Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Biden Autopen Pardons are Null & Void plus Fighting Horrific Nigerian Persecution of Christians
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome.
- 0:01Speaker 2: It is Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
- 0:04Speaker 2: It's so nice to have you with us. And this
- 0:06Speaker 2: episode will also be on YouTube, so if you've not
- 0:09Speaker 2: watched us on YouTube, you can do that because many
- 0:12Speaker 2: more of these episodes are getting on at YouTube. Just
- 0:14Speaker 2: want to let you know about that. From the very beginning,
- 0:17Speaker 2: we got a pack show for you today. Three major
- 0:20Speaker 2: issues are going to be talking about, including Center Cruz.
- 0:23Speaker 2: You're now really diving into Joe Biden breaking the pardon
- 0:29Speaker 2: rules with auto pin use. This coming after a bombshell report,
- 0:33Speaker 2: and there is going to be some accountability.
- 0:36Speaker 3: Well, more and more evidence is coming out that Joe
- 0:38Speaker 3: Biden was completely disengaged from the pardon and commutation process.
- 0:43Speaker 3: And under the Constitution, a Pardner commutation only has legal
- 0:47Speaker 3: force if the President makes the decision himself, if a
- 0:50Speaker 3: staffer makes it, if somebody else in the White House
- 0:52Speaker 3: makes it, it has no legal force. It is null
- 0:55Speaker 3: and void. There have been multiple reports about just how
- 0:58Speaker 3: disengaged Joe Biden was in this process, and this week
- 1:02Speaker 3: I wrote a letter to Pambondi, the Attorney General, calling
- 1:05Speaker 3: on the Department of Justice to systematically examined the evidence
- 1:08Speaker 3: case by case of what the direct involvement of the
- 1:11Speaker 3: president was in those pardons and commutations, and calling on
- 1:14Speaker 3: the Trump DOJ to challenge any pardons and commutations that
- 1:18Speaker 3: were not specifically approved by the President. We'll break that down.
- 1:22Speaker 3: We're also going to talk about legislation I introduced this
- 1:24Speaker 3: week to protect Christians in Nigeria. Nigeria has seen a
- 1:29Speaker 3: persecution of Christians that has been staggering. Just this week,
- 1:33Speaker 3: over sixty people were murdered by Jihadis, by radical Islamists
- 1:38Speaker 3: in northeastern Nigeria. They executed soldiers, they went house to house.
- 1:43Speaker 3: This pattern of targeting Christians, targeting Catholic priests, targeting individual men, women,
- 1:50Speaker 3: and children is horrific and my legislation would put real
- 1:56Speaker 3: consequences on the government of Nigeria and those who are
- 1:59Speaker 3: facilitating this persecution, put real consequences on them to change that.
- 2:04Speaker 2: All right, I want to take a moment to talk
- 2:05Speaker 2: about personal safety. You guys know I'm pro Second Amendment.
- 2:09Speaker 2: You know that I've actually used my firearm to save
- 2:11Speaker 2: my life when I was a target of a gang initiation.
- 2:14Speaker 2: But for many people that are listening or family members
- 2:17Speaker 2: you may not feel comfortable caring if firearm, you still
- 2:21Speaker 2: need to be able to protect yourselves and in times
- 2:23Speaker 2: of danger, you're gonna want to have something, and that's
- 2:26Speaker 2: where the Burno Launcher comes in.
- 2:28Speaker 1: I have given these to countless family members.
- 2:30Speaker 2: It is a handheld pistol that fires both kinetic rounds
- 2:34Speaker 2: and chemical irritants to separate you from an attacker.
- 2:38Speaker 1: And I'm here today with Josh Gerard from Burna.
- 2:40Speaker 2: Josh, many of us just saw that video footage of
- 2:43Speaker 2: the recent mob attack of a man and a woman
- 2:46Speaker 2: in downtown Cincinnati. Josh, many of us saw the video
- 2:49Speaker 2: footage of the recent mob attack of a man and
- 2:51Speaker 2: a woman in downtown Cincinnati, and it was shocking.
- 2:55Speaker 1: Can you share a little more about what happened?
- 2:57Speaker 2: And could a less lethal weapon like the burn A
- 2:59Speaker 2: Launcher you use in a situation like this to defend yourself.
- 3:02Speaker 4: Absolutely, Like you said, we all saw the videos and unfortunately,
- 3:05Speaker 4: after a jazz festival, a man was attacked by a
- 3:08Speaker 4: mob of individuals that just continued going and continued going,
- 3:12Speaker 4: and unfortunately he was unable to defend himself despite other
- 3:16Speaker 4: people trying to help. This is one of those instances
- 3:18Speaker 4: where clearly these people are looking for an easy target.
- 3:21Speaker 4: The trick here is to make yourself a hard target,
- 3:24Speaker 4: have a way to defend yourself to facilitate that escape.
- 3:27Speaker 4: And that's really where burna comes in. You know, depending
- 3:30Speaker 4: on the legality, you may or may not be able
- 3:32Speaker 4: to carry a gun in this case, so you need
- 3:33Speaker 4: to have a tool to make sure you can defend
- 3:36Speaker 4: yourself as legal in all fifty states, and make sure
- 3:38Speaker 4: you can make it home safe.
- 3:39Speaker 2: And why wouldn't the victim in this case just want
- 3:41Speaker 2: to pull a gun on these suspects.
- 3:43Speaker 1: It's an important question.
