Running Out the Clock for Trump

Will we see anything transpire at the federal level with any of these cases that are being brought against Donald Trump? Or are we just all sitting ducks waiting for the decisions from the Supreme Court that he is staffed? And you know, is it that basically are the biggest wins that we are going to get is in the Egene Carol case and in the Tish James case, and up next is the Alvin Bragg hush money case? Right Like? Is it that? And that he will face absolutely no

federal charges whatsoever. And frankly, if he is able to win election, all of this is just gonna go away and then get really really really really really really really really bad for everyone else who believes in democracy and the rule of bloss So that conversation with my friend Glenn Kirshner is coming up next. Folks. I am so very happy to welcome back to wok F after a long time away our friend Glenn Kirshner, MSNBC legal analyst

and the host of Justice Matters. Glenn, My goodness. I honestly, I don't know how you keep your head on straight with the bevy of legal news that you are now having to follow, But I believe that the last nine years have had you earn your law degree multiple times back. But as of the time of this recording, Peter Navarro, Donald Trump's former White House advisor, is now required to

report to prison by March nineteenth in Miami. Talk to us about this because I forget all of who is supposed to go to jail at this point, So remind us about Peter Navarro, what he did and why he is now getting ready to serve four months.

report date. Judge Mato, who presided over Navarro's trial, gave him a report date to the BP, the Bureau of Prisons of March nineteen. So, but what people should know is this is not a conviction of Peter Navarro for crimes involving the attempted overturning of the presidential results. This

is in some ways, this is even worse. After he criminally participated in the attempt to overturn the election's results, he was subpoenated by Congress by the j sixth Committee to testify about what he did and even more importantly, about the evidence of criminality he could provide about Donald Trump and others. And instead of complying with that lawfully issued subpoena, he committed a crime himself to hide that deeply incriminating evidence from Congress and from the American people.

He defied the subpoena. He blew it off and he was charged with contempt of Congress, which is precisely the crime one commits when they blow off a congressional subpoena. He was charged with two counts of contempt of Congress. He went to trial, he went down in Flames. I watched some of that trial, and he was sentenced to four months in prison as a result of those convictions.

He has been trying to delay that. You know, he's appealed to the DC Federal Circuit Court of Appeal saying please don't make me report, please put a stay in place, but thus far they have declined to do that. So he finally was given a report date to prison. Now, I still fully expect if the rule if Danielle and that word does a lot of heavy lifting in this next sentence, if the rule of law is applied to Peter Navarro as it should be applied, he should be

facing another big, mega indictment. Whenever we see the next indictment drop by Jack Smith and or the Department of Justice. Remember, in the indictment of Donald Trump for trying to overturn the election, there are six unindicted co conspirators. We know

who they are. Now that doesn't include Peter Navarro. There are others out there who I think have criminal responsibility, and I will bet the full buck that's my betting limit, that Jack Smith is not done indicting people, because he's already put six people in there who he told us in Trump's indictment have committed crimes. But I think he wanted to try Donald Trump first, get him out of the way, and then go about the business of holding

everybody else accountable. So I don't think this will represent Peter Navarro's last criminal indictment or conviction necessarily, but it's the first. Here's the other thing that I have to point out, because what a difference a judge makes. Yeah, so two people went to trial. Two people committed precisely the same crime contempt of Congress two counts, Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon also wanted to hide the evidence that could incriminate Donald Trump, so he blew off

congressional subpoenas as well. He went to trial, he got convicted, he got the identical sentence as Navarro, four months in prison. But what a difference a judge makes. A Trump appointed judge named Carl Nichols, who presided over Steve Bannon's case, said I'm gonna let Steve Bannon remain out and about during the pendency of his appeal. So his appeal was I don't know, a year and a half ago now, and he has still not spent one minute behind bars.

Peter Navarro's judge, judge Amik Meta, former public defender in d C, was not a Trump appointee. He said, no, Peter Navarro was convicted by a jury sentenced to four months, and he'll do what every other defendant virtually does. He will be ordered to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons

to serve that four month sentence. That's a disparity that is really hard to explain in any other way other than a Trump appointed judge really did a solid for Steve Bannon, and a non Trump appointed judge applied the law to Peter Navarro as it was intended to be applied.

ways on the question of immunity. We're not going to hear that, Glenn until what April, I think is what slated for twenty April twenty fifth for opening statements there and give in the way that none of these outside of the civil cases around Donald Trump seemed to be moving at all on pace with our upcoming election in November.

Would Jack Smith, you think, do a pivot where he would then decide, well, since this Trump case is not gonna move at the time and the speed that I wanted to that, then I go with the six unindicted co conspirators, so that at least I'm continuing the cases in the public as well as like the department, because again we're not just talking about running out the clock for Donald Trump, but it's running out the clock for all of the people, because if he becomes president again,

everyone is off the hook. All of this goes away because Jack Smith will no longer be a part of that Department of Justice.

don't have to. They should issue their opinion by June thirty, at the end of the term, hopefully sooner. So I feel my sense, Danielle, is that the tactical calculation is we've waited this long, and let's see if we can get an opinion out of the Supreme Court that actually is in keeping with the law, the precedent, and the Constitution, meaning there's no absolute presidential immunity, and then let's get one of these Donald Trump cases to trial before the election.

