MAJOR Supreme Court Filing TODAY in Election Protection Case

Today on Sekulow, a major Supreme Court filing expected today in an election protection case, you know it, the 14th Amendment case. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome to Sekulow.

We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. We believe, again, just after the holiday, this could be a major week at the Supreme Court leading into either the end of this week or early next week. But certainly there are going to be moves at the U.S. Supreme Court right now.

The big outlier right now, Dad, is the brief from the Trump campaign officially. Yeah, so, so far there has not been filed yet a petition for rid of certiorari by the Trump organization, the Trump campaign. But let me be clear on something here.

I think it's important for people to understand, and that's this. Because we filed on behalf of Colorado, the former President stays on the ballot pending this disposition. So this date that everybody talked about, January 4th, which would be tomorrow, has already been met. The problem is, I think the court wants to do an expeditious review, and we've asked for it to be expedited. The respondents, Greenwald and also Anderson, these are the people that brought the lawsuit, or the Secretary of State, won it expedited.

They agreed with us. The case should be heard. Our case should be heard. I'm sure Trump's case should be heard. And it should be expedited. The difficulty right now is, until that petition is filed by President Trump, it's going to be hard-pressed to expedite anything, Andy. Because the issue's not fully joined.

That's right. The Supreme Court, in my view, is not going to do anything until it hears from President Trump. And President Trump's certiorari petition is expected, I hope, soon. But I think before the Supreme Court takes any action, they want all the persons who are involved to be before it.

And especially that includes President Trump. But let me tell you what we've done at the ACLJ. Okay, let's get these on the screen in order. We filed our petition for certiorari.

There it is. I'm putting it up on the screen now. Okay? That has been filed with the Supreme Court. We now have a court number 23696.

It's docketed with the court. The other side, Anderson and Greenwald have, that's the Secretary of State and the petitioners that actually brought the case, that has been filed. Okay? So that's already up there. There's, well, that's ours. No, that's the brief in support.

That's theirs. And they agree, by the way, if you read it, it says brief in support of partial grant of certiorari. They agree that with us at least two questions of the three should be granted. Then we are now preparing, I mean, I've got a red pen in my hand today because I've been drafting, our team put together an excellent first draft. I mean, a really first class, first draft of what's called our brief in response to the, a reply brief to the briefs in opposition. That is, that's a draft of it right now. We'll either get that in late today or first thing in the morning. Issue for us will be joined. And what people need to understand, when issue is joined, the court could technically take action at the Friday conference.

Now, my gut feeling is like Andy's, I think they hold it pending getting everything together. But I don't know that. We don't know that. This thing's moving very, very quickly. Yeah. And it's not on a normal court timeline, obviously. And you, again, in the Trump campaign being the, I guess you'd say main party in this. Yeah. When they file, that could significantly change what questions are. Yeah.

I mean, it depends on what their questions presented are. We don't know. Right.

Okay. So let me tell you what, what's happening. So things are moving at an incredibly fast pace in the Supreme Court, as I just told you. In the biggest case we've ever had.

Multiple states are stripping away your right to vote. We know that that now has happened in Maine. Both CREW and the Colorado Secretary of State have filed their briefs in response to ours. We could file our brief probably today or first thing in the morning. President Trump may file today as well. The Supreme Court could issue an order as early as this Friday.

It's moving that fast. So we've been working with our legal teams literally around the clock. It's not the right to vote.

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That's 1-800-684-3110. I had a question for you, Dad, too, and I've got another question, too, that's been coming in because this is moving so fast. It's not the usual Supreme Court calendar, which is actually a pretty long calendar usually with reply times and months to write your replies. And then maybe an oral argument scheduled months later. In this, you're looking at potentially if President Trump did file today, the Supreme Court could issue an order as soon as Friday. Explain to our audience, when you say order there, what that could encompass.

Okay, so here's what happens. I mean, we have filed our cert petition. The other side has responded to that. We are responding today to their, it's called a reply brief.

We're filing that today. The case at that point is packaged, basically, and it's sent up to the justices for conference. The conference is Friday. Now, if the Trump campaign gets theirs in today, the other side will respond tomorrow, and that will be packaged up to conference. In the conference, they can decide three things. They could decide we're going to hold it for a while and get more information. Of course, they could deny certiorari, not likely. They could grant certiorari limited to questions one and three or two and one or whatever they decide, and set forth a very quick briefing schedule, or we may hear nothing. And that may be, Andy, and this is something you and I have talked about, that they could be working on what's called a per curiam opinion.

That's right. A per curiam opinion is an opinion that literally per curiam is Latin for through the court. In other words, it is authored anonymously. In other words, no particular justice's name is going to appear upon it. But it's going to be – that suggests to me the possibility, if it's a per curiam opinion on this matter, the possibility, Jay, that it may be a unanimous opinion as well.

