June 13, 2024 • 45 mins
In this conversation, Lisa interviews Andy McCarthy about the legal issues surrounding Hunter Biden and Donald Trump. They discuss Hunter Biden's sentencing for federal felony gun charges and his upcoming tax trial. McCarthy explains the typical sentencing for such charges and the potential outcomes for Hunter Biden. They also discuss the sentencing of Donald Trump in his fraud case and the appeals process. McCarthy expresses concern about the state of the justice system in America and the use of the legal system as a political weapon. The Truth with Lisa Boothe is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've seen a lot of legal drama in the country recently,
coming off the heels of President Trump being found guilty
on thirty four felony counts. Even though that was a
witch hunt, we know that that was a sham trial
from a judge who literally donated to Joe Biden and
a group called Stop Republicans. So he's trying to do
just that, Stop Republicans, Stop Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And now Hudder.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Biden has been found guilty in all three federal felony
gun charges that he was facing. He also has a
tax trial beginning on September fifth. He's facing three felony
tax offenses and six misdemeanors in that one. So where
do we go from here as a country? What should
you know about Hunter Biden being found guilty on those
(00:47):
federal gun charges. What's next for him? What kind of
sentencing will he face? Also, what will we find out
during this tax trial? Well, Hunter Biden plead guilty to
try to avoid embarrassing information coming to light about his
dad and his own business dealings. What do you need
to know about that? Also, as we await President Trump's
(01:08):
sentencing on July eleventh, will Judge Matron try to send
him to jail. I mean, we've already seen democrats take
it this far, so what should we expect from that
and what does the appeals process look like for President Trump?
We're going to get into all of that with Andy McCarthy.
He is a best selling author, contributing editor at the
National Review, and a fellow at the National Review Institute.
(01:30):
He's a Fox News contributor, and most importantly, he's a
former chief Assistant US Attorney. This is someone who's dedicated
his life to the rule of law, dedicated his career
to it. So what does he think about the justice
system now? After following the Trump trial so closely and
following this so closely, we have so much to dig
(01:51):
into with Andy McCarthy. His analysis is always so smart.
I learned so much from him. I hope you do
as well, So stay tuned and named Carthy.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well, Andy, thanks so much for making the time.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I know you've been really busy with all this legal
drama in the country, so you always give such great analysis.
I just really appreciate you making the time for the show.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Lisa, It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
You know so Andy, I assume you probably weren't surprised
with Hunter Biden being found guilty and all three federal
felony gun charge accounts. What does a typical sentencing look
for that look like for that.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well, for this kind of a charge, he's probably an
unusual defendant in that there is no evidence, at least
that I'm aware of, that he was trying to obtain
the gun for criminal purposes. I suspect, given that he
has this bad narcotics issue that you know, he could
(03:02):
very well have decided that he needed to be armed,
given the dangerousness of some of the places that he
had to purchase drugs from, or that he chose to
purchase drugs from. But I don't think there's any evidence
of that in the record so far as I understand.
He's an ineligible person. So you start from the premise
(03:24):
that he's not allowed to have the gun. But the
sentencing guidelines, and I should say, Lisa that the you know,
a lot of the rhetoric in the media always talks
about the statutory range, which is huge. So you keep
reading again and again that Hunter's looking it up to
twenty five years in prison, But real sentencing litigation in
(03:49):
the federal government is really controlled by the sentencing guidelines,
not the statutes. So the objective of the sentencing guidelines
is to take k which are brought under, say a
statute like the possession statute that Hunter violated, where it's
a where it's a ten year it's actually now a
(04:10):
fifteen year penalty, but in the when he violated it
was a ten year penalty. You know, it's zero to ten.
There's no mandatory minimum, tends to maximum. So you're going
to have a you're going to have a wide range
of defendants, and some should be on the ten side
of the spectrum and some should be on the zero side, right,
So what the sentencing guidelines try to do is bring
(04:32):
a little predictability to that range. So what they look
at is the typical factors that come up in an
offense like this, and then they look at personal factors,
which they call criminal history, so that they can establish
a criminal history category. And that's how you go on.
(04:53):
There's a graph in the sentencing guidelines and it's like
you plot the offense factors against the criminal history and
that's where you come up with the same So he
doesn't have the kind of factors that exacerbate a sentence
like this. For example, he does not have a bunch
of prior felony convictions from which you would infer that
(05:15):
if he was trying to get a gun, it was
probably because he was up to no good. He's not
trying to obtain a gun that's extraordinarily destructive or at
least regarded as such under the guidelines. This is a
pretty conventional it's a cult Cobra thirty eight revolver, and
he may fit in the category of people who just
(05:35):
wanted to get the gun for sport and other legal purposes.
So he's going to be pretty low in the offense
category computation. I the way I figure it, he could
be as low as a sentence of zero to six months.
I see other people say, you know, fifteen to twenty
one months. But as you can tell, it's not going
(05:55):
to be very high. And he's in what we call
chrimeminal history category one because he doesn't have any prior
criminal convictions.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
You can argue he probably should.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, well, but but that's not that's different from different
from does you know, like even for example, he should
have gotten a dishonorable discharge from the military. Uh. And
of course somehow he got that job in the in
the Navy's press office even though he was too old,
because his father just happened to be the vice president.
(06:27):
And then after he got booted for cocaine, uh, he
somehow managed not to get a dishonorable discharge while his
father was vice president. God knows how that possibly could
have happened, right.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Weird, weird how that happens.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah, but you know the fact is he's not like
a multiple felon. In fact, listening to the evidence, it
occurred to me that, you know, Haley Biden testified that
he's the one who got her hooked on crack, and
it seems to me that, you know, if you actually
charged him with what you could charge someone for distributing
(07:02):
narcotics to another person. You know, it doesn't have to
be a financial transaction. If I hand you illegal drugs,
I've distributed them. So may you could argue that that's
probably more serious than anything he got convicted of in
terms of what the you know, the punishment structure is
in federal law. But this is a you know, the
(07:23):
three different crimes under the sentencing guidelines, because they're all
related to the same transaction. They would be treated as
one offense, and I think he's going to have very
low guidelines, anywhere from zero to six range, which would
mean the judge doesn't have to impose a prison sentence
to fifteen to twenty one months. And the only other
(07:44):
thing I'd say about at LISTA is it's important to
note that judges don't have to follow the sentencing guidelines,
but they tend to at least to approximate it. So
it's a much more reliable barometer for us than the
statutory range, which is very wide. And the other thing is,
in my experience, sentencing is the hardest thing that judges do,
(08:09):
and they tend to and I think this is a
very human thing. I think they tend to come to
it with the idea that just being convicted by a
jury of your peers, or admitting guilt in court, there's
a stigma attached to that that is in and of
itself punishment, and therefore they tend to sentence at the
(08:33):
low range of whatever the guidelines are. And you can
understand that, you know, sentencing another human being. It's one
thing to say I really disagree with this person politically,
or I really hate what this person did that was
proved in my courtroom. But now it's up to you
to decide the course of another person's life. And that's
an awesome responsibility. And most of the time the judges are,
(08:59):
you know, reasonably lenient. I'm not saying ridiculously, so although
I've seen some of that too, well.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I assume too.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
I mean, this is the judge who blew up the
Sweetheart deal, so she has demonstrated you know, independence and
I think fairness. I mean, I would assume being the
president's son has to play a role in sentencing as well, right,
I mean that's you know, I mean, I would like
to think people are unbiased, but I would have to
imagine that plays a role.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Well, if it didn't, there would be something wrong because
what the law says is that.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
They're not with Trump though that's the opposite direction.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Yeah, yeah, well but it's a factor, right. The what
the law says is that a sentencing judge can take
any relevant factor into account in terms of whether it's
something that should make the sentence more severe or less severe.
So you're supposed to be looking at the whole person,
the whole reason for looking at criminal history category. What
(10:01):
we mainly think about when we think about criminal history,
category is like how many priors does the guy have?
