Will Trump's Legal Issues Impact The General Election? Political Scientist Weighs In

6 months ago

Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago Charles Lipson joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss former President Trump's legal problems impacting the election.

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Transcript

00:00 You know, we've seen Donald Trump in a Manhattan courtroom over the past couple of weeks for his

00:06 hush money trial. Do you think his legal challenges in general are going to impact the election?

00:11 They could, but I've got to tell you, and I'm not a, you know, a big Trump fan. I'm conservative,

00:20 but I'm not a big Trump fan. I'm not a never Trump or either. But I've got to tell you,

00:26 I think that the trial is just outrageous. This was a minor issue, normally dealt with,

00:37 whether or not it was a correct bookkeeping case or something, normally dealt with as a misdemeanor.

00:45 The statute of limitations has run out on that. The issue of whether it affected the 2016 election,

00:53 now 2016 election is a case that the federal government decided not to bring. They just

01:04 didn't think it was a case. Alvin Bragg ran, and so did Letitia James, the Attorney General of New

01:11 York, ran on the idea that they would get Trump and they would find an issue to do it, and they've

01:18 done so. And essentially, and remember, Hillary Clinton paid money for the Steele dossier. She did

01:29 it through a law firm. New York didn't prosecute that. It was well known at the time. So there's,

01:36 there are issues, I think, about what Republicans call lawfare, and I think those are completely

01:44 legitimate issues. And it's just the biggest thing on CNN and MSNBC, they couldn't be happier. The

01:53 last time they were this happy was when the Malaysian airplane disappeared. They could fill

01:58 up their airtime for two months without having to do anything. Do you think voters care in general

02:06 about his legal issues? And do you think their minds will change at all, one way or another,

02:12 if he is found guilty? Yes, I think that if he is found guilty, that could hurt him. It certainly

02:22 won't help him. I do think that what is really hurting him is that he's being kept off the

02:30 campaign trail. That's just ludicrous. There's no reason. This judge, I should say, the judge's

02:39 gag order is also incredibly broad. It seems to cover the judge's daughter. Now, I don't like the

02:46 fact that Trump attacks other people. I can see why not naming the jurors, that they should be

02:53 protected. I can see that. I don't see why in a public trial, the judge is protected from statements

03:02 outside of court. I don't see why other witnesses against Trump can say things against him. Michael

03:09 Cohen can come out and say anything he wants. But if Trump responds to Michael Cohen, that's a

03:14 violation. I don't see how that's fair. But the biggest problem is that it's election interference

03:21 to keep Trump off of the campaign trail through the entire trial. And I've got to say that Jack

03:29 Smith wants to conduct a trial in the middle of the campaign, too. The Justice Department had a rule

03:38 just a rule that you wouldn't indict people in the 60 days prior to the election. That was too

03:45 short, in my opinion. It should have been, you know, 120 days or something. But the point was

03:52 to prevent this kind of election interference. If Merrick Garland had a backbone, he would have

04:02 said to Jack Smith, you can bring this case, but you cannot bring it until mid-November after the

04:10 election. But they didn't do that. And there's just no question that Jack Smith is out to get

04:18 Trump. They didn't bring any case against Joe Biden for all of the documents that he had,

04:28 including documents that went back to his Senate days that had to have been taken out

04:33 of a secure room called the SCIF, which he had no permission to do. And he put them in his garage.

04:40 Then he talked about those with his biographer. And the biographer had access to these documents,

04:52 no indictment about that. And now there is one difference in the Trump case in Florida,

04:59 that they can claim that Trump tried to mislead them about what documents he had. That is a

05:06 difference. But I do think that the public can see that the entire government under Joe Biden

05:14 is mobilized legally against Donald Trump. I just think it's outrageous whether he wins the

05:21 contest or not. And like I said, I'm not saying this as a boy, I'm waving Trump's flag. I just

05:30 think it's fundamentally unfair. The law should be fair to everyone. And when Alvin Bragg and his

05:40 team say, oh, no one is above the law, that's right. But no one should be beneath it either.

05:47 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Will Trump's Legal Issues Impact The General Election? Political Scientist Weighs In

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