sanders each doing their version of the fox trot on the ridiculi ridiculist. >> thank you. i am chris cuomo and welcome to prime time. there's a wild story breaking on our watchful take look at the internet. put in patrick burn overstock.com. everyone is talking about it. don't do it now. keep watching. we're trying very much to get mr. burn ready to be in position at a studio to tell you this story. the ceo of overstock. he just resigned today. and he says the reason towed was he didn't want to get the company involved with certain government mat herters that he' been involved with. like what? he said he was involved with a russian spy named maria butina. she had a romantic affair but then government came in and asked him to be involved in that and all the other operations involved in the election that is

one of the wildest stories i've ever heard. i was just on the phone with him and he said you have heard nothing. remember, this isn't some fringe guy. he does have a website i want to ask him about. but he ran one of the most known coils in this country. we have to hear this story. we're reaching out for response. we haven't heard anything yet. we also have a 2020 alert. more republicans may be joining operation primary trump as the drum beat grows louder to find someone better. is that better? anthony scaramucci is on a mission of his own to get his old boss out. i haven't talked to him since his big switch on television. what is this about? what does he really think is possible? is it worth with it the beatdown he's getting from people who used to be his friends? this is going to be an interesting night. let's get after it. all right. while i'm waiting on patrick

burn, i'll going to bring in anthony scaramucci. a growing number of republicans have said they've had it. this is about republicans of conscience. they're saying that he has to primary. we heard about the former massachusetts governor bill weld. he's formally announced his candidacy. but today kind of a fire breather, joe walsh, now best known on the radio, he expressed serious consideration for a run and also, mark sanford is also still signaling interest. with a tweet, at least, about an upcoming trip to iowa. how real is that? let's bring in one of manager's newest never trumpers. he said he was wrong to support the president and now wants to make it right. good to see you, anthony scaramucci. >> i'm not actually a never trumper but that's fine. look at the situation, and i would just tell your viewers, if you were on the board of a

company and you had a ceo acting this erratic, and literally in a gigantic meltdown like i was describing to john berman, like a chernobyl situation, you would have to replace that ceo. he is running the free world and he's the leader of the greatest -- >> you know what you guys say, you used to say this to me and now his new defenders say it. >> i'm not a never trumper. >> i say never trumper because you say you don't want him in there anymore. you want somebody else. forget about the label. >> got to get rid of the guy. >> just say no. you don't have to get rid of him. what you used to say is this. he's just joking! he's living in your head rent-free. he's messing with you. he talks in a way that you guys can't handle. but he's about results and you want to attack his style and all the while he's doing everything he says and you crazy people who can't handle his frank know. you get all upset. snow flakes.

>> i mean, i must be living in the twilight zone because you're taking other side of this. let me stay following. it's not about that. he has gone past the bounds of normalcy on so many different things. but the number one thing and the breaking point for me it was full-on racism. i know, i'm not going to use that to debate whether or not he's racist, when you're sending out the racist tweets and then you're buying on and you're standing there in el paso with your finger up in the air in that detached way, it is a sign he's gone full blown crazy. as a responsible citizen in the united states, you cannot look at all that stuff and say it's okay. moreover, we both know people inside the building that are whispering to each other that okay, those guys are right. are they going to come for our help? it's like a hostage crisis inside the building. they absolutely hate the guy's guts. but they're scared out of their minds. look what did he to me and my wife this week. he's heighting me and my wife up on his 150 million twitter

social media accounts. i'm a private citizen. he may not have early stage dementia but he has early stage fash i. he's going after private citizens with the power of the presidency. >> i'm well aware. does it make it worth it to you -- you're getting a little taste of what the rest us have to deal with. look. he has a lot of power. when he tells his people you're crazy and you need to be attacked -- >> it doesn't feel good. okay. >> chris, you and i are wired pretty similarly. we grew up in the same neighborhood, observely and we're wired the same way. i'm very resilient guy. that's nonsense to me. it washes right over me. at the end of the day, i rein effect back all that stuff. i don't absorb any of that stuff. people want to be dishonest on behalf of the president and they want to twist themselves into a pretzel and they want to lose

