BREAKING: Supreme Court Seeks Phone Records in Leak Probe

Breaking news today on Sekulow is the Supreme Court seeks phone records in the leak probe. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow.

We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Hey, welcome to Sekulow. We are taking your phone call today too, folks, as we're back from the Memorial Day holiday. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. I hope you enjoyed the holiday if you did not have to work, but also remembered why we have that holiday for the brave men and women who have given their life to protect our freedoms as they served our country, home and abroad. So again, folks, important day, but we are back. There's a lot of news to get to because, again, the holiday weekend, a lot piles up. So what we have learned is there's been a real increase because people have wondered, you know, why haven't we figured out who the leaker was, which was so unprecedented to see a leaked draft, but in an almost final form draft Supreme Court opinion on one of the biggest cases of the Supreme Court in decades, at least socially. Of course, this is the draft leak opinion in the Dobbs case that would overturn Roe vs. Wade. I mean, that's what the opinion by Justice Alito expressly does overturn Roe vs. Wade.

It returns the issue of abortion to the state. So people have wondered, okay, there was a leak. The FBI did not get involved. The U.S. Supreme Court has tried to keep this involved, keep it within their own legal and their own law enforcement, which does not have the same kind of power as the FBI or the DOJ.

They don't have subpoena power, but there are ways for them to get information. So let's talk about what's happened. This was the draft opinion of Justice Alito that did explicitly, in the draft at least, overturn the Supreme Court's decision in Roe vs. Wade and Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. It's unprecedented. This has never happened in Supreme Court history. What I think is really the most telling or most fascinating aspect of this is John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the United States, decided not to have the FBI do the investigation. And that's in part because of separation of powers.

In other words, the judicial branch is separate from the executive branch, separate from the legislative branch. There is a martial service that exists within the Supreme Court. They normally don't do investigations, but they're capable of doing it. Former law enforcement. As you know, Jordan, our office is right across the street. There's a full police department.

And of course, so that aspect is not shocking that he would have the martial service. We do have some breaking news. Yeah, there's breaking news.

The kind of news we expected. I know we didn't get into a lot of predicting juries, but this was news out of the Durham trial, which again, I think sheds light on where Durham, where their mindset is. They did not have a good jury pool. They had issues with the judge, had connections to the FBI. And Sussman has been found not guilty, the Clinton Attorney.

I'm not surprised at all. It does not mean he didn't do what he did. Well, they couldn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. But they couldn't prove that it was criminal in nature. And what that means is that when they look at criminal nature, was it substantial?

Did that change? Knowing intent. It's called the mens rea, the specific intent to commit the crime. The crime here also was a process crime. Let's be clear. It was false statements to the FBI. And frankly, those cases are weak to begin with. I'm not shocked at this at all.

But you know, you got to ask yourself this question. Two and a half years almost, there's, I think, I think Durham is now operating longer. If I'm not mistaken, the Durham probe, we could check this out, Will, has been operating longer than the Mueller investigation. So the investigation of the investigators has lasted longer than the investigation. Do you think this is it? And they ended up with nothing. I don't know if it may be it.

That could be it. I mean, this has been a long time coming for their first, this is their first trial because the other person pled out. That was the person who changed the email.

Remember? So again, what we get at this, we come back, this is breaking now. But again, a DC jury that was, you know, a lot of Hillary Clinton donors, I mean, they did the analysis of it. You had a judge who had direct contacts with the FBI. I mean, so again, it's not, none of us are surprised. Let's put it that way.

None of us are surprised. There's a very high bar for criminal. You know, it's not a civil case, it's a criminal case. It doesn't really change the facts. It doesn't dispute that the facts, that they didn't happen. It's that that jury decided they don't believe that it rose to the level of a criminal conduct.

And as we point out, it was a very process-oriented. Did you do it intentionally to mislead the FBI? We'll have more on this anti-economical coming up. So tune in, Sharon. So there's breaking news right now.

We just got to in the last, if you're just joining us, though, this is breaking news. Out of the trial of the Clinton campaign attorney Sussman, he's been found not guilty by a jury in Washington, D.C. And federal court is really not that surprising. It's not something we were, you try to pick and choose juries, but we did say the very difficult juries in D.C. There were a lot of Clinton supporters on that jury. There were some issues even with the judge and some connection to the FBI.

I think it was his wife working at the FBI. And so with all that said that they didn't allow some of the evidence in on Fusion GPS. It was a process crime. Did you intentionally lie to the FBI?

And that was the key part. Did you go in there intentionally and people have to look at it and say, did this rise to the level of this person being charged and convicted of a crime? Not a civil matter. Not even did they just lie, but did they lie with the intent to do something specific?

Was it specifically to shield the campaign? And the jury did not believe that was done intentionally. At least it did not rise to the level of criminal conduct.

