You're listening to kf I AM six forty wake Up Call with me Amy King on demand on the iHeartRadio apps KFI hand KOST HD two, Los Angeles, Orange County. It's time for your morning wake up call. Here's Amy King. This is your wake up call for Thursday, August seventeenth. Good morning, I'm Amy King. Thanks for waking up with us this morning. Fat Kno, we got Ann You got Tyler hanging out with you. Lots of good stuff coming up on wake up call today. Here's some of the things
that are ahead. Three to five inches of rain up to fifty mile per hour winds are expected to hit La as a rare tropical storm heads towards southern
California. Tropical Storm Hillary, which could become a hurricane later today, is expected to make landfall on Monday. A Gucci store at South Coast Plaza has been robbed of about one hundred thousand dollars in merchandise in the latest smash and grab flash mob robbery in the Southland, and the SpaceX Falcon nine rocket launch from Vandenburg Space Force Space in Santa Barbara County has been delayed to early tomorrow. Is supposed to lift off at midnight. Let's get started with some of
the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Forecasters say people in southern California should get ready for heavy rains possible flooding as Tropical Storm Hillary makes its way up the coast. The storm is strengthening off the coast of Mexico and is expected to hit Baja California before reaching San Diego and then La on Monday. The National Weather Services isolated flooding is possible near burn scars.
Hillary is expected to produce hurricane force winds up to seventy four miles per hour over the next five days. Officials say federal, state, and local assistance is now available for those affected by the wildfires on Maui. Maui County Mayor Richard Bisson says everything's being done that can be done. I'm authorizing waiving property taxes for this year that includes structures as well as land. The taxes that
have already been paid will be refunded to those families. Bisson says they're working to get people displaced by the wildfires more semi permanent housing. He says more than a thousand hotel rooms and Airbnb homes are now available for those who need a place to stay. Officials on Maui are getting ready for their arrival of President Biden. Hawaii Governor Josh Green says the area is hardest hit by the deadly wildfires last week. Are safe enough for the President to enter. Will
spend time viewing the site. First Lady will be here as well, and we'll be able to give him additional understanding about Hawaii. He's been very gracious, Green says. One of his first phone calls following the destructive fires was to President Biden. The President announced yesterday a one hundred percent reimbursement from THEMA to people in need on Maui. Steve Gregory k if I News. City Councilwoman Tracy Park is asking LA for more money to fight homelessness through a countywide
tax. Measure H is a point two five percent sales tax that funds homeless services. Councilwoman Tracy Park says, before voters decide to continue the tax past twenty twenty seven, when it expires, she wants LA to demand a bigger chunk of the funds from it. My motion asks for a seat at the table, our fair share of the funding and oversight. The Accountability Park says LA deserves more money because the majority of homeless people in the county are in
the city. Measure h is expected to raise three billion dollars by the time it expires. Blake Trolley k if I News. The Fulton County DA has proposed a March start date for the trial of former President Trump and eighteen others on charges related to efforts to overturn the twenty twenty election results in Georgia. Aaron Katurski says Trump is already supposed to be on trial in March in New York for his hush money case. Then there's the political calendar March fourth,
just one day before the super two day primaries. Willis also suggested yesterday the arraignment in the case take place in just three weeks. The indictment, unsealed Monday, accuses Trump and his allies of being part of a criminal enterprise. The coach of the US women's national team in soccer has resigned. The move comes less than two weeks after the team was knocked out of the Women's World Cup. The US scored just four goals over the course of the tournament.
