UNBIASED - Hunter Biden Indicted, Impeachment Inquiry into President Biden, Once-In-A-Generation Antitrust Trial Begins, Hunter Biden Files Lawsuit Over Laptop Data, and More.

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

1. Hunter Biden Indicted on Gun Charges (1:54)2. Speaker McCarthy Announces Impeachment Inquiry into President Biden (6:10)3. Five Officers Federally Indicted in Connection with Tyre Nichols' Death (1...9:07)4. Hunter Biden Files Civil Suit Against Garrett Ziegler Over Laptop Data (25:40)5. DOJ v. Google Trial Begins (32:04)6. Judge in GA Election Case Rules Trump and Co-Defendants Won't Be Tried With Chesebro and Powell in October (35:24) If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Subscribe to Jordan's weekly free newsletter featuring hot topics in the news, trending lawsuits, and more.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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Starting point is 00:01:03 You are listening to the Jordan Is My Lawyer podcast, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. Happy Friday. I am ready for the weekend. I hope you are too. Just a note for today's episode. Typically, I wait until the end of the day Thursday to record just so I can get, you know, as much and the most recent news in the episode. But for this episode, I actually stopped recording or I stopped researching, I guess, around 2.30 on Thursday. So this episode will cover Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday guess, around 2.30 on Thursday. So this episode will cover Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday up until about 2.30. However, I did catch the Hunter Biden
Starting point is 00:01:51 indictment, which came down on Thursday. So the stories today will include the Hunter Biden indictment, the impeachment inquiry that Speaker McCarthy announced on Tuesday, the five officers that are facing a federal indictment in the death of Tyree Nichols, Hunter Biden's lawsuit against a former Trump aide, the DOJ's case against Google and the trial that just started this week. And then I'll briefly talk about the judge's recent ruling in the Georgia election interference case. So those will be the stories for today. Before we get into them, let me just remind you, as I always do, if you love what you hear in this episode, please go ahead and leave my show a review. It helps more than you know. If you have already, I appreciate you. Thank you so
Starting point is 00:02:34 much. And as always, the reminder I give every episode, yes, I am a lawyer. No, I am not your lawyer. Without further ado, let's get into today's stories. Hunter Biden was indicted on Thursday on three counts related to false statements on a federal firearm form and unlawful possession of a firearm. Now, as we know, Hunter Braden was previously going to enter into a pretrial diversion for the gun charge, but that pretrial diversion sort of fell apart along with the plea deal for the tax charges. Following that, David Weiss, who was a prosecutor in the case at the time, was appointed special counsel status. And he said in a court filing that he did expect an indictment to be filed in relation to the gun charges before September 29th because the statute of limitations for some of the related offenses would expire in
Starting point is 00:03:38 October. So in fact, the indictment was filed before September 29th. It was filed yesterday on September 14th. Let's walk through it. And I do have it linked for you on my website. So you can always click on the sources link in the podcast description or just go to Jordan is my lawyer dot com. Find this episode. Scroll all the way down. That's where you'll find the sources.
Starting point is 00:04:02 The indictment first starts off by clarifying that a person seeking to purchase a firearm has to fill out this form called ATF Form 4473. Part of this form requires the purchaser to certify that all of the answers are true and correct. Specifically, Question 11E of the form requires that the purchaser certify that he or she is not an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substances. So the indictment says on October 12, 2018, Hunter Biden purchased a Colt Cobra 38 SPL revolver in the state of Delaware. Upon purchasing, he completed the form and certified that he was not an unlawful user of or addicted to
Starting point is 00:04:53 any controlled substances. The indictment says that Hunter Biden knew this was a false statement when it was certified to, and as many know, at the time he was dealing with a cocaine addiction. So that is, of course, what the indictment is referring to though it does not explicitly mention the cocaine addiction counts one and two relate to the statement being false whereas count three relates to hunter biden's actual possession of the firearm so count one one says that Hunter Biden's false statement was intended or likely to deceive a firearms dealer in violation of federal law. Count two, on the other hand, alleges that Hunter Biden knowingly made the false statement related to information that must be kept in a firearm dealer's records. To simplify that, he made a false statement on a
Starting point is 00:05:46 federal form. So again, counts one and two relate to the statement actually being false, though they are two different charges for slightly different things. Count three relates to possession. So count three alleges Hunter Biden knew he was an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, but possessed the gun anyway. And specifically, the indictment says the possession took place from October 12, 2018 until October 23, 2018. That's the indictment. It's very short. It's four pages. And again, if you want to read it, it is available for you in my sources section. Now, one final note is that in addition to the gun charges, Special Counsel Weiss did say in a court filing filed last month that, quote, a trial is now in order, end quote,
Starting point is 00:06:36 on the tax offenses and that he may bring tax charges possibly in California. So that's what we know about the indictment so far. I'm sure more will come out in the coming days. There has been no date scheduled as to when Hunter Biden is supposed to appear in court for his initial appearance. But of course, as I said, I did stop my research a little earlier today than usual, so it's possible it comes out after I've already recorded. In that case, you'll know once that news comes out. So that's what I have for you on that. Let's move on now to the impeachment inquiry. On Tuesday, Speaker McCarthy announced that he was directing the House committees to open a formal inquiry
Starting point is 00:07:17 into the impeachment of President Biden. We have a lot to unpack here, so I want to talk about what the impeachment process looks like, but I also want to talk about what this inquiry means or what inquiries mean in general, but also the reason for the inquiry in this particular case, the fact that this wasn't a move agreed on by all Republican representatives, and why, despite directing it, there is still one representative who wanted the inquiry that is calling for Speaker McCarthy's removal. And by the way, let me just say that I say inquiry. I know that people say inquiry, and that may very well be the correct way to say it, but for some reason, I have always, always, always said inquiry. So that's just what I'm going to stick with, okay? I know what an inquiry is, and I just say it inquiry. You may say inquiry, but that's just what it is. So we're going to cover all of those topics.
Starting point is 00:08:12 Let's first start with the most important component of this conversation, which is what is the impeachment process? What is impeachment? Impeachment is the formal process of bringing charges against a government official. The Constitution specifically gives Congress the power to impeach federal officials, but interestingly enough, the Constitution does not set forth any specific crimes that an official has to commit in order to be impeached aside from treason and bribery. So the actual language in the Constitution is treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. So to give you an example of when the impeachment
Starting point is 00:08:54 process was used in the past, we have three presidents that have been impeached. Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump. Donald Trump was actually impeached twice, and that's the first time that had ever happened. So let's talk about Andrew Trump. Donald Trump was actually impeached twice, and that's the first time that had ever happened. So let's talk about Andrew Johnson. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868. His charge fell under that high crimes and misdemeanors category. And basically what he did is he and this Secretary of War official, his name was Edwin Stanton, they didn't get along. They didn't have a good relationship, and it was Edwin Stanton, they didn't get along. They didn't have a good relationship, and it was clear that President Johnson wanted him gone. So Congress,
Starting point is 00:09:31 in order to protect Stanton from being fired without the Senate's consent, they enacted this Tenure of Office Act. And what that did is it said that an official couldn't be fired or replaced without Congress's approval. Well, when Congress then went, they weren't in session anymore, Johnson decides to try to replace Stanton anyway. And so Congress went ahead and said, OK, you violated the Tenure of Office Act by unsuccessfully trying to replace Stanton when we said you couldn't do that without our approval, so we're going to go ahead and impeach you. And that's what happened. Then the next impeachment didn't happen for another 130 years. So Bill Clinton in 1998 was impeached for lying under oath and obstruction of justice.
