DOJ Fights Against Trump Special Master

Breaking news today on Secular is the Department of Justice is fighting against the Trump Special Master.

They have filed their Notice of Appeal. We'll also be joined by Rick Rinnell on a cyber attack against Albania by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Keeping you informed and engaged.

Now more than ever, this is Secular. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome to Sekulow, folks.

Here it is in my hand. There's two different legal documents filing here. One is you've got a motion for a partial stay. That went to the District Court Judge on a specific, we'll walk through both of these. Then a motion as well to appeal the entire judge's decision order out of the District Court appointing a Special Master that's gone to the Eleventh Circuit.

So this happened kind of simultaneously. A little bit of misleading right in the first paragraph by the Department of Justice. It says, if the court does not grant a stay by next Thursday, the government intends to seek relief from the Eleventh Circuit. But obviously here, they are seeking relief from the Eleventh Circuit. That's a challenge to the entire judge's order. This District Court filing is specific to 100 documents that they want their investigative team to still be able to utilize. Not the investigative team, the national security team to be able to utilize. So here's where they got this dueling court filings.

So here's where they, again, come down so convoluted. So in the motion for a partial stay, they say that specifically the government seeks to stay to enjoin the further review and use of criminal investigative purposes of records bearing classification markings that were recovered pursuant to a court-authorized search warrant and requires the government to disclose those records to a Special Master for review. The motion from the government says the government respectfully requests that the court rule on this motion promptly. If the court doesn't grant a stay by Thursday, September 15th, the government intends to seek relief from the Eleventh Circuit. That's what they're telling the judge. While they've already filed a motion seeking relief from the Eleventh Circuit, they've already filed a application, a notice of appeal.

This is what it says. Notice is hereby given that the United States of America defend the above matter, this is Donald J. Trump versus the United States, appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit from an order of the District Court entered on September 5th, 2022, Docket Entry 64. So they have already appealed.

Yeah. This is, again, a bit confusing. So we want to take your calls on this. So if you've got questions about where this stands right now, because, you know, on the one hand, the investigative investigation basically come to a halt based off the District Court judge's order. In fact, today, they were trying to put forward who are, who would you like to have serve as special master. That was supposed to be coming from both the DOJ and the Trump legal team. So again, you see why this can, it is confusing, just talking through it briefly. So we'll walk you through it a little bit more on the broadcast. We'll take your phone calls on it, 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. To me, it's this Department of Justice, and especially the FBI, they've already had to disclose that they've mishandled the documents twice. But they, again, they realize with a special master, it takes it out of their control, and they don't like that. And there's also, look, here's what's so fascinating to me about this. They specify that they're only seeking this kind of special stay for 100 documents that they view to be classified. Now, these documents, they knew have been gone for a period of time, almost a year and a half.

So here's an interesting dilemma or an interesting comment. What is it in those 100 documents that they're so concerned about that they waited a year and a half to do all this? And are these part of the 100 documents that we know of at least two instances where the District Court said that the Department of Justice sent the information to the investigators, even that was supposed to be controlled by the taint team?

So, I mean, you got to put all of this in that kind of context. What is it that the government's trying to do? They're saying, well, if you don't order our way really quick, we're going to file a Notice of Appeal. Oh, by the way, we filed a Notice of Appeal the same day. All right, folks, we're going to take your phone calls. 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. Let me encourage you to go over to ACLJ Action as well.

Many of you have. We have over 9,439 people that have taken action, that have submitted the comments to the Department of Education, protecting pro-life speech. We encourage you to do so at ACLJAction.org. Help us get to 10,000 today. All right, welcome back to Secular.

We are taking your phone calls as well at 1-800-684-3110. I was going to note that if you are watching on YouTube, click that thumbs up button. That helps the show be served to more folks. So click thumbs up if you're watching on YouTube. If you're a Rumble, click that plus button.

Of course, on Facebook you can share the broadcast with your friends and family. So walking through those three platforms for you, trying to bring more people in so they understand this news, which is not getting the mainstream media or even cable news attention that it likely would. It pops up here and there because of the Queen's death. But to be honest with you, we want you to make sure you know about the news that's happening in our country and what's going on right here as it impacts, in case you're all watching very closely.

This is, again, procedural, but then a full appeal on a procedural decision. So let's go to the phones. I think there's good questions coming in already at 1-800-684-3110. Desiree in Virginia on Line 1. Hey Desiree. Hello. Thank you guys for all you do.

God bless you. So, you know, you said at the beginning, Jordan, it's confusing even talking about it. To me, it just feels like a intentional mass confusion taking advantage of America's, like the fact that we don't know such legalese, you know, like they have dumbed us down. Yeah, I think that it's, again, they don't want to highlight this. That's for sure. That's the issue. They love highlighting when the Special Master came out leaking, you know, info about what they have in their documents, which we saw in the Washington Post.