It could be. Per curiams are not always unanimous, but per curiam opinion would not be out of the cards in a case like this where you've got to move quickly. Now, they can also – Jordan, to be blunt, I mean, they could also – they could say, you know, we want briefs in five days or less, additional briefing, because these are not technically marriage briefs, although everybody's written them like they are. So I'm explaining the process so people understand how quickly this thing is moving. I mean, we've got a team working on it right now. We've got our draft brief came in at about 12.02 last night.

We're all making some edits. As we're on the air right now, the team's working on it. And that's why we've got our Supreme Court victory fund up. If you want to participate in that, go to ACLJ.org, make your tax-deductible gift, and that will be doubled for the next few days. Kind of help us get some funds just for this case. And by the way, you ACLJ champions, here's the great thing. You're part of that – you're part of the reason we can do this. And we had so many of you join us last year because we got up to 18,936 – I think it's still about the same today – that we were able to increase a little bit. I mean, it's not going to be a giant drive, obviously, but this $250,000 match, which is still significant. So we encourage you there. You want to go ahead and – Let me take this other call, this other question, because I think, again, it's important, too.

It came in off of YouTube. If President Trump does file today, does it delay Supreme Court action to give time for more reply briefs to come in? I think this is what's going to have to happen. I think if President responds, files today, I think everybody that needs to respond is going to need to respond by tomorrow. And the case is being handled almost like a capital – That could be tomorrow evening. Yeah, it's being handled like a capital case, which means this. They will distribute the electronic version of the brief rather than waiting for the printer to get the printed brief, which takes an extra day or two.

That's correct. And also when they say a capital case, it tells you they're moving at lightning speed from the Supreme Court. Yeah, a capital case, of course, means a death penalty case, an execution case. And if they're moving at the speed of light as this is in a capital case, that means we could get a decision very, very quickly. Yeah, we have to – look, they could set a briefing schedule up for next week that says we have to file a brief on Tuesday.

I mean, it could be that quick, Jordan. On the other hand, we may hear nothing Friday. That would be interesting, because I think they're trying to get it to conference Friday.

But that would be interesting. Do you think the Trump campaign has to get in this week? Or they don't have to.

Is there a time limit? Well, they don't have to in this sense. We filed, so it stayed the opinion, because we got up there quickly before the January 4th deadline. So right now we're going to be printing with – Printing with his name on it. So do they have to?

Boy, I think, you know, abstractly they don't. I think practically, yes, because everybody's asking for – here's the risk you got. Everybody's asking for expedited review.

If it takes you two and a half weeks to get your cert petition up, you can't expect the court to give you an opinion in ten days. Right. So you got to figure all that out, too. Yeah.

All right. But I also think, Jordan, one last thing. I do think – and I see if Andy agrees with me on that. I do think the court knows this is out there. They probably have a good idea where they're going with this.

This is not going to be a surprise case. And quite frankly, even though these petitions for certiorari don't have to be in the detail that they're in, Jay, these are almost merits briefs. Yeah, well, we did it that way and so did the response. And so we wrote them with all the – when I say merits briefs, that's a term of art that means with all the legal arguments that we would do if it was a brief in full. I think the court knows pretty much right now what's going on. They've followed it politically. They understand it legally.

I think they understand it. And I think we're going to get a very quick decision, quite frankly, Jay. Yeah.

All right. Here we go, folks. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. We've got calls in, too, about kind of where we are, the ACLJ. I want to remind everyone again that we are launching today a Supreme Court Victory Fund. And this Supreme Court Victory Fund, again, listen, we could see the Supreme Court issue an order.

We talked about what that would look like as soon as this Friday. So it's not going to be a long-term victory fund. But we do want you to be a part of this.

It is where your tax-deductible donation will be matched. Again, it's a very small match that we're doing here for this Supreme Court Victory Fund. And you just heard all of the work we've been doing at the ACLJ on behalf of our clients filing very early in this and working on the next response being ready to be filed, either tonight or tomorrow morning.

I mean, so we've been on it and early and ready to go. And that's because of our supporters at the ACLJ who were tremendous up until midnight of 2023. And I think you all understand in this new year of 2024 how important this case is because you've got Maine now.

You've got other states with pressure looking at pulling off the same kind of moves to try and keep a major Presidential candidate off the ballot who they don't like, and both the short-term ramifications of that for Donald Trump, the long-term ramifications of that for the Republican Party. Yeah, and like I say, the prediction here is difficult. So, say, what's going to happen next? I mean, could they just come out with a procuring decision? Yes. Could they issue an order that says, here's what we want, we want briefs in 10 days, oral argument in the week after that? Yeah, so it's all hands on deck right now.

There's no question about that. I mean, what I'm trying to explain to everybody is this is a long-term fight in a short period of time, if that makes sense. This is a lot of legal work in a very short period of time. Yeah, and I think, again, we encourage you, if you could support us and be part of the Supreme Court Victory Fund, your gift will be doubled today at ACLJ.org.

The work here is not done, but we do think this is going to happen very quickly, though. Quickly being for the U.S. Supreme Court, I mean, we're talking a week and a half. Yeah, I mean, seriously, they could convert all these briefs into merits briefs and just issue an opinion.

