BREAKING: Biden Sends Advanced Weapons to Ukraine

This is Jay Sekulow breaking news.

President Biden sends advanced weapons systems to Ukraine. 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, Jay Sekulow. Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the broadcast. Very interesting, but yet confusing situation. The President last week said that he was not going to send advanced weapons systems to Ukraine, not additional weapons systems, and then decided he will send these advanced weapons systems. And there's an interesting New York Times opinion essay that says, President Biden, what America will and will not do in Ukraine. And this is from, is drafted by the President.

Here's the problem. We are telling Russia what the United States will and will not do in Ukraine. When you ask yourself, does that make any sense from the military standpoint?

We're joined by our senior military analyst, Colonel Wes Smith. Colonel Smith, it seems like to me, why would you convey to the enemy, and unfortunately they're the enemy right now, what you're about to do or not do? He has done this already repeatedly, but this is, I think, perhaps the most dramatic, worst case example of him doing that. Tactically and strategically, Jay, it simply is not done. It is so not done. It borders on the point of being crazy to actually telegraph to your adversary, these are our limits. This is what we will do. This is what we will not do.

It makes absolutely no sense. He continues to do this repeatedly. And it's a mistake, tactically and strategically, to actually tell Russia what their limits are. Anytime you tell an enemy what your limits are, they know how to plan their tactics and strategy and they will respond accordingly.

Andy, the other thing we know is from history. We know that the Russians, of course, they're monitoring this very carefully. They're saying already, let's not talk about worst case scenarios. They're saying that this is adding fuel to the fire. They've also said, they let at least the Russians through their propaganda arms, their state-owned broadcast media, saying World War III has already started.

Yeah, well, that's exactly right. They're presaging exactly what is going to happen if something happens on their territory. Now, the President said in that op-ed piece that we are giving these things to the Ukrainians for use, and I'm quoting, on the battlefield in Ukraine. Well, that's an aspiration, but it may not turn out to be the case. Iraq may go beyond the Dumbass region into Russia.

Then what happens? The Kremlin spokesman says we don't want to talk about that, but the reality is you have to talk about that because by presaging what you're going to do, it's like President Eisenhower and Winston Churchill telling the Germans we're going to invade our second front in Normandy or we're going to go through Africa and come up through Sicily and Italy. We would have never made those statements. We would have never said that. We would have never done those things in World War II and historically, or what the Russians did on the Russian front and the Russian winner when the Nazis attacked them.

It is folly, folly to be presaging and to be announcing in advance what you are going to do and how you're going to do it militarily. Wes, when we come back from the break, I want to talk about what these weapons actually are, but the fact is weapon systems are as only good as the operators of the systems. And these are American weapon systems. Do the Ukrainian soldiers have the training to do this? Yes, we have been training them on the MLRS system.

The HIMARS, this new system, is an adaptation of that. So I think we're training them well on how to use it. The question is when they promise us they will not use them to fire into Russia, we have no way of making them keep that promise. Again, the Russians are always going to claim anything we do as a provocation. I don't think this is as much of a provocation as the Russians will let on, but it still is a provocation. The stakes are a little higher. They will use it. Absolutely. All right, we're going to take phone calls and comments coming back, Logan, too.

That's right. If you have a comment, if you're on social media, put it in the chat, put it in the comments. We'll get to as many of those as we can, but also phone lines are open if you want to be on the air. 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. To have your voice heard today, you can be on the air. All the lines are open as we just open them up.

So if you want to call, perfect time to do it. And again, put your comments in on social media. We'll take some of those. And check out all the amazing work and the great content available at aclj.org.

It's a great place, obviously, to go and support the work, but it also has so much, really, an endless amount of great content produced by our team at ACLJ at aclj.org. We'll be right back. Talk about a confusing foreign policy. Talk about a confusing military policy. Now, I'm going to play for you some sound from the President of the United States all the way back 24 hours ago on Monday.

This is what he said. Are you going to send long-range rocket systems to Ukraine? We're not going to send Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia. Yeah, so that comes, obviously, from President Biden.

