MUST-SEE: Jamie Raskin debunks Trump's ENTIRE trial defense

now I've got Congressman Jamie Raskin thanks so much for coming back on hey it's my pleasure to be with you Brian you were the lead impeachment manager in Trump's impeachment for inciting his supporters to wage an Insurrection on the capitol on January 6th with this week's indictment and arrest for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election does this feel like it's come full circle for you like what's your general response to the latest news it feels like a great Vindication of the rule of law in American democracy to me um it was great to see it spelled out in black and white in print in the indictment that um you know all of the factual allegations supporting the idea that Trump uh conspired to interfere with Federal proceeding specifically the um accounting of Electoral College votes and Joint session on January 6th that he um that he conspired also to um essentially counterfeit the electoral process and um uh that he conspired to violate the civil rights of the people specifically the Voting Rights and you know it was Abraham Lincoln who said that Insurrection is an assault on the leaders in democracy now you also sat on the January 6 committee can you discuss the extent to which your work on that committee kind of informed the indictment that we saw well I I'm starting to think of it this way that uh the January 6th select committee gave America the facts and uh special counsel Jack Smith has has delivered the law with respect to crimes that were committed we did make a referral in fact I shared that subcommittee we had to prepare to make a referral criminal charges um I think three of the four charges that we recommended were embodied in the indictment one was not which was uh aiding and abetting and giving Aid and comfort to Insurrection uh we think there was overwhelming evidence for that when uh Trump continued to tweet out his support when he tweeted in the middle of the riot that Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what needed to be done when he praised everybody at the end saying they were American Patriots great Patriots and heroes and so on and said never forget this day so we think that there was lots of evidence for that we understand there um the statue um given the fact that Donald Trump is in a Class by Himself had never really been used in this way before um and I think they were nervous about that and I think they were also um thinking properly that that would open the door for Trump to claim that somehow his Free Speech was being violated which is ridiculous they're trying that anyway but um that's silly everybody understands he's being charged for his criminal offenses conspiring to obstruct um a federal proceeding um conspiring uh to defraud the American people of a real election conspiring to violate everybody's voting rights um and obviously you know that kind of criminal conduct conspiracy is brigaded with speech the court has always recognized that I mean when you conspire to rob the bank you talk about robbing the bank but that doesn't make an act of free speech right um right and it's the same thing about storming the capital or substituting the real electoral process with the counterfeit one why do you think that they're relying on this you know tenuous defense that this is all an attack on on Trump's Free Speech rights given how easily debunkable they are in in the public sphere I mean Jack Smith included on page two of a 45-page indictment that Trump had every right not only not only to say whatever he wanted but even to lie about the election well obviously Smith predicted that that would be his Trump's maneuver I mean he's got one move and so of course he's going to be dancing it you know but it's not very compelling um you know the the the criminal law distinguishes between speech and conduct and um he's not being prosecuted for any of his speech he's being prosecuted for the criminal conduct he engaged in and there might may have been speech that enabled it at certain points but again you know there's a lot of crimes necessarily involve speech like insider trading uh almost always involves uh Speech like Anti-Trust violations when companies get together to fix prices that's all based on speech but it's the conduct that's being punished so you know they might try and confuse people about that but they're not going to confuse uh any judge or any Court about that I mean we've been around the track in proving that point and that they're basically saying there's a First Amendment defense to conspiracy which is absurd on the topic of conspiracy six unnamed co-conspirators were included in the indictment we already know who most of them are and why they're listed in that indictment you know for Trump to be involved in a conspiracy you have to list those who he conspired with but they've not been indicted thus far so do you imagine that we'll see an indictment against them um in this case or in a separate case or at all well I mean I have no special Insider knowledge about you know any plans that may exist or don't or that don't exist with respect to the Future prosecutions um you know it occurred to me reading it that um you know it at least becomes um you know a mitigating Factor at someone's sentencing if they voluntarily cooperate in other prosecutions and so um Donald Trump was obviously the ringleader in the central actor here I mean the various right-wing groups had obtained permits to protest on January the 20th they were planning to assemble against Joe Biden's inauguration and Trump convinced them to move their protests from the 20th of January to the 6th of January and he was the one who tried to convince everybody this wasn't over that you know things could still be moved if Mike Pence just had the courage to do what needed to be done and so he was the one who turned the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history including the Civil War into a moment of cataclysmic violent conflict that was all he's doing so um you know I think it would make sense to say that uh you know he went out and found this clown show of uh lawyers to tell him what he wanted to hear and if one or two of them wanted to tell the truth uh that would make sense and that's something that should be considered um you know when they face uh their own prosecution yeah so you know this this case really was built for Speed in the sense that Donald Trump is the only uh you know named indicted person in this uh in this indictment with that said do you agree with Jack Smith's decision to basically not indict these other co-conspirators in service of a a faster prosecution for Donald Trump I mean if they included six other people in this prosecution God knows that this thing would have languished for a lot longer than it's probably going to take now just focusing narrowly on one defendant yeah I mean delay and postpone is the name of the game for Donald Trump and uh so I would not second guess in any way the prosecutorial decision to set it up as they have and to move as quickly as they can there's clearly enough time to prosecute a single individual for these offenses um over the next year we've got the Mike Pence's out there who are able to acknowledge what Trump did and and how it was wrong and how it was illegal and unconstitutional and yet still managed to defend him or cast the doj's case against him as being unfair what does that say to you about the state of the Republican field well I mean it's