MAJOR UPDATE: BIG Win for Trump in Immunity Case at Supreme Court

Today on Sekulow, a major update, a big win for Trump in the immunity case at the U.S. Supreme Court. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Alright, welcome to Sekulow, folks. Well, we've got one of the two that are pending at the U.S. Supreme Court. Yesterday evening, a certiorari was granted the idea that this appeal for a stay from the Supreme Court on the immunity case for moving forward. And the idea that it could be converted into an actual oral argument and with full briefing.

And, Dad, you were talking about that yesterday fairly confidently that you thought that's why it had been taking this amount of time. Because of the usual stay, it's either yes or no. But because the briefing that was filed was so significant that it was like Merrick's briefing and that the court could use that to determine whether or not they wanted to actually take this up as a writ of certiorari. Yeah, so the court has options when they get it. A certiorari petition was not technically up there. No one asked for that.

No. So here's what you had. All that was pending was a motion to stay the proceedings pending the filing of a certiorari petition. Instead, the court, and of course the government objected saying this thing needs to go to trial, the Department of Justice. Instead, the court, on its own motion, and we're going to break this down in the next segment, or the segment after this, we've got Mike Pompeo coming up. What the court did was they converted it to a certiorari petition and then the court itself granted, wrote the question that they wanted to have answered.

Which is really, it happens, but it's very unusual. We want to go to that question. It's right there.

It's a one-pager just for people. And it's an order, not an opinion. This is an order.

This is kind of how it comes. But all these words matter in these orders and this is where it starts. This is the only question that should be answered in the briefing and then oral argument.

And let me tell you something else before you go to it. And the mistake that lawyers make is they don't answer the question presented. So when I just told our team, for the brief we're filing, all I want to do is answer the question presented.

That's what we need to do here. So this is the question presented. There's kind of two or three questions within the question. Whether and if so, to what extent does a former President enjoy Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office? That is the only question presented.

And, Dad, in the next segment, I don't want to do it right now, but we're going to walk through how that one question, you can answer multi parts of it and kind of get to where you want to be. But also just determining what are official acts, I mean that is something that could go through an entire new round of course. So you have to have a hearing and to determine, so for instance on the election issues, I would argue that those of course are official acts. The President has to, on the execution clause of the Constitution, has to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. He believed that they were not being faithfully executed. So as President, he took action.

So then the question is, and look, we're going to really break this question down because folks, to me it's signaling where this case is going. And that's why the left is going crazy right now on this. And even on CNN and MSNBC, they said this was a huge win for Trump.

And it was. It wasn't what his lawyers asked for, but it's what I suspected. I said it yesterday, I think it was yesterday, I said I believe this is what the court's going to do. It's like you almost don't want to ask the court for this because this is better than getting a stay. Yeah, because, well, and they did say the mandate, nothing can go on in the district court. The case has stopped. So this is the, so you've got the, we're waiting for the disqualification clause case that should be hopefully tomorrow.

I would like to see it before Super Tuesday. Yeah, because we got an Illinois judge who did something pretty wild that we'll tell you about when we come up next. And then we've now got this. So, and the ACLJ involved in all of these. Yes, folks, again, we've got an Illinois judge we're going to tell you about who thought, you know what, I think I can kick Trump off the ballot. Illinois Board of Elections didn't think they could, but they decided to, and by the way, they didn't stay at pity the Supreme Court, though I do think it will be shut down fairly quickly.

They are trying to, again, dirty up President Trump, and you're seeing these elected judges do just that. We will be right back on Sekulow. Continue to follow all of the updates through our social media, through the broadcast, and of course at ACLJ.org. We'll be right back with Mike Pompeo, a member of our team and at the ACLJ.

Welcome back to Sekulow. We are joined by our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Mr. Secretary Pompeo, I think this immunity case, you could speak to it very well as someone advising the President on top issues, both as a CIA Director on some of the most classified information and decision-making and different kind of options available to the President.

Same goes when you were Secretary of State. Again, very big decisions to make. The Jack Smith case against President Trump, though, took a major hit because the Supreme Court decision to rule on, decided that they were going to rule on Presidential immunity rather than just issue or not issue a stay. What are your initial thoughts on this move by the Supreme Court?

Well, Joe, I'm not surprised they took this up. I think this is an important case. I think this is something that needs to be decided. And I agree with you. The prosecution by Jack Smith is going to be impacted greatly by this.

But I think that's just fine. This is how our legal system works. I'm glad the Supreme Court didn't just push this off or delay this indefinitely. I hope they'll take it up.

Frankly, I'd love to see them take it up more quickly because this issue needs to be put to bed there. There are elected officials today. There are executive branch officials today who will we think of this in the context of President Trump, but there are current folks, right?

The Biden team is sitting there. They're facing the same risk as well. The work that they're doing can be greatly impacted by whether or not it's the case that the act that they're taking their their efforts to deliver on behalf of America are actually things that someday some attorney general or some special prosecutor or some special counsel could decide to prosecute them for.

