UNPRECEDENTED: DOJ Prepared to Seek Warrant to Search Biden Home

This is Jay Sekulow. It's unprecedented. The Department of Justice was prepared to seek a warrant to search President Biden's home in Delaware, keeping you informed and engaged.

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Well, you know, you really can't make this stuff up. And let me tell you what's happened here. So it's gotten leaked. Now, whether it was intentional by the Justice Department, probably, they're trying to show that, you know, they're fair to everybody in this process they started, which they probably regret starting, that they were, the Department of Justice was prepared to seek a warrant to search the sitting President of the United States' home, Joe Biden, in Delaware.

Now, let's put this in perspective. The FBI, listen, the search of his home that they did for 13 hours last weekend was also unprecedented, of the sitting President of the United States. But they've already set the precedent because, as we said, they went and executed a search warrant on the former President of the United States. They found more documents. Then the FBI, and this was after they all said, the lawyers were saying, we've gotten everything.

Everything's basically certified. And then they have to do a 13-hour search where they found more documents. And CNN is reporting that this is what happened. The Justice Department decided it would conduct the latest search and any subsequent searches of the Biden home. They're not going to let the lawyers do it. And after the Biden team initially handled those searches, remember, and then federal investigators also were prepared to seek a warrant if they did not get consent to the search of the Wilmington property.

Now, I want to pause on that for a moment because you need to understand what that means. The sitting President of the United States would have had his home subject to a search warrant, exactly what happened to the former President. Then you had the disclosures that just came in in the last 48 hours on Mike Pence. Now, the National Archives is contemplating sending out a letter or memo or notification to all former Presidents and vice Presidents that are still alive.

Please check your areas, your homes, your residences, your offices for classified documentation. Now, ask yourself, American people, how is this possibly correct? That classified documents are handled this loosely. Is it, A, the National Archives is like the IRS and they're incapable of fixing this? Maybe.

Is it that the system of classification has gotten to a point where everything's being classified and it's unmanageable? Maybe. Is it that the systems, like I said, at the department, the National Archives are just like the IRS 1980 computers?

I don't know. But then the librarian for the Nixon library said they were still negotiating documents with the National Archives 50 years later. But the idea that the former, the current President of the United States home was possible going to be subject to a warrant, Cece, is unprecedented.

Yeah. I mean, as far as I know, that has never happened before for a sitting President to have a warrant for his house to be searched. You know, and that also indicates that they were not relying on the attorneys that were doing the initial search. They wanted to have FBI agents in there to make sure that they did get every document, which means, indicates they thought there were more documents to be found.

You know, somebody on, Rory on YouTube said it's starting to appear that the left doesn't want Joe Biden to run in 2024. It sure seemed in that way because they're not letting this go. We're going to take... I want your reaction to all this.

1-800-684-3110, 800-684-3110. I think this makes this look very weak. We said this on the broadcast yesterday as a country. The former President subject to a search warrant. The current President's house searched by the FBI. The former vice President of the United States now having documents and the FBI going to conduct a search.

It looks like Venezuela. And we're a constitutional republic. I think part of the problem is that the Department of Justice put in motion a weaponized FBI and no restraints.

Two special... Actually, there's three with John Durham that are existing already. Then you're going to have another one for the Pence investigation? Or what about all these other Presidents and vice Presidents if they find documents? Take your calls. 800-684-3110. Support the work of the ACLJ. Remember, we've got a FOIA on this already out. ACLJ.org. Hey, everybody.

Welcome back to the broadcast. We're going to put together for you... I mean, you know, it's interesting to me with this document issue that started as, let's go get the former President of the United States. Now let's go get the current President of the United States. Now let's go get the former vice President of the United States. Now maybe let's go look at every former President and vice President of the United States and anybody else that had classified documents around. So all of this is... is very, very interesting because it's put us in where we're looking like a banana republic here, to be honest. This is what you expect in Venezuela, not in the United States. But this is when you weaponize the department. Now, we also have right now a situation where, as this document issue unfolds, we have to figure out what it means for our country and where it goes from here. And I think the cat's out of the bag and they need to get the cat back in the bag. Do we have Rick Grenell? Not yet. Okay.

So Rick's going to join us. He was the director of national intelligence. So he would know firsthand, by the way, if in fact how these documents are handled. And I think anybody that handled classified documents probably on notice right now to be very careful. But look, I don't think FBI agents going through President Biden's house is a good thing for the country.

I just don't. And maybe there was another way to handle it. And it's obviously it's galvanized the news coverage, but you've got to be asking yourself the question. How does this make us look internationally? And it makes us look very, very weak.

Yeah. The optics are when you have a sitting President having FBI agents searching through his house for 13 hours finding documents. That is not a good thing for the United States of America.

