Speaker 1: Welcome.
Speaker 2: It is Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
Speaker 2: It's so nice to have you with us. And this
Speaker 2: episode will also be on YouTube, so if you've not
Speaker 2: watched us on YouTube, you can do that because many
Speaker 2: more of these episodes are getting on at YouTube. Just
Speaker 2: want to let you know about that. From the very beginning,
Speaker 2: we got a pack show for you today. Three major
Speaker 2: issues are going to be talking about, including Center Cruz.
Speaker 2: You're now really diving into Joe Biden breaking the pardon
Speaker 2: rules with auto pin use. This coming after a bombshell report,
Speaker 2: and there is going to be some accountability.
Speaker 3: Well, more and more evidence is coming out that Joe
Speaker 3: Biden was completely disengaged from the pardon and commutation process.
Speaker 3: And under the Constitution, a Pardner commutation only has legal
Speaker 3: force if the President makes the decision himself, if a
Speaker 3: staffer makes it, if somebody else in the White House
Speaker 3: makes it, it has no legal force. It is null
Speaker 3: and void. There have been multiple reports about just how
Speaker 3: disengaged Joe Biden was in this process, and this week
Speaker 3: I wrote a letter to Pambondi, the Attorney General, calling
Speaker 3: on the Department of Justice to systematically examined the evidence
Speaker 3: case by case of what the direct involvement of the
Speaker 3: president was in those pardons and commutations, and calling on
Speaker 3: the Trump DOJ to challenge any pardons and commutations that
Speaker 3: were not specifically approved by the President. We'll break that down.
Speaker 3: We're also going to talk about legislation I introduced this
Speaker 3: week to protect Christians in Nigeria. Nigeria has seen a
Speaker 3: persecution of Christians that has been staggering. Just this week,
Speaker 3: over sixty people were murdered by Jihadis, by radical Islamists
Speaker 3: in northeastern Nigeria. They executed soldiers, they went house to house.
Speaker 3: This pattern of targeting Christians, targeting Catholic priests, targeting individual men, women,
Speaker 3: and children is horrific and my legislation would put real
Speaker 3: consequences on the government of Nigeria and those who are
Speaker 3: facilitating this persecution, put real consequences on them to change that.
Speaker 2: All right, I want to take a moment to talk
Speaker 2: about personal safety. You guys know I'm pro Second Amendment.
Speaker 2: You know that I've actually used my firearm to save
Speaker 2: my life when I was a target of a gang initiation.
Speaker 2: But for many people that are listening or family members
Speaker 2: you may not feel comfortable caring if firearm, you still
Speaker 2: need to be able to protect yourselves and in times
Speaker 2: of danger, you're gonna want to have something, and that's
Speaker 2: where the Burno Launcher comes in.
Speaker 1: I have given these to countless family members.
Speaker 2: It is a handheld pistol that fires both kinetic rounds
Speaker 2: and chemical irritants to separate you from an attacker.
Speaker 1: And I'm here today with Josh Gerard from Burna.
Speaker 2: Josh, many of us just saw that video footage of
Speaker 2: the recent mob attack of a man and a woman
Speaker 2: in downtown Cincinnati. Josh, many of us saw the video
Speaker 2: footage of the recent mob attack of a man and
Speaker 2: a woman in downtown Cincinnati, and it was shocking.
Speaker 1: Can you share a little more about what happened?
Speaker 2: And could a less lethal weapon like the burn A
Speaker 2: Launcher you use in a situation like this to defend yourself.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Like you said, we all saw the videos and unfortunately,
Speaker 4: after a jazz festival, a man was attacked by a
Speaker 4: mob of individuals that just continued going and continued going,
Speaker 4: and unfortunately he was unable to defend himself despite other
Speaker 4: people trying to help. This is one of those instances
Speaker 4: where clearly these people are looking for an easy target.
Speaker 4: The trick here is to make yourself a hard target,
Speaker 4: have a way to defend yourself to facilitate that escape.
Speaker 4: And that's really where burna comes in. You know, depending
Speaker 4: on the legality, you may or may not be able
Speaker 4: to carry a gun in this case, so you need
Speaker 4: to have a tool to make sure you can defend
Speaker 4: yourself as legal in all fifty states, and make sure
Speaker 4: you can make it home safe.
Speaker 2: And why wouldn't the victim in this case just want
Speaker 2: to pull a gun on these suspects.
Speaker 1: It's an important question.
Speaker 4: You know, it absolutely is, and there's a couple reasons.
