Speaker 1: Good morning.
Speaker 2: I'm Nathan Hager and I'm Karen Moscow. Here are the
Speaker 2: stories we're following today.
Speaker 3: We begin with breaking news overnight. Donald Trump now faces
Speaker 3: a new set of criminal charges. For the fourth time,
Speaker 3: a prosecutor has issued an indictment against the former president,
Speaker 3: this time in Fulton County, Georgia, over efforts to overturn
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty election. Eighteen co defendants are also facing charges,
Speaker 3: including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former
Speaker 3: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Fulton County District
Speaker 3: Attorney Fanny Willis says she is charging all nineteen defendants
Speaker 3: under the state's racketeering law.
Speaker 4: The indictment alleges that, rather than abide by Georgia's legal
Speaker 4: process for election challenges, the defendants engaged in a criminal
Speaker 4: racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia's presidential election result.
Speaker 3: Fulton County DA Fanny will says she has authorized arrest
Speaker 3: warrants for the former president and his eighteen co defendants.
Speaker 3: They have until August twenty fifth to surrender.
Speaker 2: Well Nathan. Reaction is pouring into this latest indictment. Genie
Speaker 2: Shehanzeno is a political contributor for Bloomberg.
Speaker 5: This is a screaming indictment. It is long and it
Speaker 5: is detailed. But she said in her comments, you have
Speaker 5: a right to challenge the election in court, but you
Speaker 5: cannot engage in a criminal racketeering activity to overturn the results.
Speaker 5: And that's what all of these nineteen individuals, including the
Speaker 5: former president and Rudolph Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and others are
Speaker 5: charged with.
Speaker 2: Genie Shanzeno notes the charges include one hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: one specific acts of racketeering by the former president. Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Law host Jun Garosso says some are questioning the timing
Speaker 2: of the late night indictment.
Speaker 6: I am really surprised as to why she decided that
Speaker 6: she had to do a press conference at eleven forty
Speaker 6: five at night, when you know most people are not
Speaker 6: going to be watching people who were interested in this.
Speaker 6: And also it seems into the Trump theory or the
Speaker 6: Trump allegations that this is happening also fast, and she's
Speaker 6: wrapping it up, and it's just an indication that she's
Speaker 6: not taking the time, even though we know that she
Speaker 6: took two and a half years.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Law host Jan Grasso says the charges carry a
Speaker 2: minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum
Speaker 2: of twenty Karen.
Speaker 3: Jeff Duncan is among those who testified before the Fulton
Speaker 3: County grand Jury. He is a Republican and the former
Speaker 3: lieutenant governor of Georgia. Duncan spoke to the Atlanta Journal
Speaker 3: Constitution outside the courthouse.
Speaker 7: Does a pivot point for this country to do something
Speaker 7: more than just stew on the twenty twenty election cycle.
Speaker 7: Right where either going to as Republicans take our medicine
Speaker 7: and realize the election wasn't rigged. Donald Trump was the
Speaker 7: worst candidate ever in the history of the party, even
Speaker 7: worse than Herschel Walker.
Speaker 3: Former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan testified before the Fulton
Speaker 3: County Grand Jury after receiving a subpoena earlier this month.
Speaker 8: From coast to coast, from New York to San Francisco,
Speaker 8: Boston to Washington, DC, nationwide on Syrias exam the Bloomberg
Speaker 8: Business app in Bloomberg dot com. This is Bloomberg Daybreak.
Speaker 3: Good morning, I'm Nathan Hager, and once again, former President
Speaker 3: Donald Trump faces criminal charges over efforts to overturn the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty election. This latest indictment comes from Fulton County, Georgia,
Speaker 3: and it includes eighteen co defendants. District Attorney Fanny Willis
Speaker 3: is accusing all of them of violating state racketeering law
Speaker 3: to accomplish.
Speaker 4: The illegal goal of allowing Donald J. Trump to seize
Speaker 4: the presidential term of office beginning on January twentieth, twenty one.
