No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Will Trump be barred from running in 2024?

Episode Date: August 14, 2022

Trump’s legal troubles worsen as Republicans continue to move the goalposts while defending him. Brian interviews White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain about Biden’s win with the Inflation Reduction Act, the disconnect between these wins and the president's approval rating, how the abortion vote in Kansas changes things moving forward, and whether Biden knows about the Dark Brandon memes. And former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner joins to discuss the FBI’s search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, whether that has any connection to the January 6-related investigations, and whether this could be grounds to disqualify Trump from future office.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 worsening legal troubles and how Republicans continue to move the goalposts while defending him. I interview the White House chief of staff, Ron Clayne, about Biden's win with the Inflation Reduction Act, the disconnect between Biden's wins and his approval rating, how the abortion vote in Kansas changes things moving forward, and whether Biden knows about the dark brand and memes. And I'm joined by former federal prosecutor Glenn Kersner to discuss the FBI search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, whether that has any connection to the January 6-related investigations, and whether this could be grounds to disqualify Trump from

future office. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. All right, I'm going to attempt to do a podcast here where I try to do a snapshot of Trump's legal jeopardy without it immediately becoming obsolete because, you know, he's landed himself in even more trouble. So here's how this past week went. First, the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. Republicans were convinced that this was, you know, Joe Biden himself exacting political retribution on Trump, and so Republicans started calling for the defunding of the FBI, back the blue or something. Then it became apparent that there were classified nuclear documents at Mar-Lago,

and so Republicans decided that that evidence was clearly planted by the FBI, and so more calls to defund the FBI. Then we learned that there were boxes upon boxes of classified information, and so Republicans decided that actually Trump has unilateral declassification authority, and so those same documents that Republicans had claims were planted by the FBI were also apparently declassified by Trump. So it's all good. Then we learned from the search warrant what charges Trump faces, which includes a violation

of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice, and criminal mishandling of government records. And Trump World had the perfect response to that, which is that Barack Obama also has 30 million of his own classified documents. And so Trump's off the hook because Obama, which prompted the National Archives to come out with a statement because that's the world we live in now, where the National Archives has to basically sub-tweet the former president of the United States. who can't not lie, and they said, quote, the National Archives and Records Administration assumed exclusive legal and physical custody

of Obama presidential records when President Barack Obama left office in 2017. In accordance with the Presidential Records Act, NARA moved approximately 30 million pages of unclassified records to the NARA facility in the Chicago area, where they are maintained exclusively by NARA. They went on to say, quote, former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the presidential records of his administration. But Trump World had one more weapon to deploy, one sure-fired, tried-and-true, proven weapon that could only be saved for moments like these. Hillary Clinton literally paid a foreign spy, paid a foreign spy to produce a hoax about this.

And you're citing the Democrat Party as a paragoner. Don't make me laugh. This is nothing compared to what Hillary Clinton did. This is very quickly. Where she knowingly destroyed 33,000 emails. And this, Hillary Clinton burned things, smashed things. He didn't burn anything. All those things he were talking about before, you know, concealing's, destroying. Hillary actually did that.

Yeah. Where was this same media frenzy when there was 33,000 classified emails on a server and a bathroom with Hillary Clinton? Why didn't they raid that bathroom? So he has documents, papers in boxes, the Chinese and the Russians can't access those boxes of information. But Hillary Clinton's server is public. She, that's what she was punished. No, she lost the election. Did they raid her home?

This is the same agency leadership that protected Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and continues to protect Hunter Biden. Ah, yes. Hillary Clinton, who the FBI famously helped when it announced that she was under investigation a few months before Election Day. Like, this is the woman who Republicans have pointed at for the better part of a decade while hyperventilating about the sacrosanctity of classified documents. And she's the example they're using while trying to absolve Trump of doing something just as bad, if not worse.

And here's why it was worse. And I'm doing it. I'm going to talk about something that Hillary Clinton did in 2016, because this is our purgatory. This is our punishment for elevating people like Donald Trump and Sean Hannity that we have to now talk about Hillary Clinton for the rest of time. So, very quickly, here is the difference. Hillary used a private email server while serving a secretary of state. her lawyers had combed through about 30,000 emails and found 113 of them out of those 30,000, which contained classified information.