You know, Mike, I was thinking about this. I mean, you know, I was in meetings with you and in the White House when we when you were serving as secretary of state. And I mean, a lot of it's and there's attorney client privilege issues when you're representing the President. But this immunity thing is a big deal because the idea that after you leave office, which is what the court of appeals said, basically your immunity vanishes and you could be prosecuted for an official act that some, you know, U.S. attorney thinks is a crime would affect the advice you as the secretary of state would be giving to the President. If you've got to look over his shoulder with a battery of lawyers every time you discuss an issue with real advice. Jay, there's no doubt about that. That is certainly true for cabinet level senior level officials, but it's true for other seniors as well who are all going to be thinking, well, who's who's monitoring this?

Who's taking notes on this? Which one of these is some prosecutor going to second guess and say, boy, what you did there was unlawful to suggest that the appeals court did. And I think the Supreme Court will definitely overturn this central idea that they put forward the idea that somehow when you leave office, you are simply now a citizen and have no protections for the actions that you took in your official capacity would really shape conversations, actions, decision making processes, all of the things that you saw you witnessed when senior leaders are trying to do good work on behalf of America. It cannot be the case that the day that a President of the United States or the day that a cabinet official leaves office, they no longer enjoy the protection, the immunities that they had while they were in office. That just can't simply be as a matter of constitutional law or as a practical matter for for practitioners, for those of us who are actually trying to do this. Well, you know, I was thinking about this in the context of the current administration, like you just said, if I was the Biden administration, I wouldn't be too happy with Jack Smith's argument, because if his argument's correct, when Joe Biden leaves office at 1201 on January 20th, whenever, whether it's this time or next time.

Well, is he going to be subject to like, you know, I didn't enforce the border laws correctly or so I let Americans get rid of the you got local U.S. attorneys for another administration starting. This is where no one thinks through the consequences of what they ask. But Jack Smith has a history of overreach. And I think this is it fair to say, Mike, in your view, that this impacts the functioning of government at the highest level?

100 percent. You're right. Everyone puts this in the context of President Trump, because that's the context in which this case has arisen. But the current leaders decisions about whether people will actually decide, I think I'll take a position in the next administration, whoever's administration that is, these are all going to be impacted by whether in fact you are protected and you're trying to do your lawful decision making process. Your point is exactly right.

Here's another example. Imagine that the next President comes in and says, you know, the fact that you forget billions of dollars of student loans was illegal. Indeed, the Supreme Court said it was illegal and you went ahead and did it. And, you know, we're going to prosecute you.

We're going to put you in jail for having worked on that. Some official in the Department of Education or the secretary of education or the President himself. It has to be the case that our most senior decision makers have the ability to be protected for the work that the constitutional work they're doing while they are elected officials.

Yeah. I mean, and this case, of course, then goes to then is while they're elected officials and then it's the acts they did while they were elected. So because the lower court secretary Papayo said you're protected while you're there. But at 1201 when if someone else is swearing in, all those protections fall off, which means they were never protections at all.

They were. So I think the Supreme Court, however, they they end up with this case and whether it goes back on other things on official versus unofficial acts and how you define that. That sentence right there cannot be the law of the land. No, Jordan, that's nonsense. It can't be the case that protected acts become unprotected the moment you step out of office.

That's no protection as a matter, as a matter of fact. And I am I am very confident that the Supreme Court will rule directly on that point and rule that that's absurd. I think that I suspect the way that, you know, it's interesting history in this case because they weren't asking for a cert petition. The Trump's lawyers, they were asking for a stay. And I said on the broadcast, our broadcast yesterday, Mike, that I expected exactly this to happen, that they were going to or the day before, actually.

Yeah, I said because it kept taking the longer it got. First, you start thinking normally they refer this to the court and then an order comes a couple of days later here. We don't even show on the docket sheet that's on the Supreme Court's official Web site, whether it was referred to the court, which we now know it was because it says the application of state was presented to the chief and referred to the court. It was the special counsel requested that they treat the state application as a petition for certiorari because at that point they were trying to see if they can make up any time. What I don't think they expected was that that would be granted and argument would not be until April 22nd, likely a decision last week of the term, which is usually the end of June or the 1st of July. And I think the way they wrote that question to me, it's indicating that there are at least five justices that think the D.C.

Circuit got it wrong. If the opinion were to stand, though, Mike, if this D.C. Court of Appeals opinion were to stand, how would have that affected your ability without getting into details of communicating with the former when you were when he was President and you were the secretary of state, one of the highest ranking officials in the United States? How would have that affected the functioning of your communications with him? Jay, I think about the fact that we already have so many lawyers in this government controlling and shaping how work happens. This would this would be that on steroids. Now, every senior official and indeed Presidents and their national security advisors and the White House team around them and folks like you, Jay, who are working to try and help Presidents effectuate their policies, either as personal counsel or advisors. It would shape everything. It would it would create a monkey wrench in the system of staggering proportions because everyone would realize that the actions they were taking in some of the most difficult conflicts, some of the most difficult, complex legal issues, some of the most difficult constitutional issues. Every one of those was subject to challenge in the moment that they walked out the door at noon on the 20th of January when their attorney office was over, they were subject to criminal prosecution.

