Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: The US Special Council appointed to investigate claims of interference
Speaker 2: in the twenty twenty election filed updated charges against Donald
Speaker 2: Trump on Tuesday. With more, we've got Bloomberg News US
Speaker 2: legal reporter Eric Larson. He's here in our Bloomberg Interactive
Speaker 2: Brokers studio talk about a surprise fall of filing.
Speaker 3: Come as it really did come as a surprise, and
Speaker 3: of it, we were expecting there to be additional court
Speaker 3: hearings in the case in Washington to see what was
Speaker 3: going to happen next, whether or not the judge there
Speaker 3: would just sort of decide on her own what charges
Speaker 3: in the in the case could go forward given that
Speaker 3: Supreme Court landmark ruling that presidents have some immunity from
Speaker 3: criminal charges. So it was just a wait and see
Speaker 3: what was going to happen with the case. And now
Speaker 3: we know there's a so called superseding indictment, a brand
Speaker 3: new indictment by Jack Smith. They've put in here that
Speaker 3: according like this is their view of how the case
Speaker 3: needed to given that landmark Supreme Court ruling in Trump's
Speaker 3: favor largely, So now we'll sort of restart the case
Speaker 3: a little bit as it moves forward here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, from what I understand, the new indictment cutting certain
Speaker 1: allegations related to Trump's communications with government officials, including the
Speaker 1: section related to his alleged efforts to involve the Justice Department,
Speaker 1: But still those same for charges accusing him of conspiring
Speaker 1: to overturn the results of the twenty twenty election still there.
Speaker 1: So is it the whole idea is to make it
Speaker 1: a stronger case for Jacksmith.
Speaker 3: I think the idea is to make it a case that,
Speaker 3: if when it returns to the Supreme Court, will survive
Speaker 3: the new scrutiny that they've put up there. So it's
Speaker 3: all going to boil down to whether or not everything
Speaker 3: in the indictment can be viewed as an official act
Speaker 3: or on the outer boundaries of an official act, or
Speaker 3: whether it's private conduct. So Jack Smith's team is, you know,
Speaker 3: clearly that they've gone through they had another grand jury.
Speaker 3: You know, look at this, and I'm this is the
Speaker 3: case that they think will survive the Supreme Court ruling
Speaker 3: if it goes back to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: So go ahead, Well, so what happens next?
Speaker 3: So what happens next? I don't know exactly for sure.
Speaker 3: But if I had to excuse yeah, well, there's no
Speaker 3: chance of a trial happening before the election at this point.
Speaker 3: Even before this superseding indictment was filed, that seemed like
Speaker 3: it was off not going to happen. So what will
Speaker 3: happen is the case will potentially have a new arguments
Speaker 3: where Trump's lawyers will argue to dismiss this superseding indictment.
Speaker 3: You can be sure they'll be disagreement over whether or
Speaker 3: not this has been narrowed enough to fit the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court ruling. Trump's lawyers may seek to narrow it further,
Speaker 3: or to have the whole thing tossed out again is
Speaker 3: another possibility. So it really remains to be seen if
Speaker 3: this ever does go to trial. Of course, plenty of
Speaker 3: people say if Trump wins, he'll just have this case
Speaker 3: thrown out. If he loses, of course, then this case
Speaker 3: we'll proceed.
Speaker 2: Just reminder, this is completely separate from the Manhattan jury
Speaker 2: on May thirtieth finding Trump guilty on thirty four counts
Speaker 2: of falsifying business records.
Speaker 3: Right right, that's a separate case. He was convicted in
Speaker 3: that case that did go to trial, obviously.
Speaker 2: And he'll be sentenced or the Dutch judge he's supposed
Speaker 2: to be sentenced on September eighteenth.
Speaker 3: That is correct, and we are waiting for a decision
Speaker 3: from that judge, Juan Marshan here in Manhattan, on whether
Speaker 3: or not to delay that sentencing until after the election.
