1. Recognition of Somaliland
- The senator discusses efforts to urge President Trump to formally recognize Somaliland as an independent nation.
- Somaliland is portrayed as a stable, democratic ally of the U.S., strategically located near the Gulf of Aden.
- The senator criticizes China's influence in Africa, particularly its opposition to Somaliland's ties with Taiwan and the U.S.
- A letter to President Trump is read aloud, advocating for recognition based on Somaliland’s governance, military cooperation, and geopolitical importance.
2. Crime and Law Enforcement in Washington, D.C.
- The senator supports President Trump’s decision to deploy federal law enforcement in D.C., claiming it led to a significant drop in crime.
- Statistics are cited showing reductions in robbery, carjacking, and violent crime.
- The narrative criticizes Democratic leadership in D.C., alleging manipulation of crime data and failure to address public safety.
- The DC Police Union chairman is quoted, blaming legislative changes for the breakdown of the criminal justice system.
3. Criticism of Media and Democratic Leadership
- The hosts repeatedly accuse mainstream media of ignoring or misrepresenting stories that reflect positively on Trump or negatively on Democrats.
- There is a strong emphasis on the idea that Democrats prioritize political narratives over public safety, especially in high-crime urban areas.
4. Biden’s Use of the Autopen for Pardons
- The senator raises legal concerns about President Biden’s use of an autopen to sign pardons and executive orders.
- DOJ officials reportedly warned that some pardons were legally questionable and involved violent offenders, contradicting public claims.
- The discussion suggests that Biden may not have personally authorized some actions, potentially invalidating them.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
In his verdict with Ted Crue's weekend Review, Ben Ferguson
with you, and here are three of the major stories
that you may have missed that we talked about this week.
First up Center Cruz calling out China on creating a
new country in Africa. Why is the media not talking
about it? Well, we have the details that you need
to know. Also, DC crime is down as Donald Trump
(00:24):
commits to making sure that people that live in the
District Columbia are actually safe, and the data is truly
staggering just how quick the president was able to restore
a law and order to a city that been broken
for decades. And finally, the auto pen Joe Biden was
actually warned by his own Department of Justice that what
(00:44):
they were doing was problematic, yet he did it anyway.
Why did he not pay attention to the warnings? And
maybe it was because he wasn't actually even in charge.
We'll have that for you. It's the weekend review and
it starts right now. I want to move to this
other story, and it's one realistically that probably ninety nine
percent of this audience doesn't even know about this because
(01:09):
no one's covering it. It doesn't mean that it's not
an extremely important story.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
It is you calling out China.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
It's an epic fight over creating a new country in Africa.
This reminds me of that story we were talking about
not that long ago, about China creating an island in
the middle of the ocean based of nowhere that we
helped give them air superiority if there was a massive
world event that took place, another World war, it would
(01:37):
give them the ability to reach places they currently cannot reach.
And now we're hearing that they're looking at creating a
new country in Africa. You're trying to bring that to
light and also stop it. Well, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
So I am the chairman of the Africa Subcommittee of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and so I've been sharing
a number of hearings, in particular focusing on the growing
influence of communist China in Africa. Africa has become a
major battleground where China is trying to gain influence, trying
to gain power, and do so at the expense of America.
(02:11):
And so what this last week I wrote a letter
to President Trump urging the President to recognize a new
country in Africa. I'm going to read you the letter.
Dear President Trump, I write to urge your administration to
formally recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an independent state
with sovereignty within its nineteen sixty borders. Somaliland first gained
(02:34):
independence and international recognition in nineteen sixty before voluntarily uniting
with Somalia later that year. Since moving to reclaim its
independence in nineteen ninety one, it has functioned as a stable,
self governing democratic nation. It has held several peaceful elections
(02:55):
since two thousand and three, marked by strong voter turnout
and peaceful trendsransitions of power. Somaliland has emerged as a
critical security and diplomatic partner for the United States, helping
America advance our national security interest in the Horn of
Africa and beyond. It is strategically located on the Gulf
(03:17):
of Aiden, putting it near one of the world's busiest
maritime corridors. It possesses capable armed forces and contributes to
regional counter terrorism and piracy operations. It has enabled the
opening of a Taiwanese representative office in the capital of Hargisa,
(03:38):
sought to strengthen ties with Israel and voice support for
the Abraham Accords. It has proposed hosting a US military
presence near the Red Sea along the Gulf of Aden,
and is open to critical minerals agreements that would support
(03:59):
our supply chain resilience. The US Somaliland partnership is robust
and it is deepening. Somaliland faces mounting pressure from adversaries,
doing no small part to its role as a partner
for the United States and our allies. The Chinese Communist
(04:19):
Party is using economic and diplomatic coercion to punish Somaliland
for its support for Taiwan, as well as to undermine
that support. The Government of Somalia has played an unfortunate
role in these efforts. In April twenty twenty five, the
CCP arranged for Somalia to bar Taiwanese passport holders from
(04:43):
transiting into Somaliland, and Chinese support to Somalia is benefiting
anti Somaliland groups working to erode its sovereignty. Despite these threats,
Somaliland remains committed to forging closer ties with the US
and is actively engage in enhancing military cooperation, counter terrorism efforts,
(05:05):
and economy and trade partnerships to do so. To the
greatest effect and the greatest benefit to American national security interest.
It requires the status of a state. I urge you
to grant it that recognition. This is obviously significant. What
are the chances that this could move forward this way?
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Look, I'm optimistic.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I think there's a real chance the President will recognize Somaliland.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
As I said, they've been an ally to us. They've
been an ally.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
This is a Muslim country and in a very dangerous
part of Africa. And they've shown real courage. They've shown
real courage standing with the United States. They've shown real
courage standing up to China. They've shown real courage siding
with Taiwan, which infuriates communist China. They've shown real courage
(05:53):
embracing Israel and the Abraham Accords. I think Somaliland would
eagerly joined the Abraham Accords and and and so it
is in America's national security interest. I believe to recognize Somaliland,
and and and and probably the best confirmation of that
(06:14):
is this week China put out a public release blasting
me absolutely furious uh that that I made this public
call to recognize Somaliland, and and and here's what China
put out as their statement they said, quote a US
senator in a letter boasting of so called US recognition
(06:38):
of Somaliland region launched baseless attacks against China and China
Somalia relations. The Chinese Embassy in Somalia firmly opposes this misconduct.
