UNBIASED - May 6, 2024: Congressman Indicted, Judge Holds Trump in Contempt, Boeing Launching First Manned Spacecraft Tonight, ABC News' President Steps Down, and More.

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

1. Congressman Indicted on Bribery and Money Laundering Charges (2:48)2. Judge Merchan Holds Trump in Contempt for 10th Gag Order Violation (4:30)3. Boeing Set to Launch First Manned Spacecraft to Space Tonight; Here's What You Need to Know About the Launch, the Road to Get Here, and the Astronauts (8:37)4. Quick Hitters: ABC News' President Steps Down, U.S. Soldier Detained by Russia, Columbia Cancels University-Wide Commencement Ceremony, Hamas Responds to Ceasefire Deal (12:17)Get EXCLUSIVE, unbiased content 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 Connex 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 Monday, May 6th, and this is your daily news rundown. And I just want to start by saying, do not expect too much of this episode because truly, there just wasn't, there just wasn't much going on. And you may be thinking, Jordan, you must love when it's a slow day in the news because that makes your life a little bit easier. You don't have to work as hard. It couldn't be further from the truth. I hate slow days in the news because what I love to do is I love to actually teach about interesting things and educate you where, you know, educating is necessary. And I like to talk

about cool things. And when days are slow in the news, I just sit at my computer waiting, waiting, waiting for an interesting story to cross my desk. And sometimes it just never happens. And so today I have an episode for you, of course, but I'm just letting you know, you know, keep the expectations low. I also want to talk about something from Thursday. So in Thursday's episode, and those of you who have been here for a long time, you guys know the format of my show.

Sometimes I throw in quick hitters. Sometimes I throw in one liners, though I haven't done that in a while. And then on the last day of the week, most more often than not, I do Not Everything Is Bad, which is my good news segment of the week. And sometimes the episodes will end up where it's quick hitters and then Not Everything Is Bad right after that. So in Thursday's episode, I did quick hitters, which I covered, I think, four different stories, one of which was the abortion ban repeal out of Arizona. And when I started my quick hitters segment, I said something along the lines of, okay, so now we're going to get into quick hitters before we get into not everything is bad,

which is my good news segment of the week. The first quick hitter is the Arizona abortion ban repeal. And I had multiple people reach out to me thinking I said that the Arizona abortion repeal was the good news of the week. And, you know, the usual claiming, you know, how can I call myself unbiased when I talk the way that I do? And so I just want to say the quick hitter segment and the not everything is bad segment are two very different things. And so for anyone else who may have tuned in for the first time on Thursday and maybe, you know, heard something different than what was said, didn't happen. But if you feel the need, you can always go back and

listen. I think it's around minute 1029, something like that. So anyway, those are just a couple of things I wanted to clear up for the day. And now, without further ado, we can get into today's stories, with the first story being from Friday, so we obviously didn't get a chance to talk about it, and that is that yet another congressman has been indicted. This time, Congressman Enrique Roberto Henry Cuellar. He is a Democratic representative from Laredo, Texas. And according to the DOJ's indictment from at least December 2015 through November 2021, Cuellar and his wife, who was also indicted, allegedly accepted roughly $600,000 in bribes from two foreign entities, one of those entities being an oil and gas company owned and controlled by the government of Azerbaijan, and the other a Mexican bank. So the bribe payments were allegedly laundered

pursuant to these sham consulting contracts through a series of front companies and middlemen into shell companies owned by the congressman's wife. In exchange for these bribes, obviously there were trade-offs, so in exchange for the bribe paid by the oil and gas company, Cuellar allegedly agreed to use his office as congressman to influence United States policy in favor of Azerbaijan. And in exchange for the bribe paid by the Mexican bank, the congressman allegedly agreed to influence legislative activity and advise and pressure high-ranking executive branch officials regarding certain measures beneficial to the bank. Cuellar and his wife are each facing 16 charges. Those charges include bribery, conspiracy, money laundering,

as well as some violations of relevant foreign agents laws. So that's your news from Friday. Let's now move on to today's news, which, as I said, is not a lot. But this morning started with the judge overseeing Trump's hush money trial, again holding Trump in contempt for violating the gag order that is currently in place. This violation brings the total violations to 10. You may remember in last Tuesday's episode, I spoke about the judge holding Trump in contempt for nine gag order violations, but I said that there was going to be another hearing later in the week to determine whether Trump committed additional violations. And that was

because the prosecution was seeking contempt rulings for 14 separate alleged violations, but early in the week, Judge Merchant only ruled on 10 of those 14 and then scheduled the remaining four for a separate hearing later in the week. And that is the ruling that Judge Merchant just released this morning. So the ruling on those other four alleged violations. Out of those alleged four violations, Merchant found Trump guilty of one. Specifically, the violation was a result of statements that Trump had made about the jury in an April 22nd interview on Real America's voice. Trump said in part, quote, that jury was picked so fast, 95% Democrats. The area is mostly all Democrat. You think of it as a just a purely Democrat area. It's an unfair situation that I can tell you, end quote. So in ruling, Murchin said that Trump not only called into question the integrity and legitimacy of those proceedings, but also again raised the specter of fear for the safety of the jurors and their loved ones. Consequently, Trump was held in contempt.