their entire personal integrity and their high of's personal history to try explain what he's doing i couldn't defend the racist tweets on bill mahr that night. so the very next night, he's coming after me and my family. this guy is a full blown demagogue that needs blind obeyance. once he gets hit a couple times, because he's a paper tiger bully, he just starts on unravel like a complete basket case. this week we're the chosen one, the king of the juice, we're going on stop a state visit to denmark with one of our allies over some dispute over greenland. >> i'm well aware. now they're selling t-shirts that has greenhand as part of the united states. >> it's crazy. >> but leaves out puerto rico as a u.s. territory. that's okay. people are calling you, anthony. we both know it. saying, anthony, what are you doing? this is our guy. you don't want a democrat in

there. what about the tax cuts? the muscular foreign policy? sure his style is off will sure we don't like him. you need to keep him. be quiet. >> okay, first, i'm an entrepreneur. what entrepreneurs try to do is curve the reality in the universe toward something they see in the future. george herbert walker bush had a 91% approval rating coming out of the iraq war. lost the election in 1992. this guy is going to lose. he has a 62% disapproval rating according to ap. and the whole thing is fracturing on him. >> who will beat him? >> like a greenwich. once the water hits him -- well, let's go into the early fall of i don't think anybody is going to make significant announcements right now. maybe joe walsh will make an announcement prior to labor day. >> you think walsh has a chance of primarying donald trump? >> i think joe walsh has a chance to be eugene mccarthy, circa 1968, and break the door

down of the nonsense. and do i 46th president will dematerialize from the office by march of 2020. >> really! >> there is no way he'll stand for re-election when his approval rating, watch it go into the low 30s, high 20s. and when that takes place -- >> why would that happen? >> by the way -- >> why would that happen no matter what he says? >> well, no, no, go look at the ap number. 62% of the country disapproves of him. but he is rock steady in some ways but he's stuck at 42% on the real clear politics approval rating. we can debate all that. here's the bottom line. a couple of patriotic americans will come forward. not excabinet members or things like that. some people of standing inside the administration, up on capitol hill, are going to say, hey, it's time to pull this guy. this is complete and total nonsense. when that happens, i predict

that the approval rating will drop. even the people in his base will want to win in 2020. so the way to win in 2020 for the republicans is to pick a normal person that abides to many of the president's policies. the country is not ready for socialism i certainly don't want that. i'm a republican even though i'm being ostracized right now by the chair women of the national republican party who i happen to be and was a donor. to so i find that sort of ironic. we've turned the whole thing into a personality cult. here's what had happen. like minded citizens that are patriots will come forward. we'll arrest particular hate what is actually going on. why he's acting this way. why he's dissembling in the public. and hopefully, there will be a few people inside that say, you know what? it's totally true. i predict his approval ratings will crash and he'll likely leave the race because a narcissist like that is not going to want to subject themselves to a humiliating

defeat coming in 2020. >> all right. >> and by the way, chris, we've known each other a long time of the i may be a terrible communications director but i'm a very organized entrepreneur. watch me start this up over the next three months. >> i don't think you were a terrible communications director. i think in retrospect you were saying things to him and the media. we'll see what happens. we'll see how good you are as nostredomus. thank you for racing out there to make this interview. stick around and listen to patrick byrne. he's made it to the studio. this is the former overstock.com ceo. now it's just overstock. there he is. when we come back, he has a story to tell you the likes of which i have never heard. stay with us. ♪ (music plays throughout)

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why are you here? why are either of you here?! hotels.com. be there. do that. get rewarded. stop struggling to clean tough messes with sprays. try new clean freak! it has three times the cleaning power to dissolve kitchen grease on contact. it works great on bathtubs. and even stainless steel. try new clean freak from mr. clean. look, i don't say i've never heard anything like this very often but i've never heard anything like this. the ceo of overstock. we know this company. the latest market cap is like $745 million and that's after it had a couple of rough years here. he resigned today. emit is not about the business. we'll talk to him about all this. he's waiting, standing by right now. he said he didn't want to get the company tangled up with

