Transcripts For CSPAN Washington 20240704

No, it is more than that. Comcast is creating wifi enabled centers so students can be ready for anythg. Announcer comcast supports cspan as a blic service ang with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. Announcer coming up on washington journal, reaction to former President Trumps indictments. Insight on the federal charges and what is to come in the judicial process with former assistant attorney kimberly. Host yesterday a federal grand jury indicted former President Trump for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the attack on the u. S. Capitol. This one contains four criminal charges adding to the 74 counts the president was already facing. This morning we are opening the phones to get your reaction. Republicans can call in at 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, 202 7488002. You can also send us a text of your name and where you are from at 202 7488003. Or catch us on social media on instagram and twitter cspanwj and facebook at facebook. Com cspan. [video clip] today an indictment was unsealed charging donald j. Trump with defrauding the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. It was issued by a grand jury of the citizens here in the district of columbia and sets forth the crimes charged in detail. I encourage everyone to read it in full. The attack on our nations capitol on january 6, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of democracy. It was fueled by lies. Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the u. S. Government. The nations process of counting and certifying the Election Results. The men and women of Law Enforcement who defended the u. S. Capitol on january 6 are heroes. They are the very best of us. They did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it. They put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people. They defended the very institution and principles that define the United States. Since the attack on our capitol the department of justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. This case is consistent with that commitment and our investigation of other individuals continues. In this case my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens. In the meantime, i must emphasize that the indictment is only an allegation and the defendant must be presumed innocent until Proven Guilty beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law. I would like to thank the members of the federal bureau of investigation who are working on this investigation with my office, as well as the prosecutors and Law Enforcement agents from around the country who have worked on previous january 6 investigations. These women and men are Public Servants of the highest order and it is a privilege to work alongside them. Thank you. Host special counsel jack smith yesterday announcing those latest charges. We are talking to you for most of this morning on washington journal about the latest indictment. Taking your phone calls on phone lines split by political party. Republicans, it is 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, 202 7488002. Just to show you the headlines this morning this is the front page of todays usa today. Trumpet indicted in january 6 case. Former president charged with four counts. New charges are far more serious, they write, than earlier ones. The statement from the former president s campaign reads in part, this isng more than the latest corrupt chapter in by the crime family andattempt their weaponized department of justice to interfere with the 2024 president ial election in undisputed front runner ande leading by substantial margins. Why did they wait 2. 5 years to bring these charges . Why was it announced the day after the Crooked Joe Biden scandal broke out from the halls of congress . The answer, they say, election interference. That is the statement from the trump campaign. We are getting your reaction this morning. We will show your reactions as well from other candidates and capitol hill, but we mostly want to hear from you. Teresa is first out of tennessee, a republican. Caller good morning. First of all i have to say the judge has got to be removed from this case. She is biased. She has already sentenced january 6 protesters to exorbitant amounts of jail time. She is an obama pick. She has to be removed from this case. She is biased. Please do your investigation work in checking her out. Second of all, we have to make sure donald trump is elected. The only way this corruption against him goes away is if we put him in office. I have been supporting donald trump since day one. Never donated a penny but i will take everything i have today and donate to that man for his legal funds. The crooks and the liars and the cheats are running the doj, the fbi, joe biden, hunter biden, and it is not right. We believe in rule of law in this country. If donald trump did something wrong, so be it. But you prosecute joe biden and his corruption too. It is not fair. If donald trump loses and goes to jail, i fear there will be war in this country. Host that is teresa out of tennessee. You talk about the judge, scott mcfarland. He also covered the january 6 prosecutions. He tweeted yesterday about how she dealt with other cases. She is a district judge for columbia. She was randomly assigned to this case that will be tried in d. C. She has been especially vocal in her denunciations of the attack. Of the attack. Quoting her saying denunciations of the attack. Scott mcfarland quoting her saying that she went twice above prosecutors recommended sentences. He said it is a true rarity in the thousand plus cases that have been tried. She said the true patriots are the capitol employees, including those who slipped in their own blood seeking cover. And then she also said the video showed how horrifying the events that day were. Every time i watch i am sure by how the Law Enforcement officers were trying to stay alive. Scott mcfarland with his wrap up of the background on the u. S. District court judge. Unlike the case being brought by the special counsel, that is being tried in florida on the documents retention case. This is being tried in washington, d. C. And the president is expected to be in court tomorrow. That court actually sits between the white house and the capitol, about halfway between in what is known as judiciary square. This is deb in plymouth, wisconsin, a democrat. Caller good morning. I say, finally. I cannot wait for the other co in spirit ors to be indicted coconspirators to be indicted. All of the witnesses were republicans. And for the woman that was just on, i suggest you watch the second january 6 hearing. John, why is that hearing not found in the cspan archives . I would think it would be there. Fox did not show it and it should be in the archives. I even suggest you reply it, but for sure it should be in the archives. Host i am pretty sure all of those congressional hearings are in the archives. Type it in at the top of the webpage. I encourage you to try that again because those hearings are all part of our record that we keep of these congressional hearings. Caller thank you. Host this is paul in paducah, kentucky. Caller this makes me want to support President Trump more. Democrats, what goes around, comes around. This is going to be on you one of these days. You think we are going to sit back . No. I will investigate every democrat on the planet. The Democrat Party is one of the most evil, vile parties. They have no party has enslaved more people than the Democrat Party. You think this will stop right here . No. I do not even consider democrats my fellow americans. Host this is bob in florida, republican. Caller hi, mr. John. Trump needs to fight back in a court of law. We need to be finding out if he is guilty or not. That is why the american courts are there. The videos can be manipulated with ai. Trump needs to move to moscow. Putin will protect him. If not, moved to china. Host that is bob in florida. This is gary in New Hampshire on the line for democrats. Caller good morning. First of all, i do not agree with what teresa said. Number one, you cannot take democracy away from the people. Our Founding Fathers made sure of that. Democracy belongs to the people and i do not understand why the other people are being prosecuted to the fullest extent when he is not. He is the one that incited that riot. He got them whipped up into a frenzy, encouraging them to march to the capitol. This is disgusting what he did. He needs to be held accountable for his actions, just like anybody else would in this country. Host do you think this indictment does that . Caller yes, it is the start of holding him accountable. He needs to be held accountable. He is not above the law. Nobody is above the law. It goes back to that old adage nobody is above the law. Host thats gary in New Hampshire. This 45page, four count indictment being unsealed yesterday and announced late afternoon. You can find it and read it for yourself on the cspan website, cspan. Org. Just from the opening introductions the special counsel writes, despite having lost the defendant was determined to remain in power. For more than two months following election date on november 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcomes flawed in the election and that he had won. These claims were false and the defendant knew they were false but the defendant repeatedly and widely disseminated them anyway to make his false claims appear legitimate, create an atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and eroded public faith in the election. He pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting Election Results. In so doing, the perpetrator used dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government. A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the january 6 congressional proceedings in which the results of the president ial election are counted and certified. Conspiracy against the right to vote and have ones vote counted. Each of these conspiracies, which builds on widespread mistrust the defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about Election Fraud, targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government, the nations process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the president ial election. That is three of the paragraphs in that 45page indictment unsealed yesterday. This is don in california, independent. Caller good morning. Good conversation. I became an independent after the republicans after 9 11 and i will explain but republicans, you have got to look and listen. Most republicans, i think their pride is holding them from looking at evidence. They do not want to be wrong on who they voted for. Republicans have always been that way. They were like that with nixon. They were like that with george w. Bush. We invaded iraq and created a terrorist war for another 30 years. Donald trump, if you look at the facts during his career, he has been charged numerous times. Recently he was charged as a felony sexual abuser. Stop. The guy committed crimes. Quit being a victim like trump. He is great at selfvictimizing. You guys are falling for a victim who admitted he is a pathological liar and he does not know how to tell the truth, or he cannot see the truth. Just like bill barr says. He has a problem with reality and that is true. God bless everybody and put him in jail. Have a good day. Host 78 charges stemming from two federal cases and one state case in new york. We are waiting to see if there will be charges in georgia as well in a state case concerning january 6 and the president s actions in georgia. But if we stick to the 78 charges, the Washington Times with the wrapup of what that might mean if he was convicted and went to prison on all charges. The maximum sentences for all 78 charges in florida, new york, and the district of columbia add up to nearly 600 years in prison if mr. Trump is forced to serve them consecutively. Christopher Columbus Landing in america would be closer to today than mr. Trumps scheduled release date. If convicted, he would be more likely to get concurrent sentences and recommendations for far less time than the maximum. The former president could face additional prison time in georgia where danny willis is investigating whether he attempted to overturn the states 2020 president ial results. This is dennis in mount all of, alabama mount olive, alabama. Caller i think this is diversion. Are you aware that they downgraded our Credit Rating yesterday . The only second time in history. It does not look like by the bidenomics is working at all. Host they wrote in their statement there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance the last 20 years, including on the fiscal and debt matters. The United States appears to suffer from an erosion of governance, pointing to the washington debt ceiling as an example, with a rating of aa . The u. S. Still holds among the possible highest ratings and benefits from a well diversified and high income economy. But the treasury secretary saying, i strongly disagree with the rating, calling the change arbitrary and based on outdated data. That story from nbc news wrapping up that rating downgrade. This is jane in brooklyn, new york, a democrat. Caller good morning, john. Thank you for having me on your show. I want to wish everybody a good august. The Justice Department, special counsel, thank you. Trump is the biggest narcissist we are probably ever going to see in our lifetime, i hope. He should never be able to run for any kind of office in our government of any type ever again. I feel bad for the Police Officers who put up with that and got beat up. As far as the lady calling earlier talking about war and this and that, if you say so. No one is against anybody here but nobody is above the law. He did something wrong and he hurt a lot of people. Now he has a cult following. My theory is that it is always joe biden or hunter. This is ridiculous. He did what he did, he should pay for what he did. Nobody is above the law. Thank you. Host paul in kansas city, missouri, independent. Caller good morning. Host are you with us . I think we lost you. This is john in texas, republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you today . Host doing well. Go ahead. Caller we need to look through the trees. We have this problem with division in the United States and hate that the democrats have for anybody who is against them. You have people saying that nobody is above the law. Trump is the worst person in the world. He just wanted to make America Great again. For some strange reason democrats are against having america be great again, go figure. We have mass hysteria. These democrats will believe anything. Nobody is above the law and yet, you have the most corrupt president in the office who is known to take bribes from foreign companies. Yet somehow hillary and obama the democrats believe themselves holier than thou and they are the only ones that know what is going on and anybody who disagrees should be shot. Host lets not get to violence. Caller exactly, that is where we do not want to go. Host what do think about republicans who criticized the president for his actions january 6 . There are some running against him for the republican nomination who have criticized him for what he did january 6. Caller they are the perfect example of rhinos. All they care about is their own career. They do not care about the country and that is the difference. President trump put the country first. No one wants to take away the gravy train, that is what trump tried to do. We have the most corrupt government. People are getting filthy rich off of this and the people are getting screwed and it is sad. Host some of the reaction from fellow republican candidate for president in 2024. Mike pence