Transcript:
The Inside Story: Trump in Court
Episode 104 – August 10, 2023
Show Open:
This week on the Inside Story... Trump in Court.
History is made as a former U.S. president appears in federal court on charges that he attempted to overturn a presidential election.
All this as Congressional Republicans accuse Democrats of trying to distract from legal issues facing President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter…
And across the aisle, Democrats accuse Republicans of trying to distract from Trump’s legal challenges.
We take you inside...
The charges...
The reaction...
The politics...
The controversy.
Now, The Inside Story... Trump in Court
The Inside Story:
KATHERINE GYPSON, VOA Congressional Correspondent:
Welcome to the inside story,
I’m Katherine Gypson, VOA Congressional Correspondent.
I am at the storied E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, site of various white house legal scandals since Harry Truman laid the cornerstone just over there in 1950.
It is quiet here today.
But last week it was overflowing with media here to cover the third indictment of former president Donald Trump on four felony counts for what special prosecutor jack smith says were efforts to overturn his 2020 reelection loss.
The earlier indictments relate to charges around a hush money payment paid to an adult film performer, and to classified documents that mister trump took with him when he left the white house.
Still, Trump remains the front runner in the Republican Party’s search for their next presidential candidate.
All this, today on the inside story.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is claiming that the federal judge assigned to preside over his trial for allegedly conspiring to overturn his 2020 election defeat is biased against him and should be replaced. He pleaded not guilty to four charges of criminal conspiracy in relation to overturning the election results.
Not guilty … that’s the plea former President Donald Trump entered Thursday in a Washington courtroom, just down the street from the U.S. Capitol that was attacked on January 6, 2021, by rioters attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Trump answered charges handed down from a grand jury of U.S. citizens based on a Department of Justice investigation alleging he committed conspiracy to defraud the government, obstructed an official proceeding and conspired to obstruct an official proceeding. Trump said in a news conference later Thursday that he had the constitutional right to free speech to voice concerns about the election.
Donald Trump, Former US President:
This is a persecution of a political opponent. This was never supposed to happen in America.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
But his own vice president – who could be a key witness in the upcoming trial – disagrees.
Mike Pence, Former Vice President:
I want the American people to know that I had no right to overturn the election and that on that day, President Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution. But I chose the Constitution.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
Trump – who is the current front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination – is not under arrest and will undergo a trial in the upcoming months.
Elaine Kamarck, Brookings Institution:
We're in sort of uncharted territory. He can certainly run right now under indictment, because he's not been proven guilty of anything. He's just been charged with crimes. And the way this will play out is we won't have a lot of these decisions till next year, possibly even after the election.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
Trump also faces criminal charges in New York and Florida related to allegations of campaign fraud and mishandling of classified documents.
Cheryl Bader, Fordham University, School of Law:
This in some ways is the most serious because it really goes to the heart of our democracy and how we count people's votes. But on the other hand, Trump is going to argue that he believed this to be true, that he believed that he won the election, and therefore that he was not defrauding the United States.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
Outside the courthouse Thursday, the former president’s supporters said they still strongly support him.
Dan, Trump Supporter:
I really believe that he's defending the people and in return we're showing our support for him and using our freedoms. He's been attacked for years.
But for many Americans - just hundreds of yards from the Capitol that was attacked - the charges are a sign Trump is being held accountable.
Patrick, Trump Protester:
It's very important that this is all being documented officially, in writing, so that nothing happens like this in our country, because this was a breaking point.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
The trial date for the charges in the Washington federal court will be scheduled soon. Trump is set to go to trial in Florida next May.
Donald trump has repeatedly denied all charges against him and says the federal judge assigned to preside over his trial in Washington is biased.
In a rare media appearance, Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith appeared in front of cameras to announce the charges. Here’s what he had to say:
Jack Smith, Justice Department Special Counsel:
Today, an indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The indictment was issued by a grand jury of citizens here in the District of Columbia, and it sets forth the crimes charged in detail. I encourage everyone to read it in full.
The attack on our nation's Capitol on January 6th, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies- lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government, the nation's process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election. The men and women of law enforcement who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6th are heroes. They are patriots and they are the very best of us. They did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it. They put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people.
They defended the very institutions and principles that defined the United States. Since the attack on our Capitol, the Department of Justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day. This case is brought consistent with that commitment, and our investigation of other individuals continues. In this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens. In the meantime, I must emphasize that the indictment is only an allegation and the defendant must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
The day after his arraignment Trump was back on the campaign trail, telling supporters that the charges only help his 2024 presidential campaign.
Donald Trump, Former US President:
The fake charges put forth in their sham indictment or an outrageous criminalization of political speeches on as you make a statement all we have to indict him because he said we were dishonest. Let's indict Him. They tried to make it illegal to question the results of a ban elections a very bad election.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
Last week’s arraignment Marks 33 months since the 2020 presidential election,
a calendar punctuated by events rarely if ever before seen in American history.
Unidentified Narrator:
It began with a record-breaking voter turnout….
More than 155 million voters…
In the months immediately following the election…
Election results were challenged as never before…
Dozens of lawsuits filed in state and federal courts on behalf of President Trump...
Claimed result-altering levels of voter fraud…
All but one failed…
Either ruled against, thrown out, or withdrawn.
January 6 2021 was the most notorious date of all.
Rioters swarmed the Capitol…
Congress reconvened when the rioters left…
Working thru the night, they certified Joe Biden’s win early the next morning.
And on January 20, 2021…
Joseph Robinett Biden is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States.
Breaking a tradition revered for marking the peaceful transfer of power……
For the first time since 1869…
Donald Trump, the outgoing president…
Does not attend the inauguration.
In January 2022…
Former president Trump handed over 15 boxes of documents to the National Archives…
69 marked confidential…
98 marked secret…
And 30 labeled top secret.
In March 2022…
Wesley Reffitt not only became the first accused January 6 rioter…
To go on trial before a full jury…
He also was the first to be convicted....
Of obstructing Congress’s certification of the 2020 presidential election.
In June 2022…
The first hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack…
Was televised in prime time…
Watched by more than 20 million viewers.
In August 2022…
The FBI searched Former President Trumps residence in Mar-a-Lago…
Seizing 102 classified documents…
In November 2022…
Barely 2 years since the election he contested…
And 2 years before the next election…
Donald Trump officially declared that he is running to retake the White House.
In December 2022...
During its final televised hearing…
The House Select Committee on January 6th …
Referred four criminal charges to the United States Department of Justice…
Against former president Donald Trump.
In April 2023…
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr….
Indicted former president Trump…
For falsifying New York business records..
Concealing damaging information and unlawful activity…
From American voters before and after the 2016 election.
In May 2023…
A Manhattan jury found that Donald Trump…
Sexually abused E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room…
In the spring of 1996…
Awarding her $5 million for battery and defamation.
In June of 2023…
Just two months ago…
A grand jury in Miami voted to charge former president Trump…
With 37 felony counts…
Including conspiracy to obstruct justice…
Corruptly concealing a document or record…
And retaining national defense information.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
By any measure Mike Pence served as a loyal vice president throughout the Trump presidency.
That is until a major disagreement put him and former president Trump at odds post the election day that would deny them a second term.
To this day Pence remains at the center of the controversy that ensued.
Last week, while campaigning against his former teammate for the GOP nomination…
the former vice president had this to say:
Mike Pence, former Vice President:
Now, with regard to the substance of the indictment, I've been very clear. I had hoped it wouldn't come to this. I had hoped that this issue and the judgment of the president's actions that day would be left to the American people. But now it's been brought in a criminal indictment.
And I, I can't assess whether or not the government has the evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what they assert in the indictment. And the president is entitled to a presumption of innocence.
But for my part, I want people to know that I had no right to overturn the election and that what the president maintained that day and frankly, has said over and over again over the last two and a half years is completely false. And it's contrary to what our Constitution and the laws of this country provide.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
“Unprecedented”... that word describes many of the legal challenges facing Trump...