This coursive letter constitutes serious interference in the internal affairs
of Somalia and further exposes the hegemonic and bully attitude
(07:01):
of certain US politicians to the Somali people. Respect for
sovereignty and territorial integrity and non interference in each other's
internal affairs are enshrined in the UN Charter as basic
norms governing international relations for safeguarding world peace and stability.
China never interferes in other countries' internal affairs and absolutely
(07:25):
does not accept meddling in its own internal affairs by
any countries. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory.
This is history and this is reality. China firmly opposes
taiwan independent separatism and external interference, and possesses the legitimate
(07:47):
right to take measures to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The fact that China is freaking out, the fact that
they are this pissed off from my perspective, confirms that
that I was exactly right, and as yet another argument
why President Trump should should recognize Somali Land as an
(08:11):
ally to America and as a country in Africa willing
to stand up to communist China.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
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. You
talk about the president having leverage. Let's move to Washington,
d C. And everyone that said the president was like
being a dictator and a tyrant by sitting in the
National Guard actually trying to fight crime. They said, this
(08:37):
was just him being a bully. He was obsessed with
the media. This is what tyrants and dictators do. He's
gonna roll the National Guard and militarize every city in
America that he doesn't like.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
That was the narrative.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, guess what they got it wrong again, DC crime
since the announcement of the Federal control versus the seven
day prior to that, you have that data now Center. Please,
for everyone that's listening, go through every category of a shock.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I say that sarcastically more law enforcement on the street,
law and order. What happens less crime.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah, it turns out when you arrest criminals, you get
less crime.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
I know.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
That's a shocking outcome. It's one Democrats don't understand and
the media doesn't understand. But everyone whose head is not
fully inserted up their rear end gets that point.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Here is a.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Tweet from the DC Police Union. DC crime since the
announcement of federal control versus the seven days prior, robbery
down forty six percent, carjacking down eighty three percent, car
(09:51):
theft down twenty one percent, violent crime down twenty two percent,
property crime down six percent, and all crimes down eight percent.
That is in one week, in seven days. And if
(10:13):
you hear a wailing in the distance, that is the
collective wail of pain and unhappiness of Democrats in the media.
Because understood, this is not hyperbole. They are rooting for
the criminals. They do not want crime to go down,
because if crime goes down, it vindicates President Trump exercising
his constitutional authority to concerning d C and exercising his
(10:36):
authority is explicit statutory authority under the DC Home Rule Act.
The Democrats do not want that no.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
They don't.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And there's also another aspect of this story, and that
is we now have the Justice Department that's investigating whether Washington,
DC police manipulated their crime data. Remember I was shoot
I was on scene in a week and a half,
two weeks ago, and they're like, your staff are wrong.
Crime is way down. The President doesn't need to do this.
(11:03):
Everything's moving in the right direction. Well, it may have
looked like crime was down, but now the Justice Department
is investigating whether the DC police purposely willfully manipulate the
crime data to basically fake people out, lie to the
systems of DC and they said, no, no, everything's getting better
from last year when it was really, really, really bad,
(11:23):
now it's not as bad. And apparently they may manipulated
the numbers, including a whistleblower that they've settled with.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yet Look, I can tell you from someone who works
in DC, so most weeks I am in DC in
the Senate when the senate's in session. And in the
last four years under Joe Biden, the violence in DC
has gotten much worse. We've seen rand Paul had a
staffer who was stabbed on a public street at like
four in the afternoon, stabbed in the gut. There was
(11:53):
a guy who served in the first Trump administration who
was shot in the head. It killed at about five
pmsitting in his car on a street in d C.
This is not two in the morning in a rough neighborhood.
This is in a major metropolitan street. We had, you know,
not long ago, we had to Israelis murdered by a
(12:15):
radical Prohamas pro Palestinian leftist zealot from Chicago and d C.
As someone who works there. You know, it used to
be when when I started in the Senate, You know,
I would as you know, I love movies. We've done
a couple of podcasts where we talk about movies. When
I started in the Senate, I used to sometimes if
there was a night that I was done, Let's say
(12:36):
I was done at eight or nine o'clock at night.
There's a movie theater about five blocks from my house.
I used to routinely walk up to the movie theater
and just go see a movie.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
I don't do that now. I mean, frankly, at nine.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
O'clock at night, I know it's movie theater talking about Yeah,
no way you do that now at.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Nine o'clock at night, you don't walk five blocks in
d C. I'll tell you, I've got a guy in
my security d tail uh in in Washington who's a
tough guy. He's he's he's been in some some some
pretty rough combat situations.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
You you bet him.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
And and uh he was walking back to the Capitol
at ten pm and he had two guys, two teenagers,
jump him and try to rob him. Now, now, Mark's
a pretty tough guy. So he picked picked up one
of them and body slammed them into the back of
a car and the two of them ran off. But
the violence in d C has gotten really significantly worse.
(13:31):
And and you know, it's been interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
The reporters that are chairman what he said about it.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, the reporters that are honest, who are interviewing d
C residents, many of whom most of whom are African American.
The residents are saying, thank god, we think this is great.
Lock these criminals up. Look, the DC residents don't like
living with the risk of drive by sittings. Henry Quayar,
who is a Democrat congressman, was carjacked again in the
(13:59):
earth early evening. He was coming home with dinner to
his apartment was apartment building. Apparently five other congressmen lived
in carjacked right out in the front of it. And
here's what Greg Pemberton. I want you to listen to
Greg Pemberton, who was the DC Police Union chairman, what
he said about the security of DC under Democrats.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Give a listen.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
The criminal justice system here in the District of Columbia
is broken. Every aspect of it is broken, whether that's policing, prosecution,
judges and trials, sentencing and supervision, all of it is broken.
And you can trace every aspect of it back to
a piece of legislation that was passed by the council.
They have destroyed policing, they have destroyed prosecutions, they have
(14:39):
destroyed the way that the courts are allowed to operate,
and they've destroyed our ability to sentence criminals to sentences
that are commensurate with the crimes they've committed. And so
the only way to fix this holistically is to go
back and look at all of this legislation that the
Council passed it back in twenty twenty when there was
all of this anti police rhetoric, and work to undo that.
