President Trump Sues Biden Administration

Breaking news today on Sekulow is President Trump sues the Biden administration. 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. Welcome back to Sekulow.

We're taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. There's a lot to talk about today. A lot of these court filings going around. We're going to break it down for you.

Some news stories out. What do they mean? What does it mean?

What does it not mean? What is President Trump asking for in this legal challenge? Again, this is about the raid. It's about how the raid was conducted, specifically the search warrant and who is going through the documents because they appear to have seized. Well, we know things like passports that they did not have approval to do.

And who's going through that? Well, supposedly the FBI has a special team to do that, but there's not a court-appointed special master. Now the question, Dad, is we're two weeks in, they've got these documents. I mean, the court is probably going to say, if you wanted this, you should ask for it two weeks ago.

So here's the problem. So the FBI executes the search warrant after the judge signs off on a finding probable cause. That's the procedure that's followed. Then you would immediately, this is what you would normally do, you would immediately challenge the review of the documents by the FBI because they do what's called a taint team. And they're looking for documents that may be attorney-client privilege or maybe even executive privilege, although we'll get into that in a moment.

It looks like the Biden administration waived that for Trump, whether they could do that or not is another question, but they did. And here when you have this taint team, that's the FBI reviewing the FBI's own seizure. Now it's another group of FBI lawyers and agents, but still the FBI is looking at it. A special master says, this all goes to a judge.

It could be a retired judge and that judge will make the determination independent of the FBI. But that's something you normally go in and ask for immediately. You don't wait two weeks. So I'm sure there must be some reason for this, but the problem is it could actually be moot because I can't imagine that the FBI hasn't reviewed this immediately. I mean, they've had it for two weeks.

Yeah, that's the part that is a bit just unusual about this. Now, the second part about it is there's a fourth amendment issue raised. There isn't a specific call to action on that fourth amendment issue.

Now, again, the search word's already been, kind of like with the special master, these are things you might've done much sooner, but they have been filed now and we want to talk you through it because again, we want you to know the facts. We want you to understand the truth about what's going on and kind of cut through all the just five minute talking back and forth on TV about who's right and who's wrong and actually look at the legal finding themselves. A lot of this, I think it starts with the basics of our fourth amendment, which is cited right away. And I think it's worth reading for everybody because most of you probably haven't necessarily been in a criminal situation in a seizure situation where you haven't had a no-knock raid on your house. It says in the fourth amendment, the rights of the people to be secure in their persons, their houses, their papers and effects, that clicks on everything here, against unreasonable search and seizure shall not be violated.

No warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause supported by the oath or affirmation, the affidavit, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized, particularly describing the place to be searched. So you can't just say that building, but particularly describing what, and then what you're also going to get. And then of course they have these teams set up because occasionally in a box that they did have approval to get, there might be stuff that they shouldn't have.

That's fine. That's when you want the special master. That's when that issue comes about. But the problem is the warrant, which we have a copy of, is pretty general. It looks like it violates.

General warrants are prohibited by the fourth amendment. We'll get into that in the next segment. Any physical document with classifications along with any containers in which such documents are located, as well as any other containers that are collectively stored or found together with the aforementioned documents contain a box. I mean, really broad, right?

Boxes and boxes and boxes. It tells you to go almost anywhere on Mar-a-Lago they were allowed to go. General warrants are prohibited by the fourth amendment because we had experience with that with King George in our founding. So we'll get into all this. Support the work of the ACLJ.

ACLJ.org. We'll take calls at 800-684-3110. Back with more in a moment. All right. So I'm going to start at the beginning of the lawsuit right here.

We've got it right in front of us here. Now, this is interesting. So this, again, if you're wondering about the judge magistrate issue, this goes to a judge, not the magistrate. This goes to a U.S. District Court judge and Article III appointed for life.

Right. So this is not the same person that signed off on the warrant. So since the judge is reviewing or would be reviewing all of that, because this is what they asked for. We'll start with that. President Trump, through his undersigned counsel, respectfully files this motion for judicial oversight and additional relief. And it seeks an order and there's four things here. A, appoint a special master.

Let's start there. The special master would replace the FBI's taint team, as it's called, which would mean that the FBI would no longer be reviewing their documents to determine whether there's privileges that attach to them or not, or whether the FBI should have those documents. That would then go to a special master, which is usually a retired judge that's appointed by the district court. The difficulty in this particular case is the FBI has had these documents for two weeks. So they may come into court, Jordan, and simply say, Judge, we've already reviewed them.

It's already been completed. But maybe not, so they're asking for it. There could be so many documents. Yeah, that they're still in the review process.

