UNBIASED - July 16, 2024: Here's What You Need to Know About J.D. Vance, Sen. Menendez Found Guilty of Corruption, Thomas Crooks' Recent Purchases and Search History, and More.

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

1. Deeper Dive Into Judge's Decision to Dismiss Trump's Classified Documents Case (0:30)2. Trump Chooses J.D. Vance as Vice-Presidential Pick; Here's What You Need to Know About Him (7:07)3. Assassination Attempt Update: Thomas Crooks' Search History and Recent Purchases, Why Officers Weren't on the Roof (11:58)4. RFK Jr. Given Secret Service Protection; Trump Given Enhanced Protection (13:41)5. Sen. Bob Menendez Found Guilty of All Corruption Charges (15:35) (Listen to My Sept. 26th Indictment Explanation Here.)Support ‘UNBIASED’ on Patreon.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, July 16th, and this is your daily news rundown. As always, 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, share the show with your friends, and if you're watching on YouTube, please go ahead and leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen, share the show with your friends, and if you're watching on YouTube, please go ahead and hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel if you're not already. And without further ado, we can get into today's stories. I want to start this episode by clearing up some of the most asked

questions about the dismissal of Trump's classified documents case. So yesterday's episode was jam-packed, obviously. Because of that, I didn't really spend a lot of time on the explanation side of things pertaining to this story. So let's just clear a few things up. First, this decision from Judge Cannon has no effect on any other court. This was a district court ruling. A district court is the lowest court, and district court court is the lowest court and district court precedent is not binding on any other court, not even other district courts. What that means is that this decision only affects Trump's case. It has no effect on other cases that have been prosecuted by a special counsel at all. Now, if this case were to be appealed and an appellate

court were to affirm Cannon's decision, that's when the holding would have binding effects on other courts. Specifically in that case, the ruling would be binding on all district courts in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, because those are the courts within the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals jurisdiction. But we're not there yet, not even close. So as of now, the decision yesterday only affects Trump's case. Next, double jeopardy. Double jeopardy does not apply here. As I said yesterday, the government can appeal this case or the United States Attorney for the Southern

District of Florida can refile the charges and avoid the issue of special counsel entirely. Double jeopardy, which prohibits a defendant from being tried for the same crime twice, only attaches once a jury is sworn in for trial. In this case, it had not reached that point yet. It didn't even go to trial, so double jeopardy is not an issue here. Third, this case was not dismissed on its merits, meaning there's no reason it can't be brought again. It's not like the judge said, look, there's no basis for the charges here. I'm dismissing it on those grounds. The issue is the special counsel and whether he has the authority to prosecute the case. So this ruling doesn't mean Trump won't ultimately face these charges at some point in the future,

whether it's because, you know, charges are refiled or it's because Cannon's decision is overturned or it's because a special counsel can, or it's because Cannon's decision is overturned, or it's because a special counsel can proceed. Whatever the reason is, the merits of the case were not dismissed, so he can still face the charges at some point. And finally, this decision from Judge Cannon is contrary to what courts have consistently held in the past. Now, that doesn't mean that Cannon's ruling is wrong per se. It just means that the ruling is unprecedented and it could be overturned on appeal. Throughout history, at least since 1905, some special counsels have been appointed by the Attorney General of the United States.

Those that haven't been appointed by the Attorney General have been appointed by the president directly, which is permissible under the Constitution. But the first special counsel to ever be appointed by an attorney general was Francis Henney in 1905. He was appointed by President Roosevelt's attorney general, Flander Knox, to investigate a land fraud scandal. After that, in 1973, Richard Nixon's attorney general, Elliot Richardson, appointed Archibald Cox. And this set off this sort of whirlwind of controversy surrounding attorneys general. Following all of that

controversy, I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty. What I will say is that following that, Congress passed a law called the Ethics in Government Act. This was in 1978. And this law established the formal rules for appointing special counsel or special prosecutors. Consistent with that law, specifically Title IV, which was called the Independent Counsel Act, attorneys general were the ones to appoint special prosecutors. Keep in mind, prior to 1978, and with the exceptions of 1905 and 1973, special counsels were consistently appointed by the president. So in 1978, Congress says in the Ethics and Government Act that special counsels are to be appointed by the Attorney General of the United States. Ten years after the enactment of that law, the Supreme Court upheld the law's

