Jack - Episode 33 - Model Prosecution (feat. Norm Eisen)
Episode Date: July 16, 2023This week: Allison and Andy are joined by Senior Fellow at Brookings and CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen to talk about Just Security’s newly released pros memo that lays out a path to prosecuting Trump... for federal election crimes; Trump’s team requests a delay to the start of the documents case; DoJ files a speedy trial report; plus listener questions, and more.Follow Norm Eisenhttps://twitter.com/NormEisenJust Security Model Prosecution Memohttps://www.justsecurity.org/87236/trump-on-trial-a-model-prosecution-memo-for-federal-election-interference-crimes/Do you have questions about the cases and investigations? Email hello@muellershewrote.com and put Jack in the subject line. Check out other MSW Media podcastshttps://mswmedia.com/shows/Follow AG on Twitter:Follow Mueller, She Wrote on Posthttps://twitter.com/allisongillhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodAndrew McCabe isn’t on Twitter, but you can buy his book The Threathttps://www.amazon.com/Threat-Protects-America-Terror-Trump-ebook/dp/B07HFMYQPGWe would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyhttp://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=BffJOlI7qQcF&ver=shortThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P
Transcript
Discussion (0)
M.S.W. Media.
I signed in order appointing Jack Smith.
And nobody knows you.
And those who say Jack is a finesse.
Mr. Smith is a veteran career prosecutor.
What law have I grew?
The events leading up to and on January 6th.
Classified documents and other presidential records.
You understand what prison is?
Send me to jail.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode 33 of Jack, the podcast about all things special counsel.
It is Sunday, July 16th, and I'm your host, Alison Gill.
And I'm Andy McCabe.
Alison is another banner week for the special counsel investigation, It is Sunday, July 16th, and I'm your host, Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe.
Alison is another banner week for the Special Counsel investigation, which is of course always
good for this podcast.
In the documents case, as predicted, we have a motion from the Trump team to delay the
trial beyond the end of the world, no, actually just beyond the election.
And then, of course, DOJ is fired back.
We also have the first SEAPA conference coming up this Tuesday and a speedy trials report
filed by the special counsel.
Yeah, and that's just the documents case.
And we just got some breaking news, too.
We'll talk about later in the documents case.
Another target letter has gone out.
We knew that that investigation was ongoing.
He said that when he did his protective order
for unclassified discovery.
And so it did, you know, it seems like there may be
more charges coming.
And in the January 6th investigation,
we have all kinds of news about testimony
from folks like Hope Hicks and Jared Kushner.
We have Windom, the top prosecutor for January 6th,
seen twice this week entering the federal courthouse
with no other notable witnesses seen and that's in DC and the
Department of Justice is appealing the Oetkeeper sentences for being too short.
But first, just security is prepared a model prosecution memo for January 6th
and joining us today is one of its authors, Senior Fellow at Brookings, Legal
Analyst for CNN. Please welcome Norm Eisen. Hi Norm.
Hey Allison. Hey Andy. Hey Norm, great to see you somewhere other than the CNN green room.
Pleasure hanging out anywhere with the two of you. There you go.
Yes, and we wanted to get you on quickly here to talk about this proce memo. So I know that you're
in a remote location and you're on your phone.
So everybody, you know, just that's what's going on. We're not in studio right now. I just wanted to, you know, give a little
heads up about why maybe it sounds the way that it does. But I thought it was important to get you in here quickly.
And but before we get to the Prost memo, can you explain what a model pros memo is and an actual prosimemo is?
Well, in order to get authorization to initiate a prosciution in the Department of Justice
in the Department of Justice, Andy Welmöms,
but also in, say, the local prosecutors' offices, you typically need to provide a prosecution memo
or a prosecution memo that explains the reasons
that the charges meet the charging standards at DOJ that is,
in some, the ability to obtain a conviction at trial and then to sustain that conviction on appeal.
You identify the defendants, you identify the charges. Sometimes you'll say a word about the defenses and why they won't be successful. They're not voluminous documents. I know we'll talk about my
inspiration for this 250 page model Prost-Memo. It's the only 250 page model Prost-. It's the only 250 page model Prost memo in the history of Prost memos because the actual ones are shorter
They're more like the inspiration Barb McQuade's
Model Prost memo for the January 6 crimes for the election interference crimes that she did over a year ago
But I'm trying to do some other things in this model Prost-Memo.
Sometimes you've got to write a very long memo to be very simple.
One of my goals was to sift through everything, come up with a simple theory of the case.
So it's a little longer than the typical.
I should add here to Norm's explanation.
These Prost-Memo's are typically hallowed and somewhat mysterious documents.
They are, at least in the federal system, they are entirely the product of the assistant
US attorneys who work on the cases and they're not even shared with the FBI.
So, if you're an FBI agent, you brought the case in and you've worked hand in hand with
your AUSA for months. You typically won't
ever even see the Prost memo. It's a very closely guarded document.
Yeah, that's really, I know, I wish we could have seen some of the Prost memo. Like, I would
really like to kick back with a brandy and read the Manafort Prost memo. But, you know, that's
just me. I'm a little odd. I've got weird hobbies.
But we did cover Barbara McQuade's model-price memo
on the daily beans.
But a lot of new information has been made available
since her memo for just security.
But what I take away from both is the simplicity.
Like you mentioned, you break it down to three people,
Trump, Eastman, and Cheesebro,
and of course, Ancillary Meadows
and Rudy, depending on their level of cooperation.
And you break it down into three parts, the conspiracy to defraud the US through fraudulent
electors, obstructing the electoral count by pressuring pens and inciting the insurrection
when all else failed.
And I was really struck by the simplicity of this because I'm thinking sprawling hundreds of witnesses and, you know, which there is because it, which is, you know, evidence in the
length of your Prasma Mo because there's so much evidence here. But the simplification of it,
I was, I was very struck by that. I was like, where's all the members of Congress and Ellis and,
you know, all these other folks and every, you know, all the different, the wire fraud investigation
into, you know, defrauding donors, everything that came up in the January 6th hearings.
Talk a little bit about why you think it has to be simple like this, the benefits of it.
And whether or not, whether or not that was sort of informed by the recent indictment
down in Miami in the documents case.
It was, look, part of it was when I set out to do the work of what was needed, you know,
the sprawling landscape of everything that happened and why it is so wrong and going in depth was brilliantly done.