certain government matters. like what? what is he involved in? he said he had a romantic relationship with the accused russian agent maria butina. you've heard that name. you've seen her face a million times. he said he wasn't just involved with her and someone had to tell him about it. he said the government knew and that the government was encouraging him in ways that he was not even comfortable with. and that it reached into the election. and that he knows things about what was done by our government regarding hillary clinton and our president. now what does the u.s. government say? a u.s. official tells cnn that mr. byrne did share information with them concerning the early days of the russia investigation in a meeting earlier this year officials there. they found aspects of the story to be believable. why? because he shared operational details that were not widely known. we haven't heard from the fbi. we're reaching out to them. the doj didn't want to say

anything but we're reaching out. patrick byrne is not a righty fringe player. he ran a real company and he's known in this country. just so you get an idea of who patrick is, dartmouth, cambridge, stanford. i did one of the first stories about overstock.com back in the '90s. people said you'll never sell this stuff online. did he a dutch auction. he was known as a renegade and become a wild successf. you told your story on fox news earlier. i heard a little bit but nothing like what you're saying here. one of the main things of pushback coming back, not from your company. the company put up a statement saying we respect and you thank you for your work and we wish well going forward. you have a website, and people are saying, he's got a website. filled with conspiracy theories. that's what this is about. respond to that and let's hear your story. >> in 2008, the web logs,

internet award winner for the best business blog in america was deep capture.com. it also won the x marks award internet poll for the best blog on corruption in the united states. we're internet polls. it was for the reporting that deep capture did on the 2008 financial crisis. so are we really at the point -- this is silly. this is a distraction. let me give you the main event. i didn't know if you remembered me 20 years later. i always remembered it fondly. in 2015, '16, i took some requests from the fbi. and it is the only time i'm going to say that. it is men in black. they're not the bad guys here. you'll understand. they're not the problem here. they passed a request to me from someone up above to do some stuff, 2015, 2016. i never know who it was. last summer, watching

television, watching congress rip apart some people, i put some details together and i figured out who sent me the request. the man's name was peter strzok. >> how do you know that? >> it has already been confirmed it came from peter strzok. >> by whom? >> federal authorities. >> we haven't heard anything about that. >> chris, i'm not in the kindergarten business. that's not the business. i'm not in the convincing business. i'll in the business of warren buffett told me, i have to come forward. he said you let the feds do their work. you have to come forward with what you know with the american people. i'm not in the convincing business. i will do everyone a favor, open the door and let you know what happened business if you want. i will be happy to do that. >> go ahead. what did they want you to do? >> the main event is this. first of all, your guy, somebody had it wrong here. it isn't that i was dating maria

but the e ina. let me give you the main event. i was involved in helping them in that period what i thought was law enforcement. and it turned out to be political espionage conducted against hillary clinton, minor marco rubio and ted cruz, major, donald trump. primarily political espionage against hillary clinton, donald trump. this isn't a theory of mine. i was in the room when it happened. i was part of it. >> why you and what did they want you to do? what was the political espionage? >> i helped them two times in the past. once a friend of mine got murdered. a basketball player, my closest friend named brian williams. if you google his name and my name on "sports illustrated," you'll find a story about this and it mentions in a way how i helped bring the murderer to justice. also, you probably know about on that fight. i was a one-man occupy wall

street. 05 to 08. >> i remember. >> that work i did ended up triggering a federal investigation that put 200 indictments and about 100 people went to prison. the last i heard from them, they actually told me. you're going to see hand cuffs coming out this week and you'll live the rest of your life knowing that everyone arrested knows. they arrested a guy. >> what did they want you to do this time? >> well, i met maria butina. have you seen, there is a video that has gotten played a lot of maria butina, at some kind of conference asking donald trump -- >> keep talking. we'll play the video for people. >> when you look that up, you will see i was a speaker at that conference. when you do the research. what you'll final, a few days earlier. maria butina came up to me after my speech first to talk to me

