Transcripts For MSNBCW Alex 20240704 : vimarsana.com

Thanks for having me. That is all in on this thursday night. Good evening, alex. Amazing, were talking about the word contraception as something thats being litigated in the United States of america. Were going to have more on that later on our show as well. Thank you, my friend. And thank you for joining me this hour. Today we got the news that Donald Trumps one criminal case, the one criminal case that was likely to go to trial before the november election, may be delayed. Manhattan District Attorney alvin brags Hush Money Case was set to go to trial on march 25th, less than two weeks from today, but now that date is in question. Now, trumps legal strategy in all of his cases has been to push them off as long as possible, preferably until the month of nevuary. But todays delay is not coming from trump, or at least not directly. Today d. A. Braggs office consented to a 30day delay in the start of trial, but not because d. A. Bragg needs another month. Theres a new trove of records that were turned over by the feds, the u. S. Attorneys office for the Southern District of new york. Tens of thousands of records. Specifically 31,000 pages of records that the u. S. Attorney iefs just handed over to Braggs Office yesterday. Now, the d. A. Specifically pins this newest delay on trump, saying that trumps legal team waited until just two months ago to request this massive trove of records from the u. S. Attorneys office. And dont get me wrong, i am sure trumps legal team is using every opportunity that exists to create delays in this case. It is what they do. But d. A. Braggs office and the u. S. Attorneys office know that. And one of the reasons this appears to be happening so late in the game is because the u. S. Attorneys office requested repeated extensions that trumps side consented to, according to d. A. Bragg. When the New York Times asked the u. S. Attorneys office for comment on the delay, the office declined to respond. The fact that this latest delay might be the responsibility of an arm of the Justice Department would be a big deal on its own, but this case is not alone. This delay would seem to fit a pattern. Just hours after Merrick Garland was sworn in as Attorney General, he held a private briefing to get up to speed on what he promised was his highest priority, bringing to justice the people responsible for january 6th. But then more than a year passed. Witnesses in the fake elector scheme told the Washington Post that they assumed the case was dead because no one at the doj was contacting them. Remember trumps infamous call to georgia Secretary Of State Brad Raffensperger . The call where trump pressured raffensperger to find him 11,000 votes . Well, key witnesses to that call in early 2021 told the Washington Post that no one at the fbi contacted them until 2023. Two years after the fact. What was happening at the Department Of Justice in that time . Well, thanks to great reporting from the Washington Post, we know that the answer to that question is not much. There were internal debates and heated arguments over this choice, but for more than a year, the Justice Department policy was to go after the little guys and work their way up. As one former Justice Department official told the post, you couldnt use the t word. Meaning you couldnt mention trump. The way the Washington Post reports it, the Department Of Justice was so worried about looking like they were prosecuting donald trump for political reasons that they gave trump treatment no other defendant in america would get. They effectively ignored him despite the fact that he was at the very center of this plot. It wasnt until intrepid reporting and the House January 6th Committee started Unearthing Troves of evidence implicating trump and his top aides in the january 6th riot which, duh, it wasnt until all of that started coming out publicly that the Justice Department actually began investigating trump in ernest. The guy at the Beating Heart Of Everything until 15 months after the capitol attack. Key witnesses in the meantime may have forgotten specifics or deleted emails, and it also set the actual prosecution of this case back more than a year. And now the window of time in which that case could make it to trial before the november election is so small it seems nearly impossible that the American Public will get a ruling before they have to vote for president. We saw a similar delay coming from the Department Of Justice in the maralago classified documents case. Remember that form that trumps lawyer signed on his behalf in june of 2022 . It claimed that trumps legal team had performed a diligent search and had turned over all of the classified documents in trumps possession. Well, thanks yet again to extensive reporting in the Washington Post, we know that it is almost that point is almost where the entire classified documents investigation ended. It turns out there was a months long fight between prosecutors who had evidence suggesting that trump and his lawyers might not be telling the whole truth, prosecutor who is wanted to search maralago and the fbi. The fbi wanted to take trump and his lawyers at their word. They did not want to touch donald trump. The optics were too controversial. That infighting delayed the actual search of maralago for months. And of course, when maralago was