I know from my experiences the DC Council will never
(15:01):
do that on their own. And so what we're hoping
over the course of the next thirty days is that
whether that's the White House, whether that's these federal law
enforcement agencies, whether that's Congress, that people get an insight
into exactly how the system got so broken, because the
only way to fix it is if we can get
rid of that legislation. And my main concern is that
thirty days are going to go by, all of these
folks are going to go up about their merry way
(15:23):
and we're still going to be stuck with all this
bad law.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Like He's like, we know it's wrong, we know it's wrong.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
We know exactly what's wrong, and if they don't fix it,
we're going to be back here. Thank good as the
President stepped in here and the citizens. I go back
to the media narrative here center, the citizens overwhelmingly trust
Donald Trump to fight crime more than they trusted Joe Biden.
And the citizens in Washington, DC overwhelmingly or trusting the
(15:49):
strategy of Donald Trump then their own city council members
and their mayor. And that is a threat, I think
to all these other high crime cities. Memphis Baltimore, Detroit,
New Orleans, San Francisco, LA. Because, yeah, if this works,
how do you then say no when the president offers
(16:10):
you help or national guard?
Speaker 3 (16:13):
So understand, this is the same principle with securing the border.
So a year ago, at the State of the Union address,
Joe Biden said he could not secure the border. He
needed new legislation from Congress in order to secure the border.
We had at the time the highest rate of illegal
immigration in our nation's history. We had criminals and murderers
and gang members and rapists and child molesters and terrorists
(16:34):
streaming across the border. And he said he was helpless
to fix it. Donald Trump came in and the rate
of illegal border crossings dropped over ninety nine percent. As
President Trump said in the most recent State of the
Union address, it turns out we didn't need new legislation,
We just needed a new president. The same is true
(16:55):
in DC. If we see violent crime numbers continue to
go down and stay down, that demonstrates we can solve
crime in other cities too. And the reason residents of
your city are being murdered is because the Democrat mayors
and the Democrat city councils care more about the radical
leftists who hate the police, who want to defund the police,
(17:16):
who want abolish the police, than they care about your
family and your children. Look at spoke volumes when China's
president she came to visit San Francisco a few years ago,
and Gavin Newsoen came in and cleaned up San Francisco
and took out the homeless people and took out the
drug addicts, and the.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Streets were sparkling.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And I got to say, even if you are a
left wing Bolshevik in San Francisco, a tiny voice in
the back of your head must have said, wait a second,
if they could clean up the streets today, why didn't
they clean up the streets last week? Why do my
kids matter less than the president of China? And so
(18:00):
this is an existential threat to Democrats who want to
say we're helpless, we can't stop crime. And by the way,
part of their message is the only way to stop
crime is to disarm law abiding citizens. That gun control
doesn't solve it, but locking up violent criminals does, and
spoiler alert, that is what works in stopping violent crime.
(18:22):
Then the Democrats have a massive challenge. And I want
you to Listen to Caroline Levitt talking about some of
the results we've seen in just one week in DC.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Give a listen.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
President Trump's efforts to make DC safe again are working.
There have been a total of four hundred and sixty
five arrests since the start of this operation on Thursday,
August seventh. Last night, there were a total of fifty
two arrests, including the arrest of an illegal alien MS
thirteen gang member with convictions for DWI and drug possession.
(18:52):
Thanks to President Trump's leadership in the outstanding work of
both federal and local law enforcement, dangerous gang members like
the one picked up last night will not be allowed
on the streets of our nation's capital. Other arrests last
night included assault with a deadly weapon for stabbing, parole
violation for robbery murder, outstanding warrant for attempted murder, assault
(19:13):
on federal law enforcement officer, and felony assault. Four more
homeless encampments were also removed during yesterday's reporting period. To date,
a total of forty eight homeless encampments have been cleared
in Washington, d C. By multi agency teams. MPD patrol
units are actively working with city officials to locate in
clear additional encampments and remove homeless residents off of Washington streets.
(19:37):
And despite fake narratives from the media, again, a significant
number of the arrests have been in high crime areas
of DC. In fact, nearly half of all of the
non illegal alien related arrests have occurred in Wards seven
and eight, the two wards that have the highest number
of violent crime as well as homicides and assaults with
(19:58):
dangerous weapons last year. So while Democrats continue to caddle
violent criminals, President Trump and this administration are focused on
putting them behind bars and unapologetically standing up for the
safety of law abiding American citizens. And the White House
will continue to provide all of you with the results
of this operation in the days ahead.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
By the way, this goes back to the narrative. When
this was announced, the President was going to do this.
That night, I was doing Abby's Phillips show on CNN
and all of the panelists are losing their minds, saying,
Donald Trump, this was going to do nothing. They said,
He's putting them on the National Mall where there's no crime.
He's a dictator. They're not going to put the law
(20:39):
enforce it where the real crime is. That's why this
is a waste of resources. This is just him showing
and flexing his muscles that he can do this because
the present and this is what a dictator does.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yet you're the crime sat there.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Where are they fighting crime where the criminals are?
Speaker 1 (20:56):
And I said it, then I'll say it again.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
It's amazing how much the left and the media hates
Donald Trump so much. They don't even care if they're
able to save lives through this. They just hate the
fact that Donald Trump wants to fight crime. So whatever
he says he wants to do, we're going to fight
it and lie and slander him. And regardless of how
many people lose their lives in DC or any other
(21:19):
city when this comes out.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah, look, that is exactly right. And I will point
out those very high crime neighborhoods in DC are overwhelmingly
African American and the woke left wing Democrat mayor painted
the words black Lives matter on the street at a
giant mural. They've removed that now, But when it comes
to actually protecting black lives, understand that a very significant
(21:46):
percentage of the murder victims from these violent criminals are
African Americans, and so Donald Trump and Republicans are stepping
in and saving black lives, and the position of Democrats
in the media is those black lives lives do not matter.
