Capitol Report Full Broadcast (Jan. 10)

Good evening and welcome to the Capitol Report on Entity Television. I'm Steve Lance. Here's a look at what's coming up. An unexpected scene today in Congress. Hunter Biden making a surprise visit. His pop-in unexpected visit sparking fireworks at the Capitol. Hunter Biden's lawyer reacts. And House Republicans moving ahead with efforts to impeach the Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. We bring you an excerpt from his first impeachment hearing earlier today. And former President Trump barred from delivering his own closing arguments in the New York civil fraud trial. What's the judge's reasoning? And what should we expect to see tonight as Trump plans counter-programming to a debate between Governor DeSantis and Nikki Haley? Hunter Biden making a surprise visit today to Capitol Hill. Shocking lawmakers as he voluntarily showed up at an oversight committee meeting just as they started to work on a resolution to hold him in contempt of Congress. This after he defied their subpoena last month. Entity's Melina Wisecup joins us from Capitol Hill. So, Melina, if you could sort of describe the scene for us. What was the environment like and why did Hunter Biden decide to show up? Well, the energy was certainly very high in that room today, Steve. Members were talking over one another, asking them questions about whether they would allow Hunter Biden to come and testify at that moment right now. One Democrat even pushed for a vote at that moment. Hunter Biden himself only showed up for about the first 15 to 20 minutes of today's hearing. Then he left right when Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was about to speak. And to your point about what is the reason why he showed up. Well, he and his lawyer want to paint this picture that he's trying his best to comply with Republicans' demands by showing up to testify publicly, saying that a private testimony will only result in Republicans twisting his words before presenting them to the public. And that's really at the heart of the political discord that we saw today. Just to give you a sense for the feel in the room, watch this clip. Why can't you show up for a congressional deposition? You're here for a political stunt. This is just a PR stunt to you. Mr. Chairman, if the general lady wants to hear from Hunter Biden, we can hear from him right now. Mr. Chairman, let's take a vote and hear from Hunter Biden. I've said repeatedly that after the deposition, Mr. Biden can come in front of a public hearing. Mr. Chairman, I don't want to play the video, but that is not what you said on television multiple times. We have the quotes. We can put them up. You said the witness can choose. Our first five offers were ignored to selectively leak and mischaracterize what witnesses. Now, Republicans are arguing that it's standard procedure, especially in sensitive situations like this, for the witness to come and testify privately before a public testimony. And Republicans also argue that this is the procedure that all witnesses in the January 6th select committee followed during that time, including the children of former President Trump. Steve? To the congresswoman from South Carolina's point of it being a political stunt, it certainly seemed like there was some insider baseball there with the congressman Moskowitz having some sound all ready to be queued up there. At any rate, Melina, if you could sort of tell us what's next now for the contempt resolution itself. Well, Steve, it will move to a full floor house vote, and then they will refer it to the Department of Justice. But some Republicans, Steve, are telling me that they're concerned that it might stop there. Watch this. Will Garland have two tiers of justice? Will he protect the Bidens? Will he not prosecute because of Hunter Biden's last name? In contempt of Congress, voted out by the full house, just like Bannon, just like Peter Navarro. As for when that full floor house vote will take place, we're hearing that it could take place either later this week or sometime next week. Steve? Great to hear from you on the Capitol there today, Melina. Thank you so much. Impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The House Homeland Security Committee is holding its first impeachment hearing today. Attorneys general from three states testifying as witnesses. In the last three years of Secretary Mayorkas' reign, there has been an orchestrated lack of enforcement of our nation's immigration laws. Since 2021, more than 8 million illegal immigrants have entered the United States, and that is more than the population of my home state of Missouri. Republicans are pushing to impeach Mayorkas over the border crisis. They claim he's refusing to enforce the country's immigration laws and is enacting policies that make Americans less safe. At the hearing today, they said he did not fulfill his duty as border crossings have reached record highs. Democrats are blasting the move as partisan politics. If successful, Mayorkas would be only the second Cabinet official to be impeached in American history. Officials who work closely with Mayorkas say that he does