Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Trump WINS as NY $500M Judgement goes to ZERO plus DEM Registration Plummeting, Sen Eric Schmitt on Fighting the Left in Court & Biden Auto-Pen Scandal Gets Worse

Transcript

Trump WINS as NY $500M Judgement goes to ZERO plus DEM Registration Plummeting, Sen Eric Schmitt on Fighting the Left in Court & Biden Auto-Pen Scandal Gets Worse · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome. It is Verdic with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson
0:04
Speaker 1: with you, and it's nice to have you with us
0:05
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening around the country. We have got a
0:08
Speaker 1: lot of news that has been breaking this week, including
0:11
Speaker 1: a major victory as a New York appeals court is
0:14
Speaker 1: thrown out that half a billion dollar penalty against Donald Trump,
0:18
Speaker 1: something that we predicted right here on this show.
0:21
Speaker 2: Well, that's right, there's an enormous amount we're talking about today.
0:23
Speaker 2: But I want to say at the outset that this
0:25
Speaker 2: podcast is brought to you by Cracker Barrel. They don't
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Speaker 2: of course is not true for those of you who
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Speaker 2: are hiring lawyers right now. That is what's known as parody.
0:46
Speaker 2: So that is not accurate. But I will say what
0:49
Speaker 2: is accurate is what Ben just said that President Trump
0:52
Speaker 2: won a massive victory today in the New York Court
0:55
Speaker 2: of Appeals. The New York Court of Appeals throughout the entirety,
0:59
Speaker 2: every penny of the five hundred million dollar judgment that
1:02
Speaker 2: the rabbid partisan Attorney General in New York, Letitia James,
1:06
Speaker 2: had gotten against President Trump. We're going to break that down,
1:09
Speaker 2: explain to you exactly what happened. We're also going to
1:12
Speaker 2: talk about an amazing story that The New York Times
1:14
Speaker 2: broke about how Democrat party registration is plummeting. It is
1:19
Speaker 2: plummeting everywhere in every single state in the Union that
1:22
Speaker 2: measures party registration. Democrat party registration is dropping through the floor.
1:28
Speaker 2: We're going to give you those facts as well. We've
1:30
Speaker 2: also got a special guest on today's podcast. We've got
1:33
Speaker 2: my friend and colleague, Eric Schmidt, Senator from Missouri. He's
1:36
Speaker 2: got a brand new book about fighting the Biden administration,
1:39
Speaker 2: fighting the left in court. We have a discussion about
1:41
Speaker 2: the strategies that work to fight the left wing woke lunatics.
1:45
Speaker 2: And finally, we're going to talk about a story that
1:47
Speaker 2: broke as well about how the Biden Department of Justice
1:50
Speaker 2: raised serious legal questions from the Auto Pen in chief,
1:54
Speaker 2: serious questions about the pardons that Joe Biden's auto pen
1:59
Speaker 2: signed at the end of a presidency we're going to
2:01
Speaker 2: talk about how those serious questions draw into real doubt
2:06
Speaker 2: the legality of those autopen pardons.
2:08
Speaker 3: All of that on today's Verdict.
2:10
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Speaker 1: call in text you make. All right, So, Senator, we
4:02
Speaker 1: predicted this. It doesn't mean that this lawfair was easy.
4:07
Speaker 1: We did say that the appeals court you thought would
4:09
Speaker 1: throw out the egregious half billion dollar penalty against Donald Trump,
4:13
Speaker 1: the president saying in a post it's now with interest
4:16
Speaker 1: would be over five hundred and fifty million dollar judgment
4:19
Speaker 1: against him, and the appellate Court's thrown it out. Explain
4:23
Speaker 1: exactly what happened well.
4:24
Speaker 2: This podcast was covered at length the egregious lawfair that
4:28
Speaker 2: was waged against President Trump. He was indicted four times
4:31
Speaker 2: by rabid Democrat prosecutors who wanted to stop the voters
4:35
Speaker 2: from doing what they in fact did in November of
4:37
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, which is re electing him as president.
4:40
Speaker 2: And then this case by Letitia James, another hard partisan
4:43
Speaker 2: who campaigned promising the Democrat primary voters, if you elected her,
4:47
Speaker 2: she would go after Donald Trump, which is of course
4:50
Speaker 2: an absolute abuse of the justice, the role of attorney general,
4:56
Speaker 2: fair and impartial administration of the law. It is a
4:59
Speaker 2: weaponization of justice, and she in a mockery of justice.
5:05
Speaker 2: The New York Trial Court issued an order that, as
5:08
Speaker 2: President Trump rightly pointed out, with interest in penalties would
5:11
Speaker 2: be worth over five hundred and fifty million dollars. This
5:14
Speaker 2: was all for loans that President Trump and the Trump
5:19
Speaker 2: organization took from very sophisticated global banks and they claimed
5:24
Speaker 2: that he overstated the value of his real estate. Now,
5:26
Speaker 2: mind you, there were no victims. The supposed aggrieved parties
5:30
Speaker 2: were giant banks who were perfectly capable of valuing real
5:33
Speaker 2: estate on their own, and they did value real estate
5:36
Speaker 2: on their own. They lost no money, not a penny.
5:39
Speaker 2: They said they were thrilled to do the loans and
5:41
Speaker 2: they would be eager to do more loans going forward.
5:43
Speaker 2: And yet the New York Attorney General said you got
5:45
Speaker 2: to pay five hundred and fifty million dollars, and the
5:48
Speaker 2: New York Appellate Division overturned it, and it reduced that
5:52
Speaker 2: penalty from five hundred and fifty million dollars to zero,
5:56
Speaker 2: zero dollars.
5:57
Speaker 3: And zero cents.
