We've got breaking news. The FBI makes arrest in the January 6th pipe bomb 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, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow. Great show lined up for you today. Will Haynes in the studio with me?
Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. I want to hear from you right now. I want you to call me 1-800-684-3110. Maybe you're catching the breaking news. Maybe you want a minute to log on.
I'll give people a second, Will, before we dive right in. I did want to say another thank you for those of us supported us during. Right. Giving Tuesday, and then moving that into now our year-in drive.
So, I encourage you, if you haven't supported the work of the ACLJ yet, or hey, maybe you want to double down, maybe you got more you can donate, I'm gonna ask you to do that today. Your donations are doubled through the end of the month. That's at aclj.org. ACLJ.org slash freedom if you want it directly, or just scan the QR code that's on your screen right now. And if you do that, All donations will be doubled.
The big news out of Washington, D.C., it's happening right now, is there has finally been an arrest after years now. I mean, it is January 6th was. Quite a while ago. Just shy of a month ago. Five years?
From five years, yeah. Five years ago, and there finally has been an arrest in that pipe bomb case, which has been something that a lot of you have brought up over the years. And there has not been, well, we've seen a lot of movement. But now, of course, you have a new President, you have a new FBI. There is not only movement within the first year, there has been an arrest.
And currently, right now, they're actually showing live footage. Of FBI activity at the home of the suspect.
So we know this is all happening in real time right now. Again, someone who has been free for close to five years now since planting those bombs. We'll talk about it a little bit later with more. More interesting information because we also have bites coming in from Dan Bongino, soundbites, and uh also from Cash Patel.
So you'll hear from them as well, Will. But what do we know about this? What is being reported right now is that a suspect, Brian Cole, of Woodbridge, Virginia, has been arrested by the FBI in connection with those pipe bombs that were placed at both the DNC headquarters and the RNC headquarters in Washington, D.C. They were allegedly placed there the night before January 6th at these places. And one of the big questions has been something plaguing the prior administration because nothing happened about this.
And at the time, Kamala Harris herself spoke in front of the DNC on January 6th while these devices were there. They were not found by Secret Service. They were found after she spoke and they were placed the night before. It's been something that, especially within the conservative world, of like, hey, Mm-hmm. You spent so much time focusing on the January 6th riot.
But there was an alleged terrorist, someone who placed weapons of mass destruction, pipe bombs, at the headquarters of the two major political parties in the United States. And you did nothing on it. They had footage of the individual. They had all the resources of the federal government and they did nothing.
So there's been these questions. It's led to a lot of conspiracy theories about a cover-up and why nothing had been done. We know this was a promise of Cash Patel and Dan Bongino when they took over at the FBI. They have been, Cash Patel was confirmed in February, late February.
So he's about nine, just shy of 10 months on the job. And what we're looking at now is an arrest of an individual. From Virginia. And we're expecting an arraignment today of this individual around 1 p.m. Eastern Time, and as well a press conference from the FBI on this, that we should get some more information.
It's happening in real time. We're following it. The FBI, there's live helicopter footage right now of them collecting evidence at this suspect's house. We're going to get into it, what it means coming up in the next segment. That's right.
And phone lines are open for you. What do you think about this? Heading towards nearly five years since this moment happened, but now the FBI is there and doing the job that you want them to do. I think. What do you think?
Give me your thoughts. Either way, 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. We are also going to be talking with Cece Heil, senior attorney here at the ACLJ, a little bit later, about a new ACLJ case where a preacher was handcuffed, detained, and banned from a public bus terminal for sharing his faith. We're going to discuss that.
Coming forward a little bit later in the show, and of course, we want to hear from you. Like I said, once again at 1-800-684-30110, we'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. As I said, phone lines are open for you. We do actually have about six lines open.
So if you want to call in, great time to do it. 1-800-684-30-110. This is, you know, it feels strange to be talking about a January 6th breaking news item five years after the events. Obviously, we have gone through a lot as a country, whether that was through the pandemic or, of course, the Biden administration and now the second Trump presidency. But this was one of those issues, as Will said, spurred a lot of conspiracy theories.
We kind of haven't heard anything about it over the last five years. Even bringing it up felt awkward when I saw this press release that came out this morning. But it's a big moment where they feel like they have arrested the proper person, the suspect, in this bombing, or in this attempted bombing, during the January 6th protests. The person was in Woodbridge, Virginia, which is not very far from Washington, D.C. You're talking about within an hour.
You drive through it very often. I spent some time in Woodbridge. This is essentially just maybe a little outside of a suburb.
So they didn't have to go far to find the perpetrator of this, who has been clearly hanging out In this area for five years. You know, probably thought at this point had gotten away with this. You never would have probably thought five years later, I think when you probably hit two years, three years, you're like, I don't think I need to lay low anymore. I'm probably good. But no, you have a new FBI in town.
Maybe they're actually doing their jobs. And this is what happens. You get an arrest in this moment. Of course, if you don't remember, these were bombs that were planted the night before on January 5th, found later on. These were not all.
I mean, they were homemade, but these were not. Dummies. Right. The FBI during the Christopher Wray tenure even called them viable pipe bombs.
