Pres. Trump Predicts Own Arrest Tomorrow

Today on Sekulow, President Trump predicts his own arrest tomorrow. 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. This is a show we definitely want to hear from you on and we've got a lot to say as well this week. And President Trump with a statement saying that predicting his own arrest this Tuesday, the grand jury is meeting in New York today. And we know that there are witnesses going in to testify. It's a unique process there to say that, in fact, there should not be an indictment. So you've got attorneys, former attorneys going in to testify to the grand jury. There's an active grand jury.

We know that. And an indictment could be issued as early as tomorrow. And there was something that caused President Trump, and it's likely this attorney going in, and this final, that kind of, he was offered.

So when you're offered a couple weeks ago, usually that means they're coming to the close. When you're the target, usually you're the last witness. So he, of course, he declined.

Which is the right thing to do. And now you've got a situation where the New York attorney, the DA, is allowing a lawyer who was involved in the case to now testify. But he's being put up by Robert Costello, he's a good lawyer, I know him, being put up by President Trump. It appears that President Trump's lawyers want him to testify to the grand jury to probably counteract some of the other statements that are made here. The most unique aspect of this, besides the fact that it's unprecedented that a former President's actually facing a criminal proceeding, is this charge, if it was in a normal situation, which of course it's not because it's all political here, would normally at best, if you could even make that case, and I doubt seriously you could, would be a misdemeanor. And, of course, they're trying to do this as a felony, and they're trying to do it as a felony by basically asserting that there's a campaign finance component to this, the business records, which is what they're talking about here, and how these business records were recorded. So that, to me, is an interesting dynamic on all of this, in that in a normal situation, you wouldn't be finding yourselves in a felony grand jury proceeding. And by the way, this case, Mark Pomerantz, who was one of the attorneys in the New York DA's office, who was originally charged by Cy Vance, remember, we handled the Supreme Court case involving that same office on the tax returns. And the interesting thing there is that lawyer's written a book, and in his book he talks about this as the zombie case.

It was dead, and then it would come back to life, and then dead again, and then back to life, and then dead again, and then he quit. He and Kerry Dunn, who was my colleague that argued in the other, representing the New York DA's office, in the Supreme Court case, they both quit because Alvin Bragg would not prosecute this case, because it was a, quote, novel legal theory, and why would you try a novel legal theory against anybody, let alone a former President? So Roy R. Rumbel said, how did Trump know he'll be arrested? Can they really do that? Will his Secret Service detail out?

They've kind of answered the question. He knows because the Secret Service has been consulted already on what would happen if he is indicted this week. And the security there, the Secret Service takes the lead on how that would work. I mean, technically, I think we'll talk to Andy O'Connell on the next segment on this, there's a process that you go through, and normally a process is you just, you know, you'd be, you would be, in this case, you would just report. Look, but this is really, this is really outrageous, that a case that has been dormant now for three different times, it's gone to the grave.

But as Justice Scalia said, like a ghoul in a late night horror show, this thing keeps to, you know, shuffles abroad and the zombies back. And if this, of all the things they've been investigating, and we go through that list, an impeachment, which we handled, the Bob Mueller investigation on Russia and obstruction and collusion and all of this. And then you had the whole, then you had a second impeachment. Then you had the proceedings on the tax returns with both Congress and the district attorney's office.

And at the end of the day, what do they end up with? Taking a misdemeanor count, maybe, and trying to convert it to a felony. To me, this shows you what a ridiculous nature this entire process is. Two impeachments, two special counsels, one active right now, the DA of New York, previous DA, current DA, the DA in Atlanta is still going in Fulton County, the AG of New York.

That's not even talking about the congressional investigations, the Supreme Court cases, the tax returns, all those issues. The political persecution of Donald Trump is real, wherever you are politically. And by the way, Ron DeSantis, a lot of people waiting to see would he say something will play sound.

He did. Again, pointing out, this is a Soros DA doing this for politics. So DeSantis has weighed in. We'll be right back. Welcome back to SECU.

I do want to reset this. We have a lot of new folks joining on Rumble. If you're watching online, if you're listening to the broadcast as well, a lot of new folks joining in. So what we have is President Trump predicted his arrest this week.

A lot of people are saying that, how, why? Well, he's in a unique spot. One, he got asked to come up here before the grand jury. When you're the target, that's towards the end of the grand jury.

Normally, yes. So that happened a couple weeks ago. Then the Secret Service got consulted by the attorney's office. Is that confirmed now?

Yes. The Secret Service has been in meetings with NYPD, FBI, about the security around the courthouse, security around the Trump building, and what a arrest would look like, an arraignment would look like. Not necessarily an arrest, actually. I mean, there's talk about that. Andy O'Connell is, of course, senior counsel for the ACLJ, but has also been a state prosecutor.

And Andy, in this kind of situation, what's the normal situation of what would happen here? I mean, we've talked about the charges in the first half. I think these charges are, boy, it stretches like an overstatement.

