--:-- [Upbeat music fades out]
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--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): This episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. Start your morning with America's coffee from BlackRifleCoffee.com.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): China's president is in Russia today to show support for President Putin and to attempt to broker a peace deal in Ukraine. In China's case in particular, they certainly would like to challenge U.S. leadership around the world. What would a Chinese-brokered peace deal look like, and would Ukraine even consider the terms?
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, March 21st, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Ahead of the potential arrest of former President Donald Trump, New York City is installing barricades outside of the Manhattan courthouse. We talked to a former federal prosecutor about the case.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): If this was not Donald Trump, there's no way this progressive prosecutor in New York who won't lock up real criminals would actually prosecute this case.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): And the federal agency that manages technology for all other agencies has admitted to misconduct that it calls serious and completely unacceptable.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): We have the full report. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Hey guys, producer Brandon here. Stock up on cans of Black Rifles ready to drink coffee at blackriflecoffee.com or grab an ice-cold can from a convenience store near you. For a more explosive energy boost, try ready-to-drink 300. Available in caramel vanilla, rich mocha, salted caramel, or vanilla bomb flavors. Go to blackriflecoffee.com and use promo code WIRE for 10% off your purchase. That's blackriflecoffee.com, promo code WIRE. Black Rifle Coffee, America's coffee.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in Moscow on Monday for what Chinese officials say is a mission to try to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): The trip is China's strongest show of support for Russia since the country invaded Ukraine more than a year ago.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Here to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestigiacomo.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: So Amanda, she arrived on Monday. Tell us about the trip.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Yeah, well, when she touched down in Moscow on Monday, he was greeted literally with a red carpet. A military band was also on the tarmac playing the anthems of the two nations.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: In terms of his intentions, Xi has praised a new era and promised new momentum for Russian and Chinese relations.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: He then met with Putin at the Kremlin before attending a formal dinner, and it's been reported that peace negotiations will be held later today.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: And how is each nation framing the intentions of this trip?
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: It's pretty clear that Putin wants to send a message to the West, that message being that Russia has a powerful new ally.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Just a few hours before Xi arrived in Moscow, a CCP newspaper published a piece from Putin bashing the West for allegedly conspiring to stifle Russia and China's development.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: He also claimed the West is to blame for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, both for, quote, provoking the conflict and diligently fueling it.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: For their part, Beijing has framed Xi's trip as a mission of peace.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: So what do we know about the kind of peace deal that China wants to broker?
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Well, it's been reported Xi has reached out to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, few details are known about that, but Zelensky has signaled he would be willing to speak to Xi.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: We should also keep in mind that Zelensky has said he would not accept a peace deal unless Russia withdraws from all Ukrainian territory including Crimea which was annexed by Russia back in 2014
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: The U and some European nations are pretty skeptical about a peace deal. U National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has said a ceasefire negotiated by China would just ratify Russia's conquests and significantly hurt Ukraine.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Experts are saying China is clinging on to this peacemaker role to cover for its strengthening relations with Russia.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Former DIA intelligence officer Rebecca Koffler has said China in no way wants peace between Russia and Ukraine and stands to benefit from Russia and the U.S. fighting or funding this war.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Here's Koffler on Fox News. This is all a charade. China is incentivized to keep this war going. Why? It's because two of its top geopolitical adversaries, the United States and Russia are eroding their respective combat arsenals in this proxy war.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Xi Jinping is transitioning China on a wartime footing so that it can secure control over Taiwan in the next couple of years.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: And as long as President Biden is hyper-focused on Ukraine, Xi believes that he can do whatever he wants.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Something else to watch for is whether or not China will be giving weapons specifically artillery shells, to Russia to use in Ukraine.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Here's John Kirby discussing that possibility.
--:-- John Kirby: We continue to believe it's not in China's best interest to do that, to help Mr. Putin slaughter innocent Ukrainians.
--:-- John Kirby: It would also run counter to what we've heard President Xi talk about in terms of what his ultimate goal here is. Finding a peaceful way to end this war, providing lethal weapons would seem to be inconsistent with that goal.
--:-- John Kirby: I'll add that China could potentially already be arming Russia.
--:-- John Kirby: Chinese companies have reportedly sent Russian entities 1,000 assault rifles and other military equipment.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: That's based off of trade and customs data obtained by Politico.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: All right, well, we're going to continue to monitor over the next few days.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Amanda, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): That was Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestigiacomo.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Coming up, we talk to a former federal prosecutor about the legal implications of charges against Trump.
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--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): It should be equal justice in America. And stop going after people because you have political differences.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): That was House Speaker Kevin McCarthy referring to reports that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is set to arrest former President Donald Trump.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan sent a letter to Bragg demanding testimony from the DA, all while police set up steel barriers in front of the Manhattan courthouse.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Joining us to discuss all the legal implications of charges against Trump is Andy McCarthy, a former U.S. attorney to the Southern District of New York.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Hi, Andy. So first, the apparent allegations from Bragg here is that he's planning to charge Trump on the falsification of business records.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: I understand that's usually a misdemeanor with a statute of limitations of just two years. The alleged hush money to Stormy Daniels was paid back in 2016.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: So how would Bragg get around that statute of limitations?
--:-- Andy McCarthy: It is a misdemeanor. Now, it's falsifying business records in the second degree, which in New York is a misdemeanor.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: So in order to make this a felony, Bragg would have to prove that Trump intended to conceal another crime by falsifying the records with this payment
--:-- Andy McCarthy: And you quite right to focus on the statute of limitations because if it a misdemeanor the statute of limitations in New York is two years
--:-- Andy McCarthy: If it's a felony, the statute of limitation in New York is five years. Bragg can be expected to argue that this is a felony so that the stream of payments through 2017, which were no doubt used for tax purposes in 2018, that that would bring him within the five-year statute of limitations, but he's got to prove a felony for that.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: The other thing I would expect him to argue is there are provisions of New York law which are really intended to go after fugitives and people who abscond intentionally from charges that say if a person has left the state continuously for a period of time, the statute of limitations is tolled while the person is out of the state.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: I would be very surprised if he can argue that that applies to Trump because Trump was never a fugitive.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: This case was never brought and there was never any doubt about where Trump was.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: So for Bragg to make the claim he's accusing Trump of deliberately trying to commit a felony through this act, what is that felony?
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Yeah, that's the million-dollar question here. Or maybe I guess it's the $130,000 question, right?
--:-- Andy McCarthy: It's been suggested that he's talking about a campaign finance violation.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: If he means that in the common sense of that, as we understand that term, I don't see how that works.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Because when the New York statute says to conceal another crime, what it's clearly talking about is New York crimes.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: The campaign finance is a federal crime. I don't think a federal crime works.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: This is the New York penal code. It's got to be a New York crime.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: I think Trump is going to argue that he entered disagreement because he didn't want Melania, his wife, to find out.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Even though he denies that the sexual liaison took place, he didn't want her to know about this nondisclosure arrangement.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: And he didn't want to take the political hit for it, which is why this hush money was paid on the eve of the election.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: So it would have been personally embarrassing and politically damaging to him.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Those aren't felonies.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Final question. A lot of legal experts are stepping back from this, Jonathan Turley, for example, and saying this does grave damage to the justice system if Bragg moves forward on this.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: What's your perspective on that?
--:-- Andy McCarthy: I couldn't agree with it more.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: And I think that whatever you think of Donald Trump and his behavior here, it's clear, again, that nobody other than Trump would have been prosecuted for this.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: So it's about as blatant a partisan use of the law enforcement power as a political weapon as you could conjure up.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: And the rule of law in our society really depends on the perception of the American public that the rules are the same for everyone.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Once the criminal justice system gets a reputation that people are prosecuted based on what their partisan affiliation is or what their ideological convictions are, then we don't have the rule of law anymore.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: And if that degrades, you can't have a flourishing society.
--:-- Andy McCarthy: Those concerns are much more important than whether we have a misdemeanor, falsification of business records here.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): An unprecedented legal and political moment here.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Annie, thanks for joining us.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): That was National Review senior fellow, Andy McCarthy.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): The government's General Services Administration's inspector general revealed this month that GSA's tech department tricked federal agencies into paying nearly $200 million for software they were told met the highest security requirements.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Without informing anyone, the agency had declined to implement facial recognition, which was required on one million sensitive accounts because of, quote, equity concerns.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak found in a four-series that the GSA Technology Transformation Service was quote grossly mismanaged
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): He joins us now.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Hi, John. GSA is important because it's the central services agency that does work for all the other federal agencies.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: But something went wrong with the Technology Transformation Service, or TTS.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: The result is that people could have gained access to things they weren't supposed to.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: They're in charge of a product called login.gov. To conform with rules, high security accounts were required to have facial recognition or other biometrics.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: They decided not to do it because they said facial recognition didn't treat people with different skin tones the same.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: But they didn't tell that to clients. They explicitly told them it did conform.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: And they raised nearly $200 million selling the product that way.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: And how could that happen? How did so many people inside TTS know that it violated the rules without anyone doing anything about it?
--:-- Luke Rosiak: And many people did know. And when one tried to bring it to the attention of top officials, one of those officials basically told him to mind his own business.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: There was a lot of groupthink in this government tech unit.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: TTS was losing millions of dollars, but a top manager said he, quote, doesn't give a rip about the losses.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: They spent only half their time on actual billable projects and a lot of time on side projects like creating a social justice robot.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: A social justice robot. You're going to have to unpack that for us.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: It was a computer program that would monitor the Slack chat rooms that the employees used and correct them when they used problematic phrases like guys, which they said was too gendered.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Another former employee is now a self-declared Marxist organizer. Clear political bias seems to have been common.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: For example, chat records show that the day after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, the team held a meeting that amounted to a sort of emergency session about their safety.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: They plotted how to refuse to do work for the Trump administration while continuing to get paid.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Current GSA chief information officer Dave Shive led what a sole dissenter called, quote, the most partisan meeting I've ever attended in government.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: They routinely violated all manner of rules, were responsible for multiple security violations, and lied repeatedly, according to the inspector general.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Now, computers are obviously pretty important to a modern government, so we need them to be in good hands.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Is there any sign of things improving?
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Well, GSA said it moved a manager to a different job after this report, but it didn't say it fired him.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: In fact, it brought in a new manager from MoveOn.org, the Democrat fundraising group.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: What's notable is this is the fourth time the inspector general has slammed this tech group, and nothing ever seems to change.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Now, President Biden is actually reportedly drafting an executive order to bring this login.gov service to all Americans, and the IRS plans to use it for taxes next month.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: So a move that could directly impact all Americans.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Well, Luke, thanks for joining us.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): That was Daily Wire investigative reporter, Luke Rosiak.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Another story we're tracking this week. Amazon is planning on laying off another 9,000 of its employees over the next few weeks.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): The company's CEO, Andy Jassy, announced the, quote, difficult decision in a blog post on Monday.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): It comes just a few months after Amazon announced its most sweeping layoffs in its history, impacting some 18,000 employees.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Well, that's all the time we've got this morning.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.
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