Jack - Episode 36 - The Indictment in DC
Episode Date: August 6, 2023This week: Allison and Andy discuss the most recent federal indictment of Donald Trump and his arraignment in D.C.; names of the unindicted co-conspirators are sussed out; De Oliviera and Nauta have s...till not been arraigned in the espionage at Mar-a-Lago case; DoJ argues to Judge Cannon that attorney Stan Woodward has a conflict of interest with two of his clients in the Mar-aLago case; plus a listener question and more! 18 USC 371 for the sprawling plot to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power1512(k) for conspiracy to obstruct the electoral count1512c2 for obstructing an official proceeding241 for conspiracy against rights Check out other MSW Media podcastshttps://mswmedia.com/shows/Follow AG:Follow Mueller, She Wrote on Posthttps://twitter.com/allisongillhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, 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.
Wait, 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. I'm Allison Gil. And I'm Andy McCabe. Well, every week we ask what could happen this week?
And this week, after only nine months, Jack Smith's office issued an indictment of Donald
Trump on four criminal counts related to January 6th.
And Trump was arraigned on those charges in federal court in Washington, D.C.
Yes, and he pled not guilty to
all. Yeah, startling.
We're not guilty.
With his chin out, no cameras
allowed in the courtroom.
We'll talk about that a little
bit, but that's not all.
The new defendant in the
Mara Lago classified documents
case, Carlos De la Vera, made his
first court appearance but was not arraigned because just like Walt Nauta, he still doesn't
have local counsel in Florida.
Again, we're all shocked.
And we learned that the IT guy we've been talking about, Taveras, was the low-level Trump
employee that received a target letter after Nauta and
Trump were indicted.
And that's still not all, okay?
We were right in our predictions last week.
So in a court filing this week, DOJ has asked Judge Eileen Cannon to hold a hearing to
consider possible conflicts of interest for Stanley Woodward,
because he is, of course, representing people on both sides of the document's case.
He represents Waltona, and he represents a few other people who could be witnesses against Waltona.
So we're going to get into all of that a little bit later, but Allison, let's start with the new indictment
of Donald Trump.
And I know for those of you who are trying to keep score
at home, this is number three in the past several months.
So we're gonna go through all of it for you.
Or number four, if you count superseding indictments,
that's a good point.
Let's call it four.
Does that like four in four months?
Something like that.
It's 3.5.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Sounds about right. Okay, so this one, as we mentioned, it's four charges. The first is a charge based on 18 USE 371,
which is, of course, the fraud against the government conspiracy charge. And that is for the
sprawling plot to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.
So I think it's important for people to understand that in the indictment, the prosecutors
lay out a long factual narrative.
And that long factual narrative, even though it covers several different areas, that forms
the basis, the factual basis for all these different charges.
So that narrative also refers to, in addition to telling us, of course, what the allegations
are against Trump himself, it refers to the actions of six co-conspirators who are not
identified in the indictment, but with pretty easy investigative skills, you can easily conclude who won through
five R. And they are.
Co-conspirator number one is, of course, our friend Rudy Giuliani.
Co-conspirator number two is Attorney John Eastman.
Co-conspirator number three is Attorney Cindy Powell.
Co-conspirator number four is attorney and former DOJ employee Jeffrey Clark.
Co-conspirator five is attorney Kenneth Cheesebro.
And finally, all signs point to Boris Epstein as being co-conspirator number six, but
that hasn't been confirmed by anyone at this point.
I think the times has leaned the furthest forward into that.
They've kind of determined that in email he sent to Giuliani is referred to in the indictment
as having come from Co-Conspirator 6. So it looks pretty solid for Epstein.
Yeah. And Lisa Rubin pointed out that it's not Jason Miller because he's mentioned elsewhere
as a campaign staffer in the indictment. And it's not Mike Roman because he's mentioned elsewhere as a campaign staffer in the indictment.
And it's not Mike Roman because he's also referred to elsewhere.
And there's only, I think, one or two other lawyers
that could have possibly been in a specific meeting
that's mentioned in the indictment.
And to me, it stands out as Epstein.
If Rudy's in here,
because Rudy had a two-day proffer session,
Epstein had a two-day proffer session, Epstein had a two day proffer session.
It stands out to me as whether they'll be charged or not,
depending on whether the DOJ wants their cooperation or not.
But I am lean in, I'm lean in Epstein too.
Yeah, for sure, for sure. And it's a, it's a really interesting
move by Jack Smith and his team to only charge Donald Trump here.
And as you said, we could have a superseding indictment at some point in this case that
would then charge one or several or all of these co-conspirators have to wait and see
on that.
So this includes the fraudulent, the 18 USC 371 charge encompasses all these different schemes, essentially.
The fraudulent, electors scheme is referred to in great detail.
They go through state by state.
They also talk about Trump's efforts to try to get the Department of Justice to conduct
a sham investigation, or at least notice of a sham investigation through the machinations
of Jeffrey Clark in an effort to delay the certification
of the vote. They talk a great detail about the Trump's campaign of pressuring Mike Pence to try
to get him to refuse to certify the vote or to at least delay the proceedings. And finally,
they talk about Trump's impact in deceiving a large angry crowd,
luring them essentially to attack the Capitol
and to target Pence particularly.
So all of that stuff qualifies as,
according to the prosecutors,
supporting a charge for 18 USC 371.
So the next charge is,
one we've talked about a lot,
it's 18 USC 1512. If there's a count
under subpart K for conspiracy to obstruct the electoral count. And there is also a count under
1512 C2 for obstructing an official proceeding. That one we all totally predicted, right? That was
the one we all expected to see
in here. It's been the charge that's been used most frequently against January 6th
defendants.
Yeah, exactly. And it's, we picked that up early on when Liz Cheney started using the language
from 1512 C2. Rachel Maddo kind of grabbed onto it for a second, but she thought it was 15 or a 15 or five,
which is obstruction of Congress, but the language didn't quite match.
So I thought it to be 1512 C2 and as time has gone on from
2021, early 2022, we've
the you know with all of the
1512 C2 charges and the litigating
the meaning of 1512C2.
And of course, there's just been so much discussion.
We had the judge Carter in California
who turned over emails to the January 6th committee
under the Crime Fraud exception for 371 and 1512C2,
371 being the first charge that you went over
conspiracy to defraud the United States and 1512C2, obstructing an official proceeding, those
two counts. And there are two counts that the January 6th committee handed over to the
Department of Justice as a criminal referral for the president and Johnny Eastman. So it
makes a whole lot of sense. we were expecting to see those.
And then we weren't sure. Was it going to be 2383, 2384, which is insurrection,
seditious conspiracy? Is it going to be nothing else? Is it going to be something else?