I mean, this is trying to concoct a misdemeanor and then try to make that misdemeanor a felony. Well, we can talk about that later. But let's talk about process here. What happens?

Okay. Normally, when you have a public official, or in this case, the unique situation that I don't know that has ever existed before of a former President of the United States, but if you've got a known public official like this and he's – an indictment is returned by a grand jury, the usual process – the usual process is a bench warrant is issued and then he's arrested. But in this case, that's not going to happen. That's not the usual process in the case of a public official who has no flight risk, who has held the highest office in the land. Usually what happens is the district attorney's office contacts the counsel for the President, whoever that is, in this case, former President Trump, and he voluntarily surrenders – that's the term that we use – a voluntary surrender to a magistrate in New York City under the New York County court system, and he is then processed into the system. Usually bail is set, but he can sign his own bond. He's not a flight risk, and he's allowed to then go on his way until a notice of arraignment, which is the day you enter your formal plea is set. Andy, the unusual thing here is that Bob Costello, who we know is a very good lawyer in New York, Representative Rudy Giuliani as well, Bob is going into the grand jury today, but like as a defense witness, which is highly unusual in a grand jury proceeding that the prosecutor allowed basically a defense witness to go forward, but New York apparently has a very different system.

You're absolutely correct, Jay. A grand jury is a one-sided affair. It's an accusatory body that is controlled by the prosecutor, whether it's the district attorney in the state system or the United States attorney in the federal system. There are very limited cases in which a target or a defendant can come in and be heard in Georgia. If it's a public officer or a police officer, he's allowed to do that if something happened during the course of an arrest, but 99 percent of the time you don't hear from the other side. You only hear from witnesses who are brought in by the government, by the prosecution.

In this case, New York apparently has a procedure whereby defense witnesses can come in, witnesses on behalf of the soon to be accused or purported to be accused, and make their plea that he not be indicted. Very unusual. All right, let's do this. We've got calls coming in. We're taking your calls at 800-684-3110. We've got a good one here from Jason. Yeah, Jason in Maine on Line 1.

Hey, Jason, welcome to Sekulow. If you want to join, if you've got a question, folks, give us a call. 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110 to be on the show and ask us questions. There's no bad questions about this. It's a unique situation to say the least. Jason in Maine, you're on the air.

Good afternoon. So my question to you is, so is Donald Trump going to be able to run if he gets arrested? Because it just seems like everything that he's done, all the good policies and all these good things that he's done, as soon as the Democrats get in there, it just kind of like undone everything good. Look, I mean, I consider this a political prosecution because, again, this case, as I said in the first segment of the broadcast, Mark Pomerantz was a lawyer in that office charged with bringing a criminal case against Donald Trump in the New York DA's office, wrote a book, and he called it the zombie case because it was being killed by the career line lawyers, the district, assistant district attorneys, because it was so novel, so unique, so different that they said, why would we bring a case like this? But nevertheless, now the political pressure has been put up at a very significant level here.

It does not affect his ability to run for President because that's not an exclusion under the Constitution. The interesting thing is here, Andy, is that it's so politically obvious what's going on here. Alvin Bragg was the DA who said, I'm not going to bring the case when Cy Vance was done. I mean, a lot of people don't know this inside the baseball.

We do because we were there. I mean, we know this case. And Cy Vance's office was going to bring the case. Alvin Bragg becomes the DA.

He wins the election and says no. And Pomerantz and Kerry Dunn quit because of it because he said the career DA's and the assistant DA and the, quote, new regime, as he called it, would not move forward with the prosecution. So Bragg takes up where he left off, and now the prosecution contorting what is a misdemeanor, literally contorting it into a felony so as to give the grand jury jurisdiction to indict. This is a political prosecution, and political prosecutions are not what the United States or its several states are about.

They are prosecutions that should be based upon violations, real violations of real laws that have real effect. And to just touch on the point about the President Trump running, the Constitution of the United States sets the qualifications for the office of President of the United States, and this event in New York has nothing to do with that and would not preclude him from seeking reelection to that office. It's an interestingly unifying moment for Donald Trump because he's got every Republican, and we talked about this in our meeting before, when was the last time basically every major Republican had to make a statement defending Donald Trump?

Probably for the Bob Mueller case that we handled in the first impeachment. By the second impeachment, people were kind of, you know, being in the January 6th and all of that, but this has changed that, and the holdout, which really wasn't a holdout, but it was what will Ron DeSantis do Monday? Well, I mean, Monday morning, the first thing Ron DeSantis did was talk about the DA. I mean, that is the first thing he did today as Governor of Florida and a potential Presidential candidate, and the number two in every poll to Donald Trump, and the only one really close. Did he make a public statement?

Yeah, here's a statement by 15. I've seen rumors swirl. I have not seen any facts yet, and so I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know this. The Manhattan District Attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor, and so he, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety. He has downgraded over 50 percent of the felonies to misdemeanors. He says he doesn't want to even have jail time for the vast, vast majority of crimes, and what we've seen in Manhattan is we've seen the crime rate go up, and we've seen citizens become less safe. You know, it's an interesting dynamic because he's right, Andy. The crime rates in New York are high.

