Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.

Grab a stool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America and Jim Garrity of National Review.

Free martinis coming up.

Very glad you're with us for the Friday edition of the Three Martini Lunch.

And usually Friday's are relatively quiet unless somebody wants to dump really bad news at the end of the day.

But Jim, this is not a light Friday.

In fact, yesterday we got the news that I don't think surprises too many of us.

We kind of got hints of it over the past several days.

But former FBI Director James Comy has now been indicted.

The indictment coming down yesterday.

It's two counts, both of them related to activity on September thirtieth, twenty twenty.

They say that Comy lied stating falsely to a US Senator during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that he had not authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in NEWSS regarding an FBI investigation.

And then it says that statement was false because James Comy then and there knew he in fact had authorized person three in the indictment to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation concerning person one.

And then there's also the indictment that on the same day he did corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct, and impede the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which an investigation was being had before the Senate Judiciary Committee by making false and misleading statements before that committee.

Now this is more complicated because Trump just a few days ago put out on truth Social Pam meaning Attorney General Pam BONDI.

I have reviewed over thirty statements and posts saying that essentially quote same old story as last time.

I'll talk no action, nothing's being done.

What about Comy Adam Shifty shift Letitia.

They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.

Then we almost put a Democrat supported US attorney in Virginia with a really bad Republican past, and he goes on to talk about how that attorney's been fired.

Lindsay Halligan, a former personal attorney, is now the US attorney in this district, violin this indictment.

So, Jim, the last thing I'll say before I have turned it over to you is that, in true Jim Comy fashion, he is out there acting sanctimonious as ever.

Here's his video statement in response to the indictment.

My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn't imagine ourselves living any other way.

We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn't either.

Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant, and she's right.

But I'm not afraid, and I hope you're not either.

I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends upon it, which it does.

My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I'm innocent, so let's have a trial and keep.

The faith okay.

In my opinion, he is not innocent at all, and I'm wondering where the charge is on him asking for a renewal of a five's the warrant based on information from the Steele Darssier that he already knew was bogus at that point, So maybe more is coming.

I don't know.

Jim Trump's comments obviously are going to be viewed by the defense as prejudicial and you know, forcing the indictment and so forth.

So what do you make of about this?

To use one of Mike cliches, there's a lot to unpack here.

I wrote about it in Today's Morning Jolt, and I was glad I did, because your impression you would get from the headlines could strongly mislead you about what's actually at stake in this case.

First of all, this is not really tied to Russia Gate.

This is not really tie.

You know, Trump was on true Social saying that Comy was a dirty cop and that he had been all kinds of corruption.

This all stems back to a Wall Street Journal article on October thirtieth, twenty sixteen.

In that article by Devlin Barrett, there's revelation to the fact that the FBI had been investigating the Clinton Foundation.

By the way, it was not the headline it was, it was, you know, several paragraphs in there was this point.

However, up to that point, the FBI, including James Comy under oath, had neither confirmed or denied the existence of an investigation into the Clinton Foundation, saying we don't talk about ongoing investigations, and that includes confirming whether or not they're going on.

Well, obviously there was and this was you know, call me and quite a few folks at the FBI were upset that this had come out.

By the way, there were never any indictments about the Clinton Foundation.

So you know, that's one of the reasons law enforcement is not supposed to talk about an investigation because if they find no crime has been committed, it can do damage to your reputation.

And you know, Greg, we're all deeply concerned about the good reputation of Bill Hillary Clinton.

You know, they won't they might think of their corupt or anything.

But anyway, they do that Office of Inspector General launches an investigation of how this information got leaked.

Very quickly, they find text messages between McCabe's staffers, UH and the and the reporter in question, and so it all is pointing to Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Also the gist of the article Andrew McCabe.

There's been a lot of attention about the fact that his wife had run for congress.

UH.

There's this perception that McCabe was this pro Clinton force that was blocking investigations of the Clintons.

Uh, and he you know, it certainly seems like he wanted that out there to kind of make him look better.

And also the article kind of made the you know, Comby look like the FBI was under his watch, was being increasingly full of conflict and divisions about how to handle these investigations.

So the only IG you know, does this investigation and says to McCabe, you know, did you do this with Comy's authorization?

And he said eventually he says no, and then he says, oh, I just remembered, yes he did, and and you know, so then they asked Kobe and Comy's like, no, I did not.

I was really not upset about it.

Even afterwards.

He did not tell me that he was the one who authorized the league.

And so, you know, the OIG report comes out like a ton of bricks on McCabe.

There's no indication that Comy did anything wrong about that.

Years and years later, in twenty twenty, Comy is testifying then now former FBI Director James Comy is testifying to Ted Cruz, who says, you know, looking at your past in testimony, have you ever you know, leaked information or have you ever directed anyone else to leak information.

Combe says, I can only speak to my testimony.

I stand by the testimony you summarize that I gave in May twenty seventeen.

And s Crew's asked again, So McCabe, if he says contrary is not telling the truth, is that correct?

And Comey says, I'm not going to characterize Andy's testimony, but mine is the same today, right.

That is what James Comy got indicted on yesterday.

Now, there was other prosecutors in this in the DJ who looked at this and said, this is not going to be easy to get a conviction.

This is not to be easy to get an indictment up either.

This is a federal grand jury.

For those wondering, it's here in Northern Virginia.

It's not over in DC.

I assume that a jury pool in Northern Virginia will be at least a little you know, if your perception is in the DC jury will never indict a democrat.

Northern Virginia, you know, demographically still a heavily democratic area.

But certainly at least twelve people on this grand jury that could make up of anybody from like sixteen to twenty three people looked at this and said, yes, we believe a crome.

There's the sufficient evidence for an indictment that a crime commit was committed here.

That's anywhere from three quarters to half.

This is an Andy McCarthy question.

I hope, certainly.

I am hoping to hear from him in the near future.

But my sense is that this is not a slam dunk case because, you babe, the prosecutors will have to argue Andrew McCabe, who everybody else thinks, is this duplicitous butt covering, underhanded bureaucrat.

In this one circumstance, he's telling the truth and James Kobe is lying over an article that made McCabe look better and made Komy look worse.

I think, you know, Cobey's lawyers are fairly easy likely to get a you know, convincing one jury to have doubts about that doesn't strike me as mission impossible.

And I just got to think that, you know, that's probably the reason Comy is saying, let's have a trial.

I'm innocent.

I'm going to prove my innocence.

I also would point out, though Greg, I am not overwhelmingly reassured that a former FBI director.

Upon being indicted, his first move is to jump on social media without a lawyer present.

Not too smart, Not too smart.

But yeah, I mean, this is exactly what you would expect.

I agree that based on the likely jury pool, that this is probably not going to end up in a conviction.

But I think it's right to bring the charge.

What do we make of Trump's tweet or truth post or whatever, How does that play into the actual legal fight.

But you know, again, this, this, you know, will be an easy thing for the comy lawyers to point to and saying this is a political prosecution, this is you know, they'll be able to point to the media reports that other prosecutors were doubtful that they could get a conviction in this case.

Let's also point out, as I mentioned, this testimony was September thirtieth, twenty twenty, there is a five year statute of limitations, So you know, the Department of Justice was literally less than a week away before the statute of limitations expiring, so they kind of had to do it.

And so I you know, I think, you know, Trump as usual as making the job of those working under him harder.

You know, I don't know if that'll be a key point in the jury's mind.

I think it'll be tough for the prosecutors to convince the jury that this was totally irrelevant, But we will see how things shake out in the trial.

Listen to this quote.

The justice system is an honor system.

We really can't always tell when people are lying or hiding documents, so when we are able to prove it, we simply must do so as a message to everyone.

People must fear going to jail.

They must fear their lives of being turned upside down.

They must fear their pictures splashed on newspapers and websites.

People must fear having their name forever associated with a criminal act if we are to have a nation with a rule of law.

James Cole me talking about Martha Stewart, not to fendy Martha Stewart.

Well, I'm saying, this guy's hold on.

You know, she's dangerous, Greg.

You know, you never know what.

She could come over and redecorate your house, or cook something really elaborate, or tell you something's a good thing.

You know.

She hangs around with Snoop Dogg, you know, and and he's skeptical about you know, Pixar movies.

So you know, government needs to keep their eyes on the real criminals out there.

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All right, Jim on to our bad martini now and following up on what's really been a horrific month obviously, when it comes to political violence, there's a poll that was conducted just after Charlie Kirk was murdered.