about guns. she was part of a group of people waiting for autographs. she told me about some gun rights group. i'm not into guns. i'm a small l libertarian, small r. i used to be hillary clinton's biggest donor 15 years ago of i brushed her off. i'm going into too much detail. she came back a second time and she said i have a mention for from you russia. there is a group of people who know about you in russia and they're liberals. we talk about liberalism. we know about your relationship with milton freeman. >> the economist. >> we talk about you. you have videos on youtube about liberalism. we watch them. and i'm here to invite you to come to russia to speak at the central bank, to speak on bitcoin, but then i'm going to take you to the resort. it will be shut down for three days. there will be 45 people from across the russian power structure. liberals, believe it or not, they're liberals and they want

you to come in and talk about -- i reported on a security clearance at the time. a very low level security clearance. when you get -- like a million americans do. i do some minor work on foreign policy. i used to, phoenix years a15 ye. when you do that, you sign a piece of paper per says when a bombshell comes up -- >> so you went to the government. what did they say? >> the next thing i heard was from the fbi. and it was from some people i had not heard from in years. i'm really going into way too much detail to get through the story. the main event is, they encouraged me. they gave may green light to build a relationship, i thought on the grounds that i might be able to yenta her in to some senior people in foreign policy who have an interest in talking to her. >> so they made you a source, so people can follow the story.

>> well, i'm not a source. it has been emphasized to me. i'm not a source. i'm not a confidential informant. i have a nonstandard relationship with the government. it was nonstandard. >> but they wanted you to talk to her. they wanted you to engage. >> they wanted me to engage. so i did. it took a couple months to get cheer on that. once it was cheer, they gave me a green light and that was the word i went and engaged and it immediately turned romantic as these things. do it was always clear. she's on her way or was on her way to be president of russia. she's a super talented girl. >> maria butina will be president of russia? >> she was being grouped for it. maria butina as she explained to me once, she said patrick, there are 50 oligarchs who run russia but seven who really run russia. four of them, i'm on close terms with four of them. i am being grouped to be

president. the gun rights group that was started by mikhail kalashnikov, he was an 86-year-old man and he picked this 23-year-old girl. >> the man the weapon is named after. let's do this. i want the audience to hear how this winds up and how you got to needing to resign. >> we're not even into the story yet. >> i have to take a break. i'm not telling to you leave. i'm saying let me take a break and then i want to keep going. fair enough? >> all right. >> stay with us. i told you it was story the likes of which you've never heard before. we'll be right back. morning. what are you doing? isn't it obvious? nah. we're delivering live market coverage and offering expert analysis completely free. we're helping you make sense of the markets without cable or a subscription from anywhere you are. i get that.

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we are talking with patrick byrne who just resigned as overstock ceo in part because he revealed that he was involved with certain government matters, including an association or a romance with accused russian agent maria butina and he didn't want to get the company involved with that. he's joining us to tell the story. as you might imagine, patrick, and i'm sure you're hearing yourself. a lot of people who know from you overstock are saying, is he all right? what's going on with this story? what reassurance do you give people that you're saying -- >> i'm not in the reassurance

business. if you like, i will tell you the true back story on the russia and clinton investigations. happy to do that. i'm not in the convincing business. would you like to hear what happened? >> just to let the audience know where we left off before the break. maria butina came up. she wanted to you come to russia to speak. you went to the federal government to tell them a russian suspicious person was telling you. this then keep it going. all true? >> all true. and here's the main event. from september through, of 2015 through march of 2016, i saw her. i'm a 56-year-old bachelor. i said, let's every six weeks, we'll meet somewhere. you fick place. i thought it was two-thirds opportunity. this girl wanted to be a back channel for peace. she knew good liberals in russia. and she wanted -- two-thirds opportunity, one-third risk. because she was talking about smoozing with politicians. and she told me this guy had assigned her, whether hillary, cruz, rubio or trump won, she

was to have a contact in that administration. don't bother with bernie. she decided he couldn't win. that kind of talk bothered me. and i was reporting it. and they kept on dismissing it. i thought that was odd. and it reached the point where eventually she's smoozing, she's, she very quickly checked off. she did meet someone in hillary's circle and she checked that off. she didn't want to deal with them anymore. she's like a freedman type. more sympathetic with republicans. anyway, once it was clear she was only going to be swanking around with republicans, they went completely hands off. even to the point that i said wait a second. at one point i learned in several weeks, she is going to some convention in the south. i thought it was tennessee and the conservative convention. don jr. will come, be taken on a sunday afternoon at 2:00 out the back of his hotel. taken up this road and driven up the road to her hotel. spend 60 minutes with her.

