David Schoen and James Trusty join Laura Ingraham, a must watch!
Video transcript6:48
Joining me now to unpack all of this — I'm sorry, Fonny, Fonny, Fonny, I keep saying the wrong thing, sorry about that — is David Schoen, former lead counsel in Trump's impeachment case, and Jim Trusty, another former Trump attorney. Both are intimately familiar with the cases against the former president. We're going to get to Georgia in a second, gentlemen, but I wanted to get Jim's take first on what took place in Miami today in the classified docs case. Judge Eileen Cannon has denied Trump's motion to dismiss, Jim. She said, essentially, that the various phrases that were being contested as too vague, phrases like "entitled to receive" or "related to the national defense," "authorized persons," that there were too many outstanding legal questions for her to grant the motion to dismiss. Do you agree with her ultimate finding there? Well, I do somewhat, and that might be surprising, but the reason why, she's taking a very incremental approach towards everything, towards scheduling, towards resolution of discovery issues. And that's what we're used to in federal courts. That's what we actually want from our judges, is to decide the issues that are ripe at the time they need to be decided. So what she did is she dismissed this without prejudice, saying we can circle back when we're dealing with jury instructions and decide if there's really a constitutional problem with the charges for vagueness. That's a very difficult standard to meet in general. But the key thing, I think, today wasn't that. It was that she keeps talking and asking questions about selective prosecution. You know, you mentioned weaponization. That's the real—I mean, that's an uphill battle normally, but here, the way DOJ has treated President Trump when it comes to Mar-a-Lago, that's a ripe issue that's going to land in her wheelhouse at some point, and it could be a big one. So I don't think it was a bad day for President Trump just to temporarily lose one kind of nuanced, difficult constitutional issue for the time being. Yeah. And it's pretty funny to watch, David, the reaction from some of the Trump critics. They act like they won the case today. I mean, a first-year law student knows how difficult it is to have a motion to dismiss granted when there's a dispute as to some of the underlying facts, and she essentially wrote that resolution of the overall question presented depends too greatly on contested instructional questions about still fluctuating definitions of statutory terms and phrases as charged, et cetera. I just think this was a very conservative ruling on her part. I mean, a lot of people want this to go away. I mean, I think it should go away, but I think this is actually quite smart of this judge in this case. I don't think this is a loss at all for President Trump, and I think Jim is right that she handled it in the proper way. He has, in this case, unlike many other cases, some really serious arguments for dismissal. They're going to have to confront the mens rea element here, the mindset willfully in the context of the Presidential Records Act. You know, a lot of the commentators want to say, "Presidential Records Act has nothing to do with this case," and so on. They're just wrong. If you look at the 2012 decision from Amy Berman Jackson in D.C., a real Trump hater on which she said, "The statute is silent as to who has the right to designate, except insofar as it names the executive as the only person with the right to designate personal versus Presidential Records while that person's in office." That goes, if nothing else, to the mens rea as to whether President Trump willfully violated the law, and willfully means doing something of reasonable belief was criminal. He had people telling him, people who should know, telling him that he had the right to designate these as personal records. So that issue, I think the Evan Corcoran issue, his records, the Judge Howell in D.C. ordered turned over in virtually wholesale fashion despite the attorney-client privilege. I think that ought to lead to a dismissal. I think the grand jury was tainted by that evidence. So there are many issues in this case. This wasn't a loss for President Trump. Now, it's just hilarious to watch, especially non-lawyers, and obviously we're all lawyers, but it's not that complicated, really. When you boil it down to the facts, I just want to play one sound bite for you, Jim, because this made me scream laughing. This was the media in mourning when they realized that some of the charges against Trump were dropped in that Georgia case, and then it ultimately kind of is foreboding for the future of Fonny Willis watch. I just wonder if he would go there, if he would dismiss charges if he's planning to throw out the case or remove it from Fonny Willis to try to look on the bright side. In many ways, this potentially could streamline the case. We're having this conversation against the backdrop of her potential disqualification. This could be sort of death by a thousand cuts. I mean, Jim, they are just trying to find any little thread to kind of try to give some credibility, which is obviously a disaster of a case that was brought by Ms. Willis and her paramour. Yeah, I mean, they may be watching the last few bubbles escape the Titanic on the way down when it comes to Georgia. I mean, I think that this judge did a very, very cerebral job of addressing a challenging motion and he had an elected district attorney perjuring herself in court, disrespectfully doing so. He kept this calm. He waded through the facts. He's wading through the legal issues. And the beauty of this one from President Trump's perspective is if it's dismissed without prejudice, which is usually almost a Pyrrhic victory for the defense because they go back to the grand jury and they recharge it. But if he dismisses it without prejudice and the disqualification kicks in of the entire office, which is what Georgia law says happens under the circumstances, nobody is going to pick this thing up if they have any sense at all. No other DA is going to say, Oh, let me jump into that, you know, morass and handle the same case. David, you agree it's a dead cat bounce at that point? I think so. I really don't know. It depends on who they select and who does the selecting at the end of the day. But I'm going to tell you, this judge is onto something with the charges that he dismissed. His problem with them was one can't really know how to defend against them because they're not specific enough. That's a real issue in the New York case. The New York case is a cockamamie felony by charging a misdemeanor to commit a target act. The grand jury never specified what that target act is. Is it to affect the election? Was it for tax purposes? That can't be cured by a bill of particulars. I think that's fatally defective to the New York case. I hope the lawyers will latch on to that. Oh, that's fascinating. The bootstrapping isn't going to work for them. David and Jim, thanks so much.
Transcribed automatically. Expect errors in names and numbers.
