On this episode, we are joined by Adam Andrzejewski of the organization Open the Books who uncovered and opened California's checkbook to see all the spending that has been happening.
The California Underground Podcast is dedicated to discussing California politics for people who want to cut through the insanity and get real answers.
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Phil is a San Diego based attorney who specializes in estate planning and constitutional law both under the US and California Constitution. Review the Anchor.Fm Privacy Policy: Anchor - The easiest way to make a podcast
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If you're a California, conservative a Libertarian, a
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moderate Democrat. Believe in common sense or just
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the same person. This is the political podcast
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for you. It's the California underground
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podcast. What's going on everybody?
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Thanks for tuning in to another episode of California undergrad.
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I am very excited to have Adam back with you from open.
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The flux is the CEO of the organization.
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Oh, Open the books. He came on last year, and we
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talked a lot about this stuff about transparency, and how
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California was the last holdout of opening the checkbook and not
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letting its voters. And its people see what,
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where's, the money actually going.
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So then recently, I just saw on social media, if you follow
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their social media on Instagram to do a great job with the
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videos, I'm just a great job, breaking down the numbers on
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short little Snippets. And I saw that they had all of
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this new information about news. In California and all of this
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stuff and I said we got to get Adam back on the platform.
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So, Adam, welcome back. How are you doing tonight?
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Well, it's great to be here. I'm doing well, I'm doing well,
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I just finished a 20-mile training.
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Run for the Chicago marathon on Sunday.
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I still feel it but I'm feeling better.
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That's for sure. Comedy on Wednesday night here.
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Yeah, 20 miles is a lot. I think if I tried to run one
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mile, I would probably pass out. So kudos to you.
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Some people are just born runners.
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I never was a runner. I don't know how to do it.
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I'd stick to the rowing machine but as always, I also have to
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introduce my trusty Coast. Cynthia is also here tonight,
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we're both going to be peppering Adam with plenty of questions
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about the numbers and Adam also let us in on that.
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He's got some stuff on dr. Fauci as well.
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So we might get to that a little bit later in the show, but Adam
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let's start with from last year, we talked about all of this
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information and now all of a sudden Have a lot more data.
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What transpired, what happened between last year and this year?
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So is really a 10-year knock-down drag-out battle over
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the last decade to open the books of the line by line
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spending in the state of California.
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Just briefly. We went through to California
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controllers, John Chiang, and Betty Yee, who had rejected our
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Sunshine request in the Golden State.
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Now across the country. We collect the cheque book.
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One request with the Chief Financial Officer, in 49 out of
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50 states. We've had the Federal Checkbook
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all the way back to the year, 2001 and 15 local Municipal
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level units of government. We have their line-by-line
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spending including 3 municipalities in the state of
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California. So it was always mystifying to
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us as to why they would not produce the line by line
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spending of the state we sued him in.
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Sacramento Superior Court in January of 2020, the case went
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on for about two years, we actually lost the case, the
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judge gave us nothing, the Actually posited, the argument
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in court that the data was of limited public value.
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Yes. You're supposed to pay the bill
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but then you the pesky taxpayer are supposed to shut up.
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They'll run things, where they spend your money is of limited
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public value. And their opinion, the judge
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bought it and out of 50 million bills that controller Betty 8
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paid last year, we got zero nothing but we always had
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planned. Be, the books were always going
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open in Nia. So we pivoted to plan B.
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And that was to file 442 Sunshine request with every
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single state agency, they produce their line-by-line
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spending. We compiled the California
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checkbook, like a jigsaw puzzle. So, fill we did with the
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governor, the controller, the attorney general, who backed the
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controller and Court, what the lawmakers, the state judge, and
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the bureaucrats refused to do we at open the books.com.
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We open the line by line. In in a state of California and
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I'm proud of our team. Yeah.
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And if you look at you posted some great stuff on sub stack,
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if you want to go follow Adam and open the books over there,
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you can go read stuff that everything that's been going on.
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But it's amazing numbers to look at and before we came out as
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reading your stuff tonight and I was just my jaw dropped at the
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stuff that I was reading. You knew that Newsome was
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always. Sort of that politician who was
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working around the gray area and in a one-party State like
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California. You're going to get people who
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kind of I guess work in that gray area of being ethical.
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But who's going to really punish them who's really going to hold
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them to task and you look at these numbers and you go, I
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guess, nobody's holding anybody to task because it just looks
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like he gets away with basically anything he wants to do.
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So, I guess we'll start there. Let's just die.
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Of right in to the Newsome, State vendor payments because
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there's a lot there and I think you want to break all that stuff
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down for the listeners and talk about what are we looking at
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here with these numbers? So first, the historic
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achievement, we posted 87 billion dollars of state line by
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line State spending from the agencies in fiscal year 2021
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what that amounts to is its 201 state vendors and it's
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6.1 million Being almost 6.2 million records on our website.
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It opened the books.com. We took that data base.
