Speaker 1: This case has never been about politics or personal vendetta
Speaker 1: or about name calling. This case is about the facts
Speaker 1: and the law, and mister Donald Trump violated the law.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, the point is simple,
Speaker 1: no matter how powerful you are, no matter how rich
Speaker 1: you are, that no one is above the law, and
Speaker 1: that the law applies to all of us equally and fairly.
Speaker 2: What this case appears to be about is about a
Speaker 2: really dramatic cadence. But I'm not a legal expert. Andrew
Speaker 2: Tcherkawski is. Andrew is a criminal defense and civil trial lawyer,
Speaker 2: former federal prosecutor, and military veteran, and knows what he's
Speaker 2: talking about. Andrew, how are you, sir?
Speaker 3: I'm great, good to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Good. We sure appreciate you spending a little time today. Hey,
Speaker 2: can we start in your Georgia with the recent developments
Speaker 2: with Fannie Willis and her boyfriend, the prosecutor she's hired
Speaker 2: at high six figure you know, Fees who apparently doesn't
Speaker 2: have a lot of experience in this What do you
Speaker 2: make of that? How serious the development is this?
Speaker 3: I think it's a very serious development. It is something
Speaker 3: that borders on the idea of prosecutorial misconduct. You know,
Speaker 3: her whole efforts against President Trump have been deeply politically motivated,
Speaker 3: and she is coming after President Trump for something that
Speaker 3: she claims is a blatant violation of Georgia law. He
Speaker 3: has declared his innocence. I think that we have to
Speaker 3: be very careful when prosecutors who are trying to charge
Speaker 3: cases in a particularly unique way are now caught up
Speaker 3: in their own misconduct. And it seems to be potentially
Speaker 3: a gross misconduct.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it certainly could be trayed as a project
Speaker 2: she cooked up. I mean, obviously that's a stretch. There were,
Speaker 2: you know, strange doings after the election, but she and
Speaker 2: her boyfriend cooked up a scheme to make hundreds of
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars. I mean, you could portray it that way,
Speaker 2: and it does kind of have that look.
Speaker 3: Well, it definitely has the look. The gentleman that she
Speaker 3: is accused of having an affair with has been appointed
Speaker 3: as a special prosecutor in Georgia. He has very limited
Speaker 3: courtroom experience and prosecutorial experience. The reasons why he was
Speaker 3: appointed with something that I was talking about many months ago,
Speaker 3: before we knew about the idea that there was some
Speaker 3: sort of special relationship between the two. He's gotten I believe,
Speaker 3: over a million dollars at this point for his services.
Speaker 3: Now he's providing legal services, no doubt through this, but
Speaker 3: whether those legal services are connected with essentially an underlying
Speaker 3: personal motivation to prosecute in order to rack up those
Speaker 3: legal bills, that would certainly be on the highest order
Speaker 3: of misconduct of an attorney and could very well be
Speaker 3: seen as criminal. It's something that where there are genuine
Speaker 3: questions in our country about Trump's conduct after the election
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, those are questions that I believe are
Speaker 3: primarily political. They're trying to turn it into criminal allegations,
Speaker 3: and it's a stretch. There is no good precedent for that,
Speaker 3: and it is something that certainly taints this process for
Speaker 3: the prosecutors to have such a scandal break out at
Speaker 3: this point.
Speaker 2: So not to try to make you make a prediction,
Speaker 2: but given your experience litigating hundreds of jury trials, what
Speaker 2: is the likelihood that it all collapses. What's the likelihood
Speaker 2: that Fannie Willis has just dismissed and they have to
Speaker 2: more or less restart. What do you expect to happen?
Speaker 3: Well, I expect her to still go full steam ahead
Speaker 3: against Trump and all of his associates that are charged here.
Speaker 3: So she's not going to back off willingly. You know.
Speaker 3: As a criminal defense attorney, I was kind of joking
Speaker 3: the other day that our job is not to predict
Speaker 3: what the issue is. It's to be ready to act
Speaker 3: on the issues that arise. There's one hundred, maybe two
Speaker 3: hundred ways that prosecutors can mess up a case, and
Speaker 3: a really good defense lawyer is ready to pounce on
Speaker 3: any one of them when they arise. If they knew
Speaker 3: what the issue was ahead of time, the prosecutors would
Speaker 3: likely know. So it's all about finding the prosecutor's errors
Speaker 3: and mistakes or misconduct along the way, and then calling
Speaker 3: it out and hoping that at that point the judge
Speaker 3: sees it that way and will reverse the case or
Speaker 3: dismiss the case, or issue some other major form of relief.
Speaker 2: Before we move on to Hunter Biden, let's talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about the business case in New York, the
Speaker 2: real estate fraud, etc. Does that have any enduring significance
Speaker 2: other than to Trump as a businessman, do you think?
Speaker 3: Well? I think the enduring effect that it has primarily
Speaker 3: is on the idea of those who do business in
Speaker 3: the state of New York, the long term consequences of
Speaker 3: the which Fox News report has no comparable history in
Speaker 3: the state, and that idea being that nobody has been
Speaker 3: essentially prosecuted where there are no complainants or victims people
Speaker 3: who have lost any money. The idea here being that
Speaker 3: if I go to a real estate agent and that
Speaker 3: real estate agent tells me my house is worth a
Speaker 3: million dollars, but I then list the house for one
Speaker 3: point five and then it sells for two millions, how
Speaker 3: much was that house worth in the first place. We
Speaker 3: see corporations all the time who have never made a
Speaker 3: penny in the history of the corporation. Think tech companies
Speaker 3: that then sell their companies for billions of dollars. How
Speaker 3: does that evaluated as the correct price or valuation of
Speaker 3: the company when they haven't even made a dollar. So essentially,
Speaker 3: the state of New York is putting itself in a
Speaker 3: position to prosecute any business who they feel like are
Speaker 3: overvaluing their company. And that's a very scary prospect for
Speaker 3: those who do business. It's the nature of business. It's
Speaker 3: also problematic because we see the immense political motivations here
Speaker 3: with the various videos we've seen of Letitia James campaigning
Speaker 3: to take down Donald Trump and chanting and promising that
Speaker 3: she would take him down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is one of those things for the
Speaker 2: record where you know, we have a fair amount of
Speaker 2: ambivalence about Trump.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 2: We recognize the great stuff he's done, the policies of
Speaker 2: the judges, et cetera, et cetera, and certainly some of
Speaker 2: some of the negatives, but this one sure seems like
Speaker 2: another naked political prosecution to intercede in the deal that
Speaker 2: everybody was thrilled with and say no, no, no, you
Speaker 2: got ripped off, and all sides are looking at the
Speaker 2: States saying I don't think we were. What are you
Speaker 2: talking about? Seems nakedly political. So, as you point out,
Speaker 2: I think the enduring effect is going to be political,
Speaker 2: the idea that, yeah, there is a witch hunt for
Speaker 2: Trump and he can't get a fair shape shake Andrew
Speaker 2: Tcherkawski's online criminal defense and civil try lawyer. Let's talk
Speaker 2: about Hunter Biden for a minute. He pleaded not guilty
Speaker 2: to some tax charges, including I believe three felonies. What
Speaker 2: does that look like to you? How much jeopardy is
Speaker 2: he in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Hunter Biden is in a lot of trouble. You know.
Speaker 3: Hunter Biden has kind of done it to himself in
Speaker 3: his autobiography where he admits to rampant the legal activity
Speaker 3: that he was engaged in in the late in mid
Speaker 3: twenty teens. He is facing these tax charges and they're
Speaker 3: certainly going to come fast and furious as this case
Speaker 3: kind of proceeds with the evidence that will be used
Speaker 3: against him. No doubt that's going to be particularly embarrassing
Speaker 3: evidence to him and his father, and something that will
Speaker 3: be I think heavily part of the campaign two prospects ahead.
Speaker 3: I think the one very interesting point about that prosecution
Speaker 3: is how the special prosecutor David Weiss intend to use
Speaker 3: information about Barisma as well as Hunter Biden's connection with
Speaker 3: a Chinese energy company. There's been lots of calls that
Speaker 3: that is a violation of the PHARAH, the Foreign Agent
Speaker 3: Registration Act, and that he should be prosecuted for that. Well,
Speaker 3: Weiss has mentioned his affiliation with Bisma and the Chinese
Speaker 3: holding company throughout the indictment, so I anticipate that Weiss
Speaker 3: is going to use that information in the trial. Maybe
Speaker 3: why he's not talking about it. But what we're all
Speaker 3: asking is why isn't there a decision. It's been years
Speaker 3: and years. Why hasn't Weis's come out and actually told
Speaker 3: us why there's no prosecution on those allegations. Maybe that's
Speaker 3: something that we will find out more through the court
Speaker 3: filings that come in the following weeks and months.
Speaker 2: Right, I was just going to say I don't trust
Speaker 2: Weiss for a minute, and was going to ask that
Speaker 2: that unholy to my mind plea deal a couple of
Speaker 2: months ago that fell apart when that alert judge called
Speaker 2: out both sides for the unprecedented and bizarre nature of it,
Speaker 2: I believe that to be evidence of serious malfeasance behind
Speaker 2: the scenes. Am I overreacting in my paranoid What was
Speaker 2: your take on the plea deal malfeasans?
Speaker 3: I think that it shows that David Weiss has compromised,
Speaker 3: that he was engaged in reaching a plea deal that showed,
Speaker 3: or at least demonstrated a great degree of bias towards
Speaker 3: Hunter Biden. Now that has fallen apart, and he has
Speaker 3: moved forward with prosecutions, and I know prosecutors and when
Speaker 3: you read the indictment, and you have the idea of
Speaker 3: what prosecutors really are. These are folks who really want
Speaker 3: to get a conviction and do so convincingly so once
Speaker 3: they think their teeth in whichould appears they have here. Generally,
Speaker 3: prosecutors are very interested in a conviction and significant jail time.
Speaker 3: The problem, even though that might be the case here,
Speaker 3: even though the prosecutors behind BIS and the ones who
Speaker 3: actually try this case may very aggressively prosecute this case,
Speaker 3: there's not faith in the system. There's not faith in
Speaker 3: David Weiss, and so I think he, before being appointed
Speaker 3: to Special Prosecutors, should have been taken off the case
Speaker 3: and another brought in. I think that would have been
Speaker 3: a wise move by the DOJ to create the appearance
Speaker 3: that we have a fair and neutral special prosecutor on
Speaker 3: that case who isn't compromised.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad to hear you say that, because I've
Speaker 2: been ranting about that for months now, and you actually
Speaker 2: know what you're talking about. But I cannot trust wise
Speaker 2: you know your statement that they've got their teeth into
Speaker 2: it and they're given it the old College try. Notwithstanding,
Speaker 2: just because the inexplicable allowing of the statute of limitations
Speaker 2: to expire on some pretty serious charges looked again like
Speaker 2: a serious level of being compromised.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, when you have these ideas of special prosecutors,
Speaker 3: we put a lot of faith in them. I don't
Speaker 3: I think that it is something that is very concerning
Speaker 3: to put our nation's future in the hands of a
Speaker 3: special prosecutor, whether that David Weiss who's prosecuting Hunter Biden,
Speaker 3: which could have dramatic impact on Joe Biden, or whether
Speaker 3: that is the special prosecutor over Donald Trump that essentially
Speaker 3: puts a single person in charge of these prosecutorial decisions
Speaker 3: that are highly political nature. And you said earlier that
Speaker 3: you know, whether you like Trump or hate Trump, I'm
Speaker 3: not looking at Trump's cases from the perspective of liking
Speaker 3: or hating Donald Trump. I'm looking at it from the
Speaker 3: constitutional perspective of what this means for presidents. And it's
Speaker 3: really not my opinions that I'm coming with. I think
Speaker 3: of the Federalist papers Alexander Hamilton, who addressed this very idea,
Speaker 3: who essentially said in his writings, and it can be
Speaker 3: interpreted in a number of ways, that the idea is
Speaker 3: that a president should be immune from their actions while
Speaker 3: in their presidency because of the degree of decisions they
Speaker 3: have to make and the desire that we not have
Speaker 3: undue pressure on them to be fearful that they will
Speaker 3: be criminally prosecuted. So Hamilton said, a president should have
Speaker 3: to first go through in impeachment, then be convicted by
Speaker 3: the Senate before the idea of criminal charges, and that
Speaker 3: waiving of the honor of immunity attaches to a president.
Speaker 3: See that takes it out of the hand of a
Speaker 3: single special prosecutor, and it puts it in the hand
Speaker 3: of the people, of the representatives of the people, and
Speaker 3: a significant portion of that. So whether we're talking about
Speaker 3: Hunter Biden or whether we're talking about Donald Trump, we
Speaker 3: have to be very careful to put all of our
Speaker 3: faith in a single appointed special prosecutor who is not
Speaker 3: elected by the people.
Speaker 2: Amen to that, Andrew Tchurkowski. That's the way we see
Speaker 2: it too. Really enjoyed it. Terrific job. Dreat to talk
Speaker 2: to you. I hope we can do it again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fantastic, Thank you.