No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - What a conviction would mean for Trump's 2024 run

Episode Date: June 18, 2023

Gavin Newsom debates Sean Hannity. Brian interviews Congressman Daniel Goldman about what a conviction would mean for Trump’s presidential run, the truth about the Republicans supposed “smoking gun” against Joe Biden, and his efforts to push the nation’s biggest pharmacies to carry the medication abortion pill. And former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner joins to discuss news about the potential for rightwing judge Aileen Cannon to recuse herself and what the risks are for Jack Smith in pushing for her removal.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 the Gavin News from Sean Hannity debate. I interview Congressman Daniel Goldman about what a conviction would mean for Trump's presidential run, the truth about the Republicans' supposed smoking gun in their investigations in Congress against Joe Biden, and his efforts to push the nation's biggest pharmacies to carry the medication abortion pill. And I'm joined by former federal prosecutor Glenn Kersner to discuss news about the potential for right-wing judge Alien Cannon to recuse herself and what the risks are for Jack Smith and pushing for her removal. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So there was a moment during the recent Sean Hannity-Gaven Newsom debate where

Hannity presses Newsom on California's progressive tax structure. Here's that clip. These companies are leaving for one reason. These companies are starting for another reason. They're moving to increase their profits and save money because you taxed too much. Because we created the conditions where they flourished. And then they get to a point of maturity and they get a point of becoming multinational companies.

And they leave. Why? And they move the headquarters. Because some find greener pasture. are looking for defensive postures as it relates to economic risk. Okay, so I have a story. I'm not going to go into the usual arguments about why a progressive tax structure is important because I have something better.

I want to tell you about something called the Kansas experiment. So back in 2012, Kansas's Republican governor, Sam Brownback, wanted to pass the largest income tax cut in the state's history. He described it as a real live experiment based on trickle-down economics. Republicans have been fawning over trickle-down for decades, but Brownback figured that he could finally enact a pure version of it in a red state with a Republican legislature, a Republican governor, and not have to sacrifice any element of it to, you know,

to mollify the evil communist Democrats. Brownback himself called it, quote, a Midwest Renaissance rooted in the Reagan formula. He predicted that the experiment would create 23,000 jobs per year and a conservative think tank projected an increase in tax revenue to the tune of $323 million. So this massive tax cut was signed into law. Cut to spring of 2024 tax cuts are now in full effect.

State revenues plunge by $700 million, which is more than 10% revenue loss for the state in just one year. Now state lawmakers are dipping into the highway funds, which means infrastructure project stop, pension contribution stop, schools, close, and Medicaid gets cut. That budget gap would ultimately reach $900 million by 2017. the legislature would have to borrow something like $1.3 billion from the highway fund in total to balance the budget as the roads deteriorated in that state. Millions more were borrowed from the state pension fund. The state's credit was ultimately downgraded three times

and there were nine rounds of budget cuts over four years. Economic growth and job creation underperformed the national economy. It underperformed neighboring states and it even underperformed Kansas' own growth in previous years. Kansas even underperformed. its neighbor Nebraska by 7,000 jobs, even though Nebraska had a smaller labor force. So not only was Kansas not outperforming everyone like it expected, it actually plunged itself into an economic disaster. By 2017, Kansas's Republican legislature voted to repeal Brownback's

tax cuts and enact tax increases instead. When Brownback vetoed the repeal, the Republican legislature overrode that veto, and Brownback ultimately became the least popular governor in the entire country, and he resigned at the end of 2017. with this, quote, real live experiment of trickle-down economics and tax cuts on the rich ending in catastrophic failure. So when Republicans applaud trickle-down economics, or they suggest that tax cuts will somehow foster growth, just remember that this isn't even a debate. We don't have to humor this idea that this is some viable strategy for growth.

We have the fortune or misfortune, depending on whether you lived in Kansas or not, back in the early 2010s of having watched this experiment play out in real time, in a ruby red state completely uncumbered by any democratic interference or watering down. And what followed was a catastrophe of such epic proportions that even the state's own Republican legislature needed to repeal it, all while effectively ending the career of a governor who had taken office by more than 30 points, all of which is to say heavy tax cuts and the abandonment of a progressive tax structure serve one purpose. It is to benefit the ultra wealthy.