Speaker 4: One is the legality. Depending on where you are, you
Speaker 4: may not even be able to carry a gun, or
Speaker 4: maybe coming from a private event where gun may not
Speaker 4: be illegal as well. And then two, in order to
Speaker 4: pull a gun, you need to understand that there has
Speaker 4: to be a reasonable expectation that there's going to be
Speaker 4: death or serious buddle injury costs. Do you pull that
Speaker 4: gun too early and you're likely the one to be
Speaker 4: going to jail. So in this case, a less lethal
Speaker 4: tool is perfect. It can be pulled early, it can
Speaker 4: be used early to prevent further harm because it's such
Speaker 4: a reduced amount of force.
Speaker 2: Look, if you want to carry one, I do. I
Speaker 2: love having this as an option. You can get more
Speaker 2: information for you or your family members on how they
Speaker 2: can protect themselves with Burner launcher. Go to burna by
Speaker 2: RNA dot com. That's burner by RNA dot com Again,
Speaker 2: burna by RNA dot com. All right, So, Sata, I
Speaker 2: really hope that everybody will take this episode and share
Speaker 2: it on social media, especially after what we're about to
Speaker 2: tell you, and it's new information dealing with the auto
Speaker 2: pen the the commutations and pardons that were given out
Speaker 2: at the very end, they were handing them out like candy.
Speaker 2: I still think it's got to be a chance of
Speaker 2: it's the highest bidders.
Speaker 1: You need one.
Speaker 2: Sure, Joe Biden didn't even know about it, and the
Speaker 2: Senate Republicans are now really getting into this and realizing
Speaker 2: that there is so much. I would say a fair
Speaker 2: way of putting it is probably abuse by people that
Speaker 2: weren't the President of the United States of America.
Speaker 1: You're now looking at this even more. Tell us what
Speaker 1: you now know.
Speaker 3: Well, the numbers are staggering, and I want to read
Speaker 3: to you from the letter that I sent Attorney General
Speaker 3: Bondi this week. It begins, Dear Attorney General Bondi. On
Speaker 3: December twelfth, twenty twenty four, the Biden administration commuted the
Speaker 3: sentences of roughly fifteen hundred inmates and pardoned thirty nine others,
Speaker 3: And on January seventeenth, twenty twenty five, the administration issued
Speaker 3: two thousand, four hundred and ninety additional commutations, more in
Speaker 3: a single day than any president had ever granted over
Speaker 3: an entire presidency.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the wow moment. By the way, the wow
Speaker 1: moment is there four.
Speaker 3: And ninety commutations, more in a single day than any
Speaker 3: president had ever granted over an entire presidency. These clemencies
Speaker 3: were issued based on broad criteria rather than case by
Speaker 3: case evaluations, and at least some of them were signed
Speaker 3: using an autopen of then President Biden's signature. I write
Speaker 3: to support your ongoing investigations related to these actions and
Speaker 3: to emphasize my commitment to providing whatever resources you require
Speaker 3: to continue and deepen them. And the letter goes on
Speaker 3: to say, the fundamental question regarding the use of presidential
Speaker 3: pardon authority Article two, Section two is whether there is
Speaker 3: an unbroken line from the president to a pardon being granted.
Speaker 3: Everyone involved in the process, government officials purporting to issue
Speaker 3: a pardon, the person to whom it is being granted,
Speaker 3: judicial and law enforcement officials, and most of all, the
Speaker 3: American people should have absolute confidence a pardon was granted
Speaker 3: at the president's explicit direction. And look, it's long been
Speaker 3: the Department of Justice's position that you don't need the
Speaker 3: president to actually physically sign a pardon. Yeah, but it
Speaker 3: has to be the president who makes the decision. It
Speaker 3: cannot be anyone else who makes the decision.
Speaker 2: Let's just break that down even more so people understand
Speaker 2: how simplistic this is, and it's easy to check this box.
Speaker 2: What you're saying is somebody communicates, I'll go back to
Speaker 2: our day's in the administration President Bush forty one forty three, right,
Speaker 2: they say, yes, I'm going to give that pardon to
Speaker 2: John Doe or Jane Doe, and then it can be
Speaker 2: used with the auto pen because it's coming from the president.
Speaker 2: What we're now witnessing is it's virtually impossible for this.
