What an unbelievable week.
Welcome it is Verdict with Ted Cruz, the Week in Review, Ben Ferguson with you, and we've got some incredible stories that you may have missed that we talked about. First up, Joe Biden now being accused of witness tampering. The Senator and I talked about that as he went to go meet one of the key witnesses in the case against his son. What do they talk about and what does it mean for the court case that starts this coming week.
We'll deal with that.
Also, the Attorney General, Mary Garland says he is proud of the Marlago raid. Will that come back to haunt him? And finally, how will Donald Trump handle the Felon rap when it comes to the Democrats using it against him? What is the strategy to fight back? It's the weekend Review and it starts right now, Senator. I want to get to the other big case, and it is a very big case. It is a case that apparently is
so Joe nerve wracking the White House. It looks like the President could have been involved in witness tampering ahead of the trial of his son Hunter Biden.
Let's talk about that yeah, that's right.
So this trial begins on Monday, June third. Hunter Biden is going to face a federal trial for his gun crimes and one of the key witnesses is going to be Halle Biden. Now who is Halle Biden. Halle Biden is the widow of Bo Biden, Hunter's older brother who tragically passed away of cancer, and also the ex girlfriend of Hunter Biden, and Halle Biden is expected to be a key witness. And Sunday night, Joe Biden stopped by Halle's house. It was about eight pm on Sunday night.
Joe Biden came by and Halle was dating Hunter at the time of the crimes and one of the expected witnesses. She was married to Bo Biden. He died in twenty fifteen of brain cancer. And the prosecutors alleged that Hunter lied about his drug use on the gun purchase forms and then that he illegally possessed at least one gun, which Hallie is alleged to have thrown in a public dumpster in twenty eighteen. So she's the one who allegedly got rid of the evidence, and so she's not just
a witness. She is a central witness in the case, and the White House spokesman when asked about, gosh, why is Joe Biden visiting one of the key witnesses in the case against his son eight days before the trial, they said, no, no, no, he visited her because of the approaching ninth anniversary of Bo's passing. Now, I got to say that is that strikes me as a highly dubious explanation. It naturally raises the question, gosh, did he
did he visit Halley before the eighth anniversary? Before the seventh anniversary is sixth, fifth, fourth, third, second, first, And if he did, I'm unaware of it. And you certainly would think the White House if if that was their line and he had a visitor at any time previously, you sure do think the White House would have pointed it out. But they didn't. And I got to say, for the President of the United States, listen, when the
president travels, the president never travels quietly. It's not subtle. You come in with a motorcade with secret service, and so for him to go it's it's brazen. It is Joe Biden, and the Biden family feels that they are not bound. They behave as if they feel that they're not bound by criminal law, by any any restrictions, that that he's entitled to go. And the natural prison sumption is that he had a conversation with her about what she was going to say when she testifies.
Yeah, right, it would be important. Hey we want to know what you're going to say, or Hey, here's what we need you to say. If anyone else was in this scenario, what traditionally would happen when before a trial if everyone found out about the same way we did, regardless of an alibi, If Trump would have done this if I was on trial or you were on trial and we were going to meet with somebody that's about to be a witness and testimony for a kid, like, what would happen?
Well, you would expect the judge to make an inquiry of why were you Why were you meeting with this person? Who expect the prosecutor to make an inquiry as to why were you meeting with this witness? Did you discuss did you discuss what her testimony was going to be?
So?
Witness temp tampering is attempting to improperly influence or change the testimony of a witness within criminal proceedings, and it we don't know that that happened. But the United States a federal crime of witness tampering. It's decided defined by statute. It's eighteen USC. Section fifteen twelve, which is entitled quote tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant, and it describes witness tampering is a crime even if the proceeding is not pending, and it is a criminal offense even
if you are unsuccessful in your attempt to tamper. In other words, if you try to convince the witness, hey, you know, it really help if you testify to X, even though X isn't the case. The witness might not do what you said, but it is still witness tampering. And and that's a natural question. Now, I'm quite confident the Department of Justice is not going to inquire of Joe Biden. What conversation did you have with a witness?
