Join us as we delve into the story of Garrett O’Boyle, an FBI whistleblower whose life was turned upside down due to his courageous stand. Thanks to the relentless efforts of our legal team, O’Boyle’s name has been cleared, and he is reinstated with his rights fully restored. This episode not only highlights the ongoing issues faced by whistleblowers but also underscores the vital impact that your support brings to our fights for justice and accountability.
SPEAKER 10 :
We’ve got breaking ACLJ news. That’s right. The DOJ has vindicated our FBI whistleblower.
SPEAKER 07 :
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, Logan Secula.
SPEAKER 10 :
Welcome to Secula. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. I didn’t want to start this show out without… Obviously, a lot of you have probably seen the breaking news. There’s been a, sadly, another school shooting. This was at a church slash school. There are multiple people who have perished, including children ages 8 and 10 years old. So… This is just another horrible moment for America, another horrible moment for us to really think about what we need to get done here. This was at a church, like you said, during, I believe they have like a communal mass.
SPEAKER 06 :
It was an all-school mass.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I mean, look, I was at my kid’s… chapel this morning this is what happens and then the uh the shooter uh shot through the windows through stained glass windows and i believe we’re still getting all the information i don’t want to give you a bunch of information that is incorrect there’s a press conference happening right now if you want to tune into that i’m sure there’s other stations and other places you can go to listen to that and carry that so i don’t want to pretend that i know what’s going on there at all But I will tell you that’s the news that we are getting right now. Of course, we’re just monitoring it just like you are. That isn’t going to be our topic of the day. Obviously, that is something that is going to create quite a cloud. as these school shootings often do. And I don’t want to pretend that it’s not happening. But I also want to make sure that you are getting all the coverage of what’s going on around the country. So we’re going to reset a little bit. Everyone take a breath. Obviously, say prayer for those families. Say a prayer for the people of Minneapolis. Again, this happens far too often in our country. And I would hope that uh we’d be doing something about it obviously that there are situations like this where you have gunmen who get very creative and figure out different ways to if you want to say you know pierce the border if you will of these schools by this time just shooting through windows i mean there are things that can be taken into consideration but again a lot of these have to happen until someone understands what we can do to fix this sort of vulnerable spot that maybe we’re not thinking about um But again, I don’t want to say again, multiple, multiple injured, um, and multiple killed. So, uh, 15 other people are hurt, including 14 other kids. Um, this is horrible. I mean, I don’t, I don’t know how we’re supposed to go on and do these normal shows for you when this kind of stuff happens, but we’re going to try our best. Um, When we get back from break, I think we’ll actually reset. We’ll do the topic at hand, which is a big win for the ACLJ. So I don’t want to pretend that that didn’t happen as well, that there are moments that we got it. We got to celebrate our victories as well. And there is a big victory for someone that you have been following along his journey for a number of years now. As he’s been one of our clients here at the ACLJ. And I’m excited for him. And he’s going to have his life restored. And this is someone whose life, including his family life, was really dismantled by the work of people who are just trying to… really, the Biden FBI and Department of Justice really trying to just crush this guy for just being a whistleblower. We’re going to talk about that coming up in the next segment. If we seem a little zoned out, know that, again, we’re all dads here. We’re all parents here looking out at everybody. I think there’s maybe one or two people that are in that control room that aren’t. Most of our kids are at school right now. It’s hard not to put yourself in the shoes of what’s happening right now. So, uh, again, when we get back from the break, we’ll reset. Well, we will discuss more topics. Um, we will discuss, uh, more of what’s going on, uh, in our world, because again, this is just a moment to, to take a breath, know that it’s really sad, uh, We are going to take your phone calls at 1-800-684-30W. We’re going to pivot to talk again about our ACLJ client and FBI whistleblower, Garrett O’Boyle. You remember him. I believe there’s some videos of him maybe playing during some of the breaks to give you a bit of a more understanding of who he was. I believe we have some sound bites and things we can play from his history. And then we’ll get right back into it coming up shortly. So, again… It’s hard to do these pitches, so I’m just going to say give us a call. If you really want to support the work of the ACLJ, obviously you can donate. We appreciate it. But if you want to just send a prayer out to these families that need it the most, hit the subscribe button if you can. Comment. Maybe that’s the best way you can do it. Comment with your prayers for these families. And, of course, we’ll keep you updated as more information comes up about, once again, another terrible moment for our country. But it isn’t what we’re going to dwell on. We’re going to try to move on here and get you some more information. So we’re going to discuss that coming up. So everyone take a prayer moment. When we get back, we’ll hit our main topic. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to secular. We are going to take your phone calls in just a moment. My dad, Jay secular is going to join us as well. We of course will be keeping you updated on the breaking news items that are happening around the country. But I did tell you we were going to pivot and discuss a really big moment here for the ACLJ. I don’t want to, uh, gloss over this because of what’s going on in the world. Dad, this is a big moment. Obviously, Garrett O’Boyle has been a name that our audience may have heard if they’ve been following our show for the last number of years. So why don’t we give a bit of a backstory and then lead to what ended up being a really resounding victory for Mr. O’Boyle.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it is a huge victory, Logan, as you said, and Garrett O’Boyle had served with distinction at the FBI for a long time. And when he brought to light concerns that he had about statements that were being made and misstatements being made to Congress, there were he went through the regular the regular system of how you report these things. And as he said, and we played it in the break, he became a whistleblower and then the FBI crushed him. They crushed him. They crushed his family. He lost his job, his livelihood, his home, uh, the stress on the family was unprecedented. We joined in the litigation, uh, as counsel and litigated the case with, uh, the vanilla law firm and within power oversight, uh, two good friends of ours that we’ve worked with before and the end result. And I want to say, this is again, a thank you to all of our ACLJ members and especially our ACLJ champions. He got justice. We just filed a brief at the federal court of claims just very recently, but the case has now been resolved, and the resolution includes all back pay, security clearance, position back, damages, some of his attorney’s fees, and he’s been totally reinstated, and his record is totally clean. So this was not only a vindication, Logan, but a tremendous victory. For the American people, and especially for Garrett O’Boyle, a dedicated member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It’s a huge win. We can’t underscore it enough. It’s significant. The impact is huge. It sends a message to leadership within the FBI. And I got to thank Ash Patel and Pam Bondi for getting this done.
