Morning Wire XX
[0] Hunter Biden's sweetheart plea deal abruptly unraveled Wednesday, resulting in the president's son pleading not guilty for now.
[1] Why did the judge delay her decision and what's next in the controversial case?
[2] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor -in -Chief John Bickley.
[3] It's Thursday, July 27th, and this is Morning Wire.
[4] Bombshell testimony during a Wednesday hearing alleged that, the government has been operating an extensive UFO retrieval program under the radar.
[5] Are you aware of any individuals that are participating in reverse engineering programs for non -terrestrial craft?
[6] Personally, yes.
[7] We break down the major takeaways from the hearing.
[8] And New York officials say the cities reached its breaking point in the migrant crisis.
[9] There are no laws that prevent people to wait wherever they can find a place to wait.
[10] But right now, we have no space.
[11] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[12] Stay tuned.
[13] We have the news you need to know.
[14] Hunter Biden's plea agreement fell apart during a chaotic hearing in a federal courthouse in Delaware on Wednesday.
[15] The hearing ended after the judge refused to sign off on the plea bargain over concerns about its constitutionality and unusual structure.
[16] Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to tell us what happened to the plea deal and what happens now.
[17] So Tim, the Department of Justice and Hunter's legal team spent weeks on this deal.
[18] How did it unravel so quickly?
[19] Yeah, how did it unravel at all?
[20] Like you said, prosecutors and defense attorneys worked for weeks to hammer this out, and for it to fall apart now is highly unusual.
[21] U .S. District Judge Mariel and Norica sent the two sides home to file briefs later to clear up a number of odd details about the plea agreement.
[22] One of the judge's concerns had to do with a half of the agreement involving Hunter's felony gun charge.
[23] The two sides had agreed to let the charge, which carries a maximum 10 -year sentence, drop if Hunter completed a two -year diversion program.
[24] Basically, he has to stay off drugs for two years, and he isn't allowed to own a gun.
[25] However, the judge raised issue with a clause that said, in the event that the two sides disagree over whether Hunter violated that diversion program, she, the judge, would be the decider.
[26] Prosecutors said they wanted an independent third party to make the call on whether the DOJ should bring the gun charge after all.
[27] But Marika said her involvement raised separation of powers issues.
[28] The other concern she raised, and it's unclear, if this will be resolved or not, is the statute under which the plea agreement was made.
[29] She said prosecutors and Hunter's attorneys are trying to get her to rubber -stamp the agreement by negotiating under a statute that really restricts how she's able to rule.
[30] Typically, in plea agreements, the judge has flexibility to sign off or reject parts of the agreement.
[31] In this case, the deal appeared to force her hand, so she either had to accept it as is or reject it all.
[32] But it's hard to know the exact details here because the written agreement is not public.
[33] So what were the first signs that things were kind of going off the rails?
[34] Well, earlier in the day, there was an episode that really emphasizes how strange this hearing was.
[35] It wasn't just the judge who didn't understand the plea agreement.
[36] The Justice Department and Defense disagreed on what they had supposedly already agreed to.
[37] The signs of trouble started when Norica asked the two sides about the limits of immunity granted to Hunter Biden in the plea agreement.
[38] The two sides disagreed over whether or not the plea bargain protected Hunter from future prosecution under the foreign agent Registration Act, or FARA.
[39] Here's Cash Patel, a former federal prosecutor and senior intelligence official, explaining that on the Benny Show.
[40] The specificity that she went to FARA tells me she knew in the discovery process of this case that that issue had come up, and if that issue was going to be legally precluded from being prosecuted in the future, she as a jurist has a responsibility to demand that answer from the DOJ.
[41] And it looks like Hunter Biden's lawyers thought that the FARA registration, which they can't get a deferral on, which he has to go to federal prison on, which is a felony, they thought they had negotiated their way out of it.
[42] And it looks as if they just canned the plea agreement because having been over there in the defense side, you quietly know when you've lost and they lost on the farup point.
[43] So what happens now?
[44] Hunter left after pleading not guilty to the charges, but his attorneys in the prosecution have been directed to get together and clarify the agreement for themselves and for the judge.
[45] We should learn more about that in the coming weeks.
[46] Tim, thanks for joining us.
[47] My pleasure.
[48] Coming up, a congressional hearing on UFOs, sparks fireworks, and more questions.
[49] On Wednesday, Congress held a groundbreaking hearing on UFOs, hearing from military pilots and a top -ranking official in the U .S. intelligence community, who says the federal government is covering up a vast UFO retrieval program.
[50] Here with more on the explosive testimony is Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips.
[51] So Cabot, a topic that's gaining steam among lawmakers, tell us about this hearing.
[52] Yeah, so a few years ago talking about UFOs might get you laughed out of a room, but now it is being openly discussed in the highest levels of our government.
[53] On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee held a hearing on the national security threat posed by UAPs.
[54] That's unidentified aerial phenomena.
[55] That's the government term for UFOs.
[56] Committee members heard testimony from three men.
[57] Two were experienced Navy pilots who'd had firsthand encounters with unidentified craft, while the other was a recently retired senior intelligence official who claims the U .S. government has recovered craft of, quote, non -human origin.
[58] We'll get to that testimony, but it's important to note just how serious the tone of this hearing was.
[59] There were no ET jokes or discussions of little green men.
[60] The topic was mainly discussed in terms of national security.
[61] So what prompted the hearing?
[62] Well, the topic first went mainstream back in 2017, when the New York Times broke a story that the Pentagon had a top secret program for researching UFOs reported by military and intelligence personnel.
[63] Since then, a number of those officials have come out as whistleblowers telling the public about their experiences with unidentified craft.
[64] One of those men is retired Navy commander David Fravor, who encountered a craft with his F -18 squadron back in 2004.
[65] Fravor says his team tracked a craft visually and on multiple radar systems.
[66] that, in his words, appeared to defy the laws of physics, descending from 80 ,000 feet to sea level in a matter of seconds, turning at right angles, and accelerating ways that our pilots could only dream of.
[67] Here he is answering a question from Tennessee rep Tim Burchett.
[68] We have nothing that can stop in mid -air and go the other direction, nor do we have anything that can, like, in our situation, come down from space, hang out for three hours, and go back up.
[69] We heard a similar sentiment from retired Navy lieutenant Ryan Graves, who says that his team off the coast of Virginia observed UFOs every day for months on end.
[70] In some cases, the craft nearly collided with our own planes.
[71] How do you know that these were not our aircraft?
[72] These objects were staying completely stationary in category four hurricane winds.
[73] These same objects would then accelerate to supersonic speeds, 1 .1, 1 .2 Mach.
[74] They would do so in very erratic and quick behaviors that I don't have an explanation for.
[75] And importantly, according to Grush and Graves, many of these objects are able to disable the tracking and photo software of our planes, making it difficult to get clear images during encounters.
[76] Now, the witness that got the most attention was the government whistleblower.
[77] Tell us about him.
[78] Yeah, the dam really broke on this issue last month when David Grush, the retired senior intelligence officer for the National Reconnaissance Office, filed a whistleblower report alleging that the Pentagon was concealing a secret UFO retrieval program.
[79] According to sworn testimony from Grush, the U .S. government has recovered, quote, non -human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed.
[80] And importantly, Grush says those programs have been intentionally withheld from congressional oversight, which is illegal.
[81] Grush elaborated on those claims under oath before Congress.
[82] If you believe we have crashed craft, do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft?
[83] Biologics came with some of these recoveries, yeah.
[84] Were they, I guess, human or non -human biologics?
[85] Non -human, and that was the assessment of people which recognize on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program.
[86] Now, were there any skeptics in the hearing?
[87] So if any of the committee members doubted the legitimacy of these witnesses, they didn't express it, at least publicly.
[88] The overwhelming sentiment from lawmakers was that they believed the testimony and wanted to get to the bottom of whether the Pentagon was illegally withholding information from Congress.
[89] That's not to say there aren't any skeptics, though.
[90] Plenty of lawmakers and others believe the objects are most likely drones, birds, or commercial airliners, while others say it's likely some sort of off -the -books government technology.
[91] But the witnesses testified to that point as well, noting that many of these sightings have occurred over international waters where anyone, including our adversaries, could observe them or recover them if they went down.
[92] For that reason, they say classified technology is almost always tested over land or over American waters.
