Classified Docs in Biden's Garage, and Evidence Against Idaho Suspect, with Alan Dershowitz, Sharyl Attkisson, Marcia Clark, and Mark Geragos ｜ Ep. 471
A special counsel has been appointed to look into the Joe Biden classified documents mess. Former Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz joins me to discuss the latest in the Biden/Russia scandal and how it could impact the case against Donald Trump.
00:01:02.840I guess if you're Joe Biden, you get to find your own documents and break the news yourself after managing it for three months behind the scenes.
00:01:09.520So why are we just finding out about this now?
00:01:11.880And what the hell? Why is it drip, drip, drip?
00:01:14.040Why is it like, OK, we found one, but then, oh, God, there's another.
00:01:59.520I always listen to it. Very informative.
00:02:02.060So, OK, I mean, you tell me what you think.
00:02:05.860I think this special counsel looking into Joe Biden never would have happened had they not been going after Donald Trump this aggressively.
00:02:12.660It's I don't think it's going to lead anywhere, even though they've gone after civilians for far less than what Joe Biden has admitted to doing.
00:02:22.760But the thing I'm most interested in is how, in your view, does all this affect the case against Trump?
00:02:28.300Because now, just to update the audience, as I mentioned in the intro, we have not one, not two, but three discoveries of Joe Biden holding classified documents, including top secret documents at three different places.
00:02:41.700His his Washington, D.C. office that was connected to his work for University of Pennsylvania after his vice presidency, his home in Wilmington, Delaware, out in the garage next to his Corvette.
00:02:54.040And now a third disclosure late yesterday of a document, at least coming from inside that same home.
00:03:02.380Well, first, I think there will be more disclosures, not only of documents improperly handed handled by Biden, but by previous presidents.
00:03:10.640This is something that must have been happening for years and years and years.
00:03:14.240And it was only the fact that the Justice Department went after Trump so aggressively with a search warrant and with a complete search of the home that has even made this a story.
00:03:26.380This is a perfect example of tit for tat politics.
00:03:29.620The Democrats go after Trump improperly, unconstitutionally.
00:03:34.460And now, of course, the Republicans are are going to get even and the victims are the American public who don't benefit from this.
00:03:46.980I rarely ever make perfect predictions on the media here.
00:03:51.240I'm going to make a 100 percent certain conviction.
00:03:54.020There will be no criminal prosecution of Donald Trump or of Joe Biden.
00:03:58.420They cancel each other out unless, obviously, more information comes out than Joe's obstruction of justice or Richard Nixon type behavior.
00:04:08.120But this makes it clear as can be that you can't have a double standard of justice, particularly when two people are running each other against each other for president.
00:04:19.420That's why special counsel was appointed, because they appointed him against Trump.
00:04:23.780So they had to appoint him against Biden.
00:04:25.640Everything has to be equal and one will cancel out the other.
00:04:30.840I totally agree with everything you just said.
00:04:34.080This is window dressing on the Biden side to make it look like they're both being treated the same for what would normally be a slap on the wrist.
00:04:43.620And I realize Trump went further than that and said, you know, kept arguing past the point of return.
00:04:49.740And now they actually claim that he lied through a lawyer about having given back all the documents when, in fact, he hadn't.
00:04:56.340They'll they'll fight all that out, maybe.
00:04:58.300But the bottom line is, in the mind of the American people, this is classified information being kept by a former vice president and a former president.
00:05:07.480And they're going to see it as the same.
00:05:09.080And if they get different treatment, you know, it's going to be extraordinary under any circumstance, Alan.
00:05:13.860But especially when you're talking about the unprecedented act of indicting criminally a former president, which they are thinking about doing to Trump.
00:05:22.180Yeah. Look, I think there are very few things that all Americans agree on.
00:05:26.040But the one thing that all Americans agree on is that the Trump situation is different from the Biden situation.
00:05:33.140Half of America thinks that Biden is worse.
00:05:35.720Half of America thinks that Trump is worse.
00:05:40.880Trump was worse in the sense that he didn't come forward and disclose immediately.
00:05:46.040There may have been some misstatements.
00:05:48.660There were materials found after there were assurances they wouldn't be found.
00:05:52.180On the other hand, we have Trump being the president of the United States at the time, having the ability to declassify material, whereas Biden was the vice president, didn't have the ability to classify material.
00:06:06.080Also, with Biden, there was this delay.
00:06:09.140Why a delay between early November and the midterm elections?
00:06:31.060This reflects the worst, the worst of American politics.
00:06:35.180I'm actually starting to wonder, this is a little tongue-in-cheek, if Joe Biden is behind this whole strategy because he doesn't actually want an indictment of President Trump.
00:06:47.040He's offering something that would make it less likely because he'd prefer to run against him.
00:06:52.460That he said publicly, that's the one thing that'll guarantee I run again.
00:06:56.600And he really believes Trump's beatable.
00:06:58.840Well, look, this certainly does keep him in the political game.
00:07:09.200There are all kinds of machinations in politics.
00:07:12.320We don't know what the motivations were.
00:07:14.740I think the most likely scenario is that both of them simply screwed up.
00:07:20.680They didn't do anything in order to sell classified material to the Chinese.
00:07:29.140You know, each are claiming a China or a Russian connection.
00:07:34.700When there are two options, you know, malice or stupidity or callousness, you always go for the stupidity and the carelessness.
00:07:41.140And so I suspect that both sides were careless.
00:07:45.240I suspect that previous presidents were careless, too.
00:07:47.700And that before this investigation is over, we will find classified material in the possession or having been in the possession of previous presidents as well.
00:07:58.880For me, the implication is let's change the law.
00:08:03.920By the way, Biden could do very interesting as the president.
00:08:06.480He can now declassify the Ukrainian material that he got when he was vice president so he can allay all suspicions that he took this material for an improper purpose.
00:08:19.380He now has the power for purposes of transparency to declassify.
00:08:24.580Now, there may be some stuff that's very secret and shouldn't be declassified, but much of it can now be declassified.
00:08:30.660And let's hope that in the future, A, we have narrower classification laws, B, narrower criminal laws, this idea of weaponizing the criminal justice system, each side against the other.
00:08:42.180It's let's include a willfulness, a specificity requirement in the law before you can charge somebody with criminal behavior.
00:08:51.300By the way, that should apply not only to former presidents.
00:08:54.020It should also apply to people in the army, low-ranking officials, many of whom have suffered grievously from having accidentally or inadvertently taken home a piece of classified material.
00:09:07.180So the time has come to review this whole mess of criminalizing classified material.
00:09:24.220I guarantee you, Carter, Obama, George W., Bill Clinton all have classified documents sitting someplace in their homes or apartments right now.
00:09:34.220And we just don't know about it because they didn't have a nosy national archivist who decided to poke the bear.
00:09:40.300And in Biden's case, they didn't have lawyers who went back for some reason to take a hard look to see what's there.
00:09:47.100And there's a lot of debate about what made his lawyers do that.
00:10:02.320Andrew McCarthy raised this over at National Review.
00:10:04.840What about people like Kendra Kingsbury, former FBI analyst who right now is looking at the prospect of 10 years in prison, potentially for taking classified documents and keeping them at her personal residence?
00:10:22.100The lead prosecutor in this case, David Raskin, who was subsequently tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland to assist in the Trump document investigation at Mar-a-Lago, he argued Kingsbury knew her personal residence was not an authorized location for such storage.
00:10:37.660And having unauthorized possession of these 20 documents relating to national defense was not OK, he says she willfully retained the documents and failed to deliver them to an officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive them.
00:10:54.560Now, he Andrew raises the point that The Washington Post did a report on Kendra back in December trying to say, see what's going to happen to Kendra?
00:11:06.100Her case looks an awful lot like Joe Biden's, too.
00:11:09.480And that's what these special counsels, the DOJ, that are going to have to deal with, that they've gone after Jane Doe's much more aggressively than they are likely to go after, in particular, Joe Biden here.
00:11:21.580But that's the problem with special counsel, why I generally don't like them.
00:11:25.180They have a specific person who's targeted by them.
00:11:38.760A terrific lawyer and a very good aide to President Clinton.
00:11:42.540But he was writing a memoir and he got lazy and he went to the archives and he stuck some secret material in his socks and maybe his underwear and he got a slap on the wrist.
00:11:54.600It was a big slap on the wrist because it hurt his career.
00:11:57.220But there was no criminal, you know, imprisonment, no search of his home, none of that.
00:12:03.520And so you have to have a single standard.
00:12:05.480And these people who are now being investigated or previously have lost their security clearance based on this kind of material ought to have them restored.
00:12:16.080And we ought to go back in time and create a single standard based on what we do with Biden and what we do with Trump and what we did with Hillary Clinton and what we did with Sandy Berger.
00:12:28.040You can't have one standard for Democrats, one for Republicans, one standard for high ranking people, another standard for low people, low ranking people who just want their jobs back.
00:12:39.120Now, the special counsel appointed to investigate Biden again, like kind of air quotes on this, because I mean, we both agree it's not going anywhere.
00:12:45.940Is Maryland U.S. Attorney Robert Herr, who was nominated by then President Donald Trump in 2017 and recently worked in private practice.
00:12:57.760And then you have a different a different prosecutor, a special special counsel looking into Donald Trump.
00:13:03.940The special prosecutor looking into Trump, I think, was probably on the precipice of charging Donald Trump, of indicting Donald Trump prior to this.
00:13:12.820And I wonder what's going through that guy's mind now, because you say he's not supposed to really look at the comparative cases.
00:13:19.560He's supposed to be looking at Trump only.
00:13:20.960And in that lane, the Democrats and maybe the special counsel, they're outraged, Alan.
00:13:26.980They're outraged over Trump because, yes, it's true.
00:13:29.820He didn't just discover documents that may have belonged to the National Archives and not him and then call them up and say, here, come take them.
00:14:14.520No, it's it's it's bad to indict a former president.
00:14:17.480It's 10 times worse to indict a man running for president against the incumbent who appointed you for office, which is why I never believed even before.
00:14:27.620And I wrote this even before these recent disclosures about Biden.
00:14:31.800I never believed that Garland would accept, even if there was a recommendation from a special prosecutor to prosecute Trump.
00:14:40.160You cannot prosecute Trump if you didn't prosecute Hillary Clinton, if you only gave a slap on the wrist to Sandy Berger.
00:14:48.000And now, of course, with Biden, it's impossible.
00:14:51.180But I do not believe that Garland would have indicted the man running against the man who appointed him for president.
00:14:59.380That would create such division in this country that it could lead to what happened in Brazil.
00:17:01.620And I think the result will be to indict none of them.
00:17:04.000And I hope by you bringing up these other cases of people in lower level positions who are now subject to criminal investigation or losing their security clearance,
00:17:14.380I hope we go back and rethink all of those and reconsider all of those and let people get on with their lives and start anew and make it clear what the rules are and apply the rules fairly to everybody,
00:17:26.980set up procedures for every president when they leave office to make sure they don't have the ability to decide what's brought to Mar-a-Lago or what's brought to the Corvette garage.
00:17:36.900That becomes something that the government of the United States takes responsibility for doing.
00:17:42.320And just as a reminder for our audience, the Justice Department policy is not to indict any sitting president,
00:17:47.220but that does not prevent them from indicting somebody who loses his run for a second term or somebody who decides not to run for his second term.
00:17:56.100So Joe Biden in this imaginary world would still potentially be on the hot coals.
00:18:00.680But again, neither of the lawyers you're listening to right now believe that that special counsel investigation is going anywhere.
00:18:08.000The really interesting threat is what does it do to Trump?
00:18:27.660Or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
00:18:30.600None of this fits that criteria, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the Republican tit-for-tat politicians will have hearings on this.
00:18:39.840I hope they're not like the January 6th hearings, which were the worst hearings in American history since McCarthyism.
00:18:46.180The other side had no chance to cross-examine.
00:18:48.380The other side had no chance to subpoena.
00:18:50.340I hope that isn't repeated by the Republicans, but it may be.
00:18:56.400And so we may see indictments, although I think we won't see them.
00:20:01.780So I just want to get to sort of some of the messaging on this, because there is a real question about why this came out, at least the first the first batch that were found on November 1st, right before the midterms, and why they kept it silent for so long.
00:20:15.500And then there's a second question about why, when they found this first batch at his office in Washington, D.C., connected to University of Pennsylvania, they didn't then say, oh, man, we better search every place right now so we make sure we have all potential errant documents collected so we don't have to piecemeal get discovered and get found out on it.
00:20:41.060And they're not. It's been a mess. So I have lots of questions.
00:20:44.860But here on the question of transparency is NBC News, which is very interesting, right?
00:20:50.760Just to have the left wing media raising real questions of President Biden on this, of his press secretary on the promise of transparency he made to us.
00:20:59.820Sot one. Do you acknowledge that the fact that the White House did not reveal this to the public, despite the fact that you've known about it for months, undercuts the president's promise of being transparent with the American people?
00:21:13.520But we. But here's the thing. They were transparent.
00:21:16.620There was there. There was transparency in doing what you're supposed to do when these when these items were discovered.
00:21:23.220Not with the American people. Look, we I'm here standing in front of you answering these questions.
00:21:32.220Well, it's not. But also, I will point out, we're taking the word of the people involved in the alleged misconduct that they did what they said they did when they said they did it.
00:21:44.320I think they probably did conduct a search. And I'm assuming these sorts of things just based on history and what we've seen in the past.
00:21:52.160I don't think they did wait to discover these other things. I think they probably did conduct a big search.
00:21:57.560I think it's a mistake to rely upon the things that we're hearing now reported by the media or by the Department of Justice or by Biden's own lawyers.
00:22:06.720It's a mistake to take that at face value and assume that's an accurate representation of what really happened.
00:22:12.060But I would suggest when you say they should have conducted a global search at the time, I think they did probably.
00:22:19.520But that shouldn't have been them. That should have been special, independent people, you know, clear to see classified information that would have been called in.
00:22:28.580So there could be, you know, an ethical sense to this investigation that we could refer to.
00:22:33.800And isn't it funny how anything that could be negative to Donald Trump was leaked by the Department of Justice repeatedly, but nothing that could be damaging to Biden seems to be leaked until they're ready for it to come out, whether it's Hunter Biden's laptop stuff or whether it sees these things.
00:22:49.540Because we know now Department of Justice officials can keep a secret when they want to keep a secret.
00:22:54.760Good point. Yes, exactly. So we don't know how we're being spun or misled.
00:22:59.240What they're telling us this week is the first batch at that office in Washington, D.C., connected to his think tank, that they were found November 1st.
00:23:08.460The second batch was found December 20th in the garage. And I don't know when batch three was found.
00:23:16.440They say it's a document. We'll see. But that's another one classified document that was found inside Mr.
00:23:22.560Biden's home in Willing Wilmington, Delaware.
00:23:25.400And the thing that's really aggravating, among others, is how flippant Joe Biden is being about this after lecturing us on 60 Minutes about how horrible Trump was.
00:23:36.460Here's just as a reminder, quickly, let's go back to the way he initially characterized the keeping of classified and even top secret, which is what he's done by his own admission, documents off property or unsecured or not with the National Archives.
00:23:49.540So we saw it. Joe Biden in September, late September, September 18th on 60 Minutes, stop five.
00:23:56.680When you saw the photograph of the top secret documents laid out on the floor of Mar-a-Lago, what did you think to yourself looking at that image?
00:24:08.040And now asked about batch two that was in his garage at home. Listen to him.
00:24:36.300Classified material. Next year, Corvette. What were you thinking?
00:24:44.540Let me get a chance to speak on all this, God willing, soon.
00:24:48.560But as I said earlier this week, people and by the way, my Corvette's in a locked garage.
00:24:53.580OK, so it's not like you're sitting out in the street.
00:24:55.680But anyway, yes, as well as my Corvette.
00:24:59.920Wow. I'm sorry, that is just I guess he has no choice but to take that approach.
00:25:07.800He's not going to say, hey, I'm I'm guilty of the most heinous thing now that I said Donald Trump was guilty of the most heinous thing.
00:25:14.480But again, Megan, it makes no sense. There's obviously still a lot of blanks to be filled in that there was suddenly a search conducted by, you know, thousand dollar an hour lawyers of these places right before the election.
00:25:27.560After Joe Biden's been president all this time, there's a reason all this took place.
00:25:31.320I suspect people knew well prior to the time we're being told they discovered the first batch of documents, that there were potentially or or maybe definitely classified documents in some locations that President Biden had.
00:25:43.420And there's even a chance that they knew someone working with Biden or whoever his minders are, that they knew when he gave that interview in September and when they were attacking Donald Trump, that Biden had committed some violations that could be seen as similar.