So I called this last week. I said that I thought that he would be found not guilty because I didn't think that the government was able to establish beyond reasonable doubt the mens rea, the specific intent for this process crime. And all this was is a process crime. And the problem is two and a half years of litigation or two and a half years, almost three years of investigation, the investigation of the investigators has lasted longer than the Mueller probe. And so far, all we got to show for it is one guilty plea by the lawyer that changed the email that went to the FISA court.

Not insignificant, but what? And then Andy, now I'm not guilty. I've tried prosecuted a thousand and one cases by that. I mean, Title 18 USC Section 1001 cases, false statements to the government, to FBI agents and to U.S. postal inspectors. And they're very hard cases to prosecute. You have to show knowing and willful intent.

You've got to show materiality. In other words, that what was not said was important or significant to the investigation. And particularly as Jordan alluded to, you're in the District of Columbia and you've got a very tough jury.

They're very slanted. The judge had made some rulings that were not favorable to the government. And it was a difficult case. I you know, you as a prosecutor, you think, oh, yes, we've got it. He made a false statement.

It's clear he came in and said he didn't have another client. Well, you know, there's two sides to every story. And obviously the government was not able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the culpability.

They just took too long. I think you get this too far away from a very so much info. You got the Russian bank allegations. You have the dossier. You've got and this all happening, remember, back in 2016, 26 lead up to 2015.

And and so when you put that before, you had to put all these facts together. I mean, every time we go back through it, I mean, it's pages to just get to today. Back to today. Remember, you still have Robbie Mook testifying. Hillary Clinton greenlighted sharing this with the press. So here under oath, it's no there's no debate about that.

So I want to make it clear about that. It's kind of like how much how how dirty can your politics, the political campaign be? How much dirty tricks do we allow across the line of criminality? And I'll tell you, in America, we allow pretty nasty stuff to be said. But, you know, you could basically say whatever you want about your political opponent. Defamation is hard. Defamation cases are hard. There's another high profile.

One of those Johnny Depp and Amber. I mean, people are tuned into that. Those defamation side. That's civil.

That's an easier bar. Yeah. But in this manner, when you got the criminal and it's again, I think that what you saw here was the frustration we all had, which was Durham took way too long. And maybe he'll come out one day and say the reason why it took so long is because he got no cooperation from the FBI and DOJ. We don't know. That would just be speculation, though. I wouldn't imagine that the Biden DOJ loves handing over these documents to him.

But but he's had significant amount of time. And what you have to now, I think, prepare for is possibly this coming to a close. I think that's maybe we don't.

Who knows? But I mean, it's it's getting old. All right, let's go. I want to go back to this situation, the Supreme Court, because the leak of the opinion in Dobbs, C.C.

Hiles joining us. You know, we've got to put back in context, C.C., that what what was leaked here was not just any opinion. It was I will call it the opinion of the decade, at least. I mean, it's the opinion of 40 years.

Right. And if the if the draft opinion holds, you know, they say we therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives. So if this is the draft opinion and it holds over this time, you know, Roe is overruled. And that's that's a big deal. It returns to the states.

The issue of abortion returns to the states. But what's so fascinating here is this leak. Now, the opinion should be out by the end of June. So we're probably a month away. It could have come out earlier.

Yes. But, you know, there's dissents being written. And who knows if that opinion held?

Hopefully it did. But the point is, there is now a criminal well, a marshal's investigation. I should be clear. The marshal is investigating whether, in fact, what happened here. And now, Andy, it's been escalated that Chief Justice Roberts ordered the investigation on May 3rd. And now the marshal, Marshall Curley, a lawyer, former armored colonel who oversees the police officers at the building. We know about the patrol, the area behind our offices as well. She has now asked for the individual cell phone data of the law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States.

It's a big move. It's a very big move for the marshal for any matter to be inquiring into the personal law records of the telephones of the law clerks on the court. But that would have been one mechanism by which the opinion could have been leaked. I think they're also asking for affidavits with respect to the law clerks and what they did. Now, the marshal does not have criminal investigative powers. The marshal cannot issue a subpoena, correct?

No, cannot issue a subpoena, cannot compel the production as a grand jury can or as a United States attorney can. I'm not sure what the federal offense is here, if there is one or if it's just an ethics violation. But people's jobs are particularly, or possibly at stake here. But it's a major investigation and it should be done.

Because leaking an opinion, whatever the opinion may be, but particularly this opinion, in order to mold and shape public opinion. Which is exactly what they did. Which is exactly what it was all about. It was done in order to do that. Sure, and then we had a vote in the Senate, which didn't prevail on the part of the abortionists.

We know that. So it failed, but it was done in undermining the integrity of an institution that has never, Jay, as far as I know, never had a leak happen before. And I remember when you, when we first heard about this, you said, can't be.

That doesn't happen at the Supreme Court of the United States. That someone would leak an opinion in an opinion like this. Well, evidently that was, well, no question it was leaked. And they acknowledged it was leaked. The court has acknowledged that it was the actual draft opinion. Yes, so we know.

