 Aloha. Welcome to American Issues Take One. I'm Tim Apichell, your host. And today's show is titled, Trump's ongoing war against law enforcement. And before I get to my guests, as I was thinking about this title, you know, it's a long, long trail of lawsuits and legal actions against the former president of the United States, Donald Trump. And I thought, well, before we can discuss it, we'll have to kind of refresh our memories. What is it that the many engagements he is with law enforcement agencies and our private parties as well? So bear with me here. I'll have to go down the list and it's an extensive list. Number one, investigation of violations of the President's Record Act. Well, that's the most recent one. We know what that's all about. And the conversations about top secret or confidential records at Mar-a-Largo. So we'll see how that all shakes out. Number two, January 6th election interference, the blocking of the business of the United States Congress. Part of that investigation is possible incitement to attack the Capitol. What role was Donald Trump in the incitement of that attack? To defraud the U.S. through overturning election results. That's part of the whole mix. Number three, you may not remember this, but the Georgia criminal investigation of election crimes. Reminded of the old country Western song by Johnny Lee, looking for 11,780 votes and they're on the wrong places. Number four, financial issues, tax and bank fraud investigations. That's from the AG of New York, Letta James, and not to be outdone by that is, although it's quiet, is the Southern District of Manhattan's investigation of tax fraud by Donald Trump. You have to remember that was Alvin Bragg, formerly Cyrus Vance that was in charge of that. Sexual misconduct allegations brought on by Gene Carroll. That's an old one sitting out there, but it hasn't gone away. The lawsuits of police officers that were injured during the January 6th insurrection accusing Trump of inciting a riot that caused these injuries. A lawsuit from Trump's niece, remember, Mary Trump, she fraudulently said Donald Trump or she has stated that fraudulently Donald Trump cut her out of her inheritance and there's a lawsuit out there waiting for him. And last but not least, Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen, said that he was retaliated against Donald Trump and thrown back in jail as a result of his self, his published memoir, throwing Trump under the bus. So there was about nine or 10, just sitting out there. And if you're Donald Trump, he doesn't have any problem going to sleep, but they're out there waiting for him. So without further ado, I would like to introduce my guest. Our special guest today is Chuck Crumpton. We have Jay Fidel, my co-host, and Cynthia Lee Sinclair. Good morning to one and all. Good morning, Tim. Welcome back. Thank you. Hey, Jay, to you, you know, for months, you and I and the gang, we weren't very kind to Merrick Garland. We said he was waiting for Godot. We must have said it 10 or 15 times. Well, as of this week, David, the Department of Justice has issued 40 new subpoenas to a variety of individuals, most of them Trump aides and top aides. Has your opinion changed about the course of direction of the DOJ, and specifically, have you changed your mind about Merrick Garland? Yes, but I'm not totally convinced. I think, you know, that there are things that he's done that we would have wished that he had done before, but we're happy that he did those things, including the subpoenas, and apparently the DOJ investigation. I think probably unbalanced the way I feel about it is that he must have been listening to Think Tech Hawaii, and he ultimately got the right idea. Of course he was. Okay, so now, you know, you got talking heads saying that this rash of subpoenas and requests for subpoenas for documents is basically going to set up the quiet period between right now and the midterm elections. And they'll basically be waiting through all these subpoenas and testimonies and documents during that quiet period. Do you agree with that? And to your opinion, Jay, how significant is this DOJ move? What, with the subpoenas and more active investigation? Is this just checking the boxes, or is this a significant move by DOJ? I think this reveals that they are in fact investigating Trump. Yes, and it encourages me. On the other hand, the 60 day rule does not encourage me. I wish it didn't exist. It's not statute, you know, it's one of those DOJ memoranda, which sometimes is wrong. And it was in play, if you recall, when James Comey, who is really a centerpiece of, in my view, this conversation. So, you know, it's too bad because, you know, if Merrick Garland had started going public earlier, if Joe Biden had been talking about it earlier, we wouldn't be faced with the 60 day rule. And, you know, there are things that will happen in the 60 days that the public should know about. The public should know that their former president is a felon and has violated the law in so many ways. It could be that he gets indicted in the 60 day period. I think the public should know about that. But regrettably, I'm not sure the public will know about that. Alrighty, thanks, Jay. To our special guest, Chuck Crumpton. Chuck, tell me something. You know, it looks like, you know, these subpoenas were very broad based in general in nature. Yet, it seems to be a kind of a focus on Trump's fundraising events that he tried to pull off, not too dissimilar from Bannon's, you know, Bill the Wall charity and PAC. Also, they seem to be targeting the false electors that were