Welcome.
It is verdicrous center. Ted Cruz ben Ferguson with you, Senator. This is going to be a very interesting show today, and one of the most shocking topics is the Biden administration has been asleep at the wheel, apparently, as China is buying up farmland at alarming rates, not just in the country in general, but specifically around military bases.
Well, that's exactly right. We're seeing a pattern across the country of China systematically buying farmland next to military bases. Nineteen military bases across the country. China has acquired farmland that makes us vulnerable to espionage. It makes us vulnerable to all sorts of surveillance. It should be completely unacceptable. We need to do a lot more to stop it. We're also going to get into what has happened in New York City. Alvin Bragg made his name by bringing
this ridiculous, bogus case against Donald Trump. Well now he's making his name again by taking the violently anti Israel Prohamas protesters at Columbia, the protesters who broke into the building, who sees the building, who was arrested, Well, he just announced he's not going to prosecute them. He dismissed the charges against them. I have to say that should surprise
virtually nobody. Alvin Bragg is a George Soros prosecutor who was elected to let criminals go, and unless your name happens to be Donald Trump, he's in the business of
letting criminals go. Finally, we're going to talk about the hearing that is coming up in the Federal court in Florida on the case against Donald Trump for possession of classified documents, and in particular, the judges scheduled a hearing on whether Jack Smith, a special prosecutor, is legally appointed, whether it is constitutional for him to serve as as special counsel. There's a serious legal argument here. We're gonna break it down.
Yeah, it's gonna be really interesting to see what happens with that case. I want to tell you first, how about our friends over at Patriot Mobile. If you have a cell phone and your cell phone is with Big Mobile, you may be giving donations to Democratic Party candidate running in the local, state and national elections. You also may be giving donations to big liberal Democratic organizations. And you may even be giving money without you knowing it to
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gonna get free activation. That's nine seven to two Patriot. Or online at Patriotmobile dot com slash verdict. That's Patriot Mobile dot com slash verdict or nine seven to two Patriot promo code Verdict, you'll get free activation. Senater, We had a warning earlier this past year on China and the threat of China. It came in the unorthodox way of a really big balloon that is traveling across this country.
The Biden administration allowed it to sit, hover, even back up, use our cell towers to then send data back to the communist Chinese government, and then we shot it down after and finished its mission. That was a big concern of many Americans. But now we find out about all of this farmland well.
And to be clear, there were multiple Chinese by balloons, and the Biden administration didn't bother to tell anyone about them until finally some ranchers in Montana spotted this one and they got outed on the internet. Were it not for that, we wouldn't even know about this one. They kept its secret that the Chinese had been spent sending spy balloons over US airspace, over US military bases. They're engaged in active espionage against US. Well, this pattern is
a second pattern. It's one I've been focused on for a long time and it is a real national security threat. Here want I want you to.
Take a look at this map.
You pull up this map. This shows the Chinese farmland that they have purchased around military bases. Nineteen bases across this country. That includes Fort Liberty, which is what used to be Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina. That includes Fort Cavazos, which is what used to be Fort Hood here in ten Exis. That includes Marine Corps based Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California, And it includes McDill Air
Force Base in Tampa, Florida. All of those the Chinese are buying up land, and they're claiming they're buying it up for farming or ranching, but it allows them to set up reconnaissance sites. It allows them to install tracking technology, to use radar, to use infrared scanning and to view the bases and from there to attempt to fly drones over the bases and engage in surveillance. And I got to say it is insane that we are allowing the
Chinese to do this. This should be illegal. We should not allow the Chinese communists to buy land anywhere near near our bases. And this is an issue I've been fighting on a long time in the Senate, and at least so far that the Democrats have resisted doing anything meaningful to stop this problem.
Let me ask you this, when did this become a problem that was on put on your radar screen, Because it's not like they went and bought all this land up at the exact same day, at the exact same time. There should have been some warnings that went off for the people and their government that like, hey, there's a trend. Now we're seeing these Chinese companies coming in or individuals coming in and they're specifically buying up farmland right around
our military installations. You would think with an FBI that can find Graanma from January sixth, they would be paying attention to things like this, or even the CIA, you would think there'd be somebody at the DODA that would have been raising the red flag here going we've got a major problem.
