Will Cain Country - 2024: The Year Of Politics In The Courtroom

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

As recent polling shows former President Trump with a commanding lead in the GOP primary and strong gains in swing states against President Biden, four major cases loom over the former President's reelection chances.  For a deep dive into how it all might play out, Will brings on FOX News legal analyst, Jonathan Turley. They discuss which cases spell the most trouble for President Trump, whether or not we will see court decisions before the election, and what it would look like if President Trump were to run and win the presidency from prison. Plus, they look at where President Biden's impeachment inquiry might lead and ponder why Hunter Biden won't sit before Congress. Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail] Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for $5.5 plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Go Biden's impeachment. Donald Trump's not one. not two, not three, but four different criminal cases? Politics in the courtroom, 2024.

It's the Will Cain podcast on Fox News podcast. What's up? And welcome to the weekend. Welcome to Friday. As always, I hope you will download, rate, and review this podcast wherever you get your audio entertainment at Apple, Spotify, or at Fox News podcast. You can watch the Will Cain podcast on Rumble or on YouTube. We are in the home stretch.

We are barreling towards Christmas. And everybody's asking me, hey, do you have any ideas for last-minute gifts? And shockingly, this is a year when I'm ahead of the curve. I've done a pretty good job of getting ahead on gifts. I mean, that's really a way of saying my wife has done a really good job of getting ahead on gifts. But I do have some ideas. And I think in upcoming episodes of the Will Kane podcast, I'll try to give you a few last-minute gifts. I should do this sooner rather than later, so you have time to order the perfect gift for her or the perfect gift for him.

But I have had a lot of you say, hey, I should probably do these Omaha steaks for my husband. And I have said, and this is not an advertisement, this is now content around the advertisement, that I do think a freezer full of steaks is a good way to make steaks or chicken or burgers not... a treat, not a production, not dinner. Of course, it will serve for dinner. But I have a friend of mine who is into health and working out, but it's funny hanging out with him. You don't come away with that because we have steak and eggs for breakfast. But he's like, look, protein is what's good for you? And he eats it for lunch. And he does a steak in the air fryer, which I've got to learn how to use an air friar, because that just sounds like a tiny bit more patience than a microwave.

And if I can have steaks with a tiny bit more patience than a microwave for lunch, all I need then is a Omaha Steaks freezer full of meat. And so people are using the promo code C-A-I-N

because it's 50% off. And I promise you, this is not a paid ad. I didn't have to do this. It's just come up in my life. Like, I don't know, a handful of times that people have heard me talking about and said, do you think that would be good for my husband for lunch?

And I think that the answer is, lunch dinner whatever more meat more steak Omaha steaks a couple of quick things in the news like I wanted to talk about I you know he just LeBron James makes it impossible to root for LeBron James did you see the video coming out of California LeBron attended brawny his son's first college basketball game USC versus Long Beach State and he walks in to the gym during the national anthem. Okay, it's everyone else in the gym is standing. They're all facing in one direction with the flag.

And he walks in with his daughter. That's cute. He's holding her hand. And he's got a little bit of an entourage with him. They're wearing USC sweatshirts. And somebody's showing them to their seats. And that's fine. And maybe you get wrapped up.

But you don't get so wrapped up in the moment. You don't even recognize that everyone else in the stadium is standing and paying salute, if not reverence, to the American flag in the national anthem. And it's a non-event to LeBron. And I don't even think it's because he's wrapped up in his own narcissism. I think it's purposeful. It's hard to watch the video and not come away with the fact he's making a statement. And then he sits down during the national anthem.

