We got breaking news, the internet's favorite viral judge. It's a shocking sentence. 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, Logan Sekulow.
Welcome to Sekulow. We're live. Phone lines are open. 1-800-684-3110. Will Haynes joining me in the studio.
We got Mike Pompeo joining us a little bit later, but we're going to hear from you as well at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. The breaking news this morning, you may remember, we can kind of flashback here, Will, a little bit to that judge who, you know, like all judges do, help criminals escape from the courtroom. That's right. Let's give everyone a little bit of history here because we have some big news and update sort of the good and bad of it as this judge has been sentenced.
That's right. So this is former judge Hannah Dugan from Wisconsin. And you'll remember that she orchestrated almost this elaborate plot. Was it in Milwaukee, really? Yes, that's right.
And when there was an individual that was before her court on domestic assault charges. Then, when ICE showed up and DHS to serve an immigration warrant on this individual, she distracted the officers, went and told them to go talk to the chief judge, and then went back into her courtroom, said that the proceedings are done for the day. And you're watching, if you're watching live, some of this footage, security camera footage, where she escorted. The subject of the DHS warrant out the back of the court through her chambers. The prosecutor was like, why are we ending now?
Wouldn't give any information, but helped this individual escape.
Now, fortunately, the individual was detained after a foot chase, you're watching now, outside of the court in Milwaukee. 23 Cent again. Remember, this wasn't someone that was there on some sort of immigration charge or was there for that. They were there for a domestic assault violation. That's right.
It was a hearing. We're not talking about, like, potentially, we'll say, allegedly. A good guy at this point, you know, who just happened to be someone who was here illegally. Talking about someone that was in the courtroom. Specifically for an allegation of domestic assault abuse.
But the judge was so blinded by what was happening that She decided to take things into her own hands and to get this person initially out the back door. Still were caught, And now she is facing the consequences, some of which are justified, and some of which are a little light.
Well, I want to hear from people on this because I'm about to tell you what happened. Because remember, she was suspended by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. She resigned from her judgeship after that instead of being impeached, and then was convicted in federal court of this obstruction charge that was brought by the Department of Justice. The sentencing was just handed down. And the sentencing guidelines from the federal government and the DOJ, based off of this type of violation, called for incarceration anywhere from 15 to 21 months.
So, over a year, up to a year and a half, almost two years in prison. The federal judge in the sentencing gave this state judge. A slap on the wrist, $5,000 fine, no jail time, and we'll get into the rationale from this judge of why. Does this shock you, one, that a federal judge would do this? And two, Does this hurt your faith in the justice system?
Call us 1-800-684-3110. We want to hear from you in the next segment. Yeah, and of course, there's one positive that came out of this, which is this person can no longer serve, correct? That's right. With this conviction, it's a felony conviction.
She will not be able to be a judge in Wisconsin. She lost her appealing because if this is upheld, she will no longer be able to be a judge.
So that is the sunshine on this, is that she lost her whole career. Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-30110. I want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. Of course, we're now headed towards the end of our Independence Week. I want you to be a part of it.
Anyone that gives over $250 during this 250 celebration right now at aclj.org slash USA. Not only will it be matched by an incredible ACLJ supporter and donor, which all donations are this month, not just this special offer, but you will get an ACLJ cooler bag and an ACLJ challenge coin as our gift to you for giving 250 on the 250.
So do it today at aclj.org slash USA. We'll be right back with Marin Sekulow. Leave that QR code up. until we get to break. We'll be right back in just a few moments.
Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. If you want your voice heard on the air today, you got to reset a little bit here of what we're talking about.
For those of you who are just joining us online, that is that viral judge, you may remember from earlier in the year, I guess it was late last year, during sort of the height of the ICE raids that were happening. She took someone who was there. who was there specifically for, A trial about or having issues with a domestic salt. Domestic abuse violation. That is why they were there.
But Got word that ICE or some sort of immigration officials were on the way there because this person needed to be served.
Some sort of summons or issue. due to their immigration status. She decides to take things in your own hands. and run this person out the back door. Legitimately, this is what happened.
Says we're done for the day, gets him out so he can escape. Doesn't escape, gets caught. Gets deported, by the way. And she, of course. Has some, you know, her case goes in, finally gets sentenced.
Her sentencing, I think it probably depends on what you. Believe in. We're talking about this a little off air. You know, her sentence right now, I mean, they're appealing it, is that she essentially lost her whole career. I mean, that is a pretty good, I mean, that she should, but was not able to serve anymore as judge.
At the same time, financially and prison time-wise, you're talking about next to nothing. That's right. So she was found guilty of a felony count by a jury, a felony count of impeding or obstructing a proceeding. And if you heard in the break that we had a video talking about what happened to this person that was, she was trying to protect, that individual was deported from the country. They were here illegally.
