The Suits Behind the Insurrection

MSNBC legal analyst. Breaking news came out of Georgia with regard to Fannie Willis and the grand jury that she had called in order to review an interview roughly seventy five people, including Senator Lindsey Graham, who, if you all remember, tried his damnedest not to have to sit before the grand jury and answer any type of questions from Fannie

Willis and her team. Also, we heard from Offensberger, the Secretary of State who received the call for the ken You find Me eleven thousand, seven hundred and some odd votes, and Rudy Giuliani among other cast of characters in the Trump Stopped the Steal who were trying to steal orbit. Glenn will give us the details about, you know, what was missed in mainstream media news, but what we need

to actually be keeping our eyes on. He will also give us some details into the latest rounds of convictions in the Oathkeeper's trial, which is separate from the initial Oathkeeper's trial that featured the founder, Elmer Stewart Rhodes, and so, folks, what this episode lays out for me is that there is still a little bit, not a lot, but a little bit of hope in the way of Donald Trump and the architects of the insurrection being held criminally accountable

for their crimes. Now, folks, I believe that we are going to see the scenario where Donald Trump is indicted by Fannie Willis apparently the only prosecutor that has a backbone in the whole of the United States that has evidence on Donald Trump that if in fact she does go after and indict Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani and others, that we may see for the first time in America's history,

a couple of things. One a criminal indictment of a former president of the United States, and that same former president of the United States, while under indictment running for president of the United States. If this does not spell fucking Banana Republic, I don't know what the fuck does. Because this is some shit, some messy ass political shit that you would hear about in other nations and think to yourself, Oh, that would never happen in America. America

would never stand for it. Well, because Republicans don't stand for a fucking thing. Donald Trump was never impeached in the Senate, which gives him the ability to run for office again. And apparently we have no rules on the bucks that say that if you are currently indicted for a crime, that you can't run for office. Lord Jesus take the wheel. So coming up next my jam packed conversation with our friend Glenn Kirshner to walk us through

where we are on the road to indictment for Donald Trump. Because, Folks, what we have seen is that, and I love this phrase that Glenn uses, is that the boots of the insurrection, those people that were literally on the ground in the

Capitol building are receiving penalties. But the people and the person that pointed to the Capitol Building and told them to go take their country back, the person that tweeted and got them to Washington, DC in the first fucking place, is still golfing in Mara Lago while they're in federal prison. So something here just doesn't fucking seem right. So the question that we continue to ask on this show and everywhere is if the boots are going to be held

responsible for the insurrection? When the fuck will the suits be held responsible for their strategy, plan and conspiracy to thwart a free and fair election. That conversation with our friend Glenn Kirshner is coming up next. Folks who know that whenever I have the opportunity to chat with our friend, the host of Justice Matters and MSNBC legal analyst and

former federal prosecutor, Glenn Kirshner, I am always thrilled. Yet we never come with good news, But I'm always thrilled to just speak with you, Glenn, because you know you make me feel less crazy. A lot of news has been circulating around in the legal sphere, and I want

to start with Fannie Willis in Georgia. I think that one of the things that still provides I don't know, that mustard seed of hope I talk about often is the possibility that Georgia, Fulton County and the find me the eleven thousand some odd votes call that Donald Trump made to State the Secretary of State Ravensburger the fake electors. That gives us probably about as close as we may see to an indictment of the architects around this quote

unquote stop this steal. So I want to give you an opportunity to just bring us up to speed on the latest that has come down out of Georgia and frankly, how you are feeling with that breaking news, Danielle. What we heard Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis say an open court this week is the most concrete and direct thing we have ever heard a prosecutor who's investigating Donald Trump say about the likelihood of charges. I viewed this

as an eleven on the legal Richter scale. I don't know that it got the play it deserves, but she said so just to set it up, you got the funky too grand jury system in Georgia. The regular grand jury can indict people but can't issue subpoenas. The Special grand Jury can issue subpoenas, but it can indict people. So Fannie Willis ran seventy five reluctant witnesses through the

special grand Jury. That grand jury then authors a report. Really, I believe the prosecutors authored the report and presented to the Special grand Jury for its approval, talking about here's the evidence, here's who committed crimes. Here's you who should be indicted. That report then goes back to the regular grand jury. They look at it, they absorb it, the prosecutors make their arguments, and then the regular grand jury indicts people if that's what it believes is the right

thing to do. So the news media went into court and brought suit to try to get that grand jury report released publicly. Fannie Willis herself, not one of her assistant prosecutors, went into court and said, Judge, we strongly object to the report's release at this time because if it was released, that would interfere with the defendants plural. She emphasized plural multiple times in the hearing, with the defendant's right to a fair trial. Danielle, you don't become

a defendant unless you're indicted. That was Fannie Willis communicating people will be indicted. My second favorite word after defendants that Fannie Willis used was imminent. She said, Judge, and are charging decisions are imminent. Fannie Willis is no nonsense. She probably has all of the vertebrae and the strongest spine of all of the prosecutors who have looked at Donald Trump's crimes and when she says defendants are coming and the charging decisions are imminent, I take it to

the bank. I don't know if imminent means days or weeks. I am. I am convinced that Fannie Willis has the goods and she's not afraid to use them, and that we're going to see the first indictments of Trump and company coming from Georgia. Okay, a couple of questions here, just to remind people what those what would those indictments? What would those charges be? Glenn, because again we have been in this web of potential legal charges for Donald Trump what seems to be well, frankly my whole adult

life because I live in New York. But then with regard to the stop the steal the election, the documents cases, blah blasso, tell us, just remind folks if this indictment were to come down, one, what would the charges be? And then two who do we think these defendants are? Because there again you said there were a parade of people that came in. We know that Senator Lindsey Graham had fought tooth and nail not to sit before the grand jury. We know that Rudy Giuliani also fought tooth

and nail not to sit before the grand jury. So tell us who the cast of potential characters and her defendants plural would be, so you know the charges. Let me take one as an example. Under Georgia's state law, it is illegal to solicit election fraud, to ask an election official or a state government official to engage in some form of election fraud. And all she has to do to prove that crime beyond a reasonable doubt is

push playing on the audio we actually see. I worked wire tap cases, Danielle, and when you caught conspirators talking dirty on the phone about their drug deals, I call that a push play trial. You push play the jurors hear the crime committed on audio tape, soliciting election fraud under the laws of Georgia as a felony that I think will be one of the lead counts against Donald Trump.

I urged people to read the Brookings Institute deep dive into all of the laws that the publicly available evidence suggests Donald Trump and others committed. They cataloged more than a dozen felony and misdemeanors alike that were violated, arguably by what Trumpet Company did. The other big ticket crime. I think we're going to see indicted as conspiracy. Remember, Georgia has what I'll refer to as mini Rico laws.

You have the federal Rico law, and then a lot of the states adopted their own versions of the Rico laws called mini Rico laws. And Fannie Willis there are some indications in the litigation and in the grand jury proceedings as they unfolded, that she was perhaps using George's Rico laws to go after this as a Rico crew, as a corrupt organization, as a group that was making a concerted effort to violate the Georgia's state election laws in order to get Donald Trump falsely corruptly declared the

winner of the presidential election in Georgia. So I think we might seek a conspiracy charge together with the substitutive charges of election soliciting, election fraud and others. Who is likely to be indicted certainly Donald Trump, certainly, Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. I say that because there's a lot of reporting about how they made false statements to Georgia's state legislators trying to gin up these false claims of election fraud to try to undermine the elections results. I

think they are likely defendants, and listen Lindsey Graham. One of the star witnesses against Lindsey Graham is Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who has very publicly and openly and I believe also to the grand jury. Though we don't know precisely what he told the grand jury, he very openly has said Lindsey Graham called me repeatedly, and what he was saying to me I interpreted as Lindsey

Graham urging me to toss out lawfully cast ballots. That's a quote from a Republican secretary of state about what a sitting republic senator from another state, not even from Georgia, was urging him to do commit election fraud, solicit election fraud. So, if there is a justice God, and I think that remains an open question, Lindsey Graham ought to be one of those names on the indictment. We will have to see if Fannie Willis is comfortable with the evidence she

has supporting including Lindsay Graham as a criminal defendant. I hope she has the goods. Based on public reporting, it looks like she might and I hope she decides it's the right thing to do. Now, let me ask you this, Glenn, because this is something that I have been curious about. So a couple of what was late last year the Trump organization, by being prosecuted in New York was found guilty of seventeen different charges, and one of the biggest

being all sorts of fraud. Right, does that type of conviction play into the character of the people that we are talking about? Meaning, I know that Fannie Willis has her own you know, slight of evidence as it pertains to the particular crimes that took place in Georgia. But Donald Trump has and the Trump or well, I should say, the Trump organization with his name on it, has been in you know, has been charged and found guilty of fraud. Right, So does that play in or does that play in

in a legal sense or just in people's minds? Yes, that's a great question. It certainly plays in factors in when it comes to common sense, our commons, right, Right, does the factor in, you know, in a legally exploitable way? The answer is generally no, because you know, there's common sense and then there's legal sense, and rarely do those two things meet. Unfortunately, here's where it does factor in

in a couple of ways. First of all, any information or evidence developed by one prosecutor in one jurisdiction, Ken and I'm sure will be shared with other jurisdictions that are investigating the same people for similar crimes, because I think it's too important for the Department of Justice and the prosecutors in Georgia and the prosecutors in New York not to be communicating with one another about the evidence of crime that they're finding by Trump and his criminal associates.

So it would be stupid, encounter productive if prosecutors weren't coordinating with one another to use and exploit, in an appropriately legal sense, evidence that the other jurisdiction has developed. But it's not like if Donald Trump personally gets charged in both Georgia and New York, it's not like the New York jury will be told. Oh and by the way, folks,

he did some crimes down in Georgia too. Even if he had already been convicted of those crimes and was now on trial in New York, that evidence probably wouldn't come in into the new prosecution unless a judge ruled that it was relevant somehow it wasn't what we call uncharged misconduct that was likely to unduly prejudice the defendant's right to a fair trial. These are legal issues that would have to be litigated and sorted out. It may be that a judge rules, yeah, what he did in

Georgia was so inextricably intertwined, that's a legal term. With the crimes he committed in New York that a judge would rule they were relevant for certain purposes and therefore admissible at his New York trial. The other place that directly comes in is if you're convicted of a crime somewhere and you go to trial after you've been convicted, and you take the stand and testify, you can be

cross examined with the prior crime you committed. You can be it's called impeaching the witness with a conviction, And the law generally says, if you take the stand in your own defensive trial and you have criminal convictions in your past, those you're admissible for the jury to use to decide whether you're telling the truth today, So they go to your credibility. So those are the different ways that stuff does or doesn't factor in when it comes

to multiple jurisdictions finding crimes and trying people. So to close the loop just on Georgia before we move on to trumping companies other crimes. So give us your hypothesis on a timeline here. Okay, So Fannie Willis says, imminently, right, you said, we don't know if that is days or weeks. Let's say that it's it's weeks from the moment that an indictment comes down. How long are we going to

an actual trial? Knowing that Donald Trump's main defense has always been to tap dance and run out the clock. So there's good news and bad news. The bad news is criminal trials, once there's an indictment, once somebody's been charged and hauled into court for the first time and a trial date has been set, criminal trials can take a while. I wouldn't expect a trial date to be set after Donald Trump has been indicted for between six

months and a year out. That is just kind of a rule of thumb how long it takes to get a case to trial. So the bad news is we'll still have to wait for a little bit. The good news is when we see Donald Trump forever running out the clock in litigation, right, always trying to delay his

day of reckoning. That can be done in civil cases, civil lawsuits, and that up to this point is the only thing we've seen Donald Trump involved in because he hasn't been charged criminally with anything, right, But it can't be done in criminal cases. Why because as judges are making decisions, you know, on motions, on what evidence can be admitted, and all these decisions that have to be made in the run up to a criminal trial, none

of those are appealable. So a defendant delay his trial date by filing these appeals that go up and down and up and down the appellate court chain the way you can in civil cases. The only time you can appeal anything, with a couple of very minor exceptions, the only time a defendant can appeal anything is after you've gotten the trial, you've been convicted, you've been sentenced, your case is over. Then you can file an appeal of

your conviction. So Donald Trump cannot weaponize the delay in the court system in the criminal case the way he always has been able to do in a civil case. Oh that is good news, Glenn. Okay, So switching gear is out of Jorge Jeff and and pulling back and looking at where what has happened recently with the next

slate of Oathkeepers. Right a couple of weeks ago, the last time that we had you on the show, we had the convictions come down of seditious conspiracy for the former founder of the Oath Keepers and two other people, and then they had separate trials that were set up

