June 10, 2023 • 53 mins
A SPECIAL TRUMP INDICTMENT WEEKEND EDITION; EPISODE 224: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:41) SPECIAL COMMENT: I am sorry only sorry the 37 counts in the indictment of Donald Trump is not a capital case. It is that bad, and he will remain a threat to every man, woman and child in this country as long as he lives. Worse yet, the running joke yesterday was Trump spilled all of our secrets - on the floor at Mar-a-Lago. How could all of the foreign spy organizations have NOT stolen them?
How do we know they didn't?
How can we be certain?
“The classified documents Trump stored in his boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries,” reads the indictment. The next sentence is worse. Trump had documents detailing “United States nuclear programs.” There are references to a document about American nuclear weaponry and another about another country’s nuclear capacity. The next sentence is WORSE. He had “potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack.” The next sentence is WORSE. He had America’s “plans for possible retaliation to a FOREIGN attack.” All that keeps us safe from countries that still harbor dreams of attacking this country – North Korea, Russia, maybe China… all that could have ENABLED those countries to transform those dreams into battle plans… all of that, Donald Trump stole and kept. And kept near the club pool. And near the liquor supply closet. And other documents were kept in the bathroom, next to the toilet.
It. Is. That. Bad.
It is as bad as the Rosenbergs, as bad as the other nuclear spies of the 1950’s, as bad as Rick Ames and Robert Hannssen. It is, in fact, worse.
B-Block (29:07) THE REST OF THIS PODCAST IS REPEATED FROM FRIDAY'S EDITION: Donald Trump has been indicted on seven charges and the foremost of them is a violation of the Espionage Act, specifically designed to send to prison for ten years, someone who was legally allowed to possess UN-classified National Defense Information, but refused to return it to the proper government authorities. It's 18 US Code 793-D. It fits the allegations against Trump better than any of his suits. It erases all his stated defenses and excuses, like Trump’s belief he owned a magic wand of declassification, and a new one posited in just the last few days that he was the president so of COURSE he had the right to possess defense information. It describes a crime involving information that ISN’T classified, which the defendant at some point HAD the right to possess. Trump lawyer James Trusty says even he hasn’t even seen the actual indictment but only had broad strokes painted to him, and mentioned the Willful retention part of the Espionage Act (confirming 18 US Code 793-D), multiple charges about false statements, conspiracy, and quote “several obstruction-based charges” including witness tampering.
At approximately 7 PM Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday June 8, 2023, his attorneys were informed by the Department of Justice by PHONE, and HE was informed by those attorneys, that Trump had been indicted in Miami on seven separate SEALED counts of criminal conduct none of them yet formally revealed to the public but clearly pertaining to the classified and defense documents he stole and kept in his home and office at Mar-a-Lago and reportedly including charges of Illegal Retention of National Defense Information, Conspiracy To Obstruct Justice, False Statements to government investigators. Seven counts. For context: the usual number of indictments for former presidents or current presidential candidates is… approximately… zero.
CBS News is reporting that for all his bravado, Trump reacted to the indictments with anger because Trump had quote “people in his inner circle who reassured him for months that it was very unlikely to happen.”
And this momentous day in history is capped by the worst home video ever recorded. It is a masterpiece of missteps. On the Rushmore of Rushed-Work. A new high in low. Trump posted it at 7:57, from his golf club in Bedminster New Jersey, he is standing in front of a large painting, seemingly depicting a White House office scene from the late 19th Century. Trump has been positioned directly under a spotlight of some kind so his Flock of Seagulls combover that he has honed to exactly his preferred shade of spray-on Gold Rust-O-Leum has been bleached white and it looks like a yarmulke that has slid forward towards his bright white eyebrows. He is also perfectly placed in front of the painting in such a way that a man shown standing in the painting now appears to be one foot tall and standing ON TRUMP'S SHOULDER. And were that not stupid enough, he is twirling his mustache like Snidely Whiplash just back from tying Sweet Nell to the train tracks. It's startlingly fitting.
C-Block (49:40) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: S
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I
am sorry only that this is not a capital case.
(00:27):
Donald Trump is a traitor to this nation and a
danger to its literal survival. And he has spit on
everyone who serves it, and on every military member present
and past, active veterans dead alike. He has been and
he remains a threat to the safety of every one
of us, and he will be so as long as
he lives. Donald Trump has jeopardized this nation's security. He
(00:52):
has jeopardized its rule of law. He has jeopardized its
position as a leader in this world. And those whose
responds to the breathtaking scope of the thirty seven charges
against him is to lash out at the prosecution, or
defend the indefensible, or promise retribution in the courts, they
have lost all connection to morality, personal and national. Those
(01:15):
who have vowed revenge or an eye for an eye
have lost all right to serve in our government in
any capacity. I am very, very sorry that when Donald
Trump goes on trial for his traitorous, treacherous trees and
his crimes against the United States of America, that he
will face only the possibility of sentences totaling one hundred years.
(01:39):
That is not enough. It is that bad quote. The
classified documents Trump stored in his boxes included information regarding
defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and
foreign countries. Reads the indictment, The next sentence is worse.
Trump had documents detailing United States nuclear programs. There are
(02:03):
references to a document about American nuclear weaponry and another
document about another country's nuclear capacity. But the next sentence
is worse. He had potential vulnerabilities of the United States
and its allies to military attack. But the next sentence
is even worse. He had America's plans for possible retaliation
(02:24):
to a foreign attack. All that keeps US safe from
countries which still truly harbored dreams of attacking this country militarily,
North Korea, Russia, maybe China. All that could have enabled
those countries to transform those dreams into battle plans. All
of that Donald Trump stole and kept and kept near
(02:45):
the Marlago Club's swimming pool and near the liquor supply closet.
And other documents were kept in the bathroom next to
the toilet. It is that bad. It is as bad
as the Rosenberg's. It is as bad as the other
nuclear spies of the nineteen fifties. It is as bad
(03:07):
as Rick Ames and Robert Hanson. It is, in fact worse.
It is not only worse, It is worse than we
could possibly have imagined, and it may yet be worse
than we even know today after the indictment. It is
so bad that former FBI Deputy Counterintelligence Chief Pete Struck
(03:28):
says there seemed to be as many as thirteen top
secret documents recovered in the FBI search of marri Lago,
about which no charges were filed. Struck suggests, based on
his long experience, that the Department of Justice had to
get permission from each agency that owned the information to
even publicly acknowledge that a document was missing or stolen
(03:52):
or existed, and that in those thirteen cases, the acknowledgment
was too dangerous and the documents were too secret, too sensitive,
too vital to the security of a nation to even
be referred to, let alone to be part of a
criminal case. A reading of the indictment shows several occasions
in which some of the code names and other terminology
(04:15):
of the documents and terminology in the documents had to
be redacted. In the indictment itself. These crimes are so
bad that you need special clearance just to be told
exactly what some of them are. Trump stolen kept documents
from the Department of Defense. He stolen kept documents from
(04:38):
the National Security Agency. He stolen kept documents from the
National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. He stolen kept documents from the
National Reconnaissance Office. He stolen, kept documents from the Department
of Energy. He stolen kept documents from the State Department
Bureau of Intelligence and Research. And these were not mistakes,
(05:01):
These were not accidents, These were not souvenirs. This was
not hoarding. This was a curated collection. Trump chose the
most secret, the most sensitive, the most damaging, the most
important documents. He took them with him. He chose which
(05:22):
ones he might give back. He worried to this Walt
Naouda that the boxes he kept them in had been
labeled with too many details about what the boxes contained.
He replaced the tops to the boxes because the old
ones were insufficient. This was his collection, and at least twice,
including in the case of that Mark milly Iran document,
to the Mark Meadows Ghostwriters, he showed parts of his
(05:45):
collection off to people who never should have seen any
of it. And as he did so, he acknowledged that
he had no right to do so. And still he
showed the documents off like your grandmother and her Humbo figurines.
And then when he was done with them, they were left,
often where they sat. On December seventh, twenty twenty one,
(06:07):
another date which shall live in infamy, Walt Nahould have
found boxes and their contents strewn on the floor of
the storage room. One document he saw said it was
releasable only to the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance. Trump spilling
(06:28):
secrets literally on the floor. It is bad. It is
so bad that the conservative David from may have stated
this half jokingly, but what he stated is entirely true.
Any hostile foreign intelligence service that failed to steal US
(06:49):
secrets from Trump's Mary Lago stash owes its taxpayers a
big refund that is dark and bitter humor, and it
contains a more awful truth. Still, how do we know
all the hostile foreign intelligence services failed to steal our
secrets from Mary Lago from the floor, from the bathroom.
(07:14):
How do we not know we are not today compromised, endangered, imperiled,
and all along Trump knew he was breaking the law,
document after document and day after day, breaking the law
by having the documents, breaking the law by keeping the documents,
trying to get his attorney to break the law for him.
(07:38):
Trump telling somebody not to stand quite that close to
one of the classified documents because they didn't have the
right clearance. The idiocy of it. Trump, this was done
by the military and given to me. Trump looks to
a staffer there with him and to the civilians. He
asks the staffer, I think we can probably write. The
(07:59):
staffer says, I don't know. We'll have to see. Yeah,
I will have to try to Trump interrupts him to
classify it. The staffer replies, figure out a yeah. Trump says, see,
as president, I could have declassified it. Everybody laughs. Trump again,
Now I can't you know, bod this is still a secret.
(08:20):
Stafford says, now we have a problem. Trump, seemingly looking
at the secret document he never should have shown, never
should have referred to, never should have stolen now, says,
isn't that interesting? And finally, when it looked like they
would catch him, Trump's response was not the easiest and
(08:40):
coincidentally most honest thing. The thing that would have made
all this never happen. The only thing our government actually
wanted As of a year ago, he never once entertained
the thought of giving it back. In May of twenty
twenty two, Evan Corcoran told him they needed to search
for classified documents in order to be responsive to the
(09:02):
Department of Justice subpoena. I don't want anybody looking through
my boxes. Trump told him, I really don't. I don't
want you looking through my boxes. He asked Corcoran, what
happens if we just don't respond at all or don't
play ball with them? He philosophized Corkoran, wouldn't it be
better if we just told them we don't have anything here?
