Speaker 1: We've seen a lot of legal drama in the country recently,
Speaker 1: coming off the heels of President Trump being found guilty
Speaker 1: on thirty four felony counts. Even though that was a
Speaker 1: witch hunt, we know that that was a sham trial
Speaker 1: from a judge who literally donated to Joe Biden and
Speaker 1: a group called Stop Republicans. So he's trying to do
Speaker 1: just that, Stop Republicans, Stop Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: And now Hudder.
Speaker 1: Biden has been found guilty in all three federal felony
Speaker 1: gun charges that he was facing. He also has a
Speaker 1: tax trial beginning on September fifth. He's facing three felony
Speaker 1: tax offenses and six misdemeanors in that one. So where
Speaker 1: do we go from here as a country? What should
Speaker 1: you know about Hunter Biden being found guilty on those
Speaker 1: federal gun charges. What's next for him? What kind of
Speaker 1: sentencing will he face? Also, what will we find out
Speaker 1: during this tax trial? Well, Hunter Biden plead guilty to
Speaker 1: try to avoid embarrassing information coming to light about his
Speaker 1: dad and his own business dealings. What do you need
Speaker 1: to know about that? Also, as we await President Trump's
Speaker 1: sentencing on July eleventh, will Judge Matron try to send
Speaker 1: him to jail. I mean, we've already seen democrats take
Speaker 1: it this far, so what should we expect from that
Speaker 1: and what does the appeals process look like for President Trump?
Speaker 1: We're going to get into all of that with Andy McCarthy.
Speaker 1: He is a best selling author, contributing editor at the
Speaker 1: National Review, and a fellow at the National Review Institute.
Speaker 1: He's a Fox News contributor, and most importantly, he's a
Speaker 1: former chief Assistant US Attorney. This is someone who's dedicated
Speaker 1: his life to the rule of law, dedicated his career
Speaker 1: to it. So what does he think about the justice
Speaker 1: system now? After following the Trump trial so closely and
Speaker 1: following this so closely, we have so much to dig
Speaker 1: into with Andy McCarthy. His analysis is always so smart.
Speaker 1: I learned so much from him. I hope you do
Speaker 1: as well, So stay tuned and named Carthy.
Speaker 2: Well, Andy, thanks so much for making the time.
Speaker 1: I know you've been really busy with all this legal
Speaker 1: drama in the country, so you always give such great analysis.
Speaker 1: I just really appreciate you making the time for the show.
Speaker 3: Lisa, It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: You know so Andy, I assume you probably weren't surprised
Speaker 1: with Hunter Biden being found guilty and all three federal
Speaker 1: felony gun charge accounts. What does a typical sentencing look
Speaker 1: for that look like for that.
Speaker 3: Well, for this kind of a charge, he's probably an
Speaker 3: unusual defendant in that there is no evidence, at least
Speaker 3: that I'm aware of, that he was trying to obtain
Speaker 3: the gun for criminal purposes. I suspect, given that he
Speaker 3: has this bad narcotics issue that you know, he could
Speaker 3: very well have decided that he needed to be armed,
Speaker 3: given the dangerousness of some of the places that he
Speaker 3: had to purchase drugs from, or that he chose to
Speaker 3: purchase drugs from. But I don't think there's any evidence
Speaker 3: of that in the record so far as I understand.
Speaker 3: He's an ineligible person. So you start from the premise
Speaker 3: that he's not allowed to have the gun. But the
Speaker 3: sentencing guidelines, and I should say, Lisa that the you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of the rhetoric in the media always talks
Speaker 3: about the statutory range, which is huge. So you keep
Speaker 3: reading again and again that Hunter's looking it up to
Speaker 3: twenty five years in prison, But real sentencing litigation in
Speaker 3: the federal government is really controlled by the sentencing guidelines,
Speaker 3: not the statutes. So the objective of the sentencing guidelines
Speaker 3: is to take k which are brought under, say a
Speaker 3: statute like the possession statute that Hunter violated, where it's
Speaker 3: a where it's a ten year it's actually now a
Speaker 3: fifteen year penalty, but in the when he violated it
Speaker 3: was a ten year penalty. You know, it's zero to ten.
Speaker 3: There's no mandatory minimum, tends to maximum. So you're going
Speaker 3: to have a you're going to have a wide range
Speaker 3: of defendants, and some should be on the ten side
Speaker 3: of the spectrum and some should be on the zero side, right,
Speaker 3: So what the sentencing guidelines try to do is bring
Speaker 3: a little predictability to that range. So what they look
Speaker 3: at is the typical factors that come up in an
Speaker 3: offense like this, and then they look at personal factors,
Speaker 3: which they call criminal history, so that they can establish
Speaker 3: a criminal history category. And that's how you go on.
Speaker 3: There's a graph in the sentencing guidelines and it's like
Speaker 3: you plot the offense factors against the criminal history and
Speaker 3: that's where you come up with the same So he
Speaker 3: doesn't have the kind of factors that exacerbate a sentence
Speaker 3: like this. For example, he does not have a bunch
Speaker 3: of prior felony convictions from which you would infer that
Speaker 3: if he was trying to get a gun, it was
Speaker 3: probably because he was up to no good. He's not
Speaker 3: trying to obtain a gun that's extraordinarily destructive or at
Speaker 3: least regarded as such under the guidelines. This is a
Speaker 3: pretty conventional it's a cult Cobra thirty eight revolver, and
Speaker 3: he may fit in the category of people who just
Speaker 3: wanted to get the gun for sport and other legal purposes.
Speaker 3: So he's going to be pretty low in the offense
Speaker 3: category computation. I the way I figure it, he could
Speaker 3: be as low as a sentence of zero to six months.
Speaker 3: I see other people say, you know, fifteen to twenty
Speaker 3: one months. But as you can tell, it's not going
Speaker 3: to be very high. And he's in what we call
Speaker 3: chrimeminal history category one because he doesn't have any prior
Speaker 3: criminal convictions.
Speaker 2: You can argue he probably should.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, but but that's not that's different from different
Speaker 3: from does you know, like even for example, he should
Speaker 3: have gotten a dishonorable discharge from the military. Uh. And
Speaker 3: of course somehow he got that job in the in
Speaker 3: the Navy's press office even though he was too old,
Speaker 3: because his father just happened to be the vice president.
Speaker 3: And then after he got booted for cocaine, uh, he
Speaker 3: somehow managed not to get a dishonorable discharge while his
Speaker 3: father was vice president. God knows how that possibly could
Speaker 3: have happened, right.
Speaker 2: Weird, weird how that happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know the fact is he's not like
Speaker 3: a multiple felon. In fact, listening to the evidence, it
Speaker 3: occurred to me that, you know, Haley Biden testified that
Speaker 3: he's the one who got her hooked on crack, and
Speaker 3: it seems to me that, you know, if you actually
Speaker 3: charged him with what you could charge someone for distributing
Speaker 3: narcotics to another person. You know, it doesn't have to
Speaker 3: be a financial transaction. If I hand you illegal drugs,
Speaker 3: I've distributed them. So may you could argue that that's
Speaker 3: probably more serious than anything he got convicted of in
Speaker 3: terms of what the you know, the punishment structure is
Speaker 3: in federal law. But this is a you know, the
Speaker 3: three different crimes under the sentencing guidelines, because they're all
Speaker 3: related to the same transaction. They would be treated as
Speaker 3: one offense, and I think he's going to have very
Speaker 3: low guidelines, anywhere from zero to six range, which would
Speaker 3: mean the judge doesn't have to impose a prison sentence
Speaker 3: to fifteen to twenty one months. And the only other
Speaker 3: thing I'd say about at LISTA is it's important to
Speaker 3: note that judges don't have to follow the sentencing guidelines,
Speaker 3: but they tend to at least to approximate it. So
Speaker 3: it's a much more reliable barometer for us than the
Speaker 3: statutory range, which is very wide. And the other thing is,
Speaker 3: in my experience, sentencing is the hardest thing that judges do,
Speaker 3: and they tend to and I think this is a
Speaker 3: very human thing. I think they tend to come to
Speaker 3: it with the idea that just being convicted by a
Speaker 3: jury of your peers, or admitting guilt in court, there's
Speaker 3: a stigma attached to that that is in and of
Speaker 3: itself punishment, and therefore they tend to sentence at the
Speaker 3: low range of whatever the guidelines are. And you can
Speaker 3: understand that, you know, sentencing another human being. It's one
Speaker 3: thing to say I really disagree with this person politically,
Speaker 3: or I really hate what this person did that was
Speaker 3: proved in my courtroom. But now it's up to you
Speaker 3: to decide the course of another person's life. And that's
Speaker 3: an awesome responsibility. And most of the time the judges are,
Speaker 3: you know, reasonably lenient. I'm not saying ridiculously, so although
Speaker 3: I've seen some of that too, well.
Speaker 2: I assume too.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the judge who blew up the
Speaker 1: Sweetheart deal, so she has demonstrated you know, independence and
Speaker 1: I think fairness. I mean, I would assume being the
Speaker 1: president's son has to play a role in sentencing as well, right,
Speaker 1: I mean that's you know, I mean, I would like
Speaker 1: to think people are unbiased, but I would have to
Speaker 1: imagine that plays a role.
Speaker 3: Well, if it didn't, there would be something wrong because
Speaker 3: what the law says is that.
Speaker 2: They're not with Trump though that's the opposite direction.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well but it's a factor, right. The what
Speaker 3: the law says is that a sentencing judge can take
Speaker 3: any relevant factor into account in terms of whether it's
Speaker 3: something that should make the sentence more severe or less severe.
Speaker 3: So you're supposed to be looking at the whole person,
Speaker 3: the whole reason for looking at criminal history category. What
Speaker 3: we mainly think about when we think about criminal history,
Speaker 3: category is like how many priors does the guy have?
Speaker 3: But in truth, what a sentencing judge does is size
Speaker 3: up the entire individual. And what you're supposed to be
Speaker 3: gauging in any sensible sentencing exercise is what's the likelihood
Speaker 3: that in the future this person will recitivate, that he'll
Speaker 3: continue to commit crimes, or is the likelihood that, you know,
Speaker 3: if he's found the straight and narrow, he'll live a productive,
Speaker 3: law abiding life and make a contribution to society. That's
Speaker 3: why it's such a it's it's an awesome responsibility for
Speaker 3: judges because those are very hard things to gauge, you know.
Speaker 1: And then now he's facing his tax trial next September fifth,
Speaker 1: facing three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanors. Probably got
Speaker 1: lucky with that as well, given you know the scheme
Speaker 1: of what iris whistleblowers have you know, expressed publicly about
Speaker 1: how the doog has thwarted a lot of their attempts
Speaker 1: to dig deeper and dig deeper into the Biden family
Speaker 1: and potentially Joe Biden as well. What do you think
Speaker 1: he's facing at that trial, and based off of the
Speaker 1: evidence known how much trouble is he facing with that one.
