Latest / Pod Save America / BONUS: The Jan. 6 Indictment Drops

Transcript

BONUS: The Jan. 6 Indictment Drops · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm unindicted co-conspirator Jon Lovett.
0:25
Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
0:26
Speaker 4: We have a bonus episode for you because Donald Trump
0:29
Speaker 4: has been indicted yet again. And this is the big one.
0:32
Speaker 4: He has been charged with four counts of conspiracy to
0:37
Speaker 4: defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding,
0:41
Speaker 4: obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and
0:45
Speaker 4: conspiracy against rights. This is all related to his plot
0:49
Speaker 4: to overturn the 2020 election that began shortly after the
0:53
Speaker 4: election and went right through to January 6th when there
0:56
Speaker 4: was an attack on the Capitol. There were six unindicted
1:00
Speaker 4: co-conspirators in this indictment from Jack Smith. They have been
1:04
Speaker 4: identified by various reporters as co-conspirator number one, Rudy Giuliani.
1:10
Speaker 4: Number two is John Eastman. Number three is Sidney Powell.
1:13
Speaker 4: Number four is Jeff Clark. He was the Department of
1:16
Speaker 4: Justice official that Donald Trump made acting attorney general after
1:20
Speaker 4: Barr left.
1:20
Speaker 2: You've last seen him being outside of his home while
1:24
Speaker 2: a search warrant was being conducted and he was in
1:26
Speaker 2: his boxers.
1:26
Speaker 1: Correct. Number five is Kenneth Cheesebro. Great name. Great name.
1:31
Speaker 4: He's bringing that character back from the January 6th hearings.
1:34
Speaker 4: And then unindicted co-conspirator number six is... a campaign as
1:40
Speaker 4: an advisor to Trump that has not been identified yet.
1:43
Speaker 1: It's a mystery. Mystery.
1:45
Speaker 4: Some people think maybe it's Bannon. Some people think maybe
1:47
Speaker 4: it's Boris Epstein. I've seen some Ginny Thomas rumors. I
1:51
Speaker 4: doubt that one, but we'll see. That's too good to
1:52
Speaker 4: be true.
1:52
Speaker 1: I know, too good to be true.
1:53
Speaker 2: I can't help but picture the Hamburglar. That's who I
1:55
Speaker 2: picture on the list of faces.
1:56
Speaker 5: It works.
1:58
Speaker 4: So the judge that Trump will appear before on this Thursday...
2:04
Speaker 4: At 4 p.m. Eastern is Judge Tanya Chukin. She is
2:08
Speaker 4: an Obama appointee. She is one of the toughest sentencers
2:12
Speaker 4: of the January 6th rioters. She has previously rebuked Trump
2:17
Speaker 4: in a case where she decided that his records needed
2:19
Speaker 4: to be turned over. She delivered the line, presidents are
2:22
Speaker 4: not kings and the plaintiff is not president.
2:25
Speaker 1: So lucky draw for him.
2:29
Speaker 4: And after the grand jury handed back the indictment, Jack Smith,
2:33
Speaker 4: Special Counsel Jack Smith, gave a brief statement, as is
2:37
Speaker 4: his usual, what he usually does, just to man a
2:41
Speaker 4: few words. Here's a clip from his brief statement today.
2:45
Speaker 5: The attack on our nation's capital on January 6th, 2021,
2:50
Speaker 5: was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy.
2:54
Speaker 5: As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies.
3:00
Speaker 5: Lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing a bedrock function
3:04
Speaker 5: of the U.S. government, the nation's process of collecting, counting,
3:09
Speaker 5: and certifying the results of the presidential election. Since the
3:13
Speaker 5: attack on our Capitol, the Department of Justice has remained
3:16
Speaker 5: committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what
3:21
Speaker 5: happened that day. This case is brought consistent with that commitment,
3:26
Speaker 5: and our investigation of other individuals continues.
3:30
Speaker 1: All right.
3:31
Speaker 4: So we have a 45-page indictment that we have all
3:34
Speaker 4: combed through.
3:35
Speaker 1: Got our highlighters here. Yeah.
3:38
Speaker 4: You guys have some initial reactions to this and want
3:41
Speaker 4: to just dive into some of the highlights or lowlights,
3:44
Speaker 4: if you will?
3:46
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, it's worth just noting on balance, we
3:48
Speaker 3: knew a lot of this thanks to the January 6th hearings.
3:52
Speaker 3: There's not a ton of new sort of explosive facts. Well,
3:55
Speaker 3: there's a few of them and we'll get to those.
3:56
Speaker 3: But the thrust of this, we already knew. The fact
3:58
Speaker 3: that he was charged for them is the biggest, newest item.
4:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's a lot of detail. There's a
4:05
Speaker 2: lot more detail than we've had before about the machinations
4:09
Speaker 2: inside of the conspiracy between Trump and these lawyers and
4:12
Speaker 2: these campaign officials and a level of detail and evidence
4:16
Speaker 2: that we haven't seen before. There's conversations, there's texts, there's e-mails,
4:24
Speaker 2: There's contemporaneous notes from Mike Pence.