But there's no set date on when this is being heard. Because right now the FBI can go through these documents. I'm sure they have. The FBI would have to have their national security division going through, because the normal agent who seized it would not have had the clearance level to really... So they said there was a taint team initially reports... They had the clearance level to do that top secret SCI?

The FBI agents would. All of them? SCI, not necessarily. Yeah, so they... I mean, internally they may still be going through dividing this up. Yes.

Possibly. And also there was an initial report, remember, that there was a taint team on site. They didn't seem to be doing a very good job.

Evidently not. And like you said, when you read that warrant, it's so broad. We'll get to that in a minute. So the second part, B, it joins further review of seized materials until the master's appointed. So what that would do is say... Let's say you have started the process, but there's...

The New York Times is reporting 300 documents. Let's say they've gone through 100 of them. It would say, stop.

Do nothing. It's like an injunction until a special master's appointed. Yeah, okay. So let's go to C. Require the government to provide a more detailed receipt for property. So that's just saying... Here's what we got. These were too general. Yes.

The descriptions that we all saw, that they saw as well, was too general. Be more specific. Is that them likely trying to find out if they got more documents they shouldn't even have? Yes, because remember, the way that... And you should read that portion of the warrant again.

And this is important for people to understand. So the Fourth Amendment, we said you violated due process, Fourth Amendment rights. Normally what that means is that you cannot have... Not normally. The law says you cannot have a general warrant.

That was what the king... Like I said, the King of England did to the colonies. You can't do general warrants. It has to be very specific. But there was a provision stuck in this particular search warrant that's very broad.

Jordan's got those. And that is where this whole general search warrant issue comes into play. I've listened to these four parts. The first part's the longest, the three parts are not as long, but this is from the warrant. Any physical documents with classification markings, along with any containers or boxes, including any other contents in which such documents are located, as well as any other containers or boxes that are collectively stored or found together with the aforementioned documents and container boxes. So that means if there was a box next to it that didn't have classified info, they'd still get to be able to take that box. Correct. Under this warrant. B, information including communication in any form regarding the retrieval, storage or transmission of national defense information or classified material.

C, this is where it's very broad as well. Any government and or Presidential records created between the day he took office to the moment he left office, January 20, 2017, to January 2021. So not even a date or time period is stamped. The Presidential Record Act doesn't have a criminal analog. There's no criminal provision if you violate the Presidential Record Act. That comes up next.

Yeah. Any evidence of the knowing alteration, destruction or concealment of any government and or Presidential record or of any document with classification marking. So again, they're not just about classified document, but any document whatsoever.

So that is what's prohibited under the Fourth Amendment. I think they've got a very colorable, which means a very legitimate Fourth Amendment argument on overbreadth general warrant. Now, because it's been two weeks, does that weaken that argument too or not as much?

Everything's weaker because they've waited two weeks in my view. Now, if the warrant was unconstitutional because it was overbroad, that should not matter whether it's two weeks or two months. And I've argued overbreadth cases at the Supreme Court. So if it was overbroad in my very first case, the Jews for Jesus case was an overbreadth case.

So for an event that took place four years before, okay? So if it's overbroad, it's unconstitutional. If it's a general warrant, it's unconstitutional. And that would, by the way, what's interesting, it's not in this particular suit, is a prohibition on the government utilizing the... Here's what I would have done, okay, to be blunt. I would have moved to recuse the magistrate, number one. He should not have been hearing the case. He had the conflict. He removed himself from a case involving Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. He should have certainly not been the magistrate signing a warrant for a search of then Donald Trump.

So that made no sense. I would have moved that. Then I would have said that the search warrant itself was flawed. I would have moved to quash it, which means that it's not enforceable. And then I would move to have the evidence expunged or basically that the evidence cannot be used and any proceeding has to be returned. That's what I would have done.

Fruit of the poisonous tree, it's called. It's hard to do that two weeks later. So I think they're probably... It would be considered by outside the magistrate, right? That would be by a judge, by an appointed judge. I would have filed that with the US District Court, not with the magistrate judge, yes. So that deals with the issues with him, even because in that filing, you're asking him to be remoted and you're no longer dealing with just a magistrate. You're now with an Article III judge. But see, if you look at what they say right in the beginning of the lawsuit, it says, under D, it says it requires the government to return any seized item that was not within the scope of the search warrant. So if it was outside the scope of the search warrant, it should be returned. Here's the problem.

If you believe that the warrant was unconstitutional in the first place, everything should be gone. That's the way it should be. So again, we're gonna take your calls on this, 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110 if you wanna talk to us. There's no bad questions, no wrong questions. This is complicated legal issues, unprecedented. Remember, it's unprecedented.

