Sean Hannity Show - Trump Guilty - May 30th, Hour 3

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May 31, 2024 - Sean Hannity Show

01:19:41

Trump Guilty - May 30th, Hour 3

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	This is an iHeart Podcast.
	All right.
	Paul Morrow is a retired NYPD inspector, also an attorney, founder of OpsDesk.org.
	Anyway, welcome back to the program, sir.
	How are you?
	I'm good, Sean.
	Thank you.
	How are you?
	Good.
	Jury deliberations now will continue tomorrow.
	They did have the option of going till 6 p.m. today.
	They decided to leave.
	That tells me that now we're close to a verdict, although historically, juries like to come back with verdicts on Fridays.
	They do, and I'm going to concur with your assessment that, you know, reading a jury's intentions from their questions to the judge is always a risky business at best, and very often you're disappointed.
	But that said, it does argue that there is certainly some things that they want to drill down on.
	I would say that it means if things are really clear, in which case they're just buttoning up some last steps, and they are going to come back tomorrow with something that they've already come to a conclusion on, or I think more likely, as you said, there's some dissent.
	And they're going over some specific aspects of this.
	And I feel like they started at the beginning.
	I mean, remember, I've read the 55 pages of the judge's instructions now twice, and they're barely comprehensible when they're in front of you.
	Remember that the jury does not have that paperwork in front of them.
	They're doing all this from instructions from the judge that they hear verbally and that they have to take back in their heads.
	And so you'd have to imagine they said, okay, let's start this thing very meticulously.
	Let's start at the first statute, the first charge, which is the 34 falsification of business records.
	And I feel like that's why they're focusing on this David Pecker testimony, because they're trying to corroborate what's very clearly a shaky witness in Michael Cohen.
	I thought the lines that I don't pay for stories, I don't pay for stories, I don't pay for stories was pretty interesting.
	Why they would even, what's that?
	I'm here.
	A verdict has been reached in this case.
	Is that what you're telling me, Linda?
	Yeah, I'm sorry, Mr. Morrow, for interrupting, but we are seeing the Chirons come across all of our TVs telling us that a verdict has been reached in the Trump trial.
	Fox News, Cienna, and straight across the board.
	So we are on standby.
	Wow, a verdict has been reached.
	I don't think that's a good thing, Paul Morrow.
	Yeah, I would agree.
	So that actually, so I just gave the two possibilities that I felt that they were pretty much there or that they were really not there.
	And I defaulted to the latter because I thought that was more likely.
	Now it sounds like maybe the former.
	If I had to bet my pension right now, Sean, I'd say they're coming back 34 counts guilty because the judge, in my estimation, all but made that inevitable.
	Well, I mean, I've been saying that I felt he put the scales, Cinderblocks on the scales of justice.
	And I've gone through all the different ways.
	The idea that, you know, he did something very unconstitutional and says, well, you guys can agree he's guilty, but you can have four different reasons for believing that.
	Well, that goes against not one, but two Supreme Court decisions, the latest in 2020, the Rommels versus Louisiana decision.
	You know, the jury now was told dozens of times in the six-hour closing that the payments were campaign violations, and the judge is now let that false claim go uncontradicted.
	You can add to that the judge being a Biden donor.
	I have felt the judge after the disastrous testimony that was impeached and Michael Cohn's gutting on the stand that he needed to go in for the save and he's been throwing lifeline after lifeline.
	That has just been unprecedented to me.
	Now, I think there are multiple avenues for reversible errors here.
	And I think there's been clear conflicts of interest in this case involving the judge himself.
	And I think the need for recusal was very acute here.
	But, I mean, this probably is not a good sign.
	I don't think they went back there and said not guilty after getting this readback today on what might have been, you know, to them, the key in the case was whether or not there was any coordination.
	However, you know, what really, and this goes to the kind of the argument that was being made, and this was made by Andy McCarthy, who's a smart guy.
	Now, he doesn't believe there should be a conviction in this case.
	However, I mean, he was very clear in what it is that he believed happened.
	Let me tell you what he said.
	He said, prosecutors from the office of elected progressive Democratic DA, Alvin Bragg, have effectively concealed what should have been fatal holes in their case.
	The state's well aware of these holes and has thus cleverly created an illusion of mountainous evidence, which is why the prosecutor was able to hammer away at the jury for six hours in summation into Tuesday evening.
	The sleight of hand is that a mountain proves legal conduct.
	It seems illegal because the subject matter is sorted, paying off a porn star playboy model during the 2016 election to maintain silence about extramarital affairs with Trump, but the payoffs were lawful consideration of lawful contracts.
	It's not hard for prosecutors to assemble prodigious proof of legal acts, even unsavory ones.
	The waves of evidence enable the prosecutors to numb the jury with the appearance of overwhelming guilt.
	The hope is that no one will notice the dearth of proof on what outrageously is in a state prosecution that has become the dispositive issue.
	And he talks about in 2016 and 17 when the NDAs were being negotiated.
	And again, Michael Cohn testified that he did it on his own without telling Trump.
	And Trump reimbursed Michael Cohn, by the way, as a legal payment for a legal expense that was identified as such, and no taxes were deducted as a result of this.
	But anyway, it didn't violate the federal campaign finance laws under which they have no jurisdiction or tax laws with no jurisdiction.
	You know, there's not a shred of evidence that Trump was even thinking about the Federal Election Campaign Act.
	But with all that said, with Merchant's help, I mean, I just basically think he said to the jury, convict this guy, and all but said it.
	I agree.
	And that's how they constructed it.
	And I think that the prosecution knew that they were going to have Murchan's help in directing the six hours of stuff that they threw out against the wall.
	They knew Murchond was going to focus and clean that up in the instructions.
	And that appears to be what happened because you don't hang the jury this quickly, so it's not that.
	So this is going to be guilty or not guilty all counts.
	And I think you and I know which way this is likely to go.
	Unfortunately, I think that it's just come back too quickly.
	And looking at the jury and talking to people that have been in that courtroom, well, Matt Gates, you know, literally said six to eight people on that jury would he thought after reading them would convict Donald Trump of killing Jimmy Hoffa.
	So he didn't really have a lot of hope in most of those jurors.
	Yeah, and, you know, a lot of these people do not want to go back to their places of business, their neighborhoods, and wherever, and be known as somebody who was part of the jury who either hung or acquitted Donald Trump because either of those outcomes is almost certainly going to usher him into the White House.
	Talk about a tailwind.
	I mean, that really would have pushed him forward, and he's already leading.
	So I think that there's a lot of outside pressure here.
	There was a lot of stuff going on outside the court.
	You and I know that.
	They gave him the Lone Memorial Day weekend during that weekend.
	All the usual suspects made sure they put out the message that you have to convict and you should convict.
	And look, at the end of the day, the defense put out a very, very simplistic narrative, despite the very complicated legalities of this thing, which was really just this.
	Donald Trump laid down with dogs.
	He got some fleas.
	And now, when he ran for president, he wanted to hide those fleas.
	That's it.
	That's what they took back into the jury room in their minds.
	And in light of the fact that the jury instructions were all but incomprehensible and that they had to do it from memory, I think that's what ends up being what remains salient in your mind.
	But look, we don't know.
	Maybe they're going to surprise us.
	Juries have a way of doing that.
	I'm not optimistic, Karen.
	It's a bad day.
	If that's the case, it's not a good day for Donald Trump.
	It's not a good day for New York, and it's not a good day for our legal system.
	It's not a good day for the rule of law.
	It's not a good day for the Constitution.
	I'll tell you what I'm going to end up doing.
	Paul, I'm going to let you go, but I do appreciate you being with us.
	We're now being told that the verdict reading is only moments away, and we want to be able to carry all of that live.
	Stations across the Sean Hannity Show network, we're going to be staying live.
	There won't be any audio.
	There won't be any video, but we'll be getting real-time.
	We'll be getting a real-time readout of all of this.
	And actually, put up Fox News here for a second.
	This is Andy McCarthy getting his take on it.
	And give this a little bit of time.
	The fact that he didn't, does that mean that Andy's onto something here?
	Well, and remember, there was such a large portion of the jury instructions that was read back to them that they asked for.
	It would have been a lot more helpful for all of us trying to prognosticate if we knew which section they were really honed in on and interested in.
	But the fact that it was some, I think, 29 pages that were read to them, it covered all kinds of things about intent and language and accomplice and all of these different things.
	So we don't know what it was that they were really trying to get to as the critical point of whatever their disagreement was.
	We do know that they asked about those meetings, about Pecker versus Cohen, different parts of the testimony.
	But what we also know is that what was read back, as we've said, both sides could claim some kind of victory, that it was good for them in what the jury heard a second time.
	But the fact that they have had weeks— Anyway, so let me jump in here.
	Verdict has been reached.
	We're being told that it's moments away from being read.
	Let me just advise stations along the Sean Hannity Show Network how we're going to handle this because we don't know exactly the moment it'll be coming in.
	It's not like we have an audio feed or a visual feed where we could just carry it and you can hear the jury four person actually read each of the 34 charges and the verdict involved.
	But anyway, so what will be happening is there are people in the courtroom with Fox that will be literally in real time sending out what the verdicts are as they come in.
	And we'll go through that one by one.
	Just maybe as a quick reminder, who was on the jury?
	And I just go back to what I said from the beginning.
	I wish I wasn't right in terms of I've been saying that Donald Trump can't get a fair trial in New York or D.C. or Fulton County, Georgia.
	I mean, it just, it was so obvious when you saw this in the civil case and Mar-a-Lago's evaluation, which is insane.
	But if you look at, for example, jury one, number one, was the four-person, works in sales, lives in West Harlem and New York, says he gets his news from the New York Times, Fox News, and MSTNC.
	Great.
	He said he didn't have an opinion at all about Trump when asked by defense attorney Todd Blanche.
	Noted he has heard some of the charges the former president faces in other criminal cases.
	Juror 2 works in finance, lives with his wife in Hell's Kitchen.
	He likes to hike, music.
	Again, this is all public information.
	I wouldn't disclose it, nor would I disclose names of anybody.
	Enjoying life in the Big Apple.
	The investment banker revealed follows Cohn, the prosecution star witness, in addition to, for example, Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway on X and follows Trump's truth social posts.
	When asked by a Trump attorney, if he had any strong feelings about Trump, you know, I may not like some of his policies, but he's been, but there has been some good for the United States.
	So it's ambivalent.
	It goes both ways.
	But yeah, let me just say this as I stop here with Juror 2.
	What's amazing is what they don't know and what they've not been heard and what the judges allowed them to hear.
	All of that factors into this, which is why so much time has been spent going over the judge and the conflicts and all the varying things that we've gone over again and again.
	You know, nobody except somebody with the name of Trump would ever have had a case like this ever brought.
	There is a reason why the DOJ, as weaponized as it is of Joe Biden, didn't bring this case.
	There's a reason why, unlike Hillary Clinton, who had an FEC fine, and that was when she took, you know, the money and hired a law firm, Perkins Cooey, and they funded the money to an op research group that hired Christopher Steele.
	That was an FEC violation.
	That certainly wasn't upgraded to a felony.
	Probably could have if we had equal justice under the law, but even Bragg's predecessor, Cy Vance, said, don't bring it.
	Bragg himself didn't want to bring it.
	He was embarrassed into bringing it.
	But what we saw in the final days of this campaign, that's when I started saying the cinder blocks are being put on the scales of justice.
	You know, learning that Costello had exculpatory information withheld from the indicting grand jury that was purposefully shared with Bragg's office, but the grand jury wasn't told any of this.
	That would be an obligation under the law that they had.
	You know, the judges' meltdown over Costello, who would impeach all of Michael Cohn's testimony, not that it necessarily needed it.
	You know, the issue of the judge being a Biden donor, the judges, the questions about the judge's daughter, you know, the Bradley Smith and the former FEC chair couldn't explain the law.
	Jury instructions that boggle the mind that nobody's ever seen or heard from before.
	Certainly reversible errors.
	You can't, you know, based on two Supreme Court rulings, you cannot, absolutely cannot.
	The Supreme Court requires unanimity in jury verdicts.
	That's not what the judges' instructions said.
	And is required under the sixth and seventh amendment to the Constitution.
	The most recent case, the 2020 Ramos versus Louisiana case.
	And that extends to every and all issues.
	And by the way, to find someone guilty, jurors must always agree without dissent on every necessary element of the purported crime.
	It is such an indispensable feature of a jury trial.
	You know, the idea we were telling you during closing arguments, the six-hour close that was made by the prosecution in this case.
	You know, the jury told dozens and dozens and dozens of times that the payments were campaign violations.
	No, that had yet to be determined.
	Even earlier today, the idea that, oh, no, Michael Cohn, you have to view as an accomplice in this case.
	You know, what was the crime?
	They didn't even know what the crime was that they were being charged with, what, until the very end.
	And again, another violation, another case, as far as I'm concerned, that is a reversible error.
	I also believe there are serious issues of a conflict of interest, but none of that's going to matter in the minds of Americans if this comes back, as I strongly suspect based on the amount of time the jury has been out and the questions that came up.
	But, you know, then take it a step further.
	A misdemeanor in the city of New York, statute of limitations long since passed.
	They come up with a novel legal theory that allows a city jurisdiction of charge to a federal felony and then a federal tax felony, part of the other charges.
	You know, the star witness, a convicted, admitted liar, felon, and now an admitted thief.
	The prosecution knew about it, did nothing about it.
	They still let this guy be the star witness.
	A nondisclosure agreement is not illegal.
	Catch and kill is not illegal.
	You know, the way that, for example, the very narrow amount of information that the defense was allowed to bring into this trial, you know, compare that to the prosecution.
	Stormy Daniel Daniels allowed to drone on and on and on about irrelevant, immaterial, sallacious innuendo in this case.
	And that gets to the point where I think Andy McCarthy predicted that this would be a guilty verdict in this case.
	David Schoen is with us, civil rights attorney and former attorney for Donald Trump himself.
	All right, the verdict is reached.
	We're told the verdict reading is moments away.
	We're going to stay live on the air as that is happening.
	So stations across the Sean Hannity Show Network, please be aware of what our plans are.
	We're going to literally go through the top of the hour and continue until all this information is out.
	Anyway, David Schoen, welcome back to the program.
	Great to have you back so quickly.
	But let's get your take on the early verdict here.
	Well, I mean, I've been wrong all along so far.
	I said I'm jury and I felt certain about it, frankly.
	I felt that you're not going to get 12 New Yorkers to acquit the Donald Trump case with this kind of judge and the skewed presentation of the evidence and the jury instructions.
	But I thought that you'd have one or two, maybe the lawyers, holding out because no crime was proved here.
	And I thought maybe that's why they were requesting the jury instructions.
	I have a friend who's a very, very experienced lawyer who just sent to me an email saying he thinks it's an acquittal because there were clearly some Trump sympathizers on the jury and they just couldn't be convinced this quickly.
	But I don't know.
	I hope I'm wrong again in what I fear, the result of that.
	But any conviction in this case will be reversed on appeal.
	You have a friend that thinks that this is an acquittal?
	I would tend to doubt that.
	Yeah, I doubt it.
	I doubt it.
	Listen, I think, look, I have said from the beginning, no verdict will shock me.
	But I think the deck has been stacked and the cinder blocks have been put on the scales of justice by the judge, especially once this case fell apart for the prosecution after they gutted Michael Cohn, I just felt like the judge just went hard and heavy, as heavy as I've ever seen in my life.
	Greg Jarrett said earlier today, in 44 years, he's never seen anything like this.
	Alan Dershowitz has said in 60 plus years, he's never seen anything like this in his life.
	Pretty amazing.
	I think that's right.
	First of all, the judge never should have been on the case.
	His recuser was mandatory, in my view, based on the daughters' conflict.
	And, you know, what I said for the start of this case was, now some people are starting to pick up.
	They have a history in this court of hand-picking these judges that's been challenged.
	Only New York City criminal bar challenged this years ago because the DA's office was hand-picking the judges.
