Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

Are we going to see Donald Trump? Indidd Is it going to be Fannie Willis in Georgia. Is it going to be Jack Smith, the new special counsel for the Department of Justice. Is it going to be Alvin Bragg

in New York? What is going to happen? Because over the course folks, of the year, I mean, the wildest shit from Marlago being raided because Donald Trump stole documents and then he goes on his second rate you know, two bit truth social to say, oh yeah, I took the documents, which is pretty much Jack Nicholson and a few good men saying I ordered the cold read and

yet no one is hauling this man to prison. We know that Donald Trump said to Brad Rathensberger in Georgia, find me eleven seven hundred and some odd votes right waiting on that indictment. We know that the Trump organization is completely corrupt. Why because at the end of this year they faced seventeen charges and were found guilty on all seventeen charges. So what does twenty twenty three look

like for Donald Trump and company? For the thirty four Republicans that text Mark Meadows and said we're calling for martial law, except they don't know how to fucking spell it. Somebody has got to go down, and it cannot just be the foot soldiers of the insurrection. January will mark two years since there was an attempt to overthrow our government and the only people that are seeing any type of prison time are those that broke into the building.

What about those that directed them there in the first place? So coming up next my wrap up legal conversation with our friend host of Justice Matters MSNBC contributor Glenn Kirshner. Folks, twenty twenty two has been a year, and it has been a year in crime, and there is no one better to give us our year end review in all of the legal crime news that we have covered. Then

our friend the host of Justice Matters MSNBC contributor, Glenn Kirshner. Glenn, We've spent so much time together, and I got to tell you that on my twenty twenty two bingo card there was a lot of things that I did not see coming. So I want to start with literally all of the crimes, all of the cases that have come up that involve Trump and the Trump family. Let's start with Alan Weisselberg, right, the COO of the Trump organization. I want to say at some beginning part of twenty

twenty two is picked up, is indicted for fraud. Talk to us about why this kind of maybe was the beginning of the unraveling of the Trump organization. Yeah, it matters, And there are two sides of the Weisselberg and the Trump organization coin that we can talk about. I will say, it seems like we packed the decade's worth of crime into just one year when it comes to Trump and company. So you know, the Weisselberg and Trump org prosecution was

interesting for what it was and what it wasn't. I mean, what it was is a prosecution that probably spells the end of the Trump organization because the organization was convicted across the board of major financial felony crimes such that no reputable lender is going to want to do business with Trump Org. I would say even the less than reputable lenders, some of the overseas banks and institutions that wanted to do business with Trump because they felt like

they were buying access and influence. I even think they're going to run away from the Trump organization. The other thing that I think is good about that prosecution is it feels like it might have been something of a drive I run for Alvin Bragg, the District attorney from Manhattan,

to consider charging Donald Trump. Now I'll believe it when I see it, mind you, But there's been reporting that in the wake of those convictions, Alvin Bragg has hired yet another prosecutor from the Department of Justice, and before that he worked with Tiss James going after the Trump Org. Colangelo I think is his last name, and he is now involved in criminally investigating Trump. Because they successfully moved

against the Trump Org. It feels like there is an increased likelihood that Bragg may now be more comfortable going after Donald Trump personally. So that's the upside. The downside is that this old prosecutor believes Donald Trump should have been part of that prosecution that resulted in the conviction of his organization, because the prosecutor argued in closing to that jury in the Trump Board case and I quote, donald Trump personally approved financial fraud personally, Well, why wasn't

he a defendant? That to me feels like a failing of Alvin Bragg. So, like I say that, that's a sort of a mixed message that comes out of that prosecution. Okay, and so then we move, Let's go down south for Fannie Willis. Now, Fannie Willis has been investigating the fake electors, right, and you know, we have seen several court cases surrounding her investigation because she's compelling like Lindsey Graham to testify before a grand jury, special grand jury that she pulled together.

