Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WOKA F Daily with
Speaker 1: me your girl, Danielle Moody recording prerecording from the Brooklyn Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: there has been so much that has been happening with
Speaker 1: regard to our laws in this country and what we
Speaker 1: once thought were laws of the land, like Rovie Wade,
Speaker 1: like marriage equality, like um the desegregation of schools plus
Speaker 1: e versus Ferguson. All of our major civil rights wins
Speaker 1: have not come through Congress, They have not come through
Speaker 1: executive action. They have come through one place, and that
Speaker 1: is our legal system, through the courts. Do you know
Speaker 1: who knew that and with very aware of that fact,
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell when he orchestrated a plan to steal a
Speaker 1: Supreme Court seat, a Supreme Court appointment from Barack Obama
Speaker 1: by refusing to give Marrett Garland a hearing for over
Speaker 1: a year. No pushback from Democrats, No, let's take Mitch
Speaker 1: McConnell to court. It was all, let's play nice and
Speaker 1: do nothing. And because of that, we now have a
Speaker 1: six to three Supreme Court because Donald Trump got not one,
Speaker 1: not two, but three Supreme Court fucking justices. Right now,
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell couldn't have known how the election in twenty
Speaker 1: was going to go, or did he right? Did he
Speaker 1: know what the election was going to do in twenty sixteen?
Speaker 1: Did he have any idea? No one knows because there's
Speaker 1: never any investigation into these people. But the reality is
Speaker 1: is that Mitch McConnell and Republicans have always paid attention
Speaker 1: to the courts, and for the last close to fifty years,
Speaker 1: they have been working to overturn a woman and people
Speaker 1: with uterus's ability to decide when, how and if they
Speaker 1: start a family, when, how and if they have a child.
Speaker 1: What I have always found so frustrating about Republicans over
Speaker 1: these decades is the fact that they don't actually give
Speaker 1: a shit about kids. They don't give a fuck about
Speaker 1: your families. If they did, then they would vote for
Speaker 1: the policies like family leave, like child tax credits, like
Speaker 1: any support that you can provide for children and families
Speaker 1: you would do. We wouldn't have a child poverty or
Speaker 1: a child hunger in this country if Republicans actually gave
Speaker 1: a shit about kids outside of the uterus. But they don't.
Speaker 1: And you know what's frustrating is that they've never been
Speaker 1: called out on their bullshit. They have never been made
Speaker 1: to come to ask and say, how is it that
Speaker 1: you talk about defending life in the life of a child,
Speaker 1: and yet when children are born you do nothing to
Speaker 1: support their well being in them turning into healthy, happy,
Speaker 1: productive citizens. You're all hands off after that. So the
Speaker 1: reality is, folks, that we are moving into really precarious
Speaker 1: and dark times in this nation as it pertains to
Speaker 1: women's rights, reproductive rights, and health. Abortion access is going
Speaker 1: to be a thing of the past. While you have
Speaker 1: countries like Mexico, for instance, who has just approved abortion
Speaker 1: in their country, we are in America regressing backwards in
Speaker 1: every single facet, in every single avenue, from voting rights
Speaker 1: to abortion rights and everything in between. So on today's show,
Speaker 1: I'm very happy to bring on for this Powerhouse Week
Speaker 1: of Women, to bring on my friend MSNBC legal analyst
Speaker 1: and former federal prosecutor under Obama, Joyce White Vans, who
Speaker 1: will walk through with us all of the things that
Speaker 1: we need to be paying attention to with regard to
Speaker 1: where our laws are going to what is going to
Speaker 1: happen in June when the Supreme Court finally decides on
Speaker 1: the Mississippi case, which is going to outlaw Rov Wade,
Speaker 1: and then we are going to have abortion asylums, sanctuaries
Speaker 1: right in dotted across these United States until when until
Speaker 1: a Republican takes control of the White House for the
Speaker 1: final time and decides to withhold federal funding from states
Speaker 1: that's still grant abortion. Right. Like, folks, where this is
Speaker 1: headed is so dark. It is going to make the
Speaker 1: Handmaid's Tale look like a fairy tale, look like a
Speaker 1: children's story, because what we are facing in our reality
Speaker 1: is so much starker than any of us can imagine. Now,
Speaker 1: Joyce will say something that I think is important, which
Speaker 1: is her belief that she thinks that Republicans are going
Speaker 1: to overreach and that what is going to happen before midterms.
