UNBIASED - Scalise Out, Jordan In; House GOP Struggles to Elect Speaker, Superceding Indictments Against Multiple Politicians, Carlee Russell Guilty of Faking Kidnapping.

Episode Date: October 14, 2023

1. House GOP Has Trouble Electing New Speaker; Scalise Out, Jordan In (2:15)2. Rep. George Santos Accused of Stealing Credit Card Information and More (8:54)3. Sen. Menendez Faces Additional Charges for Acting as an Unregistered Foreign Agent to Egypt (12:50)4. Carlee Russell Found Guilty of Falsifying Kidnapping; Faces Jail Time and Monetary Punishment (15:49)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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Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario Helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. 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 Saturday, which is different because I don't typically post on Saturdays. I usually only post on Tuesdays and Fridays. But of course, I added in that third episode this week about Israel and Palestine. So the schedule is a little bit messed up. But nonetheless, let's get back to the regularly scheduled news updates. I have four stories for you today. I'm first going to talk about everything that's gone on with the House GOP this week. The second and third story are about two different politicians that saw superseding indictments this week. First, George Santos, who is a representative in the

House. The second, Senator Bob Menendez. And then finally, I will talk about an update with Carly Russell, who was that woman that faked her abduction back in, I believe that was July. So I'll give you an update on her. This episode, we are not going to discuss what is going on between Israel and Palestine. I am going to save all of those discussions for part two. Part two was highly, highly requested. So I will be doing that.

And in that episode, I'll be touching on some points that some of you felt that I missed, or I should have elaborated on as well as some additional questions you guys have submitted to me. So stay tuned for that. But for today, those are the four stories I have for you. Please, as always, don't forget to leave my show a review if you haven't already really helps let other people know why they should tune into my show. And of course, please don't forget to share my show with your friends or your family or whoever you feel could use some nonpartisan news in their life. And of course, my disclaimer 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.

On Wednesday, the House GOP nominated House Majority Leader Steve Scalise for Speaker of the House. But by Thursday, Steve Scalise had dropped out of the race. And on Friday, Jim Jordan, the one who had lost to Scalise, had the nomination. Let's talk about it. This has been somewhat of a wild week for the House GOP. Of course, we know the House has been without a speaker since October 5th. We have some pretty serious worldly things happening. And of course, the House can't really do anything. They can't pass any resolutions or anything until they have a speaker. So on Tuesday, the House GOP gets together. They hear from both Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan. Those were the two Republicans running against each other for the speaker nomination. Basically, at this meeting, Scalise and Jordan pitched themselves to the House GOP

conference and, you know, were attempting to get the nomination. On Wednesday, the House GOP votes, it's 113 to 99. So Scalise got 113 of the votes, Jordan got 99. There were eight others who voted for other people and three voted present. So voting present is equivalent to not voting either way. Keep in mind that the 113 votes that Scalise got, even though he beat Jordan, 113 is very far off from the 217 that are necessary for him to win the full floor vote once it gets there. So Scalise gets the majority of the GOP conference's vote, which means that he is their nominee, but doesn't necessarily guarantee him the speakership. Following the vote, Scalise thanked his colleagues for designating him, saying, quote, I want to thank

my House Republican colleagues for just designating me as the speaker. Obviously, we still have work to do. We're going to have to go upstairs on the House floor and then get the House opened again, end quote. He also said that the first order of business under his speakership would be to pass a bipartisan resolution standing with Israel, but didn't really elaborate as to what that would look like. He also said that the House under his leadership would take up spending bills to fund the government, work to get the economy moving, and address the border crisis. Now, it became apparent rather quickly that Scalise wouldn't have the votes necessary to pass the full floor. Some Republicans were very clear that they wouldn't vote for him at that stage, and with the margins in the House plus the two vacancies, Scalise couldn't really afford to

lose any Republican votes. So he's not going to go out there like McCarthy did, put the House through 15 rounds of voting, possibly more, and possibly succumb to some of the, you know, agreement terms that McCarthy had to succumb to in order to secure Republican holdouts. So he dropped out. He knew, you know, it wasn't looking good. That was on Thursday. Specifically, what he told reporters was, quote, I just shared with my colleagues that I'm withdrawing my name as candidate for the speaker designee. He also said, quote, if you look at where our conference is, there's still work to be done. Our conference has to come together and is not there. There are still some people that have their own agendas, and I was very clear we have to have everybody put their agendas to the side and focus