No, it's not. Rick Grenell's joining us now, former director of national intelligence. Rick, since you were on the broadcast last week, things have again changed rapidly. First it was, you know, initially it was President Trump. And then they did a raid of his house and through execution of a search warrant. Then it was President Biden's office and house. And then we find out now that the FBI was basically saying we're going to get a search warrant on your house unless you let FBI agents go through everything for 13 hours. Now Mike Pence has found documents and they're saying we may have to send the, I guess they are sending the DOJ and FBI in there. It's making us look very much like Venezuela, Rick, instead of the United States.

Yeah. Well, what they were asking was when Merrick Gartland, weak leadership, unleashed the FBI on the former President, he set in motion a cascade, a domino effect that's creating a disaster. Yeah, look, they didn't know what they were asking. They didn't know what they were pushing when you empower the National Archives to be the arbiter of what's classified and what's not. You really open up a can of worms.

We all see this. It's all about Trump. It was started to be an anti-Trump weaponization of the Obama administration. Of DOJ.

And then we found quickly it backfired on them like most of these inquiries do. And Jay, look, are we sending the FBI to Dick Cheney's house, to George W. Bush's house, to Barack Obama's house? I don't know. Here's the question, Rick. I have no idea.

Yeah, are they? Let's go back on this weaponization thing. You were the director of national intelligence.

So you know how all this works. It seems to me they did weaponize the FBI with that search warrant on the former President's house. They should have never authorized it.

That magistrate judge should have been disqualified at the get-go. That's a different story. We've already covered that. But then now it's the current President's house and they got FBI agents swarming through that.

And now the vice President, like you said, you can name up all this. It makes us look so weak. That's what I'm worried about here.

How does it make us look on the national stage? Well, look, it really takes away our moral authority to tell other countries to clean up their act. And that's what I'm concerned about. It is chipping away at our moral authority. And I look, I think that that this immediately goes to the problems of Washington, DC, not only the weaponization of this government, there's a whole bunch of dictators around the world that would love to weaponize their Department of Justice. But also I can't help but think about the media, Jay, because there are a whole bunch of countries with dictators who would love to have the mainstream media on their side the way that Joe Biden and the Democrats do. We can no longer look at countries and say, you've got to have a free press when our entirety of the mainstream media are with the Democrats and giving aid and comfort to the Democrats. And it happens on a constant basis. They may not see it in Washington, DC.

The political types may not see it, but the world sees it and the American people certainly see it. So that begs the next issue here. And that is, I'm going to CC on this for a moment here. And that is, think about, and I want our audience to think about the idea that the sitting President of the United States, and I argued that they should, this compelled process against the President is a huge mistake.

And I don't care if that's Donald Trump or Joe Biden. I don't like this because exactly what's happening here. We argue that at the Supreme Court of the United States, four different cases. Because when you start process like this, you don't know where it goes. Does it become a distraction to the President?

Of course it does. He's got to meet with his lawyers. They got to figure out what's going on. No one's accusing anybody of trading secrets with anyone. Not Trump, not Biden, not Pence. None of that's happening. But now you've got the FBI weaponized and they want to get into everybody's residence and house.

That's right. Including the sitting President of the United States. There's no end to this. As we've seen, they're saying now that they want to send letters to all the former Presidents and vice Presidents. National Archives.

And that is ridiculous because where does it end? Are they going to send FBI agents there? And you know, some of the documents that they found in President Biden's house when he was vice President, but also when he was senator. So it's like, where does the scope of the FBI's authority and where does it end?

I don't know how he could have gotten documents out when he was in the Senate, but nevertheless. All right, I want to switch gears here. Adam Schiff is no longer on the Intelligence Committee, nor is Eric Swalwell, which I think was a very good move by Kevin McCarthy. You dealt with these folks. What's your reaction to this, Rick? I think it was very good.

I think it's very good. Look, I dealt very closely with, with Schiff and his staff. And, you know, I said at the time, and this is a, this is a very big accusation, what I'm making, but I know the seriousness of it. I had multiple career intelligence officials come to me when I was DNI and say to me, sir, I can no longer risk my career by briefing Adam Schiff or his people. They leak partial information. They manipulate information.

It comes back on me. I look like I did something wrong and my career suffers if I'm going to be asked to brief Adam Schiff and his team because they are notorious leakers. I had multiple people, Jay, say this to me. I'm not going to do it, sir. I cannot risk my career to, to brief Schiff. I had a difficult time trying to find people that would brief Schiff and the solution that I came up with. And, and it was really because of the shift problem is I had the intelligence officers produce an unclassified version of the talking points that they were briefing so that we would release them. And there was a record of what subjects we said and how we framed it in the best possible way of an unclassified memo. And that was literally because of the problems of shift to remove him from the intelligence committee is a very good thing for the intelligence community.