They might ask her, It is possible they ask her, but I think there's no indication that the DOJ or the trial court is goet even ask what Joe Biden said to her.
Yeah, And the media was silent on this, excluding Fox News, which broke this story.
Here's how they reported it.
President Biden also made a surprise, unannounced stop at Halle Biden's house in Delaware last night. She is bo Biden's widow and Hunter Biden's ex girlfriend, who was also set to testify in Hunter Biden's gun trial in Delaware that begins next week. White House officials are saying this presidential visit to her house had nothing to do with that testimony. They say it has to do with the upcoming ninth anniversary of bo Biden's passing.
Jillian all Right, by the way, how often does the President United States of America make a surprise, unannounced visit in and around Washington, d C. In a massive motorcade. That has not happen very often.
So, look, it is certainly possible. Presidents do have family, they visit their family. So I don't know the frequency with which Joe Biden visits other members of the family, and that presidents do that. What they don't do with great frequency is do it right before you do it when you're meeting with a key witness who is about
to testify in the trial against your son. That that is a dramatically different context, and it raises obvious questions, questions that the media seems completely uninterested in asking, and that I expect the Biden Department of Justice is completely uninterested in asking.
I was asked this question the other day and I hadn't actually thought about it yet. And I was asked this question when I was on Fox and they said, if Hunter Biden is convicted at either of these trials, will it have any impact on the presidential election. My personal opinion, I said, is instantly, I was like, no, I don't think so. I think most people know who Hunter Biden is. They know he clearly has been trading
off the family's name. They know he's a drug He was a drug addic and did a lot of really bad things. We've seen the laptop. It's pretty darn clear. Well it knows believe it's going to make a difference. So in the presential action, do you believe that it will or won't.
Yeah.
And there's a second trial that is set to begin in September. It's in Los Angeles and it's for allegedly failing to pay more than one point four million dollars in federal taxes from twenty sixteen to twenty nineteen. So you'll have two different trials that are scheduled. Listen, if the president's son is convicted. And now remember, initially DOJ tried to give him a sweetheart deal where he wouldn't
go to jail, and ultimately that fell apart. Hunter originally agreed to a probation only deal to both the gun and tax crimes in June, but he walked away from the sweetheart deal at a July court hearing where his attorneys demanded broad immunity a past conduct of all past conduct, including violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which could implicate his father. And so he walked away from a deal that would have gotten him largely scott free, but
it wasn't. And remember, I think that the judge may well have signed off on that deal, but there was enormous public scrutiny on it, and I think that the judge decided, now, we can't do this well.
And even then he was going to admit he was guilty in that deal. So there's also it's been out there in the media like, hey, he was going to to get the deal. Many he was guilty of these two crimes, which in many ways insulated his father.
So if he's convicted this.
Time, I'm not sure with a lot of Democratic voters it'll matter.
Yeah.
Look, I don't think that that Hunter Biden is guilty of gun crimes and tax evasions. Any rational person knows that our ready, that's kind of maked into the cake. I agree with you, It doesn't alter the election. What this has always been about is protecting Joe and the relevance. We've talked about this a lot, although it's been a while since we've talked about on the podcast. Look, Hunter Biden is not someone of public interest, separate and apart
from his father. You know, he is a troubled soul who seems to have struggled his whole life, which is the entire White House defense that he has substance abuse problems and he's just had a hard time. And I don't have no reason to doubt that. That surely seems to be the case. But the reason it is a public import is that the evidence at this point keeps piling up that his entire business model was selling favors
from his father, was corruption. The reason this matters is Joe Biden, not Hunter Biden, and these two trials are designed to insulate and protect Joe Biden, not to bring him in at all, And as long as Joe Biden is not directly implicated, I don't think Hunter's being convicted will have any material effect on the election. Listen, if his son goes to jail, that may be a very difficult thing personally for Joe Biden and emotionally for Joe Biden.
But at the end of the day, the Biden doj succeeded in what I think its principal goal was, which is protecting the big guy and ensuring that there's no investigation into corruption by the sitting president.
