UNBIASED - Title 42 Expires This Week, JP Morgan Buys First Republic, President Biden Allegedly Involved in Criminal Scheme.

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

1. Title 42 to Expire May 11th, What Happens Now? (1:57)2. JP Morgan Buys First Republic Bank After Second-Largest Bank Failure in US History (10:57)3. Whistleblower Claims President Biden Took Part in a "Criminal Scheme" While Vice-President (19:26)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know who also appreciate unbiased news!Follow Jordan on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. 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 Law podcast. This is your host Jordan and I give

you the legal analysis you've been waiting for. Here's the deal. I don't care about your political views, but I do ask that you listen to the facts, have an open mind and think for yourselves. Deal? Oh, and one last thing. I'm not actually a lawyer. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Thank you for being here for the third episode of the week. I have three stories for you today. So the first story is going to be about the title 42 expiration, what that means and the policies that the Biden administration is putting in place ahead of that. The second story is going to be about JP Morgan's purchase of First Republic Bank. And the third story is going to be about an alleged criminal scheme by President

Biden. Just want to preface it by saying there is no, I don't want to, you know, be like clickbaity over here. There's no actual evidence of this criminal scheme, but it made the news, although it didn't make the headlines. So I just thought it was important to talk about because it may have flown under the radar. So we're going to get into these three stories. But before we do, let me just give you a quick reminder to share my podcast with your family, friends, colleagues, anyone that you think will also appreciate unbiased, non-partisan, fact-based news. It's obviously something that's very hard to find, so I'm sure they would appreciate you sharing it with them just as much as I would appreciate you sharing it with them. And of course, you guys can always leave me a review on whatever platform you listen. So without further

ado, let's get into today's stories. Title 42 is set to expire on May 11th, which means that the United States is expecting an influx of migrants at the Mexico border. What is Title 42? So Title 42, although it's mostly known these days as this specific immigration policy, it's been in place for decades. It's Title 42 of the U.S. Code, and it addresses public health, social welfare, and it grants the government the ability to take emergency action in various ways, including to stop the introduction of communicable diseases. So when the pandemic happened, the Trump administration utilized Title 42 to regulate border crossings under the theory that border crossings would

lead to the spread of the pandemic and create more of a public health risk. Where previously, immigration law allowed people to ask for asylum after entering the country illegally. But with Title 42 in effect, Border Patrol could just send them back across the border or back to whatever country they came from. Since 2020, more than 2 million expulsions have happened at the Mexico border using Title 42 as the justification. Some say that this number is high just because people were sent back and then they would try again because there was no consequence for future immigration attempts. So the argument there is that it's not that 2 million different people have attempted to cross the border since 2020.

It's just that because of Title 42, because so many people were turned away, and those people kept attempting to come back, that's where you get that 2 million number. That's Title 42 in summary. And the thing is, is that the expiration of Title 42 kind of marks both a political and logistical inflection point for President Biden's immigration policy. It's something that most Republicans have long criticized, but this is a big moment in a sense. So the Biden administration has tried to end the use of Title 42 before, specifically last year in 2022. But various states sued to not end Title 42. The case ended up making its way up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court took the case, but required Title 42 to stay in place until the case was heard. Well, now it's expiring anyway. So it's expiring, like I said, on May 11th, and it's expected to result in a large number of asylum seekers. There's already been an uptick in border crossings, about 7,000 daily encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent days, and that

number is expected to rise. So what's being done? The Biden administration has announced various things, one of those being that 1,500 troops would be sent to the border to assist the already 2,500 troops that are currently there. The administration also opened new processing centers in Colombia and Guatemala, which they say will allow migrants to be pre-screened for lawful pathways such as asylum, refugee status, or parole before adding to the crowding at the border. At the same time, House Republicans have introduced various pieces of legislation, but most recently there's this piece of legislation called the Secure the Border Act of 2023, which will be voted on soon, And I will get into that in more detail in a minute. But first, I want to talk about what's being done ahead of the expiration by the Biden administration specifically, and not so much the House Republicans. So on Tuesday, the Department

of Homeland Security released a statement. And what it said in part is this. It said, in preparation for the return to Title VIII immigration enforcement, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security are implementing sweeping measures with our regional partners to reduce irregular migration, ensure safety, orderly, and efficient processing, and promptly remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States. Due to the anticipated increase in migration, DHS requested the Department of Defense augment 2,500 military personnel currently

providing support at the southwest border, with an additional 1,500 personnel for a period of 90 days. Department of Defense personnel will be performing non-law enforcement duties such as ground-based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support. Department of Defense personnel have never and will not perform law enforcement activities or interact with migrants or other individuals in DHS custody. So that statement came from the Department of Homeland Security. Then the Department of Defense said in their statement, at the request of the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Austin approved a temporary Department of Defense increase of an additional 1,500 military personnel to supplement U.S. Customs and Border Protection efforts on the U.S. Southwest border. So those were those two statements. Now, not everyone is thrilled with the deployment

of military personnel. Specifically, New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez said it was unacceptable. He said in part, quote, the Biden administration's militarization of the border is unacceptable. There is already a humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere and deploying military personnel only signals that migrants are a threat that require our nation's troops to contain. Nothing could be further from the truth, end quote. Okay, so that is that. That is the deployment of military personnel. What else is the Biden administration doing as far as policy goes? For one, they have said that they are going to increase regular deportations through expedited removal. And that's a process

where migrants can be quickly deported and prohibited from entering the United States for five years. Obviously, certain circumstances have to be met for that to happen, but they have said they will utilize expedited removal nonetheless. The administration also introduced a new regulation that would essentially create a rebuttable presumption of asylum ineligibility for non-citizens who entered through another country other than their own home base and failed to seek asylum there first. So as an example, if a Venezuelan attempts to cross through Mexico, they must seek asylum in Mexico first. And if they don't seek asylum in Mexico first, then that rebuttable presumption

is created of asylum ineligibility. In that case, obviously it's a rebuttable presumption, so that presumption could be overcome, but it is a presumption of ineligibility nonetheless. Trump introduced something similar in 2019. It was known as the transit ban, but it was ultimately struck down in federal court. Some human rights activists aren't thrilled with Biden's implementation of these policies. One activist said the last thing the Biden administration should be doing is replacing one inhumane Trump-initiated policy with its own version of another inhumane Trump administration policy. Biden officials have

rejected this accusation, saying that their proposal is different than the Trump administration proposal because it will have humanitarian exceptions. Some of those exceptions include unaccompanied children, migrants with an acute medical condition, those fleeing imminent and extreme danger, and victims of human trafficking. Now let's briefly talk about the Secure the Border Act. It was introduced on Tuesday, and just briefly, in sum, these are some of the things that it does. So one, it calls for the immediate resumption of the border wall construction. That's within seven days of enactment of this law, of course, if it gets enacted. It also calls for a five-year technology investment plan. So this includes things like an analysis of security risks at

the border, identification of gaps, security-related technological investments to manage border crossings, and much, much more. It calls for an increase in the number of border patrol agents and provides bonus pay. It ends catch and release. It strengthens and streamlines the asylum process, requires more transparency from the Department of Homeland Security regarding illegal crossings, and more. It is a lengthy bill, but I figured I would go over the highlights for you. To recap this story, what do you need to know? One, Title 42 as it pertains to immigration is ending May 11th. Two, we are expected to see more border crossings following the expiration. Three, there are 1,500 additional troops being deployed

to the U.S.-Mexico border. Four, House Republicans are attempting to pass legislation to prevent illegal border crossings. And five, the Biden administration is taking their own actions and implementing their own policies to curb illegal crossings. That is the Title 42 story. Let's now move on to JPMorgan buying First Republic Bank. JPMorgan paid $10.6 billion to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FDIC, to buy First Republic Bank. First Republic was the second largest bank failure in history, but at the same time, it's been referred to as the diamond of the season. This is because of its high net worth client base that makes JP Morgan a seemingly lucky buyer, but the high net worth client base is also what helped lead it to failure. So let's get into it. First Republic's business model was obtaining high

