This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio.
So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find.
Eleven thousand, seven hundred and eighty votes, which is one more that we have.
The sweeping indictment of Donald Trump and eighteen others, alleges a vast conspiracy that stretched from the Oval office and Trump's infamous call to Georgia's Secretary of State to find him enough votes to win the battleground state to a hearing in Georgia's state House where false statements were made that Fulton County election workers illegally counted between twelve thousand and twenty four thousand fake ballots that were unloaded off a truck in the middle of the night.
They were ballots coming out, thousands and thousands of ballots in paper bags, in garbage cans, in cardboard boxes, and then they were put on a table and they were counted for the next three hours.
To a rural county in Georgia, and the plot to access voting machines and even includes the harassment of an election worker. But the former president remains defiant.
We don't take flee deals because I did nothing wrong.
It's called election interference. Joining me is Michael Moore, the former US Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia and a partner at Moore Hall. Michael. The sheer breath of this indictment one hundred and sixty one acts alleged, ranging from making false statements and forgery to computer theft and perjury. Is it almost too much even for a rico prosecution.
I think your Anaulynsis is probably right. I mean, the problem when you cast such a big name is that it oftentimes tangles you up too. And that's what she's done. She's got almost one hundred page indictment, and she's laid out all these acts and in places obviously outside of jurisdiction.
And that's why she used the Rico charges. She wanted to be able to talk about all these other allegations that she wouldn't have to prove beyond the reason of that in which she typical wouldn't have jurisdiction for in the indictment. So it's going to be a wail of
an undertaking without any question. You know, so many of the allegations standing alone, especially when we talk about overt act standing alone, they're just pretty vanilla and irrelevant to this, things like setting a meeting or making a phone call or you know, those kinds of innocuous type of things. But she's trying to paint the picture and use the context of all of this was this big, swirling conspiracy
at the same time. So the problem with that is that, you know, Rico's great if you're a prosecutor, because you can talk about all the dirty laundry that there is
as opposed to just one defendant's dirty laundry. The double edged sword side of that is that you also then are binding yourself to having to prove this, because a good defense attorney will just look for that one loose thread and start to pull it and unrivaled the case off of just some part of it that they were not able to prove, and you just need to cast enough to doubt in the jury's mind to cause them to not convict. So sometimes more is less, and that may be the case here.
Funny Willis is seeking a March trial date and says she wants to try all nineteen defendants together. Do you think the judge will actually let her go to trial with nineteen defendants?
I don't think so, And I don't think there's any chance in the world she's going to try the case or put it up for trial within six months. I think that's just a good pr statement to make. But I think anybody who watches the court system and certainly is familiar with Forulm County, will tell you that case isn't going to trial in six months. You'll have defendants who ask to sever their charges. That is, they don't
want to be lucked in with everybody else. The problem is if they're in the Rico case, that poses a unique question for a judge. You'll have other defendants who may end up cutting some kind of deal. They may take a plea agreement or agree to cooperate as a testifying which in exchange for their case being dismissed. You never know what might happen, but you'll have some defendants drop off like that. And that's frankly what I think
she has done by naming so many people. That is to really put the vice scripts on some of these defendants to get them to flip and then give testimony. And the best way to do that is to name them in an indictment. So I think that this is the kind of case that is likely to not happen in twenty twenty four, certainly not before the election. And I don't see how there's any chance in the world that she goes to court with nineteen defendants because at
one lawyer a peace. I mean, you can imagine the pandemonium in the court room with that many lawyers and that mean defendants. Every time there's an objection, every time there's a witness, and every time there's a document to look at it. You know that all of those almost twenty groups would be wanting to be heard at the same time. So it's it's so likely well.
And also Trump is known for delay, delay, delay, and they'll be pre trial motions. Speaking of which, Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows, is trying to move the Georgia criminal case against him to federal court from state court. Do you think he has a good chance of doing that.
I think it's a good motion. He's filing to move it under a federal statute that allows for a state case to be transferred to the federal court under certain conditions when a federal official has been charged, and it's a statue, it's a rule, then it is really centuries old that was designed to sort of prohibit state and partisan meddling in the business and the affairs of federal officials.
