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Joe Rogan Experience #2245 - Rod Blagojevich

This episode is brought to you by The Farmer's Dog. Get 50% off your first box by heading to http://thefarmersdog.com/rogan today! Rod Blagojevich is a former Illinois governor, removed from office in 2009 and imprisoned for corruption in 2012. Following his sentence commutation by President Donald Trump in 2020, Blagojevich has worked as an author, speaker, and political commentator. https://x.com/realBlagojevich

Rod BlagojevichguestJoe Roganhost
Dec 18, 20242h 47mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 15:00

    (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

    1. RB

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

    2. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) How are you, sir?

    3. RB

      I'm good. How are you?

    4. JR

      Very good to meet you, man.

    5. RB

      Nice to meet you.

    6. JR

      I really enjoyed you on Tucker Carlson Show. Shout out to Tucker. Uh, it was a very eye-opening podcast. And, you know, uh, whenever someone is, uh, convicted of ... (deep breath) You know, any, any political figure, any person of power that's, uh, convicted of corruption, you automatically assume that they're guilty. And after listening to you on Tucker's show, I was like, "Oh, Jesus." Like, it was such an eye-opening podcast and such a disappointing one too. It was so disturbing to hear your version of the story, which was so different than the version that was, you know, put out on the media and it was just, "Oh, corrupt politician goes to jail. Oh, he went to jail? He must be guilty."

    7. RB

      Mm-hmm.

    8. JR

      And then you hear your take on it and you're like, "Oh, God." It's very disturbing and, uh, I just wanted to show you this just before we get rolling.

    9. RB

      Hmm.

    10. JR

      Biden just released a bunch of people, multiple Chinese spies and an individual convicted of possessing child pornography. (laughs)

    11. RB

      (laughs)

    12. JR

      I think he's, he's released ... H- how many people has he, uh, pardoned to date?

    13. RB

      I saw a number of 1,500.

    14. JR

      He's going ham.

    15. RB

      Yeah.

    16. JR

      Everybody can get their ... Sign your checks, send them in, let's go. (laughs)

    17. RB

      (laughs)

    18. JR

      (sighs)

    19. RB

      Wow.

    20. JR

      Wow. Possession of child pornography-

    21. RB

      Yeah.

    22. JR

      ... should be like, you shouldn't be able to pardon for stuff like that. It's like there's certain things, it's like, come on.

    23. RB

      You know, I spent, uh, almost eight years in prison, for politics not for crimes, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have about any of it 'cause I didn't do it. It was all politics. But the first three years, almost three years, they put me in a higher security prison and I'm in there with, uh, Crips and Bloods and Gangster Disciples and Sinaloa Cartel drug dealers.

    24. JR

      Why would they do that? Wh-

    25. RB

      They were squeezing me and pressuring me 'cause they wanted me to basically say I did something that I didn't do. They wanted me to plead guilty to non-crimes.

    26. JR

      So, they wanted to scare you by putting in, you in with dangerous people?

    27. RB

      Yeah. And, uh, and to really punish me 'cause I fought back in a way that no one really does except for Trump. I mean, I was fighting back when they brought those charges against me everywhere and I was calling them criminals. And they are.

    28. JR

      What did they expect you to do? Did they expect you to just take a sentence, a lower sentence?

    29. RB

      Right.

    30. JR

      Confess?

  2. 15:00 – 30:00

    (laughs) I'm not gonna…

    1. RB

      DeGeneres did, I'm gonna move to England. (laughs)

    2. JR

      (laughs) I'm not gonna move to England.

    3. RB

      (laughs)

    4. JR

      I'm just gonna mock NBC.

    5. RB

      (laughs)

    6. JR

      So what does it say? "Yesterday, a tweet about the Golden Globes and Oprah Winfrey was sent by a third-party agency for NBC Entertainment in real time during the broadcast. It is in reference to a joke made during the monologue and not meant to be a political statement. We have since removed the tweet." Right. Okay.

    7. RB

      So anyway, so-

    8. JR

      (laughs)

    9. RB

      ... I'm, I'm at the first trial. They're playing these tapes and they had, they gave you these transpic- transcript books so you can see in writing what you can actually hear when they play the tape.

    10. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    11. RB

      And by then, I'd gotten used to trying to know what was coming so I could brace myself, you know? And, uh, you know, they pick all the unflattering stuff, but none of it's criminal, and if you add it, you put the rest of the cop- calls in there, it fills, it fills out the context.

    12. JR

      Of course.

