August 8, 2024: Trump's 2020 Phone Call with Governor Walz, Hunter Biden's U.S. Lobbying for Romanian Businessman, Details of Pakistani National's Assassination Plot, 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 Thursday, August 8th, and this is your final news rundown of the week. As always, if you love the Unbiased approach that this episode provides, you feel more informed after listening, please go ahead and leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen, share the show with your friends, and if you're watching on YouTube, please go ahead and hit that thumbs up button. Without further ado, let's get into today's stories.

In Monday's episode, I briefly covered the arrest of the Pakistani national who was arrested here in the United States for trying to hire hitmen to assassinate politicians and government officials. And when I originally reported on the news, it had just come out, so I didn't really have that many details to give you, but I have since reviewed the criminal complaint, and I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to fill you in

on what happened there. Also, as an edit to Monday's episode, the original reports were saying that this plot had started last year, but according to the complaint, the plot just started in April of this year, so just a few months ago. Asif Merchant is the man's name, and according to the complaint, Merchant first spent time in Iran and then flew from Pakistan to the United States with the intent of recruiting individuals to carry out his assassination plot.

Merchant contacted one person hoping that person would assist him but that person actually then went and reported Merchant's conduct to law enforcement and that person thereafter became a confidential informant for the FBI. The informant obviously acting as if he was in on the job introduced Merchant to two purported hitmen who were in fact undercover officers. Merchant

paid both of those men, both of the undercover officers, $5,000 in cash in the state of New York as an advance payment. Merchant eventually made his way to Houston, where he again tried recruiting people to act as hitmen there. And long story short, Merchant ends up getting back in contact with the informant and tells the informant that he has this business deal for him in the yarn dyed clothing business, which would also

be revealed as a code word, but Merchant only wanted to talk to him about this business opportunity in person. So Merchant flew to New York City, the informant picked him up, and they went to a hotel in Nassau County, New York. Over two days, Merchant describes his plot to the undercover informant, both times putting the informant's cell phone in a nearby drawer while they talked, and

And Merchant basically said that his plan involved three schemes. One, stealing documents or USB drives from a target's home. Two, planning a protest. And three, killing a politician or government official. He said that those that would be targeted were, quote, "...the ones who are hurting Pakistan and the Muslim world."

As for the specific request that Merchant made to the informant, Merchant requested the informant recruit men who could do the killing, approximately 25 people who could perform a protest as a distraction after the murder occurred, and a woman to do quote-unquote recognizance.

Merchant said that the plot would occur once Merchant left the United States and that he would communicate with the undercover informant overseas using code words. Code words like t-shirt and fleece jacket, words that were within the yarn dyed clothing business. Notably, the complaint does not mention any political figures by name. It just says that Merchant said the person he wanted to murder was a quote unquote political person.

So over the next few months, Merchant would meet with the informant as well as the two undercover officers on multiple occasions to discuss the plans, payment, all that stuff. And eventually the men had learned that Merchant booked his flight out of the country for July 12th. So of course, the FBI conducting heavy surveillance was outside of Merchant's residence in Texas on July 12th. And when Merchant came out to put his luggage in the trunk of a car, he was arrested.

Now, what's interesting is that the FBI agent who wrote and signed off on this complaint requested that the court keep the complaint under seal until further court order so as to not interfere with the investigation. That's not necessarily out of the norm. That's just probably why we're just now hearing about it. But the other interesting thing is that the complaint was filed on July 14th, which is the day of the actual assassination attempt on Trump.

not saying one had to do with the other. The government has already said the two were not connected, just saying that it's a bizarre coincidence at the very least.

If you want to read that complaint for yourself, please do. It is linked for you on my website, as all of my sources are. You can find that sources link by looking in this episode's description. Moving on to the next story, last night you may have seen the headline that reads something along the lines of, "'Hunter Biden received compensation from Romanian businessman aiming to influence U.S. policy,' special counsel in tax case says."

What does it mean? Let's start from the top. So Hunter Biden is facing nine federal tax charges, three felonies, and six misdemeanors. These charges involve failure to pay federal income tax, failure to file tax evasion, and filing a false tax return.

That trial is set to start in September. What last night's headline is referring to is a new motion filed by the prosecution in the case. So Hunter's lawyers, the defense, had requested that reference to certain allegations of political influence or corruption be excluded from the trial because they're outside the scope of the tax indictment. In other words,

irrelevant to the charges at issue. And in response to that motion, the prosecution filed their own motion, basically saying, here's why the defendant's arguments are wrong and why this testimony should be able to come in. And the prosecution goes on to say in its own motion that it

itself, the prosecution, the government, does not plan on referencing any allegations of political influence at trial. Rather, they're planning to put witnesses on the stand who will testify as to their own knowledge of certain matters.

The prosecution then provides detail into the anticipated testimony of one man referred to as Business Associate 1. And the reason for the detail is to illustrate its potential relevancy, because evidence can only come in if it's relevant. So Business Associate 1 is someone that Hunter allegedly entered into this oral agreement with for purposes of helping this Romanian businessman who's referred to in the motion as GP.

The prosecution writes, quote,

Three, GP sought to retain Business Associate 1, the defendant Hunter Biden, and Business Associate 2 to attempt to influence U.S. government agencies to investigate the Romanian criminal investigation of CP and thereby cause an end to the investigation of CP.

And four, Business Associate 1 and the defendant were concerned that lobbying work might cause political ramifications for the defendant's father, President Biden. Business Associate 1 and GP signed a management services agreement where Business Associate 1's legal entity would purportedly

provide management services to real estate properties in Romania, but that was not actually what GP was paying for. In reality, Business Associate 1 and GP agreed that Business Associate 1 would receive compensation for work by Business Associate 1, the defendant,

Hunter Biden and business associate, a business associate to, to attempt to influence us government agencies to investigate the Romanian investigation of GP and business associate one would pass approximately one third to the defendant as his compensation and approximately one third to business associate two as his compensation.

End quote. So in laying out this anticipated testimony, what the prosecution is trying to show the judge is not that Hunter Biden was being paid to lobby, but rather that this type of testimony is relevant to the charges and therefore admissible under the rules of evidence and consequently should come in at trial. The

The reasons that the prosecution says this particular witness's testimony is relevant is because the testimony will establish, again, not necessarily that Hunter was lobbying, but that Hunter received income from

from this business agreement that the this happened in the year or the year that the income was received happened within the years at issue in the indictment. It'll show Hunter's state of mind and intent during the relevant tax years charged in the indictment. And it'll show that Hunter didn't have any sort of diminished capacity during the relevant tax years.

So again, it's not that the prosecution is wanting to bring in this testimony about Hunter lobbying on behalf of the Romanian businessman to prove his guilt on that front. Instead, it's the prosecution wanting to bring in the testimony of the arrangement in order to show Hunter's income during the tax years at issue, his state of mind at the time, etc. The actual lobbying itself does not have much to do with the tax charges, is therefore irrelevant, and

and, you know, can't come in by itself.

So from here, it'll be up to the judge to determine what's relevant. Whenever a judge is deciding what kind of evidence can come into a trial, and by the way, this isn't just physical evidence. This also includes testimony. The judge has to conduct this balancing test. And not only does the judge have to find that the evidence is relevant to the charges at issue, but also that the evidence is not too prejudicial. There's this probative value versus prejudicial value that has to be looked at.

The reason this is news, though, is because it sheds a bit more light on Hunter's foreign business dealings. Previously, and when the indictment was filed, we knew that Hunter had received some $3 million stemming from an agreement to help a Romanian man avoid bribery charges. But we weren't really aware of the influencing U.S. policy component, so that's new.

Will this have other will this create other consequences for Hunter? Only time will tell. We know that House Republicans have been trying to link Hunter's foreign Hunter's foreign business dealings to President Biden for years, but haven't really been able to come up with anything substantive thus far outside of President Biden, though, this

could lead to another indictment for Hunter, but I say could very lightly. Here's why. Yes, there's a possible charge under what's called the Foreign Agents Registration Act, but the government who's prosecuting this case has obviously known about

this for a while. So if they thought this was something worth bringing, they likely would have obtained an indictment by now, and they haven't specifically on this issue. The Foreign Agents Registration Act essentially says that foreign agents are required to register as

a foreign agent with the attorney general. And under the law, a foreign agent is someone who is acting at the behest of a foreign business or principal and acts within the United States by either engaging in political activities in the interest of that foreign principal or acting as a political consultant, et cetera, et cetera. It's a very abridged version of what a foreign agent is. But depending on the specifics of Hunter's actions, he may or may not have

fallen under that exact definition of what a foreign agent is, therefore may or may not have been required to register as a foreign agent with the attorney general. And if he did fall under the definition but didn't register with the attorney general, that's where a potential charge could come in. But again, the government has clearly known about Hunter's dealings with the Romanian businessman and they haven't indicted him. So

with the Romanian businessman and they haven't indicted him. So maybe their case isn't strong enough. Maybe it just wasn't something they felt the need to go after. Who knows? But that's the story behind the headline. Hopefully that clears up any questions. Hopefully that gives you a little bit of context. And now we can talk about this new audio between former President Trump and Governor Walz.

One of the main criticisms of Governor Tim Walz is his handling of the George Floyd protests and riots back in 2020. You probably remember when George Floyd was killed on May 25th, 2020. By May 27th, there were, yes, peaceful protests happening, but also a lot of vandalism, looting, and arson taking place in Minneapolis.

And the mayor of Minneapolis had called Governor Walz on the night of the 27th and requested that the National Guard be sent in. According to the mayor, Walz at that time said that he would, quote, consider it. In addition to the mayor, the Minneapolis police chief also requested National Guard assistance in a May 27th email to Minnesota Commissioner of Public Safety.

On May 28th, the mayor of Minneapolis followed up with Governor Walz, this time with a written request for deployment. The mayor of St. Paul also sent a letter to Walz on the 28th. Notably, though, the mayor of Minneapolis and Governor Walz have publicly disputed what constitutes a formal request. So Walz says that a verbal request is not correct.

considered a formal request. And so according to Walls, the mayor's quote unquote formal request didn't come until the 28th when the mayor sent that follow up. Nonetheless, on the afternoon of May 28th, roughly 18 hours after the protests and violence had started, Walls issued a news release announcing that he would be activating the state National Guard.

That night, at 10.41 p.m. local time, the Minnesota National Guard wrote on X that it had activated 500 soldiers in and around the Twin Cities. About an hour later, President Trump wrote on X that he would send in the National Guard because he, quote, "...can't stand back and watch this happen to a great American city."

He called it a total lack of leadership, saying, Then in a follow-up post, Trump writes,

End quote.

Two days later, so now we're at May 30th, Walls orders the entire Minnesota National Guard into Minneapolis and thereafter control was regained. So the criticism from mostly the Republicans since 2020, but more so since he was announced as Harris's running mate, has been his handling of that situation and the delay in deploying the National Guard.

Today, new audio came out of a call between Trump and some United States governors that took place on June 1st, 2020. And on the call was Governor Walz. And at one point on the call, Trump praised Walz for his response, or at least in part. He said he was very happy with, quote, the last couple of days.

you, he says, you called up big numbers, knocked them out so fast. It was like bowling pins and quote, and I'll play the clip for you, but let's just note the timeline really quick. So this call was two days after control was regained in Minneapolis. And two days after walls had issued that order deploying the entire Minnesota national guard into Minneapolis. Here it is. I know governor Walz is on the phone and we spoke and, uh,

He handled it the last couple of days. I asked him to do that. And the whole world was laughing. Two days, three days later, I spoke to the governor. The governor, I think on the call, and he's an excellent guy. You've got a big national guard out there that's ready to come in and fight like hell. I tell you, the best, what they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in and dominated.

Yeah, our city is grieving and in pain. And I would just say as far as

the potential the peaceful protesters are expressing a an outrage that that is real they witnessed eight minutes of a man dying in front of them at that point in time i did something unprecedented i mobilized the entire minnesota national guard and that's what the president was alluding to with the size of the force was capable but i think again mr president i hope you asked on explaining this i would just say um

It's going to be very difficult. There are bad actors in this, but there is such a legitimate anger. Our real dilemma here is the transition badges to the catalyst that sparked this across the country, and that was what happened with Minneapolis Police Department. So what we did, a lot of what you saw yesterday, was engaging civic leaders and the peaceful protests. And I would just close with...

I think the guidance is you've got to get a handle on it with that force. That is absolutely correct. And then the transition in the next day is trying to get those spaces for the peaceful protest. And I'm happy to do things that we have to look at of how do we get reforms. But, Tim, it shows the incredible difference between your great state yesterday and the day before compared to the first few days, which was just... Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

So that's the call. Now, I do just want to make clear that that audio we just listened to sounded like there were cuts. It sounded like there were cuts of the full clip. So just take it for what it's worth. We obviously don't have the full call and we don't know what may or may not have been left out of that call or what may or may not have been edited in any way. But now at least you have that necessary context for when you hear about this story elsewhere.

That takes us into quick hitters. Mortgage rates here in the United States hit their lowest level in more than a year. Freddie Mac announced today that the standard 30-year fixed rate mortgage averaged 6.47% this week. That's down from last week's average of 6.73%. That's also the biggest week-to-week drop in roughly nine months.

The family of a French explorer who died in the submersible implosion has filed a lawsuit for at least $50 million. The family alleges that the company's co-founder and CEO, Stockton Rush, used carbon fiber for the craft's hull, which is material not previously used in submersibles. He also refused or allegedly refused to

certification that could have provided outside expertise and prevented the implosion. The family also says that those on board likely experienced terror and mental anguish knowing they were about to die because the submersible dropped weights roughly 90 minutes into its descent, seemingly in an attempt to abort the mission. The family is alleging gross negligence, among other things.

Also, this came out right as I hit record, but it seems former President Trump has agreed to debate Vice President Kamala Harris on September 10th in that ABC debate. And the last quick hitter today is more of a PSA. I actually didn't know part of this until I looked into it, so I thought I would share it with you. Under federal law, influencers, those who are being paid to promote products and services on social media, are typically required to disclose their promotions, whether it's through

Hashtags in the caption or, you know, maybe the content is labeled as branded content. There are certain federal requirements that you have to follow. However, in a rulemaking session last December, the Federal Election Commission voted against those sanctions.

same disclosure requirements when it comes to political messaging. And I know for sure, and some influencers may even openly tell you this, that groups like Protect Our Care, a Democratic group, and Turning Point USA, a Republican group, are turning to influencers and

paying influencers to spread their messaging and oftentimes working with them on the script. So just know that these things are happening and that these influencers that are being paid by political groups are not required to disclose their partnerships. So you won't necessarily know if what they're saying is,

coming, you know, from them or it's coming from someone else. Just another thing that I wanted to put on your radar this election season, but it goes without saying, and as I always say, it is so, so important to do your own research and form your own opinions rather than simply inheriting the opinions and views of other people simply because you enjoy their content or their presence. Always think for yourself. Always do your own research.

That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. Have a fantastic weekend and I will talk to you on Monday.