FBI Obtained Bank Records Flagging Conservatives’ “MAGA” & “Trump” Purchases

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. Hey, welcome to Sekulow.

This is Jordan Sekulow, my dad, Jay Sekulow, joining us as well. Still snowed in, but we are able to come to you with big news today. First, to the Supreme Court, dad, where we have filed our brief. And so we can let people know to check that out today. Yeah, so the brief in the first brief, there will be a series of them. The first brief in the case in Colorado, with the attempt to get the President, former President, President Trump off the ballot, our opening brief in the merits, it's called Brief on the Merits, was filed officially that the printed copies are being delivered to the Supreme Court today.

So it's already been docketed. It has been filed. We start work now on the next phase of this, which will be the reply brief.

So we'll get into that a little bit later in the broadcast. But the first phase of the case has been joined. There's been a series of amicus briefs. I mean, probably 10 already filed. More can be filed today on our side, and I expect that in the next several. I was reading them as they came in yesterday.

Some of them are very, very good, by the way. We'll be getting a series of them coming in. John Yoo from Claremont Institute just filed a brief in the case. A lot of well known professors and and Supreme Court historians have also filed in the case. And of course, our main brief is the brief on the merits that has been filed. We will be following that up with a reply brief on February 5th. So we'll now start working on we go through all the amicus briefs to get all those readies to see what arguments that they've made that maybe we should use in a reply brief.

So that process is going on right now. And then we'll get their brief around the 30th or 31st. And then we'll turn around. And of course, after that, we're going to then do a reply brief on February 5th. It'll be argue February 8th. And I think we're going to get a decision.

Probably in the first, Jordan, I'm thinking, you know, by the end of February before Super Tuesday, there'll be a decision in the biggest election case in US history, the idea that a secretary of state or a court could remove a candidate off of the ballot. It's just preposterous. It's violates the Constitution. So it's unconstitutional.

What they did was wrong. It's 15 cases, though, right now, 15 different jurisdictions. Maine yesterday put their case on hold, pending the Supreme Court's disposition, which I expect most of the courts will now do. So basically, 15 cases are now depending on our success at the Supreme Court of the United States.

Yeah, it seems like on the timing, they would need to follow that because that would the issue would be decided. None of these early states had an issue with with him being on the ballot or not. And so New Hampshire is not an issue.

South Carolina is not an issue. But then when you get to Super Tuesday, it can become an issue because you got some of these cases on hold some that that would remove it from the ballot. So that would seem to be again, it's going to be a very quick turnaround in Supreme Court terms. It wasn't a super quick briefing.

It wasn't like let's do it next week. But it but they still I think realized they did have some time to consider this both briefing, reply briefs, even these amicus briefs and actual oral argument. More shocking news, though, also coming out of the FBI as we get into an election year, which is, again, we know that there are problems. We represent whistleblowers. We know there's political targeting. We've been doing this since we represented the Tea Party groups who were the IRS was trying to work with the FBI. Now we learn about search terms they were trying to use in people's bank accounts like MAGA. Folks at the ACLU, we have to move with the speed of relevancy to tackle the historic issues we see unfolding before us every single day.

We find ourselves in one of those moments right now. The Colorado Supreme Court banned a Presidential candidate from the ballot and states are rushing to use this to take away your right to vote. Votes are already being cast for the Presidential election and your right to vote for the candidate of your choice is at stake. We're taking on the biggest election case in U.S. history at the U.S. Supreme Court. And we've had to mobilize everyone at the ACLJ to do so. A case of this magnitude at the Supreme Court requires immense resources. Go to ACLJ.org and please donate now.

We will be right back after this break. This is unbelievable. I've got a set up on my studio here at home a listing of this and I want to read it for people because by the way, we've already authorized our government oversight team to start the FOIA process on this. So federal investigators, that's the FBI, have asked banks to search and filter customer transactions, transactions you're involved in, by using terms like MAGA and Trump as part of an investigation into January 6th. And then they sent down a warning that purchases of religious texts, that's the exact phrase they used, purchases of religious texts could indicate extremism.

I'm going to stop right there before we get to the next one. The purchase of religious texts is protected by the First Amendment's free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of association. And the idea that the FBI has determined that the purchase of religious texts constitutes evidence of extremism is so counter to the narrative that Christopher Wray was trying to portray, which we knew was baloney when he did it, that the memo about infiltrating the Catholic Church, remember, was only one office. It was the Richmond office. We find out, of course, that it's not just the Richmond office.

It was Richmond, Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon, and some offices in the Midwest. Now we know that if the federal government's telling banks, hey, look for phrases like MAGA, Trump, and religious texts, because that's part of extremism, then it gets worse. This comes from our friends at Fox Digital. They've learned that the committee also obtained documents that indicates officials suggested that bank queries with keywords like Dick's Sporting Goods, Cabela, Bass Pro Shops, and more, that those would be trigger words for maybe SAR, Suspicious Activity Reports. The House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government have been conducting this oversight, and they're receiving this information passing along.

In other words, FinCEN used large financial institutions, this is an agency, FinCEN, to comb through the private transactions of customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression. This is what they did. By the way, Jordan said his committee is looking into it in great length. We are going to get to the bottom of it by filing a series of FOIA demands.

Hopefully we can get those out today and tomorrow. But this shows you what the federal government is up to, and this is the reason why at the ACLJ we have a government oversight project. So while we're talking a lot about the Supreme Court, we mentioned yesterday that our European team is headed over to Spain and to England on the issues for Israel, and that work is ongoing right now. We've done a brief that we've already distributed to international tribunals, including the UN, on the Israel situation. We've got the Supreme Court case up there right now.

Now we've got this going. It is a very busy January, but folks, we want to encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ. And by the way, you ACLJ champions, I want to say thank you because part of what you do as a champion is help us with these matching funds. So a huge thank you to our ACLJ champions, people that are donating one every month. And by the way, we're up to about 19,050. I'd like to get to 19,500 if possible by the end of this month.

A goal is to get to close to 30,000 as we can as we continue to grow this. When you think about this search term, Dan, it's another little bolo list, this time out of the Treasury Department, so utilizing a law enforcement division, their financial crimes division, the financial, that FinCEN, the Financial Crime Enforcement Network. You know, if you bought a fishing pole or a sleeping bag, or I was at Dick's Sporting Goods last week purchasing my kids' tee-ball gloves and bats for the spring season. I mean, that's the kind of individuals, they want, they somehow were connected to extremism because we go to get our kids sporting goods. I mean, this is again where they're focused, where we've got war going on around the world, a potential spike in terrorism as we've seen a support for extremist groups like Hamas, like what's happening in Yemen. And yet they're focusing their time on who's going to Dick's Sporting Goods, who's making legal purchases of fishing poles, or political events like Make America Great Again and things like that. Or patriotism is somehow, again, evil or wrong, or is it indication that you're a criminal in the United States of America?

Well, I mean, and then take it one step further. I'm reading directly from it. It says, they also sent out a warning that purchases of religious texts, this is their words, purchases of religious texts could indicate extremism. So they're saying if you purchase a religious text that's indicative of somebody that's engaged in extremist activities, that could lead to a search warrant, an actual search.

Who knows? But the fact that the FBI is putting in writing, I mean, think about this for a moment, that the purchase of religious texts could indicate extremism. Someone in the FBI is writing this, should be sending shockwaves to everybody that's listening to this broadcast. And I think when you realize kind of the scope here, you realize exactly who they're targeting. It's middle America, it's all of us. I mean, it's people who are going to buy their, again, get the baseball gloves, the sporting equipment, outdoor equipment, who, again, may be religious, so they purchase a Bible. And, again, that puts you on a potential extremist list.

You've done nothing but that act. It's getting worse than even like the mis and disinformation board, where social media companies, which are private companies, were being told what to do by the government. But the fact is that another part about this that I don't like, and I think people are going to have questions about ultimately, is that these financial institutions obviously complied without saying, you know, this sounds absurd. Yeah, when an institution gets these, they can file in federal court saying, hey, wait a minute, we think this is, or at least within the regulatory administrative process, we think these demands that you've asked are outrageous, or we think they violate constitutional rights of our customers. Words like, you know, MAGA, Trump, which are both protected under the First Amendment, were saying that religious text could constitute extremism, so we want to look for purchases of those.

