Jack - Episode 37 - Mop-up Cases

Episode Date: August 13, 2023

This week: Allison and Andy discuss recent the developments in the case against Trump in D.C. - including a protective order hearing and Judge Chutkan’s statements reconfirming that Trump will be tr...eated as any other criminal defendant; Judge Cannon raises questions about her ability to handle the case against Trump in Florida; Weiss gets tapped as Special Counsel in the Hunter probe; plus a listener question and more! 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)
Starting point is 00:00:00 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.
Starting point is 00:00:22 You understand what prison is? Send me to jail. 13th and I'm Andy McCabe. Hey, Andy, I'm Alison Gil. We have lots to discuss this week. I'm always wondering what could possibly happen. Well, in the conspiracy against voting rights case involving the 2020 election, there's been a hearing for a protective order and a protective order has been issued. This is a protective order over evidence. And that hearings with Judge Chutkin at the DC district court. We also have an unsealed back and forth over Trump's
Starting point is 00:01:05 Twitter account and the Department of Justice is asking for a January 2nd, 2024 trial date. And down in Florida, we've got a ruling from Judge Eileen Cannon that is raising eyebrows and another delay because a co-conspirator has failed to what? Guess it, Allison. What does a co-conspirator fail to do what? Guess it, Allison. What does a co-conspirator fail to do? Get local council barred in the Southern District of Florida. That's right. The one attorney in Florida was apparently busy, so they couldn't find one.
Starting point is 00:01:35 More on that later. Plus, we have John Eastman asking for a postponement of his disbarment proceedings, and some movement in the Trump pack arm of the investigation as prosecutors meet with Bernie Kerrick. Ah, and something else weird happened today that we record the show on Fridays. Attorney General Merrick Garland has made David Weiss special counsel in the Hunter Biden probe. We'll talk a little bit about that at the end of the show. It's not really related to the Jack Smith Special Counsel investigation, but it is a special
Starting point is 00:02:08 counsel investigation. It might be worth discussing. It falls within our ever increasing scope of the many special counsels. You get a special counsel and you get a special counsel. Everybody gets a special counsel. All right. Let's start with the plot to subvert the results of the 2020 election and this protective order hearing that happened at 10 a.m. Eastern on Friday. First, in the lead up, there was a back and forth filings between both parties because Judge Chuck can
Starting point is 00:02:36 and order them to submit their availability for a protective order hearing and that she wanted the protective order hearing to take place before Friday, August 11th, just this past Friday. A Department of Justice was available most of the week, they said, and they're filing. Trump though wanted to postpone it until the following week, noting that Friday was lost. And we were all kind of wondering,
Starting point is 00:02:59 like, what did they mean by Friday was lost? Well, we found out it was Judge Chudkin, who said she couldn't make it on Friday, but since that was the day that nobody had any conflicts, that's when she scheduled it. And that was there you go. Today is we're recording it. So let's talk about some things that happened in this hearing. First of all, she was fair, she was succinct, she didn't show favor to either side, nor did she show fear for any side. She said, I routinely depart. Here, she's talking about the speediness with which she's moving this forward.
Starting point is 00:03:34 I routinely depart from the 14 and 7-day time limits, as do many of my colleagues when it serves the interest of justice and efficiency. Now, she said, Mr. Trump, like every American has a first amendment right to free speech, but that right is not absolute. Defendance free speech is subject to the release conditions imposed at a rainment, and it must yield to the orderly administration of justice. And I really liked that she pointed that out, Andy. Yeah. You know, I still like that was a theme here in a lot of her comments was this concept of the orderly and unobstructed pursuit of justice and preservation of the process. She, to me, our comments really indicates someone who she's very focused on getting this
Starting point is 00:04:22 done, preserving the defendant's rights, but also getting this done as quickly and effectively as possible. And she's really not going to let anyone get in the way of that. The reference to the 14 and 7-day time limit, that's usually when one side files a motion or a request, the other side gets a certain amount of time to respond, and then the first side gets another certain amount of time to respond to the response and so on and so forth. Those sorts of default time limits really add up over the course of a contested litigation. And I think what she's saying here is, hey, if we can get things done quicker, I'm going to chop these time limits down and make sure that we can get things done on a decent calendar.
Starting point is 00:05:07 Yeah. And, you know, in the filings for the protective order, the DOJ wanted basically everything that they're handing over to be subject to this protective order. Meeting Trump isn't allowed to disseminate it or talk about it in public. That's right. And there's other caveats as well. And the Trump side wanted lots of exceptions to that. And what the judge has done here has granted and denied in part for both sides, coming
Starting point is 00:05:33 right down the middle. Well, not right down the middle. Like, we'll talk about her ruling in a second, but the DOJ got mostly what they wanted. So she started off early in this hearing saying, I don't want this order to be over inclusive. I don't want to just issue a blanket protective order over information that's not sensitive. She also said, I cannot and will not factor into my decision
Starting point is 00:05:59 the effects on a political campaign for either side. The existence of a political campaign is not going to factor into my decision. I intend to keep politics out of this. That's also a very important thing that I'm glad that we got to hear from this judge because many of the arguments coming from the Trump side and that will come from the Trump side is that I'm running a campaign. You have to show deference to that. She is now indicating right off the bat that she is not going to consider any of those
Starting point is 00:06:24 arguments in any of her decisions. That's absolutely right. She actually even referred at one point to the fact that he's running for president as his quote, day job. Like that's your daily gig. That's fine. Do what you got to do. But this proceeding will cut through that when necessary. Yeah, you're not the first guy with a job to be before me, right? Yeah. Yeah, there's been a lot of comments in there that said, you know, where she would say, she would say something that said, like any criminal defendant or, you know, Mr. Trump is a criminal defender defendant in this criminal matter.
Starting point is 00:06:59 So she is really trying to hold the line on saying, hey, any person, any citizen of this country, any person in this country, charge of the defense, is going to have to show up a court and go through the process and deal with the court's timelines, no matter what job they have, whether that's parking cars at Mar-a-Lago or running for president. So, yeah, I really think she laid down a very fair and clear kind of rule so far. Yeah, and some of the things that Trump wanted to be considered not sensitive, meaning he should be able to share it with the world, which was his stated goal, by the way, in the filings, which I thought was odd.
