Trump mean for him, the nation and the 2024 elections . Next. This is Washington Week. Corporate funding is provided by for 25 years, Consumer Cellulars goal has been to provide Wireless Services that helps peop communicate. We offer a variety of no contract plans and our Customer Service team can help find one that fits you. For more visit Consumer Cellular. Tv. Additional funding provided by. The ewing foundation, committing to bridges culturing divisions. Rose herschell and andy shreves. Robert and susan rosenbaum. The corporation for public broadcasting and for bike contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Good evening and welcome to Washington Week. For the first time in our nations history of former president stands accused of trying to reverse the results of an election. Former President Donald Trump was back in washington, this time to up in a federal courtroom and plead not guilty to charges that he tried to undermine the bedrock of american democracy the transfer of power. There are four felony counts, conspiring to defraud the United States. Conspiring to instruct obstruct an official proceeding, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring to deny american citizens the right to vote and have that vote counted. After appearing in court, trump says this is all politically motivated assault. This is a persecution of the person that is leading by very substantial numbers in the republican primary, and leading biden by a lot. That last part is not true. He is not leading biden by a lot. The latest polls have him tied. On tuesday when jack smith announced the indictment, he gave a blunt assessment of the charges. Thettack on our Nations Capital on january 6, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on a seat of american democracy fueled by lied. By lies. Moser public and lawmakers responded to this indictment and the way they responded to the first two. They repeated the former president s claim that the charges are motivated by politics but speaking with jeff bennett on thursday, bill barr, the former attorney general, disagreed. There was very grave wrongdoing here and i think it is reasonable to say that it falls within the obstruction of a proceeding. That is not weaponization. That is enforcement of the law. This latest indictment against trump may not be his last. A special grand jury and georgia is investigating his attempts to pressure officials there to join his claims of vote fraud. As a result of all of this, the 2024 president ial election can feature the spectacle of a leading candidate having to Schedule Campaign events around appearances and multiple courtrooms including at least one he is accused of trying to overturn the last election even while trying to win the next one. Joining me to discuss all this, this unprecedented turn an, francesca chambers, carrie johnson, nprs justice correspondent, a guardian reporter and jeff mason. This has been a remarkable week. You have been around washington covering politics for a while. What do you make of this . We have a man who has been impeached twice, three times indicted, has a bunch of civil cases against him, too. Hes facing possible more indictments. But at the same time he is dominating the republican nomination race, and hes tied with the incumbent president. It is historic on multiple levels. Historic number one because of everything you said. He has been indicted and was arraigned and the fact that the former president of the United States had to come to washington to appearing corporate and east facing consequences in a way that his supporters have also faced. We know he is innocent until proven guilty. We do not know what the outcome of these proceedings will be. But it was historic for all of those levels. It is clearly historic politically because of whats going on next, which is another election. He is running again. And he is using this as a cudgel to say the Biden Administration is coming after me and using that as a way to sort of use, i would say a smokescreen against what did happen on january 6. Lets go back to his appearance in court. You have spent a lot of time in that courthouse. What was it like on thursday . The security was so intense. There were barricades, yellow tape. There were bicycle racks. Eventually police on horseback. And dozens and dozens of u. S. Marshals and secret service. Once you got inside the courthouse it was relatively tranquil. You could get a cup of coffee in the cafeteria and check your wifi. Then things started to intensify about 10 minutes before the hearing was supposed to begin when former President Trump entered the courtroom and we all had our eyes peeled on his demeanor, what he would say. He was rather respectful to the judge, although less respectful when you left the horse house and made other remark left the courthouse and made other remarks. You made an intesting point about what is not in the indictment. They did not charge him with inciting insurrection and that is what the january 6 committee had focused on, and indeed, it was one of the things they said they felt there was enough evidence to charge him with in addition with other charges. But you did not see that in those charges. And of course you have seen in the past that there could be other charges that are always added to things. This may not be the end of it, but it was very remarkable to me that after all those months of hearings on that point, that that was not something