I mean, that could happen. It doesn't even have to be per curiam. I think it would be more likely than not than per curiam, but they also may say, listen, this is a giant case. They may say, you know what, we will benefit from oral argument.

So, advocates get ready in the next week. It's like they could make it a giant case. They could also say this is absurd. They could go one way or the other. They could de-escalate the tension, so to speak. Calm in the water and issue a per curiam opinion and remove the drama.

Yeah, and so there's a reason why this hasn't been used often, and that's because it doesn't have any application here. And removing the drama is not necessarily a bad idea here, I will say that. I would imagine the Supreme Court, if they can, after, one, an upcoming year with some major dramatic cases already and a dramatic last year. It may not want so much drama, but we'll see.

Listen, lawyers on both sides will be professional and the court will be professional and get a decision. This is here, the great thing about limiting a constitutional republic, we have rules. Yeah, we do have rules, and again, we're going to keep you updated even as timing changes on this very issue. We come back from the break.

We'll continue to take your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. So, continue to get those in because there's no bad questions here. This is not following a normal Supreme Court case path. We knew that from the very beginning. We knew that when these cases were at the state court level.

I mean, they were moving very quickly. I mean, every time you looked down your phone, there was some new action being taken, whether it was by a secretary of state or a court or in Maine. Yeah, in Maine, by the way, the Trump campaign has filed their appeal there.

It goes to a state superior court. I think that will all be stayed. We'll talk about that in the next segment of the broadcast.

But let me encourage what Jordan just said. We've dropped this campaign just for a few days, our Supreme Court Victory Fund. And what we're trying to do is just raise money for the Supreme Court case so we don't have to divert from other sources. You ACLJ champions, I encourage you, if you're not one, become one. ACLJ champions give monthly to the ACLJ. But part of what you're doing is you're supporting the work of the ACLJ and you're providing the funds upon which we base our match in campaigns out of. It comes from two of our donor groups, our Law and Justice Council and our ACLJ champions. So if you donate today, your gift will be doubled through the Supreme Court Victory Fund.

But also, join us monthly if you can. ACLJ.org for that. That's ACLJ.org for the Supreme Court Victory Fund.

Be a champion for life, liberty and freedom. You could do it there. We're going to get Harry Hutchinson's going to come and we're going to talk a little bit about the Maine case. I'm going to talk a little bit about what they're trying to do on the son of the strategy on these cases. So there's a lot more ahead on this. But again, if you want to support the work of the ACLJ, the Supreme Court Victory Fund is up right now. There's also a QR code.

You can put it right on your phone and get it right there. Back with more in a moment. Welcome back to Second. We got a lot of calls and I understand why. Because this is something very unique in our process. One, to have a case like this move so quickly. And then two, with all the other cases we've talked about with President Trump.

You have to put those aside. The civil, the criminal. And you go to this ballot access case.

Which implies, of course, Colorado. The first case we got involved in. Representing the Colorado State Republican Committee is what you'll see in the filings. We were also first to file then at the US Supreme Court requesting search. So requested they take the case.

And then the Secretary of State there and the crew group. They filed a response as well. So what you haven't seen yet is the Trump campaign's filing. That could come today. And if that does come today, you could see a schedule where most briefing is in by the end of the week. Oh, I think so. And they may ask for some additional briefing next week. So we don't know that for sure. But we'll see. Harry, also the main case that Trump lawyers have filed a claim now that goes to the State Superior Court.

Absolutely. So President Trump on Tuesday, that is yesterday, appealed the Secretary of Maine's decision to remove him from the ballot. Because of his alleged role in an alleged insurrection. Indeed, there is no aducible evidence that an insurrection actually occurred.

So I think Trump has a strong argument. He was never charged with engaging in an insurrection by a prosecutor. Second, he was acquitted by a vote of 57 to 43 of his insurrection claims with respect to the impeachment. And third, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment regarding the commission of an offense reflects either of two circumstances. Disqualification first occurs if a covered person has engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given aid or comfort to America's enemies. With respect to the insurrection claim, aducible evidence, for instance, shows that he offered aid to Nancy Pelosi in anticipation of a problem on January the 6th, number one. And then number two, there is no real evidence that he gave any aid or comfort to an enemy of the United States because there was never a declared war. And thirdly, the disqualification claim does not apply with respect to individuals who are not covered officers. Keep in mind, Section 3 was really aimed at individuals who basically took an oath in support of the United States, then joined the Confederacy. There's no evidence that Trump joined the Confederacy.

And there's no evidence that he's a covered person. So I think at the end of the day, the argument raised by the Secretary of Maine and by the Colorado Supreme Court are incredibly weak. Don't you think from a procedural standpoint, though, Andy, that the Maine court, if they were smart, they just would hit a stay right now?

Absolutely correct. Let's see what the Supreme Court does. Listen, this has progressed so far in the Supreme Court that it would be absolutely wise on the part of a Superior Court judge in Maine to do exactly that. Look at this thing is in the Supreme Court of the United States.