It's never happened to a former President. So a lot of this is breaking new ground for the judges as well. Even the magistrate judge admitted that. But he also said yesterday that with the redactions that the government put forward first, it would not even be readable. Not even negative to Trump, it would not even be readable. We know what redactions can be because we get those in our FOIA case and we gotta go back to court. So I don't expect any big news in two days on the affidavit. He's not even sure releasing it would be readable, but I think he might still, just in the interest of transparency. But if he's gotta fight back and forth with them, then it's not coming Thursday. I would think that's right. That's probably what he's gonna be doing next, is fighting over... A little bit of questioning their redactions.

Well, here's the question. Is this judge gonna set up the lawsuit that's been filed in district court? Can that judge then issue a temporary stay saying, you know what? Everything freezes. FBI don't do any more searching until I issue an order.

Everybody stop, no more anything. And that's what I would have been asking for. Is that they don't technically ask for that? Not technically, no. I mean, they do ask to stop the search...

The further review until someone... Yeah, so I guess, yeah, technically. Let's go to the phones. David in Idaho online too. Hey, David.

Amanda, thanks for taking my call. Sure. Yeah, and I heard you speaking on this a little bit. It's very beginning when they knew this judge was biased or compromised. And why didn't they file a motion to immediately get a new judge? Well, they didn't. I mean, I would have. I can't give you a reason why they didn't.

Maybe they have something we don't know, but I would have immediately moved to refuse the judge and quash the warrant, the search warrant. I mean, without a question. And that's how I would have proceeded with this.

And I think you just gotta be realistic. That's not the path these lawyers chose to take. So you gotta deal with the path they chose to take. We're taking your calls on this by the way at 800-684-3110. A lot of people starting to call. And we'll walk you through this so you understand it because I know it just blops in the news yesterday and you got these five minute little talking sound bites and it's very hard to understand all of this. So what Jordan and I are doing here is breaking this down segment by segment of what's being asked. So you understand this is unprecedented in US history. So it deserves the time we're giving it because this has never happened before. No former President has had their offices and home searched by the FBI, authorized by the current administration's department of justice against basically a political opponent. I mean, could you imagine if Donald Trump did this to Joe Biden, what people would be saying?

So you could take all the politics out of it. And there's now evidence of correspondence going back months where they were negotiating over these documents. And I'm not sure that, again, we'll see what's in the affidavit, which will be blank pages of black marker, knocking out, redacting a lot of this. Let me say something to our donors. We were $135,000 behind last year, yesterday, and we really asked you to step up and you did. We are now only 113,000 away from where we were today, last year, as of this morning, when I got this earlier, obviously. So we picked up $22,000 of additional support to close the gap for the ACLJ. It's really important. Jordan's gonna let you know how to do this folks, but we want to keep whittling this down so that by the end of the month, we at least match what we did last year.

Yeah, that's right, folks. We want you to be part of our matching challenge at ACLJ.org, where you can double the impact of your donation at ACLJ.org. What do you do? You donate online. You donate $25. That's what you're charged on your card. It's tax deductible. That triggers a donor who's already pledged to match donations to then donate an additional $25 to the ACLJ. So what does that mean? Because of your $25 donation, it became 50.

All right, welcome back to Secular. So we've got the legal filing by President Trump. We heard it was coming.

President Trump said it was coming. Interesting enough, there's even confusion right now because on the PACER, which our federal government, the website for federal, you know, the track federal cases, mostly used by attorneys and media outlets. And so in PACER, it says he's representing himself, which would be very Donald Trump. But I don't think that was the intention, unless it's a little bit of a troll because all three attorneys are assigned to this. So it's not, but there's confusion over that. I've seen it on Twitter. You may have seen it on Twitter.

And we always try to help you out here. So I don't think he will be going and making an oral argument before the district court judge here. But you are allowed to do that. It's a good reminder that you can represent yourself in federal court as well. But he does have attorneys.

I'm not sure where that glitch is, but it is just another unique part of the ongoing saga, which is created not by Donald Trump, remember, but by the Biden White House, the Biden DOJ, the Biden FBI. So we're going to go to your calls. And if you've got questions for us about all these legal technicalities, this is a good show to do it because we want to help you all through that so that when you're watching the cable news later today, which I think a lot of you will be, you know what's true, what's not, and what's suspect. You're like, yeah, that's not really what I heard about that legally. That seems like it's going too far, which a lot of times when people describe legal challenges, it does go too far.

And you don't really, you got to understand the nuances of what a win is, you know, in this kind of challenge. So let's go to the phone to 1-800-684-3110. Dave in California online one. Hey, Dave. Hey, Dave. Hey, how are you today? Great. I appreciate you guys taking my phone call. Sure. Hey, you know, I'm a retired firefighter.

I'm still in the business. I come across a lot of guys like me, you know, and we talk about what's happening in the country. And we feel like we're just, we have no power. And I understand the vote.

