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--:-- Georgia Howe: Customs and Border Patrol recorded an all-time record for migrant encounters in December. Just in the first three months of this fiscal year, they have already caught 38 on the terrorist watch list. What effect will the new asylum restrictions have on the flow of migrants? And why has it been so difficult to broker a deal to secure the border?
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, January 24th, and this is Morning Wire. Time's up for Time's Up, the Me Too group created to expose and combat sexual harassment in Hollywood. How did the A-list-supported movement fall into disgrace and dissolution?
--:-- Georgia Howe: And more details have emerged about Biden's possession of classified documents, and they're prompting more questions about the Justice Department's handling of the case. It doesn't look like they did anything active to investigate this. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Illegal immigration into the U.S. set an all-time record last month with over a quarter million encounters at the border. News of the record comes on the heels of President Biden's new immigration rules targeting migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Here to discuss the historic border numbers is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So, Tim, we got these numbers late on Friday. What did we learn?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Yeah, the top-line number is over 250,000 encounters last month between border agents and aliens. That's the highest single-month tally on record. And then once you dig into the data, another number stands out, and that's 17 migrants apprehended at the southern border who appear on the FBI's terror watch list. That brings the total up to 38 people for fiscal year 2023, which began in October.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Over the course of fiscal year 2022, border agents apprehended nearly 100 people on the terror watch list. This year, that number is on pace to top 150. We've never seen anything close to that since the terror watch list was created after September 11th. Just for comparison, that number under former President Trump never rose out of the single digits annually.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, even before these numbers were reported, Republicans were floating the idea of impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Is that still being discussed?
--:-- Tim Pierce: It is, and he's in the hot seat with the new Republican-controlled House. And to your question, I spoke with Laura Reese, who is the director of Heritage Foundation's border security team and a former acting DHS deputy chief of staff. She believes that Republicans are right to blame Mayorkas for the border crisis.
--:-- Tim Pierce: He has lied to the American public, lied to Congress, and has lost the trust of both the public and his own agents He has refused to obey the law when it comes to mandatory detention and removals He is encouraging asylum fraud and he should be removed from office.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, Biden announced new immigration rules earlier this month aimed at deterring immigration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Have those new rules had any effect yet?
--:-- Tim Pierce: We'll get an indication on that when the new numbers are released next month. Reese did not sound too optimistic that it would help much, though.
--:-- Tim Pierce: I don't think it's going to have a sizable dip in the overall numbers of illegal aliens because it is continuing to send the message, come to the U.S. southern border, file a fraudulent claim of asylum, and we'll parole you into the U.S., and we're not going to deport you.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, it's been very hard to get legislation passed. What are some of the roadblocks?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, there is a Republican-backed bill sitting in the House now that would overhaul immigration law, but it's getting some pushback from within the party. Republican Congressman Tony Gonzalez says he can't support the Border Safety and Security Act because of its impact on aliens' ability to claim asylum.
--:-- Tim Pierce: To me, this is a piece of legislation that really bans all asylum claims to include legal asylum claims. Even if the bill passes the House, it will still need to pass a Democrat-controlled Senate, so we're still a ways away from passing any meaningful legislation.
--:-- Georgia Howe: All right, well, Tim, We'll see what the border numbers look like next month. Thanks for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Sure, thanks for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire's Tim Pierce. Five years after it was launched to fight sexual harassment in the entertainment industry, the Hollywood Me Too group, Time's Up, has announced its halting operations. Here to discuss is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So Megan, right out of the gate, Time's Up was incredibly high profile. So it's a little surprising for it to die such a quiet death. What happened?
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, it is surprising, especially when you think about the level of celebrity firepower that it had behind it. I mean, just about every A-list actress in Hollywood was associated with it at one point or another.
--:-- Megan Basham: Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman, Brie Larson, Meryl Streep, Oprah, Reese Witherspoon. I mean, I could just go on and on. And Witherspoon especially had a very big hand in its name recognition. because she tended to boost it pretty often in interviews.
--:-- Megan Basham: And it was because of patronage like that that the group was able to launch with $24 million and a very showy debut at the 2018 Golden Globes. So its stated purpose was to hold the industry accountable for predators like movie producer Harvey Weinstein, and they intended to change the industry's culture so that women wouldn't have to face sexual harassment like that anymore.
--:-- Megan Basham: So what happened? Hypocrisy happened. And while the group was touting its commitment to protect women from harassment, two Times Up leaders helped New York Governor Andrew Cuomo draft a letter to undermine one of 11 women who had accused him of sexual harassment.
--:-- Megan Basham: So a staffer named Lindsey Boylan claimed Cuomo touched her inappropriately and tried to kiss her while she was working for him. Well, eventually, 10 other women came forward and made similar claims.
--:-- Megan Basham: And that was what prompted an investigation by the New York Attorney General's office. And it not only found that Cuomo had harassed the women, it also showed that Time's Up leaders tried to help Cuomo.
--:-- Megan Basham: In particular, that report revealed that Time's Up founder and chairwoman Roberta Kaplan, who's a well-known progressive lawyer, consulted with Cuomo's team on an op-ed to discredit Boylan.
--:-- Megan Basham: And so did Time Up CEO Tina Chen who served in the Obama administration So this looked very political And then the scandal erupted even further when it came out that Chen also instructed Time Up staffers not to issue any public statements in support of Boylan.
--:-- Megan Basham: So at that point, Chen and Kaplan both stepped down and the rest of the Time's Up board pledged that the organization would undergo a major reset. But that didn't ever really work.
--:-- Megan Basham: Eva Longoria, Ashley Judd, and producer Shonda Rhimes announced that they were going to resign. they didn't really say much beyond that. Now, Witherspoon, Streep, and the others just didn't really address it at all.
--:-- Megan Basham: The board announced actually that it was going to dissolve in order to shield the actresses from what they called unfair scrutiny. And by the way, all of this came after the New York Post broke a story showing that the charity spent most of its money on big executive salaries and some glitzy star-studded events rather than helping victims.
--:-- Megan Basham: To give you just one example, in its first year of operation, Time's Up took in nearly $4 million, but spent only around $300,000 on victims of sexual harassment. So if very little money went to legal defense, where did the money actually go?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, to give you one example, the group co-sponsored a $157,000 retreat at the Ojai Valley Inn, which if you're not familiar, is a luxury spa north of Los Angeles. and it also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising and public relations firms.
--:-- Megan Basham: And then nearly a million went to a multinational law firm that's mostly known for its lobbying work on Capitol Hill. So a lot of things that really did not seem directly related to protecting women from harassment.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, there's still the 1.7 million that's just been reallocated to another legal defense fund. Are they going to be continuing with the mission there?
--:-- Megan Basham: You know, maybe for a little bit, but in the long run, I doubt it. It's not much money. And I think that probably that arm will peter out pretty quietly and that will likely be the end of Time's Up.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, I guess this is yet another lesson to always look into where your money's going when you donate. Megan, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Megan Basham: Anytime.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire culture reporter, Megan Basham. After multiple batches of classified documents were found at President Biden's private residence and homes, the Justice Department is now conducting its own searches and has already found more documents. Joining us to discuss is Andy McCarthy, National Review Institute senior fellow and a former federal prosecutor.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Welcome, Andy. Now, the White House has attempted to distinguish between Biden's classified documents case and that of Trump's by insisting that the president is being fully cooperative and transparent about the documents. But you've written at National Review that that's simply not the case. In what way?
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Well, what they would have you believe is that they self-reported. And what actually happened was on November 2nd, Biden's private lawyers, when they found this batch of classified documents, some of which reportedly were at the highest level, top secret, sensitive compartmented information. They didn't notify the Justice Department. They notified the Biden White House.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: In turn, what they ended up doing was notifying not the Justice Department or the FBI, but the National Archives. It's not a law enforcement agency. It doesn't have any law enforcement authority. And the political leadership of the organization has worked pretty closely with Biden, particularly in connection with the Trump business, the Trump documents.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: So how does the Justice Department find out about the documents? It not even from the political leadership of the National Archives They are told by the inspector general of the National Archives about the classified document So it not by Biden it not by the Biden White House not even by the leadership of NARA So it simply not true that either Biden, Biden's private counsel, or the White House self-reported in the sense of letting law enforcement know that this had happened.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: We learned over the weekend that a fifth batch of classified documents were found at the president's home, and this came pretty quickly after the Justice Department finally began conducting its own search. What about the timeline for the response of the DOJ? What should we make of it taking so long to begin conducting its own review?
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Well, you know, it's appalling, but at the same time, its performance in connection with Trump was equally disturbing. Trump slowed up the works because he tried to assert executive privilege, But the FBI had access to it by no later than sometime in April, and it took a couple of months before they took any action.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: And in connection with Biden, we see the same issue, except I think it's even worse because the first Biden documents are November 2nd. Those were the the batch of documents that was found at Biden's think tank office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: And what people need to remember about that is that center didn't open until February of 2018. The Obama administration, from which Biden took the documents, obviously, ended in January of 2017, which means these documents have to have been someplace they weren't supposed to be in the preceding 13 months.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: So when you find out what happened on November 2nd, if you're an investigator looking at this, you now know that these documents have been in at least two places where they weren't supposed to be. You have to get right on that because a document is not designated top secret in the government unless the intelligence community assesses that if it fell into the wrong hands, it could be catastrophic for American national security.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: There's no indication that they did anything right away. The Justice Department and the FBI were notified that the Biden people intended to have these lawyers who don't have security clearances check Biden's other private locations. Unbelievably, the Justice Department thought about it and decided not to have the FBI participate and allowed the Biden people who didn't have security clearance to go right ahead and do the searches.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: notwithstanding that the crime that they're investigating is gross negligence in the handling of classified information, which includes causing it to be exposed to people who don't have authority to possess it or be exposed to it. So it's just, it boggles the mind that they would take that position.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, Andy, thank you so much for your legal insights.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: That was National Review's Andy McCarthy, a former chief assistant U.S. attorney.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Another story we're tracking this week. Another victim in the Monterey Park, California shooting has died, bringing the total deaths to 11.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, 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.
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