Watch Alex Wagner Tonight Highlights: Aug. 11

today the justice department opened a special counsel investigation into President Biden's son Hunter now the Delaware U.S attorney who has been investigating Hunter Biden since 2018. he had been ready as of last month to offer Hunter Biden a plea deal that would let him avoid jail time for tax and Firearm charges but that plea deal fell apart at the last minute and today attorney general Merrick Garland announced that that sane U.S attorney has now asked to be appointed as a special counsel so as to continue investigating this case we do not know what that investigation will yield and so far there is no evidence that the president himself was involved in any of the his son's allegedly Shady deals but if there is one thing we do know it is that scandals involving the family members of sitting presidents is not a new phenomenon remember Donald Nixon the brother of President Nixon who is known for trying to make money off his brother's presidency as Politico magazine pointed out in 2015 Richard Nixon was so worried about his younger brother Donald's willingness to trade the family name for business favors that early in his presidency he had the Secret Service put a tail on him and tap his phone which is an amazingly nixonian way to deal with your shady brother there was Billy Carter the colorful Beer swilling Brother of Jimmy Carter who created an enormous headache for his brother's Administration when he got taking money from the government of Libya the shadow of Billy Carter's dealings with the government of Libya fell across his brother's White House again today in a news conference in New York this morning the president's brother made it plain he was not happy about the statement made by the President yesterday I don't agree Billy Carter said that it was inappropriate for me to act on behalf of a foreign government he was my brother wouldn't be going through this morning as I've said earlier you can chew friends but you damn sure can't choose your kinfos a senate committee investigated and found no evidence that Billy Carter had influenced American policy then there was Neil Bush the son of George H.W bush and brother to George and Jeb during his father's Administration Neil Bush wound up getting sued by federal Regulators for his alleged role in a banking scandal the president's son Neil must explain that a public hearing why he approved 45 million dollars in loans for a business partner got nothing to hide I've cooperated fully will continue to do so and my view is the sooner the better Neil Bush eventually settled that case out of court and then there were the Clinton siblings Bill's brother Roger Clinton and Hillary's brother Hugh Rodham both of whom got caught and alleged pay-to-play scandals during the Clinton Administration Roger Clinton was investigated by Congress but he was never charged more accusations this morning against the former president's brother Roger Clinton in a scandal surrounding his last-minute pardons the New York Times reports Roger Clinton and his business partners are accused of promising a Texas businessman diplomatic passports in exchange for thirty thousand dollars Only Yesterday Hillary Clinton tried to distance herself from the Scandal swirling around her husband and her brother Hugh who received four hundred thousand dollars to get clemency for two wealthy felons ronum has returned the money and says he did nothing wrong today NBC's Kerry Sanders caught up with him in a Florida bar no please there's a lot of people here about that I made my statement that's all I'm saying and then there is the family of the 45th president Donald Trump whose daughter Ivanka had 18 trademarks granted to her by the government of China while she was working as an advisor to her father and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner who got a staggering two billion dollar investment from the government of Saudi Arabia after his father-in-law made him a key negotiator in that region where the hunter Biden Saga will fit into the history of presidential dramas very much remains to be seen but so far Hunter Biden is the only member of a president's extended family to get his own special counsel investigation joining me now to discuss all this is David Aaron former prosecutor in the doj's National Security Division and a former Manhattan assistant district attorney and Ryan Reilly NBC News justice reporter who was inside the courtroom for today's hearing thank you both Ryan let me start with you on paper it feels like judge chutkin is sort of a a wet not a wet blanket but a cold dose of reality perhaps to some of the fantasies the defense team has been having about the case they could make to her on a number of fronts what what can you tell us about her General posture towards the defense today there's definitely a lot of side eyes I think from some of the lines that we saw coming from Donald Trump's defense but really the word of the day to me I think that she used six different times was yield and that means that the defendant's other rights his first amendment rights must yield to the process of this court must yield to the administration of justice and that basically saying listen all these concerns you have playing second fiddle here they are not the pro that my main concern my main concern is making sure this case goes forward making sure that this case is handled fairly and making sure that we can get it to jury trial and like you said it was that carrot and the stick sort of situation where you know there is theoretically in any other case you would have that idea of potential contempt uh of Court coming down and that is something here but of course you know it's hard to imagine us getting to a scenario where we're going the uh where the judge is actually going to lock up Donald Trump pre-trial uh but that is potentially something that would go down the line but I do think that that could be a better way of sort of enforcing this judge check and saying listen the more that you violate these rules the quicker we're going to have to go here and there's a very logical reason for that because future comments could spoil the jury pool and make it more difficult to get a fair trial going in here of course Donald Trump doesn't want this case uh to go to trial um in DC but the rules in DC are hey we're going to try to see the jury and that hasn't worked in any of the January six cases that I've covered uh thus far where that's just really been shot down and that the vordir process can actually work if you have jurors wear an oath and protect and promise that they will obey that oath they can handle these cases fairly yeah I I feel like she really went for the defense's Achilles heel by suggesting not talking about fine stop talking about jail time but talking about the thing that they do not want to do which is have a speedy trial Dave what is involved in I mean I guess for those of us who don't understand the the sort of length of time that is minimally required to have a federal trial I mean how how reasonable is it to say I'm going to move this date up the more you infringe on sort of the protective order like what what what what practically can that mean I I think there are limits to what it practically can mean I mean it's not as though every time there's a violation the trial date gets ratcheted two weeks earlier you know that that would just not be workable I I think it's it's more of a thematic or general point the judge is making that you know there are inevitably moments uh leading up to a trial when schedules have to get altered one way or another and one thing that the judge is going to be thinking a lot about is the costs of delay and here the judge talked very explicitly about a very very significant cost of delay that could be fundamental to the fairness and efficiency of the trial um Ryan I was struck by the fact that she sort of dismissively suggested that the president's candidacy sorry the former presidents uh bid to be president again was a day job I mean up until this point I think that there has been a sort of deference at least um in terms of uh narrative to Donald the idea of Donald Trump's campaign in 2024 but judge chutkin seemed completely uninterested in that and I wonder how that squares with her posture generally towards other January 6 defendants yeah that was very interesting I think she was sort of searching for a term or a word at the moment and that's what she sort of stumbled on it you know it was probably an accurate description and that's probably how she thinks of it in terms of uh other cases that are handled right like this isn't something that he needs to do this is something that he wants to do right the priority she kept uh saying was the courtroom proceedings the priority isn't litigating this case in public that's not what this trial is ultimately about and that's what she really wants them to get their focus on and certainly they have uh the First Amendment right to talk about uh the charges in general but she really wanted to make it clear that you cannot violate those uh those rules and you know intimidate uh intimidate yours as we've seen Donald Trump do in the past and it's interesting because I do think that the judges in a in quite a spot here in terms of some of these threats are certainly going to be directed at her Donald Trump has already made clear that he wants a different judge and that she shouldn't have been assigned to this that's not some something that you hear his lawyers arguing in court and that's something that the special counsel's office pointed out that there's already this divide between what Donald Trump is saying on Truth social and what his lawyers are actually doing in court and that's going to probably be a split that she would probably like to bring in a little bit right and bring them back on the same page but really ultimately I think that there is this huge combination happening right now between the legal and the political where it really is the whole ball game I think when this trial ultimately gets set for because they're sort of wanting to make the election stand in for a jury trial here yeah clearly for many reasons right uh you know Dave I'm struck by Ryan's um you know when we talk about the the various judges postures to towards Donald Trump and how Trump would like a different judge on this presumably he some like someone more like Eileen Cannon and I think what we have with the American public has right now is a study in terms of two federal judges right one Eileen Cannon thus far in all her rulings has seemed deeply deferential to the fact that Donald Trump is running for president and here we have Tanya chudkin in Washington DC who's taken almost the opposite attack as Ryan explained just kind of a so what if you're running for president it'll I mean I I guess my question is which is which do you think is more unusual in terms of staking out of position towards this 2024 presidential bid en it's unusual for a judge to have to take a position on the uh on the defendant running for president of course um I I think what we're seeing in DC is is a reflection of the truth in every criminal case where the defendant has plenty of other things to do and plenty of other things going on in their life rather than show up in court abide by uh court rulings um you know obey the judge's orders um but the judge is really having none of that in DC um and you know that that's that's again that's that's playing it down the middle um there has been I think a little bit of flexibility um given the the realities of the position that the former president is in and some of his needs to be able to speak but when it comes to anything that would affect the the fairness the uh efficiency witness safety witness security Integrity of evidence uh this judge is going to be applying the exact same rules that she would be applying in any other case and I think as an experienced former public defender uh this judge has seen quite a lot she's seen a lot of defendants she knows a lot of how you know different defendants behave some of their tricks some of the pitfalls of how defendants might behave and she knows what control has to be exercised over a defendant consistent with that defendant's first amendment and due process rights can I just follow up on that Dave in terms of the protocols that she's established here the notion that Trump has to have his defense counsel babysit him effectively when he's looking at sensitive material that they have to check his notes if he takes any when he's looking at the materials how unusual is that you know it was it was in the prosecutor's proposed order um and you know on with my former career uh you know in the context of classified information that was definitely the kind of thing that that you'd see in there what really struck me here was the red line version that the defense proposed to the judge where they sought to strike out explicitly that that chaperone or or babysitting or or Hall Monitor uh provision and the judge you know this isn't just the judge accepting a document that was presented to her and signing it this was this exact Clause was litigated this was redlined and the red line was rejected so this judge you know regardless of how how it might go in any other case this judge was squarely presented with the question of does she have confidence enough to allow the former