It is going to allow them to brief officials in a more honest way and it's going to make our country more secure. You know, Adam Schiff, my experience with him, yours was that I had this one. So I'm handling the, the impeachment on, it was based on Ukraine and it was based on, and then I had the, and they were trying to tie in the Russian hoax on the Trump campaign in collusion with the Russians. And through all of that, remember what Adam Schiff said.

So let's take a listen to this and play it. So there's clear evidence on the issue of collusion and this adds to that body of evidence. There's ample evidence of collusion in plain sight.

And that is true. Have Democrats found any evidence of collusion? Yes, we have. You can see evidence in plain sight on the issue of collusion, pretty compelling evidence. And there is significant evidence of collusion. There is ample evidence and indeed there is of collusion of people in the Trump campaign with the Russians. I think there's plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy. All of this is evidence of collusion. There is significant evidence of collusion between the campaign and Russia.

Yeah, except Rick, there was zero. And $40 million and two years of investigation came up with there's no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. So this is the Adam Schiff. That's why we got to remind people who he is.

That was an incredible clip. And I just have to say that he should be hanging his head in shame of embarrassment for the lies that he told the public. I don't understand how he doesn't have a whole host of media hounding him to say, you said this to the American public and it was a lie. How do you justify continuing in Congress when you blatantly lied?

I'm shocked that he's not facing that scrutiny. Rick, we appreciate your insight as always. And you've got the unique ones being the former director of national intelligence. We're glad you're part of the team. Thanks, Rick. Hey, folks, we're taking a break. When we come back, we're going to take your calls.

800-684-3110. We've got ACLJ lawyers today at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. A brief being filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

A brand new series of cases in Washington on the pro-life issue representing students. All of this because of your support for the American Center for Law and Justice. Let me encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. Support our ongoing work as we start 2023 off. ACLJ.org.

That's ACLJ.org. Very important for you to stay engaged with us. Follow us at Jay Sekulow, at Jordan Sekulow, at Logan Sekulow, and also at ACLJ on wherever you have your social media platforms. We'll be back with more, including your calls, in a moment. Back to the broadcast, everyone. We've been talking a lot of legal issues.

Let's talk about some that the ACLJ are involved in. By the way, if you're on the phone right now, stay there. We're going to get to you in the next segment of the broadcast.

I may try to grab one or two in this segment as well. We're taking calls at 800-684-3110. As I mentioned before the break, we've got ACLJ lawyers today at the U.S. Court of Appeals for Eleventh Circuit on a religious discrimination case.

Faith-based ministry being zoned out of existence in this particular community. So our lawyers argued that about an hour ago, hour and a half ago, that argument takes place. And then we just have, we are filing today a reply brief at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on a life case. Jeff Surtees is lead lawyer, a senior counsel for the ACLJ, lead lawyer on the case. Jeff, this is an ongoing issue we've been in, literally been involved in for 30 years, but it keeps coming up, and that is peaceful sidewalk counseling becomes targeted for removal as if the First Amendment doesn't apply.

That's exactly right, Jay. Yeah, no, we represent these sidewalk counselors who are not protesters but demonstrators. You know, these buffer zones which keep sidewalk counselors a certain distance away from the entrances of abortion clinics, that distance might be fine if you're using a bullhorn or you're using a sign or you're yelling. But when we're talking about sidewalk counselors who want to engage women in a quiet, intimate, respectful manner to let them know about the alternatives to abortion, those buffer zones directly burden their First Amendment liberties.

And those burdens actually aren't just burdens on the sidewalk counselors, they end up being a burden on the women contemplating abortion, because that woman is not being allowed, because of these government imposed buffer zones, to hear about those alternatives to abortion. So yes, we had a great victory in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals just last month, and we have a scheduling conference with the trial court next week to see how that case is going to play out in the district court. But yeah, today we're filing a reply brief in our Third Circuit case, and we're going to see what happens here. If we somehow don't prevail with this, it could be a blessing in disguise. It could give us the opportunity to get to the United States Supreme Court to finally once and for all get rid of that zombie precedent known as Hill v. Colorado.

Yeah, and you know, it's interesting because in the Dobbs case, Justice Alito writing for a majority of the court said Hill v. Colorado, basically bad law. He said that's where our First Amendment jurisprudence has been distorted because of abortion. But these sidewalk counselors, Cece, do a really vital work. You know, we're talking about the pregnancy resource centers, the crisis pregnancy centers are on the front line of this. But these sidewalk counselors do also, and you know, this idea that they try to tie them into, you know, civil disobedience protests is not right. And that's what those injunctions were aimed at, which by the way were still unconstitutional in my view, but the sidewalk counselors do a vital work. Yes, they really are on the front lines because they are addressing this issue and talking to women as they literally head into abortion clinics to make a decision that will change their life and obviously end the life of their baby. And these counselors provide, you know, it's very compassionate information and they're giving them, just like Jeff said, the alternatives so someone can go in making a fully informed decision. And so many of these women do change their mind after they've talked to the sidewalk counselors and that's why they go after it. That's why they go after them with these zoning laws because they want to shut that down.

Jeff, let me ask you this. We're looking at the post, we just had the March for Life, we had some events at our office with a lot of the pro-life leaders that we're representing around the country and others, Congressman Jordan was there. How do you see it right now, the litigation in a post-Roe world? Well, yeah, the litigation in the post-Roe world is taking place on multiple levels. You know, first of all, they're taking place in the state courts, the state supreme courts, where those courts are going to be deciding, and some already have, whether or not the state constitution allows for a right to abortion.

But the fight isn't just there, it's also such as with sidewalk counselors. In the state of New Jersey, for example, where this case out of the Third Circuit is taking place, abortion is illegal throughout the entirety of the pregnancy. So you're not going to get the New Jersey Supreme Court to say there's no right to abortion, you're not going to get the legislature to say there's no right to abortion.

So what do you do? You get out on the street and you convince one woman at a time not to choose abortion, but to choose life. And here are the alternatives and the resources and everything else that we can provide you to choose life. And so that's why this case is so important, because we need to protect the First Amendment right of these sidewalk counselors to be able to engage in that compassionate speech where they offer them the gospel of life. We appreciate it. Jeff Serti, senior counselor for the ACLJ, keep us posted. This case obviously will be argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and as I said, we've got lawyers today that were at the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, so you can imagine a busy time at the ACLJ. We appreciate you calling in.

I'm going to take your calls, folks. By the way, on the issue of these documents, remember, we got one of the first FOIAs in, Freedom of Information Act requests, into the National Archives. Ben Sisney's heading that project up for us, our Office of Government Accountability in Washington. What's interesting there, we got expedited review.

So that's going to be very interesting to see when those documents start coming in. We're taking your calls, 1-800-684-3110. I'm going to go to the phones. Let's go to Gail's calling in Montana. Hi, Gail.

Hi. I'm wondering, well, thank you for taking my call, and are we ever going to find, I mean, are the documents of Biden ever going to be declassified? Are the American people going to find out what's in them? And who has the authority to demand for those documents to be declassified? Well, the President has the ultimate declassification authority. He can declassify anything.

That's up to the President. We do know this. We know that the first batch of documents, at least this is what we've been told, were involving Iran, Russia, and the United Kingdom. We also know that after those documents were found and disclosed, as if that was the end, which they knew at that point it was not the end, by the way, they knew there were more documents to get. We've not heard what those topics covered. There's been, on the three other disclosures, the Corvette in the garage next to the document. We don't know what's in those documents. We don't know what even the topic is.

Same thing on the ones in the House and the same things on the one in the House when the FBI went in. So we don't know. Listen, declassification is serious stuff. There is this view that there's been over-classification on some issues, but it ultimately lies with the investing authority, with the President, and he could delegate that through members of his cabinet. But it's a serious thing. You don't want to see classified documents if it's going to put assets at risk. That means human resources.

So that's one of the reasons. I'm going to talk to Mike Pompeo about this. He'll be on the broadcast tomorrow. He was, after all, in addition to being a Senior Counsel for Global Affairs for the ACLJ, he was the Director of the CIA as well as Secretary of State. Which, again, for your support of the ACLJ, you just heard from the...

I mean, think about this for a moment. Look what's been on the program today. The former Director of National Intelligence, Rick Rinnell, of course, our team here, and then Jeff Surtees, the Senior Counsel, getting ready for a case in the Third Circuit. Tomorrow, our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, Mike Pompeo, joins us.

He's the former Secretary of State and the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. So that's who comes on this broadcast. And this is where I encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ. If you're watching us right now or listening to us on radio, can I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org and support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice?

It's tax-deductible. We encourage you to do it. Simply go to ACLJ.org.

That's ACLJ.org and support the work of the ACLJ. Okay, we've got another 30 minutes coming up. We're going to take your calls. I want to know your reaction to all of this.

How does this Biden document, Trump document, Pence document thing play into your political calculus? We're taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110, 800-684-3110. If you don't get the full hour of the broadcast, just go over to ACLJ.org or Sirius XM, of course, or any of our social media platforms. Our preference, of course, is our good friends at Rumble. But we're also on YouTube and Facebook, but Rumble's been really good to us. We have a good partnership with them.

We've got a lot more ahead. Support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org and call us with your comments. 1-800-684-3110, 800-684-3110. So the document issue that started with President Trump, where I think the left thought they were going to score some points and they get a magistrate who was conflicted, but they never really went after that conflict, the President's lawyer, so whatever, ends up getting his house subject to a search warrant. And then the Biden administration, we got some documents at the Biden-Pence Center. We got some documents in the garage next to the Corvette. Whoops, we got some documents in my home office. Whoops, the FBI's coming in now. They want to look at the documents. We're being transparent. We're being cooperative.

Listen to this. The Department of Justice would have issued a search warrant for Biden if he hadn't done it voluntarily. Sources are telling CNN that the FBI's unprecedented search of President Biden's Delaware home followed very high stakes talks between the Justice Department and Biden attorneys, and the department was prepared to seek a search warrant. Let that sink in for a moment, folks.

We look like Venezuela when that happens. It's unprecedented that a former President has his house subject to a search warrant, the current President has his house searched by the FBI, and now the former vice President looks like in the same situation. I mean, it really is unreal. And they're talking about it was high stakes talks between the Justice Department and Biden attorneys. High stakes means if you don't do it, we're going to get a search warrant. Right, and that is ridiculous when you're threatening the President of the United States because he has classified documents from when he was vice President of the Senate.

It does. It makes us look ridiculous. Because these are document disputes that they've let evolve into this, and they weaponized another agency of the federal government. It happens to be this time the FBI. Patrick's calling from California. We're taking your calls.

800-684-3110. Patrick, go ahead. You're on the air. Hey, guys. I appreciate the call. Great show.

You guys are great. So as far as the documents, I realize it's sensitive information, and it's an FBI power grab. But a lot of us, my peers in our working world, we take things home that we can use for maybe a different job in the future. But my question throughout this whole issue, I'm a 66-year-old guy that's a little older trying to figure out why. You're young.

I'm 67, so you're younger than me. Go ahead. Why are these guys taking these things home? Good question. Well, look, I mean, when you're the President of the United States, and everything's basically a skiff at that point, which is a secured area to review documents. Like Mike Pompeo said on a broadcast the other day, his home when he was CIA director, I'm sure also when he was secretary of state, had a skiff in it. The vice President, same thing.

It's where you're correct. If you were to take documents home with you, and they were not authorized for you to take, you'd get fired and reprimanded or worse, maybe sued for trade secret violations. Here's the interesting thing. I wonder if you look at what the documents were that actually were classified at their residences and read their books, Biden, Trump, Pence, how much of that stuff are they talking about? To me, that still is an open issue on this.

And I think that's where some of this came from. But the bigger issue and the reason we sent a Freedom of Information Act request into the National Archives is how did he get out of control like this? Are classified documents just, you know, laying around people's houses?

Apparently in Joe Biden's case, that was the situation. President Trump's were in a storage facility under a lock because the FBI came down and looked. They executed a search warrant. This is what they allege because when the Trump lawyers certified that the search was complete, apparently it wasn't.

That's what they said. And then they executed a search warrant. Interesting in Biden's, this is what Cece was saying, it was really the same thing. They just didn't have to get the search warrant because he let the FBI come in for 13 hours. But they did the initial review, said we found the documents and then more documents showed up and that's when the FBI said we got to take action. Yeah, and it is like what has happened with the National Archives? Should they have a policy where every document goes to National Archives and they send back personal documents? But they clearly don't know what they're doing because they're about to ask every President and former President and former vice President, do you have any documents? They don't know. National Archives don't know. I think the answer is they don't know. It reminds me of the IRS litigation. I mean, it's just kind of, we don't know.

But this is not how you run a country. Alright, we're taking your calls. 800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Give us a call. We've got a couple lines open. We also encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ.

Do that at ACLJ.org. We'll be back with more, including your calls. 800-684-3110 in just a moment. If you're on the phones, hang in there.

We're getting to you. 1-800-684-3110. Wes Smith is joining us, retired colonel of the United States Army, our Senior Advisor of Military Affairs. Wes has handled classified documentation. The latest thing we now know is that the National Archives is at least considering sending out a memo, I guess, or a notification to all former Presidents and vice Presidents and maybe other cabinet members. Hey, would you do us a favor and check to see if you have classified documents?

Now, you know, we're laughing. It's not funny because you handle classified documents. If you took them home, what would happen to you, Colonel Smith? Would you have been a Colonel Smith any longer? I would not be a Colonel Smith. I would not have been in the Army.

I may have been spending time in Kansas at Fort Leavenworth. You know, this is unbelievable. As you said earlier, Jay, it's an embarrassment. You know, admittedly, some things are over classified. Some things have a top secret, a secret, you know, classification, and they don't need to.

It's public information, basically. But on the other hand, you know, I think the example of how leaders should handle this, especially Presidents and vice Presidents, is what George H.W. Bush did. When he left the White House, he gave the National Archives literally everything, including his personal papers, gave them everything, took nothing to Texas. They sorted through it, and then they sent back to Texas what he could get. Yeah, exactly. President Obama did something similar.

