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Gene Valentino’s grassroots podcast, he tells the truth, he tries to get information out there to make sure people make good informed decisions. For more than 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been committed to supporting the values that make our nation great. With affordable plans and reliable nationwide coverage, Patriot Mobile is not just a wireless service.

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Pennsylvania congressman and author of The Christ Cure, also Gene Valentino, GOP political strategist, host of Grassroots Truthcast podcast, and the former county commissioner of Escambia County in Florida. And also with us today, Doug Burns, former federal prosecutor. Doug, let’s start with you.

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How does this case compare? Well, let’s just start with John Bolton first. President Trump’s former national security adviser pleading not guilty. He’s accused of sharing with his wife and his daughter more than 1,000 pages of notes, including national defense information from meetings with government officials and foreign leaders.

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Eighteen counts. It suggests he was aware of the inappropriateness, at least that’s the allegation here. What’s his defense? What’s his next move? Well, first of all, the indictment is what we call a speaking indictment.

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It’s not one of these bare bones, couple of page ones. It’s actually pretty lengthy. I’ve been going through it.

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And it lays out a very, very long tale of how he used unsecured locations, AOL, shared confidential classified top-secret information with person one and person two, understood to be his wife and daughter, a lot of stuff about the book that he wrote. And then also he was hacked, which compromises the information. That’s your question.

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I’m not avoiding it. How’s he going to defend it? It’s hard to say. It’s very, very early on.

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Today was just the arraignment. They’ll be back in court, you know, making motions and doing discovery. I don’t prejudge cases ever.

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But at the same time, having gone through an indictment, it looks like a pretty strong case to me. AMNA NAWAZ. Doug, before I move off of you, how does it compare to former FBI Director James Comey’s case and the case against him? Well, it’s a very interesting question, because the Comey case, standing alone, isn’t all that strong.

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But Jim Comey did a lot of other stuff wrong, for which the statutes of limitations ran out. But if you compare the four corners of Bolton and the four corners of Comey as it stands for the moment, I view the Bolton case as more serious. AMNA NAWAZ.

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All right. Well, it’s serious jail time either way, for either one, if in fact there is a conviction in this. Gene, let me move to you.

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I’m curious. You know, critics of the Trump administration saying this is retribution. What’s the political play with all of this, and the pushback and the defense on that? Well, the political play goes back to Donald Trump’s first term.

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When you use the name John Bolton, I think of war, not peace. I think that history will show that his actions have left America weaker, not stronger. Donald Trump had every reason in the world to be on guard with Mr. Bolton.

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I don’t ever recall Donald Trump bringing one weapon into action in North Korea, yet he was accused at the time of being very trigger happy. This is an art of negotiation that Donald Trump is going through to stave off more threats, not fewer. So I think the political rancor, while we’re distracted with what’s going on with the budget resolution process in D.C., is just a distraction from all of the excellent successes Donald Trump is having without Congress right now.

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Yeah, but as we come to air, we’re also getting word, as you know, former special counsel Jack Smith has been referred now to the Department of Justice after these allegations that, you know, that he he violated, you know, tapping into Republicans call logs, spying on them effectively. Tim, let me bring you in on this. You know, that fuels the rhetoric that this is political retribution.

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Your thoughts? Well, I mean, political retribution may be what they accuse the White House and Department of Justice of, but you have to remember this. You shouldn’t be spying on elected officials in Congress. The facts will be something that I think it’s important the president say, let the facts bear this out.

Members of the Senate who have been spied upon, let the facts come out on this. And that is extremely important because here we are dealing with a House and Senate where there already is a great deal of mistrust, where we see a history of the Justice Department going after citizens based upon political bias. But here, let the facts come out.

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We have nothing to worry about from that. And I think that’ll be an important exposure. The law is the law, and if it bears out in court, then then, you know, away we go.

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I want to get your take, Doug, as we did come to air, we got word of Jack Smith and being referred to the Department of Justice. Your thoughts on that? In my view, I’ve been a lawyer for a long time, 40 years. I felt that they were abusing the process.

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I thought that they were weaponizing justice. When you look at Smith, very interesting, in an interview with Andrew Weissman, of all people, he’s very, very clear. He goes, the idea that this was political is ludicrous.

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And as a trial lawyer, I can tell you that that comes under adult protest, excuse me, too much. And he’s wearing his psychiatry on his sleeve. And he was very, very, very abusive with the process.

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President Trump had the authority to declassify. We don’t have to relitigate this 100 times. He had cover from the Presidential Records Act, yet they made it sound like it was the crime of the century.

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And I thought his conduct was pretty disgraceful, quite honestly. I have about 30 seconds left, but I want to squeeze in with you, Tim. We’re awaiting any moment now of Volodymyr Zelensky’s arrival at the White House.

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He’s asking for Tomahawk missiles. Very few military men or women have been on this network saying we should do that. What is your take, former congressman? And what’s the play there? Well, Putin, being a KGB member, knows cleverly how to work this system with lots of threats.

The fact is that Russia has been lobbying long-range cruise missiles, civilian population in the energy sector, hurting the civilians in Ukraine. You can’t bring about peace. You can’t get this thing settled as long as Russia is saying, let us have the heavy weapons to destroy Ukraine.

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You’re not allowed to have anything back. So this, I think, will be another case where Trump will say we’re going to try and negotiate, but we have to be able to speak softly, but carry a very big stick in this case, too. But of course, Trump doesn’t speak softly on this, but it is important.

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That’s why you bring Putin back to the table. We’re not going far from the White House pictures. We’re expecting that meeting to take place in about a half an hour from now.

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Doug Burns, Gene Valentino, Dr. Tim Murphy, we appreciate all of you weighing in. So many breaking developments as we came to air today. We appreciate you unpacking them, all of them, all of them with us.

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For more than 10 years, Patriot Mobile has been committed to supporting the values that make our nation great. With affordable plans and reliable nationwide coverage, Patriot Mobile is not just a wireless service. It’s a call to action for those who believe in the American dream, because this year is not just any year.

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It’s the most important year since our nation’s founding. Choose a wireless carrier that shares your values. Choose Patriot Mobile.