It would it would create a train wreck for decision making for every administration, not just the Trump administration or Republican administration. Secretary Pompeo, as always, we appreciate you joining us, part of our team at the ACLJ as a senior counsel for global affairs, with all that insight into what it is to be a cabinet level adviser, both the seriousness of issues you're advising on to the CIA director and secretary of state and why this case is so important long term. I think when you when you appeal, take things to the Supreme Court, they don't just think in President Trump and they don't think it just President Trump and Biden and Jack Smith. They think we're going to issue something that could have long term effects on how a President is able to do their job and those around him.

So thank you, Secretary Pompeo, for joining us today. I mean, that's that's I think what they don't sometimes realize when they're taking it to the U.S. Supreme Court is they think big. They think big and they think institutionally long.

Yeah. So, you know, John Roberts is the chief justice is looking at this and saying this is going to affect the operations of government here. So, folks, this is becoming this is a huge case, not just for President Trump, but for the functioning of the executive branch of government.

Now, we've got a little bit of experience with that, Jordan. I because we had the three cases involving the President and the separation of powers with the functioning of the executive branch of government at the Supreme Court when he was President. We argued right here, actually, because we had to do it during covid. And so this is a natural follow up for us in this. What I want to do in the next segment is really break this down because the question because commentators who I respect that are friends of ours are getting really confused here.

And I've been doing Supreme Court practice for 40 years. So I'm going to break this down line by line. If you're watching on any of our social media feeds right now and a lot of you are, we encourage you to like it, share it with your friends.

So we have more people involved in the conversation. But I'm going to break this down literally. I'm going to go line by line in this order and we're going to break down what it means. All right, folks, you don't want to miss that.

Of course, stay updated. Aclj.org. If you're on YouTube, make sure you subscribe because we've got more cases we're awaiting at the U.S. Supreme Court. I mean, obviously, the big case on the 14th Amendment Section three. Now we have a briefing schedule and another oral argument and another Trump case before the U.S. Supreme Court. In this term next month, the briefing due from us is due March 19th.

I mean, very, very soon. We're talking to our lawyers right now while we're on here. Our team is already on it. So that's what you're doing when you support the work of the ACLJ and ACLJ.org. And our team was already on it last night getting the team together to prepare that brief that we'll be filing at the Supreme Court.

We'll be right back. All right, folks, we're going to start taking your calls to this, too, about how important this issue and it's this again, search for being granted in this immunity case is for President Trump and how it, again, sets back Jack Smith. I mean, Axios, at least being honest, the Supreme Court hands Trump a huge win before it even hears his case. And you can walk through that, you know, it's just two paragraphs. But it really gets to a couple of things. One, of course, there's no stay because you don't need a stay because nothing is going to happen in this case at all. So let's start with that for people.

Then call us with your questions 1-800-684-3110. Remember, this is the case where it was about obstructing acts of Congress, all of that. Which is also at the Supreme Court right now. Everything up to the line of it was not, they did not charge, bring a charge of insurrection. I just want to make that clear. But there are, yeah, someone just is already challenging at the U.S. Supreme Court one of the charges here.

Which are two counts for President Trump. So let me break it down. Let's start with the first sentence. You read it, so I'm up with my voice.

Just go first sentence and then I'll explain it. Okay, so it says the application for a stay presented to the Chief Justice is referred by him to the court. Okay, so normally you get that order, Jordan, and our audience, within 24 hours of when you file the application for a stay. That did not happen here. They stopped, they did not, there was no evidence, at least on the record, that the court keeps, where it says refer to the court for a stay. There was no indication that that happened.

I said on the broadcast, I think Wednesday or Tuesday, that I expected that that did happen. So we now know that the application, because the Chief Justice on his own could have dealt with the stay, but he referred it to the court. So that meant all nine justices got the stay application. Okay, next sentence. Alright, the Special Counsel's request to treat the stay application as a petition for writ of certiorari is granted, and that petition is granted limited to the following question.

Don't do the question yet. So this was interesting. Remember, Jack Smith in December tried to jump over the Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court said no. Then the Court of Appeals ruled, and then they took, Trump's people took it up as a stay, not a certiorari petition. Just they wanted it stopped, and they were going to file the certiorari petition. Jack Smith said in his response, well, at least treat the stay as a cert petition, which is not an unusual practice.

They did that. So the court then, it takes four justices to grant a certiorari petition. There were at least four votes at that point to hear it. But then the next sentence says the petition is granted limited to the following question, and I'll let you read it in a minute. That question was drafted by the Supreme Court, not the parties.

Right. So normally, like here, and I'm holding up our red brief, we're counsel of record for the Colorado GOP on the merits in the case involving disqualification, 14th Amendment. We had in there a question presented.