They'd rather they be victims of murder than actually have
law enforcement put violent.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Criminals in jail.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
And Ben when I say that, that sounds unbelievably harsh,
but I want to ask you seriously, give me an
alternative explanation. If the explanation is not sure that the
Democrats do not give a damn about whether black lives
matter and whether they're saving African Americans from being victims
(22:30):
of homicide, then why are they so adamantly opposed to
supporting law enforcement putting violent criminals in jail.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
No, this is the Democratic Party now.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
They'd rather see Donald Trump fail than actually save American lives.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Don't forget. We do the show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Also, this episode is up on YouTube, so if you
want to watch it, we put up there on YouTube
as well.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Hit that subscribe or auto download button.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
We're going to keep giving you the stats out of
DC because I promise you the media is not going
to do it. We cover these stories, give you the
fact please share it wherever you can on social media
and the Senator and I will see you back here
on Friday morning.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
As before.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
If you want to hear the rest of this conversation
on this topic, you can go back and down the
podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing.
I want to get back to the big story number
three of the week. You may have missed one other
big story we got to get in here, Senator, is
Biden's auto pen. We've got a new big update on
this story. And apparently Joe Biden deliberately ignored his own
(23:31):
Department of Justice's warnings over legally flawed autopen pardons. And
we also found out about how many pardons they were
giving out, and they claimed from the White House podium
that these are all non violent offenders.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
That was also a huge lie.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Well that's right, and I will say this is the
sort of story why we do Verdict as a podcast,
why we do it as a radio show, because this
is the kind of story you will never see on CNN.
You won't see it on MSNBC or ABCNBCCBS, it will
not be covered by the corporate media because it is inconvenient.
We have talked about at length the problems with Joe
(24:09):
Biden's autopen that the president does not have the authority
to delegate presidential power to another staff member. And when
it comes to an autopen, the critical question whether a
statute sign in law by an autopen, an executive order
signed by an autopen, or a pardoner commutation signed by
an autopen. The critical question for whether it is legally
valid is whether the President personally and directly authorized it,
(24:32):
whether the President made the decision. If it's a staffer
who made the decision, it is not valid and it
is legally void. Well, what broke it is recently is
this week, is is that at the time that Joe
Biden was using the autopen, or rather the White House
staffers were using the autopen, a senior career staffer in
the Biden Department of Justice was raising real legal questions
(24:53):
about it. Here's the story on Fox News headline Biden's
autopen pardons disturbed DOJ brass Stock show raising questions whether
they are legally binding. New documents and communications between Biden
White House staff and career officials of the Justice Department
prompted scrutiny of the legality of former President Joe Biden's
thousands of last minute pardons. The Oversight Project shared documents
(25:17):
obtained from the Trump DOJ with Fox News Digital showing
that a career prosecutor warned Biden's inner circle that the
administration's pardon process was unorthodox and legally troubling. In the
most scrutinized email, then Assistant Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer
(25:39):
wrote a group email to several Executive Office staff members
on January eighteenth, asking questions about the more than two
thy five hundred pardons.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Quote.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
The White House has described those who received commutations as
people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. I think you should
stop saying that because it is untre true or at
least misleading. That's what DOJ said to the Biden White House.
Mind you, they didn't stop it. They continued to be
untrue and misleading. He continued. Quote, as you know, even
(26:12):
with the exceedingly limited review we were permitted to do,
of the individuals we believed you might be considering for
commutation action, we initially identified nineteen that were highly problematic,
he continued. He cited convicts Terence Richardson and Faron Clayborne,
who were included in the clemency grants, and noted that
the DOJ received voluminous objections from the victims, families and
(26:35):
law enforcement as the men had been sentenced to life
imprisonment for drug trafficking offenses during which a police officer
was killed. Mind you, this is what the Biden White
House said was a non violent offense drug trafficking where
a police officer was killed. And beyond that, according to
(26:56):
Oversight Project Vice president Kyle Brosnan, shows that DOJ was
concerned about the quote vague construct of Biden's pardons and
how they appeared to be quote illegally delegated to staff.
That left the DOJ wondering at times which offenses for
people with multiple convictions were specifically being expunged. Later in
(27:19):
the email, he was like, quote look, I read the
statement you put out in the President's name saying you've
released a bunch of nonviolent drug offenders. You've got murderers
on your list today. So I'm trying to figure out
what the president wants here for this funky warrant.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
That is incredible, isn't it. I mean funky warrant and
that's coming again. From his own DOJ saying we don't
know what he wants, we don't know what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Yeah, this is the Biden DOJ.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Weinsheimer continued, quote, I think it is best that we
receive a statement or direction from the President as to
the meaning of the warrant language that will allow us
to give full effect to the commutation warrant in the
manner intended by the president. And there was ultimate no
explanation for what the offenses or the proverbial descriptions were,
according to the document tronch, and instead there was simply
(28:11):
a spreadsheet of convicts attached to one of the emails
that came from the US Sentencing Commission. But only the
president has the power to grant pardons, not the Sentencing Commission.
Treating it otherwise would be an illegal delegation of presidential authority.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
When you look at this, what does this mean moving
forward for the investigation into the president's use the autopen
and many things he may have signed that he didn't
know about. Right, this was just anybody at the White
House pretty much that had any type of power can
just walk in there and get things done.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And what does this mean?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
For all of the they claimed non violent offenders that
they were pardoning.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
We've also found out a bunch of them that was
very violent. It was a lie.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
It was a lie. They knew it was a lie.
Their own Department of Justice told them it was a lie.
Didn't care it was a lie. They continued lying to
the American people. They knew that the New York Times
would never call them out. They knew that the corrupt
media would never call them out, so they could lie
and lie and lie and know that nobody would know
about it. And as a legal matter, the Brasnan from
the Oversight Project said, quote Biden did not pardon individual people,
(29:19):
but laid out categories of types of people to release
and left it to staff to figure out who meets
that criteria. Attorney Sam Dewey told Fox News Digital that quote, literally,
no one, including DOJ officials, understands what the aforementioned pardon
criteria are. And he continued, quote, you generally don't see
(29:41):
people write emails like this. This isn't a cya. This
is I'm going to do a ponscious pilot routine because
this is a drug deal and I want to make
sure it doesn't come back on me. And the consequence
of that it is that the pardon, if they were
not authorized by the President of the United States, they
(30:04):
are invalid. And so what I have verged the White
House to do, what I've verged the Department of Justice
to do, is to go through the records of everything
that was autopenned and determine there may be some The
President does have the authority to direct someone to autopen
something that he's signing, whether a law or an executive
order or a pardon, and if it's the president who's
making the decision, the prevailing the Department of Justice interpretation
(30:28):
is that is legal in binding. But if the President
didn't make the decision, if it's a staffer who's making
the decision, then it has no binding force. And so
what I've encouraged both the White House and Department of
Justice is to find those pardons, those executive orders, those
statutes that were autopen for which there is a clear
lack of evidence that Joe Biden had awareness of it,
(30:50):
made a decision about it, and then formulate and carry
out a legal strategy to challenge and end up concluding
that those statutes, executive order pardons and commutations are invalid.
