Trump’s 2024 Election Fate Rests with Supreme Court

Today on Sekulow, President Trump's 2024 election fate rests with the Supreme Court. 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. Alright, welcome to Sekulow. So there is a lot to talk about today because at the Supreme Court you've got the filing from President Trump's team. Of course, we were filed first with the Colorado Republican State Committee. We got two amicus briefs filed on behalf of that as well as a response from the liberal organization and their clients that have been fighting us in Colorado. But now Trump, the campaign, has filed their briefing and so, Dad, what we wait for now is the next move by the U.S. Supreme Court. And the next move by the Supreme Court that could actually be today and that would be if, in fact, the case made it to what's called conference. Let me tell you what the conference is.

It's on Fridays. The justices get together and they vote on, not on the outcome of the case, obviously, because the cases haven't been fully briefed or argued, but they vote as to whether they're going to hear the case. Grant petitions for certiorari. Put that petition up on the screen right here. So this is what we filed. The Trump organization filed one as well. Let's go ahead.

There it is. So that's the opening cert petition. We filed that.

Then the other side filed quickly. Anderson and Griswold, those are on the other side of the case. That's the secretary of state and the electors that filed suit. Then we filed a reply brief in opposition to respondents Anderson and Griswold. By the way, Anderson and Griswold both agreed the case should be heard, so they said cert should be granted. They just wanted the questions rewritten. Then we sent in, after the Trump people filed, then we sent this. This is a letter we sent in saying we agree with the positions taken by the Trump people, even though we're technically respondents in that case.

That's just the way it works out legally. It could be in conference today. I did not see on the list, however, that it was distributed for conference.

But this case is being handled more like a death penalty case, and in those circumstances when it's handled like a death penalty case, you may not see that kind of notation. So it is possible we get an order. The normal order list is on Friday for those cases that are granted review. Monday is usually the big orders list, which is hundreds of cases denied. So it is possible by, say, 3, 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock Eastern time we get an order.

Not guaranteed, but I'd say it's a 50% chance. That's because the necessary documents are there. They could also order that they want some more documents.

That's correct. They could say, look, we want additional briefing, we want the position of the Solicitor General. I thought about that yesterday. They often ask for the Solicitor General's position. They may ask for that here. And when they're looking at this, you've got the state party's interests, you've got the Trump campaign interests, you've got this crew interest and the Secretaries of State doing this. All this appears to be is there's a lot of different ways you can go about this case and still end up deciding in favor of President Trump. So it's kind of where they want to focus in on it.

And that's exactly right. There are, I think, you know, if you look at all the arguments, if you combine President Trump's, ours, and a couple of the amici's files, I mean, there's seven or eight reasons why this is wrong. Which is, again, why we had another victory yesterday in court in Virginia. We were in the process of intervening for the Virginia GOP and we won before that case even needed to finish our intervention. That was, again, a case brought into the federal court, Eastern District of Virginia, and it was dismissed before reaching any kind of merits on standing and the motion dismissed was granted. We're winning the cases, but you've got the two outliers now.

You've got Maine and you've got Colorado and there's more states discussing this. So I think the Supreme Court needs to get in expeditiously. By the way, on behalf of everyone at the ACLJ, let me express our heartfelt gratitude to so many of you who reported for duty as new ACLJ champions. That's the new recurring donors group that we have. Because of your support, we're able to engage in major challenges defending Israel at the Supreme Court of the United States, standing up for life, liberty, and freedom, the whistleblower cases. 2024 will bring many more challenges.

We already know that. And here's what we're asking you to do. We need as many more new champions to report for duty as possible. I just got off the phone with our team.

We're still at around 18,900. I want to end this year, 2024, with 30,000 champions. So if you're a champion, thank you. Make sure you re-up.

If you're not a champion, consider making a monthly gift of any amount and you become an ACLJ champion at ACLJ.org. Back to Secchio. We want to get you prepared now that all of the necessary filings have been made at the U.S. Supreme Court for the Supreme Court to start making its initial decisions about the case. I mean, in most cases that get filed at the U.S. Supreme Court, you ultimately get an order that said, we're not hearing the case.

That's it. I mean, 99.9% of cases, they don't get heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals is the last place they are heard. But people expect this one to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court because you've got divisions all across the country in state and federal courts. You've got a Colorado Supreme Court.

You've got a Secretary of State in Maine that hasn't gone through a court system yet that did their kind of extrajudicial process. So people are asking, Dad, because they hear an order and they're thinking a decision. And while those can be in the orders list, this can also be kind of an order for what's the next step in the case.

Correct. I mean, it's usually certiorari is granted, certiorari is denied. And the certiorari grants usually come out on Friday, the day of the conference, which they're in now.