They have de-escalated what they call de-escalated crimes or reclassified crimes to bring them to misdemeanor status rather than felonies because the jails can't handle the number of people. And yet this case and the politics are obvious, and our office in Europe did a whole analysis of George Soros' involvement with European Court of Human Rights judges, DA races, which a lot of people ignored. He got very involved in. So the reason this is even still a factor is because George Soros owns these DAs. Yes. I mean, he is their only major source of funding. Yeah.

People don't usually donate to DA races. Right. And through his son as well, we'll give him 150 grand, 200 grand, maybe a couple million bucks even for one in New York, pushed out the former DA who said no on this. Right. No, the former DA said yes on this, was going to prosecute him.

But it's staff. Alvin Bragg came in and said, I'm not, and now all of a sudden he's changing his mind. It's called pressure. Yes. And it's pressure because you look at where their funding comes from. And we brought this up too.

Remember the pro-life counselor, sidewalk counselor in Pennsylvania? Yep. The state decides there's nothing here. Right. But the DOJ then said, we're going to bring in the federal charges, and of course he's acquitted. And 45 minutes after we've been to Missouri. This is the flip side of that.

Federal government said we're not getting involved here. DA's office has been all over the place. This is years going on.

But I think the interesting point is the optics. Yeah. That's really what this is about this week. Does Donald Trump have to appear in person? Does he get perped walk? Does he demand it? Does he say, put the handcuffs on me? He can tell the secret service that. He's the boss. Yeah.

I mean, I guess the optics would be what they are. But Andy, the idea that the case itself has come back to life, we only got a minute here before this segment's over, to me is what's so mind-boggling here. Well, Jay, it's done. It's come to life because it has had breath put into it from a dead corpse like Lazarus after four days Christ resurrected him.

I'm not likening brag to Christ whatsoever, but I'm saying he is sort of inspired and brought this back again because of the sorest money that got him into office. But you have a dead case, a live case, a dead case, a live case, and now it's live again. That doesn't bode well for a conviction. We've got a lot more on this coming up in the next segment of the broadcast. We're taking your calls as well at 1-800-684-3110. And like Jordan said, this is complicated, so no questions off limits here.

800-684-3110. Don't forget, support the work of the ACLJ. We've got something we're going to announce tomorrow. Major win in a court case on some border issues that are really significant.

We'll let you know about that on tomorrow's broadcast. But it was a big win, and your support makes a huge difference at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to St. Kills.

I just want to light up a couple of things that we were waiting for over the weekend after the... Other than bank collapses. Yes. Which we will be talking about coming up. The one was, what will Ron DeSantis do?

So we played that sound bite. Ron DeSantis, first thing he did this morning, was address this, went after the New York DA. He's now made a statement.

I think that moves on. Because there were a lot of people saying, what will DeSantis do? Who is going to speak out? Who's not going to speak out? You saw basically the House Republicans standing behind, the Senate Republicans standing behind Donald Trump. I don't think there's been this much unity in defense of Donald Trump since the first impeachment of Donald Trump. When you saw the Senate Republicans line up in defense, the House Republicans line up in defense. The second part of this, which I want to go to the phone call. And I take this because there have been some interesting moves by major companies in the lead up to this. But let's take Jerry's call first to Texas Online too.

Hey, Jerry. Yes, I want to get you guys take on, in light of Trump's possible arrest, what do you think about his comments saying that his followers should go out and protest? Do you think that might spark some riot somewhere?

I hope not. And I think peaceful protests are certainly protected under the First Amendment's free speech clause and freedom of association. And that means peaceful, but does not mean what happened on January 6th or what happened when you have violence like you had with some of these other protests, these social justice protests, which became violent as well and burning down city buildings. So none of that should be happening. I don't know if there's going to be a response like that.

I know they've called for it, but do you see that, Jordan? No, I think people are going to be worried. A lot of those people are in prison right now that showed up on January 6th.

We're kind of everyday folks who got kind of hoodwinked at this bigger movement. Again, though, as the politician, you can call for people to protest in America. That's allowed. AOC does it all the time. It's perfectly allowed. It's legally allowed.

Here was the interesting move, though. YouTube, this is after he calls the call for protests. That's why I wanted to talk about Jerry. Remember, he got banned on all those places. It's been lifted on Facebook and he came back and all he said was, I'm back. And then YouTube, Friday night, out of nowhere, Saturday night, after he calls for protests, YouTube lifts the ban.

So now he's back on every social media platform that banned him. So the question is, how bad do they need Donald Trump? The media? Badly.

Including the social media platforms where their banks are falling apart. Yeah, I mean, you got, it's a mess. So in that regard, I mean, we talked about it. Let's talk about the charge for a moment here. This idea that a bank entry, that's what they're talking about here, how these payments were classified is normally a misdemeanor if you can prove a misdemeanor. But they're upping it to a felony by trying to bring in an election charge because if it's just a misdemeanor, well, that doesn't do anything. So they got to try a felony charge. But this zombie like case, as the former prosecutor said, I think points out what the problem is here.

