ACLJ BLOCKS DOJ & DC Officials from Destroying Evidence

This is Jay Sekulow. The ACLJ blocks the Department of Justice and D.C. officials from destroying the Washington Surgery Clinic in Washington, D.C., a facility operated by a late-term abortionist. Instead of ensuring that the horrific deaths of these children were properly investigated, which is actually what the law requires, the police made the assumption that each child died as a result of a legal abortion. They made this assumption without conducting any investigation or any medical evaluation or autopsies. In fact, some doctors have examined the pictures of these babies and found evidence that would support the conclusion that these children were killed through illegal and egregious partial birth abortion.

So it's discovered. Then they want to destroy the evidence. This is the evidence of a possible crime. We'll get into the whole aspect of a dignified burial. But the law required a real criminal investigation to be taking place, CeCe, and they didn't do it.

Right. And what's crazy is the medical examiner is the one that was going to destroy the bodies of these babies. But on behalf of, they actually got a direction letter from the Department of Justice to go ahead and destroy these five babies' bodies because they didn't need them anymore.

But they've not done an investigation. So they literally were going to destroy evidence of partial birth abortion, which is illegal, and they don't care to even look into it. And what's amazing is, another kind of twist to this, is that the pro-lifers that actually brought these babies' aborted bodies to the attention of the police, they actually now have come under scrutiny, and they had charges filed against them.

So they don't go after the abortionist, but they go after the pro-lifers that actually turned these babies over to the police. We have been working with Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition for 40 something years. He used to be the... Originally when we met, he was the communications director for Operation Rescue.

Remember that protest in front of the Chinese embassy that we were successful in making sure he had access to the public streets and sidewalks? That was our work with Pat Mahoney. So we've got a long history with him.

He's going to join us in the next segment of the broadcast. What I want you to understand here is they want to provide, and by the way, Pat's group wants to provide a dignified burial for the bodies, the remains of these children, which I think is really appropriate. But what I want you to understand is that this case should be a criminal investigation being conducted by Metropolitan Police detectives, not the Department of Justice and the DC Metro Police saying, dispose of the evidence. And that's how they call it, get rid of the evidence.

Yeah. And that is very telling. Again, that the Biden administration and the police department don't want these bodies examined to show that they were done illegally by a partial birth abortion procedure. So for two years, and despite the fact that the DC law requires, as I said, medical autopsies after these mysterious deaths, nothing had been done. We were prepared to file an emergency writ of mandate in the Washington DC courts to make sure these bodies were not destroyed. We didn't have to do that because of the quick action of our legal department. The DC Metro said they will not be destroying these unborn children.

They will not be cremating the remains. And now we still may have to go to court on it because we'll see where it plays out. We're going to get more into this in the next segment. The fight for life, folks, is front and center at the work of the American Center for Law and Justice. And I want to encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org and support our work.

Become a champion for liberty, a champion for life, a champion for freedom. If you give monthly to the ACLJ, you become a champion. We're at 19,265 champions, which is great.

We want to get by the end of this month to 19,500. Go to ACLJ.org forward slash champions. Welcome back to the broadcast. We are taking your calls and comments at 800-684-3110. ACLJ front and center on the life issue, have been for 40 years. It's changed since Dobbs, and now this was a very unique case. Joining us on the phone is our good friend, the President and executive director and founder of the Christian Defense Coalition, Pat Mahoney, who we've worked with for almost 40 years.

Pat and I go way back to the Operation Rescue Days. He's been involved, of course, in that protest in front of the Chinese embassy during the human rights issues there. So he's been a human rights activist for a long time. Pat, tell us again, we kind of gave it a quick summary in the opening segment, but what was the concern here?

What did you find out? Okay, Jay. Well, two years ago, two pro-life activists working with the group POW saw a medical waste person coming out of late-term abortion clinic in Washington, DC, and they amazingly asked them, asked him, could they have what was in this large barrel? And he must've had pro-life tendencies, leanings, guilt, anyway, he gave them the barrel. In the barrel, there were a hundred aborted children, but of notice were five late-term aborted children. And at least two of them, Jay, were eight months old and look like they were aborted via partial birth abortion, which was illegal. The medical examiner took those bodies two years ago, those five late-term aborted children, and the ACLJ, members of Congress, pro-life organizations immediately demanded an autopsy to find out if infanticide happened, if the law was broken in our nation's capital.

For two years, they've done nothing. A week ago, today, Monday, it was told that the Department of Justice had told the Washington, DC medical examiner to discard, cremate the bodies. Now, of course, these are children. They deserve honor and dignity. Their lives have value, purpose, and meaning, whatever the abortionist felt or Mayor Bowser felt or the Biden administration felt, and we thought it was critical that they have a honorable burial with dignity. So- Pat, let me ask a question.

Let me ask a question on that because I'm with you. I don't like the babies being treated like they're debris. And so what were you planning? If you were able to get custody of these children, what were you planning on doing? Well, I'm giving them a have, it's called a release of transfer. I've been working with the Catholic diocese here in Washington, DC.

They are interested too. So let's say I got custody of these babies. I would turn them over to the Catholic diocese.

There is a Catholic cemetery in DC, Catholic funeral directors, and we would ensure in a service that these children were given honor, that they were respected, and they had a proper burial, Jay, instead of ending up in an ash heap somewhere. And it was amazing, just to your listeners, you wonder, should you support the ACLJ? I'm saying, yes, I'm on a long prayer walk in the battlefields of Fredericksburg, Virginia. I text Jay early in the morning. He gets right back to me last Monday and says, we're going to put our team on it.

I hear from Olivia in Virginia Beach, Benjamin in Washington. And anyway, this incredible team gets on. We file our affidavits, Katie and I, my wife and I requested the babies. And I love this moment, Jay.

We don't get too many of them, but it was great. So we're hearing the babies are going to be cremated Friday without a dignified burial. Your team, the ACLJ team with Benjamin and several other ACLJ attorneys sent an email to the general counsel of the Washington DC medical examiner, and I love this. They said, if you do not respond to us by 1230 PM on Friday, we are going into court after you. And I don't know all about the writ of Van Davis, all the technicalities there. But Jay, listen to this at 1226, four minutes before that deadline, the general counsel for the DC medical examiner contacts them and hours before these babies were to be cremated and says, they will not be destroyed.

They will not be cremated. And we are considering all options. There are three groups that diocese, myself represented by the ACLJ and 45 members of Congress. Well, look, I mean, here's the great news in this is, first of all, that you were aware of the situation.

You notified us and immediately we put a team on it. And the end result is at least for now, it's not over, at least for now, they're not destroying the children. They're not going to destroy, which is also evidence of a criminal trial that they failed to investigate.

Yeah. And that is what is so ridiculous too. Obviously, these are children that deserve a decent burial as Reverend Mahoney said, absolutely. But it's also evidence in a criminal trial and for the department of justice, Biden's department of justice to send a directive to the chief medical examiner and say, dispose of those bodies. That is inexcusable.

That is inexcusable. They're trying to get rid of evidence that shows illegal abortions were taking place at this abortion clinic. And it shows you again, the abortion distortion, they do not want any kind of condemnation against abortion. You know, Pat, you and I go back a long, long time and I think about the early days of operation rescue movement and we had experiences not too different from this with aborted children. And the fact is that they are human beings that deserve dignity and respect.

Jay, an Irish proverb says we show honor and respect for the living by how we honor the dead. And I want to address that point about evidence. Lauren Handy of Powell is facing 11 years in federal prison for a peaceful sit-in at this very abortion clinic. In fact, she was one of the people that found the babies. And her whole contention and defense was she was there to stop illegal activity. She peacefully sat in to stop partial birth abortions. So these children are material evidence in her, in her sentencing. She was found guilty because they hadn't done an autopsy and she's going to be sentenced in May, maybe up to 11 years in prison. And we just have to wonder, Jay, did the Department of Justice want to discard these children before her sentencing came up and ensure that there was no evidence entered in her case?

Look, I think you have to, all of that has to be part of the assumption process here. And what I'm telling, what I want our listeners and our members of the ACLJ, especially you ACLJ champions, when we talk about these cases with people like Pat Mahoney, Pat's the client, they need legal representation so we can go in, if necessary, they're a writ of mandamus, to go into court to get a just resolution. Your support enables us to do it. And the fact is, Cece, as you look at this now, the reality is this was a destruction of evidence case, not going to be a pro-life case, but it was a destruction of evidence case by the Department of Justice and the DC Medical Examiner. And this is the perfect example of us needing to be able to act in a moment's notice, which we did here. Just like Reverend Mahoney said, we got the evidence, we fired off the letter, and literally with six minutes, you know, the deadline we gave, we got an announcement that, yes, we're not going to be destroying these babies.

But that's why champions, ACLJ champions, are so important because these kind of situations come up without us knowing and we need to be able to act immediately on them. Let me ask you this, Pat, for people that want to support your great work, as I do support Pat's work at the Christian Defense Coalition, where's the best place for them to go? Actually, Jay, we now just work mostly through Facebook and Twitter.

That's our most vibrant, active way because we can get immediately. So just Reverend Mahoney on Facebook and Reverend Mahoney on Twitter, we have opportunities to give there. And once again, I do want to say to all those who support the ACLJ, this was literally put together in hours after I reached out to Jay. And so thank you for that, Jay, and thank you for the stellar work of the ACLJ. And finally, continue to pray, brothers and sisters, these babies are still in the morgue and we still have a way to go here. Yeah, the case is not... I want to be clear there, Pat. The case is not over. They said they're not doing anything right now. We have a writ of mandamus prepared if necessary, and we'll take the appropriate action if we need to.

Hopefully we do not. But Pat, thanks for being a champion for life yourself, and it's always an honor to work with you and support your work. Folks, this gives you the perfect example of what we do at the ACLJ every day. These are real people, people like Pat Mahoney that need real help. They need sophisticated legal counsel to walk through a very sophisticated area of the law when you're dealing with the human remains. But there's law on that and we were able to put it together. Yeah, and not only did Reverend Mahoney get involved, but Congress got involved.

And we actually have Chip Roy that tweeted out, this is a welcome development. We are so grateful for the work of the ACLJ and everyone in the pro-life movement to prevent this evidence from being destroyed so that justice can be sought these children. Let me ask you to do this. Go ahead and join the ACLJ's champion team. That means you can give monthly, whatever the amount is, you go to ACLJ.org, become a champion for life, a champion for liberty, a champion for freedom, and give monthly. Goal here, 19,500 by the end of the month. We started with about 15,000 in October. We've added 4,500.

We want to keep that momentum going. ACLJ.org forward slash champion. If you can donate monthly, you're going to be standing for life, liberty, and freedom.

Again, ACLJ.org forward slash champions. Got an update on Israel coming up with Rick Rinnell. You're not going to want to miss it. We're taking your calls at 800-684-3110. First two segments, we dealt with the life issue. We're now turning our attention to the Middle East. And the IDF says yesterday two hostages were rescued from Gaza.

That's because they went into Rafa. Rick Rinnell, our consultant, senior consultant, senior advisor for international affairs and national security, former director of national intelligence, and ambassador to Germany. Rick, you know, there's a lot of pressure coming on Israel from the Biden administration, man, a ton of pressure, trying to stop the move into Rafa. That seems to be the, because there's a lot of people in Rafa and they're trying to get them out, but there's a big Hamas stronghold there. And obviously the sense is, I mean, you don't have to read between the lines too much here, that some of those hostages are there, two have now been freed.

What's your sense of what's going on? Well, it was troublesome to see the Biden administration tell the Israelis to back off from Rafa and then the Israelis ignored Joe Biden and went in and rescued two hostages. Look, I think that the United States rule needs to be to support Israel right now while we're trying to get these hostages out.

That's the first thing. I don't think we should be talking about cease fires or anything other than let's get the hostages out. You can't really talk about a ceasefire or rebuilding Gaza or all the things that we want to get to until Hamas releases the hostages.

That is the number one issue. And by the way, Jay, it's been more than 125 days and we have Americans that are being held hostage. We now know that Israel uncovers Hamas tunnels under UNRWA's headquarters in Gaza. And we even know that at least Israel is claiming that the terrorists were siphoning off electricity from that site. So this was at UNRWA's headquarters, the relief agency, and there are tunnels under there. Now this, we know the UNRWA employees were holding hostages. I want to bring a federal lawsuit, by the way.

I'm meeting in our offices in Virginia Beach on Monday with a lawyer that I work with that does a lot of counterintelligence, counterterrorism litigation against Iran. We're looking at a lawsuit though against UNRWA itself because we were funding their people who were holding Israeli and Americans hostage. Look, I think that it's not too much of a jump to say that American tax dollars through the UN were funding a terrorist organization.

We've seen the proof now and that's against the law. It's actually against the law to fund known hostage groups and to somehow harbor or give aid to terrorist organizations. No American wants to do that. And what we've now proven is that this UN agency, which is, by the way, designed in theory to help starving Palestinians, a humanitarian endeavor, which who can't agree with helping people who are starving and homeless, that is the whole ideal. And many Americans sign up for that ideal.

The problem is in reality, that's not what's happening. And I think that we can go through UN program after UN program where we're sold this idealistic endeavor to help people. And then we find out that there's nefarious reasons for the actions and our money is going to support programs that we don't agree with.

So we've got to get to the bottom of this. The UN should use this as a red alert to clean up the other programs that they're funding without proper management. You know, UNRWA is not funded by the United States right now. Germany has laid back on that as well. We have filed CC today on action at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Right. So the 55th session of the Human Rights Council is starting and we file written submissions each session. And every time we can support Israel, we do. So this is our written submission supporting Israel. And we basically say it's imperative that the international community unconditionally condemn Hamas's actions for what they are, war crimes, and hold Hamas and its allies responsible for their continuing atrocities. We just want to keep pointing out that Israel has a right to self-defense. And what Hamas did was war crimes. And the international community needs to condemn it, not support it, and not fund it through UNRWA.

The thing that has happened, which does happen in these situations, is October 7th starts looking like a distant memory. And part of what we have to do here at the ACLJ is remind the international community of the atrocities that were created that had violated international human rights law, international law, and the international law of armed conflict. Not that Hamas cares, but the rest of the world should care. And that, and you spent 10 years at the UN, so you know what it's like there. It's a tough place to work, but I tell people, I say, well, why the UN? You have to be there, even though it is a hostile environment.

Oh, you have to be there, and thank God that we are, the ACLJ is there. So we are holding the UN to account. One of the only organizations that really pushes back on the UN. Look, I think, Jay, that the information that has been revealed on UNRWA is devastating to the UN. I think at this point, the UN is going to have to stop the UNRWA program altogether. They're going to have to rethink how they do refugees or outreach for humanitarian causes. I don't think that UNRWA will ever be able to get back its credibility. They've lost its credibility. They've funded terrorists. They should shut down the whole program and rethink how we're going to do this.

Let me ask you. How do you get back to the UN and with UNRWA and the keeping of hostages? Obviously this is a major issue, and I think there's legal action that we can take. But Rick, coming from your perspective, former ambassador, former UN official, former director of national intelligence, this is a very complicated situation in the Middle East that is really spiraling a little out of control. We've had the engagement against our own military and a fairly tepid response. And I know you want to use diplomacy as much as you can. It all comes down to what looks like with the hostages and Hamas, that the intermediary is Qatar. What is your sense of their role in this and how that plays? I spoke to US officials in Egypt this morning about this exact issue. And Egypt is beginning to play a bigger role, I would say, than Qatar.

I think they're recognizing that they need to step up. So we're thankful that Egypt is doing this, but Qatar, no question, has traditionally been the one that we would go to to try to solve some of these problems. I do think that in a crisis like this, we diplomats need to take one thing at a time. The first thing they need to work on is freeing the hostages. We should not be having talks of ceasefire or rebuilding Gaza or what to do with the Arab group and how their roles are going to play out.

Those conversations are not appropriate right now. Right now, we just need to focus on getting the hostages free. This is a violation of international law. And every single country should recognize freeing the hostages is the only important conversation. Egypt has a role. Qatar has a role. But so does Israel and so does Joe Biden. We need to pressure the Biden administration to stay focused on releasing the hostages.

All the other conversations can come later. All right. Thanks, Rick. We appreciate it. Rick, of course, senior advisor to us here at the ACLJ, part of the ACLJ team. Your support of the ACLJ allows us to have people like Rick Grenell that are experts. I mean, we've got two cabinet members that are part of our team.

Mike Pompeo, Rick Grenell, and of course, we still work with John Ashroff, who was a former attorney general. So folks, your support makes a huge difference. If you could support the ACLJ monthly, $5 a month, $10, $20, whatever it is, you become a champion for life, liberty, and freedom. You become the backbone of when we do those matching challenges, you're part of that match. You are people that engage in the matching challenge. So we want to encourage you to do that at ACLJ.org forward slash champions to give monthly. You see the work. We've described what we've done, whether it's globally or right here in the United States.

That's ACLJ.org forward slash champions. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow, and now your host, Jay Sekulow. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the second half of the program.

Logan's joining us. So I think a little bit of a recap. We covered a lot of territory this morning, including our 40-year plus work with Pat Mahoney and the Christian Defense Coalition on the issue of life. Yeah, I think it was a great segment. It was really, if you didn't get to see it, go back and watch, because it really gives you a breadth of scope of everything that we do here and that we don't also give up on some of these clients after it's not one and done for a lot of these people, especially those who they're passionate about the issues they care about. It's not just a one-time deal.

They're going to need to fence the rest of their lives. And thankfully with someone like Reverend Mahoney, we've been there since the late 80s, continually working with him when he needs it, which is honestly fairly often because when you're taking these stances, even if the law is on your side, a lot of times you have a lot of uneducated people who don't understand the law, including in law enforcement, who are sometimes they're trying to just do the job they think they're supposed to do. And you have to have people like the ACLJ ready to take the battle, take the fights. And a lot of times you can find a very unique perspective. So I liked about this case specifically, it's grotesque, it's disturbing, sometimes hard to listen to, but you're able to take a different approach where I think a lot of other Christian legal defense groups may say, oh, well, we believe abortion is murder, therefore, this is what this is. What you're able to do is actually reframe this as more of a murder investigation, a crime, a true crime, it feels like a true crime story. It doesn't feel like, and that's how you start winning over people's minds and hearts is how you reframed everything for religious freedom and making it a first amendment issue, not a religious freedom issue. It's the same kind of thing when it comes to life.

It's finding a way to reach people who are maybe otherwise unreachable by just faith alone. So for two years, this was supposed to be investigated. There is actually a DC law that the medical examiner is required to perform an autopsy after any mysterious death. And here nothing's been done to examine these baby, determine their cause of death or provide them with a proper burial. But it was obvious when you saw them that that was the product of a late term abortion. So yes, it's pro-life, but there was a crime committed and it's not equal justice under the law when they're not getting their fair share.

Right. It's abortion distortion once again. If this had been any other situation, of course the medical examiner would be doing the exam, but not here because there were five babies that look like they were late term abortion, partial birth abortion, which is a crime. And there needs to be an autopsy done on these five children.

And there was not, and they were still holding them. And then Biden's DOJ comes in and says, destroy them. This last Friday, we were able to jump in and stop that destruction of evidence. I also want you to remember that this is last Friday when we were involved in one of the bigger Supreme Court battles ever in the ACLJ. But we have a big enough team and a strong enough team to be able to pivot and deal with what is at the end of the day, dealing with three or Oreos. Life and death issue. Yeah, life and death issue, but an issue that you'd think, oh, we're busy. We're a busy team. We can't do this right now, but no, we have such a breadth of scope in terms of the amount of ACLJ team members that can pivot at a moment's notice and get this taken care of.

Again, whether you are President of the United States or former President of the United States or down to just an individual protester on the streets trying to support. We had a very nice series of articles written about our briefs that were filed in the Supreme Court case saying that we laid out the case that even Justice Jackson and Justice Kagan seemed to adopt those articles as did I think most of the court. What's interesting, you're right, Logan, as that was going on, we still had the capacity internally to handle this other issue, which was equally important for the people involved in this.

That's right. And again, that's where ACLJ champions come in because they allow us to have the attorneys ready and the ability to turn on a dime and to shoot off a letter and to stop these babies from being destroyed. I think we started the day with 19,265. Be very curious to see where we are towards the end of this broadcast. If you want to become an ACLJ champion, I encourage you to do it right now. I'd love to see that 19,265 over 19,300.

Don't know if that's possible in a day, but that would be great. Go to ACLJ.org slash champions, ACLJ.org slash champions. I'm a champion for life, liberty, and freedom. Your support for that work of ours on the life issue takes a lot of different dimensions, but we're here to help the people that are on the front lines defending life. So support our work as well.

Be a champion for life at ACLJ.org forward slash champions. Back with more, we're going to take a look at the big deadline today at the Supreme Court for President Trump. Welcome back to Secula. We also may take some phone calls, 1-800-684-3110, especially on this topic of the President's immunity. If you have a question or comment, this would be a good time to call.

We'll try to get you in the final segment, 1-800-684-3110. So last week at the Supreme Court in the United States, we were dealing with the issue of the President being taken off the ballot. And based on the questions that came in oral argument and the briefing that was done, I think we're pretty confident that we're going to see a victory in that case.

Maybe that the President's not an officer under the United States or an officer of the United States, so that he's not subject to the 14th Amendment, could be that it's not self-executing. In other words, there needed to be some kind of enabling legislation, whichever way they go. We outlined both of those in our brief. And we've gotten a lot of kudos on that brief. I'm not saying that to brag, by the way, but we filed a lot of briefs on this law professor at my alma mater at Emory who keeps records of these things said, this was the 24th case where I was counsel of record for a party, 24th case.

And he wrote a very nice thing to the faculty at my alma mater saying, the way they laid this thing out, you had Justice Brown Jackson, as well as Justice Kagan, Justice Sotomayor asking questions right off of what we argued, which is important. But there's another issue coming up to the Supreme Court. That was last week.

This is this week. And now it is a requirement that the DC circuit ruled against the President on the issue of Presidential immunity. They said that what they will do, the clerk is directed to withhold the issuance of a mandate through February 12th. Now let's first describe, Andy, what is a mandate?

Mandate is an order from the appellate court to the trial court, to the district court. Here is our opinion. Here is our ruling. Now you follow it and do it. And this would mean that Judge Chutkin, if the mandate were issued, would go ahead then and put the case on the trial calendar again, which he had previously and had taken it off pending the ruling of the court of appeals.

Okay. So that issue of a mandate will be stayed so long as today President Trump's legal team will file a stay of the district court of the court of appeals decision and say that we're following up with that a petition for certiorari. Will, can we check to see if during this broadcast live, I'm sure they're going to die.

Well, I shouldn't say I'm sure, I don't know that, but I would think they're going to do it. Now the issue of Presidential immunity is not an easy one, it's a complex case. And Harry, when we talk about Presidential immunity, let's define what we're talking about for people. The quintessential issue that we have to look at with respect to Presidential immunity is whether or not the President of the United States can be held liable subsequent to his resignation or when he becomes a private citizen, whether or not he can be held liable for official acts during his presidency. And I think one of the real issues that should be explored on appeal should President Trump decide to appeal to his case to the Supreme Court is whether or not his immunity as President continues after he's left the presidency. And I think the appellate court, that is the DC circuit court of appeals, they offered the wrong test. So at the end of the day, the issue is not necessarily whether President Trump gets immunity with respect to all of his challenged acts, but whether or not the appellate court has offered the correct test of whether he gets immunity or not. Here's what I would do if I was, I'm not representing him in this, I know what they're, I suspect they're going to go for the absolute immunity on the entire case to get that adjudicated. But if I'm looking at process, this is what I would say, to me, there's clear error in this case when the court said at 1201 on January 20th, Presidential immunity ceases. In other words, it doesn't continue into his post-presidency, which totally defeats the point of Presidential immunity because now it subjects Presidents Carter, Presidents Bush, President Clinton, President Obama, President Trump, and now President Biden to post White House service lawsuits for opinions or situations you disagreed with.

So the immunity should stay in place longer. Now does that end the case? No, because then they would have to determine whether that was an official act. But that would be a separate proceeding and that would take time. And if the idea in this strategy, and we're talking about legal strategy here, for President Trump is to delay this because it's getting awful close to an election and he's clearly the leading Republican candidate, and then have it adjudicated afterwards, or if he's President to get it dismissed, I think that would be the strategy I would utilize. Yeah, because it is ridiculous for this lower court to say you can only invoke Presidential immunity while you're in office.

That doesn't make sense. That immunity follows you for any official acts you did while in office. So you're exactly right. That's what needs to be attacked.

And then if it draws out the other issues longer, so be it, and that's actually good for President Trump. Andy, you looked at two issues you were concerned about, that one and also the burden shifting that you came into this with a, you know, we're going to presume that everything in the indictment was true. Yes, that was another statement that was made in the Court of Appeals opinion that I think is wrong. For purposes of the adjudication of the case, they said, we assume that everything that is alleged in the indictment is true.

And that's not what the law is. The law is those are simply charges of the grand jury. They're simply allegations that are made by the grand jury.

They're not true. As a matter of fact, the government has to prove the truth of those, each and every one beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of a jury. And that's another statement that was made by this panel consisting of judges Henderson, Childs, and Pan that I think was wrong and that should be reviewed by the Supreme Court. The question I guess, Harry, is on an issue like this, where's the court likely to go? And on Presidential immunity, it's been a mixed bag to be blunt. I think that is correct and I suspect if President Trump's lawyers opt for the strategy that you recommend, Jay, they would likely prevail at least in terms of delaying the case so that it would not affect the 2024 Presidential election. On the other hand, if they decide to go for the full enchilada and basically claim that the district court is absolutely wrong, that the President is entitled to absolute immunity, I think they are likely to lose and probably lose quickly, thereby accelerating the trial on the underlying issues.

And so I think at the end of the day, President Trump's lawyers would be wise to accept Jay Sekulow's advice. Logan, you have been in our pre-meeting saying, and I think this is an important point, explain this so people understand why it impacts them. Yeah, why does it impact them and why is it not just the same as every other Trump lawsuit or you get a little burned out by all of it. I've been burned out by it.

I feel like our audience probably is. They just see another lawsuit pop up, they see another ruling, they see another indictment and it's just at some point you're just exhausted by it. But it's important, there are things that are important and it does really trickle down to everyone. This one affects the operation of the presidency. So if you're a Republican, a Democrat, if you're for Trump, if you're for Biden, if you're for RFK, whoever you're for, it affects everybody. Because what this says is that they cannot make decisions free of lawsuit the moment they're out of office. And that possibly is the worst possible decision. I think the biggest mistake the DC Court of Appeals made was that determination. Yeah, because now you have any sitting President triple checking, quadruple checking every decision they make. Once I'm not President any longer, does this set me up for liability and criminal liability? And so all of our past Presidents, Obama, all of them, they are subject to this. If the court gets it wrong, they can have claims brought against them just as easily. Exactly. And Andy, so for the people that are listening, and why does it matter to you? For our presidency to function properly under our constitutional republic, this immunity is necessary.

Yes. You can't have a President constrained by having to think about whether or not he or she is going to be prosecuted criminally or attacked civilly in a case after their presidency is over because of a decision that they made during the presidency that is determined afterward not to have been an official act. You've got to have that Presidential immunity survive so that citizen Biden or citizen Trump is not such that they are not clothed with Presidential immunity after the termination of their term of office, Jay. Yeah, I think this is, look, I just got a note from a friend of mine, very well respected lawyer, on another case, Logan, unrelated, I won't get into it, where we filed a brief. And this was a lawyer that represents groups that are more left of center and politicians are more left of center, and his note to me was, I am so thrilled we meet again on this important case. These issues that we engage in, many of which we don't even talk about, like the administration of the criminal justice system, are critical to how we function as a society.

Yeah, absolutely. And look, we're headed to our last segment of the broadcast, and we could not do this work at the ACLJ without your support. And you've given generously, you've also decided to become ACLJ champions. We encourage more of you to become ACLJ champions. And all that is, is simply saying, you are going to commit to being a reoccurring donor on an automatic basis to the ACLJ.

And you could stand up for all these issues, for life, liberty, freedom for Israel. We're going to talk a little bit, coming up in the next segment, a lot of these topics are very hard to talk about, whether that's, obviously we talked about the first segment with a life issue. You're talking about destroying children and what that really means and what that looks like legally. It's very tough to talk about that, especially talking about that on the radio or on broadcast on social media.

It's tough around your kids, but it's important work getting done. And we're going to be talking about in the next segment here as well, some of the motives that are starting to kind of work their way out of the shooting that happened yesterday at Pastor Osteen, the Lakewood church. We're going to discuss that coming up in the next segment as well. But again, thank you for your support.

We'll be right back. The broadcast, everyone. I want to turn our attention to a situation that happened at our friend Joel Osteen's church at Lakewood church yesterday that got some attention in the afternoon for Super Bowl Sunday. So not as much, but there was a shooting and the shooter is deceased. And there was a five-year-old that is in either critical condition or deceased. We don't know yet.

Go ahead Logan. I think there'll be an update here in the next few hours from the church, but yeah, it definitely did. It made some news. You probably got a push notification on it, but it was handled very quickly, very swiftly by the team at Lakewood church in Texas. It was right before their Spanish speaking service. So not necessarily during their biggest service, but we again, we've been friends with the Osteans and supporters of theirs.

So it definitely hit home as someone who really does appreciate the work that they do. But now news has come out just in the last little bit that on the weapon itself was written free Palestine on this on this rifle. That's not making a ton of news. It started to, and I think because it hasn't, I think this is probably what they'll discuss at the press conference.

The ABC news headline is a bit egregious because this is, this is the world we're living in. And look, if you've ever been a supporter or viewer of Joel Osteen or a Lakewood church, you'll know they probably casually support Israel. I think Benjamin Netanyahu was spoken there before and they have had some pro Israel leanings, but there's certainly not a church that gets engaged highly in politics.

Where their personal feelings feel the way one way or the other, that is the least likely of those churches. I'm sort of the mega churches that you feel like would get targeted because of their support of Israel. But what that tells me is basically if you're claiming to be a evangelical Christian, that you are now a target to this movement and look, they say this is what the ABC news report is a free Palestine written on gun and shooting at Lakewood church, but motive, a mystery.

That is the current situation they're saying. Motive a mystery. Well, I know hopefully we're going to find out that, you know, maybe there's some reason they're putting that in there, but to me, if you're willing to write the headline that free Palestine was written on the gun, the motive is pretty clear. It was a horrible situation where the shooter entered, female shooter entered with a small child and started to open fire, claimed to have a bomb. She was taken out very quickly, unfortunately, just due to essentially child being used as what would be considered a human shield at this point, a child was wounded. Another random.

And we don't know the condition other than critical. No. Yeah. And they may not even say, we may not have an update, but they, you know, they handle it very quickly. But on the weapon, it said free Palestine. That's according to the sources that have come out in the last hour or so. And it's ridiculous that they say, but the motive is a mystery because if you're using a weapon to target people in a church or anywhere and on that weapon, you literally take the time to write free Palestine on it. I think you have the motive written out on the weapon itself. There's no question.

I mean, I think the whole thing is absurd that they would be denying motive. Now here's the thing that we have to understand. This issue is an important issue and it's one that is getting a lot of angst in the world right now because of the nature of the conflict. Yeah. Like I said, I mean, if they're going after, sure, it's a mega church, it's one of the biggest in the country, but again, not a politically motivated church by any means. I'd say maybe to the critique of a lot of people, not a politically, they do not engage on those issues typically, but this is a very different kind of situation.

But because you're lumped in as an evangelical Christian, all of a sudden you're a target from people who are spewing hate against Israel. Yeah. And by the way, the free Palestine written on the gun and shooting at Lakewood Church, but motive of mystery is a headline from ABC News. Now, one thing I have to say is it goes back to what we're doing at the United Nations on all of this. And I think it's important to point that out to people.

Yeah. I mean, the misinformation and disinformation surrounding Palestine is everywhere. And so we are able, especially at the United Nations, which is the one international body that targets Israel and condemns Israel more than any other member state under its jurisdiction. And so we are able to be at the United Nations and stand up for Israel, and we just did so filing a written submission during the 55th session of the Human Rights Council that supports Israel that points out the war crimes that Hamas has committed against Israel and is calling on the international community to actually condemn Hamas and support Israel. Whether they'll do that or not is almost irrelevant, Logan. It almost doesn't matter because we have to make the point, like they're making the point with the gun that says free Palestine. So the violence coming out of that group now, it's not so passive.

And it's horrible. And hopefully that child's okay, but uses human shield, maybe in our own child, who knows? We don't know any of those facts. Yeah, I think they'll learn more. They're doing an update at 2.30 Eastern. All right. So there may be more coming out of that. Look, we said we would take some phone calls and comments. We're doing that at 1-800-684-3110. All right. We'll go to Mike who's calling in Pennsylvania on line two. Mike, you're on the air.

Hi. Just to circle back on the immunity question, I'm trying to figure out how you guys would reconcile both sides, meaning on the one hand, the appellate court saying, okay, no immunity. And we know the dangers and risk of that. But on the flip side, allowing the immunity, but then you invite the potential of something like the now classic SEAL Team 6 situation where the President, by way of immunity, could take out his political opponent. How do you reconcile the two extremes, if you will?

Thank you. Not the way they answered it. Not the way President Trump's lawyers answered it at the URL argument.

I think it's very simple. President's immunity does not give you immunity to commit a crime of assassinating your political opponent because the overriding principle in the United States for law enforcement in any – whether it's Secret Service, FBI, CIA, or local police – keep the peace. It's like could a President take a – remember that question came – could he take a weapon and go down Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody?

No, they could keep the peace. But the question there would be not whether Presidential immunity applied, but whether Presidential immunity would cover that kind of act. And the answer is that would not be within the scope of official acts that would allow for a claim of immunity.

But you don't even have to get there yet with this because under this court scenario, the immunity itself expired after the fact as soon as it was out of office. But you've got to determine whether that's official acts. And clearly, assassinating your political opponent is not an official act. Right.

Absolutely. And the answer is that you can't hire a hit man, basically, even if it was SEAL Team 6, to go and take out your political opponent. Those questions are – they sound crazy and hard, but they're not. Apply common sense and you get there. We'll see what the lawyers do. It's going to be up to them. Will I ask to see where we were on our champions for the day?

Because we started the day around, and I know we lose some, gain some during the day. We're at 19,265. Where are we at right now? 19,266.

Folks, I want to get to 19,300 by tomorrow, if possible. And I know that sounds like not much, but it's a lot, because we're asking people to give monthly. So, Logan, that's a lot for people to commit to. We understand that, but we really appreciate it. And we have some people that came in and have done it for a couple of years, and then it's time for them. They move on. Yeah. I mean, just like any other reoccurring, it's not like you can't cancel, obviously.

You can cancel at any time. But we appreciate the support from people who decide they want to become ACLJ champions to stand up for all the topics you heard about today, and to get a big understanding of how it all works. And I think that's something that's very important as well. You can be a champion today, be a champion again of life, liberty, freedom, Israel, and really, just every topic that you feel is important, we will be there, and we'll be there fighting for you. You know, it's interesting, and just go to aclj.org forward slash champion. Mary on Maury said that she thinks the ACLJ rocks, so does the band, and she's a champion. Katie on Rumble said she went to ACLJ films this weekend and watched the two abortion movies.

So we have a lot of resources available, a lot of content, ACLJ films is one of those. Talk to you tomorrow.