Judging Freedom - Trump audio tapes_ Russia, Ukraine & Crimea_ Pentagon Sloppy Accounting!

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

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Thank you for watching. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, June 23rd, 2023. It's 3.15 in the afternoon here on the East Coast of the United States. Just me, here are your hot topics from the Supreme Court giving Joe Biden a huge victory by a vote of eight to one to Donald Trump getting to look at the evidence against him, but he can't talk to anybody about it. All that and more on your hot topics right after this. When it comes to carrying valuables or even firearms in your vehicle, most people feel they have to choose between safety and convenience. A vehicle break-in occurs every 36 seconds in America.

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for the most part deserted of the justices. So the decisions will start to come. We are all awaiting a major decision involving Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, private school Harvard, public school University of North Carolina and whether they can make race-based decisions in their admission policies. That's the hot one that we're all waiting for. It will probably come a week from today or a week from yesterday, but sometime in the next six or seven days. But a very hot one did come out today and had a surprising result. So the states of Texas and Louisiana sued the federal government because they claim it's doing an inadequate job at the border. And rather than releasing people who, well, okay, somebody comes in, they're a criminal, they're here illegally, they're not prosecuted, they're sent back, they're deported.

They then come back again. Now they violated an American law by reentering after deportation. Should they be prosecuted? The Biden administration says no. The states of Texas and Louisiana said yes. Remember, the states provide the social welfare safety net of welfare and education and health care and safety. And so they challenged the Biden administration decision. A federal judge, a federal district court judge sided with the states, a federal appeals court sided with the states. The Supreme Court reversed those decisions today by a vote of eight to one, Justice Alito dissenting, but not on the merits, on the fact of that or the legal conclusion that the states don't have standing to sue.

What's standing? Well, you can't just go into a courtroom and ask a federal judge, rule on this, rule on that. You need to show that you, the plaintiff, are uniquely harmed, that your ox is being gored differently than other similarly situated oxen. And if that is not the case, if there are many people being harmed by this and you're just the one who sued, then you can't sue. You have to have a unique case or controversy. And since this decision to catch and release and not to prosecute affects all 50 states, Louisiana and Texas do not have the right to sue. What's the remedy? Well, the remedy is to vote the president out of office and vote in someone who will have a tougher stand at the border if you are a state that's being agreed with this. And the states are being

agreed. You know, their Medicare, Medicaid, education, emergency room, basic food, shelter, and clothing expenses go up as they have to care for people entering the United States who are not contributing materially to the tax base. I'm not preaching in favor of taxes. I'm just giving you the arguments of the states. So the Supreme Court basically said to Texas and Louisiana, we hear you. Vote for a new president. It is not our job to resolve something that affects so many people. We only hear cases where plaintiffs have unique injury, unique to themselves. While all

this is going, oh, the vote was eight to one. My boyhood friend and Princeton classmate, Justice Sam Alito dissenting. Can the case come back again? Yes, the case can come back again by somebody that is uniquely harmed, a human being, an American harmed by a person whom the Biden administration refused to incarcerate and refused to prosecute. That would be a harm unique to the plaintiff and not common to all others. And in those circumstances, such a plaintiff, it's terrible. You'd have to be hurt first, but that's the way the Constitution is written. It's like challenging a criminal statute. There are many criminal statutes that in my view are unconstitutional. I can't challenge them unless I'm going to be prosecuted under them. Only the defendant being prosecuted by the criminal statute can challenge its constitutionality. I'm not saying you should go out and break the law, but only when the government prosecutes you do you

have standing to challenge the constitutionality of the law under which you've been prosecuted. While all this is going on, the federal government has begun its obligation of sharing its files with the Trump legal team. Okay, Judge, what legal team? Good question. The president has a lawyer of record, the human being who stood next to him and said, most assuredly, we plead not guilty two weeks ago in a federal courthouse in Miami. But that human being, as I understand it, that lawyer is not admitted to practice in Florida and is not the head of the legal team defending Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago case because he doesn't have a legal team yet. His lawyers quit the day the indictment came out.

There are nearly a million pieces of paper in this case for a legal team to review. So I don't know to whom what we call discovery was sent. Discovery is the generic word to describe the passage of information from one side of a case, whether it's civil or criminal, to the other side prior to trial. In federal criminal cases, the government has to give just about everything to the defendant. I say just about everything. It doesn't have to give its legal research. It doesn't have to give its strategy. It doesn't have to give what we call its work product, its analysis of the facts on the law. But if it has interviewed a witness, it has to give the interview, an FBI interview. If the witness has testified before the grand jury, it has to give the transcript of that testimony. So all that information

is coming in tranches. The know, the first tranche, because there's a million pages, maybe 100,000 pages, has gone to some lawyer for Donald Trump. At the same time that happened, the federal judge in the case, appointed by Donald Trump, reminded him he cannot discuss these materials publicly, and he cannot reach out to the witnesses directly or indirectly, privately or publicly. I will tell you, even though he's the former president of the United States, that's the fastest way for him to end up running for president from a jail cell. If he attempts to influence witnesses in the case, I'm not saying he's going to do it, but he was warned against it. What can he do with this information? He can discuss it with his lawyers and they can discuss it with their

experts. They're going to hire ex-FBI agents and ex-intelligence agents to examine these documents, to opine as to whether or not they really truly are NDI, National Defense Information. So the former president can discuss all of that with his lawyers and with his experts, but he cannot discuss it on the campaign trail. He certainly can't discuss it with the witnesses against him, many of whom have worked for him and continue to work for him. Or there will be, for his freedom, catastrophic consequences. When we come back, if you haven't seen it, I'm going to run the clip of General Ben Hodges, retired four-star general, saying it's time for the U.S. to help the Russians invade Crimea. And you can only imagine what the Russian minister of defense had to say about that right after this.

The headrest safe is quick and easy to use. Some may even call it a game changer. The headrest safe acts as a safety net, protecting your belongings while keeping them out of sight and out of bounds of others. Serving us security while also keeping your valuables in bounds. That's what the Headrest Safe provides for me. Game, set, match. one of our uh commenters i do my best to read the comments if you see me looking like that uh says judge call these things freedom friday i like that all right so my hot topics on fridays will now be called uh freedom uh friday i don't know if you've seen this clip i played it for general or i played it for colonel've seen this clip. I played it for General,

or I played it for Colonel McGregor, and I played it for a few other of our regular guests, but I was simply astounded by it. Ben Hodges is a retired lieutenant general. That's a four-star. That's the same rank that Lloyd Austin was right before he became Secretary of Defense, except in major, major wars. I don't think we've had a five-star since World War II, a guy named Dwight D. Eisenhower and another guy named Douglas MacArthur. Four-star is really the highest achievable rank in the military. There are four-star admirals, and of course there are four-star generals. General Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a four-star general. General Hodges, a retired U.S. Army four-star, a year ago was the commander-in-chief of all American military, including

naval and air force, and naval of course includes Marines, in Europe. There were no wars in Europe at the time. Now, of course, there is, and he's suggesting that the Russians will be put on the offensive in Crimea. This, of course, is crazy. Crimea has been a part of Russia since Catherine the Great. That's before the American Revolution. I know it's gone back and forth. It is largely Russian speaking. It is Russian cultural. It is Russian historic. There is no way on the planet that Vladimir Putin is going to give up Crimea, and it would be crazy for the Ukrainians to think they can reach Crimea. They can't even reach the first of the three bands of defenses that the Russians have put on their side of the line of demarcation.

So Russians here, Ukrainians here, line of demarcation in between. There are three bands of defenses here. The Ukrainians can't even reach the first band of defenses. Where's Crimea? Way, way behind those lines of defenses. Nevertheless, General Hodges says this. Ukraine needs long-range precision weapons. And I'm very frustrated that our administration has so far refused to provide the ATACOMs and other long range precision weapons, which would help Ukraine hit Russian targets in Crimea. Because at the end of the day, Crimea is the decisive terrain. As long as Russia occupies Crimea, Ukraine will never be safe and Ukraine will never be able to rebuild its economy. So Crimea is the decisive terrain.

And if the U.S. would provide these long-range weapons to Ukraine, then the Russians would have to begin to leave Crimea. Then the Russians would have to begin to leave Crimea. Okay, that obviously provoked a response. We don't have the response on tape, but Sergei Shogun, the one that Yevgeny Progozhin keeps attacking, the very highly regarded Secretary of Defense, Minister of Defense for the Russians said, don't even consider it because the use of American and British weapons to attack the Crimea, which the Russians consider Russia.

I mean, this would be like Mexico trying to take back Texas or Arizona or New Mexico. The Russians consider Crimea Russia. And the Russian Minister of Defense said, don't even consider it. You will vastly widen this war. We will be unleashed as we proceed against you. I hope that the Pentagon and the State Department and the White House do not take General Hodges seriously. You've heard Colonel McGregor and you've heard Scott Ritter on this program basically say that what he's saying is outrageous,

is dangerous, and is even criminal. Because if it leads to an attack on Crimea, and if American forces, either directly or indirectly, using just American military equipment or American human beings are in any way involved, say hello, Joe, to World War III. Nobody in the United States wants that. Do you know anybody who really thinks that this Ukraine war is a matter of national security for the United States? Aren't we beyond that George W. Bush nonsense that we have to fight any war just to prove our manliness, just to prove that somehow 7,000 miles from here, a border dispute is going to affect American national security? Used to be the Republicans believed that. Now the Democrats do. And all Joe Biden's people want him to run for re-election as a wartime president. Of course, Republicans in the Congress believe it as well. To me,