Tell us a bit about where you think the kind of twist and turns that that investigation has taken and where you think we could possibly end up. I mean, it is the end of the year. Again, we've seen no indictments of Donald Trump. We've seen a lot of investigations happening, hers seeming at the beginning of the year to be the most promising in term of the fake elector. So tell us how you saw that case move over

the course of twenty twenty two. You know, Fannie Willis, District Attorney for Fulton County, Georgia, has been quietly sawing the justice would in front of her, and really the only time we hear anything about what's going on is when there are court pleadings, and then we can see a little bit about the battle she has been waging to get guys like Lindsey Graham before the grand jury, who was scared the death to testify about Donald Trump's

election crimes and frankly, his own misconduct. Because let's never forget that a fellow Republican of Lindsay Graham's, the former Georgia's Secretary of State, Brad Raffinsburger, said, Lindsay Graham called me, and what he was saying to me I interpreted as him urging me to toss out lawfully cast ballots. That's

a quote, and it's a crime under Georgia's state law. Well, guess what Fannie Willis succeeded in getting Lindsay Graham into the grand jury, succeeded in getting Rudy Giuliani into the grand jury, succeeded in getting Mike Flynn into the grand jury. Now, yeah, many of these nefarious, unpatriotic knuckleheads probably pleaded the fifth and so be it. All that means is their truthful testimony would show that they committed crimes under Georgia state law.

So she's been sawing the wood. I don't know where she is in her investigation, but it's been up and running, and it has been productive because she's been winning every flipping battle that she's fought against these people who were scared to death to go before the grand jury. So what the timetable is for possible indictments there? As you say, she is investigating the fake collectors crimes and she's investigating

the very real election crimes of Donald Trump. I can only hope that we see indictments maybe in the late winter, early spring. That's nothing more than a guess heading further

down south to mar Lago. So when the headlines happened and the news broke that mar Lago was swarmed by agents in order to collect these stolen documents that Donald Trump took from the White House and just you know, put haphazardly in his office at mar Lago, where we know that anyone and everyone can walk into at any time and guess what, he doesn't know a lot of the people apparently that are coming in to have dinner

with him. So we see these documents. We now know that the federal government is asking for one person, a lawyer from Donald Trump's team, to say completely, we've given you all the documents. There's not one lawyer that will do that. So where do we see this moving? Because one, we don't even know if Donald Trump hasn't stashed nuclear codes documents all around his properties. Right, it's only mari Lago that was quote unquote rated. So where does this

case go? Or are we just again allowing him Other people would have gone to jail. Other people have gone to jail for taking less. Where does this go? You know, I don't know where it goes, but I know where it's been, and where it's been is a sort of deeply unjust place, because, as you say, anybody who took even one classified document unlawfully would have promptly been arrested

and indicted convicted and imprisoned. Donald Trump had classified documents in his desk drawers, then he posted on his third rate social media platform. I took the documents more openly and transparently than other presidents. So it's not like we prosecutors would have a hard time proving that he took

the documents. So why he hasn't been charged is there's no good answer to that other than a fear and timidity at prosecuting a former president of the United States, which, make no mistake about it, takes us one step in the direction of becoming a Banana republic. Where is it heading? You know? I hope Jack Smith is what he appears to be, which is kind of a scorched earth crime fighter.

And the reason I say that is because he has prosecuted he and his team when he was the head of the Public Integrity Section at the Department of Justice. Republican senators, Democrat who Democrats senators who were running for the presidency, John Edwards, Republican governors, Bob Virginia republic McDonald McDonald Virginia Republican governor, Arizona congressman who was a Republican. He's taken all he's taken a CIA officer to trial

for mishandling classified documents. He goes after everybody, left, right and center, without fear or favor, and he doesn't win all the cases, which I love. Give me a prosecutor who is willing to take a difficult, politically charged case to trial at the risk of losing it. That's who I want on my team. Let's hope he gets us to the right place. And I'm resisting Danielle going to

the dark place where you mentioned that. The prosecution team said Judge Ferrell Howell, who's a fabulous judge, the chief Judge of Federal District Court in Washington, DC. Judge Howell, please please make them appoint somebody to certify that all of the stolen documents have been returned. And Judge Howell did the right thing. She said, no, go do your job, because their job is to arrest the perpetrator, not to try to get the court to do some of their

