Welcome. It is verdict or Ted Cruz Weekend Review. Ben Ferguson with you, and these are the stories that you may have missed that we talked about this past week.
It started with Elon Musk.
Well, there's a new scheme now to bring him down as advertisers are trying to destroy his platform x formerly known as Twitter.
By pulling all of their ad dollars.
So what can you do to stand by the man that is standing by free speech?
Will explain that in a moment.
Plus, Christopher Ray, the FBI Director, had a big toe to toe battle with Senator Ted Cruz, and you won't want to miss the back and forth. And finally Sandrade O'Connor, former Supreme Court justice, passed away. Senator Ted Cruz took some time to talk about some of the most historic court cases and his memories of Sandrade O'Connor.
It's the weekend Review and it starts right now.
Let me ask you how many of you are grateful that Elon Musk purchased Twitter. I'll tell you I'm intensely grateful. I think it is the single most important development for free speech in decades. But what is striking, and this again is a topic I discussed at great length in my brand new book, Unwoke, is how corporate America has become woke and how they use economic power to punish those that crossed them. So corporate America is mad at Elon Musk Why because he stopped censoring views that were
not the orthodoxy of the Biden White House. He stopped censoring conservative views, and he allowed free speech to occur. Now, what was the volcanic rage of corporate America? One company after another began boycotting what used to be Twitter is now x. So IBM was the first to pull its ad. So, IBM, if you have an IBM computer at home, you know what you're supporting? A company that says we're not going to advertise on a social media company that believes in
free speech. Now, right after IBM, what followed Apple, Disney, Sony, Warner Brothers, Comcast, NBC, Universal, and Paramount. All of them have said we're pulling our ads. But not only that, you know who else has pulled their ads? Chevrolet, Chipotle, Ford, Jeep, Kindrel, Mercant Company, Novartis AG and Eli Lilly in Company. All of these companies, they are engaged in censorship. Understand when they say.
It's the corporate assassination of a free speech company, orchestrated and designed to cripple them and to bring them to their neees. This doesn't happen by accident. I think that's
what some people need to understand. When one corporation does this and the others do it, don't think this isn't orchestrated and being done by the left in leftist groups and organizations that organize these companies and get in the ear of these companies and say, hey, guys, so and so is going to do it, you should do it too. And then they call the next one they say, hey, guys, we hear these two companies are about the boycott.
Are pull their ads?
You should too, and understand art. So here's what Elon Muskus said about it. He said, the decisions of advertisers to boycott Twitter quote could kill the company. And he went on to say, quote and the whole world will know that these advertisers killed the company. That is their objective and what they want. They want Twitter to go under, they want X to go under, and then they want the only social media to be Facebook controlled by Mark Zuckerberg.
That sensors conservative views because they're silence that works on behalf of the Biden White House. They want Google that is controlled by left wing socialists, that sensors views they disagree with, that skews public discourse in the favor of the left. They want YouTube that actively sensors conservative views, including this podcast Verdict.
Yeah, just a few weeks ago, they censored one of our one of our episodes because we were telling the truth about what was going on.
And mind you, we were telling the truth about a Palestinian who, by all appearances is a christ this actor who creates false videos pretending to be a victim of what he claims is Israeli aggression, when in fact he's a Hamas propagandist, and we laid out the evidence for that, and YouTube propatly said, oh, oh, we don't want people to notice this, so they blocked so you could not access our podcast on YouTube without signing in and beh verified,
because apparently seventeen year olds cannot know.
There's a crisis actor that's a Hamas warrior.
And mind you, it's not just that they want Facebook and YouTube and Google to be driving the topics. They want TikTok, which is controlled by the Chinese Communist which is actively pushing pro hamas propaganda. Every one of these companies, So I want you to go back and look at this list. Ibm Apple, Disney, Sony, Warner Brothers, Comcast, NBC, Universal, Paramount, Chevrolet, Chipotle, Ford, Jeep, Kindrel,
Mercan Company, novartis a g Eli Lillyan company. Every every one of them is saying you Americans, you don't deserve the right to speak, and even more importantly, you don't deserve the right to hear the speech of others. We want big tech to silence and skew and mind you, this is all based on an allegation that is a bogus allegation attacking Elon Musk for retweeting a tweet that their claiming is antisemitic.
Yeah, and it was deliberate.
They just went and met with it over in Israel. They just flew over there, met talked to the leadership and is now clearly supporting is.