Truly amazing work by the January 6th Committee. I myself have worked in and around Congress for three decades,
mostly defending congressional. What has been, of course, I worked up there for years in impeachment council for the first impeachment. I think the
January six committees work and their Magisterial final report
will go down in history as non-finer in the history of Congress
when it comes to investigations. But that presents a problem for
writers and analysts like me, which is how do you follow up?
So it occurred to me that we should replicate how I think DOJ and
Jack Smith and his team are dealing with all that, which is to ask,
and this is the question that I've asked myself
as a trial lawyer for 30 years plus,
what is the simplest possible case?
It's like the litigation version of Occam's razor.
What is the simplest possible case that I can bring
and win while doing justice and getting a significant jury outcome?
You don't want to bring one misdemeanor.
And I realized it took weeks of months of sifting through that amazing work by the committee. I realize that there was this simple path that's kind of modeled on the simplicity of the
Mar-a-Lago indictment, which is Trump tried everything in the world and it all failed.
But when that ended, from running from the election to the failure of the Raffensburger call in early January.
When that ended, he was left holding these counterfeit certificates.
He pivoted really starting the morning of January 4th to an intense
48-hour pressure campaign on Pants to use those bony certificates.
That's like counterfeit money.
I mean, they're just a complete fakes to get pants to throw Congress off of confirming
the electors of the rightful winner. And when that failed, Trump resorted to truly his last ditch of violence.
And with those three acts, phony electoral certificates, squeezing pants, insurrection,
map on to three statutes very neatly.
You can have, by the way, you can have multiple counts under each of these
three charges, right?
And you will.
So you can do one count for each of the fake electoral certificates under 18 USC 371,
conspiracy to defraud the United States using this, these phony docs, this act two, the pressure
on pants. That is 18 USC 1512, the obstruction
of an official proceeding in Congress, which they wanted pants to do. And then act three,
the violence 18 USC 23 83 giving aid and comfort to insurrectionists.
And within each of those acts, you can boil it down even more for a jury.
But I really tried to think about making it simple for the jury.
And then, you know, all 250 plus pages of analysis flowed from that.
We do have a nice short introduction and it does lend itself to social media length
explication.
You know, I agreed. I think that approach is so important. We've been talking about this week after week how
it's really hard to look at what is essentially an enormous mess and to still from it a
comprehensive but clear narrative that you can present to a jury in a trial that will bring them to the decision to convict someone.
And you know, you look across the vast arc of everything that led to January 6th, and then what happened in the aftermath.
And there's tons of people and different storylines
and all kinds of crime, as Alison would say,
going on in many different directions.
But you can't just throw all that at 12 jurors.
You have to kind of pick and choose the places
where your story is most impactful
and most easily understood.
And that's one of the things that I like about the the approach that you've taken here.
Really kind of focuses on what's most important.
Maybe you leave some things on the cutting room floor,
but those, you know, no great novels ever written without a really good editor, right?
You have to have a ret, and you have to have someone who's willing to come in
and say, no, this doesn't make the cut. Let's keep it tighter. Let's make more sense. And I think
that's kind of what you've done here. And it doesn't, three points about that. Number one,
it doesn't have to be my simplification. There are other ways that undoubtedly that Smith can
simplify this case. But I think he has to do that.
No seven chapters.
That's right.
Cannot emphasize enough what a great job.
The January 6th committee did.
What a need there was to cover everything.
Smith is clearly looking at all of those different chapters
in his work.
Juries cannot hold seven things in mind.
No. And then three is what they can grasp.
That's point one is so it doesn't have to be this simplicity,
but some simplifying rubric, point two, Alison,
to your comment on the defendants, that is agonizing.
Smith does not need to deal, however, with letting all those potentially
coupleable people go. We have all section of the report where we identify, we call it,
targets, subjects and witnesses where we identify the huge list of people that could be looked at here. I think he, you know, that big five, the kind of Mount Rushmore of election interference,
Trump and Meadows, the clients, and then Eastman, Chessbro and Giuliani, the lawyers, that
is a sensible, and I might even go small.
I mean, he is certainly keeping it to one hand in the Mar-a-Lago case.
And you know, you could even go smaller than five.
And then the final point is, within the chapters, take a simple approach to,
there's a big debate you can have should we
tell a long story about Trump's preparation for insurrection and the
ellipse speech and I wrote Michael Ludic love this we got some very nice praise
and a Twitter thread from Michael Ludic after we released the report he loved my
explanation of how prosecutors could deal with
the First Amendment issues if they charge Trump for the ellipse
speech. I say sidestep at Occam's razor.
Search for this explanation that is constructed with the
smallest possible set of elements.
I was joking with Allison before the podcast, just for
insurrection, for giving Aiden comfort and insurrection under 2383, just charge the 224 tweet and the 187 minutes of inaction to evict the protesters when Trump had the legal duty to do it. So, 224 plus 187 equals 2383.
I like that, Matt.
I like that, Matt.
I think it's very interesting too, you know, with the simplicity of the Mar-a-Lago documents
indictment, we just have two co-defendants, NADA and Trump, and the investigation was ongoing.
We learned today that a target letter went out to somebody else in that case.
And so when you talk about subjects, witnesses, and targets in the PROS memo, it's like,
get these three done on these five-ish and then continue your investigation into the wire
fraud, into the members of Congress, and anything else,
more specific into the fraudulent electors
with the people who were down, maybe on the ground,
the Wilton's and those types of lawyers,
all the other 17 lawyers that were subpoenaed about,
Agenda Ellis, etc., etc.
There's so many other people to look at,
but that can be done after.
And I think that the timing is very interesting here,
because first of all, we've got
elections season next year.
I know that Jack Smith's team is concerned about the timing,
but also the timing of your release of this prox memo,
because all of a sudden in the news,
there's all of these witnesses coming out to the press
and talking about what they told the grand jury in June.
And now we see wind them going in without any other notable witnesses into the DC Federal
Court.
It pretty much meant where the grand jury means.
And it seems like indictments could be nigh.
And I think it was an important move to get this prox memo out before any of that happened.
What is, what is, was there any consideration
of the timing of the release of this report
with the pending or indictments?
You know, even before we had windums,
multiple visits to the grand jury this week
with no apparent witnesses there.
There are a lot of the signs of an investigation
that is reaching its culmination,
where they're publicly. You know, my experience mostly is a defense lawyer
since the early 90s. My experience in my cases was you didn't want to put a
put a Mike Panser, a Mark Meadows in the grand jury early, because you wanted to have all your other information
ready, so you could ask him about what other witnesses have
said, to show of documents, giving immunity
to culpable parties is not something that you do early on because you might,
you really want to be able to evaluate the food chain before you, as is reported, before you immunize or negotiate immunity with the likes of a aromain,
ran this apparently for the Trump campaign.
