I want people to remember.
Mr. Chair, you're.
You're a Democrat, Liddy.
You're a Republican,
and you're working together on this.
This is very bipartisan, Judge Luttig.
We will all remember when you testify
before the January six commission
and you called
Donald Trump,
quote, a clear and present danger
to American democracy.
He is now three times
indicted, potentially, for
he is by far the Republican frontrunner.
Do you think he is
still a clear and present danger
to American democracy?
I do, Poppy,
more so today than he was
last summer when I testified
before the Congress of the United States.
For these obvious reasons,
the former president has
continued to insist
and pursing us in his false claim that
he had won the 2020 presidential election
and that it was stolen from him
and his Republican allies
in the Republican Party have joined him
in that persistent claim to this day.
So for the two and a half years
since January six, these false claims
have corrupted American democracy
they've corrupted American elections,
and they've corrupted the perception
of the American people
in America ourselves.
This must come to a conclusion.
And the trials,
the trials of the former president
now will become, together
with the events of January six,
this singular infamous events
in American history
whereby a former president
of the United States,
for the first time
in American history, is prosecuted
and tried
for grave offenses
against the United States of America
at the same time that he is running again
for the presidency of the United States
as the presumptive Republican nominee
for the presidency.
Judge, you told our colleague
Jamie Gangel
after the latest indictment
came down last week,
these are his grave offenses
against the United States as a president
could commit, save possibly treason.
Just to remind our viewers,
you are a conservative conservative.
Trump is winning by a mile in the polls.
Republican officials are
lining up behind him
What do you think has
happened to your party?
I'm not a political person, Poppy.
And
frankly, I don't care
about the Republican Party.
At all
except to the extent that
the two political parties
in America are the political guardians.
Of democracy in our country.
American democracy
simply cannot function without too
equally healthy
and equally strong political parties.
So today,
in my view, there is no Republican Party
to counter the Democratic Party
in the country.
And for that reason, American
democracy is in grave peril.
There is no Republican Party
in my view.
And let me explain, Poppy.
A political party is a collect
and an assemblage of individuals
who share a set of beliefs
and principles and policy views
about the United States of America today.
There is no such shared set of beliefs
and values and principles
or even policy views
within the Republican Party for America
until or unless that the
the Republican Party can
pull itself together
into a credible
Republican Party political party.
And we
simply don't have two competing parties
in America.
Secretary Johnson,
when we look at the polling here,
it is very disheartening.
So few Americans
actually trust our election.
Only 42% are even somewhat
confident in them.
The numbers are even worse
when you look at how Republicans feel.
Can we turn that around?
I certainly hope so, Poppy.
I I'm an optimist about this country.
I'd like to make the point
that this task force,
the work we'll be doing
is about far more than than Donald Trump,
though he was the one that really lit
the match
for the conflagration on on January six,
But the work we're going to be doing
is going to be strictly bipartisan
by people who care about our democracy,
care about our country,
want to
see the maximum voter participation
and want to see Americans have confidence
in the importance of their vote
and the importance of our democracy.
And we're going to do that, Democrat
or Republican,
on a strictly bipartisan basis,
because we want the American public
to have confidence
in the role in the work we do
and the report we're going to issue.
Yeah, it's really foundational
to our still young democracy right?
They call it
the American experiment,
and we have to work together
to uphold it.
Before you go, Judge, leading to you,
we have heard
some central claims by Trump's legal team
after this most recent indictment.
It looks like
the defense
that they're going to present in court,
they're going to make a First Amendment
claim. This is all speech.
They're going to say
he just relied on advice of counsel
so he did nothing wrong
and that he truly believed that he won
and therefore, it's all okay
and it's all legal.
What do you think
Poppy, that
the special counsel,
Jack Smith, had anticipated
that the former president
would claim that First Amendment
in defense of the charges against him.
And as a consequence,
Jack Smith brought charges
that against the former president
that would not allow
for a First Amendment defense
and he did that in this way.
The former president now stands charged
with criminal offenses
of conduct
The indictment makes crystal clear
that the former president
was not being charged
in any way whatsoever.
With his speech.
That is
his calls for
the March on the Capitol
and all of
the multitude of other speech acts
that that he committed
on January 6th and even before then.
You know,
the way
that the way to think of it,
the way I think of it, Poppy, is that
the other offense for which
the former president
could have been charged.
And many thought he might be charged,
was with insurrection
against the United States of America.
That would have entailed
at least potentially
a charge
involving the president's speech.
But Jack Smith chose not to bring
that particular charge under 18 U.S.C.
section 23 83, most likely
to avoid the First Amendment
claim that the president
was going to make to begin with.
As to the advice of counsel defense,
Poppy.
Of course, you know,
standing alone in a defendant would have
that potential defense.
But in this particular case,
for reasons that
that we won't go into here, that
defense will not
carry the day for the former president
and knowingly
that he thought he won
and neither will will
that claim
prevent a conviction,
Poppy,
because
the evidence is overwhelming
that the former president
knew full
well that he had lost the election.
And the standard will be
could a reasonable
person have believed otherwise
in the face
of the overwhelming evidence
to the contrary?
Judge Michael Luttig, Secretary
Jeh Johnson,
thank you
not only for your time this morning.
Thank you for committing your time to
to this task force,
which is so important for this country.
I appreciate it.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you, Poppy. You're welcome.