Welcome.
It is Verdict with Ted Cruz weekend Review, Ben Ferguson with you, and these are the stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week. First up, Senator Marsha Blackburn and Senator Ted Cruz have joined together asking for the Jeffrey Epstein flight logs to be made public with a subpoena. What will happen moving forward and why are Democrats blocking it?
We'll have that for you.
Also, Israel funding Democrats saying no, but they want you to send billions to Ukraine, and now it's all involved with border security.
We'll have the latest on that financial fight.
And finally the latest with a Biden impeachment inquiry moving forward and what this means for the days ahead. It is the weekend review and it starts right now. Senator, I want to move on to another issue this week that was kind of shocking. Your colleague, Senator Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee has asked for a basic request and that is subpeeda the Epstein flight log They exist, we should know who is.
On those planes.
And Dick Durbin kind of wanted to have it both ways, claiming, hey, I didn't really know about this, so therefore I don't have to do it, but I'm willing to talk about it. But this should be a simple like yes or no question for him. Do you want Epstein's call, you know, flight logs to be out there?
Yes.
Do we want to know who's on those planes? Yes? Do we want to know who's involved and this human and sex trafficking? Yes?
So why is he defending it? And you may have been as shocked as I was. This doesn't seem like a smart political move yet. Maybe there's so many Democrats that he's trying to protect. Here are big donors. I don't understand it.
Yeah.
Look, look Durbin is doing everything he can to cover this up, to hide the Jeffrey Epstein flight logs. Take take a look right here. This is a Fox News reporter questioning Dick Durbin as he walks to a judiciary committee hearing give a listen, I don't know.
Anything about his flight logs.
Why won't you subpoena them? Why don't you want to know the issue?
I know who was, but I certainly don't know anything about the issue.
Well, he was charged with sex trafficking, so why don't you want to know who was utilizing his private plane.
Never been raised by anyone.
Senator Blackburn has wanted to subpoena them, and there hasn't been a vote.
In your commission.
But to me, not a word.
But aren't you curious, like what high profile or powerful people might be closeted predators and pedophiles. Doesn't that concern you? So why won't you subpoena them if you can?
It's the first time anyone has raised it, Thank you Fox.
So do you are you curious about it? Will you do it? All?
Right?
So Durbin is lying, just like when Claudie and Gay said Harvard doesn't know how many Jewish students we have Bloney, Yes they do. Durbin is flat outlined. Let me give you some backstory. This fight occurred in the context and we talked about this in a podcast about a week ago. Yeah, where the Democrats subpoenaed Harlan Crowe and Leonard Leo. Harlan Crowe very successful real estate developer based here in Texas
and Dallas. Leonard Leo has been very active with the Federalist Society for a long time, very active in helping with judicial selection, in fighting for constitutionalist judges. The Democrats hate them, and the subpoenas going after Harlan Crowe and going after Leonard Leo are part of their ongoing effort to harass the Supreme Court, to delegitimize the Supreme Court, and in particular to target Clarence Thomas. They despise Clarence Thomas.
So in response to that, a number of Republicans had different amendments that we were pushing that if they were going to force a vote on the subpoenas, we were going to force a vote on our amendments. So when we went into it, I had an amendment that would subpoena the GPS data for Hunter Biden's cell phone and Joe Biden's cell phone at the exact moment that Hunter Biden sent the WhatsApp next to the Chinese Communists saying
I'm sitting here next to my father. Because we know from the irs whistleblowers that when the investigators wanted to find out was he in fact sitting next to Joe Biden when he was extorting the Chinese communists, the Biden DOJ blocked that and said, Nope, you can't find that out. So that's what I wanted to tea up. I think that was important. I think we should have voted for it. I'm going to continue to look for an avenue to
vote for it. Marsha Blackburn came up with I think it even better idea of a subpoena to vote on, and her idea was that we should subpoena the Epstein estate for the flight logs to his plane and in particular the Lalita Express. The Express, the private jet that flew down to Jeffrey Epstein's island with lots and lots of politicians, allegedly mostly Democrats. We don't know, We don't know who was on it.