I mean, it looked like, it wasn't even, it wasn't like a Word document. It was already set up like the opinion would be released electronically. I think that the big question is going to be, though, when people hear this news, because they don't have the same kind of power. They have their reasons for not wanting to keep this internal, but also is a bunch of law clerks are about to lawyer up. And if they do that and they don't have the same kind of authority, do they ultimately then have to go to, if they want to figure this out, of who was responsible. Would they have to go to the FBI?

Yeah, I mean, to really. I mean, if the clerks refuse to give their phones or the data. And they can fire the clerks because of that. I guess so.

Well, I guess. Sure they can. I think justice or any of the, or the chief justice. I suspect the justices don't like that this is going on.

I don't think they would, no. I mean, so, you know, the marshal, what's the marshal going to do? Question the justices? But what we have to remember here is why was this leaked? And the reason this was leaked was to put pressure on justices, to create public outcry, to try to get an opinion, a legislation. All of which failed, but the justices are still under a security envelope right now. So that's what it was done for.

Right. The Supreme Court is completely secured and it's absolutely, it was trying to influence the justices' opinions. Which is funny because in the draft opinion, Alito actually addresses that.

And specifically says that political or public response can't influence our decision. And yet that's exactly what they were trying to do. They now have 12 police officers around their house, 24 hours a day.

I mean, standing in the yard, literally. They've got barriers around the Supreme Court. You were just up there, what's the Supreme Court like? It looks like a mini version of the Capitol after January 6th.

They put up that same fencing that you can't really scale. A lot more police on the street in preparation for whenever this opinion comes out. Because, again, that was the whole idea. Part of the idea was that pressure campaign. Maybe you can get someone to flip their mind because you think, I don't want to live like this for the rest of my life. I want to have 12 police officers, FBI, whoever, or marshals in my yard for the rest of my life.

Or with my kids for the rest of my life because of this decision. I don't think that will work. But that was part of the tactic. The second part of the tactic was legislation. That didn't go anywhere.

So I think you put it all together. Serious pressure campaign. It's not going to let up. And we're prepared to ACLJ for what happens next. If this draft opinion, let's say it holds, very similar to how it was drafted. Clear overturning of Roe vs. Wade goes back to the states. If it does just that, you're going to have 50 battles.

50 new battles. The battle has been in one place since 1973. It's been in the federal courts. It has been Washington D.C. and Congress and the Supreme Court.

And there's a little space here and there to put in restrictions. We've had to protect pro-life pregnancy centers and issues like that. Now, if this holds and the abortion industry knows it's true, we're setting it up for it at ACLJ.

So support our work at ACLJ.org because you're going to have a 50 state challenge to figure out exactly how the laws will come down. There's a lot to pack in today's show. So we covered the Sussman News.

We'll get back to that, folks, too. I know that's a lot of breaking news right now. People are seeing it on their phones.

People are seeing it on the TV as well. So we'll get back into that. If you've got questions about it, give us a call. 1-800-684-3110. Our phone lines are open.

1-800-684-3110. We're going to go to Jeff Balaban, Senior Counsel with the ACLJ, who is in Israel now at our office in Israel. Has been working on issues there. Of course, ACLJ Jerusalem, important issues. And, Jeff, I think one of the issues that we've been working on very closely with the Israeli officials is also what goes on in Judea and Samaria. Explain that to people, just that term, which they may know about biblically.

But I think it's always important when we go back to it to explain to people what we're talking about. Sure, Jordan. And, you know, it's especially important in recent years because after the Arab world declared that they would never accept any Jewish state. And remember, or maybe the listeners don't know this, but originally the land that was the Jewish homeland was divided and the vast majority was given to create an Arab state now known as Jordan.

The remaining part, the very small remaining part, was once again divided. They said we'll have a Jewish homeland and an Arab homeland, and the Arabs rejected it and launched an all-out war on the then very tiny little nation state of Israel. Israel, thank God, won the war miraculously.

And the armistice line, not a border, not negotiated, the armistice line became known as the Green Line, the end of the war in 1948. But at that point, Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, among the holiest sites for the Jewish people. The sites, obviously, throughout the Bible, the sites of the forefathers and patriarchs, et cetera, were under Arab control. Then, Jordanian illegal control.

The Jordanians invaded it, and they took it, and they had no right to it, and they held it and occupied it until 1967. And we here in Jerusalem just celebrated the anniversary of the 1967 war, the Six-Day War, where famously, miraculously, the state of Israel was able to overcome many, many foes and reunify the city of Jerusalem, which had been divided, and also recapture Judea and Samaria from the Jordanians, as well as other territories. Jeff, one of the things that we're concerned about, of course, is there's a report that President Biden will be heading to Israel.