Well, you're right, Jay. I mean, you've got a case that's a misdemeanor at best. At best a misdemeanor. And now you're trying to link it to some election case, which I don't even know if you can do that because that is just, you know, honing something up with something that is not a felony and try to convert it and contort it into make it a felony so that you make it a serious charge when it in fact isn't. And we've had people who are professors of law and practitioners in criminal law and who have said that this is a novel theory.

Well, let me suggest to you that a former President of the United States is not the place to try a novel theory. I want to go to the phones. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Daniel in Colorado on Line 4. This is a big question people out there trying to figure out what is this even all about to begin with. Hey, Daniel, welcome to the show.

Thanks for taking my call. Questions, two parts. First of all, if y'all could explain exactly what he's being charged with. And the second thing is, how are they trying to get it from a misdemeanor to a felony with some kind of election thing when he wasn't even running?

Yeah, well, I mean, he was running. So the question is that what they're trying to do is they have this called false business entry. You close something as an expense, and this was legal expense, and it really wasn't a legal expense.

It was a settlement payment for a nondisclosure agreement. So that's the misdemeanor if you could prove it. And I'm with Andy. I think you're hard pressed to prove that, frankly. I just don't see it.

I mean, I don't see how that could, I just don't see it. Now, to up it to a felony, they got to make an election charge on top of it, which the federal government looked at and ended up not doing as related to him. So I think that the reality is here, they are stretching, and they've acknowledged it's a stretch to do this, but they're putting the country through tremendous stress to do this, Andy.

Yes. I mean, you're taking your novel theory, which I don't even think is a decent theory of prosecution, and you are really taking the country through a stressful period of time. We're already a divided nation. We've already got serious divisions between left and right, woke and conservative and so forth. And you're taking a figure who is really a beacon for controversy. Donald Trump, there's no doubt about that.

Great policies, great President, but a beacon for controversy. And you're dragging them through the New York state court system on some concocted theory of prosecution. And you're just fractionizing the nation for no good reason whatsoever when you don't really have a prosecutable case, in my opinion.

Yeah. I mean, silver call, but I want to go to Jeff as well, because I think people are trying to wrap their heads around what is the legal theory to do this. Because it seems like of all of the issues that Donald Trump has faced, this is the weakest of any kind of case you can make. It's the most politically charged.

It doesn't even make sense. It's a federal issue because of a federal election, and a state is trying to... Well, not even a state, a local DA is trying to enforce federal law when the federal DOJ decided not to. So let's go to Jeff at North Carolina on line three. Hey, Jeff. Hey, guys.

Thanks for taking my call. I'm just curious, how are they going to justify taking what should be a misdemeanor and making it a felony when they're taking most of the felonies and making them misdemeanors? This is a great question, Jeff, and this is why we call this a political prosecution, because that's what this is. As Andy and I both said, this is a misdemeanor at best.

I don't think you can actually make out the misdemeanor charge here. And to then try to convert it to a felony by including an electioneering violation of election law to up it to a felony is not only a stretch, but it's a zombie-like case. As I said, it's like a good little late-night horror show, like Scalia said, that keeps shuffling abroad, causing problems and then scaring, you know, district attorneys evidently in Manhattan, Andy.

Well, you know, I think that what the caller said is really very good. Here's a DA in Manhattan, Bragg, who's taking misdemeanors and having them into – or rather, felonies and reducing them to misdemeanors by the truckloads so that he can plead out his cases and not have to send people to jail and keeping up with the policy of George Soros. And yet, with Donald Trump, the former President of the United States, he's doing just the opposite. He's taking a misdemeanor charge and trying to concoct it into felony to get Donald Trump. To be honest, and that's even if it is a misdemeanor charge. There have been a lot of legal experts inside the federal government and the DA's office that said it wasn't. It wasn't even a charge, that there was nothing here worth prosecuting at all, not even a misdemeanor. So this whole idea that all these DA's from Soros came in to take actual felonies, turn them into misdemeanors, including violent crimes, robberies, drug crimes, and they're going to take one that the DOJ decided there was nothing – if there was anything they could prosecute, they would have. It's Donald Trump. We know that.

We all know that. They have failed every single time. I think the outcome here would be the same. The long-term issue here is, politically, do they think it's a win to put Donald Trump in handcuffs?

I think it's a huge loss for the left, but they've got this pressure from Soros that he's the worst person on earth and we have to put him in jail or try everything possible to put him in jail. Take your calls when we come back. 1-800-684-3110. Of course, we're taking your phone calls and your comments coming in from Rumble. By the way, if you're on Rumble, let me encourage you, subscribe to the ACLJ channel on Rumble so you see it right there and you can follow the ACLJ.

We encourage you. So if you're new to us and you aren't following us, that's so you get the alerts. You know when we go live. Listen, this is one of those situations too where we'd have our broadcast every day at noon Eastern time, but we could come live again tomorrow afternoon.

