← Verdict with Ted Cruz
Verdict with Ted Cruz
Trump WINS as NY $500M Judgement goes to ZERO plus DEM Registration Plummeting, Sen Eric Schmitt on Fighting the Left in Court & Biden Auto-Pen Scandal Gets Worse
00:35:13
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- [00:00]
iHeart Radio Announcer
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Travis Holloway
IHeart presents the big three playoffs this Sunday. The remaining four teams battle to make the championship in the most physical, fierce and competitive basketball league in the world. The action starts with the Big three Monster Energy Celebrity game, then Dwight Howard and his LA Riot take on Montrez Harrell and Dr. J Chicago triplets. The finale will see popular Miami 305 with stars MVP Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson take on Nancy Lieberman's Dallas power who will make it to the Big Three championship. The no holds barred action starts Sunday at 3P Eastern, 12 Pacific only on.
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Commercial Announcer
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iHeart Radio Announcer
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- [02:06]
Senator Ted Cruz
Oh hey.
- [02:06]
Ben Ferguson
Hey.
- [02:07]
iHeart Radio Announcer
Thanks for meeting me here. It's just you're my only lawyer friend and I need your professional opinion. You see that brand new Hyundai Tucson out there?
- [02:13]
Commercial Announcer
That's all I paid for.
- [02:14]
Senator Ted Cruz
Ah, let me get back to you on that deal.
- [02:16]
Ben Ferguson
So right it almost feels wrong. At the Hyundai Getaway sales event get 0% APR for 60 months plus 0 payments for 90 days on all Hyundai Santa Fe models. And check out our other great deals at your Hyundai dealer today.
- [02:29]
Senator Ted Cruz
Offer ends September 2nd.
- [02:31]
Ben Ferguson
Call 562-314-4603 for details.
- [02:35]
Rodney Williams
I'm Rodney Williams.
- [02:36]
Travis Holloway
And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the wealthbreak podcast, a real conversation about finance.
- [02:43]
Rodney Williams
Let's be honest, building wealth doesn't look the same for everyone.
- [02:47]
iHeart Radio Announcer
I feel like sometimes being broke is a cycle and that we might have.
- [02:51]
Travis Holloway
To revisit that and we're not stopping at success stories.
- [02:54]
Commercial Announcer
What happens when it doesn't go right? How do you cope with it?
- [02:58]
Rodney Williams
Because wealth isn't just about money. It's about creating a life where you thrive and help others do the same.
- [03:04]
Travis Holloway
Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
- [03:10]
Senator Ted Cruz
Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. And it's nice to have you with us wherever you're listening. Around the country. We have got a lot of news that has been breaking this week, including a major victory as a New York appeals court has thrown out that half a billion dollar penalty against Donald Trump, something that we predicted right here on this show.
- [03:30]
Ben Ferguson
Well, that's right. There's an enormous amount we're talking about today. But I want to say at the outset that this podcast is brought to you by Cracker Barrel. They don't have crackers. They don't have barrels. They hate you and your family. There's nothing that your values stand for that they stand for, but they are happy to be woke and erase their entire history, erase American exceptionalism. That, of course, is not true. For those of you who are hiring lawyers right now, that is what's known as parody. So that is not accurate. But I will say what is accurate is what Ben just said, that President Trump won a massive victory today in the New York Court of Appeals. The New York Court of Appeals, throughout the entirety, every penny of the $500 million judgment that the rabid partisan attorney general in New York, Letitia James, had gotten against President Trump. We're gonna break that down, explain to you exactly what happened. We're also going to talk about an amazing story that the New York Times broke about how Democrat Party registration is plummeting. It is plummeting everywhere, in every single state in the union that measures party registration. Democrat Party registration is dropping through the floor. We're going to give you those facts as well. We've also got a special guest on today's podcast. We've got my friend and colleague, Eric Schmidt, senator from Missouri. He's got A brand new book about fighting the Biden administration, fighting the left in court. We have a discussion about the strategies that work to fight the left wing woke lunatics. And finally we're going to talk about a story that broke as well about how the Biden Department of Justice raised serious legal questions from the auto pen in chief, serious questions about the pardons that Joe Biden's auto pen signed at the end of his presidency. We're going to talk about how those serious questions draw into real doubt, the legality of those auto pen pardons, all of that on today's verdict.