Did the Colorado Supreme Court err in ordering President Trump excluded from the 2024 Presidential primary ballot? That's the question presented that the parties put together. This won the court draft, and now go ahead and read it. And we're going to break this down. This is very important. And then again, yes, we're going to break it down for you, but let's just read the single question presented.

Whether and if so, to what extent does a former President enjoy Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office? All right, this is very important. So the court drafts the question.

First thing they say, the question is whether, in other words, is there, and if so, to what extent, you've got to focus on that, and if so, to what extent. That indicates to me that a number of members, it may not be a majority, I don't know that, but a number of members of the court thinks there is immunity. Now the question is whether there is immunity, but also what is the extent of that immunity? And does a former President, this was the thing I said the D.C. Court of Appeals got wrong, enjoy that Presidential immunity for official acts during his tenure? The answer to that has to be yes, because if it's not yes, it means that any President could be brought up by any U.S. attorney, former President, on criminal charges. So we just had Mike Pompeo on. You're talking about a senior advisor to the President, right? I mean, it was the secretary of state. How about us? Counsel to the President.

And we're giving advice. And we say, no, this doesn't violate 18 USC, whatever the code section is, that's a criminal code. Well, under this rule, under the D.C. Circuit, at 1201, he became citizen Trump. The fact is, he doesn't become citizen Trump. Still a former President of the United States. Is President Bush going to be signed because, sued, or criminally? Because there were no weapons of mass destruction. Or how about, you know, President Obama?

I could go through all of them. So I think the court got that wrong. But the way they drafted the question, whether and if so, to what extent does the former President enjoy this immunity for official acts? So here's the real question. Did the district court develop a record on whether these were official acts or not?

And the answer to that is no, they did not. So that's where I think this ends up going back down. That's why I don't think this case goes to trial, even if he lost this year.

And I don't think he's going to lose. Go ahead. So, I mean, you think, again, that they end up sending it back to decide what you're- I think you're going to say there is immunity. Now you've got to determine are these official acts. What you're saying were criminal. And on the election issues, which is what the January 6th stuff is, I would say that goes under the execution clause of the United States. The President, as commander in chief, has to faithfully execute the laws of the United States.

He thought they were not faithfully executed. Next slide. Yep. Okay.

This is important, too. Without expressing a view on the merits, this court directs the court of appeals to continue withholding issuance of the mandate until the sitting down of the judgment of this court. The application for a stay is dismissed as moot. Okay. So they decided we don't need an application for a stay because we're hearing the case that meant there were five votes to say no mandates issued.

What does that mean? When they say without expressing a view on the merits, they're not making a merits decision whether it was a criminal act or not a criminal act. They're making a legal determination, that's what the court's going to do, as to does the immunity apply and what is the extent of that immunity and does it apply and this only if in the case of official acts. The district court's going to have to make the determination whether these were official acts or not. The interesting thing is the mandate, the court froze the court of appeals and the district court. Nothing can proceed in these lower courts while this is pending. So the case is stopped. No discovery, no motion practice, no witness exchanges, no evidence exchanges.

The case is frozen. It's not going to be, the next sentence talks about argument is going to be the week of April 22nd, which is the last week that they hear all arguments. They didn't expedite this like they did in Colorado. Colorado, they had that argument remember on February 8th.

I mean it moved in record time. Here they're not doing that. It's still the last week of the term. So we've got to file our brief on March 19th, which our team's already working on. But what it means is there's likely not a decision in this case until the end of June the 1st of July. So the idea that there would be a trial in August or September is not going to happen. I mean I don't think Judge Duncan would even do it.

I just don't think she would do it. Even the liberals, Eli Hone said this today, a bite 22. This is an argument that we don't know the answer to. I mean the Supreme Court has recognized a form of civil immunity for certain federal officials, including the President, going back 40 or so years. So long as they're acting within the scope of their federal job.

What we don't know is A, is there any form of criminal immunity? That was the wrong bite. Do you guys have the right bite set up now? We don't have time for it. We don't have time for it. We'll get back to second half hour.

Because what they're saying, there could be some like sliver. That's like the liberal hope of a kid that like someone would try to start this. When you hear the bite we want to hear, he says clearly this is a big win for Trump. So we'll play that when we come back from the break.

Share this with your friends. Support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. You talk about that. Yeah, I mean, again, how things shift so quickly in these legal matters from Georgia to... Fascinating times.

Yeah, I mean, it is. Tomorrow's the closing arguments in the Georgia case. Yeah, right. So we'll get that next week.

And then we know there's going to be another Trump case at the U.S. Supreme Court we're filing in. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. All right, welcome back to Sekulow.

We are taking your phone calls as well at 1-800-684-3110. So we have gotten one of the decisions out of the Supreme Court we are awaiting involving President Trump. This was the special counsel and the immunity case where there was an application for a stay presented. The special counsel said, well, maybe instead of a stay we could get a certiorari granted on this case. But I bet the special counsel did not like what they actually received when they got certiorari granted. Which is the question that got presented leads to a potential for a Supreme Court decision, even that doesn't side with either the special counsel or President Trump yet, that could restart this from the very, very beginning over just a finding, which I don't even know if courts will want to do, official acts versus unofficial acts of an incumbent President. Which, while he's President.