A Justice Department report also came out in 2018 that found that the classification markings weren't clear, which is likely why Clinton missed them. The FBI ultimately found that she was careless, but didn't have an intention to skirt the law. But, you know, still, the fact that this investigation was announced within months of the 2016 election didn't do her any favors and she paid a political price for it, if not a legal one. Trump, however, took properly marked classified documents from the White House to his golf course where the guy regularly consults with whatever highly qualified individuals are waiting on the buffet line at Marlago.

He refused to comply with a subpoena that was issued in the spring for those documents, ultimately meriting a search warrant to be issued by a federal magistrate. So you may think that what Trump did was worse. You may think it was the same as Clinton. That's up to you. But what's clear is that if you've predicated your entire political identity, on locking up the lady who did the first thing, then there is no planet on which you could justify

going to the mat to absolve the guy who did the second thing. So look, mark my words, we will absolutely continue to hear more obfuscations, more deflections, more lies. But here's what's important to remember. Donald Trump broke the law and he's being held accountable. That's all. So the right can point to Hillary Clinton, they can point to Barack Obama,

they can make up fake rules about the national archives and lie about Trump's classification powers. they'll do all of that. But the lies are only because they have no response for the actual crimes at the heart of this. Next up is my interview with Ron Clayne. Now we've got the White House chief of staff, Ron Clayne. Thanks so much for coming back on. Thanks for having me. Of course. So a ton has happened in the last couple weeks. So let's jump in. On the inflation reduction act, you've got a bill that reduces the deficit, lowers inflation, shores up U.S. energy, lowers prescription drug costs for seniors, all things that Republicans ostensibly support

or have claimed to support in the past, and yet they've all refused to support this bill. What's your message to those Republicans who are basically broadcasting right now that trying to hurt Joe Biden is more important than helping Americans? Well, Brian, I think it's even more than that. Look, I think that what we've seen over the past few weeks in Washington is a very clear choice between one political party that's willing to stand up to the special interests. It's willing to take on special interests who've had their way in Washington for decades, whether that's passing gun safety legislation, taking on the NRA, or this Inflation Reduction Act, where we took on the big drug companies that have been able for

decades to block legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate for prescription drugs, a common sense idea. They've been able to block it. The big corporations who have blocked the idea of even a minimum tax for big corporations, profitable corporations. Some of them, some of the biggest corporations in America pay no taxes at all. How can that be? It's because the big corporate lobby has lobbied the Congress and been able to prevent that from being changed. You saw the president's taken on the oil companies. We've got the price of gas coming down. The point here is that the president and his allies in Congress have made it very clear they're willing to stand up to and beat these special interests and pass laws. And the Republicans simply aren't. They weren't

willing to take on the drug companies and bring down the prescription drugs. They weren't willing to take on the big corporations and say, hey, you have to pay some taxes. They weren't willing to take on the other special interests involved in trying to defeat this inflation reduction act. And so I think that's the difference you're seeing, Brian. You're seeing one party that says, you know what, enough's enough. It's time for the American people to get their way in Washington. They fought for that. They fought hard. I don't think people should underestimate how hard it was to overcome the power of these lobbies, these power of these interests in Washington. That's what the Democrats did in passing this bill. And that's why I think it's such a game

changer going forward. Yeah, I think it's important to note, too, to watch what these people do, don't listen to what they say. You know, one specific aspect of the Inflation Reduction Act is it's climate provisions. Yes. Climate is my biggest issue is someone who's still, you know, young, kind of young, who pretends to be young. I've got a TikTok, so maybe that makes me young. In any case, you know, that's the part of the bill that I was most proud of.

Obviously, the White House didn't get everything that it wanted on climate, and previous iterations of reconciliation did allocate more funding. But can you speak about how this bill will hit the White House's targets on climate? Yeah, Brian, I do think that's probably the most historic part of this bill. and the one perhaps with the most long-run significance. You know, President ran for President on the idea that we were going to transition to a clean energy future and that we were going to tackle this existential challenge of climate change. He set last year, a goal, that we would reduce our emissions by 50% in the years ahead.

This bill gets us almost all the way there. It doesn't get us all the way there. We have to be honest about that. But it will produce a 40% emissions reduction. Now, that would be just an enormous change in the right direction. I think some of the leaders on fighting for climate action in Congress have said that not only is the most significant climate change fighting legislation ever passed in this country, it's actually the most significant one ever to be passed in the world.

