SEKULOW

Will Haynes: Today on Sekulow, Senator Bill Hagerty takes legal action against illegal spying on his phone records. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now, your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Welcome to Sekulow. I'm Will Haynes. I'm joined by Jordan Sekulow in studio today, and folks, you're going to want to get in on this conversation early at 1-800-684-3110 because Senator Bill Hagerty is the first member of Congress to take action against what happened to him and other senators in the Arctic Frost investigation, where they seized the phone records of sitting senators and a member of Congress. Jordan, the Senator is going through an FCC route for this, trying to take action against Verizon, who was his telecommunications carrier, and trying to get reforms and acknowledgments that this won't happen again. Really, this is the first effort we've seen by a member of Congress pushing back on what happened to them.

Jordan Sekulow: This is the way to go because you can look at this both ways versus the FBI and DOJ wrongdoing by issuing these subpoenas, putting them under seal, and calling these senators a flight risk, like Bill Hagerty. And then, of course, keeping it from them. So, issuing that subpoena then to the telecom company—in this case, it was Verizon—and then saying we need the number, here's the phone number, we need all the proprietary information from this period of time. By the way, this is under seal, so you can't inform the person whose number that is.

We've heard from some of these carriers that they just looked up phone numbers and didn't look up to see who they were. They say they don't do that when the FBI comes to them, except for when they issued the report and gave the information to the FBI, guess what it said on top of the document? Bill Hagerty. So, it identified Senator Hagerty. They were able to identify him at Verizon. Even if they didn't know when they first got the number whose information they were getting, they had a second chance to ask the FBI why they were asking for proprietary information of a U.S. Senator and calling them a flight risk.

They said it's part of this criminal investigation and that they needed more answers and had a lot of questions before just handing this information over. So, that excuse that it's just a bunch of random numbers that they send us may be the case when they initially receive it from the DOJ, but then when they start compiling the report, they absolutely know who the number belongs to.

We saw some carriers, like AT&T, push back on Jack Smith. You know what? Jack Smith never went back to them because he knew he was in the wrong. He was trying to see if he could catch these telecom companies and act like this is business as usual, like another criminal investigation, and just get the information. One AT&T person at the company who received this said no. That was with Senator Ted Cruz's account, and they responded to Jack Smith. Jack Smith never came back to them. He had no argument for them.

All of these companies could have pushed back just a little by saying they didn't think he had the right to this information and that they needed more information. They could have said they didn't believe they could keep this from their customer and that this was totally new, not how they normally conduct business, even when involved in a criminal investigation. By saying that, they could have shut down the entire Arctic Frost look at these U.S. Senators. Instead, other AT&T agents handed the information right over.

It wasn't just one company did the right thing and another company did the wrong thing; inside the same company, you were having good things done and bad things done. That's what we have to get at: making sure that this abuse of our legal system to get at a separate branch of government never happens again and to be able to hide it from them because Jack Smith qualified them as flight risks. U.S. Senators as flight risks, those who serve us. We'll take your calls on this at 1-800-684-3110. Arctic Frost is not going away, and we are about to file our FOIA lawsuit. DOJ didn't respond, and a number of agencies didn't respond, so now we'll be going to court to get the information.

Will Haynes: The challenges facing Americans are substantial. At a time when our values, our freedoms, and our constitutional rights are under attack, it's more important than ever to stand with the American Center for Law and Justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines, protecting your freedoms and defending your rights in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena. We have an exceptional track record of success.

But here's the bottom line: we could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms. That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. 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 at ACLJ.org.

Welcome to the all-new ACLJ app. Expert analysis and insight Big Tech can't censor. Customize your news and get real-time alerts on the issues you care about. Advocacy is now at your fingertips. Take action, make a difference, and support the causes you care about with just one tap. Be the first to know with breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox. Everything you need, all in one place. Stay informed, stay empowered. Download today.

We are so excited to announce the ACLJ's brand-new app, completely redesigned to provide you with the best tools available to partner with us at the ACLJ. You can watch the daily Sekulow program, sign the petitions, customize your ACLJ member experience, donate with the click of a button, and receive up-to-the-minute critical updates that the mainstream media can't censor. Just scan the QR code on your screen or go to your phone's app store, search ACLJ, and click install. It's that simple.

Welcome back to Sekulow. Once again, as Jordan said, we want to hear from you on this: 1-800-684-3110. But we're talking about this action that Senator Hagerty is taking, going to the FCC with a complaint over his carrier, Verizon. Here's what he's demanding as the result of that, as this first action trying to hold the telecommunications companies, as well as the Department of Justice under the Biden administration, accountable for what happened.

