DeSantis Announces Huge Move in Florida

Today on Sekulow, Rod DeSantis makes a huge move in Florida. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now, more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome to Sekulow. We are taking your calls to it.

A big move by Rod DeSantis. And when you talk about the abortion issue and the life issue, this is one that's going to be certainly front and center. Now, we're already in court, the Supreme Court of Florida, on the initial 15-week abortion ban in Florida. That's in federal court right now. The ACLJ filed our amicus brief. That was similar to the Mississippi law, which the Supreme Court said was fine when they overturned Roe v. Wade.

So that, not as, again, legally as difficult to defend in especially federal court. Now that is, though, happens to be before the Florida Supreme Court. That makes it more interesting, even though it's a ban that the Supreme Court has said that Florida Supreme Court will look at and say, do we have any state constitution or state laws on the books that might impact a ban like this?

And now DeSantis has taken it to another level. Now, it wasn't just him, it was the Florida legislature. The Heartbeat Protection Act, or SB 300, establishes protections for unborn babies with a heartbeat. This begins at six weeks. So even earlier, abortion would be banned after six weeks in the state of Florida. The only exceptions are clearly to save the life of the woman or for cases of rape or incest until 15 weeks of pregnancy. And even in those situations, when you're talking about the rape or incest, that's got to be done by the 15th week of pregnancy. You can't go and say, well, three months from now, oh, I was raped, or this is a product of incest, and now I want the abortion.

So really strict even when it comes to the exceptions. And also, putting aside all that, what I think is great about this legislation, and I want to hear from you folks, because the abortion debate, the left wants it to be front and center. And we have to keep fighting it because the pro-abortion industry keeps putting it front and center in every state. So we don't really have a choice about how strategic we can be when we're fighting for life. Now, on this kind of a legislation, you could say, did this go too far, too early, without enough education of the public?

Do you think it will backfire? I mean, it's tough to say that even when you're talking about saving human lives. But to continue to save more human lives, you want to make sure you keep winning both in the courts, in the legislatures, but also politically, that we have pro-life Presidents and senators and members of Congress who then make sure there are good judges on the bench.

So I would take your calls on that, too, at 1-800-684-3110. But something it does, Logan, which is awesome, is allocates $25 million in funds for pro-life pregnancy centers around the state. You cannot get those funds if you referred people to have abortions or you perform abortions. So it's only for the pro-life pregnancy centers, $25 million. And we've known that those have been under attack really for the last year, maybe more so than they've ever been in their existence. So to have a state come out like Florida, it's why you only have those ridiculous videos from Gavin Newsom going to Florida and making those statements, right?

You don't understand what these constituents want, what they need. And in the state of Florida, to have such, like you said, a strict abortion laws, which is obviously a big improvement, but to have this, the humanitarian side of it, which is always something we hope and preach for and pray for, which is to have a lot of these funds. How many was it? 25, 250 million? 25 million. 25 million, sorry? That's a lot for pro-life pregnancy centers.

Pregnancy centers throughout the state of Florida. This is a big win. This should tell the fundraising they do. Yeah, yeah, this is state.

I'll talk about it a little back when we come back from the break. I was in West Virginia last night with a pro-life group, and I'll talk about that work there as well. Because again, this battle has really turned to the states. Now, we've got a lot of candidates in town where we are in Nashville because there's an RNC donor retreat. I don't know if DeSantis is here because technically not a candidate.

I don't think he's on the list. This is going to be an interesting move because now the legislative session in Florida wraps up in June, so he can kind of hold off on announcing until then. This feels like a move you'd make if you were planning a Presidential run.

Yes, it's a strong political move that may be a difficult one. Not necessarily in court, by the way, but certainly one of the more strict abortion regulations that have been put in place in the state. I think that shows you that because people elected pro-life legislators, we of course defend all of these laws, and we will be defending this one. ACLJ.org. Support the work of the ACLJ. Donate today. We'll be right back. All right. Welcome back to Secchia.

We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. At the same time, Florida is passed the Heartbeat Protection Act, which established protection for unborn babies with a heartbeat. That begins at six weeks of gestation, six weeks into the pregnancy. The exceptions are very limited here to save the life of the woman. Of course, that is one that has always been on the books, and that can happen at different points of the pregnancy. Those decisions are made between the husband and the wife, if there's a husband and wife involved.

Obviously, the wife getting to make the ultimate decision there, and who is pregnant. And then for cases of rape or incest, only until 15 weeks. So it does give those folks who are victims of a crime a little bit more time than the six weeks, but it still says, we believe this is an unborn life worth protecting.

