Kash Patel joins the podcast to discuss his new children’s book The Plot Against the King in which he uses characters such as “King Donald” and “Hillary Queenton” to tell the story behind the Steele Dossier and the Russian collusion narrative. We also discuss his experience as lead investigator into Russiagate as well as his current work in defending conservatives against Big Tech censorship.
Patriot and freedom fighter, Kash Patel is the Founder of the Kash Patel Legal Offense Trust, an organization dedicated to helping individuals who have experienced defamation and silencing from the media and big tech. Mr. Patel is most known for his tenure as the Chief of Staff to the Department of Defense (DOD) under the Trump administration, where his responsibilities included implementing the Secretary’s mission using 3 million plus employees, operating a $740 billion budget, and $2 trillion in assets. He gained notoriety as the lead investigator for the Russigate investigation, where he uncovered illegal attempts to spy on the Trump campaign. Patel also currently serves as the Senior Fellow for National Security and Intelligence for the Center for Renewing America.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg and on today’s podcast Kash Patel joins us. Author of the new book, The Plot Against The King. This children’s book, yes, children’s book use characters such as King Donald and Hillary Queenton to tell the story behind the Steele Dossier and the Russian collusion narrative will also discuss Patel’s experience as lead investigator into Russiagate as well as his current work in defending conservatives against Big Tech censorship.
Before we jump into the conversation a little bit more about him. Kash Patel is the founder of Kash Patel Legal Offense Trust an organization dedicated to helping individuals who’ve experienced defamation and silencing from the media and Big Tech.
He is most known for his tenure as the chief of staff to the Department of Defense and gained notoriety as a lead investigator for the Russiagate investigation, where he uncovered illegal attempts to spy on the Trump campaign. Patel also currently serves as a senior fellow for national security and intelligence for the Center For Renewing America. Kash, thank you so much for joining us on She Thinks today.
Kash Patel:
Hey, thanks for having me on She Thinks and love being with the Independent Women’s Forum. It’s a fantastic organization.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, thank you for spending time with us. Just first question to you is, did you ever think you’d be writing a children’s book?
Kash Patel:
I laughed out loud because the first time the idea was brought up to me, I literally laughed and fell on the floor and I was like, “You want me to write a children’s book? I can barely write a level above grade two.” But my team came to me and said, “Look, the Russiagate story is something that has to be taught to children because it’s not about politics. It’s about doing right versus wrong in the quest for the truth.” And they were right. And so we got to work and lo and behold, we wrote a children’s book.
Beverly Hallberg:
You wrote a children’s book. So we’re going to get into some of the specifics of the book itself, but before we get into that, I think we’d been remiss to neglect talking about how this book came about to begin with. And that is about your experience as lead investigator for the Russiagate investigation.
So can you take us back to that time? So you were serving as chief of staff with the DOD. Did you think you would be involved in an investigation of whether or not there was this type of lying and deceit going on in our federal government?
Kash Patel:
Well, no. Look, you’re talking to a guy who was a former federal prosecutor, a former public defender, I was in government for 16 years, and at the time, back then, I was on the House Intelligence Committee running the investigation into Russiagate. And even when I ran it and when I started it, I didn’t think it was going to end up like this, but what Devin Nunes, who was the chairman at the time asked me to do was use my prosecutor background and my intel background to see if there was any breaking of the law or corrupt practices with the special court, the FISA court, as we call it to surveil then-candidate Trump and eventually President Trump.
And as a terrorism prosecutor, I had to utilize that court to get surveillance warrants on terrorist targets overseas. So I knew how in depth that process was. But what I told Devin was, “Look, it’s like any other investigation. You have to test the credibility of the documents and then you have to find out who paid for this thing.” It’s kind of simple at the end of the day; money doesn’t lie. I said, “We got to follow the money. It’s not necessarily easy to follow. And then you got to test the credibility of things like the Steele Dossier and the reporting that was produced.”
And we went after that with the FBI and DOJs own documentation and found there are corrupt practices. And then we also found, thanks to congressional subpoena, we found that the bank connected to the Steele Dossier was none than Hillary Clinton’s campaign paying tens of millions of dollars through their lawyers to hire the likes of Fusion GPS to basically go out and concoct, not just the Russiagate narrative for this Steel dossier, but as we’ve seen through the Sussman case, the Alfa Bank narrative, both of which were totally false.
