This is Not Normal

That a former president of the United States twice in peach president of the United States who's been found guilty of defamation and rape, a person that has stolen documents from the federal government and refused to return them. Somebody who made a phone call that said, hey, find me eleven thousand, two hundred and seventy some odd votes. A person that has use their broke down fucking Twitter in order to harass and degrade and defame regular just poll

workers who wanted to do good by their community. That we're on indictment Watch number three, and frankly, by the end of the summer beginning of fall, he could have been indicted for a fourth time. Because we have also have eyes on Fannie Willis in Georgia, and as we continue to talk about these things. I think it is important to remind ourselves that this shit should not be normal.

And the fact that Kevin McCarthy, with his Fisher Price gabble, is sitting around pontificating on whether or not he's going to open up an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden for no other reason but to appease his master Donald Trump, just shows you how degraded our politics have become. And so I understand when people are like, I'm done and I want to turn off from this, But it is more important than ever that we pay attention to what

is happening. Just this week, Greg Abbott down in Texas has decided that guess what he's gonna do as governor. He's reading all public schools of libraries. What is he putting in their place detention centers. So when we say that these motherfuckers are fascists, that they are authoritarians, look

at what they are doing to our public schools. Because who will this affect Because white people with means will pull their children out of public schools, which is what the Republicans have wanted, which is why they've been defunding public education for the last several decades, they'll pull their kids out, and the ones that will be subjected to the lies right and to the discipline will be black and brown children. Folks, this set up and the rig is in, and it's up to all of us to

pay attention. Coming up next, my conversation with friend of the show Gentobb, our friend and lawyer who we look to to kind of help us understand the legal woes that Donald Trump is facing and the legal woes the nation is facing because of our grifting ass illegal Supreme Court.

That conversation is coming up next, Folks. I am always so happy when one of my friends, fellow nerd Avenger, just fellow colleague in the space who loses their mind a regular bathists try to keep drek with the news cycle. Gentob joins wo k F daily. You know her. She's a law professor and the author of Big Dirty Money and Other People's Houses, and she is the host of booked Up with Gentobb Again, Danielle, Where to begin in all honesty in the legal landscape or minefield that is

America these days? But because I don't have my medication present, let's not talk about the Supreme Court, shall we. Let's just talk about the Donald Trump. But so here's what we know. Judge Alien Cannon who should have recused herself but didn't and is still overseeing Jack Smith's documents case

against Donald Trump. Folks, I know that there are so many cases, so it's hard to keep track, but let us start with the document's case has set a court date for May twenty fourth, I believe twenty twenty four. So five twenty four, twenty four. Ha ha on usu, Jen, what do you make Aileen Cannons moves thus far? Uh in this in this case and whether or not we will we'll see pushback from the Department of Justice by way of Jack Smith because he said he was ready

to go in December. We knew that that was unlikely. But but where what are you thinking so far about her moves and then the timing of this trial.

straight from straight to the staff. You know, kind of person so but that being said, I am trying to find the silver lining in the storm cloud that Eileen Cannon has created for the future of democracy because May twenty four, twenty twenty four, there's only one good two good things about that date. One that's literally the last I think, like the last day, like when grades are due spring semester for my classes, so like I will be done teaching. So if that's going to take over

all of my time, I'm ready. That's but you know, that's the one good thing, hardly enough to recommend the date. But the other good thing is it is so far out there as a preliminary date that I'm hoping that Jack Smith is ready to go on the insurrection case on the January sixth case, that we expect to be charged any day now, and that a judge in DC

sees it as perfect timing. There's no In other words, the reason why, as you know, that the Justice Department pushed out the date to December from the judge's original summer date, which wasn't going to happen, was because there's some complications around how to share top secret type documents that will not be the case in the January sixth indictment,

you know. And I think the Justice Department has brought hundreds of cases involving the rioters and has already the benefit of, as you know, the special Committee investigating the attack on the Capitol. They have done incredible amounts of work even before this Special Council got involved. I think they're ready to go one day in DT. So my hope is they ask for a November date, October even

for that case. So the again, the only true other than the selfish motive, the only true good thing about May twenty fourth is it gives the opportunity a wide open field to bring the most important case again, this guy which is trying to stage a coup to stay in office, and the you know, ongoing lie that that is associated with all that, all the time between the November election when he lost, through the attack on the Capitol and his role, all of that is feeding into

his campaign and the undermining of what little we have left of our democratic institution. So that's the bright note. Now, if there I am hoping he asks for October or November or December date. If Jack Smith doesn't, you know, I give up, I really do. I don't know what to tell you.

for you. We're not afraid. You know which, Jen, I'm no lawyer, That's why I have you on the show. But he seems to be doing the same exact things that he did prior to January sixth. With the rollout of these indictments, you know, he sends up a flare, all of mainstream media jumps on the Trump train right, giving him once again all just the free press that

he needs. He uses that attention to then send out threats to Jack Smith and to others, and then sends out this video basically another digital stand back and stand by. So tell me how these kinds of things can be used in a court of law that he's doing.

during the Carol II trial. It was Carol two because it was brought second even though charged you know, she filed the the defamation and sexual assault case. This was the second case, even though it went first. And there were things that you know, the Donald Trump was doing on Twitter, and the judge I was in the courtroom, you know, said to his lawyers, you got to talk to your client, and sometimes he took down what he was saying off Twitter. But then when he continued that

behavior after he lost the case. Now that's become part of the next case. I mean, Carol won, It's been added to that case against him. Now this is all about a civil case, right, You're more concerned about him standbacks, stand by kind of language actually creating violence. I remain a little bit less concerned because when he was indicted his first federal indictment, as opposed to the Manhattan DA indictment, the first federal grand jury indictment, we didn't see that

much support for him around the courthouse in Florida. Now I realized this is probably this is different because these are the same people, right, this is all about But however, there are a lot of people who were charged and either serve time or are going to serve time, who feel abandoned by Donald Trump, in other words, he so they may not come and also they may themselves not want to get arrested again. So we've got to think about that. So I don't know if you're if you're worried.

of behavior and basic intent with his continued language. Now you could have yeah, because my thought was if Donald Trump, let's say, had been a normal human being and you're caught doing something and then you decide I'm going to back away from that said behavior, so that my attorneys can say that this was an isolated event, caught up in passion whatever bullshit kind of you know, defense is going to be created. You could say that that was

an isolated event. But over the last few years, since January sixth, we've watched Donald Trump continue to use social media as a way to either virtually assault people, right, make them a target in an attack, the same way that he did with the voting staff in uh in Georgia. Right. And so my question really is like, how is the process? How do you feel how can the prosecution use Donald Trump's continued behavior or there for their case.

asking me for. So, yeah, so two ways. One if they if the prosecution wants to bring in evidence like as a pattern of behavior, this is how he tries to obstruct and try to stir up violence in terms of admitting evidence that his lawyers are obviously gonna want to exclude that kind of evidence, and they want to narrow what jury can hear, right, And so the tension and our rules of federal rules of evidence is, first of all, only things that are considered relevant can be admitted.

This would obviously, you know, I think it's relevant to his intent and so on. So but the next thing is, and of course the other side, his defense will say it's not. But even if a judge thinks it's relevant, the judge then has to decide whether something is two

what's called too prejudicial to be probative. It's this concept of you know, for example, when a defendant is trial for a particular let's say, you know, breaking into a grocery store to steal formula for their kid or something, God forbid we prosecute for that, you know, whether they had been caught doing, you know, shoplifting something else at a different time. You know, if a jury gets to hear the other shoplifting, it's going to make them think, oh,

this is a bad person. I'm going to convict them. And so the defense is going to want to say, you know, that's not really relevant. What they were shoplifting before was you know, I don't know Amazon, you know, gift cards or whatever, and that just has nothing to do with this. However, you know, the idea would be, well, if the way that this person did this was similar, then we can look for a pattern of behavior. But the idea is it's relevant because it shows this person

has the intent to take things that aren't theirs. But a lot of judges would exclude that earlier, that earlier evidence because they would say, you know, that's going to make a jury try him for being a bad person, and we don't do that in America. You're supposed to be tried for your your actual offenses. So it's going to really be up to what a jury, what the judge is, and how the judge rules. So that's going

to be an evidentiary battle. The second way, though, I think is interesting, is if his tweeting or his it's not even tweeting xing, or his his what is it that we call him now is true thing? Whatever? If? What if his public statements are directed toward this particular case, and it could be seen as trying to influence witnesses or tamper with them or somehow create threats against physical or other threats against jurors or the court. That could

be its own kind of separate case, you know. And I don't know if you saw this, but the other day I saw, like, was it Mike Huckabee? Did you see this thing going around on threads like he put up?

It could have been on true Social maybe it was an interview on the news, but what I saw is he was on air or something saying the most important values are loyalty, and he was like saying it was a very weird, like if you don't get it, like they're all out there sending signals for people to not not squeal, you know, not rat out the mob boss. And the closer he gets to this prospect of being convicted for something in federal court and maybe he believes

jail time, which I don't think would happen. But the closer he gets to that, the more desperate his moves will become. And so I think we should keep our eye on both both avenues.

these things are actually coming down the pike. My assumption is yes, it is why from Georgia because Fanni Willis had sent up a flare months ago telling us that between July and September for law enforcement to prepare, so we know that those things are are underway. Part of Jen I guess the rumors that are circulating is that Fannie Willis the DA in Georgia could potentially be looking at racketeering charges. So Jen talk to us about this, what if this big? What if that we don't know yet?

Why would this be a BFD.

And the idea with racketeering is that you the law, whether it's the Georgia one or the federal one, is designed to criminalize, to create, criminalize a pattern of racketeering activity. So that's how the language works. And then you have to say, well, what is racketeering activity and what is a pattern? Well, racketeering activity at the federal level is a little bit different at the state the federal level.