It was conducted by Yugov and the Economists between September twelfth and September fifteenth, and it basically looks at people of different ages and different political ideologies, and the question is is it ever justified for citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals?

Now?

For conservatives, those aged eighteen to thirty nine were very low.

They don't give specific numbers here, but it looks like it's about maybe seven percent.

Middle aged conservatives are looking more around eight percent, and same for older conservatives.

For moderates aged eighteen to thirty nine, it's a little over ten percent think it's okay.

Middle aged is right around six or seven percent again, and then the older moderates are the least likely to encourage violence.

They're down around two percent.

But then you get to the liberals, where the older liberals are pretty good.

They're around looks like about nine percent think it's okay.

Middle aged liberals are abound fifteen percent.

Young liberals aged eighteen to thirty nine.

Thirty percent think it is justified sometimes to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals.

And you got some people in the comment section here, Jim saying, well, look at the American Revolution or you know, keeping your country alive.

There are certain situations where where it makes sense.

I don't think that's what the question was asking.

It's obviously in the wake of this horrific murder, and you still got thirty percent of young and you're going up to age thirty nine.

So it's not that young people on the left saying yeah, sometimes it's okay, not encouraging Greg.

The comments you're pointing to remind me of the disturbingly, you know, widespread argument, including Maraleison of NPR or Mara Elliason partner for mispronouncing it there who said who posted that, you know, Antifa was like the guys storming Omaha Beach on Normandy on D Day.

So yes, this is this has been on a couple of different levels.

One, I think we should notice that the survey was conducted September twelfth through twenty to fifteenth of this year.

So ordinarily you might say, ah, you know, when somebody says violence, you know, what does that mean?

Like smashing a store window?

Does that mean graffiti?

Do you know you know, the idea of like some sort of lesser form of violence property primes?

You know, you know it's to say, oh, the people are answering that question, might have been thinking of that, and they don't really mean of you know, shooting people, assaulting people things like that.

Well, this is you know, two days after Charlie Kirk gets murdered.

So it's really tough to believe that that was not front and center in the minds of respondents.

I think, you know, it's it's not surprising.

That's why, you know, likely was a factor why support was so low amongst moderates and conservatives.

Let's not let moderates off the hook.

By the way, it looks like, you know, maybe ten eleven, twelve percent of them said that, you know, you can be justified.

You know, you'd like that never to be as close to zero as possible, but yeah, the fact that you know, it looks like a neighborhood of a third, you know, at or at least you know, somewhere around thirty percent of young liberals said that was the case when the shooting and murder of Charlie Kirk was fresh in their minds.

That's that's what's really kind of chilling about this.

And I know there are people who fear a civil war.

I know there are people who fantasize about a civil war.

There was that, you know, speculative fiction movie that came out last year.

There a whole bunch people who were very upset that it wasn't making clear that conservatives were the bad guy.

I think it was kind of generic on which saw.

You know, it was just very clear that Americans were divided, and we're shooting each other over some sort of intense division.

We all have to live with each other, you know, the revolution evolutionally a war slogan.

We almost hang together, or else we will all hang separately.

You know, we don't have a clear geographical split like in you know, the Union and the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Right, you can't draw lines.

And I don't think we want to have an India and Pakistan style mass migration in which people have to go from one part of the country to the other to live under the kind of laws they want to live in.

Also, this is exactly what our enemies want, so I can't you know, I look at that, and I'm saying that when you see the numbers so much higher amongst the youth, I wonder about TikTok, I wonder about social media.

I wonder about you know, we've talked about Discord and Reddit and Fortune and the idea that some of these folks who have been shooters end up going down this rabbit hole of darkness and conspiracy theories and believing that, you know, it's not just enough to say I'm going to vote against this person.

I'm going to rally against this person.

I'm gonna write my congressman, I'm going to volunteer that I must to shoot people.

That the best way that I can actually make the country not go in the direction that I feel like it's going in is to use violence once we get because the other thing, which I you know, it's baffling that so many folks in the left don't realize this.

If you start a civil war, if you start a you know, if you decide we're going to settle this through violence, you're gonna lose.

There are a whole bunch of conservatives who own guns.

There are a whole bunch of conservatives who have military experience.

There are a whole bunch of conservatives in law, enforce and intelligence and all of that.

So you're you're picking a fight with a side that you are extraordinarily likely to lose.

And the great irony Greg is like, if you're a progressive, yeah, you've had a really rough year, but like, what do you do you not have Hollywood anymore?

Do you not have the overwhelming swaths of the news media.

Do you not have academia?

Do you not have, you know, like, you know, a vast junks of the nonprofit world.

Really, you know, you're like, ah, all these advantages, it's not enough time to pick up our guns and start shooting people.

I think somebody has made the argument, and I realize we're you know, I'm giving a long answer here.

I'm just kind of observing.

Liberals always tell themselves that if it was just a rational debate, they would win.

But then they try cancel culture, right then they try all these different ways.

Were like, well, I'm going to make sure that you can't speak your mind and you can't debate the way you do.

And you know, for the last two three weeks they've been saying, why can't conservatives just come out and engage us in the field of debate, when that's exactly what early Kirk did and he got shot and killed for it.

So I can't big grudge conservatives for having some cynicism about all that right now.

So anyway, deeply depression.

I suppose you could say the upside is that you know, two thirds to seventy percent of young progressives did not believe that violence was justified.

And that's good, that's a majority.

But you know, we have been arguing that from the very beginning.

My take on that the Kirk shooting was the mainstream of America views left wing violence differently than right wing violence, and this survey appears to be very vivid demonstration of that fact.

Yeah, and I think you're spot on in terms of the social media eighteen to thirty nine social media Facebook, probably more Twitter and so forth.

That's been going on since what twenty six, two thousand and seven, at least that's eighteen years ago.

So that's the whole life of the people at the young age of that spectrum, and into very early adulthood for the people in the older part of that section.

So then you think of chat rooms that existed even before that.

We got some indoctrination going on college campuses.

I don't think it's a real mystery why that number is so much bigger than everybody else, including liberals who are older.

So we've identified it.

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All right, Jim for our final martini of the week, Let's head back to the New Jersey governor's race.

We talked about Mikey Cheryl earlier this week when she was talking to Charlemaine and had absolutely no answer for the questions about her seven million dollars in investment profits.

But now we've got a different story coming out.

Just as this race is potentially getting razor close, there was an Emerson poll up showing it tied at forty three.

There are other polls showing Cheryl in the lead.

But in addition to the questions about her investments, there's now questions about Mikey Cheryl's time at the US Naval Academy, where she was a graduate in nineteen ninety four.

Here's the New York Post version of the story says Cheryl was blocked from walking with her graduating class at Annapolis after being caught up in a massive cheating scandal.

Cheryl's name was not included on the commencement program during the May twenty fifth, nineteen ninety four ceremony.

According to records obtained by The New Jersey Globe.

The congresswoman said she was barred from walking because she declined to rat out classmates who were involved in the scandal that impacted one hundred and thirty midshipmen in her class.

Quote, I didn't turn in some of my classmates, so I didn't walk, But I graduated and was commissioned as an officer in the US Navy, serving for nearly ten years with the highest level of distinction and honor.

So her clarification is that she didn't cheat, she just wouldn't tell authorities who did.

Meanwhile, the controversy going in the other direction is that an ally of Jack Chatterrelli, the Republican nominee, got information from a federal agency, which of course is overseen by the Trump administration, that divulged personal records that had previously been sealed as it relates to Cheryl's time at Annapolis, and that included some very personal information which then when public, including apparently her Social Security number, which is obviously not good.

So on the one hand, Jim, you've got the Republicans saying Mikey Cheryl is part of this cheating scandal thirty years ago and she's still trying to cover it up.

On the Democratic side, look at this reckless intervention by the federal government in this race.

So is one side more right than the other.

They both got some meg on.

Their face here.

This seems messy.

One thing that's worth noting is that if a particular veterans records or any US citizens records are confidential or are meant to be protected, then they should be confidential and meant to be protected.

That you don't get to pick and choose which laws around confidence you ls, privacy, secrecy, et cetera.

You get to operate.

Having said that, if you've had your tax returns released by the IRS and released to pro publica, I could understand, you know, people who would be like, oh, well it happened to me, it might as well happen to that guy.

You know, that sense of like if I don't get to have privacy rights, I suspect that each time one of these secrecy or laws or rules gets broken, it gets easier for the next person to do it, because the attitude is these are all optional.

Everybody breaks these laws all the time.

Greg, You know, we don't know the ultimate facts here.

I'm wondering how much of a distinction there is between a cheating scandal and saying I'm not going to say who I know was involved in the cheating scandal.

And it is very interesting.

Society has this very contradictory attitude towards telling the truth when you know someone else is doing something wrong or illegal.

Because you know, Greg, how many times we heard new stories about heroic whistleblower.

Right, Yes, very often heroic whistleblowers are violating some sort of oath of secrecy or some sort of oath, or at minimum they've been ordered not to disclose to the public something and they've said the public interest in this is how the consequences of this are significant.

This is wrong.

I'm going forward and I'm going to And generally, when you do that, you need to be willing to accept the legal consequences of it, because you are breaking your oath, you are breaking federal regulations, et cetera, et cetera.

But you've also decided this is important enough.

You know the law is incorrect here, the public has the right to know.

Having said that, Greg, when the blood's and the cryps or some other you know gang says snitches get stitches, that's bad, right, It's really really bad to say, well, I saw this gang member committed terrible crime, and my testimony could help the police catch the right guy, could help them put the guy behind bars.

But snitches get stitches.

You know, the idea that you, as a ordinary citizen, are risking your life and you're doing something wrong in the eyes of the moral paragons of that street gang, that you're doing something wrong by testifying, you're somehow you know, you're helping the police, and you're not supposed to do that.

When I was in high school, two of my classmates got to be extras in the movie Scent of a Woman.

Now, if you haven't seen it, it involves Al Pacino as this retired veteran who helps out.

Is it is young Chris O'Donnell I think think, so, yeah, who's you know, been in some sort of fancy boarding school scandal and he's facing expulsion and they're going to have this big trial type thing, and Pacino, playing a blind veteran, comes up and gives this.

You know, he's like, looks like he's the o.

This kid is going to get nailed to the wall.

And Pacino, let me tell you this kid, he's no rat.

I don't know a great pacino, but I do a pretty good one of them shouting for no particular reason because he's no rat, you know, And the message of that movie is that and he convinces the heads of this school that the other kids who were willing to testify, were willing to say who did what were the bad guys?

And that you know, this Chris O'Donnell is principled and good because he won't rat the other people who are involved in this Why Why is that the noble good thing?

I could understand the perception that if you and a bunch of other people all did something wrong and you come forward because you want to avoid the consequences of your wrongdoing, and you go like, yeah, I could understand that sentum of throwing somebody else under the rug.

But that's also how a lot of criminal indictments get got right, you know, the prisoners deliver up right, the idea of the cops get you know, several members of a thieves or gang or something like that.

And if you come forward and testify, you get a reduced sentence.

If you don't reward to the other guy does well, then you're really in trouble.

We have a lot of contradictory attitudes about this, and it seems like Mikey Cheryl wants to say, I, yes, I did not walk.

Yes I got in trouble, but it was heroic because I was not going to rat out any of my classmates.

Why is cheating not a bad thing?

If someone cheats, should they not face consequences?

Did she feel like the people who had cheated were somehow justified in their cheating, Like there's no elaboration of all this, and it just kind of seems like the but the invocation of I'm no rat it's this very proud declaration that I do not believe in telling people telling what other people have done something wrong and or illegal and allowing the consequences of those wrong actions catch up with them.

Is that such a good thing?

I'm it seems very convenient the way it's on and off with a light switch about whether that's the moral choice or not, depending on circumstances.

So I would like to see Cheryl answer more questions about this.

I suspect they will not.

You maybe, you know, candidates like don't do press conferences anymore.

They don't as they really don't do sit down interviews.

You know, Harris did her real tough sit down interview with Rachel Maddow and got tripped off on the question of like, so Buddah Judge was too gay?

Huh?

You know.

So that's that's where we are with this.

I don't disclose public records that you're not supposed to.

But also, Cheryl's answer here does not really line up, does not make her look particularly heroic and or feels like another one of these convenient cases of when I do it, I'm a heroic whistleblower.

When you do it, you're a rat who's selling out your patriots.

You can tell Jim's fired up about a lot of our topics today.

In fact, you could say he's just getting warmed up.

That's one of the Paccino lines from Center a Woman.

What an oscar for that one too.

Anyway, Jim, have a good weekend.

See you Monday.

See you Monday, Greg, Jim.

Garretty, National Review.

I'm Greg Corumbus of Radio America.

Thanks so much for being with us today.

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