And the further along this goes, the more gruesome this procedure is. So you've got to still come to the state very quickly. It will be challenged because we already are in court right now. We filed a brief with Florida's Supreme Court. In the Florida Supreme Court, that is over their House Bill 5 that prohibits abortion after 15 weeks. That is basically exactly in track with what Mississippi did in the Dobbs, what led to the Dobbs case, and what the Supreme Court said was okay in overturning Roe versus Wade. So I think that one, again, you never know what these state courts are going to do. We're out of the federal court system.

We're into the state court system. So the Florida Supreme Court explained in the 1980s, when the Supreme Court of Florida interpreted the privacy clause of the Florida Constitution, which does not address abortion, the court built its abortion case law on then existing precedents of the United States Supreme Court that have now been overruled. So in Florida, they did say our Constitution, like the US Constitution, has the right to privacy, thus has a right to abortion. Now that the Supreme Court has said no, you would expect that a conservative Florida Supreme Court would say that was inaccurate or the case law has changed. Even if it wasn't wrong at the time, it is wrong now.

So this though will be a move that is a plus and minus, Logan, politically. We are on the front lines of pro-life, and I'd do just about anything to protect the life of the unborn, but I always want to be smart about our strategy and make sure we're not putting off voters that we could win if we spent a little more time educating them about why we believe life begins this early and it's the killing of a human being even at six weeks of pregnancy. And sometimes when you don't have that conversation with enough people, the left has been very good at playing parenthood, very good at galvanizing the soccer moms, the middle class moms, who are generally pro-life leading against these pieces of legislation because they tell them it's extreme. They say, you know what, if you got IVF, they could come after you under these laws because look at what happened there, what caused the IVF not to work. If you had a miscarriage, are you somehow liable? Yeah, you hear a lot of those ways.

They're all BS, but you have to deal with them. Yeah, you do. And I think that that's important. That's a good step for Florida, but you are right.

The education is a huge part of this, probably the most important part because it can come off. And definitely the way the left spends it is it comes off that these are hateful or anti-women laws. And, you know, we've been preaching at it for years and in our organization as well. So that's not the case and that's not what we're doing here. I think having those steps, putting into funding to the crisis pregnancy centers or the pregnancy resource centers is a big deal and should be applauded.

But you're all right. This is a very divisive issue at a very divisive time. It's a risk for Governor DeSantis. It's also a risk for his, you know, again, how he decides to run. It doesn't really, I wouldn't think it affects him negatively on the... Not in the primary.

No, not in the primary and not countrywide, countrywide Republican. Statewide, because you had so many people, so many of them close with my friends who were not political or certainly weren't traditionally conservative, didn't really care, who voted for him because of really the fact that Florida State opened during COVID. And they felt that they had to support the governor who... America first, Florida first kind of thing.

Yeah, exactly. And they aren't necessarily socially all, you know, hardcore conservatives, but they supported Governor DeSantis because of his policies in terms of keeping their state open and thriving when the whole country was shut down. So now you'll have to see whether this affects his standing in Florida and where that audience ends up going, but it's an interesting time. Yeah, it's not gonna hurt him in the Republican primary if he does decide to run. I mean, there's still questions really swirling around that, but really we're not gonna really have a good answer on that because Ron DeSantis has a good reason not to announce yet, which is that they're in legislative session until June and he is governor. So, and that's why he's focused on deciding legislation.

He is traveling around the country as much as he can. You know, Roya on Rumble wrote, this is why DeSantis needs to stay in Florida, solidify the state as red and make it stay that way for 100 years. And I get what she's saying there, Logan, because we saw what happened in Georgia, where we now have a Republican governor, but two hard left Democrat senators.

Yeah, big losses. So you do want to invest the time. If you've got a great leader in your state, and I know that they... And again, even if you'd love them to have Presidential ambitions and obviously be President one day, and you're a big state, usually that sets you up in a good way to run for President. You do want to make sure in a state that changes so quickly demographically like Florida, the coalition that was put together to get to this conservative is unlike any state in the country. Explain what that means.

What do you mean by that? So it's not just a lot of, let's say, middle-class white voters. Ron DeSantis really expanded, so did Donald Trump when running there, the vote amongst Latino Americans. And those not just from Mexico, but in Florida where you've got large Cuban communities, Venezuelan communities, Colombian communities, Central American and Latin American communities that are more and more likely now to vote Republican. So they have done... And these issues like abortion speak directly to them because their religious faith are predominantly...

They would be considered traditionalist radical Catholics because they do believe their faith seriously from those parts of the world who have immigrated here as Americans, and they love America. Yeah. I was just in South Florida a week ago, and I can tell you that that sentiment is certainly running wild there right now still. It is still a very much... It's a very different part of the country.

It's a very different... Even demographically and the people you meet, the people you interact with... It's not a traditional red state if you looked at the demographic. But they are certainly a freedom-loving state.

