Matters. Bill weir is standing by in hawaii as we unpack that devastation. Also, a top american pastor who says that Teachings Of Jesus are apparently too woke, yes, you heard me say that, for trump supporting evangelicals. And the Riverboat Captain in that Alabama Brawl is speaking out for the first time right here tonight. By the way, if you havent noticed, it is the summer of women from the beehive to barbie and the swifties. But first, everyone, look, jack smith has already made his new years plans. Its not going to be swinging sweet caroline. He will be getting ready for trial. His office is now declaring that they want to see the Election Enteri Case on january 2nd. That date, if you look at the calendar, might seem glare ringly obvious. Its a few days before the third anniversary of the attack on the capitol and, yes, less than two weeks before the iowa caucus. And also, of course, the day after new years day. So he, obviously, came to play. Its also very legal and public clashes as well at the beginning of the 2024 president ial race year, and also means that the case that some people consider the most consequential test of our democracy might be the first one to go to trial, even if that was the last criminal case to be indicted. More on that in a moment. Tonight, have you seen this interesting, ill call it, new trend . Youll recall one of team trumps defenses so far has been jack smith cant get into his head. He is not a mind reader. He cant prove mindset. They cant prove that trump didnt believe his own lies. And someone must have actually maybe had a conversation with trump. Maybe explaining a little bit more about what mens rea means, the idea of the criminal intent and mental intent to actually perform the crime, not necessarily what you believe. Listen to why this conversation is likely to have happened. Trump is sort of couching his normal language and his normal misstatements and lies. Now, we added captions so you can follow along with these phrases. Im telling them in my opinion the election was rigged, and this thing that i i did something i didnt do anything wrong. I believe i won that election by many, many votes. Many, many Hundreds Of Thousands of votes. Thats what i think. And i expressed that on the phone call and i said i dont know what the number was like, 11,000 or something. I said, what i need is 11,000 votes. I won this thing by Hundreds Of Thousands of votes. Thats my opinion. Its a strong opinion. I think its borne out by the facts. Well see that. Now, thats interesting. I believe my opinion. I think. Why its interesting . Well, because, you know, you have, obviously, been watching him in the past. Trump doesnt normally couch his language in this way. Just take one speech, the one, well, from january 6th. They rigged an election. They rigged it like they have never rigged an election before. I won them both. The second won, i won bigger than the first. The states got defrauded. Our election was so corrupt that in the history of the country we have amassed overwhelming evidence about a fake election. They cheated like hell. Make no mistake. This election was stolen from you, from me, and from the country. We won in a landslide. This was a landslide. This is the most corrupt election in the history maybe of the world. I dont remember hearing that day or in the days that follow and as recently about the opinion, in my opinion, and i believe, and you must be wondering, why is that . Maybe it has a lawyers hand all over it. And you know the lies have, well, they have legal risks now and complications considering, well, this was Thedy Claimer from the network on which he appeared. Folks, a note. News max accepted the Election Results as legal and final. Lawyers are everywhere. They are also here tonight. I with want to begin now with cnn senior crime and justice reporter katelyn polantz. You worked 24 7, have been getting us the information we need. Thank you for being so diligent and persistent. What do we need fknow tonight, not just the fact that jack smith wants this to happen january 2nd, which trump is not happy about, i should mention, but how long does he anticipate that taking, because, of course, there is this little november election date. Yeah. So the trial date or the trial schedule that the Justice Department wants would be Jury Selection in december. So four months from now. Thats not a long time from now. And then the trial in january. January 2nd would be the day it starts. They are saying their case to present it what take four to six weeks. Four to six weeks. Donald trump may have to be sitting physically in a courtroom in front of a jury as the federal criminal defendant. You mentioned just a few moments ago about how donald trump, this is the third indictment against trump, and potential could be one of the first to go to trial if the judge agrees with this timeline. We already know that she wants things to be moving here, just from what weve seen so far without seeing her in person yet. And the Justice Department is actually arguing that that is this one really should go to trial so quickly why . Because its a public importance that deserves a prompt resolution. And particularly they say its because this is a former president charged with conspiring to overturn the legitimate Election Results in 2020. That idea this is happening in the election year, they are actually making a bit of the argument to say thats a reason why we should do this trial, to have the public see how it concludes pretty quickly. Now, donald trump and his team, they are quite clearly going to be asking not for that date, much later than that. Trump is already saying it should be held after the election. They asked for after the election in their florida federal case related to documents. And they are saying that there is a lot of matters here that have never been tested in the court before that they need judges to look at. Doesnt mean they could be appealed and take a long time, but they are matters of potentially great significance. Its going to be a needle in a thread if you are jack smith to say this is not under any political considerations, and yet we know full well this looming trial date and, of course, the loom election date, and trump trying to say i cant get a fair trial here and maybe wanting to push that further. So good to see you. Thank you for your reporting, as always. Republican governor of virginia, bob mcdonald. He was prosecuted, actually, by jack smith back in 2014 on federal corruption charges. There is only to have that conviction, by the way, vacated it in a unanimous decision from the Supreme Court back in 2016. Governor, thank you for being here. I have to tell you, i had been thinking about you and your case as there has been a lot of criticism of one jack smith and your name comes up in a long list of people that jack smith has prosecute the. I have been wondering, given the fact there is all that talk about the weaponization of the government and the idea of him being a partisan prosecutor, thats the accusation being leveled against him, what did you think, what did you make of it when jack smith was named the Special Counsel overseeing this investigation . First of all, thank you for having me on. Its a very important topic for the public to think about. Are you know, jack smith is a smart guy. Harvard educated. The prosecutor, complicated work. Former u. S. Attorney. When i walked away in my case, i thought he was overzealous and stretching the bounds of the law. Thats what john roberts said in the final opinion. I think he didnt use good judgment. And thats why it was unanimously vacated. When Clarence Thomas and Ruth Ginsburg agree, youve got to admit there is something that is unanimously wrong. So i guess hold on. I dont want to cut you off. Just to clarify, and, obviously, you are aware of all the details of your case. For the audiences perspective, one the reasons the Supreme Court overturned unanimously had to do with Jury Instructions about the notion of official conduct. They felt that he was boundless was the word they used in the Jury Instructions. Is that the same thing as why you believe he was overzealous or this was a notion of the novelty of a case like yours . What the Jury Instructions youre a former prosecutor like i am. When you get the Jury Instructions wrong, you got the law wrong. When the theory of the case collapsed and they had a chance to retry the case, they dropped it. They had the law wrong. In my case, i had the five former White House Council from reagan to obama, 83 former attorneys general, democrats and republicans, all filed briefs this case, yet mr. Smith and the Attorney General of the United States persisted in going after me and, of course, the opinion said what you are doing is criminalizing things, political figures do virtually every day in the country. I dont think jack smith, to answer your question, i didnt see him to be partisan because, if you look at the record during the time he was head of the Public Integrity section, it was not just my case and the conservative nonprofits that he went after, but also jack, john edwards, bob menendez. I think in high pro profile cae stretched the law. Prosecutors have a unique duty. They are supposed to seek truth and justice, not merely convict. And i think he is just falling short on the judgment on that. So you dont think he is partisan. You think he stretched the law. I wonder, do you believe that jack smith is fair in his approach to even this case . Obviously, its distinct in yours. Do you think that he has the ability to be fair and has he exercised a different level of judgment in the indictment you have seen . I hate trying cases in the press, as you know. You dont get all the facts. We know what the law is. Here is my view on the two cases. I think in the florida case, if he can actually prove and has evidence that is believable on the allegations leading to the charges in florida, i think the president s Got Serious Criminal Culpability if he has the evidence. I think differently though in the january 6th cases because he didnt charge an Insurrection Offense if per se. Its the conspiracies, the theories that are i think are novel. Even if he proves the underlying facts in the indictment, i am not sure a jury will quick the president on conspiracy charges. I look at that differently. Thats my honest assessment of the cases as i see it. I can appreciate the idea of not wanting to try this case in the court of public opinion. You know the merit of having this adjudicated before the jury, having the parameters of a judge set the actual pace, the tone, the evidentiary burdens, all these things, and yet we know that the former president is attempting to, in many ways, try this