BREAKING: ACLJ in Court Today as Colorado Election Trial Begins

This is Jay Sekulow, the ACLJ in court today in Colorado, the issue election law. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jay Sekulow. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the broadcast. Well, as we are coming to you from our studios, one of our legal teams is actually in Colorado. The issue, of course, is a big one, and that involves a situation we talked about a couple of months back on the broadcast.

There's been an attempt by a number of organizations and individuals to not allow the name of Donald Trump to even appear on the ballot. So in Colorado, an organization called CREW actually filed a lawsuit in the county court, which is their, they call it their district court, but that's their state court system. And in that particular case, they have filed a suit and we intervened on behalf of the Colorado Republican State Central Committee.

That's the GOP of Colorado. Now, let me tell you what's at stake here. The idea, and there are academics that believe this, and then there's academics on the other side that say no. There's a 14th Amendment Section 3 disqualification clause. Somebody's involved in insurrection and guilty of an insurrection and be disqualified from holding office.

That's the basis upon which this lawsuit has been filed. You ask yourself, has Donald Trump been found guilty of insurrection? Well, no. Has he been charged with insurrection? No. Have there been talk in the media about insurrection?

Yes. Talks in the media should not qualify as a basis upon which a otherwise duly qualified candidate is not allowed to appear. Now, the reason the GOP has intervened here, if Donald Trump is the nominee for the Republican Party, they want to have his name on the ballot. So whether you're for Trump or against Trump, what you should be for is a real interpretation of the Constitution. Now, Harry, there have been, we're going to get into the specifics of the litigation in the next segment, but there has been scholarly debate, I'll call it trying to be nice here, scholarly debate even amongst conservatives as to the law in this.

Absolutely. And the scholarly debate has been influenced by the, for lack of a better term, the political persuasions of the academics. So many academics, even those academics who label themselves as conservative, many of them oppose the candidacy of Donald J. Trump. And so they've hit upon this novel idea of utilizing a constitutional provision, which was essentially adopted right after the Civil War, to basically disqualify Donald Trump.

And I will read some of the relevant language. A person is disqualified who has engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. In order to be an enemy of the United States, you need to be able to find that there was indeed an active war. There was never a war during Donald Trump's presidency or after.

There was not an insurrection or rebellion. And so you correctly point out, Jay, that he has never been charged with these offenses. Nonetheless, elite academics, they are seeking to bar Donald Trump's candidacy. As I said, we've got lawyers in court right now. Jane Raskin's leading our team, multiple offices involved. And whether it's defending your rights to vote, whether it's protecting Israel's interests, as we've been doing this last couple of weeks, as you know, working in the courts or on Capitol Hill, the ACLJ is defending your freedom and we need your support each and every month. We have a new group called our ACLJ Champions.

These are people staying with us every month. Today is the first day of that week-long Colorado hearing. What a great time for you to become an ACLJ Champion. We also just filed an amicus brief in a case in Minnesota. Taking on new cases for Jewish students that are being harassed on campus, all of this is happening simultaneously. Your support makes a huge difference. If you become an ACLJ Champion, go to ACLJ.org forward slash champions. That's ACLJ.org forward slash champions and you become a champion standing with the ACLJ.

Welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. We've got lawyers in court today in Colorado. The issue is can Donald Trump appear on the ballot or not, if in fact he's the nominee or during the primaries. And interestingly, the Secretary of State of Colorado thinks she could take him off without any kind of court proceeding.

Take a listen to what she said. If someone swears to uphold the Constitution, they're disqualified from holding office if they go and engage in insurrection, rebellion, or aid or comfort to the enemies of the Constitution. And Donald Trump incited an insurrection. Okay, so the only person that's concluded that he's incited an insurrection by a court of law is no one. Nobody.

Zero. So what this Secretary of State's doing is taking the law into her own hands. See, that's really what's going on here.

Absolutely. We see the liberals again grasping for straws as they do. They have a target on Donald Trump and they're going to take him down and take him out any way they can. And now, you know, this obscure kind of argument from the 14th Amendment is what they're hanging their hat on. And it is ridiculous. And like you said, he has not been charged or convicted of any of these crimes. And it is ridiculous to think that a Secretary of State can just say, hey, in my opinion, he is guilty of this.

And so I'm not going to let him be on the ballot. That goes to the very core of constitutional rights. You know, but there's another complication here. And when I say complicated, first of all, they filed, a crew filed a lawsuit in this case. That is, I'm holding it in my hand.

Let's put it up on the screen right now. This is filed by the organization and individuals in Colorado. And what's particularly troubling here is the Attorney General of Colorado is taking, of course, an adverse position.

