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MSW Media.

1:02

I signed an order appointing Jack Smith.

1:04

And nobody knows you. And those who say Jack

1:07

is a fanatic. Mr. Smith is a veteran

1:09

career prosecutor. Wait, what law

1:11

have I broken? The events

1:12

leading up to and on January

1:15

6th. Classified documents and other presidential

1:17

records. You understand what prison is? Send

1:19

me to jail.

1:28

Hello, and welcome to episode 48 of

1:31

Jack, the podcast about all things special

1:34

counsel. It is Sunday, October

1:37

29th, 2023. I'm Alison Gill.

1:38

And I'm Andy McCabe. Okay.

1:41

We have a lot to go over

1:43

today. It's going to be a six hour

1:45

episode. No, I'm just kidding.

1:48

It's not going to be that long, but we do have

1:50

a lot this week, including a series

1:52

of filings and responses in both

1:54

Florida and DC. More

1:57

details about what Donald Trump shared with

1:59

Australian Carbon.

1:59

cardboard magnet Anthony Pratt

2:02

and a denial of the media's request to

2:05

televise the DC trial.

2:07

Yes, and we also have another subpoena

2:10

being withdrawn by Jack Smith in addition

2:12

to the one we talked about last week. This time it's

2:14

from the Trump campaign and we

2:16

have a hearing date for all of the motions

2:18

you mentioned. Andy,

2:21

where should we start? Well

2:24

before we get to the filings, why don't we go over some

2:26

top headlines from the week and

2:29

let's start with

2:31

the first blockbuster of the week. The

2:33

ABC reporting that Mark Meadows was

2:36

granted limited use immunity

2:38

in exchange for his testimony before

2:41

Jack Smith's grand jury.

2:43

Yeah, that's a good place to start because

2:45

the initial reporting just said immunity

2:47

and then

2:49

a lot of people including

2:52

myself pointed out, are you sure it's not just

2:54

limited use immunity? We don't want to go

2:56

into too much detail but then it's

2:59

folders, right? She put out another story

3:03

getting right to the point of it that it is actually

3:05

limited use immunity. So yeah, let's talk about

3:08

that first. So let's

3:10

start, well of course this all goes back to

3:12

our episode on the Ocho Nostra

3:15

which folks will remember having named

3:17

it that. So those were the eight

3:19

defendants who refused to testify on privilege

3:22

or fifth amendment grounds back in the spring

3:24

before Trump was indicted.

3:27

Meadows informed Smith's team that he repeatedly

3:30

told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential

3:33

election that the allegations

3:35

of significant voting fraud coming

3:37

to them were baseless.

3:40

Smith's investigators were keenly interested in questioning

3:42

Meadows about election related conversations

3:45

he'd had with Trump during his final months

3:47

in office. Meadows privately

3:49

told Smith's investigators that to this day

3:51

he has yet to see any

3:53

evidence of fraud that would have kept

3:56

now President Joe Biden from the White House

3:58

and he told them that he agrees. agrees

4:00

with a government assessment at the time that

4:03

the 2020 presidential election was the most

4:05

secure election in US history, which

4:09

as you know, all these claims,

4:11

all these supposed beliefs, newfound

4:13

beliefs, maybe old old, oldly

4:15

had beliefs of Mark Meadows, all

4:19

contradict things that he wrote

4:21

in his own memoir, The Chief's

4:23

Chief. Yikes.

4:28

I mean, there's so many, there's

4:30

so many aspects of this. Let's start with just

4:33

a couple of points on immunity.

4:35

Because as you teed this up, there's

4:37

a lot of confusion around there's different types of immunity.

4:40

I think we did finally get some clarity,

4:42

as you mentioned that this is actually limited

4:44

use immunity. And so there

4:47

are two different types,

4:49

substantive types of immunity. Limited

4:52

use immunity, of course, means it's

4:55

immunity given to a witness,

4:58

and it precludes the prosecutors from using

5:00

those statements that the witness provides

5:02

the prosecutor with. The prosecutor

5:04

can't use those statements against the

5:07

witness

5:08

criminally.

5:09

Technically doesn't prohibit the prosecutors

5:11

from prosecuting the witness, they just can't

5:14

use the statements as a part of the prosecution.

5:17

Now the opposite of that is what

5:19

we call transactional immunity.

5:21

Transactional immunity means you

5:24

can't be prosecuted for

5:26

any of the offenses or the

5:28

conduct that you talked about.

5:30

So it's much broader, it's

5:33

generally more valuable to witnesses than

5:35

simple limited use immunity.

5:38

We think that's not what Meadows got here.

5:40

An interesting fact, I

5:42

had the opportunity to discuss

5:44

with a trusted friend

5:47

and outstanding attorney that

5:49

I know. There's another little breadcrumb

5:51

here that shed some light on this. So he

5:54

was reporting to me that he had seen in

5:57

some of the reporting, refers to a court.

6:00

order

6:01

of immunity in this case. And that

6:03

would go to this question of formal

6:06

or

6:06

informal immunity.

6:08

So formal immunity

6:11

or statutory immunity is the

6:13

same thing, two different names. That

6:15

refers to immunity that traces its way back

6:17

to a law, an act of

6:19

Congress that grants people immunity.

6:22

And in those cases where it applies and the prosecution

6:25

typically moves for it, asks

6:27

the court to apply it, the court applies

6:29

it by signing an order. The judge orders

6:32

that the witness or the defendant whoever

6:35

has formal or statutory immunity

6:37

by law. Informal immunity

6:39

is the kind that we typically see and that's when

6:42

you get immunity because you just cut a deal with the prosecutors.

6:44

It's like it's almost like a contract. The

6:47

big difference here is informal

6:49

immunity doesn't really bind, isn't

6:51

binding on the states. So you could have an

6:53

informal immunity agreement like

6:56

a limited use immunity agreement with federal prosecutors,

6:59

but that wouldn't stop a state

7:01

prosecutor from coming after you. Formal

7:04

immunity is the opposite. It applies everywhere.

7:06

If you have statutory formal immunity,

7:09

you can't be prosecuted anywhere for that

7:12

conduct that's referred to there. So we don't know

7:14

exactly which Meadows has,

7:17

but if the reporting is correct that his immunity

7:19

was actually ruled on by a judge,

7:22

then it's formal and it would be

7:24

pretty powerful.

7:28

So question, but I mean

7:30

even if it's formal,

7:32

he can still be prosecuted just not

7:34

with the statements that he makes because it's

7:37

limited immunity. Is that right? You know,

7:39

this really gets into the details of like what statute

7:42

is creating,

7:45

is the source of the immunity and that's where you'd

7:47

have to go to resolve this. Obviously, we don't have enough details

7:50

to figure that out. What kind of statutes

7:52

are there that grant immunity? There's all

7:54

kinds of ones. The Atomic Energy Act,

7:57

the DOJ,

7:59

criminal resource manual. Here,

8:02

I'll give you the quote right from the resource

8:05

manual. I love how you just have

8:07

it ready. It's just an open tab on your computer

8:09

all the time? I look at this thing every day. It's

8:13

a dog-eared paper copy

8:16

of the criminal resource manual, not

8:18

just a page on my Google search

8:21

that I was looking at before the show. An

8:23

important difference between statutory slash

8:26

formal immunity and informal immunity is that

8:28

the latter is not binding on

8:30

the states. That would be the informal

8:32

immunity. This follows from the fact that the local prosecutor

8:35

representing the state is normally not a party

8:37

to the agreement between the witness and

8:39

the federal prosecutor. Thus, cannot be contractually

8:42

bound by the federal prosecutor's agreement. That makes

8:44

sense, right? Right. If you

8:46

got immunity because you cooperated

8:48

in a case, that protects you for that

8:50

case with federal prosecutors.

8:53

It's not going to protect you from, oh, for

8:55

instance, a case of Fulton County, Georgia. Right.

8:59

But I guess

9:01

some folks are saying

9:03

that it was Meadows' attorney

9:05

that was asking for the immunity. Some

9:07

folks say it was Jack Smith's

9:10

office that was offering immunity

9:13

in a limited use manner because

9:15

you remember with the Ochinostra, they

9:18

all went to Judge

9:19

Howell and then Boseburg after he took

9:21

over as chief judge overseeing

9:23

grand jury proceedings that,

9:25

you know, Jack Smith was like, no, you

9:27

don't have privilege and

9:30

went and fought that fight in

9:32

the court and then was able to get those folks all

9:34

back in to testify

9:35

fully before the

9:38

grand jury.

9:39

So I don't know how this immunity

9:41

came up or who requested it, but

9:44

it seems it doesn't make sense

9:46

that, like, why would Jack Smith,

9:49

just to get,

9:50

you know, information from him about

9:53

discussions he had with the president, specifically

9:56

discussions that he lost the election

9:59

and that there was no vote.

9:59

fraud. I

10:01

mean given the mountains of other

10:03

people and other evidence that show that

10:05

there was no voter fraud and that Trump knew it, I don't

10:08

feel like Jack Smith would

10:11

necessarily need these statements

10:13

from him but again, we don't

10:15

know what else. There's

10:17

only a few things in this ABC report that

10:21

Meadows testified to pursuant

10:23

to that order or that

10:26

immunity, that limited-use immunity but I'm

10:29

trying to game it out in my head who

10:31

asked for it and why and can it

10:33

screw up the whole case against

10:38

Meadows at least because he's not one

10:40

of the unindicted co-conspirators in the Trump

10:43

indictment. I think that's a huge point.

10:45

I think that all of this

10:48

telegraphs that

10:51

Jack Smith

10:52

doesn't really have an intention to pursue

10:55

Meadows criminally and

10:57

the biggest sign of that was the fact that he was very

10:59

clearly not referred to as an

11:01

unindicted co-conspirator in the Trump indictment.