And I think what gets me most is, I’m not really a political guy. I get that politics getting dirty and whatnot. But as a former federal prosecutor who used the national security court to protect America, they literally allowed politics, they being the FBI, allowed politics to get into the FBI. And then they broke their oaths of offices, agents and officers, and lied to a federal court just because they didn’t like the target of the investigation.
That’s not supposed to happen in the U.S. And I’m thankful we were able to break that down. It took a few years, but I think we got there.
Beverly Hallberg:
So I just first want to say I remember when Donald Trump became president, of course, he ran on this mantra of he’s going to drain the swamp and I’ve lived in DC for a long time. I was like, “Yeah, there’s some corrupt people there.” But I didn’t realize how deep it went. Even as somebody who had worked and lived in politics in DC for so long, there was a part of me that said, “I didn’t realize it was that bad.” Did you feel the same way as you started looking into this?
Kash Patel:
Yeah, because I’m like you: I was in DC for a long time. I worked at government for 16 years and I said, “Yeah, some people step out of line. But the heads of the FBI, the leadership at the Department of Justice, the leadership at the Intelligence Community, are you telling me they all got together and lied?”
I had to hit myself in the arm and say, “Are you sure this is what happened?” And I said, “If it is, we have to go get the documents.” So I was just as shocked as anybody else. The media back then of course didn’t believe us, and they were acting as if I was cheering on the success of the deterioration of the FBI and the DOJ.
As a guy who worked with federal agents across America, and overseas to bring down terrorists, that’s not what I want to see happen. And I think it shocked me more than anybody because I was in there doing it with these guys and they failed us.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah. You mentioned Devin Nunes and he was one of the first people to bring all of this up. And I remember how much scrutiny and ridicule he initially got talking about the potential of all of this corruption.
Obviously, he has since been vindicated, you’ve been vindicated, but what was it like working for him during that time when he was facing so much criticism and especially people thinking he was in this crazy camp by even making this suggestion?
Kash Patel:
Yeah. I think Devin, first of all, he’s a dear friend and my former boss. I think if we didn’t have a leader like that back then, we wouldn’t have been… It didn’t matter what I did as his lead investigator. You needed someone to be the face of the investigation and tell the world what was going on. And Devin took that head on, and the media just crushed him for it. And they went after his family.
They even outed me as a staffer on the Hill. And the media called me Devin’s genocidal dictator. These things are things you can’t even make up. And they went after his grandmother. It got pretty nasty. And Devin said, I went to Devin, I said, “Hey, do you want to tone this down? Or go a different way? Just because this is unacceptable.” He’s like, “No, absolutely not. This is what we were hired to do. And if this is what the evidence shows, then that’s what we’re going to tell the American people.”
And without Devin doing that, I don’t think the world would know half of this.
Beverly Hallberg:
So it’s a genocidal dictator who wrote this children’s book?
Kash Patel:
Yes.
Beverly Hallberg:
So that is noted. It’s important for parents to know who’s writing these books, but just one thing I want to pick up on that. So as you mentioned, the media covered this nonstop. It was around the clock coverage of Russiagate and the supposed collusion that took place. And then when we found out more information, even more recently with the Durham investigation, we’re learning more and more how Hillary Clinton was involved and paid for it. We hear crickets on some of the networks. What do you make of the news media these days, especially when it was 24/7 coverage, and now we barely hear anything?
Kash Patel:
Yeah, no, that’s a great point that people are overlooking. We never did this investigation for the media. We did it for the American public, but once Donald Trump started running for office, and eventually got into office, the media just lost all its journalistic integrity and failed to report any of the actual facts. They had Adam Schiff parading out lie after lie after lie.
And now the world knows that Adam Schiff paraded out lie after lie, but it took us a couple years to get Nunes Memo and all the documentation we put up on durhamwatch.com because we want the American people to read it for themselves. We don’t want to go to a microphone and say, “This is what happened.” That’s not what constitutional oversight is. America has the right to see the documents, the right to see the failures of the FBI and DOJ, so we can remedy it together.
