Justice Barrett Testifies to Demand MORE SECURITY.
When political disagreement turns into intimidation, the safety of public officials—and the stability of America’s institutions—comes into focus.
Logan Sekulow, Will Haynes, and Jordan Sekulow discuss Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett’s request for increased security amid continuing threats against the Court. They examine rhetoric that delegitimizes the executive, judicial, and legislative branches, including calls from Democratic Socialists to abolish the Senate. Jay Sekulow responds to reports that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation obtained text messages involving members of Congress, raising questions about executive overreach, constitutional protections, and accountability. Callers weigh
SPEAKER 11 :
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.
SPEAKER 08 :
And now your host, Logan Secular. Welcome to Secular. This is Logan Secular, Will Haynes’ studio as well. Got a packed show for you today. And look, it’s Friday. We are wrapping up this week’s ACLJ Liberty Drive. I need you to be a part of it today. If you’ve ever thought about donating during these special months, we’re able to offer really great opportunities to have your donation doubled. And what that means is there’s an ACLJ supporter or an ACLJ champion. That’s someone that gives every month, like a member. who decides that they will pledge to unlock a donation. And what we do, we pull them all together and we have a very, very large potential. So large that, like I said, if we ever hit it, I’ll tell you one day, but usually we can match anything that’s donated by an ACLJ supporter. So I encourage you right now. if you can, to go to ACLJ.org and have your impact doubled today. Stand with the ACLJ, not just in our fight in the courtrooms, even if you just watch this show. You like the media side. This is not a small operation. We have a huge team that works on the media operation each and every day to make sure you get this show, like we said at the beginning, to keep you informed and engaged, to create, not only cover the news, but actually tell you the truth. Again, I always like to say, whether you like it or not, we tell you the truth. We’re not here to just tell you what you want to hear. It’s something very different, what we do here. And we do it in a way that’s professional. We do it in a way that’s consistent. And we do it because we believe in the truth. And I want you to right now, join us during this ACLJ Liberty Drive. And we’re going to cover a lot more today, but I wanted to start there because, look, it is Friday. I’m not going to have as many opportunities to give these sort of big push-its over the weekend. So right now, that’s why I wanted to do that.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. And when you think about, even you talk about the truth that we fight for here at the ACLJ and the foundations of this country, those are things that are, it almost feels like a luxury these days to be able to go and get content that is just going to tell you straight… what we believe as an organization, what we see the fight ahead as being, because so much seems to be in an ecosystem, whether it’s conservative or liberal, it doesn’t matter, but you get caught up in the talking points of one side or the other. And sometimes, for better or worse, you may not like what you hear, but we are going to tell you what we believe the truth to be, what it falls within our constitutional framework, And that comes sometimes at the expense of making one side or the other mad. But we’re not afraid of that. What we know is that you have to keep fighting for these principles. You have to hold fast to them. And that’s what we do here. Whether it be the legal work, the fights that our attorneys are engaged in every day, whether it be our UN work, where we are trying to share the truth and spread the light. to a very dark world, a world that doesn’t want to hear the truth many times. We are doing that. Our senior counsel, CeCe Heil, right now is overseas. When she gets back, she’s going to be able to talk about some of these things she’s doing in North Africa right now. where she is there with the ACLJ as an ACLJ representative to speak about religious freedom, about protecting those that are persecuted for their faith. And so you may not see even some of the moving parts that are going on behind the scenes every day because we can’t cover everything every day, but know that there is so much work going on. And when you support the ACLJ, especially during this Liberty Drive, it is vital to keep that work going.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s right. So I’m going to encourage you. Look, there are days where we just feel like we have to talk about the work of the ACLJ and we have to do some fundraising. Today’s one of those days. Be a part of it. Be a part of this team. I see a lot of you comment on YouTube all the time. You’ve created a whole community, a whole family there where you go back and forth. Same on Rumble, where the same people join us each and every day. They have their own sidebar discussions. If you even like that, the fact that we’ve built a community of people that are like-minded, sometimes not so like-minded, but are cordial and respectful and will have these conversations also, Again, all of that happens. We got moderators. We got all of this huge crew, whether that’s our production crew, whether that’s the editorial crew, all of it happens because people like you support the work of the ACLJ. I never want to put our content behind a paywall. I never want to ask you to pay for legal work. You’re never going to have to pay for legal work if we represent you. I certainly don’t want to have to ask you to pay for any of the media operations. that we have here. I want to make sure it’s easy for you to share this content with as many people as you can so we can get our message out there. And really, when we get our message, it’s your message because you represent so much of what we do here at the ACLJ. We’ll be right back with more on Secular. Welcome back to Secular. We do have phone lines open for you at 1-800-684-3110. President Trump right now is also meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister at the White House. So if there’s anything worth note, we have a team watching that. We’ll break in if we need to. My brother Jordan is joining us from Washington, D.C. First, we’ve got to say, and let him know in the chat, happy birthday. Welcome.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you. Thank you much. We won’t disclose age because after walking around Capitol Hill with some of the meetings this morning, when you’re talking to the younger, and you used to be the younger guys on the Hill working, you realize you’re a different point of life.