Speaker 3: Well, he's got serious trouble, which is why he tried
Speaker 3: to plead guilty. You know, the gun thing is one thing.
Speaker 3: They tried to make that disappear with a diversion arrangement,
Speaker 3: even though really into Justice Department rules that offense shouldn't
Speaker 3: have been subject to diversion. When I say diversion, that
Speaker 3: means they divert the case out of the justice system
Speaker 3: for an alternative resolution other than conviction in a legal proceeding,
Speaker 3: so you know, probation or community service or you know,
Speaker 3: just keeping your nose clean, that kind of thing. Whereas
Speaker 3: the tax charges, he actually was ready to plead guilty
Speaker 3: to two of them. Now, obviously he wanted to plead
Speaker 3: guilty to them in the form misdemeanors, but the underlying
Speaker 3: facts are the same. So the evidence against him is
Speaker 3: sufficiently daunting that he himself, even though he doesn't want
Speaker 3: to plead guilty to everything, was willing to plead guilty
Speaker 3: to this. On the other hand, as you point out,
Speaker 3: there's been a strategic delay in this case by the
Speaker 3: Biden Justice Department and its trustee quote unquote special counsel
Speaker 3: David Weiss, these are cases, you know, the evidence against Hunter,
Speaker 3: and the gun case was known completely to law enforcement.
Speaker 3: It happened on October twelfth, and they knew about it
Speaker 3: by less than two weeks later. And the tax cases,
Speaker 3: the tax problems that Hunter has had have been well known,
Speaker 3: notorious for years and years, to the point where there
Speaker 3: were leans on his house and all kinds of other stuff.
Speaker 3: So that's a long winded way of saying. Almost everything
Speaker 3: David Weiss needed to know to file charges and convict
Speaker 3: in these cases was known in twenty nineteen, and he
Speaker 3: intentionally sat on his hands. There's no other way of
Speaker 3: interpreting it. And in the tax case, that had the
Speaker 3: real effect of chewing up what was available to be
Speaker 3: charged under the Statute of limitations, And I think that
Speaker 3: was done deliberately. Some of the worst tax offenses and
Speaker 3: potentially other offenses, not just tax, but let's just talk
Speaker 3: about tax, because that's what they charged. Some of the
Speaker 3: worst of those crimes happened in twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: when Joe Biden was vice president and when Hunter was
Speaker 3: raking in millions of dollars from Barismo, which was actually
Speaker 3: obviously buying access to Joe Biden. So because of the
Speaker 3: way Weiss handled this case, those charges can't be brought.
Speaker 3: He waited till the statute of limitations had passed, and
Speaker 3: the way, just so people understand, the way prosecutors stop
Speaker 3: the clock on the statute of limitations is you file charges.
Speaker 3: So what I'm saying is everything they needed to know
Speaker 3: to charge these crimes was known in twenty nineteen. He
Speaker 3: sat and did nothing for years, and he was trying
Speaker 3: to do nothing in the way of like do nothing
Speaker 3: and make the case go away. And then the whistleblower
Speaker 3: agents courageously came forward and talk publicly about the Biden
Speaker 3: Justice Department interference in the case. At that point it
Speaker 3: was politically untenable to make the case just disappear. So
Speaker 3: that's when they tried the sweetheart plea deal. And only
Speaker 3: when that blew up did Weiss actually file these charges.
Speaker 3: But I think, Lisa, in the end, they're going to
Speaker 3: win because to the extent that the idea here was
Speaker 3: to make these cases go away, if you think about it.
Speaker 3: In the gun case, Hunter is not going to be
Speaker 3: sentenced till probably August, and and he has an appellate
Speaker 3: issue under the Second Amendment that I think the judge
Speaker 3: will allow him to have bail pending appeal while he
Speaker 3: litigates that, which means any execution of his sentence if
Speaker 3: he gets a prison sentence, will not happen until sometime
Speaker 3: next year, meaning after the election. The tax case, I
Speaker 3: can't imagine in a million years the Biden, whether it's
Speaker 3: Hunter Biden or the White House, are going to want
Speaker 3: to have that trial happen in September, in the run
Speaker 3: up to the election, when early voting has already started.
Speaker 3: I think he's got to plead that case out at
Speaker 3: some point, but they will try to structure the plea
Speaker 3: and schedule the plea so that he doesn't get sentenced
Speaker 3: until after the election. So I think that the goal
Speaker 3: here is to push everything past the election. And then
Speaker 3: this ridiculous supposed vow that Joe Biden made that he
Speaker 3: won't pardon his son. I don't think that will be
Speaker 3: operative ten seconds after the polls close on November fifth,
Speaker 3: And if Biden wins the election, then he can bide
Speaker 3: his time and if Hunter gets a prison sentence, he
Speaker 3: can pardon them at that point. If he loses the election,
Speaker 3: then sometime between election day and inauguration day, Biden will
Speaker 3: pardon his son. But you know the fact that Weiss
Speaker 3: has delayed the way that he is delayed, I think
Speaker 3: ensures that Hunter is not going to get the kind
Speaker 3: of accountability and justice that people expect for people who
Speaker 3: are put through the criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: We've got more with Anny McCarthy, but first, since the
Speaker 1: terror attacks in October seventh, anti Semitism has been on
Speaker 1: the rise, not just in Israel but here in the
Speaker 1: US and around the world. That's why I have partnered
Speaker 1: with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and today
Speaker 1: I'm coming to you, my audience, to ask that you
Speaker 1: stand with us and IFCJ to raise your voice, just
Speaker 1: as Oscar Schindler and Corey ten Boom did. This pledge
Speaker 1: is asking Christians to stand with their Jewish brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1: to never be silent, to show the Jewish people that
Speaker 1: they are not alone, they have God and Christians on
Speaker 1: their side. For the month of June, we are asking
Speaker 1: Christians to sign this pledge, which will be delivered to
Speaker 1: the President of Israel, to show that Christians in America
Speaker 1: are not only standing in solidarity, but they're speaking up too.