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We compared it up against Governor twosomes campaign,
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donor disclosures. So here's what we found Phil we
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found that he solicited nearly 1 State vendors, they gave
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him campaign donations of ten point, six million dollars and
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those thousand vendors just last year, received six point two
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billion dollars in state payments.
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So, you would post it on this article that amount that you
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just said, is almost what like 40% of the war chest that Newsom
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is sitting on right now. Yeah, ten point, six million of
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campaign, cash, that's material. So he's sitting on August 1st of
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this year 2022, Newsom is sitting on 24 million dollars in
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his campaign fund, so it's about 44% of cash on hand.
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Comes from State vendors. So think about this, Governor
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Newsom has pioneered, the public financing of his campaign.
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You got some of the largest corporations in the state of
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California with massive contracts.
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For example, you've got six Healthcare companies think, you
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know, Kaiser Permanente, UnitedHealthcare the two Blues,
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they give Governor Newsom about seven hundred thousand dollars
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in campaign donations, just last year, they received One point
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nine billion dollars in state payments.
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So these large corporations with basically public-private
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Partnerships with quasi Marketplace Monopoly control,
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they are funding the political status quo, in California by
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recycling, just a small piece of their state government
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contracts, back in to the governor's campaign fund and
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then he's running ads. All across the country, he's
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attacking the governors, in Florida and Texas, he's running
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Billboards in South Dakota. He's running ads on Fox News,
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you know, and and taxpayers in California.
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Have a big stake in his political marketing campaign out
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of his campaign fund. So kind of like, I guess, let's
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break this down a little bit. How does he, how does he get the
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specifically get the money to him to his campaign?
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So people are kind of wondering like what does this mean when
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there's a state vendor and what, you know, Connect the Dots here
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of what's happening between newsom's campaign.
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And, and these State vendors that are giving money back and
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getting money from the state. Sure say you've got for
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instance, utilities for utilities, gave Governor Newsom
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over four hundred thousand dollars worth of campaign
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donations. Just last year they received
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about 430 million dollars in state payments alone again,
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you've got the companies, they're Affiliated packs their
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Executives there and Whoa, he's giving money, you know, they've
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got interest before the state, quite evidently they've got
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massive 100 million dollar contracts before the state and,
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and they're giving money to the governor to the chief executive
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that runs the state on its face. That's a conflict of interest on
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its face. You know, I think we only have
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to go as far away as Ellen. Oi to see the problem.
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Okay, we're at open the books.com we're based in
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Illinois, Boy, it is the Super Bowl of corruption are Governors
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are legendary for the Federal indictment and going to the
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federal penitentiary. As a matter of fact, in 2013, we
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had to go to Illinois Governor's in the federal penitentiary at
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the same time. One from each party it was
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Democrat Rod Blagojevich and Republican George Ryan.
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OK, the state legislature got fed up with this.
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It was embarrassing for Alan. Oi, right.
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So they passed a pay-to-play law, and here's what it said.
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You've got a state contract north of 50.
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And so a relatively small state contract, you can't give money
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in the governor's race. Your top shareholders your
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Executives. You can't give political cash.
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California needs to adopt the measure and make no mistake
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Governor Newsom. He could lead on this good
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government issue. He can call a press conference
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tomorrow he could, he could say he's returning the ten point,
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six million dollars to the state vendors that he solicited and
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and he will accept no, stay. It vendor money and match the
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Illinois Rule and that would cure the problem.
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More permanent solution. The general assembly in
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California needs to take action. Yeah, and I'm sure we see this
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all the time and usually what I tell listeners, whenever you're
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looking into a candidate, it seems like money speaks the
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loudest when it comes to these candidates and it's like if you
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want to figure out what a candidate is really about, just
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go look at who's giving them money.
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You know, just go look and see. They may say something in public
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that they then turn around and they're still accepting money on
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the back end from something else.
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Like, I think I saw in one of your articles about how
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California pushes these environmental issues.
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They're always about these environmental issues, but then
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on the back end, they're taking money from Pepsi and Coke.
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And what's it Nestle that they all produce.
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How many millions of plastic Bottles of water and that go out
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into the ocean and all that stuff.
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So it always seems like they're telling you one thing on one
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side and then they're turning around and doing the other
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behind their back to get the money.
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Yeah. So everyone listening to the
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program you're going to remember last January when Newsome
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standing out on the tracks in Los Angeles and he's looking
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bewildered, he's looking around and he says what does this a
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third world country? What the hell is going on here?
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This was his words, right? And it while he was saying that
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those words are misleading. The citizens in California, he's
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misleading the country. He knows exactly what's going
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on. He is backed by the same
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billionaires and the wealthy and woke wives of California
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billionaires. That put 22 million dollars into
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special soft on crime ballot initiatives, and into the
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campaign coffers of the DA's in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
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So while while his His political power base and millions of
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dollars of campaign cash come from the same funding mechanism
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as the quote unquote, criminal justice organizations groups and
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Wealthy backers. He's looking he's standing on
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the tracks acting. Like he doesn't know what's
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going on and it's the very policies that is political
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power, bases pushing that's responsible for the Looting So,
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I want to pull up. This is a good graphic from one
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of your articles. It's the top 10 California at
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State vendors and you can look at it and you can see the
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numbers that it's coming down. So, what am I looking?
