--:-- [Upbeat music plays in the background]
--:-- John Bickley: This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. When you visit the doctor, you probably hand over your insurance, your ID, and contact details. It's just one of the many places that has your personal info. And if any of them accidentally expose it, you could be at risk for identity theft. LifeLock monitors millions of data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.
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--:-- John Bickley: Two Loudoun County school officials were indicted by a grand jury following the Daily Wire's expose of a rape cover-up. We talked to the reporter who broke the story.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, December 14th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: Crypto CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday on criminal charges filed by U.S. prosecutors. This is really old-fashioned embezzlement. This is just taking money from customers, using it for your own purpose.
--:-- Georgia Howe: What exactly is Bankman-Fried being charged with? And what else have we learned about the landmark fraud case?
--:-- John Bickley: And a new report from the Labor Department shows U.S. inflation rates inching downwards. What's driving the slowdown, and what does it mean for the average American?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- [Music transitions to a commercial break]
--:-- Announcer: Used car prices are dropping, which means you should see great deals this holiday season. But before you walk into the dealership, you've got to check out Carzing. By partnering with credit agencies, lenders, and dealerships, Carzing provides you with everything you need before stepping foot into a dealership. Visit Carzing.com slash wire today to skip the guesswork and find the best deals for you. That's Carzing.com slash wire.
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--:-- John Bickley: Last week, we reported that a Virginia grand jury issued a report with troubling details about a Virginia school system's handling of a rape. Now the superintendent is facing a criminal indictment. On Monday, criminal indictments were unsealed against former Loudoun County Superintendent Scott Ziegler and spokesman Wade Biard.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: I'm Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak, whose stories last year, the grand jury report said, are the only reason even school board members found out about this.
--:-- John Bickley: Luke, this is quite a development. What do we need to know?
--:-- Luke Rosiak: It is, John. Last week when I asked Wade Beard about the grand jury, he sent me a statement that seemed misleading, stating that it found no criminal conduct. I asked him why he was so sure, and he didn't reply.
--:-- John Bickley: It turns out that he himself had been indicted on a class five felony perjury charge, which can bring up to 10 years in prison. All right, so the guy whose job is giving information to the media could go to prison.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Superintendent Ziegler, who was fired last week, is facing three misdemeanors. One for false publication on the day that he dismissed parents' concerns about a proposed transgender policy by saying there had never been any sexual assaults in the school bathrooms.
--:-- John Bickley: He knew full well that a boy wearing a skirt had allegedly raped a girl just weeks prior. Now, the grand jury report gives a sense that the school system was more concerned about optics than safety, which gave the media spokesman, Biard, a huge role, down to Ghost writing an email that went to parents after the rape that falsely said there was no threat to student safety.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: He's alleged to have lied under oath in August of this year. That suggests it was to the special grand jury convened by Governor Glenn Youngkin who won election in November 2021 a month after the rapist sexually assaulted a second girl in a classroom.
--:-- John Bickley: All right, so possible perjury to the grand jury. Have any of the victims responded to this latest news?
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Yeah, you know we heard a lot from Scott Smith in the past and following these indictments, the second family actually broke their silence to come forward and really blasted Loudoun officials.
--:-- John Bickley: They said, what happened to our daughter could have and should have been prevented, and that over the last 14 months since our daughter was assaulted, not one member of the school board or administration has reached out to check on how she's doing or lend any type of support.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Not one, huh?
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: And John, I can share some behind-the-scenes background for our Morning Wire listeners that I haven't really talked about before. Some on the left claim that when I wrote this story, Smith or I timed it to impact Governor Youngkin's election.
--:-- John Bickley: You know, the opposite is true. Smith was reluctant to talk about what happened to his daughter, And we were going to wait until the boy was convicted to tell the story at all in order to let the justice system work.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: We told the story when we did because the moment the boy attacked that second girl, it became clear the system wasn't working. If I recall, many in the media also suggested that this story was actually fabricated.
--:-- John Bickley: The New York Times read a headline, I'll just read it, The Right's Big Lie About a Sexual Assault in Virginia.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: What was going on there?
