The Georgia Indictment

TOPICS DISCUSSED

Today, our whole episode is dedicated to discussing the Georgia indictment of former president, Donald Trump and his 18 alleged co-conspirators.

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:09] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:10] And this is Beth Silvers. Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.  

[00:00:33] Welcome to Pantsuit Politics, where we take a different approach to the news. We really intended to go very different today and talk about UFOs, and I was excited about it. I was very invested in that plan. But indictments of the former president stands still for no one. As you have probably seen, former twice impeach President Donald Trump was indicted criminally for a fourth time this week, this time on state law charges in Georgia. And this indictment contains multitudes. So we are going to spend the entire episode today talking about the charges, answering some of your questions, and thinking about the big picture. Now if you, like me, enjoy thinking about the universe beyond Donald Trump, we will get to unidentified aerial phenomena and the possibilities of the greater cosmos another time. Today, it's all Georgia.  

Sarah [00:01:21] Before we jump into the indictment, we wanted to remind you that tickets to our Paducah live show are on sale now to the general public. There are only 80 seats left, so hurry to the shownotes in the link and get your tickets. And, listen, I don't want to overly excite anyone. But there are currently some karaoke plans in development.  

Beth [00:01:41] As there should be.  

Sarah [00:01:42] There will be group singing. You guys, I just want to put that on everybody's radar because I don't want you to see us all singing our hearts out and healing our souls together in Paducah on Instagram, I mean, like, "Man, I should have gone." You know what I mean? I don't want anybody to miss that opportunity because I think it will be an amazing one.  

Beth [00:02:01] I think you're right. I think it's good that you put that on everyone's hearts for consideration this morning. Get excited for Paducah and get excited for this conversation. Next up, we're going to talk about the Georgia indictment and all that District attorney Fani Willis has planned for the former president.  

[00:02:16] Music Interlude.  

[00:02:27] Sarah, I feel like I've done nothing this week except stare at this indictment. It is so long. It is so complicated. We have 19 total defendants this time, and this case is unique among the cases that have been brought against the former president to this point, because it says what I think the public vibe is from people who believe that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. And that is here is a large group of people who all worked together in a number of convoluted ways to try to change the election result. And because all of these people played some part, they share criminal culpability.  

Sarah [00:03:13]  I didn't expect for the expansive group of defendants to feel so satisfying to me, but it really did. It really felt like people do need to see the whole picture. I agree with Fani Willis. And so, seeing Mark Meadows getting charged, down to the former GOP chair in Georgia being charged, just the breadth of the participation in this total circus being represented in the indictment I thought was really, really impactful and really, really satisfying.  

Beth [00:03:50] And this is still not everyone. The indictment itself references 30 unindicted co-conspirators; people who are both known and unknown to the grand jury, who took steps toward that criminal objective of changing Georgia's election result. I keep coming back to that objective. I think that's the center point. If you find it confusing to talk about the actual counts and charges, remembering that the entire spirit of this indictment is that a whole bunch of things were done to change the election result is really all you need to know.  

Sarah [00:04:25] Yeah, and I think it can be overwhelming, but they do sort out. Once you start to look at the legal theory and the charges, you see that they sort of fit in these four buckets related to either pressuring government officials, lots of charges related to the testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee in the House Governmental Affairs Committee at the Georgia state legislator, the false electors, listen, this Coffee County situation that I'm sure we're going to get into and then obstruction and cover up. So you have these sort of buckets and there's a lot of people and there is a lot of charges and there's a lot of acts of furtherances, all this long list of acts. But you can sort them kind of semi-neatly, as neatly as you can sort a complete and total circus into these buckets.  

Beth [00:05:10] And one additional bucket that is the component of this indictment in which I am most personally invested, and that is the intimidation and harassment of Ruby Freeman. I have complicated feelings about the criminal system. I have complicated feelings about the fact that people can be charged under both state and federal law for some of the same acts. I don't like that in most contexts. If I were a taxpaying citizen of the great state of Georgia, I would absolutely want someone in Georgia, under Georgia law, to hold people accountable for intimidating and harassing election workers. I think that is the most localized, unequivocally wrong thing that happened here, no matter where you stand on any political issue. And I am so glad that it got such focused attention in this indictment.  

