No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Trump's last-ditch effort to avoid prosecution blows up in his face

Episode Date: March 26, 2023

Trump employs a last-ditch strategy to get out of his impending indictments. Brian interviews the liberal candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, Janet Protasiewicz, about what’s at stake in this upcoming race as far as abortion and fair maps are concerned. And former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner joins to discuss when we can expect the indictment against Trump to be handed down in the Manhattan DA case, and whether he’s hurt his own cause with his continuous threats of violence.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about Trump's last-ditch strategy to get out of his impending indictments and whether it'll backfire on him. I interviewed the liberal candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, Janet Protasewitz, about what's at stake in this upcoming race as far as abortion and fair maps are concerned. And I'm joined by former federal prosecutor and my co-host for our YouTube legal series, The Legal Breakdown, Glenn Kersner, to discuss when we can expect the indictment against Trump to be handed down in the Manhattan DA case and whether he's hurt his own cause with his continuous threats of violence. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So we're still in a holding pattern as far as Trump's impending indictments are concerned.

I think the whole world expected it to be handed down last week in the Manhattan DA's case owed largely to the fact that Trump himself had taken a true social to announce that he would be arrested on Tuesday. Obviously, that didn't happen, but it's still expected to happen any day now. I'll get more into that with my guest, Glenn Kirchner, later in the show. But I want to focus now on this last-ditch effort by Trump to try. try and stave off any accountability here. And so the guy currently awaiting indictment in one case regarding inciting violence has decided to try and dissuade prosecution by inciting more violence.

Like, perfect plan, can't imagine what could possibly go wrong. There have been a few steps that Trump has taken here, like all progressively more aggressive than the last. He started with some posts on true social where he'd say stuff like the far and away leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States of America will be arrested on Tuesday of next week. protests take our nation back. And another post that said,

we must save America, protest, protest, protest. Certainly evocative of his pre-January 6th tweet where he said, big protest in D.C., be there, will be wild. But then Trump took it a step further. He posted again, this time, directed to the NYPD, quote, can you imagine the great New York City Police Department having to defend and protect the defunders

and cop haters of the radical left that want to put their greatest champion and friend in prison for a crime that does not exist? And so the intent of a post like that, that now is that Trump wants to try to get the police not to defend the law, but him. And to tell the police that the left shouldn't have the benefit of protection from the police, only the right should. Coming at you straight from the guy that leads the law and order party.

And those appeals were bad enough onto themselves. I don't want to understate the danger in the fucking former president of the United States telling the cops that right-wing violence is okay because it would be against the left. And the fact that we will tend to move beyond that without a second thought really does show how far the Overton window has shifted that we consider this just another Tuesday in this country. But I guess it makes sense when you consider that the next moves by Trump were to post a photo of him holding a baseball bat in a side-by-side next to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, followed by another post where he then wrote, what kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former president of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting president in history and leading candidate by far for the Republican Party nomination

with a crime when it is known that no crime has been committed and also known that potential death and destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our country. And so it doesn't take much to figure out what he's trying to do here by saying that there will potentially be death and destruction if he's indicted, all of which, of course, is a wink and a nod to his supporters. And this isn't discreet, right? This isn't exactly the most coded mess.

message he's ever sent. He's effectively sending a message to his supporters that should he be indicted, it'd be a real shame if some death and destruction were to happen. I'm not saying that it should. I'm just saying it would be a real shame if something were to happen. And of course, Trump did use the word potential because clearly he thinks that throwing in that one qualifier is going to shield him from any and all culpability if and when his supporters do descend onto New York and cause death and destruction. And because he threw in that word, he thinks that now he's covered from all liability. Basically, that he can save himself now on a technicality. He's trying to get just enough cover so that he can very obviously get his message across to his supporters

while still maintaining some degree of plausible deniability. And so now he gets to be all slick and still get the murderous mob that he's looking for. So that's one part of this, that you've got the guy leading one of the two major political parties in this country who is openly, yet again, trying to incite a mob to violence. But the other part of this entire thing, entire episode is what kind of an impact all of this is going to have, politically speaking. And Trump and his mouthpieces are, of course, wishcasting that any impending indictment is only going to make him stronger. And I'm sitting here racking my brain about the ways in which that could be true. And I just don't see a planet on which it is. Like, will it invigorate the people

