Former President Donald Trump is on his way to surrender to a New York court to be arraigned on a felony charge of conspiracy to commit a crime. Former President Richard Nixon was the first sitting president to be charged with a crime for his role in the Watergate scandal.
00:13:23.820He's one of the last people to be able to sit there and say, I disagree.
00:13:30.500I'm going to do things a different way because I think this is the way to go.
00:13:34.240And so to take a guy like that and have the full power of the state, of the establishment, of the people who want this to happen behind it, it is insanity.
00:13:49.440And to think that you're going to be able to put a gag order on this and say, oh, well, you know, it's no big deal.
00:13:55.180It's common in these cases, prevent discourse.
00:14:00.600It is also a trap because what they want, this judge, we're going to talk about him in the next segment.
00:14:04.740They want him to be able to do is to come in and say he's broken the gag order and now we can throw him in jail because they want that image.
00:14:15.620And I ain't talking about one of these mid-journey version five AI pre-created images.
00:14:22.640They want to put a former president of the United States behind bars.
00:14:27.860Not because they claim he killed somebody, because they hate him and because they will do anything to our country to make their sick, twisted fantasies come true.
00:14:47.580And you better learn to embrace the suck because all of this is coming.
00:14:52.480We are laying out for you not what we don't want to happen.
00:14:56.660Again, I'm explaining to you what I think is going to happen.
00:16:03.960A lawyer for Mr. Trump saying Sunday that he doesn't believe the judge is biased, but adding that his team will let this process play out and pursue legal options if needed because Mr. Trump's team vehemently believes that this is all political persecution, or, in Mr. Trump's words, a witch hunt.
00:16:23.260You don't believe this judge is biased?
00:16:24.920He's pushing out because he's the victim.
00:16:27.140I have no reason to believe this judge is biased.
00:16:29.140I've not been before him on this matter.
00:16:30.640So we have to let this process play out.
00:16:35.260Last year, this judge who will preside over Mr. Trump's arraignment and potentially his trial, as you said, Mitch, also oversaw the criminal tax fraud case against the Trump Organization.
00:16:44.940Ex-CFO Alan Weisselberg pleaded guilty in that case.
00:16:50.740And this judge is also presiding over a criminal case against former top White House advisor Steve Bannon, who is facing fraud and money laundering charges.
00:17:00.260Now, Cy Vance, the former district attorney for Manhattan, says the judge is experienced.
00:17:05.160He's going to want to set a firm trial date.
00:17:07.120And there are many questions this morning whether this will go to trial before Election Day 2024.
00:17:12.980So, Juan Mershon, Juan Mershon, the judge handling the case.
00:17:18.960And here from NPR, and I'll even give NPR a little bit of credit, because NPR even says the judge handling the unusual and historic case.
00:17:30.220So even NPR admits that this is an unusual case.
00:17:33.260It makes no sense, because remember, we're told again that it's business fraud because payments that were used, they claim as hush money payments to some stripper using the word of a discredited lawyer and her former discredited lawyer, both of which have been convicted.
00:17:54.180That's Michael Cohen and Michael Avenatti, that these payments were fraudulent and that the fraud was done to cover up a crime, the crime being that of a campaign finance violation.
00:18:07.020And because it was a campaign violation, that is actually a felony, which makes it a felony charge.
00:18:12.820Again, these are all sorts of things that even if it was a campaign finance violation, which it's not, even if it was last year, the Clinton campaign was able to settle a campaign finance violation with paying off a $130,000 fine.
00:18:30.520Actually, and correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that about the same amount that we're told Stormy Daniels was paid from the FEC?
00:18:39.260Oh, she funded the Steele dossier, actual election-related payments, the Steele dossier that was then used to become the Russia investigation, the Russia hoax, which lasted for years.
00:18:51.460The Obama administration paid the largest, or excuse me, campaign, the Obama campaign paid the largest ever fine in American history to the Federal Elections Commission for over $1 million of a fine for wrongfully recording payments and donations that were made to the campaign, not a criminal charge.
00:19:22.600Oh, Juan Manuel Marchand, a veteran of the New York high court system, who has spent more than 15 years on the bench and is no stranger to high-profile prosecutions, particularly those involving Trump and his associates.
00:19:41.660Last year, Marchand oversaw the closely-watched criminal tax fraud case against Trump's company, the Trump Organization,
00:19:49.480where these entities controlled by President Trump were found guilty of 17 counts of tax fraud and falsifying business expenses, and again, in order to pay a penalty, a $1.6 million penalty.
00:20:03.740And these were over these cases of benefits, fringe benefits that were given to employees, expenses that they were able to take, which is honestly, to be fair, pretty common stuff, especially for New York City and for companies there.
00:20:22.860These are cases that would never, these are paper cases that would never, ever have been brought had he not run and won for president in 2016, and we're talking about running for president again.
00:20:34.680Former Trump Organization chief financial officer, Alan Weisselberg, pled guilty in the case, served as the star witness, and even then, the judge handed him a five-month prison sentence, same judge, Juan Mershon,
00:20:53.560and actually said that he would have handed him down a harsher sentence if he hadn't already agreed to the plea deal, according to Politico.
00:21:04.740Mershon is currently also overseeing the criminal case against who? Steve Bannon.
00:21:10.880You guys remember Steve Bannon. You've heard of him, right?
00:21:13.520He's the host of a little TV show called The War Room here on Real America's Voice.
00:21:18.360Of course, Bannon is facing, quote, fraud and money laundering charges related to the We Build the Wall situation.
00:21:25.860Again, we would never know this, but let's go through, we would never have been talking to any of this stuff if it wasn't for Trump.
00:21:32.320According to New York Law Journal, Mershon has been an acting judge of the New York Supreme Court since 2009.
00:21:38.980People are saying he's smart, serious, and even-tempered.
00:21:42.880Of course, that's NPR's, you know, setup.
00:21:45.700He doesn't let prosecutors or defendants create any issues in his courtroom.
00:21:50.300He doesn't let a media circus or any kind of circus happen.
00:21:53.860So he doesn't let a media circus happen.
00:22:02.380It's a three-ring circus, and Juan Mershon is the ringmaster right now.
00:22:08.160Not even Alvin Bragg, because Juan Mershon has the ability to look at these, he could look right now at these charges, and he could say, this is a joke, this is political, and he could dismiss it.
00:22:22.100He could dismiss it right now if he didn't want the media circus.
00:22:24.800And all of this would go away, and President Trump could hop back on that plane, fly right back to Mar-a-Lago, and perhaps, perhaps, we could start to try to go back to the country that we used to be.