| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Off the floor talks continue on how to fund the government beyond the end of the month. | |
| Current government funding is set to expire on September 30th. | ||
| When members return, be sure to follow our live coverage of the House here on C-SPAN. | ||
| Joining us now on C-SPAN, it's Washington Times legal affairs reporter Alex Sawyer. | ||
| She's the author of this book, Lawless Lawfair, tipping the scales of justice to get Trump and Destroy MAGA. | ||
| Alex Swawyer, start by defining lawfare. | ||
| What does that term mean? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So usually it's going after an opponent through legal resources, right? | |
| Through the courts. | ||
| In my book, I describe it as the courtrooms are now somewhat of a political battleground. | ||
| We see Republicans and Democrats looking to the judiciary to target an opponent, and that was especially so during the 2024 election. | ||
| We had an unprecedented event where the leading Republican presidential candidate was going from rally to rally and then from courtroom to courtroom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so I thought it needed to be documented properly. | |
| Where did the term lawfare come from? | ||
| And is it something in your mind that is uniquely related to Donald Trump? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that's a really good question. | |
| Historically, there's different explanations of the use of the word lawfare where it originated. | ||
| But I think to your point, it's really, I guess, ballooned. | ||
| You hear it more and more often, especially in the media and from, you know, I hear it from my readers about the past, I guess, 10 years. | ||
| And some people say even a little bit before President Trump took office the first time. | ||
| I'm in my book that it started maybe around 2015, 2016 when we kind of saw some of these investigations into the first Trump campaign start. | ||
| And then it kind of graduated from special counsels to impeachments, from impeachments, then we had indictments. | ||
| One of the things I think is lost on a lot of people is that we had four indictments come down against Donald Trump in only four months. | ||
| It was really like April to August that we saw those unprecedented criminal indictments from Manhattan and then of course Fulton County, also the two federal indictments with Jack Smith, the election fraud case in D.C. and then the classified documents case down in the Mar-a-Lago area. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, you know, it's just, it was overwhelming. | |
| I wasn't sure what to title the book, if lawfare was the best one, lawless lawfair, or if overkill was, because that seemed to be when I was talking to a lot of people and doing research for the book, that's like the feedback I was getting, that it was just so much overkill, the strategy that the Democrats kind of went with here, that voters were turned off. | ||
| I want to get to that. | ||
| You write in your book that I did not necessarily set out to write a pro-Trump book, but Democratic lawmakers, progressive lawyers, and biased judges made it all too easy to compile lawless law fairs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, and I'm a lawyer and a journalist. | |
| I went to the University of Missouri for journalism and went to Auburn Maria School of Law down in Florida, and I'm a licensed attorney. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And the one thing I don't like to see is the abuse of what, like, justice is supposed to be blind. | |
| And unfortunately, when I was in the courtrooms, I didn't feel like it was. | ||
| I can give you a perfect example. | ||
| So I was in the courtroom with Judge Chutkin, who was handling the election fraud case here in D.C., the federal case against Donald Trump. | ||
| And it was right after the Supreme Court delivered a couple wins for the president. | ||
|
unidentified
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So one was on the immunity issue, right? | |
| And so that was largely seen as a win for him because they basically laid out certain criteria of how to determine if something was personal in nature or an official act. | ||
|
unidentified
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And if official, then basically presumed immune. | |
| And when we got back in the courtroom, in Judge Chuckin's courtroom after Jack Smith issued his superseding indictment, he kept some charges that I thought were suspect. | ||
|
unidentified
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For example, one was on the obstruction, one of the obstruction charges that the Supreme Court struck down with January 6th defendants. | |
| They narrowed it where it'd be really hard to bring that case, especially against someone like Donald Trump, unless you had some sort of evidence that he was destructing documents, that sort of witness tampering. | ||
| And that didn't seem to be the case, yet Jack Smith kept that. | ||
| And we were in the courtroom, and the government's lawyers, so Jack Smith's team, went to Judge Chucken and said that they understand after you issue an indictment, usually the next step is for a defendant to have the chance to file a motion to dismiss. | ||
|
unidentified
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But that they wanted to go ahead and put out, and this is October, their massive filing. | |
| It's an oversized filing, laying out their case and why they kept these charges. | ||
| And the judge said, I recognize this is abnormal, that usually the defendant would have the turn now to issue their filing, but I'm going to go ahead and let this happen. | ||
| And to me, I was like, you know, if this was a different defendant with a different last name, I don't think this would be the next step. | ||
| You know, and there was also, of course, everyone knew November was right around the corner. | ||
| So there was this timeline. | ||
| And it just, it made, it made me feel like this was not fair. | ||
| So that's the lawfare aspect of this. | ||