ultimately searched, fbi agents found more than 100 classified documents, 18 of them top secret. By the fall of 2022, prosecutors were reportedly ready to charge trump based on what they had found. It looked like a fairly straight forward case. But they did not charge trump. Before they could, trump announced that he was running for reelection, and the calculations within the Department Of Justice changed. Once again the department deferred to trump and his political realities to avoid anything that might even look like Political Prosecution Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed jack smith as Special Counsel. Now, smith worked really quite quickly, but ultimately he didnt charge trump until june of the following year. That set back the Prosecution Timeline another eight months. Now, the classified documents case is currently scheduled, scheduled, to go on trial on may 2 09, but that date is widely expected to be bumped back. Potentially delaying that trial just past the november election and missing that key date by a matter of months. After being delayed for nearly a year by, yes, judge cannon, but also indecision, infighting, and the passing of the case to a Special Counsel at the Department Of Justice. Do you looking back now, do you think that the Department Took too long to bring these cases maybe . Special prosecutors followed the facts and the law. They brought cases when they thought they were ready. So we already know that one of the reasons trump might not face accountability before the election in either of his federal criminal cases is because the Department Of Justice dragged its feet and fought internally and was cautious to a fault. But now tonight we learn that even in a state level prosecution, in d. A. Braggs New York State Hush Money Case, the most likely case to see trial before the november election, even in that case it looks like the Justice Department may be playing a very real role in delaying justice. Joining me now, Andrew Wiseman and Melissa Murray. Together they are the authors of the brand new number one, not bad, guy, New York Times best seller, the trump indictments the historic charging documents with commentary. Congratulations on this. Thank you. Its not the holidays, but its not too early to buy copies for every person in your family. Well talk about that in a second. I first, andrew, have to get your opinion on whats happened here in the new york Hush Money Case. Because on the outside, yes, i understand trumps doing everything he can to delay, but whats going on here with the Department Of Justice and their ability to get the d. A. And the defendants the documents they need in a timely fashion. Selfinflicted wound. Doesnt look good, especially when were about to get a decision on d. A. Fani willis. Even if theres a decision not to disqualify her, the combination looks really poor. At the very least, this is a massive screw up on the Southern District of new york prosecutors. I mean, really poor judgement not to have turned everything over a year ago when the d. A. s office asked for this information. If youve got culp Tour Information, you need to turn that over. It was a bad decision. Im very focused on you know, this isnt going to be fatal to the case. One thing to note is the d. A. s submission today said theres still more to come. To come. Its worth knowing they do not yet know, neither side, not the d. A. Nor the defense, knows exactly what the full scope is. I think that there could be information thats additional bad acts by michael cohen. Remember micah cohen had pled gill through, and the Southern District of new york prosecutors had publicly said at the plea hearing how much they distrusted him. They were very much fighting with our office, the Special Counsels office. We were saying he should get credit. They were saying, no, he shouldnt. There should be more information about that. There could be more information about allen wise berg. Reading the tea leave, it appears he may have given information to them, may have even testified in the grand jury but may have lied. So and he has already pled guilty to perjury, so. Exactly. So there could be more complications there. There also could be discussions about the theory of the case of the federal Campaign Violation case. Why do i say that . Because if you remember, lets go back i know. In the time machine to when bill barr was the Attorney General and was fighting with the acting u. S. Attorney, audrey strauss, saying you should essentially get rid of the case and she pushed back. So there could just be a whole mass of material. And thats what im keeping my eye on, what is the information and is it going to be something thats really meaningful. Meaningful, exactly. I just what i dont fundamentally understand, this is according to d. A. Bragg, he asked for a lot of this material last sxreer didnt get excite then trump asks for it in january and so far 103,000, i think, is the count pages of documents have been turned over. I mean, what might possibly account for that . I think one thing you have to understand is even though these are part of the federal Department Of Justice, they all enjoy a fair amount of autonomy. The Southern District of new york is cloakly known as the sovereign district of new york. They dont always play well with other offices, state level prosecutions. Theyre doing their own