It's not shocking. So we'd represent the Secretary of State. But you heard what the Secretary of State said, Harry. She thinks that she can make this determination on her own.

Absolutely. So many liberals in particular believe they possess unilateral, unchallengeable authority to decide whom the American people can vote for. And they have decided in their own mind, however small it might be, that Donald Trump cannot run for President. And I think it is clear beyond question that this particular move is unconstitutional on their part.

After all, it's up to the Colorado GOP to decide who the candidate, who will be listed on the ballot, who will represent Republican values. It's not up to the Secretary of State. It's not up to the Attorney General. It's not up to elite law professors, wherever they may be coming from. So I think it's up to the ACLJ and other organizations to challenge this particular move, which is offensive to the Constitution.

It's offensive to the right of free association and basically stand in place of the people of Colorado and say, enough is enough. We will fight this all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. Which I think if we get adverse, I don't want to prejudge it, I'm not going to say anything disparaging, but it's going to be a tough trial in Colorado in the state court system there, you can imagine. It's going to be difficult.

But we've got a great team and I think they're going to do a great job. But that is really only phase one of this. This is going to go to the Colorado Supreme Court or maybe go to the Colorado Court of Appeals first, then the Colorado Supreme Court. It's going to happen quickly, folks. And then to the U.S. Supreme Court.

So this thing could move in lightning speed. It's going to move in lightning speed because we're already in trial. The trial is starting today. As we're coming to you, our team's in court even in Mountain Time. They are in court right now.

So we've got five lawyers, ACLJ and ACLJ affiliates, in Colorado right now handling this. But there's a very dangerous precedent being set here. And again, whether you're for Trump, against Trump, it really doesn't matter. Having these government officials, like a Secretary of State, decide who the Republican Party's nominee is going to be, affects your right to vote. And that's why we intervened on behalf of the Colorado Republican Party because it's the right to vote of the citizens, CeCe, that has been so damaged here.

Right. It's not just the right of the GOP because they do have a right to pick the candidate and put them on the ballot. But then if that candidate does not get placed on the ballot, it does take the right to vote from the individual citizens. Which is ridiculous that one person, one person can make a decision, not based, not a judge, not a jury, nothing of the sort.

Just, it's my opinion that he's not fit to be on the ballot. And this is somebody, the Secretary of State, that called President Trump a liar with no respect for the Constitution. So you already know which way she's leaning. Well, that's why this lawsuit is interesting because, you know, she wants the lawsuit as cover. That's what my theory is, rather than just doing it on her own. I think if she didn't have the lawsuit, I think she'd do it on her own. But you've got six individual voters file the lawsuit, they're represented by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics and Washington crew, against Donald Trump and against the Colorado Secretary of State. But they're really not against the Colorado Secretary of State. She's taking their side, but they want an order compelling her to take Trump off the ballot. So that's what's going on here.

Now, at the same time, and this is what's so interesting, and let me tell you what's going to happen. We're in an actual court proceeding, a trial, where witnesses are going to be put up, cross-examination, opening statements, closing statements, like you would see in the other case. The difference here is ultimate arbiter here has to be, in my view, Harry, the Supreme Court of the United States. Because it's a 14th Amendment question, it's a federal question, and there's been very little litigation.

I'm trying to think, on 14th Amendment Section 3, I think it was last used in 1918. I think you're correct, and if you look at the litigation, it's spreading in some sense like wildfire throughout the United States. There are cases in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Minnesota, you name it, and there are future cases to come. And if you look, for instance, at the Colorado case in particular, and if you look at the action of Gina Griswold, the Secretary of State, what is she trying to do? She is trying to interfere with the right of the people of Colorado to vote for a candidate of their own choice. So in essence, she is interfering with the Constitution. She is interfering with our democracy. And so one of the things to keep in mind is that if she truly believes Donald Trump is unqualified for office, then the same logic would apply to her.

She should be disqualified from future offices in the state of Colorado and in the United States, one could argue. There was a case, and I think it was Oklahoma, that as soon as we filed our Notice of Appearance, the plaintiff withdrew the case. But then in the same time, they filed in West Virginia.