So after the production of What's My Seats, while the young lady is singing, he then sits. And I mean, come on. You know, I saw a post where Terrell Owens, former Cowboys, 49ers wide receiver said he was shocked at the way the nation responded to Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the National Anthem, and it reveals what they think of us, meaning America thinks of black people. No, it doesn't. It reveals how we feel about the United States of America and it symbols. And it draws questions about how you feel Terrell Owens, Colin Kaepernick, or LeBron James, about America. You know, and I think it's a very logical, rational reaction. If you purposefully walk in

like a sullen teenager who hates his parents during the national anthem and sit down, you have made a point. And so it's rational logical for me to say, hey, what is your point? I'd love to ask LeBron that question. What is your point? Why did you make a point of ignoring the national anthem? What is it you think of America? Because without that answer, LeBron, I'm left to fill in the gaps.

And it seems to me, again, I think rationally and logically, that you hate America, in which case I would invite you to go play basketball and not just make shoes and sweatshops in China. It's getting confusing about everything that is headed our way in 2024. It's a year as we've talked about where, I don't know, are we going to have a soft landing to this recession? Is it going to be a hard crash? How many different wars are going to crop up? and how many of them will require America's full involvement? And a presidential election where we look to have one president tied up in court from four different criminal cases, and I don't even know how many civil cases in Donald Trump. And the other candidate, a sitting president,

who's on the verge of impeachment. Why won't Hunter Biden sit before Congress? We decided we try to sort it all out, put it into context, and ask some of these questions in understanding, not just what's happening with Hunter and Joe Biden, not just what's happening with Donald Trump, but how it is the mayor of Boston can throw a holiday party that purposefully excludes employees of Boston who are white.

All of that with Georgetown Law Professor Fox News contributor, Jonathan Turley. We'll be right back with more of the Will Kane podcast. It is time to take the quiz. questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along. Let's see how you do. Take the quiz every day at thequiz.com. Then come back here to see how you did. Thank you for taking the quiz. Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy host of the Trey Gowdy podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcast.com.

Professor Jonathan Turley, great to see you today here on the Will Kane podcast. It's about to be your year. 2024 is about to be the year of politics in the courtroom. And we're already getting started. We're already getting started with Donald Trump. We're getting started potentially with Joe Biden. And we're getting started through the prism of Hunter Biden. And you wrote a column recently where you were a little bit shocked that Hunter Biden called a press conference out in front of the Senate side.

of Congress to say he would not testify before Congress. You said of all of his options. That was the one option that he didn't maintain. What's going on with Hunter Biden? Yeah, I have to tell you that there are certain moments as a legal analyst that just baffle you. I take pride in being able to give both sides of the rationales for certain actions. This is one of those that I can't come up with a reason. I mean, this is sort of a two-flavor ice cream stand. You know, you can appear and testify, or you can appear and not testify by invoking the Fifth Amendment. In either case, you must appear. Standing in front of the Capitol and taunting Congress is a rather bizarre legal strategy. In my view, he is in flagrant violation. He's in open contempt of Congress. He could be charged

with that crime. It's very similar to what Steve Bannon did. And Merrick Garland, the attorney general, made fast work of Steve Bannon. I mean, that was a NASCAR pace from his refusal to an indictment. It was only a matter of a couple of months where he found himself indicted and in court. What's also bizarre will about it is that we now know that this was orchestrated by Representative Eric Swalwell. So here you've got a former manager of a House impeachment organizing the contempt of Congress to refuse to testify in an impeachment in court, which is a crime. I mean, it just cannot get more bizarre. So I'm tempted to ask, and you've already begun to answer the question that I'm now going to complete, which is so what, so what if you defy Congress?

I think that Biden has actually asked himself that question and come back with the answer, nothing. So what if I defy Congress? And what you're telling me is, well, it's a crime, contempt of Congress. And of course, we're talking about Hunter Biden and the investigation into Hunter Biden's alleged influence peddling scheme that could include the president, Joe Biden. And House Republicans have called him to testify in this investigation. They would like a behind closed doors deposition, which you and I will discuss more. about in just a moment that deposition. But the so what is it's contempt of Congress. There's precedent with Steve Bannon. And you also made a point in your column to say he chose to stand outside the

Senate side of Congress because if he was in front of the House, presumably the House Sergeant of Arms could have grabbed him and pulled him into Congress. Right. They clearly wanted to be on the other side of the Capitol to avoid any action by the House Sergeant of Arms. It does matter. I mean, the thing is, I think this was a colossal mistake. None of us thought Hunter was going to testify. So the House didn't lose anything. But what they gained is now an extra front. He could very well find himself indicted.

