Another James Comey Indictment (04/28)

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You're listening to the John Cobalt podcast on the I heart radio.

Mark Thompson for John Cobalt mentioning the White House ballroom and they

lawsuit associated with all of that.

When I hear lawsuit and I'm a KFI, we break the glass, pull the lever and

grab a line to Royal Oaks ABC News legal analyst Royal explain all of this to us.

How are you?

Isn't it illegal to break the I think you do it in an emergency and that's my

point.

You're a margin.

Yes.

You're a margin.

You're right.

Yeah, but a lot of legal stories today, Mark.

This is a, this is overwhelming.

Yeah.

So, you know, the, the ballroom, the 90,000 square foot ballroom that Donald

Trump wants to be erected in the East Wing, the former side of the East Wing.

It is currently rubble.

Before today, or let's say before the shooting in Washington, DC the other day,

the big deal was, okay, what's involved in this ballroom?

And the courts have actually kind of split the baby a few weeks ago.

The federal court said, look, we get it.

Donald Trump and his security experts say they want to build a bunker under the ballroom.

And, you know, first we didn't hear about any bunker.

We shared, you know, fancy ballroom like Mar-a-Lago in North, right?

So they want a bunker and it's supposed to be grown proof and bomb proof and so on.

So the, the national trust folks come in and say, hey, you can't put up a ballroom

because the law is pretty clear.

Trump can't make his decision on his own.

He's got to go to Congress and they have to say, okay, we'll build your damn ballroom.

And he didn't do that.

But what the courts have said is it's okay.

You can build your bunker.

But as for the ballroom itself, we got to fuss more about that.

We're going to have a trial and a year or so and we'll decide whether he really needed to go to Congress or not.

So that's where that was left until last weekend.

And by the way, I don't know if you heard this mark, weird.

I'd forgotten when John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan in March, 1981, it was at the same hotel.

Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, if I were politician, I don't think I'd go back to that.

I mean, really, it's like, yeah, bad mojo, you know, in fact, just as a, just as a digression,

they started magnetometers as a result of that incident at that hotel.

Really? I did not know that.

Wow, well, so anyway, so the bottom line is Donald Trump now comes along in the last air tune.

He says, Hey, remember that ballroom controversy?

I'm here to tell you, and I build a whole bunch of ballrooms.

I'm here to tell you that we're going to have crack security.

If you will just give us the green light for the damn ballroom because, you know,

he'll argue that it isn't just a bunker that's drum proof.

He'll have all sorts of fancy security things.

Now, Mark, there is, of course, the other side of the client,

some people have pointed out, Mr. Trump, you know, it's not like you hang out in an undisclosed location,

like Dick Cheney after 9-11.

You were at the octagon for an ultimate fighting championship event very recently.

I'm here to tell you that's not the most secure location and it's definitely known.

So it's, you know, you see both sides of the corner.

On the one hand, you know, it's donors.

It's not like the taxpayers are going to pay for the big Taj Mahal at the former site of the East Wing.

On the other hand, you know, if the law says you got to get Congress to say yes,

okay, this so be it.

So, yeah, the ballroom is coming to play.

And of course, as you've been reporting, the guy who allegedly was trying to kill Donald Trump,

of, you know, he's been charged with trying to assassinate the president.

If he's found guilty, he's in jail for life in prison.

And the other story you've been reporting on is, you know, the, the Komi family,

as you say, good news, bad news.

Marine can keep suing for wrongful termination, but dad James is facing another indictment

for threatening the president's life with some seashells on the seashore.

Yeah, when you put it like that, it sounds to me like you don't take it too seriously.

86, 47 is what the seashells were kind of designed to say.

And, you know, he said, of course, I didn't mean anything in a call for violence.

I just was talking about removal or nixing, you know, the, the president from,

from the world of power.

But can you handicap that?

I mean, is that just a nuisance suit that will again get thrown out?

Yeah, I think it will get thrown out.

And here's why the courts do not like to criminalize political speech.

