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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, March 20th,
2023. It's about 11 o'clock in the morning here on the east coast of the United States. Lots to
talk about today in this hot
topics segment that I'm just beginning at this moment. We'll start with the news of the day,
which is that Donald Trump announced over the weekend he expects to be arrested tomorrow,
Tuesday. I mean, it turns out that that expectation is based upon what the former
president saw on television. It's not any formal indication or communication
from the prosecutors in New York to his lawyers. But here's the case. It's not the strongest case
against Donald Trump. I think the charges that will soon come from Atlanta are stronger,
and the charges that the feds are contemplating, both for January 6th and for Mar-a-Lago. The documents at Mar-a-Lago are stronger. But the case in New York is this. Donald Trump paid through a rather
circuitous route, a porn star whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, $130,000 to remain silent.
Trump claims he paid her this money to save his marriage. The person who
orchestrated the payment claims that Trump paid her this money in order to save his campaign for
president. The payment was made in late October of 2016 when then Mr. Donald Trump was running
against Hillary Clinton in the presidential campaign that was to come in another two weeks.
The payment was made a week after the infamous Access Hollywood tapes, which portrayed Trump in
a very negative light with respect to personal intimate decorum and women. The least he wanted
at that stage of the campaign was Stormy Daniels in front of television cameras
talking about the relationship that they had in which she alleges she had sex with him in return
for dinner and in return for a promise to be on his show The Apprentice. This alleged sexual act happened in 2006. Donald Trump denies the sexual act, denies the promise to put her on The Apprentice.
Okay, what's the potential crime?
Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer at the time, took out a $150,000 home equity loan on his own apartment in New York City, deposited $130,000 of that $150,000 in a shell Delaware
corporation that he set up for the sole purpose of transferring funds. The Delaware corporation
transferred the $130,000 to a lawyer in California who took out his fee and gave the rest to Stormy Daniels. How was this booked on the Trump Corporation records? It was
booked as a legal expense because the Trump Organization, that's the umbrella company that
owns and manages Trump's thousands, plural, thousands of smaller corporations. The Trump Organization paid Michael Cohen back $10,000 a month for 13
months. These were booked as legal fees. When the feds learned of this, they indicted Michael Cohen
for orchestrating a scheme in violation of federal election law. What's the violation
of federal election law? Well, the use of corporate funds
for a campaign is a felony. So a federal judge accepted Michael Cohen's guilty plea
to orchestrating a scheme whereby corporate funds, the money that was paid from the Trump
organization to Michael Cohen to reimburse him for what he paid Stormy Daniels was really disguised campaign
payment because a federal judge found that this was done to save Trump's campaign, not to save
his marriage. So booking as legal expenses, that which are truly not legal expenses,
is a very low level offense in New York. It's a misdemeanor.
It's basically a bookkeeping error. You pay a fine, you correct your books, it's over with.
But if the bookkeeping error was done to mask a felony, that's the felony to which Michael Cohen pleaded guilty, which is orchestrating the payment of corporate funds for a campaign.
If the bookkeeping deception was made to mask a felony, then the bookkeeping deception itself is a felony, and whoever orchestrated this or benefited by it can go to jail.
That's the essence of what I think the charges will be against Donald Trump.
These charges have been the subject of investigation
in Manhattan for years. The current DA, Alvin Braggs, inherited this case from his predecessor,
Cesar Cy Vance. Cy Vance investigated this case for two years, hired two former federal
prosecutors and a bunch of ex-FBI agents to investigate Donald Trump. Cy Vance decided to
retire. Alvin Bragg ran for the office to replace him. Bragg ran on a platform of not engaging in
political prosecutions, becomes the DA, looks at the evidence, throws it out, said, we're not going
to indict Trump. Whereupon, the team of investigators and prosecutors that had been investigating Trump quit.
And one of them wrote a book about all the evidence they accumulated and how Alvin Bragg looked at the evidence improperly.
And then Alvin Bragg changed his mind and decided, well, let's open up this investigation again,
whereupon they opened up the investigation.
They asked the court to summon a grand jury, 23 citizens who meet in secret.
There's no judge there.
There's no defense counsel there.
There's no defendant there.
There's only the grand jury, the prosecutors, and whoever their witnesses are.
The grand jury starts hearing evidence against Trump, including Michael Cohen.
And now it appears the grand jury is on the verge of indicting Trump.
One of the television stations in New York City reported that indictment will come down tomorrow
and that Trump would be arrested tomorrow. I don't think Trump's going to be arrested
in the traditional sense where they're going to grab him and put handcuffs on him.
I think like in most white-collar cases, not Roger Stone's. Remember, they sent 25 armed
federal agents, some dressed in military gear, two helicopters and a gunboat in a canal behind
Stone's house to arrest him at 530 in the morning. But another story for another time. I think
they'll say to Trump's lawyers, your client has been indicted. Would he
please surrender? The surrender will simply mean him walking into a state courthouse with secret
service and then being booked. Booked is a relatively benign process. It's a little demeaning
and humiliating, but it's benign. It's not painful. They will take
his fingerprints and they will then do something I know he doesn't want done. They will weigh him.