Speaker 1: Let's take a stand today with the International Fellowship of
Speaker 1: Christians and Jews to let the Jewish people know that
Speaker 1: they're not alone. To sign the pledge, go to support
Speaker 1: IFCJ dot org, support IFCJ dot org to take a
Speaker 1: stand today. Do you think that if Hunter did not
Speaker 1: if he does not reach a plea deal, which I
Speaker 1: think what you're saying makes a lot of sense, that
Speaker 1: he would want to do that for political reasons, to
Speaker 1: protect his dad, who has obviously protected him to a
Speaker 1: great extent throughout his life and shielded him from, you know,
Speaker 1: probably a lot of consequences that he should have been facing.
Speaker 1: But if he did not reach a plea deal, would
Speaker 1: Joe Biden be exposed?
Speaker 2: And what we would learn from the tax trial? Do
Speaker 2: you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is why I don't think they can let
Speaker 3: it go to trial. So Weiss, as I said to
Speaker 3: somebody this morning, Weiss is the best defense lawyer that
Speaker 3: Hunter has ever had. But his main objective in this investigation,
Speaker 3: and the Biden Justice Department's objective has always been to
Speaker 3: protect the president. That's first and foremost. They tried to
Speaker 3: protect the president and bring Hunter along for the ride,
Speaker 3: but that became politically undoable once the whistleblowers came forward.
Speaker 3: So even in prosecuting Hunter, they've kept the objective of
Speaker 3: protecting the president front and center. So, for example, Weiss
Speaker 3: writes finally a fifty six page indictment on the tax case,
Speaker 3: it doesn't mention President Biden, even though what the tax
Speaker 3: case is about is the invasion of tax on income
Speaker 3: that Hunter earned by peddling Joe Biden's political influence. So
Speaker 3: Joe Biden is a central figure to the case, but
Speaker 3: he's not discussed in the indictment. The other thing, Lisa,
Speaker 3: that Weiss did here that I think people are going
Speaker 3: to be reminded of, even though it escaped a lot
Speaker 3: of people's attention at the time. Do you remember that
Speaker 3: the Sweetheart plea deal had a statement of facts in it. Yes,
Speaker 3: So I'm convinced, having read that a few times, that
Speaker 3: this never happens with federal prosecutors by the way they
Speaker 3: control the plea process, including what the defendant is going
Speaker 3: to say. If you're giving somebody a plea deal, you
Speaker 3: tell them this is what we expect you to admit to,
Speaker 3: and if you don't admit to it, there's no deal,
Speaker 3: and we'll go to trial. So in this process, it
Speaker 3: seems to me that Weiss allowed Hunter's lawyers to write
Speaker 3: the statement of effect, which the government then stipulated to,
Speaker 3: meaning they agreed that that would be the statement of
Speaker 3: facts that was presented to the court in connection with
Speaker 3: the case. If you read that statement of facts, what
Speaker 3: they say is that Hunter earned a lot of money
Speaker 3: from these overseas associates and deals because he was a
Speaker 3: high end lawyer and businessman. You don't get any sense
Speaker 3: reading it that he earned it because he was a
Speaker 3: ne'er do well drug addle failure who was cashing in
Speaker 3: on his father's political influence, which is a lot closer
Speaker 3: to the truth. So the defense is going to try
Speaker 3: to say that Weiss is stuck with that version of
Speaker 3: events because he already agreed to it in connection with
Speaker 3: the POLA. But one way or the other, I don't
Speaker 3: think the Biden people can afford in the run up
Speaker 3: to the election to have a trial that's about Hunter
Speaker 3: basically monetizing his father's political influence and then not paying
Speaker 3: his fair share on that right. So I don't think
Speaker 3: he'll I don't think he'll go to trial. And when
Speaker 3: you say if they can't strike a plea deal. This
Speaker 3: is how this is how cynical I've become about this.
Speaker 2: I'm right there with you.
Speaker 3: Why don't they try If he's going to be pardoned
Speaker 3: anyway at the end of the rainbow, and he's never
Speaker 3: really going to do a day in jail on this,
Speaker 3: why not write before the election, or reasonably before the election,
Speaker 3: like August September, announce a plea deal where Hunter is
Speaker 3: going to plead guilty to two felonies, and the Biden
Speaker 3: Justice Department, like they've done the last twenty four hours,
Speaker 3: can run around, beat their chest and say, see, we
Speaker 3: prosecuted the president's son without fear or favor. In the meantime,
Speaker 3: they delayed it so long that he won't get sentenced
Speaker 3: until after the election, and then his father will pardon them.
Speaker 3: But at least before the election, they'll try to make
Speaker 3: it look like this was a real serious, you know,
Speaker 3: hard ass prosecution, and it'll all be play acting.
Speaker 1: I think that is probably one hundred percent what's going
Speaker 1: to happen. Unfortunately, you know, I think we've realized that
Speaker 1: justice is not equal in America these days. I also
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you President Trump is facing his sentencing
Speaker 1: on July eleventh. I am very concerned that he will
Speaker 1: either get thrown in prison or under house arrest, that
Speaker 1: they're going to use this to try to sideline him
Speaker 1: from the campaign trail.
Speaker 2: What are your.
Speaker 1: Thoughts on that, and then also what does his appeals
Speaker 1: process look like and are there any ways for him
Speaker 1: to expedite that in a meaningful way ahead of the election.
Speaker 3: So I think he's going to get a prison sentence,
Speaker 3: but he's not going to be sent to prison. I
Speaker 3: think that he will get bail pending appeal. In New York,
Speaker 3: it's a non violent crime, you know. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: when I say it's a crime, I'm you know, I'm
Speaker 3: just reading off like a judgment docket. In terms of
Speaker 3: whether it's really a crime. I think if you asked
Speaker 3: any twenty people randomly on the street what he was
Speaker 3: convicted of, they wouldn't be able to tell you. But
Speaker 3: let's assume like we have a crime that he turned
Speaker 3: into thirty four crimes and he's going to be sentenced.
Speaker 3: I think that Merchan, who has shown himself to be
Speaker 3: like a progressive performance artist on this case, notwithstanding that
Speaker 3: it's against the code of ethics in New York to
Speaker 3: sit on a case if you've given political contrib they're
Speaker 3: not supposed to give political contributions at all.
Speaker 1: So to group Stop Republicans, I mean, that's the group
Speaker 1: that's one of the politically stop Republicans and Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: it's like that tells the story, you know.
Speaker 2: But yeah, all right, Agres.
Speaker 3: And no, you're right. And even if his even if
Speaker 3: his daughter wasn't making a very lucrative living as a
Speaker 3: progressive political activist who does election work for Democrats who
Speaker 3: defined themselves by the loathing of Trump, I mean, you
Speaker 3: wouldn't even have to get into that. Just to judge,
Speaker 3: his own contribution should have been enough to have him
Speaker 3: off this case. So I think we know what we're
Speaker 3: dealing with this judge in New York. Under these circumstances,
Speaker 3: Trump should get bail pending appeal because he's got very
Speaker 3: profound appellate issues in this case. So I think that
Speaker 3: Merchon knows he's going to impose sentence, but that the
Speaker 3: consequence of the sentence he imposes is not going to
Speaker 3: have Trump actually going to jail. And to my mind,
Speaker 3: and again, this is the cynicism we're left with after
Speaker 3: watching this process unfold. I think that increases Merchon's incentive
Speaker 3: to impose a prison sentence on Trump because he knows
Speaker 3: it's not really going to have that effect, so why
Speaker 3: not pose as a hero. That's what he's tried to
Speaker 3: do all along. So I think he will give Trump
Speaker 3: a prison sentence, but it won't be executed. Trump will
Speaker 3: at bail pending appeal whether he and by the way,
Speaker 3: Trump should not get a prison sentence for that crime.
Speaker 3: In New York. We're talking about New York, where Alvin
Speaker 3: Bragg is like the paragon progressive prosecutor. Don't ask me
Speaker 3: to say that ten times fast, but he You know,
Speaker 3: in New York, we have felonies that get pled down
Speaker 3: to misdemeanors if they get prosecuted at all. We have
Speaker 3: a district attorney whose default position is that you don't prosecute.
Speaker 3: And yet in this case, he turned something that I
Speaker 3: don't even think is a misdemeanor into thirty four felonies
Speaker 3: with one hundred and thirty six years of prison exposure.
Speaker 3: And I'm now doing the same thing I criticized a
Speaker 3: second ago. Right, I'm highlighting the statutory exposure. But I
Speaker 3: think the reason I'm doing it is because that's why
Speaker 3: they did it. They wanted to say that, you know,
Speaker 3: Trump's crimes were so serious that this would be what
Speaker 3: he'd be facing. So this whole thing is just his theater.
Speaker 3: And consistent with that, I think march On will impose
Speaker 3: a prison sentence even though he shouldn't. It's a non
Speaker 3: violent crime and it's a bookkeeping offense, which wouldn't even
Speaker 3: normally be prosecuted in New York. So the thought that
Speaker 3: anyone does five minutes in jail for this is laughable.
Speaker 3: But the important thing with that, Lisa, is there's the
Speaker 3: charge that the grand jury brought, or the charges that
Speaker 3: the grand jury brought, and then there's the charge that
Speaker 3: Alvin Bragg told them was the center of the case,
Speaker 3: which isn't in the indictment. So the indictment just has
Speaker 3: like thirty four falsification of business records, which is a
Speaker 3: misdemeanor in New York, becomes a felony if you're trying
Speaker 3: to conceal or commit another crime. But Bragg won't tell
Speaker 3: him in the indictment what the the felony is, and
Speaker 3: in the meantime, Bragg, at the same time, the grand
Speaker 3: jury indictment comes out issues to statement of facts, which
Speaker 3: is his, not the grand juries in which he does.
Speaker 3: This sort of fabulous recitation of a conspiracy to steal
Speaker 3: the twenty seventeen twenty sixteen election. And it's amazing that
Speaker 3: you could steal the twenty sixteen election by crimes that
Speaker 3: you don't commit until twenty seventeen. But nobody should think
Speaker 3: that logic has anything to do with what we saw
Speaker 3: for the last six or eight weeks while that case
Speaker 3: was going on. But when the New York prosecutors opened
Speaker 3: to the jury, the first thing they said to them
Speaker 3: was that this is a case about a conspiracy to
Speaker 3: subvert the twenty sixteen election. The whole idea of business
Speaker 3: records offenses was a complete afterthought. This case was presented
Speaker 3: to the jury and to the judge as a successful
Speaker 3: conspiracy to steal the election. To deprive the fraud here.
Speaker 3: If you can believe this is because I keep asking,
Speaker 3: what's the where is the beyond the reasonable doubt proof
Speaker 3: of an intent to defraud? Who was defrauded here? And
Speaker 3: Bragg's theory is the people of the United States were
Speaker 3: defrauded out of the Hillary Clinton presidency. There's no you know,
Speaker 3: there's no financial nobody. Uh, the state got every penny
Speaker 3: of taxes that it was supposed to get and probably more.
Speaker 3: There's no victim of fraud here. And I mentioned fraud
Speaker 3: because you're supposed to The crime here, if that matters,
Speaker 3: is falsification of business records with intent to defraud. And
Speaker 3: the intent to defraud is supposed to include the concealment
Speaker 3: of another crime. But you have to prove intent to
Speaker 3: defraud beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't see it. But
Speaker 3: Bragg's theory was the country was defrauded out of the
Speaker 3: Hillary presidency. That would have happened if Trump hadn't concealed
Speaker 3: these trusts that he had with these women by what
Speaker 3: Bragg says were violations of the federal campaign finance laws.
Speaker 3: But this is a long winded way of saying the
Speaker 3: case is, it's presented to Judge march On, who will
Speaker 3: impose sentence. Is not a penny anti business records fraud case.
Speaker 3: They have described the worst conspiracy in the history of
Speaker 3: the United States, a successful conspiracy to steal the presidency,
Speaker 3: which they say worked. If that's the way they tee
Speaker 3: it up for the judge, how does he not impose
Speaker 3: a prison sentence.
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm worried about is he's going to
Speaker 1: reach the same fate in the appeals process in liberal
Speaker 1: New York that has it out from them in the
Speaker 1: same way that Judge Majahn has as well. Is there
Speaker 1: Do you agree with that? And then if so, how
Speaker 1: can he expect to the Supreme Court?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think two things about that. First of all,
Speaker 3: the quality of justice in the trial courts in New
Speaker 3: York is appalling, and that's largely because there are a
Speaker 3: lot of them are political appointees. A lot of them
Speaker 3: are elected. I mean, the system is pervaded with politics.
Speaker 3: So a lot of the trial judges, like Judge and
Speaker 3: Goern is an elected judge, right, Judge merch On is
Speaker 3: an appointed judge. But they're appointed by Club Democrats and
Speaker 3: Democratic officials. So the whole thing in the trial section is,
Speaker 3: you know, it's elected lawyers and appointed lawyers who are
Speaker 3: good Club Democrat lawyers who if they do the right
Speaker 3: thing for the party long enough, they get on the
Speaker 3: bench either through a an unopposed slot in the election
Speaker 3: or they managed to get themselves appointed. And we get
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff from the trial courts, that's awful.
Speaker 3: As you go up in the New York system, the
Speaker 3: quality gets better. The appellate division is significantly better than
Speaker 3: the trial courts, and the Court of Appeals, which is
Speaker 3: the highest court in New York, is better than the
Speaker 3: appellate division. And I think that's shown for example Lisa
Speaker 3: by Harvey Weinstein, who is a very very unpopular figure,
Speaker 3: like you could say that about Trump as well in
Speaker 3: New York. And yet it took three or four years,
Speaker 3: but they threw out his conviction because the trial was
Speaker 3: utterly completely unfair. So it's just as delayed, but eventually
Speaker 3: they came out to the right result. I think with Trump,
Speaker 3: the thing is the appeals process is going to stretch
Speaker 3: into years from now. By the time it gets decided,
Speaker 3: Trump will either have lost the twenty twenty four election,
Speaker 3: in which case they won't care about him that much anymore,
Speaker 3: or he'll have won the twenty twenty four election, and
Speaker 3: that'll mean everything in New York will probably be frozen
Speaker 3: until after he'st of office, at which point they won't
Speaker 3: care about him that much anymore. So I think what
Speaker 3: the Democrats did this for the whole timing of it
Speaker 3: was so that they could have a talking point going
Speaker 3: into the election that Trump is a convicted felon, a
Speaker 3: thirty four time convicted felon, and they've accomplished that, so
Speaker 3: that can't be unwrung. But I think down the line
Speaker 3: he will get better quality of justice in the appellate process.
Speaker 3: That's already been evident by the way in the in
Speaker 3: the civil fraud case where the Court of Appeal or
Speaker 3: the Appellate Division in New York reversed anger On on
Speaker 3: a number of things he did during the trial and
Speaker 3: then cut the bond that Trump had to post in
Speaker 3: order to have his appeal. So you can see, you
Speaker 3: get he's done better already in the appellate division than
Speaker 3: he did in the trial court. And I expect that
Speaker 3: to continue.
Speaker 2: Can get your Supreme Court for that.
Speaker 1: Is there any means to try to get the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court to take it up given the significance to the country.
Speaker 3: So this is a great question, and I know a
Speaker 3: lot of people that we both know are trying to
Speaker 3: brainstorm to do that. Here's the problem I think with
Speaker 3: that that people are overlooking This case has already been
Speaker 3: in federal court. You know, we're so riveted to what's
Speaker 3: happened in the state court, because it was so egregious
Speaker 3: that I think some people are forgetting some of the
Speaker 3: important procedural history in the case. But if you remember,
Speaker 3: Trump gets indicted I think in April of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: and one of the first things he does is he
Speaker 3: tries to remove the case to federal court. And his
Speaker 3: theory there was that he had federal defenses because Bragg
Speaker 3: was trying to enforce the campaign finance laws and a
Speaker 3: lot of the activity happened while he was president. So
Speaker 3: he goes into the Southern District of New York, my
Speaker 3: old courthouse in Manhattan, and unfortunately for them, but for Trump,
Speaker 3: the draw he gets is Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is
Speaker 3: a ninety year old senior judge Clinton appointee, and basically,
Speaker 3: Hellerstein blesses everything that Bragg wanted to do, including to
Speaker 3: enforce the federal campaign finance laws. Now, it was a
Speaker 3: terrible decision, but it is a decision. So for like
Speaker 3: these people who keep saying, we got to get this
Speaker 3: case into federal court, what New York's going to come
Speaker 3: back and say is this case was already in federal court.
Speaker 3: We had to give Judge Hellerstein all of our theories
Speaker 3: for what we were prosecuting here, what the crimes were.
Speaker 3: We had to give discovery to Trump about what the
Speaker 3: other crime was that that we were alleging he concealed
Speaker 3: by the business records fraud. So what they're going to
Speaker 3: say is this has already got played out in federal court,
Speaker 3: and because it did, it's going to make it much
Speaker 3: more difficult for Trump at this point to try to
Speaker 3: get out of the regular state appellate process and jump
Speaker 3: into federal court on a theory that like the federal
Speaker 3: courts have to intervene here because the state is gone rogue.
Speaker 3: What the state's going to say is, we already ran
Speaker 3: this past a federal court. That's how we got to
Speaker 3: be able to do the case.
Speaker 1: We've got to take a quick commercial break more with
Speaker 1: any McCarthy. On the other side, Alvin Bragg is going
Speaker 1: to face the House Judiciary Committee on July twelfth, the
Speaker 1: day after the sentencing.
Speaker 2: Now, could anything.
Speaker 1: That he says during this hearing help President Trump's appeal process, Like,
Speaker 1: could anything come to light during that that could then
Speaker 1: be used, uh, you know, evidence of bias or you
Speaker 1: know what have you.
Speaker 3: I'm really surprised he's agreed to testify. Frankly, you know this.
Speaker 3: This came up once before they tried to They tried
Speaker 3: to make him come after the indictment, and he told
Speaker 3: them to pound sand I was kind of expecting, uh,
Speaker 3: he do that again. So I'm I'll be interested to
Speaker 3: see if he if he says anything of note. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, he's a clever enough guy that you know
Speaker 3: he'll answer what he does when he wants to answer,
Speaker 3: and then he won't answer anything that he doesn't want
Speaker 3: to answer. Because the New York state system is not
Speaker 3: under the supervision of Congress. And I must say, if
Speaker 3: I was a state district attorney, and this is like
Speaker 3: completely set apart from how I feel about Bragg or
Speaker 3: any other state official. But if Congress, if I was
Speaker 3: a state district attorney and Congress subpoened me to come
Speaker 3: and explain my charging decisions as a state official, I
Speaker 3: tell him to screw themselves. I wouldn't. I wouldn't come,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't testify. I'd let him. I'd say, you know,
Speaker 3: good luck try and forcing it in court.
Speaker 2: Is it a victory lap then? For him? Is that?
Speaker 1: Do you think he's doing it as a to be spiteful,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of a middle finger to Republicans kind
Speaker 1: of thing.
Speaker 3: No, No, I don't, well, I think there's a lot
Speaker 3: of that, But you know, I think Democrats are very
Speaker 3: good at playing this game. So I'm sure that Bragg
Speaker 3: is coordinating with Jamie Raskin and like all the all
Speaker 3: the kids who are on that committee, and they'll have
Speaker 3: a very well orchestrated performance, and Bragg will look appropriately
Speaker 3: combative when like whether it's Jim Jordan or Jamie Comer,
Speaker 3: who else goes after him, And then he'll have a
Speaker 3: whole they'll have a whole scripted performance with the Democrats
Speaker 3: on the committee, and I'm sure he'll come off looking
Speaker 3: pretty effective. But he won't tell them anything. I mean,
Speaker 3: he doesn't have to tell them anything. He's a he's
Speaker 3: he's an executive official who was elected by you know,
Speaker 3: all the you know, the big problems that we have
Speaker 3: in this country are not legal problems. They're cultural problems.
Speaker 3: You know. We have we have a situation where in
Speaker 3: big blue states and cities, people now campaign on the
Speaker 3: idea of elect me and I will use the powers
Speaker 3: of our office against our political enemies. When I was
Speaker 3: a young prosecutor in the eighties and Bob Morgenthal was
Speaker 3: the state prosecutor there, that would have been disqualifying to
Speaker 3: make an argument like that, And he got elected for
Speaker 3: twenty five years because he would never in a million
Speaker 3: years have done something like that. Now, these people like
Speaker 3: Letitia James and Alvin Bragg campaign this way and they
Speaker 3: get elected comfortably. So I think, you know, that's a
Speaker 3: big problem. But he is an elected state official. He
Speaker 3: doesn't owe any answers to Congress. What I keep hearing
Speaker 3: is that, well, they take federal money. You know, Congress
Speaker 3: appropriates federal Well maybe they can ask him about how
Speaker 3: he is using the federal money that he gets appropriated.
Speaker 3: But I don't think he has to answer any questions
Speaker 3: about his charging decisions. I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: You know before we go, I'm really interested in hearing
Speaker 1: your perspective on the justice system in America. You know,
Speaker 1: you're someone who's really dedicated your life, your career to
Speaker 1: the rule of law. I know it's something you take
Speaker 1: very seriously. So after following the Trump case, what's your
Speaker 1: viewpoint on America's justice system today?
Speaker 3: So I wrote a piece for National Review that was
Speaker 3: called in Memory of Justice. I think it was a
Speaker 3: day or two after this all ended, and it was
Speaker 3: kind of a despondent essay. But I was covering the
Speaker 3: trial with and speaking to a lot of people who,
Speaker 3: like me, had their roots in the justice system. And
Speaker 3: a lot of the people I would talk was talking
Speaker 3: to have absolutely no use for Donald Trump. You know,
Speaker 3: they won't vote for him, their hostile to them, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Not all of the people I'm talking to, but a
Speaker 3: lot of them. You know, this was New York after all,
Speaker 3: and yet those people were despondent as well, and it
Speaker 3: was kind of I've referred to it as a as
Speaker 3: a kind of they know not what they do moment,
Speaker 3: because if you take Trump out of this, you can't
Speaker 3: have a strong republic, a free republic, a flourishing, profitable,
Speaker 3: rich society without the rule of law. And it's an
Speaker 3: a essential building block. You know. Look every Western movie
Speaker 3: that anyone's ever seen in America about like the country
Speaker 3: as the you know, as the Frontier was expanding. The
Speaker 3: first thing they do when they move into town, well,
Speaker 3: the first thing they do is construct a saloon. But
Speaker 3: the second thing they do is they have law enforcement right,
Speaker 3: they have the sheriff, they have the whole. But that's
Speaker 3: because everybody understands that if you don't have the rule
Speaker 3: of law, then you have the law of the jungle.
Speaker 3: There's no you know, there's no middle ground. And the
Speaker 3: essential building block of the rule of law is that
Speaker 3: everybody believes that they get a fair shape. That is
Speaker 3: that our first guiding principle is equal protection under the law.
Speaker 3: That the bar of justice. To speak of it in
Speaker 3: the kind of emotive tones that we often use in
Speaker 3: legal protection, but the bar of justice is where everybody
Speaker 3: comes to get a fair shake and where the smallest,
Speaker 3: most helpless citizen stands as an equal with the most
Speaker 3: powerful government. If you lose that, you lose everything. And
Speaker 3: what I don't think democrats and progressives realize is that
Speaker 3: by turning this essential building block of a free and
Speaker 3: prosperous society into a political weapon, they are threatening. They
Speaker 3: may be beyond just threatening. They are threatening the legitimacy
Speaker 3: of it in the sense that people accept its outcomes
Speaker 3: as fair and just. And if you lose that, we
Speaker 3: lose the system. And if we lose the system, we
Speaker 3: lose the United States. So I don't think this is
Speaker 3: about Trump. I think Trump is like, you know, he
Speaker 3: shines a spotlight, as he often does, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: he shines a spotlight on a serious problem. But the
Speaker 3: problem is not about Trump. The problem is about the
Speaker 3: fact that culturally it's become acceptable to use the justice
Speaker 3: system that way. And the thing I worry most about, Lisa,
Speaker 3: in terms of the country is that we're like two
Speaker 3: ships passing in the night, in the sense that on
Speaker 3: our side we're saying, you're using the justice system as
Speaker 3: a political weapon, where the process is the penalty, and
Speaker 3: instead of saying nowhere not, the other side is saying,
Speaker 3: you're damn right, we are. That's what we do, you know.
Speaker 3: And in too many big cities in America where too
Speaker 3: many you know, look, millions and millions of people live
Speaker 3: in these places, and they drive, they drive popular opinion
Speaker 3: in the culture, but they think it's just peachy to
Speaker 3: use the processes of the system in a punitive way
Speaker 3: against their political enemies. And anybody who thinks like there's
Speaker 3: a suy generous Trump law law where this is all
Speaker 3: going to be cabin for Trump and it's only ever
Speaker 3: going to be applied to Trump, and that the precedents
Speaker 3: that they're setting in going after one political enemy won't
Speaker 3: be used again and again and again against other political enemies.
Speaker 3: As if Trump is their only political enemy. You're crazy
Speaker 3: if that's what you think.
Speaker 1: I totally agree, Annie McCarthy. I'm praying that you know,
Speaker 1: Americans are awake and we can turn this all around
Speaker 1: in November and they realize that, you know, there's this
Speaker 1: is so much more than just a political election. It
Speaker 1: really is about the survival of the republic in my opinion.
Speaker 1: But you know, I hope people realize what you're saying.
Speaker 1: You're You're not a partisan guy. You're just someone who
Speaker 1: cares about the law. So I really hope people are
Speaker 1: paying attention to what you just said. Always appreciate you
Speaker 1: coming on the show.
Speaker 3: It's always a pleasure, Lisa, Thanks so much.
Speaker 2: It was Anny McCarthy.
Speaker 1: I swear I always learned so much from him when
Speaker 1: he comes on the show. Always just super interesting analysis
Speaker 1: and he is able to just really dig in and
Speaker 1: let us know what's really going on. So appreciate so
Speaker 1: much for him making the time. Appreciate you guys at
Speaker 1: home for listening every Monday and Thursday. But of course
Speaker 1: you can listen throughout the week. I want to think
Speaker 1: John Cassio and my producer for putting the show together
Speaker 1: Until next time.