Let's see now if this is true, not that I would ever think you Goober's would send me something that's not true. I would never think that. But if this is true. Eleven eighty four, I found out that the weirdo who firebombed the Tesla dealership in Vegas and the weirdo who fire bombed people in Boulder, they lived less than a mile away from each other. In color lot of springs. Things that make you go, hmm, this is pretty good. Fifty four to thirty one. The left will continue.
This is why it is exactly what I just said. The left will continue to downplay the riots until they get what they want, which is when a national Guard or even worse, the Marines kill someone. If that happens, we will never hear the.
End of it.
Someone on X yesterday described that scenario as the shot that will be heard around the world, and that's probably be true. Yes, we had the kids that were throwing the rocks at cars. Someone got killed, and they were just I think just this past week, or maybe it was this week, they were convicted, actually think convicted of murder.
Thirty six oh two. Rights.
Here's some perspective. There was a Coldplay concert the other night there were riots and a Rockies game all at the same time. Well, was the riot because the Rocky sucks so badly? Or was that a separate riot? Was that a riot trying to get rid of Montford? As the owner of what was going on, our TD received complaints that the trains had stopped running at twelve thirty. People were stranded and each didn't know about the other. What a world we live in when a riot and
a Coldplay concert com collide. By the way, there were up eighty thousand people the Coldplay concert. Wow, Well, just remember. I kind of think my mindset today is that everything that's going on is this battle for our minds, and that's nothing new that's been going on forever. Advertisers know they're in a battle for your mind so that they can get your dollar. News is in a battle for your ears. Radios and eyes. Radios in a battle for your ears. We're all in these great battles, and you're
just upon in the game of life, says Mondo. So there was an FBI crisis last week on social media, and it centered around something called prohibited files. Now, as much as I've dealt with the FBI in my lifetime. I've never heard of this. This was all news to me. So it started about a week ago when Grassley, the Senator from Iowa, who has been a staunch critical the FBI, released a twenty nineteen FBI memo. It was an email
form in email format. We're in the memo. The author of that memo, who was an FBI agent Duh, noted that some of the files he was trying to get were prohibited access. Prohibited access.
Now, all of my.
Clearances that I had, and in all of the forms I had to fill out, and all of the cover sheets that I ever saw that you know, this is secret, this is top secret, this is TSSCI.
This is.
FOUO for official use only. I mean, just all the different classifications. I'd never heard of prohibited access. And apparently these files were related to Crossfire Hurricane, you know, that's the FBI code word for.
The Russia collusion investigation.
And these files apparently related specifically to Nelly Or, who the Center had referred to the Department of Justice for obstruction of Congress charges. Now, trust me, you can go down a really deep rabbit hole if you don't grasp the complex, the complex nature of crossfire hurricane. Every time I hear crossfire hurricane, all you can think about is the rolling stones. So let me give you some background. One of j Edgar Hoover's legacies was creating a record system.
And this is one hundred years ago probably now, while it has certainly been over come by the modern technology we use today for filing system I mean when you think about a filing system today, I mean I still think I still have a file cabinet at home because I still have you know, the colored you know, Manila folders that have you know, certain records in it. You know, I got my tax records. Some of it's all duplicated. You know, I have hard copies of my tax returns
and I have electronic copies of my tax returns. There are certain other documents I keep hard copies of and electronic electronic copies of. So when you think about filing systems, the old filing system by Jay Edgar Hoover really has been overtaken by modern technology.
And you know you got file.
Folders on your computer. Every field office and FBI headquarters maintains an index card file system. So when communications came into any of these offices or went out of the offices. The FBI agents would index important information from the file by underlining that with a red or blue pencil, read for subjects of investigations, blew us for references, and then the location of the file or the serial record or number was then recorded on an index card.
Remember going to.
The library, and in the library you'd have the index cards where you would go search for, you know, the book. Oh, here's the book. I'm going You get the you get the index number and go find it. They were kind of doing the same thing. So I tried to find an example, and here here's the best I can come up with. Uh, I think this if if there are any FBI agents which I happen to know down in Arizona a couple of places we gut FBI agent is listening.
If this example doesn't work, to send me a text message and tell me why it doesn't work.
Here's an example.
You might have a file number ninety one a dash bs DASH one two, three four DASH one. Say Joe bag of doughnuts was the subject of an arm robbery investigation in Denver. He would be indexed in red into the file ninety one A. That's a designator for armed bank robbery, and then it would be you should have done ds BS I think would be for Boston, DS would probably be for or DV, or DN would be for Denver. One, two, three, four would be the file number, and then the DASH one that would be the first
serial that would be in that entirety, entire file. So then later in the investigation, an important witness was developed, Betty boot It's indexed in the same file as a reference, so she would be underlined or highlighted as blue. And
then a later serial maybe number seventeen or something. So then if an agent in outside Denver, maybe in Boston or Detroit, wanted to know if there were any FBI files on the you know, Joe Bagadonnuts or whoever it was that was the robber or on Betty Boop, he could send a lead out to every office and into the headquarters to check intoses for any files on those individuals.