SPEAKER 09 :
You’re not staff for age anymore. We can say that.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, definitely not staff for age. And I was just talking to one of our attorneys, not junior attorneys anymore. Okay.
SPEAKER 09 :
There we go. Jordan, you’re on Capitol Hill. We’re actually talking about today as well the security that the Supreme Court justices, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett, are actually testifying before the Supreme Court today for security increase. And I think it’s pertinent to talk about this. You’re there. We’ve seen the security threats even against those… Antifa members, the terrorist members that were arrested that were trying to attack the UFC event. We’ve seen security for our nation’s capital and every branch of government be something that’s heightened, a heightened threat. You’re there in D.C. We know that the crime rate in D.C. has actually gotten under control in a way that we haven’t seen in decades there. But the threat to our institutions… seems like it’s at an all-time high. And I want to give you a moment to speak about this. Even as we see this unusual, it doesn’t happen often, last time was 2019, that justices go before the Appropriations Committee asking for, in this case, more money to keep them safe.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I was actually in a meeting with Senator Hagerty, who’s on this broadcast a lot, but his chief of staff and a couple of staffers, and it caught the corner of my eye because I saw Elena Kagan, Justice Kagan, testifying. I was like, this is not like replaying a video unless we’re talking about a judicial nomination. It somehow happened in this crazy last 48 hours. And you look, it’s very rare to see because, again, you don’t have the court broadcasting any kind of back and forth ever before when it comes to the visuals. You get the audio. But it’s also interesting to see them on the other side of the… the room, if you will, sitting back down, you know, having to answer questions instead of being the person who does ask questions. I know Senator Hagerty is going to have an opportunity this afternoon as well to be a part of that questioning. And I think there’s a lot of bipartisan support. You know, our office is behind the U.S. Supreme Court and right catty corner to the first the Senate office building in Russell. And so there’s already a lot of security right here because this is the street justices or their vehicles come down to park. And so now, anytime that the court is in session at all, which means the justices are there, this street is blocked for vehicles. We can walk, You can walk down the street, but the armed guys come out, not just with handguns, but also sometimes you’ll see machine guns, big presence when they know there’s a big case either being argued or that is possibly the decisions coming out. And so on a regular basis, you’ve got right now, which has been about two blocks or two and a half block radius, is now expanding… down 2nd Street. So if you were to take a right out of our office, it used to kind of stop right at that intersection for folks who may have seen our office before in D.C. at that catty corner. It now goes, for you guys, who I know have been there a lot, Logan and Will, it now goes blocks further. And so I think that tells us right there that what could be done quickly enough because of the amount of security threats the court is facing and I think that you’re hearing that today from again the justices and when we talk about the wise use of resources and the intimidation tactics we want to make sure justices of the U.S. Supreme Court feel safe, that they can’t be intimidated by groups for either ideological reasons or just because they happen to be Supreme Court justices. And we live in an age where even though, guys, you don’t see much of this visual, you’ll see sometimes them doing lectures and things like that, but not this kind of a visual. We’re living in a day and age where you can’t hide behind the building. anymore. And so with that being said, I think, again, I kind of in Washington and where we are and what we do, as long as it’s smart and it’s things that have already shown in the past to work, that it’s a good place to invest resources, not just because our office is right here, not just for the justices. But for all of the American people who visit Washington, D.C. and our nation’s capital, maybe they do it once or twice in their life to feel like they are safe when they are taking tours and going to the most important places that our federal government is associated with. So it’s not just for the justices. It’s for all that staff. They’ve got people behind us. They’ve got a parking lot. And people are working 24-7. These are huge government buildings. So from everybody down to the janitor on up to the justice themselves, you want them to be safe. And then you also want law enforcement on the Hill, the Capitol Hill police, to be able to focus on their job, which is different than the Supreme Court police’s job. They work together, but they have a different – again, a different – client, if you will, where they’re focused on protecting. So yes, I mean, it is serious in Washington. You guys have seen the talk about what’s happening potentially in front of the White House. That’s something that can also probably be more temporary, but they’re just nonstop threats. I think that’s as far as I can go with communication I’ve had, but the threats do not stop. And out of just, you know, maybe… It doesn’t mean that they’re all credible, but we’ve seen in the past that there are people that will act or try to act against these justices.
