SEKULOW

Logan Sekulow: Welcome to Sekulow. I'm here, Will Haines is here. We're going to be joined later on by Attorney General of West Virginia, JB McCuskey, and we have a packed show coming up. I want to hear from you as well at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110.

We are covering some breaking news that is just happening, and we're going to cover this. Will's got a lot of the information in front of him, and I do as well. That is that four articles of impeachment have been filed against Governor Tim Walz in Minnesota. This is obviously following the whole fraud scandal.

The articles, the first one: violation of oath of office through concealment of fraud. That's how it opens. Now, what does it look like? What does it mean? Could it actually get through? Maybe more likely than you'd think. Now, will it end in a result of him being removed from office? Well, it's politics, so I'd say that the odds are unlikely. But it's another push that could maybe at least drive him to decide whether he wants to finish this term.

Will Haines: That's right. So what we're looking at here is four articles of impeachment filed against Governor Tim Walz in Minnesota. This is an effort led by State Representative Mike Warner, and this all comes out of the fraud investigations that are going on and ongoing still into Minnesota.

What we have here is Article One, violation of oath of office through concealment of fraud. Article Two, interference with oversight of investigation. Article Three, prioritizing political considerations over lawful administration. Article Four, failure to steward public funds, which I think of all of them, Article Four is on its face the most easily provable, especially based off the whistleblowers that have said multiple times that they were made aware of this and yet did nothing.

Logan Sekulow: Because that's the big one. The big one that you really look at, and obviously they're saying concealment of fraud, all these things, but the one thing we can at least probably all agree on is that the oversight was just simply not there. No one was really checking up on it, or the people that were checking up on it weren't doing a very good job at it.

So you're right. When it comes to Article Four, failure to steward public funds, I think negligence is very easily provable in this moment. The others are a little bit more political. We'll see what they say, and we'll see where it ends up. But there's also an interesting thing where you told me, Will, that the people who would be deciding on this, the majority are Republicans.

Will Haines: That's right. So when you look at it, how does impeachment work in Minnesota? We are very familiar here with impeachment in the US House of Representatives on the national level. Well, it's very similar in the state level in Minnesota. So articles of impeachment, based off of Article Eight of the Minnesota Constitution, they begin, as it does federally, in the State House of Representatives.

An impeachment is brought there and then it is decided through a concurrence of the House of Representatives. A majority, simple majority, is all you need to get there. Right now the breakdown in the Minnesota House, they have 134 potential seats. The Republicans hold 67, the Democrats have 65, and there are two vacant seats.

As of right now, the Republicans have a two-seat majority, meaning there is a pathway where this could not just be articles of impeachment introduced, but an impeached governor, which then goes to trial in the Minnesota Senate. The breakdown there: there are 34 Democrats and 33 Republicans. So a majority held by Democrats. However, very similar to what we have in the US Senate, needing a conviction on the presidential level, you have to have a trial and then a conviction by two-thirds of the senators present.

Logan Sekulow: So that may be unlikely, but it does say proceedings could get underway next month. That's when the House reconvenes and the state would hold a trial and determine, as you said, whether he is guilty in order to be potentially removed from office. But in general, we know that this process is not fun for anyone to be involved in.

It does beg the question of how far can even just the threat, the loom of having an impeachment trial, what does it mean for you? Now, Tim Walz has obviously said not guilty, and he's obviously said, "I'm not going anywhere." He's been pretty clear about that.

What do you think about this? 1-800-684-3110. As I said, West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey is going to be joining us, talking about the Supreme Court case they're involved in. We'll discuss that as well as taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. We'll be right back with more on Sekulow.

Logan Sekulow: Welcome back to Sekulow. We are going to take your phone calls and look, I've got to restate this. A lot of you are just joining us right now and it is a breaking news item and it's a real item. Look, this isn't some sort of clickbait nonsense you're going to click on and go, "What are we talking about here?" And that is, articles of impeachment have been filed in Minnesota against Tim Walz.

