The Daily Signal - AG Garland Appoints Special Counsel, Trump’s Lawyers Appear in DC Court, Maui Fires Death Toll Rises | August 11

Starting point is 00:00:01 I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Friday, August 11th. Here are today's headlines. The investigation into Hunter Biden took a sharp turn today. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss as special counsel in the probe of Hunter Biden. Garland made the announcement to the press this morning, saying Weiss has ultimate authority over the probe. Mr. Weiss has told Congress that he has been great. granted ultimate authority over this matter, including the responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges and for making decisions necessary to preserve the integrity of

Starting point is 00:00:55 any prosecution consistent with federal law, the principles of federal prosecution, and departmental policies. Here with us to explain what this step means in the investigation into Hunter Biden is Kyle Brosnan, Chief Counsel of the Oversight Project. here at the Heritage Foundation. Kyle, thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me on. So, Kyle, who exactly is David Weiss? And why is it significant that Attorney General Garland appointed him as the special counsel in this probe in Hunter Biden? Sure. So David Weiss is the United States Attorney for the District of Delaware. So there are about 94

Starting point is 00:01:34 federal courts in the U.S. and each court has a U.S. attorney that serves as the lead prosecutor on behalf of the U.S. government for criminal matters in those courts. So David Weiss is the one for Delaware, as I said, and he has been leading the Hunter-Biden investigation for about five years now. He's significant for a couple of reasons. The first is that he is a holdover from the Trump administration. So President Trump appointed Weiss as a U.S. attorney when he was president. And usually when a new president comes in, they fire all the U.S. attorneys and appoint their own people.

Starting point is 00:02:07 Biden decided to keep Weiss in to, in my view, you give the illusion that the Hunter Biden investigation was indeed independent. And so the Attorney General has said that Weiss's investigation has been fully independent to bring to bring charges that he saw fit. Today's announcement is significant because we at the Oversight Project have uncovered evidence that Weiss's investigation to date has not been independent, that he sought to bring charges outside of Delaware and was denied. and that the DOJ is fighting any attempts at providing transparency to uncover the scope of their obstruction of Weiss's investigation.

Starting point is 00:02:48 And so I'm very skeptical with today's announcement. I think it's an excuse to, you know, in one instance, sort of obstruct congressional investigations into the matter, you know, citing an ongoing criminal investigation and sort of just push this process out even further. So I'm very skeptical from today. is announced. Okay, so in other words, this creates a major roadblock, a stop to any congressional investigations that would be launched into Hunter Biden. That's right. So three House committees have been conducting an investigation into the political interference of the Hunter Biden investigation. And, you know, one thing that we've uncovered is that there are 2,500 pages of communications between Weiss and DOJ about the Biden administration's obstruction of their investigation.

Starting point is 00:03:40 That's also relevant to the congressional piece. The congressional committees investigating the matter have gone back and forth with the Justice Department, and Weiss had agreed to testify before Congress in September or October, but he made those commitments under the assumption that the plea deal would have been accepted last month and that the matter would have been closed. And so with today's appointment with him as special counsel, I would anticipate that that offer of Weiss testifying in a couple of months will be revoked, given the ongoing nature of things. And the end sum is that Congress will continue to be obstructed by the Justice Department here and getting to the bottom of things. Okay. So let's dive a little bit further into this, because Weiss has been investigating Hunter Biden for a long time.

Starting point is 00:04:27 So it looks like on the surface, like today's actions give Weiss more authority and more power to do that more aggressively, but that's not necessarily what you're saying is going on. No, and also, Weiss himself doesn't have any credibility in this matter. I mean, he was the person and his team was the one that agreed to the sweetheart Hunter Biden plea deal in the first place. And there are significant questions about prior statements that he has made to Congress concerning his authority. already and his actions in this case in agreeing to, you know, the sweetheart plea deal in the first instance. And so the appointment of him as a special counsel may look significant. I mean, they dismissed the Hunter-Biden tax charges today, which is a prerequisite to bring

Starting point is 00:05:14 a potential felony charges out in another jurisdiction. But given the actions of the Attorney General and Weiss throughout, you know, our inquiry and the, and the, and congressional inquiry into this, I have no confidence that Weiss will actually, you know, faithfully and, and, you know, thoroughly conduct this investigation. He's lost significant amounts of credibility on this matter, and I think today's appointment is sort of an illusion and kind of a head fake to attempt to show that it's being independent,