Speaker 3: DA Fanny Willis announced the indictment late last night. She
Speaker 3: says she hopes to try the former president and the
Speaker 3: eighteen others within six months, and she's giving them ten
Speaker 3: days to surrender for more. We're joined now by Greg Valier,
Speaker 3: chief USB policy strategist at AGF Investments. Your reaction, Greg,
Speaker 3: to the indictment and the timing, well.
Speaker 9: Good morning, Nathan. I would say that the biggest problem
Speaker 9: of all is that they cannot get this done in
Speaker 9: six months or less. Despite what she said, I think
Speaker 9: that if once you factor in appeals next year, it
Speaker 9: could be election day November fifth of next year before
Speaker 9: there's any resolution. With this many cases, this many indictments,
Speaker 9: a decent percentage will drag into late twenty twenty four.
Speaker 9: You could have a president or president elect who's been
Speaker 9: found guilty.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about this indictment specifically, we have eighteen co
Speaker 3: defendants along with the former president. They're facing forty one
Speaker 3: counts accused of one hundred and sixty one specific acts
Speaker 3: in furtherance of a conspiracy to overturn the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 3: It sounds a lot more sweeping than even what we
Speaker 3: heard from the special counsel Jack Smith in a similar case.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it really does. And I think that in all
Speaker 9: of these cases there's a common theme, and that is
Speaker 9: that the prosecutors want to get some plea bargains. Of
Speaker 9: the eighteen people who were charged yesterday in Atlanta, I
Speaker 9: think there's a decent chance that two or three or
Speaker 9: four will cut a deal and make things even more
Speaker 9: difficult for Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Does that add to the difficulty that you're implying here
Speaker 3: in terms of the timing, If we do start to
Speaker 3: see some of these code defendants potentially make a deal
Speaker 3: and potentially line themselves up as witnesses against the former president.
Speaker 9: It's entirely possible. I think that the prosecutors know that
Speaker 9: a lot of these potential slippers, as you might say,
Speaker 9: don't want to spend their late seventies in jail, and
Speaker 9: that's entirely possible for somebody like Rudy Julie. So yeah,
Speaker 9: I think there's a high likelihood that at least some
Speaker 9: of them will slip.
Speaker 3: What do you make of the scope of the investigation here?
Speaker 3: It took two and a half years for Fanny Willis
Speaker 3: to bring these charges that were highly anticipated, and it
Speaker 3: looks from the indictment that it goes well beyond that
Speaker 3: infamous find me the vote's phone call that the former
Speaker 3: president had with Georgea's secretary of State.
Speaker 9: Yeah. I think they have a lot of evidence that's
Speaker 9: not been released yet in terms of harassment of voting officials,
Speaker 9: in terms of trying to get these charges changed. So
Speaker 9: my sense is that there's still a lot more in
Speaker 9: these cases still to be brought out.
Speaker 3: Do you get the sense that this is a stronger
Speaker 3: case than some of the others. Does it stack up
Speaker 3: that way for you?
Speaker 9: You know, I thought all along, Nathan, that the strongest
Speaker 9: one could be the documents in Florida. That's a pretty
Speaker 9: straightforward case. It's a felony. You can't take documents out
Speaker 9: of the White House and bring them to your home.
Speaker 9: All four of these are pretty strong, and I have
Speaker 9: a hunch that the document case could be the first
Speaker 9: one resolved.
Speaker 3: Does it complicate that case to have this one brought now?
Speaker 3: I mean we've talked before about how the schedule is
Speaker 3: going to get. I mean, it is a lot more
Speaker 3: complicated heading into a twenty twenty four presidential race, and
Speaker 3: now you have all these overlapping cases potentially running up
Speaker 3: against each other.
Speaker 9: Absolutely, I mean you're going to have a president someone
Speaker 9: a candidate for the presidency actually having to campaign on weekends,
Speaker 9: on holidays. He's not going to be able to campaign
Speaker 9: probably full time because of all these charges. And we
Speaker 9: shouldn't overlook the fact that Joe and Hunter Biden are
Speaker 9: part of this narrative also. I think they will be
Speaker 9: dragged into this. But what has been alleged in terms
Speaker 9: of Trump far exceed in my opinion, what the Bibles
Speaker 9: have done.
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