So this wasn't a hoax. It wasn't something to just scare people. They were viable explosive devices that were homemade. And what you have to remember here is that there was initial outrage. There was a $500,000 reward earlier.
This was something that there was grainy surveillance footage. They had imagery of this individual placing it. And even Democrats at the time were saying this is an outrage in all of that, all of the stuff that went on that day. But the mystery that unfolded. was that they offer a large reward for this suspect.
They apparently open an investigation and then, for four years, did nothing on it. And it wasn't as if people were just silent, like, oh, well, I guess the person got away. People on the right in the conservative sphere, including now deputy director of the FBI, Dan Bongino, continually pressed this issue. They said there was an attempted uh terrorist attack. Uh on the two Headquarters of the two main political parties, one of which, the DNC, had at the time Vice President-elect Kamala Harris speak that day in front of the headquarters.
The Secret Service didn't find this device, it was found later. But All of these things open up this big can of worms of what happened, why did they make no progress, and that was one of the things that Cash Batel and Dan Bongino both said: We are going to get to the bottom of this. Yeah, I want to play a soundbite. This is a flashback just from this past May, where they brought this up specifically. This is Dan Bongino on Fox and Friends saying, Look, we know that this is one of those open-ended question mark, not closed cases at this point.
And we're going to try to make sure people understand that we need to rebuild trust in the FBI. Let's take a listen. We had to fix it and rebuild public trust. One of the ways to do it is these cases of significant public interest that matter. You know, we had two pipe bombs planted on January 6th.
I mean, we were told by partisan actors out there, this was the insurrection, the world was going to fall apart, and no one seemed to show any interest in this case. The second we got in, I put a team on it and I said, I want answers on this. And I'm pretty confident that we're closing in on some suspects. Of course, it brings that up just a handful of months ago, and now here we are. And this is what I want to hear from people.
Call in 1-800-684-3110. Is this something that helps restore the trust in the FBI? Because in what plays out who this individual is, what their motivations were, it may be that they were a crazy person that had no political motivation. It could be that they were very politically motivated. We will hopefully find that out, and I assume we will through the course of a trial as they've arrested this person now.
But What was so shocking is that this happened, an act of terrorism, regardless if they blew up or not, which they thankfully did not. I think that everyone should be thankful that two bombs did not blow up that were viable, that could have maimed or killed many people. But the the partisan aspect of the FBI For some reason Shifted away from two bombs placed in Washington, D.C. And focused only on people that participated in the riot. The visuals were not as fun.
It probably wasn't as easy because you couldn't just clearly see and identify who these people were. It was very easy to identify who a lot of the January 6th rioters were because there they were. There were their faces. We have facial technology. It wasn't that hard to find.
Some were celebrities for that matter.
So it certainly wasn't near as fun to go after what was this, which could have caused severe damage, severe chaos. What brings me a lot of hope is that. There was some honesty and truth coming from Dan Bongino and the FBI publicly months ago. You know, they gave you a little bit of an inside scoop of what was happening and what they were working on, and now we see the fruits of that labor. That is not.
How things felt like the last decade or so, where we didn't really know what was going on, and occasionally you'd have a raid or you would have something like that would happen, and you'd wake up to these moments. No, he actually gave pretty fair warning back in May. I mean, look, this guy, if he is end up being the person, And you heard back in May that they were on your tail. You think you'd be getting out of Woodbridging.
Well, and here's where the distrust in the FBI, I think, under the previous administration eroded even further and showed that they were more interested in partisan action, going after individuals that they could politically target. The end goal was to damage the reputation and future political viability of President Trump. Is because what some of the reporting is, a lot of this evidence that they collected that led them to this individual, it wasn't new evidence. The FBI had it back then.
So they could have followed this trail to the logical end. Instead, what did they focus on? January 6th, they got a special counsel, Jack Smith. We talked about him yesterday, going after sitting U.S. senators.
Why? That's what they wanted to do. They wanted the political use of the DOJ. And our system of justice to go after their political enemies instead of tracking down someone that could have actually killed and maimed many people. With these bombs that were placed at both the political headquarters.
It is so apparent. The narrative that would have come out of this was not something the FBI was interested in pursuing, so they did not. They let it stall out, they moved on, and they pursued all the way to Jack Smith trying to take down President Trump instead of putting this person behind bars that is an actual criminal, actual terrorist. If all these allegations are proven true in court, that is what we are looking at here today. It shows the indictment on the Christopher Wray-led FBI much more than anything else.
They could have gotten this person and chose not to. This is a different FBI, and it doesn't fall on deaf ears here that the administration has been taking incoming from the media against who? Dan Bongino, Cash Patel, going after them all this week. With all these silly stories in the media, we talked about it with Chris Brinnell yesterday, trying to discredit them. And then what do they do today?
They deliver on promises that they said they were going to do. There'll be a press conference from as soon as we're off the air. I believe they'll be rolling into their press conference.
So you're not going to want to miss that. And we'll get bites and we'll play some of that tomorrow if you missed it. That, again, is where we're headed. And it is, like you said, it's a bit of a relief to know that.