Speaker 1: Before mid terms, we're going to see Rob Wade overturned,
Speaker 1: and then women are going to march to the polls.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing that I continue to be on
Speaker 1: the fence. About fifty two percent of white women voted
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump. Right, So these women who in fact
Speaker 1: go and access abortion care then turn around and vote
Speaker 1: against other people's ability to get the same care that
Speaker 1: they just got in secret. So I don't know if
Speaker 1: there actually is enough women with good goddamn sense, enough
Speaker 1: people with good goddamn sense in this country to realize
Speaker 1: what a dark and twisted future we are presenting without
Speaker 1: women having bodily autonomy. Right, So I think that while
Speaker 1: I want to believe that it is going to unfortunately
Speaker 1: take us losing our rights and our freedoms in mass
Speaker 1: because let's be clear, if you're a person of color,
Speaker 1: you already know what time it is in this country, right.
Speaker 1: You already know that you are on borrow time, any
Speaker 1: time that you get pulled over by police, any time
Speaker 1: that there are horrible draconian laws that are rolled out, right,
Speaker 1: You're we're always at the bottom of the totem pole.
Speaker 1: So we already know what time it is. But for
Speaker 1: those people who are still holding on to privileges that
Speaker 1: are not granted to people of color and people from
Speaker 1: marginalized communities, when all of their rights start to go
Speaker 1: is when folks will start to act. But my feeling
Speaker 1: is that it's going to be too fucking late, right,
Speaker 1: It's going to be too late, and then what then?
Speaker 1: What do we do? So I find myself these days,
Speaker 1: as you know, stories continue to you know, make news
Speaker 1: that we haven't been vigilant all along, that it is
Speaker 1: the complacency that comes with winning rights, that you assume
Speaker 1: that those that are held bent on oppression will somehow
Speaker 1: give up. But what we have seen is that Republicans
Speaker 1: don't give up. Actually, they will continue the same fight
Speaker 1: with the same playbook for decades. It is the rest
Speaker 1: of us that think, oh, well, nothing's going to happen
Speaker 1: to Roe v. Wade because we've been crying wolf for
Speaker 1: so long. Well, maybe part of the strategy in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen should have been to talk about the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: and to paint the actual picture of where we are
Speaker 1: right now. Would have been for Democrats when Mitch McConnell
Speaker 1: was going against the Constitution and not providing the black
Speaker 1: president with the access to appoint as sitting Supreme Court justice,
Speaker 1: that we would have took that motherfucker a court right
Speaker 1: and not just said, oh, okay, that's fine, I guess
Speaker 1: we don't get a Supreme Court justice, like we just
Speaker 1: fucked the country because of our desire to play nice
Speaker 1: with people who would rather beat you to death right
Speaker 1: then play in this play by the rules. So I
Speaker 1: don't know where we are headed. But this conversation with
Speaker 1: Joyce was incredibly illuminating because there is a lot at stake.
Speaker 1: There is a lot that is coming down decisions that
Speaker 1: are going to be made this summer by this conservative
Speaker 1: sixty three Supreme Court that is going to radically change America.
Speaker 1: And that has always been their goal, is for there
Speaker 1: to be a radical shift. And they knew that they
Speaker 1: didn't have the policies or the platform to be able
Speaker 1: to get voted in to do these things. They knew
Speaker 1: that all they had to do was take over the
Speaker 1: courts and create an apartheid system in America and then
Speaker 1: all would be well. And I'll tell you I've said
Speaker 1: this before. Things are going to get a lot darker
Speaker 1: before they get better in this country. They are going
Speaker 1: to get bloodier before they get better in this country.
Speaker 1: And I want folks to buckle up right and understand
Speaker 1: that we have a long haul in front of us. Right.
