There are just too many crimes. Next time we’ll need to plan a longer BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
We’re not yet beyond the 2022 elections. Votes are still being tallied and races still being called. Only last night, media outlets finally were able to project the GOP would win back a majority in the U.S. House next year, if barely, and that progressive Rep. Karen Bass would be the winner of the Los Angeles Mayoral race over billion real estate developer Rick Caruso. Of course, the fallout from the election will continue for a while. Today, two-time Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — love her or hate her, one of the most effective Speaker’s in history — announced that, while she plans to remain in Congress, she will not seek a leadership role next session. The first women to hold that job said during floor remarks today, that she is passing the torch to a new generation.
Most notably, however — at least when it comes to accountability for the most corrupt man likely to ever hold public office in this nation, much less as President of the United States — actual 2022 midterm voting continues as well, in the December 6th U.S. Senate runoff in Georgia.
That means the Dept. of Justice guidelines barring overt action in politically-related cases during the 60-day window prior to elections is likely still in effect. But even after the GA runoff on December 6th, as our friend Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel recently explained, “Merrick Garland hasn’t done the specific thing you want because DoJ has been busy doing things they have to do first.” In other words, before federal indictments can be brought against Donald Trump, as many (yours truly included) are eager to see, there remains a lot of legal work that must be done in order to ensure that any such indictments result in actual convictions.
Our guest today is DR. ALLISON GILL of the notorious “Mueller, She Wrote” Twitter account and podcast, which tracks the many (seemingly endless) criminal and civil cases and investigations under way against the disgraced former President about as closely as anyone in the country. She agrees that patience remains a virtue in these cases. Depending on the case, as she explains today, we are looking at a matter of weeks to a matter of months before indictments can be brought against Trump. Though she does believe they are coming and that his announcement this week that he is running again in 2024 provides no protection against prosecution in any of these cases.
As we begin to move beyond the midterms, today seemed a good day to touch base with Gill to help us try and reset where things are regarding to the many ongoing criminal and civil probes, indictments and lawsuits still bearing down on Trump. To be honest, we’ve lost track of some of them in recent weeks as we’d moved largely full time to 2022 election coverage.
Those pending cases include (but are not limited to):
- The New York state criminal tax fraud trial currently underway against the Trump Organization and its CFO Allen Weisselberg, as brought by Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg;
- Bragg’s New York state criminal investigation into bank, tax and insurance fraud by Trump himself, as seemingly abandoned earlier this year, but which could be revived following the trial against his company;
- The $250 million New York state civil lawsuit for bank, tax and insurance fraud against Trump, his company, and his three oldest kids, Don Jr., Eric and Ivanka, filed by NY A.G. Letitia James, which Gill sees as extraordinarily damaging to Trump;
- The Georgia Special Grand Jury probe, as brought by Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis, of the Trump-led criminal conspiracy to convince state officials to steal the 2020 Presidential election on his behalf;
- The Dept. of Justice‘s federal probe of thousands of pages of classified documents stolen from the White House by Trump upon leaving office, in apparent violation of the Espionage Act, Presidential Records Act and obstruction of justice;
- The DoJ’s federal probe of the Trump-incited January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and his other many failed attempts to steal the 2020 Presidential election, including via a fake electors plot.
Add to those, Trump’s failure to show up for his deposition this week in response to a lawful subpoena.from the the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. (Trump’s former advisor Steve Bannon was recently sentenced to two months in prison for Contempt of Congress for failing to answer similar subpoenas from the Committee.)
“Don’t forget,” Gill adds today, “his Save America PAC is under federal criminal investigation. His Truth Social [companies] are under FINRA, FEC, and federal criminal investigation. He is facing a lot — a lot — of legal problems. We’ve got the E. Jean Carroll case, the Mary Trump case, the Hillary sanctions, the Michigan sanctions. He’s in a lot of trouble from a lot of things. We’re going to just have to see who drops the hammer first.”
“If we just look at the Watergate timeline,” she posits, regarding the sprawling January 6 investigation, “we won’t see indictments until April 2023. And this is far more complex [than Watergate]. So it’s going to be interesting to see how the timing plays out. Or whether maybe Garland says, ‘Hey, Fani Willis, you take the fraudulent electors stuff, I’ll take the documents stuff.'” That, she explains, would have the advantage of potentially convicting Trump under state law for which he can’t be pardoned by a future President (or even by a Georgia Governor, since they are not granted state pardon power.)
Gill does believe — in fact, she is “very, very certain” — that Trump will be indicted in at least one of the federal cases we discuss today. Tune in to find out which one!
Finally today, Desi Doyen’s got our latest Green News Report, as the COP27 U.N. climate conference in Egypt nears crunch time this weekend; Trump offers well-worn climate lies at his 2024 announcement; and some good energy related news to close out today’s program…
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