SEKULOW

Logan Sekulow: Welcome to Sekulow. First and foremost, I have to thank all of you who supported the work of the ACLJ during our Double the Difference drive. It was incredibly successful. We started with Double Your Impact month, and it was so successful and was doing so well, we decided to keep it going. We did the Double the Difference drive and switched it up a little bit, but we had eight weeks back-to-back of matching gifts.

We know how far that is going to go to helping the cause of the ACLJ and all the incredible work we do, whether it's the legal work or the media side. All of it is funded because of you. So I just wanted to say a big thank you, and now we can breathe a little bit. We can also breathe a little bit because the Department of Homeland Security has announced we're back open for business. You know, this happened on my wife's birthday, Will. I think they did it for her. They were like, Amanda's celebrating, and we're going to reopen the Department of Homeland Security. Let's break down actually what happened.

Guest (Male): That's right. So this is, as we've seen, a closure to the 75-day shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. It is the longest shutdown of any government agency ever in history. This was passed by the House of Representatives yesterday by a voice vote. They didn't sit there and have the open ten minutes and all pressing their electronic buttons.

Logan Sekulow: It felt like it kind of came out of nowhere. They're like, by the way, Mike Johnson's out there going, "Back at business."

Guest (Male): That's right. And so this came after the Senate used a different tactic to kind of get this to the House of Representatives. It fully restores funding to the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, FEMA, and TSA, among other agencies. This still has the contentious issue of not having funding for ICE and Customs and Border Patrol, but that is because of the way that this has gone down for so long.

Logan Sekulow: 75 days. So over two months that this was happening. I think it's one of the record, if not the record, for the longest shutdown of these. Look, of all the things to be shutting down in a time like this, when we have had less than a week ago close calls in terms of the assassination attempts.

With that, to not have a Department of Homeland Security open and working, and of course, as Will said, that includes things like the Coast Guard. I always said of all those things, those are the ones where I can't even believe—one, we probably need to look at should you be able to even shut down things like the Coast Guard with this type of effort. Of course, we know a lot of people were still working but were working without pay. When you're talking about working without pay for 75-plus days, we saw the chaos that happened early on with the TSA in the airport security lines and everything that's happened there. But thankfully, Mike Johnson was able to push this forward.

Guest (Male): That's right. And once again, though, you see the impact that the Democrat Party, the minority party here, was able to have on this appropriations process because ICE and CBP are still not reopened. This is something that will continue to go on. They are working on a package of spending that they can get that forward. But as we look at it right now, we're going to have the majority of Homeland Security reopened.

Logan Sekulow: I think that's good news for everybody. Look, in general, are you thrilled with this? I can understand not. Let me know in the chat. For the rest of the show, we are going to go back and talk about all the big events that happened this week. Some of the top highlights, whether that was the work of the ACLJ or some of the breaking news that happened.

I want to make sure whenever we do these kind of shows, sometimes they're very one and done. Stuff happens, we move on, and you never hear that again. There are certain segments that I always want to make sure we can play back and talk to you guys about because you may have missed it. Maybe you had a busy week, so we're going to play back some of those coming up.

I did want to say not only still a big thank you, but for those that support the work of the ACLJ and those that watch this show, I do want you to spend some time on our website. I'm not asking you to go and raise money right now, but look at the incredible free content that we provide on our website. Take some articles and send them to your friends. Do stuff like that. Take our content and just share it.

If you're on YouTube, it's very easy to hit that subscribe button and throw in a comment. Understand that those are active ways at no cost to you that really make this message go further. So I want to encourage you to do something like that. It's not out of just vanity; it's because we want the message to get out to as many people as we can. That's why we have no paywalls. That's why we want to make sure that you can share this content with whoever you want to, whenever you want to. We'll be back with more coming up very soon on Sekulow.

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Logan Sekulow: Welcome back to Sekulow. We are going to take your calls and comments on this. A lot of you are tuning in just this second. I see the numbers spiking right now on our YouTube stream and our Rumble stream. So right now, if you're joining us, you want to know what is going on in Minnesota. No, this is not a replay. No, this is not old news. We are finally getting back to what was going on with that massive fraud that was going on in Minnesota. The fraud scandal that ended with Tim Walz stepping down from his reelection campaign.

Remember, it was a big deal for a few weeks there, but then we moved on. More happened in Iran. We've had an assassination attempt. There have been so many other topics that took the American people's eyes off of what was going on right here. So much so that I kind of assumed—and look, they had to do a lot of cleanup. I think a lot of people had combined this and the ICE situation in Minnesota.

I think a lot of us said they really need to take a look at what's going on with the ICE raids. Those things, I'm glad they're separating them in the way they're talking about this right now, are not the same thing. You can have massive fraud that's happening, and you could also have an issue with maybe some of the extreme nature that happened with ICE. So much so that you've got to remember, because you may go, well, it wasn't extreme, we didn't have a problem with it. Well, clearly the President did because you have a different Department of Homeland Security head.

You had Tom Homan step in. You have a lot of changes since then, a different Department of Justice. You have a lot of people who have swapped places—new people—because maybe that one went too far. But at the same time, and maybe that's why they needed to give it a little bit of a gap. They needed to give you time to kind of forget about the ICE raids and move on to having these new raids in Minnesota, which most people are in favor of. Which is: were people scamming and defrauding a state to the tunes of billions of dollars?

Nobody likes that. Nobody wants that. Even Tim Walz said, "We're trying to step up our game here. We're trying to make things better." The pressure got so hard on him that he could not run for reelection. That is what happened in Minnesota. Time moved on, and now you have the FBI once again doing their job, stepping in and saying, look, some of those ones, specifically those learning centers that were spelled wrong, the ones that were shut down, that clearly weren't actually operating but were just fleecing the government for money, we are doing our job here and trying to take care of some of that business.

Guest (Male): That's right. And when you look at what's going on, 22 locations, including childcare centers in Minnesota, were raided by the FBI as well as Homeland Security Investigations. It was a coordinated effort. We also see that J.D. Vance, the Vice President, responded to a report from Bill Melugin at Fox News on X, saying the task force and the DOJ will be relentless in exposing these fraudsters wherever they may be hiding.

As well as you're seeing a lot of other movement. It's not just Minnesota. I see comments on here, and this is a part of that conservative nihilism—that nothing will ever happen, that woe is the world, nothing can get better. I see this and I say, one, it's why we have to keep pointing out that this is something that the American people care about because you get movement.

Also, these are court-ordered warrants—court-approved warrants—to go in on these raids. It wasn't just they walked by and the FBI decided to break down the door and go in. They did it through the proper channels, which means they are building a case so that it's done properly if they go to court and they can get convictions against fraudsters. But there's a lot more here to break down too, Logan.

Logan Sekulow: True. And I want to actually take this call because it is a question that we've answered, but I think a lot of you who are just tuning in are having this question. Robert in Maryland, go ahead.

Guest (Robert): Yeah, I wanted to ask what are some of these raids taking place in Minnesota? Are these raids concerning fraud, or are they specifically also dealing with the fraud concerning some of the Somali immigrants that were taking place in the state of Minnesota? The other question I had was: how much information do they have on the would-be assassin of President Donald Trump?

Logan Sekulow: Yeah, let's start with a couple of different topics there. A lot of these are Somali businesses. We know that this is where it was going. Now, these aren't ICE-related raids. These aren't specifically—they made a pretty big deal by saying this is not immigration. We are dealing with just fraud. Now, it happens to be that a lot of that fraud was coming from the large Somali American population that is in Minnesota.

Hopefully, we can kind of see past maybe that side of it and go: fraud is fraud. If you have billions of dollars being wasted, that needs to be taken care of beyond any sort of race or ethnicity. To give you an answer about the would-be assassin, I think there is quite a bit of information. We have more information on this guy publicly than we ever did about the actual shooter from Butler. We probably have a little bit more than even from the previous one in Florida. There's a lot of details that are coming out. Again, they're not necessarily red flags or that salacious; they are sadly what a lot of the American people who have become deranged about this administration are saying.

Guest (Male): That's right. And to that point as well, he was formally charged yesterday. He was arraigned in federal court, and there was another charge that wasn't reported in the news that morning. They actually did charge him with an attempt to assassinate the President. So that was an extra charge.

I think a lot of that stemmed from the information they already had, from what it be his manifesto of sorts that he sent his family and other things. I know he did speak with law enforcement according to reports for a little bit before deciding to stop speaking with them. So they felt like they had enough to bring that charge as well: the attempted assassination of the President himself.

Now, Judge Janine, who is the US attorney there, has also said the more they go into his digital footprint, the more they will find out there very well could be a superseding indictment that will bring even more charges against this individual. But as of right now, we know a lot more, like you said, than we knew about the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassin who was killed in that situation.

Logan Sekulow: We know more about him now a few days in. I mean, that is still one of the weird ones. I'm not a conspiracy theorist in general, but there's a lot of known information.

Guest (Male): Well, I did see that there were some posts from the social media of this individual who's now in custody where he was questioning the validity of both the Butler assassination attempt specifically because he was pointing out that he had no scar, etc. The irony of a would-be assassin of the President questioning the validity of a would-be assassin of that same individual. Just what a bizarre, sick, twisted world we're living in.

Logan Sekulow: Like you said, you brought that up. It's the same people that would honestly be probably calling for this are the same people that are going to say it's fake. And it's a very odd situation to be in. Obviously, very disturbed—very disturbed American people right now and we do need to figure out some sort of path back.

Of course, there's the situation with Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Kimmel then went on air last night and said that wasn't the joke. The joke I was making was their age gap; it had nothing to do with any sort of assassination attempt. You can take that for whatever you want if you want to believe that; that's fine.

You had George Clooney coming out saying, look, I don't think what he was saying was a joke—or I thought what he was saying was a joke—and I thought Caroline Levitt saying that shots fired was a joke. But in general, how about we just bring it all down? He even said as a Democrat, a proud Democrat, someone who's loud and proud talking about it, that he thought it was time to see that happen.

You have a robust journalist who, sure, you're going to have journalists who are always going to poke back. You have comedians that are always going to poke back, make jokes. And sure, a joke can be a joke, and I understand that. I'm not in any form of censorship, but I do think there is a bit of "read the room" right now and what's happening. We'll see societally if anything changes. I don't expect it to. I expect you to be, as expected, within hours things had really adjusted, or not adjusted.

Guest (Male): Well, when the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, the days after the attempted assassination, in a room full of journalists and people that were unaffiliated even with the government, says that we are declaring maximum warfare on Republicans as the leader in the House, and then when people call you out, you double down on it and say, well, someone—an anonymous source to the New York Times in the White House—said something similar.

When you're trying to equate yourself to an anonymous White House source when you are the named leader of the Democrats in Congress, yes, maybe as Logan said, maybe you both shouldn't be saying maximum warfare on each other at this point, but you're going out and owning it unlike someone who would do that anonymously. I think that there are some issues that we should maybe parse out there.

But I have more information on fraud we can get to later. We also have CC Hile coming up in the next segment about an update from one of our clients in Pakistan as we continue this Faith Under Fire campaign as we talk about the ways that the ACLJ defends religious liberty both here and around the world. But there's some really interesting stuff because I'm seeing questions in the YouTube chat that say, well, okay, maybe this is too little, too late; it's just small potatoes if you're only going after Minnesota. There's a lot of other interesting things that are also happening today that to me say this is a much bigger operation than just these raids in Minnesota. Stick around.

Logan Sekulow: Yeah, if you have those type of questions, I want to hear from you and phone lines are—let's just be honest. We're having big numbers on social media; tons of you are watching on YouTube right now. We appreciate that. If you're on YouTube and you're brand new by the way, hit that subscribe button. We do this show every day. If you've been here a while, let me know where you're watching also in the chat. I appreciate that. But if you've been here a while, give me a call. I've got a bunch of lines open right now. I want to hear from you on this. 1-800-684-3110. And if you've also been here a while, I want you to think about supporting the work of the ACLJ again at ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org. We'll be right back.

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Logan Sekulow: Welcome back to Sekulow. We have some phone lines still open. 1-800-684-3110. CC Hile is joining us in studio, but if you are calling about Minnesota or if you're watching about Minnesota, we are going to get right back to that. So don't worry. But I did want you—you've got to hear about the work of the ACLJ that our team is doing.

In some of these cases, and they're very important like a street preacher in Chicago, wherever it may be, those are no small potatoes if you will, but there is a difference between that and what is happening in different countries. In some of these different countries, you legitimately have people on death row just because of their faith. And we have an update, and it is a pretty gripping, chilling update, so just fair warning.

Guest (Male): That's right. And CC, before we get to this, because we received something that we don't generally get, and this is a letter from one of our clients who is on death row in Pakistan. I'll read that for everyone. But I want you to give us a little bit of a background. Who are these brothers, Amun and Kaiser Ayub, who are on death row in Pakistan? What were they accused of and just the tireless work that our attorneys are doing for these individuals?

Guest (CC Hile): Yeah, and I'll tell you how this came about. We have an office in Pakistan, obviously, and we have four clients that are on death row right now for false blasphemy charges. And wonderfully, actually, one good thing is they're all together in one prison. We actually petitioned the prison because they do not allow visitors other than family members. And we petitioned the prison when our attorney, Shahryar Gill, who oversees the Pakistani office—he's Pakistani—went over there just at the beginning of this month and got permission to actually go and see our clients and actually have a meal with them.

So at this time, he was able to encourage them, give them updates, and this is where this letter has come from. But Amun and Kaiser Ayub—one of our false blasphemy cases—it was involving a website that actually the court has never proven. The prosecution has never proven, never shown any evidence, but these poor young men have been in prison for 11 years. And Kaiser, the older brother, actually then wrote this letter.

Guest (Male): And you think about that. That they were young men on death row spending now probably close to a majority of their life on death row in Pakistan. And Pakistan, once you get to the higher courts, has a fairly modern legal system, but they have these blasphemy laws where you can say you heard someone say something about the Prophet and you can get put on death row, sentenced to death for something as simple as relaying information or even not even saying anything at all and someone falsely accusing you. But here's what the letter from Kaiser Ayub says:

"Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord who is providing all of our needs through you all. All the efforts you all are doing to make us free and to make our life easier means a lot to us. There is no doubt that the promise of the crown of life is certainly for people like you all. What else you deserve for such good deeds, keeping the pain of being imprisoned away from us and to be the voice of the voiceless.

Life in prison is not easy, but you all and the love of our Jesus Christ keep us happy and satisfied. Me and my younger brother Amun have spent almost 11 years behind bars. Still, our morale is high, and our faith in our Lord is firm because we know it does not matter how big and strong is our enemy. If we believe in God is on our side, who could stand against us? We are satisfied that by the grace of our Lord and with the help of our brave soldiers of Christ, that are you all, we will soon win our freedom from the hands of the unjust world. Thank you again for all your miraculous help and efforts. Your brother in Christ, Kaiser Ayub."

It just goes to show that when you support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice, you're supporting the fight for Kaiser Ayub. That's why I wanted to read that for you, and we'll get back to the other talk of stuff that's going on in the United States. But some things are just bigger even than a fraud investigation. These are two young men who are sitting on death row in a prison in Pakistan, CC, and you read that and it almost brings tears to your eyes. Them as young men, how strong their faith is sitting on death row and knowing that there are people, the tireless attorneys like yourself that work for them as well as the supporters here in the United States that prop up this organization that keep us going, keep our fight going, to try and save them from their death while they're sitting there languishing in prison.

Guest (CC Hile): And the prayers of the people. I know people who listen to this radio program and follow the ACLJ, we know that you pray for our clients. And just the fact that brings so much hope to them that they're not forgotten. And like you said, here they are 11 years in prison, but they remain hopeful because of the prayers and support of our listeners.

And, you know, it also shows, too, Shahzad Masih is one of them that's in prison with him and you've heard about that young man who was arrested falsely again, accused of blasphemy. And he's been given actual chores to do in the prison, like Joseph. He's been given favor in the prison. So these Christian young men, their testimony is even flourishing in the prison on death row. Yes.

Logan Sekulow: So again, that's the work of the ACLJ, hard at work, our team. This is nothing to laugh at; these are no joking matters. These aren't even things that even compare, as Will said, to what some of the struggles we have in the United States of America. Sure, there's a lot of unrest for Christians. There's a lot of unrest for Jewish people in the United States of America right now and look, some of them have lost their lives; I'm not going to say that's not happening. But it's not sitting in prison. The government hasn't said yet, at least, that being a Christian is something that is punishable by death.

But that is happening in other places in the world. And that's why when we talk about the ACLJ's worldwide efforts, I know it can get lost in translation a bit, and I try to bring it up and sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes the audience wants to hear it, and sometimes they go get back to what we're talking about. Look, we're going to get back to Minnesota here in the next segment.

But this worldwide reach, this worldwide effort, and remember, when you're watching on something like YouTube or Rumble or wherever it may be, ACLJ.org—we are talking to the world. Though America is probably 95% of our viewing base, we still get calls from all over the world. The ACLJ exists. So hopefully, this message gets out there. If you're in need and you're somewhere else, you're not just in America, go to ACLJ.org/help as well or somehow reach out to our teams. There's the European Center, there's ACLJ Jerusalem, we have an office in Pakistan. We have all of these places where the ACLJ is hard at work and the efforts don't stop. And they are 24 hours, not taking off a lot of holidays when we're talking about people on death row.

Guest (CC Hile): That's right. We don't stop, and we keep fighting, and we do that in any—and you know, there's a time change, so we do work around the clock. We've done that when we had clients in Turkey and India and Pakistan. We fight for justice, and we don't stop until we get it.

Logan Sekulow: We appreciate you. Thank you so much, CC, for joining us. Look, we've got one minute left in this segment. Some of you lose us if you're on terrestrial radio. If you're not, stay tuned. If you're on Sirius XM, if you watch on Salem News Channel, if you watch on ACLJ.org, YouTube, Rumble, you get the full hour.

Some of you on terrestrial radio don't get the full hour. If you don't, find us on any of those platforms. The ACLJ app, ACLJ.org, YouTube, Rumble, you can find us on all of those wherever you get your podcasts where they are archived and watch and listen to the full hour of this show.

We're going to dive back into what's happening in Minnesota, that big coordinated FBI raid that's happening right now as we speak on a lot of the fraud and abuse that was happening within that state, and we're going to take it to how that affects other states as well in the next segment. So don't go anywhere. That being said, 20 seconds left. If we do lose you here, ACLJ.org, scan the QR code you see. We'll be right back. Less than a minute. Short break coming up.

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