-
Trump's Legal Victory in New York
- The New York Court of Appeals overturned a $500+ million judgment against Donald Trump.
- The hosts argue this was a politically motivated case by NY Attorney General Letitia James.
- They claim the penalty violated the Eighth Amendment (excessive fines) and due process.
-
Democratic Party Voter Registration Decline
- Citing a New York Times analysis, the hosts discuss a significant drop in Democratic voter registration across all 30 states that track it.
- They interpret this as a sign of disillusionment with Democratic policies and leadership.
-
Interview with Senator Eric Schmitt
- Promoting his book The Last Line of Defense: How to Beat the Left in Court.
- Discusses legal battles against COVID mandates, censorship, DEI/ESG policies, and the Biden administration.
- Shares behind-the-scenes stories, including depositions of Anthony Fauci and FBI officials.
-
Biden’s Autopen Pardons Controversy
- Allegations that President Biden delegated pardon decisions to staff using an autopen.
- DOJ officials reportedly raised concerns about legality and transparency.
- Hosts argue this undermines the constitutional authority of the presidency.
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#autopen #pardon #SenatorEricSchmitt #NewYorkCourtofAppeals #Trump #PresidentTrump #AnthonyFauci #TheLastLineofDefenseHowtoBeattheLeftinCourt #DonaldTrump
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome. It is Verdic with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson
with you, and it's nice to have you with us
wherever you're listening around the country. We have got a
lot of news that has been breaking this week, including
a major victory as a New York appeals court is
thrown out that half a billion dollar penalty against Donald Trump,
something that we predicted right here on this show.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Well, that's right, there's an enormous amount we're talking about today.
But I want to say at the outset that this
podcast is brought to you by Cracker Barrel. They don't
have crackers, they don't have barrels. They hate you and
your family. There's nothing that your values stand for that
they stand for, but they are happy to be woke
and erase their entire history of race American exceptionalism. That,
of course is not true for those of you who
(00:42):
are hiring lawyers right now. That is what's known as parody.
So that is not accurate. But I will say what
is accurate is what Ben just said that President Trump
won a massive victory today in the New York Court
of Appeals. The New York Court of Appeals throughout the entirety,
every penny of the five hundred million dollar judgment that
(01:02):
the rabbid partisan Attorney General in New York, Letitia James,
had gotten against President Trump. We're going to break that down,
explain to you exactly what happened. We're also going to
talk about an amazing story that The New York Times
broke about how Democrat party registration is plummeting. It is
plummeting everywhere in every single state in the Union that
(01:22):
measures party registration. Democrat party registration is dropping through the floor.
We're going to give you those facts as well. We've
also got a special guest on today's podcast. We've got
my friend and colleague, Eric Schmidt, Senator from Missouri. He's
got a brand new book about fighting the Biden administration,
fighting the left in court. We have a discussion about
the strategies that work to fight the left wing woke lunatics.
(01:45):
And finally, we're going to talk about a story that
broke as well about how the Biden Department of Justice
raised serious legal questions from the Auto Pen in chief,
serious questions about the pardons that Joe Biden's auto pen
signed at the end of a presidency we're going to
talk about how those serious questions draw into real doubt
(02:06):
the legality of those autopen pardons.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
All of that on today's Verdict.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
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call in text you make. All right, So, Senator, we
(04:02):
predicted this. It doesn't mean that this lawfair was easy.
We did say that the appeals court you thought would
throw out the egregious half billion dollar penalty against Donald Trump,
the president saying in a post it's now with interest
would be over five hundred and fifty million dollar judgment
against him, and the appellate Court's thrown it out. Explain
(04:23):
exactly what happened well.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
This podcast was covered at length the egregious lawfair that
was waged against President Trump. He was indicted four times
by rabid Democrat prosecutors who wanted to stop the voters
from doing what they in fact did in November of
twenty twenty four, which is re electing him as president.
And then this case by Letitia James, another hard partisan
who campaigned promising the Democrat primary voters, if you elected her,
(04:47):
she would go after Donald Trump, which is of course
an absolute abuse of the justice, the role of attorney general,
fair and impartial administration of the law. It is a
weaponization of justice, and she in a mockery of justice.
The New York Trial Court issued an order that, as
(05:08):
President Trump rightly pointed out, with interest in penalties would
be worth over five hundred and fifty million dollars. This
was all for loans that President Trump and the Trump
organization took from very sophisticated global banks and they claimed
that he overstated the value of his real estate. Now,
mind you, there were no victims. The supposed aggrieved parties
(05:30):
were giant banks who were perfectly capable of valuing real
estate on their own, and they did value real estate
on their own. They lost no money, not a penny.
They said they were thrilled to do the loans and
they would be eager to do more loans going forward.
And yet the New York Attorney General said you got
to pay five hundred and fifty million dollars, and the
New York Appellate Division overturned it, and it reduced that
(05:52):
penalty from five hundred and fifty million dollars to zero,
zero dollars.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
And zero cents.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
It concluded that the disgorgement was an excessive fine that
violates the Eighth Amendment. This is exactly right, and this
is what we predicted on this podcast. Look, one of
the things about the Verdict podcast it is we make
real predictions. We make predictions that are sometimes out there
that are sometimes very few people are making. Early on
(06:19):
more than a year before the election last year, I
predicted Joe Biden will not be the nominee. At the
time this podcast was mocked. Ben and I were mocked
for being crazy tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist that of
course proved correct. I want you to listen to what
we said a year ago predicting the result that just
happened this week. Give a listen to what we said
(06:39):
one year ago. Letitia James, who is a left wing
partisan Democrat. She ran for office promising to get Donald Trump.
That was her campaign promise, You elect me, and I'm
going after Donald Trump. I'm gonna get him. So this
was not a fair and objective application of the law.
This was a political vendetta from day.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Let me ask you this, How is that not against
the law to run for office saying that when you
become what is supposed to be a steward of law
and order, that you're actually running to lock up someone
you disagree with politically? How is that legal in America today?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Well, I think that's going to be a very serious
claim on appeal, and I think there is a significant
chance this gets overturned on appeal, but that's going to
take a long time. The prosecutor, on her face, is
not fair, is not impartial, but is engaged in a
partisan political vendetta. She said that before she knew the
(07:39):
facts of anything.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I mean, this was a while ago. This is February
nineteenth of last year, like twenty twenty four. And when
we said it, people like, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Well it is.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
And then we went back to it in March or
twenty twenty four, and we talked about the specific legal
claim that the New York Appellate Court just addressed, and
that was the amendment that it was an excessive fine.