That's it. They don't benefit society. They don't benefit the middle class. They don't benefit job growth. They don't benefit economic growth. They are a gift to millionaires and billionaires to the detriment of everything else. Which is why the only people you will ever hear defending this strategy

are either millionaires or billionaires or people who get their paychecks for millionaires or billionaires. So while Republicans are perfectly content to lie when it comes to trickle down economics, just remember that the numbers don't. Next up is my interview with Daniel Goldman. Now we have the congressman from New York's 10th congressional district, Daniel Goldman. Thanks so much for coming back on.

Thanks for having me, Brian. Of course. So I want to start talking about Trump's recent indictment in the federal case. Do you have any concerns about the fact that Judge Aline Cannon, as of now, is the judge who's presiding over Trump's trial in Florida, given the fact that she was already accused of interfering in that case on Trump's behalf? Yes, I do. And that's the reason why I want to be very clear.

This is not because this is a Trump appointed judge, although I understand sometimes, you know, that could be concerning. It's also the first situation, the first opportunity that that's ever happened because this is the first former president to ever be charged. The real concern here is that her opinions in the litigation over the search warrant were so far outside of the law. and such an abuse of discretion. And you don't have to take my word for it. That's what the Court of Appeals that reversed her and rebuked her said. A conservative court, by the way. Exactly.

This is not a bunch of, you know, far left liberals. Yeah. And that the concern here is that she went so far out of her way to favor Donald Trump, that she will do that again. And because of that, there is unquestionably an appearance, at a minimum, an appearance of bias or a conflict of interest here that really warrants a close examination of whether or not it is appropriate for her to handle this case going forward. I know obviously all of this is unprecedented, but in your opinion, given your experience in the courtroom, do you imagine that the DOJ would be able to have her removed and replaced? if she doesn't opt to recuse herself? Well, look, it's a very high bar,

and it's a very difficult situation because if she does not voluntarily recuse, then the Department of Justice would have to ask her to refuse, which is a tricky situation because they would effectively be alleging to her, who she makes the decision, that she is biased or has an appearance of a conflict of interest, which is always a tricky dynamic because she could easily reject it and then you have to deal

with her for the rest of the case. Yeah. I'm moving over to a little bit of a different topic. You know, I know that Trump in this trial more broadly will obviously have a defense, but do you think, you know, in your opinion, that he'll have a viable defense in light of the evidence that's been laid out in the indictment? Well, what's interesting about the aftermath of this indictment is the shift. theories of the defense that we're starting to hear. If he does try to settle on the defense,

which he has been advocating as well as his accomplices in the House of Representatives, that he was the president and has total control and ability to declassified documents, and therefore he's in a very different situation than anyone else, that theory will fall on its face because of the recording that he made in private, where he made it very clear that he did not declassified the documents that were in his possession and that he had no longer had that authority. So that completely neutralizes and eliminates a viable defense along those lines. So, you know, I'm sure they will have some sort of a legal defense, but right now what we're

mostly hearing is a political defense for the court of public opinion that will not be allowed in the court of law and will not be permitted by any reasonable, rational judge because it is outside of the rules of evidence. You know, how high is the DOJ's conviction rate in general, if you're able to point that out? And if it weren't Trump, I guess more broadly, what would the likely punishment be for someone convicted of basically analogous crimes? Look, traditionally, the Department of Justice has a very, very high conviction rate. And I think what's interesting about this indictment in particular is how much detail it goes into about the evidence. evidence, which is not necessary, but clearly done purposefully by the special counsel to demonstrate

the strength of the case. And the case appears from the indictment to be very, very strong, and especially because it really does neutralize almost all of the different defenses. It also demonstrate some really, really egregious and dangerous conduct, both to the national United States, but also to the individuals who are part of the intelligence community who collect that information, who are put in danger because they could be outed if perhaps this information were shown by Donald Trump to other people or was just reviewed by those who were at Mar-a-Lago where it was completely unsafe and unsecured. The potential sentencing and potential punishment is significant. It is not the 100 years or whatever the statutory maximum

is. But my understanding of the sentencing guidelines is that we're looking in the five-year range for the guidelines. A judge has discretion to go below the guidelines. But this is not a case where, you know, there's a, would ordinarily, put it this way, would ordinarily be a viable chance of no jail time. If he's convicted on everything, he put it this way. If any other defendant were convicted on these charges, they would almost certainly go to jail. Well, having said that, how do you imagine that would differ for someone like Trump? And again, I know this is all unprecedented, so we're kind of just predicting here, but what would you think in that case? I don't think it should have an impact on someone like Trump. The whole premise of the rule of law