Final question on this, what is the possibility of pardons for Hunter Biden by his father.
Before the election? I think zero. After the election. I think if Trump wins, I would wager large sums of money before he leaves off as Joe Biden pardons his son.
And there'd be no political fallout for him because he's not running for reelection again.
Yeah, if he's leaving, it would be I would be a Bill Clinton Midnight pardon special. And I think, particularly if he loses, it's almost a no brainer that Joe Biden would do it. He might even do it if he wins but there it's a more costly decision because he'd pay a political price for it, even if as he was starting a second term.
Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week. Now onto story number two, Let's remind people of Merrick Garland's own words. He was very proud of this raid. In August, yes twenty twenty two. He went out there, Justice Department insignia behind him, the just Department flag to his left, the American flag to his right, and he told the world in a live report, everyone carried it this.
There are, however, certain points I want you to know. First, personally approve the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter. Second, the department does not take such a decision.
Lately, clearly not, Senator, because they were planning for the use of deadly force to possibly be used.
So let me give a caveat defending this in a tiny respect, and then let me take that caveat away. The caveat I would give is this sort of authorization. An authorization of use of deadly force is standard when the FBI is exercising a search warrant. Look, if you're exercising a search warrant in any context, if you're going to a drug dealer's house or something else, there is a risk of armed resistance, and so an authorization of
deadly forces is typical with a search warrant. That's the caveat Now I'm going to take back every syllable of every word of what I just said. Holy crap, this was the President of the United States. Are you out of your mind? Like like like this is And for Merrick Garland to say I personally approved it the absolute hubris of this administration. Listen, Merrick Garland is drunk with power. He believes he should be on the Supreme Court, and he is engaged in a global revenge tour against everyone
he thinks who wronged him. But is there no judgment on the part of the Attorney General. Is there no judgment on the part of the Deputy Attorney General? Is there no judgment on the part of any advisors anywhere at DOJ? Is there no judgment on the part of the head of the FBI. Is there no judgment on the on the part of anyone involved in this process to say, you know this guy was the president of
the United States Secret Services guarding him for a reason. Yeah, maybe we should not be authorizing deadly forced like can you imagine listen, well, can you teach.
You the chain of command? Just for people to understand this. Merrick Garland's over the FBI. But also isn't he over the Secret Service as well?
Is that not under his No?
No, Actually, Secret Service reports us, so they're in different different silos.
So but wouldn't he be talking or realizing that he's setting them up for a war?
You know, I don't know, and listen, it is difficult to imagine. Look, who knows what happens. But the idea that okay, if Secret Service resists, you guys go like that, there is no sense. And this reminds me back at the beginning of Crossfire Hurricane. Crossfire Hurricane, you remember, was the DOJ and FBI targeting the Trump campaign back when
he was a candidate. They went after him, and they went in and wire tapped him, and they went after Carter Page and they created fraudulent documents that they use to get a warrant from the FISA court. I mean, it was a grotesque abuse of power that the Department of Justice Inspector General detailed in very painstaking detail, and.
The media gave cover because they said Donald Trump was crazy to imply that he was being spied on, his campaign was being spied on.
They said he was a lunatic. In fact, he was right, the entire team.
He was exactly right. But look, when you go back to the launch of Crossfire Hurricane part of the problem, and this goes to DOJ during Obama when this all started an FBI during Obama, there were no adults in
the room. Listen, there are circumstances you could imagine where a criminal investigation, a search, warrant of prosecution has to be authorized against a high level government official, but especially when that high level official is in the opposing party, especially when that high level official is the leading candidate for the party and the likely opponent for the sitting president. When you're going after your political opposition, the threshold for
anything should be extraordinarily high. And it wasn't at all based on some ridiculous, half baked OPO research paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign that contained the notorious p tape and all that nonsense, which has all been debunked. We now know it was all made up. But look, when the Hillary Clinton campaign pays over a million bucks to make up OPO research, they come up with some creative stuff.
When you look at this, this is going to be and it has to be. I would assume a major campaign issue, especially in the presidential campaign. I can't imagine this not coming up with the presidential debates.
But there also seems to be panic right now.
In response to this, Jim Comey went on MSNBC and said this, take a listen.
Are you concerned that it may get a test unlike any other if Donald Trump is reelected. I mean, when you think about a second Trump administration, what do you think the implications would be for the FBI?
Oh? Serious, for the Justice Department and the FBI, because Trump is coming for those institutions. He knows their power, and I think he has regrets that he didn't work hard enough to corrupt them last time. So he's coming for them, and that's a danger for all Americans. He's going to put people in positions in those organizations. He didn't have all stars the last time. He'll have the bottom of the barrel this time, but people who will want to do his will, and that should weary every American.
This election matters because of a reason like that. People have to participate. You cannot sit on the sideline. I don't care how you feel about Joe Biden. You must vote for him because the consequences on the other side are too severe.
I don't care how you feel about Joe Biden, you must vote for him. That's the former FBI director saying that Senator.
Well, and when he talks about corrupting the FBI, I will say, you know, listen, I would admit Jim Comy as an expert witness at any trial on the planet on corrupting the FBI, because he was front and center. He did exactly that. He was the point person behind weaponizing the FBI. Jim Comy is someone who fancies himself I believe to be j Edgar Hoover. He had delusions
of power. It is one of the gravest mistakes of the first term of the Trump presidency that Trump did not fire Jim Comy on January twentieth, twenty seventeen, the first day in office. He should have said, thank you for your service to the nation. Your services are no longer needed. Nobody would have blinked but the White House foolishly thought they could get Komy to be part of the administration to do his job, to not be a disloyal, power hungry snake, and they were wrong. He's continuing to
do that. And by the way, let's understand there's an enormous amount of CYA in Komy and that he's very afraid if they have accountability at the FBI that his
personal rear end is in the sling. And so that's he's like, please, please, please make sure you put people in power that cover up for me and that continue the corruption of the FBI and continue weaponizing it to attack their enemies, because that's what I did, and I don't want to be held for account That's among the most self interested testimony I've ever heard.
Final question on this now, knowing what we know about the raid, is it warranted and justifiable if Donald Trump is elected again, for him to go in in thoroughly clean house in these institutions?
Warranted, justifiable, and incredibly necessary. What has happened is we have hardcore partisans who have corrupted these institutions from the inside. They occupy senior positions in the career bureaucracy and If Trump is reelected, and I hope and pray that he is, he needs to point serious, strong leaders at DOJ, at the FBI, and the rest of the alphabet soup of the administration who understand what they're doing, who have the seriousness of purpose to go in and clean them out,
because we need to restore the institution. Listen that there are some some Republican, some conservatives that say things like abolish the FBI. I'm not in that camp. Why Because the FBI is enormously important. The FBI does hugely important things like finding and catching terrorists and stopping them from
killing Americans. It does hugely important things like finding kidnappers and child predators and going after the mafia and mobsters and going after Mexican drug cartels like all of that is really damn important, and I don't want to blow that up. What I want to do is restore the integrity of the FBI and the DOJ by getting the partisans out of office who have corrupted it. As you know, Chris Ray, the current director of the FBI, I've known for twenty five years.
Chris.
Interestingly, Chris is not a liberal, He's a Republican. He still considers himself a Republican to this day. Chris's problem, I believe, is that he is a company man. Now look, Donald Trump put him in that position, he appointed him
to that position. Chris is a company man, and he is He and I have had screaming arguments on this where he believes it is his job as administrator of the FBI, director of the FBI to defend the career leaders at the FBI, and I've told him, Chris, you are not defending the institution of the FBI if you support people who are corrupting it and destroying its integrity.
What does it tell you that half of America doesn't trust the institution anymore because you've been so politicized, and he has proven utterly incapable of seeing it and even less capable of taking it on and stopping as before.
If you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and dow the podcasts from earlier this week to hear the entire thing. I want to get back to the big story number three of the week.
You may have missed.
You've been in a lot of debates, Senator, and you've been on the presidential debate stage.
You debated Donald Trump.
But I and I one of my things that I love is debate prep, and I was putting myself in the room tonight mentally. All Right, if I'm in the room before the debate with Joe Biden, I know Joe Biden at some point is going to look over at Donald Trump and say, well, you're a convicted felon. How does Trump respond to that? And that's I mean, that's a pretty hardcore line that they have been obsessed with,
and they've got it. Now, how do you overcome that when there's people watching that I'm sure are going to watch this thing and maybe just engage the very first time. Weren't watching the trial. Don't understand how corrupt it was. Don't understand how these charges shouldn't have ever been used, how they change things to get rid of the Senchul limitations, how the federal government didn't bring these charges eight years
ago for a reason. I mean, all of that they've missed, and they look at the president sitting president, Look at Don Drungle, You're a convicted felon.
What do you do with that?
Well, look, I think the Biden debate prep team is going to spend a lot of time trying to convince Bides and try to help Biden not to seem like a smug soop. His instinct is going to be smug and sanctimonias and to rub Trump's face Trump's face in it. I think that is a bad look for Biden if he does, and my prediction is they'll fail. By the way that Biden can't resist being smug and sanctimonious on this,
I think he probably just will. But if his debating prep team is any good, they will try to get him to resist that. On Trump's side on this whole topic and more broadly, on everything in the debate, I think they're gonna try to stop Trump from just being volcanically angry. Look, Trump typically engages in very little debate prep. He is not. You're right, I have debated Trump many, many, many times. She doesn't engage in extensive debate prep to
the extent they have debate prep. I think the team around him, if they're any good, likely will try to get him to be calm and matter of fact and not angry and cambative. If you go back and look at the twenty twenty debates, the first debate Trump was angry and combative, and that many observers believe that that hurt Trump because he was too angry and combative in the debate. I think that will be an instinct here. And Trump has reason to be pissed. Look, he was
just railroad. He was railroaded by a kangaroo court. Any natural person and any person's natural reaction would be pissed. And Trump is not someone who generally his emotions. You know,
I'm reminded of back back in two thousand. So we were talking about First versus four earlier in the pods after Bushman, after the Supreme Court resolved the case, and after he came in, he appointed his Attorney General, John Ashcroft, and I was part of the team that prepared John Ashcroft for his confirmation hearings, and so we looted John
Ashcroft multiple times first confirmation hearings his attorney general. And you know, I'm young at this point, thirty year old lawyer, and there were several of us in the room, but we would try to get it noxious with Ashcroft and the preparation for confirmation. We tried to piss him off. We try to insult it. And in the prop sessions. He would blow his top, he'd yell at us, he'd get mad, and we were asking if noxious questions and he would scream at us. And then we'd say, okay, senator,
because he a senator at the time. With the enator, I get what you're saying. You're right, that was a totally unfair question, is completely wrong. You're perfectly justified yelling with us. Here's the problem. They don't have the votes to defeat you right now. The only way they'd beat your confirmation is if they provoked you to say something stupid at the hearing, and what you say, thanks your nomination. And so we worked with him. We said, Okay, yell at us, get all of your anger out of us.
But when you get into hearing, don't yell at the senators. Give them nothing because they have nothing to defeat you, and they can only win as if should give it to them. So you fast forward to the hearing, and you had Democrat senators that just made fool to themselves.
I remember Ted Kennedy at one point, leaning forward, he was reading something Ashcroft has read about the Second Amendment, and he talked about the Second Amendment be as the framers as James Mattison, another Framers, wrote about it a check on tyranny and Ted Kennedy and his Boston Brahmin boys goes taranny in the United States. What you know what that is? That is treason, I tell you treason. And John Ashcroft, to his credit, he had Ted Kennedy
screaming at him and calling him a trainer. And John Ashcroft said, Senator, it's confirmed as Attorney General, I will follow the law. And I don't know that. His heartbeat got about sixty five and he got confirmed. You know John Ashcroft, Well, you and here are good friends.
Yeah, he's one of my mentors.
