Appeals Court Hears Trump’s Immunity Claim Ahead of 2024 Primaries

Today on Sekulow, an appeals court hears Trump's immunity claim ahead of the 2024 primaries. 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. A good time to be joining the broadcast as the case has just come to a close in Washington DC. This is the appellate stage of President Trump. Remember, this is the special counsel brought this unique case, Jack Smith, to determine Presidential immunity. Specifically, you know, what acts are immune and then just figure out how his prosecution would move forward because he knew that would be an issue that would be brought up and of course has to be determined to even move forward on the allegations that he has made against President Trump. The specific to January 6 and again discussing that there was an impeachment there but there was no conviction and so do you have to have that when you're talking about an acting President who's now not in office to then have a prosecution. You have to have not just the impeachment part but the conviction part as well to move forward. And so it's this major discussion really over Presidential powers, immunity of a President, and of course this is a unique situation, dad, because this is not just a former President, but he's also a current candidate for President of the United States and the leading candidate right now. So the issue, it should have been framed and I don't think it was framed as well as it could have been, does an action of a President while he is President within the confines of his official duties give him immunity from later prosecution and the answer to that question should be yes. But for some reason it got convoluted, Andy, I thought, in the argument in the sense that they were saying well there's these exceptions and he started with the exceptions rather than with what the rules should be. Once you start carving out exceptions then you eat up the rule. I agree with you that the way that it was phrased was not the way that it should have been posited before the court because then the court could chip away as it did with these various exceptions. But Sauer, the former Solicitor General of Missouri who represents President Trump at one point said, quote, the notion that criminal immunity for a President doesn't exist is a shocking holding.

That's what he said. I mean we can play the sound because I think this is where it started on the kind of idea of where are these narrow exceptions. Here it is, it's Biden for Sauer. This is first you'll hear the attorney for President Trump who was the former Solicitor General of Missouri. Then you will hear from the judge asking the question there, Judge Pan.

Take a listen. To authorize the prosecution of a President for his official acts would open a Pandora's box from which this nation may never recover. Could George W. Bush be prosecuted for obstruction of an official proceeding for allegedly giving false information to Congress to induce the nation to go to war in Iraq under false pretenses? Could President Obama be potentially charged with murder for allegedly authorizing drone strikes targeting U.S. citizens located abroad? Could President... Can I explore sort of the implications of what you're arguing? I understand your position to be that a President is immune from criminal prosecution for any official act that he takes as President, even if that action is taken for an unlawful or unconstitutional purpose.

Is that correct? With an important exception, which is that if the President is impeached and convicted by the United States Senate in a proceeding that reflects widespread political consensus, that would authorize the prosecution under the plain language of the impeachment judgment clause. So yes, with that exception. The impeachment clause is clear about that. If you are impeached and convicted, you are removed from office, but it doesn't just end there for you necessarily.

That's true. The question is in those hypotheticals would ordering someone as they said later to be killed, still what does fall with an official act and what would actually be... This is where it went awry. They should have been arguing the entire time the clause of the constitution that the President is responsible to faithfully execute. It's called the execution clause, the constitution of the United States. That's what he was doing when he was checking on whether the election was properly done or not. That was in his duties as President, and that's where the case should have ended.

But instead they let themselves get caught in these hypotheticals. If you've got questions about it, we've got more sound to play too. 1-800-684-3110. And where do we think this goes next?

We'll tell you 1-800. All right, welcome back to Secular. We are taking your questions too about this case. This one is very unique because Jack Smith figured out halfway through after going through the grand jury process in Washington DC and bringing charges related to January 6th. By the way, not bringing a charge of insurrection, which would impact other issues that are before the US Supreme Court right now. But the idea that, again, when is a President... Presidential liability basically while they're in office.

And so they were talking about official acts of a President versus non-official acts of a President. I want to play again more sound from you so people kind of get an idea of this, talking about the immunity. Do you want to go to bite 34, you think next we'll kind of set this one up. So this is again, right here you're going to hear from Judge Childs, appointed by President Biden, asking the question to the assistant special counsel who presented the oral argument in this case, James Pierce. Take a listen. In your brief, you raised some sort of lesser immunity potentially applying. Want to speak to that?

I do. We don't think that's comes into play here. I think the point was in some sort of more challenging cases, it might be that where a President is operating under extraordinary time pressure has to make a very difficult kind of national security type of decision. You know, do I go in and commit this kind of, do we order the drone strike under these circumstances? You know, a President will often have a cadre of lawyers to advise him or her.

The lawyers say, Madam President, we'll get you a memo in two months. That's not going to be enough in that situation. If there were a drone strike, civilians were killed, that theoretically could be subject to some sort of prosecution as murder.