The first one is about fraud. There's many different options. The last one is at least about negligence. And Will just uncovered something interesting. Look, we're not legal experts here in terms of the exact details of this, but there are some caveats in the law that may actually lead to, not necessarily the removal of office from Tim Walz, but from a suspension of office for Tim Walz.

Will Haines: That's right. So when you look at the Article Eight of the Constitution of Minnesota, that entire article specifically deals with impeachment and removal of office. So it goes over the impeachment powers in Section One, about House of Representatives having the sole power of impeaching through concurrence of a majority of all its members, and then it being tried in the Senate, and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the senators present.

Logan Sekulow: We discussed this in the last segment. Very standard, similar to the presidency of the United States, which a lot of us became very familiar with a few years ago.

Will Haines: But what is interesting and what does differ from the US Constitution when it comes to impeachment is Section Three. Section Three of Article Eight of the Minnesota Constitution says, "Suspension. No officer shall exercise the duties of his office after he has been impeached and before his acquittal."

What it appears to read here is that the constitution allows for the suspension of, it would appear, the governor or any officer that has been impeached while they are awaiting the adjudication through the trial in the Senate. Then if they are acquitted, resume their duties. If they are not acquitted, obviously they are removed from office.

I feel like that caveat there makes it a lot more high stakes than it necessarily is in the US impeachment in the federal level because of that suspension level. Now, they do have to serve the individual after they have been impeached within 20 days. I feel like it'll be a lot quicker than that where they would deliver the articles of impeachment.

But once again, we've seen how a federal trial in the US Senate at that level of impeachment takes time. They impeached the president in that first term, then there was a little bit of delay of when the articles of impeachment were marched over to the Senate. Then they get it all set up and then it took several weeks.

So potentially, at the time where you are seeing a lot of chaos in Minnesota, not just at the level of the fraud issue, but with all of the ice things, all of the stuff that's going on, that they could be potentially without a governor being suspended during this time for a matter of weeks.

Logan Sekulow: So does that push this situation where Tim Walz, who already announced he will not be running again, does this push him to potentially decide to step aside? That's a question I'm sure a lot of Minnesotans are asking. I'm seeing a lot of them in the chat right now.

If you are in Minnesota and you're listening or watching right now, I would love for you to call in and give me your thoughts. On the ground feedback is always a little bit different than what we get from the national news. So let me know what you think. Do you feel like this has any legs? 1-800-684-3110.

Do you want it to have legs? Maybe you're burned out by the impeachment process from President Trump. Maybe you think this doesn't qualify there. Because look, as we said, there's four articles of impeachment here. One of them we feel like is pretty darn clear, which is failure to steward public funds, which is essentially neglecting his job and making sure public funds were spent appropriately.

Now you go through fraud, covering fraud, all those things. Those are a bit more speculative. There will have to be a trial, there will have to be evidence. But it is not fun to go through this. I don't feel maybe for Tim Walz only in that this is not a fun process to put you and your family through. But you know what? The people in Minnesota clearly have had enough.

I also think this shows the broad scale of American politics when it comes to these states, because you think of Minnesota as a pretty blue state in terms of, I mean, yes, there has been times where it's gone more Republican. It is more, maybe you could say in some Midwestern blue collar, it definitely isn't as full-blown as you'd expect. But when you actually look at the House and the way that they are going, there's quite a few, there's more Republicans at this point that counterbalance what's going on. It's much like many states. It's kind of a 50/50, 60/40 kind of situation.

Will Haines: Well, and on national level, yes, it is definitely more of a blue state. You don't see it as a type of swing state like Michigan has been, like Wisconsin has been recently of those Midwest states. And once again, even their Democrat party there is the Democrat Farm Labor Party. It's not even the Democrat Party of Minnesota.

It has its own unique name, the Farm Labor Party, which is interesting because I feel like the majority of those in agriculture in Minnesota are no longer represented by the Democrat Party as it is today, and especially with how liberal and how far left it's gone. There's a lot of rural area in Minnesota, but yes, the population centers are still very liberal.

