that he's attained. Meanwhile, Bongino is like, hey, probably if you compare my books with yours, I'm worth way more money and why am I suffering here?

you know, Gabby, who runs the at the mic show Instagram page, sent me a clip after learning that you were going to be the guest today. Unfortunately, I can't get it to play right now on my computer because I never log into Instagram. That's all Gabby. And so it won't let me play it. But but what you said was absolutely, I think, accurate. It's that they're overwhelming him. Right. I mean, they they they have all of these

High pressure decisions need to be made right now. Life and death situation, we need your attention. And do you think that this was by design? In other words, do you think Cash and Dan, as part of the speculation game again, Cash and Dan get in there, they're gonna fix the FBI. They're gonna do honorable things 24-7-365. But the machine that was in there isn't gonna allow that to happen. Do you think that they just became

devoured, grind in the gears there of the machine or how much culpability and maybe more so cash than Dan on where we're at now with those two.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:51:52.94)
I think they're different for each one of them. I think what you're proffering is more likely applied to Bon Gino. Because he was giving up a lot. And he asked to come in and do that job. And he didn't call me as a troll. He called me in earnest. Why would you call me at all? I mean, that seems like a pretty petty thing to do for somebody who you've not spoken to in multiple years to do. So I think he was genuine in that idea. And then he got brought in and was

immediately bubble-wrapped and immediately confused and told what his job was when that wasn't his job. Your job as a deputy director is to be the chief operating officer, but instead he was told you need to be sitting in on these meetings and being briefed on the most important high-profile cases at all times. You're not an investigator if you're the deputy director. 13 levels up on the bureaucracy above the case agent who's working that case. There's nothing that

You're going to do or recommend in that case on a day-to-day basis that the case agent hasn't already thought through or isn't already working on. But it's a good way to exhaust you and distract you from making personnel moves, not firings, but moves and reorganizing and reprioritizing and doing the thing that you're supposed to be doing. Now, Patel on the other hand, with the rapidity of his just severing all ties and connections and contacts with myself and others.

to me indicates that it was a con the entire time. mean, there was was a amount of time, he was in place where I started to get a little bit nervous and impatient. And I texted him and I asked, are you intending to bring Gerardo Boyle and myself back? And he said, yes, it's going to take some time though. And within, would say 90 seconds, I got a phone call from an agent who was on his staff, who was trying to run interference.

Hey, we're working on things. And never heard again from either Patel or that staff member until I learned that that staff member had already left the FBI and had moved on to work for Congress. So it was an interference. Hey, keep these guys on the hook. Give them a promise of something tomorrow if they behave today, which is called a con, which would make me a mark. Be well behaved today, which is what we want at the FBI. We want you, Steve, who speaks from a certain level of subject matter expertise.

STEVEN FRIEND (01:54:20.61)
with a certain level of cloud. mean, I'm not that big, but I do have the ear of, of people within social media. Some people on media, you go quiet, you go dark, and we promise that we'll get you your back pay sometime in the future.

Yeah, by stringing you along, it kept you quiet. You weren't going to complain if the process had started. Yay, here comes the salvation. But my goodness, that is it's dirty. It's evil. I hate this. There was somebody on X yesterday talking about the Bonjino situation specifically, and this individual is not happy with with Bonjino's path was.

And then he made this point here. And I just wanted to run this by you, because I really haven't had a chance to think about this. But he said, big props to Pete Hegseth, because he was in a similar position and actually going in. And he got in there and he kept up the energy. Anyway, and so I was thinking of that, know, kind of a I mean, Pete Hegseth obviously has a military background, so he's not a complete outsider.

going into the Secretary of Defense situation there. But I was thinking, you I guess you could have made a difference, right? You could have figured out a way to use whether it's the bully pulpit. But then I stop and I go, well, hang on a second. There are things that I can understand from Dan's point of view that he can't say or else he's gonna...

possibly embarrass the administration, the president himself. So I think, and you please jump in and try to change my mind or correct me if I'm wrong here. I almost feel Steve that the Dan Bongino we get, when did he say his last day was?

STEVEN FRIEND (01:56:24.142)
January. I think the pay period will be over January 10th. Something like that. let's

Say his last day is January 10th or whatever, right? I think the Dan Bongino that we see between January 11th and February 11th is going to go a long way in producing a final verdict on Dan Bongino in this. What do you think of that? Or am I just being ridiculous?

Well, I don't know when his podcast will start. So, you know, if it doesn't start until February, maybe he's taking like a few week hiatus. I presume you're talking about his first few weeks, maybe back in the public spotlight. Yeah. Yeah. Here's, here's the, one of the biggest fails. Okay. When was the last time you saw Andrew Bailey tweet?

Andrew Bailey is going to be the guy who takes over for Dan Bongino. What you predicted months ago when he became the co-deputy director, right?

He was the attorney general for the state of Missouri before that and he had a political his own social media and then he also had a One for his official role as the attorney general He took that job and he Doesn't do anything on social media because he does the job of the deputy director the FBI Dan Bongino cannot Stop doing what it would everybody does in crisis when you're in crisis you lean on what is your strength?

