Good evening. Im mehdi hasan. The insanity defense. That is what the Trump Legal Team seems to be offering this week in the wake of Special Counsel jack smiths stunning and damning 45page indictment, excuse, me of the former president , charging him with conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy to violate rights. All charges fueled by his lies per the indictment. The trump team saying, though, he wasnt lying, he truly believed he won the election. Which, if he truly believed that, would of course be insane. But its not true, as smiths and item notes, trump was informed by members of his own campaign and legal teams that he had indeed, lost there was no massive fraud involved. Trump himself is quoted in the indictment telling mike pence after his own Vice President told him that he, mike, pence had no Constitutional Authority to reject the vote on January The 6th, quote, youre too honest. Best of all, one of trumps own top lawyers stood outside the courtroom at trumps arraignment on thursday and said this in front of cameras, recording her. I think everybody was made aware that he lost the election, but that doesnt mean that was the only advice he was given. Oh. Everybody was made aware that he lost. There goes the insanity defense. But trump and his supporters in the gop and on fox have not given up with their nonsense defenses. Theyve spent the past week straw manning, what about,ing and straightup lying in response to jack smiths latest indictment of the former president. Tonight, let us start by debunking the top five desperate defenses of donald j trump. And number, one this is the most popular one, this indictment of the former president , they say, is a criminalization of free speech, of political speech. Donald trump had a First Amendment right to say he didnt lose. How dare the doj violate that . Listen to the folks on fox. They are criminalizing political speech and political interpretation. Those are now felonies punishable by decades in jail. What this says from jack smith is a complete violation of an individual First Amendment rights. Its garbage dressed up with a legal the source. Its criminalizing thoughts and criminalizing speech. You have every right to think and election might be rigged or fixed. Yes, greg, you do. You do have a right to think or say that. You know who agrees with you . Jack smith, in his a diamond, right on the second page, paragraph three, he says the defendant had a right, like every american, to speak publicly about the election and even tickling falsely that there been outcome determinative fraud during the election and that he won. However, smith goes on to say, the defendant didnt just speak out about the election or make false claims, he pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results. See, you can speak freely as long as you are not engaged in crimes or criminal conspiracies. We all know this. Conning someone out of their life savings is speech, but its still a crime. Bribing someones speech and a crime. Blackmail is speech and it is a crime. Sharing state secrets with a foreign governments speech, its also a crime. To quote a headline in the new republic this, week there is no First Amendment right to organize a coup or to quote someone i would normally quote, trumps own former attorney general, bill barr. As the indictments us, they are not attacking his First Amendment right. He can say whatever he wants, he can even lie, he can tell people that the election was stolen, that he knew better. But that does not protect you from entering into a conspiracy. This isnt that hard to follow. Donald trump is being put on trial not for what he said but for what he did. Number two, they say that donald trump is being indicted for defrauding the United States. But what he did doesnt meet the Legal Definition of fraud. Conservative National Review magazine put out an editorial slamming the ind said, as the Supreme Court reaffirmed a few weeks ago, fraud and federal criminal law as a scheme to swindle victims out of money or tangible property. Yeah, but they got the wrong statute. Sorry, guys, that was wire fraud. As long as ken white and ryan goodman on twitter have pointed out, the indictment charges trump with defrauding the u. S. Until 18 u. S. Section 371. Heres how the Supreme Court defines defraud under that statute. Quote, to just conspired to defraud the United States means primarily to the government out of property or money, but it also means to interfere with or obstruct one of its lawful government functions by deceit, craft, or trickery. And that is what trump did. Thats how he allegedly conspired to defraud the u. S. Not in a financial way, but a very political and antidemocratic way. Its a felony under section 371 to do that. Number three, this is politicized justice say the republicans, this is the target of their political opponent. And what about hunter biden . Just have a read of a gop senator tim scott tweeted on tuesday in response to the indictment. Quote, i remain concerned about the weaponization by bidens doj, what we see today are two different tracks of justice, one for political opponents and another for the sign of the current president. He continued, we are watching bidens doj continue to hunt republicans while protecting democrats. Hunter republicans. Hunter republicans. Why havent all the republican candidates running for president , including tim scott, been indicted . Including especially trumps own Vice President , mike pence . Why only the candidate who try to overturn the election . This is desperate stuff from tim scott. The truth is joe biden isnt involved in any indictments of donald trump. He wont even comment on them. His