I think the possibility of a legal determination of that
is rising significantly. And the fact that you had senior
career DOJ officials in the Biden administration ringing the alarm
(31:13):
bells and saying you're lying to the American people and
what you're doing is lawless, that is yet another stunning
revelation that has come out this week.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
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 to Verdict afterwards, I'd love to
have you as a listener to again, Ben Ferguson Podcasts,
and we will see you back here on Monday morning,
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
In his verdict with Ted Crue's weekend Review, Ben Ferguson
with you, and here are three of the major stories
that you may have missed that we talked about this week.
First up Center Cruz calling out China on creating a
new country in Africa. Why is the media not talking
about it? Well, we have the details that you need
to know. Also, DC crime is down as Donald Trump
(00:24):
commits to making sure that people that live in the
District Columbia are actually safe, and the data is truly
staggering just how quick the president was able to restore
a law and order to a city that been broken
for decades. And finally, the auto pen Joe Biden was
actually warned by his own Department of Justice that what
(00:44):
they were doing was problematic, yet he did it anyway.
Why did he not pay attention to the warnings? And
maybe it was because he wasn't actually even in charge.
We'll have that for you. It's the weekend review and
it starts right now. I want to move to this
other story, and it's one realistically that probably ninety nine
percent of this audience doesn't even know about this because
(01:09):
no one's covering it. It doesn't mean that it's not
an extremely important story.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
It is you calling out China.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
It's an epic fight over creating a new country in Africa.
This reminds me of that story we were talking about
not that long ago, about China creating an island in
the middle of the ocean based of nowhere that we
helped give them air superiority if there was a massive
world event that took place, another World war, it would
(01:37):
give them the ability to reach places they currently cannot reach.
And now we're hearing that they're looking at creating a
new country in Africa. You're trying to bring that to
light and also stop it. Well, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
So I am the chairman of the Africa Subcommittee of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and so I've been sharing
a number of hearings, in particular focusing on the growing
influence of communist China in Africa. Africa has become a
major battleground where China is trying to gain influence, trying
to gain power, and do so at the expense of America.
(02:11):
And so what this last week I wrote a letter
to President Trump urging the President to recognize a new
country in Africa. I'm going to read you the letter.
Dear President Trump, I write to urge your administration to
formally recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an independent state
with sovereignty within its nineteen sixty borders. Somaliland first gained
(02:34):
independence and international recognition in nineteen sixty before voluntarily uniting
with Somalia later that year. Since moving to reclaim its
independence in nineteen ninety one, it has functioned as a stable,
self governing democratic nation. It has held several peaceful elections
(02:55):
since two thousand and three, marked by strong voter turnout
and peaceful trendsransitions of power. Somaliland has emerged as a
critical security and diplomatic partner for the United States, helping
America advance our national security interest in the Horn of
Africa and beyond. It is strategically located on the Gulf
(03:17):
of Aiden, putting it near one of the world's busiest
maritime corridors. It possesses capable armed forces and contributes to
regional counter terrorism and piracy operations. It has enabled the
opening of a Taiwanese representative office in the capital of Hargisa,
(03:38):
sought to strengthen ties with Israel and voice support for
the Abraham Accords. It has proposed hosting a US military
presence near the Red Sea along the Gulf of Aden,
and is open to critical minerals agreements that would support
(03:59):
our supply chain resilience. The US Somaliland partnership is robust
and it is deepening. Somaliland faces mounting pressure from adversaries,
doing no small part to its role as a partner
for the United States and our allies. The Chinese Communist
(04:19):
Party is using economic and diplomatic coercion to punish Somaliland
for its support for Taiwan, as well as to undermine
that support. The Government of Somalia has played an unfortunate
role in these efforts. In April twenty twenty five, the
CCP arranged for Somalia to bar Taiwanese passport holders from
(04:43):
transiting into Somaliland, and Chinese support to Somalia is benefiting
anti Somaliland groups working to erode its sovereignty. Despite these threats,
Somaliland remains committed to forging closer ties with the US
and is actively engage in enhancing military cooperation, counter terrorism efforts,
(05:05):
and economy and trade partnerships to do so. To the
greatest effect and the greatest benefit to American national security interest.
It requires the status of a state. I urge you
to grant it that recognition. This is obviously significant. What
are the chances that this could move forward this way?
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Look, I'm optimistic.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I think there's a real chance the President will recognize Somaliland.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
As I said, they've been an ally to us. They've
been an ally.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
This is a Muslim country and in a very dangerous
part of Africa. And they've shown real courage. They've shown
real courage standing with the United States. They've shown real
courage standing up to China. They've shown real courage siding
with Taiwan, which infuriates communist China. They've shown real courage
(05:53):
embracing Israel and the Abraham Accords. I think Somaliland would
eagerly joined the Abraham Accords and and and so it
is in America's national security interest. I believe to recognize Somaliland,
and and and and probably the best confirmation of that
(06:14):
is this week China put out a public release blasting
me absolutely furious uh that that I made this public
call to recognize Somaliland, and and and here's what China
put out as their statement they said, quote a US
senator in a letter boasting of so called US recognition
(06:38):
of Somaliland region launched baseless attacks against China and China
Somalia relations. The Chinese Embassy in Somalia firmly opposes this misconduct.
This coursive letter constitutes serious interference in the internal affairs
of Somalia and further exposes the hegemonic and bully attitude
(07:01):
of certain US politicians to the Somali people. Respect for
sovereignty and territorial integrity and non interference in each other's
internal affairs are enshrined in the UN Charter as basic
norms governing international relations for safeguarding world peace and stability.
China never interferes in other countries' internal affairs and absolutely
(07:25):
does not accept meddling in its own internal affairs by
any countries. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory.
This is history and this is reality. China firmly opposes
taiwan independent separatism and external interference, and possesses the legitimate
(07:47):
right to take measures to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The fact that China is freaking out, the fact that
they are this pissed off from my perspective, confirms that
that I was exactly right, and as yet another argument
why President Trump should should recognize Somali Land as an
(08:11):
ally to America and as a country in Africa willing
to stand up to communist China.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
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. You
talk about the president having leverage. Let's move to Washington,
d C. And everyone that said the president was like
being a dictator and a tyrant by sitting in the
National Guard actually trying to fight crime. They said, this
(08:37):
was just him being a bully. He was obsessed with
the media. This is what tyrants and dictators do. He's
gonna roll the National Guard and militarize every city in
America that he doesn't like.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
That was the narrative.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, guess what they got it wrong again, DC crime
since the announcement of the Federal control versus the seven
day prior to that, you have that data now Center. Please,
for everyone that's listening, go through every category of a shock.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I say that sarcastically more law enforcement on the street,
law and order. What happens less crime.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah, it turns out when you arrest criminals, you get
less crime.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
I know.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
That's a shocking outcome. It's one Democrats don't understand and
the media doesn't understand. But everyone whose head is not
fully inserted up their rear end gets that point.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Here is a.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Tweet from the DC Police Union. DC crime since the
announcement of federal control versus the seven days prior, robbery
down forty six percent, carjacking down eighty three percent, car
(09:51):
theft down twenty one percent, violent crime down twenty two percent,
property crime down six percent, and all crimes down eight percent.
That is in one week, in seven days. And if
(10:13):
you hear a wailing in the distance, that is the
collective wail of pain and unhappiness of Democrats in the media.
Because understood, this is not hyperbole. They are rooting for
the criminals. They do not want crime to go down,
because if crime goes down, it vindicates President Trump exercising
his constitutional authority to concerning d C and exercising his
(10:36):
authority is explicit statutory authority under the DC Home Rule Act.
The Democrats do not want that no.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
They don't.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And there's also another aspect of this story, and that
is we now have the Justice Department that's investigating whether Washington,
DC police manipulated their crime data. Remember I was shoot
I was on scene in a week and a half,
two weeks ago, and they're like, your staff are wrong.
Crime is way down. The President doesn't need to do this.
(11:03):
Everything's moving in the right direction. Well, it may have
looked like crime was down, but now the Justice Department
is investigating whether the DC police purposely willfully manipulate the
crime data to basically fake people out, lie to the
systems of DC and they said, no, no, everything's getting better
from last year when it was really, really, really bad,
(11:23):
now it's not as bad. And apparently they may manipulated
the numbers, including a whistleblower that they've settled with.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yet Look, I can tell you from someone who works
in DC, so most weeks I am in DC in
the Senate when the senate's in session. And in the
last four years under Joe Biden, the violence in DC
has gotten much worse. We've seen rand Paul had a
staffer who was stabbed on a public street at like
four in the afternoon, stabbed in the gut. There was
(11:53):
a guy who served in the first Trump administration who
was shot in the head. It killed at about five
pmsitting in his car on a street in d C.
This is not two in the morning in a rough neighborhood.
This is in a major metropolitan street. We had, you know,
not long ago, we had to Israelis murdered by a
(12:15):
radical Prohamas pro Palestinian leftist zealot from Chicago and d C.
As someone who works there. You know, it used to
be when when I started in the Senate, You know,
I would as you know, I love movies. We've done
a couple of podcasts where we talk about movies. When
I started in the Senate, I used to sometimes if
there was a night that I was done, Let's say
(12:36):
I was done at eight or nine o'clock at night.
There's a movie theater about five blocks from my house.
I used to routinely walk up to the movie theater
and just go see a movie.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
I don't do that now. I mean, frankly, at nine.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
O'clock at night, I know it's movie theater talking about Yeah,
no way you do that now at.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Nine o'clock at night, you don't walk five blocks in
d C. I'll tell you, I've got a guy in
my security d tail uh in in Washington who's a
tough guy. He's he's he's been in some some some
pretty rough combat situations.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
You you bet him.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
And and uh he was walking back to the Capitol
at ten pm and he had two guys, two teenagers,
jump him and try to rob him. Now, now, Mark's
a pretty tough guy. So he picked picked up one
of them and body slammed them into the back of
a car and the two of them ran off. But
the violence in d C has gotten really significantly worse.
(13:31):
And and you know, it's been interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
The reporters that are chairman what he said about it.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, the reporters that are honest, who are interviewing d
C residents, many of whom most of whom are African American.
The residents are saying, thank god, we think this is great.
Lock these criminals up. Look, the DC residents don't like
living with the risk of drive by sittings. Henry Quayar,
who is a Democrat congressman, was carjacked again in the
(13:59):
earth early evening. He was coming home with dinner to
his apartment was apartment building. Apparently five other congressmen lived
in carjacked right out in the front of it. And
here's what Greg Pemberton. I want you to listen to
Greg Pemberton, who was the DC Police Union chairman, what
he said about the security of DC under Democrats.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Give a listen.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
The criminal justice system here in the District of Columbia
is broken. Every aspect of it is broken, whether that's policing, prosecution,
judges and trials, sentencing and supervision, all of it is broken.
And you can trace every aspect of it back to
a piece of legislation that was passed by the council.
They have destroyed policing, they have destroyed prosecutions, they have
(14:39):
destroyed the way that the courts are allowed to operate,
and they've destroyed our ability to sentence criminals to sentences
that are commensurate with the crimes they've committed. And so
the only way to fix this holistically is to go
back and look at all of this legislation that the
Council passed it back in twenty twenty when there was
all of this anti police rhetoric, and work to undo that.
I know from my experiences the DC Council will never
(15:01):
do that on their own. And so what we're hoping
over the course of the next thirty days is that
whether that's the White House, whether that's these federal law
enforcement agencies, whether that's Congress, that people get an insight
into exactly how the system got so broken, because the
only way to fix it is if we can get
rid of that legislation. And my main concern is that
thirty days are going to go by, all of these
folks are going to go up about their merry way
(15:23):
and we're still going to be stuck with all this
bad law.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Like He's like, we know it's wrong, we know it's wrong.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
We know exactly what's wrong, and if they don't fix it,
we're going to be back here. Thank good as the
President stepped in here and the citizens. I go back
to the media narrative here center, the citizens overwhelmingly trust
Donald Trump to fight crime more than they trusted Joe Biden.