I think that might be the kind of place in which the court would properly recognize some kind of immunity. Yeah, I just want to say, no, no. This is the problem with both of these arguments. It's not that complicated.

They've made it complicated, but it's not complicated. The President is the commander in chief. He doesn't have to wait for lawyers to tell him when to take a military strike. They often do consult with counsel. It is not mandated anywhere in the United States Constitution.

That's number one. Number two, number two, when he makes these decisions, he's faithfully executing the laws or making sure the laws are faithfully executed. It's called the execution clause.

You can't be prosecuted for this. So he did the same thing. He said this limited immunity would apply if it was a military decision, but that's not what the constitution really reads. The President can be impeached and once removed and impeached and found guilty, could then subject to... Yeah, I think the bigger point is that you cannot be criminally prosecuted for bad policies.

Well, that's what it is. And what they were saying is after the fact, you could have done the military engagement in a better way, or you could have had more intelligence that would have given you more information if you awaited another year after the 9-11 attacks. But at those times we were talking about, there was a kind of a rush to defend the United States. So the President certainly was... President Bush at the time was certainly acting within his power as President of the United States and went also to... And the whole idea there that, again, he's trying to determine what's official, what's not, and that they have to take all this advice from... It raises the idea of the lawyers to the President. And I've thought this for the last...

Since you've been in those roles too, were way too high. It was like lawyers are not who should be running the decisions of the United States. We were not elected by the American people to be the President of the United States, because we were those lawyers. So saying you were the lawyers, I got the lawyer's advice to do it, he's the President and commander in chief.

He is required under the constitution to make sure the laws are faithfully executed. That should be the beginning and the end of this case. And both sides did a rather mediocre job of getting that through.

Well, I think they did a very poor job of getting it through. But you're right, Jay, the laws be faithfully executed. And that is a decision that is made by the chief executive, by the President of the United States. And as Jordan mentioned, this is not for lawyers to make counseling decisions. I mean, he may take advice if he wants to, but once that decision is taken, it's a political decision taken by the President to effectively execute the constitution and that ends the inquiry. That is it.

That should be it. And I think this, you know, well, we like the decision, therefore we won't prosecute, it's ridiculous. And I do think if you've been convicted of a impeachment, that's a different story. They say that.

Everybody. He was acquitted. That's the problem with all of this. So that's where the double jeopardy jumps in. You want to take a phone call?

Yeah, I do. And I think that's very important to point out is that in the clause of the constitution, if President Trump was impeached and then convicted for what happened on January 6th, now you have to question the two because that impeachment happened without the chief justice there. But he didn't, he wasn't even convicted. So if he's not convicted, then you read the constitution, you don't get to move on to then prosecute later.

So you don't have to even get to that question, whether it's a legitimate or not impeachment because they took the votes or the votes weren't there. Exactly. So yeah, we can go to the phones, 1-800-684-3110. Robert in Louisiana online too.

Hey, Robert. Hey, I was looking at the constitution and if you look at section five of the 14th amendment, it says that Congress is the one that enforces the sections above, one, two, three, four. So Congress says the implementing legislation requirement is by Congress.

That's exactly right. That's what section five of the 14th amendment says. And that's precisely what we have said in our brief, both in the petition for certiorari, those briefs have been granted.

But now as we're working on the merits brief for the Colorado Republican party, we're going to raise that issue among many others again. So yes, you're reading it correctly. The fifth amendments, the fifth section of the 14th amendment says Congress shall put forward implementing legislation they haven't done. That goes to this issue of whether it's self-executing.

That's exactly right. It is not. It is up to the Congress to enact the legislation to execute that.

It does not function ipso facto itself. All right. 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. Again, going back to that, we'll go back to where your phone calls too, but I just want to play more from the case today. Again, it was about an hour and a half oral argument in Washington, DC. This is, remember, the case that Jack Smith tried to fast track and hop the Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court denied that, but it's likely that they will get an appeal here. Pretty tough for them, before we get more into what happened today, because I think where this goes, it's another one of those cases like the 14th amendment where it's hard to imagine the Supreme Court not having to take this.

No, I think the Supreme Court does have to take it, but there's another step here, and that is if they lose, either side can go un-bonk. They could ask the full panel to do it, and I certainly would do that in a case like this. Yeah.

I don't think Jack Smith... Jack Smith won't. Right. So, I mean, but that doesn't like... From the way it sounded today with the panel of two appointed by Biden, one by George H.W.

Bush, again, you never know. No. Oral arguments don't make up the whole deal. And they had tough questions for those who were arguing for this as well, not quite as...

Him stringing the presidency is what they were concerned about. Yeah. I will go to your phones, Mike, in New Jersey on line one. If you got questions about this, folks, again, this is complicated stuff.