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I'm looking at the campaign donations on one side and the
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state vendor spending amount next to it.
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So for example, Anthem Blue Cross, which is at the top gave
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69 thousand dollars and they received Three and forty four
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thousand dollars almost over eight hundred forty five
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thousand dollars, is that correct?
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So, so the donations come from the company itself or its
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Affiliated pack, or its Executives or key employees or
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staffers at the company. So, that's, that's where the
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money comes from. The state payments come just in
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one fiscal year 2021, and it comes from the 442 state
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agencies that we compile The line by line payments got it.
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Okay, so that's total. So if you are in good with
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Newsome, who is the head of the executive agency, all these
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different agencies, then it's likely you could get more Roi
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for your investment. Correct.
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Yes. And make no mistake Newsome
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knows how to swear off campaign donations from State vendors.
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When It gets hot when the new cycle gets hot with a state
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vendor, he knows how to cut him off.
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How do we know this? He waited till he was elected
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governor and he cut PG&E off, obviously PG&E is very
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controversial in the state of California with the wildfires
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with all the different lawsuits with with declaring bankruptcy.
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Well, he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from PG&E
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and he only swore off their campaign contributions.
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So they could contribute, no. He would accept no more after he
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was elected on it, you know, to to the office.
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So so he waited till he was an incumbent to cut him off.
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So he knows how to cut off a state, vendor with a new cycle
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gets hot. Yeah, like this.
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Looking at right now. PG&E the employees of our people
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from that, dhoni 123 and state Bender.
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The what they receive back from the state was 323.
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That sounds like a pretty good return on investment if you're
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almost. What's that?
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Double our three times in your investment, isn't that?
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Always, someone's goal is that if you could 3x your dollars,
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you're in a good spot. So with PG&E it's actually it
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gets a little bit worse. So while Governor Gavin Newsom
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was soliciting campaign cash from PG&E.
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And that, obviously there are there a state dinner PG&E was
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also being solicited by mrs. Newsome.
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So so Jennifer siebel Newsome was soliciting State vendors for
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charitable, the donations to her nonprofit and according to local
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news reporting PG&E, gives the governor's wife's nonprofit up
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to 384 thousand dollars worth of donations.
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So, she also had to swear half PG&E donations to her charity.
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What I mean? I guess I'm asking the obvious
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question here. When spouses of elected high up,
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elected politicians. Start nonprofits, is it really
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to start a non-profit in to, you know, go after some altruistic
00:16:12
goal here and to really help an ill of society or is it just a
00:16:17
backdoor way to kind of make donations to the Newsome family
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and get more pay for play? Kind of power moves?
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Yeah, those are the questions that need to be answered.
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I mean, everyone that hears about this says oh my gosh,
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they're doing, you know, they're taking a page from the Clinton
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plate. Playbook there are opening up a
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Clinton foundation and here's here's the difference, the
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clintons didn't open this up. When Bill was governor of
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Arkansas, they waited until he was a lame duck on the way out
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the door as president United States, then they opened up
00:16:50
their Foundation, The Noose Hums, they're starting on this
00:16:54
really early, so he becomes lieutenant governor.
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And and, you know, back in 2012, I believe is when, when this
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charitable entity was started and their blurring, all their
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blurring, all the lines between, you know, she has this Charity.
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She says she discloses donors, but on the website, the donor
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disclosure is at least, a year old.
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Then she opens up another organization and advocacy
00:17:21
organization. I have a 1, C 4 organization,
00:17:24
those donations she'll take Anonymous donations.
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That's right at their website. Those donations are not tax
00:17:30
deductible but a lot of Corporations can contribute to
00:17:35
that 501, C 4 and she's not going to report who is
00:17:39
contributing to that private organization.
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Another way she's blurring. The lines is that she actually
00:17:45
has a for-profit company called Girls Club entertainment and
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from her non-for-profit, the public charity.
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She has paid Girls Club entertainment since 2012 1.5
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million dollars. Okay, she also takes a salary
00:18:04
from her charitable nonprofit and since 2013, she's taken one
00:18:09
point, six million dollars in salary from the charitable arm.
00:18:14
So all in total, she's transferred from the public
00:18:17
charity that she founded that PG&E put up to three hundred
00:18:21
eighty-five thousand dollars. In and that other state
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contractor's have put, you know, five-figure gifts into, she's
00:18:28
taken a cell. She's taken in total between the
00:18:31
salary and are for-profit, business 3.1 million dollars,
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Yeah. It's, you know, having a
00:18:40
non-profit and then a pack and then your own private business
00:18:45
seems to be the way to make money in politics.
