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Your News Talk America with Jake Smith. Welcome to the digital and interactive program.

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10:10 AM ET

Segment Topic:

• udge Napolitano is not happy with the Matt Gaetz nomination for Attorney General and tells us why?
• Will the nominations of Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe doom the Patriot Act?
• Gitmo Continues to Haunt:
  • When can an Army colonel overrule the Secretary of Defense? It happened last week for probably the first time in modern history. The short answer is:
  • Even in the military, the Secretary of Defense cannot change the rules and procedures for criminal prosecutions and tell military judges how to try cases.

Gitmo Continues to Haunt:

Here’s a pop quiz: When can an Army colonel overrule the Secretary of Defense? It happened last week for probably the first time in modern history. The short answer is: Even in the military, the Secretary of Defense cannot change the rules and procedures for criminal prosecutions and tell military judges how to try cases.

Here is the backstory.

For years, the feds told us that Osama bin Laden was the 9/11 mastermind. Then, after they murdered bin Laden in his home in Pakistan in 2011, they decided that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the real mastermind and they would try him in a military court and seek the death penalty. After all, he deliberately set in motion calculated events that resulted in the murders of nearly 3,000 Americans.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when we learned that a plea agreement had been entered into by way of a signed contract between the retired general in the Pentagon who is supervising all Gitmo prosecutions, the Gitmo defendants and defense counsel, and the Gitmo military prosecutors. The agreement provides that in return for a guilty plea, Mohammed and others will serve life terms at Gitmo, rather than be exposed at trial to the death penalty or serving their sentences at America’s hellhole in Florence, Colorado. The guilty plea is to include public and detailed recitations of guilt.

So far, this is straightforward. While the trial judge may have given his nod of approval to the terms of the agreement, under the federal rules of criminal procedure, the agreement is not final until the judge hears the defendants actually admit guilt under oath in a public courtroom and then accepts the plea in a written order.

That admission has not yet taken place because Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who learned of the plea agreement while traveling, removed the authority of Gen. Susan Escallier, who is supervising the prosecution, to enter into plea agreements without his express approval.

Thereupon, defense counsel asked the judge in the case, Col. Matthew McCall, to enforce the agreement anyway since it is a signed contract, and schedule the plea hearing at which Mohammed and others will presumably comply with their obligations to spill the beans on this 23-year-old case.

The military prosecutors — who initiated the plea negotiations two years ago because they recognized that they cannot ethically defend the torture regime of President George W. Bush — complied with Pentagon orders and asked Judge McCall to reject the plea.

Last week, the judge denied the government’s request and rejected the Pentagon’s order and scheduled hearings at which Mohammed and the other defendants will presumably acknowledge their guilt under oath.

The judge’s ruling is essentially unassailable. He ruled that when Defense Secretary Austin rescinded the authority of Gen. Escallier — a retired military judge — to agree to guilty pleas, it was too little and too late. By the time Sec. Austin removed Gen. Escallier’s authority to approve guilty pleas in all Gitmo cases, she had already approved these pleas. Thus, she was fully possessed with the power to approve them at the time she signed the approvals.

The prosecution now confronts an ethical dilemma.

The plea negotiations were begun by the prosecutors. The current team of prosecutors is the second prosecutorial team. Full disclosure — I consulted with the first team of prosecutors on some of their civil liberties issues. The current team, after reviewing the work of its predecessors, concluded that the case was not winnable and posed a great risk to American jurisprudence and to American troops stationed abroad.

The risk to jurisprudence is the nearly impossible task of defending torture. Lawyers are prohibited from using evidence obtained under torture to prove a case, and judges are prohibited from permitting such evidence to be considered by juries. This is a basic principle of law that President Bush forgot about, ignored or never knew when he authorized torture back in 2001. Mohammed was tortured for three years at black sites in foreign countries and at Gitmo.

Judge McCall has not yet ruled on exactly what evidence will come before the jury — should there ever be a trial — as he is the fourth judge in the case. In order to make his rulings, Judge McCall will need to review more than 40,000 pages of documents and transcripts produced to his predecessors. President Bush also forgot, ignored or never knew that military judges — unlike federal district court judges — rotate off their assignments every four or five years.

If President Bush had not crafted the jurisprudential nightmare in Gitmo — with its torture regime and agonizingly slow military rubrics — Mohammed and the others would have been tried in federal court in New York City by now, and would have been acquitted and set free or convicted and executed or still serving life terms.

Instead we have the anomaly of prosecutors asking a military appeals court — once headed by the same Gen. Escallier — to reject a guilty plea that the same prosecutors sought and crafted so that they can now try a case that they have told their superiors and publicly revealed will be impossible to win and dangerous to try.

Why will it be dangerous to try Mohammed? Because when the world learns from a public court room what the U.S. government did to him in its torture chambers — all of it criminal, unconstitutional and constituting war crimes for the prosecution of which there is no statute of limitations and which are not pardonable — it will be startled; and many angered folks will seek revenge on unsuspecting U.S. troops abroad.

All Americans should care about this. The feds are subject to the Constitution and the rule of law. They cannot evade or avoid either for unpopular defendants or for political gain. If they could, then no one’s freedom is secure.

Panelist:

Jake and the Judge!

Sample Questions:

1. Judge, Trump’s recent appointments (DNI and CIA) appear to favor transparency.  What are your thoughts?
   1. Could Ratcliffe and Gabbard be the first step in repealing the Patriot Act?
2. What did you think of Pete Hegseth’s nomination for Defense Secretary?
3. Judge, what are the differences between military and civilian courts?
4. Your latest opinion piece outlined the problems when a Secretary of Defense (Lloyd Austin) attempted to circumvent an agreement to keep Sheik Mohammad and other 9/11 defendants from being put to death. 

10:35 AM ET

Segment Topic:

• How Will Negotiations Between Israel and Hamas Go Without Qatar In the Picture?
• The arrest yesterday of a CIA official with top security clearance for leaking highly classified documents about Israel’s plans to strike Iran. 
• The nomination of Governor Mick Huckabee as American Ambassador to Israel?

Panelist:

Pastor Mark Biltz, an author and the founder and Senior Pastor of El Shaddai Ministries in Washington State. 

Iran’s first direct attack on Israel helped make his point. Solar eclipses in the Bible serve as warnings to the nations of God’s impending judgment.

The bottom line: America and the rest of the world must stand by Israel.

Pastor Mark Biltz has been working towards the restoration of the Hebrew perspective and foundation to build relationships between Christians and Jews.

Sample Questions:

1. 1. What does the solar eclipse have to do with Iran’s recent attack on Israel?
   2. Explain Daniel’s vision of the End of Days.
   3. How did you cover this in your book “America at War 2024-2026: The Sons of Light vs. The Sons of Darkness?
   4. What do you believe is next in this attack on Israel?
   5. What happens to the nations who do not support Israel? What about those who do?
   6. Pastor Blitz, what do you think of the arrest yesterday of a CIA official with top security clearance for leaking highly classified documents about Israel’s plans to strike Iran? 
   7. Your response to the nomination of Governor Mick Huckabee as American Ambassador to Israel?

11:10 AM ET

Segment Topic:

• The status and future of Trump Lawfare cases.
• Why did Judge Merchan suspend this ridiculous case, rather than dismiss it?
  • Judge Merchan – Whose Daughter Made Millions Off Her Daddy’s bull—- case against Trump will be retired by 2029!

Panelist:

John O’Connor is an experienced trial lawyer, practicing law in San Francisco since 1972. He has tried cases in state and federal court throughout the country.

John served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Northern California, representing the United States in both criminal and civil cases. John represented former NBA Coach Don Nelson in litigation with former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.  John represented W. Mark Felt regarding the revelation of his identity as Deep Throat.

John’s last two books on the Watergate scandal:

Postgate: How the Washington post betrayed Deep Throat, covered up Watergate and began today’s partisan advocacy journalism.

The Mysteries of Watergate, what really happened?

https://www.postgatebook.com/

Sample Questions:

1. John, can you explain the process whereby both of jack Smith’s cases pending against President Trump will be dismissed?
2. It was reported by Newsmax yesterday that Jack Smith’s lawfare against Trump has cost the American taxpayer $50 million dollars.  How can that be?
3. Your reaction to Judge Merchan in New York suspending the falsification records case against Trump until he leaves office?
4. John, your father, John C. O’Connor, was a former FBI agent.  Your reaction that Chris Wray is planning his getaway.  Who (in your opinion) should be considered to clean up the stench at the FBI?

11:35 AM ET

Segment Topic:

Panelist:

Sample Questions:

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Credits

Host
Jake Smith

Radio Director
Walt Palmer

Streaming Technical Director
Julia Hardy

 Real News Talk Logo Graphics
LED Pixels Light Effect
Storyblocks Asset ID: SBV-302248713

Credit for Music Track:
About The Lion and The Cuckoo
Artist: Radioactive Pokemon
Written by: Alexander, Denis
Album: Through the thorns of a dead forest
Visualizer: About The Lion and The Cuckoo