A lot of cases going on. No bad questions here. 1-800-684-3110.

And if you have a question, it's likely one that a lot of people have, and we want to make sure we're answering those for you at 1-800-684-3110. Hey, Mike. Hi.

Consider if former President Barack Obama had lost to Mitt Romney in 2012, and then did his best Donald Trump impression subsequent to former President Trump losing the election to Joe Biden, what fate do you think Mr. Obama would be looking at by now? I'm sorry. I'm not following that at all. Say that again. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Mike, say that again. I think he's saying, is there double standards at play between these... Because they did try to bring up that soundbite we played. Well, what about when President Obama ended up killing Americans abroad? There was an issue that came up about that is that that was an internal issue. It wasn't really a legal issue of his liability. It was an issue of whether or not how those policies play as an American who's now become a kind of a terrorist actor abroad. Does that restrain the President at all? And honestly, I don't really think it does.

I don't think it does either. I think if you've gone up and joined ISIS or another terror group... That's the problem with all of this. That's why there should be some form of absolute immunity for the President during his official acts. Official acts that we're talking about.

Not just walking up in the middle of Broadway and shooting somebody randomly, but official acts. A decade from now, 15 years from now, whatever happens in these cases is going to greatly impact how Presidents govern. Oh, no question.

Listen, we're going to be pulling... When kind of the heat dies down over Trump and Biden and the special counsels and all this, January 6th and all of those issues, and you're just talking about future Presidents where this is very much history, but it's history that's going to decide how they govern. Because right now it sounds like they need to mostly hire a law firm and put them inside the Oval Office for any decision they want to make. Yeah, which is not the way the Constitution is. And that's what they're warning about is that if you start this process that all it becomes as President is being sued in court, civil and criminal. Well, we know the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the biggest election case in US history and the ACLJs representing the Colorado GOP in that case. Our first brief is due in just nine days. Because of you, our ACLJ champions were able to fight this historic case and continue our fight for Israel that's going on simultaneously.

You know more about that later in the broadcast. We need many more champions to keep us in these fights because the challenges we face in 2024 are great. If you're an existing champion, thank you, stay there.

If you're not an existing champion and you feel led to do it by giving monthly, that's what a champion does, go to ACLJ.org forward slash champions. Be a champion for life, liberty, and freedom. Back with more in a moment. All right, we continue to take your phone calls on Sekulow 1-800-684-3110 as this important case wraps up. It's like a case within a case. And this has to do with the case that Jack Smith has brought related to January 6th, some President and President Trump. And again, so official acts of the President.

Was it official? Can you prosecute those? Even after there was impeachment, it was an impeachment post-presidency. I mean, there's a lot of bizarre issues here, but again, he wanted to litigate this first because obviously if there is any immunity, since there was a impeachment and the impeachment did not result in any kind of conviction, even though you could even question whether that impeachment itself was valid. For arguments point say it was, but he wasn't convicted.

He's acquitted can then later a prosecutor criminally prosecute them for acts that they were acquitted by Congress. Now this is again, this is very unique to being President of the United States. I mean, this is, again, this doesn't come into the context of most individuals or most Americans. And this, these, again, there's never in history been an example of this. So we will go to your calls.

There are not bad questions here. And I suspect after hearing today's argument, regardless of what happens with this, a three judge panel, it's either like you said, dad is going to be, it will be appealed either on bulk, depending on who wins or loses. And then ultimately I can't imagine the Supreme Court not having to weigh in here. And I mean, talk about, I mean, so many Presidential cases they are weighing in here of whether it's elections in the President, the 14th amendment that we know they're doing, and now the President and an immunity. And again, you kind of have to put a lot of documents together, constitution, legal documents, history to figure out these points.

But I do agree with you. I think this new way of trying to prosecute Presidents is over-complicating a system, which has been very clear in the United States for over 200 years. There's already too many lawyers involved in Presidential decision-making to be quite honest.

Same thing's true in combat. Too many lawyers involved. And now this is just going to, if this, if they decide there is no immunity here, this is just going to amp that up, Andy, a thousand fold.

Well, I think you're right. We do have too many lawyers that are involved in something that is a Presidential decision. And I think that this oral argument today stands for one proposition.

You better have a good, solid, simple, straightforward legal theory and stick with that legal theory because you're going to be chipped away at by judges in oral argument. And unless you can go back to the same argument that you have, your core argument, this is the President. He is immune for official acts taken during the pendency of his presidency. These are very important things.

Stick with it and stick within the core of his presidency, the enforcement of the laws to be faithfully executed, including the election laws, uniquely besting in the executive. And he had the right to do that. And this isn't, this isn't a case where he murdered someone with seal team six. Okay. That was not me.

