Morning Wire - Trump’s Election Case Delayed & NYC’s Migrant Crime Majority | 9.6.24

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

Hunter Biden changes plea while Trump continues legal defense, New details have emerged about the FBI’s handling of the Georgia school shooting, & a majority of Manhattan crimes are linked to illegal immigrants. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Birch Gold: Text "WIRE" to 989898 for your no-cost, no-obligation information kit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hunter Biden surprises his lawyers and offers to plead guilty to federal tax evasion, while Donald Trump's attorneys mount defenses in multiple courtrooms. What's next for the high-stakes legal battles waged in court this week? I'm Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley, with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, September 6th, and this is Morning 1. The father of the 14-year-old who opened fire at a high school in Wynder, Georgia, is arrested, while new details emerge about the FBI's handling of the case. The shooter was interviewed, and he was speaking with our investigators earlier.

And the majority of violent crimes in New York are being committed by illegal immigrants, putting a massive strain on law enforcement. Could this put an end to the city's sanctuary laws? We need the cooperation and collaboration with our law enforcement partners here in the city. The sanctuary policies won't allow them to cooperate. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. The current president is dead set on spending the remaining trillion dollars of his agenda before leaving office. Translation, more money printing, and soaring inflation.

But there's hope. A gold IRA from Birchgold Group is the ultimate inflation hedge for your savings in uncertain times. And for one final month, Birchgold is offering an exclusive 24-carat gold-plated truth bomb on qualifying purchases. But you need a text wire to 9-9-8-98 to claim your eligibility before September 30th. Again, text Wire to 989898 to claim your eligibility and make your purchase today. Hunter Biden's Thursday announcement that he intends to plead guilty in a federal tax case may be the biggest legal story coming out of Washington, but it's hardly the only one. Here with the latest on Hunter's plea as well as former President Trump's lawsuits is DailyWire Deputy Managing Editor Tim Rice, Hey Tim.

So some major action in the courtroom this week, including from Judge Tanya Chutkin yesterday. She said the 2020 election case will not be heard till after. after the November election. First, what happened there? Right. So that case brought by special counsel, Jack Smith, is now not going to take place until after the election. This all started on Tuesday when Trump officially waived his right to appear at his arraignment

before the D.C. district court, where Smith has revised and refiled charges that Trump sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Trump pled not guilty through his attorney to Smith's new indictment, which, as former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy explained on Morning Wire over the weekend, is essentially the same as the original. Smith just took out certain pieces of evidence to comply with the Supreme Court's ruling that Trump has immunity

for all official acts undertaken while in office. So effectively, Smith did the bare minimum to comply with the court's order. Right. How is Trump's team reacting to that, these barely tweet charges? Well, Trump attorney John Loro has already objected to Smith's revised filing. Loro told Judge Chutkin that the court's decision required a total dismissal of the case and accused prosecutors of rushing to get a guilty verdict before the November election.

Unsurprisingly, Chutkin dismissed that argument saying this case has been pending for over a year and that, quote, were hardly sprinting to the finish year. Now, we also had a legal filing related to the Trump-hush-money case yesterday. What took place there? Trump's sentencing in that case is currently set for September 18th. Remember, he was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, but that sentencing may not proceed as planned. On Thursday, America First Legal announced that it was suing New York State Supreme Court Judge Juan Mershahn,

who's presiding over the case for failing to turn over his financial disclosures. New York State law requires judges to turn over their annual financial filings upon request, which Mershawn has yet to do. And what's their angle there? What exactly is AFL looking for in the judge's filings? Primarily, they're looking for answers about his daughter's work at a Democratic political firm. Lauren Mershahn is the president of authentic campaigns, which works with both President Biden and Kamala Harris.

But more broadly, AFL is looking to prove that Mershon is biased against Trump. The judge has reportedly donated to Democratic causes, including the Biden campaign, and a group called Stop Republicans. So if the legal group can reveal more of Mershant's bias, the hope is that they can overturn the verdict or at least delay the sentencing until after the election. Now, Trump didn't appear in court in person this week, but has he said anything on the campaign trail about the lawsuits? You know, for the most part this week, he's let his lawyers do the talking.

Beyond that, Trump's been largely focused on standard campaign messaging, including in a Thursday speech at the Economic Club of New York, where he laid out his economic policies for a potential second term and took questions from the business community for over an hour. He also announced that if elected, he would create a government efficiency commission, which would be chaired by Elon Musk. I will create a government efficiency commission task

with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms. We need to do it. And Elon, because he's not very busy, has agreed to head that task force. Final question. We mentioned the Hunter Biden plea at the top, which stunned a lot of people. What's the latest on that front? Yeah. The president's son surprised everyone, including his own attorneys, by suddenly doing a 180 yesterday and offering to plead guilty to federal tax charges without a plea deal from prosecutors. Hunter's lawyers were preparing to defend him, but now he's effectively given himself over to the court for sentencing. The judge informed him that he faces a max of 15 years in prison

and a fine between $500,000 to $1 million. Meanwhile, conservative analysts say this is ultimately Hunter's attempt to shield his father, the president, from drawing out this embarrassing case any further. The fraud he was hiding, they say, leads in the end to the quote-unquote Biden family business, in which, as Andy McCarthy put it, Joe Biden was a willing participant. No doubt, lots of Democrats hoping the saga will end sooner than later. Tim, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me.

The 14-year-old boy who opened fire at a high school in Wynder, Georgia, as well as his father, have now both been charged in connection to the shooting. Meanwhile, the FBI has revealed that the boy was on their radar for over a year. Here with more is Daily Wire reporter, Amanda Presta Giacomo. So Amanda, as we've been documenting, just heartbreaking news out of Georgia on Wednesday. and more details have since emerged. What have we learned? Right.

Well, first, we now know more about the four fatalities. The two students who were killed were 14-year-old boys, Mason-Shermerhorn and Christian Angulo. The two adults have been identified as Christina Eremi and Richard Aspenwall. They were both math teachers. Aspenwald's wife is pregnant. Nine others were injured, eight students and one teacher, and they were all reportedly shot in some capacity. It's also been confirmed now that the Appalachia High School received a threatening phone call on the morning of the shooting. They were warned of shootings at five high schools, with Appalachia being the first target.

The call is still being investigated, but authorities say there's no evidence right now of other schools being targeted. We also learned that officers had a quick response time. They were first notified about an active shooter at around 10.20 a.m. And they were dispatched to the school within minutes. Barrow County Sheriff Judd Smith said during a press conference that faculty members at the high school used a device called Centegics to quickly alert police. Now, Appalachy High School adopted this alert system just one week before the shooting, and it may have helped save lives.

The school also has automatically locking classroom doors as another safety measure. Here's how one student who was actually in class with the shooter recalled the events during an interview with CNN. They almost let him in, but I'm pretty sure she saw that he had a, gun. And so she backed away. And then he turned away, and that's when you hear like the first rounds of fire. Sheriff Smith also detailed how it was a school resource officer who engaged the shooter before he surrendered. And the shooter quickly realized that if he did not give up, that it would end with an OIS or an officer involved shooting. He gave up, got on the ground, and the deputy took him into custody. This high school has two of these resource officers,

and they've been praised for stopping what could have been much more bloodshed. They both have law enforcement training and extensive backgrounds and responding to these types of school threats. Now, as we mentioned at the top, the FBI has confirmed that the shooter was on their radar over a year ago. What happened there? Right. The FBI began receiving anonymous tips in May of last year about the would-be shooter posting threats online to commit a school shooting.

The threats, which were posted to Discord, even included photographs of guns. The FBI's Atlanta field office passed along the information to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office and had them take action. The office interviewed the shooter, who was then 13 years old, and he denied making threats. He claimed his account was hacked numerous times. His father was also interviewed, and he said there were hunting guns in the home, but that his son did not have unsupervised access to those. The Sheriff's Office also alerted local schools about the teen for continued monitoring, but the FBI said in a press release that at the time, there was no probable cause for additional action. Well, in one of the biggest developments, the shooter and his father

have both been charged for the shooting. What do we know about that? The shooter has been transferred to the youth detention center in Gainesville. He will be tried as an adult and has already been charged with four counts of felony murder, but he's being held in juvenile custody currently because he's 14 years old. He's set to have his first court appearance this morning. The boy's father is four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children. The father reportedly told authorities this week that he bought his son a rifle for Christmas, which was just months after the pair were interviewed about those online threats. And that was reportedly the same rifle the shooter used on Wednesday.

Now, as usual, we've seen some political reactions to the shooting as well, specifically from the White House. What are they saying? Well, President Biden has been quick to condemn Republicans for the shooting, and he's calling for gun bans. In a statement, he said, Republicans in Congress must finally say enough is enough and work with Democrats to pass common sense gun safety legislation. Biden also called for the banning of, quote, assault weapons and high capacity magazines. The governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, however, had a different reaction. He stressed on Wednesday that it's, quote, not the day for politics or policy. Today is a day for an investigation and to mourn these precious Georgians that we have lost.

Right, well, a real tragedy. Amanda, thanks for reporting. You're welcome. A staggering number of arrests made in New York City are of illegal aliens. That's according to a new report. The crisis clogging up the city's judicial system has been exacerbated by sanctuary city policies that block coordination with federal immigration authorities. Here to tell us about the crime problem plaguing New York and other major American cities

is Daily Wire Reporter Tim Pira, say Tim. So let's start with this new report from the New York Post. What does it say? Well, it says that illegal immigrants make up a huge percentage of arrests in parts of New York City. The largest portion appears to be in Midtown Manhattan, where the Post reports that as much as three quarters of arrests are of illegal immigrants. In Queens, law enforcement estimates that that figure is around 60 percent, so a significant majority. In addition to the crisis at the border of the situation in New York City appears to be in. inflamed by two factors, sanctuary city laws and lax bail policies. Mayor Eric Adams has been critical of the city's status as a sanctuary for illegals for months now. In fact, here he was last week.

Migrants and asylum seekers are paroled into our country so they're here legally. But those who commit violent acts after they serve their time, I think they should be removed from our country. Right now, we don't have the authorization to be able to go and coordinate with ICE. We have to follow the law The city's bail policies, too, have essentially ensured many illegal immigrants that, even if they are arrested, they'll be free soon enough to offend again. Yeah. Now, those statistics are certainly eye-opening. How reliable are they?

Unfortunately, they appear to be just estimates, though knowledgeable estimates from law enforcement and others in the city's criminal justice system. But this actually highlights another major issue, tracking illegal alien crime. It isn't really tracked in any organized or systematic way. And that's true across many cities and municipalities in the U.S. On that, here is Denver's Democratic Mayor Mike Johnston, saying immigrants commit less crime. Any population you'll have very small subsets of folks that don't follow the rules, and we hold those folks accountable.

We actually know historically it's always true that we have lower levels of crime around migrants than we do among our general population. Now, critics have questioned how he could claim that, given that there are cases of crime committed in the Denver area where the suspect's country of origin is not listed. A couple police reports floated around online showed each suspect's country of origin marked as XX. And this keep in mind is in the state that just last week made headlines because of gangs taking over residential buildings and extorting residents. Right, really shocking developments in Colorado with that Venezuelan gang. So local data may not be a good marker, but what about national data? Again, unfortunately, it's not reliable either.

FBI statistics on crime are almost entirely an aggregation. of local law enforcement reporting their data to the FBI. While most states law enforcement report most of their data, very few report all of it. And then you have some states that report almost none of it. Morningwire spoke with Aiman Blair, a former Border Patrol agent and expert on immigration at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He said that these reporting gaps in sanctuary city policies are going to lead to more cases like Colorado, where criminal gangs become major problems.

They're going to operate wherever they can get away with what they're doing. So you're going to see that more so in major metropolitan cities, areas where they can hide and play in sight, areas where it's a sanctuary policies, where unfortunately, no matter what they do, they're going to be released back into the community based off of their race or nationality or immigration status. So we may see many more headlines about other gangs with members in the U.S. in the near future. Yeah, pretty unsettling prediction. Tim, thanks for joining us. Good to be on. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later. this afternoon with more news you need to know. In today's media landscape, getting the real story is harder than ever.

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