Consider This from NPR - Trump in Court...Again

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

On Tuesday, former president Donald Trump appeared in a federal courthouse in Miami where he pleaded not guilty to 37 criminal charges, including obstruction and unlawful retention of classified documents at his Florida home and private resort Mar-a-Lago. He is the first former U.S. president to face federal criminal charges. Trump and many of his supporters have called the indictment politically motivated. NPR's White House correspondent Franco Ordonez has been following Trump's case and he spoke to Ailsa Chang about how Trump, as well as his opponents in the Republican primary are reacting to the indictment on the campaign trail. Ailsa Chang spoke with NPR's Andrea Bernstein about why Trump sees so many lawyers come and go. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University performs breakthrough research every year, making discoveries that improve human health, combat climate change, and move society forward. More at iu.edu slash forward. We've heard the word unprecedented with Donald Trump from the very beginning. Donald Trump made history again on Tuesday in Miami, becoming the first former president to enter a federal court to face criminal charges. He pleaded not guilty to all 37 criminal charges, including obstruction and unlawful retention of classified documents at his Florida home and private club Mar-a-Lago.

We love Trump! We love Trump! Hundreds of Trump supporters gathered outside the Miami federal courthouse, believing the indictment to be politically motivated. NPR's Greg Allen was on the scene. It's really been just something like a carnival atmosphere all day long, with vendors here selling Trump t-shirts and hats. Greg talked to Louise Medina, a supporter of Trump. But what you got to realize is today the U.S. Constitution is on trial because that's a citizen

Donald Trump, no longer president. And if that happens to you and I, how can we defend ourselves? While many Republicans have sought to draw comparisons to President Biden or Hillary Clinton for how they handled classified documents, former federal prosecutor Robert Mintz told NPR that Trump's case carries a stark difference. This is a case about the willful retention of classified documents. And the key distinction between these charges and the facts that we know about President Biden, former Secretary of State Clinton, and even former Vice President Mike Pence is that while there may have been documents improperly removed in those cases,

there is no evidence of intent, no evidence to willfully retain classified documents. Consider this. Trump was the first president to be impeached twice. Then he became the first former president to face criminal charges. Now he's being charged with crimes by the federal government he is once again running to lead. And that puts us even deeper into uncharted territory. From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow.

It's Tuesday, June 13th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. June 13th. for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation. Working together to create a just world where all people have access to renewable energy, clean air and water, and healthy food. The Schmidt Family Foundation is part of the philanthropic

organizations and initiatives created and funded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt to work toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. It's Consider This from NPR. When he appeared in a courtroom Tuesday afternoon at a federal courthouse in Miami, former President Donald Trump was represented by attorneys Christopher Kyes and Todd Blanche. They are just the latest members

of the Trump legal team, after two other attorneys quit the case last week. My colleague Elsa Chang spoke with NPR's Andrea Bernstein about why Trump sees so many lawyers come and go. For starters, he has an unusual number of legal issues, two special counsel investigations, two impeachments, a criminal conviction for his company and a criminal indictment in Manhattan, and maybe dozens of civil suits. Then he has a cadre of political advisors and a cadre of legal advisors, and there's friction. That said, Trump does have some lawyers like Chris Kyes, who appeared today in Florida, who stayed with him through a number of cases. Now, Trump fired the lawyers who had been representing him on this Mar-a-Lago documents case, but he fired them like the day after he was indicted. Why did he do that? What's your sense?

So as we've seen, Trump often thinks he has a better idea of how to handle legal issues than his own lawyers, and he often overrules them. We don't know the specifics of what happened in this case yet, but what we do know, and we just saw in the recent indictment, as alleged, Trump has asked his lawyers to commit crimes for him, suggesting lying to the Justice Department and, according to his lawyers' notes, implying he should destroy or dispose of documents. Trump denies any wrongdoing, but this is not the first time we've seen evidence of this kind of behavior. And others who have worked for Trump, I mean, not just his personal lawyers, have spoken out about that, right? Most recently, his former and once loyal

to a fault Attorney General Bill Barr said of the recent indictment on Fox News, if even half is true, he's toast. Michael Cohen was one of the earliest to flip on Trump, and Trump called him a rat. And others, not a personal attorney, but the former White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, gave very damning testimony to the January 6th Select Committee, in essence saying he had to block some of Trump's most fringe ideas, like seizing election machines and rerunning parts of the 2020 election. Let me just ask you, Andrea, you've covered Trump's business and legal dealings extensively, including in your book, American Oligarchs. Turning through lawyers has been an issue throughout Trump's whole career, hasn't it? Right. So when I was writing my book,

