00:00:22.800We had yesterday, we had closing arguments from the defense, from the prosecution.
00:00:26.680And today, the judge will give jury instructions to the jury, and the jury will begin to deliberate and deliberate until they reach a verdict.
00:00:35.520And so this is what it all comes down to.
00:00:42.980And it now comes down to the judge and the jury.
00:00:46.160And we're going to find out the outcome.
00:00:48.880So we're going to explain what to expect, what the jury's options are, what is critical in the jury instructions.
00:00:55.300And then we're also going to talk about yet another trial, which is the Hunter Biden trial, which is about to begin.
00:01:01.580And we're going to talk about the rather astonishing fact that right before the Hunter Biden trial, Joe Biden decided a little witness tampering is a good way to start that trial.
00:01:10.720We're going to compare and contrast these two trials, these two presidents, and the very different standards of justice that have applied to both of them.
00:01:19.360The other one, no one's talking about at all.
00:01:21.620Let me tell you real quick about our friends over at Patriot Mobile.
00:01:24.180I tell you what, I love knowing that every day when I use my cell phone, I'm making a difference and standing up for what I believe in.
00:01:30.940And I love knowing that I'm no longer giving my money to woke companies that are fighting against my values.
00:01:36.740Now, if you have a cell phone, technology now has changed everything in 2024.
00:01:41.500You don't have to worry about having spotty coverage when you switch cell phone providers because you're going to use the same exact towers you're using right now, meaning you get the same exact coverage.
00:01:49.800But the difference is you're not with Big Mobile, who gets big donations.
00:01:54.520When you switch to Patriot Mobile, you're going to give donations to conservative causes, organizations.
00:02:00.520And instead of being with Big Mobile, where they're giving big donations to democratic causes and candidates and organizations, including Planned Parenthood.
00:02:08.880That is why I want you to switch to Patriot Mobile.
00:02:12.860You don't even have to go to a store to switch.
00:02:30.620Plus, when you pay your bill every month, 5% of your bill, at no extra charge to you, goes back to support causes that support our First and Second Amendment rights, the rights of unborn children, and at Patriot Mobile, they support our wounded warriors, our veterans, and our first responder heroes.
00:02:52.020I love giving my money to a company that's aligned with my values.
00:03:52.500The Democrats want Trump to go to jail.
00:03:54.440They've been throwing these stories out there, the Secret Service talking to jail about maybe if he goes to jail.
00:04:00.480Then there's the other possibility of a hung jury or not guilty.
00:04:05.340Tell me and explain each one of these scenarios.
00:04:08.020Well, as you noted, the judge is going to start the day by giving the jury instructions.
00:04:13.680The jury instructions matter enormously, and we're going to find out just how wildly biased this judge is.
00:04:19.680Those jury instructions are going to set up what the task is.
00:04:23.400It's the judge's job to tell the jury what the law is, and depending on what the judge instructs, that could well be putting a finger on the scale and leaning in against Trump and in favor of the prosecution.
00:04:36.940As we've talked about on this pod, there are many aspects of the prosecution that did not go well for the prosecutor.
00:04:43.180Michael Cohen was a disaster of a witness.
00:04:51.360I don't know of another trial where the star witness admits and breaks news.
00:04:55.680Oh, by the way, I stole a bunch of money from you, too.
00:04:57.620That that as we talked about this on this podcast, that had CNN crying in their beer.
00:05:03.940I got to say, I do feel a little bad for CNN.
00:05:06.180I don't know what they're actually going to cover when this trial is over.
00:05:08.860They're certainly not going to cover the Hunter Biden trial because that that would entail saying something negative about the White House.
00:09:17.900No, the president can pardon himself from federal offenses.
00:09:21.240And so the indictments from the Department of Justice, there are two different indictments from the special counsel, Jack Smith.
00:09:28.100There is the one that is the documents case that's down in Florida for his alleged possession, illegal possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
00:09:37.320There is the second one that is the indictment in D.C. for January 6th.
00:09:42.380Both of those, the president could pardon himself, because those are federal claims.
00:09:47.720He wouldn't actually need to pardon himself, because he could just direct the Department of Justice to dismiss the cases.