Look, their attack is deliberately disingenuous. But it doesn't matter, It doesn't matter what the claim is. It is an excuse because they want to use economic muscle to punish Twitter and force either Elon musk to sell it or shut it down, because once they do, then the rest of big tech will have a monopoly unchecked. And this is an assault on free speech. It's an intersection of what I talk about in multiple chapters of my book Unwoke.
It's an intersection of big tech, big business, and journalism all coming together, and it's designed to be dishonest and to silence free speech among the American people.
I want to talk to you real quick about your retirement. You've probably seen a lot of the headlines lately. We are the third highest deficit in US history. We are also saying that there is more than one trillion dollars now in debt. When it comes to Americans on credit cards, we have the highest rate of debt we've ever seen this country when it comes to college debt, and we're living with high interest rates, inflation issues, and then there's
the unpredictable world on top of that. So that's why I want to talk to you about investing in gold. It is weathered many storms, and gold gives you peace of mind. It gives me literal peace of mind because it's tangible, it's real, and I have it. I know that gold is a perfect protection as part of my portfolio.
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Precious Metals dot com. Senator, last thing I want to just point out here conservative radio. And many of you know I do a podcast outside of this, and I do an actual terrestrial radio show every day. For about ten years now, everybody in radio has had to deal with what Elon Musk is dealing with now, yep, which is all corporate people stop spending money on conservative talk radio.
They went after the Great Wrestling Ball, That's where it started. Yes, Then they went after Handy, then they went after Back, Then they went after Leven, Then they went after guys like me.
And what we used to have in radio was the big ones. We had Chevy, we had John Dear, we had you know, Mutual for None of.
These giant companies advertising conservative podcasts, none of that. There's a funny skit that we've talked about in Verdict a couple of years ago that contrast a left wing hippie comy Marxist podcast saying this podcast brought to you by Pfizer, get the jab right now, you need your forty second booster shot, yeah, compared to they have a conservative broad broadcast and they say this broadcast brought to you by pay treat water, a bucket of water in your closet.
And and the contrast is strike striking because all of the Fortune five hundred boycotts.
None of them spend money, none of them will ever reach a conservative audience. They deliberately try to destroy conservative talk radio.
By the way, even Fox News, which is incredibly profitable at the hour, spend an hour watching CNN, and spend an hour watching Fox News, want right down? Who advertises CNN? It's the entire Fortune one hundred. Fox News doesn't have any of them. It's it's my pillow, which look, I'm grateful, I'm grateful in my pillow advertises, because they are not many that do. But even though Fox News has two x, three x, four x five x the vie as CNN on care, it's not about money. Understand, this is not
the economic marketplace. This is they're enforcing their ideology. They don't want to support views that are right a center. They want to silence them.
Now, if you I 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 brings me to also the fireworks that took place this week, and it was between you and the FBI director. I want to play a large chunk of this. But before I do set the stage, why was the FBI director before your committee in the Senate and what was this all about?
Well, the FBI Director, Chris Ray was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and periodically the director of the FBI testifies before judiciary, and so I took the opportunity to question him. And there are a lot of topics I
could have questioned him on. I could have questioned him for hours on end, but I only had seven minutes, and so I chose to use the seven minutes to focus on the politicization of the FBI and the refusal of the FBI to investigate the growing, the becoming overwhelming evidence of Joe Biden's corruption, and so that's what I asked him about.
I want to play a chunk of this because it's really important, and I hope that every vertical listener will make sure that you take this and share this podcast so that you can let people know about what these questions were. They're really important questions and also I would argue the shocking response from the FBI Director Ray.
Take a listen to this.
Thank you, miss chairman Director Ray. Welcome.
As you know, I am deeply concerned about the conduct of both the Department of Justice and the FBI, particularly in the last three years during the Biden administration. I think the Department of Justice has been profoundly politicized under Attorney General Merrick Garland, and I think the FBI has as well, and unfortunately, I think you've been unwilling to stand up to senior career officials in the FBI who's
allowed the FBI to be politicized. I'll tell you I regularly speak with FBI agents across the country who are unhappy about the integrity of the institution being weakened because DOJ is being treated as a political weapon. I want to talk in particular about the investigation into multiple allegations of corruption concerning Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, because the Department of Justice has, i think from the outset, tried at every step to stop investigation into corruption from Joe Biden.
As you're aware, a WhatsApp text message was sent to Henry Zoo, a senior Chinese communist from Hunter Biden that reads as follows, I'm sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has
not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight and Zee, if I get a caller text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zanger, the Chairman, I will make certain that between the man's sitting next to me and every person he knows, and my ability to hold a grudge, that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.
Now.
Democrats and those in the media trying to defend the White House repeatedly say there is no direct evidence of Joe Biden's involvement in his son's corruption. Well, this is a text that is direct evidence that is stating that it is his father that is going to retaliate.
Now.
An IRS whistleblower, Gary Shapley, testified before the House of Representatives that the natural step he wanted to follow was to determine whether Joe Biden was in fact sitting next to his father when this threat was made to extort millions of dollars from a Chinese communist. And what the IRS whistleblower testified is that when he tried to find out whether Joe Biden was sitting next to Hunter that the DOJ blocked getting the GPS data on Joe Biden's phone.
Did the FBI try to ascertain where Hunter Biden was and where Joe Biden was when this text was sent?
Well, I think the questions you're asking go to the ongoing investigation being led by a special counsel Wise, and so I'm not going to be able to discuss what is or is in scope.
Now.
Look, there's been testimony under oath from the IRS whistle blower that you did not seek the GPS data, And you're right. David Wise's special prosecutor is in charge of it. And it is David Weiss and his underlings who, the accord of the IRS whistle blowers have alleged that they're the ones try to stop the investigation. They allow the statute of limitations to run on many of the most
serious violations. Not only that, IRS whistleblower Shapley testified that on September, third Assistant US Attorney Less Wolf explicitly told investigators that, despite having probable cause to search quote, there is no way a search warrant would be approved when the evidence in question was located inside of Vice President Biden's guest house Wolf stated that quote the optics prevented such a search.
Is the FBI?
Do they make a routine practice of allowing partisan political optics to prevent investigating serious evidence of corruption.
My instructions to our people on this and on every other investigation are the weird to follow the facts wherever they lead, no matter who likes it, no matter what political influence.
And why may be a GBS state on where Hunter Biden and Joe Biden were.
Again center with respect, I can't this.
It's an ongoing and Director Ray, you and I have gone round a round on this, because I understand anytime you're asked about this, the answer is it's an ongoing investigation. Of course, the investigation is an ongoing you're not doing the work. You got whistleblowers pointing out that you're not doing the work and you are hiding behind the skirts of the attorney general. Look, the whistleblower also testified that
the Attorney General, when he came before Congress. Go to the next chart, came before Congress lied under oath to this committee. The Attorney General testified to this committee in response to my questioning, I have pledged not to interfere with the Hunter Biden investigation.
I have carried through on that pledge.
The irs whistleblowers of alleged the Attorney General lied under oath a felony. Was the Attorney General telling the truth when he said this? Was the Attorney General telling the truth when he said, I have pledged not to interfere with the Hunter Biden investigation, and I have carried through.
In my pledge. Again, I can't speak to the Attorney General's testimony. I can only tell you what my instructions have been to our people.
Has there been political interference in the investigation into Hunter Biden and Joe Biden?
Not that I have experienced.
Were the investigators allowed to investigate whether Joe Biden was complicit in the corruption?
Again, there is an ongoing investigator asking you about corruption from DJ.
Were they allowed to investigate Joe Biden? Or is the whistleblower telling the truth that DJ said Joe Biden's off limits.
No questions about the big guy.
And as to what is in scope or not in scope of the ongoing investigation, I would refer you to Special Council Whites. That is not me hiding behind anything Center. That is a long standing policy that has been in place multiple administrations, a risk going back in years and years from the responsibility to the FBI not to allow it to be a partisan tool and a partisan weapon.
The testimony and by the way, the FBI has done nothing, and I have not and I will not. Have you opened an investigation and to whether the Attorney General led under oath to Congress and whether the Attorney General obstructive justice.
I'm not going to go down that road here. I know you're not. That's the point.
Nobody thinks you've opened an investigation because you're.
Not willing to.
And the amazing thing is, directory I've known you thirty years. You're not a partisan Democrat. You're simply sitting blithely by will career partisans in your agency allow it to be weaponized. And you were damaging the FBI, and you were damaging the Department of Justice.
Let me ask you.
Also, the whistle blower testified that investigators wanted to execute a search warrant on a storage unit used by Hunter Biden, and instead they tipped off Hunter Biden's lawyer before the search warrant was carried out. Is a typical FBI practice to tip off the subject of a search warrant before the search warrant so they can remove any evidence that's incriminating.
