Dear listeners,
There is no such thing as an emergency podcast. But… this is as close as we get.
Serious Trouble is back for a second time this week because Donald Trump has been indicted. Again. But this time in federal court — and on a set of charges that can’t (easily) be dismissed as chickenshit. The 49-page indictment has remarkable and hilarious detail, including Trump making the sorts of statements prosecutors can only dream of when trying to prove a crime with a challenging intent requirement.
That is, they have Trump on tape saying that he could have declassified the document he was currently showing off when he was president… but that he didn’t, so it’s still secret.
As Ken says in this episode, it’s a set of facts a prosecutor could reasonably feel cocky going into court with against a normal defendant. But Trump isn’t a normal defendant, and it won’t be a normal case.
The case has been filed in the Southern District of Florida — as Ken explains, the facts gave prosecutors little choice but to charge there — and at least so far it has been assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, who gave Trump a series of wildly, implausibly favorable rulings in a prior case where he sought the return of the documents he’s now been charged for possessing.
This week’s show is more than an hour — for paying subscribers. Everyone gets the first half hour: a discussion of the charges and how prosecutors would normally argue them, plus the hot, hot venue talk about “why Florida?”
Paying subscribers get our conversation about Aileen Cannon — how she got the case, whether she’ll actually preside, how she could tank the government’s case if she cares to, and what chances the government has to get her off the case if they try. Plus, for paying subscribers, we talk about new turmoil in Trump’s legal team — two of his key lawyers quit this morning, and he’s looking for new representation in Florida. In a normal case, this would bode very ill. But as Ken says, for Trump, it’s just kind of… Friday.
We hope you enjoy the episode. If you’re a free subscriber and want to hear the whole thing, smash the button below to upgrade. We don’t think you’ll regret it.
Josh
