Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
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Speaker 1: So wild day yesterday, part way through the day, they
Speaker 1: accidentally uploaded what appeared to be charges against Trump to
Speaker 1: a Georgia County website. Then they took them down and
Speaker 1: we knew the grand jury was meeting. Witnesses were rushed in,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Late last night, we finally got the charges
Speaker 1: handed down and the DA there in Fulton County, Funny
Speaker 1: Willis gave a press conference announcing some of the details.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 5: Today, based on information developed by that investigation, a Fulton
Speaker 5: County grand jury returned a true bill of indictment, charging
Speaker 5: nineteen individuals with violations of Georgia law arising from a
Speaker 5: criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the twenty twenty
Speaker 5: presidential election in this state. The indictment includes forty one
Speaker 5: felony counts and his ninety seven pages long. Please remember
Speaker 5: that everyone charged in this bill of indictment is presumed innocent. Specifically,
Speaker 5: the indictment brings felony charges against Donald John Trump. Every
Speaker 5: individual charge in the indictment is charged with one count
Speaker 5: of violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act through
Speaker 5: participation in a criminal enterprise in Fulton County, Georgia and
Speaker 5: elsewhere to accomplish the illegal goal of allowing Donald J.
Speaker 5: Trump to seize the presidential term of office beginning on
Speaker 5: January twentieth, twenty one.
Speaker 1: So let's take a look at the actual indictment. This
Speaker 1: is just the first two cover pages, so you can
Speaker 1: get a sense there, as Fannie willis indicated. Nineteen individuals
Speaker 1: charged here. Some of them will be familiar names to you,
Speaker 1: like the former president Donald Trump, like Rudy Giuliani, like
Speaker 1: Mark Meadows, like some of the individuals who were also
Speaker 1: named as co conspirators in Jack Smith's indictment, like Kenneth Cheeseborough.
Speaker 4: Others are less well known.
Speaker 1: There's an individual who was a stylist for R Kelly,
Speaker 1: who apparently try to intimidate these women that were accused
Speaker 1: of committing election fraud completely erroneously. But you see the
Speaker 1: list of the charges here, and just so people understand
Speaker 1: the fact that all these charges are listed doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that all of these people are charged with all of
Speaker 1: these things. All of them are charged at least with
Speaker 1: the RICO, the racketeering charge that Fannie willis indicated. Basically,
Speaker 1: this is meant to roll up mobsters, and in Georgia
Speaker 1: they have a very expansive RICO law. According to the
Speaker 1: analysis I was reading, it's one of the most expansive
Speaker 1: in the country. Prosecutors love it, defense attorneys despise it,
Speaker 1: and they made it really broad to roll up, for example,
Speaker 1: low level street drug dealers along with kingpins. And so
Speaker 1: the allegation here is that all of these individuals, plus
Speaker 1: thirty additional unindicted co conspirators that they say are known
Speaker 1: to the grand jury, that all of them were part
Speaker 1: of a criminal conspiracy, a criminal enterprise to overturn the
Speaker 1: rightful election results in Georgia. To go through specifically what
Speaker 1: Trump is charged with, because again he's not charged with
Speaker 1: all of the things that are listed there. He faces
Speaker 1: thirteen different charges. Let me just take a moment to
Speaker 1: go through them. Number one is violation of that Rego
Speaker 1: Act that I was just discussing, to solicitation, a violation
Speaker 1: of oath by public officer, conspiracy to commit impersonating a
Speaker 1: public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree,
Speaker 1: conspiracy to commit false statements in writings, conspiracy to commit
Speaker 1: filing false documents, Conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree,
Speaker 1: conspiracy to commit false statements in writings, filing false documents,
Speaker 1: solicitation of violation of oath by public officer, false statements
Speaker 1: and writings, another count of solicitation, a violation of oath
Speaker 1: by public officer, and another's count of false statements and writing.
Speaker 1: So that's specific to trump their additional charges in here
Speaker 1: that some of these individuals face, like Sydney pal that
Speaker 1: have to do with that breach of computer systems that
Speaker 1: we discussed yesterday. But ser something that you brought up yesterday,
Speaker 1: which I think is really important for people to understand.
Speaker 1: As they get a little bit of like, you know, indictment,
Speaker 1: they're like a little overwhelmed by all these different indictments
Speaker 1: part of why this one is significant is because it
Speaker 1: is state charges. That means if Trump, even if he's
Speaker 1: elected president, he can't get out of it. He can't
Speaker 1: pardon himself. The other reason is because there are limits
Speaker 1: even if you have a friendly governor in office. In Georgia,
Speaker 1: there's an expansive time limit in terms of when they
Speaker 1: are allowed to pardon, even if they have you know
Speaker 1: a governor there who wants.
Speaker 3: To go ahead with that.
