BREAKING: Supreme Court Takes Action on Trump Prosecution

Breaking news today on Sekulow as the Supreme Court takes action on Trump prosecution by the Special Counsel. 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.

A lot to talk about today and a great show for you. We are going to jump right into the Special Counsel Jack Smith seeking review from the U.S. Supreme Court on post-Presidential immunity. Now, we have a little bit of experience when it comes to the Supreme Court and Presidential immunity. We'll talk about that in a second with my dad, Jay Sekulow, who is representing the President in those cases. But he skipped the Court of Appeals because he still wants to have this trial to start.

You know when. March 4th, the day before Super Tuesday. Because he's not playing politics with this at all, right? And remember, it was initially, I think it was, was it the DA in Atlanta who wanted to start March 4th? And he came in because it's federal. So they were both looking at saying, let's get this trial started the day before people start voting on Super Tuesday.

Saying that politics isn't involved, everybody looks in the calendar right there and knows what they were doing. But dad, this is unique because it does show he's got some concern, which is interesting, about these issues because they did come up by Congress. Congress impeached the President twice. Both times he was found not guilty by the Senate, who actually is like the judges. And the second time he was no longer the President.

So this kind of ties into that one as well. So the issue that what has happened here is the special counsel's office has filed a petition for writ of certiorari, that's a request for review, before judgment. Because it's pending at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia right now. So what Jack Smith wants to do, because of timing, is to expedite the matter and skip the intermediate level of review.

Because ultimately the view is that the Supreme Court is going to have to decide this. It's a very interesting legal issue, and that is, can the President of the United States, when he's no longer in office, be held criminally liable for activities that took place while he was President? Now we had, as Jordan said, we've had some experience in this because I argued for the President a limited temporary immunity while he was President. Do we have that ready to go? Let's go ahead. This will take you back to the Supreme Court in 2020. What do you think people are about to see? Because this is unique. Do we have the video?

Okay, we do. So you're going to see the Supreme Court argument. The question was by Clarence Thomas.

The argument took place right here in this studio because it was during COVID, so we were connected to the court via phone lines. Take a look. Interested in whether or not you can point us to some express language, either at the founding or during the ratification process, that provides for this immunity?

Well, there's a couple. There was a colloquy between ultimately Vice President Adams and Senator Ellsworth where they talked about process against the President, and they took the position that any process against the President would be constitutionally problematic. Thomas Jefferson, of course, wrote in the letters he had regarding subpoenas that were issued in the Byrd trial that allowing local magistrates to bander about a sitting President from north to south and east to west would interfere with the President's responsibilities. And as this court just in the previous argument just stated, the burdensome nature of this is categorical. You can't just look at the one subpoena.

It is the potential for 2,300 DAs, or just 1% of them, 23 DAs issuing process against the President. But the concern over interference from our founding with the President's responsibilities was discussed, and that's why in the Constitution there's process to deal with it. So there you have it. That was before the Supreme Court in the United States was actually done here in our studios because we were doing it remote during the period involving COVID.

But it addressed these kind of issues. So folks, this tells you also the ACLJ, we are front and center on all of this. Now we are approaching the halfway point in just a few days of our ACLJ faith and freedom challenge. Any amount you donate is matched. We also want to encourage you, if you're able, so if you give $10, we get $20. If you're able to make that a monthly donation, you become an ACLJ champion.

But we really need to hear from you. This is now on an expedited basis. We will be filing in this case at the appropriate time now at the Supreme Court of the United States. ACLJ.org forward slash faith and freedom.

If you can make that monthly, you become an ACLJ champion. Folks, I want to take your calls on this too. 1-800-684-3110 because we're really breaking it down for you. What did the Supreme Court do in this order? And I think it's important to know that the Supreme Court did not say we're definitely going to take your case, Jack Smith. We're definitely going to decide whether or not the President has this immunity or not.

What they did say is we will do expedited consideration on the question, which means both sides get to file briefing. The Trump campaign, or I guess the President, would it be the campaign this time? No, it would be the President personally this time. Yeah, he's the defendant. So it's the United States versus Donald J. Trump.

And he has until the 20th, next week. What he's going to do, I suspect, is file a brief in opposition to expedited reviews. He's going to say, I want the Court of Appeals to weigh in on it because you never know what will happen there. You could win.

And then, so delay it until you take it a normal course. The Supreme Court said we are considering not the merits of the case, we are considering whether we will take the case on an expedited basis. The issue is, can a President, former President, be charged criminally for acts that were done while he was President of the United States? The argument would be, these were acts done by the President of the United States in his official capacity as President, and the answer should be no. But again, it's going to be a very closely divided court, I would think, on this.