When it comes to a national election, a federal election, they are typically going to go more blue. But you do have to realize when you're talking about micro-level representation, you are talking about people being able to select their representatives in a state house. Yeah, they probably are going to have a lot more option for conservative representation in the state.

That's what you see here with 134 potential seats in the House of the Minnesota Representatives. There are 67 Republicans, there are 65 with the Democrat Party, and then two vacant seats, meaning, I mean, if the Democrats pick those up in a special election or something, you're tied. At very best you're tied in the Minnesota State House.

So it is a fascinating thing. As it stands, there is a two-seat majority by Republicans. That means there is a, just on partisan lines, a very good chance that Governor Tim Walz in an election year, remember he just dropped out of the race. So he's going to be done in eight months regardless. This is going to be a stain on the party as well, that he could be impeached during this election year.

Logan Sekulow: I want to take a call coming in from Minnesota. Let's go to Jason. And again, if you're in Minnesota or anywhere, but if you're in Minnesota specifically, give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. Jason, you're on the air.

Jason: Yeah. So I just want to say that the people in Minnesota have seen this coming for a long time. We've seen the fraud even at the county level. We've seen it for years. It's a joke that we talk about at the bar. I mean, we're just ready to be over and done with this. We know it's there. We just want it to be over and done with. We're sick and tired of it.

Logan Sekulow: I guess that's going to be the definition of what does over and done with it mean? Because you could have over and done with it, he's impeached. You could have over and done with it as Tim Walz is going to be out in eight months or ten months anyway.

Will Haines: And I have a question for you, Jason, as well. Because once again, Tim Walz was running for reelection. Now he is trying to open up for a potential different Democrat candidate to retain the governorship there. Are you hearing a lot of people that are fed up with the party, not just Tim Walz, that want to see a difference and a change in leadership in the state?

Jason: So the, yes, but a lot of people are terrified of Amy Klobuchar. They know that's who's going to be running next and they're terrified of it. And I'm from northern Minnesota and we know that we don't matter. It's Minneapolis and Saint Paul, that's all that matters. And we're sick of it. We're sick of all the fraud. We're sick of them shipping voters in, because that's what it amounts to.

Will Haines: Well, and Jason, and that's what we were basically referencing earlier. There's a lot of rural area, a lot of other places in Minnesota that aren't necessarily seen as getting representation on the national stage when it comes to congressman, when it comes to their senator.

But when it comes to the local representation, that's why you see it a lot closer in the State House and even in the Minnesota Senate. They only have a one-seat majority, the Democrats. But as Jason points out, the big name that people are referencing is Amy Klobuchar, who is the senator from Minnesota currently. Obviously has won statewide elections there before.

Logan Sekulow: A nationally known name.

Will Haines: Exactly. And when it comes to name recognition alone being on ballot for a governor race, I think Jason pointed out very well, and I'm glad that he called in, that yeah, if you are a conservative, that probably is the name you are scared of.

You're not scared of them going further left on paper like some of the representatives that you've seen there. You know the Attorney General there being Keith Ellison. You know that that is the state where Ilhan Omar is a representative from. I don't think that the state probably is as concerned about them going on paper that far left, but it is when you have an establishment Democrat like Amy Klobuchar that could potentially win the governorship.

Logan Sekulow: Absolutely. Look, we'll be back in just a moment. We have special guest joining us, Attorney General from West Virginia, JB McCuskey. And Will, maybe you can give people a little bit of a preview of why he's coming on.

Will Haines: That's right. Yesterday there was that big Supreme Court case that was wall-to-wall coverage on all networks about states that had put in restrictions on boys playing in girls' sports within their state. Idaho and West Virginia were the ones that had this challenge taken all the way up to the Supreme Court.

We have the Attorney General of West Virginia, JB McCuskey, joining us next, as it was his state that was fighting hard at the Supreme Court yesterday. Get a recap of what, how he felt it went for West Virginia, and as well as how he continues to fight for the people of West Virginia and the whole country.