Yeah, show it. If there's a Republican, find find out who they are.
Now, we do know that Epstein was an original friend to Bill, that he was very close with Bill Clinton. He was so close with Bill Clinton. Do you know what Jeffrey Epstein had hanging on the wall and maybe.
One of the creepiest, weirdest things ever. Yeah, go go ahead and tell everybody, because it's truly shocking.
A painting of Bill Clinton wearing a blue dress Monticarry red high heeled pumps. Like it's just weird. Yeah, that's what Epstein had hanging on his wall in his New York house. So Marsha Blackburn introduced an amendment to subpoena the flight logs. I thought her idea was fantastic, so I co sponsored her her amendment. So it was a Blackburn Cruise amendment to subpoena the flight logs. Now, the first time we were going to vote on on on the subpoenas on Harlan Crow and Leonardale, we didn't vote
on them. And I can tell you, like all the Republicans, we were all ready for combat. Let's go battle the Democrats. This is a partisan witch hunt. And what happened. So back behind the Diist there's a conference room where the Judiciary Committee meets that you have the diists there and behind it there's a conference room and you can go
and have meetings there. I can tell you Dick Durbin was sitting in that conference room with John Ossoff, the freshman Democrat senator from Georgia who serves on Judiciary, and Durbin and Osoff were having a heated, heated conversation. I don't know for sure what they were discussing. I didn't overhear their conversation, but it was energetic, and it delayed and delayed and delayed, and then it Durbin ended up deciding not to vote on the subpoenas. And I'll tell
you all the Republican senators who were like, what's going on? Yeah, and a number of us thought it was a number of Republican senators suggested the problem was Ossoff told Durbin he was not willing to vote on the Epstein subpoena. Now, I don't know if that's because he didn't want it voted on or he didn't want to vote. No, I don't know why, and I don't know if it's true. I mean, we were Durbin never explained any of it to us. He just canceled it. Fast forward then to
when they did vote vote out the subpoenas. The way he did so, he allowed no amendments. He just rammed it through and blocked all amendments. And so the logical inference is the only way Durbin could get his votes for the Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo subpoenas is to stop a vote on the Jeffrey Epstein subpoena. And somebody and I think the most likely candidate is John Ossoff really really really doesn't want to vote on that. I think that's all the more reason to vote on it.
And by the way, if Osoff is listening to this and he says, hey, that's not true, I'm happy to vote on it.
Great, let's vote on it.
Let's vote on it. There's an easy way to resolve it. But it's interesting. So Fox News asked Durbin that question in the hallway. You saw it the end, like, thikes Fox, This like nastiness. Well, what happened next was interesting. So Durbin went into the hearing room and he tried to try to rehabilitate himself.
Yeah, I cover your ass politics.
So watch what he said as soon as he came into the hearing room.
Senator Blackburn, before you leave, I want to make a point for the record, since I understand you made some statements about the Jeffrey Epstein flight logs. There's a Fox reporter in the hallway who asked me about this, and I said, I had not spoken to you one time about this issue. I think you'll back me up on that. I'm not mistaken. I didn't know that this was even a subject of your amendments, which, if you recall, you were the first on the list until the two hour
rules invoked. I don't know anything about this request on your part. I'll be happy to discuss it with you, but I haven't done any discussion with you to this point.
Mister Chairman, I know, and I think you're fully aware that I had two amendments, one dealing with Epstein and so to me, or i'd brought it up previously.
I have to confess I didn't know that you'd offer that amendment. Happy to discuss it with you, but I want to point on the record, you and I have never personally discussed this have we.
We talked briefly on the floor, as never mentioned.
What the subject matter your amendment was.
You said you wanted offer committee.
I brought up the subject matter of my amendments.
Not in my presence. Do you believe him?
Well, the nice thing is, as they say, we can roll the tape. What he said there is a flat out lie. It is objectively false, and we're going to show that to you, and in just a moment it is unequivocally false. It is possible, giving him enormous benefit of the doubt, he forgot. Yeah, it is possible it was not a knowing lie, but it is unequivocally, one, one hundred percent demonstrably false that the words he said are wrong. And I'll show you why. We're going to
right now play the tape of that first hearing. Now, I was there, Marsha Blackburn was there, and Dick Durbin was there, and you're gonna hear Marcia bring up her amendment about Jeffrey Epstein. He just said, you've never mentioned Jeffrey Epstein in my presence. I was not physically present. Well, you're going to see Dick Derbin recognize her and then cut her off while she's bringing up Jeffrey Epstein. Roll the tape.
I seek recognition, Senator Blackburn. Since we're in the business of issuing subpoenas, now here are a few more that I filed a subpoena to Jeffrey Epstein's estate to provide the flight logs for his private playing.
Thanks, Senator. When I recognize you, I didn't know what subject you wish to speak to. As I announced at the beginning, the first thing will consider the two judicial nominations.
Then we will move to the subpoena.
So she's speaking. He's in the middle of the room. He's right there in the middle. It's direct eye contact.
He's looking directly at her. He's at the hearing room. He's in the center center. I'm in between Durbin and Marsha Blackburn. We're all sitting there. She flat out says, I want a subpoena Jeffrey Epstein's flight records AND's and he hears it. He recognizes her. Then he interrupts and says, no, I want to do some other stuff first. This is
easy to resolve. We should subpoena Epstein's flight records. If there are politicians Democrat or a Republican or anybody else who was on that plane who was going to that island who was molesting and sexually assaulting children, we should know who they are. We shouldn't have Jeffrey Epstein's client list. And the fact that the Democrats are apparently in a full on panic. I don't know if Durbin knows somebody on that list, or multiple people, or I don't know
if they're just afraid. I don't know what their fear is, but they're plainly terrified of voting on it. And if I'm wrong. Durban can solve it very easily by bringing it up for a vote and issuing the subpoena. And to be clear, when we subpoena those flight logs, we
should make them public. I will tell you this, one of my favorite moments in all of Senate Judiciary was when John Kennedy leaned forward at a hearing and he said, Christmas tree ornaments and Jeffrey Epstein, two things you know, didn't hang themselves.
And this is why he is a legend of the Senate.
I almost laughed out a lung. And I'm sitting there John sits a couple of seats to my right. I almost fell over. I was like, I cannot believe he just said that in a live and open hearing of Senate Judiciary. He did, but it seems to me, I don't know if Jeffrey Epstein had a visit for Hillary Clinton late at night. I don't know what happened, but it seems to me Dick Durbin really, really really doesn't want you to know what happened.
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 talk about that Israeli funding, because this is really important. Obviously, as you mentioned, democrats said hell no to it. No one, not a single Democrat would go with you guys, What does it look like now moving forward and how desperate
is the need from Israel at this point. It's amazing that Democrats are going all in with Ukraine and the corruption there asking no questions, whereas in Israel there's none of those questions that need to be asked, and there's transparency and we know what's going on, and yet they're saying, ah,
not so much. And even the White House now is starting to distance themselves from Israel, changing their tune a little bit over the last couple of days, which is what I expected, but it's also incredibly disheartening.
Well, look, the one word I disagree with that you say there, As you said, even the White House listen, We've outlined at length on this podcast how this White House is the most anti Israel White House we've ever had, and Joe Biden, this White House had been undermining Israel from the day Biden was sworn in as president repeatedly, and we've outlined From the very first minutes of this attack on October seventh, this White House has been undermining Israel,
has been urging Israel, do not retaliate, do not attack Hamas, do not kill the terrorists from day one. The State Department, the State Department literally tweeted that out on the night of October seventh, while people were still being murdered, while women and children were being raped. The State Department is tweeting out, Israel, do not respond militarily, do not kill the terrorists. And so, yes, you're right. The White House
doesn't really care about the Israel funding. In fact, we know they don't because if they cared about it, we'd pass it as a free standing bill. It has the votes to pass as a free standing bill. But their only interest on Israel funding is to use it as a sweetener to try to convince Republicans to fund the rest of the Democrats' priorities. And I think that's incredibly cynical. I think it's wrong, and their focus is on Ukraine.