That's where they want you to focus on Desiree. They want you to focus on the, in a sense, phony picture because they set up this picture in Mar-a-Lago that made it look like, you know, the papers were all over the floor. And that was them that did that. The FBI that did that.

It was not how they found it. So, here's what is disturbing about this. So, they file a, what's called a motion for partial stay pending appeal. They're saying only as it relates to 100 documents, we want those released so that we can get them to the various agencies and also get them to the investigators. The judge has already said no to this. This is them going back to the judge with the warning that if you don't do this, judge, if you don't grant the state we've asked by September 15th, next Thursday, we're going to seek relief from the Eleventh Circuit. Then, what they failed to tell the judge, which the judge knows because it's on the, you know, we'll eventually know because it's not filed with the, it's filed with the district court as well. Here is the notice of appeal. So, on the same day, they actually notice this here by giving the United States of America intends to, it's filed an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. So, it's not they intend to seek relief. They have filed a motion.

And listen, they're like, the government's allowed to do it. It just goes back. But, you know, none of this cures the defect of the fact that the taint team shared information with the investigative team, which was not what they're supposed to do. So, when it goes to the taint team and it's privileged, that's supposed to stay in a separate category, separate team. Nobody looks at it.

It's done. That's not what happened here. At least two incidents that we know that the investigative team ended up with the tainted material and the government offered no explanation as to why that happened.

None. Yeah. We're at 1-800-684-3110 to talk to us on air.

That's 1-800-684-3110. I mean, it's interesting to point out too in some of the DOJ filing, which again, I think points to this idea of, I understand the confusion people have, but let me just read this. The Intelligence Community is page three. The Intelligence Community's review and assessment cannot be readily segregated from the Department of Justice and FBI's activities in connection with the ongoing criminal investigation and uncertainty regarding the bounds of the court's order and its implications for the activities that the FBI has caused the Intelligence Community. That's a bit bizarre also because the initial order from the judge was, I don't want to impact your intelligence review, which does not impact a criminal prosecution, but you're saying now it's too intertwined, which again, are we in the problem of too many of the same people at the FBI doing the same job? You're 100% correct. So one of the things the judge is concerned about is everybody involved, investigators and team, same division of the FBI. So that obviously that creates the problem that's not being fixed here. So I think what you have, I mean, is that's why I think the judge is right. Special Master, let the Special Master decide this. Listen, the Special Master may decide that this stuff is privileged or isn't.

This isn't an adjudication on the final aspect of the case. So we're taking your calls on this at 1-800-684-3110, 800-684-3110. As Jordan said, if you're watching on YouTube, we want you to hit the thumbs up. That's really important because we're starting to see it get shared a lot. If you're on Rumble, hit plus. That's all you have to do.

And if you're on Facebook, of course, hit share, which a lot of you are because viewership is going up on all the platforms. You want to go ahead and take another call? We've got time. Annette in North Carolina online too. Hey, Annette. Hey, Jordan.

Thank you for taking my call. So let's just suppose that everyone has already handled everything, whether it be clients, attorney-client privilege or documents that are classified or whatever. If they've been tainted already and the DOJ has been tainted and everyone has handled and touched all of this before, the Special Master has said, get your hands off of this stuff.

Then what happens because of all the tainted material? What recourse does Donald Trump have? His recourse is that he's got the appointment of a Special Master, but you point out something that's very important here, and I want to read from page three of the government's brief, and this is what they say. They said, the intelligence community's review and assessment, and Jordan said this a moment ago, cannot be readily segregated from the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation activities in connection with the ongoing criminal investigation.

Now here's what I want to ask yourself. Why? Why can't the intelligence community, who doesn't have the authority to bring a criminal charge, review the data that the judge said they can go ahead and continue to determine their intelligence review of what this means to our allies or what this means with the documents? Why can't they do that? And the answer is, the self-evident answer, Annette, is that's because it's the same groups doing everything, and when you've got the same groups doing everything, you're going to have an issue, and that's exactly what you have here. So folks, again, we want to continue to take your phone calls on this, continue the discussion, 1-800-684-3110 to join us.

That's 1-800-684-3110. The intelligence community's review and assessment cannot be readily segregated again from the DOJ or FBI's activity in connection with an ongoing criminal investigation. And uncertainty regarding the bounds of the court's order and its implications for the activities of the FBI has caused the intelligence community, in consultation with DOJ, to pause temporarily its critical work. Well, don't pause your critical work. The judge didn't say pause your critical work.