Starting point is 00:07:39 But the judge was like, no, I can't approve your request that witness statements or audio interviews or transcripts should not be considered sensitive. And she also denied Trump's request that basically anybody should be able to view the evidence from discovery, quote, volunteer attorneys and other non-retained lawyers. And she asked the Trump attorney, Laro, to submit
Starting point is 00:08:07 a more narrowly tailored proposal. Quote, it allows just about anybody. I live in Washington. Anyone is a consultant. And she notes that that language would permit unindicted co-conspirators to see the discovery because most, if not all of them, are lawyers and non-retained attorneys in this case. And so I thought, you know, she's basically laying out things that she's going to not deny from the Trump side. And then she goes on to talk about things she's going to allow from the DOJ side, which is what sort of creates this denied and granted in part, denied in part granted in part
Starting point is 00:08:46 ruling that she puts out. She also said Trump can review materials by himself. This was something that Donald Trump wanted was to be able to look at some of this discovery alone, and the DOJ wanted his lawyers to be there. And so she split the baby. She said, Trump can review the materials, but Council must review any notes Trump takes to ensure no personal identifying information is kept. He can't have access to electronic devices or copy machines when he's reviewing it, because you know, DOJ was like, he's going to copy this, take photos of it and put it up on the truth social. So she sort of said, all right, he can't just do it without any supervision. There has to be some and here are the conditions.
Starting point is 00:09:28 So she laid those out. And then some interesting numbers that came out to Wyndham, who is the lead prosecutor, working at Jack's misoffice for this particular case, says the first batch of discovery is about 11.6 million pages or files, which are load ready, along with some search warrant returns. And he said, our goal is to have discoveries substantially completed by August 28, which is the hearing date at which she will set the trial date. Another quote by the judge, I intend to ensure the orderly administration of justice in this case, as I would with any other case, which is like what you just talked about.
Starting point is 00:10:05 Andy, he's just a criminal defendant like any other, even arguably ambiguous statements from parties to their council can threaten this process. So because, you know, Trump, Trump's lawyers were saying, well, maybe in a debate or something, he just accidentally spits something out. She's like, no, no, no, that's not okay. These are the rules. They must be followed. And that's when John Laroah said, he'll follow the rules, I promise.
Starting point is 00:10:30 And she's like, that's good to hear. And here's my favorite quote from the hearing, from the judge. In addition, the more a party makes inflammatory statements about this case, which could taint the jury pool, the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly. I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings. And I love that she's hooked his inflammatory statements to the speediness of the trial. That's like the more you talk, the faster we go, buddy. Yeah, I mean, it's classic. It's like such a queer acknowledgement of what is really compelling him right now.
Starting point is 00:11:07 She knows what they're all about. She knows they're trying to slow everything down. The last thing they want is for this case to go to trial before the election takes place. And she's literally using that desire to kind of, you know, as a, the old carrot and stick metaphor, it's the, it's the stick now that might help him keep his mouth shut. So really interesting use of connecting those two themes there. Yeah, I like that a lot. Very clever. And then we got the ruling here. And here's the, the long and short of it. The judge rules that the United States may designate the following materials it produces to defense counsel as sensitive. A, materials containing personally identifying information as identified in federal rule of criminal procedure 49.1.
Starting point is 00:11:55 B, rule six material, including grand jury subpoena returns, witness testimony, and related exhibits presented to the grand jury. C, materials obtained through sealed search warrants and 2703 D orders. And I want to talk to you about that when we talk about the trial date that the DOJ filed. D, sealed orders obtained by the government's filter team related to this case. E, recordings, transcripts, interview reports and related exhibits of witness interviews. And F, materials obtained from other governmental entities, which is very interesting little note there. It seems like anything that comes from any other trial or civil proceeding, criminal or
Starting point is 00:12:32 otherwise, civil or criminal proceeding is also considered sensitive because it's part of an open and ongoing investigation. So it seems like the government got everything they wanted here. The thing that is not protected is publicly available stuff. Right. And stuff that the Trump team already has. That's right. And you know, again, like I'm, um,
Starting point is 00:12:56 there's really nothing negative to say about a ruling, um, in the motion papers earlier in the week, the thing that really kind of caught my eye in terms of what the government was asking for, that quite honestly seemed like a bit of an overreach was this position that everything they turned over should be considered sensitive and therefore covered by the protective order. And in the Trump's, Trump teams response,
Starting point is 00:13:20 they very, you know, after checking the necessary nonsensical political boxes about this is a trial over first amendment rights, which clearly it's not. They got into the argument basically saying everything the government hands over isn't by definition sensitive, which I think was the right way for them to argue. And I think she's acknowledged that here, like the simple fact that the government handed it to the Trump side doesn't make it sensitive. However, each one of these A3F points that's used as to define sensitive materials, these are all the same things that the government called out in their motion
Starting point is 00:13:54 to say, for example, the following would be sensitive. So they got what they want, but they also got cut back a little bit in terms of somewhat overbroad requests. So everybody walks away getting something and losing a little something. Yeah. I think this is more in favor of DOJ's request because Trump had asked for witness testimony and all that, you know, to not be sensitive. And they just like, no, no, bro, sorry, that sensitive information, grand jury materials, personally identifiable information.
Starting point is 00:14:24 And something else, the judge said is that the government doesn't have to stamp every single page of sensitive material with a sensitive stamp or a confidential stamp, which would have taken who knows how long. I mean, they probably would have got it done, but they can do that by groups of information. Like here, this whole file of witness testimony, one stamp on the front that says this is all sensitive, for example. So I thought that that was another good bit of findings by this judge. So very, very good, fast, succinct, fair, just. Nobody is above the law type ruling and hearing. And I thought it went well. I thought it went well for the government. Yeah, agree. Absolutely agree. All right. We have a lot more to get to, but we have to take a quick break.
Starting point is 00:15:06 Everybody stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. This past Thursday, we got the Department Justice's filing requesting a trial date of January 2, 2024 with jury selection to begin December 11. Again, this is Judge Tanya Chutkin. She gave Trump's team until Monday, tomorrow, to make its own request and has scheduled, as we said previously, a hearing on August 28 to set the trial date, Trump had made a quick filing saying that there should be no days counting towards speedy trial, the 70 days, speedy trial rule between
Starting point is 00:15:51 now and that hearing on August 28th. And the January 2nd trial date purports with that request. So that would probably be dismissed as moot that request. So in the trial date filing, the prosecutor said it's difficult to imagine a public interest stronger than the one in this case, in which the defendant, the former president of the United States, is charged with three criminal conspiracies intended to undermine the federal government, obstruct the certification of the 2020 presidential election and disenfranchise voters. Trial in this case is clearly a matter of public importance, which merits in favor of a prompt resolution.