00:25:57.920So the question to that is, why would they not stop him from commenting on these things?
00:26:04.220Why would they press so hard on the Donald Trump documents?
00:26:06.720And I don't think the thing I'm about to postulate is necessarily what happened, but they make us think this way by the scheming that's happened in the past.
00:26:15.500What if they, whoever they are, already knew at the time they picked the fight with Donald Trump about the documents and decided to go to the FBI raid instead of communicating with him and dealing it in a civil matter?
00:26:27.920What if they, whoever they are, get Joe Biden to come down hard and say what a terrible violation this is, only to then reveal at a key point in time to them when they wanted out that he did something that could be seen as similar.
00:26:44.820And now he's in, as I call it, a Kobayashi Maru Star Trek reference, sort of a no-win situation because he's boxed himself in.
00:26:52.720Who would be engineering that and who would want all of this to be happening right now?
00:26:56.700I don't have the answer, but we know nothing happens by accident.
00:27:00.340And these narratives don't make it on the news.
00:27:02.540This story is not out because investigative journalists did hard work.
00:27:06.140This story is out, or even because of leaks, because they, whoever they are, wanted it out right now in this exact way.
00:27:12.960Eric Bolling was asking me the other day, I went on his show on Newsmax and he was saying, could it have been someone like Hamila Karas?
00:27:22.200Maybe some, some civilian by, you know, who we've never heard of, like who would have an interest in compromising Joe Biden or hurting Joe Biden?
00:27:29.060But I was saying with Alan Dershowitz could go the other way.
00:27:32.020It could be Joe Biden doesn't want to see an indictment of Donald Trump because he, he recognizes he'd like to run against Trump.
00:27:40.560He thinks, you know, I beat him once, I'll beat him again.
00:27:42.760And I don't know if I could beat Ron DeSantis.
00:27:45.340Why don't I do something to stop the Trump prosecution?
00:27:48.560That doesn't really hurt me that badly politically.
00:27:50.500Well, I think if I'm just speculating here, but I think if that were the case, it would be easy enough for Biden to signal that there shouldn't be a prosecution.
00:27:59.620And I don't think Merrick Garland, even though he's independent, can do what he wants.
00:28:03.440I don't think he would prosecute if Biden were to send a signal that, hey, this is a former president.
00:28:08.340Oh, come on, Cheryl. He doesn't interfere.
00:28:10.400Biden does not interfere with Merrick Garland.
00:28:30.580And even like all of it leads me back to that other question, which is under any scenario, whether it's somebody trying to hurt Biden, whether it's Biden trying to get rid of this prosecution of Trump, whether it's just Biden being, you know, inept.
00:28:44.760I don't get why we're having piecemeal.
00:29:59.780It didn't have to come out since it happened months ago.
00:30:02.740It didn't have to come out on the day it did.
00:30:04.740And whoever decided to release it thought this out how they, in my opinion, based on experience, they knew the first day that they were going to take a certain period of time and release more information the next day or when that happened.
00:30:20.440One bit of speculation would be we know people who manage information in the past have taken advantage of the drip drip syndrome.
00:30:27.680When you get a little bit at a time, you inoculate people past the initial shock.
00:30:33.180If you if you put it all out there at once, wow, three different places so far that classified documents have been found, including in his house.
00:30:40.800Maybe that's a worse bang than they wanted to get or thought they would get if they said, here's what we found one day.
00:30:50.800Someone has whoever's pulling strings on this story has decided this is the way they want it to be out.
00:30:57.200I don't get the sense it's as haphazard as I think they would like us to assume.
00:31:02.000Let me ask you whether that makes sense.
00:31:03.480And we just to underscore for the viewers, again, we're speculating here on the many conspiracy theories that are out there, like who could have done it?
00:31:09.180Because it doesn't make sense as delivered.
00:31:11.800We don't know why it doesn't make sense, but it doesn't make much sense, you know, for the reasons that we discussed.
00:31:17.980But politically, I don't see how that, you know, if you're Gavin Newsom, let's say, let's go to the crazy place.
00:31:25.020Gavin Newsom somehow knew about this and is doing this or Kamala Harris or just Democrats who don't think they can win with Biden and want him to go because he's too old and he's infeeble and he's infirm.
00:31:32.560Um, how how is this a campaign deal breaker?
00:31:37.740How like, oh, he can't be the nominee because our best issue against Trump is he stored classified documents inappropriately.
00:31:47.960And now we've handicapped our ability to argue that because Biden did it.
00:32:05.780Well, there's also let's postulate something else again based on experience.
00:32:09.640We know to to understand that what we're hearing is not the whole story in general, because that's what experience taught us.
00:32:16.280But what if at some point in time they were hiding this?
00:32:20.940Clearly, they were hiding it from the public, but it came to be understood or believed that it would come out at some point, whether because there's a Republican Congress or because people inside the Department of Justice were saying, if you don't talk about it, we're going to have to talk about it soon.
00:32:38.540But maybe they felt that they had to put it out in a way that they felt would be least less damaging than if the FBI or did a raid or the Department of Justice held a big news conference and said it.
00:32:49.640They thought this would be a way that would be a softer landing for something that would come out anyway.
00:32:54.520And let me mention, there's a funny little story of something that happened at CBS about the drip drip, the idea that you can float a little something out there and then add to it.
00:33:03.880When Bill Clinton was accused of having the affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, his some of his top people leaked to CBS News as White House correspondent when I worked there, that they were going to announce that Bill Clinton kissed Monica Lewinsky, but nothing more.
00:33:18.640This is before any admissions had been made, but that he kissed her.
00:33:22.280They were going to float that out there themselves.
00:33:33.960They didn't like what people thought about and how they reacted to that revelation.
00:33:37.840They then held a press conference saying that it wasn't true.
00:33:41.320So the same people that planted the story then denied the story and CBS was in the position of not saying or for whatever reason not wanting to say, hey, the White House is the one who gave us the story.
00:33:52.580Now they're making us look bad like we have a false story, but they're the ones who told us.
00:33:56.220They just sort of ate what sounded like a bad story.
00:33:58.840I tell that long thing to to show how there's all kinds of behind the scenes machinations going on that will say, try this out, see how people react, announce a little bit of this, turn it around.
00:34:11.300I just think there's a lot going on that we don't know about.
00:34:14.720Yeah. And you get used as a reporter at these, you know, Biden friendly outlets a lot.
00:34:20.320We've seen that, too, where they know they'll just put it on the air.
00:34:22.760The standards that used to govern journalism are no longer.
00:34:26.580Do you remember after Vincent Foster's death, the White House counsel that worked under Bill Clinton, who committed suicide?
00:34:35.720Some people thought maybe there was something else to it.
00:34:38.500But do you remember the Whitewater file that was in his office, a controversy surrounding the Clinton White House?
00:34:44.900They were take it was taken from the White House right after that happened, which is illegal and improper.
00:34:50.540Nothing's supposed to be changed or moved.
00:34:52.220But Hillary Clinton and one of her aides were said to have rooted around in Vincent, Vince Foster's office prior to the FBI getting hold of it.
00:34:59.440And then do you remember a Clinton lawyer showed up with the file some days later, turned it over?
00:35:06.180I don't know if it's in a briefcase or file folder.
00:35:08.160We don't know what had happened to the file in the interim, but he represented it as, oh, here's the file.
00:35:14.340No explanation for why I was I took it for several days.
00:35:17.980But believe us, this file is exactly as it was the day that that I originally had it.
00:35:23.580I mean, there's just so many crazy things going on all the time that I think media sometimes accepts.
00:35:28.960So another little sidebar back then when that was happening, one of the White House people hired to spin the press on all of this came to CBS and met with us just sort of a behind the scenes meeting and showed us the file and said, you can look at this Whitewater file and you can see there's nothing incriminating in it.
00:35:46.740And we sat around in this room and I was just this young journalist, sort of a new kid.
00:35:50.800But I asked I was the only one who said, ask the question.
00:35:53.880We don't have a chain of custody for this, though.
00:36:16.740NBC, Christian Welker asked that question, but MSNBC is ready to run cover for President Biden.
00:36:24.900This is Mika Brzezinski today, Friday morning, with her take on it.
00:36:29.540Classified documents in private hands is something Republicans downplayed constantly until the shoe was placed on the other foot.
00:36:37.300And unfortunately for them, the Trump shoe that dropped was much bigger and entirely different in the key issue of willful intent to obstruct.
00:36:49.220Many Republicans just aren't smart enough to figure that out.
00:36:52.260And they can't figure out that this week's developments actually make it more likely.
00:38:30.500You could see the argument, but you could see as Trump wasn't hiding anything the way they've had the past couple of months, he was actually negotiating because.
00:38:40.680Taking his viewpoint, he didn't think that he had to return those documents or he was negotiating their return.
00:38:47.160So see that as obstruction, if you will.
00:38:49.540But there's certainly a different argument that can be made, which was actually being had prior to the FBI raid of his Mar-a-Lago home.
00:38:56.600Hmm. Well, shifting gears now, while we're on the subject of MSNBC, I've got to mention Joy Reid in this disgraceful exchange that happened the other night.
00:39:09.180OK, Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida was on.
00:39:12.300He had been one of the possible alternatives to Kevin McCarthy, favored by the more conservative group that held out on some of these requirements they wanted Kevin to accede to.
00:39:21.520And. And he went on to his credit, this is a Republican, again, deep conservative, you know, deep south conservative of Florida, went on Joy Reid's show, which you don't see that often.
00:39:33.600And as there's a great piece in media, I'd have to say, dot com, where they said this, this, the headline is Joy Reid's aggressive, inept interview of Congressman Byron Donalds demonstrates what her show is all about.
00:39:46.860In addition to being completely flat footed on the facts when she tried to cross examine him about things like Social Security and he just completely ran roughshod over her.
00:40:00.140And she was so it was embarrassing, Cheryl. I don't think we have that part cut, but it was embarrassing because she.
00:40:05.920Yeah, we do. Oh, we do. OK, we have a little bit. Let's start there about her just trying her caught flat footed on the facts.
00:40:12.000It's not nine. Do you know that Social Security is going to be insolvent in 20?
00:40:16.120It is not going to be. That is not true. That is actually not true.
00:40:18.600No, it's actually not true. It's actually not true. It's actually not.
00:40:22.360But it's actually not true. Financial community. That's actually not true.
00:40:25.520Social Security will go insolvent. That's actually not. Those are the facts.
00:40:28.400That's not true. Should we not prepare for that?
00:40:30.380Meanwhile, the government's own watchdog is basically saying it's going to be 20, 30, 33, two years earlier than Congressman Donalds said.
00:40:38.580So if anything, he was being generous to the government. This is what you do when you don't know, have your facts.
00:40:43.460It's just not true. It's not true. It's not true. Where are your facts? Where where's your knowledge?
00:40:47.800She wasn't prepared and she was she couldn't argue it.
00:40:50.920So she just kept trying to talk over him and 11 times said, not true, not true, not true.
00:40:57.300The active misleading. Let's start there. What are your thoughts?
00:41:00.600Well, I think it's it's not uncommon. Sadly, I see more examples than I'd like to see of people on the air.
00:41:07.820I try not to do this myself. I may have been guilty of it in the past, but I try not to comment on stuff and make definitive statements on things I can't possibly know or that I haven't researched enough to know.
00:41:19.020It's OK to say I don't know or to listen to somebody. But yes, that just sounds foolish.
00:41:24.700And that's kind of surprising, because I think as long as I can remember, we've had projections about Social Security's insolvency.
00:41:31.960So I don't think that's even newsy. And it's kind of sad that she wouldn't know that or at least listen to him and understand that she might not have all the information.
00:41:41.860Right. And she just she doesn't have the humility to admit when she doesn't know something.
00:41:46.760Right. Exactly right. She just wanted to pick a fight with him and try to represent that.
00:41:50.400Her worldview must be correct, even if she's lacking the facts.
00:41:54.240This was the most disgraceful part, however.
00:41:57.560Honestly, if it had been a white anchor asking this question of Congress and Donald's, there would be outrage.
00:42:05.580I guess she gets away with it because MSNBC always makes excuses for her racism against black people, against white people.
00:42:13.740Here's the soundbite that has gotten a lot of tongues wagging, though, sadly, no reaction from the bosses at MSNBC over this outrage.
00:42:21.360One of the things that I don't know that you said it, but members have said is that they wanted to highlight the diversity of the conference.
00:42:30.120There are four African-American members in the House caucus, the Republican caucus.
00:42:34.920There are 56 members in the Democratic caucus. So just it's more diverse.
00:42:39.400So do you not believe that the idea was to make a diversity statement by nominating you?
00:42:46.000Well, actually, first, that was not the idea because I was in the room when the decision was made by people who chose to nominate me.
00:42:51.500And you still not explained how you how you've never been in leadership.
00:42:55.960Are you going to let me answer your question?
00:43:00.360The reality is, is that a lot of members actually do believe in my ability to lead.
00:43:04.220They do. Am I to be despised for my youth because I've served one term?
00:43:08.020My members know that I have the ability to engage other members through the conference, but it's even bigger than that.
00:43:13.060Listen, we were at an impasse last week in our in our speakership elections.
00:43:16.400We got that done. Kevin McCarthy is now speaker of the House.
00:43:19.360At the same time, I was working with members on both sides of our conference to make sure that we can get the job done.
00:43:24.720And we did. And that's the only thing that matters.
00:43:28.100Cheryl, just FYI, it wasn't just Joy Reid.
00:43:30.380Cory Bush just always can be counted on for something hateful and racist, said he is not a historic candidate for speaker.
00:43:39.380He's a prop. OK, so this this is what we get from, you know, people like Joy Reid, people like Cory Bush, the diminishment of this guy, because whatever he can be historic, he can be a minority.
00:43:52.940He says Republican things and therefore he must be diminished and attacked even on the basis of his skin color.
00:44:00.380Well, some of those who constantly resort to the same arguments, even when it doesn't apply, have proven the point that when everything's racism, nothing's racism.
00:44:08.960And then they come full circle and become racist themselves by acting as if everything's racism.
00:44:14.180I also don't understand the suggestion she made that somehow the Democrat conference was better because of its diversity.
00:44:20.780And yet had the Republicans indeed nominated him for diverse reasons, that would somehow be bad.
00:44:26.380And I do think one thing I heard a lot of people say when that was going on, maybe this is an aside, that he was too young and too new.
00:44:34.740And I say as an outsider, a lot of people would love to see somebody come into a position of power that doesn't owe a bunch of people.
00:44:43.000If you understand a little bit, I understand a little bit about how the power structure works on Capitol Hill.
00:44:48.760I've had members, both Democrats and Republicans, talk about what they're allowed to do and not allowed to do based on donations and the party and so on.
00:44:55.880And if you took someone fresher, who is not beholden to the same interests and make no mistake, Democrats and Republicans on the Hill often work for corporations and interests, not us.
00:45:06.800They're working for who's paying them, not the salaries, but the donations.
00:45:10.940It could be a benefit and not because he's black, but because he's young and fresh and coming from an outside viewpoint.
00:45:17.940And boy, when he talks, he sounds very bright and very well informed on the topics I've heard him comment on.
00:45:24.600Oh, my God. He crushed her. The whole thing is worth watching.
00:45:28.020I saw it on YouTube. Kimberly Klasick, who ran for office down in Baltimore, tweeted it out.
00:45:33.120She came on the show in our infancy. It was fascinating and brought my attention to the whole thing.
00:45:38.340It's worth your time if you haven't seen it.
00:45:40.060Meanwhile, just not for nothing, but his wife has been attacked as well in a racial way.
00:45:45.700She's white. And people who saw this interview and or other exchanges tweeted out things like surprise, surprise.
00:45:53.180His wife is never mind. Somebody else tweeted, no surprise.
00:45:57.360He has a snowflake for a wife. Another tweeted, I'm embarrassed and ashamed.
00:46:01.900Seen his wife. I'm not surprised. This is what they have to deal with because he is a black conservative.
00:46:08.120We've seen it time and time again. It's just sickening.
00:46:11.020All right. Stand by, Cheryl. So much more to get to. So happy to have you here today.
00:46:13.760Thank you for being with us. And Cheryl stays with us past the break into our next hour.
00:46:17.760Don't miss that. I've got to ask you about Diamond and Silk.
00:46:25.760Diamond has passed away, sadly. My God, so did Lisa Marie Presley, which is just it's hard to get your arms around.
00:46:33.440You know, it's like this poor family, Elvis. And I think Elvis's mother died at a similar age.
00:46:38.980And we can get to that in a minute. But I want to stay on Diamond of Diamond and Silk now.
00:46:42.740Lynette Hardaway is her actual name. She died earlier this week at just 51 years old.
00:46:49.620And her older sister is Silk. They were sisters doing sort of their pro-Trump thing and became very, very popular.
00:46:56.880And honestly, like I love these ladies. I was on the receiving end of some of their attacks, but they were fun to listen to.
00:47:02.640And it's like their whole gig was entertaining and became a big hit.
00:47:08.440They got tons of social media subscribers on YouTube, 2.4 million followers on Facebook and so on.
00:47:13.900And they also struck a deal with Fox Nation, the streaming platform associated with Fox.
00:47:19.000So, you know, normally when somebody dies, OK, you know, it's sad.
00:47:24.060People talk about it and then you move on and talk about what their legacy was.
00:47:26.780Mark Lamont Hill, who, you know, he's bounced from cable channel to cable channel, but is now a Temple University professor.
00:47:36.640He decides to tweet out the following Diamond of the right wing Trump loving duo Diamond and Silk has died in late November.
00:47:46.300Remember, she was hospitalized due to COVID-19.
00:47:49.580The duo was fired by Fox News a couple of years ago for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines.
00:49:38.560Their book does not make clear in any way, shape or form that they were fired.
00:49:40.900In fact, it talks about how they were told exactly the opposite by all the Fox executives,
00:49:44.640that their licensing deal that they had with Fox Nation remains in effect and that these were fake news reports that disparaged them.
00:49:52.340Right. So anyway, all of it is so distasteful.
00:49:55.760And I'll add to it this Bishop Talbert, president of the Springfield, Massachusetts, chapter of the NAACP tweets out the following Lynette Hardaway,
00:50:06.060a.k.a. Diamond from the MAGA Trump supporting duo Diamond and Silk died from contracting what she called a hoax, better known as COVID-19.
00:50:16.980Even the NAACP, their instincts are not to say something kind about a very prominent black person who has died.
00:50:26.360We don't know the cause, but to decide it was because of COVID without evidence and disparage her.
00:50:32.960So what do you what do you make of all this?
00:50:35.360Well, isn't it similar to the syndrome of the black conservative representative from Florida?
00:50:40.400I think this is sort of a script that can be written about a lot of different scenarios.
00:50:45.160And I do think it's very sad and then complicated when it comes to COVID, because as we've learned,
00:50:52.100it is deemed OK by the information minders to speculate about anything regarding someone dying of COVID, whether they did or not, whether there's evidence or not.
00:51:00.720But never OK to speculate about somebody who is vaccinated being harmed by an illness that is known to be affiliated with vaccination.
00:51:08.800So it's that double standard that people seem to be able to justify however they feel or whatever they want to say accordingly.
00:51:22.000It's like people got hammered when Damar Hamlin went down on that field with the Buffalo Bills for saying, did he recently have the vaccine?
00:51:31.240I don't actually find that an outrageous question because myocarditis in young men is a known side effect now.
00:51:38.400People are admitting it within the medical community of, in particular, the Moderna vaccine.
00:51:43.940And we've got really smart medical professionals who are repeatedly saying, be careful about these boosters, especially if you're in that age group, but for everybody.
00:51:51.400So asking the question, you know, is that something we should look into?
00:51:55.960I don't find that as offensive as well as this, which is, I mean, this guy, Bishop Talbert, is saying she died of COVID.
00:52:09.060Like all of this is so irresponsible and disrespectful.
00:52:12.380And of course, these leftists who went nuts on people for, for, you know, questioning whether Damar Hamlin had recently been vaccinated will say nothing in response to this.
00:52:23.040Well, you know, I hope this isn't too far off into left field, but if, if we hadn't been able to question whether people who get lung cancer and smoked, there was an association there.
00:52:32.980We would never have unearthed that if scientists would not have been able to do the studies or collect the data.
00:52:38.640These injuries, including the football player Hamlin's have to be reported under our safety system for, for this very reason to the vaccine adverse event database.
00:52:48.660It's not up to anybody at this stage to say it is or isn't caused by the vaccine because they can't possibly know because we don't know all of the vaccine effects.
00:52:57.140And by the way, side effects from vaccines, according to scientists can occur.
00:53:01.160People don't, I think, widely understand this weeks, months or years later, depending on what it's done to a body.
00:53:06.980That's why the database collects all reports of these injuries after vaccination.
00:53:12.100If doctors are properly reporting them and they're not so that patterns can be discerned that aren't otherwise obvious or didn't show up in clinical studies.
00:53:21.200But beyond that, as you mentioned, we know there are heart effects and stroke and certain other disorders that have been acknowledged to be part of the vaccines.
00:53:30.920We're not even just talking about the mysterious ones we don't know about yet.
00:53:34.140So it's logical to ask the question the same way we ask a question.
00:53:38.080If someone has lung cancer, we kind of in our minds say, I wonder if that person smoked.
00:53:43.000It doesn't mean that's what caused it, but it's a rational, logical question to ask.
00:53:47.700And it's something that scientists absolutely should be asking and studying and news reporters should be asking.
00:53:52.460And the fact that it is omitted from virtually every news report I see shows you that there's an information management underway that I think could be very harmful to us understanding, you know, the true profile of these vaccines.
00:54:05.880Yes, yes. It's not the same. Mark Lamont Hill had tweeted out.
00:54:09.460Did she die of covid? That would be a shame.
00:54:12.120This wouldn't be a story. But he took it to a totally different place in saying and suggesting that she may have died of the very thing she did.
00:54:18.900He was clearly trying to attack her politically, which is just in bad, bad form.
00:54:23.780I mean, it's just it wasn't anyway on that.
00:54:28.260But did you say that DeMar Hamlin's injury or that his injury must be reported under VAERS?
00:54:33.400I mean, I know I didn't read any reporting on whether he'd been vaccinated or not.
00:54:36.740I assume he had to be right. Didn't all the NFL players have to.
00:54:40.640That's my assumption. If not, then no.
00:54:43.100But here's the problem. Doctors aren't asking.
00:54:46.220I have been around, I'll tell you, a couple of young people, a 20 something year old pregnant woman I know who came to a place I was wearing a heart monitor and I asked her what was wrong.
00:54:56.680She said she and she was vaccinated and boosted.
00:54:58.920She's having all these heart impacts. And I said, did your doctor report this to VAERS as required?
00:55:03.940Certain illnesses must be reported under the CDC's guidance.
00:55:07.640And she said, no, we never asked if I was vaccinated.
00:55:10.320This is, to me, bordering on criminal. The doctors are seemingly looking the other way.
00:55:16.740Can they be that ignorant of what the rules are?
00:55:19.000And the FDA and the government and CDC are not cracking down or reminding doctors to report all of these things.
00:55:25.380And I think almost none of them are being properly reported to the database that finds patterns.
00:55:30.280And let me say, years ago, for example, I broke the story that Viagra can cause blindness.
00:55:36.200Based in large part by going through the medicine adverse event reports that are collected after any kind of injury shows up after you take a medicine.
00:55:46.180That's how these things are found. FDA should have been looking for it and they were on a parallel track.
00:55:50.420But I saw it. It's it sometimes stands out like a sore thumb.
00:55:54.980If this stuff isn't reported, we won't find these new patterns.
00:55:57.940And maybe that's what some want. That's, I think, exactly what some people want when it comes to the vaccines.
00:56:03.080Oh, my God. That's just crazy. That's just I mean, it's deeply disturbing to me how we're just not allowed to talk about the adverse side effects from the vaccine.
00:56:11.660It's it's killing people and it needs to be stopped.
00:56:15.740You mentioned the FDA. There is news just this week that was celebrated widely.
00:56:21.460And I know you've been watching the FDA and its erosion.
00:56:25.680I think it's an erosion. Maybe they've always been this untrustworthy.
00:56:28.840But the news that was celebrated by the media was that the FDA had granted fast track approval to an experimental Alzheimer's drug.
00:56:38.220And we, of course, are all very concerned about Alzheimer's.
00:56:45.220And the news was that they fast track approved a new drug that clinical trials showed can slow the progression of the disease.
00:56:53.160Licanumab, developed by Japanese drug maker Isai and Biogen, said to be the first treatment shown to delay cognitive decline from Alzheimer's, which affects over six million people in the U.S.
00:57:08.480But there's more to the story and you'd have to work pretty hard to find it, Cheryl.
00:57:13.900Well, you know, I'll be digging into this for my show full measure, but I already reported on the precursor controversy to this, which was what I'm told is a similar drug called aducanumab, which was likewise fast tracked by the FDA, despite all kinds of weird things happening.
00:57:33.160None of the FDA advisors wanted this drug to be approved, thought it would be effective and safe.
00:57:49.560And there are currently, as far as I know, unresolved, multiple unresolved investigations about this.
00:57:54.740And here they go and quickly do another drug sort of in the same way, according to some who are watching it.
00:58:01.480And I turn to and will be turning to Public Citizen, the Watchdog Group.
00:58:05.960I think their website, citizen.org, they've already written a letter about this to the government, raising questions about it.
00:58:13.100And they've been following the aducanumab case very closely.
00:58:16.460But I think, again, there's every reason to suspect all kinds of conflicts of interest because we've had so many of those between our government agencies and the industries that they're supposed to regulate, particularly when things happen that don't make a lot of sense.
00:58:30.460And you do have to dig for that information, because, like you said, the media is not widely covering these controversies the way we used to before drug companies were paying for so much sponsorships and advertisements on our on our airwaves and on our stations.
00:58:44.560But, yeah, that's, you know, controversy.
00:58:47.760Yes. So we can't trust the government.
00:58:49.080We can't. We've learned during the covid thing.
00:58:50.660Do not trust the American Academy of Pediatrics at all.
00:58:53.780I'm sorry, but I don't trust them one bit after all the recommendations they made in covid, despite the science, despite the studies coming out.
00:59:00.960I mean, universal studies that would come out and they would just completely discard them, their advice.
00:59:05.100I think they still want children to be masked right now, indoors, outdoors.
00:59:09.100Doesn't matter. I'd have to go back and check.
00:59:10.800But every single recommendation they issued was in line with really the far left, the most covid hawk position you could ask for.
00:59:18.640And now they're advocating early surgery for obese children, early meds and surgery for obese children.
00:59:27.800And I get how problematic obesity is young, old.
00:59:31.520I get it. Trust me. We just talked about this last week.
00:59:34.000But they're now OKing weight loss surgeries like a gastric bypass for 13 year olds.
00:59:41.640So explain to me, Cheryl, how we have a country that now is celebrating body positivity and putting women like Lizzo on the front of magazines saying this is beautiful.
00:59:55.880Shut up with your fat shaming. This is healthy, literally healthy, they're saying.
01:00:02.060And at the same time, quietly, they're saying, but we need to cut open the 13 year olds who look like that because otherwise they're in grave danger for their health.
01:00:10.340Well, it doesn't make sense, except you can, I think, logically guess that there is lobbying from whatever industries or device companies or medical companies stand to benefit hospitals or so on, stand to benefit from whatever procedure is recommended by the guidelines or the divisions du jour.
01:00:28.240We consistently find conflicts of interest there. And this one, I'm like you, makes no sense from a medical standpoint, from a mental health standpoint.
01:00:37.760And I think it's in the same genre of a lot of other recommendations we've had over the years from this society and other medical societies.
01:00:45.540And I've done reporting on you may have done some of your own with medical experts like Dr.
01:00:52.360Bernadine Healy, former head of the National Institutes of Health, like Dr.
01:00:57.320Marsha Angel, the former first female editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Richard Horton,
01:01:02.160the editor of the Lancet Medical Journal, saying things like, we can't trust most of what's published in medical journals because it's so conflicted.
01:01:10.780The science has been so taken over and influenced. And I think it's one of the biggest stories of our time that our politics have been taken over.
01:01:18.280The science and medicine have been taken over. Federal agencies have been taken over. The media has been taken over.
01:01:22.840It's really hard to get a straight story and just straight information on so many topics today.
01:01:29.680This is horrendous. It's like we put out these magazines celebrating, you know, obesity.
01:01:36.880We really do. Saying obesity is bad and it leads to a lot of health problems and it's you shouldn't encourage it is now considered bigoted.
01:01:44.000And so, you know, I'm not saying that a 13 year old is necessarily reading these magazines that are doing this, but it's the messaging right now in society.
01:01:51.880And if you would say something about it, somehow you're bad. And then when they get you, you get some 13 year old who's morbidly obese.
01:01:59.320Let's let's cut them open. Let's let's shrink his stomach down to the size of a walnut.
01:02:03.240And by the way, I know from not personal experience, but a family member that surgery can lead to serious complications later in life, serious complications later in life.
01:02:16.420So you don't proceed into a gastric bypass willy nilly. And to give it to a kid who may not even be in puberty is really crazy to me.
01:02:27.620In any event, listen, Cheryl and Full Measure are well worth your time.
01:02:31.360This is where she does her in-depth reporting and you can take it to the bank.
01:02:34.940She's always thorough and careful and factual. And this is one of the many reasons we love her.
01:02:42.260You too. Coming up next, Marsha Clark and Mark Garagos on Idaho and whether this really is an open and shut case.
01:02:55.020Today, we have an all star Kelly's Court panel.
01:02:57.720Marsha Clark is an attorney and New York Times bestselling author.
01:03:01.360She became a household name after working as the lead prosecutor in the People versus OJ Simpson murder case.
01:03:07.760Also joining us today, Mark Garagos. Mark is a trial lawyer and managing partner of Garagos and Garagos.
01:03:12.680His previous high profile clients include, oh, Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson, just to name a few.
01:03:18.560Marsha and Mark, welcome back to Kelly's Court. Great to have you both.
01:03:22.400So this was just handed to me during the break. I'm going to put all sorts of caveats on it.
01:03:27.300It's from our friends over at The Daily Wire.
01:03:30.240It seems it seems like a typo to me, not by The Daily Wire, but by Brian Kohlberger's lawyer.
01:03:37.120But I'll read you what they're reporting.
01:03:40.100The headline is suspected Idaho killer requests documents related to, quote, co-defendant who has never been mentioned by police.
01:03:50.260I'll read to you from the report this week.
01:03:52.400Kohlberger's Kohlberger's public defender and Taylor filed motions requesting, quote,
01:03:59.300any written or recorded statements by a co-defendant and the substance of any relevant oral statement made by a co-defendant,
01:04:08.620whether before or after arrest in response to interrogation by any person known by the co-defendant to be a peace officer or agent of the prosecuting attorney, etc.
01:04:23.660And as you know, that this particular defendant previously asked members of law enforcement if they had arrested anyone else in connection with this crime.
01:04:30.720I got to say, this sounds like a it sounds like a typo, like a like a cut and paste by a busy public defender.
01:04:38.780Well, I was just going to say, normally I would say in a vacuum, I would agree with you.
01:04:43.980I'd say it's a boilerplate discovery request, cut and paste, as you say, that went out there.
01:04:49.760However, put this next to and this is why I'm fascinated.
01:04:53.700I want to see what Marsha has to say about this.
01:04:55.900There was a sealing order on a search warrant.
01:05:00.720And the sealing order had language that I have, frankly, never seen or I can't remember ever having seen,
01:05:09.000which was they did they part of it was they did not want law enforcement to be exposed to threats or intimidation in and expose the investigation.
01:05:21.360Now, exposing the investigation, I've come across a zillion times.
01:05:26.440Threats to law enforcement leads me to believe that there is something that apparently they missed and or a thread that they missed or didn't or got out in front of their skis.
01:05:38.560Remember, the officers had said, we're 100 percent certain this is the guy, nobody else.
01:05:44.680I think there is a suspicion that there is somebody else or someone else in the mix.
01:05:52.240Well, Marsha, let me read what Mark's referring to just to color it in for the audience.
01:05:57.680This is the search warrant for Brian Kohlberger's Washington state apartment, which has been temporarily sealed.
01:06:14.660But for some reason, they're sealing the search warrant for the guy's apartment, which was requested on the same day as the arrest warrant, December 30th.
01:06:22.980But now we see why they're sealing it.
01:06:25.400They say this is going to remain sealed until March 1st, potentially earlier.
01:06:29.720But as of March 1st for now, this is what they said in asking for the sealing prosecutors and police.
01:06:36.640Premature public disclosure of the details in this law enforcement investigation will create serious and imminent threat to effective law enforcement and could result in the premature end of this investigation, which could create a threat to public safety.
01:07:01.940But let me tell you about some of the background in the development of this case.
01:07:06.640This case kind of went crazy on social media.
01:07:09.260And a lot of people were in there speculating about others that may be involved and then out and out dogpiling these people with no evidence, nothing but speculation, imagination, and just putting together two plus two and equaling eight.
01:07:25.600And so some very innocent people got dogpiled for at least a few moments on the Internet.
01:07:32.640So it has been going kind of in its way viral.
01:07:36.100And people looking for attention, which always happens on the Internet, are coming out, spewing all of these theories about who might have done it and why they did it.
01:07:44.560And that is a danger to any investigation.
01:07:46.720It's a danger to law enforcement because it encourages people to come forward who really have nothing relevant to say.
01:07:53.280It encourages – it discourages people from coming forward who actually have something important to say.
01:07:59.820And it, of course, might subject law enforcement themselves to all kinds of threats and horrible responses on the Internet.
01:08:09.160This has become now a force in our criminal justice system.
01:08:12.020It lurks around the edges and sometimes it even invades to the middle.
01:08:16.680So we have a very serious problem with that.
01:08:19.240And I think that sealing would be an appropriate way of tamping it down.
01:08:23.780You just don't want to let out information that could be the way you catch a liar or the way you spot the truth.
01:08:30.620Those details are the way you test what witnesses say.
01:08:33.240And if you let those details out, you run a very real risk of skewing the investigation.
01:08:38.400But, Mark, don't you think – I mean, the warrant in support of the – sorry, affidavit in support of the arrest warrant is 18 pages long.
01:08:47.760Why allow that one out into the public domain but not this one?
01:08:52.440Well, I don't disagree with you at all.
01:08:55.640I was speculating – and that's all we do here, I guess – but I was speculating that the defense might have requested that that be – remain sealed.
01:09:08.040But I – you know, the cynic in me thinks that because the officers and the police department had taken so much heat, as Marcia describes it, that they wanted to show –
01:09:20.380And one of the – I believe it was the chief had indicated that once it was unsealed, they would be vindicated, so to speak.
01:09:29.140And I suppose that that's one explanation.
01:09:32.280I still think there's something else going on here.
01:09:34.660I suspect that there is another source profile of DNA or something else that was found at the scene.
01:09:42.860I just don't think – you know, the – when you take a look at the timeline of this, and you know that there is a DoorDash driver there at 4 a.m., and you know that there is a spotting by DM, as they call the person in the affidavit, of somebody in the hallway.
01:10:01.860There's just – I believe that there is more here than meets the eye, and we're just not going to see it.
01:10:08.100And I think it's one of the reasons that the defense so readily said they would waive time until June on their speedy trial rights to the preliminary hearing.
01:10:29.980However, to continue the preliminary hearing with no bail for your client for six months is quite, quite a step for anybody to do.
01:10:42.560And normally you take more what I would call bite-sized chunks.
01:10:46.700You put it over for 30 days for a status conference.
01:10:49.200I think that there's a lot more going on here behind the scenes than we're even remotely aware of.
01:10:55.340I don't think the defense thinks for a second that we're going to continue it for six months because we need to do a parallel – just a parallel investigation of our client.
01:11:06.840I think that they think they've got a lot more going on or a lot more to work with, and they think that law enforcement is pursuing some threads that may be exculpatory.
01:11:17.420I don't see any other reason why you would continue the preliminary hearing for six months because, remember, you also give the prosecution the opportunity to take away your preliminary hearing, which is the last thing you'd want to do if you're the defense in this case.
01:11:44.040But it's also the possibility – what the defense is wanting to do is let the case drop out of the headlines as well.
01:11:50.860There can be multiple motives for this, and the more you take the heat off the case, the better off you'll be.
01:11:57.660That's a possibility that feeds into the additional one, that the police are going to come up with a lot more evidence.
01:12:04.040And this is something that I was looking at.
01:12:05.860A knife stabbing is a very messy way to commit a crime, and you come up with all kinds of hair, fiber, DNA, of course, all over the place.
01:12:15.820The fact that they sealed what they're – the portion of the search warrant that says what they're searching, where they're looking, tells me that that might be a tip to it.
01:12:25.660And they are going to come up with stray DNA because you can't tell when DNA was deposited.
01:12:30.520Even if you have an alternate suspect in terms of another profile that shows up that doesn't match the defendant, it may not have anything to do with the case, or it may.
01:12:41.800But I think there's a lot more evidence they're going to be coming up with if they're doing that kind of testing, which I imagine they would be.
01:12:47.540And six months is probably more than enough time, I think, to at least see if there's something there for the defense to work with.
01:12:57.180Like, they talked in the affidavit, they wrote in the affidavit that they got the dad's DNA out of the garbage two days before they made the arrest.
01:13:07.940So it didn't take them long to turn that test around at all and match it, according to what they say, to the button on the knife sheath.
01:13:16.040And they said that that showed them that the DNA on that knife sheath was 100 percent the son of Michael Kohlberger, the dad living in Pennsylvania.
01:14:30.280But I do think that my earlier theory that they also the defense also would like to get the heat off of this case may play into the amount of time as well.
01:14:56.740No good deed goes unpunished sometimes because of the opposite sometimes happens.
01:15:01.020In this case, look what's happened just in the last couple of weeks.
01:15:04.840All of a sudden, there's been a shift in the media from Idaho to Massachusetts in terms of kind of the focus and toggling between the cases.
01:15:15.920And if you also, also to Marcia's point, if you take a look at some of the body cams of the police going there to the location and these kind of ragers or parties that are going on there, you could have a potpourri of DNA and other kinds of evidence there.
01:15:33.940Well, but this is why and I want to talk about the preliminary hearing, but this is why Brian Kohlberger's apartment is probably, if not as interesting, maybe more interesting than the site of the murders.
01:15:46.000Because if you find DNA from the victims back at his place, that's ballgame.
01:16:00.820The evidence in support of getting that search warrant is what's been sealed and they're not sharing with us, which leads back to the thing, Mark, about what the hell is the co-defendant reference about?
01:16:10.400And, you know, maybe we're just reading too much into, again, a cut and paste from by a busy, ill-paid lawyer.
01:16:16.280We're actually trying to reach her right now to ask that question.
01:17:03.820The reference makes no sense right now unless they've secretly arrested somebody else and didn't tell us, which seems out of the realm of possibility.
01:17:12.580And unless there's somebody who's in the crosshairs who they're looking at.
01:17:23.640Let's let's zoom out for a second and talk about some of the latest evidence that's come out in the case and where you think it stands now.
01:17:29.020Because, you know, I remain where I was a week ago, which is and I'm sure they're going to find more DNA.
01:17:34.860But right now, his touch DNA on the button of the knife sheath ain't going to do it.
01:17:40.940And most legal analysts, Marsha, are saying, right.
01:17:43.820But all the surveillance tapes of what appears to be his car, you know, coming to the crime scene 12 times before the actual day of the murder, seeming to surveil them, showing up on the night in question.
01:17:56.940You know, he was clearly seems to have been at least in the very close area between 405 and 420 when the murders were committed.
01:18:03.360And then right back to Washington Pullman where he was living.
01:18:07.140I still feel like, OK, I don't like that doesn't show him walking into the apartment that like in the cell phone tower evidence.
01:18:18.820Well, look, you put it all together, it's going to have to be one of these mosaic situations where you have the touch DNA on the knife sheath.
01:18:27.080And then you have, by the way, just the fact that that knife sheath is in the bedroom, is found where it is.
01:18:33.320I mean, the other people who live there are going to say, I've never seen that thing before.
01:18:36.220So don't forget there's going to be that kind of really basic testimony about this.
01:20:03.780I've had I can't tell you the number of murder cases that have that have turned out that the cell phone evidence ended up exonerating my client as opposed to showing that he was guilty.
01:20:17.880As I'm sitting right here, I could be using my phone and it could be pinging onto two towers 12 miles away from each other just by virtue of the amount of traffic on one of the towers.
01:20:33.580So I've never been a fan of the cell phone triangulation.
01:20:37.260It's a good tool to try to get you there.
01:20:40.340But I've used it to show that somebody was 40 miles away at the time of the crime and exonerated them.
01:20:47.000So that's not going to that's not going to get them there.
01:20:49.860They also the fact that the phone was not being used during the two hour period.
01:20:56.080I know law enforcement speculates that he turned it off.
01:20:59.440There's other explanations like he wasn't there.
01:21:01.960So those kinds of things, you get jury instructions to say two reasonable alternatives.
01:21:06.960You've got to pick the one that points towards innocence.
01:21:13.720Yeah, I'm sure they and I'm sure they're going to get it, too.
01:21:15.740Does all the stuff we're hearing right now like about his possible online use like social media postings and we don't know whether it was him, but certainly, you know, Internet sleuths and a former FBI agent has been weighing in on this repeatedly online saying they believe they found his presence.
01:21:33.040His postings in online chat rooms under the name Papa Roger and the name inside looking one in particular stands out where this Papa Roger posted before before evidence of the knife sheath was made public.
01:21:46.180Again, I cannot believe this is this is crazy because that does sound like it's from the killer talking about it being a large fixed blade knife, I think makes most of us think about, oh, they studied the wounds on the victims and they have an estimate of what committed those wounds.
01:22:14.200Whose mind goes to they found the sheath and they have other postings by this guy that suggests it may indeed have been Brian Kohlberger.
01:22:55.800There are people who carry knives around that don't have sheaths.
01:22:58.740So I don't know that that is, to me, a very interesting possibility.
01:23:02.680But you have to remember, they will if they can trace the signal back, they can certainly say it came from this computer.
01:23:08.400What they probably will not be able to do, but you never know, maybe they can, is establish that he was definitely the one who who sent the message unless they do it through other means.
01:23:19.720For example, they have records that show he was over here at a certain period of time, over there at a certain period of time, home at a certain period of time when no one else was there and had access to the computer.
01:23:30.720They'd have to find that kind of extraneous information to pin down the fact that he had to be the poster.
01:23:38.400I got to ask you a follow up on that, Marsha, because you came on the show not long ago.
01:23:43.120We discussed Casey Anthony and your own reporting on that case where you took a hard look at the records, the search records and the various search engines on the Casey Anthony computer at home.
01:23:56.300And you you felt that you were able to determine it had to be Casey Anthony who made some of those incriminating online searches because you were able to say they were done like minutes before.
01:24:06.940George would have had to be at work. And apparently he showed up, we believe, on time.
01:24:11.180And you were able to conclude there's only one person who would have gone back and deleted all the incriminating searches.
01:24:17.600And you could show it was Casey Anthony. You weren't the prosecutor on this case, but you were looking at as a legal analyst so that you are.
01:24:23.600That is something that's admissible and that you would take a hard look at. How can I prove the person was at home near that computer when this search was done?
01:24:29.780Right. It would be very important. And so you have surveillance camera footage. You have other witnesses who may have seen him.
01:24:36.080You have odometers on the cars. You have all kinds of things to prove the movements of the people involved.
01:24:40.780And especially if the mother and father that are the people he's living with, let's say, were at work at the time that this message was sent.
01:24:48.500And he was the only one at home. That sort of thing is what can narrow it down and actually turn it into some compelling evidence.
01:24:55.560Mark, you wanted to weigh in. I was just going to say, one of the ways that you do that, and I've done this in a couple of trials, is if you can show forensically that somebody accessed a particular computer and it was password protected and they entered the password prior to logging on, and then you do a reverse engineering of the IP address, that's about as compelling a testimony as you can get to show that it was the particular person.
01:25:24.480Mark, as a defense counsel, let's say we go to the preliminary hearing in June and the DA, the prosecution says, we've got his DNA at the crime scene.
01:25:34.820We've got his touch DNA. We've got saliva, something, hair of his on the victims, and we have their DNA in his car or at his home or we found bloody clothing.
01:25:47.580I mean, is that ballgame? Is it over? Like, what happens at that point?
01:25:51.500Well, there's a couple of different things there that you can kind of mix and match. If they find the toughest things, the sheath, if I'm the defense lawyer, does not bother me because somebody, you can have an explanation for that.
01:26:06.740There's an innocent explanation for that if it's on the button. Somebody else had the knife, obviously some other person.
01:26:13.680The bushy eyebrows, that doesn't bother me. If, in fact, as you posit, that there is victim's DNA in his apartment, that's a real problem.
01:26:25.940I don't know that it's game over, but that's a real, real problem.
01:26:29.800If he has other DNA of his other than just the touch DNA on the button at the at the location, that's also a significant problem.
01:26:41.640And that's what I guarantee you they're looking for. They're trying to put together either at the house, in the car or at the location.
01:26:49.180Right. But of course, Marsha, I don't have to tell you, DNA that the rest of us think is foolproof and is going to lead, you know, guaranteed to a conviction can be manipulated and represented by defense counsel in a very different way.
01:27:04.840Yeah, for sure. I mean, they're going to want to say contamination. They're going to want to say mixing samples.
01:27:10.520They're going to, you know, all of that is going to be in the mix.
01:27:13.220But don't forget, Megan, today is not back in 1995 and people are very familiar.
01:27:18.660DNA is not the the mysterious question mark box that it used to be.
01:27:23.880And when people hear DNA nowadays, they do get that largely it goes right and largely it doesn't tag somebody else.
01:27:32.820You know, they doesn't tag the wrong person. And I'm sure they're going to be very careful in handling the samples.
01:27:38.000I would imagine knowing that that's going to probably be the most significant evidence that they get at the kind you're talking about.
01:27:45.220The defendant's DNA all over the room, the victim's DNA in his room, that sort of thing.
01:27:50.980That kind of combination is I think it's a knockout punch if that's what they come up with.
01:27:56.700So, Mark, what's going to happen at the preliminary hearing? Like what what should we expect?
01:27:59.960Well, if there is a preliminary hearing and I still have my doubts that the prosecution just to explain that.
01:28:06.960So what you're thinking, the prosecutor may say, ah, forget that.
01:28:09.380I'm just going to go to a grand jury because there are two different ways you can.
01:28:15.120Preliminary hearing or grand jury are both what are called probable cause proceedings.
01:28:19.920Is there enough to hold somebody to answer for trial?
01:28:23.160I always jokingly say now probable cause hearings have deteriorated to the point where is my client breathing?
01:28:31.580And but basically you get in a preliminary hearing the ability to cross examine the witnesses that for a good prosecutor.
01:28:42.160They want that because a good prosecutor is going to say to themselves, I want to see how this witness is going to do.
01:28:47.560I want to see how my cop's going to do. But if you're leery of your case, if you want if you're if you don't think you've gotten to the point where you've got that, as you guys call it, the knockout punch.
01:28:59.180You go to a grand jury where there's no pesky defense counsel in there asking questions.
01:29:05.500The witnesses are somewhat choreographed in the grand jury.
01:29:10.760The grand jurors can ask questions, but the prosecutors in there and the prosecutor can deflect or do whatever they need to do.
01:29:18.120And then you get a probable cause determination and you don't have to do anything until you get to trial.
01:29:26.300Oh, well, it's a little bit skewed to the defense side with regard to grand jury.
01:29:30.760There are other reasons, such as protecting witnesses who are in danger or when you're worried about the news media getting a hold of things and, you know, distorting evidence or affecting witnesses, memories and testimony.
01:29:43.280Why don't they just do it that way in this case, Marsha?
01:29:46.940Why wouldn't the prosecutor just do that grand jury?
01:29:49.540Well, as what as Mark said, I think that that's it's always been my preference, actually, to do the preliminary hearing.
01:31:07.360When he was five years old, he presented flowers to the Archbishop of Munich, announcing his intention to one day become a cardinal.
01:31:15.900He would go on to become a priest in the early 1950s, Archbishop of Munich in the late 1970s, and true to his childhood wish, a cardinal in 1993.
01:31:26.940In 2005, at the age of 78, he was elected pope following the death of Pope John Paul II.
01:31:33.080Upon his election, Ratzinger took the name Benedict XVI.
01:31:36.360He then stepped out onto the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square and called himself a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord.
01:31:45.400He was known as a brilliant teacher and a social conservative, dubbed God's Rottweiler for his staunch protection of the church's doctrine, never bending with the changing times.
01:31:54.760In 2008, during his first visit to the United States as pope, he held mass in Yankee Stadium before a crowd of nearly 60,000.
01:32:03.060He told the crowd authority, obedience.
01:32:05.920To be frank, these are not easy words to speak nowadays, especially in a society which rightly places a high value on personal freedom.
01:32:12.600During his papacy, Pope Benedict found himself handling one of the church's biggest crises in decades, as allegations of clerical child sex abuse piled up.
01:33:07.420Before we go, I wanted to bring you one edition of the MK Mailbag and let you know what the viewers are saying.
01:33:13.720This one from Bill is interesting, says, MK, you've said many times you will not say the name of mass shooters so as not to give them notoriety.