Accusing them of engaging in a criminal enterprise designed to overturn the will of georgia voter. The d. A. Wants to try all 19 defendants together at the same time. She wants to do it within six months and that puts this thing on a Collision Course with the primary schedule. Dana the president and legal team are seizing on that saying the charges are politically motivated. Chris christie is here with us. Jonathan turley on deck with legal analysis. In atlanta Jhonattan Seary is standing by for an update. Good morning to you, dana. Former President Trump is lashing out against prosecutors because of the timing of these indictments. Mr. Trump tells fox news digital quote, this politically inspired indictment which could have been brought close to three years ago was tail ored for placement with my Political Campaign where im leading all republicans. He has been indicted along with 18 others including former Chief Of Staff mark meadows and former trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and sidney powell. All 19 defendants are accused of violating georgias Racketeering Law which carries a maximum Prison Sentence of 20 years. The indictment lists mccafe as the judge presiding over the case. He joined the superior Court Earlier this year. Hours before the indictment an incomplete document listing the same charges appeared on the Fulton County courts website before it was taken down. District attorney fani willis deflected questions about what happened. Im not on expert on court duty or even administrative duties. I wouldnt know how to work that system. I wont speculate. Next question. The d. A. Says the 19 defendants have until noon on august 25th to voluntarily turn themselves in. The sheriff says the current plan is to book them as he would any other defendant, which would involve a mug shot of the former president. Back to you. Dana jonathan serrie. Turley is next. Thank you. Bill here is turley right now. Jonathan, good morning to you. Welcome to our coverage. Here is the indictment. We use three sets of staples to put it together, 100 pages in length here. You read it. What do you make of it . Its excessive and i think its also dangerous. It criminalizes challenges to elections. There is no limiting principle in this document. They are charging things like the president saying publicly we need to have a recount. Democrats and republicans challenge these elections routinely. I have covered elections for various networks. I dont know how many now. But we often, if not always, have these challenges. Some are more supported than others. They arent crimes. They are seeking judicial review. That assures the public that there is someone watching over these elections. Whats concerning particularly about this is that willis didnt really show any semblance of restraint. She indicted everyone for everything she could think of. The Jackson Pollock school of prosecution. She threw it all against the canvas. I think she is hoping that some of these other codefendants will flip. But having said that, i think that the trump team has to realize that this is a serious threat. Not because of the merits but because as a racketeering case, it is very hard to take these cases up on appeal before trial. Very hard to get them dismissed on threshold questions. Willis will argue she should have the right to present her evidence in trial in court. That is likely to be successful. Also this is not a case that can be dismissed with a federal pardon whether by trump himself or by an elected republican. Thats why this has to be taken seriously. Dana what about the fact that you have the federal cases of a similar nature, about january 6th, about election interference, and did she go for the rico charge because the federal case cant supersede her own . I think partially she went with the rico charges because she is quite familiar with it. This is a prosecutor who made her name bringing rico cases. Also it allows for this type of overarching conspiracy. She is listing over 160 acts. Often phone calls, meetings, tweets. She just calls them all criminal saying they all were knowingly false. With that broad brush she is able to indict everyone and bring in 19 people into that courtroom. Thats the benefit of using a racketeering approach. But it also increases the danger for the country in terms of how we will handle contested elections in the future. Bill professor, thank you. We have exactly 83 more questions for you. Were out of time today. Appreciate yours, thank you for coming on today. Talk soon. Dana joining us now is republican president ial candidate and former new jersey governor Chris Christie. You look at this as a former prosecutor. I want to ask you that same question. You have the federal case that youre familiar with and a state case. The federal case usually supersedes the state case but not here. This is why im uncomfortable with what i read last night. I think that this conflict is essentially covered by the federal indictment not with the level of detail in this ute thats a style thing. Election interference has been charged by jack smith and most of the time what you would see here would be a state court deferring to a federal prosecution, especially if that federal indictment had already been issued. So i think this was unnecessary. As to donald trump now. Remember as to the other defendants, jack smith chose not to charge them. I would have less of a problem with this if she decided okay, i wont charge donald trump here, he has been charged for essentially this conduct by jack smith. But giuliani and meadows and others have not been charged at the federal level. That would be a more defensible indictment i think. Bill so you agree with what turley just said then. He called it excessive. I think it was unnecessary. Bill why would you pursue State Charges if you think by law they are already covered in these other cases . See. People view this and your question views it as a partisan decision. Dont forget that these prosecutors all have egos and she has been investigating this thing for 2, 2 1 2 years. Jack smith comes in in the last year and swoops in, he charges quickly and she says wait a second, ive been looking at this. This indicates there is not cooperation between her office and the Special Counsels office. Im sure he wanted her to defer. She chose not to. So what i would say to the viewers dont necessarily look at this as a partisan decision. This is probably an ego decision where she said hell, i put all this time and effort into this investigation and i want something out of it. Bill they were saying the same thing about alvin bragg in new york as well. Thats why i think people immediately put it into when there are opposite parties into a partisan. I can tell you from having done this that often i would get on the phone with a local prosecutor when investigating the same thing and say to them i need you to stand down. The problem here is i did that inside new jersey where those folks had to continue to work with me after this case. Here they dont have to work together. And so there is less leverage that jack smith has against a fani willis or alvin bragg to say back off because you will need me later on something else. Dont do this for an ego boost. Which is i think what she did here. The other part what jonathan said as well. The conduct that underlies here is not just a simple election contest. Donald trump had three counts of the vote here in georgia, the original count, Machine Recount and then a hand recount. All those things were given at his request, the last two in particular. He also was able to contest these things in court in georgia and did not win. All that stuff i would say is absolutely legal and within his right to do. Where this starts to be problematic for him was the electors and pressure being put on folks after all these counts happened and thats where i think his exposure is in the federal case and also here. Dana this is the trump court dates that clash with the campaign trail. You are aware of those. Try to be. Dana im sure you are. In addition to that, if you look at the statement that he gave to fox news digital last night. This is from President Trump himself. This politically inspired indictment that could have been brought three years ago was placed in the middle of my Political Campaign leading all republicans. Is there something to that . Nothing. And if she had charged him three years ago, he would have said what a rush to judgment. There has been no investigation. No one has looked into this and now theyre charging me for political reasons. He wants to have his cake and eat it, too. If the charges that happened three years ago he would have said there was no investigation and rush to judgment. If they happened after a full investigation he says now its time to work with the campaign. Look, running for president is his choice. No one else is making him do it. It is not an excuse not for the Justice System to continue to operate. I think all of these judges in the end will make decisions based upon reasonable availability of all the witnesses and everyone else. And in the end what donald trump has to deal with this, this is not a civil case. He has never been involved in criminal cases before. He has been involved in civil cases that he can put off like no big deal. He is out on bail. In three different jurisdictions. Usually when you are charged people often people are remanded and stay in prison prior to the trial. He has been given released on all three and be released on the fourth one. Bill i want to talk about your campaign and what is expected in a moment. One more question. Everyone lit their hair on fire when the phone call was recorded on raffensperger. The key line i went back and listened this Morning Trump says look, all i want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes. He says repeatedly in my opinion this is what we should do. An my opinion, etc. If he is speaking his opinion, is there a crime in this conversation . Well look, i think thats what a jury will decide, bill. What i would say to you is when you listen to the entire conversation, his problem is that he you combine it with the other conversations he is having with bryn kemp and other officials in the legislature and the leaders of the legislature, he was attempting to do everything he could to get that result and putting pressure on them. Bill dershowitz argued last night they were doing the same thing with al gore in palm beach county. Except when he lost his legal shall edges he conceded the election. Al gore took it to the United StatesSupreme Court and availed himself of the legal challenges and when the courts were done, al gore said i still dont agree with it but the courts are done. Im backing off. Donald trump has been much different and i said this to the president in December Of 2020 the last time he and i spoke. You availed yourself of the courts there is nothing left. You need to concede the election and he said i will never, ever, ever admit it. Well, look, if you are going to continue to use the power of the presidency, which he was doing, to put pressure on people, you are going to put yourself in a dangerous circumstance and lets take it aside for a second from the criminal. We cant normalize this conduct. This has never happened before in this country ever. Where you had a candidate for