But it's interesting. If you want to take away from what we've seen over the last six weeks in Washington, it's the Democrats are much much more committed to open borders than they are to the war in Ukraine, and they're willing to abandon funding for Ukraine in order to keep the tragedy of open borders at our southern border. That is a higher priority for them. And it's incredibly revealing because they self righteously claim otherwise. And look you
look at Wayseelenski came this week. It's Chuck Schumer trying to browbeat Republicans into saying, give us what we want, even though we will do nothing on the border. And I think that has zero chance of success.
Senator, I want to also move to one other subject real quick that I think is obviously an important one, and that is to give an update on what's going on now with impeachment. We've seen the House Committee is going to vote on impeachment. The House Speaker, Mike Johnson says the White House is impeding the investigation to President Joe Biden and the next step will be a vote
to formalize an impeachment inquiry. This also as Fox News is reporting that the Hunter Biden received two hundred and fifty thousand dollars wires originating in Beijing with a beneficiary address listed as Joe Biden's home. This is all about, as the House Oversight Committee put with the Biden's influence peddling and what they have been doing. This vote center is a very important vote and it's also going to give Republicans more power. Explain why this vote is important to happen now.
Well, the House is scheduled to vote today. It is a vote on a resolution formalizing the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. And previously the High House had not scheduled that vote because it wasn't clear that they had the votes to pass it. And so Kevin McCarthy when he was speaker, he didn't schedule it because it looked like the votes weren't there. What Republicans are telling the press at least is it looks like the votes are there. And so a number of the Republicans who are in
blue districts that Biden carried are now moving forward. So, for example, Mike Garcia in California said, quote, there is enough substantiation to move forward, and quote the Executive branch made clear they're not going to cooperate with the inquiry unless we formalize it. So let's formalize it. Another one, Mark Blinaro, who's a Republican from New York again in the district Biden carried, said quote Congress has every responsibility
to provide oversight. There are serious questions of impropriety. The White House and the President have yet to comply with requests for information in subpoenas, adding that he is quote inclined to support the measure. And another Republican from New York again in a district and in fact, the most Democrat leaning district of any Republican, Anthony Desposito, said said that he will vote to authorize the inquiry. And so
what we're hearing is the votes are there. It's scheduled for a vote today, and the resolution directs the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means committees to quote continue their ongoing investigations as a part of the existing House of Representatives inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist to impeach Biden and so formally voting this for this is a significant step forward,
and I'm glad they're going to do that. I hope they pass it and we will discuss on the next verdict what happens when the vote happens later today.
As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and now the podcasts from earlier this week to hear the entire thing. I want to get back to the big story number three three of the week.
You may have missed CENTA.
I want to move to the other major issue, and they are very much intertwined, but separate, and so let's look at this completely separately for a moment. The House formalizing the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. There has been a lot of media protection on this story, and I think it's important that we remind people why this impeachment matters, why it's not a witch hunt, how it's different from what the Democrats did against Donald J. Trump when they knew.
For example, the Stell dossier was created by the DNC and Hillary Clinton paid for by them. The FBI categorized the Stele dohsier as user generated, meaning it was crap. They even offered a million I think it was a million dollars to Christopher Steel to authenticate anything in the Dohsier. Couldn't do it, and yet they still used it and weaponized it to try to overthrow the will of the people. And so I want people to understand that impeachment is important.
It shouldn't be used a political weapon, and Republicans are not using it as a political weapon. So let's go back and remind people why the House is formalizing this impeachment inquiry.