Sarah [00:06:04] Well, I do think the asking the secretary of state for votes is also a pretty localized and heinous act. And especially since that recording, I think, is really what kicked off this entire investigation. But I do agree with you that I want justice for Ruby Freeman.  

Beth [00:06:19] And a message sent that we protect our election workers, that these people who are just coming in to do their jobs, who did not seek political office, who no one ever cast a vote for, that they will be protected in this process. They are essential. I was really here for that part of the indictment.  

Sarah [00:06:36] The organizing legal theory to all these charges, all these acts, all these different buckets of behavior is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Now, listen, Beth. Have I ever tried a RICO case? I have not. But have I through pop culture been training for this moment my whole life? I have. I read Godfather, seen all the movies, watched all of The Sopranos, and here is a piece of the RICO analysis I feel that is getting missed inside the greater Trump indictment writings, etc.. Okay. RICO is fascinating, right? It's you have this one guy, Robert Blakey. Here's the part when I was digging into this that I did not know that I thought was fascinating. He basically watched a movie that sparked his interest in bringing justice to the mob. And the mobster in the movie was called Enrico "Rico". And so there is speculation, which he is neither confirm nor denied, that that's where the acronym came from, whichever. And so, federally, this law passed and was organized because what would happen with the Mafia is that the lower players would get arrested for illegal gambling operations or harassment or even murder, but they would not serve very much time. And you can see if you went through some of these charges, if you look at the time served for falsifying documents or intimidating witness, they're smaller pieces of time- four to five years. And so what what happened in the mob is these guys would serve these smaller sentences and not say a word. Like, they could take it. They could take these small sentences and then go back and protect the organization. You hear the vow. You protect the family. Okay.  

[00:08:27] But when Rico comes along, you layer that on top of everything else, well, then you're looking at 25 years, 35 years. That's a lot of your life. Then they would start to sing and they would start to flip and they would start to testify. That's why you get in the 70s, 80s, these stories of witness protection in the mob, because they would flip and they would start to talk about the bosses. And so, I think it is highly unlikely that we had the trial for this indictment with all 19 people, because some people are going to look at a RICO charge on top of these other charges that could carry 25 years and they're going to sing like canaries. That is my personal speculation. And I think it's so interesting when you look at this history and we can talk about why the Georgia RICO statute is even more hardcore than the federal RICO statute is. I was so struck, I don't know if you felt this way too, RICO sat unused for several years- like a decade. Prosecutors weren't charged and nobody was really taking full advantage of the power of these laws-- and they are powerful. But when you look at the behavior in the eighties that really spawned the tough prosecutions of the mob bosses, I just thought like, well, this whole scene was coexisting with Donald Trump, peak Trump of the New York eighties. He was in this ecosystem watching how these bosses behaved. Watching how the prosecutions worked. Watching you don't write things down. You say things over the phone. You never explicitly tell people what to do. I feel like you cannot miss the overlap in this behavior, honestly.  

Beth [00:10:07] I totally agree that Donald Trump took a lot of lessons from that time period and specifically from the depiction of that time period in pop culture. We know he loves movies and TV and that this is his scene. The wet blanket side of me would just like to say that I struggle with RICO statutes, especially Georgia's, because I do think there is such enormous power given to the government. All the reasons that District Attorney Fani Willis says she likes RICO are reasons I don't like RICO. I do think that it gets to something that on a gut level is important to us in the justice system, which is to say it shouldn't be only the people who executed the plans. It should be the people who made the plans. Now, we have conspiracy laws for that. And that's where I kind of think, do we really need RICO to sit alongside those conspiracy laws? But the other thing I'd like to point out about the existence of the conspiracy component of this, is that Trump's defense is going to hammer away at the First Amendment. That he was just saying what he thought about all this. And doesn't he have a right to do that? It is hard for me to imagine many crimes that involve a conspiracy that don't involve talking. People's speech is included in criminal indictments every single day. Even political speech gets included in criminal indictments. And I think that this very tedious list of 160 acts in furtherance of the criminal objective of changing Georgia's election result gets to the fact that at some point, pretty early on, we tipped out of normal political speech and into using sometimes political speech as a weapon to pressure officials who felt that they had something to lose because the speech was coming from the president of the United States or the chief of staff of the United States or a lawyer for the president of the United States.  