But so what the rationale from the federal judge, Judge Lynn Edelman, who had was the one overseeing this case and looked at federal sentencing guidelines, which called for 15 to 21 months, and said, In the decision for several reasons, prison is not necessary to satisfy the statutory purposes for sentencing, she said from the bench, and said, basically, when she was weighing what this individual had done with service to the community as a judge, That basically making that bad decision, being convicted of it, losing her career effectively, as well as paying a fine that it didn't necessarily require prison time. No, maybe that was enough. And to some degree, I understand that. I understand that there are so many people that want an example. that say, hey, maximum sentence, put him in prison for forever, throw away the key.
A lot of times, that isn't the right case, and that's where the discretion from the judge comes in. There's also a good chance that even if that sentence, maybe the conviction may not be overturned on appeal, but that sentence could be something that is looked at on appeal as well. We know for a fact the judge is going to appeal this decision.
So, as long as it stands, she's no longer going to be able to be a judge because she's convicted of this felony in the state of Wisconsin. But it is interesting to look at as well. It is not as though this was even a member of the public that was doing this, and then it's like, oh, now the signal is open season. Anyone can just go and obstruct these proceedings. It was a judge, so it's like you think the pool of potential if you're trying to send a message is very small comparatively when you're talking about local judges in Wisconsin.
But yeah, there's going to be a lot of people that disagree with this sentencing. The judge had that prerogative and made that call, but I do agree. Losing your entire career, something you've worked for, is not nothing. That's quite still a drastic thing that by convicting this individual, they are no longer able to do what they have dedicated their life to do. Yeah, I think that that is a pretty big sentence.
I mean, look, we can go after it and say that there was some slap on the wrist in terms of prison time money. But also, I think, look, we've all been into discussion of what prison time should look like, but you're talking about really obstructing a big part of the government at that point, too. We're not talking about something that's that small, but losing your whole career over maybe what was a bad, heated, you know, politically driven moment. A pretty big moment. Let's go ahead and take some phone calls.
There's a lot of you who are calling in right now. Let's go to Chris. He obviously has an opinion. Chris in Ohio, go ahead. Oh, yeah.
So I you know, my opinion, I think it's disgusting that they let her go free. And, you know, yeah, I do. You know, I I heard your comment. You know, she yeah, she it's not a little thing. You know, she may have lost her career, but you know, she can still go to another state and become a lawyer or a judge in another state.
It's just Wisconsin. I mean, that's a, I think also with your record, are you going to be voted in? That's a big if. It's not just you can go and apply to be a judge and be granted a judgeship.
So I understand you can keep going, but I didn't want to jump in there. It's not as easy as, like, oh, I found another job in another state, but go ahead. Yeah, but uh I mean, obviously it was it was politically motivated. I think she did this to undermine the Trump administration. Of course.
You know, i if if a normal person broke a rule, you know, broke a law like this, they would definitely gets slammed in court. You know, it's just showing you that there's two different sets of rules. For who you are. Yeah, I mean, she could theoretically become a hero if she plays it right, but I think that maybe that ship has sailed a bit. I think we're really one of the only people I see talking about this.
Well, and I think here's another question to kind of turn it on its head for people to think about: we have been concerned with how aggressively.
Some politically motivated things were prosecuted by, say, the Biden administration. How aggressively they went after people for politically motivated acts that they disagreed with. Do individuals think that we need this eye for an eye? Like, oh, they were going really aggressively after people that were conservatives over things that were political and in some cases broke the law. Do you think that the converse is, so we need to do that as well?
Because there was a lot of complaining about how aggressive some of the prison sentences, some of the way that people were treated for political law violations. I would say that I don't think that we want to have this snowball effect of like, well, they did it to conservatives under the Biden administration.
So then we should turn the tables in as aggressively.
Now, there is federal sentencing guidelines that weren't necessarily followed or given. It was a lighter sentence than that. But I think that once again, I. I, as an individual, am someone that doesn't want that snowball effect to be where everyone ends up in the country for the most minor violation with a hundred-year prison sentence. And I think that if you're not careful, then things can get that way in this kind of climate where everyone is wanting maximum penalties and punishments for every single individual.
Yeah, a lot of you are calling in right now.
So we're going to take a lot of calls in this segment and the next segment because I think you got a lot to say about this. Let's move on and I want to kind of bridge this as well because as we look at, and we'll talk about this more too, I want to hear your thoughts on this. We do talk about this was a local judge in Wisconsin.
So at the end of the day, the consequences for the decision of this one person nationally, very negligible other than the fact that we are talking about it and it did go nationwide news story. But this was a local judge. And that's why at the ACLJ, we have to look at things on a local level. It's not just what the party that's in power is doing and the laws or the executive orders or the way that they're combating that with lawfare and the courts. It sometimes is that local level where constitutional violations break out.
or have a potential to break out. And so you have to keep an eye on it. And it's hard. It's hard for the news. The news isn't going to cover everything.