00:09:53.240And so if Trump is elected, both of those cases will go away.
00:10:00.080What he can't pardon himself of is the state offenses.
00:10:03.500So he can't pardon himself of the New York criminal charges.
00:10:06.960He can't pardon himself for the Georgia criminal charges, because neither of those are federal charges.
00:10:15.640And actually, in Georgia, the governor can't pardon until after the trial.
00:10:19.540So even in that circumstance, it's not subject to a pardon until after the trial.
00:10:25.020So let's talk about if the jury goes in there, what is what has to take place for them to find him either guilty or innocent?
00:10:33.200Does that have to be unanimous in these state cases?
00:10:35.740So it does have to be unanimous, and it has to be unanimous as to each of the counts, if any, on which he's found guilty.
00:10:42.520Now, this is where the jury instructions really matter, though, because it depends on what the judge asks them to find.
00:10:49.160Remember, these claims, these charges are all for bookkeeping offenses.
00:10:55.400They're for 34 allegedly false entries of bookkeeping.
00:11:00.480Now, under New York law, those bookkeeping offenses are misdemeanors, and misdemeanors on which the statute of limitations has run.
00:11:10.360And so the whole trick of this very creative and, frankly, frivolous prosecution is they're trying to bootstrap a misdemeanor.
00:11:20.660And a misdemeanor is a crime that is punishable by less than a year in jail, and a misdemeanor typically has a short statute of limitations.
00:11:27.360They're trying to bootstrap it by focusing on another crime.
00:11:34.860And so if the bookkeeping offense is in furtherance of another crime, it can be elevated to a felony, which gives you a longer statute of limitations and a longer potential jail sentence.
00:11:49.060But what is really going to be critical is what the judge tells the jury they have to find about this so-called other crime.
00:11:59.060And I will say there was a really good article that was written by Byron York in The Washington Examiner entitled Judgment Week, how prosecutors will use the, quote, other crime against Trump.
00:12:10.020And in it, he points out that the bookkeeping offenses are misdemeanors, but that the theory that they're using is that in addition to the bookkeeping offenses, Trump violated a New York state election law barring the, quote, conspiracy to promote or prevent election by unlawful means.
00:12:32.860Now, that is a misdemeanor as well, but what the Manhattan DA is arguing is that the two misdemeanors, when taken together, add up to 34 felony charges and a maximum sentence of 136 years in prison for Trump.
00:12:48.000And so, which is really, I mean, it's a bootstrap that is an extraordinary bootstrap, but what is even more amazing is it's not clear what the judge is going to instruct the jury about the so-called object crime.
00:13:03.520In other words, do they have to agree on what the object crime is?
00:13:09.460And first of all, what is the object crime?
00:13:15.580Does the object crime require an object crime of its own?
00:13:20.560What level of proof do the prosecutors have to have to reach before they can find Trump guilty?
00:13:25.640Remember, ordinarily in a criminal case, you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
00:13:30.020Well, do they have to prove the object crime behind a reasonable doubt?
00:13:33.360And does the object crime even have to be a crime?
00:13:37.160And all of these were argued about before the judge.
00:13:40.280So last Tuesday, both sets of lawyers met with the judge, and there was a lot of discussion about the most frequently mentioned object crime, which is the New York state election law outlawing the promotion of an election by unlawful means.
00:13:55.300And the question is, what is unlawful means?
00:13:57.760Now, the prosecutors cite an alleged violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act.
00:14:02.360And remember, we talked about in a previous pod how the judge would not allow Brad Smith, the former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, to testify about the Federal Election Campaign Act.
00:14:12.400Now, typically, violations of that act are a civil matter.
00:14:16.980Would a civil matter be an object crime?
00:14:19.420Well, there was a back and forth about whether it could be a civil offense or if it had to be actually a crime.
00:14:25.740And that also led to a discussion, and we'll see what the jury instructions say, about the mens rea, and in particular, whether it has to be a willful violation.
00:14:34.600The Trump lawyers wanted the judge to tell the jury that they must find that Trump willfully violated the law, which means that he specifically knew what he was doing was a crime and that he did it anyway.
00:14:46.740And so here's what Andrew McCarthy, who's a very, very experienced federal prosecutor and commentator and a good friend, here's what he wrote about that.
00:14:58.100He wrote, quote, quote, whenever a crime is alleged, prosecutors must prove criminal intent.
00:15:03.640Willfulness is the most burdensome intent standard in the criminal law, calling on prosecutors to prove that the defendant was aware of a legal duty and intentionally violated that duty.
00:15:12.520So those questions, and by the way, what did DOJ say?
00:15:18.320DOJ came in and argued, no, no, no, we don't have to prove any of that.
00:15:21.200Instead, they said that the underlying crime, the unlawful means, doesn't have to be a crime.
00:15:27.660It doesn't have to be a criminal matter.
00:15:29.700And DOJ argued, quote, by its plain meaning, unlawful doesn't mean criminal.
00:15:35.040That's what Michael Colangelo, who was one of the top officials at the Biden Justice Department and who left to join this this rabid partisan DA's legal team.
00:15:45.860Colangelo argued, quote, the plain text of the statute provides that election law conspiracy occurred when the intended results are executed through unlawful means.
00:15:54.280Because it doesn't need to be criminal unlawful means, there's no need to add the word willful into the jury's instructions.
00:16:02.680So the prosecution's position on the object crime is, it doesn't have to be a crime, and they don't have to prove that he intended to commit a crime,
00:16:12.140and that it doesn't have to be even a criminal act.
00:16:15.840It could be a civil violation of the federal election campaign act.
00:16:19.760Now, Trump's lawyers came back and said, I think, quite sensibly, for this to be a criminal conspiracy, there has to be a criminal object.
00:16:32.120Otherwise, quote, we just have a civil conspiracy that it can't be used to elevate this into a felony.
00:16:42.220The judge said he was reserving decision on the willfully issue.
00:16:46.320So what the standard of intent is, is going to be a big deal.
00:16:51.420Now, there was separately a debate about whether there has to be one object crime.
00:16:56.260Does the jury all have to agree on one object crime?
00:16:59.260Or could there be several, which with each juror finding a different object crime and saying, I like that one, so I'll use it to elevate it to a felony?
00:17:08.060And what do the prosecutors have to prove?
00:17:11.160Now, Colangelo argued, quote, the people weren't required to identify any object crime.
00:17:17.220So you could have it be whatever you wanted.
00:17:20.480Trump lawyers responded that, quote, the jury cannot infer that the unlawful means is established just by the fact that there was an agreement to promote President Trump's election in 2016.
00:17:36.160They have to establish some kind of unlawful means to make that a crime.
00:17:40.520So these questions are a big, big deal.
00:17:46.040And as we sit here today, we don't know how the judge is going to resolve it.
00:17:49.380But if the judge sends it to the jury and says the prosecution doesn't have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the object crime, it doesn't have to be a crime at all.
00:17:58.380You don't have to decide what the object crime is.
00:18:00.440Each one of you can pick a different object crime.
00:18:02.400That really illustrates how the jury instructions can stack the deck for the prosecution.
00:18:08.640My strong suspicion is we're going to see some pretty messed up jury instructions today, but we'll find out when the judge gives them.
00:20:24.400And, you know, the judge could say, all right, next week we're going to start voir dire and we're going to bring in potential jurors and get going again.
00:20:32.120I doubt it would happen that fast, but it conceivably could.
00:20:35.060If you're trying to influence the outcome of the election and tying Trump up in office and that's your goal, then it would make sense, right?
00:20:42.060You would want to do it pretty quickly and seven weeks can turn into, you know, 14 weeks, 15 weeks where you can't campaign.
00:20:48.580What would be the political fallout of this?
00:20:51.980And this is where I want you to put on a different hat.
00:20:55.440I look at this and I think they're messing with fire here.
00:20:58.840I think that this is a, there could be massive political fallout.
00:21:03.520Democrats are obviously hoping for a conviction so they can then, and this has been reported now in Leica, the White House, that they're preparing for the president to make a statement from the White House.
00:21:14.700So, it will, quote, look non-political being at the White House.
00:21:17.780If Trump is convicted, if it is a hung jury, or if he is innocent, found innocent, how does the politics of all those three scenarios play out for them?
00:21:54.160Who knows how gleeful he will be, but it's all about politics.
00:21:58.720You know, I do think Democrats are dismayed.
00:22:01.920They really had hoped this trial would drag Trump through the mud and his numbers would plummet, and his numbers continue to be strong.
00:22:08.480He's leading in virtually every swing state.
00:22:10.340So, I think Democrats, you know, there was a big story this week about Democrats panicking about how badly Biden's doing.
00:22:16.220I will say if there's a hung jury and the prosecution says, okay, we're going to go do it again, I think there will be a lot of exasperation expressed politically.
00:22:29.380But I think at the end of the day, this trial has not accomplished what the rabid partisans wanted it to accomplish.
00:22:36.580But I don't even know that they can see that.
00:23:36.280By the way, isn't that what they said last time if Donald Trump got elected, he would never leave and he wasn't going to leave office and yet he did?
00:23:42.800I got to say, what I'm most happy listening to it is he stands there and goes, forget about it.
00:23:56.720And I love how they roll out these stars.
00:23:58.420Like, they're trying to bring attention to this, hoping that it's their best political wet dream they've ever had, which is Donald Trump is convicted.
00:24:06.440And then that brings me to my final question on this.
00:24:44.400I think even this rabid partisan judge would allow him to be free while the appeal was pending.
00:24:52.240And I think if they tried to put him in jail, you would see an emergency appeal.
00:24:57.260And I do not think he is going to jail.
00:24:59.800So I think that is in the rabid fantasies of left-wing delusions.
00:25:05.860But I think if they did actually put him in jail, I mean, I said this on a previous pod, if they did actually put him in jail, I think he'd win the presidency with 300 or more electoral votes.
00:25:16.900Yeah, and the crazy thing is, we've been talking so much about this case.
00:25:21.920There's another very big case that starts with Hunter Biden.
00:29:07.280And the White House spokesman, when asked about, gosh, why is Joe Biden visiting one of the key witnesses in the case against his son eight days before the trial,
00:29:19.700He visited her because of the approaching ninth anniversary of Beau's passing.
00:29:24.180Now, I've got to say, that strikes me as a highly dubious explanation.
00:29:34.920It naturally raises the question, gosh, did he visit Hallie before the eighth anniversary, before the seventh anniversary, the sixth, fifth, fourth, third, second, first?
00:29:49.320And you certainly would think the White House, if that was their line and he had visited her at any time previously, you sure do think the White House would have pointed it out.
00:30:40.080Hey, we want to know what you're going to say.
00:30:41.480Or, hey, here's what we need you to say.
00:30:44.580If anyone else was in this scenario, what traditionally would happen before a trial if everyone found out about the same way we did, regardless of an alibi?
00:30:56.000If Trump would have done this, if I was on trial or you were on trial and we were going to meet with somebody that's about to be a witness, a testimony for a kid, like what would happen?
00:31:03.860Well, you would expect the judge to make an inquiry of why were you meeting with this person.
00:31:12.480You would expect the prosecutor to make an inquiry as to why were you meeting with this witness.
00:31:18.260Did you discuss what her testimony was going to be?
00:31:24.780So witness tampering is attempting to improperly influence or change the testimony of a witness within criminal proceedings.
00:31:35.480And we don't know that that happened, but the United States, a federal crime of witness tampering, it's defined by statute.
00:31:45.460It's 18 U.S.C. Section 1512, which is entitled, quote, Tampering with a Witness, Victim, or an Informant.
00:31:53.400And it describes witness tampering as a crime, even if the proceeding is not pending.
00:32:01.320And it is a criminal offense, even if you are unsuccessful in your attempt to tamper.
00:32:08.060In other words, if you try to convince the witness, hey, you know, it'd really help if you testified to X, even though X isn't the case.
00:32:14.940The witness might not do what you said, but it is still witness tampering.
00:32:30.940It is possible they ask her, but I think there's no indication that the DOJ or the trial court is going to even ask what Joe Biden said to her.
00:32:43.980Yeah, and the media was silent on this, excluding Fox News, which broke this story.
00:32:49.360President Biden also made a surprise unannounced stop at Hallie Biden's house in Delaware last night.
00:32:56.060She is Beau Biden's widow and Hunter Biden's ex-girlfriend, who is also set to testify in Hunter Biden's gun trial in Delaware that begins next week.
00:33:07.800White House officials are saying this presidential visit to her house had nothing to do with that testimony.
00:33:13.020They say it has to do with the upcoming ninth anniversary of Beau Biden's passing.
00:33:18.140By the way, how often does the president of the United States of America make a surprise unannounced visit in and around Washington, D.C. in a massive motorcade?
00:33:47.740What they don't do with great frequency is do it right before you do it when you're meeting with a key witness who is about to testify in the trial against your son.
00:34:00.020That that is a dramatically different context.
00:34:02.640And it raises obvious questions, questions that the media seems completely uninterested in asking and that I expect the Biden Department of Justice is completely uninterested in asking.
00:34:14.540I was asked this question the other day and I hadn't actually thought about it yet.
00:34:18.120And I was asked this question when I was on Fox and they said, if if Hunter Biden is convicted at either of these trials, will it have any impact on the presidential election?
00:34:28.220My personal opinion, I said is instantly I was like, no, I don't think so.
00:34:33.560I think most people know who Hunter Biden is.
00:34:36.560They know he clearly has been trading off the family's name.
00:34:49.560Well, I don't believe it's going to make a difference.
00:34:52.040So in the presidential election, do you believe that it will or won't?
00:34:55.620Yeah. And there's a second trial that is set to begin in September.
00:34:59.800It's in Los Angeles and it's for allegedly failing to pay more than one point four million dollars in federal taxes from 2016 to 2019.
00:35:09.100So you'll have two different trials that are scheduled.
00:35:11.960Listen, if the president's son is convicted and now remember, initially, DOJ tried to give him a sweetheart deal where he wouldn't go to jail.
00:35:23.680Hunter originally agreed to a probation-only deal to both the gun and tax crimes in June.
00:35:29.720But he walked away from the sweetheart deal at a July court hearing where his attorneys demanded broad immunity of past conduct, of all past conduct, including violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which could implicate his father.
00:35:45.940And so he walked away from a deal that would have gotten him largely scot-free, but it wasn't.
00:35:51.740And remember, I think that the judge may well have signed off on that deal, but there was enormous public scrutiny on it.
00:35:59.320And I think that the judge decided, no, we can't do this.
00:36:03.780Well, and even then, he was going to admit he was guilty in that deal.
00:36:08.800So there's also, it's been out there in the media, like, hey, he was going to get the deal.
00:36:13.320He's admitting he was guilty of these two crimes, which in many ways enslaved his father.
00:36:17.640So if he's convicted this time, I'm not sure with a lot of Democratic voters, it'll matter.
00:36:23.200Yeah, look, I don't think that Hunter Biden is guilty of gun crimes and tax evasions.
00:36:29.520Any rational person knows that already.
00:36:38.460What this has always been about is protecting Joe and the relevance.
00:36:43.140We've talked about this a lot, although it's been a while since we've talked about it on the podcast.
00:36:46.900Look, Hunter Biden is not someone of public interest, separate and apart from his father.
00:36:52.980You know, he is a troubled soul who seems to have struggled his whole life, which is the entire White House defense, that he has substance abuse problems and he's just had a hard time.
00:37:08.380But the reason it is a public import is that the evidence at this point keeps piling up that his entire business model was selling favors from his father was corruption.
00:37:21.080The reason this matters is Joe Biden, not Hunter Biden.
00:37:25.120And these two trials are designed to insulate and protect Joe Biden, not to bring him in at all.
00:37:32.520And as long as Joe Biden is not directly implicated, I don't think Hunter's being convicted will have any material effect on the election.
00:37:43.840Listen, if his son goes to jail, that may be a very difficult thing personally for Joe Biden and emotionally for Joe Biden.
00:37:52.520But but but at the end of the day, the Biden DOJ succeeded in what I think its principal goal was, which is protecting the big guy and ensuring that there's no investigation into corruption by the sitting president.