Challenges never faced by a former president.
Until now.
To help understand them, I spoke with Caroline Fredrickson, a distinguished visiting professor at Georgetown Law and a Senior Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Caroline Fredrickson:
This is completely unprecedented, this is sort of thing that has never happened, but then again, we haven't faced what we faced on January 6th with an attempted coup with violent rioters invading the capital with the vice president's life being put in danger with members of Congress being in danger with several police officers being killed.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
So we saw former President Trump come to the DC Court House.
Plead not guilty to those charges. Meanwhile, former President Trump remains the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
Legally speaking, he's still allowed to remain free and allowed to to run for president. Is that right?
Caroline Fredrickson:
Certainly even if he were in prison, he could continue to run for president. That is not a bar to seeking the Presidency, or even being a president in the in the United States, under our Constitution.
So he he will proceed as a candidate, I'm sure regardless of what what happens. But it's very unlikely that before there's some kind of a of a conviction that he would be, he would be confined in anyway.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
What is the process that we're going to see unfold over the next few months?
Caroline Fredrickson:
A period of time in which they will be kind of battling it out over the process itself over the how the trial will unfold.
What's the timing for each phase?
There'll be a series of briefs that will be filed.
They're going to be selecting a jury.
And so that will take a many, many months.
And I think they're set to begin, though at the end of at the end of this month to appear before the judge and start to to really hammer that out.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
Trump is arguing that he was merely exercising his First Amendment right to free speech to criticize the results of the election. What do you make of the legal argument for that defense?
Caroline Fredrickson:
That one thing that the prosecutors did not include was this charge of incitement, which a number of people had thought he might include the the idea that that former President Trump tried to encourage people to go to the capital in order to to invade it, to be violent, to participate in an attempted coup.
They did not choose to pursue that particular a charge in some ways, because that is the one that was most closely criticized as possibly interfering with the OR or being based on 1st Amendment rights that President former President Trump could have asserted that he had the right to to address people in a more general way.
And and so I think in in order to have a more effective prosecution and perhaps to avoid the charges of of simply a prosecuting Trump for for his use of his own First Amendment rights, I think they didn't use that.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
Tell our viewers what you'll be specifically watching for as this process unfolds.
Caroline Fredrickson:
Well, I mean, there are so many things to to watch for.
It will be very interesting to see how Donald Trump's lawyers are able to respond to these very, very serious charges.
So far, the only assertion they seem to have made is that even if everybody knew that that President Biden had won the election, the fact that Donald Trump had been told over and over by so many people, including lawyers, that he had in fact lost the election, he could somehow have continued to believe that he won, and therefore his statements were never false.
And if he didn't believe they were false, then that would undercut some of these charges. It suggests that the President is the former president is definitely not completely all there mentally.
And so it suggests a kind of a defense based on, you know, lack of mental capacity.
Umm, a bit of insanity defense of a sort.
And so we'll see where that goes because I I think with all we know about Donald Trump's personality, it seems hard to believe that he would allow that kind of an argument to go on for too long.
It's such a dangerous moment it in American history that we must ensure that there is accountability.
And so you know, that's that's the basis for this prosecution is that President, former President Trump is not above the law.
And we'll of course, we'll see what the jury decides. He is innocent until proven guilty, but he had to have been put on trial in order to resolve the all of the lingering problems with with what happened on January 6th.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
Trump continues to defy expectations, asrging ahead of other contenders for the Republican nomination.
As the presidential election season unfolds...
Trial dates and campaign stops mark the political calendar...
Fueling expectations on all sides of the political spectrum.
VOA’s Anita Powell has more:
ANITA POWELL, VOA White House Correspondent:
Donald Trump.
Love him or hate him — for many Americans, there seems to be no in-between.
The former president has spun his serious federal indictments to his political advantage, claiming the charges are politically motivated.
Donald Trump, Former US President:
These are ridiculous indictments, and all they're doing is hoping for massive election interference. That's all they want to do. They want to damage the leading candidate.
ANITA POWELL:
With every new indictment, he gets a boost in the polls, giving him a double-digit lead in the Republican race for the nomination.
