The Journal. - What Will Trump's Third Indictment Cost Him?

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

Former President Donald Trump will appear in court tomorrow on charges related to his efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat, which prompted his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. WSJ’s Sadie Gurman discusses the indictment and WSJ’s Alex Leary explains what Trump's legal challenges could mean for his campaign war chest and his presidential campaign.Further Reading: -Trump Is Indicted in Federal Probe of His Efforts to Reverse 2020 Election  -Indict, Rally, Repeat: Reactions to Latest Trump Charges Follow Familiar Script  -As Trump Crowds Out GOP Rivals, Legal Bills Threaten His Campaign Coffers  Further Listening:  -United States of America v. Donald J. Trump  -Donald Trump Is Charged on 34 Felony Counts  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two and a half years after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Justice Department indicted former President Donald Trump for his role in the insurrection. The Justice Department laid out its case in a 45-page criminal indictment. It basically accuses a former president of conspiring to defraud the U.S. and obstructing an official proceeding of basically spreading lies to destabilize the election process, along with six co-conspirators who are not charged. That's our colleague Sadie Gurman.

She covers the Justice Department. It was an unprecedented criminal case accusing a former president of basically trying to subvert the will of the American people by trying to stay in power after he lost the 2020 election. I have never seen an indictment like this. Trump, who is the Republican presidential frontrunner, has denied wrongdoing

and accused prosecutors of pursuing him for political reasons. And tomorrow, he will appear for an arraignment at a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., just steps away from the U.S. Capitol. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Leinbaugh. It's Wednesday, August 2nd. Coming up on the show, Trump's mounting legal troubles

and what they mean for his campaign. Get chicken parmesan delivered. Sunshine? No. Some wine? Yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. See app for details. Good evening. Today, an indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring... Last night, Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith addressed reporters.

The attack on our nation's capital on January 6th, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government. Jack Smith, who is the special counsel, you know, he's a former war crimes prosecutor. He's not somebody who says very much. He prefers to let his work speak through court filings. So yesterday's statement was a rare time in which we actually got to hear his voice.

He said that the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol was caused and precipitated by Trump's lies about the election. He said that those conspiracies and those lies that Trump spread basically served to target a core function of the federal government, in this case, the electoral process, the process by which we certify votes. Since the attack on our Capitol, the Department of Justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. This case is brought consistent with that commitment, and our investigation of other individuals continues. I thought it was very, very striking remarks from a man that we hear very little from.

Why was this such a remarkable moment? What was so stunning about it? Well, we saw an unprecedented moment back in June when Trump was indicted in a separate case related to his handling of classified documents after he left the White House. But this was really a new moment in history because it's essentially accusing a former president of trying to subvert the will of the American people by attempting to stay in power after he lost the election. Prosecutors said he knew he lost and continued to lie in a way that was designed to basically upend the electoral process. That is significant because it's a case that cuts to the heart of American democracy. It's not just about documents or about post-presidential conduct.

It's actually about the core functions of our government. Prosecutors charged Trump with four crimes, including conspiring to defraud the U.S., obstructing an official proceeding, and conspiring against the rights of voters. Basically, in this indictment, Smith acknowledges that Trump had a First Amendment right to criticize the election and even say that there was fraud. But this enters the realm of criminal conduct because he went so far beyond

those rights and took steps that basically involved discounting legitimate votes. What kind of picture does the indictment paint of the former president's actions? Well, we've known a lot of the details that were revealed in the indictment because a separate congressional committee investigated the steps leading up to the January 6th attack. This indictment paints a clear picture of how Trump leaned on officials

in battleground states that he had lost, like Arizona and Georgia and Michigan, to support those efforts. And when they failed, according to this indictment, Trump pushed his own Justice Department to falsely claim election fraud. and he pressed Mike Pence to overturn the results, and then finally led his supporters to march on the Capitol, telling them to fight like hell just before they stormed the building on January 6th. What did we learn that was new from this indictment? Significantly, the Justice Department has also pointed to six co-conspirators. These are people who are not named in the indictment and who are not charged, but from descriptions of them by prosecutors are pretty plainly identifiable. This is the first time that we've

seen the Justice Department accuse other people of criminal conduct within that realm. So that's something that is significant. Well, what do we know about these co-conspirators? They're not named. Are they identifiable? They are pretty plainly identifiable from the details that prosecutors provided about them. They include Trump's former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, this lawyer named John Eastman, who basically was the architect of a scheme to submit false electors to Congress, a lawyer named Sidney Powell, who perpetuated false allegations of voter fraud that included lies about the very voting machines that people were using, that they had been somehow corrupted by people in foreign countries. An advisor for Giuliani said Trump had a good faith basis for his actions. Eastman's lawyer called the charges contrived.

Powell declined to comment. So why does it matter that the indictment mentioned these co-conspirators? Well, that's significant because while they are not charged currently, they could still face potential criminal charges. It also suggests that the Justice Department in its investigation has some pretty high-level cooperation from people in Trump's orbit. That some of these people had testified before the grand jury or had spoken at length with prosecutors. We know that Giuliani went in and talked to Smith's team for at least eight hours under what is known as a proffer agreement, by which he provided information under the agreement that prosecutors wouldn't bring criminal charges against him unless they

found that he lied at some point in his discussions with them. Mike, Pence played a kind of central role in this indictment. What did we learn about Trump's conversations with him? In a pair of phone calls in December and January, Trump told his vice president that he should work to change the outcome, even after Pence said he didn't think he had the authority to do that. And at one point in these conversations, Trump said to Pence, you know, you're too honest, which is a signal of Trump's state of mind at this point. Why is it so important to lay out that Trump knew what he was doing?

