We are in perilous times Jonathan Turley warns
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00:00 Jonathan Turley, constitutional law attorney
00:02 and a Fox News contributor, and you
00:03 were terrific last evening.
00:04 Thank you for coming back today.
00:06 Good morning to you.
00:07 So you have cases in Washington, DC, New York City,
00:13 Southeast Florida, and soon to be Atlanta, Georgia.
00:18 Which, if any, do you think go to trial before election day
00:22 2024?
00:25 Well, most people would bet on the May date in the federal case.
00:30 Often, courts will yield to a federal case of that kind.
00:35 The problem is that the government
00:38 filed a superseding indictment.
00:40 They added claims.
00:41 They added a party.
00:43 That's a pretty wide open door for the Trump team to say,
00:47 OK, you have a new case now that's
00:50 been bid with these alterations.
00:52 Give us a new trial date.
00:54 That trial date would likely be after the election.
00:57 So we still have to see if it's even possible to do that.
01:00 Keep in mind that that case in Florida
01:03 is full of classified documents.
01:05 I've been lead defense counsel in those types of cases.
01:08 And it is a very slow process.
01:12 OK, the other thing is, as you've
01:14 had a chance to think this through,
01:15 I know last night on the 5, the indictment came out.
01:18 And we were all scrambling to read it as quickly as we could.
01:20 And you did it so well.
01:21 But I thought it was interesting.
01:23 Ruth Marcus is a-- she is a lawyer herself.
01:26 She writes for the Washington Post.
01:28 She comes at things from the left.
01:30 And she says in her piece today that it is terrible and tragic
01:36 even that it has come to this.
01:37 But then the last two lines say this.
01:39 "Prosecuting Trump on these charges
01:41 is a grave, even perilous, step.
01:44 Condoning his behavior by ignoring it would be far worse."
01:49 And I'm wondering what you think about the wisdom of Jack Smith
01:52 bringing these charges, particularly
01:54 when a lot of the things-- like, for example,
01:56 this letter that was going to be sent to the states that
01:59 says that the electors were supposed to be different,
02:02 it never went.
02:03 So what are they proving?
02:04 Right.
02:06 Well, that's a very good question.
02:09 What concerns me is that many of the people celebrating
02:12 this second indictment are just simply dismissing
02:16 the implications for free speech.
02:18 Those are quite dire and real.
02:21 I mean, this is criminalizing disinformation.
02:24 The Supreme Court said that a politician who knowingly lied
02:27 in the case of Alvarez was still constitutionally protected.
02:33 What the Department of Justice is saying here
02:35 is we recognize that politicians can say false things,
02:38 but just not Trump because he was told they were false.
02:42 Well, what type of standard is that?
02:43 I mean, you're entitled not to believe some people
02:47 in favor of others.
02:48 He had lawyers who said, no, this was a stolen election.
02:52 Yes, you could challenge certification.
02:55 I disagreed with that.
02:56 Many people did.
02:57 But that doesn't make it a crime.
02:59 But very few people are considering the implications
03:02 of all that, that the Department of Justice
03:04 is saying that it can now arrest politicians who fail to yield,
03:09 who don't accept the truth according
03:12 to what the government says has been established.
03:14 Let me bring in the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
03:16 Another troubling Trump indictment.
03:18 Special Counsel Jack Smith's brought authority to fraud
03:21 has dangerous implications.
03:22 Here's the key line they talk about.
03:23 It's kind of a political question.
03:26 You don't have to be an offender of Donald Trump
03:28 to worry about where this will lead.
03:30 Call for number two.
03:31 Thank you, guys.
03:32 It makes any future election challenges, however valid,
03:35 legally vulnerable to a partisan prosecutor.
03:39 Democrats want Mr. Trump to be the Republican nominee.
03:42 And Mr. Smith, whether he intends it or not,
03:44 is making that outcome more likely.
03:46 Look, you could go back to the 1990s
03:48 and make the case that Bill Clinton, he
03:50 benefited from an aggressive Republican Congress.
03:54 But the thing that strikes me-- and Dana and I were just
03:57 talking before the show began here--
03:58 our institutions are being challenged
04:01 in a significant way by just about every angle
04:06 and every party.
04:08 And maybe 1973 would be similar to what
04:14 we're experiencing in 2023.
04:17 But just your reflection on those challenges
04:21 that our Democratic institutions and how
04:23 they survive on the other side and what shape they are in.
04:28 Well, that's an excellent question.
04:29 Because quite frankly, we are in perilous times.
04:33 I mean, the public has lost its faith
04:34 in the Department of Justice, has lost its faith in Congress.
04:38 Even the courts.
04:39 And we were hoping, at least I was,
04:42 that if there was an indictment coming,
04:43 it would be based on really unquestioned legal authority
04:47 and unassailable new evidence.
04:50 Neither is contained in this second indictment.
04:54 Now maybe Smith can get some of these co-conspirators to flip.
04:58 Maybe they could offer new evidence.
05:00 But they don't do it here.
05:02 And the question we come back to is,
05:05 when is the price too high to bag Donald Trump?
05:09 When Smith filed the first indictment, many of us
05:12 said that it was a strong indictment.
05:14 It's a serious threat to the former president.
05:17 This is different.
05:18 And I think that people have to really ask
05:22 when that price is too high.
05:24 Free speech defines us as a nation.
05:26 This is a free speech killing case.
05:29 And we need to deal with those implications.
05:33 Professor Turley, thank you.
05:35 I'm writing your quote down right now.
05:38 And we shall remember that.
05:40 Thank you, sir, very much.
05:41 Nice to see you.
05:41 We'll talk again, OK?
05:42 Thank you.
05:43 I'm Steve Doocy.
05:44 I'm Brian Kilmeade.
05:45 And I'm Ainsley Earhart.
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