ACLJ Presses State Dept. on John Kerry’s Secret Meetings with Iran

Today on Sekulow, the ACLJ presses the State Department on John Kerry's secret meetings with Iran. We'll be joined by our Senior Counsel, Mike Pompeo.

Live from Washington, D.C., Jay Sekulow live. Phone lines are open for your questions right now. Call 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. And now, your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Welcome to Sekulow. We are taking your phone calls. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. And we're going to be joined in the next segment by our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, Mike Pompeo will be joining us to talk about these issues. We've issued a new FOIA.

You may have seen it up on our website, ACLJ.org, but we did not get to it yesterday on the broadcast. Regarding John Kerry and other officials who were former Obama officials, two of them are now back in the administration under Joe Biden. John Kerry and Robert Malley all were involved with creating the Iranian nuclear deal back in 2015. And we now know that through the years 2017, 2018, 2019, up until the Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif, who Iran puts forward in English-speaking media, until he was banned from coming to the United States, was meeting with these high-level former officials. Remember they went after Mike Flynn for saying that during the transition, when you're about to come into power, he shouldn't have been on the phone with any world leaders or any of their representatives or ambassadors because of an old outdated law that's never been used called the Logan Act, which is likely unconstitutional.

That's why it's never been enforced. And the same people were doing these meetings to undermine any outreach, and there was outreach being conducted by the Trump administration, back-channel communications, to Iran. So they were undermining that with Iran to undermine any kind of talks between Trump and the Iranians.

You think about, too, the success of the Abraham Accords. What were they worried about that Donald Trump could have pulled off with Iran? The irony of ironies here is the fact that you had a situation where the current administration was put in the really uncomfortable position of trying to negotiate its foreign policy, which rested with the Trump administration, while John Kerry is meeting with Zarif and others on the situation with Iran. Now, they tried to bring charges against General Flynn on that, but he was in conversations that were, I mean, pretty benign. And now you have this.

Now, here's the concern that I have. What was John Kerry doing, Wes? That's the thing that bothers me. What was he up to undermining, my guess is, what the administration, he knew the administration was going to pull out of that ridiculous Iranian agreement. Right, right. It's shocking.

It really is. And you're reluctant to say things like what I'm about to say, but you look at his behavior and what he has done, and it's almost like John Kerry is anti-American or un-American. He is way too cozy with a country that calls for the death and destruction, not only of Israel, but of America. Yeah, and Andy, at the same time, this is what Jordan said, they used the procedures, they were talking about the Logan Act against General Flynn. And the person, by the way, who brought up the Logan Act was then Vice President Joe Biden.

Yeah. And he said, that might be a way that we can see to prosecute somebody here for the Logan Act. And that is the very act, that obscure 19th century law that says you cannot conduct foreign policy as a private individual when there's an administration in place to do that. But that's exactly what John Kerry persistently did during the Trump administration through the years and years of back channeling and undermining what President Trump and his advisors were trying to do. You got to ask yourself, Jordan, and we are. By the way, their answer is due April 5th. And as usual, I'm sure the State Department's not going to do it.

And we'll be in court. And again, the question, it's not just John Kerry, but also Robert Malley, who's back in as this as the lead advisor on Iran at the State Department now. And he was one of the lead authors of the JCPOA and negotiators. So they're back in power.

But they were doing this when they were not to undermine an existing administration at the time. You think about that, support our work. We've got a matching challenge right now. It's how we are able to take on the State Department, take on these government behemoths at ACLJ.org through our matching challenge. Donate today.

And Mike Pompeo joining us right after this. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad, whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support. For that we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes 100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, Planned Parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift.

Welcome back to Secular. We are joined by our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, Mike Pompeo, who is joining us by phone today on the broadcast. We're talking a lot of these issues involving, we were just talking about Iran and these meetings with John Kerry, Robert Malley. People were back in government roles who were not in government roles, but were meeting with Iran's foreign minister until he was banned by the Trump administration from visiting the United States. And they were having these meetings, what we assume would be to undermine the Trump administration's effort, any efforts with Iran. And so Secretary Pompeo joining us now. Mike, let me ask you a question. We're going to get to the situation that you've been really addressing on Twitter, which is this whole Palestinian pay to slay. And before we get to that, I want to finish up where we were just discussing the first segment with John Kerry, because you were during the time that John Kerry was doing this, you were either the director of the CIA or the secretary of state. So I asked the question, what was he up to? And I saw, I thought into, you know, according to the so-called not so-called the Logan Act, which I think has a lot of constitutional issues, I thought they're not supposed to be doing that.

Yeah, Jay and Jordan, thank you for having me on again this morning. Look, they're not supposed to be doing this. This is fundamental. Forget the Logan Act for just a moment. This is just fundamentally antithetical to who we are as Americans.

