Josh Duggar is heard stumbling over his words during interview with feds

Josh Duggar’s flustered responses to child porn investigators can be heard for the first time in bombshell audio obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com.

‘I’m not, you know, I’m not denying guilt,’ the disgraced reality TV star stammers as he’s cornered by FBI agents and quizzed over his illegal downloads.

‘I’m not saying that I’m, you know, I mean, as far as anything goes, I don’t wanna be, I don’t wanna say the wrong thing … I don’t wanna say that I’m guilty or not.’

Duggar’s garbled defense came at the end of a 51-minute grilling during the November 2019 swoop on his used car dealership in Springdale, Arkansas.

Feds returned on April 2021 to arrest the 19 Kids and Counting alum on charges of receipt and possession of child pornography. He was found guilty by a federal jury in December and faces up to 20 years imprisonment and fines of up to $250,000 on each count.

During his trial, defense lawyers contended that a former employee or hacker could have exploited Duggar’s lax internet security to hijack his work computer and remotely download the material without anyone knowing.   

Scroll down for audio clips 

DailyMail.com has obtained evidence photos of Duggar’s office at his business where he is said to have secretly downloaded a sick trove of child porn

This is the HP computer where Duggar secretly scoured the dark web for illegal footage of child sex abuse. On the surface, the desktop looks like a typical computer featuring a wholesome family wallpaper of father-of-seven Duggar, his wife Anna and their kids

Duggar was arrested and charged with possessing and downloading child pornography in April 2021 after investigators traced the sickening footage to the IP address at his dealership 

But prosecutors branded their arguments a ‘fantasy’ and used texts and images to place the accused at the keyboard; jurors unanimously agreed with them. 

Duggar’s trial heard the father-of-seven used the HP desktop in his office to access the dark web in May 2019 to search for warped movies such as ‘Pedo Mom’ and ‘Playtot Sweetie.’

But his device also made a ‘digital handshake’ with special police software that detects illicit downloads and traces them back to an IP address.

Feds tracked it to 33-year-old Duggar via his internet provider and raided his Wholesale Motorcars business, where agents Gerald Faulkner and Howard Aycock persuaded Duggar to speak with them voluntarily.

Before they had told him anything about their investigation, he blurted out: ”Has someone been downloading child pornography?’

At that point the pair read Duggar his rights and asked if they could make an audio recording of the ensuing interview, which DailyMail.com has obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.

The conversation begins with a friendly tone as Duggar is asked about his work. ‘I own this business. I also do some real estate as well,’ he tells them, in a calm, confident voice.

The 33-year-old was released from jail days later on conditional bond ahead of his December trial 

Among the evidence found in the FBI raid of the property was a selfie of Duggar that placed him at the scene on the same day a sales receipt for a vehicle was drawn up and saved behind a secret partition of his work computer that contained illegal material 

The exclusive images reveal the workplace of Jim Bob Duggar’s eldest son as chaotic and shabby, with the unpaved forecourt littered with clapped out motors

Authorities raided the property in November 2019 and seized multiple of Duggar’s devices 

‘My dad has commercial properties so I help with the management. I dabble in a lot of things. This is, you know, this is probably my primary income as far as that goes.’

As the trio sit together in a police truck, the agents ask Duggar about his internet setup, his cell phones, and for a list of people with access to his computers.

They then ask Duggar if he’s familiar with ‘peer2peer’ programs such as Tor Browser that can be used to anonymously share movies, music and other files.

The software was created as a legitimate tool to protect privacy but it’s also used by criminals and pedophiles to search for outlawed items on the dark web.

‘I mean, I’m familiar with, I guess you could say,’ Duggar replies. Asked how many of his machines have such software downloaded on to them he responds: ‘Probably all.

‘We upload stuff for our cars and things like that. I’ve had a friend of mine that came and set us up with file sharing so we could do, you know, more encrypted type stuff. He just said, it’s safer that way. He got me onto it to be safer.’

Agent Faulkner turns the pressure up a notch by outlining to Duggar the sorts of crimes he and his colleagues typically investigate such as narcotics and illegal immigration.

‘Part of the other stuff we do is child exploitation,’ he adds. ‘So we’re, we kind of work with saving kids essentially. 

Duggar’s trial heard he was using a peer2peer program called uTorrent (green logo) which lets users share encrypted files behind the secrecy of the dark web

A screengrab shows the uTorrent application on his desktop computer

‘A lot of times we’ll find, through internet tips, that people have, you know, downloaded child pornography, stuff like that.’