Last week the team's exit was the earliest in tournament history for the US. Let's say good morning to ABC's Alex Stone, who's on the ground in Maui or on Maui. Alex. Another impossibly difficult day as residents in the burn zone are allowed to go home for the first time. Yeah, they've been at least in the surrounding area around Lahina. People can't get into Lahina itself
because there is still the active search is going on. But coming into town for the many folks who vacation on Maui, you know the bypass that goes around town, and that is now open, and as you're coming in, you can see down on the community and the entire town just obliterated. It is. The color is gone. It is a white and gray ash color. Then you reach the ocean and it is the bright turquoise blue waters that Leahina is so famous for, that dichotomy between the two going right down the
middle from the gray ash to bright blue. And people are now able if they live in the surrounding areas, to finally go home and to get out of the area for those who are trapped in the area, and to go get food and get support and whatever they need, but also to get in and to go to work and to see loved ones. I went into to one neighborhood and amy it's, you know, kind of every man and woman for themselves right now. Yes, Maui police are roaming around, but people
are kind of taking it upon themselves to handle their own security. There are now checkpoints that have been set up by the residents to find out who you are coming in. There is a lot of suspicion about outsiders coming in, whether they be tourists or reporters or FEMA coming in that if you're not from the island, they want to know what you're doing here and what your intentions are. And they had a big sign handwritten in blue paint reading no tourists
allowed. And they're checking cars going in. And I talked to eleven year old Hanol. Hanley says at night he does this well, at nighttime, I stay up and security their role. Let me do like luders you know what luders? Yeah, yeah, we do that. He says. He's on patrol all night. That that is his job in their neighborhood to make sure nobody is going to come in and take advantage of them. But he says, overall, it's bad that it's happened, but at least we're all
together with helping the community out together. There are major worries in those neighborhoods. Are afraid of looting, They're afraid of people coming in and taking advantage of them in any number of ways. So the suspicions are heightened right now. While right down the road cadaver dogs are working. There are more cadaver dogs coming in. FEMA has about thirty here right now, thirty teams, many of them from California, from La County Fire and Riverside and elsewhere,
and they're going to get ten more that they've decided they need more. There's an order for more coming in, so they'll be heading this way. Okay. And you were mentioning the neighborhoods, the ones that they've been allowed to go back to. Are those neighborhoods all unaffected? I mean they're affected by the fire. But are all the homes still standing? Are there? Some homes are burned and some are not, or is it pretty much all still
standing? Yeah? So in Hanlay's neighborhood, it's pretty amazing. The fire burned right up to their backyards. And then yeah, they said that they fought it, that firefighters fought it, and clearly based on the burn pattern, it wasn't raging when it got to their backyards, but still it burned
up to their backyards, and so their neighborhood is okay. But there's kind of a wall because like so many wind driven wildfires, and we see whenever the Santana winds blow in SoCal that it is a very defined pattern where the fire went. It was pushed by the wind. It didn't spread way out. It's not that big of a fire. It just it's where it was and what it moved through and where it started. It then was like a blowtorch to the ocean and it went right there on a line to the ocean
and then essentially went out there. So it doesn't spread very far out. It is pretty much like somebody and it's cliche, but like somebody dropped a bomb on Lahinah and it didn't touch anything else around it. It went right
through the town and that was about it. That's so amazing. And I know, like the pictures you were describing on the white dust that kind of covers everything in Lahinah and then you see again all the pictures that I see on TV are of that row of cars right up against the ocean wall that are just burned out, and like it's just embedded in my brain. That burned that fast and that hot. Yeah, thousand degrees and yeah, moving
moving through. And those were people who were trying to get out. It picked pretty bumper traffic, a quick evacuation, trying to bail out of the area, either go south or go north up into Kanapali and get out, and they couldn't do it. It was too many people trying to get out at once, similar to what we saw in Paradise in northern California in twenty eighteen, where the evacuation it's chaos and pandemonium in that moment. In this
case, those cars were overtaken. Some people didn't get out. They found a family of four and one of the vehicles with children in it. They don't know who they were. They only were children based on the size of the human remains. It's going to take DNA. But they were trying to get out. Yeah, and you said that they're bringing in even more cadaver dogs. Are they are they finding things or is there anything left? To
find. Yeah, they're well, they're finding human remains and I mean not to get too graphic, but the victims were essentially cremated, so it's it's bones and and just things that the dogs are hitting on. And that's why it's going to be a while to ide a lot of the people. They brought in FEMA mobile morgue with twenty two tons of equipment with examination tables and
X ray machines and DNA help. Some of that won't be needed for most of the victims who they're finding, but it just shows you the grim reality of what this is. Maui County can't handle whatever this number is going to end up being. And that's the thing. Nobody knows what the number is going to be. It is today at one hundred eleven, Tomorrow, it'll probably be up from that and then up from that. And they've only been able to search less than half of Lahinah and they've really got to get into
the neighborhoods. And that's the concern is when they get into the dense neighborhoods that the numbers are going to go up. There are still so many people amy who are missing here. Where are they some of them on the list probably never existed, and that you know, somebody says, well, I saw a guy on a bike and I haven't seen him since, and he gets added to the list. Well, maybe that person never existed, or the different spellings, or somebody goes by a different first name and that's not
known, and there will be duplications and things on that list. But there are a lot of people at last it's unofficial because there are several different lists, but last count, probably nine hundred to a thousand people on that list. Where are they and nobody knows and are they making any headway on the list? Doesn't I mean, it still sounds like that number is still so high. Yeah, it's it's hovering pretty high. They don't know where most
of those people are. Yeah, I gotta say, compared to some disasters, the list is very unofficial here. It's kind of a well we've seen this, we've saw that online. Yeah, people have reported this, so we don't have a real good sense of what the number actually is. But but no, it doesn't seem like they're they're able to bring that down much. Okay, Alex Stone, thank you so much for your time and insight this morning. Appreciate you got it. Thanks Sammy, talk to you again
soon. On a happier note, the El Segundo Little leaguers have advanced to the Little League World Series and they play their first game today. So they got the twentieth and final spot when they played last week against San Ramon that was the Northern California team and so now they are in william Sport, Pennsylvania, and El Segundo is playing the Wounded Ju the Great Lakes regional champion. So there's games that will be played all day. El Sagundo plays at four
o'clock hour time. It'll be aired on ESPN, also on Fubo. So let's cheer on the team and hopefully we'll have some good news coming out of Southern California. So we haven't had a Southern California team win the Little League World Series in years and years and years and years, so wouldn't that be cool. Five taco trucks and taco stands have been robbed at gunpoint overnight around Los Angeles. The workers forced to give up cash, even their own Robert
wallets in the robbery. The former mayor of Anaheim has agreed to plead guilty to federal corruption charges for pushing the sale of Angel Stadium in the Plea. Harry Sidou, who resigned last May, admits he led to the FBI about what he would get for the sale. A guy accused of peeping into a home in Glendale and sniffing women at a bookstore in Burbank has been released from custody. Please say. The thirty seven year old has been arrested forty times
for sex crimes, robbery, and burglary. At five thirty five, it is Thursday, so Amy's on it. That's me. I'll tell you about my most reach, a recent binge, and whether it's worth your time too. At six oh five, it's handled on the news. A group has posted names and addresses of Grand jurors in Georgia, the ones tied to the indictment of President Trump and eighteen others. Okay, A couple of really special and intimate shows are coming to southern California. One of the songs you're you'll
hear is this one Superman. It's not easy. I can't stand to fly. I'm not nice, I'm just to fine. The better part of me. I'm more than a bar. You're waking up to Grammy nominated Platinum selling Artists five for Fighting, also known as John, I'm Drassick. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. John. What I love about the songs of yours that I know in Superman obviously is it It's a big song, but it's also intimate, and I think that that kind of leads us
to what you're doing next month. Well, years ago I started doing symphony shows, which were so wonderful because I have worked with incredible composers, and to be able to play my songs with a symphony, I think really adds a new dynamic, and we wanted to take it to smaller intimate venues, so kind of we were deduced the arrangement to string quartet. In the last five or six years, during the fall, we go out and do a string quartet tour. So it's it's me, it's a string quartet. The
players or New York you know prodigies. My violin player Katie just won a Tony for Mulin Rouge, and they're just incredible musicians. And so we really do this intimate show where I can kind of talk about the songs, tell some stories, and play with this this amazing set of musicians and really add I think a new dynamic, not to just stay hits like you know, Superman one hundred years chances, but the whole experience. For me, sometimes
I get lost just watching them. So yeah, we'll be you know, TiO Santa Clarita, my own stomping ground, and playing at home is always very special as well. Okay, so you're gonna be playing at the Sure Forum. Yeah, the Bank of America Performing Arts Center on September seventh and the eighth, but the eighth is already sold out. Yeah, so too bad, but then you'll be there. You'll be on September ninth in Santa Clarita at the Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center. And how big are these venues?
