UNBIASED - Fani Willis Disqualification Hearing Kicks Off, FBI Disrupts Russian Hacking Campaign, Reports: Russia Developing Nuclear Weapon for Space, Epstein Victims Sue FBI, and More.

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

1. SHORT STORY: FBI Disrupts Russian Hacking Campaign; White House Confirms Russia's Development of Anti-Satellite Nuclear Weapon for Space (1:11) 2. SHORT STORY: Here's What Happened on Day One of the Fani Willis/Nathan Wade Disqualification Hearing (7:54)3. QUICK HITTERS: House Impeaches DHS Secretary Mayorkas (12:06); Epstein Victims Sue FBI (15:35); Jack Smith Files Response with Supreme Court (17:14), Democrats Flip Seat Santos' Seat in House (19:21), Clearing Up Headlines Re: Travis Kelce Film (19:10)4. ONE-LINERS (21:44)5. NOT EVERYTHING IS BAD: Good News of the Week (23:01)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. February 16th, 2024. This episode was recorded around 5 p.m. Eastern time yesterday. So today, how this episode is going to work is I have two stories for you. They're not necessarily deep dives. They're somewhere in the middle of quick hitters and deep dives. One specifically as it pertains to Russian intelligence. The second about the hearing dealing with Fannie Willis and the special prosecutor in Fulton County, Georgia. Then I'll get into quick hitters, then one-liners, and it's Friday, so I will finish with not everything is bad, and that'll be today's

episode. Before I get into the stories, let me just remind you, as I always do, if you haven't yet already and you love what you hear today, please go ahead and leave me a review on whatever platform you listen on, or if you're a YouTube watcher, hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to my channel. Those things really help. So thank you in advance. Let's get right into the stories. The first story has two parts, both related to Russian intelligence. The first is that the FBI announced on Thursday it had successfully disrupted a Russian GRU-led hacking campaign that infiltrated more than a thousand home and small business routers, including in the United States. And I do just want to clear up what

GRU-led means before we go any further. GRU, spelled G-R-U, is a Soviet military intelligence organization. It stands for Main Intelligence Directorate, and you would think based on that it would be called MID or MID, but it's not. It's GRU, G-R-U. But anyway, decades after the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Special Bureau in Russia sort of reorganized and it became known as the GRU or as GRU in 1942. And this was also at the height of World War II. And at that time, GRU was responsible for gathering intelligence on Germany, as well as Germany's allies. And at that time, GRU was responsible for gathering intelligence on Germany, as well as Germany's allies. And then later during the Cold War, GRU also played a role, and it was actually responsible for penetrating Britain's atom bomb program. So GRU's purpose

is gathering intelligence. With that said, though, there's not much more than that known about it, as far as size and scope goes, at least. But here's what the DOJ's press release said. So this week, the DOJ said, quote, a January 2024 court-authorized operation has neutralized a network of hundreds of small office home office routers that grew military unit 26165 used to conceal and otherwise enable a variety of crimes. These crimes include vast spear phishing and similar credential harvesting campaigns against targets of intelligence interest to the Russian government, such as U.S. and foreign governments and military security and corporate organizations, end quote. Attorney General Garland said, quote, in this case, Russian intelligence services turned to criminal groups to help them

target home and office routers, but the Justice Department disabled their scheme. We will continue to disrupt and dismantle the Russian government's malicious cyber tools that endanger the security of the United States and our allies. Now, the second part of this story has to do with Russia's attempt to develop an anti-satellite nuclear weapon for use in space. This one we know less about, but here is what we do know. Three sources familiar with this matter said that Russia is developing a nuclear space-based weapon designed to target American satellites. They said that this weapon is not yet operational, but it's enough to prompt the House Intelligence Chair to ask the White House to declassify information about an unnamed, quote, serious national security threat. The White

House addressed the situation on Thursday through national security spokesperson John Kirby, who said, quote, while I'm limited by how much I can share about the specific nature of the threat, I can confirm that it is related to an anti-satellite capability that Russia is developing. This is not an active capability that's been deployed, and though Russia's pursuit of this particular capability is troubling, there's no immediate threat to anyone's safety. We are not talking about a weapon that can be used to attack human beings or cause physical destruction here on Earth. That said, we've been closely monitoring this Russian activity, and we will continue to take it very seriously. So the main question from the public is whether this space-based weapon, as it's called, is

an actual nuclear weapon or if it's a nuclear-powered satellite carrying electronic weapons. So weapons that could interfere with telecommunications and satellites rather than actual physical destruction that would be done by a nuclear weapon. And John Kirby's remarks seem to clear that up a little bit. He didn't explicitly say it, but he kind of directly confirmed that the weapon at issue isn't a weapon that could cause physical damage, right? So, you know, there's still questions about it. And as he said, he can't say much, but that is one of the main questions from the public. Kirby also mentioned the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 in his remarks. And the relevant provisions of that treaty prohibit countries from placing nuclear weapons