- [05:19]
Senator Ted Cruz
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- [07:33]
Ben Ferguson
Well, this podcast is covered at length the egregious lawfare that was waged against President Trump. He was indicted four times by rabid Democrat Mike prosecutors who wanted to stop the voters from doing what they in fact did in November of 2024, which is reelecting him as president. And then this case by Letitia James, another hard partisan who campaigned promising the Democrat primary voters, if you elected her, she would go after Donald Trump, which is, of course, an absolute abuse of the justice, the role of Attorney general, fair and impartial administration of the law. It is a weaponization of justice. And she, in a mockery of justice, the New York trial court issued an order that, as President Trump rightly pointed out, with interest and penalties, would be worth over $550 million. This was all for loans that President Trump and the Trump Organization took from very sophisticated global banks. And they claim that he overstated the value of his real estate. Now, mind you, there were no victims. Uh, the, the supposed aggrieved parties were giant banks who were perfectly capable of valuing real estate on their own. And they did value real estate on their own. They lost no money, not a penny. They said they were thrilled to do the loans and they would be eager to do more loans going forward. And yet the New York Attorney General said, you gotta pay $550 million. And, and the New York Appellate Division overturned it, and it reduced that penalty from $550 million to 0. $0.00. 0.00. It concluded that the disgorgement was an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment. This is exactly right. And this is what we predicted on this podcast. Look, one of the things about the verdict podcast is we make real predictions. We make predictions that are sometimes out there that are sometimes very few people are making. Early on, more than a year before the election last year, I predicted Joe Biden will not be the nominee. At the time this podcast was mocked, Ben and I were mocked for being crazy, tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists. That, of course, proved correct. I want you to listen to what we said a year ago predicting the result that just happened this week. Give a listen to what we said one year ago.
- [09:49]
Unidentified Legal Analyst
Letitia James, who is a left wing, partisan Democrat, she ran for office promising to get Donald Trump. That was her campaign promise. You elect me and I'm going after Donald Trump, I'm going to get him. So this was not a fair and objective application of the law. This was a political vendetta from day one.
- [10:09]
Senator Ted Cruz
Let me ask you this. How is that not against the law to run for office, saying that when you become what is supposed to be a steward of law and order, that you're actually running to lock up someone you disagree with politically? How is that legal in America today?
- [10:28]
Unidentified Legal Analyst
Well, I think that's going to be a very serious claim on appeal. And I think there is a significant chance this gets overturned on appeal, but that's going to take a long time. The prosecutor, on her honor, on her face, is not fair, is not impartial, but is engaged in a partisan political vendetta. She said that before she knew the facts of anything.
- [10:50]
Senator Ted Cruz
I mean, this was a while ago. This was February 19th of last year, like 2024. And when we said it, people were like, this is ridiculous.
- [11:00]
Ben Ferguson
Well, it is. And then we went back to it in March of 2024 and we talked about the specific legal claim that the New York Appellate court just addressed, and that was the Eighth Amendment, that it would, that it was an excessive fine. And when we come back in just a minute, we're going to play what, what we said in March of 2024, laying out the legal ground that just has been put in place to set aside this absolute abuse of power. Now, to be clear, this claim will go up on appeal. There's one other level of appeals up to the New York Court of Appeals, the top appellate court in New York. And so it's possible the New York appellate courts reverse it yet again. I don't think they will. And I think if they did, it would go to the Supreme Court and be reversed once again. So one way or another, this order is not going to go into effect. Donald Trump is not going to have to pay a half billion dollars. Today is a day for celebration because the New York courts actually did their job and they corrected a grotesque injustice from an abusive district judge in New York.