They don't want the government getting involved in their business, and you can tell that from the way they talk, the way they dress, the way... What the flags they fly on their boats. You can see what the conversation would be. If you have the conversation with people, yeah, you have people that really came on board with a Trump and a DeSantis. That's where they found themselves politically, even if they find themselves maybe more in the hardcore libertarian side of things, or more in the just-leave-me-alone type thing, if you live in those areas. Pretty interesting. Or like you said, the Cuban community, very different. These are different kinds of Republicans.

Yeah. We talked about New York with the Statue of Liberty and what that meant during the time Ellis Island and immigrants would come through. I'd say Florida, in many ways, though New York still has large immigrant communities because there's a lot of job opportunities, Florida is also leading the charge there and saying, this is a place, especially if you're from Latin America or Central America, where you don't have to be able to speak English yet. You can still get a job.

You are really happy to be there. So long-term, and because there's a lot of rules, they're not illegal immigrants. They actually legally come, even if they're fleeing these dictatorships and horrible leaders. And it's kind of like the new freedom state and a new state for immigrants. And instead of just throwing them in and say, okay, figure it out. Instead, they become part of the love of the country and the love of freedom. So take your calls on it.

1-800-684-3110 and how influential you believe still will Ron DeSantis be if he decides to ultimately run for President. I mean, there's already ads against him on TV. Yeah. I see them all the time. They're not hard. They're not real tough. Well, they end with he's not ready. Yeah, that's true. It doesn't say he never should be President or he's disqualified. He's just not ready is the kind of tone. I think it comes out of one of the Trump connected pacts, not the campaign directly.

Well, that's one of the interesting parts. You have him on his quote-unquote book tour, so kind of running a campaign without a campaign. And then you have the anti-campaign running without a campaign. I mean, both sides are running shadow campaigns for and against him. Obviously, you come off of a week where you've had some official announcements.

You had a Tim Scott. Some other people have announced and a lot of decisions still yet to be made. Yeah. People say, you've got people who are running from Florida saying that if DeSantis leaves us here in Florida to run either in 24 to get the VP or POTUS, he'll lose the state because they won't forgive him for leaving for his ambitions. They really want him to stay, which is great that your constituents in your state love you that much, that they're saying, please don't go to the national level. We need you here to keep doing what you've been doing. Finish the job out because you've transformed the state.

There's a lot of good people. A lot of governors would love that who didn't have a bigger ambitions, but he has bigger ambitions because the country has told him you should have bigger ambitions. Absolutely. And grassroots supporters. I'm sure there's a lot of people in Florida who have the opposite view of said, Ron, we love you here, but we believe the country needs you.

Yeah. I mean, from before President Trump announced him running just a few months ago, I'd say that DeSantis was the front runner because it wasn't expected necessarily he was going to run. He still kept the number two spot. We haven't seen the polls yet, but now how Tim Scott affects that. I really would like to see how far Tim Scott climbs up after about a week of polling and seeing him more out there, more publicly, doing the interviews, doing the visits to the States and see how that affects. Does DeSantis keep that lock on second place or does it start slipping away? Some of his poll numbers have slipped, but that's because President Trump is getting more attention, rightfully so. I mean, he was indicted by the DA.

He's announced that he has in years by media outlets. We'll take your calls 1-800-684-3110. Support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. Congratulations to the federal government. They found the leaker and a very impressive 21 year old member of the Massachusetts air national guard. Nothing against members, by the way, who volunteered to serve in the masters air national guard, but you think this 21 year old had the top highest level of security clearance and was obviously the one photographing these documents. Oh, we still don't know if any were altered by him or anything like that or who was paying him potentially to do this. Some reports are that, you know, it was again, he was, he basically like joined the military to do something like this.

I mean, like, you know, he'd only been in since he was 19. So it listed me as 19 by 21 has top level security clearance, which brings up a lot of questions that I'm going to have for Rick Renell later on in the broadcast. And then of course he keep, he was leaking these documents using logo was like a video. What is that? He was using discord to post discord. Okay. Maybe I may be too old to explain discord is a video disc. It's a discussion board on video games, basically. Yeah. I mean, you can have a discord. It's very okay. It's not dissimilar to like a Reddit kind of right. It would be the best way to put it. I do like his name on it was Jack the dripper, which is kind of hilarious.

You know, Jack did, but if you see a picture of him, it is wild. This is what was going on. The leader of this, he was a leader of an anti-government chat room, if you will, is what they're calling it on the daily mail. I think they also don't know how to figure out how to describe this as we all sound like old people trying to figure out discord. It's like hearing, uh, you know, during the Taibi trials, then trying to figure out what sub stack was and acting like it was some sort of like, you know, you know, right wing extremist website.

It was like, no, it's just a way you can pay for someone's content easily. Uh, it is what it is, but I think it's pretty interesting to see that this is who this leaker was. It pretty shocking.