And bam, he hits us with Title 18, US Code 241. And some folks early on talked about 241,
including our friend Joyce Vance.
This is under the clan law.
I think Ellie Missedall said it best
when he said Donald Trump's been indicted
under the clan law more than David Duke.
Hahaha.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, they definitely reach deep
into the bag of tricks for this one,
but I think it's, you know, it makes perfect sense when you
look at how it's referred to in the indictment and what they're trying to do. Yeah, and it's a post
civil war statute. It was used during Watergate to convict Nixon's top domestic policy advisor,
John Erlichman, and also plus Gordon Liddy and the rest for a warrantless entry into a doctor's office looking for info
to discredit Dan Ellsberg after he leaked the Pentagon papers.
So it's a very, it's a very pointed statute.
We had discussed it last week on the show, Andy, and we were just curious as to how Jack
Smith would apply it here because it's called conspiracy against rights.
And we were wondering, would it be a conspiracy against rights. And we were wondering, it would it be a conspiracy
against our rights to a peaceful transfer of power or maybe a conspiracy against Joe Biden's right
to ascend to the presidency or our right to vote. And it turns out he is applying it to the whole
of the United States voters. It is, we are now the victims.
Every voter in this country is a victim of this crime
because it was a conspiracy against our right
to cast our vote and have our vote counted in an election.
That's absolutely right.
So, you know, it's basically a charge
that these conspiracies, these schemes,
but trust by lies and undertaken with the help of attorneys
to use the law in a way it was not intended to be used, essentially amounted to an effort
to dispossess over 80 million people of their right to vote and the right to have their votes
lawfully counted, right? So I think it's an appropriate charge.
It has incredible historical relevance, a statute that was enacted after the Civil War
to go after essentially Clue Clark's clan terrorists, people who were using terrorism to
prevent black citizens from voting.
Here, you know, you've now were in the modern age and it is now being used
against a sitting president who essentially tried to do the same thing on a mass scale. So it's
I think it has particular resonance for people and it has a kind of a visceral appeal that I think
is really going to get the attention of a jury. I agree.
And this is where I want to bring up why I think these proceedings should be televised.
Since there is a conspiracy against rights to prevent our votes from counting and to prevent
us from voting, I think that clearly makes all of us victims in this crime. And under
Title 18, US code 3771, crime victims rights, subsection A3 says, we have the right to not
be excluded from any such public court proceeding, unless the court, after receiving clear and
convincing evidence, determines that testimony by the victim would be materially altered if the victim heard other testimony
at that proceeding.
I think, now there are other federal rules of criminal procedure in place that say there
are no cameras allowed in the courtroom.
I believe it is up to the board of, what is it called?
It's like a chief judge. John Roberts sits atop and it's all of the
former or current head judges. That's exactly administrative apparatus for the federal courts.
Right. But at the end of the day, the bottom line is, it's John Roberts decision.
Right. John Roberts could change. It is, it is the current rule that there are no cameras in
federal courts, period, anywhere in the country. It's not just a DC thing. John Roberts could change. It is the current rule that there are no cameras in federal courts period anywhere in the country. It's not just a DC thing. John Roberts could change that
in a half an hour with a memo. I hereby decide here's what it is. And this is so overdue.
This is so long overdue. It's a 1946 one. Yeah, in hundreds of courtrooms around the
country every single day, people get to see
civil trials, like to see criminal trials on occasion. We've proven that this can be done
without undermining justice, without denying defendants a fair trial. We are living through a period
in which people's respect for and understanding of the works of democracy and of courts in particular,
and of the Supreme Court in particular is experiencing like record loads, right?
People have, are losing confidence in the system and the structures of justice.
And to continue to do things in secret for no real practical reason is just, it's the wrong choice.
He's wrong about this.
Well, that and you're going to, you're going to leave a vacuum.
You're going to leave a vacuum to fill with, with mis and disinformation.
We saw it when the, when the DOJ was investigating this whole time.
DOJ always says nothing.
So that allows Donald Trump and his people to come in and spin it the way they want and when you have a criminal court proceeding
You know that the Trump lawyers are gonna come out and say what they said what they want to say happened in the courtroom and the DOJ
Will not 100% will not right and it goes and it goes out from there, right?
You're gonna see every news network putting up some version of what happened in the trial today.
And none of them will be perfect on any side of the argument.
Why not have the actual trial speak for itself?
Look, we saw that happen with the January 6 hearings, right?
And tens of millions of people tuned in to watch them.
So there's an interest there.
There's a need for it.
You couldn't have that same sort of disassembling of what had happened
and what people said in the hearing that night on the news because people saw it. There was a
readily accessible record. And that is so important. Now, this trial, this could very well be the most
important criminal trials ever taken place in this country. People should be able to see it, listen to it,
watch it develop if they wish to do so.
Have you ever been a part of or had under your purview,
a trial that was televised, that was able to be televised?
And is this something where the DOJ can petition?
Can the, I am assuming the Department of Justice
could petition
the Supreme Court to do this or that body, maybe write a letter, I'm not sure what that
would look like or perhaps file a motion with the court and have it travel up to where it
needs to travel. But also Trump's lawyer is asking for this to be televised and we have
that on the record. So you can't really unwind that or put that to back in the toothpaste.
And, you know, they're not going to come back and say, never mind. We don't want it tell,
you know, we don't want to tell advice. But I would love it if the DOJ again would call
their bluff and file something asking for this for cameras to be allowed in the courtroom.
Yeah, I've never, I've never been involved in a case that was because I only worked in
the federal system and it doesn't happen anywhere in the federal system. I think it is notable, though. It never happened
in the Supreme Court either until during COVID, they started making audio recordings of the arguments.
And they are continuing to do that because they've learned that it was a helpful and meaningful thing.
And so like that alone, that process alone shows them that like it's time to update the
way we think about doing business.
How you would actually do it, I think it's unlikely that the government, especially in
the middle of a pending matter, would would essentially advocate for that sort of a policy
change because the government
never wants to be never wants to create the impression that they're trying to change
the rules of the game in the middle of the game.
So I think that's unlikely.
I guess I don't know what the procedure would be to get the issue in front of that board
presumably the defense could do that.
And the government could then weigh in and say we have no objection
Which would be in and of itself a very powerful statement. Yeah, or a joint letter
Yeah, so I don't know I
Again, I find it unlikely simply because it's never happened, but it should happen here
It's never been more necessary than in this case
Yeah, and there are arguments against
televising it.
I heard somebody arguing saying, look, this isn't a circus type situation.
I just wanted to put that argument out there.
I disagree with it respectfully.
But I'm 99.9% of the people that I'm hearing from experts up and down are wanting this televised.
Also, Andy, you and I are going to be reading this indictment as a free bonus episode.
We're just going to read it to you.
And we're going to substitute the conspirators' names in thanks to just security and Ryan Goodman for putting together
an annotated searchable version of this indictment.
The first one was not searchable and it drove everybody crazy.
No frustrate.
We're looking for names, we're looking for chief of staff,
we're looking for whatever we can find.
We keep it's not searchable.
So they made it searchable and they substituted Co-Conspirator 1 with Rudy Giuliani, for example.
That's the version we're going to read.
You can get that excellent searchable resource for yourself at just security.
But we need to take a quick break.
We're going to come back.
We're going to talk about possible defenses and the arrangements.
So everybody stick around.
We'll be right back.
Welcome back everyone. I want to talk for a second about a potential defense
that I want your opinion on Andy. And I guess it's not really a defense. I think it's looking down the road to an appeal.
On a few different cable news networks,
Trump lawyer, Lauer, who's not a terrible lawyer,
came out, you know, I'm comparing relatively with other Trump,
he's not a co-conspirator.
He seems like he knows what he's talking about,
which is in some respects remarkable,
but anyway.
Now, he went on several networks and said, Trump wanted, all he wanted was a 10-day delay
for the Electoral Count Act.
Everybody lost their mind.
Like, oh my God, he just confessed to trying to delay the Electoral Count Act, which
is a coup, right?
That is the crux of the 1512C2
charge. And everybody kind of lost their mind. Well, remember, you and I have talked at length
about Virginia governor Bob McDonald. He was convicted of bribery. And in 2016, on appeal,
the Supreme Court tossed out his conviction, saying the corruption statute was vague or ambiguous or too broad,
and they really narrowed that bribery statute.
And now it's virtually impossible to convict anybody or charge them with bribery in public
corruption because it's, you now you have to basically, as we've, you know, we've said
before you have to be like, hello, Mr. Senator,
take this bag of cash.
And in exchange, I would like for you to vote on this marijuana legislation this way.
And then they have to say, understood, I'm accepting this cash in exchange for, I mean,
it's got to be like, it's got to be explicit quid pro quo.
It used to be, hey, you voted this way.
This guy asked you, told you how he wanted you to vote.
You voted that way.
And then a month later,
he let you drive his Ferrari for the weekend.
And you could connect those things as like an implicit bargain.
And they basically said, no, no,
it has to be a perfectly clear quid pro quo
one thing for the other thing.
Yeah, so Scotus tossed out that conviction.
That was 2016.
And in January of 2022, think about that.
That's a year and a half ago.
I tweeted, quote, Susan Collins seems to be trying to give Donald a pass here
by saying that the Electoral Count Act is ambiguous.
No, it isn't.
I went on to say we have to put do not eat labels on deodorant,
not because it's complicated to use,
but because of the four people who are too dumb not to eat it.
That's my-
Wait a minute, you can't eat that?
Oh, sorry.
That's my little analogy there for the coup, thank you.
Then, on February 1st, a couple days later, same year, 2022, Manu Raju tweeted, when asked
about Trump's statement that Pence should have overturned the election, Portman told me,
well, we need to clarify how the Electoral Count Act works.
When asked if he had concerns with the Trump statement, he said, well, it's very confusing
right now.
And that's why it needs to be clarified.
I quote tweeted that saying, I bet you Republicans are going to say the reason the January
6th committee is looking to shore up the Electoral Count Act is because it's somehow confusing
or ambiguous.
This helps Donald set up a defense
that he didn't know Pence couldn't just delay for 10 days.
Don't listen.
Now I think Trump's attorneys know he's gonna be convicted.
I do, Andy.
Yeah, it's a tough indictment.
It's a tough indictment.
It's pretty airtight.
And I think they're now they're setting up to appeal
and get their case in front of this
Supreme Court and argue that the Electoral Count Act was vague and ambiguous and tried to narrow it just like Bob McDonald did with the Corruption and
bribery act. Now
Even Eastman
admitted in a crime fraud accepted email that they would lose this case
Well, he first he said 7- two, but then he said nine, zero.
But they don't really have any other viable defense.
Well, they're trying a few things,
but it is of note.
Do you remember who prosecuted Bob McDonald?
I do, and his name is Jack Smith.
I mean, I think you've hit on a really good issue,
which is to be fair, this is not an
unheard of defense tactic, right?
The defense, in addition to thinking through and lining up potential defenses to use a
trial, they also raise issues at trial to just plant them like landmines in the case.
So that in the event that their client
is convicted, they can go back to those little things and try to use them to overturn the
conviction after the fact. So, you know, this is a great example of one of those. If you
try to bring the Electoral Count Act into the case, which quite frankly, I think is very
hard to do because none of the
charges really have anything to do with it.
They could try to get their goal will be to like get the conviction in front of the Supreme
Court on some grounds on the hope, the Hail Mary, you know, pass hope that the court will
find a reason to overturn the conviction.
So it's a super long shot strategy, but it is one of many that they'll deploy here.
We've already seen them kind of air out a few potential defenses on TV and commentary
and things like that.
One of them is this, oh, I was just following the advice of counsel.
Like somehow, if you just, you know, if your lawyer tells you to do something, it somehow
gives you like this cloak of invisibility or something that you can't then be held responsible
for what you did because some lawyer told you to do it.
It does not work that way.
It just determined that it wasn't attorney client privilege because of the crime fraud exception. It's, it just doesn't work that way. Just determined that it wasn't attorney client privilege because of the crime fraud exception. You can. It just doesn't work that way. And there's a bunch of problems
with it. The first is when your lawyers are counseling you to do things that they're
telling you are violating the law, which is what Johnny's been did. He explained, and
it was a great quote in the indictment where he says, it'll just require a slight violation
of the Electoral Count Act.
And then goes on to say, please do it.
That doesn't get you there.
It also would require Trump to things, one, to testify in his own defense.
You'd have to put that defense on himself by testifying, which would open up such a terrible
can of worms for him on a million other counts,
because then he would get cross-examined likely for a week by some very scuffle prosecutors.
And Trump's lawyers know, like, he can't take the stand here.
It would be deadly.
So there's that.
And also, you have to wave all the attorney classes.
You have to wave.
Yes, you've made an issue of what your lawyer told you to do.
And therefore, to just get that issue in court, you have to wave attorney client privilege
with that lawyer.
So that opens the floodgates to then you have to testify about all these conversations
you had with your lawyer.
So these are bad things.
So that's one that I don't think is a real defect.
Well, can I, let me ask you a question about the attorney client privilege or the advice
of council.
Four of these six co-conspirators are facing disbarment.
Does that play into this as well?
I mean, it's not a good fact.
You know, lawyers are always talking about good facts and bad facts.
Facts, good facts that support their case and bad facts, make their case look terrible.
I'd say that's a bad fact.
Although I don't think it has particular legal significance.
And a lot of those proceedings will be going on forever.
I think it would be important for a jury to hear though, right?
Yeah, I don't know if you could get it in front of the jury.
Because it's one of those things that if it's relevance is low
and it's kind of inflammatory effect that if it's relevance is low and it's kind of
inflammatory effect on the jurors is high and so that's that balancing that judges do to
sometimes decide to keep evidence out. So the other defense has been talked about a lot that I
don't think really gets him anywhere is this First Amendment defense that oh, the justice department is criminalizing the former presidents exercise
of his First Amendment rights and his, you know, nothing's more protected than political
speech. This is all political speech. And this is proof that Joe Biden is actually doing
this to keep him out of the election. La la la la. Well, as a legal matter, and we'll
talk about the political in just a second, but as a legal matter, the first amendment defense doesn't really work because
they're basically saying, hey, anything I say that has any sort of political relevance is completely protected and cannot possibly form the basis of a crime.
That's not true. What he's being, what's criminalized here, what he's being charged with is not the statements in the abstract sense.
It's the fact that he, it's not the things he said, it's the things that he did.
He's behaving that.
That's right.
Yeah, he participated in the scheme to enlist fake electors to undermine the counting of the votes.
He participated in conversations with state level officials
in an effort to push them and coerce them
into changing their own state results,
changing the counting of the votes,
finding new votes for him, things like that.
He participated in conversations
where he tried to coerce Mike Pence
into not certifying the election. So what
you're criminalizing is conduct, not speech. And the other thing I would point out is the criminal
law penalizes speech all the time. It's not protected speech to coerce someone or cheat them out
of money. Every fraud in the criminal code requires some element of speech.
So if I call you up, Allison, and I tell you a lie in order to convince you to send me your money,
that's wire fraud. It's not protected speech. The lie that I told you to scheme you out of your
money is not protected speech. If I threaten you for the purpose of causing
you to give me something of value, that threat is not protected by the First Amendment. It
is part of the crime of extortion. And what he's done, according to this indictment,
yeah, he used speech. He lied to people. He pressured them, he coerced them, he participated in putting together
these illegal efforts to send fake electors forward as a part of an effort to steal the election.
So that is not first amendment protected speech on any grounds.
No, and if he had charged inciting an insurrection under Title 18, U.S. Code Section 2383,
there would be a first amendment.
Yes.
Argument.
Much tougher.
Much like there was in the second impeachment hearing of Donald Trump.
And he also has a double jeopardy defense, which is hilarious, because the Senate tried
him for this and acquitted him.
And he thinks that somehow impeachment trials are applied to double jeopardy.
I think that's probably might, that might just be bluster and probably won't end up in a court
filing, but who knows? I'm pretty sure that well, if they did, it would end up in a granted
motion and lemonade to, to remove that as a defense. The other one that I wanted to bunk quickly is
this thing that people are throwing out there like, well, what if he truly believed the
election had been stolen from him?
So he was acting under that, he was acting honestly under this misbelief essentially.
Also maybe relevant in some way, but it's not determinative of the case.
So the mental state, the mens rea that you have to prove with every crime and these crimes
is knowing and willful.
It's not that he believed he'd lost the race and now he was doing these things to undermine
that result.
It's that he knowingly and willfully engaged in this conduct.
He knowingly and willfully engaged in the scheme to put together the fake electors.
Or he knowingly and willfully engaged in pressuring Mike Pence.
It doesn't matter whether he actually thought the election had been stolen from him or he knew
he lost and he was just flat out trying to steal it. That would be like saying,
well, you know, George Conway, I was just kind of bring up George Conway's
example with OJ. Is that what you were about to go? Yeah, he was always sitting on the panel
with him. What do you laid that out there? I was like, that is brilliant. So, OJ in his
slightly less famous second case, the one that he went to jail on, he believed that his
memorabilia had been stolen from him. And he found out that there were people in a hotel
who had the stuff.
And so he went over to get it back.
He, I think honestly believed that his stuff
had been illegally taken from him.
So he went into that hotel room with a gun
and he held everybody at gunpoint
and took all of this stuff back.
The fact that he legitimately believed that his stuff had
been stolen doesn't make the assault with a deadly weapon any less criminal. So he's that's why
that's why he went to jail. I don't know if he's still in jail or not, but nevertheless.
So Trump's belief in whether or not he won or lost, You know, it's going to be interesting to the jury to hear all this evidence that he actually
knew he didn't win.
I expect that they're going to spend a lot of time putting witnesses on who said, I told
them that he lost, I told them there was no fraud.
And these will be strong Republican witnesses, White House counsel, people like that.
So that you'll hear that. But what he believed in terms of the election is not determinative.
Agreed.
Let's talk about the arrangement really quick and then a DOJ filing that happened, I think,
less than 24 or 48 hours after the arrangement.
He was all by himself on this indictment, right?
We talked about that. That's probably for speed because Jack Smith
has asked for a speedy trial,
which is a 70 day endeavor.
Things get told for certain reasons.
Right.
And they send those updated reports
about how many days have passed in the speedy,
during, you know, on the speedy trial clock
and how many days have been told.
We saw a report like that in the documents case.
So he's asked for a speedy trial here, and normally, like we said, it's a defendant that
asked for a speedy trial, but here he's asking on behalf of the American people and in the
interest of the public for a speedy trial, because it's our right to have one as well.
We're all victims.
Judge Tanya Chutkin has drawn the case.
She's a formidable, amazing fair judge.
She's an Obama appointee.
She's commented on presidents not being kings before
in her courtroom when dealing with January 6th cases
from the boots on the ground attack on the Capitol.
She's Jamaican born and I am counting down the seconds before Trump brings
that up and starts doing some weird racist thing about that. But she came from Kingston
and then you know what came here went to law school and became a good job.
She was a really accomplished defense attorney, which is a little bit different. You see
a lot of like people with prosecutorial backgrounds going on to the bench. She was a public
defender in DC for a long time.
She's got tons of trial experience.
She wasn't worked in the private sector for a while as a defense attorney and has a reputation
of being very smart, no nonsense, moves the cases forward by all accounts, a good judge.
And unlike Amit Metta, her sentencing for January 6th, folks, has been at close to at or
above the recommendations for the sentencing guidelines handed down by the Department of
Justice.
So we'll see how that goes because we know that Merrick Garland has dropped a note saying
he plans to appeal the oath keeper sentences handed down by judge.
I'm at Meta for coming in eight years under the 25 year recommended
sentencing and even more in some cases, I think somebody was recommended for 12 and he gave him four,
like he's coming in way under. Way low. And I expect to see that appeal filed now at any day
because he's the Jack Smith is asked for the speedy trial. We'll see what happens there.