You're saying it's the same people, so you can't segregate it. Ah, that's the problem, and that's why they filed this motion. So something in this process has gone amiss, and the judge caught up really soon. This judge has gotten a lot of criticism, but you know what she got? She got that the Department of Justice admitted in briefs that the taint team had given documents to the investigators they shouldn't have had and then provided no evidence that they've corrected the procedure. So now DOJ's, you know, running, threatening, if you don't do this by September 15th, judge, we are going to the Eleventh Circuit, which, oh yeah, by the way, the left arm already filed its motion for review, notice of appeal to the Eleventh Circuit. So this is what's going on here.

Shenanigans, I hate to say it. Well, that is actually what Don on Facebook wrote. It seems like the government's just making up their own rules to suit their needs.

I mean, he's filing this, saying you have until next week, and then finally saying, oh, by the way, we're also appealing everything you've decided. So this whole discussion about, oh, this is impeding our intel, and that's all we're really concerned about, now we know that's not true. They are scared of a special master. Yeah, they don't want a special master.

That is abundantly clear. They do not want a special master. Even if it conflicts with their court filings, end of the day, their biggest issue they've got here is they don't want... They don't want somebody looking over their shoulder. Which means it's not about the intel security review.

Right. Which I've always thought, again, you would think the intel security review would already know what this was, right? They already know what's there, what's not there, what's out there, and how serious that is of a threat to our security. All of this going back to the fact that, you know, this is two years in, so how much of a threat could it actually be?

That is the second point, because where were they two years ago? Why, when they got, again, the search warrant, they didn't execute it immediately? I mean, it all reeks the whole time, and then when you have these court filings that start not making sense together, that doesn't make judges happy either.

They don't like that. And, you know, but we do have interesting questions on where it would go next. So Joe on YouTube wrote in, do you think it would go to the Supreme Court?

Here is what... I mean, it could. So it's going to the 11th Circuit. So the next stop would be trying to get a stay, if they lose, trying to get a stay from the Supreme Court. I think they will try that.

The Circuit Justice, however, is Clarence Thomas, who has had a, you know, looks at the Justice Department and these actions like Brett Kavanaugh does. A little suspect. Folks, here's what we want you to do. We're going to take your calls, a lot of them to discuss. 1-800-684-3110, your reaction to all this. How does it make you feel about the elections coming up when you got the government in the middle of all this?

800-684-3110. Then also, we're going to have Andy O'Connell is going to join us. We're going to talk about this appeal, a little bit about what's happened in Britain as well. If you're watching on any of our social media, it's made a huge difference, by the way. If you're on Rumble, hit plus. That's going to get it up in the feed. If you're on Facebook, hit share. We want you to do that now. And if you're on YouTube, thumbs up. Thumbs up have doubled since we asked you to do it. We'd like you to do that if you haven't done it.

Thumbs up on YouTube, plus sign on Rumble and share on Facebook. We'll be back. Welcome back to Secular. We are to your phone calls. I know, again, when we get into these legal matters involving this special master and a double court filing, one to specifically challenge the halt on the investigative side, because they say if they have to halt the investigative side, they can't also do the intelligence side. They said the judge would have until next week until they file a motion with the 11th Circuit appealing. But then they did file a motion to the 11th Circuit appealing the judge's entire order, so the special master entirely. That also got filed. So we'll take your calls now.

1-800-684-3110. People have questions about where this stands and where it goes next. All right. Andy O'Connell, Senior Counsel for the ACLJ, is joining us. Andy, I find it ironic that the government in their motion for a partial stay, they don't want those 100 documents reviewed by the special master.

That's for sure. But they say in there that, hey, judge, if you don't grant the state to us by Thursday, September 15th, we intend to seek relief from the 11th Circuit. And at the very same time, in another document, they filed a notice of appeal to the 11th Circuit already.

So, I mean, what do they think? This judge is not going to figure this out? Yeah, I mean, that's kind of disingenuous. I think the judge is stupid. I mean, you file a motion to enjoin the disclosure of the documents to the investigative staff and to the special master.

You don't want them. And you say, if you don't do what we tell you to do, by September 15th, we're going to appeal. And then they appeal. So now we're before the, I guess we're before the 11th Circuit and before the district court at the same time. This is an interesting state of affairs. No, technically, the case has been docketed as a note of an appeal, but they still have this motion for a stay pending at the district court.

But, you know, Annie, here's what I'm trying to figure out. The judge pointed out in the district court order, and I thought this was fascinating, in the initial order of September 5th, that there were two incidences at least where the taint team gave documents that were privileged to the investigators. That shouldn't have happened. And she said whether they did it intentionally or inadvertently, it doesn't matter, because they've taken no corrective steps to fix it. Now they're saying we can't do an intelligence review if you have the special master in place, even though you've allowed us to review those documents with the intelligence review, because it's so intertwined with the Department of Justice and the FBI, which tells me, and she's acknowledged this, the judge didn't in the order, well, that's because it's coming out of the same group and the same division. But you know they could do a separate intelligence assessment of these documents.

Absolutely could. This is exactly what the FBI is trained to do, to make separate intelligence determinations and to compartmentalize those and to separate them out if they wanted to do that. But they're making it more of a complex situation than it really is, and really threatening this judge. You know, if you don't do what we say we're going to do, then we're going to file an appeal, and they file the appeal. So you've got an appeal docketed and an order also being appealed to the Eleventh Circuit and at the same time an opposition to the appointment of a special master.

The government is playing it in all different directions and all different ways and is being really, in my view, not really truthful with the court as to what this filter team can do. So the phone's 1-800-684-3110 if you've got questions on this, which again we want to work you through. We've pledged this whole process.

We will work you through this step by step because again the media doesn't have the mainstream media, cable news doesn't have the time to walk through it the way we can. Dee in South Dakota Online too. Hey, Dee.

Hi, thank you for taking my call. With all of this out there, I don't want us to forget that this has been an onslaught against this man from the day his name was mentioned. And what it really is, it's not against him, it's against all of us Americans.

My boys have been deployed five times, twice to Afghanistan, and I feel like their fighting for my freedom is being just ripped apart when you see someone just being constantly, constantly battered by our own tax dollars that are paying for these legal fees against him. It's our own government agencies coming against him with my tax dollars. What happened to Hillary Clinton? What happened to Hunter Biden? What happened to Hunter Biden? They had an FBI agent that was the assistant special agent in charge of the D.C. field office that decided that investigation shouldn't go anywhere, so he buried it. That's what happened on that one.

And that guy's now no longer there. What happened on the Hillary Clinton investigation was they determined there was no culpability or criminal intent. On the Donald Trump one, they decided they're going to bring everything they've got at one time. Adam, we are now within the 60 days of the midterm elections. What are you thinking politically here, Jordan, how this is playing? Because I don't think this helps.

No, it doesn't. I think it's all, again, for the left, it gives them ammo to just, you know, another thing they can pile on, and it can be distracting. It's legally, it is distracting, and you never know when they're going to leak another photo or file another photo that is also misleading. There's a lot of opportunities here. This is the problem with the FBI right now.

If they get back into the power seat here, they're temporarily out of the power seat, but if they get back into the power seat, we have seen their strategy already for this specific case. One is you come up with phony photos. So the place was real, the papers were real, but the way they looked, it's like they set a scene, and the scene was incorrect. That was their scene. You didn't walk into that office and it was papers all over the floor with top secret folders.

So that was part one. Then the moment they don't like something a district court judge does procedurally, they leak to the Washington Post. So they're following a very similar seventh floor FBI strategy that we've seen before, which is concerning and why we have to be on this every step of the way. Andy, what is your thoughts about the fact that they did leak this, you know, supposedly nuclear information about a document to the Washington Post? It only could come from the FBI Department of Justice.

Jay, I think that's outrageous. I mean, it's, you know, it's like you said earlier on, Comey didn't leak it. He gave it to a friend of his to leak. These people leaked it directly to the Washington Post. That's an outrageous thing to do, to give it to the media, especially the liberal left-wing media, to slam President Trump over the head with it, or to try to do that in any event. But the leakage itself should be investigated as a criminal act and a violation of the law and obstruction of justice. But no one is going to do anything like that.

It should be national security implications. All right, Andy, quickly here. The Queen passed away right after we got off the air, but there is already a new king of England, King Charles III, and the Queen's Council, which is what the lawyers were called at the highest level there, are now referred to as King's Council.

That's right. Everybody who was a QC is now a KC, and the Queen Elizabeth, the age, second Elizabethan age has come to a close. This is a long reign, a reign of 70 years. It began with a young monarch, 25 years old, and an old prime minister who adored her and whom she respected and held in awe and reverence. And it reminds me of an event that had occurred almost 100 years earlier when Queen Victoria in her 30s ascended the throne in Britain, and her mentor was Lord Melbourne, who was about the age of Churchill. The analogies between the Victorian age and the second Elizabethan age can go on forever. England has moved from an age of austerity under the Labour government, then Winston Churchill came over and took over back in the Tories, and Queen Elizabeth brought in this new glorious age, which ended two days ago. And one thing that you mentioned, Jay, that I think is very important, the sense of duty of this monarch. She stayed alive to welcome in her new prime minister.

That was only 48 hours before she passed. Alright folks, we're taking a one minute break. If you're watching on Facebook, we want you to hit share. If you're watching on YouTube, thumbs up. We're starting to get a lot of traction on this.

And if you're watching on Rumble, hit the plus sign. Also, support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. And we're going to take your calls at 1-800-684-3110 when we come back from the break.