Starting point is 00:16:28 And Andy, I had guessed that they would go for December. And you know, that's when jury selection begins. But January 2nd is right before the Iowa caucuses, and then we still have the EGEN trial scheduled for January 15th, but I'm sure Robbie Kaplan might defer if in fact that trial date holds. What are your thoughts? Yeah, that one might not stick anyway. That could die of its own momentum between now and then certainly.
Starting point is 00:16:58 And then typically civil trial, civil court proceedings will defer to or take a backseat to pressing criminal proceedings. It's kind of a very general way of stating that, but usually they have to be connected in some way, but typically you see that happen. Yeah, I think the January, I think the January ask is, it's aggressive, it's fast, but it's also possible the way they have the indictment constructed. I think it shows us a little bit, not in a definitive way, but it certainly suggests that they may not be looking at adding any additional defendants to this case, because the further along we get, obviously towards a close trial date,
Starting point is 00:17:45 the harder it is to add in a new party who would then have to go through discovery and have their own opportunity for pretrial motions and stuff like that. So, yeah, I wasn't shocked by it. I knew they'd try to keep the pedal down. This is definitely doing that. But with a four to six week prediction in trial length, which is what I understand was part of the submission, you know, it's possible. This thing could, if she holds them on a quick schedule, this thing could in fact go that
Starting point is 00:18:15 early. And I sort of figured he would, he would target December with his eyes kind of on March with perhaps the potential delays. But it's interesting here, Assistant US Attorney Molly Gaston had said in this filing, you know, this gives Trump's defense two months from the indictment to make legal arguments and up to five months to review evidence in the case. Because you know Trump's going to say we have 11.6 million pages to review. We're going to need more than this amount of time. But five months seems a reasonable amount of time to review that.
Starting point is 00:18:49 But I could also see the judge saying, he might need more than five months and maybe adding another month on to this. Because February is another civil trial. And March is Alvin Bragg. So either of those can be a adjourned in favor of this criminal trial. So I think probably whatever date she sets is going to take precedent, this trial will take precedent over any of the civil suits that are set to go in the beginning of next year. With the documents case, not set to go until May, and I'm sure that'll be delayed as well.
Starting point is 00:19:25 So, that's kind of where I'm at with my thoughts on this particular argument. Now, again, Trump has until Monday to file his when he wants the trial. And he had said, their lawyer said in court, well, it took them three and a half years to bring charges. Well, that's mathematically incorrect. It took two and a half, which Gaston pointed out in her, uh, in her filing. Yeah. I mean, you know, they're, my guess is they're going to ask, we, I say, wait, that's a mistake. The government has asked for January. I would suggest that the Trump team will probably ask for February of 2028.
Starting point is 00:20:13 Yes. So they're gonna throw the ball as far down the field as they possibly can. They're gonna get some preposterous thing or maybe they'll say no date at all. Yeah, in the documents case, they ask for no date, just sometime after the election, on into perpetuity until the election is done because of my day job, you know. Yeah, indefinite postponement, but there's no way she bites on that. I think all indications
Starting point is 00:20:34 from the other order we just went over are that she's going to try to keep them on a tight schedule, even if she knows that they're unlikely to hit the original trial date because things typically get drawn out a little bit more than you would like, I think she's going to put the trial date on a pretty aggressive schedule just to keep them moving forward to kind of maintain discipline in the calendar. And then if she's got to move it back a few weeks or so as they get closer, she has the room to do that. That would be my guess at this point.
Starting point is 00:21:07 But I should also say, gee, I think really smart for the government to argue here as Molly Gaston did in her moving papers, that the speedy trial rights are, of course, the descendant's rights to go to trial in a quick manner to have the charges against them resolved in a clear and convincing way, not having it hanging over your head forever. But it's also, and very importantly, in this case, it addresses the right that the public
Starting point is 00:21:33 has to have a highly significant matter like this resolved quickly. That is in the interest of justice. And you know, never more so than in this case, when you could, and I think the government did here, make the argument that the public is right to understand what happened in 2020 before they go into the polling booths in November of 24 to make their decision of who they want to vote for the next time. So I think those arguments are compelling and we'll see what sort of effect they have on the judge. And Molly Gaston also preempted another Trump argument. She's like, look, they're probably going to say, we need more to then two months to file and consider our
Starting point is 00:22:17 pretrial motions. And Molly Gaston is like, no, you don't. You outlined them all on five Sunday shows a week ago. We know exactly what motions, venue. We know you have an issue with the two different grand juries or whatever. No, wait, that's the documents case. I can't keep all of the crimes straight in my head here. But you know, you talked about a motion to dismiss, motion to change venue.
Starting point is 00:22:42 He wants to do it in West Virginia because there'll be a more diverse jury in West Virginia, I guess. Anyway, it's, so she preempted a lot of those arguments. I like that she did that, you know, kind of anticipating what Trump's legal team is gonna say of note in this filing is that there are SEPA considerations, right?
Starting point is 00:23:03 That's the Confidential Information Protection Act. That's right. That's big down in Mar-a-Lago in the documents case, because there's 32 classified documents. But it says here, prosecutors flagged that the case might require potential disclosure of some classified information, but said that the minimal amount in question could be addressed through a parallel schedule
Starting point is 00:23:21 that would not change this proposed schedule. In part, because one of Trump's lawyers possesses the necessary clearance. You already got it because he's crying in Florida. Perhaps, you know, we were trying to game out what this could be. I've seen a lot of interesting theories. I think this could be, do you remember when Rudy Giuliani wanted the Department of Defense to seize voting machines and the Department of Defense to seize voting machines? The Department of Defense was like, we can't unless there's proof of foreign interference
Starting point is 00:23:49 in those machines. So that's when Sidney Powell came up with the, you know, Venezuela thing and somebody else brought up Italian satellites beaming into the voting machines or whatever. But at the time Patel was working at the DOD and his buddy, Trump, Ally, Michael Ellis, had been installed at the NSA as general counsel. And maybe they were sent on some fool, you know, fool's errand to find out about foreign interference and maybe there's something classified there. Or it could be some classified executive orders about how to do, you know, handle emergency
Starting point is 00:24:24 insurrection situations. I mean, I don't know, but it looks like there's very minimal seepa information in this trial and they say, this can go on at a parallel thing in plenty of time. Yeah, you know, one of the very basic kind of thresholds for considering whether or not to classify something is typically communications or information that are relevant to the, quote, foreign relations of the United States have to be classified. It's usually secret, not typically top secret, but nevertheless, that could go either way.