The reason is that Merrick Garland has been criticized for years over his refusal to appoint a special counsel to look into the influence peddling scandal and the corruption of millions of dollars coming from foreign sources. But he would have a hard way. to distinguish this. This is so much like Steve Bannon that the expectation would be that he would go ahead and prosecute. The irony, of course, is it would have to go to the D.C. U.S. attorney, who is the same guy who refused the request from David Weiss to prosecute Hunter in D.C. for tax violations. So do you have any reasonable expectation that there would be some uniform system of justice that would treat Steve Bannon and Hunter Biden the same?

Well, I've got to tell you, I don't see how they could possibly rationalize not proceeding against Hunter Biden. Some people have suggested that this was really an awfully clever move because the vote on impeachment came hours later. I got to tell you that, I don't understand that point, which is made by a lot of folks on TV. You know, when I testified in the first Biden impeachment here, I encourage them to hold a formal vote. But I also said at the time, there is no requirement for a formal vote.

The Democrats opened an impeachment inquiry without a formal vote. An impeachment inquiry has been going on, and I think a court would agree. But the other problem with this theory is when you look at the subpoena, it was actually issued under the authority of two committees and three separate provisions. And one of those committees is an oversight committee that has independent. subpoena authority. So I can't imagine how a court would say, oh, well, do it again. It seems to me a valid subpoena, and he seems in flagrant violation. So I don't want to take for granted that anybody listening keeps up with every twist and turn of all of these legal dramas. That's why I wanted to have you on today. And so I also don't want to take for granted that anybody understands

because, look, Professor Turley, I'm an attorney, or at least I went to law school, and I am licensed through the bar, although inactive. And I'm on news, and I'm in the news cycle on a daily basis. And I don't find it easy to understand the difference between impeachment and impeachment inquiry. I don't find it easy to understand why on its face or on the surface, Republicans would want to have a deposition of Hunter Biden behind and closed doors because everybody feels like we need transparency. We need the light of day. In fact, Professor, I had texts this morning from a friend who I used to work with in sports who I would, I'm guessing. leans to the left. But his whole thing was, hey, why did it? This doesn't make any sense.

Let us all see the interview and let us make up our own mind. Now we'll just have two different groups claiming victory or two different stories. And I said, no, no, no. Listen, you don't understand. And I've made this, had this made clear to me, Professor, by, for example, Trey Gowdy and Jason Chaffitz and others who've been involved in these investigations. You need the behind the closed door deposition because it allows you a linear trail of questions for from an examiner, much like a real deposition, cross-examination, logical follow-through. If it's sitting there in a committee room in front of everyone, it's a circus. It's a sideshow with congressmen taking turns doing five-minute monologues for television. And you don't

ever really get a cross-examination or an examination of Hunter Biden. Is that, in your estimation, a fair explanation of why Republicans want to start with a behind-the-closed-doors deposition? Yes, I think it is rather humorous to see Democrats objecting. They did this. This was what they required witnesses to do in the January 6th investigation. And the reason is that you can use your attorneys and your investigators to ask questions of witnesses. It is a more substantive process. There's not this theatrical five-minute rule where members reclaim their time as soon as so on starts to answer a question. Also, particularly in this case, there's a reason for it. There are thousands and thousands of pages of financial transfers. Those involve various people.