It would make the largest investment anywhere in a transition to a clean energy economy. And it doesn't a way that I think creates a lasting support for that by creating jobs, by saying what we're going to fight climate change is by putting Americans to work, building solar panels and windmills, new electric vehicles, batteries for those new electric vehicles, and the whole array of things, energy efficient appliances, I can go on and on and on. The point here is that this is a clean energy future that's not about punishing people or hurting people, but it's about creating opportunities. opportunity in America, jobs in America, transitioning to that future, making us a richer country, making us a stronger country, and of course, reducing our emissions by 40 percent. And I think that that is historic. I think that is something that people will look back on for years and years and years of port to this moment as a really critical turning point in this struggle against climate change. Yeah, that's well said. And aside from the Inflation Reduction Act,

We also are coming off of a last couple of weeks with a massive jobs report, 50-year low unemployment rate, the Chips Act, the Pact Act, the leader of Al-Qaeda killed. It's been, you know, a long slog, but any president would be hard-pressed to have had a week this good. But at the same time, there's still work to do on Biden's poll numbers. So what's the strategy to bridge that divide and capitalize on what is objectively the best couple weeks you could have in politics so that Biden's favorability more closely resembles the popularity of the popularity of. the agenda that's being passed right now. Yeah, so as you say, it has been a great couple of weeks here, a 50-year-old low on unemployment, just to be clear on that, and record job creation.

As you said, successful mission against Azahiri and not just this amazing inflation bill, which also fights climate change, but the Chips Act, which is also going to help fight inflation by bringing down the price of things made with semiconductors and the burn pits legislation, so critical to our veterans. veterans. It's been a fantastic stretch here. Look, I think we do, we pass legislation not to make

the president's polls better, but to make the country better, to make the world better. And that's what we've done. I think what voters want to see is that we continue to make progress on these things. One other thing that's happened in the past few weeks is the price of gasoline has come down at the pump, down almost a dollar since the start of the summer, down below 399 on a national average and below 379 and most pumps in America. And I think that's also going to make people feel better about the economy. Gas is something, it's kind of a bellwether for how people feel about the economy. But fundamentally, Brian, if we're talking about elections and poll numbers and whatnot, again, I want to be careful here because I'm covered

by the Hatch Act. I'm in the White House. But what I will say is what we've seen over the past couple weeks, elections are a choice. And both Democrats and Republicans have made the choice they're offering to voters, incredibly clear. Democrats have said, hey, we're going to take on the special interests on behalf of families. We're going to take on the special interests. We're going to take on the oil industry, the big corporations, the gun lobby, and try to bring down costs and make the country safer and do these things. Republicans have said, no, we're not going to do that. In fact, Republicans over the past weekend, when they voted on this bill, voted against a $35 month cap on insulin to stand with the drug companies, not with the millions of families

that need insulin to treat children or a loved one or someone in their family. So that difference, that choice, who the Democrats are standing for and delivering results for, who the Republicans are standing with. I think that's the fundamental choice we're going to see. Democrats on the Hill call people not politics. You can put whatever label you want on it, whatever slogan you want on it. I think we've had an epic demonstration of the choice both sides offer. And I think that difference, That difference is the difference that the American people are going to see more and more clearly over the weeks ahead. That's actually a perfect segue into this next question, and that has to do with Kansas, which for all intents and purposes is a red state. Voters came out in pretty staggering numbers to make their voices heard and protect abortion rights.

And yet still, Republicans across the country are going all in on abortion bans. They're trying to restrict interstate travel, criminalized doctors, ban contraception. And if Kansas has told us anything, it's that this issue has potency, not just with Democrats. So what's your message to those folks who aren't Democrats who may never have voted for a Democrat, but people who recognize the importance of protecting Americans bodily autonomy? What's your message to those people? My message to those people is, again, the difference is extremely clear. We have a Republican Party that intends to pass legislation to restrict these fundamental choices.

these choices, this question of freedom and autonomy, not just around reproductive rights, but around marriage equality, other issues of personal freedom. We saw my home state's in Indiana. We saw this past week in Indiana. The state passed a first post-Dobbs abortion ban that wasn't in existence before Dobbs came down. And we saw those Republicans in the state that are driving this to passage. You know, look, I think that, as you say, does transcend a party, but we have only one party that's driving this agenda. And that's the Republican Party. Republican leaders in Washington said that if they get control of the Congress,

they will press for a national abortion ban. And so it won't matter what state you live in, Congress will try to pass a ban on all abortions. Now, the good news is Joe Biden's going to be president. If Congress somehow passes it, he'll veto that. A better news would be if we had a day. Democratic House and Senate next year, we could actually pass a law that would protect women in all 50 states. We could pass a law that would turn Roe v. Wade back into the law of the land, where it was before the Dobbs decision, and protect people's reproductive rights wherever you live. So what I would say to people is that there is a big difference here between the two parties' positions.

Democrats are working hard to protect reproductive rights. Republicans are working hard to take them away. And if that's something you care about, and it's clear that for millions and millions and millions of Americans, it is something they care about passionately, then they need to make their voices hurt. I want to dig into this idea of the makeup of Congress. You know, there's obviously a lot at stake in this upcoming election, and either Democrats will hang on to their majorities in both chambers or they'll lose, you know, the House or the Senate. What does a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate look like versus divided government? Can you paint a picture of the next two years with those two scenarios? Well, sure. I think I do want to start with this issue of reproductive rights because I think that's in some ways the most dramatic and immediate one, Brian. If we have enough Democrats in the Senate who are committed to codifying row, committed to overcoming the filibuster to codify row as President Biden is,

that we can pass a law that settles this debate and anchors it. into the law of the land. It puts us back to where we were before Dobbs and, you know, really makes a hallmark for individual freedom. If on the other hand, we have a Republican House and Senate, which I don't think we will, but if we do, they will pass a bill to try to ban abortion rights. And President Biden will veto it.

But if they could ever get a Republican president, it would be signed into law. It'd be the law of the land, the opposite one. So that's one clear difference. There's obviously differences on economic issues. Let's talk about that. You saw in the Inflation Reduction Act, Democrats fighting to bring the cost of prescription drugs down and to allow people on Medicare to have less out-of-pocket expenses, cap those

out-of-pocket expenses at $2,000 a year for their drugs. What are the Republicans fighting for? Senator Scott, who's the chair of the Republican campaign committee, says he wants to put Medicare here and Social Security on a clock where they'd expire in five years with nothing to replace them. There just couldn't be a sharper difference on those critical issues. You've heard some Republicans talking about moving Social Security. Senator Johnson from Wisconsin says Social Security should be a discretionary program. That means even though it's not discretionary that you pay into Social Security, people pay in their entire lives. They don't have any choice about that.

Congress would then choose later on whether or not you get your benefits. That's not something we're for as Democrats. So I think we could go down the line, whether it's voting rights or a whole way of other issues. The differences between these two parties is as clear as day. And obviously, that's the difference we want the American people to focus on. I want to circle back to one issue that you spoke about earlier. For months, we've heard Republicans blaming the White House for high gas prices and inflation. And now, gas prices have dropped basically every day for 60 days, and the New York Fed survey of consumer inflation expectations registered its biggest drop ever.

How has it been juggling all of those phone calls from Republicans thanking you guys for solving the issues that they decided that you guys own? Has Kevin McCarthy called to say congratulations multiple times or just once? Well, as you might expect, Brian, those calls have been few and far between. Look, I don't care about phone calls. care about, what we care about here at the White House is delivering results for the American people. And inflation is too high. And families are squeezed. There's no question about that. By the way, families were squeezed for decades. For decades, we've had people live in paycheck to paycheck. And President Biden came here with a very different approach. He said,

we're going to put in place an economic strategy that grows the economy from the bottom up in the middle out. And that's what we've been working on for 18 months. And the first place you've seen progress is in the area of jobs. As you said before, we have the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. People can find jobs now and wages are up. We need to go farther. We need to make sure that people who want to join a union can join a union. We need to make sure that the things that we need in America, that manufacturing continues to improve. People thought manufacturing could never come back. And under President Biden, we've added 650,000 manufacturing jobs so that we're making things here in this country again. We need to then get prices down. We got, as you said, the price of gasoline

is coming down. But food prices are still too high. We need to work on that. There's lack of competition in many aspects of the food industry. Farmers are not ripping off American consumers. Farmers are not getting rich when food prices are high. It's the food processors and the intermediaries. We need to have more competition there. So we've got a lot of work to do. We've made a lot of improvements on the supply chain. We didn't make more improvements on the supply chain. And, of course, most importantly, most immediately, we have to get the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law. My point is this.

