Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WIKA F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording live from my Brooklyn silarium.
Speaker 1: Look at the plant babies, folks. I got to tell
Speaker 1: you that each and every day I kind of I
Speaker 1: wake up and I peruse the news as one does.
Speaker 1: I go to Twitter, I go to the New York Times,
Speaker 1: I go to Wall Street Journal, I go to Slade,
Speaker 1: I go to Medium. I go to a range of
Speaker 1: places in order to process what is going on today
Speaker 1: and every day. I got to tell you, since Trump
Speaker 1: left office, I have gone to these places waiting waiting
Speaker 1: for the fucking headline that says that Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: all of his criminal assists are being indicted, that they're
Speaker 1: actually going to be criminally charged. Do you know that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has been sued a major multiple times, investigated
Speaker 1: multiple times, he had if you remember, Trump University was
Speaker 1: shut down by Attorney general State Attorney General Letitia James
Speaker 1: here in New York, who is now running for governor.
Speaker 1: And yet every day that I wait for this breaking news,
Speaker 1: I wait for these headlines, they never come. So last
Speaker 1: week we had an announcement from the Manhattan District Attorney's
Speaker 1: office that they were going to be in paneling a
Speaker 1: second grand jury right to investigate Trump. Now, what you
Speaker 1: will learn from my conversation with our friend Glenn Kirshner
Speaker 1: is at sivance. The prior Manhattan District attorney had him
Speaker 1: paneled a jury for six months. We've talked about that
Speaker 1: on woke AF and I believed, or at least I hoped,
Speaker 1: during that six months that we were going to see
Speaker 1: a barrage of fucking indictments. Now, while I guess we
Speaker 1: can feel encouraged ish that there is a second grand
Speaker 1: jury that is going to be in operation because there's
Speaker 1: just so much information to go through, I just wonder,
Speaker 1: this is my real question, folks, how much information, how
Speaker 1: much evidence is required to indict a wealthy white man
Speaker 1: in America? Because let's just be fucking honest. As we
Speaker 1: are watching these insurrectionist cases, as we are watching the
Speaker 1: Kyle Rittenhouse case, as we are seeing all of this transpire,
Speaker 1: what it proves right in this country is that black
Speaker 1: lives really do not matter at the only people BIPOC lives,
Speaker 1: Black Indigenous people of color BIPOC lives don't fucking matter.
Speaker 1: Low income lives right do not matter that the only
Speaker 1: thing that matters in America is the one currency that
Speaker 1: none of us, right who were not born white can use,
Speaker 1: which is your whiteness. And then you add your maleness
Speaker 1: your wealth on top of that, and you're in a
Speaker 1: league all of your own. You're in a league that
Speaker 1: the system was built to protect. Right, we have to
Speaker 1: understand sometimes and really get back to the there there
Speaker 1: that these systems that we have just understood as our norms, right,
Speaker 1: as understood as the ways to keep us safe. Like
Speaker 1: the lie that we tell ourselves about police officers right
Speaker 1: in their presence and the fact that you know the
Speaker 1: police are there to keep us safe, and that the
Speaker 1: only reason why crime goes up or crime goes down
Speaker 1: is because of police presence, which is a lie. Right
Speaker 1: we say this. There are reports and documentation to the
Speaker 1: contrary that say that more police does not equal more safety.
Speaker 1: But you see Democrats get caught up in their desire
Speaker 1: to seem tough on crime. That's how we got the
Speaker 1: fucking crime bill that put generations of black people and
Speaker 1: brown people in prison. Right, That's where we got maximum
Speaker 1: minimum sentences from is because Democrats, after being told by
Speaker 1: the Republicans that they were soft on crime that they
Speaker 1: came out with this robust people. Hey, we're going to
Speaker 1: lock up more black and brown people than you could
Speaker 1: ever do. Right, will show you realizing that they're all
Speaker 1: functioning on the same foundation of white supremacy. Right, So
Speaker 1: here we have a po I love evidence, I mean
Speaker 1: the evidence against Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, Mark Meadows in
Speaker 1: their own fucking words. Right, let's just look at the
Speaker 1: pandemic first, right, which, by the way, nobody is on
Speaker 1: trial for in this country. We talked about the Brazilian
Speaker 1: president Bulcinato, right, and the fact that his Senate wants
Speaker 1: to investigate him and bring criminal charges because of the
Speaker 1: neglect that led to the hundreds of thousands of deaths
Speaker 1: in Brazil due to COVID. But there's no one in
Speaker 1: these United States that are looking into bringing charges right
Speaker 1: of criminal negligence right against Donald Trump and the Trump
Speaker 1: administration for what he told Bob Woodward and in fact,
Speaker 1: the world after we listened to the audio transcript that
Speaker 1: he fucking knew about the coronavirus, knew how deadly it was, right,
Speaker 1: knew that it was more deadly than the flu, knew
Speaker 1: how it could be contracted and then even after expressly
Speaker 1: saying that in his own fucking words, that motherfucker isn't
Speaker 1: on trial, right, no one has even brought it up,
Speaker 1: because I honestly believe that Democrats and Republicans want to
Speaker 1: just turn the fucking page whatever that means. You know,
Speaker 1: they want to turn the page on Trump, and oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know it's because Terry mcculliffe talked about Trump, which
Speaker 1: is why he lost in Virginia. No, Terry mcculliffe lost
Speaker 1: in Virginia because Democrats don't have any fucking policy to
Speaker 1: stand on. Terry mcculliffe lost in Virginia because he ran
Speaker 1: a lackluster, uninspiring campaign, because he was a lackluster, uninspiring candidate.
