Third Crime's The Charm

Joe Biden's campaign fires its first shots, and later, Mueller investigation prosecutor Andrew Weissman joins to break down our top story. Third, time's a charm. Dan Donald Trump is likely to be indicted again at any moment by a grand jury in Washington, D.C. for his most serious crime.

Yet a plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election that ended in a deadly insurrection at the U.

S Capitol. Trump truthed the news that he received a letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith on Sunday night informing him that he's a target of the January 6 investigation and has four days to decide whether he wants to testify before the grand jury, which Trump accurately said, quote almost always means an arrest and indictment. The letter has been confirmed by multiple news outlets and reportedly mentions three federal statutes. Quote conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States, deprivation of rights under color of law, and tampering with a witness, victim or an informant. We also get a big hint about what's to come, thanks to some trenchant analysis of Jack Smith's lunch break from our friends at CNN.

Let's listen.

The imagery was was intentional and spoke volume.

It very much is completely in line with what Donald Trump did. And we, as Weissman says to me, his friends and legal community, are overthinking this dramatically. And there's nothing unusual about it. Makes complete sense. It's perfectly in line with the evidence that we have seen for this thing.

So I think people are overreacting that they.

Also pressuring Mike Pence to overturn the election. Which are both connected, of course, right? So if you try to get a bunch of people to sign documents that say that they're, they're the rightful electors for the presidential election, even though they are not. And then you submit those to Congress, and then you tell your vice president to obstruct the proceeding of what Congress was trying to do on January 6. That's you can't do that, that's a that's against the law.

We've already had one judge say that, and we also have now testimony we know from reports from Mike Pence. Mark Meadows, who knows quite a bit and Trump has been reportedly worried about, has flipped. Giuliani. Jack Smith has been calling secretaries of state and governors in the fake elector states, the states that submitted fake electors. So it doesn't, doesn't, doesn't look too good.

I mean, it's insane, and this was engineered based on what we know from January 6 committee from the White House, from the president and his advisors. It's insane. And we don't. This is one of those things that we just don't focus enough on because it's so fucking crazy.

Basically, that Mike Pence would have sat there and said, Hey, I know that the votes came in and there are electors for Joe Biden because he won and all the lawsuits failed. But you know what? We have a bunch of states that actually say Donald Trump won based on absolutely nothing, and here are the electors and we're just gonna swear in Donald Trump instead.

That's what would happen, just like, and there was no judge in the country that said that that was correct. I mean, of course, that's wrong, but I think I also think the insurrection at the Capitol may have overshadowed that.

I wonder if it's just because that is a heart more difficult charge to prove than this fake electors scheme, which does seem like a much easier charge to prove. Yeah.

Yeah, it is a long time. And so whether we get all the charges we want, or all the ones that have been talked about on legal Twitter or not. What matters is the that Jack Smith can prove and convict Trump of so Trump's first televised response to the news.

My first question to you is you? It doesn't seem to bother you, like I think it would bother so many other people. What is it about you that it doesn't?

Think of it, I don't think they've ever sent a letter on Sunday night and they're in a rush because they want to interfere. It's interference with the election, it's election interference.

Never been done like this in the history of our country and it's a disgrace what's happening to our country, whether it's the borders or the elections or kinds of things like this. Where the DOJ has become a weapon for the Democrats, an absolute weapon. And you know what, until I got indicted, until I got indicted, I had such respect for the office of the President.

Yeah, it showed.

Right at the Sunday scaries.

That's a real Sunday. Scaries for Donald Trump. I will give him that I just love Sean Hannity. You've been charged with a bunch of crimes, including trying to steal an election and overthrow the government.

How are you feeling you? okay? how are you doing?

Is it distracting to look in the mirror and see?

Which, by the way, I don't know if too many clips to play here. But I don't know if you saw the Megan Kelly thing from this week where she said that she ran into Trump after the turning points USA conference? And they made up, because, of course, you know, they had a little, they had a little tiff. After the first debate, when Donald Trump started yelling at her and accusing her of being on her period, which is something that happened. A thing that is common with presidential candidates on stage, engaging with the moderator, that's usually, that's usually an accusation that's thrown around, and Megan Kelly was like, You know what?