Not easy. Well, I mean, it raises a separation of powers issue. Who decides what's an official act? A court. Four years after the fact.

Yeah, so here's what it, but remember what they wrote. This is what the Supreme Court wrote. Whether, and if so, to what extent does a former President enjoy Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.

If it's an official act, how could you be criminally prosecuted? The Constitution requires that the President faithfully execute the laws of the United States. President Trump was convinced that there was election irregularities. Put aside whether there was or wasn't, he was convinced of it.

I'm sure he would pass a lie detector test, no doubt. The idea now is, for Jack Smith, they're looking at this saying, we've got two problems. Not just one. We have two. One, we have another case involving a January 6th defendant who raised that the obstruction of Congress statute violated the First Amendment. Two judges of the D.C. Circuit disagreed with him, but Judge Katz has agreed with him. That case is now at the Supreme Court, too. That's two of the four charges against President Trump. Then add this to it, and you've got a real, Jack Smith suffered a huge loss. Let's play, this is what CNN's commentator, Elie Honig, said on air.

Take a listen. This is clearly a big win for Donald Trump and a major setback for Jack Smith. In terms of what I think is the big question on people's mind, is there any chance now that this case gets tried before the election? I think my answer is there is the slightest sliver of a chance, but no more than that.

No way. Here's why. The motion practice coming out of this opinion, remember what happened when we did the, let's talk about our experience. We did three cases for President Trump at the Supreme Court on issues similar. It was document requests and temporary Presidential immunity.

And even though in the D.A. case the court said it didn't require height and scrutiny, the court then said, though, that the President, nine to zero, they said this, has the authority to go into federal court, challenge these constitutionally, and can assert that it's interfering with its function as President. Do you know how long it took Jordan to get that resolved later? Another year to get it all the way through the system. Did he deliver the tax returns?

What did you hear about the tax returns? Nothing. But the point is, the way this works, there's no way this case can go to trial. Their sliver of hope is zero. Right. And that's because- First of all, if they did it, if they said we're going to go to trial in October while the man's running for President of the United States, Republican nominee, you'd have a revolt in this country.

You can't do that. I don't think Joe Biden would want it either. No, I don't think he would either. I think that helps President, it actually would help President Trump. You know what Joe Biden needs to do? Call Merrick Garland and say, hey, your position is going to impact me and my administration. Especially when I got my son having to testify, my whole family having to testify to get a special counsel on me, and now if he beats me, what are they going to do to me? Exactly.

My family. This is a terrible precedent for any President of the United States. And at the ACLJ, we have been very protective of the executive branch of government and the separation of powers. And I'm telling our audience right now, we've got a team, a team that has represented this President before putting together an amicus brief filed by the American Center for Law and Justice, letting the court know our view on this. And we've got the experience to back it up.

That's right. We've actually been before the court on these issues. These issues. So I believe they will take notice of what we write in that brief. And that's because of your support of the ACLJ.

We want you to stay with us, too. We are awaiting one more big case out of the U.S. Supreme Court, the 14th Amendment Section 3 case. And we saw this judge in Illinois decide they didn't care about the Supreme Court, about to issue an opinion. They're going to kick President Trump off for now.

But it's not a Super Tuesday state. We'll explain that when we get back as well. Even as we await the U.S. Supreme Court, which it could be at any time, the way that we got this, the Supreme Court, the stay, mooted out, they created a search.

I think we're getting the opinion on the immunity, on the disqualification case, probably tomorrow. Yeah. I mean, if it's not tomorrow, it's Monday. Yeah, because then it's Super Tuesday.

They've got to have it up. Yeah, and I think that's just not right. So, again, you know, you've got judges. I want to take the call from – and we are taking your call. If you've got questions about all this, because I know that we go through and we kind of say, all right, there's this, there's that, there's this, there's that, this, that, there's four parts to this one question. If you need us to slow it down or if you've got a question about this part or why do you think this won't end up in court and you're hearing something different on the left and you're hearing something different on the right, give us a call, 1-800-684-3110.

That's why we're here for you live to answer your questions. Let's go to Faye in South Carolina on Line 1. Hey, Faye. Hi.

Thank you guys for what you do. And I know we're waiting on the Supreme Court to know whether chunks can be taken off the ballot. And I'm very concerned with what I heard that Illinois is now trying to do. Can you tell me if that's possible or not for them to be able to take them off the ballot? So, so what we have here is a, a Cook County Circuit judge. They are, this one ended up being appointed because there was, it was not, it wasn't election time yet. And then she will have to run for reelection. So they, they don't run as partisan, but she is known to be a Democrat.

I want to put that out there. It was two pair, two, it's not even really two paragraphs, one paragraph and a few sentences basically using the Colorado reasoning. And CC, she decided that even though in Colorado, they stayed their decision pending the Supreme Court, she wouldn't do that.

Yeah, this is just pending an appeal in their system, in the Illinois system. And what is really interesting is, again, this is the 14th Amendment question, which is before the Supreme Court. But she finds that, and again, it's all about insurrection, whether he committed insurrection. And of course, as we've pointed out over and over again, he's never even been charged with insurrection, let alone convicted. Jack Smith never brought a count on insurrection. No other U.S. attorney has.

Go ahead. Right. So in this case, this Cook County Circuit judge says, well, guess what? The hearing officer of the election board, the hearing officer.

Explain to, okay, explain to people what a hearing officer is. Yes, an administrative officer under the elections board. So he's even under the elections board with the elections board said he's not guilty. He remains on the ballot.

It's we can't bring this. Trump, of course, is going to be on the ballot. But the hearing officer is the one that supposedly listened to the evidence and came to this conclusion by a preponderance of the evidence.

Of course, President Trump engaged in insurrection. So we have a hearing officer that is keeping a Presidential candidate off the ballot in Cook County, Illinois. This is exactly what we warned the Supreme Court about in our brief for the Colorado GOP. You let one administrator, secretary of state, hear a hearing officer to determine if a Presidential candidate can be on the ballot.

I mean, think about this for a moment. And here the election committee, as you said, said no. Right. The board disagreed with the hearing officer. Yeah, the board disagreed.

They were not in the right place. And there was, you know, out of nowhere case gets brought. And instead of saying, you know what, I don't need to hear this case or issue an opinion on this case because the Supreme Court has taken it up. No, Trump, you got to pay for an appeal by cases. Exact same case has been argued, submitted and is at the Supreme Court with a decision coming.

They're wasting their own taxpayers' money, too, by even holding this. I mean, you're paying for this judge to do this, to put all this together as an Illinois and Cook County taxpayer for no reason at all. Because the Supreme Court is going to answer the question for the entire country very soon. And then, I mean, what I think is just absurd here is this is a state that doesn't vote until March 19th. I mean, so this is like not around the corner. This, I mean, it's sued. But we all expect the Supreme Court to be out before Super Tuesday. There's something else absurd in this opinion, and Cece and I debated whether to even discuss it, but I think we should. The order, actually, the judge got the law backwards.

Go ahead. So it's confusing, but the judge is saying that the candidate, Trump, fails to meet the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualification provision. So if he fails to meet the disqualification provision, that means he's qualified.

But then in the very next sentence, she says, and his name should be removed from the ballot. So they don't even, you know what it tells me? Maybe it was a typo.

Could be. But you know what it tells me? They have no idea what the law is. And then you get these circuit court judges making decisions for the country. Could you imagine not having votes in Illinois?

Not a state that the President's likely to win, but it affects the tally of the votes. And doing this while a Supreme Court case is pending, and then, I'm going to have her read this again, I'm going to have Cece read this again, getting the law actually back. I hesitated to do this, but it shows you, it does show you the absurd nature of what is happening here. Right. So in the order, it says the respondent candidate, which is Trump, fails to meet the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment's disqualification provision. Okay. So if you failed to meet it, that means you're not subject to disqualification because you didn't commit insurrection.

You're qualified. Correct. So the next sentence should say, therefore, he can be on the ballot. Right. But it does not.

And his name should be removed from the ballot. So, I mean, Jordan, what this is saying is these judges are making these huge consequential decisions and have no clue what the law actually is. Clueless.

It's political. Yeah. Let's go to Bill in Wyoming on Line 2. Hey, Bill. Hey, Bill. Yeah. Thanks for letting me ask you this question.

Sure. What happened to Michigan where they eliminated Biden? Couldn't they do this in response to this judge's opinion and knock him off the primary as well?

Well, here's the thing. The judge's decision in Illinois just affects Illinois. It does not affect another state.

But, you know, here's my answer to that. That would be ridiculous, too. That would be ridiculous that a judge could remove the Democratic nominee for President based on whatever the allegation is that thinks he's disqualified. It's not that is the 14th Amendment was designed to restrain the states during Reconstruction after the Civil War from doing things like interfering with elections, because they were concerned that southern senators being reelected would put in somebody, you know, in their electors or in their Congress that, you know, took up an oath against the United States. I don't want to get back into the whole breakdown of what we argued in the case, but it's not good for any system. That would be like Texas saying, you know what, we're getting invaded down here and we're not putting Biden on the ballot because we think he's he's causing an insurrection.

Right. And I think you saw that with even the liberal justices. When you if you listen to the 14th Amendment, our oral argument, you saw that even the liberal justices were saying this would be chaotic.

If you let someone like a hearing officer or a secretary of state in all of these states make a determination for the qualification of President, it would be complete chaos. And again, you had liberal justices arguing that point. I mean, his lawyers were not particularly helpful on the on that argument. I'm talking about the President's lawyers.

At the end of the day, I think we're winning. And I think they're going to say the President's not an officer of the United States because, as John Roberts has said, we don't elect officers. And that ends it.