Speaker 2: Many conversations have been had in the final moments of
Speaker 2: Joe Biden's presidency, especially with a cognitive decline which we
Speaker 2: now all know about, and for him to have this
Speaker 2: many conversations about this many people. That's where you're just
Speaker 2: saying red flags all over the place.
Speaker 1: Is that a fair way of putting it.
Speaker 3: Well, it's worse than that. In the first year of
Speaker 3: the Biden presidency, he signed virtually everything, and as the
Speaker 3: years went on, he signed less and less and less,
Speaker 3: and so at the end they were auto penning virtually everything,
Speaker 3: and that was contrary to the advice they got from
Speaker 3: the White House Council. And what I lay out is
Speaker 3: their public reports that they call into question whether Joe
Speaker 3: Biden had any awareness about any of this, and in particular,
Speaker 3: the letter says Biden officials also say that past presidents
Speaker 3: have validly used autopens, even for actions requiring a presidential signature,
Speaker 3: such as bill signings. The Department of Justice has long
Speaker 3: maintained that the Constitution does not require a pardon to
Speaker 3: be signed. In nineteen twenty nine, the US Solicitor General
Speaker 3: issued a memo saying that quote, neither the Constitution nor
Speaker 3: any statute prescribes the method by which executive clemency shall
Speaker 3: be exercised. They need not have the president's autographed, so
Speaker 3: that was DOJ in nineteen twenty nine. However, even and
Speaker 3: especially in those cases, there must be an absolute assurance
Speaker 3: that everyone involved knows there's an unbroken line from the
Speaker 3: president to the pardon. The nineteen twenty nine OSG memo
Speaker 3: itself states that when a pardon is signed with a
Speaker 3: president's quote facsimile signature, it should quote be certified by
Speaker 3: an official having charge of the records as having been
Speaker 3: issued by the president or by his direction. These are
Speaker 3: core constitutional requirements, and leaked emails further show that the
Speaker 3: Biden White House implemented a process that separated the president
Speaker 3: from officials responsible for signing pardons on his behalf. They
Speaker 3: could not note know if they were doing so with
Speaker 3: the president's direction, either on a case by case basis
Speaker 3: or by following criteria. As a result, emails show officials
Speaker 3: across the administration struggled to verify that the president quote
Speaker 3: signed off on the specific documents, that the people receiving
Speaker 3: commutations quote are who the President signed off on, quote,
Speaker 3: that the documents accurately reflect his decision, or that the
Speaker 3: president quote agreed to the commutations. The number of commutations
Speaker 3: and the date, and these are emails within the Biden
Speaker 3: White House. In one email, a Biden official stated that
Speaker 3: the president quote doesn't review the warrants, asking how to
Speaker 3: quote handle questions about whether he approved them, and here's
Speaker 3: what the New York Times reported in July quote. They
Speaker 3: also show that the use of the autopen was managed
Speaker 3: by mister Biden's White House staff Secretary mis Feldman. She
Speaker 3: wanted to receive written accounts confirming mister Biden's oral instructions
Speaker 3: in the meetings before having it used to produce the
Speaker 3: warrants recording the clemency actions. The email show the aids
Speaker 3: referred to those written accounts of the meetings at which
Speaker 3: mister Biden delivered oral decisions as blurbsquote unquote. The accounts
Speaker 3: were drafted by aids to the senior advisors who had
Speaker 3: participated in the key meetings, like mister Biden's chief of
Speaker 3: staff Jeffrey Sience and mister Cisco. The assistants who drafted
Speaker 3: the blurbs were not themselves in the room with mister Biden,
Speaker 3: so staffers who weren't in the room with the president
Speaker 3: wrote written directions directing that commutations or pardon be granted,
Speaker 3: and The New York Times continued to say, this is
Speaker 3: a quote. Mister Biden did not individually approve each name
Speaker 3: for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people.
Speaker 3: He and aids confirmed, Rather, after an extensive discussion of
Speaker 3: different possible criteria, he signed off on the standards he
Speaker 3: wanted to use to determine which convicts would qualify for
Speaker 3: reduction and sentence. Even after mister Biden made that decision,
Speaker 3: one former aid said, the Bureau of Prisons kept providing
Speaker 3: additional information about specific inmates, resulting in small changes to
Speaker 3: the list. Rather than asking mister Biden to keep signing
Speaker 3: revised versions, his staff waited and then ran the final
Speaker 3: version through the autopen, which they saw as a routine procedure.
Speaker 3: The aide said, and here's what my letter says to
Speaker 3: the Attorney general. These and other reports suggest that Biden
Speaker 3: Harris officials took advantage of the decline in the president's
Speaker 3: mental acuity, coupled with the chaos of the presidential transition
Speaker 3: to implement sweeping, fringe progressive policies on crime and law enforcement,
Speaker 3: and to usurp authorities solely reserved for the president. In
Speaker 3: which he is forbidden from delegating. Such an act would
Speaker 3: constitute a direct and unprecedented assault on our constitutional order.
Speaker 3: And so I'm calling for the Department of Justice. Look
Speaker 3: these records. DOJ and the White House have these records.
Speaker 3: They've got a complete record of everything that happened. And
Speaker 3: so what I'm asking the Attorney General to do is
Speaker 3: systematically evaluate all of them and for any pardon, any
Speaker 3: commutation that there is not clear evidence that Joseph Robinette
Speaker 3: Biden Junior personally signed off on that, DOJ declare them
Speaker 3: null and void and pursue legal avenues to have them
Speaker 3: declared null and void and to challenge them in court.
Speaker 2: All right, let me ask you, and I got two
Speaker 2: different aspects of this. I want to ask you about one.
Speaker 2: If you are a staffer at the White House and
Speaker 2: you're fielding phone calls from friends, colleagues, people that know
Speaker 2: how to get in touch with you, and you're handing
Speaker 2: out these commutations or pardons like candy, is that illegal
Speaker 2: if you're doing it without the presence knowledge, Okay, so
Speaker 2: for sure that's illegal. Then the second question is, as
Speaker 2: you're asking.
Speaker 3: To be, it's not actually a pardon. I mean, Ben,
Speaker 3: you could decide today that you want to pardon someone.
Speaker 3: You could declare, I, Ben Ferguson hereby pardon Charles Manson.
Speaker 3: Now Charles Manson would not be pardoned. That's very nice
Speaker 3: that you like psychotic mass murderer. Sorry, Ben, but it
Speaker 3: has no legal.
Speaker 1: For us examples. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: But you know, there is only one human being on
Speaker 3: planet Earth that can pardon anyone from a federal crime,
Speaker 3: and that is the sitting president of the United States.
Speaker 3: A former president can't do it. It is only the
Speaker 3: current president today. That is Donald Trump. A year ago,
Speaker 3: it was Joseph Biden.
Speaker 2: So if did I break a law working at the
Speaker 2: White House in that scenario, and will there be accountability
Speaker 2: or did I just get away with it by literally
Speaker 2: having Joe Biden's pen and saying he didn't know about this,
Speaker 2: but I'm because I'm in the White House and I've
Speaker 2: got access, I'm making it happen. Is there any crime
Speaker 2: that's been committed by the person giving out the part
Speaker 2: if it was not authorized by Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not clear that there is a violation
Speaker 3: of federal law. It's not clear that that's a criminal act.
Speaker 3: If you declare, I ben Ferguson here by pardon Bob. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it wouldn't even committed a crime.
Speaker 2: If I'm impersonating the president of the United States of America,
Speaker 2: how is that not breaking some law.
Speaker 3: Look, you might make an argument that that it is
Speaker 3: misuse of government resources or essentially counterfeiting or creating fraudulent documents.
Speaker 3: I think it would be difficult to get any criminal
Speaker 3: conviction on that. It's not likely to get a criminal conviction.
Speaker 3: You'd have to prove mensraa. You'd have to prove a
Speaker 3: guilty state of mind. I think that would be difficult.
Speaker 3: I think the natural answer to it too.
Speaker 1: Here about Bob.
Speaker 2: All Right, if Bob hooks me up with a job
Speaker 2: when I leave the White House, and sorry, I'm cynical,
Speaker 2: but I am very cynical.
Speaker 3: Look, then if there was a quid pro quo, that's
Speaker 3: bribery and that you can be prosecuted for if you
Speaker 3: can prove there's a quid pro quo.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm cynical, Center, I'm cynical as can be. And
Speaker 2: if you're giving out this many pardons, somebody had to
Speaker 2: get a kickback here for this to make sense.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a bunch of do.
Speaker 2: Gooder maybe not randomly handing out pardons at a record
Speaker 2: rate that is unprecedented, as you described it earlier, for nothing.
Speaker 3: I don't know but that, but but but I will
Speaker 3: say so many of these people getting pardons were not
Speaker 3: Mark Rich, the financier that Bill Clinton gave a pardon
Speaker 3: to that that by all accounts, appears to be in
Speaker 3: an exchange for millions of dollars of contributions from his wife.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean that that is corruption on its face.
Speaker 3: By the way, Eric Holder was the one who brokeered
Speaker 3: that whole deal. That that's one scenario. Most of these
Speaker 3: pardons at the end, so you had different categories. So
Speaker 3: Joe Biden, of all the final pardons, you know, he
Speaker 3: signed only one. Do you know who's pardon he signed.
Speaker 2: I know this because you know I'm a student political.
Speaker 2: It wasn't Bob, It wasn't I know who it was.
Speaker 2: It was not Bob. It was a guy by the
Speaker 2: name of Hunter Biden, the.
Speaker 3: Only one that Biden signed. So he auto penned Mark Milly,
Speaker 3: he auto penned Liz Cheney, Anthony Fauci, or I say
Speaker 3: he autopen White House staff Auto Pa, somebody, did you know.
Speaker 1: I don't know of.
Speaker 3: Specific evidence that the pardons at the end were in
Speaker 3: exchange for a quid pro quo. They weren't like big
Speaker 3: Democrat moneymen. They were more number one people like Fauci
Speaker 3: or Millie or or people like like the January sixth Commission,
Speaker 3: Adam Schiff, Adam Kinsinger, and so I don't think I
Speaker 3: had no evidence or indication that any of those were
Speaker 3: quid pro qu I think those are more political and ideological.
Speaker 3: And then a bunch of these were fringe progressive, like
Speaker 3: just letting people out of jail, and so they were people.
Speaker 3: They were crack dealers and crack users in jail. So
Speaker 3: we have no indication that it was to benefit Democrat
Speaker 3: money bags as compared to just left wing ideology that
Speaker 3: said let's let criminals go.
Speaker 1: I think it was.
Speaker 3: More the ideology of a twenty four year old leftist
Speaker 3: in the White House that he said the.
Speaker 1: Power because he had a pen of a guy that
Speaker 1: didn't know who he was.
Speaker 3: It's look. Look, Donald Trump has put up next to
Speaker 3: the pictures of presidents of the United States in between
Speaker 3: forty five, which would be Donald J. Trump and forty seven,
Speaker 3: which would be Donald J.
Speaker 1: Trump.
Speaker 3: He as forty six and he is a picture of
Speaker 3: the autopen which which is I got to say, world
Speaker 3: class trolling. But in many ways that auto pen you know,
Speaker 3: instead of hail to the Chief, it was hailed to
Speaker 3: the bick.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: So here's my final question on this. How long does
Speaker 2: this how far does this go? Does this go to courts?
Speaker 2: Does this go to hearings? Does this go to the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court? Are there lawsuits that are gonna have to
Speaker 2: take place if they go after and figure this out?
Speaker 2: And is that what would happen? Because the people that
Speaker 2: got the pardons would immediately go to a court and say, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: mine is legit. Right, I got an autopin sign, but
Speaker 2: it's legit. They're gonna fight, They're not. I'm assuming I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna like go turn themselves back into prison.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So look what I'm advocating, and the reason I
Speaker 3: wrote this is a lengthy letter to the Attorney General
Speaker 3: is I'm advocating the DOJ and the White House Council
Speaker 3: analyze all of the records and determine those pardons or
Speaker 3: commutations that there is the clearest evidence that Joe Biden
Speaker 3: had no awareness of it. You know, I might start
Speaker 3: with one of the names that, like the Bureau Prison
Speaker 3: added at the very end, that wasn't even on the
Speaker 3: initial list. Ye, because because that you could make a
Speaker 3: pretty powerful case, Okay, like Biden had no awareness of
Speaker 3: this person at all. Yeah, And then and then then
Speaker 3: this is where you would want DOJ to to formulate
Speaker 3: a legal strategy for how to challenge their validity. I
Speaker 3: might start by putting out a list. It is the
Speaker 3: position of the Department of Justice that the following commutations
Speaker 3: and or pardons are null and void because they were
Speaker 3: not authorized by the President of the United States. Now, commutation,
Speaker 3: they're shortening the sentences of criminals in jail. The next
Speaker 3: step might be to to to send the US Marshals
Speaker 3: to go arrest someone who had been commuted and released
Speaker 3: from jail and to remand him again to the Bureau
Speaker 3: of Prisons to serve the rest of his sentence. Now,
Speaker 3: almost immediately that defendant would would file a legal claim
Speaker 3: challenging that, and would probably file a rid of habeas
Speaker 3: corpus habeas corpuses Latin for produce the body, and would
Speaker 3: challenge that he cannot be incarcerated on that crime because
Speaker 3: his sentence was commuted by the President of the United States.
Speaker 3: That's probably the legal legal forum in which it would
Speaker 3: be adjudicated would be the Department of Justice re arresting
Speaker 3: someone and the defendant then making the argument I'm protected
Speaker 3: by a presidential commutation, and then DJ would litigate that
Speaker 3: matter in court. So I would start with picking the
Speaker 3: best test cases and go there, and I very much
Speaker 3: hope the Department of Justice does that. It's the right
Speaker 3: thing to do.
Speaker 2: All right, I want to take a moment and I
Speaker 2: want to talk to you real quick about what you
Speaker 2: can do to help the people in Israel. It was
Speaker 2: nearly two years ago that the terrorists murdered more than
Speaker 2: twelve hundred innocent Israelis and they took two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty hostages. Today it seems as if the cries of
Speaker 2: the dead and dying have been drowned out by the
Speaker 2: shouts of anti Semitism and just pure hatred, not just
Speaker 2: in America but around the world. And the most brutal
Speaker 2: attack on Jewish people happened. It happened since the Holocaust,
Speaker 2: and now it's like they're trying to act like it
Speaker 2: never happened. Now, this is where it is important for
Speaker 2: us to stand with the people in Israel. It's a
Speaker 2: movement of love and support for the people of Israel,
Speaker 2: and this is where I want you to get involved.
Speaker 2: It is called Flags of Fellowship. It's being organized by
Speaker 2: the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. On October fifth,
Speaker 2: you can stand with Israel and the victims proudly. Just
Speaker 2: a few weeks away, millions across America will prayerfully plant
Speaker 2: an Israeli flag in honor and solidarity with the victims
Speaker 2: of October the seventh, twenty twenty three, and stand with
Speaker 2: their grieving families. You can be a part of this
Speaker 2: movement as well, and that's what I love about what
Speaker 2: IFCJ does. They're making sure that the world knows there
Speaker 2: are lots of people of faith in this country and
Speaker 2: friends and advocates for Israel.
Speaker 1: They're going to stand with them.
Speaker 2: You can get more information about how you can join
Speaker 2: the Flags of Fellowship movement, including your church. There are
Speaker 2: going to be countless churches around the country they're going
Speaker 2: to plant flags as well. So all you have to
Speaker 2: do to get involved with Flags of Fellowship movement is
Speaker 2: go to IFCJ dot org. That's IFCJ dot org stand
Speaker 2: with Israel on October the fifth.
Speaker 1: It's just a few weeks away.
Speaker 2: And if your church you think would want to be involved,
Speaker 2: you can also find out more about how to get
Speaker 2: your church to be involved on a special Sunday at
Speaker 2: IFCJ dot org.
Speaker 1: That's if CJ dot org.
Speaker 2: All right, Sanata, I want to talk about We're talking
Speaker 2: about standing up for people of faith and this is
Speaker 2: a story that has certainly been unreported or underreported at best,
Speaker 2: and it deals with what is happening with the persecution
Speaker 2: of Christians in Nigeria. We also just had this attack,
Speaker 2: as you mentioned at the beginning of the show, where
Speaker 2: sixty plus were murdered.
Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about this and what you're doing
Speaker 1: to stand up.
Speaker 3: Well in Nigeria. The persecution of Christians has been nothing
Speaker 3: short of horrific, and I've spent my tenure in the
Speaker 3: Senate advocating for those who are being persecuted for their faith,
Speaker 3: advocating for Christians who are facing imprisonment and torture and murder.
Speaker 3: The sheer scope of it in Nigeria's staggering bocal Haram,
Speaker 3: the Radical Islamist group and Nigeria. Since their two thousand
Speaker 3: and nine insurgency, Boko Haram has killed over fifty thousand
Speaker 3: Christians in Nigeria. Over fifty thousand, and that's according to
Speaker 3: a twenty twenty three report from the International Society for
Speaker 3: Civil Liberties in the Rule of Law, which is a
Speaker 3: Nigerian human rights watchdog. Over eighteen thousand Christian church churches
Speaker 3: and over two thousand Christian schools have been attacked during
Speaker 3: the same time period, and to put that in comparison,
Speaker 3: the watchdog also concluded that thirty four thousand moderate Muslims
Speaker 3: died from Jahadist attacks. So the Jahadas they target, they
Speaker 3: target Muslims who don't embrace Jahad, but they especially in Nigeria,
Speaker 3: target target Christians. Between twenty fifteen and twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: an estimated one hundred and forty five priests were kidnapped
Speaker 3: in Nigeria. Multiple priest kidnappings have happened this year, including
Speaker 3: one that Bokoharam carried out. In June, the terror group
Speaker 3: abducted father Alfonsis Alfina, held him in captivity for weeks
Speaker 3: before releasing him and thank god he was unharmed. Afina
Speaker 3: spent over fifty days in captivity, and he had previously
Speaker 3: spent six years in ministry in the United States. And
Speaker 3: violence against Christians in Nigeria has been a horrific problem.