And the citizens in Washington, DC overwhelmingly or trusting the
(15:49):
strategy of Donald Trump then their own city council members
and their mayor. And that is a threat, I think
to all these other high crime cities. Memphis Baltimore, Detroit,
New Orleans, San Francisco, LA. Because, yeah, if this works,
how do you then say no when the president offers
(16:10):
you help or national guard?
Speaker 3 (16:13):
So understand, this is the same principle with securing the border.
So a year ago, at the State of the Union address,
Joe Biden said he could not secure the border. He
needed new legislation from Congress in order to secure the border.
We had at the time the highest rate of illegal
immigration in our nation's history. We had criminals and murderers
and gang members and rapists and child molesters and terrorists
(16:34):
streaming across the border. And he said he was helpless
to fix it. Donald Trump came in and the rate
of illegal border crossings dropped over ninety nine percent. As
President Trump said in the most recent State of the
Union address, it turns out we didn't need new legislation,
We just needed a new president. The same is true
(16:55):
in DC. If we see violent crime numbers continue to
go down and stay down, that demonstrates we can solve
crime in other cities too. And the reason residents of
your city are being murdered is because the Democrat mayors
and the Democrat city councils care more about the radical
leftists who hate the police, who want to defund the police,
(17:16):
who want abolish the police, than they care about your
family and your children. Look at spoke volumes when China's
president she came to visit San Francisco a few years ago,
and Gavin Newsoen came in and cleaned up San Francisco
and took out the homeless people and took out the
drug addicts, and the.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Streets were sparkling.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And I got to say, even if you are a
left wing Bolshevik in San Francisco, a tiny voice in
the back of your head must have said, wait a second,
if they could clean up the streets today, why didn't
they clean up the streets last week? Why do my
kids matter less than the president of China? And so
(18:00):
this is an existential threat to Democrats who want to
say we're helpless, we can't stop crime. And by the way,
part of their message is the only way to stop
crime is to disarm law abiding citizens. That gun control
doesn't solve it, but locking up violent criminals does, and
spoiler alert, that is what works in stopping violent crime.
(18:22):
Then the Democrats have a massive challenge. And I want
you to Listen to Caroline Levitt talking about some of
the results we've seen in just one week in DC.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Give a listen.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
President Trump's efforts to make DC safe again are working.
There have been a total of four hundred and sixty
five arrests since the start of this operation on Thursday,
August seventh. Last night, there were a total of fifty
two arrests, including the arrest of an illegal alien MS
thirteen gang member with convictions for DWI and drug possession.
(18:52):
Thanks to President Trump's leadership in the outstanding work of
both federal and local law enforcement, dangerous gang members like
the one picked up last night will not be allowed
on the streets of our nation's capital. Other arrests last
night included assault with a deadly weapon for stabbing, parole
violation for robbery murder, outstanding warrant for attempted murder, assault
(19:13):
on federal law enforcement officer, and felony assault. Four more
homeless encampments were also removed during yesterday's reporting period. To date,
a total of forty eight homeless encampments have been cleared
in Washington, d C. By multi agency teams. MPD patrol
units are actively working with city officials to locate in
clear additional encampments and remove homeless residents off of Washington streets.
(19:37):
And despite fake narratives from the media, again, a significant
number of the arrests have been in high crime areas
of DC. In fact, nearly half of all of the
non illegal alien related arrests have occurred in Wards seven
and eight, the two wards that have the highest number
of violent crime as well as homicides and assaults with
(19:58):
dangerous weapons last year. So while Democrats continue to caddle
violent criminals, President Trump and this administration are focused on
putting them behind bars and unapologetically standing up for the
safety of law abiding American citizens. And the White House
will continue to provide all of you with the results
of this operation in the days ahead.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
By the way, this goes back to the narrative. When
this was announced, the President was going to do this.
That night, I was doing Abby's Phillips show on CNN
and all of the panelists are losing their minds, saying,
Donald Trump, this was going to do nothing. They said,
He's putting them on the National Mall where there's no crime.
He's a dictator. They're not going to put the law
(20:39):
enforce it where the real crime is. That's why this
is a waste of resources. This is just him showing
and flexing his muscles that he can do this because
the present and this is what a dictator does.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yet you're the crime sat there.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Where are they fighting crime where the criminals are?
Speaker 1 (20:56):
And I said it, then I'll say it again.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
It's amazing how much the left and the media hates
Donald Trump so much. They don't even care if they're
able to save lives through this. They just hate the
fact that Donald Trump wants to fight crime. So whatever
he says he wants to do, we're going to fight
it and lie and slander him. And regardless of how
many people lose their lives in DC or any other
(21:19):
city when this comes out.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah, look, that is exactly right. And I will point
out those very high crime neighborhoods in DC are overwhelmingly
African American and the woke left wing Democrat mayor painted
the words black Lives matter on the street at a
giant mural. They've removed that now, But when it comes
to actually protecting black lives, understand that a very significant
(21:46):
percentage of the murder victims from these violent criminals are
African Americans, and so Donald Trump and Republicans are stepping
in and saving black lives, and the position of Democrats
in the media is those black lives lives do not matter.
They'd rather they be victims of murder than actually have
law enforcement put violent.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Criminals in jail.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
And Ben when I say that, that sounds unbelievably harsh,
but I want to ask you seriously, give me an
alternative explanation. If the explanation is not sure that the
Democrats do not give a damn about whether black lives
matter and whether they're saving African Americans from being victims
(22:30):
of homicide, then why are they so adamantly opposed to
supporting law enforcement putting violent criminals in jail.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
No, this is the Democratic Party now.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
They'd rather see Donald Trump fail than actually save American lives.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Don't forget. We do the show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Also, this episode is up on YouTube, so if you
want to watch it, we put up there on YouTube
as well.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Hit that subscribe or auto download button.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
We're going to keep giving you the stats out of
DC because I promise you the media is not going
to do it. We cover these stories, give you the
fact please share it wherever you can on social media
and the Senator and I will see you back here
on Friday morning.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
As before.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
If you want to hear the rest of this conversation
on this topic, you can go back and down the
podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing.
I want to get back to the big story number
three of the week. You may have missed one other
big story we got to get in here, Senator, is
Biden's auto pen. We've got a new big update on
this story. And apparently Joe Biden deliberately ignored his own
(23:31):
Department of Justice's warnings over legally flawed autopen pardons. And
we also found out about how many pardons they were
giving out, and they claimed from the White House podium
that these are all non violent offenders.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
That was also a huge lie.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Well that's right, and I will say this is the
sort of story why we do Verdict as a podcast,
why we do it as a radio show, because this
is the kind of story you will never see on CNN.
