Former federal prosecutor
and CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rogers.
Jennifer, one of the big questions today
is whether Trump's legal team
is going to try to get
this case moved
from state to federal court
by noting
that he was holding a federal office
when the alleged crimes took place.
How does a judge decide that
and how likely is it
that that could succeed?
Well, I think it's unlikely to succeed.
The judge will decide
by referring to the statute at issue.
So a defendant can try to remove
to federal court
if he or she is a federal officer
and if the conduct charge involved
their professional duties
as a federal officer.
So he would argue that as president,
he's responsible for ensuring
that elections for president are secure.
And that's all he was doing.
The problem is the indictment,
of course, is full of allegations
that that's not what he was doing.
That there are people charged
with ensuring
elections are fair and clean.
And those are the state elections
officials that actually
conduct the elections in the states,
and that he actually
was interfering with them
so he's not going to be able
to prove that, in fact,
he was acting
within the confines of his job
at that time.
And so ultimately,
I think he will make the motion
and it will be denied.
How might this case be different
if it does get moved to a federal court
instead of Fulton County, Georgia?
Really, three reasons.
First of all,
the jury pool is better for Trump.
It's a
more rural area, includes more counties
that he won in the last election.
So he likes
the look of the jury pool more.
He might get a judge
that he feels will be more fair to him
or more on his side.
And then importantly,
if it moves to federal court, it
then is under the federal government's
control. Right.
So if he were to win the election,
or even another Republican would win,
he would be more likely
to pardon himself,
get a pardon from someone else
or just interfere directly with the case
by ordering it dismissed
through his attorney general.
Special Counsel
Smith Jackson may have to charge
Donald Trump for his actions in Georgia
just a few weeks ago,
but he did not charge
any other alleged coconspirator
Why do you think Smith only
pursued charges against Trump
as opposed to Fulton
County, indicting 19 people,
including Trump?
I think Smith and Willis
just went about their cases
in very different ways.
Jack Smith
pretty clearly wanted
to get this as streamlined
as possible, to get
it tried as early as possible.
So he just charged Trump,
and he's pushing for an early trial date,
despite what Bonnie Willis is saying
about trying to get this thing going
in the next six months.
There's just no way that's happening.
She did what prosecutors usually do.
She charged everyone
she wanted to charge with, everything
she wanted to charge them with.
That's arguably
the way it should be done.
But it's going to mean here
that there's no way this goes to trial.
Probably even before the election.
They're just too many defendants,
too much litigation to happen,
too many schedules to coordinate
and so on.
Well, she said she wants to trial.
19 of the defendants at the same time
How many of the 19 defendants do
you think are actually going to end up
going to trial?
It is, of course, a possibility
that some of them might
choose to cooperate and flip
not just flip, Jake.
A lot of them will just plead out.
They will start making offers,
especially to some of the folks
who are at the bottom of that food chain.
They'll give them offers that
perhaps don't
include any mandatory minimum time.
They'll try to thin out this
this case pretty quickly.
I think they probably would struggle
to do
more than, say, six to eight defendants
in the courtroom.
It just gets logistically difficult.
So they're going to try to start
getting rid of people.
Some will be cooperators,
some will just plead out.
All right.
Former prosecutor
Jennifer Rogers thanks so much.
Appreciate it.
Joining us
now to discuss,
Republican presidential candidate
and former U.S. attorney Chris Christie.
Governor Christie, thanks for joining us.
You said today
earlier that the Georgia charges
against Donald Trump
you feel are, quote, unnecessary
because you feel as though Jack Smith,
the special counsel,
has already charged Trump
for these exact actions.
In Georgia.
Now, Georgia prosecutors might point out
if Trump is elected president,
you can just shut down
Jack Smith's case or pardon himself,
but he wouldn't have the right to do that
with a Georgia investigation
and or verdict.
What's your response to that?
Well, Jake,
you know,
I don't think that's a prosecutor's job.
Prosecutor's job is to look at
how you administer justice in this case.
And let me say,
first off,
that I have no argument
with the underlying
lying conduct
constituting something
that should be seriously considered
by any grand jury at the state
or at the federal level.
But what happened here was Jack
Smith charged the case.
He charged to six weeks ago.
That consumes this contact.
Now, she could have brought this case
without Donald Trump.
And because Jack Smith didn't charge
anybody else
other than Donald Trump in this matter.
And so I think the double charging here
of Donald Trump
is just something
that complicates things in a way
which makes the administration of justice
much more difficult in the near term.
And so
I didn't think
it was a necessary thing to do.
Once you saw that Jack
Smith was charging him
federally for the very same conduct,
we would have these kind of discussions
among federal and state prosecutors
when I was U.S. attorney.
And we would work it out
so that we didn't do these things.
And I'm a little bit concerned
that this had more to do with ego
than anything else
that her office
had put a lot of time
into an investigation.