Speaker 1: This arc that we've been walking on that we thought
Speaker 1: was just going to casually begin to bend towards justice
Speaker 1: is not. It is not happening. If we want justice,
Speaker 1: we are going to have to fight for it in
Speaker 1: a variety of ways. Because they're not giving up the
Speaker 1: fight to persecute women in this country, people of color,
Speaker 1: queer people, Muslims. I mean, I am concerned once again
Speaker 1: about our desire to fight for democracy and fight for
Speaker 1: freedom abroad and not recognize how it is being pulled
Speaker 1: away one decision at a time in this country. So
Speaker 1: coming up next, dear friends, my conversation with my friend
Speaker 1: Joyce White Vans. Folks, I am so happy to welcome
Speaker 1: back to wogay f our friend Joyce White Vans. You
Speaker 1: know her. She is an MSNBC legal analyst. She's also
Speaker 1: a professor at the University of Alabama Law School and
Speaker 1: a former federal prosecutor under President Obama. Joyce, it is
Speaker 1: so good to have you back. It's so nice to
Speaker 1: hear your voice. I'm missing you in person, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I want to know. You know. There's been, Joyce,
Speaker 1: just so much legal news. I mean, every day is
Speaker 1: another crazy headline, whether it's coming out of states like
Speaker 1: Florida and Texas that are waging a war against uteruses
Speaker 1: and reproductive health, whether it is another persecution or lack
Speaker 1: thereof of persecution around those involved in the January sixth insurrection.
Speaker 1: I want to kind of start with the Handmaid's tale
Speaker 1: that Republicans are hell bent in turning America into Give
Speaker 1: us your insight into what you were thinking over the
Speaker 1: last couple of months, as Texas and Florida are currently
Speaker 1: volleying to be the worst state for women in the country. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a real race to the bottom. And
Speaker 1: I can fess I laughed a little bit when you
Speaker 1: said Handmaid's tale, but only because our choices right now
Speaker 1: are laughing or crying right right. Women are not in
Speaker 1: a good place in this country. We are, of course
Speaker 1: not alone, and I think the important first thing to
Speaker 1: say is that we should all be thinking about allyship
Speaker 1: now between communities of women who are under attack, between
Speaker 1: the black community, immigrants communities, the LGBTQ community, and especially
Speaker 1: the trans community. It's an important time for everybody to
Speaker 1: stick together. But the attacks on women are particularly pernicious
Speaker 1: because you know, we thought we were done with this.
Speaker 1: Roe versus Wade, which gives abortion rights is fifty years old.
Speaker 1: I fully expect that row will be reversed this year
Speaker 1: when the Supreme Court hands down its opinion in a
Speaker 1: Mississippi case. Parts of our lives that we have really
Speaker 1: come to take for granted, for instance, you're right to
Speaker 1: obtain birth control. I think those rights too, show some
Speaker 1: increasing fragility under the lines of legal reasoning that this
Speaker 1: newly conservative six three Supreme Court is willing to use.
Speaker 1: So let me just give you the recent update, Danielle.
Speaker 1: Just this week more bad news. We all know about
Speaker 1: Texas's anti abortion bill. This is this vigilante justice style
Speaker 1: bill where Texas says, well, maybe we passed this law,
Speaker 1: but we're not responsible for enforcing it. Because what we've
Speaker 1: done is created a private right of action for anybody
Speaker 1: out there in the country who learns that a woman
Speaker 1: is getting an abortion. After six weeks, that person has
Speaker 1: a right to sue anyone who enables that woman in
Speaker 1: getting the abortion, and the monetary damages are serious. And
Speaker 1: so what's happened is that there is no longer functionally
Speaker 1: a right to an abortion in Texas. Women there have
Speaker 1: to go out of state. So up to the plate
Speaker 1: steps Idaho, which this week passed a copycat bill. Tennessee
Speaker 1: has a new abortion bill that's modeled after the Texas bill,
Speaker 1: and something I guess I'll stop here, but I'll just
Speaker 1: say we need to think about how these bills function
Speaker 1: on the margins, and really the sort of poor it
Speaker 1: could inflict upon women, because you could have a rapist
Speaker 1: impregnate a minor, and either the miner's family or the
Speaker 1: rapist's family could sue the woman if she sought an abortion.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine forcing an eleven year old girl to
Speaker 1: carry a fetus the product of a rape to term.
Speaker 1: I just I mean, even the description of that choice
Speaker 1: is so disturbing to me, and should be so disturbing
Speaker 1: to every person inside of this country. That we are
Speaker 1: at a place right now where we're watching countries like Mexico,
Speaker 1: very religious, Catholic based countries like Mexico pass abortion throughout
Speaker 1: the country, and here in America, where we have always
Speaker 1: professed right to have these liberties and these justices and
Speaker 1: all of these things, and yet one can't we don't
Speaker 1: pay women what they're worth, and two, we tell them
Speaker 1: that they don't have the control over their own bodies.
Speaker 1: And so when we are looking at these laws, I
Speaker 1: think that what is really jarring right now is the
Speaker 1: way that they are being written. Joyce, they are not
Speaker 1: being written in a way that allows for straight and
Speaker 1: clean prosecution. I feel as if Republicans and conservatives have
Speaker 1: gotten hip to figuring out that they can write things
Speaker 1: in a certain way that provides just as much threat
Speaker 1: without it actually triggering action. Can you talk about the
Speaker 1: ways in which the law in Texas that the vigilante
Speaker 1: law that you just mentioned, was written, and how the
Speaker 1: Tennessee law that was just announced, how that has been
Speaker 1: written as well. Yeah, I think this is such an
Speaker 1: important point. And when you talk about drafting laws, of course,
Speaker 1: we're the country that couldn't manage to adopt the Equal
Speaker 1: Rights Amendment, which would have guaranteed women writes as citizens.
Speaker 1: So I guess that's the baseline that we start as
Speaker 1: even in the best of times, we weren't able to
Speaker 1: adopt that provision because hahaha, women were fully equal in
Speaker 1: our society and it was unnecessary. So you're dead on
Speaker 1: the money about how these laws are being written. And
Speaker 1: this isn't by accident. This is a deliberate effort to
Speaker 1: craft laws that can survive muster, can survive review in
Speaker 1: the courts. And so, for instance, the Texas statute as
Speaker 1: I've mentioned, has this vigilante provision, and it would have
Speaker 1: clearly been at least under current law as long as
Speaker 1: Roe is good law, it would have been illegal if
Speaker 1: you had flat out prohibited abortion after six weeks. That's
Speaker 1: not what Texas does. They write this very vague statute.
Speaker 1: No one's actually sure what it means, but it suggests
Speaker 1: that people, wherever they live, can sue any one doctor,
Speaker 1: maybe an uber driver, right who gets a woman to
Speaker 1: a facility where she's going to receive un abortion, and
Speaker 1: any of those people are subject to suit. The lawsuits.
Speaker 1: You know, first off, you have to pay to defend
Speaker 1: the lawsuit. If you're sued, that's not inconsequential. But the
Speaker 1: damages are ten thousand dollars. And if you've got multiple
Speaker 1: people out there suing you for ten thousand dollars at
Speaker 1: a time, this ultimately just becomes a real barrier. And
Speaker 1: so here's the ultimate expression of the uncertainty factor. What
Speaker 1: is or isn't an abortion after six weeks. In a
Speaker 1: recent case, a woman is having a miscarriage in Texas
Speaker 1: and she needs to have a DNC to save her life.
Speaker 1: And in the middle of the miscarriage, the doctors put
Speaker 1: her on a plane because they're afraid to perform the
Speaker 1: abortion in Texas because they're not sure what their status
Speaker 1: is under the law. And so you know, these medical
Speaker 1: flights too, are very expensive. I don't know exactly how
Speaker 1: much this one was, but you see figures in the
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of dollars for these unplanned, life saving
Speaker 1: medical flights. And it really I have to believe that
Speaker 1: if the folks who wrote these laws thought through all
Speaker 1: of these consequences, maybe they would back off a little bit.
Speaker 1: But perhaps I'm being too kind because these are people,
Speaker 1: after all, who are willing to not have exceptions for
Speaker 1: incest or for danger to the mother written into these laws.
Speaker 1: You know, today in America, some of the same folks
Speaker 1: that are protesting being forced to wear a mask. I
Speaker 1: think it's okay to force a minor to carry a
Speaker 1: fetus to term. I just you know, Joyce, you have
Speaker 1: been in this game for so long. Has there been
Speaker 1: another time in our recent modern history where we have
Speaker 1: seen such a legal assault on reproductive health, on abortion
Speaker 1: for women. Has there been another time in scent history
Speaker 1: that we've seen this kind of aggressive backlash. No, And
Speaker 1: you know, this is sort of the perfect storm. This
Speaker 1: was the product of at least fifty years of conservative
Speaker 1: activism on the issue of abortion, which allowed the Republican
Speaker 1: Party to convince its voters to vote for the most
Speaker 1: marginal of candidates. Not naming any names, but Donald Trump
Speaker 1: comes to mind. In their effort to control the federal courts,
Speaker 1: and they have been successful. There is now a six
Speaker 1: three conservative majority on the Supreme Court. That's a safe vote.
Speaker 1: So the Conservatives can and have lost the chief Justices
Speaker 1: vote on cases and still come out with a majority,
Speaker 1: which means you now have activism at the local, state
Speaker 1: and federal level that's not friendly to women. I mean,
Speaker 1: what are we going to do? What do you see?
Speaker 1: I mean this decision, the Mississippi Court decision, which is
Speaker 1: essentially going to overrule Roe v. Wade, which we all
Speaker 1: thought was you know, cemented into our into our laws,
Speaker 1: into our country. It is not. What we are recognizing
Speaker 1: now is that what we thought was a law of
Speaker 1: the land is no longer. And I tell people that
Speaker 1: conservatives will start at abortion because it's low hanging fruit,
Speaker 1: fruit that they have been looking to pick for the
Speaker 1: last forty five fifty years. But it's not the only
Speaker 1: thing that they will come for. Marriage equality that they
Speaker 1: will come for potentially, you know, the resegregation of schools
Speaker 1: that they will come for things the justices and the
Speaker 1: civil rights that have been received over the past several
Speaker 1: decades have come through the courts, and so what is
Speaker 1: the recourse here? What is the pushback that can happen
Speaker 1: and should happen that we're not seeing right now. It's
Speaker 1: such a hard question. I wish I had good answers
Speaker 1: that I think. The best one is that abortion is
Speaker 1: a state by state issue. That's the view that the
Speaker 1: conservatives have always ascribed to. You know, I think a
Speaker 1: nationwide abortion ban would run a foul of some of
Speaker 1: their jurisprudence, although it's important to say that their jurisprudence
Speaker 1: is inconsistent with when you're in the area of abortion,
Speaker 1: and rules that apply in other cases don't seem to
Speaker 1: apply when you have a results oriented abortion opinion brewing.
Speaker 1: But the real answer is to preserve the right to
Speaker 1: abortion in as many states as possible. That's unfortunate because
Speaker 1: it means women have to travel to preserve that specific right.
Speaker 1: There will be states that will take a stab at
Speaker 1: outlying travel outside of their state. I think that that's
Speaker 1: clearly unconstitutional, and Missouri legislators suggested this week that she
Speaker 1: would propose such a bill, there a lot of pushbout,
Speaker 1: So I guess the answer is working to make sure
Speaker 1: that your right to vote in your state, and in
Speaker 1: your city and in your county is preserved. And of
Speaker 1: course we live in a challenging time for the right
Speaker 1: to vote as well. Oh Joyce, there is no good news.
Speaker 1: I want to make a quick transition to go to
Speaker 1: the latest with the January sixth insurrection. You know, recently
Speaker 1: it came to light that the wife of Supreme Court
Speaker 1: Justice Clarence Thomas, Jenny Thomas, was present at the Ellipses
Speaker 1: the day of the insurrection. That she has also provided
Speaker 1: resources that are being discovered, paying for buses for insurrectionists
Speaker 1: to get to Washington, DC. We are learning so much
Speaker 1: over the last several months of the investigation at the
Speaker 1: Helm the House Commission, over five hundred interviews, subpoenas, thousands
Speaker 1: of papers of paperwork. Where is the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: on this? And has the commission, the White the House
Speaker 1: January sixth Commission taken this as far as they can go?
Speaker 1: So it's such a interesting question, you know. The first,
Speaker 1: maybe the most important thing to say is we don't
Speaker 1: know for sure what's going on at DJ. I don't
Speaker 1: see some of the signs that I would expect to
Speaker 1: see if DJ was conducting a long term grand jury investigation,
Speaker 1: for instance, she would expect to see witnesses. You know,
Speaker 1: DJ subpoenas of vunca trump to the grand jury. She's
Speaker 1: not going to go in there quietly and testify, one
Speaker 1: wouldn't think, And so you might hear a little bit
Speaker 1: of noise. But there also are signs of life at DJ.
Speaker 1: Of course, they did go ahead and subpoena phones of
Speaker 1: one of the crack and lawyer's Sydney Powell. There have
Speaker 1: been other signs of life like that. And Merrick Garla
Speaker 1: and since his speech on January five, has been saying
Speaker 1: all of the right things, the sorts of things that
Speaker 1: if you're a former DOJ prosecutor like me, tell you
Speaker 1: that there is a commitment to investigation. He says, we'll
Speaker 1: follow the facts in the law no matter where they lead,
Speaker 1: no matter whether you were there on January sixth or not.
Speaker 1: And that suggests that there is some live investigation going on.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think that there are two very
Speaker 1: interesting things going on at the same time. One is
Speaker 1: the January sixth Committee. They are doing fabulous work, and
Speaker 1: they are. They are stacked top to bottom with former prosecutors.
Speaker 1: The two lead counsel for the committee are both former
Speaker 1: US attorneys, one a Republican, one a Democrat, and committee's
Speaker 1: staff is filled out with people who are former prosecutors.
Speaker 1: These are folks who know how to run an investigation,
Speaker 1: and we see the results that they're getting. We'll see
Speaker 1: more when they have their public hearings, and I suspect
Speaker 1: that those will be extraordinarily compelling. And at the same time, DOJ,
Speaker 1: in its January sixth prosecutions, is starting to move up
Speaker 1: the chain. You know, that's how prosecutors work. Typically, you
Speaker 1: start with the people who are the least culpable. You
Speaker 1: try to get them to cooperate and tell you about
Speaker 1: people who are more criminally culpable. Well, DJ has worked
Speaker 1: its way up to the leadership of some of the
Speaker 1: organizations that were involved on January sixth. First, there was
Speaker 1: the seditious conspiracy indictment for the Oathkeepers, inviting their leader
Speaker 1: Stuart Rose right, a Yell educated lawyer, which is sort
Speaker 1: of a weird detail. Seditious conspiracy is the most serious
Speaker 1: charge DOJ has brought it. It involves an element of violence,
Speaker 1: but they've also indicted members of the Proud Boys right
Speaker 1: sating their leader, Enrique Tario, and this is essentially for
Speaker 1: obstruction of Congress and a conspiracy to obstruct Congress. And
Speaker 1: evidence in these cases would seem to place dj awfully
Speaker 1: close to that Willard War Room where so much was
Speaker 1: going on in advance of January sixth, and who knows
Speaker 1: where that's going to lead. It could lead to the
Speaker 1: former president, it might not. Their legal issues here currently
Speaker 1: in the DC courts, there's a challenge to whether this
Speaker 1: obstruction of Justice statute dj IS can be used in
Speaker 1: these cases, and that's something that'll have to be decided
Speaker 1: in the appellate courts. So there's still a lot of
Speaker 1: spinning wheels going on. You know. One of the things
Speaker 1: that was brought to the attention of the public as