SPEAKER 09 :
Jordan, I think one of the other issues here, and this is something we’re going to get on later in the broadcast, and I know you’ve got meetings you’re about to head back out to. We’re grateful you could hop in literally, and thanks to our team, to get everything in our studio in D.C. turned on real quick, have Jordan in. But here’s another issue, and this is what I see as the broader issue. These threats… I think are the unfortunate symptoms of what is happening at a broader level in our country. We saw first the in 2016 and then 2024 the way that the left said president trump is an illegitimate president so they delegitimize the executive and what do we see we see violent threats we see people that feel like the only thing they can do is use violence to try and stop the the executive we saw then through the supreme court illegitimate court pack the court you see that symptom again you see them having these threats against the members of the court Now what we’re hearing, and we’re going to get into this more, Jordan, the DSA, who has all these candidates that are now going to be in Congress because they’ve won in safe blue seats, their primaries, they’re calling to abolish the Senate. And I know you are meeting with senators, but they think it’s an illegitimate thing because of the very reason the founders created the Senate. The whole Senate. Yeah, the entire Senate, all 100 seats, every state, the concept of having equal representation from states based off not just a direct population representation like the House, they want to get rid of it. So obviously very difficult, if constitutional at all, to amend it out. But that’s their goal. And I’m not as concerned about them getting rid of it on paper as much as the threat to the very people that you’re having meetings with because they’re delegitimizing now the third branch of government in the legislative branch. Jordan, it’s shocking and also dangerous.
SPEAKER 07 :
I would love to know if Bernie Sanders is a self-hating socialist enough that he would support getting rid of his – really, I think the only job he’s had, which is in politics as an elected official, maybe some part-time work as a professor when he was much younger. But again, Will, it is rhetoric, right? It comes down to the idea of they’ve been demonized. The left was – really, they took that mantle on. On the right, we would disagree – with decisions by justices and by the Supreme Court, but we’d never made it personal or these calls for violence and, again, to make it difficult for the police to do their job of just trying to keep people safe. And so, again, the whirlwind that we’ve heard with Senator Schumer and… I think it just reminds us all that the rhetoric that is being used in Washington that is most dangerous emanates from the left. And as you said, Will, it’s the radical left, and they are being normalized by becoming members of Congress in the House of Representatives. And so their rhetoric… is becoming normalized so i am glad to see uh justice kagan there as well to to make it clear to everyone that this is not some a partisan move while at the same time understanding that much of the rhetoric uh is coming out of the left especially the rhetoric that takes it past just i fundamentally disagree and then of course that this abolished the senate i mean the constitution can be amended but but here’s the thing i and it’s interesting for those socialists What the Senate does is to make sure that states with smaller populations still have full representation in Congress because they’re not going to get that in the House. And so they’ve got to work together the House and the Senate, but really that’s so that they are representing all of us equally.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you, Jordan, for joining us. I know you’ve got a lot of work to do. We appreciate it. Phone lines are open, and happy birthday. Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. Let’s hear from you about this. Also, we are right smack in the middle of our ACLJ Liberty Drive. Be a part of it today. Have your donation doubled at ACLJ.org. Do that right now. ACLJ.org. Scan the QR code you see on the screen. Whatever it is, all donations of any kind are doubled right now. They’re matched by incredible ACLJ supporters and champions. We’re going to take your phone calls when we get back. 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Seculo. Phone lines are open. We have a lot of calls coming in. 1-800-684-3110. Of course, talking about the security and safety of the Supreme Court justices as they were testifying today to try to get the budget upped due to ongoing threats. And we can kind of trace back. I mean, look… Supreme Court justices in modern day have always been a little bit of celebrities. In the 80s and the 90s, there was people that we all knew of. We knew at least their names, their faces, but maybe they weren’t as regularly a part of the mainstream media or maybe they weren’t targets of attacks. They were maybe targets within their own political parties or if you watched CNN, if you watched the news, you knew about these people. The difference was, and a lot of it goes back to the Dobbs decision, We can flash back to even someone like Senator Schumer, who started to inflame the rhetoric. We know this has been an issue with the right and the left over the last decade or so, where it went beyond politics and started becoming very personal. And like Jordan said, if you live in a modern day, you live in a modern society where finding out where someone lives is not exactly the hardest thing in the world, especially when those people are public figures and Supreme Court justices. And you have Supreme Court justices like Amy Coney Barrett or Brett Kavanaugh or whoever it may be who have come under real threats from people who are crazy, who have been inflamed by their political leaders. So let’s flashback before we take this call. Let’s flashback to Senator Schumer back when the Dobbs decision was leaked.
SPEAKER 10 :
I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.
SPEAKER 08 :
Again, threatening Supreme Court justices from our elected officials. We have some calls coming in about that. I want to go to Martin in North Carolina, who’s an ACLJ champion. It’s someone that gives on a monthly basis automatically. Membership, which is great. And I always like to give them first bite of the apple here. They’re always able to get on the air quicker. Martin, go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you, sir. I was glad that you all are at the helm and you hit on it. Jordan hit on it, too. It’s a two… phase thing that I’m going to touch on exactly what you just said I’m a firm believer in freedom of speech and I’m glad we have it but like you just said Logan is that it becomes inflammatory. And I would really, I don’t know how to do it, like to see some sort of way of holding these things in check. It’s almost treasonous with that kind of rhetoric, with the leaks that are going on with the Dobbs decision, Schumer and Comey leaking. And even this last… week and a half, two weeks, the leak that came through the news media about the assassination test. There’s got to be something to hold people accountable so that we can move on and do things decent and in order, as they say, and not have these inflaming arguments and rhetoric and things of that nature continue to fan the flames to do, like you said, the crazy people out there that are going to do stuff.
SPEAKER 08 :
Martin, you can hear real, and I hate to say this, you can hear real fear in the voices of these Supreme Court justices who are out there testifying for Congress, asking for more money for how their security to be raised. Let’s hear, this is bite two, let’s hear from Amy Coney Barrett again, talking about something that’s just happened to her in the last few weeks.
SPEAKER 01 :
It’s also been reported in the news that roughly six weeks ago I was the victim of a swatting incident. At that point, my teenage son, one of my teenage sons, opened the door to go out with friends and saw in our street It was full of police cars who had responded to a false report of gunshots and raised voices in my home. I was very, very grateful that I had Supreme Court police outside my home because they were able to stop and meet with and explain to the county police that it had been a false alarm. And so the police did not actually attempt to enter our home.
SPEAKER 08 :
Understand that in many occasions, and this has happened directly, by the way, to people again, sitting in this room where you have people who feel justified in making your life miserable because they disagree with maybe your political point of view, or maybe it’s a little bit different because they’re the ones who are, they are deciding the law of the land here. And if you have political leaders saying, unleash the whirlwind, we are going to go after you. You’re not going to know what’s going to hit you. Yeah, Senator Schumer may be living in a old school mentality going, well, I don’t mean physically, and that’s not what I meant by there, but we don’t live in that world anymore. We live in the world where every word is scrutinized, where everything is justified. And sadly, we have now seen that rhetoric raise up, not just to a Supreme Court justice, but we’ve seen it across the board, not even just for political opponents or people that are in the political sphere. Basically, if you’re willing to have a voice, you have to be willing to take real security protocol because your life may be at risk.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and once again, I think the positioning of this before the Congress today, it was Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, and Justice Barrett, a Trump appointee. It was two different justices from two different eras. It also, Elena Kagan opened her remarks talking about justice. the senator senator graham who just passed away because of how he engaged with with talking to someone that he didn’t agree with and and that’s one of the things he caught flack for was he would interview he was on the judiciary committee actually was the chairman of the judiciary committee uh at the time of his passing but he would get flack for voting for uh nominees that were uh Judges from the other side. And she pointed out, she goes, it’s rare these days. It used to be justices got 100 or 99 votes to sail through. What she was trying to point out is that, one, disarm the committee a little bit and say, hey, we’re here. Obviously, it’s a Republican-led committee at this time. And they were there for a specific reason. Now… people uh there was one congressman from wisconsin that was trying to make it about the shadow docket they’re asking for security and they’re obviously they have their prerogative and they can do what they want with their time especially when they don’t get to speak to the justices very often but trying to in some ways use the rhetoric that people have been using to delegitimize the court itself by saying you you took a lot of things on the shadow docket you made a lot of these decisions to which um justice barrett said Yeah, we’re the court. If it comes before us when we’re out of session and it’s a stay grant request, we have to dispose of it. We have to do either grant or not. That’s how that works. But even in their questioning, when they’re talking about security for their families and themselves, there were Democrats trying to go after something that has been a Democrat talking point and a media talking point this entire year. I also, to Martin’s point, The rhetoric of Chuck Schumer was very bad, but it’s not only isolated to people on the left. Of course not. I mean, even the dehumanizing language that we see when people say demon rats or these cute names or they’re all demons, that’s a dehumanizing thing. Now, we may disagree with, and a lot of their policies may be… anti-human or evil, the way that they are so pro-choice, those things. But it doesn’t mean that you strip their humanity or them being created in the image of God from them and try to find a way to work towards a more perfect union.