So a clerk in Boston or in Denver, or even a new agent just checking intoseas and responding to leeds, which is I think is something all new agents have to do, would go to the card file and see that you know, mister Bagadonuts mister bank robber was a subject and Betty Boop was a reference, and then he could send that information back to whatever field agent was
asking for it. He consented to Detroit, Boston, you know, whoever asked for That system existed until the early nineteen nineties, and the nineteen nineties was when they first automated the case file system. But even then, just like with me, paper files remained relevant because it was going to take decades in fact, that they still had paper records to this day because to migrate all of those files, paper files into the automated case file system, the ACS system,
that would take you know, probably decades to do. And of course then you had the very early system of electronic filing was not word searchable. You know, today just on my laptop, I can go up here and I can I can click on this little magnifier looks like a little magnifying glass, and the window pops up on my book pro for a spotlight search, and I can just type in some keywords and that will return to me every file, email, everything that's on this hard drive
that has those keywords. Well, the early system didn't have that. The later systems do so indosing indexing is still relevant today because with literally billions of pages of information, a word search for Michael Brown or John Doe or John Smith but might be useless. Too much information is as worthless as no information. I find that to be true even in my little laptop here.
So there are.
Still rules about indexing related to privacy. Well, let's think about these hidden files. Open investigations in the early days were kept on the squad in a circular file called a rotor. Closed files were kept in a room, maybe on different floors, in the field office or at headquarters. The informant files were kept in a secure room where
only a few people had access. You had to check out, you know, you had to check out informant files for example, and if it wasn't your informant, you had to have a good reason to check out that file.
And then you had.
Especially sensitive files that might be kept in the special Agent in charge's office literally in his office or her office. Really sensitive files. Well, originally those were kept in J. Edgar Hoover's office. Now reportedly a lot of those files were destroyed by Hoover's longtime secretary Helen Gandhy. But I'm not going to down that rabbit hole right now. So you can see that now in the electronic case file
age where security of files might be a problem. Because most of the FBI is somewhat over thirty thousand employees, they're all very honorable people. They don't commit espionage, they don't leak sensitive information to the media, they don't lie to the FISA court. But not all of them do. Even the FBI recognizes that they can't even trust all of their own agents. And that gets us to restricted access. The FBI created files that were marked restricted access and
what was then known as silent HIT designators. Now I don't know this for sure, but it sounds like the silent HIT is now being.
Also called prohibited access.
So you had restricted access and now you have prohibited access.
Now.
The major feature here seems to be that a false negative is created when you do a search that hits on one of those restricted or prohibited access files. In other words, it returns no information. So if you're searching, you're told there's no file, there's no reference to your inquiry.
Apparently that's not new. Restricted access means that when an FBI employed, doesn't that be an agent could be you know, a clerk when they run a name or any other information, they know a file or a reference exists, they just can't see it. But for security reasons, the FBI might not want just any employee to know that a file
even exists, so they created the silent hip feature. Now when that happened, and notice is sense somewhere I don't know, the head of the office, maybe the head of security in the Security Division, I don't know, but that but it gets sent somewhere advising something like, hey, special Agent Brown in Denver just ran a search for.
Let's say Helen.
Or or not Helen or oh what was that damn woman's name in Nelly or Nelly or someone you know. Special Agent Brown just ran a search with an inquiry for Nelly or.
Now.
I don't see I'm the one that made the request. I see no return. But somebody within the agency, probably within the Security Division.
And my guess is.
Probably now whether this is still true with Cash Ptel and Dan Bongenio, I don't know, but at least with Christopher Ray, it was true that somebody in headquarters got notified that, uh, oh, somebody's trying to get access. They've ran a word surge and they there was a hit on a prohibited or restricted access file. Wow, you don't infest your own people, law enforcement that they're all looking
over their shoulders. This is fascinating to me. You remember the oh what was this Robert Hanson, the FBI trader. He was the head of the FBI counter intelligence that sold classified documents to the Soviets for decades, ran himself in indices all the time to find out if he was the subject of an espionage in thestigation, and in fact he was. I'd be shocked if every spy in the modern era everywhere hasn't at one time done the same.
