October 22, 2024: Calls for CBS to Release Harris Interview Transcript, 'Top Secret' US Intelligence Docs Leaked, Assassination Attempt Suspect Asks Judge to Recuse Herself, and More.
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Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Tuesday, October 22nd, and this is your daily news rundown. I haven't given this reminder in a while, but if you've been loving the show, please go ahead and leave me a review on whatever platform you listen. Also, share this show with your friends. And if you're watching on YouTube, please just go ahead and hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel if you're not already. And if you're not already,

All of those things really help me out. Reviews especially really help me because they tell others that might be interested in the show why they should actually, you know, press play and tune in. So thank you very much in advance for that.

Also, if you missed yesterday's episode, I highly recommend tuning in before you go out and vote. I covered many of the policies and proposals of both Trump and Harris. I touched on topics like foreign policy, taxes, immigration, abortion, IVF, healthcare, trade, and more. So as I said, definitely tune into yesterday's episode if you haven't done so already. And now, without further ado, let's get into today's stories.

It's been a minute since we covered some daily news because last week I took off so there were no episodes and then yesterday was a special report. So today we're going to start with a few stories from last week that we didn't get a chance to cover and then we'll move on to some of the more recent stories from yesterday and today.

Starting with some news out of the Supreme Court. Last Wednesday, the Supreme Court left in place a Biden administration climate rule. So here's the deal with that. As part of the administration's efforts to reduce pollution, the EPA made new climate rules, one of which requires some power plants to meet emissions standards similar to what they would achieve using a technology called 90% carbon capture.

This technology essentially uses chemical solvents to remove 90% of the carbon dioxide from a plant's exhaust stream, and then it permanently stores it underground. However, critics of the rule say that while this new technology is an important emerging technology, it's not currently achievable on a large commercial scale. As one challenger of the rule put it, quote, at best, this is like an 1840 law regulating widespread use of incandescent light bulbs.

End quote. So multiple states, various energy companies, and other industry groups challenged the rule in federal court. And when they brought suit, they did something that we've talked about a lot, which is ask for a temporary injunction. A temporary injunction would have blocked the EPA's rule from being enforced while the litigation is pending.

When deciding whether to grant an injunction request, there are various factors the court looks at. So one, whether the party asking for the injunction is likely to succeed on the merits of the case. In other words, are they likely to win the case at the end of the day? Two,

whether the party seeking the injunction will suffer harm if the injunction is not granted, and three, how that threatened injury to the requesting party compares to any injury the opposing party might suffer if the injunction is granted. Ultimately, after weighing these factors, the D.C. Circuit Court rejected the injunction request, which meant that the EPA's rule could be left in place.

Following this, the challengers went to the Supreme Court and submitted an emergency request for the Supreme Court to grant their injunction request. But on Wednesday, the justices declined to do so. So the EPA rule will remain in effect until this case plays out. Now, the thing with Supreme Court orders, which are very different than opinions, is that orders do not have to give the rationale for the ruling, nor do the justices have to publicize how they voted. They can give a rationale and or publicize how they voted, but they don't have to.

In this case, we don't know who voted to deny the injunction request, but we do know that Justice Thomas said he would have granted the request. We also know Justice Alito took no part in the decision, and Justice Kavanaugh provided a statement as to why he voted to deny the request. Kavanaugh's statement says, and I'm summarizing here, that although the challengers have shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits,

on at least some of their challenges, the agency's rule actually doesn't require them to take any action until next year, and therefore there's no reason to rule in their favor on the court's emergency docket. Again, that's according to Kavanaugh.

Moving on to another story from last week, Ryan Ruth, the man accused in the most recent Trump assassination attempt, has asked Judge Eileen Cannon to recuse herself from his case. Judge Cannon is also the judge overseeing Trump's classified documents case, and while her actual oversight of the classified documents case doesn't have much to do with Ruth's request for her recusal, accusations of Cannon's bias do. So first let's touch on recusal, recusal of a federal district

court judge can be requested on two grounds. The first is bias or prejudice. A judge is required to recuse themselves when there is reason to believe that a judge has actual personal bias or prejudice. The second is when impartiality might reasonably be questioned. This is often with factors like financial investments or familial, personal, or professional relationships. I

As we know, federal judges are appointed by presidents, but these judges rarely recuse themselves simply because of the identity or partisan affiliation of the president who appointed them. So Judge Cannon, who is a federal judge for the Southern District of Florida, was randomly assigned to Ruth's case last month.

Ruth's attorneys have now asked Cannon to recuse herself for three reasons. First, they noted that it was Trump himself who nominated Judge Cannon to her current judgeship back in May of 2020. Second, the attorneys noted that Trump has repeatedly praised Cannon after her decision to dismiss Trump's classified documents case. And that decision to dismiss is one I've talked about before. It was kind of a one-of-a-kind decision in that no other court or judge ever

had ever ruled that special counsels don't have the requisite authority to prosecute. So Cannon got a lot of accusations of bias following that decision. And the third reason Ruth's attorneys gave is based on public suspicion about how she's been assigned to yet another high-profile case involving Trump. This is the third case involving Trump that has been assigned to Cannon's court. So Ruth's attorneys argue that the public may not believe it's merely a coincidence that she's been assigned to another Trump-related case.

case. So taking all those things together, Ruth's attorneys argue that these particular circumstances create an appearance of partiality to the public, and therefore Judge Cannon should recuse herself. If she does recuse herself, there are about five other federal judges that would be eligible for assignment to Ruth's case, but as of now, we don't have a decision one way or the other from Judge Cannon.

And in an update to Trump's federal election interference case on Friday, the judge overseeing the case ordered the release of roughly 1,800 redacted pages of evidence against him. So most of these pages are still completely redacted, as I just said, but are believed to include grand jury transcripts and notes for the case.

from FBI interviews conducted during the investigation. And the documents that we can see mostly contain information that has already been released to the public. These are things like screenshots of his social media posts about the 2020 election, a transcript of a video statement he made on January 6th, 2021, passages from former VP Mike Pence's book

a transcript of a phone call that he made to Georgia's Secretary of State, etc. But again, for the most part, the majority of the contents of the now unsealed documents are still redacted. Now, these documents we're talking about were originally filed to help the judge decide what allegations can proceed to trial and what allegations could not in light of the Supreme Court's recent immunity decision. Essentially, Jack Smith filed all of this evidence to try to convince the

the judge that the actions alleged in the indictment against Trump were private actions and therefore not entitled to presidential immunity and could proceed to trial. So that is the evidence we're talking about here. The judge has not made a decision on, you know, on these various actions and whether they can proceed to trial. But these are the documents that have been unsealed.

The release came one day after the judge rejected Trump's request to pause the release. Trump had argued that releasing the documents now could be seen as election interference and asked that they remain under seal until after the election. The judge said she wouldn't pay attention to Trump's campaign schedule when making legal decisions and noted that withholding material the public otherwise had a right to see because of the pending election could itself be seen as manipulating voters.

So lately I've been telling you guys how excited I am for the fall transition, football season, fall meals, fall baking, all of it. But this includes my fall wardrobe, specifically my incredibly cozy cashmere sweaters from Quince. So Quince is known for their Mongolian cashmere sweaters from as little as $50. In fact, when I first started shopping on Quince, I could not believe how affordable it was because I always just thought that cashmere was hundreds of dollars, but not at Quince.

And it's not just the cashmere that's well-priced. All quince items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. And the funny thing is I actually loved my quince sweaters so much that I bought my husband one too because they sell items for both women and men. So I got myself the Mongolian cashmere mock neck sweater vest.

and the lightweight cotton cashmere crew sweater. And then I got my husband the men's Mongolian cashmere crew neck sweater. And would you believe me if I told you that all of that was under $150? That is crazy considering they look and feel better than other luxury brands, but at quite literally a fraction of the cost. So get cozy in Quince's

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Moving on to some news from today, which is that a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. upheld the conviction of a January 6th defendant ruling that rioters didn't have to know the Secret Service was protecting then-VP Mike Pence inside the Capitol when they breached it to be convicted. Now, we've heard a lot about these January 6th convictions, mainly because recently the Supreme Court weighed in on one of the laws that

hundreds of January 6th defendants were charged with. But the law at issue in this case that was just decided today or where the conviction was just upheld today is different. This case centers around a local official from New Mexico who jumped a wall outside the Capitol to get onto the inauguration stage.

And he was charged with two misdemeanors. He was ultimately sentenced to 14 days in jail and a year of supervised release. But one of those misdemeanors he was charged with is what was at issue in this case, and it was a trespassing charge. So that law in part says that it's illegal to knowingly enter or remain in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so.

The law further defines restricted building or grounds in part as any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area of a building or grounds where the president or other person protected by Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting."

So knowing that definition, the fact that VP Pence was being protected by Secret Service inside of the Capitol at the time all of this went down is an important fact, right? But the issue is whether the defendant had to know a person was being protected by Secret Service in the building when they breached it to be charged.

The defendant argued that because the law uses the phrase knowingly enter, it means that the defendant only violates the law if he or she enters a restricted area while knowing the basis of that restriction is to safeguard someone being protected by Secret Service.

The federal court disagreed with this interpretation, though, and the court wrote in its two-to-one ruling, quote, we hold that knowingly breaching the restricted area suffices, even without knowing the basis of the restriction, which merely confirms that such trespasses are within Congress's legislative authority, end quote. So from here, the defendant could appeal this ruling, but it is unclear at this point whether he will.

Now, this next story is one I've received quite a few requests to discuss. CBS News has come under fire for editing the aired interview with Kamala Harris, and now Trump's lawyers have sent a letter to CBS demanding the release of the full interview transcripts

otherwise legal action would be contemplated. So in the last couple of weeks, CBS has been accused of deceitfully editing this interview with Harris in her favor, and many have called for the full transcript of the interview to be released, including a former CBS reporter.

The accusations came after viewers noticed that Harris's response to a question differed in the October 6th episode of Face the Nation and the October 7th episode of 60 Minutes, and this is despite both airings stemming from the same interview.

CBS responded to these allegations with a statement that said, quote,

The portion of her answer on 60 Minutes was more succinct, allowing time for other subjects in a wide-ranging 21-minute long segment. End quote. For clarity, the 60 Minutes interview was about 45 minutes of aired interview time, whereas the Face the Nation clip was about 20 minutes of aired interview time. According to a new Harvard poll, 87% of polled Democrats, 88% of polled Republicans, and 80% of polled independents want CBS to release the full transcript. It

It's worth noting that it is common for networks to edit interviews for clarity and time purposes, but it's also common for networks to release full transcripts. In fact, CBS released the full transcript for a 2020 interview with Trump, for a 2019 interview with former Attorney General Barr, and more recently for an interview with Fed Chair Jerome Powell earlier this year. So we'll see if CBS decides to release the full transcript immediately.

in the coming days, and I do have both the 60 Minutes and Face the Nation links for you in the sources section of this episode in case you're interested. Now let's move on to quick hitters. The United States is investigating a leak of highly classified intelligence about Israel's plans for an attack on Iran. The documents dated October 15th and 16th began circulating online Friday after being posted on a Telegram account called Middle East Spectrum.

These documents have the top secret classification and were only meant to be seen by the United States and its four allies called the Five Eyes. Those countries include, obviously, the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the U.K. The documents include details about recent events at Israeli Air Force bases, including movements of advanced munitions and intelligence about Israeli Air Force exercises.

In a new indictment, the former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries is accused of engaging in a sex trafficking scheme with two others in which they would recruit men with model aspirations. The indictment says the men would allegedly engage in sex-themed parties at which the prospective models were given drugs, alcohol, and Viagra to perform sex acts. The indictment follows a 2023 BBC investigation which made similar allegations against Jeffries.

And Google announced it will impose the same policy it did back in 2020 and block all election ads after the last polls close on election day. The

The company cited an attempt to prevent voting misinformation and confusion since votes will likely continue to be counted after election day. During the pause, Google will still run public information campaign ads created by state or federal government agencies. When Google did this back in 2020, it lifted the ban in December, so perhaps we can expect a similar timeline this year. And on a related note, Meta will also be blocking political and social ads during the last week of voting.

And now it is time for critical thinking. It's been a minute since we last did this, but now that we're back to a regular podcast schedule, get ready to put your thinking caps back on. For those that are new here, the critical thinking segment is a segment I include in almost every episode. And it's basically where I pose a...

scenario or event and I ask you some questions to get you thinking deeper about any given issue. The issue almost always ties back to a story we covered in the episode, but today's actually does not. Nowadays, with so much opinion-based news, it's easy just to listen to other people sort of telling us how and what to think, but at the end of the day, it's doing us more harm than good and we're

we forget how to think deeply, how to form our own opinions, and we end up losing sight of the skill that is critical thinking. So this daily critical thinking segment is my attempt to get us back to that.

Today, let's talk about Elon Musk's Political Action Committee, America PAC, promising to give $1 million each day to a randomly selected person who signs the PAC's online petition pledging to support the First and Second Amendments. This petition is only open to those who are registered voters in a handful of swing states.

Now, federal law prohibits paying people to vote or to register to vote. And I don't tell you that to tell you that this promise from Elon's PAC runs afoul of that law. Instead, I want you to think about whether it runs afoul. Pretend you are a judge and this is a case before you, right? So the question before you is, did Elon Musk's PAC run afoul of that law?

violate this federal law that prohibits paying someone to vote or register to vote by promising to pay one sign or, you know, a million dollars each day. And why or why not do you come to that conclusion? I want you to actually pause the episode right now, think about it for a few minutes,

and then press play again and listen to some of the conflicting responses that some legal experts have given. Don't listen to the responses before you take a minute to think about it because they'll sway your opinions a little bit. So press pause now and then come back and listen.

Okay, now that you've thought about it a little bit, here's what some legal experts say. One expert says, quote, the mere fact that there might have been an incentive doesn't arise to a payment for a particular activity. Another legal expert said that while Musk's promotion doesn't directly influence people to register, its timing and focus on battleground states indicate the petition component is merely a pretext and is therefore illegal. And

And another expert said, quote, I understand some analysis that it's not illegal, but I think combined with the context, it's clearly designed to induce people to register to vote in a way that is illegally problematic, end quote. So now that you have those takes and contrasting viewpoints, feel free to think about it some more and maybe even try to come up with arguments for both sides. What are the arguments for it violating this federal law? What are the arguments, you know, against it?

That's what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. Have a great night and I will talk to you tomorrow.