In this excerpt from the CAFE Insider podcast, Preet Bharara and Joyce Vance discuss former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’s notice of removal to transfer the criminal case against him in Georgia to federal court and stop the state from proceeding any further in the matter. They also discuss the unique tenets of Georgia’s criminal procedure rules, including the publication of grand jurors’ names in an indictment.
In the full episode, Preet and Joyce discuss:
– Why the timing of Trump’s criminal trials can be decisive;
– The applicability of the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel policy on prosecuting a sitting president; and
– The collapse of Hunter Biden’s plea deal and diversion agreement, and the designation of U.S. Attorney David Weiss as special counsel to continue overseeing the investigation.
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hey folks, Joyce fancier, we continue our coverage of the latest developments in the criminal cases against former president trump and hunter Biden in Georgia, fulton
de funny will assess the judge to set a march twenty twenty four date for trumps criminal trial. Meanwhile, trump is seeking to post,
put the trial. India jays twenty twenty election case until April of twenty twenty six, several of trumps co. Defendants in the georgia case, including his former chief of staff, more.
Let us have filed notices of removal to transfer the cased federal court and stop the state from proceeding
any further in the matter, and it
General merit garland, his designated. U s attorney David Weiss, a special council, as he continues to oversee
the hunter Biden, investigation,
Veronica and I discuss all that and more on the cafe insider podcast today were sharing an excerpt from the episode with listeners of stay tuned. To hear
our full conversation and access all other cafe. Insider content try the membership for just one
dollar. For one month, you can do that at cafe: dot com, slash insider, that's cafe, dot com, flash inside it
we look forward to having you as a part of the insider community. So we spent some time talking about the GA fulton county indictment, all the counts, some of the unindicted co conspirators. So the question of how that's going to unfold is something we should do. We should address yeah. Let me say a more fundamental thing. First, for people who
practice law and actually for people who do practice law. All the states are different and there's a reason why you have to be licensed and admitted to the bar in each individual state you're going to practice.
Because I would certainly fail the georgia bar exam, because everything in georgia- not everything but many things in georgia- are just different from her
things are done in federal practice. There's the name for the episode. Everything in georgia is just different and some things that you intuitively think should be the case everywhere are the case everywhere are just not. I made a mistake and stay tuned podcast a couple of weeks ago, just assuming what you should never do
that, with the federal system in most states and unaware of including the state that I am most familiar with new york,
the governor has the ability, like the president, does on a federal case, but the pinochet case, a governor, has the ability to pardon a defendant. Natural in georgia is a panel set up by appointees from the governor,
and their certain conditions and rules upon which parts must be based.
that's not the only thing is we're going to an end
It may be. One of the first things to talk about is not central to the charges, but to the way these things are going to unfold, as I said, grand jurors,
apparently being threatened and mentioned by name in social media posts. In the first time I saw a report about that over the last few days. We have
be the experience and truly more experience. Grin
irs names are not made public. In fact, the only person who is at least in the southern district of new york, who signs the indictment, is the four person and in all the documents I've seen where they release indictments the grandeur. His name is often, if not always
acted in georgia. What's the rule choice in georgia, the names of grand jurors are released, which gave some internet sleuths the opportunity to come up with what they believed to be the addresses and phone numbers for at least some of the grand jurors and those
made their way to some of the yard. I don't wanna, say conservative media sites because it ended up in some of the dark corners of the intern
where people have engaged in potentially criminal conduct towards others, including doc. Singing
swatting. Not only are the other grandeurs names released or tend to be released as we understand it, it's a requirement
Yes, that an indictment that doesn't contain the names of the grand jurors.
I just the ones by the way who voted, but also the ones who maybe were not present or didn't vote with their names crossed out, but still readable are legible and there are cases in georgia. As I understand it, where the court has said. If the names are not present, the indictment is
active. Would you make them it's a feature of our system and federalism that every state has its own criminal code, its own criminal procedures? Georgia's is very different, and in this case it does favour and in fact it mandates. Public disclosure
of who sits on a grand jury in the interests of transparency,
Firstly, a law like that was not written, contemplating a defendant like donald trump, but this is not the first time agree
jury has indicted a dangerous organization, there's another rico case in georgia in fulton county right now, where
a jury is being struck up a trial jury for a case involving a gang of right
bruce, including the lead defending young thug, where
only one of the defendants in that case has been released on bond because they were deemed to be so dangerous. So this is the practice in georgia and it is something that had to be followed in this case.
Yeah, but the other odd thing about it. So then you think well they're not mean to pick on georgia. I just find it interesting and if they're georgia practice
There's another many excellent ones you should write in me. He enjoys and explain some of this sitting that make the grand jury practice is re transparent so that defence
it can make arguments about irregularities in the grand jury practice, and so part of the reason you have. The insistence on the names being disclosed of the grand jurors is that the
and be some application for some relief or know that it was. It was done in according to regular practice, but then we discover, according to our teams research, but, unlike the case in the federal,
system there's no transcript made of grand jury, proceeding to find that out in a day
is one of the many times today that I think will save georgia. Practice is different. It is odd. You know from a federal perspective, I can
recall, one time where I saw a serious challenge to the propriety of product toil conduct in the grand jury, but in that case the transcript was essential for prosecutors to make clear that they had not miss behaved so surprising to
that this is the law in georgia. It's surprising to me that prosecutors don't want there to be transcripts, made, let alone defendants. Well, I might be missing something, so I apologize when obama making the second series of errors about georgia, the one of the reasons you want a transcript of the grand jury proceedings when you put a witness to the grand jury or cooperating witness into the grand jury. If you do that, for example, and then that witness testified at trial or the case agent or an eye witness to a crime, you want to make sure that there are
Money is not at variance with his own the grand jury and that's that's basic material that usually made available to the defence, so that the debate has an ability to defend against the case right absolutely, I mean that
something that's very critical, and in the absence of that you're relying on hand, written notes and recollection. I remember when we first started talking about georgia. It was confusing because there was this thing called a special grand jury that funny willis had to
convene for purposes of deciding whether or not to make a recommendation that another separate grand jury should file an indictment, so lots to learn lots to learn about
we are all going to school on georgia criminal procedure this year, so here's another development which people are talking about and I think a significant potentially, but maybe not as significant as people say, the first person to make a motion for removal, which sounds like an odd word.
the federal court was marked matters there. What that means is there's a statue we talked about it before
for them in Andy's office case where, in certain circumstances, it will explain- or we explain in a moment if you're, a federal official in your charged and stay court does a federal started by which you can say. I want the case removed, in other words transferred
when the state court to federal court, and you have that right under certain circumstances and remember, if you will, the donald trump and his team try to do that in the manhattan. Da's case and he lost that motion,
in the case remains with the manhattan d in state court. You things can happen in georgia said this is a better
case for removal than manhattan. I'll explain why. But I think it still isn't good enough
is a bright line here between official conduct and non official conduct, and it's only crimes that are committed within the realm of a public officials.
job or within the realm of someone whose working for that public, official and acting under their orders. That's the only sort of situation where you can be a candidate for removal.
That's why in manhattan, where trumps conduct involving stormy daniels and pay off which preceded his election didn't qualify
here. The distinction is a little bit murky here. It's the line between the work of the presidency and the work of the campaign and since president's don't have a
role to play in the counting of votes in states. There is a good arguing,
that everyone who was acting in georgia was acting in a campaign capacity. So removal is not a possibility here. I think that that's where this one ends up to be honest,
the whole thing is a bit circular in you- and I were talking about this over the weekend because by definition for something to be within the scope of your duties, ass be lawful com
right if you're breaking the law, while you're a federal official, that's not within the scope of your duties. Definition only right. So if the conduct is alleged to have been unlawful, the government will argue inappropriately would argue it's not in your official capacity. Here we have an indictment, and so again by definition, every allegation of misconduct is about unlawful activity, and so you would think the government would be able to say almost on it's face. If there's a credible allegation of unlawful conduct, how can it possibly be within the scope of your duties, but there are other cases in the same circumstances where the same definitions apply in the same allegations are made in the cases you get transferred to federal court.
And little bit odd. It is odd, but I think this is what the case law provides. It says that the rule of a judge at this stage isn't to pass on the merit of the federal defense that the defendant wants to assert. That's the requirement here you have to have some sort of defense. Mark meadows is suggesting
that there is a form of immunity for his conduct, while he
acting on behalf of the president, and so the judges are supposed to scream that out just to decide. If that is a colorable one,
the public officials should be entitled to assert, and if so the case goes to federal court,
That is in a weird consideration here, because of the kind of conduct that we're talking about and the context being this effort, steel and election. The more typical case involves a federal law enforcement official who find themselves being prosecuted and stay
court and they say: hey wait a minute. I've got an immunity defence that I want to be able to assert in federal court. You know this state is in essence trying to interfere with the working of the federal government.
if I'm a federal law enforcement agent and I shot someone while executing a search warrant that was part of my official duties. In that case,
decided in federal court. Here, we ve got, for instance, marked meadows sang, while I was down in georgia doing stuff that trump wide made to do whether that was candidate trump or president trump. I think, as is the dispute here obviously, and you can see how the case law that developed in the law enforcement context is really an awkward fit for people in this situation. So here's another peculiarity
It's about georgia, law or some of the case law in georgia that I would not have predicted. So when the first removal motion was made by mark meadows and the question arises well, so if mark meadows wins the transfer motion to federal court, does he just go to federal court and the other eighteen remain in state court? And I would have said yes what he said you have.
Vited up case, and it happens from time to time their times where you might buy for cape a trial or suffer some defended from the trial, even if all of them are taking place in state court and then our cracked, him of researchers and choice of EU point out to me a case that suggests otherwise that if, if even one defended of the nineteen successfully makes a transfer motion to federal court,
everyone goes to federal court. Here I mean I think this is really interesting and not entirely clear for sure. If you have a defendant who has say ten counts in the charges against him
His argument about being a federal official only applies to one of them its clear that in that case, all of the counts would go with him to federal court, and it looks like, under the case law, there's a strong suggestion that the whole case transfers- and we should make clear that
a requirement whether you think something is within the scope of duties or not or you you by this,
The argument I made before or not a number these defendants have no claim and will not be able to make a real motion to remove or to transfer to federal court because they were not federal officials at the time of their conduct. That includes
would you giuliani sidney power and others? It is private citizens, but if you're right
one of these motions wins. Everyone gets shipped over to federal court. Now I have been saying I don't think, there's a huge difference with a couple of exceptions you still, even if you're in federal court, you apply to the extent this makes sense to a layperson. You still use the georgia rico statute. The transfer to federal court doesn't suddenly put the federal rico statute into play. It's a federal judge with federal procedures, federal rules of evidence and practices that are associated with choosing juries in federal court, all that is federal, but as for the substantive law, the federal judge in the case, if there's a removal or a transfer,
applies to georgia rico statute, which we already talked about, that's all correct and that some people have said that the advantage here would be getting a jury that would include a more conservative jury pool,
give my look suggests that that's not the case. A little bit of federal criminal procedure in the northern district of georgia. Juries do not come from the entire district, which is pretty big. It goes from Atlanta north to the tipp of
stayed and include some really conservative parts of the population. Instead, the jury gets drawn from the division that includes atlanta, fulton
tell me it's, I think, six or seven counties to the extent that people think I disagree with this. The jury's
are likely to mirror the way the voting population on votes. This is democratic, leaning, part of
where Joe Biden won in most of these counties, I'm not sure that there is a huge advantage there. Frankly, as we've said before, it's hard to game out juries in any particular case, and you can make guesses about them, but who knows- and I think you can find it
fair and impartial jury pretty much anywhere, even in a high stakes case like this one. But the facts are the facts. The law remains the same and the particular defenses that can be used. Don't really change if you're in state court or federal court. The other thing that's different.
This is not a legal change, but maybe one of these thanks for listenin to hear the full at the third had the cafe dot com slashings
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Transcript generated on 2023-12-18.