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--:-- Georgia Howe: This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Get a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash morningwire. That's shopify.com slash morningwire.
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Wednesday, January 3rd, and this is your Morning Wire afternoon update.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The release of over 150 names mentioned in court documents from a Jeffrey Epstein civil case is expected to begin today. Here with more is Daily Wire Investigations Editor Brent Schur.
--:-- Brent Schur: The news comes despite a judge granting a 30-day extension to consider the appeal of a Jane Doe who wishes to remain anonymous. A district executive for the Southern District of New York said that the judge's order to delay the release only applies to Jane Doe 107 and at least one other who appealed, not the dozens of others.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The names will reportedly be released on a rolling basis beginning today. These documents come from the case of Virginia Jufri, who claims that both Epstein and his associate, Jelaine Maxwell, pressured her as a teenager to engage in sexual relationships with powerful men.
--:-- Brent Schur: Several prominent names are expected to be mentioned in the court documents, including former President Bill Clinton. ABC News reports that Clinton will be identified as Doe 36 and is mentioned in filings at least 50 times.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Deadly explosions shook a memorial for Iranian General Qasem Soleimani last night, killing over 100 people and injuring around 140 others. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce has more.
--:-- Tim Pierce: According to Iran's state media, the first explosion struck within 2,500 feet from Soleimani's grave in southern Iran's Kerman Martyrs Cemetery. The second, according to the Iranian Students News Agency, is said to have hit roughly 2,000 feet from the Iranian general's grave.
--:-- Georgia Howe: No person or organization has yet claimed responsibility for the blasts. Some Iranian officials were quick to call the incident a terrorist attack, but there is still much uncertainty about the explosions in a country where information is largely controlled by the ruling regime.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Soleimani was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Iraq's capital Baghdad in January 2020.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Former President Donald Trump is formally appealing the decision to remove him from Maine's Republican primary ballot over his alleged involvement in the January 6 riots. Maine's Secretary of State Shinnah Bellows became the first Secretary of State in history to remove someone from a presidential ballot using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: The provision Bellows used prohibits anyone who engaged in insurrection from holding office. The appeal now heads to the Maine Supreme Court. Maine's Republican Party has said on social media that they are working around the clock to block Bellows and get the former president back on the ballot.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Here's Republican Representative Billy Bob Folkingham speaking to WMTW News 8.
--:-- Billy Bob Folkingham: Something no other Secretary of State has ever done. Pretty appalled. She basically made a determination that Donald Trump has committed insurrection with no adjudication of that. And the most important part of the 14th Amendment was the Equal Protection Clause, which says that all people are guaranteed the right to due process.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has qualified for the presidential ballot in Utah after the collection of the required 1,000 signatures. A Kennedy campaign spokesperson says Utah is the first state where he qualified to appear.
--:-- Georgia Howe: A member of one of the country's most famous Democratic families, Kennedy left the party this past fall and announced an independent bid for the Oval Office. His announcement came after he accused the DNC of rigging the primary and also put them on blast for not hosting debates between Biden and other candidates.
--:-- Georgia Howe: More allegations of wrongdoing by Senator Bob Menendez came to light yesterday in a New York indictment. The indictment accuses Menendez of speaking positively about Cutter in exchange for luxurious items.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: According to the indictment, the senator was allegedly offered wristwatches valued somewhere between $10,000 and $24,000. The indictment quotes co-defendant Fred Divas asking, "How about one of these?" Along with pictures of the watches.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Two days later, Divas messaged Menendez regarding a Senate resolution supportive of Cutter. Menendez has so far denounced all the charges and the calls for his resignation, though political strategists say there's no coming back from this.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The gold bars the cash sewn inside his jacket the cars just look horrible. He has no political future. His time in politics will be over this time next year. There'll be a new senator from New Jersey.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The Biden administration is set to open four ports of entry at the southern border after they were closed due to a record surge of migrants. According to administration officials, the four ports opening back up on Thursday will be Eagle Pass, Texas, San Ysidro, California, Lukeville, Arizona, and Nogales, Arizona.
--:-- Georgia Howe: These ports were closed for much of December because U.S. Customs and Border Protection shifted resources to deal with the insurmountable number of migrants traveling to the U.S. The planned reopening comes after a record-setting month in which CBP reported over 300,000 migrant encounters.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And it's a new year and with it comes a new weather pattern. After a historically warm December for much of the U.S., January is set to be a different story. A storm forecasted this weekend could hit areas from the Mid-Atlantic all the way up to New England.
--:-- Georgia Howe: It's been several years since areas like New York City, Philadelphia, or Baltimore have seen more than an inch of snow over a 24-hour period, but weather forecasters say this storm has the potential to break that streak.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Those are your Drive Home updates this afternoon. To learn more about these stories, go to dailywire.com. And for more in-depth discussion of the biggest stories of the day, listen to the latest full episode of Morning Wire every morning.
