A second IRS whistleblower has emerged, sharing with Congress concerns about the handling of Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes and tax fraud schemes. This IRS agent — who joins the first whistleblower, his or her former supervisor — was ‘ousted without explanation last week,’ the New York Post reports. So now with two IRS whistleblowers ready to speak out AND with at least three FBI whistleblowers speaking out about retaliation last week, will Congress FINALLY take a stand against these corrupt and all-powerful agencies? Glenn and Stu discuss that, plus the debt ceiling negotiations and why Democrats claim there’s so little in our budget that can be cut…
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: So let's look at some of the political things going on. A second IRS whistle-blower has alleged retaliation now for raising concerns that the Justice Department leadership was acting inappropriately on the investigation into Hunter Biden. So what these guys -- this is the second now.
What they're saying is that the Justice Department came in and said, yeah, you guys don't need to look at all of that stuff.
And they were like, excuse me, we're the IRS. We're looking at all the banking stuff. All the money stuff.
Eh, you don't really need to. And then that whole staff was let go.
This guy is now coming forward, and he is going to be giving testimony on Friday. Our client learned that one of the agents he supervises, so is this not a low level guy. This is a supervisor at the IRS. The case agent on the case, our client is blowing a whistle on. Sent you an email on Thursday. In which the IRS case agent raised concerns about the Hunter Biden investigation. This is what the lawyers wrote in a letter.
But the IRS leadership quickly responded with accusations of criminal conduct and warnings to other agents in an apparent attempt to intimidate into silence, anyone who might raise any similar concerns.
So in this, Congress is saying, you've got to stop harassing these whistle-blowers. It's got to stop now.
Now, the FBI has just failed yesterday, to sign over a document, that whistle-blowers say the FBI have. Which is showing a criminal scheme, involving vice president Joe Biden and a foreign national.
They won't admit to having it, or admit to not having it. It's just part of an ongoing investigation, and we can't really comment on that.
So they -- Congress, which oversees the FBI. Congress has said, you have to produce this.
They -- they said first, by May 3rd, May 3rd, you have to release it May 3rd.
Then they said, by yesterday, they were going to have a closed-door meetings with the FBI.
So we want to see that at the closed-door meetings.
They still won't produce it.
So now, I guess the House oversight and accountability committee, are going to -- what?
I don't know. Maybe a -- maybe another sternly worded letter. Or I'm not sure. But they're backing Congress into a corner. And I just -- I don't know. I'm starting to have hope, that there are enough people in Congress, at least. I don't know about the Senate. But in the Congress. That they're going to fight their way out of this. They're not going to take this.
STU: For so long, there's been the belief that eventually Congress would step up and take the power they have.
GLENN: They have to.
STU: Right? We talked about the REINS Act with Mike Lee, recently.
GLENN: And by the way, that is in. If it's left in there, that -- the REINS Act is in the budget deal.
STU: That would be massive.
GLENN: Massive.
STU: A really big improvement to our government and our country. It would basically limit them from making these little rules that no one votes on.
What is it? $100 million in effect. It should be so obvious. That you shouldn't need a new act to do it.
STU: But if you're going to affect the economy by $100 million or more. You have to get a vote of approval. You can't just do it willy-nilly.
GLENN: Yeah. It pretty much takes away the power of the administrative state to do things like the ATF is doing right now. You can't just make up laws. The laws are created by Congress.
STU: This is so -- you talk about the Constitution. And the importance of it all the time.
But it's so important.
Because what people have done, have decided -- they've decided, you know what, we want things. We can't have the things by these rules. So let's come up with new rules. The REINS Act is a good example of this, where they just decided, well, we'll just give all the power to the administrative state. And we'll let them make all these rules up, therefore we don't have to go through all the trouble of the vote and the debate, and exposing this to the American people. We might get voted out.
We'll give the responsibility for those things to other people. And let them do it, without a vote. Without approval.
The Soros-DAs are another great example of this. We can't get people to approve laws that let violent criminals out of prison.
So what if we instead, spend a bunch of money. It's a very effective process financially. Because you don't have to spend that much money, to win a local DA election. Spend a bunch of money. Get some local DA elected. And then tell them, and ignore all the laws.
Ignore them. You have prosecutorial discretion, so just don't do any of it.
Just bend that rule to the millionth free. And go out there, and ignore all the laws that have been passed. You don't want criminals to go to jail. Fine.
You want sanctuary cities. Just ignore all that stuff. Who cares if they're laws. So they decided to go around the Constitution. And around the rule of law. By doing these things.
That happened in the executive state. It happened on a state-by-state basis. As localized by cities.
And is this their plan. They have given up trying to actually win these debates. They've just decided to go around them. And wait for you to think it's normal.
And then they don't have to win the debate.
GLENN: Well, hopefully the REINS Act will be left into this bill.
But I don't know what is left in the bill. We are talking about the bill -- on the debt ceiling.
STU: The debt ceiling.
