Prosecutor WARNS Trump about "pre-trial jail cell"

you're watching the legal breakdown so Glenn judge chutkin told Trump that any inflammatory remarks would lead to a faster trial for him now Trump has done exactly that with an early Monday morning tirade attacking her and Jack Smith what do you expect should happen now you know it feels like Donald Trump is walking one step closer to a jail cell every day and when I say a jail cell I don't mean because he's going to be convicted of a crime anytime soon that is still sort of well off in the future but he's going to end up he's going to end up in pre-trial detention sitting in a jail cell because of all of the inflammatory threatening intimidating and harassing things that he's been saying and he's been posting much of it seems to be in violation of the pre-trial release order set by judge chutkin well now is there a world in which Trump's refusal to comply with these orders aside from a sooner trial date which seems to be almost assured at this point it was the government who asked for a January 2nd 2024 trial date uh given Trump's inability to control himself it seems like that's more and more likely but uh could this result in him being actually remanded to custody like could he end up in jail pending trial and what would he need to do for that to actually become a reality it could land him in a pre-trial jail cell and it should land him in a pre-trial jail cell the problem is there really is no Playbook to follow because you know based on my 30 years as a prosecutor Brian when I saw a defendant engage in this kind of conduct this kind of speech threatening and harassing Witnesses you know lashing out at the judge trying to undermine the Public's confidence in the fairness of the proceedings trying to poison the jury pool any other pre-trial defendant would have been ordered into detention in into a jail cell long ago and that is where he would sit pending trial um but with Donald Trump it doesn't seem like the rules of convention apply so what would he need to say what would he need to do what would he need to post in order to actually land himself in jail you know it seems to be an open question hopefully we will know soon enough when he ends up back in court uh before judge chutkin well to that exact point he's supposed to end up back in court on August 28th do you think the judge shotkin will order the parties to come into court sooner given Trump's unhinged outbursts and also the need to protect the jury pool I think she should I don't think you want to wait until August 28th to see how many more witnesses he might try to intimidate or how else he might try to sort of impugn Judge chutkins Independence or impartiality her Fitness to sit he's using words about her in his posts and in his speech like biased unfair partisan and he actually reposted that said something about she's she's admitted to trying to interfere in the election in his campaign in his ability to you know be elected again in the future all of that is flat out false it tends to undermine the Public's confidence in judge chuckin and in the the reliability of of the Court proceedings so I hope she doesn't wait until the 28th of August which is the next scheduled status hearing I hope she hauls him in sooner for what's called a show cause hearing that's when a judge believes a pre-trial defendant may have violated a condition of release and the judge will order the defendant together with his defense attorneys to appear and show cause as to why his conditions of release shouldn't be revoked you know Trump expressly attacked Jeff Duncan the lieutenant governor of Georgia saying that he shouldn't testify what impact will that move specifically have on him and his case yeah this actually matters and what we're going to have to do for a minute is mix criminal apples and oranges because we're going to have to talk about multiple Donald Trump criminal prosecutions there are so many in the mix right now but if we first look at what the judge told Donald Trump at his arraignment date here is what she told him she said your most important condition of release sir is that you not commit a state federal or local crime while on release if you were to do so a warrant may be issued for your arrest your conditions of release may be revoked and you may be held pending trial in this case so it's really important to know that even though it's a federal prosecution in Washington D.C he was given the expressed condition of you know not vile violating any federal law any state law or any local law and you just hit the nail right on the head because what Donald Trump posted which is really breathtaking in its obvious criminality he posted that he knew that the former lieutenant governor of Georgia Jeff Duncan was going to appear before the grand jury that's important why because prosecutors can prove he knew Duncan was going to be a witness against him and then he said and I quote he shouldn't testify if that's not witness tampering more specifically under Georgia state law it's called influencing a witness and it's a two to ten year felony and what I just described that post about somebody he knew was about to testify before the grand jury is absolutely witness intimidation witness tampering influencing a witness and if that represents a violation of Georgia state law and I absolutely believe it does on the facts on the evidence that can serve as a basis to revoke him in his federal case because as we just discussed the judge said while you're on release in this federal case your most important condition is that you not violate any federal law any state law or any local law so I think Donald Trump has a world of hurt about to come crashing down on him do you think there's any risk of him not being punished for what he did and then basically realizing that he does have carte blanche to do whatever he wants like is the onus now on the judge to enforce basically the conditions that that judge herself set out yeah you know it's like if you uh threaten punishment for your child when your child does wrong and you don't follow through on the punishment the lesson you're teaching your child is you can go ahead and keep doing wrong with impunity because right threats are Hollow I think at this point the system has to step up has to assert the rule of law if Donald Trump you know is to be deterred at all and not only Donald Trump but if other defendants who are on pre-trial release are to be deterred or to feel like you know what it's really important to abide by the conditions of release set by the judge when I'm in this pre-trial release status I mean Donald Trump is really testing the bounds of of the rule of law in America both federal and state and let's hope that the judges begin to make good on their promises that if you violate the conditions I have set for you there will be held pay Glenn I have a general question notwithstanding what Trump did with Jeff Duncan because I recognize that that is kind of in a league of its own and that's a blatant violation of the law by virtue of intimidating witness but just more broadly can you explain why what Trump is saying by virtue of levying these attacks in the public um are grounds to punish him like why aren't they simply Free Speech why doesn't he have the right to attack someone uh if he wants to why is this not free speech yeah first of all let me let me um take on the word punishment nothing we do to a defendant nothing a judge or a court does to a defendant in pre-trial status is considered punishment punishment only comes into play after you've been convicted of a crime however the court has the Keen interest in the orderly administration of justice what