I understand. And most of us don't even trust our election process anymore. We feel like we're being outmaneuvered. We feel like our courts are not being just. We have people that are, you know, very political that are sitting on these, these judges that are sitting in on courts and, you know, other than, you know, like, what do we do? What do we do?

This is what you need to do. One on the election issue, way too many people sat home in 2020. I mean, they did. And so when they sat home, you had one, the numbers didn't look right because there were people, even in the, even in the special elections following that, remember in Georgia, there were people getting up saying, don't vote. You know, it's not worth voting.

It's always worth voting. Here's how you win. The Democrats showed us this.

Overwhelmed. So that means you got to get everybody who's an eligible voter that you know, who will vote Republican to show up on election day. And then you know what happens?

You know what happens though? You win because your system is overwhelmed with votes for you, for the party. And the Democrats, they didn't sit at home. No, they did that. They just, they went to every nursing home. I mean, so are you willing to do that?

Or are you willing to fund the efforts, which are very expensive, to do that? You have to follow each state laws and they're all different. So some allow you to go right into the nursing home. Some allow you to be asked by people in the nursing home if they ask you directly for help about, you know, questions about the ballot.

You got to comply with them. But you can't give up on the system. This idea that you can't win within our system, we just overturned Roe versus Wade. And just to be clear, right now, we just saw what it looks like when they really engage their grassroots at a level we hadn't seen in a while. But it used to be, I'm just a reminder to people, pre-2000, and maybe around 2002, really, because that 2000 election was so close, it was 2002 when the Republican Party said, you know what? We better get our act together on grassroots. Or it's always going to be down to 500 votes in Florida. At the end of the day, campaigning is grassroots politics.

Yes, it is. And you've got to go to the nursing home where people have a difficulty with the English, who are citizens, and younger voters. There are so many voters to get out there.

But you've got to do it within, and there are organizations that do it, that know what the laws are and comply with the law. But this idea to give up on a constitutional republic because one election cycle didn't go your way, that's dangerous. So let's not, you know, that's not the way to do this.

That's the exact opposite. Donald Trump, let's say, runs again. He won't win. He has no chance of winning if you act that way.

Right. He can't win. If people stay home. If people stay home. And that's true if you're a Democrat.

If people stay home, you know. But they have a better chance of winning. They are always better at turnout. Well, that's because Democrats do outnumber Republicans nationwide. That's just by party registration. There's been a lot of shift there, but especially in swing states. When you hear, like, a purple state, if you look at the voter registration, it's heavily Democrat. It's just Democrats who have gotten sick of how liberal the Democrat party has gotten.

They haven't necessarily shifted over their voter registration. That's why a lot, remember, a lot of the left wants the Electoral College abolished. Right. There's a reason for that. But there was a reason the Founding Fathers put the Electoral College in the Constitution.

Right. And then it won't just majority rule. Majority states, you know, big population states to basically rule the country for everybody else. So it was a brilliant idea having the Electoral College. I think removing it would be, first of all, take a constitutional amendment.

But I think it's, I think the founders were right. Let's go ahead. Yeah, we take another call.

Yeah. Let's go to Mike in California on Line 5. Hey, Mike. Hey, guys.

How's it going? Good. So I had three things popped up when the search warrant went down. The first one was a special masters.

The second one was quash, and the third one was traverse. Right. Now, I've executed over 150 search warrants in my time.

I'm retired now. But the special masters issue was always something that was done before a search was executed, especially with those categories of occupations that required a special masters. So I was listening to another show that they said they did have a category that would be similar to a special masters. In the federal system? So here's how it works in the federal system. In the federal system, I mean, listen, the FBI could say, well, the FBI is not going to move for a special master before they go in and seize documents. So the moving for a special master is usually made by the person against whom the search warrant has been executed in the federal system. So now the federal government could consent to it.

So in other words, Donald Trump says, we want a special master. Did a judge order two on their own? Judge can do it on their own as well. Okay.

But that hadn't happened here. And normally what would happen is, or what could happen is you make the motion for the special master and the government could say, yes, we'll agree to a special master. Here the problem is again, and we only got a minute left in this segment, is that it took a long time to get this document filed. Hey folks, we're taking your calls at 800-684-3110. A lot of you want to talk to us. We're going to keep the conversation going on this, but also this is a really critical time for us at the ACLJ, Jordan. It is. And we've got our matching challenge right now.

It's up at ACLJ.org. And let me tell you, this is a time when legislative sessions are about to start back again. You've got midterm elections coming up. This is when we're able to really figure out, okay, the resources that we're going to have available throughout the end of the year. And I know it sounds crazy to say that, but we have to be able to plan and put together and also be ready for the unplanable and the unpredictable events that will occur.

