UNBIASED - CNN Sues DOJ for Release of Biden Interview Tapes, Oklahoma Executes First Inmate of 2024, Trump Case Updates, No Labels Drops 2024 Election Efforts, and More.

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

1. Judge in Trump's Hush Money Case Denies Delay of Trial Based on Pending Supreme Court Ruling (0:35)2. Judge in Trump's Georgia Election Interference Case Denies Dismissal Based on First Amendment Protections (3:47)3. Judge in Trump's Classified Documents Case Denies Dismissal Based on Presidential Records Act (6:01)4. CNN Sues DOJ Seeking Release of Tapes from Biden's Interview with Special Counsel Hur (6:50)5. Oklahoma Executes First Inmate of the Year (9:10)6. President Biden Speaks with Netanyahu (12:39)7. 'No Labels' Drops 2024 Presidential Campaign Effort (14:07)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 Thursday, April 4th, 2024, and this is your daily news rundown. As your reminder, you know the drill. If you love the unbiased approach this episode provides and you feel more informed after listening, please go ahead and leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen. Be sure to share the show with your friends and if you're watching on youtube please go ahead and hit that thumbs up button all of those things really show me some love and help support my show so thank you in advance without further ado let's just jump right in to today's stories so i have three trump

related stories the first one from last night the the second two from today, some updates in his cases, and then the rest are not Trump-related. So last night, the judge overseeing Donald Trump's hush money case denied Trump's request to further delay the scheduled trial date of April 15th. So here's the deal. Obviously, Trump has multiple cases going on right now, and his goal is really just to get through the election. Naturally, his attorneys are throwing any possible argument at the wall to delay his scheduled trials in each of those cases. That's just standard practice from attorneys. Now, obviously, some arguments are better than others. In this particular instance, Trump's defense was that the Supreme Court is getting ready to take up the issue of presidential immunity next month, whether he is covered by presidential immunity, and therefore the trial in the hush money case should be put

on hold until the Supreme Court renders a decision on that issue. But the judge said no, and here is why. Rather than taking a stance on the actual legal argument behind presidential immunity, which is what the Supreme Court will ultimately do next month or in the months that follow, the judge focused on the timing of the defense. Specifically, the judge cites to multiple prior instances in which Donald Trump knew of this presidential immunity defense, yet he waited until March 7th to bring it before this court for the first time. And keep in mind, as of March 7th, the trial in the Hush Money case was scheduled for March 25th, so only three-ish weeks away. So the judge basically said, listen, in May of last year, you made the New York Civil Fraud Court aware of the presidential immunity defense. Then in October

of last year, you filed a motion to dismiss your federal election interference charges based on presidential immunity. And despite all of this, it wasn't until last month, three weeks before the scheduled trial, that you brought the issue before this court. Now, here's the thing. Per court rules, specifically in New York, because all jurisdictions have their own rules, but in New York, a defendant has to have all of their what are called pre-trial motions filed within 45 days of the trial date. Otherwise, an exception to this is that the judge can say, okay, look, you may have missed the deadline, but there were circumstances that you couldn't

have possibly been aware of before that 45-day expiration date, so I'm going to let it slide. Maybe new information comes to light, something like that. So what Judge Marchant said here is, one, the request for a trial delay was made less than 45 days before the scheduled trial date. And two, this request is based on an issue that you have known since as early as May of last year when you brought it before the first court. So consequently, it would be inappropriate under court rules to allow this motion to proceed. And because of that, the court denied the request to delay the trial. The second Trump-related story pertains to his Georgia election interference case. So not to be confused with the federal election interference

case. Of course, we know that both the federal and Georgia election interference case hinge on this Supreme Court case being heard next month about presidential immunity. But while that is sort of playing out, Trump is obviously, as I said in the previous story, throwing multiple defenses out there to try to get these cases and charges dismissed. And so one of his defenses in the Georgia election interference case was free speech. So he argued that his statements made during the time of the election were protected by the First Amendment because his speech was political speech. Political speech is a category of protected speech. That's exactly what it sounds like. It's speech that relates to the government

and the policymaking of the government. That's why here in the United States, we're able to criticize our government because political speech is a protected form of speech. However, what Judge McAfee ruled today is that because these statements were made in furtherance of alleged criminal activity, they are not protected by the First Amendment. Because remember, there are certain types of speech that are unprotected, right? Incitement, defamation, threats, fraud, perjury, fighting words, and as we see here, speech integral to criminal conduct. So because the speech at issue here relates to alleged criminal conduct, while it may not have been proven yet, that's ultimately why McAfee ruled the way he did. Now, because this is alleged criminal activity,

McAfee did also say that the defense could be brought again once a factual record was established, meaning after the evidence is presented, if it's determined that there wasn't criminal activity or the speech did not take place in furtherance of criminal activity, that claim, that free speech claim could be revisited. But for now, he will not be dismissing the case based on this protected speech defense. And then also as a final note, Judge McAfee is not the only judge to deny this political speech defense. The judge overseeing Trump's federal election interference case also denied the defense earlier on. And then finally, the third and final and shorter Trump-related update of the day

pertains to his classified documents case. So the judge overseeing that case ruled today that she will not be dismissing the case based on Trump's argument that he had the authority to take classified and sensitive documents with him when he left the White House. Judge Cannon is the judge overseeing that case, and she did leave open the ability for Trump to use the argument to defend himself at trial, which special counsel Jack Smith had asked the judge to block. He specifically asked that Trump not be allowed to defend himself on that basis, but she didn't go as far as to grant that request. Now, this is just one of many motions to dismiss filed by the Trump camp in this case, so she still has to rule on all of those other motions to dismiss, but this one was denied