We're representing the West Virginia GOP. I don't know if they filed in Virginia yet. I think we're waiting on that one to see if they – I don't know if they've actually filed yet. But we were also filing an amicus brief, or have filed, in the Minnesota Supreme Court, again, to toss out the same lawsuit. The petition there is a group of eight Minnesota voters who filed a petition with the Minnesota Supreme Court asking the court to, quote, exclude Donald J. Trump from the ballot for November 5, 2024 general election as a candidate for the office of President of the United States. Friday night, and this was interesting, last week – so this was about a week ago – the Minnesota Supreme Court issued an order noting that the parties in the case had missed a 2012 Minnesota Supreme Court decision in which the court held that only Congress could decide challenges to the qualifications of an individual to serve as President. That case involved a challenge to former President Barack Obama's eligibility to run.

The court requested the parties to submit a supplemental briefing by Wednesday, which has been done now, to address this. So here's the thing. What's interesting about this, in my mind, is you've got precedent there, but you even have the Minnesota Supreme Court saying, hey, we really think this is uniquely Congress's role. Yes, absolutely.

And it is because, again, nobody, nobody has said that Donald Trump has been charged with the crime or convicted of a crime that is listed under Amendment 14, the 14th Amendment. So it is ridiculous for the secretaries of state to think that they can individually make this determination on their own, and Minnesota, they ruled that it had to be Congress that makes that determination. Yeah, it's interesting there. Let me get my dates right here. So we're filing that brief on Wednesday. That brief is being filed in two days. So we're in court today, Monday, but that's in Colorado. We're in the Supreme Court of Minnesota with supplemental filings on Wednesday.

So that gives you a sense of what's going on here. You know, folks, this is also the last two days for our champions campaign that we started this month. We're going to continue it throughout the year, but our goal was to get about 1,500 champions. And I think as of today, we may be close to, well, what's the number?

Is it 18? 100 away from 2000? Yeah. So then we stretch the goal and say, we think we could get to 2000. We are actually at about 1,900 champions right now, which means if we get 100 more, we will exceed our goal. And we'll be doing this. Here's the idea, folks.

We're trying to double. There's 15,000 ACLJ champions. These are people that give each month, recurring donations.

It could be $10, $20, $30, $50, whatever it is. We've got 15,000, now 16,000 of those, almost 17,000. We want to get that up to 30,000. By this time next year, I want to tell you we have 30,000 ACLJ champions. Whether it's defending your right to vote, whether it's protecting Israel's interests, whether it's working for these students, whether it's in court as we are on so many issues on religious freedom, the ACLJ is there, and our legal team is in court all week because of you, our ACLJ members, and our ACLJ champions. So what I want to encourage you to do is go to ACLJ.org right now, slash champions.

That's ACLJ.org forward slash champions. Hey, welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. We've got some breaking news in case involving whistleblowers. You know, we're working with our friends in Empower Oversight on their whistleblower project, and ACLJ has a team that's assisting on this. And Tristan Levin's on the phone with us right now because Marcus Allen's case has been an interesting one. This guy was the agent of the year who's a United States Marine veteran, an intelligence analyst, a rifleman. He's received top secret security clearance. That has been revoked. Tristan, tell us a little bit about Marcus before we get into what's the latest with his case. I think people, we've talked about it before, but I think people need to be reminded of who this is.

Yeah, absolutely. So Marcus served in the Marine Corps from 2000 to 2005. He's an intelligence analyst. It's really interesting that he was exposed to live enemy fire during that deployment on multiple occasions, even though he was there just to serve in intelligence and analytical roles. So this is someone who served our nation honorably, and he received for his service there the Navy and Marine Corps Accommodation Medal and an Achievement Medal as well. And he also, in 2004, was the runner up for the Intelligence Noncommissioned Officer of the Year. So again, just really, really remarkable service there.

And so he served in some various intelligence positions after the Marine Corps and ultimately in 2015, I believe, ended up at the FBI. And again, as you mentioned, as the employee of the year there, he had really just provided excellent, excellent service for them. He's someone who loves our country. He's a man of faith.

That's very, very central to him and his life. And so he was thrilled to be doing the work that he was doing, trying to serve our nation at the FBI. What was the basis that they've alleged for the violation here and revocation of a security clearance? The initiation of it is very, very clearly from an email that he sent. It was right after the New York Times had published the first article where they indicated they had reviewed documents about how there were FBI confidential informants present at the Capitol on January 6th. And so that New York Times article in September of 2021 got spread in a lot of places. He saw a follow up place that was writing about that and forwarded that to his chain of command, just telling them there is a good possibility that the DC elements of our organization are being forthright about the events of the day or the influence of government assets.

This was not like an out of left field sort of thing. Reuters had done a story earlier in the year also that very specifically said, you know, the FBI declined to talk about how, you know, again, this just contradicted what the impression that Director Wray had left before the Senate. And so but that email is what was forwarded on and became the initiation, the basis for this whole investigation. All right.

Yeah. I've got a 26 page letter that you have written. I know Jane Raskin from our office was helping on this to rebut what they've done here. And this is to the Human Resources branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We've got a copy of the cover of the first page of the letter on the screen right now.

Tell us what you've uncovered. Well, it was very clear from their internal documents. So the FBI is required to produce the documents upon which its proposed revocation is based. It is very clear, again, that this whole entire investigation came about just because of this protected disclosure. Again, questioning whether the director of the FBI lied to Congress is reasonable based on the reporting that was out there.

It was a logical conclusion based on all the information. And to this day, still, I think, no, everybody would agree at this point that Ray was less than forthcoming in that testimony. But what the internal documents made clear was that his chain of command freaked out at that, for lack of a better word. So laying out there, if you look on like page eight of it, it talks about how all the way up the chain of command is an immediate supervisor thought that his email questioning Ray crossed the line because it was inappropriate to have accused the leadership of the FBI. That individual supervisor said it was out of line for him to insinuate that FBI leadership was lying.

Again, just up and down the chain of command. That specific piece of information was why they why they questioned him and why they sent this for a referral of investigation. And that is just at the heart of whistleblowing. Being able to question your agency leadership is not questioning America, not questioning, you know, any any of the things that security clearance is all about.

But that was the basis for it. Now, down the line they did is they dug into all of his emails that they interviewed and interviewed people. There were some later allegations and they all came up after Marcus had already been interviewed.

So after his initial interview, then way down the line, a couple of people came forward. And one particular FBI agent he'd worked with claimed that he hadn't identified certain information in a Google search. And so this information he was never asked about.

He never had a second interview. And the FBI sent that to Congress the day before he and I went to testify before the weaponization subcommittee. Again, without without ever giving him an opportunity to address this in any way. So this document is also the first time for him to address and point out, you know, just what a silly argument it is that he missed this one thing in a search.

Yeah. So it's certainly not a basis to revoke your security clearance and then, you know, which basically affects your livelihood in that field. It's interesting because subsection D says basing an investigation and subsequent personnel actions on a protected disclosure constitutes reprisal and retaliation. And there's no doubt in our mind, Tristan, that this is a retaliation. No doubt.

That's correct. It's just it's interesting because in this context, the FBI doesn't have there's not a lot of language out there on revocation of security clearances, right? This just isn't an area where, you know, in the in the civil context, for instance, with Title five stuff, the Merit Systems Protection Board that I served on, you have there so much case law on what constitutes reprisal, what constitutes retaliation. You have that here. I know it's different. Yeah. But you know what I find interesting here with all of this is we know the situation with the FBI right now because we've seen the abuse.

We've we've documented the abuse. So everyone is on their on pins and needles in dealing with the FBI. Absolutely.

We under the Biden administration, we have seen this time and time again. If you do not align with their morals or lack of morals and their positions, you become an absolute target and they will destroy you. Yeah. And Harry, from from what Tristan's saying, the agency's actions here really put these agents in a catch 22.

Absolutely. And keep in mind, they're going after agents who have served the United States government honorably. They are engaged in reprisals of violations of the first and possibly the Fifth Amendment. Meanwhile, the FBI has failed, at least in my opinion, along with the DHS, to track terrorists who are walking across our southern border.

So there's disproportionality going on here. We are going after an individual who has served the United States honorably. But nonetheless, we're allowing individuals who threaten the security of the United States in basically without scrutiny.

It makes no sense. So Tristan, what have we asked for here quickly? We're running close on time.

So we asked for his clearance to be reinstated, for him to be put back in his job and for him to receive back pay for the year and a half that they've kept him without any income due to this suspension. All right. Very good. And if you want to get information about empower, we encourage you to do it oversight.

What's the best place, Tristan? PowerOversight.org. All right. PowerOversight.org. We're glad to be partnering with them. They do great work, support their work and their endeavors. Thanks for being with us, Tristan.

We appreciate it. Just gives you another example, folks, of the nature and scope of what we're dealing with, and that includes you, our ACLJ champions. That's the reason we're able to engage in so many of these issues.

Look what we've talked about today. Case trial going on in Colorado, legal work going on in Washington, D.C., on behalf of whistleblowers at the FBI, Supreme Court brief in Minnesota. Action we're going to be talking about coming up at the United Nations. What's the issue there? It's on Israel, but we've got some new avenues we're pursuing.

So there's a lot to talk about and there's a lot of work going on. Become an ACLJ champion. Stand with Israel. Stand with these whistleblowers. Stand with the ACLJ.