Now, of course, there has been, like as Will said, attacks on Dan Bongino and on Cash Patel. And look, I think anyone in politics, anyone who's running our country, should not be immune to really being dug into what they're doing, what they're working on, if it's going to be what they want.
However, as Will said, you got to make sure, especially when you're one of those people who start sharing these stories, sharing these rumors, or whatever it may be, or causing just a chaos, to remember that some of those actors that are starting that are not on our side and they are doing it intentionally just to disrupt what's going on in the government. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3011. I want to hear. Hear from you. There's a lot of you watching online for none of you calling, I'll be honest.
So give me a call: 1-800-684-3110. In the next segment, we're going to be joined by Cece Heil here at the ACLJ, senior attorney. We're going to divert just a little bit. We're going to come right back to it, though.
So call us if you all want to be on this topic or any of the other topics we've discussed this week. 1-800-684-3110. Also, I can't let a segment go by right now. During the month of December, we are talking about our year-end financial drive right now. We are trying to raise support, and all donations are doubled right now through the end of the month.
It is our freedom drive, our year-end drive. Be a part of that team right now. I'm going to encourage you to think about, pray about, supporting the work of the ACLJ by going to aclj.org. It's a critical time. It's our biggest month.
It's not only financially our biggest month, we have some of our biggest cases on the horizon. We're going to be talking about that with Cece. You've heard a lot about them. We're going to be in the Supreme Court up against Gavin Newsom and in the state of California. We are obviously continually fighting our battle against the abortion industry and Planned Parenthood as they try to take down a lot of pro-life pregnancy resource centers.
Next semi-year and hear about some street preachers. Who of course You know, when this kind of stuff happens, you know, they're not going to go after. It's gonna take years to five years to locate someone playing pipe bombs, but you better be sure if there's a street preacher. preaching the gospel and handing out a track, they're going to be arrested immediately in some of these places.
So, our senior legal team is going to be joining us next. That is Cece Heil. She'll be a part of the segment coming up. But I want to hear from you at 1-800-684-30-110. And I want you to have your tax-deductible gift double today.
There's a great ACLJ supporter, champion, ready to unlock a pledge. And so many of them have come together. The pledge is over a million dollars. You can be a part of it right now. That's at aclj.org.
Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for a few lines still open at 1-800-684-3110. I'd love to hear from you as we head into the second half hour of our broadcast coming up next. But Cece Hiles joining us, a senior attorney here at the ACLJ. I always want to make sure, sure, we're going to cover whatever that breaking news is and why it's important for you to know.
I'll get you all the facts. But I also, especially during these big months, like the month of December, where we're doing these fundraising drives and we're really trying to get the word out about the work of the ACLJ and the good work that we're doing here, we want to make sure that when there's something new happening, that we let you know and you get involved. And not only can you support financially, of course, you should be praying for our team and for the clients themselves. This one comes out of shockingly, I guess you'd say, because people don't expect to hear it. You may think this comes out of New York City.
You may think this would come out of Chicago, from Los Angeles, San Francisco. No, this comes out. Out of Houston, Texas. Houston, Texas. I guess to set to paint the picture, we're in a bus.
Uh a business terminal, uh you know, a public place. There is a a person preaching The gospel, handing out tracts, and then, of course, something goes wrong. That's right. This individual has been doing this for two years as well. This wasn't the first time they had been out doing this ministry.
And it's not just street preaching, as you think of. There was also giving out bottled water, giving out food, encouraging people, praying with people. It was a ministry that this individual took on and did at a bus terminal, an outdoor, open-air bus terminal. It wasn't even inside some building that was unable to be reached without getting through security or something like that. But they were approached by Houston Metro Police.
Ordered to get a permit, placed in handcuffs, and told them that the terminal is private property. And while being detained, he was given a criminal trespass warning. And the police told him that if he ever came back to preach the gospel again, he would be arrested. They didn't issue a citation that day, they gave a warning. But to this day, if he were to go back and continue this ministry, he would be threatened with arrest and criminal citation.
So, yep, so Cece, what happens in this situation? How do we get involved? Obviously, this is old school ACLJ, this is the work we've been doing for 35 years. People may not understand, though, bus terminal, where kind of the law lands. Right.
And really, it's interesting that we are still seeing these cases come through to us because typically, especially when you have a metro bus terminal, I don't think anyone, even the people listening, would think, oh, that's private property. This is government metro bus terminal. But yet, you have someone who's simply been practicing their faith, which they're entitled. to do and the First Amendment protects, especially in this forum, which is a traditional public forum. It's well-established constitutional law that you have the right to sit there and tell your faith.
And yet he is threatened. He's arrested. He's handcuffed, detained, and given a citation that he will be arrested for criminal trespass if he ever comes back again. You know, Logan, you bring up that the 35-year history of the ACLJ with a case like this. The very first case that your dad, Jay Sekulow, argued at the Supreme Court was back in 1987.
And it was titled The Board of Airport Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles versus Jews for Jesus. Why? Jews for Jesus were sharing the gospel, handing out information at the city of Los Angeles, LAS at the airport.