    13. RB

      So in this one particular call, I asked my lawyer, Quinlan's his name, "Hey, Quinlan, what's the rule again on residency requirements? How old do you, how long do you have to live in Illinois to be a senator?" And he said, uh, "Just one day. And, and y- you gotta be 30 years old and you could be a s- you can be a naturalized citizen or American-born citizen." So I say, 'cause we were f- not finding the, the Black military hero, "Why doesn't somebody go to California, ask Halle Berry if she'd like to be a United States Senator? She comes to Illinois for one day, I'll make her a senator, and maybe I could fuck her." I'm joking around.

    14. JR

      Right.

    15. RB

      Well, they play this, you know, in court.

    16. JR

      Oh, boy.

    17. RB

      And there's my wife sitting right there, you know?

    18. JR

      Oh, boy.

    19. RB

      And I look ahead and I'm looking at the clock and there's, like, 10 minutes to go before noon when the judge is gonna recess for lunch, and I'm thinking, "If I could just get there before they play this tape, I could at least pre- you know, kind of prepare her for what's coming."

    20. JR

      Right.

    21. RB

      And, uh, I made it, and so I tap her on the knee and I kind of showed her the book and I said, "Look, I was just kidding." And her reaction was, "What are you, 16?" (laughs)

    22. JR

      (laughs) Well, that's the same thing as, like, the "grab them by the pussy" comment. It's like-

    23. RB

      Exactly.

    24. JR

      ... guys talk like that.

    25. RB

      That's right.

    26. JR

      It doesn't mean they mean it. Guys talk like that all the time for fun. It's not, you know, you could say it's misogynist, it's this, it's that. It's f- just shit talking. It's g- what guys do, and they know that the other person doesn't mean it, that's why it's funny to say.

    27. RB

      Yeah, and let's face it, most of us like that stuff.

    28. JR

      Yeah.

    29. RB

      Right?

    30. JR

      We like joking around about stuff like that.

  3. 30:00 – 45:00

    You're not allowed to…

    1. RB

      term-

    2. JR

      You're not allowed to call them pedophiles?

    3. RB

      Can't call them pedophiles and you can't call them chomos. That's the inside prison name for these guys. It's a t-

    4. JR

      Chomo?

    5. RB

      Chomo. So I'm there day two in prison. I got 14 years ahead of me. They gave me a 14-year sentence. I mean, Trump pulled me out of there after eight. And, uh, I'm in there second day. It's ... As you can imagine, I write about this in the book, I mean, it's a hard experience, a long hard journey. It's heartbreaking in so many ways for me and my family and hard. But, uh, y- you know, I'm learning the ropes.... and, you know, I got all my fellow inmates there. And, uh, I'm hearing this phrase, this term, it's called, you know, chumos, fucking chumo. You know, that guy, you know, he's a chumo. They'd say that. And I'd say, "What's that?" And they would ... They told me. And so I was with one of my, uh, the, uh, case manager or somebody. They were giving me more of the information I needed for the stuff I had to learn as a new inmate. And I mentioned, "So who are these choomos?" And she goes ... And she goes, "Huh! You can't say that. It's not chumo it's ..." and she whispered it, "It's chumo. But you can't say that. That's strictly forbidden here. If you say that, you'll go to the SHU." Now, as ... So, "What's that?" I have to ask her. Well, the SHU was a special housing unit, S-H-U. The c- the vernacular was SHU, solitary confinement, and the way they police the inmates and punish them to varying degrees is you get thrown in solitary confinement. So if you just say chumo, that'll land you in solitary confinement. (laughs)

    6. JR

      For how long?

    7. RB

      Uh, maybe a week. (laughs)

    8. JR

      Geez.

    9. RB

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      That is so ... How?

    11. RB

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      That's so crazy that they protect pedophiles.

    13. RB

      Yeah. Now, I, I, I'm, I don't want to sound like I'm a ... too liberal or something, but they have to 'cause if left to their own devices, these guys would get so fucked up by the general population-

    14. JR

      Right.

    15. RB

      ... who are outraged by their crimes and are also outraged by the fact that a lot of 'em, a lot of 'em got special treatment in their sentencing. So you see this guy that Biden just pardoned or gave clemency to, let's hope it was just clemency and not a pardon. My God. But these sex offenders are getting lighter sentences than the drug dealers-

    16. JR

      (sniffs)

    17. RB

      ... or the bank robbers. And if you look at a system of punishment that's supposed to be just and fair and hopefully always tempered with mercy, y- you'd like to think that there's equal, uh, application of the law and that there's some sort of fairness and that when you measure the victims of the certain crimes, that that should be a part of the sentencing. And so drug dealers would argue, a lot of it nonviolent and they're right.