That judge can say, let's just stop and wait and see what the Supreme Court decides. All right. I want to go right to the phones. 1-800-684-3110. Michael in Indiana has been holding on on Line 3. Hey, Michael, welcome to Sekulow. You're on the air. Hi, Michael. All right. Thank you very much.

Sure. My question to you, Michael, in retrospect, was that Jack Smith, he's supposed to be in The Hague in the Netherlands as a chief prosecutor. And he was for four years. He's supposed to be prosecuting Albanian K.L.A.

Kington, Mafia, Hashim Thachi. And I just wondered, if international law is interfering with the U.S. Constitution, why Department of Justice? He was detailed back to the United States, and his deputy is now doing the ICC. The reason we know the ICC is because we have litigated at the International Criminal Court on multiple occasions. Most recently, in December of 2020, during the matter of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, where we were in trial on the floor of the ICC for three days.

You know, it's an interesting move there, too, talking about international, we'll just divert for a minute, is that the Israelis say they're going to fight at the International Court of Justice, which is the first time they've ever done that. And that's going to be interesting to see how that one plays out as well. But no, he's been called back. Want to take another call, Jim? Yeah, we'll go back to the phones again. Let's go to Rick in Nevada on Line 1. Hey, Rick.

God bless you, ACLJ. And might the court issue a ruling serving as a warning to Maine and all other of the states that pursuing this is abusive, contemptuous, and frivolous? Yeah, but you could do it. I mean, I think a decision from the Supreme Court of the United States will impact, I'll ask Harry and Andy to comment too, all 50 states. They are not taking it because Colorado has this unique law where they can do these kind of little challenges, but not for this kind of thing. You can't do a challenge, you can't add to the federal qualifications for the offices that are set forth in the Constitution, President and Vice President. Or Senator in Congress. You can't add qualifications at the state level. But no, I think, look, Rick, I think, no question, the ruling will impact all 50 states.

Harry? I think that is correct. I think with respect to Colorado, there's an additional complication, which is the First Amendment rights of the Colorado Republican Party. Which we've raised, and they are fighting us on that like crazy on the other side. Which was implicated in that particular case, but the central issue is whether or not a state, basically on its own motion, without any adjudication, can disqualify the President of the United States within the meaning of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was designed to deal with the Confederacy and former Confederate officers who ran for office after the Civil War. I will tell you this, both the Secretary of State and the Anderson Respondents, which were the petitioners, they do not like, they do not want our section, our question number 3, Andy, resolved. The First Amendment question. Boy, they are being crystal clear.

What do you think that is about? Because they would rather run the clock out than have the court say, hey, wait a minute, you can't even do this under the First Amendment. You can't tell the Republican Party who they're putting up. So they don't want, now, does the court have to go there? No, the court doesn't have to go there.

No, no. But we have to raise that. We represent the Colorado Republican Party. That's not a question necessarily that Donald Trump would have. That's a question that the party has.

But, you know, they are fighting those. They agree with our question 1, both sides. Question 2, they agree it should be heard. They have a, Greenwald, the Secretary of State agrees with us. The Anderson Respondents say, no, we think it needs to be reworded to make it sound more like the states have authority. And then we don't yet know, at least as of right now, the position of the Trump campaign on the filing because right now that filing hasn't, as far as I am checking my phone right now, it's not taking place.

Right. And so, again, that will then determine a lot of how quickly this moves once that filing does take place. Folks, we have a second half hour coming up. Let me encourage you to be part of our Supreme Court Victory Fund. This is a very quick fund that we've put together. Again, a matching fund. Things are moving fast in the Supreme Court, as you said, I mean, we don't even know exactly when Trump files.

But the moment that does, it just speeds everything up that much further. Our next filing there will likely be today or tomorrow. I mean, so we are ready to go at the ACLJ on behalf of our clients.

You've got crew, you've got the Colorado Secretary of State have just replied to our brief. We can file our reply as soon as today. President Trump could file today. The Supreme Court could issue an order as soon as Friday. So you can make that donation, which again, without the right to vote, we lose our constitutional republic.

Without the right for these parties to choose the candidates and again decide the qualifications for the candidates of the two major parties in the US. But this is how you come in. A group of donors has set up this short-term Supreme Court Victory Fund agreeing to match every gift if you donate today at ACLJ.org. So we don't have to divert any other ACLJ funds on other matters to this case. So we keep it with the Supreme Court Victory Fund. Donate today at ACLJ.org.

Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is secular. And now your host, Jordan secular. Welcome back to secular. So after this holiday, the short holiday week, you've got Christmas into New Year's and schools are starting to come back.

Some schools already back, some schools later this week, some schools next week. The Supreme Court could be moving very quickly. We are waiting right now for one of the parties to engage at the US Supreme Court.

And that party happens to be the Trump campaign dad. And so I just think we want to reset where everything stands right now at the US Supreme Court without that Trump filing. Because we filed for cert. You've had the opposition file and they've got a reply in to our filing as well. We're working on our reply, which could be filed as early as today or if not today, early tomorrow. But we don't have a Trump filing yet. Not yet.

