Gas Station Robberies Staged for Visas & DOJ Gets Aggressive | 10.28.26

People disagree about a lot in this country. Taxes, health care, education. But wherever you land politically, I think most of us agree on this. Better information leads to better decisions. That's the mission of USAFacts to make government data clear and accessible. Because public data should be easy to access, trust, and understand so we can use it to make informed decisions. Read and sign our open letter to support public data at USAFacts.org. [MUSIC] An aggressive Trump DOJ raids the mansion of a man who bankrolled Eric Swalwell, brings more charges against James Comey and Sue States over their handling of elections. And the Daniel Sullivan that they have up was never a participant in any elections, never even voted before. It's a disgrace. I'm daily wire executive editor, John Bickley, Georgia Howe's off this morning. It's Wednesday, October 28th. This is MorningWire. [MUSIC] The Trump administration cracks down on visa fraud, including one scheme involving thousands of foreign nationals staging robberies on themselves. And 60 Christians are mass occurred in Ethiopia as church leaders call out for help. Thanks for waking up with MorningWire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. The Department of Justice is making a string of aggressive moves in the final stretch before the midterms. He was more as wired in host, Cabot Phillips, so Cabot, we have a lot going on from the FBI and the DOJ. Let's start with the biggest thing that happened yesterday, a major raid on a mansion in Beverly Hills. What exactly is going on there? >> Yeah, agents executed a search warrant early Tuesday morning tied to the federal investigation and to disgraced former Congressman Eric Swalwell. The mansion belongs to billionaire Stephen Clubek, a big time share mogul who was a major donor for Swalwell when he was briefly running for governor of California. He spent more than a million dollars supporting Swalwell's bid and according to reports, he even let him stay at the mansion for a time. The mansion also appears to be where Swalwell recorded his video denying the rape and sexual assault allegations that ultimately brought down his campaign. Five women came forward with those allegations. Now, when that story broke in April, Clubek cut him off, saying, quote, "I'm no longer associated with a man that takes advantage of women." Any records though regarding the search warrant are still under seal by courts, and the feds are saying no arrests are planned at the moment, at least for now. Now, this is the second round of federal action. In this case, you'll remember in August, the agent ceased Swalwell's phone and laptop at an airport and then searched his DC home. Now, initially, there was a little confusion because typically sex crimes come under the jurisdiction of the state, but we're starting to get a better idea of why there were federal agents involved here. New York Post is reporting that the most recent raid has some sort of connection to a sex worker and the times is reporting that the Trump DOJs pursuing the case under federal civil rights law. So that explains the federal presence here. All right, so a lot of questions still unanswered with the Swalwell case. Hopefully, we get some answers soon. Now, that DOJ has also taken some action again related to James Comey. Can you explain what exactly is going on there? Yeah, this is the third criminal case that the Trump DOJ has brought against the former FBI director. And this one actually goes back a full decade. Comey faces two counts related to him allegedly transmitting national defense information to a New York Times reporter. Prosecutors say back in October of 2016, when he was still running the FBI, Comey told staff to talk to a reporter about what the FBI saw as misinformation in a Reuters story about Yahoo assisting in mass US email surveillance. Prosecutors say that the resulting New York Times article included details that were, quote, "significantly similar to an internal email only 30 other FBI officials had access to." Quote, "Thereby a legally transferred classified information." Now, Comey is fighting back, saying in a video, quote, "Nothing's changed with me. I'm still innocent." Remember the DOJ's first case against Comey accused him of lying to Congress about leaking to the media. A judge did throw out that case, and the DOJ is now attempting to appeal. He's also fighting a state case in North Carolina for his infamous 8647 Instagram post with those seashells, which many interpreted as a direct threat towards President Trump, but that case is still pending. All right, so Comey facing several claims against him at this point. Now, the DOJ is also getting involved in one of the tightest Senate races in the country in Alaska. What action are they taking there? Yeah, this has been a wild election cycle, and this might be the wildest story of all in Alaska. There are currently two dance elephants on the ballot. One is the Republican incumbent senator, Dan Sullivan. The other is a former teacher who before this had no political experience. Sullivan campaign says that Democrats recruited this, they call him the fake Dan Sullivan, to run, to get on the ballot, to confuse voters, who might