They will measure him, how tall he is. They will then take mug shots of him. Those things will be
around the world in a heartbeat. He'll then appear before a judge. The judge will ask him,
you are Donald Trump. Do you understand the charges? He'll say, yes. Okay. I'm not going to impose bail. We all know who you are. The next appearance
in this courtroom is they'll give the date and Trump will leave probably as Stone did to the
applause of the crowd outside the courthouse. That all will probably happen this week. Trump will argue that this is
a bookkeeping error and a witch hunt, and this is the weaponization of the criminal justice system.
The prosecutors will argue this was a conspiracy to defraud the United States by using corporate funds for campaign purposes, which are a criminal,
which are a felony. And the courts and the prosecutors should not take politics into
account when they decide who to prosecute. Donald Trump should be treated like anybody else.
And the court will decide which of these is the stronger argument? And if the court decides to let the case go forward, no one's ever been prosecuted for
bookkeeping errors to mask a political donation.
As far as I know, in the New York state system before, the feds have prosecuted people for
this, as they did with Michael Cohen.
If it goes to a jury, then the jury will have to decide, was this money paid to save Trump's marriage?
Or was this money paid to save Trump's campaign?
This was a rather sophisticated scheme that Michael Cohen set up. the release papers on the trunk of a car outside of a studio from which she walked out from which
she walked because she was engaged in making a pornographic movie at the time her lawyers
approached her and said, I need you to sign the document and then you'll have the check.
She signed under an assumed name. Trump signed his documents, not in such a lurid environment, but under an assumed name.
So when he says, I didn't sign anything, he means he didn't sign his name to anything. He signed
under an assumed name. All of this is going to come out. As we speak, one of Michael Cohen's
former lawyers is testifying before the same grand jury. Cohen says this guy was never his lawyer.
The guy says he was never Cohen's lawyer, but they talked about the case. The guy is a lawyer named
Robert Costello. Those of us who've been practicing law for or in the legal judicial system in this
part of the country for more than 25 or 30 years all know and respect Bob Costello. He is a highly respected lawyer. He's telling
the grand jury that Michael Cohen told him that this whole scheme was to preserve Trump's marriage
and not to preserve the campaign. Grand jury will decide who they believe. Trump was given
the opportunity to testify before this grand jury turned it down. A good move. One of the
problems for Mr. Cohen is
that the problem for anybody who testifies on behalf of a defendant before a grand jury
is that because the grand jury meets in secret, you don't know what they know.
So you're basically going to deny something before you heard the accusation. That's a good reason for a defendant never to testify before
a grand jury. So Bob Costello, again, as I speak, is testifying before that grand jury,
has a tough row to hoe because he doesn't know exactly what the allegations are. The original allegations against Trump, the ones that Alvin Bragg
decided not to charge, actually accused him of racketeering, accused him of gauging in a pattern
of criminal behavior in order to enrich himself. That's a devastating charge because if the government can prove that, the jury can award three times the wealth amassed as a penalty, as well as the judge sending you to jail.
That would bankrupt Trump and bankrupt the Trump organization.
I don't know if that is still on the table. Also, as we speak, another lawyer is testifying before another grand jury,
and this lawyer, Evan Corcoran, is still one of Trump's lawyers. How can your lawyer testify
against you before a grand jury? What about the attorney-client privilege?
Well, when your humble correspondent went to law school, the attorney-client privilege was absolute.
Lawyer came in, a client would come in and say, I robbed a bank. I need you to get me off the hook.
You can't reveal what the client told you. But if the client comes in and says, I plan to rob a bank,
I need you to help me get off the hook. Well, that the lawyer can be made to discuss.
That is called the crime fraud exception. So if the client solicits legal
advice in order to perpetrate a crime or a fraud, then the communications between the lawyer and the
client are no longer privileged. They're no longer secret. So when the Fed subpoenaed Evan Corcoran,
one of Donald Trump's lawyers in Florida,
Corcoran said, attorney client privilege, I'm not answering.
The Fed said crime fraud exception.
That required the Feds to prove the crime fraud exception.
So unbeknownst to the rest of us, a secret trial was held in Washington, D.C., at which FBI agents testified as to whatever this crime or fraud is that Donald Trump, they say, committed on the basis of the legal advice that Evan Corcoran gave him.
And the judge said, yes, there was a fraud or there was a crime committed.
Mr. Corcoran, there is no attorney-client privilege.
You will answer questions truthfully before the grand jury. So that grand jury
investigating Mar-a-Lago will be hearing testimony from one of Donald Trump's current lawyers
at the same time that Bob Costello, one of Michael Cohen's, if you're still with me,
former lawyers, will be testifying in the Trump grand jury in lower Manhattan.
While all of this is happening, the Department of Justice has filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, which invalidated one of the many, many federal gun laws.
So one of the many federal gun laws, which the Congress has no right to legislate whatsoever,
because we now know that guns, just like abortion, are state matters.
One of the federal gun laws says if you've been convicted of domestic violence,
even something as simple as a slap,
I'm not defending domestic violence, and I'm not gainsaying, and I'm just saying it could be of
any variety. If you're convicted of domestic violence, you can't own a gun, even if you no
longer live with the person against whom you committed the domestic violence. A man in Texas
was found guilty of this. He appealed to the Fifth Circuit.
It upheld his conviction. Then the Supreme Court's decision in Bruin came down. That's the decision
last June, which said, A, gun regulations are for the states, and B, the presumption is that
everybody can own and everybody can carry a gun.
And if the state doesn't want somebody to carry a gun, they have to prove why.
There's no presumption that you should not own it.
So then the Fifth Circuit reheard this young man's appeal and it reversed itself and said,
after the Bruin case, you are presumed to be able to own a gun.
You can't just be presumed not to own a gun
because of this federal statute. The federal statute is unconstitutional.
So the feds have asked the Supreme Court to rule on that, and they will do so rather quickly
because it affects thousands and thousands of gun owners in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. While all of this is going on,
Governor Gavin Newsom is threatening to spend tens of billions of dollars from the California
Treasury without legislation from the California legislature to give away between $250,000 and
$360,000 to every adult African American living in California because of slavery.
Now, California was a free state.
Slavery was never legal there.
But the theory of what Governor Newsom wants to do is that African Americans have suffered egregiously because of slavery, whether their ancestors were slaves, whether their ancestors were slaves in other states or not. The head scratcher is how he can spend this
money without authorization by the legislature. That's absolutely unconstitutional because the
Supreme Court has ruled that the guarantee clause in the Constitution guarantees a Republican, lowercase r, form of government in the states.
That means the legislature writes the laws, the executive enforces the laws, the judicial branch interprets the laws, and one can't do what the other is supposed to do.
So if Gavin Newsom, as crazy as this idea is, I think this is insane, but if Gavin Newsom
wants to spend that kind of money on this kind of political hot potato, he can only do so without,
he can only do so with legislation. This morning, he's threatening to do it without legislation.
And finally, in our hot topics, where was President Putin over the weekend? President Putin was in Crimea. Crimea, of course, according to President Vladimir Zelensky, is part of the Ukraine. Crimea, as most of you who are fans of judging freedom know, has been part of Russia since the 1730s. There have been arguments back and forth. There have been fights back and forth. There have
been border disputes back and forth. But for most of the past 290 years, longer than America has
been a country, Crimea has been part of Russia. It's Russian speaking. It's Russia culturally. Ukraine says it's going to take Crimea back.
This crazy Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, you've seen us run the clips of her.
She says we should help them take it back by force if necessary by attacking Crimea and killing the
civilians who live there. Insane. Anyway, President Putin showed up there over the weekend and, of course,
was greeted very warmly and very affectionately by the people who were chosen to be on television
with him. It's interesting he did this when he did, because on Friday, President Putin was indicted,
no, not by a grand jury in Manhattan, not by Alvin Bragg, but by judges at
the International Criminal Court in The Hague. And he was indicted for the war crime of, no,
not killing people, not waging war on civilians, but kidnapping children. Kidnapping children?
Yes. The Russian, part of the Russian government, I don't know what this service is called, but it's the service that looks after widows and orphans, has picked up Ukrainian orphans off the streets, young children whose parents and relatives were killed in the Russia-Ukraine military conflict and brought them to Russia for health and safety and is looking for their
Ukrainian relatives. That's the Kremlin version of this. The Ukraine version of this is that these
kids were kidnapped, the Russians know exactly who their parents are, and they're being sent to
education camps to propagandize them and get them to believe that Russia is good and Ukraine is evil. I don't know which is the truth here.
It seems to me there is more evidence that the childrens were orphans and the Russians were
actually saving the children's lives because if they wandered around as orphans in these areas
where the war is being fought, it's more likely than not that they would be killed. Nevertheless, the International Criminal Court has declared
Vladimir Putin an outlaw, has issued an arrest warrant for him, and he can be arrested almost
anywhere in the world except for the five countries that did not sign the Treaty of Rome,
which established the International Criminal Court. I wonder what those countries are. Russia,
China, North Korea, Iran, and even though Joe Biden said, good, I'm glad he was indicted,
the United States. So those five countries, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and the U.S.
do not recognize the International Criminal Court,
even though President Biden and his allies here in the U.S. have praised the court
for indicting Vladimir Putin. You can't make this stuff up.
So back to where we started. We will watch very aggressively what's happening in all matters, Trump.
As you may know, I've been happy to be all over radio and all over television today and will continue to do so.
But judging freedom and you, of course, are my priorities.
We have our usual wonderful guests on later in the week. We have Ray McGovern, the rogue CIA agent,
great human being who'll tell us what the CIA is up to next. We have Colonel McGregor.
We have Scott Ritter. We have Ed Rollins who'll tell us what's going on in the Republican Party. Can Ron DeSantis and Chris Christie really inherit Trump's mantle? Or is Trump not damaged
goods? Are these indictments actually going to help him?
That's what we'll be discussing there.
And I thank you again so much for watching.
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Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.