Well, the reason the House says open the impeachment inquiry is because there is serious evidence of corruption. There is serious evidence of bribery on behalf of the President of the United States, and it's from multiple directions. But you know, Jim Jordan sent out a very simple tweet that I think is powerful. What Jim Jordan said was quote four facts that will never change. One Hunter Biden sat on Barisma's board, absolutely true. Two he was unqualified to do so,
absolutely true. Three Barisma pressured him to get DC to act on policy issues in Ukraine. And four Joe Biden did just that. Now, of those four facts, the only one the Democrats argue against even slightly is number three. And they have some disputes. They say, well, well, no, Barisma didn't really want the prosecutor fired who was investigating the corrupt oligarch who owns Barisma because he was a
bad prosecutor. So they didn't really want him fired. Now, I got to say that is an incredibly weak argument, and it is contrary to the evidence the House is compiled. But that's the whole of their argument. And so remember when they say no direct evidence. We talked a minute ago about what is bribery. Bribery is quid pro quo this for that. That's the Latin phrase. That was for Joe Biden to get the prosecutor fired in Ukraine. And
we know that Joe Biden did that. We know that the quo happened because Joe Biden has confessed on video that he flew to Ukraine that he held over a billion dollars in US taxpayer funds that are guaranteeing loans to Ukraine. He held them hostage and said you will not get that money unless you fire the prosecutor. And then his response, we've talked about at length, was son of a bitch. They fired the prosecutor. So the quot is admitted, it is stipulated. Joe Biden has confessed on
video to it. The only question is the quid, which is was he paid or and by the way, paying his family for that. That official act is also bribery. So it doesn't matter whether the money went directly to Joe Biden's bank account or whether it simply went to Hunter Biden's bank account. We know that he was making eighty three thousand dollars a month. Hunter was to sit on a board. Now, mind you, I don't know of another board anywhere on Earth that pays eighty three grand
a month to board members. That is bizarre. Just on the face of it. It's a lot more than Exxon Mobile pays their board members. It's a lot more than any board I've ever heard of pays their board members. And remember, Hunter Biden had zero experience in oil and gas. He didn't speak Ukrainian. I'm not even sure he could find Ukraine on a map. What he did have was Daddy's cell phone. What he did have was Daddy's fake email addresses. What he did have was Daddy's burner phones.
What he did have was access to Daddy. And I got to say it was a good investment. If you're a corrupt oligarch and you hire Skippy Boy here and Daddy uses the full force of the US government to get the prosecutor fired who's coming after you, that is a great investment. So that is number one right at
the heart of the impeachment inquiry. But number two, we have the WhatsApp where Hunter is shaking down a Chinese communist and saying, I'm sitting here next to my father and he's threatening retaliation from Daddy, not from Hunter, from Daddy, from Joe Biden if they didn't pay him millions of dollars. And we know that they paid him millions of dollars. So that again, look, bribery can be on either front.
It can be either for getting a benefit, but it can also be bribery, pay me money, give me a benefit, or else I will do this bad thing through government to you. That's also bribery. You know, if a prosecutor for US attorney says, give me a million dollars or else I will indict you, and you give him a million dollars and he doesn't indict you, that's bribery. In this case, the retaliation that Hunter was threatening from Daddy,
it would absolutely constitute bribery on Joe's part. And mind you, the irs whistleblowers say that in the investigation they wanted to get the GPS data. It's very simple to ascertain when Hunter sent that WhatsApp text, was he in fact sitting next to Joe. You'll have Hunter's GPS data, You'll have Joe's GPS data if they're in the same room, if they're sitting next to each other. That goes right to the heart of that Joe knew and was involved
in shaking down these corrupt foreign players. That's why the House has now opened the impeachment inquiry.
Sara, I want to get your reaction to something that was said on MSNBC. They're claiming now that Biden's impeachment inquiry is quote Trump's retribution.
Take a listen to this.
The fact that there is no he doesn't bother the likes of Jim Jordan. I think Representative McGovern got it right when he said when Trump asks them to jump, they say how high, and.
That they're now jumping. They're now jumping for Trump.
This is his retribution and it's a pr a pr very cynical, PR driven attempt to besmirch Biden without any evidence.
Without any evidence. You just went through that evidence.