I'm maybe they're not connected. Maybe I'm just connecting them in my head, but they're all charged with 15, 12, C, 2.
So we'll be nice to have that resolved before we get there,
but we'll see.
It would be now Trump pled not guilty to all charges.
No surprise there.
Jack Smith was there as well as some judges came in and sat
in the front row, including Chief Judge Bozberg,
Judge Amy Berman Jackson, Judge Barrel Howell.
Now that's remarkable. That never ever happens. I've never seen
another judge just come walking in and sitting in the gallery of a different
judges proceeding trial. And certainly not arrangements. Arraignments are like
boring. Like it's the same every time you don't really expect fireworks.
But yeah, incredible that they showed
up historic moment. It's it's a truly historic moment in in the United States. Um, he's out
on bail. The conditions include not speaking to witnesses in basic conditions that they've
had. They had down in the moral logo case. He's not allowed to speak to witnesses about
the facts of the case. The magistrate judge that presided over the arrangements spoke to Judge Chutekin and reminded
after speaking to Judge Chutekin, reminded Trump specifically, you can't commit any crimes
while you're out on bail.
Just want you to know that.
And sometimes I hear that, but not in every case, but it was brought up specifically in this case.
And also, the magistrate judge said that Judge Chutekin has set the next hearing, or they
set the next hearing for August 28th, they had three picked, and of course the Trump
lawyers picked the latest, the furthest away date, which is August 28th.
But the discussion with Chutekin, they, they gave this out ahead of time, saying, hey,
what if he doesn't show up? And so what they've decided to say is if Trump can't make it, they, they game to this out ahead of time, saying, hey, what if he doesn't show up?
And, and so what they've decided to say is if Trump can't make it, you don't have to be there,
pal. I'm having this hearing to set the trial day, and you don't have to be there. Seems like
she's prepared for his deletion, Anakin's. Um, yes. And it's also, it, it also kind of, um,
it's like she's doing him a favor. Hey, I, I'll let you out of this one. So it's an easy way to put one in the,
I'm nice to you, box, right?
But also, you're not gonna delay this.
You have a nice day.
I assume Jack Smith has all discovery ready to go,
same as the Mar-a-Lago case.
Each party has five days to file a brief
asking for the trial date of their choosing.
Now, Jack Smith, like I said, said 70 days
in court, Trump said, Trump slurs, asked for three and a half years from now.
And they asked for, they asked for that based on a miscalculation of how long the investigation
is going on. They said, well, they've had three and a half years to investigate, not figuring
out that three and a half years is long before January 6th, but whatever.
And Alvin Bragg, as we know, we view and I've talked about this, he has said publicly, he'd be willing to give up his March trial date in the interest of justice, which is
pretty plain language for in case the DOJ wants to go in March. And they might take them up on that.
But hey, December is also free. the documents case wasn't scheduled in December.
So, hey, I think I, my money,
and I am a betting person, you know me,
I speculate all over the place.
I think Jack Smith will ask for December with eyes on March.
That's what I think.
And we'll see how that goes.
His co-conspirators have not been indicted yet, as you said. So we'll
see what happens, but also then Trump tweeted or truth, excuse me, which is also under federal
criminal investigation, his truth social, dewax back thing, and how that was funded by
rubles probably. Anyway, I digress back to what he truth on truth.
Social he said, if you come after me, I'm coming after you in all caps.
And then within hours, DOJ put a filing in for a protective order,
not a gag order, a protective order over discovery, meaning all the evidence
we're going to hand over just like we did down in Florida for the documents case,
all the evidence we wanted under a protective
order because dissemination of that evidence seems likely here.
And then they included that post to, you know, if you come after me, I'm coming after you
in this filing, I think to get Judge Chutekin's eyes on it above anything else.
And we'll see what how Judge Chutekin's eyes on it above anything else. And we'll see how Judge Chutekin will respond.
I am 100% sure she's gonna grant a protective order
for the discovery.
But what do you think, do you think?
I think, because we're talking about
avoiding first amendment arguments here
up and down the line.
We saw a Department of Justice
in the Arraignment of Donald Trump down in Florida.
They were like, we don't have any bail conditions.
None.
And it was the judge who was like, maybe you should have some.
And they were like, okay, cool.
I don't think they're going to try to get the DOJ is going to try to get a gag order here.
I'm not sure what the judge would do.
But I think they'll probably avoid that kind of the same way judge Amy Berman Jackson did
with Roger
Stone, let him go, let him go. And then finally was like, all right, with the crosshairs,
you've clearly now violated or you know, you're stepping over the line here. Well, how do
you think this is going to play out?
I think you're right. I think that the first amendment issue is clearly a third rail here,
right? Jack Smith, I think intentionally
wrote this indictment with an eye on staying away from anything that could raise a legitimate
First Amendment defense. He put in one of the very first paragraphs of the indictment,
he makes it very clear that they're not, this isn't having any, you know, Trump has the
right to say whatever he wants and is the right to lie if he chooses to do so and engage in political speech.
So that kind of set the tone here.
Jack Smith seems got to protect the evidence in this case.
So asking for the protective order for the sake of protecting the discovery, the evidence
that has turned over to the defense and discovery is a totally legit thing to do.
But it also, as you said, gives him an opportunity to put that post in front of the judge's
eyes.
We also know that the judges in both cases are sensitive to Trump's nonsense.
Like you said, in the Mar-a-Lago case, it was the court that said, don't you want to ask
me to prohibit him from speaking to witnesses?
So the judges are really thinking like this guy has a history
of trying to influence people improperly.
In this case, you get the judge, the magistrate judge,
saying, you know, be careful not to commit any more crimes
while you're out on your own reconnaissance.
And you don't have to show up for the hearing
where I scheduled a trial date.
So yeah.
So they know, they're familiar with what they're, uh, who they're dealing with here.
I think like, you know, I can't see a gag order coming in unless he just goes totally over
the line and starts, uh, clearly and, and unambiguously calling for violence, whether that's
violence towards the prosecutors
or the judge or any witness or anyone, really.
At that point, a gag order would be pretty,
pretty called for, I guess.
But until you get there,
I think everybody knows you're just gonna have to hold
their noses and keep moving forward.
Yeah, I mean, we saw a picture of him
with a baseball bat next to Alvin
Bragg and there's no gag order.
So it's got to be really, really over the line.
You just don't want to touch that one A stuff.
Anyway, we need to take a quick break before we head down to Florida.
So everybody stick around.
There's we have a whole other case we have to talk about.
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 We had Carlos De Alvarra, who appeared in court for his arrangement. And once again, you have a Marlago defendant shows up without a lawyer.
