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Co-host Jared Yates Sexton is on the road and joins Nick Hauselman from his car to discuss the revelation, from Trump no less, that he is officially targeted by special counsel Jack Smith, with an impending indictment centering on January 6th around the corner. Then they shift to RFK Jr's sad appearance in front of congress as he continuously spouts misinformation and lies.
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Hey everybody, welcome to the Muckrake Podcast Weekender episode.
As always on Fridays, you can get a bit of it here for free.
And then if you come over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast, you can hear the entire episode, which is what you're going to want to do.
So many of you guys do the part anyway, you might as well hop on over, get the whole show.
So make sure you click over on patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
And again, this is Nick Halsman, I'm the co-host, and I'm joined today by Jared Yates-Sexton from The Road.
He is in his car, he is driving, but he is a pro and can do both at the same time.
Right, Jared?
Hey everybody!
I am here, I am running around, I'm doing research on the new book.
I am busy as hell, but I didn't want to miss out on another Weekender.
I didn't want to miss out on the show.
Luckily, Nick and his friend Jason Needleman, the great professor, filled in very, very well.
I enjoyed it myself as a fan, which is what people should do on Fridays by going to patreon.com slash buckrakepodcast.
That's patreon.com slash buckrakepodcast.
It's wonderful to be with you, Nick.
I missed you.
Oh, I missed you, too.
I'm so glad to have you driving with me.
Drive safely, please, while we do this, but you might have a little bit of a hard time keeping the car on the road as we discuss some of these things that are happening because, obviously, Jack Smith's investigation is ramping up.
He has written a letter.
I wonder if he put a stamp on it and sent it.
I don't know how they delivered it, but... I wanted to be sent it.
I want any letter of a notification of criminal investigation, I want it to have a nice strawberry scent to it, like a fourth grade eraser.
Yes, exactly.
I mean, you know, it could be, you know, they could have delivered it maybe with like, in a rabbit suit or whatever, a guy dancing and singing, and then they deliver it like that.
That'd be interesting, but it's a real problem because there's a bunch of different laws that Jack Smith is alleging that Trump violated.
Of note, there isn't any incitement of insurrection, which I think is probably good because it's probably the hardest thing that they're going to be able to prove.
And so what this says to me is that they're not going to get this far in any kind of investigation unless they have the goods, right?
Unless they feel without a shadow of a doubt, beyond any accusation of politicization, that they will be able to prove their case in a court of law.
Would that be fair to say, Jared?
I'll say this.
So, first off, we've talked about it.
Jack Smith is not going to bring charges that he cannot prove.
He's not going to mess around with this thing.
He's not going to play footsie with anything that can't be brought across the finish line.
But there's also an aspect to this as well, which is one of my main concerns.
Listen, Donald Trump is in hot water.
We've talked about this.
We've acknowledged this.
We understand it.
He has obviously incriminated himself and he should be held accountable for those things.
I mean, based on the evidence that we have seen just from the documents case and from other cases against Donald Trump, he should spend the rest of his natural life in prison.
And he certainly should be held accountable in this case.
I will say it is almost impossible to prove that he is the person who led to the insurrection when he was just kind of the buffoon out in front of it.
And, you know, I've been thinking about this over the past couple of days.
Donald Trump had a hard time paying attention in briefings, much less bringing together a massive conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States of America.
He was talking to Mike Lindell, Nick!
He was hanging out with the MyPillow CEO trying to figure out how to overthrow an election.
He is not a serious person.
And as a result, you can't sit there and say that he is at the center of the conspiracy for this insurrection or this coup.
But I can tell you what he did do and the roles that he did play in the January 6th situation.
I think he's got to be caught dead to rights here.
For sure.
And, you know, they might have a lot of information that we have not yet heard.
Perhaps they have communications.
We did know that Trump would use a non-secure phone, you know, so you never know what kind of tools they might have at their disposal if they can prove enough of a crime to get records that would show Trump calling Roger Stone or, you know, the Proud Boys or whatever.
But at the very least, you know, however addled his mind is, I suppose he's smart enough to know not to have a direct connection to those people.
But it seems clear that, you know, here's the thing.
A lot of the fake electors is another big part of this whole case, right?
And, you know, Rachel Maddow had breathlessly reported on this and maybe made fun of because she wanted to make it seem like the letters that were all sent from very different states across the country were all almost the same, the wording.
But it turns out that this is true, I mean, as far as the charges go.
And by the way, Jared, you're not allowed to bring charges without that pesky thing called evidence.
Isn't that how our system works?
It's how it's supposed to work.
And I have to tell you, you know, I think one of the things that gets lost in all this, Nick, is the only reason that we know that this is happening is because Donald Trump, who is an absolute child, the moment that he received this letter or his lawyers received the letter, he got on truth, gab, gab, truth, whatever the hell it is, and basically said, oh, whiny, whiny, whiny, they're coming after me.
We don't know, like, what has Mark Meadows heard?
And we're well aware that Mark Meadows was at the center of all of this shit, and was probably the one making the phone calls, and was probably the liaison to Roger Stone and the Proud Boys.
Who even knows?
Who is in Mark Meadows' phone.
So at this point, we don't even know what that conspiracy looks like.
We don't know if it's going to be... I find it funny to think that Donald Trump's Diet Coke guy might get indicted for this one as well.
But, you know, we don't know who all is involved in this thing or if they're going to contain it with Donald Trump.
At this point, everything is just conjecture.
We have no idea what this thing looks like or if you know, again, Donald Trump got caught cheating on his taxes basically.
And that's what they're getting him for in this January 6 probe.
Or if there's a larger inquiry, which is my hope.
But again, I'm not going to hold out my breath on it.
Right.
And I'm putting a lot of money that Meadows is cooperating.
He's been way too quiet.
He already gave up some stuff and he understands that the legal jeopardy that he's in and the only way he could save his skin would be to cooperate.
So I don't see any other way around him not being part of this, especially because Smith is now bringing these charges.
I will say this, the electors across, you know, there's a whole bunch of them in Michigan who are now being charged, sort of, in the local attorney general there.
And I suspect that there probably has to be some coordination between her, the attorney general of Michigan and Jack Smith, because like there's a lot of felony counts.
And I have to imagine most of these people are patsies and dupes and throw the book at them.
And they're just going to pray that they're going to get high enough and that they're going to give up enough people high enough that's going to get them farther along.
It doesn't always work.
I think these crazies might assume that Trump is going to win in 2024 and then pardon them.
All which is sort of what Manafort did when he wouldn't really turn over that it could happen.
I suppose it doesn't seem possible.
I would imagine a couple of those people are going to flip because there's enough of them.
But it seems to me that's what's happening, too, as far as the coordination.
And I got to tell you, Jared, I do feel a little bit bad for some of these fake electors who probably were just, you know, completely deceived and manipulated.
I will say though, you know, it's funny that there is a consistent thing that happens around Donald Trump and we've chronicled this.
First of all, nobody around Donald Trump in his inner circle or even his extended outer circle, like none of those people are competent.
They're all absolute idiots who basically, you know, at some point or another were under investigation for, you know, trying to steal Social Security checks from somebody.
Like, these are fraudsters and grifters with the worst intent, and most of them have no idea what they're doing except for they know that the getting is good around Donald Trump.
We've seen this not just with Roger Stone and Paul Manafort and Steve Bannon, but, like, Congress people.
Who lined up, had in hand, looking for Donald Trump to offer them preemptive pardons.
And you're exactly right.
These people probably expected, and none of the people signing on to be a false elector, probably totally understood what they were doing, except for they thought they were helping, you know, their lord and savior Donald Trump.
Or they were doing something interesting.
I don't know.
But everybody around this probably thought, oh, we're not only going to win, but we're going to take over power, which goes back to what you and Jason Neumann were talking about.
Which is this larger plan if Donald Trump wins another election and gets another term.
Basically, everything is now being fitted in order to try and erase any of the crimes, any of the indictments, any of the penalties or consequences that has happened from the first nightmare.
But also to go ahead and push the envelope this second time around.
So you're exactly right.
Everybody involved in this more or less thinks that they're involved in some sort of a pseudo-revolution.
And the problem is, if that revolution doesn't win, if your coup doesn't get carried out, you kind of have to face the consequences of these things.
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