bla bla bla. >> you don't think that ever happened. >> it never -- well, wait a second. the main event was, i was like, what do we do? take her away for the weekend? and they said let it all happen. i said you've got to be kidding. they said let it all happen. it became very clear to me by about january 2016, at least the hypothesis was forming, that the behavior was so strange. it's like -- >> by they you're saying people in the fbi. you don't have to tell me who they are but huge they are. >> yeah. men in black. and it was so strange that i was thinking, it's almost like they're letting this can o'scandal develop. and someday they'll shake it up and crack and it spread it all over the republican party. and i thought, there is no way the fbi would do that. there's no way president obama would do that. i like president obama. i think he's a fine man. he's a class act. anyway, i thought there's no way. that continued.

she in february or march of 2016 -- that i had hypothesis by december 2015. are they letting this happen so someday they'll pull the pin and there is some explosion of russian scandal? i thought, that couldn't possibly be. >> just to be clear, so people understand what's going on here, the fbi wanted to you continue your association to get information. they never told you you needed to have reman particular relationship with somebody. >> eventually, yes, they did. >> they told you that you had to have a romantic relationship? >> that's what i'm getting to. wasn't them of it is x, y and z. i'll tell you who they are. if march she invited no russia again. give a speech in st. petersburg on blockchain. how it will change poverty. and then putin was going to come and i would have 60 minutes with putin. they told me to break up with her and they had something else for me to do. that something else involved corruption with a federal official. i help them on that matter.

and that also ended -- i thought it was strange they told me not to go to russia. and then they helped me, they had me help them with something -- >> you know you're going to have to put names to who these people are in the federal government. >> well, hillary clinton. >> no, no. i'm saying, in terms of who you were dealing with on the fbi side. at some point, patrick, you're going to have to give names to reinforce the credibility of the story because it's pretty wild. >> yeah. you haven't even heard wild yet. when the corruption investigation was done, i was told by federal agents, well, i don't want to get into -- it became clear. it seemed to me more about blackmail than it was about law enforcement. it was more about blackmail. and then hillary clinton, and then when was when that was done, about three months later in july, july 1st or so, they came back to me and said, boy, what a mistake we made. russia, you're right. there is this russia, russia,

russia. this gal maria. oh, my gosh. highest national priority. and they said the very honorable men and women, the men in black, they said we want to be clear. this never happens in the united states. we're the good guys. we don't work like the bad guys. but we need to ask to you rekindle a romantic relationship with maria butina. >> members, that you're sure were members of the fbi, asked you to do this. and you know their names. >> and i know their names. and they said these orders are coming from the personal, this is being personally supervised by y and it is being personally -- at the request of x, and then would months later they said mr. z has aed his name. >> you've given them an nix now but i heard you say on fox, if you go put a camera on jim comey's name and say the name patrick byrne, you won't like the reaction you get. >> that's the z. that's mr. z. >> so you believe jim comey knew that you were being asked to do

these things in the nail of the united states government. >> not only knew. i was specifically told, this request is coming from jim comey at the request of somebody. who i'm not going to name. do not assume it is the president. do not assume -- it was president obama. do not assume that. that came out -- absolutely. this is all the stuff. >> and you have their names. >> oh, yeah. this is the kindergarten style. >> when they respond they're going to say, we like patrick byrne. he was good in business but this story is 100%. >> they're not going to do. that i promise you. they're going to no comment. they will not come out and deny this. >> if they come out and deny this -- >> do you have anything in writing? >> this is the silly part. >> not that silly. this story is so wild. >> chris -- >> you have to have some proof. >> i'm light years beyond all the world you're talking about.

this is all fed into the doj on april 5 and april 30th. nine days later, on may 9th, they moved maria butina from an isolation cell in a unit in virginia to the nicest women's camp in the federal system. and -- >> how do you know? >> and on may 14, john durham was appointed. may 13th. so two weeks after i went in. >> how do you know -- >> her, well, her lawyer. >> a shu is a special housing unit. a different time of housing they have available for certain inmates. >> in some countries, solitary confinement more than three months is considered torture. they had, they sentenced her to 18 months in solitary could not finement for ten months until i been in and spoke up. >> are you sympathetic to maria? you had you said it was a romantic relationship. do you have feelings for her? >> i'm very fond of her.

>> do you think she's a spy? >> maria needs to go home to russia and be the next -- the best thing that could happen to russia and the united states is if maria butina gets out and goes home and is a national hero. >> why would that be good for us if the government believes someone who is a russian spy goes home and is a hero? >> chris. you know, the it was said that names are the guests of reality. you put a word like spy -- this girl knows. these are deep questions and we won't get into the sound bites. >> i'm giving you a ton of time here because i want the context. but spy -- >> okay. >> spy can be pejorative but would it apply if she was working for the russian government. >> the government does not -- our government does not along she was a spy. it says she was an agent of influence. as the prosecutor said when he

stood up in court and argued why she had to be sentenced to five years or whatever, that these meetings may have seemed innocuous. yes, she met somebody. she put on it facebook. but an agent of influence can do grave dang to national security. they knew about maria butina the day she landed in the united states and they knew about every meeting she had with people like don jr. before she had them from me. the government knew about every one of those meetings before they happened. and then they put her in a box the size of your shower stall for ten months, saying, these meetings did great national damage. >> but just to be cheer. in the interests of fairness because you said don jr.'s nail, there is no allegation that has ever been put on him that he was working with her in any way that was untoward. if anything she took pictures with people but they didn't know who they are taking pictures for. >> xakt exactly. she did have a private dinner

with don jr. and incidentally a kentucky nra convention which sounds a lot like my memory of her telling me she was going on tennessee for some sort of conservative convention to meet don jr. the government knew all about that months before it happen. >> i'm just being fair to don jr. there is no suggestion as far as you know that he did anything wrong. her trying to get close to the president's son is one thing. him even knowing about it would be something else. and you don't know any proof of that and we're not suggesting otherwise. >> and i don't think did he. i think she was going around doing this stuff. >> she was looking for opportunity. >> yeah. and they let it all happen. 100%. >> they being the u.s. government. when you went to the doj, they gave us a statement saying, some of what he says has credibility to it because you knew certain things about operations that were not public. what have they done since you went in and debriefed them? what has the fbi done to you?

>> well, this is a massive, it is massively problematic. >> why did you do it? >> because i'm looking at my country go nuts for the last three years. and if you don't mind me saying, cnn, fox, nbc, you're all chasing each other's tails. no fault of your own. you're legitimate journalists and anderson is a good friend of a friend. i have lots of respect for you folks. i'm watching my country rip itself apart for three years. i'm watching people drive 600 miles to shoot 20 strangers in a mall. and every time this happens, i can't live with myself. it is harder and harder. and especially since last july, i figured out how, enough of the missing pieces came out. i put together with mine and i figured out that this was all political espionage. it has been very tough. finally in june i went to see buffett. buffett is like my rabbi.

i've known him since i was 13 and he was 45. >> i remember you telling me about him when you were starting overstock.com. >> and he's been a great adviser and friend and he is a wonderful teacher and man. and i finally went to see him june 20th and i walked through the story. and he said patrick, he thought for about ten seconds. he said you are coming forward to the public. and i said i've gone to the feds. they'll be digging through. this they'll be furious. he said you let feds do their job. you're a citizen. this country is ripping itself apart. you have to come forward i gave him 20 minutes of counter arguments. i said my lawyer's head will explode. he said what else have you got? your country, it's never been like this in my life. the country is ripping itself apart. you're coming forward right now. so i have. fbi is silent. the fbi is. >> reporter: honorable guys. i'm sorry that it came to this.

it was all hijacked from the top whathijacked from the top? what does that mean? >> by x, y and z. >> you know you're going to have to provide names of people that you met with because you know, either you're telling a wild story or a story that's wild and true. >> i'm highly confident that bill barr, the department of justice, will be providing those names on an indictment someday in the not too distant -- >> you gave the doj the names of the fbi? people you met with? >> and i'm not the only whistle blower coming forward. hillary clinton's supporters in hollywood were spied on. i'm that the only person coming forward. >> it sounds crazy. i have to till. i don't mean to use the word insensitive to the mentally ill. it is so unusual. i've never heard anything like this, patrick. and i've been doing this a long time. >> it was weaponized. i was in the middle of it.

