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tv   The Evening Edit  FOX Business  August 1, 2023 5:00pm-6:00pm EDT

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for moms, from centrum. ♪ this new mom ♪ ♪ here i go ♪ ♪ i am strong and brave i know ♪ ♪ with a little time for me ♪ ♪ no doubt i will get through ♪ ♪ loving me is loving you ♪ ♪ new from centrum. the women's choice multivitamin brand. larry: so, like, is there another phony, weaponized jack smith indictment coming on the way in a few minutes in only liz macdonald knows, that's why you've got to watch. elizabeth: it sure looks like it, larry. we're staying on this breaking news. thank you so much, larry it's good to see you. former president trump post on truth social that, yes, special
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counsel jack smith is about to indict him. grady trimble is taking the action moment by moment, he's live in d.c. with the story. >> reporter: hey, liz, good to see you. so this has to do with special counsel jack smith's investigation into january 6th and what happened in the capitol that day. as well as the former president trump's conduct following the 2020 election more broadly. so in terms of a possible indictment, i want to get right to that statement from the former president because he is expecting it any minute now. he says on truth social, i hear that deranged jack smith, in order to interfere with the presidential election of 2024, will be putting out yet another fake indictment of your favorite president, me, at 5:00 eastern time. so about a minute ago. we'll see what happens. the former president goes on to say why didn't they do this two and a half years ago? why did they wait so long? and then he answers, because they wanted to put it right in the middle of my campaign,
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prosecutorial misconduct. he's calling it. of course, he references in that statement that this is the second time special counsel jack smith will have indicted him if it happens. the first is in relation to the classified documents case out of mar-a-lago. we saw a new charge in that case for the form former and an associate related to hiding security camera footage. as we mentioned though, the former president received a target letter earlier in july, mid july, and that is specifically to do with this more recent investigation into january 6th and the election. and that letter is the first indication that we got that something might happen when former president trump announced that. then just last thursday the former president's legal team met with the special counsel, jack smith, and so all signs were pointing toward a potential new indictment, liz.
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and now the former president has said on truth social that that he expects it any minute now. we shall see if that announcement comes. elizabeth: grady, or we'll be coming back to you with the breaking news. thank you so much. let's get expert if reaction from former federal prosecutors. to you, francie, what do you make of this breaking news coming in? >> well, of course, i want to see the indictment. i have no real idea what's in it. there's a lot of peculation. but to me, liz, the interesting thing the right now is the timing of it. i can't help but notice that this is the day after devon archer testified to some pretty serious pieces of information and evidence that certainly suggest there's a biden corruption and bribery scandal that should be brewing, and the bigger scandal is the lack of curiosity by doj and fbi into that information. but i can't help wondering, why today? why is it that jack smith is indicting today, less than 24
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hours after devon archer testified? it seems a little convenient timing to me. elizabeth: owe, to what francie just with said, katie, trump is saying why didn't they do this two and a half years ago? >> oh, he makes a good point, and i'll be curious to see what additional evidence jack smith has collected in the meantime because these allegations, obviously, were known about very many years ago. and i think a big thing that i've noticed with this case is that there's a lot of focus on the fact what may have happened, but there's not a discussion about the legality of this, the constitution constitutionality of going after a president for acts he committed in office. i think that would be an issue brought up front but his defense team to get this case dismissed outright. elizabeth: is so what francie just said -- excuse me, what katie just said about the constitutionality of that, francie. can you take that on? >> i think katie's got a great point, and, in fact, it really applies to most of these cases
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and issues that trump is charged with. you've got the presidential records act, his statements while in office, you have the first amendment. there are all sorts of legal issues. you've got, in the florida case you've got real issues with that search warrant when it was executed, at the time it was executed on mar-a-lago. i said i thought it was constitutionally defective and overbroad, and you have to wonder whether or not you've got attorney-client privilege problems. because i think in that mar-a-lago case, they're relying heavily on statements given to the grand jury by trump's lawyer who was ordered by the judge to pierce the privilege and testify against donald trump. so i think there are all sorts of constitutional issues this all these cases. and that is why prosecutors are supposed to have discretion, liz. we're supposed to be thoughtful before we bring charges. and what it looks like to me here is that every prosecutor that's bringing these charges or considering charges against trump is just rushing
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willy-nilly in not because of any real thoughtful consideration. elizabeth: yeah. to, you know, katie, to what francie just said. and byron york has pointed this out. by the gop debates, trump could have four indictments. it's the manhattan d.a. case, the classified docs case, january 6th and also georgia. but, you know, new york times-sienna poll, he -- new york times is reporting trump and is now neck and neck with biden in the polling. >> well, certainly looks like election interference. and as francie was saying, these cases have significant legal issues. i'm a criminal defense attorney, i'm to a former prosecutor, this is not a case where you have somebody dead to rights. the strongest case they probably have against him allegation wise deals with obstruction the of justice, destruction of evidence after he was out of office, and that's assuming they even have proof of that that's solid. but everything else is really a huge stretch legally speaking, and it looks very clearly politically motivated. these are not strong criminal