who already support him and who are already conditioned to feel like any accountability for a conservative is just witch hunting? Sure. But those people are going to vote for Trump anyway. And that's the thing. The people who are in a position to be influenced by Trump's whole pity party here are already Trump supporters. They're the base. The question is whether softars or independence, look at a guy who has been indicted for either campaign finance violations or trying to overthrow the last election and think to themselves, you know, I was on the fence. But now that I saw that a jury of his peers found enough evidence against him to vote for indictment, he's my guy. I just don't think that's the case. At best, Best, an indictment will have no impact, but I don't think there's a world in which this could possibly help him. And he knows that. That's why he's railing so hard against us. If he truly thought that any of this would redound to his benefit, he wouldn't be stoking

a fucking mob in trying to pressure prosecutors into bailing. He knows this will only hurt his chances at keeping power, which is quite literally the only thing he cares about. Sometimes the right answer is the simplest one. And in this case, it doesn't get much simpler than recognizing that none of what's happening. here is going to help Donald Trump, and that is something that he is intimately aware of. Next step is my interview with Janet Protisewitz. Now we have candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Janet Protisawitz.

Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for having me. We are just days away from this election. This is the most important election in the entire country right now. Now, a major focus for me has been democracy and fair maps. What's the state of the maps in Wisconsin?

Right now? Well, right now, we have amongst the most gerrymandered maps in the entire country. And I've told people, I don't think you can sell to anybody that our maps are fair. They are gerrymandered to the point that I think they would really defy reason and defy logic. So we're dealing with amongst the most gerrymandered maps you can imagine. Is there any likelihood of a challenge to these maps coming before the court? Are there any cases making their way through the courts right now? Not that I'm aware of. And so here's the situation. I think that if the court elects a new Supreme Court justice on April 4th, who's name might be Judge Janet, I would be certainly very, very open to revisiting the maps. You know, I've got to be careful, you know, what I say about, you know,

particular types of issues. Obviously, every decision has to be rooted in the law, and I have to be fair and impartial. But one of the main reasons I got into this race is because of the threat to our democracy, the utter threat that our very gerrymandered maps. Yeah, right, and people's ability to vote and have their vote counted. Can you give like a brief overview of what the situation, the electoral situation looks like in Wisconsin right now in terms of what the breakdown of the state is versus the makeup of the legislature and the congressional delegation? Sure. So, you know, Wisconsin's a battleground state. We have very, very close. statewide elections. Our governor, Governor-evere is one re-election by about 3%. But we elected on that same

ballot, a Republican United States Senator. We elected a Democrat as an attorney general. We elected a Republican for our state treasurer. So it tells you that we have these very, very close elections. We're a battleground state. But then you take a look at our legislature in virtually two-thirds of the seats in both the House and the Senate are red. And you say to yourself, how can that possibly be fair? And then you look at the fact that we have eight congressional seats. We have a delegation of eight. Six of those seats are red and two are blue. So you know the numbers are askew. You know, our legislature doesn't get anything done. When you have these very, very non-competitive seats, you know, it's certainly engenders more and more partisanship. There's no need to work across the aisle.

There's no need to compromise. So I would argue that what's happening with these gerrymandered seats is really a threat to our democracy. And in fact, building on that far from engendering any type of bipartisanship, this is actually facilitating more extremism because those are the only people now. Because those districts are already preordained in terms of who the elected officials are going to be, you're just really trying to win a primary at that point and not trying to come together at the end of it. With that said, how would your opponent, Dan Kelly, likely rule if the issue of Wisconsin's gerrymandered maps ever came in front of him? Well, let me tell you, those maps would stay exactly the same, and I'll tell you why. You know, he was very active, you know, a number of years ago, 2011, I would believe, you know, in regard to what was called Act 43. And Act 43 started the horrific gerrymandering that we have.