And our mission, I guess, since Devin and I left Congress was how do we take on the media? Now he’s taken on his own route by becoming the CEO of Truth Social, because he believes in that fight so much. And I’m doing the same with my foundation because we weren’t the only people mercilessly attacked. Everyday Americans were defamed into platform and lied about and dragged through the mud just because they sided with Donald Trump or whatnot.
And that’s just not fair, but the media has glossed over it. And we’re punching back in court case by case with our defamation lawsuits and giving people an alternate platform on Truth Social to get to share their thoughts, whatever they are.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, let’s get into that a little bit more. So truth Social, explain to us what that is? So for those out there who maybe don’t love Twitter, don’t love Facebook based on ownership and the conservative censorship that they see what is Truth Social and what type of success have you seen with it so far?
Kash Patel:
Yeah, so Truth Social is the platform that was started by Donald Trump after he left the White House, because he just, for the same reasons Devin and I took on this fight against the media, he found Twitter and Facebook and all these other social media companies to be completely biased and censoring free speech and suppressing the truth. So he created Truth Social, he Donald Trump, and then he hired Devin Nunes about six or seven months ago.
And Devin took a leap of faith, but I think he knew what he was doing. He left Congress after 19 years to become the CEO of this company because he believes in the mission. He lived it, I lived it. We know what it means to be mercilessly defamed and not have a platform to go out there and tell America to read about it and see it themselves.
So Truth Social is a messaging platform, just like Twitter. You put up truths, everybody can join on a desktop from anywhere in America, iPhones, you can join. Androids are coming soon. And the engagement of Truth Social is absolutely phenomenal. We’ve taken accounts that have high ratings on Twitter and moved them over to Truth Social and their engagement is about 20 to 25 X that it’s on Twitter.
That just means that we did what we wanted to do at Truth Social, which was make it human, make it with people running the platform and not robots. As we’ve seen Elon Musk discover about Twitter. And that’s the essence of Truth Social, and it’s not a right-side conservative platform.
There’s people from all across politics on there, having political discourse, talking about their beliefs and their convictions. And that’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. And we’re not sitting there censoring it and saying your account is now being shut down
Beverly Hallberg:
So some people have speculated whether or not Donald Trump will go back to Twitter because of Truth Social. Do you believe him where he says, “I’m not going back to Twitter?”
Kash Patel:
I do. Look, I was never a social media guy, but I got involved with Truth Social because of my boss, and my former former boss, run the place. And so I’m over there @Kash and learning as I go every day. But we talk to the president all the time. I don’t think he’ll ever return to Twitter or Facebook or any other platform because he believes in the mission.
We got a bit of a windfall with what Elon Musk is doing with Twitter. Of course, you couldn’t plan for something like that. But Devin and I knew from our Russiagate investigation days that Twitter and Facebook had a lot of technical problems, had a lot of intrusion problems with bots, from places like Russia and China. And Elon Musk has basically told the world that and come out and literally said, “Twitter has censorship.”
And he has said, he doesn’t like Donald Trump. He didn’t vote for him. But he said, “Donald Trump should never have been, his account shouldn’t have been shut down.” And that’s what we were trying to do. We’re not trying to take out Twitter or anything like that. We just want a correct course and Twitter shouldn’t shut down the Hunter Biden laptop story or the New York Post for running and breaking that story.
It’s just another example of how you politicize the national security apparatus. And that only hurts Americans. So people can check out Truth Social and see if it’s their thing. Maybe it is.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah. And competition is good. Maybe Twitter, if Elon Musk does move forward with taking it over, having that competition, Truth Social makes you more accountable to your users, which is always a good thing.
Well, I do want to take a brief moment to talk to you, our listeners, and ask you a question. Are you a conservative woman? Do you feel problematic just existing in today’s political landscape?
Well, I have some information to share with you if that’s true. Every Thursday morning on Problematic Women, Lauren Evans and Virginia Allen sort through the news to bring you stories and interviews that are of particular interest to you, a problematic woman, that is, a woman whose opinions are often excluded or even mocked by those on the so-called pro woman left.