[93] And they were also adamant that what they've seen and documented goes far beyond anything in our arsenal and that they're hardly the only pilots who have seen these things.
[94] Here's Congressman Tim Burchett, questioning Fravor on that point.
[95] You're not aware of any other objects that anybody in the world has in this world that has those capabilities.
[96] No, I think it's far beyond actually our material science that we currently possess.
[97] Well, this is a fascinating story.
[98] I'm not quite sure even how I feel about it just yet.
[99] That makes two of us.
[100] Kavit, thanks for reporting.
[101] Anytime.
[102] New York City appears to be at its breaking point as it tries to account for the tens of thousands of illegal migrants who have streamed into the city over the past year.
[103] Mayor Eric Adams is now saying New York City.
[104] has officially run out of space.
[105] Daily Wire investigative reporter Marita Lorty is here with the details for us.
[106] So Marade, how bad is the migrant situation in New York?
[107] The city is pretty much at crisis level.
[108] Since April of last year, more than 90 ,000 migrants have arrived in the city, and as of this month, about 55 ,000 are still being housed on the city's dime.
[109] That's caused New York's homeless shelters to burst at the seams.
[110] Combined with the homeless population, the city is now sheltering a record 105 ,000, people.
[111] And it's already poured $1 .2 billion into helping the migrants since last summer.
[112] Mayor Adams said earlier this month that the city's seeing about 2 ,500 asylum seekers arriving every week, which he called a silent crisis for the city.
[113] Now, as we've touched on before, this has really forced Adams to reverse course, at least in terms of his rhetoric on this issue, correct?
[114] Right.
[115] The crisis seems to have really flustered him.
[116] He's blamed everyone from Texas, the White House and the state government for sticking the city with this emergency.
[117] In April, Adams called out President Biden by name and said he and the White House have failed New York City on this issue.
[118] But then the next month, Adams accused Texas Governor Greg Abbott of supposedly targeting black mayors by sending migrants to their city specifically.
[119] However, the 7 ,900 migrants Texas has bused to New York are only a tiny portion of the migrants arriving in the city.
[120] Then on Monday, the mayor said that it's going to get worse before it gets better if we don't get help from the national government.
[121] Here he was last week, sounding the alarm of the situation.
[122] We don't want to reach the point, and we won't reach the point where families and children are living on our streets, like you're seeing in other municipalities.
[123] So as New York waits for federal help that may or may not come, how is the city handling the crisis so far on its own?
[124] Well, so far, New York has opened more than 188 new shelter sites to house migrants, but the city is still struggling.
[125] This month, Adams even resorted to sending flyers to the southern border warning migrants that there's no guarantee of shelter if they come to New York and encouraging them to pick a different city.
[126] The flyers actually tell migrants that food and necessities in the city are more expensive than any other city in the country.
[127] Dr. Ted Long, senior vice president at NYC Health and Hospitals, which heads up most of the emergency housing, summed up the situation last week.
[128] Our compassion is infinite, but our space is not.
[129] On Monday, the city said it's now seeking private contractors to build new emergency long -term shelters.
[130] However, the new large -scale shelters will not be ready for weeks or even months.
[131] There's also the problem of public disturbances.
[132] Right.
[133] Tell us about that.
[134] We've seen some reports on migrant -related crime, correct?
[135] That's right.
[136] Just this week, migrants outside a shelter in Harlem allegedly started throwing objects at pedestrians and punched and kicked to New Yorkers who intervened, pushing one man through a glass door and sending both to the...
[137] the hospital.
[138] Business owners in Manhattan say their businesses are suffering significantly due to chaos spilling out of the migrant shelters and onto the streets.
[139] And pictures of migrants sitting on busy sidewalks during the day have been circulating online, while there are a lot of reports of migrants attempting to sell various items on the street.
[140] In Brooklyn, some migrants who are kicked out of shelters were brawling set up a mini -tenth city under a highway.
[141] Some businesses in that area have hired private security to stop migrants from coming into their stores.
[142] Well, this certainly looks like a situation that's spiraling out of control fast.
[143] Hopefully the city can find a more long -term solution.
[144] Right.
[145] Thanks for reporting.
[146] Thanks, John.
[147] That's all the time we've got this morning.
[148] Thanks for waking up with us.
[149] We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.