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I say, I know a lot of time. In fact, I know someone here in
00:18:50
San Diego, quite well. Who does the same exact thing we
00:18:53
won't bring up any names though? But yeah, that seems to be the
00:18:57
way to kind of make money, especially the back door way.
00:19:01
So, going over this, you did list out a whole bunch of these
00:19:04
different sort of contracts. What was probably the most
00:19:10
shocking to you that you looked at and actually, you stopped and
00:19:13
went. This is unbelievable.
00:19:15
I can't believe this is actually, this is actually real.
00:19:19
Well, Reed Hastings, founded Netflix, he's the CEO and his
00:19:24
wife, Patty Quinlan. They've given Governor Newsom
00:19:29
over two hundred thousand dollars worth of campaign cash
00:19:32
on the recall election. I think they put three million
00:19:34
dollars into the recall pack and Netflix is the number one
00:19:38
receiver of the California Film commission's tax credits, so
00:19:44
they received 97 million dollars in tax credits.
00:19:47
Over the course of the last two. Boarding periods.
00:19:50
I mean, I just I, you know, look, I'm green eyeshade
00:19:54
cynical. You know, we got a lot of green
00:19:56
eyeshade here. Like I said, you know, we're
00:19:59
we're steeped in the Super Bowl of corruption in Illinois.
00:20:02
But the fact that these folks can give six-figure campaign
00:20:09
donations and seven-figure donations, and receive so much
00:20:14
State largesse and have so many interests before the state with
00:20:19
is no prohibition. We were actually a little bit
00:20:21
shocked that California is the Wild West in the lap of campaign
00:20:26
Finance, prohibitions. Yeah, and going back to all of
00:20:32
these politicians, especially Democrats who kind of hold
00:20:37
themselves holier-than-thou. And we're so, ethical and above
00:20:40
everybody else. It's interesting that when you
00:20:43
press on stuff, like, transparency in California, you
00:20:46
don't really get a lot of transparency.
00:20:50
Just this morning. I was doing a live and I was
00:20:52
talking about LA County. Supervisor, Sheila, kuehl, who
00:20:56
is now being investigated? For taking money or giving
00:21:02
no-bid contracts to a non-profit of a good friend of hers, just
00:21:07
conveniently the Attorney General Rob bonta, stepped in,
00:21:10
once it became political and said, no, no, I'll take care of
00:21:12
it, which I don't think he actually will take care of it,
00:21:16
but it does seem like it's just a den of Thieves in California,
00:21:20
we really do. Have this Oleg are key of people
00:21:24
who are just looking out for each other.
00:21:25
They're letting this happen. There.
00:21:28
And they're not really rubbing your face in it because they're
00:21:30
hiding it behind all this information of and weren't for
00:21:33
organizations like your own. We wouldn't know a lot of these
00:21:37
numbers. So, where do Californians really
00:21:41
kind of take away from this and what do they, what can they look
00:21:44
at these numbers and take away from all of this?
00:21:47
When it comes to Newsom, we gotta raise your voice.
00:21:51
That's number one. I mean, you have the government
00:21:55
that you that you get. So if you know, don't you don't
00:21:59
exercise your rights and push back on these things.
00:22:03
And look, I think this this campaign Finance issue is
00:22:06
probably a 95% issue with the American people.
00:22:09
It cuts across all party lines. This good government issue is a
00:22:13
tremendous public policy issue to put forward, and hold the
00:22:18
political classic, honorable you're going to have a lot of
00:22:21
Republicans at the local level at the county level, doing the
00:22:25
same exact thing and their executive.
00:22:28
Shins and they need to be exposed as well.
00:22:30
What we're doing it open. The books.com is giving you the
00:22:33
tools. You can come to our website and
00:22:35
if look, you know, if somebody is sitting there and Texas or
00:22:39
Florida or New Jersey or Maryland or anywhere else in the
00:22:44
country, we have the state checkbook up there just download
00:22:47
your Governor's campaign cash and run it through the state
00:22:50
checkbook. You can do the same
00:22:51
investigation from our website as what we've done here in
00:22:54
California and we need to do it everywhere because the political
00:22:57
class I don't care if you're a Republican or Democrat.
00:23:00
I mean, just think about the national debt.
00:23:02
It was George w--, Bush, Obama, Trump Biden and our national
00:23:06
debt soared from less than six trillion to north of 30 trillion
00:23:11
dollars. In just 20 years.
00:23:13
A 5x increase between rdrd. Both parties are spending too
00:23:18
much of our taxpayer money and both parties need to be held
00:23:21
accountable, but we can start in California.
00:23:23
I mean, this is a pretty egregious set of instances with
00:23:26
Governor. Gavin Newsom, So I do want to
00:23:32
switch gears. Before I switch gears, I didn't
00:23:34
want to ask Cynthia if she had any questions for Adam before we
00:23:37
switch gears to dr. Fauci.