So you would argue those were not Presidential duties and responsibilities, unless something happened to seal team six, when he decided to put them out into a mission and then you now have them sued for that. Yes. I mean, all of that gets more complicated than how the judge, these judges try to pose these hypotheticals. I would have been, I would have been resolute.

I wouldn't have budged from my position. I wouldn't have said with all their exceptions. Yeah. And again, I think even, even in that situation calling it an exception, it's not exceptions. The constitution has, has it laid out. It's called impeachment and it's laid out there. And that's the way you get to a President. If you ultimately want to remove their immunity from prosecution, you have to impeach them, convict them, and then you could bring charges in court.

But we haven't seen that because no one has been successfully convicted. Take another call. Yep. We will go to Charles in Virginia online too. Hey Charles. Hello.

How are you doing? Good. So I guess my question is when and how can we hold the special counsel and Alejandro Mayorkas accountable and charge them? Well, Mayorkas again is about to, we're going to talk about it tomorrow. ACLJ action.

If you're on that list, I'll be sending out a brand new campaign this afternoon. The hearings begin tomorrow. Bob Burkett will be joining us from our office in Washington, DC. The way you handle that is, is first through impeachment. So these are again, a cabinet secretary, who's been again, you know, nominated by a President confirmed by a Senate. They can also be removed by Congress and the house has voted to open an impeachment inquiry. Now the inquiry begins and that's, that's step one that you have to take in that situation. That's how you would hold a him accountable.

Now, when you're talking about these prosecutors and this kind of move, I think that's more about who the executive is, dad. I mean, and who is, you know, it's, I think what we saw is that to drain the swamp, you have to be willing, the swamp fights back. The swamp is full of nasty characters. When you say swamp, what do you think of?

Alligators, snakes, crocodiles, you know, deadly creatures. And, and we saw that immediately happen where it was hampering President Trump throughout. And they talk about it. They did talk about the case today, this idea that if creating a presidency where you have to look over your shoulder, can we play that soundbite for everybody? Let's play, this is a President Trump's attorney. This is what everyone is concerned about. If you could take Trump, take Biden, take January 6th and go 20 years ahead and say, a President's going to look to this and all the, all the, what was happening culturally pushed that aside.

They're going to just look at how does this apply to me? And you could see the President having to govern this way. If a President has to look over his shoulder or her shoulder, every time he or she has to make a controversial decision and worry after I leave office, am I going to jail for this?

When my political opponents take power, that inevitably dampens the ability of the President. I mean, that's the, that's the line. That is the line.

And that's even the line they stuck with the whole time. And that is when the President is in his core responsibilities as President of the United States, he cannot be sued later for those actions, period. That is not the same thing as committing murder in the White House. That is not the same thing as poisoning the chef. Okay. That's not an official act to advance the interests of the United States, but election verification certainly was arguable.

Yeah, it was. And that's, I think the way that they should have cast it. Stick with your core arguments.

Stick with the principles of Presidential immunity while performing the acts of the executive. Stick with that and don't allow the judges to chip away with these numerous endless hypotheticals. But it shows they didn't do a good job at oral argument because they don't know how to oral argue. Can we have any of the sound of the questioning of the lawyer for the government when he was pressed pretty hard? I think that would be very important for people to see.

It was not a one-way street here. Yeah. This is James Pierce.

He's the assistant special counsel. It's too long for the end of the segment. Oh, okay.

It's longer than a minute. Okay. So we'll come back to it in a minute and a half.

You'll get to hear that when we come back on the broadcast. Again, folks, we are in the middle of a major, of course, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this huge election case that's separate from this. The ACLJ is representing the Colorado GOP, as you know, we have throughout that process. We have a party in that case.

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That's going outgoing as well. We'll talk about that later in the broadcast today. We've got a UK delegation and a Spain delegation later this month. 2024 is going to be a big year with many challenges ahead at the ACLJ is going to be at the tip of the spear on, and we need many more champions to keep us in these fights to keep us winning. So go to ACLJ.org slash champions. Your prayers are equally important and your prayers are working. I hope you've seen at ACLJ.org slash pray our all new prayer guide for 2024 5,400 of you have already done so it's absolutely free. Go to ACLJ.org slash pray to check out that prayer guide and become an ACLJ champion today. Make your recurring monthly donation.

Check that box 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're taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. As we said before, we went back to the break. This case happened this morning. The oral arguments are over.

It's about an hour and a half in DC. This is over Presidential immunity. It was brought by Jack Smith before he starts the cases really in court on these January 6th related charges, not insurrection specifically that he did not charge the President with, former President Trump with. But then he wanted, remember, to skip the court of appeals and go right to the Supreme Court. They said, no, you got to go court of appeals on this.

