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
it was refreshing and sometimes startling how bluntly he spoke. paul: well, and it wasn t just about defending the court, it was also an extensive discussion of how he thinks about the law and some of the differences that he has from a jurisprudential point of view with other justices. that s a rare look at the court s thinking internally. yeah. it was really a fascinating four hours. paul: what did you learn about the justice? well, i learned, most importantly, that he s very open and and willing to, willing to discuss anything that s not improper. of he didn t talk about pending cases. he avoided issues that the court hasn t decided. except on this issue of ethics in which he expressed a very strong opinion that congress has no right to, no authority under the constitution to regulate the the supreme court. and that brings us to the letter from the judiciary democrats which is just preposterous. they re calling on chief justice roberts to make sure that justice alito recuses hims
say analyses have to look at the global effects of climb change. all of this is going to make infrastructure projects either impossible or more costly, and ill argue this is another one that s ripe for a supreme court challenge because they are rewriting the fundamental importance of this rule and also undermining the deal they made with joe manchin in the recent inflation reduction act over speeding up some of these regulatory approvals. paul: yeah, this is pretty amazing stuff, dan. if you rook at the total, sum total over the first two years of the biden presidency and now the third year with, he s surpassing whatever barack obama did. i mean, it s an extraordinary number of new major and costly rules, do you have another example or two? well, i mean, the politics of this can t be avoided. it s an amazing regulatory tsunami. and this explains a couple of things in our politics; one, why democrats love biden. with biden it s just fire and
a recent interview with alito in the opinion pages of the wall street journal in which the justice says congress has no authority to regulate the high court. comments that senate judiciary committee chairman dick durbin criticized this week as unwise and unwelcome. let s bring in james she around tone she ran toe, co-author of that interview with justice alito. so, james, tell us about that interview with justice alito. it was very unusual for a justice to sit down for what was four hours with you and david rivkining who s a frequent contributor to the journal. i should add that, for transparency s sake, i was in on the second e of those interviews. yes. paul: is why do you think he decided to talk? well, he told the us in the second interview that he normally when judges are under attack or the court is under attack, the organized bar, the professional lawyers association, defends judges. that isn t happening, so he s decided that he s going to defend himself, and he did so w
forget, just pour it on through there, and the progressives in the white house are pushing this is the elizabeth warren of the presidency, basically reduce congress to a nullity. paul: right. the second aspect, this explains why the progressives are attacking the supreme court or why they want to attack the supreme court. they need a supreme court that would rubber stamp all these regulatory initiatives instead of the one that they have now which is inclined to push back against things as they did with biden s student debt plan. so this really is where the progressives want to take the country. it reduces congress to nothing, but i think as long as the supreme court is sitting there, we are going to have some of these regulatory emissions become major policy questions that go before the supreme court. paul: kate, on this question that dan raised about congress being a nullity, is that what can congress do? i know it has the review act