Trump's Trials - A trial date set in New York and an indignant prosecutor in Georgia

Episode Date: February 17, 2024

This week on Trump's Trials, host Miles Parks and Domenico Montanaro are joined by New York University law professor Melissa Murray.This week we saw developments in all four of the criminal cases facing former President Donald Trump. We also got decision in the New York civil fraud case, where a judge ordered Trump to pay $355 million and banned him from doing business in New York for three years. But we're focusing on two of these cases — the New York hush money case and the Georgia election interference case. First in New York, a judge ruled the case will go to trial on March 25th; making it the first time in American history a former president will be a defendant in a criminal case.In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis surprised everyone when she took the stand in her own defense. Defendants in the Georgia election interference case are trying to have Willis removed for allegedly financially benefitting from a relationship she had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. Topics include: - Trial date for New York hush money case - Importance of the hush money case - What jury selection may look like - Georgia election interference case- What happens if Willis is removed Follow the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify for new episodes each Saturday.Sign up for sponsor-free episodes and support NPR's political journalism at plus.npr.org/trumpstrials.Email the show at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

One case is going to trial while another hangs in the balance. From NPR, this is Trump's Trials. I'm Miles Parks. We love Trump! This is a persecution. He actually just stormed out of the courtroom. Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This week, we saw split-screen developments in two of the criminal cases facing former President Donald Trump and a verdict in the New York civil fraud trial. A New York judge ordered Trump to pay nearly $355 million in penalties and banned Trump from doing business or applying for a loan in the state for three years.

You can hear more on that verdict in our last episode. But now we're going to focus on the two criminal trials. First, the New York hush money case. On Thursday, a judge determined that trial will start on March 25th. This looks almost certain to be the first criminal case against Trump to go to trial. Trump is charged with 34 counts related to falsifying business records during the 2016 campaign to cover up hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Then in Georgia, a contentious hearing that felt straight out of a soap opera, but it wasn't about the former president's alleged crimes related to the 2020 election. Instead, it was about whether the woman prosecuting the case, Fulton County District Attorney Fawnie Willis, and whether she should be disqualified.

That's because of allegations that she has a conflict of interest due to her relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade. Willis acknowledged the relationship with Wade earlier this month, but she strongly pushed back against accusations that she's financially benefited from her relationship with Wade. Important to note, though, those allegations could affect the timing, but they don't really change the facts of the case. Trump is on tape pressuring Georgia election officials to find votes. So that's lots to talk about, and we're going to get into all of it. As always, I'm joined by my colleague, senior political editor and correspondent, Domenico Montanaro. Hey, Domenico.

Hey there, Miles. So you were in New York for this hearing related to the New York hush money case. Catch me up on what the big takeaways from that hearing were. I was, yeah. And the big news, we actually have a start date locked in now, Monday, March 25th. This will be the first criminal prosecution of a former president in American history. That in itself is huge. But on top of that, he's also the leading candidate to become the Republican nominee for president.

Having this date finalized sets the wheels in motion for all these other cases and officially means Trump's trials in the presidential election are on a collision course. The judge in this New York case anticipates it'll last roughly six weeks. That's six weeks that Trump has to be in a courtroom and cannot be on the campaign trail, at least during the day, taking him into sometime in May, most likely. Many legal experts see this hush money case as the weakest among the four, but by having it go first sets up the possibility

of seeing the more serious cases, like the January 6th insurrection case, go to trial during or close to the heart of the general election. And I've said it before, but it's worth saying again, polling tells us that a conviction would likely hurt Trump in the general election. March 25th. I feel like there's something poetic about that being the same week as MLB opening day. But there is a lot to discuss there. And we'll get back into

all of it with lawyer and law professor Melissa Murray. That's when we come right back. This message comes from NPR sponsor, SAP Concur. Global Head of Sales, Ryan Demarey, shares how SAP Concur solutions can help solve specific problems and support long-term growth. We have a travel booking tool, we have an expense tool, and we have a vendor invoice tool. We very much so take the approach of we want to meet businesses where they're at. You can start with a piece of it and

grow. Maybe you have a very specific business problem that you need to solve for today before you can move forward. Maybe you only have 10 expense claims. You're going to try this out as a proof of concept for a division of your team. That's really what we focus on with customers as they begin their relationship with Concur. It's what do you need to solve for today? And how can we show you immediate value by solving that problem and then grow with you over time? Visit Concur.com to learn more. This message comes from the Kresge Foundation. This message comes from the Kresge Foundation. Established 100 years ago, the Kresge Foundation works to expand equity and opportunity in cities across America. A century of impact, book, The Trump Indictments, out later this month. And let's start in New York, Melissa. And the big news there is that

this hush money trial will begin on March 25th. How significant is it that we now have a start date for this? Well, I think it's very significant. So there's at least one trial that's going to get going. And interestingly, this is a trial where the prosecutor bringing it is not a federal prosecutor, but a state prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA, which means that if he is able to secure a conviction here, this isn't something that Trump could pardon himself afterwards with if he were president, nor is it a prosecution if it continues beyond the scope of the election that Trump could end if he becomes the president and has more power at the DOJ to determine prosecution priorities.