5:58
Speaker 2: It concluded that the disgorgement was an excessive fine that
6:01
Speaker 2: violates the Eighth Amendment. This is exactly right, and this
6:06
Speaker 2: is what we predicted on this podcast. Look, one of
6:08
Speaker 2: the things about the Verdict podcast it is we make
6:12
Speaker 2: real predictions. We make predictions that are sometimes out there
6:15
Speaker 2: that are sometimes very few people are making. Early on
6:19
Speaker 2: more than a year before the election last year, I
6:21
Speaker 2: predicted Joe Biden will not be the nominee. At the
6:24
Speaker 2: time this podcast was mocked. Ben and I were mocked
6:27
Speaker 2: for being crazy tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist that of
6:31
Speaker 2: course proved correct. I want you to listen to what
6:34
Speaker 2: we said a year ago predicting the result that just
6:37
Speaker 2: happened this week. Give a listen to what we said
6:39
Speaker 2: one year ago. Letitia James, who is a left wing
6:43
Speaker 2: partisan Democrat. She ran for office promising to get Donald Trump.
6:49
Speaker 2: That was her campaign promise, You elect me, and I'm
6:51
Speaker 2: going after Donald Trump. I'm gonna get him. So this
6:54
Speaker 2: was not a fair and objective application of the law.
6:57
Speaker 2: This was a political vendetta from day.
7:00
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, How is that not against
7:03
Speaker 1: the law to run for office saying that when you
7:08
Speaker 1: become what is supposed to be a steward of law
7:11
Speaker 1: and order, that you're actually running to lock up someone
7:15
Speaker 1: you disagree with politically? How is that legal in America today?
7:19
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's going to be a very serious
7:21
Speaker 2: claim on appeal, and I think there is a significant
7:25
Speaker 2: chance this gets overturned on appeal, but that's going to
7:27
Speaker 2: take a long time. The prosecutor, on her face, is
7:32
Speaker 2: not fair, is not impartial, but is engaged in a
7:36
Speaker 2: partisan political vendetta. She said that before she knew the
7:39
Speaker 2: facts of anything.
7:41
Speaker 1: I mean, this was a while ago. This is February
7:43
Speaker 1: nineteenth of last year, like twenty twenty four. And when
7:48
Speaker 1: we said it, people like, this is ridiculous.
7:51
Speaker 3: Well it is.
7:51
Speaker 2: And then we went back to it in March or
7:53
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, and we talked about the specific legal
7:56
Speaker 2: claim that the New York Appellate Court just addressed, and
7:59
Speaker 2: that was the amendment that it was an excessive fine.
8:02
Speaker 2: And when we come back in just a minute, we're
8:04
Speaker 2: going to play what we said in March of twenty
8:07
Speaker 2: twenty four, laying out the legal ground that just has
8:11
Speaker 2: been put in place to set aside this absolute abuse
8:14
Speaker 2: of power. Now, to be clear, this claim will go
8:17
Speaker 2: up on appeal. There's one other level of appeals up
8:19
Speaker 2: to the New York Court of Appeals, the top appellate
8:22
Speaker 2: court in New York. And so it's possible the New
8:25
Speaker 2: York appellate courts reverse it. Yet again I don't think
8:28
Speaker 2: they will, and I think if they did, it would
8:31
Speaker 2: go to the Supreme Court and be reversed once again.
8:34
Speaker 2: So one way or another, this order is not going
8:38
Speaker 2: to go into effect. Donald Trump is not going to
8:40
Speaker 2: have to pay a half billion dollars. Today is a
8:42
Speaker 2: day for celebration because the New York courts actually did
8:45
Speaker 2: their job and they corrected a grotesque injustice from an
8:49
Speaker 2: abusive district judge in New York.
8:51
Speaker 1: I want to take you back to March twenty third
8:53
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four, and I want you to hear
8:55
Speaker 1: what we had to say about this case on this show.
8:58
Speaker 2: The impact if Trump is not able to post this bond,
9:02
Speaker 2: the effect would be to deny him the right to
9:05
Speaker 2: even appeal the absurd partisan decision from the district court.
9:11
Speaker 2: I got to say, this is such a profound abuse. Now,
9:16
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean Trump would be out of options, because
9:18
Speaker 2: if the New York courts insist you've got to put
9:21
Speaker 2: up a half billion dollars in order to appeal this decision,
9:24
Speaker 2: I am confident that Trump will appeal that, and potentially
9:28
Speaker 2: appeal that all the way to the U. S.
9:30
Speaker 3: Supreme Court and the U. S. Supreme Court.
9:32
Speaker 2: He would have multiple arguments, constitutional arguments, including the Constitution
9:38
Speaker 2: prohibits denying an individual, depriving an individual of property without
9:43
Speaker 2: due process of law, and there would be an argument
9:46
Speaker 2: that this is such an excessive bond that it constitutes
9:50
Speaker 2: a violation of due process.
9:53
Speaker 3: He would also have an argument under the Eighth Amendment.
9:55
Speaker 2: The Eighth Amendment specifies excessive bail shall not be required,
10:00
Speaker 2: nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
10:05
Speaker 3: Now, the Eighth Amendment.
10:08
Speaker 2: Typically applies in a criminal context, but given the magnitude here,
10:12
Speaker 2: I would expect him to make both an Eighth Amendment
10:15
Speaker 2: argument and a due process argument, and it is entirely
10:19
Speaker 2: possible that would prevail ultimately. But what New York is doing,
10:24
Speaker 2: what the New York Attorney General is doing, is the
10:28
Speaker 2: conduct of a banana republic.
10:30
Speaker 1: Kind of of a banana republic. It doesn't sound crazy
10:34
Speaker 1: now at all, even though others said it was.
10:37
Speaker 3: Yeah.
10:38
Speaker 2: Look, and I want to say I'm glad that the
10:40
Speaker 2: New York Appellate courts actually did their job.
10:42
Speaker 3: They followed the rule of law.
10:45
Speaker 2: The ground that I predicted in March of last year
10:47
Speaker 2: of excessive fines is exactly the ground on which they
10:50
Speaker 2: set it aside, And I got to say that the
10:52
Speaker 2: Titia James put out a statement today that I found
10:54
Speaker 2: side splitting funny. Her statement today she said, quote the
10:58
Speaker 2: First Department today affirmed well supported finding of the trial
11:01
Speaker 2: court Donald Trump, his company, and two of his children
11:03
Speaker 2: are liable for fraud. The court upheld the injunctive relief
11:06
Speaker 2: we won, limiting Donald Trump and the Trump Organization's officers
11:09
Speaker 2: ability to do business in New York. It should not
11:11
Speaker 2: be lost to history. Yet another court has ruled that
11:13
Speaker 2: the President has violated the law and that our case
11:16
Speaker 2: has merit. We will seek appeal to the Court of
11:19
Speaker 2: Appeals and continue to protect the rights and interest to
11:21
Speaker 2: New Yorkers. So she's celebrating that they said our case
11:24
Speaker 2: has merit, other than the fact that they took the
11:27
Speaker 2: fine from five hundred and fifty million dollars to zero.
11:32
Speaker 2: That's an awfully weird decision to celebrate as a victory.
11:36
Speaker 2: This was a crushing loss for Letitia James. It was
11:39
Speaker 2: an enormous victory for President Trump, and it was an
11:42
Speaker 2: enormous victory for the rule of law. And by the way, ironically,
11:46
Speaker 2: it was an enormous victory for the state of New
11:48
Speaker 2: York because I got to say, if this had been upheld,
11:51
Speaker 2: you would have seen a significant exodus of businesses being
11:55
Speaker 2: willing to do business in New York because if the
11:57
Speaker 2: Attorney general could simply go after any business and shake
12:02
Speaker 2: them down for hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.
12:05
Speaker 2: A whole lot of people would say, this is not
12:07
Speaker 2: a place I can do business. And so this week's
12:10
Speaker 2: decision is caused for celebration.
12:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. And this brings us another story
12:15
Speaker 1: that I think ties in perfectly. Democrats are losing support
12:20
Speaker 1: and they're now facing a voter registration crisis. Democrats are
12:25
Speaker 1: facing a crisis as more than two million voters leave
12:30
Speaker 1: the party in just a four year based on data
12:33
Speaker 1: and analysis coming from the New York Post, also New
12:35
Speaker 1: York Times reporting on this several others. I go back
12:38
Speaker 1: to Letitia James a great example of this. When you
12:41
Speaker 1: go rogue and you try to destroy people's lives, and
12:45
Speaker 1: you go after Donald Trump the way you did, and
12:46
Speaker 1: you use law fare and all that we now know about,
12:50
Speaker 1: you know, the deep state and the corruption, it's a
12:53
Speaker 1: great way to make people say, maybe I don't want
12:55
Speaker 1: to be involved in this party.
12:57
Speaker 2: Well, Ben, look, you're just a right wing partisan. Obviously
13:00
Speaker 2: you're saying things that that that favor one side of
13:03
Speaker 2: the political aisle. But why should anyone trust you? It's
13:06
Speaker 2: not like anyone else is saying this. Oh wait, wait,
13:08
Speaker 2: here is the New York Times not exactly a right
13:12
Speaker 2: wing partisan outlet. Let me just read from the New
13:15
Speaker 2: York Times this week. Here's the headline, The Democratic Party
13:18
Speaker 2: faces a voter registration crisis. The party is bleeding support
13:23
Speaker 2: beyond the ballot box, and new analysis shows And here's
13:26
Speaker 2: what the New York Times writs in the body of
13:28
Speaker 2: the article. The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters long before
13:32
Speaker 2: they even go to the polls of the thirty states
13:35
Speaker 2: that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground
13:41
Speaker 2: to Republicans in every single one between the twenty twenty
13:47
Speaker 2: and twenty twenty four elections, and often by a lot.
13:51
Speaker 2: That four year swing towards the Republicans adds up to
13:55
Speaker 2: four point five million voters, a deep political hole that
13:59
Speaker 2: can take years for the Democrats to climb out from.
14:03
Speaker 2: The stampee that's the word that the New York Times
14:05
Speaker 2: is using. The stampede away from the Democratic Party is
14:10
Speaker 2: occurring in battleground states, the bluest states and the redest
14:15
Speaker 2: states too. According to a new analysis of voter registration
14:19
Speaker 2: data by The New York Times, The analysis used voter
14:22
Speaker 2: registration data compiled by L two, a nonpartisan data firm.
14:27
Speaker 2: This is stunning all told. This is again reading from
14:30
Speaker 2: the New York Times. Democrats lost about two point one
14:32
Speaker 2: million registered voters between twenty twenty and twenty four elections
14:36
Speaker 2: in the thirty states along with Washington, DC that allow
14:40
Speaker 2: people to register with the political party, Republicans gained two
14:46
Speaker 2: point four million. That says an enormous amount that the
14:50
Speaker 2: Democrats are in crisis, that even the New York Times
14:53
Speaker 2: is saying so. And I got to say, I don't
14:55
Speaker 2: know a single one of my colleagues in the Senate,
14:57
Speaker 2: the Democrat colleagues, who is asking why why is it
15:01
Speaker 2: that so many people are running away from our disastrous policies.
15:04
Speaker 2: The Democrats continue to embrace those policies, and I think
15:07
Speaker 2: as long as they do, you're going to continue to
15:09
Speaker 2: see this and you're going to see it even accelerate.
15:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to accelerate. And I also think part
15:14
Speaker 1: of this is the Democratic Party is let the extremists
15:17
Speaker 1: really come in and take over. And now there's an
15:20
Speaker 1: identity crisis. Are we Marxists? Are researchialists? Are we communists?
15:23
Speaker 1: The old Democratic Party is dead. Is that the feeling
15:26
Speaker 1: in Washington, DC? Around your colleagues as well? Are they concerned?
15:30
Speaker 2: Well, no, not among the Democrats. Look, the Democrats seemed
15:33
Speaker 2: ob oblivious. Here's a quote from the New York Times quote.
15:37
Speaker 2: I don't want to say the death cycle of the
15:39
Speaker 2: Democratic Party, but there seems to be no end to this,
15:41
Speaker 2: said Michael Pruser. Attracts voter registration closely as the director
15:45
Speaker 2: of Data Science for Decision Desk HQ, and it points
15:49
Speaker 2: out that the party saw some of its steepest declines
15:52
Speaker 2: in registration among men and younger voters, two constituencies that
15:56
Speaker 2: sharply swung towards mister Trump. At the end of the day,
16:00
Speaker 2: this is not complicated when you embrace policies that are
16:02
Speaker 2: a failure, that cause inflation, that open borders that threaten
16:05
Speaker 2: your families, When you take every eighty twenty issue in
16:08
Speaker 2: America and the Democrat Party says, we'll take the twenty,
16:12
Speaker 2: people run away from your party as extreme and out
16:14
Speaker 2: of touch.
16:16
Speaker 1: One of the fun things about what you do is
16:18
Speaker 1: you've got colleagues that you know well, and from time
16:21
Speaker 1: to time great books are written. And one of your colleagues,
16:24
Speaker 1: Senator Eric Smidt from Missouri is with us right now
16:28
Speaker 1: and he's got a new book out.
16:30
Speaker 2: Well, we're glad to welcome Eric Schmidt to the podcast.
16:33
Speaker 2: He has a brand new book. It is entitled The
16:35
Speaker 2: Last Line of Defense, How to Beat the Left in Court.
16:38
Speaker 2: And Eric is a good friend. Before he was in
16:41
Speaker 2: the Senate, he was the Attorney General of Missouri, and
16:44
Speaker 2: he was a warrior. He was a warrior taking on
16:46
Speaker 2: the Biden administration, taking on big tech, taking on the
16:50
Speaker 2: radical left. And he built a very strong record as
16:53
Speaker 2: attorney general. And that's the record he campaigned for Senate
16:56
Speaker 2: on and when Eric launched his campaign for Senate, I
16:59
Speaker 2: endorsed him early on and came to Missouri campaigned alongside him.
17:04
Speaker 2: He ran a fantastic campaign. He won decisively. And now
17:07
Speaker 2: he's a colleague of mine on the Commerce Committee and
17:10
Speaker 2: on the Judiciary Committee, so we spend a lot of
17:12
Speaker 2: time together. We have have similar passions. Eric, Welcome to Verdict.
17:16
Speaker 4: It's great to be with you guys. Thanks for having
17:18
Speaker 4: me on.
17:19
Speaker 2: All right, so tell us about the book. You have
17:20
Speaker 2: a brand new book, The Last Line of Defense, How
17:22
Speaker 2: to Beat the Left and in Court. Tell us why
17:26
Speaker 2: you wrote it. And why folks want to go out
17:28
Speaker 2: and buy it.
17:29
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, it's really a kind of a field manual
17:31
Speaker 4: from the front lines of this battle against the left
17:33
Speaker 4: wing lawfare machine that I saw front and center in
17:36
Speaker 4: my time as Missouri Attorney General. And I know that
17:38
Speaker 4: we're kind of on the other side of the fever dream. Guys,
17:41
Speaker 4: after President Trump delivered this historic victory and got all
17:44
Speaker 4: these wins, were celebrating. But if you go back to
17:47
Speaker 4: you take that deloreum back in time just a few years.
17:50
Speaker 4: It was a time of lockdowns and compulsory COVID shots
17:53
Speaker 4: and you know, open borders and de I struggle sessions
17:56
Speaker 4: and ESG requirements and a censorship enterprise was so vast.
18:00
Speaker 4: I think it was the biggest affront at the first
18:02
Speaker 4: Amendment we've seen in a nation's history. So when I
18:05
Speaker 4: was ag we stood up and we fought back. We
18:07
Speaker 4: took the the COVID vaccine mandate all the way to
18:10
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court and we won. We took the student
18:12
Speaker 4: owned death forgiveness case all the way Supreme Court and
18:14
Speaker 4: we won. We filed Missouri versus Biden, and we uncovered
18:18
Speaker 4: this vast censorship enterprise. We took the deposition of Fauci.
18:21
Speaker 4: We took the deposition of Elvis Chan who was pre
18:23
Speaker 4: bunking the Hunter Biden laptop story for the FBI. We
18:26
Speaker 4: took on mass mandate to local schools. We pushed back
18:29
Speaker 4: against ESG requirements, went after local school districts for their CRT.
18:33
Speaker 4: So we were in the middle of the arena, and
18:35
Speaker 4: I wanted to write the book because there's a lot
18:37
Speaker 4: of lessons learned here. We want we stood up, we
18:40
Speaker 4: fought back, and we won, And it's a playbook. It's
18:43
Speaker 4: a playbook moving forward. This isn't the last time we're
18:45
Speaker 4: going to see that from the left. In fact, they're
18:47
Speaker 4: kind of engaged in laws there right now. So anyway,
18:50
Speaker 4: there's a lot to learn here, and I think the
18:52
Speaker 4: readers are your listeners will get a lot from it
18:54
Speaker 4: from these sort of behind the scenes stories of how
18:56
Speaker 4: it took place.
