The Daily Signal Podcast

The Supreme Court will determine the fate of a major Jan. 6 Capitol riot-related case. The ruling could affect hundreds of people who were in the Capitol that day in 2021, and at the center of the case is the applicability of a federal statute. The Justice Department has been using a statute enacted in the early 2000s to prosecute those in the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The statute makes it a crime to “obstruct or impede or influence an official proceeding or attempt to do so,” according to Seth Lucas, a senior research associate with the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)During oral arguments Tuesday, the justices appeared skeptical that the statute could be applied and used in the Jan. 6 cases the way it has been.“It was clear that enough justices were skeptical of the government's expansive reading of Section 1512(c) [of the statute in question] to make a reasonable guess that they're probably going to read the statute a little more narrowly,” Lucas said. Lucas joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain the details of the case and what the ruling will mean for those men and women who are facing charges for their actions on Jan. 6. Enjoy the show!

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down:·         Speaker Mike Johnson will back four foreign aid bills that includes nearly $100 billion in spending.·         The Columbia University president is grilled in a House hearing on antisemitism·         Lawmakers react to a Daily Signal story about an NGO distributing flyers urging illegal aliens to vote for Biden.·         NPR whistleblower quits after suspension. Relevant Links: https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/02/national-council-of-teachers-of-english-hosts-seminar-on-how-to-teach-gender-queer/  Listen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcastsSign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda

A new bill in Congress would stop illegal aliens from squatting in U.S. homes. “We're trying to get out in front of it to protect American homeowners,” Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., says.Leonel Moreno, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, recently went viral on social media after a video post explaining how to take advantage of squatting laws in the U.S. Under U.S. law, Moreno told his followers that “if a house is not inhabited, we can seize it.” In response to the video, and growing reports over illegal aliens squatting in homes in New York and his state of Pennsylvania, Meuser introduced the Safeguarding Homes from Illegal Entry, Living, and Dwelling Act, or the SHIELD Act. The bill makes trespassing “a deportable crime,” Meuser says. “So if an illegal were to claim squatter rights and enter an individual's home illegally without any rental paperwork or legitimate lease” then, Meuser says “they can be arrested and deported and prohibited from ever entering the United States again.”Meuser joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the growing need for the SHIELD Act, and what, if anything, he anticipates President Joe Biden will do to address growing concern over the crisis at the southern border. Enjoy the show!

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down:·       Rep. Thomas Massie joined the movement to call for a motion to vacate the Speaker’s office.·       A National Public Radio whistleblower has been suspended by the news network·       President Joe Biden has refused to appear before the House committee involved in his impeachment investigation.·       The Supreme Court heard a case involving Jan. 6. Relevant Links: https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/02/national-council-of-teachers-of-english-hosts-seminar-on-how-to-teach-gender-queer/  Listen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcastsSign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda

Israeli leaders say the nation will respond to Iran’s weekend attack, but what that response will entail remains unclear.“I can see a number of scenarios in which this does escalate to a regional and potentially even a global conflict,” says a former member of the National Security Council, Robert Greenway, adding, “I can see fewer ways in which we prevent that from occurring.” Over the weekend, Iran launched about 300 drones and missiles at Israel. Unlike other attacks, this was not carried out by proxy terrorist groups in the region, but the nation of Iran itself. If a larger conflict in the Middle East is to be avoided, says Greenway, who also serves as director of the Center for National Defense at The Heritage Foundation, the U.S. will need “to radically alter its policy and approach toward Iran and Israel.” (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)U.S. policy changes toward Iran should include “to deny it the resources necessary, and to restore deterrence, with the support of Israel and our partners and allies,” Greenway says. Greenway joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain what options Israel has as it considered retaliation against Iran, and how U.S. Middle East foreign policy is affecting the conflict.Enjoy the show!

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: Israel says it must respond to Iran’s attack. Former President Donald Trump’s criminal case in New York City begins.Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas missed oral argument at the court and no explanation was given. The FBI opens a criminal investigation into the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge.Relevant LinksListen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcastsSign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda

Among all the legal charges facing former President Donald Trump, the criminal case out of New York City that begins Monday “is the most bogus,” according to legal expert Hans von Spakovsky. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged Trump in 2023 with 34 counts of falsifying business records supposedly to cover up “hush money” payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. “This case is just bogus from start to finish,” Von Spakovsky says, adding, “It's in Manhattan. It's a Manhattan jury, and I'll tell you, quite frankly, I think if the DA charged Donald Trump with eating a ham sandwich, the jury would find him guilty.” Jury selection in the case begins on Monday, but concerns have been raised as to whether it’s even possible to find an unbiased jury in Manhattan. Von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow and manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation, says he thinks the jury is “going to find him guilty, regardless of the facts and regardless of the law.” If Trump is found guilty, and even if he faces time in prison, that will not legally impede the former president from continuing to run for reelection, or even serving as president, given that the Constitution does not address that, the legal expert explains. Von Spakovsky joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain what he expects to see during the case, and what will happen next if the jury does find Trump guilty. Enjoy the show!

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: The biggest news out of D.C. today was the House vote to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.Conservative legal advocate and co-chairman of the Federalist Society Leonard Leo refuses to comply with a Senate subpoena. The White House announces another $7.4 billion in loan forgiveness. California has spent about $24 billion to tackle the homeless in the past five years, but the state has not consistently been tracking the effectiveness of its initiatives. Listen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcastsSign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda

Garret O'Boyle and Stephen Friend dedicated years of their lives to serving their country in the FBI. But when they began to question some of the decisions being made within the bureau, they were suspended. After joining the FBI, O'Boyle says he “immediately saw that other agents [and] supervisors didn't have a solid grasp of people's civil rights.” “Having sworn that oath to the Constitution multiple times—twice in the Army, once as a police officer, once as an FBI agent,” O'Boyle said, “it actually meant something to me—which, I think, it doesn't to many, maybe even to most at this point. It's just a job.O'Boyle explained that FBI agents take a constitutional law course at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and that for him, following and protecting constitutional rights “was most important to me,” adding that “foolishly … I thought that would be the case for everybody entering into this type of field.” After questioning some of the decisions being made within the FBI, O'Boyle was unexpectedly suspended from the bureau in 2022. Friend has a story similar to O'Boyle's. He was assigned to work on Jan. 6 cases, but raised concerns when he was informed that a SWAT team was to be used to arrest a man who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, despite the fact that the man had agreed to cooperate with the investigation. Friend said he told his superiors, “We should not be doing this. There's other avenues to do it,” referring to arresting the man. Shortly thereafter, Friend was suspended from the FBI. O'Boyle and Friend join “The Daily Signal Podcast” to detail the issues they witnessed within the FBI and what happened to them when they started asking questions.Enjoy the show!