If if I knew that I Heart kept separate files, sensitive prohibited restricted files on me on a rod or on Redbeard, and I had access to run a search, damn right, I would, And you know you do it too. For restricted access and prohibited access files make imminent sense in that regard. Not everybody with an FBI credential or clearance should have access to everything.
Michael, there is no doubt in my mind that my heart has some quote special files on you.
Yeah, I see, I don't even want to think about that. So remember all this whole controversy that erupted last week centers around Crossfire Hurricane and all the communications about that Russia Russia Russian investigation. So it makes this whole story automatically political. Both pro Trump and anti Trump actions can
find and acts to grind if they want to. With the notion that all files related to Crossfire Hurricane were not accessible to FBI agents who were looking and had good reason to be looking, and in the case of the new memo, it was the Washington Field Office agents on a criminal squad who probably had limited at least some official knowledge of Crossfire Hurricane at the time, hence their frustration. So there are a lot of I shouldn't
say a lot. There's been a few lawyers on my ex speed that I've seen, but a lot of keyboard warriors on X also claiming that so called prohibited access forwards what is known as the Brady rule. Do you remember the Brady rule that should be note in your
law school notebook. That's the Supreme Court ruling that requires the prosecutors the government, if you will to turn over any exculpatory information to a defendant, any information that is beneficial to a defendant, you're required to give that information to them. It's called the Brady rule. Now, the critics claim that if the FBI can't find the information because it's prohibited, then it can't be turned over under the
Brady rule. But then there are others that are arguing that there are many cases that are going to be overturned because of this. I happen to fall on the side of that. If this is Brady evidence, if this is evidence in favor of showing that Trump was not guilty of stuff, or for that matter, anybody else.
Involved in the Russia collusion oaks, I.
Don't care whether it's in a prohibited file, a restricted file, or prohibited access file.
I don't care what you call it. You have it.
And just because if you are the person in charge of responding to a subpoena that you don't have access to it, that's not an excuse you have to make.
At least in the private sector, you do. You know, sometimes you will get I saw a letter that I forget whether it was Comer or Jim Jordan or somebody had sent some person who is the head of some NGO and Congress is doing some investigation, and I you know, as a lawyer, I've drafted these lawyers these letters, and I've received these letters, and we have a clients before where it basically says you're under investigation and we want
you to preserve and then here's a list everything. Well, I know that I would advise my client that you need to search everywhere all four corners of your business, all four corners of your operation, to find any and all relevant material. And if I were back in my old days as general counsel at FEMA, and if we had files like this one, I would hope that I would know about it. If I didn't, hedge would roll.
But assuming that I knew about it, if we had a subpoena asking for all documentation about Katrina, whatever it might be, I don't care.
What is nine to eleven whatever, I would.
Tell them, don't necessarily turn that information over yet, but acknowledge that we have it and we're reviewing it for national security purposes. And once we get clearance from the White House, the CIA, the DIA, the NSSAY and everybody, we'll give it to you. But I'll tell you we have it, and I might give you a general summary of what it might be.
Well, all of this is nonsense. Now, I don't know.
I would guess that the number of prohibited access files that the FBI is probably pretty small. Almost all are probably intelligence cases that will never see the inside of a court room because they're classified and a judge, a judge might review them if the judge, you know, in the case, if the judge is handling a national security case, the judge will have a clearance and be able to review them, but that does not mean that the judge
is going to release them for the trial. Even high profile criminal cases that do eventually involve prosecutions are assigned to case agents who likely have access to everything and know what's in these prohibited files, and they know what's important, and they know what has to be turned over under
the Brady rule. So even in the Grassly memo example, there is so much known about Crossfire, Hurricane and Nelly or the subject of the memo and the rabbit Hole alert, it's I think highly unlikely that anything in a prohibitive file. Remember this is back in twenty nineteen. We're talking about twenty twenty five. Now, isn't it amazing how long you have? I mean, that seems like yesterday talking about crossfire hurricane,
the Russian collusion hoax. On the left hand, that seems like yesterday, and then when you realize that's twenty nineteen, that seems like a century ago. Well back to Crossfire Hurricane and Nelly or the subject of that memo, since this was six years ago. I'm guessing, purely guessing that most of all of the information was a venture eventually released from prohibited status.
But my.
Cynicism about the federal government at large, all government in general, the FBI in particular, I don't know that I really would say that. I think most of that's been released. But a complicating factor is this, The Grassy Memo occurred during e turn over in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation from Bob Muller, the Special Council. Remember he got the case back in what twenty seventeen back to the FBI. So
the files have gone back and forth. Now that may seem innocuous to you, but anytime files are transferred, you run the risk that they're going to be intercepted, either you know, overtly or covertly on purpose or accidentally. Those files are going to get released. Remember how there were twenty seven phones assigned to Bob Moller. Remember this, It's
so easy to forget all this stuff. Bob Muller had twenty seven I think they were iPhones, and they got wiped before they returned to Now, why do you suppose that is why?