That violates the religious freedom rights. Banks could have taken action now, but they're all intimidated by the FBI, just like the Facebook was. And I think the thing to realize here, I mean, what I want to sink in, and what people understand is this, is that the banks complied with this voluntarily.

Customers were not notified to the best of our understanding right now. You know, we make the, Will, our producer put in the chat here, said, you know, did you buy a study Bible, you could be an insurrectionist. And here's the problem. Somebody in government, or a group within government, thinks this is okay, thinks this is an appropriate way to go, thinks it's what we should be looking at. And we've got to curtail this. And like I said, even with the huge Supreme Court case going on right now, and it's a big case, we have to be prepared now to file an action against these various federal agencies, the FBI here, and get on top of this, because you know, Jordan, when you get into it, it's going to be much, much deeper.

Much deeper. Yeah, these are just, again, initial reports about what is coming out. But what we still don't know yet, and what we want to know is, what led to using these search terms?

What other terms? These are the ones that have been reported. I mean, we're being told that these financial institutions complied voluntarily, didn't do any pushback. I feel like it's targeted exactly at conservative voters. You know, people who buy Bibles, people who live in the suburbs, and buy sporting equipment for their kids at big box stores.

This is middle America, where you typically find the majority of red Republican voters. Listen to what Jim Jordan said. This is what he said. In other words, Spinson, that's an agency, used large financial institutions, these are his words, to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression. And again, Dick's Sporting Goods, Cabela, which is part of, I guess, Bass Pro Shop, and also words like MAGA, Trump, and purchasing of religious texts.

But you've got to think about that. The Treasury Department's Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement and Strategic Operations distributed materials to financial institutions. So think about this, folks. The government agencies are distributing to financial institutions that outline, quote, typologies of various persons of interests, and provide the banks with suggested search terms and merchant category codes for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement. I want this to sink in to our audience.

The federal government going to your bank saying, hey, here are some key codes that we want you to look at. We think these people are people of interest because they went to Cabela's or they went to Bass Pro Shop or they went to their Christian bookstore and bought a Christian book, a study Bible. And that's the basis upon which an investigation can pursue. And the problem is they cooperated, Jordan, and we're going to get to the bottom of this. And I've got to tell you something. This is this is where we have got to get Chris Wray to come clean on what is going on with his agency, because it is like infiltrating the Catholic Church.

It's the same idea. Will also reminded us in our Hoya to the IRS about the Be on the Lookout list for Christian organizations. They found over sixty fifty six thousand pages responding to the word Bible, over fifty thousand pages to the word prayer, twenty five pages for the word of God that will get and we're going to be getting that from the IRS.

And that's why you got to go to court and sue them if they don't comply. And I want to make sure that our Freedom of Information Act team or government oversight team is on this one today to craft a Freedom of Information Act request and get this out. It is that critical.

We will be right back after this break. It's no surprise when this is coming, the election year, I mean, they're trying to scare you away from either I guess, trying to scare you away from going to buy the baseball bat for your kids or grandkids or buy buy a new Bible for someone who was baptized or maybe get again your child or grandchild or updated a religious book on theology. The that it's coming in an election year that we're in a ramp up to because twenty twenty three was the ramp up to twenty twenty four. And it's this idea that I think of every time it's trying to scare people away from voting for the candidate of their choice or expressing publicly. And that's really the key part, who they are going to be voting for, which is one of our key constitutional rights, is to tell our friends and neighbors who we support politically. Well, look, I mean, without being afraid of the government tracking us as criminals. Well, look, so you can take a look at the Supreme Court case that we're dealing with right now where they're trying to get the leading Republican Presidential candidate off the ballot.