our law enforcement was weaponized. i'll sorry. i like president obama very much. i did not vote for donald trump. our national security state was weaponized. i was in the center of it. those three names are known to the government and this is, it happen. so it happened. and i had to get, i was told, i'll tell you. this i was told last october. if i come forward. this was by a friend. i'll be, the forces of washington will grind me into a dust. those were the words said. and they're right. the entirety of washington will come down on my head which is why i had to leave overstock. >> are you willing to testify under oath to all this? >> of course, of course. >> this is heavy. these are heavy allegations. that the fbi wanted you to have any kind of relationship, let alone a romantic one with someone they believed was a russian political operative. >> well, yeah. and normally that's an illegal order.

or instruction. and i want to be clear that the men in black were very, they were not leering. we've never heard of this in our career. the united states doesn't do this. we're not the bad guys. but this request is coming from x and y and z. >> we're going to do our damneddest to track all this down. you said you're going on provide the names. they didn't say you gave them identities of anybody in the statement. they said you had certain operational knowledge that wouldn't have been public. so we will continue to do our work. the channels are open with you. i want the truth to come out and i appreciate you telling your side of the story here tonight. >> thank you, chris. it's been an honor. i'll lay low. best luck to everybody. there's good news here for both republicans and democrats. the republcans are wrong. the democrats didn't just dream up this russian investigation.

the fbi did. they had me jumping up and down and saying there's a problem here and looking at i. i thought i was going to be talking someday explaining, why didn't they look into it? they're wrong. the republicans are wrong to say that this was fabricated. what they're right about though is that it was being politicized. so anyway, i'm sorry. i'm going to lay low. best luck to you. very honorable for you to have me on. >> i'm not telling you to do a media tour but you know you're going to have to cooperate with authorities. you know people will want to vet this information and you know you can trust that we'll do the job responsibly and i'll check back. but we have each other's numbers. i'll let you know what i find out. >> take care. >> patrick byrne. just resigned as head of overstock and now you know. why i told you. i've never heard a story like it. is it true? is it not? he says it's true. he says he'll do it under oath. let. let's bring in someone who is a

former special agent. she helps me out on the show all the time. let's take a break, come back and figure out where it takes us.

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all right. let's bring in former fbi special agent asha rangappa. she heard the whole interview with patrick byrne. and asha, just for me to remind some people what's been going on on the show tonight, patrick byrne isn't some inn foe wars,

you know, extreme right-wing fringe lunatic. we wouldn't have him on the show. i wouldn't entertain anything bizarre like that. i know patrick byrne. i worked reporting on him when he started stock.com. i followed him over the years. his business had some trouble. it has also received accolades in the past. and his story is very simple on one level. if he had contacts with the fbi that involved butina, the alleged russian spy, indicted russian spy, a prosecuted russian spy, then those names exist, and if he wants to do his x, y, z thing right now, he can, but he says jim comey knew about it. he says he offered those names to the doj. they haven't said it. asha rangappa made a good point to me in the break. she said, you know, he wasn't in the indictment and not even under the mask of some source or anything like that. he says he had a nonstandard

agreement with them. i get why you would be suspect about the story. so am i. but patrick byrne is not just some infowars guy, okay? he was a very legit business person of high success, overstock still has a market cap of two terrible years of $745 million. okay? this is an influential person in our country. he just resigned over this, he says. so with all that, asha, either it's true or it isn't. that's always true. it's a binary reality. but he either has the names and they check out as people who were or are work with the fbi who confirm it or not. fair point? >> yeah. so what i can tell you, chris, is what i know about how fbi assets work in the counterintelligence division. and this would have been a counterintelligence asset. what he said that jumped out at me is that maria butina approached him and said that she had contacts in high levels of

the government. that she might even be the next president of russia. and that he had a close relationship with her. so what the fbi does when they suspect a foreign agent operating in the united states is if they know people who have access to her, and in this case he went -- >> he says he went to them. >> correct. he went on his own to the fbi. so they would of course say, well, get us what information you can. >> right. >> and so that to me seems completely normal. now, typically what would happen is that you would have two agents who would be communicating with an asset and they would be documenting every interaction, every debriefing in a highly confidential case file, which would likely be only accessible by someone higher up. and so all of this would be documented. if you were, you know, if there were some oversight -- >> if there is proof, it should

exist. >> it should exist. there is no nonstandard agreement. that part, to me, did not add up. you know, everything you do in the fbi is kind of under the assumption that it can be uncovered and will be -- >> the idea of having someone have a romantic affair, you're saying no way? >> look, if he had a romantic affair with her on his own, and was providing information to them, i don't know that that would necessarily be out of the bounds. >> he says they asked him to do it. >> that to me seems incredibly suspect only because there is a lot of legal liability that's involved with that. you can imagine the he said/she said situations -- >> i actually can't imagine. i can't imagine anything like this. i've never heard of anything like this ever. and if it weren't patrick byrne, i wasn't entertain it. but we both know who he is. he was the ceo of a very legit. even if you look at his website,

you'll say there is some stuff that is a little farfetched, but there is a lot that isn't. he's a respected, intelligent guy. his company has had a couple of downs years. that under some type of stress or not well. he's always sounded the way he does now -- >> well, chris, here's the psa -- here's the public service announcement i would have to your viewers, if you're a middle aged or older man who gets approached by a 23-year-old who says she has high-level contacts within the russian government and may be the next president of russia, this is not going to go well for you. >> well, look, butina is a real situation. >> she is a real situation, and so -- >> she was working lots of different people. so butina is real. >> and she can make sense -- >> it's whether or not what patrick said about his interaction was real. >> she can expect because she was both stating she was basically an agent of a foreign power and a foreign national, you know, i would expect that

the fbi would have been monitoring her communications. >> well, they didn't go after him. >> of course not. i don't think he did anything illegal. i don't think he did anything illegal. he would have been a source of information. >> listen, let's leave it there. i don't want to get too deep into it. again, it's a man who has a very legit role in our society. he was ceo of a big-time company. he's not some infowars fringy guy, otherwise we wouldn't entertain it. and look, this is a simple one, either the fbi comes out and says, look, god bless patrick byrne, but none of this ever happened, you know, or there is going to be something else. so, asha, thank you for helping us unpack the possibilities. i told you it's a story the likes of which i've never heard, especially from someone like patrick byrne. we're going to be talking about it with d. lemon next. sure. sometimes i wish i had legs like you. yeah, like a regular person. no. still half bike/half man, just the opposite.

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astrazeneca may be able to help. during the model year clearance sale. save up to $2500 on remaining 2019 tracker and sun tracker boats. save up to $3500 on tahoe; up to $4500 on regency; and save up to $5000 on remaining nitro boats. plus bonus factory cash on select models and thousands more in savings compared to 2020 models. hurry to bass pro shops,cabela's, and tracker boating centers nationwide. let's bring in d. lemon. i know you were listening to that. i saw patrick byrne on fox today. i had read -- >> i saw it, too. >> -- last week or earlier in the week about what he disclosed. the doj said he did seem to know some operational things, but he didn't say he gave them the identities. he said he gave them the names of the fbi people he was involved with.

look, either he has proof that he had a relationship with her and he's got proof -- because he wasn't ever obviously prosecuted by the government for his involvement and he wasn't mentioned in her indictment. either he has the names or you got to feel bad for patrick byrne because as great as he rose to the society, something's off with him now. >> what did her people say? her tone said, well, he's making some claims that are worth investigating. i'm paraphrasing her. >> they're desperate to do anything to help her situation. >> exactly. >> she's got real trouble. like you, i read the story earlier with a healthy degree of skepticism, like i read everything nowadays, with a healthy degree of skepticism. we're establishing in unprecedented times. you don't know. i saw the interview earlier tonight as i was preparing for the show, as i'm sure you did and then you jumped on calling him. listen, it's interesting because speaking for the people at