'Here's some secret stuff!': 'Obsessive narcissist' Trump attacks system, ignores merits of charges
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00:00 Let's bring in Frederick G. Davis, lecturer in law at Columbia University.
00:03 Frederick, thank you for being with us here on France 24.
00:05 We always appreciate your time.
00:06 Can we go straight to what these charges mean?
00:10 We're talking about the Espionage Act.
00:12 We're talking about national security under threat.
00:14 We're talking about top secret documents being left in, as we understand it, places that
00:19 the public could have had access to at Mar-a-Lago.
00:22 Tell us about these charges.
00:23 Tell us about the profundity of what we're seeing here.
00:27 Well, it's pretty profound, and a number of people have used the word "unprecedented."
00:32 And here we have the former president of the United States accused of these things.
00:38 If you look at the indictment, which was filed last week, what the prosecutor wants to do
00:42 is treat this like a straightforward proposition.
00:45 We have laws relating to confidential documents.
00:49 If documents are judged to be secret, you can't take them with you.
00:54 They belong to the government.
00:56 They do not belong to people in person.
00:59 You don't show them to other people and use them to your personal advantage.
01:04 And most of all, you don't respond to official requests by lying and hiding things.
01:11 And the straightforward proposition the indictment makes is Mr. Trump violated all of those propositions.
01:17 He had documents that the evidence may show and is alleged to show he knew were secret.
01:23 It's not like he had them hanging around his house when he got home one night.
01:27 He took them with him.
01:28 He picked them out on January 21, 2021, when he left the White House.
01:34 These are ones he wanted to keep with him.
01:36 He was given a formal request by the archives to whom these documents belong as an authority
01:43 of the archives.
01:44 These are their documents, not his, saying, "We want you to return all the documents you
01:49 have," which he did not do.
01:51 Instead, there apparently is evidence that he took them out and showed to his buddies
01:55 around the table at his sports club, saying, "Look at this.
01:59 Here's some secret stuff."
02:01 And then again, the allegations are that he systematically worked with lawyers and others
02:07 to try to hide the documents, in part by moving them from room to room and in part by trying
02:13 to get people to downplay, if not entirely mislead, the investigator.
02:17 Fred, if I can pause you there for a second.
02:18 It sounds incredibly, the way we're talking about it, it almost makes it sound, and this
02:23 isn't any fault of how you're expressing it, it's the actual situation.
02:27 It makes it sound incredibly childish of Trump in the way he's behaved.
02:30 But let's, just for the viewers, flesh out what you're saying there, Frederick, about
02:34 these charges.
02:35 July 2021 at Bedminster, New Jersey, at the golf club you're talking about, revealing
02:39 plans for an attack on Iran to his guests.
02:42 August 2021, same place, Bedminster, revealing a top secret map of the ongoing withdrawal
02:48 from Afghanistan.
02:49 That's August 2021.
02:51 Of course, that was just before the pullout actually happened.
02:55 And again, May 2022, what you were talking about there, the obstruction that took place
02:59 at Mar-a-Lago, documents eventually, well, being found in, among other places, a bathroom.
03:05 It's the sense that this has been basically a man playing with the system to the very
03:11 nth degree.
03:12 Yeah, but that appears to be quite consistent with other things he'd done.
03:15 I mean, he's done, I mean, look, I make no pretense of being particularly objective at
03:20 this.
03:21 The man is an obsessive narcissist.
03:22 He really is.
03:24 And I think he views all of this as not about the safety of our people in uniform in Iran
03:30 and Afghanistan, and not about following the rules of government, but about himself.
03:35 I mean, it is really quite extraordinary, in my opinion.
03:39 Frederick, bear with us, please.
03:41 I'll bring in Angela Diffley, our international affairs editor, for more on this.
03:44 And we're hearing there from a man with great legal insight, as Frederick T. Davis has,
03:49 as to how this could pan out.
03:52 And clearly, the seriousness of what we're seeing here is huge.
03:56 But nonetheless, one imagines that, and there's probably a group of them down there that we
03:59 can see, a small group, but I imagine there are more to come.
04:02 Trump supporters will not be swayed in any way, shape or form.
04:06 There is a very, very sizable, hard core of Trump supporters who, as you say, will not
04:11 be swayed.
04:12 And interestingly, on Saturday, at a rally, the defeated Republican candidate for the
04:18 governorship of Arizona, Kerry Laker, she said, she reminded everybody that Trump supporters,
04:24 a very large number of them, own guns and are card-carrying members of the National
04:29 Rifle Association.
04:30 She then went on to say, this is not a threat.
