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Speaker 2: This isn't uncommon in law generally, and it's how this
Speaker 2: law has always been prosecuted. There was no special rule
Speaker 2: created to make it easier to convict Donald Trump. It's
Speaker 2: just how the law works.
Speaker 1: The novel theory is the idea that there's a duty
Speaker 1: to keep Christine business records that will never be seen
Speaker 1: by anybody else.
Speaker 5: That's never been prosecuted.
Speaker 1: Normally, when you have qualification of business records, it's prosecuted
Speaker 1: because there's embezzlement or there's fraud. Somebody else is going
Speaker 1: to see these records and therefore be a victim of
Speaker 1: a crime.
Speaker 6: But there's no victim here. No one was defrauded, no
Speaker 6: one was hurt. Welcome to counterpoints. Today, we're going to
Speaker 6: be debating lock Trump up.
Speaker 7: Yes or no is the resolution before us, and we're
Speaker 7: joined now by two guests who are basically polar opposis
Speaker 7: on this question, and we're excited to kind of dive
Speaker 7: into it. Will Chamberlain is the senior counsul over at
Speaker 7: Article three Project. Brian Buehler writes the off message substack Will, Brian,
Speaker 7: thanks for joining.
Speaker 5: Us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4: It's great to be here.
Speaker 7: All right, let's have some fun with this to the
Speaker 7: extent that it's possible. Brian, I'll start with you if
Speaker 7: we take the sort of law fair against Donald Trump
Speaker 7: in the aggregate, because there are a million different cases
Speaker 7: happening right now, there are appeals, there are so many
Speaker 7: different things happening in the aggregate. Though, Are the prosecutions,
Speaker 7: the tempted convictions of Donald Trump, the convictions on thirty
Speaker 7: four fellon accounts last week in the aggregate? Is all
Speaker 7: of this fundamentally just.
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 2: Can I just give the one word answer, I mean
Speaker 2: the I since Donald Trump got convicted of crime that
Speaker 2: I think all of us here understand a bit less
Speaker 2: intuitively than, for instance, the stolen classified documents case or
Speaker 2: the January sixth case, It's generated a level of controversy
Speaker 2: about whether the charges were valid or the case was
Speaker 2: good that those cases didn't. But I think close study
Speaker 2: of what he was charged with in New York and
Speaker 2: why he was convicted would lead people to see them
Speaker 2: kind of all as of a single piece, rather than
Speaker 2: as three different cases brought by three different prosecutors, all
Speaker 2: of whom are out to get Donald Trump.
Speaker 7: Okay, so will then we'll stay at that kind of
Speaker 7: basic level for now. Will these prosecutions of Donald Trump,
Speaker 7: the attempt at convictions of Donald Trump, the thirty four
Speaker 7: found account convictions of Donald Trump fundamentally unjust. I'm assuming,
Speaker 7: as your position, tell us a little bit about why.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I mean foundationally unjust.
Speaker 1: These prosecutions never would have been brought if the defendant's
Speaker 1: name wasn't Donald Trump. They are completely novel theory of
Speaker 1: falsefcation of business records in New York. In every other instance,
Speaker 1: there's some idea that these records would be seen by
Speaker 1: other people, But the New York State is putting forward
Speaker 1: a completely novel theory that President Trump has a duty
Speaker 1: to the state to maintain pristine business records, even if
Speaker 1: those records will never be seen by anybody else. There
Speaker 1: was no victim to this crime. No one was harmed.
Speaker 1: There's nobody ever who said anybody was harmed. The best
Speaker 1: theory they could come up with was that he promoted
Speaker 1: himself in the election, but of course that's allowed. And
Speaker 1: then if you actually look at the technical issues with
Speaker 1: the trial that were so probably there were a number
Speaker 1: of them that were hugely problematic. I mean, the first
Speaker 1: and most obvious is that they managed to find the
Speaker 1: one judge who violated his judicial code of conduct by
Speaker 1: donating to Joe Biden. Judges are not supposed to make
Speaker 1: political donations. It's explicit in the New York Code. And
Speaker 1: there's plenty of other New York judges who could have
Speaker 1: handled this case. But they found the one judge who
Speaker 1: violated his oath in a way that was so trivial
Speaker 1: because it's he gave a ten dollars donation. What does
Speaker 1: that mean, Well, it doesn't actually sway anything, but it
Speaker 1: does raise your hand to say that you're on the
Speaker 1: team that you're part of of. You know, you're one
Speaker 1: of the people who is happy to work towards the
Speaker 1: imprisonment of the most prominent Republican in the country. So
Speaker 1: I mean, we can go down to this. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's plenty more in terms of what was wrong with
Speaker 1: this trial, what was wrong with this prosecution from its inception,
Speaker 1: but certainly unjust is the least of it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and Brian, I thought your point was interesting that
Speaker 6: this particular case has raises more questions in people's minds
Speaker 6: than the other kind of more obvious ones. I mean,
Speaker 6: do you think it was a mistake for Democrats to
Speaker 6: kind of lead with this one? I mean, it's not
Speaker 6: as if though Democrats were in a room and said, Okay,
Speaker 6: who's going to go first? All right, Alvin, you've got this.
Speaker 6: But that is the way it shook out. Alvin Bragg
Speaker 6: went first. Alvin Bragg is the first to get a conviction.
Speaker 6: The rest are just languishing. Do you think that his
Speaker 6: being the only one to make any progress is undermining
Speaker 6: the broader public's kind of faith in this or do
Speaker 6: you think that you know, guys seemed guilty, so you know,
Speaker 6: let's move the sentencing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, to the extent that you want to
Speaker 2: define Alvin Bragg or one Maershawn as Democrats. This shook
Speaker 2: out this way in large part because of the actual
Speaker 2: lawfair that Donald Trump engaged in to delay his other trials.
Speaker 2: This trial was set to go second and possibly never
Speaker 2: at all, because Alvin Bragg recognized that the January sixth
Speaker 2: prosecution that Jack Smith brought was the more important one,
Speaker 2: and that if that was teed up that he would
Speaker 2: basically take his case into abeyance and then try Donald
Speaker 2: Trump at a later time, or maybe just just let
Speaker 2: things fly. To respond to what Will said, you know,
Speaker 2: one Marechawan wasn't picked at random, or one Mchon didn't.
Speaker 2: They didn't land on him. He was picked at random.
Speaker 2: And the donation that he gave to Joe Biden. He
Speaker 2: ran that by a New York ethics panel, which determined
Speaker 2: that he could not be deemed too biased to preside
Speaker 2: over this case. What would have been sort of outside
Speaker 2: the normal practice would have been for Alvin Bragg to
Speaker 2: discover this crime and not charge it. This is a
Speaker 2: law that New York State prosecutes very vigorously, and contra
Speaker 2: what Matt says, it's it. They do it not because
Speaker 2: they're out of the goodness of their hearts, because America
Speaker 2: has this robust culture of prosecuting white collar crimes, but
Speaker 2: because New York is the business capital of the world,
Speaker 2: and people who do business there need to have faith
Speaker 2: that the business records that they encounter are not fraudulent.
Speaker 2: That's why it's so aggressively policed in New York, and
Speaker 2: not prosecuting Donald Trump for falsifying his business records would
Speaker 2: have been placing him above the law. And if if
Speaker 2: an appeals court or the New York legislator or whatever
Speaker 2: determines that actually, because of Donald Trump, we need to
Speaker 2: toss this law out the window. It's not like Donald
Speaker 2: Trump is the only one who gets off. A bunch
Speaker 2: of other fraudsters get off too, which I suppose is
Speaker 2: fine with MAGA, but it's not.
Speaker 4: It's not that would actually not be good for me.
Speaker 7: York will go ahead.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you missed the thrust of my
Speaker 1: point that this is an entirely novel theory that's never
Speaker 1: been prosecuted in this manner before.
Speaker 2: Well, there's never been a presidential candidate who falsified business
Speaker 2: records to cover up his election crimes.
Speaker 1: That's the I mean, you're narrowing the scope then too much.
Speaker 1: The novel theory is the idea that there's a duty
Speaker 1: to keep pristine business records that will never be seen
Speaker 1: by anybody else, that's never been prosecuted. And I'm not
Speaker 1: the only person saying this. This isn't just some rkling conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1: This is Jed Sugarman, who's a very liberal law professor,
Speaker 1: who pointed this out months ago, in actually probably last year,
Speaker 1: when this prosecution was initially brought. This is incredibly, incredibly
Speaker 1: novel because normally, when you have falsification of business records,
Speaker 1: it's prosecuted because there's embezzlement or there's fraud. Somebody else
Speaker 1: is going to see these records and therefore be a
Speaker 1: victim of a crime. But there's there's no victim here.
Speaker 1: No one was defrauded, no one was hurt, and so
Speaker 1: the clearly like this. Actually, when you say, oh, this
Speaker 1: is so aggressively police, you're just wrong.
Speaker 5: Fact on the fact were.
Speaker 2: Judge Sugarman is not a former assistant District attorney for
Speaker 2: the for Manhattan. If you talk to people who used
Speaker 2: to work in that office and used to prosecute those crimes,
Speaker 2: they say that this is like was a paint by
Speaker 2: numbers prosecutions for the reasons that I said, and that
Speaker 2: new York does have a compelling interest in making sure
Speaker 2: that people's business records are not fraudulent. I would agree
Speaker 2: with you that were Donald Trump not Donald Trump, or
Speaker 2: if you had lost the twenty sixteen election, this case
Speaker 2: might not have been brought because it might not have
Speaker 2: been discovered right because the business w records would never
Speaker 2: have come out. Nobody would have seen them, The prosecutors
Speaker 2: would not have had anything to work with. They would
Speaker 2: have gone fish fishing through his business records to find them,
Speaker 2: but that might have been an abuse. Instead, what happened
Speaker 2: is he was elected president, the business records became public.
Speaker 2: The prosecutors were aware that he committed the crime. It
Speaker 2: would have been malpractice of them to just like let
Speaker 2: him off the hook.
Speaker 1: Because side Vance had this case years ago and looked
Speaker 1: at it and passed.
Speaker 5: I mean this is like it took years.
Speaker 1: I mean that like I mean remember that this transaction,
Speaker 1: these transactions happened in twenty seventeen. There have been there's
Speaker 1: been years where this has been available as a possibility
Speaker 1: to prosecute. And then, but not only did Vance look
Speaker 1: at it in past Federal election Commission looked at it
Speaker 1: in passed and all of a sudden, Alvin Bragg comes
Speaker 1: into the help of Matthew the feder election comment, and
Speaker 1: everybody's like, oh, big time prosecution here. I mean it
Speaker 1: just election commission that this is anything but lawfair.
Speaker 2: The Federal Election Committee is neutered by people who won't
Speaker 2: apply the law of Donald Trump. If Simon Vance made
Speaker 2: a mistake, and somebody should ask him now, because the
Speaker 2: jury came back unanimously that Donald Trump Trump committed all
Speaker 2: thirty four of these felonies, that's sy Vance's problem.
Speaker 7: Brian, what about the I mean a huge complaint, and
Speaker 7: well you can flush this out as well. But one
Speaker 7: of the huge complaints is that Donald Trump is not
Speaker 7: charged with the underlying crime that he was convicted of
Speaker 7: thirty four felonies of furtherance. So if he was not
Speaker 7: charged with, for example, election in a federal election crime, why
Speaker 7: then is it appropriate to convict him on thirty four
Speaker 7: counts that were trumped up to a felony because they
Speaker 7: were in furtherance of this other crime. How do you
Speaker 7: sort of justify that then?
Speaker 4: So I'd say two things.
Speaker 2: One is that I think it speaks poorly of Merrick
Speaker 2: Garland's Justice Department that he let the statute of limitations
Speaker 2: on Donald Trump as individual one lapse. And then the
Speaker 2: second thing I'd say about it is that I think
Speaker 2: that the argument is a canard, and lawyers will presumably
Speaker 2: understand that there's like a very close analogy to this
Speaker 2: in obstruction law. That if somebody shreds documents to cover
Speaker 2: up bank fraud and or drug trafficking, but the destruction
Speaker 2: of the evidence prevents prosecutors from proving beyond a reasonable
Speaker 2: doubt that a defendant committed bank fraud or traffic drugs,
Speaker 2: there's still guilty of obstruction, and the jury does not
Speaker 2: have to be unanimous as to whether the shredding of
Speaker 2: the documents was to cover up one crime or the
Speaker 2: other or both. This isn't uncommon in in law generally,
Speaker 2: and it's how this law has always been prosecuted. There
Speaker 2: was no special rule created to make it easier to
Speaker 2: convict Donald Trump. It's just how the law works. Again,
Speaker 2: if if Donald Trump has a problem with the constitutionality
Speaker 2: of that of this law for that reason, he can
Speaker 2: take it on appeal. But there's there's nothing unusual about
Speaker 2: it at all.
Speaker 7: Go ahead.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, another point that was made is that
Speaker 1: this is the first time that these federal election laws
Speaker 1: have been used as a predicate anywhere in the country
Speaker 1: under any circumstances.
Speaker 4: Well, it's New York state law. It's it's not right.
Speaker 1: The New York stated the New York state law prohibits
Speaker 1: the promotion of a candidate by unlawful means, that itself
Speaker 1: contains the predicate, and that that included a violation of
Speaker 1: federal election law. Right, it's understanding how convoluted this theory,
Speaker 1: this legal theory is why it's so bizarre. There's levels
Speaker 1: of predicates here. There's the falsification charge, then there's they
Speaker 1: said that has to be in further instant of the
Speaker 1: crime because they needed to bump it up to a
Speaker 1: felony in order to get past the statute limitations problems.
Speaker 1: They did that by saying, you know, saying that the
Speaker 1: predicates of that was a New York state election law
Speaker 1: of promoting a candidate the unlawful means. But that unlawful
Speaker 1: means itself, it requires a predicate. And then that they
Speaker 1: gave Judge Merschan gave a menu, or the prosecutors did,
Speaker 1: of three different possible crimes. And this is yet another
Speaker 1: problem with the prosecution a total failure in the jury
Speaker 1: instructions to note that they had to prove the elements
Speaker 1: of each of the of the one of the three
Speaker 1: predicate crimes and have say that those were proven. Unreasonable
Speaker 1: about the jury instructions didn't do that.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, that's that's not true. That's not true
Speaker 2: under the New York law. But if you think that
Speaker 2: that's unfair or something like that, Donald.
Speaker 1: Trump cantey, that's basically this is like the core system.
Speaker 1: You have to prove every element of reason.
Speaker 2: Go back to go back to the analogy to obstruction law.
Speaker 2: There is no issue with charging somebody for obstruction without
Speaker 2: charging them for the crime that they were obstructing. That
Speaker 2: I don't think that you believe that that that the
Speaker 2: obstruction law is unconstitutional or violates to process law if
Speaker 2: you don't also charge the obstructive offense, you don't think that.
Speaker 1: I mean no, But if you think it's distinct, if
Speaker 1: it's an if it's a predicate element of the crime,
Speaker 1: every element that that also has to be proven, like
Speaker 1: even if you don't independently charge it, that's a distinct
Speaker 1: question from you know, people don'ty of the crime.
Speaker 4: What made you have to establish I mean, do you
Speaker 4: do you think it?
Speaker 2: Do you think it's legal for a corporation to to pay.
Speaker 4: Hush money on behalf of a candidate.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know that wasn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt,
Speaker 2: but that is an element of the crime. That the
Speaker 2: falsified documents were mental and zeal. I mean, I mean
Speaker 2: I don't think that I would.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't imagine that you think that that should be
Speaker 2: legal practice for campaigns.
Speaker 1: I mean it's not clear, right, Like, that's just not
Speaker 1: clear under your current law, right, Like, this is why
Speaker 1: they didn't rebring the John Edwards prosecution because he did
Speaker 1: something something similar happened in his instance, and they didn't
Speaker 1: want to bring it because it's just not it's not
Speaker 1: clear if there's a mixed motive.
Speaker 2: For why what was the corporation that paid John Edwards
Speaker 2: hush money and that he didn't remembert well?
Speaker 1: I mean, because the question is not whether a corporation
Speaker 1: or somebody else does it. I mean, if it's any
Speaker 1: instry other than the person who's the candidate. I mean,
Speaker 1: because obviously candad cans spend as much money on himself
Speaker 1: as he wants. If the candidate wants to sign an
Speaker 1: NBA and a bazillion dollars on their own behalf.
Speaker 4: Yeah, problem, I agree with that.
Speaker 1: So whether or not it's a corporation or other individuals
Speaker 1: is sort of irrelevant.
Speaker 6: Would it be the case that if Trump himself and
Speaker 6: maybe this is obvious, so if Trump cut the check himself,
Speaker 6: Donald J. Trump, you know two Stormy Daniels one hundred
Speaker 6: and thirty five thousand dollars, you know memo, you know,
Speaker 6: hush money sends her that check. You know, he's allegedly
Speaker 6: a billionaire, Like you can write one hundred and thirty
Speaker 6: thousand OAR check if you're a billionaire. If he does that,
Speaker 6: and I break, Brian, I guess curious for your take
Speaker 6: on this.
Speaker 8: So would that have been legal like that? It seems
Speaker 8: like we would.
Speaker 1: Have, right, Yeah, that's because it would be the same
Speaker 1: as a billionaire. I mean, assuming again that these are
Speaker 1: constitute campaign donations, which you assume for the state of argument.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you can donate as much to
Speaker 1: your own campaign as you want, So it would mean I.
Speaker 2: Mean, with with with having like the legal expertise to
Speaker 2: answer the question definitively, as I recall from when the
Speaker 2: hush money story first came out in twenty eighteen. I
Speaker 2: believe the I think the concern at the time was
Speaker 2: not would it be legal for a candidate to take
Speaker 2: money out of their own bank account, put it in
Speaker 2: a suitcase, hand it to their mistress, make them sign
Speaker 2: an NDA, and then the story goes away. I think
Speaker 2: that that per se would be legal. The question is
Speaker 2: whether then it was disclosed as a campaign expenditure or
Speaker 2: else separately disclosed on like the financial filings that the
Speaker 2: presidents are obligated to fill out, and would Donald Trump
Speaker 2: have done that? But we ended up not reaching that
Speaker 2: point because he went he went through Ami and Michael Cohens.
Speaker 6: And I want to move on from this case in
Speaker 6: a minute, but just to pick up on one thing
Speaker 6: that Will said, Will you mentioned you describe it as
Speaker 6: kind of like a victimless crime, and I think you're
Speaker 6: referring to the business records, because you know, you're allowed
Speaker 6: to have sloppy business records the But broadly speaking, the
Speaker 6: victim here would be the American public that was deprived of,
Speaker 6: you know, learning about this scandal in the wake of
Speaker 6: the Access Hollywood video. Yet on the other hand, we
Speaker 6: do accept the idea that parties are allowed to get
Speaker 6: together and page other settlements in.
Speaker 8: Exchange for an NBA.
Speaker 6: So I guess, and this is the question for Brian too,
Speaker 6: how does this become legal?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 6: Would you you pay the hush money and then you
Speaker 6: just write in the FEC one hundred and thirty thousand
Speaker 6: dollars for pr legal expenses, like because you obviously can't
Speaker 6: put in the FEC hush money for sleeping with a
Speaker 6: horn star because that undoes the whole point of paying
Speaker 6: the hush money. And so is it really as simple
Speaker 6: as that if he had just kind of written a
Speaker 6: couple of things differently in his ledger back at the
Speaker 6: Trump organization and in the FEC that the whole transaction
Speaker 6: was fine.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's not clear that it would have
Speaker 1: been fine, because honestly, he does it differently. He's got
Speaker 1: an independent problem, right, So say it's a campaign expense, Well,
Speaker 1: then could he pay for it out of his campaign account?
Speaker 1: That would lead to an obvious problem of oh, you're
Speaker 1: using your campaign for personal expenses, because you could reframe
Speaker 1: it entirely and say, oh, the point the entire point
Speaker 1: of paying is hush money is to avoid the public
Speaker 1: embarrassment to your family into you know, your wife and
Speaker 1: your children about having an affair revealed, and you're using
Speaker 1: campaign money for that, right like you think about all
Speaker 1: the other scandals we have where we go after politicians
Speaker 1: like elin Omar, for example, for using campaign money for
Speaker 1: personal expenses. So I mean it just literally, you could
Speaker 1: invert the way the prism through which you view the
Speaker 1: transaction entirely realized that if he had done it in
Speaker 1: a different manner, he also would have been prosecuted under
Speaker 1: this theory, which again goes back to why this was
Speaker 1: unjust in the first instance.
Speaker 7: And so, Brian, here's a question that might be clarifying
Speaker 7: and help us even broaden it up beyond just the
Speaker 7: album Brad case. I think Will and I won't put
Speaker 7: murds in Will's mouth. He can make this argument if
Speaker 7: it's one he agrees with. But a lot of people
Speaker 7: on the right, myself included, look at this case and
Speaker 7: think to ourselves, is this the way if you know
Speaker 7: you have the way that James Comy treated Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 7: we can open up that can of worms too. But
Speaker 7: is this worth the level of this particular case, is
Speaker 7: the lawfair against Donald Trump in general? Is this worth
Speaker 7: what it will do to the country? Are these severe enough,
Speaker 7: grave enough offenses that justify breaking what we're previously seen
Speaker 7: as norms? You know, they are not like codified in
Speaker 7: the Constitution. You can't touch a president, though we can
Speaker 7: get done. We can also talk about the immunity case
Speaker 7: at the Supreme Court. But just in like a purely
Speaker 7: political sense, in the question of like will this, will
Speaker 7: this be worth what it does to the country, Brian,
Speaker 7: I imagine you might say, would it be worth not prosecuting?
Speaker 7: You know, what does it do to the country if
Speaker 7: you don't prosecute Donald Trump on some of these charges?
Speaker 7: How do you respond to how do you respond to that?
Speaker 2: So without stipulating that any of this is law fair,
Speaker 2: I can imagine an infraction that Donald Trump committed that
Speaker 2: I would argue, look for prudential reasons, it's not worth
Speaker 2: going after him for that. I wouldn't put the hush
Speaker 2: money election interference case in that bucket, But you can
Speaker 2: cook up a hypothetical scenario. I think the norm that
Speaker 2: was violated here is not there's like no norm in
Speaker 2: the United States against prosecuting a former president. The norm
Speaker 2: is having a former president who's an inveterate criminal, and
Speaker 2: the I think the implication is, well, now this is
Speaker 2: just going to become standard. Presidents are going to leave office,
Speaker 2: and whether they've committed crimes or not, prosecutors from the
Speaker 2: other party are going to go after them. I'm personally
Speaker 2: not not worried about any kind of Pandora's box like that.
Speaker 2: Like I do worry that a second Trump administration would
Speaker 2: go after innos and people were ruin inocent people's lives,
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking mostly of people who who don't have
Speaker 2: high profiles or lots of money. But I've seen since
Speaker 2: the verdict came out, I've seen many conservatives say, for instance,
Speaker 2: that you know, Nancy Pelosi, better watch out, like a
Speaker 2: MAGA prosecutor will now indict her for insider trading. And
Speaker 2: my response to that is, go for it, like give
Speaker 2: it your best shot. I don't think MAGA activists have
Speaker 2: much of a principal issue with insider trading because Donald
Speaker 2: Trump pardoned Chris Collins, the Republican congressman who's convicted of
Speaker 2: insider trading. But if a right wing prosecutor wants to
Speaker 2: get revenge by going after Nancy Pelosi, they should look
Speaker 2: for evidence that you did insider trading, and they should
Speaker 2: seek an indictment and persuaded jury. But if it's just
Speaker 2: tit for tet corruption, I'm pretty confident that the case
Speaker 2: would stink and either the grand jury would return no bill,
Speaker 2: or the trial jury would acquit her or hang. Donald
Speaker 2: Trump got convicted because he committed the crime. And to
Speaker 2: anticipate what I think the objection will be, yes, New
Speaker 2: York is a very democratic jurisdiction, but not all Democratic
Speaker 2: voters are rabid partisans. And Donald Trump won like fifteen
Speaker 2: percent of the vote in Manhattan. Just picking twelve people
Speaker 2: at random, you would anticipate one or two of them
Speaker 2: to have been Donald Trump voters.
Speaker 4: It wasn't a random process.
Speaker 2: Trump's lawyers picked six of the jurors, and it would
Speaker 2: be nice if in the aftermath of this verdict we
Speaker 2: could hear from some of those jurors right like they could.
Speaker 2: A Republican voting juror could say, you know what, I
Speaker 2: respect the former president. I thought he was a good president.
Speaker 2: But the evidence was there and it was my duty
Speaker 2: to convict. Unfortunately, any juror who came forward to explain
Speaker 2: their reasoning would be subject to death. Threats they might
Speaker 2: have to leave their home, and that's that's the MAGA movement.
Speaker 2: And I think that not prosecuting because you're afraid of
Speaker 2: that kind of you know, public reaction is just normalizing
Speaker 2: that kind of intimidation.
Speaker 4: And it's good that it wasn't done in this case.
Speaker 7: Did James Comy make the right decision when it came
Speaker 7: to not bringing charges against Hillary Clinton? From your perspective, Brian.
Speaker 2: Well, James Comy was the FBI director, so it wasn't
Speaker 2: his place to bring charges brought to recommend that DOJ
Speaker 2: not pursue charges, Yes, I think that. I think that
Speaker 2: his calculation was that, I mean, his the legal point
Speaker 2: that he was making is that if I tell DOJ
Speaker 2: to go indict her and then we bring this to trial,
Speaker 2: we're going to lose the trial, right and and we've
Speaker 2: seen this right like like Donald Trump did actually try
Speaker 2: to do something that I would call law fare by
Speaker 2: getting Bill Barr to appoint Durham to be special counsel
Speaker 2: who brought cases against people trying to disprove the the
Speaker 2: or to undermine the Russian investigation, and those people were quitted.
Speaker 7: After the FBI created the Russian investigation.
Speaker 4: The FBI.
Speaker 2: Well, the FBI engaged Russian that they had a predicate
Speaker 2: for it, they pursued it, and they special counsel Robert
Speaker 2: Muller brought charges against many people. Those people were by
Speaker 2: and large convicted, and there are only many of them
Speaker 2: are only out of prison now because Donald Trump pardoned them.
Speaker 7: Well, what's your response to that.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of respond to there. I mean,
Speaker 1: first and foremost this idea that Durham was just lawfair.
Speaker 1: I mean, Durham found a guy who falsified an application
Speaker 1: for a FIZ that Kevin Klinsmith, who could fled guilty
Speaker 1: to falsifying.
Speaker 5: I mean, and also we can you know me, I
Speaker 5: think you got probation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was his trophy and that is true. I'm
Speaker 4: not denying that that happened.
Speaker 2: It was just not It did not collapse the merits
Speaker 2: of what was in the Muller Report or the Senate's
Speaker 2: report on Russian interference.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Muller report didn't have anything of merit
Speaker 1: to talk about. There was a pression collusion was bs
Speaker 1: and the obstruction charges were ridiculous. They were predicated on
Speaker 1: a completely complete misunderstanding of how obstruction of justice works.
Speaker 1: I mean, Bill Barr explained this thoroughly in the memo
Speaker 1: he wrote before he became Attorney General and then became
Speaker 1: when after he became Attorney General. He demonstrated that what
Speaker 1: Andrew Weisman and the theory of fifteen Salts to two
Speaker 1: that they were all prosecuting was just bizarre. And we're
Speaker 1: about to find out that Supreme Court agrees with that entirely,
Speaker 1: because when the Fisher opinion comes down a few weeks,
Speaker 1: they're going to drastically narrow the scope of fifteen twelve c. Two,
Speaker 1: this sort of this vague general obstruction statute that's going
Speaker 1: to be narrowed down to actual impairment of evidence.
Speaker 6: Well, let me pick up on something that that Brian
Speaker 6: said that, Yeah, it's it's true that I think none
Speaker 6: of us here want to see the norm broken where
Speaker 6: we start to have political prisoners on each side and
Speaker 6: like one party doesn't want to leave office because they're
Speaker 6: afraid they're going to get jailed by the other party.
Speaker 8: Like none of that is healthy for us.
Speaker 6: But Brian makes an interesting point that a norm that
Speaker 6: was broken before was by was by Donald Trump, you
Speaker 6: know who's doing all of these crimes now I'm that
Speaker 6: one like standing up for all the sanctity of let's say,
Speaker 6: classified documents. But you read that case, it's like the
Speaker 6: guy was getting begged by the records folks to like
Speaker 6: return the classified documents, and he's like moving them to
Speaker 6: the bathroom and like telling people move them here, and
Speaker 6: like flooding the flooding the like office and then saying, oh,
Speaker 6: I'm not supposed to have this, this is classified. You
Speaker 6: want to look at this. But then even setting aside that,
Speaker 6: which I do think is setting that aside. You had
Speaker 6: several hours where Trump supporters are ransacking the Capitol and
Speaker 6: Kevin McCarthy and other Republican leaders are begging Trump to
Speaker 6: put an end to the lawlessness, to this, to this
Speaker 6: violent attempt to stop the certification of the election. And
Speaker 6: he sat there for hours, and whereas a public just
Speaker 6: supposed to be kind of okay with that. I mean,
Speaker 6: at some point does there have to be some accountability.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was CREDI but it's not the crime
Speaker 1: he's being charged with, right Like, I mean, we people
Speaker 1: do bad things all the time that are not criminal,
Speaker 1: and that are ethical things all the time that are
Speaker 1: not criminal, And the charges in the January sixth case
Speaker 1: just aren't about that. They're about like the elector's scheme, right,
Speaker 1: which is the idea of like having these alternate slates
Speaker 1: of electors put forward to facilitate legal challenges. And I mean,
Speaker 1: the lawfair against those people is just absolutely absurd. There's
Speaker 1: precedent for doing that, and there was no fraud because
Speaker 1: they publicly posted on Twitter exactly what they were doing.
Speaker 1: They weren't saying they weren't trying to secretly be electors
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night that no one would know.
Speaker 1: They were publicly like we are trying to like set
Speaker 1: up you know, we are meeting to convene to have
Speaker 1: these votes so that in the event that Trump's legal
Speaker 1: challenges prevail, the failure to have electors sign off on
Speaker 1: the required day isn't going to be a hindrance. They
Speaker 1: weren't committing any sort of fraud any They're all being
Speaker 1: criminally prosecuted. That's that is lawfair, and the precedent for
Speaker 1: having doing that particular thing to preserve your effectively your
Speaker 1: legal challenge. I mean that was done in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: with Kennedy, So I mean, but I think going back
Speaker 1: to the macro view, which is the really important point.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden really better hope that Donald Trump prevails on
Speaker 1: his presidential immunity. I think he will, but he better
Speaker 1: hope that he will because if if that's not the
Speaker 1: case and official acts have no immunity for presidents, which
Speaker 1: is actually a really quite bizarre position if you read
Speaker 1: a case like Nixon Beefazgerald, Joe Biden is going to
Speaker 1: get prosecuted by Republicans if we're in power, no question
Speaker 1: about that. You won't have much of a defense either
Speaker 1: to what you just something, right, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: like all like official acts. Obviously, Barack Obama can just
Speaker 1: be prosecuted for murder the moment we get back into
Speaker 1: office for killing a dula from.
Speaker 7: Ryan just gave a thumbs up. If you're listening to this, yes, right.
Speaker 5: Like I mean it's I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a good outcome actually for the country,
Speaker 1: because I think it means that we massively weakened the
Speaker 1: presidency of the United States. And I mean I'm actually
Speaker 1: you know not, I think executive power is probably a
Speaker 1: good thing.
Speaker 5: Relative, you know, rather than just elevating the legislature. Uh,
Speaker 5: And I think you know, we have a lot of these.
Speaker 1: Kavanaugh made a really good point in one of the
Speaker 1: and I think the presidential immunity oral argument. He said, well,
Speaker 1: we come up with these structures to try and like
Speaker 1: punish and restrain presidents, and they end up doing a
Speaker 1: real huge amount of harm. Like the independent council structure
Speaker 1: was a good example of this. Democrats were all for
Speaker 1: the independent council, thought it was a great idea, and
Speaker 1: then independent councils started getting appointed all the time during
Speaker 1: the Clinic administration, and suddenly they realized, hey, this really
Speaker 1: inhibits the functioning of the executive means that everybody who
Speaker 1: works in the executive branch gets subpoena and has to,
Speaker 1: you know, spend huge amounts of money on legal fees.
Speaker 5: This just isn't worth it.
Speaker 1: And I think maybe I think the best outcome here
Speaker 1: is one where we stop harassing our presidents during and
Speaker 1: after their their terms. I think it's I think president
Speaker 1: there should be presidential criminal immunity and things.
Speaker 2: I think that creates a huge like that creates just
Speaker 2: a huge loophole for for scoff law presidents, and like
Speaker 2: Ryan might support prosecuting Barack Obama for for for drum strikes,
Speaker 2: and you might in the event that Donald Trump get
Speaker 2: there will Donald Trump has been convicted. That Donald Trump
Speaker 2: is not granted official Acts community for what stealing classified
Speaker 2: documents or trying to overturn the election, that Joe Biden
Speaker 2: should be prosecuted for like giving student people student loan
Speaker 2: relief or something like that. But Barack Obama and Joe
Speaker 2: Biden went through normal processes. They were given advice by
Speaker 2: some of the best lawyers in the country about how
Speaker 2: to proceed. They carried out their policies and so if
Speaker 2: you try to charge them later, they're going to have
Speaker 2: a good defense. But Donald Trump is being convicted of
Speaker 2: crimes because he has no defense. He didn't offer defend.
Speaker 1: Right if you don't have official Acts community as president.
Speaker 1: I mean, he just murdered an American citizen without trial.
Speaker 1: I mean, does the fact that he has an OLC
Speaker 1: memo that says, oh, this is okay, just mean that
Speaker 1: it's that insulates him from a murder charge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because on advice of counsel, he thought that this
Speaker 2: was consistent with America's na A Trump.
Speaker 1: Need to do is find some blacky to be his
Speaker 1: OLC guy. Remember you don't have that's not a president,
Speaker 1: that's not a Senate confirmed position. He just finds some
Speaker 1: lacky to be an OLLC guy and say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: everything you do is legal.
Speaker 2: And then okay, Donald Trump had lackeys and they told
Speaker 2: him that his efforts to steal the election were illegal.
Speaker 4: And then they went, I.
Speaker 1: Mean that's a dodge from the broader point, right, Like
Speaker 1: the idea that this sort of.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's not that's that's exactly.
Speaker 1: The potential community is, or like means that you can
Speaker 1: we don't need a concept of presidential community just goes
Speaker 1: isn't right? And I think the other problem, here's the
Speaker 1: way to think about it. You are right that like
Speaker 1: the choice of saying that there was presidential acts immunity
Speaker 1: creates a potential scoff law president problem. This this dilemma
Speaker 1: was was analyzed in detailed by the Supreme Court in
Speaker 1: Nixon Vivisgerald, where they considered exactly that problem. But they said,
Speaker 1: the efficient functioning of the executive branch and incentivizing boldness
Speaker 1: is sufficient to completely immunize presidents from civil immunity. And
Speaker 1: I mean, you're going to see I'm very confident that
Speaker 1: the courts are going to end up ruling at least
Speaker 1: to some degree for an in Trump that there is
Speaker 1: going to be some amount of immunity. Because the other
Speaker 1: thing is even the even DJ and Michael Dribin didn't
Speaker 1: defend the d Circuit opinion that said there's no such
Speaker 1: thing as official acts community like he was he was
Speaker 1: asked that point blank in the oral argument, do you
Speaker 1: agree with the d C Circuit And Dreamin's like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't know. That's you know, we're going to
Speaker 1: prevail in this question, and it's a good thing that
Speaker 1: we do, because I mean, here's the other thing.
Speaker 5: I mean, like Joe Biden's you know, sorry, I actually
Speaker 5: mix things up.
Speaker 1: But Joe Biden, you know, if we wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about if there's no official acts community, then Joe Biden
Speaker 1: facilitated the mass migration of illegal immigrants across our border
Speaker 1: by like failing to enforce our laws. Another point, Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: in explicit violation of Supreme Court uh Supreme Court cases,
Speaker 1: decided to like go ahead and try and push for
Speaker 1: a student loan forgiveness without any lawful backing. It's like
Speaker 1: if that's not if he doesn't get any official Act
Speaker 1: community well, you know we're talking about, you know, promoting
Speaker 1: your election via unlawful means. In the New York case, well,
Speaker 1: I guess we could just have somebody prosecute him for
Speaker 1: essentially trying to win a you know, bribe college students
Speaker 1: and using unlawful means right in unlawful executive order to
Speaker 1: do so. You know that the Pandora's box is real.
Speaker 1: And trust me, if we get back into power and
Speaker 1: we don't win these presidential community cases, you will see
Speaker 1: just how far that Pandora's box goes.
Speaker 2: And I just want to I want to reiterate that, like,
Speaker 2: I'm not worried about that Pandora's box, and I would
Speaker 2: I would, I would welcome some Republican prosecutor to prosecute Joe.
Speaker 2: I'll forgive this, but let me let me be magnanimous
Speaker 2: about another thing, which is you mentioned Jim come earlier
Speaker 2: in Hillary Clinton and we're talking a little bit about
Speaker 2: official ex community.
Speaker 4: When Jim Comey was.
Speaker 2: I believe running s D and Y as a US
Speaker 2: attorney at the end of the Clinton administration, he investigated
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton for pardoning Mark Mark rich to to on
Speaker 2: the on the theory that this was essentially like a bribe,
Speaker 2: a quid pro quo. I think that that was like
Speaker 2: a good theory if, like I don't know the details
Speaker 2: of the case or why he declined to prosecute, but
Speaker 2: I would absolutely support the idea that if a president
Speaker 2: takes money in order to issue a pardon, that that
Speaker 2: that the president is not immune from that. Now, that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that the pardon becomes invalid, right, It's still
Speaker 2: an official act. The pardon was granted while Bill Clinton
Speaker 2: was president, Mark Rich gets off the hook. But if
Speaker 2: there was a corrupt purpose there, then of course Bill
Speaker 2: Clinton should be prosecuted for it. And the pardon power
Speaker 2: is like the core of presidential power, right, like it's
Speaker 2: it's it's plenary, right, there's no uh, there's there's no review,
Speaker 2: and only the president can pardon somebody. And the the
Speaker 2: idea that like you create an official act community, you're
Speaker 2: you're you're gonna get let people like Bill Clinton off
Speaker 2: the hook for stuff like that.
Speaker 5: Not necessarily, I don't.
Speaker 4: Think you should want that. And I'm saying that as
Speaker 4: a liberal, I.
Speaker 1: Mean not necessarily. So can I answer this one? I mean, yeah, So,
Speaker 1: I two reasons. One, I think people have glossed over
Speaker 1: the fact that the position of the Trump legal team
Speaker 1: and the sensible position. I think it's not that all
Speaker 1: official acts always provide immunity. It's that if you are impeaching, convicted,
Speaker 1: stunt for something, your official ac community goes away. You
Speaker 1: can read the briefing. But that's been the Trump team's position.
Speaker 1: I think that's the right one. Also jives with the constitution, right.
Speaker 1: The Constitution explicitly talks about bribery as a basis for impeachment,
Speaker 1: So clearly that would be an exception to whatever immunity provides.
Speaker 1: Like you take a bribe for something as the president, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can be prosecuted for it after you're impeached and convicted.
Speaker 5: I think that's so.
Speaker 4: But but you can't be But you can't be impeached
Speaker 4: and convicted.
Speaker 2: Most almost for certain if you if you're issuing pardons
Speaker 2: on your way out the door, which is what Bill
Speaker 2: Clinton did in this case.
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 4: Partners, campaign campaigned owners.
Speaker 5: I mean Joe Biden, can President Trump partner?
Speaker 2: Can can Joe Biden part hunter Biden without facing and
Speaker 2: he should have official acts community for doing that?
Speaker 4: That's his son absolutely.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Joe Biden can parton.
Speaker 2: I mean you and you, and you wouldn't come on
Speaker 2: this program, and you wouldn't come on this program and
Speaker 2: say and and like now he needs to be impeached,
Speaker 2: he needs to be convicted, he needs to be prosecuted.
Speaker 5: No, No, it's very straightforward.
Speaker 1: I always I don't understand what could possibly be the
Speaker 1: argument against, what would possibly be the argument that Joe
Speaker 1: Biden couldn't pardon his son.
Speaker 9: So of course he could, of course, but even for
Speaker 9: you know, if he did it for purely nepotistic, selfish reasons,
Speaker 9: I don't that's you made the guy the president, that's
Speaker 9: his power.
Speaker 5: I don't see a way that he can be prosecuted for.
Speaker 7: There's an interesting question that will come up when we
Speaker 7: agree on you know, whether this is a just use
Speaker 7: of legal power. What the law actually says one thing.
Speaker 7: The other question I have for you, Brian, is what
Speaker 7: you make of the argument from the right. And this
Speaker 7: is where I brought Comy and Clinton into it, that
Speaker 7: for the last let's say ten years, this has almost
Speaker 7: always gone in one direction, the quote unquote law fair,
Speaker 7: which I know you don't use that word, but that,
Speaker 7: like the prosecutions have been almost exclusively of Trump allies.
Speaker 7: What do you make of that.
Speaker 4: They're criminals?
Speaker 2: I mean you could people people would say that Hillary
Speaker 2: Clinton is a criminal, and yes, sure, sure, but like
Speaker 2: but like the scale of the you know we've had,
Speaker 2: what does the matter?
Speaker 4: President?
Speaker 7: Why should the scale that matter?
Speaker 2: Because people who aren't inveterate criminals don't leave behind nearly
Speaker 2: as much evidence as Donald Trump has.
Speaker 4: Well, they destroy it.
Speaker 7: They if they're Hillary Clinton, they bleach bit the evidence.
Speaker 2: The I mean if Hillary, if Jim Comey had made
Speaker 2: the opposite recommendation, if he had said, this is like
Speaker 2: a winner of a case and Loretta Lynch should try it.
Speaker 2: I either I suspect that the case would have gone
Speaker 2: forward at one point or another. Hillary Clinton would have
Speaker 2: lost the election more badly than she did. There wouldn't
Speaker 2: have been any need for Donald Trump to threaten to
Speaker 2: lock her up. I don't think Jim was doing Hillary
Speaker 2: Clinton a favor by intervening and saying she was extremely reckless.
Speaker 4: But there's no no like a convictable crime here. Yeah,
Speaker 4: Like I feel I feel like I'm in.
Speaker 2: Like in upside downland, where we're saying like this only
Speaker 2: ever goes one way. Yes, Hillary Clinton wasn't wasn't tried
Speaker 2: for that. But she was the she was the candidate
Speaker 2: who lost the election because the FBI director inserted himself
Speaker 2: in the election to say that that she was careless
Speaker 2: with classified information. And then he did it again right
Speaker 2: before the election and the election turned on eight thousand
Speaker 2: votes in three.
Speaker 4: States and she lost.
Speaker 8: I mean, right, that's right, right.
Speaker 2: That's an abuse that that's an abuse of law enforcement
Speaker 2: power to hurt. Like if they had indicted her, then that.
Speaker 5: That was the official reason process, that was the official.
Speaker 1: Reason that Comy was fired. It wasn't the actual reason,
Speaker 1: but it's the official reason that Commy was fired. That
Speaker 1: was that justified to Comy's fire.
Speaker 4: Yes, there so after after after demand, yes, I.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think I think there is still there's
Speaker 1: a there's a different point here, which is that I mean,
Speaker 1: not only Hillary Clinton, but Joe Biden's got a hug
Speaker 1: classified information problem.
Speaker 5: I mean, and in my opinion, more dramatic as he
Speaker 5: President Trump's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had classified documents in his garage, classified documents
Speaker 1: from when he was a senator.
Speaker 2: That's you don't just what the republic, what did the republic,
Speaker 2: what did the Republican Special councils say about that, what
Speaker 2: were the charges.
Speaker 1: That they said he was too infirmed to be able
Speaker 1: to get to extract a conviction? Right like these that's
Speaker 1: not exactly a vote of confidence. It doesn't say he
Speaker 1: didn't commit the crime. It says I couldn't extract conviction
Speaker 1: in DC for a couple of reasons, right, but it.
Speaker 2: Doesn't need so, So you think that that, like, like,
Speaker 2: if Joe Biden loses the election, he'll be prosecuted for
Speaker 2: those for retaining those classified documents and he'll be be surprised.
Speaker 7: Brian, do you think he should be? Brian, do you
Speaker 7: think he should be? Should Joe Biden under the logic.
Speaker 2: And no, under the read of the her report, No,
Speaker 2: he shouldn't be tried. But if he is, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to you know, I'm not going to like sit
Speaker 2: here sweating it for Joe Biden that he might spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time in prison, should because murder?
Speaker 7: So your your position is that neither by Obama's cases
Speaker 7: rise to the level that they should be brought.
Speaker 2: I mean, if if, if, if the Supreme Court says
Speaker 2: nothing a president don it does in his official capacity
Speaker 2: carries any immunity with it, and some prosecutor wants to
Speaker 2: go after Barack Obama, I will probably argue that that
Speaker 2: prosecutor is engaging in a partisan form of corruption. But
Speaker 2: I'm not going to worry about, you know, Barack Obama
Speaker 2: becoming a political prisoner because he's going to beat the charges.
Speaker 8: Brian, I know you have to go in like one
Speaker 8: or two minutes, but let me finish with a.
Speaker 6: Question about that, because I do worry about the pandora's
Speaker 6: box that that we'll mention, because you could imagine, let's
Speaker 6: say an Alabama prosecutor finds somebody who was, you know,
Speaker 6: killed by an immigrant who came across the border in
Speaker 6: an unauthorized fashion, and they bring a charge against Biden
Speaker 6: for complicity in that murder, and they get a jury
Speaker 6: of they get a mega jury, Like is that is
Speaker 6: that a thing that we should be worried about.
Speaker 2: I lose no sleep over it personally. I mean, Alabama
Speaker 2: is much. I mean I feel like it's it's silly
Speaker 2: to be to be like so part of like who
Speaker 2: about it in partisan terms, because I think Joe Biden
Speaker 2: would be acquitted of.
Speaker 4: Charges along those lines even in Alabama.
Speaker 2: But if six of the jurors were magas selected by
Speaker 2: the prosecutor because he had identified them as supporters of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump who wanted revenge on Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: Joe Biden would still get to pick the other six jurors.
Speaker 4: And Alabama is less.
Speaker 2: Is more democratic than Manhattan is Republicans, so you can
Speaker 2: hang the jury. I mean, it's just like I am,
Speaker 2: not like. It does not cause me to lose any
Speaker 2: sleep at night when people like will come out lobby
Speaker 2: lobbying these threats that if you put a criminal like
Speaker 2: Donald Trump in jail, will put a non criminal like
Speaker 2: Joe Biden in jail.
Speaker 4: So I know he doesn't sweat.
Speaker 6: I know you've got to run to an appointment. Really
Speaker 6: appreciate you joining us. Feel free to log off because
Speaker 6: I know you got it.
Speaker 5: You'll be late for it.
Speaker 4: I appreciate the panel. I appreciate you guys having me on.
Speaker 7: Thank you. Brian. All right, well, do you have any
Speaker 7: final thoughts? Brian ran obviously, so don't hit him too
Speaker 7: hard because it's not here to defend himself.
Speaker 8: But I didn't run on parts. He told us he
Speaker 8: had us.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's right, he had a heart out. In all fairness,
Speaker 7: we just went long because this was so fascinating, But
Speaker 7: any final thoughts on Brian's last answer there.
Speaker 1: So, I think that multiparty democracy doesn't really work unless
Speaker 1: the parties show each other a basic amount of honor,
Speaker 1: Like think about how the British Parliament works, where we
Speaker 1: talk about the honorable gentleman or the honorable member of
Speaker 1: opposite and there's that's actually kind of important, right, these
Speaker 1: rules of decorum in the sense that the two parties
Speaker 1: need to be respected because there's there's a fundamental instability
Speaker 1: to any democracy, which is that if that honor dissipates,
Speaker 1: then one party decides, okay, well, we don't really think
Speaker 1: these election things are that good. We see you, the
Speaker 1: other party is entirely illegitimate, and we want to take power.
Speaker 1: And these kind of like lawfare style prosecutions of reciprocal
Speaker 1: prosecutions that I think would occur in a world where
Speaker 1: there wasn't presidential immunity or you know, we didn't stop
Speaker 1: this Pandora's box ultimately leads to some really bad outcomes.
Speaker 1: So I'm a big believer that I think it would
Speaker 1: be better if we all stopped.
Speaker 5: Trying to prosecute each other. But that's it.
Speaker 1: I don't believe in the Republicans unilaterally disarming. That there
Speaker 1: has to be a response to what they've done to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. So you know, it might ultimately hope to
Speaker 1: get to a settlement eventually.
Speaker 6: My own view will and I'm curious for your take
Speaker 6: on this, is that I would have preferred to see
Speaker 6: Trump prosecuted for the flagrant bribery level corruption, a lot
Speaker 6: of which flowed out of the Middle East and then
Speaker 6: flowed in float in through his family into the White House.
Speaker 6: But not all Middle East, but a lot of it
Speaker 6: flowed through the post that that you know, in that
Speaker 6: like Postal hotel, and he's got all these people, like
Speaker 6: you know, paying extraordinarily over over market price to stay
Speaker 6: in his hotel nearby. But that to me cut too
Speaker 6: close to the bone for Democrats because while it's it
Speaker 6: was worse in degree then what is typical in Washington,
Speaker 6: it was this, it was similar in kind. Yeah, so
Speaker 6: if you come after, if you come after, you come
Speaker 6: after everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all the Biden China stuff, I mean, what you know,
Speaker 1: the Tony Bobolinski revelations, Obama lives in Martha's vineyard. I mean,
Speaker 1: you it seems that you know, Donald Trump has the
Speaker 1: credit of being the one politician who's networth substantially decreased
Speaker 1: as a result of his presidence. I don't know he's
Speaker 1: the right person to look at for you know, the beneficiary.
Speaker 6: Of Kushner went from near bankrupt because of yeah, a
Speaker 6: six six six fifth avenue investment to doing just fine.
Speaker 8: So yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 6: It was a transfer of It's a generational transfer of wealth.
Speaker 7: There you go. Will Chamberlain is senior counsel at the
Speaker 7: Article three Project. Brian Buehler is the right of the
Speaker 7: off message. There you go, off message, substack, will thank
Speaker 7: you so much for joining us.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me, all.
Speaker 7: Right, Ran, I don't think I agree one hundred percent
Speaker 7: with either of them, And I thought that was a
Speaker 7: really clarifying debate because to your point, liberal Democrats are
Speaker 7: different from the sort of lock them all up, you
Speaker 7: know perspective that you know, when you gave that big
Speaker 7: thumbs up to prosecuting Obama for murder. There's a difference
Speaker 7: on the left, a pretty important distinction on the left.
Speaker 6: And of course prosecute Cheney and Bush for torture. On
Speaker 6: the other hand, I'm ambivalent about it because I agree
Speaker 6: with Will when he says you need and you need
Speaker 6: executive power to be able to function like we actually do.
Speaker 6: What is Trump's funny line, We got to have a country. Yeah,
Speaker 6: Like you actually do have to have a government, and
Speaker 6: you have to have a government that is able to
Speaker 6: take the laws.
Speaker 8: And execute them. And if you're if.
Speaker 6: You do prosecute everybody in a partisan way, you can
Speaker 6: always find crimes. Now I wish that we were we
Speaker 6: were less of a bloodthirsty uh empire. But basically, any
Speaker 6: any president, uh you know who of the United States
Speaker 6: over the last century is going to be responsible for
Speaker 6: an enormous amount of death.
Speaker 7: Show me a man, and I'll show you.
Speaker 6: I'll find the crime, right and then then the idea
Speaker 6: that like locking up those individuals would do anything about
Speaker 6: it under underminds what we understand about the logic of
Speaker 6: imperial power.
Speaker 7: And so I think they were both like very honest
Speaker 7: representations of their side. And Will saying with the we
Speaker 7: pronoun actually like if you know Republicans, he was saying,
Speaker 7: we retake power. And obviously I don't include myself in that,
Speaker 7: but he was saying we will. We cannot unilaterally disarm,
Speaker 7: and that's the phrase that is like a buzzword in
Speaker 7: conservative circles right now is unilateral disarmament, because they feel
Speaker 7: that the Department of Justice, the FBI has been weaponized
Speaker 7: against the right in the era of Trump, not necessarily
Speaker 7: pre Trump, but in the era of Trump. And they'll
Speaker 7: point to, for example, informants at traditional Latin mass that's
Speaker 7: something that happened in the FBI under the Biden administration
Speaker 7: in Virginia, pointing to the excessive prosecutions of anti abortion
Speaker 7: protesters under the Face Act and gone down the line.
Speaker 7: That's a really really interesting perspective, and a lot of
Speaker 7: people on the right, I think, don't even say it
Speaker 7: aloud unless you're in like sort of conservative movements.
Speaker 6: So I assume they'll go after poor Hunter Biden. Who
Speaker 6: are there other targets? You think that they'll actually go.
Speaker 7: For, probably Joe Biden because of all of this, and
Speaker 7: there's just a million different ways to go after any president,
Speaker 7: doesn't matter who it is. And I think that's one
Speaker 7: of the things that I found that was hard to
Speaker 7: maintain from Brian's perspective is that Obama Clinton and who
Speaker 7: else will we talk oh Biden, that none of the
Speaker 7: potential charges against them rise to the scale of the
Speaker 7: hush money porn star pay.
Speaker 6: Brian's point was interesting though that he's like, oh, ahead,
Speaker 6: bring it. You're not going to get a jury to
Speaker 6: convict on any of this stuff.
Speaker 7: And I appreciate the honesty honestly, because that's like a
Speaker 7: pun intended. But I didn't mean to say it that way.
Speaker 7: But it's a lot of people won't admit that. They
Speaker 7: would say, it's just ridiculous that you would even think
Speaker 7: to bring charges against anyone, blah blah blah. But go ahead,
Speaker 7: do it.
Speaker 8: Let the legal system do its work, all right, there
Speaker 8: we go.
Speaker 7: I also not worrying about the Pandora's box being opened.
Speaker 7: I just have a hard time with that too.
Speaker 6: I think it is open, Yeah, I mean Pandora is
Speaker 6: the Is Pandora inside the box?
Speaker 8: Or did Pandora build the box?
Speaker 7: It is her box.
Speaker 6: It's her looks inside of things you don't want to
Speaker 6: come out, Okay.
Speaker 7: I don't think it's they're worried about Pandora.
Speaker 8: Coming out, okay, because she built the box.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 7: Every single time we like end up confused than when
Speaker 7: we started. Yeah, anyway, that was I thought that was
Speaker 7: a great debate. So we'll be back next week with
Speaker 7: more we're expecting. One of the reasons we set up
Speaker 7: this debate when we did, because we're expecting a potential
Speaker 7: ruling on the immunity case any day. So it's not
Speaker 7: just that the brag phony convictions came out last week,
Speaker 7: but also this immunity case, which has huge implications for
Speaker 7: all the other cases, could be decided by the Supreme
Speaker 7: Court anytime between now and early July, So stay tuned
Speaker 7: for that and stay tuned for what we come up
Speaker 7: with for next week. I don't think we have anything on.
Speaker 8: The books yet, so it'll be good.
Speaker 5: Don't worry.
Speaker 7: It'll be good. Yeah, we don't know what it is,
Speaker 7: but we know it'll be good, all right.
Speaker 5: See then,