Lauren and Virginia break down the news you care about in an upbeat and sharp-witted way. So search for Problematic Women, wherever you get your podcast.
Now, Kash, I want to move on to a different topic. And now by the time this is released, this will have already happened last night, but I want to talk to you about the January 6th House Committee that is investigating what took place that day. And the thing that I find most fascinating is last night, the day before this is released, it is a prime-time hearing. What do you make of this being aired at that time?
Kash Patel:
A lot. So look, as a guy who ran one of the most complex and, I think, important investigations in modern congressional history in the Russiagate investigation, we showed you what an official proper investigation looks like based on facts without politicizing it or the national security of America.
Fast forward to the January 6th committee’s investigation. They are hiring Hollywood, literally, and an ABC executive who shut down stories from victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Literally, you can’t make this up and haven’t heard much too much from the #MeToo movement that the Democrats are hiring such an individual, but putting that aside, they know that the January 6th narrative is their last leg to run on for anything related to the midterms, because they can’t run on anything about the economy, gas, baby formula, the border narcotics trade, human trafficking, foreign policy, it’s all a disaster, unfortunately and tragically, for America.
And look, Jan 6 is something that’s pretty personal to me. I was Chief of Staff of the Department of Defense during that time for President Trump and the Department of Defense’s response on that day has been brought into question.
I was the first person subpoenaed by the January 6th committee and I said, “That’s not a problem. You could have just called me and asked me to come in.” Because that’s part of your government duties to come in and testify on behalf of the American people as to what you did, but they wanted to do what they’re doing now, politicize it.
So I went before them, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyers, and told them what they didn’t want to hear, which was the facts. I said, “Two days before January 6th, I was in the Oval Office with the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Chief of Staff for the President of the United States, where we were discussing sensitive national security operations.
But then the president also brought up January 6th and he said, “Look, guys, you have the presidential authorization for 20,000 National Guards men and women.” And the law for your viewers is twofold. We the military cannot deploy domestically without utilizing the national guard, and the president has to authorize it, but there’s another step involved.
The other step is the local governor or mayor has to request the National Guard. And so we went on January, probably around January 4th, over to Mayor Bowser, who’s the mayor of DC and the Capital Police, who’s responsible federally for the Congress and asked them, “Hey, the president authorized 20,000 National Guard men and women, do you want any? Do you want a hundred? Do you want a thousand?” And they both said, no. Mayor Bower said no in writing. And I introduced all of this information to the Jan six committee when I testified, including the documentation from the Defense Department, the memos where it showed we were doing this work, and they couldn’t have spent less than 30 seconds caring about that item, or excuse me, that part of the investigation.
They are more focused on how to politicize it. And I’ve asked for my transcript to be released. I don’t think I can get much more into the details of what I have to testify about, but got nothing to hide. So that’s why I say January 6th, sort of political for me because they’re saying we didn’t respond appropriately. And the world should know that it was the Democrats and their leadership who failed to get the right troops into DC. Even when President Trump had authorized it.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, it’s going to be interesting to see what the viewership is like. My guess is that it’s going to be low, that at Prime Time, this is not what the majority of the American people want to watch, but we’ll have to see what happens. Before you go, we definitely have to spend a little bit of time talking about the book. Again, it is called The Plot Against The King. It is a children’s book. So you were talking about a complicated, complex issue. How can this really be suitable for children?
Kash Patel:
No, that was my first instant. I was like, “I don’t know how you do this.” We have a tremendous team over at Brave Books who that’s what they do. They make children’s books, and they were like, “We can break it down. We just need you to tell us the story.” And we combined forces and what we thought was, “Let’s make it fun. Let’s set it in medieval times. Let’s talk about Kings and Queens. Let’s almost make it an allegory.”
You borrow from history. So you take Hillary Queenton and Donald Trump, and then you take Keeper Komey and a shifty knight, and you take a duke named Devin and you introduce them into the story, but you don’t say things like Democrat or Republican or liberal or conservative or this party or that party. You leave all that out. And you just borrow from the history and the truth. And you teach our kids, “This happened in America. And the value of fighting for the truth, like Devin and I did, is important.”
Because our future generation, our future leaders are going to be our children. And how can we possibly ignore this part of history? It’s like telling children to ignore Watergate or to ignore the wars that this country has undertaken overseas. It’s a fun way to teach our kids, I believe, with great illustrations, of course. I didn’t do the artwork. That’s definitely not me, but this company did a fantastic job.
And I think we knew we hit the mark because, no surprise, we’ve been mercilessly attacked by the mainstream media. We even made Jimmy Kimmel this week who made fun of the book. So I think that’s a high watermark, and President Trump was kind enough to not only endorse the book but roll the book out on Truth Social. And it’s become the number one children’s book in the country. We’re very proud of that. And we’re not going to go away.
It’s takes me back to my Russiagate days when Devin and I were getting mercilessly attacked; we knew we were the target, and when something like this happens, I guess I should have figured that we would’ve been attacked for writing a truthful children’s book, but to the level that we’ve been excoriated, the print media has just been coming after us saying we’re indoctrinating our children. And these are the same people that talk about they want Critical Race Theory and gender dynamics taught to our six-year-olds and seven-year-olds.
No, I want stories about medieval times taught to our six-year-olds and seven-year-olds. And I think parents are having more fun with the book than the kids are. Some of the postings on Truth Social are great. So thanks for letting me talk about it.
Beverly Hallberg:
Of course.
Kash Patel:
You can get it at plotagainsttheking.com because Google and Amazon have tried to shut us down. They literally called us and said, “We are reviewing your book for content. So until then you’re on hold.”
Beverly Hallberg:
It’s such a dangerous book, so dangerous, but before we go, two-part question real quick, what age range is best for this book? So people out there know, and second of all, we have a lot of people who do speak up, but some who are afraid to. You’re somebody who has faced the negative blast from media, from individuals, any tips that you could give people on how to brave and weather the storms of all this criticism that comes your way?
Kash Patel:
Yeah. Sorry. The first question?
Beverly Hallberg:
Age range for the book?
Kash Patel:
Age range, yeah. Four and up, and I say four and up, literally to a hundred, because that’s been the response. People love it. Grandparents love it, parents, children love it. So take a look at it. And, and before we move off that, if you’re doing it for school or faith-based organization or church or synagogue, and you want to do a bulk buy, we will give you a huge discount at theplotagainsttheking.com.
Transitioning to the next piece, that’s why I started fightwithkash.com because Devin and I were so mercilessly attacked, and we found out it didn’t happen to anyone. And what I want to tell everyone out there is don’t worry about the money. We will raise the money for you. That’s what we’re doing at fightwithkash.com.
If you have a case, or you think you’ve been defamed, or you think you’ve been attacked by the media or Big Tech, go to the website, fightwithkash.com and just send me your story.
Literally, I review every single note that comes in myself, and I give it to my legal team. And if you have a case for defamation, or some other cause of action, I will fly to wherever you are in America and hand you a check for your lawyer so you can go to court and have your name cleared. And we will fight with you till the end. That’s the whole point.
And I don’t want people to get discouraged because they’re saying lawyers are expensive. They are, but we are raising a lot of money for this mission, and it’s not going away anytime soon. So check it out at fightwithkash.com. It costs you nothing. The content’s free. Sending it in for your viewership is totally free. And if you know someone who’s been attacked, but doesn’t know how to fight it, send them our way.
We will fight with them. We’ve already launched multiple defamation lawsuits, and we’re going to win. We know we’re going to win because we have the same thing, the truth. And that’s the only thing that matters. And that’s kind of the epicenter of our universe right now.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, it’s a wonderful cause. And you are quite the busy man with all of your different ventures. So we appreciate you joining us on She Thinks today, Kash Patel, author of the new children’s book, The Plot Against The King. Thank you so much for joining us.
Kash Patel:
Thanks. Have a great day.
Beverly Hallberg:
And thank you all for joining us. Before you go, Independent Women’s Forum does want you to know that we rely on the generosity of supporters like you. An investment in IWF fuels our efforts to enhance freedom, opportunity, and wellbeing for all Americans. So please consider making a small donation to IWF by visiting iwf.org/donate. That is iwf.org/donate.
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