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here is in this case trump is right media this is an embarrassment made the fact that we are actually talking about this case being presented in a new york courtroom leaves me in other disbelief the the arguments today did in fact capture all the problems here you know you had this misdemeanor under state law where they had run out this is going back to related to the two thousand sixteen election and they zapped it back into life by alleging that there was a campaign finance violation under the federal laws that doesn't exist the department justice doesn't view it this way

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and here with analysis. Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley. All right, there's a lot to unwrap here legally. I'll let you choose where you want to begin. But I would look at this as a big win for Donald Trump today in terms of the half a billion dollar plus, but I would like an answer. I would like somebody to be held accountable for the phone evaluation that Judge Angoran now holds till to this day of Mar-a-Lago being only worth between 18 and what, 20 some odd million dollars when I've shown empty lots, two acres going for 200 million. Well, the interesting thing about the vapors that you were witnessing from various pundits is that this is simply to allow another judge to review what Angoran did. So what they're complaining about is that Trump didn't have to do a fire sale on his property just to be able to get other judges to look at this ruling. And the ruling is ludicrous. That is, the ruling is based on really speculative numbers by the court. You drill down, there's nothing really there. And then the problem, of course, is that, you know, the penalty in this case should have been a dollar because no one lost a dollar. The people that were the supposed victims, these companies, these banks wanted more business from Trump. Now, what the judge ordered in New York was supervision, and you could have stopped there, right? If you think that there's undervaluing and overvaluing, then sure, order supervision. But that's not what this judge wanted to do. This judge picked an arbitrary number that made it almost impossible for Trump to secure an appeal to protect his businesses unless he was willing to sell off some of his businesses. Let me run some poll numbers by you. John McLaughlin and associates, 67% say politics played a role in the indictment of Donald Trump. That's over two thirds, Jonathan. 58% say Biden played a role in the indictments of Donald Trump. Only 30% say it's not true that Biden is trying to jail Trump. Wow. I think the American people, you know, you lay out facts for them in spite of a media that I think is abusively biased, they kind of get it. They do get it. And I think that they recognize for it for what it is. It's not that they necessarily like Trump, but they don't like what they're seeing, particularly in New York. They've created this inescapable political vortex that used to be a legal system. And it's damaging, not just the courts, it's damaging the city. Who wants to go to a city where they try to get you to sell off your property just to get an appeal to look at what a judge did? And so the damage there has been below the waterline. It's going to have to be repaired. But now the New York Court of Appeals could restore some integrity to their system and look at these, at this number. There's two issues here. You know, whether he overvalued and undervalued, that's something very common in the real estate area. But the other major issue is, does this violate the constitution? Almost half a billion dollars in penalty when no one lost a single cent. Let me ask you about the Bragg case now scheduled to begin on April the 15th. Andy McCarthy had a pretty interesting analysis of this. I think you share this view. He said that Bragg was falsifying his prosecution. And he said, knowing that a plain spoken admission that he was trying to enforce federal law, he goes on to say, and a federal statute that the state prosecutor had no authority to enforce that the feds themselves passed on and their lead witness, well, I wouldn't say he's the most credible human being on the face of the earth. How does that play out? Well, Andy, spot on. Many of us have been writing from the beginning of this case that it is a sort of a Frankenstein monster of a case. It's composed of different parts of the federal and state codes. What he basically did is he took a misdemeanor where the time has already run out from the prosecute and bootstrapped the federal crime so that he could extend the statute of limitations. But the Department of Justice rejected that crime. That's the same type of theory they use against John Edwards. It collapsed in a really abysmal failure by the Justice Department. And so they declined to do it. And so you created this bizarre filing. I'm surprised that it has not been dismissed, but Trump may have to face a trial in order to get serious review of the underlying theory. But now we're going to have the spectacle of a disbarred lawyer, Michael Cohen, who just recently was denounced by a judge who said that he was a serial perjurer, that he was still gaming the system. And that's going to be your star witness. It's going to be another blow, I think, to the integrity of the New York legal system. But we'll see if the New York jury buys us. I think that what Bragg is betting on is that the jury won't get past the name on the caption of the criminal complaint and that they will spend very little time looking at either the law or the evidence and focus on who's behind the defense table. All right, Jonathan, Charlie, as always, thank you. We appreciate you being with us.

