A Win For Justice

But today is a supersized show to go through, my god, all of last week's Trump legally's bullshit, from his belief that he could, you know, just think things as president and then they happen as if he is, oh, I don't know, the character from Bewitched, he can just wiggle

his nose and then poof, things just happen. To the fact that he thought him and his legal team thought that by appointing the Special Master and having Judge Cannon in their pocket, that you know, Judge Deery was going to move in a similar way that Judge Cannon moved, which was a course in Trump's favor. Well, that has been far from the fucking truth, and Judge Deery has showed that he is not coming to play games with

Donald Trump. Neither were the two judges on the three judge panel who Trump appointed in the Eleventh Circuit who

were also like, so, no, right. It's good to know this, folks, And I know that the bar is so fucking low, but it is good to know that, regardless of what President appointed these judges, that there are still some Republican appointed judges that actually believe in the fucking rule of law and understand how dangerous it is to America's national security that Donald Trump would walk out of the White House with boxes of classified information and just be having

them sitting around at his fucking retirement home in mar Lago. So last week, in my humble opinion, was actually a win for justice. Now, I believe that the mount Everest, as I have been calling it on wok app, the mount Everest of evidence against Donald Trump from New York with Tish James to Fannie Willis in Georgia to Garland in the Department of Justice. I believe that the walls

actually are closing in. And I think that Donald Trump is going to end up most likely going down not for sedition, which is what the fuck he should be brought down for, and the coup to overthrow the government and the election. I think that it's actually going to be his tax evasion and his fucking hubris that is going to bring Donald Trump down. And it's amazing to me that the Republican Party continues to rally around this

motherfucking fraudster. My only hope. Let me tell you so, let me just put it out there, Let me put it out to the universe. Let us all put out good energy and intent into the universe right now, because, as David Pluff said recently on MSNBC with Joy Reid, that you know, America falling into fascism. If you're an optimist, which we all know that I am not, we got a sixty forty chance of that not happening. I'm gonna say it's actually fucking fifty fifty my one hope, right.

And I said this the other day to a friend of mine, I said, you know what, faith is a flashlight. Faith is a flashlight that we hold in ourselves when we are moving through the darkness. The faith that I am holding onto is that Donald Trump's ego, his belief

that he can do whatever the fuck he wants. He can inflate numbers, he can bring him up, he can bring him down, he can tell you they don't exist, he can think about things that Donald Trump's ego right and his cloak of white privilege is going to be

what actually does him in. And my hope, the faith that I have is that when Donald Trump is finally indicted and exposed as the lying, grifting piece of shit that he is, that everything and everyone that Donald Trump has touched in his criminal career will also go down. That includes the investigations into federal judges that were impointed,

That includes investigations into members of Congress. That, dear friends to me, will be when my optimism and faith in system and government and institution actually rises, and I think, hold me to it. I believe that we are getting closer than I actually ever thought that we would get.

And I want to applaud my hero, not of the week, but of the fucking month of the season, New York Attorney General Letitia James, who did not let up after three years, who had kept her foot on the fucking pedal, who has now so much information, so much evidence, that she has referred Donald Trump to the Department of Justice and to the i r US and said, here, I've

done your work for you. So let us hope, dear friends, let us still walk with that mustard seed of faith that justice will prevail, that there is still enough good people that can turn these bad people on their fucking heads. Coming up next, my super Side conversation with our friend Glenn Kirshner. It's no secret that the news is horsepill hard to swallow. Thankfully, there's The Bituation Room podcast hosted by comedian and commentator Francesca free Erntini for a lighter

take on the heavy stuff. Each week, The Bituation Room brings you progressive comedians, experts, and activists to break down the issues in a way that won't just leave you crying under a weighted blanket. Get The Bituation Room on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and streaming on YouTube and Twitch. Hey I'm David Plots of Slice Political Gabfest. As another election season accelerates, it can be tricky to sort through

all the noise and the news. Each week on The Gapfest, John Dickerson, Emily Bathlona and I decipher the headlines, break down the races, and tell you what issues really matter. We do not always agree, we definitely do not always agree, but we always deliver thoughtful debate and we always have a good time. So subscribe to Slates Political Gapfest, new

episodes every Thursday, folks. You know, whenever we have the opportunity to dig through the legal ease that is happening as it pertains to Donald Trump, our democracy and the sanctity of justice in this country. We're always grateful for Glenn Kirshner, host of Justice Matters and MSNBC legal analysts, to drop by and join us on Woke app Glenn, Man, it's been a hell of a week, right, um, Donald Trump, I would not want to be the walls in Mara Lago for fear I would be suffocating in catch up.

But let's start. Let's let's let's start with Judge Aileen Cannon makes her ridiculous recommendations with regard to a special Master, with regard to, you know, not wanting to Donald Trump's reputation. The Department of Justice Appeals to the Eleventh the Eleventh

Circuit Court. We were all holding our breath because you had told us on Woke f that the Eleventh Circuit Court was actually, you know, kind of jam packed with Trump appointees even still on the panel is kind of like wheel of fortune, right, you don't know who is going to be sitting on the judge panel. It ended

up being two Trump appointees. Their decision, however, with regard to the Department of Justice ability to continue their criminal investigation and probe into Donald Trump, their decisions, and what they alerted us with regard to their thoughts around Cannon's decisions was wow. So I just want to give you the floor to walk us through their opinions, which were I mean, I did not need a law degree to pick up what they were putting down. It was very clear.

But please walk us through it. Yeah. The three judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit just unanimously smacked down Judge Aleen Canon in using terms that we don't often hear in appellate opinions. And I say that because I argued lots of appeals in military appellate courts and civilian in local appellate courts and federal federal court. Judges usually use gentle euphemisms when they're criticizing what a lower court judge did. You know, man, you know, perhaps the judge could have

exercised different discretion. That's not what this panel did. This panel said, basically, Judge Cannon abused her discretion by even exercising jurisdiction and deciding to order the Department of Justice the FBI to stop criminally investigating Donald Trump as his conduct pertains to these classified documents that were seized from

Mara Lago. And when courts just flat out say judges abuse their discretion and shouldn't have even exercised the courts jurisdiction, what they are saying is, Judge Cannon, you are not very good at this judging thing. And it was a royal SmackDown, and the reason it was so important, and I think there are some things that we can tease

out of what we've just seen. Our faith in the federal judiciary is at an all time low because our federal courts are now populated with unqualified judges that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell crammed down the throats of the American people right and a lean Cannon was confirmed by Mitch McConnell Senate after Donald Trump lost the election. The opinion she issued saying things in essence like Donald, I treat Donald Trump differently than I treat every other litigan

before the court. That is a violation of her oath, quite frankly. And we'll see if she's referred for potential judicial misconduct. But because our faith in the federal bench is at an all time low, I was holding my breath waiting to see how Trump appointed judges might deal with this, and I was so thrilled to see that two of the three judges Trump appointees not only decided this at light speed because they got a forty page

brief from Donald Trump's criminal defense team on Tuesday. On Wednesday, they said, you lose. That's light speed for an appellate court. And then the other thing that I'm really pleased about is Judge Deerie in New York, who's the special Master reviewing us. It was a Ronald Reagan appointee. So what we have our republic judges, federal court judges who are basically the adults in charge once again as opposed to the alien canons, and they are taking this deadly seriously.

The need to investigate Donald Trump's crimes and the need to protect our national security and assess the damage Donald Trump did to our national security by stealing and then

unlawfully concealing these classified documents. I mean, one of the things that really got me in the opinion from the Eleventh Circuit Court was the term red herring, basically calling out Trump lawyers and Donald Trump himself in saying that you have put on a ruse for the American people like you can't regardless of whether or not you believe in your mind, as we saw via Eclipse with Donald Trump and Sean Hannity on Fox, whether you believe in

your mind that you have classified this information, it doesn't change the content of said information, nor does it make it your own private property. And I thought that that was so glaring because in the Cannon decision, it was we're just going to take this on a matter of Donald Trump said it, so it must be true, and we must take what this former twice impeached lying president has said over our Department of Justice, essentially signaling, well,

he could be right. They could be gunning for him. And what the Eleventh Circuit Court said was miss me with it right, Like, are you kidding me? If it is? If Donald Trump is so concerned about the hands that this classified information would fall into, well, then who's better hands for it to be in. Who's better vault for it to be in? Right? Then in the Department of Justice, his hands as opposed to your kitchen table at Mara Lago. Yeah,

but there you go, talking sense and logic, Danielle. And that's not what Donald Trump is about, as we both know. But you know he's There's so much good now that has come out of Donald Trump's lies that maybe I thought it declassified and poof, it was declassified. A lot of good comes out of that. First of all, as you just noted, the Eleventh Circuit said this is a red herring. But before they said it was a red herring, they said, there is zero evidence that Donald Trump declassified anything,

and we'll come back to that in a second. But then they said, and it's a red herring because, just as you pointed out, he stole these documents, and whether he declassified them or not, he still stole these documents. That's why he said it's a red herring. The declassification means nothing because it's still a crime. But then let's go to the declassification piece. In twenty nineteen, Donald Trump declassified some documents the way a president declassifies documents. He

went through the process when he declassified them. Now, he did it because he thought he was going to make the Democrats look bad, but he failed. Every single copy of it has to be marked declassified, the hard copies, the electronic copies, and the Trump followed the procedures. He didn't do any of that here. What does that tell us he needed now to actually declassify things. He failed

to do it here. But the other thing that this is a gift to prosecutors because by him saying, well to Hannity, maybe I thought them declassified and they were magically declassified. You know what that is. That's an admission by a party opponent under the rules of evidence, that we will introduce as incriminating information. So Donald, please keep talking and talking and talking. And I know some say, well, maybe this is the master plan. Give enough rope to

hang himself. I don't even like to use the term hang himself, but give him enough rope. Listen, he's got miles of rope. He's got rope to the moon and back. We don't need to give him anymore rope. We need to indict him, we need to charge him, we need to hold him accountable. So we put a stop to the deep injustice that we're experiencing in America right now, where everybody that he ordered to attack the Capitol is going to trial being convicted and being in prison and

he keeps playing golf. That's a deep injustice at play

right now. You know. One of the other things that really struck me too about the decision by the Eleventh Circuit was basically them saying that they agree with the Department of Justice as it pertains to not allowing Donald Trump or this Special Master to now review go back again and review the classified documents, which to me, Glenn, and you tell me if I'm interpreting this wrong, tells us that these documents, what the contents of these documents

are incredibly serious that we that the Department of Justice as well as the Eleventh Circuit Court want to limit the eyeballs that continue to review these documents. One of the things too, is that they're not going to be able. And by they, I mean the Department of Justice proved that Donald Trump paraded these documents and was showing them like a friggin you know, sylvaneer that he got from the White House to god knows who came into Mara Lago.

But what did you make of that decision as well to say, even though this Special Master was appointed, we're deciding no, no, you don't get eyes on this. You know, that is a group of adult judges acknowledging the national security risks that Donald Trump has inflicted on us, on

our nation. And you know, there's a body of case law that says when suits are brought, and these suits involve matters of grave national security, the courts generally will defer, you know, appropriately, but will defer to the federal government to the intelligence communities assessment of the possible risks to national security. And the Supreme Court has supported that over and over and over again. And Judge Cannon was like, I don't care about any of that. I'm treating Donald