- [12:00]
Senator Ted Cruz
I want to take you back to March 23rd of 2024, and I want you to hear what we had to say about this case on this show.
- [12:07]
Unidentified Legal Analyst
The impact if Trump is not able to post this bond, the effect would be to deny him the right to even appeal the absurd partisan decision from the, from the district court. I got to say this is, is, is such a profound abuse. Now, that doesn't mean Trump would be out of options. Because if the New York courts insist.
- [12:29]
Ben Ferguson
You got to put up a half.
- [12:30]
Unidentified Legal Analyst
Billion dollars in order to appeal this decision, I am confident that Trump will appeal that and potentially appeal that all the way to the U.S. supreme Court and the U.S. supreme Court. He would have multiple arguments, constitutional arguments, including the Constitution, prohibits denying an individual depriving an individual of property without due process of law. And there would be an argument that this is such an excessive bond that it constitutes a violation of due process. He would also have an argument under the Eighth Amendment. The Eighth Amendment specifies excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. Now, the Eighth Amendment typically applies in a criminal context, but given the magnitude here, I would expect him to make both an Eighth Amendment argument and a due process argument. And it is entirely possible that would prevail ultimately. But what New York is doing, what the New York Attorney General is doing, is the conduct of a banana republic.
- [13:39]
Senator Ted Cruz
Conduct of a banana republic. It doesn't sound crazy now at all. Even though others said it was.
- [13:46]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah. Look, and I want to say I'm glad that the New York appellate courts actually did their job. They followed the rule of law. The ground that I predicted in March of last year of excessive fines is exactly the ground on which they set it aside. And I got to say, Letitia James put out a statement today that I found side splitting funny. She said her statement today, she said, quote, the first department today affirmed the well supported finding of the trial court. Donald Trump, his company and two of his children are liable for fraud. The court upheld the injunctive relief. We won, limiting Donald Trump and the Trump Organization's officers ability to do business in New York. It should not be lost to history. Yet another court has ruled that the President has violated the law and that our case has merit. We will seek appeal to the Court of Appeals and continue to protect the rights and interest of New Yorkers. So she's celebrating that they said our case has merit, other than the fact that they took the fine from $550 million to zero. That's an awfully weird decision to celebrate as a victory. This was a crushing loss for Letitia James. It was an enormous victory for President Trump and it was an enormous victory for the rule of law. And by the way, ironically, it was an enormous victory for the State of New York, because I gotta say, if this had been upheld, you would have seen a significant exodus of businesses being willing to do business in New York. Because if the Attorney general could simply go after any business and shake them down for hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, a whole lot of people would say, this is not a place I could do business. And so this week's decision is cause for celebration.
- [15:21]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, it really is. And this brings us to another story that I think ties in perfectly. Democrats are losing support and they're now facing a voter registration crisis. Democrats are facing a crisis as more than 2 million voters leave the party in just a four year based on data and analysis coming from the New York Post, also New York Times reporting on this, several others. I go back to Letitia James, a great example of this. When you go rogue and you try to destroy people's lives and you go after Donald Trump the way you did, and you use lawfare, uh, and, and all that we now know about, you know, the, the, the deep state and the corruption, it's a great way to make people say, maybe I don't want to be involved in this party.
- [16:06]
Ben Ferguson
Well, Ben, look, you, you, you're just a right wing partisan. Obviously you're saying things that, that, that, that, that favor one side of the political aisle. But, but why should anyone trust you? It's not like anyone else is saying this. Oh, wait, wait. Here is the New York Times. Not, not, not exactly a right wing part. Let me just read from the New York Times this week. Here's the headline. The Democratic Party faces a voter registration crisis. The party is bleeding support beyond the ballot box, a new analysis shows. And here's what the New York Times writes in the body of the article. The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters long before they even go to the polls. Of the 30 states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the 2020 and 2024 elections, and often by a lot. That four year swing towards the Republicans adds up to 4.5 million voters. A deep political hole that could take years for the Democrats to climb out from. The stampede. That's the word that the New York Times is using. The stampede away from the Democratic Party is occurring in battleground states, the bluest states, and the red estates too, according to a new analysis of voter registration data by the New York Times. The analysis used voter registration Data compiled by L2, a nonpartisan data firm. This is stunning. All told, this is again reading from the New York Times. Democrats lost about 2.1 million registered voters between 2020 and the 2024 elections in the 30 states along with Washington D.C. that allow people to register with the political party. Republicans gained 2.4 million. That says an enormous amount that the Democrats are in crisis, that even the New York Times is saying so. And I gotta say, I don't know a single one of my colleagues in the Senate, the Democrat colleagues, who is asking why? Why is it that so many people are running away from our disastrous policies? The Democrats continue to embrace those policies and I think as long as they do, you're going to continue to see this and you're going to see it even accelerate.
- [18:21]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, it's going to accelerate. And I also think part of this is the Democratic Party has let the extremists really come in and take over and now there's an identity crisis. Are we Marxists? Are we socialists? Are we Communists? The old Democratic Party is dead. Is that the feeling in Washington, D.C. around your colleagues as well? Are they concerned?
- [18:39]
Ben Ferguson
Well, no, not among the Democrats. Look, the Democrats seemed oblivious. Oblivious. Here's a quote from the New York Times Quote I don't want to say the death cycle of the Democratic Party, but there seems to be no end to this, said Michael Pruser, who tracks voter registration closely as the director of data science for Decision Desk hq. And it points out that the party saw some of its steepest declines in registration among men and younger voters, two constituencies that sharply swung towards Mr. Trump. At the end of the day, this is not complicated when you embrace policies that are a failure, that cause inflation, that open borders, that threaten your families. And when you take every 80, 20 issue in America and the Democrat Party says we'll take the 20, people run away from your party as extreme and out of touch.
- [19:24]
Travis Holloway
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- [21:23]
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- [22:21]
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Ben Ferguson
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- [23:58]
iHeart Radio Announcer
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- [24:29]
Senator Ted Cruz
One of the fun things about what you do is you've got colleagues that you know well and from time to time great books are written and one of your colleagues, Senator Eric Schmidt from Missouri is with us right now and he's got a new book out.
- [24:43]
Ben Ferguson
Well we're glad to welcome Eric Schmidt to the podcast. He has a brand new book. It is entitled the Last Line of Defense how to Beat the Left in Court. And Eric is a good friend. Before he was in the Senate, he was the Attorney General of Missouri and he was a warrior. He was a warrior taking on the Biden administration, taking on big tech, taking on the radical left and he built a very strong record as Attorney General and that's the record he campaigned for Senate on. And when Eric launched his campaign for Senate. I endorsed him early on and came to Missouri, campaigned alongside him. He ran a fantastic campaign. He won decisively. And now he's a colleague of mine on the Commerce Committee and on the Judiciary Committee. So we spend a lot of time together. We have similar passions. Eric, welcome to Verdict.
- [25:30]
Senator Eric Schmidt
It's great to be with you guys. Thanks for having me on.
- [25:32]
Ben Ferguson
All right, so tell us about the book. You have a brand new book, the Last Line of How to Beat the Left in Court. Tell us why you wrote it and why folks want to go out and buy it.