Speaker 3: In June, just a couple of months ago, Jahadis killed
Speaker 3: over two hundred Nigerian Christian villagers in a farming community
Speaker 3: that is ninety seven percent Catholic. This is a massive problem,
Speaker 3: and it's a problem that occurs with the complicity of
Speaker 3: many officials, of judges, of ministers, of officials in the
Speaker 3: Nigerian government. So what I did this week is I
Speaker 3: filed legislation that's called the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty five and it does several things. Number One,
Speaker 3: it requires the Secretary of State to classify Nigeria as
Speaker 3: a country of Particular Concern and that would add Nigeria
Speaker 3: to a list of countries where religious freedom is severely limited.
Speaker 3: The State Department's list right now includes Saudi Arabia, Pakistan,
Speaker 3: North Korea, Iran, Cuba, and other nations outside the Western world.
Speaker 3: And severe violations of religious freedom include torture, detention without charges,
Speaker 3: force disappearance, and other flagrant denials of basic rights. Additionally,
Speaker 3: my legislation would ensure the State Department keeps the Islamist
Speaker 3: terrorist groups Boko Haram and also isis West Africa designated
Speaker 3: as Entities of Particular Concern, a classification for non state
Speaker 3: actors responsible for egregious violations of religious liberty. Boko Haram's
Speaker 3: stronghold is in northeast Nigeria and it has an acted
Speaker 3: presence in several countries bordering Nigeria. In addition, my bill
Speaker 3: sanctions Nigerian government officials who facilitate persecution against Christians and
Speaker 3: other religious minorities, and if the bill were enacted, the
Speaker 3: State Department would have ninety days to submit a report
Speaker 3: on the Nigerian officials responsible for pushing blasphemy laws and
Speaker 3: for justifying violence from Islamist groups. This is a very
Speaker 3: important role for the United States to defend religious liberty,
Speaker 3: to defend persecuted Christians, and it's been a passion of
Speaker 3: mine since getting elected to the Senate thirteen years ago.
Speaker 1: You know, this is something that really does concern me.
Speaker 1: It worries me.
Speaker 2: And we're seeing and witnessing now so much not just
Speaker 2: anti Semitism, but just anti faith, anti Christian and it's
Speaker 2: happening not just around the world but also.
Speaker 1: Well Monday's pod.
Speaker 3: Monday's Pod focused on how the Biden Department of Justice
Speaker 3: actively discriminated against Christians and systematically targeted Christians. Now, thank god,
Speaker 3: they weren't doing things on the level of Bohahram, They
Speaker 3: weren't weren't kidnapping and murdering them. But there was religious discrimination.
Speaker 3: And part of religious discrimination is the Biden administration effectively
Speaker 3: turned a blind eye to the persecution of Christians abroad.
Speaker 3: So it wasn't committed committing these atrocities, but it also
Speaker 3: was not acting nearly as vigorously as it should be
Speaker 3: to defend religious liberty abroad.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Great point there.
Speaker 2: We're going to in this moving forward, hopefully we'll set
Speaker 2: a standard that America is not going to just stand
Speaker 2: by and allow this to happen.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, well, yes, and and and Ben. I'll give
Speaker 3: it an example, an example during the Obama administration. Uh,
Speaker 3: there was a young woman in named Miriam Ibrahim, and
Speaker 3: Miriam Ibrahim was sentenced to receive one hundred lashes and
Speaker 3: then to hang by the neck until dead. Wow, and
Speaker 3: her crime was being a Christian. That's it for the
Speaker 3: crime of being a Christian. She was sentenced to that.
Speaker 3: She was in a prison cell. She had a toddler
Speaker 3: named Martin, who was eighteen months old, and she was pregnant.
Speaker 3: She was pregnant. She gave birth to a little girl
Speaker 3: named Maya. Maya was born in that prison cell. Well,
Speaker 3: Miriam Ibrahim had her legs in leg irons. She was
Speaker 3: in the mud, giving birth in leg irons. Now, during
Speaker 3: the Obama administration, I repeatedly spoke out for Mariam Ibraham.
Speaker 3: I went to the Senate floor, I spoke about Miriam Ibrahim.
Speaker 3: I called for Sudan to release Miriam Ibrahim from this persecution.
Speaker 3: Others spoke out, Other foreign governments spoke out. The Pope
Speaker 3: spoke out out in defense of Mariam Ibrahim. You know
Speaker 3: who wouldn't speak out in defense of her is that
Speaker 3: Barack Obama. The entire course of his presidency, he would
Speaker 3: not say her name. Samantha Power, who was Obama's ambassador
Speaker 3: to the United Nations. I have a pretty good relationship
Speaker 3: with Samantha and on Mary Abraham. Samantha Power was actually
Speaker 3: quite good. She spoke out urging Sudan to let Mary
Speaker 3: Ibrahim go. I practically begged Samantha Power, why won't Obama
Speaker 3: say her name? Look, we can disagree on political and
Speaker 3: partisan issues, but she's in prison and sentenced to die
Speaker 3: for being a Christian. The entire course of his presidency,
Speaker 3: I could not get Obama to say her name even once. Ultimately, though,
Speaker 3: the international pressure became so acute that the government of
Speaker 3: Sudan gave in.
Speaker 1: She was married.
Speaker 3: Miriam is married to a man from New Hampshire, and
Speaker 3: so Sudan released her and she came the United States
Speaker 3: to be with her husband. I met Mary Ibraheim at
Speaker 3: a gathering and she was speaking about her experience and
Speaker 3: speaking out for religious liberty. And I gotta say, Miriam
Speaker 3: is a tiny woman. She's maybe, I don't know, five
Speaker 3: foot one. I would be surprised if she weighs even
Speaker 3: one hundred pounds. She's a very, very small woman. And
Speaker 3: she was soft spoken, and I asked her, Look, you
Speaker 3: and I are both Christians. Are faith matters to us?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 3: But you know what, I've never been tested. I've never
Speaker 3: been in prisons for my faith. I've never been.
Speaker 1: Told I'm going to die.
Speaker 3: We will murder you unless you renounce your faith. I
Speaker 3: hope and pray and believe I would do the right
Speaker 3: thing and say absolutely not. But I've never been tested
Speaker 3: with that. And so when I met her, I asked her,
Speaker 3: I said, look, when you're in that prison cell, when
Speaker 3: they are threatening to torture you and murder you, when
Speaker 3: you're looking at your babies, you're top son and your
Speaker 3: newborn daughter, and you know that they're about to execute you,
Speaker 3: how did you not lose hope? How did you not
Speaker 3: give in to despair and ben? She looked at me,
Speaker 3: very very calmly, and she just said Jesus.
Speaker 4: Was with me.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: And it was powerful. And I'm hopeful that my voice
Speaker 3: then played a part in ratcheting up the pressure to
Speaker 3: get her released from prison. And so my hope in Nigeria,
Speaker 3: I'm going to press to get this legislation passed. I
Speaker 3: want to see the Trump administration designate Nigeria and use pressure,
Speaker 3: and in particular, there is power to pressuring the Nigerian
Speaker 3: government officials, because you know what ministers of foreign governments,
Speaker 3: they like to get visas and take their wives to
Speaker 3: New York to go shopping. And if you sanction the
Speaker 3: individual government officials who are complicit, who are for facilitating
Speaker 3: it who are enforcing and prosecuting so called blasphemy laws
Speaker 3: that can have a real and powerful effect. And so
Speaker 3: my hope is this legislation is shining a light will
Speaker 3: protect the Christians who are in Nigeria and will stop
Speaker 3: the wide scale and murder of the Christians that has
Speaker 3: been going on in Nigeria.
Speaker 1: Yeah, aimen to that. We're gonna keep you update on
Speaker 1: this subject. Don't forget.
Speaker 2: We do this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so that
Speaker 2: subscribe or auto download button wherever you get Vertical Tech Cruise.
Speaker 1: And this episode is also on YouTube as well
Speaker 2: So you can subscribe there and watch this episode on
Speaker 2: YouTube and the Senate and I will see you back
Speaker 2: here on Friday morning.