Starting point is 00:10:24 I'm sure you know the famous quote, I did not have sexual relations with that woman. That quote was Bill Clinton denying that he had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky during his testimony in another sexual harassment lawsuit filed by another woman. So he did in fact have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, which meant that he had lied under oath. He had obstructed justice by lying under oath. So that's why he was impeached. Then you have Donald Trump, who, as I said, was impeached twice. The first time was for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Starting point is 00:10:59 That stemmed from this impeachment inquiry that found he had solicited foreign interference from Ukraine in the 2020 election and then proceeded to obstruct the inquiry by telling his administration officials to ignore the subpoenas. The second impeachment charged him with incitement to insurrection, and that charge, of course, stemmed from the events on January 6th. So now that we've talked through why impeachment charges have been brought in the past, let's look at what's going on in Biden's case. The inquiry into President Biden stems from his potential involvement with Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings. Separately, there's also the allegations that President Biden's Department of Justice interfered with this
Starting point is 00:11:45 whole investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes. So for those reasons, this inquiry was directed. So let's now go through the impeachment process. What does impeachment look like? The first step in the impeachment process is this inquiry or inquiry, whatever you say. Typically, an inquiry is first voted on by the House, but it's not necessary. So the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the first impeachment of Donald Trump started with the House voting to formally open the inquiry, but Donald Trump's second impeachment did not. Instead, Nancy Pelosi, who was Speaker of the House at the time, actually just formally announced the inquiry just like McCarthy's doing now. So the House never ended up voting on it. It was more so just Speaker Pelosi directing it. This inquiry can be done by
Starting point is 00:12:36 any committee in the House, though it's more often than not done by the House Judiciary Committee. But as an example, in this case, Speaker McCarthy specifically directed the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and the House Judiciary Committee to continue on with their investigation. And this is the stage where these committees will basically just gather as much evidence and facts of any alleged wrongdoing that they can. From there, that evidence will be presented to the House Judiciary Committee, and the House Judiciary Committee is in charge of reviewing everything and deciding whether to recommend articles of impeachment. Now, in order
Starting point is 00:13:18 for articles of impeachment to proceed to the House for a vote, a majority of the House Judiciary Committee has to approve them. So if the articles are approved by a majority of the House Judiciary Committee, they then go to the House for a vote. At that stage, only a simple majority is needed. So 218 votes in the House are needed to impeach. If the House votes to impeach, the Senate will hold a trial. At the Senate stage, that is where the individual is officially convicted and removed from office. So you can, as an official, be impeached without being removed. In fact, no president that's ever been impeached has been removed from office. It just doesn't happen. It's just very hard at that stage to get the votes needed. But at the Senate trial, Chief Justice Roberts, who is
Starting point is 00:14:12 the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, would preside over the trial, and the Senate would then vote on whether to remove the official from office. Now, I said it's really difficult to remove an official, and that's because two-thirds of the Senate needs to vote to do so. This is an incredibly difficult step to get past because if you think about the way the Senate's broke down, it's rarely ever broken down to where there's enough senators that are in support of removing this official. So just, you know, to kind of illustrate that in the Senate currently, you have a pretty even split. You're not going to get 67 votes to remove President Biden from office if it gets to that stage, right? So that's what
Starting point is 00:14:59 the impeachment process looks like. Now let's talk about who's on board, because to the surprise of some, not all Republican representatives are on board with this decision to launch the inquiry. In fact, around 20 House Republicans opposed it, one of those being Don Bacon, who is a Republican representative from Nebraska. And what he said is, quote, we cannot use impeachment as a political weapon against every president, end quote. Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, another Republican, said, quote, we've got to get back to a point where impeachment is what it was intended to be. I feel like both in the last cycle and in this cycle, we're converting into essentially a vote of no confidence in the British Parliament, and I don't want to see our
Starting point is 00:15:45 country go down that path, end quote. As for Republicans in the Senate, some of them aren't happy either. One Senate Republican who chose to remain anonymous had a lot to say about it. They called it a waste of time, a fool's errand, and they added that it would be dispensed with fairly quickly if the House did, in fact, send articles of impeachment over to the Senate. They also said they think the call for an impeachment inquiry could simply just be McCarthy giving people their quote-unquote binky to get through the government shutdown, but that it's a political loser for the GOP. So those are some Republican senators and representatives that don't necessarily
Starting point is 00:16:26 favor this decision or look negatively upon it. Now, of course, the majority of Republican representatives are, you know, in favor of it or on the fence about it, not necessarily totally opposed to it. And then, of course, the Democratic senators and representatives are very much against it. You know, they see this as weaponization of impeachment, the Democratic senators and representatives are very much against it. You know, they see this as weaponization of impeachment and the impeachment process. So now let's go to why McCarthy did this, right? If he doesn't have full-on support from his party, why did he make this call? We obviously don't have the answers.