that jack smith and the special counsel decided to end up charging trump with. One other thing in the indictment is they kept repeating that the former president knew what he was saying was wrong. Does the prosecution have to prove that element to win a conviction . It will depend on the charge, because there are all separate statutes being charged. On the top one for the conspiracy to defraud the United States it might factor in, but for the biggest charge of obstruction of a proceeding it does not really matter, because there are four elements, the final one, the fact that he acted with corrupt purpose, there was a recent case where a judge basically ruled that a defendants mindset and beliefs about whether the election was stolen does not negate a consciousness of wrongdoing and that that is the standard that is upheld, then trumps belief that the election was stolen does not make any difference. You have watched trump a lot and have spent three oval Office Interviews with the him in the white house. What is the relationship between what trump says, what he says he believes and reality . That is a great question. Its complicated. I have been in rooms with President Trump, oval office and air force one, where he will be cordial and friendly and hospitable. I remember the first time i met him was on air force one. He came back and visited with reporters briefly. Shortly after he was inaugurated. And then went out into the rally because he did rallies right away as president and started hammering against the meeting. I felt like saying, i wish i could tell this crowd, the very cordial interaction we had. But i would use that as an example to show that there are lots of contradictionsnd complications in him. The Justice Department says they want to get this done fast. They want a speedy trial. What signals has the judge said about that . Yes, the judge, former public defender and obama appointed to the bench, has said to the judge who presided over the arraignment that she is going to set a trial date at the next hearing the end of august. She seems to be taking a no nonsense approach to this. At timea when the fmer president and his lawyers are signaling, delay may be their main strategy. Delay until after the election. We will have to see what the judge says at that hearing on august 28 but she may want to get that done before then if at all possible. If she does that and tries to get it done fast, could it open a route to criticisms not give the defense enough time to prepare . Trumps main defense lawyer says there are reams of evidence. Expect lots of documents and electronic evidence. He wants months to prepare. He could have an argument, if he is not given enough time, to prepare a zealous defense. That could be legitimate. Delaying the trail, all the way after the election and beyond, that is a little much for this courthouse. Especially in the documents case, we are talking about having a trial this time next year. Including the steeper productions the governments process that has to go through to make sure they are not surprised on the government at trial. Inhis case, i think you should expect to see this go to trial very soon. We offered two possible defenses being floated. One, that this, his speech is protected First Amendment speech and has a right to talk about the election. The other was that he was just following the lawyers advice. What do you make of those . On the first offense, the first potential defense, he has not been charged for free speech. In the indictment the special counsel makes it very clear that he is allowed to advance lies about the election but he uses that to commit a crime. So, when youre looking at th obstruction of an official proceeding and other charges being brought the First Amendment defense is not going to help. As for on advice of counsel defense, that is going to be up to a jury to decide if that is something he has a credible argument. Because there were a bunch of crackpot lawyers as mike pence said around him but at the same time you cannot use that defense when they are all in on the conspiracy with you. I think that is the difficulty that trump igoing to have. In order to exploit the advice of counsel defense donald trump may have to testify and that is a risky proposition, given his record in public and in courts. It would open him up to crossexamination. Which might be devastating. Why there were six coconspirators identified in the indictment. We dont know if they have been indicted separately. Its sealed. But why werent they named as codefendant . One of the strategies the special counsel wants to employ to move this along is to focus like a laser on donald trump and adding five or six people who gave him legal advice would bog down the prosecution and delay it for months and months if not years. Another reason is that he may still be trying to decide if there is enough evidence to charge some of these as yet unindicted coconspirators. K maybe themeeing the specter of donald trump in court being arraigned this week will cause them to rethink their approach to the special counsel and decide to cooperate with this investigation, making them witnesses against the former president. The defense has signaled they will ask for a change of venue. They say that you cant get a fair trial in washington dc because it is heavily democratic. Yeah, there have been a number of january 6 riot defendants who made that sam argument, and it comes down to, if you are charged in d. C. For committing a crime in d. C. You were going to get a d. C. Jury. We have seen on multiple occasions that their juries have been very ir in some of the biggest prosecutions the Justice Department had, with the oath keepers and proud boys, there have been instances where the jury has not convicted these defendants. That speaks to the jury process. And if you have a problem with that, you have a problem with this countrys jury system. After this hearing, yesterday, the president this evening put something up on social media saying that if you come after me i will go after you. Is that likely to be something to be asked about in court . One of the standard conditions for any defendant in d. C. Is a warning about not attempting to bribe or threaten somebody or retaliate against witnesses. While trumps statement and who he was focusing on was unclear jack smith, or was he talking about potential witnesses . We dont know. It is likely the judge will ask the defense to explain itself. But, at this point, it is hard toeally put a gag on the former president who is also running for reelection to the white house in 2024. I think it will be in normal sleep difficult for President Trump to be quiet. It goes against every grain in his body. I think it will be very interesting to see his next rally, because he often uses those forms to come out and test drive some thoughts, and test drive new phrases and test drive new attacks. I imagine we will hear something. My guess is they will not just be focused on President Biden. At this point he is actually campaigning on the indictments, campaigning and telling his supporters, no, it is not just me. Theyre coming after you. You have to put me back in office. You also have some of his competitors who are doubling down on this argument as well. You have who was saying he would get rid of the fbi, get rid of the entire federal bureau of investigations. Youre hearing this filter through the rest of the gop field. Hes aggressively raising money off this. A lot of fundraising going on. But he is also running through a lot of that money paying legal fees. Could this put them at a disadvantage in the campaign . You need money to run a Good Campaign and to piggyback water francesco was saying, it has been an effective fundraising tool. Showing not only in his coffers but in the polls, because hi base is so eager to take what he says as gospel. With regard to the charges and with regards to Everything Else he says. Yeah, it could be a challenge if he starts using up that coffer, as it were, to pay legal fees. That said, money has not really been a big problem for President Trump. As he continues to dominate in the polls, he will continue to get fundraising backing. And you have to put this in the context of the broader field and how much money the other candidates are bringing in. Many of his competitors do not have anywhere close to the fundraising he has in the first place and they are facing a situation right now where some of them barely have the money to even be able to compete in the early states, dont necessarily have enough money put ads, at least in a sustained weight, so in a sustained way. He has significant resources in this race. The big bounce that mr. Trump got after the raid at maralago last year, are these charges and indictments, we talk about problems or legal troubles, are they helping him politically . Well, he continues to be far in front of his gop competitors. Granted, hes not as far ahead in the some of the recent polls. We saw the new poll in iowa, where he was at 44 with run consensus with ron desantis at 24 . But that is a significant amount. Youre not seeing again his republican competitors be able to catch up with him, despite all of these legal problems that he is facing. Now, there are other reasons for that. That we could get into on this panel and im sure we will. Why some of their campaigns are struggling, including ron desantis, but they have had problems despite the legal disadvantages to him to catching up. I think history and the evidence over the last six years show that controversy only helps them. That has applied to these legal cases as well. Lets talk about the other side, it jeff, you spent the week, hobart beach, tough rehobeth beach with President Biden. You did ask him about this but he did not respond. Is that your game plan there game plan to not get involved in this . Yes, to keep some distance. President biden rode bias on his bike. He did a bike ride every day. And i asked him and another reporter asked him and he sailed right past. I think it is emblematic of the president is eager to show it has been eager to show for the two years he has been in office that the department of justice is independent and separate from the white house and they want to make sure that he does not give oxygen to the arguments republicans have made that it is he taking on his opponent. , but at. The same time, he did run in 2020 talking about the chaos of the trump administration, before the midterms he gave speeches about the threats to democracy. Do we really think you can go through the whole campaign without addressing this . I think it will be a challenge and you are right to mention it. One of the in reason he has cited as to why he read for president in the first place. Before the midterms come he gave his speech at Union Station talking about threats to democracy and january 6. Against the advice of some democrats who thought, lets not push that too hard. It turned out to be a very salient, not only a point, but to have an impact on the voters. So, i think that President Biden will want to come back to that but it is going to be tricky because he is going to be, want to be careful about the legal evocations. There are other democrats who want to lead into that har and remember that they wanted him to name donald trump before the midterms when he was not and they were frustrated by that. But he has come back to it in the sense that his first campaign, when he launched his reelection bid, it mentioned democracy issues. She also has not been campaigning. There will be a fine line between saying that his department of justice is separate but as a candidate, he ds up facing trump, wanting to have that argument. I think that is an overly risky. In pat, because one of the things donald trump in this indictment, is him leaning on people inside his Justice Department to do his bidding and announced sham investigations of nonexistent voter fraud in swing states. It is part of the criminal charges against donald trump. The second thing is that every just a part Justice Department ive ever cover, there is a sharp intake of breath whenever any president says something about an ongoing and criminal investigation. Were preside biden to say something, the attorney general and the special counsel jack smith would be unhappy about that. How does donald trump run, campaign with this going on . Well, i think it is basically because even his legal team is fit around the campaign. The one thing i have been struck within the last kind of ten months is that trump runs a Campaign First and his legal team follow in behind. That was the way that it worked during the grand jury investigations, both in the documents case, and for the january 6 case. And weve done extensive reporting on how the lawyers often felt second to the campaign and they had to go through people like the Legal Counsel and they had to go through other political people around him in order to get a word in. That will be a challenge as they get into the pretrial and e trial phase of these cases, because it is going to require more and more of his time in a way that he is not used to and probably not and that is an argument that gop contenders are making right now, is that if he ends up being their nominee, he could be facing all of these Court Proceedings and it can take them off the campaign trail. And that is one of the most salient arguments they have been able to land for some of the candidates who have not been able to lay on lay a glove on him otherwise. The republicans are pointing to the hunter biden case. How is the hunter biden case getting wrapped up . And is there any sense at the white house that they are worried that the hunter biden case is going to hurt them . So, even free for the latest indictment, allies of President Biden were telling me they believe the reason that Kevin Mccarthy was now saying that the allegations against President Biden were rising to the level of impeachment was specifically to distract and deflect from donald trump problems, probably because he could end up being their nominee, t also because they think that it would hurt President Biden in the election. Is he going to have to say more about this . He says, the white house line is, hunter biden is a private citizen. Th is something being taken care of. Will he say more about this . I think he will be asked about and that will force them to. I dont think he will do it on his own. The white house is really representing his opinion when they say, this is a private family matter. We see how difficult it is to get information out of the white house on things like his seventh grandchild, which they eventually talked about in a statement to People Magazine late friday night. Thats emblematic of how he deals with things like that, but it is based a soft spot and a vulnerability and president for President Biden. However, it is important to say that is not even close to apples for apples with what the former president is facing in terms of the charges against him. What about that . You covered the Justice Department. Is there anything to the complaints the replay the republicans are making the hunter biden is getting special treatment . There was a plea agreement that apparently was not a real meeting of the mines according to the judge. Both sides of gone back to the drawing board and within a months they will see whether hunter biden is pleading guilty or not to some misdemeanor criminal offenses. Investigators spent five years looking at him, and they found some evidence that gave rise to concern. But, based on some of the talking points coming out of the house gop, some of the allegations are making dont match with what the witnesses are telling them. We will end it right there. Thanks for all on the panel for being with us tonight and bringing your excellent reporting and analysis. And dont forget to join me on pb news weekend ons saturday for a look at japans plans to release one million tons of wastewater from the fukushima power plt 12 years after the countrys deadly earthquake and tsunami. And be sure to be back here next week to the beginning of this programs exciting new chapter. There will be a new moderat, jeffrey goldberg, the editorinchief of the atlantic. And Washington Week with the atlantic. Good night from washington. 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