Starting point is 00:25:00 So I could imagine a situation like this when, you know, maybe Department of State or even it potentially CIA, we're reaching out to foreign governments as they would have had to have done in a very kind of, do diligence sort of way to say, hey, we received this complaint or information about X. Have you ever heard of, you know, Italian space lasers changing your reflections, fully expecting a quick negative reply, which likely they got. But the simple fact that you asked in the country
Starting point is 00:25:31 that you asked is identified in that communication that that would end up classifying that communication at least at the secret level. So there are probably very small, likely not very relevant or important classified materials in this case, but should there probably a few here and there that they could resolve pretty pretty quickly with basic CEPA process? Yeah, and there could also be that could also be used as proof that Sydney Powell lied to donors
Starting point is 00:26:02 when she was fundraising for her pack, which has been under investigations of September of 2021, like way early on. And I have a quick question for you about co-conspirators, because you had mentioned earlier that adding co-conspirators to this case could delay it further. If Jack Smith wants to charge these co-conspirators with crimes, can they do that in a separate case or would they have to marry the two or would he have to wait until the resolution of this case to bring those charges separately? Do you know what I mean? Because if I'm if I'm Trump and all of a sudden there's a new indictment separate
Starting point is 00:26:42 from this one for the same criminal activity from my co-conspirators. I would file a motion to consolidate those cases so that I could get some more delay out of this. And I would have a hard time in my head arguing against a consolidation of these cases since it's the same criminal behavior, and they're all of the same thing. What do you know? What can you tell us about that? Because I don't know a lot about bringing separate charges and not having them consolidated or having to
Starting point is 00:27:09 wait until it's resolved on one side before you bring the new charges. Yeah, it's a little weird quite honestly to see it done this way where you indict the person at the top of the conspiracy and you don't indict any of the co-conspirators, you know, beneath them. We know we've already talked about there are a lot of strategic reasons why we believe Jack Smith did it that way and this indictment to keep it very clean, to keep it very trump focused, to get it done quicker, right? So it's not common, but I think that's probably why I did it. Having made that decision and it's getting it done quickly was one of his motivating considerations.
Starting point is 00:27:51 I would think that he would look, he may choose not to bring any charges against the co-conspirators until this case is resolved. You can do it that way. Imagine an organized crime case against a real... I was gonna say like backwards. Like where, you get the co-conspirators done before you get the big guy. Typically you do, but if you imagine, let's say you're going to finally bring your case against the leadership of an organized crime family. You have the boss and a
Starting point is 00:28:18 couple of under bosses indicted. And as part of that big rico case, you introduce evidence of maybe 10 different crimes, maybe five homicides and extortions, things like that. It is possible that you would focus that case on that group, take it to trial, get your convictions or whatever you get. And then later you go back and do what we call like mop up cases.
Starting point is 00:28:40 So maybe one of those homicides there, you later find out through the course of the trial or something who one of the drivers was on the homicide. You go back and arrest that guy, you charge him with the conspiracy, and you bring that case. That would be a similar situation to what we're talking about here. You're coming back after the fact pursuing a full case against a co-conspirator who was not indicted in the initial indictment. There's nothing stopping the government from doing that. It kind of drags things out for the government a little bit, but you could imagine doing that here. I think your point is well taken. If they bring the co-conspirator cases separately before this
Starting point is 00:29:15 case is resolved, I think Trump would be in a good position to make that sort of argument for consolidation, which I think is why that's unlikely to happen. But the opposite side of the coin is also true. If you indicted one of the co-conspirators this week and you join them to this case, it's possible that that person can file a motion for severance because if they are no longer in line with Trump in terms of legal strategy, they might decide, hey, my chances are much better if I'm not sitting at the defense table with Donald Trump. And so they push to have their cases severed,
Starting point is 00:29:55 which Trump would likely then oppose, because he wants as many people there as he can get, because it makes it more chaotic and takes more time. So it's very, a lot of competing elements of potential trial strategy here, which Jack Smith could probably avoid by just proceeding with the indictment he has for right now and then coming back and doing the rest later.
Starting point is 00:30:15 The fact that it has a nickname, mop up cases, tells me that it happens. So that's it does. It does. You just don't have a nickname for something unless you have seen it before. And then could you perhaps indict those co-conspirators under seal and just let it sit so that the statute of limitations clock if there is one is stopped?
Starting point is 00:30:36 I suppose you could, but that is really rare. Of course, this situation is not like any other. So really anything could happen here. Typically, in regular criminal matters, you don't indict someone and then keep the indictment under seal and essentially hold yourself back from proceeding on it. Because if you do that against a normal criminal, you run the risk of them engaging in further criminal activity while you had an indictment and could have arrested and put that person in jail. So you're taking on a lot of risk by doing that.
Starting point is 00:31:13 Typically, you only see that in like terrorism cases where the terrorists is actually located overseas. So you can't get them anyway. So you might indict them and then keep that indictment under seal until you have an opportunity to actually capture that person. But for people here located in the United States, what typically happens is when you're indicted, that indictment gets put into NCIC
Starting point is 00:31:36 and there is a warrant issued for your arrest and then you're picked up as quickly as possible. Yeah, and the dates of the criminal behavior for all of the co-conspirators here are between November 14th, 2020 and January 7th, 2021, which would put any statute of limitations. If there is one into the 2025, 2026 year. So that's right. We aren't even really close to that. So my guess if I were Jack Smith I would hold off on and dieting these co-conspirators until after this case is resolved just to keep it clean
Starting point is 00:32:13 But who knows what they'll do and I and he's way smarter than me. So maybe he's got a better idea Yeah, I mean, we'll see what the downside of doing it the way he did was I think I think you run a potential like public relations problem. It really runs the risk of emphasizing this perspective that, well, this is political because you've only gone after Trump and all these other people did all these bad things too, but you're not charging them. And it sort of makes it look, even though, substantively, this is not the case, you could make, you could create an narrative that that perception adds to this allegation of political purpose behind the prosecution. Well, he's already done it.
