Walter Hooper, an American who spent his life helping preserve and promote the literary legacy of British writer C.S. Lewis, died Dec. 7, 2020, at age 89.

In this address from 2007, Mr. Hooper talks about how he met C.S. Lewis and eventually came to manage the writer's literary estate following Lewis's death in 1963.

Walter Hooper went on to edit many collections of C.S. Lewis's essays, poems, and letters, and he worked to keep Lewis's writings in print.

In 1997, Christianity Today wrote that "Hooper's knowledge of Lewis's writings (both published and unpublished) is unsurpassed." 

Mr. Hooper presented this address at a conference sponsored by Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. The audio has been condensed for this podcast.

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With the U.S. presidential election outcome clouded by claims of vote fraud, Republican legislators in several swing states have convened "election integrity" hearings to hear testimony from various witnesses, including members of the legal team.

On Nov. 30, 2020, Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani was among those speaking at an unofficial hearing organized by Arizona state legislators.

This episode of the Notable Speeches podcast features Mr. Guiliani's opening statement from that hearing, in which he alleged that vote totals in Arizona and several other states were skewed by a massive, coordinated fraud related to mail-in ballots.

He urged Arizona lawmakers to excise their authority, under the U.S. Constitution, to choose which electoral college delegation would vote on behalf of the state later this month when Electoral College members cast their votes for the president and the vice president.

During his remarks, Mr. Giuliani mentioned this analysis by law professor John C. Eastman: "The Constitutional Authority of State Legislatures To Choose Electors."

The audio of Rudy Giuliani's statement has been slightly abridged for this podcast.

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In this Nov. 12, 2020, address, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito said "the COVID crisis has highlighted constitutional fault lines." 

Speaking to a virtual gathering of the Federalist Society's annual National Lawyers Convention, he reflected on "emerging trends in the assessment of individual rights." In particular, he spoke of a "growing hostility" to First Amendment guarantees of religious liberty and freedom of speech. 

Samuel Alito has served on the Supreme Court since 2006. Before that, he was a judge on the U-S Third Circuit Court of Appeals. He also has served as the United States Attorney for New Jersey.

Justice Alito's remarks have been condensed for this podcast. A transcript of his full address is at https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/samuelalitofederalistsociety.htm

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Influential author, philosopher, theologian, Jonathan Sacks died November 7, 2020, at age 72.

Baron Sacks, a member of the British House of Lords, served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom (United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth) from 1991-2013. He held degrees from the University of Cambridge and The University of London (King's College).

His books include The Politics of Hope (2000) and Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times (2020).

In 2016, the John Templeton Foundation awarded Rabbi Sacks the prestigious Templeton Prize for his "decades [of] bringing spiritual insight to the public conversation through mass media, popular lectures, and more than two dozen books."

Rabbi Sacks presented this address on May 26th, 2016, on the occasion of receiving the Templeton Prize.

The audio has been abridged slightly for this podcast. The full text of his remarks (as prepared for delivery) is at https://rabbisacks.org/danger-outsourcing-morality-read-rabbi-sacks-speech-accepting-templeton-prize/

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In an October 19 speech at Michigan's Hillsdale College, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos urged returning K-12 educational decisions to parents and families via school choice and other initiatives. 

"We want parents to have the freedom, the choices, and the funds to make the best decisions for their children," she said. "We must...reorder everything about education around what the family wants and what the family needs."

Besty DeVos has served as U.S. Education Secretary since early 2017.

The audio of her address has been abridged slightly for this podcast. The full text of her remarks (as prepared for delivery) is at https://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/prepared-remarks-secretary-devos-hillsdale-college

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Was it an abuse of presidential power for Donald Trump to ask the president of Ukraine to "look into" potential corruption involving Hunter Biden and Ukrainian oil company Burisma? That was the key issue in President Trump's impeachment trial earlier this year.

Burisma hired Hunter Biden to serve on its board in 2014, while his father — Joe Biden — was vice president of the United States and tasked with overseeing U.S. policy toward Ukraine.

Speaking in defense of Mr. Trump at the January impeachment trial, attorney Pam Bondi noted that multiple news organizations, including The New York Times and ABC News, had raised conflict-of-interest questions related to Biden/Burisma arrangement. She also pointed out that Burisma was the target of multiple investigations, including by the UK's Serious Fraud Office, during the time Hunter Biden was on the board.

Ms. Bondi spoke in the U.S. Senate chamber on Jan. 27, 2020. The audio has been abridged slightly for this podcast.

Before serving on the White House legal team for the impeachment trial, Pam Bondi was the attorney general of Florida. 

During the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) presented a "civics lesson." 

"[Somewhere along the way,] we decided to forget what civics are and allow politics to swallow everything," Sasse said in his opening statement. He noted that Democrats on the committee were focusing on political matters unrelated to the confirmation process.

"Huge parts of what we're doing in this hearing would be really confusing to eighth-graders [in civics classes].... So, I think it would be very useful for us to do our civic duty to eighth-graders to help them realize why Judge Barrett is sitting before us today and what the job is she’s being evaluated for."

Before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2014, Ben Sasse served as the president of Midland University in Fremont, Neb. He holds degrees in government and American history.

You can read a partial transcript of his October 12 remarks at https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/10/14/sasse-gives-senate-civics-lesson-during-high-court-hearing/

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On Oct. 13, 2016, weeks before scoring one of the biggest political upsets in U.S. history, Donald J. Trump delivered a "closing argument" speech before an enthusiastic crowd in West Palm Beach, Fla.

The Republican nominee pledged that, if elected, he would work to "remove from our politics the special interests who have betrayed our workers, our borders, our freedoms, and our sovereign rights as a nation."

He also decried what he called a "campaign of destruction" being waged by his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, and he took aim The New York Times and other "media enablers" who "[do] not even attempt to confirm the most basic facts."

"Join me in taking back our country," he urged voters. "We will make America great again." 

On Election Day, Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States, winning 30 states and earning 306 electoral votes. 

This speech has been abridged slightly for this podcast. The text of Mr. Trump's remarks (as prepared for delivery) is available at https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-south-florida-fair-expo-center-west-palm-beach-florida

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In this address, the U.S. Secretary of State calls on Catholic leaders, as well as other religious leaders, to exercise a "bold moral witness" against religious persecution — especially persecution in China.

The secretary spoke at a symposium titled "Advancing and Defending International Religious Freedom through Diplomacy," sponsored by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See. That event was held in Rome on Sept. 30, 2020.

Earlier in September, Mr. Pompeo wrote an article for the religious magazine First Things in which he argued that the Vatican would endanger its moral authority if it renews a cooperation deal with Beijing signed in 2018. The deal is set to expire later this year.

"The Church’s hope was that it would improve the condition of Catholics in China by reaching agreement with the Chinese regime on the appointment of bishops," Mr. Pompeo wrote. "Two years on, it’s clear that the Sino-Vatican agreement has not shielded Catholics from the [Communist] Party's depredations, to say nothing of the Party's horrific treatment of...other religious believers."

Secretary Pompeo's address has been condensed slightly for this podcast. A transcript his full remarks is at https://www.state.gov/moral-witness-and-religious-freedom/

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The late Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (a former U.S. Attorney General) once said,  "The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America."

In this address, current Attorney General Bill Barr argues that career federal prosecutors must not only be committed to even-handed justice, but they also must be accountable to the attorney general, the president, and ultimately to the voters.

He spoke at a Constitution Day event, on Sept. 16, 2020, at the Hillsdale College Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C.

For a text of this address (as prepared for delivery), go to https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/remarks-attorney-general-william-p-barr-hillsdale-college-constitution-day-event

Mr. Barr's remarks have been condensed slightly for this podcast.

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