Jack - Episode 40 - But for my Besotted Attorney

Episode Date: September 3, 2023

This week: A trial date of March 4, 2024, and a full trial schedule are set by Judge Chutkan in the DC case (Allison was there); prosecutors on Jack Smith’s team were asking questions about Rudy Giuliani’s drinking and level of inebriation while advising Trump leading up to the events on January 6th; more Republican efforts to defund the Special Counsel; the curious case of Harrison Floyd reveals Jack Smith’s previously unknown investigation into the intimidation of Ruby Freeman in Georgia; in Florida, we have a speedy trial invocation from Carlos de Oliveira; seven redacted search warrants with a focus on Walt Nauta; plus a listener question.Questions for the pod:https://formfacade.com/sm/PTk_BSogJOr Email us at [e-mail] and put “Jack” in the subject lineCheck 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

M.S.W. Media. I signed in order appointing Jack Smith. And nobody knows you. And those who say Jack is a finesse. Mr. Smith is a veteran career prosecutor. What law have I grew? The events leading up to and on January 6th. Classified documents and other presidential records.

You understand what prison is? Send me to jail. I'm Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. All right, A.G. In the DC case, we have a trial date set by Judge Chutkin of March 4th, 2026. Now I'm just kidding, it's 2024, 2024. Along with a full trial schedule, there's also reporting that the prosecutors on Jack Smith's team were asking questions about Rudy Giuliani's drinking and level of inebriation while advising Trump leading up to the events on January 6th. And we have some more information on Republican efforts to defund the special counsel. Oh, they never stopped.

They started doing this back in the muller days and they haven't shut up about it. We also have the curious case of Harrison Floyd. And you and I have spoken at length offline about this. And there's just an interesting weird story. But what it has unveiled and what's pertinent to the Jack Smith investigation is that we now know that Jack Smith was investigating the intimidation of Ruby Freeman in Georgia, or at least trying to subpoena Harrison Floyd for whatever reason I'm assuming it's the Ruby Freeman stuff

in his investigation in to January 6th, not just down in Georgia. And then in Florida, we have a speedy trial in vocation from Carlos De Olivaira. That's weird. We'll talk about that. Yep. Went way under the radar. Nobody really reported on this. It got dug up by a listener who sent it to me and said, did you see this? I hate the MSW nation at work, I love it.

Yes, our sleuths, hard at work. And we have seven redacted search warrants released with focus on Wal-Nauta. And going back to DC, let's start there, Andy. I was in Judge Chuckens courtroom this past Monday for the trial date hearing. That is amazing. I'm so glad you went in there

and I can't wait to hear all the things that you saw. I almost didn't make it in because I was carrying my phone out like out in my, and they're like, ma'am, ma'am, step aside, out of line. Get out of line right now. And they looked at my photo roll to make sure I hadn't taken any. Oh, no way. That's super paranoid.

I'm very familiar with paranoid court officers. They definitely don't want you taking the phones in there or the guns in my case. That was always a bigger problem. Ah. But then when I sat down, I was like, hey, can I go sit next to my friend Harry Dunn? Like, ma'am, just sit where you are.

They were like really, like already done with me. I should have worn like long sleeves, maybe a blazer. Should have looked more professional, I guess. Maybe the nose ring. I don't know. But anyway, I got into the courtroom and I'll paint the picture for you. On the left is the prosecution table. Defense table was on the right as you face the bench.

The prosecutor's table had Molly Gaston and John Wyndham. Now we know John Wyndham was appointed to investigate the tippy top of the coup way back in November of 2021. I know all of the pundits on TV want to say that they didn't start investigating until April or May of the next year or until after the hearings happened for the January 6th commission in June of 2022, investigating until April or May of the next year or until after the hearings happened for

the January 6th commission in June of 2022. But he was appointed to investigate Trump in November of 2021. And you'll remember, he tried to issue subpoenas, the Willard, fraudulent electors, Clark, Perry. He's the guy that had to struggle with a lackluster FBI response out of the, out of the, Washington field office and had to scrape up some IG investigators and postal dudes to do the, do his work for him, which is there's a story to be told there. I can't wait till we get to the bottom of that. Yeah, and we have an episode in the past

called the search warrant two step where we were trying to figure out why on earth the inspector general was confiscating these phones. Well, now we know it's because Dan Twono at the Washington Field Office, DFBI was refusing to approve those search warrants and subpoenas. So that wind him was there at the table. He is the lead prosecutor on this particular case. Jack Smith sat behind them in the gallery and he was flanked and he by six security guards.

Wow. Six. Harry Dunn was one row behind Jack Smith. And I'm behind the defense table, which had John Lourow and Todd Blanche. I was behind them, diagonally behind Jack Smith. I had a direct lannocyte to Jack Smith. So I kept my eye on him. He mostly just stroked his beard and was the whole time.

Very offensive. Was he wearing the robe with the purple stripe on it? Because I feel like he should just roll in with that leg. I'm here. You know, it'd be great as if he had a t-shirt with that printed on it. So it's not even the robe. But like a tuxedo shirt. Yeah, the tux shirts. You got there before me. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. Now I want to want one of those shirts. Hey, all I know is Halloween is coming. I know what I'm going to be. Oh, that's so funny. Grow the beard. There you go. And so that's where I was situated.

I was watching him the whole time. Now at the break, we did stand up. He was facing Jack Smith, was facing the gallery, facing us and away from the banchan and I Looked at him. We made eye contact like for a minute and then he gave me like the sup like the head the head nods I got you doing well sup and You know six security guards around him and I was like you know and I when that happened

I told everybody about it, they were like, oh, he knows who you are. And I'm like, probably his security does and was trying to keep me away from him because I'm the crazy lady with the podcast, just about him. I have Mueller tattooed on my arm. So like, they were probably like, all right,

she's a little... She's on our side, but a little over the top, we think. You should have given them like the heart hands. You know, the fingers and the heart. Well, I certainly couldn't take a selfie with them because I wouldn't be kicked right out of that courtroom. Now, the judge came in, gave some opening remarks, including neither proposed trial date, which was January 2nd of 2024 by the DOJ and April 2026 by the defense, neither were appropriate. She reminded the parties that the right to a speedy trial doesn't only belong to the defendant, it also belongs to the public.

And that the longer it takes to go to trial, the more chances of tainting a jury pool, especially from inflammatory posts by the president, former president, and the danger of memories fading, right? This is why when people asked Bob Mueller, if you couldn't indict Trump, why did you investigate? And his answer was to get the facts and the information and the testimony while they were still fresh in the minds of the witnesses. That always stood out to me. And so she brought that up as well. She stated that Mr. Trump, she wouldn't call him President Trump and Mr. Trump's day job

has no bearing on the court or its schedule. And it wouldn't for any other defendant. She even used an example saying, like, let's say I was, there was a criminal defendant who was a professional athlete, you know, I would not take, she goes, I would not take her schedule into consider. I was like, her. Nice. All right.

Women rule the world. You know, I love both of those points. The piece about the public having an interest in a speedy trial is so important and I think over or under focused on. And this kind of punching through this myth of like, oh, because he's chosen to run for president, he should get a completely different treatment from the system. That is, that is, that does, it does not work that way. It should not ever work that way.

And I'm glad to see it's not going to work that way in her court. Yeah. She was basically saying, look, everybody's got shit to do. You're not special. Like, you're not the first person in here with a day job. But thank you. And she, first, then she started to address the arguments.

And the first thing she touched on, which is something we spoke at length about, was this myth that Title 18, US Code 371 cases take an average of 29 and a half months, 29.4 months to complete. She brought up the fact that this was misleading. She called it misleading. She said that that is a number that reflects from commencement and indictment through sentencing not to the beginning of trial She also brought up the fact that

You know, I mean that wasn't the only consideration. She said the defense only used cases from 2021 and 2022 Which was a handful of cases 22 cases and they were all impacted by COVID backlogs She also pointed out that the defense used cases with multiple defendants, five to 17 co-defendants, cases with pre-trial detention hearings, some very long, pre-trial detention hearings. Many of these had superseding indictments and plea negotiations, lengthy plea negotiations. She's like, none of that is true here and reminded everyone that this is one defendant and four counts. And that is so important because that, I think,

was Jack Smith's gambit of having a simple indictment, paying off. Totally, totally agree with you. And as proof, you see what's happening down in Georgia. The chaos that comes along with a 19-defending case, it's unavoidable. It's not.

I'm not throwing a rocket funny, Willis, but she made the decision that she wants to put on this incredibly broad case against all this broad scope of people. This is the baggage that comes along with that. Some speedy trial, some are delays, it's federal removal, this and the other thing. So I think Jack Smith very intentionally chose to avoid all that and kept it clean and

tight on the person who's most responsible, stayed away from things like the insurrection charge that would might bog down, you know, the prosecution and never ending arguments about First Amendment rights and everything else. And we're seeing that pay off now, even with the scheduling order. Yeah. And I wanted to take a minute here to discuss with you. A lot of folks seem to be very upset that none of his co-conspirators have been indicted. None of the people in Congress have been indicted. No one else has been indicted. Steve or Roger Stone, Mike Flynn, Steve Bannon, none of these other people have been indicted

for January 6th by the Department of Justice. And I wanted to raise the possibility that by doing that, you could complicate this case much like the Fault in County case is complicated because if you start inditing his co-conspirators, they could start filing to consolidate with the Donald Trump case and adding themselves as defendants to the Donald Trump case and adding themselves as defendants to the Donald Trump case. And therefore pushing it back, making it more complex or trying to file motions about how to be different or, you know, other things that would have to be considered. It is very feasible.

And you and I have spoken about this in previous episodes. And I think a lot of people are now starting to pick up that conversation and roll with it. I could see a scenario in which Jack Smith will indict other people, but not until after this case is over. He's got plenty of time on his side to do that. There's no election consideration for anybody else. And the statute of limitations wouldn't be up until 2025, 2026.

So I would personally, because this is such a huge factor, the simplicity of this case is such a huge factor in getting this done quickly, getting it done before, even the Republican National Convention, that he would try to indict anybody else. And I would support that decision. I mean, I know he doesn't call me. I mean, he looked at me in the courtroom, but I don't think he was like looking for my permission

to not indict anybody else until after this is done, but I'd be happy to wait until it was. I see it the same way that you do. You know, when you are, when you're planning a prosecution of either an individual or a group of individuals, you, there's a million things to be considered. And, you know, everything from strength of the evidence

to your cooperators and how good or bad they might be and other proceedings going on at the same time and timing, all kinds of things. It seems to me that in this, in bringing this case, the way they did, Smith team prioritized their number one priority was getting this case brought in time so that it could be tried in time to be finished before the election. And the best way to do that was keeping it clean on one defendant, the guy who, the only

defendant, potential defendant for whom the election had any relevance. So all of those other people, but now there are downsides to that, right? If you plan to go back and indict some of these currently unundited co-conspirators at a later date, they are now going to get a preview of the evidence against them. They may even get to see the evidence. If they're violations in the protective orders, they might see evidence from, from Trump's attorneys about, you know, different things that the prosecutors have against them. Those are all calculated risks that the team is prepared to take in an effort to

focus on the top priority, which is getting this case against Trump in court, heard, and resolved before the election. And, you know, how can you argue with that prioritization? That is the most important thing right now to give people the opportunity to hear this thing, to hear how the case comes out, to hear what the evidence is, and to hear the decision of the jury before they have to go into the voting booth and make a decision for themselves. So, yeah, and I think that if you're taking any shelter or comfort as an unindicted co-conspirator from the fact that you haven't been indicted yet, you're kidding yourself.

Because this thing could go on for years. He could be rolling up lower and lower people in follow-on prosecution after follow-on prosecution for years. Yeah. And it's the same with like the wire fraud stuff. Like he could bring super seating and diamonds, but you're gonna tack those onto this case and you're gonna make, you could run the risk

of extending it into and or pass the election. Those things can go later. I really do think Trump could get indicted for more stuff later, right? Right, that's what I mean. Like that wire fraud. Equator convicted on these charges, he could get hit with other arguably less important charges later. But again, bigger charges, he could be charged with seditious conspiracy or incitation of a riot.

I mean, you know, the things separate from the specific behaviors outlined in this case, but I think maybe because they use the riot as part of this conspiracy against rights, that that's probably off the table, like a double jeopardy switch. But, you know, he, there's all sorts of considerations that I think, I honestly think Jack Smith is going to be waiting. So if people are waiting for these superseding indictments for either Donald Trump or his co-conspirators or anybody else in the periphery of these crimes. You might be waiting a while and I think that that would be for a good reason. I just wanted to bring that up.

I agree. All right. Then they addressed the volume of discovery, right? And it was 11.3 million documents. Now it's up to 12.8 million pages, pages, not documents. And Molly Gaston argued that even though there's 12.8 million pages, 61% are things that are public, that Donald Trump has had access to, or that Donald Trump himself created, so 61%.

Now, and of the remaining, a lot of it is duplicative, she argued that DOJ has gone to considerable lengths to organize this discovery more than probably any other defendant in history, including coding and filing and baits numbers in groups and Annotations on things they have about 45,000 key documents for the trial and they put it in an annotated version of the indictment To provide a road map to discovery. They have time stamps on relevant surveillance footage And by the way when she was describing the great lengths and the judge acknowledged the great lengths that they went to to organize this discovery for the defense, that's the only time I saw Jack Smith react. And he just nodded his head twice. So I thought that was interesting.

It's really interesting. And I have to say, I mean, to be perfectly fair, I don't, I think that this is their weakest argument in this whole back and forth. And here's why. That 12 million pages is 12 million pages. I don't think that Trump's argument that the size of the discovery is a reason to delay the trial. I don't agree with that. Or that they have to look at it page by page. Right. But, but some of Molly Gaston's reasoning here kind of falls a little bit on deaf ears if you've been through this before, no matter who you are and how well the prosecution gives you a roadmap and tells you what's most important, you still have to look through all of it. You're never going to be

completely comfortable letting the prosecution tell you what documents that you should base your defense on, right? You're always going to have to go through that stuff to see. There could be little Easter eggs hidden in there that are exculpatory or could be beneficial to you and cross-examining the government's witnesses, whatever. The other argument that like 61% are things that were public or created by Trump, yes, but he didn't really have any obligation to be reviewing that stuff for preparing his defense before the case was brought, right?

So you still have to go back and analyze all those things in the context of this case and the things he's been charged with. So I don't know that those arguments with that persuasive. However, 12 million pages, in cases that run through 12 million pages, the documents happen every day in this country and federal court. And there are immense resources available to defendants who have resources. And this defendants has resources. So he can get this done if he's got a hire more lawyers or higher-e-discovery companies to help him sort it out,

hire more paralegal, whatever, he can do that, and we can still get this trial done on time. Yeah, and that's why Judge Chuck in her response was she hammered home on the not necessarily the, you know, any of the other arguments that Molly Gaston made, but the argument that there are, these are searchable by keyword, and we have whole industries now, a whole cottage industry of businesses that do this for a living. In fact, Mr. Trump, you just spent 350 grand so Rudy could do this through trust point.

She didn't bring that up, but yeah, we were all thinking it. So that was her main reason, her main reasoning for this trial date. And why the Department of Justice's January trial date was not appropriate. So I think that that was very interesting. She also argued a lot of discovery is duplicative. She gave an example that all of the testimonies annotated with exhibits, evidence exhibits,

and those evidence exhibits are also submitted separately. So those are all duplicates. She notes that the 3.1 million secret service emails, that accounts for like 20% of this whole discovery. And a lot of that is also duplicative. And we also learned through this process that there are roughly, and a 250 potential witnesses, which is quite a bit. Then Lara got up and he was yelling and raising his voice, arguing six amendment rights. You can't do this to my client.

And so, so much so, he was so yelling that the judge asked him to take the temperature down twice. He continually brought up Judge Chuckens' experience as a criminal defense lawyer saying, you know, you know me. You know what I'm trying to do. You understand. And he did that several multiple times. He kept referring to Trump as President Trump. One time accidentally referred to him as Mr. Trump and corrected himself.

