Warrant for donald trump. An Appeals Court opinion states, quote, the District Court found probable cause to search the twitter account for evidence of criminal offenses. Turns out that twitter and jack smith Squared Off On Whether Trump should be told about the Search Warrant, with the Federal Court ultimately ruling to keep the warrant a secret from trump. It says that, quote, the District Court found there was reasonable grounds to believe that disclosing the warrant to former President Trump would seriously jeopardize the Ongoing Investigation by giving him an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior or notify confederates. Its hard to remember now given that the expresident was banned for twitter for years and has not posted since his return, but his twitter account was one of the most powerful weapons in the aftermath of the 2020 election. He used it to spread baseless Conspiracy Theories to his millions of followers and urged his supporters to go to washington on january 6th. Be there, well be wild, galvanized farright extremists. The second memo written by coconspirator number 50. It has been obtained by the New York Times. We should note nbc news has not been able to independently authenticate the memo. The memo shows for the first time that lawyer Ken Et Chesebro acknowledged from the start that he was planning a bold strategy. But even if the plan did not ultimately pass legal muster at the highest level, he argued it would achieve two goals it would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and buy the Trump Campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive biden of electoral votes and or add to trumps column. Prosecutors allege that the memo was a critical moment in the plot to overturn the election, the moment when a concrete plan to derail president joe bidens victory came into focus, hinging on january 6th. The fraudulent elector memo suggested that the dedefendants electors contested states arizona, georgia, michigan, nevada, pennsylvania and wisconsin. On january 6th the Vice President should open and count the fraudulent votes setting up a fake controversy that would derail the proper Certificate Certification as president elect. With me at the table, former Top State Department official, rick stengel. Walk us through how we learned about it and the legal fight between the Special Counsel and twitter. Sure. We learned about it because this was newly unsealed. Its still redacted but it details not only the fact that the prosecutors wanted this information but they made credible arguments that in fact if donald trump knew about it, that he would try to destroy evidence or try to somehow publicly influence others to do something that would harm the investigation and even though with the existence of the investigation. In fact a judge ruled that this was true. I think what it does is it underscores the idea that donald trump is not somebody people believe could be trusted with evidence of any kind of information of any kind if it was going to benefit him to reveal it, manipulate it or somehow use it to make his own political case. I think this is really relevant today given the fact were about to go into a hearing where a judge in the January 6th Case is going to rule whether or not a standard protective order should be placed around the information that donald trump is able to see and receive and how hes able to use it. The timing on that not lost on any of us. Yeah. The twitter files that the Justice Department wants to retrieve clearly relate to that time period right around the election. All of those materials could be relevant. Its fairly typical for prosecutors to obtain social media from the platforms like twitter, like facebook and others. I think the only reason this is getting so much attention is they resisted in this case and it had to go to the Appeals Court to get timely compliance. But clearly there is evidence here that is important to jack smith and the investigators. So im sure well see pieces of that during the trial. Barbara, help us understand what you think that evidence might be. Because to state the obvious, trumps tweets are there for the world to see. You do not need a subpoena for that. What then do you think it was that jack smith was looking for . Well, to authenticate those documents, getting them right from his account is probably the best way to do that. To get documents into evidence, you have to show they are authentic. To just show a screen shot that somebody grabbed, it could open you to a defense of that wasnt my really my tweet, that was somebody elses, that was an imposter, some other fabrication. You have to show a whole chain of foundational evidence to show this is The One And Only donald trump who communicated this. If you can so hes the owner of that account and obtained that document directly from twitter, you can even put a twitter official employee on the stand to say, yes, i keep the records at twitter, this is the account of donald trump and this came from that account, that is the chain of evidence that you would need to show authentication of this exhibit in court. I know it seems obvious that weve all seen it and we know its donald trump, but in court under the rules of evidence, you have to actually show that chain for foundational purpose. Part of what were looking at here is the cause and the fact that im sure youll remember that the january 6 select committee put together in montage, the response that that December 19th Tweet got from extremists. Take a look. Its saturday, december 19th, the year is 2020 and one of the most Historic Events in American History has just taken place. President trump in the Early Morning hours today tweeted that he wants to the American People to march on washington, d. C. On january 6, 2021. And now donald trump is calling on his supporters to descend on washington, d. C. , january 6th. He is now calling on we, the people, to take action and to show our numbers. Were going to only be saved by millions of americans moving to washington, occupying the entire area, if necessary storming right into the capitol. You know, we know the rules of engagement. If you have enough people, you can push down any kind of a fence or a wall. This could be trumps last stand, and its a time when he has specifically called on his supporters to arrive in d. C. Thats something that may actually be the big push Trump Supporters need to say this is it, its now or never. You better understand some, son, you better understand something. Red [ bleep ] wave is going to be a red wedding going down january 6th. On that day trump says show up for a protest, its going to be wild. Based on what weve already seen from previous events, i think trump is absolutely correct. His twitter does not exist in a vacuum, right . It is a powerful tool and then there is an entire echo chamber that is there to up the ante. Im feeling post Traumatic Stress syndrome from having watched all of that. I know. One of the things that jack smith did was he didnt go down the path of the select committee in terms of using trumps speech as a form of incitement. I would argue his speech is not protected because it