I'm in Washington, D.C., but I made sure to schedule my schedule to make sure I could be on the broadcast and I had enough time in the afternoon in case anything happens here. So make sure you follow us on Rumble and you're a subscriber on that channel because, yes, we come live every day at noon Eastern time, but we also sometimes, and we did this a lot under the Trump administration, would come live in the afternoon on things that were breaking after we were on the air. So make sure you do that. We're also going to talk about the banking issue because I don't want, that's why it's scaring me and I think we need to walk through it and I'll understand when you see these banks falling all around the world, including in our own country, and some teetering on the edge this morning, including in our own country. So we're going to get into that as well on the broadcast.

If you've got calls, questions about that, get them in at 1-800-684-3110. It's really interesting. I just got a call from, or text from a colleague of ours, a lawyer that we know that we worked with who said, he thinks, and another one of my colleagues thinks this as well, that the fact that Bob Costello is going in today may end up being that there's not an indictment. Let's explain that for people. Okay, so it's very unusual.

Because they don't know that baby. Okay, so Bob Costello was a lawyer represented, most noted for Rudy Giuliani. I think he also defended Steve Bannon at one point.

Yes. Well-known criminal defense attorney. Was it a former U.S. attorney?

Anyways, very well-known lawyer in New York. And he is going in as a witness for the defense in the indictment proceeding. Now, that's very unusual before a grand jury because in most states, the grand jurors do not hear from defense witnesses.

That's unusual. New York has this provision, basically, where you're allowed to do that and apparently what Donald Trump's lawyers decided to do was, well, let's put Bob Costello in, attorney-client privilege has been waived as to him, and let him testify. So, a lot of people are starting to say, hey, that could be the DA's way out. Hey, I brought the case to the grand jury. They returned a no bill. He can't, I mean, you could get a grand jury to indict if you want, but this could be right.

This could be the way you say- It could be very difficult here. Because he is not someone that has any tarnish. Correct. He's not convicted of lying on their own or anything like that.

No, no, no. He's just a lawyer representing his client. Yes, and he's represented a number of people in these situations.

And it's also interesting because Trump had the opportunity to go. Yeah, I would never let the defendant go. This is not one of those states where this is it, though.

No. It is very unusual. I think people can hear that you get a exculpatory witness- Yeah, I know. Before a grand jury. And we're learning so much about how all these, like, in Fulton County, you get a special grand jury before you even get a grand jury. Yeah, and the special grand jury can't indict.

They can only admit you were absorbed. So we're learning- people are learning a lot about the criminal law- By the way, a motion to dismiss has been filed in that case today. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of moving parts.

I keep pointing that out to people. What he's facing is so absurd. What he's already facing is absurd. Two impeachments, one special counsel. That is the new special counsel.

The DA in New York, the DA in Fulton County, the AG in New York. And, I mean, that's not even going to Adam Schiff in the congressional investigations. No. No. You want to try to grab a call quickly? Yeah, let's go to- I think this is a good one, too. Stephanie at Maryland Online 4. Hey, Stephanie. Hey, Stephanie, you're on the air.

Thank you for taking my call. I have a question for you guys. I wanted to know what you think about- since the January 6th tapes have come out, and we see that the MAGA base wasn't as violent as the media has been portraying them to be, and we see that it was mainly peaceful. I think this arrest is kind of a setup to get the MAGA base out there to send in agitators so that they can turn around and say- Yes, absolutely. There's a setup here because they're putting out stories about how many police they're having to put in, and then Antifa's going to show up, and then there's going to be riots in the street. In fact, we know a lot about this because the Secret Service was brought in by NYPD this weekend, and that broke into the news.

And that's confirmed. They were brought in, one, on how do you handle if the President gets indicted, but the bigger issue was securing the President's building, Trump Tower, and the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan. And they're securing the President. Right, and then what would happen in the indictment. So we know that those conversations were happening yesterday, even.

They were having Sunday meetings in New York on the security factor. So absolutely, I think protesting needs to be peaceful or not at all. You can protest unless some people said, wear red, white, and blue tomorrow. Right. Pray. Speak out.

Share it on social media. Don't get into a street match with Antifa, because that will only turn bad against the right. Right. And it could be a baiting situation. We'll be right back.

All right, we'll be back in a second. We'll take your calls, comments. We're talking, of course, the Trump situation. But we don't want to ignore the bank situation either, because that is a crisis that, listen, before this all happened on Saturday was scaring people like me. I mean, I was looking at it to say, okay, because you're getting emails from banks that you have your money in, and they're saying, don't worry, don't worry, don't worry, CEOs of all these major, huge banks. And then they start telling you, ah, these are small banks. And then Credit Suisse goes, now you're like, okay, that's the bank that on the show Succession gives out the loans to like the News Corp companies. Credit Suisse is a major lender, second largest lender in Switzerland.

So even they're in shows. Yes. However, and this is what's important here, the shares of these banks are dropping. I mean, it was worth $7 billion on Friday, and by today it was worth half of that, Harry.

And this is where you've got to say, whoa, what happened between Friday and Monday? There has been a contagion with respect to the value. Explain what a contagion is, because it's important.

Well, there are two meanings. First, when I use the term contagion, I'm talking about a contagion with respect to the value of the shares. That is separate and distinct from a contagion with respect to a run on the bank. And that's what provoked this particular crisis. So we had a run on Silicon Valley Bank, and part of the reason why there was a run on Silicon Valley Bank is because Silicon Valley Bank really didn't care about risk. So much so they didn't have a chief risk officer for the U.S. branch since April of 2022. They did have a risk officer with respect to international banking, but she identified as a person of color and was focused on social activism as opposed to banking risk. And so those of you who are listening, who have deposits in banks that are focused on social activism, you should take care with respect to keeping your deposits in those banks, in addition to which we have an abject failure by banking regulators. They knew that SBB was at risk since 2019 and essentially did nothing. They sent their regulators. I mean, they killed everyday people with the interest rate high. They're going to do it again this week, they said.

Yeah, they're going to raise them again. But they knew that this bank was failing years ago. Right. They knew the bank was failing, but they also, the bank officers should have been aware of one fact, that with the rise in federal spending, this will eventually drive up interest rates. Yet SBB Bank, Signature Bank, probably First Republic Bank, they held a portfolio of U.S. treasuries.

The value of those treasuries was falling as interest rates rose. Right. And then the banks were squeezed, in part because they made a misjudgment about the future of the market. So these individuals should be charged, in my opinion, the board of directors, with a breach of a duty of care and possibly a breach of a duty of loyalty.

And I hope, if sufficient evidence can be adduced, that they are charged criminally. So here's what's interesting, Harry. So you had the shares of First Republic Bank, which is out of, I believe, out of Kentucky, plunged by nearly 40% in pre-market trading. Okay, so that's a big drop.

Before the bell actually rang, it was down to 37%. Then you had this, as Jordan mentioned, possibility of a Fed rate interest hike again, which is going to cause more banks trouble. Then on top of that, we said UBS agrees to what's being called a, quote, shotgun merger between—engineered by UBS to buy Credit Suisse. So— Which is the Swiss government? It is the Swiss government. It's a $17 billion wipeout of Credit Suisse's bondholders has not gone down well in Europe, is one of the headlines from CNBC.

But it's not gone down well anywhere. Absolutely. In part because the bank regulators, they are increasingly focused on ESG.

What is that? That is a focus on environmental social governance. They should focus on profits and losses. They should focus on risk, but they are— Focuses on not failing would be a good idea.

Exactly. But the Biden administration, for instance, has pushed ESG, and it's now trying to push it down the throat of pension funds. So the American pensioners, working class people, should be aware that the federal government has caused a massive portion of this particular risk. When reality starts hitting the fan, BlackRock, who is still running their ESG ads, but announced they're moving away from ESG. Because guess what they have to do?

Survive right now. That's pretty scary. Because if you look at any of your investment accounts, let me tell you, everybody here in the funds has got some BlackRock funds. Oh, no question about it.

But remember this, I was looking at this over the weekend, so people are not going to remember who they are anymore. But Lehman Brothers, which was one of the huge houses, Goldman Sachs, these were huge houses, but Lehman Brothers fell during the bank crisis. Which, by the way, George Bush, totally unaware. I mean, that was like a fiasco at the end of that term of that President. That was, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful of any President, but it was like the whole economy was cratering, and the entire bank industry was cratering. Well, here's the interesting dynamic on that one. There was, Lehman Brothers, on a Friday, they thought they were going to be able to pull it out.

By Sunday, these things seem to happen, Harry, over the weekend. By Sunday, the President of Lehman Brothers basically said, we've got like $5. That's what's, the illiquidity here is unbelievable. It is, but- You couldn't run a gas station like they're running these banks.

That is absolutely correct. And so many of these directors, the board of directors of these banks should be held possible, they should be held liable. Keep in mind that at SBB, what did officers do before the bank collapsed? They sold some shares, and more likely than not, they were in possession of non-public information, and that more likely than not violates SEC rules and the law. And I hope we can hold them accountable. They didn't take their money up. Okay, so that's a great question.

Let me offer the hope here. We do have FDIC insurance, so deposits up to $250,000, Harry, are protected by the FDIC. That is correct, but there's a problem, not with the FDIC, and not without a particular amount. But the federal government, through the auspices of the treasury and the fad, they are essentially guaranteeing deposits at SBB that exceed $500 million. And then they now want small depositors to pay a larger fee for FDIC insurance to bail out depositors at large banks. So really what we have going in the banking sector is income redistribution from working class people to the wealthy.

So President Biden keeps saying the taxpayers will not bail out the banks. But if you have a deposit at a bank, let's say it's $20,000, your fees for insurance are going up, and they're going up to bail out Oprah Winfrey, who had over $500 million in SBB. He's just had $3 billion there. Peter Thiel, I think, had $500 million.

