Morning Wire XX
[0] Fallout continued throughout the weekend after the indictment against former President Donald Trump was unsealed, revealing several dozen criminal charges.
[1] This vicious persecution is a travesty of justice.
[2] How has Trump responded?
[3] And how of the charges already impacted the 2024 race for president?
[4] I'm Daily Wire, editor -in -chief John Bickley with Georgia Howell.
[5] It's Monday, June 12th, and this is Morningwire.
[6] Members of Congress have now been given access to an FBI document detailing an alleged bribery scheme involving President Biden, prompting accusations of rampant political bias and corruption.
[7] The FBI clearly has treated Joe Biden very differently than they're treating Donald Trump.
[8] What details have emerged about the source of the claims and what comes next?
[9] And a bill in California would define a parent failing to affirm their child's gender identity as child abuse.
[10] Now the entire definition in the family code has been rewritten, so this is equally as important as whether a child has food.
[11] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[12] Stay tuned.
[13] We have the news you need to know.
[14] New details have emerged on the criminal charges against former President Donald Trump related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
[15] Here with more on what we've learned from the federal indictment, the legal questions surrounding it, and how it's already impacting the 2024 race for the White House says Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips.
[16] Cabot, a politically packed weekend.
[17] What did we find out over the last few days?
[18] Well, as we reported, we got our first look at the official indictment against Trump on Friday, and political and legal analysts have been combing through it ever since.
[19] The document includes 37 criminal counts against the former president, 31 of which relate to the illegal withholding and classified documents, five relate to obstruction of justice, and two relate to alleged false statements made to the FBI.
[20] If convicted on all counts, Trump faces hundreds of years of prison time, though ultimately a judge would have to just, determine the final sentence.
[21] The DOJ says Trump illegally stored boxes of classified documents throughout his private properties, including in a bathroom and on the stage of a ballroom.
[22] That picture of the bathroom storage situation has gone viral online.
[23] According to the indictment, a number of those documents relate to, quote, defense and weapons capabilities of both U .S. and foreign countries, U .S. nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the U .S. and its allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.
[24] And importantly, the DOJ alleges that Trump and instructed his aides to move the boxes to hide them from investigators, and at another point, allegedly urged them to lie to the FBI, saying, quote, wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here?
[25] Lots of pretty head -turning claims here.
[26] How have Trump's lawyers responded so far?
[27] So they maintain that the charges are an example of selective prosecuting.
[28] They've routinely pointed to examples of President Biden in properly storing a number of documents that his private residence and office as proof that the DOJ is trying to keep Trump out of the race.
[29] They also point to Hillary Clinton's own egregious mish handling classified documents and emails from her time as Secretary of State.
[30] And there's certainly a selective prosecution case to be made on that front.
[31] The problem is if they argue that Biden or Clinton deserve to be convicted for their actions, they're essentially saying that Trump should be convicted too.
[32] It's a really precarious balancing act.
[33] And look, the reality is just legally speaking, they've got their hands full.
[34] Politics aside, this indictment does include a number of problematic transcripts and recordings for Trump.
[35] What evidence have they presented so far?
[36] Well, for example, in one audio recording from 2021, Trump has allegedly heard showing visitors at his New Jersey Golf Club a classified Pentagon document related to a potential attack on Iran.
[37] Quote, this is secret information, he says.
[38] This was done by the military and given to me. He later refers to the documents saying, quote, as president, I could have declassified, but now I can't.
[39] Remember, a sitting president can declassify any information it will, but the DOJ says these comments are proof that he did not declassify these documents before leaving office.
[40] The indictment also alleges that Trump shared similar classified documents with the number of other visitors throughout the last two years, and at one point instructed one of his attorneys to put all the documents marked classified in a folder and, quote, pluck out anything really bad after the FBI had begun investigating.
[41] How has Trump himself responded since the unsealing of the indictment?
[42] On Saturday, he spoke publicly for the first time since the indictment came down.
