Founder of Overstock.com resigns, goes public about his role in FBI surveillance of presidential campaigns

In a pair of jaw-dropping interviews yesterday following his resignation from the company that he founded twenty years ago, Patrick Byrne revealed his collaboration with the FBI as an informant, including involvement in surveillance of the presidential campaigns including multiple Republicans … and of the Hillary Clinton campaign, too.  In both interviews he fingered Peter Strzok as the person responsible for sending the “men in black” from the FBI who visited him, but in the second, he stated that higher ups, whom he would only identify as “X, Y, and X” – people whose names you would know, directed the program.  

First, he spoke for over 16 minutes with David Asman and his Bulls and Bears panelists on Fox Business:

Following that, he went on Fox News for 22 and a half minutes to speak with Martha McCallum. The network dropped its commercials to let him speak without interruption.

Although I rarely urge readers to watch long videos, and even though Byrne does ramble and repeat himself, these videos are utterly remarkable. I have to assume that a man who built a large, successful company is not a total flake. Byrne appeared to me to be under incredible stress – understandable because he just terminated his career at the company he built, and because he states that he received threats that he would be "ground into dust" if he spoke up.

The FBN interview is somewhat confrontational, particularly with questions by panelist Jonathan Honig, and more focused on his company’s stock price. The FNC interview spends a lot of time on his admitted relationship with Maria Butina, currently imprisoned for being an unregistered foreign agent (of Russia), with whom bachelor Byrne had an affair -- he says, at the behest of the FBI.

In both interviews, Byrne mentioned the he has gone public on the advice of his close friend (he refers to him as his “rabbi”) Warren Buffett, a man of great fame and credibility among liberals, and some conservatives. In the first interview, he also mentions that he feels comfortable speaking out now because William Barr is running the Justice Department, and disparaged the tenure of Jeff Sessions.

I’d admit there is a very small possibility that Byrne is a madman, making up wild accusations. But I think that there is a far, far larger probability that he has decided that the only way out of his situation of being caught in a deep and seditious plot is to speak out.

If he “commits suicide” or has a hit and run accident, I’d raise that large probability to near certainty.

Photo credit: YouTube screen grab

In a pair of jaw-dropping interviews yesterday following his resignation from the company that he founded twenty years ago, Patrick Byrne revealed his collaboration with the FBI as an informant, including involvement in surveillance of the presidential campaigns including multiple Republicans … and of the Hillary Clinton campaign, too.  In both interviews he fingered Peter Strzok as the person responsible for sending the “men in black” from the FBI who visited him, but in the second, he stated that higher ups, whom he would only identify as “X, Y, and X” – people whose names you would know, directed the program.  

First, he spoke for over 16 minutes with David Asman and his Bulls and Bears panelists on Fox Business:

Following that, he went on Fox News for 22 and a half minutes to speak with Martha McCallum. The network dropped its commercials to let him speak without interruption.

Although I rarely urge readers to watch long videos, and even though Byrne does ramble and repeat himself, these videos are utterly remarkable. I have to assume that a man who built a large, successful company is not a total flake. Byrne appeared to me to be under incredible stress – understandable because he just terminated his career at the company he built, and because he states that he received threats that he would be "ground into dust" if he spoke up.

The FBN interview is somewhat confrontational, particularly with questions by panelist Jonathan Honig, and more focused on his company’s stock price. The FNC interview spends a lot of time on his admitted relationship with Maria Butina, currently imprisoned for being an unregistered foreign agent (of Russia), with whom bachelor Byrne had an affair -- he says, at the behest of the FBI.

In both interviews, Byrne mentioned the he has gone public on the advice of his close friend (he refers to him as his “rabbi”) Warren Buffett, a man of great fame and credibility among liberals, and some conservatives. In the first interview, he also mentions that he feels comfortable speaking out now because William Barr is running the Justice Department, and disparaged the tenure of Jeff Sessions.

I’d admit there is a very small possibility that Byrne is a madman, making up wild accusations. But I think that there is a far, far larger probability that he has decided that the only way out of his situation of being caught in a deep and seditious plot is to speak out.

If he “commits suicide” or has a hit and run accident, I’d raise that large probability to near certainty.

Photo credit: YouTube screen grab