← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
Trump Indictment #4...Everything You Need to Know about the Latest Weaponization of Politics
00:52:40
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- [00:01]
Ben Ferguson
Welcome. It is verdict of Senator Ted Cruz. Ben Ferguson with you. And Senator, the big headline. Donald Trump's been indicted again. Just a couple of days after more bad news came out about the Biden crime family. It's at least we can predict it now. It's like clockwork. Your overall reaction to Trump indictment 4.0, which if he gets everything right, the whole table, they run on him and he's convicted of everything, he'll be in jail for like 740something years.
- [00:33]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, I think it's absolutely ridiculous and it is sadly predictable. It has become like clockwork. Every time bad news comes out about Joe Biden or Hunter Biden, every time additional evidence comes out of corruption on, on the part of Joe Biden, within hours, a new Trump indictment drops. You know, you think back to the halcyon days of a year ago, a year ago, our nation had gone more than two centuries and we'd never once had a former president or current president or a current leading candidate for president indicted. We just didn't do that. That was something banana republics did. That's something little tin pot dictatorships did. But, but not the United States of America. We have a representative form of government in which the voters decide. And we don't rely on whoever controls the Department of Justice to use the court system to try to take out your opponents. In the past year, we've crossed that threshold not once, not twice, not three times. But now, as of Monday night, four times. There are four different indictments pending against Donald Trump. One the most ridiculous of all in New York State court, brought by Alvin Bragg over the alleged hush money to the porn star with whom Trump allegedly had an affair. Another brought by the special counsel, the Department of Justice, concerns Trump's retention of classified documents. Now, mind you, Joe Biden had classified documents stored all over the place. There is no indictment of Joe Biden for that. This, this, this special power only applies to Republicans. Number three was the DOJ special counsel's indictment over January 6th. And then now number four is another state prosecutor, Fanny Willis, an elected Democrat in Georgia. She decided she was gonna get in on the fun and so she brought a sweeping indictment. She brought an indictment with 41 different counts against not just Donald Trump, but 18 other alleged co conspirators. The heart of the allegation is rico. Now, RICO is a very powerful law. It's a federal law, but there are state analogs. And she brought this indictment under the Georgia state version of rico. RICO was designed to get mobsters, to get racketeers and RICO is a conspiracy law which enables you to prove up the existence of a criminal enterprise and then sweep in everyone involved in the enterprise to very significant criminal liability. As I said, Ricco was used most famously and in fact, was designed to go after the Mafia, to go after the Cosa Nostra, and to identify foot soldiers on the ground and then use them and flip them to go all the way up to the capos and the godfathers themselves. Well, in this instance, this indictment, it's against Trump and 18 others. It includes a bunch of Trump's lawyers. It includes Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesbrough, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell. It also includes Jeffrey Clark, who is a senior Department of Justice official. It includes David Schaefer, who was the head of the Republican Party in Georgia. It is remarkable that that's the world we're living in now. Apparently, political disagreements, at least when you're dealing with Democrats in power, are resolved by trying to indict, prosecute, drag through the mud, and put in jail your opponents. But not only that, you don't just do your opponents, you go after their entire legal team. Team. In this instance, virtually all of the lead lawyers for Donald Trump are now being prosecuted, and it seems their principal crime was daring to represent Donald Trump. Now, we've talked before about this podcast that I think the legal team around Trump should have done a much better job. In particular, when it comes to litigating the election fraud cases across the country, they did not do a very good job laying out the evidence, litigating those cases and litigating them to victory. And many of the problems we had following that election came from less than stellar lawyering. But there's a difference between not doing a tremendously effective job in court, which, sadly, is not that uncommon, and in this instance, being told that because you represented the president of the other party, the prosecutors are gonna try to lock you up, gonna try to put you in jail, not only take away your license to practice law, your ability to earn a livelihood, your ability to pay your mortgage, but incarcerate you. I think this is disgraceful. It is nakedly political.
- [05:57]
Ben Ferguson
And they were celebrating this on TV today. I mean, MSNBC today, they had an entire segment throwing every name up there that you just mentioned. Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, Jenna Ellis, the list goes on and on. And. And even your former colleague, Claire McCaskill, she said on TV today that she was, quote, very happy that former New York City Mayor Giuliani was indicted in Georgia for his actions after the 2020 presidential election. She said, this is a tale of two very different indictments. We have one in the federal system that is lean and mean and targeted on the boss. And then we have Georgia, where this prosecutor has decided that she needs to go after the whole enterprise and all of this evidence would come in the whole barrel of bad apples got indicted. You can't assume in the federal indictment that those unindicted co conspirators may or may not be cooperating, may or not be charged. You just don't know at this point. But she said, on the other hand, in Georgia, since he indicted so many, you can assume a fair number of those unindicted co conspirators have cooperated and testified in front of the grand jury. Truthfully, they did not take the fifth. I think the fake electors. There was a lot of them talking, getting immunity, and they didn't. And then she added, I'm just glad to see that, you know, Rudy Giuliani finally got indicted. Then she said, woohoo. Literally said that. She said, the good news is we finally have Rudy Giuliani indicted. Woohoo. That makes me very happy. And of course, everybody on MSNBC was elated by this.
- [07:26]
Senator Ted Cruz
Look, they are vicious partisans. One of the things it demonstrates is that they don't value democracy. They don't value the democratic process. Listen, this is all about their fear that if the voters have an opportunity to decide fairly in November of next year, that the voters are going to reject the disastrous agenda and record of Joe Biden and the Democrats. And they look at Donald Trump as the leading Republican right now. And their objective is they want to have these trials before Election Day. Fanny Willis says she wants to have this trial in six months, which is a very rapid pace. It would be right in the middle of the primaries. And I think the Democrats bringing these cases believe, and there's some basis for this, that the indictments make it more and more and more likely Trump wins the primary, which is what the Democrats want. But I think they also believe the indictments make it substantially less likely that he wins the general and that their objective is to have trial after trial after trial. Now, that means he can't be out there campaigning if he's sitting in a criminal court defending himself. It means he spends tens of millions of dollars. He's already spent over $40 million on legal fees. He's going to spend a whole lot more defending these cases. And they are counting on the useful idiots in the media to put every breathless moment of every trial on the 6 o'clock news. They don't want to talk about Biden's record. They want to make this entirely about Donald Trump because they believe that that's how they win. But if you look at this indictment in Georgia, in many ways, this, this indictment could be the most dangerous. It's the most dangerous because, number one, it is. It's a state court indictment. It's under a state law. That means it doesn't fall under federal law. That means if a Republican were to win, a Republican could not order the case, shut down the DOJ cases, a Republican president could shut that down on day one. You can't do that with the state case. The other state case is the New York case. That one is, is absurd on its face. So it's, it's less of a threat. This one RICO is a very powerful law. And so the fact that this partisan Democrat elected Democrat in a county that, that is 7525 Democrat, that means the jury pool, just like the D.C. jury pool for Jack Smith's January 6 indictment, is going to be overwhelmingly Democrat. It also means that the president's pardon power is largely taken off the table. If a Republican wins in 2024, that Republican president could pardon Donald Trump from any federal offense. But the federal pardon power does not extend to state acts. And so because this is a state prosecution, it pulls it out of that umbrella. And in this instance, Georgia law is unusual because in many states, the governor has a pardon power, much like the president does for federal offenses. In many states, the governor has a pardon power for state offenses. The Georgia law is very circumscribed. So my understanding of the Georgia law is the governor does not have an independent pardon power. It is instead a board of pardons and paroles that is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. That board has to recommend a pardon, but the pardon, in turn, does not expunge a criminal conviction under Georgia law. But critically, the board cannot recommend exercise of the pardon power until the defendant has served five years of his prison sentence. So it's a very circumscribed power that. That means if this Democrat DA brings the case, gets a conviction in front of a Democrat, overwhelmingly Democrat jury, by the way, the appeal would go up to a Georgia state appellate court and the Georgia Supreme Court, and then ultimately, you could appeal to the US Supreme Court, but you could only appeal on federal issues. And, and so it's got to be a federal constitutional issue, not a state court issue. I think that certainly would happen. But that process as we discussed with the Jack Smith indictment, that process could take years. And this is designed to bloody everyone up, to dominate the news, to get Fanny Willis in the news an awful lot. Look, everyone else is getting famous on this.
- [12:32]
Ben Ferguson
She's running for reelection. People need to understand that as well. This is as much about her raising her name. I do. Just like everybody knows Alvin Bragg's name in New York now as it is for her to fundraise and say, vote for me, because I'll go after Donald Trump. I'm not afraid of these guys, and I'll lock up my political enemies.
- [12:50]
Senator Ted Cruz
It's a very good Democrat campaign issue. Letitia James, the Attorney General in New York, has likewise campaigned on that ground. And if you're a Democrat, Look, Claire McCaskill, who was always an incredibly partisan Democrat senator when she served in the Senate. She pretended to be middle of the road, but she could stick a knife in the back of her enemies with the best of them. Listen, she hates Donald Trump and she's gleefully laughing at. Listen, one of the objectives here is to bankrupt all of these other defendants, to bankrupt Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman and Mark Meadows and all of the others, because they are. They hate them. Their view, it's a scorched earth. We're going to use the criminal justice procedure to try to destroy the lives of our enemies. And I think it's a really sad threshold. It's an abuse. Now, one of the threshold questions will be whether this stays in state court or whether it's removed to federal court. So Mark Meadows has already filed a motion.
- [14:03]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, he's already said, I'm gonna. I want this moved.
- [14:06]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, he has filed a motion to remove it to federal court. And the argument that he makes is that all of the actions that he's being charged for are his actions as the White House chief of staff. They were calling officials on behalf of the President. They were setting up meetings on behalf of the president. They were official acts, and as such, under federal law, belong in federal court. Now we'll see how that motion plays out. It is widely speculated that Trump will file a similar motion. I don't know how those will play out, but that will be one of the first battles, is whether it stays in state court or federal court. I think there's a good chance it's going to stay in state court and in state court. There's a lot of danger that this thing gets really ugly before it gets better.
- [15:00]
Ben Ferguson
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- [17:30]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, there are going to be lots of questions litigated and one of the questions litigated is going to Be whether this is a joint trial or several trials, individual defendants can file a motion to sever their trial and have it conduct separately. Now, with a rico, one of the advantages of bringing a RICO prosecution is that if you connect people to the criminal enterprise, they're all looped in and can be liable for the criminal acts of each other. And so that'll be a decision each of these defendants presumably is going to lawyer up. I would hope they have already, although it is not clear how many of them even can afford lawyers at this point. I don't know the extent to which the Trump campaign is paying for lawyers for some of these defendants or if they're just on their own and bearing the potential cost at exposure. The indictment itself, it lists 161 overt acts, and those are acts that are allegedly in furtherance of the conspiracy. Of those 161 overt acts that are laid out in the indictment, 43 of them are acts taken or directed by Trump. So 2/3 of the listed acts, actually 3/4 of the listed acts are, are not taken by Trump, but 43 of them are acts date taken by Trump or directed. Twenty of them, which is fewer than half, are Georgia specific. So of the 43, 20 of them are Georgia specific. And of those 20, half of them are tweets. They're tweets from Donald Trump about Georgia specific issues. So literally pulling out his damn phone and sending a tweet. This DA is trying to prosecute him and put him in jail for sending a tweet. And the remaining 23 acts that are either taken or directed by Trump are acts that are directed in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, the Department of justice, the Republican National Committee chairwoman and the vice president or other unindicted co conspirators. And some of these alleged, these avert acts are very, very, for example, act number 30, let me read you what act number 30 is. Trump, quote, placed a telephone call to President Pro Tempore of the Georgia Senate, Butch Miller. This was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. That's it. That's what they allege you called a state legislator. So apparently it is now criminal act to call a state legislator. Now it could be a criminal act to call a state legislator. If you say call a state legislator and said, hey, the Chinese communists are sending me $8 million, could you open a shell company bank account for that $8 million and then funnel it to my kids and grandkids, okay, that would be an instance of a president or vice president making a call to a state legislator where the call was criminal. So it, so it is possible that criminal activity occurred in the call. But I'll tell you, the indictment doesn't allege it. And we're literally facing a world where TDS Trump Derangement Syndrome is so bad, Democrats have convinced themselves that Trump is the devil that they now want to put him in jail for sending tweets, and they want to put lawyers in jail for representing their client or for making legal arguments. This is not law. This is politics. And this is the weaponization of criminal justice.
- [21:23]
Ben Ferguson
I want to ask you about. And this, I think, is an important point. There are a lot of conservatives that listen. They see what the Bidens have done. They see what's being done right now to Trump, and they're really angry. They're upset for the fact that they feel like Republicans aren't doing enough to fight back. I don't know who wrote this, by the way, but it was, it was sent to me. And I think it encompasses a lot of the, what I'm hearing on my show when I'm doing my podcast, a lot of the messages you and I get from this podcast. And this is what it said. So. Republicans did nothing about Bill Clinton flying to islands with minors. Republicans did nothing about Hillary Clinton smashing devices, hiding classified emails, and then destroying evidence after she was told to give it back. Republicans did nothing about James Comey brazenly lying. Republicans did nothing about Annie McKay plotting a silent coup against a sitting president trying to overthrow the will of the people when Donald Trump was elected. Republicans did nothing about Black lives matter raising 100 million and breaking charitable giving laws. Republicans in Florida did nothing about James Biden's alleged fraud scheme involving a hospital system. Republicans in Arkansas did nothing about Hunter Biden's Madrid crimes there. Republicans have done nothing against Antifa and their interstate RICO operations. Republicans have done nothing against Fauci, Echo Health alliance or the other fake scientists who promoted lies about Covid's origins to hide their own culpability. Why would Democrats be afraid of us? They run the country while Republican AGs and DA's quiver in fear and run for the hills. Now, I think this is an adequate, honestly representation of many conservatives now that are saying, look, if they're, if they're not going to play by the rules, us trying to be the elder statesman here is not working. They're beating our brains in. When are we going to take the gloves off and go, okay, if you want to play with this way, then damn it, we're going to play this way, too. And let's start going after the Bidens and the Clintons and everybody else on this list at the state level, just like the Democrats are doing right now, trying to decimate and financially ruin anyone around Donald Trump to try to also hurt him that way as well.
- [23:40]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, listen, I agree with a lot of the points raised in that tweet that you read laying out a number of what appear to be serious criminal acts that were not prosecuted. And I share massive frustration over that. Now, let me be clear. I understand the sentiment of, damn it, if these bastards are going to weaponize the justice system and try to lock up Republicans for running against them, we ought to weaponize the justice system and lock up Democrats for being Democrats. I understand that. That's a very human reaction. I don't agree with it. I don't agree with abusing law enforcement, whether it is for my team or the other team. I don't want a Republican Department of Justice. I don't want a Republican FBI. I don't want a Democrat Department of Justice or a Democrat FBI. I want a Department of justice and FBI that follows the law and enforces the law. Now, if you go back to the Trump administration, one of the enormous problems in the Trump administration is that many of the appointments that, that Trump made to the cabinet, to the sub cabinet, to the agencies were lousy appointments. They did not do a good job. James Comey, who is a wildly partisan FBI director, Trump left him in office for two plus years. That was an enormous mistake. James Comey should have been fired on January 20, 2017. The Trump White House made serious personnel mistakes and they put the wrong people in charge, in particular at the Department of Justice and the FBI. And you know, you go through that whole list antifa, why we didn't bring multiple prosecutions. Look, we had on this podcast a couple of years ago, we had Bill Barr, when he was the sitting attorney general on the verdict podcast. And I was frustrated then and I'm frustrated now that they did not devote real and serious resources that when people burn American cities to the ground, when they firebomb and loot stores and terrorize American citizens, why DOJ didn't come in there and prosecute violent criminals. That, that, that's not abusing law enforcement. That's actually applying the law fairly and directly to real violent crime. They didn't do a very good job of that. You go through, listen, this Hunter Biden stuff and the Joe Biden stuff, the Department of justice, this FD 1023 that we've talked about on this podcast of the Confidential Human Source that alleged Joe Biden and Hunter Biden solicited and received a bribe from a Ukrainian oligarch that came in to the Trump FBI and the Trump doj, and they sat on it. Now, we've talked at length about how the Deep State spent four years waging war on Donald Trump. As you know, the last book I wrote, Justice Corrupted how the left has weaponized the legal system goes into in depth how these hard partisans burrowed into career senior positions at the FBI and the DOJ and this IRS and the CIA. And, and not only did they not enforce the law against left wingers, but they aggressively weaponize law enforcement from within the Deep State against the duly elected President of the United States. And so I share that frustration. And you're right, there's a whole pattern of criminal conduct that we have not had. Look, I think the fact that Jeffrey Epstein was able to hang himself in a jail cell is an absolute outrage. It is disgraceful. He was on suicide watch. Why the hell weren't they watching him? And I want to know. Every one of those clients in that black book, every one of those perverts that assaulted little girls should be brought to justice. And we have not seen any vigorous effort, to be clear, any vigorous effort by Republicans or Democrats to have accountability. Listen, Jeffrey Epstein had in his living room in his New York home an oil painting of Bill Clinton in a blue cocktail dress and high heeled pumps. So, you know, Jeffrey Epstein was a very close friend of Bill. And there's been no accountability for that. That is infuriating. But, but I want to underscore, the answer is not just tit for tat of let's bring both bogus prosecutions against our political enemies. The answer is let's put people in a position of law enforcement that have the courage to investigate and follow the evidence and bring cases of real wrongdoing. Listen, there's a qualitative difference. Compare the allegations right now against Joe and Hunter Biden to the allegations against Trump. The allegations before you say this, this.
- [29:06]
Ben Ferguson
Is what pisses people off.
- [29:08]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah.
- [29:09]
Ben Ferguson
Is they feel like there's so much evidence here.
- [29:11]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yes.
- [29:12]
Ben Ferguson
Against Joe Biden, against Hunter Biden, against the Biden crime family. The list is long. And there's not a single DA or, you know, whoever in law enforcement. Right. That could, that could maybe throw down on them that's doing it. They're going, there's real crimes here, for goodness sakes. And you guys aren't doing anything. They're making up crimes against, against Donald Trump and trying to bankrupt everybody around him. I mean, I know people, and you, and Senator, I'm sure you do too, who say they can't afford financially to go work for Donald Trump even if he is reelected, because the legal liability is just too great of a strain. I know people that have had to take out apparently loans just to defend themselves because they worked at the White House and did nothing wrong.
- [29:55]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah. So look, I will say for many of the crimes that were on that list, those crimes are federal. Most of the, not all of them, but most of them are federal. Uh, and that limits who can prosecute a federal crime can only be Prosecuted by the U.S. department of justice, by the federal government. That means a state DA can't bring, can't prosecute a federal crime. A U.S. attorney in a given state can prosecute it. But all of the 93 US attorneys work for the Attorney General. And so it's, it's the Department of Justice. And so when you have, as we have now, a deeply partisan DOJ under Joe Biden and Merrick Garland, it means that none of the US Attorneys will enforce the law against their buddies. And so it's why when David Weiss apparently asked the U.S. attorney in the Central District of California to bring a more serious charges against Hunter Biden, he was told no. When the U.S. attorney in D.C. who was a big Democrat donor, gave money to Joe Biden, was asked about bringing more serious charges against Hunter Biden, again he said no. The California Central District U.S. attorney was a donor to Kamala Harris. They were both Democrat donors. So the challenge is for federal crimes. It has to be DOJ bringing them. So in order for a state DA or a state Attorney general, in some states, attorneys general have the ability to prosecute criminal cases, not every state, and it varies state by state. But it has to be a violation of state law that typically occurred in the state. There has to be a nexus to the jurisdiction. Now, look, I would note Virginia. Virginia is now a Republican state with a Republican Attorney general. And there's an awful lot of Democrats who are living and operating in Virginia that are in and around D.C. if you look at my point on this, compare Georgia to the allegations against Joe Biden. And to be clear, these are allegations, among others, from two senior career IRS employees who are whistleblowers who risk their entire career to come forward and to say that there's obstruction of justice and lying under oath and a cover up that is hiding criminality from Hunter Biden and hiding criminality from Joe Biden, compare, on the face of it, a president of the United States or a vice president of the United States soliciting and receiving millions of dollars of bribes from multiple foreign nationals, from oligarchs in Ukraine, oligarchs in Russia, from Kazakhstan, from, from Chinese communist officials, and selling favors, federal government favors in exchange for millions of dollars of bribes. On the face of it, that is extraordinarily serious. There is a reason the Constitution specifies bribery as a ground for impeachment, impeachment, lies for treason, bribery or other high crimes or misdemeanors. Contrast that to this indictment that is indicting Trump for a bunch of tweets and a few phone calls he made.
- [33:21]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, I mean, there's literally one of the lines in this actual indictment. It says, on or about the third day of December 2020, Donald John Trump caused to be tweeted from the Twitter account at real Donald Trump Georgia hearing hearings now on Oan. Amazing. This was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy and they have now made that into a criminal case.
- [33:51]
Senator Ted Cruz
It's ludicrous and it is deranged partisanship. That is saying that sending a tweet or in the case of the lawyers representing your clients or making legal arguments. This is actually one of the things really at the heart of Jack smith's indictment on January 6th where he indicts Trump because he says, okay, you had one group of lawyers who gave you one set of advice, one group of lawyers who gave you another set of advice. You went with group number one and not group number two. Therefore, that's a felony. Like what? That's insane. And his proof is, well, you knew group number one was wrong because group number two told you something different. Well, no, it reminds me of Ronald Reagan's old joke about economists that he said, Reagan said, I want a one armed economist so that he can't say. On the other hand, look, if you spend time around lawyers, you're going to get a bunch of different opinions. And it cannot be the law that it is a crime to believe one set of lawyers over another set of lawyers, even if, by the way, the set of lawyers you believe is wrong, that that cannot be a crime. And in this instance, that's exactly what they're weaponizing. And it's an absolute double standard. And look, it is nakedly election interference. It's why MSNBC is ecstatic. And I'll point out, listen, a lot of this information about the bribery scandal could have been brought out, could have been prosecuted when Trump was president it occurred before Trump was president. They had substantial evidence. I'll tell you, during the first Trump impeachment trial, and as most listeners know, verdict launched the first night of the first Trump impeachment trial and went every night. Immediately after the trial, I went to Trump's legal team and I argued vociferously. I said, listen, they have given you a gift. Prosecute burisma, lay out the facts, lay out the son of a bitch video, but lay out the quid pro quo. Demonstrate that this oligarch was paying off the Biden family for official favors from Joe Biden. You have the ability to do it not just in a court of law, but on the floor of the Senate. I said, this is, this is an enormous gift. And Trump's lawyers didn't want to. They said no. And, and listen, they were very nervous there. There was a critical, tactical decision in, in that, that first impeachment trial, which is whether or not to call witnesses. And, and I urged the White House. I said, listen, y'all should let them call witnesses, but you should call witnesses. You should put Hunter Biden on the stand. You should lay out these facts. And ultimately, the, the, the Trump legal defense team decided, well, let's just get through this impeachment, so let's have no witnesses. But I think in hindsight, it was an enormous mistake not to have laid out and proven up that evidence. Then it would have made a world of difference.
- [37:16]
Ben Ferguson
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- [39:14]
Hillary Clinton
I don't know that anybody should be satisfied. This, this is a terrible moment for our country to have a former president accused of these terribly important crimes. The only satisfaction may be that the system is working, that all of the efforts by Donald Trump, his allies and his enablers to try to silence the truth, to try to undermine democracy have been brought into the light and justice is being pursued.
- [39:49]
Ben Ferguson
I mean that infuriated me and many others when they heard it because they remember that this is the same woman that knew that Donald Trump was being indicted for a dossier that she paid for and the DNC paid for. She knew they were, it was a coup attempt. In essence, when they went after him in the first Trump impeachment. She, this is the same woman that just that had classified information, documents on an outside server, on an outside email account and lied about. And then when got busted they said, hey, give us the intel. And guess what happened? She said no, we're going to destroy it. And they did. They bleached bit it and they smashed the blackberries and the iPhones involved.
- [40:24]
Senator Ted Cruz
This is hammers to do it and.
- [40:26]
Ben Ferguson
They used hammers to do it. And you sit there and you hear her say this. And this does go back to the point where I said earlier, but like at what point do we fight back?
- [40:37]
Senator Ted Cruz
We've got to fight back. We've got to fight back. Look, look, I am beyond frustrated. I'm frustrated that we did not see that during the Trump administration that the DOJ and the FBI did not hold people to account the way they should have. And it is maddening. It's infuriating. And it comes down to the political appointments that are put in charge. Jeff Sessions was appointed Attorney General. Jeff is a very nice man. He promptly recused himself from an enormous amount of what was happening at DOJ and let the deep state hijack the department and ultimately was not able to overcome the corruption that had burrowed in to the department. But that ultimately has real consequences, that you've got to be willing to prosecute people who commit real and serious crimes. Look, Hillary's talking about undermining democracy there. There's an irony because, of course, Hillary in 2016 insisted that Trump's election was illegitimate, that she was the President of the United States and that. And you know, today Democrats allege that saying that there's fraud in an election, that saying that election's illegitimate is undermining the democracy in the country and everything else. Of course, they do it in every cycle. You'll recall last fall when I went on the View and the View began, the ladies on the View began screaming at me about Republicans being election deniers. And I just sat there and read Hillary Clinton, I read Al Gore, I read Democrat after Democrat after Democrat, I read Joe Biden. All of whom, when they lose elections, promptly try to undermine the legitimacy of the election. But it's one sided and it's nakedly a double standard.
- [42:40]
Ben Ferguson
I want to ask you one other question about what happened with Fulton County Court publishing and then removing the Trump indictment. This, they said, was a fictitious document that was uploaded to their website. The Fulton County DA was like, oh, I don't. I'm not involved with the documents as they go online. That's not what I do. It was an incredibly bizarre, unexplained act that some critics are now saying violated Trump's constitutional rights to due process of law. Reuters was the first to report the document had been filed, then had to update its report when the document was removed from the court website. And then the Office of Fulton County District Attorney Willis denied that the indictment had yet been issued because the grand jury hadn't officially finished meeting or had met. We're still trying to figure out that timeline. Then Reuters preserved the initial document, which listed 39 charges against Trump, including the, quote, serious felony of racketeering. All of the other 38 charges, solicitation, the violation of an oath, false statement and conspiracy charges are all felonies. And then Reuters said the Fulton County, Georgia Court's website posted the document Monday listing several criminal charges against the former president. And then the Fulton County District Attorney's Office said in an official statement, Senator, that no charges have been filed against Donald Trump. The document was dated August 14th. The name Trump, citing the case, is open. There was all the information of who it was going to be assigned to. It was all there. And then they said it's a fictitious document. Then the real document comes out. It's almost a match side by side. So was this a due process violation? And does this do anything to undo part of this attack on Donald Trump? Could that turn into a big legal victory for him or probably not.
- [44:35]
Senator Ted Cruz
You know, I have to say I'm underwhelmed by that particular issue. Listen, that was clearly a screw up. It was a screw up by probably some clerk, maybe a junior lawyer who handed the document before it was complete, before it had been fully voted out. Maybe they told the clerk, okay, this is an early version, May, I don't know. But it was clearly a screw up. As screw ups go, this one doesn't get my blood pressure very high. You know, I'm reminded a former boss of mine used to say, never blame on malice. What can be explained by incompetence? I think somebody screwed up. Oh, wait, I'm not supposed to put this up. Oh, what? I think that's what happened. They realized, oh, crap, we made this public before, before it's public, before it's finalized. So they pulled it down. And, you know, lots of people are focusing on the word fictitious. It clearly was not fictitious. My suspicion is that was a poorly chosen word. That what the person who said it was trying to do was pick a big ten penny word to say this was a not valid document. This was a screw up, this was a mistake. This is not a real indictment. All of which is accurate. If it hadn't been voted out by the grand jury, it's not a real indictment. Somebody screwed up and put an early version up. But it was not, in fact fictitious as in made up fiction. It was rather just. Just not official or legitimate. So was it a due process violation? I doubt it. In terms of the things that are abuses of law in this indictment, if you were to make a list of the top thousand, there are at least 1000 that are ahead of this particular issue.
- [46:35]
Ben Ferguson
And one more may be that jury four person. And I want to get your thoughts on what she said on tv. Let me tell you about chalk. If you're a guy and you're dealing with a real problem, losing that strength and vitality to fatigue, if you are just sick and tired of feeling like you're tired all the time, you're not alone. Testosterone levels have dropped off a cliff historically. And chalk, my friends at Chalk are helping men just like you boost your testosterone levels up to 20% over 90 days. Now, I've been taking the Chalk Choq Male Vitality Stack and I can tell you it works. I have gotten rid of that fatigue. I've gotten rid of that complacency. I feel like I'm a lot younger than I am right now. Thank goodness. I if you want to fight back against the war on losing your testosterone, then check out chalk choq.com check out the male vitality stack and if you use the promo code Ben, you'll get 35 off any Chalk subscription for life. Choq.com use the promo code BEN. 35 off any Chalk subscription for Life. That's Chalk CH OQ.com and booster testosterone levels up to 20% in just 90 days. Lastly, Senator, the four person of the Georgia grand jury earlier, back in February went on TV and was giggling and talking and really fantasizing about this idea of swearing in Donald Trump. Could any of this hurt their case as well?
- [48:06]
Emily
Emily, thank you for coming on. I do want to say off the top, as you and I just discussed, but for everyone to know, you are somewhat limited in what you can discuss under judges, under the judge's orders as of now. But one we do know, of course, one of the biggest questions remaining for everyone that wasn't in that jury room with you is how many people are in trouble? What can you tell us about how many people you recommended as a group to face indictments?
- [48:32]
Grand Jury Foreperson
Well, thank you for having me, first of all, and I'm hesitant to speak to something that the judge made a decision not to share. He I don't know if everyone's aware of this, but there was a hearing about what parts of the report should and should not be published in its various forms. And the list? Well, the sections that were removed were consciously chosen to be removed. And I don't want to say I have better judgment than the judge.
- [49:04]
Emily
That's totally understandable. Is it would you say when it comes to there are there are indictments recommended? Of course. Is it more than 12 people? Is it more than 20 people?
- [49:17]
Grand Jury Foreperson
I think if you look at the page numbers of the report, there's about six pages in the middle that got cut out, allow for spacing. It's not a short list.
- [49:29]
Emily
Not a short list. More.
- [49:31]
Ben Ferguson
Not only is she laughing there, she then went on to say this about Donald Trump and her fantasy.
- [49:38]
Emily
You personally want to hear from the former president.
- [49:40]
Grand Jury Foreperson
I wanted to hear from the former president, but honestly, I kind of wanted to subpoena the former president because I got to swear everybody in. And so I thought it'd be really cool to get 60 seconds with President Trump of me looking at him and being like, do you solemnly swear? And me getting to swear him in. I just. I kind of thought that would be an awesome moment.
- [49:58]
Ben Ferguson
I mean, Senator, she's. She's literally fantasizing about this, quote, awesome moment to personally subpoena Donald Trump. And then she's talking about how giddy she is and giggling at the idea that, hey, we didn't just indict one person. We've got a really long list, double spacing, multiple pages, and then laughs.
- [50:16]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, I gotta say, I've never seen anything like that. I've never seen a member of a grand jury do a media tour or even do interviews before indictments are handed down. What occurs before a grand jury is secret by design, and that's just bizarre. I don't know what Georgia law is. I think there's some real possibility that she has violated Georgia law by doing that and could face real penalties for that. It's bizarre. She certainly did real damage to the prosecutor's case. I am sure we will see litigation motions focusing on how this was a partisan witch hunt. And, you know, there's an irony to the phrase partisan witch hunt, because when she went on her media tour and outed herself, she decided she wanted the world to know that she was the foreperson of this grand jury. People naturally looked and said, well, who is this person? And her Pinterest included pins on topics that included astrology and crystals and potions and spell castings and symbols and tarot card reading. And more than a few people observed with some irony, that the foreperson of a grand jury leading a witch hunt appears to have some significant involvement and genuine interest in witchcraft.
- [51:50]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, there you go. Welcome to why people are so angry in America right now. And if there's anything I can say, I'm with you, America, on this one. I'm sick and tired of it. I think it's very clear, Senator, you're sick and tired of it as well. The figuring out part is, how do we fight back illegally and start to defend ourselves from this, from the lap that has gone completely rogue? Don't forget, this podcast comes out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Hit that follow button if you're listening right now on Apple, and then you won't miss a single episode. Hit that subscribe or auto download button. If you're listening on another platform, each platform calls it a little something different. Make sure you don't miss a single episode and make sure you write us a five star review. Why? Because that helps us reach new listeners that may never have seen this show before. Thanks, as always for listening. We'll see you back here in a couple of days.