    18. JR

      Yeah.

    19. RB

      Their stuff was nonviolent. These guys really harmed children. The ones that touched children, not the ones who just looked at, at the pornography.

    20. JR

      How did they justify you being in this high security prison? Like, why would they put you in with pedophiles and murderers and gangbangers? Why would they do that? Obviously to squeeze you, but how do they ... How do they ... How do they pass that through?

    21. RB

      You get ... Anybody who gets a sentence of over 10 years has to do time in ... You can't be in a camp. So ... And if any ... And there ... Certain people can't be in camps.

    22. JR

      (sniffs)

    23. RB

      For example, any kind of violent offender cannot be in a camp. Um, pedophiles cannot be in a camp. That's good. Uh, and camps don't have, you know, fences. There's not iron gates that lock you in. I mean, I went from a 50,000 square foot governor's mansion to a six-foot-by-eight-foot prison cell. I mean, it's real prison like in the movies. Those iron gates shut you in, you know, and you're restricted in your movements and you're with some badass guys, you know. I mean, they're interesting guys, and I met a lot of guys I really liked. But, uh, they did it because th- They purposely ga- gave me a sentence above 10 years to force me to go into a shithole prison and to try to not just squeeze me but to punish me, and the punishment was because I had the temerity to fight back. You know, who is this guy? He was only twice elected governor of the fifth-largest state to challenge us, and I fought back, and, uh, you know, frankly, the beauty of it is that had I not fought back the way I did, Trump would've never known me. Uh, he saw me on television fighting back. I mean, I fought back in ways that predated him, the way he does, and it wasn't by design. It was just I felt like, "Jesus, I didn't do anything wrong and they know it. This is politics and, you know, this is wrong, bad for our country. I can't give into this. And by the way, if I'm right, they are criminals. I have to fight back." And so I was on all these TV shows, everything, and Trump saw me in the David Letterman show I think, and, uh ... And by the way, when they do this to you and they arrest you like they did ... They arrested me at six o'clock in the morning in my house, and, uh, it m- ... It was a super sensational press conference. It was international news. Back then in December of 2008, there were two assholes in the w- ... The two biggest assholes in the world were me and Bernie Madoff 'cause they arrested him, like, a day or two after me. (laughs)

    24. JR

      (laughs)

    25. RB

      I remember this.

    26. JR

      Wow.

    27. RB

      And, uh, and it was ... You know, I, I just ... I had to fight back, and so I was. And ... But you can't make a living. You c- ... You have ... They, they threw me out of office, and you learn who your friends are in politics and not a single one of 'em. You know, they all ran for the hills to protect themselves. They all voted to throw you out, and, um ... Because the politics of it was, was bad at that time.

    28. JR

      Boy, that's a time where podcasts would've come in handy.

    29. RB

      Yes.

    30. JR

      Imagine you can go on a podcast and just lay out the whole case and exactly what's going on and even play tapes. It would-

  4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

    (laughs) …

    1. RB

      just not gated, and they're all over the place. And so they look into your house, so we had to keep the lights off. Kissed my wife goodbye and my two daughters. The hardest thing I've ever do- did was saying goodbye to them, but you gotta be strong for them and you can't, you can't show those assholes in the media that you're f- dying inside, so you gotta be strong when you step out. Still kinds of film footage of that, when I left. And there's a helicopter that follows me, news helicopter, from my house all the way to O'Hare Airport in Chicago, like I was O.J. Simpson in that white Bronco. I call it the chapter My White Bronco Moment.

    2. JR

      (laughs)

