Counsel jack smith. The 45page indictment accuses the former e president of three counts of conspiracy and one count of obstruction for his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Culminating in the january 6th attacks on the u. S. Capitol. Heres the Special Counsel tuesday after the charges were handed up. The attack on our nations capitol on january 6th, 20211, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of american democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. If lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a Bedrock Function of the u. S. Government, the nations process of clerking, counting and certifying collecting, counting and certifying the results of the president ial election. Paul lets bring in Wall Street Journal columnists dan Dan Henninger kim strassel and Editorial Board member kyle peterson. Dan, its interesting, he cited the riots at capitol, but thats not really in the indictment, per se, nothing that links to the rioters in par
think, is going to be very difficult. and i think the center of it is, it has to do with trump s state of mind. trump had to believe, with know what he was doing was wrong. and i think all of us could ask ourselves did donald trump actually believe that the election, that he had won the election? my view would be, yes, he does believe that, no matter what people were telling him. so jack smith has somehow got to prove, if he has evidence, that trump actually said to one of his associates i know that i lost this election, that would be one thing. but no evidence of that sort has been deduced up to this point at all. paul: kim, you wrote this week that the indictment runs the risk of setting a dangerous precedent in the sense that it criminalizes actions that politicians take based on lies. the indictment says flat out trump can lie all he wants about the election, but it s that taking the action based on that, that is criminal behavior, fraud
abatements, and paul: what s wrong with that? people would say, can come on, we want reshoring here in the united states, we want those jobs coming back. sure. but it sounds like a central planner trying to pick winners which generally doesn t work, and why not run on the florida model? he s got a great record, and what made florida s economy great was not strategic tax abatements. paul: well, are you saying that his bows to the so-called populists is something that now every republican presidential candidate maybe feels obliged to do in the wake of trump? maybe feels obliged to do, and maybe he wouldn t feel the need to follow through on that. i do think he s putting some bad policy in this proposal to try to get those voters that have been historically trump s base. paul: when we come back, talking on big tech. lindsey graham and elizabeth warren team up on a bipartisan proposal that would create a federal agency with the power to sue the internet platforms and even shut them d
not really in the indictment, per se, nothing that links to the rioters in particular. instead, it s a conspiracy about overturning the election. what how strong is the indictment? well, the indictment, i would say, is not very strong and precisely for that reason. you know, this is fascinating, paul, it is so difficult for the general public, for all of us to separate these two events, the attack on capitol on january 6th, from the fact that this indictment is about trump attempting to overturn or obstruct the results of the election. all of those recounts, georgia, arizona, the rest of it, we went through all all that. jack smith is talking about january 6th. but he has to prove the case about the election, and the argument is that trump attempted to keep fraud to defraud that election. and one of the statutes that he cited is based on enron, a company that got in trouble back during the financial crisis. that was a financial fraud paul: right. proving a political fraud, i
that s always the problem you have when someone goes down an unprecedented route like jack smith has here. paul: kyle, there s a lot of ugly facts here that we knew about involving trump, how he tried to pressure mike pence, he and his co-conspirators, now-called, tried to get states to send in an alternative slate of electors for the electoral college, but the key question, is it criminal behavior to do that? right, exactly. and dan was talking about the fraud against the united states statute and whether fraud includes political things or only financial crimes. there s another statute that s cited, obstruction of an official proceeding, this is a relatively new law. some of the january 6th rioters have been charged with that and convicted with that, and they are now appealing. so there s at least a possibility that that will get thrown out on appeal. it s a really ugly and damning set of facts, there s not a defense for what president trump did after the 2020 election. but the ques