Transcription
You're watching the Legal Breakdown, Glenn. We've got some chilling news here as it relates to the FBI. Can you explain what just happened at the hands of John Cornin?
Yeah, Brian. Chilling indeed. As our viewers undoubtedly know, some Democrat legislators from Texas left Texas to try to thwart the Republicans' attempt to basically undermine voting rights in Texas. They didn't want to be there to participate in a vote that essentially would allow Texas legislators to jerrymander minority votes damn near out of existence. They didn't want to be part and parcel of it.
So what happened is Senator Cornin from Texas asked the FBI to get after these Democrat legislators who left Texas and asked Cash Patel, director of the FBI, to quote, arrest them, even though they committed no crime. Indeed, they certainly committed no federal crime, but they didn't even commit a state crime in violation of the laws of Texas. This is Senator Cornin in a very real sense urging the FBI to abuse its power, its authority, its jurisdiction, and to violate the Constitution by not only marginalizing voting rights at the end of this process, but by violating the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against an unlawful arrest.
And don't take my word for it, Brian. Let me just read a sentence or two from John Cornin's letter to Cash Patel asking that the FBI render this assistance. Um, dear Director Patel, I write to encourage the FBI to take any appropriate steps to aid in Texas state law enforcement efforts to locate or arrest potential lawbreakers who have fled the state. The problem there is that these Democrat legislators did not break any law. They've committed no crime by leaving the state of Texas rather than being complicit in basically running roughshod over voters' rights in Texas. But that doesn't matter to Senator Cornin.
You know, there, there's this thing, Brian. It's called a 241 conspiracy. What is a 241 conspiracy? Well, under 18 United States Code section 241, there's this thing called a conspiracy against rights, any constitutional rights, voting rights, the Fourth Amendment right prohibiting an unreasonable seizure, seizure of a person. In other words, an unlawful arrest. People may remember that. That sounds a little familiar. Why? Well, Brian, because Donald Trump was indicted for a 241 conspiracy against voting rights by trying to steal the 2020 presidential election from the American voters. It really does feel like when I read this letter, this ask of Senator Cornin is inviting Cash Patel not only to abuse the power of the FBI, but to join him in a 241 conspiracy against voting rights and against the Fourth Amendment rights of those Democrat legislators to be free from an unlawful arrest, an unreasonable seizure.
So, you know, this is beyond the legal upside down. This is like an open invitation to just abuse governmental power and run roughshod over the constitutional rights of the people. Now, with that said, I, I guess none of this is actionable until we actually see what Cash Patel does. I mean, it's one thing to be able to say, "Sure, John Cornin, we're at your disposal. The FBI is going to, you know, come go in there and scoop up these Texas Democrats." It's a whole other thing to do it. And so nothing is really actionable until we see whether Cash Patel is actually willing to put his money where his mouth is, fully weaponize the government and commit this illegal act.
Yeah, you're exactly right. Because as of the most recent reporting, there's no indication that FBI agents have like run to Illinois, where a lot of these Democrat, uh, lawmakers are apparently staying and tried to take them into custody, unlawfully arrest them, which would be a violation of their constitutional right against an unreasonable seizure. So, we don't know what Cash Patel might choose to do. But what we do know, Brian, is Senator Cornin announced, "Oh, Cash Patel has agreed to my request for help." We don't know what form that help will take. We can go through the panoply of possibilities. They could send FBI agents to do what we call a knock and talk. They can try to find the, the Democrat legislators and say, "Hey, we're encouraging you to go back to Texas." That's not unlawful. It might be heavy-handed, and it's certainly a waste of FBI resources if not an abuse of FBI power.
But then they could what? Go after the credit cards that are being used by these legislators. They go after the cell phone information, including cell site information, which can tell you where a cell phone is, when a particular call is being made or received. But here's the problem, Brian. There's a legal process that goes along with law enforcement agents acquiring that kind of information. The two different ways you can get different kinds of information. Um, one is with a grand jury subpoena. You can get certain information, but not all information. And the second is with either a judicially issued search warrant or a judicially issued court order. So the question remains, how far will the FBI go in abusing its authority and power to get involved in an investigation when no crime has been committed and certainly no federal crime has been committed?
You know, I, I, I know that we look at this and say, okay, the FBI can't do this because, uh, because they don't have the authority to do so. But we also look at how ICE has kind of operated in this nebulous gray zone where all of a sudden, whereas you didn't have the authority to just scoop people up, effectively kidnap them off the streets before, suddenly you do. And it's wild how quickly the American people have have been forced to become accustomed or or, or, uh, normalized to this behavior. And so if we see the FBI do the same thing, what recourse is there when you have, you know, like Cash Patel's goons going up to Texas and just, I guess acting as, as the Republican party's, uh, political, you know, army with, with, uh, to, to do, to do whatever they need to do to help, uh, these politicians reach their political goals.
Yeah, it does seem like violating the rule of law, violating the constitutional rights of people in the United States, not just American citizens, but all people in the United States enjoy constitutional rights, for example, against an unreasonable search and seizure, a lawless arrest. But lawlessness by Donald Trump's, you know, federal law enforcement agencies has quickly become the norm. And we see that most acutely in the way they are, you know, going after any, any folks who happen to be in a Home Depot parking lot or, you know, picking produce in a field or working in the garment district in California in LA who happen to look Hispanic, maybe they're speaking Spanish.
Well, the good news is, Brian, and there's always good news. There are points of light out there amidst the Trump-induced darkness. The good news is a federal judge in California told ICE, ordered ICE, prohibited ICE from making these unlawful seizures of people without specific reasons, specific constitutional reason to do so with respect to every single person they stop. Right? And the appeals court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed that trial court ruling, and that injunction remains in place. So the good news is there are federal court judges protecting the American people and undocumented workers from the abuses of Donald Trump's law enforcement agency.
So now let's shift back to the John Cornin, Cash Patel, you know, arrest lawmakers who committed no crimes topic. If there is some unconstitutional or unlawful act perpetrated against one or more of these Texas lawmakers, I can pretty much guarantee you that that is going to get right into court, and you're going to have a federal judge deal with it on an emergency basis because, Brian, in a very real sense, the federal judiciary, and I'm talking about the trial court judges and all of the circuit courts of appeal, the federal appeals court judges, in a very real sense, have been protecting us against the abuses and the lawlessness and the unconstitutional acts of a president of the United States.
And so in this instance, if we're carrying on with this thought experiment wherein Cash Patel is able to send the FBI off to Illinois to scoop these people up, how quickly would these Texas officials be able to seek recourse in the courts? Because I mean, if they are in the midst of being scooped up extrajudicially by these FBI agents, I mean, like that's something that requires immediate attention. And obviously, you know, I think that that I'm probably correct in saying you can't seek any, any recourse or you, you can't seek any remedy. You can't claim harm if they haven't done it yet. So there's no way to prepare for this. But what happens in the event that it's happening?
Great question. And, and here's the thing, you know, to talk about this being a thought experiment. You know, it sounds too crazy to be a Hollywood script. However, Illinois Governor Pritzker has said he will not allow lawlessness in his state, including lawlessness perpetrated by federal agents. And Brian, if somebody grabs you and takes you into custody without lawful process or basis, we have a word for that. It's called kidnapping. It's also an assault. And I'm going to take Governor Pritzker at his word that he will not allow lawlessness in his state to be perpetrated against Texas legislators or anybody else. Again, this sounds too insane to even be talking about using state law enforcement authorities to thwart unlawful efforts by the FBI to take Texas legislators into custody, but, you know, this is Donald Trump's America in which we're living.
Well, we will of course stay on top of this. The story is pretty quickly moving, so I'm sure we'll have updates quite soon. And for those who are watching, if you'd like to support our work and hear more, please make sure to subscribe. The links to both of our channels are right here on the screen. Best way to support us, completely free, and a great way to show some support for independent media. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen.
And I'm Glenn Kersner.
You're watching the Legal Breakdown.
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