I saw him, we decided it was water under the bridge. And he looks great, he eats cheeseburgers and fries, and he just looks so great. I want those jeans. I want to know what he has, what he's doing.

I want those jeans like, you are so fucking gross. This man demeaned you on national television and now you're like, God, he looks good. I'm on the Trump train again.

I am there, it is like. So, per usual, Trump gets a big round of applause for his crimes on on the Hannity Town Hall, Hannity and the rest of the right-wing media. Megan Kelly, all of them, they've been sticking with their talking points about, you know, two tiered system of justice. Same with the Republicans in Congress. Kevin McCarthy was out there, you know, saying this is horrible.

I can't believe this. This is there's only happened because Donald Trump's poll numbers are up and he's beaten Joe Biden, and this is why this happened. This is the same Kevin McCarthy that, after January Six, said that what Trump did was un-American, right? He's now changed his tune.

Of course, I don't think we need yet another conversation about how. This third indictment will probably strengthen Trump's political standing with his biggest fans, but do you think it could be more politically damaging than the last two indictments with the rest of the electorate? Or same?

It's not good for him, I just want to stipulate it is not good for him and it is not going to be helpful. But I think it's for the rest of the Republican party. Whether how Trump handles his documents really is not really going to affect other Republicans. How Trump? What Trump did with Stormy Daniels eight years ago is not going to affect other Republicans.

January 6th and the big lie we know from 2022 is an anvil around the Republican Party's neck. There was a study we've talked about this before, but there's a study from some researchers at Stanford that showed that. Candidates in 2022 who believed in the big lie and pushed the big lie did just about three points worse than other Republicans, and that's the difference. And so if Donald Trump, if, let's say that Donald Trump is indicted, this trial either starts or is sort of, you know, running up to starting. And it's dominating the news. And Donald Trump was once again centering January 6th, the 2020 election.

He's forced to say that, you know, he's continuing to push the big lie that's going to hurt all Republicans. Like, that's actually more damaging, and so I think. And it'll be probably incumbent upon all of us as we head into next year. And we're talking about this is to hold all Republicans accountable.

We know their morning routine, too. I mean, yeah, we read playbooks, so they don't have to. Um, no, so this is what happened. Uh, you remember, a couple of weeks ago we talked about, uh. Trump was pretty angry when Kevin McCarthy went on a television show and said that he didn't know if Trump was the strongest candidate.

And then Trump demanded an endorsement from McCarthy. McCarthy said. I'll give you the endorsement at some point, but not now, Trump said. That's not good enough. So Kevin said, Okay, uh, well. What I'll do is I'll promise you that I will hold a vote before the August recess in the House. To try to expunge both of your impeachments from the record, which is not really a thing you can do, he was already impeached.

It's like, in the happening, but anyway. But that's what Donald Trump wanted. So now Kevin is faced with a bit of a conundrum because he has told Donald Trump that he will bring this vote to the floor. But all the Republican House members sitting in Biden districts do not want to be sitting there, voting for to expunge Donald Trump's impeachment over January 6th, right at the time when Donald Trump is being charged with a conspiracy to defraud the United States over his behavior in January 6th.

It's just like, how can I get out of this conversation? I'm not going to think for one second about what happens after that. Like, obviously, if Kevin McCarthy had paused while Donald Trump was yelling at him and thought about it, he would have known that would be an abject fucking disaster. But that's just not how he thinks. It's just like, wake up the next day and deal with it.

Then so he will have yet another crisis that is going to make his life even harder.

So again, not a huge shift, but a meaningful shift on the margins, when the margins matter a lot. So I do think that if if we are hearing news all about January 6th for the next several months through the election, it could damage him on the margins. Any other takeaways from the Hannity Town Hall? Sort of a mess, it just, I know that.

I know, I know that you, I know that you weren't able to to join the Join the Discord, but we had a great time on the Discord. Cricket.com slash friends.

That was better, that was better. The real vibe that a Hannity Trump interview gives off. As someone interviewing their boss, he seems just very worried about getting fired at any minute there.

It's just a feel good, you know, safe space for Donald Trump and Republicans. And you know, you got the you get Hannity's Town hall, and you get the commercial break. And you got a few, uh, you got. Ads for prostate medication, a couple of my pillow ads, a couple other ads for old people, some gold. And it is just conspiracy after conspiracy. The other thing I would say is like, you really? It was the kind of town hall where you had to have a P.h.D. in MAGA to understand all of the various conspiracies and references. And it made me think that Trump was actually, I thought Trump was more on his game in terms of like message discipline during the CNN Town Hall than he was with Hannity. Because when he's come and. And uh, one of the subscribers in the Discord made this point that when he's combative with an interviewer, he can sometimes like, go to, and you could tell it. Cause that was like his first big event after his launch, his first televised event, uh, or first televised sit down interview. That his handlers were all like, Okay, you gotta be on message, bring it back to issues and stuff like that.

And this one with Hannity, he's talking about like Peter Struck and Lisa Page and The Lovers and the And Hunter and Burisma. And he's just doing all the all the MAGa uh conspiracies and it. I don't think he like, I think, if a general electorate had watched the Hannity Town.

This week, Uh. Michigan's attorney general charged 16 fake electors with signing fraudulent certificates that claimed Trump won the state in 2020. The group includes an RNC member, a mayor, a former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, all of whom face eight felony counts, each related to forgery and election fraud. What do you make of these charges? Big deal.

Do we think other states with, uh, Democratic AGs, uh, or non-MAGA AGs, where there were fake electors, will, uh, will follow?

It's basically an open invitation for a similar scheme, and so it is. ABS this is right. This is why, what the indictment we're all waiting for on Trump matters, it's why what's happening in Michigan matters is there has to be mentioned this isn't, as we said earlier, this is an insane thing.

People tried to do it, is the I know we joke about norms, but they try to steal an election. They try to do it brazenly and openly, try to do it through loopholes and procedures, they try to do it through fraud, they try to do it through violence. And people have to be held accountable, because if they're not, we're just going to do this again and again, and again.

And sort of the things that hold our society together in in, especially when all of our elections are incredibly close, are going to fall apart. In a way that we have sort of have one shot to walk back from the brink and this is it.

It's like, No, no, no, no, there's all these texts that they have where they were like, we got to keep quiet about this. Where the the law says that we're supposed to show up in the Michigan State Capitol, but we're going to show up in the Republican state headquarters instead. But don't tell anyone. And all these texts being like, keep quiet about this. They all knew what they were fucking doing.

They're fake electors and some of the other states, but I think Arizona and Georgia are the next ones to watch out for, and these are all in state level. We also know that Jack Smith, in the special counsel's office, has been talking to the people involved in fake elector schemes and others in some of these states Michigan, Arizona, Georgia. So it could be wrapped up into the federal case as well, and likely to be part of whatever charges.

So there's apparently a Republican presidential primary still happening, though. The candidates are once again finding it impossible to break through with anything other than whatever they're saying about the front runners. Third indictment and they can't seem to find anything to say about that. The guy that's beating them has been indicted three times, facing just dozens of felony charges. And they are just their tongues are tied. Ron DESantis certainly learned that lesson after CNN cut away from his first Big boy interview with Jake Tapper.

After he answered a question about Trump, let's listen, If Jack Smith has evidence of criminality, should Donald Trump be held accountable? So here's the problem, this country.

A couple of days ago, he was at some event and a reporter asked him. He said, Well, he could have done more on that day to sort of stop what was going on on January 6th. But it wasn't criminal, it wasn't criminal. What do you think about that? It's really taking advantage of his opponent's imminent arrest, huh?