president of the United States to take notes that are appropriate and this judge decided no that the the judge only has confidence that the or would only have that confidence if if the defendants if the former president's attorneys scrubbed his notes and made sure that he hadn't written down anything he wasn't allowed to former president Donald Trump or president Donald Trump got some marching orders today the judge overseeing special counsel Jack Smith's case into Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election judge Tanya chutkin today she leads lead new rules for the former president as far as the next phase of his criminal indictment when Mr Trump wants to go over sensitive evidence like witness emails or audio recordings of witness testimony he is not allowed to bring anything into the room with him that could be used to copy that sensitive material like a smartphone if Trump is reviewing this material on his own or alternatively Trump can take his phone with him but his defense counsel has to babysit him to make sure he does not copy anything onto his phone and if the defendant takes notes regarding sensitive materials the defense counsel must inspect those notes so it's sort of like the SATs only it's all part of a Federal Criminal indictment as the prosecution argued for that provision they noted dryly and pointedly Trump has shown a tendency to a desire to hold on to material which he should not have yes that is correct Trump was caught having taken more than 300 classified documents with him to his Florida beach house when he left the White House now the reason this all had to be ironed out today is because special counsel Smith's team is going to start handing Trump's team evidence to review before they all go to trial and those rules are part of a much larger protective order that judge chutkin issue today outlining what evidence Trump cannot share from this case outside of court and we learned as part of all of this that there is a lot of evidence to be handed over the government is ready to hand over 11.6 million pages of documents all pre-loaded onto a discovery software for attorneys to review and a hard drive that has evidence like data obtained through the stored Communications act that means data that was collected by third-party companies like Twitter or say Verizon but maybe most intriguingly on that hard drive are hundreds of audio recordings of witness interviews that the government is ready to hand over and you could imagine how threatening or intimidating it would be if Trump did something like post Snippets from those recordings onto say truth social so the point of today's hearing was to iron out all of the rules around that stuff before Trump could get his hands on any of it and what was revealed in the course of all of this is that judge chutkin very much has Donald Trump's number she knows who she is dealing with here when the judge was well while she was clear about defending Trump's actual First Amendment rights she was also appropriately skeptical about Trump's Arguments for special treatment he is a criminal defendant judge chutkin said he is going to have restrictions like every single other defendant the fact that the defendant is engaged in a political campaign is not going to allow him any greater or lesser latitude than any defendant in a criminal case to drive this home judge chutkin referred to Trump's presidential campaign as his quote day job his day job okay so in addition to showing that Donald Trump was not going to get any white glove treatment here in this courtroom judge judkin also made clear that Trump's rights were not the only rights that she is concerned with she is focused on the rights and the safety of the witnesses and the jurors in this case you may remember that part of the reason for today's Hearing in the first place was to discuss this this truth social post that Trump made saying if you go after me I'm going after you special counsel Jack Smith's team argued that statements like these could threaten or intimidate Witnesses and that Trump should be barred for making them earlier this week Trump let everyone know what he would do in response to a restriction like that crooked Joe now wants the thug prosecutor this deranged guy to file a court order taking away My First Amendment right so that I can't speak so listen to this we don't want speak about the case the case I will talk about it I will they're not taking away my first amendment I will talk about it I will I will points for honesty I guess today judge judkin indicated that she was not down for that she pointed out that the potential Witnesses here may not have had the kinds of protections that he has as a former president and that she quote could see the possibility for a lot of problems here I can see the possibility for a lot of problems here don't we all judge chutkin remember when former U.S ambassador to Ukraine Marie Ivanovich testified against Trump in his first impeachment in 2019. while she was testifying Donald Trump was live tweeting about her or do you remember when he harassed an intimidated Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss women who do not have Secret Service protection and could very well be Witnesses in this very case they remember that and so apparently does Judge chutkin who was clear today that she would not stand for that kind of behavior or any kind of behavior that even suggested witness intimidation quote even arguably ambiguous statements from parties or their counsel if they could be reasonably interpreted interpreted to intimidate Witnesses or to Prejudice potential jurors can threaten the process now given how frequently Trump threatens people publicly and the judge's wording about even arguably ambiguous statements that feels like a line that Trump could cross any second and as of today we finally have an answer as to how judge chutkin will reprimand Mr Trump if he does cross this line quote the more a party makes inflammatory statements about this case which could take the jury pool or intimidate potential Witnesses the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly one of the main objectives of trump and his legal team so far has been to slow this trial down today the judge used that desire as both a carrot and a stick the more Trump breaks judge chutkin's rules and talks about the case outside of Court the faster this thing will go to trial so now that those ground rules have been put in place the new and very urgent question is how long until Trump breaks them thank you [Music]

Channel: MSNBC

Views: 81,057

Keywords: msnbc, MSNBC, Specials

Id: OnP0VGXezh8

Length: 20min 18sec (1218 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023