11:03

He is actually named or his position

11:06

is named, he's referred to his chief of staff, whatever.

11:09

So he's being handled, thought of, referred

11:12

to differently than these other people who

11:14

are being called out as not indicted

11:17

here but maybe in the future. So

11:20

without getting too bogged down in what I've already

11:22

bogged this down on, any

11:24

witness who you give immunity

11:27

to, whether it's limited-use

11:29

immunity through an informal agreement around

11:31

prosecution, which is what I suspect is involved

11:33

here or it's any of the other forms

11:36

you talked about, it's exceedingly

11:38

hard to prosecute people after they've received

11:40

immunity. You have created a minefield

11:43

of potential appellate issues and

11:46

courts look very seriously

11:48

at decisions that defendants

11:50

make as a result of grants

11:53

of immunity. So it's very hard,

11:55

it's very hard. There's all kinds

11:57

of legal issues that come up if you try to prosecute

11:59

someone. who previously had

12:01

immunity, even if it was just limited

12:04

use. And you say, okay, I'm not going to use the

12:06

statements. Uh, it's,

12:08

there's a minefield of other stuff that comes up.

12:10

You know, the Oliver North case is a perfect

12:12

example. That's kind of the classic. Um,

12:16

so in any case there, look, I

12:18

had this even, um, myself with the many

12:21

cases going after the black

12:23

water guards who were prosecuted for them

12:25

for the shootings at Neiser

12:27

square in Iraq. That case took three

12:30

rounds of investigation and trials

12:32

before it finally got to, um,

12:35

sustainable convictions. And part of that

12:37

was over witnesses who had

12:39

been granted immunity to provide statements to

12:41

the state department and who were then prosecuted

12:44

by prosecutors who were exposed to those statements.

12:46

So a little bit different, but kind of an example

12:48

of how hard that is to do.

12:50

Yeah. It sounds to me like he's a

12:52

potential witness, uh, in, in

12:55

the March trial, uh, in DC

12:57

potentially. Um, he was called

13:00

as much in the, uh, in

13:02

a filing that we're going to go over a little bit later

13:04

about why the gag order should be, sorry, the

13:06

limited gag order shouldn't be reinstated

13:10

should be reinstated and added to the bail

13:12

conditions, uh, or conditions of

13:14

release. So, you know, but

13:16

it seems to me, at least my

13:19

guess is that he's not going to be charged

13:22

in DC

13:23

and that this, if

13:25

it's a, if it's a formal

13:28

immunity, it could have

13:31

make some issues down in Fulton

13:33

County, uh, for Meadows to be charged,

13:35

but he's still on the hook as far as we know, uh, down

13:38

there. He's still trying to fight to have his

13:41

trial removed to federal court.

13:43

Um, and it has several motions going

13:45

on. So we'll see what ends up happening.

13:48

But, um, very interesting news.

13:51

It kind of goes toward the

13:53

broader concept of this entire episode,

13:55

which is the narrowing

13:57

of these investigations. We've got subpoenas

13:59

being with.

13:59

drawn. We've got Meadows

14:02

being granted a limited use immunity

14:04

and it seems like all

14:07

of that is in consideration for

14:09

the speediness

14:11

of the trial of one Donald Trump.

14:14

Yeah I think that's right and every

14:16

one of these decisions and moves has all kinds

14:18

of follow-on impacts. I think

14:21

two to worth pointing out while we're talking about Meadows

14:23

is so let's say he's in

14:25

he's a witness only in the federal January 6

14:28

case. Number one

14:30

he is not he's got a lot of problems

14:33

he's written an entire book basically

14:35

of lies and you're

14:37

gonna have that's a case that's going to a jury

14:40

not just a judge like

14:42

we have going on in New York right now and

14:45

so that that's very tough to put

14:47

on a witness whose lied as many times

14:50

and he also doesn't not we're not

14:52

aware of an actual cooperation agreement

14:54

in this case for Meadows so he hasn't

14:57

pled guilty to anything that's how federal

14:59

prosecutors rehabilitate a witness who's lied

15:02

you have to plead guilty to a significant charge

15:04

first and then you can tell the jury listen you can count

15:07

on everything they're saying because if they

15:09

come up here and lie to you he loses his

15:11

cooperation agreement and the

15:14

sweetheart deal and gets you know sentenced

15:16

at a very high level so

15:19

you don't even have that here so that's tough and

15:21

now let's think number two of what what

15:23

Meadows one thing we know from the reporting what

15:26

Meadows did not say to the

15:28

prosecutors was they

15:31

asked him had you ever in all of

15:33

your interactions with Trump after the election

15:35

did he ever acknowledge

15:37

losing

15:38

and Meadows said no I

15:40

think he

15:41

I think he believed that he never

15:43

I never you know he never said that to me that's

15:45

really kind of shocking

15:48

to me because Meadows is

15:50

in that room for everything he is

15:53

elbow deep in these conspiracies

15:55

he's got more exposure to Trump than anyone

15:57

and he can't give them that which

15:59

would be very helpful. Not

16:02

legally necessary as we've talked about but it

16:04

would be great, a great piece of evidence

16:06

to have.

16:07

So that was kind of concerning to me that he's

16:09

not going that far but we'll

16:12

see.

16:12

Or he says he's not going

16:14

that far because we know that this story didn't come

16:16

from the DOJ. So we'll

16:19

see what ends up happening. The good news is that Jack

16:21

Smith will have to write

16:22

a report on all this so we will get

16:24

to learn a lot

16:25

from that report. Alright, next up I

16:28

want to talk about more information this

16:30

week about what that Australian billionaire

16:33

Alexander Pratt told Jack

16:35

Smith's team. Now you'll remember previously

16:37

we had discussed the fact that Donald

16:40

had told him about the nuclear capabilities

16:42

of our submarines, right? Like how close they

16:44

could get to Russian submarines without being detected,

16:46

stuff like that. Well

16:47

apparently there's more. This is from the Times.

16:50

Another witness told prosecutors about hearing uncorroborated

16:53

reports that Mr. Pratt spent $1 million

16:56

for tickets to a Mar-a-Lago New Year's Eve gala,

16:58

voluntarily paying the club a huge markup

17:01

from tickets that actually

17:02

cost $50,000 or

17:04

less.

17:05

And then when Mr. Pratt opened a new factory in Ohio

17:07

that

17:07

promised hundreds of new jobs, Mr. Trump toured

17:10

the plant alongside the Australian Prime Minister.

17:12

Now

17:13

Mr. Pratt in turn gained priceless

17:15

publicity and proximity to the power of the presidency,

17:18

providing him entry into an administration

17:20

whose policies lowered his taxes and

17:22

benefited his businesses. Behind closed doors

17:25

however, Mr. Pratt described Mr. Trump's

17:28

business practices as quote, being like

17:30

the mafia. That's according to covert recordings

17:32

obtained by 60 Minutes Australia

17:34

shared with the New York Times.

17:36

And on the recordings, Pratt recounts how Trump

17:38

shared with him in December 2019 what he describes as

17:41

elements of a conversation the president had with

17:44

Iraq's leader right after a US

17:46

military strike there aimed at Iranian

17:48

backed forces. And days later, a US

17:51

drone strike in Baghdad would kill Iran's

17:53

top security and intelligence commander. And

17:56

at one point Mr. Pratt said Trump discussed

17:58

the phone call he had. with Zelensky

18:01

of Ukraine earlier

18:03

that year. You mean the perfect phone call?

18:06

The perfect one, the one that helped lead to

18:08

Trump's first impeachment. And Trump

18:10

said to Pratt, that was nothing

18:12

compared to what I usually do.

18:14

Okay.

18:15

So by the end of Trump's first year in

18:17

office, his presidency was

18:19

bearing fruit for Mr.

18:20

Pratt. The Australian Financial Review estimated

18:22

that Trump's 2017 corporate tax

18:24

cut help increase Mr.

18:26

Pratt's personal wealth by more than $2 billion

18:30

with a B.

18:32

That's going to pay for a lot more parties and more lago,

18:34

apparently. What is the New

18:36

Year's Eve party like that cost a million dollars

18:38

to go to? I mean, I don't know how I can even- It's not

18:41

an omelet bar. I hear it's pretty

18:43

good. But

18:45

you got to wait for Trump to go first.

18:48

You get to sit in the shitter and read classified documents,

18:50

Andy.

18:50

Double cheese, please. Oh

18:53

my God. Cold hamburgers.

18:56

Wow. You know, this

18:59

is fascinating reporting because it

19:02

goes directly to the question we've all had

19:04

about the documents since we learned about

19:06

the documents, which is why did he keep

19:08

the documents? You

19:10

know, it's not an absolutely

19:13

complete answer, but it sheds some light on

19:15

this is what he wanted

19:17

to do with that information. Use

19:19

it to impress, use it as leverage,

19:22

use it to curry favor, use it

19:24

to vanquish his enemies. See

19:27

Mark Milley here. You're

19:29

seeing it happen. This is how you answer those

19:31

questions. Yeah, agreed. And Jack

19:33

Smith has said that he will prove the

19:36

intent

19:36

using non-classified materials in the Mar-a-Lago

19:39

case. That's right.

19:41

So

19:42

in addition to all that,

19:44

this week we had this one really kind of

19:46

landed like a punch in the nose for me. I don't

19:48

know about you. Yeah, same. We

19:50

know that Jack Smith has now withdrawn another

19:53

subpoena. This week Washington Post

19:56

reported that special counsel had withdrawn

19:58

his subpoena of the Trump save

20:00

America pack. Well, this week from

20:02

the New York Times, and I quote, federal

20:05

prosecutors have quietly withdrawn

20:07

a subpoena seeking records from former

20:10

president Donald J. Trump's 2020 campaign

20:13

as a part of their investigation into

20:15

whether mr. Trump's political and fundraising

20:18

operations committed any crimes

20:20

as he sought to stay in power after

20:23

he lost the election, according to two people

20:26

familiar with the matter. So last

20:28

week is the subpoena to the save

20:30

America pack that gets withdrawn. This

20:33

week, the subpoena to the

20:35

campaign gets withdrawn. What do you think?