Very fake electors getting immunity like in Nevada, right?
That's more towards the end of an investigation
where you've made up your mind, OK, we're not
going to go for the fake electors. We're going to focus at the people at the top of the food chain.
So I think there were a lot of signs. There's a vibe. There's like a buzz here inside the
Beltway in DC. Something's coming. You know, I'm on. We're all on call for cable bookers,
kind of on very short notice. Not me. You know, I'm on we're all on call for cable bookers kind of on very short notice
Not me. No, I'm free though. I
Will Andy Andy will have some words
Andy I certainly are
Sometimes we see each other in the green room and then that whatever the news they're expecting doesn't happen
We had one the other week where they told us, go home guys.
Yeah.
You got to love that drive in there for nothing. That's a, that's a winner.
I, for me, it's a shorter one for me. It's a shorter one. So, um, um, in the comedy business,
we got that getting, getting bumped week, we call that, you know, you're ready to go
on stage. Yeah. You're ready to go on stage. Yeah.
You're ready to go on stage at the improv and then like Dane cook walks in and takes your spot and you're like, I'm way
funnier than him. Yeah, you're ready to go on and talk about
SEPA hearings and all of a sudden Britney Spears gets
insulted at the SP. So you're like, out, you're out.
You know what, if you don't like getting bumped, do not do cable TV.
I mean, we're on contract, but you get booked and bumped all the time.
I keep a complete, this, I know this is not what we came to the to Jack to talk
about today, but I keep a complete separate schedule of stuff,
I keep a complete separate schedule of stuff, even when I'm scheduled for cable because half the time, you know, there's breaking news, right?
And then I just apologize when I'm actually needed or like, it's never more than 10 minutes.
It's got to be like historic.
Yeah, like the Mar-a-Lago arrangement
to be more than 10 minutes.
Yeah.
Just like, hey, I'll be 10 minutes late for the Zoom.
Yeah, well, we don't wanna keep you today.
You might get a call.
Who knows, any minute?
So, and I'm five.
Not today.
Not today.
Never on Fridays.
I know this is not one where you put the video on,
but, you know, I'm thoroughly,
it's the last day of my vacation.
I'm thoroughly invocation mode, baseball cap and all. So today I'm going to go buy bagels.
I'm going to go to that's my next big appointment after this.
It was Friday from Mar-a-Lago. I mean Thursday night, Friday from Mar-a-Lago. And I mean,
we had the whole thing on the on the Muller Sheer Road podcast. We had felony Fridays. They always dropped on fun Friday. Yeah, so
be be prepared but I you know I will we definitely want to you know don't want to keep you too long
because we know you're at the tail end of your vacation there but just before we let you go
talk just for a second about how you see,
we talked about the maybe potentially additional charges
in Mar-a-Lago for the Mar-a-Lago documents case.
Is that how you see it going down for this case?
We get the three main ones and then they continue
investigating and continue adding indictments
and charges at later dates for other people.
100% in fact we have an appendix on the DOJ conspiracy.
Again, that act one is Trump tried subverting DOJ.
He tried getting state legislatures to do stuff.
He tried pressuring governors.
He tried Rappensburg but he tried everything. He explored
seizing voting machines. You know, when he tried the whole litigation strategy, when everything
else felt what he was left with was these wicked or gullible fake electors who had signed
these certificates. So all of those other failed conspiracies
should be put on the shelf.
Let's bring a case to trial against Trump.
Let's do it in the next year if you get the right judge.
Like I've done cases in the Eastern District
of Virginia, the rocket packet.
If you get a judge, you put it on a rocket packet.
Now they'll charge us in DC.
But if you get the right judge in DC, DC,
you can go to trial any year.
The American people deserve to know
if a president, major presidential candidate,
possible nominee is convicted, felon, or not,
precisely for attacking elections.
And then like we did in Appendix on Jeff Clark
and the DOJ conspiracy, Smith can bring those other cases
in the fullness of time, but I think,
so I very much think, you know,
multiple pots will be boiling on the back of the stove,
but let's have a nice three-course meal digestible
digestible for a judge and jury.
Please be Judge Barrel Howell.
Please be Judge Barrel Howell.
All right, well, thank you so much for joining us today.
We really appreciate you taking time.
And I encourage everyone to just take some time
to read the prox memo you could find it at just security or on Norm's Twitter,
Norm Eisen.
So, you know, we're gonna let you go now,
but you're in our hearts for the rest of the weekend
as we leave this memo.
That's right. Thank you so much, Noah.
Thank you, Allison.
Great seeing you here and enjoy the end of the VK
and see you soon at work.
Always great to see you both, and have me back.
It was fun talking.
Awesome.
We're gonna have, we have so much more news to get to.
This is gonna be a pretty long show,
but we do have to take a quick break,
so everybody stick around.
We'll be right back.
Okay, let's continue with the January 6th investigation, which seems to be running fast
and noisy these days, with what seems like a whole lot of witnesses telling the media that
they've testified before the Grand Jury, which is always very helpful to those of us watching
the case closely.
So in the last couple of days, we learned that Jared
Kushner and Hope Hicks testified in front of the grand jury in June. And it seems, Alison, that both
of them were asked a lot of questions about whether or not Trump indicated that he knew he lost the
election. Of course, we have all kinds of public information
that would, I think, go to proving that he knew he lost election.
We have different folks who, like,
Alissa Faragreffen, who is testified
before the Grand Jury in June also.
She also told the Gen 6 committee that Trump had told her,
and I quote, I can't believe I lost to Joe
Biden. So there's one pretty good indication that you knew he lost. Of course, Mark
Milley said that also to in a interview with the January 6 committee said that Trump had
indicated in an hour long meeting that he wanted to leave Afghanistan, quote, for the next
guy. So clearly implying that it was a problem he didn't want to deal with,
and that, you know, Biden, who'd be coming in next,
would have to deal with it.
Then, of course, we had the reports from the research firms
that Jack Smith subpoenaed in January this year.
So these are two firms that were brought in by the Trump folks
to essentially look for evidence of fraud,
both of whom reported back, so sorry,
no fraud here.
And then you've got this reams of testimony from lawyers, campaign people, White House
Council who told Trump that he had lost, that there was no indications to the contrary.
