UNBIASED - US/Iran $6B Prisoner Swap, Trump's Electors Charged, New 5th Circuit Firearm Ruling; Will It Affect Hunter Biden's Gun Charge? US Restricts Investments in Chinese Sectors and More.

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

1. Biden Reportedly Agrees to Prisoner Swap with Iran Involving the Release of $6B of Iran's Frozen Funds; Alleged Negotiations Taking Place Re: Iran's Nuclear Program (2:20)2. Trump's Michigan Slate of Electors Arraigned on State Charges, Plead Not Guilty; Discussion of the Electoral College and the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon Election (7:51)3. Biden Signs Executive Order Re: Prohibitions and Restrictions on US Investments in Certain Chinese Sectors (21:24)4. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Rules Firearm Law Unconstitutional; How This Impacts Hunter Biden (25:02)5. Biden Asks Congress for $40B in Additional Spending (28:46)6. Prosecutors Request January 2024 Start Date for Trump's Trial (29:13)7. Supreme Court Pauses Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy Proceedings; Agrees to Hear Case in December (29:34)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 Friday. I hope you had a great week and you're ready for the weekend. I have, let's see, four stories for you today and then a few notable mentions, but they're going to be very quick. Just some things that I want you to be aware of. But the stories, we're first going to cover the prisoner swap with Iran and also a seemingly unrelated agreement that's being negotiated with Iran regarding Iran's nuclear program. The second story is going to be about the slate of electors that Donald Trump used in the 2020 election out of Michigan, most of whom were arraigned on Thursday

and pled not guilty. So we're going to talk about that. But also, I'm going to use that conversation to talk about the Electoral College because you guys loved the Supreme Court episode, like loved, loved, loved that episode. And there's a lot to learn here too about the Electoral College. So I want to cover that a little bit. And then we'll get into President Biden's executive order about investments in certain Chinese sectors, prohibiting and also restricting those investments. And then the last story will be about this ruling out of the Fifth Circuit pertaining to marijuana users owning firearms. So those are the stories I have for you. And then as I said, just a few short notable mentions. Before we get into the stories, let me give you a quick couple of

reminders. The first one being please, please, please, if you haven't already, go ahead and leave my show a review if you like the content I put out. It really means the world to me. As I've said a million times, it of course makes me so happy to read your reviews, but it also lets other people know why they should be listening to my show. So that's super appreciated. And one final reminder that yes, I am a lawyer. No, I am not your lawyer. Without further ado, let's get into today's stories. President Biden has reportedly agreed to a two-part deal with Iran that would free five Americans in exchange for jailed Iranians here in the United States and also unfreeze roughly $6 billion of Iran's assets that were blocked under U.S. sanctions. So here's what you need

to know. Let me just start out by saying the specifics of this deal are unclear. This is all based on media reports. So here's what we know as of now, or what we think we know, at least. The first part of this deal is the prisoner swap. The second part of the deal is the money component. So first, let's talk about the prisoner swap. Basically, these negotiations have been taking place since February, but Thursday marked the first step in the process towards completing the deal. So prior to Thursday, it was just talks, you know, verbal conversations. But Thursday is when four of the five U.S. citizens that were locked up in a jail in

Iran were actually removed from the jail and placed on house arrest. So that's what they're calling the first step in this deal. One of the U.S. citizens, the reason I said four out of five is because one of them was actually already on house arrest prior to Thursday. As part of the swap, there is going to be an unknown number of Iranians that are currently detained in the United States that will be transferred to Iranian custody. It's not clear when the actual swap will take place. One source familiar with the talks said it could be September-ish, but even they just weren't sure. So the next part is the money aspect, which is reportedly what this entire swap hinges on. And that aspect of the deal requires the United

States to unfreeze roughly $6 billion of Iranian funds that are currently locked up in South Korean banks. Why is this money locked up in South Korean banks? Back in 2012, the United States and other countries imposed these sanctions to censure Iran and prevent further progress in these nuclear activities that it was continuing to take part in. Well, in 2018, South Korea, who is normally one of Iran's largest oil customers, got this waiver from the United States to continue purchases of Iranian oil for several months. However, in 2019, the United States to continue purchases of Iranian oil for several months. However, in 2019, the United States places this total ban on Iran's oil exports and sanctions on its banking sector. And at that point is when these revenues that Iran was owed for the oil it had

given South Korea became blocked. For obvious reasons, Iran's government has been demanding the money since then and says we're entitled to it. Under this agreement, what would happen is Qatar's central bank would oversee the funds and those funds would become accessible to Iran, but only for things like food and medicine or any other items that serve a humanitarian purpose. And the reason I said that the swap hinges on the money component is because, again, according to reports, these U.S. citizens that are in Iran won't be released from Iran until that $6 billion is unfrozen. Now, there's also this unrelated yet kind of related agreement happening on the sidelines. Supposedly, Iran and the United States are

also discussing an agreement aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear efforts. This agreement would require Iran to freeze its uranium enrichment at its current levels of 60% purity and fully cooperate with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. In return, what the United States says is that it won't impose any new sanctions and possibly even agree to not enforce existing sanctions. The reason that the United States wants Iran to halt its uranium enrichment levels is because if Iran chooses to continue their uranium enrichment and gets to a 90% purity level, the United States has concerns that Israel would opt to take military action to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon because Iran has all of the materials it needs to do so.

So the United States is getting involved to kind of avert this nuclear crisis, if you will. Again, I can't stress this enough. This is all not super clear. So much so that U.S. officials have denied any nuclear agreement, but sources with knowledge of the talks have said that the two sides are discussing it. So it's just one of those things that I feel I need to report on because, you know, I want us all to be in the know, but just take it with a grain of salt. Something to note, one final note, is that if an agreement is reached, it'll have to go to Congress. And that's just as per federal law. Congress will have to review it.

And it's not exactly an issue that has had bipartisan support in the past. So it's not one of those things that's like guaranteed to get Congress's approval. So that's what's going on with the prisoner swap and the nuclear program talks and all of that good stuff. Let's now talk about Michigan's alternate or fake slate of electors being arraigned. And as I said in the beginning of the episode, I also want to use this as an opportunity to talk about the Electoral College. I think it's definitely something that we could all stand to learn about. But not only that, it's important to know in order

to fully understand this indictment against Donald Trump, as well as the charges against these electors in Michigan. So on Thursday, nine of the 16 Michigan Republicans that served as Trump's electors, what the indictment calls fake electors or fraudulent electors, what Trump's team calls alternate electors, were arraigned on state charges on Thursday. They all pled not guilty. And the other seven individuals had already entered their not guilty plea in the past few weeks. You may remember when I spoke about Donald Trump's federal indictment a couple of episodes ago, I mentioned those seven states in which the indictment alleges that Donald Trump created this fraudulent slate of electors. Michigan was one of those states. And notably, Michigan is the only state that has brought charges against the

electors so far as of now. I'm sure we'll see more later, but as of now, Michigan is the only state that has brought charges against the electors so far as of now. I'm sure we'll see more later, but as of now, Michigan is the only state to bring state charges against its electors. In Michigan, here is what happened. There were these 16 electors that met in the state's capital on December 14th, 2020. These were Trump's electors, what the indictment is calling the fake electors. And they signed these certificates claiming that Trump had won the state, that they were rightful electors, and sent the certificate to Congress to be counted on January 6th. Each of these 16 electors were charged with eight state felonies, two counts of forgery, one count of conspiracy to commit forgery, two counts of election law forgery, one count of conspiracy to commit election law forgery,

one count of publishing a counterfeit record, and one count of conspiring to publish a counterfeit record. These relate to the actions such as the signing of the certificate, claiming Trump had won the election, submitting this certificate to Congress, claiming they were the rightful presidential electors. That's where all of these charges stem from. Some people are claiming that the state's decision to charge these individuals is political, but Michigan's attorney general says that it would have been political if she hadn't filed the charges in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt. So that's

the charges against Michigan's state electors or fraudulent state electors, alternate state electors, whatever you want to call them. But now let's talk about the electors, because this is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, talking point in Trump's indictment. And both sides see this issue entirely differently. So first, let's talk about what the Electoral College is, because contrary to popular belief, the Electoral College is actually a process. It's not a place. So what happens is each candidate running for president has their own slate of electors or group of electors. The group of electors is just it's called a slate of electors. And this is in each state. So each president has their own group of electors in each state. And typically the slates in each state are chosen by the candidate's political party, right? So let's take Biden and Trump as an example. Biden had a Democratic slate of electors in the 2020 election. Trump had a Republican slate of electors in the 2020 election. Also note that