That's the make sure he doesn't get fired. Couple of Mr. Trumps, I mean, he might find himself out of a gig. Yep. And he wasn't able to articulate why exactly a 2026 trial date was necessary, like with math or anything. And so the judge said, this isn't going to trial in 2026. And that the indictment of Trump shouldn't have come as a surprise to you. That's what she said. It's not like surprise you're indicted. I thought that was interesting. What? Are you kidding?

I got indicted for what? And he brought up all these potential pre-trial motions, he plans to file, including selective prosecution, executive immunity, first amendment considerations, rule 17 subpoenas, and he said these are all novel legal arguments, your own or novel, novel legal. These are brand new, no one's ever done these before. And that's when Molly Gaston said these's not new. Selective prosecution is she goes, especially in DC, is not new. This has been argued to death. Executive immunity, not new. We've been doing this for a while. The first amendment certainly isn't new. You know, just all sorts of things. She's like, none of this is novel. It's a one, it's one guy. It's four, four counts. And then the SEPA considerations, just as you and I had predicted, and we'd, we talked to Brian Greer about this. Those can be run in parallel. There's only about

300 pages of classified information in this case that we'll head over in discovery. And none of it is part of their case in chief, which means they're not going to be using it in their presentation of the prosecution. They may need it to rebut defense or just for you to have. And the only argument there was that Molly Gaston wanted a 30-day deadline to file section four SEPA motions after Todd Blanche got his full clearance. He's about to get it. He might have it now. It could be any day. And Blanche got up and argued that he wanted to wait for that 30 days to clock to start ticking

until after Louro got his full clearance. And he hasn't even, I don't think, applied for an interim one. So the judge was like, no, you can look at the 300 documents. They're not being using the case in chief and in interim security clearance that he should have by then. Lara should have by then is enough for you to discuss these documents with him. So she turned that down and granted the DOJ that 30-day thing and said it can all go in parallel.

And then that's when Chuck can say, okay, March 4th. And we all sort of in the courtroom were like, yeah, because we guessed, that's what our guest was everybody was guess in March Who who hands in the air knows more? There was like an open fridge or like a you know There you go, but nobody made any sounds cuz you don't do that no I was already like on the edge of being kicked out of the courtroom You're gonna be the first one out things one totally

Absolutely and so then Lara got up and went on the record saying this in fringes on edge of being kicked out of the courtroom. You knew you were going to be the first one out, things weren't going to happen. Totally, absolutely. And so then Lara got up and went on the record saying, this infringes on my client's sixth amendment rights. This is unconscionable. You know better, you're a defense attorney, formerly, you should know, blah, blah, I just want to go on the record. So he can appeal later, you know.

Sure. But the thing was, he invoked something called the Scots Bro case. And Judge Chuck can specifically called him out for this. This is a 1930s case, about nine black men who were indicted for raping a white woman. And they were indicted, arraigned, and went to trial within six days. And they didn't get representation. Now you don't know like anything. And she was a gas that Donald Trump would compare his case and his prosecution here to that of the Scotsboro boys because six days and no resources, she was, she brought that specifically up and said, you know, basically GTFO on my

courtroom with that. She was very upset by that. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what they're trying to accomplish. It almost seems as if they figure, you know what, she's not gonna like us. So let's just go down in the biggest ball of flames that we can possibly put together. You know, it started with the,

or the first appearance where he claimed, I can't possibly represent my client sufficiently and he's gonna have a motion for insufficient assistance against the insufficient assistance of council. Then they come in with the 2026 trial date request which is on its face ridiculous. I don't care how big of a defense attorney you are, there was, you know, he couldn't even specifically

defend that date. And now this, the Scott Spurrow reference, like anyone in their right mind would know, like, that is not going to land well with this judge. Why are you trying so hard to piss her off for no reason? I feel like there's got to be a strategy behind this, but I can't for the life of me imagine what it is. No, yeah, it's because we're not weird. I guess not weird enough.

We can't figure out why you would do that in this particular case, but that's not. You have so much to lose as a litigant if you piss the judge off right at the beginning. And it comes down to every little motion, every time you object to a piece of testimony in the middle of trial, whether or not that objection gets sustained or dismissed, oftentimes comes down to the way that the judge perceives you and the reasonableness of your arguments historically. And so by kind of heaving your credibility out the door on day one,

you just automatically put yourself in kind of on a losing footing in ways that can really matter later on. Most attorneys go out of their way to try to develop some sort of relationship, respect, whatever with the judge, but not the state. The only thing I could think of is that they're pissing or off to get her to do something that they can later appeal. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Like he's been trying to poke her to get her to issue a gag order. I'm like, she's not going to issue a gag order. She's not going to do a gag order. And so maybe they're just poking her to try to get her to do something that's, I don't know, that they can appeal later. That's the only thing I can think of. Good day. Good day. We'll see. See, that's, I don't know, that they can appeal later. That's the only thing I can think of. Good day. Good day. We'll see. See how that's going to go for them. Anyway, I was really, really interesting being inside that courtroom. And I'm glad that I got the opportunity to, everybody who was in line, by the way, and

the public got to go into the courtroom and watch it. I think it's awesome if you live in the area, you're in the area, you get a chance to go to the DC courthouse, head down and sit you know, sit in on a court hearing, don't bring your phone. And or keep it in your purse or your pocket, or go see a naturalization ceremony. I've heard those are very moving. But it's really interesting to see that the judiciary in in in motion. Yeah, totally agree. And in this case, look, it's history. One way or another, like it or don't, it is history making and to be able to see it one day as it's happening. That'd be something you'd never forget. Yeah, truly, I might might show up in March,

but I think the lines might be a little bit longer. A little longer, yeah, for sure. All right, everybody, we have more to get to stick around. We're going to talk about Rudy and his drinking habits after this quick break. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, next up from Rolling Stone. Special counsel Jack Smith's office has repeatedly grilled witnesses about Rudy Giuliani's drinking on and after election day. Investigating whether Donald Trump was knowingly relying on an inebriated attorney while trying to overturn a presidential election.

