Speaker 1: He thinks this is a tough guy look that will
Speaker 1: work for him.
Speaker 2: Presumably he also kind of has to lean into it, right.
Speaker 1: You can't pretend not to be a criminal while you're
Speaker 1: a criminal defendant. We've been holding our breath as a
Speaker 1: country for a long time, waiting for the cavalry to
Speaker 1: arrive in the form of the rule of law, and
Speaker 1: it did arrive today, and it's a majestic day.
Speaker 3: I wanted to be able to see this moment with
Speaker 3: my own eyes. In about three weeks from today, I
Speaker 3: will have been covering Donald Trump for nine years. There
Speaker 3: will not have been a day in the past nine years,
Speaker 3: I think where I have not mentioned his name or
Speaker 3: at least thought a thought about Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: His whole dream was to be respected in Manhattan, and
Speaker 4: it was in Manhattan where he was brought low. I
Speaker 4: think there's something interesting and poetic about that, mister Stenglass.
Speaker 4: I think some of you probably saw him speak well a.
Speaker 2: Little bit the other day, so he's done his job.
Speaker 4: It was very satisfying to finally see this guy get them,
Speaker 4: come up and thank you so much. Anything going on today,
Speaker 4: a lot of glee from a lot of different people
Speaker 4: on the left over the verdict yesterday. I mean the
Speaker 4: reporter who has the been following Trump, as you heard
Speaker 4: her say there since he came down the elevator for NBC,
Speaker 4: just beaming with excitement that she got to be there
Speaker 4: for when he finally got his come up.
Speaker 5: Ands So, Donald Trump convicted of all thirty four strange
Speaker 5: and convoluted felony charges. To discuss the outcome and what
Speaker 5: comes next, We've delighted to have Andrew Gerkawski, criminal defense
Speaker 5: and civil trial lawyer. You've seen him on all the
Speaker 5: big cable news channels and major newspapers and websites. Andrew,
Speaker 5: how are you. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good morning. How are you? Guys?
Speaker 5: We're terrific. Thank you. So I had in real life
Speaker 5: friends calling me last night because they know I follow
Speaker 5: this stuff. Say, dude, is what happened? What does this mean?
Speaker 5: So I will hit you with the same question, what happened?
Speaker 5: What does this mean?
Speaker 2: Well, I think the jury got it wrong. I'll tell
Speaker 2: you why. The whole case was about a very basic
Speaker 2: idea that when he paid Michael Cone the money to
Speaker 2: pay back essentially for what Michael Cone put out for
Speaker 2: Stormy Daniels for that hush money agreement. That was a
Speaker 2: legal thing to do to pay off that hush money agreement.
Speaker 2: The idea that, the most basic idea is that he
Speaker 2: put in his accounting books that that was a legal expense,
Speaker 2: and that's what the jury fundamentally had to decide was wrong.
Speaker 2: We never got any evidence about that, And frankly, as
Speaker 2: a business owner, as an attorney myself, I don't know
Speaker 2: what you put in your accounting books as that payment
Speaker 2: if not legal expense. Now, if he had put in
Speaker 2: their charity or construction costs and paid it in cash,
Speaker 2: everybody in the country would know that that's a fraud,
Speaker 2: that's a crime, that's wrong to do. But he put
Speaker 2: legal expense. He put it in at ninety nine, he
Speaker 2: put it in his ethics forms that he had paid
Speaker 2: this money. And so I just fundamentally disagree with the
Speaker 2: idea that that arching a business person for putting that
Speaker 2: on that line item is wrong. And then all of
Speaker 2: the Michael Cohene and Stormy Daniels, I think that was
Speaker 2: the defense getting caught up in the mud of what
Speaker 2: the prosecution essentially did, which was a lot of mudslinging.
Speaker 4: I thought in my Quicken program there's a category for
Speaker 4: trollop silencing.
Speaker 5: There's not.
Speaker 4: Just click on that week.
Speaker 2: We need to make sure that QuickBooks adds a Stormy
Speaker 2: Daniels hush money payment line item for folks just so
Speaker 2: they don't get in trouble.
Speaker 4: So I don't what I think this matters, because the
Speaker 4: part of the claim that I heard a lot yesterday
Speaker 4: was the election wouldn't have been this close if people
Speaker 4: had known about his payment to Stormy Daniels. Would we
Speaker 4: even have known if he filed it the way they
Speaker 4: say he needed to file it, I mean, because it
Speaker 4: was in October before a November election, I'm not sure
Speaker 4: would we even have found out anyway.
Speaker 2: No, the reporting timeline for a campaign contribution would have
Speaker 2: been after the election in that case. And so I
Speaker 2: think people really have to focus in on if you're
Speaker 2: going to allow this conviction to sway you or to
Speaker 2: have some influence, what is it that upsets you about it?
Speaker 2: And are you honest about what you're being upset by
Speaker 2: or are you just part of the Trump derangement syndrome
Speaker 2: type circumstances here because you really I mean, I guess
Speaker 2: some people might be offended by the idea of putting
Speaker 2: legal expenses in there. If that's what gets you angry,
Speaker 2: if that's what is going to cause you not to
Speaker 2: vote for Donald Trump, then you probably weren't going to
Speaker 2: vote for him all along. But if you're kind of
Speaker 2: on the fence here and you just want to say, well,
Speaker 2: he was convicted and so I can't vote for him,
Speaker 2: I think that's foolish and shortsighted because you really have
Speaker 2: to any crime, you have to get to the heart
Speaker 2: of what upsets you, and I just don't see what's
Speaker 2: upsetting about this.
Speaker 5: So we are both intrigued by the politics of if
Speaker 5: I am especially interested in how this might go in
Speaker 5: the appeal, but I think the fundamental question really is
Speaker 5: important question is.
Speaker 4: What sort of charge is this?
Speaker 5: A local prosecutor contorting a state law into enforcing federal
Speaker 5: election law, and how dangerous is this? Andrew going forward
Speaker 5: to the Republic.
Speaker 2: Well, it's called law fare. So you turn the law,
Speaker 2: the criminal law, into a wildly mishmashed of difficult to
Speaker 2: understand legal charging scheme in order to advance your political ideas.
Speaker 2: And that's how I see it. I know people may
Speaker 2: see it a different way, but you have to really
Speaker 2: look at what the basics are here. The idea of
Speaker 2: politics and for campaigns is to promote certain ideas that
Speaker 2: they think are beneficial and to try to quash stories
Speaker 2: that are detrimental to the campaign. It's gone on for
Speaker 2: as long as the country has been around. We could
Speaker 2: point to dozens of examples of leaders on both sides
Speaker 2: in every degree of campaign that occurs, from you know,
Speaker 2: school boards and county clerks all the way up to
Speaker 2: the president of the United States. And so we really
Speaker 2: have to look at what we're doing in terms of
Speaker 2: the future. Is this really what we want to see
Speaker 2: happen to other candidates, because now the gloves are off,
Speaker 2: and I can't imagine that the Republicans would hold back
Speaker 2: on their desires to prosecute their political enemies. Of course,
Speaker 2: remember Donald Trump, although he ran on lock her up
Speaker 2: to Hillary Clinton, never pursued additional criminal charges and he
Speaker 2: could have against her.
Speaker 4: M boy, that's a good point in the future. If
Speaker 4: we keep going down this road, candidates will do that.
Speaker 4: So the likelihood of him going to jail, I keep
Speaker 4: heering over and over again. It's very unlikely, but very
Speaker 4: unlikely means there is some likelihood, And you've got a
Speaker 4: defendant who convicted on thirty four felonies, who his bad
Speaker 4: mouth the judge, the process, and the jury, and has
Speaker 4: shown no contrition whatsoever. Is there a chance he spends
Speaker 4: any time in jail in your mind? And a judge
Speaker 4: that has made it pretty clear that he doesn't like Trump.
Speaker 2: You gave all the reasons why I think that there's
Speaker 2: a chance that that jail time could be issued here now,
Speaker 2: if you look at the New York standards and the
Speaker 2: law that is currently in place, especially in light of
Speaker 2: all of the justice reform that has been pushed forward
Speaker 2: by the Democrats, this would fall outside of a jail
Speaker 2: time sentence. And that's specifically because it's a first time offense,
Speaker 2: it's non violent, and there are alternate ways essentially to
Speaker 2: go about doing this. There's other mitigating factors as well,
Speaker 2: to include his age and its prior foremant of public
Speaker 2: dutys and services for the country.