Speaker 1: And the other piece is, you know Jack Smith, when
Speaker 1: he was looking at some of these similar alleged crimes,
Speaker 1: he had to use statutes that haven't traditionally been used
Speaker 1: in terms of election for an election crimes. Well, states
Speaker 1: are where they traditionally prosecute election crimes, so they have
Speaker 1: statutes in the books that are really directly designed for
Speaker 1: these types of acts.
Speaker 3: Let me hammer that home.
Speaker 2: Another issue that Trump will run into is that there
Speaker 2: is similar process in the Rico law in Georgia that
Speaker 2: you have a minimum of five years to serve in
Speaker 2: jail if you are convicted of under the Rico statute.
Speaker 2: I also want to underscore what you said. The law
Speaker 2: was written, ironically enough, by a lot of Republicans in
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties. Basically some tough This is a tough
Speaker 2: This is basically a lock them up law in order
Speaker 2: to make it easier for Rico Statutes to apply to
Speaker 2: any criminal enterprise, including a gang. It doesn't even require
Speaker 2: you to all be sitting in the same room deciding
Speaker 2: to prosecute the same crime. As long as you are
Speaker 2: all working toward.
Speaker 3: The same end.
Speaker 2: Even if you did not actually, like specifically talk to
Speaker 2: each other, you could still be prosecuted under the Rico Statutes.
Speaker 2: The law as written and as yet to have faced
Speaker 2: constitutional challenges, had numerous convictions under it, including under the
Speaker 2: current grand jury. This is a real tough one for Trump.
Speaker 2: You got a minimum five year sentence. If convicted, you
Speaker 2: cannot be You cannot be pardoned by a governor. It
Speaker 2: actually goes to a board of pardons. As you were saying,
Speaker 2: there's a They basically wrote it into the law to
Speaker 2: make it as difficult as possible if convicted by a
Speaker 2: jury in the state to get out of it. And
Speaker 2: then also the minimum the minimum prison sentence, and then
Speaker 2: the fact that there is no novel interpretation of law here.
Speaker 2: I actually think the Jacksmith and Diatan is far weaker
Speaker 2: than this one, because this Georgia indictment is specifically they
Speaker 2: are the ones who administer their elections in our federalist system.
Speaker 2: So there are multiple different things here where the federal
Speaker 2: government doesn't have. The federal government does not have the
Speaker 2: same novel interpretation. Trump doesn't have actually the same federal
Speaker 2: protections that he's going to pursue if he does get
Speaker 2: convicted in the DC Court, that he can bring to
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court. Whenever it comes to free speech. This
Speaker 2: is a much different and frankly, a stronger case. We
Speaker 2: also have the Atlanta Journal constitutions is to put some
Speaker 2: of this in plain English one of the things that
Speaker 2: they write, and this is just to make it easier
Speaker 2: for people to understand the phone call specifically that Trump
Speaker 2: made to Georgia officials Brad Rafensberger and Governor Brian Kemp.
Speaker 3: Then you have the alternate GOP.
Speaker 2: Electors who cast Electoral College votes for Trump December fourteenth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, while the official Democratic electors were casting their
Speaker 2: votes for Biden. The false testimony given to State House
Speaker 2: and Senate committees which led to the threats and the
Speaker 2: harassment of Fulton County poll workers, Ruby Freeman and her
Speaker 2: daughter Sey Moss, the copying of sensitive Georgia elections data
Speaker 2: in Coffee County, two hundred miles southef of Atlanta, the
Speaker 2: day after.
Speaker 3: The January sixth, twenty twenty one attack on the Capitol.
Speaker 2: So you put those all together and they constitute the
Speaker 2: actual acts, not just the counts that are listed there
Speaker 2: against Trump, part of the rico enterprise that they are
Speaker 2: bringing against him. I will say, just on a political level,
Speaker 2: because of course, and we have to step back and
Speaker 2: be like, this is political. It was an extremely odd
Speaker 2: situation yesterday, Crystal. Whenever this docket got pot with the
Speaker 2: charges got posted to the Fulton County website, then remove
Speaker 2: from the website they claimed it was fake. Not everything
Speaker 2: that they posted didn't end up being charge. We were
Speaker 2: trying to figure that out this morning. Very odd considering
Speaker 2: the fact that the grand jury had not even yet voted. Also,
Speaker 2: there's a lot being made of and I can't help Alia,
Speaker 2: I mean, it does look ridiculous. Whenever you were reading
Speaker 2: said indictment's at nine to nine page indictment, which both
Speaker 2: of us were going through extensively this morning. They will
Speaker 2: list things like Trump tweeted turn on oaan Georgia hearing.
Speaker 2: This was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Speaker 2: To be clear, he's not being criminally charged, but the
Speaker 2: way that they lay out the case, it's like tweeting
Speaker 2: to tune into a hearing about what would happened or
Speaker 2: whatever in Georgia is what they're signing. If you are
Speaker 2: consuming Fox News or any of the other thing, you
Speaker 2: are going to be hearing quite a bit about that.
Speaker 2: So look, on a political level, it's a real issue
Speaker 2: for not only Trump, but I mean, we didn't even
Speaker 2: note this Rudy Giuliani.
Speaker 3: Now he's facing two charges. Mark Meadows.
Speaker 2: Ironically, Jenna Ellis, who is one of those campaign lawyers,
Speaker 2: she's actually currently backing DeSantis, which makes it even more helecical.
Speaker 2: For yeah, she's currently a DeSantis person. So this lady
Speaker 2: who basically turned on Trump to back DeSantis for the
Speaker 2: nominations now being charged by the state of Georgia and
Speaker 2: as being yeah, charge by the state of Georgia.
Speaker 3: We're trying to overturn the election on Trump's behalf.
Speaker 2: She was the woman who was standing right next to
Speaker 2: Rudy Giuliani at that infamous press conference but then you
Speaker 2: have numerous others, as you said, people alleged to have
Speaker 2: intimidated some of these election workers. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: going to be, I think, a very difficult case for Trump.
Speaker 2: And really, I mean Trump probably has the best chance
Speaker 2: of surviving this because if he does get elected president,
Speaker 2: then there's a whole other jurisprudence and all that stuff
Speaker 2: that kicks in. If you were Rudy or Jennalists or
Speaker 2: any of these normal other folks like you are looking
Speaker 2: at actual prison time here, considering the charges, considering how
Speaker 2: we the burden that you have to reach to be
Speaker 2: convicted under Rico and Georgia is just not that high.
Speaker 2: And you know, specifically whenever you were talking about entering
Speaker 2: false statements for the records like the elector scheme that
Speaker 2: you know, once again, on a federal level, it takes
Speaker 2: a novel interpretation. On a state level, it really doesn't
Speaker 2: in order to prosecute that charge.
Speaker 1: The computer charges too, which again Trump isn't doesn't have
Speaker 1: those charges, but people like Sidney Poll and others do.
Speaker 4: Those are pretty cut and drive too.
Speaker 2: You can't get you straight up like you've got access
Speaker 2: to these.
Speaker 4: Voting systems exactly that.
Speaker 1: By the way, if Democrats had did that, oh my god,
Speaker 1: they would be going wild over on Fox News about
Speaker 1: election fraud. I want to read off so to underscore
Speaker 1: what you were saying, Cyber. Yeah, if you go through
Speaker 1: this indictment, which I confess I got probably about halfway
Speaker 1: through this morning when I woke up, it's chapter and
Speaker 1: verse of this email was sent, this phone call was made,
Speaker 1: this meeting occurred, this person said that Trump tweeted X.
Speaker 1: It really goes through, step by step by step. Now,
Speaker 1: those individual pieces are not all charges, but they're all
Speaker 1: what they considered to be or Whatannie Willis and the
Speaker 1: grand jury agreed were acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Speaker 1: So this is all sort of like context laying out
Speaker 1: the scheme. And this is part of why prosecutors love
Speaker 1: RICO because they can look not just at these individual
Speaker 1: criminal acts as one offs. They can really paint a
Speaker 1: whole portrait of all these people that allegedly contributed to
Speaker 1: the scheme. And that's what you get if you go
Speaker 1: through the indictment. I just want, in the interest of
Speaker 1: you know, you guys having complete information, I want to
Speaker 1: read off the list of names of all the people
Speaker 1: nineteen people who were charged here, so you can get
Speaker 1: a sense of the breadth of this indictment. Of course,
Speaker 1: you've got Trump Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, who is the
Speaker 1: lawyer who's also implicated in Jack Smith's indictment. Mark Meadow's
Speaker 1: former White House Chief of staff Kenneth Cheesebrow, also part
Speaker 1: of that Jack Smith indictment. Jeffrey Clark, former ex assistant
Speaker 1: Attorney General. Another one who was in the Jack Smith indictment,
Speaker 1: Jenna Ellis asager was just mentioning Ray Smith. Third or
Speaker 1: I don't even know who apparently is also a lawyer,
Speaker 1: Bob Cheeley. Another lawyer I don't know, Michael Roman, a
Speaker 1: GOP strategist, David Schaeffer.
Speaker 4: You've got some local Georgia officials here.
Speaker 1: He was the Georgia GOP party chair, Sean Still, a
Speaker 1: state senator, Stephen Cliff guard Lee who was a pastor
Speaker 1: in Illinois, Harrison Floyd Black voices for Trump leader Trevian Cutty,
Speaker 1: the publicist. That's the one I alluded to before as
Speaker 1: like connections to r Kelly and also to Yay who
Speaker 1: was trying to intimidate and coerce these election workers. Sidney Pale,
Speaker 1: Kathy Latham, she's the one who was the former Coffee
Speaker 1: County GOP chair that's where that alleged breach of computer
Speaker 1: systems occurred. Scott Hall, who's a bail bondsman. And Misty
Speaker 1: Hampton another former Coffee County this one elections supervisor who
Speaker 1: we discussed yesterday who appears to have been the individual,
Speaker 1: based on some recordings that they have from Coffee County
Speaker 1: who invited some of the Trump folks in in order
Speaker 1: to allegedly illegally breach these computer systems. So in addition
Speaker 1: to that, there are thirty more people who they describe
Speaker 1: as unindicted co conspirators. So, you know, it really is
Speaker 1: to me there are a couple of things that jump
Speaker 1: out soccer. First of all, you know, I don't give
Speaker 1: the Trump team a lot of credit for like competence
Speaker 1: and organization, but there was clearly a very widespread, organized
Speaker 1: effort in order to achieve this, an attempt to you know,
Speaker 1: institute the fake electors and pressure campaign happening at every level,
Speaker 1: not just the Brad Roethlisberger call that we're all familiar with.
Speaker 4: That's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two, I gotta say the part that is almost
Speaker 1: most calling to me is the way they treated those
Speaker 1: two election workers, the mother and daughter. And this was
Speaker 1: really Rudy Giuliani specifically, but all of Trump was apparently
Speaker 1: obsessed with this as well. There's this clip of them
Speaker 1: floating around. They're election workers. Election workers are like out there.
Speaker 1: Don't have time, do they have volunteered, They don't get paid.
Speaker 1: This is like a public service. I really appreciate the
Speaker 1: work these people do. They were there late at night
Speaker 1: counting and one of them smother and daughter hands a
Speaker 1: mint to the other one. Well Republican got video of
Speaker 1: this and alleged rue Giuliani leading the way that they
Speaker 1: were sharing us b's back and forth and said they
Speaker 1: looked like drug dealers, passing vials of cocaine or crack
Speaker 1: or something like heroin, I don't know, back and forth
Speaker 1: and this just total and complete lie. And then this character,
Speaker 1: this r Kelly Ye publicist character, apparently tricked one of
Speaker 1: them to meeting up with him and then tried to
Speaker 1: coerce them into confessing to crimes they didn't. It's just
Speaker 1: complete insanity, and these women's lives have been destroyed because
Speaker 1: of the scrutiny that they've gotten and the threats that
Speaker 1: have come at them. So the ordinary people that got
Speaker 1: caught up in this and the way that their lives
Speaker 1: were impact, which was almost the most galling part of
Speaker 1: it for me.
Speaker 2: And don't forget that Rudy ended up in terms of
Speaker 2: having to apologize or to admit that in the story he's.
Speaker 1: Being sued for defamation, and he admitted that he lied
Speaker 1: about this and that it was not true. Now he
Speaker 1: still claims his only defense is like, oh, you weren't
Speaker 1: actually harmed by it, Okay, okay, right.
Speaker 2: But the actual allegation because I still see the crap
Speaker 2: I said this yesterday.
Speaker 3: I mean I see this stuff literally going everywhere. Even today.
Speaker 2: You can go and search on Twitter like Fulton County videos,
Speaker 2: and they're still focusing on these people claiming that it
Speaker 2: is some sort of widespread fraud.
Speaker 3: I have to come back to this.
Speaker 2: It's like you lost every single suit in court, every audit,
Speaker 2: not a single thing ever turned up anything. It's like,
Speaker 2: when are you ever going to give up on this idea?
Speaker 2: But the truth is is that it's all fake. And
Speaker 2: you know they'll point to insinuations, which I admit, you
Speaker 2: know they do sound crazy, like, what was the pipes
Speaker 2: burst and they have to stop counting in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night, even if you go back and you
Speaker 2: want to roll the tape.
Speaker 3: I even said at that time, I was like, what
Speaker 3: the hell is going on in here?
Speaker 2: I agree, I think it's crazy, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that it means it doesn't mean that they've been able
Speaker 2: to prove any sort of widespread fraud as a result
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 1: The reality is, when you have an election that's taking
Speaker 1: place and how many tons of thousands of jurisdictions across
Speaker 1: the country, you're going to have some anomalist things occur
Speaker 1: that people that can then point to and be like, aha,
Speaker 1: there's the conspiracy. Really, you know, the odds of having
Speaker 1: an election where there aren't weird you know, pipe breaks
Speaker 1: in some office or whatever would be close to zero
Speaker 1: because things just happen.
Speaker 2: And I would be open to I'm like, okay, prove
Speaker 2: it then you know what are you pointing to?
Speaker 3: But literally all they can ever come back to.