04:33 It is a public service announcement.
04:34 These are astonishing comments to make.
04:37 And there is this rather worrying undertone.
04:41 We all know what happened on January the 6th.
04:44 There is a level of anger, which on both sides, which is very disturbing.
04:52 And everybody is aware that coded messages or careless talk could lead to something very,
04:59 very dangerous.
05:00 As to whether, apart from that core of supporters, Trump will endear himself to other people
05:10 throughout this business and the trial, which is to be expected, I think very many Republican
05:16 voters might balk at the idea that American lives were put at risk, perhaps, that this
05:22 man might be sitting in the White House again, even though a recent poll apparently showed
05:26 that 76% of Republican sympathisers are more worried by what they say is a weaponised Justice
05:34 Department than by the fact that these documents might have been in the wrong place or in the
05:42 wrong hands.
05:43 But I'm not sure that will continue to be the case as this unfolds.
05:47 Angela, thank you.
05:49 Frederick G. Davis, I hope you were able to hear what Angela said there.
05:52 Can I come back to you to talk about the steps that we go to from here?
05:56 Because clearly this is the start of a process.
05:59 Trump arraigned, now officially charged, now back on licence.
06:03 Of course, he's not deemed to be a flight risk, so he's allowed to go free, but obviously
06:08 free under the parameters of the law.
06:12 Where do we go from here?
06:13 How long will this process last?
06:14 And of course, after that, we're thinking what impact would that have on any Trump campaign
06:17 for president?
06:18 Well, in terms of how long it lasts, the only honest answer is no one knows.
06:23 Normally, a case like this could come to trial and, in my opinion, should come to trial in
06:29 about a year.
06:31 It could be faster than that under certain circumstances if the judge pushes it along.
06:39 All of Trump's strategic impulses and instincts are to delay it as much as he can.
06:44 He's done that in every single litigation he's been in.
06:46 So I suspect that they will try to put it off and put it off.
06:49 And then he will claim, not without justice, look, this is interfering with a solemn event,
06:56 namely the election of the next president of the United States.
06:58 So there are a number of steps that will go through that are procedurally normal, and
07:03 he will try to prolong them, exacerbate them, make them as complicated as possible and,
07:09 of course, fight what for him is the real battle, which is the battle outside of court.
07:13 Indeed.
07:14 And of course, this is his second visit in recent months to a courtroom, is it not?
07:18 In April, he pled not guilty to state charges in New York stemming from a hush money payment
07:23 to a porn star, Stormy Daniels.
07:27 I asked you about this case a couple of nights ago.
07:30 You said to me it was a lot less serious than what Trump is facing now.
07:35 Well, the indictment in New York is a little odd, and it has to do with New York state
07:43 law dealing with business records that is not totally lacking in seriousness.
07:50 I think I have problems with that prosecution.
07:53 This one here, look, I've known Merrick Garland, the attorney general, for some 30 years.
07:58 Not well, but I admire him.
07:59 I've worked very closely with Jack Smith, the special prosecutor.
08:03 These are very serious and, in the case of Merrick Garland, very cautious people who
08:09 have really gone about this very, very, very, very carefully.
08:12 So these are very important charges.
08:15 So far, at least, they've been extremely well framed and presented.
08:20 So far, Trump's record is not doing very well, if anything at all, in terms of responding
08:25 on the merits.
08:26 I mean, there was a civil case against him by Gene Carroll who accused him of sexual
08:34 excesses and rape, and he basically had no defense on the merits.
08:37 His entire approach was to try to attack her and destabilize the process.
08:42 And that's, in large part, what he's likely to do here.
08:45 So these are serious checks.
08:47 Look, think of voters who have children or spouses in the military.
08:52 Frederick, I need to pause you.
08:54 Trump may be about to speak.
08:55 Excuse me.
08:56 Let's listen to Trump.
08:57 Mr. President, we fight.
08:58 You want the best, we fight.
08:59 Great champ.
09:00 Just don't fight him.
09:01 I mistimed that one.
09:15 Donald Trump just joshing with his supporters.
09:18 Frederick T. Davis, I apologize for interrupting you.
09:20 Could you please take up where you left off?
09:23 No, he has not ever shown a strongly competent ability to respond on the merits of the various
09:32 charges against him.
09:33 I'm talking about going back 10 years when he was sued over Trump University for fraud.
09:37 He settled for $25 million.
09:40 His company was charged criminally.
09:43 It was convicted and his defense didn't amount to too much.
09:46 What he tends to do is not even deign to engage on what happened on the merits, but try to
09:53 attack the system, attack the prosecutors, attack the witnesses.
09:57 Everybody is out to get him.
09:59 And that may work to some degree politically.
10:03 That's kind of not my area.
10:05 What I think the Gene Carroll case shows is if you have a judge who keeps his or her eye
10:11 on moving things forward and actually hold him down to a trial.
10:16 Here we have a trial, Mr. Trump.
10:17 You've been accused.
10:18 You're entitled to a presumption of innocence.
10:20 You can defend yourself.
10:21 He does not do very well.
10:23 Frederick T. Davis, thank you for the moment.
10:25 Very much indeed.
10:26 Angela, quick word before we go back to Catavang in Miami.
10:29 This then clearly a situation where it's not enough for Trump to stand there and shout
10:32 fake news.
10:33 No, he's clearly not.
10:34 He's going to face a trial.
10:38 At best, he can delay it.
10:40 It will at best for him distract him.
10:43 Well, I suppose possibly he could use it as a platform to talk about how he's a victim
10:46 because that cool fake news always taps into his base, doesn't it?
10:49 But excuse me one second.
10:51 Trump is now speaking.
10:52 Let's take that.
10:53 And we can't let it happen.
10:54 I'm going to make a little speech tonight.
10:55 Ben Mitchter.
10:56 I hope you're going to be there.
10:57 Can you start to while you can come to if you want.
11:08 Thank you, everybody.
11:09 I'm sorry I cut you off.
11:21 The point I was I was asking you to develop was this idea that Trump would normally stand
11:25 and shout this is all fake news.
11:27 Now, this is really a time where he needs to stand up and be counted.
11:31 He needs to face the real questions from the real legal system.
11:35 Yeah, and they are very, very significant charges about very, very serious issues.
11:41 And anybody now will be able to read them and work out for themselves that this isn't
11:46 nothing.
11:47 And I think that it is unlikely.
11:49 I know there are some people saying that his support will only grow.
11:54 Perhaps it won't shrink.
11:56 But it seems astonishing that more and more people would think this man is worth voting
12:01 for.
12:02 I think it's a big setback.
12:04 It is interesting to note there aren't that many supporters there in Miami in the hundreds.
12:09 Even the police chief was saying we're ready for 5000 or 50000.
12:12 It seems they were in the hundreds.
12:13 They might all be instead in New Jersey waiting for the speech tonight.
12:17 We'll see.
12:18 Angela Diffley, thank you very much indeed.
12:20 Kerevan Ghorjasani waiting for us in Miami.
12:23 Kerevan, of course, was there when Trump arrived and there when he left the courthouse.
12:27 Kerevan, I don't know what the situation is where you are now.
12:31 Please fill us in.
12:32 Trump supporters everywhere.
12:33 How's security?
12:35 Well, the supporters and the protesters are slowly clearing out.
12:42 It seems there's still quite a small crowd.
12:45 Really in front of the building just behind me.
12:49 People with flag, mostly Trump supporters who have been there really all throughout
12:54 the day.
12:55 But the really big crowds were really at the moment when he arrives and when he was in
13:00 the building.
13:01 It seems that when they heard that he had already left, that started the process of
13:06 clearing this out.
13:08 As far as security goes, well, the Miami police had said it.
13:12 This was their plan all along.
13:13 They were ready for anything, but they were hoping that nothing would happen.
13:17 It seems that they were at least up till now right.
13:20 They had not put any barricades in around the courthouse.
13:24 You can see behind me this yellow tape, the police line.
13:27 It's basically the only barrier to get to the courthouse that was installed by the Miami
13:33 police.
13:34 That said, there was a heavy police presence, police cars, police officers patrolling, helicopters
13:39 above head.
13:40 So they were really hovering around, being here in case something happened.
13:46 But they had planned for all contingencies and it seemed that the message to these protesters
13:53 to really express their First Amendment right in peace was actually heard.
13:59 And as far as I can see and so far, it was really exchange of words, people yelling at
14:05 each other, people saying bad things about Trump, people saying good things about Trump,
14:09 but no serious incidents to talk to right here from the Miami courthouse.
14:16 As you said, there are likely going to be a lot of supporters also in New Jersey, in
14:20 Bedminster when he'll be making that speech.
14:23 So the crowds of Donald Trump supporters pretty much split around Florida, around this courthouse,
14:30 around his other resort, as well as his resort in New Jersey, waiting to hear from Donald
14:37 Trump.
14:38 Kervan, we heard earlier from Frederick T. Davis, who's still with us, about the serious
14:42 nature of these charges.