I'm looking at my phone to see. Everybody expected it Friday and then maybe on Tuesday. It hadn't happened yet. I suspect it comes in today.

I don't know that. If it does come in today, I think everybody that has to respond will respond by tomorrow. And then it goes to conference on Friday.

All the responses are in by Thursday. I think that is the plan. Unless they ask for an additional round.

And here's what can happen on that. They could decide the case, as Andy and I have been talking about procuring. But they could simply say, here's the order, we want you to file marriage briefs in five days. It's really up to the justices at this point. A lot of people think they've kind of written off that there's going to be oral arguments on this. I wouldn't write that off yet. Would I say it's highly probable? Look, it's a big case.

It's tough. It's tough to say they're not going to do it because it is such a... It's either a major case in the sense that they make it a huge precedent or they kind of swat this aside as crazy trying to apply this to a... They say the President's not an officer of the United States. Which he's not. In fact, the President is a branch of government. Which puts it into this in every state, every locality, every secretary of state.

Doesn't matter what they want to do. It shuts it down in the courts in one sentence. We'll take a phone call here. Yeah, let's go back to the phones. Do you want to go to Dan next and Delaware Online too? Hey, Dan.

Hey. I got a question. If this thing goes sour and it doesn't get passed, then what are we supposed to do if we're in one of those states?

Who are we supposed to vote for and how are we supposed to vote or do we vote at all? Well, here's the question. If you penciled in Donald Trump, they're not counting it. So it's not going to count. Now, you're in Delaware. So that's going to be an electoral state. That's not going to matter because, right, Jordan, that's going to be a Democrat state.

It never goes. Right. I mean, now, listen, for the primary though… I hate to say it that way, but it's true. For the primary, these states matter because you're adding up primary votes. So there's still – you actually have the most say as a Republican in Delaware during the primary because it still counts. And so that's why they're attacking Donald Trump at the primary level. That's the way you keep him from being the candidate. And so you don't even get to the next level, which is that he got enough electoral votes, enough votes in the primary to be the candidate to actually run against Joe Biden. So, again, I think that's why it's so important to voters out there, like Dan, around the country who are voting in the next few months, is will there be other people on the ballot?

It looks like there's going to be a few other Republicans on the ballot at this point. That's it. I mean, you see Nikki Haley's name. You see Ron DeSantis' name and maybe Ramaswami. Yeah.

That's about it. Maybe Chris – maybe, I mean, if they stay up. Well, the next debate, I understand, it's just going to be – it's going to be Haley and DeSantis. Is that correct?

Well, yeah. When is that one? Next week.

Wednesday, the 10th. They're the only ones that qualify. Well, Trump qualified, but he's not. Yeah, well, he's not going to do it. No.

Who blames him? All right. So we want you to support the work of the ACLJ. We do have set up a short-term Supreme Court victory fund. We encourage you to go to ACLJ.org.

Your gifts will be doubled. We encourage you to do that today. The reason we're doing that is because we don't want to have to divert funds from other ACLJ long-term issues that we've been working on. Those of you who donated to the ACLJ with our matching challenge over the last couple of months, which was incredible, we thank you for that. We want to make sure we've got the resources necessary to finish this one out, to protect your right to vote. We're at the nation's highest court, but we don't have to divert funds from other places at the ACLJ. So we've set up the Supreme Court victory fund. Donate today. Your donation will be matched. Go to ACLJ.org.

That's ACLJ.org. When we come back, our colleague, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, will be joining us. All right, welcome back to Sekulow.

It is great to be joined by, again, a senior counsel for global affairs, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. To draw our attention to what's going on in the world, you know, again, we've been focusing a lot on the 14th Amendment issue, rightfully so, because it's moving very quickly this week at the U.S. Supreme Court. With all the holidays, it was moving in between the breaks right before Christmas, right after Christmas, and then there's a little delay during, you know, like two years. We really weren't much of a delay. We got ours in on the 28th. We just filed our other briefs, and now we'll see.

Trump's team hasn't filed yet, but hopefully that will be today. But let's divert our attention from Supreme Court politics and talk about a global event that is now starting to get some attention this morning. And, Mike, that is there was an explosion in Iran that killed 103 people.

It was, I guess, in the vicinity of Soleimani's tomb or whatever the burial place is. What do you think this is? What's your sense? Well, it's great to be with you. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year. I don't think anybody has their hands around precisely what this was. It is often the case that when activities like this happen inside of Iran, it was the result of Israeli efforts to go after senior leaders. This feels different because it looks like it was civilians that were targeted, and that would be deeply inconsistent with typical behavior from Israel. My guess is it's some unhappy Iranians, and there are tens of millions of them who did this. But I'm speculating.