We have one President, one secretary of state, one national security advisor at a time. And yet John Kerry was meeting with these folks and had had deep relationships with them during his time as secretary of state when they negotiated this really unfortunate deal with the Iranians that put Americans at risk. And he was almost certainly sending them the secret signal, which said, just wait, just wait. You can wait these guys out. We know they're putting enormous pressure on you and we know that they have weakened you. We know that they have isolated you. But if you can just hang on until January 2021, it's likely that the policy of appeasement will be rejoined.

That's the darndest thing. It certainly influenced Iranian thinking almost certainly, and weakened our capacity to execute the duly elected President's foreign policy. I mean, to me, it's, no, we've got a Freedom of Information Act request out on that right now. The government's response is due April 5th. I suspect we're going to be in federal court on that one, so we're getting that ready. But Jordan, let's go to this issue of Palestinians funneling really hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorists. And let's talk to Secretary Pompeo about this. Yeah, so now we've learned a State Department report that Palestinians spent at least $151 million in 2019 on its Pay to Slave program, an additional $191 million spent on deceased Palestinians referred to as, quote, martyrs. So I guess they're making a distinction between people who are imprisoned because of their acts of terror, people who were killed during their acts of terror. And so you're talking about, again, over $300 million and a significant amount of, the US funding was cut off by the Trump administration, but now we have the Biden administration looking at ways to try and get around the Taylor Force Act that we discussed and start the money to start flowing back to the Palestinian Authority directly. So Secretary Pompeo, you've been tweeting on this and one of the things is this Pay to Slave program.

Let's explain that to people so that they understand exactly what we're talking about. So the Palestinian Authority that refused to engage with the United States during our entire time to try and get a conversation going about how peace might be achieved between Israel and the Palestinian people at the same time was taking money, their money, to pay those who were terrorizing Israelis and terrorizing, frankly, they killed an American who was in Israel and they would take the person they called a martyr and their family and pay them. They pay them money, essentially rewarding them for the terror acts that they had conducted. We said, that's just crazy. We stopped giving any money to the Palestinian Authority.

The law requires that's called the Taylor Force Act. That makes it legal. But more than that, it's immoral to launder US taxpayer money to those terrorists, to have the United States taxpayer underwriting a regime that is sending checks to people who are actively terrorizing people in Israel, Israelis and non-Israelis inside of Israel and killing them and knifing them and doing all those things.

It is just so deeply immoral. I hope that the report that we now all have read about is wrong and the administration doesn't go back to that horrific policy. Well, the report is that they're going to start negotiations up with the Palestinians again, including foreign aid, which as you said, would violate the specific legislation that was passed with bipartisan support. But let me ask a fundamental question that is, how do you negotiate with a partner that's doing this?

It seems impossible. It's a head scratcher for them to think that they can talk with a boss and these leaders who have for so long had so much opportunity presented for their people, but they got too good a deal. Jay, in the end, they're stealing money, they're enriching themselves, they are kleptocrats of the highest order, and why on earth would they enter into negotiations to make lives for their own people better? I can't for the life of me understand why this administration, when the Palestinian Authority refuses to behave in a way that we ask them to do, both as a moral matter and as a legal matter, why you'd begin to have a conversation with them.

It seems implausible to me. You know, another issue that we have been talking about again, it brings back because John Kerry is back, is John Kerry sitting down with China on a climate change. Now this is in the midst of, you know, we saw China just telling off the US publicly at the UN, at the meeting with the current Secretary of State of Alaska, and now we're supposed to be sitting down with, you know, we are sitting down as the country and talking about climate change not only with one of the world's worst polluters, but a country that has no interest at all in following any rules whatsoever. One of my greatest concerns about this administration is they have put climate change ahead of America first, and that they are prepared to sacrifice on the altar of climate change American security. That certainly applies to the situation with China. Why you would have a climate change discussion with a country that has said that America is fundamentally evil, fundamentally immoral, and in decline escapes me.

They seem to have taken climate change to a place that it's never been in American foreign policy before, and I'm truly concerned that they will trade away deep American security interests, these the Chinese Communist Party, these other countries, when those countries have no intention of actually reducing anything related to carbon emissions, pollution, anywhere inside of the country. I want to go back to the situation with the Palestinian Authority, because this is something I've been involved in and Andy Akana was on our radio set with me right now. Andy, we've been involved in this for a long time in these negotiations. When you're doing these, in the case that we had, it was trilateral negotiations involved, an appointment of a religious leader and you had to get the Jordanians and the Palestinian Authority and the Israelis to agree.

It was extremely complicated. You've dealt with them directly as well. Now my question is this, with the success of the Abraham Accords, I would think that this current administration would try to build on that, and the way to not build on that is to go back to the failed model, which is this negotiation with the Palestinian Authority, which leadership will never come into an agreement for peace.

Mike? Dear, remember this, you have not only the Palestinians in West Bank, but you've got the Gaza Strip and Hamas terrorists as well. They are tied there, and there are issues that will have to be confronted near simultaneously. These folks have missed the central understanding from the Trump administration, which is that you can increase peace and stability without the precondition that the Palestinians come back to the table. They still have this 1970s vision of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It doesn't exist anymore.