But this is what we're up against the media saying this is just retribution for Trump.
No, it's not. This is based on the facts.
Well, MSNBC is not actually a journalistic outlet. They are propagandas they are the left wing of the Democrat Party, so they're going to repeat that and ignore the facts altogether. They won't cover the facts. Look, if you watch MSNBC, you have no idea that Hunter Biden sent a WhatsApp text to a Chinese communist shaking him down for millions of dollars. You don't know that, because you know what, if they don't report on any evident, then they can
send idiots on camera to say there's no evidence. And if all you watch is MSNBC, you're right. You're right, there is no evidence because they won't report on any of the evidence. It's purely circular. And that is part of why the Democrats their behavior is so bad. The corrupt corporate media facilitates their blatant dishonesty because the corporate media has every bit as dishonest as the White House is.
Yeah, and I think we should end with this. James Comer took to the flour of the house. This is the man that's been digging into all this. He's been a guest on Verdict. There's a two part series. You can go back and listen to it, but I want you to hear what he had to say on the floor of the House.
Just as a reminder, Kentucky's recognized for three minutes.
Thank you, Chairman Cole, Mister speaker, I rise today to support House Resolution nine eighteen. Joe Biden has repeatedly lied to the American people about his family's corrupt influence peddling schemes. He told the American people he never spoke to his son about.
His family's business dealing.
He claimed there was an absolute wall between his official government duties as Vice president and his family.
He said his family never made money from China. All of these are blatant lies.
Our investigation has revealed how Joe Biden you of participated in and benefited from his family cashing in on the Biden name around the world. Since January, we have learned some of the following. The Bidens created twenty shell companies, most of which were created while Joe Biden's Vice president.
The Bidens in their associates then raked in over twenty four million dollars through these shell companies from China, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhtan and Romania between twenty fourteen and twenty nineteen, at least ten members of the Biden family have benefited.
Or participated in these schemes.
The Bidens layered these payments through their bank accounts to hide the sources of the money. The banks even flagged many of these transactions in more than one hundred and fifty suspicious activity reports to the Treasury Department. One bank investigator was so concerned about Hunter Biden's financial transactions with the Chinese company that he wanted to reevaluate the bank's relationship with him. He noted that his transactions served and
I quote no current business purpose end quote. That's what I call a shell company. According to Devin Archer, a Biden family associate, Joe Biden.
Was the brand of the business. The brand showed up.
Joe Biden spoke to his son's associates by speakerphone over twenty times, dined with foreign oligarchs and a Barisma executive, and had coffee with his son's Chinese associate, all when he was vice president. Weeks after Joe Biden left the vice presidency, money from this Chinese Communis Party linked entity began to make its way to the bank accounts of several Biden family members. Based on one Biden associates interview with the FBI, these payments were sent to the Bidens
as a quote, thank you. Ask any Justice Department public corruption investigator about the importance of payments received after one leaves public office. It's a hallmark of corruption. We are now at a pivotal moment in our investigation. We will soon depose and interview several members of the Biden family and their associates about these influenced peddling schemes.
But we are facing obstruction from the White House.
The White House is seeking to block key testimony from current and former White House staff. It's also withholding thousands of records from Joe Biden's time as Vice president. President Biden must be held accountable for his lives, corruption and obstruction. I urge my colleagues to support this important and necessary resolution.
I yield back, Senator.
I think you and I both can say listening to him lay that out. Thank goodness.
We've got people in the Republican movement, the conservative movement, like James Comer who's been willing to do this hard work and methodically do it the right way.
Yes, and that's more substance than MSNBC is aired in a year like in those three minutes that they can claim no evidence because they won't air that. They don't actually want you to hear what the evidence is. They only want their talking heads that are chilling for a corrupt White House. And it's look, that's why Verdict so many listeners keep coming to Verdict because you find out information here that the corporate media will not tell you.
And this podcast is designed to give you that information and equip you to go talk with your friends and family and loved ones and co workers and go engage the lies and counter them with truth.
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Center Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal 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, and a 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.