on what this country needs. This country is counting on us to come back together. This House of Representatives needs a speaker, and we need to open the house again. But clearly not everybody is there, and there's still schisms that have to get resolved." End quote. On Friday, less than 24 hours later, Jim Jordan announces his second bid for speaker and GOP representative Austin Scott of Georgia announces his intention to run as well. The House GOP conference meets later that day to hear Jordan and Scott make their pitches and they vote. And they actually voted twice. They voted once to see who would get the majority of the votes, like who would be the nominee. And then they voted again to see if that nominee could secure the 217 needed once it goes to

the floor. The first vote as to who would be the nominee was 124 to 81, meaning that Jordan got 124 votes. Scott got 81. Jordan got slightly more votes than Scalise did for the nomination, which is interesting considering Jordan lost to Scalise. But nonetheless, he became the nominee. The second vote, which again was intended to see if he could even meet that 217 threshold

because you don't have to vote for the person that you nominated. So just because 124 people in the GOP conference nominated him doesn't mean all of those people have to vote for him again. It could mean that some of the 81 that voted for Scott would now vote for Jordan. So it was really just trying to see if he could get 217 votes in the GOP conference and kind of predict what would happen once this went to the full House. That vote was 152 to 55, which is clearly not enough for the 217 threshold, still way off, but Jordan remains the nominee. As of the time I'm recording this, which is around 5 p.m. on Friday, it's not clear when the vote will go to the House floor, though I did see one report that said Tuesday, but I'm not putting too much credibility on that report. We'll probably have a better idea Monday once the House GOP conference returns for a

meeting. Once it does go to the House floor, though, the House will be voting between House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, which is the Democratic nomination, and Jim Jordan, assuming he makes it that far and doesn't drop out like Scalise did. In that case, the winner would be whoever gets the majority of the votes, which presumably would be the Republican nominee since Republicans hold the majority in the House. One temporary option that has been tossed around is temporarily expanding the powers of interim Speaker Patrick McHenry. Patrick McHenry, which took over for former Speaker McCarthy, he only has limited power because he's not the official speaker. However, if the House can expand his current powers to include, let's say, the ability to bring resolutions to a vote, it's possible that the House can pass a resolution for Israel without having to elect a new speaker or pass a resolution just but if they extended that power to him, then maybe they could solve some of

their temporary, more impending problems instead of having to wait for the speaker election. Now let's talk about George Santos's indictment. Representative George Santos got even more charges added to his indictment this week, which include stealing people's identity, making charges on political donors' credit cards without telling them, and submitting false campaign reports. George Santos was originally indicted back in May. His original indictment accused him of wire fraud, money laundering, theft, and false statements made to the House. If you want the full breakdown on that, go ahead and listen to my May 12th episode. But just to recap it, that original indictment alleged that he

falsely claimed unemployment during the pandemic, received more than $24,000 in unemployment insurance benefits, and that was despite having an annual salary of $120,000. He then allegedly obtained two $25,000 donations from political donors and used those donations to buy designer clothes, withdraw cash, and discharge personal debts. He also allegedly lied on his financial disclosure statement to the House by both understating his income and failing to disclose some of his income. Following that original indictment, Santos pled not guilty. He said he would not resign from Congress and said that he plans to run for reelection. This new indictment, which was brought this week, is called a superseding

indictment. So it's basically an indictment that adds charges to the original indictment. And it alleges that in addition to those things, Santos was part of another scheme in which he lied about the amount that his campaign had received from donors in order to qualify for a program run by the Republican National Committee that would entitle his campaign to additional financial and logistical support. So how the program works is that if a campaign raises at least $250,000 from third-party contributors in a single quarter, the campaign can qualify for this RNC program that entitles it to additional support. So what the indictment says is that to qualify for this program, Santos allegedly falsely reported, and he did this with the help of his former campaign treasurer.