- 3:45Speaker 4: You know, it absolutely is, and there's a couple reasons.
- 3:47Speaker 4: One is the legality. Depending on where you are, you
- 3:50Speaker 4: may not even be able to carry a gun, or
- 3:52Speaker 4: maybe coming from a private event where gun may not
- 3:55Speaker 4: be illegal as well. And then two, in order to
- 3:58Speaker 4: pull a gun, you need to understand that there has
- 4:01Speaker 4: to be a reasonable expectation that there's going to be
- 4:03Speaker 4: death or serious buddle injury costs. Do you pull that
- 4:05Speaker 4: gun too early and you're likely the one to be
- 4:07Speaker 4: going to jail. So in this case, a less lethal
- 4:10Speaker 4: tool is perfect. It can be pulled early, it can
- 4:13Speaker 4: be used early to prevent further harm because it's such
- 4:16Speaker 4: a reduced amount of force.
- 4:18Speaker 2: Look, if you want to carry one, I do. I
- 4:21Speaker 2: love having this as an option. You can get more
- 4:23Speaker 2: information for you or your family members on how they
- 4:26Speaker 2: can protect themselves with Burner launcher. Go to burna by
- 4:30Speaker 2: RNA dot com. That's burner by RNA dot com Again,
- 4:35Speaker 2: burna by RNA dot com. All right, So, Sata, I
- 4:40Speaker 2: really hope that everybody will take this episode and share
- 4:43Speaker 2: it on social media, especially after what we're about to
- 4:46Speaker 2: tell you, and it's new information dealing with the auto
- 4:50Speaker 2: pen the the commutations and pardons that were given out
- 4:54Speaker 2: at the very end, they were handing them out like candy.
- 4:56Speaker 2: I still think it's got to be a chance of
- 4:58Speaker 2: it's the highest bidders.
- 5:00Speaker 1: You need one.
- 5:00Speaker 2: Sure, Joe Biden didn't even know about it, and the
- 5:03Speaker 2: Senate Republicans are now really getting into this and realizing
- 5:08Speaker 2: that there is so much. I would say a fair
- 5:12Speaker 2: way of putting it is probably abuse by people that
- 5:14Speaker 2: weren't the President of the United States of America.
- 5:17Speaker 1: You're now looking at this even more. Tell us what
- 5:19Speaker 1: you now know.
- 5:20Speaker 3: Well, the numbers are staggering, and I want to read
- 5:24Speaker 3: to you from the letter that I sent Attorney General
- 5:26Speaker 3: Bondi this week. It begins, Dear Attorney General Bondi. On
- 5:30Speaker 3: December twelfth, twenty twenty four, the Biden administration commuted the
- 5:33Speaker 3: sentences of roughly fifteen hundred inmates and pardoned thirty nine others,
- 5:38Speaker 3: And on January seventeenth, twenty twenty five, the administration issued
- 5:44Speaker 3: two thousand, four hundred and ninety additional commutations, more in
- 5:49Speaker 3: a single day than any president had ever granted over
- 5:55Speaker 3: an entire presidency.
- 5:58Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the wow moment. By the way, the wow
- 6:00Speaker 1: moment is there four.
- 6:03Speaker 3: And ninety commutations, more in a single day than any
- 6:05Speaker 3: president had ever granted over an entire presidency. These clemencies
- 6:10Speaker 3: were issued based on broad criteria rather than case by
- 6:13Speaker 3: case evaluations, and at least some of them were signed
- 6:17Speaker 3: using an autopen of then President Biden's signature. I write
- 6:21Speaker 3: to support your ongoing investigations related to these actions and
- 6:24Speaker 3: to emphasize my commitment to providing whatever resources you require
- 6:28Speaker 3: to continue and deepen them. And the letter goes on
- 6:32Speaker 3: to say, the fundamental question regarding the use of presidential
- 6:36Speaker 3: pardon authority Article two, Section two is whether there is
- 6:39Speaker 3: an unbroken line from the president to a pardon being granted.
- 6:44Speaker 3: Everyone involved in the process, government officials purporting to issue
- 6:48Speaker 3: a pardon, the person to whom it is being granted,
- 6:50Speaker 3: judicial and law enforcement officials, and most of all, the
- 6:53Speaker 3: American people should have absolute confidence a pardon was granted
- 6:57Speaker 3: at the president's explicit direction. And look, it's long been
- 7:01Speaker 3: the Department of Justice's position that you don't need the
- 7:03Speaker 3: president to actually physically sign a pardon. Yeah, but it
- 7:07Speaker 3: has to be the president who makes the decision. It
- 7:09Speaker 3: cannot be anyone else who makes the decision.
- 7:12Speaker 2: Let's just break that down even more so people understand
- 7:15Speaker 2: how simplistic this is, and it's easy to check this box.
- 7:20Speaker 2: What you're saying is somebody communicates, I'll go back to
- 7:23Speaker 2: our day's in the administration President Bush forty one forty three, right,
- 7:29Speaker 2: they say, yes, I'm going to give that pardon to
- 7:32Speaker 2: John Doe or Jane Doe, and then it can be
- 7:36Speaker 2: used with the auto pen because it's coming from the president.
- 7:39Speaker 2: What we're now witnessing is it's virtually impossible for this.
- 7:43Speaker 2: Many conversations have been had in the final moments of
- 7:47Speaker 2: Joe Biden's presidency, especially with a cognitive decline which we
- 7:50Speaker 2: now all know about, and for him to have this
- 7:54Speaker 2: many conversations about this many people. That's where you're just
- 7:58Speaker 2: saying red flags all over the place.
