All right. We don't have time for any of that nonsense.

Because we have a pop-up episode to get to. This is one of those weeks in which

the news necessitates a quick turnaround and a monomaniacal approach. So I give you, without further ado

or adornment, the breaking news that Andy McCarthy, who is the guest on my fifth ever podcast, has revised his opinion on the topic we discussed and necessitated a revisiting of the sort that the now ghostly Luther Abel has started staging in the local

badminton courts.

Well, I have this week my first ever repeat guest, or at least my first ever repeat guest within the main section of

the podcast. I guess is Andy McCarthy. Andy, welcome to the Charles C.W. Cook podcast. Charlie,

I'm honored. The second timer, first second timer. That's great. There you go. Well, one reason for this, Andy, other than that I am, of course, a big fan, is the topic we're going to talk about today. We already talked about once in an early episode titled FBI or FB No.

And I was at the time, and still am, an FB, no.

I think, as I thought then, that the FBI is irredeemable and should be scrapped and rethought, at least before it's repurposed or reconstituted.

Now, you said on that podcast that you shared many of my reservations about the FBI,

but you didn't hold that view, at least not as drastically as I did, But in the last week or so, I sensed you moving a little bit. So I thought I would have you back on and we would discuss what,

if anything, has changed. Well, I think your position is a lot stronger today than, you know, in principle it's the same position, but the evidence for it

is stronger today than it was when we spoke about it the last time. And I'm referring to the

release of the Durham report, which I think is a very good report, it's a good supplement to the information

we had already. But I was certainly under a misimpression about what he would produce in an

important way. And I think that does tend to the argument that the FBI is not redeemable because the only way you can really have a well-performing FBI is if people are accountable.

And what I've thought in closely following the Russi-Gate stuff, which I wrote a book about in 2019 and have been covering it from its

inception. What I've told everyone all along, Charlie, is that I thought it would be very

difficult for Durham to make prosecutable cases against FBI agents or any other government officials

because when you're dealing with people who are high-ranking law enforcement officials,

they have so much discretion to act that it's very hard to prove in any particular decision

...