The Megyn Kelly Show - Trump Indicted Again, and Biden's Burisma Connection, with Victor Davis Hanson, Charles C.W. Cooke, Alan Dershowitz, Arthur Aidala, and Dave Aronberg ｜ Ep. 569

00:00:00.520 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:12.060 Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.680 Is there anything going on in the news today? You guys hear anything interesting about possible break?

00:00:20.160 Can you believe? Yet another indictment of former President Donald Trump.

00:00:24.620 A second time since April, he's been slapped with charges. This time he's facing seven federal criminal charges in connection with these classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago last year.

00:00:37.040 And while that is a massive story, there's also a probably not unrelated, significant development about President Biden and his alleged corruption.

00:00:47.300 Allegations that he was involved in a multimillion dollar bribery scheme when he was vice president.

00:00:54.620 Remember that document we discussed with Greg Jarrett talking about how the House Oversight Committee was trying to get its hands on this document in the possession of the FBI in which a confidential informant said that there's proof that then Vice President Joe Biden and his son both took five million dollar checks.

00:01:12.420 Well, now now we have it filled out. We didn't know the money last week from some foreign government.

00:01:17.840 Now we know it's Ukraine. Now we know it's five million each. This is an allegation not yet confirmed.

00:01:21.840 Well, they finally got their hands on that document. The FBI produced it to Comer and the House Oversight Committee after a lot of resistance this week.

00:01:30.660 And it was downright shocking. And you've got even moderate Republicans like Nancy Mace, who's she's one of those like very reasonable.

00:01:40.740 I don't want to call her a Mitt Romney type, but kind of closer to that than a Comer is coming out swinging against Joe Biden.

00:01:50.040 Some of these lawmakers suggesting they were shocked by what they saw in that form and accusing the FBI of having to intentionally dragged its feet now for weeks.

00:01:59.380 In reluctantly producing this to the House Oversight Committee. Is it a coincidence that both of these things are happening on the same day?

00:02:06.420 I don't know. We're not going to get conspiratorial here, but it is a fact that just as soon as Republicans got their hands on this document.

00:02:14.540 This indictment drops against Donald Trump. It's unbelievable what's happening right now.

00:02:18.440 It's distressing. It's disgusting. And it is alarming to any citizen who loves this country.

00:02:25.840 There's a lot to unpack. We have some of the top legal and political minds in the country today to help walk us all through it all.

00:02:32.320 VDH is here. Charlie Cook as well in our second hour.

00:02:35.140 But we begin with Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of the new book, Get Trump,

00:02:41.580 the threat to civil liberties, due process and our constitutional rule of law.

00:02:46.140 Alan, welcome back to the show.

00:02:47.360 So we have not seen the indictment. We think we know what's coming, but we don't know the actual parameters of it.

00:02:54.700 We're told by Trump's lawyer, one of them, Jim Trustee.

00:02:58.380 We believe it has seven counts around the Espionage Act, around multiple alleging multiple false statements and a conspiracy to obstruct justice.

00:03:09.140 So let me ask you for your overall take on what we've heard so far and the charges against Donald Trump on which he will be arraigned this Tuesday in a Miami federal courtroom.

00:03:17.360 I'm not surprised. In my book, Get Trump, I predicted exactly this.

00:03:22.340 I said he would not be indicted for merely possessing classified material because then they would have to distinguish the case from Biden and from Pence and from Hillary Clinton and from Sandy Berger,

00:03:34.760 that they would go after him on process crimes and that they would probably use the espionage statute, the hated espionage statute, the statute that liberals have condemned for 100 years because it was used to go after Eugene V.

00:03:48.300 Debs, war protesters, dissidents, etc.

00:03:50.960 Now these same liberal Democrats are embracing the statute, saying expand it, extend it.

00:03:57.300 And so there's nothing surprising about the fact that there's been an indictment.

00:04:02.000 It's a big deal, though, because a federal indictment, which could prove to be very compelling, depending on what the evidence is,

00:04:10.300 is far different than the phony state Mickey Mouse indictment that was rendered by District Attorney Bragg.

00:04:17.680 That was laughable. This is not laughable.

00:04:20.600 There's one piece of evidence that could be very serious.

00:04:23.720 If there is, in fact, a tape recording, as apparently there is, in which the former president says, showing some material to some writer,

00:04:34.480 I could have declassified this, meaning I didn't declassify it, if we get access or if the prosecution gets access to that document.

00:04:43.480 And it is as explosive as some have surmised, maybe dealing with attack plans against Iran.

00:04:50.600 And if, in fact, the person who got it was not only shown it, but given it to read, that could be a serious violation of the Espionage Act.

00:05:00.520 The rest seems like it's just typical prosecution going after people, not telling the truth to an agent, conspiracy to obstruct justice.

00:05:11.080 It's the Espionage Act and that particular tape, which I think opposes the greatest danger to Trump.

00:05:17.740 But I think the greatest danger is posed to the American people.

00:05:21.440 What we're seeing is both sides now weaponizing the criminal justice system.

00:05:26.000 And I think the election of 2024 will be the first time in American history that the campaigns will be, oh, they're more criminal than we are.

00:05:33.580 No, they're more criminal than we are. I just think that this idea of weaponizing the system against both the Bidens and against Trump is a serious, serious mistake and endangers the rule of law.

00:05:46.620 OK, I agree with you on all of that. But I do want to take a look at the specifics of the criminal charges as lawyers just to, you know, the lawyers don't get to go into court and say, this is an outrage.

00:05:56.500 You didn't charge Hillary Clinton. They're going to have to actually take a look at the elements and defend. 1.00

00:05:59.840 And I think that's very interesting. Like, can they make the charge even if we don't like the prosecution?

00:06:04.640 Can they make it? Yes. Let's let's. First of all, can we just talk about the fact that this is being brought in Miami instead of D.C.?

00:06:10.820 Because they had a big deal. They had a grand jury in D.C.

00:06:14.060 Then then more recently, they opened what up in Miami. And that's better for Trump.

00:06:17.860 For sure, it's better for Trump if he's going to have to be tried to be tried in Florida than D.C.

00:06:21.180 But well, how did that happen?

00:06:22.460 Well, I think the prosecution realized they'd have a real fight on their hands if they tried to indict in the District of Columbia.

00:06:30.260 It would look like forum shopping and judge shopping.

00:06:33.320 And they probably wanted to avoid that.

00:06:36.800 The essence of the alleged crimes did take place in in Florida.

00:06:41.580 And therefore, that's the appropriate venue.

00:06:45.840 Also, the luck of the draw.

00:06:47.740 Apparently, Trump got a judge who he appointed.

00:06:50.540 Now, judges who he appointed have ruled against him, obviously, as well.

00:06:55.120 But it's good for the system that it's in Florida and that it's a judge he appointed.

00:06:59.520 If that judge stays with the case, I guess it will make it less likely that Trump could just say, oh, this is all a fix.

00:07:05.820 It's maybe we'll get a semblance of justice.

00:07:08.980 So I'm glad it's in Florida and I'm glad it's in front of a judge who at least is not somebody with a record of Trump hating.

00:07:16.760 Yeah. Do we know how she got the case?

00:07:19.020 Judge Eileen Cannon, a Trump appointee.

00:07:21.860 She got it.

00:07:23.220 Unless you got it through the wheel, there's a real problem.

00:07:27.140 Obviously, all judges in all federal criminal cases should be selected randomly through the wheel and should not be selected based on prior experiences in related cases, which sometimes happen.

00:07:42.100 So I hope she was picked through the wheel.

00:07:44.300 OK. And then the magistrate judge, who is the judge who's kind of underneath the district court judge, is somebody who's familiar with this case as well.

00:07:50.960 They're both they both had prior dealings.

00:07:52.440 And she she was appointed as a special master last year to review the material seats from Mar-a-Lago.

00:07:58.920 Then the magistrate judge, again, lower than she is on the totem pole, Bruce Reinhart.

00:08:03.320 He also had it prior dealing with this.

00:08:05.800 He signed off on the initial search warrant of Mar-a-Lago.

00:08:08.940 I do believe he's he's a Republican.

00:08:11.340 I remember looking at that.

00:08:12.380 But of course, Trump didn't like him.

00:08:13.740 But just for what it's worth.

00:08:14.780 So now we've got these two judges who for now are supposed to be overseeing this proceeding.

00:08:19.580 There is breaking news.

00:08:20.800 One of the charges again, we have not yet seen the indictment that will come.

00:08:23.880 We think next week, though, Mike Pence is insisting it ought to be released by close of business today.

00:08:29.180 We believe charges under the Espionage Act, as I said, multiple false statement charges and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

00:08:35.840 Now, conspiracy obstruction of justice.

00:08:37.980 We kind of expected, frankly, that was like kind of predicted by many people because they accused him of not complying with the subpoena to turn over all the documents, especially the classified documents.

00:08:47.100 Turn them over.

00:08:47.520 We can get into why they don't think he did.

00:08:49.800 But conspiracy suggests somebody helped you.

00:08:51.960 You got to have more than one person.

00:08:53.260 And just as we came to air, Alan, this broke.

00:08:57.100 Another person is in trouble.

00:09:00.040 Here it is.

00:09:00.980 Stand by.

00:09:02.080 Washington Post.

00:09:03.460 Oh, no.

00:09:03.840 Hold on a second.

00:09:04.320 Let me go back further.

00:09:05.120 Walter, Walt Nauta, N-A-U-T-A, an aide to former President Nauta, former President Donald Trump, has been indicted as well in connection with special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the mishandling of classified documents.

00:09:17.400 This is the guy Wall Street Journal first reported the indictment.

00:09:20.680 This is the guy who allegedly moved boxes at Mar-a-Lago at President Trump's instruction after the subpoena was issued.

00:09:29.820 So let's just spend time on the conspiracy to obstruct justice to a charge.

00:09:33.480 What do you make of that?

00:09:35.060 Well, first of all, you always want to get two people so you can get one of them to flip.

00:09:39.460 And we know that prosecutors can put enormous pressure on witnesses not only to sing but to compose, to make up lyrics and music that the prosecution wants to hear.

00:09:52.660 I'm not suggesting that happen here, but it's not surprising that they went after somebody else so that they could charge conspiracy.

00:09:59.640 Conspiracy allows the admission of evidence that would not normally be admissible.

00:10:03.920 It allows changes in other criteria that are harmful to the defendant.

00:10:11.220 Conspiracy is the plaything of prosecutors, and they love it, and they'll do it whenever there's any possibility of getting a conspiracy charge.

00:10:18.920 One of the first motions the defense will make is to strike the conspiracy charge, alleging that the co-conspirator is really not a co-conspirator.

00:10:27.420 They will also argue that moving boxes is not necessarily an obstruction of justice.

00:10:34.160 Remember, this is not the Richard Nixon case.

00:10:36.380 In Richard Nixon, there was destruction of evidence, paying of bribes, open and shut obstruction of justice.

00:10:44.440 These are, it looks like, closer cases.

00:10:47.440 Again, I think the strongest case would grow out of the tape recording of Trump admitting that he had possessed and was showing to somebody material that he could have but didn't classify.

00:11:01.720 That could also be part of a conspiracy as well.

00:11:08.260 Well, let's just, let's set it up.

00:11:10.300 Let's, let's do bare bones set up because people, this is such a confusing case.

00:11:13.620 It's so hard to keep track of everything that happened.

00:11:15.740 But Trump had the documents.

00:11:17.940 The National Archivist was like, yo, you've got documents, fork them over.

00:11:23.000 And Trump sent some, but the National Archivist found classified information in what he sent and then notified justice saying, you got a problem on your hands.

00:11:32.700 He's, he's got classified documents.

00:11:34.360 So now they get involved and say, give us all the classified documents.

00:11:37.400 Because Trump produces classified documents, says that's everything.

00:11:41.020 They say that's everything.

00:11:41.860 He says that's everything.

00:11:43.360 Then they hit him with a subpoena, which is more formal.

00:11:46.680 You better give us everything.

00:11:48.360 And they say that after he got the formal subpoena, which you or I would have to comply with, any citizen in America would have to comply with a subpoena, that having the subpoena in hand, he started to move boxes out of the Mar-a-Lago storage room and into Trump's private office.

00:12:05.700 And that this guy who just got also arrested or, you know, is indicted, Walt, helped him.

00:12:11.080 Walt is like, I think one of the publications described him as Donald Trump's Diet Coke getter.

00:12:15.760 Like this, he's the right hand man who does, you know, helps Trump.

00:12:18.380 Right.

00:12:18.460 So he goes and he moves the now just moving them doesn't mean anything.

00:12:22.000 Maybe Trump wanted to look at that to make sure there was nothing in them, just moving them.

00:12:25.720 They must have more than he moved them, because what happened next was the Fed said, we don't believe you produced everything.

00:12:31.560 And they got a certification from Trump's lawyer down at Mar-a-Lago, this guy, Evan Corcoran, saying we did produce we gave you everything.

00:12:38.980 And then they then they raided they raided Mar-a-Lago and they said, we still don't believe you.

00:12:43.740 They braided Mar-a-Lago and they were told that in Trump's office, indeed, they found still more classified documents.

00:12:50.300 So isn't that where the obstruction charge is coming?

00:12:52.440 You were under subpoena.

00:12:53.760 Then you moved documents.

00:12:54.960 You weren't just reviewing them because you kept classified documents, which we found when we raided you.

00:12:59.720 But there has to be an intent to obstruct justice.

00:13:04.560 And if he claims and I don't know what his defense will be, he doesn't have to put on a defense.

00:13:09.720 The government has to prove all of the elements beyond a reasonable doubt.

00:13:12.840 But his lawyers may claim that they will move for safety or this would be an interesting case that they will remove to avoid them being covered by a search warrant, not in response to the subpoena, but to the anticipated search warrant.

00:13:27.520 Would that be obstruction of justice?

00:13:29.140 That would be an interesting case.

00:13:30.320 I've never seen that case resolved.

00:13:33.120 Moving material so as not to be covered by the search warrant, anticipating the search warrant would only apply to his business areas, but not to his personal residence.

00:13:44.520 We have to see what the allegations are, not only in the indictment, which will probably be fairly bare bone, but there'll be a bill of particulars that will be sought right away.

00:13:54.260 And we'll see.

00:13:56.080 Yeah, we'll learn more next week.

00:13:57.060 But here's a question.

00:13:58.180 Here's a question.

00:13:58.760 So let's say Trump said, OK, I got to make sure I didn't keep any classified documents that's responsive to this subpoena.

00:14:05.560 This is before the raid.

00:14:07.380 Let me look through these.

00:14:08.920 No, I declass.

00:14:09.980 These say classified, but I declassified these.

00:14:12.080 These are not responsive.

00:14:13.460 I'm keeping them here.

00:14:14.420 I don't owe them these.

00:14:15.660 And I'm not forking them over because I declassified them.

00:14:18.100 Right.

00:14:18.200 That is a defense, right?

00:14:21.220 Like, even though they have the classified marks on them.

00:14:24.000 That's exactly what Hillary Clinton claimed she did. 1.00

00:14:27.020 Remember, she had material subpoenaed.

00:14:29.360 I'm a friend of Hillary Clinton.

00:14:30.620 I voted for her.