I kept coming across former lawyers who told me that when Trump didn't like their legal advice, he would fire them and get another lawyer. And also that he kept stiffing his lawyers. He would call them up and say to them, you're benefiting from being associated with Donald Trump, therefore I'm not paying you. And many of them just had to eat the losses. So I'm curious then, which lawyers have stuck with Donald Trump? So far in the New York criminal cases where it really matters, Trump has been able to keep some very well-respected lawyers on his team and to make sure they're paid.

Other lawyers like Rudy Giuliani are ideologically committed to Trump. But that loyalty comes with a price. The white shoe law firm that Giuliani was a part of asked him to leave due to reputational damage that happened to at least one other lawyer who worked with Donald Trump in the 2020 election matters. Well, then over time, I'm curious, like which lawyer has Trump had the closest, longest ties with? He loved Roy Cohn, the lawyer for Joe McCarthy, who went after and blacklisted alleged communists in the 1950s. Cohn represented Trump in a 1970s racial discrimination suit and in many, many tax cases.

But even then, when Cohn, who was gay and in the closet, contracted AIDS, Trump withdrew his business. That was NPR's Andrea Bernstein talking to Elsa Chang. That's the legal side of this. There's also the political. NPR's White House correspondent, Franco Ordonez, has been following all of this, and he spoke to Elsa about how Trump, as well as his opponents in the Republican primary, are reacting to the indictment on the campaign trail. You know, he had a lot to say. Just as he was leaving for the courthouse, he took to social media,

calling it one of the saddest days in the history of the country. And he's been ripping into the special counsel, Jack Smith. He wrote, quote, He's a radical right lunatic and Trump hater, as are all his friends and family, who probably planted information in the boxes given to them. Now, Elsa, of course, there's no indication of anything being planted. But this is part of the Trump strategy to paint himself as a victim, a victim of this double standard of justice, because the DOJ, he says, is not pursuing, for example, Hillary Clinton

or Mike Pence or Biden, the president, in the same way. So what do you think this strategy means for the Republican primary at this point? I mean, it is early. We'll see. His opponents, though, in the Republican primary so far are treading very carefully. Speaking on Fox News, for example, Nikki Haley said the Department of Justice and FBI have lost, quote, all credibility with the American people. But she's also criticized the former president in a way that we haven't heard before. If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security. But Trump's closest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, came to his defense. And Vivek Ramaswamy is urging other candidates to join him in pledging to pardon Trump if he's convicted in his federal classified documents case. I mean, that's the political

environment that we're talking about. The reality is that Trump and his supporters have successfully made the case that he is being unfairly targeted. And it's really put his rivals on their back feet because they don't want to necessarily promote the charges and risk alienating voters who agree and feel that the system is rigged against Republicans. Okay. Well, I understand that Trump was released without having to pay bail. Can you just tell us where he went from there?

Yeah. He stopped first at a popular Cuban restaurant, Versailles, where he shook hands, posed for pictures with supporters. It was really like a campaign stop. He also appeared to join in prayer with some religious leaders. You know, he's planning to eventually, though, head back to his golf club in New Jersey, where he'll address the indictment and host a fundraiser. So again, you know, he's

trying to turn today's event to his favor. He's been doing a lot of fundraising actually off of this indictment. And really, you know, he has a few more times to do this. You know, he faces more legal scrutiny. He's already been indicted in New York. And there's another federal probe into the January 6 efforts to overturn the results of a presidential York. And there's another federal probe into the January 6 efforts to overturn the results of a presidential election. And prosecutors in Georgia are leading an investigation into Trump's efforts to pressure state officials there. I want to ask you a little bit about that because I heard that there were Atlanta police officers watching the crowd control in Miami today. Why was that exactly? Well, this has never happened before. And each of these

investigations instruct each other. The Atlanta police were there to learn so they can be prepared should their own Trump investigation result in its own indictment this summer. That was NPR's Franco Ordonez speaking to Elsa Chang about the historic federal charges brought against former President Donald Trump. For more on the political fallout of all of this, you can check out the NPR Politics Podcast. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation,

providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org. Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org.