Speaker 1: As we mentioned last hour, there is a short ish
Speaker 1: list of people to whom we go for opinions and
Speaker 1: perspective because we know, whether we agree or disagree, it's
Speaker 1: going to be worth considering. Andrew McCarthy is high high
Speaker 1: on that list. He was an assistant U S Attorney
Speaker 1: for the Southern District of New York, wrote a fabulous
Speaker 1: book called The Ball of Collusion, The Plot to rigging
Speaker 1: election destroy Presidency. Senior fellow at National Review Institute. I'm sorry, uh,
Speaker 1: National Review contributing editor as well. Uh. Andrew McCarthy joins
Speaker 1: us Andy, how are you, sir. I'm doing great. It's
Speaker 1: great to be with you. Yeah, thanks, um. Trump lovers
Speaker 1: and Trump haters are pretty excited about this story, obviously
Speaker 1: for different reasons. But it seems to me that there
Speaker 1: are quite a few pundits out there, left right and
Speaker 1: center who think there's no way the Feds went into
Speaker 1: Trump's house did something this norm breaking just because of
Speaker 1: archive retention. Is that your belief, Yeah, that's my belief.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty clear that what they're very interested
Speaker 1: in his January X that that you know, they had
Speaker 1: enough evidence with respect to the records retention and the
Speaker 1: classified information aspect of it. That that gave him a
Speaker 1: basis to get a search warrant. But the way the
Speaker 1: law works, once you have a lawful basis to go
Speaker 1: in to do a search, even if the search warrant
Speaker 1: gives you permission to search for crime. A if while
Speaker 1: you're in there you find evidence that's relevant to crime,
Speaker 1: be you, you don't have to ignore it. You're allowed
Speaker 1: to take it. So I think what they really wanted
Speaker 1: was a legal basis to go in there and do
Speaker 1: a wide ranging search that would help them with what
Speaker 1: their priority is, which is the January six investigation. Right,
Speaker 1: I realized this calls for a fair amount of speculation,
Speaker 1: But I'm squinting. I'm making my squinty face, trying to
Speaker 1: figure out, all right, what would be in a file
Speaker 1: box in the storage room in mar Lago that would
Speaker 1: relate specifically to that or in the safe. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: way these investigations work. Let's think for a second about
Speaker 1: what you think they think they need to prove. Right,
Speaker 1: they are trying to make a case that Trump is
Speaker 1: involved in a conspiracy to commit election fraud. And the
Speaker 1: biggest challenge for them, because Trump had a bunch of
Speaker 1: people telling them that there was no fraud, and he
Speaker 1: kept going out and saying there was fraud. What he's
Speaker 1: going to come back and say is I totally believe
Speaker 1: that there was fraud. And I had plenty of people
Speaker 1: who were telling me there was fraud. And when the
Speaker 1: Justice Department told me we looked and we didn't find
Speaker 1: any I didn't believe them because I believe there was fraud. Um.
Speaker 1: So what I think the Justice Department is trying to
Speaker 1: do is develop evidence of Trump's state of mind at
Speaker 1: the time, to try to show that he didn't really
Speaker 1: believe what he was saying publicly. So when you're talking
Speaker 1: about like getting evidence of what somebody's state of mind is,
Speaker 1: you're not really gonna find like a smoking gun memo
Speaker 1: that says here are the five ways that we're going
Speaker 1: to commit election fraud. You know, what you're looking for
Speaker 1: is contemporaneous conversations that he was having with people at
Speaker 1: the time which would show or indicate that he didn't
Speaker 1: really believe what he was saying. And you know, that
Speaker 1: may not look like a smoking gun when you first
Speaker 1: see it, but if you're a prosecutor or an investigator
Speaker 1: and you're aware of all the other evidence of what
Speaker 1: everybody else said. Uh, some things that look like they're
Speaker 1: innocent on the surface take on a different cast. Why
Speaker 1: didn't they just subpoena this stuff? Yeah, that's a very
Speaker 1: good question. So I think there's two explanations for it,
Speaker 1: um uh, both of which are um alarming. One is,
Speaker 1: it seems to me that the political left, particularly the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party base, is very impatient with Garland. They think
Speaker 1: he's too passive. You know, they don't know why Trump
Speaker 1: hasn't been indicted already. They think he should have been
Speaker 1: run and quartered like years ago, so he doesn't understand.
Speaker 1: They don't understand why Garland hasn't moved on this, and
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of agitation. So I think a
Speaker 1: lot of what the Justice Department has done in the
Speaker 1: last six weeks is theatrical. Like, for example, you know,
Speaker 1: they did search warrants on these two lawyers at the
Speaker 1: end of June Eastman and Jeffrey Clark. Um. They didn't
Speaker 1: need to do search warrants on those guys. They could
Speaker 1: have given him subpoenas. They could have given their lawyers
Speaker 1: subpoenas and told them, you know, this is the stuff
Speaker 1: we want. Have them turn it over to US. Ethan
Speaker 1: had just been inn a litigation over emails out by
Speaker 1: you guys in California, UM when he when they when
Speaker 1: the committee asked that his emails, he didn't go and
Speaker 1: destroy the emails. He went to court and when he lost,
Speaker 1: you know, the people got what they wanted. So we're
Speaker 1: not dealing with people who are going to destroy evidence.
Speaker 1: Yet they used search warrants, and they did this search
Speaker 1: warrant yesterday, so you have to worry about are they
Speaker 1: doing are they being more intrusive than they need to
Speaker 1: be in order to project to the Democratic base that
Speaker 1: they're being energetic and aggressive and they're really serious about
Speaker 1: this investigation. So that's one interpretation. The other bad interpretation
Speaker 1: is they think that they're dealing with people who would
Speaker 1: destroy evidence if you gave them to penis, so they
Speaker 1: feel like they have to have the element of surprise.
Speaker 1: So I give you those two things. Neither one of
Speaker 1: them is uh is very benign, but you know it
Speaker 1: is right. Andrew McCarthy, National Review contributing editor on the line.
Speaker 1: So you've you've kind of touched on this, but the
Speaker 1: narrative on especially the super enthusiastic Trump e right, is
Speaker 1: that this is third world Banana republic usurping of the
Speaker 1: democratic process. Blah blah blah. Um is that two fevered
Speaker 1: or do you think perhaps in the Justice Department's you know,
Speaker 1: desire to appear to be doing something, they have edged
Speaker 1: into Banana republic territory. No, you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: too early to say that it's um. You know, look,
Speaker 1: I think from their perspective, and just so you know
Speaker 1: where I'm coming from and what my bias is here,
Speaker 1: I think if anybody can be shown by strong evidence
Speaker 1: to have been involved in violence, and that person should
Speaker 1: be prosecuted, no matter who it is, and no matter
Speaker 1: what is hum it is that that prompted the violence.
Speaker 1: But if we're if we're not dealing with violence, then
Speaker 1: the cases that they're trying to make on Trump, the
Speaker 1: charges that they're investigating are things like, um, did he
Speaker 1: obstruct the congressional proceeding where they count the electoral votes?
Speaker 1: Or has he committed a fraud on the government, which
Speaker 1: is a very elastic uh. And and I think much
Speaker 1: abused statute that we have in the law that allows
Speaker 1: prosecutors to essentially criminalize things that Congress has never gotten
Speaker 1: around to criminalizing right. So with respect to those things,
Speaker 1: I kind of agree with what Attorney General bar said,
Speaker 1: which is that if you're going to have the Justice
Speaker 1: Department interfere in electoral politics, the only time they should
Speaker 1: ever get involved is what what he called the meat
Speaker 1: and potatoes crime, which is to say, a crime that's
Speaker 1: so clear that everybody can wrap their brain around it
Speaker 1: and see the merits of prosecuting it. But if you're
Speaker 1: talking about things where you know, the Justice Department is essentially,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to criminalize a loopy legal theory, like
Speaker 1: you know, John Easton had this theory that that Vice
Speaker 1: President Pence didn't need to count the electoral votes. You know,
Speaker 1: when I was a prosecutor, if we were going to
Speaker 1: turn into a felony, a frivolous legal theory, I'd have
Speaker 1: been prosecuting five lawyers a day. Um, you know, we
Speaker 1: just don't, we generally speaking don't do that. We give
Speaker 1: a wide berth for politics and we give a wide
Speaker 1: birth for legal interpretation. And I think if you're going
Speaker 1: to have a situation where it's the Justice Department for
Speaker 1: the first time in history prosecuting a former president of
Speaker 1: the United States, it better be a clear crime. It
Speaker 1: better not be like one of these things where the
Speaker 1: Justice Department was thinking about new ways to push the
Speaker 1: envelope of complicated statutes. I just think if they go
Speaker 1: that route, then people are rightly going to think that
Speaker 1: the Justice Department is being weaponized for political reasons in
Speaker 1: a way that it wouldn't be in a normal case. Right, So,
Speaker 1: getting so this becomes politics more than than law. But
Speaker 1: if your if your theory is corrected, that they they
Speaker 1: they they got a warrant for something that they can
Speaker 1: probably pull off. You've got some stuff here that you're
Speaker 1: supposed to turn over, but they're really looking for January
Speaker 1: six stuff. Isn't that the biggest roll of the dice
Speaker 1: in political history? If they don't come up with something,
Speaker 1: well what do you think? I mean? I think that
Speaker 1: if nothing happens, then this will be forgotten. I don't
Speaker 1: know the number of never Trumpers that I've heard people
Speaker 1: on the right who had soured on Trump or never
Speaker 1: dig dig Trump or now are like, hey, you better
Speaker 1: shows something big here. I just wonder if he's going
Speaker 1: to get a ton of sympathy out of that crowd. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know here, I think the smarter Democrats um have
Speaker 1: concluded that Trump can't win a national election, so their
Speaker 1: dream scenario is that the Republicans nominated and then he runs.
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of this by the smarter
Speaker 1: Democrats is trying to go Trump into running and to
Speaker 1: fire up his base so that he becomes almost I
Speaker 1: actually heard somebody say this on the Republican side yesterday,
Speaker 1: that he should just be nominated by acclamations. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: heard that. Yeah, that was a former Huckabee, former Governor
Speaker 1: Huckaby said Trump should be nominated by acclamation. At this point,
Speaker 1: there's a stance against the evil, and he'll lose, and
Speaker 1: he'll lose in November by twenty points. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I just think I think they're crazy if
Speaker 1: they think, uh, you know, I probably shouldn't do political
Speaker 1: pugitory because it's it's not necessarily my line of work.
Speaker 1: But I but I always think that, you know, Trump
Speaker 1: won by the skin of his teeth with miraculously with
Speaker 1: forty of the vote in two thousand one, which is
Speaker 1: very hard to do in what's essentially a two person rice, right,
Speaker 1: but a lot of things broke his way, and then
Speaker 1: in two I think when the dust settles. He kind
Speaker 1: of lost the conventional election. It wasn't even by you know,
Speaker 1: historical standards. It's it's like in the tier of close elections,
Speaker 1: it's kind of low. It was a close election, but
Speaker 1: it was it wasn't that close. Um. And what's happened
Speaker 1: since the election is the Capital riot. You know, we
Speaker 1: had two months of the stop to steal craziness and
Speaker 1: the Capital Riot riot, which you know, pro Trump people
Speaker 1: may see it one way, but most of the country
Speaker 1: is is horrified by it. So I think Trump had
Speaker 1: a hard enough time winning a national election where everything
Speaker 1: had to go right for him, and he was running
Speaker 1: against a historically bad candidate and he barely won by
Speaker 1: the skin of his teeth. He lost the next time,
Speaker 1: even though he was the incumbent, And now he's got
Speaker 1: to run if he runs with January six around his neck,
Speaker 1: and I just don't see how he does it. So,
Speaker 1: So if I'm the Democrats, I'm just trying to be
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to be pro Trump or anti trup.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to you know, logical about this. Um.
Speaker 1: If I'm the Democrats, I want the Republicans to nominate them,
Speaker 1: just like the Democrats are running around, you know, funding
Speaker 1: all these pro Trump candidates because they think they're gonna
Speaker 1: be easier to beat in November. Oh man, as if
Speaker 1: politics isn't ugly and confusing enough. Andrew McCarthy, The National Review.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid we're out of time, but we sure appreciate
Speaker 1: the perspective. It's always great to talk. Let's do it
Speaker 1: again soon. Sure I enjoyed it, Thanks so much, Thank you,