Now?
I think the FBI can be held accountable. Now special counsels that fade away probably cannot. But maybe in the future special council should not have prohibited access authority. In fact, maybe we shouldn't have that classification at all, or if there is, maybe there ought to be available to somebody, you know, free. I'll just go back to my homeland security days. So we had security officers, and I don't mean like physical security officers. I mean the people that
dealt with clearances and classifications and everything. And so they had clearances that pretty much gave them access to virtually everything. They were very well vetted, and they were under incredible restrictions. The FBI at least have those security officers. I don't know whether they do or not. I can't determine whether they do or not. I mean, I know they have to have security officers, I think. To refine my point, I'm not really sure they have access to these prohibited
access files. So does this mean everything is now okay, No, it does not. Like everything in law enforcement, everything in the intelligence agencies, there needs to be some guardrails. And in the case of these restricted and prohibited files, if the following things don't exist, then they need to be created.
And let's just do this.
Let's take a break early, and I'll go through what I think they need to do. And I think that Bongino and Patel, and quite frankly, I think Senator Grassley needs to take the lead on this. I'm not criticizing Patel and Bongino by any means. I'm just saying that this ought to be done in conjunction with the United States Senate because they have oversight responsibility and there needs to be some institutional knowledge about how the FBI maintains
these files. Because when you start as we now are in this current environment, when we have investigations about sitting presidents, including the former president, then somebody on Capitol Hill needs to understand how they keep files. Of course, I kind of believe this about life in general, not just law enforcement, not just the intel agencies, not just government. But you know, you raise your kids, you have guardrails. You know, we have in this highly regulated industry, we have guardrails.
You know, there was oh, I know what it was. So there was.
A EAS alert on television at the other day, and I naturally just started mimicking the sound. If I did that right now on this microphone, that's subject to a huge fine by the FCC. And I mimicked the tone simply because I was in charge of the EAES when I was the under Secretary of Homelandsecurity. So it's kind of like, I still take the test about it. It's really stupid. I just believe in guardrails.
Now.
I don't think that all guardrails need to remain permanently. And I think guardrails change, and some guardrails are effective and some guardrails aren't. But you can't go through life without some guardrails. And I think that this action that we're now learning simply because Chuck Grassley sends a letter and says, I heard about prohibited access and now six years later. Now I can't ascertain for sure exactly when they started doing this, but this is your government, our government,
acting outside any guardrails. Now, I get that again. I've actually been in briefings where it's at the TSSCI level, but everything's always on a need to know basis. So I've actually been inside the Pentagon in the OP center when we're getting briefed by you know, some operationals guy that's on a screen somewhere that's sitting in Afghanistan or wherever the hell he was, and he then says, now, I want to go to program and they're usually two letters.
I want to go to a program DX. So if you're not cleared for program DX, please leave the room. And I would pull out my little card, both the size of a business laminated business card, and I'd look to see if those two letters were on my card, and if they weren't, I wasn't ready into that program, So I'd get up and leave. And then I so I'd go sit outside and wait until they open the door.
You can come back in. Now, Well, I understand the need.
To keep some things separate, and you've got to have compartment some compartmentalization. But if you're going to do that, then Congress needs to know about it, and if we're going to do it, for that matter, the President and the administration need to know about it. This is another example of where I understand why people are distrustful of law enforcement. Now I think sometimes that distrust is way overblown.
But prohibited access this reeks of Jay Edgar Hoover. This reeks of we're going to keep secret files on our enemies. We're going to keep an enemy's list, And in this case, the enemy just happened to be one Donald J.
Trump.
So when a case moves to the prospective phase, it needs to migrate from prohibited, if it ever should have been prohibited in the first place. When a case is closed, it needs to migrate out of prohibited. When an inspector General starts an investigation, the file needs to move or at least the inspector General needs to be informed about
the file. And I think in most cases, I'm not willing to say all cases, but I think in most cases, when Congress asks at least portions of the file need to be made available, and if they're not going to be made available, then there needs to be a very specific reason why, or the chairman of the oversight committee ought to be able to see at least the portion
is not going to be disclosed. Can I can see examples where where the director Cash Pateel or the deputy director Bongino might have to brief a member, you know, on an intelligence committee rather than just blank and respond to a request.
But I just wanted to bring this to you. This all blew up on X last week and I'm just now getting around to it. But it's it
Just seems to me that it's another example of how little we understand about just how devious the government is the enemy within