Now, this was pre-9-11 times. You understand? It wasn't a lot of time. There was a little bit of a different era. A lot has changed since the 80s.
But yeah, this was the point where you'd walk through the airport and it was very much like walking through the streets. Yeah, yeah. People would just go to the airport and you obviously see a lot of different places. But what was the case? The case was they were told you cannot give out your gospel material.
You cannot share the gospel at this airport. Obviously, as you mentioned, the context of what an airport was in the 80s is different. A lot more like an open-air bus terminal in Houston now. And how did this case come down? 9 to 0 in favor.
Of Jews for Jesus to continue that activity, that they had the First Amendment right, that Los Angeles could not adopt an ordinance that banned First Amendment activity. We're looking at a very similar situation here, which is one of the reasons why we have sent a letter to the commissioners of Houston, Houston Metro, to say, look, We don't have to want to take you to court on this one because we've already won it all the way at the Supreme Court. But here's what we're dealing with here. Yeah, and the letter is, you know, very detailed on case after case. Yes, Jews for Jesus, that was a case that, yes, Jay Sekulow successfully argued nine to zero that it is a constitutionally protected right to be able to share your faith in a public forum.
And so we point that out. We point that out over and over again because the Supreme Court has ruled over and over again about that right. And we have given them until December 10th. They need to retract their criminal trespass warning that they have against him. And they need to, in written confirmation, verify that they will allow him to continue to practice his First Amendment protected rights of sharing his faith at this public bus terminal.
And so hopefully, again, he's been doing it for two years.
So you hope that maybe somebody new came in and just really doesn't know what they're doing. And hopefully this will be resolved quickly. Yeah, sometimes it is actually people who are trying to do their job. They think, oh, this. Can't be allowed here.
We're going to go, we're going to arrest this guy. Of course, we know that's wrong, but we don't assume that every police officer knows every bit of Supreme Court settled law. But in these moments, we have to make sure we're there. The team has to be there. They got to be active.
Look, this is during the Christmas holiday.
So, right now, there's a whole team of attorneys that are working. And we're only a couple weeks from Christmas.
So, when you support the work of the ACLJ, you're also supporting them. Obviously, not just the client, but you're also supporting this incredible legal team.
Well, and also, a lot of times, what the federal government does and focuses on as far as law enforcement has a trickle-down effect where you start seeing major cities kind of taking their cues from the federal government, the FBI. It ties back to what we're talking about with this discovery today: the arrest of the January 6th pipe bomber suspect. Because the previous administration wasn't focused on that. They were focused on conservatives. They were focused on sending the FBI into churches.
They were focused on arresting at dawn raids pro-life advocates. They were focused on parents at school board meetings.
So, what are you seeing? Because we've seen an uptick in this activity where people sharing their faith are being arrested. We've had three clients in Chicago that we've had to get out of criminal cases. We've won for them, we've had it in New York. It's happening all over the country.
You're now seeing it in Texas. This is a trickle-down effect of the policies of the Biden administration where they put their focus. And what was their focus on? Conservatives and people of faith in this country. And now you're starting to see it in Houston, in Chicago, New York.
It's going to take a while to fight back against, but that's why we're here and that's why we won't quit. Yep, absolutely. And look, we have another 30 minutes coming up. I don't want you to go anywhere. If you don't get us on your local station, I want you to support.
Because you hear people like Cece, you hear our team here. This is just, you know, one attorney of many that she is working with each and every day. You know, you see Will and I on here. You see Jordan on here. These are just the people that are on the broadcast team.
Know that there are hundreds of people working at the ACLJ, whether that's in our media team or whether that is in the legal side. It is an incredible group of people who are making sure that we are on the air every day, whether that is through terrestrial radio, through YouTube, through Rumble, through ACLJ.org, the app. None of that runs automatically. We have our incredible social media team. We have our legal team.
You have the assistants to the legal team. You have everything. Security people who are incredible who work here as well to make sure that our team. Team stays safe each and every day. All of that is because people like you support the work of the ACLJ.
Doesn't come in from major sponsors, doesn't even come in from a lot of major donors, I'll be honest. Most of it is people who give $25, $50, $75, maybe once. Maybe they give on a monthly basis and become champions. But either way, I appreciate it.
So do that right now. Have your gifts doubled. And for those of you in the chat right now, I see you. I see you, but I may not be able to accomplish that goal today. We'll talk about more of that when we get back.
Give me a call, though. I'd love to hear from you. If enough calls come in, maybe. 1-800-684-31-10. Bip.
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Secula. Welcome to Sekulow. Second half hour coming up right now.
Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-30110. Trying to ease us in casually here, Will. Usually I come in blazing, just, you know, we got them by now or not. Not right now. Yeah.
It's Christmas season, it's the holiday season, and boo-ba-doo-doo. And when we're talking about a pipe bomb case, that's typically, you know, it's very calm, well, thought-out. True, I forgot we were moving back to this. I mean, I was still the street preacher, which I mean, it's not necessarily any less, but you know, he was handing out food and water. It's doing some good work there in the streets of Houston, Texas.