But we at the ACLJ are doing those things. We do find the local violations, whether it be that girl in Wisconsin or I'm sorry, in Washington state that we talked about, we're filing a federal lawsuit for, or this yesterday afternoon. After AIR, we filed a lawsuit in Maryland. And we're representing the American Accountability Foundation. And this ties into me because this is another story about non-citizen voters, something that a lot of people watching this broadcast are very interested in, this topic.
The American Accountability Foundation was filed a FOIA level, the equivalent in Maryland.
So it's a Maryland sunshine law, trying to find out because this locality allows non-citizens to vote in local elections. This is a trend happening around the country. It's not in statewide, it's not in federal elections, but in the city or municipality elections, they're letting non-citizens vote. They have to have a two-set of voter rolls to accomplish this. American Accountability Foundation filed this freedom of information style request, and they were not only not given a response, but there were hyperlinks on their websites about this that disappeared after the request was in.
We are now representing them to get information about how you are doing this. How are you making sure that there isn't going to be voter roll creep? Yeah, show us the proof, right? Show us the evidence that you're doing this. If you're going to have a moment, you're going to have a city or a district or a state where you can vote in a local election and you are not a United States citizen, but maybe you are actively serving in your community there, maybe you're here temporarily, whatever it may be.
You haven't gotten United States citizenship, and they said, Hey, but don't worry, we're gonna take care of it. All we ask for. Here at the ACLJ is show us the evidence. If you can prove it to us, that's what you're doing and that's what your local area wants. We could discuss that.
Of course, you could discuss whether you think that's right or wrong. That's a totally different story. But if that's what they decided to put forward, but show us the proof. That's why our ACLJ attorneys are on it. And I encourage you right now, we are during one of these special matching weeks where all donations are matched right now.
It's our independence week. Be a part of it right now. All donations are doubled at aclj.org. Of course, if you give over $250 during this $250 right now at aclj.org slash USA, you get that free cooler bag and challenge coin ACLJ250 branded specifically for you just for this week. Do it today at aclj.org.
So many of you have called in. We were going to play a special video presentation. We're going to hold that, I think, until a little bit later in the show because, look, this clearly struck a nerve with many of you. And let's just go down. Who do you want to take first, Will?
Because so many of these people are calling in. Let's go ahead and let's start with Martin calling on line five from Wisconsin. All right, Martin. You're in Wisconsin. Let's hear from you.
Hi there. Hello. Hi, this is Martin in Spanish. calling regarding when do we begin to use military courts In case A judge like this is actually Committing treasonous or seditious acts Bye. a pot by releasing a potential An enemy invader.
someone who's in our country to spy Yeah, let's discuss that, Martin. But for those who don't know, the person who was actually. Uh, in court that day, that was right out the back door. You're talking about someone that was in there for domestic assault, domestic abuse. Uh, that is why they were being tried.
That's what was happening right then. You're not talking about someone who was even in there for an immigration-related case, they were in there because they were being told that they were, uh, you know, they were being allegedly, and I'm not sure what the conviction ended up being because I believe that person's been completely deported at this point. Yeah, the individual that was actually captured by ICE after very shortly after outside the court. Uh, Martin, I don't think that we are anywhere close to that, nor should we be looking for military tribunals in the United States for situations like this. Um, that that is not really the way that the Constitution set up our judicial system for a good reason.
Uh, also, our military is supposed to be civilian-led. That's why the Secretary of State, I'm sorry, the Secretary of Defense, many times, if they had been in the military too recently, actually requires a waiver. From the Senate to be able to serve in that position because it is trying to separate, we don't want it to become a military dictatorship in our nation. And so, something like a military court being able to start to weigh in, especially at this, this was an obstruction of a proceeding charge. This wasn't a seditious charge.
This wasn't something that even the federal government, the DOJ, was seeking to take it to that level.
So, I don't think that would be a very good idea at all. I think that that would actually set off a very bad precedent for the United States. I don't think we're anywhere near that. I don't think those in leadership would be calling for that. And as we always like to point out, Think of the unintended consequences.
If that became the norm. Just imagine what the left would use that for when the tide turns when they are in power. There's a reason we stick to our constitutional principles, the way our court system was established in the Constitution. All of these things are very important, and we are going to cling to that as long and as hard as we can and fight for that here at the ACLJ because it is important to follow those principles. That's right, Martin.
Thank you for calling in. I appreciate it. We are going to continue to try to take some more calls because so many of you, like I said, are calling about this topic. Because, look, understandably, you are upset about it. You think that maybe this is not enough.