Starting point is 00:05:50 but, you know, the actions to date over the last several years have shown otherwise. Okay. And so it's a, you know, Hunter Biden and the Biden family should have been held accountable a long time ago. And I think today is just another delay tactic in bringing that eventual accountability. Is there any sort of timeline that we're looking at here as far as a deadline that Weiss has been given that he has to kind of make a final decisions on Hunter Biden and his actions within a certain time period? So, so no. And that's part of the problem is that the open nature of any special counsel investigations, you know, We saw that as, you know, Director Mueller led his into the Trump during the Russia gate fiasco,

Starting point is 00:06:29 was that they're so open-ended. And while these matters remain open, the DOJ is able to stonewalk congressional investigations. Now, there are rules, you know, with politically sensitive investigations, you know, in election years. So, you know, that is, I would assume in the back of, you know, everyone's mind, Weiss's team that, you know, next year is an election year. And, you know, we're getting into the latter part of 2023 here. assume he wants to move quickly on that. But that's one of sort of the downsides and the problems with the appointment now in that the open nature and sprawling potential authorities of a

Starting point is 00:07:06 special counsel investigation, you know, make it so Congress is delayed in obtaining key information and holding people accountable. So does Congress have any action that they can do here, or is this pretty much now their hands are tied and they just have to hope and pray that that David Weiss actually, you know, does the right thing and is open and honest in this investigation. Well, Congress can do a couple of things here. They can continue their investigation to the Biden family. Business transactions, you know, the House Oversight Committee released additional records this week, you know, detailing more about, you know, the apparent and alleged pay-to-play scheme that Hunter Biden was pushing Wells Farther as Vice President. And they continue to press the Justice Department and Weiss to testify. Now, you know, they could issue subpoenas for depositions or issue subpoenas for hearings,

Starting point is 00:07:55 but those are probably end up in court and, you know, we will not have a quick resolution to those matters here. But Congress is well within this right to continue asking questions, but the sort of gainsmanship from the Justice Department has been heightened now that there's a special counsel been named. I encourage all of our listeners to check out the work of the Oversight Project at the Heritage Foundation website, heritage.org. Kyle, thanks for your time today. Thank you for having me. Trump's lawyers were in court in Washington, D.C. today for the first hearing in the case related to Trump's alleged interference in the 2020 election. The judge issued a ruling that is being described as mixed.

Starting point is 00:08:37 Remember that the Justice Department has indicted Trump for his alleged interference in the last presidential election, which prosecutors argue led to January 6th. The Justice Department has done interviews with witnesses and other sources. and gathered information against Trump. And the prosecutors asked the judge for a protective order to keep that information protected from the public. In other words, prosecutors want information such as personal identifying information of those witnesses to be kept private.

Starting point is 00:09:09 U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkin said not all the information the Justice Department has gathered should fall under protective order. The judge ruled that only information the Justice Department classified as sensitive can be kept private. The judge said a protective order is needed for some information because without it, a party could release that information to a jury pool. Of course, this case is ongoing and a trial date is expected to be set for sometime in 2024.

Starting point is 00:09:42 Well, for a little bit of unique school news today, after a long first day of school Wednesday, hundreds of students in Louisville, Kentucky, were stuck on a school bus until almost 10 p.m. The Daily Signals, Tony Kennett, reports that the school system announced a complete closure of schools Thursday, including canceling all extracurricular activities on the second day of school because of what is called a transportation issue. Parents are outraged over Jefferson County Public Schools mishandled transportation nightmare, particularly in light of budget changes by the Board of Education that includes a July raise of almost $75,000 for school superintendent Martin Polio, bumping his salary up to over $350,000 a year. Polio's big salary increase is in sharp contrast to Jefferson County school districts pay for bus drivers,

Starting point is 00:10:41 which is just $21 and $69 per hour. The system doesn't have enough school bus drivers and received a 5% raise last year, along with teachers and other full-time staff in the school district, as Superintendent Polio got a 21.4% raise. Beanie Geoigan, a Louisiana mother teacher and education activist, sent this written statement to the Daily Signal. She said, I was told to offer grace to the JCPS this morning. There were children who did not get home from school until almost 10 o'clock last night. There were very young children dropped off at bus stops with no adult present very late in the evening. There were scared, tired, and probably hungry children who peed their pants while waiting to get home after the first day of school. Jefferson County includes nearly 96,000 students in 172 schools.