or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, on celestial bodies, or stationing them in outer space in any other manner. So Kirby did say that the space-based weapon at issue would be a violation of this treaty, but this also wouldn't be the first time that Russia violated an arms-related treaty. So take that for what it's worth. A couple of things to note before we move on. Number one, the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee have had access to this information for at least a week. This isn't some new information that they just received on Wednesday, so some people are speculating that

the reason that this was brought to the public now rather than when the information was first received is because of this foreign aid bill that the House is now reviewing, the one that just passed the Senate. The thought there is that if alarms went off about Russia's advancements in space, maybe the additional aid to Ukraine would have a greater chance of being approved by the House. In fact, a Kremlin spokesperson actually backed this thought, saying, quote, It's obvious that the White House is trying, by hook or by crook, to push Congress to vote on the bill to allocate money. We'll see what tricks the White House will resort to. End quote. The second thing I want to note is that both the United States and Russia have developed and tested anti-satellite weapons in space. And they both have regularly used nuclear power in space. Not nuclear weapons, but nuclear power. It's different,

right? Washington actually first put a nuclear-powered satellite in orbit in 1961. So it's not unprecedented. However, what would be unprecedented is if it's a combination of these systems, right? So let's say it's a nuclear-powered satellite which is carrying a nuclear weapon capable of physical destruction. That would be something that's never been done before. So that's the deal with that, and that's a little bit about what we know so far. Perhaps more will come to light. Maybe these documents will be declassified. We will see with time. But let's now move on to the Fulton County disqualification hearing. I've covered this a little bit, but the hearing actually took place, so let me update you. A hearing was held on

Thursday regarding Fulton County District Attorney Fawnie Willis's involvement with the special prosecutor Nathan Wade in the election interference case. And again, this is the state of Georgia's election interference case. This is not the federal election interference case. A little bit of background, and as I said, I've covered this in a couple of episodes now, so I'm going to keep this brief. But a defendant in the Georgia state election interference case filed a motion to dismiss his indictment and to disqualify both the district attorney and the special prosecutor based on an alleged romantic relationship between the two of them.

And to give this a little bit of context, the district attorney or the DA is the one who brings the charges against the defendant, But the DA will appoint a special prosecutor to actually prosecute the case. And this is meant, which is ironic, to avoid any sort of conflicts of interest, but now the defendant is alleging conflict. So in this case, Fannie Willis appointed Nathan Wade as the special prosecutor, and the defendant alleges that the two of them were in a romantic relationship at the time that Nathan Wade was appointed and that by and through the romantic and professional relationship, Willis benefited financially from Wade's appointment as special prosecutor and therefore they should be disqualified due to the conflicts in this case. So the defendant isn't arguing that the indictment should be

dismissed, Wade should be disqualified, Willis should be disqualified based on their relationship alone, but rather based on the fact that there are conflicts of interest that are present as a result of this relationship. So both personal and financial conflicts of interest. More specifically, as it pertains to the financial conflict, the, you know, Willis's office, the DA's office paid Wade hundreds of thousands of dollars for his work on this case. In the meantime, because they were in a relationship, they were taking vacations together, doing various things. And Wade, according to the defendant, was paying for those things. So the hearing on Thursday was for the parties to set forth their respective evidence that either a relationship did or didn't exist prior to Wade's appointment, as well as evidence

as to whether a financial conflict exists. And here is what we learned from the hearing. The first witness was a woman who previously worked with Willis at the DA's office, considered herself to be good friends with Willis, not best friends, but good friends. She testified that she was aware that a relationship between Willis and Wade began shortly after October 2019 when the two of them met at a judicial conference. She said Willis had told her that the romantic relationship began around November 2019. Now, the reason that this matters

is because Nathan Wade submitted a sworn affidavit to the court that his relationship with Willis didn't begin, his romantic relationship didn't begin until 2022 after he was appointed special counsel. He was appointed on November 2nd, 2021. Obviously, this woman's testimony contradicts that because she's saying they've been in a relationship since the end of 2019. This woman actually testified that without a doubt, Willis and Wade were in a relationship before November 1st, 2021 when he was appointed. The second witness was Nathan Wade himself. Originally, the state tried to quash Wade's testimony, but because of the woman's testimony right before him and the contradictory nature of it, the judge said that Wade would have to take the stand. So Wade ultimately testified that, and I'm going to keep this really short, just touch on the highlights.