accidentally pick this other Dan Sullivan, and in so doing, help the Democratic candidate, Mary Paltola. Both he and the Paltola campaign deny that allegation that he's a fake candidate, but Republicans have tried to keep him off the ballot. However, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that state election officials have to let him stay on. That is important because the state has ranked choice voting. Now, the other Sullivan pulled about 2.5% of the vote in the August jungle primary. That might seem like a small number, but could very easily be the difference between who wins and loses next weekend. Again, I spoke with Senator Sullivan a few weeks ago, and he said 2.5% of Alaskan's don't actually support him. They just mistook him for the real senator. And since then, the DOJ has sued accordingly. It wants a federal judge to block certification of this Senate race if Senator Sullivan ultimately loses, but would have won had the other Sullivan's votes gone to him under the state's ranked choice voting system. Attorney General Todd Blanche says the Department of Justice is not trying to stop anyone's ballot from being cast. He just wants the ballots preserved, so state officials can determine later if voters who vote for the other day in Sullivan were misled. Certainly a race to keep an eye on. And if our viewers to remind them if they want to get the latest polling, they can go to our election hub at Daily Wire. Cabot, thanks so much for coming on. Absolutely. Getting enough sleep is one thing. Getting truly restful sleep, the kind that leaves you clear, focused, and ready for the day is another. That's why our team has been using Dream Powder by Beam. The cinnamon cocoa flavor has become a team favorite. It tastes like a cozy nighttime treat, but has less than 20 calories per serving. The Dream Powder is made with ingredients like magnesium, altheonine, apogenin, risci, and melatonin. It's formulated to help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. You can try flavors like sea salt, caramel, pumpkin spice, and brownie batter. CY Dream by Beam has improved more than 30 million nights of sleep for people across the country. Plus, it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. 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Now these robberies are happening at gas stations, happening outside of fast food places, including a subway and a Duncan and Chicago. And they're acted out like they're the real deal. Here we go, victims. They're often hit. They're guns being brandish to make this look like a legit robbery. At one point, one of the store managers of this fake robbery was taken place was shot because again, they are doing this to make it look as real as possible. Now, Nai was sentenced to two years in prison last Thursday. After he pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud, he identified as a resident of Illinois and he was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine. But this is very elaborate and it's causing some real damage. - So just two years and just $50,000 fine, this seems really minimal to me, frankly. - Yeah, it seems really minimal for what was going on because how this works is basically when someone's a victim of a crime. The foreigner cooperates with the cops after the crime takes place. Then they can apply for a non-immigrant U visa and this gives them legal residency. It's good for four years. Then they can continue down the path to apply for citizenship. Now officially the Department of Homeland Security describes a U visa as being said. "aside for victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to law enforcement or government officials in the investigation or the prosecution of criminal activity." And as we know, the Trump administration has aggressively targeted visa fraud, especially focusing on the H1B fraud across the country. As we said, thousands of people involved in this particular one-man scheme, I wonder how many of these are going on across the country at this point. Now, the Trump administration is also cracking down on a visa-free program that Chinese nationals, in particular, are taking advantage of what is happening with that situation. Yes, this free visa travel program was a part of the Biden administration and Trump shut it down. And the program allowed Chinese nationals to enter the Northern Mariana islands, as US owned by the way, for up to 14 days without a visa. Now the DHS warned this could be used for birth tourism. You could have people go there, have a baby, and secure citizenship for their newborns, for espionage near American military installations, and a legal travel to Guam. So this area highly concentrated, but a lot of damage could be done in a lot of ways it could be taken advantage of. And as we've reported on this show, birth tourism, particularly by Chinese foreign nationals, has become a major focus for the Trump administration. So yet another wrinkle on that. Now, before you go, I know you've looked into this new voting fraud program that the Trump administration has just announced. What's going on with that? Yes, I think for the Trump administration, the word of the year has been fraud. And we're seeing this right now with the administration offering a million dollar reward if there is a tip about voter fraud that leads to an arrest. And that is for this election cycle, it is for last election cycle. So once again, putting fraud as a focal point of this Trump administration. All right, so big money available there, thanks for reporting with us. Have you heard the news? Balance of nature's fiber and spice supplement is everything nice, no synthetics, no additives, and no flow agents, just 100% ingredients of whole food. It isn't just your average fiber supplement. It also has a wide variety of 12 amazing spices, just two scoops of the fiber and spice supplement stirred into 16 ounces of your favorite drink daily. That's all it takes to get a wide variety of ingredients of real whole food every single day. Here's how balance of nature fiber and spice supplement worked for one customer. I have been taking fiber and spice for over three years. 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So the first attack took place on October 20th in the district of Meriti and that's where at least 14 Christians were killed. And then four days later in the neighboring district of Shurka, a much larger assault took place where another 46 were killed. And a witness told the BBC that five of those five or six, they're conflicting reports, were children. This is some of the video that of the aftermath that the relief group Christian emergency alliance posted. So, you know, not surprising, John, given the details that church leaders are describing these attacks as a massacre. And they say that they had warned the government that this was going to happen, that something like this was imminent, but they were dismissed. And one witness told the BBC that the attackers surrounded them from all four directions and that their community was totally unprepared for these attacks. And some other witnesses say that these attackers went door to door for nearly six hours carrying large knives and AK-47s. This witness's 75 year old father was among the murdered. And then in addition to those deaths, 20 homes burned, 20 people seriously wounded and even reports of looting of churches. It's all just awful to see. So do we know who was responsible for these attacks? Yeah, you know, that's still disputed. Regional government officials are blaming the Arono Liberation Army and its allies, which is trying to remove Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed from government. They say that the OLA has been trying to stir up ethnic and religious conflict because they want to distract from their military losses in the North, but members of that rebellion are pointing the finger back at the government. They say that these were state-backed attacks, however, neither side at this point is providing any evidence for these accusations. And Ethiopia's heavy restrictions on media access and their use of things like internet blackouts in these conflict heavy regions means it's really hard for people to get a sense of what's going on on the ground there. You mentioned that this region is known to be violent, but how does religious persecution fit into the civil war? Well, you know, again, that's a question of the debate between different sides. The Ethiopian government has characterized this, almost a sort of collateral damage from the political division, and they deny that any particular religious group is being targeted. But on the other side, you have groups like Christian Emergency Alliance, who say that this is part of a pattern of Muslims attacking Christians. In fact, this is video circulating from another attack that took place in the early summer. And you know, for those who are just our audio audience here, what we're seeing is video of buildings burning, people fleeing. And then the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, which is a secular group, so not a religious group, has reported that at least 458 people had been killed in this region of the country in the last four years, and the orthodox Christian Church, they say, has been repeatedly targeted. Now, that said, all of these groups do acknowledge that there is an ethnic component to all of this violence, but they and the Ethiopian Church are calling on the government to do more to protect these communities. And of course, they're also asking for everyone's prayers, John. Yeah, we will certainly do that. Thank you so much, Megan. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks for waking up with us, and some exciting news before we go. Confession is hitting theaters on November 11th at 7pm. Tickets are only available through the Daily Wire website. Click the link below to find a theater near you. To enjoy the show, add free and join our mission, become a member at dailywire.com. We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] You will remember your duty. This isn't heroin. You're useless, Zot. You sit there and shake because you're dependent on drinking sick is all over you. Have you ever seen a child start a death professor? No. I am. [Music] [Music] People disagree about a lot in this country. That's the mission of USAFACs to make government data clear and accessible. Because public data should be easy to access trust and understand. So we can use it to make informed decisions. Read and sign our open letter to support public data at USAFACs.org.