GLENN: You know, I'm watching McCarthy, and he seems rock solid on this. You know, they always started too late.
We've been telling the Republicans since November, that they had the (yelling). And this time, it's the Republicans because the first thing McCarthy did when he got in, was send a letter to the White House. We have to start working on this right now.
Because there are some things that we are not going to approve. So we need to start negotiating it now.
The Democrats are behind the eight ball.
STU: Yeah. What did McCarthy say?
They didn't negotiate for 97 days, after it was initially proposed.
What was so silly about this. They keep saying, well, we don't want to set the -- we have to negotiate every time we need a debt ceiling increase. That would be crazy. What? Why?
STU: Why? First of all. And if you're telling me that the default is so terrible, right?
It's the worst thing out there. And I do agree, it would be catastrophic if we went to default.
GLENN: But we won't.
It just requires Congress and the secretary of the treasury to sit down and select what's going to be paid. And what's not going to be paid.
STU: Right. And you'll have a long road there. Now, you shouldn't even get to that point, of course.
Because the Republicans have put out a bill, that was pretty sensible.
I mean, it has minor, minor cuts in our government spending. Not even cuts. They're just cuts in the future increases. They're not even cuts. They're cuts to the future increases in spending. We're going back to, what? 2019 spending levels in a lot of these categories. Oh, no.
This is not that catastrophic. It's not that ridiculous.
But to -- for us to default, the Democrats would have to say, that these minor cuts to future increases, is worse for the future, than default.
Because they have an option. There's been a bill that's already been passed by Republicans. It's already been passed. All they have to do is get on beard with it.
So if they thought that this was worse than default. Then perhaps it would be sensible for us to go into default.
But obviously, it's not worse than default.
It -- so just get in there, and negotiate something out, that's in between.
We get that the Republicans may not get everything that they may want. But find out a place to settle this.
Because they keep saying, if we negotiate, that will encourage future negotiations around the debt ceiling.
GLENN: Yes!
STU: Well, yeah.
That's the whole point of the debt ceiling. The point of the debt ceiling is a gut check. Like, hey, guys. You keep bumping up on this number, that has trillions in it. Maybe instead, you talk about how to get more fiscally responsible. They say, well, we'll basically show them by defaulting.
We'll show them, that we don't want to default so much. That we will just default. That's an insane argument.
GLENN: What do you think he's going to do?
You think he will come to something, or you think he will play hardball? And go, nope. No negotiation.
That's where he's at. No negotiation.
STU: He seems to be weakening a little bit on that.
I do think eventually, we will get to a place, where Republicans can claim a little bit of a win. Democrats can say. We didn't give them everything they wanted. They held us hostage. They're mean. And eventually we get this. I will say it's May 23rd. Now, I don't believe the June 1st date. The June 1st date is not true. But fundamentally, it could be true if the right number of people pushed in a direction that was hurtful to the United States. I mean, people with bad intent could make that true. As you point out, Glenn, they can stop funding turtle tunnels for a while and give us extra days. There's a lot of things they can stop funding, instead of not paying our debt.
And I think their argument based on the 14th Amendment, where they say, it says in the 14th Amendment.
Our debt, we have to pay them. So we have to pay them. Well, that would indicate that they would have to not pay a bunch of other stuff, before they got to not paying the at the time.
It's just like in your own household. Hey, we have the kid's summer camp budget here, but we don't have enough to pay the rent. Which one do we pay?
You don't pay the summer camp thing first. And then you get to the --
GLENN: And there's lots of summer camps.
STU: Lots of summer camps. Now, according to Joe Biden, there's literally not one dollar we can cut from this budget. That's actually his position.
GLENN: You know what is really weird. Because that's what Nancy Pelosi said years ago.
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: The cupboards are bare. Nothing to cut. And then we added like $7 trillion, and it's still bare?
STU: Yeah, apparently.
GLENN: How much money?
STU: I mean, everyone knows, of course, there's money to save. You might even say that there are important programs that you like. But still, every organization has waste. I mean, waste would at least buy us some time.
But, you know, nonessential programs would also buy us a lot more.
And so there is more time than -- than June 1st. But it is -- you know, a little -- it's a little -- it's a little close.
You kind of like to get this thing settled.
And maybe put in a little bit of a harder cap for next time.
Maybe put a cap out there, that is a few years in the future. That says, we actually shouldn't get to this guys.
Let's not worry about the next time, when we get there. Let's come up with a plan to not hit it next time. Maybe we go the other way. Maybe instead of increasing the debt, every single time. We go the opposite way. And decrease it.
What do you think of that idea?
I know it's wild and crazy. Maybe that's more fundamental to what the Founders were talking about with the 14th Amendment.
Than what you're doing here. Where you're just increasing it all the time. And yelling at people, when they ask you to spend a little bit less.
GLENN: Well, I just don't think we can spend less, Stu. I just don't think that's even possible.
STU: Cupboards are bare.