Starting point is 00:32:54 He's already crossed that Rubicon and people are making that argument and you either believe it or you don't, depending likely on where you sit among the political spectrum. So, I don't think he's concerned about that at all. He's just going to go forward and do this in the best way for the schedule of the trial. And that seems to be how he's making those calls. And lastly here, DOJ included in its discovery list, something called a 2703D order. That's when a court orders a third party provider of electronic communications to disclose
Starting point is 00:33:27 their subscriber records. And I talked about this a while back when the January 6th committee was trying to get a bunch of communications between people. And I said, you know what's cool? DOJ doesn't really have to go through this whole process because of something called a 2703D order. And so I found it interesting
Starting point is 00:33:43 that that that's part of discovery and that the DOJ used that tool in their tool about to be able to get a lot of these communications. 27 or three D orders are super helpful to the government. It's kind of like a step above a subpoena and one step below a search warrant, right? So you don't have to go in front of a judge and prove probable cause, like you would in a search warrant. So they're a little bit easier to work with. They carry a little more weight. So the service providers, the email providers, whoever it might be, are more likely to kind of respond
Starting point is 00:34:19 quickly to them and not challenge you on them, which is how it's become more and more of a problem. And they do get you a lot of information. They get you essentially all the subscriber account information, so you understand the name and email address and credit card information, anything that's associated with that account. You also can get the metadata. If it's a let's say it's an email account, you get the twos and froms and you get the IP addresses where the subscriber was sending and receiving email from.
Starting point is 00:34:48 You get the dates and times of those exchanges. So you don't get content, you wouldn't get the substance of the email messages, but you get all the metadata around it and all of the subscriber and account information. And that stuff can be very, very helpful. Yeah, I can point you exactly to where to look for that kind of kind of information. That's right. And this week, we learned about a previously sealed search warrant for Donald Trump's Twitter account from the special counsel's office.
Starting point is 00:35:16 This happened. There was a flurry of sealed filings over an executive privilege issue. You and I talked about it back in January, February, March. This is what that was. This was in January, a special counsel obtained a search warrant for Donald Trump's Twitter account. There was a privilege battle, which would seem to point to the fact that one of the things Jack Smith was looking for was communications, right, or direct messages from Twitter,
Starting point is 00:35:41 because that's what privileges, about, exactly, privileged about communications. Here's a quote, the company asserted that compliance with the warrant before resolution of the motion to vacate or modify the non-disclosure order would preclude the former president from asserting executive privilege to shield communications made using his Twitter account. That's in the, one of the rulings here from the appellate court. So it looks like Twitter direct messages from Trump's account were involved here at least one of the things that Jack Smith was looking for, or it might have just been one of the arguments Twitter was making against handing it over. Other things that can be gleaned though from access to his Twitter was stuff that you
Starting point is 00:36:21 were just mentioning. Geolocation, logins, IP addresses, things that can prove it was Trump who tweeted those things and not, you know, Jason Miller or, you know, any of his, of his aides. And, you know, the indictment, the verbogen, the indictment is that the defendant tweeted,
Starting point is 00:36:42 not it was tweeted from the defendant's account. And so I think his ability to be able to state that with confidence may be comes from some of the information that they got through this Twitter search warrant. Now Elon Musk fought the search warrant citing executive privilege, but lost that battle. And Elon, just a side note, has recently made it very difficult to see other people's DMs.
Starting point is 00:37:04 He tweeted out, you know, we're gonna encrypt DMs and set them on fire. No one will ever read them. And it was right around the time that this happened. So that's funny. And then also took away the ability to send DMs to people that you don't follow. But Twitter for their noncompliance was held in contempt and find $350,000. That's $50,000 for the first day, and then it doubles on the second day and doubles on the third day.
Starting point is 00:37:29 After three days, he caved, he said, Uncle, handed over the stuff, and he now has to pay a $350,000 fine. He also, by the way, filed a case to block and order, barring Twitter from telling Trump about the search warrant. Smith's office argued, and the lower court judge agreed that if Twitter notified Trump of the warrants existence, it would put the investigation at risk. Twitter argued that by keeping the warrant secret, he would be unable to shield communications made using his Twitter account, executive privilege, right?
Starting point is 00:38:02 And he's like, I should be able to tell him so he can assert executive privilege over these communications. And just now Trump in response said, this is I just found out this week, right? Just found out the Crook a Joe Biden's DOJ secretly attacked my Twitter account, making it a point not to let me know about this major hit on my civil rights. Then from the court, it says the court found probable cause to search the Twitter account for evidence of criminal offenses. And moreover, the district court found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that disclosing the warrant to the former president would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation by giving him an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, or notify Confederates. I like that they use the term Confederates there. And I just kind of want to bring something up real quick
Starting point is 00:38:48 because he recently went on an interview and said and accused the January 6th select committee of deleting and destroying evidence. And I speak Trump pretty well and what that means is that Trump has deleted and destroyed evidence. And I don't know if it's these Twitter messages, I don't know if Elon told him about it
Starting point is 00:39:09 and he just deleted some of these messages. I don't know if he's talking about the surveillance footage of Mar-a-Lago, but something's going on, and I think we might be about to find out about it. So I just wanna put some beans on that, put that out to the universe. Well, I don't know why you would think something's going on.
Starting point is 00:39:26 I mean, after all, this is the guy who, when confronted with a subpoena, told his attorney, like, couldn't you just take these files and pluck out the bad ones? This is the guy who already, it's been indicted for obstruction. And then charged with obstructing the evidence of the obstruction. So, yeah, I know, I think it's a fair, it's a well-founded fear that he might have taken some.