It's not that there isn't more work to do. There is. It's that Democrats are doing the work, and Republicans are giving speeches and have no answers. At the very least, you just get out of the way and let us pass this agenda to bring inflation down. Instead, they spent a whole weekend fighting against lower insulin costs, fighting against big corporations paying their fair share,

fighting against deficit reduction. So there's a choice here. And what I can tell you is our jobs are not done. Inflation is still too high. But we have a plan to bring it down. We are making progress on that plan, gas prices first, other things to follow. And we're going to continue fighting. for working families and for helping those families that live paycheck to paycheck in this country.

Perfectly put. Let's finish off with this. And I saved the most important issue for last year. The dark brand and memes. They've sprouted up as like, I don't even know how I explain this. This is when I know I have to log off of Twitter. They've sprouted up to represent President Biden's like second coming. His resurgence as the White House has been kicking ass these last couple of weeks and he's got glowing eyes. And anyway, has the president seen the dark brand and memes? And please, if you can, walk me through how this phenomenon was explained to the president of the United States. Well, the president's seeing the images. Look, I think, look, I think all I could say is this.

We've had a couple very strong summer here at the White House that's premised on the president standing up very strong to special interests, standing up strong to terrorists, standing up strong for freedom in Ukraine, standing up strong to the various – standing up strong to the gun lobbies, I mentioned, and you go down the line. And if what people are recognizing is that strength and that strength coming through and the victories that strength produces, and they want to recognize that by tweeting or by posting images or even by posting an image of him with his eyes turned red or whatever, You know, I think the important thing is not what the viral image is. I think what's important is the idea.

And the idea is that people want to see their president, stand tough to these special interests, stands tough to the opponents of freedom. That's what they're seeing. That's what they're recognizing. And however people choose to express that, that's the important thing. Very diplomatic answer with that one. Ron Clayne, thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me, Brian. I appreciate it. Now, we've got 30-year former federal prosecutor and host of the show Justice Matters on YouTube. Glenn Kirshner, Glenn, thanks so much for coming back on. Always great to see you. Great to be with you, Brian. So let's start off with the search warrant that was executed at Moralago.

First off, Merrick Garland recently gave a press conference where he said that the DOJ would be filing a motion to unseal the search warrant. What would that warrant show and will its release be dependent on whether Donald Trump himself agrees to it? Yeah, so Merrick Garland expressly said he'll be giving the other party. That would be Donald Trump, an opportunity to object to the unsealing of the search warrant, puts Donald Trump in a real trick bag. Does he continue to try to hide it from the American people? Or does he let us all see what it is that led to this dramatic, unprecedented step of the Department of Justice having to search the home of a former president for classified documents? So it will be up to the court. It's anybody's guess as to what Donald Trump will do because I have a feeling the contents of the warrant are going to be extremely damning.

On that exact point, I mean, you know, like as part of this whole pearl-clutching routine, basically, Republicans were the ones demanding that the warrant be unsealed, only for now Merrick Garland to call their bluff. But if this warrant is basically a blueprint for Trump's criminality, did those Republicans just screw themselves here? They did. And they do that early and often. And unfortunately, they do it with no consequences, at least none from their own base or from the Trump supporters. But yes, I was surprised that they were willing to make those representations sight unseen. Guys like Kevin McCarthy, who engages in political thuggery these days, that's really all he does is threatening Merrick Garland. You better preserve your documents and clear your calendar. You know what? The last person Merrick Garland is concerned about is Kevin McCarthy.

But they really did hurt their own cause if this affidavit is now unsealed. And we see dramatic evidence of Donald Trump's criminal mishandling of classified materials. We've watched this the January 6th committee. It's built a case around seditious conspiracy and defrauding the American people and obstructing a congressional proceeding, all things that we've spoken about in the past. And I think the first action we expected would be in regard to those things. But now we've watched, of course, as the FBI executed a search warrant for documents. So I guess the question now becomes, are these things happening concurrently?

