You havent known the Inflation Reduction Act for you know what it is 25 yoyears, and you have known me. So ill take it. L im just thrilled to have this handoff with you every four days a week, chris. It is the thing that brings me joy, my friend. Happy anniversary. Thanks, buddy. Ha thanks for a great show as always. And thanks to you at home for joining me this hour once again. We now haveur a date. March 4, 2024. That is the day Fulton County district Attorneyon Fani Willis proposed her case against trump and his 18 codefendants match that is the date shed like it to go to trial. That would put this trial in georgia two months after the date Special Counsel jack smith proposed for the attempts to overturn the 2020 election and three weeks before the Hush Money Case set to start in new york and two months before the maralago classified documents cased which is may 20th and it would be just one day before super tuesday. That means just 200 days from tomorrow trump and his codefendants could be in a potentially televised courtroom battling this all out just one day before the biggest day on thege republican primary calend. Now, trump and the rest of the defendants in this case will all file whatever motions they want. And the decisions about trial dates will be ultimately made by the judges in the case. Trumps 2024 calender is already so jampacked with legal troubles, where else on that calender is there a window for this georgia case if not in march . Were going to get some expert legal help breaking all that down in just a second. But first i want to talk about the other reason trumps packed 2024 calender is a problem for him. It is tearingde a hole in his wallet. The New York Times reports in the First Six Months of this year trump and his various pacs raised about 67 million, which, yes, is an eye popping sum. But in that same period of time trump ander his pacs spent 90 million, and 30 cents of every dollar they spent was on legal feest and other investigation related bills. 27 million to fight his legal troubles in just the First Six Months of the year, a period of by the way, when he was only facing two criminal indictments instead of the current four. Rr those are big expenses. Seemingly unsustainable expenses. In a hearing last friday one of trumps lawyers mentioned they plan to use Volunteer Lawyers to help handle the case. Volunteer lawyers, presumably not the kind of lawyers who are paid, so definitely cheap. And that could be the reason why they are talking about Volunteer Lawyers. Er but theres also this. Trump doesnt have that many paid lawyers representing him. There are only ten lawyers heading up trumps various Legal Defense teams in the four criminal cases against him. Now, i know any amount of lawyers is a lot of lawyers to a normal person, but for a former president facing 91 felony charges, this seems like a relatively small number of people. One lawyer, todd blanch, is representing trump three times over. Todd blanch is on three different cases. Re and if former President Trump is already hemorrhaging cash with this smallmo shall we say elite group of lawyers, then, yeah he might need to bring in some Volunteer Staff to help manage the defense for 91 felony counts. And then of course there are the legal bills from trumps codefendants, people like trumps valet, walt nauta and the property manager carlos de oliveira. Thank tuesday fani willis georgia Indictment Trump now has 18 more codefendants, and that means, 18 more people facing serious jail time and needing to figure outne how to pay their legal bill. And that might be problematic for more than just trumps wallet. Today trump attorney and Codefendant Jenna Ellis turned toel a Crowd Funding Christian Website to raisedi cash for her Legal Defense. You canga send jenna ellis mone or you can send jenna ellis digital prayers to help her defend herself in this case in georgia. And there are ais lot of potent tea leaves we could read there. Does that mean that trump is not footing jenna ellis legal bills . What does it mean for the rest of the s . Codefendants in his ca. At the moment trump should be doing all he can to keep all the codefendants and alleged codefendants on his side, how long can trump afford to pay other peoples a lawyers and for that matter his own . Joining me now are mary mccorder, former acting assistant security, and andrew wiseman, member of Robert MuellersSpecial Counsel investigation. Theyre the cohosts of the msnbc podcast Prosecuting Donald Trump where i get all my good ideas for things to talk about on television. Andrew, the burn rate in terms of trumps Pacs Spending Money on these legal problems is staggering, and that was all the data we have is from before these latest indictments landed. Does this seem problematic to you as it does to the lay person on the outside . So i have a couple thoughts. One is just to put it in perspective there are many, manv people in the federal and state system who cant afford counsel at all. And it is a constitutional requirement when they can show that counsels paid for, so my heart doesntr, really go out t these people in g term of the comparative in terms of the dual system of justice that we have here. But with money, unfortunately, comes power. You see it whether its in Organized Crime Prosecution ive done in the past where you have socalled House Counsel and youve seen it in the corporate settings and some of those people do their job and represent the person as they should independently, but