We do know this. We do know that the Iranian regime on this anniversary, now the fourth year after President Trump and I took the strike on Soleimani, the Iranian regime is feeling its oats. It's feeling more capable. It's taking down ships in sea lane travel. It's got the Houthis at their behest. The Hezbollah folks are ramping up. We can see that escalation is at hand, and it may well be that this is a time where there will be even more internal dissent inside of Iran aimed at the same purpose that America has, changing the nature of the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It does seem, Secretary Pompeo, that Iran is eager for escalation, and that even with this attack today, it kind of gives them, if they want, another reason to escalate, another reason to continue to fund Hamas, to continue to fund Hezbollah, or maybe ask Hezbollah, who also suffered a loss over the weekend of one of its leaders, as well in a targeted attack inside Lebanon, to try and increase the response into Israel and try to draw more world attention back on what is going on there.

You know, two things to think about here, Jordan. First, escalation is the tool that the Iranians will use until there's real costs imposed on them. They'll do it through their proxies so they can claim that they are not connected to it, and they have been aided and abetted in that denial by the President of the United States and his administration, who have said, well, they funded them, but it's not sure there's any connection.

They've tried to create this set of policies that support what they've been trying to do for the first two and a half years, was to find a way forward to negotiate with the Iranians, which is just a failed effort. The second thing I want to remind everyone is this matters to every American. It sometimes, you know, we're coming on three months from October 7th, the barbaric activities that took place.

There kind of seems like there's another story, another news line. We're about ready to have the first Republican caucus and primary here in the United States. The foreign policy and domestic policy today are so deeply tied. If the shipping lanes are shut down in the Red Sea, that will impact every American.

We've all got family members and friends who are serving either in the Navy on a ship that's sitting in the Red Sea or in the Mediterranean, or we know a Marine or a soldier. These things impact the American economy. The sharp distinction between foreign and domestic policy no longer exists, and the bad guys know that. Xi Jinping is operating here inside the United States. These Iranian activities that we're talking about here this morning deeply impact not only our Israeli friends, but the Arab Gulf states.

This is all connected, and if America fails to lead, there's real risk to our country as well, not to mention the fact that we have a wide open southern border creates opportunity for these bad actors to infiltrate our country as well. How does this whole, how do these wars end, Mike? What's the end? How do you, you're an expert at this. If you were the President of the United States, how would you get this to closure? So two things. One, in some sense, they never end unless you get total victory. That is very hard to achieve against the scaled nature of our adversaries and the complexities associated with the economic reality.

You can, however, deter the kinetic component of these and the commercial component of these. We did that for four years. It's by demonstrating real resolve, drawing red lines where they matter, and J, importantly, not drawing them where they don't.

Right? If you say, don't do X and they do X and you aren't really prepared to defend that, you melt away the very deterrence you were aiming to achieve. We end these things when we provide the tools and equipment. We should be giving the Israelis every piece of munitions they need, every bit of intelligence they need, all the bullets that they need, and they are struggling to get those.

We should be doing the same thing for the Ukrainians. You end them when you demonstrate to your adversaries that the cost is too high. And, you know, we've had now coming on three years, we've had three years where our adversaries felt like they could move about the cabin way too freely, and the results are precisely what we're seeing. I want to go back to the escalation question, and that is, it is clear to me, it looks like, that Iran continues to push the envelope here. And if you watch the, if you monitor the Israeli news, there's a lot of activity in the north around Lebanon and Syria. So you've got the Hezbollah, you've got the Houthis, you've got Hamas. It's a much more complex battle than I think the media is portraying this to be. And you kind of got to think nine dimensionally here when you're dealing with this because of the nature of who you're dealing with, who the adversary is.

So true. I'd add a fourth front as well. We shouldn't forget that a lot of this conflict has been fought as a result of the operations in Judea and Samaria and the West Bank. So a fourth front that the Israelis have to contend with too. And the last thing I'll say is the Israelis are also in a battle with the United States administration, who publicly expresses support, but privately is putting restrictions and telling them, you know, engage, don't do X and don't do Y. We're trying to, we're trying to help them while restraining them. Not only does that make it militarily more difficult for the IDF, but if you're a Hamas warrior hiding in the tunnel, you think just wait this thing out, hang in there. No reason to give up and wave the white flag. Stay at this because the United States will eventually shut this down.

So the Israelis have a very complex political and military confrontation and the United States should be unambiguous, not only in the way we speak about the defense of Israel and its right to do so, but also in the provisions that we give to them. You know, if I could kind of question on this too, is with the, again, all of this election issues swirling right now and the escalation, there is also kind of an attention issue as well for the American people. As you talked about Secretary Pompeo. And so they start spending their time, you know, looking at what the Supreme Court is going to do about Donald Trump.

Is he going to be on the ballot? So the big question I have is, does Iran, do they try to get Hezbollah because even we mentioned that one of their leaders to engage at a level that takes it up a notch to try and kind of push as hard as they can while they've got the Biden administration in place. In light of the fact that they can't predict who will be there in the next year and a half. There is no doubt that there is a calculus that takes place from our adversaries about who's sitting in the White House and what does their team look like and how capable are they and how much resolve do they have to actually defend the things that matter.

I'm certain that is in their calculus. The Iranians too, though, have to be a little constrained. They know if they go all in that it will force the hand of a President, whoever that President is. And, you know, shoot, you can imagine the run up to a political election.