Wade ultimately testified that the travel that him and Willis took together was paid for with his business credit card, and that Willis would reimburse him in cash. As far as the relationship timeline, he said their romantic relationship began in 2022 after he was appointed a special prosecutor. That was what he swore in his affidavit as well, but that as of the summer of 2023, they no longer had a romantic relationship. The third and final witness of the day was Fonny Will longer had a romantic relationship. The third and final witness of the day was Fonny Willis. And this was definitely the most contentious of the three testimonies. Willis mainly testified that their relationship started in early 2022, that she was either paying for expenses during the trips that she would take with Wade or reimbursing Wade for

said expenses. And she provided a little bit of clarity as to why she would reimburse Wade with cash. She said she always carries cash on her, she always has, and it's not out of the norm for her to pay for things in cash. And then those three testimonies took up the entirety of the day. In fact, Willis will be cross-examined tomorrow. So Wade and Willis's testimony, or I should say Friday, the day this episode comes out. So Wade and Willis's testimony pretty much in line with one another, whereas Willis's friend's testimony was contradictory. The hearing will resume on Friday. The judge will issue a ruling at some point after that. Let's move on to quick hitters. The House voted

to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday in a slim 214 to 213 vote. Only three Republicans joined all Democrats in opposing the measure. There were two articles of impeachment, both stemming from his handling of the southern border. The first article specifically charged Mayorkas with willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law. The second article charged him with breach of public trust. Now, the reason that this is news, well, one, it's news because any impeachment will make the news. But two, it's because Mayorkas is only the second cabinet

secretary to be impeached in 150 years. The last one was in 1876. I touched on that a little bit last episode. But the impeachment, I just want to be clear, is formal charges. So he has formally been charged by the House. But nothing really happens to someone who's impeached unless they're actually convicted, which is extremely rare. It's not until the Senate actually convicts someone that they would be removed from office. And in this case, Mayorkas won't be convicted. Two-thirds of the Senate is required to convict. The Senate is currently split. 48 Democrats, 49 Republicans, 3 independents. That means assuming all Republicans voted to convict Mayorkas, the Republicans would still need all three independents and 14 Democrats, and that

just won't happen. Also, the Senate isn't necessarily required to hold a trial. It's a bit of a gray area in the Constitution. The Constitution says that the Senate shall have the sole power to hold a trial, but shall in that context doesn't mean the Senate must hold a trial. It just means that the Senate has the sole power to do so, and that power doesn't belong to anyone else. Senate rules, on the other hand, suggest a little bit more clarity, but even Senate rules can be changed. Per the current rules, the Senate has to act in some way once it receives the articles of impeachment. But the Senate can vote to make new rules.

It can take steps to dispose of the impeachment resolution altogether. It can vote to delay the trial. So there's a lot of avenues that the Senate could take. And the Senate is currently in recess. So we'll know more when the Senators get back from recess on the 26th. But regardless, if a trial is held, like I said, the numbers just don't support a conviction. The second quick hitter, 12 victims of Jeffrey Epstein sued the FBI on Wednesday, accusing it of covering up its failure to investigate Epstein and enabling

the continuation of his sex trafficking. The lawsuit alleges the FBI received its first tips of Epstein's trafficking back in 1996, but didn't launch its first probe for another 10 years in 2006. Two years later, in 2008, Epstein pled guilty to a Florida prostitution charge, and the FBI's probe came to an end. The lawsuit says that the FBI continued receiving tips in the years that followed, but ignored those tips until Epstein's arrest 11 years later in 2019. The lawsuit says, quote, The FBI had photographs, videos, and interviews and hard evidence of child prostitution and failed

to timely investigate and arrest Epstein in deviation from the FBI protocols. The FBI had a non-discretionary obligation to handle and investigate tips concerning potential and ongoing underage child erotica, rape, sex with minors, and sex trafficking in a reasonable manner, and to act against Epstein and to prevent him from committing repeated crimes. Yet contrary to its own established rules, the FBI failed to take action and botched and covered up investigations for years, end quote. The lawsuit then says, quote, Jane Doe's 1 through 12 bring this lawsuit to get to the bottom once and for all of the FBI's role in Epstein's

criminal sex trafficking ring. End quote. The DOJ has not yet responded to a request for comment. Quick hitter number three. On Wednesday, special counsel Jack Smith filed his response to Donald Trump's request for the Supreme Court to indefinitely pause his election interference trial. Remember, Jack Smith had previously gone to the Supreme Court to ask them to intervene. That was ahead of the appellate ruling, but the justices at that time said, no, let this play out in the appellate court. We'll get to it later. So once the appellate court issued their ruling against Trump, it was Trump who then took this case to the Supreme Court. And now Smith doesn't want the court's involvement because he, of course, wants the appellate court ruling to stand since they ruled in his favor and ruled against Trump.