    3. RB

      And, uh, and then when I got on the ... at the airport, there was this big gaggle of media there. And then when I get on the plane, these motherfuckers were (laughs) on the plane. They bought tickets, so I can't even like, you know, get ... give it a second to think about what just happened, me saying goodbye to my family and I'll be gone for, worst case scenario, 14 years. But if I behave myself, it'll be 12 and a half years, right? Good behavior. And then I land in Denver, and they're there. And so I'm trying to leave the plane, they're all waiting there at the gate. And then they ... The people in Denver were really nice, uh, th- er- at, uh, the airline. I think it was United Airlines. And they got me out a side door and they, they had a car waiting, so I was able to leave, and for a moment I thought I was away from the media as I'm about to drive to prison. But no, they caught us. They got o- they caught up with us. And I got there a little bit early, the prison, so I told my lo- one of my lawyers who was driving me, "You know what? We're like a half an hour early. I'm already giving up 14 years, I don't wanna give them 30 minutes more. Let's stop for a cup of coffee or something." So we went to this little restaurant, a little fast food place called Freddy's, in Denver, the Denver area, Littleton, Colorado. And, uh, it was really surreal because, uh, you know, people knew who I was and they were really warm and loving. I'm signing autographs. You'd never know I'm about to go to prison for 14 years. And, and then the time came to, to walk in. And I learned later that Trump was watching this, 'cause it was all live on television. And, and he had tweeted about it that day. I mean, I, I got a million reasons why I love Donald Trump. I was so alone. Everybody of prominence in politics and government and in the media, w- you know, were, you know, w- were calling me all these nasty things. And here's Trump, the only guy with, who had like a f- some authority and had a following, was the only guy saying, like, positive things about me. They were compassionate. They didn't ... He wasn't necessarily saying ... He was saying that I denied it and I wasn't ... you know, I'm entitled to a, you know, presumption of innocence. But there was compassion with Trump, and he tweets that day. You know, I learned later ... I didn't know it then, but I learned when I came home that he tweeted that "I see him walking into prison. He gets 14 years. Murders and rapists get four years. Do you think this is justice? I don't." Just a loyal guy to a guy that was on his show, 'cause I don't really know him that well. But it's just a ... It just, to me, says a lot about who he is as a person. But then I walked in and I get greeted by all these inmates and I was a ... People asked, "Were you afraid?" I wasn't afraid of anything. Uh, you know, my life was so, you know, uh, beaten down by what they did, I was so disillusioned, I was angry, there was bitterness, but I was mostly heartbroken and sad and missing my children f- fearful of my children, my wife. They were left alone. I couldn't protect them. People knew where we lived. The media made sure that everybody saw where we lived, 'cause they were always in front of our house. I was worried about their safety. I knew I had all those years to do. And, um, now I'm in prison and all these guys are watching me coming into their world on live television. So I had two things going for me in terms of h- my, my stock with the fellow inmates. Number one, I was a quasi, you know, sort of a se- I was a celebrity inmate. They just saw me come into their prison. Nobody gets ... walks into a prison on live TV. And the bigger, more part, the more important part, was-I got a f- what they call a 14 piece, that's the vernacular of how inmates talk. "He got a 14 piece," means he didn't snitch on anybody. See, anybody who gets a long sentence means they're getting punished 'cause they wouldn't talk about anybody. The guys who walk in with light sentences become immediately suspect by the inmates, it's the culture there, as snitches and they hate the snitches. Snitches are bitches who get stitches.

    4. JR

      (laughs)

    5. RB

      Right? (laughs) That's what they said.

    6. JR

      Sure.

    7. RB

      So I walked in there and I had immediate street cred with those guys, and they were, they were nice to me. They actually gathered together what little means they had and, and went to the commissary to get me necessities for my first week, toothbrush, toothpaste, uh, shower shoes. Um, just a gen- very nice, kind thing to, you know, me. These were drug dealers and bank robbers and, you know, tough guys, all tatted up, tough guys. G- you know, their gangs would be tatted on their heads and stuff, or on their, you know, biceps or something.

    8. JR

      Did you have to join a gang?

    9. RB

      I write about, I write about how the correctional officers wanted me to actually join the, the white group, the Aryan Brotherhood guys.

    10. JR

      The correctional officers wanted-

    11. RB

      Uh-huh.

    12. JR

      Why did they want you to do it?

    13. RB

      So I, in this, one of the chapters, the early chapters, it's, uh, I wasn't in prison for 27 hours before I broke my first prison rule, and they called me, "Inmate Blagojevich," you know, the c- "report to the lieutenant's office." And I had to be, they explained to me, this was the f- my first full day there was a ... my second day there, it was after my first full day when I walked in, and I got a chance to see the prison yard. And I walked around the yard with a couple of Black guys, one of, both from Illinois, one from the South Side of Chicago, gangbanger, drug dealer, um, name was Slim, and another guy named Walter Hill from East St. Louis, Illinois, and, uh, I was their governor, and they were really nice to me. And we walked around the track and we were talking about ... and I was interested in the facilities, you know. One of the things I was determined to do in prison was to work out a lot and to read a lot, and eventually, I read the Bible a lot. Like, if you want to talk about that at some point, 'cause that was so meaningful to me. But, uh, they called me in the next day because the word got out that I was walking the track with Black guys, and it was explained to me by the, the authorities there that prison's a very segregated place, that the, that the unwritten policy in order to keep order is that people need to be part of c- their, their own cars. They called it, the euphemism for gangs in prison is cars. What car do you ride with, ride in? And that they thought that for my own safety that, number one, I shouldn't be, you know, walking around with Black guys. I need to be part of a car, and I need to join the white car and go see these two guys, Cole and Sadness. Sand-

    14. JR

      Sadness?