The issues or ramifications on this are gigantic because if the President were to win, all these criminal cases stop. And remember, this is the one that people were waiting for on the insurrection kind of claims. Did he encourage the violence at the Capitol?

Could his speech be used as encouragement? And that won't even be looked at here. This is procedural. We were in this room in March of 2020 for four and a half hours before the Supreme Court of the United States, and we did it again because it was during COVID, so it was done remotely. And it was three cases that we were responsible for. One involving Congress, one involving his accountants, Mazars, but also involved a congressional subpoena, and the third involving the Cy Vance matter, which was the state DA.

So we have the expertise on this more so than anybody in the United States. So the real issue here is what Jack Smith is trying to do is make sure this case goes to trial in March. That's what he wants. He wants to trial before the election, which I think looks like election interference, and normally these cases would never go to trial this quickly. A criminal case in the District of Columbia on this magnitude would not be tried a year after indictment. No, and remember, this is that key case that would also try to take Trump from being a candidate, potentially.

There's issues there. Yes, because this is the one where they've got the allegations which would constitute disqualification. So you understand what's happening is they're doing everything they can to keep him off the ballot, so we've got the 14th Amendment.

And by the way, in that regard, I'm holding in my hand, do we have this for the screen? This is in the district court for the second judicial district, so this is the state court in and for Albany County, State of Wyoming. And it is Tim Newcomb versus Chuck Gray, Secretary of State of Wyoming, Donald Trump as an intervener, and Wyoming Republican Party as an intervener. We represent the Wyoming Republican Party intervening on another case where they're trying to keep the former President off the ballot. And this is the ridiculous nature of what's going on here. They're trying that on the state court basis, they're trying it at the federal court basis, they're trying it now at the Supreme Court of the United States. So you understand what's going on here in the politics of this.

And I want you to know what your ACLJ is doing. So you just said Wyoming, where we're intervening and we're partnering with the general counsel of the state GOP there to work together with him to intervene on behalf of the state Republican committee. We've won on appeal twice, Michigan and Colorado. We're waiting for the Colorado Supreme Court decision. We've won in Minnesota and Oklahoma, those are done. We've intervened in pending litigation, both in West Virginia and Virginia, and we're representing in a total of cases, because some are joining onto our briefs in other cases, 15 states in just one case.

So that's Michigan, Oklahoma, Colorado, West Virginia, Wyoming, Kansas, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Delaware, Georgia, Nebraska, Maine, Idaho, Rhode Island, and Ohio. The ACLJ, again, taking your right to vote for the candidate of your choice very seriously. This time they're going after Donald Trump, but we also look to the future. If they can do it to Donald Trump, they could do it to any candidate in the future. And of course, who are they going to- They could do it by just the Secretary of State initiating himself without any kind of judicial process.

Without judicial process, he got cleared with the impeachment, he was acquitted for the same issue, and yet they want an elected Secretary of State to disqualify him, not just from the general, but even from the primary. And if you wrote him in, you would turn in your vote and they would throw in the trash. Let me tell you what we want to encourage you to do here. There are a lot of you watching right now on our preferred provider, Rumble, but also on YouTube and also on Facebook right now.

So everybody hit like and share it with your friends. If you're new to the broadcast, subscribe to it and follow it because we're reaching a lot of people right now. So this is a very different situation we're in. I want to again set you up for the Supreme Court of the United States. I want to play again what we played at the beginning of the broadcast. I want to set this up because this went to the issue of immunity, and it's very rare on a broadcast you're going to see the actual Supreme Court argument because they don't allow cameras in the courtroom.

We had cameras here at our studio because we had to do the oral argument remote. The question again is from Justice Clarence Thomas. It goes to the heart of this very issue, which is the founding father's intent on the issue of Presidential immunity. I'm interested in whether or not you can point us to some express language at the founding or during the ratification process that provides for this immunity.

Well, there's a couple. There was a colloquy between ultimately Vice President Adams and Senator Ellsworth where they talked about process against the President, and they took the position that any process against the President would be constitutionally problematic. Thomas Jefferson, of course, wrote in the letters he had regarding subpoenas that were issued in the Burr trial that allowing local magistrates to bander about a sitting President from north to south and east to west would interfere with the President's responsibilities. And as this Court just in the previous argument just stated, the burdensome nature of this is categorical. You can't just look at the one subpoena. It is the potential for 2,300 DAs, or just 1% of them, 23 DAs issuing process against the President. But the concern over interference from our founding with the President's responsibilities was discussed, and that's why in the Constitution there's process to deal with it. All right, so there you have the – look, we're going to play you later in the broadcast, Justice Sotomayor, who followed that question up. But this goes to the heart of the issue, and that is Presidential immunity. But let me tell you what is pending right now.

