Morning Wire XX
[0] A major American bank has been ordered to pay customers a record $4 billion in damages after a court found evidence of a legal activity.
[1] What is the bank accused of?
[2] And why are critics saying the penalty won't stop it from happening again?
[3] I'm Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
[4] It's Wednesday, December 21st, and this is Morning Wire.
[5] They have demonstrated that empowered and courageous women are able to make powerful men accountable.
[6] for the injustices that they have inflicted on women.
[7] A second case against Harvey Weinstein has concluded in Los Angeles.
[8] We break down the result in how the Weinstein team attempted to use Me Too to their advantage.
[9] And the courts again rule against the Biden -COVID vaccine mandates.
[10] Why are legal scholars saying the administration's vaccine agenda is on its last legs?
[11] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[12] Stay tuned.
[13] We have the news you need to know.
[14] Will the lack of a red wave during the midterms lead to more reckless spending by a more emboldened administration?
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[19] On Tuesday, federal regulators ordered Wells Fargo to pay nearly $4 billion in penalties and compensation.
[20] After it was found, the bank engaged in a legal activity that harmed millions of customers.
[21] Here with more from this record -breaking cases, Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips.
[22] Cabot, a pretty concerning story here regarding one of the most popular banks in the country.
[23] Walk us through the charges and then we'll get to the fallout.
[24] So the story really starts back in 2016.
[25] That's when it was first discovered that Wells Fargo, the country's third largest bank, was caught creating millions of fake bank and credit card accounts on behalf of real existing customers.
[26] Those fake accounts cost millions in fraudulent fees and were used by Wells Fargo employees to boost sales targets and hit bonus goals.
[27] And it wasn't just a few rogue employees taking part in this illegal activity.
[28] Over 5 ,300 people were fired for taking part in the fraud.
[29] That is two percent of their entire workforce.
[30] And according to investigators, the bank knew this was going on for years, but did little to stop it.
[31] They would simply fire individuals as they were being caught, but did not put new guardrails in place.
[32] Now, at the time, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $185 million in fines.
[33] And the story sort of seemed over, but it turns out that that was just the tip of the iceberg.
[34] Yeah, tell us about these latest allegations.
[35] So according to regulators, over the last five years, it started to trickle out that they've been charging customers for bogus mortgage fees, telling them they'd missed deadlines that weren't actually real.
[36] The company also admits that over half a million customers were enrolled in car insurance that they didn't want or need.
[37] And up to 20 ,000 people had their cars repossessed because they defaulted on loans in large part due to unnecessary costs charged by the bank.
[38] They even wrongfully foreclosed on thousands of homes after misapplying mortgage payments.
[39] So the list goes on and on.
[40] Yeah, the scope of all this is just staggering.
[41] So what are the consequences here?
[42] On Tuesday, Wells Fargo reached a deal with regulators that would resolve the allegations in exchange for the bank, not only admitting that it harmed more than 16 million customers, but also pay $1 .7 billion in penalties and more than $2 billion in customer restitution.
[43] Of that $2 billion, $1 .3 will go to victims of the fraudulent auto lending.
[44] 500 million will go to those whose deposit accounts were impacted, and the rest will go to mortgage loan victims.
[45] It's worth noting that is the largest fine in the history of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
[46] Their founder called Wells Fargo, quote, one of the most problematic repeat offenders they've ever seen and accused the bank of employing a rinse, repeat cycle of violating the law.
[47] What kind of response did the ruling draw?
[48] So Charlie Sharf, the bank's CEO, was essentially brought in to clean up the mess back in 2019.
[49] He sort of celebrated this move, calling it, quote, an important milestone in our work to transform the operating practices at Wells Fargo and put these issues behind us.
[50] But critics, including customers who suffered as a result of the bank's legal activity, say that Wells Fargo is getting off easy.
[51] But regulators say they're not done with the bank yet.