The only way to get attention is to talk about Trump. And so you can either amplify his message and help Trump, or to say something negative about him. Which would be the morally correct thing to do. But then we'll just make the voters like you less so. But you would have to be a very nimble, very talented communicator to navigate those traits. And that's not how my boy, Tiny T, is doing here. Well, on that note.

Uh, what do you say to that analysis? I don't think it's true. I mean, the proof is in the pudding.

Quick question if if your opponent, uh, recently ran an ad about your penchant for eating pudding with your fingers, might you try to avoid that word? And an answer about why your campaign is failing? I just think that this is sort of the example of.

It's a popular thing. Be a normal American who loves pudding. Just go with it, hang a lantern on your problem, just say you're going to serve free pudding in the White House.

Like, they're going to be your jelly beans, like, just make.

They said Good job on your first big boy interview with a real journalist. You get a pudding cup, no, no spoons, no spoons, just tell you like it. I think that there is a.

Political argument Do you think? These people who all who love Donald, 70 of them love Donald Trump, 70 of them who want to cannot like Donald Trump are like? Well, I was for Ron DeSantis, but he's become too extreme on abortion. Yeah, no, that's that is, that is bad, that is D.C. pundit brain analysis.

Uh, he promised to run as Trump. Uh, without the baggage. Instead, he's running as Trump minus jokes.

Which, I I mean. It was interesting cause I thought he would pick a fight with Jake. He didn't pick a fight with Jake. Cause I thought that, you know, he would like get the base riled up by picking a fight. And then say, I took on the fake news media and my enemies are your enemies. And that's sort of like what he does best use that word loosely, but he was pretty, he was boring and bullshitty at the same time during that interview. And like, you could tell that he's actually somewhat smart, uh, in in the sense that he was smart enough not to say anything in that interview. That might like, piss off any Republican voter.

And so he just danced around every answer and just used it was a lot of word salad, but it was just it came off as so boring. It seemed like the kind of interview you do when, like, a bunch of rich Republican donors who aren't super MAGA, who do, like, watch a lot of news and probably don't just watch Fox, but also watch CNN. Was like, Oh, you know, he's got to see more electable again, he's got to see more normal. Let's put them, you got to put them on CNN. You got to do some real interviews where he can show off his policy chops and show that he's a steadier than Donald Trump.

And it seems like it was like that kind of idea, but it's if it were Trump, and Trump was in this position. Trump would have picked a fight with Jake, and then Trump would have gone out and said, I picked a fight with the fake news media. And he would have made it a whole thing and he would have got the base revved up. And Ron DeSantis It totally seems like a rich donor, which is the only kind of donor Ron DeSantis has, if you look at the FEC reports, a rich donor kind of strategy.

He's sitting across from Jake Tapper and going after him. It's just like, maybe they had that idea, but he was never going to pull that off or even try, he was too.

So we got a.

Tim Scott has gained two points. He's at 8. Chris Christie has gained five points. He's at 6. My boy, Doug Burgum's at 5%.

Vivek Ramaswamy's at 5, Nikki Haley's at 5. And Mike Pence finishing up a big week with one whole percent from Mike Pence, former vice president of the United States. Plenty to talk about with this poll. What do you make of the overall trend, which has Trump down and a few other candidates up?

It kind of speaks to exactly how Trump is.

He is the incumbent Republican president running in a primary. And so like that is just like we would just think about it different. I think we have to alter our mindset that for these voters, he is their president, and to move away from their president. For some other Republican is going to take something really, really compelling, either about the other person or something devastating about.

It's gotta be devastating to them, right? That's not devastating to them, right? Yeah, I mean, we are so close to the I could shoot someone on.

You know, I did. I had a little hope at the beginning of this process. Like, maybe one of these jokers is charismatic enough to knock him out. I just don't. I don't see it, I don't see it, I don't see it. I love to be wrong.

I'd love to be wrong, but I do not see it at this point. We should just stipulate.

But we have put the world, especially Republicans, have put their hopes into Ron DeSantis as this person. And I wrote about this in message box today. But if you kind of look at it, Ron DeSantis is probably toast. It's probably over already. It's just he doesn't have it, you don't need a lot of it, but whatever it is, he doesn't have it.

