Mar a Lago Raid Lacked Probable Cause But Biden Did It Anyway Plus the FBI Stops NYE Terror Plot

Welcome in his verdict with Senator Ted Cruz. Ben Ferguson with you. And Senator, we've got a big show today, including starting with a thwarted terror attack. Yeah, the FBI arrested five terror suspects who were allegedly planning a bombing in Los Angeles for New Year's Eve. Pro-Palestinian, radical Islamist, anti-American, far left. We're going to break down the details of who they are, what they were caught doing, and what it means for you. We also have stunning news from the Department of Justice and the FBI, which is during the Biden DOJ, the FBI and DOJ believe they did not have probable cause to search Mar-a-Lago. And nonetheless, political appointees in the Biden DOJ overrode the career employees and said, search it anyway. And finally, Scott Bess and the Treasury Secretary broke important news that that rents are dropping across America because President Trump is deporting millions of illegal aliens, that it is having exactly the effect the president told the American people. And the result is the rents that Americans are paying are going down. All of that on today's podcast. Senator, you and I have been talking about this for quite some time, and that is the national security threats that we face in this country. A lot of it is because of the open southern border that happened under the Biden administration. Countless number of people coming across the border that we didn't know who they were, where they were coming from, and catching people that were also on the terrorist watch list. What we're now witnessing is the government sounding the alarm that, hey, we have a lot of people in this country in the thousands who are here that we do believe either have ties to terrorism or directly connected terrorist organizations. And then we see the news break about the thwarting of this attack from LA all the way to New Orleans. This was a major operation that had a plan to kill a lot of Americans. Yeah. Week after week, we're seeing terrorists or radical Islamists either carrying out acts of violence or being prevented from carrying out acts of violence. But there's a consistent pattern we've seen that many of them were admitted to this country, allowed in this country by Joe Biden and the Democrats. We saw that, for example, with the Afghan radical who traveled to DC and shot two National Guardsmen, one of whom he murdered, the other of whom he severely injured. Well, this story now, the federal authorities say they disrupted a credible terrorist threat over the weekend. They arrest four alleged members of a radical pro-Palestinian extremist group accused of planning coordinated New Year's Eve bombings in Los Angeles. The FBI said that the members self-identified as part of a radical offshoot of the Turtle Island Liberation Front. We're going to tell you more about that group. It really is a whack job group. It is an extremist group motivated by pro-Palestinian anti-law enforcement and anti-government ideology. According to the FBI, they were allegedly planning coordinated bombing attacks on New Year's Eve using improvised explosive devices, targeting five separate locations across Los Angeles. Four of them were arrested in Lucerne Valley, where they were believed to be preparing to test explosive devices ahead of the planned attacks. And they've each been charged with conspiracy and possession of a destructive device. A fifth individual was arrested Monday in New Orleans, connected to the same extremist group, and was allegedly planning a separate attack. I want you to listen to Fox News covering this breaking news. The FBI now reports that it's disrupted a planned New Year's Eve terror attack in Los Angeles. Four suspects in custody, the FBI identified them as members of a pro-Palestinian extremist group. They're suspected of planning coordinated IED attacks targeting five different locations in Los Angeles. But based on the reporting now, that plot has been foiled. We will wait for more. Senator, you hear this report, and I think what's so concerning to so many Americans is we seem to be having more and more of these reports. It's also got to be incredibly frustrating law enforcement because this was avoidable. The number of terrorists and random groups, just like this one I've never heard of before, is concerning. And knowing that there are thousands and thousands of terrorists in this country, and law enforcement's got about a thousand, otherwise Americans die. That is incredibly frustrating when you hear another report like this. Yeah, look, this is what globalize the intifada means. You look at the horrific mass murder in Australia on Bondi Beach, and that was globalizing the intifada. The father-son who committed that mass murder, there's evidence that they were connected with ISIS and they were waging jihad. In this instance, let me ask you, this group, the Turtle Island Liberation Front, have you ever heard of Turtle Island before? No. You know, it's funny, I literally had to google it because until this report came out, I'd never heard of it before. And then I said it, and what was even funnier was my wife was like, what movie are you talking about? I'm like, I'm not talking about a movie. This is like a terrorist organization I've never heard of before. Yeah, look, I hadn't heard the phrase Turtle Island either, so let me tell you what it is. The Turtle Island Liberation Front Instagram account says its founding chapter is in Los Angeles, and its goal is to free Turtle Island, which is an indigenous name used to refer to North America. What do they want to free North America from? Quote, the illegal American empire. The account posted, free Palestine, free Hawaii, free Puerto Rico. Freeing the world from American imperialism is the only way to a safe and peaceful future. And let me also give you a little bit more information about this group, because these guys really are whack jobs. The group's Instagram page has 939 followers, which is one of the reasons we probably haven't heard of them. Now, 939 is not a lot, unless you're talking about people who are committed to terrorism and carrying out acts of violence. On the Instagram page, you have phrases like, death to America, and peaceful protest will never be enough. And there's a video on the Instagram account that features a woman who just says her name is Mary, and she explains the group's name. Here's what she says, quote, so that's what the natives called it, was Turtle Island. So that's the decolonized name of the Americas. And Turtle Island Liberation Front is looking for reparations and land back for these indigenous groups. This is dangerous. By the way, TILF also had materials the FBI released. One read, death to ice. Another read, death to America. Long live Turtle Island and Palestine. And so once again, this is the intifada. This is free Palestine, attack America, kill Americans, and these bombs. Here's what the federal criminal complaint says. It says the individuals who were arrested had drafted a written attack plan. They had shared bomb making instructions, and they had planned pre-operational surveillance of their targets. It says three of the four individuals brought potassium nitrate, PVC pipes, charcoal, sulfur powder, and other bomb making components to a campsite in the Mojave Desert for testing. Quote, while in the desert, the co-conspirators took steps to begin construction of the device, including unloading the bomb making materials, e.g. precursors, PVC pipes, and fuses from their cars, and beginning to assemble the materials on a table, constructing a tent to keep bomb materials shaded from the sun, wiping down the interior of one of the PVC pipes, and they were building it when FBI agents intervened to prevent them from actually assembling a functional explosive device. This is dangerous, and this is a pattern that we keep seeing happen over and over again. You know, the good news is that we have an administration and a president that's made it very clear that we're going to go find these people. This is part of the reason why immigration reform and shutting down our southern border was so important. Tom Homan has talked about this. He said far too many people on the terrorist watch list got across. And I go back, and I just, for the visual aid, Senator, remember, this is a government under Joe Biden's leadership that went to Texas, where they had put down barriers, and they used a forklift to lift up those barriers and the barbed wire to allow illegal immigrants into America. Many of them were not detained. The background checks were not checked on them, and people released and gotaways into this country. So now we are having to deal with radical groups and other terrorist groups that we've never even heard of, all because they said, let's flood America with illegal immigrants. And my worry is it's going to cost American lives at some point. And it already has. You look at, for example, the National Guardsmen who were shot by the Afghan Islamist radical whom the Biden administration imported into America. We are seeing multiple attacks from violent illegal immigrants that the Biden administration rolled out the red carpet to. Yeah, they really, really did. Final question on this one. What are you expecting moving forward from Congress on this as we continue to find more? And the FBI, I got to say to them, God bless them for doing their job, grabbing these radical pro-Palestinian groups and these individuals. And now I'm assuming there's going to be even more that we can expect as they find out who they were working with and who their friends were and who was instructing them or was a part of this. But listen, this is what happens when you have the FBI and the Department of Justice actually focused on going after criminals. You know what the Biden DOJ said their single largest operation was? Going and persecuting many of the peaceful protesters from January 6th, the little old ladies who were singing God bless America and waving flags. The Biden administration, they devoted their time, the DOJ and FBI, to political persecution, to going after their