Willis to explain how all 19 cases there would possibly, or could possibly, be tried together. That is a tomorrows news tonight. Plus, what is the strategy of those 19 defendants Behind The Scenes in the georgia r. I. C. O. Case and are they getting a little bit of a preview of the governments case . Well tell you all about it. And, listen to what Georgia Secretary Of StateBrad Raffensperger told Anderson Cooper tonight. Weve got much more to come everyone, on all of that, but i want to begin with all of the fast moving developments tonight in the criminal case against donald trump. Joining me now is former Trump White House lawyer james scholz and Georgia Prosecutor chris timmins. Im glad to see you both here, gentlemen. Lets begin with you here, jim, because trumps lawyers are honing in on this comment that was made by judge chutkan in a case of a rioter from january six. Does that argue meant stand up . The filing says this, the bugle mob that capital were there in fealty and loyalty to one man, not to the constitution. It is a Blind Loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this very day. People who exhorted you and encourage you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged. I wonder what you think about that statement there and what she is saying. Are you seeing that as a caused justify the request from trumps team to recuse herself . Because, frankly, jim a lot of judges on this very docket have had to grapple with and preside over cases involving january six defendants. Is its enough to recuse her . This is why it is very difficult to get a judge to be removed from the case. It is going to be largely in her own discretion to make that determination and i think that there is not by chance that she is going to recuse herself from this case. I think she is already asked for expedited briefing on this from jack smiths team and theyre going to put it in context, right . Theyre going to put it in context and the way that, in such a, way that these comments were made in response to claims that were made by folks who are being sentenced in those cases. And they deserve the response and she made inappropriate response, and i think that is how it is going to be. It is how it is going to be portrayed by jack smiths team on it, i think it will give her that roadmap and context to what she said and i think, ultimately, she is going to be the one hearing the case. You know, it is likely of course that she is not going to recuse herself for that very reason. Again, as i mentioned, there are so many judges and the d. C. Federal courts who have had to preside over the many cases already. But, chris, in another filing trump is asking the court to dismiss several of the state charges that he is facing in the Fulton County case. Hes arguing there that the states case is deficient and also saying that maybe to move decide to a court. We are going to see a lot of these motions, first of all. What is the likelihood of success in georgia . We know that mark meadows was already not successful so far, how about trump . Laura, the motion that he filed today is kind of a metoo, taking on to raismans motion that was filed by don spaniel who is a prominent Defense Attorney in atlanta. Dons motion essentially says that the enterprise in rico is too broad to really be appropriate here for a r. I. C. O. Charge. What he is really trying to do, laura, is he is trying to gain sympathy for his clients both nationwide and among potential jurors by alleging that anybody who thought there was Election Fraud and did anything about it could potentially be swept up in this rico conspiracy enterprise. I dont think it is going to be successful, i think the judge can see through it and i dont think it was a mile voting that was filed for the court, it was for the public. Kind of reverse of the audience of one, now the audience of the public on this notion. Mark meadows is asking the 11th circuit to intervene, depauls the decision that says that he cant move to Federal Court and take up an appeal on an expedited patient. I sure by the public of course that the Supreme Court assigned the 11th circuit to is clarence thomas. Interesting perhaps turn of events, but here a Georgia Prosecutor, how long could this process take and what happens to those who are currently pursuing the state charges . Are they in limbo . Well, we have got a speedy trial defending on two of the defendants so i think no matter what those two are going to be headed to trial on october 23rd unless they ask for a continuance and plead guilty. The thing that is really up in the air, though, is who is going to be with them laura and a lot of it depends on how quickly the 11th circuit acts. Also, the further we get towards october 23rd without any sort of ruling from the 11th circuit the less likely we are to have anybody but the two going. But, i think of are the judge in this particular case, knowing that im going to have to tie up my courtroom for probably nine months to a year or just trying one trial, looking at that times two and then thinking about the thousands of other cases that are going to be held up, or at least 1000 cases are going to be held up all those cases are pending, that is going to be problematic. Youve got people who are in jail, youve got people who want it to get divorces, none of that can happen while the courtroom is being tied up with these trump defendants. Its great point, jim, that obviously it will take a lot of resources. 