UNBIASED - Baltimore Bridge Collapse, Abortion Pill Oral Arguments, P. Diddy Raided, DJT Starts Trading on NASDAQ, Ken Paxton's Pre-Trial Agreement, VISA/Mastercard Settlement.

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

1. P. Diddy (Sean Combs) Homes Raided Amid Sex Trafficking Investigation (0:34)2. Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapses in Baltimore After Collision with Cargo Ship (3:04)3. Trump's DJT Starts Trading on NASDAQ Exchange (5:54)4. TX Attorney General Enters Pre-Trial Agreement with Prosecutors Over Securities Fraud Charges (6:37)5. VISA and Mastercard Settle with U.S. Merchants Over High Swipe Fees (8:00)6. Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments in Abortion Pill Case (FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, Danco Labs v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine) (9:39)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Watch this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok. All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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call the Conax Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Tuesday, March 26th, 2024, and this is your less than 20-minute rundown of today's news. If you love the unbiased approach that this episode provides and you feel more informed after listening, please go ahead and leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen. If you're a YouTube watcher, hit that thumbs up button. Feel free to subscribe to my channel if you haven't already. And of course, no matter where you listen, you can always share this show with your family and your friends or whoever you feel will appreciate nonpartisan news.

Without further ado, let's get right into today's stories. After yesterday's episode went out, the news broke that P. Diddy's homes in both California and Miami were raided by officers. Now, just to set a couple of facts straight as it pertains to this story, one, the authorities that executed the searches were local law enforcement in those respective areas, as well as authority or officials from Homeland Security. The reason for the searches lies within a federal sex trafficking investigation into P. Diddy, whose real name, by the way, is Sean Combs, because in the last five months or so, he has had multiple lawsuits filed against him by various women accusing him of many things, including but not limited to

rape, sex trafficking, and sexual assault. The lawsuit that involved sex trafficking allegations specifically was filed in the state of New York, and because of that, it is the Southern District of New York prosecutors that are leading this investigation. Keep in mind that each state, along with its state courts, also has federal courts within it. So it doesn't necessarily have to be prosecutors from the DOJ leading an investigation for that investigation to be considered federal, right? The Southern District of New York is a federal court with federal prosecutors. Another important distinction I want to make is that the lawsuit that was filed against

him by the woman who alleged sex trafficking was, that was a civil lawsuit. It wasn't a criminal lawsuit. But because of those allegations, the Southern District of New York launched its own criminal investigation into P. Diddy. P. Diddy himself was not at either property when they were raided. In fact, flight data from one of his planes, he I believe has two planes, one of the planes was shown to fly to Antigua or an area around Antigua yesterday, but there were also sightings of P. Diddy at an executive airport in Miami yesterday. So there has been no official confirmation from authorities as to his whereabouts. It hasn't been confirmed whether he's been arrested or not, so we don't know too much.

And really the only thing that we know from sources is that agents were authorized to search for documents, phones, computers, or other electronic devices that hold either data or videos. But again, other than that, Homeland Security didn't really offer much information. It did say that it would provide an update when it's appropriate, whenever that might be. The second story I have for you is that tragically, very early this morning, around 1.28 a.m. Eastern Time, a 948-foot Singapore-flagged container ship called the Dali was leaving the port of Baltimore, heading for Sri Lanka Lanka when it hit a column of the Francis

Scott Key Bridge, resulting in an almost total collapse of that bridge. Early ship tracking data as well as video footage shows that the following sequence of events took place. So at 1 24 a.m. the ship's lights flicker on and off, and about a minute later, the lights flicker once more and a plume of smoke is seen coming from the ship. At about 1.26 a.m., the ship alters course and it veers towards the pillar. And at 1.28 a.m. is when the pillar was struck. Almost immediately, the bridge collapses. The data and video are leading investigators to believe the incident may have been the result of a power failure. In fact, the crew of the ship reported a power failure to authorities. Obviously, just to be sure, the FBI will continue its investigation, but both the FBI and Baltimore police said there was no evidence of intentionality, no evidence of terrorism. Very shortly after the collapse this morning,

Maryland's governor declared a state of emergency. Underwater divers were sent into the water to conduct a search and rescue operation, and what we know as of now is that the ship was able to declare a mayday before it collided with the bridge. And I guess that's the good news in all of this because the Mayday Call actually allowed officials to start the process of stopping the flow of traffic onto the bridge and ultimately save some lives. But unfortunately, there were eight contractors doing some construction on the bridge. They were making some repairs to the deck. So as of seven o'clock this morning, two of those eight people had been pulled from the water, one without injury,

another in serious condition, but the remaining individuals are still missing. As of 10.30 this morning, authorities had marked three passenger vehicles, a cement truck, and a fifth vehicle submerged in the water and did have up to eight dive teams in the water. But the unfortunate reality is that because this is a port waterway, the water is anywhere from 40 to 50 feet deep in some areas, not to mention the temperature of the water is around 50 degrees. And adding to these unfortunate circumstances, dive operations weren't able to actually start until the sun came up today. There's also a tide situation going on, making the mission a little more difficult. So many, many, many prayers going to everyone

affected by this terrible situation. In some other news, Donald Trump's social media company, Trump Media and Technology Group Corporation, began trading on the NASDAQ today under the ticker symbol DJT, which of course stands for Donald Trump's initials. Trading day comes after a majority of shareholders from Digital World Acquisition Corporation approved a merger with Trump's company on Friday. That merger was then completed on Monday, according to a filing with the SEC. By midday today, the share price was up about 40%, and it was also one of the most actively traded stocks on the Nasdaq exchange per CNBC data. The fourth story I have for you is about Ken Paxson, Texas's attorney general, who struck an agreement with prosecutors regarding his nine-year-old securities fraud charges. So in 2017, Ken Paxton was accused of duping investors

in a tech startup and was subsequently charged with two felony counts of securities fraud and one felony count of not being registered as a securities advisor. Paxton's trial was set to start three weeks from now, but under this new agreement, Paxton's three charges will ultimately be dismissed so long as he abides by the terms of this pretrial agreement, which includes him paying roughly $300,000 in restitution to the victims, he has to complete 100 hours of community service, and 15 hours of legal ethics education within the next 18 months. Under this agreement, Paxson can keep his position as attorney general. He can maintain his law license. But should he fail to abide by the terms of this agreement at the end of the 18 months,

he could be brought to trial if those charges are refiled against him. Now, as far as whether these types of agreements are typical, we saw Hunter Biden almost entered it into a similar one until it fell apart. A former special state prosecutor said these types of agreements are not unusual, and they're often seen more so in larger counties where the courts just have a lot on their docket. The fifth story is about a Visa MasterCard settlement. So Visa MasterCard reached a preliminary $30 billion settlement with merchants here in the United States over excessive swipe fees. If you run a business, you know that whenever a customer swipes their card, depending on

the card, the bank will take a cut. It is those cuts specifically from Visa and MasterCard that merchants argued were excessive. So the settlement still has to be approved by a judge, and it's possible that it faces some appeals, but its terms are being reported as follows. So the most notable terms of the settlement include swipe fees, which are currently anywhere from one and a half to four percent of a transaction, have to be lowered by at least 0.04 percentage points for a minimum of three years, and these two companies have to ensure an average rate that is seven basis points below the current average for the next five years. Visa and MasterCard also both agreed to cap rates for five years and remove anti-steering

provisions. So anti-steering provisions come into play when a credit card company prohibits a merchant from encouraging its customers to use another credit card from a different bank in order to lower that, you know, swipe fee. So now under the settlement, Visa and MasterCard won't be able to prohibit this kind of encouragement from merchants. According to court documents, the fee rollbacks and caps alone are worth just under $30 billion. So it's not that Visa and MasterCard have to pay $30 billion, but rather these settlement terms will accumulate to about $30 billion over the next five or so years.

The sixth and what I believe to be the final story is the Mifepristone case. So the Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in FDA versus Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and Danko Laboratories versus Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which both deal with the same issue, the legality and accessibility of an abortion medication known as Mifepristone. A little bit of background of this case before we sort of get into the questions and concerns from the justices. Back in 2000, so we're going back 24 years, the FDA approved an abortion medication called mifepristone. Mifepristone is the generic name for the drug, but it's essentially one of two drugs in a two-drug protocol that allows a woman to end her pregnancy. So she takes the mifepristone first, and then she'll take a second

drug called mizopristol. And after taking both of those drugs, that's when the abortion would be complete. When it was initially approved, the FDA imposed a variety of conditions on how it could be prescribed and used. So it had to be prescribed by a doctor in person, and it could only be used through the seventh week of pregnancy. In total, a woman would make three trips to the doctor. The first trip would be to take the mifepristone. The second trip, two days later, would be to take that second drug, misopristol. And then the third visit to the doctor would be two weeks after that, just to confirm that the pregnancy had been terminated. Then in 2016, the FDA made some changes.

So first, it allowed the drug to be used through the 10th week of pregnancy rather than the 7th. Then it said that only one in-person visit to the doctor was required rather than three. The third change the FDA made was that non-physician healthcare providers could now prescribe the drug. And the fourth change was that there was no longer this FDA-imposed requirement for prescribers to report adverse side effects from the drug, and specifically adverse side effects that led to either hospitalization or blood transfusions. So those were the changes in 2016. Then in 2021, the FDA issued the most recent change, which did away with the in-person dispensing requirement. So now this drug could be prescribed

through telehealth appointments, it could be sent through the mail, and it really just made the drug a lot more accessible. About a year after that, in 2022, several doctors sued the FDA through a doctor's organization challenging the original approval of mifepristone back in 2000, as well as the changes made in 2016 and 2021. And the allegation was that this drug is not safe, it should have never been approved in the first place, and therefore the drug should be taken off the shelves. And they brought this lawsuit in Texas, and the district court sided with the doctors. The judge in the district court found that the FDA had approved this drug despite legitimate safety

concerns and held that the original approval of the drug and therefore the subsequent changes in the years that followed were void. The FDA and Danko Labs, which is the manufacturer of the drug, appealed this decision. And on appeal, the court ruled that it was too late for the doctors to challenge the initial approval of the drug back in 2000. However, the appellate court said that we're going to uphold the district court's ruling as to the recent changes. So per the appellate decision, the drug approval remains intact, but the changes in 2016 and 2021 were rolled back. And essentially, the original conditions on the drug put forth in 2000 would be in effect. So the FDA and Danko Labs then take this case to the Supreme Court, and here we are. There are two main questions for the court. One, do the doctors by and through

this organization even have legal standing to bring this challenge? And two, whether the appellate court was correct in upholding the district court's ruling in part and rolling back the 2016 and 2021 changes. So at oral arguments, a majority of the justices did give the impression that this was going to go in favor of the government and against the doctors. I would say that the main concern from multiple justices, specifically Justices Jackson, Gorsuch, Alito, as well as Chief Justice Roberts, was the nationwide ban that the doctors are suggesting. So the justices said that the sort of remedy that the doctors are asking for doesn't seem proportional to the alleged injury that the doctors are suffering.

And the justices signaled that it would make more sense for the doctors that don't want to be involved in prescribing abortion medication or performing abortions to be allowed to object to these sort of treatments, which they are allowed to do currently. It's called a conscious objection, which I can get into more, but let me just stay on track. The justices were saying it doesn't necessarily make sense to impose this nationwide ban on everyone. There was also some talk about the Comstock Act. The Comstock Act is a federal law that prohibits the United States Postal Service from sending, quote-unquote, obscene materials in the mail. And Justices Thomas and Alito

questioned whether the Comstock Law prevents the 2021 change, which allows Mifepristone to be mailed. The attorney for the doctors, of course, argued that it does, whereas the federal government argues that it does not. Standing was also a big issue here. Multiple justices, Justices Alito, Sotomayor, Barrett, Thomas, and Kagan, they all sort of pressed the attorney for the doctors organization on how it's even able to prove standing here. And again, standing is one's legal ability to sue. So to have standing and to be able to bring a lawsuit, you have to have an injury which is traceable to the challenged conduct. And all of the aforementioned justices at some point hinted that they did not feel that the doctor's organization sufficiently alleged standing because the none

of the doctors were able to show any actual harm that's traceable to the FDA's changes in 2016 and 2021. So again, just to sort of summarize, I do think this will go in the government's favor. I do not think the justices will impose a nationwide ban. They all sort of seem to be on the same page with that. And look, there were obviously a lot more questions, a lot more concerns from the justices that I can discuss. So if you want this to be a deep dive on Friday, please let me know. For purposes of this shorter episode, I'm going to leave the discussion at that, but you can send me a message on Instagram. You can email me jordan at jordanismylawyer.com if you want this included as a deep dive. Don't forget also there are still five days left in the referral contest, so if you

want a chance to win $200, head to jordanismylawyer.com slash referrals. Submit the email addresses of the people you think will appreciate unbiased. Whoever submits the most referrals wins the contest. You'll get an email directly from me once the contest closes on March 31st at 1159 Eastern Time, and then I will let everyone know after that who the winner was. So that's open for another five days. Have a fantastic rest of your night. Have a great Wednesday, and I will talk to you tomorrow evening.