president of the United States conduct himself in this way to disrespect the election process in this way, to refuse to accept the verdict of the voters. And what does it say about his judgment, guys . What does it say whether or not he is fit to sit behind that desk . Is this really and by the way, here we are this morning and i understand why were doing it and happy to talk about it because of my background, but were not talking about what joe biden is doing to this country or talking about the porous border and dana the trump people would say it was by design to be able to let him do that. He has made the choice for the last 2 1 2 years this is what he has been talking about. He spent most of his time before being charged with anything, all he has been talking about is the election was stolen. When he was on another show with bret baier a month or so ago and bret asked him how are you going to get people who didnt vote for you to vote in 2024 he said i didnt lose in 2020 before he was charged with anything. Dana we have trump 54, desantis 17. Your polling in New Hampshire is better. A week from tomorrow well have the debate. What is your plan if President Trump isnt there . No different. We need to make the case any one of us on that stage, we need to make the case to Republican Voters why were the best person to beat joe biden and i think by donald trump not being there, he is showing everybody what a problematic candidate he is against joe biden. He wont be there because he doesnt want to answer to all of these charges. He doesnt want to be questioned by other candidates about all these charges. He cant avoid that forever. Bill is that a challenge . It has always been a challenge, you bet. Bill a challenge from you to him . If he doesnt show up, he is a coward. Dana will you sign the pledge . Of course i will. Bill it seems you are playing for New Hampshire. Initially. Bill a poll an hour ago trump 49 , desantis 8 , you 9 . You have work to do. Let me tell you something im in the race for 2 1 2 months and gone from nowhere to second place in New Hampshire. If you are Governor Desantis this morning you will wonder what the hell happened here. He has been the presumptive front challenger since before he was reelected governor of florida. Im now past him in New Hampshire after 2 1 2 months. Yeah, my first goal was to get there. My next goal is to beat donald trump and if he is not willing to show up at the debate what he is saying is he is unwilling to do two things. To defend his conduct both at the end of his presidency and since he left. And unwilling to lay out his vision for the future how to beat joe biden. He needs to do both. Republican voters have the right to hear that compared to the other candidates. Bill dana asked you if you will sign the pledge. They havent sent it to me yet to sign. I spoke to her over the weekend. They are reviewing all the donors. They verify that you do a data sharing agreement. All your donors are there. They are going through that process with my campaign now. As soon as theyre done with that she will send me the pledge. I called to tell her that when you send it, i will sign it. The most important thing is to be on the stage so our voters get to make an informed choice who can beat joe biden. Donald trump is damaged goods. Bill were in for a Big Night In Milwaukee in eight days. Look forward to seeing you. Thanks for having me. Bill 17 past. There is this now. Roll this from hawaii. What a story. Prayers, perseverance. Thats what we need. This island and this state will never, never lose their faith. Bill show of resilience of the most deadly u. S. Wildfire in 100 years. The governments initial response. There are questions. Will cain on seen and well talk to him in moments. Dana the white house says President Bidens hands are clean when it comes to hunters business dealings. Does evidence say otherwise . Bill the former nba player making a stark point about trans should he wear a wig and compete in the wnba . He will make his case later this hour. Are you a veteran, own a home and need money for your family . Newday usa can help. Veterans have earned a lot of va benefits with their service, but the Va Home Loan Benefit is a big one. By using your benefit at newday you can borrow up to 100 of your homes value and take out an average of 70,000. Use that money to pay off high rate debt and get back on your feet financially. [clicking] when occasional heartburn wont let you sleep. [clicking] get fast relief with new tums heartburn sleep support. Love food back and fall asleep faster. Tum, tum tum tum, tums im adding Downy Unstopables to my wash. Now ill be smelling fresh all day long. sniff still fresh. 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Yeah ella fashion moves fast. jen so we partner with verizon to take our operations to the next level. marquis with a custom private 5g network. ella we get more control of production, efficiencies, and greater agility. jen thats enterprise intelligence. vo its your vision, its your verizon. Hi, im sharon, and i lost 52 pounds on golo. On other diets, i could barely lose 1015 pounds. Thanks to golo, ive lost 27 of my body weight, and it was easy. soft music have fun, sis cant stop adding stuff to your cart . Get the Bank Of America customized cash rewards card, choose the Online Shopping category and earn 3 cash back. Leadership has been slacking. They just havent been giving us hope or proving to us that you guys are doing what needs to be done, you know . All over the states, especially here in hawaii. You need to step it up and just prove it right now. Prove that lahaina will come first over everything right now. Dana troubling