| So what's the lawfare aspect, the lawfare argument in the case that made Donald Trump a convicted felon, the New York Hush Money business record case? | ||
| Yeah, so there's a few things that were abnormal, I think, about that case. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Specifically, we could compare it to John Edwards, right? | |
| And venues, I think, is a good example. | ||
| Remind people. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, so with John Edwards, it was a very similar kind of thing, but that was, of course, FEC violation. | |
| It was a federal case. | ||
| But that was in North Carolina, where you have more, I write about this in that chapter. | ||
| Venue really matters. | ||
| When you're in a deep blue county or a red county or a purple county, I guess if you were ever going to want to be a defendant, maybe going in a purple county might be the best luck of the draw for a jury. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I think that's probably what Edwards got when he was looking at his FEC case. | |
| Now, those were mostly acquitted, right? | ||
| Here with Donald Trump, he was in a very, very unfriendly venue. | ||
| And he also had an unfriendly judge. | ||
|
unidentified
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I know Jim Jordan, the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, is currently actually investigating some of the handling of the case by Judge Murshon. | |
| One rule in New York is that if you are a judge and you have a family member within the sixth degree that could possibly be profiting from a case that you're overseeing, then you must recuse. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And there's been allegations that his daughter ran a marketing firm which was fundraising millions off of the trial against Donald Trump that Judge Murshon was overseeing. | |
| Since, of course, that's within the sixth degree, that would raise red flags for some people trying to remove him from the case. | ||
| Do you think the 34 felony convictions, do you view them as less of a felony conviction than other cases that you've covered? | ||
| I ask, because Judge Mershon makes the point when he's giving his order on these convictions. | ||
| He says at the end of the trial, the significance of the fact that the verdict was handed down by a unanimous jury of 12 of the defendant's peers after trial cannot possibly be overstated here. | ||
| Indeed, The sanctity of a jury verdict and the deference that must be accorded to it is a bedrock principle in our nation's jurisprudence. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, everybody wants to look to a jury and always reminds it's unanimous. | |
| Well, it has to be unanimous to get a conviction, right? | ||
| That's kind of how the legal system works. | ||
| But I don't think it's, you know, I don't dismiss like the convictions, right? | ||
| I think that the way it came down, it's something I also kind of draw attention to, is we have prosecutors like Alvin Bragg, elected district attorneys, we have elected attorney generals, Letitia James, and some of the statements that are made, | ||
| and I, and this is also for Republicans too, during campaigns, I think it's very important to watch what's said because you don't want to come across like you're going to spend your whole time in office hunting someone down and making sure you do good on your promise to get a criminal conviction, which we saw Alvin Bragg make those promises before he ended up indicting the president. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We saw Letitia James too. | |
| I think one of the exact quotes I have in the book is that she was going to shine a bright light into all of his real estate dealings. | ||
| Obviously, we saw that with the civil fraud case that she brought against him with that massive judgment. | ||
| I think is that a problem with the system that we have set up of how those folks get that judgment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's unfortunate, you know? | |
| I do. | ||
| If I was ever going to go into a courtroom with the last name Trump, one of their courtrooms, I'd be a little worried if I heard those statements ahead of time and then be like, oh, maybe I'm not going to get a fair shake. | ||
| Of the four indictments that Donald Trump faced when he was running for election in 2024, which case in your mind was the best case or had the most legal merit, do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, that's a really interesting question. | |
| So, from my research, the court watchers really thought the Fulton County case might be the strongest one. | ||
| That really was what they had built up as being, you know, potentially the best because you mentioned the felony counts in New York. | ||
| Those were kind of suspect and that people thought, oh, it was really a misdemeanor violation that was used, kind of resurrected in a way to get by the statute of limitations. | ||
| Here, people thought that he really, that Fonnie Willis had a good case against Trump and his co-defendants just because, one, it was in state. | ||
| State courts are obviously harder for the feds to do anything with, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
If Trump were to win, he can't just get rid of this Georgia case. | |
| The other aspect of the Georgia case, too, is that Governor Kemp, a Republican, doesn't have the ability to pardon these people or do away with it. | ||
|
unidentified
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Basically, in Georgia, he would have to get convicted and then go before a pardon board. | |
| So it's set up a little different. | ||
| I think it's more complex, and it was much harder for the president to maneuver. | ||
| And it's still floating out there. | ||
| Who'd you interview for this book? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, quite a few people. | |
| I interviewed Laura Trump and Don Jr. | ||
| One because I wanted to hear what the family kind of went through during this aspect. | ||