- 8:00Speaker 1: Is that a fair way of putting it.
- 8:02Speaker 3: Well, it's worse than that. In the first year of
- 8:04Speaker 3: the Biden presidency, he signed virtually everything, and as the
- 8:08Speaker 3: years went on, he signed less and less and less,
- 8:10Speaker 3: and so at the end they were auto penning virtually everything,
- 8:14Speaker 3: and that was contrary to the advice they got from
- 8:16Speaker 3: the White House Council. And what I lay out is
- 8:19Speaker 3: their public reports that they call into question whether Joe
- 8:23Speaker 3: Biden had any awareness about any of this, and in particular,
- 8:30Speaker 3: the letter says Biden officials also say that past presidents
- 8:33Speaker 3: have validly used autopens, even for actions requiring a presidential signature,
- 8:37Speaker 3: such as bill signings. The Department of Justice has long
- 8:41Speaker 3: maintained that the Constitution does not require a pardon to
- 8:43Speaker 3: be signed. In nineteen twenty nine, the US Solicitor General
- 8:47Speaker 3: issued a memo saying that quote, neither the Constitution nor
- 8:50Speaker 3: any statute prescribes the method by which executive clemency shall
- 8:54Speaker 3: be exercised. They need not have the president's autographed, so
- 8:57Speaker 3: that was DOJ in nineteen twenty nine. However, even and
- 9:01Speaker 3: especially in those cases, there must be an absolute assurance
- 9:05Speaker 3: that everyone involved knows there's an unbroken line from the
- 9:07Speaker 3: president to the pardon. The nineteen twenty nine OSG memo
- 9:11Speaker 3: itself states that when a pardon is signed with a
- 9:14Speaker 3: president's quote facsimile signature, it should quote be certified by
- 9:19Speaker 3: an official having charge of the records as having been
- 9:23Speaker 3: issued by the president or by his direction. These are
- 9:27Speaker 3: core constitutional requirements, and leaked emails further show that the
- 9:34Speaker 3: Biden White House implemented a process that separated the president
- 9:37Speaker 3: from officials responsible for signing pardons on his behalf. They
- 9:42Speaker 3: could not note know if they were doing so with
- 9:44Speaker 3: the president's direction, either on a case by case basis
- 9:47Speaker 3: or by following criteria. As a result, emails show officials
- 9:51Speaker 3: across the administration struggled to verify that the president quote
- 9:56Speaker 3: signed off on the specific documents, that the people receiving
- 10:00Speaker 3: commutations quote are who the President signed off on, quote,
- 10:06Speaker 3: that the documents accurately reflect his decision, or that the
- 10:10Speaker 3: president quote agreed to the commutations. The number of commutations
- 10:16Speaker 3: and the date, and these are emails within the Biden
- 10:19Speaker 3: White House. In one email, a Biden official stated that
- 10:23Speaker 3: the president quote doesn't review the warrants, asking how to
- 10:30Speaker 3: quote handle questions about whether he approved them, and here's
- 10:33Speaker 3: what the New York Times reported in July quote. They
- 10:37Speaker 3: also show that the use of the autopen was managed
- 10:39Speaker 3: by mister Biden's White House staff Secretary mis Feldman. She
- 10:43Speaker 3: wanted to receive written accounts confirming mister Biden's oral instructions
- 10:46Speaker 3: in the meetings before having it used to produce the
- 10:49Speaker 3: warrants recording the clemency actions. The email show the aids
- 10:53Speaker 3: referred to those written accounts of the meetings at which
- 10:56Speaker 3: mister Biden delivered oral decisions as blurbsquote unquote. The accounts
- 11:02Speaker 3: were drafted by aids to the senior advisors who had
- 11:04Speaker 3: participated in the key meetings, like mister Biden's chief of
- 11:08Speaker 3: staff Jeffrey Sience and mister Cisco. The assistants who drafted
- 11:15Speaker 3: the blurbs were not themselves in the room with mister Biden,
- 11:22Speaker 3: so staffers who weren't in the room with the president
- 11:25Speaker 3: wrote written directions directing that commutations or pardon be granted,
- 11:29Speaker 3: and The New York Times continued to say, this is
- 11:32Speaker 3: a quote. Mister Biden did not individually approve each name
- 11:38Speaker 3: for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people.
- 11:42Speaker 3: He and aids confirmed, Rather, after an extensive discussion of
- 11:46Speaker 3: different possible criteria, he signed off on the standards he
- 11:49Speaker 3: wanted to use to determine which convicts would qualify for
- 11:53Speaker 3: reduction and sentence. Even after mister Biden made that decision,
- 11:58Speaker 3: one former aid said, the Bureau of Prisons kept providing
- 12:01Speaker 3: additional information about specific inmates, resulting in small changes to
- 12:06Speaker 3: the list. Rather than asking mister Biden to keep signing
- 12:10Speaker 3: revised versions, his staff waited and then ran the final
- 12:14Speaker 3: version through the autopen, which they saw as a routine procedure.
- 12:20Speaker 3: The aide said, and here's what my letter says to
- 12:22Speaker 3: the Attorney general. These and other reports suggest that Biden
- 12:26Speaker 3: Harris officials took advantage of the decline in the president's
- 12:29Speaker 3: mental acuity, coupled with the chaos of the presidential transition
- 12:33Speaker 3: to implement sweeping, fringe progressive policies on crime and law enforcement,
- 12:39Speaker 3: and to usurp authorities solely reserved for the president. In
- 12:42Speaker 3: which he is forbidden from delegating. Such an act would
- 12:46Speaker 3: constitute a direct and unprecedented assault on our constitutional order.