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cases against anybody, let alone against a former president who, by the way, was impeached for conduct that was relating to this anticipated indictment which is the remedy that the constitution calls for. and because the outcome wasn't what was desire ised by some, now here we are pursuing a prosecution that i truly believe is constitutionally impermissibling. elizabeth: you know, francie, sit tight. katie, how would you punch holes in this case? >> well, in terms of the january 6th case can, we are on a slippery slope if we start to charge presidents for acts or statements committed while in office. if you look at the allegation or really the anticipated charges in that case, they all have to do with statements that donald trump made. so we have first amendment issues all over the place. we're talking about conversations that he had with counsel, maybe even advice he received the from counsel. that's another issue altogether. and then, of course, what i've mentioned multiple times here, the idea that the remedy for directing criminal misconduct of a president for acts committed while they were in office is
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impeachment which, obviously, was pursued and failed. so i don't know how they get past a lot of these issues. really just out of the gate on that case in particular. elizabeth: francie, talk about what katie just said. >> yeah, i agree with katie completely. i think you have serious constitutional issues. but also you have a real first amendment problem here which katie talk talked about. if you're going to indict him for some sort of civil rights case where he's complaining the election was unfair and is you only have two months in order to file lawsuits and try to get the election results overturned and it looks to me like trump really believed that the election was not fair, that there was some kind of interference, that there may have been -- [inaudible] we know the rules were changed in the muddle of the election before anyone went to the ballot. so i think that trump add had a good point. so the question is where's the dividing line between a civil rights violation and a potentially mistaken claim of
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election interference or election henan gans -- shenanigans? katie's point is very well taken that that that impeachment is a remedy in the constitution for presidential misconduct in office, and they look like they're pursuing him out of office. elizabeth: katie, francie, thanks for your insight. let's bring in former assistant fbi director chris swecker. chris, this comes on the heels of house oversight chair james comer, you know, basically saying -- and we also have another gentleman that's going to join us in just a second. you know, can you talk to us about this indictment coming on the heels of house oversight chair james comer basically saying he did talk to kevin mccarthy, and kevin measure cac -- mccarthy talked to the gop conference about potentially impeaching president biden over what is going on and the corruption scandal there? if you ran the fbi criminal acquisition. -- tuition. how is this looking finish division. how is this looking for biden here involving devon archer in.
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>> yeah. i think that investigation is reaching critical mass from the standpoint of tying joe biden in to this what i call stream of services, services going in one direction, benefits, money, a meeting, firing a prosecutor going in the other direction, and and they core respond in time so there's no direct quid pro quo. that's what an aggressive prosecution theory, an aggressive investigation looks like, but it wouldn't -- that's not what they're doing. if we had, possibly if we had the special counsel on this, we might see a grand jury, we might see search warrants, we might see a more scorched earth investigation like we had with donald crump -- donald trump, but we don't see that. people from across all walks of life that i talk to, all professions ors they're questioning this, they question the timing of all of these indictments, superseding indictments. just seems like the justice system is upside down right now. elizabeth: yeah, i mean, senator
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chuck grassley released fbi informant document alleging joe and hunter biden took bribes. we've got that, we've got all this running against president biden's claims he never knew and basically systematically lying to the american people that he didn't know what punter -- hunter was doing, you know, with selling his government job, selling influence. i mean, the story here this: a lot of people in d.c. talk about this, chris, that biden was a negative net worth before he became vice president. he basically was told by obama you're not going to be the 2016 nominee, hillary clinton is. and then put hunter on the stick to do foreign lobbying, breaking laws in order so the bidens could buy big houses. we're talking, you know, mansions in delaware, beachfront houses, a corvette. so that's the look for biden here. is he sitting there thinking, this is great, what jack smith is doing to trump? >> oh, sure. i mean, he, again, that's what a
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real, thorough, scorched earth investigation looks like. and, you know, what we're seeing is basically the fbi took a dive, doj manipulated things, and so we have nothing on the other side, you know, on the hunter biden side of things even though the biden family is coming out looking very much like a criminal interprize. i mean, you have all the money moving, all the shell corporations, the meetings, the phone conversation where mr. big ducks in just long enough to verify that hunter e has him in the wings ready to do whatever they need for him to do. that is exactly how a criminal enterprise works, and kevin mccarthy said this earlier with. this actually, if the name wasn't biden, it was gotti or some other, you know, criminal name or even just trump, this would be a rico case against the bidens. it has every element of a racketeering caseful and the guy at the top, yeah, he doesn't jump down and give direct orders to the lower level minions, but
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he's up there, and he's issuing those orders with deniability, plausible deniability. you know, we've seen this before. all you have to do is look through, you know, all of the rico indictments over the last 20 years. elizabeth: how is this a racketeering cases in how would you bring that? >> well, you have to have an organization in fact. doesn't have to be a brand name organization even though in this case joe biden is the brand. you have to have two felony criminal violations over the course of 10 years, and that's pretty much it. that's a little oversimplyification, but they have to be criminal federal felonies, they have to be in furtherance of the business of the organization which is the illegal business, some type of illegal business. in this case it can be wire fraud, it can be fara, it can be money laundering, it can be, you know, bribery which i just talked about honest services. all you really need is two violations over the course of 10 years, and you have to have
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organization. you can prove the organization by all their actions. elizabeth: it's what biden insider devon archer testified to that. burisma executives didn't like the prosecutor investigating burisma officials for corruption, tells hunter biden get on the phone. hunter calls d.c. we don't know who he called in d.c., right? but that certainly isn't a good look. and this is devon can archer testifying about 20 different times that joe biden called in on speakerphone to hunter biden and his business associates who happen to be oligarchs in places like china and ukraine. and the point is, final word, chris, that's only what devon archer's talking about. we don't know what else went on with joe and hunter biden. >> yeah. if you cross-check against all of these witnesses and the laptop and the 1023 and the money movement and, you know, all of this evidence corroborated, you know, corroborates the next piece of evidence, if you will. even though you may have shaky
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witnesses here and there, all the information matches up. and that spells a prosecution, in my book. and, you know, i'm not taking this lightly. i'm not trying to just throw stuff up there to see if it sticks. i see real violations here. elizabeth: okay. chris swecker, thank you so much. let's bring in brian with clay pool, former defense attorney. what do you think of the actions today that former president trump says he's expected to be indicted over the election interference and january 6th? your analysis here? >> yeah hey, liz, great to be with you. i think this is going to backfire for democrats. i think it's a colossal mistake for smith to do another indictment against president trump. i think at election time people are going to see two tiers, two avenues of justice. one is complete favoritism. the doj arguably jumping in bed with hunter biden and president biden, not doing adequate investigations, not checking the laptop when an expert came in and said it hadn't been tampered
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with, not executing a search warrant on biden's home, not considering that whatsapp text that hunter biden sent to a cefc, that chinese corrupt company telling that cefc executive, hey, i guess my father's sitting next to me. unless you do what you're supposed to, there's going to be repercussions, and $5 million gets sent 5 days later. none of that's being investigated. people are going to look at that and then look at the other track which is let's find four indictments and try to get one to tick. and that's not how the justice system works, liz. prosecutors are supposed to be advancing cases that they believe they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a courtroom. and i don't think any of the -- there's another indictment, i think they're going to have a hard time on any of these four indictments if there's another one of proving this case beyond a reasonable doubt. and that's a travesty of justice. elizabeth: let's get back to
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francey hakes. what brian claypool was just talking about the corruption of the justice system should terrify americans, that this plea deal that, for hunter biden that the doj allowed which would give him blanket immunity preemptively for future felonies, that's one thing. people's hair should be on fire about that, that the doj obstructed can and blockaded the investigation into hunter biden according to irs whistleblowers, blocked details about the hunter biden laptop before the 2020 election claiming it was russian disinformation and also gop officials accused the doj officials in manhattan trying to arrest devon archer before he was about to testify, francie. put this all together. >> yeah, i think that's a great way to put it. americans' hair should be on fire about what is going on at the department of justice. if you just look at what happened in the courtroom last week, liz, the department of justice sat and told the court that hunter biden failed to pay
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taxes on a million dollars he got from a chinese man that hunter biden himself then said was legal fees but not as counsel. in other words, he wasn't acting as counsel, somebody else was. but nobody followed up. what is he talking about, legal fees in and they said that with a straight the face because, of course, there was not a million dollars for legal fees. and you have devon archer, liz, who was convicted in 2018, just one year before hunter biden's laptop fell into the fbi's possession, and doj normally would have put these two things together. you've got the partner of hunter biden, you've got hunter biden's laptop, why didn't the department of justice go to the fbi and say go to e devon archer. let's see if he wants to make a deal. now he's been convicted, maybe we can lower his sentence -- elizabeth: you're talking five years ago. they're saying they should have poached devon archer five years ago, right? >> that's exactly right. who's the big guy? where's this money coming from? and most importantly, liz, that
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no one's talking about, what are the bidens doing for these millions and millions of dollars? i hope the committee asked devon archer about it. i'm wonder why the fbi and the department of justice haven't. and is in that really concerns me, and americans should be frightened of a doj that is pursuing trump so hard on what looks like constitutionally-infirm grounds and just looking the other way, whistling down the street past all the apparent violations by the biden family. elizabeth: let's bring katie back. what francie just said. katie, come back in here because you're a former federal prosecutor. there's news coming in that, you know, the transcript of the devon archer interview will likely be released next week. there's reports that we're tracking that, excuse me, that house lawmakers are following and looking for bank accounts the biden family allegedly held seas to take -- overseas to take in money. there's also reports that the biden family was using heavily
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encryptedded apps to communicate as well. and if this was all legit, if everything was so aboveboard, why were they doing that? why were they burying the cash flows from overseas in multiple shell companies, at least 20 of them? was it to avoid, you know, having to, you know, register as foreign lobbyists? >> well, these are all questions that could be answered very easily. this is like investigations 101 here. and i think it's pretty obvious that as the whittle blowers testified, they were shut down -- whistleblowers testified, they were shut down in these efforts. these would have been things to get easy answers to presumably, talking to relevant witnesses, tracing money, things that could have been done five plus years ago, absolutely. and the fact of the matter is that those whistleblowers have a lot of credibility, and they have no skin in the game, they didn't need to do this, and they were absolutely shut down. elizabeth: yeah. so what katie just said. brian they pool, come back in. brian, what katie just said is.
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you remember the irs whistleblowers' hearing, the democrats kept bringing up trump. they could not attack their credibility. >> yeah, liz, how about this one? [laughter] there's a foreign agents registration act that would require hunter biden to register with the doj because he's doing business with a foreign company, and he should have been supplying information to the doj about what his dealings are, what financial compensation he's getting. so he's arguably broken that law. and and as part of this a pathetic plea deal, right, that they put together, part of that plea deal, liz, the doj was in bed with biden's lawyers saying we're not going to investigate any further, we're not going to charge you with any further crimes. there's the another arguable crime right there, a violation of the foreign agents registration act, but more important than that, the doj is aiding and abetting a
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constitutional violation like the trial judge said. because i've been practicing over 25 the years. you cannot put in a plea deal that federal investigators will not do their job, right? and will promise you, you will not be prosecuted. if the facts lead to a crime, it's the doj's job to indict. and this is just a complete farce -- elizabeth: brian, stay on that. so what you just said. if the judge theoretically followed through on that plea deal, the judge is saying she herself would be violating the constitution. >> absolutely. in fact, she brought it up. and she questioned hunter biden. she asked him to do what the doj's job was. she asked hunter biden, who are you working for? he had to say, burisma. who else are you working for overseas? cefc, takei news company. that's not her job. -- that chinese company. she's doing the doj's job
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because hunter biden violated a federal law. now all that information should have been provided. elizabeth: okay. >> so i, look, this is going to backfire. elizabeth: brian, katie, or francie, sit tight. i want to get back to chris swecker. chris, you ran the criminal division over at the fbi. i want to talk about these heavy-duty charges against joe biden, hunter biden alleging bribery. what do you -- what would you need to establish a fact pattern to nail down a case of bribery here? >> yeah. again, it's a -- the prosecution theory is called stream of service is thes. in the absence of this direct quid pro quo of joe biden saying i'll do this if you do this, it's the minions set up, you know, set up a stream of services. you get a benefit when you pay something of value. and in this case, you know, the booming one, in my opinion, is the firing of the prosecutor. they don't say --
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elizabeth: in ukraine. >> yeah. in ukraine, exactly. i'm sorry. and if that matches up in time to the $5-10 million that was paid out, then it comes very, very close to a bribery case. i think what everybody gets hung up on is, well, joe biden didn't do anything expression. -- express. but if hunter says, hey, look, i can get my dad on the phone here and and he'll say hello to you and that'll just show you my bona fides, and that'll show you he can do, i can pull off what i say i can pull off, that matches up in time, you're very close. the only thing that's missing here ising you know, we shouldn't have congress, we shouldn't have to have congress investigate this case. the fbi should have been throwing people in front of the grand jury, devon archer, bobulinski, you know, all the players from the ukraine, other evidence of travel, e-mails and all of that i stuff that they've done with the trump
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investigation. they're done none of that here -- they've done none of that here. but sitting in front of us now because congress has exposed it, and that's a shame on the fbi. they should have exposed it. they should have done the grand jury work, they should have done the hard, gumshoe work that it takes to build a case. the bribery case would be, again, that stream of services theory of all these benefits going in one direction, something of value going in the other direction, and it matches up in time. so there's -- you can't tie, you know, the express statement that i will do this for that, but it's implied through all of those actions that take place and the money that goes in the other direction. elizabeth: chris, i want to ask you this, if there was a bribery case, if the fbi a had done its job and done everything that you just said, would this fact pattern have entered into the case? i want to read it to you, that hunter biden paid his father's bills, the house repairs and monthly expenses, hunter biden said he paid everything for this
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entire family for 30 years, other documents on the laptop suggests a commingling of joe biden's bank accounts with hunter biden, that hunter texted his assistant in april 2018 that he's been, quote, shut out of one of his wells fargo bank accounts because of, quote, too many profile changes. let's bring back in brian claypool. you just hear what i'm saying right here, brian, that hunter biden was actually -- it looks like they were commingling bank accounts, joe and hunter biden. hunter was paying for his father's expenses. at one point hunter texted his assistant in april 2018. there were so many profile changes, i've been shut out of this account. my dad has been using most lines on in this wells fargo bank account which i, through the gracious offerings of erica, have paid for the last 11 years. that is hunter paying for joe biden's expenses. so how -- given what chris swecker was just saying, that the fbi did not do the gumshoe work to throw, as you point out to, witnesses in front of a
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grand jury about what was going on with hunter and joe biden and allegations of bribery, how would that fact pattern that i just mentioned fit in into that case? >> yeah, that's a great piece of evidence if they can prove that. that proves aiding and abetting. that proves that president biden was complicit with his son hunter. and how -- liz, how many people across this country really, truly believe after your comment, other commentators, all the evidence we're seeing and all the lack of investigation we're seeing, how many people across this country really believe that president biden doesn't have any idea what his son's doing with burisma, with cefc? and another fact we ought to throw in there too is did you know a few years ago in georgetown in washington, d.c., hunter biden had his dad's name on a lease e for an office space and an executive from cefc, remember that chinese corrupt energy company, that's another -- elizabeth: yeah. >> these are facts that if you
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put together in a conglomeration, that can prove vicariously that president biden, you can prove that somebody is part of a criminal scheme. elizabeth: got it. >> through sir circumstantial evidence. >> brian, we've got to get to grady trimble. he's got some news in d.c. >> reporter: so our foxnews.com colleagues are reporting that president trump was indicted tuesday on charges stemming from special counsel jack smith's investigation into the storming of the capitol on january 6th. that is according to fox news digital. as they're reporting, this is do second federal -- the second federal indictment the former president faces out of smith's investigation. and i want to skip ahead in this article, and forgive me, because i'm basically reading it for the first time with you on air. but they have a statement from the president's campaign, and a spokesperson from the campaign is the one who con formed -- confirmed9 that the former president has once again been indicted.
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here's the at the same time. this is nothing more than the latest corrupt chapter in the continued pathetic attempt by the biden crime family and they're weaponized department of justice to interfere with the 2024 presidential election in which president trump is the undisputed front-runner and leading by substantial margins. the statement goes on to say, but why did they wait two to and a half years to bring these fake charges, right in the middle of president trump's winning campaign for 2024? why was it announced the day after the big, crooked joe biden scandal broke out from thing halls of congress? the answer, it goes on on to say, is election interference. so, again, we haven't seen the indictment itself, this is fox news digital reporting and citing a campaign spokesperson for former president trump, liz. elizabeth: grady trimble, thank you so much. let's get to byron york for his reaction on today's breaking events. what do you think of the news coming this, that trump has been indicted? >> not a surprise. actually, i'm surprised it
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didn't happen a few days earlier because in the first federal indictment of the president over the classified documents case, he received a target letter and then was indicted just within a very few days. now it's it's been a bigger gap, but here it is. you know, one thing i would say is there are now three indictments of former president trump, the manhattan indictment, the classified documents indictment and now this one which is thought to involve january 6th and the 2020 election. two of them, two of the three stem from elections. remember, the manhattan indictment is about things that went on in the 2016 election. and this one's about president trump's reactions to the 2020 election. we have already seen trump's supporters, republicans, dismissing these indictments as politically motivated, and you just heard president trump is saying that very thing about this new indictment. and since they do actually them
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from elections, i think you'll see more republicans dismissing this indictment as politically motivated. elizabeth: got it. brian, sit tight, i want to get back to katie. katie, your point has been that that, you know, the proper venue for this is impeachment, and that already occurred. the indictment is basically saying that he, you know, made statements, that trump made statements on january 6th, inducing the riot at the capitol, that he basically said you should fight like hell. he did say do it peacefully. is this enough to hang, you know, charges against trump? >> that is a very weak case in terms of inciting any sort of violence under supreme court precedent. any sort of ambiguity in the direction or the imminence of the direction of violence and especially things like saying go home peacefully, etc., is going to pose a huge problem to prove any elements of that beyond a reasonable doubt. and and that's not even getting
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into the legal issues of going after a sitting president for comments and statements that he made which, first of all, are first amendment-protected potentially and, secondly, may not be the basis of any prosecution if the supreme court weighses in and says that impeachment is the sole and only remedy for a president that's accused of criminal acts. elizabeth: okay, francie hicks -- francey hakes, come back in. trump has been indicted over election interference and what happened on january 6th. how do you think the american people are going to react to this? >> well, i mean, it seems that at least the republican side of the aisle just supports president trump the more indictments the doj throws at him. i can't say at this point that i blame them. i'm hearing the indictment is urn seal which makes the announcement -- under seal which makes the announcement by the special counsel's office even more curious. i don't really understand -- generally speaking, the way it happens is if you get an indictment and and it's under seal, you don't talk about it because there's a reason it's under seal. in other words, there's some evidence out there or the
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possibility one of the defendants might flee the country. there are reasons why you keep an indictment. secret. hence, under seal. but here they've announced it and yet kept it under seal which makes my earlier comment about the timing of it in order to combat the bad headline cycle because of the hunter biden-devon archer testimony, i think, even more on the nose. elizabeth: why did it take two and a half years over manager that's already been known -- something that's already been known and there's been multiple investigations into it? >> well, there's no reason it should have taken that long. it was actually elatively simple. unlike the potential biden corruption scandal which has lots of bank records and phone records and many possible defendants and witnesses, people overseas, this is all a domestic investigation that should have been over right after trump left office. there's no reason why not. his comments were public. all of his statements about claiming the election was stolen from him were all public. the telephone call9 with the
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georgia secretary of state right here in atlanta with where i sit all were public. so there's no reason for it to have dragged out this long, and you have to kind of wonder whether president trump has a point that that they held these things until they thought they would do maximum political damage while he's in the middle of a primary. elizabeth: francie, so there would be four indictments by the gop debates as byron york has pointed out. the manhattan d.a. case, we talked about that, classified documents case, january 6th and, as you point out, georgia. stack them up. which one is the strongest? which are the weakest? what do you think? >> well, it looks to me like there could be some questions of obstruction in the classified documents case. you've got lots of lawyers that went to harvard and yale who are saying things like, you know, you can't to instruct if the investigation itself is illegal, so that might be a good point. i think the case here in georgia they're going to bring is going to have to do with trying to throw an election by asking the
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secretary of state to do something illegal. now, i have to say factually speaking i listened to that tone call. and when taken in context, that is not at all what president trump is asking, but it seems to me the d.a. is taking him out of context. still, i think that is possibly the strongest case. i don't see really as many constitutional issues. the conduct that took place in the. courtrooms after the election was over and after president biden was president might apply. but again back to katie's point, it's a really good one. the constitution says the only remedy for a sitting president committing crimes is impeachment, and most of that conduct by president trump was done while he was still the sitting president. elizabeth: thank you, katie -- excuse me, francey. byron york, i want to bring you back in. you know, you stack this up and look at what's going on in the polls, byron york, new york times says and the poll with sienna college that biden and trump are neck and neck 43-43.
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likely too early, of course, to call this race at all for 2024. but what do you make of the fact that many out there, many voters out there are saying, you know, is this indictment deluge? are they just saying, you know, this is, you know, an overload and they're not -- and does it risk the credibility of the doj to keep doing these indictments against trump? >> it very well could. if you look back over the real clear politics average of polls over the last year, last summer president trump was leading ron desantis by about 30 points. obviously, it's very early, but about 30 points. and then in november after ron desantis won a really smashing re-election victory in florida, he went up, trump came down, the lead are was cut in half to about 15 points. and then immediately after the manhattan indictment, lead goes back to 30 points. and i've talked to a number of republican voters, and this is
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the way they feel. they feel that trump was unfairly targeted by law enforcement, by the intelligence agencies, by the deep state, if you will, from even before he became president. are from certainly during the 2016 campaign. and they feel that this is just a continuation of that unfair targeting. they will talk about the russia, russia, russia hoax which are the words that president trump uses to describe that, and they feel that these indictments are just one more example of unfair treatment of donald trump. so then they discount those. elizabeth: so your take on it seems critics are saying that the media has a lot of interest in a trump indictment but limited interest in what's going on with hunter and joe biden. >> i think there's -- it's very clear that, at least until yesterday -- [laughter] we did not see very much press interest or establishment press, whatever you want to call it, interest in the hunter biden,
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joe biden story. there were many, many stories dismissing commentaries, dismissing the republican interest in this as entirely politically motivated, based on nothing, completely misbegotten, bound to fail. and yesterday after devon archer comes and speaks and especially after democrats come out and essentially confirm what we thought was going on which is that devon archer testified that hunter biden on a number of occasions, maybe 20, was with his shady foreign business connections maybe hanging out in dubai or in china, pulls out out his cell phone, gets his dad on the phone the, puts it on speakerphone. his father's the vice president of the united states, and they all exchange small talk. therefore, hunter biden showing the access he has to the vice president -- elizabeth: and that's, can and that that's the deliverable. that's the deliverable. >> yep. elizabeth: you know, the media has been reporting on this,
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msnbc had an analyst on saying that, you know, you've got to remember at the time of these, what hunter was doing in selling access and putting a for sale sign on obama's white house, that it was because beau biden had passed away. but are we supposed to believe that joe biden then suddenly randomly got on a phone call with 20 -- 20 the phone calls with hunter biden's business associates including oil and gas oligarchs are from ukraine and china to randomly talk about the weather this in that he basically was just phoning it in and just talking about the weather to them, you know, in fancy restaurants in d.c., paris and dubai, and it's all because of beau biden? >> absolutely, that is not credible. which is why you saw democrats yesterday retreating to fall-back positions saying, okay, maybe president biden did talk to his son's shady foreign business connections, but they didn't talk about any business. it was just small talk.
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they talked about the weather. and in a really fantastic formulation yesterday, a democratic source told "the times" hunter biden did not sell access to his father, the vice president. he sold the illusion of access to his father, the vice president. therefore, there was no real access being sold here. hunter was really just tricking his foreign connections. so democrats are in a bit of disarray now. it'll all be better when we get an actual transcript of devon archer's testimony. but clearly, this is just another milestone that republicans see, a milestone in their drive to uncover actual connections, business connections, money connections between joe biden and hunter biden's business. elizabeth: okay, got it. sit tight, byron york. let's bring in sam dewey, former congressional investigator, for his reaction. trump has been informed he has
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been indicted, sam. your reaction. apparently, this indictment is still under seal. why? >> it's the normal course when an indictment is returned, for it to be under seal for a brief period of time. logistics are scheduled and then it'll be unsealed at the initial appearance. so that aspect isn't unusual. which is, i think, a little unusual is doj normally goes out of its way to avoid political appearances in timing. witness, not investigating anything actively on hunter biden for many months around the 2020 election. even if thissing was -- timing was a coincidence, and i have serious or doubts there there, you'd think they could wait til thursday. the grand jury's meeting til thursday. at least wait until 'tis after this devon archer bombshell. it has all the markings of something that's contrived to spin the news cycle, and i think that says volumes about what's going on at the -- elizabeth: reportedly, former
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president trump will appear in federal court on thursday. what will you be looking for in this indictment, sam? >> well, i'd be very puzzle to see the legal theory because this is a sitting president acting within his authority. there clearly was no incitement. that issue was tried in the senate. he was acquitted in the senate on that, so i'm scratching my head what the heck is the theory that they're charging on? and as i'm doing that, i'm thinking about two things. one, if you're charging on this novel of a theory even as a special counsel, you would have consulted with the office of legal counsel and probably the attorney general, so don't think for a moment that merrick garland has not sign off on a new novel and crazy theory. and the second thing is, wait, jack smith has a list ally of charging people -- history of charging people on crazy theories, losing 8-0 in the supreme court which is pretty hard to do. you're kind of wondering, well,
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wait a second, indicting a former president is a massively destabilizing move. shouldn't we do that on an open and cut charge -- open and shut charge, bribery rather than some theory that probably won't stand up on appeal? that just doesn't seem appropriate, a good way to run a railroad or indicative of anything approaching good faith on the part of jack smith or the k department. elizabeth: sam dewey, thank you so much. just sit tight for a second. let's e get back to grady trimble with more news. grady -- >> reporter: -- over this indictment, liz, and there are four counts in total, three conspiracy and one obstruction. and it's 45 pages long, so bear with us as we go over it and try to get more information to you. but i want to read some of the counts in this indictment. the first is conspiracy to defraud the united states by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit to obstruct the nation's process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of
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the presidential election. the second, a conspiracy to impede the january 6th congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified. and, third, a pierce against the right to vote and to have that vote counted. the indictment also alleges that former president trump attempted to and and did corruptly obstruct and impede the certification of the electoral vote. as you mentioned, liz, trump has been summoned to appear at 4 p.m. on august 3rd at the courthouse here in washington d.c. we are reading over this document, but with i can tell you that from what i've read so far, it's 45 pages as i mentioned, it goes through line by line sort of the events following the 2020 election and former president trump's allegationses about fraud related to the election, and it highlights specific states that were closely contested with
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president joe biden as, you know, wisconsin as an example, pennsylvania and a couple of others. going to go back to the document and see if i can glean a few more pieces of information for you, but four counts, three conspiracy, one obstruction, liz. elizabeth: we'll fix that lower third. it is three conspiracy counts and one obstruction, right, grady? >> reporter: yes, correct. elizabeth: thank you so much. let's get back to sam awe dewey for his reaction. four counts here, sam. your reaction? >> just baffled. i don't understand what the charge is. of you have a right to contest the election. as a sitting president, you have the right to exercise the power of the united states in opposition the that which you think is corrupt. which could align with your electoral interests -- elizabeth: but this was, you're saying -- he's saying this that basically, the president, the former president, stepped in to impede the electoral college vote count. >> i just, i -- based on what is
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publicly known, i just don't see how that possibly is the case. he didn't. all he did was file legal challenges, exercise the power of his office, and if i don't know if this has to do with the quote-unquote electors. guess what? an alternate sate of electors is how you preserve a legal challenge. go back to the election of 1960. hawaii comes in for nixon. there's a legal challenge. lawyers go, what do do you do? the kennedy campaign appoints alternate if electors, wins the legal challenge. couple of days before congress meets, those electors' votes are counted. that's what happened in the '76 controversy. appoint alternate electors. there's nothing fraudulent about that. that's a lawyer preserving claim. i don't know how you make a charge out of this. and, again, i come back to he was entitled to participate in that process not only as a candidate who can file legal challenges, submit arguments, but as the president.
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i just don't know how you can possibly say the president of the united states, who has the executive power which entitles him to speak with the executive power on issues such as the integrity of the election as much probably, you know, maybe more than congress could have somehow obstructed congress for doing it. it's almost equivalent, and i'm grossly simplifying here, to say, well, vetoing that bill was in his personal interests in addition to being consistent with a policy, therefore, the veto was corrupt. you know, if that was the standard, pretty much every president has violated it. i just don't see how you can pull these apart. and, again, if you're going to destabilize and charge a former president, it should be a legal theory. of course you can't take
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kickbacks from a foreign company to change u.s. foil. policy. no one's going to argue whether or not that's illegal. he was the sitting president. he can do vast power to influence policy. elizabeth: sam -- >> how is that -- elizabeth: yeah, finish your thought. >> how is that corrupt? it almost hearkens back to the first impeachment, the notion of if he does anything that we think could be for permissible notice or could possibly serve his interest, it's somehow corrupt. that's just not the law. elizabeth: so take this on. trump is saying why did the special counsel wait two and a half years to file this indictment? you know, there's been multiple probes. whereas we had chris swecker on and brian claypool and francey hakes talking about how devon harsher -- devon archer was
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basically charged in 2018. the fbi has had the hunter biden laptop dating back to that time. why wasn't a grand jury impaneled to take on these bribery allegations and allegations of biden family corruption at that time with multiple witnesses? that's five years ago. that did not happen. they waited two and a half years now to indict trump over election interference. >> yeah, i don't understand why the case waited. the thing that makes most sense to me is jack smith gets a patina of independence from the department of justice. but, you know, if you hand pick your man, you pretty much know how it's going to play out. so that sort of patina is pretty much removed. and it's almost laughable. special counsel's supposed to be independent, supposed to remove the political question. so you put in someone who's, by all accounts, the democratic partisan and has a history of --
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losing all the time on appeal, and you kind of scratch your head, you know? it would make sense to appoint the special counsel for biden, robert hur, a moderate, respected republican. ic see him, okay. we're going to put him in for trump. rook who nixon appointed. they were both democrats. the the first special counsel who he fired that probably led to his downfall was archibald cox, the former solicitor general. it's just, it is clearly premeditated. i think having that -- elizabeth: okay. >> -- fictitious patina of independence is probably what drove it. elizabeth: sam, thank you so much. we're going to now turn to grover norquist the for his reaction to former president trump charged in the special counsel's 2020 election interference probe. grover, your reaction? >> well, the timing coming the day after biden being exposed on a number of levels seems awfully
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political. the other issue is biden does not want this election and the people around biden do not want this election to be on his economic policies, his inflation, his economic lack of strength in terms of the economy, his cutting deals with the europeans to allow europe -- [inaudible] france and brussels to set e american minimum taxes on american businesses so they can compete better with us. all of those issues as you've seen from "the new york times"es poll make biden -- [audio difficulty] not a very strong candidate. they really need to have this be about something other than biden's failures as the manager of the american economy. and worse, the tax increases that he hasn't been able to pass. elizabeth: you know, we we've got news coming in, the indictment charges only trump.
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let's now turn to, i think we can get katie and francey in. you know, the indictment, francey, references six co-conspirators but, you know, it's possible9 that the special counsel will seek to large or indict some of them in the weeks ahead. so it just names six anonymous co-conspirators but charges only trump. what do you make of this? >> well, generally the department of justice uses unindicted co-conspirators who are never going to be chargeed because the doj thinks they just don't have the evidence sufficient. and it really doesn't make a lot of sense because you have to be in a conspiracy with someone. [laughter] you can't have a conspiracy all by with yourself. so this indictment makes no sense from that standpoint. but for another really big reason, liz, i find this indictment literal literally shocking that the special counsel has been pursuing this for two years and spent i don't know how many millions of our tax dollars, and the conspiracy term listed from the election to the last day of president
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trump's term, january of 2021. so all this occurred, they allege, this conspiracy if alleged is only during the term when the president was still in office. they simply cannot if bring criminal charges for that conduct. impeachment is the only remedy allowed in the constitution. this is going to be slapped down so fast, it is going to make everybody's head spin, and it makes no sense. elizabeth: katie, what do you think of of the six unnamed co-conspirators named -- basically there's a line of six anonymous co-conspirators in this indictment brought against trump? what do you think, katie? >> well, i think that we still probably anticipate indictments for some of no the attorneys, and so i wouldn't be surprised to see that. but as francey was saying, the doj will move forward on the bigger person in the scheme or so as they see it. but, again, i agree with francee and with sam dewey completely, that this is are ridiculous to
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move forward on a sitting president for comments and actions he took to contest or look into an election which he was well within his right to do. and ultimately at the end of the day, president trump left office as scheduled at the time needed. so he didn't attempt to stay -- [audio difficulty] elizabeth: okay, we're having trouble with katie's sound. katie sit tight for a second while we pix your -- fix your sound. let's bring in columnist bill mcgurn with "the wall street journal". trump indicted on election interference on january 6th. ful bill mcgurn, what's your reaction in. >> i haven't read the charges closely, but they do seem glimpsier. i think -- him fromsier. i think the whole problem is i think as a rule if you're going to indict a president or ex-president, it should be so overwhelming and compelling that
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even people in his own party agree. instead, this is just piling on, it's going to inflame republicans, probably build trump's support. and next year it looks like we're going to have a battle between an impeached president and an indicted president. it's really debase our legal tools. elizabeth: bill, you know, so this comes, you know, two and a half years after the fact, and and it comes right as den archer, biden insider, testifying to house oversight about president biden being on 20 phone calls and dinners with hunter biden's business associates. and that's just devon archer saying that. we don't know what else has gone on, bill. >> right. it was very damning. i don't know what they expect. there's going to be no joe biden tape of him saying, right, put that $5 million from burisma in
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my citibank account. i mean, he's not a dummy. the wayst it's done, biden -- hunter biden is with his associations -- associates, and he says i can deliver my father. then the father shows up or is on the call, has niceties. you know, dana perino point out, you know, from our white house says -- days if anything like that had happened to a cabinet member or the president, i think you would say, okay, never again. but to happen 20 times, he knew what was going on. and, remember, his original denials were that he knew nothing of his son's visit, never discussed it anyway. if so, he seems to be the only one in the biden family and in washington who didn't. elizabeth: the question is too, is this hitting his polls? because this is normalizing systematically lying to the american people, critics say, about what his son was doing and his lengths to what his son was doing. it's normalizing, you know,
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putting a for sale sign on the obama white house, you know? the question is, did biden ever once tell hunter biden and the family to stop selling his influence, stop cashing in on his government job? did he ever once say don't do that? i am the vice president of the united states, i represent america around the world, i set policy. as grover said, instead we have these mealy-mouthed justifications from democrats like dan goldman that, you know, they were talking about the weather. the question is, bill, why was biden on the phone to begin withsome why didn't he just say no? >> he's the product. he's what's for sale. i mean, we're told all sorts of things. we're told that trump was not telling the truth when he accused biden of threatening ukraine with u.s. aid if he didn't fire the prosecutor. but biden himself bragged that he got the prosecutor fired. and the fact is it helped hunter 's business. look, you have to add all the
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things in context, shell companies, the overseas travel. why is it that that hunter's business always seems to be in countries where joe is responsible for like ukraine and romania? he wasn't getting his money from colombia or botswana. it was all places where his father was. and i think, you know, influence peddling is very old in washington. they know what they're doing. they come up with interesting schemes. sometimes they're legal. i mean, the clintons monetized hillary being in office and bill being out with the foundation, and the bidens have done it one better. elizabeth: you know, do you think this is the worst corruption scandal in american history involving a president? >> i don't know enough. i don't like those extreme comparisons. i think it's pretty bad, and what makes it worse, as you say,
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is it comes right after we see the justice department giving hunter a deal that no other citizen would get in the united states for his pleas. can and they see two standards of justice. the piling up of charges on donald trump and the sweetheart deal for hunter e, i mean, it's just glowering. elizabeth: so house oversight chair comer, house judiciary chair jim jordan, ways and means chair smith asking merrick garland, the attorney general, and the justice department to explain that sweet heat hunter biden plea keel where it would immunize him from future felonies including foreign lobbying violations. your take on that. >> which which they said was unprecedented when the judged asked. i think we are owe an explanation. i think the house reare palins do -- republicans have done a good job of ferreting out information so far, and as i understand it, if they move to
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an impeachment inquiry, the reason would be the courts are a lot more deferential the your information requests on the executive branch if it's regarding an impeachment. i think we need to know the story. i don't care who goes to jail. i'm more interested in learning the truth because there's questions not only about what hunter and joe did, but about the investigation into it. elizabeth: well, we are living through u.s. history, and we need bill mcgurn. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you, liz. elizabeth: as well as our power panel, brian claypool, francey hakes, chris swecker, byron york, sam dewey, grover norquist. they did a bang-up job. we will have special counsel smith about to speak in just about 10 seconds. thanks for watching "the evening edit." just take it over, jackie and sean. sean: thank you, e-mac, we appreciate it. ♪ ♪

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