So that person is named as a co-conspirator in this indictment. But Santos falsely reported that at least 10 family members had contributed to his campaign and that he himself had loaned the campaign a significant amount of money. One loan was $500,000, and at the time, he only had $8,000 or $10,000 in his personal bank account. Aside from those false reports, though, Santos allegedly stole his donors' personal and financial information and used it to charge their credit cards without their authorization, and then he would transfer those funds to either his campaign, the campaigns of others, or his own personal bank account. Why he would give the money to other campaigns, I'm not sure, but nonetheless, charging credit cards without

authorization is obviously a crime. Now, his co-conspirator that I briefly mentioned, which was his former campaign treasurer, she's already pled guilty and said in a formal address to the court when she pled guilty that she filed a report stating that $500,000 was loaned to the campaign by Santos, but that that money was never received and that at the time that the report was filed, she knew that the loan had not been made. That's obviously not a good look for Santos. It's possible, maybe even probable, that he enters into some sort of plea deal given that that statement is out there, but we'll see. In total, he faces 23 charges. He has pled not guilty to all of them, and he said on Tuesday

that he still plans to run for reelection. And he called this superseding indictment a witch hunt. Now, let's talk about another politician's charges, this time a senator. Senator Bob Menendez got a superseding indictment of his own this week, accusing him of acting as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government. Again, I'll briefly recap the original indictment before I talk about the new charges, but if you want the full rundown, go and listen to my September 26th episode where I go into more detail. The original indictment alleges that Bob Menendez and his wife had accepted gold bars, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a new Mercedes for using the

senator's influence to not only interfere with criminal investigations, but also aid the Egyptian government. The reason that he was able to help aid the Egyptian government is because, in addition to being a senator, he also served as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which gave him power over foreign military sales and foreign military financing. So basically, these guys who had previously known Menendez's wife and have connections to the Egyptian government recruited Menendez, in a sense, to help ensure that the Egyptian government got what it needed from Congress. And in turn, Menendez and his wife got paid for their help. Then after that indictment came out, the news cycle got a hold of this story that the

reason Menendez's wife got a new Mercedes from these co-conspirators was because her previous car was involved in an accident in which she hit a man and the man died. No charges were ever brought against her, but in the last week or two, the New Jersey Attorney General said that they would be looking into the case to see if it was mishandled, because obviously you have this information in the original indictment that the senator had interfered in other criminal investigations, so it's possible he could have interfered in this one too. So that was the latest on that. Now though, there's a whole new set of charges, and it's not related to that 2018 fatal accident, but instead related to his actions that he took on behalf of the Egyptian government. The new charges are based on the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which says that those who act as an agent of a foreign principal, in this case, obviously Egypt,

have to register with the government as an agent and provide disclosures of their relationship with whatever foreign principal they're working with. So what the new charges say is that despite Menendez acting as an agent of Egypt, he never registered as an agent in accordance with this law. Menendez is set to appear in court for his arraignment on the 18th. He says he doesn't have any plans on resigning, but he did step down from his position as chairman of the 18th. He says he doesn't have any plans on resigning, but he did step down from his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As the fourth and final story, I just want to give you an update on Carly Russell, who I had reported on originally in July. She is the girl who staged her kidnapping in Alabama. The update is that she's been found

guilty and sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay almost $18,000 in restitution. So basically what happened is she was driving on the highway, she had just gotten off work, and she called 911 to say that she saw a baby walking on the highway and that she was going to pull over, you know, to try to help. But when officers got there, there was no baby. Her car and her phone were there, but she was nowhere to be found. There's a 48-hour manhunt going on. This was nationwide. This news was all over the place. And 48 hours later, she returns home. So she just walks up to her front door barefoot and walks inside. Her mom calls the police. The police get there and they bring her in for questioning. But eventually it

comes out that she's not really cooperating. I think her parents' statement was that her mental state isn't right for questioning, something like that. But while she was missing, investigators were able to kind of link her to her own false kidnapping. So they found searches on her phone from the day that she disappeared, which asked things like, do you have to pay for an Amber Alert? How to take money from a register without being caught? She also looked for one-way bus tickets from Birmingham to Nashville with the same departure date that she went missing, and she searched for the movie Taken, which is about a girl getting kidnapped. So they found those searches on her phone, and there were a couple of other things that kind of

raised the eyebrows of the officers, so that's why they called her in for questioning. She eventually admitted to it. She staged the whole thing. Her sentence, as I said, is a year in jail. She's ordered to pay almost $18,000 in restitution, and her attorney did say that they will be appealing it. He said that the restitution is fine, that she understands she has to pay for her actions, but they are appealing the jail sentence. So that's what's going on with Carly Russell, and that concludes this episode. Stay tuned for my part two Israel episode. I don't have an official release date yet. I'm still working on it, but I hope it's out in the next week. So I'll keep you posted on that.

In the meantime, I hope you have a great rest of your weekend. Thank you for being here with me. And I will talk to you on Tuesday.