Starting point is 00:17:00 Let me just say that, okay? What happens in the government, we only know so much of. We don't know for sure. But there's two sort of theories at play here. One is that some of the more extreme Republican representatives, they've been steadfast in launching this investigation. For instance, you have Representative Matt Gaetz, who suggested that he would present a motion to remove Speaker McCarthy if he didn't support the impeachment. Then you have this, you know, so he was facing pressure, right? Then you have this other theory that McCarthy sort of succumbed to the mounting pressure of the impeachment investigation in order
Starting point is 00:17:37 to get those more extreme Republican representatives on board with avoiding a government shutdown in the coming weeks, right? Because if he can give them what they want with this impeachment inquiry, maybe they'll work more to avoid a government shutdown by being more open to certain funding measures like more aid to Ukraine, which they are not on board with right now, or maybe less spending cuts than they're asking for, things like that. So there's this theory that McCarthy's call to open this inquiry was to kind of get some of these Republicans to cooperate. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, she is a Republican representative who in the last few years has
Starting point is 00:18:15 actually introduced seven articles of impeachment against Biden just herself. She said she wouldn't vote to fund the government without a vote on the impeachment inquiry. So you can see there's this kind of there's there's a little bit of a game going on. Then you have this added component where even though McCarthy called for the inquiry, some representatives are still threatening motions for his removal because what they're saying is you guys probably remember how McCarthy had a really tough time being elected Speaker, right? He had to go through many, many rounds of voting. Well, in order to claim the spot as Speaker, he had to enter into an agreement where in order to get the Republican votes, he agreed to do certain things during his time as Speaker. Well,
Starting point is 00:19:01 what Representative Gates is saying is he hasn't fulfilled his end of the bargain. McCarthy hasn't. So included in the list of measures that were part of the deal, you know, things like a balanced budget, term limits, a full release of videos from January 6th, a subpoena of Hunter Biden, they haven't been brought forward by McCarthy. So they're saying, if you don't abide by our agreement, we're going to remove you. So there's a lot happening, okay? President Biden made his first remarks about the impeachment inquiry on Wednesday. And what he said was this. He said, quote, I don't know quite why, but they just knew they wanted to impeach me.
Starting point is 00:19:39 And now the best I can tell, they want to impeach me because they want to shut down the government, end quote. And then he went on to say that he has to focus on his job and not this impeachment. He has other things to worry about. That's what's going on with the impeachment. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll cover the last few stories. A federal indictment was filed this week against the five police officers that were involved in the death of Tyree Nichols. This indictment is in addition to the state charges that they currently face.
Starting point is 00:20:19 Back in January, you may remember the story of Tyree Nichols, but I will give you a recap. Tyree Nichols was pulled over at an intersection for allegedly reckless driving. According to the video footage, which I did watch, Tyree was eventually pulled out of his car, and at the same time when he was being pulled out, two more officers were arriving to the scene. All of the officers were yelling at him to get on the ground. He wasn't fully cooperating, but he also wasn't completely resisting. So to give you an example, he did go down to his knees. Officers were telling him to lie on his stomach, but he didn't. And during all of this, you can hear Tyree telling the officers to calm down as they're yelling at him.
Starting point is 00:21:02 He's saying he's just trying to get home, but he's being yelled at to put his hands behind his back. Somehow, Tyree manages to get up and run away. He runs away. He's eventually found by the patrol cars in the area, and he was found in his mom's neighborhood. I think it was something like 100 yards away from his mom's home. And so he's, you know, trying to get home. Again, he's not cooperating completely. Officers are giving him commands. You can hear Tyree saying, all right, all right, but not putting his hands behind his back when he's asked. He calls out for his mom at one point, and then it seems like he's trying to get up again,
Starting point is 00:21:42 you know, up from the ground because police had him on the ground at this point, and he's again sprayed with pepper spray. In the background, you can hear officers asking for his hands repeatedly. One of the officers then hits him with his baton a few times and then goes and walks, that same officer goes and walks back to his car. Eventually, the body camera falls onto the ground, or it was intentionally taken off. We don't know. So you can't see what's happening, but you can hear what's happening. And it sounds like Tyree is getting tased and he's yelling stop and officers are still repeatedly asking for his hands. Then there's this separate video footage from a pole camera nearby. And from about 2 minutes and 18 seconds into the video, until about 3 minutes and 40 seconds, so about a minute and a half, Tyree is getting beat.
Starting point is 00:22:33 What looks like, you know, kicks to the face, punches to the head, back, etc. But at one point, he gets up again, and he's ultimately brought back down. It's unclear if he got up himself at that point or if the cops brought him up, but this continues on. And finally, at about the five minute mark in the video, officers back off of him because it seems like they finally got him handcuffed. Around the six minute mark, they get him propped up against one of the cop cars. They're talking to him on and off until the 23-minute mark. So 18 minutes, right? Or 17 minutes, something like that. And at the 23-minute mark is when medical help gets to the scene. At the 30-minute mark, so seven minutes later, he's put onto a stretcher, brought into
Starting point is 00:23:17 the ambulance, and that's when the video ends. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition, and he died three days later from his injuries. Now, the state charges that the officers are facing, they were brought weeks after the incident. It didn't take very long. Those charges include second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct, and official suppression. They have pled not guilty to those charges.
Starting point is 00:23:43 However, the federal indictment is different. So remember, a federal indictment stems from violations of federal law, whereas a state indictment stems from violations of state law. In this indictment against these officers, there are four charges. So we'll go through the charges quickly, explain what they are, and that'll be that. Count one alleges that the officers violated Tyree's right to be free from unreasonable force, and they failed to intervene in the assault. Count 2 alleges the officers violated his right to be free from an officer's deliberate indifference to his serious medical need. Count 3 alleges that the officers conspired to cover up their use of unlawful force by omitting material information and providing false and misleading information. And count four alleges that the officers committed an
Starting point is 00:24:32 obstruction offense by intentionally omitting material information and providing that false and misleading information. The excessive force and failure to intervene, as well as the deliberate indifference, they actually carry max penalties of life in prison. So excessive force under the Constitution, the Fourth Amendment more force is used than what's reasonably necessary to arrest a victim. The question is, what would a reasonable officer do in that same situation? So in a Supreme Court case called Graham v. Connor, the Supreme Court said that this question of what a reasonable officer would do in the same situation has to be answered from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, not an officer after the fact with 20-20 vision. If the force that was used against the victim rises above that, that is excessive force.
Starting point is 00:25:40 Now, federal law also says that an officer who purposefully allows another officer to violate a victim's constitutional has to show that the defendant officer was aware of the constitutional violation being committed, had an opportunity to intervene, and chose not to do so. And then finally, that deliberate indifference is when an officer defendant knew the victim had a serious medical need, but willfully disregarded it by failing to render aid and by failing to tell the dispatcher or the emergency responders that showed up to the scene. So from here, these officers will obviously have to either plead guilty or not guilty to these charges. And then, you know, this will play out as these situations do. Hunter Biden has filed a civil lawsuit against Garrett Ziegler for his role in hacking Hunter Biden's laptop and putting Hunter Biden's data where the public could see it.
Starting point is 00:26:53 So let's talk about what this civil lawsuit is or means. First, let's go over the players. You have Hunter Biden, obviously Joe Biden's son. We know that. Garrett Ziegler in July of 2021. And then you have does one through 10. So these are basically people that have not yet been identified, but who Hunter Biden believes are responsible in some way for the acts alleged in the complaint. According to the complaint, Ziegler had accessed, tampered with, manipulated, altered, copied, and damaged Hunter Biden's laptop data without Hunter Biden's authorization or consent. The complaint starts off by saying, quote, Garrett Ziegler is a zealot who waged a sustained, unhinged, and obsessed
Starting point is 00:28:01 campaign against plaintiff and the entire Biden family for more than two years. While defendant Ziegler is entitled to his extremist and counterfactual opinions, he has no right to engage in illegal activities to advance his right-wing agenda. Yet, that is precisely what defendant Ziegler and his so-called non-profit research group have done and have asserted they will continue to do in the future, end quote. The complaint says it's unclear the precise manner by which Ziegler obtained Hunter Biden's laptop and Hunter Biden's data, but there's no dispute that the defendants did so, according to the complaint. Specifically, it says that there are published reports that say Ziegler himself claims to have obtained a copy of a hard drive from what Ziegler
Starting point is 00:28:52 says is Hunter Biden's laptop. And Ziegler says he obtained this copy in December of 2020. Then in early 2021, Ziegler says he was able to get another copy of a hard drive from Hunter Biden's laptop from Rudy Giuliani. The complaint says that the data appears to have been tampered with and manipulated both before Ziegler received it and after it was obtained. On or about July 8, 2021, Ziegler organized this LLC called ICU LLC, which was doing business under the name Marco Polo. And according to Ziegler's public statements, a chief focus of ICU has been accessing and analyzing Hunter Biden's data. Hunter says it is unclear the precise dates on which Ziegler accessed and tampered with the data, but that he believes it's still
Starting point is 00:29:45 continuing today. In May of 2020, Ziegler allegedly used the data from the laptop to create an online searchable database of Hunter Biden's emails that were found on the laptop, despite Hunter obviously never having authorized or consented to the public's access. Then a few months later, in October of 2022, Ziegler published a report called Report on the Biden Laptop. In December 2022, Ziegler spoke in an interview about how the data was accessed, saying, quote, and we actually got into Hunter's iPhone backup. We were the first group to do it in June of 2022. We cracked the encrypted code that was stored on his laptop. Now, this quote is obviously used to illustrate that his data was hacked illegally.
Starting point is 00:30:37 But the complaint also cites to times where Ziegler himself has talked about the length of time it took him and his, let's call them associates, to go through all of this data and Ziegler's efforts to create a website that housed roughly 10,000 pictures that Ziegler says came from Hunter's data. And Ziegler's also talked about the months that it took him to go through the pictures and redact them and analyze the metadata, which of course tells you information about the photo, like when it was taken and where it was taken. Ziegler also said that the videos took more time than the photos because he needed to use AI tools in order to censor parts of videos that he considered pornographic. For these reasons, the reason all of this is relevant
Starting point is 00:31:27 is because Hunter Biden says this is all proof that Ziegler manipulated and tampered with the data, not only by analyzing it, but also redacting it and by using AI tools to censor it, things like that. So according to Hunter, this data is not in its original form. Now, the complaint says that Hunter has demanded Ziegler and these other defendants stop what they're doing by way of a cease and desist, but that they have refused to do so. So at this point, Hunter has no other option other than to file this lawsuit. What does Ziegler say about it? Ziegler was doing an interview with Absolute Truth,
Starting point is 00:32:07 which is a conservative outlet. And he said that the lawsuit isn't worth the paper it's written on and that the firm that filed it should be embarrassed of themselves. And I'll play you a clip from the interview. This is basically his thoughts. I just am offended that they keep underestimating us as if we hadn't gone through each and every one of their potential legal arguments before we released the report. That's why we didn't put the genitalia of the Biden family in our report. We redacted the genitalia because we wanted no angle for them to fight us on. So they're going to get burned again. They're doing this because they realize the lawsuit that I've talked about on this program before in California state court is likely going nowhere. So this is just round two for Garrett. And I want to come back and
Starting point is 00:32:56 talk about it at a later date. So that's what Ziegler had to say about it. And I'm sure, you know, in the days that follow, he'll have more to say on it. Let's go ahead and talk about the DOJ's lawsuit against Google. In what some are calling a once-in-a-generation antitrust trial, this week kicked off the long-awaited trial between the DOJ and Google. DOJ sued Google back in 2020, alleging that Google had unlawfully orchestrated its business dealings to remain the top player in the search engine business and keep all of the other players out of the game. The reason that this is a problem in the DOJ's eyes is because of Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which makes it illegal to monopolize. Under this law, as long as you possess monopoly power in the relevant market and you willfully acquire or maintain that power, you violate Section 2 of the Sherman Act.