attorney general, Merrick Garland, outsourced at this latest investigation to Special Counsel jack smith to avoid any perception of politicization or weaponization. And that is for hunter biden, a trumpappointed attorney david weiss, again given huge freedom and discussion by garland who did upset congressional republicans. Again, to Quote Bill Barr of all people, you may not like this case, but its a legitimate case. Its not weaponization. Number four, what trump did pressuring mike pence to throw out votes was not a violation of the law, it was just a technical violation of the constitution. Those dont count, apparently. This is the newest defense of trump rolled out by his newest lawyer, john lauro, On Meet The Press this morning. A technical violation of the constitution is not a violation of criminal law. That is just plain wrong. What . What . I will leave the rebuttal this wanted him about it congressman jamie raskin, a constitutional law professor himself, who also appeared On Meet The Press shortly afterwards. First of, all a technical violation of the constitution is a violation of the constitution. The constitution in six different places opposes insurrection and makes that a grievous constitutional event. So our constitution is designed to stop people from trying to overthrow elections and trying to overthrow the government. But in any event, there is a whole apparatus of criminal law which is in place to enforce this constitutional principle. Thats what donald trump is charged with violating. He conspired to defraud the American People out of our right to an honest election, by substituting the real Legal Process we have under federal and state law with counterfeit electors. There are people in jail for several years for counterfeiting one vote. If they try to vote illegally once. He tried to steal the entire election. His lawyers are out there that saying that is just a matter of him expressing his First Amendment rights. That is the range. That is a deranged argument. Deranged. Well said, congressman. And last but not least, number five, whataboutism. What about the democrats . Didnt they do the same thing didnt they do all of this before . Listen to gop speaker Kevin Mccarthy speaking this week. I could say the same thing hillary ten says about her election that she lost. I can say the same thing about the dnc who said it about the 2016 race. I can say the same thing about those in the Democratic Party from the leadership on down about george bush not winning and al gore did. But were any of them prosecuted . Were any of them put in jail . Well, no, they werent prosecuted and werent put in jail because they didnt do what trump did. They didnt try to overturn an election. Al gore conceded, in fact allegory was the sitting Vice President who counted george w. Bush Editorial College votes and didnt do what trump falsely says mike pence was about to do. Hillary Clinton HouseSenate Democrats voted to object to some states votes counts in january 21 and january 2017, but not as part of a plot to overturn the election, not with the aid of Fake Electors, and not at all gore and Hillary Clintons direction. Republicans are gaslighting you when they say democrats did the same. Of course they didnt. What donald trump did in terms of trying to overrule the votes in georgia or trying to get the doj to make false claims of voter fraud and trying to get mike pence to throw out votes and trying to submit Fake Electors, no president , no party has ever done before. What trump did is what he is being prosecuted, for not for what he said. And that they keep coming up with one ludicrous dishonest, demonstrably false argument after another is evidence that they know that this time, finally, he is in serious legal trouble. Joining me now to discuss is and more, a run out former credible Legal Defense columnist for politico. Dean, msnbc daily columnist and host of the dynamic delay show. And former California Superior Court judge an author of honor my life on the, bench what works, what is broken, and how to change it. Thank you all for coming back on the show. George cordell, let me start with you. This afternoon, trump attached attacked the judge on his truth social platform. Hes already attacked the prosecutor and potential witness mike pence. Hes made threats. This is a rain on thursday when he promised to do not any of that. If you are in judge tanya chutkans place overseeing this, what action would you be taking about this particular very highprofile defender, if any . When a judge makes an order, the judge expected to be followed. If the order is not followed, it should be immediate consequences. If not, the judge is not taken seriously. In this, case a magistrate, by the, way who happened to be a woman of color, gave him a directive and an order and he immediately, in my, view went out and violated it within 24 hours of the order. So it is likely that this issue will be brought before judge chutkan, not the magistrate. And for her, i think it is absolutely important that people who do not follow the judges orders face immediate consequences. So in this instance, i know that the others prosecution is asking for a protective order. But there is still the issue of that order, the threats hes made, being violated when hes told not to. I analogize this to a parent raising a child. I have two daughters, i raised them with love and also to understand our consequences for your bad behavior. In this case, there have to be immediate consequences. For a child, it is usually, well, you cant go somewhere, you cant go to the party or a timeout. Here, it is important that we have a timeout and, in my view, the timeout would be, oh, get