Some of you agree with us that maybe they have seen what they needed to do, being essentially thrown out of the profession that they have been working at their entire life to get at. By the way, not easy then to recover from that. Not easy to find another job, I have a feeling that's within the same field, unless you can sort of turn this into some sort of celebrity moment, which is saying they stood up to the Trump administration. But I think most people see someone who was being accused of domestic assault and don't immediately go, oh, yeah, that's a person we really want. Want out on the streets.
Let's go ahead and continue on with the phone calls. Let's go to Michael, who's calling in Florida. Go ahead. How you doing guys? Good, good, good.
Hi. You should be very grateful that you live in America after these fantastic two hundred fifty years from Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Lincoln, and be very glad that Trump has The biggest threat to the Middle East and the world. They would not hesitate, if a person can't see that they would not hesitate if they had an atomic bomb to drop it on New York. Oil Chicago. They wouldn't hesitate from it.
They've proved it over all the years, and we should be very grateful that he's doing what he's doing. Michael, I appreciate your phone call. And I think that's once again, we think of how great that celebration was for the 250th anniversary. And we're still celebrating here. This is Independence Week here at the ACLJ, trying to continue this on, that we shouldn't let a judicial decision or a sentencing decision that we disagree with take away from the fact that we are rooted in our constitutional republic.
Yeah. That we do have this foundation that is so strong, and we're going to keep fighting for it. Yeah, we're going to keep celebrating, as Will said, the 250th of America. Stay on hold if you're on hold, by the way. We're going to continue to take calls throughout the next half hour.
And in the next half hour, we'll also be joined by Mike Pompeo. And we also have a special video presentation for you.
So with that, we're going to continue on rolling. But as Will said, it's 250th of America still this week. I know it feels like the celebrations kind of concluded with the 4th of July and then definitely concluded when we were eliminated from the World Cup. But here we are right now. We're still celebrating this week, Independence Week.
I encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ. We do have that special cooler bag and ACLJ challenge coin available to you if you give over $250. aclj.org slash usa and of course all donations by the way not just donations of that 250 all donations at aclj.org right now are unlocked and are doubled Because we have great ACLJ supporters and champions. Champions are people that give every month who are ready to unlock their donation based on yours.
So do it today at ACLJ.org. It's been a really great week celebrating America. And of course, we're going to keep you updated as news breaks as well and updates from the ACLJ. Special video presentation coming up in the second half hour, as well as live guest Mike Pompeo and continuing on with your phone calls. Let's take one before we head to break.
Let's go to Marshall in Florida. Marshall, go ahead. Mm-hmm. Hi, how are you doing? Good.
Go ahead, Marshall. Hey, I just wanted to just I'll try to keep it as fast as I can so you can go through, but about your comment, what you were talking about. Hey. I'm calling you. That's a lot of people, I guess, are upset.
I didn't realize everybody calling in. I've never called in. But the whole sentencing thing, my philosophy. My whole belief on this, and I think a lot of people's belief is the rule of law only works if Americans believe that it applies equally to everybody. Justice doesn't require identical outcomes in every case, but it does require equal standards.
I mean, you can't have people looking at it and feeling that there are different tiers of justice, which we know, we absolutely know that there are two tiers of justice between the liberal side, Democrats from the Biden administration, the Obama administration, from the conservative administration that has started. I mean, I know it's happened a little bit in the past before this, but it's gotten the It's just skewed so bad since the Obama administration. Prosecutors and judges should have discretion, of course. First time offenders, decorated veterans, people like that, you want to take service and things, of course, into account, first time offender and a person who accepts responsibility. is a is a big deal, I think.
Somebody who accepts and and and admits responsibility. But what cannot be accepted is the two-tier justice system, where political affiliation with wealth, government, position, or ideology. Makes a person above everybody else, the normal person, because you know that a normal person sentence, you could take George Flynn. Uh, for this, for this matter, they lawfared him to death, threatened his son. I'm only cutting you off because we have 35 seconds here, Marshal.
Look, I think a lot of people go, Yeah, if I was the person in that courtroom and I grabbed the person who was being charged and ran them out the back door, what would happen to me? This is a bit of the double standard that's happening right now due to people's political mindsets. That if everything The Trump administration does is evil, then everything that you do is justified if it thwarts them. That can't be an America we live in. But unfortunately it is.
But Paying some price, some consequence, good. Maybe not enough for a lot of our viewers, understandably so. And we'll continue on that conversation at 1-800-684-30110. We're also going to give you an update. A little bit later, of what's going on with President Trump, with Turkey, with Iran.
We're going to discuss that, Mike Pompeo. And I'm going to ask you right now: if you lose us, join us live, aclj.org or archived, whenever. On all your favorite podcast apps, we'll be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Sekulow.
And now your host, Logan Seculum. Welcome back to Sekulow second half hour. of the show right now kicking off phone lights are completely jammed Something that I always enjoy when we have a complete set of phone calls. People like to talk about this topic, Logan. And we got to reset because a lot of you joined us in the second half hour.
So, for those of you who are on hold, stay on hold. We'll get to you. But let's reset we're talking about here. I know for those who watch online, maybe the podcast, maybe you watch live, you get a little frustrated when I have to do this. But look, there's some people who joined us just for the second half hour of the show.
So, for those who are joining us, you may remember that judge that went viral for taking someone who is here illegally. who is actually being brought up on charges of domestic assault, domestic abuse. Realized that there were immigration officials on the way and decided the judge themselves to end proceedings and sneak the person out the back door. Of course, in that same moment, With a foot race, it felt like The person gets caught, they end up deported, the judge ends up having her own legal mess, and now is sentenced. That's right.
So, this was Judge Hannah Dugan for Milwaukee County that was convicted by a jury. For obstructing the proceedings of the Department of Homeland Security. That's right. And then, when it came to sentencing, the federal district judge Lynn Edelman said that prison was not necessary in Dugan's case, despite federal sentencing guidelines calling for incarceration of 15 to 21 months, saying for several reasons, prison is not necessary to satisfy the statutory purposes for sentencing. And I think we had a caller in the last segment.
And even brought up, said, Yeah, in sentencing, things like service to the country, if you're a veteran, things like that, if it's your first offense should be taken into account. And I don't know that he meant to, but in some ways, he kind of made this judge's comfortable that this was the first ever offense by this judge. You also take into account that fortunately, ICE got the individual very quickly after, and he was deported. I think the long-term harm. of violating the statute.
Was not there for the judge to see making a bigger example out of this.
Now, if it's something horrific had happened, I think things could have maybe have gone even differently. But that's where also the judge was looking at the statute that was violated and giving that.
Now, There wasn't even probation for this judge. Did the federal judge go light on the state judge? 100%. Let's take a call. Let's go to Troy in Virginia about this.
Troy, go ahead. Hey, I have a question if I know y'all said that she can't be a judge, but does this disbar her? Like, would she still be able to get an attorney job?
So, Troy, that now states have different, you're normally on the bar of the state.
So, different states, every state has a different bar association and has a different way of conducting the discipline of attorneys under the statutes and under the state.
So, as of right now, everything that I can see, it doesn't appear that the Wisconsin bar has done anything regarding this judge, potentially because they are waiting to see how it plays out.
So what it appears is, as of right now, she is still barred in the state of Wisconsin, as far as I can tell. But that doesn't mean that they won't take some sort of action, especially since she is banned from being a judge because of felony conviction.
Now, once again, She is going to appeal. Her entire goal is to make sure that she can be a judge again, that she can continue to have her bar license in the state of Wisconsin.
So it's not necessarily the legal battle is not over for her. But as of a story for probably the American people, this is probably the end of it. I don't think we will hear unless it somehow gets to the Supreme Court of the United States more about Judge Dugan after today. All right. Hey, we're heading to a break.
In that break, I want you to support the work of the ACLJ during our Independence Week. Do it today at ACLJ.org. And Mike Pompeo is going to be joining us in the next segment, so you're not going to miss that. Get his update from what happened with Iran, what happened in Turkey with NATO. We're going to discuss all of that coming up with Secretary Pompeo.
That being said, though, it is the Independence Week. We are wrapping up Independence Week. And only during this week can you get special items for over a $250 donation to the ACLJ, which again, remember, this show, all the stuff on our website, all our legal work. None of it is behind a paywall, including legal work, by the way. If you need legal help and it's within our scope, all of that is free to our clients because people like you support at aclj.org.
Scan the QR code you see on the screen right now or go to aclj.org/usa. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open. We'll take some phone calls coming up in the next segment at 1-800-684-31.10. You can go ahead and get a hold.
Secretary Mike Pompeo is joining us right now. Secretary Pompeo, again, does it feel like we go around in circles, round in circles all the time when it comes to Iran? But here we are, President Trump, not really shockingly, at least from your point of view, I know, but I wanted to get your feelings on it from maybe the diplomacy part of this, saying the MOU with Iran that the ceasefire. is essentially dead and here we are once again.
Well, it's great to be back with you. Unsurprising, I think, probably unsurprising to President Trump, too. Look, he's been trying to find a diplomatic solution to this, knowing that the probability was pretty low.
So we find ourselves in this place today where the Iranians continue to shoot at ships in the strait. It's going to require the United States to do precisely what we did. We withdrew the license, which allowed them to sell oil. We responded with some very significant targeting over the last, what, 72 hours now. And it won't surprise me at all if we go back and reimpose an economic blockade and open the strait.
Those are the things that will ultimately cause the Iranian regime to collapse. Might take months, could take years, but in the end, we will have delivered on the President's promise to make sure that Iran never gets the opportunity to have a nuclear weapon. They're determined to rebuild it. They are incorrigible. They are theocratic thugs.
And we find ourselves in this place where they made this mistake, right? They thought President Trump might let this go, but that's not the President that we all know.
Well, I think it's interesting as well because, once again, this is still a relatively short timeframe that even this conflict has been going on when you think of basically any other conflict the United States has ever been involved in. Yet there are people that already have declared it a forever war and things of that nature, which is silly. But we know that the President operates differently, and part of that operating differently is doing a lot of these things publicly, telling people we're doing these negotiations, then going back and forth.
So it can be exhausting and dizzying to some degree, but that's just because we're not used to that as American people hearing this. But here's my question to you. The diplomacy seems to have failed, which is not surprising. We know that just an air campaign alone won't fix everything. Kind of, what do you think the next step could be?
Obviously, the President could choose to kind of keep a status quo of an economic blockade, our troops at the ready, and continuing to. Limit their capacity to even rebuild? Or do you think it's something broader or more different now that these talks have failed? Oh goodness. You know, diplomacy never goes away in the sense of in the end, someone will sit down and there'll be some outcome that is determinative.
But we're clearly not at the point where this regime, and I don't think anybody believes now that anybody who has any power inside of Iran doesn't want to continue to destroy Israel and the United States of America, right? Could be folks who are telling us they want to turn over a new leaf, but those people have no capacity to deliver that. And so I think it is a very likely outcome that the President will restore the economic pressure that we had in place, costing them somewhere on the order of $500 or $600 million a day. He will continue to respond when they strike at targets. He will continue to use military power to impose costs on them.
And then we will get the strait reopened. And frankly, the strait will become less important because countries will find other solutions to moving their product around the world. And that will continue to put pressure on the regime. And one day, we'll get the collapse of this regime in the same way we did one day. whether that is in Romania or in Germany or in the Soviet Union itself.
I think my favorite line from the President yesterday when talking about the Iranian situation was the reporter asked him, you know, you said these were different people. They were, you know, different. What makes it different now? You're saying that they're the worst people. He's like, nah, I got to know them.
Which is, is one, only this President could deliver that because of his humor and style. But two, it was a little bit of an unknown per se of when you're three to four levels down, are they as theologically devout as the previous administration in charge in Iran? But when you look at also what happened yesterday, and we'll get to this in a second with NATO as well, but the summit in Turkey was very close to Iran. Obviously, they share a border. There was some concern, and we can play this bite from the President where reporters were asking about this change up in planes.
There was some other reporting of maybe some. Different protocols that had gone on, but let's play byte three from the reporter and the President, and then I've got a question on the other side of it. Were you aware of any credible threat by Iran against her? I'm number one on their list before you. But if I go, you go.
Right? But was there specific? Perhaps someday you want to change professions. I don't know that I've ever seen someone when talking about a credible threat against their life that is so whimsical with the press as our President. But he's telling the truth.
The President's always been number one. You unfortunately know the regime's desire to take out American leaders firsthand. But with all this, is the press just trying to make a story out of something with the plane change and the schedule change, et cetera? Or do you think that Iran maybe saw a window and there's some sort of credible threat that they were looking to avoid, obviously? Clue, look, I don't know the details of the specifics, but make no mistake about it.
Were the regime to find an opportunity to go after a senior American leader, certainly the President of the United States, there's no reason to think that they wouldn't do that. You know, I've heard people say, well, they would never do that because the United States would rain hell on them. You know, they have demonstrated a willingness to suffer greatly and their people to suffer even more. And so these are very serious threats against leaders. My guess is that the change yesterday was a result of detailed analysis of risk to the President of the United States and those folks that were traveling with him.
The Secret Service has a real capability to do that along with our external intelligence services, and we should take every measure. And if we've got to change planes three times, change travel plans nine times, put on extra services, we should do all of those things to protect senior Americans like the President of the United States. And I think the lefty press just wants to tell some story. This happens with some frequency: that the President's schedule gets moved to ensure that his security is adequately provided for. The NATO summit that concluded, obviously, the MOU and the Iranian situation kind of took over that news.
But NATO has been a priority of the President since the first term when you were Secretary of State to see real reforms. Not to abandon the alliance, as everyone in the media, as you said, the lefty press tries to point out, but to actually strengthen it, to do the things that agreements with these nations that they will fulfill and live up to their end of the deal. You see, the President's not afraid to talk tough to our allies. And I just kind of want to get your take on where that NATO alliance is now in spite of everything that's going on in the world right now, as well as that summit that just concluded. Look, we have an ongoing conflict in Europe and the European nations are in a better place today than they were before President Trump.
And he should be credited with that. Indeed, the NATO Secretary General Mark Route and the Secretary General before him, General Stoltenberg, both would acknowledge that. President Trump did talk tough with them, but not because he wanted to be mean or nasty, but because they just failed to do the necessary. And so there's still work to do. They still have more investment.
It will take years. But if you ask, are the NATO nations better able to perform their core functions to be that important, trusted partner that the United States needs them to be? That answer is undoubtedly yes, and President Trump should get a good chunk of the credit for having done that. I think Putin should get some of the credit as well. He's convinced them to be more serious too.
But President Trump made this abundantly clear well before Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, that this was something that mattered an awful lot. Thank you so much for joining us today, Secretary Pompeo. Always great to hear from you, and specifically on this Independence Week. I know that you've been celebrating as well, of course, and we appreciate everything that you've done for our country. That being said, the ACLJ continues our hard work.
Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-30110. As we head into the next segment, we will take the calls that are on hold right now. If you've been on hold for a long time, some of you over half an hour, we will get to you. But some of you know that there's some phone lines open right now at 1-800-684-3110. We'll try to get to some more because right now we are still celebrating Independence Week and the ACLJ team.
Like I said, none of the legal work, none of the media work. There's no paywall. There's nothing you have to do. You just go to our website. You just download the ACLJ app.
You just go to YouTube. You go to Rumble. Everything is available for you. at no cost. That is something that is very different from us and every other organization like us, every other broadcast like us.
You hear those ads being played? That revenue. Doesn't go to us. If maybe you get a YouTube ad, that ad revenue is so insignificant in the big scheme of what we do here. It's great, we appreciate it.
But almost, I'd say 99% plus, 99.9% plus comes from individual donors like you who decide to support the work of the ACLJ, whether that's once or whether you give on a monthly basis. And right now, because we have such a great core group of donors, we're able to do these special double donation months. And right now, we're celebrating Independence Week and just for this week.
So really just the next two shows. We're able to offer that special deal. If you scan the QR code right now, go to aclj.org slash USA. Look, all donations are doubled.
So it's amazing. If you give $10, it becomes $20. That's incredible. Most people can give somewhere between $40 to $75. We appreciate that.
But if you can, do a little extra right now. You can give $250. We're going to give you back an ACLJ gift, and that is that special challenge coin and the cooler bag.
So do it today at aclj.org. You can scan the QR code you see on the screen, like I said, or go to aclj.org/slash USA. Couple lines are open for you. And we got a lot more to cover. But I always like to say, you know, we hear from a lot of people.
At the end of the show, I always want to hear from the most important, which is you, the viewer, the listener, those that support the work of the ACLJ, those that listen every day, those that maybe you're a first-time listener.
So it doesn't matter. You can give me a call right now and try to get yourself on the air. 1-800-684-3110, I always say, be kind to our call screeners. You'll have a much better chance of getting on air. We'll be right back with more on Sekulow.
All right, last segment of the day. We got a full bank of calls. We're going to do our best to get to as many as we can.
So, already apologizing if some of you don't make it on the air, but those who have been on hold for a while, make sure we get to you first. Julie's number one on the list. Julie, Oregon, been on hold for over half an hour. We appreciate it. Thanks for going ahead.
Yeah. Hi, gentlemen. Long time supporter for you guys. Happy two hundred fiftieth Independence Week. Glad that you guys say that.
I wanted to say that just briefly with regard to the George Hannah Dugan ruling, Although I was ready to spew coffee across my dashboard as I'm driving, I so appreciated that you guys just explained to us exactly what that means, that it's no small thing to lose her career. It's no easy thing to be to become a judge in another state, those sorts of things. And I think that it's so easy to be triggered as an American right now, but as a Christian, and I know many of your listeners are, but it's a good reminder from you guys that discussing the importance of precedent Of historical precedents and what happens when we no longer have a Republican in office or a conservative in office, that sort of thing. It's just a good reminder to us.
So I just want to say thank you for that. And then also that when you always say that we are your ACLJ. When I think to my own self, you're my ACLJ, it's because you take the time to explain those things. It's like we have a relationship and it's just another reason why I support you guys because I just love you guys. Julie, thank you so much.
I appreciate all those kind words. Look, that's what we try to do here. I think it's always important to put things within context. And as you brought up, we're always thinking ahead. We're thinking years into the future.
Will and I have seen in our lives and everyone who's been around. And you have to think well beyond. just the couple years we're living in, the span you're living in, and how this can have a larger impact beyond a current administration. Because as we've seen, the tide can turn very quickly. And then the same precedent, whether you feel it's fair or unfair, can be used against you or for you in a blink of an eye.
So if you set a precedent now. Then you're gonna have you know something you got to deal with, and we always are trying to think forward also. We're just being honest. I think the difference is between us and a lot of shows is we're just going to be honest with you, whether we agree with the outcome or not, and we're consistent.
So again, Julie, I appreciate it. We're consistent whether it's Democrats or whether it's Republicans.
Well, and I think, and there's stuff that we will be rolling out in the near future of examples where the state governments went way too far against conservatives in the same field, in the legal field, and where we are going to call that out because they did try to make examples out of people, and that was wrong. That was incorrect. And so I think, yeah, you have to look at it from both sides on some of these issues, not in like a happy-go-lucky, bipartisan, can't we all get along sort of way, but how is the people. That genuinely Despise you as someone who's a conservative Christian, and they exist in this political realm. How are they going to use?
Things in our law or loopholes or things to go after you because we've seen it happen and we know they'll do it again. We had a call kind of related to that. Let's go to Wendy in California online. One, Wendy, go ahead. Yes, I'm going to try to put this as succinctly as I can.
But my question is, if she was a judge and she knew the laws, Why and did she count the cost of her actions knowing these things could happen?
So then the other judge, kind of being. Easy on her sympathizing. Oh, but she's lost her career and so on and so forth. But she went into it knowing the loss.
So that's my question. Wendy, why? Why? Because honestly, if I'm just going to give you my $10,000 foot view and I anyway I don't know specifics about this. Is the media rhetoric behind the presidency and behind this administration and behind what ended up happening with ISIL?
Look, some of it was going too far, and we made corrections over that. Uh Again, anything that was maybe for this administration. for a certain group of people. Specifically, those that were being force-fed content, and a judge is not unsusceptible to this. It's being told that you're in the right if you're doing something like this that's against what the administration is doing.
So I'm sure she thought in the moment. Yeah, and I'm sure she had some idea of the consequences, but I don't believe that went into your head. What Jane is trying to be a hero in this moment.
Well, and once again, Wendy, there's also a difference between federal law and state law. She's a state judge in Milwaukee.
So we can say, yes, she probably knew that there were things that were violent. She didn't know the statutory or the federal sentencing guidelines and everything. It was completely illegal. Right. But Wendy does raise a good point, though, of.
In some cases, does that because you are in a legal profession, does that raise the stakes? I mean, clearly this federal judge did not think so.
So the federal judge took into account the service of her as a judge and the record, as our caller earlier even was talking about, that there was no, it was a first offense, et cetera. The consequences ended pretty quickly because Ice was able to detain the person.
So I think that's probably what went into the judges, the federal judge's sentencing decision a lot more than anything else, really. Yeah, thank you for calling, Wendy. Let's go over to Dean now in Wisconsin, line six. Dean, go ahead. I'm actually okay with no jail time because I think really only violent people should be in jail.
The fine maybe should have been higher. But I think the bigger problem is. I know Chief Justice doesn't think there's Republican judges and Democrat judges, but the whole rest of the country sees it pretty clearly. It's honestly there's no trust in the judicial system anymore. Congress needs to abolish the Article three courts and start over with higher standards.
And bring in all new judges or reapply and have higher standards. Yeah, and Dean, what you're talking about is, and for those listening, Article III courts, the only court established by the Constitution, Article III, Section 1, is the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court. And in such inferior courts as Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish.
So, the system of district courts and the appellate level is all for convenience and a way to handle the caseload of a country in a way that not everything goes before the Supreme Court. Dean saying, clean slate, let's start it over, federal judge. But at the same time, Uh that wouldn't affect Judge Hannah Dugan. Judge Hannah Dugan was a state court issue.
So the perceived corruption here, especially by your own admission, is by the state court, that wouldn't affect it. You're saying, you know, you don't agree with jail time for anything other than violent crimes, which is that's a very common thing. And in reality, a lot of people probably really believe that. That's what the federal judge decided. If by your standard, the corruption wouldn't have been in the perceived federal judge here in the federal court.
It wouldn't be something that Congress has any say in whatsoever. Dean, thanks for calling. Look, I'm going to say thanks to Chad and Dan for calling. Unfortunately, we're just not going to be able to get to you today, but both of you had some good comments. Dan kind of reiterated what the last call said, which was maybe we should be looking at whether incarceration really should be for violent crimes.
I think that's a whole other discussion. I think that's something that a lot of us could probably get behind as well. That's it for another conversation and another day. And with that, we start to wrap up. Wrap up our show here, Will.
Can you believe it? We made it all the way here. We went pretty fast. We didn't even get to play our special video. We'll play it tomorrow.
That's right. We didn't get to play special video. Too many of you called. How dare you? Yeah.
How dare you be an active supporter of the show? We appreciate everyone who calls in. Thank you so much. With that being said, Independence Week's starting to wrap up. Last chance to get that special cooler bag and that.
Challenge coin. You can do it today at aclj.org slash USA. All gifts over $250 are matched. Of course, all gifts are matched in general, but are matched, and you get. That's special gift.
You guys have been asking for it for a long time for us to offer this kind of like merch and swag and all that, and we want to give back to you. Support this week at aclj.org.
Sorry folks. It's been one of those shows. We appreciate it. It's fun to hear us laugh here at the end. Give support.
We love you. We'll talk to you tomorrow.