20:37

Um, it seems unlike

20:39

him,

20:40

you know, um, it's, it, first

20:42

of all, I'd be guessing. If I said that it sounds

20:45

like he just wants to avoid any first amendment

20:47

fight

20:48

that he can,

20:49

because there, that would be the fight, right? For

20:51

fundraising, political fundraising and campaign

20:54

emails is that it's protected by the first amendment. Um,

20:57

and it's, you know, protected speech.

20:59

And it just seems like

21:01

at every turn, Jack Smith just doesn't

21:03

want to have that fight, including in his

21:05

main indictment in DC against

21:09

only him so far. Yeah. And so

21:11

this looks like a narrowing, uh,

21:13

or, uh, or, uh, we're finishing up this or

21:16

you know, we, we, we've decided

21:18

whether because we

21:19

couldn't get the facts together or the

21:21

evidence, we couldn't develop the evidence or because

21:24

of prosecutorial discretion, we are

21:26

not going, it sounds like we're not going

21:28

to go after fraud,

21:31

a defrauding donors

21:31

with the Trump America pack

21:33

and the, and the 2020 Trump campaign,

21:36

um, and you and I back in,

21:37

oh gosh, it's almost been a year, Andy.

21:39

Wow. God, don't say that. I can't believe

21:42

that time flew.

21:43

Yeah. I think it was last December

21:45

that we talked about this open and shut defrauding

21:48

donors wire fraud case 20 years. Why?

21:50

You know, and everybody was like, all

21:53

of these other lawyers were like nine

21:55

times out of 10, when you go after white collar criminals, it's this kind

21:57

of fraud. Yeah. Uh, we, we saw it with Steve. We

22:00

saw it with the We Build the Wall thing with him. It

22:03

seemed so open and shut. We

22:06

still don't know why, but like I said,

22:09

we will get a report and that report

22:11

must include declination decisions. They might

22:13

fall if I open up behind redaction bars, but

22:16

because

22:16

this doesn't sound to me anymore like he's handing

22:19

these off. It sounds like he's winding that

22:21

down and he's not going to go after this. I'm

22:23

guessing it's because past

22:26

behavior shows that he doesn't want to have a First

22:29

Amendment fight with Donald Trump. I

22:31

think that could be true. I think it's

22:33

also how

22:35

much he considers these things I don't know, but there

22:37

are broader considerations around. Well,

22:40

first of all, he would have to have the First Amendment

22:42

fight now because Trump would raise

22:45

it now in opposition to the subpoenas

22:47

as like a motion to quash the subpoenas or something like

22:50

that. That puts this ugly

22:53

appearing and ugly having to have

22:55

First Amendment fight with Trump

22:58

in the middle of your prosecution

23:00

of the bigger, more important case in

23:03

which you decided not to even raise any issue

23:05

that could go in this direction. It's like you get stuck

23:08

with the First Amendment fight even though you did almost

23:10

everything to try to avoid it. From

23:13

that perspective, these subpoenas look

23:15

like they could lead to a self-inflicted wound for

23:17

the prosecutors.

23:19

You've got him on 1512K

23:21

and 1512C2, which are also 20-year max sentences. The

23:27

dude's not going

23:28

to live more than 20 years. That's

23:30

absolutely true. It also

23:33

feels a little bit like, now this is fairly

23:35

political calculation. I'm not saying it would be

23:37

improper if they thought about this, but we don't know

23:39

if they did or not. I'll just throw it out

23:42

there. It would be to pursue the case against

23:44

the PAC and the campaign in

23:46

the middle of the campaign is another

23:49

very politically provocative thing

23:51

to do. It may be that they just

23:54

decided we've got to focus

23:56

our fire on the battle

23:58

we absolutely have to win.

24:00

rather than getting bogged down in a

24:02

sideline fight, which consequently

24:05

plays in perfectly with Trump's strategy

24:07

to say this entire thing, all these

24:10

prosecutions, documents, case, Jan 6, is

24:12

really all about Joe Biden trying

24:14

to interfere with his campaign. So

24:16

in that environment, you bring

24:19

kind of a sideline fraud case

24:22

that doesn't speak really to the most important

24:24

issues of what happened here and one

24:27

that runs the risk of provoking all

24:29

these like really bitter legal fights that

24:31

make the prosecutors look terrible. So that

24:34

could be a legitimate prosecutorial discretion

24:36

decision to say, hey, you know

24:38

what, let's live to fight another

24:41

day in the battle that's worth fighting.

24:43

Yeah. And I would say if

24:44

I was going to pick one, I

24:46

think the historical importance to

24:49

our democracy, I would pick the January 6 case.

24:52

So

24:53

we'll see though, we'll see what that report has to say.

24:55

That's going to be interesting when that comes out and it'll

24:58

be interesting to see when it comes out. I'm

25:00

assuming after all of these trials are finished, but

25:02

who knows? For sure. One last

25:04

story before we get to the court filings. This is from Politico.

25:07

A federal judge panel has turned down

25:09

a bid to allow live television

25:10

coverage of two historic criminal trials

25:12

for former Trump, former President Trump.

25:15

Without apparent dissent, a

25:17

committee that handles potential changes of

25:19

the federal court's criminal rules concluded

25:21

Thursday

25:22

that it had no ability to alter the existing

25:24

ban

25:24

on broadcasting federal criminal trials, which

25:27

is weird to

25:27

me. And then they said, even if we did,

25:29

the new rule wouldn't go into effect until probably 2026

25:32

or 2027. So that

25:35

might be just in time for Judge Eileen Cannon's

25:37

Mar-a-Lago

25:37

trial. Or it

25:40

might give her reason to delay the trial again

25:42

just to think about it.

25:43

This could

25:45

have an impact on this trial. I need two months.

25:48

Counsel for the defense, don't you want

25:50

to file a motion claiming this isn't fair? Yeah.

25:54

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

25:55

So, you know, they said they'll

25:57

look into it. This

26:00

is the panel that does that. I don't get how they don't have

26:02

the ability to

26:04

do it. But that's their decision.

26:06

I don't really understand it either.

26:08

I think I'm not surprised. I'm

26:11

disappointed because I would have loved to seen it. But

26:13

I am not surprised. I didn't see this

26:15

dam breaking on this case. I

26:18

think that a lot of people in the judiciary would

26:21

have seen that as like, oh, man, this

26:23

isn't the case we want to start doing things different on.

26:27

Yeah, perhaps.

26:28

I don't know if that precludes

26:30

the other motion in front

26:32

of Judge Chutkan to televise

26:34

the trial, because we're going to talk about that

26:36

in a little bit.

26:37

But all right, because she just put

26:39

out a minute order, by the way, asking for Donald Trump's

26:42

opinion on whether or not the trial should be televised.

26:44

And so he will have to file that. And it'll

26:46

be interesting to see what he has to say, because

26:49

he has been

26:50

asking for it to be televised.

26:52

But he may not want it to be televised, because

26:55

if it's televised, he can't run his disinformation

26:57

machine as well as he could

26:58

if it were. So we'll see what happens with that.

27:00

Are you saying that he might do something that contradicts what he

27:02

just said? Oh, my god. That's

27:06

really, really concerning.

27:08

Hey, wait until you see what the filings

27:10

have to say. And we'll

27:12

get to those right after this quick break. Stick around. We'll

27:14

be right back.

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retailers while supplies last. Welcome

29:39

back. All right, Allison, let's get started

29:41

with the DC filings and responses.

29:44

So last week we reported that Judge Chutkan

29:47

had issued a narrowly tailored order limiting

29:49

Donald Trump's pretrial extrajudicial

29:53

statements. Don't call it a gag order.

29:55

Trump then, of course, notified the court that he intended

29:57

to appeal the order and then asked for

29:59

a temporary stay while he prepared

30:02

his appeal. Judge Chutt

30:04

can then issue the temporary stay on

30:06

the gag order, so not a stay of the case,

30:08

but just a stay of the application

30:10

of the gag order. And

30:13

she also required DOJ to file by

30:16

the 25th and Team Trump

30:18

to file their response by 1028. So

30:22

during the brief stay of the order, Trump

30:24

proceeded to post things on Truth Social

30:27

that would be in direct violation of the order.

30:29

And he violated a separate partial

30:31

gag order in his New York civil fraud

30:33

case. So our man Jack Smith

30:36

of course included both of these instances

30:39

in his filing as evidence of the

30:41

necessity of reinstating the order.

30:43

And here are some excerpts from

30:46

Smith's filing. So he says, the

30:48

defendant has moved to stay the order pending

30:50

appeal, insisting that he's entitled

30:53

to target trial participants. This is

30:55

exactly what I said. I'm so glad he said

30:57

that.

30:58

I put it out as a headline like breaking,

31:00

Donald Trump wants the right to go after,

31:02

intimidate witnesses and go

31:04

after the prosecution. And I'm like, my headline

31:06

sounds a little biased, but there it is in Black and White

31:09

from Jack. There it is. I'm vindicated. You

31:11

are on the same mental

31:13

wavelength as our friends in

31:15

the special counsel team. Okay,

31:18

so Smith goes on to say, but because he has failed

31:20

to show either a substantial likelihood

31:22

of success on the merits or that

31:24

the public interest weighs in his favor

31:26

of a stay, the defendant's motion

31:29

should be denied. Moreover, based on the defendant's

31:31

recent social media posts targeting

31:33

a known witness in this case in an attempt

31:36

to influence and intimidate him,

31:38

the court should lift the administrative stay

31:41

and modify the defendant's conditions of release

31:43

to prevent such harmful and prejudicial

31:46

conduct. So that's the new ask.