00:23:39
So yeah, nice to have you atoms. So, just to give a background,
00:23:44
I'm not an attorney at all. So I'm trying to connect the
00:23:47
dots as well for the viewers as well.
00:23:49
So I guess for a solution and kind of it might be going down a
00:23:52
rabbit hole because you alluded to, it's an issue with both
00:23:55
parties. I think, regardless of which
00:23:57
political You are. It's an issue for both and
00:24:01
you'll find it, you know, on the Republican side and on all
00:24:04
levels of government. So I guess like is the concern
00:24:09
more so that Newsom and and like this case in particular, he's
00:24:14
not being transparent. When you asked like open the
00:24:17
books or do you think it's more like a moral dilemma?
00:24:20
Like do you think like agencies or companies shouldn't be
00:24:23
donating? Should only like individuals
00:24:25
donate my love to like get your Insight on.
00:24:28
On that. Yeah, I think if you've got a
00:24:31
state contract, north of 50 thousand dollars.
00:24:34
If you're a key employee, if you're an executive, if you're a
00:24:37
major shareholder, if you are the company itself with a filly
00:24:42
ated pack, you can't give in the governor's race period, you've
00:24:46
got interest before the state so you can't give to the executive
00:24:51
that's running the state and in Illinois.
00:24:53
That's made a big difference. We have not had a governor
00:24:56
indicted since this law has been put into Place.
00:25:00
Do you see it? So since that's happened in
00:25:03
Illinois, have you seen kind of keeping an eye on the numbers?
00:25:07
Have you seen have you seen Improvement in terms of how many
00:25:12
Governors have there been since they passed this law?
00:25:14
Specifically there's been three I think one that was already
00:25:19
there. Pat Quinn, followed by Bruce
00:25:22
Rauner. Followed by Governor Jay be
00:25:24
pritzker. Okay well JB prisco week.
00:25:28
Can kind of leave out there. But yeah before we look it's not
00:25:34
it's not it's not a silver bullet to clean up everything in
00:25:37
the state has massive problems. But it took a major issue off
00:25:41
the table in the governor's race and that was buying clout and
00:25:45
buying influence, or the perception thereof.
00:25:49
Yeah. And then seeing them turn around
00:25:51
and get it. What it does.
00:25:52
Is it levels the playing field for the challengers to the
00:25:57
incumbent political class? Because look, these State
00:26:00
vendors, they're not going to fund the Challenger, they're
00:26:04
making bank from the existing political establishment.
00:26:08
They're going to preserve that status quo for as long as they
00:26:11
can because times are really good for them.
00:26:14
And they've invested a lot, not only in terms of money, but in
00:26:17
terms of relationship, They don't want somebody to upset
00:26:20
that applecart on so many levels.
00:26:23
So so it is an Unholy Alliance. It is, it's, it may be legal at
00:26:29
arm's length in the state of California, but the pattern is
00:26:32
troubling. And I think 95% of the people,
00:26:35
if you took a plebiscite, if you took a poll with find that it's
00:26:38
unethical that these dealings are unethical, dealings.
00:26:44
So I want to switch over to dr. Fauci.
00:26:46
Now because everybody's always interested in what's going on
00:26:49
with dr. Fauci, I mean, people are not
00:26:51
going to let that go out quietly.
00:26:53
Before we hop into that anyone who's watching or tuning in,
00:26:55
make sure you put a comment or question for Adam.
00:26:58
I'm sure he'd be happy to answer it but tell us what you've been
00:27:01
finding out about dr. Fauci, you brought that up right
00:27:04
before we hopped on so what some shocking news about.
00:27:07
Dr. Fauci so where the subject matter experts it opened the
00:27:11
books.com on the fauci, family, finances.
00:27:14
So everybody now knows what we broke in.
00:27:17
January of twenty Twenty-One, it was National and international
00:27:20
news that the number one, most highly compensated federal
00:27:23
employee was not the present, United States, not four-star,
00:27:27
Generals in the United States military, but dr.
00:27:29
Anthony fauci, he out earned all 4.3 million of his colleagues at
00:27:34
the federal level. Now he's announced his
00:27:36
retirement and so we estimated is federal pension.
00:27:41
Now there's a transparency problem with Federal pen.
00:27:43
Engines. They are not subject to the
00:27:45
Freedom of Information Act, federal pensions are considered
00:27:49
private information. Your u.s.
00:27:52
Senator, your member of Congress, the bureaucrats once
00:27:56
they retire, you the taxpayer, you help pay for those pensions.
00:28:00
You guarantee those pensions but you don't get to see them.
00:28:04
They're not subject to foia. You're not subject to Sunshine.
00:28:08
So we estimated, according to the rules about, you will
00:28:10
receive the largest federal pension in history here.
00:28:14
He'll receive a first year, pension, that Rivals, the
00:28:16
president's salary, the president makes 400 fauci
00:28:20
will get in your one of retirement 375.