We got to make sure this is stopped.
And now we look at the entire US map and all of our biggest military installations, and there is literally farmland surrounding me. I look at Fort Liberty and I was actually there and went on base last year.
This area around it's not like it's a little sliver.
It's almost encomassing the entire Fort Liberty Base, which is a massive base with farmwan all around it.
Now, look, it's an enormous problem, and you gotta remember you got to overlap this with the consequence of our open borders, our open borders on the southern border due to Joe Biden, the Democrats. We've seen an explosion of illegal aliens, over eleven million illegal aliens since Biden became president. But we've also seen an explosion of Chinese nationals in twenty twenty one. How many Chinese nationals do you think crossed illegally into this country.
Twenty twenty one. I do not that many.
I would assume three hundred and forty two. Wow, how many of this past year.
I'm gonna guess ten x because it's Biden.
So three hundred and forty two ten X would be three thousand, four hundred and twenty. Yeah, now twenty four, one hundred and twenty five.
Good grief.
Twenty four thousand. Now, the last I checked, twenty four thousand military age Chinese men marching over our border. In any normal world, that would be called an invasion. That's in one year, and they're almost all military age men. Let's talk about some of the specific people investing. Here are some of the known investors with ties to Communist China. One of the biggest investors in Texas is a billionaire
named Sun Guang Xin. He is very deep ties to the Communist Party and he's spent an estimated one hundred and ten million dollars buying up land next to Laughlin Air Force Base in Valverdi County, Texas, a training ground for military pilots. I've been down to that Air Force base.
When this issue really came on my radar screen was when I was down at Laughlin Air Force Base and was meeting with the leadership there and they were expressing So what the Chinese have done is they bought a lot of the land surrounding that base and they put windmills up on it. Now, why is that a problem, Because Laughlin uses that to train our pilots, and you can't train flying through windmills. It's a hazard. And what they're doing is they're off major routes that are available
for training our pilots. They're limiting the ability to train our pilot and they're doing it in the name of quote, let's build some windmills here.
So not only is it interfering with our military readiness and training, but then there's the other part that we discussed, which is espionage. And look, the FBI director, we talked about this on Verdict a couple months ago. He came before Congress and put a very clear warning to Congress
that he was very concerned about China. He was very concerned about what they're doing inside the United States of America espionage and also what they're stealing using you know, hacking, etc. But he says they're opening up cases against Chinese individuals and having to basically monitor all of these people in this country at alarming rates that he said they can't even keep up with.
Yeah.
Look, remember when Trump was president and Mike Pompeo with Secretary of State, where the FBI came in and shut down the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas, where you and I are right now, because the Chinese consulate they were using for espionage. It was basically a spy ring that they had cells that they were detaining and imprisoning Chinese nationals who live in Texas. Within the consulate. It was
apparently filled with rats. It was a nasty, nasty place, but it's where they were running spies right here out of Houston, Texas. It was shut down. I'll tell you. Following the problem with laugh Air Force Base, in twenty twenty, I wrote a letter to then Treasury Secretary Stephen Manuchin calling on the Treasury Department to step in and put
more protections in place. And I'll tell you since then, the Department of Treasury has increased the protections against foreign adversaries acquiring real estate for both Laflin Air Force Base and Lachlan Air Force Base in San Antonio. So we made some progress. But here's another group of investors, the Fufeng Group, which is a Shandong, China based company that specialized in flavor enhancers and sugar substitutes, purchase three hundred acres of farmland forty miles from the Grand Forks Air
Force Base in North Dakota in twenty twenty two. Chen Tian Kuoo, I'm sorry my pronunciation is not great on that. I'm doing the best I can. He's a billionaire as a Chinese Communist Party member, is the second largest foreign owner of farmland in the United States. He bought nearly two hundred thousand acres of farmland in Oregon and twenty fifteen at about four hundred and thirty dollars an acre.