I'm looking through the pictures right now. You're right. The fact that this is with someone who was so young, who had the access to this and was able to do it consecutively for months. Right. I mean, they were, they were putting out content for over and over and over. Yeah. I mean, so they've been arrested. Uh, what's interesting is that the initial analysis in January, so four and a half months.

Yeah. The initial analysis is that, you know, I thought it would be even be serious, more serious. It looks like they're talking about like 10 years in prison would be the max.

Now, I don't know if that's the law that would also include the uniform code of military conduct, which I think could even have stricter penalties on that. Maybe that's under a regular kind of federal saying this is really only second to WikiLeaks in terms of the actual documents, the size of the amount of documents leaked and the confidentiality, the top secret nature of these. So you're talking about, uh, Julian Assange, that, that, that whole team.

And they know you have this. Yeah. So he came from military family, uh, Jack to Shara, uh, it was mobilized for federal active duty last fall. He was stationed at Otis air national guard base in Massachusetts and detailed to an air force intelligence unit. Uh, again, he worked as an it specialist. This is why I don't understand why he needed top level, even though he worked at Intel, why he needed the highest level of security clearance. Did he have the security clearance or was he just have access to it?

See, I think that's also different too. If you're in it, you have to have the clearance, but his it job, uh, was, uh, communications networks. So you think, does that person who just sets up the networks need to be able to see these paper documents? Yeah.

I don't really know how all of that works. That's what I was saying. Like I more understood if he had access to it, but didn't necessarily have the classification. He had the classification. Yeah. He had legal access to review these documents.

Yeah. Of course he did not have the legal ability to share them with the public and, and when they were shared, I mean, obviously this damages America. It also, uh, can put people at risk. Uh, I haven't seen a lot of it directly how it might put people at risk, but it certainly can. I mean, it had some information that is kind of outdated now.

What were sort of the big ticket leaks and probably we should go through it and find out what they were. China was already, had agreed to send weapons to Russia and Ukraine, but they were going to send them undercover. Uh, we don't know that that ever actually occurred or, but, but that was in there that they were, that Russians were claiming that a lot of the things in the news, the last cancer and the Russian, uh, generals, uh, for Putin when he had his next chemo treatment, they were talking about back in March, uh, they were going to try to throw the war and basically in the conflict that to me is a full miss, even if that was somebody saying what they heard in a document makes no sense because, uh, unfortunately I know many of the people on this broadcast have probably been through that chemo experience or know a loved one who has knows that if you are a world leader, you're not incapacitated because of that. So it's not like, it's not like you're under, uh, anesthesia or, or out of it for three or four days to receive chemo. So someone like Putin who could receive that wherever he so chose chooses would not lose control over, uh, you know, I don't think they'd be able to pull that for a day.

It might make him weak. Now there's even question about whether or not any of those reports were right. So it was intelligence that was worth reading basically is what they say. It, it, it was none of it so far was Intel that they were, had like full belief that it was correct. So that may be why the sentence would be lower than expected. Cause it was top secret.

It wouldn't be lower because of that. It's just, um, I guess that's the initial charge. Some of this too does forget that the military has its own legal system and is much more strict and has even more severe penalties for actions like this. When you, when you, uh, uh, take that oath and put the uniform on, it's different. It's different than like a, uh, or a government contractor like Snowden was.

Yeah. It's interesting. Well, I mean, the fact that we were able to get an answer is actually pretty fascinating from he didn't have the plan to leave to try to get out to leave the country or leave the, he started doing this and I mean they picked him up at home. I think he had barely any notice, uh, knowledge that they were coming for. But it was like, he was, they was reading a book on his front porch when they came to arrest him.

I mean, at least it's interesting. What you want to know next obviously is. Well, you want to, who has access to these documents?

I think that's important to that with Rick. It must be when you add the five eyes countries altogether, these are countries we share this kind of information with. Some of this was for them. So you added different countries and all of the people there that have access to it. Does any of this actually stay classified?

I mean, I'm not saying it ends up on a chat board, but if it ends up on a digital, if it's on a digital cloud, but is it somewhere for people who really want to access it, can access it, whether they're illegally accessing or not. I'm putting that aside cause I'm saying like for a Ford government who really wants to know what doctors were putting out and do we need to rethink that whole system of how we utilize classified information, but also how we store it and how we share it. Because if a 21 year old who joined just a year and a half ago, an air national guard unit has access to our top secret information. Well, God, imagine how many people in our armed forces do.

That to me is one of the most surprising parts of this. And there's a lot of issues with that because sometimes, you know, people get extreme financial difficulties and those countries are always looking for people like that. They're looking for people who have turned, who maybe are upset at what they're hearing about, what their country is doing.

So they look for people like that. I mean, it would appear to me that this would not be something you did for like a $20,000 payment from Russia. You know, put yourself in this kind of jeopardy.

