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Bought a MAGA Hat? You May Have Ended Up in Federal Records · The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

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  Speaker 1: You're the people that built America. You're not the people
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  Speaker 1: that demand everything like Ilhan Omar, who says, who comes
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  Speaker 1: in from a ninth-rate country. It's not even third-rate, ninth-rate. No,
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  Speaker 1: they come from countries that have nothing going. They're not
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: even countries, okay? They don't have officers. They don't have anything.
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  Speaker 1: They don't have police. They don't have military. And then
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  Speaker 1: they come over here and they tell us how we
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  Speaker 1: should run the United States of America.
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  Speaker 2: No, thank you. No, thank you.
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  Speaker 3: You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
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  Speaker 2: Good Thursday morning. Nice to have you with us on
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  Speaker 2: the 47 Morning Update. And we start with shocking news.
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  Speaker 2: If you bought a MAGA hat between 2021 and 2025,
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  Speaker 2: there's a very good chance that Jack Smith had a
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  Speaker 2: spreadsheet with your name and home address. Let me let
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  Speaker 2: that sink in for a moment. Senator Chuck Grassley is
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  Speaker 2: now saying more than a half million conservatives that may
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  Speaker 2: have bought a hat or given just one dollar to
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  Speaker 2: Donald Trump were on a hit list. We'll explain it
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  Speaker 2: all to you and how you can find out if
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  Speaker 2: you're on the list. But before we get to that,
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  Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about Regent University. Somewhere
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: along the way, we got the crazy idea that a
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  Speaker 2: serious education and a strong Christian faith have to live
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: in two different worlds. They don't, and at Regent University,
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  Speaker 2: faith isn't an afterthought. It's at the heart of the education.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Students are challenged to think deeply, pursue excellence, and see
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: their education through a Christian worldview. And make no mistake,
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  Speaker 2: Regent is also serious about academics. They have more than
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  Speaker 2: 150 areas of study. Regent has earned national recognition for
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  Speaker 2: academic excellence because a great education shouldn't just prepare you
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  Speaker 2: to make a living. It should prepare you to make
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  Speaker 2: a difference, to lead with integrity, and use your God-given
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  Speaker 2: talents with purpose. And here's the great part. You can
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  Speaker 2: get the same Regent education online. Learn from wherever you
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  Speaker 2: are on a schedule that works around your career and
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  Speaker 2: family without compromising your education or your faith. Exceptional academics,
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  Speaker 2: flexible online learning, and unapologetically Christian. Learn more at regent.edu.
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  Speaker 2: That's regent.edu. Regent University Christian leadership to change the world.
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  Speaker 2: It's a 47 morning update and it starts right now.
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  Speaker 3: Story number one.
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  Speaker 2: I want you to imagine something for me. I want
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  Speaker 2: you to imagine going to work. 99% of you are
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  Speaker 2: hardworking Americans listening to me. You pay your taxes, you
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  Speaker 2: follow the law, you raise your family, and you basically,
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  Speaker 2: you know, mind your own business. One day you decide,
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  Speaker 2: you know what, I like this guy by the name
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  Speaker 2: of Donald Trump and I want to help him get
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  Speaker 2: elected because I like what he's saying and I like
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  Speaker 2: that he's America first. And so you decide to donate $ 5.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe you go big. You donate $ 20. Or maybe it's
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  Speaker 2: just you decide, I'm going to buy a red Make
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  Speaker 2: America Great Again hat. Now, maybe you purchase a Trump
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  Speaker 2: campaign t-shirt as well. Now, have you committed a crime
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  Speaker 2: by doing that?
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  Speaker 1: No.
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  Speaker 2: Did you threaten anybody?
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  Speaker 1: No.
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  Speaker 2: Have you done anything illegal?
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  Speaker 1: No.
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  Speaker 2: You just decided to buy a hat that says Make
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  Speaker 2: America Great Again or a shirt or a mug. What
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  Speaker 2: did you do? Legally, you exercised your constitutional right to
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  Speaker 2: participate in American politics and an American election. Fast forward
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  Speaker 2: to what we've now learned from a whistleblower. Imagine right now,
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  Speaker 2: and many of you may be finding this out right now,
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  Speaker 2: that your name, that your address, that your occupation, that
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  Speaker 2: your political affiliation, your donation history is And potentially, we're
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  Speaker 2: being told now, other personal financial information has now ended
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  Speaker 2: up in records obtained by federal prosecutors investigating Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, that's exactly what's unfolding in Washington right now.
