Ep 23- What Trump's 4 indictments really mean for the 2024 election

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Well, Jack, as of therecording of this episode of Saving Liberty,
Tomorrow night is the first GOP presidentialdebate, and as excited as I know
everyone is for Doug Bergham and AsaHutchinson's movie, it is. It is
some of the characters on stage,the Hollywood Superstar, if you will,

(00:24):
the rock of the debate, MissDonald J. Trump, our former president.
He will not be there, andhe cited the fact that why would
he let a bunch of people whoare only pulling at one or two percent,
you know, try to getting cheapshots in on him. So he's
decided to not be there. Butthe other thing is he doesn't really need

(00:47):
to right now, Jack. He'sgot a commanding lead anywhere you look,
it's it's he's anywhere from thirty tofifty points ahead of Ronda Santis, who's
in second. So I understand whyhe's not going to be there. But
the other thing I think people arewondering is okay, because I don't see
him losing this primary. The supportsnot that I mean, there's just not

(01:08):
going to be anything that will changethe Trump supporter's minds. We both know
that. And that's a good that'sa good thing in terms of if you
want to keep your base, butalso if he does and I believe he
will eventually win the nomination, itraises a lot of issues. With the
four indictments going on right now,you almost wonder like, what in the

(01:30):
world is this twenty twenty four electiongoing to look at like we're going to
look like excuse me? Yeah?So, you know, I think the
big question that will answer probably duringthis podcast is can you still run for
president? There's the legal implication,but there's also the practical considerations. I
mean, there are four active livecases against him right now leading into this

(01:52):
election. I tend to side withyou. I think he's I mean,
he's up by what anywhere from fivetouchdowns to nine touchdowns. That's a pretty
commanding lead. But we're still adistance from that primary vote. The one
thing that could be his achilles heelis this. I don't know how many

(02:12):
Republicans believe that he has more supportin twenty twenty, that he was able
to pick off some independent voters thathe wasn't able to in twenty twenty,
And if some people feel like hecan't do that, that might be the
only thing that turns the tide,and I don't know who would do that.
I don't know if it's around asSantists, I don't know if it's
Vake Ramaswamy. But that is stilla substantial mountain for him to overcome.

(02:37):
But I think that is the onething Republicans can go. Look, if
he wins the nomination, he's stillgonna lose and we're going to hell in
a hand basket. Well, Iknow that. What is that Atlanta?
They want to start their trial byMarch third or fourth, and we know
the case in DC about January sixth. Then you hear about it's a slam

(02:59):
dunk the Marlago documents case, andwe just have a lot of questions of
how this will turn out. Sowe are very lucky to have doctor Mark
Clawson, professor of history and lawfrom Cedarville University, joining the Saving Saving
Liberty podcast tonight and doctor Clawson,thanks for your time this evening. Thanks
good to be with you. Solet's let's get down to brass tacks.

(03:22):
Let's we'll just go right into thequestion. Your professor both history and law,
explain how what the constitution says interms of if he were to be
convicted before the general election. Ithink a lot of people have confusion or
questions and they want to know willkind of convicted felon still run for president.

(03:46):
So I just thought i'd turned itover to you and kind of kind
of lay out what kind of restrictions, if any of the Constitution puts on
that. Yeah, basically, it'swhat the Constitution does not say in this
case. You can, at leastthere's been no case law to interpret the
Constitutional on this, on this particularissue as of yet, you can run

(04:10):
for president having been convicted. Youcould get elected and remain president. You
could run your presidency from jail hypothetically, and you could pardner yourself likely now
there's debate about that, but thatseems the weight of scholarship seems to be
on the side of being able topardon yourself. That's been Sorry, I

(04:33):
didn't mean to cutch off, andI was going to say that that's been
a big point of contention and aboutyou know, can you do that?
And I'm just curious, what isthere any sort of thing that makes it
murky or at least to the pointwhere we've had to had scholarly debate about
it. Well, I think Ithink where it is is the pardon clauses

(04:55):
or the pardon clause I should say, just simply states that president can grant
pardons in federal cases. Now,there's nothing he could do at the state
level to pardon himselves, so let'sthrow that those cases out. But if
it's a federal conviction on the DCcase, the Marlago case, he could
pardon himself. And the clause simplystates that the president can issue a pardon.

(05:20):
It can. It's unconditional, there'snothing attached to it, no strings
attached, it's permanent. And sinceit doesn't specify himself, that's where the
debate comes in. Could would itbe legitimate for a president to then grant
that same pardon to himself when hehas the pardon at least the statement in

(05:44):
the Constitution to pardon others, Itjust does. It's silent. It doesn't
say. Now. Usually in thecase of silence like this, it seems
like it would be allowed for himto do it. But like I said,
there's been no case on this.Ever, we don't actually know how
a federal court would come down onthat if it went to court. So
to reiterate the federal cases, hecould essentially clear as record of if he

(06:11):
wins the White House again, thestate cases which are in New York and
Georgia, those he could still sustainlegal injuries if you will be jailed even
perhaps, And your point is interesting, you know he could run the country
from a jail cell. Well,looking at Joe Biden, Joe Biden could
be anywhere, and he can't runthe country. It appears to me that
there is either one person or agroup of people behind his feckless demeanor and

(06:36):
quickly declining mental faculties that are runningthe country in his stead. But I
digress there. So let's look atthis though, because here's how I see
it. All of these are goingto be trials. They're gonna last for
weeks. He's going to be requiredto sit in a courtroom. And what's
the opportunity cost of that. Well, he can't be at a rally.

(06:58):
The money that he's spending on hislegal fence he can't use to fund his
campaign. His energy is going tobe dissipated. Help me understand how this
is not election interference against Donald Trump. Yeah, well, you're getting to
the really big central question as towhether this is politically motivated I think that

(07:21):
it clearly seems to be politically motivated. Obviously, I don't have a window
into the minds of the people whohave brought these indictments, but I tell
you, looking on the surface ofit, it's politically motivated. So is
that at the same time election interference. You would have a difficult time making

(07:43):
a legal case out of election interferencebecause prosecutors do have a huge amount of
discretion to bring cases even with strangetheories, even with totally unworkable legal theories,
and the only thing they face ifthey lose is just maybe a little
bit of a loss of reputation,or maybe a lot of loss of reputation.

(08:07):
But prosecutors don't get limited in theirdiscretion, and they have absolute immunity
to do that. Very seldom woulda court ever sanction a prosecutor for doing
something even really bad. Now,there are exceptions. Obviously a prosecutor could

(08:28):
do something illegal, clearly illegal now. But the thing is it, like
I said before, it's going tobe really hard to prove illegality on the
part of this of any of theseprosecutors because of the fact they have so
much discretion in leeway in the indictmentcharges that they that they bring. So
that's the problem you face. Youmight you might say, yeah, it's

(08:50):
sure political. They have to gethim, they want to get him,
yes, but they are basically ableto do that as long as they don't
break the law into it in someway such as bribal witness or intimidate someone
or do something like that. Youknow a lot of people want to know,

(09:11):
like does he have a chance arguingthat he wants, like the January
sixth DC trial moved out of therebecause he can't get a fair hearing.
There also arguing in some of thesecases that these are judges that are clearly
have links to Democrat ties and havecontributed directly to Democrat campaigns and so forth.

(09:35):
If you're a legal team and you'regoing in there and you're trying to
make this argument that Okay, ican't get a fair shot here, and
I've got this impartial judge and there'sa record of it, there's really is
there any chance or any hope orany recourse that his defense team could could
argue and say, if it's notgranted, then take that to an appeals

(10:00):
and say, look, this iswhat was stacked against us. We just
didn't get a fair trial. Yes, there is a chance on that.
Now, you know, I've heardboth sides from different legal theorists, and
I have my own view on this. I think he has a better than
even chance to get a venue change, which is why we would call that
to another jurisdiction, because it's clear. Let's take the DC case as an

(10:24):
example. It's very clear of DCvoted for Biden last time. That's clearly
that's a clearly partial jury. Therejury pool, You're not likely to get
anybody who favors Trump. You're likelyto get people who don't like Trump.
The judge has shown signs of notliking Trump. The judge is known to

(10:46):
be harsh on the January sixth rioters. All that being the case, if
I were his attorneys, I wouldI'm sure they will. I would definitely
make a motion to both move thevenue to another other location and get to
ask the judge to recuse herself.She probably won't, but that's an appealable

(11:11):
issue. If you lose on that, you could appeal that. If you
lose on the venue change, youcould appeal that to the circuit court.
So, yes, he has achance State court same thing. You could
ask for a change of venue.You could ask the judge recuse himself for
herself, and that's an appealable issuetoo, So if you're a good lawyer,

(11:33):
you better be doing it. Let'sjust put it that way, right,
So maybe a strategy is and justtell me if I'm wrong, Like,
is it plausible that the legal teamcan just uh, you know,
gridlock this thing up before it evenstarts to push back a trial. They

(11:54):
then on the back end of itjust you know, or even you know,
appeal after appeal after appeal to tieit up to post the election in
November. I mean, is itpossible that they have enough emotions and appeals
and things they can do that theycould any one of these they could drag
out beyond the election. Yes,definitely. In fact, the lawyers are

(12:16):
going to be appealing on every indictment, every single charge. They'll appeal something,
I'll guarantee you. And the numberof people too, take the Atlanta
prosecution nineteen people totally, including DonaldTrump. That means that every particular person
is going to have a lawyer,is going to need a lawyer, and

(12:39):
it's going to take forever to geta jury impaneled, and every single one
of those lawyers, for each oneof those individuals is going to appeal everything
they can think of to appeal.So it's hard for me to imagine that
this trial, any of these trials, could get started anywhere near the time
that the judges want to start them. Now, the judges on the other

(13:01):
side, they're going to argue,look, I want to get this through.
I'm gonna I'm gonna deny all yourmotions right now. But he or
she cannot do that until the motionsare brought and they've considered the emotions.
Just introducing motions takes time. Bothsides had to present their their arguments,
the judges has to make then hasto make a decision. It takes a

(13:24):
lot of time. It's going totake. In my opinion, it's going
to take a lot longer than theythink to get this through. So this
is gonna be a difficult question toask. I'm going to try to get
it out in as you know,short amount of time as possible. So
grand juries, I've been told theyessentially follow the prosecutor. If the prosecutor

(13:46):
wants to get something done, heor she can lead the grand jury and
individually. Any person in a civilcase, for example, can can sue
anyone else. Happens all the time. And if you take if you take
a step back right and you discardsyour bias, because we all have it,
whether it's right, left, middle, whatever. You listen to what's
come out of the judiciary department,government or excuse me, Judiciary committee,

(14:09):
government oversight committee, intelligence committees overthe past several months. There is absolutely
weaponization of the federal bureaucracy, particularlythe policing bureaucracy. And when you when
you look at that fact, youlook at the fact that anyone can sue
anyone else a prosecutor, by theway, prosecutors all over the country have
been funded by a nefarious guy bythe name of George Soros. Yes,

(14:31):
so when you look at all thesepieces, you go, one, isn't
this law fair? And then numbertwo, how can you address that in
a way that would protect the rightof people to get relief in court but
stops the shenanigans that we're seeing rightnow? Yeah, that's that's a really
hard question. You're going to haveto have real institutional changes, and not

(14:54):
just at the federal level, butat the state levels. Two and this
means you're going to have to giveprosecutor less discretion, less immunity. You're
going to have to find ways tocheck their power to bring prosecutions. You're
going to have to give the grandjury likely more leeway to oppose a prosecutor.

(15:16):
Right now, you're right what yousaid was right, that they whatever
the prosecutor says pretty much always goalong with it, unless it's just totally
outlandish. They will go along withthe prosecutor. You're going to have to
give them more power to say no, we don't want to go with you,
and not feel intimidated by him.So all those are institutional changes have

(15:39):
to be enacted by Congress or bystate legislatures, and so far we haven't
had the will to do that.However, if we see this continue,
and if when all is said anddone, everything comes out into the open
and we see it all for whatit is, there may be some incentive

(16:00):
to make some change is at leastat different state levels. Right now,
Congress isn't inclined to do it,obviously, but Congress might be. If
we elect a republican total republican Congress. We'll have to see about that.
How that comes out. But that'sa tough one to solve. So one
of the oh, sorry, Iapologize, go ahead ahead, go ahead

(16:21):
ahead. Well, I just gonnasay one of the things that we've heard
a lot lately, and the waythat support is lining up in the state
of Ohio is conservatives, Republicans areseeming to oppose it, Democrats are seeming
to favor it, and progressives.But there's this qualified immunity that people are
talking about, and interestingly, thatkind of goes to the heart of what
you're talking about, doesn't it?It would it does? It would put

(16:41):
somebody on the hot seat to say, look, if it's whether it's intentional
or unintentional, if the consequence brokethe law or took away somebody's constitutional right,
you're going to get punished. Isthat what you're saying? Those types
of things need to happen at leaston a state level. And then addressing
it in a different way federally,Yeah, qualified immunity. I think to