His purchase of the acreage didn't even appear in government records of land ownership by foreign investors until it was first revealed in January. And another one Mine One Partners, a firm partially backed by Chinese nationals, was told to move equipment from less than one mile from F. E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, saying it was a national security risk, per the Air Force Times. Here listen to a Navy admiral describe the scope of the problem.
You know, this thing of our military base is getting penetrated by foreign nationals is happening more and more. This is something we see probably two or three times a week where we're stopping these folks at the gate with a week a week at least, and this is just Navy alone, where we're seeing folks try to come in and usually the cover story is. And I'm a student, you know, I'm here. I'm an enthusiast. I want to
see the ships. That type of thing. We have to turn them around and typically we get NCIS involved with those, and we get biometrics when possible. But yes, there's been an up ticking Mack.
Do they have passports?
Do they have a lot of times they have passports, They have papers, Yes, but they're in no way, shape or form authorized to be on our base. And it's really hard for us to tell the underlying motive for these type of cases.
Wow, that's stunning. It is. It's got to be a concern.
This is Russian, Chinese, it comes from all all these different nations. We're seeing an uptick in it.
I mean, this sounds a lot like a dry run. That's what's probably so concerning. But you combine that with what they could be picking up with surveillance technology being on these bases, what they can be learning about how we fly missions, how we're doing our drops with men. You look at eighty second Airborne, I mean it's kind
of important. It's right there. Freedom for BRAGG and they could be watching, monitoring, seeing everything they need to know about the US military because they're buying up farm wind and no one seems to be paying attention to Biden administration.
They're sending Chinese nationals day after day after day to these bases trying to make incursions here. Listen to Admiral Kottele discuss that as well.
How do you overcome that?
Well, you know, we are improving our capabilities to detect that, to defend against that, to make sure that our folks are trained to actually counter that. I do this under my authorities from a US and Northern Command as the component commander for that, and so I have great reporting on it. And generally, in general, we believe it's mostly just folks with drones that you buy them commercially, you know,
from Amazon or whatever the case may be. But it's hard to differentiate between that and a nation state trying to shore ESPN.
I'm sure, and you've got to do a lot of investigative work to figure out that answer.
Absolutely.
I mean, you listen to drone issue. We've all seen drones, We've seen how popular they become. But this is great cover for the Chinese, right, Oh, there's a bunch of flying around drones. Maybe we can sneak one out every twenty in and we can claim ignorance here, yet in reality we're getting incredible intelligence. So my question for you is this, is it the job of the president to change or advocate or support laws that say you can't buy up military you know, land around military bases or
does this fall the states? We've seen that happen in Arkansas, for example, with Governor Huckabe there. She has now said you can't buy up land, Chinese can't come in here and buy up a bunch of land. Or is it a two prong approach that we need.
So it's principally the federal government that has the responsibility here to safeguard our federal military basis. We need to do much more. I think the most effective method would be expanding the jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. It's what's called Scifius, and scifious jurisdiction right now over real estate investments is very limited.
And what it was, the Sifius regime was designed to counter foreign investments in US businesses, and so for certain critical US businesses, a foreign actor has to get approval from the Sifius Committee to be able to make that investment. Currently, sifia's jurisdiction for real estate purchases depends on the proximity of that land to sensitive facilities, and that proximity varies
depending on the category of sensitivity for each facility. So, for example, last year, SIFIUS reviewed a controversial purchase of three hundred and seventy acres near a North Dakota Air Force Base by a Chinese company. If he has found that it didn't have jurisdiction because the land was twelve miles out from the base and the base sensitivity was
too low to provide jurisdiction twelve miles out. I've introduced legislation called the Protecting Military Installation and Ranges Act that would expand sifius jurisdiction for real estate investments by foreign persons out to one hundred miles from any military installation. And and by the way, America is a pretty big country. One hundred miles does not seem that extreme. No, when you're doing national security, I think this is a common
sense provision. We need to get Democrats who are willing to work together on this, who recognize this is a national security threat. You know, I'll point out that. So I've introduced that bill in the last three Congresses. I fought for that bill to be included in the National Defense Authorization Act, so far unsuccessfully.
I had any Democrats in any of these states where this has happened. They've said, hey, centered Cruise were on the same page here.
So what I was able to get in was in the Fiscal Year twenty twenty one National Defense Authorization Act, I drafted legislation that empowered the Site Clearing House to conduct a more thorough review of wind farm construction near bases.
As I said, we have this problem. We have this problem with Laflin and Air Force Base, we have the problem at Corpus Christie, and pilot training operations at Laflin, at Dayas, at Goodfellow, at Kingsville, and Corpus Christie have all been threatened by a growing number of wind farms in South Texas and West Texas. So I drafted legislation that was passed into law to put added protections to say, look, you're not going to put windmills up in a way
that significantly harm the ability of training our pilots. That if you're taking away major routes that we're using for training. That's not an appropriate place to put a windmill, and so we've had some progress in that regard, but frankly, we need to do a lot more. If the president wasn't a wall, a president should lead on this. I feel confident if Trump is re elected, I'll work directly with President Trump and we will get legislation enacted to addressed,
address and stop this problem. But with the Biden administration is just completely disengaged from it.
How much of this is just their ignorance to the issue and not caring how much of this could be compromised because of all the deals they've done in the millions of coming to the Biden family directly from China. How much of this is us just to sleep at the wheel with a pre nine to eleven s mentality right where you don't think that that really anything bad is going to happen where, and then all of a sudden you trace it back and it's like, Yeah, they
surrounded all of our bases. They knew what we were doing, they understood our technology, they were stealing it from us. This is the stuff that keeps me up at night thinking about we're seeing the warning, we're witnessing the Landing purchase, and we're still not doing anything.
So it's some of all of that, and that there's an element of just apathy and ignorance, but there's also We've talked before about how I think today's Democrat Party is structurally pro China. That they're major stakeholders, big business, big tech, big Hollywood, big universities, They're all in bed with China. So today's Democrat Party is not focused on
standing up to China. And this is one of the consequences I think really of having a Democrat majority in the Senate is that you're unable to drive an agenda. With a Republican majority in the Senate, we can drive an agenda far more effectively and listen, it is hard for Democrats to vote no on common sense protections that would stand up on this, but as long as the Democrats are in charge, they just avoid the votes altogether. So I think this is one of the real consequences.
I believe if in November we have a Republican president, Senate, and House, we will pass legislation. Hopefully my legislation that I've introduced the last three congresses, we get that passed, which would be a big, big step to solving this problem.
Final question this we have a president of debate coming up this week.
Yeah, I have no doubt in my mind seeing and it's not going to bring up this type of issue. Is this where a candidate should take the opportunity to bring it up? Is this where Donald Trump should take a moment and talk about, Hey, mister president, we've got this problem. We have bases that are being surrounded. Is that a moment that he should take and bring this issue to the people.
You know he could. I would be surprised if Trump puts a lot of time and energy into this, because, frankly, this was a problem when Trump was president.
Too, so Biden spanned it.
Biden could push back and say, well, you didn't stop it, and he's right, Trump didn't stop it. It's gotten worse under Biden, and I'm confident Trump will stop it the next time around. But I don't of all of the national security areas to draw distinction, I don't.
Know that I would put this at the top of the list.
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That's Blackoutcoffee dot com slash Vertict Centator. I want to move on to another subject, and it's also a really important one and it deals with Alvin Bragg. We saw the radicals shut down universities, occupy universes, become violent, storm buildings and take them over. We saw some of them actually be drug out and be held accountable for their actions. Alvin Bragg, we now find out, I'm not surprised you said it earlier.
You're not surprised at all.
Is now basically walked in and clean the slate for these criminals. He's dropped the criminal charges against these pro Hamas extremists. Is there going to be any accountability for this or is this just the Democratic Party, This is Alvin Bragg, this is the Sorus agenda.