So in their questioning of multiple witnesses, Smith's team of federal investigators have asked questions about how seemingly intoxicated Giuliani was during the weeks he was giving Trump advice on how to cling to power. According to a source who's been in the room with Smith's team, one witness's attorney and a third person familiar with the matter. So that's three sources on this line of questioning. Yeah. Yeah.

They go on to say the special counsel's team has also asked these witnesses if Trump had ever gossiped with them about Giuliani's drinking habits. And if Trump had ever claimed Giuliani's drinking impact at his decision-making or judgment, federal investigators have inquired about whether the then president was warned, including after election night on 2020, about Giuliani's allegedly excessive drinking. They've also asked certain witnesses if Trump was told that the former New York mayor was giving him post-election legal

and strategic advice while drunk. Now, when I first read this, everybody's take on this, including the folks at Rolling Stone is that, they're trying to establish that Trump knew he was taking advice from an inebriated person. My first thought was that they were trying to establish a defense against Trump saying, hey, he told me this was legal.

He was drunk. I didn't know he was drunk. And now they're trying to prove that he knew and that everybody knew he was drunk. We saw Jason Miller testified to the January 6th committee and others that Rudy had been drinking. But Jason Miller specifically said, I do not know if he spoke to Trump in that condition or whatever advised Trump in that condition. So it felt like a prepping for a defense to me, but you know, something that would be used in response to something. I don't know what do you think? Do you think it could be characterized as they

would come out the come out of the gate saying he was taking advice from drunk people and knew it? I tend to see it more from your perspective, but let just, let's just start at the beginning here. There is no legal defense. Sorry, my attorney was drunk. Therefore, I'm not responsible for these crimes. That's not a legal defense in the United States of America. It was even more lawyers would be drunk all the time. So I'm, I really, this whole thing is very strange to me. They wouldn't be asking these questions unless they had some very specific concern about it and how Giuliani's possible drunkenness in these key moments might impact their case. My sense is more like yours, like somehow it's come to their attention.

They may have had a witness, let's, I'm totally making this up for the sake of argument, but let's say a witness comes in and says, well, Trump told me once, he can't be responsible for anything that Giuliani told him because he knows Giuliani was drunk all the time, right? So if you're thinking that maybe the defense puts on a witness like that to lay this little bomb

out there in front of the jury to try to go for jury sympathy or something, then you would want to drill down on it and find out if other people had ever seen or heard Trump acknowledge the fact that Giuliani was drunk a lot. Because then you could say, well, it doesn't matter because you knew he was drunk, you took his advice anyway. So it's almost like a rebuttal

line of questioning, right? Yeah, or like even a Rudy defense. Like, I can't be held liable for entering into a criminal enterprise when I'm inebriated, you know, like some sort of contract thing, you know, how you can. It's so absurd that that doesn't work on any level for any offense like if you If you allow your so you can't arrest me for drunk driving. I couldn't have possibly made a Good decision about whether or not to get behind the wheel. So I'm a mute How was I supposed to not know, not to drive after I'd had 12 beers? I'd had 12 beers for God's sake.

I suppose to know you're not supposed to, who, you would. I mean, oh my gosh. I just try to figure it out. I'm like, what could it possibly be? Sometimes maybe it just came up and they want to follow it thoroughly to the end so that they have all the information

in case it pops up a trial and they have They have or maybe it was just fun to ask the questions. I don't know Just curious. They're like come on. Could this be your real thing? Yeah, um, I don't think that I don't think that there's anything to this Substantively there's no But for my besotted attorney. I wouldn't have violated any laws defense. So yeah, I don't know how this one's gonna play out. I like but for my besotted attorney, I think that's a good episode title.

All right. So now the curious case of Harrison Floyd, you and I have spoken about this a little bit. He's or he's one of the 19 defendants down in Georgia. He surrendered on Friday, like he was supposed to, but he was remanded. He was kept in jail until the following week at the at the Rice Street jail in Fountain County. And he when he got out, you know, Steve Bannon helped him raise a bunch of money to make his bond and get out. When he got out, he went on the Steve Bannon show and said, they, I'm the only one they held behind because I'm the black guy. Uh, and then Fanny Willis, um, released an audio tape of her phone call to him on Friday when he surrendered offering him a consent bond that he refused.

So he stayed in jail that weekend because of himself and his refusal to accept a consent bond. And so, but then this other whole thing about, he, earlier this year, he was arrested. A warrant that Affodavit went in, worn out for his arrest, because he assaulted FBI agents who were serving him a federal grand jury, subpoena in Jack Smith's investigation. So the story here

and how this connects to Jack Smith is just that. We didn't know until right now that Jack Smith was investigating the Ruby Freeman intimidation, assuming that that's what they were subpoenaing him about, who knows, maybe it could have been something else. But that is something that Jack Smith has been investigating for quite some time, that we had no idea about, again, just goes to the secrecy of grand jury. And we also don't know if this Harrison Floyd person testified before the federal

grandeur, I'm assuming he did or he'd be in more trouble, but his docket has been kind of blank on that particular arrest for the last few months. There's been no indictment that we've seen. There's been no preliminary hearing. There's been no motion to delay a preliminary hearing pending plea negotiations. We haven't really seen anything. And so, could he be cooperating or did they just not go after the charges because they were like, he's got plenty of other stuff going on? I like, we just don't know what's happening with that case.

Yeah. So, the interaction with the FBI agents allegedly occurred outside of his residence in Maryland. They had been there, I think, once before, and they'd had some kind of aggressive interaction with him. You wouldn't talk to them or something. I'm not productive. They came back with the subpoena. They saw him outside the residence.

They kind of followed. They argued with them, refused to take the subpoena. I think they followed him up a flight of stairs in front of his door to his townhouse or something. And then when he opened the door and went in, they threw the piece of paper in the door. So they turned on and left,

and he then came out of his house, all angry and screaming and yelling and shoved one of them. That's physical with at least one of the agents. They leave. He then called 911 and reported in a salt. I mean, it's just a whole kind of confusing chaotic thing. So it looks like the agents got a warrant for him and I would guess the warrant was based

on a complaint, right? There's two ways you can get charged in the federal system by complaint or by indictment. Complaint is just you write up the affidavit you and the prosecutor and then you go in front of a judge, the judge reviews it for probable cause. If they find there's probable cause, they sign an arrest warrant. You go out and arrest the person, bring them in there. Of course, in the federal system, you're, you're, you're arraigned the day that you're arrested.

And at the arraignment, they set a date. You must be indicted by, I think it's two weeks after you've been arraigned. Yeah, well, 30 days. 30 days, I've heard, yeah. Whatever, you can also wave arraignment at the indictment, which many people do. So my guess, and it's total guess,

what happened here was, I would think they got it, they secured an arrest warrant based on a complaint, and if whatever reason they never executed it, it could be just they didn't get around to it, it could be that he left the area because we know that he moved to Georgia at some point in this following that interaction. So if he goes to Georgia, it's not a big deal. It's not a very high

priority thing that they're working on. I think it's a misdemeanor in the. They put it a misdemeanor war. Yeah, so they're not going to like, you know, send out a SWAT team from the Atlanta FBI office to find this guy in drag him in, get him a reigned in federal court, extra-dited to Maryland, you know, a la la la la. Because they had other things to do, obviously. So he's just in Georgia, and there's this existing federal arrest warrant. He probably doesn't have any other interactions with police.

If had he been like pulled over for speeding at that time, when the cops run your name through NCIC, they would have seen the outstanding warrant and taken into jail. In this case, that probably happened when he went in and surrendered on the Fulton County case, and that's why he ended up getting held. So because he's never really been processed

in the federal system on that arrest warrant, it's probably still just an outstanding warrant, that's why you're not really seeing anything on a docket because the case isn't really started yet in court because it's never been in there. Got it. All right. Well, we'll keep our eye on it for you for sure. Um, all right. This time to, uh, head down to Florida, but we need to take a quick break. Everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. All right, let's head down to Florida for some news that went under the radar this week. Last week, we talked about the Garcia hearings or conflict of interest hearings

from Jack Smith for both Stanley Woodward and John Irving. You'll recall that Woodward represented Tavaris and is still representing NADA. And we also discussed a pleading that Jack Smith filed outlining the details of why there's a glaring conflict of interest, including that Tavaris changed his testimony as soon as he removed Woodward as his counsel and accepted a public defender.

Well, Woodward responded to that filing, complaining that Jack Smith publicly discussed things from a sealed hearing in DC without permission. Can you believe it, A.G.? Jack Smith filing the rules just like that, for no reason. What a dick. Like, I can't even believe Jack Smith.

I mean, he's so sloppy that it's, you know, I wasn't surprised that he just pulled this, you know, grand jury information, like unsealed it and just put it up on the public docket. First of all, Jack Smith tried to file this under seal in Judge Cannon's court and she did not like that. Then Jack Smith responded to Woodward's complaint saying, dude, I got, I made a request to disclose

and I got permission and here it is. Blah blah blah. This is from Judge Bozberg, right? Because this particular hearing, initially conflict of interest hearing happened up with Judge Bozberg. That's when Judge Bozberg said, I am appointing a public defender

and that's when Tver has changed his testimony. Yeah. And so Jack's like, yeah, no, I got permission. You weirdo. Who do you think I am? Like, what do you do? What do you think I'm Rudy? Yeah.

This is not special counsel Julianne, okay? I can imagine that might happen. Please vote, everyone. So, yeah, he showed the receipts and that was the end of that. But then by the way, in this filing that Woodward made this complaint that, you know, Jack Smith just did this, he without permission, he disclosed that Trump packed money went to pay for his representation of Tavaris. So that's fun.

This is classic because it's like, it's so similar to the prior complaint that they levied about Jackson Beth saying, you look, do you know, do schedule jury selection in the DC case for the same day that there's a hearing of Florida, big conflict of a whole day. And you know, and now here we have another completely hollow complaint. Just wonder like, hollow complaint. Just wonder like any rational judge with a lot of experience having dealt with whiny complaining lawyers all day would see this stuff for what it is. Like this is nonsense. Stop complaining to me. Just kind of like blow it off, but you really got to wonder if ailing, judge ailing can and sees it that way. That's a harder one to tell. Yeah, and we'll soon know. We haven't got a ruling on these Garcia hearings yet, but, you know, of course, we will keep you posted when they do happen. And something else interesting

that happened that I haven't seen reported anywhere. I had to go dig this up off the docket, but Carlos, Carlos D'Aloe Vera, who who is superseded with Trump and Nauta for their conspiracy to delete security footage, right, with Tavaris. Yep. That's the superseding indictment down here. He has filed for a speedy trial. He wants to begin in October. And this is interesting to me because we know down in Georgia, cheese, bro, and Sydney, cheese and cracking, as we call them,

have filed for speedy trials, along with a few other people, and maybe to break it up and make it more difficult than to present your case all at once. But he's asking for this speedy trial where Trump does not want a speedy trial. The rest of the trial is set to go may, right? Because the classified documents case and the superseding indictment for this obstruction are all in the same case.

And this is an emotion to sever, either. So it's, I don't know, what do you make of this? Really interesting and kind of fascinating that no one else picked up on it. So major props to the person that brought it to our attention. You know, on its surface, it seems like maybe this is a sign of a little bit of splintering between Dale Lavera and Trump, right? Because it's going, having a speedy trials, clearly not in the interest of the Trump defense team. They want to slow everything down. So Dale Lavera coming in and dropping this little bomb certainly doesn't seem consistent with that.

But, you know, it's a house of mirrors. So you have to look at everything from every side and maybe this is intentional. And maybe the Trump team likes the idea that Dale Lavera maybe gets severed and goes first on his own. They get a preview of the evidence. They get a preview of some of the government's witnesses. That sort of thing. Interestingly, it's a little bit different than the Georgia case, because in Georgia, the state law is very absolute on this issue of speedy trial. If you request it, I think

the state law is that you have to be put on trial before the expiration of the next, quote unquote, court session. The court sessions are about generally about every two months. So the prosecutor and the judge don't really have much discretion as to, you know, once the defendant claims speedy trial under Georgia state law, it has to go by this accelerated date. I don't believe that it's quite as absolute in the federal system. I think the judge still has a fair amount of discretion to balance the interests of the other defendants and ultimately to serve the interests of justice in the trial. So we'll have to see how this goes. It could provoke some sort of a severance of Dale Lavera,

maybe even Dale Lavera and Nada. Further complicated by the fact that they're all represented by the same two guys it seems. So I don't know, you know, it's what love to be a fly on the wall in those joint defense meetings or phone calls, but Some there's something afoot here Yeah, and you know jack Smith could Argue file an argument the against this speedy trial

Saying hey, this is a superseding indictment on a seepa case. We don't have time to get to this or you know, maybe the judge can and decides to sever the superseding indictment from the main indictment, which would have no seep a considerations and could go faster, but then Jack could argue, well then they all have to go at once. And so I mean, we'll see how this ends up, but I mean, it would be interesting to see Jack Smith

argue against a speedy trial when he's arguing for it elsewhere. But I don't know, it's hard to tell what Jack Smith is gonna do in this particular instance. Yeah, we're gonna have to watch this one closely. Yeah, and we definitely will. All right, we've got to address some concerns about Republicans who wanna to defund the investigations and investigate the investigators. Yeah, I'm super scared. Shake it in my boots,

because this has been so successful and all of the other going back to Mueller investigations. Yeah, it's worked in, well, it worked in, or wait, oh, sorry, it didn't work any of them. Yep, yep. It doesn't work. Yeah, ever. And, you know, we talked about this early on in the show, but we just want to reiterate it. And Shalil Kapoor has put out a piece to remind us for NBC. And we want to talk about it, but we have to take a quick break. So everybody stick around.

We'll be right back. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, everybody, welcome back. Since there are growing concerns again about a possible government shutdown, thank you Republicans. I thought it would be a good time to remind everyone as we did in one of the first episodes of this podcast, how difficult it would be, if not impossible, to shut down the special council investigations. As a matter of fact, a government shutdown would not halt the criminal proceedings against the former president. Again, as I said, this is from Shalil Kapoor at NBC.

Trump's indictments in New York and Georgia would not be affected by a government shutdown, while his federal indictments are criminal matters that have been exempted from shutdowns in the past. The Justice Department said in a 2021 memo that during a shutdown, quote, criminal litigation will continue without interruption as an activity essential to the safety of human life and the protection of property. That's the Justice Department's plan, and it assumes that the judicial branch remains fully operational, which it has said in the past could carry on for weeks in the event of a funding lapse. And as I have said, breathlessly since the Mueller probe, and again, at the beginning of this

podcast, special counsel Jack Smith's office is funded by a permanent, indefinite, appropriation for independent councils from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and that's what it's said in a statement of its expenditures. Given its separate funding source, special counsel would not be affected by a shutdown and could run off all allocations from previous years. So this, let's see, we've got Rep Andrew Clyde, Republican from Georgia, Trump ally.

He's on the Appropriations Committee. And he said Monday, he will introduce two amendments to eliminate federal funding for all three of Trump's prosecutions, Jack Smith, Fannie Willis, and DA Alvin Bragg and Manhattan. Matt Gates has said he's pushing to cut off funding for Jack Smith specifically and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan is publicly calling for party leaders to insert provisions into government funding legislation that changes how the Justice Department can use money.