And when we come back in just a minute, we're
going to play what we said in March of twenty
twenty four, laying out the legal ground that just has
been put in place to set aside this absolute abuse
(08:14):
of power. Now, to be clear, this claim will go
up on appeal. There's one other level of appeals up
to the New York Court of Appeals, the top appellate
court in New York. And so it's possible the New
York appellate courts reverse it. Yet again I don't think
they will, and I think if they did, it would
go to the Supreme Court and be reversed once again.
So one way or another, this order is not going
(08:38):
to go into effect. Donald Trump is not going to
have to pay a half billion dollars. Today is a
day for celebration because the New York courts actually did
their job and they corrected a grotesque injustice from an
abusive district judge in New York.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I want to take you back to March twenty third
of twenty twenty four, and I want you to hear
what we had to say about this case on this show.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
The impact if Trump is not able to post this bond,
the effect would be to deny him the right to
even appeal the absurd partisan decision from the district court.
I got to say, this is such a profound abuse. Now,
that doesn't mean Trump would be out of options, because
(09:18):
if the New York courts insist you've got to put
up a half billion dollars in order to appeal this decision,
I am confident that Trump will appeal that, and potentially
appeal that all the way to the U. S.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Supreme Court and the U. S. Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
He would have multiple arguments, constitutional arguments, including the Constitution
prohibits denying an individual, depriving an individual of property without
due process of law, and there would be an argument
that this is such an excessive bond that it constitutes
a violation of due process.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
He would also have an argument under the Eighth Amendment.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
The Eighth Amendment specifies excessive bail shall not be required,
nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Now, the Eighth Amendment.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Typically applies in a criminal context, but given the magnitude here,
I would expect him to make both an Eighth Amendment
argument and a due process argument, and it is entirely
possible that would prevail ultimately. But what New York is doing,
what the New York Attorney General is doing, is the
conduct of a banana republic.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Kind of of a banana republic. It doesn't sound crazy
now at all, even though others said it was.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Look, and I want to say I'm glad that the
New York Appellate courts actually did their job.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
They followed the rule of law.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
The ground that I predicted in March of last year
of excessive fines is exactly the ground on which they
set it aside, And I got to say that the
Titia James put out a statement today that I found
side splitting funny. Her statement today she said, quote the
First Department today affirmed well supported finding of the trial
court Donald Trump, his company, and two of his children
are liable for fraud. The court upheld the injunctive relief
(11:06):
we won, limiting Donald Trump and the Trump Organization's officers
ability to do business in New York. It should not
be lost to history. Yet another court has ruled that
the President has violated the law and that our case
has merit. We will seek appeal to the Court of
Appeals and continue to protect the rights and interest to
New Yorkers. So she's celebrating that they said our case
has merit, other than the fact that they took the
(11:27):
fine from five hundred and fifty million dollars to zero.
That's an awfully weird decision to celebrate as a victory.
This was a crushing loss for Letitia James. It was
an enormous victory for President Trump, and it was an
enormous victory for the rule of law. And by the way, ironically,
it was an enormous victory for the state of New
(11:48):
York because I got to say, if this had been upheld,
you would have seen a significant exodus of businesses being
willing to do business in New York because if the
Attorney general could simply go after any business and shake
them down for hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.
A whole lot of people would say, this is not
a place I can do business. And so this week's
(12:10):
decision is caused for celebration.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah, it really is. And this brings us another story
that I think ties in perfectly. Democrats are losing support
and they're now facing a voter registration crisis. Democrats are
facing a crisis as more than two million voters leave
the party in just a four year based on data
(12:33):
and analysis coming from the New York Post, also New
York Times reporting on this several others. I go back
to Letitia James a great example of this. When you
go rogue and you try to destroy people's lives, and
you go after Donald Trump the way you did, and
you use law fare and all that we now know about,
you know, the deep state and the corruption, it's a
(12:53):
great way to make people say, maybe I don't want
to be involved in this party.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Well, Ben, look, you're just a right wing partisan. Obviously
you're saying things that that that favor one side of
the political aisle. But why should anyone trust you? It's
not like anyone else is saying this. Oh wait, wait,
here is the New York Times not exactly a right
wing partisan outlet. Let me just read from the New
York Times this week. Here's the headline, The Democratic Party
(13:18):
faces a voter registration crisis. The party is bleeding support
beyond the ballot box, and new analysis shows And here's
what the New York Times writs in the body of
the article. The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters long before
they even go to the polls of the thirty states
that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground
(13:41):
to Republicans in every single one between the twenty twenty
and twenty twenty four elections, and often by a lot.
That four year swing towards the Republicans adds up to
four point five million voters, a deep political hole that
can take years for the Democrats to climb out from.
(14:03):
The stampee that's the word that the New York Times
is using. The stampede away from the Democratic Party is
occurring in battleground states, the bluest states and the redest
states too. According to a new analysis of voter registration
data by The New York Times, The analysis used voter
registration data compiled by L two, a nonpartisan data firm.
(14:27):
This is stunning all told. This is again reading from
the New York Times. Democrats lost about two point one
million registered voters between twenty twenty and twenty four elections
in the thirty states along with Washington, DC that allow
people to register with the political party, Republicans gained two
point four million. That says an enormous amount that the
(14:50):
Democrats are in crisis, that even the New York Times
is saying so. And I got to say, I don't
know a single one of my colleagues in the Senate,
the Democrat colleagues, who is asking why why is it
that so many people are running away from our disastrous policies.
The Democrats continue to embrace those policies, and I think
as long as they do, you're going to continue to
see this and you're going to see it even accelerate.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, it's going to accelerate. And I also think part
of this is the Democratic Party is let the extremists
really come in and take over. And now there's an
identity crisis. Are we Marxists? Are researchialists? Are we communists?
The old Democratic Party is dead. Is that the feeling
in Washington, DC? Around your colleagues as well? Are they concerned?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Well, no, not among the Democrats. Look, the Democrats seemed
ob oblivious. Here's a quote from the New York Times quote.
I don't want to say the death cycle of the
Democratic Party, but there seems to be no end to this,
said Michael Pruser. Attracts voter registration closely as the director
of Data Science for Decision Desk HQ, and it points
out that the party saw some of its steepest declines
(15:52):
in registration among men and younger voters, two constituencies that
sharply swung towards mister Trump. At the end of the day,
this is not complicated when you embrace policies that are
a failure, that cause inflation, that open borders that threaten
your families, When you take every eighty twenty issue in
America and the Democrat Party says, we'll take the twenty,
(16:12):
people run away from your party as extreme and out
of touch.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
One of the fun things about what you do is
you've got colleagues that you know well, and from time
to time great books are written. And one of your colleagues,
Senator Eric Smidt from Missouri is with us right now
and he's got a new book out.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Well, we're glad to welcome Eric Schmidt to the podcast.