with a series of tweets yesterday after the news came out. Todays indictment shares as a reminder that anybody who puts himself over the constitution should never be president. As americans, his candidacy means less attention and aid to joe bidens Economic Policy and to the pattern of corruption with hunter, as your president , i will not yield an inch in defending america, are people, or all values. I will do so with the character and decency of the American People. The former Vice President goes on from there. Chris christie has been quite vocal in his criticism of the former president saying the events around the white house from Election Night are a stain on history and a disgrace to those who participated. Donald trump swore an oath to the constitution, violated that oath, and brought shame to his presidency. Ron desantis saying, as president i will end the weaponization of government and replace the fbi director and assure justice for all americans. I do believe we need to enact reforms when it comes to the Justice System in this country. And the senator from South Carolina saying, we are watching bidens doj continue to hurt republicans while protecting democrats. Just a few of the comments from those running for republican nomination. It was vivek yesterday that sent out a video. This is a little bit from that video. [video clip] this is a politicized prosecution. Now in a third indictment in a manner of months against the person who is still the lead contender in the Republican Party. I am running for u. S. President in that same primary. It would be easier for me if donald trump were eliminated from competition. That is not how i want to win. This is not about politics to me. This is about first principles. We do not want to become a country where the party in power is able to use Banana Republiclike tactics to eliminate its opponents. Im sad to say that is where we are. The allegations in this indictment fall flat. It is wrong and incorrect and inaccurate to place blame for what happened on january 6 at the feet of donald trump. I said this at the time and have said it ever sense and i continue to say it today. I would not have made the same judgments donald trump did and how he handled that day. But that is different than saying he committed a crime. He did not. He told the protesters that day to behave peacefully. The First Amendment in this country gives political protesters the ability to express themselves and their opinions freely. Donald trump was not responsible for what happened on january 6. You want to know what was responsible . I said this in the days after january 6, 2021 just as i say it today. Systematic pervasive censorship. That was after a year where we told people across this nation that you had to stay locked down in your house and shut up, sit down, do as youre told. If you question that, you are racist, you are antiscience. You had to stay home and locked down unless you are part of blm or antifa and then it was fine to roam the streets of this country and burn many of them down. Host he tweeted out that statement yesterday in the wake of this indictment. A wrap up of the reaction on the Republican Campaign trail. Speaking of former Vice President mike pence, he makes several appearances in this 45 page indictment that was released. The special counsel interviewed the grand jury interviewed the former Vice President as part of this investigation and used contemporaneous notes the Vice President had taken about those days and the days leading up to january 6. One theme described in the indictment involving the Vice President s Christmas Day through january 6 and the interactions between donald trump and mike pence. On several private phone calls the defendant, donald trump, repeated knowingly false claims of Election Fraud and directly pressured the Vice President to use his ceremonial role at the proceedings on january 6 to overturn the results of the election and the Vice President resisted, including december 25 when the Vice President called the defendant to wish them a Merry Christmas. The defendant turned the conversation to january 6 and his request that the Vice President reject the votes. The Vice President said, as the Vice President had in previous conversations, i do not have the authority to change the outcomes. On december 29 as reflected in the Vice President s notes the defendant told the Vice President the Justice Department was finding major infractions. On january 1 the defendant called the Vice President and berated him because he learned the Vice President had opposed a lawsuit seeking a judicial decision that the Vice President had the authority to reject or return votes under the u. S. Constitution. The Vice President responded he thought there was no constitutional basis for such authority and it was improper. In response, the defendant told the Vice President , you are too honest. Within hours the defendant reminded his supporters to meet in washington before the proceedings, tweeting the big protest rally in washington, d. C. Will take place at 11 00 a. M. On january 6. Location details to follow. Stop the steal. Some of the scenes described in that indictment. It is just about 7 30 on the east coast. Getting your reaction for most of our program this morning on the washington journal. Daniel is in philadelphia, democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning. I saw this yesterday and i was thinking to myself, oh man, cspan is going to be dope tomorrow. Just to hear that guy from texas talking about this and that, this and that. Knowing if joe biden did the same thing, he is sitting there crying, why have they not locked him up yet . Hilarious. The first caller that said i am going to start a war and donate. Donate your five dollars. That is not going to get him out. [laughs] host have you read the indictment . Caller of course not. That is why i watched cspan. I know that if i did Something Like that, i would be going to jail. He should definitely go to jail. I called because this is my big first president ial thing happening. I was not alive for the bill clinton thing. Host how old are you . Caller i am in my 20s. This is by first time seeing a president go down, you know what i mean . It is great. All of these people getting mad, it is great. Host george in columbia, South Carolina, independent. Caller good morning. I was listening to your callers and the news clips and everybody on both sides i am not a democrat or republican but the truth is the truth. I like donald trump. I like joe biden. But when you have the truth and you have lies, what are you going to believe . We saw what happened on january 6. Everybody saw it. Everybody knows what led to it. We are grown men and women and the children are watching us. If we tell the children to be honest and tell the truth, go to school, do all the right things in life. And then we act like this guy has never been in trouble. Always blaming joe biden. What does joe biden have to do with the . Donald trump did it. Joe bidens son did what he did and biden is a criminal but donald trump did what he did. Why are they not getting joe biden like they did donald trump . It is insane. This country is better than donald trump and anybody else. Donald trump is not our country. We are our country. We are more than donald trump. We are going to live after donald trump. Our kids are going to live after donald trump, and joe biden too. Host that is george in South Carolina. This is mike in detroit, michigan. Caller this is another beginning with the putintrump collusion narrative with another socalled special counsel. There is no crime to begin with. President trump did not instigate an armed insurrection. This crime did not happen. It was a false narrative. The democrats used it to justify the military occupation of the capitol of the United States under a false narrative. This was an illegal and unconstitutional order. These are the tactics of a police state and they reflect the mentality of the Democratic Party spewing all of their hatred. This is just going nowhere. This is just another tactic. They do not care how much damage they do to our institutions or our nation as long as they can redistribute the wealth and political power to themselves. Host you think this is going nowhere . 78 charges across three cases so far. You think all of those go nowhere . Caller absolutely. They are built on a house of cards. Where is the armed insurrection designed to overthrow the government of the United States of america by President Trump . It does not exist. They could put up as many charges as they want. This is a tactic. This is like the tactic where they hold your political enemies up to the highest standards. If you can get them to bend over backwards, you do that and then you lie, sheet, and steel. Al. These people are corrupt. Host some reaction from the folks who work in that building behind me on capitol hill. Several members of Congress Taking to twitter yesterday, including congresswoman Marjorie Taylor greene saying, this is not just an indictment against President Trump but all of his supporters and the fundamental rights of americans. If an innocent former president can be targeted, no american is truly safe. President trump is just standing in the way. Special counsel jack smith has abused his power, using his office to persecute President Trump and the American People. These actions are undoubtably politically motivated with clear intentions of interfering with the upcoming 2024 election. The republican from kentucky saying, as Governor Desantis has pointed out the attorney general, department of justice both work for the president. They are not, nor have they ever been, an independent branch. Joe biden is criminally charging a political opponent twice. The republican senator saying, evidence of corruption continues to pile up against hunter biden. It appears to implicate President Trump himself. We must put an end to the two systems of justice. The democrat from hawaii saying, there were several republicans who voted no on convicting trump in the senate when he was impeached, asserting that the Justice System was the place to handle potential crimes. Chuck schumer, Senate Majority leader saying the third indictment of donald trump illustrates in shocking detail that the violence of january 6 was the culmination of a month long plot led by the former president to defy democracy and overturn the will of the emyrick and people. One more from hakeem jeffries, the presumption of innocence applies to everyone. So does the principle that no one is above the law. Some reaction for members of congress. This is stephen out of louisville, kentucky. Caller how are you this morning . Im standing here and im listening to all of these people. I have a couple of things to say so i would like to get them out. Bear with me. I am an american first and then i am a democrat. I think a lot of people that are talking seem to forget they want to put party ahead of country. That is unconscionable. Secondly, you know, we are here right now, in this moment, because donald trump valued power over people. If he is so damn innocent, why does he not testify under oath and tell the story to vindicate himself . He is not doing that. I want to be very clear. January 6 was an act of domestic terrorism. Ramaswamey is full of it. We are talking about the maralago documents. If we did that right now, you, i, any of these colors, we would be incarcerated. This man even publicize Barack Obamas address not long ago. He publicize personal things that have no business when it comes to peopless personal lives. That upsets me greatly. I hope everyone of his supporters is listening. You people enabled this mans selfdestruction. You know he is sick in the head. If you love him, why dont you stage a divine intervention. It is a marriage of convenience. You are connected by bigotry. You are putting that ahead of our democratic republic and that is sick. You are as bad as he is and all these people you care about owning the libs. Anybody who owns anybody needs psychiatric care, you really do. Host this is jackie in oklahoma city, independent. Caller good morning. I am an independent and i tried to look at things on both sides. One thing that i think has been overlooked you have got to go by a mans character. Who i feel sorry for and have little compassion for his hunter biden. He has a father that put him in this position. He allowed him to be the front man. He allowed this to happen. If biden had any character, he would step up to the plate and say i made a mistake. Do not hold my son responsible. I trained him throughout my life. He is letting his son sink. Host any thoughts on this indictment yesterday . Caller the indictment, i mean, you know, first of all when they say they caught him on the phone talking, he knows he is being recorded. Let me Say Something about trump. It is not trump that everybody hates or the left hates. Trump opened everybodys eyes. That is what he did and that cannot be taken away. Whether he gets elected were put in jail, no matter what happens, he opened everybodys eyes and that is with the federal government has to watch out for. Host doug in new jersey, republican. Caller just remember the same people these people believe the Jussie Smollett hoax, that look the keystone pipeline. The fact of the matter is the only people that died on january 6 were trump supporters. That is a fact with a capital f. No cops died. There were people instigating, liquids on the videos. Why will they not release the rest of those videos . Kevin mccarthy said he was going to. Now he has not. I never liked Kevin Mccarthy but it seems if you released all the videos, lets see it for ourselves. Lets see how bad the insurrection really was. And this is happening while everybody is ignoring bidens crimes. What is more serious . A riot at the capitol or somebody taking money from the calmness chinese, ukrainians, and russians . 51 intel agents said Hunter Bidens laptop 51 lied. But we are not talking about that. Host the Police Officers who died, you think they would have died had january 6 not happened . There was a lot of focus on that and because it is a horrible thing that happened. Do you think they would not have died . Caller how many committed suicide . It was like two or three of them. Host very high. Caller i find that very odd. And then there are videos of the Police Beating people to death and the protesters are trying to do cpr and they are pepper spray them. But everybody is leaving that out. No cops died that day. Officer sicknick was not hit in the head with a fire extinguisher. That was a lie that the media ran for a month. People believed it. It did not happen. It is unfortunate, but that is not the way he died. Host do you think he would have died had january 6 not happened . Caller i dont know. Apparently he died of a stroke a day or two later which is terrible. It could very well have been the situation but the people that died that day were trump supporters. Host this is michael in albany, new york, democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning. I sort of liken this to the 1948 election of dewey and truman. Everybody went to bed that night thinking truman had lost and do we had won. Dewey had won. The chicago papers said dewey defeats truman, which is what everybody expected. In the morning after they counted all of the votes they found that truman had won and dewey have lost. You relate that to the current election, the past election that has everybody upset. We have to have a more efficient way in todays life to count the votes. Democrats are known for voting early and the republicans are known for voting late. They do not trust writein votes, which i kind of agree with, but it took four days to count the votes. This is why the republicans say it was stolen. They believe it was stolen because the initial report said trump won. Well, when the votes were counted biden won an trump lost. Simple. Math is math. Host what is your confidence in americans ability to accept the results of the 2024 Election Results . Are you concerned . Caller not very good because they did not accept it and they got on the trump bandwagon. They did all these stupid things. Who knows why they did that but if it was not reported trump looked like he was going to win and they got the republicans excited, and then when they found out he did not win, they went berserk, which causes problems. If we had a more efficient way of counting the vote, i think it would have prevented that. Host got your point. 15 minutes left in this segment but we will continue talking about this indictment throughout the program. Hearing viewers on both sides of the political aisle. We also want to show you both sides of the political news media. From the left first, this is huff post. The big indictment of donald trump is finally here. The former president is facing trials for the crimes of the heart of trumpism, that is the headline they went with. Breitbart calling it indictment 3. 0. Trump indicted one day after hunter and joe biden are implicated. We talked about hunter biden and joe biden yesterday and the testimony on capitol hill on monday of the former Business Partner of hunter biden. A week in which the stories have taken up the headlines not just a political media but traditional media. Certainly, on the phone lines as well. The phones are split republicans, democrats, independents. This is paul, a republican in plantation, florida. Caller good morning. I will be quick. Republicans are watching in horror over the police state enforcement. Look at all of these charges popping up all over the place. Republicans are watching in horror but there is another group that is in complete anguish and that is refugees from the former ussr, venezuela, north korea, china, you name it. They see the very same thing happening in this process that happened in their own countries. And with the support of the press. The press is the great enabler of the United States march toward dictatorship. Let me list a couple of things here. Donald trump was kicked off social media in president ial campaign. I cannot believe more is not made of this. A president ial candidate was not allowed to communicate with the American People in a president ial campaign. Harvesting was allowed in this election and there are no state laws that provide for harvesting. Do know where it was used recently . In the ukraine. People were forced to vote their province back into the former soviet union. Host coming back to the social media issue, you are talking about when donald trump was removed from twitter . Caller absolutely. It was almost the only social media mouthpiece in this nation. It is equivalent to kicking off television. Host he was removed from twitter after january 6. Caller during the campaign he was removed from twitter. Host the permanent suspension came after january 6. Caller no, he was kicked off during the campaign. Donald trump had every right to question this list of things. I think michigan and georgia ruled that the signature requirements that were changed during the election were unconstitutional, according to the state constitution. Therefore, donald trump had every reason to question the results of those elections under the constitution. There is no provision for mail in ballots in any states. But mail in ballots were everywhere. There is no provision for absentee ballots but there were mail in ballots. Host this is the blog post from twitter on the permanent suspension of donald trump. Friday, january 8, 2021, after close review of the recent tweets from the donald trump account in the context around the, specifically how they were being received and interpreted, we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence in the context of the horrific events. We made it clear on wednesday additional violations would result in this very course of action. Our Public Interest framework enables the public to hear from World Leaders directly. It is both on the principle that people have the right and power to account in the open. However, these accounts are not above the rules entirely and cannot use twitter to incite violence, among other things. That is the official post on january 8, 2021. Lisa in palmetto, georgia. Caller hello . Host you are on the air. Caller let me just say this right quick. I wish that people would call on the right party phone they vote for. Please stop calling on the democratic phone lines saying that you are independent. Calling on independent phone lines host we trust people do call in on the lines they identify with. But what are your thoughts on what we are talking about today . Caller my thoughts of this, you are showing what happened on january 6. Even though you put this in peopless faces they still repeat the same old talking points they get from fox news and those other right wing, maga news stations. You have it right here. You have what happened. But you can put it in their face. The lady that called in earlier, she described everything to the t. These are donald trump, maga republicans that think like him, act like him, they are him. And there is nothing that no one can say or do they will talk past the truth. They have it in their face. They are still talking past the truth. They will never accept it because they are donald trump. They are the character of donald trump. This is what they wanted to see. What you have shown right here is in their face. It was not a peaceful protest. This is in their face. The january 6 committee, all of the people that came in and testified against donald trump, was not hunter biden. It was not joe biden. These people are republicans that were in donald trump in the circle. I know there is going to be people calling after me that is going to repeat those same fox news talking points. That people that testified during january 6s committee was inside Donald Trumps circle. They were not democrats. They were not hunter biden. They were not joe biden. They were republicans inside Donald Trumps circle. Host that is lisa this morning. When it comes to Donald Trumps circle this indictment notes six unnamed coconspirators. The Washington Post matching the descriptions to name five of them in a story today. The first who is listed identified as rudy giuliani. The indictment says an attorney that would pursue strategies in the 2020 election campaign. Giuliani served as trumps personal attorney and cerato efforts by the trump team to overturn joe bidens 2020 election victory. A former federal prosecutor and new york mayor garnered National Hero after 9 11, giuliani spearheaded bogus legal challenges in key battleground states including michigan and georgia. He continued to do so even as many state and federal officials, including william barr, disputed them. The indictment says that trump turned this coconspirator to kolc false claims to echo false claims as they tried to defeat the 2020 Election Results. This coconspirator acknowledged he had no proof to the claims he was making. We do not have the evidence that we have lots of theories, he told one arizona lawmaker. The story goes on from there to identify various coconspirators listed. John eastman, Sidney Powell also identified as some of those unidentified coconspirators. This is mike in california. Caller how are you doing . Host doing well, sir. Caller one thing i would like to point out i got three things i would like to bring up. The first is the officer that had the stroke could have had the stroke anytime. I had two strokes. I had a major stroke while i was sleeping and i woke up while it was happening. I was not in the riot. Trump is being tried in d. C. By a democrat judge and democrat jury. Donald trump is going to be convicted. There is no other way around this. The third thing i would like to point out is i do not need you or any other person in the media or democrat telling me how i need to vote or who i need to vote for. Host julie in alabama, democrat. Caller what that gentleman said, nobody is telling them how to vote. If trump is so innocent, why dont they let him go to court and prove himself . But every single one of them is saying he is innocent. The same with biden. Once you get the proof that he took this money, fine, impeach the man. It happens. If he did something illegal, we will take care of it. We are not like the republicans. We go by the law. I have not heard one republican calling this morning and say what trump has done for them when he was in office. They say he is going to get back into safe our country. How did he save it for . Not one single republican is saying what he did for them. Even when they are at the rally and on microphones, none of them say it. They dont know what to say, because there is nothing he has done for them. The man is out for himself, only himself. He was out for himself when he was in office. We need to get somebody in there who cares about america. Whether it is republican or democrat. Host thank you, julie. This is mike, republican. Caller good morning. Caller good morning. This is becoming a distraction from the hunter biden thing. Look how much garland and his Justice Department is trying to interfere with irs whistleblowers that sent that letter to that judge to put archer in jail right before he was supposed to give a deposition. This is in washington, d. C. , new york, all of these liberal blue cities. They would indict and arrest a ham sandwich if it was a republican hands sandwich ham sandwich. Any democrat that has half a brain can see what is going on. This Democrat Party now is not like the kennedy Democrat Party. This is not going to do nothing but make trump stronger. It reminds me about biblical times. You know how they persecuted jesus christ. They persecuted him, kill him, and he became stronger. This is definitely turning into a third world Banana Republic country. And if you dont know, trump appointed certain people in, like william barr. Who was appointed the first time . A bush. Thats why say rhinos and democrats dont know what those are these of the republicans who were the go along, get along republicans and they side with democrats all the time, like john mccain. Trump will win 2024. When he was put in the first time, he took advice from career politicians, which probably benefited them. But when he gets back in there again, he will get in an attorney general who will go after blm, the crooked politicians going on, who are covering up for biden and his son. Host that was mike in South Carolina. This is surely. Independent. Go ahead. Caller hi, i vote for whoever i think is going to be the best president. When i dont see either one of them being a good president , i put in whoever i think is going to be the best president. I vote for the best person. Trump, they are saying that the democrats are impeaching him, they are blaming the democrats. They dont realize that what he did was breaking the law. When you break the law i dont care if you are a democrat or a republican you need to serve your consequences. It does not make any difference to me. I did not like trump and i would not vote for trump. Host do you think he broke the law, surely . Caller yes, i do. Host do you think he will serve the consequences . Caller yes. I heard him on tv telling these people to go to the white house. He started this. He made all those people go there and damage that. We had to pay for that. We did not take any money out of his pocket to pay for repairs to that place. We, the taxpayers, had to pay for all of that repair work. And all of these Police Officers that lost their lives, thats important to me. They had no business attacking these Police Officers. They were just doing their job. They should not have died. If they had not been there, they would still probably be alive. Who knows, but they would still be alive. I think this is disgusting, that our america is going to hell. Host shirley in wisconsin, our last caller. We will continue our conversation in the next segment. We will be joined by former assistant u. S. Legal counsel for abc news kimberly whaley. Stick around for that conversation. We will be right back. Live sunday on indepth, bestselling author and historian sc gwynn joins book tv to talk and take calls about nave american history, the civil war, and more. He has published several books, including empire of the site of the summer men. He also wrote about a priest blimp that went up in 1930, killing more people than the hindenburg did seven years later. Join in the conversation with your phone call, facebook conversations, and tax. Indepth with sc gwen. The seasick man the cspan bookshelf allows you to cede nonfiction books in one place, discovering new authors and ideas each week. We are making it convenient for you to listen to multiple episodes with critically acclaimed authors discussing history, biography, current events, and culture. Signature programs about books. Afterwards, book notes plus, and a q a. Listen to the bookshelf podcast today. You can find it and all of our podcasts on the free cspan now mobile video app or wherever you get your podcasts, and our website, cspan. Org podcasts. Listening to programs on cspan through cspan radio just got easier. Tell your smart speaker, play cspan radio, and listen to washington journal daily. Weekdays at 5 p. M. And 9 p. M. Eastern, catch washington today for a fastpaced report of the stories of the day. Listen to cspan anytime. Just tell your smart speaker, play cspan radio. Cspan, powered by cable. Washington journal continues. Host we are joined now by Kimberly Whele, a legal contributor for abc news, and a law professor. You have gone through this 45 page indictment now. What is your top line take away so far . Guest how much of it is very into with the january 6 committee careful work over many months. We saw the various Public Programs outlining the massive amount of evidence that the january 6 committee developed. Also, they had to report, of course. And we are seeing a Second Branch of government work in tandem with the United States congress to bring some accountability to the white house, frankly. I wrote a piece a while back in Politico Magazine shortly after january 6, in which i did a thought experiment with my students. We went through the various guardrails around the presidency, to make sure president s dont cross boundaries. Effectively, the only thing that was left was a criminal indictment. I see this as an important step in protecting how our democracy states accountable to the people. And too much power does not get out of hand in a way that could destroy the republic moving forward. I think it is a really important step for the constitution. I know it will be very politically debatable and incendiary for some people. Host is there anything to take from the number of charges here . We are talking about four charges in this indictment. That compares to well over 30 charges with the document case run out of the special counsel office. Guest the team in this case, did not follow directly what the congress recommended in charges. The congress had recommended an insurrection charg witness tampering. Thats not in there there are three conspiracy charges and one other. They basically orchestrated this scheme to take the election from the voters, and ultimately to do it illegally and even by force. What happened down in maralago , they need to identify all the various classified documents. I think they cherry picked. They of course did not go through all of them, but they specified documents that violated the espionage act. There are two codefendants down there. Here, it is a much larger story about what happened before, during, and after january 6, and why it is a problem. Where is the case down in florida is more straightforward as in, here are the documents, the videotapes, other evidence that demonstrated it should not be there, he tried to hide it, etc. Two different prosecutions. Host you mentioned the codefendants in the florida case. In this case being tried in d. C. , there are six unnamed coconspirators. Do you think those folks eventually become codefendants here . Guest its possible. We saw one superseding order in florida that added a codefendant. It could be that they are just named for purposes of developing the conspiracy charges against a single named defendant. There is some debate in the criminal Law Community as to whether naming coconspirators without actually charging them is fair, but it is legal. We will have to see whether some of these folks actually end up themselves within the colonel Justice System. There is certainly an argument that being named, and its not that difficult to connect the dots given the information out there about january 6, as to who these people might be. It is a taint on the reputation, even if they are not actually indicted and prosecuted. Host lets talk venue and judge compared to the florida case. This is going to be prosecuted in the u. S. District court. It is judge tonya chutkin. What does it mean for the office trying this, just blocks from the u. S. Capitol . Guest it is a constitutional guarantee. The government needs to bring cases in the part of the country where the acts giving rise to the crimes occurred. That is why maralago is in florida. The capitol here is an washington, d. C. This judge has experience as a criminal defense lawyer in private practice. That might be a good thing for the former president , in terms of her being presumably very careful about protecting constitutional rights, though i think any federal judge would do that. The judge is not going to be as protrump, whereas judge cannon in florida has set the trial numbers, in terms of motors, from which they will pull the jury pool that very solidly voted for trump in the last election. It is a benefit to the president. In order to get a conviction in both of these cases, there needs to be a unanimous jury. If one juror decides they are loyal to the president no matter what, that would be a hung jury. He would not be convicted. The government could certainly do it a second time. I think that given the stakes, i would be astonished if there was not a victory for the government and one of these cases would try to go at it a second time. I think the d. C. Jury is more democratically leaning and it will be a steeper incline for the defense, in terms of persuading enough jurors to hang the jury or to acquit, which would be the best thing for donald trump. That means everybody votes that they do not have enough evidence to convict without a doubt. Host this case being bumped, could it happen concurrently . Guest its hard to know how many lawyers are on his various teams. I dont think it is the same team, because these are complex cases, thousands of document and witnesses, particularly in the january 6 case. The same group of lawyers would not be able to manage both cases at the same time. I dont think it will be a resources problem for the government. There is no requirement that cases run concurrently. That being said, the judges are sensitive to the defendants needs, the defense teams needs, and the other judges calendars. I think it would probably not be feasible to assume that the judges would have backtoback trials going on. They cannot be at the same time because donald trump cannot be in two states at the same time. I suspect that one will come after the other. At this point, the florida one is in may. I think in both cases, we are probably going to see Donald Trumps lawyers filed motions challenging various legal issues. Those alone can justify delays and trial dates. Host lastly, and we have plenty of callers lined up to chat with you, but the former president expected in d. C. Tomorrow to respond to his indictment. Just remind us what happens when he appears in court tomorrow. Guest as we have seen the last two times, there will be the official process of arresting him and booking him. This will all be done with Great Respect and kid gloves, like it should be, because he is a former president. Then, he will enter a plea of, presumably, not guilty before the trial court. Host and that is, again, expected tomorrow here in washington, d. C. If you would like to talk to Kimberly Whele this morning, lives are open to do so. 202 7488001 for republicans, 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488002 for independents. We always appreciate having you on this program. Lisa is up first in new bedford, massachusetts, democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning. I want to thank you and i want to thank cspan. On january 6, i was home. Ahead of time, i knew trump was going to have this rally. I knew ahead of time. The republicans keep saying that the democrats are weaponizing the doj and all of these departments, but the truth is, they are doing it. They are weaponizing it. Ahead of the election, trump said that if he did not win, it was going to be wrong and should be thrown out. He had every right to go to court and make all those claims, and when the court found nothing and he was wrong, he was wrong. He set it up on january 6. It was his fault that the capitol and being the president , he should have been the one to call the end. Host you bring up the idea of the weaponization of the doj. Kimberly whele, on claims about that, especially in the wake of these two federal indictments and what the coming going forward. Guest well, a number of things. First, i want to emphasize that just as suggested yesterday in the press conference, read the indictment yourself. I cannot emphasize that enough. Dont listen to me, dont listen to other pendants. Read the indictment yourself. Its all available online. And decide, if the government can prove this stuff, is it a problem . I think what the indictment does is lay the story out. It is all most like a play in four acts. Act i, donald trump tried to get street legislators to cancel votes and switch votes. When they would not do that, he allegedly organized seven states to submit full selectors. When i did not work, he tried to pressure mike pence, calling him on christmas and new years. Mike pence, allegedly i the indictment, calling him too honest. And that did not work, he roused up the crowd and called members of congress. The indictment alleges that as part of that, he tried to use the department of justice and the massive power, the investigate of power. He tried to use the department of justice to push this notion that the election was fraudulent. So, we have already seen the politicization of the Justice Department and that is really dangerous. Donald Trumps Campaign has made clear that if theres a second term, that would be even more extreme. He would make sure that there are loyalists throughout the government that would not necessarily listen to the people, but to him. That is a very different kind of government. Maybe we should have that debate. But nobody should pretend that is democracy. Host you talk about how this indictment is laid out, sort of a play in four acts, as you describe it. Is it an unusual way of laying out and indictment . You have seen many of these. His presenting it as this story, is that unusual . Guest no, not for something this import. Some will call it a speaking indictment. The charges need to be laid out and away that the defendant can notice. The document has to do enough so that the defendant knows what he or she allegedly did wrong and is able to present and put together a defense to the charges. It does not have to be chapter and verse. Here, i think, jack smith is laying out a narrative. He did it with the last indictment as well. This is a charging document. It is the governments obligation beyond a reasonable doubt to prove all of this stuff by facts court to pass the rules of evidence. Ask yourself, if they can do that, is this story something that is a problem for democracy, for my kids and grandchildren . That is what the point of this is p at it as a criminal case, but there are massive, massive historical and constitutional implications to this. Host wayne in South Carolina, line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you doing . Host im doing well, sir. You are on with Kimberly Whele. Caller i will make mine short. Trump will be our next president in 2024. The democrats are too crooked. They should go arrest joe biden and hunter biden this morning. Donald trump will be our president. Mark that down. Host what about how the special counsel asked americans to read this indictment . It is a 45 and paid a 45 page indictment. Its not too long. Many of them are longer. Have you read it . Caller i have read most of it, not all of it. Its just to mess with the 2024 election. Why dont they go to hunter biden and the rest of the democrats . The American People will see this will make the republicans stronger, make trump stronger, make the Republican Party stronger. I think we will get some independents and democrats. Host kimberly, anything you want to pick up on you . Pick up on . Guest i think wayne is right in terms of the numbers. The numbers for donald trump are very, very strong. What i tell my students or others that are thinking about this, part of the disconnect that happened ive been in politics, and with all due respect to wayne, we have a certain set of criteria and a value system in our families, with our ends, with our colleagues, doctors, religious leaders. But when it comes to politicians, i think we assume that it is ok to be crossing certain boundaries. In this instance, one thing the indictment does is it lays out what a transfer that shape peaceful transfer of power looks like. There is an act from 1887. The states listen to the voters. Based on the votes, they decide state by state, based on popular vote, who gets the Electoral College votes. Then, the state of electors meet. They transfer those numbers to congress and congress councils numbers. Donald trump tried to stop, thwart, and distort that system. That is foundational to the freedoms democracy gives to all of us. Theres no evidence that any other politician in the history of the United States, including joe biden, has come close to trying to do something that serious as much as i understand that we are in a place where we have got politics, red versus blue, this is very, very serious stuff. As i said earlier, you have to ask yourself, are we comfortable with the government where our leaders are chosen or installed by force, through illegality, versus by respecting the will of the voters . That is the question to ask yourself. Maybe the answer for some people is yes, i won that government. We should have that honest conversation. Host wisconsin, rich, good morning. Caller im so glad she just went there. Did you forget that when President Trump was elected that there was a riot in d. C. . They had politicians from both sides and hollywood put out videos saying that electors did not have to honor the votes. They could vote their conscience and install Hillary Clinton into office. He had obama use the Intelligence Community to spy on President Trumps campaign, and then to set him up for russian collusion, which never happened. We spent four years and millions of dollars in taxpayer money running down rabbit holes that they knew were false. They impeached donald trump for calling zelinski and asking him to enforce a treaty we had that bill clinton signed with ukraine that we would Work Together to root out corruption. We have archer telling us that hunter bought burner phones before the meetings. Its a joke. The peaceful transfer of power, we did not have one in 2017. Im sorry, it went out the window. The constitution went out the window when you impeached twice with no crimes or misdemeanors. He won. Host kimberly . Guest theres a lot there. I know people have frustration with some of the things that other president s have done i cannot condone all the behavior. He was not convicted by the senate in either of his impeachments. We can talk about those things. But the collusion, to use bill barrs word, the communication with russians in the lead up to the 2016 election on behalf of donald trump and his campaign, its established in a report. I am a lawyer, i am a law professor. I adhere to verifiable facts. That means testimony under oath, videotapes, audiotapes, documentary evidence it has to be used in a way that is consistent with various rules that bind courts. That is really different from politics. In this particular instance, i think the question moving forward is, can government meet its very High Standard of proof . Proof beyond reasonable doubt of the charges in this indictment. It is an argument that other politicians should be indicted. Donald trump had that authority through his department of justice and we saw what we saw. That is not change the fact of this particular indictment and the facts in this particular indictment. The what aboutism does not change things and people . Ask themselves, is this the type of government we want moving forward . Host what are your thoughts about the third paragraph of the indictment, or the special counsel notes very high up in this indictment that donald trump had a right to challenge the 2020 Election Results, make a point of that . The defendant had a right, like every american, to speak publicly about the election, and even to claim falsely that there had been outcome determination fraud during the election and that he had won. He was also entitled to formally challenge this by seeking recounts or audits, or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the defendant did pursue these methods. However, his efforts were uniformly unsuccessful. Shortly after election day, the defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the Election Results, and that is where these four charges come from. Guest yeah, he notes theres a section in the indictment that starts at page six, so if anyone is going to read any part of the indictment,there is a section ts about Donald Trumps knowledge, and it is the most critical part of the indictment because it gets to his estate of mine. State of mind. He filed a lawsuit and lost all of them except for a tiny one in pennsylvania. Why . There was no law or evidence backing his claims. It goes on to talk about the falsehoods that he stated, that he made, that there were 10,000 dead voters in georgia, 205,000 more voters in pennsylvania. A suspicious about in michigan. Tens of thousands of double votes in nevada. None those things were true. It also says he knew all along that he lost the election. How . The grand jury has heard from hundreds of witnesses, including a Vice President pence and a senior doj officials, the director of national intelligence, senior officials, separate security experts, Donald Trumps on senior white house counsel, his Senior Campaign staffers, republican state legislatures and officials, and multiple courts of law, including judges appointed by donald trump all these people, all of these people that signed up to serve him in office and be loyal to him at one point had to speak the truth, and the truth was consistent commute loss to the election. Nonetheless, he manufactured awful incendiary lies. That year rep did in january 6 and people lost their lives and were permanently physically damaged, law officers. Nothing is in here about that. There is nothing related to his speech. The narrow indictment that really designed to put the guard rails back around the transfer of power for the president ial election and to call him out on these lies, which have caused so much damage to the country. Host karen is in pennsylvania, a democrat. Caller good morning. Im concerned about the charges. I read in the constitution that if you are found guilty of insurrection, the charges that concerns me because if he is not put in jail, is he still able to run for president . Guest the answer is yes. You know, the politics of this and at the case law and cases are on two separate tracks when it comes to the constitution. What has happened in these criminal cases, that outcome of these cases, if convicted, has no impact whatsoever legally on his ability to run for president , and even to serve as president. He could be convicted, sentenced to prison, which is not off of the table. It is becoming increasingly feasible. And he could be president , even if imprisoned. Now that is because the constitution only sets forth narrow criteria for president. You have to be over 35 and a natural born citizen. Beyond that, it is up to the voters. So, there is a provision that the caller has noted, the postcivil war provision that says if you engage in an insurrection you cannot hold office, but there is no conviction for insurrection or a charge for it, so it will not function here to keep him off the ballot. The only thing that will keep donald trump off the ballot is voters to say i do not want somebody willing to do this to have the highest power of office. Or it could be i do not want to the chaos anymore. I want to move on on issues that matter and not have it all be about Donald Trumps defense team and losing his using Campaign Dollars to pay his lawyers, which is happening right now. At that is an individual decision by voters, which is why everybody should read the indictment and decide if this matters or the abode you are casting, not just for yourself but for those in your family, who are you too young to vote. Host a note on his pain a know on him paying his lawyers. 90 of the state of America Political action committee, 90 of the expenses this year are more than 20 million accounting for legal costs, according to a law street wall street journal analysis. The headline is donald trump leads rebels, it is a legal bid draining his fund. A caller from michigan. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have a question for you. Is there any way that we can stop this madness that the democrats have created . I mean, from day one when that man came down the escalator they have been after him. One indictment after another after another. And you have four indictments now. This is very costly to the taxpayers. I know that he did things that were not common or done before. But i really think that he really tried to change things and change things for the better. And he has just been just things have gone the wrong way. Yet, the democrats are not accountable for what they are doing. And i wonder how the government can get so far away from the truth of things. Host Kimberly Wehle . Guest i see it differently. I see that we are where we are because donald trump took actions that he did not need to take that have thrown the country into chaos, and that probably violated the law in serious ways, including for example taking classified information and putting it in a place where thousands of people had access to it, threatening the National Security of the country in reckless ways. Not except in the states the voters, the American People, your friend, neighbors and Church Leaders cast their votes. The Electoral College was set on those votes and he said i want to still be president so i will take steps to thwart that so i can be president. I agree with catherine that it is very expensive and exhausting. The whole process is tearing the country apart. I have children and it is heartbreaking for the country. We are at a perilous point. But it is not the democrats that put us here. Like we have a lot of people in the criminal Justice System across the country, we have people who have crossed the border illegally, many of them legally, and americans say, maybe you lost your child but you should not have crossed the border, for example. The worst thing or worse than going to prison people prison. Donald trump blew through red lights and there should be consequences. It is very sad we are here but donald trump is the person who put us here. And one way to move on would be to just move on politically and get a different person because there will just be more chaos if we have four more years of donald trump. Host henry in michigan on the line for democrats. Caller i am quite sure that if the germans, the french, the italians and japanese had been able to foresee the carnage, the horror, that their choices in 1933 of choosing hitler, choosing mussolini, choosing hero heat though hirohito, and choosing the french government if they knew the horrors those choices would cause the world, they would have done everything they could to dismantle that monstrosity. The election of 2024, america is faced with our 1933 moment. And i thank god we have joe biden and Kamala Harris as an alternative choice. And we can save ourselves if we ignore these fake polls and choose correctly in 2024. John, i would appreciate if you could use your tab and bring up the reports that are now surfacing about trumps dealings with saudi arabia. His real estate dealings. Live gol liv golf. If you could bring up the number of trump insiders who prosecuted wer prosecuted and alle of the corruption in the trump administration. And then do the same. Joe bidens administration. Show me where he has been indicted for anything. Where he has been found to be corrupt for anything that is factual. Wheres inner circle has been convicted of any crimes. If you could do that and clarify for the American People, especially the republicans, who seemed to be in an alternative universe. Host do you think that there are more indictments coming . Caller absolutely. I think that the reason why these coconspirators were not named is because mr. Smith would like to expedite this trial and get donald trump adjudicated. Because he can get the rest of them later on. Yes, i really do believe theres more uh, indictments to come. And i believe the American People, the vast majority of americans, are paying attention. They need to start paying attention and get out to the polls. And we need to get rid of this republican cult. Host that is henry in michigan. Kimberly wehle on the legal strategy that the caller was describing. Does that seem something that jack smith is doing . Guest it is hard to say whether he will followup with indictments of coconspirators, but i think it is a more straightforward case to just name donald trump and not multiple defendants. That would have delayed it beyond the election. That is a really important number or date for donald trump, because if he is elected president again, then he could drop the charges. He cannot do anything about it with that manhattan d. A. Or if an indictment comes out of the georgia case, but he can basically whisk them away if he is elected president. The caller made a good point, and i am not a historian, but about the 1940s and hitler and what happened in europe. And i think it is important for people, when you hear about democracy, the topdown versus the bottom up government. We have a bottom up government where the people decide. And all of the power for the higher ups is accountable to the people. They do not have inherent power. The kings perilous inherent, it was from god. So they could do whatever they wanted. Thats the kind of government that would take an election away from the voters. That is what donald trump allegedly attempted to do. And on january 6 and before hand. That is the kind of government, donald trump is the boss and what he says goes. If you are in his good graces, that is great for you, but it is arbitrary. That is why it is so serious. Arbitrary power is an a boost of Power Committee does not matter who. So the case is about the guard rails around democracy. Joe biden is not abusing the office right now, but it could be a democrat down the road if you do not protect the office and make the office accountable. You have to hope there is somebody who will go there that will exercise judgment and act with integrity. It is a scary thought. There needs to be consequences. Host a few minutes left with Kimberly Wehle, having this conversation in the day after the second federal indictment out of jack smiths office. The indictment for criminal charges. We have talked about them already, but i want to focus on the last charge, the conspiracy against the right to vote and to have ones vote counted. It is in reference to an 1870 Law Enforcement act. The story on that particular indictment from the Washington Post, a law comes into play in the trump indictment. Can you talk as through the history of that . Guest the idea is if you think about Police Officers that bully and violate individual rights at the time. At the time it was formerly enslaved people of color. The law says it can be a crime to infringe on somebodys constitutional rights, like the Fourth Amendment right against seizure of your body. You have a right to the integrity of your body, so the police cannot beat you up, consistent with the constitution. This statute has been used since then, and has been condoned by the preme court to be used when there is an attempt to take a different constitutional right, and that is your right to vote. Here the prosecutors are claiming donald trump, through the six enablers named, tried to injure or intimidate people on their free exercise of their right to vote by essentially trying to cancel votes, to switch outcomes, to lie about false votes in order to basically change the outcome of an election from the legal outcome to an illegal one that favored him. Host a caller from ashburn, virginia. Good morning. Caller good morning. I just have a comment to make. And i will try to make it brief. I legally immigrated from a third world country, where we were under a dictatorship. And my first cousin was part of that apparatus in that country, then we had a revolution. I suppose you both will know it. And when we were able to throw that dictator out, my brothers and i were part of the private Citizens Group that reported movements of troops in the military. To make this story short, i am concerned by what i am seeing in the United States right now. I legally immigrated here thinking law and order will be the main theme, right . For me experiencing a dictatorship. But i am seeing now a similarity between the dictatorship with the belgians and Justice Department being weaponized. Thats all. Host anything to add . Guest living here in washington, i have the opportunity to meet people like louis who immigrated here from dictatorships, and think we need to listen to their Life Experiences because americans cannot imagine what that is like. And cannot imagine it could ever happen here. It is important to hear that Life Experience when uss for yourself how serious we are in terms of the threats to american democracy. Host willie in katy, texas. A republican, good morning. Caller good morning. Great you have had Kimberly Wehle on prayer the one millionth time. Now you can put on mike davis or maranda devine. Someone who can counteract what she is saying. I spoke to you about two or three years ago, Kimberly Wehle, and i read your book by the way. And, uh, i kind of highlighted all the stuff i thought was wrong in it. The book is a little heavier now. You said jack smith is laying out a narrative. And i think that he is laying out a false narrative because theres my question is the person who has freespeech rights, and the answer is yes. All the folks that another caller talked us through that tried to dispute in the chamber the 2016 election, they werent no one said that they were forming an insurrection. The bottom line is a few years ago, i asked you about the Clinton Campaign an the fbi. Concerns with russian collusion. You called it a conspiracy theory. Well, you are going to find wha t going ons trump is that times three. Guest thank you for reading my book. It is nice to talk to you again. This is not based on speech. I think that there would be First Amendment questions if Donald Trumps speech at the capitol, inciting people to march, if it had been a basis for a charger that would have been an issue. There are other claims here that are First Amendment problems and im sure his lawyers will break them and the judges will rule on them. I, as a lawyer, are comfortable with these things being hashed out because of rules of evidence and other procedural rules applied to make sure that the facts that go to a jury are accurate and the system is fair. We will see how it plays out now that it is in this arena with guard rails established to protect mr. Trumps rights. Host the viewer mentioned your book. Your latest book is how the pardon of power works and why. White is now the time to remind america about how the pardon works . Guest it will be out next summer. The question it addresses is the broad scope of president s and governors power to parting crimes. Theres winners and losers. It is a relic of a monarchy. I think that there is a question as to whether donald trump might have pardoned himself, might have had a prophylactic pardon, knowing that there would be investigations ongoing. And if that emerges at the federal level for these charges, i think the book will be highly relevant in ssa and whether that actually carries legal weight or not. A question i ensure would go to the Supreme Court. Host a pardon he tucked in his pocket for himself . Guest what one of my friends called a pocket pardon. Prophylactic, because you can pardon yourself not yourself, that is unclear if a president can do that, but a president can pardon actions for crimes that have yet to be charged. That happened with Richard Nixon. Nothing was charged, but president johnson pardoned him for crimes relating to the behavior that took place while he was in office. So, in theory, donald trump could have drafted a document that said i hereby a myself for any crimes that arise out of actions i took as president. I do not know if it is there, that is speculation. But he is a smart guy. And it would not surprise me because it has not been tested. There is no law or Supreme Court decision that says that pardon would not work, that it would be ineffective. One thing donald trump has done for us is he has made us challenge the boundaries of democracy and boundaries of the law. He keeps pushing us in these places and testing. That could be a good thing, the stress test, but i agree that the jury is out on whether he will survive this one or not. Host what is the process of a pardon . Can you have unannounced pardons . Do they have to be posted somewhere, like the federal register, to then be established and be legal . Guest there is not a lot of caselaw on that but there is caselaw suggesting it needs to be public. That it needs to be made public. But the pardon power is very terse in the constitution itself, but the Supreme Court has indicated if it is not made public it is ineffective. And there is just a basic argument, too, that you could pardon yourself because its a conflict of interest and the idea behind the separation of powers, the idea of having a separate congress and presidency is theres no power concentrated in one place. If a president can pardon himself, it means he could commit any crime he wanted and it say it does not matter. That is inconsistent theoretically with a republic or democracy, where the power does not come from god, it is not handed down from a divine force the power comes from the people. The only way for it to work is to have checks and and balances and accountability if you abuse power. If you could just pardon yourself, there are no checks and balances. Its a bad argument that the pocket pardon would work. But we might see that. I think it is a possibility in my book talks about that, going right back to the bible, to jesus. And, you know, even before that. Hopefully it will be an interesting read for folks. Host it will be out next summer. A a few minutes left with Kimberly Wehle. A couple more calls before you run. This is connie in california, and independent. Caller good morning. I have a question. When ok, nancy pelosi, waters, Chuck Schumer whatever they are when riots were going on in different states, people were killed, property destroyed, and all that. Rioters were jailed, but the democrats put bails up for them. Do you recall if any of those waters and shive, do you recall ever having them saying people, stop this, this is not american. I love my america. And i did not hear any of them go out and protest order tell the people to stop rioting and come to their senses, no. But when it came to the capitol, and it was their lives that were in jeopardy, and they were all afraid, ok . But they did not think of the People Killed or the property destroyed. They did not come and interfere with that. Even alc, whatever her initials are. I did not hear any of them go out and tell the people they should stop doing that. Host Kimberly Wehle . Guest a couple things. There is a difference between property and human beings. On january 6, it was about people. There were deaths and donald trump had control of the crowd. The indictment talks about how he waited hours before he called off the crowd. He had the power to do that and he didnt. I think the story is not the riot. That is not with the indictment is about. It is about the stepbystep, multistage planning and attempt to take an election from the people for donald trump to med that he did not legitimately win. It was not his. Thats the story, not the rioting. The indictment is not about the rioting. It is about a plan, and it details a stepbystep the people involved over many months, starting in november and going past january. When one thing did not work, he tried it Something Else to take power for himself. That is the story, not the rioting. Yes, nancy pelosi and others were fearing for their lives, another reason why people should take the indictment so seriously. Host sandra, a democrat, good morning. Caller no morning. This good morning. This indictment is so important to our democracy. The problem is the people of the United States are so confused, for whatever reason. Dont you think that there should be a televised event, so everybody can watch, with transparency, what happens in court. And the rule of the law that is set by our government, by the people, to show that no person is above the law. Guest i do think it should be televised. It would be highly unusual, the federal court would have to make the decision. I think it is unlikely because it would start a process of televising federal trials, but it is a possibility. I think that one of the reasons why we are here has nothing to do with even that facts of the case, donald trump its the fact that online, on social media, theres so many lies and misinformation and it is there on purpose to distort thinking. It did not occur in the 1970s when Richard Nixon was potentially impeached. Thats why we are in such a pickle right now. It is hard to even believe facts that are verifiable and would be accepted under the rules of evidence, because people are hearing things that sounded true but are so untrue. I want to get back to reading the indictment, Everybody Needs to have information hygiene so go to the original sources. Many of us are being lied to and manipulated by via information. That is why we are having debates bad information. At that is why we are having debates that we are having. I think that these are provable facts. You can say i do not care, that is find my but these are provable facts. That is the debate we should have, what to do about the facts, not whether they exist. It has to do with our social media culture. And our brains are not prepared to handle that. Host if you are looking for a place to redo the indictment, we will show it to you here on the screen, but you can also go to cspan. Org to find a link to the indictment if you want to read it yourself. Many news organizations are doing it, so it is available for anyone to read. The special counsel has encouraged americans to read it in a fairly brief News Conference yesterday, announcing the latest indictment. One for two more calls. Andy in kentucky, a republican. Caller good morning. What was President Trumps number as president . Was it 45 . This is a joke. I cannot listen to you people. This lady is a total communist. Host do you have a question for the guest . Caller well, why does she hate our country . Host all right. Unless you want to reply we will go to ted in boston. An independent. Caller oh boy. Ok, i really appreciate the last hour with the guys, you have done a service for the country and you should be proud and i am thankful for it. This whole thing, i am glad we started talking about hitler, because it reminds me how easy it is for dictators to gain control. For dictators taking control. What it mustve been like in the 1940s where people were essentially rain washed like the republicans are today. I dont know what we do about it. What is your advice to do about it . These republicans seem to be in a bubble. They are incredibly gullible. They are fed a news source that is all segregated from the rest of reality. They are in another universe. This is getting serious. I think the quality of cspan has declined because of their participation in these discussions and social media. The guest did a good job of tying together the effects of social media, religion, and these republicans sheltered worldview and lives. Host let me give Kimberly Wehle the final minute here. Guest this is a response to both of the last comment. I think we are all people, we are human and we have a value system. We know how to live our lives with integrity. Calling people names and going to black and white thinking and pointing fingers and othering and undermining peoples humanity will not bring anyone together. I would say sit down and identify what makes you a good person or what parts of yourself are you proud of. That is how you should live every day of your life, including when we come around these discussions around politics. Maybe then we can see through all the lies to some degree towards this common light that i think we all do have as americans and as people. It is something around kindness and truth. It does exist we will not get there by attacking each other. Host Kimberly Wehle is the university of baltimore law professor, legal contributor to abc news. A guest on this program on occasion. Thank you for stopping by. Guest things are having me today. Host up next, more of your phone calls reacting to yesterdays news. The indictment, the four indictments released by jack smith. You castart calling and now. We will get to your calls after the break. In 1848, william and ellen craft embarked on self emancipation. A wealthy disabled white men with a servant, they left georgia before slave traders, Law Enforcement and even friends, all while trying to conceive their identities. The author of master, slave, husband, wife recounts their journey north and the fugitive slave law passed two years later. You can listen to q a and all of our podcasts on our free cspan now app. A healthy democracy does not just look like this. It looks like this. Where americans can see democracy at work. Where citizens our public drives. 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Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. If you ever miss any of cspans coverage you can find it anytime online at cspan. Org. Videos are key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. These points of interest markers appear on the righthand side of your screen when you hit play on selected videos. This timeline makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. Scroll through and spend a few minutes on cspans points of interest. Cspanshop. Org is cspans online store. Browse our collection of cspan products, apparel, books, home to core, and accessories. There is something for every cspan fan. Every purchase help support our nonprofit operation. Shop now or anytime at cspanshop. Org. Washington journal continues. Host our program ends at 10 00 a. M. Eastern this morning. Until then your calls as we continue to talk about this second federal indictment of former President Donald Trump. Stemming from the president s actions after the 2020 election leading up to january 6. It is the lead story in newspapers around the country today, as you might expect. Here are a few of the papers from perhaps your city. This is the atlanta journalconstitution. Trump faces for felony counts. Four felony counts. Trump charged in new indictment. More headlines this morning from around the country. The chicago suntimes. The doj trump trying to this is from the star advertiser out of hawaii. Indicted again. A second set of federal indictments for the former president. The first being the documents case in florida. The Arizona Republic playing prominently in this indictment. Capital charges is the headline there. A few of the newspapers. We will show you reaction from around the country from members of congress and from of those on the 24 campaign trail. They mostly want to hear from you. Republicans, 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, its 202 7488002. This is julie in the bronx, a democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning and thank you for taking my call. I want to say thank you for cspan. I would like to say it pays to travel. It pays to listen to cspan. To listen to how these republicans think is unbelievable. Just like they say, read the indictment. Read it. If you cant read it, get your child to read it to you. Maybe they can understand it from a childs point of view. It is totally ridiculous. They keep bringing up hunter biden, president. Forget about it. That is all they have. They have nothing else. Read the indictment for yourselves. Anybody in there is a republican. It is a republican the one thats indicting him. Is a it is the republicans clark interviewed. Get it together, republicans. Stop being brainwashed. Thank you, cspan, for letting me vent. It is ridiculous was to host that is julie in new york on reading the indictment. That is what jack smith encouraged americans to do it a brief press conference yesterday announcing these latest charges. We will play that for you in its entirety. [video] today and that meant was unsealed charging donald j. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The indictment was issued by a grand jury of citizens here in the district of columbia, and it sets forth the crimes charged in detail. I encourage everyone to read it in full. The attack on our nations capitol on january 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of american democracy. It is described in the indictment. It was fueled by lies. Lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing the bedrock function of the u. S. Government, the nations process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the president ial election. The men and women of Law Enforcement who defended the u. S. Capitol on january 6 are heroes. They are patriots and the other very best of us. And they are the very best of us. They did not just defend a building and the people sheltering in it. They put their lives in the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people. They defended the very institutions and principles that define the United States. Since the attack on our capitol, the department of justice remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. This case is brought consistent with that commitment. Our investigation of other individuals continues. In this case my office will seek a speedy trial that are evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens. In the meantime, i must emphasize the indictment is only an allegation and the defendant must be presumed innocent until Proven Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. I would like to thank the members of the federal bureau of investigation who are working on this investigation with my office, as well as the many career prosecutors and Law Enforcement agents from around the country who have worked on previous january 6 investigations. These women and men are Public Servants in the very highest order and it is a privilege to work alongside them. Thank you. Host special counsel jack smith. That was yesterday here in washington, d. C. The charges ilude three conspiracy charges and one charge of obstruction and attempt to instruct an official proceeding obstruct an official proceeding. The charges include the nspiracy against the right to vote and to have ones vote counted. As the Washington Post notes, a statute going back to the 1870s and a law for prosecuting numbers of the kkk, a law being applied in this case. Conspiracy against the right to vote. Special counsel jack smith pointed to that is donald trump attempting to stop americans votes being counted as he created this conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. All of that in this 45page indictment. You can read it for yourself. Most news organizations have it on the front page. You can go to cspan. Org and find it there. We would love for you to read it and give us a call and tell us what you think. 202 7488001 for republicans. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, 202 7488002. This is gary from austin, texas. You are next. Caller hello. Gary in austin, texas. Hard to get through but i finally did. You mentioned some newspaper headlines. They dont deliver the newspaper here in austin anymore. Pretty big city too, but you have to go on the internet or something. I wanted to talk. I had a question for your previous guest but i could not get through. My question i will try to keep it short. Maybe you can comment on this. Where to begin balanced news . Pbs is great. Your show is great. The last segment was not balanced. I do provide other guests from both sides, but i would hope i wish there was one place where you can just listen to both sides. Not be antedated by one person for an hour, but you always get a balanced view. If you look at the media and hollywood and tv and the cable and everything, where do you get both sides . Host you mentioned not being able to get the newspaper. Isnt there the Austin American statement in austin, texas . Caller they dont deliver. It is all internet now. And it is liberal. Forget about that. You where you get balanced news . That gal works for abc. Host a legal contributor for abc. Caller abc. Very balanced. What happened to Walter Cronkite . He just told the news. They dont do that. You have fox. I dont even listen to fox anymore because i know they are just battling to stay alive. I flipped one station to msnbc and it is 99 antitrump. Go to fox, 1990 99 antibiden. Watch any latenight tv show. Go to the movies. Watch netflix. Everyone has an agenda. Everything. Hollywood. I want to ask that girl has she seen the sound of freedom . What did she think of that . That would be a big, big question to answer. Has she ever been to a small town other than baltimore and try her philosophy in a small town . Thank you very much. Host this is george, louisville, kentucky. Caller thank you john. To answer the last persons question, weve allowed the free press, which is supposed to have a good role in the function of the democratic republic. It has been captured by for profit markets. Whatever will make it more profit. Other than that, what they need to do is connect the nonviolent plan and the violent plan that has several components in place. Donald trump knew the oath keepers and proud boys were all planning all the communication was that they were planning on being violent. If all the other components of overthrowing the election, seizing voting machines, the fake collectors, if all of that did not work that they were going to plan there were a lot of weapons that were confiscated on january 6. Let me close on this note. Russia was very much involved. The Internet Research agency. Russia was very much involved in the 2016 election, and donald trump did show a classified information to people who were not authorized. Hes committed crime after crime after crime. He would never have been vetted as a president ial candidate because of his financial dealings overseas. These things would never have passed security clearance. He should never have been president to begin with. They need to connect the nonviolent with the violent plan. That is how they can acquire conviction. Thank you very much. Host harvey is next from nashville, tennessee. Independent. Caller good morning, john. Wow. Im here. Where to start . As far as the news, you should not watch anything except for cspan for one thing. Turn the tv off. Turn the radio off. Read your history books. Go to your gut and your soul to figure out what is going on, because and also look up gas lighting in the dictionary. Im very concerned. Im incredibly concerned. I have one shred of hope and this is the little shred of hope i want to share with everybody. This is america. The United States of america. We have a whole young population of very intelligent young people who are studying right now how our government works. They will not be gas lit. They will vote. They will exercise their right to vote. No one will take that away from us ever. The facts are the facts. When people stop living stop watching and going on the internet, none of that, none of that is going to help you. Read a history book. Find out how our government works. This will all make sense to you. When he is thrown in jail for their crimes he has committed they dont even think hes committed any crimes. It is unbelievable, but there is hope. The young people are going to save us. I really have faith in them. I am getting out and im registering kids in high schools that are going to turn 18 so that they can get out and vote and help us. Host when it comes to the charges that the former president is facing it is now up to 78 charges between the federal indictments and state indictments. The Washington Times taking a look at what that could all mean for the former president. The maximum sentence for all 78 charges in florida and new york and the district of columbia add up to nearly 600 years in prison if mr. Trump is forced to serve them consecutively. They write christopher columbuss landing in america would be closer to today the mr. Trumps scheduled release date. He would be farmer likely to get concurrent sentences and recommendations for far less time than the maximum on each charge. The former president could face additional prison time in georgia where Fulton County District Attorney fanny willis is investigating whether he unlawfully attempted to overturn that states 2020 president ial results. Ivan from deerfield, florida. Caller good morning. Can you hear me . Host yes, maam. Caller i sat here and listen to all morning to the ridiculousity coming out of democrats. It is mindboggling to me how they overlook and overstep every single thing that the bidens do. How the democrats have been on trump from day one. Cut everything they have tried to do to this man has failed. Everything. Theres a reason for that. I cannot believe the woman who went there and accused him of being an enabler. Have an africanamerican woman. I lived in california over 50 years of my life. I sold my beautiful dream home because i cannot take it in california anymore. It was literally too much for me to stomach. I had to get out of there. I am now living in florida where there is sanity. People are not walking in stores and walking out with other peoples merchandise and not paying. I cannot believe that the democrats overlook every single thing that their party does. From the riots to the defunding of the police. They are going after trump on mercilessly. Its overkill. That is what hes going up in the polls. 78 charges and there is so much proof on the bidens. Its ungodly. Host let me ask you what you think of republicans who have been critical of President Trump over these charges. I point to the president s former Vice President mike pence tweeting yesterdays indictments serves as an important reminder that anyone who puts themselves over the constitution should never be president of the United States. That was mike pence yesterday. Are you still with us . If you are still there but not speaking, this is nancy in bowling green, kentucky. A democrat. Caller good morning. My gosh. I have sat here and listened. Number one, he already planted the seeds that if he did not win this election there was a wrong. He had already planted that. Number two, i watched january 6 when they were screaming to hang the Vice President. God intervened that day. I wonder if they had hung this man, what in the world would we be looking at right now . With all the things. I have family members i cant even speak to to this day, because we are so we are citizens of the United States of america. We are americans. How in the world can one person, one person divide this country . It is biblical if you want to look, but it is unbelievable. It upsets me so much that we are so divided. We are supposed to be united. Jesus unites. He does not divide. I m just in all of all of this in awe of all of this. If the bidens are guilty, let them be indicted too. That is a love got to say. I appreciate you allowing me to speak my mind this morning. Host that is nancy in bowling green. We mentioned mike pence. Not the only 2024 president ial candidate reacting to yesterdays news. Former new Jersey Governor Chris Christie with this statement yesterday evening after the indictment was released. The events around the white house and Election Night forward are a stain on our countrys history and a disgrace to the people who participated. This disgrace falls the most on donald trump. He swore an oath to the constitution, violated that oath and brought shame to the presidency. Ron desantis says i will end the weaponization of the government everyplace the fbi director and ensure a single standard of justice for all americans. Tweeting about his criticism of the Justice Department in this case, tim scott, senator from South Carolina. I remain concerned about the weaponization of bidens doj and his power against political opponents. We see two different tracks. He goes on to say we are watching bidens doj hunt republicans while protecting democrats. The former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson saying, ive always said donald trump is morally responsible for the attack on our democracy. With todays indictment our system of justice will determine whether he is criminally responsible for it. One of the candidate yesterday with a twitter video he posted. This is about two minutes of that video. [video] this is a politicized prosecution, apolitical persecution a political persecution. Now a third indictment in a matter of months against a person who was still at present the lead contender in the republican primary for u. S. President. I want to be very clear. I am running for u. S. President in that same republican primary. He would be easier for me if donald trump were eliminated from competition. That is not how i want to win. This is not about politics to me. This is about first principles. We do not want to become a country where the party in power is able to use Banana Republiclike tactics to lemonade its political opponents. Im sad to say thats exactly where we are. The allegations in this indictment fall flat. It is wrong and incorrect and inaccurate to place blame for what happened on january 6 at the feet of donald trump. I said this at the time. I have said it ever since then. I continue to say it today. I would not have made the same judgments that donald trump did and how he handled that day. But that is different from saying he committed a crime. He did not. He specifically told the protesters that day to behave peacefully. The First Amendment in this country gives political protesters the ability to express themselves and their opinions freely. Donald trump was not responsible for what happened on january 6. You want to know what was responsible . I said this in the days after january 6, 2021, just as i say it today. Systematic pervasive censorship in this country. That was after a year where we had told people across this nation you had to stay locked down in your house, in your basement, and shut up, sit down, do as you told. If you question that, you are racist, antiscience. Social media accounts were silenced. You had to stay home and locked down unless you are part of be a left or nt for, in which case it was b blf or antifa. Host that was out yesterday evening. Taking your calls for this last halfhour of this program as we have throughout todays program on the indictment unsealed yesterday that charged former President Donald Trump with four more criminal counts, this stemming from his efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 election. The events of january 6, 2021. Getting your calls on phone lines for republicans, democrats and independents as usual. In texas, independent. Caller im a member since before the election. They said when they came out with trump was behind the post that trump was going to call the election early and the day before he said all hell was going to break loose at the capitol. We have fox news during the dominion lawsuit came out and said the owner fox news, ralph murdock, said under oath that he knew trump did not win the election but kept pushing the lies about a fraud election because he was afraid he was gonna lose viewers. Fox news helped to fuel the people in the capitol because they believed everything fox news said. We got hannity talking to meadows after the election, 28 different times before the capitol riot. We have all the fox news people that worked out fox news on january 6 was able to get a hold of meadows. No other media was getting in there and talking to meadows like they was. They should be held accountable to what they did. They helped all of this. Then they come in out saying the reason why we are doing this to trump is because he is ahead of the post. He committed the crimes before the post came out. Nobody talked about it on fox news about trump himself was charged with Sexual Assault and rape of jean carol. During the hearings, the capitol hearings, i turned it on fox and they had a muted screen and you could not hear any of it because , do you know why . There emails would come out that Laura Ingraham came out and told meadows to get trump to call off his supporters. And send them home. She got on tv the evening and said it was antifa that attacked the capitol. This man that was just speaking about trump did not do anything wrong and we overlook it, that is bs. Host that is racial in texas, this is richard in louisville, kentucky. Good morning. Caller that constitutional professor you had on, ive seen her now, shes really the only constitutional person i think youve ever had on and i guess she is little host we had several law professors on and you can find all of them on our cspan archives. Caller anyway, she kept going on about under no circumstances is anyone to misread the latest indictments, that it has nothing to do exactly with what happened january 6. I thought well what did the indictment say because i have not read it . That is why went to see to find out more about all you guys and your expertise what it reads and she said it is because, after the election, donald trump and all of the republicans said wait a minute, we need to try to find out where we cheated, did this happen . She said that was a lie. Everything donald trump dead after the election saying it was the votes werent counted or were put in and shouldnt have, but heres my question to you, then she said the whole time donald trump was president of the United States it was total and complete chaos. Exactly what democrats wanted, but here is host maybe this will help, this is paragraph four of the indictment and this lays out the four charges. He said you hadnt gotten a chance to read it so let me read it to you. Shortly after election day, the defendant, former President Donald Trump, pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the Election Results and is so doing the senate perpetrated three conspiracies, a conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to obstruct and defeat the lawful federal government functions by which the results of the president ial election are collected, counted, and certified the federal government, a conspiracy to obstruct and impede the january 6 congressional proceedings at which the collective result of the president ial election are counted and certified. A concert a conspiracy against the ride to vote and have each one counted. Each conspiracies which build on the widespread mistrust the defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about Election Fraud targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government, the nations process collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the president ial election. That is the meat of the charges. Caller so since every time a republican would win, maxine waters, ilhan omar, hakeem jeffries, and all of the democrats who went for the well of congress and said dont count these votes, this is a fraud election, these people, george bush is not the president of the United States. Is that not the same thing . Heres one last thing i want to say, one last thing i want to say. I do not believe that donald trump did anything wrong. He exercised his constitutional First Amendment right to speak that he thought it was fraud and he wants investigation. Can you lock them up for that . Well miss constitutional lawyer thinks you can. Host richard, one more point on that. The charging documents, the indictment, speaks to that and the special counsel notes that the defendant, donald trump, had a right like every american to speak publicly about the election and even claim falsely there had been outcome determinative fraud during the election and that he had one. He is also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through appropriate means shut chaz seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states and filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, many cases they did pursue the message methods of contesting the results and his efforts to change the outcome in any state the right to do that. Caller i understand that. Now youre going to me be mad at him because he pushes his first moment right . That doesnt make sense to me. It happens every election cycle and will happen this election cycle. Donald trump will win and they will say he is no legitimate president , we cannot let this happen. It happens every election cycle. It happened on the very first election this country ever had with george washington. Thank you. Host richard in kentucky. This is lou in new york, north babylon, good morning. Caller good morning, john. Take you for taking my call. John . These people on the right, the republicans, they drank the koolaid. They dont understand, ok . That our vote, our vote is the Electoral College, ok . This is what irks me because they drink the koolaid. Im going to predict on this day, john, august 2, 2023, donald trump will not win. He will lose worse than before. Ok . Like winston had the silent majority, there is a silent majority that will keep mr. Trump out of office and in jail where he belongs. Donald trumps family has come to say one word for him, ok . It is not republican and democrat, it is United States of america voter. People die for votes, to be able to vote. Trump will not win. Host that is lou in new york. Grant is next in lincoln, nebraska, an independent, as we hear from brent we can hear we can show you a few more headlines from newspapers around the country including out of minnesota and florida as well. Grant, go ahead. Caller good morning, john. I had a Quick Reaction and a short thing about drum. I think these indictments are going to boost his numbers. I would be pleasantly surprised if he got convicted of any of this stuff. I think trump is right about d. C. Being a swamp, which is the thing he did back in 2016, but if d. C. Is a swamp, what does that make wall street . Which is where trump is from. He is an east coast wall street elite in my eyes and if anything if d. C. Is a swamp that would make wall street a bog or marsh, something similar, and you dont hire the bog man to fix your swamp problem. You will make it worse. That is all i have to say. Thanks. Host maryland, lenore, republican, good morning. Caller good morning. I wanted to say what they are doing to trump is unconstitutional. They are accusing him of things like he doesnt have a First Amendment right to talk. The 2020 election was covid, theres a lot of procedures in the state from pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, and georgia that was not in legislative procedures were voting. They had these mailin ballots that keep coming in, people were complaining about voter fraud, ok . The states were listening. You go to congress, mike pence does not know his constitution. You can send those electoral states back if you recertified. They were going to do a procedure that could constitutional legal. I dont get that. Pence chickened out. I believe he told trump he was going to do and then he changed his mind. Lets talk about host on mike pence, the grand jury here heard from mike pence and in this indictment quotes from notes contemporary knee contemporaneous notes mike pence cap the grand jury was able to obtain and it lays out several scenes involving the former Vice President and donald trump. Here is just a snapshot of the days from Christmas December 20 up to just before january 6, 2021. The indictment reads, on several private phone calls in late december and early january, the defendant, donald trump, knowingly, repeatedly, repeated knowingly false claims of election fought and fraud and asked the Vice President to use his role at the proceeding to fraudulently overturn the results of the election and the Vice President rejected including when the Vice President called him to wish him the Merry Christmas and he turned it quickly to election and that he reject the votes. He pushed back saying as the Vice President he already had the previous conversation, i dont the guy have the authority to change the outcome. December 29, and the Vice President s notes, the defendant falsely told the Vice President the Justice Department was finding major infractions. January 1, the defendant, donald trump called the Vice President and berated him because he had learned the Vice President had opposed a lawsuit seeking a judicial decision that at the certification the Vice President have the authority to reject or return votes to the state under the constitution. The Vice President responded he thought there were no constitutional basis for such authority and it was improper. In response, the defendant, donald trump, told the Vice President youre too honest. Within hours of that conversation, the defendant reminded his supporters to meet in washington for the certification proceedings, tweeting the big protest rally in washington, d. C. Will take place at 11 00 a. M. January 6, locational details to follow, stop the steal. That is from that indictment released yesterday. About 50 men slept in the program, this is regina out of new jersey, democrat, good morning. Caller thanks for taking my call. I think there is a set amount of misinformation about the prez and i sadly find there is no clear voice explaining the American People what the press does and the history and necessity of the press in the United States. People dont know the press has one responsibility, to remain free. I think that even though our press and media become more polarized, what is worse is that the American People have lost a sense of Critical Thinking and a sense of a strong desire to find and know the truth. Credible and reputable sources of information exist and have always existed. People do not know that everything has newspaper of record and that that is even i think a more place to find news. They are scrupulous with their facts and newspapers retract false information. Totally different than a sound by on tv. Host what paper do you get in new jersey . Caller we get the New York Times in new jersey. My dad was a fiftyyear Associated Press news man and i have been all of the country all over the country so we will always be getting a newspaper. The inquirer, i dont think it is as careful in their reporting as they have been in years past and i also think very easy to blame the press and media. People have gotten away from the fact that the press is about freedom. You will always be in life unless you are hand of the truth. Truth is something you have to seek. It is a citizens response ability to think critically and look for the truth and expect to be deceived. That is the reality. People choose their beliefs. The truth is an entirely different thing, and at some point you can acknowledge the truth starts with facts. Host before you go, one more piece on this, i wonder do you go online . Do you read the political news sites . I ask because i want to show two different ways of the story playing out in the political media. Breitbart, their headline, let me to show the headline about what happened yesterday, indictment 3. 0, jack smith indicts trump the day after hunter and joe biden are implicated, referencing the hearing on capitol hill. Then if you go to the huffington post, huffpot. Com, the big indictment of donald trump is here, the former president facing a trial for the crimes at the heart of trumpism. Caller i have to say, the Associated Press is not factbased. You will not have a lot of fun and get a dopamine rush from listening to it or reading it but it is credible. Sometimes you have to wade through the nonsexy stuff to find the truth and you have to compare them. I read a variety of new sources, ive got the ap online, the New York Times, huff post online, and i was raised to look for the truth. Sometimes that means when you hear an opinion you dont like, it is just any opinion you dont like. That doesnt mean it proves anything. People really need to ask themselves whether they want to believe what they are hearing or it pans out from their experience to be truthful and reputable. Host this is mark, cloverdale, indiana, independent. Good morning. Caller the big question is what is the truth . Truth comes down to this, jesus said i am the wave of truth and the lie and he is the truth. He spoke to the pharisee saying plainly this, your father the devil was a liar from the beginning and the works of your father he do. Anybody who follows that plan of say 10, of murdering babies host bring me to this indictment that we are talking about. Caller the indictment is a suppression of the truth. You suppress the truth in unrighteousness is what the bible says and what it is is there trying to stop trump from telling what was going on, they are taking away his First Amendment rights, they will be coming for my First Amendment right to speak, and every time i call in, you tend to coming off because i speak exactly what is going on. So when it comes to trump, hes definitely theres deftly a conspiracy within the federal, fbi, and the doj to try to bring this man down because he is going to bring the country back to its original thing of the bill of rights and protection of liberty, protection of the church, protection of babies, protection of young people from being taught diversion, sexual perversion in our classrooms, they hate the agenda and theyd know there might be more Supreme Court justices appointed by trump and it goes back to this, they hate righteousness. Host that is mark in indiana. Jim in texas, republican, good morning. Caller thank you, john. I want to agree with the previous caller, it is a laura against righteousness. Im not sure why this is such a mystery when this happened, so 2000, 2004, 2016 elections, they were members of congress from the democratic side that, whether it was symbolic likely symbolically or whatever, they took the measures to oppose the certification of electoral votes. That is fine. They are within their rights to do that. Trump openly stated that he wanted to push it a little further and let the courts decide, i think is what he basically was saying. I think that is fair. We never knew. Where are the limits of challenging certification . 2000, 2000 4, 2016 elections, similar thing, people tried to put host do you think the courts had a chance to weigh into the challenges, the many challenges in many states from november through january . November of 2020. Caller that is a good point. I believe that the courts heard that had the courts heard the arguments on it, i believe there was probably some important ones that the court does not take up that whether it was for a lack of standing or whatever, i think there should have been that are opportunity for review of this. I will grant you that. I do not think they thoroughly did it. So i do not think it was complete enough but they had the opportunity. Host the court that will be hearing this case on these criminal charges, filed by jack smith, the special counsel yesterday, itll be the u. S. District court for the district of columbia and it is judge tonya chickin chuckin that will be hearing this case. Cbs news tracked many of the january 6 cases. The judge to the d. C. Federal court has been randomly assigned to this case. She has been especially vocal in her denunciation of the attack on the u. S. Capitol on january 6, including some specific incidents during arguments before her court. He said july 13 20 23 it was a january 6 case, the judge said this was no exercise of first a minute rights, it was a violent attempt overthrow the government. In september 2020 two, in a capital right case, the judge said the true patriots are the capital employees including those who slept in their own blood seeking cover on january 6. She goes on to say it was october 2020 sentencing in capitol siege case where the judge said they were mad their guy lost. I see the videotapes, the flags, the people who mopped the capital where there in fealty and loyalty to one man and not to the constitution. Some of the citations if you want to check them out, scott mcfarlands twitter page, a cbs News Reporter in washington dc. We will end at 10 00 a. M. Eastern as usual. Daniel is in tennessee, democrat, good morning. Caller good morning, john. First of all, im sitting here in between the state line of tennessee and kentucky, and im listening to the show, this program, and just think of this program was required listening for several days prior to the election. I think that would be a good thing. I listen to this program to inform myself, not just to affirm some belief i have as she was alluding to. She alluded to the demise of journalism and she was spot on on that. They are racial in texas, thank you, dear, for what you said. Barbie in tennessee, thank you for making me feel like im not alone. Let me tell you a short story i experienced a couple days ago in town. I was working with a local businessman for a few days and we were taking a break and has most people do they kind of looked down at the phone quite often and are doing this and that. The general discussion about the predicament we are in with china , and the gentleman said china owns 46 of our farmland. I kind of hesitated but i said that doesnt make sense, sir. I did not challenge him too much of the time. He challenged me to look it up. I did not have to look it up. When i see him in a couple days, i have two questions to ask him, i will ask him why were you so sure you are right about that . The second issue would be, where are you getting your information . Down in this area, youve got your fox, your sinclair broadcasting, then you begin with literacy that third grade, the children here, less than one half of children can read a third grade level. You begin with that. This is where we are at. I sure do appreciate you listening to me and verifiable sources, people. Verifiable sources. Thank you, john, for listening. Host daniel ida tennessee, this is michael out of connecticut, independent. Good morning. Caller good morning. I still cant understand all of these people backing trump. He has been indicted four times here, got 60 or whatever indictments. Host we are at 78 indictments at this point. Caller 78. How many do you think are there for biden . How many times has he got indicted . These things just dont come out of the blue, they are not attacking trump. Trump put all of this on himself. January 6 he called up and he did that, he started it. Then he showed the guy who was running for president and they are like the team that is rooting for the other team to win the game that they are in. Why would anybody do this . Trump would throw all of these people under the bus as quick as possible he could. Trump lost everything, he is going to lose even worse this time, how can you possibly think he could win . The whole stop the steal thing he wanted to put into place, as far as im concerned, it worked because the only person that wanted to steal election was trump and he did not steal it. Because he lost it and he went to all these different people trying to get this to happen, trying to get that to happen, [indiscernible] come on. Russia, if youre listening, find hillarys emails, her server, now he wants to raise all of his videos. The russians in the white house, the first day, topsecret stuff. There is no collusion with trump here . I dont understand you people. Host michael, got your point. Running short on time and just so i am clear on the language, 78 charges over three indictments, two of which are federal indictments, one is a state indictment out of new york so just want to be clear on that. A couple mins left, wanted to note programming later today if you join us on cspan. The Huntington Institute with a discussion on economic relations with china happening at 11 00 a. M. Eastern here on cspan, cspan. Org, and the free cspan now video app. Hope you join us for that later today. Two minutes left today and a lot more calls to get to. We will try to get one or two more, this is George Dominic in georgia, a republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. Im glad people are talking about this this morning. Really our biggest problem. Im 80 years old and i can remember listening to the news and i could not tell whether the reporter was democrat or republican. You never know. They were giving you the news. Today they are on both sides organs of the parties and it is pathetic, these people that are supposed to be journalists. Billy thing worse than that is the leadership of both parties. Its unbelievable what is going on in this country. We cant find decent men to run the country. This is like a zoo. I dont know how we can get it there. It is really bad. Thats all i have to say, thanks. Host dominic in georgia, our last caller in todays washington journal. We will be back tomorrow morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern, 4 00 a. M. Pacific. In the meantime, have a great wednesday. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. 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