- [25:42]
Senator Eric Schmidt
Well, yeah, it's really kind of a field manual from the front lines of this battle against the left wing lawfare machine that I saw front and center in my time as Missouri attorney general. And I know that we're kind of on the other side of the fever dream, guys. After President Trump delivered this historic victory, we've got all these wins we're celebrating. But if you go back, if you take that DeLorean back in time, just a few years, it was a time of lockdowns and compulsory Covid shots and, you know, open borders and DEI struggle sessions and ESG requirements and a censorship enterprise that was so vast, I think it was the biggest affront to the First Amendment we've seen in our nation's history. So when I was ag, we stood up and we fought back. We took the COVID vaccine mandate all the way to the Supreme Court and we won. We took the student loan debt forgiveness case all the way to the Supreme Court and we won. We filed Missouri versus Biden, and we uncovered this vast censorship enterprise. We took the deposition of Fauci. We took the deposition of Elvis Chan, who was Pre bunking the 100 Biden laptop story for the FBI. We took on mask mandates at local schools. We pushed back against ESG requirements, went after local school districts for their, for their crt. So we were in the middle of the arena and I wanted to write the book because there's a lot of lessons learned here. We want we stood up, we fought back, and we won. And it's a playbook. It's a playbook moving forward. This isn't the last time we're going to see that from the left. In fact, they're kind of engaged in law right now. So anyway, there's a lot to learn here and I think the readers or your listeners will get a lot from it, from these sort of behind the scenes stories of how it took place.
- [27:10]
Ben Ferguson
Good. Let's talk about several of the topics that you dove into. Let's talk about Anthony Fauci, and you talked about taking his deposition. Tell us what you learned. And I have said many times, Anthony Fauci is the most damaging bureaucrat to have ever lived. I think you've said very much the same thing. But tell us about that deposition and what you learned.
- [27:30]
Senator Eric Schmidt
Yeah. So this took place in November of 2022, just after I was elected to the U.S. senate. And one of the key things that you'll appreciate this, one of the things that we talked about in the last line of defense you can order on Amazon right now is that we sought discovery before the injunction. Typically, with these cases, you seek an injunction to get the government to stop doing what they're doing. We sought discovery first. We knew it would get a lot of attention. As far as the case everybody labeled a conspiracy theory that conservatives were actually being throttled and deplatformed. We knew it was true. So we got to take the deposition of Foushee, comes in the room. Fun little story. Jeff Landry, who's my colleague from Louisiana, had the RFK junior's the real Anthony Foushee book on the middle of the table as you walked in. I'm sure she did not find that very humorous, but it kind of set the stage, set the stage for the day we went through. And what's, what was really interesting about it was he said, I can't recall, 174 times sort of simultaneously as declaring he was the science, he didn't like to be challenged. And as those like, what kind of.
- [28:31]
Ben Ferguson
Things could he not recall? What was he, what, what kind of questions was he dodging?
- [28:36]
Senator Eric Schmidt
So we initially started with, where did this virus come from? And, you know, he was very adamant that it couldn't have come from the Wuhan lab. Right. Because he kind of funded the EcoHealth alliance to fund the Wuhan lab. He knew it would come back to him. So he's very interested in making sure people didn't think that. And then when he was confronted with statements, Isaac. Well, no, it's a plausible theory. I suppose he was kind of vasilic. I don't remember saying that he discredited Ted. Anybody that challenged him on whether it was the lab leak theory or masks, we presented him with an email and we asked him if masks were effective. And of course he said, yes, of course they're effective. And we present him with an email early in 2020 where a friend asked him, hey, I'm on this flight, you know, do you think I should wear a mask? He said, no, no, no, masks aren't effective for this. He was just caught in inconsistency after inconsistency. I think probably the most telling thing, honestly, we came back from a lunch break and the court reporter sneezed. And he turned to the court reporter, this is in November of 2022, not April of 2020, and demanded that she put a mask on. This was the guy in charge of our public health.
- [29:35]
Ben Ferguson
Are you kidding me?
- [29:36]
Senator Eric Schmidt
It's totally insane. And so I think that those are the kind of insights that I think people will get from the last line of defense. It's just fascinating but terrifying at the same time. So.
- [29:47]
Ben Ferguson
Well, and I will say this podcast, when Covid, when the pandemic began in 2020, this podcast in March and April of 2020 was laying out chapter and verse. The evidence that was clear even then that the COVID virus originated in a Chinese government lab, I think likely the Wuhan Institute for Virology. We laid out the facts and while it was being censored virtually everywhere else. Verdict listeners had those facts right at the beginning. Now, your most significant case was challenging Internet censorship and big tech censorship. Tell us about that case. Tell us the facts you found and tell us what happened.
- [30:25]
Senator Eric Schmidt
Yeah, and I actually say to Ted, one of the things that we note in the book, we sued the communist China for unleashing the COVID pandemic on the world through that Wuhan lab. And Missouri has a $24 billion judgment now. So that's just as an aside that's also in the book. Wow. Yes. The Missouri vs Biden lawsuit, you know, we saw.
- [30:44]
Ben Ferguson
Well, Eric, I for one, I'm looking forward to when you own the Great Wall of China. I think it's going to be a nice wall. And you know, folks from Missouri, a little redneck. So I'm not sure what you're going to paint on the Great Wall of.
- [30:54]
Senator Ted Cruz
China, but pay over there, no problem. Right.
- [30:57]
Senator Eric Schmidt
Well, we'll have to move that over to separate Missouri from Kansas. Roger Marshall will be very disappointed. I'm sure we sees it.
- [31:05]
Ben Ferguson
By the way, Ben is from Memphis. So it's not hard for a Memphis guy to talk crap about Missouri, but feel free to pop back hard at him.
- [31:15]
Senator Eric Schmidt
But yeah, listen, Jen Psaki saying we're flagging stuff for Facebook. They started this disinformation governance board. We had a hunch, we filed the lawsuit. We got discovery first in that lawsuit. And again, what we found was just shocking. These secret portals between high ranking government officials and big tech giants. Take this down. The CDC was Telling them words and phrases. Specifically, we took the depth of Elvis Chan, the FBI guy who again was pre bunking the Hunter Biden laptop story. They knew it was real in 2019, and in 2020 they're telling them, hey, censor this because it's not real. And that was verified by Yule Roth, who worked at Twitter. There's just reams and reams of documents.
- [31:53]
Ben Ferguson
So the FBI was lying and they knew they were lying.
- [31:56]
Senator Eric Schmidt
They absolutely knew they were lying. And it was the first time anybody had him under oath to prove it. And so this wasn't Ted. This was a leviathan of government agencies aimed at the American people, meant to censor conservatives who questioned mass or efficacy of vaccines or the 2020 election or the Hunter Biden laptop. We got to make sure that never happens again. So this book, I mean alliance share. Honestly, the middle chapters are really dedicated to protecting free speech, exposing the censorship regime that existed. And I'm proud to have stood up for that. And we had some big wins along the way. But this is the last line of defense. How to beat the left in court. You can order it now is really a playbook and it's war stories. Yes, but it's a playbook for the future too.
- [32:37]
Ben Ferguson
All right, talk to us about DEI and esg, because you also, as AG in Missouri, we're fighting against both of those and making a real difference.
- [32:46]
Senator Eric Schmidt
Yeah, as attorney General, you have subpoena power. And when we saw what was happening with ESG and this net zero banking alliance which was really kind of really go after credit worthy applicants because they had a portfolio of fossil fuels or whatever these banks wanted to, they decided that by 2050 they were going to have a portfolio that was carbon neutral. Well, the only way you do that, Ted, is that you basically start denying credit worthy applicants loans, including the family farmer, because they have diesel trucks. So we opened this up. We had a suspicion this was violated antitrust. We opened up this investigation. Ultimately they backed away. And again, it takes courage to go do that. These are some powerful interests. But what you find out when you do it, you can be really proud of it and you can win. Same with dei, not only in corporate America, but what we found in school districts. So we were taking on, obviously the Biden administration, the censorship regime at the highest levels of government, but also the local school superintendent in Springfield, Missouri, we uncovered documents, we had a hunch, we got a tip from a whistleblower that they were, you know, spewing this poison or kids, teachers and staff. Turns out they were, you know, engaged in things like the gender unicorn and the pyramid of oppression and all this nonsense to divide the classroom by race. Other school districts then chimed in, once we started finding out this out across Missouri, this is in Missouri now, that kids were being forced to do the privilege walk. I mean, this is nuts. So, but again, what we have to do, Ted, you've been it. You've done this your whole career. We have to have the courage to stand up and fight. And we can't see the courtroom to that. So this book isn't written for lawyers. It's written for people who are seeing this. And how does this all kind of come together? And what can we do to push back?