[43] He told supporters at a speech in Georgia that, quote, this is the final battle against the corrupt forces of Washington trying to destroy the country.
[44] Here he is later that evening from another event at North Carolina.
[45] The baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration's weaponized Department of Injustice will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country.
[46] I think it already is.
[47] Now, the political situation, the 2024 election, hangs over all of this, obviously.
[48] Are these charges impacting the race so far?
[49] Well, to this point, most GOP candidates have come out in.
[50] opposition to the charges.
[51] Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for example, called them, quote, the weaponization of federal law enforcement, while South Carolina Senator Tim Scott said it's an example of, quote, a justice system where the scales are weighted.
[52] Nicky Haley similarly called it, quote, prosecutorial overreach and then debt of politics.
[53] Now, while Trump's primary opponents would likely prefer to use the charges against him, the reality is that they risk turning off the GOP base, which appears outraged by the case.
[54] According to a new CBS poll conducted after the indictment, 76 % of likely GOP primary voters say the charges are politically motivated, while 61 % say they won't change their view of Trump.
[55] Just 7 % in that poll say the charges make them view Trump in a worse light.
[56] But it is worth noting the general public seems to view the case differently.
[57] 61 % of voters in that same poll overall say the charges are serious, while 48 % say he should be charged, compared to 35 % overall who say he should not be charged.
[58] Well, once again, uncharted legal territory with Trump and the president.
[59] potentially on the line here.
[60] Kevin, thanks for reporting.
[61] Anytime.
[62] Coming up, more revelations from the FBI document laying out a bribery scheme involving the president.
[63] House Republicans have now dropped their threat to hold FBI director Christopher Ray in contempt.
[64] They made the move after the head of the FBI agreed to make a document detailing a bribery scheme involving President Biden available to the House Oversight Committee.
[65] Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to update us on what it's revealed and the fallout.
[66] Hi, Tim.
[67] So first, what have we learned?
[68] about this form?
[69] Well, first that it comes from a credible source.
[70] According to oversight Chairman James Comer, the form is based on claims by a highly credible source who has been paid six figures for his work as a confidential human source for the FBI.
[71] Fox News says he was paid as much as $200 ,000.
[72] As to the allegations themselves, the alleged scheme involves the president, his son Hunter, and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
[73] The FBI source says that a Burisma executive admitted to paying the Biden's $5 million each to grease the company's way into the U .S. oil market.
[74] The executive allegedly made the payments through, quote, so many different bank accounts that investigators would need at least 10 years to track it all down.
[75] The executive also said, he, quote, didn't pay the big guy directly, the big guy being a reference allegedly to Joe Biden from a proposed revenue sharing agreement found on Hunter's laptop.
[76] So very explosive claims here.
[77] What's the reaction been on Capitol Hill?
[78] Yeah, so this testimony has apparently been with the FBI since 2020, but as far as we know, no action has been taken to investigate.
[79] Comer says whether the 1023's allegations are true or not, this is a stark example of the double standard at the FBI and Justice Department to investigate Republicans and ignore Democrats.
[80] What we've learned about this form, 1023, again, the FBI never investigated it, but this is a pattern of the FBI not investigating anything with respect to Biden.
[81] Look at what they had with the Steele dossier, which was no credible source compared to what they have with this 1023 on Joe Biden from their most trusted credible source.
[82] Democrats are trying to downplay this as much as possible.
[83] Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, says that the allegations made in the 1023 are restatements of old and debunk conspiracies spread by Rudy Giuliani.
[84] Here's Raskin on Friday.
[85] I think that what's been taking place over the last week or two is an attempt to destroy from President Trump's legal troubles, but they've gone back to a little tidbit that was checked out by the U .S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Scott Brady, who was appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump's Attorney General William Bard to head up a task force of lawyers and investigators to check out this tip.
[86] And Rudy Giuliani's allegations that Joe Biden had been involved in corruption in Ukraine.
[87] And that assessment of this tip came back empty -handed.
[88] So Raskin is claiming that former Attorney General Bill Barr, check this out and cleared it.
[89] Yep.
[90] But according to Barr, that's just not true.
[91] Here he has on Sunday responding to Raskin.
[92] So the Pittsburgh office vetted it.
[93] They did some great work.
[94] They actually went back and developed more information that apparently had been overlooked by the FBI.
[95] and they developed this 1023 that has a lot of detail.
[96] And then they took it to the Delaware and to other offices and briefed them on it for their use and for follow -up.
[97] The reason the Pittsburgh people didn't escalate it is because they weren't authorized to start a new investigation.
[98] They were simply performing a unique and limited task of vetting information that would then go to pending, already open investigations.
[99] Now, we did have a response from President Biden, at least a brief one.
[100] Tell us about that.
[101] Right.
[102] He was asked about it by a reporter late last week.
[103] Here's how he responded.
[104] Where's the money?
[105] I'm joking.
[106] Mr. President, yeah, it's a bunch of malarkey.
[107] All right, so laughing it off there, but of course, it's a very serious allegation.
[108] We'll see what else Comer can uncover.
[109] Tim, thanks for joining us.
[110] Thanks for having me. A new California bill would categorize failing to, quote, affirm your child's gender, as child abuse under state law.
[111] It's already passed the House and now moves to the Democrat -controlled Senate.
[112] Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Alorty is here with the details for us.
[113] So Marade, tell us a little bit about this bill.
[114] Hi, Georgia.
[115] Yes, so this is another dramatic move by California in the direction of gender ideology.
[116] The bill, Assembly Bill 957, technically pertains to custody battles, but language added about gender identity will have sweeping implications for the definition of child abuse statewide, which of course will impact a variety of settings and contexts.
[117] Here's Tony Kinnet, an investigative columnist at The Daily Signal, who wrote about this bill.
[118] So AB 950 said that originally was just going to ensure that the courts had to consider whenever a child had some gender identity changes.
[119] However, the bill was recently amended by state Senator Scott Wiener to make this gender identity affirmation by a child's home or really any local business the child was interacting with as a standard of their health, safety, and welfare, meaning that if you don't participate in this, you are guilty of child abuse.
[120] This completely changes California's family code or the state's standard of what constitutes parental responsibility for child welfare.
[121] It essentially makes it mandatory for parents who are involved in a custody battle to accept gender ideology and affirm their child's new gender identity, be it transgender, non -binary, or something else.
[122] If they don't, parents would be deemed guilty of child abuse.
[123] As a result, under this bill, California courts would be able to remove children from their parents' homes if the parents are perceived as not being affirming of the child's gender identity.
[124] An important detail here is that the bill does not define what non -affirming behavior from a parent would look like.
[125] This leaves it up to a judge to make the call about whether a particular parent is affirming enough of their child's gender identity.
[126] The bill doesn't specify anything about the age of the trans -identifying child, how long the child has identified as transgender, or social transition versus medical gender treatments like puberty blockers, cross -sex hormones, or breast and genital surgery.
[127] Now, how close is this bill to actually passing?
[128] It will very likely pass.
[129] The bill already passed California's State Assembly on May 3rd, at which point it was amended.
[130] It now needs to go back to the Senate, but with a Democratic supermajority, it's very likely to pass easily.
[131] Now, I'm reminded of a Canadian law that resulted in some parents being jailed.
[132] How much overlap is there between this law and what we're seeing in Canada?
[133] There's nothing in this bill that would charge parents with a crime, so that's a major difference.
[134] But designating parents as abusive is a significant step.
[135] Here's Tony Kennett on that.
[136] I think that culturally there's a significant amount of overlap because once you can classify something is a basic human right to withhold that right from someone is a felony or at least a very high -level misdemeanor in the California court system.
[137] All right.
[138] Well, we're going to be watching this bill very closely.
[139] Marade, thanks for reporting.
[140] Thanks, Georgia.
[141] That's all the time we've got this morning.
[142] Thanks for waking up with us.
[143] We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.