It's not real. The Abraham Accords prove that, and that change in the relationship between those countries and Israel and between each of those countries, Israel and Iran, isn't going to change. For this administration to try and go back to the same old, broken, failed, tired model of, can't we just sit and do shuttle diplomacy between the Palestinians and the Israelis, is not going to work, and is a fruitless, dangerous proposition. To switch topics a little bit, but it's what I wanted to get your thoughts on as a four member of Congress, or as the CIA and Secretary of State, is this immediate push after this horrendous event in Colorado. There's still a lot coming out about who this person was, but the immediate politicizing this, we need to get rid of the filibuster, we have to get rid of assault weapons, and trying to seize these moments as political moments to take away American Second Amendment rights, and just to let you address that. The tragedies in Atlanta and the tragedy in Boulder are real. A lot of good people whose lives were lost, but the Democrats have taken every opportunity to try and use these moments to create power, power for their leftist agenda.

I think that's what you see here. This is just another excuse for them to try and create power by destroying the filibuster, or to take away our fundamental Second Amendment rights. We should use reason, not emotion, and reason would be following our Constitution and ensuring that the Second Amendment is duly followed, and doing everything we can to make sure we support law enforcement so they have the resources and capacity to prevent events from this happening as often as they can. We appreciate your comments as always. Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State, former CIA Director, and currently a Senior Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice on Global Affairs. Mike, thanks as always for being with us, and thanks for your insight. Great piece up on ACLJ.org as well by Secretary Pompeo.

You want to check that out. Thanks for being with us, Mike. We appreciate it.

All right, folks. We are going to take your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. I want to get into this pay to slay thing, and I want to get into the Taylor Force Act because I think I'm going to get everybody's comments on this. I want to especially get some of the fans' comments on this in Washington because this is specific legislation that was designed to prevent pay to slay, but this administration apparently is ready to go right back into it.

Failed policy. That's why we fight back, folks, and that's why we need your support at the ACLJ in our matching challenge. We're in the last week of the month of March, April, our two big matching challenge months. We really could use your support.

Yep. Support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. Be part of the matching challenge. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive, and that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support, and the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support. Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Sec Hill.

We are taking your phone calls 1-800-684-3110. Getting back into the issue we talked about first with Secretary Pompeo, which is this issue, and it's risen back because of the numbers are starting to come out more clearly from the State Department back to 2019 when we know the Palestinian Authority was spending $151 million a year on terrorists who were not killed during their terror attacks. That's part of the Pay to Slay program. There's a separate program, $191 million a year, for terrorists who were killed during their attacks, and 500 people working inside the Palestinian Authority, inside their bureaucracy, just handling this program. So it's known to the world.

It's not secret. It's in their law, established by their law. And finally the U.S. in 2019 said, no more. Passed a law by Congress, bipartisan, Taylor Force Act. Palestinian Authority, so long as you're doing this, no direct funding at all.

There may be some aid going to other groups but not going to you as an entity. And they've been blocked. And now the Biden team— That was not a Freudian slip.

That was probably an accurate assessment. The Biden team is looking at how they can get around this law. Yeah.

So I want to go to Than. I mean, the law was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. It was an American that was killed by Palestinian terrorists, a student from Vanderbilt actually. And it was a horrific scene.

Unfortunately, it happens regularly, not as regularly as it used to, but it does happen and it's a problem. But explain, I think it's important for people to understand exactly. So we got a call in or a question from Carrie on YouTube saying, can you please explain Pay to Slay and the law to combat it, which of course is the Taylor Force Act. Than?

Yeah, sure. So Jordan explained Pay to Slay very well. It's basically the Palestinian Authority paying terrorists for killing enemies in terrorist acts.

But here's the bottom line, Jay. The short answer to the question of how the Biden State Department would get around this is they can't do it legally. And that's because of the Taylor Force Act, which started through the legislative process in 2017.

It finished up in 2018, was signed into law by President Trump. And that statute specifically says that the State Department may not disperse these funds, Jay, unless and here's here's why Secretary Pompeo's comments were so prescient on this, unless the secretary of state is able to certify that those payments have stopped. So in order to comply with this law, if they want to again release these payments, Jay, Secretary Blinken would actually have to certify that the payments have stopped. But the numbers that Jordan just read, Jay, those were from 2019 after this law was put into effect. So clearly they are not complying.

Clearly the Biden State Department cannot release these payments. I suspect they're going to try to do it in contravention of the law, Jay. And this goes back to the bipartisan support that the Taylor Force Act has. When that happens, here's what's going to need to happen in Washington, D.C. Democrats who supported this law, Jay, they're going to have to rise up and tell the President he's got to get back in line. Supposedly the policy, what they're going to try to do is rebrand and call it a welfare program. It's just funnel it back into a general welfare program.

So people deceased, the earners. But that's again, that doesn't stop the program and it doesn't stop the issue. We shouldn't be fooled by that. We already know that's the idea. We know that's what the Biden administration is going to try to sell Congress on.

They've stopped it, but we know that how they're going to keep their program to the people is through calling it welfare. But we saw it on the streets of Jerusalem. Andy and I experienced it firsthand.

Andy set the stage for that. Folks, share this with your friends right now if you're on Facebook or on any of our social media platforms, because we're going to give you an experience that is the real thing. We were there in Jerusalem and heard things and we said, this doesn't sound good coming from little kids. We were walking in the old city of Jerusalem and there was a little group of five year old, six year old children, about 15 or 16 of them. And they were walking with their teacher in a line through the old city and they were singing something in Arabic or chanting something in Arabic. And I asked our guide, what are these children being taught to sing? What kind of chant is this?

What kind of repartee is this that they're engaging in? And he says, they're saying the following, with spirit and with blood, we will take Palestine back. This is the indoctrination of a five and six year old child. How is a child like that going to change their attitude toward Israel, toward Jewish people, toward people who are not Palestinian Arabs when you're indoctrinating them from that age with that kind of mentality? It's in the textbooks in the Palestinian schools.

It is a serious problem. And when you indoctrinate five and six year olds, when they grow up, unless they have a reality check and unless you stop paying them, there's a chance that you're going to have a percentage, Wes, that engage in murder. And the Taylor Force Act was designed specifically with, as Dan said, wide bipartisan support to not allow that to happen. Yet we know from the certifications that have come forward, 191 million dollars was spent on deceased Palestinians referred to as martyrs.

A martyr is someone who died for their faith, taking down usually Israelis and usually by the way, civilians as Taylor Force was. When this law was passed, the Palestinians, they didn't equivocate. They were very, very clear that they were not going to stop this program. They didn't hedge about it.

They were very upfront about it. And this pay to slay program, Jay, is that if you are a terrorist and you kill or injure someone and you end up in prison, they give you a stipend the entire time you're in prison. If you die, then your family gets what amounts to a pension because you gave your life in this cause. This is this is recruiting for violence is promoting violence. And as Mike Pompeo sort of referred to it, even if you get put the Taylor Force Act aside, put the law aside, why would you want to reward this kind of policy and program from a strictly an ethical and moral point of view? Why would the Biden administration want to engage with people who refuse to quit killing innocents?

Well, the answer is you you wouldn't do that. I mean, the idea with the law, which was signed by President Trump, was passed with bipartisan support, was to prevent the Palestinians from doing exactly what Jordan just said. They are going to do this as a shell game. They are not the money's fungible and they're just going to move it around. The actions will not stop.

What they call it may right. They're not going to they're not putting on the table to the Biden administration that we'll stop doing this. They're saying we'll rename it so that make it easier for you to get around existing law that restricts you and administration from sending money to us directly. You know, if you actually cared about the people there, there are ways you can get money to to those people.

You don't have to go through a corrupt as we talk about Mike Pompeo. So these guys have are all billionaires that lead the Palestinian authority. How do you think they took? Do you think they earned that money? No, they're taking that. They're siphoning it off from all this foreign support that they receive. Finally, the U.S. said, if you want our support, you have to do this. They weren't willing to do it. They weren't willing to change the law because you realize this is still only 6 percent of their budget. They're taking in so much foreign aid, unreal, that they don't even need the U.S. money. Right. But the U.S. is going to say and I'm saying the Biden administration, this is the only way to get them to the table is by buying them. You don't buy them at the table right now. The Abrahams are working. They're ineffective. Half their territory is already been taken away from. Yeah.

I mean, these are people you don't need to deal with. I have an idea for a new case on this. And and so again, we are, we're getting to the bottom of all these issues. We're gonna take your calls at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. We've got our FOIA in and it looks like that's heading towards a lawsuit. We filed April 5th or right around then against the State Department because it looks like they are already saying, you know, that I can't comply in time with, you know, the law that's put in force so that Americans can get information and the Freedom of Information Act request on their shadow diplomacy, which is violates U.S. law.

And they try to go after Mike Flynn that way with Iran of all countries, you know, one that violates a lot of sanctions, too. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Live from Washington, D.C., Jay Sekulow Live.

Welcome back to Sekulow. We're taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. So we have a blog up on this. You can see it at ACLJ.org as well. And it looks like this is going to be headed to federal court. We filed a FOIA request regarding the government officials, John Kerry, Robert Malley, the former secretary of energy, who are all meeting with the Iranian foreign minister in the years 2017, 2018, 2019, when he was in the U.S. for the U.N. until he was barred from traveling to the U.S. by the Trump administration. So at least for three years they were having ongoing conversations with a foreign government's representative when they were outside of the government. And the report is that they were doing this to undermine any efforts the Trump administration may make or may try to make towards Iran. So basically the idea, as Secretary Pompeo was talking about, is just ignore the Trump administration, ignore the sanctions. Yes, we know it's tough, but we'll get the money flowing again. We'll get back to that JCPOA again.

Just give us time. But don't work with these guys. I think some of the don't work with these guys was what happened to the Abraham Accords, which shot people like John Kerry that blow their mind. And they don't want to acknowledge it. They don't want to think that way. So the Trump administration getting into a negotiation with Iran, who knows where that could go to undermine their entire idea of how the world should operate.