So alongside the $1,000 fine as a punishment for violating the gag order, Merchant also threatened jail time, which he did threaten last week as well. But today he said, quote, Mr. Trump, the last thing I want to do is put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well. But at the end of the day, I have a job to do, end quote. And one thing I will say about contempt orders, so those who may not be familiar with a contempt order, basically in any case, if a judge orders you to do anything, and it doesn't have to be just in criminal cases, it can be in civil cases as well. So sometimes you'll see contempt orders in anything. But let's just say a family case, for instance. Let's say there's a custody proceeding of sorts. If one of the spouses violates a judge's order enough times,

it could be as little as one time, but maybe multiple times, that spouse can be held in contempt of the judge's order. And typically in contempt orders, another example would be if a spouse doesn't pay child support, right? They could be held in contempt. So when it comes to contempt orders, more often than not, it'll be this monetary fine. But if someone violates the order enough, they could do jail time. And that is one of the repercussions, consequences of violating a gag order or just being held in contempt generally. So that's just a little bit about contempt orders. The other thing I wanted to note when it comes to the Hush Money trial generally, just for transparency sake, and so you know this as well, this trial and the proceedings surrounding the trial are not being televised. So what I know is coming from the

reporters that are in the room that are reporting to their respective outlets or whatever it might be about what takes place in that courtroom. So even though I'm quoting the judge or maybe in certain instances, I'm quoting a witness, all of those quotes are coming from the reporters in the room. So while I typically like to do as much research for my, I like to hear things with my own ears and report them back to you. But in certain instances, it's just not possible. And this is one of those instances. So I just wanted you to know that when I do report on

this case specifically, everything I report on is coming from the reporters in the room because this is not televised. In other news, Boeing is set to send its first manned spacecraft up to the International Space Station tonight following an uphill battle to get here. So if you're listening to this episode anytime after 10.34 p.m. Eastern time on Monday night, Starliner, which is the spacecraft, may very well be in space already. Possibly the launch didn't even happen. A lot can happen at the very last minute, but here's what we know as of now. Previously, Boeing sent Starliner up in 2019 for a test flight, and this test flight did not have any crew on board, but that flight nonetheless

never even made it to the International Space Station because of some software issues, ended up at the wrong orbit, a bunch of things went wrong. So consequently, Boeing had to repeat the demo since it has to be able to show that it can successfully complete a test flight before it sends actual humans up there. And the second time around, engineers ran into a problem with moisture intrusion and corrosion, which triggered another delay. But finally, in May 2022, the second Starliner test flight was a relative success. The spacecraft successfully docked at the space station. When it returned, it landed back on Earth with precision. However, once it landed, engineers discovered an issue with not only the parachute

harness connectors, which of course, those need to work properly, but also there was a separate issue with flammable tape being wrapped around wiring that could have caused a fire in the event of a short circuit. So those issues pushed the first manned flight to today. As of today, Boeing has spent more than $1 billion of its own money due to these unforeseen issues and delays. What that means is that Boeing has exceeded the 2014 NASA awarded contract amount of $4.2 billion by just over another billion. Mission commander and longtime astronaut Barry Butch Wilmore said ahead of the launch, quote, I have full confidence in the management that makes the decisions that filter down to the operations team, full confidence on the NASA side and the Boeing side. There have been some issues in the past. That's the past. That is not now. End quote. Similarly, co-pilot and longtime astronaut Sunita Williams said,

quote, we wouldn't say we're ready if we weren't ready. End quote. Both Wilmore and Williams are former Navy test pilots and two of NASA's most experienced astronauts. Between the two of them, they've completed four space flights, 11 spacewalks, and 500 days in orbit. And just in case I didn't make it clear, those are the two astronauts that will be going up with Starliner tonight. A little bit about the mission itself. The planned launch, as I said, 10.34 p.m. Eastern time.

It'll take approximately 15 minutes to reach its initial orbit, and it should dock at the ISS around 12.46 a.m. Eastern Time on May 8th. They'll be welcomed by seven other astronauts who are currently aboard the space station. They'll spend a little over a week there, and they're scheduled to head back to station on the 15th will entirely depend on the weather in New Mexico, where they're scheduled to land, because NASA won't approve undocking unless wind speeds at the landing site are six knots or less. But regardless, Windstar Liner does eventually land. It'll touch down on land rather than water, and it'll use two parachutes and two sets of air bags to sort of ease the shock of the land.

So this is obviously a pretty critical time for Boeing. Let's keep our fingers crossed and wish these two astronauts well. And if you're anything like me, you'll be watching this launch from your driveway. Let's finish with some quick hitters, the first being the president of ABC News stepped down from her position last night via an internal memo that read in part, quote, I have decided to retire from broadcast journalism. Anyone who's passionate about what we do knows there's no other business like it, so this was not an easy or quick decision. But after considerable reflection, I am certain it's the right one for me as I look to the future and prioritize what's most important for me and my family.

End quote. As of now, no successor has been named to take over the position. Some reports were saying that the president would remain overseeing until a successor was named. A U.S. official reported this afternoon that a United States soldier was detained in Russia on Friday. At the time I'm recording, we do not have much information. The news quite literally just broke right before I hit record, but I will update you tomorrow if more information is available. Columbia University canceled its university-wide commencement ceremony over what it calls security concerns following weeks of protests. Instead, the school will opt to hold smaller school-based ceremonies that will take place at different times and locations over the coming weeks. And this afternoon, Hamas said it accepted a ceasefire

deal proposed by Egypt and Qatar. But at this point, 3.30 p.m., it's not entirely clear whether Hamas agreed to the most recent ceasefire proposal as it was outlined last week or if they sent back revision. So at this time, Israel is reviewing what was sent back by Hamas, but Israeli officials have yet to issue an official statement as to their position. Again, similar with a couple of stories ago, I will update you tomorrow once we know a bit more. That is what I have for you today. Thank you for sticking with me when the news is not entirely exciting. Here's to hoping there's a little bit more going on tomorrow. Have a great night and I will talk to you tomorrow evening.