to you, it's nonsense. I'll tell you what else is nonsense. Would you give your money to somebody who couldn't account for 6.2 billion of it? Would you give your money to somebody who, after a three-year audit, couldn't account for 200 million of it? Ah, welcome to the Pentagon, circa 2023. Okay, the second one that I mentioned, the 200 million, that's been gone for a couple of years. That was not lost under Joe Biden's Pentagon. That was lost in the Obama years. And all the audits that went from Obama to Trump to Biden, couldn't find the $200 million. Couldn't find it. Gone. Now, this morning, the Pentagon reveals it just found $6.3 billion. Not in cash, but apparently it inappropriately and inaccurately recorded the value of equipment

that it shipped to Ukraine. So it told us of the $113 billion in cash and equipment that Congress has authorized the Biden administration to ship to Ukraine, it had shipped $63 billion. Turns out it has only shipped 57 billion because the Pentagon, with all of its money, Congress gives it 800 billion with a B a year. Can't hire the right people to put the right price tag on all of this equipment that we're giving for free to Ukraine. You can't make this up. So in reality, there's another 6.2 billion available than the Pentagon told us. And what did they do when they discovered this? Ship it out right away. Never mind sending any money back to the Congress. Never mind conserving our wealth. Ship it out right away. Hurry, get rid of it right away before somebody discovers it's here. So that $6.2 billion, which was announced this morning for American military aid, is now on its way to Ukraine. All right. Here's a question that many of you

have asked me, and I'm happy to answer it. If you were the judge in the Hunter Biden deal, would you rubber stamp the guilty plea? Or what questions would you ask to determine the legitimacy of the deal? That's a great question. If you've heard me discuss this before, and I've sentenced more than 1,000 people in my career and the vast majority of them were guilty pleas. So I probably have accepted a thousand guilty pleas in my career. There's two ways to do this. One is I'm not a potted plant. You can't just come in my courtroom and tell me the two of you, prosecutor and defense counsel, have agreed on something and therefore bang, bang, bang. I have to ratify it. No, I'm going to inquire into it. What does the government say this person

did? What does the defense say is the defense? What is the extent and the quality of the government's evidence? And why doesn't the government want to prosecute this case? One way to look at it. And then the court decides whether or not to accept the guilty plea. If the court accepts the guilty plea, they have usually agreed on a parameter of sentencing and if the court accepts that parameter, because the court doesn't know anything about the defendant, they just walked in the courtroom. The court doesn't know anything about the case. The prosecutors have just walked in the courtroom. After examining the file, the court will decide if it will accept the guilty plea and accept the parameters of the sentence. That's one way to look at it. The other

way to look at it, which is what most judges do, is I'm a judge. My job is to resolve disputes. If there is no dispute, there's nothing for me to resolve. So the plaintiff and the defendant walk in. They have a settlement in a medical malpractice case. We put it on the record. Case closed. Criminal case, the government and the defendant walk in. They have a settlement in a criminal case. The defendant understands it. The defense lawyer agrees to it. The prosecutor is willing to do it. I'll go along with it. That's the attitude of most judges in the United States, state and federal. Your humble correspondent in the years that I was a judge took the first attitude. I'm not a potted plant. I will look into the case. I want to see the file. I want to know

the evidence. I want to know why somebody who did what the government says Hunter Biden did is getting off, not even a slap on the wrist, this is a tap on the wrist. This is almost like a kiss on the wrist. I want to know why this treatment by this government of this defendant. Now, we'll find out next week because Hunter Biden and his lawyers and the government and their lawyers will be in the same courtroom at the same time before a federal district court judge in Wilmington, Delaware, and she will decide whether or not to accept this guilty plea. On the basis of what I believe the allegations are, I would not accept it. But my knowledge of it is what I read in the media. As a judge, of course, you'd have a file. You'd have a lot more information available

to you. And as soon as you give a hint that you're not going to accept it, the government can make its argument. The government can submit documents to you and make an oral argument, and the defendant can do the same. I would engage in that procedure, not because his last name is Biden and not because his father is the president of the United States, but simply because there must not only be justice, there must be the appearance of justice. And in this case, I don't know if there's justice. I don't know what the gravity of the government's case against him is, but I do know there is not the appearance of justice. And in my courtroom, I would want to find out why. Whereas we get it, have a great summer weekend,

Judge Napolitano, for judging freedom. You want to feel safe in your vehicle. With access to your firearm, that's both secure and convenient. The Headrest Safe keeps your firearm where you can access it and no one else can. It starts at theheadrestsafe.com. Thanks for watching!