I thought about the exact same thing. But the duplicity of this, Wes, is what so the irony of this is that they went after the Trump administration, yet they were actively engaged in conversations with the Iranians after we pulled out of the JCPOA. The hypocrisy is shocking. It's like Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana said, with these people the only standard is a double standard. Because Mike Flynn, who was an incoming national security adviser, who had every reason to reach out to our foreign counterparts, his foreign counterparts, you know, Vice President Biden and others threatened to bring charges against him.

Of course, eventually he was entrapped and was brought up on charges. And yet John Kerry during this same period. That's the irony.

The irony is still doing this. I think that there's other laws to dealing with Iran. This is not like calling up Russia.

This is not like calling up. There's a lot of laws in place that get you in trouble if you start trying to make deals with the Iranian government. As a private American, I can't make a deal with the Iranian government. I think you'd be violating a lot of different laws on the books, sanctions laws that are in place. If you were telling Zarif as a private U.S. citizen what you could do for his government, which is sanctioned, you probably are not just violating the Logan Act laws, which may not hold up in court, but actual sanctions Treasury Department rules that you could get brought up in court for. Well, John Kerry has no respect for the rule of law.

And that's pretty obvious. I mean, you know, he was he was secretary of state and he thought he continued to be secretary of state in spite of the fact that he was no longer in office and he was going to do this no matter what. And he did it with the knowledge of his cohorts who are in power again in the Biden administration. Of course, they knew he was talking to Zarif and to these other people.

They were they were complicit in this and they knew this and they just ignored the Trump administration. They said, we don't care about Trump. We don't care what he says. We don't care what he does. We're just going to negotiate and work these things out because 2020 is going to be a victory for us.

And 2021 will be around and we'll be back in power again. So who cares? Or that's exactly what they did, Jay. Or was John Kerry and I don't know this and this was our producers thought. Will Haines said or was John Kerry saying don't worry, the FBI has an insurance policy on Trump and there'll be a new regime.

Oh, yeah, I think they were. I think they were saying that this will not Secretary Pompeo said 2021. You didn't say 2024. No, he said this idea that all this stuff swirling around Trump, let that all just handle out that we'll be back in place and it'll be the old guys back again and literally and and the same bad deals. And we're looking at administration and Iran now is playing a hardball with them saying, no, no, you got to pay us all the back of money that you sanctioned from.

And so they're in the same situation on a larger scale like the Palestinian Authority saying, no, we're not going to come back to the table unless you give us just like that they did last time to start, you know, sending the regime billions of dollars. Again, folks, we'll just talk about these issues. We're working on these issues.

Yeah, people like Mike Pompeo on our team. And we need your support now we have a matching challenge month. This entire month of March is March comes to a close. You can still donate today at ACLJ.org and double the impact of your donation. That's ACLJ.org.

Be right back. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad, whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support. For that we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ is matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched a $10 gift becomes $20 a $50 gift becomes 100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ the work we do simply would not occur without your generous support. Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected.

Is there any hope for that culture to survive? And that's exactly what you were saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn. It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support and the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v Wade 40 years later, play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. Welcome back to Secula. We are taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. I was thinking as we've been discussing it on this broadcast of a preemptive measure we could take. We say this often. It's true. We don't just talk about the issue.

We do something about it. So I was going to run this to Thanh and our team up in Washington because it seems to me that if these reports are accurate, Thanh, that there's this attempt to restart, kind of reset, shuffle around this relationship with the Palestinian authority even though the Taylor Force Act is in effect. So if we were to start a FOIA process on the State Department now, kind of preemptively, in other words, what's going on right now in the State Department because it's getting out there that they want this reset? What does a reset mean?

What does a reset look like? What does it mean for our ally Israel? What does it mean for U.S. tax dollars? Remember this, folks. We're paying for it. So Thanh, one of the things I thought about was a bit of a kind of a preemptive FOIA and that is get a request for information in. They're going to deny all these, by the way. We're already in court on one. We're going to be in court on this other one in probably two weeks. And I'm sure this one if we do it would be in court too, but that's fine. But a way to get ahead of this rather than just being reactive.

Thanh? Well, yeah, and a FOIA request now on that, even reaching back, Jay, would be to see what conversations have been going on about this. And honestly, if we decide to proceed on this, I think the area that you would focus on is was there any conversation on this rebranding that Jordan was talking about, rebranding the payments as welfare programs? Because look, Jay, that is not what U.S. law requires. U.S. law does not say, well, as long as they spend the money on something that they call welfare or even that we define as humanitarian, it's OK. No, that's not what the law says. The law says as passed by a bipartisan majority and signed into law by President Trump, it says that the secretary of state in this case, Anthony Blinken, must certify that the payments to terrorists have stopped. So even if they're using the money that we give them for another purpose, Jay, if they're using other portions of their budget for payments to terrorists, that still triggers this law. So if we want to see what conversations are happening, I think that's one of the questions we would ask.