00:14:31.460 I supported her.

00:14:32.480 But she claimed that she destroyed material that was not subject to the subpoena.

00:14:39.100 That was personal.

00:14:40.260 Now, we'll never know whether or not the 33,000, whatever, that would destroy were all personal.

00:14:46.860 I believe her because I know her.

00:14:49.480 But she wiped the server and destroyed all the cell phone evidence of it, which doesn't

00:14:52.980 exactly sound innocent, but okay.

00:14:55.100 Now, that was done, she said, not in violation of any subpoena because nothing that she destroyed

00:15:01.280 was commanded by the subpoena.

00:15:03.840 But that requires us to believe what she said.

00:15:06.980 And that's going to be alleged.

00:15:09.620 That's going to be raised in defense.

00:15:11.880 Not in legal defense, but in political defense, saying, why is this different?

00:15:17.620 This is not Richard Nixon.

00:15:19.900 This is Hillary Clinton. 0.66

00:15:21.160 And remember that the head of the FBI said, nobody has ever been prosecuted for doing what

00:15:26.120 Hillary Clinton did. 0.98

00:15:27.620 That will be the claim.

00:15:29.080 If nobody was ever prosecuted for doing what Hillary Clinton did, why is this the first

00:15:33.320 case where somebody is being prosecuted for doing what appears to be similar to what

00:15:38.880 it is alleged that Hillary Clinton did?

00:15:41.040 Those are the kinds of debates that we see coming.

00:15:45.000 But remember now, everybody-

00:15:46.460 Let me interject now here.

00:15:48.100 Okay, so you mentioned the news that broke yesterday, and now we have a transcript of

00:15:52.660 it.

00:15:53.180 So what was in Trump's head when he said, get those boxes out of that storage room and

00:15:57.480 bring them over to my office?

00:15:58.920 You and I are giving him the benefit of the doubt here for argument's sake.

00:16:01.920 Maybe he wanted to review them.

00:16:03.060 Maybe he wanted to see what's in here.

00:16:05.100 Is there anything classified?

00:16:06.020 Is there anything responsive to the subpoena?

00:16:07.580 It's not you and I giving him the benefit of the doubt.

00:16:10.820 The law gives him the benefit of the doubt.

00:16:12.880 Okay, but I'm just talking about the purposes of discussion.

00:16:14.980 We don't know, but we're saying, okay, let's say he had no malintent in moving those boxes

00:16:20.700 out of the storage room.

00:16:21.800 He wanted to take a look at them.

00:16:22.960 See, what do I have to fork over?

00:16:24.560 And he's like, you know what?

00:16:25.400 I declassified this stuff.

00:16:26.540 They're not entitled to it.

00:16:28.160 I'm not producing this.

00:16:30.360 Now, this is where the Trump audio recording comes in that the left is salivating over today.

00:16:36.740 CNN first reported that it existed two days ago.

00:16:40.000 Now they've obtained what they say is a transcript of the phone call, which gives us allegedly some

00:16:46.820 insight into what was in his head.

00:16:48.900 I dispute that, but that's the narrative.

00:16:50.920 So here's the headline.

00:16:52.620 Donald Trump admits on tape he did not declassify secret information.

00:16:56.940 So this is go right.

00:16:57.600 It goes right to the heart of it.

00:16:58.520 Now, he could not possibly have been looking at classified documents and saying, I declassified

00:17:02.280 declassified because this audio tape shows he knew he hadn't declassified anything.

00:17:07.740 They claim that the transcription shows him this is at some book meeting about Mark Meadows

00:17:12.380 book.

00:17:13.100 He's talking with people there about, I don't know, everything.

00:17:15.680 They say Trump's discussing a classified Pentagon document about attacking Iran.

00:17:20.740 He's complaining because chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley had been quoted in some

00:17:25.520 New Yorker story about Milley allegedly fighting to stop Trump from striking, striking Iran and

00:17:31.840 allegedly saying you're going to have an effing war.

00:17:34.220 So this is Trump saying I wasn't the one who wanted war.

00:17:36.380 Milley wanted war.

00:17:37.600 The Pentagon, they were suggesting war against Iran and showing me plans.

00:17:41.660 I'm not the warmonger they are.

00:17:43.180 This is what the conversation is allegedly about.

00:17:46.400 And in this context, Trump allegedly said they said I wanted to attack Iran in this paper.

00:17:52.920 Isn't that amazing?

00:17:53.980 I have a big pile of papers.

00:17:55.340 This thing just came up.

00:17:56.480 Look, this was him.

00:17:57.760 And apparently you can hear paper rattling on the tape.

00:18:00.100 They presented me this.

00:18:01.380 This is off the record, but they presented me this.

00:18:03.160 This was him.

00:18:04.100 This was the Defense Department and him, meaning Milley.

00:18:06.620 We looked at this.

00:18:07.580 This was him.

00:18:08.500 This wasn't done by me.

00:18:10.100 It was done by him.

00:18:11.020 All sorts of stuff.

00:18:11.800 Pages long.

00:18:12.540 Look, wait a minute.

00:18:13.620 Let's see here.

00:18:14.220 I just found.

00:18:14.800 Isn't this amazing?

00:18:15.920 This totally wins my case, you know, except it's like highly confidential secret.

00:18:22.220 This is secret information.

00:18:24.400 Look, look at this.

00:18:26.040 Per CNN, he then asks someone in the room if he can declassify it.

00:18:30.320 And then he says, as president, I could have declassified, but now I can't.

00:18:36.700 Now, this is what they say shows he knew he didn't.

00:18:40.720 Now, we don't know, Alan, where this document came from.

00:18:42.640 We don't know if it came from Mar-a-Lago, if it came from the black.

00:18:44.560 We have no idea.

00:18:45.440 But I don't know whether this is the slam dunk, you know, the silver bullet that the left now

00:18:50.200 thinks it is.

00:18:50.800 What do you think?

00:18:51.260 Well, I think it's a smoking gun, but, you know, smoke sometimes can be caused by fire,

00:18:56.880 sometimes by arson.

00:18:58.680 We don't know.

00:18:59.940 There's nothing in it that suggests that he didn't declassify anything, but merely that

00:19:04.540 he could have declassified this, but didn't.

00:19:07.480 We have to see what the document says.

00:19:09.420 We have to see whether he actually showed it to read to the reporter or whether he just

00:19:15.700 kind of showed it to him and said, see, I have this document, but I'm not going to show

00:19:18.960 you what's in it.

00:19:19.800 It all depends on the specific facts, but it sounds like it's the most serious piece of

00:19:25.580 evidence.

00:19:26.100 And it's a tape, which is juries love to listen to tapes.

00:19:30.360 They love to think they're solving mysteries.

00:19:33.300 And, and, and therefore this is a very, very compelling piece of evidence that may turn

00:19:39.220 around perceptions and say, because if Trump really did, if he issued a sweeping order,

00:19:44.800 as he's now been claiming, just declassify everything, declassify everything right before

00:19:48.960 he left the presidency, then why would this document not have been declass?

00:19:52.980 Why, why would he be sitting there, you know, a year later saying, I didn't declassify this

00:19:57.280 and saying it's secret and asking, can I show it?

00:20:00.500 Oh no, I can't.

00:20:01.440 By the way, the prosecutors then subpoenaed the document and say, they still don't have

00:20:05.800 it.

00:20:06.180 And by the way, they also point out CNN, it's unclear if it was indeed even a real document.

00:20:10.620 I mean, it could have been Trump being like, I've got proof right here. 0.99

00:20:12.980 Millie's a liar. 1.00

00:20:13.820 And he's looking at his schedule for the rest of the day. 0.95

00:20:15.960 We really, we don't know any of that, but okay.

00:20:18.380 I want to move on to other charges.

00:20:19.640 So that, but I just think that you're right.

00:20:22.060 He may come up with the blow heart defense.

00:20:24.720 Hey, I'm just the blow heart.

00:20:26.020 I was just, uh, talking.

00:20:28.280 Um, I really did declassify everything and this wasn't serious.

00:20:32.020 We have to wait to see what the evidence is.

00:20:34.100 Okay.

00:20:34.600 So that's a, that's our first look at this, um, conspiracy to obstruct justice charge.

00:20:39.940 But the most interesting charge I think is the espionage charge.

00:20:43.620 And Andy McCarthy has a great piece on national review dated yesterday and he says, yeah.

00:20:50.760 And he says the most interesting thing to him is that Trump appears to be getting charged

00:20:54.980 under, I won't bore you with the statute number of the audience, but under subsection D of the

00:21:01.520 espionage act, not subsection F.

00:21:05.200 Now, subsection F criminalizes grossly negligent behavior in the protection of documents that

00:21:13.340 relate to national security.

00:21:14.700 This is what most people get charged under.

00:21:16.800 You were grossly negligent, you know, president Biden, when you took that document and left

00:21:21.100 it by the Corvette.

00:21:22.860 Um, they seem to be trying to distinguish president Trump's behavior.

00:21:27.140 I would suggest because they understand there's a political element element here.

00:21:30.380 They're not charging Biden.

00:21:31.820 They're not charging Pence by saying you're different.

00:21:35.040 President Trump, we're charging you under a different subsection that criminalizes the

00:21:39.440 willful, the willful mishandling of documents relating to national defense.

00:21:47.080 You knew you had it.

00:21:49.240 You didn't protect it adequately.

00:21:50.880 And then you refuse to fork it over.

00:21:52.880 However, they're going to make that case.

00:21:54.320 But what do you make of that distinction?

00:21:55.560 Cause I think most people were thinking he's going to look at, be looking at the grossly negligent

00:21:58.840 handling.

00:21:59.220 They've changed it.

00:22:00.620 They've upped it to the willfulness handling.

00:22:03.240 Well, I think it's very smart of the prosecutors to do it.

00:22:05.920 If they have the evidence that can prove it now, proving willfulness is not easy to do.

00:22:11.460 You can't get into the mind of people.

00:22:13.740 Uh, and there are many, many defenses to willfulness and actually the Supreme court in recent years

00:22:19.620 has made it harder, not easier to prove willfulness.

00:22:22.980 So I think what we see is the prosecution made a gamble.

00:22:26.320 They decided that politically they're better off charging willfulness, even though it makes

00:22:31.700 it harder for them to prove the case.

00:22:33.260 So they get a stronger indictment.

00:22:35.500 And if in the end they get an acquittal on that charge, well, that's the jury, not us.

00:22:41.600 To me, this is evidence that this is political, not that we needed more, but I mean, it's

00:22:45.060 further evidence that this is political because why wouldn't as a prosecutor, maybe you charge

00:22:49.460 both and we'll see, maybe they did that.

00:22:51.460 But there, to me, this is an obvious attempt to distinguish his behavior from Joe Biden's.

00:22:56.080 Why are they doing that? 0.99

00:22:56.780 They're trying to cover their butts. 0.96

00:22:57.780 Well, no, I think it's also an attempt to distinguish it from Hillary Clinton, because 0.69

00:23:02.420 Hillary Clinton, remember Comey said what she did was negligent, but nobody is prosecuted

00:23:07.520 for negligence.

00:23:09.740 Basically, they're trying to distinguish from what Comey said about Hillary Clinton, as well

00:23:16.160 as Joe Biden and Pence.

00:23:18.800 And by doing that, they make it more justified to indict, but harder to convict.

00:23:26.500 Now, you say it's political.

00:23:27.680 Let's remember the indictment is almost certainly drafted by the special counsel, the independent

00:23:32.740 counsel, and Garland doesn't generally get to undo that unless it's in violation of Justice

00:23:41.700 Department rules and regulations, which is a high standard.

00:23:45.260 So the defenders of the indictment will say that this was not political.

00:23:50.220 It was not done by the Oval Office or by the Justice Department.

00:23:54.700 It was done by a very experienced and highly regarded independent counsel.

00:23:59.040 That will be the case.

00:24:00.020 But we'll wait and see what the indictment says before.

00:24:02.400 And Jack Smith has a good reputation.

00:24:04.540 He has a good reputation.

00:24:05.700 But you and I both know this is Merrick Garland doing this.

00:24:08.780 And Merrick Garland answers to one man.

00:24:10.760 And it happens to be Trump's rival for the presidency.

00:24:13.240 Well, I'm not sure I agree with you that Merrick Garland does this.

00:24:18.600 He has a role to play, but I don't think he has been directing this on a day to day basis.

00:24:25.100 I think that he is trying.

00:24:27.000 Who controls Jack Smith?

00:24:27.600 Who does Jack Smith answer to?

00:24:28.900 Who does Jack Smith answer to?

00:24:30.660 Well, Jack Smith doesn't answer to anybody unless he violates the standards of the Justice

00:24:37.120 Department.

00:24:38.040 But, you know, those standards are vague and broad.

00:24:40.140 And obviously, you're right.

00:24:41.820 Garland could have squashed this had he wanted to.

00:24:44.780 So it may be that Garland's inaction is more important than anything he actually did.

00:24:50.520 Again, let's wait and see what the indictment says.

00:24:53.760 The thing that may very well violate Justice Department policies is the timing.

00:24:58.280 Here we have a situation where there is no good timing for this trial.

00:25:01.960 Either it will be just before the primaries or during the primary season, just before the

00:25:09.260 election or after the election.

00:25:11.140 There's no good time to bring a case like this, which is why unless the case is a slam,

00:25:16.540 slam, slam dunk, it should never have been brought.

00:25:19.760 You do not indict the man who's running against the incumbent president unless you absolutely

00:25:25.180 have to.

00:25:25.820 This is not a case for typical prosecutorial discretion.

00:25:30.100 Oh, well, maybe yes, maybe no.

00:25:31.760 I'll exercise my discretion.

00:25:33.440 This is a case that has to pass the standard of we have no choice.

00:25:37.780 We have to indict.

00:25:39.540 Mm hmm.

00:25:39.960 And it doesn't.

00:25:40.960 It clearly doesn't.

00:25:42.060 And it doesn't comport with their history with respect in particular to Hillary Clinton.

00:25:45.740 That's the worst case for them because it clearly shows the double standard.

00:25:50.600 I mean, 100 percent.

00:25:51.660 Alan, it's such a pleasure.

00:25:52.920 Thank you so much.

00:25:54.620 My pleasure.

00:25:55.040 Thank you.

00:25:56.060 We've got more on the indictment as two other legal eagles join us right after this and

00:26:00.600 also what's happening in the investigation against Joe Biden.

00:26:04.280 We're learning more about a grand jury about an investigation happening right now in Delaware

00:26:10.820 into his alleged misdeeds.

00:26:14.440 He calls it all malarkey.

00:26:16.180 But the House Oversight Committee just got its hands on this potentially damning document.

00:26:22.100 And we're going to take a dive into that, too.

00:26:25.040 Join me now with more Arthur Idalla.

00:26:30.140 He's a trial attorney and managing partner of Idalla, Fortuna and Caymans.

00:26:33.900 And also Dave Ehrenberg.

00:26:35.460 He's the state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, where Mar-a-Lago is located.

00:26:39.980 Guys, welcome back to the show.

00:26:41.200 What a day.

00:26:42.220 First time in American history.

00:26:43.680 A former president has faced federal charges.

00:26:46.920 His second indictment since March.

00:26:48.740 Can I just ask you as lawyers?

00:26:51.040 I just I have no I have no dog in this hunt, you know, when it comes to Trump or anybody

00:26:56.580 else.

00:26:56.960 And the nomination I do as a citizen, as a recovering lawyer, as somebody who cares about

00:27:03.020 the justice system and its equal application.

00:27:04.960 I'm disgusted.

00:27:06.180 I'm disgusted. 0.99

00:27:07.240 To me, this seems fucking blatantly political. 0.97

00:27:09.780 Forgive me. 0.86

00:27:10.300 Sorry.

00:27:11.440 And it it it's upsetting me.

00:27:13.580 What what what is going on?

00:27:16.760 It's just disgusting, Arthur.

00:27:18.460 They the Hillary Clinton juxtaposition juxtaposition is the most compelling one.

00:27:23.300 She she scrubbed her servers. 0.94

00:27:26.560 She destroyed her cell phones.

00:27:28.020 She had classified information that she did not turn over.

00:27:31.780 And Comey came out and said, there's no crime.

00:27:34.540 And now because it's Donald Trump, who, by the way, had the power to declassify, unlike

00:27:38.800 Hillary.

00:27:39.780 And he looks like he's regaining steam to recapture this nomination.

00:27:43.900 He's got to be charged.

00:27:44.980 And it looks like he's probably going to be charged in Georgia, too.

00:27:47.580 That's the third.

00:27:48.200 That would be the third indictment.

00:27:49.420 And Jack Smith may have a fourth indictment up his sleeve because he's investigating him

00:27:53.980 for Jan 6th, too.

00:27:55.700 So the reason why I'm and this is not a good reason, but the reason why I'm not maybe as

00:28:00.980 upset as you are.

00:28:02.020 And, Dave, you can take the fifth on this.

00:28:04.000 I watch this happen all the time.

00:28:06.080 It's called selective prosecution.

00:28:07.800 They choose who they go after and who they don't.

00:28:11.420 And obviously, the stakes here are much higher.

00:28:13.500 But I'm watching it for the little people, for the little folks who are, you know, there's

00:28:17.580 25 people doing the exact same thing.

00:28:20.140 And they highlight five of them, maybe because their name ends in a vowel or maybe because

00:28:24.380 it's more likely to get in the New York Post.

00:28:26.700 But I mean, look, I'll give you a perfect example.

00:28:28.980 When I stood up at the sentencing of Harvey Weinstein, that exact judge sentenced someone who 0.96

00:28:33.960 did much worse, much worse, drugged people and sentenced that person and then raped them 0.62

00:28:40.240 and sentenced that person to seven years.

00:28:43.040 Harvey, on a lesser crime, he gave 23 years.

00:28:47.160 So it's just it's the system's not fair.

00:28:49.580 So that's why I sense your outrage.

00:28:52.000 But sadly, doing this for three decades, I'm not surprised by it.

00:28:57.080 What do you think, Dave?

00:28:58.460 Because I recognize Trump's behavior, as alleged, is different from the behavior in some ways

00:29:05.140 of Joe Biden and Mike Pence because he was hit with a subpoena and they're alleging that

00:29:11.460 he did not comply with it, that he moved boxes around, that he willfully deceived the

00:29:16.820 feds who were trying to get whatever he had done.

00:29:19.120 That's the allegation.

00:29:20.040 We'll see whether they can prove it.

00:29:21.620 But that is not even arguably alleged against Biden or Pence, et cetera.

00:29:25.960 But the first crime, the underlying crime before we get to the alleged cover up is the same.

00:29:31.020 You took classified documents that you had no right to take.

00:29:35.080 Well, Megan, it's going to be back with you and Arthur.

00:29:37.520 And I love the interview with my old law professor.

00:29:39.840 He's the one who taught me criminal law, Alan Dershowitz.

00:29:41.780 So I agree.

00:29:42.360 He's not everybody.

00:29:44.340 Yeah.

00:29:44.840 He claims to remember like all of his students.

00:29:46.900 I don't believe that.

00:29:47.940 But yeah, it was he was great.

00:29:49.400 So, you know, look, I was with you when we discussed the Alvin Bragg prosecution.

00:29:56.320 I admitted I thought that was the least strong of the four.

00:30:00.040 I shared some of the concerns you had on this one.

00:30:02.320 Now, I feel differently.

00:30:04.020 You know, this these are serious allegations.

00:30:05.600 And and yes, it is different than Biden and Pence.

00:30:09.740 But that is really the crux of it is that when Trump Trump has admitted, he knew he had the documents.

00:30:17.180 And instead of giving them back, he refused and then tried to hide them, according to the allegation from the feds.

00:30:25.000 And there was an Air Force colonel who did something similarly, just was sentenced to three years in prison.

00:30:29.860 And so, you know, this is the type of thing that gets you prison time and, you know, no one's above the law.

00:30:33.920 So I think these charges are appropriate.

00:30:35.900 I think of all the let me let me follow up on that with you.

00:30:39.180 OK, when you say hide.

00:30:41.160 So how is moving documents if he did that with Nate from the storage room of Mar-a-Lago into his office hiding?

00:30:48.280 Right. Like maybe he was taking them in there to review.

00:30:50.480 Maybe he looked and said, this is classified by the declassified it.

00:30:53.480 How is it hiding?

00:30:55.960 Well, the the fact that they're prosecuting Walt Nauta, that's the valet, tells you that Walt Nauta lied to feds.

00:31:04.300 And this is why they get Trump, because and what happened was the feds asked Nauta, did you move the documents?

00:31:11.920 Because, you know, they had evidence that he didn't.

00:31:13.680 He said, no, no, no.

00:31:14.780 And then they found on the surveillance state the documents were moved before and after.

00:31:18.520 And a lot of this comes from Evan Corcoran, the lawyer for Trump.

00:31:21.400 They got his notes and he felt deceived.

00:31:23.900 Dave, sorry, just stop there, because the thing with Evan Corcoran is pretty outrageous as lawyers.

00:31:29.600 I mean, it's pretty outrageous what happened with them.

00:31:31.580 But can you just in baby steps, like in three succinct sentences, tell people what happened with the lawyer, Evan Corcoran, who is representing Trump?

00:31:39.780 Sure.

00:31:40.340 Evan Corcoran was there to produce the documents in response to the subpoena.

00:31:46.360 And he took copious notes about everything he did, because apparently he was trying to under the legal doctrine, as Arthur knows, called CYA.

00:31:56.840 And so he was he was trying to protect himself.

00:31:59.920 So what happened was he was reviewing the documents and then made a statement that said that to the feds and said that all the documents had been returned.

00:32:11.180 Unbeknownst to him, the documents were not returned because he got access to them.

00:32:17.140 But what Trump wanted him to see, the documents were moved in and out of the storage room.

00:32:21.760 He was told the documents are all there in the storage room.

00:32:24.300 But unbeknownst to him, the documents were not all there in the storage room.

00:32:27.660 They had been moved in and out of the room by Walt Nada so that the lawyer would not find all the documents.

00:32:35.040 And Walt Nada lied about moving the documents.

00:32:37.180 They had them on tape.

00:32:38.380 And according to the report, Donald Trump was the one who told Walt Nada to move the documents around.

00:32:42.980 And I agree with you, Megan.

00:32:45.140 If that could be Trump's defense where, oh, I wanted to see the documents and make sure they were all produced.

00:32:50.060 But when the feds came a call in later on, they found 100 more documents than had been produced, including some in his office mixed in with his personal stuff.

00:33:00.080 So it's bad for Trump.

00:33:01.620 You can't do that.

00:33:02.300 What about what?

00:33:03.000 Thank you for that.

00:33:03.700 That was a good explanation.

00:33:04.520 But what I'll give it to you in one second, Arthur.

00:33:06.260 But to follow up, Dave, what about that?

00:33:08.820 This is where Trump's I declassified everything comes in.

00:33:12.200 I did look just to make sure I was giving you everything, everything in there.

00:33:15.880 I had declassified.

00:33:16.700 That's why you didn't get it.

00:33:17.440 And I think that's his best defense, because although the documents don't need to be classified under the Espionage Act or that's an important point.

00:33:27.760 Repeat that right under the Espionage Act.

00:33:30.880 And I would love to talk about seven ninety three without getting too technical because there's an important point in there.

00:33:35.340 But under the Espionage Act, the documents only have to pertain to sensitive national security, not classified.

00:33:42.240 They do not have to be classified.

00:33:43.460 So number one is critical.

00:33:44.600 It's bad for Donald Trump.

00:33:46.380 Right.

00:33:46.780 But prosecutors and Arthur knows this.

00:33:49.380 We prosecutors are risk averse.

00:33:50.880 We don't like to bring cases unless we can eliminate any potential defenses.

00:33:55.300 And it's our concern.

00:33:56.900 If I if we had if I had a case like this, that a single juror would think, yeah, maybe Trump actually believed he had the power to declassify.

00:34:05.780 He was president.

00:34:06.760 He had broad authority to declassify.

00:34:08.740 So maybe he believed it.

00:34:09.940 And that's some reasonable doubt.

00:34:11.080 So what the feds were trying to do is to debunk that defense.

00:34:14.880 And when they got that audio recording that you just discussed with Professor Dershowitz, that was the final piece of the puzzle.

00:34:21.720 Not only do the documents not have to be declassified or not have to be classified, excuse me, but also they've got Trump on tape saying essentially.

00:34:30.240 Yeah, I would love to show it to you, but, you know, I can't because they're not declassified.

00:34:34.740 And then he shows it to them anyways, it undermines the I declassified everything with it.

00:34:39.160 You know, I waved the wand when I left office and I declassified everything.

00:34:41.720 If that's true, why are you having hesitation about a document in your possession in twenty twenty one?

00:34:45.540 Though, as I pointed out with Alan, we don't we don't know enough about that document.

00:34:48.540 I don't know that it's slam dunk, but even Alan, who defends Trump, though, won't vote for him, says it's potentially a smoking gun.

00:34:55.540 Go ahead, Arthur.

00:34:56.040 Megan, I'm just wondering, how much do you how much is your opinion about whether this indictment should or should not have been brought?

00:35:08.620 What weight does it hold on what actual documents Trump had?

00:35:14.820 And even though they don't have to prove it and what the motive was, was why he had these particular documents.

00:35:22.360 Would your opinion change that this is not B.S. if you found out that there was something nefarious going on?

00:35:29.380 I mean, he's selling secrets to the Chinese. Yes, I would be upset. Yes. 0.98

00:35:34.160 But no one's even alleging that.

00:35:35.820 I mean, that's the question that I have in my mind.

00:35:38.440 In other words, like, hypothetically, let's just say these documents have to do with ribbon cutting ceremonies at very special places.

00:35:45.640 And he wants to make sure his great grandkids have these these documents for the future reference and that this is what they're indicting him over.

00:35:52.720 Then I would be outraged. If it has to do with selling secrets to the Chinese, then I would say, thank God. 0.96

00:35:58.300 OK, but let me I get it. I get it. Let me say two things on that.

00:36:00.960 Number one, Maggie Haberman of The New York Times had earlier reported he maintained these documents because they were like tchotchkes to him.

00:36:06.620 You know, I want to I want to have a memento of my discussions with Kim Jong-un.

00:36:09.840 Very, very plausible with Trump, whose wall in Trump Tower is covered with magazine covers of him, him, you know, his face.

00:36:17.060 He's into that kind of thing. But secondly, this alleged audio tape that CNN says it has a transcript of.

00:36:23.140 But again, I don't we haven't heard it ourselves.

00:36:26.640 Seems to open up another possible theory, which is Trump understood there is, quote, a deep state.

00:36:32.940 I don't really like that term, but I get what he's saying.

00:36:34.980 And other people say about there is there is an unhealthy element inside the government working against him that has hated him and wanted to undermine his presidency and his agenda.

00:36:43.720 And he seems to have collected some documents as insurance.

00:36:48.280 Judge Judy once told me all of our favorite judge.

00:36:51.200 She keeps a file on everybody.

00:36:53.260 If you go into Judge Judy's world, she's got a file on you just in case you've doubled across her, just in case you heard her.

00:36:58.640 She's brilliant. Maybe this is Trump's Judge Judy file, right?

00:37:03.100 Like, Millie's a liar. Bullshit. He's the one who wanted war with Iran. 1.00

00:37:06.100 I don't know. But I could see that I in no world do I see Trump selling secrets to our enemies, Arthur.

00:37:14.080 No, I mean, look, you you gave that example, but it does.

00:37:17.620 You know, I do. I mean, you just gave the first explanation that I've heard in the last 24 hours of why he might want to keep these documents.

00:37:25.900 I just think from a prosecutor's point of view, that has to weigh into the matrix of whether or not, you know, how heavily you pursue this.

00:37:37.000 And I think and I again, going back to your interview with Professor Dershowitz, I think that word willful is what they're going to rely on to to distinguish things between Biden.

00:37:48.800 I mean, look, everyone wants to paint Biden as the absent minded professor.

00:37:52.480 Well, this goes right into his defense.

00:37:55.500 I don't know. I wasn't sure.

00:37:57.000 I had nothing to do with it, which is versus Trump, which is I did know.

00:38:01.800 And I decided I wasn't going to play ball with you guys.

00:38:05.260 But again, we're still stuck on, OK, he's going to say I declassified everything and therefore it was not responsive.

00:38:10.900 It doesn't matter if it's declassified or not.

00:38:13.360 It's a matter of whether they asked they asked you, I need you to return this classified or unclassified.

00:38:19.040 When the National Archives say we need this back and you say, number one, no.

00:38:23.960 Number two, you lie about it.

00:38:25.320 And number three, you tell other people to obstruct justice.

00:38:27.840 Those are three different federal crimes.

00:38:29.480 Well, I don't know. There's there is some question about whether those records did not belong to the National Archives.

00:38:35.000 We've had lawyers come on and say they were his.

00:38:38.020 He was entitled to keep them and that challenging the claim being made by the archive is that they belonged to the public to begin with.

00:38:44.440 I don't know what the answer on that is.

00:38:45.920 But, Dave, let's talk about the fact because we we put a pin in it.

00:38:49.540 If let's say the classified or unclassified nature of these documents is irrelevant legally under the Espionage Act, that all the feds have to show is they related to national security.

00:39:04.240 That's bad as a legal matter for Trump.

00:39:07.100 That's bad if because it seems like some of them did and they remained in his possession.

00:39:13.740 You what your take is you want to talk about subsection D, which he was charged under, whereas the gross negligence is subsection F.

00:39:19.420 Actually, Megan, I want to talk about subsection E to get in the weeds.

00:39:24.100 But here's why it's important, because under the search warrant where they search Mar-a-Lago, it was backed up by an affidavit.

00:39:30.940 And the affidavit from the FBI agent specifically cited 18 U.S.C.

00:39:35.640 793 E.

00:39:37.620 It never cited F.

00:39:39.120 So I never even considered F to be a possibility.

00:39:42.220 I think it's always been about E all along.

00:39:44.860 And if this case ends up being about D as a separate section, I'd be surprised.

00:39:49.000 I think it's still about E because that was part of the search warrant.

00:39:51.060 But they're alleging willful.