(09:22):
Isn't it better if there are no documents? And then
he ruminated after all he had said about this topic,
He ruminated about what a wonderful job the Hillary Clinton
aide had done, the one who deleted all the emails
so as he said, she wouldn't get into trouble. And then,
after Trump seemed to give in to the idea that
(09:44):
Corcoran would have to search. On June first, Trump had
Naota move eleven boxes out of that storage room. And
then Trump asked Corkoran if Corkoran was coming back to
Mari Lago the next day. And then on the next day,
June second, he got Walt Naota to move sixty four
more boxes, including classified materials, out of the storage room
and two Trump's residents, but he only had him return
thirty by boxes. And then he let Corkoran search the
(10:08):
room that Trump had already searched. And then Trump asked, innocently,
did you find anything? Is it bad? Good? Since I
met him in December nineteen eighty three, almost nothing about
Donald Trump has amazed me. Certainly nothing about Trump and
(10:28):
the document's case has amazed me in these last months.
Yet it still stuns me. It still makes me shake
that those defending him are not defending him. Nobody is
saying he didn't do these things. They say only he
had the right to break the laws of the country,
or that the laws of the country do not apply
(10:49):
to him, or they threaten US weaponization, impeach Merrick Garland
an eye for an eye. One idiot on Fox demanded
that doctor Jill Biden be arrested in return all these excuses,
these admissions that yes, there are two tiers of law
enforcement in this country, and the Trumpists believe in that
(11:09):
system because they believe they are in the tier which
rights the laws, and the rest of us are in
the tier upon whom the laws are enacted, and if
you try to use the laws against them, you have
politicized justice. It is a vendetta. It is politics. It
is a Banana republic. It is one presidential candidate targeting
his opponent criminally. Trump tried to have Hillary Clinton investigated
(11:32):
for the Uranium one deal. He tried to have the
Clinton campaign investigated for supposed collusion with Russia to help
her lose I guess. He tried to have the Clinton
Foundation investigated for unspecified corruption. He tried to have the
Obama administration investigated for tapping his phones. He tried to
have Obama investigated over Russia. He tried to have Adam
(11:54):
Schiff charged with treason. He tried to have Joe Biden
charged with treason. He tried to have Google charged with treason.
He tried to have Senator Blumenthal charged with lying about
his military service. He tried to have Speaker Pelosi charged
with lyne about Russia. He tried to have Senator Warner
Trent for illegally discussing the Mueller investigation. He tried to
have an anonymous New York Times op ed writer charged
for national security violations. He tried to have the FBI
(12:16):
charged with infiltrating his campaign. He tried to have the
DOJ charged with infiltrating his campaign. He tried to have
James Comby charged for leaks. He tried to have Robert
Muller charged for conflicts of interest. He tried to have
Andy McCabe charged for political donations received by his wife.
He tried to have Congressman Cummings charged because Baltimore was
a mess. He tried to have Fusion GPS charge for
(12:39):
dealing with Christopher Steele. He tried to have Muller prosecutor
Andrew Weisman investigated just cuz he tried to have Christopher
Steele charged over the dossier. He tried to have Bruce
Or charged for meeting with Christopher Steele. He tried to
have Pete Struck charged for texting Lisa Page. He tried
to have Lisa Page charged with texting with Pete Struck.
(12:59):
He tried to have Joe Scarborough investigated over the death
of a staffer. One presidential candidate criminally targeting his opponents.
What was that again? And he did something like this
again at arms length as recently as last month, and
we really didn't notice it. But yesterday the imfeccable Scott
(13:22):
mcfarawan of CBS News did a little juxtaposition of the
timelines now that the DOJ has confirmed its timeline. On
May nineteenth, the Special Council advised Trump he was a target.
That day he posted election interference through the use of
the corrupt FBI and DOJ is the twenty twenty three
playbook for the radical left, Democrats, rhinos and other lunatics
(13:44):
among us. Here's the part. Hopefully Jim Jordan and our
many Republican congressional patriots will stop them cold. The future
of our country is counting on it. All honest FBI
agents and representatives must step forward now it is your time.
Understanding what he had been told that day, That is
(14:06):
a call for something kin to a military coup against
the government of the United States, to be led by
FBI agents and members of the House of Representatives, and
specifically led by Jim Jordan. That is what Trump wanted.
And the defense of Trump is not a defense of
(14:26):
Trump at all. It is a chorus of so watts
and we'll show youse. And there are Republicans and conservatives
who see the reality here and now they will be threatened.
Two of Trump's lawyers quit. James Trusty was on television
yesterday morning defending him. By afternoon, he and John Rowley
were out. Jonathan Turley, who has for many years seemingly
(14:46):
been acting like a man possessed or blackmailed or hallucinating,
said quote. It is an extremely damning indictment. This is
not an indictment that you can dismiss. It's really breathtaking.
The visual and audio tape evidence is really daunting. Senator Murkowski,
rather blandly noted the real risk here. Mishandling classified documents
(15:07):
is a federal crime because it can expose national secrets.
Anyone found guilty, whether an analyst, a former president, or
another elected or appointed official, should face the same set
of consequences. Senator Romney spoke up. Trump brought these charges
upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by
refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to
(15:31):
do so, which is Senator exactly correct. And everybody else,
they are threatening the rest of us Trump last night.
See you in Miami on Tuesday. I hope we do
not repeat the mistakes of January sixth. These are insurrectionist militias.
(15:52):
They understand only force. The government needs as much force
as possible, pointed at the militias, in which case, because
they are bullies and cowards, they will not do a
thing and there will not even be a rock throat
by either side. Harry Fleischer, a liar for two different
presidents and also for the international scum of the earth,
(16:14):
said every wise Republican should make a pledge they would
pardon Donald Trump, which I believe would make every one
of them part of a criminal conspiracy to break the
same laws that Trump has now been charged with breaking.
The sixth string. Conservative commentator Monica Crowley urged Republicans to
fight fire with fire. The insurrectionist congressman Andy Biggs wrote,
(16:38):
we have now reached a war phrase I for an eye,
and the Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins tweeted a cryptic call
for nothing less than a second January sixth and full
on civil war quote. President Trump said he has been
summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in Miami, on
Tuesday at three pm. This is a perimeter probe from
(16:58):
the oppressor's hold. Our potus has this buckle up one
of slash fifty K know your bridges, rock steady, calm,
that is all. Obviously, this is a deranged middle aged
man playing soldier in his mind. He wants thousands to
(17:20):
show up in block bridges and the rest of it
is QAnon gibberish. But it is an incitement to rebellion
against the duly elected government of the United States, and
Clay Higgens should be arrested immediately and then first of
all given a psych eval of more practical concern going forward.
This case is, at least for the moment, in the
(17:42):
hands of the MAGA Judge Eileen Cannon, the same Trump
appointee who tried to stop the investigation last year and
then inserted a special master into the equation to decide
what the DOJ could and could not look at from
marri A Lago, and who was overturned and reprimanded by
higher courts at every turn, and she has been assigned
(18:04):
this case. Charlie Savage of The New York Times writes
that last year he wrote to the Chief Clerk of
the Southern District of Florida. Anticipating something, he asked about
Cannon's potential involvement going forward in the event of further
legal action in Florida, and he was told by the
clerk quote, we do not assign related cases to the
(18:27):
same judge. A related case will still be randomly assigned.
Meaning unless somebody fixed this, Judge Cannon should go play
the lottery right now. Because she, out of about thirty
eligible Florida judges, got the one case, she should never
be allowed near. The former federal prosecutor Joyce Elleen thinks
(18:47):
that this is temporary, that the judges expected to recuse,
that if she is still on the case, Jack Smith
can challenge her role and would win that challenge. A
cow law professor named Orrin Curse as maybe not. Judges
who do not choose recusal are usually given at least
a chance to not screw up the trial before they
are removed for screwing up the trial, and that is
(19:08):
the problem with Canon. More than anything else. The immediate
enemy is delay. Judge Cannon could accept the most ridiculous
of Trump legal challenges and stays. She might also rule
out the entirety of the Evan Corcoran lawyer evidence. She
could refuse to keep secret documents unseen outside of court.
The prosecution might therefore have to not pursue Trump on
(19:31):
some or all of those documents. She could give weight
to this crap about the Justice Department's Jay Bratt mentioning
a witness's lawyer's judge ship application. And even if none
of it actually harms the case, and all of it
is wiped away by a real judge, it can simply delay. Delay, delay,
(19:51):
And every delay means the greater likelihood that the trial
and the appeal and the appeals of the appeal will
not be over before the election, and that the Republicans
will not just run a candidate who has been indicted
and arrested for some of the worst national security crimes
in this nation's history, the worst when the degree of
his violation of his oath is considered, they will not
(20:12):
only run this scumbag, they will run him lustily. I
will never forgive Merrick Garland for dragging his feet. These
indictments could have come last January or last September. The
future chances of the democracy are now diminished because Merrick
(20:36):
Garland could not see what all the rest of us,
the ones who have not spent our lives in the law.
He could not see what all the rest of us saw.
And to that end, and lastly, I wanted to address
the difference between shock and surprise. I read the indictment
and found it blurring before my eyes because I was shaking.
(21:00):
That was shock. It is shock now. I have, as
I'm mentioned, no NONINALD Trump for nearly forty years, and
have always known him evil and irresponsible and selfish, beyond
all measure and not sane. And still this shocks me,
as I'm sure it shocks you. But it does not
surprise me because nearly everything in the thirty seven counts
(21:20):
against him, and in that document Jack Smith released yesterday,
You and I have heard that before, nearly all of it.
The shock is to see it all in one place
and confirmed and on the record. But last August eleventh.