He took out $500 million, but I think he still had $500 million. Everybody, there were major players, had money in this bank because it was a big investment bank. But it's supposed to be high risk. So there is this part of when you look at a free economy, if you're going to take risks like that, why punish the folks like us who go through the... We don't take those kind of risks, we're not going to get those kind of returns from our banking, those kind of huge venture capital loans, but it's a risk you take by putting your money... That's why I think what Harry says. Your money is being used to bail out billionaires right now. Absolutely, and at SBB, a large portion of their loan portfolio was for what? It was for climate change venture capitalists. And we all know what happened with Solyndra during the Obama administration. Those were failures, and so we are bailing out rich people who are taking undue risk. That is the problem.

And guess what? The question becomes, would we bail out the citizens of East Palestine, Ohio, if their bank went under? I think the answer is no. I think Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen would say, there's no systemic risk here, so you're on your own. Good luck with that. All right, but it's the picking and choosing that gets people very nervous.

Absolutely. That's what happened to Bush. Some banks got saved, too big to fail. Remember that phrase, too big to fail, that's what we're talking about. But then the Lehman Brothers, they said let them fail. No, I know.

So people bet on, well, they're going to cover everybody, and then they didn't. All right, coming up in the next segment of the broadcast, we're going to give you an update on what's happening in the war with Russia and Ukraine, and then we're also going to take your phone calls on the Trump matter, which we talk about at the beginning of the broadcast. If you want to talk to us, we have a couple lines open at 800-684-3110, 800-684-3110. Don't forget, we're in a matching challenge campaign right now at ACLJ.org. Go there and support our work, and we'll get a matching gift to match whatever you donate as well. If you're watching on Rumble, we encourage you to follow our broadcast. Very important to do that. We've got a lot of people watching on Rumble, and we encourage you to do that as well. But again, go to ACLJ.org, support the work of the ACLJ.

Yeah, that's right. Our matching challenge, we want you to be part of that at ACLJ.org. Also, if you're watching the broadcast right now on Rumble, make sure you subscribe and you follow us there. This is one of those times we're going to be breaking in, I think, not just during our normal noon to 1 p.m. Eastern time, but throughout the day. So subscribe, follow us, we'll be right back. All right, welcome back to Stake Hill. We're going to get into Russia. We just covered the banks. We're going to talk about Trump as well. I want to get to the phones on that. We do have calls and questions about it.

And this is an interesting one too. People want to know, what are the ramifications, even if he gets indicted? Can states then start making weird moves politically?

How does it affect everything? Mary Ellen in Illinois with a good question as well, online one. Hey, Mary Ellen, welcome to Sekulow.

Thank you for taking my call. Quick question. We know, according to the Constitution, if someone is charged, arrested, indicted, that's not the qualification for a President. However, what about, do each state, since they run elections, do they have the right to keep him off the ballot for those reasons? It would not be valid because the qualification clause of the U.S. Constitution under the Supremacy Clause, which means the federal constitution takes supremacy against state rights, would take precedent. So that is not a disqualification from office.

For instance, I'll give you an international law comparison, is Israel. I mean, you have indicted, you know, prime ministers, they get convicted, they go to jail, and then they win again. James Traficant, I think, served in Congress while in prison. Correct. So he was a U.S. House Representative for BBF Scotty, if I remember him.

So he's dead. They did try this against Marjorie Taylor Greene. So they might try. I mean, I don't think, I think Mary Ellen's right with, they might try because they did try to get her off the ballot. They lost. So could it have those kind of consequences? Sure.

Will they lose ultimately? Yes. I think that's right. I want to change focus for a minute.

We're going to get to your calls at 800-684-3110. You got Vladimir Putin, supposedly, driving around in Ukraine in territory that the Russians have grabbed. And then you've got this kind of new axis of evil that's developed now with Russia, China, should be on high alert on that one. And then on top of that, the common denominator seems to be Iran.

Wes? Yeah. You know, the world is in a dangerous place and sometimes we're a little oblivious to it. It reminds me of reading history. Of course, we weren't around then when the Empire of Japan and Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were signing pacts and agreements with one another. No one thought that war and violence would come to their doorstep.

And of course, we had World War II. What's going on now? You have Russia, which of course has invaded Ukraine. President Xi is in Moscow today meeting with Vladimir Putin. But two months ago, they signed an agreement that they called a forever friendship, in which in that agreement, they said their goals included challenging the United States as a global power, NATO as a cornerstone of international security, and democracy as a model for the world. That is what Xi and Putin are going to challenge. China has yet to condemn the invasion of Ukraine. And then China just this week are completing China, Russia, and Iran for the first time ever joint military exercises. China, of course, worked last week to establish a new relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

China signed a 25-year friendship agreement with Iran last year. We have a new axis of evil. These three countries, Russia, China, and Iran, that have agreed to cooperate with one another, and each of them stand in direct opposition to the values, the freedoms, the rule of law that the Western world stands for. We are in a precarious spot with these three countries. But if we were a strong country, we know that the forever friendships with the Chinese could be gone in a day. And these 25-year pacts with Iran could be dis—if we were strong enough, we would be able to—we'll talk to Rick Riddell about this tomorrow, because he talks about this on how our diplomacy has failed. Everything is war, war, war. Even the State Department is like a war machine.