And Domenico, you were at the hearing on Thursday. Can you just tell us a little bit about what that was like? Yeah, you know, it's New York, right? So everything's packed in. I think it's like the last place on earth that Trump would want to be. But Trump, you know, came in. He had a blue suit and a bright red tie. He was the only one in the courtroom with a red tie on, actually. Sort of sloughed back in his chair, wide stance, you know, sort of grouchy. There were times where he sort of motioned over to his attorney and his attorney spoke on his behalf, saying things that really didn't have anything to do with legal arguments.

And the judge told him as much. It was a little testy, but the judge in the case was, you know, right off the bat, immediately just said, we're dismissing your motion to dismiss. We're setting a date for March 25th. He listened to the four points that Trump's attorney made in this sort of exasperated tone. And he just, you know, let him talk, told him to stop interrupting him at one point, and then basically dismissed his arguments and said, we're going forward. Yeah, we're going forward. March 25th, we're going to start.

And talk us through how that intersects with the political calendar and then also how that could potentially affect some of these other cases. Well, that's why I think when Melissa says it's significant, I think that she's exactly right, because it does sort of set the wheels in motion now for the first of these cases to go forward. A lot of people consider this New York case to be the weakest of the four. You know, some people will say, well, maybe that's something that will give Trump a chance to make an argument that these cases are biased or there's a witch hunt against him or whatever. But I kind of think that having that case go first means that you're setting up the cases that have some more serious implications for him going closer to the general election when you have a less friendly audience on his behalf.

I think that actually potentially hurts Trump, especially when we've seen polling that shows that if he were convicted in any of these cases, that he would lose some support. Yeah, I've heard this a lot, this idea that the New York case is the weakest of the four. Melissa, can you comment on that? I mean, is that how you feel or is there something more to this that we're missing? Well, I wanted to be really clear. Part of the reason people are talking about it as the weakest case is that how you feel or is there something more to this that we're missing? Well, I wanted to be really clear. Part of the reason people are talking about it as the weakest case is that's how the media has presented it. Talking about it as the hush money case, I think it's very notable that Alvin Bragg has made a very concerted effort to talk about this case as a species of the kind of election interference that we saw in full flower in the January 6th indictments.

interference that we saw in full flower in the January 6th indictments. He's basically saying this is sort of a precursor, a dress rehearsal for that, where Donald Trump paid payments on falsified business records for the purpose of hiding a personal relationship from the American electorate. And that is essentially sort of a kind of MO that he's establishing. So I don't think that this is the weakest of the cases. I think there are some challenging aspects to this case. For example, the crime with which Donald Trump has been charged is ordinarily a misdemeanor in New York state, but here it is being prosecuted as a felony because it is attached to or adjunct to the perpetration of another crimes. Here, the apparent predicate crime is the fact of election interference, election fraud, fraud on the voters, on the public. And it may be a broader question as to

what the predicate crime is, what statutes Alvin Bragg is relying on to bootstrap this into a felony level charge. And those are definitely aspects of this indictment that may well be brought up by Donald Trump's lawyers as potential defenses going forward. But I don't think it's fair to say that this is sort of a no-nothing, simple, sort of trumped-up, no pun intended, charge. I think this is serious. And I think Alvin Bragg is making the case that it is part of a larger concerted pattern with which the American electorate should be concerned. Yeah, I do wonder if some of this, like whether it's the weakest case, is sort of conflating,

just the fact that it's about something that happened the longest ago. And so maybe it's less emotionally visceral for some people than when you talk about some of the other cases and you immediately, I think, if you're like me, you kind of feel like January 6th was just last week. And so I think maybe some of that plays in here, too. So I'm wondering, Melissa, the last thing on New York before we turn to Georgia is just can you walk us through what's actually going to happen on March 25th and where this case goes from here? Well, we will begin jury selection on March 25th. So, you know, people will file in. They'll get their notices for jury duty. And there will be, you know, sort of a broad cross-section that's brought in. And from there, both sides will get an opportunity to select the jury that ultimately will hear this case and ultimately render a verdict. And, you know, I

think one of the things we'll look for is the bases on which both sides make requests to eliminate certain prospective jurors. I think the Trump lawyers have already suggested that they are unlikely to get a quote-unquote fair trial in the borough of Manhattan. And I think Justice Merchan pushed back on that, making clear that, you know, this is a national case with national implications and national attention. If you have difficulty here, you're going to have difficulty anywhere. And so, you know, this is the jury you have, this is the jury you get. So I think I'm going to be looking for the choices that both sides make as they make their selections, make their challenges to prospective jurors. Yeah, and the entire second half of the hearing yesterday had to do with

jury selection and laying out sort of the questionnaire that they were editing on what they're going to ask people to see if they can be fair jurors. And so much of it came down to politics. Understandably, the Trump defense team wanted to have more questions about party identification in there, and the prosecution did not. And that's understandable considering that New York is essentially five to one Democrat to Republican. But the judge agreed with the prosecution, essentially saying that it doesn't matter if somebody gave money to one candidate or another. What matters more is whether they can put that aside and be a fair and impartial juror. I thought the media saturation point was also really interesting because the Trump folks, one of their points was saying, you know, we should really delay this because this has just been, there's been so much media saturation and sort of

sarcastically, the judge said, so when will the media saturation die down? April, May, July? What are we thinking? Okay. Okay. Well, let's turn to Georgia now and this hearing over whether Fulton County District Attorney Fonny Willis should be dismissed from the case that she's prosecuting against former President Trump. Melissa, I want to start with probably the most stunning part of the hearing, and that was when Willis herself actually took the stand. It was stunning because Willis's attorneys had initially been trying to avoid Willis having to take the stand, but then essentially she got up and said, you know, let's do this. What did you make of that moment? And how much does it matter here? Well, I think her desire, which I think accelerated over the course of the morning to take the stand to essentially defend her choices, was largely because Nathan Wade, the other person who is involved in these accusations, really kind of made a mash of things in his answers. And he's

really muddled the waters. What we're trying to determine here in this hearing is whether there have been ethical violations, whether Nathan Wade was hired by Fannie Willis as a special prosecutor, largely for the purpose of financially enriching him and for her to participate in that financial benefit that he got from his position as a special prosecutor. And, you know, he gave some answers I think were very unequivocal. There was also testimony from a former friend of hers who insisted that their relationship had not begun at the time that she said it had begun, but rather that it began much earlier. And that's relevant because she testified in a written affidavit, which is a sworn testimony to the court,

that their relationship began after a certain period of time. And this friend is saying that it actually occurred much earlier, which, again, if that is the case, suggests that she may have perjured herself to the court. But I think the reason why Fannie Willis took the very unusual step of taking the stand, something you don't normally see prosecutors doing, was because she felt she needed to set this record straight and maybe reset the entire day given how difficult it had become. And I have to say, she actually made, I think, a dent in this. I mean, she really talked about the fact that she is not someone who views a man as a plan, and she wasn't trying to benefit from Nathan Wade in any kind of way. There was no sort of world in which he was paying for her and therefore she was

benefiting financially from his appointment. You know, she reimbursed him in cash for any of the expenditures that he made for them as a couple. And she was very forceful about that. You know, there were moments where she was actually quite combative with the opposing lawyers and also a little strident with the court. But it was a completely unusual, unorthodox tableau, but one in which I think she felt it was necessary and it likely was necessary for her to take the stand. And I think she actually managed to push back on some of the gains that the defense made earlier in the morning. I thought it was interesting hearing just how passionate she was in talking about how, you know, this trial doesn't have to do with me. You can put me on trial all you want. I'm not the one on trial here. And one of the things that the

defense brought up here is that, you know, Willis was disqualified in a previous case because she hosted a fundraiser for an opponent of someone that she was about to prosecute, Burt Jones, who's now the lieutenant governor in the state. He had served as a fake elector for former President Trump, and Willis brought a case against him. But the judge in that case, when heard about this, said it was a conflict of interest, said that it was a what are you thinking moment. And by the way, the office that would appoint somebody to replace Willis to go through with this prosecution still hasn't appointed anyone a year and a half later, which is why it's such a big deal if she were to be disqualified in this

case, because who knows if there would even be anyone who would take over the case before the 2024 election. Well, I do think it's important to like take a step back because I watched multiple hours of this hearing yesterday. And it's easy when you're watching this to be like, OK, so this person says they started dating this time and she says they started dating in this time. And then you're like, wait, why does this actually matter? And I'm hoping you can zoom out for us, Melissa. Wait, why does this actually matter? And I'm hoping you can zoom out for us, Melissa. Like, what standard actually has to be met?

What do they have to prove to actually get Willis dismissed from this case? Because it is not, like, illegal for Willis and Wade to be dating, right? No, it's not illegal to have them date. It's not even illegal for her to be his supervisor and, you know, for her to have appointed him. I think what the judge is going to be looking for is like, you know, one, are there certain special skills that he brings to the position of special prosecutor that made this appointment sort of, you know, one that was reasonable given their personal relationship. But then more importantly, I think the real question is, has he used the proceedings from his office, which are, you know, taxpayer-funded proceedings, to enrich himself and to enrich her?

And I think this is why she took the stand to push back on this idea that she somehow financially benefited from his appointment. And again, all of this comes down to Scott McAfee, who will make a determination about whether or not her office and Wade and she are disqualified here. But the broader implications here, I think, are really quite striking. This is not a great look for a prosecutor to have going into a major trial. This has certainly delayed the proceedings in Georgia, which is a massive, sprawling case. If she is actually disqualified, as Domenico says, there will have to be an appointment of a new prosecutor. It's

not the case that there are going to be rough and ready prosecutors with the kind of experience in Georgia's RICO statute that are going to be readily available to take this on. So a lot of this case kind of hinges on her, the fact of her experience, her expertise. And so if she isn't in the driver's seat, this case may founder. And I think that's exactly what the rationale was. I mean, we've seen from the beginning that there were Republicans in Georgia who were taking steps to either alter the regulations and laws in that state around prosecutors to get her off of this case. When that effort failed, then we saw Michael Roman bring this particular accusation against her. So, you know, she kind of fed into this with

this relationship as maybe an unforced error on her part, but it does seem to be part of a broader plan to keep this case out of court and to keep these defendants out of the crosshairs of Georgia's criminal justice system. Okay. And finally, to you both, can you kind of give an overview on whether anything happened this week that fundamentally changed what's happening with either of these cases or with the election more broadly? What I thought was interesting was having the date for setting these cases in motion. I mean, March 25th sort of is the starting line now for all of these cases. And I thought what was interesting was having the date for setting these cases in motion. I mean, March 25th sort of is the starting line now for all of these cases.

And I thought it was notable that the judge in New York said that he had been coordinating with Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is a federal judge with another one of the Trump cases, where they'd spoken on both February 7th and February 8th to see if there were firm dates in that case. They were also talking about whether there were firm dates in the Florida case with Judge Cannon and how that case wasn't necessarily firm. And that's why the judge in the case was able to set March 25th. So notable here that we know that they are coordinating with each other and they're going to have to because they have to also consider Trump's schedule as he's on the campaign trail. So one of the things that I thought was really interesting about this week is that we had news about every single one of these criminal

indictments. And I don't know if it really occurred to me before, but it definitely was made clear when I saw the news, again, referring to every one of these criminal indictments. But these four criminal indictments essentially make clear that before, during, and after his presidency, Donald Trump is accused of engaging in criminal activities. So, you know, the New York DA has brought charges around these hush money payments that were in service, apparently, of defrauding the electorate about the nature of Donald Trump's personal relationship with Stormy Daniels before he was president. Donald Trump's personal relationship with Stormy Daniels before he was president. The January 6 indictments in Georgia and in the District of the District of Columbia are about activities undertaken while he is president. And then, of course, the Mar-a-Lago documents indictment is about the retention of classified information after his presidency. I mean, we talk about the unprecedented nature of prosecuting a former

president, but when you think about it, it's not just the prosecution, but the prosecution for activities undertaking before, during, and after his presidency. I mean, that is a kind of criminal tableau that really is extraordinary and I think something that ought to register more in the way we cover these cases. Yeah. And also made it clear to me that almost every week there is going to be a development that gets us back talking about some of Trump's potential legal wrongdoings. So which is obviously a big deal considering he's running for president. OK, let's leave it there. NYU law professor Melissa Murray and author of the forthcoming book, The Trump Indictments, and NPR senior political editor and correspondent,

Domenico Montanaro, thanks to you both. You're so welcome. Thank you. We'll be back next week with another episode of Trump's Trials. Be sure to follow more of NPR's political coverage from Domenico, myself, and the rest of the NPR politics team in daily episodes of the NPR Politics Podcast. And thanks to our supporters who hear the show sponsor-free. If that's not you, it could be. Sign up at plus.npr.org or subscribe at our show page in Apple Podcasts. The show is produced by Tyler Bartlam and edited by Tinbeat Armius and Steve Drummond. Our executive producers are Beth Donovan and Sammy Yenigan.

Eric Merrick-Potey is NPR's vice president of news programming. I'm Miles Parks. Thanks for listening to Trump's Trials from NPR. Support for NPR and the following message come from SAP Concur, Thank you. Did you kill Marlene Johnson? I think you're one of the first people to have actually asked. From WBUR and ZSP Media, this is Beyond All Repair, a new podcast about an unsolved murder that will leave you questioning everything. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to The Last Ride, the podcast investigating the disappearances of two men last seen with the same Florida sheriff's deputy.

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