But in truth, what a sentencing judge does is size
up the entire individual. And what you're supposed to be
gauging in any sensible sentencing exercise is what's the likelihood
that in the future this person will recitivate, that he'll
(10:23):
continue to commit crimes, or is the likelihood that, you know,
if he's found the straight and narrow, he'll live a productive,
law abiding life and make a contribution to society. That's
why it's such a it's it's an awesome responsibility for
judges because those are very hard things to gauge, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And then now he's facing his tax trial next September fifth,
facing three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanors. Probably got
lucky with that as well, given you know the scheme
of what iris whistleblowers have you know, expressed publicly about
how the doog has thwarted a lot of their attempts
to dig deeper and dig deeper into the Biden family
(11:04):
and potentially Joe Biden as well. What do you think
he's facing at that trial, and based off of the
evidence known how much trouble is he facing with that one.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Well, he's got serious trouble, which is why he tried
to plead guilty. You know, the gun thing is one thing.
They tried to make that disappear with a diversion arrangement,
even though really into Justice Department rules that offense shouldn't
have been subject to diversion. When I say diversion, that
means they divert the case out of the justice system
(11:38):
for an alternative resolution other than conviction in a legal proceeding,
so you know, probation or community service or you know,
just keeping your nose clean, that kind of thing. Whereas
the tax charges, he actually was ready to plead guilty
to two of them. Now, obviously he wanted to plead
(11:58):
guilty to them in the form misdemeanors, but the underlying
facts are the same. So the evidence against him is
sufficiently daunting that he himself, even though he doesn't want
to plead guilty to everything, was willing to plead guilty
to this. On the other hand, as you point out,
there's been a strategic delay in this case by the
(12:20):
Biden Justice Department and its trustee quote unquote special counsel
David Weiss, these are cases, you know, the evidence against Hunter,
and the gun case was known completely to law enforcement.
It happened on October twelfth, and they knew about it
by less than two weeks later. And the tax cases,
(12:41):
the tax problems that Hunter has had have been well known,
notorious for years and years, to the point where there
were leans on his house and all kinds of other stuff.
So that's a long winded way of saying. Almost everything
David Weiss needed to know to file charges and convict
in these cases was known in twenty nineteen, and he
(13:04):
intentionally sat on his hands. There's no other way of
interpreting it. And in the tax case, that had the
real effect of chewing up what was available to be
charged under the Statute of limitations, And I think that
was done deliberately. Some of the worst tax offenses and
potentially other offenses, not just tax, but let's just talk
(13:27):
about tax, because that's what they charged. Some of the
worst of those crimes happened in twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen,
when Joe Biden was vice president and when Hunter was
raking in millions of dollars from Barismo, which was actually
obviously buying access to Joe Biden. So because of the
(13:50):
way Weiss handled this case, those charges can't be brought.
He waited till the statute of limitations had passed, and
the way, just so people understand, the way prosecutors stop
the clock on the statute of limitations is you file charges.
So what I'm saying is everything they needed to know
to charge these crimes was known in twenty nineteen. He
(14:12):
sat and did nothing for years, and he was trying
to do nothing in the way of like do nothing
and make the case go away. And then the whistleblower
agents courageously came forward and talk publicly about the Biden
Justice Department interference in the case. At that point it
(14:32):
was politically untenable to make the case just disappear. So
that's when they tried the sweetheart plea deal. And only
when that blew up did Weiss actually file these charges.
But I think, Lisa, in the end, they're going to
win because to the extent that the idea here was
to make these cases go away, if you think about it.
(14:53):
In the gun case, Hunter is not going to be
sentenced till probably August, and and he has an appellate
issue under the Second Amendment that I think the judge
will allow him to have bail pending appeal while he
litigates that, which means any execution of his sentence if
(15:13):
he gets a prison sentence, will not happen until sometime
next year, meaning after the election. The tax case, I
can't imagine in a million years the Biden, whether it's
Hunter Biden or the White House, are going to want
to have that trial happen in September, in the run
up to the election, when early voting has already started.
(15:36):
I think he's got to plead that case out at
some point, but they will try to structure the plea
and schedule the plea so that he doesn't get sentenced
until after the election. So I think that the goal
here is to push everything past the election. And then
this ridiculous supposed vow that Joe Biden made that he
(15:57):
won't pardon his son. I don't think that will be
operative ten seconds after the polls close on November fifth,
And if Biden wins the election, then he can bide
his time and if Hunter gets a prison sentence, he
can pardon them at that point. If he loses the election,
then sometime between election day and inauguration day, Biden will
(16:19):
pardon his son. But you know the fact that Weiss
has delayed the way that he is delayed, I think
ensures that Hunter is not going to get the kind
of accountability and justice that people expect for people who
are put through the criminal justice system.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
We've got more with Anny McCarthy, but first, since the
terror attacks in October seventh, anti Semitism has been on
the rise, not just in Israel but here in the
US and around the world. That's why I have partnered
with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and today
I'm coming to you, my audience, to ask that you
stand with us and IFCJ to raise your voice, just
(16:58):
as Oscar Schindler and Corey ten Boom did. This pledge
is asking Christians to stand with their Jewish brothers and sisters,
to never be silent, to show the Jewish people that
they are not alone, they have God and Christians on
their side. For the month of June, we are asking
Christians to sign this pledge, which will be delivered to
the President of Israel, to show that Christians in America
(17:18):
are not only standing in solidarity, but they're speaking up too.
Let's take a stand today with the International Fellowship of
Christians and Jews to let the Jewish people know that
they're not alone. To sign the pledge, go to support
IFCJ dot org, support IFCJ dot org to take a
stand today. Do you think that if Hunter did not
(17:41):
if he does not reach a plea deal, which I
think what you're saying makes a lot of sense, that
he would want to do that for political reasons, to
protect his dad, who has obviously protected him to a
great extent throughout his life and shielded him from, you know,
probably a lot of consequences that he should have been facing.
But if he did not reach a plea deal, would
Joe Biden be exposed?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
And what we would learn from the tax trial? Do
you think?
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, this is why I don't think they can let
it go to trial. So Weiss, as I said to
somebody this morning, Weiss is the best defense lawyer that
Hunter has ever had. But his main objective in this investigation,
and the Biden Justice Department's objective has always been to
(18:26):
protect the president. That's first and foremost. They tried to
protect the president and bring Hunter along for the ride,
but that became politically undoable once the whistleblowers came forward.
So even in prosecuting Hunter, they've kept the objective of
protecting the president front and center. So, for example, Weiss
(18:50):
writes finally a fifty six page indictment on the tax case,
it doesn't mention President Biden, even though what the tax
case is about is the invasion of tax on income
that Hunter earned by peddling Joe Biden's political influence. So
(19:10):
Joe Biden is a central figure to the case, but
he's not discussed in the indictment. The other thing, Lisa,
that Weiss did here that I think people are going
to be reminded of, even though it escaped a lot
of people's attention at the time. Do you remember that
the Sweetheart plea deal had a statement of facts in it. Yes,
(19:30):
So I'm convinced, having read that a few times, that
this never happens with federal prosecutors by the way they
control the plea process, including what the defendant is going
to say. If you're giving somebody a plea deal, you
tell them this is what we expect you to admit to,
and if you don't admit to it, there's no deal,
(19:51):
and we'll go to trial. So in this process, it
seems to me that Weiss allowed Hunter's lawyers to write
the statement of effect, which the government then stipulated to,
meaning they agreed that that would be the statement of
facts that was presented to the court in connection with
the case. If you read that statement of facts, what
(20:12):
they say is that Hunter earned a lot of money
from these overseas associates and deals because he was a
high end lawyer and businessman. You don't get any sense
reading it that he earned it because he was a
ne'er do well drug addle failure who was cashing in
(20:32):
on his father's political influence, which is a lot closer
to the truth. So the defense is going to try
to say that Weiss is stuck with that version of
events because he already agreed to it in connection with
the POLA. But one way or the other, I don't
think the Biden people can afford in the run up
(20:53):
to the election to have a trial that's about Hunter
basically monetizing his father's political influence and then not paying
his fair share on that right. So I don't think
he'll I don't think he'll go to trial. And when
you say if they can't strike a plea deal. This
(21:13):
is how this is how cynical I've become about this.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I'm right there with you.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Why don't they try If he's going to be pardoned
anyway at the end of the rainbow, and he's never
really going to do a day in jail on this,
why not write before the election, or reasonably before the election,
like August September, announce a plea deal where Hunter is
going to plead guilty to two felonies, and the Biden
Justice Department, like they've done the last twenty four hours,
(21:41):
can run around, beat their chest and say, see, we
prosecuted the president's son without fear or favor. In the meantime,
they delayed it so long that he won't get sentenced
until after the election, and then his father will pardon them.