31:49

DOJ wants judge Chutkin to not

31:51

only lift the stay on the order, but to

31:53

add it to his pretrial conditions. And

31:56

that would allow for detention and contempt as

31:58

penalties. You will remember the

32:01

pretrial conditions. Those

32:03

are a standard part of the arraignment,

32:06

right? The judge decides what

32:08

the defendant can and can't do as

32:11

the case is proceeding to trial.

32:13

And it's typical, you know, don't intimidate

32:15

witnesses, you know. Don't break

32:17

the law. Don't break the law, stuff like

32:19

that. And that's like

32:22

important because it's the documented aspect

32:24

of this, right? It's like, there it is in black and

32:26

white. This is in my order. Therefore,

32:29

if you violate it, we're already

32:32

down the road a bit so that I can oppose

32:34

sanctions or potentially throw

32:36

you in jail pending trial. I mean,

32:38

that would be a pretty big move here, but

32:40

nevertheless, that's on

32:42

the table. So then Jack Smith raises

32:45

the New York civil fraud trial violations

32:47

and outlines the fines that he's had to pay,

32:49

that Trump's had to pay so far. He says,

32:52

defense counsel also assured the court

32:54

that the defendant's post targeting the court

32:56

staffer had been, quote, dealt with

32:59

by the court in New York. That assurance turned

33:02

out to be mistaken. On October 20th, 2023,

33:04

the presiding judge in New York fined

33:07

the defendant $5,000 for blatantly

33:09

violating the order in the case. Today,

33:12

the defendant again violated

33:14

the New York court's order when he stated

33:16

that the judge had, quote, a person

33:19

who's very partisan alongside him,

33:21

perhaps much more partisan than he

33:24

is, close quote. After

33:26

the defendant claimed unconvincingly under

33:28

oath that he had not been commenting

33:30

on the court's clerk, the judge found

33:32

the defendant not to be credible

33:36

and fined him That's like

33:38

a double whammy of penalty. Not

33:40

only am I taking your money, I'm saying on the

33:42

record in court, as your judge,

33:45

I find you to be a liar,

33:47

liar pants on fire.

33:48

Yeah, I lied on the stand to

33:50

the judge's face. That's what the judge determined. He's

33:52

like, I'm sorry, I'm the tryer of fact and I don't

33:54

find you to be credible. The

33:56

tryer of fact and I'm trying to find

33:59

a fact and I can't. find one in

34:01

the things that you've said. Okay,

34:05

so in the few days since the administrative stay has

34:07

been in place, the defendant has returned to the

34:09

very sort of targeting that the order prohibits,

34:12

including attempting to intimidate and influence

34:14

foreseeable witnesses and commenting on

34:16

the substance of their testimony. For

34:18

example, on October 24th 2023, the

34:22

defendant took to social media to respond

34:24

to a news report claiming that his

34:26

former chief of staff

34:28

identified in the indictment has

34:30

testified in exchange for a grant

34:32

of immunity. And of course

34:35

Jack includes the post. The

34:37

filing goes on to say that the order is narrowly

34:39

tailored, it's not vague, and that

34:42

the order was necessary and appropriate. The

34:44

defendant's motion to stay should be denied, the court

34:46

should also lift the administrative stay and

34:48

modify the conditions of release. Trump's

34:51

response has not been filed as

34:53

of the recording of this episode. Yeah,

34:56

I found it interesting that it was due on Saturday.

34:58

So we'll be covering

35:00

it next week. I'm sure we will, I'm sure we

35:02

will. I

35:03

mean, I

35:05

love the part, this is kind of in their

35:07

windup, you know, the order is narrowly tailored,

35:09

that's to show the judge that it complies

35:12

with First Amendment requirements. It's not

35:14

vague, again, goes to First Amendment requirements,

35:17

and that the order was necessary and appropriate.

35:20

Yeah, it was necessary, he's been basically

35:22

violating it since you put it in place. We've

35:25

given you five examples of violations in the last

35:27

five days. Yeah, and you, the

35:29

court, already determined it

35:30

was necessary and that's why you put it in place, that's

35:32

why you

35:33

wrote the order.

35:34

Yeah, interesting. Now,

35:36

let's go to another

35:38

filing. These just, there's so many. Remember

35:41

the Department of Justice filing that asked

35:43

Judge Chukken to require Donald

35:45

Trump

35:46

to submit his intent to

35:49

use an advice of counsel defense to

35:51

the court by December 18th. Yeah.

35:53

So that Jack Smith would have time to get

35:56

all that 25 witnesses

35:58

worth of stuff that had been. considered

36:00

attorney-client privilege before, get all that information,

36:02

investigate it, and produce more

36:05

discovery.

36:06

Yeah, right. They wouldn't.

36:08

Let's get out in front of this little time bomb while

36:10

we can. If he's gonna go down

36:12

this road, I gotta get my ducks in a row

36:14

and start doing some work so we don't create more delay.

36:17

Yep, we have a March 4th trial date, so by

36:19

December 18th, I think, is a good time, and that's also

36:22

when I think evidence is due.

36:24

And Trump responded to that saying,

36:26

that's unconstitutional, you can't ask me for

36:28

that. But then in the same

36:31

filing he said, okay, but you should have asked for it sooner.

36:33

And then by the end, he's like, all right, I'll give it to you in January.

36:36

Well, the

36:37

Department of Justice has filed the response

36:40

to that, to his January request. And

36:43

it's the same argument we discussed in the previous episode

36:45

that Trump's lawyers told the world he

36:48

intends to rely on advice of counsel. They went

36:50

on all the Sunday shows

36:51

and said, we're

36:54

gonna do a file, you know, advice of counsel, that's gonna be

36:56

our defense.

36:57

So they're like, it's not a secret strategy, we're

36:59

not, you know, making him confess

37:02

to some sort of trial strategy before the

37:04

trial, everybody, he said he's gonna do it. But

37:06

DOJ added a wrinkle in this particular

37:09

thing, and I love this, let me quote from this filing. If

37:11

the defendant notices such a defense,

37:14

there is a good reason to question its viability,

37:17

especially because in the time since the

37:19

government filed its motion, three charged

37:21

codefendant attorneys pleaded

37:24

guilty to committing crimes in connection

37:26

with the 2020 election.

37:27

That's not codefendant attorneys,

37:31

it's codefendant attorneys, codefendants

37:33

who are attorneys have already been

37:36

guilty. So the people whose advice

37:38

you would be relying on and

37:40

now referring to as your defense, yeah,

37:43

they're all guilty of crimes and of course of that

37:45

advice. I feel like that defense is

37:48

not gonna go well for him, but I don't know. No,

37:50

it's not.

37:51

He goes on to say, at the very least, those guilty pleas

37:53

highlight the complications that may arise

37:56

if the defendant should assert an

37:58

advice of counsel defense. underscore

38:00

the need to resolve all issues well before

38:02

the start of trial. If disclosure is

38:05

delayed, it may result in a disruption of

38:07

the trial schedule.

38:09

Yeah, I love highlight the complications.

38:12

That's a very nice way of saying

38:15

this defense is a flaming bag of

38:17

dog poo. It's

38:20

not going to, there's nothing

38:22

good left here. So let's

38:24

just dispatch with this now and

38:27

not use it as an excuse to delay the trial

38:29

again. All right. So

38:32

moving on in the list of entertaining

38:36

filings, this week DOJ also

38:38

responded to Trump's ridiculous demand

38:41

to subpoena the quote missing evidence

38:44

from the January 6th committee. And

38:47

we of course went over that filing in a previous episode.

38:49

Here are some excerpts from the special

38:51

counsel's office response. They

38:54

state the defendant asks

38:57

for the court's permission to make vague

38:59

early return document demands of

39:02

four non-party legislative

39:04

branch entities and three non-party

39:07

executive branch entities, all

39:10

in search of information regarding purportedly

39:13

quote missing records from

39:15

the house select committee to investigate

39:17

the January 6th attack on the U S Capitol.

39:20

The defendant's motion is wholly unnecessary.

39:23

The government already provided the defendant

39:25

in discovery to select committee records

39:28

that he identifies with any specificity.

39:31

In any event, the defendant's proposed fishing expedition

39:34

in search of other purportedly quote missing

39:37

congressional records fails to

39:39

satisfy the requirement of rule 17 C subpoenas

39:43

that they must be relevant, admissible

39:46

and specific information. The court should

39:48

deny the defendant's motion.

39:50

of

40:00

for that kind of a thing.

40:01

Right. You can't say, I now

40:03

demand all evidence of the

40:05

fact that you are in fact an alien

40:08

being. And

40:10

if you don't give it to me, that means you're withholding the discovery.

40:13

Ah, you're withholding. You didn't meet the discovery

40:15

deadline for your alien evidence.

40:18

Well, this is kind of a pattern of

40:20

behavior,

40:20

a pattern of practice for the Trump administration

40:22

and Trump allies, right? Like trying to demand

40:24

stuff from the DOJ that doesn't exist and then saying

40:27

they're the deep state for not providing it. Of course.

40:29

I mean,

40:29

this is kind of how they

40:32

roll. So I'm

40:34

not surprised at this filing, but I think

40:36

it's

40:36

going to be laughed out of court. Yeah.

40:39

And it's also important to put it in context.

40:42

Like we all talked about this at

40:44

the very beginning of these cases. Trump is going

40:46

to do everything he can to delay these trials.

40:50

We're there, right?

40:52

This is what's happening. It used

40:55

to drive me crazy when people would talk about

40:57

when during the Trump

40:59

administration, people would talk about, you

41:02

know, we better watch out because if, you know,

41:05

if things keep going this way, he's

41:07

going to try to really undermine the institutions

41:10

of government. Like, no, it was already

41:12

happening by then. It's like, we're not, you have to

41:14

open your eyes to what's actually happening

41:17

around you and put it in the right context. This

41:20

is the delay we were all worried about. File

41:22

more emotions about crazy things that don't

41:24

exist. And then when they don't go

41:26

your way, appeal them and then

41:28

appeal the denial of the appeal. And it's

41:31

just a constant barrage. It's like,

41:34

you know, it's like the, it's like what the Russians are doing

41:36

in Ukraine in Crimea. It's

41:38

just

41:39

dug in,

41:41

send in, send in mortars, send in

41:43

ordinance their way just to try to pound

41:46

the special counsel's office into having

41:48

to respond to all this stuff.

41:50

Yeah. And I think that's where lessons from the Mueller investigation

41:53

come in handy. And Judge Chutkin is well aware

41:55

of them, which is why she has set up a pretrial

41:58

schedule

41:58

that helps prevent those.

41:59

things from happening and we're gonna get to that

42:02

right after this break because in one night

42:05

Donald Trump filed four motion three

42:07

of them to dismiss his date

42:10

because they were all due that

42:12

day so that they can be dealt with in

42:14

time to keep the March 4th trial date.

42:17

She's very adamant about keeping that date and

42:19

I think that her pretrial schedule forcing

42:22

pretrial motions

42:23

for dismissal to be due on a certain day is

42:25

gonna help with that and we'll

42:26

go over those those four motions

42:28

as soon as we take this break. Stick

42:30

around

42:30

we'll be right back.

42:40

Hey everybody welcome back. Let's stay up

42:42

in DC. Let's discuss the four additional

42:45

motions that Trump filed close to midnight

42:47

on the deadline for such motions. Four

42:51

in the course of an hour late

42:53

on October 23rd. I

42:55

think it was actually

42:56

late on a couple of them but I'm sure that's fine. Now

42:58

three of these are one motion for each indictment not

43:01

really. For each charge yeah

43:03

or each charge in this case. Three

43:06

of them are motions to dismiss and one

43:08

of them is a motion

43:08

to strike language from the indictment. So

43:10

let's start there with the motion to strike

43:13

language before we get to the motions to

43:15

dismiss and this is separate

43:16

and apart from his motion to dismiss on

43:18

I am totally immune

43:19

presidents or kings motion. That's

43:21

totally separate. We'll get to that in a minute.

43:23

Told you this episode was full of stuff. Now

43:26

let's start with the motion to strike language from the indictment.

43:29

The indictment includes repeated references

43:31

to the actions of independent actors

43:33

as the Capitol at the Capitol on January 6

43:37

2021. Because the government

43:39

has not charged President Trump

43:41

with responsibility for the actions at the

43:43

Capitol on January 6th allegations

43:46

related to these actions are not relevant and

43:48

are prejudicial and inflammatory.

43:51

Therefore the court should strike these allegations

43:54

from the indictment. Now

43:58

the reason that January 6th

43:59

is in the indictment

44:01

is because it's

44:04

a

44:09

it

44:14

the way that this end I meant was

44:16

uh... built is that

44:19

his conspiracy to defraud the United States

44:22

obstruct official proceedings conspiracy

44:24

to obstruct official proceedings and conspiracy

44:26

against rights have

44:28

everything to do with all of the events

44:31

that led up to and include the

44:33

attack on the capital on january six

44:35

and events that happened afterwards all

44:40

of that is evidence of these crimes

44:42

and so i think that this

44:44

motion will be denied on those

44:46

grounds uh... you don't have

44:48

to charge him with inciting an insurrection

44:51

or seditious conspiracy uh...

44:55

in order for those two events to

44:57

be evidence

45:00

of obstructing an official proceeding or conspiracy

45:03

against rights to take our right to vote and have

45:05

our vote counted taken away from us

45:07

it's part of the crime is part of the conspiracy

45:10

uh... and i think that's why it's included and i think

45:12

that the this will be easily

45:13

dismissed i think it probably will as well

45:15

i think it's important

45:17

to realize that that the reason

45:20

for this is if laying

45:22

if that life let's say a judge in

45:24

this case it would be chuck in rules that all references

45:27

to the insurrection

45:29

have to be stricken from the indictment then that

45:31

controls what sort of evidence you can get in

45:34

trial so when

45:36

the got when the government is trying to get in

45:38

any references to the insurrection

45:40

at trial the defense would be

45:42

in a better position to oppose

45:45

uh... to exclude that evidence from

45:47

from the jury hearing and

45:49

this is good as also as appeal

45:51

written all over it yes so that's where it's

45:53

like tactically significant to the

45:55

defense you know let's

45:57

face it he's charged with conspiracy

46:00

obstruct an official proceeding, that official

46:02

proceeding took place on January 6th

46:04

on the Capitol. It's a little hard to talk

46:06

about that without making any

46:08

reference to the riot that was taking

46:11

place.

46:12

Right, but he'll say I'm appealing

46:14

this because they mentioned the riot of January

46:16

6th but didn't charge me with

46:19

it and so

46:19

therefore my conviction should be overturned.

46:21

I

46:21

mean these are all – these four – most

46:24

of these motions are just

46:25

bookmarks for appeals. Of course. That

46:27

is what it feels like. You can't just go to the motion and have it denied that you

46:29

have something to appeal later. So

46:31

that's what it's for. If it went

46:34

his way, which I don't think it will, it would help him

46:36

in narrowing the playing field in terms of what

46:38

sort of evidence the government could get in in

46:40

their case in chief but I don't think that's going to happen.

46:43

So the next motion he filed on the same

46:46

night – busy little beavers over there on

46:48

the Trump legal team – is

46:50

a motion to dismiss the case on statutory

46:52

grounds. So the motion says

46:54

targeting an audience other than this court,

46:57

the prosecution's indictment in this matter

47:00

rants endlessly – how

47:03

about the irony of Trump accusing someone

47:05

else of ranting endlessly? I mean I couldn't

47:07

even finish this sentence without stopping

47:10

on that one. So anyway, the

47:12

prosecution's indictment in this matter rants

47:14

endlessly about President Trump's

47:16

politics and, in a shockingly

47:19

un-American display of authoritarianism –

47:22

projection – accuses him

47:24

of crimes for having and

47:27

expressing the quote, wrong opinions.

47:30

Buried at the end of this diatribe

47:33

are conclusory statements that President

47:35

Trump's alleged action somehow violated 18

47:37

U.S.C. 241, 371, 1512K, and 1512C2. The

47:45

prosecution does not explain how President

47:47

Trump violated these statutes, beyond

47:49

simply saying he has, while regurgitating

47:52

the statutory language. As explained

47:54

herein, the reason the prosecution employed

47:56

this tactic is plain. President

47:58

Trump did not violate the statute. statutes,

48:01

even accepting the prosecution's false

48:03

allegations as true. Accordingly,

48:06

the court should dismiss the indictment for

48:08

failure to state an offense.

48:10

Again, that's sort of tied into the you

48:13

need to remove the January 6th language,

48:15

right? Yeah, it's just kind of

48:17

nonsensical. I mean, indictments, I

48:19

don't want to, I'll

48:22

say 99% of the indictments I've read in my life are

48:24

less specific than this one. Right. Indictments

48:27

can tend to be very thin. Isn't that how

48:29

an indictment works? Yeah, you don't make

48:32

your whole case in the indictment, you

48:34

just have to cite the statute you claim

48:37

was violated and then provide some

48:39

facts, some facts, a

48:41

couple that support

48:43

that allegation. It is intrinsically only an

48:46

allegation. It's not proof of anything. It's

48:48

almost like he said, all he did

48:50

here was say a bunch of stuff I did and then talk

48:52

about how it violated the statutes. Yeah,

48:56

or you know,

48:58

they've just made a bold face assertion

49:00

that I violated the law. And that

49:02

can't be true because I now make a

49:04

bold face assertion that I did not. I

49:07

mean, it's nonsensical.

49:10

Well done. But again, you know, it's

49:12

all part of the bigger game of

49:15

creating issues to pursue

49:17

on appeal and creating delay.

49:20

Yeah, 100%.

49:22

Now the third motion he filed that night was a

49:24

motion to dismiss on constitutional grounds.

49:26

This motion says that the indictment violates

49:29

his First Amendment right to free speech and

49:31

his First Amendment right to air his grievances

49:34

and that he's already been tried and acquitted

49:37

for these crimes during his impeachment. And

49:39

this indictment is tantamount to double jeopardy. Also,

49:43

he says, quote, finally, because of our

49:45

country's longstanding tradition of forceful

49:47

political advocacy regarding perceived

49:50

fraud and irregularities in

49:52

numerous presidential elections, President

49:55

Trump lacked fair notice that

49:57

his advocacy in this instance could be criminalized.

49:59

Thus,

50:00

the court should dismiss it under due process clause

50:03

as well.

50:04

What do you think about that? The

50:06

well-known due process requirement

50:08

of fair notice in political

50:11

advocacy.

50:12

I don't remember that

50:14

one from law school. There's

50:17

a lot of things I don't remember from law school, but definitely don't

50:19

remember that one. I also feel like he

50:21

cribbed this whole thing from a science-held episode

50:24

because as we all know, the

50:27

holiday of Festivus is the

50:29

airing of grievances. Now

50:33

we have a violation of his First

50:35

Amendment right to air his grievances. It's almost

50:37

like a First Amendment right to Festivus. I don't

50:39

know. I don't think any of this

50:42

is going anywhere, but it's on

50:44

appeal. Bookmarks

50:46

for appeal.

50:47

What's the last one?

50:48

The last one is the fourth

50:51

motion to dismiss, of course, and it is for selective

50:54

prosecution. And I quote, President

50:56

Donald J. Trump respectfully submits

50:58

this motion to dismiss the charges on the basis

51:01

of selective and vindictive

51:03

prosecution. The core conduct

51:05

alleged in the indictment relating to the presentation

51:08

of alternate electors has a historical

51:11

basis that dates back to 1800 and

51:13

spans at least seven other elections. There

51:16

are no other prosecutions in American history

51:18

relating to these types of activities. The

51:21

allegations in the indictment involve constitutionally

51:23

authorized activities by President Trump

51:26

as commander in chief, and

51:29

as well as speech and expressive conduct

51:31

protected by the First Amendment. He

51:34

goes on to say, biased prosecutors pursued

51:37

charges despite the evidence rather

51:39

than based on it, with one prosecutor

51:42

violating DOJ rules and ethical

51:44

norms by forecasting the investigation

51:47

in a television interview on 60 Minutes.

51:50

Then the attorney general felt, quote, boxed

51:52

in by the onslaught. Joe

51:54

Biden pressured DOJ to pursue the

51:56

nakedly political indictment in this case months

51:59

before the FBI had even opened an

52:01

investigation. At the very least,

52:04

even if the special counsel's office makes self-serving

52:06

arguments in an effort to articulate a defense

52:09

of the prosecutor's charging decision where

52:11

there is none, a hearing is necessary

52:14

to give President Trump an opportunity to

52:16

demonstrate that their proffered evidence

52:18

is pretextual.

52:21

I wonder where, I mean that

52:23

just sounds like a

52:26

bunch of hooey kind of out of nowhere.

52:28

Like how do you have evidence Joe Biden

52:30

pressured the DOJ to pursue the nakedly

52:32

political indictments months before the FBI

52:34

opened the investigation? Like I don't

52:37

understand this at all, but again, like

52:39

I said, none of these are going to, these will all fail.

52:41

I am certain. And they

52:44

are again just appeal placeholders.

52:47

I'd like to take a quick break from DC and tell

52:49

you about a filing from Jack Smith in the Mar-a-Lago

52:52

case because it

52:53

just came out Friday. And this is

52:55

my favorite filing of the week. If we had

52:58

an Oscars for court filings, I

53:00

think this

53:00

one would win best picture for me. All right. It

53:03

is Jack Smith's filing in response to

53:05

Donald's motion to delay the entire

53:08

Florida trial until the end of next year.

53:10

They've already gone back and forth on this matter a couple

53:12

of times and we've reported

53:14

those filings on previous episodes.

53:17

But DOJ is responding to Trump's latest

53:19

complaints

53:20

about classified discovery and why

53:22

it should postpone the entire trial until

53:24

November of next year at least. Now,

53:27

I'm going to paraphrase this filing for everyone.

53:29

So I

53:29

want you to know this isn't what Jack Smith said. This is what I'm

53:31

telling what I, my interpretation

53:33

of what he's written. The artistic interpretation

53:36

of the filing. I got it.

53:37

Okay. So first up, Jack Smith says, we

53:40

had classified discovery ready for you

53:42

in a skiff down the street from where you live

53:45

and you waited 11 days to come

53:47

and look at it.

53:48

In fact,

53:49

we had it ready to go in less than a month

53:51

after the protective order was issued and seven

53:54

months ahead of trial. So any delay

53:56

is

53:57

y'all's fault. That's all y'all.

54:00

Trump complained,

54:01

I can't believe you guys gave us an additional 13,584

54:04

pages to review just

54:07

now. This will take us forever. We need a whole new

54:09

trial date, end of next year.

54:11

And the DOJ responds in the filing saying, 15

54:13

of those

54:14

pages are new. The

54:17

other 13,569 are duplicates you had for months.

54:23

You requested we package them together.

54:26

And Andy, this is a box

54:27

that they seized that had 15 documents

54:30

classified in it. And

54:32

the rest, the other 13,000 were unclassified. And

54:36

so during unclassified discovery, they

54:39

produced them. And then

54:41

they've already produced the 15 here.

54:45

Those are the new ones.

54:46

But Donald Trump, they specifically

54:49

asked to have them all together so we can look

54:51

to see how they were in the box.

54:53

As you found them.

54:55

Yeah. So they're like,

54:57

I can't believe you just dropped this 14,000 pages on it. It's

55:00

like, dude, you've had those. The 15

55:02

are new. You asked

55:04

for this. You had them and then you asked

55:06

for them. They repackaged form.

55:08

You asked for them this way.

55:09

And if you stack them up end to end,

55:11

they're taller than, you know, whatever.

55:14

Then Trump said in a classified briefing

55:17

submitted from a classified laptop,

55:19

he said, I need a classified laptop.

55:21

We must delay the trial because I need a classified laptop.

55:25

And DOJ said, bro, you have one. You

55:27

used it just now to submit your complaint

55:29

about not having one.

55:31

But we'll give you three more. Now you have four. Now

55:34

he has four classified laptops. I'm

55:36

going to Australia and I need a classified

55:38

laptop to discuss with my friends.

55:41

My box friends. Yeah. I

55:43

wonder if the Australian cardboard magnate

55:45

made the cardboard boxes in which he stole the

55:47

documents. That would be an awesome moment

55:50

of, I don't know what, synchronicity or something.

55:53

Now, Jack Smith concludes

55:55

with this. The defense's allegations

55:57

about the government's compliance with its discovery

55:59

obligations. obligations are wrong and its characterization

56:02

of the discovery record is incorrect and

56:04

misleading. The government is in full compliance

56:07

with its discovery obligations to date, having

56:09

provided prompt and thorough disclosures throughout

56:12

these proceedings. The discovery record

56:14

offers the defense no justification

56:17

to delay the pretrial schedule and

56:19

the trial of this case. Now

56:21

Judge Eileen Cannon has scheduled a hearing for

56:24

this particular set of arguments. This-

56:26

Of course she

56:27

has. I guess, do we delay the trial because

56:29

I need a laptop and 14,000 documents.

56:33

That hearing is scheduled for November 1st.

56:35

So it's coming up fast. Yeah. November

56:37

1st of 23 because I heard Trump asked for it to be delayed

56:40

on November 1st of 24, the hearing. Yeah,

56:42

you got it. You know,

56:45

in a weird way, I almost feel bad for Judge

56:48

Cannon because she gets these dueling

56:50

filings on all these nonsensical

56:52

issues and they're just like speaking two

56:54

different languages. They're so different.

56:57

So reading them, you've got to kind of be

56:59

like, oh my God, what am I supposed

57:01

to- this guy says the sky is black

57:04

and this guy says the sky is white.

57:07

So

57:08

you know, a more experienced,

57:10

a little more salty judge would just

57:13

get these filings and just

57:15

make a ruling, put it on record

57:18

in writing and walk away. Like

57:20

enough- Well, we'll see it in- we can

57:22

pair

57:22

and contrast with what Judge Chutkin is

57:24

going to do with this flurry of emotions. Right. Yeah.

57:28

And it'll be plain as

57:29

day. Yeah, but she allows, you know,

57:31

he's setting this tone and this agenda

57:33

of picking one fight after another

57:36

over nothing and she's

57:38

kind of facilitating it by giving

57:41

every one of these complaints,

57:43

you know, a full hearing. I don't know. It's

57:46

a little concerning.

57:48

All right. Well, we have a lot more to get to.

57:50

Well, not a lot more. Just one more filing to get

57:52

to and some listener questions. There's

57:55

a link in the show notes, by the way, where you can submit

57:57

those questions. But we need to take a quick break so everybody stick

57:59

around.

58:00

We'll be right back.

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59:38

Welcome back. OK, we have one final

59:40

filing to discuss, and that's Donald Trump's

59:43

supplemental brief in support of his motion

59:45

to dismiss based on presidential

59:47

monarchy. No, I'm sorry. It's presidential

59:50

immunity. You'll

59:53

remember we went over his initial filing in a previous

59:55

episode, and then we talked about DOJ's

59:59

really impressive response.

59:59

So

1:00:01

here's some excerpts from Trump's

1:00:03

response to the special

1:00:06

counsel's filing. The

1:00:08

prosecution argues that presidential immunity

1:00:10

does not extend a criminal prosecution of a

1:00:13

president for his official acts. The

1:00:15

prosecution is wrong. The prosecution

1:00:17

argues that recognizing immunity from criminal

1:00:19

prosecution would place the president quote

1:00:22

above the law.

1:00:23

Not so. All right, timeout.

1:00:26

Both of those statements are

1:00:29

actually correct. Anybody

1:00:31

who read that would say

1:00:33

the prosecution is right.

1:00:36

I mean, if

1:00:37

it doesn't place him above the law, I don't know

1:00:40

what

1:00:40

it does. But anyway, okay. I

1:00:44

continue. As the prosecution

1:00:46

recognizes, a president is subject to

1:00:48

criminal prosecution for one,

1:00:51

unofficial conduct or

1:00:53

purely private acts and two,

1:00:55

conduct within the scope of his official responsibilities

1:00:58

provided that he is first impeached by

1:01:00

the House of Representatives and convicted

1:01:02

by the Senate for such conduct.

1:01:05

So he's actually arguing that he can't be

1:01:07

criminally tried unless the

1:01:09

Senate convicts him first. Oh,

1:01:12

what about the double jeopardy argument he was making in

1:01:14

the other filings? Stop. Don't bring up

1:01:16

things that contradict what I just said. Okay. Sorry.

