Morning Wire - Colony Ridge Crackdown & Epstein Documents Release | 12.21.23

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

The federal government cracks down on a Texas housing developer accused of being the largest settlement of illegal immigrants in the US, Republicans take steps toward impeaching the Homeland Security Secretary, and a judge orders the full release of court documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Black Rifle Coffee: Hear Clint’s story at https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Genucel: Limited Time Holiday Sale! https://genucel.com/WIRE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a lawsuit against Texas-based developer and lender Colony Ridge Development LLC. The federal government is cracking down on a Texas housing developer after bombshell reporting from the Daily Wire exposed alleged corruption. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, December 21st, and this is Morning Wire. With illegal crossings overwhelming the immigration system, Republicans take steps to impeach the Homeland Security Secretary for dereliction of duty. This guy needs to go, and I've got to convince eight Republicans. I think we can do that.

And a judge orders a full release of court documents revealing the identities of more than 170 people tied to Jeffrey Epstein. Getting to the bottom of this international sex trafficking ring that Jeffrey Epstein had put in place. Finding out who all was involved in that, that is something that needs to be done also. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. The Justice Department and the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau filed a lawsuit against the Colony Ridge Development on Wednesday. The controversial housing development northeast of Houston, Texas is believed to be the largest settlement of illegal immigrants in the U.S.

Here to break down the lawsuit is Daily Wire reporter Spencer Lindquist. So Spencer, First off, what is the suit alleging? This lawsuit from the DOJ really hones it on a few issues, the first of which is the alleged violation of federal civil rights law. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark announced a lawsuit on Wednesday. Our complaint alleges that Colony Ridge's actions violate both the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, two federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in housing and lending.

She went on to say that Colony Rids' laws. Ridge also engaged in Bade and Switch sales, accusing the developer of false advertising by telling buyers the lots have infrastructure for water, electricity, and sewage when they do not. Our investigation revealed that Colony Ridge operates as a one-stop shop for discriminatory lending. First, it targets Hispanic applicants with false advertising, promising home ownership on properties. It claims have basic utilities. Now, the major controversy around Colony Ridge among Republicans has been that it incentivizes illegal immigration, but the Biden administration is primarily cracking down on practices that unfairly target migrants, correct? Yeah, that's correct. In addition to the allegations about the bait-and-switch advertising and the sales, the suit also alleges

that Colony Ridge engages in predatory financing. Here's Clark on that. It steers applicants into seller-financed loans, exploiting their limited English proficiency in the process so that it can close the deal. Now, what kind of evidence is there that Colony Ridge specifically targets migrants as opposed to low-income citizens? Well, first off, all the marketing posts on social media are in Spanish, but much more concerning than that is that some of the posts encourage people to, quote, own land in the United States. When you couple that with the fact that they do financing through

the individual taxpayer identification number, that's a form of ID that's available to illegal immigrants. It provides much more context. Now, you've been reporting on this since September with Daily Wire. There's been some movement to crack down on this development since then. Where do those other efforts stand? Sure. So we first published an investigation on Colony Ridge back in mid-September, and we pointed out that it'd become a magnet for illegal immigrants due to its financing and shady marketing operations. At that point, several officials at the state level began discussing Colony Ridge. Every Republican congressman from Texas, 25 in total, signed the last. calling on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Governor Greg Abbott to take action on the

development. Somewhat complicating the matter is the fact that Governor Abbott actually received over a million dollars in donations from Colony Ridge developer William Trey Harris over the past few years. Regardless, Attorney General Paxton launched an investigation into Colony Ridge and Abbott went on to call for the development to be addressed with legislation and send the Texas Department of Public Safety into the area. As we covered this week, there's actually legislation on the governor's desk right now to provide $40 million for state troopers to patrol the area. It had previously been a virtually police-free zone. This lawsuit from the DOJ, however, certainly marks a significant escalation in the action around Colony Ridge, and we'll be following

along as a situation develops. Absolutely. And now it looks like they're facing scrutiny from both sides of the aisle. Spencer, thanks for reporting. Thank you. That was Daily Wire reporter Spencer Lindquist. Republicans plan to rev up an impeachment investigation into Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorcas next year. At the top of Republicans' list of concerns is the unprecedented border crisis that Majorcas has managed over the past three years. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about Mayorkas and the GOP's impeachment process. Hi, Tim. So what's the plan going to be come January? The House Homeland Security Committee plans to hold hearings to go over Mayorkas's performance. Now, there's already broad support among House Republicans that Mayorkas should be impeached,

and impeachment has been pushed about half a dozen times now this year. But on the Republican side, there are a handful of holdouts. The last vote on this in November had eight Republicans vote with Democrats to block passage of articles of impeachment. The articles were referred down to the Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee. Green wants Mayorkas impeached, and he said it'll be a top priority next year to convince the GOP holdouts of that as well.

Well, here's what Green had to say over the weekend. He's derelict in his duty. He's broken the laws of the United States that have passed Congress. He's lied to Congress. According to Green, most of the holdouts have procedural concerns. Are Republicans doing this the right way? They don't disagree with impeachment on the substance of it. So getting them on board should be fairly straightforward.