    15. RB

      Sand-ness. His name was-

    16. JR

      Okay. (laughs)

    17. RB

      I thought it was Sadness too. Exactly. 'Cause I'm looking around, "Who's Saddest? Who's Sadness?" I'm looking for Sadness, right? His name was Sand-ness, and Cole was the leader. I think he was from Texas. And, uh, they s- they told me that I should go see them, and so out of respect for the c- the police officers, the correctional officers, I, I said, "Okay, I'll go see them." But I made it clear to them, "Listen, I don't give a fuck." Because they told me, "Look, when you get into a conflict with somebody, and it's inevitable, 'cause you're in prison with a bunch of guys for a long time, there's gonna be all kinds of disputes. You want the window open, the other guy wants it closed. You didn't put the weight back in the weight room like he would have wanted. There's all kinds of shit that's gonna hap- the conflicts that develop between guys living close like that. The way we keep order is we keep the races and the e- and the different ethnic groups separated. They all p- become part of their individual cars. You sit with them in a commissary, I mean, at the cafeteria, they call it the chow hall. You, uh, you work out with them, you walk the track with them, you're polite to the other groups but you don't really get friendly with them, because if you have a conflict with somebody, your car will protect you, especially if it becomes a conflict with somebody from another race or another group of people." In the prison I was in, there were a lot of Black guys, a lot of Latinos, a lot of guys from Mexico, seen a lot with drug cartel people, uh, a lot of G- Native Americans, there were Pacific Islanders, uh, and of course white guys and sex offenders. They were their own group. And so they all pretty much m- m- you know, rode in their own cars, their separate cars. But I told them, "I'm not, uh ... Look, I don't fear anybody. If somebody wants to fucking kill me here in some ways or put, put me out of my r- misery, I'm not gonna be doing some d- you know, kind of thing that, like that. It just, it, you know, it's racist. I'm not doing that. I'm gonna ... Whoever's nice to me, I'm gonna be nice to them, and I'll respect your rules. I won't sit with the Black guys or with any Latino guys, I'll sit with the white guys. Um, but I'm not gonna ... I, uh, unless you're ordering me, t- tell- and telling me I can't walk with those guys or talk to these guys, I'm gonna keep doing it." And they said, "Well, we can't do that 'cause th- it, this is an unwritten way that we operate and keep order in prison." And then they told me something which I respected. They said, "Lookit, y- y- you're not in the real world here anymore. Y- this is not a place where you could be a civil rights advocate, uh, or an activist, a civil right activist. This is prison. Y- you don't have the same rights here that you have out there. We can't order you not to have relationships or con- conversations with people from another race, but we can order you to, you know, to stop doing stuff that could be counterproductive to us keeping safety. So if you're gonna sit with somebody outside your race in the chow hall, that's a direct affront to us, and there are measures that we can take to make sure that you don't do those sorts of things." And I respected the fact that they said it was f- to keep order, and it was the culture, and pretty much everybody in the prison system accepts it anyway. Eventually, I sat with some of the Black guys as time went by, and we actually made a little, an elder Black guy by the name of Mr. B, he was originally from Chicago and from Detroit, he was like the most respected inmate. He got a 25 year sentence. He looked like Morgan Freeman, the actor. He was a lot like him actually, very res- mature, responsible. He was the guy a lot of the guys went to for their legal questions 'cause he knew everything, and a real nice man and a gentle man.And by the time I got there, he had already done like 20 something years. So he was close to going home, and I'd stay up late at night with him talking in that - in the, uh - in the, uh, dormitory portion of the prison where you're - you - where I was first before I got my cell. Um, but it was important to him that before he left, after 20 something years, that he could actually sit at, at the chow hall with a white guy. And he liked me 'cause I was, you know, the - from Chicago and, uh ... So we did that one day and I thought it was get- we- w- you know, it was probably - I was there probably a year and a half by the time we did that. And I sat there and everybody looked at us, you know, we're sitting there, I'm sitting with the Black table. And then this great movement for civil disobedience and civil rights petered out and no one gave a fuck. (laughs)

    18. JR

      Really?