I mean, that's something that prosecutors are going to have to show in court if they want to get a conviction. Trump's state of mind is going to be at the heart of the criminal case. prosecutors are going to have to show that he knew what he was doing was wrong and that he knew that these lies that he was spreading were false and that he did so in such a way that actually deprived voters of their rights. How has Trump responded to this? Trump has stuck to his frequent talking point that this is another signal that the Justice Department is infected by politics and that the Biden administration is putting its thumb on the scale of the election in 2024, in which Trump is the likely GOP frontrunner.

So what happens from here? Well, this basically ensures that Trump will be juggling campaign events with courtroom appearances, the first of which is going to be Thursday, when Trump will make his initial appearance in a federal courtroom in Washington. So this is now Trump's third indictment. There's one in Miami. There's one in Manhattan. There could be a fourth coming from Georgia. All of this is going on while he's running for president. That's right.

Will it slow him down? Trump has certainly argued in court filings that these proceedings will slow him down and that it's going to be too complicated and too difficult for him to get a fair trial when he's trying to campaign as well as manage all of his legal battles. But in some ways, it seems to be booing him with his supporters. So while it is going to be challenging for him to manage this campaign schedule with courtroom appearances,

I'm not entirely sure that it does slow him down. What Trump's legal woes mean for his campaign finances? That's next. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you. Heading for adventure? We'll help you breeze through security. Meeting friends a world away? You can use your travel credit. Squeezing every drop out of the last day?

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Just a few simple sounds. No complexity. Like neutral. Made with just vodka, soda, and natural flavor. Neutral. Refreshingly simple. Minutes after the news of Trump's third indictment, political reporter Alex Leary noticed an email in his inbox. Trump's campaign sent out an email with a all caps subject line breaking officially indicted by the Biden DOJ. And it was yet again another fundraising appeal from him. He sends out dozens of these. And this one was just teed up to go to raise money from his supporters off of this latest indictment.

I'll read some of it for you. And even after three indictments, I will continue to stand in their way because the fate of our nation hangs in the balance in the 2024 election. It's not just my freedom on the line, but yours as well. And I will never let them take it from you. So again, Trump in that context is trying to make it not just about him, but about his supporters and his movement, the MAGA movement. He's trying to make it much more broader than himself and say that this is an attack on you as well. And I need you to help me fight that off. So please give me money.

Trump used his two previous indictments as fundraising opportunities, too. It's been an effective way to raise money for his political action committee called Save America. But at the same time, these indictments are depleting his war chest. I mean, in illustrating the drain this problem has had for him, a year ago, this Save America PAC had more than $100 million. So $100 million a year ago, down to about $4 million as of June 30th. That's a stunning use of money. A lot of that, again, not all of it, but 90 percent of his expenses this year from

that fund have gone towards legal fees, more than $20 million. So a high burn rate for legal costs. Can you use a political action committee for legal defense purposes? Well, that's questionable. I mean, that's one thing that some critics have pointed out, that this is, you're not supposed to use it to benefit your campaign and that this is, you know, arguably benefiting his campaign. You know, Trump's campaign says they're following the law and that they are being persecuted themselves and therefore need help, you know, from financial ruin. Do you think this indictment will help or hurt Trump politically? I think it'll help him at least temporarily. We're talking about two different things. The Republican primary, this should help him. We've seen in the past these other indictments that Trump just seems to grow stronger. His core

support, which is substantial, sort of rallies around him. They are locked into him. And others that are looking at other candidates also feel sort of a solidarity with him. So, yes, I believe this will continue to help him. There is some question, again, as his legal problems mount and he's got court appearances, whether some supporters will begin to just get so tired of it and look elsewhere. And like inside the Beltway, how are Republicans reacting to this? It's sort of split. You've got a lot of House conservatives who are very much on Trump's side. They very much feel like the government has been weaponized.

A word they use so often is weaponized. And so House conservatives, a lot of them are on Trump's side. There's moderates, however, Republican moderates. And then there's senators who are less apt to, you know, to jump on his side. And they're uneasy about this notion that Trump's, again, bending political norms, attacking political institutions or institutions of the government. So it's not universal. And if Trump were to be convicted in any of these indictments, could he still run for office? Yes, he can. There's nothing that prevents someone from doing so. It's extraordinary.

And if he were to be elected, could he then get rid of these indictments? Yeah, there's a lot of question whether Trump would move to pardon himself. And that's, again, another really untested theory, but it's out there. I mean, there's talk of that's what he would do. And, you know, I think it's serious talk as well. If he were elected, you know, would he seek to undo all this and then, you know, make dramatic changes to the government and its institutions? changes to the government and its institutions. And it's sort of stunning that the leading Republican presidential candidate is someone who's been indicted three times and maybe even four by the end of August.

That's right. Yeah, it's quite amazing to witness this play out. And absolutely, this is uncharted. We are in a phase of politics that's really not been tested before. But also the amazing thing is with each of these indictments, Trump continues to be steady, if not get stronger with the Republican vote. He's just, poll after poll shows him with a large lead over his rivals and a number, a large number of supporters feel like he's done nothing wrong here.

So politically, it's been quite good for him, to put it frankly. You know, legally and financially, that's a different question. That's all for today, Wednesday, August 2nd. The Journal is a co-production of Gimlet and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Aruna Vishwanatha. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.