August eleventh, DEVILN Barrett, Josh Dawzy, Perry Stein, and Shane
(21:43):
Harris wrote this in the Washington Post. Quote classified documents
relating to a nuclear weapon were among the items FBI
agents sought in search of former President Donald Trump's Florida
residents on Monday. According to people familiar with the investigation
August eleventh, and on August twenty five. August twenty five,
(22:07):
a former Wall Street Journal and Washington Post investigative reporter
named Ronald Kessler went on Fox. Kessler wrote twenty one
books about the FBI and the CIA and the Secret
Service and the White House, and then he became something
of a florid conservative shill. He wrote an adoring biography
of Laura Bush. He wrote another praising the presidency of
(22:29):
her husband. He wrote a third, worshiping Trump. He had
last been seen early in twenty twenty two on Newsmax
doing a fawning Trump documentary, yet not even three weeks
into the marri Lago documents case, which crested yesterday with
these thirty seven indictments. While the Fox on screen graphics
first read, did the FBI bug marri A Lago? And
(22:51):
then what is the FBI hiding? And then the FBI
shady bugging techniques? Ronald Kessler, Trump apologist went rogue first.
Kessler said that the level of secret classification for the
documents Trump took to Mary Lago was above and beyond
top secret and above and beyond sensitive slash compartmented and
(23:14):
then before the guy on Fox could stop him, Ronald Kessler,
a Trump guy, began to explain what specific kinds of
documents would be classified and above and beyond those levels
of secrecy, the boxes of documents Trump took, Kessler said,
quote could very well include the plans for counter striking
against Russia in the event of a nuclear attack. That's
(23:37):
something that's part of the football program, which I've written about,
where the president chooses options from these documents on how
to respond. He has to respond within twenty minutes to
prevent annihilation of the United States. That's one item that
could be in these documents. Unquote. At marri a Lago
last August, he said this united States nuclear programs. It
(24:01):
says in the indictment document, potential vulnerabilities of the United States,
it says in the document and its allies to military attacks.
It says in the document plans for possible retaliation to
a foreign attack. Ronald Kessler saw all that and said
all that two hundred and eighty nine days ago, and
he said something else. And I still don't know, and
we still don't know that his second speculation is not
(24:23):
as correct as his first. Kesler also believed that Trump
might be holding on to quote, our penetrations by the
CIA of foreign embassies, of foreign leaders like Putin, as
well as recruitment of spies overseas. So we're talking about
incredibly valuable secrets that the Russians, of course, would have
(24:44):
been after the Russians would have been trying to penetrate
marri A lago day and night, he said, and very
possibly did recruit spies to obtain these documents. These documents,
they were next to toilet and on storage room floors,
(25:08):
and on the bandstand in a ballroom and near the pool.
Never mind whether Trump sold them, as David from half joked.
How did the Russians not steal them? How did the
Chinese not steal them? How did the North Koreans not
steal them? How did the Saudis not steal them? And
(25:28):
more terrifying, still more terrifying again, and what keeps me
up at night? How can we be certain that nobody
did steal them? The rest of this edition of the
podcast is from the Friday edition, before the full scope
(25:51):
of the thirty seven count indictment was revealed. It had
been written in the wake of Trump's announcement of his
own indictment of seven counts, which, like everything else he's
ever said, was a lie. If you heard Friday's podcast,
there is no need to stay through the break. If
you did not please, you have my invitation to do so.
It's pretty good, although the advertisers would probably prefer I
(26:11):
not say any of that. That's next. This is countdown.
Donald Trump has been indicted on seven charges, and the
foremost of them is clearly a violation of the Espionage Act,
(26:33):
specifically one designed to send to prison for up to
ten years someone who was legally allowed to possess unclassified
national defense information, but who refused to return that information
in whatever form it took, to the proper government authorities.
It is eighteen US Code seven nine to three D,
(26:56):
and it fits the allegations against Trump better than any
of his suits. It erases all his states defenses and excuses,
like Trump's belief he owned a magic wand of declassification
and a new defense posited in just the last few
days that he was the president, so of course he
(27:16):
had the right to possess and keep all defense information.
Eighteen US Code seven nine to three D describes a
crime involving information that is not classified which the defendant
at some point did have the right to possess and
it's still illegal. Eighteen US Codes seven nine to three
(27:39):
D would seemingly box Trump in without the possibility of escape.
Trump's lawyer, James Trusty told CNN last night he has
not even seen the actual indictment, but only had broad
strokes painted to him, and he mentioned the wilful retention
part of the Espionage Act, thus essentially confirming eighteen US
(28:00):
Code seven nine three D. He mentioned multiple charges about
false statements about conspiracy, and quote several obstruction based charges,
including witness tampering, to go back to the beginning. At
approximately seven pm Eastern daylight time on Thursday, June eighth,
(28:20):
twenty twenty three, his attorneys were informed by the Department
of Justice by phone, and he was then informed by
those attorneys that Trump had been indicted in Miami on
seven separate sealed counts of criminal conduct, none of them
yet formally revealed to the public, but clearly pertaining to
the classified and defense documents he stole and kept in
(28:42):
his home and his office at marri Lago, and reportedly
including charges of illegal retention of national defense information, conspiracy
to obstruct Justice false statements to government investigators seven counts.
For context, the usual number of indictments for former presidents
or current presidential candidates is approximately zero. CBS News is
(29:07):
reporting that, for all of his bravado, when that happened,
Trump reacted to the indictments with anger because Trump had
quote people in his inner circle who reassured him for
months that it was very unlikely to happen. The entire
Miami grand jury process was apparently news to him, and
he really believed there was a chance that the meeting
(29:29):
between his attorneys Trustee and Rowley and Halligan with Jack Smith,
the Special Counsel, on Monday might have turned into some
form of negotiation. CBS also reports Trump's team now will
move to dismiss and to try to question Jack Smith
or j Bratt of the Justice Department the ladder over
(29:49):
a casual remark he made to one witnesses lawyers about
the lawyer's application to become a judge, which Trump's lawyers
will now try to blow up into a reason that
Trump should walk on all of these charges and all
other charges forever and ever ever. Trump is also reported
shocked by the reported cooperation of his former chief of
(30:11):
staff Mark Meadows, and CBS's Robert Costa quotes a Trump
ally as fuming, quote, why the f has he been
so quiet? Well, I can answer that the specifics of
what is the first federal indictment of a former president
only because Richard Nixon was preemptively pardoned by the president
(30:33):
who succeeded him, Gerald Ford, are as of recording time
entirely unofficial and just sourced. But the centerpiece of all
reporting is, as it was phraised by ABC News, quote
willful retention of national defense information. If that is the
correct characterization, it would seem to be exactly what the
(30:55):
UK paper The Independent had reported on Wednesday that Special
Counsel Smith had made the deliberate decision to prosecute Trump
not for step feeling or possessing classified information, but to
proceed instead under eighteen US Code seven nine to three.
As that newspapers Andrew Feinberg wrote, the use of section
(31:16):
seven nine three, which does not make reference to classified information,
is understood to be a strategic decision by prosecutors that
has been made to short circuit mister Trump's ability to
claim that he used his authority as president to declassified
documents He removed from a White House on quote. Conviction
for violation of that Code seven nine three Gathering, transmitting,
(31:40):
or losing defense information carries a penalty of a fine
or of up to ten years in prison, or both.
Since Paragraph D lists fourteen different kinds of defense information
fourteen different forms of defense information, let me abridge the
code somewhat as I read it to you. Quote. Whoever
(32:03):
lawfully having possession of access, to, control, over, or being
entrusted with any document, et cetera relating to the national
defense willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it
on demand to the officer or employee of the United
States entitled to receive it on quote is guilty of
(32:25):
violating that statute. That not only reads as if it
were written to describe exactly what Trump did with all
the documents, but as suggested previously, it denies Trump any
claim that he had declassified those materials because the climb
does not depend on their being any classified materials. It
(32:45):
circumvents the entirety of Trump's declassification defense, and were he
now to try to defend himself by modifying it to
claim that he had the right to possess the defense
information that is also irrelevant the first clause of this
magic wand eighteen US Code seventy nine to three D
he whoever lawfully having possession of defense information. Moreover, we
(33:13):
may have previously been given a preview of exactly what
that defense information is, or at least what one piece
of that defense information could be, even if there are
multiple allegations, even if there is just one indictment for
ten thousand pieces of paper. On May thirty first, CNN
reported that Trump had been recorded by the ghostwriters for
(33:35):
Mark Meadows, referring to seemingly holding in his hands, seemingly
paraphrasing what Trump said was a four page document from
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Millie,
which outlined United States military plans for an attack on Iran.
Trump refers to the fact on the recording that he
cannot just show it to the writers because he can't
(33:57):
unilaterally declassify material. There was also subsequent reporting that the
National Archives asked for the return of a document matching
Trump's own description of the four page milli Iran plan,
but Trump's lawyers could not find it, and by all
accounts did not and have not returned it. I referred
(34:23):
to this four page document on this podcast on that
date as the smoking gun. I think I'll stick with
that reference. Of course, any charge under eighteen US Code
seventy nine to three D would be so broad, could
be so broad that it could contain almost any document
Trump kept, or all of them, or just the classified ones,
(34:45):
or just the unclassified ones, or just the ones he
claimed had been declassified. It doesn't matter if Trump actually
had some kind of magic wand it matters only that
Jack Smith has won. Now we do not and probably
will not, have any kind of understanding of the math.
(35:05):
Where do seven counts come from? When virtually all reporting
creates three column headings for the crimes of Donald Trump?
Again to quote ABC's reporting willful retention of national defense information,
Well we got that one clear, I hope conspiracy scheme
to conceal and false statements and representations, for the impeccable
(35:28):
Ryan Goodman of Just Security, Scheme to conceal could easily
be eighteen US Code one zero zero one quote. Whoever,
in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative,
or judicial branch of the government, falsifies, conceals, or covers
up by any trick, scheme, or device, a material fact
(35:49):
unquote relevant to a prosecution that carries fines or prison
up to five years for doing that false statements. That's
a little less obvious, since there is no evidence that
Trump himself has made any statement to any official in
this investigation. That, after all, is the art of being Trump.
(36:11):
You don't go on the record that guy does. But
the New York Times observes Trump could still be guilty
of violating eighteen US Code two. Quote. Whoever commits an
offense against the United States or aids, bets Council's commands,
induces or procures its commission is punishable as a principle.