You won't see it on MSNBC or ABCNBCCBS, it will
not be covered by the corporate media because it is inconvenient.
We have talked about at length the problems with Joe
(24:09):
Biden's autopen that the president does not have the authority
to delegate presidential power to another staff member. And when
it comes to an autopen, the critical question whether a
statute sign in law by an autopen, an executive order
signed by an autopen, or a pardoner commutation signed by
an autopen. The critical question for whether it is legally
valid is whether the President personally and directly authorized it,
(24:32):
whether the President made the decision. If it's a staffer
who made the decision, it is not valid and it
is legally void. Well, what broke it is recently is
this week, is is that at the time that Joe
Biden was using the autopen, or rather the White House
staffers were using the autopen, a senior career staffer in
the Biden Department of Justice was raising real legal questions
(24:53):
about it. Here's the story on Fox News headline Biden's
autopen pardons disturbed DOJ brass Stock show raising questions whether
they are legally binding. New documents and communications between Biden
White House staff and career officials of the Justice Department
prompted scrutiny of the legality of former President Joe Biden's
thousands of last minute pardons. The Oversight Project shared documents
(25:17):
obtained from the Trump DOJ with Fox News Digital showing
that a career prosecutor warned Biden's inner circle that the
administration's pardon process was unorthodox and legally troubling. In the
most scrutinized email, then Assistant Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer
(25:39):
wrote a group email to several Executive Office staff members
on January eighteenth, asking questions about the more than two
thy five hundred pardons.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Quote.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
The White House has described those who received commutations as
people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. I think you should
stop saying that because it is untre true or at
least misleading. That's what DOJ said to the Biden White House.
Mind you, they didn't stop it. They continued to be
untrue and misleading. He continued. Quote, as you know, even
(26:12):
with the exceedingly limited review we were permitted to do,
of the individuals we believed you might be considering for
commutation action, we initially identified nineteen that were highly problematic,
he continued. He cited convicts Terence Richardson and Faron Clayborne,
who were included in the clemency grants, and noted that
the DOJ received voluminous objections from the victims, families and
(26:35):
law enforcement as the men had been sentenced to life
imprisonment for drug trafficking offenses during which a police officer
was killed. Mind you, this is what the Biden White
House said was a non violent offense drug trafficking where
a police officer was killed. And beyond that, according to
(26:56):
Oversight Project Vice president Kyle Brosnan, shows that DOJ was
concerned about the quote vague construct of Biden's pardons and
how they appeared to be quote illegally delegated to staff.
That left the DOJ wondering at times which offenses for
people with multiple convictions were specifically being expunged. Later in
(27:19):
the email, he was like, quote look, I read the
statement you put out in the President's name saying you've
released a bunch of nonviolent drug offenders. You've got murderers
on your list today. So I'm trying to figure out
what the president wants here for this funky warrant.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
That is incredible, isn't it. I mean funky warrant and
that's coming again. From his own DOJ saying we don't
know what he wants, we don't know what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Yeah, this is the Biden DOJ.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Weinsheimer continued, quote, I think it is best that we
receive a statement or direction from the President as to
the meaning of the warrant language that will allow us
to give full effect to the commutation warrant in the
manner intended by the president. And there was ultimate no
explanation for what the offenses or the proverbial descriptions were,
according to the document tronch, and instead there was simply
(28:11):
a spreadsheet of convicts attached to one of the emails
that came from the US Sentencing Commission. But only the
president has the power to grant pardons, not the Sentencing Commission.
Treating it otherwise would be an illegal delegation of presidential authority.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
When you look at this, what does this mean moving
forward for the investigation into the president's use the autopen
and many things he may have signed that he didn't
know about. Right, this was just anybody at the White
House pretty much that had any type of power can
just walk in there and get things done.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And what does this mean?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
For all of the they claimed non violent offenders that
they were pardoning.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
We've also found out a bunch of them that was
very violent. It was a lie.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
It was a lie. They knew it was a lie.
Their own Department of Justice told them it was a lie.
Didn't care it was a lie. They continued lying to
the American people. They knew that the New York Times
would never call them out. They knew that the corrupt
media would never call them out, so they could lie
and lie and lie and know that nobody would know
about it. And as a legal matter, the Brasnan from
the Oversight Project said, quote Biden did not pardon individual people,
(29:19):
but laid out categories of types of people to release
and left it to staff to figure out who meets
that criteria. Attorney Sam Dewey told Fox News Digital that quote, literally,
no one, including DOJ officials, understands what the aforementioned pardon
criteria are. And he continued, quote, you generally don't see
(29:41):
people write emails like this. This isn't a cya. This
is I'm going to do a ponscious pilot routine because
this is a drug deal and I want to make
sure it doesn't come back on me. And the consequence
of that it is that the pardon, if they were
not authorized by the President of the United States, they
(30:04):
are invalid. And so what I have verged the White
House to do, what I've verged the Department of Justice
to do, is to go through the records of everything
that was autopenned and determine there may be some The
President does have the authority to direct someone to autopen
something that he's signing, whether a law or an executive
order or a pardon, and if it's the president who's
making the decision, the prevailing the Department of Justice interpretation
(30:28):
is that is legal in binding. But if the President
didn't make the decision, if it's a staffer who's making
the decision, then it has no binding force. And so
what I've encouraged both the White House and Department of
Justice is to find those pardons, those executive orders, those
statutes that were autopen for which there is a clear
lack of evidence that Joe Biden had awareness of it,
(30:50):
made a decision about it, and then formulate and carry
out a legal strategy to challenge and end up concluding
that those statutes, executive order pardons and commutations are invalid.
I think the possibility of a legal determination of that
is rising significantly. And the fact that you had senior
career DOJ officials in the Biden administration ringing the alarm
(31:13):
bells and saying you're lying to the American people and
what you're doing is lawless, that is yet another stunning
revelation that has come out this week.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
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 to Verdict afterwards, I'd love to
have you as a listener to again, Ben Ferguson Podcasts,
and we will see you back here on Monday morning,
Host
Ben Ferguson
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