Starting point is 00:11:40 Jason Bedrick, a research fellow in the Center for Education Policy here at the Heritage Foundation, told us the situation there is typical of large public school districts. Bedrick said, this is the sort of thing that happens when schools aren't directly accountable to families. He added administrators get fat pay raises, even while unable to deliver basic services in a competent manner. Kentucky families deserve better. They should be able to choose the source. schools that work best for their children. Be sure to check out Tony Kennett's full report on this in today's show notes. And some sad news today, suicides in the U.S. hit a new record high in

Starting point is 00:12:24 2022. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Thursday show that 49,449 people committed suicide last year, which is a 2.6% increase from 2021. Of those deaths, 39,255 were male and 10,194 were female. The Associated Press reports that experts caution that suicide is complicated and that recent increases might be driven by a range of factors, including higher rates of depression and limited availability of mental health services. The Associated Press also reports that Jill Harcovy Friedman, senior vice president of research at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said a main driver is the growing availability of guns. HHS Secretary Javier Bacera said in a Thursday statement that nine and ten Americans believe America is facing a mental health crisis. The new suicide death data reported by the CDC illustrates why. One life lost to suicide is one too many, yet too many people still believe asking for help is a sign of weakness.

Starting point is 00:13:41 Becerra also said the Biden-Harris administration is making unprecedented investments to transform how mental health is understood, accessed, and treated as part of President Biden's unity agenda. We must continue to eliminate the stigmatization of mental health and make care available to all Americans. We're closing out today's Friday podcast with some more sad news from Hawaii. As you'll recall from yesterday's show, catastrophic wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui have left thousands without homes, hundreds injured, and many dead. At least 55 people have died in the fires. That's up from 36 that we reported yesterday. Richard Bisson, mayor of Maui County, said on NBC's Today show this morning,

Starting point is 00:14:32 that he thinks that number could go up. Let's take a listen to more of what Bisson had to say via today's YouTube. Yeah, you know, I think that number could go up. According to those who have been doing the recovery, our police department, our Coast Guard, our National Guard, the different groups that are helping us here on Island, that was the number that they found people who were outside of the buildings. so we have not yet searched in the interior of the buildings.

Starting point is 00:15:02 We're waiting for FEMA to help with that search as they are equipped to handle the hazmat conditions of the buildings that have been burnt. The Associated Press distributed an article quoting Erica Fleischman, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University, as saying that climate change in many parts of the world

Starting point is 00:15:26 is increasing vegetation dryness, in large part, because temperatures are hotter. However, not all climate experts agree with this claim by the Associated Press. Senior fellow at the Heartland Institute in Illinois and a meteorologist, Anthony Watts, said many factors are at play in the Maui fires that aren't related to the climate crisis. Hawaii is one of the most fire-prone states because of its topography, Watts said. Trade winds drop moisture. on the east side of the island of Maui, according to Watts, and when air passes over the mountains and down the other side, it dries out and heats up. Watts noted that fields on Maui used to be rich with sugar cane plantations before Mauans stopped producing the crop and the last

Starting point is 00:16:15 such operation closed in 2016. Unattended sugar cane fields were overtaken by dry, easily flammable grass, first introduced by settlers in the 1900s. We will, of course, keep you all updated as we learn more about this tragedy in Hawaii and make sure that you check out Elise McHugh's full report in today's show notes. But with that, thanks so much for joining us for the Daily Signal Top News on this Friday. If you've never had the chance to check out our morning show, be sure to do so. It's right here in the same podcast feed. On Monday morning, I am sitting down with the GOP chairman for Alabama, John Wall,

Starting point is 00:16:53 to discuss a recent action that they've taken in Alabama to prevent candidates for the school board from receiving money from teacher unions. Also make sure to subscribe to The Daily Signal wherever you like to listen to podcasts and help us reach more listeners by taking a moment to leave a five-star rating and review. Have a great weekend. We'll see you right back here on Monday morning. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Lewy and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop.

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The Daily Signal - AG Garland Appoints Special Counsel, Trump’s Lawyers Appear in DC Court, Maui Fires Death Toll Rises | August 11

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