that we base our society, our values, our government on is that the law is applied equally to everyone and no one is above the law. That should apply to Donald Trump. And he should not get any exceptions. He should not get any special treatment because he was a former president of the United States. There are obviously serious security concerns for a former president regarding our jail situation and going to prison. So that would have to be worked out, but he should get no special treatment. Yeah. Just out of curiosity, and it's, you know, it's fine if you don't know the answer, but just to traffic in some dystopian hypothetical here, if by chance the DOJ's trial begins at the end of the year and Trump is convicted of prison time, for example, before the

election, and then he did win the election. How would that impact his ability to serve as president? Well, the interesting thing about it is that there's no bar to someone who is a convicted felon from running for president. So in theory, Donald Trump could run for president while he is in prison. he could become president while he is in prison obviously he would be incapable of doing the job while he is in prison so it would be almost it would have to be a foregone conclusion that the 25th amendment would apply and he would have to step aside and allow the vice president to become acting president for the duration of the time that he's in prison and then hope that that person would then just pardon him and then he i mean look there's no question

that if if don't trump were elected president he would undoubtedly immediately try to pardon himself which would be litigated and certainly there's a very good argument based on the basic the concept that no person is above the law and you can't be a judge and jury in your own case that don't Trump should not be able to pardon himself, but this is, of course, unprecedented, so it's never been addressed. Yeah. Now, Republicans have tried to draw a false equivalency between Trump's indictment and Joe Biden, claiming that they have some smoking gun evidence that directly implicates Joe

and Hunter Biden in some multinational influence peddling scheme. Is there any evidence of that? No. There is no evidence whatsoever that. that Vice President Joe Biden has ever done anything wrong as it relates to the execution of his official duties, either as vice president, president, or Senate before that. What the Republicans are using are spurious and debunked allegations in that they don't have any actual evidence to support, but have identified an FBFB,

FBI document that I believe is not credible. And the, clearly the Trump DOJ believed was not credible because they had that information and declined to pursue an investigation. And we know how the Trump DOJ was weaponized by Donald Trump and Bill Barr to go after Donald Trump's enemies and there's no, and to save his own close associates. So there's no doubt in anyone's mind that if there were any evidence to pursue an investigation, Bill Barr and the Trump DOJ would have done that. And they did not. No matter what Bill Barr says, they did not. And we know they did not because he did not appoint a special counsel, which he would have had to do in order to investigate the candidate for president, Joe Biden at the time three months before the election

when the evaluation and assessment of the Giuliani bogus allegations completed by the Bill Barr handpicked U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh, look what Merrick Garland did. As soon as Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the president, he appointed a special counsel. Look what Bill Barr did. He appointed John Durham. And I think he abused the special counsel regulations to appoint John Durham because Durham was simply investigating the origination of the Russia investigation, which had nothing to do with the president or didn't need to have an independent special prosecutor under the regulations, but he just wanted to make it impossible for the Biden DOJ to end that investigation. But we know that he's very capable of using the special counsel, especially if it

would have allowed the investigation to become public in advance of the election, which was always Donald Trump's hope. So we know that these allegations are bogus. Giuliani was getting them from corrupt Ukrainian officials, the prosecutor general who was fired and had an axe to grind, and it was completely disproven by the first impeachment and all of the expert witnesses in our state department and intelligence community, all of whom said there was absolutely no truth to these allegations. You know, they've run these investigations the entire time that they've been in Congress in search of some proof that Joe Biden has sold his influence as president to help his family.

Have they found just not even just in that specific claim that we were just speaking about, but have they found anything at all to prove any of these claims, that there was any influence peddling whatsoever? And they have not, no, and they have not connected any of the, international financial dealings that the Biden family may have been engaged and they haven't connected them to that to Joe Biden. And let's be very clear. There are international investments by many, many, many people, including Donald Trump, including

Ivanka Trump, who benefited dramatically. Her business benefited while she was an official in the White House. She got trademarks from China while she was an official in the White House. So the concept that there's something nefarious about the Biden family making investments that paid off is completely ridiculous. And the insinuation that there's something wrong with it is ridiculous. But even if you look at those, they don't connect to President Biden. And they haven't demonstrated any evidence to that effect.