does that mean that means a judge can put certain restrictions on a defendant when the judge puts that defendant on pre-trial release rather than puts that defendant an in-detension pending trial but once they're on pre-trial release their first amendment Free Speech rights are cut back they can be curtailed because if you're not a defendant in the case you can talk all day long about Witnesses you can talk about how you know the Witnesses are a bunch of liars you can talk about that judge is a lousy judge she can't be trusted you can talk about how the criminal justice system isn't worth a damn but when you're a pre-trial defendant on release those those kind of statements can impact the the people's ability the prosecutor's ability to get a fair trial to get an untainted jury pool so your free speech rights are certainly curtailed they can be limited because now the court has a legitimate need to preserve the Integrity of not only future jury pools but the entire trial process so that the people can have reliability in the outcome the result the verdict at the end of the day can you talk for a moment about the jury pool about Trump his his intention here to to Tainted how much of the jury he would actually need to taint to protect himself in this trial so it only takes one to hang a jury and I tried a number of cases to an 11 to 1 hung jury where 11 jurors voted guilty one hold out juror voted not guilty sometimes based on the evidence but often we would find after the fact when we talked to the jurors which some jurisdictions permit and others prohibit but with leave of the judge with permission of the judge you can always talk to the jurors after a hung a hung jury after a mistrial is declared because they couldn't unanimously agree and that is often really helpful for prosecutors and defense attorneys because I have to decide if one of my juries hangs they couldn't reach a unanimous verdict I had to decide whether to retry the case and the observations and the insights of the jurors who sat through the first trial could be really helpful in you know helping helping guide me on the retrial question but Donald Trump only needs to get one in order to hang a jury and he has been trying mightily he has been saying all kinds of nasty horrible things about the District of Columbia and the people who live there and the courts and the government he actually threatened the federal takeover of Washington D.C what he I think mistakenly believes he can do Brian is he can insult his way into a change of venue maybe he thinks you know what if I call the people of the District of Columbia enough nasty names well then maybe I can claim I can't get a fair trial in D.C and we need to head out to West Virginia which is one of the things his lawyers have been saying so you know the bottom line is I have confidence not only in the jury system but in the jury selection process the parties the prosecutor the defense attorney and the judge are going to intensely question each and every potential juror to try to find any bias or any Prejudice or any ideological beliefs or political affiliation that would make it impossible for the juror to sit fairly and impartially and decide the case based only on the evidence they see in the courtroom in the trial and ordinarily I think we're pretty good at weeding out jurors who do have some bias some Prejudice some predisposition that make them sort of ill-suited to sit as fair and impartial jurors well that was my exact question is like for those of us watching if you're watching this kind of content you obviously are very um you're in the know when it comes to all of this stuff and so I think it it feels more difficult for those of us who do pay attention to politics to to imagine a world in which like somebody could come into into this jury room and not have an opinion on Donald Trump or not have an allegiance to one side or the other and so so are there precautions like taken so that for someone as well known as Donald Trump and something is well known as you know his efforts to steal the 2020 election and all the events leading up to an Insurrection against the U.S Capitol are there actually you know I guess can can we actually be confident that the prosecutors will be able to choose a jury that isn't tainted by this stuff or doesn't have an allegiance one way or the other yeah I'm not going to say it's easy but it can be done and I believe it will be done but look jury selection is a human endeavor so if you have somebody who is really determined to try to to hide their bias their Prejudice their extreme political ideology that might make them want to vote one way or another either to convict Donald Trump or acquit Donald Trump and we need to make sure both of those extremes you know don't come anywhere near a jury box because both parties both the defendant and the people through the prosecutor are entitled to a fair trial um but you know the the process itself involves placing those jurors those prospective jurors under oath and they are answering our questions when I say our the prosecutor the defense attorney and the judge's questions under the penalties of perjury and contempt in my experience people um generally take that oath very seriously I've had so many jurors Brian come in and say listen I can't be fair in this case and here's why and we thank them for being honest for being candid from sharing their biases their prejudices that you know make them you know not suitable to serve on a particular jury um but even the people who are trying to hide it you know it's not easy to hide it under kind of the white hot questioning of multiple people when you're under oath and when you probably have a social media presence because I can promise you what the parties will be doing is they'll have people looking at the social media history of some of these jurors particularly if they suspect that maybe the jurors aren't being straight up with the judge and with the parties during jury selection um so you know it is not a perfect system there's no there's no sort of Fail-Safe but it is a pretty good rigorous system and it has stood the test of time okay and let's finish off with this is there a world in which Trump's attacks and threats and retaliatory efforts against these Witnesses um and his efforts to obstruct can actually be grounds for new charges when we actually uh do get going in this trial great question the minute I saw him post about that grand jury witness Jeff Duncan he shouldn't testify I think one of my first posts was I expect to see witness tampering charges in the Georgia indictment based on what is obviously witness tampering by Donald Trump so everything he says and does and posts if it constitutes a crime it can absolutely be added to the mix whether the case has already been indicted like both of the federal cases at this moment or whether it's pending indictment you know these these new crimes can and I suspect will be added into the mix yeah just proving once again that being Donald Trump's attorney is uh probably probably probably uh the most anxiety-inducing job in the world but you know nobody forced them to sign up for it with that said uh we'll obviously stay on top of this and we can expect a lot of movement very quickly now so for anybody watching if you want to stay on top of legal news make sure to subscribe the links are right here on this screen I'm Brian Taylor Cohen and I'm Glenn kirschner you're watching the legal breakdown foreign [Music]

Channel: Brian Tyler Cohen

Views: 1,390,956

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

Id: xs5rJtX-P0I

Length: 16min 43sec (1003 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 15 2023