And Jack Smith just wants to move forward with the trial. So to explain Smith's request to the Supreme Court in the simplest manner, it's important to discuss what Trump needs to prove in order to have his request granted. For the court to pause the trial and agree to decide the issue of presidential immunity, Trump has to show that he has a fair likelihood of winning the case at the Supreme Court level if the court decides to hear the case, and two, that the balance of equities favor delaying his trial. So naturally, Jack Smith is arguing that one, Trump can't show a fair likelihood of success, and two, that the balance of equities do not favor delaying the trial. So what Smith writes is this. He says, quote, delay in the resolution of these charges threatens to frustrate

the public interest in a speedy and fair verdict, a compelling interest in every criminal case and one that has a unique national importance here, end quote. Smith did say, though, that if the court decides to pause the trial, that the court should set this case for expedited briefing and argument so that if the court rules against Trump, a quote, timely and fair trial can begin with minimal additional delay, end quote. And Smith specifically asked that if the court does set arguments, he would like the arguments to happen next month in March. Quick hitter number four. In a special election on Tuesday, Democrats flipped the House seat previously held by Republican Representative George Santos. As we recall, or we should recall if you listen to my podcast, Santos was expelled from the House back in December after he was

charged with various crimes. These crimes included fraud charges, and his expulsion prompted a special election. In this special election, prior Democrat Representative Tom Susie and Republican Mozzie Pillip ran against each other. Susie received 53.9% of the votes. Pillip received 46.1% of the votes. And this flip now means that the House is even more narrow than it was before, or the margins are even more narrow. So you have 219 Republicans, 213 Democrats, and three vacancies. The fifth quick hitter is just something I want to clear up. So you may have seen headlines that say something along the lines of Travis Kelsey's movie career kicks off with the help of President Biden because it's financed by green energy tax credits. Something along those lines. I've seen a few of them. I just want to provide context on what these headlines mean. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 did a lot of things, one of which was to create transferable green energy tax credits.

Under the provisions of the law, a person or entity with green energy tax credits can transfer those credits to any individual or entity that has federal income tax liability. And then the person transferring those credits can get cash in return. So basically what these renewable project energy project owners and developers can do is sell their surplus tax credits for cash and then use that cash for whatever they want. In this case, investing in a movie. So this movie is being produced by Radiant Media Studios, and the co-founder, Mike Field, is an investor in green energy products. So Field sold his green energy tax credits to raise cash to invest in this movie and reduce his own financial risk. So the headlines

are a bit misleading to the extent that Kelsey's only involvement with the green energy tax credits is that he's an executive producer on a movie, or he's at least set to be the executive producer, on a movie that's being financed with cash obtained through the sale of Fields' credits. So I just wanted to provide some context on that. Let's now move on to one-liners. Number one, Donald Trump's criminal trial related to hush money payments to Stormy Daniels will begin with jury selection on March 25th, as per the judge's Thursday ruling. Three people, two of which are minors, have been detained after a shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs parade on Wednesday, leaving one woman dead and injuring at least 21 others. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage average jumped to 6.77% this week, which is up 0.13% from last week.

Though no damage was done, two protesters poured red powder on themselves as well as on the encasements protecting the United States Constitution at the National Archives on Wednesday. The SEC signed off on the merger proxy between Trump Media and Digital World Acquisition Corp. paving the way for Trump Media to become a publicly traded company if approved by its shareholders. And the final one-liner I have is that special counsel Herr, who recently released his findings of the investigation into President Biden's handling of classified documents, is expected to testify at a public hearing in front of the House Judiciary Committee about his report on March 12th. And finally, not everything is bad, but I will say the good news looks a little different this week. I don't have any one particular story for you. You know, I usually

like to do the feel-good stories. Instead, I have a positive headline. Sadly, it was a slow week for good news, which actually reminds me, if you have a piece of good news that you would like to share with me, I would absolutely love if we started doing this thing where you submit your good news stories on my website, jordanismylawyer.com. I have a contact form. That way I can start including these stories in the Not Everything Is Bad segment that come from you. It can be acts of kindness that you've witnessed, good news that you've heard, anything in the realm of good

news. I think that would actually be a really cool implementation to our Friday episodes. So next time something good happens, think of me, submit it on my website, and I will include it if I feel it has a place in the episode. With that said, your snippet of good news today is that January gas prices were down 80 cents from a peak in September 2023. Prices are slowly starting to tick up again, but forecasters are optimistic that prices will continue on a downward trend through 2024. And yes, that is despite what is currently going on in the Middle East. That is what I have for you. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a fantastic weekend and I will talk to you on Tuesday.