In this episode of Sekulow, the team delves into a shocking revelation that the FBI, under the guidance of Special Counsel Jack Smith, was spying on eight U.S. Senators and one congressman—all Republicans. This breach was brought to light by Chairman Grassley through documents released by the FBI. The show was packed with experts discussing the implications, including Jay Sekulow and Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, who broke down the legal ramifications and what this means for democracy and privacy rights in America.
SPEAKER 09 :
Today on Sekulow, we have breaking news as the FBI reveals that Jack Smith was spying on U.S. Senators.
SPEAKER 08 :
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…
SPEAKER 09 :
welcome to seculo we’ve got big news today as it was revealed by chairman grassley who was given documents by the fbi that show that the special counsel jack smith was spying on u.s senators there were eight u.s senators and one u.s congressman all republicans no surprise there but had gotten all their phone records from a certain period of time. And we’re going to get into all that. We’ve got a jam-packed show today. We have Jordan Sekulow in studio with me. Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, will be joining us in the next segment. And then Senator Bill Hagerty from Tennessee, who was one of the targets. of jack smith spying will be joining us later in the broadcast so make sure you share this broadcast you click like on this broadcast we want as many people to see this because it is breathtaking what the fbi and jack smith were doing under the biden administration but before we get to that i also want to point out today marks the two-year memorial of the october 7th attacks by hamas on the people of Israel. And that war is still going on. We talked yesterday about the hope that we maybe have for some sort of resolution with this plan that President Trump put forward. And I’m sure we’ll be getting into that later in the week. But we can’t forget the savagery that was unleashed on innocent people in Israel two years ago today. And so as you go throughout your day, remember what Israel is fighting for. They are fighting for their survival because Hamas attempted a genocide that day against the Jewish people and they killed innocent men, women, and children. only because they were Jewish, only because they were Israeli. So we aren’t going to spend a ton of time on that today, Jordan, but we need to remind people that that war is still going on and we do not want to forget that on this day.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, that war is still going on. Israelis are still being killed. Hamas is still active, though not as active as it once was. And the Palestinian people have a peace plan on the table backed by the Arab Muslim world. So that would benefit all Palestinians, including Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian Christians. It would be life-changing. And Hamas has accepted most of those terms. Now, it’s Hamas. We know. We’re not naive here. Hamas accepting terms kind of gets you 25% of the way there at best because they didn’t outright just reject it. But it’s 75% of the way to see if they actually will go along with the rest of this plan. But what is great about this plan, just two years later, is that it is not Israel who will have to ultimately secure the Gaza Strip and rid it of the remnants of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terror groups, but it will be a joint coalition of Arab nations who will replace Israel At a certain time, based on the agreement, Israel will pull out of the Gaza Strip. They will work with that joint group. But then ultimately, it will be Arab Muslims predominantly policing and securing other Arab Muslims. So you can’t say this is Israel occupying the Gaza Strip or Israel killing Palestinians. I’m sure there will be violence. because it will be a military force that is set up. But it will be a military force of those who want to protect the innocents inside places like the Gaza Strip, those that we’ve represented before. And so again, just two years later, never forget the memories, And the people who were lost on October 7th and those hostages whose bodies haven’t been returned to their families and those hostages who are still living under torment today. That they are hopefully, we pray, one step closer to being released.
SPEAKER 09 :
And when we get back, Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, will be joining us to talk about this. This is shocking, folks. In some ways, it’s not shocking, though, because of who the perpetrators of this were. But we also will be playing sound from the attorney general who was before the Senate, before many of those people that were spied on by Jack Smith. And we’ll get to that later in the broadcast as well. Go ahead and share this broadcast and support us at ACLJ.org. Back to Sekulow. Will Haynes here. Jordan Sekulow in studio with me. And we have Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice on the line. We’re talking about this Operation Arctic Frost, the investigation by the FBI, which predated Jack Smith, but then Jack Smith took over when he became the special counsel. And this shocking revelation that that was released through Senator Grassley, Chairman Grassley, and by the FBI as they’ve been looking into these investigations that happened under the previous administration. And what we find out is that the FBI targeted eight U.S. Senators and one member of the House of Representatives by requesting over two years after The phone records, they call it toll data, which would be the locations, the durations of calls, and who the senator was calling from their cell phones. to get information as a part of this Arctic Frost investigation that Jack Smith was heading up as special counsel. I want to go right now to Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow. And just right off the bat, when this news came out yesterday, what was your first reaction when you heard what the special counsel was doing in targeting these U.S. senators?