18:57
Speaker 3: Good.
18:57
Speaker 2: Let's talk about about several of the topics that that
19:00
Speaker 2: you dove into. Let's let's talk about Anthony Fauci, and
19:03
Speaker 2: you talked about taking his deposition to tell us what
19:06
Speaker 2: you learned. And I have said many times Anthony Fauci
19:09
Speaker 2: is the most damaging bureaucrat to have ever lived. I
19:12
Speaker 2: think you've said very much the same thing. But tell
19:14
Speaker 2: us about that deposition and what you learned.
19:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, So this took place in November of twenty twenty two,
19:20
Speaker 4: just after I was elected to the US Senate. And
19:24
Speaker 4: one of the key things that you'll appreciate this, one
19:27
Speaker 4: of the things that we talked about in the Last
19:28
Speaker 4: Line of Defense you can order on Amazon right now,
19:30
Speaker 4: is that we sought discovery before the injunction. Typically with
19:34
Speaker 4: these cases, you seek an injunction and get the government
19:36
Speaker 4: to stop doing what they're doing. We sought discovery first.
19:39
Speaker 4: We knew it would get a lot of attention. As
19:41
Speaker 4: far as the case that everybody labeled the conspiracy theory
19:44
Speaker 4: that conserves were actually being throttled in the platform, we
19:46
Speaker 4: knew it was true, so we got to take the
19:48
Speaker 4: deposition of Fauci comes in the room. A fun little story.
19:52
Speaker 4: Jeff Landry, who's my colleagues from Louisiana, had the RFK
19:56
Speaker 4: Junior is the Real Anthony Fauci book on the middle
19:58
Speaker 4: of the table as you walked in. I'm sure how
20:00
Speaker 4: she did not find that very humorous, but it kind
20:03
Speaker 4: of set the stage at the stage for the day
20:06
Speaker 4: and we went through and what's what was really interesting
20:08
Speaker 4: about it was he said I can't recall one hundred
20:10
Speaker 4: and seventy four times, sort of simultaneously as declaring he
20:14
Speaker 4: was the science. He didn't like to be challenged, and.
20:16
Speaker 2: Those wow, like what kind of things could he not recall?
20:19
Speaker 2: What was he what kind of questions was he dodging?
20:23
Speaker 4: So we initially started with where did this virus come from?
20:26
Speaker 4: And you know, he was very adamant that it couldn't
20:29
Speaker 4: have come from the Wuhan lab. Right because he kind
20:31
Speaker 4: of funded the Eco Health Alliance to fund the Wuhan Lab.
20:35
Speaker 4: He knew it would come back to him. He's very
20:37
Speaker 4: interested in making sure people didn't think that. And then
20:39
Speaker 4: when he was confronted with statements about I said, well, no,
20:41
Speaker 4: it's a plausible theory. I suppose he was kind of vast,
20:44
Speaker 4: like I don't remember saying that he discredited to anybody
20:48
Speaker 4: that challenged him on whether it was the Lablak theory
20:51
Speaker 4: or masks. We presented him with an email when we
20:52
Speaker 4: asked him if mass were effective, and of course he said, yes,
20:55
Speaker 4: of course they're effective. And we present him with an
20:57
Speaker 4: email early in twenty twenty where friend asked, Hey, I
21:00
Speaker 4: was on this flight. You know, do you think I
21:02
Speaker 4: should wear a mask? He said no, no, no, mass
21:04
Speaker 4: are an effective for this. He was just caught in
21:06
Speaker 4: inconsistency after inconsistency, I think probably the most telling thing. Honestly,
21:10
Speaker 4: we came back from a lunch break and the court
21:12
Speaker 4: reporter sneezed and he turned to the court reporter this
21:15
Speaker 4: is in November twenty twenty two, not April of twenty twenty,
21:18
Speaker 4: and demanded that she put a mask on. This was
21:20
Speaker 4: the guy in charge of our public health.
21:22
Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
21:24
Speaker 4: It's totally insane. And so I think that those are
21:26
Speaker 4: the kind of insights that I think people will get
21:28
Speaker 4: from the last line of defense. It's just fascinating but
21:31
Speaker 4: terrifying at the same time.
21:33
Speaker 2: So well, and I will say this podcast when COVID,
21:37
Speaker 2: when the pandemic began in twenty twenty, This podcast in
21:40
Speaker 2: March and April of twenty twenty was laying out chapter
21:44
Speaker 2: and verse the evidence that was clear even then that
21:46
Speaker 2: the COVID virus originated in a Chinese government lab, I
21:50
Speaker 2: think likely the Wuhan Institute for Virology. We laid out
21:53
Speaker 2: the facts and while it was being censored virtually everywhere else.
21:57
Speaker 2: Verdict listeners had those facts right at the beginning. Now,
22:01
Speaker 2: your most significant case was was challenging internet censorship and
22:06
Speaker 2: big tech censorship. Tell us about that case, tell us
22:09
Speaker 2: the facts you found, and tell us what happened.
22:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I actually say too that one of the
22:14
Speaker 4: things that we note in the book, we suit the
22:16
Speaker 4: communist China for unleashing the COVID pandemic on the world
22:21
Speaker 4: through that Wuhan lab and Missouri has a twenty four
22:23
Speaker 4: billion dollar judgment. Now, so that's just as an aside,
22:26
Speaker 4: that's also in the book. Wow, Yes, the Missouri versus
22:29
Speaker 4: Biden lawsuit.