And they always do. So we want to be ready to go. So financially, what we set up with a core group of donors is this matching challenge. What they do is they say, listen, if a donor today, listening to Jordan on radio, and they go on to ACLJ.org right now, as we're halfway through the show, and they go to ACLJ.org and it's a matching challenge month. They go right now.

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Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Rick Rinnell is going to be joining us the next segment of the broadcast. So what we talk about is classified documents. We talked about all this info. He was the acting director of national intelligence. He was part of a major declassification effort during his time as acting director of national intelligence.

That is one of his top jobs there, other than running all the intelligence agencies, was to stop. And Rick has talked a lot about the overclassification problem, which is something we run into all the time with FOIAs, is things that should not be classified are because it's an easy way for the government to keep you from being able to ever see it. Yeah, it cuts against transparency because if everything is classified this way, they just say it's classified.

We can't give you access. So there is the overclassification issue. We've got a lot of calls coming in already. Again, the President filed a suit yesterday alleging four basic things. One is they want a special master, which I said kind of late in the game for that, but maybe they haven't completed the review. They've also asked for an injunction of further review of the material. In other words, stop it until the court makes a decision on the special master. They want a more detailed receipt of property because it was written like a general warrant so they could get anything.

And then finally, it requires the government to return any EMCs that were not within the scope of the search warrant. So there are ways I would have done it differently, but every lawyer has got their own theories. And I'm sure there was a theory to this.

I just am having a little bit of trouble figuring out what took two weeks. Yeah. All right. Let's take a call. Yeah. Let's go to Robin in Wyoming on line two. Hey, Robin. Hey, thank you for taking my call, you guys. Yep. Glad to do it. Um, say, uh, I'm glad that President Trump is, is basically fighting back on this thing.

It doesn't leave us free and clear as what, you know, citizens of the United States. Uh, we, we are next, you know, seemingly, but, um, in response to the gentleman who was calling from California, um, you know, I talked to a lot of folks that were feeling hopeless. I actually was engaged to, to actually do something this year. I, um, I actually ran against the Liz Cheney in Wyoming and I found it very difficult to even get anything accomplished because there's always more money with politicians and attorneys. But you took, you took the action of, of trying to put your, your convictions to the process. Wyoming's voted, which is a big deal because it's not like Liz Cheney was lacking for money. Um, and, and they were able to, you were at your state. Uh, it wasn't you on foot, you know, for your case, Robin, it wasn't, you made it through the primary process, but, uh, uh, ultimately she lost even with all the money, even with all the money, the name recognition, the family connections. Uh, and I will tell you, we're in a unique state because, uh, your, your Confederate offices are all statewide.

Right. And so running for Congress in Wyoming, even though Wyoming is not one of the most populated States ends up being like running in a congressional district in like near LA, because you're talking about that many people and the just land you've got to cover. So I understand what you're talking about there, but go local. I, I just voted recently is it got a new districting.

So, uh, but, but, uh, there's also a lot of the old parts. There's a Democrat area that has got a Republican area now attached to it that will probably change the federal makeup to go to Republican Congressman. But I saw about 80 offices that were unopposed, all Democrats, the Democrats running now unopposed.

Let's say that, let's say out of those 80, 70, not worth the money. Maybe they're not, but I bet 10, you can give them a run for their money just by running, just by making them show up at a candidate forum, making the local news, cover it. Maybe they're nutty. Maybe they, they, maybe they have done something that is not great. Bring it to the forefront when they run unopposed. They're not running either. I mean, they're just check the box. So I look at those races too. Maybe, maybe you saw them when you voted the primary and say, okay, you know what?

I think that, that, that areas, my areas changed enough. Put my name on the ballot. I'll put my name on the ballot.

And I think if you start out at that level, it's how you build the base to where one day you can run at the federal level. All right. We're taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. If you're watching our social media channels, share this with your friends right now. Rick Rinnell coming up next.

So you want to hear from him and we will take your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. Don't forget matching channels for the ACLJ. We are down to $113,000 behind where we were last year. So we, we picked up yesterday on that deficit. We want to continue that ACLJ.org.

All right. Welcome back to Secular. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. We're joined by Rick Rinnell this week. There's a lot to talk about with Rick because he's a former acting director of national intelligence as well as a former ambassador to Germany.

But with all this news about classified documents, we've now got the legal document filed by President Trump and his team on really the overbreadth, the special master, the fourth amendment issues, all kind of there, potentially a little later than would usually be filed because we're a couple of weeks into this. But Rick, I wanted to talk to start with you on this. You've talked a lot to our audience, but I think maybe a reminder on it about overclassification inside the federal government. When you came in as acting director of national intelligence, I remember that was one of the issues you took on front and center was that there were way too much being kept from the public under the guise of being classified.