They involve privacy information. They involve names that may have to be redacted. What you want to be able to do is to have a free discussion with a principle like Hunter to go through these things and understanding that when this goes into public hearing, some of this may have to be redacted. But the argument of Democrats expressing shock is just really just otherworldly. This is exactly what they did with witnesses. And in fact, they didn't call most witnesses for the public portion of the January 6th committee. It was a very staged event. They even went and got an ABC television producer to stage those hearings. And it's not as though those hearings aren't recorded, right? If Hunter went behind closed doors for a deposition, there would presumably

be a transcript, and maybe even it would be on video. It is on video, and they will be on video. And indeed, in the January 6th committee, they played deposition videos. They did it a lot. In fact, there was more testimony shown on video deposition than there was testimony in the committee itself. And so from Hunter's perspective, he wants to avoid that closed-door deposition because it's a more thorough examination, right?

If it's in the open committee room, he has Democratic congressmen running cover for him. He has, quite honestly, Republican congressmen who aren't as good at it, perhaps, who just use it as a stump speech moment for television or for their viral Twitter moment. So all of it adds up to easier opportunities for him to slip away. That's right. But also, you just won't get anything substantively done. That's why they wanted it in a public hearing. First of all, you start out by guaranteeing that 50% of the questions are going to be softballs or declarations from the Democratic members.

At least 20% to 25% of Republican questions are likely to be repetitive or in some cases poorly crafted. You go into that deposition, you're being deposed by lawyers, by investigators who are good at this. And the fact is, Hunter Biden doesn't want to go in there, I think, for one obvious reason. It'll be a buzzsaw. I mean, it is, that's the reason I never thought he was going to testify. I mean, it is very clear to most objective people that he was at the heart of a multi-million dollar influence peddling scheme involving different countries. There's not any good answers to a lot of these questions.

So back to now the, I don't think the casual, even when I say casual, it almost is inappropriate because I think even if you're in on a pretty frequent basis on the news cycle, it's hard to understand the formalities of an impeachment inquiry. I personally have spoken to the House Speaker about this. And I'd love for you to help us understand by moving, they've now voted for an impeachment inquiry. Like, what happens legally, Professor, as we move forward with the potential impeachment of Joe Biden? By the way, all this about Hunter Biden, and you've said it in this podcast, he'll just plead the fifth anyway, when it's all said and done. So you may not be getting that much out of Hunter. But there's other people like Eric Schwerin, who is testifying this week. So what's, how does this unfold? Give me the impeachment inquiry and a potential impeachment of Joe Biden in how it unfolds, I would presume, over the next month and a half. Well, first of all, this is the stage that the Democrats skipped, which is also rather humorous to see them objecting. You know, they, in the second impeachment of Trump, they used what I call the snap impeachment.

They had no hearing at all. They went straight to the floor. The Democrats really eviscerated the impeachment process in the two Trump impeachments. I testified in the Clinton impeachment, and I also testified in the Trump impeachment, and I testified most recently in the Biden impeachment inquiry. The difference is that an inquiry is exactly that. What was weird in that first hearing is that everyone kept on saying, well, there's no evidence, no evidence, no evidence to prove that Biden benefited in any way. Well, that's the point of an inquiry.

You have millions of dollars going to various Biden family members. And one of the things I pointed out in that hearing is it's utter nonsense to keep on saying that there's no evidence that Joe Biden benefited in any legal sense from this influence penalty. there are various federal cases, criminal cases involving crimes like bribery, where payments to family members are viewed as a benefit to the principal. And by the way, that also applies to impeachment. I was the last lead defense counsel in a judicial impeachment. I represented to the Judge Porteus in his Senate trial. He was impeached because of gifts going to his family. Many of these senators and members of the House voted in that case.

So many of these people saying, you have to show me something other than gifts to family members previously voted that that constituted an impeachable offense. So I want to be clear. So, and this is kind of tackling all the popular rebuttals that you'll hear on television or other places. The one that I don't have much time for is, well, you have nothing beyond circumstantial evidence. Well, we've sent men to death row on circumstantial evidence. There's this narrative now that circumstantial evidence somehow is not real evidence on whether or not any of this benefit of Joe Biden. But secondarily, what you're telling us is there's precedent that even if it doesn't go to Joe, if Hunter's reaping benefits, that's improper influence peddling. But then what do you do with this?

I know this isn't necessarily a legal question. I heard Anna Navarro say this on the view. It's not a legal question, professor, but I do think it's a question of maybe egregiousness or how. how bad is the potential sin? If we presume that Hunter Biden was influenced peddling, and there was some corresponding benefit to Joe Biden, whether or that's just his son enriching himself, as you point out, or there's circumstantial evidence that he himself was enriched from this program. There are people saying, like Anna Navarro, well, that's everybody in Washington. Everybody trades on their last name. You know, what do you say to that from the view?

Well, first of all, I've been a critic of influence peddling for decades, and I've criticized Republicans and Democrats. But more importantly, the United States has led international efforts to ban influence peddling as one of the worst forms of corruption. We have international agreements that we pushed through. This is corruption. It's not people that shrug it off and say it happens all the time is utter nonsense. I mean, yes, it is a common form of corruption, but it doesn't mean, that it's somehow less culpable. The United States has said that in pushing these reforms in other countries. But I got to tell you, someone who has written about influence peddling for over three decades in Washington, I've never seen anything like the Biden family. I mean,

this is a family business. This is not, people keep on pretending that Hunter Biden is like the first time that the Biden family has ever been accused of this. The Biden family has always been accused of this. This has been the chief criticism of Joe Biden since when he was a senator. His brothers openly raised money off of access and influence with their brother. You can go back and find articles going back 20 years. But more importantly, we know of millions of dollars coming from some of the most corrupt figures in the world to various Biden family members, including grandchildren. The size of this is really quite daunting.

We're going to step aside here for a moment. Stay tuned. This is Jimmy Phala, inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at fox acrossamerica.com. All right, let's shift gears.

I wanted to ask you about this. A story out of Boston, mayor of Boston. believe her name is Michelle Wu, through a holiday party for only people of color in the city government. That invitation, I guess, mistakenly through email, went out to something like seven white members of the city staff. And for that she apologized. It seems like she apologized for getting caught or for inadvertently inviting white people to the people of color holiday party. And they're going to have another party, by the way, where everybody's invited. Now, I have enough, again, legal background to just, just to get myself into trouble.

But, you know, I do remember that, you know, formal government is not allowed to engage in race-conscious behavior unless they can prove there's some kind of strict scrutiny necessity for that race consciousness. Now, that's usually applied to laws, you know, or regulations or whatever it may be. Is that applied to behavior as well, like informalities, like holiday parties? I would think, you know, you can't, in modern-day America, you can't have on its face a race-conscious club, right? Like, you can't have a country club anymore. It says, we only accept people of this race. Can you have a holiday party from a city government that says we don't accept people to this party of specific races? Well, first of all, it's, of course, not just laws.

It's any type of government action. The government cannot discriminate on the basis of race. and so that involves programs and policies as well as laws. It is a rather curious apology. It's like inviting two of the three kings to the manger on a race base and then saying, but all three are invited to the after party. Right. You know, it doesn't quite.

And apologizing the invitation went to all three kings. We didn't mean for the third king to get that invitation. Sorry. Exactly. Yeah. So you really have to step back first of all, just say, as a matter of policy, this idea that you will hold a holiday party based on race is really insulting to so many people, even if it could pass legal muster. And the fact that the response

was you shouldn't have known that you weren't invited is just bizarre. This is the mayor of a major city that has within her responsibility, the guarantee of fighting all forms of racial discrimination. And her only regret is that she let the white people know that they weren't supposed to go to the party. Now, whether this can be challenged, it's a good question, because we have to look at whether this was an official party, whether this was using official governmental resources. Many of it does sound like it did. In my view, that does violate the anti-discrimination obligations of the city. Now, of course, Courts have given some leeway here, right?

