‘Getting a little spicy in there Trump’s election subversion hearing underway
‘Getting a little spicy in there Trump’s election subversion hearing underway
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00:00You are watching continuing coverage of the Trump election interference hearing since the Supreme Court's immunity ruling that is taking place here in Washington right now, Judge Tanya Chutkin presiding over this, going back and forth with Trump's attorney in court right now.
00:15And I want to go out to Paula Reed very quickly because Paula, I know you have been following these updates coming out of the courtroom from our reporters who are inside doing amazing work, feeding us exactly what's going on.
00:28What's the crux of what we've been hearing so far?
00:30It sounds like a pretty lively exchange between Judge Chutkin and Trump's attorneys.
00:36Yeah, it's getting a little spicy in there, Jim.
00:38I'm reading these live updates from our colleagues out here on my phone, and the Trump team got up.
00:43It's their turn, and they're being, look, they're being pretty dramatic.
00:46And we know that sometimes the defense attorneys, they need to play to an audience of one.
00:50And I say they're dramatic because some of the things that they're saying in court right now just do not match what are in their filings.
00:56We know from the joint filing between them and prosecutors that, look, they don't agree on everything when it comes to scheduling, but they're also not that far apart.
01:04But here the defense attorney got up and said he could not imagine a more unfair protocol than what the special counsel is suggesting going forward.
01:13Now, the judge clearly doesn't agree with that, but the defense attorneys also argue that the Supreme Court has already decided whether prosecutors can use evidence around Vice President Mike Pence.
01:24And the judge cut him off and said, I would disagree with that.
01:27And this is significant because this is really going to be the next area of dispute between prosecutors, defense attorneys, and clearly the judge.
01:35The judge here noting that it is up to her.
01:37The Supreme Court has given her discretion on this issue.
01:40So it's clear this may not go exactly the way the defense attorneys hoped.
01:45But their number one goal here today, Jim, is to just delay anything of substance until after November.
01:51Yeah, I mean, Paula, were Trump's attorneys expecting Judge Shetkin to just come in today and say case dismissed?
01:58Absolutely not.
02:01Look, they do believe that she is fair, but this is someone who is tough.
02:05She has a command of her courtroom.
02:06She comes in prepared.
02:08And she does like to spar a little bit, both with prosecutors, but probably more so with defense attorneys, because, again, sometimes they come in and this is interesting for their client.
02:20Yeah, and Laura wants Shetkin to decide whether this new indictment is legitimate.
02:25I mean, that is interesting.
02:26So we're certainly getting some details coming in in real time.
02:30We want to continue to go over those.
02:32Paula, forgive me for interrupting.
02:34I want to go to former Trump impeachment attorney Michael Vander Veen.
02:37He is with us as well.
02:38Michael, I don't know if you've been following along some of these updates coming out of the courthouse from our reporters who are inside Judge Shetkin's courtroom.
02:46But it sounds as though there's a lot to untangle here.
02:49And but Judge Shetkin is pressing forward.
02:54Yeah, you know, she's in an interesting position because this isn't the kind of case really any judges had to handle before.
03:01But she's going to really have to try to parse out on this new indictment what types of evidence can come in and what types of evidence can come out.
03:10And I think that more you get into the weeds on that, I think the more you're going to see barring in the courtroom.
03:19And just a few moments ago, Judge Shetkin said she has to decide whether the conversations that were going on with former Vice President Mike Pence and so on were outside the bounds of official presidential conduct.
03:31Michael, it sounds as though the crux of this case is going to be and some of this is going to get sorted out.
03:37It sounds like from the judge before we even get to a trial, which actions from the former president, then President Trump, were considered official acts of the Office of President of the United States?
03:47And which actions were those carried out by somebody who was trying to get reelected?
03:51Michael, you still there? You froze for a second.
03:55Yeah, no, that's absolutely right.
03:58They have, you know, set up several different buckets of evidence.
04:02What were official acts and what are private acts?
04:04And the official acts evidence will be admissible and the private acts evidence won't.
04:09But, you know, how you differentiate between the two is going to have to do with the timing of evidence being created, the conversations and whatnot and who else was involved.
04:23And Ellie, this is important right here. You were just saying that this argument that is going to be happening over filing briefings on immunity and so on, this is key.
04:33Yeah, so Trump's lawyers just said we need a full and robust record and Trump's lawyers just said we need an evidentiary hearing, meaning we want live witnesses.
04:42They want an evidentiary hearing.
04:43I thought it would be the opposite.
04:44Oh, interesting.
04:45The complaint that they made earlier, we talked earlier about grand jury transcripts, right?
04:49The prosecutors have said, well, we would like to submit grand jury transcripts and attach them to our briefs.
04:54And it says, Loro says they were not suggesting the case should go into the fall of next year, but that the issues at hand need to be dealt with carefully.
05:01Right, so he wants a slowdown here.
05:03He wants a hearing, but certainly not before the election.
05:06But what Trump's team is saying is we're not satisfied with grand jury transcripts because they're one sided.