You can't likely think of much more of a federal official than a president, a chief of staff, And the conduct that's alleged in the indictment really focuses on the efforts surrounding the election. And for an incumbent president with an incumbent serving chief of staff, and then I think that clearly would be under the scope of their work
as it related to the election. Whether or not the claims about election integrity, whether or not the claim about trying to steal the election, those are things that have to be adjudicated in a trial. But the argument would be and it has to be an argument that is least plausible, And so the plausible argument is, if you're Medaws or Trump, that I was doing this to make sure that the election was accurate. We were doing this
to make sure that the election I've been stolen. We were doing this to make sure there was integrity in our electoral system. We were doing this to make sure that the vice president knew that he had the ability if there was some squirrely activity going on, we thought he had the ability, based on the advice of our lawyers, to pause the electoral vote count or we at least have these discussions. So there's a plausible argument that they could make that they were trying to do something within
the scope of federal authority. You know, whether or not they win the motion, I think it's a different type of motion that was heard in the payment case in New York when they tried to transfer that case, and the judge basically said, you know, payments of this nature or not within the presidential authority, and it's certainly not going to scoop their federal work. I think that there's a different claim to be had here. So I wasn't
surprised at all to see them make the motion. I think Trump will soon be making the same motion, and a transfer from the state court to the federal court obviously the nearest to his benefit.
Yeah, I mean there won't be cameras in a federal court room, and he could get a Trump appointed judge.
He could. I will tell you that the judges in the Northern District of Georgia, and I know most of all of them, consider many of friends, even the Trump appointees, I would never classify them as MAGA judges. These are people who either were order appellate court somewhere got elevated what I would call more centrist type individuals. The benefit to him would be he would draw from a much larger and much more politically palatable to him jury pool.
So you would get outside of Fulton County, where the case is now, which was a huge win for Biden, and you would get into an area which Tessam Counties in the Northern District of Georgia and the Atlanta Division that certainly leans Republican, and so it allows him to try to expand his opportunity to have a jury that would more likely have some people law that might identify with,
you know, Republican leanings and that type of thing. And remember that it takes one juror in a criminal case to hang the jury up and to prevent a conviction, and so his lawyers are really playing to that one or two jurors that they believe would be sympathetic to the claim that this was legitimate. So that's why I think the move is there. And also I'm sure that the lawyers would like the case in federal court for the formality of the federal courts are known for a
stronger motion practice. It obviously would be a clearer path or appeal issues both to the federal Court's appeal and then to the US Supreme Court of that option offso exists in the state proceeding at some point because of the constitution issues. But it's just a move that I think is at least thought out. It's not a hair brained motion.
If I said that way, do you think that it would hamper Willis's ability to try areco case if it was in federal court? Would she be hamstrung more?
I think she may be. I think that it gets her off of her home turf. I think that you played by a little bit different rules. I mean, some lawyers don't like to be in federal court at all. It's a more formal practice, So it would be outside the norm for let's put it that way.
What defenses do you see Trump possibly raising in this case?
I mean, I think there will be clear First Amendment defenses. We'll have arguments about protective political speech, I think coming up. I think with that question, there'll be some executive privilege issues that come up. There will be presidential immunity issues, that come up again, things that I think the federal court will more there may be more use to dealing with those than you see in the state courts. He won't likely raise, you know, advice of counsel, say I
was doing what my lawyers told me to do. He has a notorious ability to sort of put a buffer between him and the criminal gabble coming down on him, as you will, and that is to have a lawyer or an intermediary or somebody there that you can say, well, I was you know, they didn't do exactly what I told them to do, or I was doing what they suggested that I do. And so in this case, I think you'll say, look, we were meeting, the lawyers, came up with these ideas. We were just having these creative
discussions to figure out is a possibility. I didn't know if the vote counts had been properly done, and so we wanted to secure the voting machines to make sure that the tampered with our reporting was X, Y and Z. But it was all based on the advice of my lawyers, and so I think those will be compelling defenses to some people.
But what about the fact that his lawyers are charged as co conspirators.
