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with all of this election overthrow energy coursing through the republican party right now you'd think the guy who jinned all this up in the first place would be happy to see it happy though he is not um in in the wake of nobody showing up for the saturday rally for the january sixth rioters uh former president donald trump released a sweary screaming statement that was a little unhinged even by his standards said in part quote i have had the same fake bs he actually spelled it out same fake bull uh going on for years with the witch hunt by the new york district attorney and the new york attorney general headed by never trumper lawyer who shockingly works for the da's office this is unprecedented over 3 million pages of documents have been examined by them a record fishing expedition never trumper lawyers and law firms are used by the d.a and attorney general to get trump in their prosecutorial misconduct witch-hunt anti-trump political campaigns are viciously waged by them to get elected and they have nothing i'm reading this verbatim i'm sorry it doesn't make sense quote this has been going on for years and the people of our country are not going to take it anymore really some of that i don't know how to make like make more sense i don't even know how to punctuate it it's like trump freak out mad libs and when that happened i'm not sure anybody really knew what exactly had precipitated that freak out from him like was he sad that more people didn't turn out on the mall to get justice for the people who attacked the capitol in his name was he sad that nobody turned up was that what upset him why is he going on about the witch hunt and the prosecutorial wahoo now like where did this come from not sure anybody quite knew what to make of that meltdown from the former president until this afternoon we got the transcript of what happened in court today in the criminal trial of his business the trump organization you'll recall june 30th trump's business the trump organization was charged with a string of felonies along with the uh chief financial officer from the trump business a man named alan weiselberg who was charged in his individual capacity today was the first day that mr weisselberg and lawyers for the trump organization were back in court following the initial arraignment back after charges were first filed in june and and today really should have been kind of a no news hearing the point of this hearing today was basically for the lawyers just to ask for more time to prepare their defense they did ask the judge for that and they got it the trial probably won't be until almost a year from now which is interesting but in haggling over how much time they could try to get from the judge um the lawyers in the courtroom today particularly the defense counsel for mr weisselberg made quite a bit of news which may have had the side effect of melting down the former president in that statement judge for yourself here's what happened in court today defense attorney quote your honor the law clearly gives the court discretion to set a motion schedule in the interest and fairness of justice i'm asking the court today to exercise that discretion to set a motion schedule that won is not practically impossible for mr weisselberg to meet and two that it's not patently unfair to his interests mr weisselberg was indicted only 80 days ago since that time we received approximately 3 million pages of documents just today we got three million more pages of documents that's over six million pages now to review those and some orderly schedule would still require us to review twenty five to thirty thousand pages of documents every day day in and day out seven days a week it's very very difficult to imagine how we can do that it is a herculean task made all the more difficult by the fact that i know as i sit here today more documents are being produced by various parties we don't even know what we are shooting at it is a moving target then he says this quote also we have strong reason to believe there could be other indictments coming again we are shooting at a moving target so there's a real procedural issue and i just ask what is the rush okay whether or not there's a rush what's that he said there at the end we have strong reason to believe there could be other indictments coming really why do you believe that tell me more that was the defense attorney for the trump organization's chief financial officer alan weisselberg speaking today in court in new york again this is just a scheduling hearing today you're not supposed to make news like that at a scheduling hearing but oh wait there's more um and the other part of news here from this hearing came as the prosecutor was basically trying to refute the argument from the defense counsel that there's too much information to get through that the defense is buried in paperwork so the prosecutor and the defense counsel have a an exchange here um that leads to another revelation prosecutor quote there's nothing unusually complex about this case it is a simple case of executives hiding their compensation in order to avoid tax obligations the core documents that are relevant to these charges were produced on july 1st at the arraignment the defendants have all been in possession of those records for 80 days at this point we join in defense council's request for a schedule that's fair and reasonable i think we differ a little bit on what that means but in response to the arguments made i would note that alan weiselberg is no stranger to these documents these documents are almost exclusively the overwhelming majority of these records are trump organization records mr weiselberg has been with the trump organization for 35 years he is the chief financial officer and while he may not have technical access to certain of the trump organization records with respect to relevant financial records mr weisselberg is the boss mr weisselberg is also not an innocent party being caught up as collateral damage here he's an executive who stands accused by a grand jury of multiple felonies including fraud and tax evasion it is the people's right to proceed in our case against him and it is his obligation to abide by the schedule that the court sets and then the defense counsel back and forth a little bit with the judge the defense counsel jumps in your honor may i give one additional data point the judge yes briefly defense counsel thank you when we were back in your chambers it was represented to us by the district attorney this package includes documents that were found in co-conspirators basements that are tax documents that go directly to the issues so the statement that all relevant documents were produced 80 days ago just is not accurate there are additional relevant documents we received 60 days ago a few weeks ago and there are more in here holding an envelope why he says it and this this package meaning that documents the defense was just given by the prosecutors today according to the defense counsel he says those are documents found in co-conspirators basements co-conspirators basements which means presumably we're gonna get some extra help on this later on this hour but that means presumably that in the ongoing criminal case against donald trump's business against the trump organization search warrants are being executed in the basements of various co-conspirators that are turning up new tax documents relevant to the alleged felonious scheme um tax documents even today being handed to the defense counsel that are related to the multiple felonies that trump's company and mr weisselberg are already facing and so yeah i guess you know cue eruption of mount one term right all this complaining about the millions of documents and the terrible lawyers who are working on this case and how all the misconduct by the prosecutors here i'm assuming that is the cause of that eruption in the end um as i said the judge did go along with the request by the defense for more time which means that uh former president trump's company and at least one of his executives are going to have their criminal trial play out in new york in court in like september of next year which of course will put that trial on the front page and in the spotlight right as voters are starting to go to the polls in the midterm elections in a year when you know when the republican party unless things turn around sometime soon this will be a year when the republican party stands for nothing so much as its continuing devotion to trump the criminal trial in which the president's business his cfo and maybe additional people or entities are under felony indictment for a sprawling alleged multi-million dollar tax scheme that should be happening right as everybody goes to vote in the midterms this court hearing today was the first court appearance by the top financial executive at donald trump's family company man named alan weisselberg as the first court appearance by him since he and the trump organization were arraigned this summer um both he and the trump organization are charged with a 15-year multi-million dollar tax evasion scheme if you want to boil it down weisselberg himself has pled not guilty as have lawyers for mr trump's business but as to the question of whether there's going to be more coming from prosecutors in this case well that same defense counsel who held up the envelope today and said these key tax documents were just recovered from co-conspirators basements that same council also told the judge today quote we have strong reason to believe there could be other indictments coming we don't know why mr weiselberg's defense attorney thinks that or who those might who those other indictments might apply to new york prosecutors have reportedly been investigating other senior trump organization executives but who knows joining us now is dan goldman former assistant u.s attorney for the southern district of new york in manhattan he's was lead counsel for the first house impeachment inquiry into president trump mr goldman it's nice to see you thanks for making time tonight great to be with you rachel um as you look at these revelations in court today um as a non-lawyer i look at the assertion that new evidence has been found in multiple co-conspirators basements and just handed over to the defense the proclamation for defense counsel that there are more likely more indictments coming and i as a non-lawyer take those things on face value and think like oh looks like this case is about to get bigger and new search warrants must be being executed are those reasonable inferences to draw from what happened in court today you've hit the nail on the head rachel i think that you're right this wouldn't ordinarily be a newsworthy conference but a lot of the statements made by weisselberg's attorneys to convince the judge to give them a longer time to review the materials and file motions they revealed a lot and yes when you start hearing co-conspirators basements to be very clear you know it'd be one thing to say they got documents from co-conspirators they could get those by voluntarily producing them they could get those by subpoena they could get those because the cooperators is the co-conspirator is cooperating and gives it to them but when you start talking about specific locations where they came from that is a clear indication that there have been search warrants and they talk about basements plural multiple search warrants so yes i think there have been search warrants it is clear that this investigation is not just about alan weisselberg and there's a lot of speculation out there but there were a couple of things that jumped out to me in the transcript that lead me to believe that alan weiselberg is at the top of the pyramid of this scheme the first is that the district assistant district attorney said that as to the financial records weisselberg is the boss obviously he's not the boss of the trump organization that has been donald trump and perhaps his sons but the fact that he referenced him as the boss of the financial records indicates that he is the the top of this conspiracy so now we're looking at a couple people uh either parallel to him or underneath him in the trump organization that may be implicated in this compensation scheme to avoid uh taxes and so the question is do any of those people cooperate are they just cooperating to provide more evidence against alan weisselberg or do they have evidence of knowledge of people higher up than alan weisselberg so there are still a lot of questions but it does appear that there will be more indictments of individuals i would guess that does not include donald trump and that does not include any of his children and dan when you look at um the way this is proceeding i i was struck by the fact that it's going to be nearly a year according to the judge today before the trial happens that just i think coincidentally has potentially um sort of political implications in its timings it's going to be right before next year's midterm elections if things proceed the way that looks like they're proceeding that'll mean at least the president's company is on criminal trial right before those elections but the other thing that struck me um is that former president trump making these very belligerent statements about what's going on naming the d.a naming this is naming the attorney general and then naming a specific lawyer who's working on the case in the da's office um is he running any risk by by doing that saying the american people won't stand by this calling it a witch hunt proclaiming prosecutorial misconduct naming these individual lawyers and prosecutors is he flirting with anything um that might potentially get him in trouble or might be worse for the case against him by doing this in this public way well there's certainly you know he his statements as the uh exec chief executive of the trump organization could in theory be used against the trump organization so anything he says could be used at a trial against the trump organization and yes you cannot threaten prosecutors um in any way shape or form that is a crime the question you know donald trump has for many years escaped a lot of liability or um guilt because he speaks like a mob boss and he doesn't say things directly but he says things with enough of a hint or an inference so that the people who are following him or around him understand him michael cohen has talked about this at length so i i don't think that statement itself is chargeable but if it continues and it gets worse yes you you potentially have um some degree of obstruction of justice or or uh threats against um state officials that that is that is illegal and this is interesting separately this was a surprise unrelated indictment indictment that was unveiled to unveil tonight um two fairly well-known republicans a longtime republican activist named doug weed wead and a man named jesse benton who's long been a senior political staffer in the ron paul rand paul orbit doug weed and jesse benton um were just indicted in federal court today for allegedly funneling illegal foreign donations from a russian national to a republican party pac and to the trump campaign in 2016. now there's no indication that the trump campaign knew it was receiving these allegedly illegal russian funds during the 2016 campaign through this scheme allegedly carried out by doug weed and jesse benton we also don't know who the russian national in question may have been but jesse benton was only just pardoned by trump in december of 2020. benton had been convicted in conjunction with what effectively was a bribery scheme in the 2012 iowa caucuses in the republican presidential primary trump pardoned him in december as josh gerstein and kyle cheney point out at politico.com tonight this new indictment just unveiled today charges that jesse benton was ginning up this alleged illegal foreign donation scheme to funnel illegal russian funds to the trump campaign he was allegedly doing that working on that scheme at the same time he was being sentenced for his earlier conviction this indictment tonight was was filed just before the statute of limitations would have expired for these alleged crimes and again we don't know at this point the identity of the russian national whose money was allegedly funneled to trump by this scheme but this was a surprise today and and we will keep our eyes on this one this was a surprise that revelation in court that more indictments are coming in the trump organization case um the revelation from the defense counsel in the trump organization case that new documents were just handed over to them which were seized from someone's basement and they were tax documents related to those crimes all of this was was new to us so we'll be watching all of that this is so well done um here's the headline on the editorial an appeal to vaccinated detroit free press readers about 51 of michigan's 10 million residents are fully vaccinated against covet if you're reading today's detroit free press you're probably one of them the pandemic that's extinguished 660 000 american lives continues but you've done the most important thing ordinary citizens can do to slow its transmission and limit its terrible toll we are all confronting a deadly problem you've chosen to be part of the solution now we need you to play a bigger part the impact of your initiative will be significantly diminished unless a significant number of the approximately three million eligible michiganders who have so far declined vaccinations overcome their reservations and after nine months in which neither the manifest risk of death nor the pleas of epidemiological experts elected leaders and mainstream media have turned the tide it's increasingly apparent that you the vaccinated are the last best hope to overcome the hesitance and distrust of the unvaccinated minority we are seeking to enlist you in a benevolent conspiracy a team effort to persuade our unvaccinated family members friends neighbors and work colleagues to join in the unfinished war against covet the detroit free press this weekend asking its readers to join a benevolent conspiracy of vaccinated people in the state to persuade the unvaccinated people in their lives to please get the shot and alongside the editorial they published these really well done articles one is the truth about covid vaccines everything you need to know the other one is your questions about the covid vaccine answered it's questions like how do the cover vaccines work why isn't natural immunity just as good as a vaccine they also provide detailed answers to common objections like i'm young and healthy so i'm not worried about getting covered or i'm concerned that getting the vaccine could affect my ability to get pregnant the free press is calling on its vaccinated readers to read that stuff use it basically to develop your skills for talking to unvaccinated friends and loved ones about getting the shot and they're they're they're enlisting the vaccinated in this as a campaign but also giving their readers the tools to do that well it's beautifully done a valiant effort by the detroit free press to subscribe to your local paper you should really seriously [Music] you

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Length: 20min 25sec (1225 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 21 2021