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: The Times tried to debunk my story by saying that the transgender bathroom policy wasn't in place at the time, so it had nothing to do with the rape.
--:-- John Bickley: But my story couldn't have been clearer that the school system had a motive to cover up the rape precisely because it was about to have a vote on such a policy.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: And knowledge of this would have made it pretty hard to pass. Since then, the rapist has been convicted and the superintendent has been indicted.
--:-- John Bickley: Your work has obviously had a lasting impact. What was key here?
--:-- Luke Rosiak: The wild card here was the existence of the grand jury. If Democrat Terry McAuliffe had won the governor's race, there likely wouldn't be a grand jury to look at those facts.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, just a remarkable sequence of events.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Luke, thanks for all the work.
--:-- John Bickley: Thank you, Luke. That's Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak.
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--:-- John Bickley: Disgraced crypto CEO and Democrat mega-donor Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday in the Bahamas after U.S. prosecutors filed criminal charges against the 30-year-old.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Hi, Georgia. Well, the Bahamian government said in a statement on Monday that they arrested Bankman-Fried, or SBF as he's widely known, after they were notified by the U.S. that prosecutors for the Justice Department's Southern District of New York had filed criminal charges and that the U.S. would likely request SBF's extradition.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, on Tuesday, those criminal charges were unsealed. SBF has been hit with eight counts of fraud, conspiracy, campaign finance law violations, and money laundering.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: The indictment accuses the FTX founder of conspiring since 2019 to defraud of the federal government by making illegal donations to political candidates.
--:-- John Bickley: As we've reported here before, SBF was widely celebrated in progressive circles. He reportedly donated tens of millions of dollars to Democratic candidates over the past few cycles and was the second largest donor behind George Soros.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Damian Williams the U Attorney for the SDNY gave us more detail into the charges during a press conference on Tuesday. All of this dirty money was used in service of Bankman desire to buy bipartisan influence and impact the direction of public policy in Washington.
--:-- John Bickley: The unsealing of these charges followed a civil complaint from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, accusing him of defrauding FTX investors to the tune of billions of dollars.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Now, is SBF the only one who's going down for this so far or have there been other arrests associated with this FTX scandal?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, no. Right now, we haven't seen any other arrests.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: And that's a really great question because these charges that were handed down by federal prosecutors all refer to SBF allegedly committing these crimes with others. Sometimes those others are described as known and sometimes unknown.
--:-- John Bickley: This indicates that we'll likely see more arrests on the pike.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: I'm sure a lot of listeners right now are thinking of the name Caroline Ellison. This was SBF's ex-girlfriend who formerly served as CEO of FTX's sister hedge fund, Alameda Research.
--:-- John Bickley: Unlike her ex, Allison has been staying quiet, completely avoiding the media.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Now, the timing of this arrest is also interesting because SBF was set to testify before Congress on Tuesday, and then that arrest came on Monday.
--:-- John Bickley: That's right. Due to the arrest, SBF was not required to testify, but we did get some interesting information from his former colleagues.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Here's FTX acting CEO John Ray being questioned by GOP Representative Ann Wagner of Missouri. Literally, you know, there's no record keeping whatsoever. They use QuickBooks, a multi-billion dollar company using QuickBooks.
--:-- John Bickley: Nothing against QuickBooks, very nice tool, just not for a multi-billion dollar company.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Now, tell us about SBF's parents and how they became involved in all of this.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, SBF's parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, are both professors at Stanford Law School.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: And they've been described as sort of a selling point for FTX, especially early on.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, it seems at least so far that the father was more involved in the actual business.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the senior bankman was a paid employee of FTX for about a year and in one example likely helped influence an investment of about $130 million into the company from private equity titan Orlando Bravo.
--:-- John Bickley: Bravo was a former student of the elder bankman.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Now, his mother is the co-founder of a super PAC called Mind the Gap. This PAC uses statistical analysis to help determine which Democratic candidates to support financially.
--:-- John Bickley: She has since resigned as chairwoman.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Sources say both parents reportedly ran to their son's side when SBF told them in November that he was having issues with his businesses.
--:-- John Bickley: They were apparently in the Bahamas when SBF was arrested on Monday, too.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Now, what can we expect next in this saga? Is he being extradited right now?
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, experts are saying this could take weeks and maybe even months.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: And a trial will take even longer. Some people say it could take years.
--:-- John Bickley: The bigger the case, the longer it will take.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: As for FTX customers, we still don't know if they'll ever get their money back.
--:-- John Bickley: Right, not so likely.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Amanda, thanks so much for reporting.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, my pleasure. That was Daily Wire reporter, Amanda Prestigiacomo.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: On Tuesday, a new report from the Labor Department showed U.S. inflation rates falling to their lowest point in 12 months, leaving economists cautiously optimistic.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Hi, Georgia. We learned that in the month of November, the Consumer Price Index, which tracks the cost of goods month to month rose 7 compared to November of last year.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now that might sound bad as it means everything is considerably more expensive than last year but it actually marks the slowest 12-month increase of any month in the last year.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For context, the rate is down considerably from its peak of 9.1% in June and also down from the 7.7% rate we saw in October.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We also learned that the core CPI, which excludes the price of energy and food prices, which do tend to be more volatile month to month, also slowed down, rising at 6% compared to this time last year after being an all-time high of 6.6% as recently as September.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: All right, so slowing inflation rates. What sort of reaction did this news garner?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, it is certainly good news anytime prices fall month to month.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And this is the first time we've had consecutive months of price drops on the core inflation rate since the summer of 2021.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So as you can imagine, the Biden administration and others were quick to tout the news.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Here's President Biden from the White House yesterday. We're beginning to see the impact of our economic strategy. And we're just getting started.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I've said it again, I've never been more optimistic about America's future. And today's news gives me another reason to be optimistic about that future.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: All right, so the White House is clearly viewing this as a win. They are.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The president went on to say, what is clear is my economic plan is working.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But critics were quick to point out that a year ago, when inflation first started to rise, Biden said we were at the, quote, peak of the crisis, and you'll see it change more rapidly than people think.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But obviously, every month since that comment, inflation has risen by at least 7%.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Critics also point out that when it comes to good news on inflation, it's just all relative. The fact that 7.1% inflation is being touted as a win and calls for celebration just gives you an idea of how bad things have been all year.
--:-- Georgia Howe: For context, from 1990 to 2020, there was not a single month with inflation above 7%.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Wow, so three decades.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So even if things do stop increasing now, unless they start decreasing significantly, we're still in a much worse spot than we've been for a long time.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, we've been closely tracking the response from the Federal Reserve on all of this. What's the latest there?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, as we've talked about on the show, the Fed has been steadily raising interest rates in an attempt to slow the economy and raise unemployment to try and cool inflation.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: In keeping with that trend, they're widely expected to raise rates another half point today, which would bring rates to around 4.5%.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's their highest level since December of 2007.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And that half-point increase is still down from the 0.75 increases that we saw at the last four Fed meetings, which does seem to be a sign that they could slow down their rate hikes starting in the new year.
--:-- Georgia Howe: There were also some surprising comments by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that made news this week.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Tell us about that.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, for context, Secretary Yellen has been saying for well over a year now that inflation was transitory and relief was just around the corner, but she has started to change her tune.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: In a surprising interview on CBS this week, Yellen admitted that inflation will likely persist for at least another year.
--:-- Georgia Howe: It's going to take a year. Well, I believe by the end of next year, you will see much lower inflation if there's not an unanticipated shock.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, a noteworthy shift in messaging there.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime. That's Daily Wire senior editor, Cabot Phillips.
--:-- [Music transitions to a commercial break]
--:-- Announcer: Used car prices are dropping, which means you should see great deals this holiday season. But before you walk into the dealership, you've got to check out Carzing. By partnering with credit agencies, lenders, and dealerships, Carzing provides you with everything you need before stepping foot into a dealership. Visit Carzing.com slash wire today to skip the guesswork and find the best deals for you. That's Carzing.com slash wire.
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--:-- John Bickley: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