(36:35):
Slight translation here, if you caused it to happen, it's
the same as you actually doing it yourself. To resume
eighteen US Code two, whoever willfully causes an act to
be done, which, if directly performed by him or another,
would be on offense against the United States is punishable
as a principle. Well, what on earth could that be
(36:59):
that could easily be making his own attorney Evan Corcoran
draw up that document saying that a thorough search of
Mari Lago had been conducted, and these thirty eight classified
documents were all we found, and here's Christina Bob's signature
on it at the bottom, when in fact, Trump himself
had made sure that it could not have been a
(37:19):
thorough search because he moved all the boxes back and forth,
and he kept Corcoran from searching anywhere but in the
storage room. Or it could be what I mentioned to
you yesterday, this newly reported fascination that prosecutors have with
the original draft of a January twenty twenty two statement
that included a claim that everything had been returned to
(37:40):
the archives, then a claim that was removed from the
final statement on the matter in January twenty twenty two. Again,
this is all just reading tea leaves, and we are
reading tea leaves because by Department of Justice code of
honor or god knows what the indictment is sealed, that
(38:01):
secrecy by the Special Council has left the entire their
publicity playing field clear for Trump and every Republican under
the sun to get out their version of this write
down to Trump in fact being the first to reveal
his own indictment in a social media post at seven
to twenty one pm Eastern quote, the corrupt Biden administration
(38:23):
has informed my attorneys that I have been indicted seemingly
over the boxes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, followed
by I have been summoned to appear at the Federal
Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday at three pm. He did
not add be there aloha. There followed an avalanche of
Banana Republic references and a blitz of fundraising emails, and
(38:46):
a promise from the unintentional parody presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswami
to pardon Trump on January twentieth, twenty twenty five, which,
given Trump's intention to be president again and his insistence
that he is innocent, may not be the flex that
Ramaswami thinks. It is. A couple of brief scenes off
(39:07):
stage worth noting The New York Times Glen Thrush may
have seen the indictment in real time shortly before three
point thirty yesterday in the courtyard of the Justice Department,
writes Thrush. Quote Marshall Miller, a top Department official who
acted as an intermediary with the Special Council, raced out
of the building with a wad of papers in his
(39:28):
hand and an aid in tow. Also, the reputation of
the Secret Service continues to disintegrate. The Washington Post Rights
Secret Service officials in Washington and members of Trump's security
detail accompanying him in New Jersey were caught off guard
by his announcement Thursday night that he had been indicted.
(39:50):
Within moments of his post, untruth, social Secret Service officials
began emailing one another and setting in motion a series
of planning meetings in Washington and Miami. Really, they were surprise,
how what happened here? Did the Secret Service transfer those
(40:10):
agents who had been guarding the home of the National
Security Advisor Jake Sullivan back in April when an intoxicated
man sash Aid, passed every last one of them at
three o'clock in the morning and broke into Sullivan's house.
And they never noticed because they were too busy looking
at their cell phones, And they didn't know about it
until Sulliban came out and told them himself. Same guys surprised.
(40:36):
Other notes, Newt Gingrich testified yesterday presumably about Trump bilking
his own roobs for funds to fight as stolen election
that he knew was not stolen. Or about the fake
elector's scheme, or both, and that serves as a reminder
that Jack Smith's investigations and possible charges against Trump continue
on all other fronts. Also, Steve Mannon has been subpoened,
(41:00):
and the Biden White House insists that it learned of
the indictment's last night only when they saw it in media.
You know, I did get out one of the first
tweets on the Trump announcement. I'm hoping they saw that. Lastly,
since man's most distant ancestor climbed the primordial ooze, every
(41:23):
momentous event in our history has always been accompanied by
an equally momentous stupid event. There was the twenty one
gun salute in which the honoree got shot. There was
the new state of the art baseball stadium that opened
without a press box for the reporters to sit in.
And now there is Trump's indictment announcement and the worst
(41:48):
home video ever recorded. It is a masterpiece of missteps.
It is on the rushmore of rushed work. It is
a new high in low Trump posted it at seven
point fifty seven from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
(42:10):
He is standing in front of a large painting seemingly
depicting a white house office scene from the late nineteenth century.
Trump has been positioned directly under an overhead spotlight of
some kind, so his flock of seagulls comb over that
he has honed to exactly his preferred shade of spray
(42:32):
on gold rustolium has instead been bleached white, and it
looks like a white yamica that has slid forward towards
his bright white eyebrows. He is also perfectly placed in
front of that painting in such a way that a
man in the painting who is standing I think it
could be President Chester A. Arthur, or even President Grover Cleveland,
(42:55):
although the body language suggests it's mister Peanut. The man
in the painting is perfectly positioned and seems to be
about a foot tall and seems to be standing on
top of Trump's right shoulder. If this great gazoo effect
were not already hilarious enough, the man standing on Trump's shoulder,
(43:18):
the foot tall man on Trump's shoulder, is twirling his
mustache like he is snidely whiplash who has just tied
nol Fenwick to the railroad tracks, and he is standing
on Trump's shoulder as Trump announces he has been indicted
(43:40):
for crimes against the United States of America. What a
fitting way to end the coverage of the first time
in our hist Oh wait, I forgot something I forgot
there's new lyrics to my favorite song. Godd indicted in Miami,
(44:08):
Dan Don accounts, Argona Club. Book me and bail me,
try me and jail me, but get me to the
trial on time. Thank you, Nancy Faust. Also of interest
(44:29):
here as if we could possibly possibly top the indictment
of Donald Trump on seven different charges. Also of interest
here a name you thought you had been done with
hearing me say ever again? Ah, But CNN's year to
year advertising information has come out. I will go over
(44:52):
all of it because it doesn't take as long as
it should, because it's down forty percent from last year.
Last year before they ever heard the name that's next.
This discountdown, you know, this is countdown with uh you
know Keith Alberman postscripts to do some headlines, some updates,
(45:19):
some snarks, some predictions, dateline the Supreme Court, somebody got scared.
Chief Justice Roberts and Brett party down. Cavanaugh lined up
with the three liberals to strike down Alabama's racist congressional map,
upholding a key part of the Voting Rights Act, with
such alacrity that within hours, the Cook Political Report changed
(45:41):
five of its congressional predictions for next year. Alabama's first
and second districts and the Louisiana fifth and sixth go
from solid Republican to toss up, and the North Carolina
first goes from toss up to lean Democratic. As some
political observers observed, the Court may have just given the
Democrats the House back, if that weren't shocking any u.
(46:04):
A bid to hobble medicaid and keep citizens from suing
states for violating their rights was rejected by the Court
by seven to two. The only dissenters were Alito and Thomas. Obviously,
Thomas's check has cleared. Dateline CNN Hudson Yards, New York,
Chris Lick is gone, but the memory and the stench
lingers on the advertising Research from Media Radar reports that
(46:28):
for the first four months of twenty twenty three, CNN's
on air and digital ad revenue had dropped forty percent
compared to the first four months of twenty twenty two
before lickt got there and started hunting for the middle
that does not exist in real terms. That's two hundred
million dollars CNN did not make for context. MSNBC lost
(46:51):
six point one percent of its ad revenue, Fox six
point eight, CNN forty. But I'm sure they'll figure it out,
just because their old audience is gone and there's no
stars in primetime in the morning or any other time
of the day. Thank you, Nancy Faust. Dateline, Fox quote
(47:27):
News unquote. It has announced that Monday, Sean Hannity's guest
will be Governor Gavin Newsom of California, who admits he
watches Fox all the time, whose ex wife, Kimberly Gilfoyle
used to be on Fox before she turned out to
be even too gross for them. Here's a question, Governor,
why why would you go on Fox? Now? Their own
(47:51):
viewers have their foot on Fox's neck and you go
on there. It's like Stephen A. Smith going on with Hannity.
You can only damage yourself. Then, even if you don't
actually damage yourself during the show, they have all that
tape of that they can distort out of context and
use against you next time. Democrats do not go on Fox.
(48:12):
They are mortally wounded, let them bleed. Dateline Alderman Broadcasting,
Empire World Headquarters, Sports Capsule Building, New York. Sometime very
late Tuesday. It looks like this podcast crossed another threshold.
Ten million downloads in a little over ten months, a million,
five hundred thousand of them last month alone. As ever,
(48:33):
I thank you for your support and your loyalty, and
with that uncharacteristic niceness out of the way, it's not enough,
it's not nearly enough. Tell the others stop passers by, seriously,
thank you. Coming up Fridays with Thurber and many of
(49:02):
his stories are clever, and many are fun. And then
there are some whose plots are worthy of Arthur Conan
Doyle or Shakespeare. The catbird Seat next first the day
he round up with the misigrants, morons and dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today's bus bussons and the world
Lebron's a bunch of people bashing Gene Simmons of Kiss
(49:26):
because he showed up to the British Parliament and attended
Prime Minister's question time, and he visited the Irish mp
ian Paisley. Simmons also called for the restoration of the
Stormont House agreement in which power in Northern Ireland would
be shared by Irish and pro British politicians for the
benefit of citizens, and a lot of reaction here and
there was he's a rock and roll guy in face paint.
(49:50):
Gene Simmons also used to be a sixth grade teacher,
And I ask you this, which makes more sense Gene
Simmons in his kiss attire talking about Irish politics, or
Marjorie Taylor Green being allowed into Congress without a tour
pass and adult supervision. The runner's up Jesse Waters and
(50:10):
Laura Ingram, who work at the rotting carcass of what
used to be Fox quote News unquote, don't go on there, Governor.
They continue to mock the last two days of the
air in New York and Washington and all the Atlantic
seaboard being tasteable, being so orange that, as the satirical
site Have I Got News for You pointed out, New
(50:31):
Yorker is urged to remain vigilant after Donald Trump is
rendered completely invisible. Waters mocked warnings to stay inside by saying,
everybody saints stay inside, but I didn't listen, which checks
out because he's a moron. A lot of stupid people
on Fox kill meat is stupid. Harris Faulkner is so stupid.