Trump differently. And you know, I called her a classified documents denier. She said, I don't even know that. I'm not prepared to take this is what she said. I'm not prepared to take DJ's assertion that these documents are classified materials. She's a classified documents denier. We saw the picture. These are classified documents that were taken from his office,

from his desk drawers. And so the adults are back in charge on the federal bench, and they said, no, there's a reason we have national security laws, procedures and protocols in place. It's to protect the American people, and they're taking that seriously. So before we move on to Judge Deery and the I mean shot shot shots that he has that he has sent over the fence to

the Trump to the Trump team legal team. You know, the other day I was watching Joy Read on MSNBC and she said something that really struck me, and then I tweeted it. She said something to the effect that Donald Trump has multiple properties around the country, right and frankly,

around the world. What is making us think that Mara Lago was the only place that Donald Trump was holding documents, that he was stashing documents And why wouldn't Why haven't we then seen a warrant being delivered for Trump Tower in New York City for other properties that he has around the country, with the idea that we know based on testimony from January saying that he was traveling around

into foreign nations with these documents. So do we believe that Mara Lago is the only place where classified documents could possibly be. Yeah, there's legal sense and then there's common sense. And what you and I Enjoy are applying is common sense common sense and says, you rob the bank and you got five properties. Well, you may have your proceeds of crime, the money you stole at any one of those five properties. So isn't it prudent for

law enforcement to look at all five of your properties. Yes, it's prudent, and that's common sense. But here is looking at it through the lens of how we do search warrants.

Here's my thinking about this. If the Department of Justice, if the FBI had probable cause, based on evidence they had developed, that Donald Trump was concealing classified materials stolen documents at any of his other properties, what we would almost always do is coordinated simultaneous search warrants because, and we do this all the time, when we're dealing with multiple crimes, multiple criminals, multiple targets of an investigation, the last thing we want to do is only have one

search warrant hit one location when we know there's lots of other evidence of crime at other locations, because that alerts everybody that you better get rid of all the other evidence right right before we come for you. That's

why we do simultaneous coordinated search warrants. But we can only do that if we have probable cause and we can present it to a judge and the judges persuaded that yes, based on the evidence, I can conclude there are also stolen classified materials at Bedminster, at Trump Tower, at where Dral, at wherever. And because I know we would have done simultaneous search warrants and we didn't, that leads me to believe we only had probable cause that we could use to persuade a judge to issue a

search warrant for one location. Marilago got it, okay, which you know and in all honesty, which kind of makes sense just based on Trump's ego, which is that he wants these documents where he is right and and and and that that in and of itself is like no, no, um, these are mine right? And so where is Donald Trump, as Chris Hayes said the other night, at his retirement home in Florida, So that's where the documents would be.

Um okay, switching gears, um, but staying on obviously the same topic, Judge Deary, this was the special Master that the Trump team wanted. The DJ said, okay, have that at it. We're not going to fight this now. Again. They got what they wished for, and it doesn't seem to be going their way because the decisions and the pace at which Deary is moving is not what they

had anticipated. They wanted to drag this out. Deary is set in time lines that are like no, no, no no. If you have evidence that you declassified documents, send it. They said, no, no, we couldn't possibly so talk to us about the other decisions that that he has made that are letting us know that he did not come to play with them. Yeah, Judge Derry is making life hell for Donald Trump and his criminal defense team because Donald Trump said that Judge Cannon, I want a special Master,

even though the law doesn't entitle me to one. Judge Cannon said, you got it, mister Trump, he said, and I want that special Master to be Raymond Deary, senior judge up in the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn. And Judge Cannon said, you got it, mister Trump. And now Judge Deary said, okay, you want me to review

these documents for possible privilege. First, Trump defense team tell me what he declassified, if anything, because unless Judge Derry has that information, he can't even begin to do an informed review of this stuff. And this is my favorite part, and this may be the only time I've ever agreed with anything that a Trump criminal defense attorney has ever said. They said, we're not telling you because that would that will hurt our ability to defend Donald Trump when he's indicted. Yes,

I embrace that. I agree with the defense team that Donald Trump needs to be and will be indicted. So that that's one wonderful thing that came out of Dearies, the fact that he's presiding over this as Special Master. The second thing he just said, I think yesterday, Donald Trump, you have claimed that the FBI planted evidence. Put up

or shut up? Right now, present to me the evidence, because if I'm going to be reviewing these documents that you wanted me to review, I need to know what you claim the FBI planted because I guess I don't have to review those for privilege, right because you didn't even take those so's he is, pardon the term, trumping them over and over and over again and then most recently, and I still need to read up on this one. But you know, I have two heroes this week, Tiss

James and Raymond Deary. Judge Deary said, you will now be fine, Donald Trump five hundred dollars an hour. That'll add up quickly until you tell me the following, And I need to read what the following is. I think it has to do with him divulging what he claims the FBI planted. But I'm learning more about that topic right now. But Judge Deery did not come to play. Judge Deerrey's a real judge. He was a fis a

court judge. And why somebody told Donald Trump, Oh, I think Judge Deery once made this decision that you know, really ticked off the Department of Justice. So I think he might be a good one. That's me trying to look into the mind of the pick. But boy was out of miscalculation. I mean, he only surrounds himself with the best people, Glenn, so you know what else would we expect. Okay to the hero of the week, Tish James.

Three years of investigating Trump organization, Donald Trump his spawn, she has come to the conclusion and in her press conference laid out everything that you have known and said everything that I have known, and said, this is not your average family. This is a crime family that has been running a fraudulent scheme by inflating, deflating the values of their properties, their wealth in order to secure insurance and deals that would be better for them. Essentially what

we were told a while ago. Donald Trump is not as rich as he says that he is. He's rich, but he ain't billions rich. So walk us through Tish James what she has uncovered. The fact that we know

that again, this is a civil matter. She is suing Donald Trump for two hundred and fifty million dollars and also has referred to both the IRS and the Department of Justice for criminal pro which has now all of a sudden, we just got a statement from the man that's been asleep at the wheel Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who I've been saying for months should be investigated for his like quick about face on the initial Scythance investigation

into Donald Trump. So tell us what we need to know about where we think this case Tis James's civil case is going, and also the referrals. Yeah, Tis James dropped a two hundred and twenty page lawsuit complaint in a lawsuit. We should keep in mind this is civil not criminals. So Donald Trump won't go to jail behind

this action. But as you say, Tis James found so much evidence of crime that she referred him for criminal investigation to the Southern District of New York US Attorney's Office and Arm of the Department of Justice, and to the IRS for tax fraud. And it really does highlight the poor decision Alvin Bragg made some months back to overrule his career prosecutors who said, Boss, we got enough to indict and convict Donald Trump of multiple fell Any crimes.

And Bragg said, yeah, I'm not feeling it. I'm killing the investigation into Trump. Now, all of a sudden, Bragg is playing catchup. Well no, no, no, no, I'm still investigating. Yeah, well we'll see sport. You know, your track record is not strong at this point. But so Tish James basically has the goods against Donald Trump that he has been engaged in financial fraud, bank fraud, insurance fraud for a

very long time. And what I loved about a G. James press conference is she gave us the receipts that we can all understand. Because insurance fraud, banking fraud, tax fraud, it can be pretty murky stuff for people to understand. She said, let me give you just two examples. One Donald Trump has an apartment, and for any number of financial purposes, he certified that his apartment it has thirty thousand square feet in it, when in fact it has less than eleven thousand square feet, and he used that

information to defraud. Right, I can understand that. I get that. Here's the other example she gave, which I loved. Donald Trump apparently owns some rent subsidized apartments and they are professionally valued at seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and he certified that they were valued at forty nine million dollars for fraudulent purposes. I can understand the disparity in

those numbers. She not only has the goods, Danielle, she makes clear in that two hundred and twenty page complaint that she has the witnesses who can provide those goods. Because that complaint is replete with phrases like Donald Trump signed the following document defying this was accurate. Donald Trump told his staff to do X Y n Z. Donald Trump arranged to have and over and over again, because we know he tries to act like a mob bosson

insulate himself from ever being personally held accountable for anything. Well, she dug in for three years, went through millions of documents, and she's got the goods of Donald Trump personally orchestrating and directing massive fraud that she says, I think was

in the billions of dollars. Ultimately, although she's suing to get two hundred and fifty million dollars out of him, bar he and his adult children from ever serving on a board or as an officer of any New York corporation, barring them from applying for any loans from New York institutions or being involved in any real estate deals in New York for five years. I mean, this puts a nail in the coffin of the Trump organization. And this

is a nice incremental step of accountability for Trump. It's not the first criminal indictment, but I hope we see that soon. You know. The thing that that also got me with regard to the press conference, and I believe it was a question asked by a reporter in the room, which was why not just settle right? And frankly, what I believe that what James offered was that the Trump team came back with a settlement, and she was just like,

this is not it. So tell me again, not a lawyer, but if you're offering up a settlement, that means that you are guilty. Yeah, that means that you would like to wash this away and go So she's asking for two hundred and fifty million dollars. I'm pretty sure they didn't come close to that number. And she was like, so no, but they knew. The lawyers knew by virtue of them saying, hey, hey, hey, let's not drag this out. Let's you know, just just take this and we'll and

we'll walk away. And Tis James said, no, what do you infer from that? So, first of all, his attorneys, I don't know who's representing him in this civil suit. You know, he really is scraping the bottom of the barrel on the attorney front. The attorneys assessed the litigation risk after they saw what Tis James had. They knew they were wrong, they knew their client would lose, and they said, we really want to make this go away.

Can we settle? And Tis James said no, I mean, the only settlement that I think would be acceptable to me if I were on Tis James team, would be two hundred and fifty million dollars. And you agree to be barred from everything we are seeking to bar you from. We'll take that settlement because that's what we're suing you for. But the other thing that is just beautiful is Donald Trump. Remember was deposed, He sat for a deposition and testified.

Tis James investigation pled four hundred forty times. He pleaded the Fifth Amendment, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination. And I can tell you what Tis James and her team did. They had a draft of that two hundred and twenty page complaint, and they asked him every single question that addressed every single allegation in that complaint, and every time he said, if I answered truthfully, I

would incriminate myself. That's admissible at his civil trial, and the jury can draw inferences against him that if he had answered, he would have lost. He's done. He has nowhere to go in this litigation, nowhere. So the only settlement that I would take is I want everything that we are suing you for, and then will settle. And the funny thing is is that I think that we believe that Donald Trump is worth about two hundred what Danielle.

He ain't a billionaire. I don't think he's a Millionaire's lucky if he's a thousand air Oh god, all right, Glenn Um, I appreciate this supersized review of where Trump's no good, very bad week came from. Just um. You know, last question for you looking ahead? What are you looking out for and what can we expect? I guess in the in the coming weeks. You know, we've got a J six hearing coming up. I don't know what the focus.

They haven't told us what the precise focus will be, but I hope it starts to take us from the insurrection into the Willard war Room and then into the direct contacts between folks in the Willard war Room and the Oval Office and Donald Trump. I will be covering for MSNBC the first seditious conspiracy trial that kicks off this week in District Court in DC. So that's going to be interesting to watch and see how the government

presents the evidence in that case. And then, you know, I think the Classify Documents investigation is something that if DJ chooses to jump out and do some indictments fairly quickly, they can. I don't know if they will, but at least the scheduling front that may have eclipsed, you know, the J six investigation with respect to where we might see the first federal indictments come down, Okay, Oh it's gonna be. It is gonna be a busy, busy fall.

I love it, Love to see it. Glenn Kirshner, as always appreciate you making the time for Woke app and we will see you next week. And let's hope that the good times actually keep rolling towards an indictment. Yeah. Thanks, Danielle. That is it for me today, dear friends on woke a App. As always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.