come. i am here if you want to come yell at me after. we have cheese, wine, and beer afterwards. i want to thank everyone here for attendance and everyone online or attending. thank you. [applause] [indiscernible] announcer: vice president kamala harris will share her reasons for visiting africa.

watch live coverage at 4:30 p.m. eastern on c-span you can also watch on c-span now our free video mobile app or online at c-span.org. ♪ announcer: c-span is your unfiltered view of government. funded by these television companies and more, including sparklight. >> the greatest place on earth is the place you call home. we are all facing our greatest challenge. that is why sparklight is working around-the-clock to keep you connected. we will work hard so you can do yours. announcer: sparklight supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. ♪ announcer: welcome back to washington journal. i am joined by a former u.s. attorney from the northern district of illinois. welcome to the program. >> happy to be here.

the former president was charged with 34 felony counts of falsification of business records. what does that mean? guest: great question. in new york, unlike other jurisdictions, it is a prime to have false statements in your books and records. the theory is that regulators, for example, and others in the state of new york are going to potentially look at those records and rely on that, rely on the accuracy. -- accuracy of those books and records. that is a misdemeanor under new york law. it becomes a felony under new york law. if the false statement in the business records are done in furtherance of another crime. in the indictment that came out yesterday, there are at least

two, potentially three, other crimes reference. both federal elections -- federal and state election crimes appeared to be included. also, there is references to tax crimes. the allegations are essentially that in the course of making payments to stormy daniels and others, another woman, karen mcdougal, let the former president caused false statements to be made in the books and records of the trump organization and did so in furtherance of these other crimes. host: how strong of a case is is -- at this point -- is it at this point? can you tell us?

how easy or hard will it be to prove those charges? guest: not an easy question to answer. we do not have all the evidence yet. we have an indictment, which is an accusation regarding particular crimes. we do not have all the discovery from the prosecution. we do not know what all their cards are. but i should say that i would expect that the district attorney's office would not -- not hold all of their cards close to their chest. they did relays something called a state does release something called a statement of fact in conjunction with the indictment. secondly, the indictment and statement of facts from the district attorney's office are not entirely clear regarding the legal theories and the other statutes they rely on, which is unfortunate. they do not have to necessarily at this stage, although i think the former president's team will force them to reveal that information by

moving for a bill of particulars to get more specificity. we do not know 100% exactly what the d.a.'s evidence is or what their legal theories are, but so far, i think d.a. has a solid case, but there are issues with it. generally, from my conversations with former manhattan assistant district attorneys, this particular charge falsification of business records, is a fairly straightforward charge to prove. however, that said, there are some unusual things about this case. the campaign-finance piece is one of those. it is either going to be a case where the d.a. is focusing on

state election law, which potentially, there is an argument that it is superseded by federal law. former president trump was running for federal office rather than a state office. regarding the potential that he was doing this with the intent to commit a federal election offense, there is no question of whether or not the statute in new york can be referencing or done with the intent to commit a federal offense. the d.a. believes it can. and the das office in other cases has taken that position, but it has never been tested in order -- in court. the strongest theory here is a tax theory, because they have some wording in the indictment that this is done in furtherance of tax

crimes. in other words, what i mean technically is with the intent to commit tax crimes. the reason i believe that is stronger is because jurors are going to believe a person will want to pay less taxes. that is more intuitive to a jury. the campaign-finance side is a bit clunky, because i do not think most jurors are going to think of payments to a paramore as a typical campaign expense. whereas reporting these payments to the paramour as payments for legal services which may be the intent to get more favorable tax treatment is something more jurors can get behind. host: i will remind our viewers

that they can start calling in if they have a question or comment. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can also reach us on social media. what is the typical timeline for a case like this? guest: it's a good question. one thing i will say is there is a typical timeline and then the timeline for this case. the typical timeline in manhattan for a white collar case is still going to take years to get to trial. and there is a backlog of cases in the manhattan docket right now. this case appears to be on a slower track. there is not a court appearance until december of this year. it is interesting and important to note that under our constitution and the laws of the state of new york, the

defendant, which here is the former president, is entitled to a speedy trial. he can try to push for a faster trial. it is worth noting that one politician in the past famously did that and secured a victory against the justice department and the federal case. under justice chad stevenson. i do not expect them to do that. under the specifics of new york, it would be difficult to get a trial before the federal election because the speedy trial act in new york is within six months. however, all the time spent making motions and with the judge considering motions is excluded from that time. i would expect the former president would not only make motions but would potentially make motions to reargue motions when new facts develop. we talk about various issues with his case. i do not think he would

want to push those issues aside in order to get a faster trial. i expect the case to go on for quite some time. host: you wrote an opinion in politico about the other cases that are pending against the former president. your headline was the painful lesson donald trump could learn from r. kelly and michael levin nine. what is that lesson? guest it is very difficult to : handle criminal cases, multiple, cases. i was a federal prosecutor, as you mentioned earlier, for over nine years and have also been a defense lawyer. i currently represent clients across the country. one of the most challenging things i have done is represent client who

have criminal cases in multiple jurisdictions at the same time. the reason it is so hard is because prosecutors in any particular case, let's say this case alvin bragg and his team, they can focus like a laser on proving their case in that particular criminal indictment. for example, alvin bragg's focus is entirely on proving the charges we just talked about. but former president trump and his team cannot just be concerned about that one case. they cannot just be considered about how their words and actions impact that case. they have to be concerned about other investigations that could result in indictment. for example, we know that in fulton county, georgia, there is a criminal investigation of the president. the grand jury foreperson did not exactly have a poker-faced when she was

discussing the recommendation. it is fair to say they likely recommend an indictment. a special capsule has been appointed with two separate criminal investigation. anyone on trump's legal team, when they are making decisions about motions, evidence to potentially produce, witnesses to call, positions to take, they need to consider not just how those actions play out in that case, but the other cases as well. you are going to see very soon in the upcoming months a war on multiple fronts for the trump team, which is a real problem for them. realistically, if this case takes a long time to come to fruition, and the other cases also do, you could have a situation where the former

president does not win the 2024 election and will be facing multiple trials. is this all with r. kelly and harvey weinstein, you can mean many in -- you could name many in this position, it is a challenging situation. host: you mentioned the 2024 election. what if he does win and he has still got indictments and trials pending? what happens then? guest: that would pose questions that are so unprecedented that it is hard for me to imagine how we could resolve them in the time you have on this program. you have a state government trying to punish the executive officer, the president of the united states. the federalism concerns are there. in a federal

case, federal cases are the most problematic for a former president, you would still have a situation where the judiciary is trying to punish the executive. i do not pretend to know exactly how that would play out, but it would be an unprecedented, constitutional crisis: that word gets thrown around -- crisis and that word gets thrown around often. it would be uniquely appropriate in this situation. host: a wrench of op want to talk to you, but i want to ask about michael cohen. and the plesnd minuses of the prosecution resting so much of their case on michael cohen's testimony. guest there is mostly minuses. : if i were a prosecutor, i would try to [indiscernible] people who are convicted felons,

particularly convicted for crimes involving dishonesty, are always challenging witnesses. to be clear, when i was a prosecutor, i often put those witnesses on the stand, because defendants in this criminal cases often are inning involved with working alongside people who are committing crimes, but that is always a challenge. for mr. cohen in particular it is a challenge because not only has he been convicted of lying to congress and committing fraud, both involving dishonesty, but he has his own podcast in which he is critical of former president trump. he has gained notoriety for that. it would not be hard for mr. trump to try and

portray him as someone who has attacked him. host: let's start talking to our callers. larry, granbury, texas, independent. good morning, larry. >> yes, i keep trying to figure out. i keep hearing stuff on tv about trump and have the money, where it is going and stuff like that. with so much going on in the country right now, why isn't anybody talking about that? all the money that is going out, millions and millions of dollars. the government is taking away from seniors, taking away from people. and what is going to happen -- host: you are talking about money spent by the government for this case? caller: yes. the money they have made, bragg and all of them, going after trump. what about other people out there?

host: ok. let's get a response. guest: it is always fair to question whether a particular prosecution should have been brought. this is a local governmental body, not the federal government. that there -- but there are all sorts of resources that can be deployed by a prosecutor. and there is not a lack in this country. one consideration prosecutors always have is whether this case is worth prosecutorial resources. here, there is sufficient activity to warrant an investigation. there is an open question regarding whether or not this prosecution should have been brought, but the cost and scope are fairly minor in terms of the overall budget. even the manhattan d.a.'s budget. it is a significant case pulling

resources that could have been used on other things. host: let's talk to hector san diego, line for democrats. caller: yes thank you for letting us go. nobody is doing nothing to him, trump. nobody is stopping him. he is breaking the law and nobody is above the law. nobody is doing anything. he has done a lot of damage to the people. -- he is the one that told people to go and fight. and how to be charged the , congress. i do not know. you have to stop this guy who is running again for president. he -- he makes it funny to all americans. he is not giving nothing to the people. it is a shame this case -- this guy is running for

president again. the people, i this guy is bad. and i feel sorry for these people. they are good people. and i really think he is the devil. i am sorry about that. host: any comments? guest: well i would say that hector is embracing an important point. the former president has done a lot that is controversial, some of that outrageous, some unprecedented. for example, the actions of january 6 were unprecedented. we have never had a mob descend upon the capitol and we have never had a president try to overturn an election result or stand in the way of the peaceful transfer of power. there are certainly some serious actions that the former president is

taking. one thing i have heard in question i have received many times over the past several years is why is trump not being held accountable? why are there no cases against him? now we have the first criminal case. 1.5 -- one point i will make and the reason i think it is important is that we are looking at trump 's activities and i do not know of making payments in this fashion is necessarily the most serious thing he has done, but it goes to show how controversial these cases can be. there are more on the horizon. host: what are typical sentences in cases like this? guest: yeah, typically, a defendant would not receive prison time in new york for this sentence. that is something i have spent a lot of time talking