I think people are confused on this. The Supreme Court has not granted review yet of Jack Smith's request. He filed a petition for certiorari before the judgment.

There it is on the screen. I went through the whole document, including the appendices. Interestingly, Michael Drebin is counselor to the special counselor and counsel of record in the case. He was also the lawyer I was fighting on the Supreme Court issues that might have gone into play during the Trump-Muller investigation.

So you're talking about a very small group of people involved in all this stuff. So Drebin and I were going at it during the – and that was whether they could compel the testimony of the sitting President of the United States for an investigation. Mike Drebin was a lawyer there, a Supreme Court lawyer as well. We're also taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. I'm going to open the phone lines up for you.

800-684-3110. Understand what's at stake. They've asked for expedited review. Now, a response will be given by President Trump that will say no expedited review. We have the right to go to the Court of Appeals.

We want to hear what they have to say about it. Then we'll go to the Supreme Court of the United States if necessary. But if the Court of Appeals went, the President won't appeal. The government would.

So here's what you have. They want this expedited appeal for one reason and one reason only. To make sure that they can try this case before the general election. Take that, combine it with the, what, 15 cases we have now where they're trying to get the President off the – former President off the ballot, and for most recent now being in Wyoming, we are intervening on behalf of the Wyoming Republican Party. Fifteen issues right now on the state level. The Supreme Court now weighing in. Folks, this is huge for your right to vote. So I want to ask you to do us a favor here at the American Center for Law and Justice.

We've got teams that are handling the Israel issue, but in Europe right now still meeting on that, working on that. We've got teams on the Supreme Court case. We've got teams on the state court proceedings for your right to vote.

If your right to vote is important to you, and I know it is, then support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice at ACLJ.org during our Faith and Freedom drive where any amount you donate is going to be matched. And let me tell you something else, okay, if you can make that a monthly gift, let me tell you what that does for us. We started in October. We went on this champions drive with 15,000 ACLJ champions.

These are people that are donating monthly. We are now at 17,800. We've added 2,800.

We want to end the year if possible. This is our stretch goal to be over 15,000 members of our ACLJ champions. Your donation will be doubled today, and if you can make that monthly, you do become an ACLJ champion. So let me encourage you to go to ACLJ.org forward slash Faith and Freedom, and you make your voice heard. Annabelle from California told us last week that she's an ACLJ champion reporting for duty.

Yesterday she called back to tell us she asked 10 of her friends to become champions. Five did, and two more are making an individual donation. We're at 17,826.

We want to be at the end of the month by 18,500. And folks, those cases coming in on Christmas displays, we'll talk about in a moment, they are coming in. We'll give you a brief update on that. Support the work of the ACLJ. Donate today.

ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Seck Hill. We're going to continue to talk about and take your calls at 1-800-684-3110. So if you're on the line, hang on the line. We've got two lines open right now because we just opened those lines. If you've got questions about what happened with the Supreme Court granting Jack Smith that motion to expedite consideration of the writ of certiorari before judgment.

So that would be to hop over the Court of Appeals and decide the question, not on the merits of whether President Trump is guilty or not of the charges brought in D.C. Those are the obstructing Congress, you didn't actually use the word insurrection, but the things close to that could be disqualifiers to being on the ballot to run for President again. So this is a procedural. We're going to talk about that. We're going to keep talking about it throughout the broadcast today. But I did want to remind you yesterday, and we're going to take your calls on it, 1-800-684-3110. Because we were driving in together, my dad and I, after my son's performance in preschool, their Christmas pageant. And I said, you know what, we haven't done yet.

And it's because, you know, sometimes we think, oh, we've won so many of these cases, maybe it won't be an issue. I said, you know, we need to go tell people that if they've got issues about nativity scenes, Christmas displays, whether it's the government or a city or a fire department or even in a private place like a senior living home. And we need to tell people to contact ACLJ.org slash help so they know they've got free, legal, ready to go and fight for them quickly because the holidays are right now. Well, yesterday we told you about the nativity scene and that the team, again, had the town meeting last night. Our contact, our attorney was on the phone and our contact used what he prepared for them at the ACLJ to prepare for the community. And the town council seemed very receptive to the desire to keep the nativity scene at the fire department, even though the Freedom From Religion Foundation said they're threatening to sue this Midwestern town. But they also said that if they believe they need legal assistance, they're going to actually be following up our contact with the mayor and their council today to potentially get us in touch directly with the attorney at the ACLJ. Because they want to make sure they're ready to go if some lawsuit came, you know, at midnight in the final hour.

But then we got more this morning because we said it yesterday on radio at ACLJ.org slash help. If you're having these issues, we take them seriously and they have to be handled quickly because we're in a time period where, you know, Christmas is just around the corner. Hanukkah is happening right now. A senior living home in the middle of Hanukkah and during the Christmas holiday put out a new procedure and at this, the resident contacted us and the directive was you can no longer put religious items on your doors or in the hallway, but you can put any secular items you want. They didn't say no one can have any decorations on your doors.

You've got to keep those all uniform. They said as long as it's secular, it's fine, which opens up a whole bunch of questions too. Like is anything involving Christmas secular? If it's a Christmas tree, that would be the word Christ in there.

So would that be secular? Again, Santa Claus is a saint. Happy Hanukkah.

Happy Hanukkah. I'm a nor. Certainly not.

Certainly not. So we are going to go right to dad. Yep.

That's senior living home. We hope we won't have to go to court. We will if we have to. We'll get it resolved. We will get it resolved. But we will get this resolved and make sure that that resident and all those other residents will be able to put up whatever religious displays they would like, whether it's Christian, Jewish or another faith.

Yeah. So this is, again, while the Supreme Court work's going on, while the international work's going on, we're fighting for religious freedom right here. Let me take you back to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The issue is, is the former President immune from prosecution for alleged federal crimes while he was the President, and now they're going after him after he's no longer the President. This issue came up. You saw the colloquy between myself and Justice Thomas. This was at the Supreme Court of the United States.

It was filmed here in our studio because this was during COVID and it was done remotely. Now, okay, this is Justice Sotomayor. Doesn't the President always have the opportunity to show that a particular subpoena, in fact, was issued in bad faith? The President was given that opportunity here and an affidavit, I understand, was filed under seal, setting forth the reasonable grounds for the investigation. I'm not sure why he's entitled to more immunity for private acts than he should be for public acts. Well, he's the President of the United States.

He is a branch of the federal government. We only give judicial officers and congressional officers immunity for acts within their official capacity if they don't. If judges sexually harass someone, we've said that's not within judicial functions, they can be sued.

If congressmen do the same thing, they can be sued. So, my question still comes. You're asking for a broader immunity than anyone else gets. Well, we're asking for a temporary... Do you have time for a brief answer, counsel?

I will. We're asking for temporary Presidential immunity. And the issue there was an immunity while he was sitting as President. This case is different. This is an allegation of criminal activity while the President was in fact the President, but the charges are brought after he's back in civilian life, so to speak, and they involve acts that would be argued were part of his official responsibilities as President. You've got to take this case, though, and you've got to merge it with all of these other cases that are pending right now, and you have to realize what's going on here, folks. This is an attempt to take down a Presidential candidate, the leading Republican Presidential candidate, or else, and we'll put it on the screen, we wouldn't be intervening in a case today in Wyoming where they're trying to do the exact same thing.

Right. Again, this idea of taking him off the ballot so he cannot even be a choice for the Republican primary. And if you tried to write it in, they take the ballot, they toss the ballot.

The vote would not count, so it couldn't even be a write-in candidate. This is even at the primary level where state parties have a major role to play. Each state's a little different, but they always have a role to play. So in Wyoming, we partner up with the general counsel of the Wyoming GOP, and if we get that intervention granted, which we have in the other cases we've asked for, we will be in court to, again, present the case that this, like in the others where we've been victorious so far, is a total misreading of the 14th Amendment and is wrong and why it's wrong, and why it's wrong for Donald Trump, but why it's also wrong for future Presidents regardless of their political party. Folks, we're nearing the halfway point of our faith and freedom drive, and look what's going on right now.

Now we're dealing with, in addition to this, we've got teams deployed in the Israel matter. We've got teams working on this Wyoming case and many, many others involving this 14th Amendment attempt to keep the former President off the ballot. Now we've got expedited review requests going on at the Supreme Court of the United States. We're expecting the Supreme Court of the United States in Denver, excuse me, the Supreme Court of Colorado in Denver to issue their decision in any moment. That case will go to the Supreme Court of the United States on an expedited—they will be asking for it if we lose, although so far we've won. Whoever gets it is going to ask for expedited review because those ballots are being printed for the primary.

So you understand what's going on here. Huge legal work going on at the ACLJ. Anna Bell from California said last week, you remember that, she said, I'm an ACLJ champion reporting for duty.

She called back in the broadcast yesterday to tell us that she's asked 10 of her friends to become champions, five did, and two more are making single donations. So those two could not afford to make a monthly pledge or maybe they could, they just didn't want to make a monthly pledge, but five people did. We're asking you right now to donate to the ACLJ. It's going to be matched. It'll be doubled.

It's tax deductible. But if you can become an ACLJ champion, that means each and every month you're standing with us. And that changes drastically how we operate at the ACLJ.

We are right. We started this campaign off with 15,000 champions. We're now at 17,826. And in order to meet our year-end goal, we want to hit 18,500 people that are standing with us each and every month.

Go to ACLJ.org. Your gift will be matched. And if you can make it monthly, you become an ACLJ champion. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. All right, folks, welcome back to Sekulow.

We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. Rick Cornell is going to be joining us as well as Tulsi Gabbard. And we're talking about this issue primarily involving, again, this expedited move by Jack Smith, the special counsel, the cases out of DC, the criminal case involving President Trump's actions, which were really words, during January 6th. They never used the word insurrection in the charges, but they say obstruction of congressional proceedings, ways to basically disqualify him from being even on the ballot potentially. Of course, we've got these state cases where they're trying to do it before this has even been adjudicated and after he was impeached on it and acquitted. But I think the importance here is the Supreme Court said, we will consider expediting it.

Get your briefs in by the 20th. It does not mean they definitely will. And it has nothing to do with the merits of the case. And so we're not at that point yet, Ted. No, that's right.

So it is expedited review request, though, and that expedited review request has been expedited, so to speak. Let's go ahead and take Mary Ellen's call from Illinois. Hi, Mary Ellen. You're on the air. Oh, hello.

And thank you for the call on what you do too. Two quick points and then a question. We know that this case was not even heard by the appeals to give the justices some, you know, further thinking in their deliberation. And then we also know the Supreme Court doesn't like to get involved in elections.

So my question is this. Could they wait to decide by next June to avoid election interference or send it back to the district court level? They could do, well, they would send it back to the court of appeals, not the district court. They could do either.

I will tell you the precedent is United States versus Nixon and that was the Nixon tape cases and they did grant expedited review there. But it was, as you're right, Mary Ellen, though, that was not during an election. The election had already taken place for the President was sworn in already into office and the election had already taken place. So here the differential is you've got this trial that they want to start literally the day before. Is it the day before Super Tuesday?

It is the day before. Yeah. It reeks with election interference. All of these cases do.

Yes. I mean, what the state cases are trying to do it without even the charges. They're trying to say an elected secretary of state can just decide on their own review that they can disqualify them. Now they didn't trust that they could totally do that, by the way, on their own because they said, we probably should take it to court, see what a state court says on it.

But if the state court says I can, then I can do it. Jack Smith's track then is I need to make sure I get this in before people start voting because, you know, or even maybe midway through. So he's on some primary ballots, but maybe won't be on enough because we could get him disqualified halfway through. This is a takedown. This is trying to do a takedown in the form of a President.

Yes. And it's also trying to turn him into a criminal candidate in the eyes of voters. So even if Jack Smith won't have time to get a final ruling or decision on this, he again is trying to see how quickly can I get the criminal charges out of DC, which are the ones people focus on the most, which is what happened on January 6th and the President's role. How quickly can I get that to the American people so that, again, we have this, we dirty up the President. The same thing they're doing in New York with Letitia James and what they, again, the New York DA tried to do there. That didn't work out very well for him and in Georgia as well.

It's that feeling like even though when you see him on the trail, you see him at events like you did with Sean Hannity, he seems like he is not at all affecting his abilities at all. But of course it does. But well, you know, it affects the resources. Yeah.

His team, because they look, here's what we've got. Let's take a look at the Supreme Court side of this for just a moment. You've got this case now, and it is conceivable that we're going to get a decision out of the Colorado Supreme Court.

We will get it this week, probably. And that case will be fast tracked to the Supreme Court in the United States. All that to say at the ACLJ, we're going to be front and center of this, protecting your right to vote, making sure those nativity scenes can go up, making sure that the Israeli family hostages are represented in global tribunals. All of that's going on right now at the ACLJ.

All of it. Now, some of you have made some really large gifts online at ACLJ.org. We're not expecting you to become an, you are an ACLJ champion when you, obviously that kind of donation, but we're not saying that's going to be your monthly gift. But what we are saying is if you're donating today, and if you can donate to our faith and freedom drive, if you can make that monthly, that makes a huge difference for the ACLJ as you become an ACLJ champion, and it helps us build out our budget. Our goal is to get to 18,500 champions by the end of this year, ACLJ.org, whether it's one time or whether it's monthly, we appreciate it. ACLJ.org.