22:30
Speaker 2: You know, Eric got I for one, I'm looking forward
22:33
Speaker 2: to when you own the Great Wall of China.
22:34
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be a nice wall.
22:36
Speaker 2: And you know, folks from Missouri a little redneck, so
22:39
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what you're gonna paint on the Great
22:41
Speaker 2: Wall of China.
22:41
Speaker 1: But pay over there, no problem, right.
22:44
Speaker 4: Well, we'll have to move that over to separate Missouri
22:46
Speaker 4: from Kansas. Roger Marshall will be very disappointed. I'm sure
22:49
Speaker 4: we sees it.
22:52
Speaker 2: But by the way, bet Ben is from Memphis, so
22:55
Speaker 2: it's not hard for a Memphis guy to talk crap
22:58
Speaker 2: about Missouri, but feel free to pop back a card
23:00
Speaker 2: at him.
23:02
Speaker 4: But yeah, listen Jen Psaki saying we're flagging stuff for Facebook.
23:06
Speaker 4: They started this disinformation government's board. We had a hunch,
23:09
Speaker 4: we filed the lawsuit. We got discovery first in that lawsuit,
23:13
Speaker 4: and again what we found was just shocking. These secret
23:15
Speaker 4: portals between high ringing government officials and big tech giants.
23:19
Speaker 4: Take this down. The CDC was telling them words and phrases. Specifically,
23:24
Speaker 4: we took the depo of Elvis Chan, the FBI guy
23:26
Speaker 4: who again was pre bunking the Hunter Biden laptop story.
23:29
Speaker 4: They knew it was real in twenty nineteen, and in
23:31
Speaker 4: twenty twenty they're telling them, hey, censor this because it's
23:34
Speaker 4: not real. And that was verified by Yul Roth who
23:37
Speaker 4: worked at Twitter. There's just reams and reams of document.
23:40
Speaker 3: So the FBI was lying and they knew they were lying.
23:43
Speaker 4: They absolutely knew they were lying, and it was the
23:45
Speaker 4: first time anybody had them under oath to prove it.
23:47
Speaker 4: And so this was a ted This was a levias
23:50
Speaker 4: and of government agencies aimed at the American people, meant
23:53
Speaker 4: to censor conservatives who questioned mass or efficacy of that
23:57
Speaker 4: scenes or the twenty twenty election, or the Biden laptop.
24:01
Speaker 4: We got to make sure that never happens again. So
24:02
Speaker 4: this book, I mean alliance share Honestly, the middle chapters
24:05
Speaker 4: are really dedicated to protecting free speech, exposing the censorship
24:10
Speaker 4: regime that existed, and I'm proud to have stood up
24:13
Speaker 4: for that, and we had some big wins along the way.
24:15
Speaker 4: But this is the last line of defense, how to
24:17
Speaker 4: beat the Left and court. You can order it now.
24:18
Speaker 4: Is really a playbook, and it's war stories, yes, but
24:21
Speaker 4: it's a playbook for the future too.
24:23
Speaker 2: All Right, talk to us about DEI and ESG, because
24:26
Speaker 2: you also as AG and Missouri, we're fighting against both
24:30
Speaker 2: of those and making real difference. Yeah.
24:34
Speaker 4: As attorney journal you have subpoena power. And when we
24:37
Speaker 4: saw what was happening with ESG and this net zero
24:40
Speaker 4: banking alliance, which was really kind of really go after
24:43
Speaker 4: credit worthy applicants because they had had a portfolio of
24:47
Speaker 4: fossil fuels or whatever these banks wanted, decided that by
24:51
Speaker 4: twenty fifty they were going to have a portfolio of
24:53
Speaker 4: those carbon neutral Well, the only way you do that, Ted,
24:56
Speaker 4: is that you basically start denying credit worthy applicants loans,
25:00
Speaker 4: including the family farmer because they have diesel trucks. So
25:03
Speaker 4: we opened this up. We had a suspicion this was
25:05
Speaker 4: violated anti trust. We opened up this investigation. Ultimately that
25:08
Speaker 4: backed away, and again it takes courage to go do that.
25:12
Speaker 4: These are some powerful interests, but when you find out
25:14
Speaker 4: when you do it, you can be really proud of
25:16
Speaker 4: it and you can win same with same with DEI.
25:20
Speaker 4: Not only in corporate America, but what we found in
25:22
Speaker 4: school districts. So we were taking on obviously the Biden administration,
25:25
Speaker 4: the censorship resim at the highest levels of government, but
25:27
Speaker 4: also the local school superintendent in Springfield, Missouri. We uncovered documents,
25:33
Speaker 4: we had a hunch, we got a tip from a
25:34
Speaker 4: whistleblower that they were, you know, spewing this poison our kids,
25:39
Speaker 4: teachers and staff. Turns out they were, you know, engaged
25:42
Speaker 4: in things like the gender unicorn and the pyramid of
25:45
Speaker 4: oppression and all this nonsense to divide the classroom by race.
25:49
Speaker 4: Other school districts then chimed in once we started finding
25:52
Speaker 4: out this out across mis Or this is the Missouri
25:54
Speaker 4: now that kids were being forced to do the privileged walk.
25:56
Speaker 4: I mean, this is nuts still, but again, what we
26:00
Speaker 4: have to do Ted, You've done this your whole career.
26:03
Speaker 4: We have to have the courage to stand up and fight,
26:05
Speaker 4: and we can't see the courtroom to that. So this
26:07
Speaker 4: book isn't written for lawyers. It's written for people who
26:09
Speaker 4: are seeing this and how does this all kind of
26:11
Speaker 4: come together and what can we do to push back?