He's demanding a written apology and admission that it broke the law by Verizon's CEO and the CLO. Then, he also wants discipline for those responsible, including the CLO and then-CEO, now special advisor. He wants documents and information about how Verizon processed this subpoena and its communications with the Special Counsel. He also wants reform of Verizon's practices to ensure this doesn't happen again. This is at the same time that this morning on Capitol Hill, there are CEOs of these telecommunications companies testifying before a Senate committee.

We'll play some of that sound as well. But Jordan, the ACLJ also is involved in this because we had originally filed FOIAs, which went unresponsive. Now we are taking that step today of suing these agencies to get the documents related to this that the public needs to see.

Jordan Sekulow: Initially, this FOIA was backed by Senator Cruz, Senator Graham, Senator Tuberville, Senator Blackburn, Senator Hagerty, and Senator Lummis. In this, we requested the records under FOIA. The time started running on their response, and of course, as usual, even with this Department of Justice, they did not meet their deadline. We gave them a little bit of extra time, which you normally would do, and we did that in writing.

Now we are filing in federal court to get this information as quickly as possible. Who we are suing is not just the DOJ and FBI; it's specific. It's the DOJ Office of Information Policy, the FBI, the DOJ National Security Division, the DOJ Criminal Division, and the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel. They will all be sued today by the American Center for Law and Justice on behalf of those senators to get these records.

What records are we looking for? The discussions that pertain to putting this information and complying with Jack Smith's order. We want any kind of interviews that were conducted about this, anything that was being discussed by Jack Smith and the investigators about how they wanted to move on this. As I remind you from the first segment, when Jack Smith got a pushback from one of these telecom companies for one of these senators, they never responded.

They had to have known they were on very weak legal ground seeking this information under seal by declaring that these senators were somehow a flight risk with no evidence whatsoever that they were a flight risk. It's almost laughable that they would be a flight risk, but that is how they kept it under seal. So, we want the information about that. We want the records that authorized the access to this but yet prohibited access from the members of Congress.

Basically, again, you're looking for all the records tied to this. You want to see what was going on when Jack Smith got that response from AT&T and said okay, no pushback. There has to be a reason why. Whether or not they wrote it down or they had some communications or somebody took it in their notes, he instructed them not to push. I believe he instructed them not to push because he knew if it somehow got into court or a legal matter, the telecom companies who did push back were on the right side.

That's all it would have taken if these other telecom companies, like Verizon, had a backbone and just pushed back and said this doesn't seem right to us, it doesn't pass the smell test, we need more information about why you're keeping this under seal and why you believe these individuals are flight risks, because we're supposed to inform them within a certain amount of days if you have subpoenaed their records. This is not allowing us to abide by our normal terms and services and agreement we have with our customers. That's what those senators are. I would love to see Jack Smith's response to his team because you would think his team would say, "Okay, let's go after them," and he called the dogs off. I only can imagine that's because he knew that if this ended up in a legal proceeding, he had the weaker argument, such a weak argument that it wasn't even worth trying to push back on AT&T.

Will Haynes: That's right, Jordan. And a reminder to everyone watching, there were eight senators who were targeted by this: Senator Graham—actually nine—eight had their records actually obtained by the Special Counsel's Office. That was Senator Graham, Senator Hagerty, Senator Hawley, Senator Sullivan, Senator Tuberville, Senator Johnson, Senator Lummis, and Senator Blackburn, as well as Representative Mike Kelly. Ted Cruz was also a target of this, but as you mentioned, AT&T did not provide his information, even though some of these others, also AT&T customers, did have their information provided.

Why I think this is so important for people to remember is because as we talk about these senators, it's egregious that they could do this as it is, that he was able to get through these hoops. But remember, Jack Smith testified a few weeks ago on Capitol Hill and he was telling the members of Congress that day that the reason for using it under seal, the reason for including the language "flight risk," etc., are basically just pro forma statements that they file when they want it under seal.

Even that is so egregious that the Department of Justice under the Biden administration—their policy was to file statements that were essentially boilerplate language to get what they wanted. The ends justified the means for the Biden Department of Justice. Things like that have to change because if they can do that with a boilerplate language saying "could be a flight risk," "we want you to mask the number," and the courts go along with it, then if they're willing to do that for a U.S. Senator, not a single person has the right to privacy in their own data anymore under what the Biden administration's DOJ was doing.

I think that's why we have to continue down this path. We have to see the communication to protect not just the senators and the co-equal branch of government but for the average ACLJ listener. Because if they feel like they can get away with it, what is the next administration going to do that doesn't have the civil liberties of Americans at heart? That's where we have to continue down this path.

Jordan Sekulow: Absolutely. 1-800-684-3110 is the number if you want to talk to us on air. Let's go to Robert in Maryland on line one. Hey, Robert.