And for Komi to take a picture of the seashells, and who knows that, you know,

he's just stumbled on to it as he was striding manfully along the beach or what.

But, you know, 47 can be reasonably interpreted to mean Trump because he's a 47th president.

86, and maybe you're more of a film noir, you know, double indemnity kind of guy than I am.

I think a lot of people say, yeah, I know what 86 means.

It can mean that, you know, get rid of to refuse or it can mean bump you off like Al Capone

with a machine gun. Who knows? I mean, I would think as the FBI director, James Komi would be

very familiar with what 86 could mean. So you could argue that, but it's so vague.

I think Mark, unless there is like a smoking gun where Komi set up an email to his bro saying,

hey, you know, I just sent that 86 to 47th thing and that was pretty clever.

I sure hope somebody picks up a gun and does something violent to Donald Trump.

That's kind of what I'm trying to get across here.

If you did that, then yes, the indictment could go forward and go in front of a jury.

Who knows what'll happen in the absence of something like that.

I don't think it's going to survive. I think the federal judge is going to say,

nice try, Department of Justice. I don't really think James Komi was making a serious effort

to hurt or argue for violence against Donald Trump.

And so it'll just give tossed out a court probably take, may take a few more months, but I don't

think it's got legs. I was saying before that, you know, when the government indicts you,

even if it's a suit that ultimately has thrown out, it can really be ruinous. It can be really

rough on you. I don't think it'll be ruinous in the case of Komi, although you can tell me,

but you know, you have to lawyer up. It can be expensive. It can be a lot of upheaval and anxiety

and I guess what I'm trying to say is before you even get to court, a lot of damage can be done

to you personally. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think what this boils down to those that

weren't a different climate. I mean, until the last few years, of course, I mean, really anybody

you're indicted, you'll lawyer up, as you say, you know, sleepless nights, who knows what might

happen. The indictment might be a stand. And so you'd be ordered to go to trial, who knows what

a jury would say. But now, like this guy, Jerome Powell is running the Fed. I mean, he what

public a few months ago with a video saying, look, Donald Trump's trying to get me for, you know,

misappropriating money to build a fancy office. I'm totally innocent. He's politically motivated.

I'm going to fight it and sure enough, that went away. Now with Komi, Komi did a video like that

a month or two ago and he sounded very confident. You know, he knows what can happen if you're dragged

through the criminal justice system. I got to think that there are so many people in our society

putting a whole bunch of judges appointed by Democrat presidents who are very skeptical

of the G-Hod, the Donald Trump's Department of Justice has been going on against enemies.

Now, you've got to look at every single allegation, whether it's against Latissue James or James

Komi or Powell, whatever. And you know, an indictment might have a very strong legal basis.

The fact that Donald Trump hates the guy and would love to see the guy taken down doesn't mean

that there's no valid basis to the indictment. You could have both. But I think in this situation,

Komi probably is sleeping pretty well because, you know, he probably, as you would suggest,

probably has some money piled up. He probably has plenty of lawyers that would work for him for free

and a good chunk of the population looks at a second Komi indictment and it's really, you know,

and it isn't weird that you remember the Stormy Daniels case? The judge was gone into one

merchant and Trump futed with Democrats every day. And one merchant, the judge, had a daughter

and she was a Democratic fundraiser and the Trump people went ballistic and it was a little weird.

I mean, the judge handling the Stormy case against Donald Trump, where he was convicted of 34

felonies, his daughter is a big Democrat fundraiser that raised hundreds of thousands for Biden.

You know, it seems a little funny, but there was a father-daughter thing in Stormy and now there's

another father-daughter thing in Komi. So Donald Trump, you know, he does not get along with everybody.

Yeah. That might be the understatement of that most certainly is. Great stuff, Royal Oaks.

Thank you. We will watch with interest as all of this stuff proceeds and always appreciate your

input, man. Thank you, Royal. That thank you. All right. Donald Trump does not get along with everybody

is the, is the breaker today from Royal Oaks. Good stuff. When we come back,

major money grab in Pasadena at a clinic that you may know about, we'll get into that as we

continue. John Cobalt, show Mark Thompson sitting in on KFI AM640 live everywhere on the iHeart

Radio app. You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM640.

