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--:-- John Bickley: Tragedy strikes in Maine's second largest city as a gunman murders 18 and injures over a dozen more. This is a dark day for Maine. What do we know about the suspect and his previous threats? I'm Daily Wire, Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, October 27th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Georgia Howe: A customs and border protection app is making it fast and easy to apply for asylum even from thousands of miles away. New data shows just how many migrants are taking advantage of the program. 98.6 percent of the people who make their appointments with this app are getting released immediately into the country automatic parole. That violates the Immigration and Nationalization Act. And Donald Trump faces lawsuits from New York to Georgia. Just how perilous are the recent plea deals for the former president? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- John Bickley: A frantic manhunt is underway in Maine, where an armed gunman is on the run after killing 18 people in a series of shootings Wednesday evening. Here with more on the tragedy and what we know about the suspect is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, just a horrific story. This is now the deadliest mass shooting of the year. On Wednesday evening, just before seven, a lone gunman entered a crowded bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, opening fire on the men, women, and children inside, killing at least eight people. He then fled the scene and 10 minutes later opened fire inside of a packed restaurant about four miles away, killing at least 10 more. At latest count, 13 more had been wounded, though the death toll is expected to rise in the next 24 hours.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Kenny Moore was one of the locals inside the bowling alley. He described the chaotic scene to News Nation. The general manager of the bowling alley, Thomas, I think he was one of the first people to go towards the gunmen. And there was two other gentlemen and nobody could get to him because at that point he was firing rounds.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Another local spoke to the press and said he was bowling when the shooting began. He survived by sliding down one of the lanes and climbing into the machine that collects pins until the police arrived, just to give you an idea of how crazy it all was.
--:-- Georgia Howe: According to reports, the bowling alley was hosting a youth night Wednesday evening, though police have not yet announced the ages of any victims.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, it's extremely grim. So what do we know about the suspect? Well, the suspect is 40-year-old Robert Card. Now, typically the Daily Wire does not repeat the name of mass shooters, but in this case, we're doing so because it could help law enforcement apprehend him.
--:-- Georgia Howe: According to records, Card is enlisted in the Army Reserve and has worked as a trained firearms instructor in the past. Card was on the law enforcement radar and had an extensive history of mental health struggles. This past summer, he had spent two weeks in a mental treatment facility before leaving voluntarily
--:-- Cabot Phillips: According to his sister Card had been hearing voices in his head throughout the past year and believed that people around him were saying negative things about him. And disturbingly, according to a law enforcement bulletin, Card had previously threatened to shoot up a National Guard base in the past.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Police have warned that he's armed and dangerous and should not be approached by anyone who might see him. So talk to us about the manhunt, which already includes officers from local and state police, as well as the FBI and ATF, correct?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, and it's all hands on deck right now. This is already one of, if not the largest manhunts in the history of the state. Police say they've located the car that he was driving the night of the shooting. They say it was found abandoned Wednesday evening a few miles away from the crime scene near a river where he keeps a small boat. And unfortunately, that boat is unaccounted for, which means the search now includes both land and waterways.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Law enforcement has been tight-lipped to this point. If they have any leads about his whereabouts, they are not tipping their hand. On Thursday, large parts of Lewiston and the surrounding area were a ghost town with businesses encouraged to close their doors and police the only real presence on the street. It was an eerie sight.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Thousands of residents in Lewiston, Lisbon, and Bowdoin were given shelter-in-place orders by police and urged to lock down and keep an eye out for the suspect. Schools across the county were also shut down.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So, as you can imagine, just a terrifying time for many across the state. Yeah, certainly. Which, historically, it's worth pointing out, has been one of the safest in the country. For context, last year, Maine saw just 29 murders statewide, giving them one of the lowest homicide rates in America. So this sort of violence is nearly unheard of in Maine.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, a lot of people hoping he's captured soon and brought to justice.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime.
--:-- John Bickley: Coming up, how the controversial CBP1 app has impacted illegal immigration. While illegal crossings have surged on the southern border, the Biden administration has expanded a digital program that allows foreign nationals to remotely schedule asylum appointments. It's called the CBP1 app, and new data from the Department of Homeland Security reveals that a staggering number of foreign nationals have used the program to gain entry into the United States. Here with the story is Daily Wire reporter Spencer Lindquist.
--:-- Spencer Lindquist: So, as you said, this app is called CBP-1 and it was implemented in January. It's opened up a new avenue for foreign nationals to claim asylum, allowing people to begin their asylum process claims remotely. I spoke with Representative Mark Green. He's the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, and he explained the original intent behind the program. So first, the app was designed to facilitate commerce and trade between Mexico, Latin America, and the United States. A truck full of automotive parts in the back of a truck or trailer can speed through the process of inspection. What they did is they took that app and turned it into basically an automatic entry into the United States.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Unfortunately, reports have found that the cartels have been taking advantage of the program and selling foreign nationals' virtual private networks, or VPNs. that allow them to request appointments from anywhere in the world rather than just in northern Mexico.
--:-- Spencer Lindquist: So on its face, streamlining paperwork is usually a good thing. Why is this resulting in more entries? Is it just simply a function of there being more people than ever showing up asking for asylum?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Essentially, yes. There is a quota in place, but it's been raised to accommodate the growing influx. The original quota was supposed to be roughly 20,000 monthly, but that was raised to 38,000 this summer. So nearly double.