Speaker 2: Is like, oh, well, like this happened, and then eventually
Speaker 2: it's like the state was close. I'm like, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: been a close state. Guess what. It also happened again?
Speaker 2: It's not actually not a novel phenomenon. Two Democrats won
Speaker 2: state in the special election months later, and then.
Speaker 3: What happened in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Look at some of that, and then people like Brian
Speaker 2: Kemp and all of them actually won re election. So
Speaker 2: clearly there is a genuine organic constituency. It's not actually
Speaker 2: a mystery. So look, I mean, you know, Trump at
Speaker 2: the funniest thing is like, with all this effort, if
Speaker 2: he had just said, yeah, go mail in your votes,
Speaker 2: he would have won Georgia and he probably would have
Speaker 2: been president anyway. But it's his own damn fault, you know,
Speaker 2: in the beginning. And then really, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of these people who worked on his behalf his aids,
Speaker 2: you know, and all of.
Speaker 3: Them they don't have executive privilege.
Speaker 2: They don't have the same constitutional protections that the President
Speaker 2: of the United States have. And a lot of these
Speaker 2: people are facing some serious jail time even if they
Speaker 2: do take a plea deal because of the minimum sentencing
Speaker 2: requirements that the judge has to buy George Law abide
Speaker 2: by should this ever come to that. So regardless, like
Speaker 2: this is going to be a serious problem I think
Speaker 2: for many of the people involved.
Speaker 1: To give you the Trump side of things, his campaign
Speaker 1: put on a statement they said, among other things, you know,
Speaker 1: they go through chapter and verse of the Jack Smith
Speaker 1: charges and the Alvin Bragg charges. They describe Fanny Willis
Speaker 1: as a rabid partisan who was campaigning fundraising on a
Speaker 1: platform of prosecuting President Trump through these bogus indictments.
Speaker 4: They go on to.
Speaker 1: Say they could have brought these charges two and a
Speaker 1: half years ago, that they chose to do this for
Speaker 1: election interference reasons in the middle of President Trump's successful campaign.
Speaker 1: They go on to talk about free speech. They're taking
Speaker 1: away President Trump's First Amendment right to free speech and
Speaker 1: the right to challenge. Are rigged and stole an election
Speaker 1: that Democrats do all the time. The ones who should
Speaker 1: be prosecuted are the ones who created the corruption. Let's
Speaker 1: also take a listen to Senator Lindsay Graham, of course,
Speaker 1: has been an ally of Trump's in all of this,
Speaker 1: defending him on Fox News.
Speaker 4: Listake, listen.
Speaker 6: He's spending more money on lawyer fees than he is
Speaker 6: running for office. January the sixth, I was there.
Speaker 7: I saw it. He was impeached over it.
Speaker 6: The American people can decide whether they want him to
Speaker 6: be president or not. This should be decided at the
Speaker 6: ballot box, not a bunch of liberal jurisdictions trying to
Speaker 6: put the man in jail. They're weaponizing the law in
Speaker 6: this country. They're trying to take Donald Trump down, and
Speaker 6: this is setting a bad president.
Speaker 1: I think this is probably their best political argument in
Speaker 1: case that Lindsay Graham is making there. It's one that
Speaker 1: a lot of Americans agree with. They have qualms with
Speaker 1: the timing. They do feel like the prosecutions are political.
Speaker 1: The issue with this particular set of indictments is, unlike
Speaker 1: the others, the political case doesn't really matter this one.
Speaker 1: They're going to have to really make a legal case.
Speaker 1: And we're going to bring an expert in. He can
Speaker 1: tell us wrong if we're getting this, you know, if
Speaker 1: we're off based on this. But I think he's got
Speaker 1: a pretty tough uphill climb in terms of making a
Speaker 1: legal case on these particular charges and soccer. The last
Speaker 1: thing that I will say on all of this, and
Speaker 1: then we'll bring in Bradley Moss, is one other way
Speaker 1: that this is different is these this trial is going
Speaker 1: to be on TV. Yes, So in terms of the
Speaker 1: federal trials are unlikely to be on television. We're just
Speaker 1: going to get the reports of whatever is happening in
Speaker 1: the courtroom. This one is going to be a made
Speaker 1: for TV event. It is going to be the Trump Show.
Speaker 1: You know, we're used to presidential campaigns where you got
Speaker 1: debates and rallies and that's the focus of attention. This
Speaker 1: right here is what a lot of the campaign is
Speaker 1: going to be focused around.
Speaker 7: And it's going to.
Speaker 1: Be because he's a stay charges. He can't pardon himself.
Speaker 1: He's going to have to actually prove in the courtroom.
Speaker 1: And I think it's going to be pretty tough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's going well. At least we'll all get
Speaker 2: in a nice, good TV show about it. Let's go
Speaker 2: ahead to Bradley Moss. We've got him on standby. Let's
Speaker 2: get to it.
Speaker 1: Very pleased to be joined now by Bradley Moss. He
Speaker 1: of course is a national security lawyer, has helped us
Speaker 1: out on a variety of these indictments.
Speaker 4: Great to have you, Bradley.
Speaker 7: Good she brod absolutely anytime.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1: Just give us your first reactions as you read through
Speaker 1: this indictment. Took a look at all the charges against Trump,
Speaker 1: and his eighteen co conspirators.
Speaker 4: Here was this what you expected? What were some of
Speaker 4: your big takeaways?
Speaker 8: Yeah, first reaction, Wow, this was everyone and anyone tied
Speaker 8: up in the Trump schemes in the later weeks of
Speaker 8: twenty twenty and going in past his departure from office,
Speaker 8: leading up into twenty s point when we were still
Speaker 8: pressuring the Georgia officials to decertify the election. Somehow this
Speaker 8: was the entire scheme of all the different lawyers he
Speaker 8: managed to co opt into pushing these various criminal acts.
Speaker 7: He's got Sidney Powell and her squad, you know, breaking into.
Speaker 8: The Coffee County, you know, state's election systems and taking
Speaker 8: ballot He's got Rudy Giuliani going before the state legislators
Speaker 8: and talking to the Georgia state officials, pushing these what
Speaker 8: he knew to be false claims about dead bodies pen
Speaker 8: people voting, and all these missing ballots and the Ruby
Speaker 8: Freeman nonsense that Rudy Giuliani is facing a several separate
Speaker 8: defamation and lawsuit over.
Speaker 7: He got Johnny's Been, he got Jeffrey Clark.
Speaker 8: They're all tied up in this, and it's put in
Speaker 8: the context of Rico because it was one overarching criminal conspiracy.
Speaker 8: There were different people playing different roles, but under Rico,
Speaker 8: they were all pushing towards one court, one core common goal,
Speaker 8: which was to overturn the election, to reverse the results
Speaker 8: what the American people, in their decision and their logic,
Speaker 8: chose to do, which was to elect Joe Biden. And
Speaker 8: Donald Trump could not accept that. He was willing to
Speaker 8: look for anyone willing to push any garbage he could
Speaker 8: to prevent that from happening. And now he and all
Speaker 8: of them are going to be co defendants at least
Speaker 8: for the moment in this proceeding.
Speaker 2: So, Brad, I want to ask you something that we
Speaker 2: got into a little bit last time, which is if
Speaker 2: we want to we've gone and described the charges. Now
Speaker 2: you've done a good job here, What possible avenues of
Speaker 2: defense does Trump have here?
Speaker 3: Because this seems difficult.
Speaker 2: Last time we talked about free speech, but that's whenever
Speaker 2: it's a federal context.
Speaker 3: This is actual state election law.
Speaker 2: So reading the indictment, what avenues defense does Trump himself
Speaker 2: and even some of his alleged co conspirators. What do
Speaker 2: they have against the charges that have been levied against them?
Speaker 8: Some of the defenses will be similar to what we're
Speaker 8: going to see Donald Trump bring at the federal level.
Speaker 8: One of them is obviously going to be that free
Speaker 8: speech angle we've talked about. He'll have both, you know,
Speaker 8: a First Amendment right out of the US Constitution. He
Speaker 8: will have his free speech rights under the Georgia State Constitution.
Speaker 8: And there is the course, the intent element, whether or
Speaker 8: not the DA Vannie Willis is able to prove the
Speaker 8: various individuals intent that they knew these statements were false,
Speaker 8: that Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Allis knew their factual allegations
Speaker 8: that they were presenting to the state legislator, that they
Speaker 8: we're preventing as are presenting to the Secretary of State
Speaker 8: were in fact false.
Speaker 7: That's going to be a factual burden she'll have to meet.
Speaker 8: But if you readro the indictment, and we've seen some
Speaker 8: of this from the January sixth committee, we've seen some
Speaker 8: of this do Jack Smith's speaking indictment. We have extensive
Speaker 8: documents the documentation already showing how much these individuals knew
Speaker 8: these facts were false. They went hunting for anyone who
Speaker 8: would tell them. Sure, you can make it but the
Speaker 8: facts they knew were not accurate.
Speaker 7: They knew they didn't have verification.
Speaker 8: We have Rudy Giuliani saying we have lots of theories,
Speaker 8: no evidence. We have John Eastman an emails saying the
Speaker 8: complaint that Donald Trump spot to sign with these allegations.