1:01:20

You got to think of this like a defense lawyer. What

1:01:22

I said five minutes ago is gone. I want you to focus

1:01:24

on is what I said now. So

1:01:26

the filing goes on to argue that prosecuting President

1:01:29

Trump breaches centuries

1:01:32

of unbroken tradition. Of

1:01:34

not charging presidents? Because

1:01:36

you're the first crimey one? Yeah,

1:01:39

apparently. Trump then argues that because the

1:01:42

bulk of Jack Smith's opposition is spent

1:01:44

arguing that immunity does not exist, they

1:01:47

fail to show that Trump's actions fell

1:01:49

outside the outer perimeters of his duty.

1:01:52

He says that organizing alternate slates

1:01:54

of electors is within the outer perimeter

1:01:57

of his job as president.

1:01:59

job as president and official

1:02:02

county election supervisor for

1:02:04

every county in the nation, apparently.

1:02:07

As president of crimes. Yes.

1:02:11

I just, I can't get beyond

1:02:13

this. Like that first sentence, the

1:02:15

prosecution argues that presidential

1:02:18

immunity does not extend to criminal prosecution

1:02:20

of a president for the special acts.

1:02:23

I mean, that is just a legal fact.

1:02:26

Five, you know, get five lawyers together. They would all

1:02:28

agree. That's the current state of the law.

1:02:31

The prosecution argues that recognizing immunity from

1:02:33

criminal prosecution would place the president above the

1:02:35

law. Of course it would. I mean,

1:02:37

it's a, it's a self evident.

1:02:41

There's no law beyond that. So if

1:02:43

you're, if you're above that, that's

1:02:45

it. You're covered. You can't do

1:02:47

anything wrong. You can never commit a crime. You can't be prosecuted

1:02:50

or placed in jail because you're the king.

1:02:52

Yeah. And let me, let me respond

1:02:54

here because he's basically saying presidents

1:02:57

aren't

1:02:57

above the law. Former

1:02:59

presidents can be criminally prosecuted

1:03:01

for unofficial conduct

1:03:04

and conduct within, or

1:03:06

if it's, or if it's official conduct,

1:03:09

he has to be impeached first. And

1:03:11

the argument is the shit you

1:03:13

did was unofficial conduct, my man. So

1:03:16

you just said we can prosecute you.

1:03:19

But you know, he's arguing that this is official

1:03:21

conduct. He's saying that fraudulent,

1:03:25

gathering fraudulent slates of electors has

1:03:27

been done for years. For centuries.

1:03:29

Centuries of unbroken

1:03:31

precedent or yeah,

1:03:33

it's hard to make

1:03:36

sense of the word salad, but the

1:03:39

effect is pretty consistent

1:03:41

across all the motions. These

1:03:43

are basically like opportunities

1:03:46

to heave all of his campaign slogans

1:03:49

out in court. Oh, you're coming

1:03:51

after me. It's all Biden's fault. This is

1:03:53

all political. And

1:03:55

you know, and like we said, put down markers for

1:03:58

appeal. and slow

1:04:01

down the clock essentially.

1:04:03

Yeah, that'll be it but I don't think Judge Shotgun is going

1:04:05

to let the clock slow down.

1:04:07

Judge Cannon on the other hand,

1:04:09

again we can compare and contrast

1:04:11

when the decisions

1:04:13

and consideration on these motions

1:04:15

comes down. That's right, that's

1:04:17

right.

1:04:17

So we'll watch, we'll watch,

1:04:19

watch and learn the difference. So

1:04:22

what do we have for

1:04:23

listener questions this week Andy? You know we

1:04:26

have a good one and there was of course a development

1:04:28

this week that I think is also relevant to this

1:04:30

question.

1:04:32

And there's a couple things about this that I feel like have

1:04:35

kind of been overlooked in the conversation

1:04:37

publicly about all this stuff. So what I'm referring

1:04:39

to of course are the guilty pleas down

1:04:41

in Georgia. The question which unfortunately

1:04:44

came without a name attached to it but you

1:04:47

know who you are out there and well done. The

1:04:50

question is does Sidney Powell's Georgia

1:04:52

plea deal require her to cooperate

1:04:55

in federal election trials as well

1:04:57

as in the Georgia one? And

1:04:59

will the federal prosecutors be able

1:05:02

to leverage her Georgia confession to

1:05:04

compel her to do so or

1:05:07

to cooperate?

1:05:08

No and yes.

1:05:09

There you go, that's the short answer. So

1:05:12

no, Georgia can't cut

1:05:14

a deal with her that requires her

1:05:16

to do something in any other jurisdiction. That's

1:05:19

kind of like the reverse of what we were talking about in the

1:05:21

immunity context at the beginning of the show. Can

1:05:25

federal prosecutors use her statements

1:05:28

against her to charge her or if she's charged to convict

1:05:30

her on the federal level? They

1:05:35

can but it's more complicated than it seems.

1:05:37

There's actually a really good article in the New

1:05:40

York Times about this this week. Any

1:05:43

public statements, so if she takes the

1:05:45

stand in Georgia and says things

1:05:48

on the record in court, those statements they

1:05:50

can have, they can use in their own court proceedings,

1:05:52

no problem. The

1:05:55

more important stuff sometimes is what she

1:05:57

says to investigators in Georgia because

1:05:59

she had to be inter- interviewed by investigators

1:06:01

in Georgia, and presumably had to tell them everything

1:06:03

she knows about all this stuff. I hope

1:06:05

they're required to do that. Can they

1:06:08

get those statements from Georgia and

1:06:10

then use them in their investigation or charging

1:06:12

or convicting Powell? It's questionable.

1:06:15

It's not illegal, but it requires

1:06:17

a certain degree of coordination

1:06:20

between the federal prosecutors

1:06:23

and the state prosecutors. There's really no indication

1:06:25

that there's a lot of coordination going on between

1:06:27

them. Fonny Willis has said that they're

1:06:30

operating entirely independently. Well,

1:06:32

this is kind of like how Tish James

1:06:34

took all of her

1:06:36

interviews for the civil fraud trial

1:06:38

and gave

1:06:39

them to the Manhattan district

1:06:40

attorney to use, right?

1:06:43

Yeah, yeah, that's an example

1:06:45

of them kind of working it out. But

1:06:48

there was no federal thing

1:06:49

involved in that. That was state to state.

1:06:51

Right. This is federal state. It's a little

1:06:54

trickier and there's a timing element.

1:06:56

Like Fonny Willis is not going to want to be

1:06:58

handing over statements of witnesses

1:07:01

she expects to use in her trial. She doesn't

1:07:03

want to hand those statements over to another prosecutor

1:07:05

in different jurisdictions who might go first,

1:07:08

who might get that statement, release that statement

1:07:10

in some sort of judicial proceeding, and

1:07:13

then it tips off the defendants in Fonny

1:07:15

Willis's trial as to what they need to worry about.

1:07:17

So there's all kinds of trial tactics

1:07:19

there. This is why federal prosecutors, they

1:07:22

always, if there is a witness that

1:07:24

both the feds and the state want to use, the

1:07:26

feds always demand that their trial goes

1:07:28

first and the state has to wait because you never

1:07:31

want to use this witness and the statements

1:07:33

last. So there's some embedded obstacles

1:07:37

to cooperation

1:07:39

between Georgia

1:07:40

and Jack Smith on this one. And finally,

1:07:43

the thing that really still kind of amazes

1:07:45

me about all these Georgia pleas, and we now

1:07:47

of course have Ken Cheesebrow, and more significantly

1:07:50

we have Jenna Ellis, who

1:07:52

pled this week as well. They're not

1:07:55

cooperation agreements in the way that you understand

1:07:57

cooperation on the federal level. They're

1:07:59

almost

1:07:59

backwards. In

1:08:01

the federal level, you get charged

1:08:03

with a bunch of crimes, you want to cooperate,

1:08:05

you come in, you cut a deal. And

1:08:07

the deal is they drop a bunch of the felonies,

1:08:10

but they keep a couple. And the

1:08:12

ones that they keep could expose you still to

1:08:14

serious sentence time. And

1:08:16

you have to cooperate then. You plead

1:08:19

guilty to a smaller number of crimes,

1:08:21

and then you cooperate. You have to testify in every trial.

1:08:23

You have to be interviewed, do whatever they ask. When

1:08:26

all that's done, then they bring you to court

1:08:28

to sentence you on your case. And

1:08:30

if you've done well, if you've cooperated legitimately

1:08:33

and provided good information, they ask the judge

1:08:35

to depart downward on your sentence.

1:08:38

Rule 35? Yes.

1:08:40

Or a K letter? What

1:08:41

are those? It's called a 5K1 letter.

1:08:43

Back

1:08:46

in the day, my old days, when we used

1:08:48

to actually have real sentencing guidelines

1:08:50

that required judges to sentence you within the guidelines.

1:08:53

When the time

1:08:55

came for sentencing, if you were a cooperator, the prosecutors

1:08:58

would give the judge a 5K1 letter laying

1:09:00

out the cooperation you did. And the receipt

1:09:02

of that letter statutorily empowered

1:09:05

the judge to go beneath the guidelines. Now the

1:09:07

guidelines are just advisory, so it's a little different.

1:09:09

But anyway, in Georgia, they

1:09:12

basically give the deal away up front. They

1:09:14

drop all the felonies, charge you with a misdemeanor,

1:09:17

which you're not going to do any time,

1:09:19

agree to let you into the first offender program,

1:09:22

agree to say none of your crimes involve moral

1:09:24

turpitude and therefore can't be used in

1:09:26

a follow-on proceeding against

1:09:29

you as a lawyer to remove your license. I

1:09:31

mean, you get all this benefit immediately.