an incoherent posture that Mike Pence has put himself into and in embarrassing and humiliating one um you know I mean he acts as if I mean he he obviously made the right decision on January 6th but he acts as if this is some kind of uh superficial intellectual disagreement between him and Donald Trump because he doesn't want to offend Trump's supporters anymore these are the people who are yelling hang Mike Pence and bring him out um so um you know I I but I don't know what to say um you know I think he'd be in a much stronger position um if he said there's some things that we did that I'm proud of but uh Donald Trump um you you know blew the the doors off the hinges on January 6 and has clearly proven himself not fit for public office or public service and I'm gonna go against it but instead it's just this constant mealy-mouthed uh effort to have it both ways and to attack the Department of Justice for doing their job would he really not want Donald Trump to be prosecuted for these crimes against America I mean there were Republicans who were describing what happened on January 6 as terrorism and Mitch McConnell even after he voted to acquit on the totally fraudulent grounds that the Senate lacked jurisdiction to conduct a trial over a former president uh which was a matter we disposed of on the first day when we went over to the Senate um even even McConnell um took great pains to point out that Donald Trump still could be prosecuted indicating he should be prosecuted in a court of law and in fact that was the line of Trump's most uh die art supporters during the impeachment trial saying look if he committed crimes then that's something that he should be prosecuted for but you know it shouldn't be done this way uh the Senate doesn't actually have jurisdiction that that argument by the way cut against more than two centuries of precedent and also in the law of the case was something we had already settled in emotion on the very first day we were over there and yet they kept going back to it which I think makes uh Trump's 57 to 43 uh acquittal even though a majority of the Senators thought he was guilty we didn't get to 67. um that makes his acquittal I think the greatest case of jury nullification in American history because the people voting for acquittal like McConnell were getting up and saying he was essentially guilty afterwards to wrap up the Trump stuff can you speak to the prospect that we could see Trump get convicted and even sentenced to prison and still be the leading Contender for the Republican nomination for president well um you know what are the Constitutional requirements for running for president you got to be 35 you've got to be a born U.S citizen uh you also cannot have committed Insurrection or Rebellion um against the government under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment which disqualifies you from ever serving again um so uh I mean it's a very Rocky winding twisting path to get to him uh running for president again but uh he you know clearly exercises a Stranglehold spell over the Republican party which is operating a lot more like an authoritarian Cult of Personality than it is Abraham Lincoln's political party which was an anti-slavery pro-freedom anti-know-nothing pro-immigration party um so um you know but but here's where we are um I I do believe that um the vast majority of the people reject this kind of authoritarianism and know nothing ISM um and you know Biden beat Trump by seven million votes in 2020 and what's the difference between 20 and 24 what we've just added 20 or 25 million new voters who are young people who are not interested in the party of climate denialism um you know uh marijuana uh criminal drug enforcement authoritarianism um anti-choice uh reproductive tyranny uh I mean the GOP has nothing for the young people of America who are interested in Freedom in democracy so I just think that Joe Biden's margins are increasing dramatically with the demographic um addition of millions of young people voting it probably doesn't help him that he's got uh God knows how many charges uh hanging around his neck by the time the election actually does roll around by the time people start voting he'll have likely four indictments and maybe around 100 charges that he's contending with so that probably uh isn't going to re down to his electoral benefit either um you know last month you decided not to run for the U.S Senate can you speak a little on what helped you reach that decision um but I do think we're in the fight of our lives uh to defend Democratic institutions in our freedom against um authoritarianism in America and all over the world um you know the the heart of the struggle right now of course is in the brutal imperialist Russian invasion of Ukraine an attack against the Ukrainian people but um Donald Trump who is uh Vladimir Putin's fellow traveler and a fellow champion of illiberal democracy like we're banned in Hungary um uh they have set themselves at war against Democratic institutions and so for me the only question was am I better being in a situation where I'm the lead Democrat on the oversight committee um and if we win the house back chair of the oversight committee and fighting to win the house back and helping Democrats all over the country I'm on my way to Minnesota and then Colorado and then Michigan and I'm out there working to build big robust Democratic majorities or my better off campaigning in Maryland to go to the Senate where you know I don't even know if I'd be able to get on the Judiciary Committee they don't have an oversight committee like that and so it was a tough call because I love my state very much and I love the idea of being able to go you know Statewide and campaign there's still people bugging me about it every day so uh maybe it's not completely over but at this point I feel like I'm in the right place to be uh fighting this crucial battle for American democracy and finally let's end with this you've announced that your cancer is in remission thank god um how you doing how do you feel is your life back to normal well thank you for asking I you know um I've completed three months of recovery since um I finished my chemotherapy um the great news is I did a pet scan and there's still no sign of any cancer cells which is awesome um I don't have nausea and I don't have neuropathy and every day I'm regaining my physical strength um and you know if I thought maybe I could be doing all the oversight stuff and fighting Trump and running for Senate and making my recovery then maybe I would have just tried to do it all but at least when I made the decision a couple months ago I thought that that was too much you know yeah well uh Congressman obviously your position as an impeachment manager and as a member of the January 6 committee has played a Monumental role in the indictment that we're seeing now and then finally witnessing the first steps of accountability against Donald Trump so as always thank you for the work that you've been doing if there is one person who exemplifies Integrity it's you so with that said Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today thank you for your kind words Brian uh hang tough and keep up the great work man [Music]

Channel: Brian Tyler Cohen

Views: 502,119

Keywords: Brian Tyler Cohen, Trump, Republicans, Democrats, brian cohen, politics, news, trump indictment, jamie raskin

Id: MryG2ZKscXA

Length: 16min 57sec (1017 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 08 2023