Logan Sekulow: We're going to discuss that further with JB. Also, if you want to support the work of the ACLJ, go to ACLJ.org. And if you want to get involved in what's going on in Minnesota, we actually are right now, the ACLJ filed five Freedom of Information requests in the state of Minnesota about the fraud situation. You can be a part of that at ACLJ.org as well. We'll be right back.

Logan Sekulow: Welcome back to Sekulow. We are going to take your calls and comments coming in. So I want you to get involved. 1-800-684-3110. Obviously the main topic of the day, we are talking about the Minnesota whole situation, but the articles of impeachment have been filed against Tim Walz. We're going to get back to that, so I know a lot of you are watching because of that. So stay tuned, we're going to get back to that in the next segment.

We're now joined, though, by West Virginia Attorney General, a good friend of the show and ACLJ alumni, JB McCuskey. And what a day you've had. It's definitely a year, but quite a day yesterday, Will.

Will Haines: That's right. So the Attorney General is joining us now. And from what we saw yesterday, there was a very large presence on Capitol Hill. We've seen as well that there was a very lot of coverage when it comes to what the what was going on within the Supreme Court yesterday. So JB, yesterday as you I saw you on a lot of the news, a lot of media yesterday, your Solicitor General was arguing before the Supreme Court. Give us kind of a rundown of how that went yesterday as far as your eyes as the Attorney General.

JB McCuskey: Let me start by saying all of this for me started right here at the American Center for Law and Justice. I'm a proud alumnus of the ACLJ. I'm in the ACLJ studios here in DC today. And I owe so much of what I have and who I am to Jay and Jordan and everybody here at the ACLJ. So thank you.

Yesterday at the Court, we had the ability to defend West Virginia's law that quite simply says that biological boys shouldn't be on biological girls or can't be on biological girls' sports teams because we know that boys have an unfair physical advantage over girls. Title IX as well as the Equal Protection Clause instruct us that we have to find safe and fair playing spaces for women so that we can ensure that they have the same opportunities that men do and have had for the last 50 years.

Logan Sekulow: And I think look, wherever you land on the broader issue, this is that kind of one spot that I feel like most Americans seem to agree on. It doesn't seem like that you have this much, I mean, you do from DC, you do from the political landscape. But I feel like when you actually are polling normal Americans, talking to people, they go, "Yeah, you could feel whatever you want to feel on the actual merits of the situation, but when it comes to the sports one, it seems to be that is the red line for a lot of people."

JB McCuskey: Yeah, and you know what's funny? Because if you were to have said that five years ago, nobody would have agreed with you, right? And so the sea change that's happened in the last five years with really being led by young female athletes who took a leadership position when it was very unpopular to say these things, people like Riley Gaines, who have spoken out about this from the very beginning. They showed real courage.

This case wouldn't be happening, wouldn't have happened yesterday, if it wasn't for the courageous actions of women like Riley Gaines and young female athletes all across this country who are willing to stand up and say that when it wasn't popular.

Will Haines: And JB, once again, it also takes states like West Virginia, states like Idaho, that were willing to also put legislation forward to say, "Hey, as a state, we believe that this is how it should be. We want to protect the citizens, in many cases the youth of our state. And so we're going to move forward with legislation on this, knowing that we're going to get challenged, knowing that it is going to come to a cost to the state to defend this, and knowing that that is the right way forward."

And it takes attorneys general like yourself that are both savvy, but as well knowing we have to fight this, but we also have to win it. And we have to take it all the way to the Supreme Court to win this not just for our state, but for the whole country and for an entire generation of young women that are currently in limbo under all this. So I just want to say, one, what does that mean for you? You're very early into your tenure as Attorney General of West Virginia, but knowing the stakes could not be higher in that position today.

JB McCuskey: Yesterday, and really this whole week, was quite nerve-wracking. But I will tell you that as my wife would say, in true McCuskey fashion, I did somehow manage to get to argue a landmark Supreme Court case on the one-year anniversary of me becoming the Attorney General. Something that doesn't happen all the time.

But you know, when you're a public servant and you have the opportunity to do something that's good and something that is right that's going to make a difference for everyone around you, that's what this is all about. And I'm just so grateful to the people of West Virginia for electing me here and I'm grateful to our legislature for taking this step.

And I'm equally grateful for the incredible team of lawyers that we've assembled in the Attorney General's Office who are able to argue these kind of tough cases on a big national stage and really show the world why West Virginia is truly unique and wonderful.

Logan Sekulow: It's really great to really have you on and discuss this because look, it became a big topic. It's what they're covering right now on a lot of the news of the day. So to have someone who, when you all are listening, you all are supporting the ACLJ and understand that our teams, some of them have been with us for long time, some are no longer with us, but again, as you said JB, been with us in some form of fashion for the majority of our lives at this point and you get to see what the influence is on the future of Washington DC and where that ends up. And for you specifically, in a state like West Virginia, that I do think needs more love, needs to get more attention because you're on the forefront of a lot of big cultural issues.

JB McCuskey: Yeah, and I'll tell you, the world is healing and West Virginia as a group has a set of values that really mirror the rest of this country and really value what it means to be an American and why that's so important. So anybody out there who's listening is trying to get out of a blue state with high taxes, I got to tell you, wild and wonderful West Virginia is the place you want to be.

Logan Sekulow: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for hopping on today. And look, I think that it is always important for our audience to understand the scope of the work, Will, that we do here, but also, our friends that are in high positions at this point.

Will Haines: That's right. And our work doesn't end with people in those positions. JB, I know that there are ways that our legal team are always in discussion with you and ways that we can fight together because we have that same set of values, that same common goal for this country, and we know that sometimes it's got to be groups like the ACLJ that take the action with a private client. Sometimes it's the states that are bold enough to stand up.

JB McCuskey: And Will, let me just interrupt you just real quick. And to your listeners, I think what you all need to understand is that there are 27 other Republican Attorneys General who would have done exactly what I did.

But the ACLJ is the premier First Amendment and religious freedom law firm in this country. And I know that because I worked here. And I mean it when I said it that I would not be sitting here if it wasn't for Jay and Jordan Sekulow. And I am just immensely grateful for you guys for giving me the skills and the opportunity to get where I am today.

Logan Sekulow: Again, thank you so much for joining us today. Best of luck, we'll certainly be following all of it very, very closely. With that, we have a second half hour coming up. Don't go anywhere. If you lose us on your local radio station, we are broadcasting live on ACLJ.org, on YouTube, on Rumble, however you get your podcast. We are there right now for the next half hour. We got some phone lines open at 1-800-684-3110 and I want to hear from you.

You heard about how we're getting involved in Minnesota. There's a lot of you watching right now. So many of you are watching and you're going, "Hey, when are you going to get back to Minnesota? I love what JB's doing in West Virginia." But don't worry, in the next segments we are going right back to it. We're going to give you the discussion.

This was not clickbait. Articles of impeachment have been filed against Tim Walz. What that means if you're brand new, if you're just joining us right now, we'll get into what it means. It means actually more than you'd expect. It's not necessarily just a political stunt. There are real ramifications that come from this. Let's talk about it, let's chat it out. Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110.

If you want to be involved, though, if you see what's going on in Minnesota and you go, "Logan, I want to do something about it," you can be a part of our team. Join the ACLJ, become an ACLJ member, and also sign that petition. ACLJ.org/sign because right now we have filed five Freedom of Information Act requests to expose and defeat the what we feel is an industrial-scale fraud in Minnesota and you know what? It could be all around the country.

We're going to take a hard look at it and we have a team of lawyers ready to take action. Be a part of it right now. That is at ACLJ.org/sign where you can be a part of it. You can also become an ACLJ champion while you're there. Give a donation or get to us on a monthly basis. It'd be fantastic. We'll be right back. Second half hour coming up.

Logan Sekulow: For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines, protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org where you can learn more about our life-changing work. Become a member today. ACLJ.org.