- [34:26]
Ben Ferguson
The court is a major battleground. And I will say there are lessons in this book that I think are really useful for the Trump doj, including using discovery, make the facts public, shine a light, get them under oath, hold them accountable, be aggressive, speak the truth, don't be afraid. The book is called the Last Line of How to Beat the Left in Court. It's by my friend Eric Schmidt, senator from the great state of Missouri. You can get it on Amazon. You can get it anywhere books are sold. So go buy the last line of defense. And Eric, thanks for joining us here on verdict.
- [34:56]
Senator Eric Schmidt
Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
- [34:58]
Senator Ted Cruz
One other big story we got to get in here, Senator, is Biden's auto pin. We've got a new big update on this story. And apparently Joe Biden deliberately ignored his own Department of Justice's warnings over legally flawed auto pin pardons. And we also found out about how many pardons they were giving out. And they claimed from the White House podium that these are all nonviolent offenders. That was also a huge lie.
- [35:27]
Ben Ferguson
Well, that's right. And I will say this is the sort of story why we do Verdict as a podcast, why we do it as a radio show. Because this is the kind of story you will never see on cnn. You won't see it on MSNBC or abc, NBC, cbs. It will not be covered by the corporate media because it is inconvenient. We have talked about at length the problems with Joe Biden's auto pen that the president does not have the authority to delegate presidential power to another staff member. And when it comes to an auto pen, the critical question whether a statute signed in law by an auto pen, an executive order signed by an auto pen, or a pardon or commutation signed by an auto pen, the critical question for whether it is legally valid is whether the president personally and directly authorized it, whether the President made the decision. If it's a staffer who made the decision, it is not valid and is legally void. Well, what broke is recently is this week is is that at the time that Joe Biden was using the auto pen, or rather the White House staffers were using the auto pen, a senior career staffer in the Biden Department of Justice was raising real legal questions about it. Here's the story on Fox News headline Biden's Auto Pen Pardons Disturbed DOJ Brass Doc Show Raising questions whether they are Legally binding New documents and communications between Biden White House staff and career officials at the Justice Department prompted scrutiny of the legality of of former President Joe Biden's thousands of last minute pardons. The Oversight Oversight Project shared documents obtained from the Trump DOJ with Fox News Digital showing that a career prosecutor warned Biden's inner circle that the administration's pardon process was unorthodox and legally troubling. In the most scrutinized email, then Assistant Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer wrote a group email to several executive office staff members on January 18th asking questions about the more than 2,500 pardons. Quote, the White House has described those who received commutations as people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. I think you should stop saying that because it is untrue or at least misleading. That's what DOJ said to the Biden White House. Mind you, they didn't stop it. They continued to be untrue and misleading. He continued, quote, as you know, even with the exceedingly limited review we were permitted to do of the individuals we believed you might be considering for commutation action, we initially identified 19 that were highly problematic. He continued, he cited convicts Terrence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne, who were included in the clemency grants and noted that the DOJ received voluminous objections from the victims families and law enforcement as the men had been sentenced to life imprisonment for drug trafficking offenses during which a police officer was killed. Mind you, this is what the Biden White House said was a nonviolent offense, drug trafficking where a police officer was killed and beyond that, according to Oversight Project Vice President Kyle Brosnan shows that DOJ was concerned about the, quote, vague construct of Biden's pardons and how they appeared to be, quote, illegally delegated to staff. That left the DOJ wondering at times which offenses for people with multiple convictions were specifically being expunged. Later in the email he was like, quote, look, I read the statement you put out in the President's name saying you've released a bunch of nonviolent drug offenders. You've got murderers on your list today. So I'm trying to figure out what the President wants here for this funky warrant.
- [39:13]
Senator Ted Cruz
That is incredible, isn't it? I mean, funky warrant. And that's coming again from his own DOJ saying, we don't know what he wants, we don't know what he's doing. It doesn't make sense.
- [39:23]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, this is the Biden doj. Weinsheimer continued, quote, I think it is best that we receive a statement or direction from the President as to the meaning of the warrant, language that will allow us to give full effect to the commutation warrant in the manner intended by the President. And there was ultimately no, no explanation for what the offenses or the, or the proverbial descriptions were according to document tranche. And instead there was simply a spreadsheet of convicts attached to one of the emails that came from the U.S. sentencing Commission. But only the President has the power to grant pardons, not the Sentencing Commission. Treating it otherwise would be an illegal delegation of presidential authority.
- [40:06]
Senator Ted Cruz
When you look at this, what does this mean moving forward for the investigation into the President's use the auto pin and many things he may have signed that he didn't know about. Right. This was just anybody at the White House pretty much that had any type of power could just walk in there and get things done. And what does this mean for all of the. They claimed non violent offenders that they were, they were pardoning. We've also found out a bunch of them very violent. It was a lie.
- [40:34]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, it was a lie. They knew it was a lie. Their own Department of Justice told them it was a lie. They didn't care it was a lie. They continued lying to the American people. They knew that the New York Times would never call them out. They knew that the corrupt media would never call them out. So they could lie and lie and lie and know that no, nobody would know about it. And, and as a legal matter, the, the Brosnan from the Oversight Project said, quote, biden did not pardon individual people, but laid out categories of types of people to release and left it to staff to figure out who meets that criteria. Attorney Sam Dewey told Fox News Digital that, quote, literally no one, including DOJ officials understands what the aforementioned pardon criteria are. And he continued, quote, you generally don't see people write emails like this. This isn't a cya. This is I'm going to do a Pontius pilot routine because this is a drug deal and I want to make sure it doesn't come back on me. And the consequence of that is that the pardons, if they were not authorized by the President of the United States, they are invalid. And so what I have urged the White House to do, what I've urged the Department of Justice to do, is to go through the records of everything that was auto penned and determine there may be some the President does have the authority to direct someone to auto pen something that he's signing, whether a law or an executive order or pardon. And if it's the President who's making the decision, the prevailing Department of Justice interpretation is that is legal and binding. But if the President didn't make the decision, if it's a staffer who's making the decision, then it has no binding force. And so what I've encouraged both the White House and the Department of Justice, is to find those pardons, those executive orders, those statutes that were auto penned for which there is a clear lack of evidence that Joe Biden had awareness of it, made a decision about it, and then formulate and carry out a legal strategy to challenge and end up concluding that those statutes, executive orders, pardons and commutations are invalid. I think the possibility of a legal determination of that is rising significantly. And the fact that you had senior career DOJ officials in the Biden administration ringing the alarm bells and saying you're lying to the American people and what you're doing is lawless. That is yet another stunning revelation that has come out this week.
- [43:00]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah. And it's going to be a story that's going to keep unfolding and I can promise you we're going to cover it for you. Don't forget, we do this show as a podcast Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So make sure you hit that subscriber auto download button wherever you get your podcast. Also, you can say, hey Siri. Hey Alexa. Play Verdict with Ted Cruz and it will do it for you and the center. I will see you back here on this station next week.
- [43:26]
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- [45:26]
Rodney Williams
I'm Rodney Williams.
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Travis Holloway
And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the wealthbreak Podcast, a real conversation about finance.
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Rodney Williams
Let's be honest, building wealth doesn't look the same for everyone.
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I feel like sometimes being broke is a cycle and that we might have.
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Travis Holloway
To revisit that and we're not stopping at success stories.
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What happens when it doesn't go right? How do you cope with it?
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Rodney Williams
Because wealth isn't just about money. It's about creating a life where you thrive and help others do the same.
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Travis Holloway
Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
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