14:44 And I think someone facing charges under the Espionage Act, it doesn't really get any worse
14:48 than that, I don't think.
14:50 Well, obviously, it could go worse, I suppose, if it was murder.
14:53 But there you go.
14:54 The Espionage Act is probably as difficult a situation as any ex-president can find himself
14:58 in.
14:59 I'm wondering, Kervan, where you operate normally in Washington, what are the whispers that
15:03 you pick up in the corridors of power about this case?
15:08 Well, it's interesting to see how the Republicans have been dealing with this indictment.
15:16 A lot of them waited until the actual charges were unveiled to really express themselves
15:22 on the matter.
15:23 And you really have two sort of sides.
15:26 One side that is fully supportive of Donald Trump.
15:30 They have been attacking the Department of Justice, calling it a witch hunt, really using
15:35 the rhetoric of Donald Trump that he is a victim of a political witch hunt.
15:41 And you've seen this, whether it is in Congress or even among some of the 2024 Republican
15:47 candidates.
15:48 Ron DeSantis, for example, really staying clear a little bit from the details of the
15:53 indictment, but really focusing his attacks on the Department of Justice.
15:58 But there are other Republicans who have been critical of Donald Trump, who have said that
16:04 these are actually serious charges, especially the fact that he mishandled and retained those
16:11 classified documents, documents that have to do with U.S. national security.
16:17 That's something that Nikki Haley, for example, who is also running for the GOP nomination,
16:22 she said that this was very serious and that he potentially jeopardized U.S. national security.
16:29 We heard from other Republicans saying that these were really serious allegations, that
16:35 if the information in this indictment turns out to be true, that he showed some of the
16:41 vulnerabilities of the United States to other people, that he talked about some of the U.S.'s
16:46 attack plans on foreign nations to people without any classified, that shouldn't be
16:54 reading those classified documents, that could be very tricky for him.
17:00 So you're also seeing some Republicans, very few, but Chris Christie, who is running for
17:06 the 2024 nomination, he has come out full force against Donald Trump.
17:11 And Asa Hutchinson, another candidate, saying even before the charges were unveiled that
17:17 Donald Trump should be dropping out of the race because at best this would be a distraction,
17:22 but at worst it would be much more serious.
17:24 Ketavan, for now, thank you very much indeed.
17:27 Ketavan Ghorgastani, our Washington correspondent who was in Miami where Donald Trump has been
17:31 arraigned.
17:32 He's entered a not guilty plea.
17:34 That was via the voice of his lawyer.
17:36 Trump didn't speak in court.
17:37 And his valet, Walt Nota, is also charged as a co-conspirator with him.
17:43 He too has entered a not guilty plea.
17:44 Here in the studio we have Angela Diffley, International Affairs Editor, and we have
17:48 joining us via Skype, Frederick G. Davis, Lecturer in Law at Columbia University.
17:52 Frederick, can I come to you next?
17:54 This whole case for you, what is it saying about the US?
17:59 Ketavan there saying that perhaps this has exposed some weaknesses in the system.
18:03 That's something that maybe some Trump supporters may be trying to sort of, I don't know, use
18:07 as some kind of mitigation in his favour in another way.
18:09 But other Republicans actually turning on Trump now.
18:13 Well, clearly the whole event, I mean, Trump as a phenomenon has exposed extraordinary
18:19 fissures in our society that we were sort of aware of, but we didn't know it was this
18:23 bad.
18:24 And some of the statistics we've been talking about that here's a man faced with putting
18:28 our soldiers' lives in danger, and yet 76 percent of his party think that it's politically
18:36 motivated, you know, that's a degree of polarization, you know, that was unheard of a generation
18:40 ago.
18:43 In terms of the federal criminal legal justice system, which is the one I know and practice
18:48 in, you know, so far I think it's doing its job.
18:51 I mean, they've gone about it in a methodical way.
18:53 They've been very, very careful.
18:55 They've gone to court.
18:56 They've by and large have won.
18:58 I am very hopeful that the criminal justice system will hold together, that a judge will
19:05 be neutral, give him every presumption of innocence to which he's entitled, which is
19:10 total, and that we'll get a fair trial.
19:13 If we can do that, you know, look, I'm a lawyer.
19:16 I can't speak for the entire country, but I would like to say that our legal system
19:20 is up for this challenge.
19:22 Senator Victor Davis, we always appreciate your honesty and the honesty shining through
19:26 on this one.
19:27 Your analysis is balanced.
19:28 We're not getting any sense of anybody's taking a side.
19:31 And clearly what you're saying now is that these charges are possibly as serious as any
19:37 president.
19:38 Well, this is unprecedented stuff, definitely.
19:41 Absolutely, it's unprecedented.
19:43 But don't forget there are other charges out there.
19:45 It appears likely that the state prosecutor in Georgia will bring charges relating to
19:50 election fraud that will be, I couldn't even hazard a guess whether you call that more
19:57 serious or less serious.
19:59 The notion of interfering with an election to try to have a state that clearly voted
20:04 for Biden somehow come out and say, no, we really voted for Trump.
20:08 That's pretty serious, too.
20:11 And then there's the whole issue of January 6th.
20:15 A person who supported Trump was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy
20:22 when what he was doing was what he said was following what he believed was the orders
20:27 of Trump.
20:29 So we have not gotten to the end of this.
20:31 This is a very important step, but it is only a partial step.
20:35 We've got a long way to go.
20:37 Sorry, go ahead, Andrew.
20:38 I was just going to pick up on a couple of things that you said there.
20:42 The Georgia case, which is likely to come up, of course, it will emerge whether or not
20:48 Trump was guilty or not guilty.
20:50 But you can see why what he had to gain from that if he were to do it, if he was leaning
20:54 on Georgia to overturn the results so that he won in that state.
21:00 You can see there was a means to an end.
21:02 Yes, this this one is hard to see, isn't it?
21:06 One wonders what he was going to do.
21:08 You know, what was his intent?
21:10 And it is very worrying.
21:11 There are a number of very worrying possibilities.
21:14 Or was it something, whatever it was, it's such a curious situation.
21:19 He didn't need to find himself indicted today.
21:21 Why did he take those documents?
21:23 Why did he not give them back?
21:24 So was he was he being a brash show off or did he have a more insidious intent?
21:30 That's the question.
21:31 Do you have a theory on that one?
21:34 Should we ask if he has a theory on that one?
21:36 Frederick T. Davis, was Trump showing off when he stashed the documents or did he have
21:41 a more dark meaning or a dark aim?
21:44 What do you think?
21:46 With him, they merge into each other.
21:48 I somewhat extravagantly use the word obsessive narcissist before, but I think it's clinically
21:53 descriptive.
21:54 And I just think he views everything around him as something that is there to help him.
21:58 He saw these documents.
21:59 You know, he had this love affair with the dictator of North Korea and he thought, wouldn't
22:03 that be cool to have those documents?
22:05 And, you know, he knows that he has issues with Biden about Afghanistan.
22:08 Wouldn't it be great to have those documents?
22:11 And I think in his world, the notion that there are rules saying, no, you shouldn't
22:15 do that.
22:16 It is that's just not on his that's just not on his level of understanding.
22:21 I mean, there's a whole you talk about his world, his universe.
22:25 I mean, there have been publications.
22:27 I'm not sort of inventing this.
22:29 This is things that have been studied, published, and there's been no legal action taken against
22:33 the authors.
22:34 So we could go with perhaps an element of veracity in what's been said about Trump's
22:38 links to Russia, for instance, and certain links with people who may have connections
22:41 to the former.
22:42 Or maybe it still even exists.
22:45 KGB, that kind of thing.
22:47 Yeah, I think he doesn't respect limits.
22:51 I mean, I think he thinks, why not try, you know, and look, he has systematically done
22:57 that around the world in terms of his, you know, relationships with Russia, which he's
23:02 fundamentally changed, you know, foreign policy for reasons that are hard to understand.
23:09 So there's just, yeah, I think we see a consistent pattern there of, you know, sort of making
23:16 his point that I'm different.
23:18 I don't I don't fall into this majority of people who docilely go along and follow rules.
23:24 You know, I speak out.
23:25 And then, you know, as we've already discussed several times, there's a significant, although
23:30 still minority, group of the population that reacts to that in a positive way.
23:35 So it's not going to go away.
23:37 Indeed, Frederick, thank you for the moment.
23:39 Please stay with us if you can.
23:41 People are joining us by the moment, of course, and we'll give everybody a round up, round
23:45 about, well, in a couple of moments time, just as we bring everybody really up to the
23:48 pace of what is going on.
23:49 It is fast moving here.
23:51 Angela Diffley, I'm pleased to say, our international affairs editor, is with us here in the studio
23:55 to give us another level of context on this story.
23:59 Donald Trump here on one level is a candidate for the Republican Party to be reelected,
24:04 he hopes, as president.
24:06 Then on the other side of the story, this unprecedented legal case facing these 37 federal
24:11 charges.
24:12 I mean, you couldn't make this up, could you?
24:14 It's a remarkable story.
24:15 And others further down the line, the Georgia case, which is likely to come up, which again
24:19 is very serious.
24:22 And he is likely to be on trial if he were if he were elected president.
24:27 He could face trial while he was president.
24:30 He could be jailed while he was president.
24:32 These scenarios are crazy.
24:37 And I would imagine there would be a significant number of Americans who think we do not want
24:42 that in our country.
24:45 We are the leader of the free world.
24:47 This is not a good look at the very least.
24:52 But we'll see what needs to happen if Trump is not to get the Republican nomination, is
25:02 that the field needs to narrow.
25:04 There are a lot of candidates at the moment.
25:07 If this starts to look really serious, if he looks like a dangerous candidate who, if
25:11 he wins the nomination, will not win the U.S. election, then the Republicans really need
25:17 to get their act together.
25:18 They need some candidates need to stand down.
25:22 They need to narrow the field so that there is a significant opposition to Trump and so
25:26 that somebody else gets the nomination if they feel it's looking really bad and if they
25:31 feel he might win the nomination but go on to lose the presidency.
25:35 So we'll have to watch our spectators and see how that happens.
25:39 And the people who hold this in their hands are the 12 jurors in Florida who are ordinary
25:46 people who will be chosen to make a momentous decision at the end of this trial.
25:52 And they hold a very significant amount of power in their hands.
25:56 It needs to be a unanimous verdict.
25:59 And also, of course, the voters of the United States.
26:02 Indeed.
26:03 Angela, bear with us, please.
26:04 We're looking at images of Donald Trump's vehicle in the motorcade there just leaving
26:08 the freeway.
26:09 Freeway, an interesting word, isn't it, when you consider the situation.
26:12 It's been arraigned on trial.
26:14 He's charged with 37 federal charges, which is unprecedented.
26:17 Again, that word again in connection with Donald Trump.
26:20 This is history in the making.
26:22 The first time that a former US president has been charged with such grave and serious
26:28 charges under the Espionage Act.
26:30 Let's go to Ketavan Gorjastani.
26:31 Ketavan's been watching the situation in Miami.
26:34 Ketavan, could you give us an upsum about what has happened for the viewers who are
26:40 just joining us right now?
26:42 Could you bring them all up to date with the situation, please?
26:45 Give us a sense of what's been going on and what has happened where you are.
26:50 Well, Donald Trump arrived here at the Miami courthouse a little bit before 2 p.m.
26:58 He was processed.
26:59 He was booked at 2.05 p.m.
27:04 That processing part was officially over.
27:07 And then he appeared in that courtroom where his lawyer on his behalf pleaded not guilty
27:15 for Donald Trump.
27:16 Donald Trump was read the 37 counts of the charges he's facing.
27:21 He was then told by the magistrate, given some conditions as to how he was going to
27:28 be leaving this courthouse.
27:30 The magistrate telling Donald Trump that he was not to discuss the facts of this case
27:36 with any witnesses or his co-defendant, Walt Nata, who's one of his aides.
27:42 The magistrate being very clear about that, that if he had to discuss some facts of this
27:48 case with any witnesses or with Walt Nata, he had to go through his legal team.
27:54 Only the lawyers can discuss this.
27:56 So that was very clear from the magistrate.
27:59 And then Donald Trump, as expected, was released from this Miami courthouse as a free man.
28:06 And we saw him addressing some of his supporters.
28:10 He's now headed to New Jersey, back to New Jersey, at Bedminster, one of his many resorts,
28:16 where he is set to deliver a speech around 8.15 p.m. local time.
28:21 That's 2.15 a.m. in Paris.
28:24 Once again, just like he did after the arraignment in Manhattan, he wants to speak to his supporters.
28:30 He wants to discuss this case.
28:33 He will likely address some elements of this arraignment, though if it is anything like
28:40 the speech that we heard from him back at Mar-a-Lago a couple of months ago, he is likely
28:45 just to repeat some of the things that he's been saying for the past few weeks, which
28:50 is that this is a political witch hunt, that this is an attack on a political rival, that
28:55 this is yet another example of the weaponization of the Department of Justice.
29:01 Ketavan, thank you very much indeed.
29:04 Ketavan Ghorjasandi there in Miami.
29:07 And it's worth pointing out that Donald Trump making his way back to Bedminster, New Jersey,
29:12 as Ketavan was just mentioning, that is actually the golf club where this all began, this very
29:17 story, Angela, all kicked off with those revelations that Donald Trump had been bigging it up in
29:24 his own golf course, saying, hey, look what I've got to his friends.
29:28 One can't begin to imagine what was going on in his mind.
29:31 One can't, no.
29:33 And that's what makes it really very different from the Mike Pence thing, from the Joe Biden
29:37 thing.
29:38 Documents found on their premises, in Joe Biden's case in his garage again in New Jersey,
29:44 or Delaware, and in Washington, in offices in Washington that he no longer used.
29:51 But he said, look, I'm sorry, I didn't know, go and get them.
29:55 I think the FBI found them anyway.
29:57 The same with Mike Pence.
29:58 I'm sorry, I didn't know.
29:59 No attempt on either side to obstruct the FBI or any subsequent inquiries.
30:07 A special counsel has been appointed to look into why those documents were on Joe Biden's
30:12 property.
30:13 Again, a small number of boxes.
30:16 It really isn't of the same magnitude.
30:19 And what really distinguishes the Trump case is the what looks like an operation to obstruct
30:26 the FBI and the subsequent investigation.
30:30 There are tapes.
30:33 I think this is something that, because you can talk about legal systems are different,
30:38 those kind of things.
30:39 But I think everybody the world over understands that if you obstruct the police whilst they're
30:44 trying to do their duty, on whatever level, you're in the wrong.
30:51 And it's probably as in the wrong as you could be, isn't it?
30:54 Well, all of this will emerge in the trial.
30:57 That's the correct answer.
30:59 Allegations, we'll see if they're backed up or not, whatever.
31:03 Indeed, it's a remarkable case, Angela.
31:05 Thank you very much indeed.
31:06 Let's bring in Frederick T. Davis, lecturer in law at Columbia University.
31:10 You know, the people involved in the prosecution, you know, the people involved in the investigation,
31:14 you've spoken of your admiration of Merrick Garland, for instance.
31:18 Where do we go from here in terms of this going forward?
31:22 I presume at some point we're going to see Donald Trump giving evidence, taking questions,
31:27 being cross-examined.
31:28 Well, yes and no.
31:31 I mean, there will be a trial.
31:33 There's no way that he will be heard under oath between now and the trial.
31:39 That's not part of the federal criminal procedure.
31:42 He will have a trial at which he can and should attend.
31:46 Don't forget, he did not attend the civil trial with Gene Carroll, but he should be
31:52 there.
31:53 And then he can or may not testify on his own behalf.
31:56 It would be hard to imagine a juror being very impressed with any argument in his favour
32:05 if he's sitting there and does not testify.
32:07 So I think that as a practical matter, we will hear from him, but not until trial.
32:12 The merits of the jury system is that it is what it is.
32:15 It's being judged by one's peers.
32:18 But one's peers may have political points of view.
32:21 Is it possible the jury could have to be vetted in some way?
32:24 Well, they will be vetted and it's a complex process.
32:27 And one of the big issues for the judge will be how she runs that vetting process.
32:35 I'll say one thing is the obstruction of justice elements here.
32:39 The counts change things a bit from a jury perspective.
32:43 I've tried a lot of jury trials, criminal jury trials in this country.
32:48 Jurors really don't like obstruction of justice.
32:50 If they hear that someone is accused of something, they'll listen to that evidence.
32:56 They may or may not be impressed by it.
33:00 But if they hear that that person reached out and tried to get people to lie or to get
33:06 rid of documents and stuff, that tends to motivate jurors in a way very adverse to the
33:12 defendant.
33:13 So here's an error.
33:14 That is an issue that has both legal significance in the sense of being a distinct criminal
33:19 charge, but also kind of a dynamic change in how the trial may unroll.
33:25 Angela was pointing that out, that the sense that that would work in that way, the way
33:30 that people might look at it in a very different way, given the obstruction element to this.
33:35 But in terms of going forward in terms of the duration of this whole thing, earlier
33:40 you mentioned it seemed almost open ended.
33:43 Can it really drag on that long?
33:46 Well he will try to.
33:48 One thing that Trump does, he tries to appeal everything that he loses.
33:51 And that's actually quite hard in a federal criminal process that you don't get an appeal
33:57 of adverse decisions.
34:00 But he will do his best.
34:02 And it takes a while.
34:04 I mean, there are there are issues in terms of his access to all of the information that
34:09 the government has.
34:11 There are issues in terms of how the trial will be run.
34:15 It takes a while.
34:17 As I said earlier, a norm might be something in the order of magnitude of a year.
34:22 I think a very experienced and careful judge could move that along faster.
34:28 But I can, there are any number of criminal cases that take longer than that.
34:32 It just does.
34:33 How much is all this going to cost, Frederick?
34:35 Can you put a ballpark figure on sort of what kind of amount of money might be spent in
34:41 kind of taking this case forward?
34:45 Spent by Trump in defence costs?
34:46 I'm thinking of the whole thing.
34:48 Defence costs, the prosecution, the whole bundle.
34:51 Well that's a good question.
34:52 It's hard to know the budgeting within the Department of Justice, how they allocate.
34:56 I'll give you an order of magnitude.
34:58 There is a white collar financial case a few years ago that I actually wrote about where
35:03 we know what the costs were for the defence counsel because the defendant tried to get
35:09 it back from his company.
35:10 And one individual going to one trial ran up legal bills of $34 million.
35:16 And when I lecture on that in Europe, people say, how can you possibly run up that amount
35:20 of cost just to defend one guy?
35:23 It'll end up, we're talking tens of millions here.
35:25 It is an absolutely, on every level, a remarkable case.
35:30 And at the centre of it, this idea, Frederick, that somehow the system is being corrupted.
35:37 This is what I think possibly the saddest element, this idea that the whole thing is
35:40 being somehow twisted and manipulated.
35:42 Well, that's what's at stake.
35:44 And that's why I am passionately hoping that these people, who I don't know terribly well,
35:49 but who I might deeply admire, our Attorney General and the special counsel, I hope that
35:56 they continue to go at this methodically, fairly and in a transparent way.
36:01 A lot depends on this case going ahead and reaching a result that is transparent and
36:08 understandable and that the world can accept.
36:10 Frederick, bear with us, please.
36:12 Angela, tell us what we're seeing on the screen.
36:16 An aircraft.
36:17 He's heading off, it looks like, to New Jersey then for his, in his Trump plane.
36:22 The $34 million to defend himself mightn't be too tall an order for Trump, but if we're
36:27 to believe what he says he's worth, oh, there we go.
36:30 But there he is heading off to New Jersey.
36:33 Interesting.
36:34 We were just being told there about, you know, the very straightforwardness of the procedure.
36:42 Trump has been calling the special counsel on social media, even on his way to this courthouse
36:50 today.
36:51 He was on social media on his own truth social talking about how the special counsel was
36:56 deranged, how he was, I think he used the word terrorist.
37:01 These very, as we're being told, very, very straightforward, very procedural people trying
37:07 to stick to the correct way of doing things are under considerable stress and pressure
37:16 and subject to very strong invective criticism from the outside.
37:22 So it's a tough job.
37:24 Anyway, he's heading off to New Jersey and it will be very interesting to hear what he
37:29 says in New Jersey, how combative he is.
37:32 You've preempted my next question to you.
37:33 What do you think you'd be telling your supporters?
37:35 I think we've got a good idea what it might be, but give us a sense of what you feel he
37:38 might be.
37:39 We have never seen him anything other than combative in these situations.
37:43 He will no doubt say that the Department of Justice has been weaponised, that the special
37:49 counsel is deranged, as he's just said.
37:52 He will no doubt portray himself as a martyr, a victim and perhaps trying to galvanise his
37:57 core base.
38:00 We'll see later on.
38:01 Angela Diffley, our international affairs editor, thank you much indeed.
38:05 Final word in this segment from Frederick T. Davis, veteran law at Columbia.
38:08 Fred, we're seeing Trump getting on his jet.
38:11 He's going to New Jersey.
38:13 What happens from here?
38:14 He goes home and as Angela told you, he'll speak to his reporters.
38:19 That'll be interesting.
38:22 He will act through his attorneys.
38:24 There is one scenario.
38:27 We don't really know who his attorneys are.
38:29 I don't think he's likely to appear in Miami again until there's a trial.
38:34 So what we hear from him personally will be what he says on social media and what he tries
38:38 to do to destabilise the process.
38:41 I think the real action now will be his lawyers.
38:44 We don't really know who that team is yet against the Department of Justice lawyers.
38:48 And there'll be a lot of fascinating detail.
38:50 This is stuff that I dream about in terms of intellectual interest.
38:54 So we'll see what happens.
38:57 It'll roll out.
38:59 And like I said, a year is a frame of reference that might be accurate.
39:03 It might be longer or shorter.
39:05 Frederick T. Davis, lecturer in law at Columbia.
39:07 Thank you very much indeed for your insight and analysis.
39:09 To Angela Diffley, our international affairs editor, for your insight too.
39:13 And thank you to Ketaman Ghorjasdani for watching all developments for us there at the trial
39:18 in Miami.
39:19 Thanks to you for watching too.
39:20 Do stay with us.
39:21 More to come, live from Paris.
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