He does not have, he does not have. There have been candidates who have started with a ton of buzz they've sparked in the polls. Like the big money donors love them, they have a great fundraising quarter and they fall flat on their face as soon as voters see them. Every once in a while, one of those candidates comes back. But I sort of did in my message box posted, I sort of looked at this.

The examples of the people who come back are particularly talented communicators. Because once you fall flat in the polls, people stop giving you money, people stop giving you money. The only way you can communicate is in the free media, either on social cable, interviews, speeches. John McCain's The example John McCain's campaign collapsed.

He ran out of money, had to fire all of his staff, and he bounced back. Because John McCain is a historically great communicator. RON DESANTIS Just look at that Jake Tapper interview. There's nothing there that would say he's without a gazillion dollars in ads to tell his story. He's gonna be able to do it on his own. I mean, like I said, is a comeback in the possible range of outcomes for Ron DeSantis? Sure.

But it's so it's so much less likely than anyone is talking about if you just look at the history of candidates and Ron DeSantis performance to.

And I think we'll see Trump come down in some of these polls, we'll see some of these candidates rise, just like we did in 2016. And we'll. We'll see all that, someone will have a surge and all that stuff. But like, at the end of the day, if you've got this base of 30 that are with you, ride or die like Trump does, and you have a big field. They're just going to split the vote. That's the only there's just the math is the math.

And there's one other element to that, I think.

And there's no obvious vessel for that, you know, who might be that vessel, Doug?

So, yeah, no, he, you know, he just bought his way there. He handed out $20 gift cards to everyone in exchange for a $1 donation to get him on the stage. And now we're going to get Doug, and now he's at 5, so he's spending a lot of money and that's that's where the 5 comes from.

Mike Pence Let's talk about Mike Pence for a second. Mike Pence has not had a week this bad since the first week of January in 2021. At least, people cared about him back then.

Like, I don't know what do you do if you're Mike Pence? I think he could be like the one of the first to drop out, because usually the first to drop out is not. Some like no name, no one cares about because they have nothing to lose and they're just sort of in it for fun. But like Mike, Pence is the type of candidate where the name ID is is high enough and his position was high enough. That, like, you know, if you're not gaining steam by the fall, like, what are you? and you're at 1? And he raised $1.5 million.

Like, what are you?

I'm going to endorse Trump now, and I'm going to live to fight again in 2028 or whatever. But Mike?

He's like, one look at me and you can tell. I'm a fan of dunkin donuts. It's not just the coffee. Yeah, man, you look like a fan of dunkin donuts? Yeah, that's first of all. People don't call it dunkin donuts anymore.

Second of all, this is your second time there. He is wild. It is sad. it's sad, poor Mike Pence.

Let's talk about Tim Scott. Tim Scott is now in third in New Hampshire, just as The New York Times reported that he's got a Super Pac reserving $40 million in advertising across New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina. The DESantis campaign's leaked strategy memo from last week mentions Tim Scott as a potential threat. Do we owe an apology to cricket's biggest Tim Scott fan, John Lovett? We could.

We could.

Now he keeps going up in the polls and starts nipping at Trump's heels. Maybe Trump will turn on him like he does everyone else, but yeah, you could see him as a VP pick. I could see that Desantis wanted to be Trump without the baggage, and I think Tim Scott is Desantis without the douchebaggery.

It's Tim Scott, people like him, people like him, they think he's charismatic, he's got a good story, but he is not what the Republican Party wants.

He is not what the Republican electorate wants, a small sliver of the Republican electorate that is probably college educated. Again, some rich donors who aren't too MAGA. That's why he has all the money. They want to believe in a Tim Scott candidacy, because they want to believe that. They still exist in the Republican Party of 2008 or 2012, and that is not the Republican Party anymore. And so I could see Tim Scott taking some of the DeSantis vote.

I could see him taking some of the other non-Trump vote, maybe even a few Trump voters, but he's just not going to get the nomination.

There are a few things that are not possible, but Tim Scott is at least I think, a possibility in.

And I was like, Did you not? It's love it. Yeah, Hamby, had you pegged? For the Tim Scott fan, it's a great piece, you should all read it.

But yeah, no, it's a tough one to see happening. But I do think he'll continue. I think he'll have staying power, and I think he'll continue to rise in the polls and have his surge. We've talked-.

And Joe Biden himself tweeted out a video made by the DNC of Marjorie Taylor Greene making a pretty great case for reelecting the president. Let's listen.

Good job DNC on that, that was very, very good. What do you make of the campaign strategy, the messages that they've chosen so far, and the timing of both the campaign? Putting out statements about Trump and DeSantis, and then, of course, the Biden retweeting the MTG ad.

That was a line from the.

There's always this huge tension between the things you want to tell voters and the things that can actually break through in this media environment. It's why it's so hard for Joe Biden to tell voters about all the things he did to make the economy better. Because no one ever covers that, they don't tweet about it, they don't write about it, it doesn't go viral.

And so you can go viral by doing a bunch of things, but those things are usually at least they're not counter to your strategy, but they're adjacent to it. It's sort of a virality for virality's sake. So if you can find a moment where you can get a video to go viral, or a piece of content to go viral. That has your exact message. You want to tell voters that's what you want, and so they should hang that up.

They should show that on the first day of Press Secretary School at the Democratic Party. That is how you do it.

This is why it's perfect, you don't have to, because everyone is sharing it on their own, so it's free.

Or just run it in her district, just her district.

This all happened when we saw a good, decent poll out of Wisconsin the other week that has Biden leading Trump in Wisconsin. And it just speaks to what I think is. One of the messages that they are going to deploy against Donald Trump is that he promised you a great economy and he ended up screwing you. And Joe Biden is working hard to make your life better. Which I think is interesting, and then they hit on Desantis is they're not going to be afraid of calling out the extreme culture warship, which I think is interesting.

And, of course, left unsaid in both of those statements was anything about the indictment, which Joe Biden is not commenting on. And he can't, and the campaign is not going to do.

Of course, he cannot do it, he will not do it, he cannot do it. It would be just can you just imagine the amount of pearl clutching that would happen in Washington, D.C, if, like? The deputy press secretary in the Biden Oklahoma office tweeted about it?

Like, people would freak the fuck out about it. Well, I guess well.

Consumer confidence is at its highest level in a couple of years. That usually is a leading indicator of where the polling is going to go. It front runs the the economic approval in the polling and the political polling. And so I think it's very possible that Biden's getting, if maybe getting, a little bit of a boost, because people are feeling better about the economy. And that kind of makes sense, because he's had some low hanging fruit with Democrats to get back on in some of.

So, uh, that's something to watch. Um, okay, before we had to break a few housekeeping notes if you're in the L.A. area. Tommy will be joining Lydia Kiesling, the author of Cricket's first novel, Mobility, for a special launch at Dynasty Typewriter on July 27th. It's free and you can learn more at Cricket.com. Slash Events Mobility is a coming of age novel about navigating a world of corporate greed.

That's both, laugh out loud, funny and politically insightful. If you listen to this pod, this book is in your wheelhouse. Mobility will be released August 1st. Pre-order now wherever books are sold. Also, for a quick and punchy take on the state of our world, look no further than cricket.

Media is what a day podcast. In just a few minutes, you'll be up to speed on the day's top news stories, as well as stories that may have gone under your radar. New episodes are out every weekday. Subscribe to What A Day Now wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, Dan talks to Andrew Weissman.

Okay, we've done this a couple times now, with Donald Trump's various indictments on the last one, his second indictment. The indictment came only a few days after Trump received his target letter. According to the former president, he received that target letter on Sunday night.

What's your best guess on if and when we will find out about an indictment on Trump?

And we don't have any reporting of that having happened here. It is really standard practice for the department to give the defense an opportunity to be heard. You know, I don't think they'll probably say anything that the prosecutors haven't thought of already, but you know, you never know. And you also just a matter of politeness. You give them that opportunity because there may be something that they say that causes you to rethink something.

So we don't have that yet, and to me, that is the piece that I'm waiting for. Other than that, if that were not the case, then all signs are that this could happen anytime after today. Because the former president had said he was given until today to decide whether to go into the grand jury, essentially or not, obviously, he's not going to go into the grand jury. He didn't testify to the Eugene Carroll case.

He didn't come in and talk to us. In the Mueller investigation, there's no way that he is going to go into the grand jury and testify. And it would be malpractice for his defense counsel to not throw their bodies in front of that if he wanted to.

In the classified documents case, did the meeting with Trump's attorneys happen before the target letter was sent? You know, I think the answer to that is no. I think it happened afterwards. And I also think that there was a pretty significant gap between what we understand to be the time of the target letter and the time of the charges. I think significant.

I mean, it was more than a few days, I think it was a couple of weeks where there was that gap. I'm not saying that that I'm not sure. That's a data point to say that will happen here. You know, Jack Smith is obviously feeling the time clock pressure given the upcoming election, et cetera.

So, you know, he very well could say, Look, if you want to be heard on appeal, you need to come in by X date. Now that it's not leaving it open ended, so keeping this on a very short leash. So again, it won't happen today. But but absent that reporting, I just don't think it's going to happen imminently, because I do think we're going to hear that. They made some sort of appeal to Main Justice, reportedly the target letter to Trump.

Are you surprised by?

And then you just think about all the different types of crimes that that triggers here. There's so many different types of crimes, from obstruction of justice to civil rights violations, to seditious conspiracy, to false statements to the government, all of those could be applying here. And I think there's just a lot of overthinking, I mean, for instance, the civil rights case, people are sort of really overthinking this. Here's a really simple way to understand that.

This was an effort to disenfranchise everyone who had voted for the current president by overturning the election. That is a civil rights violation. And just in the same way that the statutes were created to prevent the disenfranchisement of Black and brown communities. So I just think there's, that's not what I'm sort of focusing on. I'm kind of. I am confident that Jack will bring this case, it will come in D.C.

It will be, I think, a broad case and that it's going to charge the conduct that we all saw and that the January 6 committee laid out. In terms of all of the different aspects of the conspiracy, whether it's pressuring states, whether it's pressuring Mike Pence, pressuring the Department of Justice, all of that, I think, is going to be part of the charge. Because if you're going to bring a case like this against a former president, it's going to encompass what he did. I don't think we're going to find ourselves thinking, Gee, why didn't he charge a bigger case? I think we're probably will find that. The thing that is unusual is that, just like the documents case, we learn a lot of new facts. That fill in gaps in terms of just how much the president was up to. So that's sort of how I see it going forward.

That's interesting about the evidence.

A couple years ago, that laid out in great detail and made a referral to the Justice Department based on. Obviously, there could be additional evidence, there's likely to be additional evidence, but based on the evidence we saw there. How strong a case do you think this is against the president, given the charges that are that are likely to be brought?

And just like the Mar-a-Lago case, I think lawyers are actually going to play a pretty key role in helping establish his criminal intent. In other words, that he was told what he could and could not do. So, I think is going to probably be very strong, but I do think that even with the January 6 committee. And you're, you're right to point out that. We know more here than we knew with respect to the documents case, but just remember the documents case, because we had information about the search warrant, we still knew a fair amount.

I think there's a lot that the January 6 committee did, but I think there's a lot that they couldn't do. Because, remember, they didn't have grand jury subpoena power. They couldn't get people to testify about specific conversations with the president. But you can be sure that Pat Cipollone, for instance, who refused to give that information, was in the grand jury, telling the grand jury exactly what he recalls about his conversations.

I mean, we sort of understand non-lawyers, like myself, understand. Broadly, this seems like a big crime trying to overturn election, and there's so much happened. January 6 has become this very big term. That means the sort of the efforts to overturn the election starting after the election. The fake electors scam, the call to Brad Raffensperger and the similar call we now know about in Arizona. The efforts to encourage people, the use of the 25th Amendment, the use of the vice president to try to have people march on the Capitol. What specifically do you think, what elements of that are part of a case they're going to bring?

But that's just the culmination. I really thought that the gift of the January 6 committee was broadening that out. To say that this is really was a plan that actually hatched even before the election and sort of plan B. If I lose, this is what I'm going to do. And then continued up through January 6, so I think it's going to include all of that. I think that Jack is a very thorough prosecutor, I think that the documents case shows that.

And I think that he's going to include all of that. I think that to me, the big piece that I'm thinking about is what judge in D..C. gets this. Because that's going to be hugely important in the same way that we're all very focused on. Aileen Cannon and what she's going to do with the trial date? And also is there going to be another defendant? In the way that there was Walt Nauda in the documents case, are there going to be other people charged, such as John Eastman, Chiasbro, even up to and including Meadows Giuliani?

Will there be those people? I think those are to me? Those are the issues where I don't know the answer to that, but that's the thing that's most interesting to me. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that.

And you know, it's not, it's not something you wake up in the morning, go. I can't wait to open the mail and find out I got this. And, you know, and have? I've been a defense lawyer also, you know, getting a target letter? Not not a good day.

So, but there's, there's no requirement in the justice manual that you do it. I do think in this case, one of the reasons for it is so that everything is extremely clear. And there's there's a documented notice to the former president, so there can't be any questions that they followed every procedure and gave due process. So I do think that they, if it is true, that they gave it to one, but not others. That would, I'd say, tend to support the idea that at least this indictment will be just against one person. Absent, of course, are not knowing about another, another person receiving a target letter, because it's hard to sort of canvas everyone.

And it is conceivable that people such as Rudy Giuliani don't really need a target letter. Because there's been so many communications with him and his counsel. So I wouldn't take that totally. The bank is just if it. In a case where you've issued one, it would seem a little unusual not to follow that procedure with respect to every proposed defendant.

You don't have to know Jack Smith, you just have to have looked at the evidence. It's going to happen and it will be in D.C. That sort of issues that there were before about where things would happen. With a documents case, yeah, that was brought in the district where it happened, the January 6 case is going to be brought in D.C. where it happens.

When the January 6 case gets tried is going to be a real function of the judge that they get. I think that there are a number of judges who will feel, if they can bring this case to fruition before the election. That it is. It is something that the voters are entitled to know one way or the other, it's not, it's meaning whether there's there.

Remember, it only takes one person to have a hung jury, and that would be a very good thing for Donald Trump. He would tout that as a huge victory. So I think that there will be a lot of judges who this could end up in front of, who will really feel like they if they can do it. Consistent with due process to the defendant, which is, you know, that is the number one thing in this country is the rule of law is requires that defendant given adequate opportunity to prepare. But I do think that if it is, if this case is brought in the next couple weeks, it is possible to bring the case, but it will be tight. You know, it is just not unusual for a case to take a year to come to fruition. I'll give you one example.

I did the Paul Manafort case, which had had a lot of evidence in, it had overseas evidence, there was a substantial amount of electronic evidence. And that took 11 months to go from indictment to the start of the trial date in D.C. And that was a relatively fast schedule, you know, because, again, I just want people to understand. Defendants are entitled to have an opportunity to make sure they can review all of the discovery, make motions.

And that, that's that. That delay, while it's frustrating, is actually part of what it means to be a country that abides by the rule of law. So, you know, that is going to be a tight timeframe. I don't think I think Jack Smith cannot be faulted at all for that delay. I think there's a very good argument that Merrick Garland can be in terms of the situation that we're in. But Jack Smith, by all accounts, has really acted quickly.

I, you know, having been in this that situation and various high profile matters, I actually think it's. It's kind of remarkable how much he has done.

That is a huge victory, if even if it's 11 to one for conviction, so that would be the thing that would worry me the most. Today, the evidence seems incredibly strong, so that's the.

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