Does one have any impact on the other? Are they related in any way? Looking into a crystal ball, which really is all we have to answer those questions, I suspect that the Department of Justice would have preferred to delay. delay this action until such time as perhaps they were ready to bring a larger conspiracy indictment that would include the run-up to and the incidents of January 6th. But the fact that they took it now in what I would call stand-alone fashion, just trying to claw back classified materials that Donald Trump has pretty plainly been hiding, concealing,

secreting, and we can talk about the implications of that legally. I think they felt like there must be a real danger to national security right now. So yes, we would prefer to wait, perhaps do this all at once, but they couldn't wait. And I hope we're on the eve of learning about all of that once the materials are unsealed. So, you know, of course we have the New York probe. We have the Georgia probe. We have the whole seditious conspiracy, January 6th probe. And then this seems to be a completely separate entity. It does seem to be. Now, will we come to find that there is some relationship between the, you know, dozens of boxes of our records?

These are our records. They don't belong to Donald Trump. They belong to the United States. And they were supposed to stay at the White House and be transferred to the National Archives. He chose to steal them. Let's call it what it is. I have a feeling there might be some things in there that we're going to see tie in to January 6th. There may be communications with any number of members of Congress like the Scott Perrys of the world.

Scott, pardon me, Perry. He's no longer Scott Gordon Perry. He's now Scott, pardon me Perry. He was deeply involved in Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election. I have a feeling we're going to see a couple of things. We're going to see classified materials that could damage our national security. if they got into the wrong hands. Maybe Donald Trump was intending to put them into the wrong hands for a price.

We'll find out. And there's going to be some stuff that I suspect relates to January 6th, but I don't think it's that second piece that caused them to move out right now. I think it's the national security piece. Now, for the sake of rebutting right-wing disinformation, can you explain the process of getting this warrant approved and whether it's even possible that political figures, Democratic figures like the president, like Joe Biden, could even have anything to do with it?

You know what? We saw what Donald Trump did when he just completely disregarded the traditional separation between the White House and the Department of Justice. So I would never say never, you know, if Joe Biden chose a corrupt path like Donald Trump did, sure, he could have undue influence on the Department of Justice's operations. I don't believe he is. I believe he's an honorable man, and I believe Merrick Garland is honorable kind of, you know, to the third power. Very circumspect, very careful, wants to make sure everything is done right, done by the book, and done in as bulletproof of fashion as possible. But let me just explain, Brian. You asked, how do we go about obtaining a federal search warrant? I was involved in this process hundreds of

times, and I know what it takes. First, it takes a really detailed FBI investigation. It doesn't have to be the FBI. It can be any of the federal law enforcement agencies, DEA, ATF, you know, Marshal Service, Park Police, on and on and on. After they reach a point in their investigation where they believe they have enough evidence to satisfy the burden of probable cause. What's probable cause? Nobody knows. But you know it when you see it. It's not just a mere hunch. I will say real quickly, the lowest bar that the law has in our day-to-day operations is what's called reasonable suspicion, reasonable articulable suspicion. That is the low standard set by the Supreme Court if a police officer wants to stop and risk somebody in the street. It's basically a hunch plus.

The next burden is probable cause. And that's about 40 to 45 percent of the evidence suggests a crime has occurred, and there is evidence in the place to be searched. The next standard is preponderance of the evidence. That is the standard, not to digress here. That's the standard where Judge Carter from California concluded there was enough evidence to satisfy the preponderance of the evidence standard that Donald Trump committed two federal felonies on and around January 6th. That's important. And then you move up the evidentiary scale from there. So once the law enforcement agency believes they have evidence that satisfies that probable cause burden, the next thing they do is they put the whole thing in an affidavit in support of an arrest warrant, and they swear to it. That catalogs and details

the evidence, often in chronological fashion, that supports their conclusion that Donald Trump has evidence of crime at Mar-a-Lago right now. It has to be fresh probable cause, not six months ago, right now. After they put all that into the affidavit, they swear to it under the penalties of perjury. And trust me, I've dealt with hundreds of FBI agents. They do not do that casually or cavalierly because they know what happens if they are called to the carpet as having lied in an affidavit. Then the whole thing comes to me, the federal prosecutor. I have to go through all of it. I have to sit down and talk with the agent. I have to review the evidence that they put in the affidavit that supports the probable cause determination, and if I agree, I sign my name to the whole search warrant application,

putting my reputation on the line. Then we go to the court, the judge. And the judge engages in an independent review of all of that to determine if the judge he or she believes we've met our probable cause standard and a search warrant should issue. Two co-equal branches of government are involved in this very rigorous process. I have confidence that they had PC plus plus plus plus in this instance because they wanted to search the home of a former president. That's my exact question. I mean, that meeting that evidentiary burden of probable cause is when there's not a former president involved.