We have team members like Rick Renell, who was a former acting director of national intelligence, a cabinet member to the President of the United States, and also a former ambassador to Germany, the biggest economy in Europe. And they're part of the ACLJ team because of you and your financial support. It's a good reminder to donate this month, this most important month of the year for us at the ACLJ financially. You can donate online to ACLJ.org, and if you can make a recurring donation, that's important too.

Choose the amount that you're comfortable donating each month automatically. Rick, great to have you on the broadcast, it's always great to have you on the team. Rick, so the first thing is I wanted to talk about was we've got this, I call it now the national takedown of a former President and the leading Republican candidate for President of the United States for the next election. So you've got these state court proceedings on one hand, these 14th Amendment claims, I think we've filed in 15 of them right now that we're handling, representing the GOPs of various states, and most recently Wyoming where we're filing today our intervention. And then you've got Jack Smith deciding he wants to jump over the Court of Appeals because he wants to make sure that this case gets heard by the Supreme Court on an expedited basis, which did happen in USB Nixon, but that wasn't during an election. So it's a lot differently, a lot different situation. I argued the immunity cases at the Supreme Court for the President, for President Trump out of this studio during COVID.

And here's the dynamic here. They're doing this because they want him in court the day before Super Tuesday. So you look at the state court proceedings and you look at this and it looks very much like election interference.

Yeah, look, it's totally election interference. First of all, let me just say that I'm so glad that I'm part of the ACLJ team because I'm not a lawyer. And I know that between Jay and Jordan and the entire team, we've got an incredible legal strategy.

So most of us, Jay, don't really understand what Jack Smith is doing. But let me just say a couple of points because I know Jack Smith and I've dealt with him at the Hague. He was an American at the Hague in charge of this war crimes investigation in the Balkans. And he manipulated the rule of law while he was at the Hague.

He didn't really listen to the rules. And the Hague allows him to do this. And so what Jack Smith is now doing in America is bringing his Hague values.

And we can't have that. We can't have this international court style prosecutor who comes into the United States and just really ignores the law. He's being very political, obviously trying to do this the day before Super Tuesday. This is all about stopping Donald Trump's campaign, which is why they waited so long in order to launch this.

This is un-American and we should call it out and thank God we've got a team working on this. All right. So you mentioned Jack Smith at the Hague. I mean, I know you dealt with him there. Well, guess who else was at the International Criminal Court in the Hague?

This is him playing J video day. Was me on the floor of the International Criminal Court on behalf of our interests in the United States when they were doing, as you said, this investigation of Afghanistan. And there are no rules. Do we have that?

Can we get that ready? Rick, if you look at the ICC, the first time I sat in the ICC for a proceeding was 2010. And I watched the hearing before I went and did ours, the case before us. And as an American lawyer, I'm stunned, shocked. You would never get this stuff into evidence in the United States, in a courtroom in the United States. But you can get it in the Hague, you can get it at the ICC because as you said, the kind of rules they have are not really rules.

But people need to understand that you're exactly right. Jack Smith is taking his ICC method of prosecution right here into the United States. And he gets away with it.

He always gets away with it. And look, if somebody really wants to go deeper on this, they should Google the prime minister of Albania is a guy named Idi Rama and Google Idi Rama Albania at the European Court of Justice. He has a speech that he did this past summer where he goes after all of those Europeans who are allowing the Jack Smith style to continue. He goes after Jack Smith, he goes after the prosecutors that did all this to the President of Kosovo.

This is a takedown from a NATO ally, a European who's standing up and saying this is not what the rule of law is supposed to be about. It's quite astonishing. We have seen again time and time again where Jack Smith has success is usually early on in trials. And as it gets appealed, he ends up losing. But what we've been talking about now, President Trump is unique because he's a very tough guy and he's able to continue on the campaign trail, continue focusing on that, continue being in the key states, talking about the issues. But we know that, again, behind the scenes, what this cost. And you've got this much litigation going on. So while President Trump puts on, I don't think it's a face, I think he really is able to compartmentalize this and does care so much about the American people that he said he knew this would happen, he'd still go through it, and he is. But that it is also to try and drain resources from whether it's President Trump himself or the campaign. It's actually using the legal system kind of like lawfare, but it's a lawfare of politics. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, Jordan, because I'm actually quite confident that President Trump is at the forefront of this fight. We have seen and we know at ACLJ that lawfare and that's using warfare in the courts and in the legal system, that is the fight that we are having in America. When President Trump is fighting against the DOJ and their manipulation, that is a fight for all of us. He's not just fighting for himself. He is trying to bring down, highlight, and out what the DOJ is doing, what the FBI is doing. This is the fight. And so he is at the forefront of protecting us.