Speaker 1: So they make up these excuses in their head, like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: we can't talk about these very important issues that have
Speaker 1: to do with the security of our democracy or the
Speaker 1: security of our people, right because that would be seen
Speaker 1: as political. Well, in my conversation with Glenn, Glenn makes
Speaker 1: a really good point, do you know what is also political?
Speaker 1: Having a stack of fucking evidence in front of you
Speaker 1: that you refuse to actually look at, that you refuse
Speaker 1: to do your part in upholding the law right and
Speaker 1: really securing faith in our criminal justice system knowing that
Speaker 1: it is an unjust system by going after people regardless
Speaker 1: of what the fallout would be, because you see, what
Speaker 1: Glenn Will tell us is that there is really no
Speaker 1: difference right now between how this current Department of Justice
Speaker 1: is acting right or their inaction, and then the actions
Speaker 1: that were taken in the Bar Department of Justice. You see,
Speaker 1: they were both being political. Barr was playing the wolf
Speaker 1: and the clean up guy for Donald Trump's criminality and
Speaker 1: using the Department of Justice as an extension of the
Speaker 1: Trump campaign of the Trump administration. Well, Merrick Garland's refusal
Speaker 1: to act right now given all of the shit in
Speaker 1: front of him because of whatever we want to call it,
Speaker 1: prosecutor prosecutorial timidity, or just playing bullshit and fear is
Speaker 1: also political. Being inactive in the pursuit of justice because
Speaker 1: you're worried about what other people, what the other party
Speaker 1: is going to say about you, doesn't make you any
Speaker 1: less political than a Bill Barr, who used the full
Speaker 1: power of the same agency in order to protect a
Speaker 1: mob fucking boss that was elected president of the United States.
Speaker 1: So my feeling here is that once again we see
Speaker 1: over and over and over and over and over again
Speaker 1: that so long as you're white, so long as you
Speaker 1: are male and wealthy and powerful and connected, you're safe.
Speaker 1: You're good. Right, Because let me tell you how little
Speaker 1: evidence would have been needed to throw a black Stephen
Speaker 1: Bannon in jail. Let me tell you how little evidence
Speaker 1: Republicans would have needed if Obama right had done a
Speaker 1: quarter of the things that Donald Trump had done. Like,
Speaker 1: let us all take the mind trip right back to
Speaker 1: the end of Bill Clinton's presidency, where he was impeached
Speaker 1: for a blowjob. Right, that blowjob didn't in danger the
Speaker 1: American people, It didn't kill four hundred thousand people, It
Speaker 1: didn't put us in precarious situations. It didn't endear our
Speaker 1: long sworn enemies. Right, it didn't do anything except make
Speaker 1: us think like, oh, well, I guess the President of
Speaker 1: the United States really is a human being and is fallible. Right,
Speaker 1: That's what it made me think. Because you had a
Speaker 1: political party at one time that always wanted to claim
Speaker 1: the fucking moral high ground. But they can't do that
Speaker 1: anymore because of who they associate themselves with. But because
Speaker 1: Democrats don't provide any messaging to the contrary, they're still
Speaker 1: able to pretend to perform morality. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: We know that Donald Trump is a criminal, But what
Speaker 1: I recognize is that the only time that we ever
Speaker 1: in this country throw the book at somebody, want to
Speaker 1: stomp them into the ground and want to put them
Speaker 1: under the jail, is if they are black and brown
Speaker 1: and poor, then we're going to do everything in our power. Right.
Speaker 1: Then we can kick indoors, we can pull you out, right,
Speaker 1: we can parade you in front of the press, right,
Speaker 1: we can throw red meat, we can make all of
Speaker 1: the headlines, but we never do that. You know, one
Speaker 1: of the insurrectionists, and I can't even be troubled to
Speaker 1: remember the woman's name at the time, but she had
Speaker 1: posted on social media that after the insurrection, she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to jail. None of us are going
Speaker 1: to jail, right, because she knew that her whiteness, right
Speaker 1: and apparently her white woman's tears, We're going to protect
Speaker 1: her because why should she ever think otherwise. Now she
Speaker 1: is in fact going to jail, right. But the way
Speaker 1: that we are handling this insurrection with kid gloves, the
Speaker 1: way that we are and everybody wants to say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we just want to get things right. But it's so
Speaker 1: funny to me how it's we can move with the
Speaker 1: speed of light to lock black and brown people up,
Speaker 1: because that's where this country believes that black and brown
Speaker 1: people belong. Right. But we got to be super duper sure.
Speaker 1: We gotta dot our eyes and cross all of our teas,
Speaker 1: and underline our words and use highlighters and make absolutely
Speaker 1: sure that we would never unjustly send a white woman,
Speaker 1: a white person to prison, even though they tell us
Speaker 1: via social media, they tell us via their own conversations
Speaker 1: with reporters on podcasts just how fucking criminal they are.
Speaker 1: But oh, we don't know what's in their heart. We
Speaker 1: need more evidence. If the past year hasn't shown you
Speaker 1: how unjust our criminal justice system is, how unbalanced it is,
Speaker 1: how it is fixed and rigged. You want to talk
Speaker 1: about a system that is rigged, It's not elections, No,
Speaker 1: it's our criminal justice system. Right. There are stories left
Speaker 1: and right about innocent black people being in jail, not
Speaker 1: being able to afford a lawyer. The Caliph Browder story
Speaker 1: of being in Rikers for three years, beaten, abused, right
Speaker 1: for thought that he stole a backpack. There was no
Speaker 1: fucking evidence, but he sat in Rikers for three years.
Speaker 1: We have all the evidence in the world against Steve Bannon,
Speaker 1: Mark Meadows, Donald Trump, Don McGann, all of them, Loui
Speaker 1: de Joy, but we're waiting for what some fucking magic unicorn.
Speaker 1: What I want people to see if nothing else, is
Speaker 1: that the reason why folks march, the reason why they protest,
Speaker 1: the reason why they get to a place in a
Speaker 1: state where they just want to burn shit down literally
Speaker 1: is because of this. Because as a person of color,
Speaker 1: you feel like you were screaming into a fucking void
Speaker 1: every single day, waiting for a white person to pay attention,
Speaker 1: waiting for somebody to be like, oh you know what
Speaker 1: racism does exist? Do you know what it is? Actually
Speaker 1: in every part of every system, every agency, every aspect
Speaker 1: of your every day. It is so fucking exhausting to
Speaker 1: do this, to have these conversations all the goddamn time,
Speaker 1: and people like on Twitter, they will still say, oh,
Speaker 1: well that's not the case, that's not true, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: fuck you, go follow somebody else, go spread your bullshit
Speaker 1: somewhere else, because I'm not buying it. Because we can
Speaker 1: all see those of us with real, like thought, real
Speaker 1: brains in our heads that haven't had a lobotomy by
Speaker 1: this cultish white supremacist party know exactly what is happening
Speaker 1: here or what is not happening. And it's infuriating because
Speaker 1: if you are not mad, right, if your blood does
Speaker 1: not boil right now, then you are not paying attention.
Speaker 1: But I know that you guys are the wokes of
Speaker 1: the woke, and what I ask is that you share
Speaker 1: these sentiments everywhere and anywhere, because it is going to
Speaker 1: be the power of the people that is going to
Speaker 1: get things done, if at all, because we shore as
Speaker 1: fuck cannot rely on agencies on our government to do
Speaker 1: what is necessary because they're too busy pandering, right, They're
Speaker 1: too busy performing outrage instead of actually being outraged. Coming
Speaker 1: up next, dear friends, is my conversation with our favorite
Speaker 1: former federal prosecutor and yours, Glenn Kershner, will be up next.
Speaker 1: I am so excited because there's been some news, some
Speaker 1: actual movement, right. I don't know if it's good news.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's bad news. And to help
Speaker 1: us break it down all the legal news, as we
Speaker 1: do every single week, is our friend MSNBC legal analyst
Speaker 1: and contributor and host of Justice Matters, Glenn Kirshner Glenn, Okay,
Speaker 1: So we've had an election, we have a new Manhattan
Speaker 1: DA here, and my hope was that they were going
Speaker 1: to pick off, pick up where side Vance has left off.
Speaker 1: Announcement came out this week saying that the Manhattan District
Speaker 1: Attorney's off is seeking a second grand jury looking into
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, the Trump organization. Is this a good thing
Speaker 1: or a bad thing, because, as our friend Ellie Mstall
Speaker 1: has said recently, he goes, you know, Ken Star called
Speaker 1: a called the grand jury for one thing and ended
Speaker 1: up with a dress. So how is it that we
Speaker 1: are having to call in a second grand jury here?
Speaker 1: And what does that mean? So I think the most
Speaker 1: accurate answer is we don't know, right, because there are
Speaker 1: a number of reasons to call in a second grand jury.