Why? Because they they accuse him of insurrection. The problem with that is he was never charged with the criminal insurrection code. He was never found guilty of insurrection. He's not had a allegation of insurrection. The only time there's been anything on Instagram, Instagram insurrection was when it took place or allegations that it took place. And on January six, which, by the way, would not have met the legal definition of insurrection. Nevertheless, he was brought up on charges by the United States House of Representatives through impeachment, whereupon he was acquitted. So he was acquitted of the charge of insurrection. The only time it came up yet Colorado on their own thought they could just remove them.

Maine thought they could just remove them. And that affects every citizen's right to vote. And there are 15 cases pending right now. Now, what I think is about to happen is because we filed the Trump team filed, we filed for the Colorado GOP. And, Jordan, I think we're representing 15 different Republican parties around the country right now.

That's right. We filed there. And some of that changed because some are filing their own amicus briefs because we're filing a brief as a party on the merits. But, yeah, I mean, throughout this process, I think it was up to 16, 17 different state parties at its high point.

And, of course, some of those were tossed early. Some are on hold because of the Supreme Court taking the case. Ultimately, each of these will be decided now by the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court and their decision. And to make sure, in this case, it's about one candidate in the Republican primary, it's Donald Trump, who has shown certainly the leading candidate. After, again, we talked about the call in Iowa, which I haven't seen one that quick in history of working even in the Iowa caucuses.

And then the margin he won by and the fact that he got over 50 percent, all of those numbers tried to take out that leading candidate and also create confusion. Will by vote count? So I think it's very important that the Supreme Court settles this once and for all for every American and for future elections. And that's going to move very quickly, folks. So, again, if you want to support the work of the ACLJ, we filed the first brief at the Supreme Court. Now, the second brief will be due February 5th.

So we're moving very, very quickly. Go to ACLJ.org. Again, that's ACLJ.org. By the way, Jim Jordan said that the committee has obtained documents also indicating that FBI personnel, listen to this, folks.

In the Office of Private Sector, quote, prepared an official report that broadly characterized certain political beliefs as indicative of domestic violent extremism. So we'll find out exactly what those are from our friend Jim Jordan. But this is the outrage of what's going on here. So when you're supporting the ACLJ, you're supporting all of this work that we're doing. So, again, ACLJ.org.

If you can make it a monthly gift, please become an ACLJ champion. That's really, really important for our ongoing work at ACLJ.org. Now, I want to turn to politics for a moment because polls are starting to shift. Interestingly, in New Hampshire, where it looked like initially, and it's not far from over yet, was going to be a tighter race between Nikki Haley and President Trump. By the way, Ron DeSantis has removed his, I guess we should start with that, Jordan. Ron DeSantis says that he's moved his staff out of New Hampshire, redeployed them into South Carolina. What does this mean politically?

You've done these cases and you've been in this situation. Well, the fact that he redeployed them to South Carolina is where we want to really check and see if that happened or is that just how they're trying to spin it. DeSantis was never heavily invested in New Hampshire. He went in early. This was before President Trump, I think, even got in the race to try and build support as every candidate before he even announced. Remember, he was one of the later people to announce he was actually running for President of the United States because the Florida legislative session had not yet ended. So he spent time there, but he never was able to really make any ground there. The voters there just did not match up with him, and once President Trump was in, the voters that would be even likely for him were one of the original instead of the number two. He thought at that point, remember the campaign season, that President Trump might not run again for reelection and so that he could be the standard bearer of the MAGA movement. Once that was clear, the campaign was not spending a lot of money in New Hampshire to begin with.

They weren't making any ground. The question is, do they actually play in South Carolina? I know that's the quote.

I know that's the statement. But are you really moving 100 plus staff from Iowa to South Carolina with all those expenses for the next three weeks? Will you tell people what it looks like, what those expenses look like for a campaign?

I think that's important. So for that team in Iowa, you've got to keep them on the payroll if you're moving them there and the team in New Hampshire. Pay for their living expenses. You've got to either find hotels for them, food and resources, office space, places to work. And you obviously have to be able to manage that.

So did you have it prepared to have an influx of 70 new staffers coming in? Now, in most successful campaigns, you would already have that set up. So they might have the infrastructure. But dad, you could have the infrastructure, but the infrastructure costs money to implement. So the real question will be, do we see Ron DeSantis ads in South Carolina?