Starting point is 00:39:53 If he thought there was something bad in the Twitter account, he might have set the Twitter headquarters on fire to destroy it. If that, if he thought that was necessary. Yeah, I think, you know, this is kind of the ratcheted up version of what we were just talking about before. So, you know, you go beyond 20-7 in the 3D order when you're actually in front of the judge asking for a search warrant. And that search warrant, the difference is you get everything you get with the 20-7-03 D plus content and actual geolocation and things like that. So that's clearly what they got here. There's no question if they didn't want content or they didn't suspect there was some
Starting point is 00:40:33 kind of relevant content in the account, they wouldn't have gone in for the court order. So whether that content was in the form, maybe we could turn about DMs or whatever else, that's what the choice to go in front of the judge and argue for the search warrant indicates that they at least wanted to have the legal authority to grab whatever content was there. And again, I think it's important to point out that this is for historical content. This is for DMs and messages that he'd made in the past and were stored or archived on Twitter servers. If you want real-time content, that's a totally different category that's in this context
Starting point is 00:41:13 would be a Title III order to do electronic surveillance. That's not what we're talking about here. But really fascinating kind of battles. Good to see this thing. As you mentioned, we've been curious about this so many months ago And all this stuff is coming out into the open now, which is fascinating and it gets us great stuff to talk about Yeah, my feeling is is that Jack Smith was just looking for ways to prove that Trump had actually Composed and sent those tweets that were mentioned in in the indictment and that the communications part seems like it was just Elon Musk trying to find a way to shield these from being handed over or to
Starting point is 00:41:50 be able to tell Trump about it so that he could decide whether or not he wanted to assert executive privilege. But we'll see. You know, I'm assuming we'll learn more about this as it goes along, but again, a lot of it might just be lost to time and or what's called grand jury secrecy. We might never hear about it. Yep. And one real last quick point breaking news story from this week before we had to break a new raft of subpoenas has gone out from Jack Smith's office in the fraudulent
Starting point is 00:42:15 electors scheme. So that investigation and the grand jury met this week, this past week as well, in DC, on this case. So this is still an ongoing investigation might be related to the co-conspirators, might be related to something completely different. We will find out either soon or maybe after this whole Trump case is resolved in the interest of getting it done before the election. All right, we have to take a quick break. Everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Okay, let's head down to Florida. This week we saw Dale Verra's arrangement was postponed a second time due to, once again, lack of local counsel. So his, I guess this will be the third strike at the
Starting point is 00:43:06 arrangement is now set for August 15th. And Judge Cannon has ordered it to be completed by August 25th, which is the date of their next hearing. Now, how do you use head date for the 15th and say, but it must be completed by the 25th. I thought when you said a date for the 15th, that was the date it had to be completed by. But apparently she's leaving him some extra time because she's very familiar with defendants in this matter, just being completely unable to find and retain basic criminal attorney assistance. So here we go. He's going to end up with, if he manages to push it to the 25th, he's going to end up with the day that he actually asked for in his first
Starting point is 00:43:48 non-functioning arrangement and having essentially created in one month delay in getting himself officially charged. Mm-hmm. And something else that happened on Monday, Judge Aileen Cannon, ordered that two sealed filings submitted by the DOJ, Jack Smith, be struck from the record and questioned the quote, legal propriety of using an out-of-district grand jury proceeding to continue to investigate and or to seek post-endipement hearings. The filings concerned a motion brought by DOJ arguing that an attorney for Trump aid and alleged co-conspirator Walt Nauda has potential conflicts of interest.
Starting point is 00:44:28 That's Woodward, right? Because he represents other individuals who could be called as witnesses in the case. And while Canon gave Jack Smith until August 22nd to explain the situation, many legal experts immediately pointed out the first, the reason is obvious. And second, the judge's line of questioning should raise some red flags. This is what I talked about raising some eyebrows at the beginning of the show. Andrew Weissman, who, you know, former Mueller prosecutor, you see him all the time on MSNBC. He noted that this was an argument made on Fox News by Trump lawyers, and that somehow Judge Aileen Cannon saw that and just took
Starting point is 00:45:07 it upon herself to enter this order. However, this argument was also made, what he doesn't say was also made by Woodward, Stanley Woodward, and Trump's attorneys in a July 18th hearing. So she has heard these arguments elsewhere, other than Fox News. Now, Joyce Vance noted that Canon's actions quote may tee up the issue of her fitness on the case. And I'm wondering what you thought about this, because something that Andrew Weisman also points out is this case could have been brought either in DC or in in Florida, the Southern District of Florida. They went with Southern District of Florida, the Southern District of Florida. They went with Southern District of Florida. But there shouldn't be any question as to why they were, there was a grand jury in DC and then, and then brought down to Miami. No, no, not at all. And I mean, like, what, let's be obvious. The issue of her fitness
Starting point is 00:46:00 has been teed up since the very, very beginning of this case with her somewhat illogical and baseless rulings on the review of the classified material immediately after the search warrant. So, you know, we don't have to dredge that whole situation up again. Our listeners are certainly well aware of it, but like, I think most of us have been coming into this phase of the case, really watching how she'll rule on a number of these issues. Not usually, I speak for myself here, not so concerned about issues of bias as I am concerned about issues of competence. And this one really, I think, makes folks nervous about how that question gets answered.
Starting point is 00:46:43 Because, yeah, as we talked about last week, the conflict of interest issues here with Stanley Woodward are numerous and multiple, right? And they go in a bunch of different directions. There were some great graphics in the New York Times over the last week or so, kind of laying out all the many complicated conflicts between lawyers who are being paid for by the Trump Pax, representing multiple defendants and witnesses in these different criminal cases. So yeah, I am really, I was really taken aback by her comments about not just the grand jury issue, but by questioning the legal propriety of using the out of district grand jury. Like that is not even
Starting point is 00:47:23 within the scope of her concern, right? And prosecutors have the authority and the discretion to put evidence in front of grand juries wherever they see fit, really, as long as that evidence gets in front of the final grand jury in the place where the crime was committed and will be charged, I mean, that's just how they do it. But again, you know, maybe this is all brand new for her, which is kind of concerning. Something else that's not in the purview of her concern is Trump's request to be able
Starting point is 00:47:53 to have a skiff down at Mar-a-Lago, not necessarily to store documents, but to discuss classified documents for, I guess, the need for convenience. My first thought went to Jack Tashera trying to make this request, hey, can I just, can we do this at my house? You know, I'm kind of Jack Tashera, by the way, indicted for dissemination, the Air National Guardsman decided for indicted for dissemination of classified material, top secret material. And that just seems ridiculous to me. I have a feeling for some reason judge can and might
Starting point is 00:48:32 grant this, but only the national security agencies or I should say the intelligence community can determine and do that, right? I mean, she doesn't have any authority to order that, does she? You know, I can't, oh well, I'm going to say I can't imagine she does. If federal judges have a ton of discretion and pretty much get away with whatever they order unless it's peeled and reversed, this request is insane. It's like, you know, the guy who gets charged with a grand theft auto asks the judge if he can borrow her car. I mean, like, this is what Trump was charged with for irresponsibly and illegally maintaining classified at his residence. So his response to defending himself
Starting point is 00:49:19 is to come in and ask the judge, can I have more classified of my residence? I mean, I, on principle grounds alone, I can't imagine why a judge would go on with this, and then you later in the national security concerns. But yeah, who knows what she's gonna come up with. She could try to split the baby and say, okay, because there are things, there are portable skiffs, you know, when a principle travels to even foreign locations, their security
Starting point is 00:49:45 detail can basically set up a skiff inside of a hotel room with their, you know, I can't get too great a detail describing it here, but it's both a physical construction, but also you have people in there who are assigned to kind of literally keep their hands and eyes on that stuff 24-7, so that nothing can happen to it. So, you know, you could imagine coming up with some sort of requirement like that, but then forcing the defense to pay for it, which would be not, you know, that's what that would cost a lot in terms of personnel and resources and everything else. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, this one's a coin flip to see where she'll come out on that one. We'll see what she says. And you just mentioned confusion about
Starting point is 00:50:30 in the New York Times, with their charts about witnesses having different lawyers being paid by the Trump pack. We have some information on the that the invest investigation into the Trump pack or packs, I should say, is still ongoing, including a five-hour meeting between Bernie Kerrick and special counsel in a closed-door interview on Monday with Kerrick. Investigators asked multiple questions about the Save America packs enormous fundraising hall in the weeks between Election Day and the January 6th attack on the Capitol. That's according to Kerrick's lawyer, Tim Parlatoray. So grain assault. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:51:06 Kerrick who served as a New York City police commissioner when Giuliani was mayor. He helped Rudy in his efforts to contest the results of the election. A month after Trump left office, Giuliani's allies urged him to use the save America pack funds to pay Giuliani for his post election legal work. And also prosecutors asked about Boris Epstein, who is the lawyer who worked with Trump after election day and who now works on his campaign as his in-house counsel.