Yeah, they're five hundred and two thousand, which is like perfect, you know for me. I don't know about you, but I love to see my favorite artists in a small venue kind of with their instrument, like James Taylor with the guitar. That's it. Well, I need I want to hear where you wrote the songs, some stories, play it, how you wrote it, and it's it's really wonderful. And I think adding adding these string players again adds a dynamic that really enhances the whole experience. Okay.
And you mentioned that one of the songs that you're going to be singing, of course, is one of your hits one hundred years and you have a little a special rendition for wake up call for us. I sure do. Okay, let's play that right now. I'm fifty Forum moment coding between ten and twenty and I'm just dreaming kind in the ways to where you are this never wish love that song. Okay. I want to ask you one more thing because I read that you just recently went to Kiev. Yeah,
tell me about that. Well. I wish we had a couple of hours. It was insane. It actually started with Afghanistan. I'd written a song kind of critical of the Afghan withdraw and it became kind of very point within the Afghan vett community, and I actually started getting emails from people trapped in Afghanistan. So I didn't know what to do. So I started working with some NGOs, one being a group called Save Our Allies, who rescued sixteen
thousand Afghan Allies in nine days. Wow. And so I'd had this experience with them, and they moved some of their operations to Ukraine when the war started, and I'd written a song called can One Man Save the World, kind of recognizing the fortitude of the Ukrainian people, and we got word that the ministry was open to us going over there and playing a song with Ukrainian orchestra. And it was surreal. It was humbling every emotion you can imagine.
It's just incredibly angrying when you see see what was happening. But we put this orchestra in front of the symbol of Ukrainian independence. It's actually an airplane. It's called the Maria. It flew missions during COVID. It's the largest cargo plane in the world. It's the symbol on their army patch and putin blew it up in the first few days of the roar when he tried
to take Kiv. So it's in this bombed out airport. But we put the kind of orchestra in front of this plane on hollow ground and put my piano in a pool of jet fuel and recorded this song with these amazing people. Every member that orchestra either had a family member killed, missing around the front line, So we really, I think got a sense of what's going on there and it was surreal and as you can imagine, you know, very moving. And where can we see that? Yeah, it's called can
One Man Save the World with Ukrainian Orchestra. It's on YouTube. Oh I gotta do. It's just you know, put that in your YouTube and you'll see firsthand our experience there. And I look forward to going back when they win this war and playing it again for those amazing heroque people who are kind of fighting this goliath. And you can always see it on YouTube, but if you really want to see it in an intimate setting, the place to
see it is when Five for Fighting is performing next month. We actually play a little video of our experience in Ukraine while I play the song and we play the audio of the Ukrainian Orchestra so people can sense what we felt that day. So we're very excited about these dates. So cool. Thank you, John and Drawsick. To hear the complete interview, you can check out our wake Up Call page on KFI AM six forty dot com. You're going
to hear how Superman really changed John's life and his career. Also how we got the name for five for Fighting because he's actually a one man band and then plus the full special KFI performance of one hundred Years Again. His shows are September and seventh and ninth Thousand Oaks and then in Santa Clarita. Tickets are available at five four fighting dot com. Let's get back to some of
the stories coming out of the Kfight twenty four hour newsroom. A Gucci store at South Coast Plaza has been robbed of about one hundred thousand dollars in merchandise and the latest smash and grab flash mob robbery in the Southland. Will say nothing to close the shop and I saw about eight guys whiskey mask on the face, did look at me, and then I closed the door because I kind of scab And twenty seconds later they were running the other way with hands
full of clothes. Will you say? Up to ten people grabbed armfuls of bags last night then ran out. LA County District Attorney Gascon is promising to go after these retail thieves. I'm personally outreach, but what is going on and we will use every tool available under the law when there is an arrest me to make sure that this individuals are hell accountable. The robbery at South Coast Plaza, follows smash and grab robberies at the American at Grand and the
Nordstroom in Kanoka Park in the last few days. A man who was arrested for allegedly peeping into a home in Glendale and sniping women at a Barnes and Noble in Burbank has been released from jail because of overcrowding. The man appeared in court Tuesday and pleaded no contest to peeping charges. A woman who recorded the man following her on TikTok tells KTLA, it's scary he's out there.
I've been so anxious and almost had a panic attack the other day because someone was knocking on my door, you know, and everyone's telling me to be careful. La County jail records show the man has been arrested more than forty times. He was recently sentenced to sixty days in jail in fifty two weeks of sexual impulse rehab therapy. A second analysis of the gun used in the twenty twenty one fatal shooting of a cinematographer on a movie set in New Mexico,
alleges Alec Baldwin pulled the trigger. Baldwin says he never pulled the trigger and that the gun went off by accident. Oh, we're so far if the new report will lead to Baldwin facing new charges. In voluntary manslaughter charges against Baldwin were dismissed in April. ABC's Jason Nathanson says prosecutors reserved the right
to refile charges after reanalyzing the evidence. The report from earlier this month found the gun used in the shooting was not modified, contrary to what prosecutors said they originally thought. And a jaywalking desert tortoise has been saved from the middle of a four way intersection thanks to San Bernardino County Fire. Video shared by the department yesterday shows a firefighter picking up the rule breaking tortoise and moving it
off the roadway into some nearby shrubs. The department says, warm or cold blooded, We're proud to serve you. Desert tortoises are considered threatened on the California and Federal endangered species lists. When we come back, Amy's on it, and then stick around because we're gonna be talking with ABC's Brad Garrett at five fifty about reco charges, what they are, and what prosecutors need to do to prove that Donald Trump and others violated them tied to the twenty twenty
election. In Georgia, we have a tropical storm headed to southern California. It's making its way up the coast of Mexico, now expected to hit San Diego first and then the remnants of them are supposed to hit La on Monday, with three to five inches of rain possible and up to fifty mile per hour winds, possibly some flooding. The storm is named Hillary. A Gucci store at South Coast Plaza has been robbed of about one hundred thousand dollars in
merchandise in the latest smash and grab flash mob robbery in the Southland. At least one hundred eleven people have been confirmed dead in the wind driven wildfire they destroyed Lahina on Maui. President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden are set to visit the island Monday. At six oh five, it's handled on the news. Police are talking about what led up to the shooting of an off duty
sheriff's deputy on a golf course in Fontana. And at five fifty we're gonna be talking with ABC's Crime and Terrorism analyst Brad Garrett about what prosecutors are going to need to do if they want to prove that Donald Trump at eighteen others conspired to overturn the twenty twenty election in Georgia. We're else going to talk a little more in depth about RICO laws and the possible violation of those. What am I on. I'm on streaming shows, whether it's series or movies
or documentary. Sometimes network shows, but a lot of streaming because there's so much content out there. And a survey done by platform Plex found that just eleven percent of people look at ratings and they when they decide what to watch, forty one percent turned to the opinions of friends and families when they decide what shows to invest their time in. My friends and family are my go to and hopefully I can be that for you too. So here is just
a really interesting show. It's on Paramount Plus called Mayor of Kingstown. And I will tell you that I really resisted this show because honestly, Ted Lasso is my kind of show. Feel good, makes you'll laugh, restores your faith in humanity. That's my kind of show. And I'm a big Disney fan, So I kind of you know, I'm attracted to that kind of show. This show is not that it stars Jeremy Renner. My friend Amy has been telling me, you gotta watch it, you gotta watch it.
But it's very dark, it's very violent, and so I thought I'm not gonna like this, but I really really did so. Jeremy Renner's an ex con. He knows what it's like on the inside. His brother is this guy who's like a fixer and a liaison in the town. And quickly Jeremy Renner's character takes Mike McClusky takes over the role as the mayor of Kingstown and it happens in Michigan, and the whole premises the mayor tries to keep the peace between the inmates, the guards, the police, and those on the
outside. It's really complicated with relationships, you know, like Jeremy Renner's relationship with his mom, Diane Weez, who is a very gentle soul and she's always calming and works with prison inmates to try to better their lives. And there's conflicts between that, his relationships with the police, with the das, with the prosecutors, with the convicts, and even with the ex cons who
are on the outside making the rules on the inside. And I talked to somebody who actually said this kind of stuff actually goes on who who knew. But it's an interesting story. Like I said, it's very violent, very compelling. There are now two seasons out. The third seasons in question because they had planned on it, but then Jeremy Renner got injured in that snowplow accident, so they're talking about it, but it hasn't happened yet. But
the two seasons are definitely worth the watch. Here are some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Officials in northern California started installing and testing warning sirens in Paradise in the event of another wildfire or natural disaster. The sirens are nearly ready in time for the five year aniversary of the wildfire that killed eighty five people. Hard to believe that that's been five
years since that happened. The tests come as officials in Hawaii you're facing questions after their siren system wasn't activated at the start of the wildfire that has killed more than one hundred ten people. The La City councils asked to pause a hotel project in Benedict Canyon. Following some concerns about how the project would impact the environment and public safety. The council voted to support emotion, ordering the
city to reconsider building the proposed Bulgari hotel in a residential area. The council decided yesterday it was not in the city's best interest to spend resources and taxpayer money on a project that goes against everything it's doing from a climate and public safety perspective. A man has been fatally hit by a semi truck while he walked on the seventy four in Riverside County. Chpeceas a man driving a freight liner tractor towing a trailer hit the man yesterday morning. CHP says the man
was sent onto the shoulder of the road. Paramedics took the guide of the hospital, but he died there. A flood control channel in Huntington Beach can now handle a one hundred year storm thanks to an eighty three million dollar projects greater magnitude of what these channels were originally designed for. OSI Public Works Shannon Weidor says the eighty three million dollar project transformed the trapezoid shaped channel into a
rectangle shape, increasing water capacity by fifty percent. It's actually just one piece of the puzzle. Well, we'll have future projects along this channel leading up to the fort five Freeway, and all of those projects combined over the next ten years or so. They're designed to remove the large floodplane funk Orange County. The next phase to improve three of the channel's bridges starts next month in
Orange County. Corbin Carson k if I News. As if we didn't have enough to deal with, officials say a flesh eating bacteria found in salt water has killed three people. Luckily it's across the country. The desks were reported in New York City and Connecticut from vibriosis. Doctor Shannatou Nick says people can get infected through an open wound or by eating raw infected shellfish. Just we're going kind of floats in the water. It's associated with oysters, which are
there to kind of filter the water. Nike says people with diabetes reduced blood flow to the limbs, anyone on immunosuppression medications should be careful with raw seafood. Some officials say vibriosis cases have increased over the years because of rising water temperatures. That's where bacteria can thrive. More than a dozen dogs rescued from a car parked at a casino in Hawthorne are now ready to find their forever
homes. SPCA las Anna Bosco Bosios says someone called for help Sunday night and brought the puppies to the shelter. The dogs were unspained neutered, so that they have been breeding and creating more and more and more, so now we have fifteen available for adoption, the shelter says. The ten males and five female dogs are terrier Chihuahua mixes. Bustio says the shelter has sixty percent more animals now than this time last year, so adoption fees have been waived through
Sunday in case you're looking for a dog or a cat. An employee at the British Museum in London has been dismissed as police investigate the disappearance and damage of a number of items from the museum's collection. The AdeM's including gold jewelry, gems and semi freshious stones and glass dating from the fifteenth century BC to the eighteen hundreds. ABC's Dave Packers says the items had not been on public display and were mainly used for research. The museum said yesterday it will be
taking legal action against the employee. Lawyers for the twoies say they plan to end the NFL star Michael Orr's conservatorship Or file a petition Monday in Tennessee accusing the Ties of lying to him by having him signed papers that make him to make them his conservators rather than his adoptive parents. That was back in two thousand four. Or story, of course, turned into the Oscar winning film
The blind Side in two thousand and nine. It was fabulous Or is asking for a full accounting of assets, considering his life story produced millions of dollars. The twoy's attorney says Or knew he was never adopted. The couple's attorney also says the twoies and Or have been estranged for about a decade. That is so sad to hear that was such an inspiring, wonderful movie. Five taco trucks and taco stands have been robbed at gunpoint overnight around Los Angeles.
The workers forced to give up cash, even their own wallets. During the robberies. The former mayor of Anaheim is agreed to plead guilty to federal corruption charges for pushing for the sale of Angel Stadium. In the plea, Harry Sadou, who resigned last mate May, admits that he lied to the FBI about what he would get for the sale after it closed. Mattel's going to
honor late Mexican actress Maria Felix with a new barbie. Mattel says it'll celebrate the legendary actress's legacy contributions to cinema and cultural betterment, and to her advocacy for women's equality and indigenous groups. We're just minutes away from handling the news this morning. More smash and grab flash mobs have struck at a luxury retail store in Hancock Park and in Orange County at the Gucci store at South Coast Plaza. We'll take a deeper look into that, but right now, let's
say good morning to ABC's crime and Terrorism analyst Brad Garrett. Brad is our go to guide to dig into complex issues. Make him makes sense, which helps my brain, and has a whole lot of experience digging into the heads of the bad guys. So Brad, good morning, morning, and Amy, Donald Trump and others have been charged with violating RICO laws in that case in Georgia. So first, before you get started, what does RICO stand
for? And then what are they accused of doing. So it's a rocketeering charge originally in nineteen seventy passed by the federal government so the FBI could go after organized crime mob bosses basically, and what did she used for is it's like a conspiracy. So if you're part of the conspiracy, in other words, let's just use the mob boss, his or her lieutenants and people that did work for the mob. It was a common theme to keep the criminal
activity going or promote whatever they wanted to promote it. And so what it does is that you if you're part of this conspiracy. Let's just say former President Trump that he doesn't have to be there for every one of these alleged acts to have occurred, but he's the guy in charge of it. He knows what is going on, and so he's just as culpable under the law,
or under the RICO law to those charges. So you can see how it's very appealing to prosecutors because they can pull all these defendants into one case without without the requirement of like in a normal case you have to put the person you know with the gun at the location. You don't have to do that in this case. So we'll see. It's a very complicated case, as you well know. I mean, it's got all sorts of tentacles of
from aligning to election officials to tampering with voting machines. It just goes on and on and on. This case is going to take a long time to try. So if it's going to take a long time to try, but they want to start trying it pretty quickly. Well, she being at Fanny Willis, the DA of Fulton County in Atlanta, wants to start in March. I think it would be great if it could start in March. I
think it's probably a pipe dream, but we'll see. I mean, you've got now nineteen lawyers probably that are going to be fighting you that that's you know, it's not real, it's unrealistic. It's going to take the president's
ability to successfully run for reelection in effect, and so we'll see. I mean, many of the legal degals I talked to think it won't go until after the election, which would translate into sometime in twenty twenty five, because and the lawyers for the defendants are going to be saying, we need the time to put our cases together too, as they're trying to get the cases