4:26
Speaker 1: Lots of Mike Pence.
4:27
Speaker 2: Lots of Mike Pence notes in this. And, you know,
4:30
Speaker 2: this was, I think, the biggest and most important indictment.
4:33
Speaker 2: It was also the one, I think, that we didn't,
4:36
Speaker 2: that felt like, you know, the documents case, it's simple.
4:39
Speaker 2: It's easy to understand, right? He stole these documents. He
4:42
Speaker 2: didn't give them back. He obstructed justice to keep them.
4:45
Speaker 2: The question, I think, around this indictment was always going
4:46
Speaker 2: to be like, how do you spell out a case
4:49
Speaker 2: that isn't about, you know, stealing something and keeping it
4:51
Speaker 2: in your house? It's about fundamental justice. American principles. It's
4:55
Speaker 2: about the safety and security of our democracy. It's about
4:58
Speaker 2: whether you uphold an election. And I'll say it before,
5:02
Speaker 2: I've said it before, I'll say it again, Jack Smith,
5:04
Speaker 2: the biggest scab in this writer's strike, this guy, this
5:07
Speaker 2: guy knows how to.
5:08
Speaker 1: Tell a story.
5:09
Speaker 4: It is a compelling document. I mean, it was interesting
5:13
Speaker 4: to me how many times Jack Smith feels the need
5:17
Speaker 4: in this indictment to prove that Donald Trump knew that
5:22
Speaker 4: he had lost the election, that he knew he was lying.
5:24
Speaker 4: And even at the beginning, he sort of lays out
5:27
Speaker 4: in the opening of the indictment, he says, the defendant
5:30
Speaker 4: had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about
5:32
Speaker 4: the election and even to claim falsely that there had
5:35
Speaker 4: been fraud and that he had won. His efforts to
5:37
Speaker 4: change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or
5:40
Speaker 4: legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful. But then he also pursued
5:45
Speaker 4: unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.
5:50
Speaker 4: And then he lays out the three criminal conspiracies.
5:52
Speaker 3: So he, you know, and we should know the conspiracy
5:55
Speaker 3: against rights probably sounds a little vague. It's conspiracy against
5:58
Speaker 3: the right to vote and to have one's vote counted.
6:01
Speaker 3: So like Lovey was saying, like a bedrock American principle
6:03
Speaker 3: of our democracy.
6:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you've, you know, there.
6:05
Speaker 4: Has been reporting about this ever since this statute was
6:08
Speaker 4: mentioned in the Target letter a week or so ago,
6:10
Speaker 4: that this was a statute that was used to prosecute
6:13
Speaker 4: the KKK, and so it was the civil rights. Civil
6:16
Speaker 4: rights in this case, in the sense that we all
6:19
Speaker 4: have the right to vote and to have our vote counted,
6:21
Speaker 4: and so that's the connection there. But it was interesting
6:24
Speaker 4: to me just how much this case rests upon proving
6:29
Speaker 4: that that Donald Trump knew he was lying and knew
6:33
Speaker 4: that he had lost the election and still, having known
6:35
Speaker 4: he had lost the election, tried to obstruct the count
6:38
Speaker 4: in Congress, tried to overturn the election, tried to fraudulently
6:43
Speaker 4: claim things and force others in states to fraudulently send
6:47
Speaker 4: fake electors.
6:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's two runs of proof points. One of all
6:53
Speaker 2: the different people that told Trump that the claims were false.
6:56
Speaker 2: There's also a run of Donald Trump specifically using basically
7:01
Speaker 2: verbatim claims of fraud that he had been specifically been
7:06
Speaker 2: instructed weren't true. And yes, this is, I think, in
7:09
Speaker 2: this document, it is Jack Smith and the Department of
7:12
Speaker 2: Justice saying he knew these claims were false. But you
7:15
Speaker 2: also don't need, nobody is going to be able to hear,
7:19
Speaker 2: even if Donald Trump continues to claim, well, that's what
7:22
Speaker 2: these people told me. Other people told me that these
7:23
Speaker 2: were legitimate claims. I was just going based on conflicting information.
7:27
Speaker 2: I just wanted to get to the bottom of it.
7:29
Speaker 2: It lays it out in a way that just no
7:32
Speaker 2: reasonable person could look at this and believe he was
7:35
Speaker 2: telling the truth. There's just no way. Even if he
7:37
Speaker 2: keeps claiming it, he doesn't need to admit it. He
7:39
Speaker 2: can keep claiming whatever he wants. The evidence is there.
7:41
Speaker 5: Yeah.
7:41
Speaker 3: So the people who told him in sort of formal
7:45
Speaker 3: briefings and settings that there was no mass selection fraud
7:47
Speaker 3: include Mike Pence, top DOJ leaders, the director of national intelligence,
7:53
Speaker 3: the head of the Department of Homeland Security, senior White
7:55
Speaker 3: House attorneys that were selected by Trump to be in
7:58
Speaker 3: those positions. And then there's an interesting anecdote where you
8:01
Speaker 3: know he knows they're right because there is a National
8:03
Speaker 3: Security Council meeting on January 3rd. Something happened overseas that
8:07
Speaker 3: they're briefing him on. And the chairman of the Joint
8:09
Speaker 3: Chiefs says to Trump, let's not take action on whatever
8:13
Speaker 3: this thing is because the inauguration is 17 days away.
8:16
Speaker 3: And Trump agrees. And he says, yeah, you're right. It's
8:18
Speaker 3: too late for us. We're going to give that one
8:21
Speaker 3: to the next guy. So he's witting of the fact
8:23
Speaker 3: that he is lost.
8:23
Speaker 4: I think the other this is so there's a couple
8:26
Speaker 4: of new parts of the indictment. Tommy's right that most
8:28
Speaker 4: of it, thanks to the January 6th committee, we already
8:31
Speaker 4: know about the new parts in the indictment are one.
8:35
Speaker 4: is the fact that Mike Pence kept a journal, Dear Diary,
8:41
Speaker 4: and they have these conversations between Trump and Pence. And
8:45
Speaker 4: at one point, Pence says to Trump, point blank, this
8:50
Speaker 4: is on page 33 for those following at home, Pence
8:54
Speaker 4: says there is no constitutional basis for him to overturn
8:58
Speaker 4: the election.
8:59
Speaker 1: I love this.
8:59
Speaker 4: And in response, Trump says, you're too honest. Mike, you're
9:05
Speaker 4: too honest. And, you know, I just noticed before we
9:07
Speaker 4: came in here on Twitter, like, the AP stories lead
9:11
Speaker 4: with that line because that is, if that's not evidence
9:14
Speaker 4: that Trump knew he was full of shit and knew
9:17
Speaker 4: he hadn't won the election and was still telling the
9:19
Speaker 4: vice president to do something illegal, I mean, I don't
9:23
Speaker 4: know what is.
9:24
Speaker 2: One of my favorite moments in the document is, on
9:27
Speaker 2: December 25th, when the vice president called the defendant to
9:29
Speaker 2: wish him a Merry Christmas... The defendant quickly turned the
9:32
Speaker 2: conversation to January 6th and his request that the vice
9:34
Speaker 2: president reject electoral votes that day. The vice president pushed back,
9:37
Speaker 2: telling the defendant, as the vice president had already had
9:39
Speaker 2: in previous conversations, you know I don't think I have
9:41
Speaker 2: the authority to change the outcome. He's just stewing on Christmas.
9:45
Speaker 2: Pence is calling the boss to wish him a Merry Christmas.
9:50
Speaker 2: Have you heard the good news? And then he just
9:53
Speaker 2: gets fucking broadsided. It's Christmas.
9:56
Speaker 3: It was also readily apparent reading this how comfortable a
10:02
Speaker 3: lot of senior Trump aides were with the prospect of violence.
10:06
Speaker 3: Deputy White House counsel tells Jeff Clark that there hadn't
10:10
Speaker 3: been determined fraud that would change the outcome, but that
10:14
Speaker 3: if Trump stayed in office anyway, there would, quote, be
10:17
Speaker 3: riots in every major city in the United States. to
10:20
Speaker 3: which Jeff Clark responded, well, that's why there's an Interrection Act.
10:23
Speaker 3: So they're ready to beat the shit out of us
10:25
Speaker 3: if we all protest.
10:26
Speaker 4: The plan was to stage a coup and then use
10:30
Speaker 4: the U.S. military to put down any protest by force.
10:35
Speaker 1: That was the plan.
10:36
Speaker 3: And then another advisor told John Eastman, you're going to
10:38
Speaker 3: cause riots in the streets. And Eastman responded that there
10:41
Speaker 3: had previously been points in the nation's history where violence
10:43
Speaker 3: was necessary to protect the Republic.
10:46
Speaker 4: So this brings up, because... we read this and we
10:49
Speaker 4: were all like, you know, Jeff Clark should be in jail.
10:51
Speaker 4: These people should all be in jail, right? They were
10:54
Speaker 4: not indicted. And I think the biggest surprise and what
10:58
Speaker 4: people are talking about right now is like, what's going
11:00
Speaker 4: on with the unindicted co-conspirators? There are, we don't know
11:04
Speaker 4: is the short answer, but there are a few theories.
11:07
Speaker 4: One theory is that Jack Smith is laying this out
11:10
Speaker 4: there for them to try to get them to cooperate
11:13
Speaker 4: because they If those unindicted co-conspirators can then testify, oh, yeah,
11:18
Speaker 4: Trump knew he didn't win this election, then that's more
11:21
Speaker 4: powerful evidence. The other theory is they will be indicted
11:26
Speaker 4: at some point. And that perhaps Jack Smith just wanted
11:29
Speaker 4: to bring this now because he wanted to get things
11:32
Speaker 4: going so that he can get a trial before the election.
11:35
Speaker 4: Because we know that if he doesn't get a trial
11:36
Speaker 4: before the election and Trump wins, the whole thing will
11:38
Speaker 4: go away.
11:40
Speaker 2: That also could be a combination that he wants to
11:41
Speaker 2: turn some of them, use some of them.
11:43
Speaker 4: I mean, I also think that the other important point
11:45
Speaker 4: here is naming. So four of the six unindicted co-conspirators
11:51
Speaker 4: are lawyers.
11:53
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Clark was a Justice Department official.
11:56
Speaker 4: So naming these lawyers as co-conspirators, even if they're unindicted,
12:01
Speaker 4: really hurts Trump's advice of counsel defense, which they have
12:05
Speaker 4: previewed that that's going to be their defense. Oh, I
12:07
Speaker 4: was just doing what my lawyers told me. Well, your
12:09
Speaker 4: lawyer's are co-conspirators who committed a bunch of crimes along
12:13
Speaker 4: with you.
12:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're all referred to as attorneys. And you just
12:18
Speaker 2: feel in this indictment the dripping fury and disdain the
12:22
Speaker 2: Department of Justice has for Eastman, for Clark, for Rudy Giuliani,
12:27
Speaker 2: for Powell. One question I think we've talked about at
12:31
Speaker 2: length is, you know, how sophisticated was this operation? You know,
12:35
Speaker 2: how bumbling was it? How much was this just people
12:38
Speaker 2: trying things? How much of it was a concerted effort?
12:41
Speaker 2: And there's one thread that runs through this whole indictment
12:44
Speaker 2: that I think captures the way it was both. So
12:47
Speaker 2: early on in the indictment, the indictment makes the point
12:51
Speaker 2: that some fraudulent electors, so there's basically, you know, there's
12:55
Speaker 2: three parts to this scheme. The first part is trying
12:57
Speaker 2: to get the legitimate elections thrown out and have Republican
13:00
Speaker 2: officials put in fake electors. When that fails, it's to
13:04
Speaker 2: have Pence in some way get these false electors to
13:07
Speaker 2: throw the election and results. And when that fails, you
13:10
Speaker 2: go to your insurrection. And early on, when they're starting
13:14
Speaker 2: to talk to potential fraudulent electors in the state, they're
13:19
Speaker 2: clearly leaving the conspiracy. The scam evolves. At first, it
13:25
Speaker 2: is a scam to just have backup electors in place
13:28
Speaker 2: in case we need them. Now, as the certification is
13:31
Speaker 2: getting closer, When the defendant's electors expressed concern about the
13:34
Speaker 2: signing certificates representing themselves as legitimate electors, co-conspirator one, that's Rudy,
13:39
Speaker 2: falsely assured them that their certificates would only be used
13:42
Speaker 2: if the defendant succeeded in litigation. Co-conspirator six, the person
13:45
Speaker 2: we still don't know, circulated proposed conditional language to that effect.
13:48
Speaker 2: So basically, some of these people that were about to
13:51
Speaker 2: be false electors said, hold on a second. You told
13:54
Speaker 2: me that I was doing this just in case. And
13:57
Speaker 2: none of this language says just in case. You're telling
13:58
Speaker 2: me I'm a real elector. And so language was floated
14:02
Speaker 2: to change it so that it could sound more conditional.
14:05
Speaker 2: But a campaign official cautioned not to offer the conditional
14:09
Speaker 2: language to other states because the other states are signing
14:12
Speaker 2: what he prepared. If it gets out, we change the
14:14
Speaker 2: language for PA, it could snowball. So, like, in the
14:19
Speaker 2: middle of all this, they are well aware that they
14:21
Speaker 2: are coming up with a plan to overturn the election
14:24
Speaker 2: by using false electors. And when some of these electors
14:26
Speaker 2: balked at it and refused to sign... They were discussing
14:30
Speaker 2: whether or not they should do conditional language anyway. And
14:31
Speaker 2: it said, we don't need to. We've got enough people
14:33
Speaker 2: on the hook in all these other states to go
14:35
Speaker 2: along with this plan. They're just in real time, very,
14:38
Speaker 2: they're aware of what they're doing. And they're aware of
14:40
Speaker 2: how the plan evolved from just having a backup to
14:43
Speaker 2: trying to overturn the election. And you see that happen.
14:45
Speaker 3: They're very dumb about putting in writing their knowledge of
14:50
Speaker 3: the fact that they're lying.
14:51
Speaker 5: Yeah.
14:51
Speaker 3: John Eastman emails the vice president's counsel.
14:54
Speaker 1: Remember, this is a good one.
14:55
Speaker 3: The vice president's not going along with all this. His
14:57
Speaker 3: staff is pissed about it. He says, I implore you
14:59
Speaker 3: to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for
15:03
Speaker 3: 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations, blah, blah.
15:06
Speaker 1: Blah, blah. One more violation of the Electoral Count Act
15:09
Speaker 1: of 1887.
15:09
Speaker 3: You say emailing him, requesting a minor violation of the law. Also,
15:14
Speaker 3: John Eastman wrote on August, I'm sorry, October 11th, that
15:19
Speaker 3: neither the Constitution nor the Electoral Count Act provided the
15:22
Speaker 3: vice president discretion in the counting of electoral votes or
15:25
Speaker 3: permitted him to make the determination on his own. So
15:28
Speaker 3: right before he launched this scheme to get Pence to
15:31
Speaker 3: overturn the election, he had written that Pence didn't have
15:35
Speaker 3: the authority.
15:35
Speaker 4: He also he acknowledged to the vice president's counsel, the
15:39
Speaker 4: same person that he sent that email to, that he
15:42
Speaker 4: hoped to prevent judicial review of this because he understood
15:45
Speaker 4: that what they were doing would be, quote, unanimously rejected
15:50
Speaker 4: by the Supreme Court. That's a lot more faith in
15:52
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court than I have. for the unanimous ruling.
15:55
Speaker 4: I do think they would have blocked it, but I don't.
15:56
Speaker 3: Think we would have.
15:57
Speaker 2: I think he's talking about 7-2.
15:59
Speaker 4: I will say, too, that John Eastman email, Tommy, which said,
16:02
Speaker 4: I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation
16:07
Speaker 4: of the law, came at 11.44 p.m.
16:08
Speaker 1: On January 6th. This was at night.
16:24
Speaker 4: There was two other new parts of this indictment that
16:27
Speaker 4: did not come up in the January 6th hearing that
16:29
Speaker 4: are new. One is we learned that Trump called two
16:32
Speaker 4: senators at 6 p.m. on January 6th as the riots
16:37
Speaker 4: in some places were still going on to ask them
16:39
Speaker 4: to block certification. We know that Rudy was trying to
16:42
Speaker 4: call people and like accidentally called Mike Lee or whatever.
16:47
Speaker 1: And then Pat Cipollone, he's back. Pat Cipollone, remember him?
16:51
Speaker 1: White House counsel.
16:55
Speaker 4: As January 6th was just as the Capitol had, you know,
16:58
Speaker 4: been cleared out and everything was going on, the White
17:00
Speaker 4: House counsel asked, implored Trump to please call off.
17:04
Speaker 1: The objections from the senators, and Trump refused even then.
17:09
Speaker 2: There's a moment during the, where the campaign officials are
17:13
Speaker 2: saying to Rudy, here's the thing, the way this has morphed,
17:16
Speaker 2: it's a crazy play, so I don't know who wants
17:18
Speaker 2: to put their name on it. And the city advisor
17:20
Speaker 2: called it, and this is a quote, certifying illegal votes.
17:24
Speaker 4: And back to, you know, what Trump knew and everything.
17:29
Speaker 4: I do think we did. We heard this during the
17:31
Speaker 4: this came out during the January 6th committee hearings. But
17:34
Speaker 4: they have Trump saying that Sidney Powell's Dominion voting machine
17:38
Speaker 4: claims were, quote, crazy.
17:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
17:39
Speaker 3: And also, you know, who's number two again? John Eastman
17:43
Speaker 3: is calling officials in Arizona. in being told by the
17:48
Speaker 3: Arizona House Speaker that the state had investigated these allegations
17:53
Speaker 3: and uncovered no evidence of substantial fraud in the state,
17:57
Speaker 3: Eastman says, look, I don't know enough about facts on
17:59
Speaker 3: the ground, but, you know, decertify and let.
18:01
Speaker 1: The courts sort it out.
18:02
Speaker 3: You know, he's knowingly advancing these lies.
18:05
Speaker 4: Which is similar to the line that we've all heard
18:08
Speaker 4: from Trump that I still think is one of the
18:10
Speaker 4: most damning lines of all. which is just say the election,
18:14
Speaker 4: to Jeffrey Clark, to the Justice Department, just say the
18:17
Speaker 4: election was corrupt and leave.
18:19
Speaker 1: The rest to me and the Republican Congress.
18:21
Speaker 2: What really comes through, and some of it we've known,
18:24
Speaker 2: I think some of it we're getting more detail, is
18:27
Speaker 2: the people that are saying no to this, and I
18:29
Speaker 2: think the people that are clearly being interviewed as part
18:32
Speaker 2: of this, these are Trump voters. These are Trump supporters
18:35
Speaker 2: and Republicans you have in Arizona, in Georgia, in Michigan.
18:39
Speaker 2: And you have these extraordinary comments from them basically saying,
18:43
Speaker 2: I voted for Trump. I wanted him to win. I'm
18:45
Speaker 2: not subverting my oath. There's nothing in my, there's nothing
18:49
Speaker 2: in our state constitution or in the law that gives
18:51
Speaker 2: me the power to do this. And over and over again,
18:53
Speaker 2: you know, there's, again, some of this we've known, but
18:57
Speaker 2: now we're getting in more detail. The moment when Trump
19:00
Speaker 2: tries to make Clark acting attorney general, and you have
19:04
Speaker 2: the acting attorney general and the acting deputy attorney general saying, no,
19:07
Speaker 2: and if you do this, we'll resign, your White House
19:09
Speaker 2: counsel's office will resign, like it'll be a scandal. you
19:12
Speaker 2: see over and over again that this scheme got a
19:16
Speaker 2: lot further than we even understood at the time. It
19:18
Speaker 2: was more sophisticated than we understood it at the time.
19:21
Speaker 2: And the reason it didn't succeed, and by the way,
19:23
Speaker 2: of course, Mike Pence. It was more and less sophisticated
19:25
Speaker 2: than we thought. Yes, it was more and less sophisticated
19:27
Speaker 2: than we thought. But I do think it was more
19:29
Speaker 2: concerted than we realized and it was more coordinated than
19:32
Speaker 2: we realized. That's what this indictment makes clear. And the
19:34
Speaker 2: reason it didn't succeed is not for lack of effort.
19:36
Speaker 2: It didn't succeed because at the time there were just
19:39
Speaker 2: enough people with just enough scruples left to stand in
19:44
Speaker 2: this group of conspiracists' way.
19:46
Speaker 3: It does highlight the amount of pressure that was put
19:48
Speaker 3: on Mike Pence. Because, you know, I think sometimes we
19:52
Speaker 3: assume Trump has kind of like a public facing demeanor
19:55
Speaker 3: and message where he lies and is full of shit.
19:57
Speaker 3: You kind of assume that he's in on the joke
19:59
Speaker 3: and tells the truth behind the scenes. No, he was
20:01
Speaker 3: like in the vice president's face as late as December 29th,
20:05
Speaker 3: saying that the Justice Department was finding major fraud and infractions.
20:10
Speaker 3: Pence knew that was a lie. Everyone would have been
20:11
Speaker 3: briefed on the fact that that was a lie. And
20:13
Speaker 3: by the way, breaking news, Mike Pence just put out
20:15
Speaker 3: a statement about the indictment saying, today's indictment serves as
20:19
Speaker 3: an important reminder, anyone who puts himself over the Constitution
20:22
Speaker 3: should never be president of the United States.
20:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting that he... I mean it into it.
20:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was his line when... He said that line
20:31
Speaker 4: when he announced... announced for office, but I'm glad that
20:34
Speaker 4: he did not go to the sort of weaselly, I
20:37
Speaker 4: don't know if we should criminalize, you know, I think.
20:41
Speaker 3: Here it's in context of this indictment.
20:42
Speaker 5: Right.
20:43
Speaker 4: Well, I know, but I saw that statement, but what
20:44
Speaker 4: I think what he decided was, it's not on me
20:47
Speaker 4: to judge the legality of what the jury is going
20:50
Speaker 4: to do. The guy shouldn't be president again. And that's enough, which,
20:53
Speaker 4: you know, is fine. And I guess, and I think
20:55
Speaker 4: Hutchinson and her and Will Hurd, Asa Hutchinson and Christie
20:59
Speaker 4: have come out with, uh, statements condemning him as well.
21:01
Speaker 2: There's one other meeting where Trump and Eastman and Pence
21:06
Speaker 2: and Pence's chief of staff and counsel are all meeting.
21:09
Speaker 2: And basically, there was this sort of other proposal that
21:11
Speaker 2: was being floated that Pence has the ability to send
21:14
Speaker 2: the fake electors back to the states. And there's a
21:17
Speaker 2: moment where Pence is like, who says I can do that?
21:20
Speaker 2: And Eastman says, well, it's, you know, it's never been
21:23
Speaker 2: tried before, basically. And Pence says to Trump, did you
21:26
Speaker 2: hear that? Even your own counsel is not saying I
21:29
Speaker 2: have the authority. And Trump responded, that's okay. I prefer
21:32
Speaker 2: the other suggestion.
21:33
Speaker 1: The other suggestion, yeah.
21:33
Speaker 2: Where he just overturns the election and certifies Trump.
21:37
Speaker 1: So, pretty damning. Pretty serious. You guys have any questions.
21:43
Speaker 4: You're looking forward to being answered in the coming days
21:46
Speaker 4: on this one? I'm kind of interested in the timing
21:49
Speaker 4: and whether they think that they can actually get a
21:52
Speaker 4: full trial in before the election on this one.
21:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm curious about.
21:56
Speaker 3: Look, we're all learning these terms like speaking indictment and
21:59
Speaker 3: how much prosecutors decide to put or not put in
22:03
Speaker 3: these indictments. I'm curious to see how much evidence was
22:06
Speaker 3: withheld here. We don't really know that. I don't know
22:09
Speaker 3: how we could know that.
22:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.
22:11
Speaker 4: And, you know, we talked about what's going on with
22:14
Speaker 4: the unindicted co-conspirators. Jack Smith did have one line in
22:17
Speaker 4: his very brief statement where he said investigations of various
22:22
Speaker 4: individuals are ongoing.
22:24
Speaker 1: So, you know, we could expect... We could see more
22:27
Speaker 1: indictments on this.
22:28
Speaker 2: This indictment definitely doesn't read, though, that, like, Rudy and
22:31
Speaker 2: Eastman and Clark were just dragged along. They're written like
22:34
Speaker 2: people that, at least, Jack Smith would love to throw
22:38
Speaker 2: in fucking prison.
22:39
Speaker 4: Oh, I mean, I think that it's more damning for
22:42
Speaker 4: them than even Trump, the way the indictment reads. Some
22:47
Speaker 4: of the stuff that Jeffrey Clark said about the insurrection,
22:49
Speaker 4: I mean, all the stuff that we read. I think
22:50
Speaker 4: it's more... Eastman and Clark seem like... very criminal what
22:54
Speaker 4: they did.
22:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. The, the, the part where that's why I was
22:57
Speaker 2: sort of interested in the part where you see the
22:58
Speaker 2: evolution of the plan from just having backup electors to
23:01
Speaker 2: it becoming a crazy plan to overturn the election, because
23:03
Speaker 2: that is five, uh, Mr. Cheese, bro. And, uh, that he,
23:08
Speaker 2: he gets the least, uh, he gets sort of the
23:10
Speaker 2: least damning, um, attention throughout this as the six. And,
23:15
Speaker 2: you know, you have to, you have to wonder like man,
23:18
Speaker 2: Rudy is dead to rights in this thing. Clark is
23:19
Speaker 2: dead to rights in this thing. Eastman's dead to rights
23:21
Speaker 2: in this thing. Like, I wonder who they're actually going
23:24
Speaker 2: after to get to testify.
23:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, to your point, like, Rudy, look, there was, like, post-9-11, hey, geography, Rudy,
23:31
Speaker 3: or whatever, America's mayor, that whole bullshit. But, like, that
23:34
Speaker 3: image of Rudy, I think, is long gone. He's been
23:36
Speaker 3: a clown for a long time, so I wasn't surprised
23:38
Speaker 3: to read his comments in this. John Eastman is someone
23:41
Speaker 3: who's considered, like, a pretty well-respected scholar, constitutional scholar, but
23:46
Speaker 3: before this insanity at the end here and this coup
23:50
Speaker 3: effort that he clearly was behind in knowingly, you know,
23:53
Speaker 3: putting forward lies and asking people to break the law.
23:56
Speaker 4: Might even call him a mastermind of this, of this effort.
23:59
Speaker 4: I mean, it was really like, you're right. Rudy, Rudy
24:01
Speaker 4: just goes off the cuff, but like Eastman here is
24:03
Speaker 4: he's thought it out.
24:04
Speaker 1: He's thought it out.
24:05
Speaker 4: He knows it's illegal and he just, he's been pushing
24:07
Speaker 4: the whole time. Um, just that we don't need to
24:09
Speaker 4: just get into the politics too much here, but like,
24:13
Speaker 4: this is one. And I felt like this during the
24:14
Speaker 4: January 6th committee, uh, That I don't really care what
24:18
Speaker 4: the politics are. Like when I read this indictment, I'm like,
24:22
Speaker 4: if Donald Trump wins again, these unindicted co-conspirators are coming
24:27
Speaker 4: back to the White House and next time they're not
24:29
Speaker 4: going to fuck it up.
24:30
Speaker 2: Well, no, they're going to have those medals of freedom
24:32
Speaker 2: hanging around their necks.
24:34
Speaker 4: I mean, it's like this is you know what? I
24:37
Speaker 4: don't know what other case you need to make to voters. Then, hey,
24:41
Speaker 4: all this shit that happened, then threatening that if Donald
24:45
Speaker 4: Trump doesn't get to stay in power for as long
24:46
Speaker 4: as he likes, they're going to use the Insurrection Act
24:49
Speaker 4: to get the military to put down any protests. That's
24:51
Speaker 4: going to be our future if you elect this guy.
24:54
Speaker 2: President again well not if he wins.
24:57
Speaker 4: Well then what happens after that for those four years
25:00
Speaker 4: i'll be old what happens when we're when we're debating
25:02
Speaker 4: the constitutional amendment uh to uh you know let donald
25:05
Speaker 4: trump serve as long as he wants and uh he
25:07
Speaker 4: tells he tells the senators and house members that's okay
25:11
Speaker 4: you don't have to change it with a full majority
25:13
Speaker 4: it's okay don't worry about.
25:14
Speaker 2: It the uh there's also one part in this where
25:16
Speaker 2: uh you told me at this point before it recorded
25:18
Speaker 2: that um Sidney Powell's texts are as bonkers as her personality.
25:23
Speaker 2: They're just half caps, half lowercase.
25:25
Speaker 3: One sentence in the same sentence. There's just a run
25:28
Speaker 3: of all caps text followed by normal. But John, on
25:32
Speaker 3: the political question, this indictment and all the news reports
25:36
Speaker 3: around it could certainly change the context. There was some polling.
25:39
Speaker 3: There's a YouGov poll back in January where you had
25:43
Speaker 3: pretty strong majorities of American voters saying Trump bore responsibility
25:49
Speaker 3: for January 6th. When you asked about whether they approved
25:53
Speaker 3: of Congress referring Trump for a criminal indictment, it got
25:57
Speaker 3: a lot more partisan. It was 45 to 37 Americans
26:01
Speaker 3: approved of referring him to DOJ for a criminal indictment.
26:04
Speaker 3: So we'll see if that more partisan split sticks now
26:07
Speaker 3: that he's actually indicted.
26:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, the one set of numbers that stuck out to me,
26:12
Speaker 4: I think I was reading last night, is You know,
26:16
Speaker 4: you like you said, it breaks down along partisan lines.
26:19
Speaker 4: And the question is, what independents do, you know, or
26:22
Speaker 4: how to independency this. And mostly they're sort of split on,
26:26
Speaker 4: you know, whether it was a crime, all that kind
26:29
Speaker 4: of stuff. But if you ask the question, if Donald
26:31
Speaker 4: Trump is convicted of a crime, should he be able
26:34
Speaker 4: to serve as president? It's like like 75 percent of
26:38
Speaker 4: independents don't think he should. And a majority of all
26:42
Speaker 4: voters don't think he should, like a healthy majority, pretty
26:44
Speaker 4: big majority. So I do think that the only point
26:48
Speaker 4: here is as this goes on, right, the politics now
26:51
Speaker 4: and the polls we're looking at now are all sort
26:52
Speaker 4: of frozen in time and they're backward looking, right? We
26:55
Speaker 4: are about to head into a calendar season of politics.
26:59
Speaker 4: like court dates and indict and extra indictments. We had
27:02
Speaker 4: a superseding one. We didn't even expect in the Mar-a-Lago case.
27:05
Speaker 4: And this is going to go on and on and
27:06
Speaker 4: on and be in the news over and over and
27:08
Speaker 4: over again.
27:08
Speaker 1: And right.
27:09
Speaker 4: Like maybe it doesn't make a huge difference in an
27:11
Speaker 4: electorate that is very polarized. It's possible, but these elections
27:15
Speaker 4: are decided on the margins. And is it, you know,
27:18
Speaker 4: do you want to put the guy back in the
27:19
Speaker 4: white house who did all this, or do you want
27:22
Speaker 4: to give Joe Biden four more years?
27:23
Speaker 1: That's it. That's the choice.
27:25
Speaker 2: Yeah. I also, it, The point that... Jackson makes the
27:28
Speaker 2: point when he gave the statement that he wants a
27:30
Speaker 2: speedy trial. That's a message also to the judge. This judge,
27:33
Speaker 2: as you pointed out, is not Eileen Cannon.
27:35
Speaker 5: And.
27:36
Speaker 4: She's the complete opposite. She's bizarro Eileen Cannon.
27:40
Speaker 2: You know, is this going to affect Trump's poll numbers?
27:43
Speaker 2: He may die in prison because of this. Like, poll
27:45
Speaker 2: numbers are the least of his problems. Like, he is
27:48
Speaker 2: going to be in court day after day after day,
27:51
Speaker 2: covered exclusively on his crimes.
27:54
Speaker 5: Like, the.
27:55
Speaker 4: That's why he's running so hard for president. Some things
27:58
Speaker 4: don't end up being on the margins.
27:59
Speaker 2: We'll see. But, man, you read this, you're like, I
28:03
Speaker 2: finally can see it now. I see the end.
28:05
Speaker 4: If you think to yourself, maybe he's a little more
28:06
Speaker 4: disciplined in his run for president this time. It's so
28:08
Speaker 4: he can stay out of jail. He knows there's a
28:11
Speaker 4: lot more at stake right now.
28:11
Speaker 3: He's got a lot of legal bills to pay. It's
28:14
Speaker 3: probably hurting.
28:15
Speaker 5: Yeah.
28:16
Speaker 1: All right.
28:16
Speaker 4: Well, that's our bonus episode. We'll come back with another
28:19
Speaker 4: bonus if there's more indictments. I think, let's see, we
28:21
Speaker 4: had 74 felony counts yesterday on the pod we talked about.
28:24
Speaker 4: So now we're up to 78. 78 felony counts.
28:27
Speaker 2: I was reading this indictment.
28:29
Speaker 1: Is he 70? How old is he?
28:30
Speaker 2: He's 78.
28:30
Speaker 1: One per year.
28:31
Speaker 4: He's got a felony count for every year.
28:33
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, 78 years old, 78 felony counts.
28:35
Speaker 2: I was reading this indictment and all of a sudden
28:37
Speaker 2: I was like, wait, this is confusing. And I realized, oh,
28:39
Speaker 2: I accidentally turned into the other indictment. Oh, you saw
28:42
Speaker 2: it printed on the page. There was too many indictments
28:44
Speaker 2: on my desk.
28:44
Speaker 1: Too many indictments.
28:45
Speaker 3: You've got to file those things.
28:46
Speaker 1: You need a new highlighter. You can't just leave your
28:47
Speaker 1: indictments out. All right.
28:49
Speaker 4: We'll talk to you on Thursday, everyone. Pod Save America
28:54
Speaker 4: is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
28:58
Speaker 4: Our producers are Andy Gardner-Bernstein and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
29:03
Speaker 4: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound
29:06
Speaker 4: engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis.
29:10
Speaker 4: Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Madeline Herringer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft,
29:13
Speaker 4: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
29:16
Speaker 4: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Mia Kelman, Ben Hefcoat, and David Toles.
29:21
Speaker 4: Subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube to catch full episodes,
29:24
Speaker 4: exclusive content, and other community events. Find us at youtube.com
29:29
Speaker 4: slash at Pod Save America.