He was actively advising the Republican Party of the state of Wisconsin on that gerrymandering case. And, you know, that when he came to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, he showed more of his colors, you know, always voting for his special interests, never once veering from that political lame. And even more so, after he lost his Supreme Court race, you know, working for the Republican Party. and actually advising the Republicans here in the state of Wisconsin about the fake electors scheme. I mean, really unbelievable the activities that he was engaged in. On that exact point, you know, this is what I think is the craziest part because, you know, some of Wisconsin's legitimate electors

have sued the alternate slate of Trump electors and they're seeking financial penalties right now. That case could go to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. As you alluded to, Dan Kelly literally was part of that whole scheme. He provided paid legal advice to the chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party regarding those very alternate electors. Can you just speak on that? Well, I would say that he has shown himself to be an extremist over and over and over again. You know, there's no way he's going to recuse himself from that case.

One case, he did recuse himself from a number of years ago. After he received $20,000 in donations from one of the parties, he quote, unrecused himself. I didn't even know that you could, unrecuse yourself. And I don't know on what basis you unrecuse yourself. You can. It just cost $20,000 to do, actually. Yeah. And then we have a commercial saying just that.

And I think that he's finding that commercial somewhat irritating. Yeah. So just, you know, just that. So, you know, I think that the voters in the state of Wisconsin have a very stark, stark contrast between their candidates when they make a decision by April 4th. Now, let's say, just gaming this out, that Trump becomes the Republican nominee again in 2024. and the people of Wisconsin vote and Republicans challenge that vote because, of course, they do. Is there a world in which the outcome of that election is in the hands of the Wisconsin Supreme Court? 100%. I would anticipate that it is likely that that litigation will once again and come in front of our Wisconsin Supreme Court.

You know, the 2020 presidential elections came in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. President Biden won the state of Wisconsin. And then we have my opponent, you know, counseling people. in regard to the fake electors scheme. That came in front of our Wisconsin Supreme Court. It is pretty stunning that that case went to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Other courts around the country were not hearing that case. They were not interested in that case.

They understood, you know, what was happening. Our Supreme Court not only took the case and heard it, our Supreme Court voted four to three, four to three to uphold the results. By just one vote, Wisconsin's electoral votes could have been quashed, quite frankly. It's utterly terrifying. And on that point, has Dan Kelly given any indication on where he stands if that whole Trump undermining election scheme were to come in front of him? Well, I think we know what he would do if the Trump undermining scheme came in front of him.

I don't think that he's commented specifically on what he would do, but he's been very clear that he doesn't think that we need to recusal rule in the state of Wisconsin. He's been very, very clear about that. And given that, combined with his Republican ties, combined with the fake elector, I would anticipate he'd stay on the case. Now, the states have kind of emerged as ground zero in the fight for reproductive rights, abortion rights. What's your personal view on abortion rights?

My personal view is that women should have a right to make their own reproductive health decisions without the interference of the government. We hear about this 1849 abortion ban in the state of Wisconsin. Is that in effect in the state right now? It's in effect right now. And I'm going to tell you what's really interesting about that. You know, women cannot get an abortion. in the state of Wisconsin right now, no matter what the circumstances are.

But I had a meet and greet with a number of OBGYNs a couple weeks ago. And what they said to me was very, very interesting. They said it's not just these issues that the women who need a medical procedure have that's, you know, coming before, you know, that's concerning people. They were telling me doctors don't want to practice medicine in the state of Wisconsin. They don't feel as though they can adequately, you know, treat their patients. And one physician actually said to me, besides the physician attrition issue that she's concerned about, she said, you know, my daughter lives in a state where you could get an abortion.

She's planning to get married and raise a family. She wanted to move back to the state of Wisconsin. She's not coming back to Wisconsin anymore. And the reason she's not coming back is she's concerned she can't have the medical care that she might need in the event that something would go wrong with the pregnancy. Yeah. And that makes that makes perfect sense. And just like all of these states that are similar to Wisconsin enacting these like draconian laws and edicts, that is a great way to kind of push any talent away, whether it's for, like you said,

healthcare professionals or any other, you know, any other professionals in any other realm, any other job. So, you know, I think if the goal here is to kind of have a healthy, vibrant functioning economy and society, imposing draconian laws on the people that you're trying to draw in isn't exactly going to do the trick. What is your opponent's position, Dan Kelly's position, as far as abortion is concerned? Well, I can tell you with 100% certainty, I am sure, I am sure and certain that he would vote to uphold the 1849 ban. Not only did he provide legal counsel to the Wisconsin Right to Life.

No, Wisconsin Right to Life is very extreme. They don't even support a woman's right to choose in cases of rape or incest. If you look at their website, there's a picture of him, a picture of him with their endorsement, indicating that they're endorsing him because he's pledged to uphold their values. So I don't think it's any secret what he is going to do. Aside from, you know, the anecdote with the healthcare professionals that you'd spoken with, was there a moment on the campaign trail that kind of brought to the forefront for you or really, I mean, not that you needed a moment to prove how important this issue is,

but was there a moment that kind of stuck with you as far as the issue of abortion is concerned? You know, it's kind of interesting that you would say that I was doing a meet and grief on a really cold, blustery day in a small town in Wisconsin. And a woman who was about 90 years old, I would anticipate her guess or estimate, came to that meet and greet. And we were talking and she said, I probably shouldn't have come here today. I could have slipped on the ice. I could have, you know, if I break a hip, it's all going to be downhill for me. But she said it is so critically important that women have a right to choose that that's why I'm here. I received a $25 check in the mail sent to my house from somebody who sent me a letter to that

same effect. And she said, I'm 89 years old, women can't lose this right. And she included her phone number. I called her, and I think I got probably a family member or a caretaker who said she's taking a nap. She won't even believe you called her back. And I called her because she sent that note, and it was just absolutely so heartfelt. But I felt like, I need to give you a call and tell you, thank you.

and I hear you. On that note, you know, there's obviously a lot of older folks for whom this is super important. And a lot of them were around when the initial decision of Roe was decided. What about young people? What would you say to young people who may not know whether it's worth it, for example, to turn out in this election? Well, it's interesting because I think that you make a really valid and concerning point about that. Because I think when you're born and raised in an era, when you have the protections of role, you don't really understand when they've been stripped away. But we have been working very, very hard to make sure that we educate people all over the state about what is going to happen if, in fact, my opponent is elected. We've been working

very hard. We've been on the college campuses. We've been doing a lot of social media. We've been doing a lot of digital. We've been doing everything we possibly can to reach out across, you know, the entire state of Wisconsin and to every constituency. On that point, you know, you've been on the campaign trail for a while now. What is resonating most with people? I know that, like, from the outside here, we have our issues that are all important to us, you know, the issues of fair maps of abortion. What does seem to be resonating most with people within the state of Wisconsin?

Those two issues the most, everywhere I go. Everywhere from urban areas to suburban areas to rural areas and every place in between. that's resonating. But there's an overarching concern that's resonating as well. And that overarching concern is people don't feel as though their Supreme Court is fair and independent. They want to get away from the extremism. They want to get away from preordained outcomes. They want a Supreme Court that's independent and fair. And that seems to be, you know, a really resonating common denominator no matter where I go. What about support from Republicans or conservatives or soft Republicans. Have you heard from any of them since you've been on the campaign show?

Yes, and we have significant support from them, which I think is wonderful. That's why I never classify my opponent as a conservative. I classify him as an extremist. I would love to earn conservative support. All of it, if possible, but at least some of it, along with the independence and people more on the left. But yes, the soft conservatives tell me You know what, Janet, I am a conservative because I like people to be careful with money and how much money the government spends. But damn it, I think women should have a right to choose. And, you know, also people are kind of pragmatically interesting about those maps. They'll say we get that the party in power, you know, draws the maps and that they might be, you know, somewhat more in favor of the party in power.

They'll say, we understand that. We don't understand, you know, the level. with our maps, the level of unfairness. And that's what they say. Yeah. The greed is as obvious as it gets. Right. Right. Finally, let's end with this. There has not been a race where I've heard more about dairy than any time there's a race coming up in Wisconsin. And, you know, as you're like prototypical Californian who not only doesn't eat dairy, but is allergic to dairy, this is like my worst nightmare scenario. But I'm curious about your thoughts on have you ever eaten vegan cheese and what your thoughts are on that.

And you don't have to answer this question because I don't want to screw anything up for you here. I inadvertently ordered some vegan cheese from, I do impassable foods. Yeah. And I, because I think it's good for the environment. So this, you know, these fruits and vegetables, you know, other surplus products don't go to waste.

I inadvertently ordered some vegan parmesan cheese for my pasta. And I was completely surprised. I thought this tastes not quite like what I, usually enjoy and I looked at the container and I saw that I bought vegan cheese and it was it was delightful actually likelihood of any vegan dairy products catching on in a state like Wisconsin oh yeah I mean I'll have to say this yes we are absolutely consider ourselves the dairy state we have a lot of vegetarians and vegans right here in the state of Wisconsin most of our grocery stores have sections with lots of other options I don't know I

I think, I think if me coming from where I live right now in California and walking into a Wisconsin supermarket, I think if I saw your dairy free section, I think it might actually kill me. It might kill you, but you might find it fun too. Yeah. We'll leave it there. Finally, how can, how can my viewers, listeners help? Oh, I would really love to have them help.

Go to take a look at the Janet for Justice website. You know, there's all sorts of things you can do. People from all across the country are writing postcards. People from all across the country are phone banking. Just take a look at Janet for Justice.com. There are all sorts of opportunities that people can have to help. And I would reiterate that. For anybody watching and listening right now, this race is, you know, the most important one

in the entire country right now. In the past, we've been, you know, we've had races to contend with during these major election cycles, midterms where we were watching races in Georgia and Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan. And, you know, we've spread all of our time and commitments and money all throughout the entire country. right now we have like the benefit of just being able to focus all of our energy on this one race right here so for anybody watching listening please focus some of that energy on this race right here we don't have to worry about any other race in any other state right now this is the entire thing and wisconsin is often the tipping point state in this country so if we want to see fair maps in wisconsin which could have a huge impact in terms of the congressional delegation in terms of the presidency it all starts with with uh this supreme court race right here so uh just to kind of echo your call for some support in this race.

So with that said, Judge Janet, thank you so much for taking the time and best of luck these last few days in the campaign trail. Thank you so very, very much. Now we've got former federal prosecutor and co-host of our legal series on YouTube, The Legal Breakdown, Glenn Kershner. Glenn, thanks so much for taking the time.

Hey, Brian, great to be with you. So the grand jury in the Manhattan DA's case was called off this week, and this was while we were kind of expecting an indictment to be handed down. What are the possibilities, terms of when they'll hold this indictment vote? You know, so there are several possibilities.

So I think it's important to know that just because the grand jury votes to indict on a particular day, it is very unlikely that the indictment would be unsealed and an arrest would be made the same day. Because here's how it ordinarily works. We go into the grand jury at the end of an investigation. We say, folks, we think the evidence supports you voting on these. five charges. For example, the grand jury will vote. If they vote to indict, that remains sealed because the next thing we have to do is we have to go to the judge. We have to get an arrest warrant for the

person who has just been indicted by the grand jury. And then we have to go about arresting the person before he or she ever gets wind that there's been an indictment. So if an indictment was handed down on Wednesday, you might not see an arrest until the following. week when all of the pieces could be put in place. Now, there is some back and forth about whether Donald Trump will or will not be arrested. I think the smart money is riding on a voluntary surrender. In white collar cases, when we don't think the person who has been indicted is a flight risk or a danger to the community, we can put a pin in flight risk, certainly. But what we will ordinarily do is call up the defense attorneys for the target of the

investigation, the person who has just been indicted and say, you know, we want you to turn yourself into FBI headquarters or to the local police department, depending on the jurisdiction at 9 a.m. on Monday, you will be booked and you will then be walked into court and arraigned on the indictment. Okay. Now, because this is such a high profile case, what are you reading from the tea leaves in terms of what you believe has happened so far? Do you believe it's possible that they could have already voted on indictment and that that just hasn't been unsealed yet? Possible but not likely. And here's why I say that. A rebuttal witness, Bob Costello, a mouthpiece, a surrogate for Donald Trump, was put before the grand jury because in New York, a defendant who's

about to be indicted can offer up a witness to try to go into the grand jury and exonerate him or talk the grand jury out of indicting him. And Donald Trump, put up this guy Robert Costello. I think that was a tactical blunder. But Costello testified on Monday, which was the last time the grand jury sat. So I think it's very unlikely, Brian, that Costello would have testified on Monday afternoon. And the next thing the prosecutors would have done is ask the grand jury to vote out an indictment. So I suspect the grand jury has not yet voted, but they could have voted on Monday. And then the DA's office could be going through the process we just described, figuring out when they want to unseal the indictment and when they want

to have Donald Trump voluntarily turn himself in. Okay, so with that said, let's game this out and say that the grand jury does vote to indict and they do move forward with unsealing it and it's time to basically arrest Donald Trump. What's the TikTok of what happens next to Trump in the minutes and hours following? Yeah, so once the grand jury votes to indict him, so between that time and the time he actually walks in the court to be arraigned on the indictment, which just means reading him the indictment so he has notice of the charges against which he has to defend. There are a few things that will go on. First of all, president or no president, former president, or no former president, he will be booked. What does booking look like? Well, before you go to court, you go into a police

station. And the police fill out a whole bunch of paperwork. They get all sorts of background, biographical, address information about you. And then they will fingerprint you. And then they will take mugshots. They will take arrest photos. So Donald Trump may succeed in avoiding a perp walk, but we will see mugshots of a former president of the United States. And let me back up to the perp walk because we've heard some reporting, you know, Donald Trump being all. full of bravado, one of the things he's full of, saying, I want a perp walk because, you know, I'm going to use that basically as a fundraising vehicle. If they can do it to me, they can do it to you. I think it's unlikely that there will be a perk walk. And even more importantly, when I hear

people talk incessantly, Brian, about, well, if Donald Trump's indicted, this is going to help him with his base. It's going to help his poll numbers. It's going to help him politically. Conversely, some people say it's going to hurt him politically. I will tell you, as a career prosecutor, I would tune all of that out because I would never make a charging decision or an indictment decision based on those sorts of collateral consequences. Every time I decided to indict somebody, I knew I would likely make a batch of people happy and a batch of people unhappy, regardless of whether I decided to indict or decline to indict. But those were never considerations. It was about the facts and the law regardless of the status of the person or the collateral consequences

of an indictment. Now, just to be clear, confirming that if he does take a mugshot, that will be public? It will typically mugshots are released by the police. So strictly speaking, a mugshot is not a public record, but I think we have seen historically that mugshots get released by police departments all the time. Now, we spoke previously about when we can expect an actual trial you'd mention sometime between six months and a year from now. But will Trump need to be present in all of the pretrial occurrences that happen? Yeah, great question. So in civil proceedings, like, you know, Donald Trump

is always being sued by somebody or another. Ordinarily, the respondent in a civil suit that is the defendant is not generally required to attend every court proceeding. And often the defense attorneys in a civil suit will just waive their client's presence. Not so in a criminal case. In a criminal case, you basically have to be present for every single court proceeding. And interestingly, you generally have to be actually present, not virtually present. Now, a defense team can try to waive their client's appearance, but most judges in a criminal case are pretty disapproving of that, Because if you're facing the possibility of being incarcerated at the end of this process, you know, judges are determined that you are fully informed, indeed present at every single

court hearing in your case. Now, will those instances, those pretrial courtroom appearances, will they be public? They are public, yes. The Constitution provides for public trials. And judges aren't permitted to close courtrooms except for national security matters. rarely do they do that. But I don't believe cameras are in the courtrooms in New York. So I don't think we will see a televised trial unless they decide that the public interest is so important that they want to allow this trial to be publicly televised. Got it. Glenn, will you be in that

courtroom? I will. Here's what I will. I will be in the courtroom when and if, I'm going to go with when. Donald Trump is indicted federally for either the documents crimes or the insurrection. because that will be in my backyard here in Washington, D.C., in a courthouse in which I tried lots of cases. So I'll be present for that. I doubt I'm going to head up to Manhattan to try to get into a courtroom that is likely going to be overflowing. Just like on the logistics of that,

how are you going to get in? Because I would imagine that would be a pretty hot ticket. Is it basically because you've been able to try cases there that it'll be easier for you to get into that courtroom? I wouldn't say I am prepared to call in any in all favors. I might have, but having tried multiple RICO cases in that very courthouse and pretty much knowing most of the folks who work there, I will try to arrange to be, you know, first in line to make sure I get a seat in the courtroom.