Speaker 3: Trump made sort of a last ditch motion saying that
Speaker 3: it would be election interference for him to be sentenced
Speaker 3: with the election so near, and some other arguments as well.
Speaker 2: If back to the filing from today, if Trump does
Speaker 2: win the election in November, can he make all of
Speaker 2: this go away?
Speaker 3: That is our understanding is that the Justice Department is
Speaker 3: part of the executive branch, of course, and the president
Speaker 3: has a lot of authority to pressure or direct the
Speaker 3: Justice Department on cases. That's idly expected that that is
Speaker 3: what Trump would do. It's less clear exactly what steps
Speaker 3: he would have to go through to get there. For example,
Speaker 3: if an Attorney general could theoretically challenge him on that.
Speaker 3: But again, this is a lot of hypotheticals. But certainly
Speaker 3: the legal experts that we've been speaking to for months
Speaker 3: now theorized that if Trump is elected, he would have
Speaker 3: this case tossed out.
Speaker 1: Sure about the Jack Smith. Yes, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: so remind us of kind of where we are on
Speaker 1: the case the white Board cases against former President Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Sure, so the one that we know he's already lost.
Speaker 3: He faces up to four years in prison on thirty
Speaker 3: four counts of falsifying business records to hide that hush
Speaker 3: money payment to Stormy Daniels before the twenty sixteen elections.
Speaker 3: So it seems like so long, so long ago he
Speaker 3: was in president when he wasn't president. But he argues,
Speaker 3: actually that this immunity ruling from the Supreme Court affects
Speaker 3: that trial as well, even though it had nothing to
Speaker 3: do theoretically with being president. He said that the trial
Speaker 3: that we have here in New York that we covered
Speaker 3: was tainted by testimony and other evidence that wouldn't have
Speaker 3: been allowed under this Supreme Court standard, because even though
Speaker 3: the hush money was paid to Stormy Daniels before the
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen election, some of the witnesses were his White
Speaker 3: House officials. The payments that he made, for example, were made,
Speaker 3: you know, while he was president, repaying Michael Cohen his.
Speaker 2: How does that work though, Well.
Speaker 1: What he's saying is that some of the payments were
Speaker 1: when he was once in the White House, but initially
Speaker 1: the hush money was happened before he was even there.
Speaker 3: It was made by Michael Cohen one hundred and thirty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars and then he Cohen was and definitely before the.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruling on immunity, right.
Speaker 3: I mean it potentially is it is a long shot.
Speaker 3: The Manhattan dishest attorney says, there's no way this has
Speaker 3: an effect, and the case should the verdict should not
Speaker 3: be thrown out. So we'll wait to see what happens
Speaker 3: with that. Of course, the other Jack Smith case, the
Speaker 3: other federal case that was brought over Trump's taking of
Speaker 3: classified documents from the White House and his alleged obstruction
Speaker 3: of efforts to get them back, that was dismissed by
Speaker 3: Judge Eileen Cannon and Florida and the Special Counsel is
Speaker 3: going to be appealing to try to get that case revived.
Speaker 2: Wasn't there. And there's also the Georgia case.
Speaker 3: There's the Georgia case. Yes, a lot of drama from
Speaker 3: that one. It's sort of been on hold because of
Speaker 3: the dispute over Fannie Willis. The Fulton County District attorney
Speaker 3: there and the relationship that she had with the lead
Speaker 3: her lead prosecutor, and so there's been an effort to
Speaker 3: have her thrown out of the case. And I think
Speaker 3: we're just waiting for something to happen on that. So
Speaker 3: they have to straighten out the whole issue with that
Speaker 3: prosecutor before anything can happen again in that case.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, You're welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. That really puts it all in
Speaker 1: perspective and gets us up to date.
Speaker 3: I know, yeah, it's like, thank you.
Speaker 2: That's Bloomberg News US legal reporter Eric Larson, who wasn't
Speaker 2: scheduled to be on with us today, but so much.
Speaker 1: First, he's always to stay in August.
Speaker 3: He's always be happy to be here.