With him, well, and I think that's going to be a defense that they raise. It is unique in the sense that we don't criminalize lawyers from being created. We don't criminalize people for brainstorming, and we don't criminalize conduct rather for really thinking outside the box. Even if at the end of the day that box becomes just a zany idea. We look at it and say, it's okay
to talk about, it's okay to think. Is if the case And I think one of the issues with the indictment is those discussions are now being considered as overt acts, even a simple discussion or simple meeting. There's nothing unusual about voices being raised in the old office. There's nothing
unusual about lawyers telling of the present something. There's nothing unusually having lawyers with different views or different opinions, or writing a memo and another person says, know that the Pelic court is not going to do that, or no, that's not supported by the case laws. That's not an
unusual process, especially in the arena that we're in. So I don't know how that will play out, but I think you will hear and I imagine you will hear the lawyers saying, and at some point they may gain some support, not individually, but you know, theoretically they may gain support from some more established and respected groups saying, Look, a lawyer has to advocate, a lawyer has to be creative. A lawyer has to be able to give advice without fear of being prosecuted. A lawyer has to be able
to have a discussion without fear of being prosecuted. And they make a big deal about he's lost every case. If we're gonna start punishing lawyers because their theory lost in every court room, there will be a lot of lawyers in jail. Some people may agree with that, but as a principle, that may be something that we hear more about. Is the case goes on, as you say, because we do have lawyers names defendants, and I'm not in any way justifying what they did or what they
said or they took. I mean, if they gave false testimony and they knew it, and that's a problem. You know, if they had this concerted effort where they had clearly, without any doubt, proven that their numbers were wrong, and you know, that's a different issue. But to somehow equate having a freewheel and creative legal discussion that may have gotten animated into criminal conduct. I think maybe something that's distressed in a step too far.
You're talking about the overt acts. There is there anything else in the indictment, you know, the structure of it, or that you see a problem with.
Well, when we talk about the removal statue, you know, when you're saying couldn't be removed to federal courts. When I look at the indictment, there are one hundred and sixty one overt acts alleged of the indictment, one hundred and fifty four of those or a less to have occurred while Trump was a sitting president of the United States. They charged him in a number of counts, I mean probably a dozen counts or so, and only two of those that are a legs to acred after he was
president of the United States. And I think that's going to cause some issues, and obviously is another support for removal.
You know, can a locally elected district attorney charges our former president for conduct while he was an acting president If that's the case, I mean, if that is going to become the law, and that's the case, then I imagine you're going to see every president from now on indicted by some local DA who happens to be at the opposite party for conduct that they didn't agree with why personal was president. I mean, we're just headed down that path. I mean, I think we're beyond headed down.
I think we're running full there's not a slippery floor, full speed down the road into that. So I think those will be arguments that are made. There are issues I think with the you know, some things that come to mind as I look at the indictment. I mean the voting machine issue. You know, who had the authority to look at the voting machines. Georgia laws A mended in twenty nineteen and local officials are allowed to purchase
additional voting machines. They used to be the whole statute that only the Secretary of State purchased those machines, and this gave local boards of elections authority to have those machines. Store on those kinds of things that may become an issue on who had authority. I look at the fake elector's scheme in the indictment, and I don't know because I have not seen the documents, but it will be
interesting to see. Is there some notation or was there some reference in the meeting minutes, or is there a report or was something said and testimony or what about whether or not this was being done to protect alternatives or to protect the rights, and the courts ultimately decide one way or another. You know, these are things that I think may come up again, they being the prosecutors having access to information we don't all have right now.
But just to read through the nearly one hundred pages of allegation, I mean, I can see some things that I think will become issues. And then a good lawyer representing one of the nineteen people, I'm sure we'll grab a hole see at least dig into it somewhat.
That's the thing that makes Willis's request for a March trial date so curious is that she's trying rapper young thug on Rico charges and jury selection has been going on for seven months. I mean, I've never heard of a jury selection going on for that long.
I don't know if it's because of the number of defendants. I don't know what's going on, but that's a Fulton County case where jury selection has been going on. I mean, can you imagine having the former president and eighteen of his closest friends sitting there selecting the jury. I mean, there's just no way the case is going to get done. You know, there's there's sort of this frenzy amongst the
Trump haters. There's so much excitement around the indictment, and I worry sometimes it's statements like I'm going to try it in six months, or we're gonna get this trial six months, or we're gonna try everybody to get I worry that sometimes that's like, you know, chumming the water a little bit, because it's just not going to happen like that, and people need to understand this is likely a case and I would say almost certainly crazy thing
has happened. I would say almost certainly a case that we will not see before the election, and then that will have its all effect as well.
Thanks so much, Michael. It's great to get insights from a lawyer who knows the Georgia courts. That's former US Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, Michael Moore of Moore Hall. And that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest
legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot bloomberg dot com, slash podcast, slash Law, and remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg