The Megyn Kelly Show - New Biden Memory Revelations, and Movie Set Shooting Verdict, with Jonna Spilbor, David Wohl, Dave Aronberg, Mike Davis, and Amy Chozick

00:00:00.000 Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

00:00:02.860 Someone is trying to frame us.

00:00:05.140 Until our names are cleared.

00:00:07.700 We're fugitives from interval.

00:00:09.480 Like Bonnie and Clyde with better snacks.

00:00:12.880 Espionage?

00:00:13.560 You still as good a shot as you used to be?

00:00:16.600 Better.

00:00:17.400 Is there love language?

00:00:18.860 We like to walk that fine line between techno thriller

00:00:21.340 and romantic comedy.

00:00:24.180 We make up our own rules.

00:00:25.940 NCIS Tony and Ziva.

00:00:27.400 Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

00:00:30.760 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:32.580 Live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:42.380 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:43.920 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.300 We have a great program lined up for you today

00:00:47.220 including some wild Kelly's court cases

00:00:49.580 live again on day two from Montana.

00:00:52.840 I got my little ski sweater on for you today.

00:00:54.780 It's kind of fun where I will be going

00:00:57.460 after we finish the show.

00:00:59.500 We're on spring break out here.

00:01:01.100 But we begin today with the latest on the legal cases

00:01:04.100 that will dominate the 2024 political landscape.

00:01:06.180 And there's breaking news this morning in a couple of them

00:01:08.540 including Special Counsel Robert Herr.

00:01:11.020 This is the guy who was looking into Joe Biden's use

00:01:12.980 of classified documents.

00:01:14.400 You remember Joe Biden's very, very angry at Robert Herr

00:01:16.780 for saying he's a well-meaning elderly man

00:01:19.780 with a poor memory.

00:01:21.260 Well, Herr testified this morning, it's still ongoing,

00:01:23.320 before the House Judiciary Committee

00:01:25.260 about the Biden classified documents report.

00:01:28.660 And this is in the public eye,

00:01:30.100 so we're able to watch it and show you some clips.

00:01:34.160 Here to break it all down, two of our favorites,

00:01:36.440 Mike Davis, founder and president

00:01:37.720 of the Article 3 Project,

00:01:39.220 and Dave Ehrenberg, state attorney

00:01:40.740 for Palm Beach County, Florida.

00:01:43.300 Guys, welcome back to the show.

00:01:44.540 I also am going to get to a little bit of news

00:01:46.480 we have on the Fannie Willis case

00:01:47.840 involving this judge

00:01:49.880 who's now actually spoken out in an interview.

00:01:52.500 So stand by for more on that.

00:01:55.400 All right, so Robert Herr goes before,

00:01:57.720 H-U-R, you know how it bothers me,

00:01:59.740 goes before the House Judiciary Committee

00:02:02.560 and gets questioned about this report

00:02:05.120 that we know Joe Biden did not much like.

00:02:08.420 Here's a little bit from his opening statement,

00:02:10.780 defending himself because, of course,

00:02:11.900 the president was unhappy

00:02:13.760 about the characterizations on his memory

00:02:16.880 in that report.

00:02:17.920 It's SOT1.

00:02:18.500 The evidence and the president himself

00:02:21.120 put his memory squarely at issue.

00:02:23.700 We interviewed the president

00:02:25.280 and asked him about his recorded statement.

00:02:27.880 Quote, I just found all the classified stuff downstairs.

00:02:30.780 End quote.

00:02:31.800 He told us that he didn't remember

00:02:33.720 saying that to his ghostwriter.

00:02:35.820 He also said he didn't remember

00:02:37.860 finding any classified material in his home

00:02:40.600 after his vice presidency.

00:02:42.220 And he didn't remember anything

00:02:44.420 about how classified documents about Afghanistan

00:02:46.860 made their way into his garage.

00:02:50.540 My assessment in the report

00:02:52.200 about the relevance of the president's memory

00:02:54.020 was necessary and accurate and fair.

00:02:58.480 Most importantly, what I wrote

00:02:59.820 is what I believe the evidence shows

00:03:01.520 and what I expect jurors would perceive and believe.

00:03:05.320 I did not sanitize my explanation,

00:03:08.620 nor did I disparage the president unfairly.

00:03:11.220 So what do you make of that, Mike?

00:03:13.920 Because it did seem pretty uncontroversial to me

00:03:17.040 that in prosecuting a case

00:03:18.600 in which he had to prove willfulness,

00:03:20.960 or at least that's the standard he was going with,

00:03:23.320 holding himself to the most difficult standard possible,

00:03:26.360 there has been some criticism

00:03:27.620 that he didn't need to do that.

00:03:29.320 It was a lower bar.

00:03:30.100 But in any event,

00:03:31.040 he said,

00:03:31.360 my task was to determine

00:03:32.340 whether the president retained

00:03:33.340 or disclosed national defense information

00:03:34.900 willfully, meaning knowingly,

00:03:36.320 with the intent to do something the law forbids.

00:03:38.920 I couldn't make that determination

00:03:40.100 without assessing his state of mind.

00:03:41.980 Yeah, so Robert Herr's investigative team,

00:03:45.600 they found six stashes

00:03:47.260 of Biden's stolen classified records

00:03:51.000 from his time as vice president

00:03:54.740 and even from his time as a senator.

00:03:58.140 I don't know how you explain that

00:03:59.700 because that means you'd have to take

00:04:01.000 the classified records out of the Senate's skip.

00:04:04.540 These records were moved several times.

00:04:09.120 They were unguarded for years.

00:04:12.080 They were accessible to a Chinese national

00:04:15.840 employed by the Bidens.

00:04:18.700 And as Miranda Devine reported in the New York Post,

00:04:22.700 they look like some of these classified records

00:04:26.120 were used by Hunter Biden

00:04:27.940 to draft a 23-point memo

00:04:31.180 to secure Burisma funding for the Bidens.

00:04:35.440 But then Robert Herr,

00:04:37.440 so we've established,

00:04:38.880 it looks like that President Trump

00:04:40.740 willfully took and kept,

00:04:42.920 so he willfully retains

00:04:44.380 these national security documents,

00:04:46.560 these classified records.

00:04:48.380 But Robert Herr declined to bring charges

00:04:51.420 against Biden

00:04:53.480 because Robert Herr says he can't prove,

00:04:56.060 there's doubt whether he can prove willfulness

00:04:59.640 because of Biden's faulty memory.

00:05:01.720 I think that Robert Herr,

00:05:04.020 to put it legally,

00:05:05.440 saved Biden's ass here,

00:05:07.060 and the Democrats are furious

00:05:08.860 because Robert Herr stated

00:05:11.100 what everyone already knows,

00:05:13.060 which is Biden has a declining mental state.

00:05:15.940 Dave, what did you make of it?

00:05:19.680 Good to be back with you, Megan and Mike.

00:05:22.020 You know, I was expecting

00:05:23.220 that the Democrats would go after Robert Herr,

00:05:25.480 and I was surprised

00:05:26.220 that the Republicans went after him

00:05:28.480 more than the Democrats.

00:05:29.420 This is why we live in different bubbles.

00:05:31.760 And as a Democrat,

00:05:33.240 people on my side have been outraged

00:05:34.840 by the fact that Herr included

00:05:36.440 what seemed to be gratuitous comments

00:05:37.800 about Joe Biden's memory.

00:05:39.040 And it looks like,

00:05:39.740 according to the latest reports

00:05:40.640 with the transcript that has come out,

00:05:42.840 that Biden did know the exact date

00:05:45.020 that his son died.

00:05:46.600 So Herr seemed to-

00:05:48.580 No, he didn't know the year.

00:05:50.020 Not, well, you're right.

00:05:51.300 He knew the day.

00:05:52.200 He knew the exact date.

00:05:53.640 And then as far as the year,

00:05:54.820 he said when-

00:05:55.680 The date requires a year.

00:05:57.980 When they say, Dave,

00:05:59.120 when were you,

00:05:59.660 what is the date on which you were born?

00:06:01.400 You don't just get to say,

00:06:02.880 May 1st.

00:06:04.160 Well, then when Herr said 2015,

00:06:06.580 I said, wow, was it 2015?

00:06:08.340 That could be taken different ways.

00:06:09.720 That could be taken as,

00:06:10.620 man, it's been a lot of time.

00:06:11.560 I'm telling you.

00:06:14.080 But here's the thing.

00:06:15.920 I was surprised that the Republicans

00:06:17.820 are going after him more

00:06:18.860 because Democrats are displeased with him,

00:06:20.480 which shows you that we're so divided

00:06:22.400 that you can try to please everyone.

00:06:24.540 You'll please no one.

00:06:25.440 Merrick Garland, that's a lesson for you.

00:06:27.380 But so far, I just,

00:06:28.540 the key thing here is that

00:06:29.920 Robert Herr has emphasized

00:06:32.340 that it's not the possession of the documents

00:06:35.360 that'll get you charged.

00:06:36.640 It's the refusal given back.

00:06:38.020 And that's what separates Biden from Donald Trump.

00:06:40.280 All right.

00:06:41.740 You're going to make me go through the transcript,

00:06:43.440 aren't you?

00:06:43.740 Because the transcript,

00:06:44.900 we haven't actually seen it

00:06:45.820 of Robert Herr and Joe Biden,

00:06:47.800 but apparently it's 250 pages.

00:06:49.760 The New York Times reviewed

00:06:50.860 what they described

00:06:51.720 as a lightly redacted copy of it.

00:06:53.400 So we're getting excerpts from them.

00:06:55.440 They published this section.

00:06:57.200 Biden, well,

00:06:58.020 I don't know.

00:07:00.180 This is what,

00:07:00.820 2017,

00:07:01.640 2018,

00:07:02.360 that area.

00:07:03.260 Where's the preceding question?

00:07:05.280 I had this written down someplace

00:07:06.620 where they're getting into it.

00:07:09.240 And the question to him

00:07:11.640 from Robert Herr,

00:07:13.940 I'll find it.

00:07:14.980 But in any event,

00:07:16.380 he was asking Joe Biden,

00:07:18.600 oh, here it is.

00:07:19.560 Herr pressed Joe Biden

00:07:20.380 where he kept papers

00:07:22.020 related to work he did

00:07:23.660 after leaving the vice presidency

00:07:25.840 in January, 2017.

00:07:28.020 Okay.

00:07:28.220 So that makes sense.

00:07:29.320 Biden leaves the,

00:07:30.580 the vice presidency.

00:07:32.820 Of course,

00:07:33.660 Obama left the presidency

00:07:34.760 and in January,

00:07:35.960 17,

00:07:36.500 Trump was sworn in.

00:07:37.980 So Herr is asking him,

00:07:39.480 where'd you keep your papers

00:07:40.300 relating to the work you did

00:07:41.620 after you left the vice presidency?

00:07:43.020 And Biden's response is,

00:07:44.360 well,

00:07:44.600 I,

00:07:45.080 I,

00:07:45.220 I,

00:07:45.500 I don't know.

00:07:46.420 This is what,

00:07:47.140 2017,

00:07:47.780 2018,

00:07:48.480 that area?

00:07:49.300 Herr.

00:07:49.720 Yes,

00:07:49.940 sir.

00:07:50.400 Biden.

00:07:51.160 Remember in this timeframe,

00:07:52.200 my son is either been deployed

00:07:55.760 or is dying.

00:07:57.560 And so it was,

00:07:59.240 and by the way,

00:08:00.540 there were still a lot of people

00:08:01.680 at the time when I got out

00:08:02.620 of the Senate

00:08:03.000 that were encouraging me

00:08:03.880 to run in this period,

00:08:05.300 except the president.

00:08:06.760 I'm not,

00:08:07.660 and not a mean thing to say.

00:08:09.320 He just thought she had

00:08:10.680 a better shot of winning

00:08:11.700 the presidency than I did.

00:08:13.220 And so I hadn't,

00:08:14.480 I hadn't at this point,

00:08:15.320 even though I'm at Penn,

00:08:17.220 I hadn't walked away

00:08:18.160 from the idea

00:08:18.660 that I may run for office again.

00:08:19.960 But if I ran again,

00:08:20.940 I'd be running for president.

00:08:23.120 And,

00:08:23.220 and so what was happening though?

00:08:25.440 What month,

00:08:26.260 what month did Bo die?

00:08:28.240 Oh God,

00:08:29.600 May 30th.

00:08:31.200 Interrupting here,

00:08:32.460 May,

00:08:32.980 Rachel,

00:08:33.420 Rachel Cotton,

00:08:34.040 a White House lawyer,

00:08:35.440 2015,

00:08:36.720 unidentified male speaker,

00:08:38.300 2015,

00:08:39.300 Biden.

00:08:40.220 Was it 2015?

00:08:41.660 He had died?

00:08:42.840 Unidentified male speaker.

00:08:44.320 It was May of 2015,

00:08:45.960 Biden.

00:08:46.640 It was 2015.

00:08:48.460 Robert Bauer,

00:08:49.260 Biden's personal lawyer.

00:08:50.080 I'm not sure of the month,

00:08:51.560 sir,

00:08:51.720 but I think that was the year.

00:08:54.100 Mark Crickbaum,

00:08:55.720 hers deputy.

00:08:56.760 That's right,

00:08:57.160 Mr.

00:08:57.400 President,

00:08:57.860 it,

00:08:58.440 Biden.

00:08:59.160 And what's happened in the meantime

00:09:00.500 is that as,

00:09:01.740 and as Trump gets elected

00:09:02.660 in 20,

00:09:03.960 in November,

00:09:04.620 2017,

00:09:05.800 this is a question

00:09:06.800 from Joe Biden.

00:09:08.300 Trump gets elected

00:09:09.060 in November of 2017,

00:09:11.780 unidentified male speaker,

00:09:13.100 2016,

00:09:14.320 unidentified male speaker,

00:09:15.740 16,

00:09:16.600 Biden,

00:09:17.280 16,

00:09:18.100 2016.

00:09:19.080 All right,

00:09:19.580 so why do I have 2017 here?

00:09:23.280 That's when you left office,

00:09:24.640 says Ed Siskel,

00:09:25.620 his White House counsel,

00:09:26.740 January of 2017.

00:09:28.860 Biden,

00:09:29.400 yeah,

00:09:29.760 okay,

00:09:30.220 but that's when Trump gets sworn in,

00:09:31.640 January.

00:09:32.400 Siskel,

00:09:32.820 right,

00:09:33.160 Bauer,

00:09:33.520 right,

00:09:34.060 Biden,

00:09:34.440 okay,

00:09:34.860 yeah,

00:09:35.180 and in 2017,

00:09:36.880 Bo had passed.

00:09:38.620 Okay,

00:09:38.980 Dave,

00:09:40.000 I,

00:09:41.340 there is nothing in that

00:09:42.780 that suggests

00:09:43.760 Biden is recalling anything.

