Judging Freedom - Trump in Contempt - What He Should Have Done

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

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Hello there, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, April 25th, 2022. It's about one o'clock in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. held in contempt of court by a New York State Supreme Court Justice who's presiding over an effort by the Attorney General of the State of New York to obtain documents from the former President and from his principal operating company known as the Trump Organization. Now, let's just take a step back. The Attorney General, Letitia James James has not filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump, but she is using a procedure that allows her to examine records and business records of his to determine whether or not he should be sued. She has examined some 900,000 pages of business records, but there apparently is an old-fashioned four-drawer steel file cabinet full of records, locked and not available to her. And she subpoenaed the contents of that file cabinet, and the president, the former president, complied or responded to

the subpoena by saying he would turn over what he had. When he only turned over nine pages, and presumably there's more than nine pages in this four-drawer locked filing cabinet, she filed an application to have him held in contempt. He responded by saying he gave everything he had. The court didn't believe him. And this morning, just this afternoon, actually, about 1230 p.m. Eastern time, just 30 minutes ago, a court for the first time in American history held a former president of the United States in contempt. Now, this is what's known as civil contempt. This is not the contempt for which you go to jail. This is contempt intended to coerce the contemnor, that's the word, the person who is held in contempt into complying.

What's the coercive means? A fine. How much is the fine? It's peanuts by Trump's standards, but it's a lot of money to the rest of us. The fine is $10,000 a day starting today until the president surrenders the contents of that four-drawer steel filing cabinet. The president's people say whatever is in that cabinet has nothing to do with the president. They're corporate records, but they have nothing to do with the president. They're corporate records, but they have nothing to do with Donald Trump himself. The judge says that's not for him to decide. The documents have been subpoenaed. If you think there's a privilege in those documents, you can send them to me, the judge in this case, whose name is Edgerton, Justice Edgerton, and he'll look at the documents in secret,

and he'll decide whether to return them to Donald Trump or surrender them to Attorney General James. So that's where we stand. It's another legal setback for President Trump. I don't think he's getting very good legal representation in this case. His lawyers should have said, Judge, how about you look at these documents in secret? Or, since there's so many of them, how about you appoint a special master, usually a retired judge, to look at them in secret? And the special master will decide whether or not they are subject to the subpoena. But his lawyers did not suggest that. He lost this.

It's a significant legal, financial, I don't know how significant it is financially because it's worth a lot of money, but it's a significant legal and political blow to him that a judge would hold him in contempt and really exacerbate his relationship with the Attorney General of New York. We'll see where it goes. He filed a federal lawsuit asking a federal judge to block the Attorney General from investigating him. Now, there's a statute that prohibits, it's called the Anti-Injunction Act, it prohibits federal courts from interfering with investigations by the states. But a federal court has not yet ruled on it. We'll see where it goes. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. you