Be a champion for life, liberty and freedom. Go to ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org slash champions. That's ACLJ.org forward slash champions. And take a stand with us. It means you'll donate each and every month. We really appreciate it.

Become an ACLJ champion today. Back with more in a moment. Let's sing it tonight. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jay Sekulow.

Well, welcome to the second half hour of Sekulow. In the first half hour, we talked about our major case. We're in court right now. I mean, as we're talking to you out of our studios, we've got Jane Raskin and a team of ACLJ lawyers in Colorado.

Five ACLJ-affiliated lawyers with our team working on a case, as I mentioned, involving whether Donald Trump's name could even appear on the ballot in Colorado. And the secretary of state thinks she could just take him off because she thinks he created an insurrection. Even though the Minnesota Supreme Court, by the way, where we're there, said, hey, wait a minute.

We think that's the role that Congress should be doing. So because that's and Congress did not do that. He was never charged with insurrection.

He was never convicted of insurrection. OK, there's no court proceeding in Jack Smith's special accounts, nothing on insurrection. So realize what you've got here is politics at its worst. So we've had a half hour of that.

You're fully informed. Coming up in the next half hour, we're going to be talking about a couple of different issues, including the issues of religious liberty. We've got a win on a case that we're going to talk about. And look, we get dozens of calls a day and requests for assistance, mostly coming in through ACLJ.org forward slash help. So you will get this one.

This particular case involved somebody that was not going to be able to work the schedule that was agreed to and violating their ability to go to their place of worship, house of worship. Talk about that. We're going to talk about what's going on in Israel in our fight there. Let me tell you something, folks, we've got an angle. We're looking at the UN. It's a very difficult situation. It's just going to get worse because of the nature of conflict in this.

And you got Iran is causing all kind of problems against the United States. We're going to talk about that as well. We're also joined by our friend Kristen Levitt from Empower Oversight because we're working with them protecting those whistleblowers. Remember we talked about the whistleblower cases?

Well, we're in court on one and we're an administrative proceeding on another. And that's because of, again, your support of the ACLJ. But we've actually, Tristan and Jane Raskin put together a letter to the Human Resources Branch of the FBI regarding Marcus Allen's security clearance. You'll remember he was the agent that was the agent of the year for the Charlotte office, which is a big office. So you'll remember the situation we had with these whistleblowers we're representing. So Marcus Allen, who was the agent of the year, FBI agent of the year for the Charlotte office, had his security clearance initially suspended and then revoked. And we've got new evidence that shows that revocation was totally politically motivated by people that didn't like what he was saying in his personal life and his conservative values. We are going to talk about that because Tristan Levitt and, this is important, Jane Raskin from our office have been working on this with a team of ACLJ lawyers and a team of lawyers at Empower Oversight. It's a lot of manpower on these because these cases are very labor-intensive. Remember we've got another one already in the U.S. District Court of Appeals in D.C. because that's where you start these proceedings when a revocation or suspension has taken place.

Having said all of that, we've got a lot to talk about, but I want to say a huge thank you first of all. We've got the last two days of the month here. We had an initial goal of 1,500 new ACLJ champions and then we saw the response was so significant that we could increase that to 2,000 ACLJ champions possibly this month if we could hit that goal. Will tells me that based on where we are right now, we're within about 100 of hitting that 2,000 goal. So if we get 50 or 60 today, 50 or 60 tomorrow, we're going to hit 2,000 new ACLJ champions.

Let me tell you what that means. That's a donor that donates each and every month. But that's how we build our budget base and helps us on what I call the emergency cases, whether it's Israel, whether it's the whistleblowers, things you're not anticipating getting involved in but you need to get involved in. And we have 15,000 champions at the beginning of this campaign. We are almost now at 17,000. Now, honestly, here's what we think we need to be. In a year from now, we want to be at 30,000. That is a big goal. And I'm praying we get there.

But right now, adding 2,000 this month is a major accomplishment. You know the cases we've been involved in. We've talked about it. Defending religious liberty, defending your right to vote, standing with Israel. We want you to be – we've got lawyers in courts all over the country this week.

We've got lawyers around the globe engaging international institutions. We want you to become an ACLJ champion. Stand with Israel. Stand with us. Stand with these whistleblowers. Be a champion for life, liberty, and freedom. Go to ACLJ.org forward slash champions.

That's ACLJ.org forward slash champions. And that's a way for you to really stand with us. You're giving a monthly gift. That's what you're doing.

