Morning Wire - DOJ Finds More Classified Docs & Atlanta Riot | 1.23.23

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

More classified documents are found at President Biden’s Delaware home, a protest in Atlanta over “Cop City” turns violent, and the World Economic Forum wraps up with a new focus. Plus, suspect dead in Monterey Park, California shooting. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.  Birch Gold "No-Cost, No-Obligation FREE Information Kit Text “WIRE"" to 989898" Masterworks: "Get priority access! Go to masterworks.com and use promo code ‘MORNING WIRE’" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yet another cachet of classified documents was found at President Biden's Delaware residents over the weekend, and now authorities say they may broaden their search. How do the latest developments change the case? And how are Democrats in the White House responding? I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, January 23rd, and this is Morning Wire. A protest in Atlanta over a so-called cop city erupted in violence on Saturday. We discuss what sparked the rioting and who the mayor says is to blame.

And the World Economic Forum concluded their high-profile conference of world leaders in Davos on Friday. What new policy agenda items took center stage? Plus, a mass shooting in Monterey Park, California leaves at least 10 people dead and 10 more injured. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. The current administration's New Year's goals are to tax, spend, and turn a blind eye to inflation. If that's at odds with your goals, get in touch with the experts at Birch Gold today. Birch Gold makes it easy to convert an IRA or 401k into an IRA and precious metals.

Text wire to 9898-98 to claim your free info kit on gold and talk to one of their precious metal experts. Birch Gold has an A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau, thousands of happy customers, and countless five-star reviews. You can trust Birch Gold to help protect your savings. Text wire to 9898998 today. On Friday, authorities with the Justice Department uncovered additional classified documents during a search of President Biden's private residents in Delaware. Here with more on what was discovered and what the consequences could be as DailyWire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips.

So Cabot, yet another announcement of more classified documents found at a Biden property. What was revealed over the weekend? So we've been talking for the last two weeks about the growing number of classified documents that have been found at properties owned and used by the president. Well, over the weekend, we learned that another batch was found. On Friday, the Justice Department conducted a 12-hour-long search of Biden's property. in Delaware and found at least six documents marked classified. Those documents date back to his time as vice president and also as a U.S. senator.

DOJ officials also took a number of other materials and handwritten notes that they think could contain classified information as well, so that number could grow even more. For those trying to keep track at home, that is now the fifth separate instance in which classified materials have been found. And one of the thing we learned this weekend, DOJ officials are now reportedly considering whether they want to conduct searches at a number of other locations related to the Biden family. So this whole saga appears far from over. Right. How has the White House responded to this latest development? Well, the message has shifted a bit. Originally, their stance was that Biden

had done nothing wrong, and so he had nothing to hide. It sort of felt like they were downplaying the situation as a whole. But now that this scandal is continuing to grow, they are changing their tune a bit, and they've started to stress two main things. First, that Biden is cooperating fully with the DOJ and FBI. That's a message that we're hearing repeatedly from the White House. And second, that if he did break the law, it was completely unintentional. On Thursday, the president broke his silence on the matter and gave his first comments to the press. We're fully cooperating, looking forward to getting this resolved quickly. I think you're going to find there's nothing there.

I have no regrets. I'm following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do. It's exactly what we're doing. There's no there there. He went on to say that it, quote, bugs him that people are focused on this story and not other stories that he says Americans are more concerned about. But keep in mind, those comments did come a day before this latest batch of documents was found. So we'll see if he keeps that same message this week. So to his point, what do Americans think of this story?

Do we have any data on that yet? Yeah, there was an ABC Ipsos poll that came out on Sunday, which showed 64% of Americans believe that Biden's handling of classified documents was inappropriate. Just 34% said he handled things appropriately. Now, it is worth noting an even larger share of Americans. 77% say that former President Trump also acted in appropriate. appropriately with his own handling of classified documents. So there seems to be some bipartisan agreement that both presidents are at fault. Now, Biden and his team have tried to distance themselves from the Trump case,

saying they're totally different cases because Biden proactively alerted authorities when documents were found, and Trump did not. But Republicans for their part have been quick to note how Biden called Trump, quote, totally irresponsible for keeping those classified files at home. And now he's done the same. So they say, again, it's hypocritical. What sort of broader political fallout are we seeing from this? Are Democrats continuing to stand behind the president? Well, look, long before the story came out, there were whispers in D.C. that many Democrat leaders did not one Biden to run again and had been hoping for a way to get someone else on the ticket in 24. A story like this that has only intensified as it's gone on is more than just a headache for the administration. It could also be viewed as baggage that makes him a liability for reelection. So keep an eye on how party leaders respond.

Are they rushing to stand by him or are they keeping their distance? On that note, here's Democrat Senator Dick Durbin on CNN calling the president out. There's a standard that we follow when it comes to members of Congress and classified information. The door to my office is closed. The person who presents the document to me takes it out of a locked briefcase, hands it to me and watches as I read it. When I finish reading it, he takes it back and puts it in the briefcase and leaves this scene. I mean, that's how carefully we review these.

documents, to think that any of them ended up in boxes in storage one place to the other is just unacceptable. We saw even harsher criticism from Democrat Senator Joe Manchin, who responded to Biden's no-regret comment by saying that Biden should have, quote, a lot of regrets about the situation. So keep an eye on whether statements like that intensify or if party leaders rally around the president, that will say a lot. A complicated story that keeps getting more difficult for the White House. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Anytime. That's Daily Wire's Senior Editor Senator Cabot Phillips. Coming up, a shootout between an activist and police sparks rioting in Atlanta.

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of a 26-year-old environmental activist who died in a shootout with police last week. Manuel Esteban Paez Tehran was camping on the site of a $90 million safety training center for first responders when Georgia State Police tried to get the activist and dozens of others to move. Authorities say the activist shot an officer in the abdomen before police returned fire, killing him. Here to talk about the riot and the development that activists have called Cop City is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce. First off, Tim, what is the building development at the center of this riot? Sure, it's really a couple of things. On its face, it'll be a $90 million training center for Atlanta police and firemen to better prepare them for emergencies. The center's plans have been described as state of the art, and it will include training setups such as a driver safety,

course in a mock village. The other part of this is Atlanta officials are hoping the new building will bring back morale. The police force has seen a steep drop in morale since the George Floyd riots of 2020. The city's police force is short on officers and officials are hoping the investment will attract more recruits. And what specifically are the activists complaints about it? So there's several parts of that as well. The first objection is environmental. The training center is to be built on 85 acres that used to be part of an old prison farm but has since been turned into forestland. dozens of activists have camped out on the site for over a year now to protest cutting down the trees. Critics also don't like the center's ties to the police force. As you mentioned, activists have derisively

named the new development cop city and say the project is militarizing law enforcement. These activists are already distrustful of police. They say authorities are lying about the 26-year-old activist killed last week. They believe that the cops shot him unprovoked and that the officer that was hospitalized could have been shot by his fellow officers. There are also gripes from residents who live near the site who say they don't want to hear the sounds of explosions and gunshots going off all day. All right. And so now we're seeing rioting. What happened over the weekend? Yeah, things really devolved. The protest began as a demonstration against Cop City and as a memorial for the environmental activist killed last week. But violence quickly followed. Riders broke shop windows,

torched a police vehicle, and threw Molotovs and fireworks. It looked very much like the Floyd protests. Police arrested six people on Saturday and charged them all with. domestic terrorism among other crimes. Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens has blamed the violence on outsiders. Here's him on Sunday describing what took place. They had explosives. They burned down a police car. They broke windows. They had businesses. And so our police department, along with our state and federal partners, took swift action within two blocks and brought that situation under control. And the violence stopped and those six individuals were arrested. And it should be noted that these individuals were not Atlanta or Georgia residents. Most of them,

traveled into our city to wreak havoc. Well, let's hope we've seen the last of the violence over this. Tim, thanks for reporting. Of course. Thanks for having me. That was DailyWire's Tim Pierce. The World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, drew to a close on Friday. By the end, world leaders and attendance began to focus on some new issues

not typically associated with the event. Here to tell us about some of these new areas of policy that are becoming a priority for the WEF is Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham. So, Megan, I know we've talked before about some of the more typical issues that were discussed at Davos, for example, climate change, but by the end of the week, it looked like some other policy goals were becoming a priority. What were those? Yeah, that's very true. And I would characterize those new areas of focus as, say, obstacles or frameworks for enacting those other preferred policies

that were more familiar with at Davos. So, for example, there was a major panel that focused on what WEF leaders called right-wing disinformation that's disrupting trust. So Richard Edelman, who is the CEO of the international PR firm Edelman, said he's experienced sadness that the public now distrusts global nonprofits because they receive support from well-known billionaires. And he blamed people on the right for spreading conspiracy theories about the work that those organizations do. So here's what he said, and I'm just going to quote, my hypothesis on that is right-wing

groups have done a really good job of disenfranchising NGOs. They've challenged the funding sources. They've associated you with Bill Gates and George Soros. And he then went on to say that it's making it difficult for NGOs to address issues like COVID, climate change, and racial injustices. But he especially emphasized that many people are reacting negatively now to the concept of ESG investing. And he offered this advice based on his expertise, when they, and in that case he was referring to the right. Hit you and they're inaccurate, hit back, don't take it. And then some other panelists, including Salah Goss, who's an executive at MasterCard, well, she said world leaders need to learn how to talk about the same goals in different

language so as not to trigger suspicion. Now aside from right-wing disinformation, what else was discussed? There was a lot of focus on how AI can be employed for digital tracking on issues like COVID spread or measuring carbon emissions. Al Gore in particular gave a presentation on, this is a bit of a mouthful, climate tracking real-time atmospheric carbon emissions or climate trace. And I spoke with independent journalist Larry Taunton last week, who was reporting on the ground from Davos. And here's what he said about that. In the past few years, let's say, they've been putting a lot of emphasis on IoT. That is to say, the interconnectedness of things.

That means right down to you, Megan, with a brain chip, you know, connected to, let's say, not just your smartphone or your TV or your car, your oven, but also to government where, you know, they can keep an eye on you and track you in any given moments. And all this, of course, will be sold,

you know, under the guise of safety. So something like that will naturally spark concerns among the public, but Taunton says the WEF sees a lot of potential in this kind of technology. I will add that at least on the WEF's website, you'll find a number of op-eds and other papers discussing how digital tracking needs to be weighed

against privacy concerns. And then Taunton also told me that Elon Musk's presence loomed pretty large, even though he was not in attendance. And that was because he's seen as disruptive to the goal of controlling what kind of information users have access to online. I mean, there is a certain obsession with Musk and from their point of view, the threat he poses to quote-unquote this or miss

information. Just one example of how that's playing out. Facebook and YouTube banned a video posted by the Canadian right-wing media company Rebel News, where they were actually in Davos asking Pfizer-CEO Albert Burla about the safety and effectiveness of the COVID vaccine. Only Twitter left that video up. Megan, thanks for reporting. Anytime. was Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham. Another story we're tracking this week. At least 10 people are dead and 10 more have been hospitalized after a mass shooting during a lunar New Year celebration

in a Los Angeles suburb late Saturday night. The shooting occurred in a dance studio in Monterey Park, a predominantly Asian community about 10 miles east of L.A. The suspect identified as a 72-year-old Asian man, attempted a second shooting in a dance hall in Alhambra but was disarmed by two people. On Sunday, police engaged in a standoff of the suspect who was located in a white van in Torrance. The man who police confirmed is the suspect died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.