SPEAKER 10 :
Absolutely. Of course, he has been a name we’ve heard for a long time. And of course, a voice we’ve heard on the air. Hopefully we’ll hear from him again. But there was that question of whether he was going to want to even return back to service after all of this. And I think that shows really the character of this man that he says, yeah, I want not only my clearance back, I want to be back doing what I’ve been called to do. I think that’s a big moment. Should we play a clip? for people to see or should we save that for the next one?
SPEAKER 06 :
Save it for the next while we have your dad on here. And but one thing I wanted to also point out is that the ACLJ took Mr. O’Boyle on as a client over two years ago. We retained him in July of 2023. and just now getting this resolution, and a reminder to people that things he was blowing the whistle on were the school board threat tagging within the FBI, the way that they were inflating domestic terrorism cases to misuse resources instead of focusing on the job of the FBI, and also the improper targeting of religious and pro-life individuals. A lot of what he was blowing the whistle on at the FBI had a lot of the ghosts of the IRS scandal where Lois Lerner and her group were targeting religious and conservative Americans because of their beliefs and trying to silence them. And here we had a whistleblower and we were able to fight for justice for him where, as he and his words said, the FBI tried to crush him because of calling out the FBI for what they were doing. How big of a win is this in terms even of the history of the ACLJ as we talk about these 35 years of victory?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, look, I mean, the significance of this can’t be overstated. I mean, here you had an individual whose life was turned upside down. And now with the stroke of a pen, he’s back reinstated. He’s part of the FBI, which may mean we don’t hear from him again. I’m not sure about how that’ll work because he’s been totally reinstated. But there’s another aspect of this. And I think this is important for people to understand. And that is you talk about the IRS targeting scandal. They’re at the top of the IRS on their tax-exempt division. You had Lois Lerner, who was targeting conservatives here. Remember the FBI? We had that memo that was the radical Catholic churches. Remember that one? And Jim Comey just kind of blew it off well. The people at Garrett O’Hoyle knew exactly what was going on in a lot of these issues, and that’s why they were silenced, because they had access to what was really happening, and the result of what happened was outrageous. The end result here, and by the way, two years sounds like a long time, but in litigation, that’s pretty quick. So this was a great resolution. I’m very pleased with the legal team that we had on this was excellent. Our colleague, Jane Raskin, who worked with me on President Trump’s cases, was part of the team and, of course, our team in D.C. I mean, we just had a great team on this. The end result, and this is what I want to focus on, Logan, for a moment, as we talk about people supporting the work of the ACLJ. The end result of this was not only a vindication for Gerald Boyle, but also a message to the FBI they can’t do this stuff again because there’s consequences to pay. And that is, you know, people keep saying when it’s going to happen, when it’s going to happen. Well, it just happened. And again, you’ve got to be patient, but it just happened. We had a great win.
SPEAKER 10 :
That is a big win, and I want to make sure we don’t lose track of how big that is. It’s been something we’ve been fighting for for many years. And, of course, to have that really full victory. And there is a call coming in that I kind of want to take because I’m not sure of the exact details or if it really even matters at the end of the day. Let’s go to Wendy, who’s calling California Online 1. Wendy’s watching on YouTube. It’s a great place to watch, by the way, because you can comment and engage and be a part of that kind of whole family that comments there each and every day. Wendy, go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, my question is, the people responsible for putting this man and his family through this, will they be investigated and held accountable like the actual individuals who made those decisions?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, Dad, I’ll kick this to you to kind of give an understanding of how that all works in terms of the law and what the people who actually did this. I know a lot of them were told what to do, told what to do by people even above them in the Biden administration.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes. So here’s how that works. So, you know, the internal employment law, human resources rules of the FBI are different than in civil service generally. So the individuals that violated the law and violated the rights can be removed from their positions. They can be fired. I’m not sure there’s probably not criminal liability here, but there are consequences. The government’s having to pay. uh, Gerald Boyle damages as part of his settlement. Uh, and the individuals that are responsible for it will not already held accountable. They will be, there’s no question. I mean, they, they violated his rights. And for that now, as Logan said, it may go much higher up than his individual supervisor. We probably will not know the details of that because that’s an internal matter, a personal matter for the FBI to handle.