He has a brand new book. It is entitled The
Last Line of Defense, How to Beat the Left in Court.
And Eric is a good friend. Before he was in
the Senate, he was the Attorney General of Missouri, and
he was a warrior. He was a warrior taking on
the Biden administration, taking on big tech, taking on the
(16:50):
radical left. And he built a very strong record as
attorney general. And that's the record he campaigned for Senate
on and when Eric launched his campaign for Senate, I
endorsed him early on and came to Missouri campaigned alongside him.
He ran a fantastic campaign. He won decisively. And now
he's a colleague of mine on the Commerce Committee and
on the Judiciary Committee, so we spend a lot of
(17:12):
time together. We have have similar passions. Eric, Welcome to Verdict.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
It's great to be with you guys. Thanks for having
me on.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
All right, so tell us about the book. You have
a brand new book, The Last Line of Defense, How
to Beat the Left and in Court. Tell us why
you wrote it. And why folks want to go out
and buy it.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Well, yeah, it's really a kind of a field manual
from the front lines of this battle against the left
wing lawfare machine that I saw front and center in
my time as Missouri Attorney General. And I know that
we're kind of on the other side of the fever dream. Guys,
after President Trump delivered this historic victory and got all
these wins, were celebrating. But if you go back to
you take that deloreum back in time just a few years.
(17:50):
It was a time of lockdowns and compulsory COVID shots
and you know, open borders and de I struggle sessions
and ESG requirements and a censorship enterprise was so vast.
I think it was the biggest affront at the first
Amendment we've seen in a nation's history. So when I
was ag we stood up and we fought back. We
took the the COVID vaccine mandate all the way to
the Supreme Court and we won. We took the student
(18:12):
owned death forgiveness case all the way Supreme Court and
we won. We filed Missouri versus Biden, and we uncovered
this vast censorship enterprise. We took the deposition of Fauci.
We took the deposition of Elvis Chan who was pre
bunking the Hunter Biden laptop story for the FBI. We
took on mass mandate to local schools. We pushed back
against ESG requirements, went after local school districts for their CRT.
(18:33):
So we were in the middle of the arena, and
I wanted to write the book because there's a lot
of lessons learned here. We want we stood up, we
fought back, and we won, And it's a playbook. It's
a playbook moving forward. This isn't the last time we're
going to see that from the left. In fact, they're
kind of engaged in laws there right now. So anyway,
there's a lot to learn here, and I think the
readers are your listeners will get a lot from it
(18:54):
from these sort of behind the scenes stories of how
it took place.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Good.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Let's talk about about several of the topics that that
you dove into. Let's let's talk about Anthony Fauci, and
you talked about taking his deposition to tell us what
you learned. And I have said many times Anthony Fauci
is the most damaging bureaucrat to have ever lived. I
think you've said very much the same thing. But tell
us about that deposition and what you learned.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Yeah, So this took place in November of twenty twenty two,
just after I was elected to the US Senate. And
one of the key things that you'll appreciate this, one
of the things that we talked about in the Last
Line of Defense you can order on Amazon right now,
is that we sought discovery before the injunction. Typically with
these cases, you seek an injunction and get the government
to stop doing what they're doing. We sought discovery first.
(19:39):
We knew it would get a lot of attention. As
far as the case that everybody labeled the conspiracy theory
that conserves were actually being throttled in the platform, we
knew it was true, so we got to take the
deposition of Fauci comes in the room. A fun little story.
Jeff Landry, who's my colleagues from Louisiana, had the RFK
Junior is the Real Anthony Fauci book on the middle
of the table as you walked in. I'm sure how
(20:00):
she did not find that very humorous, but it kind
of set the stage at the stage for the day
and we went through and what's what was really interesting
about it was he said I can't recall one hundred
and seventy four times, sort of simultaneously as declaring he
was the science. He didn't like to be challenged, and.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Those wow, like what kind of things could he not recall?
What was he what kind of questions was he dodging?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
So we initially started with where did this virus come from?
And you know, he was very adamant that it couldn't
have come from the Wuhan lab. Right because he kind
of funded the Eco Health Alliance to fund the Wuhan Lab.
He knew it would come back to him. He's very
interested in making sure people didn't think that. And then
when he was confronted with statements about I said, well, no,
it's a plausible theory. I suppose he was kind of vast,
(20:44):
like I don't remember saying that he discredited to anybody
that challenged him on whether it was the Lablak theory
or masks. We presented him with an email when we
asked him if mass were effective, and of course he said, yes,
of course they're effective. And we present him with an
email early in twenty twenty where friend asked, Hey, I
was on this flight. You know, do you think I
should wear a mask? He said no, no, no, mass
are an effective for this. He was just caught in
(21:06):
inconsistency after inconsistency, I think probably the most telling thing. Honestly,
we came back from a lunch break and the court
reporter sneezed and he turned to the court reporter this
is in November twenty twenty two, not April of twenty twenty,
and demanded that she put a mask on. This was
the guy in charge of our public health.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 4 (21:24):
It's totally insane. And so I think that those are
the kind of insights that I think people will get
from the last line of defense. It's just fascinating but
terrifying at the same time.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
So well, and I will say this podcast when COVID,
when the pandemic began in twenty twenty, This podcast in
March and April of twenty twenty was laying out chapter
and verse the evidence that was clear even then that
the COVID virus originated in a Chinese government lab, I
think likely the Wuhan Institute for Virology. We laid out
the facts and while it was being censored virtually everywhere else.
(21:57):
Verdict listeners had those facts right at the beginning. Now,
your most significant case was was challenging internet censorship and
big tech censorship. Tell us about that case, tell us
the facts you found, and tell us what happened.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Yeah, and I actually say too that one of the
things that we note in the book, we suit the
communist China for unleashing the COVID pandemic on the world
through that Wuhan lab and Missouri has a twenty four
billion dollar judgment. Now, so that's just as an aside,
that's also in the book. Wow, Yes, the Missouri versus
Biden lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
You know, Eric got I for one, I'm looking forward
to when you own the Great Wall of China.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
I think it's going to be a nice wall.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
And you know, folks from Missouri a little redneck, so
I'm not sure what you're gonna paint on the Great
Wall of China.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
But pay over there, no problem, right.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Well, we'll have to move that over to separate Missouri
from Kansas. Roger Marshall will be very disappointed. I'm sure
we sees it.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
But by the way, bet Ben is from Memphis, so
it's not hard for a Memphis guy to talk crap
about Missouri, but feel free to pop back a card
at him.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
But yeah, listen Jen Psaki saying we're flagging stuff for Facebook.
They started this disinformation government's board. We had a hunch,
we filed the lawsuit. We got discovery first in that lawsuit,
and again what we found was just shocking. These secret
portals between high ringing government officials and big tech giants.
Take this down. The CDC was telling them words and phrases. Specifically,
(23:24):
we took the depo of Elvis Chan, the FBI guy
who again was pre bunking the Hunter Biden laptop story.
They knew it was real in twenty nineteen, and in
twenty twenty they're telling them, hey, censor this because it's
not real. And that was verified by Yul Roth who
worked at Twitter. There's just reams and reams of document.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
So the FBI was lying and they knew they were lying.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
They absolutely knew they were lying, and it was the
first time anybody had them under oath to prove it.
And so this was a ted This was a levias
and of government agencies aimed at the American people, meant
to censor conservatives who questioned mass or efficacy of that
scenes or the twenty twenty election, or the Biden laptop.
We got to make sure that never happens again. So
this book, I mean alliance share Honestly, the middle chapters
(24:05):
are really dedicated to protecting free speech, exposing the censorship
regime that existed, and I'm proud to have stood up
for that, and we had some big wins along the way.
But this is the last line of defense, how to
beat the Left and court. You can order it now.
Is really a playbook, and it's war stories, yes, but
it's a playbook for the future too.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
All Right, talk to us about DEI and ESG, because
you also as AG and Missouri, we're fighting against both
of those and making real difference. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
As attorney journal you have subpoena power. And when we
saw what was happening with ESG and this net zero
banking alliance, which was really kind of really go after
credit worthy applicants because they had had a portfolio of
fossil fuels or whatever these banks wanted, decided that by
twenty fifty they were going to have a portfolio of
those carbon neutral Well, the only way you do that, Ted,
(24:56):
is that you basically start denying credit worthy applicants loans,
including the family farmer because they have diesel trucks. So
we opened this up. We had a suspicion this was
violated anti trust. We opened up this investigation. Ultimately that
backed away, and again it takes courage to go do that.
These are some powerful interests, but when you find out
when you do it, you can be really proud of
it and you can win same with same with DEI.
(25:20):
Not only in corporate America, but what we found in
school districts. So we were taking on obviously the Biden administration,
the censorship resim at the highest levels of government, but
also the local school superintendent in Springfield, Missouri. We uncovered documents,
we had a hunch, we got a tip from a
whistleblower that they were, you know, spewing this poison our kids,
teachers and staff. Turns out they were, you know, engaged
(25:42):
in things like the gender unicorn and the pyramid of
oppression and all this nonsense to divide the classroom by race.
Other school districts then chimed in once we started finding
out this out across mis Or this is the Missouri
now that kids were being forced to do the privileged walk.
I mean, this is nuts still, but again, what we
have to do Ted, You've done this your whole career.
(26:03):
We have to have the courage to stand up and fight,
and we can't see the courtroom to that. So this
book isn't written for lawyers. It's written for people who
are seeing this and how does this all kind of
come together and what can we do to push back?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
The court is a major battleground. And I will say
there are lessons in this book that I think are
really useful for the Trump doj including at using discovery,
make the facts public, shine a light, get them under oath,
hold them accountable, be aggressive, speak the truth, don't be afraid.
The book is called The Last Line of Defense, How
to Beat the Left in Court. It's by my friend
(26:34):
Eric Schmidt, Senator from the great state of Missouri. You
can get it on Amazon, you can get it anywhere
books are sold. So go buy The Last Line of Defense.
And Eric, thanks for joining us here on Verdict.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Thank you guys, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
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 Department of Justice's warnings over legally flawed autopen pardons.
And we also found out about how many pardons they
(27:05):
were giving out, and they claimed from the White House
podium that these are all non violent offenders. That was
also a huge lie.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
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 an MSNBC or ABCNBCCBS. It
will not be covered by the corporate media because it
is inconvenient. We have talked about at length the problems
(27:34):
with Joe 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
(27:57):
authorized it, whether the president made the decision. If it's
the staffer made the decision it is not valid and
its legally void. Well, what broke it is recently is
this week, 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 about it.
(28:20):
Here's the story on Fox News headline, Biden's autopen pardons
disturbed DOJ brass doc show raising questions whether they are
legally binding. New documents and communications between Biden White House
staff and career officials at the Justice Department prompted scrutiny
of the legality of former President Joe Biden's thousands of
last minute pardons. The Oversight Project shared documents obtained from
(28:43):
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,
a distant Deputy Attorney General, Bradley Weinsheimer, wrote a group
(29:05):
email to several Executive Office staff members on January eighteenth,
asking questions about the more than two thy five hundred pardons. Quote,
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 untrue or at least misleading.
(29:28):
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 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
(29:49):
cited convicts Terence Richardson and Faron Claiborne, who were included
in the clemency grants, and noted that the DOJ received
voluminous objections from the victims, families and law enforcement, as
the men had been sentenced to life imprisonment for drug
trafficking offenses during which a police officer was killed. Mind you,
(30:12):
this is what the Biden White House said was a
nonviolent offense drug trafficking where a police officer was killed.
And beyond that, according to 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
(30:32):
illegally delegated to staffed that left the DOJ wondering at
times which offenses for people with multiple convictions were specifically
being expunged. Later in 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
(30:55):
to figure out what the president wants here for this
funky warrant.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
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.
It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Yeah, this is the Biden DOJ.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
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 ultimately no
explanation for what the offenses or the proverbial descriptions were
according to the document tranch, and instead there was simply
(31:36):
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 1 (31:53):
When you look at this, what does this mean moving
forward for the investigation into the president's used the art
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. And what
does this mean for all of the they claimed non
(32:14):
violent offenders that they were pardoning. We've also found out
a bunch of them, well, that was a very violent.
It was a lie.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
It was a lie. They knew it was a lie.
Their own Department of Justice told them it was a lie.
They 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
(32:44):
individual people, 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, understand
what the aforementioned pardon criteria are. And he continued, quote,
(33:05):
you generally don't see people write emails like this. This
isn't a CYA. This is I'm going to do a
conscious 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 pardons,
(33:25):
if they were not authorized by the President of the
United States, they 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
(33:47):
or an executive order or pardon, and if it's the
president who's making the decision. The prevailing the Department of
Justice interpretation 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, that 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,
(34:08):
those statutes that were auto penned for which there is
a clear lack of evidence that Joe Biden had awareness
of it, made a decision about it, and then formulate
and carry out a legal strategy to challenge and end
up concluding that those statutes, executive orders, pardons, and commutations
are invalid. I think the possibility of a legal determination
(34:30):
of that is rising significantly. And the fact that you
had senior career DOJ officials in the Biden administration ringing
the alarm 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 1 (34:47):
Yeah, and it's going to be a story that's going
to keep unfolding, and I can promise you we're going
to cover for you don't forget. We do the show
as a podcast Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so make sure
you have that subscriber auto download button wherever you get
your podcasts. Also, you can say hey Siri, Hey Alexa,
play Verdict with Ted Cruz and it will do it
for you and the Center and I will see you
(35:09):
back here on this station next week
Welcome. It is Verdic with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson
with you, and it's nice to have you with us
wherever you're listening around the country. We have got a
lot of news that has been breaking this week, including
a major victory as a New York appeals court is
thrown out that half a billion dollar penalty against Donald Trump,
something that we predicted right here on this show.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Well, that's right, there's an enormous amount we're talking about today.
But I want to say at the outset that this
podcast is brought to you by Cracker Barrel. They don't
have crackers, they don't have barrels. They hate you and
your family. There's nothing that your values stand for that
they stand for, but they are happy to be woke
and erase their entire history of race American exceptionalism. That,
of course is not true for those of you who
(00:42):
are hiring lawyers right now. That is what's known as parody.
So that is not accurate. But I will say what
is accurate is what Ben just said that President Trump
won a massive victory today in the New York Court
of Appeals. The New York Court of Appeals throughout the entirety,
every penny of the five hundred million dollar judgment that
(01:02):
the rabbid partisan Attorney General in New York, Letitia James,
had gotten against President Trump. We're going to break that down,
explain to you exactly what happened. We're also going to
talk about an amazing story that The New York Times
broke about how Democrat party registration is plummeting. It is
plummeting everywhere in every single state in the Union that
(01:22):
measures party registration. Democrat party registration is dropping through the floor.
We're going to give you those facts as well. We've
also got a special guest on today's podcast. We've got
my friend and colleague, Eric Schmidt, Senator from Missouri. He's
got a brand new book about fighting the Biden administration,
fighting the left in court. We have a discussion about
the strategies that work to fight the left wing woke lunatics.
(01:45):
And finally, we're going to talk about a story that
broke as well about how the Biden Department of Justice
raised serious legal questions from the Auto Pen in chief,
serious questions about the pardons that Joe Biden's auto pen
signed at the end of a presidency we're going to
talk about how those serious questions draw into real doubt
(02:06):
the legality of those autopen pardons.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
All of that on today's Verdict.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
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call in text you make. All right, So, Senator, we
(04:02):
predicted this. It doesn't mean that this lawfair was easy.
We did say that the appeals court you thought would
throw out the egregious half billion dollar penalty against Donald Trump,
the president saying in a post it's now with interest
would be over five hundred and fifty million dollar judgment
against him, and the appellate Court's thrown it out. Explain
(04:23):
exactly what happened well.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
This podcast was covered at length the egregious lawfair that
was waged against President Trump. He was indicted four times
by rabid Democrat prosecutors who wanted to stop the voters
from doing what they in fact did in November of
twenty twenty four, which is re electing him as president.
And then this case by Letitia James, another hard partisan
who campaigned promising the Democrat primary voters, if you elected her,
(04:47):
she would go after Donald Trump, which is of course
an absolute abuse of the justice, the role of attorney general,
fair and impartial administration of the law. It is a
weaponization of justice, and she in a mockery of justice.
The New York Trial Court issued an order that, as
(05:08):
President Trump rightly pointed out, with interest in penalties would
be worth over five hundred and fifty million dollars. This
was all for loans that President Trump and the Trump
organization took from very sophisticated global banks and they claimed
that he overstated the value of his real estate. Now,
mind you, there were no victims. The supposed aggrieved parties
(05:30):
were giant banks who were perfectly capable of valuing real
estate on their own, and they did value real estate
on their own. They lost no money, not a penny.
They said they were thrilled to do the loans and
they would be eager to do more loans going forward.
And yet the New York Attorney General said you got
to pay five hundred and fifty million dollars, and the
New York Appellate Division overturned it, and it reduced that
(05:52):
penalty from five hundred and fifty million dollars to zero,
zero dollars.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
And zero cents.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
It concluded that the disgorgement was an excessive fine that
violates the Eighth Amendment. This is exactly right, and this
is what we predicted on this podcast. Look, one of
the things about the Verdict podcast it is we make
real predictions. We make predictions that are sometimes out there
that are sometimes very few people are making. Early on
(06:19):
more than a year before the election last year, I
predicted Joe Biden will not be the nominee. At the
time this podcast was mocked. Ben and I were mocked
for being crazy tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist that of
course proved correct. I want you to listen to what
we said a year ago predicting the result that just
happened this week. Give a listen to what we said
(06:39):
one year ago. Letitia James, who is a left wing
partisan Democrat. She ran for office promising to get Donald Trump.
That was her campaign promise, You elect me, and I'm
going after Donald Trump. I'm gonna get him. So this
was not a fair and objective application of the law.
This was a political vendetta from day.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Let me ask you this, How is that not against
the law to run for office saying that when you
become what is supposed to be a steward of law
and order, that you're actually running to lock up someone
you disagree with politically? How is that legal in America today?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Well, I think that's going to be a very serious
claim on appeal, and I think there is a significant
chance this gets overturned on appeal, but that's going to
take a long time. The prosecutor, on her face, is
not fair, is not impartial, but is engaged in a
partisan political vendetta. She said that before she knew the
(07:39):
facts of anything.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I mean, this was a while ago. This is February
nineteenth of last year, like twenty twenty four. And when
we said it, people like, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Well it is.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
And then we went back to it in March or
twenty twenty four, and we talked about the specific legal
claim that the New York Appellate Court just addressed, and
that was the amendment that it was an excessive fine.
And when we come back in just a minute, we're
going to play what we said in March of twenty
twenty four, laying out the legal ground that just has
been put in place to set aside this absolute abuse
(08:14):
of power. Now, to be clear, this claim will go
up on appeal. There's one other level of appeals up
to the New York Court of Appeals, the top appellate
court in New York. And so it's possible the New
York appellate courts reverse it. Yet again I don't think
they will, and I think if they did, it would
go to the Supreme Court and be reversed once again.
So one way or another, this order is not going
(08:38):
to go into effect. Donald Trump is not going to
have to pay a half billion dollars. Today is a
day for celebration because the New York courts actually did
their job and they corrected a grotesque injustice from an
abusive district judge in New York.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I want to take you back to March twenty third
of twenty twenty four, and I want you to hear
what we had to say about this case on this show.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
The impact if Trump is not able to post this bond,
the effect would be to deny him the right to
even appeal the absurd partisan decision from the district court.
I got to say, this is such a profound abuse. Now,
that doesn't mean Trump would be out of options, because
(09:18):
if the New York courts insist you've got to put
up a half billion dollars in order to appeal this decision,
I am confident that Trump will appeal that, and potentially
appeal that all the way to the U. S.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Supreme Court and the U. S. Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
He would have multiple arguments, constitutional arguments, including the Constitution
prohibits denying an individual, depriving an individual of property without
due process of law, and there would be an argument
that this is such an excessive bond that it constitutes
a violation of due process.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
He would also have an argument under the Eighth Amendment.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
The Eighth Amendment specifies excessive bail shall not be required,
nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Now, the Eighth Amendment.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Typically applies in a criminal context, but given the magnitude here,
I would expect him to make both an Eighth Amendment
argument and a due process argument, and it is entirely
possible that would prevail ultimately. But what New York is doing,
what the New York Attorney General is doing, is the
conduct of a banana republic.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Kind of of a banana republic. It doesn't sound crazy
now at all, even though others said it was.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Look, and I want to say I'm glad that the
New York Appellate courts actually did their job.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
They followed the rule of law.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
The ground that I predicted in March of last year
of excessive fines is exactly the ground on which they
set it aside, And I got to say that the
Titia James put out a statement today that I found
side splitting funny. Her statement today she said, quote the
First Department today affirmed well supported finding of the trial
court Donald Trump, his company, and two of his children
are liable for fraud. The court upheld the injunctive relief
(11:06):
we won, limiting Donald Trump and the Trump Organization's officers
ability to do business in New York. It should not
be lost to history. Yet another court has ruled that
the President has violated the law and that our case
has merit. We will seek appeal to the Court of
Appeals and continue to protect the rights and interest to
New Yorkers. So she's celebrating that they said our case
has merit, other than the fact that they took the
(11:27):
fine from five hundred and fifty million dollars to zero.
That's an awfully weird decision to celebrate as a victory.
This was a crushing loss for Letitia James. It was
an enormous victory for President Trump, and it was an
enormous victory for the rule of law. And by the way, ironically,
it was an enormous victory for the state of New
(11:48):
York because I got to say, if this had been upheld,
you would have seen a significant exodus of businesses being
willing to do business in New York because if the
Attorney general could simply go after any business and shake
them down for hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.
A whole lot of people would say, this is not
a place I can do business. And so this week's
(12:10):
decision is caused for celebration.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah, it really is. And this brings us another story
that I think ties in perfectly. Democrats are losing support
and they're now facing a voter registration crisis. Democrats are
facing a crisis as more than two million voters leave
the party in just a four year based on data
(12:33):
and analysis coming from the New York Post, also New
York Times reporting on this several others. I go back
to Letitia James a great example of this. When you
go rogue and you try to destroy people's lives, and
you go after Donald Trump the way you did, and
you use law fare and all that we now know about,
you know, the deep state and the corruption, it's a
(12:53):
great way to make people say, maybe I don't want
to be involved in this party.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Well, Ben, look, you're just a right wing partisan. Obviously
you're saying things that that that favor one side of
the political aisle. But why should anyone trust you? It's
not like anyone else is saying this. Oh wait, wait,
here is the New York Times not exactly a right
wing partisan outlet. Let me just read from the New
York Times this week. Here's the headline, The Democratic Party
(13:18):
faces a voter registration crisis. The party is bleeding support
beyond the ballot box, and new analysis shows And here's
what the New York Times writs in the body of
the article. The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters long before
they even go to the polls of the thirty states
that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground
(13:41):
to Republicans in every single one between the twenty twenty
and twenty twenty four elections, and often by a lot.
That four year swing towards the Republicans adds up to
four point five million voters, a deep political hole that
can take years for the Democrats to climb out from.
(14:03):
The stampee that's the word that the New York Times
is using. The stampede away from the Democratic Party is
occurring in battleground states, the bluest states and the redest
states too. According to a new analysis of voter registration
data by The New York Times, The analysis used voter
registration data compiled by L two, a nonpartisan data firm.
(14:27):
This is stunning all told. This is again reading from
the New York Times. Democrats lost about two point one
million registered voters between twenty twenty and twenty four elections
in the thirty states along with Washington, DC that allow
people to register with the political party, Republicans gained two
point four million. That says an enormous amount that the
(14:50):
Democrats are in crisis, that even the New York Times
is saying so. And I got to say, I don't
know a single one of my colleagues in the Senate,
the Democrat colleagues, who is asking why why is it
that so many people are running away from our disastrous policies.
The Democrats continue to embrace those policies, and I think
as long as they do, you're going to continue to
see this and you're going to see it even accelerate.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, it's going to accelerate. And I also think part
of this is the Democratic Party is let the extremists
really come in and take over. And now there's an
identity crisis. Are we Marxists? Are researchialists? Are we communists?
The old Democratic Party is dead. Is that the feeling
in Washington, DC? Around your colleagues as well? Are they concerned?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Well, no, not among the Democrats. Look, the Democrats seemed
ob oblivious. Here's a quote from the New York Times quote.
I don't want to say the death cycle of the
Democratic Party, but there seems to be no end to this,
said Michael Pruser. Attracts voter registration closely as the director
of Data Science for Decision Desk HQ, and it points
out that the party saw some of its steepest declines
(15:52):
in registration among men and younger voters, two constituencies that
sharply swung towards mister Trump. At the end of the day,
this is not complicated when you embrace policies that are
a failure, that cause inflation, that open borders that threaten
your families, When you take every eighty twenty issue in
America and the Democrat Party says, we'll take the twenty,
(16:12):
people run away from your party as extreme and out
of touch.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
One of the fun things about what you do is
you've got colleagues that you know well, and from time
to time great books are written. And one of your colleagues,
Senator Eric Smidt from Missouri is with us right now
and he's got a new book out.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Well, we're glad to welcome Eric Schmidt to the podcast.
He has a brand new book. It is entitled The
Last Line of Defense, How to Beat the Left in Court.
And Eric is a good friend. Before he was in
the Senate, he was the Attorney General of Missouri, and
he was a warrior. He was a warrior taking on
the Biden administration, taking on big tech, taking on the
(16:50):
radical left. And he built a very strong record as
attorney general. And that's the record he campaigned for Senate
on and when Eric launched his campaign for Senate, I
endorsed him early on and came to Missouri campaigned alongside him.