Look sadly, this is the base of today's Democrat Party when you look at those vicious anti Semites, those angry young people on college campuses, that hate Israel, that love Hamas, that are threatening Jewish students, that are chanting horrible Nazi slogans, telling Jews literally, as they said in the University of Washington, go back to the Ovens. That was a verbatim quote, chanting we love Hamas. As they did at Columbia, that
was a verbatim quote. We're living in an environment where today's Democrat Party wants the votes of these radicals, and so at Columbia it got so bad that the NYPD went in and arrested a number of people, arrested forty six defendants. Well this week thirty one of them had their charges dropped and dropped by Alvin Bragg. That's same hard left George Soros. Da Soros put millions behind electing Alvin Bragg. Alvin Bragg came in on an agenda two
part agenda. Number one, I will get Donald Trump, That's what he campaigned on. And number two, I will let criminals go. George Soros, DA's across the country come in on the promise to let murderers go, to let rapists go, not to lock violent criminals up, to let them go. And you know what, I'll say this, Bragg is honoring his promises.
It's the promises that he made. But I even think many Americans saw this. And in New York you're seeing crime out of control. You were just there. I was there. It is starting to feel like a different city than it did four or five, six years ago. And you can see it in areas that are very populard. You can see it in the crimes that we've seen committed, even at Times Square. You see so many problems that are happening. And at what point do the American people
turn and say enough is enough? Like if you look at what they were doing on these college campuses in New York City and the violence in taking over, I would assume a lot of New Yorkers would say this is not okay.
You would assume that, But there are consequences when you elect democrats. I will say one of the talking points you see among some Democrats as well, this is terrible, what's happening at campuses, but there's nothing we can do about it. And let's be clear. This is happening in New York. This is happening in Connecticut. This is happening in Pennsylvania. This is happening in New Jersey. This is happening in Massachusetts. This is happening in Illinois. This is
happening in Washington State. This is happening in California. This happens in blue states that elect Democrats and put Democrats in charge. And when you elect Democrats and put Democrats in charge when there are radicals who hate Israel, who are threatening Jewish students and chanting for Hamas, the Democrats you elected and put in charge, they support the radicals and they refuse to prosecute them. You know what, you do that in Texas, you do that, in Florida, you
do that, in Georgia. You do that in Alabama. You will be arrested and you will be prosecuted. There is a consequence if you elect Republicans who actually believe in prosecuting criminals. You're not seeing Jewish students being threatened. You're not seeing Jewish students afraid to go to class. You know, Texas A and M. I was just at Texas A and M a week ago for the George Strait concert, which was phenomenal. By the way, what an amazing.
Concert attendance record, which is pretty cool, and you were one of them.
It was the largest concert in America in US history, one hundred and ten, nine hundred and five people. It was phenomenal. It's also the largest crowd ever at Kyle Field. Because you think about it a football game, they don't have people on the field, so you had the field
full of chairs. Also, it was a packed crowd. You know what, Jewish students at A and M aren't afraid for their safety because if there's a Prohamas terrorist who threatens them, they'll arrest him and they'll throw him out of seat.
When you look at what this prosecutor has done here and the others, part of it goes even to a bigger plan from Soros, and I think Americans need to understand this. It's about bail reform, prison reform, which means letting out violent criminals who are currently in prison, and it's about having driving the police and saying if you can't defund the police, you at least drive them to
insanity where they just quit. Major cities now are watching experienced police officers walk off the job, leave and go to other departments or get out of the field altogether, because they're risking their lives to lock people up and then Alvin Bragg immediately sets them free before they've even finished the paperwork. That's part of the bigger world of Alvin Bragg and Soros that they're trying to create, which is chaos, organized and design to make the police just say I'm done.
There are two ways you abolish the police. One you do it directly. You take over the city government, you take over whoever the controlling governmental lanity is, and you shut You do fund the police, you cut off the money, you fire the police officers. That's what we've seen the radical left do. We saw the NYPD cut over a billion dollars from their budget. Sadly, we saw the Austin Police Department here in Texas cut one hundred and fifty
million dollars from its police budget. We saw Minneapolis do that. By the way, every time they do that, the crime rates go up, the murder rates go up.
Amazing.
When you pull cops off the street, more people die. But the other way, you abolish the police is you go after the das you elected George Soros DA, and the cops can do anything they want. They can catch the murderers, they can catch the rapists, and the DA turns around and says, nope, I'm gonna let them go. And that is functionally the same thing. The cops cannot
do their jobs without a DA who will prosecute. By the way, just this past week we had actually we talked about it in this last podcast, a judicial nominee from Joe Biden nominated to the Federal Court of Appeals, who had done volunteer work for a communist organization in Tennessee that it vocally called for abolishing ice, abolishing the police, and the Biden administration wants her to be a Court of Appeals judge because, by the way, another way to
abolish the police is put judges on the bench that just order criminals released free. This is all about, at the end of the day, this is about expanding chaos. This is about destroying American society. I genuinely do not understand. I don't know how to. You know, look, in any debate, one tries to stand in the shoes of the person you're arguing you try to understand, Okay, why why would someone think that? Look, you and I are both pro life. We can both understand why someone would be pro choice.
There are arguments you could understand why, in good faith someone would get there. There are lots of arguments. You and I both think we should have low taxes. We can understand the arguments why you want the rich to
pay bigger chunk like. Those arguments are not irrational. I am genuinely incapable of articulating the reasons why anyone would want to release more murderers to say the world would be better if more murderers, more rapists, more child molesters were on the street and out there murdering more people, raping more people, molesting more kids. I'm trying to give the benefit of the doubt, but I know of no reason to support that other than that you want to
destroy society. Yeah, am I wrong? Can you get I mean, play Devil's advocate for a minute. Give me the argument why you're Alvin Bragg and you think the world would be better with more murderers on the street.
There's not a logical argument there. And I think this is where it's about remaking this country. And it's about fundamentally changing this country, changing what law and order is. There's no longer right and wrong, there's no longer good and evil. There's no longer a society that's rule by laws that are applied equally. This is about some sort of new type of country. I think they want to develop. But I also think some of this is just I think they look as revenge.
Well, and listen, all law enforcement becomes political. And here I want you to watch and listen to a really extraordinary exchange that just happened. And it's an exchange between Bill Maher, Yeah, and Andrew Cuomo, former governor of New York, former Attorney General of New York. Here, give a lesson, Give a watch.
The trial in New York, the one he got convicted for, was the greatest fundraising bonanza ever he is now he was lagging behind Biden, and now he's pulled quite a bit ahead. That trial was the greatest reason people had to send their checks for five, ten, twenty five whatever dollars to Donald Trump. So I was always with you on the one in New York, the hush money trial.
I don't think they should have brought that one, it was just he's going to look like a sex case, and people were always just going to look at it that way.
So and in that.
Case, the attorney general's case in New York, frankly should have never been brought. And if his name was not Donald Trump, any if he wasn't running for president, I'm the former aging in New York. I'm telling you that case would have never been brought. And that's what is offensive to people, and it should be because if there's anything left, it's belief in the justices.
Go after Trump, but everyone else, it's an actual hardcore criminal in New York City.
Let him walk.
Look, look, I got to say that is the first time in my life that I've ever been quoted by Andrew Cuoma, because on this podcast, I've said multiple times this case would never have been brought if his name were not Donald Trump. And it's indisputably correct. And look, Cuoma was governor, he was attorney general. He is obviously
a partisan Democrat. And interesting enough, he was not just addressing he was addressing the Alvin Bragg case, but he was also addressing the Letitia James case, the case, the ridiculous case with the wildly partisan judge who went after and is trying to get a half billion dollars out of Trump to destroy his business. Both of those cases were vindictive. Both of those cases are legally frivolous. Both of those cases will be overturned on appeal, and they
were all about the weaponization of justice. Look, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna give credit to both Bill Maher and to Cuomo. They're both Democrats, They're both outspoken Democrats, and they are among the very first to actually have the guts to call this out for what it is. That's a big deal. Listen, if Cuomo is willing to say it, you know what, there are a lot of other people who see it, even if they're scared to say it out loud, they can tell just how political, just how much garbage this is.
