Audio Clip: Matt Mackowiak with Rep. John Ratcliffe and Ron Hosko

For the 66th episode, we dig into questions about the FBI and political bias from two thoughtful, intelligent, and experienced perspectives. First, we talked to U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX), a former U.S. Attorney and a member of the House Judiciary Committee. He is part of a six-person Congressional task force looking at FBI activity over the past two years. We discussed the Nunes memo, the 50,000 deleted text messages sent between two FBI agents and the attempt to recover them, why the Hillary Clinton FBI investigation still matters, whether DOJ has been cooperative and whether the Nunes memo can and should be declassified. Then, we were privileged to speak to Ron Hosko, a 30-year veteran of the FBI, who rose to become Assistant FBI Director before he retired in 2014. We delved into why the text message story matters, what questions he wants the FBI inspector general to answer, what his personal and professional views are of his former colleagues Robert Mueller and James Comey, how he evaluates the FBI’s Clinton investigation, what he makes of the Nunes memo and the FISA (or “unmasking”) process, and how all of this is affecting the reputation of the FBI.