	They swore he was stopping the program about eight years ago.
	But we know in this case, the chief administrative judge said he picked Marchan for his case, the Bannon case, the Trump organization case, because he was equipped to handle it.
	This judge was never picked because of his competency.
	That you can be assured of.
	He's not competent.
	No, not at all.
	I tend to agree with all of that.
	You know, you look at all the conflicts that we pointed out, and what I would say are reversible errors in this case.
	Let's go through them in your mind.
	Oh, well, I mean, first of all, the refusal issue.
	Secondly, the absolute, this case, any conviction in this case will be reversed.
	And according to that, 100% guarantee.
	The indictment in this case.
	That I agree with.
	We're in full agreement with that.
	The indictment in this case is absolutely constitutionally defective, and you saw it play out in the jury instructions.
	A defendant is entitled to know from the grand jury, not from the prosecutor, not from the judge, not from just the evidence, what he or she is charged with.
	They never identified the target crime, and you can't be prepared to hit a moving target.
	Whether it's a tax offense with a target offense for why the business records were supposedly falsified, whether it's campaign finance or some other violation, they came up with four choices, narrowed it to three.
	That's absolutely constitutionally defective.
	And so were the judge's instructions.
	But I'll tell you, just on a micro basis, I saw an instruction yesterday.
	They said that if you find that the defendant made a campaign contribution in excess of $2,700, which was the campaign limit at that time, then that would be a violation of campaign finance law.
	That's absolutely wrong.
	An individual candidate has an unlimited amount that he can contribute to his campaign.
	And the evidence here, supposedly, was that these are two checks Trump wrote from his own funds, from a trust fund, that sort of thing.
	But I understand there was no objection to that instruction.
	I find that unfathomable.
	I really find that hard to believe.
	There wasn't an objection to that or to the instruction that they're free to choose different target crimes among the jury.
	And, you know, some people, Sean, by the way, have likened this to a RICO case in which there are multiple predicate acts.
	But the difference is, in a RICO case, racketeering case, they lay out the racketeering enterprise and then set out 1015 acts.
	It's true.
	They don't have to all find that each of those acts happen.
	But those acts are spelled out in the indictment, in the charging document.
	That didn't happen here.
	They made up crimes as they went along, and then you're supposed to defend against them.
	It's impossible.
	Well, I completely agree with you, and I think you're right on every point.
	And I just think that, you know, again, we're going to have reversible error after reversible error.
	The thing that's amazing to me is they know this.
	The thing that's amazing to me, and by the way, welcome to our news Roundup Information Overload starting a little bit earlier.
	A verdict has been reached in the case of Donald Trump in New York City.
	We expect the verdict reading only moments away.
	We'll bring it to you live as it happens.
	And this is kind of a surprise because we were told only moments earlier that the jury was basically packing it in for the day and that they were done and they had the option of going till 6 o'clock, which I was reading as, well, they're not even close to a verdict, but I was clearly wrong in that analysis because seconds later they came back with, oh, a verdict has been reached.
	So, you know, the jury must be unanimous for any guilty verdict.
	I mean, you've got to wonder, you know, how much jury instructions played into this.
	You've got to wonder, you know, how much the jury instructions of the judge, you know, the idea 444 is okay in spite of two Supreme Court rulings.
	You know, you've got to wonder, you know, when the jury finds out that the judge in this case was a Biden donor and possible other conflicts, how they might react to that.
	You've got to wonder.
	By the way, Lee Zeldin is with us.
	We'll get to him in a second.
	You've got to wonder the judge allowing in closing arguments by the prosecution.
	You've got to wonder whether or not in closing arguments that the jury was told dozens of times the payments were campaign violations and the judge let that false claim stand uncontradicted.
	You know, you've got to wonder, you know, why, you know, pretty much every objection was overruled on the defense's side and such latitude, broad latitude, was allowed in the other side of it.
	Let me bring in Lee Zeldon, former congressman and gubernatorial candidate and also spokesperson for the Trump team and a surrogate.
	How are you, sir?
	I'm doing well, Sean.
	What's your take on the early verdict?
	Well, we'll see what ends up coming out.
	You know, it's interesting that it was just a few minutes before the announcement that the verdict was reached that it seemed like they were done for the day.
	Unfortunately, throughout this entire process, this entire case, this judge, this prosecutor have done everything in their power to try to weaponize the criminal justice system and stack the deck against President Trump.
	It was clear that President Trump wouldn't have been facing these charges if his name wasn't Donald Trump, if he wasn't running for president.
	This election interference case was held in one of the bluest counties in the entire country.
	So we always knew that the president was going to have a difficult time finding a jury of his peers.
	But, you know, we'll see what they ended up deciding to do here in moments.
	But clearly, when you were looking at reading about the jury instructions that were given, it was that final reminder before jury deliberation started that this judge was all in in helping Alvin Bragg, in helping the Biden Justice Department with the way they sent Matthew Coangelo, the number three, to the district attorney's office that they were all in to try to get this jury to convict President Trump.
	Yeah, I completely agree with you.
	You know, as we look at, by the way, Roger Severino is with us with the Heritage Foundation.
	Roger, early verdict.
	We just gotten word that the jury was done for the day, and then, oops, verdict has been reached.
	Your reaction.
	Well, this is a momentous day in the history of America.
	And what was theoretical is now real.
	They've come back with a verdict, and so much of our democracy hinges on this.
	Are we a banana republic-style country, or is there the rule of law?
	Is that real?
	We're going to find out shortly, and this is momentous.
	I don't think we could overstate the importance of this verdict.
	I don't think we can at all, but I will tell you, I mean, look, I said this from the beginning, and let me go back to Lee Zeldon, then we'll get to your take on it, Roger, and your take on it, David.
	I said from the beginning Donald Trump can't get a fair trial in New York.
	I don't think he can get a fair one in D.C.
	I don't think he can get a fair one in Fulton County, Georgia.
	And I said, regardless of what the outcome is here, he did not get a fair trial here.
	I mean, I use the analogy, cinder blocks were put on the scales of justice by the judge in this case, who, by the way, usually there's a lottery.
	He was selected, the same guy selected to be on every Trump case that has gone before the state of New York.
	That would be the Banning case.
	That would be the case of a CFO in this instance, Mr. Weiselberg.
	So that seems odd to me that somebody selected and there was not a lottery as per usual policy.
	Isn't that the case, Lee Zeldon?
	Oh, absolutely.
	It's totally suspicious how that would end up happening.
	He isn't the only judge who exists in New York.
	I was a prosecutor.
	I tried just under 100 cases.
	And during my time, it was a responsibility on my part as the prosecutor representing the government to inform the defendant up front of exactly what the charges were that they were facing.
	Why?
	Because that defendant, that defense counsel, have their own job to do to be able to put forward their best defense in order to be prepared for trial, to cross-examine witnesses, to present their own witnesses.
	In this particular case, We get all the way to the end of the trial.
	And for the first time, the prosecutor and the judge are initially indicating what may be the underlying charge.
	This was a misdemeanor elevated to a felony, a misdemeanor where the statute of limitations had run.
	And the only way for them to elevate it to a felony was to say this was in pursuit of another crime.
	But they never said they are accusing President Trump of violating criminal statute X or criminal statute Y. Instead, the jury instructions from Juan Marchand is telling the jury they can come up with any charge they want.
	And they don't even have to agree with each other.
	It doesn't even have to be.
	They just have to agree.
	Let me just tell everybody, the judge addressing the courtroom, the jury has now been called into the courtroom.
	So we're literally seconds away from this verdict.
	Do any of you think not guilty, Roger?
	It's tough given how much the deck was stacked by Judge Marshon.
	The jury instructions, he read them for an hour, did not let the jury take them back.
	And as was just mentioned, they could convict on multiple grounds, and they don't have to be unanimous.
	There's some real constitutional questions.
	This was a house of cards, inference stacked on inference.
	First, it's got to be falsification of business records, then in furtherance of some other crime.
	And they don't have to agree as to what crime that is.
	Was it campaign finance?
	Was it a tax violation?
	Was it federal law?
	Was it state law?
	They could make it up.