But at least before the election, they'll try to make
it look like this was a real serious, you know,
hard ass prosecution, and it'll all be play acting.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
I think that is probably one hundred percent what's going
to happen. Unfortunately, you know, I think we've realized that
justice is not equal in America these days. I also
wanted to ask you President Trump is facing his sentencing
on July eleventh. I am very concerned that he will
either get thrown in prison or under house arrest, that
(22:25):
they're going to use this to try to sideline him
from the campaign trail.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
What are your.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Thoughts on that, and then also what does his appeals
process look like and are there any ways for him
to expedite that in a meaningful way ahead of the election.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
So I think he's going to get a prison sentence,
but he's not going to be sent to prison. I
think that he will get bail pending appeal. In New York,
it's a non violent crime, you know. I mean, it's
when I say it's a crime, I'm you know, I'm
just reading off like a judgment docket. In terms of
whether it's really a crime. I think if you asked
(23:05):
any twenty people randomly on the street what he was
convicted of, they wouldn't be able to tell you. But
let's assume like we have a crime that he turned
into thirty four crimes and he's going to be sentenced.
I think that Merchan, who has shown himself to be
like a progressive performance artist on this case, notwithstanding that
it's against the code of ethics in New York to
(23:28):
sit on a case if you've given political contrib they're
not supposed to give political contributions at all.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
So to group Stop Republicans, I mean, that's the group
that's one of the politically stop Republicans and Joe Biden,
it's like that tells the story, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
But yeah, all right, Agres.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And no, you're right. And even if his even if
his daughter wasn't making a very lucrative living as a
progressive political activist who does election work for Democrats who
defined themselves by the loathing of Trump, I mean, you
wouldn't even have to get into that. Just to judge,
his own contribution should have been enough to have him
(24:06):
off this case. So I think we know what we're
dealing with this judge in New York. Under these circumstances,
Trump should get bail pending appeal because he's got very
profound appellate issues in this case. So I think that
Merchon knows he's going to impose sentence, but that the
(24:29):
consequence of the sentence he imposes is not going to
have Trump actually going to jail. And to my mind,
and again, this is the cynicism we're left with after
watching this process unfold. I think that increases Merchon's incentive
to impose a prison sentence on Trump because he knows
it's not really going to have that effect, so why
(24:52):
not pose as a hero. That's what he's tried to
do all along. So I think he will give Trump
a prison sentence, but it won't be executed. Trump will
at bail pending appeal whether he and by the way,
Trump should not get a prison sentence for that crime.
In New York. We're talking about New York, where Alvin
(25:13):
Bragg is like the paragon progressive prosecutor. Don't ask me
to say that ten times fast, but he You know,
in New York, we have felonies that get pled down
to misdemeanors if they get prosecuted at all. We have
a district attorney whose default position is that you don't prosecute.
And yet in this case, he turned something that I
(25:36):
don't even think is a misdemeanor into thirty four felonies
with one hundred and thirty six years of prison exposure.
And I'm now doing the same thing I criticized a
second ago. Right, I'm highlighting the statutory exposure. But I
think the reason I'm doing it is because that's why
they did it. They wanted to say that, you know,
Trump's crimes were so serious that this would be what
(25:58):
he'd be facing. So this whole thing is just his theater.
And consistent with that, I think march On will impose
a prison sentence even though he shouldn't. It's a non
violent crime and it's a bookkeeping offense, which wouldn't even
normally be prosecuted in New York. So the thought that
(26:20):
anyone does five minutes in jail for this is laughable.
But the important thing with that, Lisa, is there's the
charge that the grand jury brought, or the charges that
the grand jury brought, and then there's the charge that
Alvin Bragg told them was the center of the case,
which isn't in the indictment. So the indictment just has
(26:42):
like thirty four falsification of business records, which is a
misdemeanor in New York, becomes a felony if you're trying
to conceal or commit another crime. But Bragg won't tell
him in the indictment what the the felony is, and
in the meantime, Bragg, at the same time, the grand
jury indictment comes out issues to statement of facts, which
(27:05):
is his, not the grand juries in which he does.
This sort of fabulous recitation of a conspiracy to steal
the twenty seventeen twenty sixteen election. And it's amazing that
you could steal the twenty sixteen election by crimes that
you don't commit until twenty seventeen. But nobody should think
(27:26):
that logic has anything to do with what we saw
for the last six or eight weeks while that case
was going on. But when the New York prosecutors opened
to the jury, the first thing they said to them
was that this is a case about a conspiracy to
subvert the twenty sixteen election. The whole idea of business
(27:48):
records offenses was a complete afterthought. This case was presented
to the jury and to the judge as a successful
conspiracy to steal the election. To deprive the fraud here.
If you can believe this is because I keep asking,
what's the where is the beyond the reasonable doubt proof
(28:08):
of an intent to defraud? Who was defrauded here? And
Bragg's theory is the people of the United States were
defrauded out of the Hillary Clinton presidency. There's no you know,
there's no financial nobody. Uh, the state got every penny
of taxes that it was supposed to get and probably more.
There's no victim of fraud here. And I mentioned fraud
(28:29):
because you're supposed to The crime here, if that matters,
is falsification of business records with intent to defraud. And
the intent to defraud is supposed to include the concealment
of another crime. But you have to prove intent to
defraud beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't see it. But
Bragg's theory was the country was defrauded out of the
(28:51):
Hillary presidency. That would have happened if Trump hadn't concealed
these trusts that he had with these women by what
Bragg says were violations of the federal campaign finance laws.
(29:11):
But this is a long winded way of saying the
case is, it's presented to Judge march On, who will
impose sentence. Is not a penny anti business records fraud case.
They have described the worst conspiracy in the history of
the United States, a successful conspiracy to steal the presidency,
(29:34):
which they say worked. If that's the way they tee
it up for the judge, how does he not impose
a prison sentence.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
I guess what I'm worried about is he's going to
reach the same fate in the appeals process in liberal
New York that has it out from them in the
same way that Judge Majahn has as well. Is there
Do you agree with that? And then if so, how
can he expect to the Supreme Court?
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Yeah? I think two things about that. First of all,
the quality of justice in the trial courts in New
York is appalling, and that's largely because there are a
lot of them are political appointees. A lot of them
are elected. I mean, the system is pervaded with politics.
So a lot of the trial judges, like Judge and
Goern is an elected judge, right, Judge merch On is
(30:25):
an appointed judge. But they're appointed by Club Democrats and
Democratic officials. So the whole thing in the trial section is,
you know, it's elected lawyers and appointed lawyers who are
good Club Democrat lawyers who if they do the right
thing for the party long enough, they get on the
bench either through a an unopposed slot in the election
(30:47):
or they managed to get themselves appointed. And we get
a lot of stuff from the trial courts, that's awful.
As you go up in the New York system, the
quality gets better. The appellate division is significantly better than
the trial courts, and the Court of Appeals, which is
the highest court in New York, is better than the
appellate division. And I think that's shown for example Lisa
(31:10):
by Harvey Weinstein, who is a very very unpopular figure,
like you could say that about Trump as well in
New York. And yet it took three or four years,
but they threw out his conviction because the trial was
utterly completely unfair. So it's just as delayed, but eventually
(31:31):
they came out to the right result. I think with Trump,
the thing is the appeals process is going to stretch
into years from now. By the time it gets decided,
Trump will either have lost the twenty twenty four election,
in which case they won't care about him that much anymore,
(31:53):
or he'll have won the twenty twenty four election, and
that'll mean everything in New York will probably be frozen
until after he'st of office, at which point they won't
care about him that much anymore. So I think what
the Democrats did this for the whole timing of it
was so that they could have a talking point going
into the election that Trump is a convicted felon, a
(32:15):
thirty four time convicted felon, and they've accomplished that, so
that can't be unwrung. But I think down the line
he will get better quality of justice in the appellate process.