Uh, you know, and we got some friends in Houston, Texas. We really need to take care of things. We'll see what happens here. Phone lines, like I said, are open at 1-800-68-4-30-110. I do want to hear from you.
They've got a couple of people coming up. But yeah, the big news this morning, obviously, was the FBI has made an arrest in that January 6th pipeline case. And I do want to say, Um we're live. We're talking about this five years later. Uh, you know, it feels like you're playing the hit sometimes, and uh, I don't always love that.
But There was a lot of silence in this issue. And now you have a new FBI in charge for the last year. Back in May, Dan Bongino said they were closing in on this. It had been a controversial. Uh Topic because a lot of people had started spinning conspiracy theories of why it wasn't handled or if it was even real, what had happened.
And come to find out. I mean, allegedly, obviously, this is someone who's been arrested, so that this is still alleged, been arrested as an alleged suspect. Just a few miles, really, outside of Washington, D.C., in Woodbridge, Virginia, what would be considered probably a suburb for a lot of people. is uh a guy who's been camping out there for five years living a normal life. As far as we can tell.
That's right. And honestly, I want to hear from you, the listener, the watcher, does this help restore your faith in the FBI? This is another promise kept. This is at a time when you are seeing a lot of hit pieces come out going after Dan Bongino, after Cash Patel. We even see it on the right.
We see distrust for that. Why are things taking so long? One, that's the way the legal system works. You have to build a case. You have to go forward with it.
Then you have to make sure that you can get a conviction if you're going to prosecute someone. But does this help restore your faith in the FBI after what we saw under James Comey and then Christopher Wray? It's been a long time coming to see this type of thing start to get down to it. And what we've seen. Is uh foiled terror plots across the country.
You've seen there was even picked up by local police, and now the investigation is including the FBI of someone from Pakistan that was a student at the University of Delaware planning a terror attack in Minnesota. There are things that are being stopped because the FBI seems to have their focus back where it's supposed to be. Law enforcement protecting the homeland instead of going after political enemies of the regime in charge.
So I want to hear from you. 1-800-684-3110. Does this help move that trust back towards the FBI? It's actually to try to spur some people. Cody's on line one.
Cody, go ahead. Hi, I just wanted to say that I'm super proud of our FBI and our government. today. We've had a lot of Issues over the years, as y'all know. But I'm super.
Super proud to be an American today, and I'm excited to. live in the United States Right now, Cody, thank you so much for calling. I think a lot of people feel that way when you do wake up to these kinds of news stories. Uh, uh, you do wonder, like, you know, you start kind of breaking down what was the silence then, what happened here, why is this only being resolved now? Look, maybe we'll find out that's been a five-year-long investigation and it just took a long time.
I think, likely, what we're going to find out, if I was a betting man, would be that the team. that Dan Bargino put in place back over the summer. Did their job. And we're going to find out a lot more details even today as they have an announcement coming up at 1 p.m. Eastern Time.
So when we're heading off the air. Maybe you want to go flip over and see what the DOJ is doing, and we'll of course cover that tomorrow as well. With that being said, as Will said, one phone lines are open at 1-800-68-430-110. Support this work of the ACLJ, it's an incredible organization. It's our biggest month, again, not just financially, we've got some huge cases, as you heard.
You know, no cases are too small.
Some of these ones, you may just hear a street preacher and go, Well, how does that affect me?
Well, it could, it could affect you, your family, because again, we know sometimes it's just the tip of the iceberg. You want to be a part of this. Go to aclj.org. Have your gifts doubled today by Incredible. Person ready to unlock a match.
We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Want to hear from you. Why you can call you gotta call in, Will. You gotta do it.
You want me to call in? It's right now.
Someone should.
Okay. We got Bob on hold. We'll get to him. We got Charles on hold. We'll get some others too.
We got four lines open: 1-800-68-431-10.
So many of you watching right now online, and so many of you are talking about whether I need to be singing now or whether I need to be wearing sunglasses. I will tell you: the one day I wore the sunglasses, it was because I forgot my regular glasses. My sunglasses are in my car right now.
So unfortunately, I don't have access to them while we're live on the broadcast. And my car is parked quite a ways away from where we're sitting right now. What? You can be a little bit more. I mean, like, how far?
We have a keys. It's a lot. That's a lot. Maybe on a Friday. We'll see.
Well, guess what? Tomorrow? All right. I'm not going to do the whole show because here's why. I'm just going to let you in a little inside baseball, if you will.
I did that that one time. And I got a call from our friends over at the Salem News channel who were very concerned for my health and well being. And they were just making sure everything was okay, that I did not have have some sort of emergency surgery. There was a lot of concern.
So I don't need to just spring it on them. I need to let them know if it's going to happen. I mean, if you want me to do it for like one segment, that's probably fine because they're not paying that close of attention, hopefully. Right. But the whole show, clearly, they were getting some calls from the boss men who were saying something may be wrong over on the Sekulow show.
We need to check in with them. That being said, we're going to move back on to the topic of the day. You know what? To get us back in the swing of things, let's take a call just to get me back where I'm going. Let's go to Bob.