Speaker 1: So let me just kind of break down the grand
Speaker 1: jury practice. Generally, in some jurisdictions, jurisdictions, grand juries only
Speaker 1: sit for about four to six weeks, and I think
Speaker 1: that's the ordinary practice in New York. So we all
Speaker 1: sat up and took note when sie Vance requested a
Speaker 1: special grand jury to sit for six months. What that
Speaker 1: tells me is he wanted consistency with the same grand
Speaker 1: jurs over a six month period so he could present
Speaker 1: the Trump organization case to them, the Weisselburg case to them,
Speaker 1: perhaps the Donald Trump case to them. Well, we got
Speaker 1: two out of the three, right, We got the organization indicted,
Speaker 1: we got Weisselberg indicted. And now there are a couple
Speaker 1: of things going on. One, that six month grand jury
Speaker 1: is coming to the end of its term. The logical
Speaker 1: thing to do, if you were engaged in the exact
Speaker 1: same investigation with the same scope and the same targets,
Speaker 1: would be to request and extension of that same grand jury.
Speaker 1: That's not what they're doing. They're requesting a separate new
Speaker 1: grand jury. Now they could be doing that for a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. It could simply be procedural. The six
Speaker 1: month grand jury, let me tell you, it's an imposition.
Speaker 1: When we bring citizens in to spend six months of
Speaker 1: their lives sitting as grand juris. It may be that
Speaker 1: they're they're worn out, and they now need to impanel
Speaker 1: a new batch of grand jurors. The other possibility is
Speaker 1: that sometimes when you investigate in a grand jury, you
Speaker 1: end up presenting them a lot of information that ultimately
Speaker 1: you're not going to use to ask them to vote
Speaker 1: out indictments, and you don't want to taint the indictment,
Speaker 1: so you impanel a second grand jury. You only present
Speaker 1: to them the information you want them to have available
Speaker 1: to vote on indictments. That way, you can't be accused
Speaker 1: of sort of poisoning the well when that ultimate indictment
Speaker 1: is returned. Let me maybe a parallel in trial practice.
Speaker 1: All the time, we have people blurt stuff out that's
Speaker 1: inadmissible in front of the jury. What does the judge do?
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm instructing you to strike that from
Speaker 1: your mind. It may play no role in your deliberations.
Speaker 1: It was inadmissible information, and we assume the jurors follow
Speaker 1: the judge's instructions. Well, there really is no comparable protection
Speaker 1: in the grand jury when a whole bunch of information
Speaker 1: and evidence comes out that we as prosecutors ultimately don't
Speaker 1: want the grand jury to consider when they're voting out indictments.
Speaker 1: So it could be procedural, it could be substitutive, it
Speaker 1: could be a combination of the two. We don't know
Speaker 1: what we don't know, so we're just trying to read
Speaker 1: t leaves at this point. So let me ask you
Speaker 1: some rudimentary questions, right for those of us who are
Speaker 1: not lawyers but like to play them on TV. So
Speaker 1: let me ask you this. When you have when Civans
Speaker 1: had this first grand jury that was sitting for six months,
Speaker 1: are we starting from scratch with the second grand jury?
Speaker 1: Because you have all of this information, all of this
Speaker 1: investigation that has happened over this time with this group
Speaker 1: of what twelve people I'm assuming right, and the jurors
Speaker 1: usually have about twenty three, okay people, and they and
Speaker 1: they twelve of them have to vote in favor of
Speaker 1: an indictment. Okay, So we have these twenty three people
Speaker 1: that now have this six month wealth of knowledge. What
Speaker 1: happens with that versus this new batch of twenty three,
Speaker 1: you know, randomly selected people that are now going to
Speaker 1: sit like this is the I'm interested in understanding the
Speaker 1: continuity of how one puts together a case of this
Speaker 1: scope with this many people. Great question, Danielle. That's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons federal grand juries sit for about eighteen
Speaker 1: months at a time, maybe a couple of days a week,
Speaker 1: and then we can extend that grand jury until our
Speaker 1: investigation is complete and we can ask for final indictments
Speaker 1: to be returned. But in the state system, when you've
Speaker 1: got grand juries for you know, six weeks in a climate,
Speaker 1: it's always a new batch of people coming in. How
Speaker 1: do we achieve continuity? Here's how. Let's assume that this
Speaker 1: six month grand jury is just worn out and they
Speaker 1: need to impanel a new group of people. What prosecutors
Speaker 1: will do is they will take the transcripts from the
Speaker 1: prior grand jury that's at for six months and heard
Speaker 1: maybe two hundred witnesses. They will present them to the
Speaker 1: second grand jury, often in summarized fashion, or they won't
Speaker 1: present them at all. Maybe a hundred of those witnesses
Speaker 1: really didn't add much of substance to the indictment mix,
Speaker 1: so there's no need to represent that information. So there
Speaker 1: are ways to represent information, even in summarized form, to
Speaker 1: the incoming grand jury, to bring them up to speed quickly,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to end up starting over from scraps.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay, So this makes more sense to me
Speaker 1: and is more clarifying. Now talk to us just for
Speaker 1: folks again, because I find this all very interesting. You know,
Speaker 1: many of us have gone through what it would be
Speaker 1: like to be on a regular jury. Right, we go
Speaker 1: in for every duty, you're selected, you're not selected. In
Speaker 1: part of the Washington Post um coverage of this of
Speaker 1: this m second grand jury coming on, they're telling us
Speaker 1: that these folks will be coming in three days a week,
Speaker 1: um over the next you know, several several weeks. What
Speaker 1: is it? What are some of the differences that we
Speaker 1: understand between what many of us have been called into
Speaker 1: to under you know, a regular I'll just call it
Speaker 1: a regular jury selection versus a grand jury of this scope.
