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Feb. 9, 2024 - Sean Hannity Show
32:20
Election Interference - February 8th, Hour 2
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Well, we played a lot of these exchanges in the last hour.
Fascinating arguments going back and forth in the Supreme Court today.
As we already mentioned, it looks like even the New York Times is conceding that Donald Trump is going to win this case.
What was really kind of at times odd to me, it almost felt like the justices to both lawyers on both sides were basically telling them what their arguments should be and what their arguments, you know, where their arguments are weak.
It was like an academic exercise listening to all of this.
All right, joining us now is Jay Seculo.
He is the chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice and my own personal attorney, which, by the way, that's awful for you.
Now, you've argued before the Supreme Court.
How many times have you argued cases yourself and how many cases have you been involved in?
Let's see.
The last one, it was a three.
We had a three front of the last time.
So I think I've done 24 cases, argued 17.
Okay, so by the way, that's not an easy environment for any lawyer to be in.
You've got nine justices, and they have no problem cutting you off mid-sentence before you even give an answer and then pulling you in a whole different direction.
It's pretty challenging.
It is.
It's an invigorating hour or so, and I think it was today as well.
I'm optimistic.
We represent the Colorado Republican Party, so we're a party in the case, although it was Donald Trump's lawyer that did the oral argument.
I think we're going to win 9-0 on the issue of the president is not an officer of the United States because, as John Roberts has written in opinions, you do not elect officers of the United States.
You elect presidents, you elect vice presidents, you don't elect officers of the United States.
And so I think we win on that.
The difficulty was that the lawyer representing President Trump hedged on that a bit, even though that's where the court was going.
But at the end result, it's not going to matter.
I think we're going to win at 94.
But I want to stop you there because what you're saying is very profound here.
Because this is what Donald Trump's team had won before the Supreme Court of Colorado reversed it.
That was the argument that was settled with the lower court judge in that case.
Right, that the president was not an officer of the United States.
So in the brief that I filed on behalf of the Colorado GOP with the Supreme Court, here's what I said.
First, the president is not an officer of the United States under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
The text of the Constitution confirms that the president is not an officer of the United States, and the oath the president takes is distinct from the oath officers of the United States take, further confirming he is not an officer of the United States under Section 3.
Then we went into it is not self-executing, and the states have no authority to bring these kind of cases.
And we raised the First Amendment issue, and also it only applies to holding office, not running for office.
So I think the officer of the United States is where this is going.
Yeah, I tend to agree with you, regardless of how the questioning, and I think listening to Supreme Court arguments, my past experience has shown me don't think you can guess where any one justice is going to go based on his or her questioning in the case.
One of the other big issues came up, and it was the issue of insurrection.
I wanted to get your take on some of the exchanges regarding that.
The last I checked, Jay Seculo, I don't think that Donald Trump was ever charged with insurrection, let alone be convicted of insurrection.
And how does a court get to determine that?
What are the standards that they're going to use for that?
And secondly, how does in Maine, where you have one elected official.
The court that took that bait.
They're not going to say there was no insurrection or there was an insurrection.
I'm going to say it doesn't matter.
Okay, and tell me why.
Because the fundamental question you have in this case is, does this statute, does the 14th Amendment, Section 3, apply to the President of the United States or a former President of the United States?
And the answer on the face of the amendment is it does not.
So it's almost a jurisdictional question.
You had Justice Brown, Justice Jackson, you had Justice Kagan, a little bit from Sodomayer, not that much, but you had two judges that clearly are left of center Democrat appointees,
two of them that were unequivocal, and I think this is, you know, I think this is a big part of this, is if you got Kagan and then you have Justice Jackson arguing that the president's not an officer and pushing the Trump lawyer saying, why are you running away from that argument?
Because, boy, the text of it really seems to support you.
I think that bodes well for us at the end of the day.
I think it bodes well as well.
What did you think?
I mean, I've listened to other arguments before the Supreme Court.
They're not televised, but you can get the audio feed of it.
And I felt this had a little bit different feel in as much as I felt like the judges had come in with their predetermined outcome in many ways.
And we're trying in both cases to challenge the arguments that both sides put out here.
Did you get that feeling?
Well, they did.
I think, look, at a case like this where the stakes are so high and what's at play is so real, I mean, it's affecting everybody's right to vote.
I mean, it's a fundamental issue here.
That what you have is a lot of it is predetermined.
And I don't mean that in a bad way, but a lot of it is determined on the briefs.
I mean, the arguments that were being raised by the justices tracked my brief very closely.
And I'm not saying that to brag or boast.
It just, it did.
Because we laid out what I, you know, me, Sean, I like having an exit ramp.
Where can I get nine justices to kind of coalesce?
And I think the officer issue was the issue, and it seemed like that's where they were moving.
Well, it seems like it.
And by the way, I'm sure they read your brief as part of their preparation.
The one thing you have to give them credit for is they all came in very prepared, and they were knowledgeable about past precedent.
They were knowledgeable as it relates to the law, the Constitution.
I felt everybody on all sides.
To me, it was just interesting.
That's my biggest takeaway from it.
I think it's a no-brainer.
But let me ask you in principle, how does a court get to decide that somebody is guilty of insurrection like the Colorado Supreme Court?
How do they get to make that determination if an individual's not even been charged with it?
You know, I thought we had the idea and the presumption of innocence before proven guilty.
Aren't you ostensibly proving somebody or declaring somebody guilty, sort of like the main Secretary of State doing it unilaterally?
Yeah, Kagan said that.
I mean, Kagan said, how are you going to let one state determine all this for the rest of the country?
And based on what procedures and precedent?
Justice Jackson wrote this.
She said, you know, I'm not making a distinction between ballot access and anything else.
I mean, she was trying to talk, you know, fundamentally about the case.
And then she said, but the president is not enumerated in Section 3.
So why would it go to him?
So they were avoiding the insurrection discussion.
That will not be the basis of any opinion here.
They're not going to find that Donald Trump engaged in an insurrection or did not engage in an insurrection.
It's going to be a question of law and not fact.
Let's go to Elena Kagan and play the exchange you're referring to here, asking the Colorado lawyer Jason Murray.
In other words, you know, this question of whether a former president is disqualified for insurrection to be president again is, you know, just say it.
It sounds awfully national to me.
So whatever means there are to enforce it would suggest that they have to be federal, national means.
Why does, you know, if you weren't from Colorado and you were from Wisconsin or you were from Michigan, and it really, you know, what the Michigan Secretary of State did is going to make the difference between, you know, whether candidate A is elected or candidate B is elected.
I mean, that seems quite extraordinary, doesn't it?
No, Your Honor, because ultimately it's this court that's going to decide that question of federal constitutional eligibility and settle the issue for the nation.
And certainly it's not unusual that questions of national importance come up.
Well, I suppose this court would be saying something along the lines of that a state has the power to do it.
But I guess I was asking you to go a little bit further and saying, why should that be the right rule?
Why should a single state have the ability to make this determination, not only for their listen, I played on our broadcast today mostly Kagan and Jackson.
So I'm very optimistic on this.
I think the briefs that we set forth gave them a roadmap, and I think we're going to have, I'm really optimistic.
I think we get a decision probably in two weeks.
Why do you think it's going to happen that quickly?
Try to get it done before March 5th, Super Tuesday.
Well, let's then go.
We have to, I guess, go back to the issue of presidential immunity, which is, you know, I guess that's probably going to be headed to the Supreme Court should they choose to take it.
Yeah.
And all right, so when will we find out?
Well, they're going to take it up there Monday, so they'll either get a stay or won't get a stay real quick within days.
So we'll know within days whether or not the issue of presidential immunity.
Now, in listening to some of those arguments, I didn't particularly like the argument that can a president, while president, authorize a SEAL Team 6 team to assassinate his top political rival?
For the life of me, could not understand that analogy.
It's a qualified yes.
Qualified yes being you'd have to go through this process.
Here's the answer to this.
If a president of the United States, I'm not talking about any particular president, were to get a weapon and go on Fifth Avenue, just start randomly shooting, do we think the police can't stop it?
Of course the police can stop it.
They have an obligation to stop it.
Of course.
It's called keeping the peace, which is what law enforcement does, whether you're the president of the United States or whether you're working the subway station or the city of New York.
Keeping the peace.
All right, quick break, right back.
We'll continue more with Jay Seculo, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, as we continue.
We continue now with Jay Seculo.
He is the Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice.
Here's what I think is the problem with some of these cases, with some of the ways these lawyers are doing it.
You know, Sean, you and I both like sports.
Sometimes you just need to put a layup in the basket.
You just need two points.
But they still go for the three-point shot, and then they miss the rim and it bounces out.
So here's this case, the one involving the issue of immunity.
The fundamental era, and there were many in that D.C. Court of Appeals opinion, but the biggest one was that immunity expires at 1201 on January 20th, the moment the president becomes the former president, or as they said, Citizen Trump.
I would go to the Supreme Court and say, look, before you decide anything, correct this.
You're looking at time here.
That is fundamentally incorrect.
Immunity protects the president when they're out of office, or else they'll be thinking about lawyers every decision they make.
I think that is a very that's the reality of that job.
Right.
Here's the point.
Now we've got to determine were these in the scope of his official duties.
And as Alan Dershowitz said on your television broadcast two nights ago, clearly some of them are within his official duties.
Others may be on the fringes of it and some may be out.
But a court needs to make a determination as to each one of those.
Then the ones that are not within the official duties and there's no immunity, then a determination has to be made.
Are those incidents constitute a crime?
Now, this is going to take a year when you got to remand it back.
That's how Jay Secula would argue the case.
I would not go for the three-point shot there.
You want to get through the election without a trial.
And do you think that's still possible?
I mean, you need the Supreme Court to take it up, I guess, at this point.
No?
Or do you go to the appeals court and ask for the entire court's decision, which is probably not going to be favorable?
Address this issue first.
Does immunity expire at 1201?
And I think nine justices, just like in this case, would say no, it doesn't.
Now go back to the, Sean, I did this with President Trump's tax returns.
We fought the DA.
We fought the DA.
You know, they came out with this, you know, I call muddled ruling.
But the one thing they said in the last was what Brett Kavanaugh wrote in his concurrence.
Nine justices unanimously agree that President Trump can go back into the district court and file objections on constitutional grounds.
Because before that, they didn't know if we could do that.
The argument was it had to stay in the state courts.
We were in federal court.
So you know what I did?
Filed constitutional objections on federal grounds.
Took another year, and then eventually the tax returns were delivered.
And how much have you heard about his tax returns?
Not much because I think he paid all those taxes.
Paid a lot of taxes.
There was a bad moment on MSDNC.
I've got the tax return.
I got the tax return.
Oh, Donald Trump paid a lot of money in taxes.
That was a pretty great moment for NBC News, right?
Anyways, it was the principle of things.
So I just think you got to think incrementally in some of these cases.
And everything is not a three-point shot at the buzzard.
Sometimes you're just going into the halftime and you're three points down.
And you know what?
I'd like to go in tied.
So I could go on the fourth down with four to go.
And although the percentages say 58% of the time I'm going to get that first down, but you know, 42% of the time I'm not.
But I'm 32 yards away.
And my guy can kick a field goal at 52 yards.
I'm going to go for the field goal.
But go into the halftime even.
I think his lawyers need to be thinking a little bit more like that.
Well, as we head into the Super Bowl Sunday weekend, I think that's the apropos analogy.
Jay Seculo, Chief Counsel, American Center for Law and Justice.
Thank you for being with us, sir.
We appreciate it.
The new Sean Hannity show talking about what's right for America with a renewed commitment to keep you up to date on the breaking news stories.
All right, 25 to the top of the hour, big breaking news day.
The U.S. Supreme Court hearing arguments about the issue of kicking Trump off the ballot issue.
That's the Colorado case.
Remember, the first, the lower court in Colorado, they had determined, as we were talking about with Jay Seculo, they were very clear in their determination that it did not apply the term officer to the president.
And it was interesting to watch the Supreme Court justices bring that up and actually insinuate that the Trump lawyers were saying, well, basically saying, why are you giving up on that argument so easily?
Kind of telling them that's where our head's at.
That was pretty interesting.
So we have all that, but I will tell you the bombshell is this report by the special counsel Robert Hurr.
This may be the end of Joe Biden.
And you're saying, Hannity, how could that possibly be?
I am telling you for this special prosecutor to be saying the things he's saying about Joe Biden's cognitive state is so devastating.
Maybe it was easy for them to dismiss me.
Maybe the fact that I've been hammering this point, I've been unrelenting in hammering this point from the very beginning.
Clearly, I'm in the White House's head.
I mean, Corrine Jean-Pierre trying to justify Biden saying that, oh, and I turn to Francois Mitterrand.
Well, Francois Mitterrand's been dead for 27 years, Joe.
And, well, I turned to Helma Cole.
No, he's dead.
He was dead too at the time of the meeting that you're talking about.
That would have been Angela Merkel.
And then, of course, not being able to remember Hamas.
Now, what I've been showing you, what we've been playing here, I started out doing it in a kind of more fun way until it really dawned on me that this is not a joke, that the president of our country is so cognitively impaired and so physically weak and so physically frail because that's what we're dealing with.
And if I'm correct in my analysis, based on Robert Hurr's own comments here, putting aside the issue of we don't have an equal justice system or equal application of our laws, and I'm not putting that aside lightly.
But for him to be saying the things that he's saying in this report, it is just maybe more devastating than even bringing charges against them.
Now, we do have a problem with a two-tier justice system.
Hillary Clinton, of course, yes, you have this many classified top secret documents that we found, but no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute.
And we're just going to forget the whole issue of the 33,000 deleted emails, which I'm sure was done accidentally when you applied bleach bit to the servers and when you beat up your devices and destroyed them with hammers and when you remove SIM cards.
But pay very close attention to what the special counsel here, and we'll get your reaction to it as well, 800 9.1 Sean, but he concludes no criminal charges are warranted, just like Comey.
No reasonable prosecutor would prosecute.
Well, you mean a Democrat?
Because if they applied the standards that they applied to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden to Donald Trump, Mar-a-Lago never would have been rated.
And the justification Hur gives is weak, you know, on a level that is not even plausible.
But this is what he says.
Biden, you know, concluding no criminal charges warranted, he said Biden would very likely present himself to a jury as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.
We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this manner.
We would reach the same conclusion even if the Department of Justice policy did not foreclose criminal charges against the sitting president.
Now, he goes on in his report to say that Biden willfully, willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.
And then he goes on to explain these materials included more classified documents about foreign policy in Afghanistan, notebooks containing Mr. Biden's handwritten entries about the issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.
FBI agents recovered these materials in the garage offices in the basement den of Biden's Delaware home.
Biden retained materials documenting his opposition to the troop surge.
It goes on to explain them all.
Well, what is the difference?
Now, if you listen to Robert Hurr, appointed by the very abusively biased and one-sided and politicized and weaponized Department of Justice of Joe Biden, led by Merrick Garland and this guy appointed by Merrick Garland, you realize, well, this justification just will make no sense.
He said, well, most notably, after being given multiple chances to return his classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite.
Why are you putting in allegations if you don't know?
Because we do know certain things.
We know the FBI actually went to Mar-a-Lago, saw the classified documents, the room, the main room that they talked about, and did nothing about it except call back a couple of days later and ask for an additional lock to be put on the door, which was complied with.
They could have taken those documents with them.
And her rights, according to the indictment, not only refused to return the documents for many months, well, Joe was so cooperative.
Meanwhile, he had materials going back to when he was a senator.
Really?
That's cooperative?
Or did the Justice Department, as reports had come out at the time, did they tip off Joe Biden as it relates to his entire issue being investigated and gave him time to go through documents?
What they did with them, I don't know.
They didn't find them all because they still went in and found documents.
But they're claiming that Donald Trump obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then lie about it.
Would that be like Hillary Clinton employing others or enlisting others to destroy phones and BlackBerries with hammers and remove SIM cards?
And who applied the bleach bit to the servers?
Was it Hillary herself or was it other people?
In contrast, Biden turned in classified documents to the National Archives and Department of Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations.
Well, so did Trump.
That's what's obscene here.
He sat for a voluntary interview and in other ways cooperated with the investigation.
I don't even know if Trump was given the opportunity to sit down with this.
The idea that he would likely present himself to a jury as he did during our interview of him as sympathetic, well-meaning, and elderly man with a poor memory.
How would you like to have the president of your country being described this way in an election year or have him as your candidate?
Can you imagine the ads that could be built around the descriptions of the special counsel?
Let me go a little deeper into the report here.
You know, in his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse.
He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended.
If it was 2013, when did I stop being vice president?
He's asking the special counsel in this interview and then forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began in 2009.
Am I still vice president?
He doesn't know.
He doesn't remember, even within several years when his son Bo died.
I guess that's why he keeps repeating the false story that he died in Iraq.
And among other things, he mistakenly said he had a real difference of opinion with General Carl Eichenberry when, in fact, Eigenberry was an ally of Mr. Biden, cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.
He didn't remember when he was vice president, didn't remember when he became vice president, didn't remember anything?
Wow, that's a reason not to prosecute him.
The best case for charges would rely on Biden's possession of Afghanistan documents in his Virginia home on February 2017 when he was a private citizen and he told his ghostwriter that he had just found classified material.
Well, how is that any different than what they're claiming Donald Trump did?
We conclude that the evidence is not sufficient to convict, and we decline to recommend prosecution for Mr. Biden for his retention of classified documents.
The report points out, evidence suggests that Mr. Biden knew he could not keep classified handwritten notes at home after leaving office.
He had for decades of experience with classified information.
He was deeply familiar with measures taken to safeguard classified information and the need for those measures to prevent harm to national security.
And then the report points out that when Biden was asked about reports that former President Trump had kept classified documents at his own home, Biden asked anyone, you know, okay, how could anyone be that irresponsible?
The report states that while he was vice president, he kept notebooks in a White House safe for a time, in contrast with his decision after leaving office, keeping them at home in unlocked, you know, cabinets, draws.
And Biden also knew that his staff decided to store note cards containing his classified notes in a secured compartment at information facility.
Well, that's the report.
And if he can't remember that when he was vice president, if he can't remember when the year that he left office as vice president, if he can't remember the year he became vice president, how in God's name does this man become president of the United States?
How do you justify voting for him?
What is the justification at this point?
I mean, it's as devastating as anything I've ever seen.
There are some really good sweet baby James is, I guess, surfing the net.
You know, his memory was sufficiently significantly limited, both during recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017 and in his interview with our office in 2023.
You know, and because of all this, Robert Hurr, you know, now reporting, investigators concluding that it would be he'd be well into his 80s, a serious felony that requires a mental state of willingness.
Well, that contradicts what I just said to you, what they said.
You know, that, in fact, he willfully retained them and disclosed them.
Although maybe they're contradicting that too.
Not really sure.
I don't know.
This is just devastating.
And watch every single Democrat defend this.
Newt Gingrich tweeted out, he'll join us at the top of the hour.
He would likely simply present himself this way, sympathetic, well-meaning.
How would you like to have that as your candidate for president in 2024?
Maybe in the end, maybe this is more devastating.
I don't know.
But it may also mean that Democrats, those that have been critical, like Van Jones, who said he needs to hide and let others do the talking for him, or people like David Axelrod, or people like Maureen Dowd, James Carville.
These are not lightweights in Democratic circles.
Anyway, 800-941, Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
Let's say hi to Trina, I guess, is in Wisconsin.
Hey, Trina, how are you?
Glad you called.
Hi there.
You're the expert, so I'm calling you a first-time caller.
I want to know what happens to if Joe Biden earns enough delegates to since the nomination for president, and at the last minute he backs out and is replaced, how does that person get to be the nomination if they haven't earned the delegates?
Or what happens to them?
Well, at any point, I mean, he could just say that he's not going to run.
He can call an audible Lyndon B. Johnson move and say he won't, you know, if nominated, he's not going to accept.
He's not going to take the nomination at that point.
My understanding is that the delegates would then probably in some smoke-filled room be working the phones and trying to find the best candidate they can find.
I assume they probably, the first call would be to Michelle Obama, like others have been speculating.
I don't think anybody really wants Kamala Harris.
Her approval rating as of NBC's recent poll was 28%.
How do you put her in there?
She's doing worse than him.
I know Gavin Newson's name comes up again, and you got Gretchen Whitmer and people like her.
I'm sure her name will be bannered about.
Okay, so they just automatically pass them on.
It's not a big problem.
I would say that is what they plan to do.
Yeah.
If it's going to happen, it either happens sooner or it's going to happen then or it doesn't happen.
I mean, those are the three options, which I'm stating the obvious.
Real quickly, anyway, thank you for the call.
Nick is in Long Island, New York.
What's up, Nick?
How are you?
Very well.
By the way, you have in District 3 in Long Island, well, I'm just telling you, you have Mozzie, what's her name, Pillip, is running against Tom Swazi, and that's a winnable seat.
So Republicans, early voting, I think, goes on till Friday, then the real elections on Tuesday.
But anyway, what's on your mind?
It's actually in my district, but I didn't call about that.
I called about this trying to take President Trump off the ballot.
I'm an independent, so I don't have loyalty to Trump or Biden, and I don't think you should be able to take either one of them off the ballot.
And I have two words that I think every lawyer should say to any court they go with.
It's Gus Hall.
My first presidential election was Ronald Reagan against.
Wasn't he the communist guy?
Exactly my point.
So if a communist guy can run while we're still in a Cold War, who are we to say that a Donald Trump or Joe Biden or any other American can't run?
The states don't have the right.
I mean, the more interesting point Jonathan Turley made this was that it was the more liberal justices that were harder on the arguments being made against Trump than probably anybody.
Look, I still think it's 9-0.
We'll see.
Anyway, when we come back, we'll get Newt's take on all these issues today.
Obviously, this beatdown by the special counsel, her, about Joe's cognitive state.
More on the oral arguments in the Supreme Court today.
Hey, I want to remind you that we all know the atrocities, what happened to Israel on October 7th when they were attacked, the worst terror attack in their history by Hamas.
Well, the toll on the people of Israel has been staggering.
It's been massive.
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis forced out of their homes, entire communities torn apart.
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, they have been right in the middle of this every single day, distributing critical essentials like food, medicine, emergency supplies for hundreds of thousands of suffering Israelis.
They need your help desperately.
Whatever you can give will be matched today.
So if you gave 25 bucks, it'd be like giving 50 bucks.
You give 50, it's like 100.
It's supportifcj.com.
That's all one word.
Supportifcj.org.
And whatever help you can provide is so desperately needed.
All right, when we come back, we have a lot of news that's breaking.
Robert Hurd's report that basically says Joe Biden is not cognitively fit to be a Walmart or target greeter, like I've been telling you.
And also the arguments before the Supreme Court over whether states can kick Trump off the ballot.
New Kingrich is next.
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