Cert denied is usually released in the Mondays massive orders list. But this case is being handled, I think, differently anyways. But the order could simply say it's been expedited, which means we want additional briefing, the merits briefs on certain dates. Oral arguments can be held, you know, in January or February or not at all. Or there is also a possibility of radio silence, meaning they think they have a supermajority, like maybe seven or eight justices or unanimous opinion, Harry, like on the officer issue. And they could just do it without argument. So we're going to find out either a lot of information today or we're going to find out, Harry, nothing at all. I think that's precisely correct.

You just don't know. There is an easy way out for the United States Supreme Court, whether they take it or not, we don't know. But certainly if you look at Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution, it treats the President and the vice President differently from any other civil officer of the United States. And if that's true, and if I'm reading the Constitution correctly, you can clearly and easily argue that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which contains the Disqualification Clause, which is basically rumbling through the country. The Disqualification Clause is inapplicable to President Trump. It's inapplicable to the vice President. But certainly the Supreme Court could, and certainly the Colorado Supreme Court has done this. They have looked at the substance of the Disqualification Clause and the Colorado Supreme Court has argued that there indeed was a violation.

Why? Because the Colorado court believes that there was an insurrection, even though it is clear that President Trump did not engage in an insurrection. Right. And even though he never told his supporters to enter the Capitol, while he was – And he was acquitted by the Senate. And he was acquitted by the Senate. So there are so many off-ramps for the United States Supreme Court, and the question is, will they take any of those off-ramps, number one? And number two, do they have the courage to do so? Here's the interesting thing. In one of the amicus briefs that was filed yesterday by Hans von Spelvig, who was a very well-known legal commentator, he pointed to a case called Free Enterprise Foundation versus a public company. And in it, Chief Justice Roberts writes, talking about officers of the court, officers generally, the people don't vote for officers of the United States.

Yeah. Those, again, that that's – Those are appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate. So my inclination, at least a gut feeling I have right now, is that is an easy off-ramp.

The officer off-ramp is an easier one, because then you don't have to get into is it self-executing, is it not self-executing, and some of the other arguments. They raised seven arguments that trump people in their petition. I think, you know, it's important, because I think that issue to people, if you're not an attorney, and you would think, okay, officers of the – how specific the language is in the Constitution and the way it's interpreted, that the President is so different than everyone else. And that's why they have their own article. That's why they have their own means for removal and punishment.

Yep. And, again, we're going to be talking about Secretary Mayorkas in the next segment of the broadcast, how even these cabinet members chosen by the President, there's special ways that Congress can act there that are outside the court systems. So when you hear officer, though, you might think, well, isn't everybody in the U.S. who's a top-level person officer, you really have to think back and say, well, no, that's not how it really works. And what was the meaning at the time in the founding – by the way, I need to say this.

If you're watching on Rumble, which a lot of you are, make sure you're following us and sharing it with your friends, because there are thousands and thousands of you watching on Rumble right now. And that's a legal divide in the country that this officer question among scholars. Yeah, I mean, there's scholars going back and forth. I think the better argument is the President's not an officer. It only makes sense.

He commissions officers. Why don't we go ahead and take a phone call. Yeah, right to phones we go. Mary Ellen in Illinois on Line 1. Hey, Mary Ellen. Hey, hello. Well, I just want to report.

At first I heard it on the radio, and I went to double-check it on the internet. NBC was reporting that I believe three people in Illinois have filed to take President Trump off the ballot. I don't know the law firm.

It was one with many names. But my question to you all, even if I get a couple more people, can you all represent us, or do we have to wait? Because I know our Republican Party in Illinois is not the strongest. Well, they will respond, but I can't imagine they do not respond, because all of, I will tell you, we're representing most of the GOPs, the state parties. And if this becomes a real challenge, they will respond. But Mary Ellen, what you raise, and Harry, this is the thing you were talking about, is if this thing's not resolved quickly, this is what's going to start happening all over the United States. I mean, it already is. Do we have that map of where the litigation is?

I'm going to get that map up while we talk to Harry. I mean, what Mary Ellen's talking about in Illinois is just going to be par for the course. It is par for the course already. Absolutely. And the longer the United States Supreme Court delays, the more likely it is that this will spark a tsunami of litigation and petitions at many state court levels.

And I think at the end of the day, it's up to the Supreme Court to expeditiously and quickly end this nonsense and interpret the Constitution carefully according to the original intent of the founders. We're putting up a map for our audience that's watching on any of our social media platforms. So let me make sure that gets up. We've got it.

I want people to see this. This is the number of states where cases have been brought. Now, some have been successfully closed. The ones in yellow are pending, which looks like about 12 right now, 13. You see some where we've already won. But there's all – like Colorado, it's pending still because it's going up to the Supreme Court of the United States. It's a longer pending, but that just happened last night.