net worth customers with preferential rates on mortgages and loans. And it was able to grow its deposits quickly and use these deposits to make big loans when interest rates were at a historically low level. They did this in part to hopefully get their customer base to expand into more profitable products like wealth management. First Republic's median single family home loan borrower had access to cash of $685,000, which is much more than the average American. However, because it catered to mostly high net worth customers, its strategy made it more vulnerable since U.S. deposit insurance only guarantees $250,000 per savings account. Just to put this into perspective, First Republic had $119.5 billion in uninsured deposits, which accounted for 68% of its total deposits.

Now, here's where the downfall started happening. When the Fed started raising interest rates last year, First Republic started accumulating paper losses. By March of this year, analysts and investors calculated First Republic's paper losses between $9.4 billion and $13.5 billion. The problem was if the bank tried to sell its loans to raise capital, it would have done so at a loss. And this is similar to Silicon Valley Bank. Speaking of Silicon Valley Bank, following its collapse a couple of months ago, First Republic said depositors had withdrawn more than $100 billion. Most of those withdrawals came when the SVB collapse happened. So between the Federal Reserve raising interest rates and SVB's collapse, First Republic was struggling. And about two weeks ago is when it became clear that

government intervention was going to have to take place. So the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation took over. It appointed the FDIC as the bank's receiver, and that is when the Treasury started asking banks to submit bids for First Republic. The bidding war ultimately came down to J.P. Morgan and PNC, the country's first and sixth largest bank, respectively. Both of these banks were actually involved in the attempt to stabilize First Republic back in March with uninsured deposits. So J. So JP Morgan contributed $5 billion, PNC contributed $1 billion, and then another nine banks contributed a combined $24 billion. Obviously, this attempt to stabilize First Republic was not successful, though it did

buy time. So JP Morgan went through a bit of a whirlwind leading up to its purchase. It got the call on Wednesday, April 26th, asking if it would be interested in bidding. Immediately thereafter, 800 people get together from various sectors of the bank to figure it out, to figure out whether they are interested in bidding or not. Because certain banks did opt out of bidding. Bank of America is an example. So at J.P. Morgan, 800 people get together from various sectors, investment banking executives, commercial banking and private banking units, tax advisors, mortgage experts, asset and wealth management experts, valuation specialists, a ton of people. And everyone's job was to look at First Republic and report on what it expected a deal to be worth in their particular

unit. So on Saturday the 29th, three days later, each team presented its findings to J.P. Morgan's senior managers. The meetings took place back to back from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Because the thing is, is that these teams presented their findings on Saturday. The bids were due by Sunday at noon. So in these meetings, it became clear that there were obviously pros and cons associated with the purchase. That's with anything else. Anything is going to come with pros and cons. The pros were that not only would buying First Republic help restore some stability to the banking system, but it would also lower the cost that JP Morgan may have had to pay the FDIC if First Republic were to fail without a buyer in hand. On the flip side of that, the cons were that it's risky. You have potential

legal headaches, credit challenges. You have the possibility that First Republic employees could weaken the franchise by leaving. So it wasn't just an all-out win, right? It came with a lot of risk. Like I said, these bids were due by noon on Sunday. And shortly after all the bids were submitted, it became clear that not all bidders wanted the same assets. And the FDIC needed a way to conform the bids so that they were comparable. So regulators start asking JP Morgan to resubmit its bid with additional parameters and specifically focus around certain categories. And the reason they asked JPMorgan to do this was they were trying to get everyone on the same page. So JPMorgan submits four new bids between noon and 9 p.m. on Sunday. At 1 a.m. early Monday morning, so a few hours after its last bid was submitted,