1:09:34

So if these, if it's not clear to

1:09:36

me what happens if Sidney Powell or

1:09:38

any of the rest of them take the stand in Georgia and

1:09:41

claim the fifth, which

1:09:43

they might really want to do because

1:09:45

by testifying in Georgia to their

1:09:48

own misdeeds, they expose

1:09:50

themselves to criminal liability

1:09:53

in the federal case. So

1:09:55

there are some really weird embedded risks

1:09:58

here for the defendants. And

1:10:00

we're going to have to see how that plays out. It has

1:10:03

impacts on Jack Smith's ability to use these people

1:10:05

as defendants or to charge them and try to turn them

1:10:07

into cooperators. And it really

1:10:10

poses some risk to the

1:10:12

defendants.

1:10:13

Yeah, and some other considerations

1:10:15

too, though. I think Kenneth Chudbro

1:10:18

and Jenna Ellis pled guilty to one felony

1:10:20

each. It was just Sidney Powell

1:10:22

who went first that got him knocked down to misdemeanors.

1:10:25

But Jenna Ellis is a little bit different

1:10:27

than the others. The others just gave

1:10:29

their one proffer up front, wrote their apology

1:10:31

letter, paid their fine, and they're good to go.

1:10:34

And they do have to testify in any and all

1:10:36

proceedings. But Jenna Ellis

1:10:39

actually says, we want more interviews.

1:10:41

You have to make yourself available for

1:10:42

as many proffer sessions and interviews as we

1:10:44

want, along with everything else that was

1:10:47

in everybody else's deal.

1:10:48

But I think I get what you're saying, because

1:10:51

if there were no other

1:10:53

places in the United States where

1:10:55

they were on the hook for crimes, they wouldn't be able to

1:10:57

plead the fifth. Because you can

1:10:59

only plead the fifth when you

1:11:02

are in danger of being indicted.

1:11:05

And if they got full immunity

1:11:07

down in Georgia, which they have, and

1:11:09

that was the only thing they were facing,

1:11:11

they wouldn't be able to plead the fifth. But

1:11:14

because they potentially face other

1:11:16

charges in

1:11:17

federal court, or maybe in other jurisdictions,

1:11:20

who knows what Arizona's gonna do, who knows what Michigan's gonna

1:11:22

do. Yeah, good point.

1:11:23

Because they are potentially on the hook there,

1:11:26

then you should be able to plead the

1:11:28

fifth, because you are still

1:11:29

on the hook for criminal liability.

1:11:32

So we'll see. It raises

1:11:34

a lot of questions, like how do these lawyers think

1:11:37

about this? They're the defense attorneys who

1:11:39

steered them into these deals.

1:11:43

Do they acknowledge to their clients? Like you

1:11:45

are taking a huge, you

1:11:48

know, leap of faith. As we talked

1:11:50

about this last week, I said like you basically putting

1:11:52

yourself in a position where if you're Sidney

1:11:54

Powell and Jack Smith charges you, you

1:11:57

kind of have to cooperate up there because.

1:12:01

Chances are between cooperating

1:12:04

with Fannie Willis, getting a hand of your statement,

1:12:06

or just using the testimony that you gave in

1:12:08

court, you're in

1:12:11

a tough spot. You're in a really bad case.

1:12:14

Cooperation might be your only way to limit your

1:12:16

exposure, but we'll have to see.

1:12:19

Yeah, we also have to think about the timing too. You

1:12:21

and I have posited that perhaps the reason

1:12:23

that Sidney Powell at all, the other unindicted

1:12:26

co-conspirators haven't been charged yet is because he's going

1:12:28

to run those as mop-up cases after he finishes

1:12:30

the Trump trial to keep it clean and fast. But

1:12:33

now, if you think about ... Because

1:12:36

normally, like you said, the feds would

1:12:38

just charge her and push

1:12:40

her to either cooperate and go

1:12:42

down to one felony and do the thing,

1:12:44

but if they're not ready to charge

1:12:46

her yet, they can't

1:12:49

do that. And then is she going to be

1:12:52

testifying in Georgia before

1:12:54

she is

1:12:55

charged, if she's

1:12:56

going to be charged in federal

1:12:58

court? There's

1:13:00

that consideration too, the timing consideration. Do

1:13:02

we go ahead and charge them all now and risk

1:13:04

them filing motions to glom on, to

1:13:06

hang onto the coattails of the Donald Trump

1:13:09

trial and slow that whole thing down? Or

1:13:12

do we wait and hope that we're still going to

1:13:14

go first? Because it could happen

1:13:16

that once this trial is over, the trial

1:13:18

still hasn't happened in Georgia because

1:13:20

you've got to remember, he's got a May trial,

1:13:23

he's got another thing. So

1:13:26

maybe then Jack Smith thinks he'll still

1:13:28

have time to go first.

1:13:31

Sure. Either that or he looks at it the other

1:13:33

way and he says, you know what? I don't care. None of these

1:13:35

people are as significant as Trump. I'm

1:13:37

doing what I got to do to get the Trump case over

1:13:39

the threshold.

1:13:41

And if it means I can't go back and charge any of these

1:13:43

people, then

1:13:44

so be it. I don't know.

1:13:45

Yeah, but then you would have Fannie Willis

1:13:47

saying, well, let them off the hook so that they can

1:13:50

testify truthfully down here for me.

1:13:53

Unless Fannie Willis is like, I don't care. I just

1:13:55

wanted to get rid of the speedy trials. I don't

1:13:57

care what they do. Take them. Yeah,

1:14:01

crazy, but it's a pretty simple and

1:14:03

well-phrased question, but it opens up this whole

1:14:05

hornet's nest of issues that I think people

1:14:08

are kind of doing the victory dance, you know, the touchdown

1:14:10

dance over these pleas, oh, they're cooperators, they're

1:14:12

going to sink Trump. And

1:14:15

it is a good thing. It's a great thing for Fawny Willis.

1:14:17

I think in the long run, I think it can be a good thing

1:14:19

for Jack Smith as well, but there's a lot

1:14:21

of embedded hurdles here, which

1:14:24

it'll be interesting to watch how we

1:14:26

get over those.

1:14:27

Yeah, a lot of considerations. All right, this

1:14:29

has been another over-hour long

1:14:32

episode, and we did the best we could to

1:14:34

get all of the filings and minute orders and

1:14:36

news of the week in there. So thank you for

1:14:38

hanging in there for this long episode.

1:14:40

We appreciate you very, very much.

1:14:42

Yes. Do you have any final thoughts before

1:14:44

we get out of here? Again, if you have a question, send

1:14:47

it to us. There's a link in the show notes.

1:14:49

Yeah, keep those questions coming in because it's always

1:14:51

very helpful to read those. And of course, we love

1:14:53

doing one on the air. And

1:14:56

there's a lot going on right now. A

1:14:58

lot in this week that's just

1:15:00

behind us and everything

1:15:03

overseas in Israel, and then of course this week

1:15:06

in Maine, another horrible

1:15:09

mass shooting in America. And so hang

1:15:11

in there. Be good to yourselves. Think

1:15:13

about taking a break from the news every now and then,

1:15:16

only after you've listened to the podcast,

1:15:18

but anyway. These

1:15:21

are challenging times, and

1:15:23

I hope everybody's focused

1:15:26

a little bit on themselves and their own mental health and

1:15:29

taking advantage of opportunities to

1:15:31

do that.

1:15:32

Yeah, and I know you're going to go do some hits this afternoon

1:15:35

about what happened in Maine and

1:15:36

on behalf of the MSW

1:15:39

Media team and this podcast

1:15:41

and myself, I'm just my heart

1:15:43

and all of my thoughts and all of my love and

1:15:46

all of my support goes out to the community

1:15:48

of Lewiston, the families, the

1:15:51

first responders,

1:15:53

the people who work in the hospital,

1:15:55

the friends, the relatives, just

1:15:57

all.

1:15:59

All of that to you right now, all of that love,

1:16:02

all that support. I wish I could give you a giant

1:16:04

hug and I hope that,

1:16:06

I hope this is enough. I

1:16:09

don't know what Congress will

1:16:11

end up doing but I hope it's something.

1:16:13

And did you see Jared Golden actually change

1:16:15

his position on assault weapons bans

1:16:18

during the press conference in Maine? Yeah,

1:16:20

that was kind of remarkable. Kind of remarkable. Susan

1:16:22

Collins didn't but he sure did and

1:16:26

I should never. He did and it

1:16:28

was good to see the guy who seemed to really

1:16:30

be kind of thinking

1:16:33

and changing his position based on

1:16:35

the grief and the mourning and

1:16:37

the horror that's now

1:16:40

inflicted his, hit

1:16:42

upon his community. That's what it takes. I mean

1:16:44

if that's what it takes, we're on our way because pretty

1:16:46

soon there's not going to be a community in this

1:16:48

country that hasn't experienced this horrendous

1:16:52

and largely preventable

1:16:55

violence. I hope other congress people

1:16:57

take note and don't wait until

1:16:59

it happens in their communities

1:17:00

to change their position. Yeah, agree.

1:17:02

Anyway, just wanted to mention that. So thank

1:17:04

you Andy for doing that work and doing those

1:17:06

hits and talking about that on

1:17:08

TV. I appreciate

1:17:10

you.

1:17:11

Yeah, you know, you try to kind of shed some light

1:17:13

and let people know what's going on. Sometimes

1:17:15

that can be hard to follow. So it's

1:17:17

hard to watch because of, you

1:17:20

know, my inclination is

1:17:22

to be on the other side of this and be helping out

1:17:24

with the manhunt. But if this is a

1:17:27

small way that I can help them, I'm of course

1:17:29

happy to do that.

1:17:30

So anyway, have a great week everyone.

1:17:33

Yep. And please take care.

1:17:35

Like Andy said, I've been Allison Gill

1:17:37

and I'm Andy McCain.

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