Yeah, but I think they're appealing it to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. So if you look at that map, let me tell you what it looks like, radio audience. We'll put that back up again. For our radio audience, let me explain this map to you. The midsection of the country, Georgia, Alabama, and kind of going up, Ohio and those states.

You don't – Illinois, not yet, although Maryland says they're about to. You don't see a lot of activity. So kind of the south, Midwest. Then in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia activity. All the way up the eastern seaboard there's activity.

All out west from the Rockies over, really from Texas over. So it's just a swath of countries in the middle. But let me tell you, if the court sits on this, this is going to make it very difficult. That's why we did – by the way, we did, the other side did, the Trump people did. Everybody's been expedited for – asked for expedited review.

What I did not do in ours is say here's the date you have to do it because I believe the court controls its docket and they can make that determination. And we said we will abide by whatever determination the court makes. But Harry, I think it's fair to say this is the most important election case in U.S. history.

Absolutely. And the Democrats keep talking about who is or is not a threat to democracy. It turns out that the Democratic Party is indeed a threat to democracy.

And it's illustrated by these types of cases. Now the Democrats are smart politically because they often try to bring in so-called Republicans to co-launch these efforts aimed at removing Trump from the ballot. But at the end of the day, the objective is the same. The objective is to deny the American people the right to select the candidate of their choice.

That is indeed anti-democratic. I want to say this on behalf of everyone at the ACLJ, thank you for supporting our work in the month of December. And a special thank you also, heartfelt gratitude for so many of you that reported for duty and became ACLJ champions. We are at 18,900.

Our goal this year is to end at 30,000. Because of you, our champions, we were able to engage in major challenges in the United States and, of course, around the globe, including Israel, the unanticipated cases. We're fighting to defend Israel at the U.N. because of this lawfare issue. We're fighting for your right to vote at the Supreme Court of the United States. We're taking on new cases for Jewish students and Christian kids, students also who support Israel being harassed at college. We've got litigation for the whistleblowers going on, defending Christians in numerous cases being targeted for their faith and, of course, defending life in courts around the nation. 2024 is going to bring more challenges.

We know that. We need many more new champions to report for duty. If you've, you know, sometimes you cycle off because your credit card expires, I encourage you to re-up. If you haven't become an ACLJ champion, whatever amount you donate is totally up to you, but it's a monthly commitment to the ACLJ. We really appreciate that. Go to ACLJ.org.

That's ACLJ.org forward slash champions or if you just go to the webpage, it's right there is one. I'm sure it'll be in our emails also. That's right. And, of course, coming up, we're going to be talking about another move by Congress, which will be getting a lot of attention. That is the move to impeach Secretary Mayorkas for failing to do his job in securing the border by, one, by the illegal crossings and the numbers, which are just out of control. But, two, the American people who have suffered and died because of the illegal drugs coming across the border.

We'll talk about that. All right, folks, you're going to see more action being taken in Congress, specifically in the House of Representatives, focused on Secretary Mayorkas, who's been going through the process to ultimately launch an impeachment inquiry into this Secretary of Homeland Security who has failed to secure our border. Not only have the numbers of illegal immigrant crossings been out of control, and we can go through those specifically, but you see the uptick in the number of Americans who have died because of illegal drugs, mostly fentanyl, crossing the southern border, manufactured in China, they go to the cartels in Mexico, they're taken across the border, and they get into the hands of Americans. In the latest report, just to kind of give you some numbers about how bad it's gotten when it comes to the fentanyl deaths, in 2022, the estimate from the U.S. government was about 75,000 deaths that they said were caused by fentanyl. It's the number one cause of death right now in America for the ages of 18 to 45, so kind of the core working ages of the American people, kind of the backbone of the country, if you will, our young working group of Americans.

It's the number one cause of death, but the 2023 numbers have just been released, and they almost double the 2022 numbers. 112,000 plus have been killed by fentanyl, so I want to go to Bob Burkett. He is, again, chief of staff and senior advisor for ACLJ Action out of Washington, D.C., and Bob, we were on this issue early. I want you to walk through what ACLJ Action has done. This is our C4 organization to focus in on really taking this directly to Secretary Mayorkas and getting this impeachment moving.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Jordan. Happy New Year. Good to be back as we enter what will be a crazy year of American politics. As you mentioned, it looks like the House is going to be moving forward with the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas. We joined some of our conservative allies, including probably most prominently Rep. Chip Roy, on this issue fairly early last year in calling for the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas as soon as possible.