dismissed. I would imagine, well, of course, and then the real question, of course, amy is how many of them will flip, because that's the whole idea here, of course, that when you charge people in these conspiracies, that some people, particularly at a lower level, will you offer up what they know for an exchange for a lesser sentence. So and
some of that may have already occurred. I have no idea. I mean, you end up indicting people that are working with you because you really have to, but it certainly will affect what sort of sentence they will get, assuming they follow through, testify, etc. You know, based on the plea agreement. Okay, And then basically there's nineteen people, and some of them we know, like Rudy Giuliani, we know, Mark Meadows, we
know. But there are so many Like they were showing pictures on CNN or Fox or something, and I was like, who's that, Who's that? I don't know these people? And so are those the people that the prosecutors would be more likely to go after well maybe, but you know, could Rudy Giuliani turn around in this case? Who knows. I don't know if that's would be high on my list if somebody you've got to flip. But but you know, he's an older gentleman. I mean, can he really
afford to go to prison at this point? I don't think so. So, so we'll see. I mean, it's what happens is basically you get people to turn against each other. Uh, and it's got to be Like I said, my guess is some of that's already occurred. I think more of it will occur. Okay, And what's the what's the potential image damage here? I mean, like, why is this case potentially more damaging then
the others that have been filed against the former president? Amy think about it this way, that you're going to have common, everyday, hard working folks that many of them maybe were involuntary positions at election polls or counting votes or in charge of voting machines. I mean they are they are the victims. In some cases there the defendants because they did things illegally that Trump's associates asked them to do so they've also been charged, but others are just victims.
And having those people on the stand and you know, maybe having their lives destroyed because of this, I think could be really powerful. And I think it's a terrific idea that it's going to be televised. Do you think that it will be? Oh, because it's it's not a federal one, so that it can be. It can be in Georgia? Does that so? I think Fanny Willis says it will be. I think it's just great because then people can form their own opinions about what they think of this case and
in the acts broken down in the indictment. And if you end up having all nineteen people, would they have nineteen lawyers plus the nineteen defendants all sitting at the defense table? I mean, how does that even happen? I know somebody asked me that earlier today and I said, I you will the judge allow some of these cases to break out and be separate trials? I don't know. That then becomes complicated because you have to keep repeating in many
cases the same evidence. That's another really from a management standpoint, I mean, you could sort of lose your mind. As a judge right, trying to keep up with nineteen defendants and he said, she said they did it. It could be tricky. Okay, well, interesting to see. So so the DA is looking for March fourth, but probably not going to happen that early. That's my guess. Okay, Brad Garrett, ABC News Crime and Terrorism Analysts, thanks again for breaking it down. We'll talk to you
again soon. Sounds great, see Amy, Thank you. Hey. Earlier we've talked to John o'drasik or on dras sick. Sorry about that with five for fighting And in case you missed it, you can hear the complete interview on the wake Up Call page on kf I AM six forty. We're also pushing it out on social media. You're going to hear about how the songs Superman It's Not Easy changed his life and career. Oh my god, it's such a powerful song, and how what happened around nine to eleven that was
tied to that song. Super interesting. And he's going to be playing a couple of shows in southern California. One is in Santa Clarita on September ninth, the other is in Thousand Oaks on the seventh and then there's another show on the eighth that's actually already sold out, so you can't get into that one, but you can get tickets at five for Fighting dot com. And again, the complete interview is going to be on the wake Up Call page at KFI AM six forty dot com. This is KFI and kost HD to
Los Angeles, Orange County. We lead local live from the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. I'm Amy King. This has been your wake up call. You've been listening to wake Up Call with me Amy King. You can always hear wake Up Call five to six am Monday through Friday on KFI AM six forty and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app