The reason why RICO was established is so that you could turn into a federal crime or a pattern of state criminal behavior, so as well as a series of different federal crimes, so that we call them predicate offenses. So all of a sudden, someone who's just committing crimes like doing you know, black met or bribery or shaking people down, or murder. At the state level, you know, murdering people, you could now say, well, murder's usually a

state offense. But now if it's a pattern of racketeering activity, if it's a if you have an enterprise, which is you know, a group of two or more people working together to commit a series of murders, now all of a sudden and instead of just a state crime, you could charge that at the federal level. Right, or kidnapping. So think of that. That's the federal way. Similarly, things like wirefraud or counterfeiting or all kinds of other federal offenses.

If someone is a pattern of it, if you call it, you call it a pattern of racketeering activity. Now, what you've done, if you've said, okay, Danielle, if you're at the hub of this group, if you're in charge of you know this activity. You if you set up this sort of racketeering enterprise and you're either making money or benefiting from this kind of behavior, even if you were not involved in all these underlying things, if you're part of this rico enterprise, you now can be tagged with

all this other stuff. It's a way of creating a web around a sort of amorphous activity where you cannot see. So let's put Donald Trump at the center of this, and let's look at the Let's look at the efforts to change the vote count in Georgia. The reason why racketeering. Now, let's look at the state level. The reason why racketeering would be helpful is if if RICO at the state, at the Georgia level, is also criminalizing a pattern of

racketeering activity. Rico at the Georgia level has a whole bunch of other types of crimes state crimes, and some of those are the you know, the activities that people like Giuliani and anyone he.

you could now create liability for him. I don't know if that makes sense to you. That's what I'm trying to So that's why it's sort of a big deal. And you know, it just as layers of liability and just yet another crime. And it also sounds bad. But remember he already settled Rico state Rico charges with his fake university. You know, it's not like he hasn't been tagged with RICO before. I just think people like they

think it sounds they think it sounds scary. But the other thing is that Fawnie Willis has had success using the Georgia Rico statute before. Wasn't she involved in the whole thing about teachers cheating helping students cheat on exams? Yes, So again, when you.

crime ring that has engulfed an entire political party. And there are many mechanisms, much in the same way that you know, organized crime members have different hands in different jars.

was making the rounds who was absolutely giddy going on television. Yeah, so she told us, you know, there aren't going to be any plot twists. There are lots of people's names. Were not going to be surprised to see them. You know, I would like to see those.

those that were former presidents of the United States. I want to turn your attention to Michigan for a moment and the sixteen sixteen Republican of fake electors who were caught up in that scheme, who were charged with felonies for their quote for their role in the alleged false electors scheme. How does that How does what is happening in Michigan tie into what is happening in Georgia and as a larger part of this overall twenty twenty scheme by Trump and company.

So remember Merrick Garland, you know, as in my view, was not in a big hurry to do justice when it came to anything Donald Trump was involved in. And only when he announced his plan to run for office does he appoint Jack Smith. And only I think shortly after maybe they found those documents at Biden's house. Did that to you? Even do that? Like he should have a pointed some a long time ago. And he also should have done something about the flake collectors in Michigan

and the other states. And so I admired Dana Nessel for saying, you know what, I don't have to wait forever. I'm going to bring this case. And she, you know, she brought this case against these against these these people. It was sixteen of them and the kinds of charges you used were ordinary state charges. I love this one one crime called uttering and publishing. When I worked in the courthouses when I was a teenager and I had some summer jobs. They're uttering publishing was something you charge

people with if they wrote a bad check. It's kind of any kind of sort of false written statement. Others were charged with, you know, other charges included for each of them election law forgery, and these are these are serious, serious felonies. These are you know, when they're at this level, when it's not just passing a bad check, when it's actually trying to falsify the electoral slate, and and you know, given opportunity for overturning a lawful election. We're talking about

fourteen years for each of these offenses. There's like one, two, three, four, or five, like six different felonies here in several accounts each. To my hope is that other states, not just Georgia and Michigan where this was going on, the prosecutors decide that they're not going to wait around for the federal government. Jacksonith's obviously very busy at this point, and whatever else he's not working on, I wouldn't leave it to Merrick Garland and hopefully they step up.

you know, afterward. And you know, my question for you is, why did she go Why did her lawyers when they decided to seek her own counsel, why did they feel safe going to the commission, and why did they not go to the Justice Department first? And there's a reason. Yeah, because I you know, and I don't know. I I have a lot, you know, I'm very disappointed. I you know, as you know, I believe a special counsel should have been appointed right away at the outset. But we're where

we are. But if there had been a special counsel appointed the minute Merrick Garland was sworn in in March of twenty twenty one, we may have actually had some trials by now. This is ridiculous.

Ross Perow was there. It's very hard, even under normal circumstances, for anyone to either party to win the presidential election the way that the electoral College is set up, in the way our country has always been divided, and now we're in a real danger of Donald Trump being re elected. And you know, I blame that on the Justice Department because and I'm not saying it because this is not a partisan issue. I'm saying someone who tried to overthrow

the election should not be running again. And that is if you don't if you don't understand that, then you really don't know what you're doing in your job. And I don't understand how that was in his priority day one.