00:28:25
Not bad. Pension for a public and I put
00:28:29
that in air quotes. Public servant correct.
00:28:32
That's right driving all the way through.
00:28:35
So if you remember in January the the Senate hearing with
00:28:40
Roger Marshall from Kansas, the u.s. senator cuisine fauci on
00:28:44
his finances, for five minutes, citing Forbes, which was my,
00:28:47
then column at Forbes on his earnings on its trades, on his
00:28:51
net worth and then fauci melted down on the hot, my car.
00:28:55
The senator a moron, you can't be America's top doctor if
00:29:00
you're melting down on national television and Senate.
00:29:02
Hearings are team at open the books.com we had a big stake in
00:29:07
that moment just last week dr. Rand Paul had fauci in the hot
00:29:11
seat on the third party royalties.
00:29:13
Again we broke that investigation in may we had to
00:29:17
sue in federal court for the database of third-party paid
00:29:20
royalties to the National Institutes of Health up to 2
00:29:25
of their scientists and Leadership at the agency.
00:29:28
And we found that pharmaceutical companies and other entities
00:29:32
over the course, last decade had paid three hundred thousand and
00:29:36
I think it's going to end up about 400.
00:29:39
I'm sorry they'd paid 300 million and I think it's going
00:29:41
to end up about 400 million that they had paid in third-party,
00:29:44
paid royalties. And Mah scientist will make an
00:29:47
invention that gets license to the private.
00:29:50
Sector, the private sector, pays royalties back to the agency.
00:29:54
Like I said, it's leadership and Scientists enriching them.
00:29:57
So we know you know we got the sense during the pandemic that
00:30:01
big government was very close to Big Pharma.
00:30:04
Now we know exactly how close they are every year NIH Doles
00:30:08
out. Thirty billion dollars to over
00:30:11
50 entities in the healthcare space.
00:30:15
They basically by the whole industry with 30 billion
00:30:17
dollars. You buy a lot of flat friends, a
00:30:20
lot of clout. Now we know coming back through
00:30:22
the other door and the last 10 years.
00:30:25
Was at least 300 million dollars worth of hidden third-party
00:30:30
royalties. They still won't tell us on an
00:30:33
individual scientist basis who who received how much from what
00:30:39
company their redacting, the name of the company making the
00:30:43
payment and their redacting The Invention and the license and
00:30:46
patent numbers as well. That's a, I mean, it just seems
00:30:51
like they figured out the game pretty well where they're like,
00:30:55
well, we figured out if we give campaign donations, then we'll
00:30:59
get some kick back. Now, it seems like the
00:31:01
government has figured out if we Dole out money will also get
00:31:05
some kickback. Is that right?
00:31:07
Yeah, I mean the last time that this database had Sunshine was
00:31:12
17 years ago in 2005, the Associated Press, they filed a
00:31:17
Freedom of Information Act They got the whole database.
00:31:20
Nothing was blanked out. Nothing was redacted, and they
00:31:24
found conflicts of interest with fauci fauci.
00:31:28
Edward received about 45 thousand dollars worth of third
00:31:31
party paid royalties on an AIDS drug that he had invented and he
00:31:36
was as director of his Institute.
00:31:39
He was green leading millions of dollars more in taxpayer, money
00:31:43
to augment the drug, he had invented that he was receiving
00:31:46
royalties on and he It it was a conflict of interest but 17
00:31:51
years ago, he said he'd donate his royalties to charity.
00:31:55
Yeah, I don't know how that, cures anything.
00:31:57
But anyway there was never any more scrutiny on that database.
00:32:02
In the House Appropriations hearing, John, Mullen are on a
00:32:05
Michigan had had the acting director of NIH.
00:32:09
Lauren stay back in the hot seat for five minutes, 36 hours after
00:32:13
we broke. This story on the hundreds of
00:32:16
millions of dollars with a third party paid royalties Payback
00:32:19
after 3 minutes finally admitted.
00:32:21
Yes. Every single payment has the
00:32:23
appearance of a conflict of interest, absolutely.
00:32:27
I don't think they can give us the database and I'll tell you
00:32:29
why, there are so many conflicts of interest that we've been able
00:32:33
to tease out of this database with the limited amount of
00:32:36
information that we can see it is stunning.
00:32:39
And we're going to start to roll these stories out in the press
00:32:42
this fall. So, do you think there's any
00:32:45
hope for this falchi case? Because I know like, for me
00:32:48
personally, like, it just seems like, you know, these kinds of
00:32:52
systems and these agencies, they just seem so powerful and it's
00:32:54
almost like impossible just kind of take down.
00:32:57
So you have any hope you know, in these in these instances.
00:33:01
Well, I gotta take Rand Paul in his word that if if the November
00:33:04
if the Republicans you know take the house or the Senate, they're
00:33:08
going to change the rules. You know, they're going to
00:33:11
they're going to get to the bottom and In get us data where
00:33:15
we can actually follow the money.
00:33:17
So I take them at their word, they're going to take action on
00:33:19
this. I mean hopeful is that something
00:33:24
that has to be done legislatively, where Biden has
00:33:27
to sign off on it, or is that something they can do?
00:33:30
On their own. So here's the timeline.
00:33:35
Let's so to answer, your question is, we are making the
00:33:40
transparency a part of our federal lawsuit on the
00:33:44
production of the this third party, paid royalty database,
00:33:48
right? So here's the time on and how
00:33:50
that's going to occur. Last February NIH admitted to
00:33:55
us. They were holding three thousand
00:33:57
pages of line-by-line third-party royalties.
00:34:01
They were going to produce that at three a rate of 300 Pages a
00:34:05
month. So, in November, we'll have the
00:34:07
entire database like I said. A lot of it is blanked out.
00:34:11
It's heavily redacted. So as soon as we get the 3
00:34:15
Pages, we're back in front of the federal judge saying, hey,
00:34:18
you know, they're redacting these things on a specious
00:34:21
basis. It's not Awful and we're going
00:34:23
to ask the judge to give, you know, to order that the agency
00:34:28
turns over an unredacted database, we're gonna have to
00:34:31
fight it in court, okay? And so, for the, the other part
00:34:37
that they want to change the rule, if we Republicans do take
00:34:42
over in November coming up in two months.
00:34:46
That still would have to be something, they would have to
00:34:48
legislatively do, is that a rule or is that how does, how do they
00:34:51
work that out? So here's what I think, Rand
00:34:54
Paul means by that, we alerted his staff to the fact that these
00:34:58
third-party paid royalties, they're not published newer,
00:35:01
there's no transparency on them. And that, and that, then the
00:35:05
scientists and the leadership at NIH, every year Congress
00:35:10
mandates that they have to file an ethics and financial
00:35:13
disclosure form. So why Aren't the royalty
00:35:16
payments on the form and they're not because NIH has this
00:35:22
convoluted definition of what the third party paid royalty
00:35:25
really? Is they say, it's an NIH payment
00:35:28
because the pharmaceutical companies, pay the agency and
00:35:34
the agency turns around and pays the scientist.
00:35:38
So since it's an agency payment to the scientists, it doesn't go
00:35:42
on their individual ethics and financial disclosures can you
00:35:46
won't believe that they have a system work around to make sure
00:35:49
these payments from third parties.
00:35:52
Never see the light of day, there is where you need the
00:35:55
rules change as well. How much does if?
00:36:00
Let's just say you could go ahead and everything goes
00:36:03
according to plan, you get everything you want and you
00:36:06
could look at all these numbers, how much of it in the past two
00:36:10
years? Do you think is going to be
00:36:11
related to covid? And we can really start diving
00:36:15
into how much Was the NIH giving out to, you know, this
00:36:20
particular company or this pharmaceutical company or stuff
00:36:24
like that. Do you, you expect to see a lot
00:36:26
of stuff like that, in those numbers.
00:36:30
Here's what we expect to see. We expect to see all the grants
00:36:35
and then we expect to see all the payments come in through the
00:36:38
back through the other door off licensed inventions.
00:36:42
So all of that during the covid area era for any Patton and
00:36:46
licensed scientific finding. We would be able to follow the
00:36:52
money and track the payments and the conflicts of interest.
00:36:59
I mean, it's it's, it makes your head spin when you think about
00:37:01
how much our government actually ways.
00:37:04
And the stuff that you guys do is is so important that people
00:37:08
see, just how much is wasted or how much goes wherever it's
00:37:13
going because I think people don't really understand, they
00:37:17
just think it's government money.
00:37:18
It's just that's government money.
00:37:20
It comes from somewhere, it's unlimited.
00:37:22
It just we find it somewhere and if we don't have enough, we'll
00:37:26
just tax more. It's always the In our spot for
00:37:28
taxing. So it's the stuff that you guys
00:37:31
do in the stuff that I read is just I find that we were talking
00:37:35
about this before. I think when people see money
00:37:39
and how much money is being wasted or kicked back to
00:37:43
companies like a Newsome's case that really kind of strikes a
00:37:47
chord with people, do you find that a lot with the work that
00:37:49
you do? So think about the presidential
00:37:53
election in 2016 there's been a bit of progress but probably
00:37:57
not. Not as much progress that the
00:37:58
American people want on the, on the issue that I'm going to talk
00:38:01
about yet, Bernie Sanders on the left and Donald Trump on the
00:38:05
right. And they were running on eerily
00:38:08
similar messaging that the system's rigged and it's rigged
00:38:12
for insiders. Well, it opened the books.com we
00:38:15
show you in detail just how bad it is, just how rigged the
00:38:21
system is against regular people at all levels in this country.
00:38:27
Yeah, it's it's incredibly important.
00:38:31
One of our listeners when good friend of the show Camilla is,
00:38:34
is open the books hiring. She's a numbers nerd.
00:38:37
So she's really enjoying this. And she's one of our, I would
00:38:41
say she's the best political researcher in the west.
00:38:44
Wow, Hunter, she really loves this stuff and and she's looks
00:38:47
like she's loving the show so far, just send me your resume
00:38:53
and Adam, and open the books.com.
00:38:57
There you go Camille. You got a direct pipeline to to
00:39:01
add them and see if you can help out.
00:39:02
She loves this stuff. So she be a lot of help.
00:39:06
You know we want to make sure we're cognizant of your time.
00:39:09
We know you have to get up early tomorrow you're in Illinois.
00:39:12
You're not on our time zone. So we thank you for staying up
00:39:15
late with us. This has been incredibly
00:39:18
incredibly informative. I look forward to having you
00:39:21
back on again, when there's even more numbers, I'm sure you'll
00:39:24
always have numbers. I don't think the Crusade
00:39:26
Friends, when it comes to what you're doing.
00:39:29
So why don't we tell people where they can find you and
00:39:31
where they can go support, you and learn more about the
00:39:34
organization? So, the fastest way to get
00:39:37
inside, are all of our breaking news as it happens, or even
00:39:41
before it happens within sight or updates is just come to our
00:39:44
website, it opened the books.com.
00:39:46
You'll your first trip in you'll get hit with a pop-up and key or
00:39:50
email address that puts you on our breaking news list.
00:39:53
That's the best way to keep in contact.
00:39:55
Then once you get to the The site.
00:39:57
You know, I think we all have an obligation to search our local
00:39:59
units of government. So, if you're concerned for
00:40:02
instance, about your K, through 12 School District, we got their
00:40:04
entire payroll and in many instances, we also have their
00:40:08
checkbook, spending and these things would go back for the
00:40:11
last three or four years. Awesome.
00:40:14
Well, I found this incredibly informative as always, just like
00:40:19
the last time you were on Cynthia, what what are your
00:40:23
thoughts finishing up? Oh, absolutely.
00:40:25
I, it was so informative. And I remember watching the last
00:40:29
podcast that you were on and I thought it was fascinating to.
00:40:32
So it was nice to be able to meet you and, you know, be able
00:40:34
to pick your brain in. Hear your thoughts.
00:40:36
I know Phil and I will be following along these cases
00:40:39
closely. And as always, I'm sure it's
00:40:42
implied but you are more than Welcome, you have an open
00:40:44
invitation. So, if you have any major
00:40:47
updates that you want to spell, if you do have any major
00:40:50
developments that you would like to share on this platform, you
00:40:53
know, definitely contact us. We'd be more than happy to have
00:40:55
you back on. Yeah, sounds great.
00:40:57
I mean, look, specific to California.
00:41:00
Governor Newsom and state spending, it's a target-rich
00:41:04
environment, there are so many angles, I think our auditor is
00:41:08
right now are building out 10 gainful segments that were
00:41:11
exploring and finding In all kinds of head-spinning details,
00:41:16
that, that I think will make national news over the course of
00:41:20
the next couple of years and I can't wait to see it.
00:41:24
So thank you again, Adam, best of luck in your training as
00:41:29
well. And you were training for a
00:41:30
marathon. If that's correct, right?
00:41:31
Are you did a marathon or you're training for a marathon?
00:41:34
Well this would be my ninth, Chicago marathon I've only run
00:41:36
Chicago. It is a world-class City and
00:41:39
it's a world-class race. There's a million Spectators
00:41:41
that come out and typically Get fairly good weather.
00:41:45
So, this is the year for 26 years.
00:41:47
I've been trying to break for hours.
00:41:49
I don't have a lot of time to train for these things, but but
00:41:52
this year, I'm feeling confident.
00:41:55
I think I broke 10 miles walking around Disneyland.
00:41:59
But that was over the course of like eight or nine hours is that
00:42:01
it's that good in your estimate. Heck, yeah, that's a long ways.
00:42:06
It's hard to run. One mile.
00:42:08
It's hard to do anything for 4 hours, even watch TV on a couch.
00:42:12
Much less run. That's, that's absolutely true.
00:42:17
Yeah I can't think of anything I do for four hours precisely been
00:42:20
or watching TV. Yeah, best of luck in the
00:42:24
marathon. As always you've you open
00:42:27
invitation for your want to come back and to everyone who's been
00:42:30
listening and tuning in. Thank you for tuning in as I
00:42:33
always end every show. If you enjoyed this, text it to
00:42:37
one friend share and I think this is specifically this
00:42:41
episode, I think you should text to multiple friends because
00:42:43
there's A lot of information here, spread this far and wide.
00:42:47
And as always, if you like the show, make sure you subscribe,
00:42:49
like, and review and all that stuff and we'll see you on the
00:42:53
next one. Have a good night, everybody.
00:43:23
Thank you for listening to another episode of California
00:43:26
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00:43:27
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