assigned to certain states. And last but not least, these subpoenas seem to be going after those who are in charge of the social media accounts for Donald Trump. What's your sense of these subpoenas and whether or not you detect any certain pattern to them, or do you just think they're general broad based in nature? It's a great question, Tim. I think one of the things, if I've learned anything from over 35 years of mediating other people's conflicts is look for what's missing, look for what's not there. This set of subpoenas does not focus in on core central elements for criminal intent and conduct on either the January 6th or my olago documents, but rather the secondary, the more peripheral issues. One of the things that may be is a sign that they've got enough of what they want on that first set of really core issues that they can now start to build up the penumbra and see whether there's enough there to include it or not. So it may indicate that they're farther along than other people think. Second thing to pay attention to, I think Merrick Garland gets the attention because he's the AG, but the people who are really doing the work and maybe influencing his decision making are a set of very highly experienced, qualified, relatively young prosecutors in the AG's department who are putting these things together and clearly incentivizing the movement in their direction toward actual prosecutions. So they haven't slowed, in fact, they've broadened and if anything, they've deepened their efforts. Well, because they're broadened. Tim, can I jump in on that? Go ahead, Jay, jump in. I'm not a prosecutor. I was a military prosecutor a long time ago, but this kind of prosecution strategy, it seems we have learned over the past few years that you look for the little guys first and then you flip them and you get them to testify against the bigger guys. So this could all be that. You get the little guys and then the next step, the next step and finally you get the really big guys like Trump. So I suspect that's the strategy going on now. Let me ask you, all of you, does this broad-based general subpoenas that have been issued, does that play into the GOP narrative that this is yet again the government's effort for a witch hunt? Chuck? I think just the opposite. Everybody knows that Trump moved those documents out. It's got his sharpie markings on him. Everybody knows that there are at least 150 very, very highly sensitive classified high-security documents in there and that there's no reason to have removed Tumar Halaga. Everybody knows that those were found through a deliberative process with judicial review, with support for it that's now been made relatively public. So claiming it's a witch hunt, you're not hearing that much. Well, you say everybody, you say everybody, I'm sure you could find virtually millions of people in this country who still think it's a witch hunt, who are not being informed and who believe that the Trump's criticism of the FBI and law enforcement in general is correct and that poor bugger is the victim. And they will not be swayed. So yes, those who read the newspapers are better informed, but that doesn't include everybody. Clearly right. Thanks for the correction, Jake. Hey, Cynthia, what do you think Donald Trump's motivation was to bring in these confidential top-seek documents? Was it a matter of them just throwing things in a box? Or what's your opinion? And I'll say opinion because we don't have the facts yet and we can't get inside the mind of Donald Trump. Thank God. But what's your opinion of why these highly sensitive top-secret documents were scurred away at Mar-a-Lago? What was the motivation? What was the ultimate purpose of that? Well, in my opinion, he lives in his wallet. We pretty much know he's all about money, right? So I guess as he wants to sell them or use them as a way to blackmail somebody down the road. That's what narcissists do. I mean, it's kind of textbook even, right? But don't you think he knows the definition of treason? Sorry. So let me just kind of get an informal survey here. How many of you believe that Donald Trump had an alternative motive for those documents, either to sell them, share them, use them as blackmail in the future, or some other nefarious motivation? Well, the other nefarious possibility on your little list is to somehow scuttle the Biden administration, disable them, what he did in the transition, make it impossible for them to know what's going on in the world, no critical sequence they need for making nuclear policy. That should be on your list also. Well, that's kind of what I meant by blackmail, to use it against other people. I guess I should have been a little more specific about blackmail. But to use it against other people, absolutely to use it against the Biden administration. And remember, he's always shooting for that long con, that 2024 run, right? So these documents he could have been thinking could maybe help him move forward in his bid for the presidency again. And if I could just address one other thing that you had brought up that the investigation in New York, the criminal investigation that Vance used to be running, and now that Boggs guy does. When it got to the point where Vance was going to retire, he had brought in, just beforehand, he had brought in two high powered criminal prosecutors that that's their specialty is dealing with this white collar crime stuff. These guys, when Vance left and Boggs came in and said, well, I don't think we really have anything. We're not really going to go forward with this and started trying to shove it under the rug. Those two prosecutors, they absolutely resigned in protest and came out publicly and said there was enough evidence to indict and this Boggs guy is the guy who kiboshed the whole thing. So we got to remember that even though we don't think about that investigation much anymore, because Boggs has put it under the carpet, right? You mean Bragg, for that, huh? Bragg. Bragg, not Boggs, sorry, Bragg, excuse me, thanks for the direction. Yeah, I was close. At any rate, so we got to remember that that's an important factor. That investigation has been deliberately taken out of the news. And then there's one more thing that's important that just came out recently. And that is the whole, the investigation, there's new news that just, I just started hearing about yesterday. And that is the whole Michael Cohen person one and our individual one and, you know, all that stuff. Afterwards, Bill Barr made, went in and scrubbed all the paperwork and took out any reference of individual one. That is a very important factor that we need a little more information on. But I want to bring it up. Okay, everybody, keep that in your back of your mind to, you know, watch that space because I think we're going to be finding out some really important stuff. So now we see Barr. Well, that may come up with the January 6th House hearing committee meetings that are going to take place here, start up again shortly. So who knows if Bill Barr comes up as a subject matter or not? No, the point is that Trump could have been and was in fact identified by Michael Cohen. It could have been prosecuted or at least investigated. And under Bill Barr, he wasn't. And, you know, the whole reference to individual one went out the window. Another example of Bill Barr's partisanship. Well, Jay, to you on Bill Barr, I don't want to get too far off the track here with Bill Barr, but he's been pretty critical and pretty informative of the Mar-a-Lago document case. He's come out extremely pretty tough on it. What's going on with that? I don't think he's found religion. I don't think he's, you know, it had discovered a new morality for himself. I think it has something to do with his okole. Okay. Well, you know what? I agree. Okay. Thank you, Cynthia. Hey, Jay, let's talk about the special master. Do you think that the DOJ played Trump's team, played Trump and Trump's team quite well by surprisingly agreeing on a judge that they could agree on to be a special master? Yeah. You know, Chuck, it's just like per-emptory challenges in selecting a jury. Sometimes you leave somebody on who may not be obviously on your team, but you do it for a tactical reason because you only have so many per-emptory challenges. And I think the part of the strategy of the DOJ on this judge's theory was that if they fought with everything that the Trump lawyers were suggesting with every nominee the Trump lawyers were suggesting, they'd be fighting and fighting and fighting. And there would be no agreement on anything. And the judge who we have zero confidence in, Aileen Cannon, would just pick a Trump suggestion. In this case, I think they did the right thing. They picked somebody who is likely to work in their favor somehow. And it was like Judo. They let the Trump team fall on its own pattern here. So I think it was good strategy. We'll see how it works out though. The jury's still out on exactly what kind of a job he'll do and how partisan he might be and whether the recommendations that he makes will be accepted by Aileen Cannon. He probably knows a lot more law and a lot more about how a special master might function and how a district judge might function. So she should be listening to him, but that's not clear. Another thing to remember, Tim, that you emphasized in an earlier episode, is a primary component of the Trump team's strategy. And it's not a very good legal thing, actually, is to stall, delay it. Well, that was my next question, yes. As close to 2024 as possible. This completely guts that. It gets it into the hands of a special master, a special master who's probably likely to move fairly quickly on this stuff. Second thing to remember, DOJ and the FBI know exactly what's in there. They know what's on every page on every one of those documents. They know what's going to be found. So they've got a, they're manifesting a high confidence level that this process is going to move effectively and relatively quickly compared to what Trump wanted to prevent. Because of despite the deniers who are delusional, despite the fact that those of us who are paying any attention to the facts know what was in those documents, know where they were, and know how close to criminal conduct that is. One other very interesting point is this. This is all riddled with the problem of classified information, of the highest possible classified information. And people have questioned whether a special master who didn't have a security clearance should be looking. For that matter, a district judge who didn't have a security clearance should be looking. Luckily, and this may have been part of the strategy of the DOJ, Deerey was on the FISA court. And the FISA court all have security clearances at the highest level. They have to. So, you know, they also, another positive thing about their choice is they avoided, you know, the whole risk, the whole issue about security clearances. Right. Good point. Excellent point. What we want to know is, hey, did Trump's lawyers forget to consult the Federalist Society on this one? Good point, Chuck. Cynthia, you wanted to get a word in. Go ahead. Just wanted to ask a question. It's sort of a legal question that I've had a lot of people ask me and I can't find the answer for. And that is, why does this judge can and have any standing when it was already, there was already a judge that was sitting on this case, that the one who authorized the search warrant. So, why was Trump allowed to go there? Why did that judge have any kind of a standing to even do anything with it? Why hasn't the DOJ just filed to get it out of her back to the original judge? Why couldn't that happen? Do you? You know, we talked about this while you were gone, Tim. And it's very interesting that in the federal system, when a case is filed, a judge is assigned. Right, Chuck? The judge is assigned and the judge, district judge takes that case right on through, including trial. And you always know that the judge who was assigned is the judge who will handle everything. In this case, the Trump team went shopping and they went to another judge. By the way, Reinhardt is a magistrate, right? Not a district judge. Okay? Keep that in your mind. They went shopping. They went 80 miles away to another courthouse, another district judge, another district, I think, in Florida. And they found this woman who Trump had appointed who had no experience and who was gullible. And they went to her because they were judge shopping. Now, what's interesting about this is that the rule of assigning a judge, it didn't get enforced. It was ignored. And this raises the whole question about the protocols in the district courts. They violated the protocols. But the protocols aren't law. And they found a weakness in the protocols that nobody would actually stand up and say, wait, Eileen, you can't do this. This is sitting in another district, another judge. But since there's no mechanism to enforce that protocol, she did it. And there's nothing that DOJ could have done. And it's really sad because it's such an obvious case of improper judge shopping. Is that something to be appealed on that basis, Jay? I'll leave that to Chuck. The DOJ has so many better things to go after. Yeah. Deficiencies in her opinion. She lacked a jurisdiction of Cynthia indicated. She elevated unfounded claims of political bias over national security. She chose to interfere in a civil case in a criminal investigation. There's a whole laundry list. We all did a great job of. Chuck, is it worth the DOJ's time to actually appeal in the 11th district court? It will be. But they want to posture it as well with this particular case with this judge as they can before that time to appeal comes up and they've got to file it. Remember that they did move for reconsideration of her order on one point, namely her order that the DOJ investigation should stop. And that's a reasonable thing to do. And a reasonable judge would say, OK, OK, yeah, that's overreaching. I'm not going to stop the DOJ from doing its investigation. There's no good reason at all. And that's pending with Eileen Cannon now. Or is it Reinhardt? It might be Reinhardt, I'm not sure. No, it had to be Eileen Cannon. She's the one who issued the order in the first place. So that's a real problem because she could take her sweet time on the motion for reconsideration. Thus, as we discussed, delaying all this. And then it seems to me to answer your question, Tim, the DOJ should must appeal, even with a kind of mandamus appeal, asking for immediate relief from the 11th circuit. But we know that Trump loaded the 11th circuit with Trumpers. Chances of winning on that point or any point at the 11th and the 11th circuit is really remote, actually. Right. Well, my question is, is it too late to take it back now? Is it too late to go after that? You don't have jurisdiction. Your order was bad. We're taking it back. Is it too late for that? Or can they still do that? That'd be part of the appeal process, would it not? It would. But it's not their strongest grounds. Her decision is so flawed legally and factually. Even with 6 out of 11 of the 11th circuit judges having been appointed by Trump and they don't get it as a whole in bank first anyway, they get it in a trio usually of three. So what they would do is depends on who gets selected and how they want to go. Okay. Cynthia, we're almost out of time and I want to run something past you. And that is, to what degree has the GOP narrative been effective at this document search at Mar-a-Lago? If you remember, their first initial claim was that the FBI were putting documents in the boxes. They're planting evidence. Then they said, okay, well, Donald Trump gave a blanket declassification for all documents. And now they're saying it's like not returning a library book. How effective is the GOP response to all this? They do. And now it's all bleeding into some of the other mainstream news outlets. It's not just on Fox that you hear this crazy stuff. Or just on OAN or Newsmax is bleeding. Now we hear it on CNN now. Shoot just the other day, Erin Burnett, who has her own show now during the week on CNN, spent her whole show talking about Hunter's Laptop. It's just that's this kind of stuff that they're putting out there. Anything to deflect and disinformed, misinformed people, to lead them to undermine the truth and the reality of what's going on. And it's not just the GOP that's getting points by saying all this stuff. We don't hear it from the other side giving us the opposite truth. We don't hear the truth coming out of the other side. Like the fact that every time we hear, well, he declassified everything. We should be hearing it doesn't matter whether they were classified or not. The charges and that specific search had nothing to do with classified. Well, didn't we hear somewhat that saying Donald Trump didn't have the authority on his own presidential wave of his hand to declassify top secret documents? Didn't we hear that from the Democrats and from legal minds? At first, but we are not really hearing it now. And that's what I meant by every time they say it. And these guys say it 24 seven. So if we only say it one, it's not good enough. Exactly. They need to start talking about it every day. And this is the other thing they need to say that counters that. And that is this that even if he declassified them, they are not allowed to leave the White House or a certain locked skip that has that is guarded a guarded skip. So it doesn't matter classified or not classified does not matter. Well, that'll play that'll play to the Presidential Records Act allegations and those potential charges that the DOJ will or will not come up with. Hey, we've run out of time, Cynthia, and I don't want to cut you short, but we've run out of time. So I want to go around the table very quickly and ask for last thoughts. Jay Fidel. We're heading toward the election. There's so much confusion out there. Although The New York Times had a story yesterday to the effect that Trump's excuses have run out of gas. Not everybody reads The New York Times. The New York Times has convinced me that's easy, but a lot of people don't read it, don't want to read it, don't believe it. But in fact, logically, his excuses have run out of gas. He doesn't have any excuses. And he has never said why he took them out of the White House anyway, you know, that problem. That's one thing. The other thing is that 60-day rule really troubles me. There's going to be all kinds of confusion. The next thing is that if you saw, there's a move by the GOP to do document requests of election officials all around the country. Thousands and thousands of document requests, which sucks up their time and distracts them from doing their job as election officials. Very troubling, you know, very, very bad, very malign is what it is. And the third thing that came out yesterday, day before, is that Mr. Putin was found to have given $300 million to autocrat and candidates and officials in 2016, including Trump, and in 2020, and is probably still doing it today. Wait a minute. Isn't that illegal for foreign entities to give to national elections? Of course it is. And they do it in strange ways, but they do it. And that was the times revelation that came from the intelligence community. So we have that process continuing right now. My point is that Trump is leading, orchestrating nationwide attempt to confuse people and to confuse and undermine the election coming in November. And what we have been talking about is part of it. There are lots of other parts, and they are all emerging now with the likely prospect that the public will be confused. The election will be undermined. I'm sorry to tell you. Okay, Jay, thanks for your thoughts. Chuck, to you, your last thoughts. Okay, three things that your great guidance has helped us cover today that we know about. Nurses, one, everything is leverage. It doesn't matter what it is, where it comes from, it's all leverage. Second, because they're above the law, they're untouchable, they're unaccountable, it doesn't matter how they get it, it doesn't matter what they do with it, it's leverage. But number three is they will turn on, they will undercut, they will betray and hang out to dry anyone. That's the Bill Barr story. He has now figured that out. And he's now saying, screw you too. Yeah. You got to be careful who you do that with, because Cohen, Barr, and a few others, Mathis, some of the generals, are people who are respected and articulate in some areas. So look out for that area number three, and it's why he's having trouble getting leadership. Not only does he stiffen like Giuliani, but he screws them like Barr. I'm reminded of that book that came out years ago, everything Donald Trump touches dies. I forget who wrote it, but what a title. Okay, Chuck, thank you for your last thoughts. Cynthia, you get the last word for today. Okay, gosh, we talked about so many important things that we have. It's hard to know where to go with that, because obviously, there's, you know, American issues part two tomorrow. And I'm sure there's more for that day and all in the weeks to come. And it is my honor. It really is an honor to be able to keep this stuff, at least out there on the airwaves, you know, whoever hears it, we will not stop, whether everybody else does or not. I know we won't. And I'm glad to be part of that. I'm glad to be part of this team. So have a quote. What else is new? I have a quote to Ann Wryth and it's from Liz Cheney. And it is this, every American must consider this, Ms. Cheney said, can a president who was willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6th ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again? And that was just referring to the behavior on that day. That doesn't even include any of the rest of the stuff we've talked about. Glad you brought that quote to our attention, Cynthia. Thank you so much. A great quote by Liz Cheney. We've run out of time. So I'd like to say thank you to our special guest, Chuck Crumpton. Thank you to our, my co-host, Jay Fidel, and Cynthia as always, my gratitude and thanks to you. Until then, join us next week for American Take One. I'm Tim Appichelle, your host, and we hope to see you then. Much aloha. Please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktecawaii.com. Mahalo.