SEKULOW

Logan Sekulow: To quote the late great Charlie Daniels, Benghazi ain't going away as a terror suspect has been extradited to the US.

Well, I 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? No, not today. Are we going to talk about Iran? Well, not really. What we're going to be doing is flashing back to 2012 before my son was born, who is now a thirteen-year-old, so think about that.

An arrest has been made thirteen years later. It also shows you what we are doing here. A top terrorist suspect who was involved in and part of the Benghazi attack happened 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 Jeanine Pirro discussing this. 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 and 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 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. He is suspected of being a mastermind of the attack. He was captured by US Special Forces. Oh wait, this is a different one. In 2014, he was brought to Washington. I read the wrong quote there.

Will: It was highlighted in front of me. You all could have highlighted the right thing. There were four Americans killed in this. It was CIA members as well as members of the State Department and 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 fourteen years plus. Back in 2014, a lot of those happened very close to the actual event itself when we were still more engaged in the area.

Seeing this now is fascinating. We'll get into some of the sound from the Attorney General as well in the next segment. It is remarkable 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: My boss 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. You start thinking about 2012, that was not recent history. Will, because we're in the awards season, what do you think 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. 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 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 with wide scope. There's certain things we're not going to talk about. Don't air all of your public personal lives. 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 or Minnesota, we'll cover it here today. Give me a call at 1-800-684-3110.

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.

Guest (Male): 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.

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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. If you're not, 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.

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Logan Sekulow: 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 membership 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. 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 scragglier now than they were in 2012. I'm not sure I had a beard in 2012. It was the last time I didn't have a beard.

A lot of things have happened. We were watching the breaks, Trey Gowdy going through all the different FBI leaders we've had since 2012. I liked that voice. It was a good rendition. I could have gone more and I backed myself off. No, that was good. Sometimes you have to have a little bit of moderation, especially when doing Gowdy. You've got to be careful. That's why I try to wake up in the morning and ask if I'll do Gowdy here today. I say not today, not yet. One day, when I go full gray, that will happen.

We're talking about Benghazi. I can't even believe it. Every day in his life, Charlie Daniels, one of the greatest artist musicians of all time and a friend of this show and the family, would post "Benghazi ain't going away." Even 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. 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 very interesting juxtaposition when you think about what we were talking about with the mayoral race in New York. We talked about 9/11 and "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. He has used that as 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.

As an American people, we sit around and 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. Remember when he was in Congress and they were holding hearings on the response and the failure of the State Department during this attack? The American government tried to spin it so quickly as a response to a video to try to cover 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 was leaving out the real cause. The planned terrorist attack against American citizens and against the American government 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 because I was thinking about that. This happened before my son was born; he's thirteen. There are plenty of our listeners who are between the ages of twenty and thirty 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 that Benghazi ain't going away, it hasn't exactly been the story in the news in the last decade. Maybe we do need to give people a bit of a refresher, even in a minute, 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. But we knew that terrorist actors had a large amount of control and obviously American diplomats, as well as a CIA station, were going to be targets of this attack anywhere in the world.

The security was lacking. I remember when this happened. The imagery that came out and the headlines were shocking because a US Ambassador was killed. That is not something that had really happened in my lifetime. I remember producing this show and getting ready for it. The solemnity that went along with this was because it was such a shocking event. You know that ambassadors have security teams and that there's protection. Even in the dangerous places in the world, 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.

Two members of the CIA were contractors 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 let's do a quick strike and attack a consulate because it's an easy target. It continued on, so much so that 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 and planned.

You heard those words from Hillary Clinton, but I like to play this contrast. 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. Fourteen years later, it makes a difference to law enforcement who made the difference in this case.

Will: 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. 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. Remember, that just happened and that was only a couple of years ago. That was four years ago, five years ago at this point. We're talking about jumping back twelve. I want to take Jerry real quick in Rhode Island. Hopefully, that can spur you all on to call in as well. Jerry, go ahead.

Jerry: I've been listening to the comments. 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 is very true, Jerry. That's why I just made Will teach a little bit. I think that is necessary because there's generational gaps here when you're talking about over ten years. I'm not just talking about kids who were born after it and are now thirteen years old. I'm talking about people that are now in their mid-twenties, late-twenties. A lot of times, you're not being exposed to what's going on in the news. Do you remember where you were when you were fifteen years old and now you're thirty? 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, I think it's pretty impressive. Again, it wasn't the news I expected to wake up to. 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 also keeps people on their toes who are out there still who were involved in things like this so they know they haven't gotten away with these egregious crimes against America.

With that, I want to take more calls at 1-800-684-3110. Also, in the next segment, I've got an update from the state of California as we've been taking them on here at the ACLJ for a myriad of reasons. We've got a specific one in terms of our Supreme Court petition. Stay on hold. We'll get to you if you call in at 1-800-684-3110. We've got a special presentation a little bit later on the show that I look forward to sharing with you. We'll be right back on Sekulow.

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 put a little script in front of me. I'm going to read some of it to you. I just like your transparency, Logan. I want to be honest. If my eyes aren't on the camera, my eyes aren't on you. 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 more 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, of course, was over how people worshiped 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 is one of those people violating his own rules. It's been long enough. You're trying to collect a million dollars, which is 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, decided they'd like to ask again for more time at the Supreme Court. The state of California just requested and was granted a second extension of time to respond to our Supreme Court petition. Newsom, again, is trying what feels like to bankrupt this Calvary Chapel in San Jose.

Will: If you remember, we've been talking about this for a couple of months now. We filed our cert petition at the Supreme Court on December 12th of last year. Normally, there's a 30-day window for the other respondents to file a reply brief. Basically, they would be filing their brief which opposes the cert petition. The cert petition is where we are asking the court to review this case and to take up the case.

What we saw very quickly, just about seven days, one week after we filed on December 12th, the state of California requested an extension to file until February 17th, which they would be coming up on in just eleven days from now. They requested this just a week after we filed. That's not abnormal, especially if it's something that a party wasn't expecting to come or if there are 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, which we are defending here at the Supreme Court, they filed a motion for another extension for their response until March 19th. This is an extremely rare request. It's not something typically the Supreme Court is even seeing, two extensions requested.

The Supreme Court did grant that. They do give a lot of leeway to states. Obviously, states have a lot going on, so it's not as abnormal to me that the Supreme Court granted it per se because it's a state of California. It is more abnormal that they, the state of California, requested a second extension. We don't know what their reasoning is, but I like to believe personally that they don't know what their argument is going to be to tell the Supreme Court not to 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.

Logan Sekulow: Or Gavin's like, look, I'm not in for that much longer. I can delay this thing and then it's someone else's problem. It's not me. 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 and people who are proud Californians. We love the state of California. Actually, between California and Texas, those are our two biggest support hubs for the ACLJ. Understand that old school televangelism and the things that used to happen with 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. So 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, not even just with that. We filed an amicus brief in the US Supreme Court again to stop another California attack. This one is on Christian schools trying to make the Christian part of your school optional. You could send your kids to this private Christian school and California says, yeah, but 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 what the entire case they're asking for this second extension for, it was that they were handing out exemptions left and right for people able to opt out of their COVID policies. It was the churches that they were saying, nope, you're going to have to do it.

It doesn't matter if you have an auditorium of 5,000 people or 50 people. It's this very narrowly tailored rule and all these things that were found to be unconstitutional and arbitrary later. They're still trying to collect that money. At the same time, they want to be like, hey, 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. It's always much harder and much more strict when it comes to how they are treating people of faith trying to exercise their First Amendment right.

Logan Sekulow: As we mobilize in court to defend Christians right now, I need you to join with us at the ACLJ. As you remember, for this Calvary Chapel, we're not charging them. Clients don't get charged here at the ACLJ. We are funded by you, the supporter, the ACLJ donor, 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.

If you're hearing an ad in your market right now, that's not going to us. What helps us is donations and support. So 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. They're real and they have impact around the country. 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. That's a donation every month that automatically rolls out. People come up to me in the streets and they go, Logan, I'm an ACLJ champion. It warms my heart. I love hearing it.

Become an ACLJ champion today. Label yourself with that. Stand up for what's right. Give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. We've got an extra 30 minutes of this show coming up if you don't get us in your local market. Find us however you get your podcast.

Guest (Male): For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines, protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in court, 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. If you're not, 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.