26:13
Speaker 2: The court is a major battleground. And I will say
26:15
Speaker 2: there are lessons in this book that I think are
26:17
Speaker 2: really useful for the Trump doj including at using discovery,
26:22
Speaker 2: make the facts public, shine a light, get them under oath,
26:25
Speaker 2: hold them accountable, be aggressive, speak the truth, don't be afraid.
26:30
Speaker 2: The book is called The Last Line of Defense, How
26:32
Speaker 2: to Beat the Left in Court. It's by my friend
26:34
Speaker 2: Eric Schmidt, Senator from the great state of Missouri. You
26:36
Speaker 2: can get it on Amazon, you can get it anywhere
26:38
Speaker 2: books are sold. So go buy The Last Line of Defense.
26:41
Speaker 2: And Eric, thanks for joining us here on Verdict.
26:43
Speaker 4: Thank you guys, appreciate it.
26:45
Speaker 1: One other big story we got to get in here, Senator,
26:47
Speaker 1: is Biden's auto pen. We've got a new big update
26:51
Speaker 1: on this story and apparently Joe Biden deliberately ignored his
26:56
Speaker 1: own Department of Justice's warnings over legally flawed autopen pardons.
27:03
Speaker 1: And we also found out about how many pardons they
27:05
Speaker 1: were giving out, and they claimed from the White House
27:08
Speaker 1: podium that these are all non violent offenders. That was
27:12
Speaker 1: also a huge lie.
27:14
Speaker 2: Well, that's right, and I will say this is the
27:15
Speaker 2: sort of story why we do Verdict as a podcast,
27:19
Speaker 2: why we do it as a radio show, because this
27:22
Speaker 2: is the kind of story you will never see on CNN.
27:24
Speaker 2: You won't see it on an MSNBC or ABCNBCCBS. It
27:28
Speaker 2: will not be covered by the corporate media because it
27:30
Speaker 2: is inconvenient. We have talked about at length the problems
27:34
Speaker 2: with Joe Biden's autopen that the president does not have
27:37
Speaker 2: the authority to delegate presidential power to another staff member.
27:42
Speaker 2: And when it comes to an autopen, the critical question
27:45
Speaker 2: whether a statute sign in law by an autopen, an
27:47
Speaker 2: executive order signed by an autopen, or a pardoner commutation
27:50
Speaker 2: signed by an autopen, the critical question for whether it
27:53
Speaker 2: is legally valid is whether the President personally and directly
27:57
Speaker 2: authorized it, whether the president made the decision. If it's
28:00
Speaker 2: the staffer made the decision it is not valid and
28:02
Speaker 2: its legally void. Well, what broke it is recently is
28:07
Speaker 2: this week, is that at the time that Joe Biden
28:09
Speaker 2: was using the autopen, or rather the White House staffers
28:12
Speaker 2: were using the autopen, a senior career staffer in the
28:15
Speaker 2: Biden Department of Justice was raising real legal questions about it.
28:20
Speaker 2: Here's the story on Fox News headline, Biden's autopen pardons
28:24
Speaker 2: disturbed DOJ brass doc show raising questions whether they are
28:27
Speaker 2: legally binding. New documents and communications between Biden White House
28:31
Speaker 2: staff and career officials at the Justice Department prompted scrutiny
28:34
Speaker 2: of the legality of former President Joe Biden's thousands of
28:38
Speaker 2: last minute pardons. The Oversight Project shared documents obtained from
28:43
Speaker 2: the Trump DOJ with Fox News Digital showing that a
28:47
Speaker 2: career prosecutor warned Biden's inner circle that the administration's pardon
28:52
Speaker 2: process was unorthodox and legally troubling. In the most scrutinized email. Then,
28:59
Speaker 2: a distant Deputy Attorney General, Bradley Weinsheimer, wrote a group
29:05
Speaker 2: email to several Executive Office staff members on January eighteenth,
29:09
Speaker 2: asking questions about the more than two thy five hundred pardons. Quote,
29:14
Speaker 2: the White House has described those who received commutations as
29:17
Speaker 2: people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. I think you should
29:22
Speaker 2: stop saying that because it is untrue or at least misleading.
29:28
Speaker 2: That's what DOJ said to the Biden White House. Mind you,
29:31
Speaker 2: they didn't stop it. They continued to be untrue and misleading.
29:34
Speaker 2: He continued. Quote, as you know, even with the exceedingly
29:38
Speaker 2: limited review we were permitted to do, of the individuals
29:41
Speaker 2: we believed you might be considering for commutation action, we
29:45
Speaker 2: initially identified nineteen that were highly problematic, he continued. He
29:49
Speaker 2: cited convicts Terence Richardson and Faron Claiborne, who were included
29:54
Speaker 2: in the clemency grants, and noted that the DOJ received
29:58
Speaker 2: voluminous objections from the victims, families and law enforcement, as
30:02
Speaker 2: the men had been sentenced to life imprisonment for drug
30:07
Speaker 2: trafficking offenses during which a police officer was killed. Mind you,
30:12
Speaker 2: this is what the Biden White House said was a
30:13
Speaker 2: nonviolent offense drug trafficking where a police officer was killed.
30:18
Speaker 2: And beyond that, according to Oversight Project Vice president Kyle Brosnan,
30:25
Speaker 2: shows that DOJ was concerned about the quote vague construct
30:29
Speaker 2: of Biden's pardons and how they appeared to be quote
30:32
Speaker 2: illegally delegated to staffed that left the DOJ wondering at
30:37
Speaker 2: times which offenses for people with multiple convictions were specifically
30:42
Speaker 2: being expunged. Later in the email, he was like, quote, look,
30:47
Speaker 2: I read the statement you put out in the president's
30:49
Speaker 2: name saying you've released a bunch of nonviolent drug offenders.
30:52
Speaker 2: You've got murderers on your list today. So I'm trying
30:55
Speaker 2: to figure out what the president wants here for this
30:58
Speaker 2: funky warrant.
31:00
Speaker 1: That is incredible, isn't it. I mean funky warrant. And
31:03
Speaker 1: that's coming again from his own DOJ saying we don't
31:07
Speaker 1: know what he wants. We don't know what he's doing.
31:08
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense.
31:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the Biden DOJ.
31:12
Speaker 2: Weinsheimer continued, quote, I think it is best that we
31:15
Speaker 2: receive a statement or direction from the President as to
31:17
Speaker 2: the meaning of the warrant language that will allow us
31:20
Speaker 2: to give full effect to the commutation warrant in the
31:22
Speaker 2: manner intended by the President. And there was ultimately no
31:26
Speaker 2: explanation for what the offenses or the proverbial descriptions were
31:30
Speaker 2: according to the document tranch, and instead there was simply
31:36
Speaker 2: a spreadsheet of convicts attached to one of the emails
31:40
Speaker 2: that came from the US Sentencing Commission. But only the
31:44
Speaker 2: president has the power to grant pardons, not the Sentencing Commission.
31:48
Speaker 2: Treating it otherwise would be an illegal delegation of presidential authority.
31:53
Speaker 1: When you look at this, what does this mean moving
31:55
Speaker 1: forward for the investigation into the president's used the art
32:00
Speaker 1: and many things he may have signed that he didn't
32:03
Speaker 1: know about. Right, This was just anybody at the White
32:06
Speaker 1: House pretty much that had any type of power can
32:08
Speaker 1: just walk in there and get things done. And what
32:11
Speaker 1: does this mean for all of the they claimed non
32:14
Speaker 1: violent offenders that they were pardoning. We've also found out
32:18
Speaker 1: a bunch of them, well, that was a very violent.
32:19
Speaker 1: It was a lie.
32:21
Speaker 2: It was a lie. They knew it was a lie.
32:23
Speaker 2: Their own Department of Justice told them it was a lie.
32:25
Speaker 2: They didn't care it was a lie. They continued lying
32:27
Speaker 2: to the American people. They knew that the New York
32:29
Speaker 2: Times would never call them out. They knew that the
32:31
Speaker 2: corrupt media would never call them out. So they could
32:33
Speaker 2: lie and lie and lie and know that nobody would
32:36
Speaker 2: know about it, and as a legal matter, the Brasnan
32:41
Speaker 2: from the Oversight Project said, quote Biden did not pardon
32:44
Speaker 2: individual people, but laid out categories of types of people
32:47
Speaker 2: to release and left it to staff to figure out
32:49
Speaker 2: who meets that criteria. Attorney Sam Dewey told Fox News
32:53
Speaker 2: Digital that quote, literally, no one, including DOJ officials, understand
33:00
Speaker 2: what the aforementioned pardon criteria are. And he continued, quote,
33:05
Speaker 2: you generally don't see people write emails like this. This
33:09
Speaker 2: isn't a CYA. This is I'm going to do a
33:12
Speaker 2: conscious pilot routine because this is a drug deal and
33:16
Speaker 2: I want to make sure it doesn't come back on me.
33:20
Speaker 2: And the consequence of that it is that the pardons,
33:25
Speaker 2: if they were not authorized by the President of the
33:28
Speaker 2: United States, they are invalid. And so what I have
33:31
Speaker 2: verged the White House to do, what I've verged the
33:33
Speaker 2: Department of Justice to do, is to go through the
33:36
Speaker 2: records of everything that was autopenned and determine there may
33:40
Speaker 2: be some The President does have the authority to direct
33:43
Speaker 2: someone to autopen something that he's signing, whether a law
33:47
Speaker 2: or an executive order or pardon, and if it's the
33:48
Speaker 2: president who's making the decision. The prevailing the Department of
33:52
Speaker 2: Justice interpretation is that is legal in binding. But if
33:56
Speaker 2: the president didn't make the decision, if it's a staffer
33:59
Speaker 2: who's making the decision, that it has no binding force.
34:03
Speaker 2: And so what I've encouraged both the White House and
34:05
Speaker 2: Department of Justice is to find those pardons, those executive orders,
34:08
Speaker 2: those statutes that were auto penned for which there is
34:11
Speaker 2: a clear lack of evidence that Joe Biden had awareness
34:15
Speaker 2: of it, made a decision about it, and then formulate
34:19
Speaker 2: and carry out a legal strategy to challenge and end
34:22
Speaker 2: up concluding that those statutes, executive orders, pardons, and commutations
34:27
Speaker 2: are invalid. I think the possibility of a legal determination
34:30
Speaker 2: of that is rising significantly. And the fact that you
34:33
Speaker 2: had senior career DOJ officials in the Biden administration ringing
34:38
Speaker 2: the alarm bells and saying you're lying to the American
34:41
Speaker 2: people and what you're doing is lawless, that is yet
34:44
Speaker 2: another stunning revelation that has come out this week.
34:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's going to be a story that's going
34:48
Speaker 1: to keep unfolding, and I can promise you we're going
34:51
Speaker 1: to cover for you don't forget. We do the show
34:53
Speaker 1: as a podcast Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so make sure
34:56
Speaker 1: you have that subscriber auto download button wherever you get
35:00
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Also, you can say hey Siri, Hey Alexa,
35:04
Speaker 1: play Verdict with Ted Cruz and it will do it
35:06
Speaker 1: for you and the Center and I will see you
35:09
Speaker 1: back here on this station next week