Speaker 8: Those allegations are false, and Donald Trump's been told they
Speaker 8: are false. They put it down in writing, so we
Speaker 8: know that they can meet that intent element. But that's
Speaker 8: going to be an element of their defense. They're going
Speaker 8: to try to poke holes in it. What I'm looking
Speaker 8: for who starts making plea deals. We know some of
Speaker 8: these people are on the peripheral side of it. You know,
Speaker 8: think of Jenna Alis as the least exposure. For example,
Speaker 8: Johnny ss Ben Jeff Clark had far more exposure on
Speaker 8: the federal side. Look for them to start making plea
Speaker 8: deals to try to get this off the table and
Speaker 8: to cooperate to bring down the bigger fish, which is
Speaker 8: Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Donald Trump.
Speaker 7: Got it.
Speaker 1: So I have a bunch of potentially stupid questions, But
Speaker 1: let me We've got you socially. Let me just ask you, so,
Speaker 1: first of all, on the free speech part. Even when
Speaker 1: it comes to Trump's call with Brad Raffensberger, can't they argue,
Speaker 1: you know, this is just this is political speech, this
Speaker 1: is free speech, and this is one of the pieces
Speaker 1: that you know, that's a component of this indictment.
Speaker 4: And the indictment goes through chapter and verse of you.
Speaker 1: Know, Trump's tweets, which certainly seem like they would be
Speaker 1: political speech, and emails that were sent, and phone calls
Speaker 1: that were made, and think comments that were made of
Speaker 1: press conferences, et cetera.
Speaker 4: So where's the line between these are.
Speaker 1: You know, things that the president is allowed to say
Speaker 1: and things that are actually part of a criminal conspiracy.
Speaker 7: Yes, so it's not a dumb question. It's a very
Speaker 7: good question.
Speaker 8: It's certainly going to be raised in pre trial motions,
Speaker 8: both in Georgia and in the federal case. The distinction,
Speaker 8: according to the Supreme Court in recent years, is that
Speaker 8: free speech only goes so far until you are seeking
Speaker 8: or commanding someone to themselves engaged in a criminal act.
Speaker 8: That's what's being outlined here. For example, with the January
Speaker 8: second call that he was trying to get Raffisberger to
Speaker 8: do something Raffensberger could not do, and that Trump was
Speaker 8: relying on information he knew to be false in order
Speaker 8: to get Raffensberger to do it. Raffenisberger didn't have the
Speaker 8: authority to decertify the election. He didn't have the authority
Speaker 8: to throw out those votes or to just declare Trump
Speaker 8: the winner. Same thing goes with his conversations with Jeff Clark.
Speaker 8: He just wanted Jeff Clark to send this letter to
Speaker 8: the Georgia officials saying the Just Department has concluded there
Speaker 8: were irregularities, so go call a special session. They knew
Speaker 8: they had just been told by the other White House
Speaker 8: lawyers and by the DJ lawyers. None of that's true.
Speaker 8: We found no such thing, but they were going to
Speaker 8: try to ask the Georgia officials to do it.
Speaker 7: Anyways. That's where the distinction comes.
Speaker 8: You can use free speech to do a lot of
Speaker 8: things in this country, but you can't use it as
Speaker 8: a means to further a criminal conspiracy or to seek
Speaker 8: other criminal acts to.
Speaker 7: Be done for you.
Speaker 2: One of the things I'm really hearing from you is
Speaker 2: that they have to prove, basically beyond reasonable doubt that
Speaker 2: he knew that these things were false when he was
Speaker 2: doing them, and not just Trump, but almost all of
Speaker 2: the co conspirators. Given you know, we've gone through some
Speaker 2: of the evidence you laid out here about some of
Speaker 2: the things that we're in writing, is do you think
Speaker 2: that that is going to be enough?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 2: Will they have to be able to prove what counter
Speaker 2: case can Trump make to that? No, I didn't believe that,
Speaker 2: or like that was alleged to me. But that, like
Speaker 2: trying to prove somebody's state of mind, seems like a
Speaker 2: very difficult task and able to be undermined by reasonable doubts. So, like,
Speaker 2: to what burden do they have to rise to in
Speaker 2: order to prove it?
Speaker 7: Sure?
Speaker 8: So, proving intent is always a difficult thing prosecutors have
Speaker 8: to deal with every day because by and large, you
Speaker 8: never truly know what's in someone's mind.
Speaker 7: But let's be clear, you.
Speaker 8: Can't use delusion as a defense. You can't say I'm
Speaker 8: at deranged maniac. I always believe that you know the
Speaker 8: water is blue, because that's what you know Elex Jones
Speaker 8: put in it or someone you have to have some
Speaker 8: basis for it, and they can provide to a journy.
Speaker 8: The jury can infer based off various circumstantial evidence from witnesses,
Speaker 8: from documentation, from emails, from texts, from any number of
Speaker 8: witness testimony, what the person's actual state of mind was.
Speaker 7: And that's going to be.
Speaker 8: Very critical when it comes to Trump and Rudy and
Speaker 8: Sidney Powell and people like that.
Speaker 7: What they were told.
Speaker 8: Donald Trump was told by everybody and their mother there
Speaker 8: was no fraud. Everyone from the government told him it
Speaker 8: didn't happen. Everyone from his campaign told him it didn't happen.
Speaker 8: So in private, lawyers told him it didn't happen. So
Speaker 8: he just kept seeking out someone who would say, I
Speaker 8: can make an argument. They didn't have proof, but they could,
Speaker 8: you know, throw out some crazy argument. Sidney Powell's lunatic affidavids,
Speaker 8: which got her sanctioned by the way for using that garbage.
Speaker 7: Those were what he was relying on. That's not going
Speaker 7: to be enough.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, brat, How will this trial actually work?
Speaker 1: This again falls in the category of, you know, potentially
Speaker 1: stupid questions. Are they all part of the same trial?
Speaker 1: Do they share a legal defense? Like, how do all
Speaker 1: of these nineteen indicted individuals, how do they relate and
Speaker 1: link up as this process moves forward?
Speaker 7: Sure?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 8: Right now, because this was brought under the Georgia State rico.
Speaker 8: They're all in one big case. There's going to be
Speaker 8: one massive defense table with all the each defendant.
Speaker 7: And their lawyers, and there's going to be the government
Speaker 7: on the other side.
Speaker 8: It's going to be like you think of when they
Speaker 8: went after mob bosses and they're all there underlings. When
Speaker 8: you see a gain trial, which Funni Wils has done
Speaker 8: several of those, as well as when they went after
Speaker 8: state educators in Georgia who were inflating scores and they
Speaker 8: about eleven of them got indicted and convicted for that, it.
Speaker 7: Would be one big trial.
Speaker 8: Now individuals, individual defendants might try to sever themselves. I
Speaker 8: would certainly look for that to be something. You'll also
Speaker 8: have to wonder at what point, like I said before,
Speaker 8: when would people start making clee deals.
Speaker 7: When are some of the people on the.
Speaker 8: Periphery who don't have endless resources and you know roups
Speaker 8: who are willing to keep sending them money to fight
Speaker 8: the man, When are they going to cut deals because
Speaker 8: they can't afford the lawyers. And so that's going to
Speaker 8: be what kind of shrinks down the pool. But in
Speaker 8: the end, I wouldn't be surprised we get the trial,
Speaker 8: it's Donald Trump and maybe seven or eight other people
Speaker 8: with him at that defense table facing this prosecution.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 8: Sure.
Speaker 1: The other thing I'm trying to, you know, quick become
Speaker 1: a RICO expert here, as I'm sure many other commentators are.
Speaker 1: How walk me through how this works legally because I'm
Speaker 1: still having a little bit of trouble wrapping my head
Speaker 1: around it. So, each one of these nineteen individuals is
Speaker 1: charged under the Rico statute, and then they all have
Speaker 1: additional charges. Trump has, you know, thirteen charges total, and
Speaker 1: they have different number depending on who they were and
Speaker 1: what their involvement were.
Speaker 4: So to prove if you just prove.
Speaker 1: That they're part of the criminal conspiracy, they're part of
Speaker 1: you know, the criminal organization and the criminal conspiracy, but
Speaker 1: you don't prove those other specific charges. Do they still
Speaker 1: you know, are they still guilty?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 4: How does that all work out?
Speaker 1: Because I'm having trouble kind of wrapping my head around
Speaker 1: exactly the mechanics of this.
Speaker 8: Yes, So RICO is based a glorified conspiracy statue. It
Speaker 8: requires that you obviously still be separately charged with at
Speaker 8: least I believe two other crimes under state law in
Speaker 8: terms of the Georgia State Rico statue. So if they
Speaker 8: were to be found not guilty on the underlying offenses,
Speaker 8: then their Georgia Rico charge would also fail. But the
Speaker 8: reason to use Rico is when you have these different
Speaker 8: components of a larger criminals can scheme all the larger
Speaker 8: criminal scheme all going towards one common goal, and you
Speaker 8: can bring it all into one giant case. That's why
Speaker 8: it was originally created in the seventies and eighties, to
Speaker 8: go after the mob, to bring down the families, bring
Speaker 8: down the top bosses.
Speaker 7: It's been used.
Speaker 8: Against gang members, it's been used against any number of
Speaker 8: what it can be considered criminal enterprises.
Speaker 7: And that's why it's going to be used here.
Speaker 8: And that's the biggest problem for Donald Trump is he's
Speaker 8: caught up with all the people he co.
Speaker 7: Opted to engage in this behavior and he's.
Speaker 3: Stuck with them.
Speaker 2: Well, we always appreciate your analysis, Brad, I always bring it.
Speaker 2: So we appreciate you joining us this morning, and it's
Speaker 2: been very helpful.
Speaker 7: Absolutely anytime.
Speaker 3: Thanks bad I'll see you guys later.
Speaker 8: M