He plans specifically to visit East Jerusalem. A lot of people, and I'm one of those, are concerned that this is a calculated move intended to signal support for divided Jerusalem because of the Palestinians' continued assistance. Now, for more than 30 years, the ACLJ has fought against this.

We've defended Israel, but also Israel's right to have a united capital in Jerusalem, not divided. How big of an issue is this? This is a colossal issue. This is an issue from the top of the halls of power to every man in the street.

People who don't even know what I do, but they hear that I'm an American cab driver. I remember one said, you know, for years, under the Obama administration, my family's been in Jerusalem for hundreds of years, and for years, we were criminals if we wanted to, you know, add a bedroom to our house, because God forbid a Jew should add a bedroom to the house in Jerusalem, right, in the Holy Land, in our homeland. He said, but now that Donald Trump, this was then, was here, but now we're able to live freely in our land again. Well, the feeling is that we're turning back the clock to the terrible days under Obama and Biden, where, if you recall, when Biden and vice President made a trip, he very, very harshly condemned Israel for doing what?

For having a municipal decision to allow Jews to build some more homes in Jerusalem. Yes, there's a lot of fear that it's going to go back to, once again, trying to rip this city in half, turning God forbid into a war zone. You know, it's interesting, Andy, because we've been over, you and I have been over on work-related matters for decades now, but we've been over under the Bush administration, we've been over there under the Obama administration, we were over there under the Trump administration, and you saw the progress that was made, and the peace that ensued in Israel with the Abraham Accords. All of that seems to be, now the plan is to pretty much undo all of that. Well, that's exactly right, Jay. So you go right back in, you start dividing Jerusalem?

I mean, we're back. If President Biden goes to East Jerusalem, symbolism is very important, not just in the Middle East, but everywhere. When he goes there, he legitimizes these people. I remember going into East Jerusalem with a Greek Orthodox priest, and it was a terrible place, and as we went back, he said to me in Greek, we have now left the barbarian part, and we're back in civilization again. Is what he told me as we went into what we call West Jerusalem again. President Biden is undoing what President Trump did, and is undermining the legitimacy of the State of Israel, and giving aid and comfort to Israeli enemies, Jay.

I really believe that to be the case. So, Jeff, we're working on, you know, in international tribunals, we've done it at the International Criminal Court, but we're also working on international tribunals, but also domestically here in the United States, to not allow for this divide in Jerusalem, and in fact, under President Trump, the embassy for the United States was moved to Jerusalem. That's right, and you know, that's exactly what's so important here, Jay. When the President of the United States comes here, where he goes, with whom he goes, what he does, sends messages that have powerful impact around the region and around the world. President Trump came, he went to the Wailing Wall, you know, in the heart of Jerusalem, the holy city, the old city, and he made it very clear that this was a Jewish holy site. Well, as you know, because of the work we do at the U.N., they're trying to deny thousands of years of Jewish history. They're trying to deny that there were ever temples there. They're trying, they say, the Jews trying to quote Judei as a city. Can you imagine Judei as Jerusalem as though it's ever been anything but Jewish?

Well, if President Biden does this, as I say, the implications are to rip it in half, and it seems that's what he intends. You know, there's also news, Jeff, and I think that this is interesting because there used to be a consulate in Jerusalem from the United States. It was 100% it was for Palestinians, and that was also shut down when our embassy was officially moved from Tel Aviv to the capital of Israel, Jerusalem, by the Trump administration. But now you have Joe Biden is elevating a deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli and Palestinian affairs, Hadi Amir, to be now a special envoy to the Palestinians, and that unit, which got consumed by the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, is now again going to be operating independently inside the old consulate. Now, it's not been declared a consulate yet, but they will not be reporting to our U.S. ambassador to Israel.

They'll be reporting directly to Washington, D.C. So they're already making that move, the Biden administration, to, it looks like, reopen that whatever name you want to call it, this inside Jerusalem, this consulate for Palestinians only. Jerusalem is clearly, when you're here on the ground and we've been here together and I'm here now, when you're on the ground, Jerusalem is a single, united city.

Some sections are more Jewish, some sections are more Arab, some sections are mixed, but it is one city with one government. And what they're doing here is literally trying to change the facts on the ground, and those facts are unity. It's growing in unity, but when they do this, they send disruptions, they send signals, and basically it is a call to violence.

That's really what's going to ensue. Right now there's peace reigning, there's going to be violence if they do this. And yes, that consulate, I had the misfortune of having to go there once as an American and I was directed to that consulate, and it is famous. The people who man that consulate are absolutely anti-Semitic, they treat Jews terribly, and the notion that one office, whether it's an embassy or consulate, can't serve Jews and Arabs together, what is that talking about?

And that's what they're trying to do. They're forgetting the Abraham Accords too. Jeff, thanks for joining us from Israel at our office, ACLJ Jerusalem there. But remember, they're forgetting that there's been so much progress made in the Muslim world with the relations with Israel, which is relations with Jews and Arabs. And they want to deny that progress, and again, stir up the violence that causes people to divide instead of unite.