political enemies. They devoted massive time to going after Donald Trump directly. So instead of looking for terrorists, which mind you, they were flying into this country, allowing to come into this country. Instead of looking for ICE gangbangers and criminals and murderers and rapists, they were engaged in political persecution. The Trump Department of Justice, the Trump FBI is going after bad guys. And the result of that is that's making Americans much safer. Yeah, which brings me to actually a perfect example of what you were just describing. And that is new files are revealing that the Department of Justice and the FBI, quote, did not have cause to raid Mar-a-Lago. Hold on a second. You're telling me the people in charge of the government center under the Biden regime knew that they were going after Donald Trump for political reasons and not because they thought he broke law? Can't, I could not imagine this. You know, it really is astonishing. So the Department of Justice and FBI handed documents over to the Senate Judiciary Committee. And here's what Fox News has reported about those documents. FBI doubted probable cause for Mar-a-Lago raid, but pushed forward amid pressure from Biden DOJ. Emails revealed, quote, very little has been developed related to who might be culpable for mishandling the documents, an FBI official wrote. The FBI did not believe it had probable cause to raid President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in 2022, but move forward amid pressure from the Biden Justice Department. With an official saying he didn't, quote, give a damn about the optics of the search, newly declassified documents revealed. And you have emails between the FBI and the Justice Department in the months leading up to the August 2022 raid of Mar-a-Lago. And FBI officials explicitly expressed concern about a lack of probable cause to execute the search warrant on the President's residence. Quote, very little has been developed related to who might be culpable for mishandling the documents. This is written by an FBI agent serving as the assistant special agent in charge to another FBI official. From the interviews, the Washington field office has gathered information suggesting that there may be additional boxes, presumably of the same type as were sent back to NARA in January at Mar-a-Lago. The Washington field office has been drafting a search warrant affidavit related to those potential boxes, but has some concerns that the information is single source, has not been corroborated, and may be dated. DOJ CES opines, however, that the search warrant meets the probable cause standard. Quote, even as we continue down a path towards a search warrant, the Washington field office believes that a reasonable conversation with the former president's attorney, stating that the FBI and DOJ are readying a search warrant and developed information there may be more documents at Mar-a-Lago ought not to be discounted. At a minimum, even if the former president's attorney is correct and the documents were all declassified or believed to be declassified, it can be reasonably argued that the documents remain sensitive and should be properly secured until the matter of classification is sorted out. This conversation could easily be accomplished at the same time that the Washington field office presses forward with the investigation and continues building out the search warrant. Weeks later, an FBI agent writes in a new email, quote, this is stunning, we haven't generated any new facts, but keep being given draft after draft after draft. Absent a witness coming forward with recent information about classified on site, at what point is it fair to table this, the agent writes. It is time consuming for the team and not productive if there are no new facts supporting probable cause. Another email revealed that the FBI's Washington field office, quote, did not believe and has articulated a DOJ CES that we have established probable cause for the search warrant for classified records at Mar-a-Lago. Let me read that again. The FBI Washington field office, this is in writing, quote, did not believe and has articulated to the DOJ CES that we have established probable cause for the search warrant for classified records at Mar-a-Lago. And the response, quote, DOJ has opined that they do have probable cause requesting a wide scope, including residence office storage space. And the FBI also said a raid would be, quote, counterproductive and suggested, quote, alternative, less intrusive and likely quicker options for resolution to reclaim any potential classified records. This is stunning. I mean, I can't, I don't think you can, you can overstate how stunning this is that the field office, they're saying this is stupid. This is abuse of power in essence. And they're to the point where they're putting it in writing. And by the way, what it means if you don't have probable cause for a search warrant, but you nonetheless engage in the search, the search is illegal. Without probable cause, you don't have a basis for the search that is justified. And if the FBI is saying it would be illegal to search president Trump's home, apparently the Biden department of justice, they were so partisan. Their objective was not to actually prosecute a crime. Their objective was to stop the American people from voting for Donald Trump. They were acting as political operatives. And so their view, as one of the officials said, they don't give a damn about the optics. The optics they wanted was president Trump in a mugshot. They got that optic, but it backfired on them, backfired bigly as president Trump might've said in the first term. But this was a political persecution. And what's stunning is they knew it at the time. Well, let's go to accountability. And this is where some of you were listening and watching on Facebook or on YouTube are gonna wanna ask the question that I'm gonna ask you now. It's clear abuse of power. Where's the accountability? Because at this point, it's like, we know they did it. We've got the information. We know that they were breaking the law or the rules. And no one seems to be held accountable for this. So what is to say the next time Democrats get in charge again, where they have the White House and that day will come based on history, that day will happen. But let's hope not. Exactly. But in the rest of my lifetime, I have a feeling there's gonna be a Democrat that's gonna get back in the White House. Then why would there be an incentive for them not to abuse their power and go after any other conservatives in the same way? So there wouldn't be an incentive. And look, who knows? It may not be a Democrat in the White House. The Democrat party may have radicalized so much that maybe the next nominee will be a member of the Turtle Island Liberation Front. I mean, that's how extreme these guys are getting. Look, there has to be accountability. There has to be people who engage in the abuse of power need to be fired. Now, the Trump Department of Justice and FBI have fired a number of people. That's moving in the right direction. But anyone who knew they were participating in an abuse of justice, an abuse of power, and anyone who knew that it was illegal, let me ask, why was there not anyone who stood up and said, this is not right at the Department of Justice to abuse our power? Why were there no whistleblowers? Why was there no pushback from within DOJ? Let me ask you that question. There's a lot of appointees, and I wanna get in the weeds here on this, because I do think it's important to paint the picture. When I was in the Bush administration, there are political appointees and there's non-political. There's lifers. There's people that stay in certain positions at the DOJ, for example, at the FBI. They don't change based on the election or who is in the White House or who's in charge of the House or the Senate or Congress in general. Those individuals are the ones that you would hope would stand up here. The problem seems to be that there's either massive fear when the Democrats were in charge that their careers would be over, A, or B, that they just put in so many of their liberal friends that the entire DOJ leadership and those below them that were supposed to be the non-political appointees were actually incredibly partisan. I go back to Peter Strzok and Lisa Page or whatever the hell their names were. There's two examples of, quote, non-political people that were absolutely political. There are far too many extreme partisans who burrowed into both agencies, the FBI and the Department of Justice. As you know, a book I wrote a few years ago was called Justice Corrupted, How the Left Has Weaponized Our Legal System. This was written at the beginning of the Biden administration, so I did not cover the prosecutions of Trump or the Mar-a-Lago raid because it hadn't happened yet. By the way, how right were you on writing that book? I mean, knowing what happened afterwards, good grief. And the book starts, chapter one is actually about Watergate. It's about Nixon, and I am not a Richard Nixon fan. I think he was corrupt and dishonest and he abused power. But if you look at one of the things Nixon tried to do is get the Department of Justice and the FBI to go after his political enemies. But at the time, DOJ and the FBI and the IRS, they all resisted. They pushed back and said, no, that's an abuse of our power. We're not going to do that. And what Richard Nixon tried to do, Joe Biden succeeded in doing. Why? Because nobody, not a political, not careers, nobody pushed back effectively and stopped it. And we saw that started with Barack Obama. Barack Obama weaponized the Department of Justice, the FBI, the IRS. And then when Trump became president. And by the way, he was just slicker about it. I do want people to understand that he was, he was very smart about it compared to this, the blaze and abuse of power by the Biden administration. But there were, and I want to remind just a couple, a couple examples of the abuse of power under Barack Obama. Give us a couple of those highlights so people remember what they did do and how this started a long time ago. And the reason why is, Senator, there were a lot of people that got into the DOJ and the FBI then that were lower in rank who are now running the damn place. When you, if you fast forward to the Biden years. Yeah. You look at, I mean, one, one of the classic examples of Lois Lerner at the IRS and, and, and the IRS deliberately targeted conservative groups. It targeted tea party groups. It went after them. It persecuted them. And, and, and the search words they were among, among things they were looking for is any group dedicated to the constitution or the bill of rights. Yeah. And, and mind you, they didn't mean the ACLU. They didn't mean leftist groups. They, they meant anyone that was conservative, any pro-Israel groups they targeted. I mean, it was an ideological purge and it was an ideological purge that the political officials did everything they could to cover up. And, and ultimately, I, you know, you, you, you look at Eric Holder, who was attorney general, described himself as Barack Obama's wingman. And he ended up being held in contempt of Congress, which, which, which was stunning. But, but it began during the Obama administration, when Trump became president, many of those partisans, they burrowed into senior career positions at the agency. And for four years of the first Trump term, they waged war on Donald Trump from within the agency, trying to overturn the duly elected president, trying to overturn an election. And then when, when Biden got into power, they came out in the open and they were brazen. And part of the reason Biden was so much worse than Obama is they saw there were no consequences when it happened under Obama, that it worked, that they were able to weaponize the system. And I suspect many good people just, just left the agencies and those, many of those who remained were, were either they were afraid or they were willing to go along with it. But it, but it's why one of the most important obligations, responsibilities that the Trump DOJ and the Trump FBI have is to restore integrity to those agencies, to go after criminals and bad guys, like terrorists planning to set up bombs, set off bombs in Los Angeles, rather than using it to target political opponents. What, what will accountability look like specifically on these emails and the people there? And will Congress get involved in this, now seeing this letter, Grassley, et cetera? Yeah, look, I would certainly expect we'll see hearings in Congress. I'd like to see the Senate Judiciary Committee hold hearings on this and, and engage in oversight. This was released by Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. So that's, that's beneficial. And, and I, you know, look, I want to commend the Trump Justice Department for handing these emails over. But part of the reason that the Biden DOJ wrote these is because they thought no one would ever know that they thought Biden was going to be reelected or Kamala Harris was going to be elected. And, and so this would remain hidden forever. What changed the rules is, is you have a new attorney general and a new FBI director who decided we're going to give this to, we're going to show the American people exactly what was going on. That was the right thing to do. Yeah. Great point there. Finally, I want to move to another shocking breaking news story. And that is if you get rid of people in this country, they're here illegally, then you don't have to compete for them, Senator, for housing. We have seen the medium age of first-time homebuyers, the number skyrocket to 40 plus years old, depending on where you live. It's the highest we've seen. And certainly in my lifetime and the highest we've seen since World War I, I think if I looked at the data correctly, that, that was something that, that should be very eyeopening. Rental prices have also skyrocketed because, well, you're competing when it comes to renting a home, especially those entry-level homes with tens of millions of illegal immigrants. We are now finally seeing Donald Trump's deportations and the shutting down the Southern border completely turning into guess what? Lower rent and lower home prices for Americans. Yeah. And, and look, this is at the end of the day, very simple economics. And, and, and in economics 101, you learn that prices, prices are determined by, by two factors, supply and demand, and they're, they're graphed and where, where they intersect is where the price is. So supply, it's pretty simple to understand. The more of something there is, the lower the price is. If there are a whole bunch of houses, the price of housing goes down. If there are a whole bunch of bananas, the price of bananas go down. But the other thing that determines price is demand. If there are a ton of people that want to buy houses or bananas, the price goes up. And so those two counterbalance each other and actually rising prices typically are a market signal that we need more supply. And so if banana prices skyrocket because suddenly people decide they really, really like bananas, you know, what's going to happen? People are going to plant more bananas and grow more bananas to meet the demand and the price will fall. Well, what did Joe Biden do? Joe Biden imported, allowed more than 12 million illegal aliens to come into this country. Now, when they came into this country, most of those illegal aliens didn't live in a tent. They didn't sleep on a park bench. They went and rented an apartment or they rented a house or they bought a house and you bring in 12 million people. That's 12 million people that are trying to rent. And when demand goes up a lot, you end up having prices go up. Now, here's what Scott Besant reported. Scott Besant said that last month, apartment rents fell 1.1 percent compared to the same time last year. And they dropped 5.2 percent compared to the same time period in 2022 when rents had peaked under Joe Biden. And Besant did an interview on Fox Business Channel where he said rents are down and the story the Biden administration doesn't want to talk about, the mass unfettered immigration that pushed up rents, especially for working Americans. And he continued to say, there's a recent study out from the Wharton School that shows every 1 percent increase in population, rents went up 1 percent. So, President Trump, by enforcing the border and sending home more than 2 million illegals, we're now seeing rents coming down substantially. I think that will continue for the rest of the year. We brought down interest rates. And so we brought mortgage rates down. And I think everything else will follow that. That is a major victory. And by the way, it's exactly what President Trump said on the campaign trail, which is that if we deport the illegal aliens that Joe Biden's open borders brought into this country, the result is going to be rents are going to come down and housing is going to be more affordable. We now have the data backing that up. You know, messaging, I think, Senator, is going to be so important going into the midterms. And one of the things I do think we have not messaged well enough on our side is what is about to happen in 2026. And there are laws that were passed in 2025 that are enacted in 2026. You combine what you just said about home prices and what the Treasury Secretary was talking about there with something that's going to have a huge impact on our economy. No tax on tips is coming in this new year. No tax on overtime is coming this year. And no tax on Social Security for seniors is coming. Those are three massive victories that I think many Americans have actually kind of forgotten about that are going to be implemented this year. That's going to have a very big impact on our economy, but also affordability and living. No, that's exactly right. And I got to say, by the way, for people that make substantial tipped wages or overtime, millions of Americans are going to be entitled to a refund from the IRS starting in January, starting in just a couple of weeks, they'll be entitled to a refund because of those tax cuts, because of the working family tax cut. And look, the latest mantra of both Democrats and the media, because in many instances, they're one in the same, is affordability. Now, affordability, I am certain that that came from a focus group the Democrats put on, that that was a word they could blame on Trump. Affordability, about 12 minutes ago, used to be called two things, jobs and inflation. That's how we used to talk about it. Jobs, we're seeing economic growth, and that is coming from the historic tax cut we passed, and it's coming from President Trump's incredible leadership cutting job killing regulation. And then inflation, we are seeing inflation coming down. And this is interesting, the HUD Department, the Housing and Urban Development Department, published this month a report, an investigation that concluded Biden's importing of millions of migrants drove up prices for Americans who are low income, but who do not receive public assistance. And here's what the report concluded, quote, one key cause of elevated worst case needs is immigration. Between 2021 and 2024, the foreign born population of the United States increased more than 6 million, the largest such increase over such a short period in American history. This immigration driven increase in households has contributed to a significant increase in housing demand, thus driving up housing prices. In fact, in some markets, immigration has accounted for nearly all of the increase in housing demand in recent years. That is hurting affordability. Nearly all, nearly all. What else do you need to know? Yeah, that's Democrat policies, killed jobs and drove up inflation. And right now, under common sense, conservative policies, we're seeing jobs come back and we're making progress turning around and driving down the Biden inflation that hurt so many Americans. Yeah, it's a great point. Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, Friday, so hit that subscribe or auto download button. You can also watch on Facebook and on YouTube as well. So make sure you watch the episodes there if you'd like to do that. And the senator, I will see you back here in a couple of days.