Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Congressman Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) to the newsmaker line to weigh in on the historic FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago, the weaponization of the federal government, and the upcoming vote on Friday for the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.
Leahy: We’re joined on a newsmaker line now by our very good friend, congressman Tim Burchett from the second District of Tennessee. Good morning, Congressman Burchett.
Burchett: Hey, thank y’all for having me on.
Leahy: So has the FBI come and given a search warrant to you asked for your phone yet, like they did with your colleague, Congressman Perry?
Burchett: No, they haven’t. I’m not really sure what’s going on with that. It’s just bizarre. It’s a complete overreach. This thing is out of control. It’s like some third-world country nightmare. But it’s interesting; when Hillary Clinton was in trouble for all the emails and stuff, they asked her and she said, yeah, I’ll come in.
Or, the way they did it, they just said, will you come in? And she said yes. And she did it on the Fourth of July and she set the time and brought her lawyers with her and wouldn’t answer any questions.
And they just basically kicked in the door down there at Mar-a-Lago, from what I understand, and busted into his safe. It should have been handled through his attorneys. And the only reason you do something like that is a national security risk.
And we’ve talked to folks who basically said, no, there was no real national security risk. You carry around all these secrets in your head more than you do on a piece of paper. So the whole thing is just bizarre and it reeks of a bunch of political fudge.
Leahy: Has this had a chilling effect on everybody up there in Washington? Are they looking around? Have we crossed the Rubicon?
Has the partisan Department of Justice and FBI crossed the Rubicon and officially begun starting to turn us into a banana republic police state?
Burchett: I think it was already there, and now it’s just evident to a lot more people. I think all this has done is energize his base. And I’ve talked to moderate folks who’ve said, look, I’m over this, this is not what I signed up for.
And I think it puts Trump in a better spot, actually. I know that might come as a shock to some of your left-leaning listeners. If there are two of them out there.
Leahy: Maybe two, maybe three. (Chuckles)
Burchett: I can’t see this having a good effect on anybody. I called for the FBI director and the other guy, the justice, to come forward and they need to testify before Congress on Friday.
Leahy: Are they going to do that?
Burchett: Heck, no. They ain’t got the guts to do that.
Leahy: But see, isn’t that a violation of the constitutional principle of separation of powers? Because they are not elected and you are.
Burchett: That’s correct. You are 100 percent correct. But they won’t show up. They don’t have to. They take their orders from the White House – and they shouldn’t, but they do.
Leahy: Yes. According to the folks at the White House, whatever the French person is, Karen Pierre or whatever her name is.
Burchett: Whatever. The box checker. I always say put the best player in, coach, and they make some criteria and they can say, hey look, we just hired a Norwegian female who identifies as a cow, or whatever.
Everything is so extreme with this bunch. It’s incredible, actually, and I think that has another effect on the elections. I think people are fed up with this stuff.
Leahy: Yes, they really are. They’re absolutely fed up with this. Now the question is, this pretext of a warrant signed by this magistrate judge down in Florida who apparently previously represented Jeff Epstein.
You would think, if you’re going to get a search warrant for the former President of the United States, you would ask a complete full federal district judge, not a magistrate judge. To me that was a little bit weird. Your thoughts on that?
Burchett: They obviously were shopping around on that thing. You’re exactly right. That’s why that didn’t come out right at the beginning. Something of this magnitude, you would have a federal judge do that, and in effect they went around that.
And I think it also bears credence to the fact that this whole thing is bogus, because a full-standing federal judge would have never done something like this.
And they got somebody who obviously is probably going to enjoy the spotlight a little bit. And that’s what they did. They shopped around and they got what they were shopping for.
Leahy: When is the Department of Justice going to actually describe why they did this, and when are we ever going to see the search warrant application?
Burchett: That’s a good question. It’s supposed to be a public record. And that’s another reason this thing is just out of control.
But they’re locking people up in Washington with no bail on the January 6 thing and denying them representation. It’s just on down the line. On down the line. It’s just a complete miscarriage of justice.
Leahy: When you go to your Democratic House members, can you have with any of them – they’re in the slight majority right now – could you sit down with them and say, hey, do you realize how divisive and un-American this action is? If you have that conversation with them, would any of them acknowledge it?
Burchett: Absolutely they would. They just wouldn’t do it in public. I’ve always said this, the Democrats use the carrot and the stick very well. They reward you with the carrot or they use the stick.
That’s why Pelosi has called this vote, and that you will see a record number, a record number of people voting by proxy, because she controls those votes and she owns these people.
And I think some of them will see the writing on the wall. We might get a couple of free crossovers, and this vote might be very close on Friday.
Leahy: The Inflation Reduction Act coming on Friday. How many pages is it? Like 2,000?
Burchett: Yes, something like that. I just know 87,000 …
Leahy: IRS agents. And they’re coming after you and me and every small business owner in America. And it’s an intimidation tactic, no question about it.
Burchett: There are not enough corporations or mega-rich in the world for them to go after. That’s what they’re going after. They’re going to go after middle America, that’s all they can do. They’re still not going to answer their dadgum phones, though.
Part of the problem is they are all still working from home. A lot of these federal agencies are. We can’t get them to answer the dadgum phone. It is the most frustrating thing I’ve ever seen. People have to get their rebates or checks.
One fellow I know is on dialysis, the IRS owes him over $6,000 and he can’t get a return call from them. You didn’t see this under Trump. He would have fired them, and he should have. But now you’ve got 87,000 new workers.
And on top of that, there are assistants they will hire. And then you’ll have computers, your office staff, and then, of course, new offices for all of those.
These are basically lifetime employments. So it’s going to be an ongoing thing. You’ve got more people now, hired in the IRS than you do in the Justice [Department] or the Pentagon and several other departments combined – combined – now in the IRS.
Listen to the interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