So what do you think, Allison, in terms of the witnesses that they're
bringing in now, possibly taking the other side of that observation? Yeah, well, it was reported,
I think by the times that Michael Schmidt, that Jared has said to have told the grand jury,
Jared Kushner, that he honestly believes Trump truly thought that he had won the election
So here's you know one part put him in the Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell
group
in in our little caucus of you know normal and unnormal people
Is so you know, I think getting everybody in trying to figure out who's gonna be because that's a defense right the defense is
There's no corrupt intent.
And we talk you and I talked about like these little last people you bring in to set up
your defense.
You're kind of not doing fact finding anymore or crying, you know, they do looking into
the crime and you're looking at what the defense is going to be and how I who I bring in
to rebut a defense.
And you just just I think Jack learning don't bring in Kushner.
Now of course, like that information would have to go over
in discovery under Brady, et cetera, et cetera.
But I think that that's sort of what this is,
like Norm said, these are indications of the tail end
of an investigation and not anything that would happen
in the beginning.
And I think that corrupt intent, knowing he lost,
it lends itself to obstructing an official proceeding,
it lends itself to the wire fraud, you know, fundraising off of the big lie. There's a lot of
different crimes here that you have to be able to prove intent for. And so I think that's what this
is. I think you're absolutely right. That knowledge of the loss is key. It's the very red hot center of intent and intent obviously
applies in any charge that Jack Smith would bring here. It's also, you know, you think about
a witness like Kushner. It's not necessarily the case. And I think it's, I'm going to go
further than that. I think it's unlikely that Jack Smith's team brought in Kushner and
were surprised or disappointed
by his testimony.
I mean, it's pretty consistent with what he told the Gen 6 committee.
So they likely knew what to expect, but you would still bring a witness like Kushner
in front of the grand jury, even if you had no intention of using him as a witness to
prove your case later a trial, you want to lock him in in the grand jury with what
he's saying right now, because anticipating that with that testimony, he is likely to
be a defense witness over the course of his preparation for testimony of trial as a key
defense witness.
His statements have, you know, it could expand, right?
He may, he may come, you know, he may
say something on the stand in Trump's defense that goes far beyond what he says last week
or whenever it was in the grand jury. So having that testimony nailed down enables the
prosecutors to come back and cross examine Kushner if he takes the stand in a trial in
Trump's defense and point out inconsistencies with what he's saying takes the stand in a trial in Trump's defense,
and point out inconsistencies with what he's saying
on the stand for Trump and what he said
in front of a grand jury months earlier.
And what he said did the January 6th committee.
That's right.
Is laying the foundation to show the jury this guy's not telling
you the truth, he's just trying to help out his father and mom.
That's what happened with Jim Baker in the Durham Susman in trial and investigation.
And Jim Baker's a good guy,
but he had inconsistent testimony
between a congressional committee,
Inspector General testimony and the grand jury testimony.
And that was helped the defense of Michael Susman
impeach him on the court.
Of course, of course.
And I think you're right that these are the kind of
witnesses that you throw in front of the grand jury at the end.
This is not like key to the beginning or middle of your investigation,
where you're looking for facts or following leads, you're really developing
the investigative effort.
Now you're just nailing down things that you're trying to lock in in preparation
for trial.
Yeah, because in the May, June timeframe, aside from all of these people, you know, that you're trying to lock in in preparation for trial.
Yeah, because in the May, June timeframe,
aside from all of these people,
we're trying to get to Trump's state of mind
about whether he won the election or not,
they also brought in state officials
that were pressured by Donald
to put forth fraudulent slates of electors,
including Jocelyn Benson, Rusty Bowers in Arizona,
Raffinsberger in Georgia,
and just breaking today, the Secretaries of State
in Pennsylvania and New Mexico.
Those are the two states by the way that put on their certificate, the default message.
This is only if the election is overturned somehow by the courts, which I think is kind of
got them out of any kind of trouble in their individual states. So that, you know, it seems like they're securing rebuttals to defense like we talked about.
And it feels like these would be witnesses that would bolster criminal charges for a grand
jury about to vote.
And you know, because I mean, you get the state of mind for the fraud.
I mean, if we're talking about the three charges that Norm just went over, you get to state a mind for the fraud, the defraud in the United States, obstructing an official
proceeding. You get the corrupt intent for acts for conspiracy by interviewing those state officials
that he pressured. Oh, and by the way, new reporting shows, I, this just came up today for me from CNN. Mac and T and Meadows have both testified.
So all eight members of the OJNostra,
we've been counting down for a couple months.
We have, we have the, what is it, a full house?
I don't know, what are you even called this,
but we're gonna have the count.
Yachtsy?
It's on your battleship.
I said your battleship.
So we got all eight members of the Ocha Noestra.
And like we brought up it with Norm Windom
who's been seen at the DC courthouse.
Is there anything else that a top prosecutor
and a grand jury could be doing without witnesses besides?
But like what else would they just be like,
you know, what else could you be doing in there?
You could be summing it up.
You could be in there giving them the final.
Here's what we think.
But I'm trying to be fair here.
It's possible that there's some sort of underlying
motion practice, sealed motions that are being
fought over in court that are particularly significant.
Those might draw out the chief prosecutor to either participate in the arguments or just
see how they're going.
Obviously, we have no information about that because we wouldn't, they would be sealed.
There's a pretty small menu of items that could pull Wyndham out of his office and send
him over to the courthouse at this point.
We're missing the final meeting like we had in Mar-a-Lago,
where the trumplers met with DOJ to dance for the life.
You know, to say, don't indict my client.
We haven't seen that.
And we haven't seen any shouting about target letters
in this particular case for Eastman or Trump.
So those are the missing elements here, which is kind of what is leading
me to believe that the indictment would probably if it comes soon at all, it's not going to come until
maybe next week or the week after. And you you know, you think August, but I think before
Fanny goes, because I think Norm is right on that, it was a really it's a really good idea to get
that out there for her to see
and then maybe shuffle some things around.
But obviously we're all just reading tea leaves,
but it looks to me like it did in Miami
right before the stuff went down.
You saw Brat going in with the jury
after the day after Buda Witch went in
with no other witnesses coming in.
But then Trump started freaked out
and told everybody he was indicted on social media.
So I imagine if that's the single,
that's the, what is it, the black smoke that comes out?
That's what I'm looking for.
It's the ill-time tweet of, can you believe I've been indicted
for third time this year is going terrible for me?
They're going to come after you. Yeah. Yeah. If not me, it would be all of you getting
indicted for insurrection, not really. But, um, yeah, who knows. I think there's a lot of,
as we've said, a lot of signals that they are probably getting to the end, but predicting when exactly
that day is going to be is very, very hard. I get asked this, but CNN, I think every other day now.
And Norm came out with this with this prox memo. And now and also another, what I consider a
sign, but I could just be reading too much into this, the Department of Justice has appealed the
O Keeper sentences saying they're too short. And this is, you know, these kinds of crimes are
unprecedented in American history. And they need to be longer.
We know I met Meta eight years below, seven years below the mid-range of the sentence
and guidelines for most of these oath keepers, sometimes eight years below, sometimes less
than a third of what was asked for.
And I spoke to a lot of my friends who were capital police officers and they seemed at first,
well, back then, they seemed satisfied. 18 years is a long time. They seem satisfied with these sentences.
But when I talked to Harry about after
Merrick Garland and the DOJ appealed these sentences,
and I imagine they would have had to get Merrick Garland to sign off on this. They don't have to.
They just have to get the solicitor general to approve, but this is such a high profile case. I can't imagine he did that. Apart in this.
And Harry Dunn was like, you know what? This is amazing. I feel like DOJ. I feel like
Marik Garland has my back. And I feel like he has the backs of the American people. And I thought
that was a great quote from him. But this to me seems like they're trying to set precedent
for sentencing on a once in a lifetime crime of insurrection
and sedition and obstructing an official proceeding in this manner for when they want to sentence
people at the top of the attempted coup or the successful coup if you talk about delaying
the electoral count, especially maybe on the 1512C2 obstructing an official proceeding
crime or seditious conspiracy, which would probably be the sentence and guidelines are probably electoral count, especially maybe on the 1512C2 obstructing an official proceeding crime,
or seditious conspiracy, which would probably be
the sentence and guidelines are probably calculated
the same way you do seditious conspiracy
because they go to treason and then they go to obstruction
because there aren't any.
So it seemed very interesting the timing
on that appeal as well, because it's been six weeks
as we got those sentences handed down.
Yeah, so a couple of things on this, I think it's been six weeks since we got those sentences handed down.
Yeah.
So a couple of things on this, I think it's worth noting how rare this is, right?
In many garden variety day after day, criminal cases, the department doesn't even make a recommendation.
They simply say, here's what the guidelines call for and they leave it up to the court.
They very rarely ever go back in and try to kind of pile on and squeeze additional time out of a sentence
That's been given they kind of just take their lumps and walk away even when they're not particularly satisfied
So when you look at it from that perspective this definitely has the feel that the government is trying to raise the roof
Right, they're concerned that this is set a bar for the most active arguably most culpable kind of people on the ground on January 6th.
And they're trying to knock that thing a little bit higher to give themselves additional sentencing room
for people who they might have coming down the line, currently indicted or maybe soon to be indicted,
who they would want to argue are worthy of even longer sentences.
Now, to be fair, the filing that DOJ made was simply a notice of appeal. So they haven't actually
made their appeal yet. They haven't made their arguments and laid them out for us to say,
what exactly they're arguing or claiming. So we don't we don't really know yet, but you know, watch this space and
we will, I'm sure discuss it when we get more from them.
They might be waiting to see if they get a vote on a true bill for an indictment for some of
these other people they intend to charge before they start going to paper on increasing the sentences
for the for the other people who knows, but we don't know the reasoning, but that would be one of my
guesses. And you know, one of the rules of sentence and guidelines is like criminals need to be sentenced,
like other criminals who have done like crime.
That's right.
And this being January 6th being its own category of crime, if you have a downward departure
of eight years for somebody who obstructed an official proceeding on January 6th and you want to charge Trump, you aren't going to be able to go
to that 25-year recommended sentence for that particular crime.
If other people who have done the same thing on the same day weren't sentenced to that
as well.
So that's actually one of the rules of sentencing,
when you put your recommendations forward.
So we'll see what ends up happening.
We'll see all the timing of all this.
I imagine if an indictment comes down,
we might see that appeal going to be filed.
But again, we're just, all of this speculation,
we're just sort of reading the tea leaves, like we say.
Yep.
All right, we have a lot more news to get to,
believe it or not, that's not the entire show.
We have to talk about some stuff that happened
in the documents case, and then we'll answer
some questions at the end as well,
so stick around, we'll be right back. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum,. As predicted, Andy Trump has filed a motion to delay his documents
trial. We're pivoting now to Mar-a-Lago. He wants it to take place indefinitely, sometime
after the election. Sometimes just after never.
Yeah, because that's what that's totally what innocent people do. Like, right? No, I'm
sorry. If I'm running. No, I'm sorry.
If I'm running for president and I'm innocent and I can have this trial over and done
with and be acquitted, heading into the primary.
Speed trial, baby.
Hammer your rights.
Speed trial all day long.
I'm asking for a speedy trial.
I mean, can you imagine what an acquittal would do for your campaign?
I mean, if he thinks he raised a lot of money on the indictment, I mean, it would be
an embarrassment of cash falling out of the sky if he hadn't quidled during the campaign.
A quiddo could carry him to the White House, but he knows that that's not going to happen.
So he wants to do the way that he doesn't want a speedy trial.
But before we get to the filings, there is a breaking update in the documents case.
Remember how in the protected motion for a protective order again for
the unclassified discovery, they were like, this is still an ongoing investigation. That's
why you can't give it to the media and tell everybody about our stuff. Well, the ongoing
investigation looks like it might be about to produce some fruit. We have reporting that
a low-level Trump organization employee has been sent a target letter.
And I'm wondering if this is the guy who flooded the server room or perhaps the IT guy who
told him where the surveillance tapes are, but according to the New York Times, it has to do with
the surveillance handling of the surveillance footage. And it's a low level Mar-a-Lago employee.
First, I thought we might be frying up some calamari, but this is a low level employee according to the time.
So what are your thoughts on this?
I mean, we sort of pointed out that that whole scenario
of the flooding of the server room was missing
and totally absent from this indictment.
So this is interesting.
And we know, you know, we've been tracking this kind of narrative
with the Jack Smith team on the documents case
that there's this kind of narrative with the Jack Smith team on the documents case, that there's this kind
of this concern about possibly manipulating the surveillance tapes or obstructing their
access to the surveillance tapes has been kind of bubbling up to the surface over the course
of subpoenas and witness testimony. You haven't really been able to put it together in a logical
format yet, but this definitely sends a signal that
they have someone in their sites who they believe may have been involved in either
struct, altering or obstructing their access to that video.