led directly to violence, which contradicts everything that those folks are saying. But smith was careful not to do that in his indictment. In fact, in the third paragraph of his indictment, he says trumps lies and fraud are protected by the First Amendment. What is not protected is using those as the basis for phony electoral scheme and to obstruct the proceedings of the ratification on january 6th. I think one of the things that this twitter stuff will do is it will foment more of the people defending trump saying that this is a First Amendment free speech violation. Its not at all. Jack smith did not indict trump for any violation of the First Amendment. He indicted him for defrauding the American Public. None of these things are legal arguments. Theyre meant to be political argument for his base to repeat over and over, this argument of the First Amendment. That was one piece. Katie, walk us through what your piece from the times obtained. The unindicted coconspirator number 5 is one of the several people that he had around him telling him legal strategies to undo the results of the election, Testing Courts around the country where they did in fact take many cases to court and they lost again and again and again and then after those losses, whats next . And so chesebro was Helping Eastman and donald trump to come up with a plan. One thing would be to say there were fake electors and chesboro says this is probably going to fail at the Supreme Court level, there are courts that wont allow this. But hes cognizant of not winning legally but politically in the minds of the public. Then he talks about things like, but, this could help us to convince people that there was fraud. This could help us to create a scenario in which donald trump is never in the vote count and it always looked like he won. Even if you get to the point where the Supreme Court says this isnt real, this is wrong, at that point in done, what he could have done is undermine the validity of the election itself, created a scenario in which americans across the country are not actually sure what happened and they dont know what to believe. Those are exactly the kind of circumstances you need to create if what you want to do is undo an election or retain power falsely. And part of what we have experienced, rick stengel, is that is the long tale, that is what has continued to haunt american democracy, the fact that he may not have succeeded the way he intended to, but he did convince a swath of American Voters that the past fair and free election was illegitimate. Yes. Its so complicated. The electoral counteract, which is the guiding legislation that covers this was actually passed in 1887 because it was compensating for the Tilden Versus Hayes election. Hes trying to use the law in his favor and basically say we dont think there was actually fraud but if we set up these separate electors for this state election theory, we can present the states with two separate electors, the fraudulent one, which was illegal and the legitimate one. Its complicated, its trying to fool voters. Its worked successfully for 150 years and he tried to undermine it. Im curious as you hear all of this, what does it say to you about chesboros legal exposure. Theres no mistake that is coconspirator number five. All of them could be charged. They have participated in this agreement to violate the law. I think hes a really important figure here. You may recall from the January 6th Hearings that he joined the Justice Department only in december of 2020, a very odd time to join the Justice Department theres just an election that trump has lost. People will be leaving but he joined at that time. He was the glue between john eastman and jeffrey clarke, this official at the Justice Department who almost became the acting attorney general. So he was the one who was the architect of all of this, Feeding The Eastman Theory into the Justice Department to sort of land launder it. You should never look at evidence in a vacuum because there is a lot of context to look at around it but this explains what the fake elector scheme was all about, it was about creating enough chaos to give cover for delay so donald trump could continue to throw sand in the gears of this election. And understanding this, dozens of people involved, campaign officials, lawyers, what does jack smith allege about trumps involvement himself . That donald trump knew that this scheme was wrong and false and predicated on the idea that there was Election Fraud and he had been told again and again by Justice Department officials by lawyers in the office of Legal Counsel and by others who were considered legitimate voices that he had actually loss. He wanted these plans to go forward knowing that in fact he had lost the election. And that is the crux of the Justice Departments argument, that donald trump, he can speak freely and he can say that he believes certain things but if hes been told again and again that things are wrong and what hes doing is stealing an election, that that speech does not protect that activity. Theres a remarkable twist for my fellow nerds is he reportedly cites law professor Lawrence Tribe in this investigation. Tribe is a prominent, vocal critic of donald trump. My own conclusion is that all of this, the indictment included is at least from mid November 2020 chesebro had a scheme including using my treaties that he used as my justice assistant, thereby casting me, wrongly, would make it easier for trump to circumvent the election law act. It seems like chesebro was trying to implicate Lawrence Tribe in all of this. I think tribe is a wellknown legal scholar. The idea is if we can train this was a theory advocated by Lawrence Tribe, the liberals wont know what to do with themselves. But in fact, as Professor Tribe writes what chesboro was really a bastardization, number one, that its unconstitutional and the other, that congress can change the law at any time and is not beholden to the laws of prior congresses. Thats true but they have to change the law. They cant ignore or flout the law just because they disagree with it. They must use normal legislative process to change the law. It is a Sleight Of Hand to say larry tribe would condone this plan whatsoever. They used him as a Stalking Horse there just as a form of disinformation. Katie, thank you so much for getting us started. Barb and rick, youre sticking with us. When we come back, were likely four days away for the already twiceimpeached, thrice indicted Vice President. And later in the show, an august Special Election, one that people were expecting low turnout for defying the odds yesterday. That story and more when Deadline White House continues after this. Ine white house cons after this you founded your Kayak Company because you love the ocean not spreadsheets. You need to hire. I need indeed. Indeed you do. Indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. Visit indeed. Com hire rsv is in for a surprise. Meet arexvy. the first fdaapproved rsv vaccine. Arexvy is used to prevent lower Respiratory Disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. 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