the ballot and a whole bunch of other states. so it seems to me that the most the best way to resolve this question, to move it forward, would be for a candidate like a chris christie or asa hutchinson to raise the question. they are the two who stood on that stage and didn t raise their hands about pardoning donald trump. so it seems to me that if this is going to move forward beyond a legal theory then it s going to have to move forward in some kind of as david said administrative or court procedure. let s explore that a little bit, this idea that someone who can claim standing or injury might have a role in this. you mentioned another candidate. so there s a co-founder of the federalist society steven calabrese who wrote in a blog post this month saying maybe chris christie could sue to do this. laurence tribe had then tweeted the tweet you see on your screen
affects his political calendar all that much. he just plays like it does not bother him, his supporters are not troubled by that. none of us know exactly what is going to happen. the date is interesting because it is right when he hopes he will wrap up the republican nomination. it is possible that he will wrap up the nomination well this trial is going on. how deeply enthralled the republican party is when six of the eight challengers said they would still support him if he was a convicted felon. we will have many days like this over the next year and a half. his lawyers will go into court and they will try the usual tactics in an environment where that does not work.
they are doing exactly what he is telling them to do. he is riding high on the republican party but he is really a client from hell. you were in the court. the first of many times when he has seen her. you will see her interacting. how did that look? she made the point that she does not want this politicized and she does not want politics to s play a role. tell me what we need to know based on what we saw today? she is smart, she is fair, she is stern. she will be demanding and when she sets a trial date and a briefing schedule in the run-up through that. i think she will stick with that. she will not let the defense
down all day he did no such thing and it s never been proved. one can say he s been impeached. one can say there s a commission. but to david s point what happens until there s a judgment by a court of law about what donald trump did? because any of these indictments that i have indicate he was involved in an industry rex against the united states. none of them have been proved. well, and there are plenty of people, not just regular ordinary voters but also elected officials, who claim there was no insurrection. so obviously this requires proof. it s a fact. it has to be proven as a fact. i think david is right, that the candidate has to have his day in court. in order to defend against that before he s thrown off of any ballot. but it seems to me that even if one secretary of state acted in one state that obviously that does not deal with the question of the elections that are going to take place and his name on
now, speaking of trump and federal court today was also a big day in special counsel jack smith s election interference investigation. the judge presiding over that case, judge tanya chutkan, set a trial date of march 4th, 2024, adding to trump s already very full political and legal calendars that month. and that was not the only significant date that was set today. arraignments in the fulton county case were set for september 6th. trump s arraignment will be at 9:30 a.m. that day. the rest of the 18 co-defendants including rudy giuliani and mark meadows will continue after that at 15-minute intervals. and that is where we start this hour with atlanta journal-constitution political reporter greg bluestein and former deputy assistant attorney general and former united states attorney harry litman. welcome to both of you. thank you for being with us. harry, i just want to parse the mark meadows thing for a second. there are two legal arguments he s making. one is that what he was doin