This week.
19 of
19 criminal defendants
surrendered in Fulton County, Georgia.
The former president
and all his alleged coconspirators
now must answer a critical question.
Go slow or go speedy.
Is it is tricky for both prosecutors
and for Mr. Trump.
Ask different lawyers
and you'll find varying
answers about the strength of the Fulton
County case against the president.
And in case
that wasn't enough to keep track of yet
another legal fight over
what the Constitution
allows already is taking shape.
I want to bring in now Jamie Raskin,
the congressman from Maryland.
Thank you so much,
Congressman, for joining me.
Let's start
with the question of what
I was just mentioning,
which is the the fourth arrest
you have seen first of all,
how incredibly viral
this mug shot
has gone, given how intensely political
it was. It is.
And that is obviously an expected thing.
Do you think taking that mug shot
was necessary
Well, I think the critical
thing is that Donald Trump
and his co-defendants be treated
exactly like everybody else
would be treated in a similar prosecution
fairly
well as the prosecutor involved has
undertaken numerous state
RICO prosecutions
and as long as this is consistent
with everything that's happened before.
I think it's the right thing to do.
A former federal prosecutor
in DeKalb in Cobb
County said that
the racketeering charge
might seem like
a little too much to a jury.
He told The Wall Street Journal, quote,
I like a state side, but it's not.
I like the state side.
But it's not a slam dunk.
Any time you bring a RICO case
when it's not against the Mafia,
there's a chance that the jury thinks
the case is overcharged.
There's a massive danger
in jury nullification.
Do you share that concern?
Well,
Rico has been used mostly
not against the Mafia.
If you look at all of the RICO
prosecutions in the country
at the federal and state level,
and of course,
there would be something strange
about a law
that applies only to one group.
It applies to a pattern of
racketeering activity
that is organizing people together
into a conspiracy
in order to achieve an illegal end,
in this case,
the overthrow of a presidential election
and substituting a counterfeit process
made up of fake electors
for the actual process
that the people voted on.
So there are lots of component
criminal parts to it,
and there were
a lot of people involved in that to me.
It seems as if it's custom-Made
for a RICO prosecution,
the way that we've developed it.
If people want to talk about
reforming the RICO statute,
then we can analyze that.
But it's been upheld
against constitutional attack repeatedly.
Five of the 19
individuals charged
as part of this conspiracy
are now asking to move to federal court.
And it raises questions
about whether a state
can charge individuals for actions
that they allegedly took
when they were a federal officer.
Officials.
Do you believe that these cases
dealing with individuals who were working
for the federal government
or elected officials
in the federal government,
like the president,
belong in federal court
Well, there's no question
that the state has the power to prosecute
someone who is a federal official
or federal employee.
I mean,
just think about a federal official
or employee
who engages in a bank robbery
or a murder.
Obviously,
the state would get to prosecute them.
There is a statute
which says that if a federal
officer or employee is conducting
their federal work
under an order
from a superior
to execute a federal policy,
then they can petition
to have that removed to federal court
if they're being prosecuted for work
that they were doing
is part of their job.
So that, of course, raises
the question,
when Mark Meadows tries
to remove from Georgia
state court to federal court
whether he was actually engaged
in the work of the federal government.
And he was
acting pursuant to a federal policy
the court is going to have to rule
on that in any event,
even if it is removed.
All this means is that the federal court
will conduct the state
criminal prosecution
under the auspices
of the federal judiciary.
So you're saying
it doesn't have much of a of a pragmatic
change? I mean, one obvious changes.
You won't actually see it
in this in Georgia.
You would actually have a camera
in the courtroom. But beyond that.
That's right.
Well, we won't be able to see it.
And also,
obviously, after four years
of packing the courts
with Federalist Society bloggers,
someone like Mark
Meadows is going to feel
a lot more comfortable in federal court.
There is a political irony
there, of course,
because these are supposedly
the big champions of
state courts and state law,
but they're trying to flee from it
as quickly as possible
to get into the warmer
climate of the federal judiciary,
which they have worked
so hard to gerrymander.
A judge in Georgia
is now saying
that fake elector mastermind kind
of cheeseburgers, racketeering
trial will start on October 23rd.
That's just about two months from now.
Will it help Donald Trump
and other defendants
like Rudy Giuliani
or Mark Meadows
to see what happens in earlier trials?
And try to learn from it?
I imagine so.
You know, I, I think that the key thing
here is
the establishment of the fact because Mr.
Cheese brought his petition
for a speedy trial, that it's perfectly
legitimate to have a trial
this year
to make it happen in the fall,
and that
the courts are fully equipped to do that.
But I think obviously the defendants
are going to be able
to learn from each other's experiences,
but they're up
against a mountain of evidence
that they were involved
in this complex conspiracy to
accomplish a single criminal objective,
which was to overthrow
our actual presidential election
and substitute
a counterfeit process for a 20, 24
presidential candidate.
Asa Hutchinson,
who will join me in a bit.
He says that Donald Trump
might be disqualified from holding office
based on the 14th Amendment,
which says that U.S.
officials who engage in insurrection
or rebellion
or aid and comfort them
cannot hold office again.
You were not only an impeachment
manager in
in the January six
impeachment of Donald Trump.
You are a constitutional scholar.
So do you agree with
Asa Hutchinson on this
Well, absolutely.
And we've
been saying all along
that Section
three of the 14th Amendment
presents
a clear and unequivocal statement
that anyone
who has sworn an oath of office
and by the way,
not just the president,
but members of Congress and others
who hold federal office,
who engage in insurrection or rebellion,
having sworn an oath
to uphold the Constitution
against enemies
foreign and domestic,
can never serve again
in federal or state office.
And this was added
after the Civil War
as a general constitutional principle,
and we have to abide by it.
Donald Trump was
was impeached
by the House of Representatives
for inciting an insurrection
against the union.
And then 57 of 100 senators determined
as a constitutional fact
that Donald Trump
had incited an insurrection.
So I think you've got robust, bicameral,
bipartisan majorities
that have already established.
This is a fact.
And I agree with the conservative
Federalist Society
law professors who are out there
saying, as well as Mr.
Hutchinson, that
Donald Trump is disqualified
just as if he were running
and not a born U.S.
citizen or if he were running and he were
24 years old
Before
I let you go,
I want to ask about President Biden
releasing a tweet
literally as Donald Trump
was arriving
at Fulton County in the jail.
And he said, apropos of nothing,
I think today is a great day
to give to my campaign,
and there's a link to donate.
Are you comfortable with President Biden
fundraising off
of Donald Trump's indictment?
And arrest
I mean, I think it would be strange
if President Biden had to organize
his campaign schedule around
all of the court
appearances and pleas and mug
shots of Donald Trump.
I think Joe Biden
should be free to run his campaign.
And if it happens to coincide
with something
happening in Donald Trump's extremely
voluminous and complex legal docket,
that's Donald Trump's problem.
It's not Joe Biden's problem.
Well, it was
it was coinciding on purpose
because he was fundraising off of it.
But we're going to have to leave it
there.
Congressman, thank you so much for
joining me. I appreciate it.