Yeah. What concerns me right now concerning all of this, though, is what's going on with the Senate Intel Committee, because in a bipartisan fashion, they have asked the White House and the Department of Justice to brief them on the information that is contained in these documents from the Biden houses, because they want to assess whether or not any national security sources, methods are at risk, and the DOJ and the White House has refused to cooperate with the Senate Intel Committee. This is, look, this is a real challenge. I know something about the separation of powers, probably as much as any lawyer in the United States. And this is, listen, this is where I think the lawyers, you know, I was critical of President Trump's lawyers.

I'm critical of President Biden's lawyers on this. Listen, I've been there, done this, and this is just not the way you do it. We've got a lot of calls coming in. I want to take those, 800-684-3110. Arthur's calling from Ohio. Go ahead, Arthur, you're on line four. Go ahead, you're on the air.

Fine, sir, thank you. What's going to happen to people who run for President who might be considered for vice President in 2024? Are we checking their desks? Are we looking in the glove boxes of their automobiles? Does Bill Clinton have a desk?

Does Hillary Clinton have a desk? Well, you've raised a really important question, and this will now be an issue, I guarantee you, in 2024, and when people are doing background checks on vetting a potential vice President, you can bet they are going to ask, in the list of things they ask for, they're going to now say, do you have access? Did you have access to classified documentation? Did any of those documents go to your personal residence? Were they handled in a skip?

Were they not handled in a skip? And I think it will become a disqualifier for potential VPs. Now, you've got the two candidates that have already, well, President Biden has not declared yet, but it's likely, I think this thing has delayed it, but likely he will soon. Former President Trump has already declared. So it could be that the two that have already declared, or pretty much declared, both will have this issue.

Does it cancel each other out, or does it become a disqualifier? I don't know. But I will tell you this, it is making us as a country, Cece, look weak, disorganized, and the National Archives looks chaotic.

Yes, absolutely. The National Archives, totally chaotic. And I think, like we've said multiple times, this is an administrative document issue. It should not be criminal and FBI and having raids on Presidents' homes and former Presidents' homes, former vice Presidents' homes. That's not the optics that we should be seeing here.

Optics is the right word. Letting this thing escalate from a document dispute to a literal federal case, and special counsels being impaneled, that means criminal federal case, is not what you want to see happen. But Wes, you look at global issues for us at the ACLJ. This is not a good picture for the United States with our partners around the world.

Absolutely not. Our adversaries will look at this and try to mind the weaknesses in our system, and they certainly will be very public about criticizing the weaknesses of the world's leading democracy. But on the other hand, not knowing what is in a lot of these documents, our allies who routinely share classified intel with the United States, think of Israel, think of the United Kingdom, they will be reluctant to share certain things with us if we cannot handle our own business when it comes to classified information.

I will tell you this. In my representation, you know, when you represent someone that's the commander in chief of the United States and they're dealing with a distraction, here's what happens. And I had these words said to me by the former President. When I go overseas to deal with Vladimir Putin or these others, they know it's a sign of weakness that we've got these investigations pending. I actually asserted that at the Supreme Court of the United States.

And people say, oh, that can't be right. Well, ask President Biden if he thinks this might be distracting. Ask his lawyers and his White House counsel if this might be a little distracting.

And there are other issues they need to be dealing with. We're taking your calls. 1-800-684-3110. Jeff is calling from North Carolina on Line 1. Jeff, go ahead. You're on the air.

Thanks for taking my call. I'm wondering, does Joe Biden as President have the authority to, depending on how this goes with these documents, pardon Joe Biden the senator and Joe Biden the vice President? So there's conflict among legal scholars about this, but as someone that looked at this issue in depth because of representation of a President, not a lot of lawyers can say that.

We can say that. I think the President does have the authority to pardon. I think it's plenary pardon of power. It says, the Constitution says, let's pull up the pardon provision and I'll get it for you. But what it in essence says is that the President has plenary full power to pardon.

Now, not from state issues, but on the federal side of this. And I will tell you this, that I don't know if that'll be exercised here. It may not be, but the fact that, and it's a good question, Jeff, but the fact that we're having to raise that as a question tells me again, what are we doing to our international outlook if these are the questions people are asking?

Yes, internationally, absolutely. Just like Wes said, you know, if you're a country that shares classified information with the United States, you're going to think twice about that. If you think these documents are going to end up in a garage by a car, if you think that they're not handled correctly.

So something has gone wrong here. I think the National Archives, they clearly don't know what's going on because they're now asking all former Presidents and former vice Presidents, hey, why don't you check and see if you have any classified documents? They don't know. They don't know where these documents are.

And so that makes us very vulnerable that we potentially have a lot of classified documents floating out there who knows where. Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution is the power of the President's clause. And it says the President is commander in chief of the Army Navy and the militia of the United States. But it also says he shall, talking about the President, have the power to grant reprieves or pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

You can't acquit yourself from impeachment. That's a political proceeding, not a judicial one, although it was a Senate trial, but it was in the political sphere. It was under the Article 1 clause.