Sarah [00:12:07] I understand the concerns about how broadly a pattern of behavior can be interpreted. You see RICO within this prosecutor's office, much less across the country, being applied far outside the realms of organized crime. Well, organized crime as we traditionally understand it, the Mafia. Fani Willis made her name in a cheating scandal in Georgia using RICO against public school teachers. But there is also this side of me that understands that RICO taps this sort of common sense understanding we all have. Where that sometimes the law, because of the processes, because of a lot of reasons, it misses it. How many conversations have you had since you've received legal training where people are, like, I don't understand. Obviously, they're doing something wrong. And I think RICO's genius is Robert Blakey figured out a way to go, "Yeah, you're right. And this is how it's going to work." I mean, there are just different standards that don't apply when you're just charging conspiracy, when you're talking about acts of furtherances that build your case don't have to be crimes, when you're talking about the level of evidence is broader. It is powerful, and of course anything powerful is ripe for abuse. But I also think this level of organization and crime, people's devotion to these sort of organized efforts, is also powerful. And people are ingenious, even in a crazy circus where they were making some really stupid mistakes like this one. They'll just skirt around the rules. And I feel like RICO is this very interesting net that scoops up a lot of that behavior.  

[00:13:42] Music Interlude.  

Beth [00:13:59] Structurally, what you need to understand about this indictment is that all 19 defendants are charged under RICO. That is the unifying thread among these defendants. And then each defendant is charged separately for other crimes. There are counts of this indictment that will sweep up the folks who did the Coffee County affair. They bused in to try to get data from voting machines to prove some of Sydney Powell's strangest theories.  

Sarah [00:14:31] It felt a little bit like they were invited in to me.  

Beth [00:14:36] Well, I think that's true. Misty Hampton, one of the defendants here, was in charge of access to those systems. So, again, a conspiracy, a collaboration among people to illegally access data that they had no right to and then to download that data. So there's data theft as well. My point is there are individual charges for defendants, but the unifying thread is that charge under RICO that you all were part of trying to change the result of Georgia's election.  

Sarah [00:15:06] Well, and look, there is a part of me that if I was perfect and morally and ethically consistent and always, I would rightfully criticize some of the laws that were written in a very conservative manner by the Georgia legislator around voter fraud and RICO. And say, "See, this is why we think these are overboard and overly harsh." But the side of me that is human thinks that the irony that you wrote these election fraud laws thinking you were going after I don't know what and this is how they're being used. The irony that you wrote one of the harshest RICO statutes in the country and this is how it's being applied, I mean, you're a better person than me, Beth, of you just can't smile quietly to yourself about that.  

Beth [00:16:04] Well... 

Sarah [00:16:06] Does that does a crack a smile? We're not laughing. We're not making names. We're just smiling quietly to ourselves.  

Beth [00:16:13] Yeah, I smile. Listen, part of my quest to be a better human being than I was in 2016 through 2020 is trying to think more about the big picture of the criminal system than about Donald Trump as these cases proceed. I'm working really hard on that.  

Sarah [00:16:29] I just want to say I thought you were a delightful person from 2016 to 2020 for the record.  

Beth [00:16:34] I appreciate that. Thank you. The things that I'm working on in myself require me to look at the bigger picture. And, look, I do think that if there is a common sense case for the application of RICO, this probably is it. Where you have power players at the absolute highest levels of government who could escape liability for the harassment of an election worker, even as Trump was sitting and using his communication tools to call for that intimidation and harassment. So it's not that I think he lacks culpability, it's that I believe that the most egregious overreaches from government come in the form of criminal prosecutions. And I don't ever want to lose sight of that.  

Sarah [00:17:23] Yeah. I think it's important to note that Georgia has used RICO against public officials before and that their Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a former labor secretary. I would like to read more about his defense if he defended himself by saying I didn't believe it to be true. I don't think it was an election fraud case, but I agree with Fani Willis that people need to see the entire picture. I think it's probably not going to shake out in six months, but I do think that we will not have that many defendants. And I think the very likely scenario that this will be broadcast and Americans can watch along is very, very important. Very important.  

Beth [00:18:03] I just want to underscore, I think we are such a long way from any trial being broadcast. So, so, so far from that.  

Sarah [00:18:15] It's going to be a while.  

