UNBIASED - September 4, 2024: Federal Court Rejects Trump's Requests to Move Case, RFK Jr. Must Stay on Michigan's Ballot, Supreme Court Says Biden Can Withhold Federal Funds from Oklahoma, and More.

Episode Date: September 4, 2024

Welcome back to UNBIASED. In today's episode: Clarification to Yesterday's Episode: Results of Venezuela's 2024 Election (0:37) Federal Judge Rejects Trump's Request to Move Hush Money Case to Federal Court (2:14) Judge Says RFK Jr. Must Stay on Michigan Ballot (5:44) Supreme Court Allows Biden Administration to Withhold Federal Funds from Oklahoma (8:31) Quick Hitters: High School Shooting in Georgia, Tennessee Publication Leaks Covenant School Shooter's Manifesto, States File Lawsuit Challenging Biden's Loan Forgiveness Proposals, DOJ Issues Indictments Over Russian Election Interference, Treasury Dept. Issues Sanctions Over Russian Election Interference (12:49) Daily Critical Thinking Exercise (16:35) Listen/Watch this episode AD-FREE 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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Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, 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 Wednesday, September 4th, and this is your daily news rundown. You know the drill by now, but if you love the unbiased approach that this episode provides and you feel more informed after listening, please do me a favor and leave

my show a review on whatever platform you listen, share the show with your friends, and if you're watching on YouTube, you can go ahead and hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel. All of those things really help me out, so thank you very much. And without further ado, let's get into today's stories. I want to actually start this episode by clarifying something I said in yesterday's story about the Venezuelan plane seizure. In talking about why the United States and Venezuela have this contentious relationship and, you know, talking about why the plane was ultimately seized, I spoke about the corruption of Venezuela's government, but more so Venezuela's president, Nicolas Maduro. And in those remarks,

I mentioned how the 2024 election was very much corrupt, but I said that Maduro ended up winning that election. That was wrong. What I should have said is that Maduro remained in office despite providing, you know, no data that he actually won when he was asked to do so, but by not only Venezuelans, but also the international community as well. In fact, the Democratic opposition published more than 80% of the tally sheets that were received. And those tally sheets actually indicated that Edmundo Gonzalez, the opposition, received the majority of the votes by a very large margin. And still, despite those tally sheets being provided by Gonzalez,

Maduro hasn't provided any proof of his own that he won the election, but he stayed in office. So again, that just speaks to the corruption in Venezuela and the ongoing political unrest. But I did just want to issue that clarification because saying that Maduro won that election just kind of sent the wrong message and it was just a poor choice of wording. So that's what I have to say about that. If you want to hear more about that plane seizure by the United States government, check out yesterday's podcast episode. But now let's move on to some news here at home. Last night, a federal court ruled for the second time that Trump's hush money case will stay in state court. So let's talk about this. As we know, that hush money case, as it's been named, surrounds Trump's reimbursements to his former attorney, Michael

Cohen, who during the 2016 election paid a woman named Stormy Daniels a lump sum of cash to stay quiet about an affair she says she had with Trump back in 2006. Importantly, it wasn't the actual reimbursements that Trump paid to Cohen that were illegal. As I've said before, hush money payments are not illegal. Instead, the issue was with how the payments were recorded on the books. So a jury found that Trump had falsely misstated the reason for the payments to Cohen in order to cover up the real reason for the payments. And that led to a conviction of falsifying business records in the first degree. So Trump tried to get this case removed from state court and put in federal court. Why? Well, for one, if the case was moved to federal

court, Trump's team could try to get his guilty verdict overturned and even try to get the case dismissed entirely. But for a federal court to accept a case, they have to have jurisdiction over the matter, right? So the question at hand has to be a federal question. A federal court can't just hear any case. So Trump argued that one, the judge in his case was biased against him because of his ties or the judge's ties to the Democratic Party and therefore the conviction should not stand. And two, because of the recent ruling out of the Supreme Court regarding presidential immunity, Trump should be immune from prosecution. And before we get into how the judge ruled last night, keep in mind that the same federal court judge rejected Trump's request to move the

case to federal court last year based on the idea that hush money payments are not related to a president's official acts. In other words, last year the judge said this is a state issue, it's not a federal issue, I'm not going to move this case to federal court. So this time around, the judge said, one, any issues pertaining to partiality or bias from the judge that might amount to errors at the trial are to be appealed to the highest state court, not a federal court. And two, that the Supreme Court ruling doesn't apply to Trump's case because the ruling said presidents are not entitled to immunity for unofficial acts, and these payments were exactly

that, unofficial acts. The judge wrote in last night's order, quote, I held in my order and opinion of July 19th, 2023, that hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president's official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the president's official duties. Nothing in the Supreme Court's opinion affects my previous conclusion that the hush money payments were private, unofficial acts outside the bounds of executive authority, end quote. So the case will remain in state court and Trump is currently scheduled to be sentenced on September 18th. That could change considering there is a motion in front of Judge Mershon