Speaker 1: And are these people because they're not being sequestered right
Speaker 1: like there, it's not like the movie Runaway Jury, which
Speaker 1: is one of my favorites. It's not like you're being
Speaker 1: sequestered away from family and friends for months. You're going
Speaker 1: home and you're kind of going into this part time
Speaker 1: job three days a week. So how does that play
Speaker 1: out for the for these people? So? Um, yeah, we
Speaker 1: have much more control over trial juries because the judge
Speaker 1: instructs them that, you know, listen, under the penalties of contempt,
Speaker 1: you are required to follow the court's instructions like you
Speaker 1: may not discuss this case while it is ongoing. Until
Speaker 1: it's concluded. You can't discuss it with anybody, not your friends,
Speaker 1: not your family. Why because if you go home and
Speaker 1: you exchange ideas and information about the evidence, you're going
Speaker 1: to bring their ideas and their perspectives into the case.
Speaker 1: And that's improper because they're not sitting there listening to
Speaker 1: the evidence. So we try to replicate that in the
Speaker 1: grand jury because remember, the grand jury is an arm
Speaker 1: of the court, it's not the arm of the prosecutor.
Speaker 1: So when grand jurors are in processed after the court
Speaker 1: you know, brings them in for grand jury service, they
Speaker 1: do get all of the standard instructions, many that are
Speaker 1: that are the same as the instructions we give to
Speaker 1: trial jury. So you know, they understand that they are
Speaker 1: not to speak about the investigation outside the four walls
Speaker 1: of the grand jury room because it's a secret proceeding
Speaker 1: by law for lots of good reasons, but it is
Speaker 1: a little bit less controlled, so we often have to
Speaker 1: rely on the you know, the good sense and the
Speaker 1: ethics of the grand jurors. I will tell you, after
Speaker 1: thirty years of going in and out of grand jury rooms.
Speaker 1: My take is that grand jurors take their responsibilities very seriously.
Speaker 1: Every once in a while there is a breach. Information
Speaker 1: leaks out, and then we have to investigate did it
Speaker 1: come from a grand jur because that could be a
Speaker 1: prosecutable offense if a grand jury, If a grand jury
Speaker 1: leaked information, so it's a pretty serious affair, but it's
Speaker 1: far less controlled or controllable then a trial jury is.
Speaker 1: So because there's no judge in the grand jury. It's
Speaker 1: just the grand jurors, the prosecutor, the witness, and a
Speaker 1: court reporter taking everything down. It really is our responsibility
Speaker 1: as the prosecutors to not only present the case fully
Speaker 1: and fairly and honestly to the grand jury, but and
Speaker 1: this is going to sound perhaps incongruous to use a
Speaker 1: big word, but we are also the legal advisors to
Speaker 1: the grand jurors. So, for example, if I'm asking a
Speaker 1: grand jury to return a first degree premeditated murder indictment,
Speaker 1: I am also responsible for explaining the elements of the offense,
Speaker 1: explaining the law, explaining any self defense angle that may
Speaker 1: have arisen during the course of the grand jury presentation.
Speaker 1: I have to do that honestly, and you know, we're
Speaker 1: kind of left to the goodwill and the good ethics
Speaker 1: of the prosecutors to make sure they fulfill all of
Speaker 1: those responsibilities. So let me let's switch gears for a moment,
Speaker 1: because you know I am one of ye of little patience. Right,
Speaker 1: Let's let me be clear that since you know, the election,
Speaker 1: I have just been waiting with bated breath, as we
Speaker 1: have for the past two almost two years that we
Speaker 1: have been talking for the parade, you know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about, the indictment parade. So Donald Trump has been
Speaker 1: investigated at this point, has been investigated hundreds of times
Speaker 1: right in New York alone, and nothing has ever happened.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a criminal. I know he's a criminal.
Speaker 1: We know he surrounds himself with himself with criminals. Why
Speaker 1: why have we seen nothing yet? Why are we still
Speaker 1: in what I will refer to Glenn as the fact
Speaker 1: finding stage instead of moving this forward, and you know, subpoenas,
Speaker 1: indictments coming left and right, like is it because he's
Speaker 1: the president, is because he's a rich white man in America?
Speaker 1: Both of those things can be true at the same time.
Speaker 1: But why is this taking forever? In a day the
Speaker 1: only explaination I have is that we are suffering from
Speaker 1: the curse of prosecutorial timidity. Nobody wants to be the
Speaker 1: first prosecutor to charge a former president criminally. I predict Danielle,
Speaker 1: everybody is going to want to be the second prosecutor
Speaker 1: to charge Donald Trump, because then they will not suffer
Speaker 1: all of the criticism and that white hot glare of
Speaker 1: you know, every camera and every journalist focusing on who
Speaker 1: the first prosecutor is, the first prosecutor's office to charge
Speaker 1: criminally a former president. Prosecutors can be overly timid. I've
Speaker 1: seen it federally, I've seen it locally. Nobody ever accused
Speaker 1: me of that. Maybe, you know, maybe I'm a little
Speaker 1: too aggressive in the eyes of some. But my responsibility
Speaker 1: is if that I have evidence of probable cause that
Speaker 1: a crime has been committed, and I have enough evidence
Speaker 1: to identify the perpetrator, and especially if public safety is
Speaker 1: at risk, I have a duty to the people. I
Speaker 1: took a sworn oath. It's my job to hold the
Speaker 1: perpetrator accountable if I can honestly in accordance with the
Speaker 1: evidence and protect the community in the process. America is
Speaker 1: not being protected, No, quite the opposite, Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: out there recruiting his second batch of insurrectionists. Think about this, Danielle,
Speaker 1: the message that is being sent by a Department of
Speaker 1: Justice that at this moment is falling down on the job.
Speaker 1: I still believe we're going to see federal indictments and
Speaker 1: state indictments, but the walls have kind of stopped closing in,
Speaker 1: and they need to start creeping in again toward that
Speaker 1: parade that you talked about. But think about this. If
Speaker 1: you are tomorrow's dictator, you're an aspiring autocrat. You now
Speaker 1: have a precedent. Here's what the precedent is. Let's see.
Speaker 1: I can try to overthrow our democracy and do it
Speaker 1: with a group of thousands and thousands of angry insurrectionists
Speaker 1: that I tell to go attack the capital, Go stop
Speaker 1: what's going on in the capitol, go overturn the elections results,
Speaker 1: and I will either succeed and then I'm the autocrat,
Speaker 1: and then I have no need for coequal branches of government.
Speaker 1: I have no need for journalisms that criticize me. I'll
Speaker 1: be taking care of all that. Or if I fail
Speaker 1: in my attempt to overthrow the government, what will I face.
Speaker 1: Let's see, I'll get another eight months, ten months, a year,
Speaker 1: maybe more, to amass a second army of insurrectionists and
Speaker 1: do it all over again. That is the message that
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice has sent to the next aspiring dictator,
Speaker 1: and that is why we are kind of hanging by
Speaker 1: a thread as a democracy. I still think we're going
Speaker 1: to get there, but we should have gotten there six, eight,
Speaker 1: ten months ago. You know, one of the questions that
Speaker 1: has been asked on Twitter by myself and by many
Speaker 1: other people is also why the hell isn't Steve Bannon
Speaker 1: in jail? Like Steve? We have Steve Bannon on tape
Speaker 1: in his own words talking about the convening the war room,
Speaker 1: right that they had put together ahead of one six.
Speaker 1: We have Steve Bannon in his own words, right. We
Speaker 1: know that folks were telling insurrectionists, we'll give you a blanket.
Speaker 1: Pardon Mark Meadows being one of those people. Again, these
Speaker 1: people out loud in their own words, Glenn like, how
Speaker 1: much more evidence is required to put wealthy white men
Speaker 1: criminals in jail. I'm just like, it's to me it
Speaker 1: is mannening. But again, I am looking at this from
Speaker 1: the outside of the system, not being an attorney. So
Speaker 1: tell me, I mean, am I being crazy like feeling
Speaker 1: you know that I'm trying to move the machine faster
Speaker 1: than it should go? Or if this were anybody else,
Speaker 1: if this were you and me, would we be in
Speaker 1: jail right now? Yeah, we would be. And the same
Speaker 1: holds true for how the insurrection cases are being handled.
Speaker 1: If the insurrectionists were people of color, boy, it would
Speaker 1: be a whole different ball game. Steve Bannon, We're now
Speaker 1: on day fifteen of the Bannon indictment watch. He was
Speaker 1: referred for prosecution fifteen days ago. And you and I
Speaker 1: have talked about you know, there is a historical precedent,
Speaker 1: right when in nineteen eighty three, a Reagan era EPA
Speaker 1: official named Rita Lavelle was found in contempt of Congress
Speaker 1: and referred for prosecution at nine days later, nine days later,
Speaker 1: she was indicted by the US Attorney's Office in DC.
Speaker 1: That's a benchmark. That's a precedent of a factual, actual precedent,
Speaker 1: not a legal precedent. There's no reason Steve Bannon is
Speaker 1: not already a defendant in court other than the curse
Speaker 1: of the kind of prosecutorial timidity that I talked about.
Speaker 1: But Here's here's what the consequences of that one are.
Speaker 1: We talked about the consequences of not acting against Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Representative Thompson just announced that he has signed and they're
Speaker 1: in the process of issuing twenty more subpoenas well. How
Speaker 1: are those twenty recipients of those subpoenas going to respond? Well, look,
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon hasn't been held accountable, So I like my chances.
Speaker 1: What has happened over the last couple of weeks. Mark
Speaker 1: Meadows is backed up. He's now not really cooperating. He's
Speaker 1: giving the House Select Committee a hard time over his subpoena.
Speaker 1: Why because the Department of Justice is failing to promote
Speaker 1: the rule of law as something people need to care about. Right, So,
Speaker 1: and what the Department of Justice is also accomplishing by
Speaker 1: failing to timely indict Steve Bannon is there undercutting Congress's
Speaker 1: authority in every conceivable way. How this branch of government,
Speaker 1: the executive branch, which is where the Department of Justice resides,
Speaker 1: feels completely comfortable letting Congress down when Congress is trying
Speaker 1: to investigate the most serious attack on our democracy in
Speaker 1: our nation's history. That blows my mind, it blows. And
Speaker 1: I know Adam Schiff keeps talking and coming a little
Speaker 1: bit farther. He was on with Don Lemon night before
Speaker 1: last saying, looks like he wasn't definitive. Looks like the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice is going to move out on prosecuting Bannon. Well,
Speaker 1: how about we see him put in cuffs, how about
Speaker 1: we see him processed, how about we see him presented
Speaker 1: in court and have to enter a plate. Come on,
Speaker 1: let's get the Justice show on the road. For God's sakes,
Speaker 1: I mean, don't we have the law on our side?
Speaker 1: Like I know that Republicans they operate outside of the
Speaker 1: law and don't care. And frankly they can because what
Speaker 1: we are seeing is that no one holds them accountable,
Speaker 1: so they can continue doing that. Democrats, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: clutch the law right as if it's magically always going
Speaker 1: to be on our side. And so my sense here though,
Speaker 1: is literally, we have these people in their own words,
Speaker 1: we have them on audio, we have their transcripts, like
Speaker 1: we don't have to assume intent they said what it was. So,
Speaker 1: in your mind, is there any real legal reason other
Speaker 1: than political retribution? Why this Department of Justice isn't moving
Speaker 1: with haste. The only thing I can come up with,
Speaker 1: apart from the timidity of prosecutors, which is a real thing,
Speaker 1: is that Merrick Garland's Department of Justice doesn't want to
Speaker 1: be perceived as political. The problem is when you fail
Speaker 1: to bring charges that are supported by the facts and
Speaker 1: the law, you are being political, right, making a decision
Speaker 1: based on the facts and the law, You're making it
Speaker 1: on something else. And that's something else is political right,
Speaker 1: And I have been saying recently, if they continue to
Speaker 1: fail to enforce the rule of law against Trump and
Speaker 1: his criminal associates, then frankly, they're no better than Bill
Speaker 1: Barr and Donald Trump because they used the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice for political reasons overtly, you know, they punished Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's perceived enemies by weaponizing the Department of Justice, and
Speaker 1: they rewarded Donald Trump's criminal associates like you know, Bannon
Speaker 1: and Flynn and Roger Stone and the rest of these knuckleheads.
Speaker 1: It's a nice word for them. So Bill Barr and
Speaker 1: Donald Trump politicize the Department of Justice in the worst way.
Speaker 1: If Marrick Arland's Department of Justice continues to fail to
Speaker 1: charge people, even though the facts and the law support
Speaker 1: criminal charges, they will be making political decisions. And that
Speaker 1: is just as dangerous and damaging to our democracy because
Speaker 1: all that's doing is you're giving it all over to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and company to do it a second time.
Speaker 1: In the second time, Danielle, the coup will not fail.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is what I know to be true.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're watching it, you know, I keep saying it.
Speaker 1: Bill Maher, I don't agree with him on a whole
Speaker 1: host of things, but when he referred to this as
Speaker 1: a slow moving coup, right, that's what it is. We
Speaker 1: may have swept the people away from the steps of
Speaker 1: the Capitol Building, but they're still They're still in action, right,
Speaker 1: They're still planning and moving. And this administration, this Department
Speaker 1: of Justice, is not moving with the sense of urgency
Speaker 1: like our democracy is at stake. And I'm I'm and
Speaker 1: I know that I'm no longer crazy because folks like
Speaker 1: you and other brilliant legal minds are saying the same thing.
Speaker 1: Our constitution is in jeopardy, Our democracy is in jeopardy. Um. Finally, Glenn,
Speaker 1: you were able to to hear was it a case?
Speaker 1: Was it an insurrection? It's inside the courtroom listening to
Speaker 1: Trump's lawyers like in real time. Tell us about that
Speaker 1: before you go. Yeah, So yesterday I was in my
Speaker 1: old stomping ground. I went to the Federal court in Washington,
Speaker 1: DC and got to see my old adversary and friend,
Speaker 1: Judge Tanya chut who is the federal judge presiding over
Speaker 1: the case where Trump brought a suit to try to
Speaker 1: stop the House Select Committee from getting tons of incriminating
Speaker 1: information about what he was doing on January sixth and
Speaker 1: his responsibility for the insurrection. So I used to try
Speaker 1: murder cases against now Judge Chutkin decades ago, and we
Speaker 1: still have a great relationship, professional relationship. And so I
Speaker 1: watched her just completely eviscerate Donald Trump's lawyer, a guy
Speaker 1: named Justin Clark. I mean, you know who is going
Speaker 1: to represent Donald Trump when he chronically fails to pay
Speaker 1: his lawyers, Well, you're gonna get Justin Clark. And so
Speaker 1: it was really a legal bloodbath because every argument Trump's
Speaker 1: lawyer tried to make, saying that the National Archives shouldn't
Speaker 1: give over all this damaging information about my client to
Speaker 1: the House Select Committee, Judge Chutkin just kind of chopped
Speaker 1: it down like like firewood. It was. It was really
Speaker 1: fun to watch. Now. She was entirely professional, but um,
Speaker 1: you know when they would make claims like well, judge,
Speaker 1: judge chuckin, you have to look at every single one
Speaker 1: of the thousands of documents and assess whether it should
Speaker 1: be turned over or not. She said, okay, one, do
Speaker 1: you have any legal authority? Is there a single case
Speaker 1: that stands for that proposition? The lawyer said, okay. So,
Speaker 1: other than slowing the process to a snail's pace her term,
Speaker 1: what would it accomplish Nothing? It was so clear, Danielle,
Speaker 1: this is another bogus lawsuit filed by a nefarious litigant,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, to simply try to run out the clock.
Speaker 1: And here is the biggest question, and I think the
Speaker 1: courts will have to answer, well, the courts can continue
Speaker 1: to allow themselves to be weaponized by letting Donald Trump
Speaker 1: run out the clock for weeks and months and years,
Speaker 1: or will the courts have learned their lesson from how
Speaker 1: they've been played by Donald Trump over and over and
Speaker 1: over again over the last four and five years. Because
Speaker 1: Donald Trump doesn't bring meritorious lawsuits, he brings bogus lawsuits
Speaker 1: because he knows he can then use them to run
Speaker 1: out the clock. Now, Judge Chukin would have none of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, she said this hearing at light speed, and
Speaker 1: she said, oh, you're gonna have my ruling expeditiously because
Speaker 1: I know the first batch of information goes from the
Speaker 1: National Archives to the House Select Committee on November twelveth,
Speaker 1: So stand by. And then here's the big ticket question
Speaker 1: is if she rules. When she rules, Donald Trump, you
Speaker 1: lose and the House Select Committee gets all this damaging
Speaker 1: information from the National Archives. The question is will the
Speaker 1: courts stay In other words, while they say, well, we're
Speaker 1: ruling in favor of the National Archives and in the
Speaker 1: House Select Committee, but we're not going to say they
Speaker 1: have to give over the documents. We're going to let
Speaker 1: Donald Trump file endless appeals before we finally require the
Speaker 1: documents to be hand over. Gosh. I hope the courts
Speaker 1: have learned its lesson. They refuse to stay production of
Speaker 1: the documents. The documents go over, they can go over
Speaker 1: with what's called a protective order, which I'm happy to explain.
Speaker 1: The documents go over, the House Committee gets them and
Speaker 1: begins to work with them, and Donald Trump can keep
Speaker 1: appealing the judge's decision. That's fine. But you know what,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump doesn't have a legal leg to stand on,
Speaker 1: because the whole question is do these documents enjoy executive privilege?
Speaker 1: The answer is yeah, they very well might. Who gets
Speaker 1: to make the decision about whether to waive executive privilege
Speaker 1: or invoke executive privilege under the law? President Biden, the
Speaker 1: current president, he said, I will not invoke executive privilege.
Speaker 1: It's in the public interest for these documents to go
Speaker 1: over so we can get to the bottom of January sixth.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump doesn't have a legal leg to stand on.
Speaker 1: The only question is will the courts allow him to
Speaker 1: weaponize the delay? I mean that is that's the question.
Speaker 1: That's the question that I think that we're all going
Speaker 1: to be waiting on the next weeks and months, hopefully
Speaker 1: not years, to figure out where where these cases will go.
Speaker 1: Glenn Kirschner, as always, I mean, you keep us on
Speaker 1: our toes. This legal system is keeping us on our toes,
Speaker 1: and I hope that in the weeks to come, we
Speaker 1: have actual good news to share with folks on Will
Speaker 1: Gaypp about indictments and talking about that. The good news
Speaker 1: has got to come eventually, right as always Glenn, we
Speaker 1: appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you Daniel, as always,
Speaker 1: Power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.