(gentle contemplative music) - A New York grand jury indicts former President Donald Trump.

Organizers say, despite threats, drag events will go on in Geauga County this weekend.

And Ohio House Republicans look to force an August vote to make it harder for citizens to pass a constitutional amendment.

"Ideas" is next.

(dramatic music) Hello and welcome to "Ideas," I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Former president Donald Trump faces criminal charges connected to alleged hush money paid to an adult film actress.

It's the first time in history a former president has faced criminal charges.

Republicans in the Ohio House continue to push for an August ballot issue to make it harder for citizens to amend the state constitution.

Organizers of a drag brunch at a local restaurant and story hour in a church in Geauga County say the shows will go on this weekend despite threats from hate groups and a request from law enforcement to cancel.

And the US Department of Justice has sued Norfolk Southern, just like the state of Ohio did.

Still, Ohio's Attorney General reached a deal with Norfolk Southern to ensure Ohio businesses are used in the cleanup from the February train derailment in East Palestine.

We'll talk about those stories and the rest of the week's news on the Reporter's Round Table.

Joining me this week in studio from Idea Stream Public Media, supervising producer for newscasts, Glenn Forbes, and reporter Zaria Johnson, in Columbus, statehouse news bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

A grand jury in New York voted to indict former President Donald Trump in a case involving alleged hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

We invited Baldwin Wallace University political science professor Tom Sutton onto the round table for some perspective.

Let me lemme say first, I noted no former president, actually no sitting president who couldn't, but no former president has ever faced criminal charges.

When we talk about unprecedented, Mr. Trump will be photographed and fingerprinted surely with secret service protection when he turns himself in.

This in some ways seems unthinkable.

- [Sutton] It does, we really have never even seen anything close to this.

And, of course, what you mentioned about Richard Nixon after his resignation potentially facing criminal charges in 1974, and then being pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, who, when he pardoned him, took a great risk and it was highly unpopular.

People wanted to see Nixon, they wanted him to pay his pound of flesh and there are many that say that that ultimately, that plus the challenge to his nomination by Ronald Reagan in 1976 was part of what added up to his loss to Jimmy Carter in that election.

- I mentioned Nixon's pardon.

Bill Clinton also struck a deal with Whitewater prosecutors on his last day in office, admitting he had false testimony under oath about Monica Lewinsky.

He gave up his law license for five years and he paid a $25,000 fine so he would not face charges as a private citizen, so it's been close in the past, but this being the first time.

- [Sutton] It has.

The only time that we've seen something at this level was when Spiro Agnew, the Vice President for Nixon in 1973, pled no contest to charges of tax evasion when he was governor of Maryland before he became Vice President.

- Aaron Burr too faced charges, overcame those, I saw the play.

- [Sutton] Should we start singing too?

- We should not.

- [Sutton] Yes.

- The incident that forms the basis of this charge, the money to the porn star to keep quiet about what she says was an affair, it happened before Trump became President.

That's a long time ago.

This investigation has gone on for five years too.

What about that, on the time that it's taken for charges to come?

- [Sutton] Well, I think really what we're looking at is that was in October of '16, right before the election.

The charge was essentially hush money to keep her from going public in an article in the National Enquirer or one of those publications with the fact that she claims she had had an affair with the presidential candidate.

And basically what we saw was during the time that he was President, he was immune from prosecution.

So I think a lot of this was sort of building.

We had Michael Cohen going up on charges and pleading guilty to his role in that situation as Trump's attorney and handling the hush money payment and also being paid himself.

And since he's left office, he's now liable for prosecution.

And I think that's primarily why we've seen the building of this case up to the point of this indictment.

- What's interesting though is this would be a misdemeanor.

To make falsifying business records a felony, they'd have to show that his alleged attempt to defraud involved an effort to commit or conceal a second crime.

And in this case, the second crime would be a violation of federal election law, essentially that the hush money to silence Daniels benefited the campaign.

It was essentially an illicit campaign contribution.

But that's not something the Manhattan DA has jurisdiction over, a Federal election thing.

So we're really going into new territory.

- [Sutton] We really are.

And the fact that you're looking at potentially a trial, well a trial and then potentially a conviction on these misdemeanor charges at the state level and then followed by, if it followed, a federal indictment under a violation of election law, which they might use a conviction at the state level as a basis for then filing those kinds of charges.

But that would be in and of itself, apart from the fact that we're talking about a presidential candidate at the time, another precedent breaking situation in terms of just legal cases of this type.

- Speaking of unprecedented, Donald Trump would say it's unprecedented the way he's been treated, that no former president has been targeted and persecuted like he has.

What about that and the political argument that he'll make and how it may play with his base?

- Well, I think it's a very effective argument on his part 'cause it's the kind of thing that rallies the base.

And we've certainly seen him avoid any loss of base when it comes to the two impeachments, other things that have come out during and after the time he was President, the fact that his chief financial officer was convicted of crimes that related to the Trump Organization.

All of this I think adds up to the sense that Democrats, liberals, et cetera, are looking for a way to take him down.

The other part of this, of course, is the fact that he's the first President in our modern era to be trying to become president again after being defeated.

I think the last time that happened was, you gotta go back to Teddy Roosevelt when he tried to run with the Bull Moose Party back in 1912.

- Hmm, what about the President's calls for protest, or worries that those might get really heated?

There's a whole other dynamic to this in the way he rallies base.

- Well and this, and so it's interesting because I think given what happened with January 6th, which is a whole other line of investigation happening at the Federal level, and the fact that we've seen so many people who participated in that up on charges, pleading guilty, being convicted, I think there may be some who might want to rally physically to former President Trump's defense, but may think twice about what happened in the wake of January 6th.

And so we may not see that kind of turnout, though I'm sure there will be protests around the country and there may be some interactions between those that are for and against what's happening to the former President.

- Meanwhile, he's running for president.

Unprecedented to do that with all of this going on.

The question is, will his legal strategy be to delay, take the air out of the ball, and is that a strategy that works?

If this was delayed and we didn't see a trial until after the actual election, does that benefit him?

- Oh absolutely, absolutely.

Because the one thing that he wants and that he's getting out of this is attention.

And anytime he gets attention, he gets attention from his base.

Any attention that is opposed to him just gives them even more to be concerned about in terms of their support for him.

So delaying, and it's certainly a tactic that he used throughout the impeachment process and I don't expect that to be any different now.

(dramatic music) - A scrum over the fast track plan to make it harder to pass citizen-led constitutional amendments continues in the State House, though Republican House Speaker Jason Stevens threw cold water on the plan to force an August vote.

Others in the house are trying to circumvent him and his stance appears to be softening.

Karen, let's talk first about the mechanism being used to go around the speaker.

A discharge petition?

What is that?

- Yeah, it's exactly how it sounds if you follow government terms.

It is a petition that is signed by a majority of the members of a chamber to force a bill to be discharged from a committee.

So what's happened here is that this is a petition that needs 51 signatures and that would force a vote on this resolution, which is still in a committee.

And as of this morning I just checked, there are 28 people who have signed it so far, and that's more than halfway there.

But they still need 23 to go.

And it seems pretty unlikely that they're gonna get Democrats to sign it.

Democrats have been adamantly opposed to this and Republicans who are aligned with Speaker Stevens seem to be a little reluctant as well.

But this is not an unusual tactic.

Discharge petitions, they were most recently used in 2021 to try to force a vote on a bill that would ban all mandatory vaccines, including shots for childhood diseases.

That went nowhere.

Also discharged petitions on repealing common core in 2014, on Medicaid expansion in 2013, so this has been used before, but it's not usually too successful.

- Is it gonna be necessary because we hear Jason Stevens, who we talked about last week, who said, listen, it's gonna be $20 million, it's too much.

Local governments don't like it, people don't turn out for these elections.

We already voted to basically ban August elections, so I'm not for it.

Now we're seeing a little bit of softening of that.

- He said this week it could be a possibility that there could be an August election, and that bill to create the August election and put $20 million to pay for it was introduced this week.

The other thing that Stevens did that I thought was interesting is that he removed the chair of the committee, the committee he created to hear this proposal, the chair Scott Wiggam, who is aligned with speaker Jason Stevens's political rival Derek Maron, the two of them ran for speaker and Stevens won, Scott Wiggam was removed as chair of that committee.

And then Phil Plumber, another Derek Maron supporter, was elevated to chair.

So I don't know what exactly that means, but Stevens said that he had removed Wiggam because he signed that discharge petition, but so did Phil Plumber.