You know, we were fortunate enough to have 25,622 letters, in fact, sent to members of Congress through our ACLJ Action portal urging to push for the impeachment. So it is a welcome development now that, starting next week, the first hearing will be held regarding kind of more formally moving those articles of impeachment forward. And we'll get into a little bit of the history of what happened and how we got here, I think, a little shortly here. I was going to just ask, Bob, from a timing standpoint, what do you see as kind of the timing of this, all of this going down?

Yeah, so, you know, it's important to look at the history of what's happened here. You know, a lot of what this will be portrayed as is Republicans shooting from the hip, there's no evidence, Mayorkas shouldn't be impeached. What really, when this all really began was back in June of last year, Chairman Mark Green of the Homeland Security Committee chose to open an investigation into Mayorkas's abdication of duty to see whether that might qualify under the high crimes and misdemeanors portion of impeachment to gather and marshal evidence to see about whether him abdicating his duty could, in fact, get him impeached later on.

So, there's been a six-month investigation now carried out. At some point in November, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was pretty impatient and introduced what was called a privileged resolution to the House floor. The way a privileged resolution works is it takes precedence over a lot of the other business of the House, so you basically have a two-day timeframe to vote on it. So, Rep. Greene introduces that, that's voted on on the House floor, and it didn't get to a formal vote. What they did is they ended up referring it back to the Homeland Security Committee, where they were continuing to investigate. So, you have this investigation, which just wrapped up in December, and now we are having at least one hearing, probably two hearings, potentially more. The first hearing will be next Wednesday.

That's going to focus on the impact of the illegal immigration on the Midwestern heartland. There will be probably at least one more hearing to mark up. That's just a fancy way of saying revise the articles of impeachment that are in the Homeland Security Committee right now, before those are voted out of committee and then potentially sent back to the House floor. So, I'm not sure the exact amount of time this will take altogether moving forward, but we're definitely going to have some action next week and probably over the course of the next month, two months, three months.

Just depends on when House leadership wants to schedule a formal vote on the House floor, and that has not happened yet. And I know, Bob, I wanted to remind people about ACLJ Action. It's our C4 organization that those, again, over 25,000 Americans who are part of ACLJ Action, who have used our portal, our system, to send their letters to members of Congress. And we're going to be launching next week as well, and so let people know what's going to launch next week through ACLJ Action. So, if they miss that time to engage, they'll be ready to engage this time. Yeah. So, if you missed the vote the first time around, that was basically just encouraging Congress to move forward with the impeachment as soon as possible.

We were a lot, as I mentioned, there's been a lot of developments over the last six months or so getting us to where we are right now. So, now we are very much at the point where Mayorkas can be formally impeached on the House floor. So, our campaign next week is just going to thank members for their actions thus far on moving the impeachment of Mayorkas forward and encourage them to impeach Mayorkas through a formal vote on the House floor as soon as possible, get it over to the Senate, and hopefully remove Mayorkas from office for his abdication of duty.

Yeah. I mean, I think finally, Bob, a final question to you, and I encourage people to go to ACLJ Action and sign up, make sure you're getting the ACLJ Action emails so you know when that launches on Monday. We'll make sure to remind people on our social media as well that those letters are very important, that we make it as easy for people as possible, Bob, that, again, you put in your information so your members of Congress come right up.

If you want to use our template letter, you can. You could also delete all of that and write your own letter or use some of ours, and those numbers matter because I think when it comes to officials and you look at kind of outside of any political issues, he really has failed at this job. I mean, the number of fentanyl deaths have affected every American family, rich and poor, and they're doubling each year or about doubling, and then the illegal crossings we've heard from the mayor of New York, the Democrats in Chicago and New York and San Francisco and all over the country saying this is destroying our cities. So he is at the top, and he's not putting in place measures to try and prevent or even slow this down, and so that's when Congress has the constitutional role to remove these kind of actors.

Yeah, no, 100%. One other interesting statistic is there were 302,000 illegal encounters or migrant encounters illegally across the border last month. That is the highest recorded number in American history. This problem is not getting better.

It's getting worse. Action needs to be taken. We need to hold Secretary Mayorkas accountable, and as you mentioned, ACLJ Action provides our members the exact platform to do that. If you just go on ACLJAction.org, we'll have the campaign front and center early next week, and you'll be able to click the campaign, type in your info, it'll set up the form letter to send to your local members, and then you can send it and engage to protect our southern border. You can also become a member of ACLJ Action. It's a real membership group with a $25 donation or more at ACLJ Action. Bob, we always appreciate your insight from Washington, D.C.

I think we'll have you all next week when we launch that as well, the formal impeachment inquiry beginning of Secretary Mayorkas. I believe talking to a lot of people that support that, and folks, I know I'm talking to a lot of you who also could become ACLJ champions, and thank you for those of you who have. These are our donors who have chosen a monthly amount they're comfortable with automatically donating each month.

If you are ready to become an ACLJ champion in 2024, donate today with an amount you're comfortable with each month online at ACLJ.org. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Welcome back to Sekulow. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. Rick Rinnell is going to be joining us as well with a very important update, again, outside of just what's happening at the U.S. Supreme Court, which we're, of course, monitoring closely because, again, we were the first brief in representing the Colorado Republican Committee on the appeal from the Colorado Supreme Court to the U.S. Supreme Court. We filed, again, additional documentation there, so basically the U.S. Supreme Court, as of today and really as of last night, has the information it needs to issue in its next step order. So if it wants more briefing, if it wants additional, if it wants to set a timeline, a schedule, if there's one issue specifically they want more briefing on or less briefing on, and that could come as early as today. It doesn't have to come today. It could come, again, these can come at any time, and this case is moving differently than others. But I did want to just let you know that as of this moment last night, really, but as of this moment we're talking to you, the Supreme Court has what it needs to make its next step.

And its next step could be as simple as, we want more information on this topic, or we want more information on this topic, or here's some dates, here's kind of how we're going to lay this out. I mean, again, most of the time when everything gets to the Supreme Court on time, 99.9% of the time the request to hear the case is denied. But this is one of those, again, because we showed you that map, we showed you what's going on across the country, that it is going to be, again, I think very difficult for the Supreme Court to do that. Now what's interesting, we are already getting to the dates where even the Colorado Secretary of State said, you know, we have to start printing ballots on January 5th. That's today, and we're going to put Donald Trump's name on that ballot because we've got to send them out to military who are overseas, citizens who are overseas, they've got this whole group of people. So as of right now, Donald Trump's name is being printed in ballot. He is on the ballot, but we argued, and so did Donald Trump's lawyers, and I think correctly, that there is a taint to this because you don't know if that's going to count or not.

So you can't have this kind of uncertainty. The caller earlier said you may have something happen in Illinois, so we're fully aware of that. Let's go ahead and take Justin's call out of California. Hi, Justin.

Hey, thanks for taking my call. So my question is this. Do you think the Supreme Court will address all three major issues at play here, in my opinion, so that states can remove Presidential candidates from their ballot at will, that the President of the United States is an officer of the United States, and that President Trump supposedly engaged in insurrection against his own administration in 2020? They will take what's called issues presented. Now, we presented a set of three issues which basically cover those three points.

The Trump people just did a very, what's called a blanket. You should take this to reverse, which raises about six or seven issues. The lawyers opposed to us agree that the issues we raise, other than the free speech issue, should be taken. They suggested some changing in the second question presented, but what will really happen is the court may just grant any of those cert petitions and rewrite the question presented or something like that.

So, but again, it could be a situation where we get no, I don't want to build expectations up here. There's not showing on the docket that it has been gone to conference. The docket does not show it went to conference. Now, this is moving at more like a capital case, so it may not be, the internet stuff postings may not be catching up with what's happening. Is there a way, I'm sure some people are interested in this, could the Supreme Court reverse without getting into a lot of detail and why? Sure, they could issue a short procurement order saying the President's not an officer of the United States, and they could do that in a page and a half. So, I mean, you see, it doesn't have to be a hundred page decision. Again, it could be very quickly, and that would settle it for all 50 states and you move on. And you take your votes and you take that taint away, like you said, away from his name being printed on ballots. We know right now in Colorado that people are going to start receiving who are overseas, and then they're going to wonder, hey, if I do vote for him and I want to vote for him, is that vote going to get tossed out?

And I won't have a way to correct that if it is. So, again, there is an impetus for the Supreme Court to take action pretty quickly here to settle this for the American people. And, of course, the ACLJ is front and center, which is why we encourage you to join in the new year and become an ACLJ champion. You know, for each month, choose an amount that you're comfortable with donating to the ACLJ monthly. And you can do that at ACLJ.org.

You become an ACLJ champion. It's the backbone of our support. We'll be right back.

All right, welcome back to SECU. We continue to take your calls, too, on what's happening with Mayorkas. And, again, the ACLJ action update there, 25,000 of you and more, actually 25,600 plus of you back in the summer, signed onto an ACLJ action letter to your members of Congress calling for the impeachment. That's now moving forward next week, formally the inquiry opening up in the Homeland Security Committee.

And we will have another action item for you next week that you can take that way. And I think this one's really legitimate when you look at it from, again, the numbers of just the amount of illegal who are crossing. I mean, Mayorkas admitted a million have been released inside the United States who are illegally here. And then when you add to that the number of people who have been killed by the drugs trafficked over the porous southern border. It went from 75,000 estimate last year, just fentanyl, to 122,000 plus this year, just fentanyl.