What is typical is that when you're dealing with an individual who has a protective detail, it is typical for the agents to be in contact with.
Does the protective det details the protective detail guard the storage unit?
Again, I can't speak to the storage unit specifically.
What I can tell you is they were Why Why would the FBI tip off the subject of a search warrant about the storage unit that was going to be searched beforehand? Does that not undermine the very essence of an investigation that DOJ is purporting to undertake.
Again, I'm not going to be able to discuss specific investigative set.
Who will take it?
You're not.
Nobody answers these questions. And it's why people are furious with the cover up, because you don't believe the FBI is accountable to Congress or to the American people. Your time is up, dirtor Rey has requested a five minute recess.
Five minutes, I'll just let me just send it.
If I might just quickly respond and then respun code of the break thank you.
I understand why this is frustrating. I do.
But it is also the case that these policies that I am referring to about my inability to discuss ongoing investigations and certainly internal deliberations related to ongoing investigations, are policies that have not only been in place for many, many years through multiple administrations of both parties, but in fact these were policies that were actually strengthened under the last administration, and that my predecessor was faulted in a
fairly scathing Inspector General report for not following, and that you have an obligation call it out.
He's engaged in this job. Thank you have an obligation to call out corruption.
Senator.
I understand him saying it's an ongoing investigation, but hiding behind that when you're talking about basic things that the FBI didn't do clearly to protect the Biden family. He should still be able to answer those questions, shouldn't he?
He should, and he's stonewalling, and there's an arrogance of the director of the FBI. Look, as I mentioned in my questioning, I've known Chris Ray for thirty years. Uh he clerked for the same federal judge I clerked for. He's not a liberal Democrat. That that's the amazing thing. I think Chris Ray still believes he's a Republican. I think he still believes he's a conservative. He just is unwilling.
He's a company man, unwilling to take on the career officials at the FBI who were rabid partisans, who are left wing zelots. And he also he buys into the notion that he has no responsibility to the American people, no responsibility to Congress, no responsibility to be accountable or transparent. So he views his obligation no sorry, ongoing investigation piss off, jumping a lake. I'm not going to answer your question. Look, you've got two irs whistleblowers who come forward and alleged
felonies from the Attorney General. A director of the FBI has an obligation to answer questions about that. I asked a very simple question, did you try to ascertain the GPS data about where Hunter Biden was and where Joe Biden was when Hunter Biden sent the email asking for bribes trying to shake down the Chinese communists for bribes. The email, on its face says he's sitting next to
his father Biden. If he's in fact sitting next to his father, it directly implicates Joe Biden in trying to extort millions of dollars from Chinese communists, much of which ultimately went to Joe Biden himself. What the RS whistleblower said is they wanted to get that GPS data that is readily ascertainable, and the Biden DOJ blocked it. There is nothing to prevent Chris Ray from answering the question did you try to seek that GPS data? Yes or no?
Did DOJ Blockett? Yes or no? He refuses to answer, and his shield everything. He says it's an ongoing investigation. But as we've discussed, it's not ongoing. They are deliberately not investigating Joe Biden. And so it is a view that there's a hubris. We are the FBI, we don't
have to answer your questions. And I got to say it is profoundly harmful to the rule of law and the integrity of the FBI to have the leadership of the FBI refuse to provide even the barest minimum of transparency or accountability.
So our last question for you, and I want to go back to the FBI director and really the advantage that the Biden family has, which it seems that everybody is covering for them. The House Oversight Committee put out this tweet saying Hunter Biden must appear for his deposition on de Ever, the thirteenth Chairman, Comer and Jim Jordan will initiate contempt of Congress proceedings if Hunter does not appear. He has obviously said I will only appear before a
public hearing. That's not what they're subpoenating for. In your gut, will Hunter Biden appear or will he be a no show?
Look, I put the odds at about fifty to fifty on that. I think it could go either way.
I think there's a chance Hunter appeers, and I think he could be defiant. He could be he could be hiding behind his lawyers. I also think there's a very real chance he just and show up. He just says, go pound sand if he does. If he refuses to show up, the House will vote have in contempt. But once the House votes him in contempt, nothing will happen because the Biden DOJ will not do anything to enforce
the contempt sanctioned. Remember the House Representatives held Eric Holder in contempt when he was Attorney General under Barack Obama and nothing happened. Now why did nothing happen Because to enforce the contempt finding, DOJ has to bring it. And you know what, Eric Holder was in charge of DJ, and so magically, Eric Holder said, you know, when I think of things that I want to prosecute, the contempt
finding against me is not one of them. I think the chances of Merrick Garland doing anything to enforce a contempt finding against Hunter Biden are very close to zero. And so look, there's a chance Hunter shows up. He did publicly say he was willing to show up. It was in public, but either way, I do not expect him to be forthcoming. Whether if he shows up, he's not going to say much of substance. If he doesn't show up, he feels he can defy the subpoena without meaningful consequence.