Or lying about it.
Or lying about it.
Right.
And to the FBI and DC, that's also something that they pointed out in the reporting that
that might be what's going on here might be what it's about. to the FBI and DC, that's also something that they pointed out in the reporting that that
might be what's going on here might be what it's about. And the only other thing we know is that it's Stanley Woodward is their lawyer, whoever it is. Of course he is. Come on.
No wonder you can't get around getting his security clearance squared away for the indictment.
Yeah, I mean, I think this is, the rules are, you can continue investigating and you can do it through the existing grand jury that's already brought an indictment as long as you're going after new stuff, essentially, and I'm supposed to keep using the grand jury for, you know, to continue to perfect the charges you've already brought, although there's a fair amount of gray area in interpreting what it is you're doing and what the purpose of that and those investigative
steps are. So it's pretty easy sometimes for prosecutors to make that rationalization. But here
you have a good example of, no, we're using, we're continuing to use this grand jury for the purpose
of pursuing other defendants who were related to this matter. Now, when they bring any additional charges,
we'll have a big impact on whether or not
that person is actually joined to the existing case,
or whether they proceed,
in the form of a superseding indictment,
or they proceed on their own
in a totally separate path individual case.
That's my guess of what will happen here,
even not knowing who it's gonna be
or what the charges are, but it sounds from the reporting so far.
It's a much smaller, kind of a more isolated, potential, criminal activity than the scope
of what we're looking at in the documents indictment so far.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And if it was for lying and he did it in DC and he also wasn't part of the conspiracy,
it could, the charges could come in DC.
Yes.
But also, now to lie to the investigators in DC,
but he was also part of the conspiracy
to happen at Mar-a-Laga,
so that it might have made sense to go down there.
So, we'll see what ends up happening.
Yes.
But also, so let's talk about the filing,
Trump filed for an indefinite continuance, saying based on the extraordinary nature of this action,
there is most assuredly no reason for any expedited trial,
and the ends of justice are best served by a continuance.
So this is going to be the first big test to see what Canon will do.
I mean, we'll talk about the four-day delayed
CEPA conference in a second, but that, you know, that wasn't,
they both agreed, both parties you know, that wasn't,
they both agreed, both parties agreed to delay
that four days, so that's not really a canon call.
Right.
She could have made it later, but she didn't.
She agreed to what the party's agreed to.
So we're gonna see, as of this recording,
we do not yet know how she's gonna rule on this,
but some of Trump's arguments from the July 10th filing
include the classification status of the documents
and their purported impact on national security interests
makes this complex.
The propriety of utilizing any secret evidence
in a case of this nature, the inability
to select an impartial jury during a presidential election,
extensive and voluminous discovery.
Come on, see Maniford.
The challenge is presented by the purportedly classified material that if you had to be produced,
that has you had to be produced, and the completion of the security clearance process.
How about the initiation of the security clearance process, which we know?
How about you fill out your form, right?
Yeah, it's delayed.
That's like complaining about the line being too long at DMV when you haven't even
gone to DMV yet. I mean, like, it's, you know, let's go guys getting the ring. You know, some of
these claims are just so strange to me because they're really attacking the system itself, the
efficacy of these charges in the context of a request for a continuance,
essentially, you know, the classification status of the documents and their purported impact
on national security interests. Yeah, you should have thought of that before you started
storing them in your bathroom or in the ballroom, the propriety of utilizing secret evidence
in a case of this nature. Like, these are all esoteric kind of theories,
not actual reasons, hey, judge,
we need to push this case back for this number of months
or until after X event for the following legal reasons.
And that's really, I thought the government's response
to this was really kind of zeroed them in on the law and the facts.
There's nothing to this.
There's no reason why Canon should count and sit, but we shall see.
That's the question now.
And kind of exactly the arguments that you make when you, when you, you know, when you
and I talked to you, you had read his, you know, motion for a continuance.
Cause DOJ says, first of all, there's no basis in law or fact
for proceeding in such an intermediate
and open-ended fashion.
And the defendants provide none.
So they said, he didn't even bring up
the Speedy Triall Act of 1974
and all discussions must start there.
So with all of his, you know, the list of complaints
that you just read, just like your response,
the DOJ said,
first, your legal issues aren't new. You're not new here. And then as for the impact of
the Presidential Records Act on this prosecution, any argument that it mandates dismissal of
the indictment or forms a defense to the charges, that borders on frivolous. I think it is frivolous,
but they said borders on frivolous. That frivol is frivolous, but they said borders on frivolous that frivolous is a strong word to use an accord document. Now here's here's my favorite
and this is a quote the PRA is not a criminal statute and in no way purports to address the
retention of national security information. The defendants are of course free to make
whatever arguments they like for dismissal of an indictment, and the government will respond
promptly.
But they should not be permitted to gesture at a baseless legal argument, call it novel,
and then claim the court will require an indefinite continuance in order to resolve it.
So well put.
Yeah, I mean, this is like demanding the relief that you would get from winning a motion,
like a motion to dismiss the indictment
before you've ever filed the indictment,
much less filed, the motion are arguing it.
I mean, they're basically-
He likes to do that.
He did it with a special master thing
before he was ever indicted.
He's like, well, I knew in my evidence.
That's right, he is, I say he,
but of course we mean his lawyers, in this case, they are basically making an argument
that is this whole thing should go away.
It's not fair, it's not proper.
In the context of please give us a couple more months,
which is just makes no sense whatsoever.
No, absolutely not.
And we assumed that it wouldn't.
The DOJ goes on to say discovery discovery does not warrant a continuance.
SEPA doesn't warrant a continuance.
Defendants remaining arguments are meritless.
Here's a good quote.
The fact that you think you may be able to get the whole case dismissed isn't a reason
under the Speedy Trial Act for a continuance.
Plus, you cite no case law, which makes sense because you have it backwards.
To say you can't get an impartial jury is simply isn't true either. We have the jury selection process, it's there, it's
been there for a long time, you're not new. And if there's our extra considerations, that's
the reason to start the process. That's a reason to start sooner.
Of course.
Not later.
Of course.
And then they close with, finally, the demands of defendants' professional schedules
do not provide a basis to delay the trial.
Many people who are indicted have demanding jobs that require a considerable amount of their
time and energy or a significant amount of travel.
The Speedy Trial Act contemplates no such factor as a basis for a continuance and the court
should not indulge it here.
Yeah, and a very good filing.
The reply brief is a very worthy read.
It's only about eight or nine pages long
and it's very factual.
It says, you know, he's complaining
as too much discovery.
Here's exactly the discovery we've given him so far.
Here's what he's getting next week.
It's all been indexed in a way that's easy to get through it.
Like, so you actually learn a lot about the nitty gritty
of what's been going on between the two parties.
So I totally recommend taking a look at it.
I love the part about him complaining that he's,
he can't hire contractors to help review the discovery.
Like why not?
There's no limitation on adding people
to your defense team to meet your timing obligations.
And he certainly has the abundant resources to get that.
Maybe Belania can do it.
She got 155 grand from the Save America Pack.
Maybe you could put Melania on it.
Yeah.
And then the final insult, of course, is that only two of these people have actually gone to the,
you know, put themselves out to fill out the SF86, which is the form that you have to submit in order to get the clearance to review
the classified evidence, which right now they're complaining that they can't do. Well, finish
the paperwork and submit it, and then you can review it all day long. It's just, it's
a really, I think it's a great peak at what we can expect here.
Every step of this thing is going to be fought viciously.
You're going to see ridiculous motions from the defense team and Jackson Smith's folks
are going to dig in and fight back on every single one of them.
So, you know, the wild card, as I said, it's Judge Cannon.
And I honestly having read both briefs,
I have no idea where she'll come out on this thing.
I think it's entirely possible that she just layers in
her own kind of individual, not legally based,
but kind of judgment in the way that she did over the,
the special master case, and just,
you know, gave him deference because he's a president or a former president or a presidential candidate.
You know, she might say, well, at time, even though the 11th Circuit told me to f off,
that was because I would say it was a former president, but now he's actually a presidential candidate,
so that weighs differently. So I'm allowing you. Yeah, it's going to be really hard for him to
campaign and also defend himself at the same time. Therefore, let's put off the case. Like,
you could totally see her coming out
with a ruling that says essentially that.
And whatever she does decide in terms of running the docket
on this case, really hard to appeal.
It's hard to get that stuff in front of an appeals court
in a way that, you know, we'll put them in a position
to kind of smack it down.
So, we'll have to wait and see,
but I think, I think-
Right, because that's not a seep a trigger
that allows for an expedited appeal
with the 11 circuit.
Yeah, it does not.
So, and judges have a lot of authority.
They have a lot of discretion to figure out
how they're going to time things in their own courthouses.
I think a Pelic courts are generally
loath to get involved in that.
But we'll see if it's totally, if
she comes out with a holding that has like really no grounding in existing precedent whatsoever,
I think you can expect at least an effort to appeal it on the government's part.
Yeah. And then if she does come out with something like that, I would say, will you set the
original trial for August 14th with no consideration about a presidential candidacy. So no, two, you know, two bad so cents.
On the other hand, the counter,
the counter my gloomy outlook on this one,
you have to assume that she knows the world is watching.
This is the first big impactful decision
she's gonna make in this case.
If she does it in a way that sets the legal world
howling about how absurd and baseless it is, that is just going to like really put her
in a bad spot. So I hope that she's feeling that pressure, that she understands that, you know,
everything she does in this case is going to be scrutinized very closely. And this is the first
opportunity for that. So that's a good time to try to get it right.
Yeah, she might want to stay on so she can mess shit up later.
Anyway, and we're going to talk more about this CEPA conference that's happening Tuesday,
but we have to take a quick break.
Everybody stick around. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum Okay, welcome back. Now before we get to this week's listener question, just a couple of things to cover in the documents case.
First, Allison, we have a SEAPIS section two conference on Tuesday. Now you remember that this was delayed because of Walton Aura and his lawyers argument that he didn't have clearance to be able to proceed to this hearing, although it's actually not necessary for this hearing.
So he didn't get quite the delay that he was looking for.
They agreed to a four-day delay with DOJ,
which sounds quite like DOJ schooled woodward
on CEPA section two and reminded him that he has had three weeks
to fill out his SF86, as I've just been complaining.
So yeah, I mean, you know,
this is starting to,
I tried not to be all conspiratorial
about this from the beginning,
but it really is starting to look like they are
looking at every utterance in this case
as an opportunity to squeeze five days,
five minutes, five weeks, five months,
whatever of delay,
any chance they can.
So I feel like you're already seeing that kind of leak into the CEPA process.
Now, the fact that they resolved the delay issue with in a consent decree, you can pretty
much expect the judges never going to insert herself into those things.
She's essentially referring a fight between
two parties. And anytime they can come to an agreement between themselves and something that's
even remotely reasonable, she's going to let that rule the day. So this one worked out in a
fairly predictable way. But in addition to that, we have DOJ filing a Speedy Trial report.
This was filed on July 11th. one day after Trump filed to delay his trial
until after the election.
Now the Speedy Trial Report is something that's required
by the local rules, and also it's in the courts
omnivorous order establishing pretrial instructions.
So the way this works is, as you know, Allison,
there's the defendant essentially holds the speedy trial right.
This is in normal cases where defendants actually want to get trials over with, not so much
of this one, but nevertheless, the rights still apply.
And there is essentially a clock ticking, counting days because the speedy trial basically
says you have to get to the trial within about 70 days.
And so along the course, DOJ has to file these reports
to say like officially how many days have been clocked
in the progression towards speedy trial.
Now, you can stop the clock, or as they say in court,
told the clock at different different points
when there's motions being argued and things like that.
So that's why DOJ's counting essentially of the days
has to be filed with the court
to help the judge keep track of where they are on that speedy trial calendar. So in any case,
the United States submits this in writing post indictment. And apparently the report is that
they have had five non-excludable days and the speededy Trial Act, so far 23 days have told officially since the indictment.
Yep, so when this was filed, 28 days from Arraignment, 23 of those days don't count and five of them do,
and that's just the report that they have to put in there. So we got 65 days to go for the Speedy
Trial Clock. But I guess the thing is if it's the defendants
right, how can the DOJ push it? Is there argument like we would be violating their right to
a speedy trial if we don't get this done? Because if the if Trump just officially waived
his right to a speedy trial with a thing, can can DOJ keep arguing speedy trial?
They can. And that's what I thought was so interesting
about the reply brief that we were just talking about
in the last section.
So although under normal circumstances,
the government doesn't really have an opportunity
to rush a defendant to prepare for trial.
It's usually the other way around, right?
The defendants, as we're joking a minute ago,
typically want to push the government to get off their butts and get ready for trial and get this thing over with.
And that's kind of how the speedy trial right is usually executed. That's why people say...
Susman did it. Susman did it because he knew he was going to be a quitter. He was innocent. He's like, let's get this over with Snippity Snap.
But if it's the DOJ who wants it, how does that even work?
Yeah, he did. And also I think Greg Craig and his trial a while ago did the same thing.
But nevertheless, here you have the totally flipped situation where it's the defendant that
wants to drag things out.
So in their brief, or in their response to Trump's motion, the government bases their entire
position on this idea that the speedy trial right is not just the possession of the defendant,
but there is the, it's based in the constitution,
and of course, laid out in the speedy trial act
that justice demands that trials take place
in a timely manner.
And so they're actually relying on kind of the fundamental
foundations of the speedy trial
right, not so much the counting of the clock, but like, hey, we're trying to do justice here
and therefore it needs to be conducted and done in a timely manner.
I thought that was a, I've never seen the government have to argue that before.
And it's in the public interest.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
So it's kind of an interesting position. We'll see if it motivates the judge to actually hold everybody
accountable to the to the getting things done on a timely fashion.
Yeah, we'll see. All right.
It is time for a listener question. If you have a question, you can send it
into us. Hello at mullersheywrap.com. Make sure you put the word Jack in the
subject line or it will get lost in the shuffle. What do we have this week, Andy?
All right, so we have one question this week from Sydney.
Sydney gives us a terrific question.
We haven't really talked about this.
I don't think at all so far.
So Sydney starts, what will it be like for the jurors in Florida
that will decide Donald's fate?
He is notorious for alleged witness tampering.
I wouldn't put it past him to try to intimidate
jurors. Also, how might Donald try to delay the trial with jury selection? Couldn't he just claim
quote, they all hate Trump Republicans, whatever. And you know, kind of claim to be the victim since
he's such a publicly known figure. And then of course, she very nicely finishes the question with, I love this show so much. Thank you all for doing it. So, okay, I'm going to be honest,
that influenced my selection of this question this week. Oh, it's biased. It does work.
A little question selection in your, you know, you flatter the, You flatter the question selector and you improve your chances of just saying.
So to get back to her question, it's a really good one. There's a bunch of things that I think we can
expect the court to do to protect the jurors in this case and not just because it's, you know,
specifically Donald Trump, but because it is a very high profile case, one that will be watched
with intense massive media coverage. And quite frankly, one that's going to grab the attention of a large
portion of the population of the country, some folks who are very, very intensely emotional
and some to the point of anger about the fact that this is happening and what the outcome will be.
So one of the things that Judge will do is probably make the jurors all anonymous, which
means they'll go through the jury selection process where they'll have to fill out a pretty
extensive questionnaire, which will request all kinds of information about their backgrounds
and their prior experiences with the legal system.
And you know, questions about that go to this, the issue of whether or not they can be
impartial.
And those questionnaires will all be by number.
So the attorneys for either side won't actually know the true identity of the individual
jurors.
It's also possible that the jurors once selected will be sequestered for the duration of the
trial, which will mean they don't go home.
They live in a hotel.
They get brought into the court every day
through kind of surreptitious means,
so people can't see them.
They can't be filmed or photographed.
And they kind of live together as this little group
of 12 plus however many alternates they in panel,
or they select.
And that is a very intense and stressful experience.
If you read any of the accounts of jurors
who've gone through that,
it's being removed from your family
and kept in this little kind of isolation.
They're not allowed to read the news media,
they're not allowed to go on the internet.
So they're really very isolated.
But I would expect I'll do both of those things
in this case.
And that typically
is enough to prevent jurors from being tampered with by any defendant or people who feel
like they're doing the defendant's bidding.
Yeah. And as you were talking, I wrote down the anonymized jury in the E. Jean Carroll.
That's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
They were anonymized, but they were not sequestered.
But I can't imagine this is, I mean,
this is one of the most high profile cases we've ever had.
And then if there's also a one-six trial
that they wouldn't sequester these jurors,
they've done it, I mean, we sequester juries a lot
in this country.
It seems like this one, this trial would qualify.
Yeah, it's, of course, not the majority of cases,
but it's not uncommon.
It's rare, right?
But it does happen.
It happens fairly frequently.
And yeah, you can't, I mean, show me a better case,
where do I mean a better case in which you would
want to protect these jurors?
Not imagine you worked with a lot of counter-terrorism stuff and
mafia stuff where they had to sequester these folks for their safety, right?
Yeah, I mean, it's really, it's not so much like, singularly,
because you're worried about the defendant trying to tamper with them, although maybe that's part of your concern.
But it's really more, you don't want the public to know who they are, where they live,
who they're, you know, married to, who their families are, because you don't want to subject them
to the sort of intense harassment and scrutiny that we all know has become commonplace today
in the age of internet and social media.
And I should also say, is a tactic that we've seen employed by supporters of the president
and people who were particularly frustrated with the outcome
of the 2020 election. You've seen election officials and volunteers, poll workers in
states across the country who've been threatened and some of whom have actually been, have been
the subject of attempted acts of violence. So there's a serious threat here,
and I think probably they'll do everything they can
to protect these folks.
Yeah, that sounds reasonable to me.
All right, thank you so much for that question.
And remember, flatter the question selector,
and you like get yours now watch what happens.
Oh, I'm waiting.
I can't wait. In our inbox. And if you need a boost of confidence, you just, you just give me a
call. I'll talk to you. This is the best. Yeah, I'm always afraid of what people might
be saying. But now I'm just going to teet up, only say nice things. There you go.
Oh, that's funny. So again, you can send that to hello at mullershearote.com, put Jack
in the subject line. And, and we'll get to your question.
And thank you so much to Norm Eisen,
for joining us today.
Oh my gosh, this is the best.
To talk about that model prosecution memo.
And this has been a heck of a week.
And as we always wonder what's gonna happen next week,
it's always something pretty major.
So I think we're on
indictment watch. We'll see what ends up happening. It's a great show. So yeah, I agree with you
much. Buckle in because it's not going to start slowing down. It's all going to keep picking up. We'll
be learning more stuff and yeah, we'll do our best to squeeze it in. So yeah, all good. Thanks. All
right. I've been Allison Gil. And I'm Andy McKibb. We'll see you next week on Jack.