He ran a fantastic campaign. He won decisively. And now
he's a colleague of mine on the Commerce Committee and
on the Judiciary Committee, so we spend a lot of
(17:12):
time together. We have have similar passions. Eric, Welcome to Verdict.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
It's great to be with you guys. Thanks for having
me on.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
All right, so tell us about the book. You have
a brand new book, The Last Line of Defense, How
to Beat the Left and in Court. Tell us why
you wrote it. And why folks want to go out
and buy it.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Well, yeah, it's really a kind of a field manual
from the front lines of this battle against the left
wing lawfare machine that I saw front and center in
my time as Missouri Attorney General. And I know that
we're kind of on the other side of the fever dream. Guys,
after President Trump delivered this historic victory and got all
these wins, were celebrating. But if you go back to
you take that deloreum back in time just a few years.
(17:50):
It was a time of lockdowns and compulsory COVID shots
and you know, open borders and de I struggle sessions
and ESG requirements and a censorship enterprise was so vast.
I think it was the biggest affront at the first
Amendment we've seen in a nation's history. So when I
was ag we stood up and we fought back. We
took the the COVID vaccine mandate all the way to
the Supreme Court and we won. We took the student
(18:12):
owned death forgiveness case all the way Supreme Court and
we won. We filed Missouri versus Biden, and we uncovered
this vast censorship enterprise. We took the deposition of Fauci.
We took the deposition of Elvis Chan who was pre
bunking the Hunter Biden laptop story for the FBI. We
took on mass mandate to local schools. We pushed back
against ESG requirements, went after local school districts for their CRT.
(18:33):
So we were in the middle of the arena, and
I wanted to write the book because there's a lot
of lessons learned here. We want we stood up, we
fought back, and we won, And it's a playbook. It's
a playbook moving forward. This isn't the last time we're
going to see that from the left. In fact, they're
kind of engaged in laws there right now. So anyway,
there's a lot to learn here, and I think the
readers are your listeners will get a lot from it
(18:54):
from these sort of behind the scenes stories of how
it took place.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Good.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Let's talk about about several of the topics that that
you dove into. Let's let's talk about Anthony Fauci, and
you talked about taking his deposition to tell us what
you learned. And I have said many times Anthony Fauci
is the most damaging bureaucrat to have ever lived. I
think you've said very much the same thing. But tell
us about that deposition and what you learned.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Yeah, So this took place in November of twenty twenty two,
just after I was elected to the US Senate. And
one of the key things that you'll appreciate this, one
of the things that we talked about in the Last
Line of Defense you can order on Amazon right now,
is that we sought discovery before the injunction. Typically with
these cases, you seek an injunction and get the government
to stop doing what they're doing. We sought discovery first.
(19:39):
We knew it would get a lot of attention. As
far as the case that everybody labeled the conspiracy theory
that conserves were actually being throttled in the platform, we
knew it was true, so we got to take the
deposition of Fauci comes in the room. A fun little story.
Jeff Landry, who's my colleagues from Louisiana, had the RFK
Junior is the Real Anthony Fauci book on the middle
of the table as you walked in. I'm sure how
(20:00):
she did not find that very humorous, but it kind
of set the stage at the stage for the day
and we went through and what's what was really interesting
about it was he said I can't recall one hundred
and seventy four times, sort of simultaneously as declaring he
was the science. He didn't like to be challenged, and.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Those wow, like what kind of things could he not recall?
What was he what kind of questions was he dodging?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
So we initially started with where did this virus come from?
And you know, he was very adamant that it couldn't
have come from the Wuhan lab. Right because he kind
of funded the Eco Health Alliance to fund the Wuhan Lab.
He knew it would come back to him. He's very
interested in making sure people didn't think that. And then
when he was confronted with statements about I said, well, no,
it's a plausible theory. I suppose he was kind of vast,
(20:44):
like I don't remember saying that he discredited to anybody
that challenged him on whether it was the Lablak theory
or masks. We presented him with an email when we
asked him if mass were effective, and of course he said, yes,
of course they're effective. And we present him with an
email early in twenty twenty where friend asked, Hey, I
was on this flight. You know, do you think I
should wear a mask? He said no, no, no, mass
are an effective for this. He was just caught in
(21:06):
inconsistency after inconsistency, I think probably the most telling thing. Honestly,
we came back from a lunch break and the court
reporter sneezed and he turned to the court reporter this
is in November twenty twenty two, not April of twenty twenty,
and demanded that she put a mask on. This was
the guy in charge of our public health.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 4 (21:24):
It's totally insane. And so I think that those are
the kind of insights that I think people will get
from the last line of defense. It's just fascinating but
terrifying at the same time.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
So well, and I will say this podcast when COVID,
when the pandemic began in twenty twenty, This podcast in
March and April of twenty twenty was laying out chapter
and verse the evidence that was clear even then that
the COVID virus originated in a Chinese government lab, I
think likely the Wuhan Institute for Virology. We laid out
the facts and while it was being censored virtually everywhere else.
(21:57):
Verdict listeners had those facts right at the beginning. Now,
your most significant case was was challenging internet censorship and
big tech censorship. Tell us about that case, tell us
the facts you found, and tell us what happened.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Yeah, and I actually say too that one of the
things that we note in the book, we suit the
communist China for unleashing the COVID pandemic on the world
through that Wuhan lab and Missouri has a twenty four
billion dollar judgment. Now, so that's just as an aside,
that's also in the book. Wow, Yes, the Missouri versus
Biden lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
You know, Eric got I for one, I'm looking forward
to when you own the Great Wall of China.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
I think it's going to be a nice wall.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
And you know, folks from Missouri a little redneck, so
I'm not sure what you're gonna paint on the Great
Wall of China.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
But pay over there, no problem, right.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Well, we'll have to move that over to separate Missouri
from Kansas. Roger Marshall will be very disappointed. I'm sure
we sees it.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
But by the way, bet Ben is from Memphis, so
it's not hard for a Memphis guy to talk crap
about Missouri, but feel free to pop back a card
at him.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
But yeah, listen Jen Psaki saying we're flagging stuff for Facebook.
They started this disinformation government's board. We had a hunch,
we filed the lawsuit. We got discovery first in that lawsuit,
and again what we found was just shocking. These secret
portals between high ringing government officials and big tech giants.
Take this down. The CDC was telling them words and phrases. Specifically,
(23:24):
we took the depo of Elvis Chan, the FBI guy
who again was pre bunking the Hunter Biden laptop story.
They knew it was real in twenty nineteen, and in
twenty twenty they're telling them, hey, censor this because it's
not real. And that was verified by Yul Roth who
worked at Twitter. There's just reams and reams of document.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
So the FBI was lying and they knew they were lying.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
They absolutely knew they were lying, and it was the
first time anybody had them under oath to prove it.
And so this was a ted This was a levias
and of government agencies aimed at the American people, meant
to censor conservatives who questioned mass or efficacy of that
scenes or the twenty twenty election, or the Biden laptop.
We got to make sure that never happens again. So
this book, I mean alliance share Honestly, the middle chapters
(24:05):
are really dedicated to protecting free speech, exposing the censorship
regime that existed, and I'm proud to have stood up
for that, and we had some big wins along the way.
But this is the last line of defense, how to
beat the Left and court. You can order it now.
Is really a playbook, and it's war stories, yes, but
it's a playbook for the future too.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
All Right, talk to us about DEI and ESG, because
you also as AG and Missouri, we're fighting against both
of those and making real difference. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
As attorney journal you have subpoena power. And when we
saw what was happening with ESG and this net zero
banking alliance, which was really kind of really go after
credit worthy applicants because they had had a portfolio of
fossil fuels or whatever these banks wanted, decided that by
twenty fifty they were going to have a portfolio of
those carbon neutral Well, the only way you do that, Ted,
(24:56):
is that you basically start denying credit worthy applicants loans,
including the family farmer because they have diesel trucks. So
we opened this up. We had a suspicion this was
violated anti trust. We opened up this investigation. Ultimately that
backed away, and again it takes courage to go do that.
These are some powerful interests, but when you find out
when you do it, you can be really proud of
it and you can win same with same with DEI.
(25:20):
Not only in corporate America, but what we found in
school districts. So we were taking on obviously the Biden administration,
the censorship resim at the highest levels of government, but
also the local school superintendent in Springfield, Missouri. We uncovered documents,
we had a hunch, we got a tip from a
whistleblower that they were, you know, spewing this poison our kids,
teachers and staff. Turns out they were, you know, engaged
(25:42):
in things like the gender unicorn and the pyramid of
oppression and all this nonsense to divide the classroom by race.
Other school districts then chimed in once we started finding
out this out across mis Or this is the Missouri
now that kids were being forced to do the privileged walk.
I mean, this is nuts still, but again, what we
have to do Ted, You've done this your whole career.
(26:03):
We have to have the courage to stand up and fight,
and we can't see the courtroom to that. So this
book isn't written for lawyers. It's written for people who
are seeing this and how does this all kind of
come together and what can we do to push back?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
The court is a major battleground. And I will say
there are lessons in this book that I think are
really useful for the Trump doj including at using discovery,
make the facts public, shine a light, get them under oath,
hold them accountable, be aggressive, speak the truth, don't be afraid.
The book is called The Last Line of Defense, How
to Beat the Left in Court. It's by my friend
(26:34):
Eric Schmidt, Senator from the great state of Missouri. You
can get it on Amazon, you can get it anywhere
books are sold. So go buy The Last Line of Defense.
And Eric, thanks for joining us here on Verdict.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Thank you guys, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
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 Department of Justice's warnings over legally flawed autopen pardons.
And we also found out about how many pardons they
(27:05):
were giving out, and they claimed from the White House
podium that these are all non violent offenders. That was
also a huge lie.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
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 an MSNBC or ABCNBCCBS. It
will not be covered by the corporate media because it
is inconvenient. We have talked about at length the problems
(27:34):
with Joe 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
(27:57):
authorized it, whether the president made the decision. If it's
the staffer made the decision it is not valid and
its legally void. Well, what broke it is recently is
this week, 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 about it.
(28:20):
Here's the story on Fox News headline, Biden's autopen pardons
disturbed DOJ brass doc show raising questions whether they are
legally binding. New documents and communications between Biden White House
staff and career officials at the Justice Department prompted scrutiny
of the legality of former President Joe Biden's thousands of
last minute pardons. The Oversight Project shared documents obtained from
(28:43):
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,
a distant Deputy Attorney General, Bradley Weinsheimer, wrote a group
(29:05):
email to several Executive Office staff members on January eighteenth,
asking questions about the more than two thy five hundred pardons. Quote,
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 untrue or at least misleading.
(29:28):
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 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
(29:49):
cited convicts Terence Richardson and Faron Claiborne, who were included
in the clemency grants, and noted that the DOJ received
voluminous objections from the victims, families and law enforcement, as
the men had been sentenced to life imprisonment for drug
trafficking offenses during which a police officer was killed. Mind you,
(30:12):
this is what the Biden White House said was a
nonviolent offense drug trafficking where a police officer was killed.
And beyond that, according to 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
(30:32):
illegally delegated to staffed that left the DOJ wondering at
times which offenses for people with multiple convictions were specifically
being expunged. Later in 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
(30:55):
to figure out what the president wants here for this
funky warrant.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
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.
It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Yeah, this is the Biden DOJ.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
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 ultimately no
explanation for what the offenses or the proverbial descriptions were
according to the document tranch, and instead there was simply
(31:36):
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 1 (31:53):
When you look at this, what does this mean moving
forward for the investigation into the president's used the art
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. And what
does this mean for all of the they claimed non
(32:14):
violent offenders that they were pardoning. We've also found out
a bunch of them, well, that was a very violent.
It was a lie.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
It was a lie. They knew it was a lie.
Their own Department of Justice told them it was a lie.
They 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
(32:44):
individual people, 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, understand
what the aforementioned pardon criteria are. And he continued, quote,
(33:05):
you generally don't see people write emails like this. This
isn't a CYA. This is I'm going to do a
conscious 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 pardons,
(33:25):
if they were not authorized by the President of the
United States, they 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
(33:47):
or an executive order or pardon, and if it's the
president who's making the decision. The prevailing the Department of
Justice interpretation 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, that 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,
(34:08):
those statutes that were auto penned for which there is
a clear lack of evidence that Joe Biden had awareness
of it, made a decision about it, and then formulate
and carry out a legal strategy to challenge and end
up concluding that those statutes, executive orders, pardons, and commutations
are invalid. I think the possibility of a legal determination
(34:30):
of that is rising significantly. And the fact that you
had senior career DOJ officials in the Biden administration ringing
the alarm 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 1 (34:47):
Yeah, and it's going to be a story that's going
to keep unfolding, and I can promise you we're going
to cover for you don't forget. We do the show
as a podcast Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so make sure
you have that subscriber auto download button wherever you get
your podcasts. Also, you can say hey Siri, Hey Alexa,
play Verdict with Ted Cruz and it will do it
for you and the Center and I will see you
(35:09):
back here on this station next week
Host
Ben Ferguson
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