That's 800-684-3110. Back with more, including your calls and comments. Of course, you can get those comments on social media at ACLJ.

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

ACLJ.org. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now, more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now, your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome back to Sekulow, our second half hour of the broadcast.

Again, if you want to join us on the air, 1-800-684-3110. In this second half hour, we'll be joined by Rick Rinnell, because there has been an Iranian cyberattack on a NATO ally, one that he works closely with in Albania. So, the ramifications. They've cut off their diplomatic relations. What does it mean for NATO? What does it mean for Article 5 of NATO, which would say that if there's an attack on another NATO ally, it's an attack on all, and a response by all. But this is the new world we're operating in. Does a cyberattack cross over into that, and do we need to look at potentially making changes there, because we know that's where new warfare is going.

But I think he'll be able to give some insight, too. Why Albania? What was it about Albania, which had diplomatic relations with Iran, and is a predominantly Muslim country.

By nature, it's been modernizing a lot, so maybe it's that issue. Maybe it's just that they're aligned with NATO, but we'll talk about that with Rick. We've got these dueling court filings by the Department of Justice. Bizarrely, because you read one filing, you think, okay, this is the filing until next week. If the judge decides not to allow them to continue to review the 100 or so classified documents, which has been put on hold for investigative purposes, then they said they were going to file next week an appeal to the 11th Circuit. Except for they already filed the appeal to the 11th Circuit, challenging the appointment of a special master in total. Right. So they've got dueling documents that are inconsistent, like when they filed their motion briefs in the initial part of this case, when they said things like our investigation, we've already reviewed all the documents on page 29, and then on page 30, it says we're in the process of completing our review of the documents.

I mean, this is what they're doing, and this is where it hurts them in the process, the government. We also need to say this, and we're going to talk more about that. We've got a lot of things, a lot of moving issues today, obviously.

But let me say something else. We've had an unbelievable response to ACLJ action. We've had some good wins, by the way, right up front. I mean, we had a nice win in South Dakota on a constitutional amendment that at least will be clear what people will know they're voting on, enshrining a right to abortion in their constitution. Hopefully that goes down in defeat now that it's clear what it is, because the way it was written before was not clear.

It might not even make it to... They may not even get the signatures. Right, because you have to get so many signatures there to do the ballots. So the signatures, this would appear, this will appear in November as a proposed ballot amendment.

And then if they don't, if they get enough signatures, it would be in the next general election. So this is a good, that was a good development. Now we've got another major development involving the Department of Education. Jordan's going to give you the details on this, and we've had an unbelievable response. Well, this is exactly one of the reasons why we created ACLJ Action.

We want to put together tools for you through the website at ACLJAction.org, where you can really get involved grassroots level. And so this time, it's the Department of Education going outside the legislative process using the rulemaking process, trying to make pro-life speech equivalent to harassment under Title IX of the Department of Education. Under Title IX, for instance, if you are pregnant and you are an educator, it starts with kindergarten, it goes all the way through the upper levels of college. Anyone who takes any kind of federal funding at all, this applies to.

Now we know why there's protections for women who are pregnant, whether they're in the workforce or students, but now it says that if you also have to have that same protection for someone who is terminating a pregnancy. Now one, again, has a lot of questions about where this causes trouble. You can imagine.

Two places. One, if someone who is planning to terminate a pregnancy you may not even know is pregnant, if you're pro-life and using pro-life speech, have you now committed harassment under Title IX? Under their proposed rule, we think you would have. And so that's one. Two, there are universities that are more conservative, that are more pro-life, that do take some federal funds.

Now does that mean that by having a pro-life viewpoint, again, they'd be subject to these harassment claims? So we want you to file a comment with the Department of Education. That may sound hard, but we made it easy for you at ACLJAction.org.

You go right to the home page, you see Take Action, you click on that button. We have it pre-written for you, but we want you to add a few of your own sentences to it and then submit. And you'll actually get an email back from the Department of Education notifying you that they have received your submission. 9,500 people have done so already. We're only actually, 9,580?

We're only 420 away from hitting 10,000. If you're on the ACLJ email list, this is also in your inbox, so check it out that way. Go to ACLJAction.org right now. All right, welcome back to Secula. We're joined now by our Senior Advisor for Foreign Policy and National Security, former Acting Director of National Intelligence Rick Rinnell. Interesting development, and one, because we're all watching the Iran nuclear deal, and so all this plays into, especially when it's a NATO ally, but also you've got this expertise with Albania. You spent a lot of time there, and so the Albanian government, who had diplomatic relations with Iran, also NATO members, has severed those diplomatic relations because of a cyberattack by the Iranian, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and their leadership has come out and said, we absolutely believe it's Iran that is responsible for this. I think the first question people would have is, Iran and Albania, why would they choose, from even the list of NATO allies, and maybe that's a reason, maybe they are an easier NATO ally to go after, but why pick a fight with Albania?

