UNBIASED - New Border Control Bill, Impeachment Articles Released Against Mayorkas, Drone Strike Kills U.S. Soldiers, Trump to Pay $83.3M, Nitrogen Hypoxia Execution Update, and More.

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

1. Senate to Consider New Border Control Bill (0:58)2. House Republicans Release Articles of Impeachment Against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (4:23)3. Three U.S. Soldiers Killed By Drone Launched By Iranian-Backed Militia (8:00)4. Jury Says Trump Must Pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3M (11:20)5. Alabama Carries Out First Execution Through Nitrogen Hypoxia (14:08)6. ONE LINERS (18:49)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.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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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. I'm your host, Jordan, and I hope you enjoy the show. Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is January 30th, 2024. This episode was recorded yesterday around 5 p.m. Eastern time. I have two segments for you today. The first is quick hitters. I have five stories I want to go through. Then we'll do one-liners and that'll be today's episode. So one segment shorter than usual, but informative nonetheless. Before we get into today's stories,

let me just remind you to go ahead and leave me a review on whatever podcast platform you listen on if you enjoy what you hear today. And if you're a YouTube watcher, please go ahead and hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to this channel. Without further ado, let's just jump right in, shall we? A new piece of border security legislation is said to be making its way through Congress or at least the Senate sometime this week. We don't know much about the actual provisions that are included in this bill because the actual text has not been released yet, but Senator Chris Murphy, who is a key negotiator on the deal, said that the bill could be ready for the Senate floor in the next couple of days. A border deal has been in talks for a while now,

but the House and the Senate haven't been able to get on the same page. The Senate won't pass H.R. 2 out of the House, and the House seems like it might not pass this new bill from the Senate. They could pass it, and they may, but there's a chance that they don't. So Speaker Johnson said on Friday that this bill is quote-unquote dead on arrival in the House if it resembles anything close to what has been reported. And we'll get into what's been reported in a minute. But the two reasons that the Senate's bill may not have the support of House Republicans is because one, perhaps it's not tight enough. It doesn't go far enough. And two, this is a campaign issue, right? Based on

what some Republicans have said, this may not be a good time for them to give Biden what they call an immigration win. Donald Trump said on Thursday, quote, a border deal would be another gift to the radical left Democrats. They need it politically, but don't care about our border. What is currently being worked on in the Senate will be meaningless in terms of border security. If you want to have a really secure border, your only hope is to vote for Trump 2024. End quote. Trump has also been reported the lobbying House Republicans both in public on social media and through private phone calls to oppose this bill. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last week that Trump's opposition would make it difficult to get the plan through

Congress. Now, as far as what has been reported, some outlets have said that the bill includes measures such as one that would require DHS to shut down the border for those not entering through lawful ports of entry once the number of migrant encounters hits a daily average of 5,000 in a week or 8,500 in a single day, at which time those restrictions would remain in place until illegal crossings drop and remain low for an extended period of time. The Department of Homeland Security would also have the option of using the authority to shut the border down even earlier, such as when crossings surpass a daily average of four thousand

in a week. But again, remember remember when I say shutting down the border, I'm talking about shutting down the parts of the border that don't include legal ports of entry. Legal ports of entry would remain open regardless. The deal would also reportedly expedite the asylum process down to six months. It would limit the use of parole to release migrants, and it would ban those who attempt to cross illegally after only two attempts. Now, remember, all of this is reportedly, right? We won't know the actual text of the bill until it's released. This is just what's been reported. On Sunday, President Biden said this bill does have his support. He said, quote, what's been negotiated would, if passed into law, be the

toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we've ever had in our country. It would give me as president a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I signed the bill into law, end quote. So again, that could make its way through the Senate this week, and at which time we would then see what happens in the House. Quick hitter number two. House Republicans released two articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his, quote, willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law, end quote,

and, quote, breach of public trust, end quote. So again, these are two different articles of impeachment here. The first article, willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law, is based on the accusation that Mayorkas failed to uphold immigration laws, that he exceeded his authority and risked public safety. And again, these are all accusations from House Republicans specifically. More specifically, the article says Mayorkas refused to comply with and exceeded his authority of various sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The resolution says that these failures led to, quote, calamitous consequences for the country.

The second article, breach of public trust. This stems from various allegations of false statements, including various statements to Congress that the border is secure, that the border is closed, statements about the vetting process of Afghans that were brought into the United States who were then granted parole following Biden's withdrawal in 2021, statements supporting a narrative that border patrol agents maliciously whipped illegal aliens aliens and more. The resolution concludes by saying, quote, Alejandro Mayorkas has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national and border security, the safety of the American people, and to the Constitution if

allowed to remain in office. He has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with his duties and rule of law. So to give you an idea of where this stands in the impeachment process, the first step in the impeachment process is, of course, the investigation by a House committee. Once the investigation is complete, so once some hearings are held and they hear some testimony from various people and they review some documents and all of that stuff, the committee will then draft up articles of impeachment if the investigation warrants it. From there, the committee will vote on the resolution. And if it passes the committee vote, then that resolution goes to the full house for a vote. If it passes the full house, that person is officially impeached.

Then the resolution would head to the Senate, where the Senate actually holds a trial and determines whether to convict that person. If convicted, that's when the official would be removed from office, but rarely does a person get convicted. So as of right now, the articles of impeachment haven't even been voted on by the committee. They were just released ahead of time this weekend. So the committee does have plans to meet on Tuesday morning and mark up the articles, and then they could vote on the articles sometime after that. But as of now, the articles have not yet passed the committee. They haven't yet been, you know, introduced to the full house. So if the committee passes the articles, that's when the resolution would then go to the full house for So if the committee passes the articles, that's when the resolution

would then go to the full House for a vote. And of course, if it passes, then Mayorkas would officially be impeached, and the process would proceed on from there. But that's where it currently stands. The DHS responded to this resolution with a memo that called the effort a, quote, distraction from other vital national security priorities and the work Congress should be doing to actually fix our broken immigration laws, end quote. The memo said in part, quote, they don't want to fix the problem, they want to campaign on it, end quote. That takes us to our third quick hitter, which is the three United States soldiers that were tragically killed in the country of Jordan. So three United States soldiers were killed and more than 40 service

members were injured in a drone attack on a small United States outpost in the country of Jordan on Sunday. This was the first time United States troops have been killed by enemy fire in the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Gaza war. This particular base is called Tower 22. It currently has about 350 army and air force personnel stationed there. It's considered to be a logistics support base, and because of that, it's strategically located at the most northeastern point of Jordan, which sits at the border of both Syria and Iraq. So Syria is to its north, Iraq is to its east. The government here in the United States hasn't yet said which specific militia is responsible for the attack, but did say that the drone was launched by Iran-backed

militants. The Islamic resistance in Iraq has already claimed responsibility though. And this is actually a good time for me to clear up some confusion around that term. The Islamic resistance in Iraq, or the IRI, sounds like one particular militia group, right? But it's not. It's actually a phrase that's used to describe all of the operations of all Iran-backed militias in Iraq. So the IRI is this descriptive term, if you will. It's not a particular group. And you can think of this really as a branding move by the militia groups in Iraq. And just hear me out on this. Not only did they find a way to describe all of their groups under one

umbrella, but they found a way for each specific group to avoid responsibility for any given attack. So if, as an example, there's an attack and the IRI claims responsibility, but not the specific group within the umbrella of the IRI that carried out the attack, then there's not one specific group to retaliate against. So whenever you see that term Islamic resistance in Iraq, just know it's a descriptive term for all of the Iran-backed militias operating in Iraq and not one militia specifically. And to be clear, again, the IRI did claim responsibility for this attack in a post on Telegram, but we don't know which specific militia group under the umbrella of the IRI committed the attack. Now, as far as the security breach goes, you know, how did this drone get past our

intelligence? It's being reported, it's still being investigated, but it's being reported that the drone followed one of our drones back to the base, apparently caused some confusion with those monitoring the situation, and the military personnel mistook that drone for an American drone and therefore failed to shoot it down. I'm sure as the days go on, we'll learn more about the situation. But President Biden did say on Sunday, quote, While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq. We will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing, end quote. The fourth quick hitter, a jury in New York took just under three hours to return a verdict that

Donald Trump should pay E.J. Carroll $83.3 million for two defamatory statements he made after she alleged that he sexually assaulted her in 1996. Now, just as a refresher, and a lot of people don't know this, but E.J. Carroll had two separate cases against Donald Trump. The first was filed in 2019. It was solely for defamation, and that is the one we are talking about right now, okay, in this story. Then there was a second lawsuit that was filed in 2022, and that was filed after New York enacted the Adult Survivors Act. That lawsuit was for both defamation and sexual assault, and that is the lawsuit he was found liable for back in May. The reason that this first case, the 2019 case, just now went to trial is because it was tied up in appeals for years,

specifically over the issue of whether the statements that he made were covered by presidential immunity. Ultimately, last month, an appeals court said his statements were not covered. And that ruling is what paved the way for this trial to finally take place. Originally, E. Jean Carroll was asking for $5 million in damages, but then, remember when Trump did that CNN town hall the day after the May verdict, and essentially doubled down on his position that he never sexually assaulted her, he didn't know who she was, and he called her a whack job. I think he said a couple of other things. Well, following that, Carroll raised the damages request to $10 million. Then at trial, Carroll's attorneys asked the jury to award $24 million in compensatory damages alone. And then when it came to punitive damages, the attorney asked for an amount that would make Trump stop defaming her. They didn't put a number on it, but that was their ask. The jury ultimately decided to award $65 million in punitive damages and another $18.3 million in compensatory damages.

And just to clarify, punitive damages are awarded as a punishment to the defendant for the behavior, whereas compensatory damages are intended to compensate for, you know, any damage suffered. In this case, it was damage to her reputation, her career, emotional harm, things like that. So this $83.3 million is in addition to that $5 million that he was ordered to pay her back in May for a separate defamatory statement. And what will happen from here is Trump will put the money into a court-controlled account, which he can secure a bond for, and that money will stay locked up in that account until all of the appeals play out. And once the appeals are done, the prevailing party will be able to access that money in the court-controlled account.

And Trump did say on Friday he was appealing that verdict. Quick hitter number five is an execution update. Friday's episode included a story about Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was scheduled to be the country's first nitrogen hypoxia execution. I said I would update you if the execution went forward as planned, and it did. So here is the update. Kim Chandler, who is a reporter for the AP, she was a witness to the execution. So there's basically a media witness room where there were five reporters present and watching and reporting on the execution. So she provided a pretty in-depth timeline as to the events that took place. She said that the curtains between the viewing room and the execution chamber opened at 7.53 p.m. Eastern time. Smith was lying flat, strapped to the gurney, wearing his prison uniform. He was draped in a white sheet. He had a blue-rimmed respirator mask over his face,

which spanned from his forehead to his chin. The prison warden entered the chamber, read the death warrant, and then asked Smith if he had any final words. Smith said, quote, tonight Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards. He then signed I love you with his hand to his family members that were sitting in a viewing room and said, quote, I'm leaving with love, peace, and light. Love all of you. And as a side note, the family is not sitting in the same viewing room as the media, so the family does get their own room. The attorney general then gave the prison officials the go-ahead to begin at 7.56 p.m. Reverend Jeff Hood entered the room, put his hand on Smith's leg, and said a prayer.

Two minutes later, at 7.58 p.m., Smith began to shake in seizure-like movements. This went on for about two minutes. His breathing appeared to stop completely at 8.08 p.m. after about 10 minutes of labored breathing. The corrections officer went into the chamber to look at Smith. The curtains to the viewing room were closed at 8.15 p.m., which signaled the end of the execution, and Smith was officially pronounced dead at 8.25 p.m. Following the execution, Alabama's corrections commissioner John Hamm told reporters that the nitrogen gas flowed for 15 minutes, but he did not go as far as to answer at what time the gas began flowing

or at what time the monitor showed Smith's heart to have officially stopped beating. Smith's final meal consisted of a T-bone steak, hash browns, eggs, and A1 sauce from Waffle House, though the prison official said that he barely touched his meal. So the question leading up to this execution and the question that is sure to arise again at some point in the future is, does nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment? This is something that Kenneth Eugene Smith tried to argue leading up to the execution. He said he was essentially an experiment, but the Supreme Court denied that. So this was the first execution of its kind, and it likely won't be the last.

So the courts at some point will have to answer that question. It's very possible, I'd even go as far as to say it's almost guaranteed that the next inmate that has a nitrogen hypoxia execution scheduled will challenge the method and use Smith's execution as an illustration sort of so as to prove that the method is in fact cruel and unusual. And that's because Smith's execution didn't exactly go completely as expected. Previously, state officials in Alabama had filed documents with the court that said that they anticipated Smith to be knocked unconscious within minutes of the nitrogen gas starting to flow and that it would essentially be pretty quick and painless, but it that said that they anticipated Smith to be knocked unconscious within minutes of the nitrogen gas starting to flow and that it would essentially be pretty quick and painless, but it didn't exactly

happen like that. He was convulsing, he had labored breathing, but at the same time, we've seen many lethal injection executions have the same exact results, right? Convulsions, heavy breathing, vomiting, things like that. And the lethal injection has been upheld many times as an authorized and constitutional method of execution. So the standard when determining whether something is cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment, according to the Supreme Court, is that the manner of execution cannot create a substantial risk of wanton and unnecessary infliction of pain, torture, or lingering death upon the person. So the question becomes, does nitrogen hypoxia create a substantial risk of wanton and unnecessary infliction of pain, torture, or lingering death? And based off of Smith's execution alone and what we've seen with the lethal injection, I'm not sure it rises to that level, but it is sure to be challenged.

Now let's finish off with one-liners. The ex-IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn, who leaked Trump's tax documents to media outlets in 2019 and 2020, was sentenced to five years in prison on Monday. The Biden administration is reportedly discussing slowing weapons sales to Israel as leverage to convince Israel to scale back its military presence in Gaza. A source familiar with hostage talks in Paris over the weekend said negotiators from Israel, the United States, Egypt, and Qatar have agreed on a framework for a new ceasefire deal that was presented to Hamas on Monday. The CEOs of Meta, X, Discord, TikTok, and Snapchat began their testimony before the

Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday about potential harms from their platform on teenagers and child exploitation. Boeing's 737 MAX 9s are back in the air as of Friday, following their weeks-long grounding for inspections. And the final one-liner is actually a two-liner, I'm cheating a little bit here, but Turkey's ratification of Sweden's NATO accession last week led to the United States approving an F-16 fighter jet sale worth $23 billion. Turkey first made its request for the jets in 2021, but its delay in ratifying Sweden's NATO bid created a bit of a contentious moment between it and the United States, which was part of the reason that the sale was delayed. That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being

here. I hope you have a great week week and I will talk to you on Friday.