constitutionality. This was in a case called Morrison v. Olson. But in 1999, that law expired and Congress never reauthorized it. So since 1999, there has been no federal law governing the appointment of special counsels, only regulations developed by the DOJ, but regulations are different than law. However, because these regulations, despite being different than federal law and there being no federal law in place, attorneys general have continued to appoint special counsels, including but not limited to, in 1999, 2003, 17, 20, 22, and 23. And more recently, in 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in a case called Cielo Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that the decision in Morrison upholding the Independent Counsel Act only applied to inferior officers, which special counsels

presumably are. So in a sense, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of attorneys general appointing special counsels as recent as 2020, even though there is currently no federal law on the books. With all of this in mind, Judge Cannon's decision yesterday to dismiss Trump's case came down to the fact that Congress has not enacted a federal law that vests the appointment authority of special counsels in the Attorney General of the United States. Yes, there was a law between 1978 and 1999, but there is no law today, and that is what Judge Cannon says is the problem. According to her ruling, without a law in place vesting the appointment authority in the Attorney

General, the only person that can make an appointment is the President. So in this case, because the Attorney General did not have the proper vested authority, and because the President was not the one that appointed Jack Smith, Smith's appointment was improper, he has no authority to prosecute the case, and therefore this case must be dismissed. So when this is appealed, and Jack Smith said yesterday he would be appealing, the appellate court, and maybe eventually the Supreme Court if it gets that far, will have to decide what makes the most sense. In doing that, they will look at what the Constitution says, they will look at what history says, and whether the Constitution is

written in a way that requires Congress to vest this particular authority through legislation. So hopefully that answered some of your questions that I wasn't able to get to yesterday. And now we can move on to J.D. Vance. Yesterday, former President Trump named J.D. Vance as his vice presidential pick. I covered Trump's initial statement about his pick in yesterday's episode, but today I want to talk a little bit about who Vance is and what his views are. So Vance is a 39-year-old Republican senator. He was actually born James Donald Bowman, but due to his dad leaving his family when he was very young and his mom's addiction, he was eventually adopted by his stepdad when he was six. And upon being adopted,

he did away with his middle name Donald, which was his biological dad's name. He changed it to David, and then he also took on his stepdad's last name of Hamill. So he was J.D. Hamill until he married his wife, and they actually decided to take the name of his maternal grandparents, Vance, and that is why his name is now J.D. Vance. Vance was born in Ohio. He served in Iraq as a Marine. He graduated from the Ohio State University and later Yale Law School. He worked as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. He was a contributor for CNN at one point, and he released a memoir in 2016 called Hillbilly Elegy. The memoir was published, as I said, in 2016 and discusses the Appalachian values of his family, the social and socioeconomic problems of his hometown of Middleton, Ohio, what it was like to grow up in poverty,

and his take on the growing class divide in America. Upon releasing this memoir, and while Trump was running for president, Vance was a vocal critic of Trump. He actually said at the time, he's a never Trump guy. He never liked him. He called Trump a terrible candidate, a liar, a fraud, dangerous, and noxious. All of those comments, of course, were made in separate interviews, but all things that he said. When asked leading up to the election who he was going to vote for in 2016, being a conservative who didn't think that Trump was qualified for presidency, he responded, quote, my current plan is to vote either third party or as I joked to my wife, I might write in my dog because that's about as good as it seems. He went on to say in that same interview, quote,

if I feel like Trump has a really good chance of winning, I might have to hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton. End quote. Fast forward a few years in 2022, Vance dove into politics. He left venture capitalism, went into politics. Ohio's Republican Senator Rob Portman decided not to run for re-election at the time. Vance took it as an opportunity to enter the ring. So running as a Republican, his past comments about Trump were restricting him a little bit. He ended up apologizing for the comments he had made in the past, managed to build a relationship with Trump, and eventually he got Trump's endorsement and he was elected to the Senate. So he is currently serving his first term. He's been there since 2023, last year.

So now I want to talk a little bit about his views. In 2022, he said he would support a 15-week national abortion ban, which was introduced by Senator Lindsey Graham, but that he believes in the exceptions for, quote, the life of the mother for rape and so forth, end quote. Once, though, Ohio voters overwhelmingly enshrined the right to abortion in their state constitution, he seemed to soften his stance on the issue, actually. And more recently, he adopted Trump's position that abortion is an issue to be left with the states. On immigration, he is a staunch supporter of closing the border. On the 2020 election, he said he would not have certified the results immediately had he been vice president and said Trump had a legitimate grievance.