your toothbrush and spend about 3 to 5 days sitting in jail to think about how serious this is and now when he is back in court, you understand this, you got . It okay, lets proceed. Hopefully, lesson would be learned. Hopefully, i, mean its interesting to make analogy with children because he is a man child extraordinaire. As an aside, it must be killing him to be coming up against black women judge, Black Women Prosecutor again and again. Youve written a piece this Weekend Calling judge chutkan trumps Worst Nightmare. We fully explain why you think that is. For many reasons. I should say at the outset, she is going to be not only fair, she will be perfect in how far she will be. She has a history of defending defendants rights. Shes a former public defender. Donald trump will get an immensely fair trial. The reason, she is his Worst Nightmare is that she rejected the trump teams efforts to postpone a responsive motion by three, days making it very clear this trial and nope, not doing it, monday. John laura wanted the time to go on tv five times a day because of the motion response, go home, get in the green rooms, answer the motion. Secondly, the idea that shes in it so harsh in sentencing january six defendants, shes been 80 of the time sentencing beyond what prosecutors want. Which means, if donald trump is convicted of one of the four felonies, if not more than, that hes not going to be in maralago, folks. Hes going to be in a prison cell, where he belongs. I hope for the rest of his natural life. Also, of course, as the judges mentioned, the judge is a black woman and an immigrant. Something donald trump really has a problem with. We all remember the back chants he led about Congressman Omar in congress. Together, she is a great judge, shes going to be extremely fair. But you wont put up with his games. She is already making it clear. She is going to send him to jail if he is convicted. On the topic of this protective order in trumps habit of witness intimidation, i just want to fast forward a bit to the first year of donald trump has not committed to whether he will participate. If he is on that stage with mike pence and we are arguing about January The 6th, is that a violation of the order, as mike pence might be a witness in the trial . I know its all unprecedented. We are in new ground here. But hes also surrounded daily by multiple advisers who, as the Washington Post reports this weekend, his own advisers could be witnesses in more than one of the coming trials. What do they say on a daily basis to him . Its a great question. I actually think, as you said, its unprecedented. I think a different person than donald trump could, you know, act with a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer here and carefully choose his words and be careful about what he says on the debate stage, be careful about what he says to his associates. We all know donald trump is not going to do that. [laughter] he cant. From my perspective, what i think the judge is going to be very savvy litigator, a lot of experience. I think what she is going to do is instead of trying to take actions based on his [inaudible] i think she will continue to rule against him, shes going to continue to accelerate the trial date. Ultimately, from my perspective, shes going to teach him ultimately that at the end of the day she is the decider and there is a real big consequence that comes if you are going to try to constantly the judges rule. I think itll be interact, and as a result of him flaunting and going against the judges rules, i suspect he will get a speedier and speedier trial. That decision recently to deny a motion for just a threeday extension i think is a preview of what is to come. Judge cordell, we have the d. A. Alvin bragg prosecution of trump in manhattan. We have a possible indictment from d. A. Fani willis in fulton county, georgia, coming perhaps any day now. Both bragg and willis have said they will defer to jack smith on the timeline of trials. How quickly do you think judge chutkan could get this trial going . Ronaldo mentioned a speedier trial. Its perhaps the most important trial of all. How quickly could get started . How quickly could be completed, even, given next novembers the election . Every defendant is entitled to a speedy trial. In this instance, when you have a very weak defense, what you do is delay. So it is up to the judge to move things along. However, the judge has to make sure that the defense has had the time to review all the discovery and get things in order. While there is a push, there are certain rights that have to be looked at. It is really interesting. Everyone talks about the federal case. But it is the State Course Case where donald trump. , if he is convicted, has no way of getting out, no way around it. He cant use any kind of authority because the state courts are not under his authority. I really look at the state court cases as being the ones that can be the most effective if they are to have convictions, if he is convicted in those courts. Dean, what did you make of the Message Discipline of some of the trump defenders, especially in the media, the wall street journal, fox, the new york post, National Review, all of conservative media this week, they leapt almost with unanimity to pick up on, this its an attack on free speech from the trump legal, team it was kind of standing to watch, but it can be effective when it comes to prosecuting. Not a. As it can be to the gop base. That one defense i, love john moreau said it wasnt critical that trump what was doing, aspirational. He just aspire to overturn the election. Its like me going back in, going i have a gun in my pocket and i like all you