SPEAKER 08 :
When we get back, I want to actually play the bite that Justice Kagan spoke about Senator Graham, because again, maybe that little glimmer of hope that we can get back to that kind of place. And again, the fact that we’re talking about who is uniting us It feels like the most unlikely case, sadly, would have been the passing of Lindsey Graham, someone who was very controversial and very polarizing for a lot of people. But what you’ve been able to see is that it was old school Washington, D.C. in the way that he worked with people and actually could get things done. Maybe we need to get back to that. Speaking of getting things done, it is our Liberty Drive. Be a part of the ACLJ team today at aclj.org. Scan that QR code. We’ll be back in just a minute. Less than a minute break here. If you lose us on your local station, find us on aclj.org or wherever you get your podcasts. We’re live 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time each and every day. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 11 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 08 :
And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow. This is Logan Sekulow, Will Haynes’ studio as well. Got a packed show for you today. And look, it’s Friday. We are wrapping up this week’s ACLJ Liberty Drive. I need you to be a part of it today. If you’ve ever thought about donating during these special months, we’re able to offer really great opportunities to have your donation doubled. And what that means is there’s an ACLJ supporter or an ACLJ champion. That’s someone that gives every month, like a member. who decides that they will pledge to unlock a donation. And what we do, we pull them all together and we have a very, very large potential. So large that, like I said, if we ever hit it, I’ll tell you one day, but usually we can match anything that’s donated by an ACLJ supporter. So I encourage you right now. if you can, to go to ACLJ.org and have your impact doubled today. Stand with the ACLJ, not just in our fight in the courtrooms, even if you just watch this show. You like the media side. This is not a small operation. We have a huge team that works on the media operation each and every day to make sure you get this show, like we said at the beginning, to keep you informed and engaged, to create, not only cover the news, but actually tell you the truth. Again, I always like to say, whether you like it or not, we tell you the truth. We’re not here to just tell you what you want to hear. It’s something very different, what we do here. And we do it in a way that’s professional. We do it in a way that’s consistent. And we do it because we believe in the truth. And I want you to right now, join us during this ACLJ Liberty Drive. And we’re going to cover a lot more today, but I wanted to start there because, look, it is Friday. I’m not going to have as many opportunities to give these sort of big push-its over the weekend. So right now, that’s why I wanted to do that.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. And when you think about, even you talk about the truth that we fight for here at the ACLJ and the foundations of this country, those are things that are, it almost feels like a luxury these days to be able to go and get content that is just going to tell you straight… what we believe as an organization, what we see the fight ahead as being, because so much seems to be in an ecosystem, whether it’s conservative or liberal, it doesn’t matter, but you get caught up in the talking points of one side or the other. And sometimes, for better or worse, you may not like what you hear, but we are going to tell you what we believe the truth to be, what it falls within our constitutional framework, And that comes sometimes at the expense of making one side or the other mad. But we’re not afraid of that. What we know is that you have to keep fighting for these principles. You have to hold fast to them. And that’s what we do here. Whether it be the legal work, the fights that our attorneys are engaged in every day, whether it be our UN work, where we are trying to share the truth and spread the light. to a very dark world, a world that doesn’t want to hear the truth many times. We are doing that. Our senior counsel, CeCe Heil, right now is overseas. When she gets back, she’s going to be able to talk about some of these things she’s doing in North Africa right now. where she is there with the ACLJ as an ACLJ representative to speak about religious freedom, about protecting those that are persecuted for their faith. And so you may not see even some of the moving parts that are going on behind the scenes every day because we can’t cover everything every day, but know that there is so much work going on. And when you support the ACLJ, especially during this Liberty Drive, it is vital to keep that work going.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s right. So I’m going to encourage you. Look, there are days where we just feel like we have to talk about the work of the ACLJ and we have to do some fundraising. Today’s one of those days. Be a part of it. Be a part of this team. I see a lot of you comment on YouTube all the time. You’ve created a whole community, a whole family there where you go back and forth. Same on Rumble, where the same people join us each and every day. They have their own sidebar discussions. If you even like that, the fact that we’ve built a community of people that are like-minded, sometimes not so like-minded, but are cordial and respectful and will have these conversations also, Again, all of that happens. We got moderators. We got all of this huge crew, whether that’s our production crew, whether that’s the editorial crew, all of it happens because people like you support the work of the ACLJ because I never want to put our content behind a paywall. I never want to ask you to pay for legal work. You’re never going to have to pay for legal work if we represent you. I certainly don’t want to have to ask you to pay for any of the media operations that that we have here. I want to make sure it’s easy for you to share this content with as many people as you can so we can get our message out there. And really, when we get our message, it’s your message because you represent so much of what we do here at the ACLJ. We’ll be right back with more on Secular.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. I’m joined on the phone right now by Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, Jay Sekulow. And this came out yesterday evening as Senator Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as Chairman Ron Johnson of the Senate Investigations Committee, released this information. And I think it was Senator Johnson that said it shouldn’t be shocking at this point, but it should be outraging to those that see this news. Because it appears that there are no depths to the constitutional violations and the ways that this… The special counsel decided to run roughshod over the Constitution. And I wanted to get your take when you saw this, Jay, about what the special counsel was doing, obtaining the text messages from sitting members of Congress.