| I found it surprising that, one, Laura Trump told me that even trying to get a mortgage was hard for them during this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You would think with that last name and all the money that they have that that wouldn't be a problem. | |
| Don Jr. talked about them having issues with like insurance, that sort of thing, that they were being dropped debanked. | ||
| I talked to others in the Trump circle, like Trump defenders, for example, Attorney General Ken And Paxton, he had his own legal issues, Steve Bannon. | ||
| I had interviewed Peter Navarro before, people who had gone to jail in this whole circle. | ||
| One I found particularly interesting, Rod Blagojevich. | ||
| Remind you and what his view is on the right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You have a really good point. | |
| I'm glad you bring him up. | ||
| So I did interview Governor Rod Blagojevich. | ||
| He spent 14 years, I think it was a 14-year sentence, and he was pardoned by the President Trump. | ||
| But he talks about how during his, he says he was politically prosecuted when he was governor of Illinois, and that his prosecution was actually, the criminal probe was led by Robert Mueller, and that he sees this kind of as like a, if you go against the establishment, no matter if you're a Republican or Democrat, that this is what happens to you. | ||
| But what one of his really good points was is I asked everybody who experienced some sort of lawfare from this, this whole past year or so during the campaign, what lesson they think could be taken from it. | ||
| Like, how do we stop this from happening again? | ||
| And his suggestion was a presidential commission that's bipartisan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He would like to see President Trump set that up. | |
| And I thought that was very thoughtful because a lot of times when I asked this question, like General Michael Flynn was like, oh, close the CIA, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And Steve Bannon wanted public hearings. | |
| I think a lot of people want to see indictments. | ||
| I'm not sure if that does settle the problem of what you and I were kind of getting at earlier is like, are we going to see Republicans and Democrats kind of just wage this law affair against each other going forward? | ||
| Are you more concerned about it happening in federal law enforcement agencies or on the trial side, the judges and the juries and the prosecutors? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I think that for me as a lawyer, my focus is usually more on the judiciary and how things are handled in the courtroom. | |
| To be like completely honest, I haven't worked inside a police station or inside the CIA or FBI. | ||
| I think there's obviously red flags that have been raised through some of our watchdog groups that have flagged things going forward, I guess, especially when we talk about Russia, what's going on now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's kind of crazy that it's full circle. | |
| But I pay attention a lot to how judges handle cases and also how lawyers are bringing them. | ||
| And forum shopping is a real problem. | ||
| We see conservatives run to conservative courts where they know they're going to get a beneficial ruling. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then the same is what Democrats do. | |
| You know, there's a reason some of these cases against Trump and his allies were brought where they were brought. | ||
| One more thing, you asked me some people who I interviewed. | ||
| I was really troubled with, like I talk a lot about the First Amendment in this book. | ||
| There were Trump supporters, just an average couple out in Texas, that counter-protested the Biden campaign bus. | ||
| And they had to go to trial under the Ku Klux Klan Act. | ||
| Basically, they were alleged to have violated the right to vote, interfered with someone's right to vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And they used the First Amendment as their defense, and they won. | |
| But this is a couple, you know, that had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Basically, what they said was defending their right to protest on public streets just like somebody else. | |
| And I saw that Ku Klux Klan Act come up again with some other cases, some other people. | ||
| I was like, I think there's also a case in Colorado. | ||
| Some of the January 6th defendants obviously had faced Ku Klux Klan civil cases, Act civil cases. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So it was just, it was one of those things that was very widespread. | |
| But when you look at someone like a little couple out in Texas that probably doesn't have that $300,000 to pay an attorney to have to fight this First Amendment case, I found that troubling. | ||
| So you talked about Rod Blagojevich, his recommendations for depoliticizing the legal process. | ||
| What are yours? | ||
| What's your conclusions after writing this book? | ||
| Well, you know, my conclusion is that I might need to write another one because it looks like it's just going to keep going forward. | ||
| We see, since I turned in my manuscript right after the president was basically sworn in office at the end of January, we've seen so many executive orders that have come out and been challenged in court. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think this is unbelievably probably the most, the administration that's faced the most lawsuits of any administration, at least in recent history. | |
| I think it's more than 500 by our count. | ||
| The Article III Foundation actually has a map kind of listing some of these hundreds of lawsuits. | ||
| I think like a third is all immigration related, which kind of mirrors some of these executive orders and what the focus out of this administration seems to be. | ||
| There's one aspect there, but then there's also this, I think what a lot of Democrats worried about was the president coming in and looking to get revenge on some of these people who have brought cases against him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mortgage fraud allegations against Letitia James. | |
