UNBIASED - Week in Review: December 19-31, 2022

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

1. Intro (0:25)2. House Committee Releases January 6th Findings and Recommendations (3:31)3. Idaho Murders Suspect, Bryan Kohberger, Arrested in Pennsylvania (27:01)4. Supreme Court Votes to Temporarily Stay Title 42 Border Policy (33:51)5. $1.7 Trillion 2023 Spending Bill Signed into Law (42:49)All sources can be found on www.jordanismylawyer.comFollow Jordan on TikTok and Instagram @jordanismylawyer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features,

BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for? Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. 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 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. would be an episode the Monday after Christmas, but there would not be an episode the Monday after New Year's. Turns out that that was flip-flopped and I did not do an episode the Monday after Christmas. I got really caught up with family, just really enjoying my time, enjoying my holiday. And I decided to put one out the Monday after New Year's instead and get our New Year off on a good note. I have some really exciting things coming in the new year. Over the course of the last two weeks, I really spent some time kind of thinking of how I can improve the listener experience and some things I can add to the podcast, some things I want to change. And I'm really excited for the

changes that I plan to make happen in 2023. With that said, you guys are obviously the most important aspect of this entire podcast. So if there's anything that you would like to see in the new year, anything that you would like me to change, anything that you would like me to do differently or anything you think would add to this podcast, please let me know. And you can do that on my website. Jordanismylawyer.com. I have a contact form on my website. You can just submit it through there and it goes directly to me. And that way I can see exactly what you guys want to hear and what you guys want to see. So that way I can see exactly what you guys want to hear and what you guys want to see. So that would be really, really appreciated. The other thing that would

be very, very appreciated is that I didn't ask you guys for anything for Christmas this year, but I do want to ask you for something for new years. If you could, could you please take two minutes to leave me a review on whichever platform you listen? If you've been listening to my podcast religiously, you have certainly heard me ask you this before, but reviews are truly the most important thing for me. It helps get the word out. It helps people trust that they're about to listen to one of the best podcasts. With that said, I do maintain a five-star rating and I'm very proud of that. So let's keep that up. Now, what can you expect to hear in today's episode? The first story we're going to cover is the January 6th report and findings. We're going to go over that in as much

detail as possible without reviewing all 800 pages. I'm kind of going to recap the whole thing for you. It's going to take up a majority of the episode, I would say, but it's well worth the time in my eyes. The second story is the suspect that was arrested in the Idaho murders, which I'm pretty excited about because a lot of you guys miss my true crime episodes. So I found a way to kind of include the true crime in this episode while also discussing the legal analysis behind it. The third story is in regards to the recent Supreme Court decision to maintain the Title 42 policy and keep it in effect until another legal challenge is sorted out. And the final story is about the $1.7 trillion

spending bill that was passed just before Christmas. So without further ado, let's get into the last four stories of 2022. After about a year and a half of investigations, the House Select Committee has released the final January 6th report, and it is available to the public. I do have it linked on my website. However, I will warn you that it is 800 pages long. So it's only appropriate to cover this story almost exactly two years to the day that this event took place. And I'm kind of going to be covering what the report includes. I'm going to go over the chapters in the report. I'm going to go over what the report looks like as a whole, and then I'll go over the recommendations because honestly, the recommendations are only three pages long. Despite the entire report being 800 pages, the recommendations

themselves are only three pages, and it's really not that in-depth. And one thing I did appreciate about this report is that it almost reads like a story. So it's actually pretty interesting to read, and it's not like a Supreme Court opinion where's actually pretty interesting to read. And it's not like a Supreme Court opinion where there's so much jargon thrown into it that you don't really understand unless, you know, you have knowledge in the law or whatever it is. So it really is easy for anyone to kind of understand what's happening. And again, like I said, it reads like a story. So it kind of follows a timeline. Now, I did not read all 800 pages in detail. I mean, but in this episode alone, I have this 800 page report and then I have a 4,000 page

spending bill that I'm going to go over as well. So I'm only human. I only have so many hours in my day, but I did skim it and I did go over the chapters. So we will get into that. So here's how the report is broken down. So first you have the four words, which are written by the Speaker of the House, the Chairman, and the Vice Chair. Then you have the Executive Summary, which is basically a summary of the report. And then you have eight chapters. And we'll go over the title of these chapters as I break each chapter down, but just know that there are eight chapters, and each of these chapters is broken down into subsections.

So let's say, you know, you have Chapter 1, and then you have 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, so on and so forth. And then you have chapter two, 2.1, 2.2, et cetera, et cetera. And then you have the actual recommendations at the very end, which again, only spans about three pages. And then you have the appendix. So each of the chapters, as I've said a couple of times now, reads almost like a story. I'm going to give you a few examples. So as I go over these chapters, what I want to do is I want to read you the first two or three paragraphs, the introduction paragraphs, so to speak, just so you can get an idea of what each chapter is about and kind of see for yourself how this reads like a story. So chapter one is titled, quote, The Big Lie. And it starts like this. Late on election night 2020,

President Donald J. Trump addressed the nation from the East Room of the White House. When Trump spoke at 221 a.m. on November 4th, the president's reelection was very much in doubt. Fox News, a conservative media outlet, had correctly called Arizona for former Vice President Joseph R. Biden. Every Republican presidential candidate since 1996 had won Arizona. If the president lost the state, and in the days ahead, it became clear that he had, then his campaign was in trouble. But as votes continued to be counted, President Trump's apparent early lead in other key states, states that he needed to win, steadily shrank. Soon, he would not be in the lead at all. He'd be losing. So the president of the United States did something he had planned to do long before election day. He lied. End quote.

And that is how chapter one starts. That's when the report kind of gets into former President Trump's claims about election fraud. And again, very detailed with a lot of subsections. It includes, you know, a lot of testimony, a lot of internal communications, things like that. Chapter two is titled, I just want to find 11,780 votes. And that title of the chapter comes from a quote from President Trump in a phone call. So chapter two essentially goes into the details of President Trump's phone call to Georgia's secretary of state when, according to the report, President Trump insisted that the ballots were corrupt, that the ballots were being shredded. And on that phone call,

President Trump said, quote, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, end quote. The chapter then goes into former President Trump's plan from the beginning, referencing texts between Donald Trump Jr. and the White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, references testimony from Trump's campaign manager to the select committee, references internal texts and communications between White House officials, and much, much more. Chapter three is titled, quote, fake electors and the president of the Senate strategy. I'm going to read you the first two paragraphs of chapter three. And it reads on the morning of January 6, in his speech at the Ellipse, President Trump exhorted his thousands of assembled supporters to march the US Capitol explaining that, quote,

We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated. Lawfully slated. End quote. This was no off-the-cuff remark. It was the culmination of a carefully planned scheme many weeks in the making. This plea by the president turned the truth on its head. There was only one legitimate slate of electors from the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and Trump wanted them rejected. The scheme involved lawyers. It also was aided at key points by chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, members of Congress, and the Republican leaders across seven states, some of whom did not know exactly what they were being asked to do. President Trump oversaw it himself. President Trump and his allies prepared their own fake slates of Electoral College

electors in seven states that President Trump lost. Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And on December 14th, 2020, the date when true certified electors were meeting to cast their electoral votes for the candidate who had won the popular vote in each of those states, these fake electors also met, ostensibly casting electoral votes for President Trump, the candidate who had lost. So that is how chapter three starts. The chapter then goes into the laying of the groundwork for this fake elector plan, the adoption of the fake elector scheme, Rudy Giuliani's role, expression of concern from some of Trump's team, the meeting of the fake

electors and the fallout from the plan. I just want to be clear when I am reading things like this, because you guys know, obviously I'm an unbiased source of news. When I say things like the fake elector plan, I just want to make clear that is not me calling this a fake elector plan. This is using the verbiage in the report. Depending on where you stand on this issue, you could very well take my words to mean something that they don't mean. I'm very aware of that. So I just want to make it clear that these words that I'm using are direct quotes

and verbiage from this report. None of this comes from me. So just please remember that as I'm reading. Chapter four is called just call it corrupt and leave the rest to me. It starts like this. U.S. Attorney General William Barr knew there would be trouble before all votes had been counted. Quote, so right out of the box on election night, the president claimed that there was major fraud underway, Barr explained. I mean, this happened, as far as I could tell, before there was actually any potential of looking for evidence, end quote. President Trump was quick to claim there was major fraud, based solely on the phenomenon known as the Red Mirage. As explained elsewhere in this report,

Democrats were more inclined to vote via mail-in ballot during the 2020 presidential election than Republicans, who were more likely to vote in person on election day. This was widely known, and partly a result of President Trump's own public statements criticizing mail-in balloting. It also created a gap in the timing of how votes were tallied. The early vote tally favored Republicans on election night because the mail-in ballots, which skewed toward Democrats, were not yet fully counted. This occurred not just in 2020, but also in previous elections.

The president knew of this phenomenon, but exploited it on election night nonetheless, as he and his allies had planned to do. President Trump exploited this timing gap and used it as, quote, the basis for this broad claim that there was major fraud, Barr said. But the attorney general didn't think much of that. People had been talking for weeks, and everyone understood for weeks that was going to be what happened on election night, Barr explained. Cities with Democratic majorities in the battleground states wouldn't have their votes fully counted until the end of the cycle, with a lot of Democratic votes coming in at the end. So that chapter then goes into William Barr's challenges to the claims of election fraud, William Barr's eventual resignation,

and the various communications and meetings that took place after that resignation. So that is chapter four in a nutshell. Chapter five is called A Coop in Search of a Legal Theory. And again, I will read you the introductory paragraphs of that chapter as well. On the morning of January 6th, 2021, Vice President Michael R. Pence gathered his staff to pray. Vice President Pence and his close advisors knew the day ahead would be a challenging one. They asked God for guidance and wisdom in the hours to come. No Republican had been more loyal to President Donald J. Trump throughout his turbulent presidency than Vice President Pence. The Vice President rarely, if ever, criticized his boss. But as January 6th approached, President Trump turned on his own Vice President. President Trump was desperate. As described in the previous chapters, the

President was searching for a way to stay in power. He had lost the election to former Vice President Biden. He had run out of legal options to overturn the election weeks earlier when his lawyers lost nearly every court challenge they filed. Now, this chapter dives into the this. This is when Vice President Pence really gets involved in the story. And this chapter dives into the communications that took place, which led to Vice President Pence ultimately deciding not to violate the Electoral Count Act of 1887. And that's when the issues of President Trump and Vice President Pence really picked up steam. So I'm going to read you a snippet of this chapter. It's at the beginning of the chapter, and it kind of lays out where the relationship between the two of them kind of fell apart.

So it says, on January 4th, 2021, President Trump summoned Vice President Pence to a meeting in the Oval Office with John Eastman, a law professor representing President Trump in litigation challenging the election result. Eastman argued on President Trump's behalf that the vice president could take matters into his own hands during the joint session on January 6th. Eastman offered Vice President Pence two options. First, the vice president could unilaterally reject the certified electors from several states won by former President Biden, thereby handing the presidency to President Trump. Or, according to Eastman, Vice President Pence could delay the joint session to give state

legislatures the opportunity to certify new electors loyal to the president. Eastman admitted in front of the president that both options violated the Electoral Count Act of 1887, the statute that sets forth the process for counting and disputing electoral votes during the joint session. Eastman admitted as much in a subsequent conversation with the vice president's staff as well. Therefore, President Trump knew or should have known that this scheme was illegal. In fact, it violated the Electoral Count Act and the U.S. Constitution. President Trump repeatedly demanded that Vice President Pence go through with it anyway. And thereafter is when Vice President Pence ultimately decided not to go through with either of these options.

So that is Chapter 5, and we'll talk a little bit more about the repercussions of violating the Electoral Count Act of 1887 as the Senate, as the House Select Committee found he did. That's actually the basis for why they're arguing he should not be able to hold office again, but we'll get into that later on when we go over the recommendations. So chapter six is titled, quote, be there will be wild, end quote. And this quote references President Trump's tweet on December 19th at 1.42 a.m. regarding the protest at the Capitol. And again, I will read you the first two short paragraphs. On December 14th, 2020, electors around the country met to cast their electoral college votes. Their votes ensured former President Joe Biden's victory and cemented President Donald J. Trump's defeat.

The people and the states had spoken. Members of President Trump's own cabinet knew the election was over. Attorney General William Barr viewed it as, quote, the end of the matter, end quote. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia concurred. That same day, Scalia told President Trump directly that he should concede defeat. President Trump had no intention of conceding. As he plotted ways to stay in power, the president summoned a mob for help. At 1 42 AM on December 19th, president Trump tweeted, quote, big protest in DC on January 6th, be there, we'll be wild exclamation point.

And quote, this chapter really dives into the plan behind the Capitol attack from the quote, far right extremists and conspiracy theorists, the Proud Boys, the Proud Boys' history and their role in January 6th, the Oath Keepers, which are another group of people, and other various groups that either participated in the attack or had something to say about it. And now we get into chapter seven, which is titled 187 Minutes of Dereliction. And it starts like this. At 1.10 p.m. on January 6th, President Trump concluded his speech at the Ellipse. By that time, the attack on the U.S. Capitol had already begun, but it was about to get much worse. The president told thousands of people in attendance to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol. He told them to, quote, fight like hell, because if they

didn't, they were not going to have a country anymore. Not everyone who left the Ellipse did as the commander-in-chief ordered, but many of them did. The fighting intensified during the hours that followed. By 1.21 p.m., President Trump was informed that the Capitol was under attack. He could have interceded immediately, but the president chose not to do so. It was not until 4.17 p.m. that President Trump finally tweeted a video in which he told the rioters to go home. So that is the start of chapter seven, and chapter seven basically summarizes the events that took place on January 6th and President Trump's tweets throughout the day and different actions that he took and or didn't take. So as you can see, these chapters really follow a timeline, right? So

it starts with, you know, pre-election night and election night, and then it goes all the way through to January 6th in order of events that took place throughout those, whatever it was, four weeks or whatever it was. So then you have your last chapter, which is basically just an analysis of the attack. That's what the chapter is called, analysis of the attack. And that is basically what the chapter is. So it's broken down into subsections that include, quote, the mob's assembly in Washington, end quote, the march of the Proud Boys, the initial attack, President Trump's mob descending on the Capitol, the mob's surge, the breach of the Capitol, President Trump's pouring

of fuel on the fire, the evacuation from the Capitol, and the clearing of the grounds of the Capitol. And again, that is the report's language, not mine. So those are the eight chapters in a nutshell, right? And those chapters span hundreds and hundreds of pages. So if you're interested, like I said, I do have it linked on my website, but I do want to get into the actual recommendations, which start on page 689 of the report. And the recommendations are fairly short. There are 11 total recommendations, but we are going to kind of break them down and make them as simple as possible. The first recommendation asks that the Senate pass the Presidential Election Reform Act.

It was already passed by the House, so now they're just asking that the Senate pass it and send it to the president for signature. The Presidential Reform Act, aka H.R. 8873, basically reaffirms that a vice president has no authority or discretion to reject an official electoral slate submitted by the governor of the state. And the reason that it reaffirms this is because, as you heard me mention in one of the chapters, one of the things that they found that former President Trump did was try to create his own slate of electors. So basically, this Presidential Election Reform Act is saying, listen, the vice president has no authority to reject this electoral slate that's submitted by the governor of the state. The governor of the state is the official word and sets in stone who the official electoral slate is in that state. So then another thing that the Presidential Election Reform Act does is it reforms Congress's

counting rules to ensure that objections in the joint session conform to Congress's narrow rule under Article II and the 12th Amendment. It provides that the presidential candidates can sue in federal court to ensure that Congress receives the state's lawful certification. This way, there is no doubt that the manner for selecting presidential electors cannot be changed retroactively after the election is over. The second recommendation is the criminal referrals to the DOJ. And basically the select committee is asking the DOJ to make their determination as to whether to prosecute the people involved in January 6th. So what the select committee did is recommend that there be criminal charges. And now it's up to the DOJ who

actually brings the charges to make their determination as to whether charges will be brought. The third recommendation is violent extremism. It basically asks federal agencies with intelligence and security missions, like the Secret Service as an example, to move forward with strategies to combat threats of violence posed by extremist groups, and also calls for these agencies to review their current protocols to ensure threat intelligence is properly prioritized. The fourth recommendation is the attempt to prohibit President Trump from ever holding federal office again, so I briefly mentioned this before, but basically this recommendation cites to section 3 of the 14th amendment, which says that an

individual who takes an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and then later engages in insurrection against the same or gives aid or comfort to enemies of the Constitution can be disqualified from holding future federal or state office. So in accordance with that section of the Constitution, the Select Committee is essentially saying or referring President Trump and others for possible prosecution. The fifth recommendation was that Congress and the executive branch designate the joint session of Congress for counting electoral votes as a national special security event. These are things like the State of the Union, the inauguration of the president, these big events that have a lot of preparation, a lot of security, very, very high security. So what the Select Committee is saying is that they think that this electoral or this joint session of Congress where the electoral votes are counted needs to be designated as a national special security event so that there can be increased security measures, significant planning and preparation, etc, etc. The sixth recommendation is that courts and prosecutorial authorities consider reforming

certain criminal statutes and adding more severe penalties the seventh recommendation is that congressional committees develop legislation to create a cause of action for the house of representatives to enforce its subpoenas under federal court because as of now the current authority of the house of representatives to enforce its subpoenas through civil litigation is unclear. So basically, they're saying, hey, Congress, let's come together and create a cause of action so that the House of Representatives can lawfully enforce these subpoenas in federal court. Now, recommendations eight through 11, I'm just going to read you from the report because they're fairly short. And number 8 is threats to election workers. So it says congressional committees of jurisdiction should consider enhancing federal penalties for certain types of threats against persons involved in the election process and expanding protections for personally identifiable information of election workers.

So protecting election workers. Recommendation number nine is Capitol Police oversight. So congressional committees of jurisdiction should continue regular and rigorous oversight of the United States Capitol Police as it improves its planning, training, equipping, and intelligence processes and practices its critical incident response protocols. Recommendation number 10 is the role of the media. So it says the committee's investigation has identified many individuals involved in January 6th who were provoked to act by false information about the 2020 election, repeatedly reinforced by legacy

and social media. The committee agrees that individuals remain responsible for their own actions, but congressional committees of jurisdiction should continue to evaluate policies of media companies that have had the effect of radicalizing their consumers, including by provoking people to attack their own country. Let's be real. This is geared towards the right wing media. Now the last recommendation, recommendation number 11 is a discussion of the insurrection act. So it says the committee has been troubled by evidence that president Trump's possible use of the Insurrection Act. So it says the committee has been troubled by evidence that President Trump's possible use of the Insurrection Act was discussed by individuals identified in this report. Congressional committees of jurisdiction should further

evaluate all such evidence and consider risk posed for future elections. So those are the 11 recommendations by the select committee. Following a year and a half of investigations, it is now over. And I have a couple of questions for you. I want to know, did any of this surprise you? Did anything that you heard me talk about surprise you? Did you kind of expect all of this to unfold the way that it has? Did you expect criminal charges be recommended? Are you surprised? I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that. Number two, do you think that President Trump will face criminal charges? Do you think, I mean, obviously the select committee recommended

criminal charges, but do you think the DOJ will bring criminal charges? And the last question I have for you is, for those of you that voted for President Trump or support President Trump, how does this change your view of President Trump, if at all. And again, I just want to reinforce, I never judge anyone for their political views. I never judge you for how you vote. I don't care. I don't share my own personal views, but I just like to make it clear to my listeners that I don't care how you vote. It doesn't matter to me as long as you vote with an open mind and you vote, um, you know, knowing what you're voting for. So again, for those of you that did vote for president Trump or support president Trump, did this change your view at all? Now, the last note that I want to

make is that I'm aware that President Trump's tax returns were released on Friday. I'm going to wait to cover that until the next episode once more is developed. I may not even cover it. It really just depends what comes to light because as of Friday, it didn't look like there was too much to talk about, but that could change. So with that, let's get into the last three stories. The murders known as the Idaho murders took this country by storm. Four college students were stabbed in their college home in Moscow, Idaho. Two surviving roommates actually slept through the attacks. And finally, six weeks later, there's been an arrest.

Brian Koberger was arrested on Friday morning in Pennsylvania. He is a 28-year-old man who was a PhD student at Washington State University. He was actually pursuing his graduate degree in criminal justice and criminology, which is eerily just eerie. I don't even know how else to put that. He was only in his first semester, so he finished up his first semester earlier in early December. I was going to say earlier this month, but you guys won't hear this until the new year. Washington State University is located in Pullman, Washington, and where Brian lived in Pullman is a 21-minute drive from the residence where

the college students were killed. The Moscow Police Department held a press conference. It took place on Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, 1 p.m. local time. And the police said that they had received over 19,000 tips through more than 9,000 emails, 4,500 phone calls, and 6,000 digital media submissions. They had conducted over 300 interviews in connection with these murders. And they really were just expressing how thankful they were for everyone who involved themselves in this investigation because it really helped lead them to the suspect. They didn't really give details how, but they were very thankful for everyone's tips and leads and all of that stuff. So let's get into what was said during the press conference by the Moscow Police Department. First, they kind of recapped what happened. So they said on November 12th, Kaylee and Madison,

who were two of the roommates, got home at 1.56 a.m. after going to a local bar and street food vendor. There was another roommate who had a boyfriend, and the two of them were also killed. They were at the Sigma Chi house. They got home around 1.45 a.m., so about nine minutes earlier than Kaylee and Madison. The two surviving roommates were also out and about that night, but got home around 1.45 a.m., so about nine minutes earlier than Kaylee and Madison. The two surviving roommates were also out and about that night, but got home at 1 a.m.

And on the morning of November 13th, a 911 call was made at 11.58 a.m. reporting an unconscious person at the residence. Moscow police responded and found two victims on the second floor and two victims on the third floor. The criminal complaint filed against Brian Koberger was filed on Friday and it charged him with four counts of first degree murder and felony burglary. Now here's the thing. The prosecutor explained that because there's a pending case against Brian, the prosecutor has to abide by the rules of pretrial publicity. Basically, that's the things he can't say about the suspect and about the case. There's just certain things you can't talk about. And because there's a pending investigation, you just really can't talk about anything

related to the investigation. So he was very limited in what he could say. He did say that the factual basis for the charges are summarized in that probable cause affidavit, which per Idaho law is sealed until Koberger is back in Latah County and has been served with the Idaho arrest warrant. So basically what happened is he was arrested in Pennsylvania and because he was arrested in Pennsylvania, he has to be extradited to Idaho. But there is a whole process that has to take place before he's extradited.

And then once he's extradited, he has to be served with the Idaho arrest warrant. And at that time, then the probable cause affidavit can be released to the public and the facts will be available. So he's currently being held without bond in Pennsylvania. He already had his initial appearance. He's scheduled to be back in court in Pennsylvania on Tuesday afternoon, which is when the extradition hearing will take place.

And at that point, basically, he can either waive extradition and return to Idaho voluntarily, or the Idaho governor's office will have to start the proceedings for the extradition if he doesn't waive it. And if they do that, it can take a little bit for Brian to get back to Idaho, which will obviously put a delay in the length of time until the probable cause affidavit is available. Now, once Brian is in Idaho, he will have an initial appearance in Idaho, and then the future proceedings will be scheduled from there. When it came time to answer questions from the public, most of the questions were not answered. Again, like I said, they have certain rules they have to abide by. They can't talk about the investigation. So a lot of these questions, you know, things like what tip led you to Brian Kober? They can't answer that.

They can't talk about that publicly. They have a case. They can't jeopardize them, youize them releasing these facts to the public and their case being jeopardized. So they really have to be careful about what they say. There's only a few questions answered. And what we learned from those answers is this. So there was a house cleanup that was scheduled. So the house where the murders took place was scheduled to be cleaned up, professionally cleaned up. That house cleanup has been halted. And the reason that it was halted was because of a court order. Now, following this press conference, there was an

interview with an FBI agent. I believe she was a former FBI agent, but she said that she found that to be really interesting that the court ordered the house cleanup be halted temporarily because she could only assume that what that meant is that now there's a suspect in custody. The court will sometimes allow jurors to go back to the crime scene and look at it, you know, once the trial actually starts. So she thinks that the reason the house cleanup was halted is because they're going to eventually possibly allow the jurors go back to the crime scene once this trial is in play and look at the crime scene as it stands. So she thinks that they're trying to preserve the crime scene.

Another thing we learned from the questions being answered is that they are still looking for the weapon. They have not found the knife that was used to stab the victims. They did find the Hyundai Elantra that they were looking for. So there was a Hyundai Elantra in question that was near the house at the time that the murders took place, and they were asking the public for tips on that. They did find the Hyundai Elantra. We also learned that there will be increased police presence continuing within the county of Latah and also on campus. And the last thing we learned is basically that the police

chief said, you know, he believes that the community is safe now, aka he believes that Brian is the killer. But of course, he said as well that, you know, the county and the area has to remain vigilant. You really just never know. So just still be cautious. But he believes that the community is now safe. So obviously a really, really, really sad story, but I think there's a lot of people that feel a lot of relief now that there has been an arrest in the case. And that takes us to our third story. We're going to keep this one short and sweet, and that is that the Supreme Court allows border restrictions to continue for now. So on Tuesday, the Supreme Court granted a request to prevent the winding down of Title 42.

This was a 5-4 decision, and the court also agreed to decide in its February session whether the states opposing the policy should be allowed to intervene. And look, there's headlines on this. Not much has changed. So I'm going to talk about what this means, what's going on. But basically what you need to know is all the Supreme Court did is say that this border policy is going to remain in effect until they decide whether or not states can intervene in the case, whether or not states have the requisite standing to intervene in the case. So Title 42 refers to a section of the U.S. Code that dates back to 1944. And what this law allows is the federal health authorities to prohibit migrants from entering the country if it's determined that prohibiting the immigration could prevent the spread of contagious diseases.

So again, this dates back to 1944. Title 42 was not implemented because of COVID. However, at the start of the COVID pandemic, President Trump's administration invoked Title 42, which basically allowed Border Patrol agents to turn away migrants at the border on the grounds that they spread of COVID through immigration detention facilities, where under normal circumstances, all migrants are at least briefly held before either being released or deported. But in this case, even when a migrant asked for asylum, when they made an asylum claim, they could be turned away right away. And that wasn't previously the case. So why is Title 42 controversial? In a nutshell, some people think Title 42 is being used as an immigration management tool rather than this like public health tool, right? So public health experts that oppose Title 42 argue that the Trump administration turned away almost all migrants at the border yet allowed Americans and foreigners to fly into the U.S. without a COVID test. So they're saying, like, you know, why are you, you say you're so concerned about COVID, but yet you're allowing people to fly into the country without getting tested who may have it and may spread it, but yet you're turning away migrants just because they might

have it. So after two years of Biden being in office, so he kept it in place for two years, he, his administration, I should say, wants to end it because they say the current public health conditions and the increased availability of tools to fight COVID-19 kind of makes this a non-issue at this point. Now, it's worth noting that the CDC did end the use of Title 42 for unaccompanied minors back in March, but now it's seeking to end the policy for single adults and people traveling in families. Why do some people want to put an end to Title 42?

Put simply, it's because some people, including the Biden administration, say that ending the policy is really the only way to ultimately address these high border crossings. And this argument really stems from the fact that a formal deportation does more to deter someone from crossing the border rather than simply turning them around to Mexico because they're more likely to come right back. The Biden administration also says that they would like to increase prosecutions of illegal border crossings, but they can't do that unless those people commit an immigration violation rather than a public health violation, which is what it would be currently under this border policy. So what happens if Title 42 ends? As with anything,

we can't really predict the future, right? But some border experts think that ending this policy would provide migrants seeking asylum more certainty that they'll be allowed to stay in the country if they cross the border, which likely means that many of the migrants who were stranded in Mexico because of this border policy, this Title 42 policy, will make another attempt to reach the United States once this policy is lifted. Now, border cities can also expect to be negatively impacted because too many people enter the city at once. So as an example, El Paso, Texas just saw this last week. An average of 2,500 migrants crossed the border daily last week. And what happened was plane and bus tickets out of El Paso sold out, and some migrants were forced to sleep on the streets

in the freezing cold temperatures because they had nowhere to go. The shelters are at capacity. The city is actually currently working to transform the convention center and two vacant schools into temporary shelters. They're trying to provide 10,000 beds to migrants, but there's just so many migrants that they don't have a place for them. Now, the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott,

actually just bussed several of migrants to Vice President Harris's home, which sits on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory in D.C. This was done on Christmas Eve. The buses were allegedly supposed to go to New York, but they were diatory in D.C. This was done on Christmas Eve. The buses were allegedly supposed to go to New York, but they were diverted to D.C. due to weather. And, you know, this made headlines, but and like this made headlines because they're not usually dropped at

a vice president's doorstep. But the busing of these migrants actually isn't really anything new because buses of migrants have been arriving to DC weekly on a weekly basis since April. So that's really nothing new. Bringing them to Kamala Harris's home on Christmas Eve. Yes, that is a new move, but these migrants are continually being bused because Texas just doesn't have the space. Now, another thing that could happen if this policy is lifted is just complete overcrowding in border patrol stations because the expected volume of migrants is so high that it could result in overcrowding. So the Biden administration initially planned on ending the Title 42 policy this past May, but what happened is a federal judge in Louisiana blocked the administration from ending the policy

on the grounds that the administration didn't follow the correct administrative procedure to do so. After that, a separate lawsuit came in November, and a federal judge in Washington ruled that the policy was actually unlawful from the start, and that ruling cleared the way for the policy's expiration on December 21st. But the Supreme Court intervened on December 19th, just a few days before it was set to expire. So on December 19th, the Supreme Court ruled that the policy will remain in place until the legal challenges play out regarding whether or not states can intervene. So it's nothing of, you know, real, it's like not a monumental decision right now. I mean, maybe once the

policy is lifted, then there will obviously be a lot more to talk about. But as far as the justices who, who voted where justice Thomas, justice Kavanaugh, justice Barrett and chief justice Roberts and justice Alito voted in favor of staying the policy for the time being justice Sotomayor, justice Kagan, Justice Jackson, and Justice Gorsuch voted to deny the stay, meaning they dissented from the majority opinion and they said, look, this policy can expire. Not a big deal. Now, to briefly touch on Justice Gorsuch's dissent, he said basically that the emergency that the policy was premised on is over, right? COVID is no longer a national emergency. So it doesn't really matter

whether the states are allowed to intervene or not. That's irrelevant at this point. And what the states are arguing is that they need to intervene in this case because policymakers haven't addressed the border crisis and they need to have a say. And Justice Gorsuch acknowledges that argument. But what he says is, quote, the border crisis is not a COVID crisis and courts should not be in the business

of perpetrating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because officials have failed to address a different emergency. We are a court of law, not policymakers of last resort, end quote. So that's where this case currently stands. Now, I have some questions for you. Knowing what you know, after what I just told you, you know, that this policy was adopted as a public health emergency response measure, do you agree with the court's ruling that we first need to determine whether the states have a right to intervene? Or do you think Gorsuch is right in his dissent? In other words, that the emergency for which this policy was enacted is over, it's

done. So naturally, the policy should expire. And it's not, you know, like whether or not the states can intervene isn't really a pressing issue. If you're interested in reading about the effects of Title 42, as far as numbers go, I included a link on my website to a Pew Research article that talks through several facts and statistics. And it kind of talks about how immigration has been affected from this Title 42 border policy. So it's pretty interesting. That is on my website as well. And if you guys don't know this already, all of these sources can be found on the episode description webpage for this episode. If you scroll all the way to the bottom, you will see all of the sources linked. Now that takes us to our fourth and final story, which is that Congress

passed a major spending bill last week. So just before Christmas, Congress passed a $1.7 trillion government funding bill. In a 225 to 201 vote in the House and 68 to 29 vote in the Senate, Congress avoided a midnight deadline to keep the government funded. This past Thursday, the bill was signed into law by the president. The bill was actually flown to President Biden in the U.S. Virgin Islands, supposedly on a quote, regularly scheduled commercial flight. I don't know why I found that to be so interesting, but this is at least the second time this year that a bill was signed overseas and was flown to him. The first time was when President Biden, this is just kind of like a fun fact. The first time was when President Biden was on a trip to Asia in May and he needed to sign

a bill authorizing aid to Ukraine. And that bill was carried by a White House staffer who was, I guess, already scheduled to travel to Asia and just took it on the flight with him or her. So yeah, I just found that to be interesting. Nine House Republicans voted with all Democratic representatives to get the bill passed. The bill is more than 4,000 pages long. So no, I did not read the whole thing, but I did read many, many articles as well as the official summary sheet, which, yes, is linked on my website. You can read it for yourself. But let's talk briefly about what the bill included, and then I'll talk a little bit about the measures that were left out, and that'll be it. So this story will be a short one. What does the bill include?

Just under $45 billion in aid for Ukraine and our NATO allies, roughly $40 billion in disaster relief for things like Hurricane Ian, Hurricane Fiona, wildfire, flood, drought, etc. Included in that $40 billion is $1 billion to improve Puerto Rico's electric grid and $600 million to respond to the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi. Also included in the bill is reforms to the Electoral Count Act, which was a response to January 6th. We talked about it earlier in the episode. Another thing included was a ban on TikTok on executive branch agency phones. So I have addressed this issue in the, in, um, past episodes, but officially signed into law,

no TikTok is allowed on government devices. It's called the no TikTok on government devices act. And it basically requires TikTok to be removed from devices used by federal agencies and military branches. It also bans any app made by ByteDance, which is TikTok's Chinese-owned parent company. The law also increased security for members of Congress and Capitol grounds, which we also briefly discussed earlier. So specifically, there is $9.5 million to enhance the Capitol Police Department's investigative and protective ability and $734 million for the department. $2.5 million for a residential security system program to be developed by the Senate Sergeant at Arms that will help mitigate risks to the security of senators' homes, which I've always found interesting how little security these politicians have because they are, I mean, no matter where you stand, you got threats coming at you at all angles. So I've always thought that was interesting. So that's kind of cool.

The Pell Grant, which you've heard me discuss before in regards to the student debt relief, has had its maximum award increased by $500 for the 2023-2024 school year. So that maximum award is now $7,395. There was $47.5 billion allocated to the National Institutes of Health and $9.2 billion allocated to the CDC. There was also funding for mental health, funding for child care, funding to continue the fight against the opioid epidemic, funding for food insecurity, for the environment, for veterans, our troops. Specifically, it included fully funding a 4.6% pay raise for our troops and $5 billion for the cost of war toxic exposures fund and $118 billion for VA medical care. It also included preventing homelessness for vulnerable households, support for tribal programs, funding for science, and it even included the first overhaul of how cosmetics

will be regulated in the U.S. since the 1930s. Now, obviously, there is a ton more. Like I said, this is 4,000 pages. I can't possibly cover everything. Literally, the bill covers everything from the lobster industry to the makeup industry to professional sports. There is so much in there, but I have linked resources for you on my website so you can get a general gist. Some of the measures that were left out of the bill, the expansion of the child tax credit and a provision that would allow businesses to immediately write off research expenses rather than over a period of five years was left out. The Safe Banking Act was left out, which would give the cannabis industry increased access to financial services and allow them to

bank their cash. A bill to help Afghan evacuees in the U.S. gain lawful permanent residency was left out. A White House request for about $10 billion in additional funding for COVID-19 response was left out. And an act called the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which would have expanded protections for pregnant workers. So those are some of the measures that were left out of the bill. And that is the spending bill in a nutshell. So with that, that concludes this episode. I hope you guys really enjoyed it. Please don't forget to leave me a review on whichever platform you listen. I really, really, really appreciate it. Happy new year. I hope 2023 brings you amazing things, a lot of love, a lot of success, a lot of memories, a lot of experiences. I just hope that

it brings you everything that you hope for yourself. I will talk to you on Monday.