I wanted to mention that there's a big story that's really disturbing going on on Skid Row.

Dogs living downtown, living in squalorous conditions to begin with, it's just horrible.

And there is worse than that going on. And apparently, and this is the truly insane part,

local rescuers are saying that these creatures are being denied medical care and any involvement

from outside agencies to try to help them out. Here's a report from KTLA.

I mean, it's crazy. We're coming here risking our lives to help these dogs with no support

from the government. Joey Tutu is a volunteer with a nonprofit starts with one today. For several

years, the group's been providing essential supplies to pet owners who live on the streets of Skid Row.

Every day we get another call, even from people out here, that like this person is trying to sell

their dog for drugs. This dog is dying on the streets and then we come try to come every Sunday

and always see your dogs being bred, dogs being abused, dogs being neglected.

The day we were on Skid Row for this story, we found this dog tied up in the sun, unattended,

desperately in need of water. Once this dog was rescued, an x-ray showed rocks in her stomach.

Joey says a homeless woman had 11 dogs and cats confined to four cages and admitted to tying

this dog's mouth shut so she wouldn't bark. We rescued a dog that had her eyes and

private's glutes shut. One, his arm, his leg was rotting so bad it had to be amputated.

We found out later that the guy who was severely on drugs was trying to dissect the leg with

tweezers. Jonathan Parker is the co-founder of starts with one today. He spent the last three

years trying to change the way helpless animals are treated. It is frustrating,

but at the end of the day it's like, if we don't do it, no one will do it.

He says puppies are being sold on the street. Others left for dead, thrown away like trash,

some are being used to test drugs, making sure nothing is laced with fentanyl.

When you start abusing dogs, that's when we step up and want to say, okay, now this is how you

suppose to take care of them, you know, feed them, give them water, you know, but it's kind of hard

to tell a person who can't even feed theirself to go feed a dog.

As Meryl delives in the area and says the abuse happens day and night.

A guy on beer was on fentanyl and beating a dog, a little dog.

It's bad because I try to help the dog, the animals, but I do so much I can do my

son without putting myself in danger.

Animal advocates say elected officials, including Mayor Karen Bass, aren't doing enough,

and blame LAPD for not enforcing the law.

LA City Council member Isabel Herado oversees the district that includes Skid Row.

Her office did not reply to multiple requests for comment.

The office of Mayor Karen Bass released a statement saying in part,

more than 100 LAPD central bureau officers have received intensive training focused on animal cruelty.

Since then, animals have been rescued.

Multiple citations and arrests have been made.

If you would like to learn more about how you can volunteer to help the animals in need here on Skid Row,

go to startswith1today.com

And startswith1 is the name of the organization I guess is doing so much of the outreach,

but that's just, it's a terrible situation getting more terrible.

You know, Deborah, you're active and I feel like you have a connection to that community

of animals, dogs, cats, and I mean, these are not things to be held.

And you know, it's so amazing to me that people treat animals as if it is some kind of a thing

that they don't have feelings that they don't, they're not hurting.

They're not, I mean, you know, and I know that animals do feel pain.

And we can, I look at my dogs, I can tell when they're happy,

I can tell when they're sad or disappointed or when I, you know, whatever,

and to be treated this way, it's heartbreaking.

Yeah, I mean, the connection you feel with your dog, you feel or with your cat,

you feel because you are getting something back.

You don't feel that same connection with like a piece of luggage that I was given to you,

a Christmas might be really beautiful and expensive and all that sort of thing.

But the connection is real because that's a creature, a sentient feeling creature, you know,

and to think that you can abuse these creatures and do it with impunity.

I mean, to do it without kind of any real repercussions, it's outrageous.

It really is outrageous.

I mean, there are animal cruelty laws and they have to be enforced and I get it.

Listen, I drive past a homeless encampment every night. It's one of the things I consider

most loathsome about living in Los Angeles.

So you have these homeless encampments and you have this sort of street person thing

that we've just kind of allowed to be the backbeat of our lives and it's unacceptable.

But when you add the abuse of creatures into that toxic brew of what's already there

and drug abuse and essentially that's what you have across the board.

These are drug dens.

It's grotesque.

And again, I think you have to call on political leadership to do something.

Animals are so defenseless, Mark.

I mean, they can't do anything.

You put them on a leash, you tie them up, you, as you heard in that report,

they're drugging some of these animals to make sure that there's no fentanyl

so that the people that are doing it aren't going to be exposed or they're not going to take

the drugs with fentanyl, you're doing that to an innocent animal who can't do anything about it.

You know, it's I'm part of a group and take a break here in a second,

but part of a group of sort of like-minded people when it comes to animal issues, okay?

And so and there's this political group, but it's not political to Democrat Republican at all.

It's very just concerned with these issues and who would be most responsive.

And you're right, Deborah.

No one is responsive to it.

I mean, you just get, you know, you can't even get an audience.

You can't even get a Zoom call on these issues.

And it's really too bad because I think it lands with so many people in a powerful way

that if you did visit it as a high-profile politician,

regardless of what your political office is,

you'd find a lot of support within the community.

Many people care about these animals.

That's the situation on Skid Row.

And it's just, you know, it takes, as I say,

an already awful situation that takes it into an even darker place.

So when we come back, clawing back money for the state that has been ripped off

from a Pasadena clinic, we'll get into that as we continue.

John Cobalt show Mark Thompson sitting in for John KFI AM640 live everywhere on the I heart radio app.

You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM640.

Mark Thompson here for John Cobalt.

You see the Disneyland is now going to be scanning faces at nearly every gate kind of wild.

Everybody looking for that moment.

I mean, they took your picture for years.

Well, they took your picture on that water splash.

No, but I'm saying at the gates to enter, they would take your picture.

Oh, did they?

Oh, yeah.

I didn't realize that.

Yeah, because you would have to take a picture to match your ticket.

Well, then why is this a big deal?

You know, it's a good question.

It's probably because it's AI and all that facial facial recognition.

Well, they definitely about that.

They have now, I suppose, more ways to do facial recognition that they say they're going to get

rid of it in Disneyland in the data that they'll get rid of it every 30 days.

So it's not going to linger and they're not going to necessarily share it with law enforcement

or whatever, which has been one of the things that people are concerned with.

I didn't realize they'd done it for a while.

Um, but the, the way they, I think they've done it.

Eric had a lot of places and also other venues.

I know this is you can opt into facial recognition to make entrance into the venue more frictionless.

You know, you can enter the venue more quickly.

And that's, I think the way they, you know, employ it like, um,

photographs of guest faces taken at the entrances to Disneyland and sister park,

California adventure are run through biometric technology to convert the images into unique numerical values.

Those images can then be compared with pictures taken with a customer first use the ticket or annual pass.

I see. Okay.

Disney officials saying that technology helps make entering and re entering the park easier prevents fraud.

Right. Because if you have a multi-day pass, they would take your picture.

And so you couldn't like pass the ticket off to somebody else who wasn't you who didn't pay for

the ticket kind of thing. Absolutely. Right. It makes total sense. It's not like a credential without

a picture or like, um, you know, when they put something like a bracelet on a colored bracelet,

you can, you know, uh, but, you know, those who have issues like, you know,

ACLU type are saying that this normalization of facial surveillance is not good, you know,

um, and now as you know, it's not even just facial recognition. They are doing

serious AI with your gate the way you walk. So they can identify you even if you're wearing a

hoodie and a mask. They can identify you based on the way you walk. Look it up. I mean,

it's a serious expanding area of AI and surveillance. But venues over the last decade are using more

facial recognition. In fact, as I was saying, if you go to the Intuit dome, you can use Game Face ID

and you can get into the stadium for like the Clippers game or live entertainment a lot more easily.

So you just have to upload a selfie there and then they generate facial recognition data and they

identify who you are at the arena. And it's kind of cool. I mean, you know, you can see how it sort

of makes a dodger stadium has the same thing. You can use facial recognition to get into the go

ahead entry at certain gates, not every gate, but certain gates have it into the ballpark. So you can

go in without having to produce a physical or digital ticket. And again, if you're late, you don't

want to wait. This is clearly the way things are going to go. But again, Disneyland, there's

sort of an innocent to Disneyland. And I think that's why this sort of stands out. And I don't know how

much pushback there's been. As I say, the people who run the happiest place on earth say, you know,

you don't have to worry. We're only going to keep it for 30 days and then the data gets rolled

over. The other thing that it's associated with this, it doesn't always have to be law enforcement,

doesn't always have to be subpoenaed. It's a hacker vulnerability that people look at that could

be an issue as well. So whenever you leave your data anywhere, there is a sense that if that

situation is hacked in any way, that that data becomes vulnerable. And so, you know, once again,

you get into a situation where if you're hacked and we've all seen this happen through some huge

hacks, you know, you don't really have a lot of high ground. You think you'd have some perhaps

even litigation as a class action suit, something like this, but the reality is you kind of sign

that all away based on your use of the venue in this case and your base in the case of some of

the other hacks. It can be credit cards. However, you have opted in terms and conditions can oftentimes

just keep you out of any sort of real legal action. So interesting to see how many different

theme parks venues all around Southern California and California generally are doing this.

And again, Disney says this is just to make the experience that everyone has at the happiest place

on earth just a little bit better. So almost the last time you were in Disneyland, Eric, you've been

there? You go much. I mean, I've gone to a couple of the California adventure takeovers that I

heart does for like coast and the Woody show. That's the best couple of years. That's the best fun.

Yeah. How about you, Deborah? I have not been in years. I used to go when my kids were little,

but I have I have not been in years. Yeah. I don't like the long lines, but I love Disneyland.

Yeah, that's why what Eric's talking about is so good because when they close the park off and

it's just, you know, you and 30 other people or whatever it is, it really doesn't feel crowded.

It's wild. Yeah, but my family growing up, we would go at least once a year because I have some

cousins that live on the East Coast. And so they would come once a summer and that was like our

big trip to Disneyland. Sure. I mean, it's a it's a real attraction. It really is. When did you go, Mark?

I went about a year ago because I wanted to see that new Star Wars thing. It's kind of some mix

of live action. And I really liked it. It was cool. It's a fun place. Again, because I don't have

any kids or whatever, it is just like I've hit it. And I don't need to go again for a long time.

But man, I know people who go three times a week adults. Oh, I know people that work here. Yeah,

no, it's no, it's a subculture. That's a just a radical departure from anything I could even imagine.

But they love it, you know, and it's so great. I mean, I love that they embrace everything,

Disney of Disney, you know, acquires the Star Wars brand, all of a sudden, they're Star Wars people.

You know, it's really wild. So anyway, when we come back again, I thought I was going to do that

story about this fraud in Pasadena. I still haven't done it. We'll do it next.

Mark Thompson here for John Cobalt, KFI AM640. We're live everywhere on the iHeart Radio app.

You're listening to John Cobalt on demand from KFI AM640.

Mark Thompson here for John Cobalt, he looped, looped Penrose in just a few minutes.

And then Conway, of course, this evening, Pasadena has a clinic and it's a skin graft

clinic that has gotten $34 million in grift. It's a Medicare scam.

Federal prosecutors seizing $2 million from this clinic. They are suspected of building

Medicare for millions of skin grafts that patients never got. Collecting $34 million in fraudulent

reimbursements, one patient alone was built more than $6 million and investigators found that

the clinic office was locked during the time that the patients supposedly received this treatment.

This is all part of this crackdown on widespread abuse. This is the skin substitute industry

familiar with this. This is like a it's a wound treatment. So this is artificial skin.

And so this wound care clinic is suspected of scamming millions of dollars from Medicare.

So this is again an area of scam here in California that has really been exploited.

And we've seen what's happened with the unemployment agencies in California. We've seen what's

happened with Medicare now. And it just feels as though we're a soft spot. Now I think this isn't the

only state where this sort of thing is happening. But man, $34 million in federal payouts.

And you know, one patient getting $6 million worth of it. Isn't there any kind of investigation or

red flag? So this is all under the Aegis of the US Secret Service. And this is part of a larger

investigation into these Medicare funded wound care agencies. And so this is your pal Dr.

Oz. He's doing a lot of this stuff in Washington. And Medicare reimburses for the use of this skin

substitute for wound care. And this is a hugely expanding area. That's why it's concerning.

The entire area of synthetic elements that go into this sort of biological skin substitute.

Apparently it's really key in helping people recover and functionally matching skin in terms

of biological characteristics. So Medicare spending and all this has, you know, grown a ton.

$10 billion dollars increase in 2024. It went up. Let me just look at this. Look at this.

$10 billion in 2024 from $256 million in 2019. So in just the five years, it went from $256

million to $10 billion. So that's why this is such a rich area of abuse. There is such a tremendous

success rate. And so now the feds are stepping in and going, wait a minute. What is happening here?

So there's now a flat national reimbursement rate for covered products. And now they are

clamping down. But you're seeing a bunch of advertising in this area because Medicare is being

so expansive in their coverage of these things. So this is a big take down in Pasadena.

And they talked to a few of the patients. Five of them had no treatments at all.

That there was a lot of claims, but and they're not yet, I think, inditing anyone.

But it does appear that that will be in the offing.

Once again, California, so much money, so much need, an expansive industry when it comes to

healthcare as a result, an expansive industry when it comes to scams. The guy who blitzed the

ballroom in which the president and his cabinet all were waiting for events to start got a lot of

his guns right in the South Bay. Kind of wild. Cole Thomas Allen. He had legally bought a 12-gauge

shotgun in torrents. And the statistics on what you can find in torrents in the South Bay,

it's a gun-friendly region. It's one of the more broadly pro gun control counties.

But you can do, you can find what you need might be the way to put it in torrents 18 firearm

dealers as of November 2023. Approximately one firearm dealer for every just over 8,000 people

who are residents in the South Bay. Meanwhile across all of LA County, there were about 350 licensed

gun dealers in 2023. Only 38 were in the city of LA. So it's one out of every 100,000 or so residents.

So even torrents, apparently, has taken steps to rein in gun dealers. But there are plenty of

places to get guns in torrents. And that's where he did a lot of his gun-getting right there in the

South Bay. And then, of course, he takes a train across the country to Chicago to Washington,

DC. And that's where this violent incident went down. And his plan was to do a lot more damage than

he did. And the other thing that is worth mentioning is the fact that he really achieved access to that

stairway because he was a guest in the hotel. I mean, he never could have walked through the front

door of that hotel from the outside with all of that stuff, even if it had been a bag.

And the last thing I'd say is that this has nothing to do with the South Bay and gun purchases. But

for Colt Thomas Allen, it was sort of a soft target. It was a pretty

lacks security compared to a lot of other White House involved events. Now that said,

remember yesterday we talked to that senior secret service agent who said,

thought the secret service did their job. He was happy with it. But again, it's going to prompt

a lot of conversations. And some of those conversations, Luke Panros will have after

after five o'clock more money to give away. Luke will discuss this. He's going to discuss Jimmy

Kimmel and what's happening with the FCC and all of the questions around Jimmy's bit that he did

the other night and how that's been discussed in a more serious way. How the FCC actually

may be going after Jimmy Kimmel. So all of that as we continue. Thanks as always to the John

Kulbelt crew, Eric, Deborah, Rock and Roll Ray. Thank you for all the help. We'll see you guys soon.

Luke Panros next. We're KFI AM640 live everywhere on the iHeart Radio app.

You've been listening to the John Kulbelt show podcast. You can always hear the show

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