19 defendants, its not the first time in georgia that this is happened. Youve got other cases that fani willis has tried, one involving School Officials and administrators, one involving a rapper and those who are alleged to be a part of a criminal enterprise as well. Not unheard of to have multiple defendants. They might whittle down obviously to a smaller number by the time it actually goes to a trial and, right now, as chris said its only two. But, im wondering what impact the idea of the appellate process will have because he will remember last week at the hearing at the judge mcafee said, look, are we sort of kicking the can down the road . Are we prolonging the inevitable here . Because people are going to want to appeal and, as one says, let me have my turn, maybe it does there is next and we will wait and see. I have said since day one, as clean as jack smiths case is, this case is just messy. And it is necessarily messy because it is a r. I. C. O. Case, there are a lot of defendants in the case, there are going to be a ton of motions filed, we are probably two years out from any real trial on this thing other than the folks who have availed themselves of the speedy Trial Provisions and youre going to see the Motion Practice and eMotion Practice. As it relates to the meadows matter, i do think there is a good chance that the Circuit Court may try to ask for expedited briefing on that because theyre going to want to address that issue, take it up, and either overturn it or send it back down so that they can do what they need to do at the state court level. Gentlemen, the court was pretty clear and deciding not to have meadows and to be able to have his case removed and its really about mark meadows. A kind of extrapolation for every other case, or every other defendant, but you can foresee a time, can you not, 11 will say it is my turn to prolong this. We know at least one person does not want to go this year, so tomorrow, chris, its going to be very consequential. The briefing will be very important to figure out whether to convince the judge can all be done logistically. But the real question in georgia that everyone is wondering is, okay, say if fani willis is a team comes back and convinces the judge, look, ive got it all covered and i can logistically do this in case of 19 people at once. Look at this lovely ebook photo we have right here of all these different people, assuming they all go forward with a trial. If they are able to convince the judge of that does the fact that two have already asked for their speedy trial and hat on october 23rd date mean the other 17 could actually have to go on that date . Thats what that means laura. Im sorry, i apologize jack. Look at this beautiful chivalry of running right now. Its wonderful to see, my heart is warmed just now. Chris, you go, and then jim if you want to respond just for the whole notion here. Go ahead chris. Jim, my apologies. Anyhow, laura, i think that if you are the judge you want it all to go at one time. The big wildcard here is that the federal removal and potential Double Jeopardy. I dont think that anybody completely understands, will they know what jeopardy attaches, that was when the jury is sworn in and the first witness is sworn in. But the question is that if jeopardy attaches at the state level and then the cases removed from Federal Court do you have Double Jeopardy at that point . So the judge seemed concerned about that at the initial hearing and i think he still has those concerns. I dont think anybody is completely answered that question yet. Jim, real quick . No, i think it will be really difficult to try all of these at one time. I think other folks have not invoked their speedy trial rights, i think theyre going to continue to file motions and i think that she is going to have a hard time making the case that all of them should go at one time in that short timeframe that we are looking at. Jim schultz, chris timmins, as always thank you so much. Listen, my next guest argues that the 19 defendants in the Fulton County case actually have a bit of a coordinated strategy Behind The Scenes. This former Assistant Watergate Prosecutor and he joins me now. Im glad youre here because theres been a lot about r. I. C. O. , which is this criminal enterprise statute. But you say that there is not any thing illegal happening Behind The Scenes, but that these 19 codefendants lawyers, they are not on islands on to themselves, are . They of course not. I have been in multi defendant cases before and, what you wind up doing in those cases is entering into a joint Defense Agreement with all the other lawyers to protect the privilege and also to come up with a strategy and a way to go after the governments case. To somehow tried to mark it up and try to make things difficult for the government. People here are agreement and they think is it a signed document, does the judge have to look at it and agreed to it . Who has to sign off on this joint defense . First of all, it doesnt have to be signed document. The court is saying its preferable that needed to be signed, but it can be oral. They can agree to do this, it is totally proper. And they come up with a strategy, it is pretty obvious to me what the strategy is here. What is it . It is to try to break up this trial anyway they can into multiple trials so that they, essentially, cause the government to have to try this case more than one time. Right now, it is possible they could be trying it two times because of the two people that have demanded speedy trials. And i think what they really have to do, the dea has got to be very firm that she is prepared to go ahead with all 19 defendants in october, that the two people who have demanded speedy trial are basically doing it on behalf of all the other defendants to try to break up the trial so that the government has put through the burden of having to do this twice, that they get a preview of the case, that they are put in a position where the government has to go under the burden of doing this and then, being in a position where they may have to make better deals with individual defendants. On the point, in terms of thinking about the why, why they would want to break it up. You want to have a preview of the defense, you want to be able to say show me what you have got. Obviously, the more times a case is tried a prosecutor would like to think they get better and better. But there might be room for error or motions that were successful that went against the government in some way. Maybe there is that brady exculpatory evidence that might come into play. But if you are talking about having to prove the criminal enterprise, right, if you are fani williss team youve got to do it every time. So what is to stop a jury, for example, from saying hold on a second . Where is everyone . Why is everyone not here and how do you force them if they are not ready to go to trial yet . You force the defense, the judge has to be firm. The judge has to say there are two people who say that they are in a position to go ahead with a trial in october. And use that basically as and emission against all the other defendants. If these two people can do it, the rest of you can do it and you are all going to be here in october 23rd and i guarantee you that, if the judge does that, all of a sudden these two people, jazz borough and powell have asked for a speedy trials, are suddenly going to withdraw those two demands. It is interesting, we have heard a lot about this thing about antagonistic defenses. A short way of saying that were going to point your fingers at each other in some way and maybe try to confuse a jury for a variety of reasons. Is that part of what this joint Defense Agreement seems to be . What does that about . It is not antagonistic defenses here. They said as much last week. They may have said that, but there is nothing antagonistic about what they are going to do. I have been in various, multiple defended trials. I have never been involved in and into hygienist defenses between clients in a multi defendant case, he just dont do that because then you are having Point Fingers at each other and it is bad for all of the defendants. So it never happens. There is no such thing as a real antagonistic defense among multiple defendants. That is not going to happen here. It is interesting because it is one of the criteria that the judge used to determine whether you could actually suffer. If you have antagonistic defenses, that kind of Finger Pointing, confusion among the jury, and then the idea that the judicial so he was pretty honed in on that. He did not think it was a valid argument being made and the defendants conceded. But you can imagine that jurors might be saying to themselves who is more at fault and are they eventually going to point the finger at one another because that is kind of what happens when somebody flips . That is if they flip. If they flip, it is a whole different story. But, there is no reason to think that any of these people right now are going to flip or turn on the others and these are all of the hardcore, maga people, the trump fans, the trump sycophants, they are all going to stick by him. You really think so . All of them . Absolutely. I think they all think that somehow donald trump is going to take care of him, that they are going to take care of the legal fees, despite what everybody is saying. They are all hanging in there and they have no other choice at this point because they are all in this together. There are eight different basically schemes among this r. I. C. O. Account and it is very easy to compartmentalize people here. There is not real fingerpointing if you are accused of Stealing Data in Coffee County and then you are accused of being part of the fake electors, which has nothing to do is stealing the data in Coffee County. Theres not a lot of Finger Pointing to be done here among the defendants. They really are very distinct schemes within the enterprise and all of this is considered to be by the jury against all the defendants. There is really no reason not to try them all at the same time and there is no reason why, if two can be prepared to take on all of this evidence at once, why the others cant do it at the same time. If i was a judge, i would assume that is just an admission by two of these defendants that they can do, it why cant everybody else do it . You know, i think the judge is quite clear that if they can make this convincing argument, but here is where we disagree. I have got to tell you, i dont know if ive a 20dollar bill on me or not to bet you, but i bet there is every reason that at some point, because trump is not paying everyones bills, he is not going to be the person who is holding all of the person strings, i hear you when you say that there is a likelihood that people will stick together but you and i have seen Stranger Things and people realize that jail time might be at hudsons they think things differently sometimes. That depends, when you get closer to trial and you realize this problem somebody could flip, there will be witnesses but thats part of the joint Defense Agreement. Certain things cant be used if people do that, but the case goes ahead and the rest of the people go ahead in front of a jury with no one pointing the finger youre hedging, i get to right. Now thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, listen, coming up our breaking news. A confirmed sighting of the escaped Inmate Noella Cavalcante in pennsylvania. 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