the number of electors in each state is going to vary because it depends on how many members the state has in the House of Representatives plus its two senators. So the numbers vary. But anyway, to keep this simple, when you vote for a presidential candidate, you're actually voting for their electors. Hear me out. When you vote for a presidential candidate, you are actually voting for their electors. So once the votes in each state are counted, and some states even have the electors under the presidential candidate's name on the ballot, not all states, but some do. Once the votes in each state are in, each state prepares what's called a certificate of ascertainment. And the certificate of ascertainment lists the names

of all the individuals on the slates for each candidate. The certificate will also list the number of votes that each individual received and then which of those individuals were appointed as the state's electors based on the winning candidate. So again, let's use Biden and Trump as an example. After the general election in 2020, each state made their certificate of ascertainment. It listed the names of the people on the slate for Biden. It listed the names of the people on the slate for Trump, how many votes each candidate received in that state, and then who the appointed slate was based on whichever candidate won in that state. Then on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December, why it has to be so

complicated, I have no idea, but that's when the appointed slate of electors meets in their state. And that's when they cast their votes for the president and vice president. So obviously, let's say, you know, Biden's slate of electors is chosen in California. Those slate of electors are going to cast their vote for President Biden and Vice President Harris in accordance with the popular vote. Those votes are then recorded on a certificate of vote, and that certificate of vote is sent to Congress where the votes are counted on January 6th, and the president of the Senate declares the winner.

Using an alternate slate of electors or fraudulent slate of electors, whatever you choose to call it, you are welcome to call it whatever you want. Okay? I don't judge. I don't care. Call it whatever you want. Is not a common thing for the losing candidate to utilize. In fact, the last time this was done was in 1960 when Kennedy and Nixon ran against each

other. And that's actually the only remotely similar instance that we have to compare this whole issue to. So let's talk about it. And let's also talk about why the Trump supporters are arguing one way and why the opponents are arguing another way. Because I always, I like to give you all of the facts so you can form your own opinion and then tell you how one side feels about it and the other side feels about it. The goal is to give you so much knowledge on the background of all of this that you can actually walk away and form your own informed opinions based on what you learn. So let's take it back to 1960. In 1960, in the Kennedy-Nixon election, there was a dispute over who won in Hawaii. According to the initial election results, Nixon had won by just 140 votes, and those votes were then and casting their ballots. Nixon had his set of Hawaii electors

meet and cast three votes in an official ceremony because three is the number of electors in Hawaii. But at the same time, nearby, Kennedy had his own three elector nominees get together, sign their own certificates, certifying Kennedy as the winner, and sent the certificate off to D.C. Now keep in mind, Kennedy was the Democratic nominee and Nixon was the Republican nominee, so it's kind of a similar situation, but parties are flipped. Just like Trump's electoral certificates, Kennedy's certificates described his electors as duly and legally appointed and qualified members on the electoral college. It's virtually the same language that was used on both Kennedy

and Trump's certificates. And actually, I have Kennedy's certificates linked for you on my website. So you guys know I always include the sources just so you could see what those looked like. But here's where things differ. So I mentioned the similarities between the two. Now let's talk about the differences. Kennedy ended up winning Hawaii. So remember, it was Nixon by just 140 votes with the initial results. And then with the recount, Kennedy actually won. Obviously, that differs from Biden and Trump's case because Trump didn't end up winning. Following Kennedy winning the election, the new governor who had recently been sworn in certified him as the winner and submitted a new slate of Electoral College certificates,

but signed by the same three Democrats who signed for Kennedy when he lost. So it's the same electors that were used. It was just a new certificate. What's interesting is that Nixon was vice president at the time, which meant that he presided over the official proceeding on January 6 the newest one from the new governor in Hawaii certifying Kennedy as the winner should be counted. And that's a difference, too, right? Because Vice President Pence didn't accept Trump's slate of electors. Now, here's the other thing. Just two days before the official proceeding on January 6th, 1961, a state court had gotten involved with the issue and agreed that Kennedy's slate of electors were legitimate. But what's more important is his rationale. What the judge said

was that it was important that the electors met on the day set forth in the Electoral Count Act for electors to meet. He said that this was a key step that preserved their ability to be counted after the recount. And that's actually exactly what Trump had his electors do too. In fact, the indictment actually says, and I'm paraphrasing, but what it says is, the defendant organized fraudulent slates of electors in seven states, attempting to mimic the procedures that the legitimate electors were to follow under the Constitution and other laws. This included meeting on the date appointed by federal law, casting votes, and signing certificates. So here's the thing. Though that decision from

the state court in 1961 seems on point, it's actually not a binding decision because it came from a lower court. At the same time, though, it's quite literally the only legal precedent surrounding conflicting electoral slates since the Electoral Count Act passed in 1887. So for this reason, supporters of Trump argue that Trump did the exact same thing as Kennedy. He did it to preserve his legal options. It's previously been upheld in court. It's fine. It's not fraud. On the other hand, opponents of Trump are arguing that this is entirely different because Trump didn't end up winning like Kennedy did. Biden won

fair and square. Trump's slate of electors were never certified by the governor like Kennedy's were. Trump had legal experts telling him he couldn't do it, but he did it anyway. And Vice President Pence refused to count Trump's elector slate, which is different than in 1960 because Vice President Nixon agreed to include Kennedy's slate of electors. So those are the arguments on both sides. As a final note, before we hop off this topic, I just want to mention that when I talked about this issue last or two episodes ago, I didn't go into this much detail, but I briefly said the DOJ calls these electors fraudulent slate of electors. But for fairness purposes, I just want to mention that Trump's team calls them alternate electors. And I said that for fairness purposes, because my job is to

talk about both sides, right? And someone wrote in on Spotify and said that in that Trump indictment story, they felt that they could sense my bias. And I just want to be clear that there's a difference between bias and fairness, right? Bias would be me stating the arguments from one side that I feel is right or I feel is stronger. Fairness, on the other hand, is talking through the arguments on both sides. And I understand that this isn't commonplace these days, which is why I think it takes people by surprise when I do it. But that's exactly why I'm here, to provide you with a take that you won't get anywhere

else. You won't get this when you turn on your news network at night. They're not telling you both sides of the argument. I mean, sometimes they do, but for the most part, they don't. So that's the value I provide, is telling you both sides of something. A true, nonpartisan, full scope discussion. And I hope you can see that and not take this as, you know, bias or skewed in any way. on wednesday president biden signed an executive order to start a prohibition and restrictions on certain u.s investments in certain technologies in china as we've discussed before an executive order is a presidential action that directs other executive agencies. So in this case, President Biden is directing the U.S.

Treasury to implement certain rules. If this story or this headline sounds kind of familiar, you may remember when I covered the National Defense Authorization Act, but more specifically, first the House passed their version and then the Senate passed theirs. And I was talking about the amendments that had passed in the Senate's version. One of those amendments that passed with strong bipartisan support was this amendment that would require U.S. companies to notify federal agencies of investments in Chinese technologies like semiconductors, NAI, things like that. That amendment passed 91 to 6, so strong bipartisan support. So anyway, what does this executive order mean? The order essentially authorizes the U.S. Treasury to prohibit some investments and require notification of others. So this applies to certain sectors like semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies, as well as certain AI

systems. At the same time, though, this isn't a far-sweeping order. The restrictions would only apply to narrow subsets within these three sectors, and it's not going to restrict current or existing investments, only future investments. And this is something that critics are focused on. But let's talk about the purpose of it. The Treasury says that this program is intended to focus on transactions that could convey what it's calling intangible benefits to Chinese entities. This is things like equity interests, greenfield investments, joint ventures, things like that. Because of this, the U.S. Treasury says that it's considering creating

an exception for investments that are less likely to result in intangible benefits. So publicly traded securities, index funds, and mutual funds. Also, the executive order doesn't mean that this takes effect immediately. The Treasury actually issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, which basically gives even more time for people to comment on it because it adds this additional commentary period. So from here, companies and investors will have time to comment on the advanced notice, and then the Treasury would then issue a formal notice to which investors and companies again would have a chance to comment. And then the Treasury would finalize the regulations. Experts say this whole process could take months, putting the enactment sometime in 2024. But once this rule is finalized, then the Treasury would actually take on the authority of investigating potential violations, pursuing available penalties, and even unwinding future investments. As a side note,

U.S.-based venture capital investments in China have actually dropped significantly just in the last two years. So they went from $32.9 billion in 2021 down to $9.7 billion in 2022, so a drastic drop. In response to the president's order, China said that it is gravely concerned about it, and a statement from the Chinese Commerce Ministry said that the order affects normal operation and decision-making of enterprises and undermines the international economic and trade order. That takes us into our fourth and final story, aside from our notable mentions. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a decades-old law prohibiting users of illegal drugs from owning firearms is unconstitutional as applied to the

case of a marijuana user. What's interesting is this same law, specifically Chapter 18, Section 922, Subsection G3 of the U.S. Code, which prohibits anyone who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance from owning a gun, is the same exact law that Hunter Biden is being charged under in Delaware. The man at the center of this case, Patrick Daniels, was convicted under this law after officers pulled him over in April 2022. They found a rolled joint, a pistol, and a semi-automatic rifle in his car. He wasn't drug tested, but he admitted to sometimes smoking marijuana, and therefore, he was owning firearms, admitted to using drugs, and was sentenced to nearly four years in prison and three years of probation. What happened was,

during the course of this case, the Supreme Court ruled in June of last year in a case called New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bru, that not only did the Second Amendment protect an individual's right to carry a gun in public for self-defense, but it also set forth a new test for assessing firearms laws. And what it said was that firearm restrictions must be consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. With this test in mind, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said that that federal law that prohibits unlawful users of controlled substances from owning firearms is actually invalid as it applies to marijuana users. And what the decision said was this. It said, quote,

In short, our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated person's right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug use, nor do more generalized traditions of disarming dangerous persons support this restriction on nonviolent drug users, end quote. So what does this ruling mean? What are the implications? Well, for one, Daniels, the man at the center of this case, will have his conviction thrown out. He is free to go. As for everyone else, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals covers Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi. So in those three states, this federal law will no longer apply, meaning you can't be charged with this crime.

And those that have already been convicted under this law can now challenge their convictions and try to have them overturned or vacated. Now, you may be thinking, how does this affect Hunter Biden's charge? Given the fact that this ruling doesn't apply nationwide, it won't affect Hunter Biden's gun charge directly because he was charged in Delaware, which the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals does not cover. But there is a slight possibility, and I really want to emphasize slight here because it's not likely, but it could happen that the DOJ uses this new ruling as sort of rationale for a new plea agreement or deferred prosecution agreement to kind of change the terms, possibly make it more lenient. But as we know, his plea agreement and deferred

prosecution agreement are currently being revised because the judge, you know, the judge needs to revisit them. So it's possible that the DOJ uses it as rationale for altering the deferred prosecution agreement, but who knows? With that, let's get into notable mentions. President Biden asked Congress to approve roughly $40 billion in additional spending on Thursday. $24 billion of that is for military, financial, and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine. $12 billion of that is for disaster relief. $3.3 billion to fund infrastructure in countries affected by the Russian invasion, and $4 billion for border security. Second notable mention, federal prosecutors want Donald Trump's 2020 election interference trial

to start on January 2nd, 2024. Trump, of course, wants to delay the start of the trial because he doesn't want to be taken away from campaigning, but it is expected that the judge overseeing the case will decide the trial's start date by the end of this month. And the third and final notable mention I have for you is that the Supreme Court blocked Purdue Pharma from going forward with a bankruptcy proceeding on late Thursday afternoon and agreed to hear this case in December. If you've seen either Dope Sick or Painkiller, they are both TV shows. I believe they're both on Netflix. This story may make a bit more sense to you, but basically Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family who controlled Purdue Pharma largely contributed to the opioid epidemic with the sale of OxyContin,

which they marketed as non-addictive. But before Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy because of all of these proceedings that they had to deal with, the Sackler family withdrew $11 billion from the company and did not file for bankruptcy themselves. Then, as part of the bankruptcy deal with Purdue, the Sackler family decides that they're going to agree to pay $6 billion to settle any opioid-related claims, but only in exchange for a complete release from any liability in future cases. Again, keep in mind, the Sacklers didn't file for bankruptcy, just Purdue. So the question the Supreme Court will have to answer is whether the bankruptcy court had the authority to release the Sackler family members from future opioid-related claims, you know, during this whole

bankruptcy proceeding with Purdue. In other words, does the bankruptcy code permit giving civil liability protection to parties who are not in bankruptcy proceedings themselves? That is the question the Supreme Court will have to answer. That is today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for being here. As always, have a great weekend. Don't forget to leave me a review. And, and, and I always forget to remind you of this. I have my weekly newsletter going out tomorrow. So on Saturday, it's a free weekly newsletter. I catch you up on trending news, trending lawsuits, a lot of good information.

So you can always subscribe on the link in the podcast description or just go to jordanismylawyer.com slash subscribe. Have a great weekend and I will talk to you on Tuesday.