- 12:51Speaker 3: And so I'm calling for the Department of Justice. Look
- 12:54Speaker 3: these records. DOJ and the White House have these records.
- 12:57Speaker 3: They've got a complete record of everything that happened. And
- 13:00Speaker 3: so what I'm asking the Attorney General to do is
- 13:02Speaker 3: systematically evaluate all of them and for any pardon, any
- 13:06Speaker 3: commutation that there is not clear evidence that Joseph Robinette
- 13:10Speaker 3: Biden Junior personally signed off on that, DOJ declare them
- 13:14Speaker 3: null and void and pursue legal avenues to have them
- 13:18Speaker 3: declared null and void and to challenge them in court.
- 13:21Speaker 2: All right, let me ask you, and I got two
- 13:23Speaker 2: different aspects of this. I want to ask you about one.
- 13:25Speaker 2: If you are a staffer at the White House and
- 13:29Speaker 2: you're fielding phone calls from friends, colleagues, people that know
- 13:33Speaker 2: how to get in touch with you, and you're handing
- 13:36Speaker 2: out these commutations or pardons like candy, is that illegal
- 13:41Speaker 2: if you're doing it without the presence knowledge, Okay, so
- 13:44Speaker 2: for sure that's illegal. Then the second question is, as
- 13:48Speaker 2: you're asking.
- 13:49Speaker 3: To be, it's not actually a pardon. I mean, Ben,
- 13:52Speaker 3: you could decide today that you want to pardon someone.
- 13:56Speaker 3: You could declare, I, Ben Ferguson hereby pardon Charles Manson.
- 14:01Speaker 3: Now Charles Manson would not be pardoned. That's very nice
- 14:04Speaker 3: that you like psychotic mass murderer. Sorry, Ben, but it
- 14:09Speaker 3: has no legal.
- 14:10Speaker 1: For us examples. I appreciate that.
- 14:13Speaker 3: But you know, there is only one human being on
- 14:17Speaker 3: planet Earth that can pardon anyone from a federal crime,
- 14:20Speaker 3: and that is the sitting president of the United States.
- 14:23Speaker 3: A former president can't do it. It is only the
- 14:25Speaker 3: current president today. That is Donald Trump. A year ago,
- 14:29Speaker 3: it was Joseph Biden.
- 14:31Speaker 2: So if did I break a law working at the
- 14:33Speaker 2: White House in that scenario, and will there be accountability
- 14:36Speaker 2: or did I just get away with it by literally
- 14:38Speaker 2: having Joe Biden's pen and saying he didn't know about this,
- 14:42Speaker 2: but I'm because I'm in the White House and I've
- 14:44Speaker 2: got access, I'm making it happen. Is there any crime
- 14:47Speaker 2: that's been committed by the person giving out the part
- 14:50Speaker 2: if it was not authorized by Joe Biden.
- 14:53Speaker 3: You know, it's not clear that there is a violation
- 14:56Speaker 3: of federal law. It's not clear that that's a criminal act.
- 14:58Speaker 3: If you declare, I ben Ferguson here by pardon Bob. Yeah,
- 15:03Speaker 3: it wouldn't even committed a crime.
- 15:05Speaker 2: If I'm impersonating the president of the United States of America,
- 15:07Speaker 2: how is that not breaking some law.
- 15:10Speaker 3: Look, you might make an argument that that it is
- 15:13Speaker 3: misuse of government resources or essentially counterfeiting or creating fraudulent documents.
- 15:19Speaker 3: I think it would be difficult to get any criminal
- 15:22Speaker 3: conviction on that. It's not likely to get a criminal conviction.
- 15:26Speaker 3: You'd have to prove mensraa. You'd have to prove a
- 15:28Speaker 3: guilty state of mind. I think that would be difficult.
- 15:31Speaker 3: I think the natural answer to it too.
- 15:34Speaker 1: Here about Bob.
- 15:35Speaker 2: All Right, if Bob hooks me up with a job
- 15:39Speaker 2: when I leave the White House, and sorry, I'm cynical,
- 15:41Speaker 2: but I am very cynical.
- 15:43Speaker 3: Look, then if there was a quid pro quo, that's
- 15:46Speaker 3: bribery and that you can be prosecuted for if you
- 15:50Speaker 3: can prove there's a quid pro quo.
- 15:52Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm cynical, Center, I'm cynical as can be. And
- 15:55Speaker 2: if you're giving out this many pardons, somebody had to
- 15:58Speaker 2: get a kickback here for this to make sense.
- 16:01Speaker 1: I don't think there's a bunch of do.
- 16:02Speaker 2: Gooder maybe not randomly handing out pardons at a record
- 16:06Speaker 2: rate that is unprecedented, as you described it earlier, for nothing.
- 16:10Speaker 3: I don't know but that, but but but I will
- 16:12Speaker 3: say so many of these people getting pardons were not
- 16:16Speaker 3: Mark Rich, the financier that Bill Clinton gave a pardon
- 16:19Speaker 3: to that that by all accounts, appears to be in
- 16:21Speaker 3: an exchange for millions of dollars of contributions from his wife.
