Judging Freedom - Gun Rights_ Biden Family Business Corruption_

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

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Save $80 with code SPACE80 at Talkspace.com. hi everyone judge andrew napolitano here for judging freedom today is thursday may 11th 2023 it's about 4 45 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the States. Here are your hot topics for today. And they run the gamut from President Zelensky to Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett to whether or not the federal government, listen to this, whether or not the federal government can ban federally licensed gun dealers from selling guns to 18, 19, and 20-year-olds, you might be surprised, and I think we'll be happy at the answer to that. President Zelensky announced to the public that he needs more time before launching a counteroffensive. This is a PR disaster, in my opinion, on the part of the Ukrainian government and its American backers, because they've all

been talking about the counteroffensive, the counteroffensive, the spring offensive, the spring offensive. Here we are in the middle of May, a month from now, a month and a week from now, it'll be summer, not spring. Spring is nearly gone. No offensive. You'll hear President Zelensky in just a minute say, we have the men, we have the morale, we have the desire, but we don't have the military equipment. Would you telegraph to your enemy that you don't have the equipment that you need with which to fight him, or do you assume that the enemy knows that anyway? It's obvious what President Zelensky decided to do. Here's an interesting clip. You may have seen it on one of the earlier shows today.

But it's President Zelensky last night with the BEEB, the BBC. Are you ready for this counteroffensive? Mentally, we're ready. In terms of how motivated our military are, we're ready. In terms of enough personnel in our brigades, we're ready. In terms of equipment, not everything has arrived yet. That's my answer. So you're still waiting for weapons and for the kind of military equipment that you've been promised to arrive?

Yes, we're still expecting some things. They will reinforce our counter-offensive. And most importantly, they will protect our people. We're expecting armored vehicles. They arrive in batches. We can advance with what we've got, and I think we can be successful. But we will lose a lot of people. I think that is unacceptable. We need to wait. We need a bit more time. Now, today is Thursday. On Tuesday, the White House announced another $1.2 billion in aid. So at the time President Zelensky made that tape, that interview with the BBC, he knew the $1.2 billion was coming.

But this is a different form of aid. This is a credit. So what happens is instead of physically shipping them equipment from the government stockpiles, we are letting them buy it directly from American manufacturers at a credit, meaning the federal government will pay for it. So Zelensky gets an invoice and it says paid on it, paid on it by the United States Treasury. This is a rather circuitous route, and it takes longer for the equipment to get to him. Why is the government doing it that way? Because we're running out of equipment. First, we gave them equipment from our surplus. Then we gave them equipment from our substance. First, we gave them equipment from Poland. Then we gave them

equipment from Germany. We don't know. I don't know. You don't know. The government knows how much equipment they have held back, but they've reached a point where they don't want to give it from equipment that already exists, I guess because they're fearful that the American military may need it. Therefore, this is new equipment that still needs to be manufactured, and when it is manufactured, the federal government will pay for it. The state of Illinois enacted an assault weapons ban. It described as assault weapons AR-15s and AR-17s. It seems to think that a sophisticated rifle, one with a sight on it, one that would allow you to shoot at a nickel at 15 or 20 yards because of its accuracy and hit the nickel, is an assault weapon

and therefore should be banned. The concept of assault weapon is really a ridiculous concept created, crafted, manufactured, if you will, by the anti gun crowd. First, these are not the weapons that are used in the mass killings. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. Secondly, these are weapons that the Secret Service carries, that the state police of New Jersey carry, that the state police of California carry, that the state police of Illinois carry. I emphasize Illinois because that's the statute under scrutiny here when they are protecting the governors of those respective states. The New Jersey definition of assault weapon is particularly ridiculous because it includes a rifle that has a clip on the end of it for a bayonet. I mean, that is absurd. No one uses a bayonet. Bayonets haven't been used since

World War I. Yes, some people used them in World War II, but bayonets are ornamental today. Maybe you see them in the movies, but if you take a sophisticated rifle, put a bayonet clip on it, or put a handle on the end where you can hold it with a stock, with a handle, as opposed to your hand underneath it like that, all that does is make it more accurate. Ah, but to the liberals and the legislatures, that makes it more deadly and therefore you can't own it. I remember having a debate once with my buddy Stuart Varney, raised in Great Britain. Stuart has a great show on the Fox Business Network, 9 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday. In fact, if you watch that show, you may see your old friend on there because my gold commercials for Lear Capital are featured on that show. Why? Because I was on the show two or three

times a day, five days a week for five years. So the audience there knows me and maybe some of you recognize me. Anyway, Barney is saying to me, well, why? Why on earth would you want this AR-15? I said, Stuart, if you put a banana in your mouth and we tie a string on the end of the banana and I am 15 yards from you with an AR-15, I will slice the banana in your mouth right at the string. Well, that's insane. Why would we do that? Because that's how accurate the weapon is. Accurate for self-defense. Accurate against the bad guys. Accurate, God forbid, against the government if it's taken over by tyrants. Accurate when the government can't be there. Accurate when a killer is slaughtering innocents

at a shopping mall in Dallas and there's nobody to take him down until the police get there. Accurate to stop a killer who just keeps killing because the cops can't be everywhere. Ah, but banned in Illinois until Justice Amy Coney Barrett gets her hands on it. So a federal district court judge upheld the ban. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on which Justice Barrett sat when she was Judge Barrett upheld the ban. Now the application is before her to restrain the enforcement of the ban until all lower courts can rule with finality on the case. I think she'll decide by the end of the day tomorrow. She can restrain them herself, and the restraint is valid unless the

other eight justices of the court outvote her. She can refer it to the other eight justices, and the nine of them will vote. This is a temporary preliminary restraint. In a preliminary restraint, somebody says, a gun dealer, I'm a gun dealer. I'm licensed by the federal government. I'm licensed by the state of Illinois. All of a sudden, the crazies in the Illinois legislature said 15% of my guns, I can't sell them, and I've got to give them to the government. I want to challenge the constitutionality of that. Preliminary restraint means the judge makes a quick preliminary determination that the plaintiff is more likely than not to win. Federal trial judge said no. Federal appellate court, three judges said no. Supreme Court prediction will say, yes, you probably will win. So we're going to restrain the enforcement of that law until the federal trial judge can actually hold a trial on it.

The preliminary rulings were just preliminary, sort of a quick judgment by a judge. It's very trying when you do that because you're deciding whether or not to restrain the state on the basis of very little evidence before you, and you're predicting the future. I understand the Constitution. I understand the way the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution. I understand the history of the Second Amendment. I'm going to make a preliminary judgment that if I held a trial next week at the end of the trial, would the state win or would the gun dealers win? Trial judge said the state will win, prediction. Pellet court said three to nothing, the state will win. Supreme court will probably say the gun dealers will win. We'll know from Justice Barrett, why her? Because she's

assigned to hear emergency appeals from the Seventh Circuit, headquartered in Chicago, where she once sat as a trial judge until President Trump put her on the Supreme Court of the United States. says the whistleblower has seen whistleblower unidentified, probably someone in federal law enforcement, and that the document demonstrates, you ready for this, that Vice President Joe Biden took bribes in Europe while he was the Vice President of the United States. Okay, the whistleblower has told this to Senator Charles Grassley, whom I know personally, who's the senior member of the Senate, who is endowed with intellectual honesty. And the whistleblower has told this to Congressman Jim Comer, a Republican of Kentucky, who's the head of the House Oversight Committee. I don't know Congressman Comer. I know and I trust and I believe Senator Grassley. I have no reason to not believe, to disbelieve Congressman Comer. Neither of these members of Congress, Senator Grassley or Congressman Comer, has seen the document.

The whistleblower claims to have seen the document. The whistleblower says the document is in the possession of the FBI. Because Senator Grassley is a Republican and therefore presently in the minority in the Senate, he doesn't have subpoena power. Congressman Comey, on the other hand, not only is in the majority in the House by four votes, probably going to change down to three once Congressman Santos leaves, another story. And because Congressman Comer is the chair of the House Oversight Committee, he can issue a subpoena. He issued it to the FBI. The FBI says, we're not giving it to

you. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. If you or I received a subpoena from Congress, we don't have the right to say I'm not going to comply. We have to go to a federal judge and say, quash the subpoena, as in squash the subpoena. And here's why. Ah, but the FBI just says we're not going to comply. That's not right. They did that when Republicans subpoenaed them. They did that when Democrats subpoenaed them. They do it all the time when they don't want to cough up a material that they can't explain what they're doing with. Forget about it. The Congress should get serious with the FBI. And when they serve a subpoena on the FBI, it should have the same effect as when judge and get the subpoena quashed, because the FBI is no different than anyone else when they are litigants before a federal judge and are the recipients of a valid subpoena. What is all this connected with? All this is connected with the so-called Biden business, the belief that the investigators for the House Oversight Committee have found

proof that President Biden's family has been receiving, had been receiving, while he was Vice President, up to $10 million through various members of his family. They're allowed to earn an income. Did they earn an income. Did they earn an income or was this money just given to them in order to get favors from old Joe, who wasn't that old then? And of course, who wasn't the president then? He was the vice president. Where did the Senate or where did the House Oversight Committee get this information from? They subpoenaed the bank accounts of President Biden's family members. There's no evidence whatsoever that this money is directly to the then vice president, but it is a little odd that these foreign diplomats, foreign oligarchs, foreign government

officials would be giving money to Joe Biden's niece? Joe Biden's brother? Joe Biden's sister-in-law? Why are they getting this money? Joe Biden's son, Hunter? What services did they perform in return for this money? They don't have to answer that. It's none of the government's business how you earned your money. It's on its face as long as you report and paid taxes on it. But we'll see where this goes. This too, this too is tied up with the subpoena to the FBI,

which refuses to comply. Now, there is one defense that the FBI can invoke, which it has not invoked because it doesn't want to acknowledge this. If the company documents from the FBI the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation, the FBI does not have to surrender them, nor does any law enforcement agency have an obligation to comply with a subpoena if it will expose an ongoing criminal investigation? Wow. Well, that would mean, if true, that the FBI is investigating the President of the United States. That would mean, if true, that the FBI is investigating his close family members. That would mean, if true, that there's probable cause or some reason to believe the crimes particular crime, and it can only begin getting documents in that investigation if it has probable cause, a high standard, an articulable probable cause meaning likely than not, that in the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized is evidence of a crime. Look, the New York Post is all over this.

The Wall Street Journal is all over this. The Washington Times, which publishes my columns on Thursdays, the column today is about the Constitution, the Congress, and debt, government debt. The Washington Times is all over this. Fox News is all over it. Newsmax is all over it. News Nation is all over it. Conservative media is all over it. Is there a there there? I don't know. Is the FBI investigating the president's family? I don't know. Is the FBI investigating the president of the United States? I don't know. Has the FBI asserted as a defense to its noncompliance with this subpoena? We're in the middle of a criminal investigation. Not. Virginia, which once was a time, a personal. And the state of Virginia has recently enacted a statute which barred 18 to 20 year olds from buying handguns.

Now, we're not talking about assault weapons, however you define them. We're not talking about AR-15s and AR-17s. We're not talking about rifles. We're not talking about shotguns. We're talking about handguns. A federal, excuse me, it's not the state of, it is the state of Virginia. My apology. A federal judge in Virginia has invalidated that statute as violating the constitution. Well, what is there in the

constitution about 18 to 20 year olds holding handguns? Ah, good question. The Supreme Court's opinion in the Bruin case, the Justice Thomas opinion. The Heller case, the right to keep, to own a gun. The Bruin case, the right to bear, to carry the gun. Heller, the right as individual in the home. Bruin, the right to own. Bruin, the right to own. Bruin, the right to carry as individual and person. And you can carry wherever you could traditionally carry throughout the history of the United States before 1934, when the states and the feds went wild with their crazy regulations.

And this federal judge in Virginia quite properly found that there was no restriction on 18, 19, and 20-year-olds throughout the history of states, and therefore there can be no restriction on it now. This is not a preliminary finding. This is a final finding. Therefore, the Virginia statute prohibiting federally licensed handgun dealers from selling handguns to people in Virginia who are 18, 19, and 20 years old is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced. In my view, a very sound ruling, quite consistent with what the Supreme Court said, both in Heller and in Bruin.

Of course, the federal government will appeal it. They'll appeal it to the Court of Appeals, which sits in Richmond, Virginia, the Virginia, and then which loses there will appeal it to the Supreme Court of the United States. This is an easy one. This is not a preliminary judgment like as is being asked of Justice Barrett and was asked of a federal district court judge in Chicago and then the three circuit court of appeals judges also in Chicago. This is after a full-blown trial with a full-blown explanation of who would be harmed by this and how before the government was interfering to keep them bare-armed, 18, 19, and 20-year-olds were legally able to carry. More as we get it. Larry Johnson, Phil Giraldi, tomorrow. On, on. How is it that plans for the spring offensive are all over

the internet? And what's the difference between a secret and a lie from the government's perspective? Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.