Must be like a real shortage of lawyers down there in Florida.
So obvious what's happening here.
Walt Naughty pulled this nonsense when he was originally indicted with Trump in the first
indictment.
It bought them like a month, right?
Because then of course, when he was scheduled to come down with his lawyer, he got stuck
on a plane in New York and
Yeah, it's all that nonsense. So Deoliver does the same thing shows up with no local council
He asked for an August 25th arraignment. So like please give me another month essentially to find a local lawyer and
The judge didn't put up with it. She moved the arraignment back to August 10th
So we'll see what happens on round two if he inexplicably travels to New York and can't get a flight home, because
of bad weather, I'm going to start to think something's really going on here. So in
addition to that delay, we also had you seal Tavaris.
Can you, if comes, or can you imagine like climate change is a hoax, but it is preventing
me from showing up to court. The Supreme Court must intervene on climate change.
Okay.
You see, Altevaris, Mar-Lago employee who oversees the property surveillance cameras.
It turns out, Tavaris received a target letter from federal prosecutors after Donald Trump
was first indicted in June. So likely as a result of that target letter,
Tavaris met with investigators
following the initial indictment in the classified docs case
and provided information.
Once the indictment was issued,
Tavaris changed lawyers.
Now this is really interesting because,
so far he's the first person that we know of
that's broken free of the Trump legal team.
I'll call it. These are the collection of lawyers who are all being paid for. We believe by the
Save America pack. He's the first one to really split off, get his own counsel.
And as a result, he has not found himself under indictment yet. And he is likely in an agreement
to provide information to the federal government.
So it's interesting.
It reminds us, of course, of Cassidy Hutchinson,
and me Cassidy Hutchinson,
and her bombshell testimony in front of the January 6th committee,
ultimately revealed she went through a similar process.
She had lawyers provided to her by the Trump team,
a lawyer by the name of Stefan Pasantino. She eventually
broke away from Pasantino because she was pretty clear that he was not representing her,
according to her best interest, but rather in an effort to protect Trump. So I don't know,
what's your thoughts about these developments from our logo. I wasn't surprised first of all that, you know, that Delivera didn't
have local council. That just is the game that they're going to play until this is over. And
it's the dog ate my homework version of the documents case. In all the cases. But yeah, I am
very interested in, you know, because here we have Tavaris, who didn't have rights to their surveillance footage,
right?
He didn't have the administrative rights to it.
And he is not indicted here.
And I think that that shows all, even like all the way up to Walton out of like, hey, if
you talk, get a better lawyer, Dick Stanley Woodward, get a better lawyer, and you know,
tell them what happened,
you might not go to jail or you could go to jail for a lot fewer years.
But the other thing here is much like in the January 6th Committee hearings, when we
found out the troubling information about Pasantino and Cassidy Hutchinson, if there was any
undue pressure put on Tavaris by Stanley Woodward,
who is a Trump-packed lawyer, like you said, he can now give that information to Jack Smith.
Now, it's real hard to prosecute those kinds of crimes, but it possibly could be referred to
the bar or something else. But if we've got a flipper who had to change lawyers, if there was any
undue pressure on him to say, I don't recall or to change his testimony or his answers to
investigators, Jack Smith is going to have that information now just like the January 6th
committee had that information about Pasantino and Cassidy Hutchinson.
Yeah.
And though it's probably unlikely that that information would lead to a criminal investigation
what it could do is give the special counsel team more leverage in
bringing these
motions in front of the judge to review potential conflicts of interest.
They would share that information as like here's why you should be concerned about this lawyer being
as like, here's why you should be concerned about this lawyer being representing multiple people on different sides because we know that in the case of this person, D'Varis, you know,
there are allegations of divided loyalties, what have you. So it's definitely relevant.
The other thing that's fascinating to me about this, Allison, is like the part of the story that we
don't know about Deole Vera and Tavaris.
We know about the furtive meeting in the AV room,
through the tunnel with the flashlights, whatever,
which is great.
And we know that Tavaris says, I can't do it.
I don't have the rights to delete the server
and then Del Vera says, well, the boss wants it,
so what are we gonna do?
What we don't know is what they actually did.
Yeah, the story ends right there, right?
And to far, it's got to continue.
We just don't have it yet.
So,
To far, it's got to,
well, it ends in the indictment that we know about.
Yeah.
To far, it's got a target letter for obstruction.
So he did something wrong right at the end
of that conversation and we don't know what it is yet.
And so it also dovetails with like,
this is why we've been saying for months
like that the special
council is really focused on this issue of the video surveillance and did they actually
get an unedited, you know, full copy of the footage or not.
Tavaris can unlock that whole mystery for them and probably has already.
And if what actually happened doesn't really put Tavaris in that bag of a light, like he
actually stood up and said,
hey, I can't do this.
I'm not doing it.
Well, he, you know, he might have said,
I mean, I just can't do it because I don't have the log in
to do it.
Yeah, who knows?
I mean, we don't know.
Or he might have said, hey, I can't do it,
but this guy get on the phone with someone so he can do it.
Calamari Jr.
And we do have text messages with Calamari Jr.
Right. So he facilitates it, but doesn't really have his can do it. Calamari Jr. and we do have text messages with Calamari Jr. Right, so he facilitates it,
but doesn't really have his hands on it.
So he's like at a different level of culpability.
The other problem that I've always had
with the Dale Rivera indictment is,
how is it like what's the government prepared to do
if Dale Rivera walks in and says,
yeah, my boss called me, said get the server deleted.
I don't know about it. I don't know about a subpoena. I don't know the server deleted. I don't know about it.
I don't know about a subpoena.
I don't know about a corridor.
I don't know about nothing.
All I know is I work for him.
He asked me to delete the server,
which in and of itself, by itself,
outside the context of the subpoena is not illegal.
It's not illegal to delete your server.
So how do you prove, you're gonna try to hold him,
you know, accountable for obstruction. How do you prove that he
actually knew why he was being asked to take those steps and Tavaris can likely add more
texture to that exchange that they had that firmly puts Dale Leveris in the grease. They've got to
have some information. Well, there was that 24 minute phone call between Trump and Dale
Loveras.
And this, I guess, quote unquote, cooperation of Tavaris will pressure
Dale Loveras to start cooperating with the government because if they can get the
content of that 24 minute conversation, I mean, this is this indictment's already
a lock, but that would.
That would, that would be very damning to try.
Put it into outer space.
For Donald Trump, exactly.
Right. Yeah.
All right. We want to talk a little bit about that DOJ, that Department of Justice filing
for the conflict of interest because of Stanley Woodward representing multiple people on
different sides, but we have to take one last quick break. We'll be right back. Stick
around.
Everybody, welcome back. Andy, you and I talked last week about there being a pretty clear conflict of interest, right? Now that Tavaris seems to be cooperating, at least a little bit with special
council, and that he had the same lawyer as Walton Outa, that's Stanley Woodward.
We've talked about him a lot.
He seems to be the new Pasantino.
We talked about him quite a bit with the Cassidy Hutchison thing in the last segment,
but this is from Hugo Lollode the Guardian.
He's confirmed a lot of things that we were sort of assuming.
Federal prosecutors requested a hearing to inform
Waltenaura about his lead lawyer's potential conflicts of interest, stemming from his defense
of at least three witnesses that could testify against Nauta and the former president.
One is described as someone who worked in a White House during Trump's presidency and then
subsequently worked for Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
Another is someone who worked for Trump's reelection campaign and worked for Trump's
political action committee.
I think that might be that Wiles person.
CZWiles maybe.
After Trump's presidency ended and so there's now three potential witnesses that could testify
against Nauta, including Tveris, right?
The prosecutors made the request to U.S. District Court judge
Aileen Cannon on Wednesday explaining,
Nautas lead lawyer, Stan Woodward,
represents two key Trump employees
and formally advised the Mar-a-Lago IT guy,
that's Tveris, who is cooperating.
Now, quote, and Hugo Lowe says he is cooperating here in this case,
whether there's a formal cooperation agreement,
I don't know if I've seen that, but he is cooperating here in this case. Whether there's a formal cooperation agreement, I don't know if I've seen that,
but he is cooperating.
All three of these witnesses, quote,
maybe witnesses for the government at trial
raising the possibility that Mr. Woodward might be
in the position of cross-examining past or current clients.
So this is called a Garcia hearing.
Can you explain what that is?
Sure, so the purpose of this hearing is not really, people tend to look at it as like, oh, this
is the government trying to take out one of the defense attorneys.
In some cases, that's the result.
But really, what the government has an obligation to bring to the court's attention that a witness
or defendant might be being represented by someone who has a conflict of interest.
And so if the judge agrees to the request for this hearing, they bring the defendants
in and the lawyers, but the purpose is to let the judge, the independent party, explain
to the defendants what the potential conflicts are, and to give the defendants an opportunity
to either say, I want a new lawyer, that concerns me, I think I should get a new lawyer, or they
can say, I understand that these potential conflicts exist, and I'm prepared to waive them.
And then that way, later, especially if one of these people who needs this advice is a defendant in the case.
If they are and they decide to wave the conflict and then they get convicted, they can't come
back later and appeal and say, oh, I should have had a different, you know, my lawyer had
a conflict of interest and I didn't know a lot.
So it's really, that's the, that's the waving of conflict of interest is what that's
the point of the hearing to explain the conflicts to the defendant or witness
who's in who's implicated by the multiple representations by one attorney and to to get a waiver
if if that's necessary and chosen by the by the person. Oh, I see. Now, Hugo Lowe confirms that after Trump
and Nauta were indicted, Tavarice changed lawyers,
swapped out Woodward, and he did confirm
that the legal bills are being paid by the Save America pack.
Now, later on, Tavarice decided to share more evidence
with prosecutors about how Nauta and Mar-a-Lago maintenance
worker Del Avera asked him to delete
the surveillance footage.
And that's the basis, according to Hugo Lullier, that formed the basis of the superseding
indictment.
The court filing said Tavara has told prosecutors he is not opposed to Woodward continuing
to represent Nauta, but he didn't consent to Woodward using or disclosing his confidential
deliberations in the course of defending Nauta.
Yeah, this is really interesting. So we talked about how the hearing is really for the protection of
the witness or the defendant. On the other side of this equation is the lawyer. And lawyers are expected
to police their own conflicts of interest. And one of the things that a lawyer cannot do, lawyers
get confidential information from their clients all the time,
that's the basic relationship you have with your lawyer.
If you are representing two individuals in the same matter,
you can't use confidential information that you receive from one client
to the disadvantage of another client.
And this is nowhere as is more relevant than in a criminal case.
So like here, if Woodward
continues to represent NADA, and you seal Tavaris ends up as a witness for the government, Tavaris
will take the stand and provide information presumably against NADA, then Woodward will have an
opportunity to cross examine NADA, to undermine NADA in front of the jury to accuse examine, not a, to undermine, not a, in front of the jury, to accuse him
of being a liar or not credible or whatever. Now, that seems like it poses a lot of potential
danger for the case. Yeah, it's almost impossible for Woodward to cross examine Tavaris and that,
and that hypothetical without using information that he had gotten from Tavares,
right?
He's like, he's straddling both sides of the case in that moment.
So it's hard for me to understand how a judge would even allow a defendant or a witness
to waive a conflict that is so significant.
Yeah.
Sometimes they don't, sometimes they'll say,
no, I can't count into this.
You need to go get a new lawyer
or you need to go get a new lawyer.
We saw that with the Fannie Willis
and the fraudulent electors
when they weren't offered their immunity deal.
And it says right here in the DOJ filing
about that cross-examination scenario, it raises
two principal dangers.
They say, first, the conflict may result in the attorney's improper use or disclosure
of the client's confidences, which is what you said.
But also, on the flip side, the conflict may cause the attorney to pull his punches.
So it's kind of for both, like for the betterment of both sides there. Imagine in his prior consultation with Tavaris, Tavaris tells Woodward some, like, hey, I got
convicted of fraud once before, right?
So that's like, really goes to your equality of being a truth teller, truth and veracity,
all that kind of stuff.
So now Tavaris takes a stand against his client, Nauta.
So Woodward's got to make a decision.
Do I bring up Tvars' prior fraud case
and just eviscerate him in front of the jury
to do so would be using the information he gave me against him,
which is a violation of the attorney ethics.
Or I choose not to do that
because I don't want to violate
his rights.
And by not doing it, I am now not representing NADA as vigorously as I possibly could.
So it's, I don't know how you resolve.
Very definition of conflict of interest.
Violating somebody's interest.
Yeah, I thought it was interesting that Tavara was fine with Woodward's style.
Would not be fine.
That would be like, no, out, piece out, bro.
But it is up to the judge.
It'll be up to the judge here.
That's right.
Any might changes, you know, could change his mind on that.
But it's an interesting thing that is going to come up again and again.
You have in the January 6 case, you have Todd Blanche, right, who is Trump's primary attorney,
also previously represented Borscht Epstein,
who might be co-conspirator number six,
and Epstein could end up serving as a witness
in the case against Trump.
So how does Todd Blanche cross-examine Boris Epstein after having prior been his
attorney and received confidential information from him? So it's going to happen again, again,
in both of these cases.
Yeah, because it's a small lawyer world over there in Trumpland. And also prosecutors said
there will be additional conflicts for Woodward in this DOJ filing because there are eight total witnesses
who were ensnared by the grand jury investigation. And also one last little piece, Hugo Lull confirmed
that Nauta and Trump are in an informal joint defense agreement. Okay, I could have seems like
it. Okay. I could have seems like true. If it's informal, that means it'll only last as long as not a brings a warm diet coke instead of a cold one.
And before we get to our listener question, we just have some breaking news. Back up to
the DC charges, Judge Chutekin has ordered Donald Trump to respond to the DOJ's protective order filing, the one that
include that truth social included, that truth social post by 5 p.m. Monday.
All right.
So she's not messing around on timeline.
No, I'm just keeping everything on a short string.
That's good to see.
So she's going to get right on this this week.
That'll be interesting.
Yeah.
Definitely.
All right. Listen to your questions. If you have a question for Andy or I, you can send it to us
at helloatmullershierote.com.
Make sure to put Jack in the subject line.
That is how we sort these emails.
What do we have this week, Andy?
All right, Allison.
So this one comes to us from someone
whose name and location I did not get.
So I'm going to call this very nice person from somewhere.
And you'll see why I call them that,
because it begins with first off,
you both rock. And then the emoji for like, you know, head banging emoji, head banging right on
sort of hand. So I'm loving that. And by the way, you know, you want to get your question on the
air to flatter the host is like one of the best ways to do it. Okay. So this person says, I have a
question about sentencing. You've taught me that one of the factors ways to do it. Okay. So this person says, I have a question about sentencing.
You've taught me that one of the factors
a judge considers when sentencing
is whether or not the defendant
has previously been convicted of a crime.
So let's say Trump ends up convicted
in all three cases against him.
Can a judge wait to see if there's convictions
in other cases before sentencing
or postpone sentencing or revisit a sentence later to take that into account.
So good question. Yeah. When do you have to be convicted and sentenced by to count for
it to count in the sentencing guidelines as a previous conviction? Yeah. So I guess the first
thing to say is that judges have enormous discretion over over lots of things, but particularly scheduling, scheduling things
like sentencing hearings.
And they can delay that for weeks, months,
even years sometimes.
I've seen cooperators go years before they get sentenced
because they're continuing to cooperate.
Greenberg, right, down there in the old Matt Gaetz case.
Yeah, there you go.
Good example.
So you could just delay it and delay it
until the conviction or the sentence from the other thing comes in.
The second thing they do is after you're convicted either by guilty plea or at trial,
there's always a period of time before you get sentenced.
And during that period of time, the judge has the probation department put together a pre-sentencing report.
And that report really covers everything that the judge might need to consider.
It's biographical details.
It's all kinds of things about your job and your career and your family structure, whatever,
how what kind of support you have in life.
Also it includes a very detailed chronology of your past criminal history.
And so that would clearly indicate to the judge that there were
other ongoing pending matters. So as a baseline matter, the judge is thinking about sentencing.
If you, this, they're sentencing you on the single only criminal matter you've ever dealt with,
that's one frame of mind. If this is just one of four other or three or however many other ongoing
criminal matters, that's a very different frame of mind for the judge. So that's a way
they can kind of informally kind of put that into the equation. And then finally, you know,
they there's also possible that a lot of judges are like, hey, I'm only ruling on the thing
in front of me. I'm not waiting for anybody else.
And so they would, they, it's possible they could disregard it entirely. So it's really, I know that's a very lowly response. It's open-ended. Each one of these situations is very different,
very fact-dependent. But I can't imagine that any judge would sentence Donald Trump without a
strong understanding of all the other legal trouble he currently faces.
That makes sense to me.
Yeah, I also wonder, like, just about when you'd go in and you look at the sentence and guidelines,
what they particularly say about what counts to get those numbers that, you know, correspond with a
range of years. I'm not sure, but it can still be put in the sentencing recommendations if it's not reached
just a conviction yet as something to consider.
And like you said, the judge has a broad leeway to take these things into account or not.
You've seen the make downward departures because somebody is older.
You've seen the make downward departures because someone's younger.
You've seen them make upward departures because of maybe an previous crime
that was thrown out by a pardon, but not technically convicted. So I mean, all of these things
can play a role. But as far as the sentencing guidelines go, it'll be mentioned, but
to put in the calculation, then that's the reason there's a range in the sentencing guidelines.
That's right.
So that they can say, well, the range is 20 to 30 years,
but because he's got four other pending criminal things,
we'd like to say 27 instead of in the middle.
Yeah, that's where the range comes in.
That's why the sentencing guidelines,
despite whatever the calculation is,
it's only advisory, It's not controlling.
So yeah, there's a lot of room there, intentionally so to factor in things like this.
Yep.
And we still have mortigo down in Georgia.
We'll see what happens there.
We'll be covering the federal cases here.
We'll be covering me, Pete Struck I'll cover the the state cases over on cleanup
on L 45 and we'll shove it all in the daily beans somehow. But thank you so much. This is uh
36 weeks it took to get the the I mean we were waiting obviously for the classified documents
case, but truly honestly the the more important to democracy case here is, is the events leading
up to, uh, and proceeding the attempted coup, uh, by a former president. And we have the
charges and they're simple and they're straightforward. I think it's an open and shut case. And we'll
see, uh, on August 28th, when that trial will take place.
Yeah, that's right. As I said, one of the most important cases, clearly ever in the history
of this country's experience with the criminal justice system and one that deserves the nation's
attention. It's been a long time coming, a short time, worked by Jack Smith, but it's great
that we have finally gotten to this point and we're going to
cover it very closely.
And part of that coverage is going to include reading the indictment, just a straight up,
not a dramatic retelling, just a straight up, serious reading.
We're going to do that and we'll put that out for you to give you the opportunity to
hear exactly what the prosecutors have alleged.
I assume most people listening to our program have probably read the indictment,
but if you want to listen to it, that's going to be great.
But this really, the reason I wanted to do this, is for the folks who listen to this program
who have people, family, friends, and their lives who might not have the time
to read the indictment fully, they can just listen to it.
So you can send it to everybody in your email list,
everybody that you know, put it on your social media.
We're counting on you all to spread the word
and get this as many ears or eyes on this indictment
as possible.
The American people need to know what's in it.
So we appreciate your help with that.
And of course, we'll be back next week.
But you can look for that dramatic reading here
in the next day or two,
if it doesn't drop on the same day that this episode drops.
So thank you very much to everyone for listening.
We will keep you informed on these charges.
There probably will be super seeding stuff.
So stay tuned.
We'll be back next week.
I'm Allison Gill.
And I'm Andy McKibb.
We'll see you then.
M-S-W-M-D-A. And you may keep. We'll see you then.