Trial of the other defendants. why is that important? that would allow him and the case, the prosecutors have to just focus on him specifically and the counts against him. it doesn t have the appearance and sort of the practical impact of sitting at trial with a whole bunch of other defendants who have been charged with a wide range of crimes, so his attorneys have, obviously, assessed that it s in his interest to be in federal court because they potentially think that federal defenses that he might have would be better considered there, but also, i think because he would be on his own. and jay tom, you sort of alluded about the fact that anything could happen when you have a client on the stand. one of the things he is being asked about, according to our reporters in the courtroom right now, is about trump interests in election fraud after the 2020 election, and he described being flooded with outreach about potential fraud in 2020, sometimes he said he had to keep
Former president, there s a federal interest in making sure elections are secure. this is what meadows has to argue. he has to argue that what transpired in the wake of the 2020 election was somehow related to his official duties as white house chief of staff. what s not clear is how much longer this is going to go on. we know the district attorney has lined up a number of witnesses she may call including georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger. a lot happening down there. thanks for keeping us up to he speed on it. shan wu and carrie core darrow are back with us. i ll start with you, because you are in georgia, jay tom, what do you make of the arguments that mark meadows is making on the stand right now? as we know as sara said, these are the key questions that he wants the judge to answer in the affirmative, and the question is, whether or not he should be
Other part is going to be the facts. and getting that out there and educating the public about what really transpired here i think is important for the criminal justice system and important to instill in the public a sense of confidence or renewed confidence in the system, and i think it s renewed confidence given the indictments and the people who violated the law probable cause means more than anything than not these folks engaged in these crimes. jay tom? i cannot emphasize enough the importance of cameras in the courtroom. i trood one of the first cases in georgia that was televised and several more since then, including prosecution of a public official using rico statute. just as said, sunshine is a
Think mr. giuliani faces the greatest risk of legal exposure in this case. and because he is a lawyer. he used rico before. and it is embarrassing to the profession and as a former prosculator, i m embarrassed that a former prosecutor who used rico has now been charged with rico. really fascinating. you guys both of you, such experts here. giving us measured nonpartisan, thoughtful analysis of something that is going to be a big story and a big, important issue with us for a while. jay tom morgan and professor murray, thanks to both of you. our live coverage will continue throughout this hour. donald trump and these many faces you see, they have a deadline to voluntarily surrender. if they don t, if they play around, they will be issued arrest warrants and apprehended like anybody else. what that means next. ( ) rsv can be a dangerous virus.
Work. they ll deal with any of it later if at all. i m curious what you think as well, professor, about the stakes of this in state court. again, all defendants legally presumed innocent. 19 of them means if you take all the forget all the politics and who s running for president, you could have a rico case against 19 people, if you got 15 or 12 of them, that might be considered a success, because some change, some plead out, some go away or what have you. but this is a very big deal, and with the eyes of the nation on the courtroom, and as jay tom mentioned, it only courtroom where we re going to have video. it s going to be very public for not only these defendants but also their families, as jay tom has suggested. but one of the things that s really struck me over the course of the last 20 hours as this has come out is what a terrible day for the legal profession yesterday. i mean, a good number of those individuals who have been
By sidney powell on behalf of donald trump. you are looking at the rico case. it s strong, it s long running and there are a lot of defendants more nervous today than they were when they woke up yesterday. i want to bring in our experts tonight. a man who has tried rico cases in georgia, jay tom morgan, former district attorney for dekalb county, neighboring fulton county, and back with us, professor melissa murray from nyu law. welcome to both of you. rico is broad and in some ways if you do the federal and state history, it s complicated. i went through both all the way back to the mafia hearings in the 50s and 60s and what they wanted to do. congress said okay, you guys are ducking and weaving. and you have this guy money laundering and this guy over here and this guy had a restaurant, and we re going to sweep it all in. it worked, it busted about the five families. what do you think of the way the d.a. is now using this as a strong case against so many trump defendants who according to the d.a. were racketeering to
Indicted as co-defendants are lawyers. and again, some of them have been donald trump s lawyers, and every person is entitled to a vigorous defense, but a vigorous defense doesn t necessarily extend to alleged efforts to overturn a lawfully conducted election. i mean, lawyers already get a bad rap from so many members of the public on these ideas that we re unethical, unprofessional, ambulance chasers, but there s so many lawyers out here doing their level best to just abide by the law, to be decent, to represent their clients without showing fear or favor. i felt like fani willis last night exemplified those aspects of the profession. she said she s not prosecuting or targeting him because of her own personal views. she was simply representing as law enforcement officer the people of georgia and a wrong had been done against the georgia public. and she was merely trying to vindicate that. you know, you mentioned that, i m curious, jay tom, how that
Raised it, i m curious, what do you think weighs on these officers of the law? we think about prosecutors, we think about people in law enforcement. they do have a tough job, sometimes they overreach, and we cover that as well. it s certainly a scrutinized field, but they re girding up for what you might call in state court the trial of the century, jay tom. well, fani has taken it on the chin and done an exceptional job of not responding. mr. trump accused her of having an affair with a gang member, which is absolutely false, completely made up. because she s so public a figure, she cannot answer to those charges. she just tells her staff, we ll take this into court. that s where this trial will take place. it will not take place in the press. yeah, you re mentioning, by the way, could be legally defamatory, right? as false, even by the higher standard for a public official, but of course, most of these officials, professor, do their
Fits into making the case. because while ignorance is not a total defense to anything, there are times where, you know, at a human level, juries will actually be somewhat harsher or be more tough minded if someone is a lawyer or a doctor, and they re being accused of something where they re supposed to know. it can cut against them. a random person who says, and jack smith was very, you know, careful about this in the indictment, oh, someone was tricked into being an elector because they were a random civilian. boy, if you re a lawyer, if you re rudy giuliani and you have practiced and jailed people over rico, and you re running around racketeering, allegedly, lying to government officials, allegedly, the jury might say, aren t you supposed to know better? what do you think, jay tom? ari, you took the words right out of my mouth. after reading the indictment, i ll just say it right now, i
Criminal case. but the lies of course continue. why would they stop if that s how we got here? so there are lies about the prosecutors, there are lies about the judicial process. there are lies about whether this is even happening, some of which we re not repeating. donald trump blatantly lied about the last couple days. yet the facts are what the case turns on when a jury is asked to find, and the facts were what was on display as we watched that quite historic set of developments into the night last night. we want to bring in two legal experts. david kelly was the chief of the famed sdny, a former federal prosecutor and i should mention, my former boss and jay tom morgan, former district attorney for dekalb county, georgia, a neighbor of fulton county. welcome to you both. david, in your courtrooms we don t see that kind of stuff and don t see televised trials. i begin at the big picture