SEKULOW

Logan Sekulow: Woke up this morning for Friday and I said, Logan, what do you think you're going to be talking about on the broadcast today? We're going to talk about Minnesota? Not today. We're going to talk about Iran? Well, not really.

But what we're going to be doing is flashing back to 2012 before my son was born, who is now a 13-year-old. Think about that. Because an arrest has been made 13 years later. A top terrorist suspect who was involved in and part of the Benghazi attack, whatever you want to call it. And this happened, again, just overnight.

Will: That's right. There was a press conference this morning held by the Attorney General, as well as Kash Patel and US Attorney Janine Pirro, discussing this. This is what happened. We've got someone who was a part of the attack. He's been charged with an eight-count indictment which includes the crime of murder against Ambassador Chris Stevens and State Department employee Sean Smith.

It also has arson charges. It has a lot of other things that are related to the planning and the execution of that attack on both the US consulate, as well as a CIA outpost was also a part of that attack where we lost American lives. This is something that you weren't expecting to be waking up to today.

As of 3:00 AM this morning, they had landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland with Zubair al-Bakush, who is this alleged terrorist.

Logan Sekulow: Libyan militant suspected of being a mastermind of the attack was captured by US special forces. Oh, no, this is a different one. In 2014 and was brought to Washington. I think I read the wrong quote there. It was highlighted in front of me. You all could have highlighted the right thing. That's just me being me.

Will: There were four Americans, remember, that were killed in this. It was CIA as well as members of the State Department, a US ambassador. This individual is a part of that. There have been other arrests that have gone throughout this time. We're now talking 14 years plus.

That is where back in 2014, a lot of those happened very close to the actual event itself when we were still more engaged in the area. But seeing this now is fascinating. We'll get into some of the sound from the Attorney General as well in the next segment.

Just remarkable, even the commitment of the Justice Department this far away from the event to still bring these individuals to justice. For the families of those that lost lives, I think it's important as well.

Logan Sekulow: Bondi was quoted saying we've never stopped seeking justice for that crime against our nation. I think that is pretty interesting, the fact that they even are going back that far. I start thinking about 2012. That was not recent history. Will, what do you think the best picture was in 2012?

Will: Was it the bomb-diffusing one? What was that called? *Hurt Locker*?

Logan Sekulow: No, it was *The Artist*, the silent picture, which all of us remember. Exactly, that's what I'm trying to say. It's been that long ago. Phone lines are open for you. Do you think we need to be spending time on things like Benghazi? We've also got a lot more info coming up a little bit later.

Will and I will be rambling. We'll also be taking all your calls today. Will wanted to say it's Open Calls Friday.

Will: Within scope. There's certain things we're not going to talk about. Don't air all of your public personal lives. But if you do have a question or comment related to anything ACLJ related or any of the topics we brought up this week, whether that is Iran, whether that is Minnesota, whatever it may be, we'll cover it here today. Give me a call at 1-800-684-3110.

Logan Sekulow: Lots heating up also in the state of California. We're going to get to that a little bit later, what the ACLJ is working on and why you need to keep supporting us. If you can, become a champion today. That is at ACLJ.org and donate now.

Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. No, this is not a repeat from 2012. You can tell our voices are scraggier now, Will, than they were in 2012. I'm not sure I had a beard in 2012. There's a lot of things that have happened. We were watching the breaks, Trey Gowdy going through, look at all the different FBI leaders we've had since 2012.

Will: I like that voice. That's a good rendition. Sometimes you have to have a little bit of moderation, especially when doing Gowdy, you got to be careful. 100%. That's why I try to wake up in the morning and ask if I did Gowdy today. I go, not today. Not yet. One day. When I go full gray, that will happen. Full gray Gowdy. When that happens, I'll do it.

Logan Sekulow: But we're talking about Benghazi. I can't even believe it. I used it as the tease, every day in his life, Charlie Daniels, one of the greatest artists and musicians of all time, and a friend of this show and a friend of the family, he would post, "Benghazi ain't going away." Since he passed away back in 2020, his son has continued that tradition.

This morning I was happy to text Charlie Daniels Jr. and say, "You know what? Benghazi ain't going away." But that is because you have people that are in place right now like Kash Patel who have been around this for a long time. They remember the trauma that came from this and they aren't going to let it go away.

Will: I think it's also a kind of an interesting juxtaposition when you think about what we were talking about with the mayoral race in New York. We talked about 9/11, "never forget," and then you see already how quickly what they've elected in New York is a radical Marxist-leaning mayor who is friends with radical imams.

That has been a part of his campaigning, going to the very ideology that was a part of what we saw happen on 9/11 in 2001. Some of those imams were unindicted co-conspirators and were looked at with the first World Trade Center bombing. I think that as an American people, we sit around and we think we say things like "never forget," but many of us do forget.