Who there is talking about this and have there been discussions about does a rebranding circumvent U.S. law? And, Jay, just one other point. If those conversations have been happening inside the State Department talking about how to circumvent U.S. law, that in and of itself is a big problem.

Yeah. Well, that's why I think, Andy, that we need to find out. Yeah, we do need to find out, because if what they're trying to do is to reset or restart negotiations and relations with the Palestinians by circumventing the Taylor Force Act and giving aid. And, you know, this fact that Will mentioned our producer yesterday, Samantha Power, you know, is going to be head of USAID. And I know what she's going to do when she's confirmed. She's going to figure out ways to circumvent American law and to get aid to the Palestinians in contravention of American law. That's inevitably going to happen.

She's a master at that because all these Obama players that have now come back into what they are now insisting on calling, by the way, the Biden-Harris administration, there's a directive that leaked out about that, that is pushing Harris ahead so that she, you know, is for the future. But this is exactly what they're trying to do, is to circumvent the law. And we need to find out about it. And I agree with you, that would be a way to do it. FOIA's looked back. I mean, generally, it's what FOIA does, look back on previous statements that were made. But when you do that, we know there's some discussion going on now.

So get in it now. And that's putting them on notice that we're aware of what's going on here. And Taylor Force was a student at Vanderbilt, Wes. And a West Point grad. And a West Point grad.

Army officer. Yeah. Yeah. A real, real tragedy. And it was one of those tragedies that in DC brought people from both parties together to take a stand on this. I was telling Andy during the break, we have had more progress with Arab-Israeli peace in the last two or three years than we've had in my entire lifetime. And they are about to throw the whole thing in the trash, because the Palestinians have made it very clear. Decades of corruption, decades of support for terrorism, decades of ignoring the plight of the poor Palestinian people. And finally, we started taking concrete action that not only made sense for America, for our national security and for Israel, but even the Arab nations and the Gulf states realized two very important things.

Iran is their biggest threat, not Israel. And secondly, the Arab nations were tired of the intransigence of the Palestinian authority and decided they'd also had enough. And so all of these policies came together and worked in brand new ways. And it appears that the Biden administration is getting ready to reverse all of that.

So I mean, the irony of this is that, as you said, Wes, that the progress that's been made in the last couple of years, within the last couple of years of the Trump administration, which they worked on for four years, was unbelievable. That was with the Golan Heights recognizes Israel's legitimate terror movement. That's with the move of the recognition of Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish state of Israel.

All that takes place and you have the Abraham Accords on top of that. Now Jordan and I have been to the Palestinian authorities area in depth. And by the way, we're talking about the Palestinian authority. We're not talking about the Palestinian people. This is their government, if you want to call it that.

Because we went through the refugee camps, which are now 40, 50, and 60 years old. Yeah, and just crumbling infrastructure. And you realize they receive so much money for so few people.

It'd be very easy to make it look like anywhere else that you see in the Middle East, which is booming. They don't have to even do anything. They don't have to do any business or do it. That's how much foreign aid comes in. But we know the corruption at foreign aid is always a problem, is a significant problem when you're dealing with terrorists who are leading governments. And they build bureaucracies, but they siphon it off for themselves. They're all super rich, super wealthy.

And so they have an interest. And they said, okay, we can lose the funding from the U.S. They were like begging at the U.S. at the table saying, oh my, we're going to fall apart.

We're going to lose everything. Because it was coming in from everywhere else in the world. It still is. So the U.S. was trying to take a stand through our laws, which are still on the books. But I do want to take a phone because I think Julie's got an interesting call too about Iran as well. And I think it ties it together. Julie, welcome to Secular Year on the Air. Hi, Jordan. Hi, Jay.

Yeah, hearing you talk about Palestine, it definitely ties in with my question about Iran. But before I get to the question, because it is matching challenge month, I got my $1,400 stimulus and I'm going to give 10% of that to ACLJ. We really appreciate that.

Thank you very much. And that ends up becoming twice that for us. So that's great. We appreciate that. Yes.

Okay. So with John Kerry and the administration right now that's doing these things for Palestine, what do they think they're going to get out of this for America? Do they seriously think Iran is not going to develop nuclear weapons or attack America? What's their goal in helping Arab nations against Israel and against the United States? Well, I think on Iran specifically, so take go out of the Arab world and back to Iran specifically, which is Persian, and very much isolated from those countries now that they used to do business with even though they didn't like each other. But now because the Abraham Accords and other ideas, it's made it more difficult for Iran, which is good for our allies, not just Israel, but other allies in the Middle East.

I think it's about saving a legacy too. This goes back to the Obama legacy. It was the only thing he really did with foreign policy was this nuclear deal, which the Senate, I mean, we can kind of explain them at the way they back handedly said this wasn't a treaty, even though a real, this is the problem is if you don't do real treaties, it's very easy just to leave.

And it was easy for the Trump administration to do it immediately. But it was a backhanded play by the Senate where it's this bizarre, you know, but they want to get back into it. They want to go right back to that, that idea where they had to, what was it like a third of the Senate had to support it? Yeah, I mean, if this would have been a traditional treaty submitted to the Senate, they would have needed a super majority, never would have gotten it there in Jordan.

We, we told a pretty hard truth at that time when they brought up a piece of legislation that was called the Iranian nuclear review act. And that was that there were a good number of Republicans that joined with Democrats to preemptively pass a law that says, if you submit this plan to us, uh, it will automatically be approved unless we reject it. So it turned that super majority on its head. Jordan, it would have taken a super majority to actually reject the deal. That's not the way the constitution set it up. That's not the way a treaty is supposed to be reviewed.

Uh, but you're right. The Senate engaged with the Obama administration to sort of pack backdoor, uh, facilitated. And as far as the caller goes, asking about the motive, I a hundred percent agree with this. It's, it's about preserving a legacy and Jordan, it's about taking the United States of America down a notch around the world because that's what they think cooperation with the world is. You know, we've been going back to the Palestinian matter to realize how significant this is and why we've got to get on top of this. Listen to state department spokesman, uh, Ned Price.

This was just a couple of weeks back. As part of that, um, we are reviewing, uh, the diplomatic presence that you alluded to. Um, we are ensuring that it will enable us to fully conduct, uh, our complete range of activities, uh, including, uh, engagement, um, with Palestinian people, with the Palestinian, uh, authorities, um, public diplomacy assistance, uh, diplomatic, uh, reporting. Uh, we've talked about, uh, our commitment, uh, uh, to, for, uh, funding, um, for Palestinians, including Palestinian, uh, refugees. Um, we are committed, uh, to all of that. I think you will see concrete manifestations of that going forward.

Including violations of the Taylor force act to do it. Yeah, I think they understand that's what he's saying because that's what he's really saying. Yeah, it's, we'll do everything.

And this is a, this is a play. This wasn't really speaking to Americans. This was trying to talk to the Palestinians, you know, come back to the table first, but they're all going to play like they did with the Obama administration. It's the same people.

You're all the same people. They're all going to say, you have to pay us this much to even talk to us. We're paying that you pay us to talk and then maybe we'll come up with some deal that doesn't matter. All right, coming back from the break, we'll take your calls at 800-684-3110. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected.

Is there any hope for that culture to survive? And that's exactly what you were saying when you stand with the American center for law and justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called mission life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, Planned Parenthood's role in the abortion industry and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of mission life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. At the American center for law and justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

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A $50 gift becomes 100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support. Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. So on ACLJ.org, right on the home page, we're going to get into it more on the tomorrow's broadcast again, is the border crisis continues, what you must know.

That's by Wes Smith. So it's up there. And Wes, what will people, if they check that out today, I know we're going to get into it more on the broadcast, but people check that out today, what are they going to learn? They're going to learn that the crisis on the border is actually getting much, much worse and that problems that existed there before, and we had some, that President Biden's policies have exacerbated those, made them worse. And at the same time, they've also created brand new problems on the border with this crisis.

So I mean, I think this, I'm going to say something. You have Islamic shooters again in America. You have a border crisis again. We're going back to Iran. We're going back to the Palestinians.

Here we go. It is, it is, it causes, it's the, it's the war model. You know, it starts wars, it starts violence.

People die, people get killed. And it's this, it's this because you don't have a steady leader. You have someone who is not doing their first press coverage until Thursday. Can't take questions from a media, which is in love with them because they can't answer. And so we don't really know who's running, but we do know who's running things generally.

They are old. They are like John Kerry, but they're not giving up on their legacies. And so they're going back to what they, what was undone by the Trump administration to try to redo it. So it's still, I guess, written in the history books that they had accomplished anything worthwhile.

That was, that was whether you liked it or not. And that's what the Iran deal is to them. And we're going to take calls at 800-684-3110. But then before we do that, the, the tenor of, of kind of the moment in Washington right now, what, what are you seeing? Well, a lot of it centers on what Jordan just talked about, the, the same cast of characters coming back into power.

And, you know, I know this was mentioned earlier, Jay, but I think it's, I think it's worth reminding our listeners of two of the nominees that are still coming. One is Wendy Sherman, who's been nominated as deputy secretary of state. She was the lead negotiator in the JCPOA, Jay. So another main character on that negotiation coming back into power. And the other is Samantha Power. Wes mentioned this, or maybe it was Andy, but if she is going to be the next administrator of the USAID, Jay, that position has control of the purse strings of, of a ton of USAID, hundreds of millions of dollars. So, you know, the chief unmasker, we're talking about John Kerry, the chief unmasker is now going to be in the position to dole out hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid. The problem's going to get worse, Jay, if she's confirmed.

And no doubt about it. Let's take the callers coming in. 1-800-684-3110. Kathy's calling from Montana online too. Hey, Kathy, welcome to Secular. You're on the air.

Thank you for taking my call. I only have a comment that until these people are held accountable and there's some kind of laws that they can actually, the American people can see them being held accountable for the laws they're breaking, nothing's going to change. Well, and then the problem is the one law that's on the book. Now, Jordan raised the point that with the Iranian situation, there's a lot of sanctions in place, Andy. There's a lot of treasury bills in place, not just the Logan Act. The Logan Act, I think is unconstitutional, but the treasury regulations may well not be, but it's, we've got to, we can't work on, let me tell you something, let's play reality.

The Biden administration's just department is not going to bring criminal charges against these actors that are being confirmed to these appointments. So what do we have to do? We have to get ahead of it, follow up what's going on, litigate when necessary, which will be often. I mean, we've already got one.

We're going to have a second one and we're going to have a third one and it's not even the end of March yet. No, that's absolutely right. If you think that the Biden Justice Department under Merrick Garland is going to do anything to prosecute these people for violations of any laws, whether the Logan Act is constitutional or not, any laws that prohibit trying to negotiate when you're out of office in contravention of the law or violate the Taylor Force Act or do anything that is a prosecution with respect to these people, it's not going to happen. Stop thinking that it is, it is not going to occur. So that should not be the plan of attack that we engage in here. What we have to do is when we see a policy that's dangerous, what's happening with the Pay to Slay, the Palestinian re-engagement reset, retool, very dangerous for our country. And it's our taxpayer dollars. So let's get ahead of it.

Let's find out exactly what they're saying. How do you do that? You go to, you send them a letter, a demand letter saying, we want this information. They don't give it to you, which they won't. You go right to federal court.

We've got one filed, another one coming up, and then a third one that we're going to be working on starting today. That's how you're going to have to handle this going forward, folks. There is not going to be, and I'm with Andy on this. I understand the frustration, but there's no special counsel coming in that's going to look at what was John Kerry doing. Not going to happen.

No, I think what you have to do is make it hard for them to do it. It is difficult because there's laws they've got to try to figure out how to get around and what the Palestinians are going to do. And on the Iran deal, you can't, you know, it was much easier to leave than it is to get back into the deal. So, and to go through that with a different kind of Congress, a different makeup, but most of those Republicans who were there are no longer there.

Some of them are no longer there. And it's a different, it's a different Congress entirely. And now I think the same thing you have to look at with the filibuster is trying to use one issue, the gun issue, which is, you know, divide the filibuster, break the filibuster, which is every issue then is that going to, is there a possibility that, I mean, they're going to try it. That's where they're going to try to do away with it, correct?

Yeah, they're going to try, Jay. I mean, that's on the table right now. There are negotiations happening. Uh, right now the main hurdle to it has been Senator Joe Manchin, uh, from West Virginia. Uh, Kyrsten Sinema also says she has concerns, some concerns about it. But basically, uh, Jay Senator Manchin has since said, well, I might be open to some reforms where, you know, convert it to the talking filibuster, where you have to come down to the floor and able to stop things from proceeding.

Basically, Jay, that's a crack in the dam. I mean, that is Joe Manchin saying, I'm open to this negotiation. So look, it's going down the pike. This is going to be one of the big fights. Listen, I think, uh, I think we better prepare for this one. I mean, Julian Castro has talked about it and let's listen to what he said. The question is, uh, can Washington actually work or do we need to get rid of that filibuster? I actually think this is going to be another indictment of the filibuster.

Uh, how do you not call something strongly bipartisan in this country when almost 90% of Americans support it and yet mainly one political party stands completely against it? Uh, it doesn't make any sense. If it's true. Now you could pull anything. Should people have access to a machine gun?

The way that they, they describe these weapons is always like a machine gun. It's not, you can't buy those. Uh, that's, that's not the law. But the truth is that the American people have to keep electing half the country at least keeps electing the party that he says it believes this, but the people don't. I mean, these would be an issue that people actually do care deeply about. And if this is a smokescreen, unfortunately using a terrible event to just do away with the filibuster, but they always have, there are short term thinkers on the Democrats. I will tell you this, they, they short term and they did this with the judicial nominees.

And they, President Trump made three Supreme Court nominations, no filibuster. Uh, they got ripped because they had already done away with it for every other cabinet level position. They're going to try to do away with it.

Yes. This, well, this is their move. And Joe Manchin probably not running again. Uh, he's very much bought off by interest. So it's wherever interest groups right now are, are, are moving left. That's where corporate America is right now.

It doesn't seem, it seems counter-intuitive, but they support all these liberal ideas to try and keep their companies afloat so that they don't have their me too moments. And he's, he, he's in the back pocket of those as a guy about to leave the Senate, he's about to cash in. I mean, if you lose Joe Manchin in this thing, I was thinking about that. You never really almost always lose Joe Manchin though. Yeah, you do. He barely ever stands up for the right thing.

He has a weak read to lean on. Yeah. Yeah. And there's an arrogance in all of this that is shocking. Yeah.

Arrogance. It is. All right. But folks, we're going to take action. And that means another case, another, another situation. We're on top of it at the ACLJ. Your support for the American center for law and justice allows us to do all of this. Add people like Mike Pompeo and Rick Grinnell to our legal teams and our policy teams.

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