dirty work. And let me just take thirty seconds on us. When somebody steals stuff, whether it's a TV or a car or documents from the government, we don't issue subpoenas and say to the perpetrator, can you please give us the car back. Can you please give us the money

that you robbed from the bank back? And oh, if you don't give us the money from the bank that you robbed back pursuing too the subpoena, we're going to run to the court and we're going to ask the judge to say, judge, can you appoint somebody to be the records custodian over the stolen money and certify that the bank robber gave us all the stolen money back. That's not the way law enforcement works. That's why this

is not the way Donald Trump should be treated. We should do search warrants, we should arrest the perpetrator, and then the way we get the rest of the documents is we do supplemental search warrants as we investigate and learn more about where Donald Trump is hiding this stuff.

But they're not doing it that way. And I hope Jack Smith changes course and fights crime the way it's supposed to be fought, not this Pollyanna ass grabbing game that they're playing with Donald Trump on his playing field. Please please give it back. That's not the way law enforcement works. That's the part that's got me so hacked off. As a former career prosecutor, you know, when we look at all of this, and I just I love the example that you provided of the car. Please give it back.

Oh you stole this, Oh please return it. Right. We would not treat any other criminal right this way. It seems so easy, Glenn, to pick up people on the street to throw the book at them for a series of things. And we know, we know all of the things that Donald Trump has done. Why because exactly what you said, he says it out loud, He says the quiet parts out loud, and puts it on his third rate social media platform. Let's head back up on the

car analogy. Yes, because you know, when somebody steals a car, it doesn't have national security implications, and yet we use search warrants to get the damn car back. Donald Trump stole our nation's secrets. He also stole information about the nuclear programs of foreign countries, but we're not using the law enforcement tools at our disposal to get them back. I mean, it reminds me of the Bob Dylan line. You know, steal a little and they throw you in jail.

Steal a lot and they make you king. Mmm. God. Heading back up to DC. You know, next year is going to be the two year anniversary of the insurrection, Glenn. Two years have passed since our capital was invaded by a group of thugs chanting, hang Mike Pence, looking for Nancy Pelosi, I mean, defecating in the halls of democracy. And what we have seen over the course of two years is, you know, eight hundred or so arrests of

the low level foot soldiers that entered the building. Still no arrests of the architects of the people that stood on the dais at the quote unquote stopped the steel rally, pointed to the Capitol building and said go take your country back. Members of Congress wore bulletproofves that day. Now we find out thirty four Republicans we're texting Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff to Donald Trump, thirty four.

Over twenty four hundred text messages have now been released, many of them calling for martial law that they don't know how to spell. Tell me, Glenn, how the hell are those thirty four members of Congress still have jobs? How have they not been picked up by the Department of Justice? What is going on? In your opinion? As we have covered this as we have discussed it for a year. A couple of things are going on. One. I believe the OJ is trying to build the perfect beast,

the perfect prosecution. There is no such thing. But there is this culture of timidity at DOJ to bring difficult, challenging, politically charged, unconventional cases, particularly against politicians, and especially against wealthy, influential, connected,

white mail politicians, and there's no excuse for that. I railed against it in my decades inside the Department of Justice when I fought to bring unconventional cases, even cases I knew I might lose, and I lost plenty of cases in my thirty years, but it was the right thing to do to try to hold people accountable. I always tried to teach the prosecutors I supervised it's more important to try cases than to win cases, because you're giving victims a shot at justice and you're protecting the

community in the process. So I think it is part of the culture of the Department of Justice. They don't do difficult, unconventional, unprecedented cases particularly well, and they certainly don't do them in a timely manner. I hope that is what accounts for most of the delay. I hope it's not corruption. You know, I did a video I think it was yesterday where I was so fed up with how the Department of Justice has treated Mark Meadows that I said, I think we need to take on

two questions. One, when the Department of Justice tells us no one is above the law, can we credit that? Two? Excuse me, when the Department of Justice tells us they will follow the law and follow the facts wherever they lead. I need an answer to this question. And I was a prosecutor for thirty years, but I need an answer

to this question. What are the American people to do when the facts show beyond all doubt that somebody committed a crime, and when the law, as applied to those facts, demand ends in indictment, but nobody has been criminally charged. What are the American people to do? There's no good answer to that question. There are some bad answers that I don't even want to spit out into the public square because they're dangerous and upsetting, and I hope we

don't get there. But when you look at a Mark Meadows as an example of somebody being above the law, you have not only the thirty four treasonist text, messages coming to Mark Meadows, right, he was like clearing house Central for treason, his texts coming to Mark Meadows from thirty four Republican members of Congress trying to unlawfully overturn the results of a presidential election. Sorry, and no accountability

for that. One year ago, almost to the day, you had a criminal referral by the Department of Justice of Mark Meadows to be executed for contempt of Congress, a crime he absolutely committed, there's no question about that, just as Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro committed. Those two were referred for prosecution and were indicted. Bannon's been convicted. Mark Meadows was never even charged. That was a year ago.

Now we have just yesterday there was reporting out of North Carolina that the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation has finished its investigation of Mark Meadows for voter fraud. Remember where he lied about living in a trailer and Scaly Mount that's right, and he didn't live there, and that's voter fraud. And he not only used that address as his home of residents to vote, but also to run for Congress. That's election fraud at large. Right, So

let's see if he's prosecuted. Now it's in the hands of Attorney General for North Carolina, Josh Time. Let's hope he's prosecuted for those crimes. But as of right now, Mark Meadows has been above the law, and nobody has followed the facts and followed the law to their logical conclusion, which is an indictment of Mark Meadows. I hope that changes, Danielle, because if it doesn't, I want to know what the American people are to do. I just don't get it,

you know. I guess that's that's really the issue is that I don't understand how it is that we've gotten to this place where you can literally rattle off all of the things that Mark Meadows has done, all of the things that Donald Trump has done, and nothing, nothing

has happened. So staying in DC, let's go to the case of the oath Keepers, where something where justice actually finally was served and see, like Glenn, are we going to use this as the trampoline, this conviction on seditious conspiracy as the way to get us to the architects that got those people to the Capitol Building in the first place. Does that charge turn as Stewart Rhodes, you know,

into a parrot that will talk, let's hope. So because you know, make no mistake about it, it was historic that the prosecutors from the US Attorney's Office, from the District of Columbia. I sat in that trial for seven weeks. That was a long trial to cover, but frankly it was a pleasure because it was my friends and former

colleagues who were prosecuting the case. And they convicted the oath Keepers of attempting to violently overthrow the government or attempting to violently stop the execution of the laws of the United States. That's a big deal. Now that the Oathkeepers are convicted of a seditious conspiracy, and there's a second Oathkeeper's trial that's up and running in district court right now in DC, and then the Proud Boys trial is about to kick off also for seditious conspiracy. So

where did these convictions lead us? They absolute lutely lead us into the Willard War Room, because it's the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers who were plugged in pretty directly to guys like Roger Stone, Mike Flynn's Alex Jones. So I do think these convictions will be building blocks that will take us closer to the hierarchy, the command structure of the insurrection, the people in the Willard war Room.

And we know Mark Meadows was plugged into the Willard war Room, and we've heard reporting that Donald Trump was calling over to the Willard War Room. So yes, these are important building blocks. Hopefully we don't have to wait another year or two or three to actually see some concrete results by way of charges of the command structure of the insurrection. I don't think we will. But you know what, I've been fooled so many times. I've got

hero fatigue, I've got justice fatigue. I thought Bob Muller would do it, but bar Billbard didn't let him, and the Office of Legal Council memo saying you can't indict a sitting criminal president didn't let him, which that memo takes us one giant step in the direction of a Banana republic. That a president can commit all the crimes he wants with impunity while in office. That's that's insanity, that's Banana Republic stuff, right. So I've been fooled before.