I don't mind sending him a little bit of money to help on these legal fights because I actually believe this is the fight at hand that we need to win. And it's not just about Donald Trump. You know, Rick, the other aspect of this is, and we wanted to talk to you about this, there is a, the FISA law is about to expire unless renewed. You were the acting director of national intelligence. We saw the FISA abuse.

I saw it during the Russia probe, Russiagate with Bob Mueller. And I saw the misuse of FISA. What's your sense on that?

And you were the, as I said, you were the DNI. So what's your sense of this? I'm going to say something that I think a lot of my friends on the Republican side of the aisle in the house don't want to hear, but get your act together because this should not be renewed. I don't care if you're just going to renew it until April, which is what they're telling me to say, that they don't have enough time to fix it. The FISA 702 is a disaster. It should not go on for another day. It must be dramatically reformed. And when our leaders in Washington tell us, oh, well, we don't have enough time. My pushback is to say, well, what have you been doing?

These things matter. Why have we not been trying to dig deep and have a really good bill? I don't want to see a reauthorization of 702 for one day.

Fix it. And if you didn't get your act together and now you've got to come back and say, oh, well, we've got to kick the can down the road till April so that we can put together a bill. I actually don't believe you. I don't believe that you're going to get your act together by April. We cannot have this abuse going on, especially while Joe Biden is in the White House. Why are you going to hand the Democrats, the Democratic President who has demonstrated with his team that he abuses the judicial system and the court system? Why are you going to hand him until April a powerful tool of keeping the FISA 702 in place? It's outrageous. Get to work in Congress is what I'm saying. My concern, Rick, has been that if you look at the 702 process as a lawyer, my concern has been the lack of due process. It is a star chamber, to put it bluntly.

And I know a lot of our friends in the Republican Party are not going to like me saying that either. But it is a star chamber. The prosecutor goes in there with the judge, there's no defense lawyer. No one has notice of anything.

There's no counterweight. And we know that the FBI has actually, you know, altered documents in order to get a FISA warrant and done it to the court and the court admonishes them, but nothing else happens. No, that's the whole problem is you get in there and I don't trust the judges because they've demonstrated time and time again that they're political.

And when you have this secret process of just, you know, a couple of people saying, oh, I got a spy on Americans and here's why. No, this is unacceptable. Until you demonstrate that you've reformed the process, you should not have a kick the can down the road. Stay up all night.

Get it together. We still got time. I don't understand why we just give up and say, well, we're going to kick the can down the road till April and keep the terrible system in place. What we learned was that this was a system that was abused to actually spy on Americans without due process.

That's what we figured out. And the American people now know that and it's why they don't think this should be reauthorized. It's a time again where they can't, we know the truth. It's not just about foreign terrorists.

It got involved in politics and American people without due process. Rick, as always, we appreciate your insight here on the broadcast and of course the work you do for the ACLJ behind the scenes team. And those of you who support the ACLJ. We have these incredible team members to rely on, to talk with. If it's late at night and we need information, we can go to Rick, we can go to Tulsa, we can go to Mike Pompeo if we need assistance in any matter. And we can do that because of you. There's two things you can do right now during our faith and freedom drive.

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You make the larger donation or the recurring donation that you're comfortable with, ACLJ.org most important monthly year for us, donate today. All right, welcome back to Secula. We are joined by Tulsi Gabbard, who is a senior analyst for the Secula broadcast, both the politics and military. And we're going to look at kind of the law of politics, which again has become something that's a little bit too normal in the United States of America. And Tulsi, specifically, I wanted to go to this move by Jack Smith to get expedited review from the Supreme Court, not on the merits of whether President Trump obstructed Congress. He never, by the way, charged him with insurrection, but the criminal charges arising out of January 6th. Could he get expedited review on Presidential, post-Presidential immunity because he was impeached on this issue after being present and acquitted by the Senate? So does he have jurisdiction or not to try and rush this trial, which he would like to start the day before Super Tuesday? I mean, it reeks Tulsi so much of using the legal system in the worst way, which is for political gain against political opponents.