And we still, as a country, have tried to determine this Presidential immunity for acts as President of the United States. It's not complicated. And I think the lawyers made it, Andy, too complicated. Much too complicated.

Here's what it is. When the President is exercising within his constitutional responsibilities, this would have been my opening argument, may it please the court, the President was operating in his core constitutional responsibilities under Article II of the United States Constitution to wit that the laws be faithfully executed. Those laws happen to surround the laws of election, a uniquely national federal obligation to enforce that has been enforced with legislation since the 1960s and was the responsibility and role of the President to allow him to be sued after the fact when he leaves office for exercising those constitutional rights would put every President, every President of the United States, subject to litigation for decisions that they made within their sphere that may have gone wrong because sometimes those decisions go wrong.

Yeah. And so you hear the case here. This is the, you're going to see this as Judge Henderson saying, well, how do we write this? This was the appointee by George H.W. Bush. How do we write this and not have this political circus come about where every President is being, you know, when they're out of office is being criminally prosecuted.

So they're going to have, they're going to make weaker decisions or decisions they might not even believe in, might not be the best interest of the country because they're worried that they might get prosecuted by political opponents after they leave office. Take a listen to this exchange. How do we write an opinion that would stop the floodgates? Your predecessors in their OLC opinions recognize that criminal liability would be unavoidably political. So a couple of responses. For one, of course, that was with respect to a sitting President. I think the analysis is extraordinarily different with respect to a former President, which OLC in that very same, I'm sorry. But with respect to being necessarily political. Well, I think there is a political process which is impeachment and we can talk about that. But there is a legal process which is decidedly not political. And that is a process which has the kinds of safeguards that a couple of members of the court here have already referred to. We're talking about prosecutors who follow strict codes and who are presumed to act with regularity, grand jurors, petit jury eventually, and this court sort of standing, Article III court standing above it. So again, pushed on the idea of, he talks about the political process. He says there's a political process, that's impeachment, but that there should be, that this legal process is okay.

So he didn't really have an answer. He said the safeguards are the prosecutors. But the problem is these prosecutors are also appointed by partisans.

They are weaponized. And if it's a different administration, those prosecutors have a different agenda. Here's the problem.

Presidents can't be sued for official acts in the capacity as President. That's it. That should be the end of the discussion. If you had said that and stuck with that, you wouldn't have the problems that the team for Trump faced. And that's all you had to argue. I don't know why, I don't know why they make it so complicated.

Well, I think, again, the left is trying to make it complicated, try to get to, try to confuse people and make it sound like, you know... Don't take the bait. ...a President's a king and... When you're arguing a case of the Court of Appeals of the Supreme Court, you should have three themes. Whatever they ask you, it's one of the three.

And let me tell you what it's not. There are exceptions. Especially, I think, in a case when you know that this is probably not the last court that's going to hear it.

No. And you need to go to the D.C. Court of Appeals on Bonk or... Let them push you on it. They try to push you on it, but who cares?

You know what, folks? Become an ACLJ champion, because we're writing our briefs right for these cases. ACLJ.org. If you can donate monthly, you become a champion of the ACLJ. We're getting close to 19,000, about 70 away. Help us get there.

ACLJ.org. Welcome back, guys. Thank you. We will continue to take your calls too on how all of this case is going to affect, because we've got a number of calls in on that. So we will get to those. But we do want to talk about also what's going on around the world with Israel as well. And, of course, our office in Israel, Jeff Balabon, is joining us now. And he's our director there, an ACLJ Jerusalem.

And, Jeff, I want to start off with something that actually happened today. These alerts that go out, people have these set up on their phones. Usually, they are for rockets. And it used to be places that were much closer to the Gaza Strip. You're in Jerusalem.

And it wasn't a rocket warning, but it was an aerial craft of some kind that you got a warning about and it takes shelter. Right. Jordan, everyone here, everyone, a lot of people here have this app on their phone. And you can get it in America. And I know people in America have it just to feel closer to what's going on in Israel. I have it. I'm holding it in my hand right here.

I mean, the camera can pick it up. There it is. A lot of them came in at about 7.25 a.m. Central time.

Go ahead. There are a lot of them. And it happens dozens of times a day. And rocket attacks, missile attacks. And, by the way, it doesn't mean one rocket.

It could be a whole barrage of a volley of rockets. And it shows you where it's happening in the country. But also, increasingly, more and more, we're seeing hostile aircraft, which I assume means drones because we haven't heard of other things. But throughout the day, you get warnings of hostile aircraft entering the north.

There's been a lot in the south. I mean, sorry, it's happening much more in the north from Lebanon. And I thought I saw today even coming for what looked like Syria, but I'm not 100% sure. So, Jeff, I did verify with Chris Mitchell from CBN News because when it first broke, nobody knew exactly what it was when they said hostile aircraft intrusion. That's the alert. And then it lists the city. That hostile aircraft intrusion, because it's unmanned, is a drone.

They will say, if it was a hostile aircraft intrusion manned, it will say manned. So... It's a sense of real life here, right, Jay? Yeah, no, it is. It's shocking. I had it last night and the night before, there was barrages from the north. Lebanon, there was just, I mean, I think there was 152 rockets in about 20 minutes. So, most of the media makes it sound like all the actions in Gaza and Israel is clobbering this innocent population. Meantime, daily, there are dozens of barrages of rockets being launched out of Gaza and, by the way, from the north into Israel, into civilian populations in Israel.

It's nonstop. In that regard, we have already prepared a response to the International Court of Justice from the complaint that was just leveled last week by the South Africans against Israel. And the issue there, of course, is the issue of what they're calling genocide. That brief is ready to go out. A final review is going on today. One of our ACLJ senior counsel emeritus is going to take a look at it, but it's ready to go today. That's right.

It's ready to go today. And like you said, South Africa filed with the International Court of Justice a claim that Israel has violated the genocide convention, which is ridiculous because you have to have the intent to wipe out a people group based on religion or nationality. Israel is simply defending themselves, and that's what we point out. Now, you want to talk about genocide in Hamas's charter. They specifically say they want to absolutely wipe out the Jewish nation of Israel. So, if you want to talk about genocide, let's go after Hamas. I saw two UN officials say yesterday, Jeff, this was interesting. Well, maybe in light of what happened on October 7th, we may need an open investigation. Maybe.

Maybe. Listen, it's clear, and I'm not the first one to say this. Jay, we all know this. If Israel has been trying to commit genocide, it's the worst genocide in the planet because the Arab population grows and grows and grows, and everyone knows that Israel has the weaponry and the ability to wipe it out instantaneously. The answer is Israel is trying desperately to coexist. Israel has sent endless aid, endless trying to live with them, trying to help them, and they respond with open calls for genocide. Sisi said, and by the way, it's not like it was in their charter then. They are still to this day saying, we intend to do this over and over until we've wiped out every Jew.

It's very clear. Yeah, I mean, I think a second big issue, and this involves the hostages, we've now gotten reports, is a top leader of Hamas, who is the one that... He was ultimately released in a prison swap deal earlier, but he has been... Obviously, he's one that's known to be radical, likely carried out, and was the top planner of the attack on October 7th, Sidwar. And the IDF has put out... We know exactly where he is right now. We're tracking everywhere he goes, but he surrounded himself with Israeli hostages. So those remaining hostages are basically a human shield, which is a war crime for the Hamas's top terror, I guess, top terror mastermind.

Yeah, Sidwar himself has said it repeatedly. He's the one who said it repeatedly, that their intent now, not before October 7th, their intent now is to keep on doing this over and over again until they've wiped all the Jews out. And so Israel is literally just trying to defend itself. Israel is taking more care. And by the way, every statistic shows that even if you accept the outrageous, I mean, ridiculous numbers being sent to the world by Hamas, still the ratio of dead actual targets, military targets, to collateral damage is minuscule compared to any other war ever being waged. I mean, Israel is incredibly careful, and yet all these deformations, this demonization, this call of genocide is persisting not by radicals in the street, but by governments, which is why it's so important that we are doing this at the court. And it's so important that America pushed back.

And we hope... So the IJC is a unique branch of the UN because it is only states that can respond. They don't even let UN NGOs, which we are one, respond. But what we figured was, well, we'll draft the brief that we would want and then distribute it as broadly as humanly possible, which is what's happening here.

That's right. When the brief is finalized, which is today, it will be today probably within an hour, we will distribute it to interested states, we will distribute it to interested parties, and absolutely defending Israel's right to self-defense and show that the International Court of Justice, the ICJ, does not have jurisdiction to make any kind of provisional measure on these oral arguments that are set for actually... Tomorrow. Yes, the 11th and the 12th of January. We've done those before. We know it takes months and months and months to get a resolution then, but we're going to get those briefs in.

Yeah. I mean, I think that it has to be... Why don't we take a call, Jordan? Yeah, we will take a call, but I think just to underscore to people all these different issues we're working on here at the ACLJ, 1-800-684-31. Tim, we can go back to the phones. Let's go to Elizabeth in Minnesota. It's been holding on online for... Hi, Elizabeth. Hi, reporting for duty.

Great. So as I was listening, there were so many issues going on and I didn't get the specific answer. Judge Pan asked a question, if this would be a blanket immunity from all the cases or just this specific one, and I didn't.

I kind of got lost in all this. Yeah, because the answers weren't clear. Here's what the answer should be. The immunity applies to the President as President doing official acts authorized under Article II. And election questions or election interference issues or the integrity of the election clearly falls within Presidential acts. Thus, he should not be criminally prosecuted for those acts. It is that simple. It just never sounded that simple.

So that's part of it here. I mean, Jeff, the domestic issue here right now is we've got the Supreme Court case, of course, coming up on the... We got our first brief on the 18th, next brief on the 5th. The argument from the Trump lawyers will be on the 8th.

We'll probably get a decision sometime in February, early March. You got this immunity case going up to the Supreme Court and then a January 6th case going up on the issue of whether obstruction of Congress was what these people were engaged in and Judge Katz's road to dissent. So what's the sense in Israel right now of the US political situation?

Well, you know what, Jay? And maybe this is a stretch, but while I'm listening to you and I obviously know what's going on in the States and the ACLJ's role in countering this, you know, there is this widespread global abuse of the legal processes and that's really what's happening and whether it's exactly against Israel or it's against the right of a voter to vote for a candidate in America or the right of a sitting President to act as a sitting President, this gross abuse of the legal process is extremely damaging and it's become really the mode that the left uses. And so obviously the work that we're doing on all these fronts has a unifying theme. The sense, Jay, in Israel is, well, first of all, Anthony Blinken is here again and, you know, publicly it's very important for Israel to talk about America's support and Israel is very grateful for America's support, but it's coming with this huge amount of arm twisting, huge amount of pressure that's very hard for Israel to resist. But Israel has no choice.

This is literally existential. And yet Blinken is here constantly and when he's not here, he's calling, they say hourly trying to force and pressure Israel to stop waging this war against these genocidal terrorists and it's become, it's extremely difficult negotiation diplomatically. Chris Well, Jeff, we appreciate everything you're doing and for those updates, I will continue to go to you and what's happening in Israel. We don't want people to forget what the ACLJ is doing both in Israel and ACLJ, Jerusalem, and of course at the International Court of Justice. Jay That is what Jeff is at, our ACLJ Jerusalem facilities. Chris Yes, the background you're seeing now is Jerusalem. Jay Yes, exactly right. Thanks, Jeff. Chris Folks, we want you to stand with us as we just said. I mean, we're representing the Colorado GOP in the biggest election case in US history.

Our first brief is due in just nine days. We've got more delegations on behalf of these Israeli hostages going to UK and Spain. This is going to be a big year 2024. We need our ACLJ champions, those of you who make those recurring donations at ACLJ.org slash champions to choose that amount you're comfortable with. And it makes that automatic monthly donation.

If it's $25 or $50, $35, folks, it allows us to plan and be ready when we can't plan to be ready for those times that you can't plan for. So you have always the resources you need to get in the fight at ACLJ.org slash champions. All right, welcome back to Secule.

We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3112. And we're talking about kind of this timeline now, the case that's at the US Supreme Court on the 14th Amendment, just to explain to people kind of how this is going to move. We've thrown out some dates, but that is still, it's again, it's unlike a normal Supreme Court timeline, which we knew it would be. It's also not one that was rushed to happen in two days. It's going to be a fair hearing. I think the concern with doing this in a week was both sides, somebody, whoever loses will be crying foul.

So what did the Supreme Court do? They said, we're going to give basically three weeks to get the briefs in. So our first brief is due on the 18th. Then the other side has to file by the end of the month. And we very quickly have to file by the 5th of April, excuse me, on February, our final brief, what's called the reply brief. And then oral argument will be January 8th.

I expect a decision late February, early March before Super Tuesday. I think that's what's going to happen here. But Harry, the court has to, they're talking about all these ways out and it may not be this way, but the fact of the matter is, when you look at it, court has to make a definitive ruling, I think.

I think that's correct. I think the Supreme Court needs to, and indeed must, directly confront the issue because this is the quintessential issue with respect to both a democratic form of government and the retention of our constitutional republic. Can the American people be deprived of their right to vote for the candidate of their choice based on spurious claims raised by the Colorado Supreme Court and by the main secretary of state? Keep in mind that the basis for the argument for depriving the American people of their right to vote for the candidate of their choice is grounded in a misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, which is crystal clear. President Trump was never an officer within the meaning of Section 3.

And I think virtually any historian could tell you that, particularly a historian who was not blinded by the Trump derangement syndrome. So I think the Supreme Court has to take this case up and it has to confront the issues directly. Again, we're going to continue to take your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110 because there are a lot of questions. One is about Georgia, and we'll take that tune out. Joanne in Ohio on Line 1. Hey, Joanne.

Hi, guys. First of all, I'm still having trouble figuring out how you commit insurrection against your own government, but that's not my question. My question is this immunity thing, does this affect the Georgia case too? I mean, if these are things that he did while he was President, it doesn't that, I mean, regardless of whether it's the district court or the Supreme Court, if he is this, does this put a damper on everything else? A final ruling that were to say the President was exercising his rights under Article II as President, as commander-in-chief, that these were the responsibilities and duties of the President, well, then Fannie Willis would be hard-pressed to bring a RICO charge against the President for doing exactly what he's authorized, Harry, under the Constitution.

I think that's true. And I also would argue that Fannie Willis in Georgia has basically constructed a fictional claim out of whole cloth. Basically, she's arguing that President Trump engaged in a criminal enterprise while seeking redress within his official capacity as President of the United States.

This is unprecedented. In other words, what we have is a local prosecutor basically adjudicating the constitutional rights of the President of the United States. She has no authority to do so. Which is exactly what I argue to the Supreme Court of the United States for President Trump as it related to 3,200 independent district attorneys that are going to be weaponized to go after Presidents they don't like if there is not this kind of immunity. This was from right here in the studio to the Supreme Court of the United States.

It was during COVID. This is what I said. The second circuit is wrong. It should be reversed. If not reversed, the decision weaponizes 2,300 local DAs. An overwhelming number of them are elected to office and are thereby accountable to their local constituencies. The decision would allow any DA to arrest, distract, and interfere with a sitting President.

It subjects the President to local prejudice that can influence prosecutorial decisions and to state grand juries who can then be utilized to issue compulsory criminal process in the form of subpoenas targeting the President. This is not mere speculation. It is precisely what has taken place in this case. So there you have it.

Exactly what I said is exactly what's happening. That's why we got it nip it in the bow and I think the executive immunity, Presidential immunity does that. We go back to the Supreme Court yet again. It looks like, not only on the 14th Amendment, but on this immunity question once again, that where does this political persecution in the legal system stop? I mean, again, President Nixon, without the pardon, could there have been legal actions taken?

Yes, there was a pardon given and he left office. I think that there were, again, there are issues here and we just need to have these settled, not just for President Trump, but it's important for President Trump. But I think it's that whole idea of not being able to govern is the idea is that you have to put aside what you feel about President Trump.

You have to put aside even like January 6th specifically, you have to say, do you really want your President to have to govern surrounded by attorneys who are just giving opinions on the legality of decisions and not whether or not they are good decisions. So dangerous that the lawyers have now been raised to the level where they get to decide. But then they also get prosecuted.

That's the problem. And so their advice is held to a higher standard than like a military advisor. So you think that's who you'd want. If you were going to make military decisions, you'd bring in a team of military advisors. They may have different opinions. You might choose one of theirs. You might not choose any of theirs. No one would say that was a crime, but you also wouldn't say those military leaders were committing a crime by giving different options.

But if attorneys do it, it's also another issue. So it has these ramifications for entire system of our government. Let's take our last call. Annabelle, go ahead. You're on the air.

Hi. Champion reporting for Judy James Jordan. You know, we must exercise our freedoms, otherwise be led by the whims of others. We have witnessed the disastrous results of people not bothering to vote. It's akin to not supporting the ACLJ who's fighting for our very right to vote our choice. We can't sit back and think, oh, others will pick up the slack, so I don't need to give.

The power of our republic is only fully charged if we all participate. Please join my fellow champions in these perilous times. May God bless you. Thank you.

And, you know, Annabelle, we appreciate you saying that. And we are looking for those new ACLJ champions. My goal is to get to about 19,500 or so by the end of this month, close to 20,000. That would be adding about 800. Some drop out every day also.

That's part of it. But if you're coming up and for renewal, we encourage you to renew your ACLJ championship membership. If you haven't, I encourage you to do it today is by donating monthly. Jordan will give you the details. Yeah, absolutely, folks. Again, we want you to become an ACLJ champion. You know that we are, again, we're involved in the biggest election case in U.S. history at the U.S. Supreme Court as a party there. We represent the Colorado GOP with our first brief due, a merits brief due in just nine days from today. Because of you, we're still working with those hostages in Israel, those families.

We're working right now in the UK and Spain delegation. We are able to do all of this, folks, because of ACLJ champions who have signed up to make these recurring donations. And we want you to do it at ACLJ.org slash champions today. Become an ACLJ champion, choose an amount you're comfortable with that automatically, again, donates each month. And that's a great way for the ACLJ to plan for what we know and what we don't know.