	And if he gets convicted, then he's going to have very strong grounds for an appeal.
	But this judge could have spelled out what's actually charged.
	You have a right to know what you're being charged with.
	It's some fundamental due process concerns.
	And this was a moving target.
	And this judge so stacked the deck with these jury instructions that it makes it far easier to convict.
	But on the other hand, it makes it far easier for President Trump to win on appeal if he does get convicted.
	All right.
	Hang on a second.
	We got the verdict just in.
	I'm trying to look for updates here.
	Count one, guilty.
	Count two, guilty.
	Count three, guilty.
	Count four, guilty.
	Count five, guilty.
	All right.
	It's kind of what we expected.
	Reaction, Lee Zeldon.
	It's sick.
	I mean, we live in the greatest country in the history of the world, and it just took a gut punch for all of us.
	They care about a rule of law.
	You care about having a system where you have prosecutors who are not abusing their power, entrusted with this power and doing the right thing to protect the people.
	I want Alvin Bragg and prosecutors to be out there making our streets safer instead of trying to run this election interference to help Joe Biden in November.
	That's why this case was brought.
	It's a gut punch to anyone who loves America.
	Gut counts one through 12 guilty.
	Already in.
	David Schoen, reaction.
	The process denigrated our entire system for the world to see.
	One of the most outrageous parts of it is it's so reckless, they don't care about the appeal.
	The day that the indictment came down, I texted President Trump and told him the indictment was fatally defective, constitutionally defective, for the reasons we've discussed now.
	They don't provide due process or allow any fair trial rights because you can't defend against a moving target.
	Cases are reversed when there's a variance at trial from what the indictment charges.
	Here, the indictment didn't charge the target crime.
	We've all said that.
	It all flows from the recusal, denying the mandatory recusal.
	There's a history in this court of this handpicking of judges.
	It happened in this case.
	It denigrates our system to everyone in America who cares about the system, and everyone oversees the farce that this was.
	All 34 counts guilty.
	Reaction.
	Robert Severino.
	We have crossed the Rubicon.
	It's going to be a different country today as opposed to yesterday.
	We've now moved into the hall of shame of countries that actually prosecute political opponents instead of letting the people decide.
	This is a shameful day for America.
	It will be hard to recover because this is what election interference looks like.
	If there was any doubt, this is it.
	Trying to deprive the American people of voting back into office a previous president.
	This has never happened in the history of the United States, and this is something that is a shock to the system.
	It shakes America to its core.
	We are better than this as a country, but certainly not today.
	You know, when you really think about it, what are we dealing with in this case?
	You're dealing with an eight-year-old case.
	I mean, I've gone through this in great specificity, in great detail.
	And I told people, I'm not Pollyanna.
	There's no verdict.
	I am not surprised at all.
	If anything, I was just hoping for the best that this wouldn't happen.
	You know, it didn't matter that Judge Mershon, you know, told jurors that they don't have to agree unanimously.
	I'm like, really?
	Well, I beg to differ.
	The U.S. Supreme Court decision, Ramos versus Louisiana.
	You don't have to go back far to 2020 or Andres versus the U.S., that particular case.
	But, you know, all the leeway, everything that we have talked about, I just, I think it was stacked from the beginning.
	Now, here's the question.
	Now, there was a poll that came out earlier today.
	And, well, first of all, let me start with National Review.
	They said this verdict is unlikely to have a major impact on the election.
	I agree with that.
	Secondly, a poll showing that, you know, most people think Republicans think that a verdict would make them more likely to go out and vote for Trump.
	Same number of Democrats say not likely to vote for Trump.
	Only 23% of Americans expected this guilty verdict today.
	Only 23%.
	That's an economist's YouGov poll.
	The idea that somehow this is going to have this massive, you look at the PBS News Hour NPR Maris survey, and that's where you find out Republicans are more likely to go out and vote for Trump and Democrats in almost an equal number are not.
	You know, it's pretty unbelievable the times that we're living in here.
	And this is what I've been describing, Lee Zeldon, as the weaponization of our Justice Department.
	This is what lawfare is.
	You know, now we have to sit back and we all have to now speculate.
	All right, convicted on all charges.
	Now the question is, what will this judge do here?
	The judge, by the way, as a matter of New York law, and Lee, you would understand this.
	The judge has the option right now to sentence Donald Trump.
	Now, does he allow him to leave on his own recognizance pending appeal?
	Is he really a flight risk with Secret Service around him 24-7?
	Does he remand him to jail right now?
	Does he do any of that?
	You know, I mean, does he put an ankle bracelet on it and say, you got to stay home?
	It's pretty unbelievable.
	It's so obvious what the right answer is, that he should be released immediately on his own recognizance, that he should have the opportunity to file an appeal, and that the President Trump should have the ability to speak with a gag order that is lifted, and he should be able to go wherever he wants in America to campaign because he's running for president of the United States.
	He's a major party presumptive nominee, and according to polls, he is on track to quite possibly being the next president of the United States.
	So it is obvious what is right.
	The judge has continued to twist himself in knots to pursue what is wrong, to do what maybe fulfills his pledge to support the Biden-Harris ticket as he's donated in the past.
	That might help his daughter and their consulting firm raise money for their Democratic candidates.
	It might make him a hero in some political circles, but it's a stain on the judiciary.
	David Shon, let's get.
	I will tell you right now, I am looking at my phone, and I don't have the ability to do radio and actually read my phone.
	My phone has blown up.
	Like, I can't even remember the likes of which when.
	And I can't read half the messages to you.
	But literally, I mean, people are reacting.
	And, you know, I just have to say, based on what we saw, especially in the final hours of this, none of this surprises me, David.
	I think fair-minded Americans send them soaring up in the polls from this.
	I think this judge is a phony baloney.
	I've been in front of this judge.
	He's threatened me before.
	I've called him out for being biased before.
	I think he's going to try to look like he actually.
	Whoa, whoa, whoa.
	Go into detail.
	He's threatened you.
	How did he threaten you?
	And what did he call you out on?
	I appeared in a case before him.
	He was dead wrong on the law in the case.
	We had a packed courtroom.
	He's very insecure.
	So he plays to the audience.
	I showed him where he was wrong in the case.
	He called me up to the bench.
	He started reprimanding me, telling me, you're implying that I'm biased against your client.
	I said, Judge, let me explain.
	I don't mean to imply anything.
	You're biased against my client.
	I fully believe that.
	My counsel, local counsel, stood up and said, I agree 100% with what Mr. Schoen has said.
	So he said to me, we have ways of dealing with people like you.
	Yeah.
	You know, we have ways of dealing with people like you.
	What was he threatening to put you in jail?
	I'd come visit you, by the way.
	I'd probably bring a cake with a file in it for you, but then I'd be in jail with you.
	But look, there's nothing funny about this.
	The country's watching this.
	And this is the amazing thing.
	I'm going to tell you something right now.
	And I use the phrase, Roger, that Donald Trump defies all conventional political gravity.
	And what do I mean by that?
	I mean, so far, you indict the guy and his poll numbers go up.
	You get a mugshot of him, his poll numbers go up.
	You know, if it all have watched this, and they've also had very, very smart, consistent analysis from really, really bright lawyers like all of you on this line, and Greg Jarrett and Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley and Andy McCarthy and Judge Janine Pirow and right across the board.
	And all of them talked about the novel theory.
	All of them talked about this upgrading of a statute of limitations misdemeanor that his time has run out.
	All of them have talked about the judge being a Biden donor, the family conflicts.
	All of them had talked about the DA running on a get Trump platform.
	All of them watched and witnessed after the gutting of Cohn that the case was slipping away and then the actions of the judge were accelerated in terms of his bias.
	You know, the idea that, you know, Costello, who would have impeached Cohn's testimony, was not allowed to give full testimony.
	Bradley Smith, the former FEC chair, was not allowed to explain the law.
	Only the judge could do that.
	Then, of course, jury instructions that were given in this case.
	Again, another novel theory that goes against not one but two Supreme Court decisions, closing arguments with great latitude for the prosecution to pretty much say anything they want.
