Summary:
- Trump is facing prosecution in four jurisdictions.
- Complex legal calendar may cause trials to go beyond 2024.
- Deposition from E Jean Caroll lawsuit could be crucial in showing Trump's state of mind during Hush Money payments.
- Cooperation of Mar-a-Lago employee may provide additional evidence in ongoing investigations.
- Law school students are fascinated by the cases but concerned about the threat to democracy.
Meanwhile, he's facing a laundry list of legal problems on other subjects, more likely on the way, state and federal indictments in New York and Florida, and another possible round of indictments in Georgia and, of course, Washington, D.C. Clouding his future potentially overwhelming the Republican presidential front-runners calendar in 2024. And joining me now is Tim Haithey, former lead investigator of the January 6th Select Committee, former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Katherine Christian, and former federal prosecutor Paul Butler, who is a law professor at Georgetown. Welcome all. Paul, first, we continue to see the Trump team using this list of challenges, you know, trying to push everything closer to the 2024 election. Given the complexity of his legal calendar in all of these jurisdictions, how likely is it, you know, that it could go beyond 2024? Trump is facing prosecution in four jurisdictions.
[{'subtitle': 'Complex Legal Calendar', 'content': "He's already been charged in federal court in Florida and in Manhattan State Court. He's almost certainly likely to be charged in both Georgia by Fannie Willis and also by Jack Smith federal indictment for January 6th in Washington, D.C. No way can all of those cases go to trial before the election in a year and a half. So there will be some juggling among prosecutors and judges to decide which goes first. Given the civil cases as well, in other defamation, Alan Bragg, you know, is likely to come up as well. Yeah, that's right."}, {'subtitle': 'Deposition from E Jean Caroll Lawsuit', 'content': "A difference with the civil cases is Trump doesn't actually have to be there. So those cases can go forward just like the first Gene Carroll trial did without Trump's presence. Katherine, the Hush Money case, today we learned Alan Bragg trying to obtain a deposition from the Eugene Carroll lawsuit to use against Trump. Do you think that the judge from the Carroll trial will side with Bragg's officer, Trump's lawyers, and keep that deposition out of the criminal trial? You know, the question is whether or not the protective order on that deposition still exists. And if it doesn't, it will come in. The judge on the Manhattan DA's office Hush case says, I'm happy to allow this evidence to come in, but that's up to Judge Kaplan, who is on the Gene Carroll case. And that's a very important deposition because the statements that Donald Trump made, particularly involving the Access Hollywood tape, it sort of shows the state of mind during that period when those Hush Money payments were made to Stormy Daniels and Ms. Madougal, the former playboy model. It sort of all explains why these were Hush Money payments as opposed to legal expenses that he claims they were to Michael Cohen. And the whole case is no, they were Hush Money. He falsified his business records and said they were legal expenses when actually they were not."}, {'subtitle': 'Cooperation of Mar-a-Lago Employee', 'content': "And Tim Hafe, you have so much experience interviewing former Trump insiders for the January 6th committee, of course. How much cooperation do you think that you saw Tveras, the Mar-a-Lago employee who oversaw the property surveillance cameras, as giving investigators as someone without the deep connection to Trump that Walton Ata and Carlisle Avera have? Yeah, it's really hard to tell. Prosecutors have leverage that congressional committees don't have. They have the prospect of criminal charges that get people focused and motivate them to use the cards that they have to play to try to bargain for leniency. And that is truthful information. I mean, that's how this works, regardless of whether it's a case involving the former president of the United States or any other criminal defendant. I expect that the special counsel is using that appropriately, using the prospect of criminal charges, inclusion in an indictment, conspiracy or otherwise, to obtain information beyond that which was available to our committee. We did not have that leverage relied upon good people standing up to tell the truth. The special counsel has other tools, Andrea, that likely will result in additional evidence."}, {'subtitle': 'Keeping Up with Precedents', 'content': "Paul, there is a constitutional law professor, a criminal law professor, rather, and you've got students coming in about three weeks back to Georgia under your classes. How complicated is it to keep up with all the precedents that are being set in these multiple cases involving the former president of the United States? And what's the interest level of your law school students? It's certain for folks who want to do criminal law, Trump is facing 40 charges in Florida, 34 in New York, and two cases to go. So I think our students are really fascinated by this, but they're also concerned about the threat to democracy. Our law school is about four blocks from the Capitol where we had the worst attack since the war on 1812. So it's front and present to our law students, which is great because they're the future and the future of upholding our democracy, which is what lawyers ideally do. Does the fact that everything is right in this neighborhood, it was right across the street, of course, from us, we were live on the air, does that make it harder to get a good jury pool for a judge potentially in this potential case? Well, it depends on what you mean by good jury. Well, fair. We just say fair down the middle. Yeah. So I think so. The question for judges when they select jurors is not have you heard about the case? Do you have thoughts about the case? It's whether you can set aside your own feelings and your own opinions and just listen to the evidence that's presented in court and do what the judge tells you to do. Based on my experience with juries, they're very good at doing that. You can bet there's going to be a change of venue procedure at least from the defense side. It's great to have you here, Paul Butler and Tim Hafe, Catherine Christian. Thanks to all of you."}]
End of transcript.