for the next slate. Tell us what happened with those cases and how, if at all, it is going to inform this sloth like Department of Justice, an Attorney General that is signaling to me and anyone who I think pays attention that he ain't doing not a goddamn thing as it pertains to going after Donald Trump and the

architects of this crime. Because frankly, what I said the other day on Twitter, Glenn is that I look at who is in the House of Representatives right now and realize that Merritt Garland is to blame for why these people have not been indicted for their involvement in the insurrection. Knowing that many of those House members were in fact involved in the stop to Steal rally and involved in

given recognisance tours to who would then become insurrectionists. Yeah, don't let me forget to talk about the sloth like pace of the Department of Justice at the end of this answer. But I want to start with the Oathkeepers trial. So the first Oathkeeper's trial was against five Oathkeepers, kind of some of the upper echelon of the Oathkeepers organization, including the president, the leader, Elmer Stuart Rhodes, the guy with the eye patch because as a firearms instructor he

shot his own eye out. You can't make that up. So Elmer Rhodes and his top lieutenant, Kelly Megs were convicted of the lead charged seditious conspiracy, the attempted violent overthrow of the government, and all five of those defendants were convicted of several other charges. And that was the first seditious conspiracy conviction in more than a decade in the United States. These cases aren't often brought, and when they are, they're not always successful. So that was actually

a really big deal. Now then, and I attended that entire seven week trial, and the evidence was powerful, it was overwhelming, proved beyond a reasonable doubt the guilt of these five Oathkeepers. Then we went to part two of the oath keeper's trial four more defendants, and I didn't

attend that trial. Again, my fellow former colleagues and my friends were the prosecutors and that one as well, and the jury just hands down convicted all four of those oath keepers of seditious conspiracy and other charges related to the insurrection. And of course the Proud Boys are on trial right now, and I would bet buck my betting limit. I'm not a high roller. I would bet a buck that they are all about to be convicted of seditious

conspiracy as well. It's almost becoming routine that the federal prosecutors are indicting the boots of the insurrection for seditious conspiracy. Now, of course, the Department of Justice hasn't managed to rise above the boots of the insurrection, the people that Donald Trump told to attack the capital and start to take

on the suits of the insurrection. The suits are out there holding dinner parties and fundraisers and playing golf and you committing any other number of crimes because they haven't been held accountable for any of their crimes. With Respected DJ's sloth like pace. Here's what has me so upset. What the Department of Justice is doing by waiting now more than two years to hold accountable bowl the suits of the insurrection, the people who organized, funded, orchestrated, and

incited and directed the attack on the Capitol. What they have done is they've sent a powerful message that if you in the future try to overthrow our democracy, let me tell you what's going to happen. We're going to give you a full two years and counting to come up with your next move, maybe to try to do it again, maybe to avoid accountability, maybe to tamper with witnesses, but we will give you a full two plus years

to try to come up with your next move. That is law enforcement insanity, because you're not deterring crime, you're encouraging crime. This is something I don't understand from a department that I served for more than for nearly quarter of a century. This is not the way it worked when I was there, right, I understand this is an unusual case, But frankly, there are more reasons to hold these people accountable immediately for trying to kill our democracy,

not less reasons. So the sloth like pace I think every day works to the extreme detriment of the health and continued viability of our democracy. You know, Glenn, I gotta tell you, you know, I speak to so many legal folks, and you know, the other day I spoke with Ellie Mistol, who is the Justice correspondent for the nation, and Ellie said to me, in no uncertain terms, ding,

Llen ain't happening. He's like, I knew that when Merrick Garland was appointed to be Attorney General, anyone else, Doug Jones, Sally Yates would have been the people that had the

backbone and the fortitude to get this done. And we kept saying, oh, Merrek Garland just needs more time, but people knew, based on the cases that he has overseen, based on the kind of person that he is, that if you wanted justice to be done, an accountability to be delivered to the feet of Donald Trump and his minions, Merrick Garland won the guy. And he also wouldn't have been the guy apparently to sit on this type of

vicious Supreme Court either, right. So I'm just I wonder I want to get your thoughts on that assertion by other friend of the show, Ellie Misstell. Yes, the first of all, I love Ellie and I missed the days when he and I would sit around that round table with David up with and it was so liberating because we got to talk about everything for the entire hour instead of just two or three minutes at a time.

And I was not only in formed by Ellie, but I was always amused because the dude, he is unique in his ability to inject humor with deadly serious information and make you laugh and learn at the same time. My hat's off to Ellie, and I can't disagree with his observations that because it hasn't happened yet, there is a sense that it ain't never going to happen. I did agree. I still think it's going to happen. Justice has been delayed, Will it be entirely denied? I don't

think so. And here's why Merrick Garland has obviously turned out to be not the right man for the moment. Right he has not risen to meet the urgency of the moment, as we just discussed, because tomorrow's aspiring dictator will have years to plan his next move after he tries to overthrow our democracy. That's a significant failing of Merrick Arland's Department of Justice. However, I still don't believe it. I know so many of the people who work there,

I worked with so many of them. I still don't believe that they have reached the conclusion that we're prepared to give our democracy away to Donald Trump and to whoever rises up in Donald Trump's image next, because they will be giving it all away if they don't hold Trump and Jeffrey Clark and John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani and Bannon and Flynn and Stone and Jenna Ellison and Sidney Powell, and I could go on and on and

on accountable for trying to unlawfully and unconstitutionally overturn our democracy, because if they decide we're not going to charge those people for those crimes, they will in fact have given our democracy away. I still, in my heart of hearts, can't conceive of a scenario or a reason that they would reach the conclusion we're giving our democracy away. We're done here. I just don't. I don't see a declination

of charges. They've taken too long. They will come too late, maybe not too late, to save our democracy for the time being. Listen, maybe one of the best things that I would love to chat with Ellie about this, maybe one of The best things that happened is these matters were taken out of Merrick Garland's hands when he appointed Jack Smith. Now I am not prepared to sing Jack Smith's praises and call him the hero. Because we had Muller, we had Garland, now we have Jack Smith. How many

times you would fool us? But I do think Jack Smith, given his credentials, his bona fidays, his body of work, the guy goes after politicians left, right and center, brings the hard cases when some loses. Some has gone after war criminals. I mean, if ever there was a prosecutor who seems to be up to the task right and he has proven that he has done things moving in one hundred miles an hour that Merrick Garland never did,

but he should have done eighteen months ago. So listen, if that's a little bit of hope, because now it is in Jack Smith's hands. If he gets it right, great, If he gets it wrong, we're losing our democracy. Is their last question for you, Glenn, Is there a scenario and I, oh my god, I don't even want to

say it, but I'm going to say it. Is there a scenario where charges are brought for Joe Biden and Donald Trump to have this perception of, oh, we go after everybody like is because again, the Justice Department, you know, Mulla report said we don't indict sitting presidents documents, documents, because the media is not making any any distinction between the crime that Donald Trump committed and the mistake that

Joe Biden and now Mike Pence may have committed. First of all, as much as I disagree with the Department of Justice policy, the OLC Office of Legal Counsel memo that says you can't indict a sitting criminal president, you know, that's what kept Donald Trump out of hot water, plus a corrupt Attorney General, Bill Barr. As much as I disagree with that memo because I think it moves us in the direction of being a banana Republic, Joe Biden, based on that memo, can't be indicted, certainly not while

he's president. I don't embrace that. I don't celebrate that. I don't think Joe Biden committed crimes based on the available evidence. You know, right, you know, Joe Biden and now Mike Pence went through their stuff for whatever, prompted by what we don't know precise found things that they shouldn't have, and immediately both of them. I'm no fan of Mike Pence, but both of these people said, Okay, we found stuff that shouldn't be in our papers. Please

take them national Archives. DJ. We need to let you know, come in and search, do what you need to do. There's no criminal intent there. There may not even be a criminal act. But those are not prosecutable cases. And Merrick Garland, in his zeal to be perceived as fair and even handed to everyone, he's not gonna say, well, I have if we're going to charge Donald Trump, then we have to charge Mike Pence and Joe Biden too, to give the superficial appearance of fairness. That's not fairness.

If Mike Pence and Joe Biden didn't commit crimes, it's an abuse of power. So I am less worried about that. But Danielle, it feels like today we need to worry about everything. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. So I'm like, while in a normal a society, that would seem like something we don't need to worry about. Nothing surprises me in America today. As always, Glenn, I appreciate your thorough, thorough look into where we are in the march to indictment, and it looks like once again

all eyes are on Georgia. So whenever that comes been down, we will want to be with you immediately, so appreciate me talking. That is it for me today, dear friends on Woke a f as always power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.