In Florida. Watch it on YouTube. Go ahead, Bob. Yo, let's hold off on the singing until let's hold off on the singing until I get off of here. No singing, don't worry.
So the FBI and restoring faith, I don't believe that today's arrests Puts trust, at least for me, back in the FBI. But what it does do. is stop the slide. that the FBI was under in my eyes. It's going to take more than one arrest.
We have to see how this one pans out. There are other cases out there that the FBI has to have similar results. But before you can do a one hundred eighty and start to regain trust, you do have to stop the slide. And I think today's Arrest Goes a long way to making that turn. I think that's a very rational and well-thought-out answer.
I think you're probably right, which for a lot of people, this is probably not enough. Mainly because it probably wasn't one of those top stories over the last few months. It wasn't one of those ones that people have been talking about. It's like, where's the FBI? And this, this is one that's five years old.
You do start to lose more trust the more time goes on. Like I said, this guy likely thought he got away. You know, who thinks, especially if you're going to, you're just staying 45 miles outside of Washington, D.C., that you are not safe in this moment. But I understand that. I feel like you're probably right, which is, it makes you feel like at least they are starting to chart a right course.
Well, and once again, I think conservatives are naturally more skeptical of the government, right? I mean, it's Ronald Reagan's famous words of the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
So we already have a little bit of a predisposition to be questioning government, whereas many on the left are more openly embracing, unless it's Donald Trump's government, they want a more bigger controlling government apparatus.
So, I think it takes more to get the trust of a conservative, as well as there's always going to be a healthy skepticism of the motivations and the operations of the government, I feel like, in many conservatives. But what you are starting to see is that they are delivering on the promises. And as our caller Bob just said, It was that slide down that we saw, really, that started with James Comey, who felt like he was above the law, that he was a branch of government in and of himself. And you think of the culture that had to have festered there for so long. Christopher Wray didn't help.
We represented whistleblowers from the FBI: Marcus Allen, Garrett O'Boyle. that all they were trying to do was point out that the FBI is not doing their job. They're not doing this appropriately. They are not being the nation's premier law enforcement. And they got retaliated against.
They got put in a purgatory, so to speak, where they couldn't have a job, they couldn't pay their bills, but they weren't fired from the FBI. They weren't being paid. And these these moves by the FBI that they did on their own people, as well as on conservatives in this country, put a very large distrust in, at least on the right. Against the FBI. These moves are helping to restore it, hopefully.
But also, as Jordan pointed out on the broadcast yesterday, who's that? Jordan. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.
The FBI. Has a lot fewer political appointees, people that, when there's a new President, they appoint to that branch than, say, the Department of Justice or the Department of Defense or any other executive agency. The DOJ has many political appointees. The FBI only has three.
So, if you are trying to root out a culture that is festival there so it takes a longer time, and we know how hard it is to fire a federal employee. They take you to court, and all of a sudden the courts say, You can't fire that person. They had a job, but they weren't doing their job well. They weren't doing it in line with the Constitution. No, but you still can't fire them.
They're the government employees.
So it takes a while to clean house. Yes, absolutely. I wanted to quickly say thank you. One of our people in the chat just became an ACLJ champion. That's Kelly on YouTube.
A lot of these people are having fun talking about sunglasses and singing, but some of you are also kind of putting your money where you can. Of course, she said on there, you know, I'm only going to become a $25 a month champion. That's all I can do. Understand that is huge for us. Understand the global impact of that throughout the year.
That's someone that gives on a monthly basis. I want to say specifically thank you to her. Thank you to all of you. Don't think because you can give $10, $20, $50, whatever it may be. That it's not doing incredible amounts of work.
That's the majority of the people that support the work here at the ACLJ. It is not people who exclusively give hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars. It is that that's the mass minority. The mass majority of people give somewhere between $10 to $75, let's say, once. Maybe a month.
The ACLJ champions are still a pretty tight group of people. About 20,000 people that give every month on a recurring basis, compared to a lot more. that give throughout the year when they can. You know, one of my favorite charities, they finally pushed me to become a monthly donor yesterday, and I did it. You know what I did it at?
A $25 a month level. I think actually I did it at a $50 a month level. And it was matched, and they did the whole thing.
Someone, I've supported that organization for 25 years. And I finally said, you know what? Just take a little bit from me every month because I really care about the work that you do. That is sometimes what it takes. I know these fundraising pitches can get a bit exhausting, or maybe you get a little nauseous every time you hear me saying this and think I'm asking for money.
But understand that this is one of those big, important times. This is December. December is the biggest month, not just financially for fundraising, but the work seems to really kick into gear. When everyone else starts slowing down, it feels like the legal work, because I think it compounds. It compounds in the fall.
So, all fall. Kind of builds to leading towards December, where things can finally start to get done and movement starts to happen. Or maybe it's these Christmas moments where people are wanting to celebrate their faith, and all of a sudden it's stricter and it's stricter and it's stricter. And we have to be there. We have to have a team of ACLJ attorneys.
We have to have our media team ready to go at a moment's notice, to fly all over the country if necessary, sometimes all over the world. And we know there's also been a lot of anti-Christian and anti-Judeo-Christian messaging happening around the world, whether that is why we have ACLJ Israel. But it's one of the things I want to talk about more, which is our involvement in Europe. It has always been something that has been a bit difficult. It gets lost in translation, if you will, when I start talking to our audience about the ECLJ, the European Center for Law and Justice.
As I said when Jordan was on last week, we spent a lot of time there. The organization has been around for 25 years. Jordan and I spent most of our childhood in the summertime at the ECLJ offices, building it up, planning it, working and living there. We've met these people. We've worked with them directly.
They're some of the best people, and they have a lot of the same struggles that Americans do right now. But you have to be able to kind of open your mind to the world is not so small. or is not so big. And it is a small world, and you can be in Europe in a few hours. And they're dealing with a lot of the same issues.
But that's why we have the ECLJ, which is funded, by the way, by the ACLJ.
So when you give, a little of that goes to the ECLJ.
Some of it may go to the Jerusalem office. And of course, our media team, to the legal team, to our Nashville headquarters, to our Washington, D.C. headquarters.
So all the different things to just keep the lights on. That is what's happening here.
So I encourage you to support the work, especially right now when we have, like I said, about a million dollars that is ready to be matched.
So we have donors who have collectively come together and pledged that amount of money. If we get the donations to then unlock it.
So again, I know this is a big push, but I encourage you and I want you to do it if you can. If you can't do it, great way to support the work of the ACLJ. Hit that subscribe button. We got a team of incredible team, especially on YouTube, who run our YouTube stream and all of that. They had a goal, an internal goal of hitting 100,000 new subscribers this year to crest us over 550,000 subscribers.
We are just 4,000 subscribers away from hitting that.
So, if you can be a part of that today, if you have not joined, do it, send it to your friends, and all that. I'll read a lot of these chats that are coming in. A lot of you have said some things to me. I'll read those in the break. Also, let me know where you're watching from in the chat.
I always like to look at that. But, Will, when we get back, I do want to take some calls. There aren't any right now. I'll be honest, we took all the calls.
So, if you ever want to be on the air, this is the time to do it. That, and we will give an update on that fraud scheme in Minnesota where Governor Tim Walz is taking a lot of heat. We talked about it on Monday, but now there's a new angle to the investigation that's going on there. We know the U.S. Treasury is investigating the fraud, but Congress is getting involved too.
We have letters that were sent by the Oversight Committee to the governor and the Attorney General of Minnesota, and we'll talk about that when we come back. But as Logan said, we're looking for phone calls right now because we want to hear from you. 1-800-684-3110, what do you think about this arrest that the FBI announced? Does it restore your faith in the FBI? Are you still skeptical?
Or do you want to talk about the Minnesota fraud issue with Governor Walls? Call us 1-800-684-3110. Ah! Welcome back to Zeculo. Throwback music.
That's Rudy Landau on the guitar there. Rocking it out.
So always shout out to Rudy, who wrote that awesome theme song we did for his show. Really, this show kind of became that show. Yeah. It did. Will and I used to host a morning talk show out of Orlando, Florida.
Now we did it here. It was only on in Orlando, Florida. And we hosted it, and it was kind of this, but a little bit more raucous. And now this show has kind of just taken over for it. That's why people like me singing.
That's right. Yeah, you sang a lot back then. Yeah. I didn't used to sing the, I wasn't crooning like I did earlier. No, your voice has developed over the years.
Exactly. You know, when they're looking for the hits, you come to me. Phone lines are open. Last call of the day to have your voice heard on the air. I'd love to hear from you at 1-800-684-30110.
Will did tease, and I'm going to let him take that tease, which is a bit of an update of what's going on in Minnesota as that baba billion-dollar fraud scandal continues on. That was impressive the way you did that. Yeah, I couldn't do that. Really? Not even going to try.
It'd be embarrassing.
Well, you got to be able to roll your bees. I don't think I can do it. But what we're talking about here is now the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, has launched an investigation also into the widespread fraud that we have seen in Minnesota. This is that billion-dollar fraud where they are alleging, and a lot of it has been documented, that over a billion dollars was taken both from COVID relief, from Medicaid and Medicare programs, and stolen effectively from the taxpayers, not going to help anyone. And a lot of that, they are concerned, also may have helped finance al-Shabaab, the terrorist organization in Somalia.
So now that we know the Treasury. We know that the Treasury Department is looking into that. We heard from Scott Bessant, the Treasury Secretary, earlier this week. But now, James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has sent a letter to both Tim Waltz and also one to Keith Ellison saying that they are investigating this. They have oversight over federal tax dollars.
The power of the purse lies with Congress. And they are concerned about how the governor. And the Democrat-controlled administration allowed millions of dollars to be stolen. And the committee also has concerns that Governor Walsh and his administration were fully aware of this fraud and chose not to act for fear of political retaliation. They go into a lot of the details of what they are interested in, as well as lay out many steps of documents they're requesting.
I very much could see in the future a hearing that is conducted in Washington, D.C. I almost said Nashville. They don't have hearings here. They should. They'd be a lot more entertaining.
But they are looking forward because now the committee has requested documents and a lot of them, both from the state of Minnesota and the governor's office, but as well as from a lot of these organizations that were receiving the money and that were stealing it in many cases. But they want the following information. very soon. They want it within the next few weeks to get this from the individuals no later than December 17th.
So just shy of two weeks, they want this information. And I assume that a hearing is forthcoming. You don't normally get all these documents and not do anything else with it. We will see where the oversight committee goes. But there's even some allegations that Keith Ellison, former member of Congress, now the Attorney General of Minnesota, there's allegations that he was talking with this Feeding Our Future.
Organization, the one that stole millions of dollars of COVID money. And that it's on tape allegedly that's saying that If he helped them in this way, he would get campaign donations from the Somali community. We will see where this goes. We will see if there are criminal referrals that come out of the Oversight Committee to the Department of Justice. But we know that this is a big problem.
And we know that the governor of Minnesota kind of laughed it off and blew it off and said, no, I'm not accountable for that. I'm accountable for putting people in jail. But yet The own employees of the state were telling him. and putting out publicly whistleblowers, we told them. And they did nothing.
So, this is all at a time where a lot of things from the past that weren't looked into by Democrat administrations are coming to light now. Sunshine is the best disinfectant, they say.
So, now that we are shining a light on these things, hopefully, accountability will take place. But it's also at a time, Logan, when we are fighting California. They're still trying to take the money. From that church, Calvary Chapel, San Jose. And as we heard from James Comer, we have to look at other blue states as well to see if they had rampant fraud.
Meanwhile, they're going after churches trying to take their tithes. Texas is arresting people, giving out food and drink and preaching the gospel in a bus terminal in Houston, Texas. You know, this is outlandish when you really start to think about who gets targeted, who doesn't get targeted in the United States of America. And a lot of times it has to do with whatever faith it is that you're preaching. And that shouldn't be that way, regardless of what faith you want to preach.
It should be that way. I did want to thank a lot of you who have chipped in now, even online, I chipped in on YouTube financially.
Someone just gave a $100 super chat. You know, that is great. We appreciate that. And of course, if you want to continue supporting the work of the ACLJ, do it through ACLJ.org.
So it's tax deductible for you. It's easier to get you set up. But I really do appreciate it. And I want to thank everyone who's given today. I know a lot of you have done it with the joke of trying to get me to put on sunglasses.
I will do it for you, but not today. I just don't have the access to my sunglasses. But seems like a lame excuse load. There's one sitting over here. I'd do it just because I'm going to give $100.
I mean, there's no sunglasses in this office. You couldn't have said, during a break, go get me some suggestions. I thought they want my specific shades. I don't know. How dare you?
Oh, those from the past there, man. The coast of Christmas past.
Well, it's Christmas season. It's holiday season. I did that for them again. There you go. Phone lines off.
We'll be very happy with you. We actually do have a call. I want to take this call because it's interesting. Let's go to Ray in California. Ray, go ahead.
Yeah. Yeah, so this the fall following the summer Supreme Court decision. on supporting having Bible clubs in public schools. There's a school in Ventura County, which is between LA and Santa Barbara County on California coast. That told a middle schooler he could not have a Bible club.
He's following all the requirements. I knew the teacher sponsoring it. It was in the local papers. And then the reasoning in the paper was Well, that was for high school. That's been core decision to not include middle school and because middle schoolers are more influential.
Ray, yeah, that's not true. Maybe we can get to the bottom of that and take a look at what this is, because that is something the ACLJ certainly should have gotten involved in. That's not only settled law from over the summer, that is settled law from thirty plus years ago.
Well, and Ray, d was the individual ever allowed to have the school, the club at school? No, no, it was denied. And that was I'm telling you a month after a month or two, whatever it was after that decision. That decision was in the summer of that year. I don't remember the year.
It was like twenty five, some years ago. You mention it sometimes on your show. But that fall, And and you know and so I that's the reason People should support the ACLJ. And because they were on it and they've been on it and we hear about the current school violations. Yeah, sorry.
I got turned around there a bit with that statement. I appreciate you calling. And ACLJ is certainly still fighting for those cases. They do happen all the time. It's shocking about, like you said, it's been nearly 30 years of decision in those Bible school cases.
And of course, they keep getting shut down. We only got a minute left. Willie, get something you want to say. Yeah, just as Ray was saying, is that then administrations will try to find a very narrow interpretation or say, oh, that didn't mean for this, because they still want to keep the Bible clubs out of school. And as Ray mentioned, that's why we are still fighting this over 25 years later on just that issue.
Yep, be a part of that right now. Go to aclj.org. We got 30 seconds left. Perfect time. Scan that QR code.
I'll tell them to leave it up for the rest of the show. You don't need to see my pretty face anymore. Just scan that QR code. Go to aclj.org. Your gifts are doubled.
There's a million dollars in pledges ready to be unlocked if you're willing to give. You could give $10. You could give $5. You could give $500. Do it right now.
Now, and your gift is doubled. At aclj.org. We'll be back tomorrow. I'll try to bring my sunglasses in, try to make all y'all happy. You know, I'm in the people, well.
Talk to you tomorrow.