A President might find it a victory someplace helpful to them domestically, politically. It's going to be a very interesting year, not only the things that happen abroad, but how they interact with the things that happen here at home as well. We appreciate it, Mike. Thanks for your comments and thanks for being part of the team here at the ACLJ.

Mike Pompeo, of course, former Secretary of State, former Director of CI, and Senior Counsel for Global Affairs. And a Happy New Year to you and your family as well. Folks, we're getting ready to take a break. When we come back, we're going to give you another update from another one of our international matters overseas. We're giving you the broad scope of this. I hope what you're seeing is, you know, we've got a whole team that's working on the Supreme Court case, but we've got teams working on the situation in Israel right now. We had calls on that this morning. We've got teams working on other cases. I mean, as you just saw with Mike, we've got our policy experts engaged in all of this so we can get you the right kind of information that you need.

Yeah, exactly right. And that is why we've got the Supreme Court Victory Fund set up, put to the side here, because we want to have a set of funds ready so we don't have to divert from any of those other funds. And again, this is going to happen very quickly at the U.S. Supreme Court. It already is happening quickly at the U.S. Supreme Court. So if you want to take part in the Supreme Court Victory Fund, you can donate to ACLJ today.

We are doing another match. So we've pulled, again, a group of donors that will match that for this Supreme Court Victory Fund. So you can do that again at ACLJ.org. We believe it's that important because this is your right to vote. It's your right to choose candidates. I mean, and for the state Republican parties that we represent, this is their right to be part of the primary process in their state with the candidates that have qualified to run as, in this situation, Republicans, but also for other parties in the future. That they're going to be allowed to select the candidates of their choice who have qualified under their qualifications.

You're not going to have these people booted off by random secretaries of state or by a state court system. So this is all at the U.S. Supreme Court right now. We're waiting right now for the Trump campaign's filing at the U.S. Supreme Court. We were first to file. Donate today at ACLJ.org. Be part of the Supreme Court Victory Fund and get that donation matched.

ACLJ.org. All right, welcome back to SECU. We have calls in coming too, and I think this is important too in the new year, about our work that's going on all around the world and some of those stories which are just hard to listen to. I know Israel dominated a lot, and of course those have been tough to listen to, still are tough as that conflict continues in Israel and still receives a lot of attention. I mean, going into the new year, that is a war that continues just like the war obviously in Ukraine, but that one in Israel which I think touches us more at home, especially those of us involved in organizations like the ACLJ.

But also our work for the persecuted church all over the world, like in Pakistan. I know Dee is calling from California on Line 1. Hey, Dee, welcome to Sekulow. You're on the air. Yes, I can't get it off my mind, this young man in Pakistan, but I can't even imagine going through what he's going through at that age, thinking back to when I was that age. And I'm concerned, is there an update? And my heart goes out to his family as well. I will turn it over to C.C. Howell who has that work up, but I will tell you this, our Director for Internationals, Scheheri R. Gill, just was over there and actually saw him.

Yeah. Yeah, so Dee, we have filed the most recent update for Shazad Bisi who is the 16-year-old boy when he was arrested on false blasphemy charges and has now been in prison for over six and a half years. At the end of last year, we filed an application for suspended imposition of sentence while his appeal is pending and in the hopes that the court would go ahead and quickly set a date for his appeal. So we are currently just waiting for the court to rule on that application and so we are still in a holding pattern, but we are absolutely fighting for his release and the fact that he has been convicted in the lower courts death by hanging again on these false blasphemy charges. So thank you for your concern for Shazad and also just praying for his family.

You're exactly right. It's very hard on the family to know that your, you know, child is being held wrongfully in prison for really his entire teenage years, really. Yeah. So these cases take a while to get resolved, but the goal is keep them alive, get them free, and we've had good success on that, so we will keep everybody posted. That gives you another example, though, of while we're talking about Supreme Court cases, we've got all this global work going on, too, at the ACLJ. CC and I got an email this morning, a message this morning about the, they're starting the phone calls again on the hostage family situation. They're trying to arrange something in the United Kingdom with the Prime Minister, so that may be happening.

We'll know more about that in the weeks ahead. Let's go to John's call in Illinois on Line 3. Hey, John, welcome to Sekulow. You're on the air.

Thank you for taking my call. My question is, is all the controversy on this 14th Amendment, is there any signs anywhere that there's some action being taken in Congress to make the changes? The Civil War is so far gone, and this law is so outdated. Well, there's been some, there's a lot of commentary in the scholarship about that because some felt like it only applied to the Civil War.

Others say no. There is not enabling legislation, so the act would have to include, Congress would have to pass, you know, enabling legislation or get rid of the amendment entirely. That's a whole other process, constitutionally. None of that's going to happen in the next week, but what is going to happen in the next week is the Supreme Court's going to at least let us know what they're doing, and that could come as early as 48 hours from now on Friday afternoon.