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, listen, I think this is, you talk about an outrage. I mean, I want everybody to put this into a context. Could you imagine if it was a different situation and it was the Department of Justice under President Trump spying on six Democratic senators, what the reaction would be? I mean, let’s just think about that for a moment. Now take a step back. Why in the world did Jack Smith try to get the records, phone records, of a co-equal branch of government Six or five senators and a member of the House of Representatives. For what purpose? Now, he targets this around the January 6th time because he was concerned that maybe these senators were ones that voted, were going to vote not to certify. Let’s assume that was true just for the sake of argument. You know what the answer to that is? So what? You’re the special counsel. You’re not the, you know, the governor of the elections. and a sitting u.s senator can vote any way they want they’re elected and if you don’t like the way they vote you vote for somebody else but this action by jack smith i think just typifies what was going on with the weaponization of the department of justice and i’ll tell you who needs to be held accountable here jack smith and we i asked our team yesterday to start a process of We’ll start with a FOIA, Free Remembrance Act request to find out exactly whose idea Arctic Cross was and what they were up to. But this should be sending shockwaves to members of Congress, Republican and Democrats, that a special counsel was going after them.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, well, Dad, what’s also not shocking about this but illuminating is that what’s redacted from the memo that was given to Chairman Grassley, of course, was the special agents at the FBI who signed off on this program, who signed off on this investigation to Jack Smith’s team. But I want you to walk through this. This means that Jack Smith’s team went to a court To get a warrant so they could obtain this data from phone companies. And then you look at constitutional protections that we all have, including U.S. senators, like the Fourth Amendment. I mean, what? That there were probable cause that they were engaged in a crime?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, look, I mean, not just the Fourth Amendment. I mean, the Fourth Amendment certainly is one of them. But, you know, the speech and debate costs. of the Constitution protects members in their official act, even if you disagree with their vote. But I mean, Jordan, you bring up a great point. This idea that you have a situation where, just think about this more, the Department of Justice lawyers point to a judge and say, we need these records. Now, was it a FISA judge? Was it a district court judge? Don’t know the details of that yet. But the point of the matter is, why are we shocked? This is the same Department of Justice at the time that went into the FISA court and falsified emails to get a warrant, signed off on, by the way, agreed to by James Comey and Andrew McCabe and others. So this is just part and parcel of a much, much deeper problem.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and when you also look at the timeline of how this investigation even unfolded, where, you know, the Department of Justice under Joe Biden didn’t do anything for the first almost year and a half until they launched this Arctic frost, but only April of 2022. And then they didn’t appoint Jack Smith until November of 2022, right before the election season started to really get underway as you start to look at primaries and things of that nature. And then President Trump was indicted June 8th of 2023. right ahead of the election. These records weren’t requested by Jack Smith and his team until September 27th of 2023, just under a year from an election. And you start to wonder, When it’s only Republican senators being targeted, obviously with the nature of that, that you would expect that that is what would happen because it was a politically motivated investigation. But you start to really question even more election interference when not only are you going after the person running for president, but also members of Congress that are against the party that was in power at the time. It raises a lot of questions about what the political motivations were.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, let me know what the political motivations were. I mean, let’s be realistic. This whole scam was put on the American people. We paid for this. Our taxpayer dollars paid for all this. And what was the end result? The end result appears to be six senators had their phone records subpoenaed by a special counsel to find out who they were talking to. I mean, you know, who they were talking to. I mean, think about this for a moment. These are the people you elected. And if you’ve got now a Department of Justice that had a special counsel’s office set up. By the way, Jack Smith could have said, we’re not going to use that information. We’re not going to continue this. We’re not going to look at this. That’s not the point. The point is they did. And the point is they did this. I mean, the thing that has to be underscored here, this wasn’t some thought maybe we should do this. They actually did this. But it’s no different. I go back to the IRS Tea Party scandal. Remember that one we litigated for several years, had a great victory in? Look at the targeting there. Remember those emails between Lois Lerner and some of the others where they said things like, hey, if we can bring one criminal case, we can shut all this down. Maybe we can get DOJ to chill this down. I mean, this was the way in which they were operating. And I think, look, what’s happening now is it’s coming to light because there’s new leadership in the Department of Justice, great leadership under Pam Bondi. And we’re going to find out. But unfortunately, there’s going to be more of this. That’s the thing I really hate. There’s going to be more of this.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I mean, what’s also interesting here is not only do we kind of already expect this kind of behavior out of the FBI during this time period, but the judges, federal judges who are an independent branch of government, dad, were rubber stamping this for them. Rubber stamping, tracking data, who senators are talking to, where they’re located. Just give us names and we’ll give you the warrant to get the information.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I mean, I’d like to know what in the world these judges were thinking, like you said, that they would think it was appropriate to get phone records and information from phone companies on members of the United States Senate, some of which who serve on very significant committees. And then the judges thought that was okay too. But look, if you look at the, I’ll never forget this, the lawyer that mishandled and then changed an email and filed a false document with the court. The FISA court ends up getting suspended from the practice of law for six months, and he’s back to practicing law now. It’s outrageous. And it’s just, we’re now going to get to this. We said you got to have patience, and we’ve instructed our team to start the work to get to the bottom. We’re going to get to the bottom of Operation Arctic Frost. We’re going to thaw it out.
SPEAKER 07 :
Folks, we want to take your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. One of the senators who was targeted here, Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, will be joining us live in the midst of all of the shutdown talks and negotiations going on in Washington, D.C. as his name gets splashed around in this and comes about. So we’ll talk to him about that in the second half hour. But we have time to take your calls at 1-800-684-3110 in this first half hour and in the second half hour of the broadcast. So give us a call. Because, Dad, I mean, I ended on this. I mean… Listen, if this can happen to a U.S. Senator and a federal judge will rubber stamp this, you, me, anybody listening or watching this show and podcast, however they’re getting this information from us today, then they wouldn’t even pause to give a warrant to the FBI for their information for ours.
SPEAKER 05 :
100%. That’s a chilling effect of all of this. And that’s why I think what we need to do now that it’s been uncovered is now we go to work. That’s why the support that our members and our ACLJ champions give the ACLJ is so significant. We need to encourage to do that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, absolutely. And folks, we encourage you to do that today at ACLJ.org. If you’re not already a monthly supporter of the ACLJ, join the fight. and become an ACLJ champion at aclj.org slash champions. It is a great day. As you said, I was already talking about this with my dad last night about how ACLJ can get involved and the multiple ways we can get involved to uncover this because usually when you get this information, it’s just the beginning. And this is yet another investigation that we need to peel back the layers of the onion on. Go to ACLJ.org, support our work financially. This isn’t easy work. It isn’t one person who can do this. It requires teams of experts, both attorneys and government affairs, to put this together, to work with those senators, to work with, to make sure we’re filing the right documents to get the correct information as quickly as possible. So go to ACLJ.org, support our work today. And if you can become one of those champions, those monthly donors, pick an amount that’s comfortable for you. Go to ACLJ.org slash champions. And if you call into the broadcast at 1-800-684-3110, let us know if you’re a champion and we’ll move you to the front of the line.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to Seculo. We are still going over this information that came out yesterday. It was released by Chairman Grassley of the Senate Oversight Committee, as well as by the FBI, who gave the document to Senator Grassley and then also simultaneously released it. This comes at a time where we know the FBI is looking at a lot of the activity under the previous leadership of the FBI, under Christopher Wray, as well as what the Department of Justice was doing with special counsels and things of that nature when it comes to politically motivated investigations and who they were going after. And the saddest part about this is that none of these things are shocking in the way that they should be. They’re shocking because it should never happen in America again. But you sit there and go, well, of course they were doing this. Of course they were getting the phone records of sitting senators because their respect for the rule of law did not exist. And we saw that with every policy of the Biden administration, whether it be the border or the way they handled free speech rights when it comes to people protesting abortion and standing up for life, or if it came to The protections of the Constitution for sitting U.S. senators, including the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who has oversight of the very department that was investigating him. So let’s go ahead and listen to what Senator Graham had to say, because Attorney General Pam Bondi today is before the Senate. A normally scheduled hearing where the oversight of Congress takes place and the Attorney General answers to activities that they’ve been under. But Senator Grant ties this also with the Comey indictment because of all the outrage on the left saying, how dare you go after James Comey and indict him when he broke the law. But let’s go ahead and play bite seven for folks. That was this morning, just an hour or so ago, when he is questioning Attorney General Bondi.
SPEAKER 01 :
Why are we looking at Comey? Because he ran an FBI and personally knew about its sculptor information and let it slide. How in the can two FBI agents interview a man who says the document you’re using against a sitting president to suggest he may be a Russian agent or Carter Page that is now no longer reliable, how does that not get to the court? Can you tell me how that doesn’t get to the court? You can’t, can you? I can’t, Senator, and I can’t… Can you tell me why my phone records, when I’m the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, were sought by the Jack Smith Agents, why did they ask to know who I called and what I was doing from January 4th to the 7th? Can you tell me that?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, Senator, and there were eight senators in total.
SPEAKER 01 :
Do you think that was an abuse of power?
SPEAKER 03 :
Senator, I cannot discuss whether there is or is not an ongoing investigation. If I may add one thing, they also wasted $50 million on what you just described, trying to put President Trump in jail prior to the election.
SPEAKER 09 :
So right there, we hear someone very upset, rightfully so, Senator Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, at the time that all this went down, asking the current Attorney General about this situation. And I think we should list the other senators as well. This is Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator Bill Hagerty from Tennessee, Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri. We have Tommy Tuberville, Senator from Alabama, Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, Senator Cynthia Loomis from… from uh from wyoming senator marcia blackburn from tennessee we have the congressman mike kelly from pennsylvania and then we have dan sullivan the senator from alaska as well on this list so across the united states eight senators uh most of them very conservative some you probably actually never you don’t hear a lot about. Like Dan Sullivan or Cynthia Loomis aren’t the ones that you’re always seeing in the headlines. But Jordan, clearly the senators are not pleased with what they found out.
SPEAKER 07 :
And from their perspective, I know we were going back and forth on the document on whether or not this was a warrant issued by a judge? Was it issued by a grand jury that a judge would just kind of oversee? And the senators in their statement, the senators who were targeted, do believe it was from a grand jury, that it was from one of the grand juries, I guess the D.C. grand jury that was impaneled likely by Jack Smith, so that he went to the grand jury to then ask to be able to go to the telephone companies to get this information on these senators. But as you heard from Pam Bondi, of course, as an attorney general, as a part of the Department of Justice, she can’t confirm or deny if there’s investigations ongoing. I can’t imagine if you were a betting person that an investigation is not ongoing. It might have just started very soon, just recently, because to my knowledge, this was unknown. Right. No one was talking about, hey, this might come out. Even people who usually have access to this kind of information were saying, yeah, I think they were also spying on a group of senators as well. I mean, maybe some people said that generically, but honestly, if you were going to then give me the list of those senators… This is not the list I would have expected. I mean, a couple of these names on here are some of the louder voices. Some of the names on here are not. And as my dad said, the idea is this was going to be about whether or not they voted to certify an election, which they are elected by their constituents to cast that vote on. And what does Jack Smith have to do? What does that have to do with voting? January 6th, what does that have to do with the Jack Smith investigation? What does that have to do with any potential illegal conduct? It doesn’t. It’s protected so many different ways in the Constitution. And it should just, again, it’s something that should never happen in the United States. It’s harder and harder for law enforcement to get away with. Maybe it’s easier for them at the time because the data is more accessible. You go to the grand jury, you can grab the data easier. But long term… It’s hard to bury this because these documents, because of the partisan nature of our political system, you come to light and people realize, whoa, the previous FBI was spying on me. And they were spying on senators who happened to vote different ways, by the way, on certifications. It’s not like this group of eight senators voted exactly the same on certification. In fact, they didn’t.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, in Jordan, what’s going to be even more absurd is the data they got. would tell them who they talked to, where they were, and the length of their phone calls. So just that in and of itself, it’s not like they’re going to all of a sudden discover that these senators were talking to like a drug cartel, right? You know, like, oh, we have this nexus between a criminal element. The reality is they were probably talking to their colleagues and the president of the United States.
SPEAKER 07 :
So all of a sudden they wanted to talk to as as not only elected officials, but as United States citizens who have done nothing wrong. Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
And so that in and of itself, the presupposition by the special counsel and the FBI here. was that this data, being able to show that they talked to their colleagues or to the president or things of that nature, would help us prove a case against either Donald Trump or even maybe those senators themselves if they were the target of an investigation. That’s where it gets so absurd and why this can never happen again. Because that is already… So authoritarian. And I know that that word likes to get thrown around, but when you’re using law enforcement in the United States and a special counsel at that with unlimited budget, nominal oversight at that point, being able to go after sitting senators and things like that years after this event, ahead of a new election, it’s shocking because that is the only goal can be trying to silence or get someone out of office or put them in jail. Those are the three options that the special counsel was targeting you.
SPEAKER 07 :
I mean, they have to have some kind of reasoning that they put forward to that grand jury about why they needed this information in the investigation of, in their mind, what was criminal conduct. We believe the whole thing was bogus, but they had to at least have something bogus to put forward. 1-800-684-3110. I want to take your calls, your comments, your questions. How do you feel about this? What do you think needs to happen at the FBI? 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 08 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. Will Haines here and joined in studio by Jordan Sekulow. And in the next segment, we’re going to have one of those senators, which was a target of the Jack Smith investigation and the FBI and whose records were… received and gotten by the fbi under this arctic frost investigation we’re going to have to hear what he thinks about all this that’ll be senator bill hagerty from tennessee joining us in the next segment but jordan i mean once again as we go through this and we were talking during the break you’re looking at these things and one I thought it was very telling that Attorney General Pam Bondi was very careful which is great when Senator Graham asked her do you think this was an abuse of power which seems like an opinion question you can pontificate about but she stops it and says Senator I cannot discuss whether there is or is not an ongoing investigation.
SPEAKER 07 :
She already answered that question with if there’s abuse of power the Department of Justice would be looking into it, and they can’t confirm those in public hearings to those senators. So, again, that was her immediate response to me. Again, it doesn’t tell anything 100%, but like you said, if there wasn’t one started yet, Your answer could be, it appears that way, and that’s why we believe we’re going to start preliminary investigating this to decide if it needs to go further. And then you would use answers like that in the future, if the investigation actually did begin later. To me, it sounds like the moment they knew this information existed, which may be the moment that Senator Grassley got the letter sent to them or around the same time that Kash Patel delivered this, that investigation was likely opened into this specific part of Jack Smith’s investigation, which is what on earth was he doing and his team and the FBI? So you’ve got DOJ, you’ve got special counsel, and you’ve got FBI special agents and their advisory agents okaying going into a grand jury and asking for this data on U.S. senators’ cell phone calls.
SPEAKER 09 :
And Jordan, I think we should play this clip from Senator Hawley this morning in the same hearing with Attorney General Bondi. Remind you, he’s on the list too. He is on the list. He is one of these senators that was spied on by the government. So let’s hear what he has to talk about as well as, once again, asking about the investigation and the way that the Attorney General, I think, appropriately answers the question by 17.
SPEAKER 06 :
We’ve got a list. Tap my phone, tap Lindsey Graham’s phone, tap Marsha Blackburn’s phone, tap five other phones of United States senators. Gee, it sure looks like targeting political opponents to me, and yet I haven’t heard a word from that side of the dais about any concern whatsoever. We’ve got nothing but concerns today, but no concern at all for a Justice Department that is tapping the phones of sitting United States Senators because who knows why? They don’t like them. They’re members of the opposition party. They’re Republicans. They’re conservatives. You’ve seen this document, Attorney General Bondi. What was going on here? Who ordered this? Who ordered the tapping of the phones of United States senators?
SPEAKER 03 :
Senator Hawley, I cannot discuss the details of that right now for very good reason.
SPEAKER 06 :
You’re going to do a thorough investigation into this, I trust. Is that correct?
SPEAKER 03 :
We will be looking at all aspects of this, and I have talked to Director Patel at length about this.
SPEAKER 09 :
Once again, Jordan, it’s refreshing to not have Merrick Garland up there trying to answer these questions. Naturally, the Democrats would be covering for him as well if this was to arise.
SPEAKER 07 :
She went a little further there. It’s being investigated. Is it a criminal investigation yet? We don’t know. It’s likely not at that point yet, but if the department of justice is leading an investigation of conduct by a special counsel appointed through the doj who utilized doj officials and the fbi it’s certainly and it was a criminal investigation then if there was wrongdoing there it would be criminal conduct i mean listen this is very serious and again to underscore the importance of fighting back here is not just just to protect the senator’s constitutional rights but all of our constitutional rights because if it’s this easy to get their information how easy is it to tap your phone support the work of the aclj we have this information now that we can go we can use for foia in other ways don’t want to give that all away on the air but support the work of the aclj at aclj.org not just to protect the senators to protect you aclj.org donate today
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. Will Haynes and Jordan Sekulow in studio here today. And we are joined by the senator from Tennessee, Bill Hagerty, who was a part of this targeting by Jack Smith and the FBI. And Jordan, I want to toss it over to you as we get right into this with the senator.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, Senator Hagerty, I just want to get first your reaction when you found out that you were part of these eight senators and one member of Congress, all Republicans, who were targeted by Jack Smith through what appears to be a grand jury that decided that it would be okay for his agents to tap your phones. They call it tolling, which is your location, the duration, and who you were talking to. So what is the other phone number? Your reaction when this news first was released?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Jordan, initially I was shocked and then heartbroken. I mean, if you think about it, if political operatives at the FBI are allowed to do this to me, I’m a sitting United States senator. I was the U.S. ambassador to Japan. If they can do this to me, they can do it to you. They can do it to the American people. If they’re so bold to think that they could get away with doing this, having the executive branch law enforcement agency reach over into the legislative branch and come after sitting senators that have oversight responsibilities for them, It is just beyond the pale, and it makes you ask yourself, what else have they gotten away with? If they’re that bold, what else did they try to do? We’re just getting to the tip of the iceberg here with this revelation, and we need to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible. I want to see people prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, not only because I want to do that to dissuade others from doing this in the future, But I think it’s critical, Jordan, to restore confidence in institutions like the FBI. The rank and file of the FBI, look at what they’re doing in Memphis. They’re doing yeoman’s work. But you have leadership that is corrupt like this, like this Jack Smith they brought in, Merrick Garland, who supported it, Christopher Wray. I mean, you have to ask yourself about Christopher Wray, Jordan. If he did know, clearly an abuse of power. If he didn’t know, it’s a dereliction of duty. This is rotten to the core. And now we’ve got eight United States senators that are on top of this.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and I mean, you look at the constitutional violations, one, specific protections that do exist just for those federally elected officials like you, Article 1, Section 6, the Speech and Debate Clause, also the Fourth Amendment, the fact that to get a grand jury warrant, they would have to say that this was somehow connected to a criminal act, that these phone calls would somehow help them. determine whether a probable cause exists that other crimes were committed i mean all of this just reeks and of course they go into likely a grand jury in washington dc and and they just get rubber stamps to uh to track your phones and like you said senator hagerty i i can’t believe this is the end of this i i really believe this is just the beginning
SPEAKER 04 :
You’re exactly right, Jordan. I tell you, as you ran through the constitutional implications, it just made me thankful that I have a friend like you that is such a great constitutional scholar. I know where to go for help on this, and we’re going to need a lot of help to get to the bottom of the constitutional violations and the criminal activity. If you think about where this could lead, this is something that’s going to have to be blown wide open. And again, we’ve got to do this for the sake of confidence in the institutions like the FBI. But we’ve also got to make certain that this type of thing never happens again. And I’ll just reiterate some of the things that the Biden FBI has done to the American public. And when you take all this into perspective, you’ve got to ask yourself, you know, what has happened? What has gone wrong when the FBI can basically sick their agents on parents who go to school board meetings and actually speak out about their concerns about graphic material that’s being presented? Or even worse, you know, school officials that are, quote, transitioning their children without letting the parents know. They complain about this, they get surveilled. Do you think what they did right in Tennessee, in my home state, your home state, The pro-life individuals that were in the vicinity of an abortion clinic, they were prosecuted. They were as peaceful of protesters as you could imagine, prosecuted. If you think about the raid on Mar-a-Lago, that was an absolute disgrace. Democrats didn’t blink an eye. They even targeted Catholics in America for the way they worship and their beliefs. It just goes on and on, and you’ve got to ask yourself, where does it stop? But if they were bold enough to come after me, again, a sitting senator, a former U.S. ambassador to Japan, they’re bold enough to come after me, they’re bold enough to come after seven of my Senate colleagues here and a congressman, then who knows what they’ve done. And we’re going to have to get as deep into this as we personally can and hold these people accountable.
SPEAKER 09 :
Senator, we also know that one, the Attorney General this morning was being questioned by your colleagues in the Judiciary Committee that were asking questions much about this. But I know this just came out last night. There’s a lot of people still processing it, including we here at the ACLJ. It appears that the FBI and the Department of Justice currently are taking this seriously and looking at steps to remedy this and see what potential punishments can come from this as well. But I was curious if you and your colleagues have discussed about anything on the oversight side of the Senate in looking into this as well to hold this accountable and get more information out to the American people.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, we just got the news last night. We huddled afterwards. I spoke with Chuck Grassley, who’s the chairman of the Oversight Committee. He’s running the oversight on this. Ron Johnson has been working with him, told him that I’m there with him every step of the way from this point forward. I have no idea that this type of abuse was occurring at this level. I think we all knew. I just went through the litany of examples that the FBI has run amok, that the Biden administration completely weaponized law enforcement here. But they were willing to go to this extent. makes me think that this is something that is much, much larger than we ever imagined in the first place. But if you go back to the basics, this started under Barack Obama. You may recall, I was one of President Trump’s finance chairman when he was a candidate back in 2016. I moved into Trump Tower the day after the election to help him with the transition. I was surveilled then by the FBI under this false Russia hoax operation. And that happened from that was the Obama administration and Comey. And then you roll forward under the Biden administration. It just got 10 times worse with with all of the things that they did to basically try to take out Joe Biden’s number one political opponent. That was Donald Trump. They weaponized the legal system across America. They brought charges that were absolutely ridiculous and unfounded. They cost people their jobs. They cost people their livelihoods and careers. They did it to Michael Flynn. They did it, you know, in the previous administration and in the first Trump 45 term, Michael’s office was three doors down from me in Trump Tower when we were doing the transition. And, you know, they surveilled him and they took him out, threatening to break him financially, going after his son. You think about what they did to Peter Navarro. Peter, you know, basically just invoked executive privilege and they decided that they’re going to jail him. They did. Peter is a tough guy. He’s a great guy. He survived it, but they put him in jail for months. Now, Peter’s back, and I think he’s going to be very interested in getting to the bottom of this as well. This weaponization is damaging our nation. The Democrats, again, accuse us, accuse Republicans and accuse Donald Trump of being a threat to democracy. They’re simply projecting exactly what they are doing and what they have been doing.
SPEAKER 07 :
Senator Haggerty, I know that this is just the beginning when it comes to investigating this matter. I remember the 2016 issue. And again, at that point in time, you were working as a private citizen to assist the transition, knowing that your phone were being tapped. And then you go, you know, flash forward again, you’ve been ambassador, then you become a Phone gets tapped again by the same law enforcement division that we all believe is overly politicized. So there’s a lot more here. This is just the one and a half pages that we’ve gotten so far. But I do want to ask you before you go, because I know our audience cares about this, the Schumer shutdown talks and negotiations, where do you see things stand as of today?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, right now I think Schumer is evaluating his own political status in New York State. At its very core, this is raw politics in action. If you were to poll today, and we have, if you poll New York State, AOC defeats Chuck Schumer in a Democrat primary. He can’t have that. And he won’t give AOC the talking point that he, quote, took a knee to Trump, that he caved to Trump. So he’s showing that he can fight. He doesn’t know what he’s fighting for. They can’t articulate that. This $1.5 trillion ransom to keep the government open for a few weeks is just absolutely preposterous. But he’s going on TV, showing his spite, and I think this really gets down to his political survival. This is Chuck Schumer proving his political manhood in New York State, and he’s willing to do it at the cost of $400 million per day to the U.S. taxpayers who are already in single-digit billions of dollars while he’s doing his political stunt. Americans suffer. And the longer this goes, the suffering is going to get much, much worse.
SPEAKER 07 :
Senator Haggard, we so appreciate you spending the time with us to talk about one of this news that just broke last night that involves you directly, the tapping of your phone during this Jack Smith investigation, and seven of your Senate colleagues and other House members, as well as the shutdown. We will stay on this. ACLJ is going to get on this too. Senator, we appreciate you joining us.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you so much, Stuart, and always good to be with you.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, folks, again, that’s why we try to… It’s a different kind of broadcast. It’s a different kind of show and analysis you’re getting here because these are people we work with regularly. So when times are, you know, when we’re talking kind of normal, if there is normal Washington, D.C. policy and issues, and then when times are more than bizarre, when our Constitution has been trampled on, and they can lead a charge… us alongside them and the ACLJ to protect, as Senator Hagerty said, all of us. All of us. And we’ve got to do that. Because if it’s so easy to get this information on a U.S. Senator, how easy is it to get the information on a private citizen? Support the work of the ACLJ. We need your financial contributions. To do this work, there are costs. And you know that if we’ve represented you before or one of your friends before, there’s no cost to them. And we do that because of your financial support of the ACLJ. If you can, become a monthly donor at champion at aclj.org. Donate today.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to Seculo, final segment of the broadcast. If you want to talk to us on air, 1-800-684-3110. We’ve got an ACLJ champion we’ll be getting to in just a moment. But a couple updates that I want to bring to you before we get into this. One, if you were watching and saw that video in the break, if you’re watching on YouTube or Rumble or Salem News Channel or any of those places, we talked about a case that we talked about yesterday, which was where a student in Minnesota wanted to have a Bible club at her school, ninth grader, and the administration uh told her effectively you can have this club here but you have to rent the facility because we think you’re a church not a student club if you’re the boy scouts or the 4-h club any other of the clubs that we have here they don’t have to pay but you do classic viewpoint discrimination only because you’re a christian we’re charging you money uh the school got back to the ACLJ today, as was their deadline to avoid a federal lawsuit. And they have sent a letter stating that the student can now have the classroom for free for her Bible study, as is constitutional, since they allow clubs at the school. So a good victory for this student. Sometimes you want to have to get in a federal court and go after these schools, but I’m happy for the student that this resolution that she will be able to have her Bible study and not have to go through that litigation process.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s also a great example of why you contact the ACLJ because oftentimes you may think, you know what? I don’t like what was done to me here. It feels wrong. It feels like it was because I’m a Christian or because of my religious views or because of my political views. But it’s not that big of a deal. We can move along with life. And you realize that that kind of thinking prevents then how many students there from potentially – joining that Bible club? How many lives could be changed? And if the school is going to be open to other clubs, then they have to be open to that Bible club. And the school comes back with, okay, okay, fine. But just like when a church maybe uses our facilities on the weekends, if we allow that at our school or some other group, we’re going to charge you building use. cost because we think this is a church now this was sponsored by a student like every club during the club times that were posted on campus like the school had and it took us just reminding them about the actual law So you didn’t have to go to federal court. You didn’t have to take those steps. We could have, we’re always ready to, but I just want to underscore why it’s important if you think that is happening to you to go to aclj.org slash help and contact us and let our attorneys review it. Let them contact you back if they think they need more information. on that or if you have heard about it from a friend think it’s happened to them have them contact us directly at aclj.org slash help nothing is too small and none of these rights