I thought Merrick Arland was going to come in and go Gangbusters, even though he was a very quiet, circumspect, thoughtful, judicial kind of guy, and I think he proved to be way too much judge and not enough prosecutor. Now Jack Smith seems to be enough prosecutor. One of my I've had people that worked with me and for me at the DCUs Attorney's Office go over and work for Jack Smith directly when he was head of public infegory, public coruption at the Department of Justice. They say, this

guy really does prosecute without fear or favor. He goes after everybody would lose or draw left, right or center. I like that, but now we need to see some damn concrete results. So Glenn, let's let's look into the crystal ball. What do you think is coming down in twenty twenty three? And I mean, we've been doing this for two years, waiting on these indictments, waiting on the hammer to drop, waiting on the breaking news ticker that

says Donald Trump, Mark Meadows. Everybody's being indicted on conspiracy to overthrow the government, on stealing you know, secrets from the government, on any goddamn thing. What do you predict for twenty twenty three? Well, you know, if twenty twenty two fooled me, I thought it was going to be

the year of accountability. All I can do now is roll that over to twenty twenty three and hope that will be the year of accountability, because you know, what the hell would be so bad about equal justice for all? What would be so bad about that as a goal for our nation? I don't get it, you know, Joe Biden.

I wish I had his words in front of me at his inauguration when he said, you know, the cry for justice some you know, four hundred years in the making, the promise of equal justice for all will be deferred no longer. How about that, right? Because if there is no equal justice, there's just no justice. And we have been suffering from an absence of justice. And you know, again, I'll keep looking into my obviously defective crystal ball. I need to, I need to bring it in for a

tune up. But it seems to me that the documents crimes are so readily provable, so easily proved in court. When Donald's Trump posts in writing, I took these documents openly and transparently, and we got him out of his damned desk drawers at Marlago. That's what I would call an open and shut case. And these are crimes that have pretty significant national security implications. These are crimes that

need to be brought now, right now. So I'm hoping that's the first indictment to drop by Jack Smith and his team. And then you know, he continues to do the fake electors and he goes after members of Congress. Here's a little bit of silver lining behind the big dark cloud, Danielle. The thirty four members of Congress who or and there are reportedly more who were part and parcel of the insurrection. They're going to be sworn in in January. Here's a problem. The Fourteenth Amendment, Section three

says insurrectionists are disqualified from serving period. Open and shut, not equivocal. They are disquality. Now, the disqualification can be removed by a two thirds vote in Congress, but they're disqualified. I predict my own worst enemy. I predict you're going to have other members of Congress object to their being sworn in because the Constitution says they are disqualified. How that battle plays out, I'm not quite sure, but the

Republicans love them. Some strict construction of the Constitution We're going to use the fourteenth flipping Amendment to say, Okay, then you're disqualified. Let's see where that goes in January. Oh, Glenn, you know, it has been a hell of a year. The crimes have been audacious, they have been vulgar, They

have just been in our faces. And you know, as we make the march into twenty twenty three, I can't help but think that the Department of Justice is claim that nobody is above the law is nothing more of a bumper sticker. And still we see indictments reigned down because I cannot think that Stuart Rhodes and the gang and the Proud Boys are the only ones that are

going to face justice. But those that sent them there, that riled them up, that told them to stand back and stand by, that pointed to the Capitol Building and told them to overtake it and to take their country back, are the ones that get to go on, run for president, run for Congress, and get off Scott free. So I am you know, you know me, I am ye of Little Hope. But I can't I can't imagine that we go another year that at the end of twenty twenty three you say, well, Let's roll that over to twenty

twenty four. Let's roll it over to twenty twenty I can't so you know from your lips to God's ears that twenty twenty three is the actual year of justice. Glenn, thank you so much for taking all the time all year to move us through some of the most incredible legal drama that I don't even think that Dick Wolfe from Lord Horder could have created himself. So we appreciate you. Let's celebrate next year. Let's celebrate the justice that has come. Absolutely,

that is it for me today. Dear friends on Woke f As always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.