| Adam Schiff led a lot of the Russia investigation and was one of the impeachment managers against the president. | ||
| He's also facing mortgage fraud allegations. | ||
| You have Lisa Cook from the federal board that's looking at mortgage fraud allegations too, going after law firms, targeting them for their work with the federal government. | ||
| Have those actions made you think differently about any sort of sympathy that you felt at the time to Donald Trump and MAGA? | ||
| It makes me worried about what I'm seeing in Washington, how you're going to start seeing, I fear, DOJ go after their political rival through our courts. | ||
| You know, I believe in America, we're supposed to defeat our opponents at the ballot box and not try to lock them up. | ||
| You're a member of the Supreme Court bar here in Washington. | ||
| Do you think this Supreme Court is going to be busier than past courts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's a very good question. | |
| So they're getting ready actually next month to kick off their new term. | ||
| They are busy. | ||
| I think given that I just mentioned there's like 500 or so lawsuits against this administration, I think they're going to have to deal with a lot of more Trump cases. | ||
| And I think those will probably be the biggest ones of the term that haven't quite yet been granted, you know, oral arguments and whatnot. | ||
| The big thing is what we're looking at is like what's called the shadow docket or the emergency docket. | ||
| And that's when these justices have to make a decision based off of just filings, no real hearing in an emergency context, like if an injunction is issued by a lower court judge, what to do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I wrote down some numbers just to kind of give you an idea how busy it's been. | |
| So in the 2023-2024 term, there was like about 44 matters on the shadow docket. | ||
| Those are cases? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, like emergency cases. | |
| Like this lower court judge has blocked this. | ||
| What do we do while we're fighting over the merits of the case? | ||
| Like can we still implement this order while we're, can we start working on it? | ||
| That sort of thing. | ||
| From 2024 to 2025, 113 matters just since in June. | ||
| That was where those numbers came from. | ||
| It's wild how it's exploded. | ||
| And 75, so does Blog says about 75% of those are going the conservative way. | ||
| So, you know, we'll see it's going to be a busy shadow docket and also merits term. | ||
| Who determines whether something gets on the shadow docket? | ||
| Who determines how important a matter it is that it needs to be decided sooner than the regular process that we're used to? | ||
| Right. | ||
| We have the case argued in the fall and then we hear in June. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so that's a good question. | |
| It's the justices. | ||
| So it's usually the end of the term is June. | ||
| The oral arguments usually stop around April. | ||
| They leave May kind of open and we had to schedule one this last term. | ||
| So you never know what's going to happen. | ||
| I'm guessing they'll be busy now, especially with what we're just talking about, the shadow docket thing. | ||
| So what happens is they decide whether or not they need to intervene early in a proceeding. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So usually when this case comes to be, it's because there hasn't been a decision on the merits by a judge, but there's been an order, like a temporary restraining order. | |
| There's been an injunction involved where that might mean the justices have to take it up sooner rather than later. | ||
| So they might issue a order directing the lower courts to here's how to handle it for now, and then it eventually will work its way back up to them and likely will end up getting hearings. | ||
| The book, it came out this past June, Lawless Lawfair, Tipping the Scales of Justice to Get Trump and Destroy MAGA. | ||
| Alex Swoyer of the Washington Times Legal Affairs Reporter is the author of that book and she's taking your phone calls and with us until the end of our program in about another 20 minutes. | ||
| It's 202-748-8000 for Democrats to call in. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll start on that line for Republicans. | ||
| Alex is in St. Paul, Minnesota. | ||
| Alex, you're on with Alex. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thanks for taking my call. | |
| I think it's an important topic. | ||
| I wanted to bring up something that I think really highlights the extent to which law fair is a problem. | ||
| We learned from an Inspector General report just this past week that the head of FBI counterintelligence in New York, who was looking into the organization that was paying the Biden family, was actually also leaking information to that same organization. | ||
| We found out that the FBI was aware that he was leaking. | ||
| They learned about his leaking in 2022 and they did not charge him. | ||
| They, in fact, hid it and they charged him with other things. | ||
| And this all came out just this past this past week in the Inspector General report by the DOJ. | ||
| It's important to keep in mind that actually the idea of law fair is a part of Chinese Communist Doctrine, their doctrine of unrestricted warfare. | ||
| One of the angles that they use is to basically control the courts. | ||
| And the fact that you could have somebody who is essentially leaking classified intelligence or arrest warrants to a foreign adversary and they not be charged. | ||
| But then you have somebody brought in and charged on whatever the Stormy Daniels stuff was, it shows you how sick our system has become and how much trouble the Smith District of New York has in terms of compromise. | ||
| They've hidden this for about eight years now. | ||
| If you'll go through and look at the whole records of it. | ||
| Let's take your point, Alex Wuhr. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think Alex has a great point. | |
| Love the name. | ||
| But also, the issue with leaking is something that should be more explored. | ||
| Because the problem I noticed with, here's a perfect example, James Comey. | ||
| He left his notes with one of his colleagues. | ||
| He says he did this as a trusted issue during his, he was worried about retaliation. | ||
| That's a leak. | ||
| He also, we have new reports out that he was signing off on certain leaks. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| During a congressional hearing, he was asked, have you ever leaked to the meeting? | ||
| He said no. | ||
| So there's questions about, was that true at the time? | ||
| You know, I have to go back and look at his timeline there. | ||
| Maybe he hadn't at that point. | ||
| Maybe, maybe he did not, to be fair to him. | ||
| But it just looks to voters. | ||
| And that was something I explored in the book. | ||
| I talked to a pollster about how this plays. | ||
| And a lot of people say it just feels like, you know, one person is treated differently than another. | ||
| And that was a lot what was said when I was exploring the classified documents case with Trump. | ||
| A lot of people, the pollster I talked to said it was just lost on them that others have had classified documents but haven't had criminal charges. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, these, for example, they're not lawyers. | |
| They might not read all the court documents or see all the facts behind like why, why he took them or how many times they had to come back and try to get them. | ||
| But that was something that they thought was real troubling. | ||
| And it just became so much that it was lost on the voter. | ||
| And I think that's kind of what Alex was just hitting on. | ||
| To the Buckeye State, this is Keith in Dayton, line for Democrats. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Hello. | ||
| What's your question or comment for Alex Wuer, Keith? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want to know why every time Donald Trump gets caught with something, it's always somebody else's fault. | |
| It's the jury, it's the prosecutor, it's the judge. | ||
| Didn't Donald Trump call Georgia and say, can you find me these votes? | ||
| Didn't he tell his followers on January 6th and storm the Capitol? | ||
| Didn't wasn't he the one who got caught with fraud in New York? | ||
| Why is all this evidence and it's not Trump's fault? | ||
| It's always someone else's fault. | ||
| If he's guilty, he's not above the law. | ||
| I get tired of people continuing to defend him for what he does. | ||
| And it's always, it's lawless is it's always a Democrat. | ||
| It's always someone else's fault. | ||
| Can we say Donald Trump did these things? | ||
| That's all I need to say. | ||
| Alex Ware. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, I think he brought up the Georgia case. | |
| And did Donald Trump say, find me these votes, and what that would mean criminally, right? | ||
| And that's still ongoing. | ||
| We're waiting to see if a prosecutor is going to pick that up after Fonnie Willis was booted from the case for paying her boyfriend at the time, the special prosecutor, money from it was supposed to be COVID backlog, money that was used to process cases, but she was paying him heavily to prosecute this case while taking vacations with him. | ||
| Obvious conflict of interest. | ||
| So she's kind of put on hold. | ||
| She's appealed that ruling, and that's kind of what we're waiting for from the Georgia Supreme Court. | ||
| Is she going to stay on it or not? | ||
| And the way it would work in Georgia is there's a nonprofit group of other prosecutors, other district attorneys that could take it over. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think Cobb County was one that was considering it. | |
| I talked to John Eastman, obviously another co-defendant in that case. | ||
| To remind everyone, he was one of the lawyers that worked for Trump around the whole January 6th protest and how to contest it in court. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And he said that he thought for sure that it was going to be taken over by someone else. | |
| So all of that is still on hold, and we'll see what happens there. | ||
| You know, there could be more, another trial. | ||
| You take up another case in this book, the E.G. and Carroll. | ||
|
unidentified
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I do, yes. | |
| What is your take on that case? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's a very interesting case the way that came to be because there was actually two defamation cases. | |
| It was very complicated. | ||
| First, it was that the president was denying the allegations when the book came out that she said that he had raped her inside the Nordstrom Bergdorford Goodman's, I think it might have been, and Manhattan in the 90s. | ||
| And he was asked by reporters as president about this book that was making news. | ||
| And I think part of the First Amendment is that he should be able to answer that question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But that was the basis of a defamation suit, right? | |
| That denial. | ||
| And then that was kind of put on pause because since he was president at the time, there was a legal fight about whether the DOJ is supposed to defend him in this. | ||
| So then she ended up having to file another defamation case and tie in after New York had passed the Survivors Act, allowing for rape allegations, kind of doing away with the statute limitations there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's really the one that I think got speed. | |
| But again, it was using the president's denials as a basis for defamation. | ||
| When you say it got speed, what do you mean? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that's the one that moved through the courts more quickly. | |
| More quickly than it should have? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, more quickly than the other one, right? | |
| Because the other one was kind of held up about who's going to defend Trump. | ||
| Is it the DOJ or not? | ||
| And that kind of, like, that went away after the Biden DOJ came in because they're like, we're not defending him, right? | ||
| So that kind of took care of that one. | ||
| To Lee in Rockville, Maryland, Independent, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, John. | |
| Good morning, Alex. | ||
| Enjoying the show. | ||
| I'd like to add something. | ||
| There's a common misconception that President Trump was acquitted of charges. | ||
| He wasn't acquitted of anything. | ||
| He had a bunch of lawyers file frivolous and time-consuming motions over and over and over again in all these spe against all these special prosecutors that Merrick Garland was tardy in appointing. | ||
| And what happened was they ran out the clock. | ||
| They ran out the clock repeatedly. | ||
| Isn't that what happened, Alex? | ||
| So yes, twofold, if I can jump in. | ||
| Okay, so a couple things. | ||
| One, the timelines of some of these cases were sped up. | ||
| I have in the book, I can't remember the exact date, but it usually takes like 26 months from indictment to trial in DC. | ||
|
unidentified
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And that would have put his actual trial after the election. | |
| But we know everybody was trying to get him on trial before. | ||
|
unidentified
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So in that respect, I think that, you know, his lawyers were successful delaying things for sure, but also a normal defendant wouldn't have had that tight of a timeline. | |
| That's one thing. | ||
| The other aspect I think is that was important to mention that I wrote about in the book is that these other charges that were brought by Jack Smith, these cases, obviously, the caller mentioned that these charges weren't acquitted. | ||
| That's true. | ||
| The cases were actually dismissed without prejudice. | ||
| So that means that a new, say, a new Democrat Attorney General could come in in 2028 and decide to revive some of these cases. | ||
| Now, the question would be if some of these charges lapse because of statute limitations. | ||
| Some of them I don't think would. | ||
| I think there's like eight to ten years for some of these because of, especially the classified documents ones. | ||
| And so these cases and charges could come back. | ||
| There's a possibility. | ||
| It might be unlikely, but there is a possibility. | ||
| Remind viewers who Eileen Cannon is. | ||
| Eileen Cannon is the judge down in the Southern District of Florida who was the one who basically issued a ruling that was a major win for the president right after the assassination attempt in July where she said that special counsel Jack Smith did not have standing to bring these cases. | ||
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unidentified
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And essentially, like to just kind of dumb down a ruling, it was based on the fact that he was not Senate confirmed, that he was a civilian at the time that he was appointed by the Justice Department, so that he didn't have authority to bring these charges. | |
| Now, the DC Circuit views special counsels very differently. | ||
| This was the Southern District of Florida that feeds the 11th Circuit. | ||
| So basically what we were looking at, I think, is a potential issue on special counsels, whether or not how they have to be confirmed. | ||
| Do they have to be confirmed? | ||
| How are they selected in order to bring these types of charges? | ||
| That issue could have had split rulings from different circuit courts and eventually had to force the justices to hear it. | ||
| We aren't there now, but that could come back. | ||
| You said at the beginning of the book, you didn't necessarily set out to write a pro-Trump book, but Democratic lawmakers, progressive lawyers, and biased judges made it all too easy to compile this book. | ||
| Do you think Eileen Cannon in any way is a biased judge? | ||
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unidentified
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So I know a lot of people say because she's a Trump appointee that that's why she issued the ruling she did. | |
| I was not in the courtroom when she heard these oral arguments. | ||
| I interviewed Josh Blackman, who was one of the lawyers who argued it on behalf of basically against Jack Smith's standing. | ||
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unidentified
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And he said that he thought she was thoughtful and that she actually asked harder questions than he had been prepared. | |
| He thought that she tough questions of him too, and so he was surprised that things actually went his way. | ||
| But for me, when I talk about biased judges, I have to talk about what I see when I'm in the courtroom and what I know to be abnormal. | ||
| And for the most part, to me, it was what I mentioned with Judge Chucken. | ||
| One of the statements she had was that she's aware there's an election, but that doesn't matter. | ||
| Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like that's the case when she allowed the defendant not to have his time to respond right before the election. | ||
| That was alarming to me, just from a fairness procedural standpoint. | ||
| And then I mentioned also the Judge Mershon issue with, I think, potential conflict of interest with his daughter and fundraising off of the trial that he was overseeing. | ||
| When you walk into the Supreme Court, do you see biased justices? | ||
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unidentified
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No, not on every case. | |
| I don't. | ||
| And I think that they do try to issue or recuse themselves when necessary. | ||
| There has been, well, lately there's been more effort to do so. | ||
| Now, they don't always know why, which leaves you wondering exactly what is the conflict. | ||
| But since there's been some of these reports by ProPublica, you know, and whatnot on some of these past trips that were taken. | ||
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unidentified
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Exactly. | |
| Exactly, yes. | ||
| There's been more efforts to disclose why one is recusing. | ||
|
unidentified
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Now, I can't recall. | |
| I think it might have been, it was Justice Barrett recused. | ||
| And it was one of the major cases last term, but there was not really an answer given. | ||
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unidentified
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But it was believed to be because she was actually, you know, I think it was actually the charter school case where were we going to have a first religious charter school? | |
| And that was out of Oklahoma. | ||
| And I think it was because, says a bunch of court watchers, the rumors were that she knew one of the advocates working on one of the sides. | ||
| And so that seems fair. | ||
| That would be a good reason to recuse. | ||
| And I know Sodomayor has done the same in the past. | ||
| I do think that they should be more transparent and give statements as to why. | ||
| I know we're talking about your book, Lawless Lawfair, but Amy Coney Barrett, who just mentioned, is out with a new book. | ||
| Have you had a chance to read that book? | ||
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unidentified
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I have not yet. | |
| I did read some of the reporting about the book, and I thought it was interesting some of the stuff she said. | ||
| One in particular is about her being Catholic and against the death penalty, but yet she chose to vote to reinstate the Boston bombers death sentence. | ||
| So I thought, you know, that's a good example of a judge kind of putting their own personal bias aside. | ||
| Listening to the law is the justice's new book, and she talked about it at the National Book Festival over the weekend. | ||
| We were able to record that event, so we'll be airing it on book TV in the weeks to come. | ||
| Back to your phone calls. | ||
| This is Lee in Garrison, New York, Independent. | ||
| You are on with Alex Foyer. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, folks. | |
| I was wondering who pays for all the court actions that are being brought by the Democrat lawmakers and other Democrats against these Trump executive orders. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I think that's a very good question. | ||
| And one that should be explored is just how the money behind these cases, who's funding them, that was one of the issues actually that Donald Trump's lawyers wanted to provide in the Eugene Carroll case. | ||
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unidentified
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They were saying that she was being funded by basically a Democrat activist and he was not allowed to present that at that point. | |
| So I'm not sure if that'll change on appeal or how that whole situation may play out if it works its way all the way to the justices. | ||
| We will see. | ||
| But, you know, who's funding these cases that go to against these executive orders? | ||
| Many of them are coming from advocacy groups. | ||
| A lot of them are based out of Washington. | ||
| We've had so many of the orders related to immigration that a lot of immigrant rights groups are fighting them, and those are the ones that are being funded to do so. | ||
| But yeah, I think that the money behind this litigation and also just judicial campaigns and campaigns for district attorneys, it's something that I think the public should have more information about and it should be more transparent so you know what you're getting. | ||
| David is in McLean, Virginia, line for Democrats. | ||
| You're on with Alex Warrior. | ||
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unidentified
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Hi. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I would like to ask your guest how she accounts for the fact that even before Trump became involved in politics at all, he was still the subject of thousands of lawsuits, literally thousands of lawsuits for lying, cheating, and stealing. | ||
| If you go to Wikipedia, they break down the various lawsuits. | ||
| And these aren't lawsuits bought by a government agency. | ||
| These are business partners. | ||
| These are employees. | ||
| These are women who accuse him of attacking her, teching them. | ||
| You have thousands of students from the Trump University for whom Trump had to pay $25 million because he defrauded them. | ||
| That wasn't lawfare by an agency. | ||
| That was private litigants. | ||
| And so it shouldn't be surprising, should it, that he continues to have legal problems from government oversight and DOJ and other agencies now that he is involved in politics. | ||
| Alex Warrior? | ||
| Yeah, I think that that's something I hear from a lot of Democrats is like, well, this is the type of man he is. | ||
| Eventually he's going to get caught. | ||
| He's going to have to answer to that. | ||
| I think when you're a businessman dealing with what President Trump was with the Trump organization, there's no surprise that there would be lawsuits. | ||
| Even small business owners have to face lawsuits and settle cases just because of the cost of going to actual trial. | ||
| So I'm not too surprised about that given who he was and especially the celebrity nature of him. | ||
| But yeah, I mean, for many Democrat voters, they found this to be the righting wrong. | ||
| They thought that these cases should have seen all been finished and should still be ongoing. | ||
| And we'll see if they are revived and what happens with Georgia. | ||
| But for the most part, you know, there are some Democrats I've talked to that said they agree that it was overkill, that Democrats would have been smarter to choose one of their strongest lawsuits and stick with that one rather than, like I said, four indictments, four months. | ||