today. In other news, non-Trump related news, CNN filed a lawsuit today against the government to gain access to the recordings of President Biden's interview, which took place as a part of Special Counsel Herr's investigation. So a couple of months ago, we know special counsel Herr released the findings of his investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents. And if you remember, Herr's conclusion was that there was evidence of willful retention, but given these other factors like Biden's age, memory, and where the documents were stored, Herr wasn't recommending criminal charges because he didn't think the prosecution would be able to meet the standard of proof

needed to obtain a conviction, which is beyond a reasonable doubt. So willful retention beyond a reasonable doubt. But one of the more notable aspects of that report that stuck with a lot of people was Herr's findings surrounding Biden's memory. Specifically, Herr said that Biden was not able to accurately recall which years he was vice president or in what year his son Beau died. So that sort of caused a stir. Now, after the release of those findings, President Biden fought back, saying some of the things that Herr said were not true. And the White House said that the characterization of the president was inaccurate and unfair. So soon after this, special counsel Herr sat before

Congress and testified about his findings. And then the transcripts from President Biden's interview with special counsel Herr were released to the public. But the actual recordings of the interview were not. So audio and video recordings were not released. So what the attorney for CNN wrote in the lawsuit is, quote, without access to any of the interview records, the press and public initially could not form their own conclusions about her characterization of Biden, end quote. Then noting that the transcripts were eventually released, the lawsuit says, quote, transcripts, however, are no substitute for records, end quote. And this lawsuit also notes that CNN and other news outlets have requested verbally and in writing that the DOJ make these audio tapes and or video tapes public in accordance with the Freedom of Information

Act, but that the DOJ has yet to do so. And CNN is not the only entity to file a lawsuit. The Judicial Watch, which is a right-leaning group, they also filed a similar lawsuit last month. Oklahoma carried out its first execution of the year today when it executed Michael Dwayne Smith, who was convicted of killing two people in 2002. Smith was on the run from a previous killing when he killed two others in separate incidents, 40-year-old Janet Moore and 24-year-old Sharath Pularu. In obtaining his conviction, prosecutors argued that Smith killed Moore while he was actually looking for Moore's son, who he thought had told police about his whereabouts. Then, later that day, Smith killed

Pularu, who was working at a convenience store, because Smith allegedly thought Pularu had bad-mouthed the gang that he belonged to during an interview with a reporter. So he killed those two and initially confessed to the killings. But then years later, he attempted to get his conviction overturned on appeal, saying that he didn't do it. And he told the court that he was high on drugs. He doesn't even remember getting arrested. Well, ultimately, Oklahoma's parole board denied his clemency petition in a four to one vote. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rejected an emergency stay earlier this week, and the Supreme Court of the United States also denied a stay of execution early this morning,

so right before the execution took place. Now, the criminal appeals court noted in its ruling that Smith's confession was very detailed and highly corroborated and that there was no amount of additional evidence testing that would change the validity of that confession, and so they denied. Now, Oklahoma has an interesting history with executions. In 2014 and 2015, they carried out a couple of botched executions where the inmates were left suffering, which is, of course, prohibited under the Eighth Amendment, you know, cruel and unusual punishment, that whole thing. And after an investigation, it was found that the prison had used the wrong drug, an unauthorized

drug, and it was part of the lethal injection cocktail. Following that, the state paused executions for seven years. And I've talked a lot about lethal injections before, but basically states have had difficulty getting the drugs ever since the EU banned the death penalty. We actually used to source our drugs from Europe for the lethal injection, but when the death penalty was banned over there, they didn't allow the sale of the drugs to the United States to be used in executions. So that not only led to a decreased supply in drugs, but it also led to states having to source the drugs from local compounding pharmacies. The issue there was that the drugs they were getting

from these compounding pharmacies were being cross-contaminated or in a worst case scenario, which we saw happen in Oklahoma, these compounding pharmacies were providing the wrong drug. Each state has their own method of execution, but more specifically has their own lethal injection protocol. Depending on the state, some states have used one drug, some use two, some use three. I believe Nebraska uses the most. I believe they use four drugs. But Oklahoma's protocol consists of three. It's a sedative called midazolam, a paralytic called virachronium bromide, and then a lethal dose of potassium chloride, which ultimately stops the heart. So according to Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Stephen Harp,

Smith actually declined his final meal, and when he was asked for any last words, he responded, nah, I'm good. Smith received his injection around 10 a.m. this morning, and he was pronounced dead at 10.20. President Biden spoke with Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu today. It was the first time speaking since that airstrike killed the seven aid workers in Gaza. And President Biden allegedly made clear that the United States policy with respect to Gaza may change depending on how Israel takes steps to address civilian harm. So the White House releases these readouts of conversations that the president has. And this is what their readout said today, quote, President Biden spoke by telephone with Prime Minister Netanyahu. The two leaders discussed the situation in Gaza. President Biden emphasized that the strikes on humanitarian workers and the

overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable. He made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers. He made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel's immediate action on these steps. He underscored that an immediate ceasefire is essential to stabilize and improve the humanitarian situation and protect innocent civilians. And he urged the prime minister to empower his negotiators to conclude a deal without delay to bring the hostages home. The two leaders also discussed public Iranian threats against Israel and the Israeli people.

President Biden made clear that the United States strongly supports Israel in the face of those threats. End quote. And finally, the last story I have for you today is that in a not-so-surprising decision, the No Labels group, which is a centrist political group, announced today that it is dropping its efforts to put forth a unity ticket against Trump and Biden in the upcoming election. In a statement released this afternoon, the CEO and founder of No Labels said in part, quote, Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run and hungrier for unifying national leadership than ever before. But No Labels has always said that we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to

winning the White House. No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down." End quote. Those were the top stories of the day. I hope you have a fantastic Friday and a fantastic weekend, and I will talk to you on Monday.