there are subtle and not so subtle pressures, and weve seen it in this very case. Cassidy hutchinson gave us explicit testimony about she waa given sort of trump appointed counsel, and she actually said she asked whos paying for my counsel. And her counsel if this is true completely and ethically says says dont worry your pretty little head about it. Which is unreal. She wash entitled to know abou it. That is a way money keeps everybody in line and inside the tent. The first thing i said when i saw there were 18g codefendant here as we saw there are two in the documents case is how do you keepdo these people in line because in the georgia case those are all potential cooperators because there is no federal pardon with respect to those case. Those people are really facing realtime, and the proof on some of them looks really strong. So he needs to be able to sort of figure out how is he going t be able to do that, and money and supporting them in terms of their counsel is one way to do that. Hes learned his lesson from Michael L Cohen where when we we prosecuting him in the Mueller Investigation the spigot was turned off andn he felt abandoned, and so thats the downdo side. Yeah, paying for lawyers is one of the main ways it seems that trump exerts influence in terms of loyalty when it comes to potential codefendants singing to the feds or not. And saying i have your back. And also it can be a real issue. And some of these people this is having opretained counsel as opposed to appointed counsel its really expensive. To wake up and say its a great day i was indicted, but then you have to spend hundreds of thousands if not more for counsel in and case like this, which is a big, sprawling case. So having somebody whos going to Bewl A Benefactor Is Importai and one would hope that benefactorth actually has the ch in his pockets to do the thing youre hoping. Lets remember donald trump does have a way of raising money. I wouldnt be surprised if there is more money that will come from somewhere. Mary, whats going on with Volunteer Lawyers . Ee is that a usual thing, and what does it signal to you about the counsel that he does have in some of these cases . Well, Pro Bono Lawyering is wellknown particularly in the Public Interest arena. In fact, my day job isar runnina pro bono shop, The Institute For Constitutional Advocacy and protection, and we do all our work pro bono. Thats usually thought representing aal candidate for president whos been well financed and portrayed himself as a billionaire for decades ani who is facing criminal charges in four different different states and federal cases as well. Soed its a very different typef thing to think about volunteer lawyering, and i havent had time to a look into this yet, b i do think any Volunteer Lawyers will have to look into whether their in kind contributions could be perceived to be political donations because thao could put restrictions on that. There are significant things were seeing about Donald Trumps legal problems. One is weve been talking now how much hes spent on legal representation and how few lawyers he has onta his team. I would note that cnbc recently reported that he had left high and dry many of his former lawyers who are now his codefendants in the Fani Willis Case and are unindicted coconspirators in the Jack Smit January 6th related case, so i think the lawyers whether they want to be volunteering or dont want to be volunteering ought to go into this thinking theres a good chance im not going to get paid, and that could certainly dissuade lawyers who are expecting to be paid from representing mr. Trump. I think it also is a deterrent for additional lawyers or others in the future to, you know, hitch their wagon to mr. Trump who has a habit we now see of kind of dragging people into a situation where they base their own criminal liability like were seeing now in these indictments, particularly the georgia indictment. And third, i think that most of the legal bills as i understand it now are being paid by one of his pacs, the save america pac, and this is a pac that recruited and sought money based on claims of election fraud. And at some point people making those small dollar gifts have got to think through do they really want their money to be going to defending o these multiple criminal cases. Hes shift c arguing hes the victim of personal persecution and prosecution. Still, for many people out there whout do not have substantial means and are contributing some of their income to these pacs for thesese reasons, they may start thinking twice as so many more caseswi are piling up on h. Andrew, mary makes a point about whoma is actually working for donald trump in terms of counsel. And maybe because hes such a difficult client or a notoriously tightfisted client who doesnt pay his bills, were not talking about big law firms here. John lauro his website says they have four lawyers and a paralegal. Todd blanch at blanche law there are two lawyers. Youre talking about cases where the discovery in the federal case 11. 6 million i believe documents, i know this is one of the excuses trumps legal team has said, we cant get to all this in the c allotted time. Well, the reason for part of that is theres two people in theth shop. Right, what can you tell me about the bare bones nature of his counsel given the mountain of evidence that the feds have, that the d. A. Has and how theyre going to plow through that tow assemble a defense. Its interesting because its a 2inch sword in the d. C. Case because you have jack smith whos saying i want a really fast trial. Anly were going to see the same thing playing out in the georgia case where fani willis is now saying i want a march trial. And at the same time the defense gets toti say, you know, its a huge amount of resources needed to r get through this. So one of the things that was argued before judge chutkan in the d. C. Case was could you give sensitive material to Volunteer Lawyers as mary talked about, and the judge basically was like isi really dont want Volunteer Lawyers because that opens a real pandoras box of exactly whos getting ofthis, but if theyre employed lawyers, and that could be their discovery lawyers, their people you can get of a person of limited purpose. She was clearly concerned about that issue. But if youre jack smith its a tough call i because you want t get to trial, so you have to sort of allow the defense to expand its team to get through all ofto this. Thats to marys point this is somebody whos said hesoi a billionaire. Were now not talking about can you fund many other people, were talking about his own defense. And leaving aside, yes, he doesnt have the big law firms for a variety of reasons he could bring in more lawyers. Exactly. Hes made zero showing he has the financial wherewithal to get through all this. Just to repeat what judge chutkan said theres going to be a faster trial if you continue to t interfere with the justice, so heof is not helping himself with her ultimate decision. I do wonder if he could get a big law firm because hes so toxic in the broader sense of society do they want to represent donald trump ory is blanche law, the two lawyers are they more inclined to . I keep using the example of david kendall. You have somebody whos like Th Cream Of The Crop where anybody in the Legal Profession looks ap who is representing and says, okay, that is absolutely topnotch, impeccable counsel. And imco not knocking Todd Ng Blanche and john lauro, but theyre not in the same caliber and theres a reason. Part of it is marys reason, its a service, you should get paid for it. And the other is that if youre at that stage in your career where you would have somebody like ain former president , they need to take your advice. If you have somebody you could end upe like mr. Corcoran wher youre a lawyer and a witness, which is unbelievable, mary and iva talked about this, you don want to be in that position. Its unbelievable Evan Corcoran is a witness. Please do not go anywhere. When we come back this evening, what might be going through Donald Trumps mind as he faces a trip to the Fulton County lock up overfu the next few days. Were going to get some insight from his niece, mary trump. Plus Special Counsel jack smith wanted access to Donald Trumps twitter account, and he got it. The question is why. That is next. Rsv is in for a surprise. Meet arexvy. the first fdaapproved rsv vaccine. Arexvy is used to prevent lower Respiratory Disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. Rsv can severely affect the lungs and lower airways. Arexvy is proven to be over 82 effective in preventing lower Respiratory Disease from rsv and over 94 effective in those with these health conditions. arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. Those with weakened Immune Systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. The most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and joint pain. Rsv can be serious. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist about arexvy today. Rsv . Make it arexvy. Goli, taste your goals. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist about arexvy today. Jack smith has gotten his hands on Donald Trumps twitter account. According to newly unsealed Court Filings the Special Counsel requested everything from tweets, created, drafted, favorted, liked, or retweeted by real donald trump including any sensitive deleted ones to all messages sent from, stored by, or otherwise associated with real donald trump. It is all stuff that the Special Counsel wanted to see. Smith asked for other twitter data as well including Location Information to the user of real donald trump from october 2020 to january 2021 and ip addresses. That is a lot that the Special Counsel has asked for and apparently received, so what exactly the feds looking for . Still with me are mary mccord and andrew wiseman. Mary, let me go to you first. What do you think jack smith is looking for in the direct messages . So the direct messages are interesting because i would not have necessarily expected he would be using the direct message function, but it appears either he or someone else with access to his account was using that function, so i would be looking at a number of things. I would be looking at whos he having direct messages with . Is it people responding to his twets . Is it some of those people who showed up and attacked the Capitol On January 6th or some of those people who threatened Election Workers or Election Officials in the particular states where the Pressure Campaign was put on . What was he saying to them if he was having those direct messages . The direct messages also could reveal intent. They could reveal knowledge. They could reveal consciousness of guilt. Its possible he was direct messaging people in his circle and its possible some of those might acknowledge some of the falsity of the things he was tweeting. We just dont know, but i certainly would be interested if i were jack smi