- 16:25Speaker 3: I mean, I mean that that is corruption on its face.
- 16:28Speaker 3: By the way, Eric Holder was the one who brokeered
- 16:30Speaker 3: that whole deal. That that's one scenario. Most of these
- 16:34Speaker 3: pardons at the end, so you had different categories. So
- 16:37Speaker 3: Joe Biden, of all the final pardons, you know, he
- 16:39Speaker 3: signed only one. Do you know who's pardon he signed.
- 16:42Speaker 2: I know this because you know I'm a student political.
- 16:47Speaker 2: It wasn't Bob, It wasn't I know who it was.
- 16:50Speaker 2: It was not Bob. It was a guy by the
- 16:52Speaker 2: name of Hunter Biden, the.
- 16:54Speaker 3: Only one that Biden signed. So he auto penned Mark Milly,
- 16:57Speaker 3: he auto penned Liz Cheney, Anthony Fauci, or I say
- 17:02Speaker 3: he autopen White House staff Auto Pa, somebody, did you know.
- 17:07Speaker 1: I don't know of.
- 17:08Speaker 3: Specific evidence that the pardons at the end were in
- 17:12Speaker 3: exchange for a quid pro quo. They weren't like big
- 17:15Speaker 3: Democrat moneymen. They were more number one people like Fauci
- 17:20Speaker 3: or Millie or or people like like the January sixth Commission,
- 17:26Speaker 3: Adam Schiff, Adam Kinsinger, and so I don't think I
- 17:32Speaker 3: had no evidence or indication that any of those were
- 17:34Speaker 3: quid pro qu I think those are more political and ideological.
- 17:38Speaker 3: And then a bunch of these were fringe progressive, like
- 17:43Speaker 3: just letting people out of jail, and so they were people.
- 17:45Speaker 3: They were crack dealers and crack users in jail. So
- 17:49Speaker 3: we have no indication that it was to benefit Democrat
- 17:53Speaker 3: money bags as compared to just left wing ideology that
- 17:57Speaker 3: said let's let criminals go.
- 17:58Speaker 1: I think it was.
- 17:59Speaker 3: More the ideology of a twenty four year old leftist
- 18:04Speaker 3: in the White House that he said the.
- 18:06Speaker 1: Power because he had a pen of a guy that
- 18:08Speaker 1: didn't know who he was.
- 18:09Speaker 3: It's look. Look, Donald Trump has put up next to
- 18:13Speaker 3: the pictures of presidents of the United States in between
- 18:16Speaker 3: forty five, which would be Donald J. Trump and forty seven,
- 18:19Speaker 3: which would be Donald J.
- 18:20Speaker 1: Trump.
- 18:20Speaker 3: He as forty six and he is a picture of
- 18:21Speaker 3: the autopen which which is I got to say, world
- 18:25Speaker 3: class trolling. But in many ways that auto pen you know,
- 18:29Speaker 3: instead of hail to the Chief, it was hailed to
- 18:31Speaker 3: the bick.
- 18:32Speaker 1: All right.
- 18:32Speaker 2: So here's my final question on this. How long does
- 18:35Speaker 2: this how far does this go? Does this go to courts?
- 18:38Speaker 2: Does this go to hearings? Does this go to the
- 18:40Speaker 2: Supreme Court? Are there lawsuits that are gonna have to
- 18:42Speaker 2: take place if they go after and figure this out?
- 18:45Speaker 2: And is that what would happen? Because the people that
- 18:48Speaker 2: got the pardons would immediately go to a court and say, no, no, no,
- 18:52Speaker 2: mine is legit. Right, I got an autopin sign, but
- 18:54Speaker 2: it's legit. They're gonna fight, They're not. I'm assuming I'm
- 18:57Speaker 2: just gonna like go turn themselves back into prison.
- 19:00Speaker 3: Yeah. So look what I'm advocating, and the reason I
- 19:03Speaker 3: wrote this is a lengthy letter to the Attorney General
- 19:05Speaker 3: is I'm advocating the DOJ and the White House Council
- 19:07Speaker 3: analyze all of the records and determine those pardons or
- 19:11Speaker 3: commutations that there is the clearest evidence that Joe Biden
- 19:14Speaker 3: had no awareness of it. You know, I might start
- 19:17Speaker 3: with one of the names that, like the Bureau Prison
- 19:20Speaker 3: added at the very end, that wasn't even on the
- 19:22Speaker 3: initial list. Ye, because because that you could make a
- 19:26Speaker 3: pretty powerful case, Okay, like Biden had no awareness of
- 19:30Speaker 3: this person at all. Yeah, And then and then then
- 19:34Speaker 3: this is where you would want DOJ to to formulate
- 19:38Speaker 3: a legal strategy for how to challenge their validity. I
- 19:41Speaker 3: might start by putting out a list. It is the
- 19:44Speaker 3: position of the Department of Justice that the following commutations
- 19:47Speaker 3: and or pardons are null and void because they were
- 19:50Speaker 3: not authorized by the President of the United States. Now, commutation,
- 19:53Speaker 3: they're shortening the sentences of criminals in jail. The next
- 19:57Speaker 3: step might be to to to send the US Marshals
- 20:01Speaker 3: to go arrest someone who had been commuted and released
- 20:04Speaker 3: from jail and to remand him again to the Bureau
- 20:09Speaker 3: of Prisons to serve the rest of his sentence. Now,
- 20:15Speaker 3: almost immediately that defendant would would file a legal claim
- 20:19Speaker 3: challenging that, and would probably file a rid of habeas
- 20:22Speaker 3: corpus habeas corpuses Latin for produce the body, and would
- 20:26Speaker 3: challenge that he cannot be incarcerated on that crime because
- 20:31Speaker 3: his sentence was commuted by the President of the United States.
- 20:34Speaker 3: That's probably the legal legal forum in which it would
- 20:37Speaker 3: be adjudicated would be the Department of Justice re arresting
- 20:40Speaker 3: someone and the defendant then making the argument I'm protected
- 20:44Speaker 3: by a presidential commutation, and then DJ would litigate that
- 20:48Speaker 3: matter in court. So I would start with picking the
- 20:50Speaker 3: best test cases and go there, and I very much
- 20:53Speaker 3: hope the Department of Justice does that. It's the right
- 20:55Speaker 3: thing to do.
- 20:57Speaker 2: All right, I want to take a moment and I
- 20:58Speaker 2: want to talk to you real quick about what you
- 21:01Speaker 2: can do to help the people in Israel. It was
- 21:05Speaker 2: nearly two years ago that the terrorists murdered more than
- 21:08Speaker 2: twelve hundred innocent Israelis and they took two hundred and
- 21:12Speaker 2: fifty hostages. Today it seems as if the cries of
- 21:15Speaker 2: the dead and dying have been drowned out by the
- 21:18Speaker 2: shouts of anti Semitism and just pure hatred, not just
- 21:21Speaker 2: in America but around the world. And the most brutal
- 21:24Speaker 2: attack on Jewish people happened. It happened since the Holocaust,
- 21:28Speaker 2: and now it's like they're trying to act like it
- 21:31Speaker 2: never happened. Now, this is where it is important for
- 21:34Speaker 2: us to stand with the people in Israel. It's a
- 21:38Speaker 2: movement of love and support for the people of Israel,
- 21:41Speaker 2: and this is where I want you to get involved.
- 21:43Speaker 2: It is called Flags of Fellowship. It's being organized by
- 21:48Speaker 2: the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. On October fifth,
- 21:53Speaker 2: you can stand with Israel and the victims proudly. Just
- 21:57Speaker 2: a few weeks away, millions across America will prayerfully plant
- 22:02Speaker 2: an Israeli flag in honor and solidarity with the victims
- 22:06Speaker 2: of October the seventh, twenty twenty three, and stand with
- 22:11Speaker 2: their grieving families. You can be a part of this
- 22:14Speaker 2: movement as well, and that's what I love about what
- 22:17Speaker 2: IFCJ does. They're making sure that the world knows there
- 22:21Speaker 2: are lots of people of faith in this country and
- 22:24Speaker 2: friends and advocates for Israel.
- 22:27Speaker 1: They're going to stand with them.
- 22:28Speaker 2: You can get more information about how you can join
- 22:31Speaker 2: the Flags of Fellowship movement, including your church. There are
- 22:35Speaker 2: going to be countless churches around the country they're going
- 22:37Speaker 2: to plant flags as well. So all you have to
- 22:40Speaker 2: do to get involved with Flags of Fellowship movement is
- 22:43Speaker 2: go to IFCJ dot org. That's IFCJ dot org stand
- 22:50Speaker 2: with Israel on October the fifth.
- 22:51Speaker 1: It's just a few weeks away.
- 22:53Speaker 2: And if your church you think would want to be involved,
- 22:55Speaker 2: you can also find out more about how to get
- 22:57Speaker 2: your church to be involved on a special Sunday at
- 23:01Speaker 2: IFCJ dot org.
- 23:02Speaker 1: That's if CJ dot org.
- 23:06Speaker 2: All right, Sanata, I want to talk about We're talking
- 23:08Speaker 2: about standing up for people of faith and this is
- 23:11Speaker 2: a story that has certainly been unreported or underreported at best,
- 23:17Speaker 2: and it deals with what is happening with the persecution
- 23:20Speaker 2: of Christians in Nigeria. We also just had this attack,
- 23:24Speaker 2: as you mentioned at the beginning of the show, where
- 23:28Speaker 2: sixty plus were murdered.
- 23:29Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about this and what you're doing
- 23:32Speaker 1: to stand up.
- 23:33Speaker 3: Well in Nigeria. The persecution of Christians has been nothing
- 23:38Speaker 3: short of horrific, and I've spent my tenure in the
- 23:41Speaker 3: Senate advocating for those who are being persecuted for their faith,
- 23:45Speaker 3: advocating for Christians who are facing imprisonment and torture and murder.
- 23:51Speaker 3: The sheer scope of it in Nigeria's staggering bocal Haram,
- 23:57Speaker 3: the Radical Islamist group and Nigeria. Since their two thousand
- 24:01Speaker 3: and nine insurgency, Boko Haram has killed over fifty thousand
- 24:07Speaker 3: Christians in Nigeria. Over fifty thousand, and that's according to
- 24:12Speaker 3: a twenty twenty three report from the International Society for
- 24:15Speaker 3: Civil Liberties in the Rule of Law, which is a
- 24:17Speaker 3: Nigerian human rights watchdog. Over eighteen thousand Christian church churches
- 24:24Speaker 3: and over two thousand Christian schools have been attacked during
- 24:29Speaker 3: the same time period, and to put that in comparison,
- 24:33Speaker 3: the watchdog also concluded that thirty four thousand moderate Muslims
- 24:39Speaker 3: died from Jahadist attacks. So the Jahadas they target, they
- 24:43Speaker 3: target Muslims who don't embrace Jahad, but they especially in Nigeria,
- 24:49Speaker 3: target target Christians. Between twenty fifteen and twenty twenty five,
- 24:54Speaker 3: an estimated one hundred and forty five priests were kidnapped
- 25:00Speaker 3: in Nigeria. Multiple priest kidnappings have happened this year, including
- 25:08Speaker 3: one that Bokoharam carried out. In June, the terror group
- 25:13Speaker 3: abducted father Alfonsis Alfina, held him in captivity for weeks
- 25:17Speaker 3: before releasing him and thank god he was unharmed. Afina
- 25:21Speaker 3: spent over fifty days in captivity, and he had previously
- 25:28Speaker 3: spent six years in ministry in the United States. And
- 25:33Speaker 3: violence against Christians in Nigeria has been a horrific problem.
- 25:37Speaker 3: In June, just a couple of months ago, Jahadis killed
- 25:41Speaker 3: over two hundred Nigerian Christian villagers in a farming community
- 25:48Speaker 3: that is ninety seven percent Catholic. This is a massive problem,
- 25:54Speaker 3: and it's a problem that occurs with the complicity of
- 25:58Speaker 3: many officials, of judges, of ministers, of officials in the
- 26:01Speaker 3: Nigerian government. So what I did this week is I
- 26:05Speaker 3: filed legislation that's called the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act
- 26:10Speaker 3: of twenty twenty five and it does several things. Number One,
- 26:14Speaker 3: it requires the Secretary of State to classify Nigeria as
- 26:19Speaker 3: a country of Particular Concern and that would add Nigeria
- 26:24Speaker 3: to a list of countries where religious freedom is severely limited.
- 26:27Speaker 3: The State Department's list right now includes Saudi Arabia, Pakistan,
- 26:31Speaker 3: North Korea, Iran, Cuba, and other nations outside the Western world.
- 26:38Speaker 3: And severe violations of religious freedom include torture, detention without charges,
- 26:44Speaker 3: force disappearance, and other flagrant denials of basic rights. Additionally,
- 26:50Speaker 3: my legislation would ensure the State Department keeps the Islamist
- 26:54Speaker 3: terrorist groups Boko Haram and also isis West Africa designated
- 27:00Speaker 3: as Entities of Particular Concern, a classification for non state
- 27:05Speaker 3: actors responsible for egregious violations of religious liberty. Boko Haram's
- 27:10Speaker 3: stronghold is in northeast Nigeria and it has an acted
- 27:14Speaker 3: presence in several countries bordering Nigeria. In addition, my bill
- 27:19Speaker 3: sanctions Nigerian government officials who facilitate persecution against Christians and
- 27:26Speaker 3: other religious minorities, and if the bill were enacted, the
- 27:29Speaker 3: State Department would have ninety days to submit a report
- 27:33Speaker 3: on the Nigerian officials responsible for pushing blasphemy laws and
- 27:38Speaker 3: for justifying violence from Islamist groups. This is a very
- 27:42Speaker 3: important role for the United States to defend religious liberty,
- 27:45Speaker 3: to defend persecuted Christians, and it's been a passion of
- 27:49Speaker 3: mine since getting elected to the Senate thirteen years ago.
- 27:53Speaker 1: You know, this is something that really does concern me.
- 27:56Speaker 1: It worries me.
- 27:57Speaker 2: And we're seeing and witnessing now so much not just
- 28:00Speaker 2: anti Semitism, but just anti faith, anti Christian and it's
- 28:05Speaker 2: happening not just around the world but also.
- 28:08Speaker 1: Well Monday's pod.
- 28:09Speaker 3: Monday's Pod focused on how the Biden Department of Justice
- 28:13Speaker 3: actively discriminated against Christians and systematically targeted Christians. Now, thank god,
- 28:18Speaker 3: they weren't doing things on the level of Bohahram, They
- 28:21Speaker 3: weren't weren't kidnapping and murdering them. But there was religious discrimination.
- 28:26Speaker 3: And part of religious discrimination is the Biden administration effectively
- 28:30Speaker 3: turned a blind eye to the persecution of Christians abroad.
- 28:34Speaker 3: So it wasn't committed committing these atrocities, but it also
- 28:37Speaker 3: was not acting nearly as vigorously as it should be
- 28:41Speaker 3: to defend religious liberty abroad.
- 28:43Speaker 1: Yeah. Great point there.
- 28:45Speaker 2: We're going to in this moving forward, hopefully we'll set
- 28:48Speaker 2: a standard that America is not going to just stand
- 28:50Speaker 2: by and allow this to happen.
- 28:51Speaker 3: Right, Well, well, yes, and and and Ben. I'll give
- 28:54Speaker 3: it an example, an example during the Obama administration. Uh,
- 28:57Speaker 3: there was a young woman in named Miriam Ibrahim, and
- 29:03Speaker 3: Miriam Ibrahim was sentenced to receive one hundred lashes and
- 29:08Speaker 3: then to hang by the neck until dead. Wow, and
- 29:11Speaker 3: her crime was being a Christian. That's it for the
- 29:17Speaker 3: crime of being a Christian. She was sentenced to that.
- 29:20Speaker 3: She was in a prison cell. She had a toddler
- 29:24Speaker 3: named Martin, who was eighteen months old, and she was pregnant.
- 29:27Speaker 3: She was pregnant. She gave birth to a little girl
- 29:30Speaker 3: named Maya. Maya was born in that prison cell. Well,
- 29:35Speaker 3: Miriam Ibrahim had her legs in leg irons. She was
- 29:39Speaker 3: in the mud, giving birth in leg irons. Now, during
- 29:44Speaker 3: the Obama administration, I repeatedly spoke out for Mariam Ibraham.
- 29:47Speaker 3: I went to the Senate floor, I spoke about Miriam Ibrahim.
- 29:50Speaker 3: I called for Sudan to release Miriam Ibrahim from this persecution.
- 29:56Speaker 3: Others spoke out, Other foreign governments spoke out. The Pope
- 29:59Speaker 3: spoke out out in defense of Mariam Ibrahim. You know
- 30:02Speaker 3: who wouldn't speak out in defense of her is that
- 30:05Speaker 3: Barack Obama. The entire course of his presidency, he would
- 30:10Speaker 3: not say her name. Samantha Power, who was Obama's ambassador
- 30:14Speaker 3: to the United Nations. I have a pretty good relationship
- 30:16Speaker 3: with Samantha and on Mary Abraham. Samantha Power was actually
- 30:20Speaker 3: quite good. She spoke out urging Sudan to let Mary
- 30:25Speaker 3: Ibrahim go. I practically begged Samantha Power, why won't Obama
- 30:32Speaker 3: say her name? Look, we can disagree on political and
- 30:35Speaker 3: partisan issues, but she's in prison and sentenced to die
- 30:39Speaker 3: for being a Christian. The entire course of his presidency,
- 30:43Speaker 3: I could not get Obama to say her name even once. Ultimately, though,
- 30:48Speaker 3: the international pressure became so acute that the government of
- 30:52Speaker 3: Sudan gave in.
- 30:53Speaker 1: She was married.
- 30:54Speaker 3: Miriam is married to a man from New Hampshire, and
- 30:57Speaker 3: so Sudan released her and she came the United States
- 31:00Speaker 3: to be with her husband. I met Mary Ibraheim at
- 31:05Speaker 3: a gathering and she was speaking about her experience and
- 31:09Speaker 3: speaking out for religious liberty. And I gotta say, Miriam
- 31:12Speaker 3: is a tiny woman. She's maybe, I don't know, five
- 31:15Speaker 3: foot one. I would be surprised if she weighs even
- 31:17Speaker 3: one hundred pounds. She's a very, very small woman. And
- 31:22Speaker 3: she was soft spoken, and I asked her, Look, you
- 31:25Speaker 3: and I are both Christians. Are faith matters to us?
- 31:28Speaker 1: Sure?
- 31:29Speaker 3: But you know what, I've never been tested. I've never
- 31:32Speaker 3: been in prisons for my faith. I've never been.
- 31:35Speaker 1: Told I'm going to die.
- 31:37Speaker 3: We will murder you unless you renounce your faith. I
- 31:41Speaker 3: hope and pray and believe I would do the right
- 31:44Speaker 3: thing and say absolutely not. But I've never been tested
- 31:47Speaker 3: with that. And so when I met her, I asked her,
- 31:51Speaker 3: I said, look, when you're in that prison cell, when
- 31:54Speaker 3: they are threatening to torture you and murder you, when
- 31:57Speaker 3: you're looking at your babies, you're top son and your
- 32:01Speaker 3: newborn daughter, and you know that they're about to execute you,
- 32:04Speaker 3: how did you not lose hope? How did you not
- 32:08Speaker 3: give in to despair and ben? She looked at me,
- 32:13Speaker 3: very very calmly, and she just said Jesus.
- 32:17Speaker 4: Was with me.
- 32:18Speaker 1: Wow.
- 32:20Speaker 3: And it was powerful. And I'm hopeful that my voice
- 32:25Speaker 3: then played a part in ratcheting up the pressure to
- 32:30Speaker 3: get her released from prison. And so my hope in Nigeria,
- 32:33Speaker 3: I'm going to press to get this legislation passed. I
- 32:35Speaker 3: want to see the Trump administration designate Nigeria and use pressure,
- 32:42Speaker 3: and in particular, there is power to pressuring the Nigerian
- 32:45Speaker 3: government officials, because you know what ministers of foreign governments,
- 32:49Speaker 3: they like to get visas and take their wives to
- 32:52Speaker 3: New York to go shopping. And if you sanction the
- 32:57Speaker 3: individual government officials who are complicit, who are for facilitating
- 33:00Speaker 3: it who are enforcing and prosecuting so called blasphemy laws
- 33:04Speaker 3: that can have a real and powerful effect. And so
- 33:07Speaker 3: my hope is this legislation is shining a light will
- 33:11Speaker 3: protect the Christians who are in Nigeria and will stop
- 33:15Speaker 3: the wide scale and murder of the Christians that has
- 33:19Speaker 3: been going on in Nigeria.
- 33:20Speaker 1: Yeah, aimen to that. We're gonna keep you update on
- 33:23Speaker 1: this subject. Don't forget.
- 33:24Speaker 2: We do this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so that
- 33:26Speaker 2: subscribe or auto download button wherever you get Vertical Tech Cruise.
- 33:30Speaker 1: And this episode is also on YouTube as well
- 33:33Speaker 2: So you can subscribe there and watch this episode on
- 33:36Speaker 2: YouTube and the Senate and I will see you back
- 33:38Speaker 2: here on Friday morning.