There are lots of special programs based on race that are used as outreach programs, educational programs, opportunity program. So they can argue that this is part of that. But there's a plausible argument that they're engaging in race discrimination in an official function. However, they dress it up. And they dress it up talking about affinity groups or creating spaces as the new language. However, they dress it up, I mean, I think we can all see the intention. And the intention is, in my mind, transparently racist. And what I wonder is, even though you said there's some precedent, I kind of wonder,

Professor, if there's not some legal racial reckoning coming for everything that has been indulged over the past roughly five years, wherein we've kind of embraced a new form of segregation, but it's done under that dressed up language of creating spaces at college campuses for certain racial groups where it's on its face exclusionary. You know, and I think that, I don't know, the constitution that I learned about in law school didn't allow for all of this kind of stuff, especially if there was some kind of connection to government to the government. I just, I wonder if there's not some legal reckoning coming for the way society has lurched over the last five years.

Well, there is a third degree of hypocrisy from some folks on the level. You know, these are cities that have pushed anti-discrimination laws to force bakers, photographers, website designers, to take any customers without discrimination, even if they've religious objections. And the argument is that you, you know, you cannot even put on a website objections of something like same-sex marriage. And that case was just in front of the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court handed down some major new rulings on that for free speech. But these are the same politicians that are arguing that there should never be any discrimination in places of accommodation. And yet in Boston, they're saying when we hold a party, we're going to racially segregate.

You know, we're going to racialize this holiday in that sense. Now, I understand that their argument is, oh, well, we want people to feel comfortable. But these are, my understanding, these are elected people, right? First of all, you're suggesting that the white invitees would somehow be intimidating or would destroy the celebratory aspects of the holiday. I find that so much surprising in Boston, particularly. I think that the argument that we want to make everyone comfortable has been the cover for every racist policy in history. It's the argument for segregation. We want to make every student comfortable here.

You know, so I don't, I don't, what's old is new again. Okay, let's move to the other big, big, let's not, I can't even call it a case because it's a, it's a whole host of cases. It's the legal wranglings of Donald Trump as we approach the election year. I guess the most, the most newsworthy moment at the moment we're speaking regarding Donald Trump is the appeal to the Supreme Court of whether or not Donald Trump has immunity. presidential immunity from the investigations to him into him around January 6th. This went, Jack Smith, the special prosecutor, is pushing this right back to the federal appellate court level, straight to the Supreme Court, which I've heard you speak about this. I've spoken about this, which says to me on its face, it's a motivation revealing move.

Got to have this happen before Super Tuesday. This shows me, all this is political. It's meant to influence an election. But what do you think is going to happen here with the Supreme Court? And I guess this is our first hurdle. I don't know. I can't even keep up, Professor. Is this the first legal hurdle for Donald Trump or the next biggest legal hurdle for Donald Trump?

Well, this has not been a good week for special counsel, Jack Smith. He has been dogged in trying to guarantee that he can try and, in his view, hopefully convict the president by election day. The judge has been facilitating that by shoehorn. this trial into a crowded schedule right before Super Tuesday. But there's an urgency in the filings by Smith that it's essential to get this done. Some justices may ask why. I mean, you know, they may not share that sense of urgency. You know, even if Donald Trump is convicted, it wouldn't it wouldn't keep him from serving as president. It wouldn't destroy his eligibility to be on ballots. And so some of these justices may say, well, I understand this is an important

issue, but because it's important, maybe we should hear from the Court of Appeals and then render a decision because that's the regular order of things. But for Smith, this is really a bad series of events because the judge in D.C. just stayed further proceedings. So nothing is going to happen during this pendency. If the Supreme Court decides, you know, we can wait for the D.C. Circuit, even if the D.C. Circuit expedites review, that's going to kick any type of argument in the court into the next year. It's going to make that March trial very difficult to hold on to. But Smith has another weird thing looming here, and that is, I think that he has to be concerned that if Donald Trump is elected, he could self-pardon himself. So if this trial goes

beyond the election, Jack Smith may never see the inside of a courtroom. And so that Trump could issue a self-pardon or his new attorney general could scuttle this investigation. So the urgency that you see in these filings is understandable. I'm just not sure all the justices are going to share that. So give me, remind me, because we lose track over time. You've got the New York case, the quote-unquote, hush money case, which you and I have spoken in the past. you think is by far the weakest, I believe, of the three cases. I don't know what the schedule is on that particular trial. You've got this case, Jack Smith's case, in January 6th.

And then you've got one in Georgia as well, right? Is that the totality of criminal cases that Donald Trump is facing as we approach 2024? Yes, the strongest one is the documents case in Marilago. That's the one with the strongest evidence, the most well-established law. that's scheduled for May, I believe, of 24, that could also move because that case is really heavily laid in classified material. I've been lead counsel in classified cases, and I've got to tell you, they really move slowly. It is a nightmare to get through this number of classified documents, particularly if you don't clear a lot of lawyers. In some cases, I've been the only cleared

lawyer, which reduces this to a glacial pace. But that is scheduled for May. the Georgia case is going through a bit of a change now. You've got a number of people that have pled guilty. So the question now is how serious is that case? There's still some challengeable aspects to Georgia. The problem is that many of those issues have to wait until after a conviction. For example, I do believe that Donald Trump has a strong free speech claim to make. They are criminalizing things that he made,

he said in that speech. I just can't see how that fits with existing precedent cases like Brandenburg. And when it gets to the Supreme Court, I think all bets are off. That's regarding Georgia or is that regarding Jack Smith's case? With regard to Georgia, Smith also has free speech issues. But for Smith, you know, at first they're going to first deal with this question. But the really threshold question for the court is not the merits of presidential immunity. it is whether they want to allow him to leapfrog over the D.C. Circuit.

Right. Right. So it's four cases. It's four. It's the documents case in Florida. It's the Georgia case. It's the January 6th case. And it's the New York case. Right. And there's a number of civil cases that are scheduled. And a number of civil cases as well. So what does that mean? Is that mean, you know, there's this phenomenon. And I'm asking you a political question now instead of a legal. question, but we're just having a conversation. I think that I'm, I might be, especially when I was not in news, illustrative of the way a lot of people consume the news, when something is ever present, it becomes impossible to keep up with. And so you turn the page.

And I do think, honestly, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over decades has become that for many Americans. And even though it's always in the newspaper, and at times on the front page, you know, their level of insight is not correspond. Bondingly is deep because they've tuned it out after some time. I think the war in Afghanistan actually reached that over a decade's time. Couldn't keep up with everything that's happening over there in Afghanistan. Trump's legal cases, I mean, what are they going to be in the news cycle every week?

There's going to be something on one of those four. And then you add in the civil cases to your point. I think it's, I don't know. It's almost like it all becomes muted. I think the Jack Smith, January 6th case, and maybe the Marilago case are like, flashpoints that might get a little more hyperbolic and hyperventilating, but it's my sense, Professor, it's just going to like, it's going to be this ever-present story that people begin to tune out. Well, I think there may be something to that. I think that part of the problem for the

Democrats is that there are so many criminal and civil trials targeting Trump that it does reaffirm this narrative. A lot of people are not. focusing on the distinctions between these cases. Instead, they're focusing on the pattern. They're focusing on the fact that this guy is sort of being pursued pillar to pose from state to state and going from trial to trial. These trials are literally daisy-chained all the way it's who the election. That doesn't sit well with a lot of Americans. And so you're right. They may not be focusing that much on the individual trials as much as the pattern. Real quick, that's what an image, by the way, daisy-chained.

through the election with, what's the first explosion in that daisy chain? What is the first case that really moves towards some type of conclusion? Is it New York? Well, New York is such a mess. We don't know what's happening in New York and how fast it's going to move. It's, in my view, is a pretty frivolous case. There are a couple of other issues that have made this week interesting. And one of them is that the Supreme Court took a case on obstruction involving a January 6th rioter or protester. And the court may have to render a decision on the scope of the obstruction provision of what it can be used for. Two of four counts against Donald Trump brought by the special counsel are obstruction counts. And so that case could throw a new

wrinkle into this for Jack Smith. This has been a problem for Smith personally with the Supreme Court slapping back on exaggerated legal claims. It was also the same problem for Mueller's deputies. They all were involved in Supreme Court, not all of them, but some of the top prosecutors in the Russian investigation also overextended legal authority. So the question is, is this going to be a repeat where the court's going to look at the obstruction provision and say, look, there's got to be more narrow parameters here because otherwise anything could be obstruction. So to wind this up, I think I'm reading between the lines in everything you're saying here, even though it's daisy chained as a constant throughout the next six to eight months,

New York will come and go most likely. By the way, I think you and I both would express a huge amount of humility. should this ever get to a jury on what it doesn't matter how frivolous they are these juries are people and they're people in political districts and they'll come back with whatever they come back with the law aside that they'll have their own opinions of donald trump but if it never reaches a jury new york is frivolous um Georgia and jack smith january 6th are both about the first amendment and or about obstruction which you're saying will have some indication from a January 6th case on the seriousness of obstruction. And so the only – those will be big debates in the public sphere about both of those things, obstruction of justice and the First Amendment, the limits of the First Amendment, which, by the way, I think those aren't even close to anything that he said in any of those situations. But that leaves the documents case. That leaves Marilago.

That's right. And in the documents case, you could see a new attorney general for a Republican president really looking scant at that type of case, particularly if the other cases collapsed. You know, these types of retention cases have tended to produce short terms, even the most glaring violations have produced largely misdemeanor-like sentences. Most are not prosecuted. So the question is, if everything else collapses, is the power worth the prize and going forward on the documents case? it may be. What I've always said is that that case, I've always believed that that case was the most serious threat for Trump. I mean, that is a very damning record of witnesses and documents. So that's going to stick around. I mean, that one has legs. Last question. Everybody, whether or not at a cocktail party, Christmas party, holiday party, whatever, everyone eventually gets to, is Donald Trump going to run? Is he going to win presidency from jail?

set the likelihood of that, here's my question for you, which case makes that hypothetical, makes that party question the biggest reality? And am I right, by the way, and you, as you answer that question, am I right in thinking which case has the highest likelihood of making its way to a jury before it's tossed out ahead of getting to a jury? Because again, back to the humility of what a jury will do, I don't trust a Washington, D.C. jury. So the question is, which of these cases make it to a jury to make that hypothetical reality? It's really hard because of the stay issued by Judge Shutkin, because most of us were saying that's the fastest horse, because the judge clearly indicated that she agreed that we should

have this trial by March, and she'll probably, if she has the chance, try to find another date, even if that doesn't stick. So that was always the fastest horse. But that race has been called for weather. So the question now is, is the judge in Florida going to go forward with the documents case? That could move forward very quickly. The Georgia case is sort of weird

because there's a lot of problems. I think she's overextended the racketeering theory. I think she's going to find that some of these people that pled guilty are going to be nightmare witnesses. I mean, it's not guaranteed that they're going to be good witnesses for the state, Most of them took easy pleas to get out of any jail time and keep their bar licenses. So they may not be a great boon for the prosecutors.

We just don't know. But all of those, we're just not uncertain. It's incredibly unlikely that the president will be in jail on election day. If he were, he could still run for election. that happened with Eugene Debs, who was a socialist, but it's extremely unlikely. And then what happens after the election is anyone's guess? More likely that Joe Biden is impeached if you were taking betting odds between Donald Trump running from jail or Joe Biden not being on the ticket because he was impeached. Either way, you've got two presidential candidates wrapped up in their huge legal issues, which makes, as I said, this is going to be a huge year for you, Professor Turley, 2024.

And thank God for that. I mean, the less time we can give political. analytical analysts, the batter, I said. Give it to the legal analysts. All right, Professor Turley, thank you so much. Thanks, Will. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Professor Jonathan Turley. If you thought it useful, share it with a friend, leave it a five-star review.

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