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, I think what Senator Johnson said is exactly correct. No one’s shocked. although it is shocking that he did this, but it’s not shocking because we saw the abuses taking place by the Department of Justice, with Jack Smith in particular. The outrage is palpable, and that is when you sit back and see a list of 30-something U.S. senators and House of Representatives members that have now had their text messages reviewed by a special counsel from the Department of Justice, So you have the executive branch spying basically on the legislative branch. You’re talking about constitutional violations of which we have not seen in our lifetime. This is the quintessential example of not just government overreach, but government run amok with no moorings, with no guideposts, and with no… any kind of influence that would stop it. They were on a runway that was never ending to violate the constitution here. And, and they did. Now the question is going to be, how do you hold them accountable? And we’re looking at that as well, but this is beyond the pale. It is beyond the scope of legitimate prosecutorial inquiry. This was the executive branch, as I said, spying on, members of the united states house and senate and people that they were talking to and so you may have had news media people i mean you’re talking i could think of first amendment violations 14th amendment violations i mean you could write a a when we used to have phone books this could be a phone book full of violations uh we’ll see what the department of justice does but i will tell you this the aclj we’re looking at it and we will take action
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I think what is one of the more shocking parts of this, and we knew how aggressively he was operating as a special counsel and was kind of ignoring the rules of the game as he went along. But when you read this, that the Department of Justice had a filter team in place to try and filter out. That’s exactly what they do when they receive records that the special counsel can legitimately ask for. It’s supposed to filter out things that may be attorney-client privilege, that may be speech and debate clause violations if he were to get his hands on for members of Congress. Anything that could have raised even a hint of a constitutional violation. But it appears when you read the timeline, it was within 30 minutes that they were aggressively trying to go around that process. And I think that’s what’s the biggest thing for me.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, the tank team, by the way, because I dealt with that in representing President Trump. I mean, I dealt with these tank teams. It’s kind of ridiculous anyways, but your point is well taken. And that is they distributed this material in a nanosecond. And they did that because I’m assuming we don’t have I don’t have evidence of this, but the timeline certainly indicates that they did this. So they didn’t have to go to the Taint team. Now, what the Taint team would or would not have done with this, I don’t know. But the idea that the executive branch of government, the Department of Justice, was looking at the access records and text messages of sitting members of Congress is unbelievable. Taint team or not. So, I mean, you know, in one sense, the least of their problem is they didn’t go through a tank team. That’s an internal violation of their own policies. Not jockeying there either. But, you know, I’d like to know who knew this, too, by the way. But did Merrick Garland know this? Did President Biden know this? Did others within the Department of Justice know this? I’d like to know those answers. So I’d like to send out a freedom of information demand that says, who received this? Who got it? Who distributed? Who was on that list? Was there information going from the Department of Justice to the White House about these very messages? And then, of course, you have the fact that K.G. Jack Smith went up before Congress and the minimum… He basically either dodged the question but left a clear impression that he did not see these documents. I mean, we could play that, Will. I think that’s not a bad idea.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I think this is the perfect time to play this because this is from just December of 2025. This isn’t, you know, with some of those depositions that we talked about with James Comey, that where he was either dodgy or it appeared he lied to Congress were from years back. This is months old at this point. And when you hear this is bite one, it’s a congressional attorney doing a deposition of Jack Smith. And this goes to that question of toll records and text messages. Let’s go ahead and play bite one.
SPEAKER 06 :
The toll records that you requested from the senators, did they include the content of the phone calls? No. The records that you requested, the toll records from the members of Congress, include the content of text messages?
SPEAKER 09 :
So right there, did the toll records from the members of Congress include the content of text messages?
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah. His technicality is, you know, these weren’t toll messages. I mean, go to technicalities. But let me say what he did. He let the clear impression… to the American people and to members of Congress that it was just what we used to call these pings. I knew that I texted you, you texted me, I don’t know what was said. That is not the case. They had the substantive text messages of these members of Congress and the people that they were texting. So Jack Smith, at a minimum, you know, evaded the question. And I think really committed a form of perjury because now he may have a technical defense because the way he said toll records versus, you know, text messages and how he got the text messages through the process. But the fact is, what we cannot lose sight of is a member of Congress had his text messages reviewed by the Department of Justice, the executive branch again, overseeing, quote-unquote, invading the confines of the legislative fringe. In the United States, you know what we call that? Unconstitutional and unacceptable.
SPEAKER 09 :
one one question that this leads to for me and this is something you’ve been critical of the special counsel process for years if people have been following this broadcaster the aclj they they know your thoughts on the special counsel process you’ve had to deal with special counsels maybe more than anyone uh in the united states today when it comes to the muller probe and all of those issues uh There was a lot of questions about even the way that Jack Smith was appointed, if that was even constitutional. I know that it was raised by Justice Thomas in a dissent about, or a concurrence rather, whether this was even a process that follows the Constitution. Do you think that this could be, especially now that we see Cory Booker, Karen Bass, Adam Smith, Democrats having their rights violated by this special counsel, could there be a push within Congress to maybe change some of this?