Now, here's a question I'm getting a lot. Will this indictment in Manhattan be any impediment to Donald Trump running for office? Sadly, no. It won't be any legal impediment. It might be a practical impediment, right? Not a good look if you're running for president and you're all. pending a criminal trial that could send you to prison. But I think Donald Trump has already announced. Now, rarely do I take him at his word, but he's already announced, you know what,

indictment or no indictment? I am not dropping out. And I'm here for it. You know what? Let him run as an indicted defendant pending prison. I don't think that will increase his odds of getting elected. Well, with that said, what about the other cases that he's that he's at risk of being indicted for including Fulton County, Georgia, including the E. Jean Carroll defamation case, including the classified documents case, the January 6th case. Yeah, none of it will be a legal impediment to him running for office. The only thing that would be a legal impediment is if he is convicted of a federal charge that carries with it the possible sentence of a prohibition from holding federal office

in the future. That's the only way he would legally be prohibited, not necessarily from running for federal office, but holding federal office. Could that be one of the conditions set forth, you know, in terms of like a guilty plea or some plea deal overall? Like, could a condition be set where he's barred from holding, running for federal office, and that would preclude him from serving prison time, for example? You know, that's a great question.

There's lots of leeway that prosecutors and defense teams have in negotiating terms of a plea agreement or let me add a non-pros agreement, an agreement not to prosecute somebody if he or she agrees to a set of conditions. Usually those conditions, Brian, involve, you know, you have to stay out of trouble. You have to avoid all rearrests. And if you do, the prosecutors may sort of decline to ever charge you for a particular crime. But of course, those agreements are only as good as the people who enter into them. So the prosecution could say, look, if you agree never to run for office, we will agree never to prosecute you. And then Donald Trump could later throw his hat in the ring. Of course, that would revive the prosecution's ability to prosecute him. But if it's a few years down

the road, memories might have faded, evidence might have gone missing, and it might be more difficult to prosecute him. So I actually hope we don't see some kind of a creative disposition of Donald Trump's cases like that. Okay, I want to switch gears a little bit here to more recent events. Trump came out and issued like this thinly veiled threat on truth social, where he suggested that there would be potential death and destruction if he's indicted in the Manhattan District's attorney's case. Can I get your response to that? Yeah, so, you know, Donald Trump is nothing, if not a miscalculation at every turn. And, you know, he is, I don't want to use smart enough. he is savvy enough to try to, as you say, sort of thinly bail the threat so nobody can say,

well, you just violated the law because you communicated a threat. He may have a defense to that. Here's how it's going to come back to haunt him. Once he gets indicted, once he's hauled before a court, a court can look at all of these volatile posts, all of these posts that are clearly inciting and encouraging lawless action, and the judge can take it into account and decide what to do with Donald Trump. Now, the most extreme thing a judge could do would be jail him pending trial. I think that unlikely, but what the judge can do, because Trump has this demonstrated proclivity to host these thinly veiled threats, he can put a gag order of sorts on Donald Trump. Now, I always hasten to add judges don't like to engage in what's called prior restraint on speech,

but a judge might look at Trump's track record of inspiring violence and say, you know what, I am going to prohibit you from saying certain things, from posting certain things, maybe from using social media at all. So these things may not be chargeable as crimes, but I do believe they will come back to haunt Donald Trump. Well, this hurt his case in the January 6th case, because basically prior to this happening right now, prior to him issuing his second threats, for a second event, trying to get people to come to New York. He could claim in his defense that he had plausible, he could claim that there's plausible deniability

because he didn't know that his call to arms come to DC on January 6th will be wild. He didn't know that that would result in violence. But now, knowing what we know that when he issues these call to arms to his supporters, it does result in violence. The fact that he did it again, would that not show that, okay,

he actually does know that his call to arms to his supporters results in violence, And now he's making the conscious decision to do that. And so could that kind of reflect poorly on him for the initial case, for the January 6th case and kind of the fact that he's doing it now hurt that case with Jack Smith? You know, Brian, I'm not sure you need me for the legal breakdown anymore because you just made the prosecution's argument, right? Donald Trump, in the first instance on January 6 could have said, oh, my goodness,

that was a miscalculation. I didn't intend to incite or inspire violence, but we all know he did. And then he tried to do it all over again. with very similar language what that does is that will provide circumstantial evidence of what he was intending to do all along and he didn't care about the results in fact he welcomed the results violence used to whatever end he was seeking like you know unconstitutionally retaining the power of the presidency okay well we'll leave it there for those listening if you want to catch more of me and Glenn, subscribe on YouTube to watch

the legal breakdown. Glenn, thanks so much for coming on. Hey, great being with you, Brian. Thanks again to Glenn. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera

and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels.