David Schoen, Trump’s impeachment attorney, argues the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling could expose Barack Obama to prosecution for election interference if evidence emerges, citing Article I, Section 3’s override clause. He predicts Trump’s $1M sanction in the Clinton/DNC lawsuit may be reversed due to declassified proof and warns D.C. courts are politicized, suggesting Florida’s grand jury could investigate election fraud to avoid bias. Schoen dismisses Epstein conspiracy theories, claiming his 2019 disclosure debunked false claims, framing left-wing attacks as politically motivated distractions from Trump’s record—while interspersing urgent pleas to defend rural hospitals under congressional threat. [Automatically generated summary]
Rural Americans deserve access to the best of what our country has to offer, especially health care.
Across every state, every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
They employ our neighbors and keep our families healthy.
But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
Tell Congress: protect patient care to keep America strong.
Don't cut rural health care.
The Stone Zone.
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Former Trump impeachment attorney David Schoen, criminal defense attorney extraordinaire, who ably represented Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial, joins us now because he believes that this precedent could hit Obama squarely in his legacy.
David Schoen, welcome back into the Stone Zone.
Thank you very much.
Always an honor to be with you.
So, David, we saw a clip the other day of the president.
He was asked directly whether this recent Supreme Court decision regarding the president having immunity would protect Barack Obama from prosecution based on everything we know.
And I think he said kind of cavalierly, yes, probably helps him a lot.
But you put forward a very shrewd analysis that the Democrats now have the risk of being hoisted on their own petard, so to speak.
Lay this out, absolutely.
Yeah, sure.
So President Trump was absolutely right when he said that the immunity decision, Trump versus United States, would help former President Obama evade prosecution at this point.
All of this is based on the idea, the premise that the evidence shows, as Director Gabbard has said, that former President Obama was directly involved in a scheme with others to skew the election results, undermine the will of the people in the election.
If the evidence doesn't show that, then the discussion is simply academic.
But assuming for these purposes, the evidence shows that, President Trump was right that the immunity decision helps President Obama matter first course.
But what doesn't help him with is the impeachment process.
Without any question, 100%, according to the Democratic members of the House of Representatives and the Senate vote in the second impeachment trial, former President Obama absolutely can be impeached and convicted in a trial before the Senate.
I argued vigorously against that position that a former president is not subject to impeachment and conviction in a Senate trial once out of office because removal from office is a prerequisite for an impeachment concept.
However, the House managers argued some 30 pages in their brief that that's not at all the case.
The history and other interpretive tools tell us that without any question, a former president can be impeached and convicted, going back as far as George Washington and any other former president.
And they go on to explain all of their reasons why and why there are two separate provisions in Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7.
One provides for removal, and the other provides for disqualification from holding future office.
And that's why their reason is essentially a former president can be impeached and convicted because they say it's just as important that person could have followers even after leaving office.
And so the person should never be able to hold high office again.
But in fact, they went much further.
And this is particularly telling, it seems to me, if the evidence shows, what Director Gabbard has suggested, it shows it goes right to the heart of the democracy, the power of the vote, the will of the people exercised through their vote.
What they wrote, the House managers, Jamie Raskin and Crew, wrote in their brief was this, the framers anticipated the risks of someone being out of office, and they explained that presidential abuse aimed at our democratic process itself was the single most urgent basis for impeachment.
Well, of course, the evidence we're talking about here, if it's proven, goes to the very core of the democratic process and therefore there would be an imperative to impeach former president Obama because, as the House managers wrote, if you do let someone get away with attacking the democratic process uh, it'll send a horrible message throughout the rest of American history, and so I think you know their words are very powerful in there.
But this goes beyond it Roger, and I think this is an important point to make.
The immunity decision, as I say, and president Trump said as a matter of first course, would probably prohibit prosecution.
Some have suggested otherwise, and the key here is understanding what that decision held.
Very simply, it held that if something is within the core official acts of the president, then it's absolutely immune from criminal prosecution, just as it is from a civil lawsuit in Nixon versus Fitzgerald and if it's within that outer limit of the official acts, it's presumptively um immune.
Is presumptive immunity.
Something that's not an official act wouldn't have the benefit of immunity, but we're also not allowed to look into the motive behind the action.
So let's just say that the evidence is there.
However, former president Obama and his colleagues can spin a tail so that this was somehow his view of, you know, ensuring the integrity of the election, something like that.
So he has the benefit of immunity.
Now he gets impeached by the House, majority of the House impeaches him, and he gets tried before the Senate and convicted because the evidence is overwhelming.
Let's just assume for argument's sake.
Now, according to article one, section three uh, clause seven of the constitution, in my view he would be able to be prosecuted criminally.
Why?
Because the text of the constitution expressly provides for it in that case and that in the case here it says judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, of disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, etc.
But the party convicted shall nevertheless nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment trial, judgment and punishment according to law.
And so one would argue this would supersede that immunity decision because it's an intervening Of him, an impeachment and a conviction by the Senate under Article 1, Section 3.
So, therefore, it triggers this clause, and he could be indicted, tried, and convicted by a jury criminally.
This, by the way, is perfectly consistent with an argument that President Trump made in the immunity case, and that is, using the impeachment clause, he argued in a position that was rejected by the Supreme Court.
He argued that the only way a person can be tried criminally is if they're first convicted after an impeachment trial in the Senate.
So, it's perfectly consistent with his view on that, but it's in the language, the express language of the Constitution.
So, David, President Donald Trump filed a civil lawsuit in March of 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, specifically against Hillary Clinton, the Democrat National Committee, and others, alleging a conspiracy to falsely tie his 2016 presidential campaign to Russia.
The case was dismissed in September of 2022 by U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks, a Clinton appointee, who described it as being without merit, as having glaring structural deficiencies, and he imposed sanctions of nearly $1 million against President Trump and his attorney in the case, Alina Haba.
Now that the assertions in that lawsuit have been proven by the declassification of these documents to be completely and totally true, what happens to this lawsuit?
And more specifically, what happens to this million-dollar fine?
Yeah, well, that's a great question.
On the one hand, federal courts make it very difficult to come back and revisit a final judgment in the case.
I would add, by the way, Judge Middlebrooks is not one of my favorites, but that's beside the point.
So anyway, the federal courts make it difficult to come back and revisit a final judgment.
However, there are tools under Rule 60D of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that in certain circumstances do allow it.
Some of them are time-sensitive, but some aren't.
There's a catch-all clause, 60B6.
But it may be that 60B4 and 60B5 apply here because, as you said, there's a fine involved here of a million dollars.
If you can show extraordinary circumstances, and certainly it seems like extraordinary circumstances, to uncover previously classified or secret documents that now expose events that are at odds with the basis on which the judge made his judgment, that's an extraordinary circumstance, it seems to me.
But beyond that, they're using that judgment for prospective purposes.
It's not just that the judgment sat there and had some impact at that time.
It can be used now to collect on that judgment.
And one would argue that it's an invalid judgment for the reasons of the extraordinary circumstances of this disclosure explained.
And therefore, another mechanism to get back in could be either 60B5 or 60B4, arguing that we can't allow a void or invalid judgment to be used for prospective purposes.
How unfair would that be?
You were wrong, Judge, but we're still going to let you collect a million dollars in sanctions for the other side.
So yesterday, John Solomon with Just the News reported that the Attorney General Pam Bondi had ordered a federal prosecutor to begin presenting evidence to a grand jury against those who were exposed in the declassification of documents by Tulsi Gabbard.
But the speculation was that that grand jury was in Florida rather than in the District of Columbia.
I obviously welcome that news if it is correct, but I'm trying to determine why that venue.
And here's a theory.
The raid on Mar-Lago, since it was actually designed to seize evidence of the guilt of those involved in the Russian collusion hoax, was part of a continuing seditious conspiracy continued until that date.
And that took place in Florida, thus allowing the case to be pursued in the Sunshine State.
Now, that's so much for my amateur lawyering.
How could this case against Brenning, Comey, Clapper, Biden, Rice, Weissman, Mueller?
This list goes on and on.
How could this be pursued someplace where there could actually be a fair trial and where there's a reasonable probability of conviction based on the evidence?
Yeah.
Good question again.
And I think your analysis, you know, your theory is a good one.
But remember, you know, in the Florida case, they convened a grand jury in Washington, D.C. to hear much of the evidence then used or could be used in the Florida case.
Here, I think there could be a theory also.
First of all, the point is, they want it outside of D.C., ideally, because it's one of the jurisdictions in the country in which the voters are overwhelmingly Democratic.
And we see a lot of political decisions from the judges in that jurisdiction and from juries.
It's human nature in a sense.
I think one could make an argument that if the evidence here really is evidence of seditious conspiracy under 18 USC 2384 or in some offense that relates to undermining the vote, the will of the voters, and theoretically, it affects, it has the effect in every state in the Union.
And therefore, a grand jury could be convened anyplace.
I think that's one theory that could be floated out there.
Every American has a stake in seeing justice done because it affects the vote of every American one way or another.
But we have to see, I think, what the evidence is, what the conducted issue was.
It might be that if there were discussions like this, some discussions took place over the telephone or the internet from various places outside of Washington, D.C.
I don't know.
We have to see what the evidence is, I think.
I appreciate that analysis.
Hope Springs Eternal that this trial will be take the trials will take place in a jurisdiction other than the District of Columbia.
I personally have been through that meat grinder, as I said earlier in the show.
In the District of Columbia, the Constitution, the law, the facts, the evidence, the rules, none of these things matter when the court is in order.
It is the most politicized jurisdiction in the country.
In my particular case, when we learned that the jury for woman, who denied during jury selection and the trial that she had any knowledge of me or my case, had been attacking me on Facebook and Twitter by name, but had those postings on a private setting.
Once that was revealed, the judge actually ruled that none of that was evidence of bias.
Wherever you do, don't touch that dial.
Jeffrey Epstein Revelations00:06:49
This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
All Americans deserve access to the best of what our country has to offer, especially health care.
Across every state, every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones, no matter where you live.
Hospital care doesn't clock out.
They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
They employ our neighbors and keep our families healthy.
But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.
Don't cut rural healthcare.
This is the Stone Zone.
Now, get in the zone.
It's the stone zone.
Here's Roger Stone.
And we're back in the stone zone.
We're talking to perhaps the preeminent criminal defense attorney in the country today, David Schoen, who very ably represented President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
David, you were back in the news only days ago because of this vicious effort to smear Donald Trump as having had a somehow inappropriate relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of sex crimes in Florida and was indicted in 2019 in New York on one count of child sex trafficking and a second count of the conspiracy to engage in child sex trafficking.
But you revealed to the American public that you discussed this matter with Jeffrey Epstein just before his death.
Why don't you take it from there?
Sure.
Well, you know, as one might imagine, any criminal defense lawyer in meeting with a client who's facing a federal indictment would want to know what kind of leverage that defendant might have to help himself in some kind of deal or something like that.
I happen to have made it a practice in my practice.
I don't represent cooperators, but everyone ought to be advised of that opportunity.
I just don't believe it philosophically that one should turn against friends, all that, but everyone should have that opportunity to help him or herself in a case.
And a lawyer has an obligation to explain that to the client.
I won't, you know, I never go into attorney-client privilege discussions regarding any of my conversations with any client.
However, in this case, I expressly discussed with Jeffrey Epstein whether he had anything, any information that could help him by hurting Donald Trump.
That is, any information that Donald Trump did anything illegal or improper.
And had he not authorized me to, I wouldn't have disclosed the answer to that.
But he did.
And he said to me, in no uncertain terms, that he had no information that could hurt Donald Trump in any way because Donald Trump had not done anything illegal or improper with him.
And then he made it clear that he wanted that known.
So that's why I've revealed it now.
I revealed it in response to Mr. Musk's tweet suggesting that maybe President Trump was withholding documents here because he had something to fear for himself.
I thought that was an outrageous suggestion to make.
And I knew it not to be true.
So I felt an obligation to come forward.
But again, I would not have had Jeffrey Epstein not authorized it.
He felt strongly about it.
He didn't want anybody, but particularly Donald Trump, and I explained why, being falsely accused of having been engaged in conduct with him.
It was illegal, et cetera.
Donald Trump, they had had a friendship like tens or hundreds of wealthy, successful people in the world had with Jeffrey Epstein.
Some friendship on some level.
And Donald Trump, among all of the other people, is the one person who cut off that relationship, cut it off for a couple of reasons, but cut it off, we're talking, you know, decades ago.
And so, you know, that hurt Epstein to some degree, but he also respected it, appreciated it.
In any event, whether he wanted the friendship back or not, he made clear that Donald Trump had done nothing illegal or improper with him, and he wanted that made known.
Now, you know, some suggested, oh, gee, that's convenient.
You know, here you represented Donald Trump, his impeachment trial.
Now you're saying this about Jeffrey Epstein.
I didn't know Donald Trump at that time.
We're talking about 2019.
I got a call to represent President Trump in his impeachment trial two weeks before the impeachment trial in 2021.
So, you know, one can suggest anything they like, but I've got no other motive here, except that I think it's important to bring the truth out.
I think what's going on here, quite frankly, in my view, is an attempt.
But look, the left and the right have separate agendas here.
But on the left, to try to drag this thing out, out, out, to make it sort of muller two, try to paralyze the government, try to distract from all of President Trump's accomplishments, and help themselves in the midterms with these, you know, suggestions of maybe something improper.
But it defies logic.
You can be sure the accusers of Jeffrey Epstein filed lawsuit after lawsuit with lawyers who have made millions of dollars against anyone who those accusers said they had any illicit affair with through Jeffrey Epstein.
So you can imagine that if some accuser were out there and had some knowledge that Donald Trump, they would have filed a lawsuit a long time ago.
I'm afraid we're going to have to leave it there.
I want to thank our guest, David Schoen, and for our many guests.
Until tomorrow, God bless you and Godspeed.
Thanks for listening to the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
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Hit That Subscribe Button00:00:56
Rural Americans deserve access to the best of what our country has to offer, especially health care.
Across every state, every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
They employ our neighbors and keep our families healthy.
But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.