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Welcome back to the Lincoln Project. I'm your host, Reed Gaillan. Today, I'm joined by

Brendan Ballot, a federal prosecutor who served as special counsel for private equity in

the Justice Department's anti-trust division. Prior to that, he worked in the National Security

Division of Justice, where he advised the White House on counterterrorism and other policies.

His new book is Plunder, Private Equity's plan to pillage America, and it is available

wherever fine books are sold. He's a graduate of Columbia University and Stanford Law,

and is coming to us today from Washington, DC. Brendan, welcome. Thank you so much for

having me. As I noted, right before we started, I did work for Corporate America for years.

As do many current and former political consultants, because something's got to fill in the space

between campaigns. And depending on the industry, some were spent all the money you need, others

were do what you have to. But it was always the ones with the most money who were most

concerned about the comma in a bill, or a semicolon being in the wrong place. And often,

the private equity guys were involved, but they didn't pop up until like it was a do-or-die

situation in a legislative deal. It could be at the state level I did a lot of work in California,

obviously it could be on Capitol Hill. But you knew that somebody was really worried when you got

a call from the Carlisles of the world or the Black Rocks of the world, right? Because now it's

like you have to be on the phone with these people for whom this is in their portfolio, maybe their

...