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unidentified
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It was unprecedented, and the American people saw through it. | |
| He didn't only win the Electoral College, he won the popular vote. | ||
| People were tired of the weaponization of government. | ||
| Just a few minutes left with Alex Warrior. | ||
| If you have a question or comment, phone lines are open. | ||
| You had mentioned, and we've talked about the Supreme Court. | ||
| You already talked about the shadow docket and what that means, what could be on it. | ||
| But what else are you watching for this time in this past? | ||
| There's a couple cases that I think could give the justices a chance to overturn precedent. | ||
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unidentified
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One is the precedent around gay marriage. | |
| We saw Obergefell issued in 2015. | ||
| After that, if you remember, there was a county clerk in Kentucky that refused to issue the licenses out of a religious obligation, she said. | ||
| She was ended up giving some exemption. | ||
| She was sued by a couple who said that they wanted her name on the certificate. | ||
| She has now taken that case to the Supreme Court and said, I was a government official, like I'm immune to be sued like this. | ||
| And also, will you overrule Obergefell? | ||
| So that was another issue she threw in there. | ||
| The justices have to conference on that. | ||
| It would take four of them to vote in favor of hearing it. | ||
| They could choose just to hear her immunity claim that, hey, I shouldn't be sued because I'm a government official. | ||
| Or they could also choose to take up the Obergefell issue and whether they're going to overrule it. | ||
| I find that unlikely, but you never know. | ||
| I've given up trying to guess what they'll do. | ||
| When do we find out when they make that decision? | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, it could take months. | |
| So the way I know if there's interest to see a case is I go onto the docket and you can see like when it's scheduled for conferencing. | ||
| And if they don't make a decision at that conference and in their next orders, I know they're relisted it because there might be some people who are, some justices are interested in this. | ||
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unidentified
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So they might be like, we're going to continue this conversation next conference. | |
| And so that kind of, when things are relisted and relisted and relisted, it tells me it's most likely it's going to get a hearing. | ||
| So we'll have to see what happens with this one. | ||
| Now the other aspect is you and I talked about previously was Trump's firing of agency heads, independent agency heads, and that has gone to the justices on the emergency docket. | ||
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unidentified
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Like what do we do? | |
| Do we reinstate this person or not? | ||
| So there's a 1935 case that basically limits a president's ability to fire independent agency heads. | ||
| That was the FTC. | ||
| So that's really Humphrey's executor. | ||
| It's being tested. | ||
| And I wouldn't be surprised if during this next term we see it, the justices have to consider overruling it or not. | ||
| Time for just maybe one or two more phone calls here. | ||
| This is Mark out of New York line for Democrats. | ||
| Mark, go ahead and run with Alex Sware. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, when you were speaking about the Supreme Court with the guest, you asked her a question about how many or how the cases on the dockets were settled or made a decision of. | |
| And I looked it up and it looks like it's normally five they do a vote. | ||
| Out of the nine, five will pull the case forward. | ||
| But it has been known that one justice can pull it forward. | ||
| And I'm wondering of the 120 plus cases, does she know how many the votes were to pull them forward? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Pull them forward with them. | ||
|
unidentified
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So I think what he's talking about is like what we were mentioning with the emergency orders. | |
| So what happens usually is with these circuit courts, they're addressed to one judge. | ||
|
unidentified
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So like one, you know, Chief Justice Roberts oversees the DC circuit, right? | |
| And so that appeal goes to him. | ||
| He can make a decision on his own or he can refer it to the full court. | ||
| And that's how it works for all of the justices. | ||
| Normally on major issues, they refer it to the whole court. | ||
| And that's kind of where I was getting at with this go to blog data where 75% tend to be the conservative side. | ||
| Why would they want to give up deciding it on their own? | ||
| Why refer to the full court where there's a possibility a decision may be made that you don't agree with? | ||
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unidentified
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What I've noticed is it usually they issue, a lot of times with like death sentences like that are being appealed, they get them all the time. | |
| One justice will take a look at it and be like, this is pretty cut and dry and not take it to the colleagues. | ||
| Others, like a lot of this that we're talking about are unprecedented cases and so they take it to the full court. | ||
| And that's also part of the shadow document. | ||
|
unidentified
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Right, right. | |
| That's what we, that's why everybody's kind of like, it would be much more interesting, I think, for people if we had a little bit more intel on what goes on and why they make the decisions they do. |