    19. RB

      Yeah. Yeah, it didn't matter at all.

    20. JR

      Wow.

    21. RB

      Yeah.

    22. JR

      What - was it because that guy was so respected?

    23. RB

      Yeah. I think that was a lot of it.

    24. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    25. RB

      And, you know, I - you know, that s- you - not everybody likes you and some people really dislike, and there were guys in prison who really didn't like me. But for the most part, I had a lot of ... You know, I ha- you know, I had low approval ratings after I got arrested and before- and bef- as they were investigating me when I was governor, but I had pretty high approval ratings in prison (laughs) with my fellow inmates. (laughs)

    26. JR

      So, um, how did you get into the Bible? 'Cause that - that was a big part of your conversation with Tucker.

    27. RB

      Yeah.

    28. JR

      You know?

    29. RB

      Well, you know, (sighs) so that- that first night, you know, when they - it's the stark reality really hit me, that first night, when around 10:00 at night I hear this big boom and then you hear the gates sh- shutting, 'cause they were now locking you in. It's all iron and it's loud. Lock. And then the lights go down, then the lights are out. Now suddenly, you're, you're swallowed up in blackness and darkness. And we're locked in, iron bars, you can't get out. And here I am with all these prisoners and inmates, you know, and, uh, I just left my family at 5:30 in the morning, I'm not going home tonight.

    30. JR

      (sighs)

  5. 1:00:00 – 1:10:59

    So everybody knows how…

    1. RB

      The problem is as a practical matter, because they have such power, the politicians are scared shitless of 'em. They don't wanna stand up to them 'cause they're afraid these people will trump up shit against them and just make shit up or get something they might have- may have done and made it bigger. So it's very hard-

    2. JR

      So everybody knows how the game is played, so everybody has to play the game.

    3. RB

      Correct. And then when you get ... You're the one on the wrong end of it, all your friends in politics, they run for the hills, they abandon you.

    4. JR

      Oh.

    5. RB

      And then all of a sudden, they're kissing your ass the day before you're arrested (laughs) and then the next day, they're maligning the shit outta you.

    6. JR

      Sounds like Hollywood.

    7. RB

      Is that right? (laughs)

    8. JR

      (laughs)

    9. RB

      Yeah. (laughs)

    10. JR

      Isn't it kind of the same thing? I mean, that's what they do whenever anybody gets in trouble in Hollywood.

    11. RB

      Yeah, you're right.

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. RB

      Yeah.

    14. JR

      Well, that's just cowards.

    15. RB

      Yeah.

    16. JR

      There's a lot of- a lot of cowards and a lot of people who have a reason to be cowards, because they're fearful, they're scared.

    17. RB

      Yeah.

    18. JR

      It's a dangerous system.Especially the justice system. It's-

    19. RB

      Yep.

    20. JR

      ... it seems very dangerous. And- and this is not to malign good people, 'cause there's- there's ... I know people ... I've met people in the FBI. I met great people in the CIA. I know them. They're great people. That's- it's- it's just what you were saying, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And when people get into positions of power and influence, and there's ... this chess game starts getting played, they can make all sorts of rationalizations if there's no checks and balances. This is why there has to be checks and balances-

    21. RB

      That's right.

    22. JR

      ... and there has to be oversight, to keep people from their own devices, to keep people from their own horrible instincts-

    23. RB

      Right.

    24. JR

      ... that we have as human beings, especially if you've done some shady shit because other people have done some shady shit. And that's how everybody's sort of worked their way up the ladder. And then all of a sudden you get to a position where like, hey, you're- you're gonna have to do something that you really don't agree with, but this is how the game is played. And then next thing you know ... Rob's in jail.

    25. RB

      Right. It's- Yeah, it's like your chief of staff and your governor's lawyer and all your friends who ... people that worked in- with you and- and got rich on you.

    26. JR

      Yeah.

    27. RB

      Their choice is, I have to look at my little boy who's three years old and his future, or do I protect ... try to defend my boss?

    28. JR

      Right, of course.

    29. RB

      And they make the decision, understandably, for their families.

    30. JR

      Yeah. Well, and I think a lot of people go into ... whether it's politics or law enforcement or into the federal government, there's a lot of people that go into it with very good intentions.

Episode duration: 2:47:59

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