You know what, Donald Trump could literally be in a federal criminal trial on November fifth at the rate we're going. But I think it's a great question should he pivot, should he begin to bring some of these other cases. I think that is probably something that is being robustly discussed among Jack Smith and his team right now.

two that they were talking about was made for. If they do what they have been doing, talk to me in this dark tunnel about what happens next.

shine through every now and then. But I find it hard to believe that, even with all of the bad Supreme Court precedents we've had to contend with over the last couple of years, I find it really hard to believe that they will announce that a president of the United States is a de facto dictator who can commit all the crimes he wants to stay in office, because that also means a president of the United States could commit all the crimes he wants against the Supreme Court

to minimize marginalize their power and their authority. I mean, none of that makes sense to me, because the Constitution provides that a president can be prosecuted. Indeed, the impeachment judgment clause says, even if he is impeached and convicted in the Senate trial, he can still be prosecuted for the same conduct, which kind of cuts against the notion that somewhere hidden in the words of the Constitution is absolute presidential immunity. When the opposite is actually stated in

the Constitution. He can be prosecuted even after being impeached. So I think, for every conceivable reason, the Supreme Court can't possibly. And I catch myself anytime I say the Supreme Court can't possibly because I didn't think they would revoke women's constitutional privacy rights. I didn't think they would kill the prospect of equal educational opportunity for minorities. I didn't think they would sanction business discrimination cloaked in religious piety.

I didn't think they would do any of that because I happened to believe in the rule of law and the Constitution I have all my life. So but I'm going to say it again, foolish though it may seem, I can't conceive of them saying a president is king, because if they do that, they're giving away their own supreme status as the Supreme Court. Doesn't make sense to me, but maybe that is just how desperate they are to keep the billionaire Republican donor dollars flowing into their coffers.

facto absolute immunity themselves. I think it's black and white. But what I will say is they can contort the Constitution and their interpretation of it in ways that make no sense to regular people or even legal constitutional scholars, like they just did in the Fourteenth Amendment disqualification arena. So you know, I think it's black and white. Will

they see it that way? Could they say? Well, you know what, moving forward, we're going to say presidents should be counseled that they might not have absolute immunity, but we're going to find a way to excuse whatever it is. Donald Trump did by saying, well, maybe because the issue had never been litigated before, he was under the misimpression that he had some level of immunity. So therefore we're

going to say you can't prosecute him. I mean, I will put nothing past this Supreme Court, even though their rulings don't often make sense, nor do they comport with the Constitution or the way the Constitution has been interpreted for half a century now.

hush money case, both coming out of New York. His lawyers just recently have said, well, we shouldn't be able to move forward with the hush money case because we're waiting on whether or not the president is immune.

in New York. That's the twenty sixteen election interference trial, in which he paid hush money to hide deeply damaging information from the American voters and then committed thirty four crimes of falsifying business records to cover up the true nature of those crimes. Well, he literally just filed as of the time of our discussion today, emotions saying, well,

wait a minute, wait a minute. Shouldn't we really wait until after the Supreme Court decides the absolute presidential immunity case before I should be forced to go to trial in New York. And the answer is not just no, but hell no. Sport Sport is my editorial edition. And here's why. There are really three reasons. One, you committed

these crimes as a candidate, not as the president. Two, you committed falsification of business records crimes and violation of the New York state law in your capacity as a businessman as part of the Trump organization. These were not, you know, presidential falsification of records. You were falsifying business records. And three, and maybe most importantly, people might not remember when he was first indicted in this case in New York, he tried to get it removed from state court into

federal court right claiming that I'm a federal officer. And guess what at that time, I'm holding up a paragraph from the court ruling when he tried to get it transferred from state court to federal court. And it says Trump first raises an immunity defense. Trump has expressly waived any argument premised on the theory of app salute presidential immunity. And they give the brief site where the Trump lawyers

waived it. Here's what you can't do, Danielle. You can't be involved in litigation in a case expressly waive an issue and then on the eve of trial saying we've changed our minds, we want to now raise the issue, so you can't take me to trial tomorrow. That's not the way it works. He waived it. So, first of all, he doesn't have a legitimate underlying claim. But even if he did, he waived it. That's kind of the belt and suspenders of being able to reject Donald Trump's president argument.

Here's the other thing. He waved it, frankly, for good reason, because nobody believed there was any such thing as presidential immunity. What's changed, well, since that time in twenty twenty three, when he expressly said I'm not raising it, we now have four judges who have ruled there's no such thing. Judge Chuckin in the trial court, and three appellate court judges in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously, they've

all said there's no such thing. So this motion to try to now derail his March twenty fifth criminal trial date in New York should be rejected. It should be laughed at of court. My only lingering concern, And first of all, Judge Juan Rashan, who's presiding over the case, has been strong and definitive, made all the right calls. He seems fearless. He really is sitting as a judge without fear or favor the way it's supposed to be.

The only lingering concern is, well, the Supreme Court did take this up and it doesn't seem to apply to Trump's conduct because he wasn't president at the time, and it doesn't, and he did waive it previously. But you know, maybe the safer thing is to just wait for the Supreme Court to rule. I don't think Judge Murshawn will do that, but it's not out of the realm of possibilities.

there's some presidential immunity that attaches. Because the prosecutors in New York to introduce some of those statements into evidence that legal dog won't hunt. But my concern is I just hope Judge Murchon doesn't say, look, we've waited this long. It's about to be argued in the Supreme Court. Maybe

we should wait a little longer. I don't think there's a legal reason to do that, but state courts are often they often feel like, you know, maybe we just need to kind of back down when the federal courts are involved or the Supreme Court is involved in some issue that could become relevant to my state court case. I don't think he will, but you know, who knows.

these business records. There are two ways to sentence somebody. When you have crimes that span over time and involve a course of conduct. Think of it as like spreading out one crime into a whole bunch of discrete you know, lesser criminal act. All of the sentences can run together or run concurrently with one another, such that he would only be facing a maximum of four years, or they can all run separately on top of one another. That we call that the sentences running wild in DC or

running consecutives to one another. So what we don't know at this point. Even though falsifying a business record as a class he felon, he carries up to four years, we don't know how many four year sentences might end up potentially being in play.