Starting point is 00:51:32 The investigators asked multiple questions about Justin Clark, too, who was deputy campaign manager of Trump's re-election bid in 2020. Carrick described to the special counsel's team a contentious phone call, where Rudy yelled at Justin Clark and called him a liar. So, that, all that sort of stuff came up.
Starting point is 00:51:48 So, it could be questions about where the pack money is going, but also, I mean, Bernie Carrick's going to have a lot of information about Boris Epstein, who could be, but we haven't confirmed co-conspirator six in the coup indictment. So, we'll see what happens there, but that investigation into Trump's packs is also still ongoing. And we could see separate charges there since it's not the same set of criminal behavior if it's wire fraud and defrauding donors.
Starting point is 00:52:16 That could be brought, I think, as a separate case on a different timeline that doesn't matter as much as the coup trial. I think that's absolutely right. I think that's kind of a classic example of one you could do as a mop-up case. You go back and isolate the pack activity and charge whatever you've got there. And some folks who were charged in the first indictment can see themselves charged again.
Starting point is 00:52:40 Or it could be a whole new collection of co-conspiratory defendants. or it could be a whole new collection of co-conspiratorial defendants. Okay, so I think maybe this is our, one of our, as we're getting down to the bottom of the show here, we should jump over to California just for a minute, AG, where John Eastman this week is asked to California judge to postpone disbarment proceedings lodged against him, saying he's increasingly concerned that he's about to be criminally charged by special counsel Jack Smith. Quote, recent developments in the investigation have renewed and intensified Eastman's concerns that the federal government might bring charges against him. You think so? Miller said the growing concern about criminal charges might prompt Eastman to assert his fifth amendment rights during disbarment hearings. So it's a bit of a threat there to the committee, I guess. If you go forward against me now, you might have to deal with my fifth amendment in vocation.
Starting point is 00:53:34 Yeah, Miller, by the way, is his attorney representing him in his disbarment proceeding. That's right. That's right. But the bar authorities don't seem to be buying it because they've charged Eastman with multiple violations of professional rules and ethics as well as violations of the law and is effort to upend the certified results of the 2020 election. California authorities say Trump's recent indictment is no basis to delay their efforts. Duncan Carling, as the attorney leading the effort to strip Eastman's law license, said the push for delay is unjustified. Eastman, he said, has been aware of his criminal exposure for years. So much so that he's already asserted his fifth amendment rights and appearances before the House January 6th select committee and Fulton County prosecutors investigating
Starting point is 00:54:19 the same matters. So I mean, they clearly look at it as nothing more than an opportunistic attempt to delay the decision in Eastman State Bar case as a situation with regard to potential criminal charges is the same today as when the trial started. All right. We'll let you know what the bar decides as soon as we know. Also Rudy Giuliani waiting for disbarment results there. And Jeffrey Clark, his disbarment hearings are going forward as well. We might see some filings from him along the same lines. I wouldn't be surprised. Everybody, we just got a little bit more left to talk about,
Starting point is 00:54:55 but we have to take a quick break. So stick around. We'll be right back. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum All right, everybody. Last story of the day, it's not Jack Smith, but a different special counsel. Welcome, special counsel, David Weiss. The US Attorney appointed to investigate Hunter Biden and has been for the last five years. And he requested, he made a request to Merrick Garland, though this past Tuesday, to be appointed special counsel. And today in a statement, Merrick Garland granted that request. Garland pointed out that all prosecution and declination decisions must be included in his final report, which I like.
Starting point is 00:55:34 David Weiss then filed a very fast motion to dismiss the tax charges without prejudice against Hunter Biden, stating the case is likely heading to trial in another jurisdiction, possibly California or DC, and that the plea agreement discussions had reached an impasse. Now, the judge during the hearing had asked about possible fairer charges, that's a, you know, foreign agents registration act, so that could be potentially in the future. Biden's lawyer made a statement that said, in part, it's hard to see why David Weiss would propose such a resolution a plea agreement in the first place, if there were other offenses, he could have successfully prosecuted. And we are aware of none with this, with this at an end, my client will have
Starting point is 00:56:13 resolution and we'll be moving on with his life successfully. Andy, I'm okay with this. I think, I don't know if it's absolutely necessary, but if given what the House Republicans are doing, first of all, they called for a special counsel vehemently. And then they said, this was a sweetheart deal. And then they alleged and brought in some whistleblowers from the IRS to alleged that David Weiss wanted to be special counsel, but was denied by Merrick Garland. And David Weiss and Merrick Garland both said, that's, you know, that's Poppy Cock. That's my nice way of saying BS today.