You take that $20 or $30 you're giving, you say, I'm going to do that monthly. Become an ACLJ champion today. Hey, welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. I want to go – we've covered a lot of territory. We've been from Colorado to Washington, D.C. Now we're going to the Middle East and also to Geneva, New York, which is the U.N. So the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. You see what Iran is doing. By the way, you talk about exporting terrorism, and they are bringing that right to the United States. Our military bases are being attacked. You know, Harry, this isn't getting a lot of attention, as much attention as it should. But Iran is getting very bold with their initiatives, with their proxies, and sometimes without their proxies.

Absolutely. So if you look at U.S. military bases in both Syria and Iraq, it is clear beyond question that Iran is involved in outright attacks on U.S. troops. And so the question then becomes, what is the appropriate response by the United States government?

The United States government, in my judgment, has been slow to blame Iran for its participation, at least in the planning and direction of the October 7th assault on Israel. And now I think it's going to become impossible for the United States government not to respond directly to provocation from Iran. Now, this may threaten a wider war. Clearly, Turkey is talking about intervening on behalf of the Palestinians. There are a number of Palestinian commentators who are looking for a wider, even religious war. So this is no longer necessarily a political war.

And I think the American people should be prepared for the fact that the United States and Israel will have to deal with religious fanatics who are prepared to die on behalf of their ideology. I'm going to play in a moment the statement from U.N. Secretary General Gutierrez. But before we do that, I want to – for those of you that don't know, we've had a very active role with the United Nations.

Our European Center for Law and Justice is a recognized nongovernmental organization, NGO at the U.N. So we're allowed to engage these issues, and we are. Having said that, the hostility at the U.N. towards Israel's CC is unprecedented, and worse by the day.

It is. We literally stand up, and we are one of the only ones that stand up and support Israel at the United Nations. We consistently see that Israel has more resolutions against it, condemning it, than any other member state. And I'm talking about real terrorist member states. Israel, you know, our biggest ally in the Middle East, always gets condemned. And we have to stand up for them, and we do all the time at the United Nations. Yeah, this is a big part of what we're doing. But I want you to hear what Gutierrez is saying, and I'm going to tell you a couple of actions we're taking right now.

Take a listen. It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their lands steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence. Their economy is stifled, their people displaced, and their homes demolished.

Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing. But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. Okay, so you know what that is?

UN doublespeak. But it's really an attack on Israel. First of all, let's be clear. You still have the hostage situation. Now we're concerned about these hostages. I'm going to call every night with Israeli lawyers and policy analysts working on this.

And late at night because of the time differential. This is very important. But we are looking at the possibility of putting the UN on notice. We want to put the UN on notice here. That you can't, Hamas just doesn't get away with this in the court of international jurisprudence or international diplomacy.

I'm not talking about the military. I think Hamas has to be taken out, wiped out, and out of government and demolished. Israel had the largest attacks since the Holocaust on the Jewish people. So there's no, they've got to go. But in the interim, there are things we can do and we're looking at those right now. Yeah, and we already sent a letter to the Commission of Inquiry on this and told them in no uncertain terms that Israel is absolutely justified in its right to self-defense and point out that Hamas is the evil and it needs to be recognized as such. On top of that, we are looking at different mandates under the United Nations Human Rights Council, different working groups that we can submit complaints to say you need to request that Hamas demand. Not request, you need to demand that Hamas release these hostages immediately.

Immediately. The U.N. so far has not done that. There's been no formal statement. They're condemning it, but I haven't seen, Harry, a formal statement of them saying we as the United Nations demand and pass a resolution for these hostages to be freed.

Absolutely. I haven't seen it. If it's zero, I haven't seen it. So your analysis, I think, is very, very sound, but it also represents the disproportionality of public opinion. The elites basically see Israel as the oppressor, notwithstanding the fact that Hamas launched an unprovoked attack on women and children, burned some of those individuals alive.

I've seen pictures of the spines of mother and daughter fused together. And so this has been a horrific attack on Israel and on the Jewish people, and yet this has not provoked a proportionate response from the United Nations and from other human rights groups. Instead, if you look at campuses throughout the United States, they are essentially justifying the gore. They are justifying atrocities. They are justifying brutality. And so I think at the end of the day, the ACLJ and other organizations have to stand with Israel and to rebalance both public opinion, but also ensure that Israel's right to defend itself remains unabated.

But you've got to understand something, and I agree with everything Harry said. The press, not all of them, but a lot of them, like Associated Press, refused to call Hamas a terrorist organization. Instead, they're to be referred to as a militant group. They don't want to use the word terrorist organization.