not plan to resign. And as House Republicans grapple with a $1.6 trillion spending deal, some are calling for a government shutdown until the border is secure. This as the Committee on Homeland Security moves toward impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. We sat down with Congressman Matt Rosendale of Montana to discuss this further. Congressman Matt Rosendale, thank you so much for joining us. Good to be here with you today. Congressman, I want to get your thoughts. You recently visited the southern border with the Speaker. What were some of your biggest takeaways? You've been there before. Yeah, this is my fourth trip down. I wanted to see how bad the conditions had devolved over the last year, and unfortunately, it met my expectations. With another record amount of illegal encounters, 302,000 last month there at the southern border, we had major, major problems. And I continue to say this is an imminent national security threat. The week before we arrived down at Eagle Pass, there was about 10,000 illegals that were being held there and processed. And I spoke with the Customs and Border Patrol officers. Within just that one group of 10,000, there were 200 folks there that were individuals of special interest, as they quantify them, meaning that they weren't sure exactly where they were from. They weren't sure what exactly their intentions were when they arrived here. And unfortunately, before they could perform additional vetting and processing of those individuals, they were whisked off and distributed around the country, the same as the other 10,000 people were. So my main focus continues to be what type of imminent national security threat are all these individuals posing that are entering into our country. You're talking people from the Middle East, majority Muslim countries that harbor terrorism. Oh, absolutely they do. So far I've been told that there's somewhere between 160 and 168 nations that have been represented coming across our border. We have Chinese nationals that are coming across our border. We have people from the Middle Eastern countries that are coming across our border. And that's the ones that have had encounters. More concerning to me is the roughly 2 million people that are the gotaways that we continue to hear about that are dressed completely in camouflage from head to toe, ghillie suits many times, what they call carpet shoes on their feet, and it's wall-to-wall carpeting that they wrap their feet with so that they can't be tracked. If it is so easy to cross the Rio Grande and Eagle Pass, Texas, and get a new pair of shoes, clean underwear, and basically a bus ticket or a flight ticket to go anywhere in the country that you want, why would you go through all of the work to sneak in under the cover of night? How bad of a criminal do you have to be? So let's just take some numbers. If it's 2 million gotaways that have snuck into our country that haven't had any encounters with law enforcement whatsoever, and if it's 10% of those people that are bad, that would be 200,000 people that want to do us harm. If it's only 1%, that would be 20,000 individuals that want to do us harm. 20,000 people within our country that want to do us harm can cause, they can wreak havoc across the nation with our national security, with our energy supply, with our food supply, with our transportation systems. So do you think coming back from this trip there will be enough votes to shut the government down? Only if the people that are living in the states put the pressure on their representatives. I do not believe if the people do not cry out, if the constituents, if the voters across this country do not cry out to secure our southern border, that the representatives here will take the action to do what is necessary. Congressman Matt Rosendale, thank you so much. Thanks for having me on today. Appreciate it. Former President Trump again taking a pass on a GOP primary debate and planning his own counter-programming. That's as Governor Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley are set to debate one-on-one for the first time this evening. Joining us now live is NTD's White House correspondent Iris Tao in Des Moines, Iowa. Good evening to you, Iris. So what are we expecting to see tonight in Iowa? Good evening to you as well, Steve. So tonight, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley will face off one-on-one for the first time during a CNN debate right here in Des Moines, Iowa. And that's really as both of them are ramping up attacks not only on each other but also on former President Trump who is maintaining a wide lead in the polls here in Iowa holding an over 20 to 30 point lead over both DeSantis and Haley. But as the two here compete for potentially the second place to Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy who has been campaigning a lot here in Iowa for the past whole week and so is not qualified as he's polling still in the single digits in certain polls. Meanwhile, I just asked him right now at one of his campaign events here at the Iowa State Capitol here. I asked him whether he's concerned that he's going to lose some of that traction or exposure because he's not qualified. He's told me that CNN is actually ignoring some of the polls that would have made him qualified. He also went on to call that a fake debate. Watch. CNN has decided they don't want the people of this country to hear what I actually have to say. So their shenanigans, their election interference frankly in this GOP caucus in Iowa has been transparent, it's naked, it's ugly. Ramaswamy is planning his own counter-programming tonight here in Des Moines and he says he is confident that enough people will tune into that as well. Steve. Cyrus, what are we hearing about former President Trump, his plans for tonight? There's also rumblings that Chris Christie may be dropping out of the race altogether. Right, former President Trump has been mocking both DeSantis and Haley for potentially competing for the second place to him. He is skipping the debate tonight and instead he's participating at a Fox News town hall actually right across town. And we actually do expect to hear more about his legal challenges currently facing him as he just today was barred from delivering his own closing arguments at the New York civil fraud trial. The closing arguments are set for Thursday in New York. The judge in that case says that Trump's team has refused to meet certain requirements and restrictions in order for Trump to deliver his closing arguments. But of course Trump's team is calling that unfair. So we do expect to hear more on that tonight. And on your point, Chris Christie reportedly is soon to announce that he's going to drop out of the race a little bit actually at a 5 p.m. Eastern time town hall tonight. So let's see what happens in the coming minutes or an hour or so. Steve. We'll be keeping an eye on that. Iris Tao reporting live from Iowa. Thank you so much, Iris. And coming up, three years after the January 6th Capitol breach, details of the ongoing investigations, arrests and prosecutions remain in question. The Epoch Times is releasing a new documentary exploring what happened during and after this historic event. Stay tuned for more after the break here on MTD News. Over 13 million Americans were affected by identity theft in 2022, and the threats go way beyond just credit card fraud. Today's identity thieves can use your information in ways that are easy to miss by just monitoring accounts and credit, like opening loans, transferring home titles, even committing crimes. Someone got my social security number, made a driver's license, and it was used for criminal activity. You can do so much with a social security number that I didn't know could happen. They drained my bank account. It was terrifying. You're even more vulnerable than you realize. 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I will be with LifeLock forever. Join the millions of people already protected by LifeLock, and for a limited time, save 25% on your first year with promo code 25TV. All plans include a 60-day money-back guarantee. Call 800-710-7496. Or visit LifeLock.com slash 25TV to save 25% on your first year of identity theft protection. Enroll now. A new house. We got fun, fun. A place that I call home. If you love them enough to crawl into a play place to get them to come down, then surely you'll check NHTSA.gov slash the right seat to make sure they're in the right car seat. Welcome back to the Capitol Report. I'm Steve Lance. So did Georgia District Attorney Fannie Willis violate federal and state law in prosecuting her RICO case against former President Trump? There are new allegations that are raising questions as she was reportedly subpoenaed to testify in the divorce proceedings of her prosecutor, who was also purportedly her boyfriend. Joining us now to discuss is Attorney Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation. Hans von Spakovsky, thank you so much for joining. Thanks for having me. In Georgia specifically, Trump's co-defendant, Michael Roman, in the RICO case filed a motion to dismiss and a motion to disqualify D.A. Fannie Willis, her office and special prosecutor Nathan Wade, for failure to disclose an alleged improper romantic relationship with Wade that she allegedly personally benefited from. This comes hours after Willis was reportedly served with a subpoena to testify in Wade's divorce proceedings. Does this constitute a conflict of interest? And do you think Roman can prevail in his motion? And what would that mean for Trump and all of the other defendants, including the ones who even struck a plea deal? Well, in fact, this is very serious. If, in fact, there's evidence to support these allegations, it's not just a potential ethical conflict, but there's a federal statute. It's called honest services fraud. And what that covers is if a vendor gives kickbacks to their employer, you have violated federal criminal law. And if, in fact, as alleged, this private attorney who'd been hired to be a special prosecutor was paying for these luxurious vacation trips for himself and Fannie Willis, who had approved the payment to him of over half a million dollars in attorney's fees, that's a potential violation of federal law. Also, apparently, she may have violated