00:09:46.140 I mean,

00:09:46.260 you could see what month,

00:09:48.480 first he doesn't know,

00:09:49.580 what month did Bo die?

00:09:50.960 Then he remembers May 30th.

00:09:52.620 Then two people have to remind him 2015.

00:09:54.820 Then he says,

00:09:55.240 was it 2015?

00:09:56.320 Then he was told,

00:09:57.160 yeah,

00:09:57.280 it was May of 15.

00:09:58.280 Then Biden says,

00:09:59.240 okay,

00:09:59.640 it was 2015.

00:10:00.720 Then they're still trying to help him.

00:10:02.360 I'm not sure of the month,

00:10:03.400 but I think it was that year.

00:10:05.340 Yes,

00:10:05.620 that's right.

00:10:06.280 What happened in the meantime?

00:10:07.500 Trump gets elected in November of 20,

00:10:09.280 he doesn't know when Trump got elected.

00:10:11.020 November of 2017?

00:10:12.680 Hello?

00:10:13.960 No,

00:10:14.560 it wasn't November of 2017.

00:10:16.520 The whole world knows it was November of 16.

00:10:18.680 Dave.

00:10:21.800 Oh,

00:10:22.480 well,

00:10:22.680 is that a question?

00:10:23.540 That's my question.

00:10:24.540 That's right.

00:10:25.000 Dave,

00:10:25.600 come on.

00:10:27.460 Well,

00:10:28.060 like,

00:10:28.380 as I said,

00:10:29.320 when you,

00:10:29.940 well,

00:10:30.040 he knew May 30th,

00:10:31.000 he got that date.

00:10:31.780 And then he,

00:10:33.200 as far as wasn't sure about the year,

00:10:34.920 and then he was surprised a little bit about the year.

00:10:36.900 Yes.

00:10:37.040 So you can get him for that.

00:10:38.560 But,

00:10:38.940 you know,

00:10:39.240 when we continue to harp on Joe Biden being senile and all that stuff,

00:10:43.400 what that does is lower the expectations so much so that when he gives a really strong State of the Union speech,

00:10:48.060 all of a sudden he meets and exceeds those low expectations.

00:10:51.100 So you got to be careful what you ask for here.

00:10:53.120 And as far as what Robert Hurd did,

00:10:54.980 yeah,

00:10:55.160 I just think as a prosecutor,

00:10:56.740 you focus on the issue of,

00:10:58.700 did Joe Biden commit a crime?

00:10:59.820 He said,

00:11:00.260 no,

00:11:00.500 he did not.

00:11:01.460 And then you move on.

00:11:02.180 And instead he came out with this hundreds of pages of stuff that was now being used politically.

00:11:07.280 And I think that oversteps his bounds.

00:11:10.100 Okay.

00:11:10.580 I,

00:11:10.860 I understand your feeling,

00:11:12.260 but I,

00:11:12.560 I don't think that's what happened at all.

00:11:14.020 I think he,

00:11:14.600 he did need to explain why he wasn't charging him.

00:11:16.740 I understand Republicans are mad about the standard.

00:11:18.840 They said,

00:11:19.400 you know,

00:11:19.740 you held him to a,

00:11:20.320 to a high standard.

00:11:21.160 The burden of proof was lower,

00:11:22.380 but her is saying I had in my mind,

00:11:25.020 I,

00:11:25.220 my understanding was I had to prove willfulness and I can't do it with a doddering man who has a poor memory.

00:11:30.860 And it doesn't mean that you,

00:11:31.800 I always forget everything.

00:11:33.700 It's just,

00:11:34.300 there's,

00:11:34.720 Oh,

00:11:34.760 look,

00:11:34.940 there's a doggy visiting Dave.

00:11:36.560 Um,

00:11:36.980 who's that?

00:11:37.480 Oh,

00:11:37.560 you can see Getty.

00:11:38.400 Oh,

00:11:38.720 sweet dog.

00:11:42.920 See,

00:11:43.180 there you go.

00:11:45.120 Let's talk about that.

00:11:46.040 Guest star appearance today.

00:11:47.720 Okay.

00:11:48.120 So anyway,

00:11:48.580 here's the,

00:11:49.200 here's the real shocker to me,

00:11:51.640 Mike,

00:11:52.560 we'd heard something about this,

00:11:53.940 but to see it actually,

00:11:55.100 you know,

00:11:55.440 come out,

00:11:56.720 Joe Biden came out there and misled us all.

00:11:59.300 He misled us all.

00:12:00.780 The day that her report hit,

00:12:03.180 Joe Biden came out and said,

00:12:04.520 this is,

00:12:05.040 you know,

00:12:05.280 offensive member.

00:12:06.160 Cause he was on his heels.

00:12:06.980 It said he was this like,

00:12:08.340 you know,

00:12:08.880 well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.

00:12:11.040 So we held that impromptu press conference,

00:12:13.180 tried to prove to us all that he still had it together.

00:12:15.480 And then he confused I'll CC for as the president of Mexico and so on.

00:12:20.420 And,

00:12:20.940 uh,

00:12:21.140 in that press conference,

00:12:22.560 he feigned indignation.

00:12:25.580 That's my characterization based on the news we've seen here about how it

00:12:29.880 was allegedly Robert,

00:12:31.320 her who brought up the death of his son.

00:12:35.020 That's what he said.

00:12:36.300 And the transcript I just read to you proves he,

00:12:39.820 Joe Biden brought up his son.

00:12:41.760 Robert Hurd didn't ask anything about him.

00:12:45.040 That's not what happened.

00:12:46.220 Here's Joe Biden.

00:12:47.380 Um,

00:12:48.140 on February 8th,

00:12:49.000 the day this report came out and he had his impromptu press conference.

00:12:51.580 Listen,

00:12:51.840 SOT 7.

00:12:52.220 I know there's some attention paid to some language and report about my

00:12:57.780 recollection of events.

00:12:59.380 There's even reference that I don't remember when my son died.

00:13:05.640 How in the hell dare he raise that?

00:13:08.860 Frankly,

00:13:09.320 when I was asked the question,

00:13:10.340 I thought to myself,

00:13:11.200 it wasn't any other damn business.

00:13:15.320 When I was asked the question and once again,

00:13:17.260 just taking it back to the beginning of that transcript,

00:13:19.040 Hurd's pressing him where he kept papers related to work.

00:13:21.140 He did after he left the vice presidency in January 17.

00:13:24.660 Biden.

00:13:25.140 Well,

00:13:25.440 um,

00:13:25.700 I,

00:13:25.920 I,

00:13:26.100 I don't know.

00:13:26.900 This is what 17,

00:13:28.060 18,

00:13:28.420 that area.

00:13:29.020 Her.

00:13:29.560 Yes,

00:13:29.780 sir.

00:13:30.180 Biden.

00:13:30.780 Remember in this timeframe,

00:13:32.080 my son is either been deployed or is dying.

00:13:35.620 And so blah,

00:13:36.560 blah,

00:13:36.700 blah,

00:13:36.860 blah,

00:13:37.020 blah.

00:13:37.420 And finishes it with what month did Bo die?

00:13:40.900 Oh God,

00:13:41.540 May 30th.

00:13:42.140 And then it goes from there.

00:13:43.060 Not a single question here,

00:13:44.560 uh,

00:13:45.440 from Robert,

00:13:46.580 her about Bo Biden.

00:13:47.960 It was Joe,

00:13:48.920 Joe Biden who brought that up.

00:13:50.200 Yeah.

00:13:52.240 And think about how despicable that is that Joe Biden is using his deceased son as a life raft,

00:14:02.160 as political cover for him.

00:14:04.260 When he's caught,

00:14:05.580 he's clearly caught with stolen classified records from his time as vice president,

00:14:10.700 as Senator.

00:14:11.280 And when he's on his heels,

00:14:12.680 he brings up his dead son.

00:14:14.960 And then when this,

00:14:17.460 this report comes out,

00:14:19.060 he,

00:14:19.620 he blames Robert her and says that Robert her brought up his dead son,

00:14:23.160 which is just not true.

00:14:24.000 But this is part of a pattern by Joe Biden.

00:14:27.140 Like,

00:14:27.460 remember this is the same Joe Biden who refused to acknowledge his five-year-old granddaughter

00:14:33.960 for five years until he felt the political pressure.

00:14:37.080 He's just a terrible human being.

00:14:39.740 Oh boy.

00:14:40.180 So I know Dave disagrees with that,

00:14:41.740 with that,

00:14:42.020 but I do want to get onto,

00:14:43.240 you know,

00:14:43.780 the,

00:14:44.000 the motivation here.

00:14:45.560 Look,

00:14:46.000 it does look to me like Biden has significant memory problems on the one hand.

00:14:49.840 And on the other hand,

00:14:51.200 I'm sure it is hard to remember exactly why one box got where it did.

00:14:54.660 You know,

00:14:54.900 I'm,

00:14:55.600 I think most of us would have trouble recalling exactly how the one box got into the garage,

00:15:00.740 et cetera.

00:15:01.380 But you know,

00:15:02.380 that,

00:15:02.660 that can be used as evidence of his sloppiness around classified documents,

00:15:05.680 same way it's being used against Trump.

00:15:07.760 Here's Jim Jordan though,

00:15:09.040 positing another theory and the hearing this morning,

00:15:12.100 Dave,

00:15:12.340 take a listen to Sot 2.

00:15:15.540 So Joe Biden knew the role rules,

00:15:17.480 you know,

00:15:17.920 he knew the rules and Joe Biden told us,

00:15:19.840 he knew the rules.

00:15:20.920 So Mr.

00:15:21.720 Her,

00:15:21.920 why did he break them?

00:15:25.380 Congressman,

00:15:26.000 the conclusion,

00:15:26.920 uh,

00:15:27.320 as to exactly why,

00:15:29.320 uh,

00:15:29.920 the president did what he did is not one that we explicitly address in the report.

00:15:34.440 The report explains my decision,

00:15:36.800 uh,

00:15:37.320 to the attorney general that no criminal charges were warranted in this manner.

00:15:40.860 I think you did tell us,

00:15:42.320 I think you told us,

00:15:43.800 Mr.

00:15:44.060 Her page two 31.

00:15:45.860 You said this president Biden had strong motivation,

00:15:49.840 That's a key word.

00:15:51.680 We're getting a motive.

00:15:52.560 Now,

00:15:53.120 president Biden had strong motivations to ignore the proper procedures for safeguarding the classified information in his notebooks.

00:16:01.320 Why did he have strong motivations?

00:16:03.840 Because you next word,

00:16:05.600 because he decided months before leaving office to write a book.

00:16:11.100 Mr.

00:16:11.600 Her,

00:16:11.760 how much did president Biden get paid for his book?

00:16:14.280 It may be 8 million,

00:16:15.540 $8 million.

00:16:17.540 Joe Biden had 8 million reasons to break the rules.

00:16:20.360 What do you make of that theory?

00:16:25.640 Jim,

00:16:26.120 Jordan,

00:16:26.320 Jordan,

00:16:27.160 I mean,

00:16:27.500 I,

00:16:27.780 I,

00:16:28.220 uh,

00:16:28.460 see cribbing things out of this many hundred page document and ignoring the key issue here is it is the obstruction.

00:16:35.680 It is the refusal to give back the documents.

00:16:38.440 So if you want to blame Joe Biden for keeping documents just like Ronald Reagan did, uh, for, for similar reasons, then go ahead.

00:16:47.180 But it's not a crime, uh, according to Robert Herr, uh, based on what Joe Biden has done.

00:16:53.080 Now, I, I will admit that part of the reason that Robert Herr said it is not a crime is because the intent part is not in there because Joe Biden did not intend to commit a crime because, according to Robert Herr, he has memory issues.

00:17:05.820 But I would go further and say that these cases are not prosecuted unless you do what Trump did, which is after getting asked repeatedly to turn back the documents, you refuse to do so.

00:17:15.700 And then you take active steps to obstruct.

00:17:17.780 And now we see a new witness witness five come forward on CNN, which subscribed more obstruction by the former president.

00:17:24.800 That's we're going to get to him.

00:17:26.400 We're going to get to him.

00:17:27.380 Bad news for Trump, uh, in that documents case, which is in Dave's district.

00:17:30.400 And we'll get to that in a minute.

00:17:31.840 Um, but let's just finish up with Biden first.

00:17:33.980 So Mike, uh, Biden, uh, Jim Jordan also was raising the fact that Biden, we know this from the original, her report sat down with, um, a ghostwriter, you know, a guy who wrote the book for him.

00:17:46.100 Um, and that Biden realized in this exchange, he wasn't allowed to show this guy the classified documents he had.

00:17:51.220 So, so he knew, he knew he had classified documents and unlike Trump, they aren't things that he could have declassified because he was never president.

00:17:58.260 And so he decided instead to read those classified documents allowed to the writer, which is, that doesn't save you.

00:18:06.540 That's, that doesn't save you.

00:18:08.800 Um, and that guy destroyed the tapes, the writer destroyed the tapes, but did keep a transcript, which is how we know it all went down.

00:18:20.360 And this is Jim Jordan questioning that behavior today in Sot 3.

00:18:24.460 Page 200, Joe Biden, this is a quote, Joe Biden risked serious damage to America's national security.

00:18:33.660 When he shared information with his ghostwriter, shared it with his ghostwriter, the guy who was helping Joe Biden get $8 million.

00:18:43.160 And oh, by the way, Mr. Herr, what did that ghostwriter do with the information Joe Biden shared with him on his laptop?

00:18:50.560 What did he do after you were named special counsel?

00:18:54.580 Chairman, if you're referring to the audio recordings that Mr. Zwanitzer created of his conversations with Mr. Zwanitzer.

00:19:00.360 Exactly what I'm referring to.

00:19:01.920 He, he, uh, he slid, if I remember correctly, he slid those files into his, uh, recycle bin on his computer.

00:19:10.120 Tried to, tried to destroy the evidence, didn't he?

00:19:12.540 Correct.

00:19:14.120 Wow.

00:19:15.060 That just stinks to high heaven, Mike.

00:19:18.380 Yeah, I mean, that's obstruction of justice.

00:19:20.240 And you have to ask, why wasn't this ghostwriter charged with obstruction of justice?

00:19:26.080 And why wasn't Biden charged with willfully disclosing classified information with his ghostwriter?

00:19:33.180 That doesn't go to his mental state on, on, he doesn't remember how he got these documents into his house and into his office.

00:19:40.360 Six different stashes of stolen classified records.

00:19:43.720 And remember, this is part of a pattern of obstruction that we have with Biden here.

00:19:48.560 Remember when the Biden Justice Department was pursuing Trump for presidential records in the office of former president, which is allowed by the Presidential Records Act, which is, you know, passed by Congress.

00:20:00.240 The office of former president is funded by Congress.

00:20:02.560 They have Secret Service Protection.

00:20:04.300 During this time, the Biden, President Biden's personal lawyer was having secret discussions for several months with the Biden Justice Department, where the personal lawyers were doing searches of the Biden's homes and offices.

00:20:17.840 And they turned over four stashes of classified records and they represented to the FBI that they turned over everything.

00:20:25.100 And then this secret arrangement got discovered by the public.

00:20:29.060 It got reported.

00:20:30.060 Garland appointed her as special counsel, her sent in the FBI, and they found a fifth set of stolen classified records.

00:20:36.940 How did they explain not turning over that fifth set of stolen classified records?

00:20:42.160 What steps did Biden's personal attorneys take to find these records?

00:20:47.400 How did they miss this fifth set?

00:20:50.160 Mm-hmm.

00:20:51.160 I just keep thinking about the fact that here you have Biden reading aloud from documents he knows or classified that he shouldn't have to his ghostwriter.

00:20:59.180 And the ghostwriter doesn't get charged and Biden doesn't get charged.

00:21:03.020 But we've talked many times about Trump allegedly waving around that Millie attack plan on Iran to Mark Meadows in connection with his book, to his, you know, to people in connection with Mark Meadows' book.

00:21:16.400 And that winds up in the Jack Smith indictment.

00:21:20.000 But so he gets charged for that.

00:21:22.420 And Trump didn't actually even show that document to anybody.

00:21:25.140 He just waved it around, according to Jack Smith.

00:21:27.000 So you can, you know, look, I understand, and I take your point, Dave, Trump went further than Joe Biden did in trying to stop those documents from getting turned over.

00:21:36.060 That seems very clear.

00:21:38.020 I realize he's got legal defenses to it, but just on the facts.

00:21:40.900 But there's no question that Biden also withheld classified documents, read aloud from them, knew he shouldn't have had them, and the people around him didn't get charged, and he didn't get charged.

00:21:49.560 So the American people are seeing what feels like a double standard.

00:21:52.960 Well, Megan, when it comes to the document that Trump waved around, that may not have been the actual document.

00:21:59.140 And it doesn't matter.

00:22:00.300 It could have been, you know, baseball scores.

00:22:02.840 The key to that piece of evidence you mentioned is that Trump said, I shouldn't be showing you this.

00:22:08.040 I can't show you this because I didn't declassify it.

00:22:10.180 So that shows you obstruction.

00:22:12.980 That shows you the state of mind that he knew that the stuff he had could not be shown to people.

00:22:17.860 He knew he was not allowed to possess it, and he still refused to give it back.

00:22:22.300 So that's the real problem.

00:22:23.180 Which is interesting because Trump claims the opposite.

00:22:25.460 Yes, because Trump is claiming the opposite, that he had declassified everything.

00:22:28.300 I got it.

00:22:29.100 So on that front.

00:22:30.440 In his mind.

00:22:30.800 In his mind.

00:22:31.180 I got it.

00:22:31.520 On that front, you raise the issue of another, a Trump employee at Mar-a-Lago has come forward, previously known as Employee 5 in the, I guess, in the indictment and the classified documents case.

00:22:45.860 In your case, I mean, you're not involved in it, but it's your jurisdiction, Mar-a-Lago and Palm Beach.

00:22:50.160 Anyway, his name is Brian Butler.

00:22:52.260 He's 41 years old.

00:22:53.160 He sat down with CNN.

00:22:54.060 He was employed at Mar-a-Lago for 20 years, and he is trying to sort of fill in the story on how after Trump was under subpoena and had to turn over these documents and the fight had erupted on, you know, like the DOJ had said, give them to us.

00:23:10.820 And he had said, okay, I will, I will, that instead of giving them to the feds, Trump offloaded them from Mar-a-Lago up to New Jersey and his golf course and home up there, and that he used, now indicted, Mar-a-Lago and Trump employee, Walt Nachua, to do it, to move the boxes, get them on the plane so that they would not be reviewed by justice or known that he had them.

00:23:36.720 And this guy, Brian Butler, was employed at Mar-a-Lago for 20 years.

00:23:39.740 It sounds like he was a, I don't know, I mean, they said in the interview he was the guy responsible for loading bags on the plane, loading bags in the cars.

00:23:48.200 You know, so it doesn't sound like he was necessarily at the top of the power ring, but the reason he's relevant is he says that on this particular day that Walt Nachua came to him and said, can I get the keys to an Escalade?

00:24:00.660 I need to do some box loading myself.

00:24:03.660 And this guy was like, that's weird because that's my job.

00:24:08.200 Why is he doing it?

00:24:09.140 And that he thought the whole thing was fishy, and he believes, though I haven't seen him prove or explain how he knows, that those boxes had classified information in them.

00:24:20.340 That's kind of where I see the weakness in his story.

00:24:22.780 But he sat down with CNN last night.

00:24:24.400 Do we have a clip of that?

00:24:25.660 I'm looking at, here it is, Saad 8.

00:24:26.660 I ended up loading all the luggage I had, and he had a bunch of boxes.

00:24:33.780 You noticed that he had boxes?

00:24:35.100 Oh, yeah, they were the boxes that were in the indictment.

00:24:38.260 And did you have any idea at the time that there was potentially U.S. national security secrets in those boxes?

00:24:44.400 No clue.

00:24:45.660 I had no clue.

00:24:46.720 I mean, we were just taking them out of the Escalade, piling them up.

00:24:49.700 I remember they were all stacked on top of each other.

00:24:52.260 How secure would you say Mar-a-Lago is?

00:24:55.240 Well, I mean, there's been some very public instances of people sneaking on property.

00:25:01.380 Look, I think it's secure, but there were definitely a lot of gaps.

00:25:07.360 Do you view Trump as a national security risk?

00:25:11.960 I personally would just say I just don't believe that he should be a presidential candidate at this time.

00:25:19.780 I think it's time to move on.

00:25:22.700 Mike, what do you—

00:25:23.400 Okay.

00:25:24.140 So I got to say, you know, having watched the whole interview with him, he seems like a nice guy, and he doesn't—he seems like he's really torn.

00:25:31.920 He's got a lot of friendships, and he feels bad about having to say this stuff.

00:25:35.640 But I don't—let me start with you on it, Dave.

00:25:38.160 Is there proof from this guy that he actually saw classified documents in those boxes?

00:25:42.880 No, he said he didn't know what was in the boxes.

00:25:45.560 It just is further proof of obstruction because this happened right at the time where the feds were coming down to take a look at the documents.

00:25:53.360 And here they are packing stuff up and sending them out like bank robbers trying to hide from the approaching cops.

00:25:59.940 You know, this is a bad look.

00:26:01.380 But no, he—there's no proof that those documents were the classified documents, but there's some circumstantial evidence.

00:26:07.860 Mike, what do you make of Butler and his testimonial about the boxes?

00:26:11.080 Well, I mean, the fact that he's running to CNN to report this instead of going to investigators and talking about this makes his testimony very suspicious.

00:26:22.600 Maybe he has a political motive.

00:26:23.860 Maybe he has a financial motive.

00:26:25.580 And the fact that he doesn't know what was in those boxes, he has no idea if classified materials were in those boxes or not.

00:26:32.820 Yeah.

00:26:33.340 I mean, that's the problem.

00:26:34.160 It is weird that he went to CNN.

00:26:35.440 I mean, he obviously did work with investigators because he's in the Jack Smith indictment.

00:26:38.700 Go ahead, Dave.

00:26:39.100 Megan, the problem that I have here is that the fact that he felt compelled to go to CNN because Judge Cannon was perhaps going to leak his information.

00:26:49.760 That was something that we have not discussed, where Judge Cannon has been very close to leaking out all this information about witnesses.

00:26:57.460 That puts him at risk.

00:26:58.720 So he's saying, I'm going to get in front of it.

00:27:00.160 Wait, I didn't know about that.

00:27:01.380 Yeah.

00:27:02.220 Judge Cannon, the federal district judge is leaking information on the witnesses?

00:27:06.720 Well, I shouldn't.

00:27:08.640 Yeah, I shouldn't have used the word leaking, but she was going to release the information about the witnesses.

00:27:11.740 And that was against Jack Smith's objection.

00:27:14.220 Jack Smith saying, please do not do this.

00:27:16.400 And Judge Cannon was about to do it.

00:27:18.060 And she is reconsidering.

00:27:19.700 But this guy is now saying, hey, I don't trust what's going on there in that court.

00:27:24.160 So let me get in front of this.

00:27:25.920 And that's why I'm doing the interview now.

00:27:28.960 Mike, what do you make of that?

00:27:29.920 Well, I mean, we have this pesky constitutional right to public trials in America.

00:27:36.480 So that, you know, that pesky constitutional right requires the public to know what the evidence is, including the witnesses.

00:27:43.060 And so, you know, we don't have secret proceedings.

00:27:45.900 We're not North Korea.

00:27:46.920 So, you know, I know that that doesn't fit the political motivations of the Biden Justice Department, including Jack Smith.

00:27:53.700 But, you know, you have to follow that pesky constitution.

00:27:55.920 It is annoying at times.

00:27:58.380 OK, two other subjects quickly.

00:28:00.640 January 6th, there's a newly released interview transcript with the driver who had Trump in the beast, the presidential limo on the day of J6.

00:28:13.740 And the reason this is interesting, it's not new testimony, it's old testimony.

00:28:16.580 But we're just getting our first look at it now because the GOP controls the House.

00:28:20.480 And now they're releasing some transcripts that had previously been withheld.

00:28:23.580 This particular transcript was withheld, not because it looks like it looks like it was at first.

00:28:29.480 I thought the Democrats just didn't want us to see it.

00:28:31.180 But the more I read it, it appears that the committee had entered into an agreement with the Secret Service regarding 12 interviews to avoid disclosing private information.

00:28:40.340 The Secret Service was concerned about certain things coming out.

00:28:42.620 So I don't know what the truth is, but it sounds like there may have been more to this not coming out earlier than just Dems trying to hide, though one never knows.

00:28:51.340 OK, so anyway, this is the driver who allegedly had the wheel grabbed, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, that Trump reached over.

00:29:00.920 He grabbed the wheel.

00:29:01.660 We're going to January 6th.

00:29:03.060 I'm not going back to the White House.

00:29:04.520 Take me to my people.

00:29:06.300 And Cassidy Hutchinson was lauded as just this heroine.

00:29:10.720 You remember people were saying, remember the name Cassidy Hutchinson.

00:29:15.260 She will be up there with, you know, who knows, Marie Curie as people who have changed the world.

00:29:21.120 Um, we knew this was bullshit.

00:29:24.220 It was obvious bullshit.

00:29:25.740 That piece of her testimony just just smelled of inauthenticity from the moment.

00:29:32.180 And this is the reaction on our show.

00:29:33.980 We pulled just a sampling when it happened.

00:29:36.340 Actually, let me just set it up.

00:29:37.300 Here's Cassidy Hutchinson in SOT 9.

00:29:40.780 The president said something to the effect of, I'm the effing president.

00:29:45.520 Take me up to the Capitol now.

00:29:46.860 To which Bobby responded, sir, we have to go back to the West Wing.

00:29:53.740 The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel.

00:30:00.620 Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel.

00:30:06.800 We're going back to the West Wing.

00:30:09.240 We're not going to the Capitol.

00:30:12.340 Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel.

00:30:16.120 And when Mr. Renato had recounted this story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles.

00:30:23.480 Okay.

00:30:24.580 So here, this is us reacting to this story in episode 347.

00:30:30.080 Does anyone really believe that Trump reached for the wheel of the beast and then tried to essentially strangle his security?

00:30:37.600 I mean, please.

00:30:39.460 Here again, Ms. Hutchinson was not a party to the actual exchange.

00:30:43.400 If you listen to her full testimonial, she goes on and says, well, the president said something to the effect of, I'm the effing president.

00:30:51.820 Take me up to the Capitol.

00:30:53.400 What does that mean?

00:30:54.400 He said it or he didn't.

00:30:55.340 What does that mean?

00:30:55.880 Something to the effect of.

00:30:57.140 Which words are you unsure of?

00:30:59.200 Effing?

00:30:59.840 Take me to the Capitol?

00:31:01.060 Why can't you remember?

00:31:01.900 She made it sound like that your family can cover it as Trump was reaching forward to get the wheel to take them to J6.

00:31:10.340 Something like out of Die Hard, shown here, which we also played at the time.

00:31:13.940 Oh, okay.

00:31:24.000 And by the way, not for nothing, but Trump was in the back of the car.

00:31:28.340 Trump wasn't in the passenger seat.

00:31:30.040 So query how any of that could have happened.

00:31:32.320 All right, so now we have testimonial from Robert Engel, the lead agent, saying, yeah, this didn't happen.

00:31:43.440 The president was insistent on going to the Capitol.

00:31:47.360 This is the driver, the driver testifying to this.

00:31:50.920 He was insistent on going to the Capitol.

00:31:52.280 So he did want to go to the driver, to the Capitol.

00:31:54.540 It was clear to me he wanted to go to the Capitol.

00:31:56.620 But he was not screaming at Mr. Engel, the lead agent.

00:32:00.520 He was not screaming at me.

00:32:03.800 Certainly his voice was raised, but it did not seem to me that he was irate.

00:32:07.940 Certainly not.

00:32:09.140 The driver said, Mr. Trump never lunged for the steering wheel or physically accosted the agents.

00:32:15.220 I did not see him reach, the Secret Service driver told investigators.

00:32:18.780 He never grabbed the steering wheel.

00:32:20.920 I did not see him lunge to try to get into the front seat at all.

00:32:24.900 What stood out to me was the irritation in his voice.

00:32:27.680 So, Mike, as it turns out, Cassidy Hutchinson may not be the truth-telling heroine of our time.

00:32:37.240 Yeah, I mean, I loved Cassidy Hutchinson's poached, dramatic voice with the authenticity of a stripper.

00:32:45.800 I mean, I think she is right up there.

00:32:47.640 They're authentic.

00:32:48.640 What are you trying to say about the strippers?

00:32:50.400 Exactly.

00:32:51.900 So she's right up there with Jean Carroll and Christine Blasey Ford and all these brave, lying women who are trying to get Trump.

00:33:01.560 All right.

00:33:02.140 Go ahead, Dave.

00:33:03.300 Sorry.

00:33:03.960 I had to add Katie Britt's name in that.

00:33:06.920 There is a problem with authenticity in what we saw here.

00:33:09.380 That's fair.

00:33:10.380 Yes.

00:33:10.720 By the way, I loved your clip on that, Megan.

00:33:12.520 That was so great.

00:33:13.260 I was passing it around.