Robert: Yeah, I wanted to ask two questions. You partially answered the first question. The first question was dealing with the issue of Arctic Frost, and I wanted to know if there was any involvement by the CIA and the National Security Agency in addition to the Department of Justice in obtaining the phone records of those senators and the representative.

The second question I had was related to the Benghazi terrorist attack. My understanding is the FBI has captured someone who was involved in the Benghazi terrorist attack on 9/11/2012, and I wanted to know where he was captured.

Jordan Sekulow: To that, Robert, they have not said specifically. The DOJ and a lot of that, when they gave the press conference, said a lot of that was under seal, and that would be to protect sources and methods of how they actually caught this guy. There had to be someone who gave him up, and that could compromise U.S. assets overseas.

So, a lot of those details are still not known to the public and have not been released. The last I checked, they hadn't said where he was picked up, but he arrived at Andrews Air Force Base at 3:00 in the morning. I don't think he was on a beach in Florida and they happened to pick him up. It was somewhere where there was probably a coordinated effort between the DOJ and other agencies in the U.S. government that would be able to go and take someone into custody like that. So, I think there is a reason why they didn't come forward and say it wasn't like the Bin Laden raid, where we knew exactly where the compound was and how they got to him.

To the Arctic Frost part, if there's other intelligence agencies, I mean, listen, when you're dealing with the DOJ National Security Division and Criminal Division, there's likely crossover there with the intelligence community. Whether or not it's the CIA itself or other intelligence branches, there's likely crossover, but it was the DOJ and FBI taking the lead on this with Jack Smith. Remember, he was the Special Counsel who had this ability to go out and get these subpoenas issued to these phone providers.

But as Senator Hagerty says, if this can happen to a sitting U.S. Senator, it can happen to any American very easily. The way that these telecom companies just kind of bent over backwards anytime the FBI is seeking information, I think, should not be the norm. They should ask questions and push back and they shouldn't just say, "Well, we got a bunch of random numbers, let's give them everything they want." Why not look into those numbers and see if they are similarly situated?

If they're all U.S. Senators or all elected officials, like they were in this case, and they're using terms that wouldn't make sense for current elected officials, like they're a flight risk somehow even though they have no history of that. Treating them like they are cartel leaders, really, that's how Jack Smith tried. Now, when there was pushback, he didn't fight back. So, we really want to get that information too through our FOIA: why didn't Jack Smith fight back on that AT&T time when they would not hand over Ted Cruz's information? We want to know the details. To get that, we've now got to file in federal court against multiple agencies and departments within the DOJ and FBI. We need your financial support. Donate today at ACLJ.org. This is a major FOIA lawsuit on behalf of six U.S. Senators. Donate today at ACLJ.org.

Will Haynes: For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines, protecting your freedoms and 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 at ACLJ.org.

Welcome back to Sekulow. If you want to call in about that Arctic Frost story, as well as what Senator Hagerty is doing, call us at 1-800-684-3110. But we are going to pivot a little bit here, and we're joined by Jeff Ballabon, Director of ACLJ Jerusalem, who is in Israel as we speak, about something that occurred yesterday. There was a Religious Liberty Commission hearing where this is a commission that was established by executive order by the President early in his term and was supposed to serve for a year, ending on July 4th at the celebration of the 250th.

Their entire job was to come up with a comprehensive report about the foundations of religious liberty in America, the impact of religious liberty on society, current threats to domestic religious liberty, and strategies to preserve and enhance religious liberty protections for future generations. So, what we've seen is that this commission, which has big names in the faith community like Franklin Graham on it, as well as Cardinal Dolan—names that people know—got shaken a little bit yesterday with this hearing that was supposed to be focused on antisemitism.

It had people testifying, including Bruce Pearl, former Auburn University basketball coach, who's been on this broadcast before, as well as from UCLA Law School, a student who was there. Many different universities were represented to talk about the experiences of antisemitism or combating it in the United States after October 7th. What we saw, Jeff, was an individual who is on the commission who hijacked the hearing on antisemitism to spew antisemitic rhetoric, to prop up the lies and the hatred that we've seen spewed by the likes of Candace Owens, and to interrogate the witnesses talking about their experience of antisemitism on U.S. campuses and flip it on them. She was wearing a Palestinian pin, it appeared, but became an activist going against the people trying to testify to help this commission make recommendations to the President on how to combat antisemitism, and she became a case study for the commission itself.

Jeff Ballabon: Because we work not only in the courts but also very much in Washington at the political level and the policy level, we know what maybe much of the public does not know: that unfortunately there's an entire layer, a very deep-seated, deep-rooted layer, including on the Republican side and including in this administration, of people who really are very deeply antisemitic.