Yeah, Jordan, you're exactly right. The problem of overclassification is this. When you go in and you decide that information or content needs to be classified, meaning only certain people get to read it, otherwise it's blocked out and redacted. The idea that you classify information is because there is a source collecting that intelligence or a method on how we collect that intelligence.

We call it a source or a method, a person or a system of how we're collecting. If that is going to be given away, then you block it out. And I think most Americans understand, yeah, you don't want to dry up the intelligence source or method, so block that out so that we don't give away our assets. But what's happened now in Washington DC is that a whole bunch of people who are in charge start to redact and block lots of information, classify it away, so that no one gets to read it in an effort to control the information that seems bad for the agency. It's a PR exercise. It's something that PR agents or press people would want to hide from the public.

So instead of a source or method, it's literally people saying, let's hide this from the public because we don't want the public to know exactly what we're doing. That's a crisis. And I've shared with our intelligence community to say, the American people really don't trust you. And that is going to be a growing problem when you don't have credibility with the American people. But right now, Washington is not listening to that argument.

They keep classifying information away. Rick, one of the things that have come up in this whole discussion and the lawsuit's been filed by President Trump, in my view, it should have been filed two weeks ago. I would have moved to quash the subpoena immediately. I would have moved to get that judge recused and let the evidence be returned.

But they chose this path. It's whatever. But there's also this question that goes up when we're talking about classification is, what is Presidential authority regarding classification of documents and particularly declassifying documents? So you were the acting director of national intelligence. You've been in government for a long time in other capacity, including Ambassador to Germany, where you dealt with, I'm sure, classified documents. What's the President's authority on declassification? Well, there's no one for him to ask. He gets to decide what to classify, what to declassify. He can do anything and everything.

There is no limits on it. Now, some people will talk about the limits of nuclear secrets or certain documents that need to have a different process to declassify. But there is no one that the President of the United States needs to ask or tell. There is this idea in Washington that notification of declassification is a thing.

And this is the swamp, I think, biting back, climbing back to say, wait a minute, you didn't notify us. I would also just put forward, who is the President of the United States supposed to notify? Or who is he supposed to get permission from?

He is the highest person. There is nobody except the swamp likes to think Oh, no, the secretary over at the DIA needs to know and approve who's declassified. No, if she or he or that position absolutely should be notified if it's not the President of the United States. Don't put that pressure on the President.

Well, I mean, I view it as this. You have to look at the Commander in Chief clause of the Constitution. The President is the Commander in Chief.

And what Rick's saying is, there's no one for him to go to to seek approval. He's the highest ranking officer of the United States. Now, what's happening right now is you've got this whole dispute, Rick, going on between the Biden administration, let's be clear, and President Trump over documents that were evidently at Mar-a-Lago. And now you've got this whole literal search warrant takes place. Lawsuits have been filed with the FBI's reviewing these documents. This was an unprecedented move in US history. And we know because of some information that's come out in the last 24 hours, that there was, in fact, ongoing discussions about this going on, and we knew this before too, going on for a while about this.

But what we didn't know was that the FBI authorized, was authorized by the Biden administration to just kind of start the process, not saying the search warrant, but this whole getting the documents because of national security issues. So the question then becomes is, are we dealing with a political move here more than a legal move? Is this a political move to stop a former President from running again at bottom? Well, first of all, let's point out two facts. One, they've always wanted to stop him from running.

They've articulated that they've been very clear. And so I think this is now just another mechanism to try to get him to not run. That's the first point. But the second point is to your question of whether or not it's legal or political. I think the answer lies in their change of arguments. They have literally changed the argument for what they're going after and what the details are, according to how the Trump team is responding. So what seemed to start as a legal argument has clearly delved into a political argument because they're losing on the legal argument. Because to say that the President doesn't have authority to declassify information flies in the face of reality. And now that they know that, this is not Hillary Clinton, who was never the President, she was the Secretary of State, so it's not the same. The President of the United States gets to declassify. You don't see us going into Barack Obama's office and trying to figure out what did he take and what didn't he notify to declassify.

So the double standard becomes a political argument. All right, let's go to the phones. Let's go to Jason Illinois online for Jason with his classification questions. Hey, Jason, welcome to Secular, you're on the air. Yes, sir.

Thank you very much. Thank you for taking my question, all your hard work. My question is that, you know, expanding upon Mr. Rinnell's comments about him being the ultimate classification authority of the United States, how did the DOJ not or know or not know whether the President didn't or did or did not declassify those documents before leaving the White House? So, Rick, the process, I mean, there's processes that the previous administration has had, and there was a memo under George W. Bush's administration about the President having this broad authority to declassify. What Jason's going to is the, then what's the process once he says, I'm now declassifying this?

Yeah, so it's a good question from Jason. And the reality is, is that once the President declassifies something, it's declassified. Now we're talking about notification of the declassification. And so the notification is really the swamp's bureaucracy. What are we supposed to do?

Who are we supposed to tell? What memos are we supposed to write? If there's a breakdown on the administrative side that certain agency wasn't notified, okay, so be it. That's not breaking the law, that is breaking the bureaucratic tradition. And so what I would just say to you is, as someone who's been in the Oval Office a lot, when the President gives a directive, there are administrative people that then call DOJ or work out the paperwork. But it's not like the President picks up the phone to say, okay, I'm calling the Department of Justice to declassify something. No, he says to the people in the room or at the White House or at the NSC, this is declassified. And then it's the responsibility of everybody else to notify on a need-to-know basis who should be informed of that declassification.

Because remember, a lot of this is need-to-know. Yeah, but the thing that's amazing to me here in this entire process is that as this is going forward, right, to build a criminal case on this when you know the President has declassification authority just seems way over the top as far as process goes. Rick, we're out of time.

We appreciate your comments as always. I think where Rick got it down to was that it's not about he declassified. And see, this is getting missed in the news.

That's why I like to have people like Rick on who've been through all these kind of scenarios. And it's kind of seen it all, literally, and as Acting Director of National Intelligence. I mean, you'd see all the intel at the highest level. But he said, it's not the declassification part that Washington's really upset about.

No. It's that did the aides then properly notify this guy, this gal, this person, this person? The agents. Agencies, yeah. And even then you have to be very, as you said, as Rick said, very careful because at least some people need to know that.

This is where I think the case falls apart completely. Courts have no business getting involved in how something is declassified. I don't think it's their role. No, I think separation of powers. I think it's, yeah, it's clear Commander in Chief power.

And each President can probably do it a little differently. All right, we're taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. We got some lines open. Last segment, we'll take your calls on any of these topics. 800-684-3110. Back with more in just a moment.

All right, welcome back to Secular. We got a lot of phone calls and we're gonna get right to them. Donna's been holding on. Thank you, Donna, for holding on in Virginia on Line 3. Want to go right to you. Hey, Donna. Thank you.

Hi, thanks for taking my call. My question is regarding a topic that you covered yesterday. My question is, who is going to be responsible for policing the 80 plus thousand IRS agents that the Biden administration is going to employ to go after these Republican taxpayers and the people that support or want to make campaign donations for the conservative Republicans, the people running for office, President Trump, should he choose to run in 2024?

So, Donna, let me tell you what we had to do last time. When the Obama administration was targeting conservative groups and Christian groups and pro-life organizations and Tea Party groups, we had to go to, and you say, how do you oversee it? You're not going to trust the government to oversee themselves here. So, we went to federal court. And in two cases, in one case in Washington, we asked for what we call the law and we said, the law and injunction basically, which ended up in a consent decree where the IRS not only acknowledged the wrongdoing, but cleaned up their process only to return to it as soon as the next administration went in. So, then you go after them again, but also monetary damages.

So, both of those things happen. So, it's going to take vigilance. This law is in place. So, they're going to be hiring these agents. So, groups say that's where the work of the ACLJ becomes even more critical and why we will stay engaged and on top of these issues. And we will go to court if necessary or deal with Congress to get the oversight there. Yep.

All right. Let's go right back to the phones. 1-800-684-3110. If you want to get in, I'd call right now. 1-800-684-3110. Let's go to Richard Washington State online. 2-H, Richard.

Thanks for taking my call. When most of us leave a job, we clean out the desk, take our personal belongings, and certainly don't take anything that belongs to the company away with us. And so, I'm wondering with President Trump, what would his motivation, what would his reason be for taking any of these documents with him? So, there are Presidential records they're allowed to take with them that are personal records. And then they set up library.

They work with the Library of Congress on and usually creating a database and National Archives on creating a database. In fact, Obama is still in process of digitizing 30 million documents. I think something like that. Maybe it's 30,000. A ton of documents.

May have been 30 million. But he's in the process still of digitizing it. I think, think about Richard a little bit differently. This is not just your job. This is your home. You are the number one figure in the US government. You are the commander in chief. But it's also where you live. And there is a ton of paper flying around.

I don't care who's the President. You got to sign things. You got to read memo. You got to get briefed on this, briefed on that, briefed on this.

Someone leaves you with something. Hey, check this out. Maybe put this in your reading folder. When you go on the plane, check this one out. If you got extra time, read this, read that, read this, read that. Some of this stuff got so down as personal as his personal notes.