It brings us to story number three.
It's an important one, and that's the unlawful appointment argument that's been made about the special counsel.
Jack Smith.
I want you to walk us through this because it is complicated, and I want you to make the argument that is, why is there a possibility that this may work? For Trump's legal team, they're the ones that are basically raising the argument about this special the unlawful appointment of Jack Smith. Walk us through the argument that his legal team is making and why they're making it.
Now, Well, let me start by watch and listen to how it was laid out in a TV interview with any McCarthy, and then we'll talk about it as soon as we listen to this.
Well, Jackie, I think it's deceptive coverage. The difference between the issue about Smith's status that's been raised in this case that distinguishes it from other cases is that prior independent councils were appointed under a Congressional statute. This independent council, Jack Smith, has been appointed under a Justice Department regulation.
And what the Constitution says is that when you're talking about an officer of the United States carrying out these kinds of duties, either the person has to be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, or has to occupy a position that Congress has established by law.
So this actually is a pretty novel and important argument, which is why people like former Attorneys General Edwin mess and Michael Mukasey have filed briefs saying that Smith doesn't have adequate legal constitutional basis to proceed with this case. It's not at all a frivolous argument, and I think the wrap on Judge Cannon is just ridiculous. This is a classified information case. They're very hard to get to trial.
She could have satisfied the media and said, you know, we'll have an August first trial date that everyone would have known was illusory. Instead, she's trying to move through a massive pre trial work that has to be done so that she can set a realistic trial date. And for that she's being accused, I think, falsely of postponing the case because she's trying to help Trump's electoral effort.
I want to ask you about Mees and these others that have filed these amicus briefs, but before we do that, I want to talk to you about our incredible organization called Preborn. For two years, it has now been since ROEVI. Wade was overturned, and over sixty five million babies have fallen, with thousands more taken every day. Preborn honors these precious souls who never had a chance to take their first breath. Who would they have become? Is the question we should
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these briefs that were filed. They're in important briefs that are being filed, and yet for many Americans they can still sound very overwhelming to understand.
So what's the goal here?
Yeah, and let me say, by the way, we just played a clip for Mandy McCarthy. Andy's a good friend of mine. One question I'd be interested from Verdict listeners. We could certainly have Andy as a guest on this podcast. We could also have law professor Jonathan Turley as a guest on this podcast. Both of them I know very well.
So if y'all think those would be good guests to have a detailed discussion about these issues, let us know on Twitter, let us know, reach out to Ben and me and let us know and either of both of them we could have on and it could be a very interesting discussion.
Listen.
So, the judge in Florida has set an oral argument on the question of whether Jack Smith's appointment is legal and constitutional, and that's going to be argued by Gene Chaer and Josh Blackman. Josh Blackman is a law professor. Gen Chaer is a very very well respected Supreme Court litigator, shares the name partner and share Jaffy. Jaffe is Eric Jaffey, who clerked with me. He was a Clarence Thomas clerk
the same year I clerk for Chief Justice Renquist. I've known both of them a very very long time ed mess former Attorney General is who has brought brought this argument as filed an amicus brief arguing that Jack Smith is not appointed legally, and the argument. First of all, they say, there's no federal statute that establishes an office of special Counsel in an Apartment of Justice, so there's
not a statutory basis for creating this role. Secondly, they argue that even if you ignore that there isn't a statute, there is also no statute authorizing the Attorney General, rather than the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint such a special counsel. The special counsel, the way it's structured right now, has more power than any of the ninety four US attorneys who prosecute cases across the count So all across the country, they're ninety four
US attorneys. Every single one of them has been nominated by the President of the United States, and every single one of them has been confirmed by the Senate. That's the structure. When you have a prosecutor with that level of power, you go through the checks and balances. Well, Jack Smith was not confirmed by the Senate, and their
authority is limited to the jurisdictions where they're appointed. So if you are confirmed to be the US Attorney in the Southern District of New York, you can't prosecute someone in California. You don't have the authority to bring any case outside of whatever district you're confirmed to. Jack Smith has nationwide authority to pursue his prosecutions anywhere in the country he wants, and he's indicted Trump in two separate jurisdictions,
in DC and in Florida. He was not nominated by the President, he was not confirmed by the Senate, and that the amaicust brief argues violates the requirements of the Constitution. General mess also acknowledges quote there are times when the appointment of a special Council is appropriate, but federal statutes in the Constitution only allow such appointments through the use of existing United States Attorney so it's worth noting there
have been other special councils, but they were sitting US attorneys. So, for example, Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed as a Special council, he was a sitting US attorney. Rod Rosenstein was appointed as a Special council. He was a sitting US attorney. John Huber was appointed as a Special Council. He was a sitting US attorney. John Durham was appointed as a
special council. He was a sitting US attorney. Every one of them had been nominated by the President, had been confirmed by the Senate at the time of their appointments. And so what they argue is you can't just make an appointment as Attorney General and create a roving US attorney with national authority greater than any US attorney without the Senate having the right to engage in advice and consent. That argument.
Is that a legitimate argument?
I mean, you're obviously a guy that did this for a very long time in that role, is a is a lawyer. So the question I ask you is, when you hear this argument, you see names like me, some and others that are getting involved, and you hear the argument you're making, is it a legitimate one.
It's a real argument and a serious argument. It doesn't mean it will necessarily prevail, doesn't mean it'll be a slam dunk. There are real arguments on the other side. But look, I think there is a possibility this argument prevails. There's a long history dealing with special counsels, and before that, there was there was something called the Independent Council. There was a statute that allowed independent counsels to be appointed, and that was created by Congress. So you'll recall Ken
Starr was appointed as an independent counsel to prosecute Bill Clinton. Yeah, and at the time, so there was there was a case that was brought challenging the constitutionality of the d Penit Council Statute. It was a case called Morrison versus Olsen. The Olson was Ted Olsen, who at the time was the head of the Office Legal Council in the Department of Justice. He later became the Solicitor General of the United States under George W.
Bush.
Ted is a good friend. That case went to the Supreme Court and eight to one the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Independent Council statute. The dissent was authored by Justice Scalia and Justice Scalia laid out an argument why having an independent Council who was not subject to the authority of the Attorney General, not subject to the authority of the President is contrary to Article two of the Constitution and exceptionally dangerous. What's interesting is the
view of Scalia's descent a loan descent eight one. I think has been vindicated over the years, and over the decades, more and more people realized Scalia made some very effective points, so much so that when the Independent Council's Statute expired, so it was written so it would expire. I don't remember if it was ten years or twenty years, but it had a date certain where it expired. When it expired, Congress didn't reauthorize it, so it is no longer the law.
The Independent Council Statute is no longer the law, and neither Democrats nor Republicans wanted to authorize it. I think Democrats were really unhappy with the job Ken Starr had done going after Bill Clinton, so they didn't want that to happen again. Republicans had seen it abused going after Republicans, and so both parties said, let's let this statute expire, which means you don't have a special statute authorizing Jack Smith the way you would otherwise. So I think this
is a real argument. We'll see what Judge Cannon does, but these are serious arguments that deserve to be considered seriously on the mirror find out. I think we'll get a decision relatively quickly. My suspicion is that we'll get it within the next few months.
Best case scenario for Trump, what would that look like.
Well, if if Judge Cannon rules that Jack Smith is illegally appointed, that he does not have the authority to bring the case, that would that decision presumably would be appealed, but that would permanently put on hold the case in Florida. But it would have a naturally have an implication on the DC case because Jack Smith is the prosecutor who's brought the DC case as well. Now, technically speaking, the DC judge would not be bound by the decision of
the Florida judge. Nonetheless, how those two interact, it would become a major issue in every case, both cases being brought by Jack Smith.
It's gonna be very interesting. We're going to cover it here. We'll keep you updated. Don't forget.
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