Beth [00:18:16] So, as you said, 19 defendants. Fani Willis has said she intends to try them all together. I don't see a universe in which that happens, even if all 19 defendants remain charged, even if no one reaches some kind of plea deal. Because right now we have motions to remove this case to federal court from Mark Meadows. It's anticipated that Trump will file a motion for removal too. Jeff Clark probably will. So I think spending a second on that might be helpful because removal is one of those legal terms that doesn't mean anything to most people.  

Sarah [00:18:49] And I think it's confusing because I think people hear removal to a federal court and they think it becomes a federal crime he could pardon himself from.  

Beth [00:18:55] Right.  

Sarah [00:18:56] Which is not true. Don't worry, everybody.  

Beth [00:18:59] She has charged under Georgia state law and those are the charges where it's tried, will not change what the charges are. In federal law, we have this concept of removal in a number of different contexts. Here, the idea is that typically in a normal universe where people in positions of public trust behave within a range of normal, we don't want states going around suing the president or criminally indicting the president. There are lots of protections built not just around the president, but federal office holders in general to prevent states from chasing them down all the time. And so, if you can show that you were a federal official at the time of this conduct that has been charged as crime occurred and you were acting under color of the office-- and that's where we're going to have a big dispute here-- and you have a colorable federal defense that there are some kind of defense under federal law that's available to you that would not make people laugh out loud, then you have an argument to remove this to federal court. So the folks who had those titles with the U.S. government when all this happened are going to try to get this into federal court. It will still happen in Georgia, but it will be drawing from a jury pool for the northern district of Georgia, not just for Fulton County. And so that's the two points of the removal strategy. Number one, because it delays things. And, number two, because it enhances the jury pool to more rural areas, which the Trump team believes would be a friendlier jury pool to him.  

Sarah [00:20:37] Well, and I am encouraged because I do think the argument that as far as the color of office-- I mean, the Constitution is pretty clear about leaving the incumbent president out of the federal election process for lots of very obvious reasons. So the idea that it all fell on him to protect that, get out of here, dude. Get out of here. But I don't know. I think that will slow it down. I think that will not be the only thing they filed to try to gum up the works. She seems dedicated. And there was speculation that I encountered that the reason this particular grand jury indictment took so long is that they were trying to get a lot of the case ready before the even indictment came so that they could focus on clearing these hurdles and not building the case. So the case is ready to a certain extent so that they can focus on getting through these attempts to delay as quickly as possible. And I hope that's true.  

Beth [00:21:29] But there will be possibly an entire litigation and appeal of the removal issue for some of these defendants. That's a hard issue that will take a lot of time in federal court, even if it is expedited, that could reach the Supreme Court on its own. And who knows what motions, (some of them legitimate) that other defendants might file. I just want to keep orienting ourselves to the fact that even though a year of work by a special purpose grand jury and a team of experienced prosecutors went into this indictment. And even though District Attorney Willis says credibly-- I believe her when she says, I'm ready to take this to trial. I believe that. Now that it is the defendant's turn, and our system I think rightly has a lot of opportunities for defendants to come in and say pump the brakes. Here are all the things from our perspective that haven't been considered yet. One of those things we know is that Trump is going to challenge the validity of that entire special purpose grand jury exercise. I think he loses that argument. I think he's wrong about it. But that too will take time.  

Sarah [00:22:37] Well, and it's important to note that this can move forward in Fulton County and also be litigated on these certain motions in federal court as well. So it's not like some of this can't take place simultaneously, but not all of it can. And she only has a finite amount of staff and resources. But I have to say, as I read through the indictment and read more about Fani Willis, I think there's a lot to lend to her credibility and her expertise. She has one of the foremost experts on Georgia RICO statute. I read his CV and I thought, oh, if I was Trump, I will be very scared of this particular breadth of experience. But it's not that she hasn't made mistakes. There was one defendant, Bert Jones, in particular, that she was barred from indicting because she went to a fundraiser of his opponent and spoke at the fundraiser. And the judge was like, absolutely not. And so I hope she learned her lesson because I think she rightfully probably felt like I'm protected politically because you can go watch my opponents beat me up and put me in pictures with Trump because I'm so much more conservative than some people like their prosecutors to be. But I hope she learned that only takes you so far. And I also thought it was interesting-- I don't know if you noticed this, that there were so few election crimes charged. That there wasn't a lot of election fraud. It was very focused on the high jinx in Coffee County. But then when I was reading some Brookings analysis, they pointed out that there's just not a lot of precedent around those election crimes. And I thought, oh, such a smart strategy.  

Beth [00:24:06] Who writes statutes for somebody trying to change the results once the election is over? Our election law is written around the process of conducting the election. This criminal conduct happened after the votes were counted, and that's just not something that we have contemplated often.  

Sarah [00:24:24] And, listen, I know in our attempt to center ourselves and be better people--  

Beth [00:24:31] I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.  

Sarah [00:24:33] That we are not creating heroes and cultural idols out of these prosecutors. And I agree with that strategy in theory. But in practice, Beth, when I encounter reporting on an email that Fani Willis sent to a lawyer for Governor Brian Kemp. And she says, and I quote, "You have taken my kindness as weakness. Despite your disdain, this investigation continues and will not be derailed by anyone's antics."  

Beth [00:25:12] You like that?  

Sarah [00:25:14] I want to put it on a t-shirt, Beth. I want to put "You have taken my kindness as weakness" on a t-shirt really badly. I'm not going to. Maybe I'll just hang it up in my closet. It's so good.  

Beth [00:25:28] Well, I think it's hard not to relate to that quote if you are a kind of person generally who has been mistaken as a weak person.  

Sarah [00:25:37] It's so succinct.  

Beth [00:25:39] It's very good.  

Sarah [00:25:39] It's so powerful.  

Beth [00:25:40] Look, she's a damn good lawyer. She's good at her job. That's the truth of it. I think if you are tempted to say she's good at her job, she's ambitious, she's built a big career, she was intent on prosecuting Trump and decide that that's all horribly unfair to him- which is not, by the way, every prosecutor across the nation is pretty ambitious and intent on charging people and building a career out of that. And that's not bad.  

Sarah [00:26:11] It's unfair when you are lacking in power and access to the media and resources [inaudible] unmatched by a prosecutor. But that is not the situation here.  

Beth [00:26:19] And that's what we ask of prosecutors. I don't blame prosecutors for the system's issues. It's just like I don't blame doctors for the health care systems issues. I don't blame prosecutors for the criminal justice systems issues. But if you think all of this is about her versus Donald Trump, I'm glad you brought up the situation of the judge barring these charges against Bert Jones, because this judge has been incredibly active throughout this process. Robert McBurney has had to decide so many unusual issues, and he's a very candid, funny, intelligent writer.  

Sarah [00:26:54] I like it.  

Beth [00:26:55] I've read a lot of his orders and they are good and they are orders that can be read by anyone and tracked, which I think he's done on purpose. And that's been a real public service. Also, the recommendations for these charges came from a group of ordinary citizens who gave a year of their life to serve as the special purpose grand jury. And then another group of ordinary citizens who took this alongside God knows what other cases were being brought in Fulton County at the same time, signed off on these charges. So there are layers and layers of people besides Fani Willis involved in getting to this point. And there will be layers and layers of people who decide what happens next. I really struggle with all of this being laid at the feet of the liberals, the Democrats, whatever, because this entire system is built of people of all political stripes at all stages.  

Sarah [00:27:53] Yeah. Well, what happens next might be a good transition to talk about the calendar.  

[00:27:55] Music Interlude.  

Sarah [00:28:14] Beth, I do think we should spend some time on the calendar.  

Beth [00:28:17] Let's do that. It's full.  

Sarah [00:28:18] When I looked at it, I was struck by how much civil activity he has coming up before he ever gets to the criminal indictment, because you have the Leticia James civil prosecution coming in October. You have E. Jean Carroll second defamation suit for what he said at the CNN town hall coming in January. And then I had forgotten about this. I lost a little bit of time on this one, that there's the pyramid scheme that was filed 10 years ago also coming to trial in January. We can only hold so much, but it is kind of bananas.  

Beth [00:28:57] He has had a long, varied career that has harmed lots of different kinds of people in lots of different kinds of ways. Mm hmm. And that it is coalescing at one particular moment in time seems both poetic and overwhelming.  

Sarah [00:29:16] And coming together at one point in time when he's also supposed to be running for president, which is, as I understand it, and the little piece I witnessed in 2007, quite an overwhelming gig.  

Beth [00:29:28] It's just all the same for him at this point, though, This is his campaign strategy. And his campaign strategy is his legal strategy.  

Sarah [00:29:36] And his fundraising strategy is his legal funding strategy.  

Beth [00:29:39] That's right. And I think the most honest thing that has been said in this whole election cycle, even though it is in its infancy, is when Chris Christie says he just doesn't care. There was a clip from a Sunday show, I think it was Bob Costas who said, do you think that Trump could be an authoritarian dictator? Or something like that. I'm probably getting his words wrong, but that was the gist of the question. And Chris Christie said, I think he doesn't care. It's not like he sits around thinking that in principle we should be opposed to liberal society. It's that he doesn't care about anybody but himself.  

Sarah [00:30:18] I was going to say, he cares just not about that.  

Beth [00:30:20] So he will do authoritarian things if it benefits him personally. And he doesn't care what running for president normally looks like. He cares what is going to work best for him right now. He cares about surviving another day. That's it.  

Sarah [00:30:39] So we get through this Fall where the campaign also starts to heat up. We have the first Republican debate on the 23rd. We'll have the Iowa caucuses coming up next year. And then in the spring, you start to get into these actual criminal indictments. So you have the hush money and falsifying business records from Alvin Bragg in the state of New York coming in March of next year. And then you have the classified documents case from Jack Smith coming in May of next year.  

Beth [00:31:08] I am skeptical that that classified documents case will actually be tried in May, because I do think there are still a lot of issues that could slow that timing down. Judge Cannon, in that case, for all of her tendencies to rule strongly in favor of Donald Trump, has set a pretty aggressive timeline marching toward that case.  

Sarah [00:31:29] I bet she wants that out of her life.  

Beth [00:31:31] I bet she does too. I would want it way out of mine. But I would not be surprised at all if that got slowed down. I wouldn't be surprised if the March trial date in the New York case gets delayed either. I think what I want is to cultivate an attitude of non-attachment to these things. If you're listening right now just trying to be a good person and an informed citizen and live your life in the world, I don't want your emotions to crest and fall when someone gets removed to federal court or a trial date gets kicked down the road. It's going to happen. Some of this is going to happen.  

Sarah [00:32:04] The place that I just get all the way hung up on. I can put myself in a place of non-attachment, but I think still after all these years if he wins the Republican primary or, God forbid, the general election, with all these indictments and legal liability after people panicked because of the mere mention of an investigation surrounding Hillary Clinton, I'm going to lose it. I'm going to fundamentally lose it. Just putting that out there.  

Beth [00:32:39] I think that's fair. I will not judge that proclamation for me.  

Sarah [00:32:46] So speaking to the horrific reality that he might be elected again, there's a lot of concerns about, well, could he just pardon himself for all of this? And the hard reality is with Jack Smith's investigations, he could. He could just pardon himself-- not with the New York investigation with Alvin Bragg. But I think people are rightly a little less concerned about that one. And I don't think it's as important an indictment as the one in Georgia. But he could not pardon himself for a state offense. And I did have a moment of panic, Beth, where I was like, "Wait, wait, wait. What if somebody else becomes the governor of Georgia and they pardon him?" But in Georgia, pardons are an unreviewable power vested solely in the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. And you are not even eligible to be considered until five years after completion of all sentences.  

Beth [00:33:32] So here I come as Debbie Downer again. You know what, guys? You can just give me like a [sound effect] before I speak in this episode. And I'm sorry. What I would like to just hold out there, number one is that we are very, very far away from him being convicted of anything, let alone him being in a position to pardon himself. We're so far from any of that today.  

Sarah [00:33:53] I will say, though, that I do think this is important because if you can sort of give people a little light for that part of the process, it does cut down on that 'none of this is going to matter anyway he'll get out of it'. You know what I mean?  

Beth [00:34:03] Here I come with less light. So the other thing that you need to consider is that these cases might not go to trial before the election. And if he gets elected, then I think he will argue that the Department of Justice memo that says you can't indict a sitting president, which we all got very familiar with during the Mueller investigation, applies to state criminal prosecutions. And I think they would litigate that issue. And what our current Supreme Court would say about that, I do not know.  

Sarah [00:34:33] But he would have already been indicted before becoming a sitting president.  

Beth [00:34:36] Correct. But would they be allowed to try him? I don't know. 

Sarah [00:34:41] I think the Clinton precedent says, yes. I know that was civil, not criminal.  

Beth [00:34:45]  And that makes a big difference, and I just don't know. I don't know what our current Supreme Court would do with that. I think that I am struggling with the certainty expressed in a lot of the writing about all of this, because this is all really new and it's really different.  

Sarah [00:35:01] That's interesting because I don't feel that. I don't feel a lot of certainty. I feel like most of the media analysis I've read, especially when they call in a legal expert, the legal experts love to go, "I don't know." 

Beth [00:35:11] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:35:13] That's what [inaudible] to say as a lawyer. I don't know. There's a million different opportunities or options here.  

Beth [00:35:17] Please listen to the I don't know people because that I don't know people have the best argument today, which is there is no argument because this is all really weird and it's really hard and it's scary. I mean, we already have this woman in Texas arrested for threatening to kill the judge in the Washington, D.C. case. And I don't think we're going to see that on a massive scale. I certainly hope not.  

Sarah [00:35:41] We haven't seen it at the arraignments at all.  

Beth [00:35:44] But there is a lot that can go very weird here, especially if one of these cases gets to trial and that trial starts to dominate the news coverage. If you're worried that people aren't paying attention to this, they will when there's a trial. We will have a trial.  

Sarah [00:35:59] And I do think for all the institutions that Americans distrust, and maybe it's just because of the overwhelming presence of procedural dramas in our pop culture, I do think that Americans, to a certain extent, are trained to believe in the objective nature of a trial. I do. I think that even with some of the complicating history around the O.J. Simpson trial, I think people trust a jury trial. And so if they are watching a jury trial, they will feel very differently about that than they did the January six hearings. I think that.  

Beth [00:36:35] I agree with that. And I think it's for good reason. You ever try to get 12 people to do something? It's really hard getting 12 people to do something in a way that is coordinated. Twelve ordinary people who are usually outside the system to then come in and do something that is totally underhanded, I just don't see it. So I think our trust is well-placed.  

Sarah [00:36:53] Well, that's probably good homework, is to just go watch like 12 Angry Men while we're all waiting for this to process through the judicial system. That's always a good primer on how difficult this stuff is.  

Beth [00:37:05] Now, I have been such a bummer. Here's my optimism. I don't know what is going to happen in any of these cases, and I cannot get attached to it. I do feel comforted that we are trying to use the best tools that we have to impose some accountability where it belongs in the legal process. The legal process doesn't solve the political question. It doesn't. He can win the nomination. He can win the presidency. The legal process does not solve the political problem. But I do believe that crimes were committed here. I believe that we all witness them. I believe that the evidence is incontrovertible. I think that some of these legal theories are going to be tough to prove. I don't think he's going to be convicted of all 91 crimes he's charged with currently or that every single person who's been charged will be convicted. But I do think crime occurred and I do think it is a positive thing that we are attempting to use our system in a way that has as much integrity built into the process as possible to hold people accountable for those crimes.  

Sarah [00:38:05] Even though it's weird in a historical and unprecedented, we're still like, "Well, this is the process and we're about to test it." And that's definitely what's happening here.  

Beth [00:38:14] If you have lingering questions about the issues in any of these matters, you would be wise to have these lingering questions. There are many.  

Sarah [00:38:23] Yeah, you are not alone.  

Beth [00:38:24] We are going to cover many, many questions about this indictment, in particular in our Friday newsletter. You can sign up for our newsletter if you don't receive it already by going to Pantsuitpoliticsshow.com. And we also talk about what's going on in courts across the country there are premium shows: Good Morning and More to Say. You can find information about accessing those shows in our show notes. We really appreciate you joining us today. We value the time that you spend with us and the trust you place in us. We hope that you'll join us in Paducah for a really good time, where I promise I will not need a [sound effect] before everything I say. I will be lively and delightful in Paducah. We'll be back here with you on Tuesday. Until then, have the best weekend available to you.  

[00:39:03] Music interlude. 

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. 

Beth: Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement. 

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima. 

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tawni Peterson. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Danny Ozment. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. The Lebo Family. 

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.

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