So they have no evidence right now, none. they are out there making really bold and aggressive allegations that Joe Biden committed crimes. It is absurd and it is contrary to everything that this country has founded on to make these allegations without any factual support. Yeah. And again, the whole point there is to draw some false equivalency between Donald Trump. Well, the false equivalency is even a little different because there is also this special counsel investigation into president biden's handling of classified information yeah and what you hear from

the republicans is that president trump did the exact same thing that joe biden did no he didn't no he didn't and when you look at this indictment you will see that the only documents that he is charged with are the ones that he concealed from the department of justice in violation of a subpoena for those documents, which they only had to do because he refused to voluntarily turn them over for 14 months. When Joe Biden learned that he had classified information in his possession, he immediately notified the authorities voluntarily. They were not aware of it. He voluntarily notified them and turned those documents back to the government to whom they belong. That is apples and oranges in terms of the conduct. And the conduct that Donald Trump was charged for is,

not found in any of this is not equivalent to what joe biden did or what mike pence did uh who was also found who also found classified information turned it right over to the department and was ultimately cleared of any criminal uh charges by the department because he voluntarily turned over the material just like joe yeah the doj has had a consistent standard that you will not be charged for documents that you return so it's not the fact that they had mishandled classified documents this is a that he unlawfully retained and obstructed justice and everything that he did after they requested those documents back and he defied one of their efforts and he showed it he showed these highly highly classified and secret documents to people who did not have security clearance the the indictment

list two examples where he showed highly sensitive and classified information that he acknowledged was classified to people who did not have security clearance. And from my experience in 10 years as a prosecutor, I know that the instances of things like that that you can prove through admissible evidence are not the entirety of the times that people do that. There is often conduct that you know happened, but you don't have admissible evidence. And so I would bet a lot that Donald Trump, those were not the only two times that he did that. have come into office this latest Congress amid promises of curbing inflation and they focused on lowering high gas prices. Have they done anything at all to make good on their promises

or passed any legislation at all thus far that would focus on helping their constituents versus just lighting money on fire with investigations that go nowhere? Well, they are clearly putting a lot of focus and a lot of taxpayer money into these investigations, which have not at all turned up any evidence to support their allegations. And they're doing the investigations in the exact inverse way that you would do any investigation, which is they reach a conclusion and now they're trying to backfill evidence to support that conclusion. That, of course, is totally backwards and is not how an investigation is done. So on the investigative front, they're just wasting our time and our money. On the legislative front, they're just engaged in

culture wars and messaging bills to appease their radical extreme base. There is no meaningful legislation that has any chance of passing a Democratic Senate or being signed by a Democratic president that impacts and affects all of the problems that are facing Americans around the countries, such as inflation, such as access to health care, such as access to work development and job creation. They're not interested in actually helping people. They're just interested in making political statements through their legislation. Well, I guess that would suggest that you don't think that protecting gas stoves is the issue of our time. I mean, it's amazing. If you want to protect something. Let's protect children who are being killed by AR-15s around the country.

Let's focus on them, not the ridiculous gas stoves, which they completely misconstrued. But anyway, it's such a minor issue. And yet they won't address the gun violence epidemic that we have in this country and that now the leading cause of death for children in our country is guns, guns. And yet we're talking about gas stoves. On that issue of, you know, focusing on more important issues that actually impact people, you've been working to ensure that Mitha Pristone, which is the abortion pill, is readily available in light of the Dobbs decision. Five of the largest retail pharmacies in the U.S. that includes Walmart, Costco, Safeway, Kroger, and Health Mart. They haven't yet become certified to dispense Mitha Pristone. Can you give an update on their

progress or their intention to be certified to dispense this medication? Well, I wrote a letter co-signed by many of my colleagues this week to those five pharmacies, asking for answers as to why they have not begun the certification process to be able to distribute Mipipristone medication abortion that is safer than Tylenol. It was approved over 20 years ago by the FDA, and the FDA recently in January allowed it to be prescribed and distributed by retail pharmacies, which had not previously been available. It requires these pharmacies, though, certified with the FDA in order to distribute them. And what these large five pharmacies now in the last five months have not begun that process. And that is not acceptable.

We cannot allow our corporations and big businesses to be impacted by extremist Republican views that are trying to take away our individual freedoms. They need to follow the law. They need to be providing safe, approved medication where applicable and where appropriate. And so we are asking for answers as to why they are not beginning that process of getting certified. medication, abortion, Mephipristone is incredibly safe. It is used in more than 50% of abortions. And that's a woman's right to make that decision, and it has to be available to every woman.

If private companies like these pharmacies do ultimately refuse to get certified to offer this medication, is there a way for the federal government to dispense it? I know that, for example, California is manufacturing its own insulin. Is there a way to federalize the dispensation of, certain medications? You know, it's something that we would look into. We will have to be careful about running afoul of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from being used for abortion. And that's something that we in Congress want to, the Democrats at least, want to repeal because it's outdated and overly restrictive to the rights of the government to provide proper

services to promote individual freedom around our country. The issue here is that private companies should not be politicized, and they should not be political vehicles of the extreme right, and they should not be worried about political backlash by doing the right thing. And we need them to follow the law and do what is right to under the law. And Miphyprisone is legal. It is perfectly legal, and therefore, that should not be treated differently from any other drug.

And that's what we're encouraging these pharmacies to do. All right. Well, we'll leave it there. Thank you for the work you're doing and for taking the time to speak with me today. Thanks, Brian. Great to be with you again. And here's my interview with former federal prosecutor, Glenn Kirshner. So, Glenn, I want to talk about the judge in the classified documents case. that's Judge Aline Cannon.

She's ordered Trump's attorney is to contact the DOJ now to expedite the security clearance process ahead of June 16th. That all suggests that she's not recusing herself in this case. Is that the right read here? I think it's the only read, Brian. You know, the substance of this order really doesn't matter much.

It's pretty run of the mill in a classified documents case. It is the fact that Judge Aline Cannon issued an order. Apparently, she believes that there's no concern. There's no problem with her. presiding over the case. She's apparently looked at the federal law and she has decided that no one.

No one can reasonably question her impartiality, which frankly I find astonishing because an appellate court found previously that she acted unlawfully, contrary to the law, by doing an enormous solid for Donald Trump and stopping the DOJ's criminal investigation into the very classified documents that now form the basis of the prosecution,

she will preside over. I really, I thought there would be some sort of discussion or debate or public airing of at least some of this before Judge Cannon just sort of rushed it all aside and said, nope, this is my case and I'm issuing my first order. Yeah, well, it would kind of make sense that she wouldn't recuse given the fact that to have enough integrity and enough self-awareness

to actually recuse yourself would also have prevented her from doing the interfering that was caused for this recusal in the first place. And so, like, it just kind of makes sense, given who she is, but that still doesn't make it okay. So with that said, would we know if the DOJ had requested that she recused or had initiated the process for, you know, removal and replacement? I think the answer is, yes, we would know if Jack Smith, the special counsel in the case, had filed a motion seeking to disqualify her under the applicable federal law for those people who may be scoring at home. It's 28 United States Code Section 455, which says a judge must disqualify themselves. The word is shall disqualify themselves

in any proceeding where anyone could reasonably question their impartiality. So Jack Smith, presumably would have filed a public facing motion seeking to have her recuse herself and asking for a hearing on the recusal motion that hasn't been done yet but there is still time well i mean doesn't this need to happen now given the fact that we are now in the process of hearing these pretrial motions yeah the rule is a little bit flexible or a little bit vague with respect to how much time a prosecutor has to file a recusal motion under section 455. It seems that they set like a 10-day time frame from when the judge begins presiding over the case. I think there's a fair reading of what what just went on, Judge Cannon issuing this first order as being kind of the first

official notice that she's presiding. So application of that rule would say, okay, Jack, you got 10 days, you're up. And I think it's too important in a case like this for Special Counsel Jack Smith not to file that motion and fight that battle. Because, you know, real quickly, there are, I think, three problems, three enormous concerns with Judge Cannon continuing to preside over this criminal case. First of all, because this is unprecedented, we've never tried a criminal former president of the United States for his crimes before. We've never had to confront the issue about whether the appointed federal or the assigned federal judge is conflicted out if that is the president, the defendant in the case is the president that appointed the judge. Now let me add,

the rules of conflict actually set a pretty low bar for when a judge must remove him or herself from a case. It is either an actual conflict or more important, importantly, even just the appearance of conflict. And when the defendant in the case, Donald Trump, is the one who gave this judge her job, a prestigious job, a lucrative job, a lifetime job, federal judges have life tenure. It seems to me there is at least the appearance of conflict, and it's something that I think needs to be hashed out and should be litigated. That's problem Number one. Problem number two, she doesn't have the experience. She has almost no federal judicial experience. I think the reporting is she's had a total of about four trials and they were short bite-sized

trials, two, three, four days, a gun case, a drug case. You know, she is a brand new, inexperienced green judge. And you really don't want to be cutting your judicial teeth on what is the most consequential prosecution in our nation's history. You know, I've used the analogy, Brian. If you have a brand new doctor, just graduated medical school, you know, did their residency, passed their boards, and they've treated two or three patients, maybe for scraped knees. And then you take that doctor and throw him or her into the operating room to perform complex brain surgery. That ain't to end well for the patient. And the patient is justice in this instance. Judge Aileen Cannon presiding over this prosecution ain't going to end well for justice. And then the third problem is the federal

law requiring disqualification that's a whole lot of problems with canon presiding over this case yeah i think that was that was perfectly put and and just to build on on what you had said initially in the first point and that is this idea that that because she was appointed by Donald trump that gives the appearance of a conflict we don't even have to go that far because we already have the fact that the 11th circuit court of appeals which is a conservative court of appeals has already said that she interfered in this case before so forget the point that that that Donald Trump just appointed her, we have direct interference as told by other conservative justices

on or judges on this court who were also appointed by Donald Trump, who even themselves could bring themselves out enough to say like, you know, that there was a conflict here. But let me add, that's why under the federal law, I think everybody can and should reasonably question her impartiality, given her history in this very case. And it's important to emphasize that both the disqualification

law and the rules of ethics on conflict. Set that very low bar, right? For conflict, it's merely appearance. For disqualification, it's merely somebody having a reasonable question about their impartiality. The reason those legal standards are so low, it's because you have an unlimited number of federal judges out there. So it's easy to just slide one off who has some appearance of conflict and put a completely fair, independent, impartial, unbiased. judge to preside over the case. I know Donald Trump won't like that, but you know what?

I think the American people who care about the rule of law and care about holding Donald Trump accountable fairly for his crimes do care about those kind of things. Yep, exactly. Glenn, if the DOJ requests that Judge Aline Cannon recuse and she doesn't, would that color how she presides over this case

because then you've basically got a case here where the first thing that happened was the plaintiffs tried to execute a mutiny against her? That's a great question. You know, that is the challenge. Anytime a prosecutor has to do something that is viewed as criticism of the judge, I had to do it plenty when I was a practicing prosecutor. It's uncomfortable, but you have to do it because you really need to protect the interests

and promote the interests of the American people. That's your job as an assistant United States attorney as a federal prosecutor. So if they file the motion to have her remove herself and it fails, I think the next step is taking it up to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and trying to get them to order her removed. Let me tell you, Brian, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered other judges removed from cases when they've shown themselves to be biased or for some reason conflicted out or disqualified. So they're not shy about doing it. We all know they're not shy about criticizing Judge Cannon and reversing her.

So if all efforts fail, both in the trial court and in the appellate court, and they're stuck with Judge Aline Cannon. Is it a concern that she will now retaliate against the prosecutors who very publicly criticized her and tried to get her removed? Of course it's a concern. Would an honest judge of ethics honor and integrity retaliate? No. Will Judge Aline Cannon retaliate?

Well, we already saw her track record of how she acted lawlessly, previously in this very case. Yeah, I think if honesty were the case, I don't think that we would be having this issue. in the first place. Glenn, if she remains the judge in this case, that doesn't change the fact that this is still a massively strong case against Trump. How confident are you in the DOJ's ability to prosecute this case if there is a fox in the henhouse with Judge Cannon, so to speak? I remain highly confident. You know, Jack Smith and his team, his team includes some of my former homicide prosecutors, I'm happy to say. They are some of the best of the best that

the Department of Justice has to offer. I think they will be successful on the merits of the case. I think they will win a conviction. Even if Judge Cannon is making some close calls in favor of Donald Trump, hopefully she doesn't do something entirely outrageous. Hopefully, she allows the party's full and fair voir dire, that is, jury selection and really weed out any jurors who might be so biased or have such a political or ideological bent in favor of Donald Trump that they can't sit as fair and impartial jurors in the case. You know, she can do extreme damage to the case in a lot of ways large and small. First of all, let's hope she doesn't because she will be under the white hot glare of public scrutiny, indeed world scrutiny, even though there are knocked

cameras allowed in the courtroom. But I do think I think the prosecutors can overcome any challenges that result from Judge Cannon presiding over the case. And I believe that they will win a conviction in what at the moment is the most consequential case in our nation's history, but not for long. It will soon become, in my opinion, the second most consequential criminal prosecution in our nation's history when Jack Smith indicts Donald Trump for the insurrection. 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. Coen. 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.