Trump's attorney, John Laurel appeared on all the major Sunday talk shows in
order to defend Donald Trump, but didn't have some great moments.
Including one of the moments where he was on CNN and said something so insane that
the host, Anna Bash, couldn't help but laugh immediately after he said it.
Without further ado, let's take a look at what he had to say.
>> Speaker 2: One of the last and the ultimate request that
President Trump made was to pause the voting for
ten days to allow the states to recertify or certify or audit.
And Mr. Pence rejected that as well.
After that, there was a peaceful transition of power.
So that's how the constitutional works.
>> Speaker 3: What happened on January 6 was not peaceful.
I wanna ask you something about John Eastman, because you talked a lot about
wait a minute, he's a respected constitutional attorney.
>> Speaker 2: Transfer power was certainly peaceful.
>> Speaker 3: Did you see what happened on January 6?
Did that look peaceful to you?
>> Speaker 2: And by the way, I'm not saying that that was in any way
appropriate, but the ultimate power of the presidency was transferred.
>> Speaker 3: I just wanna quickly ask about John Eastman.
>> Speaker 1: Listen, according to our justice system,
everyone has the right to an attorney, even Donald Trump.
But who the hell would sign on to that job?
Honestly?
I mean, how do you sit there with a straight face and
argue that Trump engaged in a peaceful transition of power?
Till this day, he denies that he lost the election.
Till this day, a peaceful transfer of power requires the individual
who lost the election to agree that he lost the election and
to urge his supporters to also accept that he lost the election.
Trump, in every action, in every word, in every social media post,
has been the antithesis of a peaceful transition of power.
But this guy is his defense attorney, so
of course he's going to lie on behalf of Trump.
He's gonna do it on national television.
But who the hell would sign on for that after everything we've seen, after all
the stories we've covered, after all the statements that Trump has made today?
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, so I guess his argument is, look, I mean,
we created a riot, obviously, to try to circumvent a peaceful transfer of power.
But when that didn't work, as Joe Biden was getting into office,
Donald Trump did not punch him.
Wow, is he not merciful?
No, by definition, when you get a crowd riled up and tell them to attack
the Capitol, and they do, that is not a peaceful transfer of power.
And so this is exactly what we're worried about with Donald Trump, and so
that's why they're having this case in the first place.
>> Speaker 1: Now, he later went on Meet the Press and
tried his best to spin Trump's phone call with the Georgia Secretary of State,
Brad Raffensberger, in which he asked the Secretary of State to find enough votes
to switch that state from supporting or voting for Biden to voting for Trump.
Here's how Laurel spun that whole situation.
>> Speaker 2: If he had proof he won the state, why did he threaten
the Secretary of State with a criminal charge?
>> Speaker 2: That wasn't a threat at all.
What he was asking for is for Raffensberger to get to the truth.
He believed that there were in excess of 10,000 votes that were counted illegally.
What the Biden administration has said is somehow President Trump obstructed
a federal proceeding that relates to what was going on in the states.
And President Trump had every right to ask the Secretary of State,
I believe that this election was conducted improperly.
There are deficiencies here.
I want to see if there are more than 10,000 votes or
whatever the number was that were counted illegally.
Once again, that's core political speech.
>> Except in the recorded phone call with Brad Raffensberger,
Trump did not make any point about the excess of votes counted illegally.
In fact, Trump asked Raffensberger to find something very specific.
And if you might have forgotten what that was, we have that phone call for
you right now.
Let's listen.
>> Speaker 5: The ballots are corrupt, and you're going to find that they are,
which is totally illegal.
It's more illegal for you than it is for them,
because you know what they did and you're not reporting it.
That's a criminal offense.
All I wanna do is this,
I just wanna find 11,780 votes,
which is one more that we have because we won the state.
>> Speaker 1: I just want you to find hold on, let me check, 11,780 votes.
I just want you to find those votes for me so
we can flip the state of Georgia from voting for Biden to supporting me.
>> Speaker 4: Now, an incredibly important context that his lawyer, of course,
is leaving out is it's not like he just asked for a recount,
he had already gotten a recount.
He'd already gotten several recounts.
He'd already gotten a hand recount.
After all that, he's still like, well, that didn't find me any votes.
So why don't you find 11,780 votes without a recount?
Like, maybe find them, make them up.
And by the way, if you don't, as you heard in that tape,
it could be a criminal offense against you if you don't find those votes.
Exactly the number of votes I need to win that state.
Grade A thug, obvious mobster criminal.
Just if you can't see it, you have a psychological problem.
Everyone else in the country can see it.
It doesn't mean you're wrong about everything.
If you're a MAGA guy and you hate the establishment, you're right about that.
But you've lost your mind if you think this guy is not trying to steal
the election.
And so look, the earlier comment, what violence golly g, right?
All right, I'm gonna show you the clip.
You've seen it a hundred times, but that's what he said afterwards is more important.
Let's go back and hear the Mike Pence chant.
[NOISE] >> It's reported by a witness
that Mark Meadows' chief of staff told him that, and he said that he didn't mind.
Gee, I wonder if not minding the murder of your own vice president because he
wouldn't steal an election for you is a peaceful transfer of power or not.
>> Speaker 1: And finally, later, in an interview with This Week,
Trump's defense attorney John Lareau tried to make a point about how
his former vice president, Mike Pence,
would actually be a fantastic witness on behalf of Trump and his interests.
Let's watch.
>> Speaker 6: Mike Pence will be one of our best witnesses at trial.
I read his book very carefully.
And if he testifies consistent with his book, then President Trump will be
acquitted for these reasons number one, Mr. Pence recognizes that John Eastman,
who was giving legal advice, was a renowned legal scholar.
Number two, Vice President Pence recognized that there were discrepancies
and fraud in connection with the election.
He wanted it to be debated on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Trump wanted it to be debated in the state legislatures.
But make no mistake about it, based on what Vice President Pence will say,
the government will never be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
President Trump had corrupt or criminal intent.
And that's what this case now, >> Speaker 1: Wouldn't agree with the last
two sentences there, however, he does have a decent point here about Mike Pence,
because if you read his memoir, well,
you'll see something that kind of goes along with what Laura is saying here.
So in the memoir, Pence keeps gesturing vaguely at voting irregularities and
maintains that the Republican members of Congress who objected to the electoral
count were doing the right thing.
In the months between November of 2020 and January 6, Pence felt heartened by
Trump's lawsuits to overturn the election, saying, quote, I remained hopeful,
as we all did, that those legal challenges would succeed, end quote.
So while Laura said all sorts of crazy things over the weekend, I think this is
the one area where there is some merit to what he's arguing in regard to Pence.
Now, will Pence actually end up being a good witness on behalf of
Trump when push comes to shove?
I doubt it.
However, I do think Pence's memoir serves as a little bit of an issue here.
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, so why did Pence say that?
Cuz he's trying to protect all the other Republicans.
He doesn't wanna say, Donald Trump is an obvious criminal that was trying to
orchestrate a coup because hundreds of Republicans went along with it.
So then they're going to say, Why are you in the Republican Party
filled with criminals who tried to do a coup against America?
So he lies on behalf of Donald Trump there,
in my opinion, but they're gonna get to use it in court, no question about it.
And he's gonna, by the way, say, look, I was hopeful about the court cases and
then we didn't win the court cases.
Then January 6 comes and then Trump says, well, cheat anyway,
so remember, the timing is important, okay?
There's one witness here that I think is gonna make all the difference and
it's the guy who was not named as an unindicted co conspirator and
that is not Mike Pence, but Mark Meadows.
So Meadows is his chief of staff at the time and Meadows is the one that said to
others, yeah, Trump just said he did not mind if Mike Pence was murdered.
So that is going to be super powerful testimony if they've got that.
We're not positive yet that they have that.
But we know the quote, we know that Mark Meadows is basically in hiding and
has not said anything publicly and he would be indicted otherwise.
So if Meadows comes out, there the last piece of the dominoes there is,
that's a devastating set of witnesses against Donald Trump.
And when they ask Pence too, they think they got a friendly witness, hey,
do you think it was criminal?
Pence might say, well, not necessarily, right?
But then the prosecutors are gonna get up and say, look here,
I'll give you a quick analogy here.
If somebody says to you, you've got a bunch of lawyers saying you can commit
bank fraud and you've got way more lawyers saying you can't commit bank fraud,
number one, does that give you permission to commit bank fraud?
And the answer is obviously not, no.
You can't just say, well, a couple lawyers told me I could, and
I think Pence's testimony is going to go in that direction.
Yeah, there were a couple of crackpot lawyers,
as Pence has said recently, right?
But the overwhelming weight of the evidence was obvious
that we couldn't do this.
That's why I chose not to do it.
But Donald Trump chose to break the law to do it anyway.
And after all of that testimony, Trump's gonna have to make a decision.
Is he gonna let all that stand or is he gonna get on the stand and testify?
If he gets on the stand to testify, he's toast.
There is no way he will have enough, as a writer recently said, emotional and
psychological self control to not blurt out so many incriminating things.
>> Speaker 1: He's not gonna testify.
>> Speaker 4: I mean, his lawyer has to tackle him before he testifies.
Everyone knows that he's a pathological liar.
He'll perjure himself 2000 times and he'll blow the case cuz he's an idiot.
He'll accidentally admit everything he did.
So I'm very much looking forward to seeing how that develops as the whole country is.