And they just released that December 28th of 2023. It is the number one killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45. Well, like I said, this kind of backbone is the backbone of our workforce of America.

But Rick is joining us now, another important issue. And this is one, Rick, which I think people probably need a little explaining, but you are very excited that the Republicans did away with. And it was this ability for Congress, or I guess the administration, to put people on like a, not a list where they had any kind of sanctions against them, but they were basically banned.

Tell people about this program. There is this thing called the angles list, angles list. It was named after Elliott Angles, who is a progressive congressman from New York. And he became the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and became very powerful. And so he put together this list of people in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador who were undermining democracy.

Now, think about that. We give the power of Democrats in Congress and the Biden administration to go find people in this region who are, quote, undermining democracy. Now, what we've learned in the United States is that whenever Democrats say you're undermining democracy, it just simply means you're conservative.

And it is nothing more than that. We have a system in the United States through the Treasury Department that if somebody is corrupt or undermining democracy, we have a thoughtful, thorough sanctions system at the Treasury Department to figure out who should come into the United States. If they're corrupt, we don't want them coming in. This system was bypassed through the angles list. Given the State Department and Anthony Blinken, he created a list that just so happens that everybody on that list are conservatives and they're not undermining.

Let me keep going, Rick. The whole idea of an angles list sounds like something out of a, you know, Norwellian novel. I mean, you'd even have this we have this list. It's not really public. We have this list that we keep this list.

And if you're naughty or nice, then you get into the country or you don't go ahead. Totally. And let me just tell you that in the press release last summer, when they added the attorney general of Guatemala onto the angles list, I kid you not. And I tweeted this out in the press release announcing that she is now banned from coming into the United States because she's on the angles list. They literally say it was reported that she was doing corruption. It was reported that she was undermining democracy. There's no proof.

There's no facts. This is such a dangerous list giving to Anthony Blinken the ability to go after his political opponents. And by the way, they do something similar in the Balkans where they go after conservative politicians in the Balkans who are up against the Biden administration. And they once again say they're undermining democracy. That whole phrase has been so abused by the Democrats. I'm pleased to tell you that the Republicans killed it in December 27th of 2023.

The angles list is no longer allowable. And Democrats on the Hill are freaking out because they want their power and they want that list and they want the manipulation back. Rick, I think for a lot of people, this is the first time they may have been hearing about it.

I mean, it didn't exist very long, a couple of years, and we've seen it go. But the way it worked was would Congress tell the President to put people on this list or could they just put people on the list? I mean, it just sounds absurd because, again, like you said, we have these very thorough programs for people who are sanctioned, for people who are banned to travel here. And State Department and Treasury works. We know about all those lists. And there's even like kind of due process through it.

And they're very public. How did this one even work? I mean, it sounds like something they didn't want us to even understand. They didn't want the due process. They wanted the political weaponization.

They wanted to go quickly. So what they did is they hit it into past omnibus resolutions and bills in Congress. And they gave the authority to the State Department. So basically anyone at the State Department can add someone to the angles list and then that person is banned from coming into the United States. They're on a travel sanctions list. Now, what's terrible about this is that the United States should be at the forefront of thoughtful, fact based decisions when it comes to sanctions.

And that's why we have the Treasury Department. And I can tell you, as somebody who inside the Trump administration, when we wanted when we saw evidence and we wanted to put somebody on a sanctions list because we believe the evidence showed that we still had to go to Treasury. They had researchers who would go into the details to figure out, is this true?

Does this match the facts? And many times they would come back and they'd say, look, we don't have enough information. We're not going to sanction this individual because we don't have enough information.

We're going to watch them, but we're not going to sanction them. It was a thoughtful process that frustrated me. A lot of the times I was frustrated, but Treasury had a thoughtful process. The angles list gets rid of the thoughtful process, or it did, and it really gave people like Anthony Blinken just carte blanche to go after his political enemies in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

It's gone. It's a good day. The Democrats are upset about this. What are they claiming is going to happen? Because, you know, an attorney general from Honduras may be able to visit the United States now. Well, I actually think that they will manipulate the situation further. They'll come up with some secret idea to deny her and, you know, say that it's based on corruption or whatever. So they're still going to probably manipulate the system in other ways.

But at least we took away their big tool. They now should be the media, the State Department media should be asking very serious questions how this the criteria was used for this angles list. I think it was a total abuse by the State Department.