JPMorgan was informed that they won the auction. The deal was then announced to the public at 3.22 a.m., just hours before markets reopened on Monday. As for the terms of the deal, JPMorgan is absorbing about $185 billion in assets while acquiring $92 billion in insured and uninsured deposits, $173 billion in loans and 30 billion in securities and the fdic and jp morgan will share losses on acquired single-family residential mortgages and commercial loans now this deal makes jp morgan the largest depository institution in the united states it holds 16.7 percent of the country's $17.1 trillion in deposits. Given all of this, should we be expecting other banks to fail in the near future? Analysts are saying no. They're saying that the issues faced by Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic were unique to those banks because they catered to the wealthy customer specifically. And the

analysts are saying that while other banks have also seen detrimental effects following the collapse of SBB, none have seen effects like First Republic. So should we be expecting other banks to fail? Analysts say no. As for the stockholders of First Republic, they are out of luck. So on March 8th, First Republic stock was trading at $115 a share. It dropped significantly in the days that followed the SVB collapse. And by Friday, the 28th of April, so six, seven weeks later, The share price of First Republic was down to $3.17. Trading was halted, the market closed on Friday, and in total about $20 billion in market value was wiped out. Investors are not likely to recoup any of it just because when a bank fails, stockholders are at the very end of the line. Stockholders at SBB and Signature were also

wiped out, so First Republic shareholders are not alone, unfortunately. Let's get into our last story, the alleged Biden criminal scheme. An unnamed whistleblower is claiming president biden then vice president was involved in a criminal scheme with a foreign national and now two congressmen are demanding answers so this is not a long story at all but um you know i just want to preface this by saying the reason I chose to cover it, there's a couple of reasons. One, not much news since I last gave you an episode. There's also been three episodes this week. So naturally I've, I've covered most of it. So one is that there wasn't much news. Two is that I saw this article on various outlets, but it was kind of buried. And you guys obviously are more likely to see the headlines. You're more likely to see, you know, the articles that are right in front of

your face, not so much the things that are down at the bottom. So sometimes I like covering things like that, that maybe isn't breaking news, but I also don't want it to slip by. Now, with that said, there is not much evidence here. It's just a story for now. Whether more evidence comes out, we will see, but basically this is what happened. So a whistleblower claimed in a letter that the DOJ and FBI have an unclassified document that describes this alleged criminal scheme, and the document also includes a precise description of how the scheme was employed as well as its purpose. Supposedly, this scheme is related to the exchange of money for policy decisions. So following the receipt of the letter,

House Oversight Chairman James Comer, who has spent time investigating other members of the Biden family, as well as Congressman Grassley, sent a subpoena to the FBI calling for specifically all FD-1023 forms created or modified in June 2020 containing the term Biden and all accompanying attachments. An FD-1023 form is a document that the FBI will use to memorialize meetings or information that they receive from confidential sources, and typically these forms will also include the allegations from the source regardless of if they've been verified by the FBI. In a statement, Comer said, the information provided by a whistleblower raises concerns that then-Vice President Biden allegedly engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national. The American people need to know if President Biden sold

out the United States of America to make money for himself. Senator Grassley and I will seek the truth to ensure accountability for the American people, end quote. Both the DOJ and the FBI have declined to comment on this story, though the FBI did say it received both the letter and the subpoena, meaning the letter from the whistleblower and the subpoena from the congressman, and the FBI has until May 10th to provide these requested documents. Just as some called the Trump indictment a political witch hunt, some are referring to this investigation as a baseless partisan stunt. You know, it's election season, it's upon us,

and we're going to see things like this, and only time will tell if they actually hold weight. So that's that story. story that concludes this episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it. If you're not caught up on my episodes this week, I released a record three episodes this week. So one went live on Tuesday, one went live on Thursday, and obviously this episode. So definitely catch up on those. Have a great weekend. Don't forget to share my episode with your family, friends, colleagues, loved ones, whoever it might be, and I will talk to you next week.