So what is the likelihood that the evidence exceeded just probable cause in this instance? We're going to read these materials hopefully soon, unless Donald Trump wants to try to continue to secrete them from the American people. If I had to guess, I would say it's going to satisfy a burden of clear and convincing evidence, which is actually a legal burden well above a preponderance of the evidence. That's simply 51%. It wouldn't shock me, Brian, if we read it and we concluded, my gosh, there's evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump committed crimes and had evidence of those crimes at Mar-a-Lago

right now, refused to give them over. we've heard more about the sort of overly accommodating negotiating process, which frankly is a pet peeve of mine. That's not the way we usually do it when people steal classified material. We bent over backwards, gave him every opportunity, tried to use a subpoena, please, Mr. President, and he continued to commit the crime of concealing classified materials, which is why they had no other resort but to go in with a search warrant. So let's talk about 18 United States Code Section 2071, which I learned from you, which says that the punishment for anyone who's charged with and convicted of concealment or removal

of government records includes, quote, forfeiting his office and being disqualified from holding any office under the United States. So I mentioned at the top how we're all out here waiting on seditious conspiracy charges and whatnot and how we're now focused on the removal of government records. obviously the consequences if charged and convicted are pretty severe. So is this kind of like an Al Capone thing where it was like the obscure tax charges that brought him down in the end? You know, Al Capone thing in the sense that they're obscure or at least different from all of the other crimes we know Donald Trump committed in connection with trying to overthrow our

democracy, retain the power of the presidency unlawfully. But it is actually so far beyond what Al Capone did because Al Capone cheated on his taxes. Well, yeah, he killed a lot of folk, too, but we didn't get him for that. And I don't want to say lots and lots and lots of Americans cheat on their taxes, but they do, right? What Donald Trump did was remove and then continue to conceal classified information that could damage our national security. And Brian, we all know he did it for profit, right? That's, you know, the grift is always the thing with Donald Trump. So it's similar to the Al Capone example because it may be that Donald Trump gets taken down, at least initially, by something that wasn't really on our radar screen as one of Donald Trump's crimes. And as you say, the authorized punishment for a violation of 18 U.S.C. 271, you know, removing or concealing or mutilating these kind of classified materials is disqualification from public office.

But here's the other thing we learned today. We learned that they tried desperately to get these materials with a subpoena, and apparently the Trump and company might have given over some additional stuff, but they continued to conceal them even after they were served with a grand jury subpoena. That actually constitutes yet another offense obstructing justice. That's a 20-year offense. So, yeah, there's lots here to work with. And not too many thieves, by the way, are given the opportunity to just have a subpoena issued for their stolen property. It's usually just the cops go in and retrieve the stolen property as opposed to a, you know, a request and then a subpoena. And Brian, can I just

tell you there, I did a video a few months ago that I'm going to have to re-up because a woman out in Hawaii who was a federal government employee, she removed some relatively low level, it wasn't even top secret materials that she shouldn't have. You know what the federal government did to her? They promptly investigated, charged, indicted, convicted, and sent her to prison. That is what should be done to anybody in the federal government who does even one one hundredth of what Donald Trump did. He, you know, I don't appreciate the way DOJ bent over backwards to, if not facilitate his crimes, let him get away with it for more than a year.

Totally. You know, we've spent, what, five years now listening to Republicans chant, lock her up. And yet it turns out what we're seeing right now is that Republicans aren't super keen on holding elected officials accountable for crimes after all. What was your reaction to the GOP's response of not just pearl clutching over this, but actual calls for overt violence as well? You know, so the more I see of how the GOP sticks with Donald Trump, when, you know, a third grader could see the need to walk away from Donald Trump by now, I have to believe that it's more than their sort of unsatiable appetite to retain power. And they just desperately don't want to

alienate Donald Trump's base. I have a feeling many of them are complicit in what Donald Trump tried to do by retaining power unlawfully. Because, you know, I can see if they don't want to walk away from Trump because Trump could finger them, could give them up, could wrap them out. That is kind of the only thing that explains to my satisfaction, why there are only two, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. How can it be? There are only two Republicans who have the intelligence and the discretion of a third grader at a minimum and have walked away from Trump and are fighting to save our democracy.

And the rest of them are in Trump's corner beyond the possibility. that they're complicit in Trump's crimes, I can't explain it in any other way. Now, shockingly, the FBI search warrant wasn't the only legal jeopardy that Trump found himself dealing with this past week. He also pleaded the fifth during a deposition regarding the New York Attorney General's probe

into his own shady business dealings. Now, this is a civil case, meaning that you can draw a negative inference from his invocation of the fifth. Did he just do his case even more harm Or is Donald Trump such a fuck up that just him talking would have screwed him over even more regardless? Yeah, I've maintained for a long time that when Donald Trump's lips are moving, he is either lying, incriminating himself or both. So he was well advised to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at the deposition in the New York Attorney General's civil investigation.

Now, that has some consequences, as you say. First of all, it completely tanks. It guarantees that he will lose this civil case if it goes to trial. Because a negative inference is a mouthful, but what the jury will actually be told during the trial when Attorney General James is trying to shut down the Trump organization and make them pay a bazillion dollars and penalties and fines, the jury will be told Donald Trump, when given the opportunity to offer up his defense to defend his actions to explain that he did nothing wrong. He invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, which means if he had testified, he would have incriminated himself. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you can factor that in when you're trying to decide whether to rule for or against Donald Trump. So his case is sunk. So he's heard himself in the case. He's heard himself in the court of public opinion, because by by his estimation, only mobsters plead the fifth, with which I disagree. We all have a constitutional Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination, and we better hold onto it because if it

went away, then police could literally beat a confession out of us. So I embrace all of our constitutional rights, particularly the ones that have not yet been revoked by an illegitimate Supreme Court. But it really won't impact any criminal probe or criminal case because you have an absolutely constitutional right to plead the fifth. And that can never be introduced against you as incriminating evidence in a criminal investigation, a criminal grand jury, a criminal trial. So, you know, there are different consequences depending on the forum. Just real quick, what are the consequences of a sunk civil case in the New York AG's probe? What will that mean for Trump and the Trump organization? Just like it was the end of Trump University when the state of New York successfully sued him

because that was a big fat fraud that he was running, it will be the end of the Trump organization. I mean, the Trump organization has long been dying a slow death. I mean, it's chief financial officer and the Trump organization itself have been criminally indicted in our pending trial with the New York District Attorney's Office. So this will just kind of guarantee that, that it will be completely insolvent, it will be shut down, and that will be the end of the Trump organization. All right, let's finish off with this.

I know your betting limit is a dollar, so I'm going for the dollar bet here. If you had to guess, and you do believe that an indictment is forthcoming, where does it come from? Does it come from the DOJ, does it come from the New York AG, or does it come from Georgia?

Not the New York AG, because unfortunately Alvin Bragg has taken a huge step back in a probe that seemed to be ready to be indicted, according to the career prosecutors who were handling it. Maybe it will be revived. Maybe it will be transferred over to Tish James or to another prosecutor's office in New York. Let's hope. Until the last few days, Brian, I probably would have said Georgia because D.A. Fawney Willis has been going gangbusters. And if I can recommend to your viewers, please pull up the very short court documents where she has been beating the you know what out of Lindsay Graham and Rudy Giuliani.

And not only has she been stomping all over their legal arguments, she's been doing it with precision and with humor, and it really is worth reading those documents. They are going down in flames, both Lindsay and Rudy, and they're going to have to testify before the Georgia grand jury. I would have said that they were out in front of DOJ. I think their time table may have accelerated as a result of having to execute. the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. So I'm going to reduce my bet to 75 cents.

All right. We'll allow it. And I'm going to say that I'm going to shift over to say DOJ will get out with the first significant indictments, certainly of the lesser players of the insurrection, the John Eastman's Rudy Giuliani's Jeffrey Clarks, maybe even Donald Trump. Got it. Well, I guess we'll find out hopefully sooner than later. And for anybody else, that wants to listen and hear more from Glenn. Obviously, you can check out Justice Matters on YouTube with Glenn Kersner, G-L-E-N-N. Glenn, you're a fan favorite. Everybody is always constantly telling me how much they enjoy hearing you.

So thank you for coming on and taking the time. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Brian. Appreciate it. Thanks again to Glenn. One last note, if this is your first time tuning in, first off, thank you for listening. And second, please subscribe. That is the best way to support what I do.

Okay, 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.

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