I think it's a scandal that nobody really watched. But they will use the same lines that they do in America, Jordan. They will say you're undermining democracy, you're a threat to democracy. The other other issue I want to just briefly talk about, Rick, because you see it just kind of bubbling on the edge and, Dad, you know, this is what's happening in the Red Sea. And we hear more and more about the Houthis, drone strikes on U.S., attempted drone strikes on U.S. ships, and also on private shipping that is having a huge impact and people questioning if there's going to be more U.S.-engaged conflict. Yeah, and, Rick, I was with Israeli government officials just about 10 days ago, and as bad and tough as the situation is in Gaza, they said, you know, look, in a month, you all are going to be talking about the Houthis and what's going on in the Red Sea. So the former CIA director is optimistic that U.S. has, quote, good intelligence to mitigate the Houthis' dangers. You were the director of national intelligence.

What's your assessment? I mean, of course we have the information. They had the information, the Biden team, when they took the Houthis off the terrorist list. They shouldn't have taken the Houthis off the terrorist list. They were put on the list, the terror list, because they're terrorists. And they were taken off because the Biden team wanted to engage with Iran.

Let's be honest. They funded Iran. They have created this mess. You can't be surprised when you're giving sanctions relief and billions of dollars to Iran that they're going to get a nuclear weapon and they're going to cause more terror. This is just common sense.

Common sense is lost among the Biden White House. And so for Brennan to say we have enough evidence, I think it's an admittance that they made a mistake by taking the Houthis off the list. You know, Rick, as always, we appreciate your insight.

We appreciate you being a member of our team so we can get into these issues that, one, aren't always on the front pages like this Ingalls list, which thankfully today is no longer in effect. But it's also now something we can be on the lookout for, something similar to be on the lookout for that a Democrat Congress might try to slip in this kind of legislation. Of course, we're going to be watching what's happening internationally very closely because it is a very dangerous world right now.

It seems right on the edge of, again, some potential major conflicts that the U.S. could get pulled into. No, no, that's exactly right. And I think you have to realize, and Rick, I appreciate you being able to inform us on this. This is the reason why your support of the ACLJ is so critical, because we get experts like Rick Rinnell as part of actually part of our team here at the ACLJ. So we are in a champions drive, and we want to add as many monthly donors as we can, the goal being 30,000 by the end of the year. We're at 18,900.

People come in, people come out. We understand that economic situations. But if you're able to donate monthly, let me encourage you to go over to ACLJ.org right now.

If it's $5, $10, $15, whatever it is, our average gift is $33, actually. Go to ACLJ.org forward slash champions. A monthly donor, you become the backbone of the ACLJ, and you help us in those matching challenges. You're part of the team that does that.

ACLJ.org forward slash champions. If you could do it today, it really makes a difference for us at the ACLJ, ACLJ.org. Everybody, welcome back to the broadcast.

We are going to go right to our phones again. If you can become a monthly donor to the ACLJ and ACLJ champion, let me encourage you to do it. That's what we're focusing on right now. We want to get that number up to 30,000. We really think we can do it. We're at 18,900 and so, I think 910. So it's to basically add 12,000 new ACLJ champions this year. If we can add 1,000 a month, that's going to do it.

So ACLJ.org forward slash champion, you become part of the backbone of the ACLJ. Let's go right to the phones. Yeah, we're going to take your calls now at 1-800-684-3110. Let's start with a couple of the calls on Mayorkas, and we'll talk of the Supreme Court as well. Yakov in Illinois on Line 3. Hey, Yakov.

Hi. My comment is that – about Mayorkas is that it's like three times the amount of illegals under Trump now, and these blue states are bleeding voters. They're moving to the red states, and it's like a replacement.

The New York Times had articles, and there's other articles about – was it Destiny – that these people will – these illegal immigrants will come in and replace the voters. Again, some people say that Democrat strategies, ultimately they will be given some kind of citizenship. The reality has been since an amnesty in 1980, no one has. Right. No one has been actually given citizenship. That's the reality. They have to live in the shadows with fake Social Security numbers.

Again, there's generational issues there as well. But we – just this year, I mean, Mayorkas admitted a million illegal immigrants were released into the United States. A million people that are not really being tracked. Right. And – It wasn't until 1,000,000.4? Yeah, and when you go into removals and deportations, under President Trump in 2019, when we were really taking the border seriously, there were 267,000 removals and deportations in 2019. When you get into 2021, they dropped down to 59,000 when Mayorkas took over.

Then – oh, he got some pressure. He moved it up to 72,000 in 2022. Then he came under tremendous pressure because, remember, he had the New York mayor, the California governor, Illinois, the mayor and the governor there, and they did 142,000 deportations in 2023. That is still half of what the Trump administration was doing while they were also preventing more people from crossing illegally. This, by the way, when we talk these numbers, these are the numbers of people they are tracking. These aren't – they are somehow the U.S. had an actual, you know, engagement with.

There's millions more that don't. And so that's why we think, again, next week we'll be launching our plan, but this is a serious discussion to have with the American people about whether Mayorkas and his department has failed the country. All right. Let's go right back to the phones. Let's go to Becky.