(50:53):
She used to have a cell phone case with her
own picture on it, apparently in case she forgot what
she looked like. But Waters is next level Ingram meanwhile
hosted a climate change to I are named Steve Molloy,
and Steve malloy said, we have this kind of air
in India and China all the time. No public health emergency.
This doesn't kill anybody, that doesn't make anybody cough. This
(51:14):
is not a health event. No, of course, not other
than the extra million premature deaths a year from air
pollution in China and India. Doesn't mean a thing. Ah,
I'm surprised they didn't note that. With the atmospheric patterns
suggesting that we're in for a summer of this, New
Yorkers and Washingtonians who have always wanted their own fireplace
(51:37):
but could not afford one to now just open a
window and make a crackling sound with some cellophane and
pretend they have one. But our winner, good old George Santos,
once again, we can do two things at once. We
can deplore his extraordinary dishonesty. That his amazing conviction that
he will continue to get away with it because so
far he has, while at the same time we can
(51:59):
only look at the stamina with envy, his stam in
finding ways that none of the rest of us would
have ever dreamed of to break laws, violate ethics, and
surround ourselves with the worst possible people. That Mother Jones Magazine,
David Corn and Jacqueline's Sweet report that Santos is so
corrupt that his lawyer was in the mob that attacked
(52:22):
the Capitol on January sixth. Now we know Santos was
in the vip section that day for Trump's stochastic terrorism
speech at the Ellipse. But now Mother Jones reports quote
newly uncovered photos and video footage of January sixth show
that his attorney, Joseph Murray, was in the angry mob
that trespassed on Capitol grounds. It appears the attorney Murray
(52:44):
got to the steps of the Capitol and stopped and watched.
No evidence he went in, no evidence he broke the law.
But Mother Jones says former Queen's Republican District leader Philip Grillow,
who went into the Congress through a broken window says
he himself saw Murray on the way from the Ellipse quote.
He was leading the charge up the hill. He was
(53:05):
urging us on, waiving us to follow him. And now
he's George Santos's lawyer. George, Yeah, but he didn't go
in the Capitol Santos. Today's Worst Person in the World
(53:28):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I
am sorry only that this is not a capital case.
(00:27):
Donald Trump is a traitor to this nation and a
danger to its literal survival. And he has spit on
everyone who serves it, and on every military member present
and past, active veterans dead alike. He has been and
he remains a threat to the safety of every one
of us, and he will be so as long as
he lives. Donald Trump has jeopardized this nation's security. He
(00:52):
has jeopardized its rule of law. He has jeopardized its
position as a leader in this world. And those whose
responds to the breathtaking scope of the thirty seven charges
against him is to lash out at the prosecution, or
defend the indefensible, or promise retribution in the courts, they
have lost all connection to morality, personal and national. Those
(01:15):
who have vowed revenge or an eye for an eye
have lost all right to serve in our government in
any capacity. I am very, very sorry that when Donald
Trump goes on trial for his traitorous, treacherous trees and
his crimes against the United States of America, that he
will face only the possibility of sentences totaling one hundred years.
(01:39):
That is not enough. It is that bad quote. The
classified documents Trump stored in his boxes included information regarding
defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and
foreign countries. Reads the indictment, The next sentence is worse.
Trump had documents detailing United States nuclear programs. There are
(02:03):
references to a document about American nuclear weaponry and another
document about another country's nuclear capacity. But the next sentence
is worse. He had potential vulnerabilities of the United States
and its allies to military attack. But the next sentence
is even worse. He had America's plans for possible retaliation
(02:24):
to a foreign attack. All that keeps US safe from
countries which still truly harbored dreams of attacking this country militarily,
North Korea, Russia, maybe China. All that could have enabled
those countries to transform those dreams into battle plans. All
of that Donald Trump stole and kept and kept near
(02:45):
the Marlago Club's swimming pool and near the liquor supply closet.
And other documents were kept in the bathroom next to
the toilet. It is that bad. It is as bad
as the Rosenberg's. It is as bad as the other
nuclear spies of the nineteen fifties. It is as bad
(03:07):
as Rick Ames and Robert Hanson. It is, in fact worse.
It is not only worse, It is worse than we
could possibly have imagined, and it may yet be worse
than we even know today after the indictment. It is
so bad that former FBI Deputy Counterintelligence Chief Pete Struck
(03:28):
says there seemed to be as many as thirteen top
secret documents recovered in the FBI search of marri Lago,
about which no charges were filed. Struck suggests, based on
his long experience, that the Department of Justice had to
get permission from each agency that owned the information to
even publicly acknowledge that a document was missing or stolen
(03:52):
or existed, and that in those thirteen cases, the acknowledgment
was too dangerous and the documents were too secret, too sensitive,
too vital to the security of a nation to even
be referred to, let alone to be part of a
criminal case. A reading of the indictment shows several occasions
in which some of the code names and other terminology
(04:15):
of the documents and terminology in the documents had to
be redacted. In the indictment itself. These crimes are so
bad that you need special clearance just to be told
exactly what some of them are. Trump stolen kept documents
from the Department of Defense. He stolen kept documents from
(04:38):
the National Security Agency. He stolen kept documents from the
National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. He stolen kept documents from the
National Reconnaissance Office. He stolen, kept documents from the Department
of Energy. He stolen kept documents from the State Department
Bureau of Intelligence and Research. And these were not mistakes,
(05:01):
These were not accidents, These were not souvenirs. This was
not hoarding. This was a curated collection. Trump chose the
most secret, the most sensitive, the most damaging, the most
important documents. He took them with him. He chose which
(05:22):
ones he might give back. He worried to this Walt
Naouda that the boxes he kept them in had been
labeled with too many details about what the boxes contained.
He replaced the tops to the boxes because the old
ones were insufficient. This was his collection, and at least twice,
including in the case of that Mark milly Iran document,
to the Mark Meadows Ghostwriters, he showed parts of his
(05:45):
collection off to people who never should have seen any
of it. And as he did so, he acknowledged that
he had no right to do so. And still he
showed the documents off like your grandmother and her Humbo figurines.
And then when he was done with them, they were left,
often where they sat. On December seventh, twenty twenty one,
(06:07):
another date which shall live in infamy, Walt Nahould have
found boxes and their contents strewn on the floor of
the storage room. One document he saw said it was
releasable only to the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance. Trump spilling
(06:28):
secrets literally on the floor. It is bad. It is
so bad that the conservative David from may have stated
this half jokingly, but what he stated is entirely true.
Any hostile foreign intelligence service that failed to steal US
(06:49):
secrets from Trump's Mary Lago stash owes its taxpayers a
big refund that is dark and bitter humor, and it
contains a more awful truth. Still, how do we know
all the hostile foreign intelligence services failed to steal our
secrets from Mary Lago from the floor, from the bathroom.
(07:14):
How do we not know we are not today compromised, endangered, imperiled,
and all along Trump knew he was breaking the law,
document after document and day after day, breaking the law
by having the documents, breaking the law by keeping the documents,
trying to get his attorney to break the law for him.
(07:38):
Trump telling somebody not to stand quite that close to
one of the classified documents because they didn't have the
right clearance. The idiocy of it. Trump, this was done
by the military and given to me. Trump looks to
a staffer there with him and to the civilians. He
asks the staffer, I think we can probably write. The
(07:59):
staffer says, I don't know. We'll have to see. Yeah,
I will have to try to Trump interrupts him to
classify it. The staffer replies, figure out a yeah. Trump says, see,
as president, I could have declassified it. Everybody laughs. Trump again,
Now I can't you know, bod this is still a secret.
(08:20):
Stafford says, now we have a problem. Trump, seemingly looking
at the secret document he never should have shown, never
should have referred to, never should have stolen now, says,
isn't that interesting? And finally, when it looked like they
would catch him, Trump's response was not the easiest and
(08:40):
coincidentally most honest thing. The thing that would have made
all this never happen. The only thing our government actually
wanted As of a year ago, he never once entertained
the thought of giving it back. In May of twenty
twenty two, Evan Corcoran told him they needed to search
for classified documents in order to be responsive to the
(09:02):
Department of Justice subpoena. I don't want anybody looking through
my boxes. Trump told him, I really don't. I don't
want you looking through my boxes. He asked Corcoran, what
happens if we just don't respond at all or don't
play ball with them? He philosophized Corkoran, wouldn't it be
better if we just told them we don't have anything here?
(09:22):
Isn't it better if there are no documents? And then
he ruminated after all he had said about this topic,
He ruminated about what a wonderful job the Hillary Clinton
aide had done, the one who deleted all the emails
so as he said, she wouldn't get into trouble. And then,
after Trump seemed to give in to the idea that
(09:44):
Corcoran would have to search. On June first, Trump had
Naota move eleven boxes out of that storage room. And
then Trump asked Corkoran if Corkoran was coming back to
Mari Lago the next day. And then on the next day,
June second, he got Walt Naota to move sixty four
more boxes, including classified materials, out of the storage room
and two Trump's residents, but he only had him return
thirty by boxes. And then he let Corkoran search the
(10:08):
room that Trump had already searched. And then Trump asked, innocently,
did you find anything? Is it bad? Good? Since I
met him in December nineteen eighty three, almost nothing about
Donald Trump has amazed me. Certainly nothing about Trump and
(10:28):
the document's case has amazed me in these last months.
Yet it still stuns me. It still makes me shake
that those defending him are not defending him. Nobody is
saying he didn't do these things. They say only he
had the right to break the laws of the country,
or that the laws of the country do not apply
(10:49):
to him, or they threaten US weaponization, impeach Merrick Garland
an eye for an eye. One idiot on Fox demanded
that doctor Jill Biden be arrested in return all these excuses,
these admissions that yes, there are two tiers of law
enforcement in this country, and the Trumpists believe in that
(11:09):
system because they believe they are in the tier which
rights the laws, and the rest of us are in
the tier upon whom the laws are enacted, and if
you try to use the laws against them, you have
politicized justice. It is a vendetta. It is politics. It
is a Banana republic. It is one presidential candidate targeting
his opponent criminally. Trump tried to have Hillary Clinton investigated
(11:32):
for the Uranium one deal. He tried to have the
Clinton campaign investigated for supposed collusion with Russia to help
her lose I guess. He tried to have the Clinton
Foundation investigated for unspecified corruption. He tried to have the
Obama administration investigated for tapping his phones. He tried to
have Obama investigated over Russia. He tried to have Adam
(11:54):
Schiff charged with treason. He tried to have Joe Biden
charged with treason. He tried to have Google charged with treason.