During his time in the Senate, he has worked across the aisle on various pieces of legislation, including co-sponsoring a railway safety bill following the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. He has sponsored legislation extending and increasing funding for Great Lakes restoration. He has supported bipartisan legislation boosting workers and families, and he once teamed up with Elizabeth Warren on Wall Street reform. He opposes Steve Bannon's conviction for contempt of Congress. He believes that the various cases against Trump were created by the Biden administration. He supports the recent presidential immunity decision out of the Supreme Court. He wants to ban DEI across the federal government because he sees DEI initiatives as discriminatory. He is against more aid to Ukraine, and he introduced legislation to

ban federal mask mandates. That's obviously just a few of his views. I wanted to touch on some of the more hot topics, but if you're interested in learning more about him, I have included some links in the sources section, as well as a link to his website and some press releases that'll give you a little bit more insight as to where he stands on various issues. In some attempted assassination news, the FBI still has not identified the motive of Thomas Crooks, but said they have traced some of his final movements and purchases. In the 48 hours leading up to the assassination attempt, Crooks went and practiced at the shooting range where he was a member. He went to Home Depot to buy a five-foot ladder, and he went to a gun store to buy 50 rounds of ammunition. That ladder and ammunition were purchased just hours before

the rally. At this point, investigators have looked through his phone, his computer, his bedroom, and his home. They have yet to find any evidence that would suggest a political motive. What the investigators did find in his device history was relatively normal, and interest in computer coding and computer games. And despite finding explosive devices in his car and a transmitter on his body, investigators say they haven't found any indication of him searching how to make homemade explosives. We know from the Secret Service director who spoke to ABC News that Crooks had been identified as a person of interest prior to the shooting. She said, quote, the shooter was actually identified as a potential person of

suspicion. Unfortunately, with the rapid succession of how things unfolded, by the time that individual was eventually located, they were on the rooftop and were able to fire off at the former president. End quote. She also said that Secret Service was aware of the safety vulnerabilities presented by the sloped roof, and because of that, they actually made the decision to secure the building from inside the building rather than putting an officer on top of that roof. And on a somewhat related note, the Secret Service has been directed to protect independent presidential candidate RFK Jr. and give advanced protection to Trump. Kennedy has been asking for protection for a while now. He hasn't gotten it, obviously, until now, and he's actually been paying out of pocket

for his own private security for the last 15 months. If you didn't know, his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and his father, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, were both assassinated. So you might be asking, well, why wasn't he entitled to protection? Well, under federal law, when it comes to candidates, Secret Service is only legally required to protect what are called major party presidential and vice presidential candidates, as well as their families. And that protection starts 120 days or four months out from the general election. When it comes to candidates that don't fall within that major party candidate designation, which is RFK Jr., Secret Service is not legally required to offer protection and only provides it on an as-needed basis. So now you might wonder, well, who decides who's a major party candidate,

and is it only Republicans and Democrats? Under the law, a major party presidential candidate is defined as an individual that is identified by the Secretary of Homeland Security after a meeting with an advisory committee. That advisory committee consists of the Speaker of Homeland Security after a meeting with an advisory committee. That advisory committee consists of the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and one other member to be selected by other members of the committee. So those six people get together, and they are who determine whether a particular individual meets that major party candidate designation. In the case of RFK Jr., they obviously did not deem him to be a major party presidential candidate, and therefore he was

not entitled to protection. Until now, of course. And as the fifth and final story, a jury found Senator Bob Menendez guilty on all counts in his federal corruption trial today. So I'm not going to recap the whole backstory of this case because I did release an episode last September when he was indicted. That was September. The episode is my September 26th episode of 2023. I did a whole six and a half minute explainer on his indictment. That'll explain sort of the background story here.

But if we drill it down to basics, Senator Menendez is a Democratic senator from New Jersey. He was convicted of accepting money, cars, gold bars, mortgage payments, and more in exchange for his advocacy on Capitol Hill for the benefit of the governments of Egypt and Qatar. Menendez did not testify in his own defense. His attorneys alleged that nothing he did was illegal because his actions fell within the scope of his legislative position. Long story short, after three days of deliberations, the jury found him guilty on all 16 counts. Those 16 counts included charges of bribery,

fraud, acting as a foreign agent, and obstruction. That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. Have a great night and I will talk to you tomorrow.