should be trampled because if you allow them to continually be trampled These rights, they don’t exist. They stop to exist. They cease existing because one school district says, oh, we could do it this way. Another school district says we could do it this way. And the people at those school districts think that’s the norm. Well, that’s how they’re going to treat us as religious groups. So we’ll put the money together if we think it’s that important. No. No, that’s not how the law works. And once they read our interpretation of clearly what the law is and Supreme Court precedent on top of that… Which the ACLJ won those cases, were the ones that argued and won at the Supreme Court. Quickly… Within less than 24 hours of talking about it on this show yesterday, school district writes, okay, never mind. Nothing to see here. You can have your club just like everyone else. That is why you contact us. It’s a great example of why you contact the ACLJ. It doesn’t always have to be these huge kind of issues that you’re going to read about on the front page, eight senators phone tapped. We’re going to be involved in that. You can hear from Senator Haggerty. That’s wonderful and great. But how the ACLJ started and our core work is representing you. And it’s representing the students. It’s representing your students. Maybe it’s one of your kids who has got these situations. And that is where, again, the majority of the resources go at the ACLJ is to representing those who would not usually go and hire attorneys to fight this out for them. They can go to the ACLJ and have it… handled by experts in the constitution experts in religious liberty experts in free speech experts in what can happen in public schools at no cost to them thank you thankfully because of all of our donors All those of you who donate to ACLJ.org. You might be a person who donates once a year. That’s great. You might be one of those ACLJ champions or you’re thinking about becoming an ACLJ champion. Someone who says, you know what? I can give $50 a month. I can give $100 a month to the ACLJ annually and I can just sign up and click the button and I don’t have to think about it again and I know my support is going to the ACLJ. We encourage you to do that right now and think about that Bible study. Don’t just think about the U.S. Senator. Think about that Bible study. as the reason why and the lives that could be impacted because ACLJ attorneys were there to help and that family who contacted us and that student, they didn’t have to worry about how much it would cost in legal fees.
SPEAKER 09 :
And Jordan, I think to that point as well, when you listen to what Senator Hagerty told us in the last segment, it wasn’t just the u.s senators the fbi was going after they were going after parents at school board meetings they were going after catholic churches sending spies into catholic churches they were doing all these things now if you’re looking at records of a phone data request and it’s not the names of u.s senators It’s just random people. Most time, even if you’re doing a review, you’re not going to take the time to figure out who these random names are. The fact that it was U.S. senators opens up. Now, what could have else happened? And that’s why we have to keep fighting. But I think we should go to this call. Ruth, who’s a champion, she’s calling on line one from Texas. Ruth, you’re on Sekulow.
SPEAKER 02 :
I would recommend that everybody that’s convicted forfeits all their money, all their wealth, and pays back the American taxpayer payers. and pay back the people they’ve taken money from.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, you mean the $50 million that Jack Smith just flushed down the toilet and then he ran and didn’t even wait to get fired by the Trump administration but ran away and everything got shut down. Listen, that that’s you know it’s amazing how quickly uh these bad investigators can go through 50 million dollars we’ve i think with the muller team was this someone in the 30s or 40s it was you know inflation goes up from there and that led to what nothing led to honestly a report that the muller himself could not even uh explain to the congress when he was up before he had to have an assistant to help him explain it because it was so convoluted and it came down to no conclusions And yet they still issue their reports and think that they’re so important. But the truth is, it’d be easy. and with senators like Haggard and others that we work with and with the Trump administration to find $50 million real quick in the budget to cut. That’s right. I mean, you know what? We could, we could, and they’re already doing that. So let you know, I think we have to encourage that work too. Instead of, if you want to go the other way, the Schumer way of I’m so liberal, so I’m going to shut down the government. If you don’t add a trillion dollars of spending, even though Republicans control the house and white house.
SPEAKER 09 :
And Jordan, just to close with this as well, Kash Patel put out on X that as a result of our latest disclosure about the baseless monitoring of members of Congress by the prior leadership team of the FBI, we have already taken the following actions. We terminated employees. we abolished the weaponized CR-15 squad. That was a squad within the Washington field office focused on public corruption that they used for Arctic Frost. And we initiated an ongoing investigation with more accountability measures ahead. Now that would be a personnel investigation or a internal investigation, not the criminal investigation that could be taking place at the DOJ that Pam Bondi was not answering questions about appropriately. But once again, Folks, this also happened September of 2023. So a lot of the talk about the Russiagate stuff that was under tight deadlines for statute of limitations. That wouldn’t exist here. This was just two years ago.
SPEAKER 07 :
No. In fact, I mean, and it’s just coming to light. Right. And it’s just coming to light to those who were affected. We know that action has been taken by the FBI. I think now that Kash Patel has put that information out, it allows those members of Congress to kind of dig deeper into… What changes are being made? Maybe some of that needs to be behind closed doors. Some of that can be done publicly. But this can’t be the norm now or in the future. Support the work of the ACLJ. Donate today. ACLJ.org.