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welcome back America professor John you these these decisions against Trump do have consequences for future presidents and ex-presidents which is my point let me ask you on the civil side the court is basically thrown open the door in many respects they've allowed people to sue Donald Trump over January 6th police officers and others who claim injury as a result of his alleged actions or lack of actions so my question to you is this the federal immigration laws are very specific about what shouldn't shouldn't be done my orcas has been impeached they've laid out a pretty strong case when you read these articles they've issued executive orders they've done all these things and people are being damaged people are dying from the drugs coming across their properties are being damaged people are being raped and brutalized and god knows what does this not at least open the door to lawyers to push the argument that wait a minute you ruled in Washington DC that a president could be sued civilly for conduct or actions that rationally follow from his decisions or lack of decisions doesn't that like spring opened thousands of doors for possible litigation and mark you still got that litigator mindset in your head I think that's exactly right if the Supreme Court is going to start undermining the principle of presidential immunity as it the lower courts are doing the DC circuit then eventually you are going to see more lawsuits not just against a Donald Trump you're gonna see them against a Barack Obama or against a Joe Biden because the whole point of immunity was to make sure the presidents could reach policy decisions without constantly having to worry about being lawsuit about by soon we want them to make the decisions that are best for the country and not just best for their personal legal liabilities but if the DC circuit and ultimately the Supreme Court I think start to question the immunity that presidents have as you say the January 6 trials by the police officers for example who were harmed in the riot then that's going to bring that doctrine and protection for presidents into doubt and there's no reason why President Biden then would be immune when Donald Trump is not one of the other things that seems to be a common thread in these cases particularly at the federal level is the rush to judgment the cutting corners on appeal the cutting corners on the right to even bring an appeal you see that at the DC circuit with the three judge panel said oh by the way you don't appeal here and you have seven days to appeal to the Supreme Court I can tell you in all my years I've never seen anything like that in my life I think it raises a serious due process question and it's almost like the New York case where they're saying oh you can appeal but cough up 400 million dollars and if you don't cough it up we're gonna steal your properties we're gonna sell them pennies on the dollar and and that's the punishment you're gonna get just because you want to appeal have you seen things like this before let alone against the former president the United States first mark this has never happened with a former president we have never allowed the legal system to harass someone like this with these kind of cases in both federal and state court I still have some waning faith in the federal court system at least in Washington DC that the Supreme Court justices are watching that and they've already rebuffed the special counsel Jack Smith a few times what worries me is what's going on in the state courts like New York you just said it mark I think in part this 350 million damages award which has a hundred million dollars of interest tacked onto it is so large not connected to any damages anybody suffered on whether Donald Trump allegedly you know inflated his asses to get better mortgage terms that amount I think is so large in part because it's designed to prevent Donald Trump from appealing because to appeal that case he has to put up 450 million dollars just to get a hearing in the appellate court to correct what I think looked like bias from the trial judge in that case that's a great point first time I've heard it so you make the penalty so high that basically effectively you're trying to prevent him from appealing I think the president's people should immediately move for stay try and get this case in the federal court and try and get it to the Supreme Court under the 8th Amendment or some other aspect because you know to keep going to Democrats who act like Democrats rather than real prosecutors and real judges becomes a problem John you I want to thank you it doesn't matter it does amaze me that you're a professor UC Berkeley law not because of your brilliance but because of your attitude in your viewpoint so so hang in there thanks we all need to have thick skins these days and I certainly have it in Berkeley yeah well God bless you my friend you're great we'll be right back

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In other words, the case that was brought against Donald Trump should never have been brought. There shouldn't have been a sentencing hearing. There shouldn't have been fines. There shouldn't have been anything. This case against Donald Trump is a greater, more gray violation than anything we've ever seen under the excessive fines part of the Eighth Amendment and much worse than the Timbs case. The case brought against President Trump violates over 800 years of history of Western Enlightenment and the law dating back to the Magna Carta. President Trump's case is much stronger than anything before, much stronger than the Timbs case that the court ruled on. Why? The prosecutor for the state, Letitia James, campaigned for office on the platform of destroying Donald Trump. Her statements are now evidence of her intent and motivation in any appeal and central to the violations of the Eighth Amendment. Two, the state consumer fraud statute used against President Trump has never been used this way against anybody else in the history of the statute by the state of New York, ever. It's been used against him and his family. The Associated Press reviewed nearly, and I report as they report, 150 reported cases under the statute used to punish Mr. Trump and stated that nearly every previous time a company was taken away, victims and losses were key factors. Customers had lost money or brought defective products or never received services ordered, leaving them cheated and angry. Actual fraud, harm, detrimental reliance. Those are the three elements of fraud. No one was defrauded here. No one was harmed. No proof of detrimental reliance. None of them exist. Also, no testimony by anybody who lost anything. No complaint filed by any bank, by any insurance company, by any lender. In fact, the testimony was to the contrary. Now, there was no trial. There was no jury. Wow. Sounds like pre-1215, if you ask me. The judge ruled on the papers and he ruled that Donald Trump was guilty. And that was that. All the back and forth, all the hearings were about the fines and the penalties. Before Donald Trump stepped into that courtroom, he was guilty, according to this Democrat elected judge. I want you to think about that. When President Trump walked into that courtroom, he was already adjudicated guilty. The judge in the case, an elected Democrat like the prosecutor, an elected Democrat, had made earlier statements in other settings, very negative about Donald Trump, that should have caused him to recuse himself. But obviously, he didn't. None of them do in any of the cases where we know that they're biased against Trump. And I'm going beyond the fact that what this judge should have ruled immediately is, Madam Attorney General, you have no case under the Timbs case. And you have no case because a case like this has never been brought. You're talking about a former president of the United States. You're talking about a candidate for president of the United States. You're talking about a man who built the skyline in New York City. And you're bringing me a cockamamie case. Next thing you know, you'll bring the Ku Klux Klan case. Oh, wait a minute. They already did that in Washington. And what does the judge do? He orders nearly half a billion dollars in fines and interest, orders President Trump and his sons to turn his business over to the state, effectively the state of New York, to be managed by another former prosecutor of his choosing. Latisha James, the state prosecutor, she's made the rounds on the Sunday shows bragging about what she accomplished, bragging about how she upheld her campaign promise. So Trump properties, she says now, if he doesn't come up with four hundred million dollars, what is effectively bond in order to have the privilege of appealing the decision by this judge and the actions by the state government. She will seize the properties and sell them from under him. Sell them from under him at pennies on the dollar. Think about this. You know what this is? From her campaign statements, from the judge's prior statements, from the use of a statute that's never been used this way against anybody else in the history of New York, the lack of a trial, the lack of a jury, a decision on the papers, and all the rest of it. This is a prima facie case of a violation of the Eighth Amendment. It's not even a close case. The state prosecuting judge had to know in 2019 the Supreme Court ruled that this kind of state action was absolutely, unequivocally, unconstitutional, a violation of the Bill of Rights under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause. The judge even said, "President Trump," in his statement, "I'm doing what's close to the maximum, if not the maximum, because you didn't show remorse. You didn't bend your knee. You didn't kiss the hand of the state, that is, the hand of the king. So we're stealing your property out from under you. We're stealing it, and we're going to sell it if we have to, and you'll have no recourse." No recourse? What did Ruth Bader Ginsburg say in her opinion? "Nine to zero," the Supreme Court ruled, "that other liberties are affected, other liberties are affected, when a king, when a tyrant, when a dictator, when a state, when the federal government treats citizens this way. There is absolutely no legitimate basis of any kind, legally, factually, for what was done here, except to steal the property from Donald Trump to try and bankrupt him, because he's Donald Trump, because he's a former president, because he's running for president, and they're doing the dirty work of the Democrat Party and the Biden regime, the new king." I'll be right back.

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Everybody agrees that if I'm not entitled to presidential immunity, which I should be, I'm doing the affairs of state, I'm doing the affairs of the President of the United States, and doing it well. We wouldn't have any of these problems if I were president. But if I'm not entitled to immunity as president, every other president would get that, then Crooked Joe Biden would not be entitled to immunity. And when he left office, he would be, I assume, prosecuted for the horrible job he did in Afghanistan, killing soldiers, leaving Americans behind, leaving billions of dollars' worth of military, brand-new, beautiful military equipment that I bought in the hands of the Taliban, and basically surrendering. And there was no reason we have to deal through strength. But all of the horrible things that he's done, allowing the attack on Israel, which would have never happened, the attack on Ukraine, which would have never happened, the possible attack on Taiwan, which possibly will happen, losing our energy independence, but maybe most of all for purposes of immunity and going after Joe Biden is allowing millions and millions of people to pour into our border, coming from jails and prisons, coming from mental institutions and insane asalas, and terrorists coming by the thousands. If I don't have immunity, then no other president would have immunity, and Joe Biden certainly wouldn't have had immunity. Would he, as an example, have immunity for all of the money he took from Russia or for all of the money he took from China or Ukraine? Would he have immunity for the fact that he got rid of a prosecutor who was very unfriendly in Ukraine for a billion dollars and he's going to hold the money unless they get rid of him and they got rid of him very quickly? Well, would he be prosecuted under that act, which is all on tape? Amazingly, he let it be on tape. Very illegal what he did. That's called quid pro quo. You remember that term? They used it on me. But I was totally innocent, and it was proven so. I was totally innocent. They impeached me, and I was totally innocent. But he said, "You're not getting $1 billion unless you get rid of the prosecutor who's unfriendly to perhaps Hunter." And you know what? That's a terrible, terrible thing he did. So if I don't have immunity, he doesn't have immunity. And by the way, the statute of limitations goes back six years and sometimes more than that. Thank you very much.