case or present the evidence in a court of public opinion. Obviously, he is running for reelection. He knows the consequences of this. What do you make of the timing here . Because i dont know if you realize this, but the Special Counsel team actually cited your case in their briefing in support of their trial date of january 2nd because they say, look, that was a Rocket Docket sort of case. It can be done in a shorter window than others maybe believe. What do you make of the tlienl that jack smith is laying out and the ability to get this case either tried and done before an election . Youre right about that. My case was, from indictment to trial, about six months. You know, when an investigation has gone on two years and the defendant has four and a half, five months to get ready, i think there is a little sense among the public that maybe thats not fair. But i think, you know, in an election year, when the president is going to have trials in january, march, and may, he is going to be in a courtroom the entire primary season. And i think some people look at that, especially republicans, and say that that doesnt seem that doesnt seem quite fair. Is he going to be able to mount a defense and campaign at the same time or the charges being brought to stop him from winning an election . I dont know whats in jack smiths heart on that one. I mean, i have not seen any evidence i am not sure you are aware of any. I am eager to hear it if its available or there. That there is some effort to try to undermine his explicit candidacy as the president of the United States, as if that was the motivation. One looks at this possibly on the other side of the coin, governor, and say, well, yes, its true that these will be a matter of perhaps legal inconvenience, but if you have done those actions as alleged, then should the fact that youre a candidate be any way in the decision to go forward with the cases . You make a good point. Our whole premise of the american Justice System that we all learned our first year in law school is the rule of law. And we treat everybody the law has no respect or person, whether you are president or whether youre homeless, you get the same Due Process Rights in a courtroom. And so speedy trial laws are out there. It just seems again, i am looking at it from a republican. If i was solely political, i would say they are putting him out of business. So he cant campaign because they dont want him to win. But on the other hand, knowing the Justice System, i would say this is the way my case went as well, six months to trial and then two and a half years of appeal. I think the problem is that the governments got all the cards, laura, as you know. All the money, all the investigators, all the stripes, and having a defendant being ready for trial. Now, the president has a lot of resources. Three and a half years, 28 million, you know, i get unanimously reversed. Its tough with the federal government and all the resources that they have, and i dont see how he can mount a legitimate campaign when he is in court six months. Thats Public Perception, something is not right here. Its important from your perspective. There is the Public Perception and then the actually reality of what is it like for the average defendant. And the notion of 28 million available to fight a case is unbelievable. Its a pie in the sky notion. As a republican so many freaked out i pled guilty, as you know, 95 , they dont have the resources to fight whether the charges are legitimate or not, and thats tough. For many reasons, people call it a legal system, not a Justice System. Thats a conversation for another day. As a republican, let me ask you this. Obviously, donald trump is presumed at this point based on polling to be the frontrunner to get the rnc nomination. Would you vote for donald trump next year if he clinches that nomination . If he gets the nomination . Yes. He is not my first choice. I dont like the tone. I dont like the arrogance. I dont like the namecalling. I dont like the bullying. I think we have better standard bearers. I would love to see glenn youngkin, he knows how to get things done. Thats who i want to see as a republican leader. I like the policies that donald trump governed with, we and his team. I thought they were better for america. I think weve got two of the most flawed candidates. I left with the question, cant we do better in america with people who care and will unite the country and bring people together. Not divide us. Governor bob mcdonald, interesting perspective and unique coming from you as well. Thank you so much. Appreciate being on, lawyer a thank you. Tonight weve got the first tv interview with the Riverboat Captain from this massive brawl. Hear what he saw. Plus, joe manchin, a key vote in the senate and some would say a thorn in the side of the democrats the last several years is a step closer to leaving the democratic party. We will talk about the impact on the biden agenda. And more on the breaking news out of hawaii. Look at this devastation. And the death toll is rising. Our bill weir is on the ground. So stand by. Its the Inspire Implant. Hes not strugglgling with cpap anymore. All that resest is working wonders for him. Inspire. Learn more andnd view Important Safety Information at inspiresleep. Com. Family is just very important. 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