right now to either postpone the sentencing date until after the election or just vacate the conviction entirely, which is not likely. But Judge Mershon has not ruled on that motion at this point, though he did say he will issue a ruling on September 16th, which is two days before the sentencing. So I'll, of course, keep you posted on that. Moving on, a judge in Michigan said RFK Jr. cannot be removed from the state ballot. You may remember when I spoke last week about Kennedy suspending his campaign, I had explained that what Kennedy wanted to do was keep his name on the ballot in states that are either definitively red or definitively blue, but take his name off the ballot in battleground states. And this was because in battleground

states, he didn't want to take away any votes from Trump. He was encouraging his supporters to vote for Trump in those battleground states, but to vote for him in states that are either red or blue because it wouldn't affect Trump and he would be able to work towards his goal of getting 5% of the vote because if he gets 5% of the vote, it would open him up to public funds for a future campaign. He didn't have public funds this time around because his party isn't a major party and hasn't had an opportunity to gather 5% of the vote until this point. Now, obviously, Michigan is a battleground state, right, along with Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania,

and North Carolina. So he wants his name off the ballot in these states to not take away from Trump. However, some states have deadlines and or rules as to when you have to take yourself off a ballot as a candidate. Michigan's law happens to be that if you are a minor party candidate, which Kennedy is, you just simply cannot take yourself off the ballot once you're on it. So Michigan election law, specifically 168-686-A, discusses the nomination and certification of candidates and says, quote, candidates so nominated and certified shall not be permitted to withdraw, end quote. And this was the rationale provided in the judge's ruling. However, I will say this too. There's a little bit of a question as to whether, not whether, but who that law applies to.

So the language of the law seems to imply that it applies specifically to state and district candidates. It does not mention federal candidates. Now, this is the state's only election law, so there is an argument to be had that the law applies to all candidates on the state's ballot, whether it be, you know, district, state, or federal, but the language of the law is certainly questionable. Nonetheless, that is how the judge ruled, so as of now, Kennedy will remain on Michigan's ballot, but Kennedy is telling those that live in battleground states like Michigan to disregard his name on the ballot and instead vote for Trump. As an aside, Kennedy is also facing a similar situation in North Carolina, where he has also filed a lawsuit to be removed from the ballot there because the Secretary of State would not remove him from that ballot. So that's what's

going on with Kennedy. Let's switch gears to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the Biden administration could rightfully withhold federal family planning funds from Oklahoma after Oklahoma refused to provide patients with a hotline number that provides information for pregnant women, including information about abortion and referrals for abortion. Now, relevant to this story are Title X clinics. Title X's family planning program requires states to have Title X clinics. These Title X clinics provide contraception, STD, prenatal care, etc. to low-income people. Notably, these clinics cannot provide abortions, but can provide referrals for

abortions. In fact, back in 2021, Biden issued a final rule, which is at the center of this lawsuit that, in part, required states to offer information to women on issues like adoption, abortion, and prenatal care, and two, required providers to not only supply non-directive counseling to pregnant women about all of their options, including abortion, but also provide abortion referrals upon request. That rule overturned a previous rule implemented by Trump, which barred abortion referrals. So in order to receive this Title 10 funding from the federal government, states have to comply with Title 10 and its requirements. And even if a state has banned abortion, this portion of the rule still applies for a state to receive its funding.

In other words, despite a state banning abortion, that state still has to provide information about abortions and allow for abortion referrals consistent with that federal rule implemented by Biden to receive Title 10 funding. So Oklahoma complied with these requirements and received their funding in 2022. But then the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its Dobbs decision. And from there, Oklahoma, you know, refused to do these things like provide abortion counseling and offer abortion referrals. Initially, it had reached a compromise with the Biden administration and agreed to provide a hotline number to patients

who requested information on abortion, but then later Oklahoma refused to do so. So the state of Oklahoma did not get its roughly four and a half million dollars in annual Title 10 funds. Well, Oklahoma then goes and files a lawsuit, first challenging Biden's rule generally, but then filed a second lawsuit seeking access to that funding that they didn't get. The state argued that the administration, specifically the Department of Health and Human Services, doesn't have the authority to impose new conditions on funding required under Title X, and that the state shouldn't have to follow those rules because they were regulations created by the HHS and not a statute passed by Congress.

The government, on the other hand, argued that Congress routinely conditions federal grants on compliance with requirements contained in agency regulations, not just statutes, and that such agency regulation requirements have repeatedly been upheld by the Supreme Court. So both the federal district court in Oklahoma, which is the lowest court, and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the government, holding that the state is not entitled to Title 10 funding if it knowingly violates the program's requirements. Oklahoma then submitted an emergency request to the Supreme Court. This was last month. And it had asked the justices to

intervene and force the government to disperse the funding. But yesterday, the Supreme Court declined to do so. However, Justices Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito said they would have granted Oklahoma's request. Notably, this order does not resolve this debate, right? This was just an order on Oklahoma's injunction request. The Supreme Court has yet to hear or decide the actual merits of this case. In fact, other cases just like this one are taking place in other parts of the country. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals just rejected a similar lawsuit from Tennessee last week. And there's a separate lawsuit involving multiple states that is attempting to reinstate Trump's rules, which prohibited receivers of Title 10 funds

from discussing abortion or offering referrals. So this dispute is far from over. There's still plenty of cases that need to play out. Moving on to quick hitters, a very tragic school shooting took place today at Appalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, which is about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta. Keep in mind, the story just broke a couple of hours before I hit record, so things are bound to change. But as of this current moment, four people are believed to have been killed and approximately 30 others injured. The suspect is in custody and is said to be 14 years old, but it is unclear at this time whether the suspect actually attended the high school. Unfortunately, the next quick hitter is also related to a school shooting, one that

happened in the past, but an online publication called the Tennessee Star released some 90 pages of what is alleged to be the manifesto of the Covenant school shooter in Nashville. Previously, the family of the shooter fought successfully in court to prevent the document from being made public, so it has yet to be released, but the Tennessee Star did say they released 90 pages. Now, I'm personally going to wait to report on the actual contents until its authenticity is verified, but if you are interested in seeing what was leaked, you can go to tennesseestar.com and download those pages, though I do believe you have to put in some information before you can access it, maybe your email address or something. But that is the deal with that.

Seven Republican-led states have filed a new lawsuit against the Biden administration challenging some of its loan forgiveness plans. Now, I feel like this is a storyline that we tend to cover a lot. So let me clarify what this pertains to. Last week, maybe it was the week before, we talked about a lawsuit challenging Biden's loan repayment plan called the SAVE plan. That is different than a loan forgiveness plan. As we know, the Supreme Court shut down Biden's previous loan forgiveness plan back in 2022. This new lawsuit is challenging a set of proposals that were drafted after the Supreme Court's ruling and

are based on completely different legal authority. As an example, one of the provisions would cancel accumulated interest for people with loan balances bigger than what they originally borrowed. So it's a more specific subset of people. These provisions have yet to be finalized into a final rule, and they're still kind of going through that rulemaking process, but it's these provisions that are at the center of this new lawsuit. In some other news, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced an indictment against two employees of a Russian-backed media network called RT and charged them with conspiring to commit money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Garland accused the defendants of implementing a nearly $10 million scheme to fund and direct

a Tennessee-based company to publish and disseminate content that was considered favorable to the Russian government. That company then contracted with social media influencers based here in the U.S. to share that content on their platforms, and Garland said the information was, quote, often consistent with Russia's interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Russian interests, particularly its ongoing war in Ukraine, end quote. And on a related note, the Treasury

Department today announced sanctions against 10 people and two entities, including that RT network we just spoke about, related to Russia's election interference efforts. The Treasury Department said that in early 2024, beyond using tools like AI deepfakes and disinformation, executives at RT, quote, began an even more nefarious effort to covertly recruit unwitting American influencers in support of their malign influence campaign, end quote. And finally, critical thinking. For today's critical thinking segment, let's go back to that Title X story. I want you to think about federal funding for the states being conditional on state

compliance. What are your thoughts there? Do you feel that that's fair or unfair? So if a state willingly disregards funding requirements, should that state lose funding completely, maybe only lose a proportional share, or continue to receive the funding in full? And what do I mean by only lose a proportional share? Well, let's just take the example above. So if a state abides by most of the requirements set forth by the government in the Title X clinic scenario, let's say the clinic provides STD testing, provides prenatal care, provides contraception, but doesn't provide abortion referrals or information on abortions. Should the state only lose a portion of funding?

In other words, if the state complies with 50% of the requirement, should they receive 50% of the funding? Or maybe you feel they should completely lose the funding or receive 100% of the funding in that scenario. But whatever your answer is, come up with a reason why. And also, don't just look at this from the abortion perspective either, right? So the federal government provides funding for states for various things. Education, infrastructure, public safety, social services, the list goes on. So you

can also analyze this from those lenses as well. And finally, I do want to say, I don't want you to base your answer on what, you know, what federal law says or what the courts say, right? I don't want you to say, well, I don't know what, you know, federal law says. I don't want you to base your answer on what you know what federal law says or what the courts say right I don't want you to say well I don't know what you know federal law says I don't know what the courts have said the purpose of these critical thinking exercises is to actually reflect on how you feel because ultimately regardless of what the law says or regardless of what you know let's say the supreme court says thinking about how we feel is how we form our own opinions so I want you to focus on how you feel rather than what, you know, the law says or what precedent says or anything like that. 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

for the final news rundown of the week.