But if you're wearing a Palestinian pin, which represents not just hatred for Israel but "Death to America" cries all around the country and burning American flags all around the country, it's very hard to think that such a person really should be representing anybody on a presidential commission. And the fact that she said she listens to Candace Owens daily and she'd never heard anything she would consider antisemitic, so what does she consider antisemitic?

Candace Owens literally forwards—I don't mean current-day Nazi theory—she repeats and uses as fact debunked things that were used by the Nazis themselves to justify the murder of all the Jews in the world, which is what their goal was. And Candace does this over and over on a regular basis, and she claims she's never heard this or she thinks that's fine, that's not antisemitic. So, this is just a clearly evil person who shouldn't be there. She also claimed to speak on behalf of Catholics, all Catholics, which is shocking because the Church itself would reject what she says. There are so many American Catholics who are true supporters of Israel and friends to Jews, and it's really—I know a lot of Catholics, I'm pretty sure I've never met a Catholic who thinks it's a good idea to deny the Holocaust and justify the Holocaust at the same time, which is exactly what Candace does.

Jordan Sekulow: What I thought was interesting, too, was that the Rabbi who was on the commission spoke up and said, "Listen, I would never say I speak for all Jews," and for her to say she speaks for all Catholics and saying that every Catholic is somehow anti-Zionist. As you said, Jeff, none of us can speak for an entire religious group of people; it's a mixture of lots of different views within, if you're talking about that big of a group like all Catholics.

But certainly, of all people, she shouldn't be doing that. She's not a religious leader within the Catholic Church. And even the Rabbi who is a religious leader among Judaism said, "I couldn't speak on behalf of all Jews." So, this idea that she was so bold in saying to these folks who were testifying about the antisemitism they've experienced—that's gross on top of that, that she's doing this to them, as if what happened to them wasn't real or isn't serious or has to only do with Israel or the dual loyalties junk that we've heard from time to time. That's where she was going with this, Jeff.

She used this opportunity, which was supposed to be a hearing that they're doing on multiple faith groups about the issues they're facing—discrimination, the antisemitism amongst the Jewish community—then they'd move on and they're going to do it about even evangelicals, they're going to do it about different Hindus, different religious groups. And instead, it turned into this booing and shouting match amongst a group of people who are supposed to be doing what's best for religious freedom in America.

Jeff Ballabon: This week, here in Jerusalem—and I'm going to be attending part of it—there is a meeting of Catholics and Jews. This is Catholics from the Holy See who are here because it's the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, which is a very seminal document 60 years ago by the Catholic Church in which the Catholic Church apologizes for the role historically that unfortunately Catholics or the Catholic Church may have played in antisemitism, specifically references the horrors of the Holocaust and forges a new relationship going forward to exactly not have this kind of rhetoric.

This is a throwback to the worst kind of rhetoric of medieval Europe that really America was founded to run away from. America was founded to support religious liberties, religious freedom, everything we fight for at the ACLJ. So, Catholics are coming here to Jerusalem, to the holy city shared by our faiths, to talk about building more and more and greater unity. These are people who work together. And she claims she speaks for all Catholics? She doesn't speak for the Church at all.

Will Haynes: Jeff, I think once again when you look at these things, she was counting the number of times that Israel had been mentioned and said, "Since we've mentioned Israel a total of 17 times, are you willing to condemn what Israel has done in Gaza?" She was asking that of the panel talking about their experiences with antisemitism, as well as saying that she would be considered an antisemite because she does not support Zionism and because she believes the Jews killed Jesus, which is a generations-old antisemitic trope and lie.

I think anyone claiming to be a Christian that believes that lie fundamentally does not understand the Gospel and the Gospel message. But Jeff, we've only got about a minute left here. I think that this person, even though there's not much time left on this commission—it ends supposedly July 4th—that she should be kicked off this commission.

Jordan Sekulow: She should have nothing to do with this commission. The truth is, we really need to go through and see who's making policy or involved and believes these kinds of things because they're not just inimical to Jews; they're inimical to Christians, they're inimical to a country of religious liberties, religious freedom, inimical to every value we stand for at the ACLJ, everything that Judeo-Christian values stand for, that Jews stand for, Christians stand for. Again, we don't stand for—I'm not speaking for a people; I'm speaking for the values that officially animate our country and our society, and she opposes those values. Thank you, Jeff, for joining us. Jordan, we'll be back talking more about this action from Senator Hagerty and how you can get involved with the ACLJ as we file today a FOIA lawsuit to the FBI and Department of Justice seeking records about Jack Smith's involvement in going after those senators' phone records.

Will Haynes: For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines, protecting your freedoms and 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 at ACLJ.org.