That's already been evident by the way in the in
the civil fraud case where the Court of Appeal or
the Appellate Division in New York reversed anger On on
(32:39):
a number of things he did during the trial and
then cut the bond that Trump had to post in
order to have his appeal. So you can see, you
get he's done better already in the appellate division than
he did in the trial court. And I expect that
to continue.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Can get your Supreme Court for that.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Is there any means to try to get the Supreme
Court to take it up given the significance to the country.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
So this is a great question, and I know a
lot of people that we both know are trying to
brainstorm to do that. Here's the problem I think with
that that people are overlooking This case has already been
in federal court. You know, we're so riveted to what's
happened in the state court, because it was so egregious
(33:31):
that I think some people are forgetting some of the
important procedural history in the case. But if you remember,
Trump gets indicted I think in April of twenty twenty three,
and one of the first things he does is he
tries to remove the case to federal court. And his
theory there was that he had federal defenses because Bragg
(33:57):
was trying to enforce the campaign finance laws and a
lot of the activity happened while he was president. So
he goes into the Southern District of New York, my
old courthouse in Manhattan, and unfortunately for them, but for Trump,
the draw he gets is Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is
(34:18):
a ninety year old senior judge Clinton appointee, and basically,
Hellerstein blesses everything that Bragg wanted to do, including to
enforce the federal campaign finance laws. Now, it was a
terrible decision, but it is a decision. So for like
these people who keep saying, we got to get this
(34:40):
case into federal court, what New York's going to come
back and say is this case was already in federal court.
We had to give Judge Hellerstein all of our theories
for what we were prosecuting here, what the crimes were.
We had to give discovery to Trump about what the
other crime was that that we were alleging he concealed
(35:02):
by the business records fraud. So what they're going to
say is this has already got played out in federal court,
and because it did, it's going to make it much
more difficult for Trump at this point to try to
get out of the regular state appellate process and jump
into federal court on a theory that like the federal
(35:24):
courts have to intervene here because the state is gone rogue.
What the state's going to say is, we already ran
this past a federal court. That's how we got to
be able to do the case.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
We've got to take a quick commercial break more with
any McCarthy. On the other side, Alvin Bragg is going
to face the House Judiciary Committee on July twelfth, the
day after the sentencing.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Now, could anything.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
That he says during this hearing help President Trump's appeal process, Like,
could anything come to light during that that could then
be used, uh, you know, evidence of bias or you
know what have you.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
I'm really surprised he's agreed to testify. Frankly, you know this.
This came up once before they tried to They tried
to make him come after the indictment, and he told
them to pound sand I was kind of expecting, uh,
he do that again. So I'm I'll be interested to
see if he if he says anything of note. I think,
(36:25):
you know, he's a clever enough guy that you know
he'll answer what he does when he wants to answer,
and then he won't answer anything that he doesn't want
to answer. Because the New York state system is not
under the supervision of Congress. And I must say, if
I was a state district attorney, and this is like
(36:47):
completely set apart from how I feel about Bragg or
any other state official. But if Congress, if I was
a state district attorney and Congress subpoened me to come
and explain my charging decisions as a state official, I
tell him to screw themselves. I wouldn't. I wouldn't come,
(37:08):
I wouldn't testify. I'd let him. I'd say, you know,
good luck try and forcing it in court.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Is it a victory lap then? For him? Is that?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Do you think he's doing it as a to be spiteful,
you know, kind of a middle finger to Republicans kind
of thing.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
No, No, I don't, well, I think there's a lot
of that, But you know, I think Democrats are very
good at playing this game. So I'm sure that Bragg
is coordinating with Jamie Raskin and like all the all
the kids who are on that committee, and they'll have
a very well orchestrated performance, and Bragg will look appropriately
(37:43):
combative when like whether it's Jim Jordan or Jamie Comer,
who else goes after him, And then he'll have a
whole they'll have a whole scripted performance with the Democrats
on the committee, and I'm sure he'll come off looking
pretty effective. But he won't tell them anything. I mean,
he doesn't have to tell them anything. He's a he's
he's an executive official who was elected by you know,
(38:09):
all the you know, the big problems that we have
in this country are not legal problems. They're cultural problems.
You know. We have we have a situation where in
big blue states and cities, people now campaign on the
idea of elect me and I will use the powers
of our office against our political enemies. When I was
(38:29):
a young prosecutor in the eighties and Bob Morgenthal was
the state prosecutor there, that would have been disqualifying to
make an argument like that, And he got elected for
twenty five years because he would never in a million
years have done something like that. Now, these people like
Letitia James and Alvin Bragg campaign this way and they
(38:50):
get elected comfortably. So I think, you know, that's a
big problem. But he is an elected state official. He
doesn't owe any answers to Congress. What I keep hearing
is that, well, they take federal money. You know, Congress
appropriates federal Well maybe they can ask him about how
(39:11):
he is using the federal money that he gets appropriated.
But I don't think he has to answer any questions
about his charging decisions. I wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
You know before we go, I'm really interested in hearing
your perspective on the justice system in America. You know,
you're someone who's really dedicated your life, your career to
the rule of law. I know it's something you take
very seriously. So after following the Trump case, what's your
viewpoint on America's justice system today?
Speaker 3 (39:44):
So I wrote a piece for National Review that was
called in Memory of Justice. I think it was a
day or two after this all ended, and it was
kind of a despondent essay. But I was covering the
trial with and speaking to a lot of people who,
(40:05):
like me, had their roots in the justice system. And
a lot of the people I would talk was talking
to have absolutely no use for Donald Trump. You know,
they won't vote for him, their hostile to them, et cetera.
Not all of the people I'm talking to, but a
lot of them. You know, this was New York after all,
(40:29):
and yet those people were despondent as well, and it
was kind of I've referred to it as a as
a kind of they know not what they do moment,
because if you take Trump out of this, you can't
have a strong republic, a free republic, a flourishing, profitable,
(40:54):
rich society without the rule of law. And it's an
a essential building block. You know. Look every Western movie
that anyone's ever seen in America about like the country
as the you know, as the Frontier was expanding. The
first thing they do when they move into town, well,
the first thing they do is construct a saloon. But
(41:15):
the second thing they do is they have law enforcement right,
they have the sheriff, they have the whole. But that's
because everybody understands that if you don't have the rule
of law, then you have the law of the jungle.
There's no you know, there's no middle ground. And the
essential building block of the rule of law is that
(41:36):
everybody believes that they get a fair shape. That is
that our first guiding principle is equal protection under the law.
That the bar of justice. To speak of it in
the kind of emotive tones that we often use in
legal protection, but the bar of justice is where everybody
(41:57):
comes to get a fair shake and where the smallest,
most helpless citizen stands as an equal with the most
powerful government. If you lose that, you lose everything. And
what I don't think democrats and progressives realize is that
by turning this essential building block of a free and
(42:19):
prosperous society into a political weapon, they are threatening. They
may be beyond just threatening. They are threatening the legitimacy
of it in the sense that people accept its outcomes
as fair and just. And if you lose that, we
(42:40):
lose the system. And if we lose the system, we
lose the United States. So I don't think this is
about Trump. I think Trump is like, you know, he
shines a spotlight, as he often does, you know, I mean,
he shines a spotlight on a serious problem. But the
problem is not about Trump. The problem is about the
(43:01):
fact that culturally it's become acceptable to use the justice
system that way. And the thing I worry most about, Lisa,
in terms of the country is that we're like two
ships passing in the night, in the sense that on
our side we're saying, you're using the justice system as
(43:21):
a political weapon, where the process is the penalty, and
instead of saying nowhere not, the other side is saying,
you're damn right, we are. That's what we do, you know.
And in too many big cities in America where too
many you know, look, millions and millions of people live
in these places, and they drive, they drive popular opinion
(43:45):
in the culture, but they think it's just peachy to
use the processes of the system in a punitive way
against their political enemies. And anybody who thinks like there's
a suy generous Trump law law where this is all
going to be cabin for Trump and it's only ever
going to be applied to Trump, and that the precedents
(44:06):
that they're setting in going after one political enemy won't
be used again and again and again against other political enemies.
As if Trump is their only political enemy. You're crazy
if that's what you think.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
I totally agree, Annie McCarthy. I'm praying that you know,
Americans are awake and we can turn this all around
in November and they realize that, you know, there's this
is so much more than just a political election. It
really is about the survival of the republic in my opinion.
But you know, I hope people realize what you're saying.
(44:39):
You're You're not a partisan guy. You're just someone who
cares about the law. So I really hope people are
paying attention to what you just said. Always appreciate you
coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
It's always a pleasure, Lisa, Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
It was Anny McCarthy.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
I swear I always learned so much from him when
he comes on the show. Always just super interesting analysis
and he is able to just really dig in and
let us know what's really going on. So appreciate so
much for him making the time. Appreciate you guys at
home for listening every Monday and Thursday. But of course
you can listen throughout the week. I want to think
John Cassio and my producer for putting the show together
Until next time.
