Morning Wire - White House Targets Daily Wire & Trump Case Judge | 8.4.23

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

Newly released documents show the Biden Administration pressured Facebook to suppress the Daily Wire, The judge presiding over former President Trump’s case has a history of tough sentences for J6 defendants, and Oklahoma’s governor signed a sweeping order this week defining the word “woman” and designating protected women's only spaces. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.  Nugenix: Get a complimentary bottle of Nugenix Total T when you text ‘WIRE’ to 231-231. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Newly released documents show the Biden administration pushed social media giant Facebook to suppress the Daily Wire and other right-leaning media on the platform. We are examining all of our legal options at this point, and we have no hesitancy whatsoever about going at the Biden White House again. We did it before. We'll do it again. I'm Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, August 4th, and this is Morning Wire. The D.C. judge assigned to the case against former President Trump has a history of tough sentences for J6 defendants in a career of. a law firm with strong ties to the Democratic Party. If I'm Donald Trump, I don't want to be tried in front of her. I want to be tried in front of a judge who has a fair and better background.

And I want to be tried in front of a jury that isn't 90-something percent anti-Trump voters. And Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed a sweeping order this week, defining the word woman and designating protected women's only spaces. We discuss the first of its kind statewide order. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Memos recently obtained by Congress reveal that the Biden White House pressured Facebook to stifle the Daily Wire's reach in an effort to promote the administration's policy goals related to the COVID vaccines. Here to discuss the development and the potential congressional and legal fallout is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presta Giacomo. Hey Amanda. So Facebook under subpoena recently handed over these notes to the House Judiciary Committee.

Daily Wire has obtained the documents and reviewed them with obvious interest. First, tell us what's in these documents. Well, they're pretty damning for the Biden White House and possibly for Facebook. When you read through the notes, which were first reported by John Solomon at Just the News, it appears the White House was working to censor Americans they viewed as adversarial to their COVID goals through the private sector. In this case, Facebook, now called Meta, would be working as the government's surrogate to censor. typed up notes from Facebook dated April 14, 2021, show that the White House met with Facebook executives to pressure the tech giant to change its algorithm to downgrade posts from the Daily Wire and other, quote, polarizing entities.

White House Digital Director Rob Flaherty asked Facebook to promote what he called authoritative media, such as the New York Times, over the Daily Wire. Other notes that are pretty jarring show Flaherty becoming frustrated that Facebook couldn't provide some of the data the White House wanted. So we pushed the company to, quote, play ball. Keep in mind, just last week, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan revealed that a Facebook employee in April of 2021 circulated an email from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and C.O. Cheryl Sandberg that said, quote, we are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the Biden White House, to remove posts. Seems pretty clear Facebook was feeling the heat. Yeah, indeed. Now, the fallout from this has been pretty fierce and swift.

What has the reaction been so far? Well, various legal experts have already weighed in and have said this appears to be a First Amendment violation by the White House. Daily Wire co-founder and editor emeritus Ben Shapiro was on that same page. Here he is reacting to the memos. We are absolutely pleased to look into the effect on our business of the Biden White House engaging in an absolute First Amendment violation. There's no question this is a First Amendment violation.

It is as simple as that. It is a First Amendment violation because the federal government cannot force or even pressure a private company into censoring information. That is a First Amendment violation pretty clearly. Shapiro stated very bluntly that the Daily Wire is exploring all legal action. As Shapiro noted, the Daily Wire successfully sued in 2021 over the administration's COVID vaccine mandate for some private businesses. The Daily Warrior prevailed there and the Biden mandate came to an end. We helped overturn the thing and prevent 80 million Americans from having to take the shot if they didn't want to take it. We are perfectly happy to do the exact same thing with the Biden White House right now,

to stop them from ever violating the civil rights of Americans by pressuring Facebook and other social media companies again. And by the way, we have looked at the traffic on our website and whether it declined in the aftermath of this conversation. Suffice it to say, evidence will be presented. I'll note that the DailyWire's monthly engagements have fallen from a high of over 100 million a month as a top publisher on the platform, down to as low as 4 million per month. Yeah. Now, there's also the question of Facebook's liable. in this. Right. Some legal experts have already suggested that Facebook might have opened itself up to legal threat with their actions. Meanwhile, Morning Warriors spoke to Congressman Jim Jordan about Facebook's

actions generally, and here's what he told us. Facebook knew they were wrong. There's a communication in there, an email in there where one of the executive that Facebook says, we're really encroaching on the boundaries of free expression, but they knew that the White House wanted them to do it, and they were so concerned about the relationship with the White House, they censored anyway. Jordan made clear that his committee isn't done investigating and that they will take action to ensure free speech rights are better protected from such government and big tech collusion. Well, obviously, we here at the Daily Wire are very much interested in getting all the facts out there on this. So more to come. Amanda, thanks for reporting.

Anytime. On Thursday, former President Donald Trump was arraigned in federal court in Washington, D.C., pleading not guilty to four charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Here are the latest on the case against the former president and details on the judge presiding over the case as Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips. So Cabot, another historic moment in the case against Trump. What can you tell us here? Well, for the third time in four months, Donald Trump has been arraigned on criminal charges. The former president arrived in D.C. on Thursday afternoon and surrendered himself to authorities in the very courtroom where more than a

thousand of his supporters have also been arraigned for their own role in the January 6th riots. Trump appeared briefly before magistrate judge and ultimately pleaded not guilty on the four charges against him. As in his previous arraignment, Trump was fingerprinted, but no mugshots were taken. He spoke to the press afterwards. This is the persecution of the person that's leading by very, very substantial numbers in the Republican primary and leading Biden by a lot. So if you can't beat him, you persecute him or you prosecute him. We can't. We can't let this happen in America. Thank you very much. Now, over the last few days, we've learned more about the judge in Trump's case.

What do we need to know about her? Yeah, on Tuesday, Judge Tanya Chutkin was randomly selected to preside over the trial, and that appears to be bad news for Trump for a variety of reasons. First, she's already dealt a major legal blow to the president in the past. In 2021, she ruled that the House January 6th Select Committee must be given access to a large number of Trump's White House files, saying, quote, presidents are not kings, and the plaintiff is not president. That ruling opens the door for Democrats in Congress to make public his call logs and internal strategy documents and other private communications from his time in office.

Judge Chuckin and Obama appointee has also handed down some of the harshest sentences to January 6th defendants over the last year, often giving them more jail time than prosecutors had even called for. She's the only judge in the country who's done that. Chuckin has made clear in prior cases how disgusted she was by the events of January 6th and implied that she wants stiff sentencing for those who participated as a way of deterring future political violence. Tell us more about how she's handled these past J6 cases. Well, when some January 6 defendants tried to argue that they were being treated far harsher than those who engaged in violent riots and supported the Black Lives Matter movement,

Judge Chuckin immediately shut them down, saying in court, quote, to compare the actions of people protesting mostly peacefully for civil rights to those of a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency and ignores a very real danger that the January 6th riot posed to the foundation of our democracy. Chuckin has also alluded to President Trump's alleged role in January 6th, telling another defendant last year, quote, the people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged. I don't have any influence on that.

I have my opinions, but they are not relevant. Well, now she will have an influence on that issue and her opinions on the case will be more than relevant. Indeed. How have Trump and his team reacted to the case and the fact that just, Judge Chutkin is overseeing it so far. Well, there are plenty of Trump allies who say that she's already displayed a clear bias against Trump. In addition to her comments and prior cases regarding him, Judge Chutkin previously spent 12 years working for a prominent left-wing law firm, which at one time employed Hunter Biden and lobbied on behalf of Braismah, the controversial Ukrainian energy company that he worked for.

They say that she should be forced to recuse herself from the case. Trump allies and even some of his primary opponents, including Ronda Santis, have also called for the case to be moved out of Washington, D.C. to Florida, where Trump resides. Their general argument is that people have a right to a jury of their peers, and the D.C. would produce biased jurors. Remember, the district is overwhelmingly Democrat. In 2020, it went to Joe Biden by a margin of 92 to 5%. So you can understand their concern. Yeah, it isn't hard to see that argument. Kappa, thanks for reporting. Anytime. Oklahoma's governor signed a women's bill of rights on Tuesday aimed at limiting women's spaces to biological females

that makes it the first state to enact such rules via executive order. Daily Wire investigative reporter Marade Alorty is here with the details. So Marade first, tell us about this order.

Hi, Georgia. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed this executive order which he's calling the Women's Bill of Rights on Tuesday. Supporters are calling it a huge move for protecting women and girls.

The order defines women based on biology and it directs public schools to provide separate locker rooms and restrooms for boys and girls. It also directs state facilities like prisons and domestic shelters to provide separate facilities for men and women. The Women's Bill of Rights says it aims to bring, quote, clarity, certainty, and uniformity to administrative rules in order to settle the unfounded confusion surrounding such basic questions as what is a woman. It offers specific definitions of male and female and says there are definitional, practical, and material differences between the sexes.

Female is defined in the order as a person whose biological reproductive system is designed to produce OVA, or eggs, and male is defined as a person whose biological reproductive system is designed to fertilize the over of a female. Governor Stitt, who is a Republican and has three daughters of his own, states he signed the order for all the young girls in Oklahoma who should not be forced to undress in what should be a safe locker room. Here's Stitt at the bill signing. Today we're taking a stand against this out-of-control gender ideology that is eroding the very foundation of our society. And we are going to be safeguarding the very essence of what it means to be a woman. So this order is the first of its kind. Certainly other states are going to be watching.

What venues does it pertain to? Is this all public places or just government buildings? The order pertains specifically to public schools and women's prisons. But those are places where we've seen some of the most significant issues. In public schools, parents across the country have sounded the alarm about minor students using the school bathrooms and locker. of the opposite sex. Reports of sexual assaults occurring in bathrooms shared with trans-identifying students that have only heightened concerns, and parents have showed up at school board meetings to demand that bathrooms be separated by biological sex.

So what's the reaction been to this order? Well, it's been mixed. Oklahoma's governor was joined at the signing by former college swimmer Riley Gaines, who has recently spoken about her experience sharing a locker room with trans-identifying male athlete Leah Thomas. Gaines said she and other girls who wanted to speak up. up about how uncomfortable it made them to have biological males in their locker rooms were put through emotional blackmail in order to keep them silent. Gaines called the order huge and also made

some remarks at the signing on Tuesday. In addition to being forced to give up our awards and our titles and our opportunities and our scholarships, we as female swimmers were forced to share the locker room with Thomas, a six-foot-four, 22-year-old biological man equipped with and exposing male genitalia, inches away from where we were undressing. And we were not forewarned. We were not asked for our consent. We did not give our consent. Alternatively, Democrats called the law

an attack on transgender people. Oklahoma House Democratic leader Cindy Munson accused the governor of deploying partisan, polarizing politics, and said the Republican supermajority continues their government overreach. Another Democrat, State Representative Melissa Provenzano,

said she can't imagine there won't be challenges to this order. Here's Provenzano. It's pretty rich that a man would feel it's appropriate for him to define what makes a woman. The executive order was inspired by model legislation developed by the conservative women's group independent women's voice. And as you said at the top, Oklahoma is the first state to enact this type of women's bill of rights through executive order, although Kansas and Tennessee have adopted similar laws based on the model legislation. A federal version of the Women's Bill of Rights has also been introduced in Congress. Well, this continues to be an extremely contentious issue.

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