And surprisingly, Trump’s many, many, many presidential challengers, including his closest challenger, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — say they agree with him.
As do some prominent Republicans in Congress:
Kevin McCarthy, House Speaker:
They [DOJ] go after anybody who's running against the president, it seems as though, and if you go up in the polls, you're more likely to get indicted.
ANITA POWELL:
Others direct their ire at special counsel Jack Smith, who led the investigation that produced Tuesday’s indictment over Trump’s attempts to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican:
What Jack Smith is doing, is the weaponized government, and he's weaponizing the Department of Justice against President Trump in a complete lie about President Trump and January 6.
ANITA POWELL:
This support, says University of Texas history professor Jeremi Suri, may be in the candidate’s self-interest. He spoke to VOA from Austin, via Zoom.
Jeremi Suri, University of Texas at Austin:
The support that Trump is receiving from other Republican candidates and from other Republican officeholders comes from the fact that the Republican primary system is a messed-up system.
It's a system that gives a small group of Republicans who turn out in these primaries — sometimes they're in caucuses, sometimes they're in voting primaries — they turn out, and they don't represent the party. But they do provide the key votes in the primaries that determine who will be the nominee of the party.
ANITA POWELL:
The White House has repeatedly said it has no role in Trump’s legal woes.
While this situation may not be Biden’s fault, this is a problem. Suri says the president needs to do three things: One, protect people’s access to the vote. Two, make sure the justice system can do its work. Third, he says,
Jeremi Suri, University of Texas at Austin:
Biden should be educating the public.
ANITA POWELL:
He has just over a year to do that before America votes.
Anita Powell, VOA News, Washington.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
Trump’s legal case will play out in the building behind me. But in the U.S. Capitol just a few blocks away, attention has shifted to President Biden’s son, Hunter.
Republican lawmakers continue to investigate Hunter Biden, trying to draw parallels between his legal issues and those of Trump. Democrats, on the other hand, argue that these are unfounded distractions. VOA's White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has the latest.
PATSY WIDAKUSWARA, VOA White House Bureau Chief:
House Republicans have launched an inquiry into the Justice Department's plea deal with Hunter Biden, which fell apart in court. The deal called for the president’s son to plead guilty to failing to pay his taxes. In exchange prosecutors would drop a separate charge for illegally owning a gun, as long as Biden did not violate his two-year probation on the tax charge.
Kevin McCarthy, House Speaker:
We have to find at the end if the justice system is fair to all Americans and not one system for the Biden family and another for America.
PATSY WIDAKUSWARA:
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy sought to equate Hunter Biden’s legal woes with those of former President Donald Trump, who is being arraigned Thursday for allegedly conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss.
In a social media post, McCarthy said Trump’s indictment is meant to distract from Hunter Biden’s case and attack the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
Jessica Tillipman, George Washington University Law School:
By conflating the Hunter Biden charges, which are fairly low level, with a charge we don't see ((have not seen)) in the United States about an attempt to overthrow the election, it really isn't a comparison. But again, if you're viewing it through a political lens, you’re going see it quite differently than how the law does.
PATSY WIDAKUSWARA:
Republican lawmakers have threatened an impeachment inquiry over unproven allegations that the president was involved in his son’s foreign business dealings.
Biden joked about it recently as he touted lower inflation.
President Joe Biden:
Maybe they'll decide to impeach me because it's coming down. I don't know, I love that one.
PATSY WIDAKUSWARA:
Hunter Biden’s former business partner told Congress that Hunter tried to sell the illusion of access by having his father speak to his foreign business partners on several occasions over a decade but said that Biden was never party to any of his son’s business deals.
Patsy Widakuswara, VOA News, Washington.
KATHERINE GYPSON:
Thank you for being with us.
Stay up to date with all the news at VOANews.com.
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Follow me on Twitter at KGYP
Catch up on past episodes at our free streaming service, VOA Plus.
For all of those behind the scenes who brought you today’s show, I’m Katherine Gypson.
We’ll see you next week for The Inside Story.
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