So we'll be back, second half hour coming up. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines, protecting your freedoms, defending your rights, in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life-changing work. Become a member today.

ACLJ.org. keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Hey, welcome back to Sekulow. So, of course, we're dealing with a lot of breaking news, but the breaking news that you're seeing, and of course, I know that people want to talk about 1-800-684-3110. We just had a live update from our senior counsel in Jerusalem, so we didn't want to miss that, but we will take your calls on Sussman. So Sussman was one of the lead Clinton campaign outside counsels, went to the FBI. None of this is disputed, by the way, about the FBI chief counsel testified.

This is his friend, but this is what his friend said, which is that he's not there on behalf of anybody. Just wanted to give this information over, and it was about this supposed connection between Donald Trump and the alpha Russian bank and the secret server they were, like, communicating back and forth with. All in turn, the FBI testified, too, that they figured out this was all baloney in a day.

In a day. But remember, we still had Crossfire Razor, Crossfire Hurricane, so the FBI's seizing on this bad information. But the jury came back today and found Sussman not guilty of the crime, and I think what's important, Dad, to lay out for people is the crime, the facts are the facts, and people testified to this being true. So no one is just saying whether or not this was true or not. It was just they would not be able to prove criminal intent here. We know that Hillary Clinton said release it to the media. They did not testify on the record that she said go to the FBI.

No one had that information, so people asked about that. But it's kind of like how much dirty tricks and campaigns do we allow in the U.S. before it's really considered criminal? And this, I think, case underscores it, that a lot of flexibility when it comes to running national campaigns. You said something earlier that I think is very important to underscore here, and that is these are old cases. So these activities took place in 2015 and 2016.

We are in 2022. Very fact heavy. Three years' worth of a Durham investigation to come up with one. One lawyer that admittedly, I mean, did a terrible thing, he doctored, altered evidence that was submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to get a warrant on an American citizen, Carter Page. That prosecution resulted in, in that particular case, what happened was the prosecution resulted in a plea.

And he was, you know, obviously found guilty and pled guilty. Then the Sussman matter comes up, which is a process crime, Andy, lying to a federal agent. And the problem there is they weren't able to establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, criminal intent. Like Jordan said, it's not that what they said didn't happen, it was lack of criminal intent. No, as I've said, I've prosecuted a lot of cases under Title 18 United States Code 1001, which says you shall not knowingly and willfully lie to an agent of the federal government, which would include the FBI, all right? Those are not easy cases to prove. You have to prove willfulness, intent, knowing you've got to show criminality on the part of the speaker, and you have to also show that it is material that something significant other than just a false statement was made. This case did not get any better with age. Durham, I think, made a tactical mistake by dragging this out for years and years and years, and he brings one count of false statement to the federal government, in this case the FBI, before a jury in the District of Columbia, which clearly was, you know, not conviction-prone.

And what do you think the result's going to be? I mean, you don't have to be a genius to know. You just have to be an experienced prosecutor to understand this is setting it up for a not guilty verdict.

That's what he got. Yeah, you know, I don't know if there's anything left in Durham. I don't know if there's going to be a report.

I have no idea. The fact is it's eight years old when you think about it. Yeah, I mean, I think the further you got away from it, the harder it is for juries. I mean, remember, you're very informed, folks. That jury, they're supposed to be people who don't have a lot of opinions on this, and they're hearing all this information. They're based in Washington, D.C., so primarily they're going to be Democrat, but that's just the truth. They looked that up. And there were a lot of Clinton donors on it, on the jury.

I mean, so not just voters that were likely Democrats, but people that actually give money to Democrat politicians, specifically the one issue in this case. We learned some new information. We learned that Hillary Clinton okayed releasing this to the media. That's one thing that's very different, though, than going to the FBI and not telling them why you're there. But the jury did not believe that Rose took a criminal to something that he should be punished as a crime, as a federal crime. And I have to underscore that's that's how that's the bar they had to meet was guilty of a federal crime. All right. Welcome back to Secula.

We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-31. Tiff, you got more questions about the Sussman matter, we will answer your questions, but it's pretty clear from the jury they didn't believe the prosecution did not prove their case to the jury, certainly. And so he's been found not guilty. There is important news when it comes to Iran and our national security. Rick Grenell, senior advisor for national security and foreign policy, is joining us now.

Rick, the Israelis have released a document. I think it's kind of a pile on because there's been the Biden administration's had a very tough time. I think that's a good thing. Getting back into what they want is the Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA. Part of that tough time is because the Russians are directly involved with it. They don't want to necessarily give the U.S. or the Biden administration a win. And they were also the go between between the U.S. and Iran.

So there's issues there. But I think Israel wants to pile on and make sure while you've got this moment that you don't have some out of nowhere that they announce, oh, we've rejoined this deal. So they've released this new cache of documents. Going back to 2003 and 2004, that's a decade, more than a decade before the deal ever came together, Rick, where the Iranians now took IAEA documents to figure out how they could cover up their covert nuclear operations. So as a little reminder, Jordan, remember, I was the American spokesman at the U.N. for the U.N. Security Council issues that the U.S. was facing during that time in 2003 and 2004. We knew this at the time. This was information that we obviously didn't want anyone to know publicly, but we knew to be true. We knew the Israelis found a whole bunch of information in a storage locker that was from the Iranians. This information was a treasure trove of really smoking guns showing how the Iranian regime was lying and evading the IAEA. Now, the interesting part is, is that we told the IAEA at the time, and it was really hard to get them to understand the political implications of what they were seeing. Remember that the inspectors are scientists. They don't carry guns.

They're not people that go into rooms when they're not allowed to go into rooms. They are literally scientists that are looking for scientific evidence of what the Iranian regime is up to when it comes to the nuclear weapons programs. So you don't have people with political skills trying to understand the implications, but it's clear we've known for a long time the Iranian regime has been lying to the U.N. and the U.N. has done virtually nothing. So Iran used stolen documents to deceive the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rick.

The Israelis get hold of it, as you said. The whole purpose of it was to build this false narrative that they would use as a cover story. So when the nonexistent inspections would take place, they had reasons why certain things were happening. And yet at the same time, the Biden administration, I would take it, knows all this, right? Their national security team knows all this.

I mean, my goodness, Naftali Bennett's broadcasting this, you know, live. So I ask the question, why in the world would we be even in the same vicinity of the Iranians trying to get a negotiated deal here when we know that they were deceiving as early as this period of time and have continued to do so? Why in the world would we sit down with them to try to work this through? It makes absolutely zero sense to me.

None. Well, you're right. And remember, we knew that the Iranians have lied to the U.N. and to the IAEA back in the Bush administration, and many people were raising the red flags to say they've lied about enrichment programs. They've lied about heavy water amounts.

We knew all of the different areas that they were lying in. But John Kerry, during the Obama administration, kept coming up with excuses to say, well, you put pressure on the Iranians, you put them into a corner and, you know, they have to react. And so during the Obama years, we knew the Iranians had already been lying about where they were when we started, the number of centrifuges. All of this information was a lie. John Kerry knew it was a lie. Barack Obama knew it was a lie.

Vice President Joe Biden then knew it was a lie. But this is a team of people that literally just wants a deal. They don't care what the deal is.

They just want a deal. And I have to say the Russian invasion of Ukraine has saved us on the Iranian issue because there's a hesitancy now from the Europeans to believe or work with the Russians. I want to play this because I think it's strategically being released. Rick said the U.S. government knew about this in 2003, 2004, but then it was more active, fresh intelligence. Now you get a decade-plus from that, 16 years from that, 17 years from that, and now Israel's putting it out that, by the way, we all knew this and our allies knew this. The IAEA knew this, as Rick said.

But take a listen. Here's the Prime Minister of Israel Naftali Bennett talking about even what they found on these documents in handwritten notes by five. Here it is in the Persian language, hundreds of pages marked with a stamp of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence. There's even some handwritten notes on the documents by senior Iranian officials like this one written by then Defense Minister Fakhrizadeh. He writes, sooner or later, they, referring to the atomic agency, they will ask us and we'll need to have a comprehensive cover story for them. He's talking about a cover story.

And here's that cover story. Iran lied to the world. Iran is lying to the world again right now. And the world must make sure that Iran doesn't get away scot-free.

So there you have it, Rick. Iran knew what they were getting into if they allowed any inspectors in. So they had gotten these documents and they said, okay, how do we fool? As you pointed out, these are scientists. They're not going in there with weapons. They're not going in there with guns.

They're not going in there with politics or even necessarily a belief, strong way or the other. They're just going in there to do the research on this atomic energy. And so from 2003, Iran was already planning a campaign of, if we do finally get to this deal, which at that point was probably not even something they were thinking about, was even on the, necessarily on the table yet, under the Bush administration, certainly not, that if we get there, we got to have a long cover story. They played long games in that part of the world, Rick. And this just underscores to people. It's like a nuclear deal doesn't just pop up in 2015. They had a 10-year plan to get there. Yeah.

I want to make this pretty simple and I'm going to oversimplify it so that people understand. But the reality is, is that the IAEA inspectors who are scientists will only go in rooms that they are ushered into by the Iranian regime. No one else is opening doors and putting them in rooms unless the Iranian regime demands it. It was one of the issues that we had back in the Bush administration to say, wait a minute, if the Iranians don't come clean and show rooms and let the inspectors go anywhere, anytime. Remember, that was the phrase that we used, anywhere, anytime inspections.

Then the whole thing is for show. We were bringing back in 2003, we were bringing evidence back to the Security Council to say they're not being upfront. They're not allowing the inspectors to say, hey, I think something in that room needs to be inspected. And the Iranians are saying, no, no, no, you can't go in that room. And then the U.N. inspectors just said, OK, we won't go in the room.

They would come back to New York. They would tell the Security Council we didn't make it into all of the rooms in areas that we wanted. And then there would be a vote of the Security Council.

And what do you think would happen? The Russians and the Chinese would let it go. And so we were in this problem area where we knew they were lying, but they were allowed to by the U.N. rules and system.

Marika, I go back to the same thing, though. The Biden administration knows this. They know that this history of lying, they know this history of cover up.

Now, Naftali Bennett, as I said, is laying it out there. Despite all of that, they're desperate for an arrangement. Now, they may not be able to get it because of what's happened in Russia and Ukraine. But the fact of the matter is, until then, they were desperate through these third party intermediaries, governments, to get this resolved, even though they know all of this is fake.

Yeah, they knew it. And the worst part about this is the dangerous aspect of allowing the Iranian regime to get weapons. Now, what the Obama team and now the Biden team are trying to say is, but if we're all united against them, then we can stop them going into the rooms. And I say, no, because the U.N. is not an agency that is ever going to have guns and force their way into areas to inspect. And that's why Naftali Bennett's find where he shows that the Iranians knew where the IAEA wanted to go was so valuable because they knew what they were up against and they just closed areas. We even had one point in 2003 where they brought in dump trucks and literally covered over an area that would have shown a weapons-grade program, but they covered it up with dirt and we saw them and we had all the evidence and nobody cared. That's exactly why we filed the Freedom of Information Act request on the meeting with Zarif and former Biden administration officials during the Trump administration. We want to know that's why we are prepared to go to court. The readout from the meeting, but it just showed that even when they were out of government, they were so committed after President Trump had removed us from this deal, the U.S. too, these U.S. officials who are back in office now were committed to getting back to this deal.

And they were kind of obsessive over the deal and so they went to go meet behind the back of the Trump administration, go meet with the Iranian ambassador at his residence in New York as it says in 2018 to talk through these issues in case they come back to power. So Rick, I appreciate you joining us as always and folks, support the work of the ACLJ. We are uncovering this information because of our legal work. We play the long game too at ACLJ.

That's ACLJ.org. Support our work today. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Secular. We're taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. We're not ignoring, of course, news that's breaking and we talked about Sussman, but if you're just joining us, we got a call coming in about that. Michael Sussman, of course, he was a top outside counsel to the Clinton campaign, provided this info to the FBI. The issue was did he lie intentionally to the FBI? Did it rise to criminal conduct? When he didn't disclose it, he was there on behalf of the Clinton campaign, which he even, they had evidence that he billed the Clinton campaign for the time he was at that FBI meeting, but said he was just there as a concerned citizen. A friend who was the general counsel of the FBI at the time, James Baker, he also testified and said, hey, this is my friend, but this is what he said. So again, a lot of information there, but he's found not guilty.

People are not happy about this. I will tell you again, when the only charge against you is these 1,001 charges, it's still a high bar. It's a criminal matter, but also I think it's just taken way too long. A lot of issues here, which are problematic. We did learn from this trial that Hillary Clinton okayed this being released to the media.

No one testified that she okayed it going to the FBI though, so that kind of ended it there. But I want to take Terry's call. Terry calling from California online too. Hey, Terry.

Yes, hi, thank you. Can you speak to how this Sussman verdict compares to the whole Michael Flynn situation? Yeah, I mean there was, Michael Flynn's case had a very, you know, initially entered a plea, then the plea was withdrawn. The FBI went to him, which was different than going to the FBI. Yeah, the FBI went to him.

So it was a different situation. Same allegation, Andy, 1,001 violation. Yeah, same allegation, 1,001 violation, exactly.

Which is what exactly? Making a false statement willfully and knowingly, making a false statement to a government agent. So what happened in the Sussman case, the jury found that there was no criminal intent.

Yeah. And in Michael Flynn's, he had pled out. So before, it was not before the jury, he had actually pled and then withdrew. They were threatening his kids, remember? They were threatening his kids. And I do think it does show you this. Bottom line, the difference between Democrats and Republicans, how they get treated, especially in Washington, D.C.'s federal court system.

I mean, I don't think that's a controversial statement to make. They try to ruin Michael Flynn's life and career and family. Right. Remember, that was Jim Comey saying, we just sent them in, the FBI. We just sent them in. We didn't tell anybody.

We saw a weakness within the Trump administration because they were just in there a couple of days and we took advantage of it. So we didn't ask the White House counsel to set up the meeting and Michael Flynn just said, okay, yeah, yeah, FBI wants to come meet the national security advisor, sure. So there you go. And so, yeah, very different, wrong, you could disagree, but this is a jury. This was a jury.

That's it. Mike Flynn had initially, did not go before the jury. Right. And so, again, I think it does show the disparities, the different treatment, but we've known that. We talk about the weaponization of these agencies all the time at the ACLU. You can't break a case seven years after the fact. That's the problem with these cases. No.

You can't do that. All right, let me change focus a little bit here. We've got an issue at the United Nations, we talk about international matters, that we are very, very concerned about. Cece, you're reviewing some drafts of documents that we're preparing right now.

What is exactly going on here? So we're discussing the issue of Nigeria and how the Secretary of State took Nigeria off the list of the countries of particular concern. And I'll just give a little… Why is that significant? It is significant because the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 established the International Religious Freedom Office within the State Department. They do annual reports, and if a country is designated as a country of particular concern, then that list goes over to Congress. And Congress can do, take some actions, either policy actions to stop the persecution. And if the policy actions don't take effect and don't actually stop the persecution, they can actually do then economic actions against countries. So removing Nigeria, and what's funny is, of course, Trump administration had them as a country of particular concern, and Blinken removed them a day before he went in and visited Nigeria. And Nigeria, what's amazing about Nigeria is a Christian is killed for their faith every two hours. And in 2021, more Christians were murdered than any other country, and the Christians murdered there accounted for 80 percent of Christian deaths worldwide.

So you tell me why we would remove Nigeria from a country of particular concern. It's because of groups like Boko Haram and these other organizations. And the government. And the government itself. There was a 20-year-old girl just earlier this month, a Christian girl that was brutally murdered by, I think it was 180 Muslims, and there were people, there was security there.

There were police there that did not do anything. This is why, at the ACLJ, when these things happen, or here the United States government, Andy, is taking the wrong action. We respond to our government saying, you know, basically, you're wrong here, and lay out the case on why they're wrong.

That's exactly right, and that's what we're doing. We are looking at this horrible situation in Nigeria. Blinken made a terrible mistake by taking them off the list of countries of particular concern. As Cece just pointed out, Christians are being persecuted, their villages are burned, they're being murdered, they're being destroyed left and right all over the Nigerian Republic. Why in the world would the Biden administration, through its Secretary of State, remove them from a country of particular concern? We want to find out why.

Yeah, I mean, there's got to be a purpose behind it. So whether it's the Nigerian government. But again, it wasn't saying that, it was saying, Nigerian government, you need to do more. The U.S. saying, yeah, this is a problem you have, protect your own citizens, protect your own people. The second is an economic issue.

Is there something going on there? But that's what our work is about. But it's an interesting one because, just like the Iran one uncovered, is that getting this information, it is possible to get this information when you go for it.

They're not going to give it to you, you know, voluntarily. But, I think this is one too. You have to be a group like the ACLJ to even be paying attention to. Iran is one thing. Iran makes front page news all the time. Nigeria does not. And so we have been very, we're very focused there because you have this massive Christian population, a big Muslim population that used to live in relative peace.

And it had a system of government that shared power between the religious groups. It's kind of gotten murky there too, about the way that was supposed to run. So I think it's very important to know, why was this such an early action? Why would the Biden administration, so early in the administration, make a foreign policy decision like this, Cece? And that's what we have, we have a letter going to Secretary Blinken asking, requesting to redesignate Nigeria as a country of particular concern. And then we also are preparing a FOIA request to find out just why it was removed.

And it is very important. And it is interesting that they were removed a day before Secretary Blinken visited Nigeria. So, you know, what the purpose was, I don't know. But nothing has changed in Nigeria for... Certainly nothing for the better. That's right.

Nothing for the better. So why would they be removed from that? You know, it was interesting, Mike Pompeo, when he was on the broadcast a couple of weeks back, said that, and he remembered this as Secretary of State, he said that the work of the ACLJ was helpful in getting the designation of the country of particular concern for Nigeria. That was coming from the Secretary of State, who then knew of our work, you know, as Secretary of State.

Now he's, of course, part of our team. And so now we have to go back and figure out what happened, why, because the Christian persecution going on there is significant. We may take action at the United Nations as well.

There's ways to do that to bring these issues up. And we have to follow these periodic reports. So we're fully engaged in this, folks.

And we're the last day of the month here. We encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ. That's right. You can do that at ACLJ.org, and donate today. You know, all of this work that we do, all that we talked about today, we're involved in all of it.

We live that too. So all of this is something, you know, the team of the ACLJ is engaged in, and we encourage you to support the work. It's why we're able to continue our work, expand our work.

It's because of your financial support. Go to ACLJ.org today. You know, we've launched new initiatives, too. We've launched ACLJ. Actually, there's been great support there for that. But ACLJ is still the main organization behind all of this work, and we need your support as we plan for the future, as we continue the work today, and as we have to also be ready for these massive battles in a post-Dobbs era for life. ACLJ.org, donate today. We'll talk to you tomorrow.