We could have a really good idea. Yeah, I mean, there's an interesting part of this, that Congress does have a role to play in this 14th Amendment issue if someone is barred under Section 3, is that they can vote to remove the bar. They can remove the disability with a two-thirds vote of the United States Senate. So you can imagine that happening in the government right now?

No. But that procedure's in there, which is interesting. It's interesting because that's where the procedure is.

The direction is could run. See? Now, the point, the problem with that is, okay, and this is what we got to point out, Trump, nor anyone else, has been charged with insurrection. Right. So this is, you know, a lone Secretary of State and a lone trial judge making these decisions. They made their own decision.

Listen, I wouldn't have put up any witnesses in that thing in Colorado, I would have said this is an extra constitutional proceeding, we're not going to involve ourselves in it. Yeah. And then just appealed it on up and it gets to the Supreme Court. Yeah. We are at the Supreme Court now, we are getting, I just got a note, we're going to, after radio, we're going to have our next draft of the brief, and then we either file it late today or first thing in the morning, and then our case is joined. What that means is it's packaged up and it goes to conference.

Yeah. Once it goes to conference, it's totally up to the court what they're going to do. We did not suggest aggressive dates on what date they must do this and must do that, some of the other people have. We're saying we will abide by whatever the court's calendar is. And they're already, we already know that it's going to be moving quickly. The court knows that these are, there are deadlines in place here that are very important for members of our military and Americans who live abroad, so to get these ballots. And we add up with it, this is what we say, for all these reasons and those stated in the Petitioner Research Read, the petition should be granted, that's our request for review, and the petitioner will abide by whatever timeline the court may set. Right. So that, which means it could, you know, look, this thing could move unbelievably quickly. But we're not going to get that kind of timeline until we get the final, the first filing from the Trump campaign.

I think that's right. You know, we talked about this a lot yesterday. Because they could, they can do whatever they want. Well, technically they could because the case is up there, our case is, but I just don't know how you do that without the guy that's being taken off the ballot and having his lawyers. But I think they're going to file, the word I'm getting, which could be, it was meaningless in 24 hours, but the word I was getting was that this was going to happen originally Friday, then yesterday, now today. So if, if it's not in by today, the interesting part is this, if they don't get it in today, here's the dilemma.

And this is a dilemma. When do you file your responses? If you don't get, if you get them on Thursday, you'd have to file your response, to get it to conference, you'd have to file your responses Thursday afternoon.

Well, if they don't give it to you until Thursday afternoon, that's not going to help you. No. So, I mean, you see why today's a very important day to watch what's happening. And we are. And we are, and we've got lawyers, whole teams that are working on this. I mean, as we're on the air right now, we're getting texts and emails from our team. They're putting this all together.

Right. So, you know, we've already reviewed one draft. We're getting Jane Raskin and Andy and me and CC, everybody's putting in their comments.

And then the next, the team that's kind of the main anchors of getting this done, we'll put that together. I suspect we'll have that in the next 30 minutes. And there may be a chance we get it filed today. And you don't have to worry with the ACLJ on the timing issue. No, we're up and in.

Yeah. I mean, there's no delay here. The problem's going to be, I think, we've asked for a motion to expedite, but we're saying that we're going to buy whatever timetable the court says.

Here's the problem. Some of the groups are asking for like really expedited review. Like, I'd like a decision by, you know, January 10th or 15th. And the court could say, well, wait a minute, you're asking for us to issue an opinion in 10 days. It's taken you three weeks to get a cert petition up here. I think that's going to be the issue, how fast the court moves, because as you said, Trump is on the ballot.

Yeah. And we are waiting for Trump's attorneys to file. Yeah, and they're going to. They will, yes. I'm confident they're going to do that. And he's the candidate, like you said. So they are waiting for his voice to be heard.

Yeah, I'm confident they're going to do it. It's just, now would be good. So everybody's saying, like, when is the timing of this yet? If you had to- We could get an order as early as Friday afternoon. And when you say order, explain that to people. Does that mean not a final disposition?

No. An order could be a petition for certiorari granted. We're converting the briefs into, the cert petitions into briefs. And they issue a per curiam opinion, which means the order of the court in the next week. They could say, here's the timetable. We want you to file an opening brief in 10 days. The other side in five days. World argument, if necessary.

More traditional, but quicker. Yeah. Or they could say nothing. And just all of a sudden you get an opinion in the next week or two. I mean, that's the interesting thing with the Supreme Court. I mean, it's not, I'll have to. It's kind of, you look at- They're handing it like a, sort of like a capital case.

So kind of the regular rules are off here. All right. So folks, we want you, this is important because we don't want to have to divert funds. Great fundraising the last two months of the year, 2023. And we thank you for that. We don't want to have to divert funds away from that to the Supreme Court Victory Fund for this next week, week and a half.

So we want you to support. We got a group of donors who said, you know what, we'll do another match for the Supreme Court Victory Fund this week and next. So make that donation online at ACLJ.org. You will get a match. Or you can become an ACLJ champion with that recurring donation. That will, again, you can make that a match. So donate today.