(17:03):
think about qualified immunity, we haveto we have to chop it up into
into aspects. I think a lotof people would dissavor taking away qualified immunity
for police, for the police completelybut when it comes to prosecutors and people
like that, I think they wouldbe a lot more inclined not to grant

(17:23):
qualified immunity, at least not quiteso extensively as we do now. And
that's exactly the kind of thing thatI'm talking about. And I think it's
really possible in many conservative states torestrict the immunity that prosecutors get. Now,
I hope people understand it. I'mnot suggesting that we should use this

(17:45):
as a stick and hold it overthe head of the of the prosecutors every
time so that they don't prosecute anything. No, I think we have to
limit it to certain narrow areas likeprosecutors, and we need to develop rules
under which prosecutors can can make theirjudgments. That's that's I think where we

(18:08):
need to point narrow the focus,put restrictions in place, and then we
have a rule of law for everybody. Right right, makes makes sense.
So let's last few questions here beforewe let you go and appreciate your time.
Again, from your perspective as asa legal observer, can you explain

(18:37):
exactly what happened with the Hunter Bidensituation and how fishy it looks now to
think that that deal got pulled backand it took a whistle blower for that
judge to pull the sweetheart deal backon that. I mean, we already
know he's the gun thing they're lettinggo, but this other all this other

(19:00):
stuff. I just I'm curious whenyou're watching this play out and you're like
this what you know, this isnot what I studied in law school,
or you know, like what thisis bizarre? Like, I just want
to get your personal observational thoughts onon the what you've seen play out with
Hunter Biden. Yeah, and tobegin to answer that there is law in

(19:21):
theory, and there is law theway it really works, okay, and
almost all lawyers do it, notjust lawyers, but prosecutors and defense attorneys
and so forth. Judges play thegame to some extent. So what happens
with Hunter Biden is we we knowit comes to light that he has violated

(19:44):
certain laws in this case he possessesa gun, uh well, being a
drug addict and so on and soforth, some other things too. But
prosecutors and defense attorneys are allowed underthe rules current rules, federal rules,
state rules to in state cases tomake agreements whereby the punishment is reduced,

(20:15):
in some cases even eliminated altogether.And that's your plea deal. Plea deals
are used all the time. Andyou know what, the average person doesn't
think that that's the case. Wetend to think that everything goes to trial,
it goes to the whole process.We have witnesses, we have evidence,
and the jury has a verdict.But in reality, plea deals are

(20:37):
much more common than going to trialnowadays. And there are sometimes good reasons,
sometimes bad reasons. Sometimes the goodreasons are, this is a cut
and dried case, we get itout of the way, lower the charge
a little bit, and that's it. But there are some nefarious uses plea
dealing too, And that's where somebodyknows somebody, or they know they're important

(21:00):
person, or they're intimidating in someway, and so they say, let's
try to get a deal here sowe can sweep this under the rug and
move on, and perhaps if wecan keep it under the surface, nobody
will notice. That's what we havegoing here. With the Hunter Biden situation,
they had the power to do it. They took advantage of the power.
Hunter Biden and his attorneys were perfectlywilling to suggest this, and the

(21:26):
government, the Department of Justice,was certainly willing to go along with it
for reasons that we certainly ought toknow. We know that. So it
happened. It happened until the judgein the case looked at the agreement,
which is what the judge should do. They don't all do that, well,

(21:47):
but she should do that, dothat, and she did, and
she realized, wait a minute,this doesn't sound right. Why are we
giving him this, as you calledit, sweetheart deal, and it was
a sweetheart deal. Why should heget this? What good reasons do you
have for this? Well, obviouslythey couldn't come up with good reasons.
So that's why the thing's being blownup, so because of the judge.

(22:11):
So my question is that that iswhat has changed, is that one judge
is ruling your sense of watching itfrom the outside, because I'm starting to
get the feeling because the media isasking questions they've never asked before. They're
talking about it. It actually makeslike the nightly news. Do you think

(22:32):
that Hunter Biden needs to be seriouslyworried about what is going to go on?
Maybe not necessarily in terms of howhe's going to go to jail for
you know, however long. Butthe fact that he's going to be forced
under federal oath to testify to thingsthat I have a feeling they're gonna have
either a hard time explaining and tryingto keep hidden, or it's gonna be

(22:56):
you know, it's gonna be likethe news is just getting a little bit
tied because it feels like the wholetemperament that everything has changed within the last
month. It just feels that way. Yeah, I think he feels a
deuce a bit tightening. But hedoes have this lifeline that Weiss was now
appointed by Merrick Garland to be aspecial investigator. Weiss is deeply involved in