Starting point is 00:56:50 And so now we've got, for me, this, like, think about this. If David Weiss had come to Mara Garland's word in the past, we can't reach a plea agreement here, because we might have future charges. We just don't know yet. I want to be special counsel. And if Merrick Garland had said no,
Starting point is 00:57:12 I think that that would be a heavier political consideration on his part than just allowing it to happen. But I also understand the contention that a lot of people are making like, we have enough special counsel people already. Right now, President Biden is in talks with special counsel Robert Herr in the Biden handling of classified information case. And that's, or investigation, I should say.
Starting point is 00:57:41 And that's because they're talking about, you know, interviewing President Biden for that case. So I don't, I don't know. I mean, I understand people's frustration, but I don't see the harm of appointing a special counsel, appointing him special counsel here. I mean, statutes, limitations still exist in this world. And, you know, a lot of this, anyway, I don't know. What do you think? You know, I think when it comes to questions of the point or don't appoint the special counsel, it's helpful to remember that the entire issue is really just about public relations
Starting point is 00:58:14 and to a lesser extent politics. So there's no legal authority that a special counsel has that a US attorney doesn't have. It's not really like anything they can do that a US attorney doesn't have. It's not really like anything they can do that a US attorney couldn't do. Yeah, they do have a little bit more independence, so they don't have to come back and kind of mother mayi, the same sort of things that a US attorney would have to do before they indict someone on particular charges. Not all charge is only some charges, like things like terrorism and big public corruption
Starting point is 00:58:46 stuff. So it's done because the attorney general determines that it's necessary for the public's perception of the investigation. It's good for the department because it puts the department at a little bit of an arms length from an investigation that could be seen as being political. It's good for the investigation to have that greater appearance of independence. But it's not like, oh, we have to have a special counsel because nobody here at DOJ can do this work.
Starting point is 00:59:20 So ultimately, the decision that he's got to make is the one that you outlined, right? What turns this thing around, I think, what makes it different today than it was a week or so ago is the fact that the plea negotiations have now collapsed. So the plea that was so controversial, that so many Republicans were complaining about is not going to go forward, which then means that the underlying charges, the two tax-related charges and the potential charge on the gun application, now have to be resolved if they're not going to be pled to, they have to be resolved a trial. So those, that could go as one case, it could go as two separate cases, more likely it would go as two separate cases and two different locations.
Starting point is 01:00:00 So it's all of a sudden gone from a pretty quiet thing that was about to be finished into a more complicated two different trials and different jurisdictions. And under that scenario, it sounds like the US attorney came in and said, you know what, if I'm going to have to take these things to trial, it would be better if I had the independence and the distance of a special counsel. How, as you said, how does Garland disagree with that? It's frustrating because to some extent it confirms some of these false narratives. Like, see, we told you there's really something here. You know, there's smoke, there must be fire, that sort of thing, which ultimately, I don't believe we've ever seen any evidence that would indicate that. And it may drag these things out a little bit longer,
Starting point is 01:00:45 but they were, they were looking to go longer now anyway if they're heading to trials on these two previously almost resolved issues. So I don't think Garland had a choice. Whether it's good or bad for the politics, I really don't know. That's not my thing. I understand that, you know, no matter what you do on this case, half the country is going to hate it and the other half is going to love it. And those halves might flip back and forth. Yeah. And I think my favorite tweet summing this up is from my friend, Jeff T. Drico, who said, the guy who was in charge of not finding anything serious on Hunter Biden is now super
Starting point is 01:01:23 in charge of not finding anything serious on Hunter Biden is now super in charge of not finding anything serious on Hunter Biden. But we'll, you know, we'll see what happens. We'll cover it. I, when the plea agreement fell apart, I was like, all right, cool. Take them to trial. That's what I would say. We, you know, take my chances with a fairer indictment with the, with the track record on those charges in recent history. If I were Hunter Biden's lawyer, I'd be like, sure, bring it on. That seems like what is happening. Or the two misdemeanor tax charges, right? You want to take me to trial on two misdemeanor tax charges,
Starting point is 01:01:59 charging me with failing to pay taxes that I've already paid. I mean, it's convenient. It's a jury to convict me of a crime for not paying something that I did in fact pay. It's not a great case. No, it's not. I think we have another Durham case in the works, but we'll see what happens with it.
Starting point is 01:02:16 All right, listener questions. Do we have a question today? Oh, by the way, if you have a question for us, you can send it into us at hello at mullersherote.com. Just make sure you put Jack in the subject line. Andy, what's our question today? All right, AG. So the question this week comes from Travis.
Starting point is 01:02:34 Travis raises a really kind of interesting issue here. He says regarding the charges under 18 USC 241, which is the charge that's been brought against Donald Trump for essentially depriving people of their constitutional rights. Travis says, I had a jury selection question. If all U.S. citizens are considered victims, how can we also be impartial jurors? Are the victims all U.S. citizens, or is it limited just to those that voted in the 2020 election, or just any one of voting age at that time? So yeah, I think in principle, Travis, you raise a good issue. We are
Starting point is 01:03:13 under this theory, which is only one of many theories, but this theory, we are, if you voted in the 2020 election, and I guess if you voted against Trump and for Biden, then you are potentially a victim of this charge. But I, my, I think my response to you would be not really a problem because essentially the question for serving on a jury is not do you have any connection to the defendant or to the charge or to the law enforcement folks involved or the prosecutors, but even with that connection, can you still be impartial? That's the question that we ask of people before they surre on a jury. And I think it's even though you could end up with a jury of 12 people who voted for
Starting point is 01:04:00 Biden and then theoretically would be victims of that 241 charge. I think you probably find 12 Biden voters or 11 or 10 or 6 or whatever it is who say yes, despite the fact that I may have been deprived of my constitutional right to have my vote accurately counted, I think I can still serve impartially. Yep, very good point. And you know, all of these federal cases are the United States versus so that's kind of where we are with that. Thank you for that question, Travis. Really good question. Again, if you have a question, send it to us.
Starting point is 01:04:33 Hello at mullershearote.com and just put Jack in the subject line. It has been a heck of a news week, even though we didn't get any new indictments, it's still put it over an hour on this show with filings. So thank you so much, Andy, for doing this show with me. Everybody will be back next week to see what's new in all the special counsel news on Jack. I've been Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McKibb.
Starting point is 01:04:54 We'll see you next week. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh M-S-W Media.

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