As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and dow the podcast 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 all.
Right, one more Santredaly O'Connor story. So I was Slicer General five and a half years. We ended up being very fortunate.
We had some.
Really big constitutional law cases that just through serendipity came down the road and we ended up litigating and we won.
Most of them.
One of the biggest cases it was a case called Van Orden versus Perry. Now Van Orden versus Perry was a challenge to the Ten Commandments monument outside of the Texas State Capitol. And let me set a little bit of context for it, because it's relevant to O'Connor, it's relevant to Renquist in the court. So this is the mid two thousands. There had been mitigation all over the country challenging the public display of Ten Commandments all over
the country. The history of the Texas Ten Commandments Monument it was erected in nineteen sixty one, but its history actually goes back to the nineteen fifties. The nineteen fifties, there was a Minnesota state judge named E. J. Rugemeier who in the nineteen fifties was upset about the diminishing morals of the youth in America. By the way, pause and thinking the nineteen fifties, he was worried about youth morals. Think about today, like Holy Cow, in eighty years it
hadn't gotten better. Yeah, And he came up with the idea to help the morals of the youth in America, let's publicly display the Ten Commandments in public areas across the nation. And he went to a public service organization, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, sort of like the Rotary Club or Quanas Club. He said, Hey, what do y'all think of this idea? And they said, great idea, We're all for it all right now, Ben, this is where
the story takes a weird turn. This is exactly coterminous with the release of Cecil B. De Mill's movie The Ten Commandments. No way, you know, Charlton Heston comes down from Mount Sinai carrying the Ten Commandments and Cecil B.
De Mill was a larger than life Hollywood character.
And Mill gets wind of this and he and he was thinking like a Hollywood producer. He's like, hey, this is a great idea, but I don't want a piece of paper on a frame posted on the wall.
If you're going to erect this.
I want big honkin granite Ten Commandments monuments, just like I'm gonna have Charlton Heston coming down the mountain with. There are dozens of what are called Eagles monuments all over the country and they're all identical Texas. At six foot three inches tall three foot six inches wide, it is red granite. It looks exactly like the tablets that
Charlton Heston carried. And actually, I'm going to take a brief aside and say, if you ever are argue you a case in court, since you're not a lawyer, something would have to go terribly wrong for you.
To be arguing a case in court.
Yeah, but if you're convicted of murder and you're defending yourself. The advice that I have given lawyers is never ever ever try to be funny. It is the province of judges to be funny, It is not the province of lawyers. Now, that is excellent advice, But I will tell you I have twice in my career broken that advice, and I've been very lucky. The gods of litigation have spared me my just deserts. Both times when I was arguing the defense of the Texas ten Commandments case in the Fifth
Circuit Court of Appeals. The process that the Eagles use to develop the text of the Ten Commandments. There are differences across the dominations, and so what the Eagles did is they brought together a committee that consisted of a pastor, a priest, and a rabbi. So an oral argument, I said, this was drafted by a pastor, a priest, and a rabbi. And one of the judges of the Fifth Circuit, Judge Prato, leans forward and says, Council, that sounds like the beginning
of a joke. And I immediately said, yes, your honor, but nobody walked into a bar. And miraculously, the judges took pity on me and laughed. It was stupid, but I was grateful for their mercy. Were in front of the U. S. Supreme Court on the Texas Ten Commandments monument, and at the time there had been dozens of cases challenging Ten Commandments monuments. Almost all of the monuments had
lost the weight of the case. Law was headed very significantly against the public display of the Ten Commandments as the case was being appealed. So we had won in the Fifth Circuit Court of appeals. The plain iff, a guy named Thomas van Orden, who was an atheist. He was a homeless man who had walked past the monument, was offended by it and filed a lawsuit seeking to tear it down. He filed a cert petition asking the
Supreme Court to take the case. Now, normally, if you've won and the other side appeals to the Supreme Court, what you do is you fight against it. You say no, no, don't take this case. There is no split of authority. It's not consequential. You don't need this say no, because if they say no, you've won. Here was the problem.
There was an enormous split of authority. I thought the court was going to take one of these cases very very soon, and we might have won a pyrrhic victory of a short term victory, but if a bad decision came down to the Supreme Court, we'd lose in the long term and lose our monument. So I went to my boss, Greg Abbott, and I said, general, I think we should do something that's called acquiescing insert, which is we should agree, yes, Supreme Court, you should take this case.
And we drafted a brief in opposition where we said, there is a split of authority. It is real, it is deep, it is wide, it is significant. And what we wrote in the brief was, if the Court is inclined to resolve this issue, this case presents the single best fact pattern to uphold a permissible display of the Ten Commandments.
It was very risky because if the.
Court took the case and we lost, everyone would pillory both Abbot and me. You idiots asked them to take this case, and then you got your butt kicked. Well, it ended up we were right. They were going to take a case. They took the Texas case, and they took a case out of Kentucky. They took them both, and they scheduled them for argument on the same day.
As we're preparing the case. Abbot, my boss, who was attorney Generally, he told me when he started, he said, look, I want to argue one Supreme Court case while I'm ag and let me know which one I should do. And so when this case was granted, I said, General, this is the one.
You should do.
It's a discreet issue of law, it's incredibly important. He spent two months preparing for the argument. I put together some moot courts, I did moot court in DC with a murderer's row of Supreme Court advocates. They had collectively over one hundred oral arguments between them, and they just beat him senseless. I actually felt really nervous, Like when you put your boss in front of a moot that like pounds them senseless, You're like, uh, General, I hope
that was productive. Yeah, please tell me I'm not unemployed.
Yeah, yeah, please tell me I'm not get my walk in papers a day.
But look, if you do it right, you want the mood to be harder than the actual argument. So he went through, did several moods. He was ready for it, and in the brief I told him, I said, okay, General, I've got a plan. So for about three decades, Sandarday O'Connor was the deciding vote on every almost every religious liberty establishment cause case in the country. And I read every opinion she'd written over and over and over again.
And I told my team as we're drafting the brief, I said, I want us to swim in Sandraday O'Connor's establishment clause jurisprudence. I want I want this to embody everything she's ever thought or said about the First Amendment, And in fact I told my lawyers, I said, I want the most frequent words in the brief to be O'Connor Comma jay.
I want them to occur more frequently than and or THEE. And one of my.
Lawyers said, well, Ted, is it possible to be too obsequious to Justice O'Connor in this brief? I said no, If we can put an oil portrait of Sanderdale O'Connor in the cover of our brief, we should do so. And again I was, you know, probably I was a cocky thirty four thirty five year old. I went to Abbott and I said, General, we are we're living in her psyche. This brief is exactly what Saturday O'Connor thinks.
Well.
At the oral argument, I'm sorry to say we missed horribly. She was utterly unpersuaded. She voted to strike down the Texas ten Commandments.
Mindment.
Now here's where Spring Court arguments are weird. Every argument we'd aimed at Sanderdale O'Connor missed her, but bizarrely enough struck Steve Bryer. Wow, Bill Clinton appointee relatively liberal justice. And the two cases I told you there was Kentucky in Texas. Four justices voted to strike down both monuments,
four justices voted to uphold both monuments. Steve Bryer voted to strike down Kentucky and to uphold Texas, which, among other things, was a vindication of If we hadn't acquiesced insert, the only opinion would have been Kentucky, and it would have been devastating for Ten Commandments monuments across the country. There was also a really nice kind of personal vindication
in this. So Chief Justice Renquist had been an original dissenter in a case called Stone versus Graham, which struck down the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools across the country, and he had dissented. He said, this is not the first amendment, this is not right Van Orden versus Perry. Chief Justice Renquist wrote the plurality opinion for the court upholding Texas's display of the Ten Commandments, the very last opinion Chief Justice Renquist ever wrote, and
he passed away later that summer. And so, as his former clerk, it was really cool to have been part of a case where he was able to vindicate a view he had articulated two decades earlier and Sanderday O'Connor. When it came to the standards, we didn't meet her standards, but miraculously enough Steve Bryer liked what we had to say, and so we entered. And by the way, since then, the McCreary case out of Kentucky has proven to be
a very unimportant precedent. It is rarely cited, and the Van Orden case changed the entire direction of case law so that Ten Commandments displays are now routinely uphill.
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, Ben Ferguson Podcasts, and we will see you back here on Monday morning.