So we had all three. When we had the impeachment, you had all three clauses of the Constitution in play. Article 1, House and Senate is the legislative branch. Article 2 was the presidency.

Article 3 is the judiciary. And of course you had the chief justice sitting in the chairs. It's very interesting how that goes.

But again, I go back to how is this making us look. And this is where I think Merrick Garland gets an F in leadership because he should have thought about the consequences of this. And this is not like I'm doing an apologetic of Joe Biden here, but I think it's ridiculous, okay, that President Trump had his house with a search warrant. I think it's ridiculous that it got to the point where they were going to get a search warrant against the sitting President of the United States. I think you escalated a document dispute to literal federal case. Yeah, classified information was mishandled, but what is happening on top of that is the Department of Justice is mishandling the investigation of the mishandling of the classified documents.

It doesn't get much more embarrassing than that. But there are rules that govern this, and these Presidents and vice Presidents obviously were, yeah, I'm not sure they packed up their own stuff, but the stuff is laying around your house for, you know. Now, for Trump and Pence, it was more recent.

For Biden, it was a while back. But in any case, none of it's good. None of this is the way it should be handled. But I go back to it's a leadership issue, Wes. Get the documents back. Don't have to get search warrants executed if you do it correctly.

And then when you put the FBI in it, it's Katie bar the door. Yeah, and it's leadership failures at multiple levels, you know, in the executive branch. You know, we should not even be facing this issue, but certainly in light of all that has been discovered, the fact that the Department of Justice is handling this as a criminal case and in the case of the former President basically weaponized the Department of Justice is not good for anyone. Interesting that this is broke yesterday, but President Trump has been restored to Facebook. The ACLU said this is the right call.

Like it or not, President Trump is one of the country's leading political figures and the public has a strong interest in hearing his speech. ACLU, Twitter is where that is. They're right. It'll be interesting to see what happens on Twitter because I think they've restored it. Will said, our executive producer, they've restored it, but I don't think he's utilized it yet. So, interesting.

But again, I think it's a win for free speech. All right, last segment, Harry Hutchinson is going to be joining us. We'll take your calls, 800-684-3110.

I'm not going to get asked that question about anything we discussed today. 1-800-684-3110. I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. Support the work of the ACLJ. This broadcast is seen on all the social media platforms, television, over a thousand radio stations across the country because of you.

That's how this broadcast gets on the air. That's at ACLJ.org. Support the work of the broadcast. If you enjoy what we're doing, go to ACLJ.org.

Back with more in just a moment. Taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. Professor Harry Hutchinson is joining us now as well. I want to go to Harry before we can take Anne's call just in a moment. So, Anne, hang in there. You're the next one up.

800-684-3110. This document dispute issue, I'm making the assessment that it's by escalating this to the federal criminal case that Merrick Gartland has on all of them. Well, certainly on Trump and Biden because the special counsel predicate is expectation that there may have been criminal wrongdoing. They haven't done that with Pence's yet, but they said the FBI and DOJ are reviewing. Look, it's the former President and the current President under investigation. I'm not making a joke, but it does sound like Venezuela.

It does. And one of the things that listeners should keep in mind is that corruption has been endemic in the U.S. government, particularly with respect to the FBI, the Department of Justice. But it is spreading like a cancer throughout all of government.

And it suggests some level, in my opinion, of either deep state corruption or we've over-regulated the area. And so one of the things that I would encourage the National Archives to do, U.S. Congress to do, is to decriminalize this particular area and to make sure that the National Archives takes possession. We got breaking news. As expected, the National Archives has now, have they done it?

Will, I've not been able to read all this. Have they done it? Yes, they have sent a letter to former Presidents and representatives of former Presidents. Okay, so the Presidents, the representatives of former Presidents and vice Presidents to look for and see if they can identify classified items. By the way, that means none of these cases should be being criminal because this means the National Archives has got a problem.

That's number one. Number two, okay, when they talk about the Presidents' representatives, here's what happens. When a President leaves office, he designates individuals to be representatives to negotiate with the National Archives. Because there's always a give and take when they're writing memoirs and information they want from the National Archives. So when they say the Presidents, vice Presidents and the representatives, they're talking about the NARA representatives. This is a big issue, but it's exactly what we said earlier, Cece, that the National Archives has now formally asked past Presidents and vice Presidents to look for classified items. Merrick Gartland, you're the Attorney General of the United States. It's okay to say, you know what, this is a much deeper and different issue than I anticipated. That the appointments of the Special Counsel Robert Herr on Joe Biden, that the Special Counsel appointment of Jack Smith on President Trump and whoever they're going to appoint on Mike Pence is wrong.

That's not the way we should now handle it because it's a much broader and wider situation than we anticipated. Yeah, and these are just documents like you alluded to earlier. It's not like we have evidence that anybody has used this information or given this information out. Does that have to be treason or espionage?

That would be a whole different story. So it's that they have these classified documents in their possession. And again, the National Archives does not know and that is clearly evidenced by this letter that they have now officially sent out saying, hey, does anybody anywhere have classified documents? Any former President, any former vice President, how far is the search going to go? The Archives sent a letter Thursday to representatives of former Presidents and vice Presidents from the last six Presidential administrations covered by the Presidential Records Act from former President Ronald Reagan's White House forward. Obviously, the National Archives does not know what is going on. Is that not scary? That is a scary thing. And so they're basically asking former Presidents and some of their representatives to do their work for them.

But that's okay. Voluntary disclosure, good idea. A situation like this, if I was advising these former Presidents. Let's go to Ann's calling from Ohio on Line 5. Ann, welcome to the broadcaster on the air. Hi, guys.

No, we look ridiculous. That's my first thing. But second of all, my question is, is how much culpability here does the Archives have? I mean, in Biden's case, you're talking 20 years of stuff. Yeah, I mean, you asked, we both, all of us said during the break when we saw your question, that's a really good question.

Harry? It's a fantastic question. And I would argue that the National Archives does bear responsibility, at least for some of this. And I would argue that they have been negligent in fulfilling their statutory and legal duties. And so they need to get a handle on this. But I would also say that we need to reorder our approach to classifying documents because we have too many so-called classified confidential documents flying around the United States government, and some of them are already on Google or some other server.

So I think there are problems all around. But lastly, let me point out that what we have, and I think this goes to the core of the current problem, we have seen a politicization of the Department of Justice and the FBI. And the guardian, if you will, of the DOJ, Merritt Garland, in my judgment, needs to grow a backbone. He needs to back off from appointing special counsel after special counsel.

Pretty soon the U.S. government will be run by lawyers. That's a mistake, and I would say that even as a lawyer. Listen, if someone had dealt with this, and there's not a lot of lawyers that can say this, if they had dealt with a special counsel for two years representing a President, let me be clear here. I didn't like the independent counsel statute. I don't like the special counsel statute. You know why?

This. Because here's what happens to Merritt Garland. He's in a much, if it was just within the Department of Justice, we're figuring out how do we get these documents back. And he's got the U.S. Attorney's Office in Indiana working on it for Pence, and he's got the one in Florida doing the one on Trump, and he's got the one in Delaware doing it on Biden or Washington. You know what you say after all this starts breaking like it's breaking? You know what?

Team, we're going to put a special group together. Let's get these documents back. I'm not running in to get indictments. I'm not running in to get search warrants. I'm not getting arrest warrants. But instead, he unleashed it.

And he unleashed it, and now can he put the toothpaste back in the tube. And you know what I tell Merritt Garland? You better. Because you're making us look ridiculous. But this is the problem you put in when you, this is why the special counsel statute is a disaster. Can you name one special counsel prosecution that really resulted in anything? There you go.

Okay? Why are we doing this? It's the weaponization of the Department of Justice is a mistake. I don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat. And by the way, if you're a Republican or a Democrat, you're both feeling it right now. But now they're asking, listen, now you're a past President. Do you want, I mean, can you imagine what's going on in these Presidential libraries right now? I mean, it's unreal. Yeah, it doesn't stop.

That's the whole point here is that the National Archives does not have a handle on this. Merritt Garland has made it into just a criminal, I don't know, heyday for the FBI. It's bad. It needs to be reined in and fixed. I mean, and you got to put the toothpaste back in the tube here. You got to put the cat back in. I'm trying to think of every analogy. Put the cat back in the bag and the train better get back into the station because you unleash this and this is what's happening.

Yeah, we literally do not know as we sit here how widespread this problem is. Okay, you know how, yes you do because you know what's going to happen. Can anybody predict what's going to happen here? What do you think is going to happen when they go back to the Reagan Library? Whoops.

Yep, hello. Why don't they go to Jimmy Carter? That was because there was no Presidential records act yet. And this is the time, as you said though, for Merritt Garland to exercise real leadership and call the criminalization off.

He won't, but I'll tell you what we're doing. We, and I'll tell you, Ben Sisney and our team, a lot of credit for this. He went after the National Archives immediately. As soon as this thing broke, we were on the National Archives and we got an expedited, we demanded expedited review and guess what we got? Expedited review. So when you support the ACLJ, we're getting you the answers and you're not going to get anyplace else, whether it's this broadcast or our legal work. And I want to encourage you to go to ACLJ.org right now and support this important work. Whether it's this broadcast, whether it's our work in court for pro-life issues, or whether it's government accountability, your American Center for Law and Justice is there. Stand with us. It's very, very important folks. Challenging time, but the best of times to stand for freedom and liberty. We live in the greatest country in the world.

Let's just not look like Venezuela. ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org. I'm sure there will be more news tomorrow.