But with Republican's slim majority, they can only afford a few defections before impeachment is lost. So success here isn't guaranteed. Now, an impeachment case for, requires high crimes and misdemeanors. What has Mayorkas done that the GOP says meets that bar? Several different versions of impeachment articles have been introduced, but they're all pretty similar in general accusations against Mayorkas. They say he's intentionally broken federal law and undermined U.S. national security and sovereignty. And Republicans say the numbers prove it. Here's Marjorie Taylor Green last month going through some immigration data for the Biden administration

so far. There have been approximately 10 million elites. illegal border crossers who have invaded our country at our border. This is broken down between 8 million encounters and approximately 1,800 known gotaways who have evaded United States authorities and are roaming the interior of the United States. At least 280 people on terrorist watch list caught while attempting to cross the border between ports of entry. approximately 400,000 unaccompanied illegal children encountered at the southern border with at least 85,000 of these children having gone missing. At least 1,424 deaths of illegals at the southern border.

Approximately 73,000 special interest aliens arrested at our border, which are aliens from a nation that promotes terrorist acts. harbors terrorists or poses a security threat to the United States. This is the number arrested at the border. Not counting, however, many of the 1,800,000 known godaways are special interest aliens. Republicans also say that Mayorkas has lied to Congress about his claims that the border is secure. Republicans say that the border is obviously not secure under the definition given in the

secure Fence Act of 2006. Mayorkas has said that the border is secure. Though under the definition in that act, it wouldn't be, but that's because the standard in the act is unrealistic. Now, regardless of the legalese, it seems like every month we see some kind of new record set for illegal immigration into the country. Are we seeing something truly unprecedented? I think we can safely say yes. The immigration system has been strained for years, but never like this. Take the backlog of asylum cases, for example.

According to the track immigration database at Syracuse University, at the end of 2022, two months. million asylum cases were pending in front of immigration judges. In 12 months, that number has grown to three million. That's about 4,500 cases per judge. And that's only for immigrants who have claimed asylum. Since Biden has taken office, about six million immigrants have crossed the border illegally, and another two million have come through ports of entry. Never since the government started tracking this data have the numbers look like this. It's truly overwhelming numbers. Tim, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me. New court filings show that federal judge Loretta Preska has decided to unseal in full the list of 177 individuals associated with Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking operation.

This isn't just the friends of Epstein who are clients, but also victims and recruiters who worked with his madam, Jelaine Maxwell. The release is scheduled to take place on New Year's Day. Daily Wire Investigations editor Brent Sher joins us now to discuss. Hey, Brent. So first, what legal case is this all coming out of? So it actually all comes from a 2016 defamation. case brought by Virginia Roberts, who accused Prince Andrew of fondling her at Epstein's New York City Mansion. Robert sued Jelaine Maxwell for defamation, and that case has actually already been settled. But the Miami Herald sued to get the documents from that case made public. All right, so that brings us to this big release. Who can we expect to see on this list? It's a massive trough of documents that's

set to be released, and many of the names on the list are known. Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, for example, he's publicly called for all material related to him to be made public, and he's been transparent about his association with Epstein. And there's also Haley Robinson, who spoke out in the Netflix documentary, Filthy Rich, about how she recruited women to come give massages at Epstein's Florida home. They're both in the 177 individuals, but there may well be some surprises. And that said, in the day since the ruling, most of the chatter online has been people speculating that something will come up to stop these names from ever coming out.

You know, fire destroying the evidence, something happening to the judge, you name it. Right. Now, this isn't the only batch of outstanding Epstein documents, correct? No, it's not. There's actually an ongoing fight in the U.S. Senate over the release of more information, including the flight logs from Epstein's private jet, the Lolita Express. We know some of the high-profile associates who flew on that jet, including former president Bill Clinton.

Right. But Senator Marsha Blackburn says the Department of Justice has more information that it's keeping from the public. She sat down with morning wire this week and laid out the situation. In Jelaine Maxwell's trial, these flight records that were released were heavily redacted, and we were not able to obtain the information that was needed. We fully believe that the Epstein records, the video surveillance from his homes, the flight logs, all of that is in the possession of the FBI and DOJ. And getting that released so that we can get justice for these victims, it's an important thing to do.

Interestingly, Blackburn says her push to subpoena these documents has been given the cold shoulder by our Democrat colleague Dick Turbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was asked about her request to subpoena the records and said he was completely unaware. She says that's impossible. In committee, when I had sought recognition, which he gave me, and I laid out what I wanted to do with my subpoenas, I, of course, talked about Jeffrey Epstein. And then when I finished my comments, he said he would not have called on me if he knew what I was seeking recognition for. So I find it very curious that either he wasn't listening to me, he wasn't paying attention, or he was trying to ignore me.

But Blackburn said it's not going to be something she's going to let him ignore. I am not giving up. I am still on this. And as I've said many times, Dick Durbin is he can come to my office. We can discuss how to go forward. But these victims, women that were trafficked by him, women that were recruited and groomed by Jelaine Maxwell and then put in Jeffrey Epstein's orbit. These women need justice. Well, we'll keep an eye on that brewing fight and for those court documents in the new year. Brent, thanks for joining us.

Of course. That was Daily Wire Investigations editor, Brent, Brent, sure. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.