	You know, all of this, a star witness, convicted, admitted liar, felon, and now thief who's going to benefit from this case.
	Pretty damn amazing.
	But anyway, let's get your reaction.
	I guess who am I up to?
	I think it's actually, we have the former Attorney General from Arizona, Mark Bernovich, is on the line with us.
	He was with us yesterday.
	Mark, welcome.
	Let's get your reaction to the 34 guilty verdicts today.
	Absolutely shocking.
	I think that most of us that have spent like I have much of my career in the criminal justice system, quite frankly, I want to cry.
	And it's not because of President Trump and him and I have had our differences over the years, but the weaponization of our judicial system and the fact that there's so many people cheering, even on the left, on this, it is a sad day for not only America, it is a sad day throughout the world.
	I think that there are people, and I just got back from the Middle East two weeks ago, that are mocking us and laughing at us, that this is what happens in third world countries.
	And I just cannot believe that there are so many people giddy over what was clearly a biased trial.
	And I know you've talked to people today about this, and everyone's, we talked about yesterday, everything from the very beginning, the novel theory, the statute limitations issues, the jury instruction issues, the lack of being able to call defense witnesses, all the latitude given to prosecutors, the testimony that was allowed in, you know, from Stormy Daniels.
	There are so many issues that there is no way even a liberal appellate court will uphold this decision.
	We all know that.
	But for the left, the ends justifies the means.
	They want to get Trump any way they can.
	And so they don't care if they're destroying and undermining the judicial system in the process.
	I think it's very tragic.
	I really think it's a tragedy.
	Let's look at what the judge's options are here because, based on New York law, Lee, I'll start with you on this.
	Based on New York law, the judge has the right to issue a sentence right now.
	And the judge could release Donald Trump on his own recognizance and waiting appeal.
	By the way, Donald Trump is about to speak.
	Let's go straight to that and listen in.
	He's walking up to basically that same area where he's been talking on a daily basis.
	He doesn't have notes in front of him.
	I guess the gag order's up.
	Let's listen.
	It was corrupt.
	It's a rigged trial, a disgrace.
	They wouldn't give us a venue change.
	We were at 5% or 6% in this district, in this area.
	This was a rigged, disgraceful trial.
	The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people.
	And they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here.
	You have a sore respect, DA, and the whole thing.
	We didn't do a thing wrong.
	I'm a very innocent man.
	And it's okay.
	I'm fighting for our country.
	I'm fighting for our Constitution.
	Our whole country is being rigged right now.
	This was done by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt an opponent, a political opponent.
	And I think it's just a disgrace.
	And we'll keep fighting.
	We'll fight till the end and we'll win because our country's gone to hell.
	We don't have the same country anymore.
	We have a divided mess.
	We're a nation in decline, serious decline.
	Millions and millions of people pouring into our country right now from prisons and from mental institutions, terrorists, and they're taking over our country.
	We have a country that's in big trouble.
	But this was a rigged decision right from day one with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case, never.
	And we will fight for our Constitution.
	This is long from offer.
	Thank you very much.
	This is far from over.
	You just heard Donald Trump and very short but powerful statements.
	A corrupt judge rigged from the beginning, a venue.
	They had wanted a change in venue.
	Apparently, a district that got 6% of the vote.
	I think it was about 12%.
	A disgraceful trial.
	The real verdict will be on November the 5th.
	This is a fight.
	I'm in a fight for our country and for our Constitution.
	We will fight to the end and we will win.
	Our nation is in serious decline.
	You know, then he mentioned wide open borders, but a rigged decision conflicted.
	And that he is fighting to the end.
	Let's get reaction.
	Lee Zelda.
	I think he's only going to fight harder for this country, for this election.
	You were asking a little earlier, the topic was about what was going to happen with regards to polling and people's feelings.
	Will it hurt President Trump?
	Will it help him?
	I think the intensity of the support behind President Trump only increases.
	People who are ready to get out of that foxhole, storm that hill, put on that paint to go work hard to get votes out to convince people that this score must get settled at the ballot box and that we need people in charge of this country who aren't going to abuse this power.
	So I think President Trump's going to fight harder.
	I think his supporters are going to fight harder for him.
	I think his likelihood of succeeding this November is only going to go up because of that and because I think so many independent-minded people know this, understand this to be a political prosecution.
	I think most people would agree with you.
	David Shoan, let's get your take on this and your reaction to this.
	The reason, in my view, as I said all along, he goes up in the polls is because I believe most Americans are fair-minded.
	The mistake that the left has made in each of these cases, starting with the Mueller team, is rigging the deck, as you say.
	They skew it.
	Why would you have only members of the Mueller team who are anti-Trump?
	Why would you have Mueller himself, who works in the law firm representing Hillary Clinton?
	And on and on.
	You pick this Jack Smith has shown such poor judgment in the past, and you put on his team people like J.P. Cooney and Molly Gaston, prosecutors from D.C., prosecuted January 6th cases.
	I have a sanctions motion going against both of them for lying to a federal judge.
	Why not play it straight?
	Why allow a district attorney to run for office with a target targeting an American citizen who hasn't even been under investigation at that point?
	That's why people react as they do, and they must, because they denigrate our country when they skew the system like this.
	You know, yesterday we heard from Andrew Weissman that he has a crush on Judge Murchan.
	That's about appropriate in this case.
	Those are two P's in a pod.
	I don't know which is worse.
	Andrew Weissman's the most ethnically bankrupt prosecutor.
	I've ever had a case against.
	Judge Murchand is one of the least competent, most biased, showed a poor judgment here that really speaks volumes to the country.
	And now you're going to start hearing, by the way, these phony claims of, oh, they're afraid from the reaction of the Trump followers.
	You know, AOC puts something outrageous out there, and she always says, oh, she got threats.
	Play by the rules.
	Play by the rules.
	That should be the message from this.
	Yeah, well said.
	David, I know you have to run.
	I appreciate you being with us.
	Let's get Roger Severino's take on the president's comments here.
	This is far from over.
	I think the most important thing he said is that this is a fight for our Constitution.
	This is bigger than Trump.
	I think if anything, it'll make Trump even more popular.
	It'll energize people because the mask is off.
	The left has been out to attack him because if it had been anybody else without the name Trump, this never would have happened.
	This is all about election interference and it is ultimately an attack on our constitutional structure.
	This law affair has gotten to such an extreme point that President Trump might be escorted in handcuffs today to jail simply because, not because he violated any law, because his political opponents have political power and brought this sham prosecution before a biased judge, before a crooked Michael Cohen, and the jury went along with it when the stack that deck was stacked against him, especially with those flawed jury instructions.
	You know, at the Heritage Foundation, where I'm at, we're going to order the appeal to heaven flag, the pine tree flag, right?
	President Trump should make his appeals, but we got to, I mean, this is such a momentous moment.
	God needs to be with us, right?
	This is a tough time for our country.
	Just calling me.
	Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
	And I'm Carol Markowitz.
	We've been in political media for a long time.
	Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
	That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
	We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
	We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
	So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass.
	You're our kind of people.
	Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday.
	On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen.
	Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
	And I'm Carol Markowitz.
	We've been in political media for a long time.
	Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
	That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
	We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
	We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
	So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass.
	You're our kind of people.
	Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday.
	On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen.
	Let me give you an update.
	The judge released President Trump, as my understanding, on probation, but didn't give any more information than that.
	That's all he said.
	And I'm trying to find out if they're going back into the courtroom.
	Anyway, also joining us right now is Bill Jacobson.
	We also have former Attorney General of Arizona Bernovich with us.
	Roger, we're going to let you go.
	We appreciate you being with us.
	And I know this is, if you're just joining us, the verdict came in in the Trump case in New York, all 34 counts guilty.
	Not a surprise.
	I told everybody from the beginning, don't expect a fair trial.
	This is the same New York City that valued Mar-a-Lago at $18 million.
	It was rigged from the beginning, the president said.
	He said they will fight to the end.
	This is far from over.
	And, you know, this has been a case of a crooked judge.
	He's said that pretty much every day as he's come out, a corrupt judge, rigged, and they tried a change of venue.
	They didn't get it.
	But it is where we all are.
	Anyway, joining us now, Bill Jacobson is with us.
	And Bill Jacobson is a Cornell University law professor.
	He's been on many times.
	Bill, welcome back to the program.
	Let's get your take on this.
	Yeah, well, I think that my first reaction is one of overwhelming sadness for our country, that we've come to a point where the judicial system and the prosecutorial system has been so weaponized for political purposes.
	So that's my first reaction.
	It's not disgust.
	It's just sadness for our country that everybody knew this was a political prosecution.
	The prosecutor ran for office saying this is what he wanted to do.
	And I think that it's a sad day for this country.
	And people should mourn for, not for Donald Trump even, but for our system, that this is what it comes to.
	It really, really is a sad day.
	When you look at this case, I talked a lot about the conflicts.
	I talked a lot about issues that are clear avenues of appeal.
	I mean, it was so transparent.
	It was so obvious to me that the judge put cinder blocks on the scales of justice.
	It just every day that went by, it became more and more obvious.
	But anyway, it's a reversible ⁇ there's so many reversible errors.
	How many do you see in this case?
	Well, there's a lot, and it starts from the entire theory of the case that took it out of a misdemeanor books and records case, which was long since the statute of limitations had passed, and turned it into a felony on a novel theory which never has been tested, which liberal commentators at the time thought very bizarre and very odd, as much as they hated Donald Trump.
	Liberal legal commentators thought this was very strange and very weak.
	Then we roll into a trial where essentially the trial is devoted to things that aren't a crime.
	It is not a crime to pay somebody to be quiet.
	That's what's so insane about this.
	It happens every day in court cases around the country.
	You settle a case and there's a non-disclosure agreement in the settlement, and that's what happens.
	So this is a case about something that was not a crime that got converted to a crime under very murky circumstances where it wasn't really until the very end that the defense even knew what the crimes were that were being alleged.
	And the jury was allowed to pick among crimes non-unanimously in order to convert it from a misdemeanor to a felony.
	So this is the craziest case.
	I don't know if it's the craziest I've ever seen, but this is not what should have happened.
	And there are dozens of areas where an appeals court should reverse.
	Well, let me ask you this question because you teach law at a prestigious university, an Ivy League institution.
	And I mean, is this a case study moving forward for you and law students?
	Is this a case study of how maybe the law in this country has been corrupted?
	Because I don't see equal justice under the law, equal application of our laws.
	There's not a single person that I know that would have been charged with this crime but Donald Trump.
	Yes, this is not ⁇ books and records is not something that normally people get charged for.
	And so will this become a case study?
	It should.
	Unfortunately, a lot of law schools have moved, have become politicized as well.
	So I doubt it will be used as a case study, particularly if it gets reversed, but it should be, because this is what we're not supposed to be.
	And, you know, Hillary Clinton got every benefit of the doubt from the prosecutors to not even try to prosecute her.
	And Donald Trump is just the opposite.
	And so I think this should be a case study of what not to do, of where our system has failed, of how you have political prosecutors at every level in New York State.
	Remember, Letitia James also ran for Attorney General.
	I think we just lost Bill Jacobson.
	Oh, you're there.
	Okay, we'll let you finish your comments, and then we'll bring in Senator Mark Orubio.
	Anyway, let's go to Senator Marco Rubio, I guess, who is with us.
	Senator from the.
	Okay, apparently we have to re-dial Senator Rubio, who's calling in.
	Let's go back to A.G. of Arizona, former AG.
	Mark Bernovich is with us as well.
	And hearing all these comments, I mean, I'm getting pinged left and right, and the anger and the outrage is very palpable and very, very real.
	And then I'm getting a series of other texts.
	And as I slowly go through them, it's like, oh, the election may be a landslide now.
	I mean, he has been able to literally transcend, or as I've often been saying, he defies all conventional political gravity.
	You arrest Donald Trump.
	You indict Donald Trump.
	You get a mugshot of Donald Trump.
	You arraign Donald Trump.
	And Donald Trump, what happens?
	His poll numbers go up.
	Maybe Bill O'Reilly was right.
	He said, yeah, maybe for a week or two, he might take a slight hit.
	Then they're going to go soaring again.
	And I would say that's probably a good prediction.
	Well, Sean, you've said this from the very start, that he defies all normal political gravity, all the laws of political physics.
	But, you know, one thing, one of the burnout laws, is that the greatest sin in politics is hypocrisy.
	And I think the American people are smart.
	And when they see Hillary Clinton, you know, destroying servers, destroying evidence, you know, not being prosecuted for using her attorneys to create the steel dossier, when they see people like Joe Biden not being prosecuted for documents, and then Donald Trump does even less, and he's being criminally prosecuted for it, and now possibly being sent to prison for the rest of his life.
	I mean, it's hypocrisy on full display.
	And I actually think this will help him in swing states.
	Places like Arizona and Georgia, Pennsylvania.
	I mean, you know, they have a great libertarian spirit, and there's a lot of healthy distrust at times for the government.
	And this is clearly government overreach, prosecutorial misconduct.
	You and I have talked about this, that it will be overturned.
	There are so many issues, different legal theories.
	There's so many issues.
	It'll be overturned on appeal.
	But I think the real question is, and I'm worried about, is I've always had this theory that this judge is a little bit like John Sarica from Watergate.
	And he fancies himself as a historical figure.
	And that's why he's going to have other Trump-related cases.
	He did the grand jury on this.
	And I actually think now that there's guilt on these counts, he's going to be the favorite at all the country clubs and all the cocktail parties in Manhattan.
	And I think normally you would not go to prison, first-time offender, white-collar bookkeeping case.
	There's no way anyone goes to prison or jail.
	But I actually think the normal rules of the justice system have been out the window.
	And I think the prosecutors are going to push for prison time.
	And I think this judge, even if it ends up being time, he may end up trying to put President Trump in jail or prison to keep him from campaigning.
	Well, then he'd probably guarantee his victory, in my view.
	You've been really great and generous with your time, former Attorney General, great state of Arizona, Mark Bernovich.
	We welcome now Florida Senator Marco Rubio with us.
	By the way, proud to say my senator.
	Anyway, Senator, great to have you.
	Let's get your initial reaction to all of this, and more importantly, the whole process leading up to this.
	I don't believe anybody that didn't have the name Donald Trump would ever have been tried in a case like this, a misdemeanor in New York City.
	Somehow they're able to charge him with federal election crime and upcharge that to a felony, this novel theory, a judge who I believe put cinder blocks on the scales of justice repeatedly by allowing such broad testimony that was immaterial, irrelevant, closing arguments that were inflammatory, not based on the law by the prosecution.
	It's just pretty unbelievable to me.
	And, you know, based on the reaction I'm getting from friends of mine, it is really, really outraging so many people.
	Well, a couple of points.
	Let's just dispense with a political one.
	This is not going to hurt Donald Trump.
	I suspect it's going to help him because people see this for what it is.
	But there's a second aspect to it.
	And this is a damage.
	This will do no damage to his candidacy.
	It will help it.
	But it does tremendous damage to our country.
	This case is a complete travesty.
	Let's start with the fact that the charges are ridiculous.
	This is a bookkeeping matter, by the way, brought by a prosecutor who does not put violent criminals in jail.
	He does not prosecute violent criminals unless they've killed three people.
	And it's three separate times before he finally comes after them.
	But he goes after this ridiculous bookkeeping charge.
	And then he bootstraps it to a federal campaign violation claim that they have no jurisdiction over and that the federal government did not pursue.
	Then we learn on the line, I mean, after closing arguments, after the evidence has been presented, we see from the judge that in addition to the federal campaign violations, they can also bootstrap it to some other charge that he hasn't even been charged with, which is some sort of tax charge in the state of New York.
	That's what turns it into a felony.
	You have a judge, a judge who openly supported Joe Biden.
	He was a Joe Biden voter and supporter in 2020, so that's who he was.
	That's probably who he still is, whose daughter runs campaigns for Democrats and is out there selling merchandise on this.
	Then you have a jury that is selected from the most liberal county in America.
	And by the way, you think a single juror there could have hung jury?