What are the events like? He's got a few weeks there. Again, I think to him, he doesn't have the problem that Nikki Haley has of losing in South Carolina because that's his home state. But does he really want to come in with, again, being this kind of like, you know, she decided she wouldn't even debate him again.

It kind of showed me right there that she decided it's not worth the attention to get a couple million people watching on TV. If Donald Trump won't be there, I'm not just going to go debate Ron DeSantis. She kind of say he has no chance.

Now, does she really have a chance either? The polls that have now come out of New Hampshire post Iowa aren't looking that great for either DeSantis or Nikki Haley. No, I've actually got those. Yeah, I've got those.

Let me go over those for a second. So the St. Anselm poll, which is very well respected, has Trump at 52 percent. Nikki Haley is the closest to him, and that's 38 percent for Nikki Haley. DeSantis has 6 percent. In the Boston Globe-Suffolk poll, which is also a very good poll, so that's a plus Trump 14. It's also plus Trump 14 there.

A little bit different, but pretty close. Trump at 50 percent. Haley at 36 percent. Christie, DeSantis, 6 percent.

And Ramaswami really not tracking right now. Folks, at the ACLJ, we have to move with the speed of relevancy to tackle the historic issues we see unfolding before us every single day. We find ourselves in one of those moments right now. The Colorado Supreme Court banned a Presidential candidate from the ballot, and states are rushing to use this to take away your right to vote. We're taking on the biggest election case in U.S. history at the U.S. Supreme Court, and we've had to mobilize everyone at the ACLJ to do so. A case of this magnitude at the Supreme Court requires immense resources.

Go to ACLJ.org and please donate now. We'll be back with more in just a minute. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow.

And now your host. The question I think that everyone is asking is, at this point, I mean are there, and I don't know if Will knows as our producer, if there are polls now for South Carolina or is it too early? It may just be too early, but I don't, if these numbers hold true. I don't think there's a poll yet that reflected Iowa.

That would be the key. Because the early polls out of South Carolina, even when all those candidates were still in the race, we worked down to three, showed Donald Trump with a huge lead. I mean Nikki Haley was far behind. So, you know, again, I would expect that those polls show the same thing again after his big Iowa win. I think she will be in second place there, but still with a 15 to 20 point margin. So what's interesting to me is, as this kind of everything coalesces now, and let's assume this, that he does win next Tuesday, less than a week.

I mean, five days away, four days away. President Trump is victorious again in the low 50s. Let's say Nikki Haley is in that case is in the low 20s or 30s. I would say 30s, probably based on these polls.

So like 30 to 20 point spread or so. She'll claim that that's a ticket out to get her to South Carolina if she wants to go to South Carolina. What does Rhonda Santas say?

I mean, I don't know. I think you could, if you got some money, if you have money left, I guess you could try to run some ads that you've already paid for. They do that early on Super Tuesday. But I think once, if we get to, if Donald Trump wins New Hampshire and goes to South Carolina and beats Nikki Haley, where she's going to have to make that decision pretty quickly about whether or not she wants to be beaten in her home state, it's over. I mean, I think a lot of people think it's over already, but officially, that doesn't even take into account Florida and Rhonda Santas yet. If you win Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, including beating the former governor of South Carolina, it is over. Rhonda Santas and Nikki Haley will not be able to raise a dime.

Their support will be gone. And the best thing they could do is figure out a dignified way to get out of this race. Nikki Haley can keep fighting. I think she's got one fight left in New Hampshire and then the decision about South Carolina or a dignified exit.

Rhonda Santas right now, I think, is just kind of like a boat out kind of just blowing in the sea. And it doesn't make a lot of sense. And I still wouldn't be shocked if we saw an event pop up. It could be in Florida or somewhere else on the campaign trail where he does exit. I mean, these are hard decisions that are going to be made by him and his family and the campaign over the next few days, since they've already decided they're not going to compete in New Hampshire. That buys them a little more time just to figure out an exit strategy before potentially getting to your home state where you're an incumbent, very popular governor and getting beaten by 20 points by Donald Trump.

Now, where is Nevada? And that's a caucus now, not a primary or are they doing both? Isn't that a week after? Yeah. A week after Super Tuesday or the day after Super Tuesday? Because of that caucus primary issue.

Yeah. All right, folks, Super Tuesday will still be the main decider, but I think if Donald Trump runs the table on the first three. I think it's over after New Hampshire, frankly. If he wins New Hampshire, I think it's not. I don't see a scenario upon which Nikki Haley, Nevada is February 8th, so it's actually pretty close.

I don't see a scenario where either one of them can continue. She may have enough money to continue and she may want to continue to always be making it a, quote, two-person race, but unless she pulls off an upset in New Hampshire, I just don't see it or get so close that she gets some wind in her sails. She was third in Iowa. She's going to probably come out second in – well, there's only three people left, so she'll be second in New Hampshire unless something happens.

If she doesn't win New Hampshire, I think it's over. Anyways, folks, all of that to say we are busy at the American Center for Law and Justice. We want your support for the ACLJ. ACLJ.org, that's ACLJ.org, and if you become a monthly donor of the ACLJ, we really appreciate you being able to do that. You become an ACLJ champion, and that would be really important for us as well. We will be right back after this break.

Welcome back to Secular. We are taking your questions, too, about this case. This one is very unique because Jack Smith figured out kind of like halfway through, after going through the grand jury process in Washington, D.C., bringing charges related to January 6th, by the way, not bringing a charge of insurrection, which would impact other issues that are before the U.S. Supreme Court right now. But the idea that, again, when is a 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 will, to 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 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. 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. I just want to say, 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, 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, you know, 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 be 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 kind of a rush to defend the United States. So President Bush at the time was certainly acting within his power as President of the United States, and went also to... 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 Presidents, 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 an impeachment, that's a different story. They say that.

Everybody knows. 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. Right. Double jeopardy.

Again, so you don't have to even get to that question whether it's legitimate or not, impeachment, because they took the votes, and 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 5 of the 14th Amendment, it says that Congress is the one that enforces the sections above, 1, 2, 3, 4. Yeah, I mean, Congress says the implementing legislation requirement is by Congress.

That's exactly right. That's what Section 5 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 5th Amendment, the 5th section of the 14th Amendment says, Congress shall put forward implementing legislation. They haven't done it. That goes to this issue of whether it's self-executing.

That's exactly right. It is not. It is up to 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, we'll go back to more of 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, D.C. 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, Dad, 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 unbunk. 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, but 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. 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 1. 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, Mike.

Say that again. I think he's saying is there double standards at play between these kind of... Because they did try to bring up that soundbite we played. What about when President Obama ended up killing Americans abroad? There was an issue that came up about that.

Now, it 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? 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 and other terror groups... 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. Yeah. And you know, I think... Official acts that we're talking about.

Not just walking up in the middle of, you know, Broadway and shooting somebody randomly. But official acts. A decade from now, you know, 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 fully engaged in this case. When kind of the heat dies down over Trump and Biden and the special counsels and all of these January 6 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 set up. And that's what they're warning about. Is that if you start this process, that all that 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 of 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, welcome back to SECO. 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 a 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. And 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 three and I think virtually any historian could tell you that, particularly and 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 to now Joanne in Ohio on line one. 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, doesn't that, I mean, regardless of whether it's the district court or the Supreme Court, does this put a damper on everything else? If there was a general 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 harass, distract, and interfere with the sitting President, subject 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. There you have it. Exactly what I said is exactly what's happening. It's continuing on.

I mean, I think that's why we got it nip it in the boat. And I think the executive immunity, Presidential immunity does that. We go back to the Supreme Court yet again, and it looks like not only the 14th Amendment, but on this immunity question once again, that where does this political persecution in the legal system stop? I mean, again, it was 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, we 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 know, 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 that. 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. That 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 US history at the US 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 just donates each month. And that's a great way for the ACLJ to plan for what we know and what we don't know.