He tried to have Senator Blumenthal charged with lying about
his military service. He tried to have Speaker Pelosi charged
with lyne about Russia. He tried to have Senator Warner
Trent for illegally discussing the Mueller investigation. He tried to
have an anonymous New York Times op ed writer charged
for national security violations. He tried to have the FBI
(12:16):
charged with infiltrating his campaign. He tried to have the
DOJ charged with infiltrating his campaign. He tried to have
James Comby charged for leaks. He tried to have Robert
Muller charged for conflicts of interest. He tried to have
Andy McCabe charged for political donations received by his wife.
He tried to have Congressman Cummings charged because Baltimore was
a mess. He tried to have Fusion GPS charge for
(12:39):
dealing with Christopher Steele. He tried to have Muller prosecutor
Andrew Weisman investigated just cuz he tried to have Christopher
Steele charged over the dossier. He tried to have Bruce
Or charged for meeting with Christopher Steele. He tried to
have Pete Struck charged for texting Lisa Page. He tried
to have Lisa Page charged with texting with Pete Struck.
(12:59):
He tried to have Joe Scarborough investigated over the death
of a staffer. One presidential candidate criminally targeting his opponents.
What was that again? And he did something like this
again at arms length as recently as last month, and
we really didn't notice it. But yesterday the imfeccable Scott
(13:22):
mcfarawan of CBS News did a little juxtaposition of the
timelines now that the DOJ has confirmed its timeline. On
May nineteenth, the Special Council advised Trump he was a target.
That day he posted election interference through the use of
the corrupt FBI and DOJ is the twenty twenty three
playbook for the radical left, Democrats, rhinos and other lunatics
(13:44):
among us. Here's the part. Hopefully Jim Jordan and our
many Republican congressional patriots will stop them cold. The future
of our country is counting on it. All honest FBI
agents and representatives must step forward now it is your time.
Understanding what he had been told that day, That is
(14:06):
a call for something kin to a military coup against
the government of the United States, to be led by
FBI agents and members of the House of Representatives, and
specifically led by Jim Jordan. That is what Trump wanted.
And the defense of Trump is not a defense of
(14:26):
Trump at all. It is a chorus of so watts
and we'll show youse. And there are Republicans and conservatives
who see the reality here and now they will be threatened.
Two of Trump's lawyers quit. James Trusty was on television
yesterday morning defending him. By afternoon, he and John Rowley
were out. Jonathan Turley, who has for many years seemingly
(14:46):
been acting like a man possessed or blackmailed or hallucinating,
said quote. It is an extremely damning indictment. This is
not an indictment that you can dismiss. It's really breathtaking.
The visual and audio tape evidence is really daunting. Senator Murkowski,
rather blandly noted the real risk here. Mishandling classified documents
(15:07):
is a federal crime because it can expose national secrets.
Anyone found guilty, whether an analyst, a former president, or
another elected or appointed official, should face the same set
of consequences. Senator Romney spoke up. Trump brought these charges
upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by
refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to
(15:31):
do so, which is Senator exactly correct. And everybody else,
they are threatening the rest of us Trump last night.
See you in Miami on Tuesday. I hope we do
not repeat the mistakes of January sixth. These are insurrectionist militias.
(15:52):
They understand only force. The government needs as much force
as possible, pointed at the militias, in which case, because
they are bullies and cowards, they will not do a
thing and there will not even be a rock throat
by either side. Harry Fleischer, a liar for two different
presidents and also for the international scum of the earth,
(16:14):
said every wise Republican should make a pledge they would
pardon Donald Trump, which I believe would make every one
of them part of a criminal conspiracy to break the
same laws that Trump has now been charged with breaking.
The sixth string. Conservative commentator Monica Crowley urged Republicans to
fight fire with fire. The insurrectionist congressman Andy Biggs wrote,
(16:38):
we have now reached a war phrase I for an eye,
and the Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins tweeted a cryptic call
for nothing less than a second January sixth and full
on civil war quote. President Trump said he has been
summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in Miami, on
Tuesday at three pm. This is a perimeter probe from
(16:58):
the oppressor's hold. Our potus has this buckle up one
of slash fifty K know your bridges, rock steady, calm,
that is all. Obviously, this is a deranged middle aged
man playing soldier in his mind. He wants thousands to
(17:20):
show up in block bridges and the rest of it
is QAnon gibberish. But it is an incitement to rebellion
against the duly elected government of the United States, and
Clay Higgens should be arrested immediately and then first of
all given a psych eval of more practical concern going forward.
This case is, at least for the moment, in the
(17:42):
hands of the MAGA Judge Eileen Cannon, the same Trump
appointee who tried to stop the investigation last year and
then inserted a special master into the equation to decide
what the DOJ could and could not look at from
marri A Lago, and who was overturned and reprimanded by
higher courts at every turn, and she has been assigned
(18:04):
this case. Charlie Savage of The New York Times writes
that last year he wrote to the Chief Clerk of
the Southern District of Florida. Anticipating something, he asked about
Cannon's potential involvement going forward in the event of further
legal action in Florida, and he was told by the
clerk quote, we do not assign related cases to the
(18:27):
same judge. A related case will still be randomly assigned.
Meaning unless somebody fixed this, Judge Cannon should go play
the lottery right now. Because she, out of about thirty
eligible Florida judges, got the one case, she should never
be allowed near. The former federal prosecutor Joyce Elleen thinks
(18:47):
that this is temporary, that the judges expected to recuse,
that if she is still on the case, Jack Smith
can challenge her role and would win that challenge. A
cow law professor named Orrin Curse as maybe not. Judges
who do not choose recusal are usually given at least
a chance to not screw up the trial before they
are removed for screwing up the trial, and that is
(19:08):
the problem with Canon. More than anything else. The immediate
enemy is delay. Judge Cannon could accept the most ridiculous
of Trump legal challenges and stays. She might also rule
out the entirety of the Evan Corcoran lawyer evidence. She
could refuse to keep secret documents unseen outside of court.
The prosecution might therefore have to not pursue Trump on
(19:31):
some or all of those documents. She could give weight
to this crap about the Justice Department's Jay Bratt mentioning
a witness's lawyer's judge ship application. And even if none
of it actually harms the case, and all of it
is wiped away by a real judge, it can simply delay. Delay, delay,
(19:51):
And every delay means the greater likelihood that the trial
and the appeal and the appeals of the appeal will
not be over before the election, and that the Republicans
will not just run a candidate who has been indicted
and arrested for some of the worst national security crimes
in this nation's history, the worst when the degree of
his violation of his oath is considered, they will not
(20:12):
only run this scumbag, they will run him lustily. I
will never forgive Merrick Garland for dragging his feet. These
indictments could have come last January or last September. The
future chances of the democracy are now diminished because Merrick
(20:36):
Garland could not see what all the rest of us,
the ones who have not spent our lives in the law.
He could not see what all the rest of us saw.
And to that end, and lastly, I wanted to address
the difference between shock and surprise. I read the indictment
and found it blurring before my eyes because I was shaking.
(21:00):
That was shock. It is shock now. I have, as
I'm mentioned, no NONINALD Trump for nearly forty years, and
have always known him evil and irresponsible and selfish, beyond
all measure and not sane. And still this shocks me,
as I'm sure it shocks you. But it does not
surprise me because nearly everything in the thirty seven counts
(21:20):
against him, and in that document Jack Smith released yesterday,
You and I have heard that before, nearly all of it.
The shock is to see it all in one place
and confirmed and on the record. But last August eleventh.
August eleventh, DEVILN Barrett, Josh Dawzy, Perry Stein, and Shane
(21:43):
Harris wrote this in the Washington Post. Quote classified documents
relating to a nuclear weapon were among the items FBI
agents sought in search of former President Donald Trump's Florida
residents on Monday. According to people familiar with the investigation
August eleventh, and on August twenty five. August twenty five,
(22:07):
a former Wall Street Journal and Washington Post investigative reporter
named Ronald Kessler went on Fox. Kessler wrote twenty one
books about the FBI and the CIA and the Secret
Service and the White House, and then he became something
of a florid conservative shill. He wrote an adoring biography
of Laura Bush. He wrote another praising the presidency of
(22:29):
her husband. He wrote a third, worshiping Trump. He had
last been seen early in twenty twenty two on Newsmax
doing a fawning Trump documentary, yet not even three weeks
into the marri Lago documents case, which crested yesterday with
these thirty seven indictments. While the Fox on screen graphics
first read, did the FBI bug marri A Lago? And
(22:51):
then what is the FBI hiding? And then the FBI
shady bugging techniques? Ronald Kessler, Trump apologist went rogue first.
Kessler said that the level of secret classification for the
documents Trump took to Mary Lago was above and beyond
top secret and above and beyond sensitive slash compartmented and
(23:14):
then before the guy on Fox could stop him, Ronald Kessler,
a Trump guy, began to explain what specific kinds of
documents would be classified and above and beyond those levels
of secrecy, the boxes of documents Trump took, Kessler said,
quote could very well include the plans for counter striking
against Russia in the event of a nuclear attack. That's
(23:37):
something that's part of the football program, which I've written about,
where the president chooses options from these documents on how
to respond. He has to respond within twenty minutes to
prevent annihilation of the United States. That's one item that
could be in these documents. Unquote. At marri a Lago
last August, he said this united States nuclear programs. It
(24:01):
says in the indictment document, potential vulnerabilities of the United States,
it says in the document and its allies to military attacks.
It says in the document plans for possible retaliation to
a foreign attack. Ronald Kessler saw all that and said
all that two hundred and eighty nine days ago, and
he said something else. And I still don't know, and
we still don't know that his second speculation is not
(24:23):
as correct as his first. Kesler also believed that Trump
might be holding on to quote, our penetrations by the
CIA of foreign embassies, of foreign leaders like Putin, as
well as recruitment of spies overseas. So we're talking about
incredibly valuable secrets that the Russians, of course, would have
(24:44):
been after the Russians would have been trying to penetrate
marri A lago day and night, he said, and very
possibly did recruit spies to obtain these documents. These documents,
they were next to toilet and on storage room floors,
(25:08):
and on the bandstand in a ballroom and near the pool.
Never mind whether Trump sold them, as David from half joked.
How did the Russians not steal them? How did the
Chinese not steal them? How did the North Koreans not
steal them? How did the Saudis not steal them? And
(25:28):
more terrifying, still more terrifying again, and what keeps me
up at night? How can we be certain that nobody
did steal them? The rest of this edition of the
podcast is from the Friday edition, before the full scope
(25:51):
of the thirty seven count indictment was revealed. It had
been written in the wake of Trump's announcement of his
own indictment of seven counts, which, like everything else he's
ever said, was a lie. If you heard Friday's podcast,
there is no need to stay through the break. If
you did not please, you have my invitation to do so.
It's pretty good, although the advertisers would probably prefer I
(26:11):
not say any of that. That's next. This is countdown.
Donald Trump has been indicted on seven charges, and the
foremost of them is clearly a violation of the Espionage Act,
(26:33):
specifically one designed to send to prison for up to
ten years someone who was legally allowed to possess unclassified
national defense information, but who refused to return that information
in whatever form it took, to the proper government authorities.
It is eighteen US Code seven nine to three D,
(26:56):
and it fits the allegations against Trump better than any
of his suits. It erases all his states defenses and excuses,
like Trump's belief he owned a magic wand of declassification
and a new defense posited in just the last few
days that he was the president, so of course he
(27:16):
had the right to possess and keep all defense information.
Eighteen US Code seven nine to three D describes a
crime involving information that is not classified which the defendant
at some point did have the right to possess and
it's still illegal. Eighteen US Codes seven nine to three
(27:39):
D would seemingly box Trump in without the possibility of escape.
Trump's lawyer, James Trusty told CNN last night he has
not even seen the actual indictment, but only had broad
strokes painted to him, and he mentioned the wilful retention
part of the Espionage Act, thus essentially confirming eighteen US
(28:00):
Code seven nine three D. He mentioned multiple charges about
false statements about conspiracy, and quote several obstruction based charges,
including witness tampering, to go back to the beginning. At
approximately seven pm Eastern daylight time on Thursday, June eighth,
(28:20):
twenty twenty three, his attorneys were informed by the Department
of Justice by phone, and he was then informed by
those attorneys that Trump had been indicted in Miami on
seven separate sealed counts of criminal conduct, none of them
yet formally revealed to the public, but clearly pertaining to
the classified and defense documents he stole and kept in
(28:42):
his home and his office at marri Lago, and reportedly
including charges of illegal retention of national defense information, conspiracy
to obstruct Justice false statements to government investigators seven counts.
For context, the usual number of indictments for former presidents
or current presidential candidates is approximately zero. CBS News is
(29:07):
reporting that, for all of his bravado, when that happened,
Trump reacted to the indictments with anger because Trump had
quote people in his inner circle who reassured him for
months that it was very unlikely to happen. The entire
Miami grand jury process was apparently news to him, and
he really believed there was a chance that the meeting
(29:29):
between his attorneys Trustee and Rowley and Halligan with Jack Smith,
the Special Counsel, on Monday might have turned into some
form of negotiation. CBS also reports Trump's team now will
move to dismiss and to try to question Jack Smith
or j Bratt of the Justice Department the ladder over
(29:49):
a casual remark he made to one witnesses lawyers about
the lawyer's application to become a judge, which Trump's lawyers
will now try to blow up into a reason that
Trump should walk on all of these charges and all
other charges forever and ever ever. Trump is also reported
shocked by the reported cooperation of his former chief of
(30:11):
staff Mark Meadows, and CBS's Robert Costa quotes a Trump
ally as fuming, quote, why the f has he been
so quiet? Well, I can answer that the specifics of
what is the first federal indictment of a former president
only because Richard Nixon was preemptively pardoned by the president
(30:33):
who succeeded him, Gerald Ford, are as of recording time
entirely unofficial and just sourced. But the centerpiece of all
reporting is, as it was phraised by ABC News, quote
willful retention of national defense information. If that is the
correct characterization, it would seem to be exactly what the
(30:55):
UK paper The Independent had reported on Wednesday that Special
Counsel Smith had made the deliberate decision to prosecute Trump
not for step feeling or possessing classified information, but to
proceed instead under eighteen US Code seven nine to three.
As that newspapers Andrew Feinberg wrote, the use of section
(31:16):
seven nine three, which does not make reference to classified information,
is understood to be a strategic decision by prosecutors that
has been made to short circuit mister Trump's ability to
claim that he used his authority as president to declassified
documents He removed from a White House on quote. Conviction
for violation of that Code seven nine three Gathering, transmitting,
(31:40):
or losing defense information carries a penalty of a fine
or of up to ten years in prison, or both.
Since Paragraph D lists fourteen different kinds of defense information
fourteen different forms of defense information, let me abridge the
code somewhat as I read it to you. Quote. Whoever
(32:03):
lawfully having possession of access, to, control, over, or being
entrusted with any document, et cetera relating to the national
defense willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it
on demand to the officer or employee of the United
States entitled to receive it on quote is guilty of
(32:25):
violating that statute. That not only reads as if it
were written to describe exactly what Trump did with all
the documents, but as suggested previously, it denies Trump any
claim that he had declassified those materials because the climb
does not depend on their being any classified materials. It
(32:45):
circumvents the entirety of Trump's declassification defense, and were he
now to try to defend himself by modifying it to
claim that he had the right to possess the defense
information that is also irrelevant the first clause of this
magic wand eighteen US Code seventy nine to three D
he whoever lawfully having possession of defense information. Moreover, we
(33:13):
may have previously been given a preview of exactly what
that defense information is, or at least what one piece
of that defense information could be, even if there are
multiple allegations, even if there is just one indictment for
ten thousand pieces of paper. On May thirty first, CNN
reported that Trump had been recorded by the ghostwriters for
(33:35):
Mark Meadows, referring to seemingly holding in his hands, seemingly
paraphrasing what Trump said was a four page document from
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Millie,
which outlined United States military plans for an attack on Iran.
Trump refers to the fact on the recording that he
cannot just show it to the writers because he can't
(33:57):
unilaterally declassify material. There was also subsequent reporting that the
National Archives asked for the return of a document matching
Trump's own description of the four page milli Iran plan,
but Trump's lawyers could not find it, and by all
accounts did not and have not returned it. I referred
(34:23):
to this four page document on this podcast on that
date as the smoking gun. I think I'll stick with
that reference. Of course, any charge under eighteen US Code
seventy nine to three D would be so broad, could
be so broad that it could contain almost any document
Trump kept, or all of them, or just the classified ones,
(34:45):
or just the unclassified ones, or just the ones he
claimed had been declassified. It doesn't matter if Trump actually
had some kind of magic wand it matters only that
Jack Smith has won. Now we do not and probably
will not, have any kind of understanding of the math.
(35:05):
Where do seven counts come from? When virtually all reporting
creates three column headings for the crimes of Donald Trump?
Again to quote ABC's reporting willful retention of national defense information,
Well we got that one clear, I hope conspiracy scheme
to conceal and false statements and representations, for the impeccable
(35:28):
Ryan Goodman of Just Security, Scheme to conceal could easily
be eighteen US Code one zero zero one quote. Whoever,
in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative,
or judicial branch of the government, falsifies, conceals, or covers
up by any trick, scheme, or device, a material fact
(35:49):
unquote relevant to a prosecution that carries fines or prison
up to five years for doing that false statements. That's
a little less obvious, since there is no evidence that
Trump himself has made any statement to any official in
this investigation. That, after all, is the art of being Trump.
(36:11):
You don't go on the record that guy does. But
the New York Times observes Trump could still be guilty
of violating eighteen US Code two. Quote. Whoever commits an
offense against the United States or aids, bets Council's commands,
induces or procures its commission is punishable as a principle.
(36:35):
Slight translation here, if you caused it to happen, it's
the same as you actually doing it yourself. To resume
eighteen US Code two, whoever willfully causes an act to
be done, which, if directly performed by him or another,
would be on offense against the United States is punishable
as a principle. Well, what on earth could that be
(36:59):
that could easily be making his own attorney Evan Corcoran
draw up that document saying that a thorough search of
Mari Lago had been conducted, and these thirty eight classified
documents were all we found, and here's Christina Bob's signature
on it at the bottom, when in fact, Trump himself
had made sure that it could not have been a
(37:19):
thorough search because he moved all the boxes back and forth,
and he kept Corcoran from searching anywhere but in the
storage room. Or it could be what I mentioned to
you yesterday, this newly reported fascination that prosecutors have with
the original draft of a January twenty twenty two statement
that included a claim that everything had been returned to
(37:40):
the archives, then a claim that was removed from the
final statement on the matter in January twenty twenty two. Again,
this is all just reading tea leaves, and we are
reading tea leaves because by Department of Justice code of
honor or god knows what the indictment is sealed, that
(38:01):
secrecy by the Special Council has left the entire their
publicity playing field clear for Trump and every Republican under
the sun to get out their version of this write
down to Trump in fact being the first to reveal
his own indictment in a social media post at seven
to twenty one pm Eastern quote, the corrupt Biden administration
(38:23):
has informed my attorneys that I have been indicted seemingly
over the boxes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, followed
by I have been summoned to appear at the Federal
Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday at three pm. He did
not add be there aloha. There followed an avalanche of
Banana Republic references and a blitz of fundraising emails, and
(38:46):
a promise from the unintentional parody presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswami
to pardon Trump on January twentieth, twenty twenty five, which,
given Trump's intention to be president again and his insistence
that he is innocent, may not be the flex that
Ramaswami thinks. It is. A couple of brief scenes off
(39:07):
stage worth noting The New York Times Glen Thrush may
have seen the indictment in real time shortly before three
point thirty yesterday in the courtyard of the Justice Department,
writes Thrush. Quote Marshall Miller, a top Department official who
acted as an intermediary with the Special Council, raced out
of the building with a wad of papers in his
(39:28):
hand and an aid in tow. Also, the reputation of
the Secret Service continues to disintegrate. The Washington Post Rights
Secret Service officials in Washington and members of Trump's security
detail accompanying him in New Jersey were caught off guard
by his announcement Thursday night that he had been indicted.
(39:50):
Within moments of his post, untruth, social Secret Service officials
began emailing one another and setting in motion a series
of planning meetings in Washington and Miami. Really, they were surprise,
how what happened here? Did the Secret Service transfer those
(40:10):
agents who had been guarding the home of the National
Security Advisor Jake Sullivan back in April when an intoxicated
man sash Aid, passed every last one of them at
three o'clock in the morning and broke into Sullivan's house.
And they never noticed because they were too busy looking
at their cell phones, And they didn't know about it
until Sulliban came out and told them himself. Same guys surprised.
(40:36):
Other notes, Newt Gingrich testified yesterday presumably about Trump bilking
his own roobs for funds to fight as stolen election
that he knew was not stolen. Or about the fake
elector's scheme, or both, and that serves as a reminder
that Jack Smith's investigations and possible charges against Trump continue
on all other fronts. Also, Steve Mannon has been subpoened,
(41:00):
and the Biden White House insists that it learned of
the indictment's last night only when they saw it in media.
You know, I did get out one of the first
tweets on the Trump announcement. I'm hoping they saw that. Lastly,
since man's most distant ancestor climbed the primordial ooze, every
(41:23):
momentous event in our history has always been accompanied by
an equally momentous stupid event. There was the twenty one
gun salute in which the honoree got shot. There was
the new state of the art baseball stadium that opened
without a press box for the reporters to sit in.
And now there is Trump's indictment announcement and the worst
(41:48):
home video ever recorded. It is a masterpiece of missteps.
It is on the rushmore of rushed work. It is
a new high in low Trump posted it at seven
point fifty seven from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
(42:10):
He is standing in front of a large painting seemingly
depicting a white house office scene from the late nineteenth century.
Trump has been positioned directly under an overhead spotlight of
some kind, so his flock of seagulls comb over that
he has honed to exactly his preferred shade of spray
(42:32):
on gold rustolium has instead been bleached white, and it
looks like a white yamica that has slid forward towards
his bright white eyebrows. He is also perfectly placed in
front of that painting in such a way that a
man in the painting who is standing I think it
could be President Chester A. Arthur, or even President Grover Cleveland,
(42:55):
although the body language suggests it's mister Peanut. The man
in the painting is perfectly positioned and seems to be
about a foot tall and seems to be standing on
top of Trump's right shoulder. If this great gazoo effect
were not already hilarious enough, the man standing on Trump's shoulder,
(43:18):
the foot tall man on Trump's shoulder, is twirling his
mustache like he is snidely whiplash who has just tied
nol Fenwick to the railroad tracks, and he is standing
on Trump's shoulder as Trump announces he has been indicted
(43:40):
for crimes against the United States of America. What a
fitting way to end the coverage of the first time
in our hist Oh wait, I forgot something I forgot
there's new lyrics to my favorite song. Godd indicted in Miami,
(44:08):
Dan Don accounts, Argona Club. Book me and bail me,
try me and jail me, but get me to the
trial on time. Thank you, Nancy Faust. Also of interest
(44:29):
here as if we could possibly possibly top the indictment
of Donald Trump on seven different charges. Also of interest
here a name you thought you had been done with
hearing me say ever again? Ah, But CNN's year to
year advertising information has come out. I will go over
(44:52):
all of it because it doesn't take as long as
it should, because it's down forty percent from last year.
Last year before they ever heard the name that's next.
This discountdown, you know, this is countdown with uh you
know Keith Alberman postscripts to do some headlines, some updates,
(45:19):
some snarks, some predictions, dateline the Supreme Court, somebody got scared.
Chief Justice Roberts and Brett party down. Cavanaugh lined up
with the three liberals to strike down Alabama's racist congressional map,
upholding a key part of the Voting Rights Act, with
such alacrity that within hours, the Cook Political Report changed
(45:41):
five of its congressional predictions for next year. Alabama's first
and second districts and the Louisiana fifth and sixth go
from solid Republican to toss up, and the North Carolina
first goes from toss up to lean Democratic. As some
political observers observed, the Court may have just given the
Democrats the House back, if that weren't shocking any u.
(46:04):
A bid to hobble medicaid and keep citizens from suing
states for violating their rights was rejected by the Court
by seven to two. The only dissenters were Alito and Thomas. Obviously,
Thomas's check has cleared. Dateline CNN Hudson Yards, New York,
Chris Lick is gone, but the memory and the stench
lingers on the advertising Research from Media Radar reports that
(46:28):
for the first four months of twenty twenty three, CNN's
on air and digital ad revenue had dropped forty percent
compared to the first four months of twenty twenty two
before lickt got there and started hunting for the middle
that does not exist in real terms. That's two hundred
million dollars CNN did not make for context. MSNBC lost
(46:51):
six point one percent of its ad revenue, Fox six
point eight, CNN forty. But I'm sure they'll figure it out,
just because their old audience is gone and there's no
stars in primetime in the morning or any other time
of the day. Thank you, Nancy Faust. Dateline, Fox quote
(47:27):
News unquote. It has announced that Monday, Sean Hannity's guest
will be Governor Gavin Newsom of California, who admits he
watches Fox all the time, whose ex wife, Kimberly Gilfoyle
used to be on Fox before she turned out to
be even too gross for them. Here's a question, Governor,
why why would you go on Fox? Now? Their own
(47:51):
viewers have their foot on Fox's neck and you go
on there. It's like Stephen A. Smith going on with Hannity.
You can only damage yourself. Then, even if you don't
actually damage yourself during the show, they have all that
tape of that they can distort out of context and
use against you next time. Democrats do not go on Fox.
(48:12):
They are mortally wounded, let them bleed. Dateline Alderman Broadcasting,
Empire World Headquarters, Sports Capsule Building, New York. Sometime very
late Tuesday. It looks like this podcast crossed another threshold.
Ten million downloads in a little over ten months, a million,
five hundred thousand of them last month alone. As ever,
(48:33):
I thank you for your support and your loyalty, and
with that uncharacteristic niceness out of the way, it's not enough,
it's not nearly enough. Tell the others stop passers by, seriously,
thank you. Coming up Fridays with Thurber and many of
(49:02):
his stories are clever, and many are fun. And then
there are some whose plots are worthy of Arthur Conan
Doyle or Shakespeare. The catbird Seat next first the day
he round up with the misigrants, morons and dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today's bus bussons and the world
Lebron's a bunch of people bashing Gene Simmons of Kiss
(49:26):
because he showed up to the British Parliament and attended
Prime Minister's question time, and he visited the Irish mp
ian Paisley. Simmons also called for the restoration of the
Stormont House agreement in which power in Northern Ireland would
be shared by Irish and pro British politicians for the
benefit of citizens, and a lot of reaction here and
there was he's a rock and roll guy in face paint.
(49:50):
Gene Simmons also used to be a sixth grade teacher,
And I ask you this, which makes more sense Gene
Simmons in his kiss attire talking about Irish politics, or
Marjorie Taylor Green being allowed into Congress without a tour
pass and adult supervision. The runner's up Jesse Waters and
(50:10):
Laura Ingram, who work at the rotting carcass of what
used to be Fox quote News unquote, don't go on there, Governor.
They continue to mock the last two days of the
air in New York and Washington and all the Atlantic
seaboard being tasteable, being so orange that, as the satirical
site Have I Got News for You pointed out, New
(50:31):
Yorker is urged to remain vigilant after Donald Trump is
rendered completely invisible. Waters mocked warnings to stay inside by saying,
everybody saints stay inside, but I didn't listen, which checks
out because he's a moron. A lot of stupid people
on Fox kill meat is stupid. Harris Faulkner is so stupid.
(50:53):
She used to have a cell phone case with her
own picture on it, apparently in case she forgot what
she looked like. But Waters is next level Ingram meanwhile
hosted a climate change to I are named Steve Molloy,
and Steve malloy said, we have this kind of air
in India and China all the time. No public health emergency.
This doesn't kill anybody, that doesn't make anybody cough. This
(51:14):
is not a health event. No, of course, not other
than the extra million premature deaths a year from air
pollution in China and India. Doesn't mean a thing. Ah,
I'm surprised they didn't note that. With the atmospheric patterns
suggesting that we're in for a summer of this, New
Yorkers and Washingtonians who have always wanted their own fireplace
(51:37):
but could not afford one to now just open a
window and make a crackling sound with some cellophane and
pretend they have one. But our winner, good old George Santos,
once again, we can do two things at once. We
can deplore his extraordinary dishonesty. That his amazing conviction that
he will continue to get away with it because so
far he has, while at the same time we can
(51:59):
only look at the stamina with envy, his stam in
finding ways that none of the rest of us would
have ever dreamed of to break laws, violate ethics, and
surround ourselves with the worst possible people. That Mother Jones Magazine,
David Corn and Jacqueline's Sweet report that Santos is so
corrupt that his lawyer was in the mob that attacked
(52:22):
the Capitol on January sixth. Now we know Santos was
in the vip section that day for Trump's stochastic terrorism
speech at the Ellipse. But now Mother Jones reports quote
newly uncovered photos and video footage of January sixth show
that his attorney, Joseph Murray, was in the angry mob
that trespassed on Capitol grounds. It appears the attorney Murray
(52:44):
got to the steps of the Capitol and stopped and watched.
No evidence he went in, no evidence he broke the law.
But Mother Jones says former Queen's Republican District leader Philip Grillow,
who went into the Congress through a broken window says
he himself saw Murray on the way from the Ellipse quote.
He was leading the charge up the hill. He was
(53:05):
urging us on, waiving us to follow him. And now
he's George Santos's lawyer. George, Yeah, but he didn't go
in the Capitol Santos. Today's Worst Person in the World
(53:28):
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