Yes, his confirmation hearing, he didn't take debate, I promise you. In the prep sessions he did it got it out of his system. I think the Trump debate prep sessions will be similar. They will try to get that out of his system. I don't know if it will succeed.
Final question for you on this, and it deals with the presidency and Joe Biden. I don't know how you can separate what this judge did from the corruption of the Biden White House. We know the attorneys that left the DOJ to go work on this case. We know that Alvin Bragg ran on this, We know he raised money off of it. We know that this judge has as a as a daughter that's heavily involved in fundraising the Democratic Party.
Uh.
And this all was orchestrated from from the Biden administration down. Now they're trying to act like now they're sprit from it like this is we stood back. We were just watching the wills of justice and and and and and a man be found accountable by a jury of his peers. That is clearly going to be their line. But make no mistake, none of this would have happened. And without the direction, uh of Biden. I said, today America has its own Vladimir Putin. Now his name is is Biden.
Joe Biden is America's Putin right now going after his political opponent and trying to lock them up.
You know, in law, if you look at something like anti trust law, there's a concept in law called conscious parallelism, which is people that all have similar incentives behaving similarly. But it's not a conspiracy. They just all are acting according to the same incentives. I don't know that Alvin Bragg is taking orders from the Biden White House. I agree that the Biden Joe Biden has been dictatorially's abused his power. But I think Alvin Bragg is a petty
dictator of his own. He's George sorows Da. He ran on getting Joe Biden. You know, when his was the first indictment. I think a lot of Democrats are kind of sheepish. They said, Okay, this one is really sketchy. They didn't want this to be the lead case. And look, ultimately, the Biden do OJ. They sent the number three lawyer at d OJ, who had been a Democrat donor before in a Democrat themselves, and they sent him to be part of the trial team. So the bidend Oj got
in bed with this partisan prosecution. But but I'm not convinced that Alvin Bragg did so at the direction of the White House. I just think he hates Trump scuts. So does everyone in the bidend Oj Biden White House. So does Fanny Willis down in Georgia, so does just
about every wild eyed partisan Democrat. And so I wouldn't say it as as much a direction from the White House as that they're all suffering from the same Trump derangement syndrome, where they're willing to burn it all down, to destroy the rule of law, to abuse the justice system because they hate Trump so much, and they've convinced themselves if he is re elected, if he's president, it's
the end of democracy. I mean, we played on Wednesday's Pot Robert de Niro going on and on that'll be the last election ever if Trump is elected, which is just it's arranged. It's unhim. But I don't think de Niro is lying in that. I think he believes every word he says. I suspect Alvin Brad does too, and I suspect the Biden White House that DOJ does as well.
Final question. You're a poll guy. I love polls. I want your prediction. The first major polls that come out after this verdict has obviously come down, will they show that Donald Trump starts to lose momentum. Do you think he'll go backwards in the polls nationally or in swing states? Do you think this could even backfire more because you did say, and I agreed with you, that if they indict make him more powerful, his poll numbers would go up.
That happened when the court case started. You said it's gonna make people solidify their support behind Donald Trump. But now that he has the he's a convicted felon around his neck, and that will be what happens in the polls.
So when the indictment first came down, the first indictment, I said on this podcast, this indictment will be worth ten points for Donald Trump in the polls. Now that's in the progress. A week later, Trump was up ten. That prediction proved exactly accurate. Now, to be fair, that's a primary poll. Primary polls are different than general election polls, and so it caused Republicans to rally around Trump, even some Republicans who were not supporting Trump at that time.
The general election, it's a little harder. I think most of the views on both sides are baked in.
But if you.
Forced me to make a prediction, my prediction right now is Trump. I think it is mildly beneficial for Trump and the polls. I don't think it is major league because I think most of the people on both sides are baked in and it almost doesn't matter at this point. They're not moving. But if you, if you press me, I would say, I don't think it's gonna cause for showing the polls, and I would say I think it's likely to be a mile positive benefit for Trump of the Poles.
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Center Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to down with my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson podcasts and we will see you back here on Monday morning.