[52] They call this, quote, an initial step that should not be right as a sign that Wells Fargo has moved past its longstanding problems or that the Bureau's work is done.
[53] So there could be more consequences coming in the future.
[54] Yeah, given the scope of this fraud, it wouldn't be surprising.
[55] Cabot, thanks for reporting.
[56] Anytime.
[57] That's Daily Wire.
[58] senior editor, Cabot Phillips.
[59] Coming up, disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein is convicted of rape, this time in Los Angeles.
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[68] Following nine days of deliberations, a Los Angeles jury found former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein guilty of rape and sexual assault on Monday.
[69] This is a second guilty verdict for Weinstein, who is already serving a 23 -year sentence for rape and suicide.
[70] sexual assault in New York.
[71] Accusations against Weinstein ignited the Me Too movement in 2017.
[72] Joining us now to give us the details on the Los Angeles verdict is Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham.
[73] So Megan, this was a mixed result.
[74] Yeah, it was.
[75] And prosecutors seemed to have a harder time convincing the jury to find Weinstein guilty on four of those seven charges than I think a lot of industry watchers seem to expect.
[76] So the seven charges that prosecutors proceeded with stemmed.
[77] from accusations of rape and sexual assault from four women, including the wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom, Jennifer Siebel Newsom.
[78] So those alleged assaults took place between 2004 and 2013.
[79] Of the remaining charges, the jury wasn't able to reach verdicts on allegations from Newsom and another woman known as Jane Doe 2.
[80] So those counts were declared a mistrial.
[81] And then Weinstein was acquitted of sexual battery against a woman known as Jane Doe 3.
[82] And I think if you look at Newsom's testimony, you can see why the prosecution had some difficulty getting guilty verdicts in those cases.
[83] So Newsom described being intimidated and afraid of Weinstein, and she also described details similar to those we heard in Weinstein's New York trial, that he lured women into his hotel suite and would then excuse himself to change into a bathrobe and would then proceed to push them down onto the bed and force himself on them.
[84] But what Nusin stopped short of saying was that she fought Weinstein off, and she continued to maintain friendly communications with him after that.
[85] So that did somewhat complicate the case.
[86] Ultimately, the jury found Weinstein guilty of three charges in the case of only one of those four women.
[87] Now, I imagine it was difficult to get an impartial jury after Weinstein was made famous by this whole thing.
[88] Do you think that helped or hurt the women's case?
[89] You know, I think you could argue that Weinstein's defense team was actually able to use the Me Too movement to its advantage.
[90] So they pointed out that Weinstein had really become the symbol of what so many women in Hollywood were characterizing a systemic predatory behavior.
[91] They highlighted the fact that none of Weinstein's accusers went to the police or accused him of anything until after that movement became such a cause -seleb.
[92] So Weinstein's defense team argued that what these women were describing was, and I'm quoting them, transactional sex, meaning they agreed to a casting couch arrangement in order to advance their careers.
[93] In fact, his lawyer argued in his closing statements, and again quoting, Regret is not the same thing as rape.
[94] And then he really pushed the question of hard evidence, saying of the women, Believe us because we're mad, believe us because we cried.
[95] Well, fury does not make fact and tears do not make truth.
[96] However, Oscar -winning actress Maris Sorvino, whose career Weinstein torpedoed when she rejected his advances, strongly refuted that characterization in an interview after the closing arguments.
[97] He was a sexual predator of epic proportions, very violent assaulter, and there was certainly nothing consensual about the times that he tried to force me or coerce me into having a sexual relationship with him, and I said no, and paid for it with my career.
[98] Now, have the women who brought these charges against Weinstein responded to this verdict?
[99] Two of them have so far.
[100] So Newsom said the verdict proves, quote, we must keep fighting to ensure that survivors are supported and that their voices are heard.
[101] And then we don't know the identity of the woman whose accusations resulted in guilty verdicts, as we said, but she offered this statement through her lawyers.
[102] Harvey Weinstein forever destroyed a part of me that night in 2013, and I will never get that back.
[103] I hope Weinstein never sees the outside of a prison cell during his lifetime.
[104] So Weinstein's lawyers are promising to appeal.
[105] Right now, he's facing a prison sentence of up to 24 years.
[106] And that's in addition to the 23 years he's already serving stemming from that New York case.
[107] Well, this was definitely a historic case.
[108] Megan, thanks for reporting.
[109] Anytime.
[110] That was Daily Wire Culture Reporter, Megan Basham.
[111] The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has dealt another blow to the Biden administration's vaccine mandates.
[112] The sweeping rule would have forced all government agencies and contractors to force their employees to receive a COVID -19 vaccination.
[113] Joining us to discuss is Sarah Partial Perry, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
[114] So Sarah, what did the judges argue?
[115] Well, there were a couple of arguments that were used.
[116] And the Fifth Circuit's actually the fourth federal appellate court to weigh in on this precise issue of federal contractor vaccine mandates.
[117] But this particular decision was clear as could be and related specifically to the states of Louisiana, Indiana, and Mississippi.
[118] And one of the arguments that the judge has raised, which has been sort of a recurrent theme in the vaccine COVID litigation cases, was that it implicates something called the major questions doctrine.
[119] In other words, when the government proposes a rule of this economic significance, of this vast reach, we expect Congress to speak clearly when authorizing an agency to exercise these types of significant powers.
[120] It acts as a boundary and presidential authority.
[121] They actually likened this to instituting something like a body mass index requirement for federal contractors as well, because the statute under which the Biden administration purported to advance this mandate was something called the Procurement Act.
[122] And what that's ultimately designed to do is just make sure that the contracting the government does, is on a regular basis, economical, it's done efficiently, and not in advance of any further effect than that.
[123] Well, precisely that reason is why this particular Fifth Circuit panel determined they had gone above and beyond what this act was even designed to do in the first place.
[124] All right, so the court determined that the administration overstepped its constitutional authority, which is also the case with the large employer mandate that the Daily Wire sued to block, what COVID mandates by this administration have actually been upheld?
[125] Well, this particular type of regulation, this exercise of federal authority, has to come from some statutory basis.
[126] The only one that we've seen upheld thus far, of any real significance, is the vaccine directive for the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare services.
[127] That came out of the Health and Human Services Department, and that was because it specifically related to health care, workers, where the rate of infection is higher and where you're dealing with individuals who are either elderly and therefore at higher risk or their immunocompromised.
[128] There, the Supreme Court said this is an appropriate exercise of statutory authority.
[129] It goes directly to the purpose of the statute in the first place.
[130] Last question.
[131] Has the administration signal that they may be relenting on these aggressive health policies?
[132] Do they appear to have learned a lesson here about overreach?
[133] Well, we can take a lot of what we're seeing from Capitol Hill and from the actual White House press office itself, what the rhetoric is now beginning to come up as in terms of the flu and in a resurgence of what they're calling a tridemic, that of course coming from Anthony Fauci, that of course coming from the White House Press Secretary.
[134] When we see that rhetoric, it always alarms us a little bit because we recognize that this administration in particular has a two and a half year history of overreaching regulatory authority, of bloating the federal bureaucracy, and they will, if they can, use any purported statutory authority to accomplish their aims.
[135] But I do think here, in this particular effect, now that they have lost at three federal appellate courts, they won't go on to appeal this to the Supreme Court, because it is more likely than not based on what they've done with other eviction moratoriums, other vaccine mandates that the Supreme Court will have absolutely no tolerance for the administration on something like this.
[136] Sarah, thanks for talking with us.
[137] That was Heritage Senior Legal Fellow, Sarah Partial Perry.
[138] Thanks for listening to Morning Wire.
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[142] Thanks for waking up with us.
[143] We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.