We've seen a lot of legal drama in the country recently,
coming off the heels of President Trump being found guilty
on thirty four felony counts. Even though that was a
witch hunt, we know that that was a sham trial
from a judge who literally donated to Joe Biden and
a group called Stop Republicans. So he's trying to do
just that, Stop Republicans, Stop Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And now Hudder.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Biden has been found guilty in all three federal felony
gun charges that he was facing. He also has a
tax trial beginning on September fifth. He's facing three felony
tax offenses and six misdemeanors in that one. So where
do we go from here as a country? What should
you know about Hunter Biden being found guilty on those
(00:47):
federal gun charges. What's next for him? What kind of
sentencing will he face? Also, what will we find out
during this tax trial? Well, Hunter Biden plead guilty to
try to avoid embarrassing information coming to light about his
dad and his own business dealings. What do you need
to know about that? Also, as we await President Trump's
(01:08):
sentencing on July eleventh, will Judge Matron try to send
him to jail. I mean, we've already seen democrats take
it this far, so what should we expect from that
and what does the appeals process look like for President Trump?
We're going to get into all of that with Andy McCarthy.
He is a best selling author, contributing editor at the
National Review, and a fellow at the National Review Institute.
(01:30):
He's a Fox News contributor, and most importantly, he's a
former chief Assistant US Attorney. This is someone who's dedicated
his life to the rule of law, dedicated his career
to it. So what does he think about the justice
system now? After following the Trump trial so closely and
following this so closely, we have so much to dig
(01:51):
into with Andy McCarthy. His analysis is always so smart.
I learned so much from him. I hope you do
as well, So stay tuned and named Carthy.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well, Andy, thanks so much for making the time.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I know you've been really busy with all this legal
drama in the country, so you always give such great analysis.
I just really appreciate you making the time for the show.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Lisa, It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
You know so Andy, I assume you probably weren't surprised
with Hunter Biden being found guilty and all three federal
felony gun charge accounts. What does a typical sentencing look
for that look like for that.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well, for this kind of a charge, he's probably an
unusual defendant in that there is no evidence, at least
that I'm aware of, that he was trying to obtain
the gun for criminal purposes. I suspect, given that he
has this bad narcotics issue that you know, he could
(03:02):
very well have decided that he needed to be armed,
given the dangerousness of some of the places that he
had to purchase drugs from, or that he chose to
purchase drugs from. But I don't think there's any evidence
of that in the record so far as I understand.
He's an ineligible person. So you start from the premise
(03:24):
that he's not allowed to have the gun. But the
sentencing guidelines, and I should say, Lisa that the you know,
a lot of the rhetoric in the media always talks
about the statutory range, which is huge. So you keep
reading again and again that Hunter's looking it up to
twenty five years in prison, But real sentencing litigation in
(03:49):
the federal government is really controlled by the sentencing guidelines,
not the statutes. So the objective of the sentencing guidelines
is to take k which are brought under, say a
statute like the possession statute that Hunter violated, where it's
a where it's a ten year it's actually now a
(04:10):
fifteen year penalty, but in the when he violated it
was a ten year penalty. You know, it's zero to ten.
There's no mandatory minimum, tends to maximum. So you're going
to have a you're going to have a wide range
of defendants, and some should be on the ten side
of the spectrum and some should be on the zero side, right,
So what the sentencing guidelines try to do is bring
(04:32):
a little predictability to that range. So what they look
at is the typical factors that come up in an
offense like this, and then they look at personal factors,
which they call criminal history, so that they can establish
a criminal history category. And that's how you go on.
(04:53):
There's a graph in the sentencing guidelines and it's like
you plot the offense factors against the criminal history and
that's where you come up with the same So he
doesn't have the kind of factors that exacerbate a sentence
like this. For example, he does not have a bunch
of prior felony convictions from which you would infer that
(05:15):
if he was trying to get a gun, it was
probably because he was up to no good. He's not
trying to obtain a gun that's extraordinarily destructive or at
least regarded as such under the guidelines. This is a
pretty conventional it's a cult Cobra thirty eight revolver, and
he may fit in the category of people who just
(05:35):
wanted to get the gun for sport and other legal purposes.
So he's going to be pretty low in the offense
category computation. I the way I figure it, he could
be as low as a sentence of zero to six months.
I see other people say, you know, fifteen to twenty
one months. But as you can tell, it's not going
(05:55):
to be very high. And he's in what we call
chrimeminal history category one because he doesn't have any prior
criminal convictions.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
You can argue he probably should.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, well, but but that's not that's different from different
from does you know, like even for example, he should
have gotten a dishonorable discharge from the military. Uh. And
of course somehow he got that job in the in
the Navy's press office even though he was too old,
because his father just happened to be the vice president.
(06:27):
And then after he got booted for cocaine, uh, he
somehow managed not to get a dishonorable discharge while his
father was vice president. God knows how that possibly could
have happened, right.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Weird, weird how that happens.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah, but you know the fact is he's not like
a multiple felon. In fact, listening to the evidence, it
occurred to me that, you know, Haley Biden testified that
he's the one who got her hooked on crack, and
it seems to me that, you know, if you actually
charged him with what you could charge someone for distributing
(07:02):
narcotics to another person. You know, it doesn't have to
be a financial transaction. If I hand you illegal drugs,
I've distributed them. So may you could argue that that's
probably more serious than anything he got convicted of in
terms of what the you know, the punishment structure is
in federal law. But this is a you know, the
(07:23):
three different crimes under the sentencing guidelines, because they're all
related to the same transaction. They would be treated as
one offense, and I think he's going to have very
low guidelines, anywhere from zero to six range, which would
mean the judge doesn't have to impose a prison sentence
to fifteen to twenty one months. And the only other
(07:44):
thing I'd say about at LISTA is it's important to
note that judges don't have to follow the sentencing guidelines,
but they tend to at least to approximate it. So
it's a much more reliable barometer for us than the
statutory range, which is very wide. And the other thing is,
in my experience, sentencing is the hardest thing that judges do,
(08:09):
and they tend to and I think this is a
very human thing. I think they tend to come to
it with the idea that just being convicted by a
jury of your peers, or admitting guilt in court, there's
a stigma attached to that that is in and of
itself punishment, and therefore they tend to sentence at the
(08:33):
low range of whatever the guidelines are. And you can
understand that, you know, sentencing another human being. It's one
thing to say I really disagree with this person politically,
or I really hate what this person did that was
proved in my courtroom. But now it's up to you
to decide the course of another person's life. And that's
an awesome responsibility. And most of the time the judges are,
(08:59):
you know, reasonably lenient. I'm not saying ridiculously, so although
I've seen some of that too, well.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I assume too.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
I mean, this is the judge who blew up the
Sweetheart deal, so she has demonstrated you know, independence and
I think fairness. I mean, I would assume being the
president's son has to play a role in sentencing as well, right,
I mean that's you know, I mean, I would like
to think people are unbiased, but I would have to
imagine that plays a role.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Well, if it didn't, there would be something wrong because
what the law says is that.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
They're not with Trump though that's the opposite direction.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Yeah, yeah, well but it's a factor, right. The what
the law says is that a sentencing judge can take
any relevant factor into account in terms of whether it's
something that should make the sentence more severe or less severe.
So you're supposed to be looking at the whole person,
the whole reason for looking at criminal history category. What
(10:01):
we mainly think about when we think about criminal history,
category is like how many priors does the guy have?
But in truth, what a sentencing judge does is size
up the entire individual. And what you're supposed to be
gauging in any sensible sentencing exercise is what's the likelihood
that in the future this person will recitivate, that he'll
(10:23):
continue to commit crimes, or is the likelihood that, you know,
if he's found the straight and narrow, he'll live a productive,
law abiding life and make a contribution to society. That's
why it's such a it's it's an awesome responsibility for
judges because those are very hard things to gauge, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And then now he's facing his tax trial next September fifth,
facing three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanors. Probably got
lucky with that as well, given you know the scheme
of what iris whistleblowers have you know, expressed publicly about
how the doog has thwarted a lot of their attempts
to dig deeper and dig deeper into the Biden family
(11:04):
and potentially Joe Biden as well. What do you think
he's facing at that trial, and based off of the
evidence known how much trouble is he facing with that one.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Well, he's got serious trouble, which is why he tried
to plead guilty. You know, the gun thing is one thing.