00:33:16.000 So as far as Cassidy Hutchinson, keep in mind that she was retelling a story.

00:33:21.560 This was hearsay, would not be admitted into a court, but it is admitted into a January 6th hearing.

00:33:26.260 So whether or not she got the story right, she said it was told to her by someone else.

00:33:30.260 So I can see why she may have gotten it wrong if she did.

00:33:33.840 I don't blame her.

00:33:35.040 I don't think she's lying.

00:33:35.900 She's just retelling a story she heard.

00:33:38.680 Okay.

00:33:39.320 I think we can move on from Cassidy.

00:33:40.840 People get it.

00:33:41.420 Um, there was no diehard moment, although, you know, it's, it's interesting how badly

00:33:44.960 he wanted to go back to the Capitol, but we, we knew that.

00:33:47.420 Okay.

00:33:47.860 Last but not least, Judge McAfee gave an interview to a radio station.

00:33:52.880 It's so fascinating when judges do this, like last week, you know, a couple of days ago.

00:33:58.480 And, um, he was talking about, thanks babe.

00:34:03.320 Duggar's bringing me a glass of water.

00:34:04.840 Um, so he was talking about this case and whether he's going to possibly

00:34:11.240 change his decision now that he has a primary challenger, this is a heavily democratic district

00:34:17.960 when 73% for Joe Biden, um, you know, Fannie Willis was elected as DA in the same thing,

00:34:23.840 place where he's now going to have to run for reelection because he looked like he was

00:34:27.240 unopposed, but now he is opposed.

00:34:28.560 And so he sat down and gave an interview.

00:34:32.660 Um, and I'm trying to get the name of the, uh, the radio host that he gave it to.

00:34:37.200 I'll play it in a second, but take a listen to him.

00:34:39.820 Oh, Shelly winter saying, um, he is not, do not fear.

00:34:44.500 He will not be changing his opinion based on the new challenger.

00:34:48.780 Watch.

00:34:48.960 I've had a rough draft in an outline before I ever heard a rumor that someone wanted to

00:34:54.740 run for this position.

00:34:55.520 So the result is not going to change because of politics.

00:34:59.180 I'm calling it as best I can in the law as I, as I understand it.

00:35:04.780 Ooh.

00:35:05.560 So that's interesting, Mike, that he had a rough draft already and he's reassuring everybody

00:35:10.720 that the new challenger who's considerably to the left and he's more on the right, um,

00:35:16.440 is not going to make him change anything.

00:35:17.680 Do you believe it?

00:35:18.960 No, I don't.

00:35:20.320 I'm very concerned about the politics here.

00:35:23.080 Uh, I think that this is a young Kemp judge.

00:35:26.780 He is in a very Democrat, uh, uh, area in Fulton County.

00:35:33.460 And the fact that he said he was going to wait two weeks to make his decision about during

00:35:38.500 that two weeks was the filing deadline to figure out whether he was going to get a challenger

00:35:43.320 and sure as hell, he got a Democrat challenger.

00:35:46.160 So I do think the politics are at play.

00:35:48.820 And exhibit a of the politics being at play is he's on a radio show announcing, uh, that

00:35:55.080 is, uh, what, what his decision is going to be and how it's not going to change.

00:35:59.000 Hmm.

00:35:59.360 What can we glean?

00:36:00.740 This is from an article in the New York times, Dave reporting on this interview he gave and,

00:36:04.620 but we pulled the clips.

00:36:05.740 What can we glean from the following answer where he's talking about his children?

00:36:10.800 As Mike pointed out, points out, he's only 34 young man.

00:36:13.920 He's younger than all of us.

00:36:14.860 I mean, he's a babe, but he's doing a good job.

00:36:17.260 Um, so listen to what he says about his children.

00:36:20.240 You know, I've got two kids, five and three.

00:36:22.720 They're too young to have any idea of what's going on or what I do.

00:36:26.220 Uh, but what I'm looking forward to one day is maybe they will grow up a little bit and

00:36:30.040 they ask me about it.

00:36:31.420 And I'm looking forward to looking them in the eye and telling them I played it straight

00:36:35.080 and I did the best I could.

00:36:38.120 I like that.

00:36:39.020 But what do you, what do you take away from those two soundbites?

00:36:41.340 I like it too, Megan.

00:36:42.620 I read the article, saw the interview and look, I take him at his word.

00:36:46.980 And it is funny that I'm the one defending the Federalist Society judge, whereas Mike doesn't

00:36:51.820 have much faith in him.

00:36:53.260 I think it's true.

00:36:54.540 Yeah.

00:36:55.340 I, I like what he's done.

00:36:56.960 And I, and people on my side of the aisle have been critical of him saying he's allowed

00:37:00.260 this to become a circus, but I don't blame him for that.

00:37:03.000 Remember, it was Nathan Wade who submitted the sworn affidavit saying that the relationship

00:37:07.300 didn't begin until afterwards.

00:37:08.560 And I got repaid half.

00:37:11.160 And because they did that, that made the issue of lying important.

00:37:14.660 And that's why he had to do all these interviews and hearings.

00:37:18.360 And so I think he has done well.

00:37:21.120 He's got a lot of gravitas, even though he's only 34 years old, too young to be president

00:37:25.140 himself, mind you.

00:37:26.280 But that's the one benefit of a receding hairline.

00:37:28.660 He just looks a lot more serious.

00:37:32.220 It's true.

00:37:32.860 It does show his lack of vanity because you don't really have to have a receding hairline

00:37:35.860 like that at age 34 in modern day America.

00:37:38.680 34 years old, went to Emory, led the college Republicans, an accomplished cellist, went to

00:37:44.820 University of Georgia Law School, was in the Federalist Society, clerked or interned for

00:37:49.660 two conservative judges on the Georgia Supreme Court.

00:37:53.240 But also there's this line item, you know, he gave 150 bucks to Fannie.

00:37:57.520 We talked about that.

00:37:58.640 So did Dave.

00:37:59.300 Like, I don't it wasn't that big a deal.

00:38:00.960 But he worked for Fannie Willis.

00:38:02.660 Mike, he worked for her because he eventually spent some time in the D.A.'s office and Fannie

00:38:06.860 was above him on the totem pole, not in her current stint as the D.A., but when she was

00:38:11.600 more senior to him as an up and coming D.A.

00:38:13.760 So it's interesting when she was on the stand, she said something like and he worked with

00:38:17.900 Abadi, the terrible lawyer, sorry, Abadi, who did that hearing the other day.

00:38:23.040 And she said something like, you know, when when you two work for me, Abadi and you judge

00:38:28.700 McAfee in the day's office.

00:38:30.600 And I don't know how that power structure may or may not play in his deference toward

00:38:35.540 her, his, you know, coming up under her.

00:38:37.260 Yeah, I mean, he couldn't even look at her when he was trying to get tell her to cooler

00:38:43.120 jets and to be an adult and be a lawyer and respect the court and respect the process.

00:38:50.100 Also, this judge was an appointee under Governor Kemp.

00:38:53.300 He was the Georgia inspector general for a couple of years before Governor Kemp appointed

00:38:58.080 him as a judge.

00:38:59.900 And as everyone knows, Kemp and his people are not exactly fans of President Trump.

00:39:04.880 No, no, they're Republicans, but they are not MAGA Republicans.

00:39:09.760 And, you know, Trump's gone after Kemp pretty hard over these past few years.

00:39:14.100 Guys, such an interesting discussion.

00:39:15.480 We continue to await the decision.

00:39:17.100 McAfee said we'd have it within two weeks.

00:39:18.880 That would be sometime within the next four days.

00:39:22.000 So for sure, we'll be talking to Mike and Dave when and if we get it.

00:39:25.600 Thanks, guys.

00:39:26.880 Thank you.

00:39:27.480 Thank you, Megan.

00:39:28.860 OK, and more legal cases coming up.

00:39:30.780 Got an update in the Alec Baldwin case.

00:39:32.680 There was a guilty finding.

00:39:34.800 Alec Baldwin is next and much, much more.

00:39:37.360 Stand by.

00:39:41.220 Now we turn to Kelly's court.

00:39:42.900 We've got some hot updates on the Rust trial, the one that just concluded and the one that's

00:39:47.580 coming up for Alec Baldwin.

00:39:48.980 The Michelle Traconis case out of Connecticut.

00:39:50.880 You remember this, where Fotis Doulis killed his wife, Jennifer, and then killed himself,

00:39:56.440 but his lover was left to stand trial and more.

00:40:00.340 Joining me now, some of our favorites.

00:40:02.100 It's founding attorney of Johnis Bilboer Law, Johnis Bilboer, and criminal defense attorney

00:40:06.620 David Wohl, also OGs of Kelly's court.

00:40:10.920 Guys, welcome back to the show.

00:40:12.280 Great to see you.

00:40:13.620 All right.

00:40:13.880 So let's kick it off with Rust.

00:40:15.420 The armorer, the young woman, only in her young 20s, who was responsible for firearms and ammo

00:40:22.880 on set, was charged with involuntary manslaughter in addition to Alec Baldwin being charged.

00:40:29.300 He comes next.

00:40:31.040 And you'll tell me whether this is bad or good for Alec Baldwin, but it's some sort of a sign.

00:40:36.980 She was just found guilty.

00:40:38.980 Here's the jury rendering its verdict in SOT 13.

00:40:41.960 We find the defendant, Hannah Gutierrez, guilty of involuntary manslaughter as charged in count one.

00:40:48.140 We find the defendant, Hannah Gutierrez, not guilty of tampering with evidence as charged in count two.

00:40:53.380 All right.

00:40:53.720 Thank you, baby.

00:40:54.440 She didn't...

00:40:54.860 I'm not going to lie.

00:40:55.680 I feel bad for this young woman.

00:40:57.720 She's so young.

00:40:59.320 She seems to have been thrown onto a set where she had very little supervision.

00:41:03.480 I don't think she was ready for prime time.

00:41:04.900 That's pretty clear.

00:41:06.360 And I don't...

00:41:08.080 I think she did screw up.

00:41:09.100 I don't know.

00:41:09.760 I mean, I don't know, you guys.

00:41:11.380 Do...

00:41:11.820 What do you think?

00:41:13.260 Is it...

00:41:14.300 Well, I'll play one other thing.

00:41:15.280 I'll play one other thing before I get your way in.

00:41:16.720 Here's the prosecution making the case that, you know, even though she's young and maybe earnest,

00:41:22.240 a woman died.

00:41:23.460 Watch.

00:41:23.640 And folks, if she's not checking the dummy ammunition during the pendency of the filming

00:41:31.460 to make sure that those rounds that are designed to look like live rounds are, in fact, dummy

00:41:38.800 rounds, this was a game of Russian roulette every time an actor had a gun with dummies.

00:41:45.820 Sadly, for Ms. Hutchins, her camera crew walked off set that morning, and that required her to go into the church

00:41:59.960 and operate the camera herself.

00:42:03.700 And that's what she was doing when the live round that Ms. Gutierrez put in Mr. Baldwin's gun

00:42:13.280 was expelled from that firearm and went all the way through her body.

00:42:23.660 I'm not the most compelling lawyer I've ever seen in my life, but she got it done, Jonna.

00:42:27.240 Was it the right result?

00:42:29.540 You know, David and I were just talking a little bit off air.

00:42:32.240 I'm bothered by the guilty verdict in this case, not because I don't think this was a tragedy.

00:42:38.820 It absolutely was.

00:42:40.840 But I felt from the start, this case really, as far as this defendant, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed,

00:42:47.920 really blurs the line between civil and criminal liability.

00:42:53.920 And I get, look, you know, I listened to basically the entire trial.

00:42:57.460 I get that it was chaotic on the set.

00:42:59.820 And I get another thing that actually should have helped her.

00:43:03.040 It was chaotic in the place where these dummy bullets came from.

00:43:07.700 The supplier of these bullets looked like a tornado went through his warehouse.

00:43:12.800 Then we wonder how somehow live rounds got on set when you can't, it was a mess.

00:43:21.300 And she claims that she checked them, and they look a lot alike, and she didn't check them good enough.

00:43:26.740 And one thing led to another, and this is a horribly perfect storm that resulted in death.

00:43:32.400 But is it criminal negligence, Megan, or is it just plain old negligence, given the totality?

00:43:38.300 This was a movie set.

00:43:39.280 This is what they were doing.

00:43:40.600 That's what bothers me.

00:43:41.940 And I, like you, I do feel a little sorry for her.

00:43:44.720 She was 24 at the time.

00:43:45.880 She's 26 or 27 now.

00:43:47.960 Her career is over.

00:43:50.020 You know, it just, it's a horrible mess.

00:43:51.940 I don't know if I agree with this verdict, though.

00:43:54.160 On the other hand, David, it's not like, you know, you or I being negligent in our jobs.

00:44:01.320 It's not like, you know, you or me being negligent, like me sitting here, I press the wrong button, and we broadcast out to, on the wrong SiriusXM channel.

00:44:10.320 She was negligent with bullets, you know, in a live round, got into a gun, and a woman died.

00:44:17.100 This is, you know, so, because I was asking myself, is it only involuntary manslaughter and a crime because somebody died?

00:44:24.080 And I do think, no, you do have to start back earlier than that.

00:44:27.020 She was handling, she had a higher responsibility than the three of us do when we go to work each day, not to undermine, especially what you guys do.

00:44:33.820 But I'm just saying, life or death really is on the line when you're dealing with bullets every day that are going to go into a gun.

00:44:39.920 Right, Megan.

00:44:40.700 And you know that everyone who handles the gun that you load is going to reasonably rely on the fact that these are dummy rounds or blanks, not real live ammunition.

00:44:52.460 You know that. They're not going to open the cylinder and check individually each round like you should be doing.

00:45:00.060 Megan, very simple. I don't know if you can see this very well. That's a live round.

00:45:03.560 It's very distinguishable from a dummy round which has the casing crimped where the bullet would otherwise be.

00:45:11.500 Easy to see. She's loading these rounds one by one, looking at them.

00:45:16.840 I'm sure she didn't use a speed loader because that would be exceptionally negligent.

00:45:20.780 That's just when you take them all in one and you basically turn it upside down and load them all together.

00:45:25.220 She did it individually. And that's what made it so negligent and rose to the level of criminality because you can't do that.

00:45:35.340 You can't fail to check each round when you know everybody out there is going to rely on it.

00:45:39.280 Alec Baldwin's a knucklehead. He just grabbed the gun and you probably figured, you know what,

00:45:43.180 I'm just going to pretend that I'm shooting at things and have a good time here.

00:45:47.560 And he fired a live round at somebody who I'm sure he aimed at thinking it would have no effect on her because it was a dummy round or a blank round.

00:45:57.440 So she ultimately was the one everybody relied on.

00:46:02.180 She ultimately was the one who I think harbors the most criminal negligence.