She's calling on line two from Florida. Becky, welcome to broadcast. You're on the air. Hi. First of all, I want to just thank you. I sent an offering this morning – or money this morning for – especially for the Supreme Court fight. That's where I designated. Sure.

Thank you. And also, is it actually possible the Supreme Court could hear arguments on time, or can they decide on their own? And does Colorado – they're the only ones that have a stay if it doesn't make it on time for the primary? So I think there will be a stay issued, Becky, in Maine. I think the court's going to do the same thing there.

The Trump lawyers are already filing those documents. The court can make a decision without an argument. It's a procurement. Decisions happen all the time.

So you could – that's why this thing's very hard to predict exactly which way it's going to go. They could issue an order with a – they could issue – we could hear nothing for a week and then we get an opinion. Procure him with no oral argument, no additional briefing.

Or they could ask for additional briefing and then say we're going to decide on the merits without argument or then argument. The latest posting on the Supreme Court, our team member Nathan sent us, was that there'll be a release of an orders list at 9.30 a.m. on Monday. Yes, but that doesn't mean they won't list – that does not mean they will not release a miscellaneous orders list today. That's what happens. So Mondays is the big orders list. That's kind of always happening. Yeah, so Friday – but there usually is a list on Friday of cases that are granted review, summary reversals, those kind of things.

That don't fit into that Monday list. So we'll see. But there's no way to tell. Right now all the briefing is in, so you're going to kind of take a deep breath, read – you know, keep thinking about the case, but you've got to see what the court's going to do before you do your next book. And you did say that unlike a lot of these cases where this briefing would be really more of the – they are surpetitions and why you should – It's a lot more merits than it's just – These get deep enough to where you could almost – the Supreme Court doesn't necessarily have to ask for more information, though they certainly can.

Yeah, they could. But I mean I just looked at the brief that was filed by Patrick Strawbridge's law firm, Consul Wayne McCarthy, in the case. And I mean it's a merits brief too. I mean they say search should be granted, but here's the reasons why, and they lay out. And, you know, one of the interesting things, and a lot of people are pointing this out, is there's a decision by Chief Justice Roberts where he says people do not elect officers. People elect representatives, House members, senators, Presidents.

They do not elect officers of the United States. I think that is where the out is in this case. We will see if there's another round of briefing. We will see if they expedite it. Expediting could also, Jordan, take three or four different venues. It could go expedited, meaning we'll get arguments in and we'll get the case done sometime this term. Because under normal planning now, this case would probably barely make it this term.

Probably would not. Right. So everything here is happening.

This is not a normal case, and the Supreme Court justices know that as well. Right. Let's go ahead and take another call. Let's go to Georganne in Virginia on Line 1. Hey, Georganne.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my call. I have a question regarding the letter that was sent to Mayorkas. I sent one and I just used your letter because you guys are smarter than me. And I got a reply back from both of the senators in this Commonwealth, and he said in their replies, Mayorkas is doing a wonderful job. Okay.

Well, I know that's not true. Can I go ahead and send another one when you guys get the letter form together? So that's what we're going to be doing on Monday, and we don't want to give it away to the other side yet, but because the official inquiry is scheduled to open on Monday at the Homeland Security Committee, we will have a new action to take at ACLJ Action. So we'll get Bob back on, and yes, Georganne, whatever we launch new, you will be able to take part in. So it might, again, it will be, remember, that initial letter was to take the vote on moving to open an impeachment inquiry.

Now the next step would be what questions are asked in the inquiry, more factual information, and of course, where we'd like members of Congress to ultimately vote when it comes to that impeachment. So tune in Monday. We'll have that information for you at ACLJ Action.

Yeah. And by the way, if we get an order later this week, later today, or even over the weekend, we'll get that out to you on social media. And so make sure you're following us on Facebook, Twitter, which is now X, and of course, Rumble, YouTube, wherever you get your social media news and ACLJ.org. We will keep you posted. The miscellaneous orders list usually comes out between four and five o'clock, so we'll see what happens there. Folks, again, a huge thank you to everyone that supported our work this last month, and especially to our ACLJ champions.

You did report for duty, which we appreciate it. And because of this, we're able to engage in all of these major issues. But we are going to really try to double this, not quite double, but get up to 30,000 ACLJ champions. We're at 18,900.

I'd sure love to be by the weekend close to 19,000. Basically, you add 1,000 a month. If you could donate monthly to the ACLJ, just go to ACLJ.org and sign up there. It can be any amount. Our average gift, by the way, is about $33 for our ACLJ champions a month. That's ACLJ.org, but any amount will work. If you've been a champion, renew it up again. That really helps us also. So at ACLJ.org, forward slash champions. Have a good weekend. We'll keep you posted as news warrants.