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David Schoen and James Trusty join Laura Ingraham, a must watch!
Video transcript 6:48
Joining me now to unpack all of this — I'm sorry, Fonny, Fonny, Fonny, I keep saying the wrong thing, sorry about that — is David Schoen, former lead counsel in Trump's impeachment case, and Jim Trusty, another former Trump attorney. Both are intimately familiar with the cases against the former president. We're going to get to Georgia in a second, gentlemen, but I wanted to get Jim's take first on what took place in Miami today in the classified docs case. Judge Eileen Cannon has denied Trump's motion to dismiss, Jim. She said, essentially, that the various phrases that were being contested as too vague, phrases like "entitled to receive" or "related to the national defense," "authorized persons," that there were too many outstanding legal questions for her to grant the motion to dismiss. Do you agree with her ultimate finding there? Well, I do somewhat, and that might be surprising, but the reason why, she's taking a very incremental approach towards everything, towards scheduling, towards resolution of discovery issues. And that's what we're used to in federal courts. That's what we actually want from our judges, is to decide the issues that are ripe at the time they need to be decided. So what she did is she dismissed this without prejudice, saying we can circle back when we're dealing with jury instructions and decide if there's really a constitutional problem with the charges for vagueness. That's a very difficult standard to meet in general. But the key thing, I think, today wasn't that. It was that she keeps talking and asking questions about selective prosecution. You know, you mentioned weaponization. That's the real—I mean, that's an uphill battle normally, but here, the way DOJ has treated President Trump when it comes to Mar-a-Lago, that's a ripe issue that's going to land in her wheelhouse at some point, and it could be a big one. So I don't think it was a bad day for President Trump just to temporarily lose one kind of nuanced, difficult constitutional issue for the time being. Yeah. And it's pretty funny to watch, David, the reaction from some of the Trump critics. They act like they won the case today. I mean, a first-year law student knows how difficult it is to have a motion to dismiss granted when there's a dispute as to some of the underlying facts, and she essentially wrote that resolution of the overall question presented depends too greatly on contested instructional questions about still fluctuating definitions of statutory terms and phrases as charged, et cetera. I just think this was a very conservative ruling on her part. I mean, a lot of people want this to go away. I mean, I think it should go away, but I think this is actually quite smart of this judge in this case. I don't think this is a loss at all for President Trump, and I think Jim is right that she handled it in the proper way. He has, in this case, unlike many other cases, some really serious arguments for dismissal. They're going to have to confront the mens rea element here, the mindset willfully in the context of the Presidential Records Act. You know, a lot of the commentators want to say, "Presidential Records Act has nothing to do with this case," and so on. They're just wrong. If you look at the 2012 decision from Amy Berman Jackson in D.C., a real Trump hater on which she said, "The statute is silent as to who has the right to designate, except insofar as it names the executive as the only person with the right to designate personal versus Presidential Records while that person's in office." That goes, if nothing else, to the mens rea as to whether President Trump willfully violated the law, and willfully means doing something of reasonable belief was criminal. He had people telling him, people who should know, telling him that he had the right to designate these as personal records. So that issue, I think the Evan Corcoran issue, his records, the Judge Howell in D.C. ordered turned over in virtually wholesale fashion despite the attorney-client privilege. I think that ought to lead to a dismissal. I think the grand jury was tainted by that evidence. So there are many issues in this case. This wasn't a loss for President Trump. Now, it's just hilarious to watch, especially non-lawyers, and obviously we're all lawyers, but it's not that complicated, really. When you boil it down to the facts, I just want to play one sound bite for you, Jim, because this made me scream laughing. This was the media in mourning when they realized that some of the charges against Trump were dropped in that Georgia case, and then it ultimately kind of is foreboding for the future of Fonny Willis watch. I just wonder if he would go there, if he would dismiss charges if he's planning to throw out the case or remove it from Fonny Willis to try to look on the bright side. In many ways, this potentially could streamline the case. We're having this conversation against the backdrop of her potential disqualification. This could be sort of death by a thousand cuts. I mean, Jim, they are just trying to find any little thread to kind of try to give some credibility, which is obviously a disaster of a case that was brought by Ms. Willis and her paramour. Yeah, I mean, they may be watching the last few bubbles escape the Titanic on the way down when it comes to Georgia. I mean, I think that this judge did a very, very cerebral job of addressing a challenging motion and he had an elected district attorney perjuring herself in court, disrespectfully doing so. He kept this calm. He waded through the facts. He's wading through the legal issues. And the beauty of this one from President Trump's perspective is if it's dismissed without prejudice, which is usually almost a Pyrrhic victory for the defense because they go back to the grand jury and they recharge it. But if he dismisses it without prejudice and the disqualification kicks in of the entire office, which is what Georgia law says happens under the circumstances, nobody is going to pick this thing up if they have any sense at all. No other DA is going to say, Oh, let me jump into that, you know, morass and handle the same case. David, you agree it's a dead cat bounce at that point? I think so. I really don't know. It depends on who they select and who does the selecting at the end of the day. But I'm going to tell you, this judge is onto something with the charges that he dismissed. His problem with them was one can't really know how to defend against them because they're not specific enough. That's a real issue in the New York case. The New York case is a cockamamie felony by charging a misdemeanor to commit a target act. The grand jury never specified what that target act is. Is it to affect the election? Was it for tax purposes? That can't be cured by a bill of particulars. I think that's fatally defective to the New York case. I hope the lawyers will latch on to that. Oh, that's fascinating. The bootstrapping isn't going to work for them. David and Jim, thanks so much.
Transcribed automatically. Expect errors in names and numbers.