If you couldn't hear it, I'll read it to you. A reporter said, are you going to send long-range rocket systems to Ukraine? And President Biden said, we're not going to send Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia. But Wes, we obviously know things quickly change.

Right, they do. And it seems like when reporters ask President Biden a question, he has this compulsion. He feels like he has to give an answer. And there are certain, you don't have to answer every question that you're asked, especially when it comes to this kind of very important strategic slash tactical question about what we're doing with an adversary.

I will say this, though, Logan. He is waffling back and forth. And he's obviously telegraphing to the Russians what our limits are. This weapon, though, the HIMARS is the one that is under discussion that they're going to officially announce today that we're sending to them. It is an artillery weapon.

It is a very good one. But it's not like it can go hundreds of miles into Russia. It's not that kind of a system. It's not like, you know, what is used in the Middle East, the Scud missile system. That is a long range. The range on this weapon is twice that of a typical cannon, an artillery piece, which is about 20 to 25 miles. This one can go about 50 miles.

But here's the difference. It is extremely accurate. It has the equivalent, can carry around the equivalent of a 500 pound bomb dropped from a plane. It's GPS guided. But there is one version of this, the ammunition that can go 200 miles. We are not sending that to Ukraine. The one, the weapon we are sending in the rounds can go about 50 miles. Of course, they could put that on the border of Russia and Ukraine and fire 50 miles into Russia.

And again, it is a very, very accurate, deadly weapon. Yeah. And what is the strategy or is there a strategy? Because it seems like this does come up not just with the Biden administration.

I can say this comes up with a lot of administrations, which is to almost telegraph what the process is. There's gotta be some reason that you would like, is this part of sort of a war game to be like, let them know what's happening a little bit. So they're prepared. So the conversation goes back and forth because it feels like we're always reporting on things before they happen like this. And how do you, how does this, what, what's the point? The only time this is generally done for a good reason is if you're trying to really, really tell someone to back off, it's a little late for that. They've already invaded Ukraine, but it's like Andy was saying a moment ago, other than that or disinformation campaign, this is something, something, Logan, that's simply not done. You do not tell the enemy what your limits are, what you ultimately will or will not do tactically and strategically.

It makes no sense. Yeah. We're going to be taking some calls and comments also on this. If you have a question or comment, please go ahead and put it in the chat. If you're watching on rumble, if you're watching on Facebook, if you're watching on YouTube, we take some of those and we'll take some of those on the air as well as some phone calls.

You can call us at 1-800-684-3110. Now a big part of the conversations come up is sort of the backpedaling that the Biden team seems to have to continually do, which is the President Biden says something and then shortly after someone else in the team comes in within 24 hours, cleans up any of the mistakes in quotes you make. Now, as someone just watching, I honestly thought President Biden was making a mistake, was saying something that he didn't want me to say or want to say, and the team had to come quickly and go, no, no, no, that's not what he meant. Reports are kind of coming out that that's not necessarily the case and that President Biden is upset with the team that's coming in and batting cleanup.

They're coming in and saying, no, no, no, we'll fix everything. We're going to make sure everything is okay, because he is meaning what he's saying and something you could comment to. I think it's interesting. Someone's worked with Presidents before. It's kind of sad in a little bit, in a way, because the President is saying what he wants to say, but clearly isn't in control of the actions of the White House.

Well, that's exactly right, Logan. He is, what he says he means to say. I mean, he's always been very blunt, whether you agree with him or not, or whether you think that he is in command or not, he has always been very blunt in what he believes. And he says it, you know, whether it's, I'm going to defend Taiwan if the Chinese strike, or I'm going to send missiles into the Ukraine, but they can't reach Russia and so forth. And now his advisors are coming in and playing cleanup and they're saying, look, you're off your undermining.

That's what he told NBC News. You're undermining and smothering the authenticity of what gave me the power in the first place. And in addition, what you're doing, and this is the part politically that is so terrible, is that you are giving the Republicans a talking point that you are not in command. That if you say something, it is liable to be walked back and taken back by your advisors.

So, you know, it is better to say it and leave it than to try to unsay and unscramble the eggs, Logan. This is from NBC News. So we're not talking about from Fox News, you're not talking about from Newsmax or OAN or any conservative leaning outlet. This is from NBC News.

I'm just going to read it from you. It's called Inside a Biden White House Adrift and they claim, and this is the comment, Biden is unhappy about a pattern that has developed inside the West Wing. He makes a clear and succinct statement only to have aides rush to explain that he actually meant something else. The so-called cleanup campaign he has told advisors undermines him and smothers the authenticity that fueled his rise. Worse, it feeds a Republican talking point that he's not fully in command.

So again, just reiterating what you had to say. I feel a little bad for him. I mean, I didn't think I'd say that, but I do feel a little bad for him because look, some of the things that he said, you go, wow, I can't even believe this left of a White House would say some of these things. Maybe they are a little bit more moderate because the guy came from 80 years of being sort of one of the more moderate guys.

And then I'm sitting in the last 10 years has had to shift dramatically. But if he's not in control, it doesn't sound dissimilar to some of the situations we've had, maybe even in the W. Bush White House, where it seemed like there was always someone trying to fix. But again, that almost felt like an unintentional move. This sounds crazy, but it feels like a deep state within the Biden White House that's like, no, we can't let this guy actually run. As soon as we conservative saying, we don't think he should be the President and people inside the White House in the West Wing saying, no, we don't think he should be the President either.

We got to take care of this. Yeah, it's embarrassing. And if you play this out, it could actually be pretty dangerous, you know, if this is actually going in the White House. What I find embarrassing for the President and in this whole story is that whenever this report came out that he is frustrated and unhappy because of the walkbacks that are happening, then the White House actually came out after that, Logan, and walked back that too.

They walked back the walkback. And if it is true that the President is frustrated and unhappy that his staff is trying to clean up things that he does not want cleaned up, my question is, why has he not fired anyone? If I had a staff person that was undermining me and going back and countermanding what I say, at some point, I would let that person go. If he's that unhappy and frustrated, why hasn't he fired someone over this? Maybe it's because it's the people who are responsible for putting him in power in the first place.

You have people who are really there behind the scenes saying, you don't want to do this by yourself. You have to have us because you aren't maybe the leftist President that the Democrat Party currently demands. Because you had a guy who up until a decade ago was known for being moderate even on the issue of life, was to the right of a lot of Republicans on those issues.

And all of a sudden, as politics shift has a massive change of heart, as it seems, to fit in with the party platform. A big problem, I think, that we have in current politics right now is that party platform because you give no room for nuance. You give no room for opinion, in your own opinion. You elected the guy.

If you elected Joe Biden, you want the views of Joe Biden. But instead, you're getting this group of people who are undercutting what he's doing. Again, I don't agree with what he's doing. But I also don't agree with having your staff, like you said, having to do this.

And I feel for him a little bit in that sense. And I do think if it wasn't for maybe an extremist group of people who are really running the show, we would be having a much better time in this country right now. Well, I think that's the reality, Logan, is that we have a group of people who are running the show and the President is not in command. Otherwise, he wouldn't have tolerated this. I can tell you, his predecessor would not have tolerated this whatsoever. His predecessor said what he meant and meant what he said.

And if you tried to walk it back, he would castigate you and get rid of you, most likely. But the President is not doing this. He is sort of pandering to the West Wing aides, the deep, deep state really behind the President, who is making statements that are contrary to the public utterances that the President is making. And that as the President of the United States, he has the absolute right to make, which raises the question, why aren't you getting rid of those people who are undermining and undercutting you at every turn? And they are because I listen to the President and I say, oh, my God, he made that statement. I can't believe he said that. And then two minutes later, some White House aide is saying he didn't really mean this.

He really meant this or this or this. If I was the President, I would not only be frustrated, I would be getting rid of some people. Yeah, absolutely. As most bosses, CEOs, whatever would be.

But we live in a different time. Hey, we're gonna take some phone calls coming up in the next segment. We got some on hold already. We'll do our best to get to those.

The next segment specifically. So if you want to call in, you want to be on the air, this is the opportunity. Give me a call right now. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. We'll hear clips from President Biden or clips from Secretary Blinken. And we'll hear some more about the cleanup team coming up in the next segment. Again, support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org.

You can do that now and do that today. But I also encourage you to just go there and check the wealth of content that's on there because I think a lot of people go there to support. You need to go check out the content.

It's really amazing by our incredible team. Welcome back to Secula. We are going to take your phone calls and your comments coming in. First, let's hear.

We'll start it off with President Biden. So you can hear the first part of the statement. And again, if you can't understand it, I'll kind of reiterate what he said. So this is President Biden talking about specifically in a press conference about the long range rocket systems, new weapons that are going to be sent to Ukraine.

This was just from Monday. Are you going to send long range rocket systems to Ukraine? We're not going to send Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia.

So that's what it was from. Are you going to send long range rockets into Ukraine? President Biden response, we're not going to send Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia. And now let's hear from Secretary Blinken just from yesterday.

Secretary Blinken. Specifically with regard to weapon systems being provided, the Ukrainians have given us assurances that they will not use these systems against targets on Russian territory. So not exactly the same thing. Not saying we're not providing weapons that can do the damage. We're just taking their word for it. Now, obviously we know Ukraine's in the middle of a crisis. I'm not saying we shouldn't be helping, but it does feel again, like they're coming in and cleaning this up.

Yeah. There's a difference between not sending them weapons that can strike deep into Russian territory and then giving them weapons that can with the promise from the Ukrainians that they will not do it. I will say this though, concerning that this weapon system, the value of this system in this Ukrainian fight is that the high more system is excellent on what is called counter battery fire. The Ukrainian civilian population is taking a pounding from Russian artillery. And what this system is capable of doing is whenever the Russians fire artillery, this system can immediately track where it's coming from and do what is called counter battery fire and take out the Russian artillery.

That's the genius of the system. And it's very, very important. But on the other hand, there is no way that you can assure the American people that the Ukrainians will keep their word and that they will not put this on the border of Russia and Ukraine and start firing rounds into Russia.

All we have is their assurances to us that they will not do it. All right, let's go ahead and take our phone call. Let's come in. Let's go to Laura in California on line two. Laura, welcome.

Hi, thank you. Gosh, I just am appalled at the fact that our President seems to care more in his spending and in his actions and in his words about the national sovereignty of foreign land than the land in which he's President. And I don't understand his radical and wild spending in ways that don't serve the American people in any way. I think that's a big concern. That's a logical one and a concern that a lot of people are having. When you have like what happened last week and we're not necessarily protecting our schools, you have what's happening at the border and you're not protecting against the fentanyl crisis or anything that's happening right now. But we are sending these very advanced, very expensive weaponry to Ukraine. That is a conversation that at least needs to be had about where our priorities are lying. And not that again, not that we shouldn't support Ukraine or get involved in some of these conflicts. Sometimes you got to, but it does make, when you make, when you hear those numbers, it starts to shock you because you know what isn't being done in your own country.

Well, that's true, Logan. And a lot is not being done. I mean, 4,000 people went across during the Memorial Day weekend, migrants across the Rio Grande.

I watched them crossing the river in the face of the border patrol who was just powerless or just told not to do anything about it. And we have gas, which I was looking at a statistic that the current average of premium gasoline is $5.32 a gallon, whereas a year ago it was $3 a gallon and changed $2 less than that. But we have to realize that we are a national power also, an international power also, and that what happens in Ukraine in terms of the gas, yes, from the Russians and so forth, but in terms of just the international nature of the United States, we have to prioritize. It's a form of triage in a way. I think it's good that we are assisting the Ukrainians in doing what we're doing.

But at the same time, I sympathize with a caller entirely. When two people go to shop at a grocery store, a man and a wife with no children, and spend $147, when a man goes up to fill his diesel truck with fuel, diesel fuel, and spends how much for the filling up of that tank? $180 to fill up a tank. Those are the kinds of things that ring true to us here at home and that we do have to prioritize.

And I think in the terms of the priorities really, albeit we are an international power, the President is the President of the United States, not the President of the globe. And I'd say $180 may even be low for some of these people. And I go in, I have a decent size SUV, it's got a pretty big tank, got like a 30 gallon tank.

Standard pricing where we live, that's $150, $160 to fill up. And when you see that, and you've never seen that in your life, it is shocking to say the least. We did have a comment come in from Phil on Facebook who said, I understand the President is upset with his staff and the direction of the country.

So weirdly, it's interesting to see people going, hey, you know what? I understand the President is upset with his staff and the direction of the country. But newsflash, this is what he's saying, not me, he is the President, he can do something about it.

Wes, I mean, should be able to. Yes, absolutely. I mean, if your staff is not following your policies, if they're countermanding the decisions that you make, you change staff members, you get rid of the people that are not falling in line. That's just standard leadership. And what it does when this kind of thing keeps happening, it makes the American people very insecure about who is in charge, about what the President's policies actually are.

Even if you dislike a leader in any organization to include the United States of America, even if you disagree with them, if you know where they stand, that provides a certain amount of security. And so here we are, we're in the midst of hyperinflation. You know, people are struggling. We're supporting a war in Ukraine and federal spending is fueling that inflation. And yet you've got a White House where we keep getting mixed signals and no assurance that this is the policy that we will stick with and that this is the person in charge. Those kinds of things make the people very uneasy. To say nothing of the fact, Logan, that we're concerned about Ukraine's sovereignty and the Russians crossing that border, and yet our own southern border is total chaos. Yeah, absolutely. And coming up for our radio listeners, you're going to hear in the back half some analysis from Rick Grenell on Iran's nuclear program and also some of our work at the UN from earlier in this week.

It's a very important analysis. We thought you should hear it again. So that's going to be coming up in the second half of Sekulow on radio broadcast. For those who are watching online, this is going to wrap up today's online presentations. If you're watching on Facebook, you're watching on YouTube or Rumble, however it is, I don't think you lost the feed at a half hour. We're still at a half hour for you today.

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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, and 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 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 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 were not be able to prove criminal intent. 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 US before it's really considered criminal? And this, I think, case underscores 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. Well, 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. But 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've 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 take your phone calls to 1-800-684-31. If 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 adviser for national security and foreign policy is joining us now. And 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 announced, 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 non-existent 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 live. So I asked 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. I think Rick said, you know, the U.S. government knew about this in 2003, 2004, but then it was more active, fresh intelligence.

Now you get, you know, a decade plus from that, 16 years from that, 17 years from that. And now, you know, Israel is 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 their 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 you have, 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 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 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 play 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 UN inspectors just said, oh, 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 UN 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 UN 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. And it's just how committed they are. There's the document. This is 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 in 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 rise to criminal conduct when he didn't disclose that 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.

To his friend, who was the general counsel at the FBI at the time, James Baker, who he also testified, 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 this is the, when the only charge against you is these 1,001 charges, it's a pretty, 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, a lot of issues here, which are problematic. We did learn from this trial that Hillary Clinton okayed this being released to the media.

Did not, they didn't, 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's, it was a different situation. Same allegation, Andy, 1,001 violation. Yeah, the 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, 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 DC's federal court system. I mean, I don't think that's a controversial statement to make. They ruined, 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. So we didn't ask the White House Council 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. Mike Flynn had initially, that did not go before the jury. 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 ACL. You can't bring a case seven years after the fact. That's the problem with these cases.

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've talked 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% of Christian deaths worldwide.

So you tell me why we would remove Nigeria from a country of particular concern. Some 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, here the United States government, Andy's taken 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're 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 gotta 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 USA, 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 gonna give it to you voluntarily. But I think this is one too, that 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'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, this 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 encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ.

That's right. You can do that at ACLJ.org. Donate today. You know, all of this work that we do, all that we talked about today, we're involved in all of it.

The Sussman News, 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. 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.