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Speaker 1: He A duples, so all the ongoing criminal cases against

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump are expected to wind down now that he

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Speaker 1: won the election. Last night, the Department of Justice officials

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Speaker 1: of trying to figure out exactly how to go about

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Speaker 1: doing this.

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Speaker 2: Randy Zellen is a law professor at Cornell University.

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Speaker 1: Hey, Randy, Hi, great to be on with you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: thanks for being on with us again. Now listen, why

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Speaker 1: is this happening. Is this because of some sort of

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Speaker 1: a convention that you don't prosecute a sitting president.

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Speaker 3: There's a few things. There is the legal end of things,

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Speaker 3: and then there's the practical end of things. And the

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Speaker 3: practical end of things wins out, and that is, you

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Speaker 3: don't prosecute a sitting president. You don't prosecute an incoming president.

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Speaker 3: And the reality is that we have a separation of

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Speaker 3: powers in this country, and one of those branches is

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Speaker 3: the executive branch, and the president runs the executive branch,

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Speaker 3: and the Department of Justice, which is the chief prosecuting

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Speaker 3: agency for federal crimes, is actually under the President of

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Speaker 3: the United States, who in their right mind running the

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Speaker 3: Department of Justice is going to continue a prosecution against

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Speaker 3: the sitting president. Consequently, Consequently, all of the federal prosecutions

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Speaker 3: will disappear the remaining state prosecutions where technically the federal

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Speaker 3: government doesn't have oversight. As a practical matter, Justice Machan

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Speaker 3: is not going to sentence President Trump to jail, and

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Speaker 3: as far as depending case in Georgia, that's probably just

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Speaker 3: going to die under its own weight.

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Speaker 2: Right when you were talking about Justice Preshatta, are you

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Speaker 2: talking about this is the Stormy Daniels Hushmany case where

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Speaker 2: we were literally about to have them sentenced in a

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Speaker 2: few weeks.

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Speaker 3: Yes, that's correct. So at this point, Justice Marshan, I think,

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Speaker 3: will do the right thing, the just thing, and the

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Speaker 3: thing that the country really wants, because the country spoke

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Speaker 3: and the country said we want Trump, and far be

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Speaker 3: it for Justice Marchon to say something differently. So I'm

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Speaker 3: sure he will sentence him to a slap on the

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Speaker 3: wrist if that, and move on.

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Speaker 2: What about when he finishes up his term in four

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Speaker 2: years time? Can they simply resume the cases.

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Speaker 3: They're not going to There would be technically an issue

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Speaker 3: in terms of the failure to prosecute, though the argument

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Speaker 3: could be made that the time should be told or

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Speaker 3: stayed or held in abeyance while he's the sitting president.

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Speaker 3: He's going to be at that point, eighty two, eighty

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Speaker 3: three years old, probably walking out of his second term

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Speaker 3: as somewhat of a folk hero. No one's going to

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Speaker 3: be interested in prosecuting him at that point. Hopefully the

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Speaker 3: country will have moved on and we will all be

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Speaker 3: far more interested in enjoying prosperity and a good life

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Speaker 3: than simply trying to correct old wrongs.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Randy, out of interest, do you know what the

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Speaker 2: rules are in terms of how many more terms he

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Speaker 2: can serve? Because I know that you can't serve two terms,

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Speaker 2: you can't serve more than two gyms consecutively. But what

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Speaker 2: if it's broke up.

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Speaker 3: I believe that it is eight years your capped total

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Speaker 3: two terms. Whether it's consec or broken up, It's only

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Speaker 3: happened one other time in history. I think Grover Cleveland

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Speaker 3: Alexander is the only other president to have served two

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Speaker 3: terms non consecutively. But my sense of it is this

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Speaker 3: will be President Trump's second and final term.

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Speaker 1: Randy, it's good to talk to you. Thank you so much, mate,

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Speaker 1: appreciate it. It's Randy Zellen, Cornell University Law professor.

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