SPEAKER 06 :
And as we remind people, once again, we retained him in 2023 in the summer, the ACLJ. And then we’re in court starting just weeks later on this. So it went through court and the Biden DOJ and Biden FBI were fighting back. We’re fighting back not to have to do what has just been done. It did take a change in leadership as well to come to this victory. And I think to Wendy’s call as well, there are different people in those leadership roles that would have had controls over these mechanisms. As we know, Christopher Wray is no longer FBI director. And those deputies are no longer there. That it also is refreshing that… change like this can happen, but it still takes us being in court, keeping this alive in the courts for that long to be able to get to this resolution.
SPEAKER 09 :
And to be clear here, you know, Garrett Boyle contacted us through Empower Oversight and he retained the ACLJ as part of the legal team about two years ago. And it, This was actually moving at a pretty fast pace. We were at the federal court of claims filing briefs very recently before the case got resolved. But remember, the IRS case also got resolved successfully when President Trump took office in 2016. So leadership matters, perseverance matters, having the right lawyers and government affairs team in place matters. And that’s happening because people that are listening to this broadcast are supporting the work of the ACLJ. And as we close out the matching challenge this week, Your support of the ACLJ is critical now more than ever was a campaign a couple of years ago. That’s true. Thirty five years of victory. That’s true. Let’s get thirty five years more.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s right. We only got four days left in our thirty five years of victory drive. And of course, there’s a lot of news going on that news for Gerda Boyle broke very late yesterday. So we weren’t even able to cover it. on your state’s broadcast, but we’re able to talk about it today. And of course, again, a big thanks. And Garrett O’Boyle posted on social media, he put, I also deeply want to be thankful to Jay Sekulow, the ACLJ, for their tireless representation and unshakable belief in my case. Without these courageous allies, I would not have been able to withstand the government pressure or continue the fight for justice. Of course, that is what he posted on social media. Again, a pretty powerful statement from our client, Garrett O’Boyle, whistleblower, who now fully reinstated back pay for all the things that he requested, security clearances. This is what happens. It’s a couple years of work, but it’s worth it every time. Now with that, I want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. I believe Rick Grinnell is going to be joining us a little bit later in the broadcast. And hey, if you’re watching online, Just put in the comments where you’re watching from. I’d love to see that as we start to continue our conversation. Of course, we’re going to keep you updated with any news that’s coming out of that terrible school shooting in Minneapolis. Most of the news we covered earlier. And again, if you want to hear the press conferences from that, there’s probably other outlets you can find. I don’t encourage you to turn us off. But I know if you’re looking for more of that specifics, you can probably find another outlet to do that. But I encourage you to stick around, be part of this conversation with us. And we’re going to play some more clips, more comments when we get back. Welcome back to Secular. We are going to take your calls. If you’re watching during the break, that was a great video package our team put together from a person who was affected deeply by the work of the ACLJ a number of years ago. He’s a Christian radio show host, a Christian music DJ, podcaster, and weatherman. in that area and a friend i’ve been on his show before and he told me when i was on his podcast first just talking about christian music he’s like hey let you know the aclj helped me out when i was a teenager and i said well we’re about to celebrate 35 years of victory i’d love aaron for you to tell your story and i’m so glad he’s able to let’s try to pull that video maybe we could play it in the main show uh because it’s mainly dialogue even our radio listeners would like it something we could pull to play um maybe closer to the end of the broadcast uh for all for everyone not just those that are watching on youtube and rumble because i really love those pieces it really just shows the breadth of the scope the aclj and again working with just these kids who now have gone on by the way to have amazing careers amazing lives i think that’s also what you see too is when you when you help out uh kids who are in need and they are in need of their religious freedom being protected it can affect their trajectory and also keep their faith strong not to say that we are fully taking any responsibility for that but when you have people who will stand up with you it really does uh Because it becomes way more a part of your journey than if you were just slapped down by a school board or whatever it may be, or a teacher who said, you can’t practice your faith here. When you have people out there doing it, and I see people saying, hey, I saw Aaron Pearlman, he led our worship at our Family Life Pregnancy fundraiser a couple months ago. You’re talking about a guy who has stuck with it. and been a part of really the world of the ACLJ, I’d say, for a number of years, and I’m happy to have connected with them. This, of course, then you go from that all the way up now to whistleblowers, well, in the FBI. There could not probably seem like there are two more converse, more different things, but at the end of the day, they all boil down to one simple connective tissue, which is what? The freedom of speech.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. And I think we should remind people this is from a House weaponization hearing back in March of 2023. So a few months before we officially retained Garrett O’Boyle as a client at the ACLJ and took on that case and the great work that our attorneys did previously. Fighting for his restoration to the FBI and the restoration of his security clearance. But this is a congressman from North Dakota asking Garrett O’Boyle questions about this as they we knew that this weaponization happened. had happened this retaliation against individuals but just hear what he has to say to when this congressman asks him about the whistleblowing process is this something you would uh tell others to do bite one all of the hardships you’ve gone through if one of your really good friends your former colleagues came to you and said i have this thing that is being covered up and i think the american people know to know need to know about it what advice would you give them
SPEAKER 05 :
I would tell them first to pray about it, long and hard. And I would tell them I could take it to Congress for them, or I could put them in touch with Congress, but I would advise them not to do it.