Duggar begins to stumble over his words as he pleads for more clues.

‘Is that what you’re saying? Is that what you’re saying is going on?’ he repeats. ‘Is there some, is there something going on, on my devices, where that’s been something accessed or something downloaded or uploaded or something like that?

‘Does it, does it include, so did it mark this IP address? Is that basically what you’re saying? Yes. Okay. So does it, so I guess in the scope of your investigation, is there going to be, I guess, I mean, you’ll narrow it down?’

Faulkner then cuts in to warn Duggar: ‘That’s what you see all these other guys running around doing. They are computer forensic analysts.

‘So even if something’s on a computer that someone might have downloaded and then deleted, they’re gonna be able to find it.’

Duggar in his most recent booking photo after he was convicted in December 

As the conversation becomes ever more tense, Faulkner explains how a task force investigator detected child porn being shared in the Western Arkansas area and was able to connect directly with the computer involved.

That investigator was able to retrieve a video, 65 images and an IP address which the FBI traced back to Duggar’s business by subpoenaing his internet provider, OzarksGo.

‘These are somebody’s little boy or little girl at the end of the day. Our main objective is to find out who’s doing it,’ Faulkner adds.

‘I appreciate the work you guys do,’ replies Duggar, becoming more flustered.

‘I guess I have, I mean, I have quite a few questions about it, but I don’t know, you know, how much you can divulge. I’m just, I’m curious, you’re saying there’s images being uploaded or images being downloaded?’

Faulkner gives Duggar the opportunity to come clean about anything that will be found on his computers, warning him: ‘Once we leave here today, it’s the end of our conversation.’

Duggar chooses not to cooperate further, adding in a stuttering voice, ‘I’ve watched my friends, you know, answer things and they get them for conspiracy or for something.

Duggar is seen with his wife Anna heading into court at the beginning of his child pornography trial in Fayetteville, Arkansas in December 2021

He was found guilty by a federal jury in December and faces up to 20 years imprisonment and fines of up to $250,000 on each count. He is pictured being booked after the guilty verdict 

‘And I’m just, I’m not, federal statutes are broad and there’s a lot of things to it. And I’m not gonna say anything that’s gonna incriminate me or anything at all.

‘I’m not denying guilt and I’m not, I’m not saying that I’m, you know, I mean, as far as anything goes, I don’t wanna be, I don’t wanna say the wrong thing.

‘I don’t wanna say that I’m guilty or not. I’m just not saying, you know, on searching, finding, accessing inappropriate content at some point, right, at any point in my life.’

The FBI’s computer forensics experts got the answers they were seeking when they examined Duggar’s HP computer.

Investigators found it had been set up with a complicated ‘dual-operating’ system called a Linux partition which created a secret, parallel worktop within the same device.

It could only be accessed by rebooting and entering the password intel1988 – the same code as Duggar’s internet banking and his family Instagram and Twitter accounts.

It’s behind this partition, that prosecutors say Duggar used the file-sharing software highlighted by Faulkner and Aycock to download and view ‘worst of the worst’ videos of prepubescent kids being abused.

There was no evidence of child porn on Duggar’s other computer, an Apple MacBook Pro, but it contained backed up data from an old iPhone 8 that allowed investigators to access his old texts and pictures.

Duggar and his wife share seven young children, with his youngest being born last year  

The cache provided dates, times and GPS coordinates for Duggar throughout 2019, placing him at the car dealership when the porn was downloaded May 14 through 16.

Defense lawyers argued that a former employee or hacker could have exploited Duggar’s lax internet security to hijack his computer and remotely download the material without anyone knowing. But prosecutors branded their arguments a ‘fantasy’ and used texts and images to place the accused at the keyboard.

Duggar’s trial also heard from a close family friend who shed new light on the molestation scandal that engulfed his famed evangelical family in 2015, tarnishing their wholesome image and leading to the cancellation of their hit TLC show. 

Bobye Holt choked back tears as she revealed how Duggar had confessed at age 15 to groping and penetrating his younger sisters during ‘bible time’ and while they slept.

Duggar, the eldest of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s nine daughters and ten sons, will be sentenced in the spring.

His lawyers have asked for a retrial, arguing that the government withheld evidence and overstated the expertise of their forensic computer scientist.