(23:23):
this case already in a biased way. So the question is will Weiss actually
look for anything, Will he actuallyfind anything, will he bring any charges,
or will he simply at the endof the process say oh, sorry,
nothing there after all, let's letit go. That's the big unknown

(23:47):
right now. But right now HunterBiden doesn't know that. So Hunterbiden is
probably squirming a little bit. Youknow, my gut tells me we know
the answer to that question, eventhough it may not be rhetorical. And
here's why there's one news outlet andwe're grateful to be partnered with them that
broke this story. Today. You'llremember Joe Biden sitting on stage bragging about

(24:11):
how he said, look, you'regonna fire a Shoken or we're gonna we're
not gonna give you the money.And he has claimed since that information was
made public that he was following USpolicy regarding Ukraine and that they were corrupt
and he wanted to make sure thatthings were cleaned up. Well, today

(24:32):
we found out that just isn't true. That the official US position was they
were actually praising Shoken, and JoeBiden, on his own accord, went
against the policy position and then braggedabout trying to withhold what would have been
a renewal of a one or excuseme, one billion dollars US loan guarantee.

(24:55):
Sir. Where there's smoke, there'sfire. If this comes out and
it's out, I'm almost certain MSM'snot gonna push it is Joe Biden in
legal trouble here as well. Now, Joe Biden could be in legal trouble
too, but as always, youhave to make the connection between Joe Biden

(25:15):
and these events as illegal activities.In other words, bribery. Basically,
it's what we're looking at. Justto give it by its standard popular name,
bribery. We want something from you, you want something from us.
If I give you this, willyou give me that? So they're getting

(25:36):
they were getting influence, and thenBiden and his family were getting money.
That sure looks like bribery, right, and it is bribery. The question
is is it legally provable bribery.That's the tough thing. Bribery is not
the easiest crime to prove in everycase because sometimes you and you're ear in

(25:59):
a situation. It may look likeyou're in a quid profo, but really
it's just kind of, well,I'm going to help you out, and
maybe if you feel like helping meout, you can do that in some
way. We'll see what's the actualevidence is. But I think Biden should
feel the heat right now because it'slooking politically at least really bad, and

(26:21):
legally it's getting there. I'm wonderingwhy these questions aren't being asked. I
think actually someone did ask Hunter andhe admitted he wasn't qualified to sit on
the board of Barisma, which,by the way, that's why people were
panicking because I believe it was TheNew York Times back in around twenty sixteen
was about to publish the fact thathe was on the board and in peddling
influence, and he was getting atremendous amount of pressure. But without going

(26:45):
so far in the weeds there,why isn't anyone asking, Hey, these
shell companies that you set up,what product or service did they provide?
And what did that money buy?I mean, if I got audited by
the irs, the first question theywould ask is what is the nature of
your business and this stream of income? What did you sell to get that?

(27:08):
Can you prove it? Nobody's askingthe first son and the President of
the United States those questions great,I'll tell you part of the part of
the answer to that question is becausethere are only so many people that can
ask effectively. Congress can do it, but they're they're even limited and as

(27:30):
to their sanctions they could impose onpeople that they bring in, and some
people may just refuse to come andsit before the committee. That's the limitation.
But the people who really should beasking aren't asking. The Attorney General,
the FBI Director, Ray, seevarious prosecutors who are involved in this

(27:53):
case, they should be asking thesequestions, and of course we should throw
in the media too, because ifthey want to be they can be really
good at investigation if they want tobe. So the people we really need
to be looking are not interested inlooking, right now, that's the problem,
I think, I think it.I think that that's that that is

(28:17):
part of the bigger jigsaw puzzle thatis the problem with our What feels like
a legal system that's two tiered ispopular phrase, or just kind of now
where people kind of go about makingtheir rules for some people and you know,
others get away with this and othersdon't. So I think the performs
you talked about earlier, I I'dlike to see that come through because,

(28:40):
uh, doctor Mark Clawson, youknow, history professor, law professor at
Cedarville University. I don't know aboutyou, but I still have faith and
belief in the America that was founded, that God put into the minds of
our founding fathers, and I justI'm not ready to quit on the idea
of liberty and justice for all,but it gets harder and harder every day.

(29:03):
I'll just leave it at that.It's tough, it's tough. I
know, yes it is. Thankyou so much, doctor Mark Clausome.
We really appreciate it, and thanksfor doing your part to help save liberty.
Have a great night. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thanks