thing quite a lot of the time this. May be one of the situations. I think things you take from all of this is that this delay is not necessarily alvin braggs fault. He definitely asked for this information a year ago. It wasnt forthcoming. Now its been disclosed and apparently it is an avalanche of documents with more to come. Hes don the right thing, concede there should be a delay. Hes pushed back on the request for a 90day delay. Hes requested a 30day delay. But he has prioritized the rights of this defendant to have an opportunity to review these documents against him, review the documents that may have information about those who will be testifying against him, and present the most vigorous defense that he can. And thats exactly what he should be doing. Hes the one saying a 30day delay would be fine by me. I could do the final today but i could also take it in a month when ive had time to prepare for it. One of the things i dont understand, andrew, is he makes note of the fact that the feds effectively said we need another delay, mr. Trump, in terms of getting you the material, repeatedly asking for extensions. All trump wants to do is delay this thing. What would account for first of all, they were after this material last year. Then theyre asked again in january. Theyre saying we need more time, we need more time. And now its the eve of, you know, the trial beginning effectively, and theyre still not done giving documents. How does that process does that seem plausible to you . How does the process work that it might be so greatly slowed . Well, the one thing that i dont think happened is i dont think main justice was involved. I could be, but i just dont think thats the case. I agree with melissa that u. S. Attorneys offices can in a lot of circumstances, particularly the Southern District of new york, just decide this on their own. That doesnt answer your question, that just sort of deals with, you know, was Merrick Garland somehow part of this. And as weve discussed, i have my issues in terms of the speed or lack thereof but i dont think this is something i would immediately jump to him. You know, its hard to know how this could happen. I can tell you that my reaction and friends who either had worked in the d. A. s office or worked in the u. S. Attorney iefss all had the same rea, which is not something i could say on air. On this family program. Yeah. And because it is either just a colossal blunder or just such a wrong view in terms of the judgement call here in terms of what needs to be done. And the idea that it so clearly took alvin bragg by surprise meant this normally, at the very least, if you thought you had a huge cache of document, you would call up the d. A. And say, you know what, we just found we just found 100,000 documents. To me its pretty clear theres an intention. That is notable too. Donald trump has been saying throughout all of these investigations and now these indictments that all of these various Law Enforcement officials are working in tandem. This is an effort to prosecute him. This makes clear this is not the case. The District Attorney of new york is not working with alvin of bragg. Complete dysfunction but not the collusion that he has implied. But i not a great defense, of course. No, not the best defense. Theyre so dysfunctional they cant be cluding. Andrew, i got to push back a little bit. Im not suggesting Merrick Garland was the puppeteer, but this is a week where robert hur has gone to the hill with this highly controversial report that the white house said that i think a lot of folk, not even just democrats, say was filled with just, you know, out of School Commentary about president bidens mental acuity. The mere appointment of robert hur was a subject of debate. And then what he came up with seemed so just, you know, political in nature and not to the support of the current occupant of the white house. It all serves to paint a picture of a Justice Department that seems sort of hopelessly concerned with how theyre going to be perceived on the right. So i agree with that. I just im trying to be sort of, you know, judicious about sort of taking each sure, of course. Sort of set of circumstances at the same time and looking at them to give them fair weight. I agree with you about rob hur. I think that was a small pea political situation. It was done not to have criticism so you appoint someone thats a republican. I think thats a massive mistake. I think it buys into the idea that Special Counsels can act out of principle. I think its absolutely right to be critical of that decision. And i think its important because it deals with what would happen next. An important milestone to say this is what you get if you dont actually back your people in thinking that anybody, judges, prosecutor, jurors, witnesses will act, you know, out of principle. I just think in this situation, i dont know what was motivating the Southern District of new york. I just dont think they would have coordinated this. I do think Merrick Garland, he may make wrong decisions, but i do not see him trying to slow this down by saying do not turn inculp Tour Information and exculpatory information over. The prosecutor is going to want to know both of those and will feel an obligation to turn over both of those things to the defense. I think to alexs point, though, Merrick Garland should have been writing