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The Daily Beans
Refried Beans | It’s Not Rocket Science (feat. Renato Mariotti) | 2/22/2023
00:48:24
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023 The foreperson of the Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury speaks on the record for the first time; the SEC has fined the Mormon Church for hiding $32B behind shell companies; Kevin McCarthy’s apparent deal with Tucker Carlson to share the 1/6 video footage has surprised some top Capitol Security Officials; an inside look at the bipartisan odd couple joining forces to battle election deniers in Arizona; plus AG delivers your Good News. Dana was traveling.
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Brian Caram
I'm Brian Caram, and I've spent decades covering politics. Now I'm taking you behind the scenes, one interview at a time.
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Alison Gill
Join us as each week Brian confronts
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Brian Caram
the issues that matter, posing the questions
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Alison Gill
you wish you could ask. No filter, no agenda, just the truth.
- [00:18]
Brian Caram
We're not here for sound bites. We're here for substance. Join me, Brian Caram, every week as we cut through the noise and get straight to it. This is Just Ask the Question where curiosity will lead us to the facts. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform and remember, when you want answers, all you have to do is just ask the question.
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Alison Gill
MSW Media hey everybody, it's Ag. And welcome to Refried Beans, where we play an episode of the Daily Beans podcast from the same week either one, two or three years ago so we can see how far we've come. So please enjoy this episode from days gone by and note the date in the intro.
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Brian Caram
Refried beans. I like refried beans. That's why I want to try fried beans, because maybe they're just as good and we're wasting time. Daily beans. Daily beans. Daily beans. Daily beans.
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Alison Gill
Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Wednesday, February 22, 2023. Today, the foreperson of the Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury speaks on the record for the first time. The SEC has fined the Mormon church for hiding $32 billion in assets behind shell companies. Kevin McCarthy's apparent deal with Tucker Carlson to share the January 6th video footage has surprised some top Capitol security officials. And an inside look at the bipartisan odd couple joining forces to battle election deniers in Arizona. I'm your host, Alison Gill. Hey everybody, Happy Wednesday. Dana's still out. I'm here today. Later, I'm going to be joined by the host of the It's Complicated podcast, former federal prosecutor and my friend Renato Marioti. And we're going to talk a little bit about what's going on with the Fulton county special purpose grand jury reporting that is out right now. And it was fun earlier today, but it's getting a little bit explicit. I think she should stop talking. I'm going to talk a little bit about the first reporting that came out from the New York Times, but since that story's dropped, more stories have come out about things that she said about possible big names being on the list at the special purpose grand jury recommended for indictment. It also turns out that she said when she found out that Trump said that the partially released report totally exonerated him, she laughed and said, oh, that's especially awesome and funny. And there's just a few more things that she's saying on the record that she hasn't really crossed a line yet. But altogether could give a reason for an appeal. Now, I don't think of an appeal that would win if Trump, say, were indicted. But I don't know, I think she should, I think she should stop talking a little bit. But what she has to say is, you know, something I'm still going to report on anyway. And then we'll have the good news at the end of the show. It's going to be awesome. So let's jump in right now. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right. So from, from Danny Hakeem at the New York Times, a special grand jury that investigated election interference by the former guy and his allies in Georgia recommended indictments of multiple people on a range of charges in its report, most of which remain sealed. And that's according to four women of the jury in an interview today. And she's been making the rounds on interviews. Quote, it's not a short list. That's Emily Kors, the forewoman of the special purpose grand jury, adding that the jury had appended eight pages of legal code, quote, that we cited at various points in the report. She declined to discuss who specifically the special grand jury recommended for indictments, since the judge handling the case decided to keep those details secret when he made public a few sections of the report last week. But seven sections that are still under wraps deal with indictment recommendations. That's what Mrs. Coors has said. Asked whether the jurors had recommended indicting Trump, Ms. Coors gave a cryptic answer, saying, you're not going to be shocked. It's not rocket science. And then she added, you won't be too surprised. The investigation in Atlanta has been seen as one of the most significant legal threats to Trump as he begins another run for the presidency. In November, the DOJ named a special counsel, as we know, Jack Smith, to oversee two Trump related criminal investigations federally. And last month, the Manhattan district attorney's office began presenting evidence to a grand jury on whether Trump paid hush money to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign. Possibly, among other things. We know Michael Cohen has gone in now twice and then a third time this week. He's going to see them to talk about these cases. And he seems to be saying that it might be about more than just the hush money payment and more than just about Trump and about, you know, just Donald Trump alone. A focal point of the Atlanta inquiry, though, is the call that Mr. Trump made on January 2nd to Brad Raffensperger, and we know that's the one where he has to find 11,780 votes, just enough to overturn his election laws. Quote, we definitely started with the first phone call, the call to the secretary Raffensperger that was so publicized. That's what Mrs. Coors said and that's what she told the Associated Press. And they first named her and spoke with her on Tuesday about the election meddling investigation. She went on to say, I will tell you that if the judge releases the recommendations, it's not going to be some giant plot twist. She added, you probably have a fair idea of what might be in there. I'm trying very hard to say that delicately. The special grand jury Met for nearly seven months, as we know, had 75 witnesses. Trump was not among them, as his lawyers have said that, and they still maintain his innocence. Special grand juries in Georgia do not have indictment powers, as we know. She has to go to a regular grand jury for that. And in a more recently updated post with an interview given to a different network, that foreperson said that there were at least a dozen people that were recommended for indictment. My guess has been 17. We'll see. We'll see where that ends up. But I think, you know, as we've been saying, it's imminent. What imminent means. Well, that's up for the for the DA to decide. And Speaker Kevin McCarthy, apparently in a deal to grant Tucker Carlson access to thousands of hours of Capitol security footage from January 6th, apparently that came as a surprise to at least one official with oversight responsibility of those files, and that's Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger, a person familiar with the matter said. Manger told associates he didn't learn of the arrangement between McCarthy and Tucker Carlson until it began publicly circulating Monday. Capitol Police have been extremely reluctant to share large swaths of their security footage, citing potential risk to lawmakers, aides and officers tasked with protecting the building. Some of those secret ways out and stuff, you want to keep them secret. House Sergeant in arms William McFarland also told associates he learned about it the same time Axios broke the news Monday. McCarthy has not yet commented on the arrangement with Fox News host, and it's not clear precisely what Carlson is able to access or how. On his Monday show, Carlson described his producer's access as unfettered, said they'd already been reviewing material for a week and that they planned to continue for another few days before revealing their findings next week. And it just comes as a little bit of a shock to me that the quote unquote news organization that is currently being sued by Dominion and has now been proven to have lied to the American people aren't going to cherry pick this to death. Now. I don't think he's going to be able to get a hold of much of this, but we'll see. Any move to send Carlson or his associates those video files may require approval from the Capitol Police Board. That's a three member panel that makes security decisions. The board consists of McFarland, Senate Sergeant at Arms Karen Gibson and the architect of the Capitol Manger is a non voting member of the board. It's unclear whether Carlson will be able to air any excerpts of the footage on his show, but the deal itself alarmed Democrats who said Carlson, who routinely misrepresents and downplays aspects of the attack on the Capitol, was a galling choice for this private arrangement. Spokespeople for McCarthy and Fox didn't respond to questions for comment. In a letter to House Democrats Tuesday, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said his team was still attempting to learn details of House Republicans arrangement with Carlson and said any transfer of footage represents an egregious security breach that endangers the hard working women and men of the United States. Capitol Police Reps. Joe Morell, a Democrat from New York, ranking member of the Administration Committee, and Bennie Thompson, we know Democrat from Mississippi, former head of the 16 select panel, would address Democrats during a virtual caucus meeting Wednesday on the implications of the agreement. Meanwhile, other Republicans are eager to dig into that footage. Rep. Brian Steele, Republican from Wisconsin, the new chair of the House Administration Committee, sent a letter to the department earlier this month seeking the same level of access to January 6 footage that was given to the January 6 select committee, but they didn't really have unfettered access. The department granted that access, which included a dedicated terminal for lawmakers to review footage. Republicans on the panel are in discussion about investigating the security decisions on the day of the attack. The committee, which effectively became the Republican majority's repository for documents and records from the previous Democratic led panel, is not commenting on the McCarthy Carlson business, a GOP panel aide directing questions about it to the California Republican's office. Two people familiar with the January 6th select committee's access said the Capitol Police were extensively engaged in protecting the footage, often steering the panel away from using certain camera angles and limited the length of footage the panel ultimately used during its public hearings. The panel had access to the footage from late December 2020 to mid January 2021. The department, quote, reviewed every second of video prior to its public display and worked with the committee, and the committee worked with the department to provide accommodation of their reasonable concerns. That's one of the people familiar with the arrangement who was granted anonymity to publicly describe the arrangement. There's no indication McCarthy nor Carlson planned such a wide release of footage, and dozens, if not hundreds of hours have already been released via court filings in January 6th cases. The Capitol Police are notoriously secretive, particularly about security footage, a position that has not found much support among federal judges who've routinely ordered clips released in hundreds of January 6th prosecutions. Federal investigators have pushed for access to more video so they can identify additional perpetrators. All right, next up from Zach Monteiro at Politico. Election officials don't normally draw standing room only crowds in basement music halls, but the noise around elections in Arizona is anything but normal right now. Roughly 120 people crammed into Valley Bar, entering through a back alley and down a flight of stairs into a dimly lit venue stuffed with rows of folding chairs. This is in early February to hear recently elected Secretary of State our friend Adrian Fontes, Democrat, and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, Republican, debate proposals to change how the state votes and counts its ballots. Recent close elections in the state have seen top of the ticket races uncalled for days, an issue they're eager to address. Even more surprising than Fontes and Richard drawing a crowd to discuss election administration amid local super bowl festivities and a major golf tournament is the fact that the two of them were sharing a stage at all. It's been a little more than two years since they faced off in a very bitter, acrimonious election, with Richard ultimately unseating the then Maricopa County Recorder Fontes in November of 2020 to become the chief election official for the country's fourth largest county. Richer was sharply critical of how Fontes was running the county office, alleging he was overextending the role beyond that of a neutral administrator. But Richer voted for Fontes in 2022 to be Secretary of state. That's what he told POLITICO in an interview the day before the event. If you would have told me that two years ago, he said, I would have been very confused as to what happened. But then again, what's happened over the last two years is very confusing to me and is very exceptional. What's happened is that Arizona became ground zero for conspiracy theories, mainly fed by the former guy and his allies, that vast underground cabals were working to steal elections Arizona was one of the handful of states where Trump unsuccessfully tried to overturn the results in 2020. But the movement has metastasized far beyond that into a GOP led review of Maricopa's votes denounced by Republican controlled County Board of Supervisors and then a Republican ticket in 2022 that largely subscribed to the stolen election mythology, including Mark Fincham. That's a GOP Secretary of State nominee Fontes defeated. Those midterms saw resurfaced and unsubstantiated allegations of intentional malfeasance in elections, as well as a failed attempt by GOP gubernatorial candidate Carrie Lake and others to get the results overturned. Now the top election officials in Arizona and its biggest county are prepared to battle the same forces in 2024amid pressure and scrutiny that comes with a presidential race. The two offices have fundamentally different roles. Fontes is responsible for helping set statewide election policies and running training for local election officials, while Richer splits responsibilities for the county with the Board of Supervisors conducting many of the day to day duties of running elections and interacting with voters. But Maricopa is not an ordinary county. It accounts for over 60% of Arizona's registered voters and both offices have to work closely together to prepare for 2024. The relationship between Secretary of State and Maricopa Recorder is, quote, almost a marriage that you have to go through. That's what Helen Purcell said, and she served as Maricopa Recorder for decades before Fontes defeated her in 2016. You are responsible for different things, she said, noting that she had worked very closely with the Secretaries of State on implementing the state's voter registration system and the state manual setting election policy, for example. Now Fontes and Richer, both attorneys by trade, are temperamentally almost polar opposites. Now we've talked to Fontes, we've met Fontes. He According to Politico, here's a gregarious and charming Marine Corps veteran. He has a big personality. He's eager to be at the front of the political movement. That tendency has triggered chatter among Arizona's political class about his long term political aspirations. When asked to describe Fontes, Richard described him as brash, charismatic, he's sort of larger than light. Before ruefully noting that Fontes is also a damn good singer. Apparently I will have to see about that the next time he's on. Fontes, a mariachi performer who was a lead male vocalist during his time at Arizona State, joked in an interview that he would absolutely wipe the floor with Richer in a karaoke contest. Richard Richer, by contrast, is more bookish. The Recorder is a measure twice cut once kind of guy who's really into data and regularly references Harry Potter books. In a past life he was self described movement conservative, think tanker and one time investor in a bar and frozen yogurt shop in Washington, both now shuttered. He's prone to authoring detailed reports to try to get his point across, including his most recent In January, a 28 page missive on changes he thinks should be made to state election law. Fontes assessment of Richer he's an earnest man who has an interesting and quirky sense of humor and is willing to listen to all comers. That's not to suggest they're besties. On stage, Fontes noted that the bromance only goes so far, or that they don't have deep ideological disagreements over how elections should be administered. They do. Richer said that Beau Lane, a more Main street style Republican who lost to Fincham in last year's GOP Secretary of State primary, would have had his support in the general election against Fontes had he won the party's nomination. That's not what happened. Richer added that he's happily told Fontes as much as well, and Fontes still bristles at the criticisms leveled in a 2019 audit Richer conducted for the GOP following the 2018 midterms. Broadly, Richer's report didn't allege that Fontes broke the law, but Richer argued at the time it raises some serious questions about the office. On stage, they told good natured jokes about how close the 2020 election between the two was. They also disagreed on some of the recent proposals that Richer laid out to try to speed up the reporting of unofficial election results in Arizona, which typically takes days to resolve. The main sticking point was Richer's proposal to move up the deadline for people to drop off mail in ballots in person, a convenience for many voters that also adds processing time to actually counting the votes. Voters can currently drop off mail ballots in person up to Election Day, but Richer is proposing moving the deadline to the Friday before an election. But what has bound them both say, is respect for the voters will in elections at the end of the day and their staunch opposition to the lies of stolen elections in the state that's going to be tested in 2024. In addition to another high profile Senate race in the state, Richer could also be on the ballot himself. He's up for reelection next year, and should he run, he would likely face not only a competitive general election but a primary challenge from the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, with which he has clashed for almost the entirety of his time in office and From Rob Weil at NBC A Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and a nonprofit entity that it controlled have been fined $5 million by the securities and Exchange Commission over accusations that the religious institution failed to properly disclose its investment holdings. In an order released Tuesday, the SEC alleged that the church illicitly hid its investments and their management behind multiple shell companies from 1997 to 2019. In doing so, it failed to disclose the size of the church's equity portfolio to the SEC and the public. The church was concerned that disclosure of the assets in the name of the nonprofit entity called Ensign Peak Advisors, which manages the church investments, would lead to negative consequences in light of the size of the church's portfolio. They didn't want everybody to know how much fucking money they had. The allegations of the illicit shell company structure first emerged in 2018 when a group formerly called Mormon Leaks, now known as the Truth and Transparency foundation, claimed that year the extent of the church's investment had reached $32 billion with a B. The following year, a whistleblower filed a complaint to the Internal Revenue Service, According to a 2020 Wall Street Journal report. That year, the newspaper said the church's holdings had grown to 100 billion quote for more than half a century, the Mormon Church quietly built one of the world's largest investment funds. Almost no one outside the church knew about it. The SEC accused the church Tuesday of going to great lengths to avoid disclosing its investments and in doing so, depriving the commission and the investing public of accurate market information. Quote the requirement to file timely and accurate information on Forms 13F applies to all institutional investment managers, including nonprofit and charitable organizations. That's Gubir Grwal, director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement. In a statement, the church said starting in 2000, its Ensign Peak Investment Management Group received and relied upon legal counsel regarding how to comply with its reporting obligations while attempting to maintain the privacy of the portfolio. That's what our lawyers told us to do. As a result, it said, Ensign Peek established separate companies that each filed required disclosure forms instead of one single aggregated filing. Ensign Peek and the church believe that all the securities required to be reported were included in the filings by the separate companies. That's what the church said in a statement. After the SEC expressed concern about Ensign Peak's reporting approach, the church said Ensign Peak adjusted its approach and began filing a single aggregated report. And since that time, the church said it's filed 13 quarterly reports in accordance with SEC requirements. The settlement relates to how the forms were filed. Previously, the church said. Ensign Peak and the church have cooperated with the government over a period of time as we sought a resolution, and we affirm our commitment to comply with the law, regret mistakes made, and now consider this matter closed. Hmm. 32 billion. They hid by getting a bunch of different shell companies and filing the report separately instead of all at once. They didn't want you to know how much money they had. All right, everybody, we'll be right back with the co host of It's Complicated, a former federal prosecutor, and our friend Renato Marioti. We're going to discuss what's going on with the Fulton county grand jury. Stay with us after these messages.
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Brian Caram
We'll be right back.
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Alison Gill
Hi, I'm Frances Collier. And I'm Angela V. Shelton. And we're Frangela. You know what you need in your life? The Final Word podcast. Yes, you do. That's right. It is the final word on all things political and pop cultural, where we make real news, real funny, where we inspire you so you can hashtag resist, subscribe and get a new episode of the Final Word podcast each week. Week. It's the news we think you need to hear. That's right. We think you need to hear it. Okay. Yeah. It's what we say. So. That's right. And because all we do is give. Every Thursday, you can listen to our hysterical podcast, idiot of the Week. We round up the stupid. Because you know what? Somebody has to. Okay. All we do is give. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Honored to be joined today by my friend, co host of the It's Complicated podcast with Asha Rangappa and former federal prosecutor Renato Marioti. Hi, Renato. How are you?
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Brian Caram
Hey, how you doing, Allison?
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Alison Gill
I'm doing really well. It's great to see you. I haven't. I feel like we haven't talked in a while, so this is nice.
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Brian Caram
Absolutely. Well, I've been busy on my own podcast. It's been a lot of fun.
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Alison Gill
Yes. And full disclosure, that is an MSW media podcast, so we are very excited to be able to have you on board. It's such a cool. It's such a cool podcast. I love listening to it. And Asha's so funny.
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Brian Caram
She is. She's the star. I am just, you know, a sidekick.
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Alison Gill
So whenever I hang out with her, that's how I feel. So I totally feel that. All right, so what I want to talk to you about today, legal wise, the foreperson of the special purpose grand jury in Fulton county has talked on the record with the New York Times and has said a couple of very interesting things about the report that we only received part of when Judge McBurney ruled that we could only see parts of the special purpose grand jury report. And some of her quotes are very interesting. She says it's not a short list. And she also says that when asked if Trump was recommended to be indicted, she said, hey, what do you think? It's not rocket science. I mean, it's pretty straightforward. We're not gonna see a lot of plot twists here. So I was wondering if you could talk about. Because she said we, with the Raffensperger phone call, talk a little bit about what you think of her sort of characterization of this basically a roster of who's going to be indicted and who is not.
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Brian Caram
Yeah, it's interesting, right? One thing that I just think everyone listening should understand is that there are actually good reasons why this report was redacted, because these people have not been indicted yet. And prosecutors shouldn't be releasing information about potential charges unless someone actually is charged. And it very well may be the case that District Attorney Willis and her team make a decision not to pursue certain charges. They may say, okay, there's five different charges we could bring against Trump. We're only going to charge them with these three because we think they're the strongest or whatever. And it's important so that arguments aren't made by the defense right later on. So I thought that was appropriate. But that said, I've been absolutely convinced, without any doubt whatsoever, that Vanny Willis was going to indict Donald Trump. She's not exactly. She's not exactly at a poker face about that. And this grand juror was, like, trying to figure out how to not get herself into trouble here. But basically, she all but confirmed that Trump's gonna get indicted. Right? I mean, wasn't that your takeaway on that, Alison? I mean, it sure sounds like it, yeah. It is not rocket science.
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Alison Gill
You're not gonna be surprised. And that is my takeaway. But it is also very important, and I think that this foreperson knows that after having listened to the jury instructions, that you can't accuse someone of a crime if they don't have the ability to face their accuser in a court of law. And without an indictment yet, or if she chooses not to indict for whatever reason, that hasn't happened yet. And that's exactly what we saw in the Mueller report, because, you know, Mueller said, look, I can't indict Donald Trump. Because he's a sitting president by an OLC memo. So constitutionally, I can't accuse him of obstructing justice. I can't exonerate him, but I can't accuse him of it because I would be stripping him of his right to face his accuser. It's a constitutionally protected right. And I think that this four person knows that, which is why she's like not naming any names.
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Brian Caram
Right.
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Alison Gill
But I wish I could see her face when she was like answering these questions like, well, I can't say anything and she's like signing Donald Trump or, you know, making a motion of big hair or something. But it did seem pretty clear to me, especially when asked point blank, if Trump had been and again, not indicted, but recommended for an indictment. Because talk about this a little bit, special purpose, grand juries can't indict, correct?
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Brian Caram
That's right. And I'm not a Georgia lawyer, but that's my understanding of Georgia law and how grand juries are set up in the state system there. So ultimately, all the evidence is essentially getting re presented to another grand jury, which usually means they like, look, they get the transcripts from the prior grand jury and then they have a reading. I don't know, I wouldn't say a dramatic reading, but a reading of the transcripts to the new grand jury, which takes some time. So that's probably what's going on now over the course of some weeks is going to happen. And then ultimately, I suspect there's also a debate going on within the Fulton County DA's office about what charges to bring and so on.
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Alison Gill
Yeah. And a lot of people seem to be worried on Twitter that what she's talking about are not indictments for crimes related to the attempts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, but the perjury crimes mentioned in section 8 of the Little bit of the report that we were able to see. I don't know really see that being possible because, well, first of all, we don't know if those perjury indictment recommendations were made in the parts of the report that we didn't see. But that, I mean, it was five pages of 75 people. And as she said, it's not a short list.
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Brian Caram
So it's interesting. You're not a lawyer, but you have very good instincts of this stuff, Allison. So I agree with you for slightly different reasons, but I agree with you that it has nothing to do with the perjury charges. So that line that got a lot of attention and understandably got a lot of attention. Cuz there wasn't much else that was released. Right. We got these selected portions which basically were like a bunch of like boilerplate nonsense. And then one line about the election not being over, you know, there's no, not overturned by any fraud, which we already knew. And then there's one line about perjury, it's like, that's interesting. But here's the thing. Couple thoughts on that. That line about perjury, it does not say, it does not say that like for example, we believe Rudy Giuliani committed perjury when he said X and there's evidence that actually Y was the truth and he knew Y was the truth or whatever. It's just all it is is a majority, not the entire like in some other portions, just a majority of the grand jury believes, not knows, not concludes nothing like that, believes it's a lawyer's term saying like this is what I think is the case, that there was perjury by a number of witnesses, but they don't name them or describe the perjury in any way. I took that to be. And by the way it's released to us, which also is a sign that it's not related to anything chargeable or else they wouldn't have released it to us. So to me that is just a throwaway line that, that they're basically using to try to maybe press some witnesses behind the scenes like hey, you need to, you know, fess up or you know, your testimony was perjury. But in reality those are not. That line has nothing to do with the, with the indictable charges that are, that are mentioned in the redacted portion.
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Alison Gill
Yeah, and there was one other, there was a third little bit of news I thought in an addendum written by the, the members of the grand jury that would have frankly solved a lot of issues had it been brought up in the hearing that they had as to whether or not to release this grand jury report. And that's when the grand jury was like, by the way, yeah, we vote to recommend to release this report, but we do not have anything. We, we aren't going to recommend a manner in which it's released nor a time frame basically. And I was like, oh well, why didn't you say so? Like, because that was what the whole, the whole argument was with the. And you know, this was the media wanting to get their hands on, on this report and you know, rightfully so. I mean that's a juicy story. But you know, and Fani Willis saying, look, I can't release this. I got multiple indictments coming up. I got. There's going to be multiple trials. I can't, you know, per old SCOTUS rulings, we don't try these things in the media ahead of time. It can taint jury pools, you know, et cetera, et cetera, all the things that we know to be the reasons why people generally don't talk about criminal investigations while they're ongoing.
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Brian Caram
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think there's always this tension between the press wants to know everything about everything related to criminal investigations.
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Alison Gill
I did. I wanted to see it, but I was also like, but don't wreck it.
- [30:17]
Brian Caram
You know, someday MSW media is gonna be on these briefs within the AP and the New York Times trying to seek the release of this and that. The press always wants this stuff. There is a riot to a public trial once there is an indictment. But at this stage of the game, this stuff is not released. And with good reason. And so I thought that District Attorney Willis made the right call. And while I say that she hasn't had a good poker face and I'm teasing her a little bit, I do think that her public statements have been careful to the extent that they have not. I don't think she's indicated one way or another. She's not actually said what she's doing. So I think she's been careful about it. And like I said, you mentioned that the individuals in question, including Donald Trump, have constitutional rights, which is true. But I think another reality that is why the district attorney is so careful about this is that they can exercise those rights if they are charged with something and try to potentially get some charges thrown out. So I think that's why they're. Why she's being very careful.
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Alison Gill
Oh, yeah, 100%. You don't want. You. You really want to obtain a conviction and maintain it on appeal. And I know that's a federal thing, but I assume it also applies to state. It does to state DAs. But, yeah, you can bet, though, that I'll be the only media org filing amicus briefs to stop things from coming out. I'll be like, hey, I'm part of the media, and I think it's a bad idea because of justice. You know, that'd be the only one.
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Brian Caram
Oh, I love it.
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Alison Gill
And I really do think that. Now let's talk about imminent. Right? Because during that Hearing with Judge McBurney, Fani Willis, these are imminent. This isn't gonna be forever. This will come out. And I just need to finish my work here. You know, she has to go to a regular grand jury now, which I assume would already be one that's already seated, and present her findings to them for their cause. They are the ones who return indictments, not the special purpose grand jury. And so now she has to go through all that. But imminent really stuck out. A lot of people hung up on that word imminent. I tried to explain as a former government employee that imminent can mean like three weeks and soon is like four to six months. And we're about to wrap this up is sometime this year. But this week, I feel like this week is when we may start seeing or hearing some movement on this. We did today with the four person talking to the press. But what are your thoughts on this timing? Is she gonna need to bring witnesses back into the reg grand jury or is this more of a here's the evidence that we got in the other grand jury where I was the whole time, so you don't really need to do this again. Or is she going to wait to bring maybe some of these perjury cases to fruition? I mean, what's your sense here of her timing?
- [33:15]
Brian Caram
So a couple things. So first of all, I do think that she's going to have to represent evidence. And usually that in my experience when I was doing grand jury work would be I would have people read the transcript, so I would ask the questions again. Then I'd have an FBI agent sit there and read the answers that the witness gave and we would recreate that testimony in the new grand jury in the second grand jury, which takes time. It's faster than the first time because the person isn't thinking about the answers, they're just immediately reading them. But it still takes a while and it's laborious. I'm in. And there's 75 witnesses here. So I am guessing weeks is realistic. And I am careful for the reasons you said Alice said. I'm careful about putting a number on how many weeks that could be. But I do think when I say weeks, what I mean is rather than months. I would be surprised if six months from now there isn't indictments coming out of Fulton County. But I wouldn't be surprised if we don't have an answer in three weeks, that sort of thing.
- [34:23]
Alison Gill
Three weeks from now, right.
- [34:24]
Brian Caram
From today.
- [34:25]
Alison Gill
It's been a month. Right, Right.
- [34:27]
Brian Caram
So I think it's going to take cause think about it. At least in my grand jury experience, which is I'm not a Georgia lawyer. I wasn't a state court Lawyer. But in my experience, our grand juries are meeting maybe once a week. Sometimes in certain states, they meet once a month. But the point is, let's just. Even if they're meeting once or twice a month or whatever it is, they're meeting all day and you're reading testimony to them. Well, it's 75 witnesses worth of testimony to read. So that's going to take several different sessions. Like, you can't just do that. 75 witnesses interviews in one session. Think if you were rereading, for example, the January six committee transcripts to a grand jury, like, I think how long that would take to do. Right. Just to read them. So I think that's what it. That's what's involved. And so it's just going to take some time. But I mean, not an unlimited amount of time.
- [35:16]
Alison Gill
No.
- [35:16]
Brian Caram
And not as long as this investigation took. It's not going to take several months, but it's going to take some weeks.
- [35:22]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And I always like to be careful, too. But I did say, hey, in government speak, imminent means three weeks. And the joke was, we are very slow in the government.
- [35:31]
Brian Caram
Yeah.
- [35:32]
Alison Gill
But a lot of people after the third week are like, what's up, Ag? You said three weeks. I was like, no. My point was it takes a long time. The fact that it's. We're on week four just kind of drives it home and that, that these things take time. I think people need to know sort of all of the work that goes, that goes on behind the scenes, particularly, particularly when you can't talk about ongoing criminal investigations. And that leaves a giant opening for people to come in and criticize and try to attack and dismantle and come up with their own, you know, theories and all sorts of stuff so that, you know, that that vacuum that's left by the silence that is in order to do a thorough investigation can be a problem.
- [36:19]
Brian Caram
Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, one thing I will just say, like, I, you know, at times, and certainly in my own podcast I've critiqued how the district attorney has, you know, potentially, she seemed very eager to talk about this investigation, more eager than I would be. I certainly showed her cards a little bit. But one thing I will praise about her investigations, I do think that they've taken the time to handle this in a way you would expect for a first of its kind, unprecedented indictment of a former president for a type of crime that is almost never prosecuted anywhere. I mean, I can't think of another time where you had an elected official trying to pressure other public officials to change the results of an election. Right. So I think it's really something that 75 witnesses, I think it was. I mean, it's a lot of witnesses. A lot of time has gone into this. A lot of care. She has a rush through it. And so I just think the same thing's probably going on right now. Alison. I bet there's like intense debates going on inside her office about, you know, do you charge RICO or do you not? Do you charge some of these more narrow crimes? Like, I think there's definitely some real, you know, care that's being put in. And I respect that.
- [37:32]
Alison Gill
Yeah, no, I do too. And it makes me, I feel like compelled to guess how many of these 75 people are going to be indicted. And because we had 11 fraudulent electors that got target letters, we had Rudy get a target letter. And then there's a handful of other people that were involved in this scheme, and particularly even like Jeff Clark, who was a Department of justice guy, but had written a letter to Georgia election officials to, you know, hey, just, why don't you. We found a little fraud. You should, you know, so that he's involved there. Some of the folks who filed a lawsuit in Georgia alleging voter fraud that didn't exist and was known to not have existed because of the Berkeley research firm brief. We even have an email from John Eastman saying, hey, the President shouldn't sign on to this lawsuit anymore because now he's gotten some information that shows that these numbers are inaccurate and he signed it anyway. So I'm thinking at least 17, maybe 20, but we'll just see what happens when it happens. And like you said, I think it's gonna happen pretty soon. Sooner rather than later again, weeks.
- [38:38]
Brian Caram
Yeah, but that's really something. There's a lot of people, there's a lot of legal analysts who always are predicting that some big indictment's gonna come down. I'm not one of them. I'm pretty careful about that stuff, cuz I've been. I'm really, I think a lot of that stuff's been overblown, but not in this case. Like, I very confident that Willis is gonna indict. I think Trump's gonna be one of the people she does indict. I think that's big news, frankly. If he's indicted, I'm not sure people are gonna be too worried about whether 18 people are indicted or, or 25 if he's one of those people who's indicted. And I think it's, I mean, it's gonna be a major event. Now. I think questions really to me is who else may indict Donald Trump, not whether he's indicted here. And I think it's significant. So.
- [39:25]
Alison Gill
Yeah. And breaking news just across my desk now. The special grand jury foreman has said indictments were recommended for more than a dozen people. So.
- [39:34]
Brian Caram
Well, there you go.
- [39:35]
Alison Gill
There you have it. We'll see. It's gonna come out drip by drip until those indictments happen. I think by that, the poor people in that grand jury just must have their phones ringing off the hook from the press right now.
- [39:45]
Brian Caram
No kidding.
- [39:46]
Alison Gill
Thank you so much. Tell me who's coming up on It's Complicated because it's just, it's one of my favorite podcasts. Renato.
- [39:53]
Brian Caram
Yeah, well, you know, we actually Ash and I decide on the topics in, you know, not far in advance. We try to make them very newsworthy. But this, this week we, we talked about, you're going to have on Friday a podcast talking about the Dominion lawsuit and all the Fox News disinformation and what this means for Fox News. Are they going to really lose a billion do in a lawsuit? We also talk about this case. People get to hear my unvarnished thoughts about this indictment. You're getting a little bit of a taste here today, but you're going to get not only my thoughts in more detail, but Asha's. And then we also talk about the controversy that Nasha is involved in because she was critical of Nikki Haley and that upset some people in the right wing. Lots of fun stuff with Ashley.
- [40:40]
Alison Gill
Ashley Rongappa. Like that this week alone, to listen to why? Why it's Ashley Rengappa. And that's going to be explained on the next It's Complicated. So I'm very much looking forward to that. And thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Former federal prosecutor and co host of It's Complicated. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Renato Marioti. Thank you.
- [41:05]
Brian Caram
Thank you, everybody.
- [41:06]
Alison Gill
Stick around. We'll be right back with the good news. Hi, I'm Frances Collier. And I'm Angela V. Shelton. And we're Frangela. You know what you mean in your life. The Final Word podcast. Yes, you do. That's right. It is the final word on all things political and pop cultural, where we make real news, real funny, where we inspire you so you can hashtag resist, subscribe and get a new episode of the Final Word podcast each week. It's the news we think you need to hear. That's right. We think you need to hear it. Okay. Yeah. It's what we say. So. That's right. And because all we do is give. Every Thursday, you can listen to our hysterical podcast, idiot of the week. We round up the stupid. Because you know what? Somebody has to.
- [41:49]
Brian Caram
Okay?
- [41:50]
Alison Gill
All we do is give. Everybody welcome back. It's time for the good news. Good news everyone. Then good news, everyone. Good news, good news. And if you have any good news confessions corrections, you want to play what the mutt with us? You have a shout out to somebody you love. Adoptable pets in your area, your pod. Pet picks. Maybe in costumes, maybe not. And they don't have to be pets either. They can be wild animals or any, you know, any, any animals that you, that you want to send to us. Frog orgies. We love those. Dana loves your baby pictures. Keep sending those. Any Halloween costumes, holiday photos, anything you want to send us at all that just feel happy, please send it to us@dailybeanspod.com and click on contact. All right, first up from Philip. Pronouns he and him. My good news is that I voted in the Wisconsin Supreme Court primary. Thanks for all you do. Yes, Wisconsin Supreme Court primary was yesterday. We should be having those results by the time you hear this show and we'll go over it on tomorrow's beans. Next up from Diane pronoun she and her I just wanted to let you know that your pronunciation of wakeisha was exactly how I pronounced it when I moved from LA to Wisconsin. That is to say wrong. The accent is on the first syllable, not the second syllable as my Spanish words do in California. It's Waukesha. Very well, Waukesha. Gotcha. Diane says I love the daily beans. Thank you, Diane. I appreciate that, Waukesha. I'm going to try my best to remember that, but you know, it's a Southern California thing. Next up from anonymous pronoun she and her hello Beanie babies. Thank you for shouting out the Wisconsin spring election. In addition to the state supreme court, this election also contains races for local offices which we cannot afford to sleep on. Mayors, city councils, county boards, they impact things like parks, public transit, housing, zoning ordinances. School boards control things like disciplinary policies and curriculum. These have a direct impact on our day to day lives and a few dollars in votes can really shift the balance of power. I encourage everyone to learn about their local government and get involved. You can make a difference. For the good news, I've been a poll worker. My city calls us election inspectors since 2018. In 2021, I became a chief inspector in charge of a whole polling place. I started out running a small ward of only about 500 registered voters. I must be doing a good job because for this election I've been put in charge of one of the largest polling places in the city with more than 4,000 voters across four wards. To quote my favorite musical, I feel excited and scared, but mostly excited. Thank you so much for your dedication. Also, Anonymous goes on to say the other good news is that my city, Madison, Wisconsin has been named one of the 10 US Centers for Election Excellence by the alliance for Election Excellence, a nonpartisan collaborative devoted to helping municipalities run secure, trustworthy and voter centric elections. We'll get to learn from our peer cities and work to develop best practices for other communities to follow. It's a huge honor to be named and it speaks fairly highly of the city clerks, staff and volunteers who work tirelessly to put these elections on I am so proud of us. For Pet Tax, I'm including pics of my feline overlords. Ivy, the tuxedo with the funny mustache is the queen of awkward. Juno, the all black cat is a super affectionate parrot who will jump onto your shoulder from the ground and ride around there for hours. And the gray and white cat, Toby dreams that he's super kitty. Okay, I love the tuxie. I love the void. I love the gray and white cat. You know, recently my Bruce is a tuxie. He's still missing, but I am now fostering two beautiful tuxedo kitties. One of them has a mustache. They're a brother and sister bonded pair. And as you know, my void kitty boobs he left us or last year. He had small or large cell lymphoma as a matter of fact. And then I fostered a gray and white cat much like this kitty named Sasha who I also found while searching for Bruce out on the street. He needed to be cleaned up and given a bath and vaccinated and neutered and given some medicine and I got him all better and we spent some time together and I found him a beautiful forever home and he is doing really well and I get picture updates and I love it. So I love all these kitties and I love all kitties, really, as you can tell. All right, thank you for that submission. Next up from Anonymous Pronoun she and her hey Beans Queens. I joined Twitter in July of 2020 after my older sister passed away and I lost my only other sister to Q. I had no idea what that was at the time. Here I am today, educated. Thanks for being here Every day for us, it helps. Here are two of our chickens. Yes, we have seven. Two are blue sapphires and five are golden. They're such fun and produce amazing eggs for our family and neighbors and friends. Thank you for all you do. I want chickens. Look at these chickens. Hello ladies. I love chickens so much and thank you for that. Thank you for sending your wonderful chickens too. Next up, Marilyn Austin. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter came to our American Protestant church in Bombad, Godesburg, Germany. When he visited there, the wall had not yet come down. We had tickets issued that Sunday to regular churchgoers and afterwards there was a reception line that we could indeed meet him, shake his hand and Rosalind's too. Unforgettable experience. Both daughters and dad had already left on a flight back to the States. Thanks Beans Queens, for your tireless creativity and over the top productivity. Meryl that's amazing. Godesberg, Germany. 78 yeah, I was there just after the Wall came down. We went to Berlin, Heidelberg, Regensburg, Munchen, Grielen. I lived in Nagold for a while, which is right on the border there. They spoke Switzer Deutsch there. It's very confusing, but that was 1990, right after the wall came down. All right, next up from Brian D. Pronouns, he and him. Hearing your love for tuxedo kitties, I figured I should send you a pic of my newest feline overlord, Beans. She picked that name, not me. Whenever a new feline overlord enters my life, 99% of the time, I make a list of potential names, then suggest them to the overlord. If they respond to the name, that's what I go with. Beans basically broke into my house one day and plopped herself down near me as if to say, you have the honor of serving me now. So I started offering names to her, and Beans is the one she responded to. I've gotten her vaxxed and neutered, and when I saw how much it cost for me to do this, I almost changed her name to Rent because the tab for all of it came to slightly more than what I pay for rent. She has big Pomeranian energy. You know how happy and bouncy Pomeranians are. That's Beans. She's a queen. She knows it. And I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world. All cats are wonderful, but the best cats I've ever had the pleasure of waiting on have either been black cats or tuxies. I don't want to spend a moment of my life without having one or the other, if not both. And Brian, that is what I hope happened with my Bruce Willis, is that he just went into a new house and plopped down and is being served by another and he's their overlord. Wonder what they'll call him. He really did look just like Bruce Willis. But I still have faith that he will come back. He'll come in that cat door. The cat door is in the studio, by the way, and I've still left it. So it's open and there's access. But I think he'll come home. I hope he'll come home. It's been two months. Well, a month and a half. We'll see. Anyway, thank you for sending these in. They really do bring a smile to my face and I appreciate all of it. As you know, we're going to be out. The beans will be out on the week of March 6th, although you will get a show on March 6th that we put together a pretty great interview and I can't wait for you to hear it. And so you will get a show on March 6th and then we're going to drop some other shows in the feed so you have stuff to listen to. So I hope you enjoy those. But we'll be out. The whole team needs a break. We're going to do that every eight weeks now. I'm going to stick to that schedule this time. I swear I meant to do that a year and a half ago and now we're finally doing it. So hold me to it. And of course, you know, being out of town means that's when indictments happen. So if you have any good news you want to send us, everybody send it to us@dailybeanspod.com and click on contact. I'll be back again tomorrow. I told you this week was going to be a big news week and so far it's not disappointing. We'll see what happens between now and tomorrow. Until then, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health. Vote blue over Q and bring someone with you. I've been ag and them's the beans.
- [50:38]
Brian Caram
Refried beans.
- [50:39]
Alison Gill
I like refried beans.