Speaker 5: And of course, Andrew, I must jump in here and
Speaker 5: point out Donald Trump as a man of color, that
Speaker 5: color being orange.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you know. They also ask him during his
Speaker 2: probation interview if he is employed or if he's applying
Speaker 2: for any new job. So I suppose he can right
Speaker 2: in there that he's applying for the President of the
Speaker 2: United States.
Speaker 4: I'm lying for leader of the Free world.
Speaker 5: So Andrew and I know this is difficult to predict,
Speaker 5: but were the judge to say, now, we can't let
Speaker 5: this sort of thing go, I'm sentencing you to sixty days,
Speaker 5: which happens to cover the Republican Convention and an important
Speaker 5: part of the campaign. Where does it go from there?
Speaker 5: Is it conceivable the Supreme Court would hold an emergency
Speaker 5: hearing or anything like that, or would he just go
Speaker 5: to jail?
Speaker 2: So there are appeal options. He's certainly going to appeal,
Speaker 2: and notice of appeal is due within thirty days of
Speaker 2: the actual sentence, which is scheduled for July eleventh. Now
Speaker 2: there are earlier opportunities that they can essentially motion for
Speaker 2: the appellate Court to stay or pause any sentencing proceedings
Speaker 2: or at least the execution of a sentence. So if
Speaker 2: jail were to be issued while it's not appeal, they
Speaker 2: don't actually have him serve his time. They instead hear
Speaker 2: the appeal first, which is likely to take many months
Speaker 2: or a year or more in fact, And so I
Speaker 2: think it crawls for that system. I think the appellate court,
Speaker 2: even if they don't ultimately give him relief, although I
Speaker 2: think that there's a very good chance and we'd have
Speaker 2: round two of this trial. I would find it hard
Speaker 2: to believe that the appellate court would allow him to
Speaker 2: be locked up at this point. But there is no
Speaker 2: kind of like silver bullet here to make sure that
Speaker 2: that doesn't happen. This is all just hoping and praying
Speaker 2: with the democratic justices that are both at the trial
Speaker 2: level and then of course at the appellate levels.
Speaker 4: You know, and orange guy in an orange jumpsuit would
Speaker 4: really look like an OPA lumpa.
Speaker 2: It could be read advertising for his campaign. I suppose
Speaker 2: you know those pictures of his oh yeah, of his
Speaker 2: mugshot really sold well.
Speaker 5: That's true, Andrew Tcherkowski, criminal defense and civil trial lawyer.
Speaker 5: Really enlightening, Andrew. We thank you for the time.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So that theme kind of seemed to grow throughout the
Speaker 4: day that you know, people needed this in from to
Speaker 4: know how to vote. There are voters out there who
Speaker 4: would have said, first of all, as you heard there,
Speaker 4: the filing information wouldn't have gotten to us before the election.
Speaker 4: I don't think anyway. But and was there anybody who
Speaker 4: didn't think, oh my god, he is a man who
Speaker 4: lays down with fallen women. I mean, does that person
Speaker 4: exist anywhere? No?
Speaker 5: I think at best this is a wash in terms
Speaker 5: of motivating voters. And I would suggest, because I'm feeling
Speaker 5: it in my own ticker, this will invigorate marginally Trump
Speaker 5: supporting conservatives and Republicans to think, Look, I don't like
Speaker 5: the Orange guy. I think he's a prick or he's irresponsible.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't go that far. You know all of the
Speaker 5: complaints about Trump, we know what they are. And yet
Speaker 5: I can't reward this sort of lawfair and this this
Speaker 5: new road we're going down. We've got to stop it.
Speaker 5: I'm holding my nose and voting for Trump. I think
Speaker 5: you will see a significant surge of enthusiasm among Republicans.
Speaker 5: We got a lot more on this and other stuff,
Speaker 5: and we'd like to hear from you. Our text line
Speaker 5: is four one five two nine five KFTC