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My financial statements were extremely undervalued, as opposed to overvalued, which totally disproves and nullifies the New York State Attorney General's politically biased and motivated fake lawsuit against me. She said, "I will get Trump, I will get Trump." In other words, I am worth billions of dollars more than is shown on my very conservative financial statements, the exact opposite of what the AG Witch Hunt said. In addition to that, I have a 100% disclaimer and non-reliance clause right up front on page one, stating clearly that the user must do their own analysis and due diligence. That's what the bank stated they did in court. They didn't rely on the statement. If they did, that would be okay, but they have a non-disturbance clause. They have a non-reliance clause. They were paid in full, on time, on schedule. They loved me as a client. They said so. They got their money back. There were no victims, only success and only profits, and hopefully Judge Ngorin, who should have never had this non-jury trial, and should have never been allowed to go this far, or should have really dismissed it long ago, will show that the New York State judicial system is alive, respected, and well. Everyone's watching. Businesses don't want to move back into New York anymore. So I just say, God bless New York and God bless America.

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Welcome back, America. David Schoen from Jerusalem. We have a question about Washington, D.C. and what's going on in our country, here, directly. We have a special prosecutor. There's nothing special about him. He insists that presidential immunity, that is, a president can't be charged with a crime while he's president, even a phony made-up crime, but whatever it is. The Trump lawyers have said, "That's right, and so you can't charge President Trump for acts he did, or didn't do, as President of the United States after he leaves office because you completely undermine the whole concept of presidential immunity." Presidents will constantly be looking over their shoulders and wondering if they're going to be charged afterwards. So the impact on a chief executive, the ability to decapitate the executive branch through this litigation, he says, "I want to skip the circuit court. I'm going directly to the Supreme Court." The Supreme Court remarkably says, "Well, we may not take up the case, but we might." And they say, "Defense counsel, can we hear what you have to say about this? What do you make of all this?" I think it's outrageous. You raise a number of points here. First of all, the idea of circumventing the appellate court is a horrible decision. But it's also hypocritical. At every juncture of this case, when Judge Chutkin has been presented with a reason to postpone the trial or some other motion in the case, she has said over and over again, "I will not treat you, President Trump, like a special defendant. You will be treated like every other defendant before this court. I won't consider the political interests. I won't consider the public interest in an election. I won't consider your role as a leading candidate. You will move forward like everyone else." That's the opposite of what Jack Smith is saying in his petition. He's asking the Supreme Court to circumvent all of the analysis that a court of appeals would engage in and that every other defendant is entitled to. And what's his reason? Well, he says it's because there might not be sufficient time for the court to hear the case during this term. That's subterfuge. There's no reason for the court to hear it during this term. What he means is there's a possibility the court wouldn't hear it before Donald Trump is elected president. And that's what this is all about in this case. It's a horrible decision. And the decision he cites, by the way, in which the court took expedited review, United States v. Nixon, involved a subpoena, not the fundamental trial issues in the case, the fundamental underlying issue. This is what Nixon v. Fitzgerald was all about in 1982 in the civil context to find absolute immunity on separation of powers grounds and other grounds because the president must be able to act freely. In this case, at all times, President Trump acted under Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution, which provides simply that he must faithfully execute the laws. Based on the information he had, he believed that he was acting to investigate what he believed to be election fraud. He was acting consistent with his duty, his oath under Article 2, Section 1, Clause 8, to execute his office faithfully and so on. That's what he believed. But your point is a president must be able to act freely and not worry about criminal liability over official acts in office. And the Nixon, the Fitzgerald court even said the outer perimeters of the office. This is the heart of the office. It's unbelievable when you look at this case, and let me just say they violate his First Amendment rights. The circuit court panel, two Obama appointees, one Biden appointee, says, OK, you can criticize Jack Smith, but that's it. That is a ridiculous interpretation of the First Amendment. And that First Amendment exists especially if you're a defendant and the government's trying to put you in prison for the rest of your life, especially when you're in the middle of a presidential election, but apparently not according to these courts. Violation of his First Amendment right, Fifth Amendment right. They took from him attorney-client privilege with his lead lawyer, so the lead lawyer had to testify for the government, and his notes are presented to the grand jury as well as his testimony. Sixth Amendment violation, the right to competent counsel where they're rushing the case in five months where you're talking about 12 million documents, and that's their side. The other side, the defense has a right to try and build a case with documents and witnesses do. And what's the rush, David Schoen? There's no emergency. There's no national security issue. There is nothing. Final words. I also believe they've stripped him of his right to a public trial, and the media and the public citizens' independent right to that public trial. He must be permitted to discuss the lack of integrity of this prosecution and of the prosecutors. I have a sanctions motion going against J.P. Cooney, who's Jack Smith's deputy chief counsel for lying to a federal court in order to get records. He must be able to speak on these matters of public interest to the greatest extent possible. And the court always says in other situations, when the government writes a speaking indictment, laying out unproven allegations in detail that everyone can download, well, a jury, we can do that in voir dire. We can search out whether a jury has been influenced by that. The same thing with any comments President Trump or his lawyers make.

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