>> live sunday on in-depth, sc gwynn joins book tv to talk and take calls about native american history, the civil war, and more. author of several books, including rebel yell and empire of the summer moon. his latest, his majesty's airship, about a blimp that killed more people than the hindenburg in 1930. join in the conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, and texts. in-depth, live sunday on book tv on c-span two. we are joined now by kimberly whele, a legal contributor for abc news, and a law professor. you have gone through this 45 page indictment now. what is your top line take away so far? guest: how much of it is very

into with the january 6 committee careful work over many months. we saw the various public programs outlining the massive amount of evidence that the january 6 committee developed. also, they had to report, of course. and we are seeing a second branch of government work in tandem with the united states congress to bring some accountability to the white house, frankly. i wrote a piece a while back in politico magazine shortly after january 6, in which i did a thought experiment with my students. we went through the various guardrails around the presidency, to make sure presidents don't cross boundaries. effectively, the only thing that was left was a criminal indictment. i see this as an important step in protecting how our democracy

states accountable to the people. and too much power does not get out of hand in a way that could destroy the republic moving forward. i think it is a really important step for the constitution. i know it will be very politically debatable and incendiary for some people. host: is there anything to take from the number of charges here? we are talking about four charges in this indictment. that compares to well over 30 charges with the document case run out of the special counsel office. guest: the team in this case, did not follow directly what the congress recommended in charges. the congress had recommended an insurrection charge, witness tampering. that's not in there. there are three conspiracy charges and one her. they basically orchestrated this scheme to take the election from the voters, and ultimately to do it illegally and even by force.

what happened down in mar-a-lago , they need to identify all the various classified documents. i think they cherry picked. they of course did not go through all of them, but they specified documents that violated the espionage act. there are two codefendants down there. here, it is a much larger story about what happened before, during, and after january 6, and why it is a problem. where is the case down in florida is more straightforward as in, here are the documents, the videotapes, other evidence that demonstrated it should not be there, he tried to hide it, etc. two different prosecutions. host: you mentioned the codefendants in the florida case. in this case being tried in d.c., there are six unnamed co-conspirators. do you think those folks eventually become codefendants here? guest: it's possible. we saw one superseding order in

florida that added a codefendant. it could be that they are just named for purposes of developing the conspiracy charges against a single named defendant. there is some debate in the criminal law community as to whether naming co-conspirators without actually charging them is fair, but it is legal. we will have to see whether some of these folks actually end up themselves within the colonel justice system. there is certainly an argument that being named, and it's not that difficult to connect the dots given the information out there about january 6, as to who these people might be. it is a taint on the reputation, even if they are not actually indicted and prosecuted. host: let's talk venue and judge compared to the florida case. this is going to be prosecuted in the u.s. district court. it is judge tonya chutkin. what does it mean for the office trying this, just blocks from

the u.s. capitol? guest: it is a constitutional guarantee. the government needs to bring cases in the part of the country where the acts giving rise to the crimes occurred. that is why mar-a-lago is in florida. the capitol here is an washington, d.c. this judge has experience as a criminal defense lawyer in private practice. that might be a good thing for the former president, in terms of her being presumably very careful about protecting constitutional rights, though i think any federal judge would do that. the judge is not going to be as pro-trump, whereas judge cannon in florida has set the trial numbers, in terms of motors, from which they will pull the jury pool that very solidly voted for trump in the last election. it is a benefit to the president.

in order to get a conviction in both of these cases, there needs to be a unanimous jury. if one juror decides they are loyal to the president no matter what, that would be a hung jury. he would not be convicted. the government could certainly do it a second time. i think that given the stakes, i would be astonished if there was not a victory for the government and one of these cases would try to go at it a second time. i think the d.c. jury is more democratically leaning and it will be a steeper incline for the defense, in terms of persuading enough jurors to hang the jury or to acquit, which would be the best thing for donald trump. that means everybody votes that they do not have enough evidence to convict without a doubt. host: this case being bumped, could it happen concurrently?

guest: it's hard to know how many lawyers are on his various teams. i don't think it is the same team, because these are complex cases, thousands of document and witnesses, particularly in the january 6 case. the same group of lawyers would not be able to manage both cases at the same time. i don't think it will be a resources problem for the government. there is no requirement that cases run concurrently. that being said, the judges are sensitive to the defendant's needs, the defense team's needs, and the other judges calendars. i think it would probably not be feasible to assume that the judges would have back-to-back trials going on. they cannot be at the same time because donald trump cannot be in two states at the same time. i suspect that one will come after the other. at this point, the florida one is in may. i think in both cases, we are probably going to see donald

trump's lawyers filed motions challenging various legal issues. those alone can justify delays and trial dates. host: lastly, and we have plenty of callers lined up to chat with you, but the former president expected in d.c. tomorrow to respond to his indictment. just remind us what happens when he appears in court tomorrow. guest: as we have seen the last two times, there will be the official process of arresting him and booking him. this will all be done with great respect and kid gloves, like it should be, because he is a former president. then, he will enter a plea of, presumably, not guilty before the trial court. host: and that is, again, expected tomorrow here in washington, d.c.. if you would like to talk to kimberly whele this morning, lives are open to do so. (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8002 for independents.

we always appreciate having you on this program. lisa is up first in new bedford, massachusetts, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to thank you and i want to thank c-span. on january 6, i was home. ahead of time, i knew trump was going to have this rally. i knew ahead of time. the republicans keep saying that the democrats are weaponizing the doj and all of these departments, but the truth is, they are doing it. they are weaponizing it. ahead of the election, trump said that if he did not win, it

was going to be wrong and should be thrown out. he had every right to go to court and make all those claims, and when the court found nothing and he was wrong, he was wrong. he set it up on january 6. it was his fault that the capitol -- and being the president, he should have been the one to call the end. host: you bring up the idea of the weaponization of the doj. kimberly whele, on claims about that, especially in the wake of these two federal indictments and what the coming going forward. guest: well, a number of things. first, i want to emphasize that

just as suggested yesterday in the press conference, read the indictment yourself. i cannot emphasize that enough. don't listen to me, don't listen to other pendants. read the indictment yourself. it's all available online. and decide, if the government can prove this stuff, is it a problem? i think what the indictment does is lay the story out. it is all most like a play in four acts. act i, donald trump tried to get street legislators to cancel votes and switch votes. when they would not do that, he allegedly organized seven states to submit full selectors. when i did not work, he tried to pressure mike pence, calling him on christmas and new year's. mike pence, allegedly i the

indictment, calling him too honest. and that did not work, he roused up the crowd and called members of congress. the indictment alleges that as part of that, he tried to use the department of justice and the massive power, the investigate of power. he tried to use the department of justice to push this notion that the election was fraudulent. so, we have already seen the politicization of the justice department and that is really dangerous. donald trump's campaign has made clear that if there's a second term, that would be even more extreme. he would make sure that there are loyalists throughout the government that would not necessarily listen to the people, but to him. that is a very different kind of government. maybe we should have that debate. but nobody should pretend that is democracy. host: you talk about how this indictment is laid out, sort of a play in four acts, as you describe it.

is it an unusual way of laying out and indictment? you have seen many of these. his presenting it as this story, is that unusual? guest: no, not for something this import. some will call it a "speaking indictment." the charges need to be laid out and away that the defendant can notice. the document has to do enough so that the defendant knows what he or she allegedly did wrong and is able to present and put together a defense to the charges. it does not have to be chapter and verse. here, i think, jack smith is laying out a narrative. he did it with the last indictment as well. this is a charging document. it is the government's obligation beyond a reasonable doubt to prove all of this stuff by facts court to pass the rules of evidence. ask yourself, if they can do that, is this story something that is a problem for democracy,

for my kids and grandchildren? that is what the point of this is p at it as a criminal case, but there are massive, massive historical and constitutional implications to this. host: wayne in south carolina, line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing? host: i'm doing well, sir. you are on with kimberly whele. caller: i will make mine short. trump will be our next president in 2024. the democrats are too crooked. they should go arrest joe biden and hunter biden this morning. donald trump will be our president. mark that down. host: what about how the special counsel asked americans to read this indictment?

it is a 45 and paid -- a 45 page indictment. it's not too long. many of them are longer. have you read it? caller: i have read most of it, not all of it. it's just to mess with the 2024 election. why don't they go to hunter biden and the rest of the democrats?

he said hey, by burner phones. it's a joke. to sit here and tell us that

it's a peaceful transfer of power? we didn't have one. sorry, it went out the window. the constitution went out the window when they were impeached twice with no crimes or misdemeanors. he won the election. the 17 bellwether counties, he was the winner. sen. merkley: -- guest: well there is a lot there. people are frustrated over what other presidents have done. he was not convicted by the senate in either of his camp -- impeachments and we can talk about those things. the collusion, to use bill barr password, the communication with the russians on behalf of donald trump in his campaign is established in the molar art. i'm a lawyer, i'm a law professor. those are bible facts, right?

-- viable facts, right? testimony under oath. documented evidence used in a way that is consistent with various rules that bind courts. that's different from politics. in this instance i think the question moving forward is can the government meet its high standard of proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, of these charges? it is clean. if the rules of the game apply to everyone who ends up in that position, the position of donald trump. in the argument that others should be indicted where donald trump was president for four years and had that authority in his department of justice, we saw what we saw but it doesn't change the fact of this particular indictment. though what aboutism doesn't change where we are in this moment and everyone should come together to ask themselves if this is the kind of government we want moving forward.

host: what about the third paragraph of the indictment where the special counsel notes high up that donald trump had a right to, to challenge the 2020 election results? makes a point of that? i want to read that paragraph, saying the defendant had a right like every american to claim falsely with an outcome of determined it fraud for the election and that he had one. through lawful inappropriate means. the popular vote in states challenging ballots and procedures where in many cases the defendant pursued the methods of contending the results in the effort to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, and legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful, going on to say that shortly after election day the defendant had