state law by not getting the approval of the county commission to even hire a private attorney and to pay him these fees. So there's a lot going on here. And, you know, Roman has asked for her entire office to be recused from handling this case. And if that happens, whether or not this prosecution would continue would be a very big question. There was some pushback from the three D.C. appellate court judges in yesterday's oral arguments in the immunity defense claim for Trump. When do you think we could expect a ruling? And do you think President Trump will ultimately prevail in his appeal? Well, I think he's probably going to get a negative decision from these three judges, given the skepticism that they showed in his claims about presidential immunity. I have to say he was not in a very friendly courtroom, given that two of the judges are recent Biden appointees to the court. I assume that if he gets a bad decision, he'll then file an appeal to the entire court of appeals. Remember, this is just a three judge panel. If he gets a bad decision there, it would ultimately go to the U.S. Supreme Court. So we might not get an answer on this until sometime at the end of this year, maybe, if it gets to the Supreme Court that quickly. The New York civil fraud trial, President Trump says he plans to personally deliver part of his defense's closing argument. Given what Judge Ngorin has indicated about his feelings of President Trump and the gag order he's issued, do you think this could ultimately hurt former President Trump? Well, I don't think there's anything that Trump could do in that case to change the bias of the judge. That judge has shown from the very beginning, even before the case started, that he was not going to actually apply the facts and the law. The claims that that judge has made, for example, about supposed fraud in the financial statements, has been disputed by one financial expert after another, brought forward by the defense. So I don't think there's anything Trump could do that is going to change the mind of this particular judge. Trump's remedy in this situation is going to be the state courts of appeal in New York. Hans von Spasskowski, really appreciate your insights. Thank you so much. Sure. Thanks for having me. Three years after the events at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, details of the ongoing investigations, arrests and prosecutions still have a lot of questions. The Epoch Times has released a new documentary that explores what happened during and after this historic event. Last night, the real story of January 6th, part two, was screened at the United States Capitol, a historic and symbolic moment in and of itself. NTD Sam Wong brings us more. We're here at the U.S. Capitol for the screening of a new exclusive documentary by the Epoch Times. It's called The Real Story of January 6th, Part Two, The Long Road Home. Unlike its original, the sequel explores what unfolded in the aftermath of January 6th, and more specifically, how the investigation process played into the American life. So this is a very important documentary for the American public to see how our Department of Justice, how the FBI are abusing and violating American rights. The screening event was hosted by Senator Ron Johnson. He told me that Congress must ensure the right to a speedy trial for J6 defendants and investigate what he called the abuse of due process. So far, over 1,200 people have been arrested in connection with the incident. But the prosecution procedures have drawn criticism from some lawmakers and the public. What kind of attorneys do these defendants have? What are these judges doing? Why aren't the judges putting pressure on the prosecutors to make sure these defendants have access to all the evidence? It could be a sculpture. The documentary features firsthand footage from a witness at the Capitol. I just happened to capture a federal agent smashing a window and pulling it from its frame and encouraging people to go inside. Powell said he encountered roadblocks when he attempted to get this evidence on the record. I was here in Washington, D.C. last August. The government fought for six hours to keep my video out of the case of United States v. Nancy Barron. I thank God every day that Epoch Times exists, I really do, because you guys have done an awesome job with this, much better than anybody else. The real story of J6 Part 2 has received a positive reaction from panelists and audiences alike. This documentary is whistleblowers that were working within the FBI that went forward and did what they were supposed to do. It's great to see the focus here on the family members and people who've had personal experiences being put through the wringer by, I think, an overly aggressive prosecution of individuals who got caught up in January 6th. Be sure to check out the real story of J6 Part 2, The Long Road Home, on Epoch TV. Reporting from Washington, D.C., Sam Wong, NTD News. That is all we have for you this evening on The Capitol Report. Thank you for watching. From the nation's capital in Washington, D.C., I'm Steve Lance. Have a nice evening. We'll see you back here tomorrow.