SPEAKER 12 :
There should be. Listen, I have been, as you said, I have been critical of special counsels going back to the Bill Clinton era. I didn’t like independent counsels before. At least they were accountable to the executive branch, to the way the Constitution is set up. These special counsels are accountable to nobody. They’re not really technically accountable. I mean, in a technical sense, they’re accountable to the Department of Justice, but they operate totally independently. That process is ridiculous. It violates the Constitution. It creates a star chamber. And we shouldn’t have that in the United States of America. It’s not worth the risk to our constitutional republic.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you so much for joining me on this important topic. And folks, we’re going to be talking more about this in the next segment. If you want to call in 1-800-684-3110. But I’m also going to talk about what our attorneys are doing right now. You heard our chief counsel, Jay Sekulow, allude to that earlier in this segment. We’ve already been investigating this through FOIA requests, through lawsuits. that we have filed, including a lawsuit this week that was filed, I’ll tell you about in the next segment. Our attorneys right now, because this is new information, are going over what we already have to see which parts of it there may be overlap so that we know the best way forward to figure out who received these informations, who was privy to this information. Was it the Attorney General? Was it the President of the United States? We are looking at what we’ve already got in place and to see where we need to go next. We are that nimble here. We are able to turn on a dime when we have news like this come out that was gotten from the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is a big deal, folks. And as we heard, this could be the impetus for change. When you start to see even members of Congress that are Democrats that are in the opposing party here, so to speak, it shouldn’t be partisan. What’s happening here is an attack on our constitutional framework. on our Congress, on co-equal branches of government. And if you think that a special counsel, oh, it would never happen to an ordinary American, they’re doing it to sitting U.S. senators and congressmen. We’ll be right back with more on Sekulow, but you can support our work by going to aclj.org slash liberty and donating today.
SPEAKER 08 :
Last segment of the day. Be a part of the show. Last chance to call in 1-800-684-3110. If you’re on hold, we’ll do our best to get to as many of you as possible. We’ve been on hold for a while. We will certainly get to you. 1-800-684-3110. We’re obviously looking at the comments, and Will had a comment he wanted to respond to.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. And this, I think, goes back to what we were talking about, the ad hominem attacks, going after people rather than policy or even legal opinions in this case. And this is an individual on YouTube. said justice barrett’s judgment is impaired due to these threats she just needs to step down family comes first before a job now One of the great burdens of liking conservative jurisprudence and legal philosophy is that people think for themselves, not for how the party tells them to think. And so what you end up getting with conservative justices is opinions you don’t agree with in a partisan way necessarily. Here’s what I would challenge anyone who has ever said that Justice Barrett’s judgment is impaired. due to the threats. Have you read, personally read, not what you read about or read what someone told you or heard what someone told you, have you read opinions authored by her or signed onto by her? Because you can’t read them and think that she’s making it up or her judgment’s impaired. She’s writing a judgment that is normally very rational, thought through, and you may still disagree with the outcome. But you can’t say that this is not a very serious person that sits on the Supreme Court of the United States. And when I see that, it frustrates me to a deep level because I think that even the, let’s take the birthright citizenship case that was authored by the chief justice, I would wager most of the people criticizing it in the wake of it did now. People are like, I did. Okay, that’s fine. Most of the people that criticized it and said it’s the end of the republic, because I saw all those comments that day. I was here by myself saying the end of the republic. Why are you throwing shade at me, Will? Well, you weren’t here. You didn’t have to read the comments. I was giving you a pass. Have not read the opinion. I did. I know people very close that work with me that had not read the opinion. And I’m looking at you, Tim, when we look at this and you see even the chief justice, it’s rooted in history. It’s rooted in law. It’s it’s not what you think. You may disagree with it, but it’s nothing that day changed or was made up or conjured up in a way that is like their judgments impaired. They’re being blackmailed. That’s what you read in conservative media. It’s disgusting.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know what, Will? I think we inflamed a lot of comments because a lot of people are saying all the words we thought we said maybe we shouldn’t be saying. I think you’re proving our point here. I want to take some calls right now because a lot of you are calling in, and some of you have been a hold for a while. We only got six minutes left. Let’s go to Dee in California, line two. Go ahead, Dee.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I had several comments regarding, like, it’s concerning that with this threat… to our Supreme court justices as well as the actual attempt on one. And I, especially Amy, you know, she’s got a young family and I think they’re crossing the line when they show up at her home, threatening and all that. And also, even though I don’t agree with, uh, Robert FK Jr. When he was running for president with his family history, uh, If anybody deserves secret service protection, he did. And yet they denied him that.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, thank you for calling. I appreciate that. I think a lot of people do feel that way and feel that even if you disagree with the politics of this, you see a conservative justice, you see a liberal justice out there saying that this is their time to really hopefully up that. We do need to protect. We need to protect a lot of people, by the way. We got to lower the rhetoric to even start there. But yeah, I agree with you, D. Let’s continue on. Let’s pop over to Sean, who’s calling in Florida, who’s an ACLJ champion. Sean, go ahead.