SPEAKER 04 :
So you would legitimately try to protect one of your colleagues from doing what you have done? Absolutely. And how do you think that solves being able to shine light on corruption, weaponization, any kind of misconduct that exists with the American people?
SPEAKER 05 :
It doesn’t solve it. But the FBI will crush you. This government will crush you and your family. If you try to expose the truth about things that they are doing that are wrong. And we are all examples of that.
SPEAKER 06 :
And just to remind people what happened when they decided to suspend him, not fire him. He was suspended so he could not go and get outside work. So he had no way to provide for his family. But they allowed him to accept orders at a new position halfway across the country. And while their belongings were being moved, they sold their house, were moving to this new field office to begin work. While their possessions, their furniture, their clothing, everything they own was in transit. Being moved by the FBI for them. They refused to release their items to them. They stopped the shipment of their entire life and put him on suspension. He wasn’t getting paid. He couldn’t do outside work. And this went on for years. And that is what he means when the FBI will crush you. He had, I believe it was a two-week-old baby when they sold their house to make this move. And this is how the FBI retaliated under Christopher Wray, under the Biden administration, against someone who was blowing the whistle on the agency, the bureau, saying, about their politicized investigations, school board threat tagging. Remember when parents would speak out at school board meetings, the misuse of their resources, including inflating domestic terrorism cases to make it sound like conservatives were the biggest threat to American security, the improper targeting of religious and pro-life individuals. He saw what they were doing and said, hey, first in his chain of command, I’m blowing the whistle. I need to go through the proper channels. This isn’t right. And then when that nothing happened there, he went to members of Congress. And then what did Christopher Wray and Joe Biden’s FBI do? They destroyed his life. They attempted to, but he didn’t give up. He fought. We were there to stand with him along with Empower Oversight and the Banal Group and fought for this victory today. But it’s not just a victory for this one FBI agent. It’s a victory for the rule of law in America and getting the FBI back into the business of protecting Americans, not targeting the political enemies of the left. And that’s what we saw for so many years. So when you think of all these things that Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel and the director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, that they’ve been putting out about how law enforcement was weaponized and the intelligence agencies were weaponized against both President Trump, but as well as conservative Americans. This is a part of that entire scheme that was going on. And we fought back and got justice for the ACLJ’s client, Garrett O’Boyle, but also for the American people. because this can’t happen. And people that see this wrong in a federal agency like that should be able to say, look, we gotta stop this. But once again, we saw that the government was trying to weaponize their power against conservatives and Christians and pro-life individuals. And that has to stop.
SPEAKER 10 :
Absolutely. And that’s why the ACLJ continues to fight. We only have about a minute and a half left. I did want to encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ if you can. We have currently going for the next few days, just four days left. This is one of our biggest moments because we are celebrating 35 years of victories here at the ACLJ. And of course, this is just another one. Another one to check a box to say, yes, this is a big one. But again, all these cases are big. Whether you are an individual student trying to keep your Bible club going, or whether you are an FBI whistleblower or the President of the United States, the ACLJ is going to be there for you at no cost. Also, if you are one of those students or you are one of these people, because we understand how this work needs to continue on. You may not have the resources. Someone like Garrett O’Boyle had been stripped of essentially all of his resources. So how is he going to pay for top-notch attorneys? That wasn’t going to happen. But because of people like you who support the ACLJ, specifically even during these times where donations are effectively doubled, and what that means is there are amazing people who are ready to unlock a pledge. So you can have your gift doubled today. Do it before a deadline. Do it today. We’re halfway through this week. We’ve got a holiday weekend coming up. We know a lot of you are going to be busy. So do it right now if you can. Help us also go against the deficit because we know it’s a big time. So go to ACLJ.org. slash victory you know it’s a tough time for people raising funds and understand that it’s a tough time in general in this country but you want to stand up you want to have something you can actually do about it be a part of our team go to aclj.org today we got a second half hour coming up stay tuned to find us on aclj.org or youtube keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is seculo
SPEAKER 07 :
And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 10 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. A second half hour of the broadcast happening right now. I do want to keep you updated. Of course, there is the breaking news, heartbreaking news out of, um, out of Minneapolis where there’s been yet another school shooting, including, uh, The death of multiple children, school-aged children. This is at a school and church, a Catholic church school, a combo there happening during their Wednesday morning, I guess you’d say prayer meeting or mass that would happen at that school. I don’t have all the information, I’ll be honest with you. I know it’s coming out and a lot of our team is putting in a lot of that information. I want to encourage you, if you are searching for those information, if you’re that families that are listening, I know we’re on in that market, there are better resources for you. Uh, there are local resources that can help you and help you get through this. I don’t want to act like I know all the information. I’m just telling you what we are hearing on the news. So I know there are probably local outlets for you that would get that. Now, for those of you who go, you know what, Logan, I understand this is something that’s horrible. It’s heartbreaking. We have to figure out what to do about this. By the way, this can’t be an ongoing thing in this country each and every year. And really something that’s very isolated to this country. Um, We got to figure this out. OK, there has there’s got to be solutions. And obviously they become politicized immediately. And I hate that. But I’m sick of seeing this footage. I’m sick of seeing parents having to reunite with their children to get through the streets. We got to do something about it. And it’s the only right thing to do. There’s really no excuses at this point. Phone lines are open for you. And we’ll take your calls. I don’t want to take too many calls on this specifically, again, because people are just dealing with it right now. And there’s still a lot of news breaking. But 1-800-684-3110. We also, though, are talking about a major victory here at the ACLJ. And I don’t want to lose sight of that because of a tragedy happening somewhere in our country. And again, I can’t… Tell you how much this affects our team here when this happens. Of course, we had one here happen locally a couple years ago in Nashville, Tennessee. Everyone kind of remembers the Covenant School shooting. That happens just a few miles from down the road. This is another one. It’s a big reminder of that. A lot of us are parents of these age children. Uh, so it, it does hit home a little differently. That being said, we gotta be able to show you, we gotta keep the show going. We gotta be able to tell you what’s going on in the ACLJ as we secure 35 years of victory. Uh, that didn’t stop. And last night we were able to secure a victory and a case, uh, For a client that we have been involved with so many years and you guys have been involved in for so many years. You’ve maybe signed petitions. You have supported Garrett O’Boyle. You’ve supported these whistleblowers who came out and were really vilified and had their rights and a lot of times their livelihoods stripped away, as Will said. Even their furniture, home goods, kept from them as they were trying to figure out how to handle this situation. The ACLJ has been fighting for these families, if you will, for years. And this one comes out to be a big victory. So much so that he’s able to return back to his job. I mean, think about that. How strong you’ve got to be to go through all of this and still want to go back because you know the FBI needs you. That is a pretty amazing thing. That shows a tremendous amount of character.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. And as you also think about how dire his family situation became because of what the FBI did to him, that even once again shows the character there that his belief that the FBI is and should be a force for good, as well as a recognition that there are change, hopefully, within the FBI, now that it is under different leadership. I think that speaks volumes as well. But I do want to remind people, because we also talked about That corruption, that targeting by the IRS that the ACLJ handled more than 10 years ago at this point, and then we handle cases like this. We win those cases. We beat the IRS. We stopped that targeting of the IRS against conservatives. We win this case here for Garrett O’Boyle in exposing what was going on. We know those fights also lay ahead again. And we’ll be ready and we will fight and we will win again to continue to preserve the rights of Americans, of conservatives, of Christians, of pro-life advocates, because we can’t stop that fight. And so we will continue.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s right. Phone lines also are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Rick Ronell is going to be joining us in the next segment, and then we’re going to take your calls and comments, and I’m going to play you a special video our team just put together for another 35 years of victory. As we head towards the end, I want to even showcase even the ones you may not have ever heard of, some that just came from personal contacts. I love those stories. We’re going to hear one of those come up a little bit later, but Rick Ronell is joining us in just a moment. Welcome back to Secular. We are going to take some phone calls coming up at 1-800-684-3110. I actually want to kick off this segment with one. Let’s go to Jill, who’s calling in New Jersey, if we can do that. We go to Jill. Jill, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi, how are you guys?
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh, we’re doing all right. Jill, go ahead.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, wonderful news about Garrett O’Boyle. I’ve been following it with you since this started, and it is awful what they did to him, and I would love to see him write a book and get a lot of money, and that’s one book I would definitely read. All right.
SPEAKER 10 :
you talking about that earlier jill that it would be fascinating to find out but you know what you have is a guy dedicated to his cause jumping right back into work getting a security clearance now of course down the road you never know what could happen but i think that would be a book we’d all be very interested in of course i’m feeling a lot of this information maybe a little classified
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and Jill also to that point, because he is taking his job back, we are not even sure we can have him on the broadcast as a victory, like, you know, tell us how you feel kind of interview with him because he’s going back to work for the FBI.
SPEAKER 10 :
That being said, he did post a very nice thing on social media. I believe we have that post. Maybe we could throw up on the screen here. He said, I am so deeply thankful to the ACLJ for their tireless representation, unshakable belief in my case. Without these courageous allies, I would not have been able to withstand the government’s pressure or continue the fight for justice. And So that’s a good moment. Hopefully you as ACLJ members, ACLJ champions, understand how important and how big the impact can be when you join us and we become a member. Because he’s talking about you. He’s not just talking about the legal team or my dad or the media team. He’s talking about you as well who join with us because it doesn’t exist without you. We had a pretty big day yesterday, people who we can’t track where donations come from. And I know a lot of you heard what I had to say yesterday and reacted to that. And I want to reiterate that. that for the ACLJ, the work exists only because of you. You may be listening on a radio station. You may be watching on YouTube. You may be seeing some ads. That ads, none of that money goes to us. For YouTube, a very small percentage. So you’re looking at, it couldn’t even pay for probably two members of the department that run the YouTube channel, if we’re being honest. When it comes to the radio ads you hear, None of that goes to us. That goes to our individual networks or to the overarching networks that we’re on. A lot of those times we pay to be on. You may say, Logan, why would you do that? Why have you been paying to be on these radio stations for 25, 35 years? We do it. We do it because we don’t have to answer to anybody. No one tells us what we can talk about or what we can’t talk about. That doesn’t happen if you’re involved in a network, if a network pays you. we are actually able to be true independent media and, of course, independent legal work because there isn’t those overlords. The only people that help us are people like you, people that give sometimes $10, $20. Maybe you can give $50 or $100. That’s great. But the backbone of the ACLJ is $45 to $75 donors. How amazing is that? It’s not by people stroking giant checks of a million dollars. Now, if you can, of course, we’d be happy to talk to you. But we were talking about the mass, mass majority of people give a very small amount, but in mass, it can pay for this show, all of our legal work, offices around the world, including our ECLJ in Europe and our ECLJ offices in Jerusalem. That happens everywhere. And, of course, we can’t have these kind of broadcasts without some of the top names who you’ve known for years. And one of them, of course, is joining us now is Rick Grinnell. Do we have Rick? I just want to make sure. Confirm we do have him. Okay, cool. We have Rick Grinnell joining us. Rick. Uh, it is a good day for the ACLJ in the sense that we have these moments where our whistleblowers are, um, are vindicated and not just vindicated, but you have, this is what happens when you have a big turnover also. And I think it’s important for people to understand why we get involved in some things that maybe seem a little more political than even they like, because when you have people in power who can support the messages that you have in the course, we are talking about people like a cash Patel or Dan Bongino or people, the FBI, of course, people like you as well, Rick, um, It’s more important than maybe people understand. It’s not more important than a presidency, but a presidency has a radical ripple effect.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, look, you said something earlier, Logan, that I think is really important to emphasize, which is independent legal decisions. We get to decide at the ACLJ what we want to go after and who we want to support. We don’t have a group of people demanding what we do. What we do have are a bunch of supporters who are incredible people. people who highlight some of the problems locally. Sometimes we hear about a local case involving a school. Maybe it’s an individual. In particular, we hear from whistleblowers who reach out and say, I know you’ve got this great network. I know you’re independent. Can you help me? And our team looks at it and decides on our own. Yeah, this is something that we want to do. This is something that we think listeners, our supporters, our community, our friends want us to do. And so we can’t do that. We can’t have a legal team. We can’t have this independence without direct support. We don’t get money from the government. We actually have to be independent and getting our funds from people who believe in the mission. And so if you believe in this mission, if you believe in what we’re doing, then it’s really important to support.
SPEAKER 06 :
Back to this victory that we have for this whistleblower, for Garrett O’Boyle at the FBI, just the importance. All the time we see, now that there is a new administration in town, people wanting to see change, wanting to see accountability, wanting to see wrongs righted. And this is a prime example of, one, that it takes time, it takes resources to fight and get it there. But also, when you continue to fight and make yourself heard and there is a new administration, new leadership, you can right the wrongs of the past, such as an individual that was trying to blow the whistle that the FBI was targeting. parents at school board meetings, pro-life Americans, conservative Christians. That’s what he was concerned about within this FBI, not this FBI, the previous FBI under Joe Biden and Christopher Wray. And now it’s not just the culture changing, but also righting the wrongs of the past administration. It’s so very important to be a component of change now that there is a new administration.
SPEAKER 08 :
Look, one of the great things about this whistleblower is that he decided to come forward and say, the FBI is lying. the FBI isn’t being truthful. And I know that they’re not being truthful because I work here. And so what we were simply doing is correcting the record, trying to make sure that transparency, government transparency was a priority. Transparency isn’t political. Sometimes it cuts both ways. And I think yet it Not every entity is perfect. They’re going to make mistakes. And if they overreach and they make a mistake and somebody wants to stand up and say, this is wrong, and the public reacts, I don’t think it’s that dissimilar from the Cracker Barrel logo, where a group of people, elites, make some decision, there’s big blowback, and they decide to adjust. I wish that we had a government that was a little bit more like that, where they admit their mistakes and they quickly change. But they don’t. We sometimes have to take them to court and we have to have whistleblowers.
SPEAKER 10 :
Absolutely, Rick. And of course, one thing I just saw pop up in my feed here is yesterday was the four-year anniversary of the Abbey Gate bombing. Of course, we’re talking about the Afghanistan withdrawal. And you can kind of look to that. I looked at it as a major moment, and really a major moment not only in the war on terror that, of course, existed for most of our lifetime, or in a lot of our lifetime, Rick. And I know you were all kind of involved in different ways in the original era of that war. But when you see now four years later how quickly things can change and you can almost write the ending to the Biden administration, I feel like in that moment where everyone saw how incompetent a situation could be and how it could risk the lives of our servicemen and then to really disrespect them continually over and over again to where now you honestly have a presidency and you have people like Tulsi and these groups who are coming in saying, no, we have to honor these gold star families because for the last four years they’ve been swept under the rug.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, yeah. This is one of these things that we see was a huge mistake from the government was the overreach in Afghanistan, the lack of preparedness and then the cover up. And the individuals who found that they were in the crosshairs, they died because of lack of planning, because they didn’t have people that were there to cover for them. And the lack of planning was so obvious. We owe it to these families to fix it and to admit our mistakes. And the last government didn’t do that. And I think that we still have work to do to come clean, to show what was not done. to fix it and to tell the public it won’t happen again because we’ve fixed the problems. People know that this was an embarrassment to the United States. We saw it play out on the national television. We have to do better. And I think the ACLJ and our listeners and our supporters help us hold government to account.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thank you so much, Rick, for joining us. We always appreciate it as we do celebrate a few more days in our 35 years of Victory Drive. Of course, a heavy day. Of course, a big day, big win for the ACLJ and for our whistleblowers. But of course, all put under a cloud of what’s going on in Minneapolis. We’ll talk about that a little bit coming back. When we come back also, I want to play a video for you, at least one, from an ACLJ client from many, many years ago and how it’s still impacting their lives. We’ll be right back with more on Seculo. Welcome back to Sekulow. This is our last segment of the day, and I really appreciate everyone who’s tuned in. When breaking news like this happens, it can kind of derail the show, as it should. Of course, that breaking news is that there was a school shooting that happened just before we went on the air. Of course, that was not the plan. That’s not what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to focus on the big victory of Garrett O’Boyle, someone who has been a story the ACLJ members and champions and people who have listened to this show have followed for years, and it ended in a big success. But, of course, it had to be put under a cloud of what’s going on as people just, little kids who were just praying, sadly had their lives taken by a gunman. And these stories are all too normalized. You know, it happens… a couple of times a year. I feel like we hear this and it’s happened as close as under 10 miles, probably from where I’m sitting right now. And it has happened now again in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So this is, you know, there’s an overhang here that’s happening, but the work of the ACLJ, it continues on and it’s hard to do big fundraising pitches when this stuff happens. It’s just, I’m just going to be honest with you. I always tell you that, that I’m honest with you and whether you like it or not, I’m going to be honest with you. And, Some people maybe have the gifting better who can move these conversations. But when you’re talking about such a heavy topic, it’s hard. Now, that being said, our team has put together some great videos showcasing some of the incredible wins the ACLJ has had, some of them that you’ve never even heard of, some that personally, I’ll be honest, I did not know about because of maybe how long ago they were and the people impacted. I want to play a video coming up here in just a minute from my friend Aaron Perlman, who I knew him as a Christian radio show host, podcaster. He’s on Light FM in Bakersfield, California. He’s also a weatherman. in Bakersfield, California, a weather forecaster and a morning anchor there from one of their stations, I believe the CBS station there, though I think he’s had different places over his career. And I was on his podcast talking, he’s on Christian radio, talking about Christian music. As you know, I’m a big fan of Christian music. And he’s like, hey, while I have you here, I got to tell you about how the ACLJ impacted my life. And he had a quick story A story that I’ve heard, to be honest, in different variations my entire life. But it stuck out a little different when it came from Aaron. I said, Aaron, we’re about to celebrate 35 years of the ACLJ. Would you send us a video? Would you talk about it and tell your story? Because you’re a heck of a broadcaster, so I know you’re going to be able to do it well. But also, I think it’s important when you hear stories like Garrett O’Boyle, who are these, you know, an FBI whistleblower. You hear, you know, Tulsi Gabbard or Rick Grinnell or members of our team that are the highest of highs in terms of their government influence, their political influence. But then you hear from stories like Aaron. And Aaron has been someone who has been also dedicated to his faith, has kept it going, speaks at Pro-Life. You see him doing a lot of different things. And I’m happy to connect with him. And he put together his story and our team put it together in a video package that ran during one of our ad breaks if you watch on YouTube. Because you don’t get traditional ads if you watch on YouTube or Rumble. You get ads that we put together or video packages we put together. So I wanted to play this in the main show. I wanted people to see it. Of course, if you want to call in this kind of last chance to call in at 1-800-684-3110 but here is a quick ACLJ story celebrating 35 years of victory
SPEAKER 01 :
My name is Aaron Perlman and back in 1996, I was a senior in high school with my twin brother, Joshua. We were both president and vice president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. And we were told that every club had a chance to be a part of the homecoming parade. So we built a 20 by 40 foot oak cross that we’re going to have the whole club carry. As a lot of us, somewhere along the line, a teacher got involved and said, you can’t carry that cross. Another teacher came in and said, let me connect you with this law firm, ACLJ. They fight for youth and Christian rights. Well, there was a compromise made. The school board got involved. The whole district shut down. And they said, you can carry the cross if only four of you carry the cross. So they buried us at the end of the parade. We’re the last club to go into the homecoming parade. Four guys, me, my brother, Joshua, Matt Foster, and Kyle Borg. And we carried this cross two and a half miles. And as we carried that cross for the next two and a half miles, we didn’t say a word. We were there just to stand with our faith. As we got into the high school grounds, there was this eruption of people cheering and shouting. We didn’t know what it was until we got to the stands. There’s the whole high school. It’s thousands of kids. But somehow they heard about our story. The craziest thing happened. The stands of all those high school students came off of the stands and joined us in carrying that cross. Why is the ACLJ important? Because of moments like this. Not only did it help us in our rights as a student to publicly share our faith, but also for somebody to hear about Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 10 :
And again, that is from our friend Aaron Perlman. It sounds like a simple story, but look at the impact it’s made. Look at the impact it made on that community, on that city. And then now 35 years later, or 30 years later, let’s say for him, coming from 1996, 30 years later, still proclaiming his faith, still talking about those important missions, a Christian radio show host, a Christian, but also someone involved in his community, a weather forecaster in Bakersfield, California. I have to tell you, I see a lot of his forecasts. You know, I learned about Bakersfield, Will. Very hot there. Interesting. He’s always like, well, it’s 106 again. But it’s a dry heat. I don’t want to say that it’s an easy job being a weather forecaster in Bakersfield, California, but it seems pretty consistently 106. It feels like that’s pretty normal there. But those are the stories. Those are those ACLJ stories. Do we want to play another one? Or do we want to keep it going here? Let’s just keep it going. We only got two minutes here. Will says to keep it going. Fine. You’ll get to hear another story. I’ll play us another story tomorrow then. Because our team here at the ACLJ, it’s been 35 years. And again, 35 years, I always like to say, that is since it’s been branded the ACLJ. We’ve been at this fight a lot longer. My dad and my family, we’ve been involved in this since well before I was even born. And whether that was fighting for Jews for Jesus back in the early 80s in San Francisco, California, or whether that was the origins of the ACLJ, which case, and of course, what is now the ACLJ and has been branded for the last 35 years. Of course, those are big milestones. This is a big milestone moment, but the 35 years is really just maybe even a small portion of the 40 plus years that the ACLJ and my family has been in these fights. You know, it started very, very humbly on a table that exists, a kitchen table that still is here in our offices, here in our studios. And John Schlitt redid it, thankfully, from Petra. He actually refinished it very nicely because we take care of it because it’s something that this is the origin. The origin is just this simple dining room table, a kitchen table, really, that exists. where my brother, myself, my parents would sit and print out our newsletters, hand-stuffed them, put them in the mail, and hope they got to the right places. And a lot of times they did. Or we’d be able to go on Christian television and talk about the work that we were doing. But again, we’re still sitting there, stuffing envelopes ourselves, all the way up to what the organization does today. Which, by the way, I read our direct mail pieces yesterday that I still see, and I still think about that. And I made some notes for future ones, because I’m like, you know what? I’ve been doing this for a long time. If anyone knows, I’m like, you know what? Let’s change that picture out. I don’t like that one. You know what? We’re involved in every little detail still. It’s still a family business in that way. It’s an organization that’s been around for so long, but all of us have been. So many of them, looking at faces here that have been here 10, 15, 20 years, some five, six years. Will’s the whole time, practically. And here we are. So I want to say thank you as we head towards the end of our 35 years of Victory Drive. And you can be a part of it today as well. Have your donation doubled. Just go to ACLJ.org. All donations are matched for this month. And again, ACLJ.org. Scan the QR code that’s on your screen. Someone asked, do I have photos from those days? I’m sure some exist. But you remember, photos were a lot harder to do in the 80s and 90s. You’re going to go up and get them developed. Talk to you tomorrow.