They tried to make that disappear with a diversion arrangement,
even though really into Justice Department rules that offense shouldn't
have been subject to diversion. When I say diversion, that
means they divert the case out of the justice system
(11:38):
for an alternative resolution other than conviction in a legal proceeding,
so you know, probation or community service or you know,
just keeping your nose clean, that kind of thing. Whereas
the tax charges, he actually was ready to plead guilty
to two of them. Now, obviously he wanted to plead
(11:58):
guilty to them in the form misdemeanors, but the underlying
facts are the same. So the evidence against him is
sufficiently daunting that he himself, even though he doesn't want
to plead guilty to everything, was willing to plead guilty
to this. On the other hand, as you point out,
there's been a strategic delay in this case by the
(12:20):
Biden Justice Department and its trustee quote unquote special counsel
David Weiss, these are cases, you know, the evidence against Hunter,
and the gun case was known completely to law enforcement.
It happened on October twelfth, and they knew about it
by less than two weeks later. And the tax cases,
(12:41):
the tax problems that Hunter has had have been well known,
notorious for years and years, to the point where there
were leans on his house and all kinds of other stuff.
So that's a long winded way of saying. Almost everything
David Weiss needed to know to file charges and convict
in these cases was known in twenty nineteen, and he
(13:04):
intentionally sat on his hands. There's no other way of
interpreting it. And in the tax case, that had the
real effect of chewing up what was available to be
charged under the Statute of limitations, And I think that
was done deliberately. Some of the worst tax offenses and
potentially other offenses, not just tax, but let's just talk
(13:27):
about tax, because that's what they charged. Some of the
worst of those crimes happened in twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen,
when Joe Biden was vice president and when Hunter was
raking in millions of dollars from Barismo, which was actually
obviously buying access to Joe Biden. So because of the
(13:50):
way Weiss handled this case, those charges can't be brought.
He waited till the statute of limitations had passed, and
the way, just so people understand, the way prosecutors stop
the clock on the statute of limitations is you file charges.
So what I'm saying is everything they needed to know
to charge these crimes was known in twenty nineteen. He
(14:12):
sat and did nothing for years, and he was trying
to do nothing in the way of like do nothing
and make the case go away. And then the whistleblower
agents courageously came forward and talk publicly about the Biden
Justice Department interference in the case. At that point it
(14:32):
was politically untenable to make the case just disappear. So
that's when they tried the sweetheart plea deal. And only
when that blew up did Weiss actually file these charges.
But I think, Lisa, in the end, they're going to
win because to the extent that the idea here was
to make these cases go away, if you think about it.
(14:53):
In the gun case, Hunter is not going to be
sentenced till probably August, and and he has an appellate
issue under the Second Amendment that I think the judge
will allow him to have bail pending appeal while he
litigates that, which means any execution of his sentence if
(15:13):
he gets a prison sentence, will not happen until sometime
next year, meaning after the election. The tax case, I
can't imagine in a million years the Biden, whether it's
Hunter Biden or the White House, are going to want
to have that trial happen in September, in the run
up to the election, when early voting has already started.
(15:36):
I think he's got to plead that case out at
some point, but they will try to structure the plea
and schedule the plea so that he doesn't get sentenced
until after the election. So I think that the goal
here is to push everything past the election. And then
this ridiculous supposed vow that Joe Biden made that he
(15:57):
won't pardon his son. I don't think that will be
operative ten seconds after the polls close on November fifth,
And if Biden wins the election, then he can bide
his time and if Hunter gets a prison sentence, he
can pardon them at that point. If he loses the election,
then sometime between election day and inauguration day, Biden will
(16:19):
pardon his son. But you know the fact that Weiss
has delayed the way that he is delayed, I think
ensures that Hunter is not going to get the kind
of accountability and justice that people expect for people who
are put through the criminal justice system.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
We've got more with Anny McCarthy, but first, since the
terror attacks in October seventh, anti Semitism has been on
the rise, not just in Israel but here in the
US and around the world. That's why I have partnered
with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and today
I'm coming to you, my audience, to ask that you
stand with us and IFCJ to raise your voice, just
(16:58):
as Oscar Schindler and Corey ten Boom did. This pledge
is asking Christians to stand with their Jewish brothers and sisters,
to never be silent, to show the Jewish people that
they are not alone, they have God and Christians on
their side. For the month of June, we are asking
Christians to sign this pledge, which will be delivered to
the President of Israel, to show that Christians in America
(17:18):
are not only standing in solidarity, but they're speaking up too.
Let's take a stand today with the International Fellowship of
Christians and Jews to let the Jewish people know that
they're not alone. To sign the pledge, go to support
IFCJ dot org, support IFCJ dot org to take a
stand today. Do you think that if Hunter did not
(17:41):
if he does not reach a plea deal, which I
think what you're saying makes a lot of sense, that
he would want to do that for political reasons, to
protect his dad, who has obviously protected him to a
great extent throughout his life and shielded him from, you know,
probably a lot of consequences that he should have been facing.
But if he did not reach a plea deal, would
Joe Biden be exposed?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
And what we would learn from the tax trial? Do
you think?
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, this is why I don't think they can let
it go to trial. So Weiss, as I said to
somebody this morning, Weiss is the best defense lawyer that
Hunter has ever had. But his main objective in this investigation,
and the Biden Justice Department's objective has always been to
(18:26):
protect the president. That's first and foremost. They tried to
protect the president and bring Hunter along for the ride,
but that became politically undoable once the whistleblowers came forward.
So even in prosecuting Hunter, they've kept the objective of
protecting the president front and center. So, for example, Weiss
(18:50):
writes finally a fifty six page indictment on the tax case,
it doesn't mention President Biden, even though what the tax
case is about is the invasion of tax on income
that Hunter earned by peddling Joe Biden's political influence. So
(19:10):
Joe Biden is a central figure to the case, but
he's not discussed in the indictment. The other thing, Lisa,
that Weiss did here that I think people are going
to be reminded of, even though it escaped a lot
of people's attention at the time. Do you remember that
the Sweetheart plea deal had a statement of facts in it. Yes,
(19:30):
So I'm convinced, having read that a few times, that
this never happens with federal prosecutors by the way they
control the plea process, including what the defendant is going
to say. If you're giving somebody a plea deal, you
tell them this is what we expect you to admit to,
and if you don't admit to it, there's no deal,
(19:51):
and we'll go to trial. So in this process, it
seems to me that Weiss allowed Hunter's lawyers to write
the statement of effect, which the government then stipulated to,
meaning they agreed that that would be the statement of
facts that was presented to the court in connection with
the case. If you read that statement of facts, what
(20:12):
they say is that Hunter earned a lot of money
from these overseas associates and deals because he was a
high end lawyer and businessman. You don't get any sense
reading it that he earned it because he was a
ne'er do well drug addle failure who was cashing in
(20:32):
on his father's political influence, which is a lot closer
to the truth. So the defense is going to try
to say that Weiss is stuck with that version of
events because he already agreed to it in connection with
the POLA. But one way or the other, I don't
think the Biden people can afford in the run up
(20:53):
to the election to have a trial that's about Hunter
basically monetizing his father's political influence and then not paying
his fair share on that right. So I don't think
he'll I don't think he'll go to trial. And when
you say if they can't strike a plea deal. This
(21:13):
is how this is how cynical I've become about this.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I'm right there with you.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Why don't they try If he's going to be pardoned
anyway at the end of the rainbow, and he's never
really going to do a day in jail on this,
why not write before the election, or reasonably before the election,
like August September, announce a plea deal where Hunter is
going to plead guilty to two felonies, and the Biden
Justice Department, like they've done the last twenty four hours,
(21:41):
can run around, beat their chest and say, see, we
prosecuted the president's son without fear or favor. In the meantime,
they delayed it so long that he won't get sentenced
until after the election, and then his father will pardon them.
But at least before the election, they'll try to make
it look like this was a real serious, you know,
hard ass prosecution, and it'll all be play acting.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
I think that is probably one hundred percent what's going
to happen. Unfortunately, you know, I think we've realized that
justice is not equal in America these days. I also
wanted to ask you President Trump is facing his sentencing
on July eleventh. I am very concerned that he will
either get thrown in prison or under house arrest, that
(22:25):
they're going to use this to try to sideline him
from the campaign trail.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
What are your.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Thoughts on that, and then also what does his appeals
process look like and are there any ways for him
to expedite that in a meaningful way ahead of the election.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
So I think he's going to get a prison sentence,
but he's not going to be sent to prison. I
think that he will get bail pending appeal. In New York,
it's a non violent crime, you know. I mean, it's
when I say it's a crime, I'm you know, I'm
just reading off like a judgment docket. In terms of
whether it's really a crime. I think if you asked
(23:05):
any twenty people randomly on the street what he was
convicted of, they wouldn't be able to tell you. But
let's assume like we have a crime that he turned
into thirty four crimes and he's going to be sentenced.
I think that Merchan, who has shown himself to be
like a progressive performance artist on this case, notwithstanding that
it's against the code of ethics in New York to
(23:28):
sit on a case if you've given political contrib they're
not supposed to give political contributions at all.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
So to group Stop Republicans, I mean, that's the group
that's one of the politically stop Republicans and Joe Biden,
it's like that tells the story, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
But yeah, all right, Agres.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And no, you're right. And even if his even if
his daughter wasn't making a very lucrative living as a
progressive political activist who does election work for Democrats who
defined themselves by the loathing of Trump, I mean, you
wouldn't even have to get into that. Just to judge,
his own contribution should have been enough to have him
(24:06):
off this case. So I think we know what we're
dealing with this judge in New York. Under these circumstances,
Trump should get bail pending appeal because he's got very
profound appellate issues in this case. So I think that
Merchon knows he's going to impose sentence, but that the
(24:29):
consequence of the sentence he imposes is not going to
have Trump actually going to jail. And to my mind,
and again, this is the cynicism we're left with after
watching this process unfold. I think that increases Merchon's incentive
to impose a prison sentence on Trump because he knows
it's not really going to have that effect, so why
(24:52):
not pose as a hero. That's what he's tried to
do all along. So I think he will give Trump
a prison sentence, but it won't be executed. Trump will
at bail pending appeal whether he and by the way,
Trump should not get a prison sentence for that crime.
In New York. We're talking about New York, where Alvin
(25:13):
Bragg is like the paragon progressive prosecutor. Don't ask me
to say that ten times fast, but he You know,
in New York, we have felonies that get pled down
to misdemeanors if they get prosecuted at all. We have
a district attorney whose default position is that you don't prosecute.
And yet in this case, he turned something that I
(25:36):
don't even think is a misdemeanor into thirty four felonies
with one hundred and thirty six years of prison exposure.
And I'm now doing the same thing I criticized a
second ago. Right, I'm highlighting the statutory exposure. But I
think the reason I'm doing it is because that's why
they did it. They wanted to say that, you know,
Trump's crimes were so serious that this would be what
(25:58):
he'd be facing. So this whole thing is just his theater.
And consistent with that, I think march On will impose
a prison sentence even though he shouldn't. It's a non
violent crime and it's a bookkeeping offense, which wouldn't even
normally be prosecuted in New York. So the thought that
(26:20):
anyone does five minutes in jail for this is laughable.
But the important thing with that, Lisa, is there's the
charge that the grand jury brought, or the charges that
the grand jury brought, and then there's the charge that
Alvin Bragg told them was the center of the case,
which isn't in the indictment. So the indictment just has
(26:42):
like thirty four falsification of business records, which is a
misdemeanor in New York, becomes a felony if you're trying
to conceal or commit another crime. But Bragg won't tell
him in the indictment what the the felony is, and
in the meantime, Bragg, at the same time, the grand
jury indictment comes out issues to statement of facts, which
(27:05):
is his, not the grand juries in which he does.
This sort of fabulous recitation of a conspiracy to steal
the twenty seventeen twenty sixteen election. And it's amazing that
you could steal the twenty sixteen election by crimes that
you don't commit until twenty seventeen. But nobody should think
(27:26):
that logic has anything to do with what we saw
for the last six or eight weeks while that case
was going on. But when the New York prosecutors opened
to the jury, the first thing they said to them
was that this is a case about a conspiracy to
subvert the twenty sixteen election. The whole idea of business
(27:48):
records offenses was a complete afterthought. This case was presented
to the jury and to the judge as a successful
conspiracy to steal the election. To deprive the fraud here.
If you can believe this is because I keep asking,
what's the where is the beyond the reasonable doubt proof
(28:08):
of an intent to defraud? Who was defrauded here? And
Bragg's theory is the people of the United States were
defrauded out of the Hillary Clinton presidency. There's no you know,
there's no financial nobody. Uh, the state got every penny
of taxes that it was supposed to get and probably more.
There's no victim of fraud here. And I mentioned fraud
(28:29):
because you're supposed to The crime here, if that matters,
is falsification of business records with intent to defraud. And
the intent to defraud is supposed to include the concealment
of another crime. But you have to prove intent to
defraud beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't see it. But
Bragg's theory was the country was defrauded out of the
(28:51):
Hillary presidency. That would have happened if Trump hadn't concealed
these trusts that he had with these women by what
Bragg says were violations of the federal campaign finance laws.
(29:11):
But this is a long winded way of saying the
case is, it's presented to Judge march On, who will
impose sentence. Is not a penny anti business records fraud case.
They have described the worst conspiracy in the history of
the United States, a successful conspiracy to steal the presidency,
(29:34):
which they say worked. If that's the way they tee
it up for the judge, how does he not impose
a prison sentence.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
I guess what I'm worried about is he's going to
reach the same fate in the appeals process in liberal
New York that has it out from them in the
same way that Judge Majahn has as well. Is there
Do you agree with that? And then if so, how
can he expect to the Supreme Court?
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Yeah? I think two things about that. First of all,
the quality of justice in the trial courts in New
York is appalling, and that's largely because there are a
lot of them are political appointees. A lot of them
are elected. I mean, the system is pervaded with politics.
So a lot of the trial judges, like Judge and
Goern is an elected judge, right, Judge merch On is
(30:25):
an appointed judge. But they're appointed by Club Democrats and
Democratic officials. So the whole thing in the trial section is,
you know, it's elected lawyers and appointed lawyers who are
good Club Democrat lawyers who if they do the right
thing for the party long enough, they get on the
bench either through a an unopposed slot in the election
(30:47):
or they managed to get themselves appointed. And we get
a lot of stuff from the trial courts, that's awful.
As you go up in the New York system, the
quality gets better. The appellate division is significantly better than
the trial courts, and the Court of Appeals, which is
the highest court in New York, is better than the
appellate division. And I think that's shown for example Lisa
(31:10):
by Harvey Weinstein, who is a very very unpopular figure,
like you could say that about Trump as well in
New York. And yet it took three or four years,
but they threw out his conviction because the trial was
utterly completely unfair. So it's just as delayed, but eventually
(31:31):
they came out to the right result. I think with Trump,
the thing is the appeals process is going to stretch
into years from now. By the time it gets decided,
Trump will either have lost the twenty twenty four election,
in which case they won't care about him that much anymore,
(31:53):
or he'll have won the twenty twenty four election, and
that'll mean everything in New York will probably be frozen
until after he'st of office, at which point they won't
care about him that much anymore. So I think what
the Democrats did this for the whole timing of it
was so that they could have a talking point going
into the election that Trump is a convicted felon, a
(32:15):
thirty four time convicted felon, and they've accomplished that, so
that can't be unwrung. But I think down the line
he will get better quality of justice in the appellate process.