00:46:09.140 And I think although, you know, she was convicted, she'll probably end up doing 90 days in jail, get probation and probably have a record expunged in a year.

00:46:17.900 So, you know,

00:46:18.520 That's very interesting because she could face up to 18 months in prison.

00:46:21.360 I mean, 90 days and suspended would be an amazing result here.

00:46:25.400 Here's what's most interesting.

00:46:26.560 So her defense, John, it was basically the whole set was a mess.

00:46:29.960 You know, I don't trust the guy who gave me the bullets and it wasn't my fault.

00:46:34.940 I kept getting distracted.

00:46:36.720 You know, the people above me didn't maintain order.

00:46:39.260 They put too much responsibility on me to handle things I shouldn't have been handling.

00:46:43.100 So you can't put this on me.

00:46:44.900 And then there were other people, I mean, forgive me, but in the line of fire there, there were like the one guy took the stand and testified.

00:46:53.300 He was the one normally the armorer is the one who's supposed to hand the actor, the gun, he or she's supposed to be responsible for the gun from start to finish, unless it's in an actor's hands.

00:47:01.560 And she wasn't here.

00:47:03.140 Um, this first assistant director, David Halls was, was the last one to handle it and hand it to Alec Baldwin.

00:47:11.920 Um, I'm actually, I don't know if I have time.

00:47:15.620 I want to play his soundbite.

00:47:16.700 I'm going to play it real quickly.

00:47:17.580 And then I'm going to get your reaction to it on the opposite side of the break.

00:47:20.220 Standby.

00:47:20.640 Here's David Halls in stat 17.

00:47:23.020 I don't recall her fully rotating the cylinder.

00:47:29.760 Okay.

00:47:31.060 Um, you don't recall her fully rotating it.

00:47:35.740 I do that.

00:47:36.420 Okay.

00:47:37.940 And even though the cylinder wasn't fully rotated, um, did you let that safety check sort of pass?

00:47:48.060 I did.

00:47:48.820 I was negligent in checking the gun properly.

00:47:52.700 Honestly, I, the idea that it was a live round of ammunition that went off was just, it, it, it wasn't computing.

00:48:01.660 Did you speak to Ms. Hutchins when you approached her?

00:48:04.920 I did.

00:48:06.360 What did you say?

00:48:08.200 Are you all right?

00:48:10.020 Did she respond?

00:48:13.560 Yes.

00:48:14.460 She said, I can't feel my legs.

00:48:18.180 Hmm.

00:48:19.100 All right.

00:48:19.620 We've got 40 seconds to break, Jonna, but quick thoughts on what that portends for Alec Baldwin.

00:48:24.600 Yeah, this is interesting because the entire defense was, you know, the saying crap rolls

00:48:30.420 downhill.

00:48:31.180 Her defense is the crap rolled uphill to production and production is Alec Baldwin.

00:48:36.720 And there was a lot of evidence that really had nothing to do with this case.

00:48:40.240 That is not going to be good for Alec Baldwin when his time comes.

00:48:46.160 I think he should be nervous.

00:48:48.240 This verdict should make Alec Baldwin nervous.

00:48:50.720 All right.

00:48:50.880 And I want to hear, as somebody who watched it, I want to hear what that evidence is because

00:48:54.420 I don't think that guy's testimony, David Hall's, it can cut both ways.

00:48:58.360 And we'll talk about how, and there's another, so there's more to get to right after this,

00:49:01.860 John and David, stay with us.

00:49:06.540 So we were talking about whether that testimony is helpful or harmful to Alec Baldwin.

00:49:13.820 And what's interesting, because he's up next, what's interesting about the armorer's case

00:49:18.280 is Alec Baldwin's attorney sat there in like one of the front rows of the, you know, seating

00:49:24.160 area the entire time, was paying very close attention.

00:49:27.880 And the reports are that the prosecution seemed at times, and you just mentioned this, Jonna,

00:49:34.500 to be going very much after Alec Baldwin.

00:49:37.480 Instead of the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, Variety reporting as follows, the prosecutor

00:49:44.020 spent considerable court time rebutting Baldwin's claim that he did not pull the trigger, demonstrating

00:49:50.060 that his gun must have been in working order when it fired, even though Gutierrez-Reed's

00:49:54.340 defense did not dispute that.

00:49:57.100 So was that your impression?

00:49:58.420 And how do you think that soundbite that we just played of the first assistant director

00:50:04.020 plays into this?

00:50:04.960 Because, I mean, what he was saying was, look, the idea that this was a live round, it just

00:50:10.580 wasn't computing.

00:50:11.520 It was like nobody on the set.

00:50:13.200 And I'm sure the evidence will be least of all Alec Baldwin even considered that this gun

00:50:18.840 had a live round in it.

00:50:20.780 Right.

00:50:21.040 Yeah, I agree with that.

00:50:22.500 And you would have thought from time to time that you were watching a trial where both Alec

00:50:28.640 Baldwin and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed were codependents, but we weren't.

00:50:31.880 But at least Alec Baldwin's camp really now knows.

00:50:36.020 I mean, they've showed their cards.

00:50:37.260 The prosecution has showed their cards.

00:50:38.720 It's going to be the same prosecution team prosecuting him in July, if the case happens

00:50:43.160 in July, that prosecuted Hannah Gutierrez-Reed.

00:50:46.840 And one of the critical components, I think, for Alec Baldwin, if we take a look at his cards

00:50:53.160 that he's shown, is he's going to get, or whether he testifies or not, I'm not sure,

00:50:58.260 but his position is he did not pull the trigger.

00:51:01.760 So when a jury is going to be tasked with deciding whether he used, quote unquote, due

00:51:07.100 caution, which is the very nebulous language in the New Mexico involuntary manslaughter

00:51:13.280 statute, I think they might hang their hats on whether or not he pulled the trigger, which

00:51:18.780 is going to require expert testimony to determine whether or not that gun was even capable of

00:51:24.380 going off without pulling the trigger.

00:51:26.940 And in my opinion, I think that's what Alec Baldwin is going to hang the crux of his defense

00:51:32.380 on.

00:51:32.940 Will it be effective?

00:51:34.220 No.

00:51:35.380 There was evidence on Alec Baldwin's, quote, due caution in this trial.

00:51:40.040 Hannah Gutierrez reads, David, as follows, continuing to hear from Variety.

00:51:43.720 In the biggest revelation of the trial, the prosecutors played outtakes in which Baldwin

00:51:49.180 could be seen rushing the crew to, quote, reload, using his pistol as a pointer, firing

00:51:56.820 blanks at the camera while in close proximity to it and firing a blank punctuated by an expletive

00:52:03.440 after cut had been yelled.

00:52:06.140 That is a problem.

00:52:08.100 If the standard for, you know, involuntary, you know, manslaughter is is due caution and

00:52:17.060 you've got him using that gun like it's a plastic orange child's toy, it's not helpful

00:52:25.200 to him at all.

00:52:27.160 No, Megan.

00:52:28.180 And it was foolish for him to begin his defense, albeit before the case got to court, saying

00:52:34.200 that he never pulled the trigger.

00:52:36.200 The gun is not going to go off without pulling the trigger.

00:52:38.880 And I'll tell you one thing.

00:52:40.660 Even if a gun is loaded with blanks or dummy rounds, pulling the trigger can cause damage,

00:52:47.300 severe damage if it's done recklessly.

00:52:49.640 But they know that the gun has to be it has to be functioning so that when he pulls the

00:52:55.060 trigger, the round will go off.

00:52:56.640 So that was all checked into a pistol revolver.

00:53:00.280 No matter what it is, it doesn't go off without that.

00:53:02.420 He should have very simply started from the very beginning.

00:53:05.780 I reasonably relied on the professionals who handled the gun before me, who cleared the

00:53:10.620 gun, who made sure the gun was only loaded with dummy rounds, blank rounds.

00:53:15.280 And when I pulled the trigger, I assumed that they were all blank rounds and I was far enough

00:53:20.720 away from Miss Gutierrez that it would never have possibly caused her any harm.

00:53:26.420 That should have been the defense.

00:53:27.700 That would have been believable.

00:53:28.780 Unlike I never pulled the trigger defense because the jury simply is not going to believe

00:53:33.480 that the reason he has to say he never pulled the trigger is because the standard of industry

00:53:37.000 care appears to be everybody who touches the gun, checks the gun.

00:53:39.980 And like, you know, we talked about this earlier.

00:53:42.020 There have been some A-list stars who came out and said, you always check the gun.

00:53:45.300 It doesn't matter how many people have checked the gun before it gets handed to you.

00:53:48.560 Now, look, could Alec Baldwin have detected a dummy round from a live round if the armorer

00:53:55.840 failed to do so?

00:53:57.580 There's questions about that.

00:53:58.840 That's the prosecution's burden in this case.

00:54:01.060 But everybody at this case is going to going to testify, as they did in Hannah Gutierrez

00:54:04.960 reads that they just everybody after Hannah, that they just never even considered that

00:54:11.360 a live round could be in there.

00:54:12.340 That that soundbite we played from David Halls, he said, I just I didn't even fully check it.

00:54:16.940 I didn't even consider like I didn't believe there could be a live round.

00:54:20.400 But now you have a guilty verdict from a jury saying Hannah Gutierrez read is to blame for

00:54:25.540 not discerning that there was a live round.

00:54:28.000 You got David Hall saying I was negligent.

00:54:30.840 I did not fully check it.

00:54:33.740 So I would say that's all helpful, John, for Alec Baldwin, because he's going to get up

00:54:37.560 there and say, you just this is these other two people.

00:54:40.600 That's their responsibility and not mine.

00:54:44.880 Yeah, I agree that those two things could be very helpful to him unless the prosecution

00:54:49.400 is going to also because they know they're going to also say Alec Baldwin put his finger

00:54:55.340 on the trigger and pointed it at at the Helena Hutchins and and pulled the trigger.

00:55:00.760 And that in and of itself is so grossly negligent that he he too should be guilty of involuntary

00:55:07.080 manslaughter.

00:55:07.700 And we know that he's going to say, no, I didn't.

00:55:10.140 And Carrie Morrissey, who incidentally did not like her style at all.

00:55:14.820 She spent the entire trial looking like she had a rock in her shoe, like her face was

00:55:19.020 always right.

00:55:19.980 Did not like that one bit, but it didn't matter because the jury bought her story.

00:55:24.500 So, you know, she's going to say the prosecutor.

00:55:26.860 All else fails that he pulled a pointed it and pulled the trigger.

00:55:29.780 And that was grossly negligent.

00:55:31.020 You know, I mean, the problem with I hate to be I hate to be sexist, but I could have used

00:55:34.420 just a little mascara on her just like a little just a little lip gloss.

00:55:38.380 I don't know.

00:55:38.880 You're going to be on the national like just sorry.

00:55:40.720 Just a hint going forward in the ballroom trial.

00:55:43.420 Go ahead, David.

00:55:44.820 No, Megan, I think when they insist that people check the cylinder for rounds, they

00:55:49.700 check they want them to check to make sure there are dummy rounds in there so that when

00:55:53.440 they fire the weapon, it actually goes off.

00:55:55.300 But to ask someone like Baldwin to check for live rounds when there's no conceivable possibility

00:56:01.520 in his mind or anybody else in that set that there would be live rounds, I think is a little

00:56:06.260 much.

00:56:06.760 I think he can rely on that and say, look, I didn't check because it's never happened before

00:56:12.080 other than the Brandon Lee matter in 1993, but I didn't expect it to happen.

00:56:17.100 I was reasonably prudent in my approach to the gun and therefore I'm not guilty.

00:56:21.740 The evidence on the other side is going to be you ran a crappy set as a producer.

00:56:28.120 It was sloppy.

00:56:29.000 You weren't careful about safety.

00:56:31.020 There's going to be a bunch of testimony that it wasn't a safe set.

00:56:33.720 And everything that the armorer did is kind of on you as the executive producer.

00:56:38.680 You didn't go for the training and take it seriously enough.

00:56:42.880 That's Hannah Gutierrez-Reed has said that, that he was distracted.

00:56:45.640 He was on his phone.

00:56:46.180 He wasn't paying attention as she was trying to train him.

00:56:48.760 And then you were playing with that gun on set the whole time.

00:56:51.460 Like it was a toy.

00:56:52.460 Like you were a kid at like one of those old Western saloon games where you, you know, shoot

00:56:57.340 the plastic little pop-up animals.

00:56:59.300 And this wasn't a game.

00:57:01.980 And, you know, there, there's some, I think that's somewhat compelling, right?

00:57:05.660 Because a woman did die and he does look like a kid with respect to these decisions.

00:57:09.800 However, um, there's going to be testimonial, uh, even from the other guy who was shot.

00:57:16.320 So Helena Hutchins was shot and died.

00:57:18.900 And then there was another man who was shot by the same bullet, the director, Joel Sousa.

00:57:25.160 And, uh, I do wonder how this will play.

00:57:27.480 I'm sure he'll give the same testimonial when he, uh, what invariably appears at Alec Baldwin's

00:57:32.580 case.

00:57:32.920 It's thought 18.

00:57:33.800 There was an incredibly loud bang that was not like the half and quarter loads you hear

00:57:42.480 on a set.

00:57:43.420 Those are sort of, they're loud poofs and pops.

00:57:47.720 This was deafening.

00:57:49.280 I remember initially thinking, had she been startled by it?

00:57:53.780 And they were sitting her down as a result.

00:57:56.420 And then I, I saw the blood on her back.

00:58:00.560 They kept saying, they kept talking about this bullet and I, it just, it could not compute

00:58:06.860 for me.

00:58:07.360 I just kept saying, you don't understand.

00:58:09.520 No, no, no.

00:58:10.160 This was a movie set.

00:58:11.120 You don't, that's not possible.

00:58:12.260 You don't get it.

00:58:13.140 And they kept saying, no, no, no, it is.

00:58:15.160 And I just keep insisting, you don't understand because this is not possible.

00:58:19.260 It's just not possible.

00:58:20.780 There's a live round.

00:58:21.560 It's not, it just can't.

00:58:23.320 And then they eventually maybe grew tired of my protesting about it because they showed

00:58:29.220 me the x-ray of my back and there was a very large bullet in it.

00:58:34.660 Oh my God.

00:58:35.480 So awful.

00:58:36.780 David, that's the thing is that it's going to be, it was in the head of no one.

00:58:41.620 It should have been in Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's head that, you know, I deal with bullets.

00:58:46.600 I'm the last line of defense, really.

00:58:48.180 I mean, yes, technically there was another person who touched the gun before Alec, but

00:58:52.080 like, you're going to have this guy, the guy who had a bullet in him say, I, it was

00:58:57.820 so unfathomable.

00:58:59.740 I didn't even believe it when I had been shot.