Well, it's an interesting question, Jordan. As you know, I have traveled to the region, the Balkan region, quite a bit, and I know Prime Minister Idi Rama. I know him well. I worked very closely with him during the Kosovo-Serbia negotiations, and Albania was very important. Albania is a Muslim-majority nation and a NATO ally, and so it's important to understand that I think Iran feels angry that you've got countries like Turkey and Albania, who are NATO members, who are not siding with them, but who are siding with the West, and of course they should side with the West, they're members of NATO. And so I think the actions of Idi Rama, the Prime Minister, have been very strong. I've spoken to him since all of this has gone down, and they were very firm. They wanted the West to stand with them.

I think he was clear-eyed and focused when they kicked out the Iranian diplomats. I think it's a really good move, and hopefully this will push NATO to do more and do more aggressively when it comes to cyber attacks. We all want NATO to rise to the occasion to confront the current threats that we face, and one of the threats that we clearly are facing is cyber threats. So Rick, under the Article 5, attack on one is attack on all, is cyber warfare covered right now? There's been a push to have NATO do more when it comes to cyber attacks, certainly in the Trump administration. When we talked about reforming NATO to rise to the level of today's threats, the threats are changing.

Every decade there seems to be a new type of threat, whether it's a non-actor nation threat, but now we're moving into cyber threats which can just be someone in their basement, or they can be a whole plan of attack from Russia or North Korea, or in this case, Iran. You know, Rick, I want to return our attention to, because you're the Director of National Intelligence and also, of course, you're Ambassador to Germany, you know what classified documents are, so we have this whole legal kerfuffle going on between the former President and the United States Department of Justice. And today, or yesterday, the Department of Justice filed a motion for a stay pending appeal, which means they want, if they appeal the case, they want the government being allowed to continue its investigative review of the records that the judge said, I want that stopped. She did say that the national security apparatus could continue to review those documents, but not the criminal Department of Justice aspect. The government comes back and says, hey, judge, if you don't change this by the 15th of the month, we're going to file the notice of appeal.

And at the same time, by the way, they filed the notice of appeal, so that was a little disingenuous, okay. But the judge said the national security assessment of these documents can be evaluated. The FBI and Department of Justice comes back and says, oh, no, we can't do that because they're too intertwined. Now, Rick, you are the Director of National Intelligence, and I know a little bit about this, too, from my work over the last several years. The intelligence community could do its own assessment, which is not in a criminal context, separate from the Department of Justice.

Yeah, there's no question about that, but let's be really clear, Jay. The Department of Justice doesn't want outside scrutiny. They don't want a third party. They don't want an independent agency. It's the government, once again, saying we're the government.

We are the entity that gets to decide, and no one should contradict us, and we don't want to see or hear any dissenting information. This is what's happening at DOJ. And I have to say, when you read the U.S. Constitution, the only thing that comes up in my mind immediately under an out-of-control DOJ and executive branch is where is Congress? The legislative branch needs to step up and do something and control what is happening.

And, you know, obviously the judiciary is independent and doing what they can do, but we need to have a balance of power. That's exactly what makes America great, and right now I'm very concerned as to what's happening. Rick, I know our listeners also, they are keying in, of course, on the midterm elections coming up, especially as primaries come to a close. And they really focus in on trying to, one, unite conservatives together around good candidates.

You're traveling all over the country. Could you give people like an update, too, just what you're feeling on the ground? Because we're hearing that, you know, things are tightening, and that's pretty normal in politics, that things get tighter as you get the actual candidates chosen. And people have got to, maybe they backed other candidates in primaries.

You've got to go through that unity process, and that's very important. But what are you sensing on the ground as you travel the country from the West Coast to the East Coast? Look, I'm all over for the conservative candidates, for the Republican candidates, and trying to help them. And I think you hit it right.

It's a unity message. We've got to unify. We've got so many different types of candidates that won in the primary, and there are still hard feelings.

There are still hurt feelings going on. What I think we have to be able to do is recognize that it's now going to be a choice election between two types of candidates. It's going to be one with a worldview that's very woke and very left, and the other that's not. So we can have these tough assignments. We can talk about what our strategies are in the primary and pick our favorite candidate. But at the end of the day, after that, we need to recognize what you're up against and who could come in as the leader. Take a Senate race. You may not have wanted Blake Masters in Arizona. Blake won, and it's now going to be a choice between Mark Kelly and Blake Masters. We can go through all the states and recognize the choices that are in front of us.

Yeah, I think those bigger pictures, too. And for everybody listening, I mean, Rick, as you know, too, when it comes to really getting done some items, especially putting a stop to some of this just out of control in what we see in the House. But how important these branches of government become, both the House and the Senate can become, when you have a hostile administration.

And right now, where they've got full control, we've seen what it's like. We have an opportunity here to change that. But it does, Rick, like you said, people have got to get over the hurt feelings. Politics is tough, and when you engage it, you have to realize sometimes your chosen candidate doesn't win. But you've got someone on your side of the aisle that you probably agree with at least 90 percent with, and that's who you should go for.

You've got to come together at that point. Yeah, and I think time will obviously heal some of the sensitivities the more we get past the race and give it a little more time. I think we also need to just begin to focus on the choice in November. This is what's the hard part about primaries is that you have real intense feelings. But again, I think focusing on the choice in November will get people to understand that an 80 percent friend, a 75 percent friend, heck, even a 60 percent friend is going to be better.

Yeah, I totally agree. I think this is the part where you have to go from practical. You work in the primary process, try to get the candidate you want through, then you've got to start making practical decisions.

I think we've moved further and further away from that on both sides of the aisle I've seen. But depending on what state you live in, you might have to make choices that you don't love. But I still want you to take part. Rick wants you to take part.

We all want you to be involved. Because if you're not, if you stay at home, the other side wins. One other point to that is the winner has a responsibility, too. The winner has a responsibility to reach out and to be magnanimous and to say, I need everybody involved. And sometimes that's as difficult as losing.

Yeah, that is absolutely true. That's the kind of people you want to be keying in from. If you're hearing that kind of message from maybe a candidate you didn't back in the primary and they're saying, hey, we want you on the team. Come join us.

Join them. I mean, that's our message. Thanks, Rick.

We appreciate it. Again, folks, ACLJ Action. We're dealing with this attempt to silence pro-life speech. I don't know if we're at 10,000 yet, but we're getting really close, Jordan. Yeah, we are. I mean, we are at 9,652 actions taken, so 348 away.

I think we'll reset by the end of the day. If you go to ACLJAction.org and you click on Act Now, we've got the message for you ready to go. It'll submit to the Department of Education.

We do encourage you to add a couple of your own sentences, two or three of your own sentences, to make it personal. This is, again, this is a rulemaking process, so don't use the legislative process. To try and update Title IX to make most pro-life speech the equivalent to harassment. Opens up to harassment claims.

Serious problems starting from K all the way through graduate school. ACLJAction.org, let's defeat this. All right, welcome back to SECU. We've got a lot of phone calls to get to. I appreciate you holding on as we were talking to Rick Rinnell about Iran, Albania, and NATO, and also the politics of the day. I think that's important that we start building almost each broadcast so we get closer to the midterm elections, at least updating you on those.

And sometimes focusing it on specific races. Let's go start with, I'm going to go with the order of phone calls for this final segment. We'll start with Bernice in Washington State on Line 1. Hey, Bernice.

Hey, thank you for taking my call. I was under the impression that former Presidents have security clearance and they receive intelligence reports on foreign and domestic issues. The documents were in a locked secured area and Secret Service has coverage there, I would imagine, even if the President isn't there, simply because he's a former President.

So what would be the issue and why would it be so damaging that the Democrats want to impeach, or not impeach, but get rid of him? Yeah, so the issue is that the location, which was the President's Florida residence, was not a secured, was not called a SCIF. It's not a secured intelligence area.

So even though there is Secret Service down there, that's one. The second legal issue is the government is alleging these are documents that belong to the United States under the Presidential Record Keeping Acts and under the National Archives Authority and are not the President's own property. And they raised that again in this motion for partial stay that they filed yesterday. So you've got that dispute and this would have been going on for months and months and months. So I don't know, you know, I'm not involved in it, so I don't know what was the motivating factor, but that is the legal issue. And then you've got what happens to those documents and that's where the raid took place to get the documents out of the possession of the former President into the possession of the federal government. The federal government says it's right where it belongs, but they're trying to review what may be privileged and what may be personal.

And that's where the whole kerfuffle is taking place legally right now over that issue. All right, thank you for your phone call. These are great calls, good questions. Bob in California on Line 6. Hey, Bob. Bob, you there?

Looks like Bob may not be there. So let's move on to Roger in California on Line 5. Hey, Roger. Hi, thank you for taking my call. I'll have to admit I'm not a regular listener. I just happen to be channel surfing. Well, we're glad you caught us today. Good.

Okay, yeah. I happened to hear some of the discussions on the confidential materials at Mar-a-Lago and I, you know, I haven't really heard this addressed and I want to get your take on it. I was, I'm a retired naval officer. I did 24 years in the Navy. One of my tours of duty was as a confidential materials custodian for one of our warships. And we would, we would pick up the material under armed guard and I'd take it to a secure lock vault on the ship. And I handled that stuff with fear and trembling. And it was common knowledge, you know, that you screwed up, you're going to jail.

And if I were to ever have taken that stuff home, I'd still be locked up. And I just want to get your perspective. You know, from my angle, it seems like, you know, that doesn't belong to the Presidents, the governments, and it should be, should follow the law. We're a nation of laws and I don't think anybody's above the law. Of course.

And just get your take on this. Well, first of all, Roger, thank you for 24 years of service in the Navy. We really appreciate that. You stood for our freedom and we appreciate that. The difference between you, of course, as a naval officer and the President of the United States while he was President was he's the commander in chief. You didn't have authority to declassify anything. The President has plenary and absolute authority to declassify anything and everything. At any moment at any time. At any moment in time while he's serving in office. So there's legal questions on when this took place and all that. With regard to the secure location, look, I mean, if you took sensitive documents, the President often would take documents to the residents and every President's done that to review in the evening that were secured documents.

That was apparently part of his regular practice. So the difference is, and by the way, it doesn't mean that the document should have been down in Mar-a-Lago. Okay. I'm not getting to the bottom line of that.

I'm not making an opinion on that. I don't like the way the thing has been handled procedurally, but I'm not going to get into whether the document should have been there or not. I don't know what's in these documents, but the difference was you are a naval officer. This was the former President of the United States who, when he had the documents taken or when he was reviewing the document, was actually the President of the United States initially. And that's where the document comes in. And then it's really a question of the Presidential records act. Yeah, because I think courts are going to be pretty weary to dive straight into this classification process because when it comes to the President, when it comes to other officials, they have processes they've got to follow. But when it comes to the President, the classification process was actually created for the President of the United States. And again, they have this power while they're President to declassify. And then there's a question about, well, can you reclassify? I mean, you know, this gets into that question about, is a court going to really step in and hear a criminal case over what is more like a dispute between executive agencies?

Right. I mean, it's not even Congress and the executive branch of government. Here it's a dispute within the executive branch of the government over the President's power to declassify what it means and the legal testing, which may or may never ever happen, about the idea that what we all believe is that the President can declassify whatever they want, however they want. As long as there's a process to do that, though. I mean, let's be clear, there is a process, but it is absolute. I mean, here's a question came in from Eric on YouTube. Would DOJ be open to a contempt court ruling if they don't comply with the judge's ruling while appealing?

I think the answer to that is yes. It's bizarre. It's very bizarre.

I mean, this is why this is so bizarre. And the judge gave him leeway on the national security assessment, which they say they can't even do. So, yeah.

And if they did any more of the sharing of documents, yes, I think contempt proceedings could be brought. So there you go. Let's bring another call in. Yep. Joe in North Carolina, online too. Hey, Joe.

Hey, thanks for taking my call. I was wondering, do you all know the judges on the 11th Circuit? And if you do, how do you think they would rule on the appeal that's been submitted? Well, the 11th, I mean, I know a number of the judges on the 11th Circuit, and some of them have worked on their confirmations.

It's going to depend on the panel you get. I think they're going to be not readily desiring, Jordan, to overturn a discretionary decision by a trial court. Yeah. But that's important to point out is the Court of Appeals is not a trial court. And so when these decisions are made by a district court judge over a special master, they already have issues with the documents not being reviewed by the wrong people.

There's a lot of deference there. So that's a lot to overcome for the DOJ already. Secondarily to that, let's say they don't get a good panel DOJ on the 11th Circuit. They want to take this to the Supreme Court.

That circuit judge justice is Justice Thomas, who again, I think, probably has that view that this is, again, this is a trial court decision. But, again, you never know. Well. And you can't guess.

No. And we got an interesting comment on Rumble in that respect. Can President Trump go ahead and bounce this to the Supreme Court, or does he have to wait for something out of the 11th Circuit? Well, here's what's interesting. President Trump won. So he's not the appellant.

He's the appellee. The appellant's the one that's going to want to move this up. So they go, let's say they go to the judge, doesn't issue a stay. They go to the 11th Circuit. The 11th Circuit doesn't issue a stay. It will be the Department of Justice taking the appeal, a petition for a certiorari or an application for a stay, an ape proceeding as it's called, to the Supreme Court that will start with the circuit justice, Justice Thomas. He can then refer it to the rest, he can deny it himself, or refer it to the rest of the court. So that's why I'm glad we were able to spend this time on this today, because I know this is confusing, but it's important for you to understand what's going on here when the country, you know, this is important stuff. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is about, ultimately, can they indict the President of the United States? Yes. Don't forget that's what this is about. This is the procedural part of that. Again, folks, I want to encourage you, go to ACLJAction.org, we're only 275 submissions away from 10,000 comments to the Department of Education in just about 48 hours. So I encourage you, go to ACLJAction, take action for life.