So he probably wants to stop that fully funded US treasury thing from even existing. Now, you're gonna have to get it passed, you should like that, you gotta get passed a Senate, you gotta get Biden to sign it, so no. That's not happening, no, not at all. And, you know, that standard that you are referenced. So activity essential to the safety of human life

and the protection of property. That's the standard that I assume the whole government, but my experience is only within FBI and DOJ, but it's the standard they used to determine essential personnel, people who have to continue coming to work even if there's a full government shutdown. And you're not getting paid during that period, but you still have to come in

and do your job. And so folks on the kind of criminal side of the house, investigators, people who are essential to the continued investigation and prosecution of criminal cases, they are all always declared essential personnel and they keep coming to work. Yeah, and also if you shut them down or shut down the judges, you are infringing on speedy trial rights. I mean, like, there's also, it's in deference to criminal defendants and their rights as well. That's right. That's right. So when I worked at the VA, we, we were going to shut down hospitals? No, we're considered essential. So we weren't furloughed for that time. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I So I don't think we have too much worry about here. Yeah. No, nobody worry. And I know this isn't part of our purview, but the Fanny Willis new

Georgia law where they can have a commission to have her impeached or removed as the DA. We now have the Speaker of the House Republican. We now have Governor Brian Camp. We have like multiple high level high ranking Republicans in the state saying that's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. So they might yell and scream and try, like Matt Gaetz could probably put forth a resolution. It's not going to go anywhere, same with Georgia. So I wouldn't concern myself too much with these little bits of fear that are out there to elicit your emotional response to make you angry. Sounded fury, signifying nothing.

Yes, life is a tale and told by a drunk Rudy. Falling sound and fury, signifying nothing. All right. Well, listen to your questions. All right. What what do we have this week? We have a really interesting one from Rob who sends in from Cornwall, UK. And Rob says, hi, Alison and Andy, thanks for fascinating podcast, really enjoying it here

in the UK. My question, as Trump's counsel, Loro declared in court to Judge Chutkin that a March trial date means he cannot represent his client properly, what is to stop Trump from waiting until mid-February and then sacking his defense teams, citing this declaration? Wouldn't this mean a de facto trial delay of many months? Is there anything the judge can do in the scenario? And if not, what's to stop Trump from just doing this again, approaching any new trial date?

Cheers. That's such a good question. It is a good question. And on its face, it seems like it would be a great strategy for delay so you could just count on the fact that this will happen at some point. But someone's thought of it before. That's right. And so there are protections.

That's right. Even for someone like Trump who so quickly hires and fires lawyers like right and left. So what would happen in this case? If Trump tries to fire Laura in any period, running right up to the trial date, Laura would need to get leave of court or permission of the judge to actually stop representing Trump.

And then Trump would have to add additional counsel. So that's how that would have to work. So that what would likely happen is the judge would not permit Loro to leave. Now, Trump can say, Loro, you're fired. I don't like you anymore, but it's very different from the judge's perspective. She can require Loro to continue to represent Trump. Now, what she would probably do, I think in this under these circumstances, she would deny Loro's request

to terminate his representation of Trump, but she would probably also allow Trump to bring on another attorney. If there was some other attorney that he preferred in that moment, maybe probably she would probably give that attorney some very minimal period to come up to speed on the case.

Realizing that he doesn't have, it's not quite as hard to come up to speed because Loro is still there helping him call the shots. So yeah, you would probably get a minimal delay out of it, but it's unlikely that it would be used successfully to delay the trial for months and months and months. Either way, the strategy is really designed to create an issue on appeal. Trump wants to be able to go back after he's convicted. Go, convicted, excuse me, go to the appellate court and say, I was denied my preferred counsel. The counsel I had was insufficient. So I had an ineffective assistance of council appeal. And he wants to just layer in as many of these arguments

on appeal to fight any sort of conviction he might get stuck with. And that would, these would certainly add to that list, but probably they'd be unlikely to succeed. Yeah, and we already know that this team is making considerations for appeal and sort of operating under the assumption that Trump is probably going to be convicted in this case because we talked about them, you know, wanting to talk, you know, refer to the

Electoral Count Act as a big U.S. and vague, much like the Ken Macdonald case that Jack Smith brought that was overturned by the Supreme Court because they found that the corruption statute for bribery was vague and overbroad and weird. Now you can't prosecute anybody for bribery because of that. But I really truly think that they are really sort of lining their ducks up for appeals here. And that's why he went on the record at the end of that sentencing hearing to say, you are infringing on his sixth amendment, right?

You are doing this. You are making defense impossible. And that's why this question was sent in. So really good question. Great question. And it really got to get back to the fact that Trump's defense strategy, in this case, is a political strategy.

So that's why the emphasis on delay. So even he's figuring, okay, I don't want the trial to go before the election, but even if it does go before the election, and if I get convicted, I'll stack up reams and reams of issues on appeal, and that will take a long time. And before that can be resolved, I'll run for president in 2024 and when. And once I win, I will either pardon myself or I'll have DOJ drop all existing or charges or they won't oppose any of my appeals. What have you and just to try to eviscerate

the conviction retrospectively? That's his strategy. So that's why you're gonna constantly see every little opportunity. Take a day to take an hour, take a week back out of the calendar. Every little delay is a victory for them. 100%.

All right, we have a new way to submit questions to our show. I believe there is a link in the show notes for a form that you can fill out. So if you have a question for us, please use that link to send us your questions. We appreciate that. We were losing too many, even with the Jack in the subject line. It was getting, sometimes people put other things

in the subject line and we're getting filtered out. So, and then we would also have 800 million other emails with the word Jack in them somewhere. So, we have a form for you to fill out and the link will be in the show notes. So, we appreciate your questions. Thank you so much for sending them in. Everybody felt like it was a quiet week in Jack's myth land,

but we ended up with another hour long show, my friend. There you go. Every time it's gonna keep happening again and again, we're 40 weeks into this and I feel like we're just getting started. Absolutely. Alright everybody, we will see you next week. It's been wonderful. Good to see you again, Andy. I've been Allison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. M-S-O-W Media.