--:-- Spencer Lindquist: Nearly double. And the numbers being reported suggest that an average of 26 people have been using this app to gain entry into the United States every month. So of the people who use this app to apply for asylum how many of them are actually being approved?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Almost all of them. Of the 278 foreign nationals who use the app 266,000 were granted entry into the United States. That's a success rate of 95.8%. And these numbers were just recently released by the House Committee on Homeland Security.
--:-- Spencer Lindquist: You mentioned that people are using VPNs to circumvent some of the barriers. Where are most of these migrants using the app coming from?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Many of them are coming from the usual places. There's 55,000 Mexican nationals, about another 55,000 people from Venezuela, and there's also several thousand people from both Honduras and Guatemala. But there are also 229 Afghani nationals and 32 Chinese nationals.
--:-- Spencer Lindquist: A press release from the House Committee on Homeland Security also mentioned that thousands of, quote, inadmissible aliens have also entered, including those from hostile nations like Russia. 94% of Russian nationals who attempted to get asylum using the app were accepted, for a total of nearly 20,000 people. It's not clear why inadmissible aliens were greenlit.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So it sounds like people are entering the country incredibly fast, in part thanks to this app. But these numbers are just a fraction of the total number, but it's a growing fraction, that's correct?
--:-- Spencer Lindquist: Yeah, that's right. And the House Committee on Homeland Security also just released a report on the illegal immigration figures for fiscal year 2023, calling it the worst year ever. The report says that there's been between 2 and 3 million illegal immigrant encounters nationwide with 1.7 million known gotaways. There's also a record 169 people on the terrorist watch list who are apprehended. Chairman Green explained that this mass illegal immigration is a national security threat. We have no way of knowing who makes up that 1.7 million known gotaways. We have no way of knowing the several hundred thousand unknown gotaways that have gotten into the country. We have no way of knowing.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, even just counting the typical migrants who come here to work, it's a staggering number.
--:-- Spencer Lindquist: Spencer, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Spencer Lindquist: Thank you.
--:-- John Bickley: That was Daily Wire reporter Spencer Lindquist. Jenna Ellis, one of the 19 defendants in the Fulton County election interference case, agreed to a plea deal this week. The deal added to the number of former associates who may now be forced to testify against former President Trump. Meanwhile, Trump appeared in a New York courtroom this week where his business fraud suit is being heard. Joining us to discuss is former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, Andy McCarthy.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Oh, it's my pleasure.
--:-- John Bickley: So President Trump was back in the courtroom in New York this week. He was present while his former fixer, Michael Cohen, testified against him. What did we learn from this week's testimony?
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Really nothing that we didn't already know. Cohen, he's not a very good or credible witness, as you would expect from somebody who's pled guilty to felony crimes involving dishonesty. But I think that the case really isn't about witness testimony. It's more about documents. In connection with all of these transactions, Trump has to file a certification of his financial condition. So what you do is you look at what he represented his assets to be worth, and then you look at objective appraisals of what they were actually worth. And what the testimony is from somebody like Cohn is of very little relevance because the way that you represented the assets on your statement of financial condition is either accurate or it not
--:-- Georgia Howe: But I think that to broaden out the lens a little bit this case is really over already in the sense that the judge ruled prior to the trial that he had already found Trump liable for committing fraud. So it's got an Alice in Wonderland quality where, you know, we have the conviction first in the trial later. And what the two to three month, what's been estimated as a two to three month trial. What that's about is computing how much of the revenues generated by the Trump organization the state is going to get to disgorge.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Now, we know that Trump doesn't technically have to be present at this trial. Why do you think he keeps showing up?
--:-- Georgia Howe: I think, and I don't know if the judge calculated this, if he didn't, it was very foolish on his part not to recognize this. But I think that once the judge on the eve of trial ruled against Trump and essentially told him he's already lost the case. Now we're just talking about how much money. I think that at that point, Trump decided he was no longer in a legal battle. It's really a political battle that impacts the 2024 campaign. So even though it would be a terrible legal strategy, if you were the lawyer, the last thing you would want is the defendant making all kinds of statements. And, you know, you wouldn't want your client to be disrespecting the fact finder who is ultimately going to rule in the case in an ordinary situation. But in this situation, I think Trump figures legally any recourse he has is going to depend on the appellate process down the road. And the judge has already told him legally how the case is coming out. So he's decided to fight as a political case.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, this week, former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis became the fourth defendant to enter a guilty plea. We haven't spoken to you since Sidney Powell pleaded guilty. What do you make of Ellis's plea? Do you think now that Powell and Ellis are going to testify against former President Trump? And if so, will that be damaging?
--:-- Andy McCarthy: I really don't think so. What I take from all this is that Fannie Willis doesn't have a RICO case, which is what I've been saying since she filed the charges, as a former prosecutor, with the first people who come in and plead guilty and offer to cooperate in a big investigation, what most prosecutors do is they make you plead guilty to the whole scheme, including the most serious charges. And then you say, here's what I did, and here's how I did it with the major other defendants who've been charged in the case. And you do that in the guilty plea proceeding, which number one is very powerful in terms of convincing the court that the government has a strong case and convincing the public that the government has a strong case. And number two, it puts a lot of pressure on other defendants to plead guilty and cooperate. You're not seeing anything like that in connection with Fannie Willis's case. And I think if she had cooperators who had good information about Trump, what she would do is have them plead guilty to the RICO count and explain in court what Trump did. But you're not seeing that.
--:-- Georgia Howe: All right. Well, Andy, thanks so much for coming on today. Appreciate it.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Thank you.
--:-- John Bickley: That was former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, Andy McCarthy. That's all the time we've got this morning thanks for waking up with us we'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.