00:39:52.000 They're alleging.

00:39:52.700 Well, we haven't seen it, but reportedly they're alleging willfulness.

00:39:55.120 Keep going.

00:39:56.120 Well, OK, under E.

00:39:57.680 And just so that I'm going to say the difference between D and E are the following.

00:40:00.980 Under E, you have to have someone with unauthorized possession of the documents.

00:40:04.960 So they're saying as a former president is unauthorized possession.

00:40:08.920 And then that person has to willfully retain the documents and fail to deliver it back to the feds.

00:40:17.660 Now, the difference between that, which I think applies, and D is D says you lawfully have possession of the documents.

00:40:25.600 We're going to say that as president, you lawfully have possession of the documents, but you willfully failed to return them on demand.

00:40:35.060 So that's the difference.

00:40:35.720 D says you have to have a demand to return them.

00:40:39.020 E doesn't require a demand.

00:40:40.980 And D says you're allowed to have it before we ask you to pour them back.

00:40:45.020 E says, no, you were never allowed to have them.

00:40:47.680 So what's the bottom line?

00:40:48.380 Why does that why does any of that matter?

00:40:49.740 How does that help or hurt Trump?

00:40:51.900 Well, I think that as long as it's not F, I mean, and if it's D or E, I think they got them. 0.93

00:40:56.040 Um, if it's E, I think maybe a little tougher.

00:41:00.340 I thought they'd always proceed under D because you have to say that you are someone who has unauthorized possession of the documents.

00:41:07.200 And that's where the whole declassification stuff comes into play.

00:41:10.520 So even though you didn't declassify, then it's then you are unauthorized to have them.

00:41:16.140 Well, either way, they're saying you you had him and shouldn't have had him.

00:41:18.660 And once we once we asked for them, you had an obligation to turn him back over.

00:41:23.140 That's what they're going to argue.

00:41:24.460 But you got to give Jack Smith some credit.

00:41:28.300 Like, I'm pretty sure, you know, he's an Eastern district guy.

00:41:31.460 He's here in my backyard.

00:41:33.140 Originally, he's the special prosecutor.

00:41:35.800 I am I'm going to I'll bet it all on the fact that he has investigated that these are documents that any former president of the United States is not allowed to tell the National Archives.

00:41:46.640 No, no, no, you can't have this.

00:41:48.260 He would not make that kind of a rookie mistake.

00:41:51.040 I know. I know.

00:41:52.680 Go ahead.

00:41:53.780 Oh, Megan.

00:41:54.220 Well, I think something you had said that I totally agree with you on, by the way.

00:41:57.300 I don't think that Donald Trump was trying to sell these documents to the Saudis or anyone else.

00:42:01.040 I think the motive here and that's something that prosecutors are going to have to come up with.

00:42:05.520 Now, they don't have to.

00:42:07.100 According to the law, we don't have to show motive.

00:42:09.220 But jurors want to know the why.

00:42:10.860 And that's going to come up.

00:42:12.020 Why would Trump risk everything in something so pointless and futile to hold on to these documents?

00:42:17.340 And the answer is what you said.

00:42:19.240 He likes to be the big man when he entertains guests.

00:42:21.980 That's why he has Shaquille O'Neal's shoe at Trump Tower.

00:42:25.400 He likes to show these things off.

00:42:26.940 And I think that's really the motivation. 0.99

00:42:29.000 And this is so ridiculous. 0.83

00:42:30.500 I mean, that we've now indicted a former sitting president over that. 0.96

00:42:35.660 Like, let's zoom out for a minute.

00:42:37.280 OK, like I recognize maybe maybe they got him legally.

00:42:40.460 I don't know.

00:42:41.320 We'll find out.

00:42:41.880 But to indict the frontrunner for the GOP nomination by Joe Biden's Justice Department and a guy who was just the sitting president is it is another before and after moment.

00:42:53.120 We discussed this with the brag indictment.

00:42:55.300 Only this one actually may have some teeth and he actually could serve 10 years in prison over at Arthur. 0.96

00:43:01.080 Are we really going to throw Trump potentially in prison because he was kind of a jerk about withholding these documents that he 100 percent had access and the right to have for at least four years? 0.97

00:43:12.960 So I'm glancing at my phone only for a second because he did get good news today, Trump. 0.98

00:43:21.740 He pulled a great judge.

00:43:24.060 He pulled one of his appointed judges.

00:43:25.820 Yeah, we talked about that.

00:43:26.920 Yeah.

00:43:27.440 Yeah.

00:43:27.760 OK.

00:43:28.120 So, I mean, in federal court, that that's day and night, Megan.

00:43:31.060 I mean, just so people understand in state court where Dave is, if Dave charges somebody, I go in, I sit with Dave.

00:43:37.060 He and I work out a deal and basically a judge rubber stamps it.

00:43:40.160 That is not how it works.

00:43:42.020 And that's how we work with Alvin Bragg.

00:43:44.300 Takapina goes in, sits with Alvin Bragg.

00:43:46.140 They cut a deal and a judge rubber stamps it.

00:43:48.420 In federal court, the only deal you cut is what a guideline range is.

00:43:53.240 And then it's up to the judge to go in that range below it or above it.

00:43:57.860 So the judge, the pull of the judge matters a lot, like not a little, a lot.

00:44:03.520 And, you know, he's also in a jurisdiction where I don't think the U.S. Attorney's Office really played games or the Department of Justice played games.

00:44:12.440 They brought it in the jurisdiction where the most crimes were charged or were committed, according to them, even though it's a very favorable jurisdiction to Donald Trump.

00:44:21.140 So the Department of Justice, Megan, they figure out a way to get his jurisdiction on the littlest thing.

00:44:26.800 You made a cell phone call from Florida to New York during this crime and it hit off a cell tower in New York.

00:44:33.480 This is true.

00:44:34.380 And therefore, we now have jurisdiction to bring all these crimes that happened in Florida in New York.

00:44:39.180 They could have done something like that here.

00:44:41.340 They didn't.

00:44:41.740 Obviously, Trump is in a much better place in South Southern Florida than literally maybe anywhere else in the country.

00:44:49.060 So, you know, I don't see Donald Trump in any scenario, maybe doing even any jail time, especially now that he pulled this particular judge.

00:44:57.680 I mean, it would just be absurd.

00:44:58.660 And by the way, for the record, you can run for president from prison.

00:45:05.000 There's a question about whether you could actually be president from prison or whether they would stave off your sentence so you could actually just be president.

00:45:11.740 And then deal with it.

00:45:12.940 If he won, I think he can pardon himself.

00:45:16.460 It's not clear, but I think he can having looked at the law.

00:45:19.740 But what if he doesn't win?

00:45:21.280 If he runs and he's under these charges and Biden wins, you're not going to get a pardon.

00:45:26.840 If DeSantis were to get the nomination, I think DeSantis would have to pardon him, just politically speaking.

00:45:32.240 But, David, just let me ask you, as a prosecutor down in this area, I mean, how do you see this playing out in terms of like because he's exposed to decades in prison, potentially?

00:45:41.080 I mean, he has no prior record, but there will be guidelines that determine what he'd have to go away for if he were to be convicted.

00:45:47.460 Yeah, the guidelines are much lower than the maximum.

00:45:49.860 So although it's tempting to look at the maximum 10 years in prison for espionage and 20 years in prison for obstruction, he would get a lot less than that.

00:45:57.160 Like a few years?

00:45:58.080 You know, the Air Force colonel who did something similar got three years in prison.

00:46:03.460 So, yeah, it's possible he gets somewhere around that if he's ever convicted.

00:46:06.640 And Arthur's right that Judge Cannon is someone who's already been controversial because he made some rulings that got her repudiated by the 11th Circuit favorable to Trump about the special master.

00:46:17.180 That's as good of a judge as Trump could ask for here.

00:46:20.480 Here's another thing.

00:46:21.440 They're all talking about how this case is in Miami.

00:46:23.220 I think the appointment of Judge Cannon shows that this is most likely going to be up here in West Palm Beach, Fort Pierce, not down in Miami.

00:46:32.460 Now, that is better for him than D.C., although not as good as Miami.

00:46:36.480 But you compare it to D.C.

00:46:37.920 If Jack Smith had filed this in Washington, D.C., it would have been a lot better for prosecutors.

00:46:42.360 This shows that he's actually trying not only to convince the court not to delay matters over venue, but he's also trying to, I think, make a statement that he's going to get the indictment in a red state in Trump's home state.

00:46:53.780 If he did it in D.C., Trump got 5 percent of the vote in Washington, D.C. in 2020.

00:46:58.660 But the other thing Trump has to worry about is the DOJ, they just they don't bring charges unless they have you.

00:47:04.580 They really very rarely lose cases.

00:47:08.720 So that's what's very true.

00:47:10.740 That's what's scary for President Trump right now.

00:47:13.720 As much as we want to say it's going to help his poll numbers, it probably will.

00:47:16.440 We'll do the politics of this next.

00:47:19.220 He's 76 years old.

00:47:20.960 You know, he doesn't want to go through this.

00:47:22.720 He's not going to be serving decades in prison.

00:47:24.380 He doesn't have that left in his life.

00:47:27.100 So in any event, you guys, great discussion.

00:47:29.100 Really appreciate your insightful analysis.

00:47:30.980 And we'll do it all again soon, I'm sure.

00:47:32.620 I'm a little scarred, Megan.

00:47:33.700 You curse twice during this segment.

00:47:35.340 But I know.

00:47:36.060 Children do watch the show twice.

00:47:38.600 Twice.

00:47:39.000 They know sometimes I have a potty mouth, but only when it's justified.

00:47:43.320 You guys are the best.

00:47:44.160 Thank you so much.

00:47:45.560 Thank you.

00:47:46.720 All right.

00:47:47.220 Up next, we're going to get into what's happening with Joe Biden and the revelations on this

00:47:51.160 potential case against him.

00:47:53.480 This bribery allegation is heating up and it's ugly.

00:47:57.180 I mean, when I see somebody like Nancy Mace weighing in on this in the way she did, I pay

00:48:00.220 attention.

00:48:00.600 It's one thing to have his haters saying he did something bad.

00:48:02.960 It's another thing to have somebody like that.

00:48:04.180 I'll tell you what she said.

00:48:04.920 Stand by.

00:48:05.420 We have discussed the legal issues at play at length, but perhaps just as significant

00:48:14.180 are the politics.

00:48:15.700 Trump defenders calling this indictment nothing short of election interference.

00:48:19.740 I mean, there's genuine outrage in response to this indictment.

00:48:22.980 They are playing with fire right now, arguing this is banana republic type stuff.

00:48:27.740 Well, his detractors, the ones who wanted to give BLM a total pass and Hillary Clinton

00:48:32.340 a total pass, say no one is above the law.

00:48:34.960 No one, not even a former president and the leading Republican contender for 2024.

00:48:40.360 Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of The Dying

00:48:44.800 Citizen.

00:48:46.200 Victor, welcome back to the show.

00:48:47.400 I want to get into what's happening with Joe Biden.

00:48:49.180 But before we do that, your reaction to what happened late yesterday?

00:48:52.660 Well, it's it's sort of, you know, in a very I don't want to be too dramatic, but it's

00:48:59.420 sort of the end of it's the end of what we took as normal.

00:49:03.520 That is, we usually had elections and the incoming administration was careful not to interfere

00:49:08.980 in the election process.

00:49:10.820 What for whatever reason or whatever the appearance is, we basically have the candidate who's leading

00:49:16.300 in the polls to get the Republican nomination and is leading Joe Biden has been essentially

00:49:22.580 taken out because he's facing possible prison time.

00:49:27.560 And I think this this indictment is going to be that he's got to go through this and the

00:49:33.720 baton goes to Alvin Bragg in March.

00:49:35.820 And then the baton goes to Latita James and the baton goes down in Georgia to Miss Willis.

00:49:41.860 So this is a premeditated plan sequential taking out of a candidate.

00:49:47.080 I think they at first they thought they were going to hang it over Trump's head and gain

00:49:51.760 him empathy to ensure that he got the nomination and then take him out in the general.

00:49:56.900 But now I think they feel that he's so far ahead of and so far ahead of DeSantis in the

00:50:02.980 polls that he might well get the nomination.

00:50:04.740 They should hurry up and deal with that.

00:50:07.920 I know that sounds cynical, but there's no other way to to interpret this because it's

00:50:12.740 so unusual.

00:50:13.360 And the charges, I mean, every particular charge has a counter argument that Tita James has

00:50:20.000 a counter argument at the Alvin Bragg.

00:50:22.000 He didn't want to indict Donald Trump, private citizen.

00:50:24.720 He only changed his mind when it was Donald Trump presidential candidate again.

00:50:29.680 And with this, you've talked with guests and I think everybody's talked about all the

00:50:34.020 asymmetries between the Biden family and Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

00:50:40.380 Let me ask you this, though.

00:50:42.020 So there's there's obviously a belief amongst many on the right that this is all in an effort

00:50:48.400 to defeat Donald Trump electorally.

00:50:50.300 Right. And that either they want him to become the nominee and they expect this to drive up

00:50:56.140 his poll numbers so it will make him the nominee or they just want him in jail because then

00:51:01.020 they want him defeated or they just want him in jail right now so that he can't effectively

00:51:04.300 run as president because he's got four indictments potentially sitting around his neck.

00:51:08.420 There was a very telling discussion about this on MSNBC last night where, you know how you're

00:51:13.500 not supposed to say the quiet part out loud?

00:51:15.740 Well, it happened in a discussion between Lawrence O'Donnell and Rachel Maddow, which

00:51:19.880 I'm going to play for you in part.

00:51:21.300 Listen to this.

00:51:21.980 Sat 6.

00:51:24.060 You have to wonder if the Justice Department is considering whether there is some political

00:51:30.440 solution to this criminal problem, whether part of the issue here is not just that Trump

00:51:35.860 has committed crimes, but that Trump has committed crimes and plans on being back in the White

00:51:40.060 House. Do they consider as part of a potential plea offer something that would prescribe him,

00:51:46.240 proscribe him from running for office again?

00:51:49.400 I don't know.

00:51:49.800 I would imagine if anything like that happened, that it would have to come from the defense

00:51:55.960 side of the negotiation, that the Trump team would say, oh, by the way, and with this,

00:52:02.340 we will also drop out of the race for president.

00:52:06.540 Otherwise, it would put the Justice Department in this position that Donald Trump claims they're

00:52:12.080 in.

00:52:12.540 He claims they're trying to stop him, simply trying to stop him from becoming president

00:52:17.400 again.

00:52:17.840 And that's the only reason they're doing this.

00:52:21.900 Pretty extraordinary, Victor.

00:52:24.520 It's insurrectionary.

00:52:25.880 I mean, she just sort of outlined a process which she apparently approves of or would like

00:52:31.660 to envision to happen, in which the major presidential candidate is forced out by kind of the threat

00:52:39.580 of a conviction which would necessitate him bowing out.

00:52:44.020 I don't know what she would say if the tables were reversed, given all of the Biden family's

00:52:48.560 exposure to bribery and quid pro quo, you know, money for exchange of special treatment to

00:52:58.780 foreign governments.

00:52:59.440 If somebody said that about Biden, maybe the DOJ or special counsel would say, well, you

00:53:04.040 know, Joe Biden can not face prison if he dropped out and quit the presidency.

00:53:08.500 So this is very dangerous, what they're doing.

00:53:11.580 And, you know, it also just destroys our-

00:53:13.440 Not discussed with any judgment, by the way.

00:53:14.340 Not discussed with any-

00:53:15.380 That would be horrible.

00:53:16.060 My God, that would make us a banana republic if this is political.

00:53:19.640 Just saying, oh, gee, you have to wonder whether there's some political solution here, whether

00:53:24.060 part of the issue is not just that Trump committed crimes, but he's planning on being back in

00:53:29.000 the White House.

00:53:30.120 Right.

00:53:30.600 You do have to wonder that, Rachel.

00:53:32.440 That's what most of the country that isn't a hard partisan hack is concerned is happening

00:53:37.080 right now.

00:53:37.620 And we have a deep problem with it.

00:53:39.860 We do.

00:53:40.820 And they seem oblivious. 0.98

00:53:42.100 They're so morally smug and narcissistic.

00:53:44.040 They don't think that anybody on the right would ever cease playing by the Marcus of

00:53:48.720 Queensbury rules and just say, you know what?

00:53:50.900 These people don't understand anything.

00:53:52.760 And when we take power, we're going to clean house.

00:53:55.540 And we're going to do it legally, but we're going to clean house.

00:53:58.140 They get outraged and shrieked.

00:53:59.840 And this is after the Russian collusion Mueller hoax.

00:54:03.560 It's after the Russian disinformation laptop hoax.

00:54:06.320 It's after the bogus first impeachment.

00:54:08.600 And they keep doing it and pushing the envelope, jumping the shark, whatever metaphor you use.

00:54:13.720 And they think that every American is going to take it.

00:54:16.200 But at some key point, this is kind of a force multiplier to the chaos that's going on on the border, with crime, with homelessness, the whole transgender thing. 1.00

00:54:25.360 And people, you can start to see it with the polls, the recent poll that people are more likely to identify themselves really in recent memory as conservative or the Bud Light, the Target, the Dodgers, the Disney pushback.

00:54:40.160 I don't think they understand.

00:54:41.700 They keep poking and they're creating a really angry American public.

00:54:46.700 That's also afraid, Megan, because they feel that if you've got people at the highest levels, like a McCabe that can lie under old Ford times, or like a Comey that can feign amnesia 245 times, or Clapper or Brennan at the highest CIA directors, and they can lie and admit they lie.

00:55:05.200 And there's no exposure, or here we can destroy devices under subpoena, or the FBI can wipe clean telephones under subpoena, and there's no consequences, then people say to themselves, well, we don't have a country anymore.

00:55:21.620 You can get away with all of this and justify it for political necessity on the part of the left, and it's not viable.

00:55:28.620 How can we ever lecture people in the Middle East and Asia about the wonders of democracy and how they have to emulate our system?

00:55:35.860 That's exactly right.

00:55:36.760 This guy, Jack Smith, had more than just, do I have a crime that I could win on in front of him?

00:55:42.100 He had the fracturing of a nation in front of him.

00:55:44.920 To Alan's point, it needs to be a crime if you're going to go after a former president, never mind the leading nominee for the next race on the GOP side, that everybody can agree on.

00:55:54.180 That even Trump's fans could look at and say, they had to do it.

00:55:59.980 I mean, my God, that's bad.

00:56:01.480 This is nowhere near that.

00:56:02.880 It's like you had some documents that you didn't really take very good care of down there that, you know, you should have given back to the national archivist.

00:56:10.440 That's really what this is.

00:56:11.760 This is it's not worth it.

00:56:13.360 It's not worth tearing at the fabric of the nation.

00:56:15.880 It isn't.

00:56:16.460 Everybody looks at Joe Biden and they all have a different angle on the asymmetry.

00:56:22.820 You can say, wow, he was vice president.

00:56:24.560 He had no chance to classify.

00:56:26.320 He took documents out.

00:56:27.460 Wow.

00:56:28.080 Donald Trump had them for almost two years.

00:56:30.440 But Joe Biden had them for six years.

00:56:32.300 And he knew he had them for six years.

00:56:34.000 And he knew that was in violation.

00:56:35.700 And he never notified anybody.

00:56:38.040 And then there's also these extraneous suggestions that are leaking that Hunter Biden may have been, what, tapping into confidential security reports that made him look a lot smarter than he is when he was trying to sell his wares to foreign governments.

00:56:51.760 So and then all the on does not one, not one insecure place, but three, maybe four of them.

00:56:57.760 And so when people look at all that, I think they've lost confidence and maybe not with a rank and file of the DOJ or the FBI or the CIA, but they surely have lost confidence with the entire hierarchy.

00:57:12.820 And it puts also a burden, Megan, on the Republican candidates because that are running against Trump because they have to thread a needle.

00:57:20.460 And on the one hand, they have to be outraged at what they're doing to Trump.

00:57:25.420 But if they start and there were people on Fox the other night and when I was on, they were they were announcing that the nomination is over and everybody has to unite around Trump.

00:57:35.680 And so these candidates obviously can't do that.

00:57:38.540 But if they they can't one iota criticize Trump or they're going to implode their candidacies.

00:57:45.820 But on the other hand, if they mention Trump by name and champion, then that's going to come back to bite them in a soundbite while he approved of Trump.

00:57:53.880 So they're in a real dilemma how to handle this.

00:57:56.760 And I think the only way to do it is for a guy like DeSantis, that every time they have an indictment, he's got to come out and say, here is a specific remedy for this without mentioning Trump.

00:58:07.320 He has to say, this is the remedy for people that are running the FBI.

00:58:14.360 They're going to be prosecuted for perjury the next time they lie under oath or they're going to be forbidden to be hiring foreign. 0.96

00:58:21.100 Social media companies to do their dirty work off the books or if they white clean, you know, anything under subpoena, they're going to be prosecuted or we're going to break up the hierarchy and farm out divisions.

00:58:37.080 Or we're going to get rid of the special counsel's office of the FBI, something like that, that's specific, that deals with the problem and yet doesn't criticize the FBI rank and file and more and doesn't get into the point where to what degree are you criticizing Trump?

00:58:52.720 Or if you if you try to endorse Trump and you're a candidate against them, then it's very difficult to know what to do with these candidates.

00:59:02.740 That's prescriptive, that they need something that's prescriptive.

00:59:05.240 I'll talk about the candidate responses in one second, but I just wanted to stay on your comment about the double standard and how and how people are being treated and how it makes people feel that that they really are living in something that's closer to a banana republic than the United States of America.

00:59:19.480 And that brings me to the outrageous Hillary Clinton tweet. 1.00

00:59:24.800 How dare she?

00:59:25.880 She puts out this tweet and it's a picture of her, a much younger Hillary, and the caption on the hat reads, but her emails and she writes in her tweet, bringing this back in light of recent news.

00:59:40.700 Get a limited edition, but her emails hat and support Onward Together groups working to strengthen our democracy.

00:59:48.540 The nerve, the nerve, the nerve of this woman to have committed federal crimes and to have gotten off because James Comey didn't have the spine to bring it.

00:59:59.080 And now seeing her political opponent get a different result and trying to take some sort of a I told you, but my emails, that was never a thing.

01:00:07.980 Lap is galling.

01:00:09.500 You can't even count her crimes.

01:00:12.920 When she was a candidate, she destroyed messages under subpoena. 0.94

01:00:16.380 She violated the law with a private server. 1.00

01:00:18.940 She actually destroyed physical devices that were under subpoena.

01:00:22.700 And then she hired a foreign national, which is against the law, to work in her campaign, Christopher Steele.

01:00:28.200 She funneled money through the DNC, who then hit it through Perkins Coie, then hit it through Fusion GPS, and then to compile that dossier.

01:00:37.540 And then he got her former State Department people and media to cede this false dossier.

01:00:43.840 And there were all along that line, there were illegalities.

01:00:47.680 And then once he was president, talk about election denialism.

01:00:51.780 She said, Donald Trump is an illegitimate president, and I'm joining La Résistance.

01:00:58.280 That's insurrectionary.

01:00:59.600 So people, you know, I think all of this, Megan, when you look at the way that the 120 days of 2020, the looting, the arson, the death of 35 people, 1,500 police officers injured, and then you look at the lack of any accountability, really.

01:01:19.440 And then you compare it with January 6th one day, or you look at people that are the FBI in performance art fashion, goes to their home, and they try to arrest them in front of their kids for going, you know, demonstrating at a pro-life something, or they get in an altercation, they charge them with battery.

01:01:36.280 And it just builds up.

01:01:38.540 And I think at some point, the left must feel that they don't have 51% of the population, and they're going to lose an election, and even their institutional solidarity with the media and sports and entertainment, corporations, academia.

01:01:54.380 They have all of that, but they're very worried that they're running out of time, and they're just pushing, pushing, pushing to get this agenda through.

01:02:02.300 And the agenda is not just policy, it's persons, too.

01:02:06.280 But at some point, they're really risking it, because people are really, really angry.

01:02:12.240 And the Democrats aren't going to control everything.

01:02:13.760 The Republicans take party, they're not going to take prisoners.

01:02:16.580 Well, that's the thing, right?

01:02:17.760 So it's like, if Republicans win this next presidential election, God help the Democrats.

01:02:22.720 Because if you don't think that they believe turnabout is fair play, you haven't been paying attention to our politics over the past five years.

01:02:29.780 But I do want to dive into what's happening on the Joe Biden, because I don't know whether this is all designed.

01:02:35.640 Joe Biden denies having any contact with the DOJ on any of this.

01:02:39.900 But it is, the timing's very coincidental, that just as the investigation by House oversight into Joe Biden's alleged misdeeds heats up to a, I mean, a legitimately disturbing level, that's the day we find out that Trump's been indicted.

01:02:53.420 It's just, I mean, it is, look, you'd have to say, you'd have to pay attention to that, even if you're not a conspiratorial person.

01:03:00.920 Here's what happened.

01:03:02.180 So House oversight is investigating Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, the Biden family crime syndicate, as their detractors would say.

01:03:10.900 Did they take money for influence peddling and so on or not?

01:03:13.520 They found out about a document that was in the possession of someone who was in connection, who had spoken to, I mean, the FBI had it, but it was from a whistleblower.

01:03:24.940 And this is a trusted source that the FBI has paid some $200,000 to over the past few years to get information.

01:03:30.080 They rely on this guy.

01:03:31.080 Whoever it is, they trust him.

01:03:32.580 Well, this guy came forward and said, I've got bad news for you.

01:03:35.300 Joe Biden and Hunter Biden have been up to no good.

01:03:37.660 And we knew they had this document and FBI was dragging its feet and producing it to Comer and the House Oversight Committee.

01:03:43.100 Comer said, we're going to hold you in contempt unless you give it to us.

01:03:45.600 Finally, the FBI said, well, you can come here and look at it.

01:03:47.960 Comer said, no, you will bring it to us.

01:03:49.600 You will give us unfettered access to it.

01:03:51.280 He said, I'll bring it over and you can look at it under my parameters.

01:03:54.420 Comer said, no, you will bring it over here and we will look at it as much as we want.

01:03:58.820 You answer to us.

01:04:00.100 And finally, Christopher Wray of the FBI said, all right, here you go.

01:04:03.280 So they had their look at it this week.

01:04:05.040 And the reports from those congressmen and women who have seen it are absolutely alarming

01:04:10.000 that this trusted source went to the FBI and said, Joe Biden took $5 million.

01:04:15.600 Hunter Biden took $5 million from Ukraine back when Joe Biden was vice president.

01:04:21.400 Why did they do it?

01:04:22.200 Because Hunter had this appointment to the Burisma board, this energy company,

01:04:26.780 even though Hunter knew nothing about energy and that Burisma was getting investigated

01:04:31.520 by this anti-corruption prosecutor in Ukraine.

01:04:34.220 Burisma didn't like that.

01:04:36.140 Burisma wanted that prosecutor to go away.

01:04:38.560 Hunter Biden allegedly said it might help you making this case if you would buy a U.S.

01:04:43.440 energy company.

01:04:45.040 And so they allegedly did that via some company in Canada that had stock in an American company.

01:04:50.080 Anyway, the evidence is allegedly that they were listening to Hunter.

01:04:53.540 And then they allegedly paid Hunter and Joe $10 million total and that lo and behold, Joe Biden

01:05:00.720 fired that prosecutor.

01:05:01.760 He made it such that the Ukrainians had to fire that prosecutor.

01:05:04.800 And we know Joe Biden did make that happen.

01:05:07.140 He's admitted that he made that happen.

01:05:08.420 He denies that it was because of an influence peddling scheme.

01:05:10.600 So now this is the first we've gotten where there was allegedly a payment to him and Hunter in exchange for that action.

01:05:17.460 And the allegation by Comer, as outlined last night on Hannity, was that reading now.

01:05:24.680 Hold on.

01:05:26.160 They bragged.

01:05:27.260 They bragged that the way Biden wanted the money distributed was that it would be through so many banks that it would take investigators 10 years to track the money and that it was.

01:05:37.400 But but that the House Oversight is looking at all of it, getting subpoenas for these banks and trying to uncover this.

01:05:43.740 They say they were already covered, uncovered the 10 million.

01:05:46.000 And Comer said last night, I would say the number could top out at 20 million.

01:05:49.920 Final point here, Victor, then I'll give you the floor.

01:05:52.520 Representative Nancy, Nancy Mace, who, again, is one of those more moderate Republicans.

01:05:56.660 She's not like a fire breathing, you know, Comer, Marjorie Taylor Greene type.

01:06:01.000 She comes out and tells Fox News Digital after she reviewed that document.

01:06:04.140 There is damning evidence that the sitting president of the United States sold out his country in an ongoing bribery scheme.

01:06:15.900 The American people and media deserve to see the evidence.

01:06:19.220 We should follow the facts.

01:06:21.160 Here's the last piece of it.

01:06:22.640 Joe Biden was asked about her saying that at the White House, outside of the White House yesterday.

01:06:29.400 And here is how he answered.

01:06:30.920 The bribery allegation, Congresswoman Nancy Mace says there's damning evidence that the I filed that you sold out the country.

01:06:38.340 Do you have a response to the congressional Republicans?

01:06:41.080 Where's the money?

01:06:42.460 I'm joking.

01:06:43.420 Mr. President, Mr. President, I'm going to turn to a bunch of mallards. 0.95

01:06:47.540 And then he went on to say, I'm honest.

01:06:49.660 I'm honest.

01:06:51.520 You know, that's a very bad answer because it's not just discounting the seriousness of it.

01:06:56.340 But when he says, where's the money, it channels right into the report that they had hidden by all these paywalls.

01:07:02.620 And you couldn't find the money.

01:07:03.840 And Joe Biden is expressing confidence that you're never going to find it.

01:07:08.160 I dare you to find it after we set up all of these fake confidence.

01:07:11.260 But there's two or three things that I don't think anybody quite understands about this.

01:07:15.360 The first is what Christopher Wray, you know, he's stonewalling. 0.90

01:07:20.520 And I guess he thinks he initially thought that he was Eric Holder and Fast and Furious, where the left just says, you know what, I'm not going to obey a Republican subpoena.

01:07:30.780 But they blew that up, as they do with all the institutions, when they went after Steve Bannon and convicted him and sentenced him to refusing a congressional subpoena.

01:07:40.860 So he should have known that now there's a new precedent.

01:07:43.780 You don't do that, even if you're the FBI director.

01:07:46.660 The second thing I don't understand is that this two-page document wasn't classified.

01:07:53.180 So why was he so paranoid about protecting it and didn't want any of it out and kept denying that even it existed for a while or that he lost it or he couldn't find it when people had, I think Grassley had knew that it was there.

01:08:06.840 So the sheer eagerness or paranoia or obsession, fixation with not producing it suggests that he was very worried about anybody getting access to this.

01:08:18.820 And then the third is when they talk about these millions, $5 million to Hunter or $5 million to Joe and perhaps more, and they say, Joe says, show me the money.

01:08:30.860 But this is not hard to find.

01:08:33.840 Joe Biden was vice president in 2009.

01:08:37.120 He exited office in January of 2017.

01:08:40.940 Then he had four years as a private citizen.

01:08:43.640 He's got about 10 years.

01:08:45.320 He filed tax returns.

01:08:47.420 And all they have to do is look what he reported and then get an IRS investigator and said, this is how he lived or these are the homes he bought or this is the expenses that we can document.

01:08:58.860 And they don't match up. 0.94

01:09:00.880 And so that's very stupid when people screw with the IRS and they say, show me the money or, you know, when they don't report large amounts of income and they think the IRS cannot calibrate their expenditures. 0.93

01:09:13.580 And so I think that it's a very easy thing to find out if they get the power to trace down all of Joe Biden's bank accounts, all of his deposits, and then the type of huge expenditures for houses or other things that he purchased or he gave the money to Hunter. 0.96

01:09:33.480 And we know that's true because Hunter is facing, from all the leaks, serious IRS exposure.

01:09:40.380 And it's based on the fact that they feel that he hasn't reported income commiserate of the type with the type of money that he was spending.

01:09:48.980 And so I think it's demonstrable.

01:09:51.100 And that may explain why Ray was so, so scared to to release that because he thought it might be explosive enough to bring down a president.

01:10:00.400 Mm hmm. Right. And it's not and it's not apparently some nutcase who they're relying on in this document.

01:10:05.700 It is it is an informant that the FBI has trusted for a number of years.

01:10:09.840 And that is what leads some to believe there's a connection that just as the the investigation into Joe Biden for the first time, it names Joe Biden.

01:10:19.380 All the rest so far has been circling around the Biden family, the brother, the son.

01:10:22.940 This is Joe Biden as vice president, allegedly sold out his country, as May said, you know, it's that that same day we we find out Trump's been indicted.

01:10:34.060 And and I will say this. I want to correct myself.

01:10:37.020 He didn't say I'm honest in response to that soundbite about, you know, it's all malarkey.

01:10:40.960 I didn't I didn't take money.

01:10:42.340 He said it about whether he interfered with getting the DOJ to come after President Trump.

01:10:47.540 Many people see a connection here, but here, for the record, is how Joe Biden responded to that allegation and support.

01:10:54.440 You notice I have never once, not one single time suggested the Justice Department what they should do or not do.

01:11:03.060 Well, to bring in a charge and not bring in charge.

01:11:05.540 I'm honest.

01:11:08.120 I was just a pro tip.

01:11:08.960 I shouldn't say I'm honest if you want us to believe you're honest.

01:11:11.400 Don't don't say that.

01:11:12.540 That's not what honest people say.

01:11:14.280 Go ahead.

01:11:14.560 Nobody's going to believe that because Anthony Blinken called up Mike Morale and he was the ramrod for the Biden campaign.

01:11:25.180 He doesn't do anything unless Biden knows.

01:11:27.000 And he was worried about Biden was going to be in a debate with Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

01:11:32.700 And he said, round up 51 intelligence experts.

01:11:36.920 So we know that Joe Biden is perfectly willing, even as a candidate, to interfere with government bureaucrats and get them to have a narrative that he can use.

01:11:46.480 And so that's what I almost thought he'd say, believe me, as a Biden.

01:11:50.540 And that's a giveaway that he's lying.

01:11:52.060 But the problem, again, is with with all of this, is that Joe Biden, this is the we can say it without any doubt that the FBI interview interfered in the 2016 election with the whole crossfire hurricane bogus operation.

01:12:11.840 We can we can say with pretty good certainty they interfered in the 2020 election in two fashions.

01:12:18.780 They were contracting out to Twitter and probably Facebook to suppress information that would have been embarrassing to to Joe Biden.

01:12:26.220 And more importantly, the FBI had in their hands a laptop, which they knew was was Hunter Biden's because Tony Bobulinski had said that these messages were genuine and there was no evidence that it was Russian.

01:12:38.520 And they put that on ice to help Joe Biden in the debate and his candidacy.

01:12:43.640 And now we have a third time, Megan, where that it's it's the most egregious.

01:12:49.600 They're interfering in the 2024 election.

01:12:52.280 And at some point, people are going to say that we don't have a republic.

01:12:57.600 These people are totally out of control.

01:12:59.800 They either have to face severe prosecution and legal exposure or we've got to take the whole hierarchy and fire them and break up the agency or do something because these people are very, very scary.

01:13:12.140 And I think a lot of Americans, they're angry, but they're also scared.

01:13:15.660 They don't they think at any time, anywhere, anybody on anything can be have their lives destroyed.

01:13:23.280 As we saw a lot of people, you know, parents at a school board meeting or a protester.

01:13:28.580 Yeah.

01:13:29.140 At a at a at a an abortion clinic.

01:13:32.900 And you just protest and they show up in performance art fashion, your church, church and Latin mass. 0.99

01:13:40.900 These people are crazy and they're dangerous. 0.99

01:13:44.100 And this isn't their country. 0.99

01:13:46.820 We you know, this this week was January, June 6th.

01:13:51.380 D-Day. And these people didn't die on Omaha Beach to give our generation a free country and then turn it over to Comey and McCabe and Ray and Clapper and Brennan and all of these bureaucrats to hijack what these people died for.

01:14:06.580 And, you know, they're going to have to really whoever the candidate is, I think it would be a very smart thing to say when I am in office, I'm getting rid of all the security clearances for these people who go on and pontificate on and weapon and weaponize and monetize their security claims.

01:14:26.040 I'm going to hold every general responsible who violates the Uniform Code of Military Justice. 0.89

01:14:31.280 We're not going to have retired just generals saying the president of the United States is Hitler, Mussolini, a liar, a coward, should be removed sooner or later.

01:14:40.120 And if you're an FBI director, CIA, and you lie under oath to Congress, you're going to go to jail. 0.95

01:14:45.460 And I think that would resonate with the American.

01:14:47.680 They are sick of this.

01:14:48.880 It's almost a slow motion coup.

01:14:50.960 It really is.

01:14:52.720 I want to say you wrote a great article on D-Day this week.

01:14:55.700 I tweeted it out if people want to go read.

01:14:57.240 It's always worth reading VDH.

01:14:58.560 But in other news, I'm actually going to be on vacation next week, which is unfortunate because I would like to be live covering the Trump arraignment.

01:15:07.340 But I'm not canceling my vacation because I'm going with my family to France.

01:15:11.820 And the first place we're going, Victor, is Normandy because Doug and I, I've never seen it.

01:15:17.160 We want our kids to see it.

01:15:18.320 We're actually having them write little articles about it before we get there so they can actually learn about, you know, this historic moment, what happened and what our guys were fighting for against all the odds.

01:15:28.200 Which is beautifully laid out in your piece.

01:15:30.400 People need to go back and study.

01:15:31.960 And here we are all these years later and we're getting farther and farther away from what those guys fought and died for.

01:15:39.060 Thank you for reminding us as only you can do so eloquently.

01:15:43.520 Thank you.

01:15:44.260 We're going to be right back with Charles C.W. Cook and we'll get into how the Republican candidates are responding to all of this, plus an update on whether a federal investigation remains underway right now into these allegations that we just discussed, that Representative Comer discussed last night.

01:16:02.320 They're throwing all these process crimes and all these crimes to grow out of the criminal investigation against Trump.

01:16:12.340 What did he do with the documents?

01:16:14.020 Did he sell them to the enemy?

01:16:15.860 No.

01:16:16.400 Did he burn them all?

01:16:17.960 No.

01:16:18.620 All of a sudden it's in Miami.

01:16:20.640 All of a sudden we have a Florida grand jury.

01:16:23.760 You want to talk about an insurrection?

01:16:26.400 This is an insurrection. 0.99

01:16:28.760 Don't be bamboozled by these cable channels and these fools who come on and tell you, well, he's not above the law. 0.99

01:16:37.100 Are you kidding me? 0.99

01:16:38.220 There is no law. 0.83

01:16:40.420 What's going on here is a disgusting disgrace.

01:16:44.060 It is war on Trump.

01:16:45.760 It is war on the Republican Party.

01:16:48.020 And it is a war on the Republic.

01:16:50.400 So I feel like Mark Levin, the great one, is against the indictment.

01:16:53.140 I, he's, he is a legal genius and always worth listening to.

01:16:59.820 Welcome back to the Megan and Kelly show.

01:17:01.380 Joining me now for more reaction to Trump's second indictment this year, Charles C.W.

01:17:06.960 Cook, senior writer for National Review and Florida resident, where this case now will be heard.

01:17:13.920 The next move is again, Trump's arraignment on Tuesday.

01:17:17.780 Charles, your reaction to what, what we have seen in the past 24 hours?

01:17:21.300 Well, the risk of annoying Mark Levin a little bit.

01:17:24.520 I think this is actually quite complicated, but I do think there are some really big problems with it.

01:17:28.780 And I'll just quickly say, of course, I have not seen the indictment.

01:17:31.860 But assuming that there is nothing particularly explosive in the indictment, it seems to me that two things are probably true at once.

01:17:39.340 The first one is that Trump did do this, but he's pretty much admitted that he did this.

01:17:46.280 And it is a crime.

01:17:47.740 And in a vacuum, there is nothing wrong with prosecuting people who commit crimes, who happen to be running for president or used to be president.

01:17:58.040 The idea that that per se makes us a banana republic, I think is wrong.

01:18:02.480 What worries me, again, absent some bizarre news from the unsealed indictment, is that there's nothing that I can see about this case that is substantially different from the Hillary Clinton case.

01:18:19.200 Now, both involved the Espionage Act, both involved claims of obstruction.

01:18:25.840 I mean, Hillary deleted, what was it, 30,000 emails? 0.98

01:18:29.500 Yep.

01:18:29.840 Both were willful.

01:18:32.200 Trump didn't end up with these documents by accident.

01:18:35.260 Hillary installed a home email server in her house, knowing full well the sorts of emails that would go in and out, and that that was against protocol.

01:18:44.640 Now, I made, at the time, the case probably three or four times in writing that the case against Hillary Clinton was strong, and that if the government wanted to bring a case against her, it could have done so.

01:18:58.200 But it didn't.

01:18:59.600 It didn't do that.

01:19:00.420 And famously, James Comey said, no reasonable prosecutor would bring this case.

01:19:06.400 Well, we now fast forward, and the person in the crosshairs is Donald Trump, a Republican, obviously a highly controversial figure.

01:19:17.140 And we've seen an indictment.

01:19:19.500 And to me, that is the thing that I find the most alarming.

01:19:23.620 It's not that we are prosecuting people who are powerful or who are running for office.

01:19:28.060 It's that unless there is something in the indictment that substantially separates what Trump did, it just looks as if we have two sets of rules.

01:19:37.840 And this isn't just bad politically in terms of how people see their institutions.

01:19:42.700 It's really bad for the stability of the law.

01:19:46.120 The way the law works, you're supposed to have some sort of easy comprehension in the public as to what is illegal and what is not, and what meets the threshold for prosecutorial discretion and what does not.

01:20:01.260 But we don't have that here, as far as I can see.

01:20:03.500 We have caprice.

01:20:05.160 And I don't think it's unreasonable for people to say, hang on a minute, why did one person get away with it and the other one not?

01:20:12.300 Well, the other problem is, I mean, there's just been so much attention on Trump.

01:20:17.880 Very few people could withstand, at least people who had been president of the United States and in politics for long, could withstand this kind of scrutiny.

01:20:25.300 You know, we've talked before about how if you take a look at any individual long enough, you're going to find some laws that he or she has violated.

01:20:30.900 I mean, nobody's taken this hard a look at the Clinton Foundation.

01:20:33.480 Trump right now is trying he's fighting to keep his business alive in the state of New York because the attorney general wants to shut it down forever, trying to say that they didn't keep the right books there either.

01:20:42.980 Not to mention what Alvin Bragg is alleging about the bookkeeping where no one's doing that to Hillary and Bill.

01:20:47.700 No one had the appetite to do that.

01:20:49.580 And people understand how unfair this is.

01:20:52.260 So far, Trump's winning.

01:20:54.120 You know, so far, he's managed to beat back most of these challenges, because when you take a hard look at it, while he's not like he's a New York real estate guy, they cut some corners.

01:21:01.080 They haven't been able to prove illegality in any of his behaviors.

01:21:04.980 I don't know whether he's going to withstand this challenge or not, but that's what feels so unfair.

01:21:10.400 Well, yes and no, I think that we have to separate out the cases.

01:21:15.440 I mean, this one is a little different in that he did it and he's almost boasted about it.

01:21:20.360 I don't know that he has confessed that.

01:21:22.480 This case requires a proving of intent and that it hasn't been admitted.

01:21:26.300 Well, I mean, it requires him to have done it consciously, which willingly, yeah, which he did and then has been uncooperative.

01:21:39.600 I think the other cases you mentioned are really weak.

01:21:42.640 That's what you believe.

01:21:43.580 That has not been admitted.

01:21:45.080 I think there's a well, he he seems to be proud of it.

01:21:48.540 And in interviews, he doesn't push back.

01:21:51.200 His lawyers must cry themselves to sleep every night, given the way he talks about this.

01:21:54.880 Trump says he's he declassified the documents and therefore believes he had a right to the documents.

01:22:00.660 That's that is not an admission that you willingly withheld classified documents from the feds.

01:22:05.600 Now, if he doesn't have to prove classified prosecutors, if all they have to prove is it was national defense information and you willingly withheld it, as we discussed in our first panel, that could change things for Trump.

01:22:15.280 But I don't think it's legally correct to say he's admitted it.

01:22:18.960 OK, well, we can quibble over that.

01:22:20.840 But the broader point is that this one is a lot stronger than the other ones.

01:22:24.420 And I think you're right when you say I mean, the last indictment I came on your show and talked about this.

01:22:29.320 The Alvin Bragg indictment is is a joke and it's a disgrace.

01:22:34.400 It's unbelievably weak.

01:22:36.080 It should never have been brought.

01:22:37.520 It would never have been brought against anyone else.

01:22:39.920 And the investigations into his business is a perfect example of what happens when the government goes after the man rather than the law.

01:22:49.420 And this is one of the things that worries me the most about the way the FBI operates is that very often it seems to go after people rather than crimes.