That's already been evident by the way in the in
the civil fraud case where the Court of Appeal or
the Appellate Division in New York reversed anger On on
(32:39):
a number of things he did during the trial and
then cut the bond that Trump had to post in
order to have his appeal. So you can see, you
get he's done better already in the appellate division than
he did in the trial court. And I expect that
to continue.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Can get your Supreme Court for that.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Is there any means to try to get the Supreme
Court to take it up given the significance to the country.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
So this is a great question, and I know a
lot of people that we both know are trying to
brainstorm to do that. Here's the problem I think with
that that people are overlooking This case has already been
in federal court. You know, we're so riveted to what's
happened in the state court, because it was so egregious
(33:31):
that I think some people are forgetting some of the
important procedural history in the case. But if you remember,
Trump gets indicted I think in April of twenty twenty three,
and one of the first things he does is he
tries to remove the case to federal court. And his
theory there was that he had federal defenses because Bragg
(33:57):
was trying to enforce the campaign finance laws and a
lot of the activity happened while he was president. So
he goes into the Southern District of New York, my
old courthouse in Manhattan, and unfortunately for them, but for Trump,
the draw he gets is Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is
(34:18):
a ninety year old senior judge Clinton appointee, and basically,
Hellerstein blesses everything that Bragg wanted to do, including to
enforce the federal campaign finance laws. Now, it was a
terrible decision, but it is a decision. So for like
these people who keep saying, we got to get this
(34:40):
case into federal court, what New York's going to come
back and say is this case was already in federal court.
We had to give Judge Hellerstein all of our theories
for what we were prosecuting here, what the crimes were.
We had to give discovery to Trump about what the
other crime was that that we were alleging he concealed
(35:02):
by the business records fraud. So what they're going to
say is this has already got played out in federal court,
and because it did, it's going to make it much
more difficult for Trump at this point to try to
get out of the regular state appellate process and jump
into federal court on a theory that like the federal
(35:24):
courts have to intervene here because the state is gone rogue.
What the state's going to say is, we already ran
this past a federal court. That's how we got to
be able to do the case.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
We've got to take a quick commercial break more with
any McCarthy. On the other side, Alvin Bragg is going
to face the House Judiciary Committee on July twelfth, the
day after the sentencing.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Now, could anything.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
That he says during this hearing help President Trump's appeal process, Like,
could anything come to light during that that could then
be used, uh, you know, evidence of bias or you
know what have you.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
I'm really surprised he's agreed to testify. Frankly, you know this.
This came up once before they tried to They tried
to make him come after the indictment, and he told
them to pound sand I was kind of expecting, uh,
he do that again. So I'm I'll be interested to
see if he if he says anything of note. I think,
(36:25):
you know, he's a clever enough guy that you know
he'll answer what he does when he wants to answer,
and then he won't answer anything that he doesn't want
to answer. Because the New York state system is not
under the supervision of Congress. And I must say, if
I was a state district attorney, and this is like
(36:47):
completely set apart from how I feel about Bragg or
any other state official. But if Congress, if I was
a state district attorney and Congress subpoened me to come
and explain my charging decisions as a state official, I
tell him to screw themselves. I wouldn't. I wouldn't come,
(37:08):
I wouldn't testify. I'd let him. I'd say, you know,
good luck try and forcing it in court.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Is it a victory lap then? For him? Is that?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Do you think he's doing it as a to be spiteful,
you know, kind of a middle finger to Republicans kind
of thing.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
No, No, I don't, well, I think there's a lot
of that, But you know, I think Democrats are very
good at playing this game. So I'm sure that Bragg
is coordinating with Jamie Raskin and like all the all
the kids who are on that committee, and they'll have
a very well orchestrated performance, and Bragg will look appropriately
(37:43):
combative when like whether it's Jim Jordan or Jamie Comer,
who else goes after him, And then he'll have a
whole they'll have a whole scripted performance with the Democrats
on the committee, and I'm sure he'll come off looking
pretty effective. But he won't tell them anything. I mean,
he doesn't have to tell them anything. He's a he's
he's an executive official who was elected by you know,
(38:09):
all the you know, the big problems that we have
in this country are not legal problems. They're cultural problems.
You know. We have we have a situation where in
big blue states and cities, people now campaign on the
idea of elect me and I will use the powers
of our office against our political enemies. When I was
(38:29):
a young prosecutor in the eighties and Bob Morgenthal was
the state prosecutor there, that would have been disqualifying to
make an argument like that, And he got elected for
twenty five years because he would never in a million
years have done something like that. Now, these people like
Letitia James and Alvin Bragg campaign this way and they
(38:50):
get elected comfortably. So I think, you know, that's a
big problem. But he is an elected state official. He
doesn't owe any answers to Congress. What I keep hearing
is that, well, they take federal money. You know, Congress
appropriates federal Well maybe they can ask him about how
(39:11):
he is using the federal money that he gets appropriated.
But I don't think he has to answer any questions
about his charging decisions. I wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
You know before we go, I'm really interested in hearing
your perspective on the justice system in America. You know,
you're someone who's really dedicated your life, your career to
the rule of law. I know it's something you take
very seriously. So after following the Trump case, what's your
viewpoint on America's justice system today?
Speaker 3 (39:44):
So I wrote a piece for National Review that was
called in Memory of Justice. I think it was a
day or two after this all ended, and it was
kind of a despondent essay. But I was covering the
trial with and speaking to a lot of people who,
(40:05):
like me, had their roots in the justice system. And
a lot of the people I would talk was talking
to have absolutely no use for Donald Trump. You know,
they won't vote for him, their hostile to them, et cetera.
Not all of the people I'm talking to, but a
lot of them. You know, this was New York after all,
(40:29):
and yet those people were despondent as well, and it
was kind of I've referred to it as a as
a kind of they know not what they do moment,
because if you take Trump out of this, you can't
have a strong republic, a free republic, a flourishing, profitable,
(40:54):
rich society without the rule of law. And it's an
a essential building block. You know. Look every Western movie
that anyone's ever seen in America about like the country
as the you know, as the Frontier was expanding. The
first thing they do when they move into town, well,
the first thing they do is construct a saloon. But
(41:15):
the second thing they do is they have law enforcement right,
they have the sheriff, they have the whole. But that's
because everybody understands that if you don't have the rule
of law, then you have the law of the jungle.
There's no you know, there's no middle ground. And the
essential building block of the rule of law is that
(41:36):
everybody believes that they get a fair shape. That is
that our first guiding principle is equal protection under the law.
That the bar of justice. To speak of it in
the kind of emotive tones that we often use in
legal protection, but the bar of justice is where everybody
(41:57):
comes to get a fair shake and where the smallest,
most helpless citizen stands as an equal with the most
powerful government. If you lose that, you lose everything. And
what I don't think democrats and progressives realize is that
by turning this essential building block of a free and
(42:19):
prosperous society into a political weapon, they are threatening. They
may be beyond just threatening. They are threatening the legitimacy
of it in the sense that people accept its outcomes
as fair and just. And if you lose that, we
(42:40):
lose the system. And if we lose the system, we
lose the United States. So I don't think this is
about Trump. I think Trump is like, you know, he
shines a spotlight, as he often does, you know, I mean,
he shines a spotlight on a serious problem. But the
problem is not about Trump. The problem is about the
(43:01):
fact that culturally it's become acceptable to use the justice
system that way. And the thing I worry most about, Lisa,
in terms of the country is that we're like two
ships passing in the night, in the sense that on
our side we're saying, you're using the justice system as
(43:21):
a political weapon, where the process is the penalty, and
instead of saying nowhere not, the other side is saying,
you're damn right, we are. That's what we do, you know.
And in too many big cities in America where too
many you know, look, millions and millions of people live
in these places, and they drive, they drive popular opinion
(43:45):
in the culture, but they think it's just peachy to
use the processes of the system in a punitive way
against their political enemies. And anybody who thinks like there's
a suy generous Trump law law where this is all
going to be cabin for Trump and it's only ever
going to be applied to Trump, and that the precedents
(44:06):
that they're setting in going after one political enemy won't
be used again and again and again against other political enemies.
As if Trump is their only political enemy. You're crazy
if that's what you think.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
I totally agree, Annie McCarthy. I'm praying that you know,
Americans are awake and we can turn this all around
in November and they realize that, you know, there's this
is so much more than just a political election. It
really is about the survival of the republic in my opinion.
But you know, I hope people realize what you're saying.
(44:39):
You're You're not a partisan guy. You're just someone who
cares about the law. So I really hope people are
paying attention to what you just said. Always appreciate you
coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
It's always a pleasure, Lisa, Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
It was Anny McCarthy.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
I swear I always learned so much from him when
he comes on the show. Always just super interesting analysis
and he is able to just really dig in and
let us know what's really going on. So appreciate so
much for him making the time. Appreciate you guys at
home for listening every Monday and Thursday. But of course
you can listen throughout the week. I want to think
John Cassio and my producer for putting the show together
Until next time.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
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Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
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