Yes. So, Richard, you'd probably take your personal notes, anything with your handwriting on it. And there's also a process that went on here. Just like your office probably had. Like I'm guessing, and anybody who's listening to this has an HR department.

If you're moving to another job or you're retiring, they have a process. Hey, we need this from you. We do that at ACLJ. And I'll tell you, it's different from our lawyers. They have a much more robust process because of all the legal documents than it is for someone on a production team who might not have as many documents, but they've got all the files on their computer. So here's the copy of this, or here's this and that.

Here's what is 100% ACLJs. Here's something you can take with you too. There's a counterplay. There's a few jobs like the President of the United States in the entire world, but certainly, remember, he lives in that place. He eats there. He sleeps there. He has meetings there.

And this is his entire base of operation is that White House. All right. We're taking more calls at 1-800-684-3110. Let's go ahead and take the next one.

Yeah. Let's Becky in Florida online one. Hey, Becky. Hi, Becky.

Hi. I just wondered who makes the decision if it can go to Special Master. Yeah. So it's a great question. So here's how it works. So a motion has been filed now with a U.S. District Court judge. So it's not the magistrate who signed the search warrant. This is now a U.S. District Court judge. And it's a motion to appoint a Special Master and the judge, the federal court judge, will make the determination if a Special Master should be appointed. Now, here's the issue. You have to find out based on the motions and the documents that are pled by here President Trump. So what you have to have happen is make sure in your pleadings that you allege sufficient basis upon which that Special Master should be appointed.

The discretion on that rests with the federal court judge. All right. Back to the phones we go. Marilyn in Virginia on line five. Hey, Marilyn.

Thank you for taking my call. I'll be brief. My question is simply, in light of all that's been happening, what is your best guess that, you know, based on facts and he was saying objectives, do you think that Merrick Garland will willingly step down or be pressured to...

Zero. Now, they might replace him at any point. I mean, at any point he could step down. The President could ask him to step down.

But you asked if he was going to do it. Right now, he's the king of the left. They did not like him. They were going after him. For the first year and a half of him on the job, I thought he was going to be removed actually.

And, Marilyn, replaced by someone who you would have disliked more. Someone who was even more aggressive, at least publicly sounded more aggressive, especially. I think his tone throws a lot of the left off because it doesn't sound as vitriolic. But he is just as much...

They're cheering him on. In fact, I think this may have extended his term as attorney general. And then I think, I don't know if he'd stay around if there was a potential Biden second term, which most of us hope does not occur.

And a lot of times there'd be shifting there, but he's not going anywhere. Don't... I mean, that should not be your thought process.

Of course, he could resign at any moment for any number of reasons, but not because of this. No, no, no. He's being praised. He's become a Washington... Someone you want at your cocktail party in Washington, DC.

Think about it like that. He went from someone who the left did not want to invite to like their hero overnight. Now, if he doesn't indict Donald Trump, I wonder what happens next. Like if Donald Trump isn't put in handcuffs, is that not... It's his mayor Garland. They say, oh, he didn't go far enough.

That's possible. And then he might be pushed out by Biden if he's too... If he's so unpopular that he's dragging down. But if you've noticed, it's Biden who has really been the most unpopular. And I don't think it's even fair to blame his cabinet.

It's him that's been so unpopular. Let's take this final call of the day. Nancy in Kansas online for... Hey, Nancy.

Thank you for taking my call. I just want to know, it appears the lawsuit says President Trump sues the Biden administration. Why is it so vague? It seems to me that the administration could come back and say, we don't know who that is. Why didn't he attack the FBI or certain individuals or be more specific? Well, he doesn't have allegations to go after certain individuals.

He doesn't have a call to action. When you sue an agency of the US government, you sue the US government. Yeah. When you're suing the... If you're asking for a special master, you've sued the United States.

Okay. So that's how it works. And the agency there happens to be the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That way... It's represented by the Department of Justice.

Who's represented by DOJ. All right, folks. I hope that we... And I think we did. It was complicated, I know.

But we wanted to spend the hour to walk you through this. Let me tell you what we need you to do for the ACLJ. Yesterday, we were 135,000 behind our goal. We're now only 113,000 behind.

We picked up... Closed the gap by about $25,000 or so, $23,000. Your support of the ACLJ is critical. We're in a matching challenge campaign. Any amount you donate to the ACLJ, we're getting a matching gift for.

So that means if you donate $20, we have someone that matches it and makes it $40. So go to ACLJ.org. And if you're able to donate, we really encourage you to do it. We're in the last few days of this. I wanna close this gap every day. ACLJ.org. And follow us on all of our social media feeds, Rumble, Facebook, Twitter, wherever else you... YouTube. And we will talk to you tomorrow.