So I'm kind of wondering what's going on here and what that tells us about where this petition or where this resolution might be going, and will this committee actually move it forward?

- What kind of time do they have left in order to get this on the August ballot?

- Well, they have more time.

State lawmakers have more freedom in terms of time to file petitions and to get onto the ballot.

The folks who are gathering signatures right now, they have until July 5th and they've gotta get 414,000 signatures, which is a huge hill to climb, but I keep hearing that they're going to make it, so lawmakers have a little bit more room to move here, but this would have to move forward because Secretary of State Frank LaRose has said if there is gonna be an August election, and it should be said that the law to ban August elections hasn't even gone into effect yet.

It goes into effect next Friday, and there's already this bill that would revive August special elections before the law even takes effect, the ban.

- [McIntyre] I dunno if that's ever happened.

You pre-revise a law.

- It's a total, it's quite a shift here.

But Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who supports the idea of making the approval threshold 60%, he said, "We need a fair amount of warning, we need 90, 100 days to know that we need to run elections.

We need to get boards of elections prepared and elections officials around the state prepared."

But he said that it could happen.

So I think we're kind of in limbo here.

We're in in spring break for the legislature.

So I don't know what's gonna happen in the next couple of weeks before they come back.

- All right.

One other point to bring up on this, and that is we talked last week about lawsuits that have challenged the fact that this is a single amendment, single ballot issue, that it should be two different ones.

And now we see as the Ohio Attorney General has weighed in.

He's asked that that lawsuit be tossed.

He says it's proper, the ballot board did the right thing.

It's one issue.

- Yeah, even though he is a strong supporter of the idea of reinstituting this six week abortion ban that's often called the Heartbeat Bill, he's the lawyer for the state.

So he has to represent the ballot board and has to make the claim legally that the ballot board did the right thing.

And I've even heard offhand that this is a lawsuit that even folks who want to see it go forward have said it feels a little iffy.

But my State House News Bureau colleague Joe Engles has reported after a call on this week's show last week, or on this show last week, that there could be some legal maneuverings going on that could really delay this and could potentially impact the November vote on this reproductive rights amendment.

So it's still, the lawsuit's still there, and we don't know what's gonna happen to it going forward.

(dramatic music) - Two events, a drag queen story hour at a Geauga County Church, and a brunch the church's co-hosting with a Chardon restaurant, will go on this weekend, despite a request from law enforcement to cancel over safety concerns plan.

Glenn, the organizers say the events will go on as planned.

They have some security in place as well.

- Yeah and they're asking for, you know, more money.

This has almost become a fundraiser for them so they could get more security in place.

There are some barricades up and things like that.

You know, police are going to have a presence there.

I think, you know, the issue that the law enforcement side and the Community Church of Chesterland side is that they're not getting specifics, right?

So according to, well, there was a church statement actually, they cited heightened tensions on social media, something around drag queens and trans issues, something we all live with every day.

They said the concern for violence after the shooting in Nashville, the presence of hate groups, but again, couldn't point to any direct specific threats.

Now anybody who talks to law enforcement knows that they're not going to get into specifics.

They don't want to tip off anyone who could potentially be, you know, looking to do harm here.

But yes, the show, I suppose both shows, it's planned that they will go on.

You mentioned that there was a vigil last night and I think it's interesting that they're saying if you don't have a ticket for the brunch, and if you're not going to attend the story hour, please do not come and counter protest.

That's only gonna heighten these tensions.

- We saw what happened in Wadsworth recently, and so there's obviously a lot of concern that there's also been some rumor that Proud Boys are going to show up to protest and all of those types of things.

So what we have here is a situation where the police are saying, listen, we don't care about the content of what this is.

This is not an anti drag show thing.

This is instead us saying, we need you to be safe, and we think that this is the thing, this is the way to do that.

The church is kind of doubting that a little bit.

Like why are you.

I guess the question is, why are you then saying we have to change what we're doing instead of saying, hey, hate groups, we're gonna make sure that you're not able to succeed.

- Yeah, so a couple different issues there, right?

Geauga County, not very a populous county, right?

Chester Township Police, small department.

If you get all kinds of people coming in from outside of Geauga County, this becomes a personnel issue for law enforcement, I would think.

On the other side of that, not necessarily on the other side of that, but another angle to this is, you know, we do have the Constitution and we do have the First Amendment.

Now you can't make, you know, physical threats or obviously death threats to people.

Those can be prosecuted in a different way, but you cannot stop people from gathering and protesting.

I remember, and I think all of us, except for Zaria, not to point anything out about Zaria, but we all remember 1999.

- [McIntyre] Her age, is what you're trying to get at?

- [Zaria] I get it, no problem.

- We all remember 1999, the Ku Ku Klux Klan was rallied in Cleveland, I believe before the first Browns pre-season game as the Browns were returning.

- [McIntyre] Downtown Cleveland.

- [Zaria] It was, I remember it.

- Yeah, and so, you know, again... - [McIntyre] You can't stop it.

- Yeah, you can't stop it.

There is the First Amendment of the Constitution, you've got the right to legally assemble.

If even if you are a hate group like the Ku Klux Klan, there's not much recourse there other than, you know, okay, we're gonna put as much security into this as possible, - Or neo-Nazis or Proud Boys or any of those types of groups.

(dramatic music) As Norfolk's Southern continues work cleaning up the site of the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio businesses will be first in line for the work.

Attorney General Dave Yost said he worked out an agreement with the rail company and announced it Wednesday.

It won't affect the state's lawsuit against the railroad, which also was sued Thursday by the US Department of Justice.

Zaria, it seems to be a situation where Yost is trying to find a silver lining.

He had a press conference to say, hey, if we're gonna have to have this terrible remediation or this terrible tragedy and then the remediation, at least Ohio should benefit from it.

- Yeah, that's what it looks like.

It seems like this agreement is expected to benefit businesses in Mahoning Valley, especially close to the derailment site.

The EPA ordered Norfolk Southern in February to cover the cost of all cleanup efforts related to the derailment.

So this agreement really means that any money Norfolk Southern is already required to spend will be going right back into businesses around East Palestine, or at least in the state of Ohio.

- So how will they connect with these local businesses?

- Yeah, Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce will be working with Norfolk Southern to help connect them with local businesses.

Yost said this is kind of an informal agreement, but he highlighted the Chamber of Commerce as a good tool that Norfolk Southern will use to find local goods and services to help with cleanup efforts.

- The agreement from Yost though, as I mentioned, does not alter the fact the state is suing the railroad.

- Yeah, and the EPA has made it clear that they want to hold Norfolk Southern accountable for this.

So that lawsuit seems like another step in that effort to do so.

- I mentioned at the top of the show that there was breaking news as well, and we were in this room when we heard of this, so not sure we know a whole lot about it, but the US Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern following that trained ailment as well.

The claim was filed yesterday in US District Court in the Northern district of Ohio's Eastern Division, seeking injunctive relief, cost recovery, and civil penalties related to the derailment.

Probably not a surprise that the Justice Department on behalf of the EPA is getting in line and getting in place.

The fact that Norfolk Southern, we're not gonna rely on your promises, we're gonna make sure that you have to pay.

- Yeah, and it makes sense because, you know, we've seen this sort of distrust bubble up in East Palestine when it comes to cleanup efforts, when it comes to Norfolk Southern and residents, it seems like, just want to make sure that they're able to return to a sense of normalcy in their communities.

So this lawsuit seems to, you know, be a step forward with the EPA in terms of making residents feel more comfortable that they are doing what needs to be done to have their concerns be addressed.

(dramatic music) - The City of Akron is working to prepare the community ahead of grand jury deliberations, considering charges against police in the shooting death of Jayland Walker.

The first on a series of community conversations was held this week.

Glenn, Police Chief Steve Mylett fielded this first conversation and he faced some tough questions.

- Yeah, he's in a tough spot.

He's been in a tough spot.

What makes this even more difficult is these meetings are designed to explain the grand jury process.

They're a lot more questions that citizens have other than what is the grand jury process.

You know, this is, these are designed to be procedural.

Steven Mylett doesn't have anything to do with the investigation.

This was handled by the Ohio Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation, BCI.

He is not privy to details of this investigation, yet everyone wants to know what about the investigation?

Well, I mean, he can't answer that.

All they can answer, Steven Mylett and Akron Chief Prosecutor Craig Morgan, they can discuss the grand jury process, but they are not privy to the investigation.

And, you know, one of the lingering questions since this has happened is why haven't the officer's names been released?

We want the officer's names released.

Mylett said the officer's names will not be released until the grand jury makes a decision on charges.

And it'll only be released, a name will only be released if that officer is indicted.

If they're not indicted, those names aren't gonna be released.

Those officers are back to work because of a staffing issue.

According to Mylett, he said he didn't wanna, you know, cut down on services or close units or anything like that.

So he had to bring, according to Mylett, he had to bring back some of these people because they were down about 50 officers.

So a lot of unanswered questions.

But yeah, this is supposed to be specifically about the grand jury process, not necessarily about the investigation, which leaves people feeling somewhat unfulfilled I would say.

- A result of that shooting was the approval by citizens to create a citizen police oversight board.

There was a lot of trouble over how they might fill the final seat on that board.

And they did that this week by picking Brandon Costa, he's a lawyer and was the roommate in college of the person that they did not pick, Imoca Colo, because there were some concerns about previous social media posts that were anti-police.

And so he was ruled out by a number of members of council.

But their big deal though, and Zaria, this was the important part they brought up, is they wanted to have young black male representation on this board.

If you're gonna have a board, and a lot of the things we're talking about is the way police interact with the minority community, you gotta have representation on that board.

It appears with Brandon Costa they got that.

- Yeah and with, you know, young black males being, you know, most affected, most often affected by instances of police shootings like this, it does make sense to increase representation on the board.

And it's a good step forward, knowing that they're doing that.

(dramatic music) - A new law signed by Governor DeWine opens state owned lands, including its system of parks, to oil and gas development, including fracking.

Drilling companies are already eyeing some of the state's parks as potential exploration sites.

Zaria, the bill is new on the books, but some landowners are already being approached, especially those with land adjacent to state parks.

- Yeah, oil and gas drillers, it looks like, are trying to get early access to what could be a pretty lucrative market.

State parks, they're viewing our state parks as untapped resources for oil and gas reservoirs.

And the fracking industry wants to jump at the chance to increase their profits by drilling into these resources in the ground as soon as possible.

So they're approaching landowners at state parks and around state parks to increase the chances of drilling in and getting those resources out sooner rather than later.

- Karen, I wonder if you called the new press secretary for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to get a comment on this.

- That would be our ar former colleague Andy Chow.

Is that what you're saying?

- [McIntyre] That's what I'm saying.

Let's put him on the hot seat.

- Yeah, right?

But I think it is an interesting moment here because Governor DeWine did deny a permit under this.

The law that he had signed changed the words, basically saying this was a piece of legislation that former Governor John Kasik had signed, that allowed more of an opportunity for this to happen.

But he, in denying this permit, his spokesperson, Dan Tierney had said that the administration is telling anybody who wants to apply that they'll need to wait until the process is in place "pursuant to administrative rule" before any project will be considered.

So they gotta make the rules, I guess, before this can go into effect, even though the law did get signed earlier this year.

- Hmm, so drilling in state parks, just on the face of it, the headline is one that might really cause people concern, particularly, Zaria, environmental groups.

- Yeah, and the Ohio Environmental Council specifically already shared some concerns with the fracking process potentially worsening air quality in and around these parks.

And that poses concerns for people who visit the parks, but also just like the overall wellbeing of the environment.

And with the UN publishing its 2023 climate report last week, and finding essentially that we should be reducing our oil and gas extractions, this raises the question of whether or not the signing of this bill is a step forward or a step backwards.

- Hmm.

Karen, let's talk about the money.

The reason this is being driven is 'cause it's gonna bring in a bunch of cash.

- Well, and that's unclear how much "a bunch of" is in this case.

Senate President Matt Huffman, when he spoke to a group of oil and gas people earlier this month, said this could be a great revenue generator.

And some Republicans have even said, hey, maybe this will make up what we need to go ahead and do another income tax cut.

But it's really unclear what that estimate could be.

I mean, just looking back, going back to like 2008 when this was really talked about, there was the idea that it could average about $32 million a year.

That was in 2008, but I mean, that's not much when you start talking about an income tax cut that could be in the billions.

(dramatic music) - Monday, on "the Sound of Ideas" on WKSU, we'll hear from Mark Dawidziak about his new book, "A Mystery of Mysteries: the Death and Life of Edgar Allen Poe."

The book examines the final days of the author and sets the record straight about Poe's character.

I'm Mike McIntyre, thanks for watching and stay safe.

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