Government Accountability

Rick Green 0:07

It's the intersection of faith and culture . It's WallBuilders . We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical , historical and constitutional perspective , and we're doing that with David and Tim Barton David's , America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders . Tim Barton is a national speaker and pastor and president of wall builders , and I'm Rick Green , America's constitution coach and a former Texas legislator . We appreciate joining us today . We've got a lot of great stuff available for you at our website . That's Wallbuilders . com . Wallbuilders . com Great place to get equipped and inspired . Also a great place to make an investment in freedom . So if you make a contribution today , your donation is going to help us to reach more people with these truths . That means they're going to become better citizens and we will all benefit as a result . So please consider making that one time or monthly donation right there today at wallbuilders . com .

Rick Green 0:54

I'm still laughing about . Earlier in the week I had two different interviews from the Tavern which is my show over at Warrior Poets Society Network and also at Patriot U and always Clank Mugs , and everybody was wondering what I was drinking . Well , it's Patriot Brew . So check that out at Patriotb rew . com . And as we get ready to go to our interview today , I'll read you just one of the backs of the Patriot Brew bags , just so you know this is what I'm drinking in The Tavern .

Rick Green 1:21

This one's the Founder's Dark Roast . All of these are based on the founding documents . The right of the people to keep and bear bold flavors of coffee shall not be infringed . The right of the people to be secure in their person's houses , papers and effects , including their coffee , shall not be violated . Due process sometimes requires a dark roast , and there are days that a patriot needs extra energy to freely exercise their religion or free speech , or to peaceably assemble or to petition the government for a redress of grievances . This robust , full-bodied blend boasts a depth of flavor necessary to the security of a free state . Crafted from the finest beans and roasted to perfection , our Founder's Dark Roast embodies the spirit of those who dared to dream of a new nation built on the principles of liberty , justice and equality for all .

Rick Green 2:01

You gotta enjoy that , folks . Did you hear all the phrases there out of the Second Amendment and the Fourth Amendment and the First Amendment ? I love putting some fun and some coffee and the founding documents together . All right , guys , let's jump into some good news . David Barton , start us off, man . What's our first piece of good news ? Where are we headed in the country today ?

David Barton 2:19

Well , I'm gonna double dip on this , Rick . I know that's a shock . I never do that . I never do two stories at once , but I'm gonna do that because both of these relate to government accountability . So , Tim , you get two in a second .

Rick Green 2:29

It's okay , we're turning off Tim's mic , so you just take your time and uh , yeah , we'll wait .

Tim Barton 2:34

One is probably gonna be , hey , we're gonna hold the government accountable , and the other is , hey , there's this really good news story about this pastor and his church and it's great and it's gonna somehow relate . Not really , but I thought they were great stories so I'm sharing about , but that's . That's a good answer . Man , maybe I'm skeptical , but I you know .

Rick Green 2:55

So , yeah , why is David rough , rifling through his stack now to try to change his two good new stories ? Tim knew exactly what was .

Tim Barton 3:04

Now . My listen is coming out right now , when the first four stories go to my dad and I'm over here going . I've got good news , guys . Can I play ? Can I play ? Put me in coach .

David Barton 3:15

But it's logical , the the connecting theme for all of this is all of this is being said in English and that connects every story to all the other stories , and so I can get as many as I want to in there .

David Barton 3:25

It's easy , bro , they're connected they happen , so this is the the recent stuff on the on the how do I want to say ? This just happened in Congress , just it's . This news is House Republicans impeach Mayorkas over the border crisis . They tried a few days ago . They could not . They had a tie vote and they have to have a majority to win , and so if this would have been dead , except for parliamentary rules allow you to do some things .

David Barton 3:52

So one of the folks who actually voted for this impeaching Mayorkas and Alejandro Mayorkas is the guy over Homeland Security's in charge of all the border security and , if you judge , a tree bites fruits . He has not done a good job of shutting the border down or protecting America or anything else , so they impeached him over that . Now this is only the second time in 236 years that a cabinet level official has been impeached . The other was under Ulysses S Grant . Back in 1876 . The secretary of war was impeached because he was skimming money off of military supplies coming through Fort Sill , Oklahoma , and so he was impeached . He resigned from office and an unprecedented move the Senate actually went ahead and had the trial and the impeachment , even though he was no longer part of the government . So that's been a debate . Can you impeach a private citizen ? And probably not , but they still wanted to make it really clear that they disapprove to him skimming money . So , Mayorkas , what happens is it was a tie vote between republics and democrats a week ago when they did this . So one of the republicans who voted to impeach Mayorkas just announced to the speaker . He said well , I'm changing my vote , I'm going the other way , and so that allows them to bring this up for another vote . And so , since it was a tie and somebody's announced they're changing . Now the guy who announced he's changing did that so that we could have another vote , because Steve Scalise , who is the majority leader in the house , has been out for cancer treatments . He just got back to Congress and so with him back , he is the deciding vote on this thing . Those republicans who voted not to impeach did it again , voted not to impeach , but with Scalise back , now the vote is to impeach . So what happens with Mayorkas ?

David Barton 5:28

There are two counts in the impeachment . The first count is real simple . It accuses him of willful and systematic refusal to comply with the law . How many immigration laws do we have on the books that he is not upholding and enforcing ? He took an oath to uphold the constitution and the laws made under it . So he has not done a good job there . The second count that they impeached him on was it accuses him of breaking his public trust by knowingly making false statements before Congress , and so when he was doing hearings he was misleading Congress . Oh yeah , I'm enforcing the law , I'm doing this , and he really wasn't . So on those two grounds , he's done a terrible job of securing the borders of the United States , and that's the impeachment .

David Barton 6:06

Now will it get much done ? Probably not , because the Senate is going to line it behind them . They think open borders are good . It takes a two-thirds vote of the Senate to convict , but there will be a trial . There's a dozen or so republicans that have been named on the prosecution side to go before the Senate and present their case . So this is going to all come out publicly , but it's really good to hold public officials accountable .

Tim Barton 6:28

And to clarify not all of the Senate thinks the open borders are a good idea , but there's not two-thirds that are against it yo stop it . Dad , you suggested that the Senate supports open borders . Well , certainly not . Everybody does . Mike Lee does , Ted Cruz does ?

David Barton 6:43

I mean we , my dad let me correct that to Senate Democrats mostly support it . I think nearly all republicans are on the other side and you would have to pick up about 13 or 14 democrats to get this done . And there's just, I don't see any way . So thanks for that clarification , because I did not mean to imply the republicans were, they've been very strong on this but I do mean to imply the democrats aren't . I don't know if they'll even pick up one or two democrat votes in the trial at all , despite what's obvious in the border . So yeah , thanks , Tim , for that correction .

Tim Barton 7:11

But it is good news that at least on the house side , they're finally holding him accountable . It's also worth noting that there was 214 votes in favor , 213 votes against . That's not everybody in the house , so there are a few names absent and , if anybody wants to look right , there were some people that voted that they were taking no position , Some people that were not there and there were four republicans that sided with the democrats last time to stop the impeachment of Mayorkas . And so Mike Johnson very wisely recognized it actually , I think maybe even a strategic blunder when he was interviewed about . He said you know , sometimes you , when you take votes , you're not planning on certain people being there . Then when they show up , it messes things up , and I was as I heard that I just thought you're not supposed to take that strategy out loud , right ? Like you , sometimes you do things don't tell everybody what you're doing all the time . It's not going to help you .

Tim Barton 8:06

But that is a strategy in the house Democrats do , republicans do it . If you know you have the numbers to get an issue passed that is significant and important to your side , to your philosophy agenda , then you try to do that when you can , and certainly that's what Mike Johnson tried to do this time , and they were able to stop enough republicans from jumping on the democrat side and they were able to get this done . So it is a really good news . Even the Senate does nothing with this . , it's good news . At least the house recognized he is not upholding the law and that is an impeachable offense .

David Barton 8:40

And , by the way , I don't know that this is just almost funny because it's so silly . But here's the White House response . Here's the administration response to the impeachment vote . You have Biden who says , oh , republicans are playing politics with the border and the Mayorkas and his administration has done an excellent job of handling the border crisis . So that's kind of really , by whose measurement , with 10 million coming across the border , the republicans are playing politics and you've handled it . And they go on to say that House Republicans will be remembered by history for trampling on the Constitution for political gain rather than working to solve the challenges at our border . Really , republicans haven't been trying to solve the challenges . They're the only ones pointing out what's going on . So there's a lot in there . But along that same line of accountability here I'm speaking English , so this is how these two tie together but this one , the accountability , is

David Barton 9:30

The US Supreme Court ruled in a 9-0 ruling that it's okay to sue the Biden administration in certain areas . Rick , I think you're the first one who taught me that government has to give you permission to sue the government . There's immunity at local level , at state level , at federal level Shameful . Just because the government does something wrong doesn't mean you can sue them unless they give you permission . And so what happened was on the government side , in the Department of Agriculture , they post credit scores . And they posted credit scores for a guy in Pennsylvania and they said he had not paid his debts et cetera , and he had . He didn't have outstanding loans and what they posted wrecked his credit score , just took it down and it was false what they posted about him . So he wanted to sue the government to get his reputation back . And they said , no , you can't sue us . We're the federal government , we don't do anything wrong . You can't hold us accountable .

David Barton 10:18

And in a 9-0 decision , the US Supreme Court , the court , said , yeah , he can sue you and , by the way , congress gave him that authority 30 years ago when they passed that law that he could sue at that point . So 9-0 decision . The sovereign immunity claim that the government was arguing went out the door and you can hold the government accountable , at least in this area . And we're seeing more and more of this , where we're starting to see the courts say no , it's okay to hold the government accountable and they really do need to be held accountable . So that's two good stories Mayorkas and the borders won and the Ag Department and the bad reputation they were giving by false reporting . That's the other . But both of them just come down on the right side holding people accountable .

Rick Green 10:59

And should be extremely encouraging . You know all those folks that listen to us on Fridays for the good news . This should be a one-two punch . I'm actually , Tim , I'm going to support your dad on the combination of these two items because it is so encouraging . They're both unexpected in terms of the accountability that we've been calling for , especially the impeachment vote , and , like you said , Tim , and that's, you know, some people are going to say , ah , you're not going to get a conviction , why'd you do it ? You know , just like you said , we need to know that they're going to be held accountable , at least to some level . And for Speaker Johnson to get this through on a one vote I mean one vote majority in the final vote and with three defectors , this was huge , huge , huge and says a lot about , I think , his leadership to be willing to push this through . This should be a very encouraging sign for everybody out there , because it would be so easy for them to just say they couldn't get there and they move on to other stuff , and then everybody , we would all still be so upset that we don't get these big votes like this , this speak volumes . I'm really encouraged by that one . I think it's great . Let's take a quick break , guys . We'll be right back . We've got more good news for you . Tim finally gets a shot at this when we come back from the break .

Rick Green 12:04

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Rick Green 12:31

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Ruling in Favor of Rights

Rick Green 13:13

We're back here on Wild Bullen , thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday , and Tim is going to string together eight good news stories that somehow , or okay , maybe that's an exaggeration , Tim , it's all yours , man .

Tim Barton 13:24

Good . I want to go in a different direction . I want to talk about government accountability . I am the one who brought this up , so I'm glad to start with this . The title of this article is FBI seizures from safe deposit boxes violated US Constitution and Federal Court rules . I'll go to background . This is from the Epoch Times , but the background on this is back in 2021 .

Tim Barton 13:49

The FBI seized contents from safe deposit boxes during a raid in Beverly Hills , and this that's now finally gone . It was 9th turn Court of Appeals . But the idea from the FBI was they thought maybe people were stashing drugs in this Beverly Hills anonymous safety deposit boxes , so people were able to get these are anonymous . That's why the FBI thought , hey , people are probably smuggling drugs , doing things in here . Well , they brought a dog in with them and they proceeded to search the contents of about 700 safe deposit boxes .

Tim Barton 14:25

Well , that already seems like a violation of privacy . To make matters worse , they then claimed that they had the right to seize all of the assets that were in those safety deposit boxes , that they maintain the records for what was there , and they said that they they have the right to do this because there's certain provisions and certain clauses and therefore we , we can do this , etc . Etc . Now , in my mind , it's a very ridiculous argument . I understand the sentiment behind what they're saying , but when you're seizing people's property and you've already identified there's not drugs in the property , which is what apparently they had a warrant to pursue , you're taking things external , things , beyond what's in the nature , the realm of what you're searching for and I did this is actually one of the arguments that was against them is that that they were doing something that was similar to the Writs of Assistance , which is a reference back from the America Revolution era , the 1770s , when there'd be British officials

David Barton 15:34

Tim, just inserting here, 1770's there's a lot of it going on . In 1761 a founding father named James Otis tried to get this stopped . He went to court on what was called the, it was a case called the Wits of Assistance , and a writ of assistance basically was an open-ended warrant . And the British were taken . Open-ended warrant say we don't know what you got in your house , but we're gonna search till we find something illegal and once we find it we're gonna fill it in and then we're gonna arrest you for it . And James Otis argued that that is a complete violation of your right to your house , your property , everything else . And he lost that . But John Adams said that that was a turning point in American thinking . John Adams was a young attorney sitting in court and that's what fired him up for independence and liberty . And so in the 1770s the British are still violated . Or was it 1770s ? The FBI ? Was the FBI doing searches without knowing it was one of those groups .

David Barton 16:20

It was a . British appointed FBI that's what it was , that's right .

Tim Barton 16:27

Something very similar, yeah , so you know I mean to this point . Right , this is what the attorneys are arguing . What the FBI is doing is just like what the British were doing that when the founding fathers declared independence and the declaration right . They're identifying, these are the kind of things that cannot happen ! It was a violation of the British Bill of Rights for them to do this , that there was against the law for them to do this as part of why we separated and became our own nation .

Tim Barton 16:48

Well , the judge initially the district judge ruled in favor of the FBI and said well , they can do this because this is an inventory exception . Now , there's a lot of problems with that and not to get in the weeds , but an inventory exception if somebody is arrested for drunk driving or something of such nature and they're gonna take the vehicle , they're gonna tow it , well that the police might look through and make an inventory of what's in the vehicle just to make sure that when this person's releasing their car back , they get all of their stuff back as well . Well , the inventory exception was never intended to be, you can keep the stuff that you find and you can go through and look for more stuff . That's not what the intention was and it certainly wasn't in safety deposit boxes , where the very nature , the inclination of what these are is you wanna keep things private and safe , not have somebody come and seize them and not give them back . And the FBI did eventually give most of the things back prior to this case . But the defendants were saying we want this to go forward because this is ridiculous , this should never happen again .

Tim Barton 17:54

It went finally before the Ninth Circuit . Ninth Circuit ruled and said they cannot do this . A good decision coming down . And one of the things actually a spokesperson for the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles told news outlets that the office is prepared to destroy records of the inventory search . The FBI is saying that we won't keep anything, right , we're gonna get rid of it all . So there's good news that's come out of it .

Tim Barton 18:19

But one of the things that I so appreciate about this is , as we're talking about any level of government accountability , one of the areas we have not seen hardly any accountability are some of these three letter agencies and certainly we've seen the FBI going and doing some very bad things .

Tim Barton 18:37

And , to give a caveat , we understand the majority of people in the FBI are probably good , honorable people that want to uphold and do the law , but there are absolutely some bad actors . There are some politically motivated leaders . There's some bad philosophy and they need to have a cleaning out and clearing out in this organization to remove some of these bad actors . So to me it's really good news that unfortunately it was two years , almost three years in the process , but eventually you did have the Ninth Circuit rule and say what you guys are doing is unconstitutional . You can't do that , don't do it again , and it is gonna be more than just a slap on the wrist . It's gonna set a precedent that says you cannot go and arbitrarily seize other people's items from their safety deposit box . So this will have a good long-term effect when it comes to respecting private property and the privacy of American citizens .

Rick Green 19:33

Yeah , I remember , guys , whenever we recorded Biblical Citizenship I had no idea , David , that you talked about that whenever that was filmed , until we got edited , got everything done , and then I was like nobody's gonna care about Writs of Assistance , and then a year later , after we put it in there , Mar-a-lago and the raids and all that stuff , and it was just perfect . I mean , it was like the Holy Spirit led you to put that in there . And then that great line you added from John Adams we've actually got it in the workbook where he said how did he say it ? Independence was then in there born and later came to adolescence in 1770 , or 15 years later came to adolescence so 1761 , it's born at that speech of James Otis and John Adams , as they're watching it . And then 15 years later , boom , we get the declaration . So , like you're saying , I mean it's just , it's amazing . It's amazing those things that are so important to the principles of liberty . Let's see , Tim , that was only one . You know you get a twofer right ?

Tim Barton 20:30

Well , I will take it . This was Pennsylvania and it says Pennsylvania gun restrictions for adults under 21 struck down by federal court . Now , this one is not a restriction on the federal government , although it is a restriction on the overreach of government in general . In Pennsylvania they did a piece of legislation that was a ban on carrying guns in public and specifically they said only people 21 years and older are allowed to carry , for example , a shotgun , a rifle , whatever might be in public . You have to be at least 21 years or older . And what was identified is that , nope , the Second Amendment , the words we , the people in the Second Amendment presumptively encompass all adult Americans , including 18 , 20 year olds , and we are aware of no founding era law that supports disarming people in that age group . US circuit judge Kent Jordan wrote for the majority .

Tim Barton 21:24

So it is really good news that we are seeing more and more courts go the direction saying we recognize people have constitutional rights , and certainly this could apply in so many areas , but this one specifically from Pennsylvania , dealing with the Second Amendment and saying that you can't tell an 18 and 19 , 20 year old that they can't carry their shotgun , their rifle in public when a 21 year old can . So overall , really good news . It's kind of funny, the end of the article says that the office of Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro , a Democrat , did not respond to a request for comment . So after the law that he was very excited to sign in and make official was overturned by judges , he said I don't wanna talk about it anymore . So it's good news that the Second Amendment applies not only to those 21 years and older , but even 18 , 19 , 20 year olds are allowed to possess and carry a shotgun , a rifle , in public in Pennsylvania .

Rick Green 22:28

Love it . Good stuff . All right , David , we got time for one more . Go ahead , brother .

David Barton 22:32

Another recent news story is the Israeli military rescued two of the hostages from Gaza . So there's 134 left to go , but they have not had a rescue in quite some time and this one they pulled off in an amazing manner . It was just before two in the morning . There was a really, wow, heavily guarded is probably an understatement place where they found these two hostages . They'd learned about them weeks earlier . They've been planning the mission , and so they went in just before two in the morning and it was just amazing .

David Barton 23:03

When they got the two hostages one was 60 and one was 70 years old soldiers covered them with their own bodies for security for those guys as they moved them out , and they were under heavy fire and Hamas was fighting them all the way . And then the Israeli military , the Air Force and others started just pounding stuff around it to make Hamas keep their heads down while they got the guys out of there . So that's good news that they got a couple hostages out . Still 134 to go . It's interesting the Palestinian media saying well , Israel's now killed 27,500 . And that's likely a huge exaggeration , but even if it wasn't , Israel has the right idea, if you're going to attack us and murder our people , we're gonna make the penalty so high that you don't ever want to do it a second time .

Tim Barton 23:47

And dad , it's worth pointing out that when they're saying they've killed 27,000 or whatever the number is , nobody stops to ask how many of those were terrorists, right , because they're pretending like they're that Israel is killing their average citizens, right ? That they're walking down the street and killing these women and children and they just want peace . No , no , no , no . They're not pointing out that the people that Israel is being very , very intentional and who they are targeting , and they are targeting the terrorists . They're getting a positive ID before they are engaging anybody and they are only engaging the terrorist .

Tim Barton 24:24

Now , is it possible there's one or two or three casualties ? Okay , yes , for the sake of argument discussion , let's say that there's a couple of casualties , which is awful and terrible , and I don't want to cheapen into mean that . But my point is that a couple of innocent civilians is not the same as 27,000 innocent civilians , which is what the argument and the number is that Israel is targeting the terrorists and bad guys . And , dad , to your point , they are extracting a very high price and a very severe consequence for what Hamas did to innocent , unarmed civilians , women , children , grandparents , et cetera .

David Barton 25:01

I was talking to some Israeli military guys recently and they told me that they have identified 50,000 terrorists in Gaza and I think there's what 2.3 million down there , something like that . So 50,000 is a small percentage of that , but that's still a high number and their intention is to remain there until they've taken out 50,000 bad terrorists , or how many they've identified . They don't want this ever happening again . It's interesting that Biden has been pushing Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu go for ceasefire and Netanyahu is just flatly saying , no , I'm not , we're gonna finish this . We're not gonna have another attack against innocents and that attack again,

David Barton 25:38

for people who don't remember the attack against Israel , that was the second largest murder of Jewish citizens except the Holocaust . Holocaust is number one . This goes as number two . So this is a mini-holocaust , if you wanna say that . And these 1200 were innocent people and it was brutal what happened . I understand why the media has not reported what actually happened , because I've seen the reports and it is unbelievable . I don't know how to communicate it , even on this audience . It was just really bad . So Netanyahu's committed to getting all this done and , Tim , as you said , there may well be some innocence along the way , but it's not gonna be that high . Israel goes to a very , very extraordinary levels to make sure they're taking out the bad guys , not the innocents . So while the Palestinians are gonna claim everybody's innocent , it's just , it's not that way . But they intend to have no more attacks coming out of Gaza , and good for them .

Rick Green 26:27

All right guys . Thanks for all the good news today . We've got more good news for you folks next week . Make sure you're tuning in every Friday for Good News Friday and then , throughout the week , great interviews and , of course , on Thursday we have our Foundations of Freedom Thursday . You can find out more at our website wallbuilders . com . Wallbuilders . com . Thanks for listening to The Wall Builders Show .