No, there's gotta be a reason unless you just... Well, the other reason would be that you were a, that you were a, someone who was just anti-American and you had planned this all along this path to getting this information to try and be a Snowden or an Assad type figure. That's what I mean. You want this to be your moment.

What I'll talk about to Rick Renell in the second half hour too. He picked up on this yesterday. All of the reporters were being fed by the Pentagon and the Biden administration. They believed this was Russia. Russia hacked this. Now we know. I mean, unless they pay the kid a check, that's about as far as their connection could have even potentially gone. And there's no indication that happened, by the way, folks.

This was an American in the Air National Guard of Massachusetts took pictures on his phone. He was arrested yesterday. And we'll talk about it more when we come back. Support the work of the ACLJ and ACLJ.org. Donate today. Double the impact double the impact of your donation.

That's at ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host Jordan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3112.

That's 1-800-684-3110. We're talking about the leaker because we've got Rick Renell joining us in the next segment of the broadcast. Rick, of course, was the former acting director of national intelligence. And again, the idea here that the media was blaming the Russians via their sources in the Biden administration.

Always it's Russia, Russia, Russia. And then it turns out to be Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard in an intel division there. He was an IT guy who had the highest level of what appears to be security clearance. So he had access legally to these documents. What he did not have access to do is take pictures of them and put them on internet chat boards. So he will face criminal prosecution both under the federal law and there's also the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

That I point you to can sometimes be much more severe because it also doesn't just treat you like an American who does something like this, but to someone who has volunteered to serve their country and put that uniform on, it is even sometimes more severe. So we will follow that closely. We'll also try to follow if there was money exchange. Was it ideologically based?

Was it some psychological issue, which it seems like everything these days gets blamed on that, or was it something where they were motivated by money, by an outside country? We don't know any of that yet. I do want to take calls on this though because people that have had experience with it are calling into the show at 1-800-684-3110. I also want to remind people, we've been doing it all week, but just to let you know, if you believe that you need legal help, like these FBI agents going undercover into churches, Catholic churches, and by the way, we don't think it just stops there, and you think you've had somebody show up at your church and just start asking weird questions about your traditionalist views and does anyone here have ties to radical groups, you should contact us. ACLJ.org slash help. If you have a religious liberty issue, a speech issue, where your speech is being censored, contact us at ACLJ.org slash help.

An ACLJ attorney will respond to you, and if we decide that this fits what the ACLJ does legally, we will take your case on at no cost to you, and we'll start with whatever is the best way forward. Sometimes that's not always going right to court, but we want to make sure you know we are available there as a resource for you and always have been, but just want to remind, we got a lot of new listeners all the time and people watching the broadcast, ACLJ.org slash help. Let's go to James in Texas online. Hey, James. Hey, thanks for taking my call.

Appreciate it. Go ahead, James. Hey, so yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me? We got you. Go ahead.

Hey, yeah, thanks for taking my call. Um, yeah, I just kind of want to chime in on what you were saying about, uh, that, that young man who had access to, to the Intel. I've been in the military for 20 years now, and I have an it professional and I've had high level clearances, um, and, and needed that to access then, uh, not necessarily the data that the people are working with, but to ensure that they can use that data and access that. And it takes a lot of, um, self fortitude to not go and look at things that, you know, you're not supposed to go and look at.

And I, when I heard about this story, my mind just went straight to God, I hope that it's not some young airman. That's just doing something he's not supposed to do and sure that he's not supposed to do, but he's not supposed to ensure enough. It's coming out that he, you know, did what he knew he was not. And I think for explaining that too is like, so for it, so you're handling the classified info. You need the clearance to just even be able to handle it, even if you're not viewing it. But what you pointed out, James, I think was raised that you're not even supposed to view it in the position you were in. Um, unless someone told you to, uh, not only did he view it, that was more my question. It's like not only the access, but he had the access and the authority to use his access, which he wasn't supposed to use and then shared it to the public. So there's two, two steps here that were wrong. We come back, we'll talk to Rick Rinnell for we're acting director of national intelligence. Those are thinking too about classified documents, um, and dealing with them when they're widespread, like these documents, some of these documents went all over the world to different intelligence and military agencies.

So how, how do you keep track and make sure that info, uh, this doesn't happen more often. Be right back on secular. All right, welcome back to secular. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. We're connecting with Rick Rinnell. Is Rick joined us? Not quite yet. Not quite yet. Okay.

We're working on that. Uh, we were talking about the leak here. We wanted to, cause we had to call about it who said, you know, I got, I had this kind of access in the it world.

I was in the military for 20 years. And the reason I had access was because I have to set up the database so people can utilize this information. But under his job, he was, even though he had the access, was not supposed to actually go and look at the classified data. He wasn't supposed to review the data. And then, uh, so you've got two issues here. This Jack to shear appears to have violated the rules, the law by, uh, abusing his clearance level to look at data.

He really wasn't supposed, he was not supposed to be looking at, he was just supposed to be setting up the it for that. And then second, of course the bigger crime sharing it to the public. And then the question is, what does President Biden think? We have that.

Here's a, here you go. Let's listen to President button. Are you concerned about the time to go? I'm not concerned about the leak. I'm concerned that it happened, but there's nothing contemporaneous that I'm aware of. Nothing contemporaneous that I'm aware of that is of great consequence. So he's just concerned that it happened kind of converse that with here's Jake Tapper also talking about obviously from CNN, pretty interesting point of view as well.

Yeah. This classified information was reportedly on discord for months. How many tens of billions of dollars the U S intelligence community gets each year from the American taxpayer.

But it really seems like there's, there was a, a lot of people dropped the ball here. It's not a proud period for the intelligence community. Let's say, let's say that Rick Cornell is joining us, the acting former acting director of national intelligence, our senior advisor for foreign policy and national security. And Rick, I want to go back to a tweet you wrote yesterday because the news initially of course, made this all about Russia and their sources inside the U S government, whether it was the Pentagon or other agencies, the Biden administration, it was Russia. Russia did this Russia's responsible. And then it's 21 year old Jack to shear from the Massachusetts air national guard who gets arrested yesterday.

Yeah. Look, I think it's really important right now that we slow down and we get the facts. Uh, we have a problem with our national media right now rushing to judgment. As you point out, originally Reuters said that they had three U S officials and all three U S officials said that this cyber attack came from Russia. Reuters ran with that an editor Reuters, presumably knows who those three, uh, U S officials are. I presume that they are real U S officials, or you have to make a conclusion that somehow the Reuters reporter is totally lying. So I say, I say that we slow down a little bit because remember John Kirby is the one who told us that we successfully targeted terrorists in Afghanistan. All of the media trumpeted this big Biden moment of getting the terrorists in Afghanistan for, for killing Americans only to find out that seven people were children. The rest were, uh, civilians.

We didn't get the terrorists. And, and so we had all of the all of the media jumping to a black and white, yes, no good versus evil narrative. And we need to slow down and we need to see I'm troubled by any classified information being leaked for partisan political purposes.

That's terrible. But there is now an underlying accusation that the U S government has been lying to us about the Ukraine war. That's a serious charge. Uh, there, there is a process. Uh, we have a hundred senators, this individual or any individual who feels like the U S government is lying can go to a Senator can present classified information to that Senator to, to show some sort of problem. There is a process. This process was not followed by this individual. And that's very troubling, but we need to now just get the facts before we're racing to another judgment that, uh, or a conclusion that turns out to be wrong.

Yeah. That's interesting that you pointed out. So if you were someone who had not just the right level of clearance, like this individual may have had, and the way it was explained to us, it like IT level, it was more so that you could create the database. You really weren't even supposed to be accessing to view the documents, uh, themselves, but you needed that level of clearance to do that.

Cause a lot of people initially Rick would just scratch their head, like how did a 21 year old who just joined an air national guard at a year and a half ago get rice to this level of clearance. And so maybe it makes this cause of the IT work, but already violated the rules and the law just by looking at that data that second, then by openly sharing it. But you brought some up interesting that people may not know about with this information is that the right people who have access to classified information, if they believe they are reading something that, uh, you know, a U S Senator or someone needs to know that there's a process for that. There was a process for being a whistleblower and it's very, uh, it's very known if you're in the intelligence community, you know exactly what that process is.

The process does not include single-handedly taking the information and putting it on a gaming site in order for you to feel, uh, like you're the man. And so I feel, I feel very strongly that, um, this individual gives the wrong thing, but, um, may have some information that now we need to explore in a different setting. Um, if, if the U S government has been lying to us about Ukraine, that is a devastating and serious accusation. Let's get to the bottom of it.

Um, I will finish with this though. Uh, I know firsthand that we have caught individuals within the IC taking classified information and leaking it for partisan purposes. And those individuals were deemed, um, uh, not plastic, not prosecutable. Uh, the DOJ decided not to prosecute certain crimes.

Uh, when, when I would see the situation, I'd say it's a clear violation. They leaked classified information to a liberal NGO think tank in order to embarrass, uh, Donald Trump, that individual should be prosecuted. And DOJ, uh, took a path. I think taking a path at the lower level, leaking creates the momentum for higher leak for more serious leaks to happen, because when you don't prosecute the, the, uh, clear violations of the law that are happening and people see that others are getting a pass, they may take the risk.

You know, Rick, I think that as a follow to you, you've talked a lot about overclassification. One thing we we've learned through this saga so far is that people might not have been as familiar with this, the amount of people that some of this classified information, uh, have, how many people get can have access to this, including not inside just our country. But in this case, there was some of this, it was marked, I guess, five eyes, which is the, some of our countries that we unite with like Australia and places like that, um, uh, in, in relation to China and that this information is also some of it shared with them. And then you've got to trust their internal structures to make sure the, the classified information stays, stays classified. I think that was kind of an eyeopener people too is how far some of this information goes outside of even the control of the United States. Yeah, well, the five eyes is a trusted organization and, uh, that doesn't seem to be the problem here. Certainly we need to constantly be looking at the procedures that we have in place. Um, we have to be able to trust the allies and share information, but I do think you're exactly right. The overclassification and the number of people that have access to a certain information is too much.

It needs to be dialed back. And that is directly the responsibility of Avril Haynes in this situation. She should immediately figure out why so many people are having access to this information, what procedures weren't followed, and then also come clean, very clean, very transparent on what the information that has been shared means in terms of government accountability. I think what you said too, Rick, is that these reporters who are getting really misleading information from what they said were government sources. And we believe, you know, like you said, that these are the kind of reporters that would have those government sources. And they were told the Russia narrative again, it's like, that's the fallback for everything involving the Democrats. Now it's just blame it on Russia and nothing else to see here.

Yeah, how are they going to say it's not. Rick, as always, we appreciate you joining us and being part of our team at the ACLJ. But Logan, I mean, that's the, I always like talking to Rick about this because he puts it all into perspective.

We kind of take a breath, take a step back. That's what the comments were saying. They like hearing him talk about that. Yes, because not, not many people have the knowledge level where he had to conduct, he had to run this at, with all the intelligence agencies in the US. So all of those, that would include like all these, uh, insularly groups like the, like the, uh, the air national guard to put them all together and then work with foreign countries too. And I agree with him.

You, you need to be able to share some classified info with your allies or else, uh, again, just, just giving it to yourself is not always, uh, doesn't always make it as worthwhile, especially if you're trying to work together against a common enemy or threat. But I, I, I all, I really agree with Rick on the overclassification and the number. And then on top of that, the number of people that just have full on access to the whole thing, yeah, to like the whole server. And some of that's like, we probably need a lot better tech. Yeah.

Better tech, better security, better access. It exists. You can do it. It exists. You can do it now because there's so many options for human bad action.

Um, and that's what appears to happen in this case. We'll be back on second. We'll take your calls, your comments 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110 right back on Secular.

Welcome back to Secular or take your calls to 1-800-684-3110. There's more to talk about. Uh, first, you know, we talked about, you talked about yesterday, Logan, I was actually at a pro-life event in West Virginia, West Virginia's for life, which had a great event in Morgantown, West Virginia last night.

Uh, uh, my dad addressed the group, uh, uh, via sky from the studio. Actually, uh, I was there in person, uh, with a good friend of mine who was the state auditor of West Virginia, Jamie Vukoski, who's running for governor of the state of West Virginia is uh, great on the pro-life issues, worked with us at ACLJ before running, but we went to college together and it was great to be with the activists there, uh, who had been working on this, uh, issue for decades. Uh, but we were all talking about how, you know, the next phase of the battle and that one of the next phase of the battle of course is the abortion pill itself, which I know you were talking about yesterday, because there was a quick move, uh, by the, uh, the fifth circuit court of the breaking news alert every few hours. And now the department of justice has taken emergency peel up to the U S Supreme Court.

I just want, I want, because they want, again, this abortion pill to be able to be distributed widely, Farley without any kind of restrictions, basically whatsoever. The ACLJ has already got our, our brief together. In less than 24 hours, we're ready to file at the U S Supreme court. It just tells you how great our team is at the American center for law justice. So the deal on air, he said, we're going to do this. And now 24 hours later, it's there by last night, by last night, I was flying back from the event and one of our senior attorneys, Walter Weber had sent the draft.

And so, I mean, that just tells you about what's going on behind the scenes of all the things we're talking about in this broadcast that we're actually getting to work on. So the DOJ, the Biden administration is requesting that the court three courts step in now and not wait for a formal appeal to play out. So does the manufacturer of the drug, of course, they want that as well to step in on an emergency basis before Friday, because of course they make money off of this. If the Supreme court doesn't step in the district court ruling as admitted by the court of appeals really would go into effect at midnight and access to the drug will be restricted to seven weeks into pregnancy instead of 10 which is where the, even the federal government wanted to stop.

It stops at 10. And the reason why there's being a discussion over this is the FDA originally only approved this to seven weeks. And then they expanded it, but did they go through the right process, whether it's the administrative procedures act and research to make sure that this would not, of course it kills a child, but could it also potentially kill the woman who takes the pill?

So if you're taking it home or you're not under doctor supervision. The supervision part has been thrown out. So we'll be filing at the Supreme court and we're ready to go at the ACLJ. Merrick Garland on another issue, interestingly, because they don't love talking about the border crisis. They sure don't like talking about Fentanyl and the drug crisis in America, but the administration has taken some action. Take a listen. The justice department is attacking every aspect of the cartels operations. We have charged suppliers in China who sell fentanyl precursors to the cartel, a Guatemalan based broker who purchases the precursor chemicals on behalf of the cartel, operators of the clandestine labs in Mexico, where the cartel manufacturers fentanyl, a weapons supplier who arms the cartel with firearms smuggled into Mexico from the United States, leaders of the cartels security forces who terrorize communities, money launderers who enable the cartel to fund its operations and the cartels leaders known as the Chapitos, who are sons of the now imprisoned former head of the cartel known as El Chapo.

I thought one of them is in prison after a serious gunfight. He, so much confidence in that voice as attorney general. I mean, it's like, it sounded like he was about to cry. Yeah. That doesn't sound like, yeah.

Why he's nervous because finally he's been forced Logan into taking action against really bad guys. Yeah. You're starting to throw out in Mexico. And those are, those are the cartels and drug dealers. They are the most dangerous non-government entities that act within the world.

They are up there with terrorist groups. Definitely. If not, if not better run. Right.

More organized. I think that's where you look at it. When you start throwing out El Chapo, you know, really what we're dealing with. But I would like him to sound like an attorney general.

I'm glad he's announced this. I don't know that it stops any of the fiddle because China's not going to arrest these people. And one or two guys are not the way that this much fiddle is getting to America. But the fact that we've got some of these defendants are in the custody of our actual allies.

So that's good. Like person Guatemala, they're going to work with us. They're going to extradite. The people in China though, where this all originates, they're not going to be. So until we can convince the Chinese to take action, and they do have very tough drug laws, if they want to enforce, I mean, I think it's death there.

But if they're making serious amounts of money, working with these bad actors, and then where it gets complicated is a lot of these manufacturers, because so much of our medication is made in China, a lot of these manufacturers are making legal fentanyl as well. And the by-product because there is, you can get from a doctor if it's something you need. Yes. And it's very carefully prescribed. Irregulated.

Yeah. I mean, Tom Petty's situation, the guitarist who died from fiddle, and they called it an overdose, but he was on a patch from his doctor. So it was a patch because it could go through your skin, which is always one of the concerns with fiddle. And it was too high of a dosage.

So eventually he stopped breathing. I mean, and that's from getting the prescription, going to the doctor. So it is something that's manufactured in a legal way. And then those same people are sending the products that you need to manufacture it in an illegal way over from China to the cartels. It just shows you that the issue at the Southern border is not Mexicans. It is worldwide criminal cartels and gangs who operate and usually are partnered with terrorist organizations.

They run very similarly. They have paramilitary groups. They run areas of countries and they run massive amounts of illicit businesses. But at least I do want to point out when they do something at least good. And it's like, at least they've maybe enough Americans have finally died before they feel bad about doing nothing when you're in a top law enforcement position. But I do wish that when Merrick Carlin spoke, he sounded like tough. Yeah.

Because if you heard that you're like one of these tough guys. No. Yeah.

It's almost better to just put in a written statement that the department of justice is coming after you. That's scarier than him talking. I agree. It doesn't feel very threatening.

Is it? Do you think it's because they're getting old or is it just... I think some of it's that, but I think it's also issues. It's not unlike these issues. I don't know if they necessarily all fully understand what they're talking about. Yeah.

These are topics that are new that even we have struggled with coming with the exact words of what we're dealing with. When you start seeing fentanyl, rainbow fentanyl, extra fentanyl, what's the new one? Zombie Fentanyl.

Zombie. Then there's like Tranq. Yeah. And it's like, okay, there's so many things. I'm sure it's very hard for them to keep up with and follow everything as it is for us.

Yeah. But at least they're going to start doing something. It's not going to end it because until we have a secure Southern border, they will get drugs across. And the fentanyl keeps getting stronger, manipulated with other drugs and more Americans are dying. Was it the number one cause of death among young Americans? I know suicide was number two.

I think it's got to be up there. I think all drug overdose maybe, just collectively. But yeah, and most of them were that.

Yeah. This is something new in the world of... There's always been drug abuse in America, problems with criminal elements. This has taken it to a level where the loss of life is so quick and so widespread. That's because some people who are using illegal drugs don't even know they're using fentanyl. And so that brings it to a whole other group.

So it's not just like heroin addicts and things like that. A lot to talk about. Obviously, there was a lot to get through today on the broadcast.

I always want to encourage you. We've got experts like Rick right now because we're able to partner with them and bring them onto the team at the ACLJ. We're going to have some announcements about new team members for our broadcast as well.

Next week, I think you're going to be very excited about it. It's because of your financial support at ACLJ. We're a non-profit. Your donation is the reason why. We can do it and provide that information. File these briefs and get into court, represent you.

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