Speaker 1: it pertained to the Proud Boys was, and this was
Speaker 1: reported by the New York Times recently, that there is
Speaker 1: more evidence that they had plans to take over the
Speaker 1: house buildings, the Senate buildings, the Supreme Court, that there
Speaker 1: were plants right much in the same way that we
Speaker 1: know that John Eastman put together that power point. Let
Speaker 1: me push back on that just a little bit. We
Speaker 1: don't know all of the details of this yet. But
Speaker 1: in Tario's possession there was a document, you know, that
Speaker 1: had seventeen seventy six at the top, which other figures
Speaker 1: in the insurrection used, and it was a plan and
Speaker 1: it doesn't specifically mention the capital, but it does talk
Speaker 1: about how you might take over some of the buildings
Speaker 1: that you have named in DC, and it talks about
Speaker 1: strategies that were actually used on January six like opening
Speaker 1: the doors and letting the crowds in first to create
Speaker 1: a distraction right before the established groups go in. But
Speaker 1: we don't know who wrote this document. We don't know
Speaker 1: how Tario got it, although there's some suggestion that it
Speaker 1: may have come from one of his girlfriends who also
Speaker 1: had a roger Stone connection. If that turns out to
Speaker 1: be true, and that's a big if. I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's been established yet, that could be an interesting linkage.
Speaker 1: We need to know a lot more about this document
Speaker 1: and who authored it, how serious it's intended usage was.
Speaker 1: It doesn't actually go into effect on January sixth, so
Speaker 1: just lots more to learn here, you know, Joyce, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people, including myself, who read and
Speaker 1: look at the mountain of evidence that is against Donald
Speaker 1: Trump his allies, and we say, there are people that
Speaker 1: are sitting in rikers right now with you know, on
Speaker 1: conspiracy charges on oh, I think that there was something
Speaker 1: in your backpack on you know, on so little and
Speaker 1: yet there are mountains of evidence against these people, and
Speaker 1: yet we're slow walking right And so I want you
Speaker 1: to provide me and the listeners with some understanding from
Speaker 1: from your advantage point as to why we're not seeing
Speaker 1: just parades of indictments, why we're we're we're dotting eyes
Speaker 1: and crossing tea and highlighting everything to make sure that
Speaker 1: we get things right. But when it comes to the
Speaker 1: prosecution of black and brown people, we just lock them
Speaker 1: up and throw away the key. So can you provide
Speaker 1: us with just some understanding as to the pace that
Speaker 1: we are seeing right now and the amount of evidence
Speaker 1: that is being uncovered. The pace is frustrating. I think
Speaker 1: it's frustrating to all of us, especially because we don't
Speaker 1: know what the ending is going to look like. But
Speaker 1: let me try to give at least a little bit
Speaker 1: of explanation. Evidence in and of itself is meaningless in
Speaker 1: the criminal justice sense, because evidence only matters if it
Speaker 1: helps you prove a crime. Criminal law in this country's
Speaker 1: statutory that means that there has to be a statute
Speaker 1: that someone has violated. And these statutes have a lot
Speaker 1: of different elements. You know, as a prosecutor, you might
Speaker 1: have four or five six things that you have to
Speaker 1: prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt using evidence
Speaker 1: that's admissible in trial in order to get a conviction.
Speaker 1: And obviously the federal and the state system are different things,
Speaker 1: and I'm speaking just about the federal system, but one
Speaker 1: of the chief elements that virtually every crime has included
Speaker 1: in it is the state of mind that the defendant
Speaker 1: has to have acted with. And bear with me, Now,
Speaker 1: this is sort of criminal law one oh one. For
Speaker 1: some crimes, the defendant simply has to have known what
Speaker 1: they were doing. So a defendant has to have knowingly
Speaker 1: possessed drugs, right as long as you can establish through
Speaker 1: some means or another. And you know, if the defendants
Speaker 1: marijuana bangs, the marijuana in his pockets, then he probably
Speaker 1: knew that they were there. Those cases are easier to
Speaker 1: convict in than, for instance, a conspiracy case or an
Speaker 1: Instruction of Congress case where the government has to prove intent.