Starting point is 00:33:56 So given that, what the DOJ is saying is that Google has willfully acquired and maintained this monopoly power by conducting its business in the manner that it does. Now, this includes paying billions of dollars every year to companies like Samsung and Apple in order to ensure that Google is the search engine that pops up first for users of these devices. Google also pays web browsers like Mozilla billions of dollars every year to ensure the same. Just to give you an idea, Google controls 88% of the search engine market. Google, on the other hand, says, hey, our actions aren't willful. We just have a superior product.
Starting point is 00:34:37 And consumers view our search engine as superior. And therefore, they choose to use our search engine over others. And as for the deals with those companies like Apple and Samsung, those companies willingly entered into agreements with us. They weren't forced to do anything that they didn't want to do. So those are legal business agreements. We're not doing anything wrong. Since the filing of the lawsuit in 2020, 35 states, plus Guam, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia have also filed suits of their own. However, to save time and resources, all of these suits are being tried together in this
Starting point is 00:35:14 one trial. So what happens if the DOJ wins? If the DOJ wins, Google will likely see a pretty hefty fine. They could potentially see some other punishments as well. Maybe the judge even orders Google to structure its business a little bit differently. But perhaps most notably, what the DOJ is really trying to achieve is that if the DOJ prevails in this case, that would be an indication that big tech is now subject to more regulations from the federal government than we're currently seeing. Big tech right now is pretty unregulated,
Starting point is 00:35:53 and the federal government is trying to change that. What happens if Google wins? If Google wins, they're just going to keep doing what they're doing. But it could also carve out this path where other big tech platforms, you know, they start to head down what they're doing, but it could also carve out this path where other big tech platforms, you know, they start to head down this road of monopoly in a similar manner, which Google has because they know the precedent set that they can, you know, do the things that Google has done to rise to the level that it has. This trial is expected to last three months, so I will update you again once we know more. The last thing I just briefly want to mention is that on Thursday, the judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case ruled that Donald Trump and 16 of his co-defendants will not go to trial with the two defendants that requested a speedy trial. So if you remember, I don't remember when I talked about this, but
Starting point is 00:36:45 Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro had requested a speedy trial. Their trial was set for October. The Fulton County DA was trying to try all of the 19 defendants together in October, arguing that if they were to have multiple trials, it would become this enormous strain on the court. And for that reason, let's just try everyone together in October. But the judge denied this request from the DA and said that severing the 17 other defendants, which includes Donald Trump, was a, quote, procedural and logistical inevitability, end quote. He also noted that it is possible additional divisions are required down the road. So that's what you need to know about that. And that concludes this episode. I
Starting point is 00:37:30 hope you enjoyed it. Please go ahead and leave me that review if you loved what you heard. Have a great weekend, and I will talk to you on Tuesday. Bye.

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