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  Speaker 2: The numbers we're being told is not like a couple
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  Speaker 2: of us. Like I am for sure that the number
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  Speaker 2: of people that are listening to me right now, there
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  Speaker 2: is a significant number of you listening that are in
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  Speaker 2: the list I'm now telling you about because the numbers
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  Speaker 2: are staggering. 639,000 that we know of. Let me say
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  Speaker 2: that again. 639,000 Republican donors, Republican voters, and Trump supporters
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  Speaker 2: are were caught up in the weaponization of our government. Now,
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  Speaker 2: let me also be clear. That's the minimum number of
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  Speaker 2: people whose information was included in records obtained by Jack
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  Speaker 2: Smith's office and the Biden Justice Department, according to this
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  Speaker 2: new explosive whistleblower findings that have been released by Senator
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  Speaker 2: Chuck Grassley. That's more than a half million Americans. And
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  Speaker 2: here's what makes this story even more significant. Just two
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  Speaker 2: weeks ago, We were talking about 4,782 donor checks that
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  Speaker 2: were obtained by Smith's investigators. So if you wrote a
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  Speaker 2: check to Donald Trump for president, 4,782 donor checks were
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  Speaker 2: obtained by Smith in his investigation, quote unquote. Now, That
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  Speaker 2: number has exploded. Grassley's committee has disclosed information involving at
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  Speaker 2: least 639,000 people, and that could be getting even bigger.
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  Speaker 2: It raises a question that every American should want answered,
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  Speaker 2: by the way. Why on earth did a federal criminal
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  Speaker 2: investigation involving Donald Trump needs so much information about ordinary
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  Speaker 2: Americans who supported Donald Trump. The whistleblower, and let me
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  Speaker 2: just start with the breaking news. Chuck Grassley is the
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  Speaker 2: chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He announced today that
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  Speaker 2: new whistleblower information reveals the scope of personal data obtained
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  Speaker 2: during the Arctic Frost investigation. Now, Arctic Frost, you may remember,
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  Speaker 2: was the FBI investigation that eventually became part of Jack
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  Speaker 2: Smith's special counsel investigation to Donald Trump's efforts, they claim,
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  Speaker 2: to overturn the 2020 elections. According to Grassley, subpoena returns
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  Speaker 2: reviewed by his committee contained information concerning at least at
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  Speaker 2: a minimum 639,000 Republican donors, not Democrats, independent Republican donors, voters,
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  Speaker 2: and supporters. This wasn't simply a list of major political
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  Speaker 2: donors writing million-dollar checks either. The records include information about
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  Speaker 2: people making very small contributions. That would be you and me.
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  Speaker 2: Some donors were as little as $ 1. $ 1 got you
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  Speaker 2: on the FBI list. Somebody donated a dollar to a
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  Speaker 2: political campaign, and then the information about that donation ends
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  Speaker 2: up in material obtained by federal investigators, by the FBI.
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  Speaker 2: And the records weren't limited to names and donation amounts either,
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  Speaker 2: we're now being told, because of the whistleblower. According to Grassley,
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  Speaker 2: they included information such as your home addresses, your dates
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  Speaker 2: of birth, your occupations, even your employers, and then your
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  Speaker 2: political registration, and then all of your political donation histories that,
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  Speaker 2: of course, involve Donald Trump and other conservatives. It gets
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  Speaker 2: even worse. Some records included partial credit card information. Grassley
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  Speaker 2: says the records included information about people purchasing Trump campaign merchandise.
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  Speaker 2: We're talking about MAGA red hats. We're talking about campaign t-shirts.
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  Speaker 2: We're talking about MAGA mugs. We're talking about other campaign
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  Speaker 2: products that were offered. Now, why was information about people
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  Speaker 2: buying political merchandise included in the material that federal prosecutors obtained?
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  Speaker 2: And what was the investigative purpose? Was it to terrify
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  Speaker 2: Americans or put us on political hit lists? Was it
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  Speaker 2: to make us fearful to ever give a donation again
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  Speaker 2: to a Republican or conservative candidate? And then there's the
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  Speaker 2: other question. How is this information used, folks? And who
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  Speaker 2: determined what the government needed it for? Those are all
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  Speaker 2: questions the Justice Department should be able to answer, by
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  Speaker 2: the way. Now, the number that changes the story is
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  Speaker 2: also another part of this. This has changed a lot
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  Speaker 2: in the last few days. Because you just go back
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  Speaker 2: to September the 29th, and that's when Grassley said that
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  Speaker 2: Smith's team had attained at least 4,782 checks from people
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  Speaker 2: who donated to Trump and Republican-aligned organizations. So it didn't
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  Speaker 2: even have to be Trump. It was just if you
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  Speaker 2: went and gave a check to a Republican-aligned organization, apparently
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  Speaker 2: that was enough to get your information into an investigation
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  Speaker 2: with the FBI. Now, we also learned the scope of this.
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  Speaker 2: Those checks came from donors across all 50 states. And
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  Speaker 2: personal checks also contain extremely sensitive financial information, right? Bank
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  Speaker 2: account numbers, routing numbers, signatures, home addresses. And that information
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  Speaker 2: was then given to the prosecutors, right? Now, that is
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  Speaker 2: circulating through a government investigation and circulating through a government,
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  Speaker 2: I would call it a hit list. Now, how do
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  Speaker 2: we go from 4,000 to 639,000 people? Well, apparently they
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  Speaker 2: said anybody that had anything to do with Trump, let's
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  Speaker 2: just take all their data as well. And the new
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  Speaker 2: disclosure reveals a much larger universe of people who the
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  Speaker 2: government said under Jack Smith, under Joe Biden, we're going
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  Speaker 2: to spy on you and we're going to weaponize our
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  Speaker 2: government to come after you. Now, some of the donor
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  Speaker 2: information we're also being told went back all the way
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  Speaker 2: to 2005. So if you think, well, I didn't give
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  Speaker 2: a check to Donald Trump in the last presidential cycle,
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  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter, or conservative group. This went all the
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  Speaker 2: way back to 2005. Donald Trump, by the way, didn't
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  Speaker 2: announce his presidential campaign, just to put this in perspective,
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  Speaker 2: until a decade later. It was 2015. In fact, if
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  Speaker 2: you go back to 2005, Donald Trump was a Democrat. Now,
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  Speaker 2: the investigation, they say, involved alleged efforts to overturn the
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  Speaker 2: 2020 election. So that goes back to this question. If
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  Speaker 2: the investigation was about Donald Trump in 2020, why were
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  Speaker 2: you going back and getting donor information all the way
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  Speaker 2: back to 2005 unless you were putting together a political
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  Speaker 2: hit list, a political enemy's list? The other question is,
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  Speaker 2: what was the investigative jurisdiction for even obtaining donor information
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  Speaker 2: going back 15 years before the election that was at
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  Speaker 2: the center of this case? You understand why this was
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  Speaker 2: actually not about Donald Trump. This was about who do
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  Speaker 2: we hate and who do we want to go after
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  Speaker 2: and who's been giving money to Republicans since 2005. 15
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  Speaker 2: years earlier, folks. 15 years. Now, let's also remember how
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  Speaker 2: we got here. When did this investigation begin? It began
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  Speaker 2: after the 2020 presidential election. The FBI was weaponized. It
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  Speaker 2: began investigating what they said were efforts by Trump and
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  Speaker 2: his allies to overturn the election results. That investigation had
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  Speaker 2: the name Arctic Frost. In November of 2022... You had
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  Speaker 2: the Attorney General Merrick Garland who appointed Jack Smith as
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  Speaker 2: a special counsel. You may remember that. This was to
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  Speaker 2: make sure that Donald Trump was never able to run
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  Speaker 2: for office and win or become the president again, even
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  Speaker 2: though he is right now, which is amazing, the best
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  Speaker 2: part of this story. Now, Smith brought federal criminal charges
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  Speaker 2: against Trump. Trump denied wrongdoing, challenged the prosecution. Smith maintained
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  Speaker 2: his investigation, quote, focused on alleged criminal conduct, not political beliefs.
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  Speaker 2: We now know that's a lie. The government had a, quote,
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  Speaker 2: legitimate responsibility, he claimed, to investigate potential crimes. Really? Because
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  Speaker 2: that's not what they were doing, now based on the
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  Speaker 2: whistleblower's reporting. You had a government that investigated a political
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  Speaker 2: opponent to make sure they could take out that political
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  Speaker 2: opponent so that that political opponent could never be president again.
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  Speaker 2: That's what they were doing. And what they decided to
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  Speaker 2: do with that was say, hey, not only are we
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  Speaker 2: going after Donald Trump, let's go after the supporters. Because
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  Speaker 2: apparently if you were supportive of Donald Trump, you have
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  Speaker 2: no constitutional rights. You have no right to donate. You
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  Speaker 2: have no right to volunteer. You have no right to
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  Speaker 2: purchase campaign merchandise. You have no right to associate with
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  Speaker 2: any political organization connected to Donald Trump. But you have
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  Speaker 2: to understand it wasn't even about Donald Trump. They went
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  Speaker 2: back to 2005 because it was about coming after you,
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  Speaker 2: not just Donald Trump. They wanted to make sure that
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  Speaker 2: you didn't have the right to participate in the political
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  Speaker 2: process without being treated as a criminal suspect simply because
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  Speaker 2: of your political beliefs. That is why the scope of
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  Speaker 2: these subpoenas matter. And let's also go back to what
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  Speaker 2: Jack Smith admitted. Jack Smith has already been questioned about
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  Speaker 2: his team's collection of donor information. During a Senate Judiciary
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  Speaker 2: Committee hearing September the 29th, Grassley pressed Smith about the
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  Speaker 2: financial records obtained during the investigation. And Smith acknowledged his
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  Speaker 2: team acquired financial information. He also defended the subpoenas as
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  Speaker 2: part of a quote criminal investigation. And he explained that
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  Speaker 2: he could not recall every subpoena issued by his team. Now,
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  Speaker 2: here's the distinction that you need to understand. Smith acknowledgement
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  Speaker 2: confirms that investigators obtain financial information. That is important because
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  Speaker 2: you have a guy that says, well, there was the
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  Speaker 2: existence of a criminal investigation and therefore it automatically justifies
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  Speaker 2: every request for information. No, it doesn't. And that's why
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  Speaker 2: Grassley's question matters now more than ever. Because how do
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  Speaker 2: you get a 2020 investigation that goes to Donald Trump
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  Speaker 2: that somehow goes all the way back to 2005 donor
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  Speaker 2: information a decade before Donald Trump even announced he was
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  Speaker 2: running for president when he was a Democrat? That doesn't
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  Speaker 2: make any sense. Why were they obtaining donor databases, entire
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  Speaker 2: databases that contain information about people like you and I
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  Speaker 2: with no apparent connection to to the alleged offense or
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  Speaker 2: crime they claimed that they were investigating. That is why, like,
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  Speaker 2: these requests were clearly politically motivated. The Justice Department, by
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  Speaker 2: the way, did not take steps to protect information belonging
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  Speaker 2: to people who were not suspects. Because the 600 plus
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  Speaker 2: thousand people that they got this information on Like, if
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  Speaker 2: you gave a political donation in 05, you clearly were
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  Speaker 2: not a suspect. Or 06, or 07, or 08, or 09,
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  Speaker 2: or 10, or 11, or 12, or 13, or 14,
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  Speaker 2: or 15, for that matter, or 16, or 17, because
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  Speaker 2: this was supposed to be at about the overturning of
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  Speaker 2: election in 2020. So why would they need my information
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  Speaker 2: or your information if you bought a MAGA hat in
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  Speaker 2: 2015 or 16 or 17 or 18 or 19, unless
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  Speaker 2: you were making a political enemies list? That is the
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  Speaker 2: question that you should be asking right now. And this
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  Speaker 2: is a question that not only raises serious privacy questions,
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  Speaker 2: but Americans deserve to know what happened with this information
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  Speaker 2: after they got it. Now, I want to go back
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  Speaker 2: to the campaign merchandise for a second. Why is buying
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  Speaker 2: a MAGA hat putting me on an FBI list? Let
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  Speaker 2: me go back to the campaign merchandise real quick. I
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  Speaker 2: think this is one of the details that will really
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  Speaker 2: resonate with so many Americans. You buying a MAGA hat,
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  Speaker 2: you order online, you pay for it, you wear it
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  Speaker 2: to a rally, and that should be, right, in theory,
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  Speaker 2: the end of the story. You're not involved in any
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  Speaker 2: alleged criminal conspiracy. You're not coordinating with political operatives. You're
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  Speaker 2: not accused of breaking the law. You're simply supporting a
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  Speaker 2: presidential candidate and a former president. Yet information about campaign
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  Speaker 2: merchandise purchasers was included in the records obtained by the
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  Speaker 2: investigators of the DOJ and the FBI.
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  Speaker 3: Why?
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  Speaker 2: Grassley's committee identified merchandise purchase information in the subpoena returns.
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  Speaker 2: And that leads us to a very basic question. What
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  Speaker 2: connection did these purchases have to the alleged crimes being investigated? That,
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  Speaker 2: by the way, we now know were bogus, which was
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  Speaker 2: Donald Trump tried to overthrow the, you know, and steal
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  Speaker 2: an election.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Like that. That's what they were claiming they were investigating.
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  Speaker 2: So how is how is it that if you bought
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  Speaker 2: a hat, how is it that me buying that hat
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  Speaker 2: put me on a list? This sinks to high heavens, folks.
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  Speaker 2: High heavens.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: listening to this podcast right now. And for more in-depth news,
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson Podcast, and we will
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: see you back here tomorrow.