You think about Benghazi and the outrage at Hillary Clinton for this soundbite when she was before Trey Gowdy. He was in Congress and they were holding hearings on the response and the failure of the State Department during this attack and how the American government tried to spin so quickly it was a response to a video to try to cover up for their security failures in Benghazi. This is what Hillary Clinton said at the time before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. This was in 2013, not long after those attacks.

Hillary Clinton: The fact is, we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?

Will: Once again, why that resonated with so many people at the time was because even her spin there, asking if it was because of a protest or because of some guys out for a walk deciding to go kill some Americans, left out the real cause. It was a planned terrorist attack against American citizens and the American government that had nothing to do with the video. That's what caused so much outrage then.

Logan Sekulow: This is crazy when we think about it. We may need to back this up a little bit. This happened before my son was born, he's 13. There are plenty of our listeners who are between the ages of 20 and 30 who at the time were children when this was happening. That's how long ago it's been.

Even though Charlie Daniels did post every day, "Benghazi ain't going away," it hasn't exactly been the story in the news in the last decade. So maybe we do need to give people a bit of a refresher of just what that moment was.

Will: Remember, it happened on September 11th. It was a chosen time by the terrorists to attack a US consulate in Libya. The Arab Spring had spread across North Africa and the Middle East. You were seeing these revolutions. You saw the fall of Gaddafi. You saw the United States have a consulate there in Libya trying to help remake what had fallen there.

We knew that terrorist actors had a large amount of control. Obviously, American diplomats as well as a CIA station were going to be targets of this attack and targets anywhere in the world. The security was lacking. I remember when this happened, the imagery that came out and the headlines. It was shocking because a US ambassador was killed. That is not something that had really happened in my lifetime.

I remember producing this show, getting ready for it, and the solemnity that went along with this because it was such a shocking event. You know that ambassadors have security teams and that there's protection and everything, even in the dangerous places in the world. But it was not something that was in the realm of possibility to wake up to, that a terrorist attack had taken out a US ambassador as well as other members of the State Department.

We knew that two members of the CIA, they were contractors, were killed as well. There were these stand-down orders. There were the ways that they allowed this attack to go on. There was that film *13 Hours* because it wasn't a one-off quick strike and attack on a consulate because it's an easy target. It continued on.

There were these alleged stand-down orders. They were trying to mobilize planes from Italy to get there. The bravery of some CIA contractors to go and try and save people also turned the attack, which was a mile away, where the terrorists started attacking the CIA outpost, which isn't something that has signage on it. It was coordinated. It was planned.

I like to play this contrast because while many of us, including you and I, know Charlie Daniels was still talking about it, it isn't something that had been at the forefront of our minds in the way that something like 9/11 had been. This is how Pam Bondi, the Attorney General of the United States, very early into her remarks this morning framed this entire thing.

Pam Bondi: Hillary Clinton famously once said about Benghazi, "What difference, at this point, does it make?" Well, it makes a difference to Donald Trump. It makes a difference to those families. And 14 years later, it makes a difference to law enforcement who made the difference in this case.

Will: Logan, I think that is what is different about this administration. When they say "never forget," they are going to keep their word and do things that if this hadn't happened, I don't think it would have really been something that anyone ever thought back to.

Logan Sekulow: I feel that way about the January 6th bomber. That was four or five years ago at this point. We're talking about jumping back 12. Got two minutes. I want to take Jerry real quick in Rhode Island. Hopefully, that can spur you all to call in as well. Jerry, go ahead.

Jerry: I've been listening to the comments and as a member of the uniform and a member of law enforcement, I agree with what Bondi said. There's an old saying, "If you don't learn the lessons of history, you're doomed to repeat it." I would love to hear some of the people who were in uniform, especially survivors of that, call in and give their opinion. If we don't learn the lessons of history, it's going to be repeated.

Logan Sekulow: I think that that is very true, Jerry. It's why I just made Will teach a little bit. That is necessary because there's generational gaps here when you're talking about over 10 years. I'm not just talking about kids who were born after it and are now 13 years old. I'm talking about people that are now in their mid-20s or late 20s.

A lot of times, you're not being exposed to what's going on the news. Do you remember what you were doing when you were 15 years old and now you're 30? Were you paying attention to what was going on in the global news? Likely not. We do have to go back and remind people. For a lot of us, it feels like it was just yesterday, but it wasn't.

The fact that you have an administration that's willing to still do this is pretty impressive. Again, it wasn't the news I expected to wake up to. If I had a bingo card for this year, Benghazi probably wouldn't have been a topic that I thought we'd even be bringing up in 2026. But here we are. I think that's good. It keeps people on their toes who were involved in things like this. They know they haven't gotten away with these egregious crimes against America.

I want to take more calls at 1-800-684-3110. In the next segment, we have an update from the state of California as we've been taking them on here at the ACLJ for a myriad of reasons. We have a specific one in terms of our Supreme Court petition. Stay on hold. We'll get to you if you call in. Give me a call at 1-800-684-3110 and also support the work of the ACLJ. Find us however you get your podcasts.

Welcome back to Sekulow. We've got some open lines for you at 1-800-684-3110. I did want to give you an update on the ACLJ and what we're doing. I'm looking at a little script in front of me because it's giving you an update of what's going on in California. Will can chime in with the nuts and bolts of this.

For over half a decade, Governor Gavin Newsom has been going after church tithes and offerings to the tune of 1.2 million big ones. That was over how people worshipped during the pandemic. What happened was they've still been trying to collect these fines. We have all said we know some of the hypocrisy that came upon California. We know Gavin Newsom's one of those people violating his own rules.

It's been long enough. You're trying to collect a million dollars, nothing to the state of California, but everything to this church. We know why you're trying to do this. Now, once again, Gavin Newsom, instead of taking their time in court, they decided they'd like to ask again for more time at Supreme Court. The state of California just requested and was granted a second extension of time to respond to our Supreme Court petition. Newsom is again trying to bankrupt this Calvary Chapel in San Jose.

Will: That's right. We've been talking about it for a couple months now, that we filed our cert petition at the Supreme Court December 12th of last year. Cert petition is where we are asking the court to review this case. What we saw very quickly, just about one week after we filed on December 12th, the state of California requested an extension to file until February 17th.

They requested this just a week after we filed. That's not abnormal, especially if it's something that maybe a party wasn't expecting to come or if there's a lot of other things going on. They could ask for more time once they get your brief to prepare their argument against you. The Supreme Court granted that. They gave them until February 17th to file their brief in opposition to our cert petition.

But then this week, after getting an extra month of time to respond to the ACLJ and our client, Calvary Chapel San Jose, they filed a motion for another extension for their response till March 19th. This is an extremely rare request. The Supreme Court did grant that. They do give a lot of leeway to states. It is more abnormal that the state of California requested a second extension.

I like to believe personally that they don't know what their argument is going to be to tell the Supreme Court don't take this up. They know deep in their hearts how egregious this is and that they're probably going to lose. They're really trying hard to craft this argument. We don't know for sure, but that is what I want to believe is happening.

Logan Sekulow: Or Gavin is like, "Look, I'm not in for that much longer. I can delay this thing and then it's someone else's problem." I'm no longer the governor. It's old news. The ACLJ is continuing to fight back and we want you to be part of the team today. I never want to paint with a broad brush. We're not in a fight with California. We're in a fight with the political side of California. There's a lot of great people there.

We have members of our team there. We've got offices. We have people who are proud Californians. We love the state of California. It's actually between California and Texas, those are our two biggest support hubs for the ACLJ. Old school televangelism, Christian music, all of those were coming out of Southern California. We know that there is a big group of you that listen and watch in California.

When we say we're taking on California, understand we mean the government of the state of California. You need to be a part of that as well. Today we have so much going on. We've filed an amicus brief in the US Supreme Court again to stop another California attack on Christian schools. They are trying to make the Christian part of the school optional. You can send your kids to this private Christian school and California says we can tell the Christians they can't teach about Christ.

Will: Once again, this goes back to what we're talking about here. They want to make it so easy for people to water down faith and Christianity and their First Amendment right which protects their freedom of religion. When it goes back to the entire case, they were handing out exemptions for people able to opt out of their COVID policies left and right.

It was the churches that they were saying you're going to have to follow this narrowly tailored rule. All these things were found to be unconstitutional and arbitrary later. They're still trying to collect that money. At the same time, they want to say you can opt out of your Christian teaching at your Christian school. It is always the option to opt out if you're secular in California. They are making these absurd rules both when it comes to Christian schools and the way they applied COVID rules to the churches.

Logan Sekulow: As we mobilize in court to defend Christians right now, I need you to join with us at the ACLJ. Clients don't get charged here at the ACLJ. We are funded by you, the supporter and the ACLJ champion. So we can go to court for these clients at absolutely no cost. We can provide all the invaluable resources on our website and through this broadcast at absolutely no cost.

What helps us is donations and support. I encourage you, you can go to ACLJ.org. You can sign a petition right now as we mobilize in court to help defeat these attacks on our faith. If you're able, I'm going to ask you to become an ACLJ champion today. That is someone that gives on a monthly basis. People come up to me in the streets and they go, "Logan, I'm an ACLJ champion." It warms my heart.

Become an ACLJ champion today. Stand up for what's right. I encourage you to do that today at ACLJ.org. Give me a call at 1-800-684-3110 and support the work of the ACLJ as we have an extra 30 minutes of this show coming up. Find us however you get your podcasts.