SPEAKER 13 :
Hey, guys, thanks for what you do. Mine’s just a quick question. Is there a law or something that states that we have to know who votes for what? Like, I think this would be a lot easier and a lot less controversial if people just… did like a blind vote, and we weren’t always having to judge one person or another based on our own personal views.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, Sean, I do think that would become an issue when you’re talking about election and re-election, because then you’re talking about how do you know who you’re supporting here in some ways.
SPEAKER 09 :
And to some degree, also, they are voting for you. They are your representative. We’ve got to know what he’s saying. Yeah. But at that point, though, if you don’t know how they are voting, how do you keep that person in check? Because they are accountable to you. And yes, I understand the sentiment. And you’re not wrong. Yes, it would be a lot better if there was nothing for people to report on or attack ads to run. Look at this guy voted this way, this way. But at the same time, it does kind of defeat the purpose of them representing you because you as a voter are who they are accountable to.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right. Thanks, Sean. We appreciate it. I appreciate you being an ACLJ champion. Right now, if you become a champion, your first donation is doubled. So go ahead and opt in to be an ACLJ champion. That’s a monthly supporter. Let’s go to Doug in Colorado watching on YouTube. Doug, go ahead.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, guys. Well, I’ll preface it with this. Two words. Original intent. um i’m sorry amy comey barrett did not come down i read it and it doesn’t come down on original intent but i want to say this on the first amendment rights we definitely i mean i would never even fathom going to a supreme court just at his home and protesting so but we as citizens we have to watch this slippery slope where does it come into where we’re not using threatening language but we’re being very inflammatory do we have to worry about our own safety as citizens because we’re using our first amendment rights
SPEAKER 08 :
Look, I think that someone called in and said that maybe we should be going after Schumer. And that does, we said we don’t really agree with it legally. And we don’t agree with that necessarily. But we do say, look, there are consequences here. We need to do better as human beings. That doesn’t mean necessarily we need to legislate that or criminally go after somebody. And look, Doug, that’s a concern. Your kind of person saying, look, I would never go in front of a Supreme Court justice. I’m not concerned with you. I’m concerned with the people that do. Not to just disagree with someone’s politics or disagree with their decision. The people who are taking what they feel like they feel justified in creating violence. But I appreciate you, Colin. Let’s try to get a couple more calls in before we wrap up. Let’s go to Rich in New York. Rich, go ahead. Will’s favorite topic.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I didn’t give my location. I was wondering how I knew. But anyway, I would like to affirm what that lady said about the original intent of the Senate. But for different reasons, the Senate no longer is a check on expansive national power, in my view, and it’s no longer a check on for the states against that and on executive power. And because you know the influence that the president now has over the Senate and who serves there, if they were appointed by the legislatures, they would have some sort of insulation and they would be responding directly to their state’s needs. Plus, because they confirmed the justices on the courts, i would hazard to guess that and legal and analysis would show that federal power has accumulated uh because there are no senators appointed by the state to challenge the uh nominees about states rights and so i think we ought to go back i think the founders were correct and this will progressive uh the the 17th amendment was a progressive thing the
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, Rich, I am only cutting you off because we have one minute left in the show. Hey, April, unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to get to you today. I appreciate her advice. Her comment was more she likes President Trump because he’s authentic. He speaks his mind. He says those kind of things. Look, clearly that resonated with a very large portion of the world or the country. So trust me, I don’t disagree or find that to be shocking. A lot of people feel that way. But I appreciate you, April, for calling. Unfortunately, we’re just not able to get to you. That’s going to wrap up the show today. Will, you got anything to say about the 17th Amendment?
SPEAKER 09 :
I would just say what I agree with both those callers are is that we don’t need to abolish the Senate. Let’s start there, and then we can deal with other issues as well. All right.
SPEAKER 08 :
We’ll be back tomorrow. But in the meantime, support the work of the ACLJ by going to ACLJ.org during our Liberty Drive. Your donations are doubled today. Fight for your freedoms to worship for religious freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of press, all the things that we support here at the ACLJ. None of it happens without you. ACLJ.org. Do it today. Scan the QR code you see on the screen. All donations are doubled. They’re matched. A great ACLJ supporter or champion ready to unlock their pledge whenever you give during this month. Again, during our Freedom Drive. Talk to you tomorrow.