Instead of getting so tough that you know what the Chinese say, eh, maybe it's not a good idea though. Yeah, because diplomacy can be, you know— The Saudis are mad at us too, so they've said, yeah, we'll partner with Iran. That used to be our major hedge against Iran, was the Saudis. Yeah, so I mean, Benjamin Israeli famously said that, you know, diplomacy can be war. Well, we have power, Jay, to—short of war—to confront these countries, to take a stand, to be firm and strong. We are the most powerful nation on earth, not only militarily, but economically.

But there's also an interesting factor here. The common denominator of these axes is Iran. So it used to be Russia, Syria. That was causing the Middle East problem. And then Iran was the anchor. Now it's Russia, China, and Iran.

I didn't take care of China. But the thing is, Iran is still a factor. They're a player. Even here, they are a player, and that tells you what the failing diplomacy is. Interesting thing you can do out of Iran, too, is the Revolutionary Guard has gone to the Ayatollah and said, you better knock it off.

So they were instructed— What does that mean? Well, remember, the protests have continued there, and they killed the one protester. And the Ayatollah and his religious council instructed the Revolutionary Guard to fire on the people, continue firing on the citizens in protest. The reason why there haven't been any more protesters killed in Iran—interesting, not trying to defend the Revolutionary Guard here—the Revolutionary Guard has stood up to the Ayatollah and said, we're not going to fire on the people because they want to stay. They're a business, ultimately, and their job is to protect the revolution. And if they have to overthrow an Ayatollah, they will. Now, we haven't seen that before because there's only been two Ayatollahs, but they've now gone to the Ayatollah and said, defied his orders, and there was an assassination plot against him by the Revolutionary Guard, but no arrest made.

What do you think this means? I think they would much rather be in business with China than be killing their own people if they could stay in power. Well, economically, the Iranian government and the people are suffering because of sanctions, because they've been so isolated.

And here again, that's where the United States, if the rest of the world will follow our lead, and if we have the will to do it under this administration, we can make China, Russia, and China pay such a huge economic and commercial price that it has the potential to change their behavior. But they must love this banking crisis. Of course they do. The Chinese sanctioned all of their banks, tried to destroy all their banks, and they didn't fall because the Chinese came in and propped up the Russian banks.

Right. So, of course they love this banking crisis. Let me tell you what else they love. A DA in Manhattan going after a former President.

Let me tell you what else they love. Anything that makes us look like a third world country. And that's the problem with all of these things.

All of these things make us look like... Product banks, bank failures, bailing out billionaires who are running away, George Soros, the DAs, all this stuff. A President, a former President, a former vice President being, you know, investigated by the FBI for documents.

I mean, all of this is, our standing globally has weakened. And then Putin's driving around, or a Putin look-alike, one or the other, around Ukraine. Oh yeah.

He's going to the area that Russia has occupied, much like a criminal goes back to the scene of the crime. This guy is a monster, and yet apparently he is riding around the Donbas region in a car driving himself, if it is truly him. I will tell you this. That is normal.

Yeah, he does drive himself. But here's the thing. The American people, I could tell you this, because I'll tell you what the indicator was. People on the Ukraine War have about had it. They don't want to fund it anymore.

You had the situation where Zelensky, President Zelensky, asked to speak at the Oscars, and they said no. Which tells you where that is. All right, let's go ahead and take the last caller. Is Mike ready? Let's go ahead and take Mike. Hey Mike, welcome to Secular. You're on the air.

Dave, appreciate you taking my call. What really comes to mind with me listening to all this and adding it all up together, clearly people need to focus on the definition of the word myopic, which means the big picture. The average person in Russia and China, they're at the mercy of whatever the government controlled media feeds them to know what's going on. But for the American citizen, we used to have access to behind-the-scenes information through our media investigating and digging up the dirt. Clearly, there's powers that be backstage that are manipulating and controlling our political system. That's exactly why, though, that's exactly why, Mike, we file these FOIA requests and go to federal court against these agencies, because you know what we're finding out?

All kinds of things. We're going to have this on tomorrow's program. You're going to want to stay tuned for it, because let me tell you what we found out. Remember when the border patrol caught a couple of Islamic terrorists and then it was removed from the websites? We know why it was removed now, because we got the emails.

This should not have been put up. We are furious that this happened. So the transparency of putting up what happened was really going at the border. The agencies are reacting, and we've got the emails. That's because we went to federal court to get the information.

So don't lose hope, because we get this information. You've got to fight for it, but we get it, and that's why we want you to support the ACLJ and our matching challenge campaign at ACLJ.org. Yeah, go to ACLJ.org. You can donate today. Double the impact of your donation.

That's ACLJ.org. Follow us. Subscribe on Rumble, because we could be breaking it at any moment if any action happens with Donald Trump. So make sure you subscribe.