But as she just pointed out, this is the example. I almost feel like if I knew this case was taken another week, you know what I'd file a supplemental brief. In fact, it may be worth doing it anyways, because this show and put the order. Do we have the order on the screen? We have it. I'm holding it in my hand.

No, that's not it. I'm at the that's all right. And I'd attach the order to this to the supplemental and say, hey, you know, Supreme Court, while you're debating this, another judge did a crazy. And this judge said he failed to meet the Section three disqualification provision. Thus, he's qualified.

But they say, no, he's not. So this is why you need a rule. You need to rule the right way because you got judges making these decisions and they don't even know what they're making.

And that's the real problem with all of this. So let's go ahead and take Victoria's call. Yeah, Victoria's College of North Carolina on line three. Hey, Victoria, welcome to secular. You're on the air.

Hi. I was wondering about President Trump filing for immunity in Eileen Cannon. Courtroom this past week. Is that going to affect it? There's not an immunity claim there right now.

Now, it would be interesting. I think the disposition of this case may impact that because there again, it's that is a records dispute. I think that case is moving much slower. And the case that's got the liability, in my view, for President Trump is the January six case, which I thought was very thin to begin with.

And there was never a charge of insurrection. And two of the accounts are up at the Supreme Court now on the whole issue of whether there is even a claim that there was interference with Congress, whether the statute was overbroad, restricting free speech. And, you know, Joe Biden needs to say to the Justice Department, you're killing me here.

That's what needs to be said. You're killing the presidency. Your position you're advocating subjects me, Joe Biden, to risk on January 20th at 1201 if I'm not the President of the United States. And even if I am in four years from now, if the next team's in and it's the Republicans and they want to do the same thing. That's the problem with this.

So if we put our partisan hat off and just look at this as Americans, this position is a disaster. And it's a very limited question and it's a very narrow question. And when you start studying that question, I break that. We broke that question down.

It tells you what it is. We're going to take your phone calls on any of these topics. 1-800-684-3110.

Yeah. If you got questions for us about what the Supreme Court did on the immunity case, if you've got questions about, again, the 14th Amendment case still hanging out there, the Georgia, what's going on there? Give us a call. 1-800-684-3110. You know what we're not hearing a lot about?

Hunter Biden. Remember we were supposed to get a transcript within 24 hours? We're less than 24 hours away. Well, tell us what you think what happened when we get back because I think that's interesting because we haven't hit the 24 hour mark. Some people thought they'd get it immediately.

I said I thought it was going to take 24 hours and it probably looks like it will now to actually get that. We'll take all those questions. 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Secchios. There's one thing we have not yet hit and that is, of course, yesterday we talked about the fact that Hunter Biden had finally come to an agreement, both Democrats, Republicans, and Hunter Biden's legal team on a deposition. It involved multiple committees, Judiciary Committee, Ways and Means, as well as the Government Reform and Affairs Committee. And instead of usually staff doing it, there's going to be a lot of members, and they said it would go on for hours. They usually do video. The decision was no video, but a transcript within, they hope, 24 hours.

Now, we're not within that yet because this went on for eight, nine hours. But there hasn't been much said about what was learned in the hearing. Should we play this for Matt Gaetz? Because this is Matt Gaetz, who is the toughest guy on this stuff. If there was a kernel of anything good, he'd be saying it.

Take a listen. There were a number of interesting moments, but perhaps none more interesting than when Hunter Biden told us that he joined the Burisma board to counter Russian aggression. I hadn't heard that one before. Thank goodness we had Hunter Biden on the Burisma board because that was central to his strategy to stand up to Vladimir Putin. Swing and a miss.

That's what this was. Swing and a miss. And I'm telling this to my Republican friends. Don't rely on — who was the lawyer that said, don't get so excited about this 1023? I'm not going to say — I'm not claiming the credit, but can we claim the credit? I said it on the air.

You kept warning people over and over and over again. The 1023 is nothing. It's a statement that somebody makes. It can be totally false.

Guess what? In that particular case, about Biden getting $10 million? You think it's so false it's criminal because that person was a paid informant with multiple international citizenships who also got paid by the FBI, and they've been arrested twice the last two weeks.

We have talked about the overreach issue that Democrats made on the impeachment, but the Republicans can be guilty of the same thing here if they're not very careful. And Hunter Biden answered eight hours' worth of questions. I told you, folks, he's got a great lawyer. Smart people get great lawyers. And Abby Lowell is a great lawyer and answered questions. And the takeaway is, if that is all Matt Gaetz has, I can imagine this was a swing and a miss.

The 1023, a swing and a miss. So let me tell — breaking news alert. According to our view, Joe Biden's being impeached for nothing. OK? He's not going to be impeached.

It didn't happen. So this is like a waste of taxpayer money in some sense. Well, and it makes you wonder, you know, what information are they relying on? Obviously, they think they have some information, but then when they, you know, do these interviews and questioning, it doesn't seem like the information they're getting pans out. So, you know, they just need to be smarter on the front end.

Yeah. I want to play something for you that I argue at the Supreme Court, because it's very germane to this. I warned the Supreme Court that if you don't have some type of immunity — we call it a temporary Presidential immunity — that any Presidents could be bantered about from north to south and east to west. Those weren't my — I said those words, but it was actually Thomas Jefferson. Let me — this is from the Supreme Court of the United States. New oral argument.

Here you go. Are you interested in whether or not you can point us to some express language at the founding or during the ratification process that provides for this immunity? Well, there's a couple. There was a colloquy between Vice President — ultimately Vice President Adams and Senator Ellsworth where they talked about process against the President, and they took the position that any process against the President would be constitutionally problematic. Thomas Jefferson, of course, wrote in the letters he had regarding subpoenas that were issued in the Burr trial that allowing local magistrates to bander about a sitting President from north to south and east to west would interfere with the President's responsibilities. And as this court just in the previous argument just stated, the burdensome nature of this is categorical. It's not — you can't just look at the one subpoena. It is the potential for 2,300 DAs or just 1 percent of them — 23 DAs issuing process against the President. But the concern over interference from our founding with the President's responsibilities was discussed, and that's why in the Constitution there's process to deal with it.

Which is exactly, basically, the same issue here. So let's go ahead and take some phone calls. Yeah, Ralph in Texas on Line 1. He's listening on radio. Hey, Ralph, welcome to Secular.

You're on the air. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. My question is, with them taking Trump and removing him from the ballots, how is that not like election interference on their part? I think we're going to get an answer from the Supreme Court soon that if you try to do that, it is.

It is, absolutely. I think it's right on election interference. I don't think you could get more intentional election interference than that. Taking a candidate — so the way the process works, the party nominates, right? So they run and there's a — in the primary they can't — varied candidates or a caucus. The idea that an individual or even a group of — even a board of election supervisors could then remove that candidate because they think there's been an insurrection, well, what is more interfering with an election than taking the leading candidate actually off the ballot? Right. You don't even get a chance to vote for him.

Right. So, I mean, if Colorado, for instance, would have stood and they put a provision in their opinion that said if we had filed a petition for — you're hearing search already a lot. That's a petition to request review. They said as long as we had it up there by January 4th, he would stay on the ballot.

But you still have this issue hanging out there. So we filed like December 27th, so that preserved the President's ability to be on the ballot. And then eventually President Trump's lawyers filed, so we filed, they filed. What's interesting with all of that, and I think, you know, apropos here, Jordan, is the fact that we are, though, three days from Super — three business days from Super Tuesday. Yeah, I mean — And there's no order yet from the Supreme Court, no opinion.

No, and I mean, I don't think that, again — I think we're going to win, but they need to get that opinion out tomorrow. Yes, because people would not want to — I mean, Trump's not being taken off of the Colorado ballot because there they stayed at pity of the Supreme Court, so even if it didn't come out, those votes are still there. But then people would worry about, like, retroactively — that's just — the Supreme Court does not need to let that happen. Early voting's basically done in most places.

Some go right up until the day before, but others have already stopped, like in our state, so we did a couple days ago. So I think this has got to come to, like, tomorrow or Monday, or else it's actually — it actually is a little bit of election interference by the Supreme Court. Yeah, absolutely, because you have it hanging. Because they decided to take the case, and they knew there was timing on it.

That's right. You have it hanging over your head. Is this person I'm going to vote for — is he going to be on the ballot still? Well, I think the cloud that it created — we said that in our brief — I think is significant enough that the court needs to rule before March 5th. Now, it's not, you know, that there's dissents or concurring opinions.

It can take longer, but it's time for that opinion to come out. This is an interesting comment by Andrew McCabe, who was the former deputy director of the FBI, because we had the question about how does it affect the documents case. I think even the left is recognizing this legal machine against Trump is crumbling against them.

But we, I mean, barely talked about Fawnee Willis, but let's go ahead and play the bite. If, as we — some of us think that this unlikely — with this decision today that we're unlikely to have this case tried before the election, you're basically looking at a 50-50 chance that either of these cases will ever go to trial. There you go. So the entire legal machine that was trying to interfere with an election is crumbling.

And then let's — I don't really — we've got 59 seconds here. Tomorrow's going to be the closing arguments in the disaster in Fulton — the fiasco in Fulton. That's what it is. The fiasco in Fulton County. An embarrassment for Fulton County, an embarrassment for the state of Georgia. It will be over tomorrow. It's not going to be over. That's just the closing arguments. But this is the prosecutors that are going after a former President of the United States and have indicted 19 other people. By the way, anybody that's pled, get your pleas revoked when this thing falls apart, because this one's falling apart too.

All right. Tomorrow I think we get the opinion, and who knows? Which is why, again, you want to definitely subscribe, whether you're watching on YouTube, Rumble, Facebook. If you're listening to the show on radio, join us again at that time. We're live noon to 1 Eastern time on all the social media outlets, wherever you want to watch us or listen to us, because, again, we've got breaking news constantly happening in these court cases. Fulton County, U.S. Supreme Court, affecting your vote and the next President of the United States.