	That juror would have been outed and their life would have been a living hell.
	They would have had to leave Manhattan because these people would not have left that person alone.
	So the social pressure on the jurors was tremendous to just issue the guilty verdict and walk away.
	Ridiculous, guilty, ridiculous jury instructions, by the way, at the end.
	This whole thing is a complete and utter travesty.
	An unfair judge, an unfair jury on ridiculous charges.
	Everybody sees this for what it is.
	This is a political prosecution, a show trial of the kind that they did in the Soviet Union, they did in Cuba, they do in authoritarian regimes, because these people will stop at nothing.
	They are so deranged in their hatred of Trump and in their lust for power.
	There is nothing they will not do.
	No institution they won't break, no law they won't bend.
	There's nothing they will not do to remain in power.
	They will do whatever it takes to remain in power.
	And they're doing this to Trump.
	They'll do this to anybody.
	He was their first target.
	But I think you're going to see more and more of this in some of these jurisdictions.
	I'm both sad and angry for the country because our system of justice and our courts and what supposedly is the landmark city of the country has just been used as a political weapon.
	And in the process, I think people all over the world are looking at this and saying, this is what's happening to America.
	America is turning into a third world banana republic starting in New York.
	It's an outrage of epic proportions.
	You know, it's interesting, you know, based on your family and your history and your background and your life story, which is one of the most inspiring I've ever heard.
	And to hear you talk about a banana republic and compare it to Cuba, you know, this is the type of thing that I would never expect in America, and that is the weaponization of our legal system.
	And we're now seeing it on steroids and human growth hormone.
	This was not a case that anybody else would have ever been charged with.
	You have a judge as a Biden donor, the issues involving the daughter, a DA that ran on a get Trump platform.
	You know, you saw that the judge was so restrictive.
	You know, here's a guy, Bob Costello, would have impeached the testimony of their star witness.
	He was limited in what he could say.
	Bradley Smith, former FEC chair.
	I interviewed him, Senator, and he was very clear.
	There was no violation.
	By the way, there was a violation for Hillary Clinton.
	People seem to have forgotten that.
	And I believe there were fines issued in that particular case.
	Even the weaponized DOJ, they passed on it.
	The FEC, no fine.
	The SDNY, Bragg's predecessor.
	Even Bragg himself initially didn't want to bring the case, but it took two angry prosecutors that were brought in just for this purpose to embarrass him to get him to bring the case.
	Misdemeanor, statute of limitations, long past novel legal theory allowing a city jurisdiction to upcharge a felony on a federal tax case and on a federal elections case.
	Tell me what part of the Constitution allows that.
	Tell me what part of the Constitution actually allows a judge to say, no, you can all agree that he's guilty, but have, you know, four of you can agree it's guilty on charge A, four can agree on charge B, four can agree on charge C.
	Well, that's in direct contradiction to the 2020 Ramos versus Louisiana decision or the Andres versus U.S. decision, where the Supreme Court held unanimity in jury verdicts is required under the sixth and seventh amendments to our Constitution.
	That requirement extends to all issues to find someone guilty.
	Jurors must always agree, always, without dissent, on every necessary element of the purported crime, an indefensible feature of jury trials, Senator.
	Yes, it starts just from the jury pool, which is why they picked New York to bring it as much as anything else, while they were so giddy about it.
	This is a county where eight out of 10 people, over eight out of 10 people, voted against Donald Trump.
	So you start off with a jury pool that's likelier than not to be just anti-Trump, unable to pull the supports aside to begin with.
	You have a judge that basically steered the case at every opportunity, at every opportunity, steered the case towards conviction.
	The jury instructions were outrageous.
	They were outrageous jury instructions, but basically said, just pick a crime.
	Here are three crimes you can pick from.
	If you find him guilty, you don't all have to agree on all three of them.
	You can each have a different one.
	But ultimately, one of these three, if you find him guilty, this becomes a felony.
	Then the evidence that was introduced into the trial where they didn't allow the expert testimony on the thing that makes this a felony, which initially was supposed to be simply the crime of the elections violation.
	Now we don't know this New York tax thing came into play, which wasn't even charged.
	That wasn't even talked about in the case.
	There was no opportunity for the defense.
	It was a complete trick played by the judge in conjunction with the prosecutors to not even discuss the fact that one of the crimes they could use to turn this into a felony is some sort of tax charge in the state of New York.
	And they didn't even discuss that.
	Nobody even mentioned that until the jury instructions.
	You're supposed to at least know what you're defending yourself against.
	So, I mean, you can go down the list.
	Look, voters, average Americans every day are going to say he's been convicted of what, again, writing a checklist.
	The political aspect is this is going to confirm to people what they already know.
	You have a president, Joe Biden, who is senile, who's rapidly declining, but he has become sort of the cutout for this radical left.
	For them, he's the perfect candidate.
	He doesn't know what the heck is going on.
	They can do whatever they want and run the country the way they want to run it.
	And they desperately want to keep Trump out of office.
	And this does not happen in a vacuum.
	This is on the heels of not, this is on the heels of all those months and years we spent, they spent trying to prove that Trump colluded with the Russians.
	Then one impeachment, then a second impeachment, and now four indictments.
	Plus, don't forget the civil case where they're trying to bankrupt this company.
	So all of these things are all designed for one thing, and that is they are desperate to remain in power and try to disqualify Trump in any way possible.
	Voters are going to see that.
	Look, I still have faith.
	Maybe I shouldn't.
	That this thing is so full of error that an appeal to court will fill this thing on us here.
	There might even be some federal constitutional grounds on some of the violations here.
	But you know what's really angering, and I happened, the TV was on where I was on CNN.
	As the verdicts were read, you literally heard someone on the set sort of cheer, like, yes, this is what we are dealing with.
	This is a Roman circus is what they've turned this justice system into in New York.
	And I hope voters, I know voters, I can't wait till November where voters get to speak out on this and see their reaction to that.
	I'm sure they'll have some.
	Let me ask you one last question.
	How do you think the country and voters will react to this?
	I think even people that don't like Trump with outrage, this is absurd.
	I mean, this is ridiculous.
	And I think the adding insult to injury here is we are talking about a jurisdiction and a prosecutor or shoplifter and people that are accused of violent crimes are not prosecuted.
	They drop charges against people that are guilty of violent crimes.
	They don't even pursue them.
	And look at all the amount of money and time and effort they put into a bookkeeping case about whether or not some ledger appropriately listed some payment to Cohen.
	By the way, built entirely on the testimony of a serial liar, a habitual liar, an admitted liar, a convicted liar.
	It's just unbelievable.
	I never ever thought, no matter how liberal and how far left these jurisdictions have become like New York, I never thought I'd live to see the day that in America something like what happened today has happened.
	And, you know, I have hope in two things, that the appellate system might work.
	Let's see, it's New York, and that our voters in November are going to render the real verdict here.
	But this is a terrible day.
	Well, not, sadly, it helps Donald Trump in the sense that he's had to go through this.
	This is a guy that doesn't need any of this, by the way.
	He could have been off enjoying his money like all these other people do, but he's doing it because he loves the country.
	But it's a sad day for America because we have now seen how the criminal justice system can be weaponized to try to steer, in their minds, the outcome of an election.
	We really appreciate you being with us, Senator Mark Orubio.
	I guess I didn't get out of New York.
	You've known for years.
	I told you I was coming down here.
	It just was a matter of when I could do it, and I was finally able to do it.
	And maybe I didn't get out.
	I got out just in the nick of time.
	I don't know.
	It's so sad for our country in so many different respects.
	And I know the left will be celebrating.
	There's nothing to celebrate here because what you're watching is a shredding of our Constitution as far as I'm concerned.
	Anyway, Senator, we do appreciate you being with us.
	Thank you.
	We'll be talking to you, I'm sure, in the days and weeks ahead.
	800-941-Sean, we might get to a couple of calls here if we can.
	Let me go if I can, to Cully Stimpson, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for D.C., senior legal fellow at Heritage.
	And we continue, too, with William Jacobson, Cornell University law professor.
	Cully, let's get your take on this, if you don't mind, your initial reaction to this.
	Well, I agree with Senator Rubio.
	I mean, this unleashes the kraken.
	I mean, we have 2,300 elected DAs in this country, 74 of whom were bought and paid for by Soros.
	And one of them, Alvin Bragg, ran on nailing Trump.
	And this is why we've been warning people since 2018 about these rogue prosecutors.
	And he got what he wanted, this made-up, ham-handed prosecution, which you've laid out very well, not only all the appellate issues that should result in this over being overturned, but now what's to prevent a Republican prosecutor who has an evil mind like Alvin Bragg from going after Joe Biden or any other person in the future for some made-up crime?
	Nothing.
	And I think this Rubicon has been crossed, and I think it's a sad day in America.
	By the way, we just got some new information.
	Sentencing hearing starts on July 11th.
	Oh, how convenient.
	The RNC convention starts July 15th.
	Will he ultimately be released on his own recognizance?
	Will he be under house arrest, basically?
	Will he even be allowed to attend his own convention?
	Will he be allowed to campaign?
	Or will he have to be doing that virtually pending appeal?
	Pretty amazing circumstances in which we're living here.
	Anyway, let's go back to Bill Jacobson.
	What do you think of the issue of what this judge is going to do here?
	The judge has a lot of latitude in this case, and I have zero faith in Judge Juan Mershawn.
	Well, if this were a normal case, nonviolent offender, first-time offender, books and records violations, it would be a no-brainer.
	You get probation or you get some sort of deferral service, and then it gets wiped out.
	But I have no confidence that that is what will happen here.
	I would not be the least bit surprised if this judge sentences Donald Trump to prison time.
	How much?
	I don't know.
	I think that should be our operative assumption until we find out differently.
	We should assume the worst because we've had the worst in this case.
	So I think everybody needs to go on the assumption that this judge is going to sentence Donald Trump to prison time.
	The question would be, when does it start to be served?
	If this were a normal case, you would await the appeals process.
	Again, you don't have a violent felon, nobody who poses a threat.
	First-time offender.
	You don't have a violent felon.
	You've got to be kidding me.
	And you have a presidential candidate who's going to literally be benched in the middle of a campaign?
	Listen, if they do do that, which is a strong possibility based on the actions of this judge up to this point, I think all of it's on the table.
	Anyway, Professor Bill Jacobson, thank you.
	Cully Stimson, thank you.
	I'm going to go to calls real quick in the time we have remaining.
	800-941, Sean, I know so many of you want to react to this.
	Just try and make your comments quick, and I'm not trying to be rude.
	John, Free State of Florida.
	John, quick reaction.
	Yes, sir.
	I want to tell you something, Sean.
	This is the danger.
	You escaped New York, but their policies are reaching out to the whole country, destroying our Constitution and our rights to vote.
	And then the other thing I wanted to point out is that every time you've heard the phrase novel legal theory or novel action that the government has done against Trump, it's all replaced novel with bogus and fabricated and invented against him and always carry that out.
	And that's what they've done ever since he went down the escalator.
	They've attacked him on everything.
	And just think about all the presidents who got all their documents for the presidential libraries to collect them after they left office, except for Donald Trump.
	That's all I want to leave you all.
	Wake up, America.
	They are serious about not letting us vote.
	Jonathan in the free state of Texas next on the Sean Hannity Show.
	Jonathan, how are you?
	Great.
	How are you, sir?
	I think it's a sad day for our country.
	I think this has been nothing but a show trial.
	I think it's been fixed from day one with the selection of Mershawn.
	And I think once this case went south for the prosecution, he jumped in with one life preserver after another to save it.
	And hence we've been pointing that out for days now.
	I totally agree.
	And I thought the law was supposed to be rather black and white with a clear rule.
	And the judge had no right whatsoever to change the rules.
	In fact, I thought that was a criminal action for a judge to do.
	And I don't know how.
	It's certainly unconstitutional.
	Do think that there are certainly investigative grounds for the judge and for Alvin Bragg in this case, which I've gone over and I won't repeat now, but go ahead.
	Yeah, I do think it needs looked into intently by, because no person's an island in this country that can set their own rules for things.
	But it just reminds me politically of, I'm sure you're familiar with that Mel Gibson movie, We Were Soldiers.
	There's one point in that movie where he called out broken arrow.
	Well, that arrow is broken.
	And if Republican Party and the people don't wake up and change something, you can kiss it goodbye.
	I mean, it's broken.
	Let me tell you where the real verdict will be reached.
	And the president referred to this in his remarks.
	And that real verdict will take place on November the 5th.
	And that's when you, the American people, you get a chance to weigh in.
	Jonathan, thank you.
	And I want to just stop and focus on this for a second here.
	And just reading text messages from close friends and just absorbing what they're saying and the outrage and the anger and in many cases, shock.
	And in many cases, people asking what you can do.
	I'm going to tell you what the answer is.
	And Donald Trump referred to it.
	And that is the real verdict is on November the 5th.
	No matter what the result of this is, and I said this from the beginning that no verdict would surprise me.
	I said he wouldn't get a fair trial in New York.
	We saw that in the civil case.
	$18 million valuation, a case about valuations, Mar-a-Lago, which is closer to a billion, maybe more.
	And I've gone through the real estate issues in Palm Beach, Florida.
	They're insane for the type of property Donald Trump has.
	A two-acre parcel of lands, nearly $200 million, but no, Mar-a-Lago, 22 acres, all the bedrooms and bathrooms you could ever dream of, pristine condition, intercoastal and the ocean, two clubs associated with it, historic property.
	No, that's only worth $18, and they stuck to that.
	So there was never a chance.
	And I always had that nagging feeling with me, no matter what.
	I thought after the gutting of Cohn, okay, the odds are good.
	And then Judge Mershon, he had to come in with the cinder blocks on the scales of justice.
	That's how I view it.
	But with all of that said, you know, I want all of you to remember how you're feeling at this moment.
	All of the emotions that may be racing through you.
	And you worry about the future of your country.
	You worry about the rule of law.
	You worry about our Constitution.
	By the way, all legitimate things to worry about.
	This wouldn't happen to anybody except for Donald Trump.
	Nobody else would be charged with it.
	This is a city where you're on videotape beating a living Adam shift out of cops and you get a slap on the wrist.
	This is where you can get arrested for violent crimes and you're released in hours, no bail.
	And look at what has happened to the rule of law.
	This is the weaponization of our justice system.
	This is what we've been warning you about.
	This is what lawfare is.
	This is what we have been defining for you.
	It really is no surprise to me here.
	I know there is for many of you.
	I followed this too closely, and I saw the handwriting on the wall.
	I've been through all the conflicts of interest.
	I've been through all the reasons the judge should have been recused.
	I've been through all of the improprieties, I believe, in terms of the law and this judge, all the reversible errors in this case that will be brought up on appeal.
	I have zero, zero, zero doubt that this will be overturned on appeal.
	The question is, will the appeal come after the election or before the election?
	The other question is going to be, will Donald Trump be allowed to campaign?
	Will he be allowed, okay, four days before the convention, they're going to have the verdict phase of this trial begin on July 11th.
	Conventions of 15th.
	Will Donald Trump be allowed to go?
	You know, in most cases, first offender, nonviolent crime, you're released on your own recognizance pending appeal.
	If you're a violent, if you're caught in an act of violence in New York City, guess what?
	Well, you're just let out with no bail.
	Welcome to the sick world of unequal justice under the law.
	There's a danger to our Constitutional Republic.
	Alan Dershowitz warned of this: that if it came back guilty or it came back even a hung jury, he said this lawfare is going to continue and it's only going to get worse.
	It's only, give me the time of my year, Linda, because I have it.
	It's only going to get worse.
	Thank you.
	And, you know, but you do have a remedy, and this is what I want to focus on.
	Your remedy is your right to vote.
	I've said to everybody, overcome your reluctance and resistance to voting early because you don't want to start Election Day down hundreds of thousands of votes.
	You know, Republicans need to adopt, match, and surpass, you know, legal ballot harvesting efforts of Democrats.
	We'll have full coverage of all of this tonight on Hannity.
	God bless this great country.

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