Speaker 1: You have to prove what the defendant intended to do,
Speaker 1: and it's tough to get inside of somebody's head. We
Speaker 1: do this typically with circumstantial evidence. That's really the best
Speaker 1: way that you do this. But you know, something that's
Speaker 1: happened in the modern era is suries expect to see
Speaker 1: something better than circumstantial evidence. They want to hear phone calls,
Speaker 1: they want to see emails or text messages. And so
Speaker 1: when you have someone like Donald Trump who's so scrupulous
Speaker 1: about avoiding email, and when you've got twelve jurors who
Speaker 1: you have to convince beyond a reasonable doubt to get
Speaker 1: a conviction, and when you know how dangerous it would
Speaker 1: be to indict, to go to trial and to get
Speaker 1: an acquittal, imagine what the country would look like after that.
Speaker 1: Then I think that helps us understand why DJ, if
Speaker 1: in fact it's pursuing these investigations, is moving slowly and
Speaker 1: waiting to see what happens. And then the last thing
Speaker 1: that I'll say about that, there is this legal issue
Speaker 1: which really gives me pause. I think the statute clearly
Speaker 1: applied in this case. There are ten judges in the
Speaker 1: District of Columbia, nine or ten who have permitted cases
Speaker 1: to go forward under it. But there is this one
Speaker 1: judge with a contrary ruling, and that will go up
Speaker 1: to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Speaker 1: It will make it to the Supreme Court. I suspect
Speaker 1: one way or record the other. Either the Court will
Speaker 1: refuse to hear the issue and the Court of Appeals
Speaker 1: ruling will be the law of the land, or the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court may decide to hear it. Profecutors don't like
Speaker 1: that level of uncertainty. And remember that Merritt Garland clock
Speaker 1: doesn't tick for the midterm elections like the House Committee's
Speaker 1: investigation does Merritt Garland. Unless something crazy happens and Joe
Speaker 1: Biden is impeached and there's a new president, which I
Speaker 1: think is just not going to happen. You're never going
Speaker 1: to get the votes in the Senate to do that.
Speaker 1: You know, Merritt Garland has got at a minimum two
Speaker 1: more years after this to finish up. And this may
Speaker 1: be something that's better left until after the midterms are
Speaker 1: behind us. You know, Joyce, I listen to you and
Speaker 1: I hear you and the and the rationale, and I
Speaker 1: just don't know, because I have to be honest that
Speaker 1: if Democrats, which is you know, based on the polling
Speaker 1: right now looks like we will in fact lose the
Speaker 1: House and lose the Senate. I don't think that Merritt
Speaker 1: Garland will have those two years left. I think that
Speaker 1: he will be hauled in before committees by Republicans. I
Speaker 1: think it'll make Benghazi look like a playground picnic in
Speaker 1: comparison to General goes through that. You know, Eric Holder
Speaker 1: went through that, and it doesn't slow down DJ's work.
Speaker 1: So I'm not saying that if I was the Attorney general,
Speaker 1: this is the sort of pace that I would want
Speaker 1: to see, right, and may well be things that we
Speaker 1: just don't know about. I mean, so much of this,
Speaker 1: you know, just depends on the ending, right what happens
Speaker 1: at the end. If we knew what the ending looked like,
Speaker 1: maybe we'd be happier with the slow pace. It's really tough,
Speaker 1: I think, to watch this and to see all of
Speaker 1: this and to not know what the outcome is going
Speaker 1: to be. Because Donald Trump has managed to elude justice
Speaker 1: for so many things, so many times, and the notion
Speaker 1: that he would elude justice for an insurrection, right for
Speaker 1: interfering or trying to interfere with the smooth transfer of
Speaker 1: power in this country. That's really unconscionable, it really is. Joyce,
Speaker 1: oh white Van, thank you so much for making the
Speaker 1: time to join us again on Woke a F. We
Speaker 1: love your perspective and having you and we really appreciate
Speaker 1: your time. Well, thank you for indulging an old prosecutor.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today here on Woke a F.
Speaker 1: As always power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: Get woke and stay woke. Us fuck