You're exactly right. I'm going to let you guys, the legal experts, speak to whether or not he has the standing. But just from a basic political perspective, and more importantly, beyond politics, is the thing that serves as the foundation of our democratic society, which is the rule of law. Jack Smith, to me, has completely once again revealed his true motives here, which is to stop Donald Trump from perhaps being on a ballot, but from being elected President if the American people were to make that choice. This is the only reason why he would be making this extraordinary request of the Supreme Court to make this urgent and expedited ruling so that he can continue with his expedited timeline, which again, you all know lawsuits and how long and short they take better than I do, but the way that he has fast-tracked this thing in order to directly impede voters as they consider who they're going to vote for, as you said, right the day before Super Tuesday, he's showing what his true motives are, and it's not to uphold equal treatment under the law or justice or any of these things. He's trying to undermine a Presidential election and take out one of the two primary candidates for the presidency.

So people should see it exactly for what it is, should be very alarmed and concerned that this guy is here because he will talk about other countries trying to interfere in our elections. Well, here's a guy who is working for the Department of Justice, who is directly and in broad daylight trying to undermine our election right before our eyes. Yeah, I mean, just the ACLJ, Tulsi, we are involved in, I think we, well, let's see, we are filing today to intervene on behalf, that means actually be in court representing the Wyoming Republican Party in that 14th Amendment case there where they try to remove President Trump from the ballot. We won in Michigan and Colorado, those are on appeal. We won in Minnesota and Oklahoma, those are no longer on appeal.

So he will be on the ballot there. We are intervening in pending litigation in West Virginia and Virginia. And we have, in one case, we represent the state Republican Party in Michigan and 14 additional states, Oklahoma, Colorado, West Virginia, Wyoming, Kansas, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Delaware, Georgia, Nebraska, Maine, Idaho, Rhode Island, and Ohio. And we know Tulsi that it's not just the left or Democrats who are filing these lawsuits.

That's in some cases they are. But in some of the biggest cases, it's actually organizations that have worked with some of the biggest Republican attorneys, election law attorneys in Washington, D.C., who are part of the anti-Trump crowd and don't want him back in D.C. because it's not good for their wallets. Yeah, and that really is a great indicator of the bigger point here is that this is not a partisan issue. And frankly, while those who are making all of these efforts to try to keep Trump off the ballot or to keep him from getting elected, regardless of their political party, the bigger issue here is that whether people like Donald Trump or they don't like him or they don't have an opinion of him, what's happening is a direct assault on our democracy. So the real injured party here is not Donald Trump or his supporters. The injured party here are American voters across the country who are facing the prospect of very powerful people, both in our government, in huge corporations, in the propaganda media, in big tech who are trying to limit who we as voters have the opportunity to choose from in this upcoming election. That's the real danger here that extends far beyond partisan politics or political personalities. And it's why people in these states and as people look at what Jack Smith is doing, we can't afford to stand idly by and be quiet as this fundamental foundation of our democracy is being undermined. And what happens when that gets undermined is something I wanted to talk about with you.

We haven't even gotten to a topic like this today. But when all the attention is there because your politicians are constantly, you know, leading Presidential candidates facing multiple lawsuits, different state courts, federal courts, some that would try to disqualify him from the ballot, he can't even run again if he chooses to, which he has. But then you have the serious issues right here at home on our southern border.

Migrant encounters hit a daily record at the southern border. I mean, this is an issue which barely gets discussed unless a candidate themselves brings it up right now because of all these issues like President Trump and the Supreme Court or what's going on internationally. And then we kind of forget what's going on at our own border, which leads to not just crime, but it leads to Americans dying, whether it's from drugs being brought across the border or the violence that comes across the border. I think it's very telling, Jordan, that the only reason this issue is being discussed that at any level within Washington or in the propaganda media is because Republicans are tying it to the attempts by the Biden-Harris administration to pass a foreign aid funding bill. So they're forcing this issue of the broken asylum process, the broken process for those seeking refugee status, the broken system that is causing so many millions of people in this year alone to come and enter our country illegally, which this is so disturbing because it points to the twisted priorities of the Democrats who are in leadership in the Biden-Harris administration and those in the House and Senate is they wouldn't be looking at this issue at all if it wasn't getting in the way of their seeking to send what I think is it $60 billion more to Ukraine without any idea of what the path forward is or when will this war end or how is peace possible or anything. It's just another check that they're willing to write on the backs of the American people when there are very real fixes that need to be made to our laws there at the border. And I think the Republicans are asking for a couple of very common sense, realistic changes. The resistance coming from the Biden-Harris administration and from Democrats in Congress, they're not coming with counter solutions or other ideas.

They're just saying no once again, contributing to the broken immigration system. Thanks, Tulsi. We appreciate you being with us as always appreciate that. Folks, we encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ. We are two days away from the midway point on our faith and freedom drive. Any amount you donate, we get a matching gift for and a lot of you become ACLJ champions, which means you're donating each and every month.

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