Chuck
Smith came in
a number of months ago,
swooped in, moved quickly,
charge the case.
And that,
you know, at this point I felt like,
you know,
I put all this time
in, I should charge the president
because I put my time in.
I don't think
that's the way you make these calls.
And so
I think it was
an unnecessary thing to do
because she has 18 other defendants
who have not been charged any place else
that she could have charged without Trump
and still had a very, very strong
case down there.
So beyond that concern,
independent of that,
when you read this indictment,
is this a solid case, do you think?
The conduct is very disturbing, Jake.
That's why I said that off the top,
when you look at what
he's alleged to have done
here, along with others on his behalf,
the pressure campaign
that was put on these folks.
Look Donald
Trump got due process in Georgia.
There was an original count.
There was a machine recount.
Then there was a hand recount.
All of which came up with essentially
the same result.
He had access to all the courts
in Georgia
to contest it in the same way
that Al Gore contested
these matters in Florida State.
Court back in 2000.
The difference
being that when Al Gore
ultimately lost his case,
he conceded and moved on.
Donald Trump
ratcheted the pressure up even more old,
ultimately resulting in what we saw
on January 6th.
And so, yeah,
there's a lot of disturbing contacts
here.
Not just by Donald Trump,
but by a number of others named in the
in the indictment.
What about the racketeering
charges, specifically?
As a former U.S.
attorney,
I would think you've
you've probably used
RICO statutes statewide and federal.
And I'm wondering what you think
about funny.
Well, this is application of them here.
Look, the the RICO statute in Georgia
is a very broad statute, even broader
than the federal statute, Jake.
I never used a RICO statute
on a state level,
but I did use it as U.S. attorney.
Look, she's got a number of predicate
acts here,
which is what required the 161
predicate acts.
She cites Now, people misunderstand.
They think every one of those acts
has to be a crime.
And what she's really establishing
is that these were acts
in furtherance of the conspiracy
to commit that crime.
And, you know,
the fact here
is that the RICO statute being as broad
it is
is it is it is in Georgia
gives her the opportunity to do it
this way.
I don't know
if I would have charged it that way.
But now we're into the realm of
just second guessing.
Every prosecutor
is going to make
their own judgments on these things.
But is it certainly is it permissible
for her
to have done what she did here, a RICO,
given how broad
this RICO statute is in Georgia?
I think it is.
We had Marc Short, the vice
president, Pence's
former chief of staff,
who's obviously
a supporting vice president Pence's
presidential race on yesterday.
And I asked him,
do you think this fourth indictment
is going to have
the same effect
that the previous three did,
which was basically
solidifying a lot of support
for Donald Trump among Republican voters?
He said he didn't know,
but that the court case itself,
the prosecution, Donald Trump
in court, evidence being presented,
all of that might change this dynamic
that we've seen. What do you think?
Look, I think Mark has that
read pretty well.
All of this is just theoretical now
for the public, right?
They most
people are not going
to read the indictment, Jake.
They're just going to read
whatever news reports that they
they read about characterizations of it.
It becomes much different
when there's
when there's a trial going on.
And that's why I think Jack Smith charged
this case the way he did
with just Donald Trump as a defendant.
No one else
He wants to move that case quickly
and get this case done. He wants January.
That might be a little bit tight,
but I could certainly see this happening
in February or March.
Of 20, 24.
And so, you know,
I do think
when evidence starts to be presented,
witnesses get on the stand
and tell their story.
And if the
if the prosecution does an effective job
of weaving that story together
and Donald Trump
has to be
sitting there, remember, Jake,
he has to be there every day.
This is not an optional exercise.
You are a criminal defendant.
And I think
that's one of the things
folks should keep in mind
that are watching.
He is now going to be
when he appears next week in Georgia,
some time he is going to be out on bail
in four different jurisdictions
in this country.
New York, Miami, Washington and Atlanta.
I think that
what Republican voters
have to start to ask themselves is
two things
One is someone out on bail
in four
jurisdictions really our best chance
to beat Joe Biden?
And secondly,
are we really going to continue to act
as if this is normal conduct?
It's not.
So even if you disagree
with some of the criminal charges here,
if you think they were an overreach or is
I think on this one,
there are unnecessary.
It doesn't get rid
of the underlying conduct,
which is what
we should be discussing in the campaign,
which is
does this man have the temperament
and the character
to beat Joe Biden
and to be president United States again.
And I firmly believe the answer to that
is no.
He'll be under indictment
in every single National League
East City, with the exception
of the great city of Philadelphia.
What's going on, Jake, with your old city
that they're not in?
I just root for the Phillies.
I just read for the Phillies.
I have nothing to do with prosecutions.
But if you're a Mets fan, I believe so.
Yes, I be Mets fan suffering.
I thought about it.
I thought painfully right now.
You appreciate the reference.
Republican presidential candidate, former
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.