05:11It's only the prosecutor asking questions of the witnesses.
05:14There's no defense lawyer.
05:15There's no cross-examination.
05:17And they feel, Trump team feels as though the judge is going to dismiss this case once they see their filings.
05:23The judge says that immunity needs to be dealt with as early as possible.
05:26Yeah, I'm skeptical of the first part of that.
05:28I don't think the judge is going to throw the indictment out.
05:31But, yeah, I mean, look, the judge clearly wants to deal with this and they recognize they have a long road ahead.
05:36Trump's team is trying to slow it down and the judge seems aligned with prosecutors here.
05:39Let's move as quickly as we can.
05:41Yeah.
05:42Michael, I mean, you would agree that the Supreme Court has given Judge Chutkan a lot to unpack, a lot to untangle.
05:50This case becomes very complicated, does it not?
05:54It certainly does.
05:58I mean, procedurally, you know, you're going to have motions under constitutional grounds.
06:03And now under this Supreme Court decision, you're also going to have a lot of motions and limine on evidence.
06:08There are, you know, it's not going to be one evidence you're hearing.
06:12You know, it's going to be days and days for really to go through all of the evidence that they want to use.
06:18I know they cut out a lot in the indictment.
06:20They also left a lot in it.
06:23Michael, is that a good idea for Trump's defense team to want an evidentiary hearing, particularly before the election?
06:31Well, you know, those are two different things.
06:36There are two different considerations there.
06:38You know, one is the legal system and being his criminal defense lawyer.
06:42And the other one is he's in the end of a campaign.
06:46And that's the balance his lawyers had to fight all of the time.
06:50But they need to know what evidence that they think the judge is going to let in to then craft other motions from there.
06:59So they got to have a hearing.
07:02And if they could have it afterwards, of course, but they also need to move with the pace that the court requires.
07:09Yeah. And Trump's attorney is saying it is inherently unfair and inequitable process for prosecutors to immediately file immunity arguments.
07:17Ellie, I mean, Trump's team and Donald Trump, they've been playing this delay playbook for months now, years now, and they want to continue it.
07:28Well, they've already largely succeeded by evidence by the fact that we're not going to have a trial between now and the election.
07:35But it's important to understand what's happening here.
07:37Prosecutors are saying, let's get the immunity arguments started quickly.
07:41We want to submit the first brief within two or three weeks.
07:44We're going to attach grand jury transcripts to show the world what's been said and testified to in the grand jury.
07:49And Trump's team is saying, oh, no, no, we don't want that.
07:51That's one sided. And we want it to happen much more slowly.
07:54And the judge is saying there's nothing inherently violative of due process to have the prosecution's timetable.
08:00And what John Loro says here is exactly what I just said.
08:02He's going back. Incredibly unfair.
08:04Incredibly unfair that they, the prosecutors, are able to put in the public record evidence against Trump at this time.
08:10So they don't want the prosecution to put evidence into a filing at the court before the election.
08:16That's apparently what Trump's team is saying right now.
08:19Yeah. And in the papers leading up to this, Trump's team said we shouldn't even dig into the immunity argument until December.
08:24Karen, why is that important? If I can get a quick thought from you before going to break.
08:28Yeah, it's important because if you are immune from prosecution, that's a threshold question.
08:34It means you cannot be prosecuted. It means you're not guilty.
08:37And so what they're saying is that would be prejudicial to put all this stuff out there.
08:41And Karen, I'm sorry to interrupt.
08:43Trump's attorney just suggested it's too close to the election, according to our reporter side panel.
08:47And Judge Shutkin says, ah, in response to that.
08:51Maybe it's too long of an ah as I'm reading it there.
08:54But she says, ah, in response to that. Go ahead, Karen.
08:57And the judge says, I understand there is an election impending.
09:01Go ahead. Sorry about that, Karen. Go ahead.
09:04No, really, that's what she was trying to get them to say on the record.
09:08That the whole reason there's no reason, for example, in a criminal case to delay things as long as judge, as long as Laura, Trump's lawyer, wants to delay them.
09:18And so that's why she keeps asking and pushing them.
09:21Why are you asking for this timetable? And they finally admitted it's because of the election.
09:26She just wanted to put that on the record because she doesn't think these issues will take that long.
09:31Yeah, she says, you've said before, I will say again, that the electoral process of what needs to happen before the election does not matter here.
09:38So Judge Shutkin, if folks thought she was going to cool her jets after the Supreme Court and what they decided, not so much.
09:45Yeah, she's made clear that she's made clear from the start that she doesn't care about the election.
09:49We can argue whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, right or wrong for a judge.
09:52But she's using Trump's own position against him, saying before you were sort of insistent that we shouldn't do this before.
09:58You're still insistent we shouldn't.
09:59She says this court is not concerned with the electoral schedule.
10:02She has said that many times before.
10:04This court.
10:05Right.
10:06Yeah.
10:07Interesting.
10:08Very interesting choice of words there from Judge Shutkin.