01:22:59.980 And as you say, let alone somebody who's run many businesses and been president, if the FBI and this is not an invitation, if the FBI came into my house now and looked around for enough time,

01:23:11.520 I'm sure they would find something that I've done wrong, but we don't have a system or we shouldn't have a system that that works like that.

01:23:19.200 But I do want to draw some distinctions there.

01:23:21.160 I mean, Trump is is hardly, you know, purer than the driven snow.

01:23:27.940 Agreed.

01:23:28.080 And, you know, there are some times when what he is accused of he has done and there are some times when he hasn't.

01:23:37.940 What bothers me here, as I say, is that there seems to be a double standard on prosecutorial discretion.

01:23:44.380 And, you know, I hear some people say, well, just because James Comey got it wrong with Hillary doesn't mean that the federal government has to get it wrong in their view.

01:23:54.680 Now, I actually sort of think that it does.

01:23:56.920 I mean, I think that if you're going to set a standard like Comey did with the same law and essentially the same set of accusations and say this doesn't meet the threshold, we don't want to do this.

01:24:07.740 Then, yeah, you have to do the same thing the next time that it comes up.

01:24:11.820 And this is, of course, before we get to Joe Biden, who, you know, the details were a little bit different.

01:24:18.520 But Joe Biden has a whole bunch of classified information in his possession as well, not all of which came from the vice presidency,

01:24:25.920 some of which came from the Senate, which I'm given to understand means that he has to have actually taken that out of a skiff explicitly, deliberately, consciously and taken it home.

01:24:36.580 So, you know, if we end up in a situation where Hillary wasn't charged, Trump is indicted and then Biden gets away with it, too, then we will be in an even worse position than we look as if we're in now.

01:24:48.980 And on top of all that, you've got this separate investigation.

01:24:52.600 Not only has Hunter Biden not been charged, despite a grand jury proceeding that appears to have been ongoing, starting off and on again, I guess, for five years,

01:25:01.980 despite very clear admissions on his part about illegalities relating to guns and drugs and on and on.

01:25:08.920 But now we have this information about Joe Biden, you know, as outlined by this this FBI informant that, you know, has alarmed, alarmed normally reasonable, fairly quiet, moderate Republican lawmakers.

01:25:24.300 And one of the interesting things about this is Jamie Raskin, you know, he's the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.

01:25:31.960 He's the Democrat saying who's saying, well, you know what?

01:25:35.800 In August of 2020, Bill Barr and his, quote, handpicked U.S. attorney closed the assessment into this forum.

01:25:43.120 This is old news. This is what the Democrats always say. This is old news.

01:25:46.200 Bill Barr, a Republican under Trump, already closed this investigation.

01:25:49.440 So there's no there there. But Bill Barr happened to be on.

01:25:54.240 He went on The Federalist on Wednesday and said, that's not true.

01:25:59.280 Bill Barr said, I had a U.S. attorney take a look at the form just to see if we believed this was a credible source and worth further probing.

01:26:09.460 And that U.S. attorney said, yes, it is. And yes, it is.

01:26:14.240 And Bill Barr said what we did at that point was pass the evidence on to the U.S. attorney in Delaware who had an open investigation on this.

01:26:26.780 And Bill Barr said, quote, nothing was closed.

01:26:30.100 And Comer was talking about this last night on Fox saying people need to understand that is an admission that there is now an open U.S. attorney investigation into Joe Biden right now in the state of Delaware, in the federal courts in Delaware, presumably involving a grand jury.

01:26:47.540 And this could I mean, Charles, we could be looking at a situation where the two men running for president against one another on the GOP and Democratic side are both under indictment.

01:26:57.580 That is possible. Yeah. And I think it's worth saying, given I'm so keen to draw distinctions, that if this is true, it is much more serious than the Trump indictment.

01:27:07.200 Leave aside whether or not Trump did it. It's hard to find a way of looking at this if the facts that have been reported turn out to be correct.

01:27:17.660 That is not utterly damning. I mean, obviously, if Joe Biden was actually taking money from foreign organizations in exchange for changing government policy, then that is a big enough scandal that he should immediately resign in disgrace, if not be impeached or indicted.

01:27:41.240 Even if he wasn't, why would anyone who wishes to be seen as above board, who says, as you noted in your previous segment, you know, I am honest, set up this extraordinary elaborate means by which to move money around.

01:28:01.620 And I don't do that. I'm sure you don't do that.

01:28:06.960 There's no offshore accounts.

01:28:09.300 Right. But but, you know, the quote that I read in The New York Times was that the sort of labyrinthine way that this has been established is it could take 10 years to uncover.

01:28:21.040 You know, that was the intention. Well, why?

01:28:23.620 Again, I understand that there could be differences when the truth comes out.

01:28:30.000 And I understand that some people do have good reason to have a relatively complex financial setup.

01:28:36.560 But for the man who was a senator his whole life and then vice president and then moved into running for president, that is a very big red flag.

01:28:45.400 So even if there was no provable quid pro quo here, that should alarm people in and of itself.

01:28:52.460 If this turns out to be true, it's going to be a lot worse than the Trump classified documents scandal, which is bad, but is a scandal that seems to affect everyone.

01:29:02.280 It affected Trump's last opponent.

01:29:04.200 Mike Pence is now under investigation for this.

01:29:07.640 Joe Biden is himself.

01:29:09.260 Right. And there's no allegation that Trump actually shared these documents with one of our enemies.

01:29:13.020 By the way, there were allegations that the Chinese had accessed Hillary Clinton's server and seen documents that they were not entitled to see.

01:29:19.700 Another distinction that doesn't bode well for the Democrats here.

01:29:23.520 Again, I just want to read again to this Nancy Mace quote to Fox News Digital after reviewing that document with the confidential informant.

01:29:30.660 She said there is damning evidence the sitting president of the United States sold out his country in an ongoing bribery scheme.

01:29:39.960 My God. I mean, again, this is not this a lawmaker we know who is prone to hyperbole with all due respect to Marjorie Taylor Greene.

01:29:49.260 I don't think I'd be that moved if I heard that from her, but from Nancy Mace.

01:29:52.980 Well, and if you look back to when this story first leaked into the newspapers, the person whose name was all over it was Chuck Grassley, who was another person who is not really associated with hyperbole, who doesn't tend to get carried away, who's quite careful.

01:30:13.560 And I thought at the time, well, that gives it some credence.

01:30:17.640 But as you say, the fact that this has now been seen and echoed by Nancy Mace is telling.

01:30:23.720 Usually when I'm on a show, whether it's yours or my own podcast or the editors at National Review and Nancy Mace's name comes up, it's because she's savaging Republicans.

01:30:33.280 That's why she makes the news.

01:30:34.860 She criticizes Republicans all the time.

01:30:37.180 She has an ongoing feud with Marjorie Taylor Greene. 0.97

01:30:39.720 Well, now both of them are saying the same thing.

01:30:42.040 That suggests to me that she went into a room, she looked through this information and she came out shocked.

01:30:48.200 Same.

01:30:49.000 I want to mention quickly a couple of reactions.

01:30:51.000 By the way, the indictment just hit.

01:30:52.860 So I'm going to look at it in one second.

01:30:54.480 But can I just ask you, as a matter of politics, the reactions that have come in?

01:30:59.420 I mean, remember when Mitt Romney was trying to become the nominee and he did become the nominee, but he was always the last.

01:31:07.180 To say anything, it just showed this sort of timidness to him.

01:31:11.780 You could argue it was yours.

01:31:13.000 It was prudence, too.

01:31:13.980 But to me, it seemed timid, timid.

01:31:16.200 Well, it took 24 hours for both Nikki Haley and Mike Pence to say anything.

01:31:20.080 And so far, they're really not saying much of anything, to be honest.

01:31:23.940 But Tim Scott said the following.

01:31:26.580 America's deserved to have confidence in our justice system as president.

01:31:29.280 I will purge all the injustices in our system.

01:31:31.160 So every American is seen by the lady of justice with a blindfold on. 0.96

01:31:36.000 OK.

01:31:38.180 Chris Christie, we don't get our news from Trump's Truth Social account.

01:31:41.600 Let's see what the facts are.

01:31:42.500 No one's above the law.

01:31:43.980 DeSantis, to me, I think he came closest to hitting the right note for Republicans.

01:31:48.200 The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society.

01:31:52.020 For years, we've witnessed an uneven application of the law, depending on political affiliation.

01:31:55.520 Why so zealous in pursuing Trump?

01:31:57.460 It's so passive about Hillary or Hunter.

01:32:00.120 The DeSantis administration will bring accountability to the DOJ and so on.

01:32:04.000 Vivek Ramaswamy says it'd be much easier for me to win this election.

01:32:07.140 If Trump were not in it, but I stand for principles over politics and I commit to pardon Trump promptly upon becoming president.

01:32:15.920 We could go on.

01:32:17.180 Your thoughts as I review this indictment on how so far the other candidates have responded?

01:32:22.200 Well, I think DeSantis said the right thing, which is to focus on the inconsistent application of prosecutorial discretion between Hillary and Trump,

01:32:33.280 which, as I say, unless there is some big surprise in the indictment, is going to be the story and should be the story here.

01:32:44.840 Why is Trump being treated different than Hillary?

01:32:47.620 I'm not a great fan of the other statements.

01:32:50.020 And the Ramaswamy one is just too much.

01:32:52.580 I mean, he hasn't been convicted.

01:32:54.180 He doesn't show a great deal of confidence that he is innocent.

01:33:00.100 And, you know, promises of pardons, this electoral politics make me feel a little bit queasy.

01:33:05.540 So I think DeSantis was good.

01:33:07.680 This will suck up all of the oxygen in the room for a little while.

01:33:12.480 And the other candidates are just going to have to respond to that.

01:33:16.620 And now how I mean, what happens now, Charles?

01:33:20.760 What happens now?

01:33:21.660 Trump is 30, sometimes 40 points ahead of DeSantis, his nearest rival.

01:33:27.640 It's not January.

01:33:29.740 It's June.

01:33:30.780 Like we're getting closer and closer to the debates and, you know, where the GOP will wind up picking their guy or gal.

01:33:37.180 And you got Trump under indictment in two places, possibly facing two more as he's running away with the nomination.

01:33:44.700 My God.

01:33:47.220 Well, what I hope happens now is that Republicans choose someone who isn't Donald Trump, not because of these indictments, although they don't help, but because I think Trump disqualified himself by trying to rewrite the 12th Amendment and because I don't think he can win.

01:34:02.780 Whether that's going to happen, I have absolutely no idea.

01:34:05.200 I mean, I've been hoping that that's going to happen since 2015.

01:34:07.620 So I don't have a great record.

01:34:10.380 I do think there's a long way to go, though.

01:34:12.240 I mean, there's no doubt Trump's in a very strong position.

01:34:14.400 There's no doubt that he is doing better against DeSantis than we assumed in January when, you know, DeSantis was sort of high up in the in the polls.

01:34:24.760 You're right.

01:34:25.040 It's not January, but it is June.

01:34:26.860 People haven't switched on.

01:34:28.140 It's going to be interesting to see how this changes at all when the debates start.

01:34:34.220 I know we're both just getting a look at this indictment.

01:34:36.760 It just just hit.

01:34:39.000 These are the charges.

01:34:41.240 It's a 38 count indictment.

01:34:45.000 Counts one through 31, willful retention of national defense information.

01:34:50.260 Count 32, conspiracy to obstruct justice.

01:34:53.100 33, withholding a document or record.

01:34:56.020 34, corruptly concealing a document or record.

01:34:58.720 35, concealing a document in a federal investigation.

01:35:01.640 36, scheme to conceal.

01:35:03.720 37, false statements and representations.

01:35:05.880 38 is the same, presumably with respect to different statements and representations.

01:35:10.140 Just, just, you know, spitballing what I'm seeing here so far.

01:35:16.260 The.

01:35:18.360 Hold on, let me find the actual count.

01:35:22.020 Three.

01:35:22.600 Hold on.

01:35:23.440 So in paragraph three, this is what they allege, Charles.

01:35:26.380 The classified documents Trump stored in his boxes included information regarding defense

01:35:32.280 and weapons capabilities of both the U.S. and foreign countries, U.S. nuclear programs,

01:35:37.480 potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack, and plans

01:35:42.320 for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.

01:35:46.040 The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security

01:35:50.680 of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the U.S. military and human sources,

01:35:54.580 and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection materials, methods.

01:35:59.980 At one point in the indictment, they offer up a picture of where they say Trump kept some

01:36:09.200 of these documents at some point, and it shows a picture of several boxes.

01:36:15.820 I can't even count how many on what appears to be a stage, like a stage on which one would

01:36:20.380 perform, you know, as an acting troupe, saying that this was where the boxes were moved.

01:36:26.100 I'll read the paragraph 25.

01:36:28.280 From January through March 15th, 2021, some of Trump's boxes were stored in the Mar-a-Lago

01:36:33.360 club's white and gold ballroom, in which events and gatherings took place.

01:36:38.160 Trump's boxes were, for a time, stacked on the ballroom's stage, as depicted in the photograph

01:36:43.740 below, redacted to obscure the individual's identity, I guess, who told them about this

01:36:49.820 or took the picture.

01:36:51.200 So this is where they're going.

01:36:53.020 Now, we don't know.

01:36:54.420 When they say nuclear and military, like, we don't know whether it is possible for a

01:36:57.980 prosecutor to overplay his hand and try to make it sound worse than it is.

01:37:00.860 It is no prosecutors beyond that when crafting an indictment.

01:37:04.840 But the goal, by any measure, is to make this sound as dire as humanly possible.

01:37:09.340 Yeah, and there is the rub, because the phrases that you read sound very bad, and they may

01:37:20.880 well be.

01:37:22.020 I mean, we don't know what's in those boxes in Biden's garage either, and we don't know

01:37:26.680 exactly what was in those emails on Hillary's server.

01:37:30.480 But whenever information is exposed in this way, there is a risk.

01:37:35.540 The problem is, as you intimated, that you can, for example, describe a document that lists

01:37:45.660 where America's nuclear weapons are kept, that is public knowledge, as classified information

01:37:54.080 about America's nuclear program.

01:37:55.780 Because we do have a problem with overclassification.

01:37:58.020 That doesn't justify what anyone might do to break the law.

01:38:01.900 But it's hard to know if, though, those descriptions are accurate, then it's bad.

01:38:07.920 I mean, as I say, I mean, we can argue about whether he has admitted it and what that means.

01:38:16.520 But he did this.

01:38:18.440 Like, this is not some wild-eyed conspiracy.

01:38:22.980 There's no question he had classified documents down there that he may or may not have tried

01:38:27.460 to declassify.

01:38:28.060 There's no question he had a bunch of material down there that was at one point classified.

01:38:33.600 Sure.

01:38:34.200 But so even if we were to assume that he declassified, declassified this information in his brain,

01:38:40.460 as he puts it, he did it in his mind.

01:38:42.180 And we were to assume that the president possesses that power, which is a matter of dispute on which

01:38:46.480 I'm not an expert.

01:38:47.960 Correct.

01:38:48.340 Let's suppose that he did that.

01:38:51.000 No.

01:38:51.600 He then put it on the stage in Mar-a-Lago.

01:38:54.760 I mean, that is not going to try it.

01:38:57.780 There's more.

01:38:59.040 There's a question about whether it's illegal.

01:39:00.960 Let me add some color to that, because that would be bad enough to leave it sitting there

01:39:04.040 on the stage.

01:39:05.220 I want to remind the audience, these are allegations.

01:39:07.840 They're allegations that I'm sure Trump is going to deny, and they will have to be proven

01:39:13.080 beyond a reasonable doubt in front of a jury.

01:39:15.500 But this is, according to the indictment, it says that on two occasions in 2021, Trump showed

01:39:21.360 classified documents to others.

01:39:23.060 There's one was in that recording that we discussed earlier in the show in connection

01:39:26.680 with Mark Meadows' book, where he was allegedly saying, look at Mark Milley.

01:39:29.840 He's the one who won a war with Iran.

01:39:31.540 You know, I guess I can't show this to you because I didn't declassify it.

01:39:34.620 So I don't know whether he did show it or didn't.

01:39:37.660 He at least waived it, according to this.

01:39:40.500 And the other was in August or September 2021, when he showed people without clearances, quote,

01:39:45.780 quote, a classified map related to a military operation.

01:39:51.160 So they're getting specific on saying not only did he see them, but he showed them around.

01:39:56.760 And then here's the second thing.

01:39:58.300 Here's the second thing.

01:39:59.340 Again, this is via other people's reporting, since I haven't had the chance to look at all

01:40:03.060 this.

01:40:03.560 Maggie Haberman in The New York Times reporting that this is an allegation in the indictment.

01:40:09.920 Quote, wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here?

01:40:14.660 And quote, Trump said to his lawyers after the grand jury subpoena was issued, according

01:40:21.060 to the indictment.

01:40:22.320 Now, again, a word of caution.

01:40:23.340 That's a question by a client to a lawyer.

01:40:26.080 Yes, it seems to be suggesting a lie, but just because the client says something erratic

01:40:31.080 and inappropriate doesn't tell us how the lawyers answered or what happened after that

01:40:35.660 moment.

01:40:37.300 Maggie Haberman goes on.

01:40:38.840 Trump also praised whoever deleted Clinton's emails, according to the indictment.

01:40:45.840 They're certainly painting a picture that doesn't sound unlike Donald Trump.

01:40:51.000 But again, it doesn't mean.

01:40:53.460 It doesn't tell us what he did after the fact.

01:40:55.580 These other allegations about what they know, what happened to the documents, who saw the

01:41:00.020 documents, who moved the documents are the meat of the case.

01:41:02.500 Yes, and as you say, these are allegations, they're not proven.

01:41:08.220 But if they are true, leave aside the criminal question, which can be complicated.

01:41:13.840 This should reveal that Trump is not the ideal person to be president of the United States.

01:41:19.840 And if you go back to 2015, I thought that the sheer arrogance that Hillary Clinton displayed 1.00

01:41:26.120 and still displays, you mentioned her tweet this morning, good Lord, was disqualifying.

01:41:32.880 And the idea that she considered herself to be above the law, that she would install an

01:41:38.560 unencrypted, unsecured server in her house and do State Department business on it because

01:41:43.320 she wanted to, was instructive.

01:41:47.640 It should have.

01:41:48.580 And it turned out that it did inform the American public as to who they were dealing with.

01:41:53.520 Well, if these allegations are true, they should tell us something about Donald Trump.

01:41:58.100 That is irresponsible behavior.

01:42:01.280 I'm not really a hawk on this stuff.

01:42:03.160 I'm a bit of a criminal justice squish.

01:42:04.940 I don't like the Espionage Act.

01:42:06.420 And I think that we overclassify.

01:42:08.400 But that bothers me with all of those caveats.

01:42:11.740 That bothers me.

01:42:12.960 That is cowboyish behavior that is beneath the role and responsibilities of the executive

01:42:21.320 branch.

01:42:21.680 And if those allegations are true, however it shakes out on a criminal basis, I think Republican

01:42:29.440 voters ought to take that into their consideration.

01:42:31.940 Because I just can't imagine, say, Ron DeSantis behaving like that.

01:42:36.640 Can you?

01:42:38.220 No, but I can't imagine Hillary and Joe Biden behaving like that.

01:42:41.980 I can too.

01:42:43.160 But, you know, I'm pretty harsh about Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

01:42:46.820 Right?

01:42:47.400 I mean, that's the problem.

01:42:48.500 Like, these are the choices a little bit more color, Charles, during a search, again, from

01:42:52.400 the indictment of Mar-a-Lago.

01:42:53.940 They say this is what was found in Trump's office.

01:42:57.000 And again, remember, he had said that they had produced everything through his lawyer.

01:43:00.660 His lawyer sent a letter saying, we gave you everything we have.

01:43:04.100 No more classified documents here.

01:43:05.420 And then they raided Mar-a-Lago.

01:43:06.840 And they say after that representation, which they say was untrue, this is what we found.

01:43:13.000 In Trump's office, 27 documents.

01:43:15.460 Six were top secret.

01:43:17.540 18 secret.

01:43:18.920 Three confidential.

01:43:20.920 In the storage room, 75 documents.

01:43:23.860 Of those, 11 top secret.

01:43:25.860 36 secret.

01:43:26.860 28 confidential.

01:43:27.820 It is possible for a president, a sitting president, to declassify anything, even top

01:43:32.580 secret.

01:43:33.720 Charles is right.

01:43:34.480 There are debates as to exactly how it can be done.

01:43:36.460 Can it be done in your mind?

01:43:37.540 Can it be done with a magic wand?

01:43:38.980 Do you have to follow protocol by going back to the agency that designated it as top secret

01:43:42.500 to begin with and get their buy-in?

01:43:44.180 There are disputes.

01:43:44.980 I've had the best legal minds in the country on this show for a year now.

01:43:48.400 And we still don't have a clear answer on that, which means there isn't one.

01:43:51.040 A court is going to have to decide that.

01:43:52.880 And it's going to be this court, more than likely.

01:43:54.860 But, you know, it's designed to sound scary and it does sound a little bad.

01:43:58.780 I mean, not a little scary.

01:43:59.880 It does sound bad, for sure.

01:44:00.860 Top secret.

01:44:01.420 You don't want top secret documents about nuclear secrets and military plans sitting

01:44:05.080 on the stage at Mar-a-Lago.

01:44:06.960 But I can't help it.

01:44:08.180 I don't mean to, you know, both sides it on every question, Charles, but I can't help

01:44:11.540 but wonder what would we have seen in those Hillary Clinton emails and those Hillary Clinton 0.91

01:44:15.020 server?

01:44:15.600 And what would we see if they actually produced the Joe Biden documents that they found near

01:44:19.840 the Corvette in a garage that wasn't I mean, at least Mar-a-Lago has got security

01:44:23.880 all over it.

01:44:24.420 At least it's somewhat secure.

01:44:26.120 You know, I don't know.

01:44:27.280 We're never going to know.

01:44:28.340 And that's what leads the sick feeling in my stomach.

01:44:31.320 And I'll end with this question.

01:44:33.580 I asked a friend of mine who's a pro-Trumper.

01:44:36.480 She loves him.

01:44:37.940 And she's open-minded to DeSantis, too.

01:44:40.080 She's not like, I'll only vote for Trump.

01:44:41.700 But I asked her this morning, what do you think of these stories?

01:44:46.100 You know, he's indicted.

01:44:47.060 This is what they say he did.

01:44:48.520 And she said, I don't care.

01:44:49.720 This is not going to make me not vote for him.

01:44:51.400 I think they're out to get him.

01:44:53.300 This is just another evidence, another piece of evidence that they're out to get him.

01:44:57.260 And that's the real question.

01:44:58.500 Does any of this move votes?

01:45:01.780 First of all, I mean, really, the only vote is the only question is with respect to the Republicans, because, of course, the Democrats, we know what's going to happen with them.

01:45:08.080 But with respect to this Republican Party that has him 40 points up or 30 points up, does this change anything?

01:45:13.740 I don't know.

01:45:17.200 I just don't know.

01:45:18.860 I mean, they are out to get him.

01:45:21.660 That doesn't mean, though, that he hasn't done a whole bunch of terrible things.

01:45:24.820 Those two things are true.

01:45:26.300 This is one of the reasons that it's quite frustrating talking about Donald Trump is that, you know, a lot of the accusations that are made about Trump are correct.

01:45:35.940 It's just there's an awful lot of fuss that is not.

01:45:37.980 But that's why it's important, I think, to distinguish between cases.

01:45:42.840 Now, I don't know whether primary vote as well.

01:45:44.980 And your friend seems not to be interested in doing that if she said, well, I just don't care.

01:45:49.200 You know, this is probably not going to be what determines whether or not Donald Trump is is the nominee.

01:46:00.780 I don't think it's going to make him the nominee.

01:46:02.700 I don't think it's going to take away the nomination from him.

01:46:05.660 I think that Donald Trump will lose the Republican nomination if voters come to believe that he would lose the 2024 election to Joe Biden.

01:46:16.220 And this might have a small effect on that.

01:46:20.040 It might make people think that we shouldn't run candidates under indictment, which, by the way, has its own issues because it's an indictment, not a conviction.

01:46:28.780 I criticized a piece in The New York Times that I read this morning where Damon Linker, who I usually like, argued that anyone who is under indictment should immediately become toxic to voters.

01:46:40.720 Well, that's that's crazy, because that's essentially saying that anyone who is accused of something ever should, before they've had a trial, before we know anymore, be be disqualified.

01:46:53.160 But, you know, Trump has a long history of this stuff, and he is seen by voters in the middle, independent voters especially, as a man with a lot of baggage.

01:47:05.800 And I think insofar as that changes Republican primary voters' minds as to his electability, it will have a little effect.

01:47:12.820 But I don't think this is what it's going to be about.

01:47:14.740 I think we're going to have some debates and people are going to say, who do I want to lead us into this fight?

01:47:19.940 And who do I think is most likely to win?

01:47:22.480 And at the moment, you don't think, then, Charles, you don't think after, you know, the way we saw after the Alvin Bragg indictment in New York, his poll numbers shot up.

01:47:29.980 I mean, DeSantis was actually kind of gaining on Trump.

01:47:32.260 And then the indictment came.

01:47:33.660 We actually went back and looked at this on a graph of the polls and the events in time.

01:47:37.920 And the indictment came in late April.

01:47:42.220 I'm trying to think of the exact late.

01:47:43.740 Maybe it was late March.

01:47:44.500 And then the arraignment was on April 4th.

01:47:47.500 And the number one was like this, you know, his poll number.

01:47:49.940 So do you think this will have a similar effect or that it's just he's gotten all the wind behind his back he's going to get?

01:47:58.460 No, I think it might.

01:47:59.820 But that did somewhat pass.

01:48:04.180 And, you know, I mean, if he goes up to 90 percent, it's obviously over.

01:48:10.000 But I'm I'm just at the very least, what this will do is keep those numbers up.

01:48:16.280 But I don't think that when the primary starts for normal people that this is going to be the main issue.

01:48:22.540 I mean, at the moment, the people who are engaged are political junkies.

01:48:26.360 It's the average person is just not following this.

01:48:29.380 No, no.

01:48:29.880 I texted another friend of mine who I talk about the news with all the time.

01:48:33.560 Last night, I'm like, oh, can you believe the Trump indictment?

01:48:35.180 And she was like, what?

01:48:36.320 I mean, most people are out there living their lives and not obsessing over this stuff like we are.

01:48:41.480 But the GOP debates are going to be really interesting because none of these other candidates wants to touch this with a 10 foot pole.

01:48:48.060 Other than, you know, like they want to find the right message.

01:48:50.160 Like DOJ is bad, Biden's bad, political persecution other than Christie.

01:48:55.200 Right.

01:48:55.880 So they're all going to be like bad, bad.

01:48:58.760 But they all secretly love it.

01:49:00.500 Right.

01:49:00.880 They all they all secretly love it and are probably banking on it to take out the frontrunner.

01:49:07.780 Yeah.

01:49:08.640 Although, as you say, the last time this happened, it helped the frontrunner.

01:49:13.120 So maybe they should have hoped for the lack of an indictment rather than an indictment.

01:49:18.500 It does make you wonder how high can his numbers go.

01:49:23.180 Well, and how and at what point does the Teflon wear off the pan, if ever?

01:49:27.500 I mean, there are just some people who are untouchable.

01:49:30.620 Some people's political careers get derailed by the tiniest of things and they never recover.

01:49:35.220 And then there are some people in politics who just seem to get away with it forever.

01:49:38.540 Howard Dean got forced out of politics because he started yelling states names.

01:49:42.720 Oh, my God, Charles.

01:49:49.360 Well, all right.

01:49:50.020 So it's these are not good.

01:49:52.480 If these allegations are true, this is not a good story, not a good story for our country,

01:49:56.240 not a good story for Trump.

01:49:57.320 But it's so much more complicated than that, as we've outlined over the past two hours.

01:50:01.840 Always appreciate hearing your point of view, Charles.

01:50:04.180 Thank you so much for being with us on a big show.

01:50:07.180 Thanks for having me.

01:50:09.280 And thanks to all of you for joining us today.

01:50:11.260 My goodness.

01:50:12.280 You know, I knew that.

01:50:13.240 Why couldn't Jack Smith wait two more weeks before I came back?

01:50:15.620 Right.

01:50:15.780 Like the big news always breaks right before you're going off to do something.

01:50:18.200 But it's fine.

01:50:18.960 When I come back, we'll get into everything that's happened.

01:50:22.600 And don't believe anybody between now and then, because most of the people out there have

01:50:26.500 an agenda and they're trying to mislead you.

01:50:28.500 We're going to try to keep it factual on this show so that you actually know what's happening

01:50:33.140 without just tickling your outrage nerve.

01:50:36.680 You know, that's there.

01:50:38.080 That's there.

01:50:39.180 But it doesn't really do much good to just get ticked off without actually understanding

01:50:43.440 what's likely to happen here.

01:50:45.640 What are the actual allegations?

01:50:47.360 What is the proof?

01:50:48.520 What is the standard?

01:50:49.480 And what's likely to happen in this jurisdiction before this judge and the likely jury that

01:50:53.740 he's likely to get?

01:50:55.600 My God, these are about as big a stakes as you can get when it comes to presidential politics.

01:51:00.300 All the best to you guys over the next couple of weeks.

01:51:02.280 Um, we're again next week and have all new episodes that we've been working on, some

01:51:06.680 of which I have mentioned and teased to you in our hot crime summer week.

01:51:10.320 We've got Jared, this subway guy.

01:51:12.840 Oh my God, that one's so disturbing, but you have to listen to it.

01:51:16.260 Uh, answers on what happened to the missing plane, MH370, cults, Jodi Arias, and more.

01:51:23.100 All the best.

01:51:23.940 And we will see you when I get back.

01:51:24.980 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.

01:51:31.580 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - June 09, 2023

Trump Indicted Again, and Biden's Burisma Connection, with Victor Davis Hanson, Charles C.W. Cooke, Alan Dershowitz, Arthur Aidala, and Dave Aronberg ｜ Ep. 569

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