STEVEN FRIEND (01:57:50.702)
He prese- uh, he perceives his strength to be, I'm a influencer, I'm a podcaster, I'm a public speaker, that's my jam. So he's been in crisis and you've seen him go more and more and more to that every single time he stresses out. So I, I have confidence that in the Baileys of the world because, or I mean, more confidence we'll say, I don't know if confidence is really, uh, appropriate, but more confidence because at least he's doing that. At least he's handling with dignity that role.

which is a thankless job that nobody should know your name. You shouldn't know the deputy director of the FBI. Nobody know it. Now, Bagino will come out and I think that the more we see of him, the more panicked he is. He has an incessant flaw that he is always trying to explain things away. If you're explaining, you're losing. I mean, do you remember when the story came out about him not taking a polygraph exam? On a Saturday, he put out some sort of

Long piece on on social media saying I'm sorry to bother everybody on a Saturday and I realize this will just draw more attention to this and that's probably not good, but I still feel obligated to do explain That's just a fundamental misunderstanding what the Streisand effect is but it's compulsion It's a compulsion of those those types and I think the more we see of him out in the public space

the less comfortable he is with what his legacy is. And he's confident in his ability to reshape and reorient it back to something that's more positive.

going to be interesting. Okay, I have just two more questions for you before we go. The first one is give me a prediction on Cash Patel. Is he long for this administration? What do you see the future for him?

STEVEN FRIEND (01:59:35.414)
That is a really hard question to answer because I would say that he should be out immediately just in light of the failures over the last six to eight weeks just being so monumental. If something were to come out in the next month or so, let's say about the pipe bomb being wrong, that might be the last straw. From what I understand from some back channeling, the White House is not happy with the way that that investigation was handled.

is, actually doubting that they have the right guy, which is good. And that would just be a colossal failure. and I also counter that with my understanding is that the Trump administration has a no scalps policy. That's why Mike Walz got moved away from being a national security advisor to being an ambassador over, I think of the United Nations, something that effect, right? And they don't want to have the PR hit of, a failure of personnel within the media.

That's interesting.

Yeah, what I would what I would say to them is the media is going to criticize you no matter what at least have them at least do the right thing if you're gonna earn the criticism

It's gonna be interesting. Interesting times we live in. Okay, my last question is what's next for you in your fight? And I hate that because I just feel like you're constantly having to fight, fight, fight for years now. And I just wonder, honestly, just as for two reasons. Number one, as a concerned American seeing a good person go through this endlessly.

KEITH MALINAK (02:01:13.324)
And also just as a friend, man, I mean, I'm concerned about you and your family and I'm just curious what what's the next step for you and all of this insanity, man?

Well, he submitted that whistleblower disclosure. I'm going to be in conversations with some attorneys about what can be done about my settlement and then about this recent termination. But that's kind of more of like a long term over the horizon. In the immediate future, the American Radicals podcast, we are on hiatus for little bit right now. I'm going to retool my whole workspace here and go for something a little bit different, think.

Workspace, huh? What about this? You could just go for just vomit effect and just you just throw up on a wall And then that's what you get. No see yours is much more simple. I actually appreciate yours, but you're saying you're gonna do like a big I don't know a new decor or something

Yeah, maybe a renovation is afoot here. I'm working on that and my partner was with Kyle Serif and a couple other little projects and try to enter this space a little bit more full-time with now I'm not kind of straddling the dock and the boat, right?

It's like they wanted you to,

STEVEN FRIEND (02:02:20.77)
Bastards. And then I have, according to my youngest son, I would have three years to grow a mustache because there is a sheriff's election in my county in 2028 that I'm really thinking about doing. And he says you can't be sheriff unless you have a mustache.

Yeah, that's a good point, actually. I've never thought of that.

Ha ha ha ha.

Uh-huh, yeah, guess, well, mean, let's go back to Mayberry. my goodness, Steve Friend, I just wish you all the best and I really hope that ultimately this gets better. I can't even say you're made whole, because I think that ship has long since sailed. But please follow him on X, at real Steve Friend and

You know, you're welcome back anytime and I know we'll have future conversations and please just keep me updated on everything that's going on in your world. And y'all pray for these whistleblowers. Pray for Steve, pray for all the others because they go up against this machine. And I mean, it's an undefeated machine is what it is. And I just, I hate it. I hate it. All right, well.

KEITH MALINAK (02:03:37.986)
Thank you so much, Steve. Everyone, thank you for tuning in. We'll see you 22 hours from now. And we'll watch some animal videos and we'll talk about Christmas. it'll be, if you're not familiar with the show, cause then there's a lot of new people watching today. Tomorrow is a completely different atmosphere. So in fact, have three, I look at this gift from Killers Miss. She sent me a Christmas gift and I'll probably be downing all of those.

I don't want to promise that. Anyway, I will be tasting those tomorrow. All right, everyone have a great night and we'll see you tomorrow here on At The