Now, the words matter here, and words make a difference. So we've already notified the UN on one hand of what was going on in the Commission of Inquiry. We've also are now looking at this designation of these individuals as missing, as they are. And there's a committee that deals with this, people that are vanished, basically, and we know what in this case is sausages. It's not like there's a guess. Hamas has said they have them.

They've released four. All they're doing is buying time. And everybody's saying, well, how's that going to affect the ground war here? Listen to what the Prime Minister of Israel had to say about that.

I want to be clear. The timing of the ground invasion will unanimously be decided by the World Cabinet, along with the Chief of Staff and the Cabinet, and we will act in order to ensure best terms for our soldiers for the coming operations. When we will get into Gaza down the road, we will collect the highest price from those murderers who committed the horrible atrocities, Hamas-ISIS. Yeah, Hamas-ISIS.

Think about that for a moment, folks. You know, it should be Hamas-Nazi-ISIS, because that's what they're operating like. But here's the situation. Look, there's a lot of international diplomacy going on here, too, to try to get these hostages out, because once the ground engagement starts, it's going to be very difficult.

Yeah, and it is. It's difficult. And we've done these hostage negotiations.

These are with governments. It's very tough stuff, folks. And it's extremely tough here, because again, you have a terrorist organization that has no morals or scruples or values or value for life that are holding these innocent individuals captive. We don't know where. We don't know if they're alive or if they're not.

And so it is a very tenuous situation. And who knows what is going to happen? I pray that they are still alive, and I pray that Hamas does one thing right and they release the hostages.

Yeah, they may, because maybe they think they'll get world opinion of change. The United States is also redeploying munitions for Israel on the Iron Dome. I mean, part of the delay here is you got to – folks, I've been in these conflict zones. I've been in Israel when these conflicts happen. This is major stuff.

I mean, I can't tell you everything we're doing, but I could tell you that there's a lot going on both in the legal realm and in the political realm. And I want to encourage you and to say a huge thank you as we are down to the last two days of this month. This is the first month we've ever done our Champions campaign, and it was to get individuals like you who want to donate each and every month to the ACLJ.

It could be $20, $30, $50, whatever it is, $5, and you become an ACLJ champion. You'll be standing with Israel. You'll be standing with the whistleblowers we're talking about. You'll be standing with the voters of America who want the right to vote for the candidate of their choice. You'll be a champion for life, for liberty, and for freedom.

And I encourage you to become part of that team. We are literally 100 members away from hitting our stretch goal of 2,000. Now, my goal for the year is another 15,000 between October this year, next year, October, I want to be able to tell you, we're over 30,000. We're right now at about 17,000. That was a great first month.

Your difference, the amount you give, makes that difference. So go to ACLJ.org forward slash champions. That's ACLJ.org forward slash champions to stand with us and stand with our clients. Welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. We have sure covered a lot of territory, but I also want to send our congratulations to the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, a good friend of our broadcast, a good friend of the ACLJ, and friend of mine. And I am convinced he is the right man at the right time for this position. And I feel really good about it. I think we finally got there.

It was an awful process. And politically, it took way too long. But we've got somebody that understands the Constitution, understands the role of the Speaker of the House.

By the way, that's third in line of secession in the United States, ran for the Vice President, Speaker of the House. So it's a big role. And Mike will do a great job. He's a Christian. He's a good guy. He understands the complexities of what he's got to deal with with a very divided house, but also a very divided caucus. I mean, let's be honest.

You know, the blowing up of the Republican House by Matt Gaetz and others was not very well thought out. I'm glad that Mike's the Speaker, but getting there was very difficult. I want to talk about some victories, though, too. And one of them is in what we do every day and we don't talk about it a lot because we just do it at the ACLJ, and that is our work on religious freedom.

Cece? Yeah, so we just won a victory for a client who was being disciplined for attending church instead of working extra shifts on the Sabbath. Not his regular hours. Not his regular hours.

This was extra. That's exactly right. So the Sabbath was not part of our client's scheduled work week, but he would be regularly assigned to cover for other employees on the weekends. And so he was being disciplined because he had requested an accommodation to have his Sabbath off, and they did not acknowledge that. And so they were actually even disciplining him for that. And we stepped in and sent a letter and explained his rights, and not only does he get to have his Sabbath off, the discipline action is removed, and everything's back to the way that it should be.

So we definitely have a victory in this case. Okay, so we do this every day. I mean, and this is work we do every day.

I mean, we don't talk about it every day because the world's on fire, but this is work we do every day. And we represent students, and I want to tell you, Jewish students have come to us really needing help because what's going on on the college campuses right now in light of the Israel Hamas situation is horrific, and the campuses are taking a horrible attitude towards Jewish students. We're defending those Jewish students. We're also defending, Harry, professors that are pro-Israel, that are, when they say anything that aligns with the pro-Israel statement, are coming under unbelievable attack.

The academy is very, very aggressive on this. Absolutely. So I think we should celebrate the victory that Cece just alluded to. It's a victory for First Amendment free exercise rights. Equally true, it's important that we focus on the rights of Jewish students and faculty members or simply defenders of Israel to speak out. Those activities are protected by, guess what, the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Secondly, we should keep in mind that universities are unequally enforcing free expression rights. They are allowing free expression rights for Palestinian advocates, and they are celebrating them.

At Cornell University, one professor who's now taken a leave of absence said he felt exhilarated by virtue of the attacks of October the 7th a couple of weeks ago. It's important, though, that we keep in mind that many of the Jewish students and professors who are being attacked, they are simply chilling their speech in order to get along. So we need to fight aggressively for individuals who are willing to stand up. The ACLJ is active in this fight, and we will continue this fight going forward. Listen, this is a fight that we've got to have, but let me tell you what's going on even in the law schools. By the way, the deans of these colleges and the President of these universities, shame on them for not speaking out sooner on this and protecting students on their campus.

But listen to this as an ABC News reporter talking to a student at NYU Law School. Do you condemn Hamas's actions on October 7th? I think what I use my platform for and who I condemn was pretty clear by my message, and I think that I will continue to condemn apartheid and military occupation, and that in this moment I'm focused on calling for an end to genocide and calling for an immediate cease-fire.

Yeah. What about protecting your fellow Jewish classmates who are being harassed because they're Jews or condemning what Hamas did? Instead, on George Washington University, and they got it down, but it took about an hour and a half, somebody projected onto one of the buildings a pro-Hamas statement. The pro-Hamas groups, these Islamic organizations, are very, very calculating and very much operating off a plan.

Yeah, and here's the thing. When you talk about the people supporting Hamas, these are people that are supporting terrorists, so am I shocked that these people are willing to use extreme intimidation tactics? No, I'm not, because again, they're supporting terrorists, so I assume they're going along with all those terrorist activities as well, and they're willing to really forcefully intimidate Jewish students. Like Harry said, they're so scared they can't even speak up, and that's ridiculous.

Yeah, I think that really putting these Jewish students in a terrible situation, and what we have to do, I think, we've set up a hotline for these students, and they're calling, and we're getting them help, and also for the professors. But you've got to understand something, folks. Think about what they're actually saying.

Think about who they're actually supporting. I mean, Harry, I think you're our director of policy. From a policy perspective, I mean, the policy, I guess, of this NYU law student was to support the barbaric murder of 1,400 individuals because they were Jewish.

Absolutely. So what we are seeing, and that particular student is a great example of this, is willful blindness. So in other words, she wants to condemn the alleged genocide committed by the Jews in Israel, but she seems unaware of the actual genocide committed by Hamas on October 7th.

So going after and burning alive babies, going after and burning women, raping them violently, that seems to be something she is quite prepared to ignore. So again, the problem, I think, is willful blindness, and that is particularly true at elite institutions, and one of the things I would like to see, quite frankly, is the willingness of the United States government to begin to tax the endowments of these elite institutions, particularly when they are offering a disproportionately barbaric message to the American people and to the international community. I'm telling you, folks, this is getting deeper, and as this incursion intensifies, and it is not intensified yet, it's going to get worse. Let me encourage you to do something, folks. We had a goal of getting 1,500 ACLJ champions this month. Like I said, we are 15,000. We want to double that by next year to 30.

So we said if we can get about 1,500 a month, we should get there. We are just less than 100 shy of hitting our stretch goal of 2,000 ACLJ champions. A champion is an individual, like you, who supports the ACLJ in a recurring gift each and every month.

It could be $50, $100, $10, whatever it is, but you're with us each and every month. If we can double that, it has a huge impact on what we can do, because I call it for the unexpected cases, the whistleblowers, the conflict in Israel, and you've got to handle the international law situation. So we want to encourage you to be an ACLJ champion. You'll be standing with these whistleblowers. You'll be standing with the ACLJ on all of our religious freedom cases.

You'll be standing with Israel. You'll be a champion for life, for liberty, and for freedom. I encourage you, as we just have today and tomorrow left, ACLJ.org forward slash champions. It's ACLJ.org forward slash champions to become an ACLJ champion. And I want to thank the almost 2,000 of you who have done that this month, and we hopefully will get to our goal. Have a great day. ACLJ.org slash champions.