00:59:02.940 And Alec Baldwin's lawyer is going to look at the jury and say, and yet he should have

00:59:08.220 foreseen it.

00:59:10.020 You know, he should have known, don't trust the armorer.

00:59:13.280 Don't trust the first assistant director who gave it to you.

00:59:15.480 See something that even the guy who got shot didn't believe could have possibly happened.

00:59:20.280 I mean, it's a compelling case for him.

00:59:22.720 It is.

00:59:23.560 And Megan, you know, this is a big difference between, I go to the range a lot.

00:59:27.440 And if I load my, one of my, um, firearms, my revolver up and, um, fire it, I'm responsible

00:59:34.440 for everything that happens after that.

00:59:36.260 I can't just say, Ooh, I thought it was unloaded when I fired that round that hit somebody there.

00:59:41.520 It's presumptive that you have live rounds in your gun there.

00:59:45.260 If you fire a weapon and you hit somebody, you're guilty of at a minimum involuntary

00:59:50.080 manslaughter and maybe second degree murder on the set of a movie fantasy land.

00:59:55.180 It's sanitized.

00:59:56.600 No one expects this to happen.

00:59:58.420 And if no one expects it to happen, there can't be a criminal conviction.

01:00:02.780 There can be civil liability, but I just can't believe that it'd be a criminal conviction.

01:00:06.740 I do believe that Ms. Gutierrez conviction will be overturned on appeal because it just,

01:00:13.260 it just not something that anyone would reasonably expect to happen.

01:00:18.600 The whole thing is so disturbing.

01:00:20.100 My God, the day that happened, I can remember everybody was just stunned.

01:00:23.500 It was, it just seemed absolutely impossible, but we'll see.

01:00:26.180 He goes, uh, supposedly his trial starts in July.

01:00:28.600 So there's going to be a lot of legal things happening this summer from this case to the Trump

01:00:32.500 cases.

01:00:32.860 All right, let's move on because I've been fascinated, fascinated by this whole Jennifer

01:00:37.820 Doulos, Fotos Doulos, Michelle Draconis case.

01:00:41.080 Just quick line of background for those who haven't been following.

01:00:43.460 Jennifer Doulos was this absolutely beautiful, um, mom.

01:00:46.700 She went to Brown.

01:00:47.500 She grew up in, um, New York city from a family of privilege, but a very down home kind of gal

01:00:52.840 from what her friends say, uh, encourage you to watch the dateline that came out on this

01:00:56.480 two weeks ago.

01:00:57.040 It was very interesting.

01:00:57.720 Her friend described her as an intellectual Cindy Crawford looking kind of person.

01:01:02.020 Um, she was a writer.

01:01:04.540 She was a mom.

01:01:05.220 She met Fotos Doulos in at Brown.

01:01:07.240 Then they lost touch.

01:01:08.980 And then they reconnected out at some skiing, um, vacation years later, got married, had five

01:01:14.260 kids and he was a builder slash realtor type, you know, he sold houses and built houses.

01:01:20.500 And, um, supposedly they were very wealthy and that had this amazingly huge mansion in

01:01:26.460 Farmington, Connecticut.

01:01:28.180 And then things went south in the marriage.

01:01:31.460 And then one day she dropped her five kids off to school or daycare and was never seen

01:01:36.200 again.

01:01:37.500 So they started to zero in on the husband from whom she was getting a divorce.

01:01:41.260 He had moved out.

01:01:42.440 She had moved out.

01:01:43.480 She had moved to a house in New Canaan, Connecticut.

01:01:46.700 They were divorcing.

01:01:47.800 He had a girlfriend named Michelle Traconis, whose trial we're about to discuss.

01:01:53.540 And so he's, the marriage is ending.

01:01:56.880 She's got the five kids.

01:01:58.680 Michelle Traconis and her 12 year old daughter move in with Fotos Doulos into the Farmington

01:02:02.880 house that he once shared with, with Jennifer and their kids.

01:02:05.540 And wasn't too keen on the soon to be ex or the fact that these five children kept visiting

01:02:14.180 and per the court order, Michelle had to leave every time they came.

01:02:18.340 Oh, it's so annoying to be the affair partner turned new perspective wife.

01:02:23.080 That's what I have to say to her.

01:02:24.900 Um, so she was annoyed.

01:02:26.560 She was irritated.

01:02:27.520 She had to go every time.

01:02:29.100 And that's on camera, um, her complaining about it.

01:02:32.100 In any event, the cops did a very good job of, while they've never found Jennifer's body

01:02:36.940 proving she's dead.

01:02:39.700 And that Fotos did it.

01:02:41.740 That's never officially been proven in a court of law exactly because he killed himself while

01:02:47.820 under investigation.

01:02:48.600 And despite sitting with Dateline and denying to Dennis Murphy on camera, that he had anything

01:02:53.380 to do with his wife's death.

01:02:54.480 Very sweet.

01:02:55.320 Good looking guy.

01:02:56.020 Never.

01:02:56.300 Oh, we never even fought.

01:02:58.260 Uh, he wound up taking his own life.

01:02:59.780 And the main evidence against Michelle to bring her into this was that the two of them were

01:03:08.360 spotted in Hartford, Connecticut, the night of the alleged murder, disposing of all these

01:03:14.660 garbage bags in random dumpsters up and down the road.

01:03:19.700 And the cops in a great piece of police work went back as they had sort of seen where his

01:03:25.320 phone had gone.

01:03:26.000 They realized he went to Hartford.

01:03:27.280 He had turned it off during the morning or during that morning when the murders were taking

01:03:31.220 place and started to pull surveillance cameras from the various car dealerships and so on.

01:03:35.620 And there he is with Michelle in the truck, though her lawyers claimed she couldn't tell

01:03:41.120 if it was her anyway, whatever.

01:03:43.420 Um, and they got those bags of evidence, not all of them, but enough to find her bloody

01:03:48.000 Jennifer Dulos is bloody shirt.

01:03:50.220 Jennifer Dulos is bloody bra.

01:03:51.760 He killed her.

01:03:53.740 He definitely killed her.

01:03:55.440 The only question was whether this Michelle Jonna knew, was involved, you know, how involved.

01:04:03.260 Um, and here is a bit of the closing argument from the prosecutor, Michelle Manning, uh, who

01:04:08.600 was still having to argue to the jury that Jennifer is dead because again, the trial of the actual

01:04:13.500 murderer never took place because he took his own life.

01:04:15.260 Here's thought 20.

01:04:17.200 The defense would have you believe she ran away from her kids, but she did not.

01:04:23.900 Jennifer is dead and Fotis and Michelle Triconis intended that to happen.

01:04:30.960 This trial is very simple.

01:04:33.520 It's about a conspiracy and about a cover up.

01:04:36.520 And every time those kids came around, Michelle Triconis had to leave her home.

01:04:41.000 She had to take her daughter somewhere else, and we know she was sick of it.

01:04:46.700 The frustration turned to anger and hatred.

01:04:49.360 Listen to her own words in the interviews.

01:04:53.040 How she describes Jennifer, someone she's never met.

01:04:57.260 She describes her as manipulating, angry, toxic.

01:05:02.300 Each attorney tried to tell her there's a light at the end of the tunnel because we know what

01:05:07.420 she thought about the two years of the custody case, about the two years of court hearings.

01:05:12.700 She described it as two years of torture.

01:05:17.860 So did the jury reach the right decision in finding Michelle Triconis guilty?

01:05:23.380 What, what was the exact charge?

01:05:25.000 I don't actually have it in front of me.

01:05:26.500 It was conspiracy to commit murder.

01:05:28.760 There we go.

01:05:29.480 Conspiracy to commit.

01:05:30.780 Yeah.

01:05:30.960 Yeah.

01:05:31.860 And some other lesser charges.

01:05:33.960 Okay.

01:05:34.160 Keep going.

01:05:35.100 And tampering with evidence.

01:05:36.140 So this is another one of those cases where, look, I understand it's a tragedy and none

01:05:42.160 of this ever should have happened, but, you know, there's two sides of me.

01:05:45.560 One is the human being and the other is the lawyer and the lawyer parses out the proof.

01:05:51.200 And here I was struck from the beginning because in order to prove somebody conspired to commit

01:05:56.720 a murder, you first have to prove there was a murder.

01:06:00.060 Is it a legal leap for this jury to, to figure out that Fotis Doulos killed his estranged

01:06:06.660 wife?

01:06:07.240 No, but was it going to be possible for the prosecution to, to prove that that killing was

01:06:13.520 a murder as opposed to anything else?

01:06:15.740 A manslaughter or even, you know, Moley self-defense, right?

01:06:19.380 So, but, so the prosecution, they did that.

01:06:22.240 So now the next question is, all right, what did Michelle Traconis know and when did she

01:06:27.900 know it?

01:06:28.260 Because there's a big difference between being a co-conspirator and being an accomplice after

01:06:33.520 the fact, a lot of difference.

01:06:35.820 Was she just an accomplice after the fact and the prosecution didn't go there and the defense

01:06:40.260 didn't do a good enough job in at least showing that?

01:06:44.060 I mean, they went for it.

01:06:45.360 And I think, I think the defense did a really good job.

01:06:47.620 What sunk her were the three interviews she gave to police, Michelle Traconis, before she

01:06:54.240 got charged, which is proof you should never hire your real estate lawyer to handle your

01:06:59.820 murder charges.

01:07:01.160 But that's what she did.

01:07:02.760 And that's why she was found guilty, my opinion.

01:07:05.500 One of the pieces of evidence against her, David, was that the day of the murder, she

01:07:11.600 had this list in her house of all the things she and Fotis allegedly did, that she woke

01:07:17.840 up and that they took a shower together.

01:07:19.720 And then she did the following 10 things throughout the day, which is very weird because nobody

01:07:24.500 does that.

01:07:25.200 Nobody writes a list of everything they did on some random day.

01:07:28.280 And the one thing that curiously was omitted from her very detailed list was her little trip

01:07:34.420 to Hartford with Fotis, disposing of bags of garbage in random dumpsters on the very day

01:07:41.360 that Jennifer Doulos disappeared.

01:07:43.620 All of that was very telling.

01:07:46.300 And they, those interviews John had just referenced did show her eventually admitting she had lied

01:07:51.960 to cops.

01:07:52.580 Fotis Doulos wasn't with her in the shower that morning.

01:07:55.700 She just didn't know where he was, but she just couldn't imagine that it would be off

01:07:59.780 murdering his wife.

01:08:01.060 Yeah, and I also thought the part where she said, yes, I was in the truck with Fotis while

01:08:09.020 he was driving around getting rid of the body parts.

01:08:11.960 But I was on Facebook or Instagram.

01:08:13.520 I was just on my phone.

01:08:15.040 I was just texting people.

01:08:16.480 I didn't see what was going on around me.

01:08:18.820 That, I got enough time dealing with, if I'm a juror in this case.

01:08:22.580 That doesn't add up.

01:08:24.040 She knew what was going on.

01:08:25.440 As Johnna said, this is probably an accessory after the fact.

01:08:28.400 I think that when she's sentenced, her sentence, I mean, it should reflect that.

01:08:34.700 But, you know, there was the DNA in the bags as well to show that she had handled the bags.

01:08:41.600 She was in it.

01:08:42.200 I don't think she did anything to actually commit the murder.

01:08:46.380 But I do think that she was involved enough that as an accessory or as basically aiding

01:08:55.920 and abetting that she's criminally culpable for the murder and for the other charges that Fotis

01:09:01.280 would have been guilty of.

01:09:03.300 Yeah, that's the thing.

01:09:04.320 I mean, I have absolutely no empathy for this woman.

01:09:06.720 I couldn't care less that she's crying here in this picture at a defense table.

01:09:10.060 But I do have the same questions about whether she helped plan it and knew it was going to happen

01:09:14.800 or whether she was just happy it happened and was happy to cover it up.

01:09:19.020 Dateline ran a clip of her talking to, let me see, it was Fotis Doulos employee,

01:09:27.680 former Fotis Doulos employee, Paul Goumeni, on what Michelle said to him about Jennifer Doulos.

01:09:36.780 I think after it turned out she was dead.

01:09:39.580 Listen here in SOC 23.

01:09:41.760 He described one time when he heard Michelle and Fotis discussing the family dog

01:09:46.000 and that Jennifer refused to allow the kids to see their pet before it was put down.

01:09:51.260 What exactly did she say?

01:09:53.920 Can I use bad words?

01:09:55.620 Yes.

01:09:57.140 She said that bit should be buried right next to this dog.

01:09:59.980 Let's be very clear.

01:10:01.300 Talk of Jennifer being buried.

01:10:02.920 He added that Michelle said this a month before Jennifer disappeared.

01:10:06.280 There you go.

01:10:09.060 So now we're getting to the it's not just after the fact, it's conspiracy to commit.

01:10:15.580 Well, and you're also getting the jury to really not like this defendant.

01:10:21.020 But I'll tell you something, you guys, when I'm not in criminal court, I'm in family court.

01:10:25.080 And if I had a nickel for every new girlfriend that hated the soon to be ex-wife and vice versa,

01:10:30.700 I mean, that part is kind of normal.

01:10:32.360 It's just fortunately, most estranged wives don't end up dead or in this case, missing without a clue and declared dead days or just a couple of weeks before the trial.

01:10:44.120 So that gave the jury a reason to look askance at this defendant.

01:10:47.460 But keep in mind, too, this was I think this jury only had six people on it, which is so strange for a felony.

01:10:54.520 And they stayed out for a while.

01:10:56.840 So they did think about this before they came back with their verdict.

01:11:01.420 How long do you think she's going to jail for?

01:11:04.440 20 years.

01:11:06.060 Yeah, I don't see any 20 years.

01:11:08.260 Why not?

01:11:09.000 But they won't run these consecutive because this is all part of the same scheme.

01:11:12.400 So 20 years, I think, is the max she could do on the conspiracy.

01:11:16.060 And that's what I think she'll get.

01:11:18.200 Good, good.

01:11:18.960 Now she's going to be separated from her child, the same as Jennifer Doulos.

01:11:21.880 We'll never see her five children grow up.

01:11:23.680 And now they've lost both parents because their dad turned out to be a murderer in a murder-suicide behavior.

01:11:28.780 And now I think they're being raised by Jennifer's mom.

01:11:31.340 It's just it's such a tragedy all around.

01:11:34.480 Divorce, cheating, affairs.

01:11:37.220 You're dealing with plutonium.

01:11:39.120 The children are always the victims, Megan.

01:11:42.620 That's right.

01:11:43.360 That's right.

01:11:43.760 And so little.

01:11:45.680 Okay, let's talk about Crumbly.

01:11:47.340 So this is the case in which there was a school shooter.

01:11:51.620 And we're not going to say his name, but he went in, he shot up a school.

01:11:56.700 And both of his parents, in a first-of-its-kind criminal prosecution, are now on trial.

01:12:01.760 The wife and mother was found guilty.

01:12:04.760 This is out of Michigan.

01:12:05.980 This is a connection with the 2021 Oxford High School shooting.

01:12:09.120 Now, one month after his wife gets convicted, the husband, the father, is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter after his son killed four students and injured seven people back in November of 2021.

01:12:22.240 One, the case against the father seems to center around the fact that, like the mother, he was allegedly a negligent parent, didn't give a shit that his son was a mess, was not well mentally.

01:12:36.960 And he allegedly knew it.

01:12:39.080 But there's a dispute between the prosecution and the defense on that and did nothing about it.

01:12:44.460 And in his case, you guys tell me, but I think, David, the best evidence is he bought him a gun four days before the shooting.

01:12:52.100 And then when the school called him up to say, we found some very disturbing drawings, he didn't say, oh, shit, I just bought him a gun.

01:12:59.740 We should get him out of here and get him some help.

01:13:02.920 Or confiscate the gun.

01:13:04.320 And the prosecution is essentially saying also that it was a straw purchase of the gun, meaning that you can't buy a gun and intending to hand it directly over to somebody who is not the purchaser.

01:13:16.100 He handed it over to his son three days after the purchase, saying that it was a gift.

01:13:20.420 But he was aware of the psychological problems that his son had at the time.

01:13:26.120 No way would any responsible parent give their child a gun under those circumstances.

01:13:31.880 So that's what it boils down to.

01:13:33.320 It's just criminal negligence.

01:13:35.060 And I suspect that he will be convicted of this.

01:13:38.920 Should he receive a long sentence?

01:13:40.300 No, because I don't think either parent ever conceived of a possibility that this type of outcome, this horrible, horrific outcome would have happened based on their, you know, the way they parented their child or in the father's case, the way he gifted the firearm to his son.

01:13:57.080 I don't know about that because the prosecution is introducing evidence of the 9-1-1 call, Jonna, that the father.

01:14:03.640 So what happened was the father and the mother were called to the school the day of the shooting before it had happened.

01:14:07.420 And they had found disturbing drawings by the son where he he said, please help me.

01:14:13.180 And it looked like he had a picture of the gun with blood dripping.

01:14:17.720 It seemed very much like this could be a potential school shooter.

01:14:20.840 And amazingly, one of the one of the biggest mysteries of this case, the school did not insist that he leave and the parents did not insist that they take him home.

01:14:30.580 And the prosecution is already arguing.

01:14:32.340 He said he had to go do his work, but he was a DoorDash driver and hadn't even checked in yet.

01:14:39.580 So he didn't really have to go to work, just didn't give a shit.

01:14:42.360 He didn't care about his son.

01:14:44.100 And they're going to introduce the 9-1-1 call from the dad that he made right after he got word that same day that a school shooting at his son's school was unfolding.

01:14:56.540 And use this as evidence that even though the father wants you to believe this was unforeseeable, could never have imagined.

01:15:04.180 My son, listen to what he said to the 9-1-1 operator that day.

01:15:08.360 Sot 26.

01:15:09.360 I had a big gun, and my son was at the school, and we had to go meet with the counselor this morning because of something that he wrote on a desk paper.

01:15:23.900 And then I stood under him down, and I saw a whole bunch of cows going somewhere.

01:15:29.080 And I made sure that I wanted to get to the high school, because I was going to the high school.

01:15:35.520 And then someone told me that there was an active shooter, and then I went home just to find out.

01:15:42.800 And I think my son took the gun.

01:15:45.460 I don't know.

01:15:46.360 I don't know what's going on.

01:15:48.160 I'm like, you're really trying to get out of my head.

01:15:51.220 Okay, apologies to the SiriusXM audience and podcast because it's hard to hear.

01:15:54.860 But he says, I have a missing gun, and my son is at the school.

01:15:57.980 I think my son took the gun.

01:16:00.500 So, I mean, that's pretty good evidence for the prosecutor that he did foresee his son as the shooter, Jonna.

01:16:07.460 Yeah, and that's very scary.

01:16:10.060 But I also know in this case that there's some contradictory evidence.

01:16:15.680 For example, the day that this happened, and what really bugs me about this case, really bugs me, you guys,

01:16:21.320 is the fact that when the school alerted everybody that there was a problem with this child,

01:16:25.740 and they didn't insist that he leave campus.

01:16:29.540 I don't care whether it was with his parents or in a police car, get him the hell off campus.

01:16:34.720 But they didn't do that.

01:16:35.900 But there's some contradictory evidence that even the guidance counselor who was, I don't know,

01:16:40.480 alerting everybody or assessing the situation did not, he testified that he did not believe this kind of thing was going to happen.

01:16:48.440 So, the defense is basically saying, all right, look, if a trained counselor isn't viewing this as an imminent threat, for lack of a better word,

01:16:57.920 then how can we also say that the parents should have seen it the same way?

01:17:02.960 So, this is the kind of back-and-forth evidence.

01:17:05.880 And one of the things that this parent has going for him that the mother did not is,

01:17:11.820 I think there was testimony or evidence in her case that she, like, gave him, like, handed him,

01:17:17.600 that she was the last person, that's it.

01:17:19.020 She was the last person to touch the gun.

01:17:21.740 And then the next thing you know, the son has it.

01:17:23.580 So, is that going to be enough?

01:17:25.300 Is that line fine enough that it's going to save the father?

01:17:28.020 I don't know.

01:17:29.020 This case stinks all the way around, from the school to the parents and obviously to the shooter himself.

01:17:35.520 This is tough.

01:17:36.360 And I don't like it because it's unprecedented, charging parents for this kind of crime.

01:17:41.160 I don't know.

01:17:41.900 But I guess maybe we're there.

01:17:43.260 I guess we're there.

01:17:44.700 We're opening up a new chapter in, you know, responsibility for these mass shootings.

01:17:51.420 I don't know.

01:17:52.220 I mean, we've talked about it on the show before.

01:17:54.200 Or, like, is it only going to be, like, forgive me, but is it only going to be the white kids in Michigan whose parents get charged?

01:18:02.500 Are we going to do this in cases where there's other rampant violence in the inner cities, let's say,

01:18:09.200 by parents who absolutely know they have a gangbanger living with them and some two-year-old gets shot?

01:18:15.240 I mean, are we going to do those cases, too?

01:18:17.580 Like, I don't have any excuses to make for these parents whatsoever.

01:18:20.280 It's just how far are we going to go with it?

01:18:22.180 Here's a bit, David, from the opening argument against the father, James, top 24.

01:18:28.520 James Crumbly bought that gun that his son used to kill as a gift for his son four days before the attack.

01:18:38.680 James Crumbly failed to secure that gun in a way to prevent his son from accessing it.

01:18:44.180 The decision that James Crumbly made to buy that gun as a gift for his son was made even though he knew that his son was in the midst of total and complete social isolation.

01:18:56.440 It had been in a downward spiral of distress that had been going on for some time.

01:19:00.700 You'll see evidence that as early as spring 2021, the shooter had expressed to his one and only friend that he had asked his father for help and told him to suck it up.

01:19:15.620 That was in April 2021.

01:19:17.160 You learn that instead of receiving help or intervention of any kind, James Crumbly instead began to take his son to the shooting range.

01:19:29.320 And David, I think that was a lock that could have been used on the gun, but wasn't.

01:19:33.320 Well, I mean, you could have used a gun safe as well.

01:19:36.900 I don't think the gun, the purpose of the gun was defending the family.

01:19:40.260 It didn't sound like that was in any event.

01:19:42.700 So the gun could have been stored in a safe.

01:19:45.640 Taking him to the shooting range certainly is a form of recreation a lot of families engage in.

01:19:51.380 And so I don't see that being a problem.

01:19:52.880 But I just think the mental health issue is a big one.

01:19:55.660 And Megan, like I said earlier, there are a lot of politics now to guns and gun prosecutions.

01:20:01.760 And the way they're selectively done.

01:20:04.980 And that is something that we got to deal with.

01:20:07.860 But, you know, look, the son is gone.

01:20:11.380 He's spending life in prison now.

01:20:13.460 And the question is, how much do you want to punish the parents as well?

01:20:17.520 A lot.

01:20:18.380 You know, you want to punish them because of what they knew, but they didn't kill anybody.

01:20:23.840 And I don't think, honestly, they don't have they had no clue that he that he was reasonably likely to go kill.

01:20:31.240 OK, but let's let's talk about that.

01:20:33.040 Let's talk about it.

01:20:33.540 So maybe let's say let's say they didn't that they actually didn't.

01:20:36.980 In fact, they had no clue.

01:20:40.360 They should have.

01:20:41.520 Right.

01:20:41.940 That's that's that's the legal standard.

01:20:43.940 Knew or should have known.

01:20:45.280 They should have had a clue.

01:20:46.500 I mean, that's the thing, John.

01:20:47.260 Like in the in the trial of the mother, you grew to hate her.

01:20:51.460 It was like no matter how many problems arose with her son, she didn't seem to give a damn whether it was physical well-being or his mental well-being.

01:21:00.280 There were there were diary entries of him, you know, allegedly reaching out for help.

01:21:03.960 Again, we're going to we have already heard that in this case about how he went to the dad.

01:21:07.980 You heard that in the opening statement and said, I need some help.

01:21:09.760 And the dad said, suck it up.

01:21:11.220 Now, look, that is a form of parenting.

01:21:13.560 You know, we're you can make the argument we've leaned too far into, oh, sweetheart, you must have this syndrome or this anxiety disorder.

01:21:21.160 I'll get you immediately help from the school guidance counselor who has absolutely no credentials to help you whatsoever.

01:21:26.900 Right.

01:21:27.360 Like there is an argument to me to be made for you're fine.

01:21:32.040 Right.

01:21:32.900 But the net net on these two shows they were terrible parents.

01:21:37.480 And like this kids had all these cavities, like I don't know, over a dozen.

01:21:42.600 Like they weren't taking care of him.

01:21:44.660 And so, you know, four people are dead.

01:21:47.960 I can see why the jury went after the mother and the dad buying the gun is arguably even more culpable when he knew or had reason to that his son was not a well person.

01:21:58.620 Yeah.

01:21:59.280 And hey, perhaps these parents were in denial because it look if there's something wrong with your kid, I think it follows that there's something wrong with you as a parent.

01:22:08.800 Right.

01:22:08.980 For whatever reason, either you caused it, you're not doing anything about it, you didn't cause it, you're not seeing it.

01:22:14.480 OK, fine.

01:22:15.420 But if your child is in trouble and you're in denial, well, then at the very, very least, you do not give him access to a deadly weapon.

01:22:25.720 Right. And I guess that's the underlying theory of this case.

01:22:28.900 Although I do, again, think it's a little bit of a legal leap between that and charging the parents criminally with the involuntary manslaughter.

01:22:37.080 But but we are there now.

01:22:39.180 And let this be a lesson.

01:22:40.720 Let's just be a lesson.

01:22:42.480 Last but not least, quickly, Brian Kohlberger charged with the murder of those four Idaho college students.

01:22:47.660 His lawyer is now in court asking for a trial date of summer 2025, summer 2025.

01:22:59.640 And the prosecution isn't even asking for that much earlier.

01:23:05.320 They're agreeing to 2025.

01:23:07.060 David, I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous.

01:23:10.240 The families of at least two of the victims have come forward to say, let's go.

01:23:15.140 You know, we people are their memories are going to fade.

01:23:19.060 We need this to be resolved.

01:23:21.060 One of the families has two other students who are still on this campus.

01:23:25.080 No resolution like this is absurd.

01:23:27.280 Have you ever seen a trial take this long, like to even get scheduled in a criminal case?

01:23:33.000 Yeah, Megan, in the last year alone, I had one murder case, triple murder, that took just about four years to get going.

01:23:45.660 And another one that was about three and a half.

01:23:48.640 And this is a death penalty case.

01:23:50.540 So this is that's over to know it's over.

01:23:54.040 Well, it was some COVID stuff.

01:23:56.220 Exactly.

01:23:56.820 That's true.

01:23:57.320 But death penalty cases are notorious in the length of time they take to actually pick a jury.

01:24:03.160 And five years is not uncommon.

01:24:05.680 So I think if they get it going in the summer of 2025, that would actually be pretty good.

01:24:10.740 Oh, my God, this can't be, John.

01:24:12.920 They haven't even started picking a jury.

01:24:14.860 All they're doing is arguing over motion practice.

01:24:17.080 And the defense attorney, Ann Taylor, who's trying her case in front of a judge who's judge, judge.

01:24:25.740 His name is John Judge.

01:24:28.580 She's arguing for change of venue.

01:24:30.520 She's arguing that the whole grand jury indictment needs to be thrown out because they only indicted him with probable cause.

01:24:36.260 And she thinks under the Idaho rules, they need to he needed to be indicted beyond with proof beyond a reasonable doubt with if the judge finds that way and she's going up to the Idaho Supreme Court with this argument or trying to every indictment in Idaho will be thrown out because they were all founded on something that was too low a legal standard, at least the ones that haven't been tried and convicted.

01:24:58.500 So in any event, she's throwing cockamamie arguments up there to try to get as long of it.

01:25:03.220 Why?

01:25:03.720 So he can sit in prison and not wind up in the electric chair sooner?

01:25:07.960 I mean, is that the strategy?

01:25:09.560 Yeah, she prolonging the agony.

01:25:11.240 I think part of it is, look, the person with the right to the speedy in public trial is the defendant, right?

01:25:16.580 So if he's OK, he's locked up.

01:25:18.800 He's not going to be hurting anybody.

01:25:20.220 He's not going anywhere.

01:25:21.700 And I think they're really and I'm a little bothered by it, too.

01:25:24.900 This whole notion of the genetic genealogy and they really want to get their hands on all of that discovery.

01:25:31.380 They really I'm sure they're going to try to prove somehow that that's junk science.

01:25:35.120 And that really is the thing, the thing that connected this defendant to those murders.

01:25:40.840 So if it takes them one year, five year, 10 years, what do they care?

01:25:44.320 He's locked up.

01:25:45.060 And I think that's why they are requesting as lengthy a time period as they can get.

01:25:49.980 Yes, it's amazing.

01:25:51.080 The O.J. Simpson case took six months to go to trial.

01:25:57.700 Six months.

01:25:58.880 Megan, I'll tell you how you prevent this whole thing.

01:26:01.280 If you're the prosecution in this case, the Kohlberger case, offer him life in prison without parole as an alternative.

01:26:07.360 Let him plead to that.

01:26:08.580 And you solve the whole thing.

01:26:09.740 Let the family have their their peace.

01:26:11.860 And, you know, he's never getting out.

01:26:13.820 So I don't know.

01:26:14.960 It might be the way to handle it.

01:26:16.380 I don't know.

01:26:16.840 I don't know.

01:26:18.260 Yeah.

01:26:18.620 I don't know if this guy is going to get convicted either.

01:26:20.740 I have to say I've said to the audience before, I definitely think he did it.

01:26:24.240 But I am concerned about the evidence against him.

01:26:28.180 You know, if they if all they have is that one spot of DNA on the knife sheath snap.

01:26:35.160 Plus this, you know, a white Hyundai that looked like his was around the area.

01:26:39.540 Plus the cell phone tower evidence showing he may have been around the area.

01:26:43.520 That's not going to do it.

01:26:45.100 You know, I realize it's very suspicious.

01:26:46.560 He was putting his garbage away in little Ziploc baggies when the police burst in there and found him back in the Poconos, Pennsylvania a month later.

01:26:54.360 But like they need they need more.

01:26:57.100 They need and I hope they have more.

01:26:58.200 They haven't released it.

01:26:58.900 We did a whole special about it, but I don't know.

01:27:01.520 So, OK, guys, such a good discussion.

01:27:03.800 John and David, so great to see you both.

01:27:06.020 You too, Megan.

01:27:06.800 Thank you so much.

01:27:07.800 When we come back, the creator of a new show, Perfectly Time for the 2024 election cycle, focused on the state of journalism in America.

01:27:16.180 Guess what percentage of the Republican Party believes in journalists and trusts in journalists?

01:27:21.440 Last I looked, it was 11.

01:27:24.260 I'm Megan Kelly, host of The Megan Kelly Show on Sirius XM.

01:27:28.300 It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures today.

01:27:36.500 You can catch The Megan Kelly Show on Triumph, a Sirius XM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love.

01:27:43.460 Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey and yours truly, Megan Kelly.

01:27:50.740 You can stream The Megan Kelly Show on Sirius XM at home or anywhere you are.

01:27:55.260 No car required.

01:27:56.960 I do it all the time.

01:27:58.000 I love the Sirius XM app.

01:28:00.580 It has ad free music coverage of every major sport, comedy, talk, podcast and more.

01:28:06.300 Subscribe now.

01:28:07.000 Get your first three months for free.

01:28:08.380 Go to Sirius XM dot com slash MK show to subscribe and get three months free.

01:28:14.940 That's Sirius XM dot com slash MK show and get three months free.

01:28:20.760 Offer details apply.

01:28:27.940 Just in time for the heat of the 2024 presidential election cycle is a timely new show about politics and the reporters who cover it.

01:28:36.760 It's called Girls on the Bus and it premieres Thursday on the streamer Max.

01:28:42.120 Here's some of the trailer.

01:28:43.400 I am the eyes and ears of my entire generation.

01:28:45.740 Hi, Thea.

01:28:46.540 How do you sleep at night?

01:28:48.460 As secure as a Reagan economy.

01:28:50.380 Grace, the legend.

01:28:51.760 I've been on the trail for three decades.

01:28:53.740 Sadie, my favorite reporter.

01:28:55.300 Do a piece on me.

01:28:56.120 My number one rule.

01:28:57.240 Don't fuck the flack.

01:28:58.940 I'm going to remain detached, objective and mostly sober.

01:29:03.320 To be a journalist is to have a calling, but it's complicated.

01:29:08.060 Your network is racist and sexist and conservative, whereas you have made gotcha journalism your whole brand.

01:29:14.820 It's a fun deep dive into the state of journalism today, complete with TikTok influencers and questions about objectivity and liberal bias.

01:29:22.960 And it's loosely based on the book Chasing Hillary, which tracked the Hillary Clinton campaigns in 2008 and 2016.

01:29:30.360 The author of that book and co-creator and executive producer of Girls on the Bus is Amy Chosik.

01:29:37.160 She's a former New York Times reporter and she joins me now.

01:29:40.460 Amy, welcome to the show.

01:29:41.420 Thanks so much for having me.

01:29:42.540 Great to be here.

01:29:43.160 So you're not your everyday New York Times reporter because you grew up in Texas and actually went to the Journal first and then went to the New York Times and then got put on the Hillary campaign.

01:29:54.700 Or did you start on the Hillary stuff back while you were still at the Journal?

01:29:58.240 Yeah, I did start.

01:29:59.160 I was a foreign correspondent in Tokyo when my editor in Asia had become Washington bureau chief at the Wall Street Journal and said, how'd you like to go to Iowa and cover Hillary Clinton?

01:30:06.700 So I'd like hardly heard of this Obama guy, didn't really know what the caucuses were.

01:30:10.800 Years later, Clinton's people were like, we didn't really know what the caucuses were either.

01:30:14.460 So, but yeah, so I covered Hillary and then I covered Obama and then I moved to the New York Times, covered Hillary's 2016 campaign.

01:30:22.260 Right.

01:30:22.440 And you've got some good reporting in there about the night she realized she lost to Trump in 16 and how it was like, oh my God, at first they saw Florida go.

01:30:30.480 So like the model might not be wrong, might be wrong.

01:30:34.660 And if it's wrong in Florida, I remember the text I got from a Clinton source that said, we're fucked if we lose the Rust Belt.

01:30:40.380 And I was like, the Rust Belt?

01:30:41.400 Like we hardly went.

01:30:42.220 We were in Arizona.

01:30:43.320 Like what?

01:30:43.860 So yeah, I remember that night.

01:30:45.480 You're bringing it back.

01:30:46.200 Yeah, right.

01:30:47.060 Clearly.

01:30:47.780 So this is an interesting look at, you know, a life that you've actually led, which is girls on the bus following the campaign trail.

01:30:53.440 And it's happening right now.

01:30:54.700 It's going to happen in earnest over the next eight, nine months on both sides.

01:30:57.520 Um, but it's not, and even though you were at the New York Times, it's, and I think still are, right?

01:31:03.560 No, I left a few years ago.

01:31:05.440 Okay.

01:31:05.900 Sorry.

01:31:06.220 I thought you said we're doing contributing, but it's not about, um, oh, let's, let's celebrate Hillary.

01:31:11.080 Let's celebrate leftism.

01:31:12.180 It actually gets into the nitty gritty of what's happened to journalism today and how.

01:31:18.220 Yeah, absolutely.

01:31:19.300 I mean, that was something that was so interesting for one.

01:31:21.180 I wanted to play in a totally fictional world.

01:31:22.860 So there's no Hillary or Trump in our world, but the characters and the archetypes of these women

01:31:26.820 definitely represent all sides of the political spectrum and journalism.

01:31:30.740 Like we decided that creating all of these different types of women allowed us to get

01:31:34.800 into those debates that you talked about at the, uh, this debate over objectivity versus

01:31:38.480 authenticity, the debate over, you know, you just, you're just gotcha journalism versus

01:31:43.060 you're judging me for having a clear opinion.

01:31:44.880 I love Kimberlyn's line in the, in the first episode.

01:31:47.820 And she says when the, when the kind of legacy media says, we're not liberal, we're objective.

01:31:51.360 And she says, keep telling yourselves that, you know, so we got to play, I think

01:31:55.260 with, through these fictional, through my imaginary friends' voices, we got to play in all these

01:31:59.720 debates, which was fun to do.

01:32:01.800 Here's a bit of that in Sot 34.

01:32:04.880 You do realize that if Liberty had broken that story, it would have been dismissed as a partisan

01:32:09.980 hit job, but the liberal media gets it and it's all hail the scoop queen.

01:32:17.760 Hey, that's one.

01:32:19.720 We're not liberal.

01:32:21.280 We're objective.

01:32:23.340 Keep telling yourself that.

01:32:24.540 Her delivery is so good.

01:32:27.300 Christine Elmore.

01:32:28.940 Yeah.

01:32:29.660 Well, uh, I, I mean, I think the sort of hard look at behind the scenes with journalists

01:32:33.740 is interesting.

01:32:34.460 People love to sort of look at the press and bash the press, but as I mentioned in the

01:32:38.260 tease, they do not like or trust the press.

01:32:41.920 The latest numbers on that show that, uh, 20 years ago in 2003, that's literally when I

01:32:47.000 started in journalism, independence trusted the media, 53%.

01:32:50.840 The media, the GOP trusted the media, 44% of Republicans.

01:32:55.480 Wow.

01:32:55.740 44% of Republicans did.

01:32:57.880 Um, today the GOP is at 11%.

01:33:00.040 Wow.

01:33:01.680 So what do you think happened?

01:33:04.000 Oh, this is a question I think about all the time, the erosion and trust in the media.

01:33:07.980 I think there were a lot of things.

01:33:09.400 I think, uh, you know, certainly reporting on, uh, the lead up to the Iraq war diminished

01:33:14.440 trust.

01:33:14.940 I think, uh, you know, trust was diminished during the scandals of the Clinton years.

01:33:19.260 I think it's a slow, and then, and then I think that the, uh, you know, the business,

01:33:23.300 the, the pressures on the economics of journalism kind of changed the mission in a way that also

01:33:28.920 eroded trust.

01:33:30.120 But it was very interesting to kind of write the story, especially this show about this

01:33:34.360 character, the lead character who works for a fictional paper record, very much romanticizes

01:33:38.640 this period of journalism, the boys on the bus back when people trusted the media.

01:33:42.360 It's like, now she finally got her dream job and nobody reads what, nobody believes what

01:33:46.660 they read in your newspaper anymore.

01:33:48.000 So like grappling with that was very interesting.

01:33:49.980 There's a, in the finale, she confronts this very confrontational source who says like,

01:33:54.200 grow up, Sadie, the truth left the building a long time ago.

01:33:57.720 Yeah.

01:33:58.380 Yeah.

01:33:58.640 Sadly, I feel like I lived that whole thing.

01:34:00.680 I mean, we probably got, that was the same sort of era that I started reporting.

01:34:04.620 And like, and I, and my dream was to write the front page story that would live in history.

01:34:08.640 And now it's like, by the time you get that opportunity, half the country, more than half the

01:34:12.080 country isn't going to believe what you're writing anyway.

01:34:14.800 Yeah.

01:34:15.260 I mean, it's sort of like you date the young version of Elvis and he's so cute and he's

01:34:19.880 wonderful.

01:34:20.340 And he's like, and then you turn around one day and suddenly he's a fat Elvis.

01:34:23.860 He's old Elvis.

01:34:24.540 He's drugged up, coked up Elvis.

01:34:26.240 What?

01:34:26.340 Well, I thought that's, what's happened to media.

01:34:29.460 Same kind of thing.

01:34:31.740 Yeah.

01:34:32.160 And I think you're seeing, I mean, you're also seeing the economics.

01:34:34.600 I mean, it's a dark time, not just for trust in the media, but for all of these newsrooms

01:34:38.160 are closing and laying people off.

01:34:39.640 And that's just kind of further eroding coverage.

01:34:42.200 It's a scary time.

01:34:43.660 We have a very hopeful dramedy and idealistic look at the world.

01:34:47.800 Well, that leads me to the, this soundbite, which my team pulled, which is, um, the future.

01:34:52.980 I do believe this is the future.

01:34:54.320 This is, uh, SOT 35, 35.

01:34:57.760 I don't know.

01:34:59.240 I don't know.

01:35:00.720 You could have your own media company like Ben Smith or Megyn Kelly or those dudes at

01:35:05.560 Puck.

01:35:05.920 Yay.

01:35:08.860 Yes.

01:35:09.320 Shout out.

01:35:09.800 Thanks for the shout out, but that is the future.

01:35:11.760 Yes.

01:35:12.040 That was really fun.

01:35:12.980 And that was something that we wouldn't have even, you know, we've been writing the show

01:35:15.420 for a few years.

01:35:15.980 And even like three years ago, I wouldn't have necessarily said, oh, this is Kimberlyn's

01:35:19.420 storyline.

01:35:19.800 She's going to be frustrated with her outlet.

01:35:21.500 She's not going to be able to kind of speak to what's really important to her.

01:35:24.720 And she's going to find, find her new thing.

01:35:26.940 You know, she's going to, she's going to launch her own platform.

01:35:28.960 So I do think you're right.

01:35:29.900 This is a silver lining, right?

01:35:31.180 There is a silver lining in the media landscape and that more and more personalities are able

01:35:36.280 to launch their own platforms, whether that's like Lola, the influencer with her sub stack

01:35:40.900 and her TikTok feed, or it's Kimberlyn who's going to like try to get funding and become

01:35:44.900 a media personality.

01:35:46.440 I think it's Darwinism.

01:35:48.680 That's what's happened in our industry.

01:35:50.620 Last question.

01:35:51.360 You got some blowback from Hillary Clinton and her team after your book, Chasing Hillary,

01:35:55.860 because you were pretty, you gave us the unvarnished take on that campaign and what went wrong.

01:36:00.320 How's that gone?

01:36:01.660 And how do you think the reaction from those folks will be to your new series?

01:36:05.280 It's a good question.

01:36:06.000 I've sort of expunged them from my mind after the book came out.

01:36:08.560 I got blowback from, you know, as the book details, I got blowback for like everything

01:36:12.600 I wrote, even positive stories they would find a way to not like.

01:36:16.220 I had a sticky note on my laptop when I was writing the book that said, what would you

01:36:19.620 write if you weren't afraid?

01:36:21.040 And, you know, it was the only way I knew how to do it was to be just like brutally honest

01:36:24.500 about mistakes I made, mistakes the campaign made.

01:36:26.860 I was sort of brutally honest about all of it.

01:36:28.600 And so I'm actually not sure how they'll react.

01:36:31.240 I hadn't really thought of it because one of the great things was that there isn't a

01:36:34.660 Hillary character in this.

01:36:36.460 I love that post-it note.

01:36:38.500 What would you write if you weren't afraid?

01:36:40.160 And that includes like, yeah, because also like people write things are like, oh my God, what

01:36:43.820 will Twitter think of this thing I wrote?

01:36:45.740 And, you know, I did contribute this big Elizabeth Holmes story to the New York Times

01:36:48.700 recently.

01:36:49.140 You mentioned that and I knew I was going to get trolled for it, but like this was the

01:36:51.880 way I saw things, you know, so God bless you.

01:36:54.940 Thank you for doing it.

01:36:56.280 And everybody check out Girls on the Bus on Max.

01:36:58.800 All the best to you, Amy.

01:36:59.600 Thank you so much for having me.

01:37:00.480 Great talking to you.

01:37:01.380 I want to tell you tomorrow, Dan Wooten speaks out for the first time right here.

01:37:05.220 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

01:37:10.760 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - March 12, 2024

New Biden Memory Revelations, and Movie Set Shooting Verdict, with Jonna Spilbor, David Wohl, Dave Aronberg, Mike Davis, and Amy Chozick ｜ Ep. 744

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript