job of parsing what we had proved, what we hadn t proved. it wasn t guilty on everything. the e. jean carroll case, they did not find liability of rape, they did find it on sexual assault. jurors, the vast majority of cases, they rise to the occasion. now, it is important to have a judge who does a very careful jury selection process. for both sides, to make sure that you re not getting somebody who has a predetermine view, they re gonna listen to the facts and obey the law. but 99 times out of 100, that s what happens. i agree with bread, if you have a very strong case, the best that s going to happen for the defendant is a hung jury. not an acquittal. that s what it would ve been john durham lost two of his trials, that was such a blowout, that meant that 24 jurors actually disagreed. there was not a hung jury in either case. so, i think people should calm down about florida, they re citizens in florida, their citizens all over this country. every day, show up on honduras and do thei
be facing on tuesday. what is your reaction to the case, as we understand it tonight? well, i think this is a very difficult, and yet, very important day in the life of our democracy. when you have a former president and a leading candidate for president who is brought up on federal charges. it is, i think, a perilous moment. it s a very important one, it s an affirmation of the rule of law that the rule of law applies equally to everyone. it applies to the high and mighty, former presidents, as it applies to ordinary citizens. , to the extent that that departure is not democracy, this is, i think, a very important step. just responded what you and rachel were talking about earlier, we do advise other countries, emerging democracies, you don t simply seek to indict the losing side in an election. but there s a very important distinction here. and that is these charges are not brought as a way of punishing donald trump for losing an election.
your investigation on the january 6th committee. in your experience, on the senate intelligence committee, you have the maximum level of experience you can have with these issues. what we re reading about tonight may be in the charges that donald trump is going to be facing on tuesday. what is your reaction to the case, as we understand it tonight? well, i think this is a very difficult, and yet, very important day in the life of our democracy. when you have a former president and a leading candidate for president who is brought up on federal charges. it is, i think, a perilous moment. it s a very important one, it s an affirmation of the rule of law that the rule of law applies equally to everyone. it applies to the high and mighty, former presidents, as it applies to ordinary citizens. , to the extent that that departure is not democracy,
to that? i think i went something along the lines of this hill, basically. because, no! that s not how it works. the presidential records act is not the statute upon which he is being prosecuted. . but the decision of whether or not these are documents is gonna be governed by the federal records act. yeah, it s a copy of the original, it s a federal agency record. it s a national defense information? whether it was classified or declassified, my guess is for almost all of these records, yeah. it s gonna meet the standard for national defense information, they ll have to prove that as a matter of fact, to the jury. i don t think the governments ever lost when it came to bringing an espionage act case, proving that was national defense information. so, what are they gonna argue here? they re going to claim stuff was declassified, irrelevant.
congress. this is reporting from nbc news tonight, attorney general merrick garland did not approve or sign off on these criminal charges against donald trump. andrew weissmann, what s your interpretation of the? so, i think what this is, one, it s legally completely consistent with the special counsel rules, as neil is gonna tell us because he was participated in them. he s basically insulating the department of justice and the white house from the sort of onslaught that s going to be that this is a political prosecution. let me just first go to the special counsel rules, the special counsel rules are that the attorney general says, this should be handled by someone other than a regular prosecutor in the department of justice. so, this is jack smith s call. the rules do say, now that the attorney general has to approve charges, but if he thinks they re so wrong that they re just such an abuse of discretion, as you just read, he has the ability to say no. if he does that, he has to