Full Episode: Washington Week full episode, Aug. 4, 2023

John Yang: For the first time ever, a former American president is charged with conspiring to stay in office after losing an election.

Jack Smith, Special Counsel: Today, an indictment was unsealed, charging Donald J. Trump.

Donald Trump, Former U.S. President: So, if you can't beat him, you persecute him or you prosecute him.

John Yang: After pleading not guilty, an angry Donald Trump fires back.

Mike Pence, Former U.S. Vice President: The president and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked me to literally reject votes.

John Yang: His former vice president and current campaign opponent rebukes Trump in his strongest terms yet.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL): A D.C. jury would indict and convict a ham sandwich if it was a Republican ham sandwich.

John Yang: But other 2024 Republican candidates, including one of his nearest rivals, echoed Trump's claim that it's all politically motivated.

What does the most serious criminal case yet against Trump mean for him, the nation, and the 2024 elections? Next.

Good evening and welcome to WASHINGTON WEEK. I'm John Yang.

For the first time in our nation's history, a former president stands accused of trying to reverse the results of an election in order to stay in office. On Thursday, former President Donald Trump was back in Washington, this time to appear in a federal courtroom and plead not guilty to charges that he tried to undermine the bedrock of American democracy, the peaceful transfer of power after an election.

There are four felony counts in the indictment, conspiring to defraud the United States by disrupting the January 6th electoral vote count, conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructing an official proceeding, and conspiring to deny American citizens the right to vote and have that vote counted.

After appearing in court, Trump said this is all a politically motivated assault by the Biden administration.

Donald Trump: This is the persecution of the person that's leading by very, very substantial numbers in the Republican primary and leading Biden by a lot.

John Yang: That last part is not true. He is not leading Biden by a lot. The latest polls have them tied.

On Tuesday, when Special Counsel Jack Smith announced the indictment, he gave a blunt assessment of the charges.

Jack Smith: The attack on our nation's capital on January 6th, 2021 was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy.

It was fueled by lies.

John Yang: Most Republican lawmakers responded to this latest indictment in the same way they responded to the first two. They repeated the former president's claim that the charges are motivated by politics.

But speaking with PBS NewsHour's Geoff Bennett on Thursday, Bill Barr, Trump's former attorney general, disagreed.

William Barr, Former U.S. Attorney General: There was very grave wrongdoing here, and I think it's reasonable to say that it falls within the obstruction of a proceeding. That's not weaponization. That's enforcement of the law.

John Yang: This latest indictment against Trump may not be the last. A special grand jury in Georgia is investigating his attempts to pressure officials there to join his claims of vote fraud.

As a result of all of this, the 2024 presidential campaign could feature the spectacle of a leading candidate having to schedule campaign events around appearances in multiple courtrooms, including at least one where he's accused of trying to overturn the last election even while he's trying to win the next one.

Joining me to discuss all of this, these remarkable and unprecedented turn of events, Francesca Chambers, White House Correspondent for USA Today, Carrie Johnson, NPR's Justice Correspondent, Hugo Lowell, a Guardian reporter covering Trump and the Justice Department, and Jeff Mason, Reuters White House Correspondent.

This has been a remarkable week. Jeff, you've been around Washington covering politics for a while. What do you make of this? We have a man who has been impeached twice, three times indicted. He's got a bunch of civil cases against him, too. He's facing possible more indictments. But at the same time, he's dominating the Republican nomination race, and he's tied with the incumbent president. What do you make of all this?

Jeff Mason, White House Correspondent, Reuters: I mean, it's historic in multiple levels. It's historic, number one, because of everything that you just said, the fact that he's been indicted, the fact that he was arraigned, and the fact that the former president of the United States had to come to Washington to appear in court for -- and that he's facing consequences in a way that his supporters have also faced.

Now, he is innocent until proven guilty. We don't know what the outcome of these proceedings will be. But it was historic for all of those levels. It's also clearly historic politically, because of what's going on next, which is another election. He's running again, and he's using this as a cudgel to say, the Biden administration is coming after me, and using that as a way to sort of use, I would say, a smoke screen against what did happen on January 6th when he was still president.

John Yang: Let's go back to his appearance in court. Carrie, you spent a lot of time in that courthouse. What was it like on Thursday?

Carrie Johnson, National Justice Correspondent, NPR: The security, John, was so intense. There were barricades, there was yellow tape, there were bicycle racks, eventually, there were police on horseback and just dozens and dozens of U.S. Marshals and Secret Service officials. Once you got inside the courthouse, it was relatively tranquil. You could get a cup of coffee in the cafeteria and check your Wi-Fi.

And then things really started to intensify about ten minutes before the hearing was supposed to begin when former President Trump entered the courtroom. And we all had our eyes peeled on his demeanor, what he might say. It turns out he was rather respectful to the judge, although less respectful when he left the courthouse and made other remarks later.

John Yang: Francesca, we've summarized the charges, but you made an interesting point about what's not in the indictment.

Francesca Chambers, White House Correspondent, USA Today: That's right. They didn't charge him with inciting an insurrection. And that is what the January 6th committee had focused on. And indeed, it was one of the things that they said that they felt there was enough evidence to charge him with, in addition with the other charges that was laid out. But you didn't see that in those charges.

And, of course, we've seen in the past that there could be other charges that are always added to things, so this may not be the end of it. But it was very remarkable to me that after all those months of hearings on that point, that that was not something that Jack Smith and the special counsel decided to end up charging Trump with at this time.

John Yang: Hugo, one other thing that was in the indictment is they kept repeating that the former president knew what he was saying was wrong. Does the prosecution have to prove that element to win a conviction?

Hugo Lowell, Reporter, The Guardian: Yes, it's going to depend on the charge, right, because there's four separate statutes being charged here. On the top one for the conspiracy to defraud the United States, it might factor in. But for the biggest charge about obstruction of an official proceeding, it doesn't really matter because there are four elements in that statute, the final one corruptly, the fact that he acted with kind of corrupt purpose.

There is a recent case where a judge basically ruled that a defendant's mindset and beliefs about whether the election was stolen does not negate a consciousness of wrongdoing. And if that's the standard that is upheld by the D.C. Circuit, then while Trump's belief that the election was stolen, it's not going to make any difference.

John Yang: Jeff, you've watched Trump a lot. You have spent, I think, three Oval Office interviews with the one who was in the White House. What's the relationship between what Trump says, what he says he believes and reality?

Jeff Mason: That's a great question. It's complicated. I mean, I have been in rooms with President Trump, the Oval Office, or on Air Force One where he will be cordial and friendly and hospitable. I remember the first time I met him was on the plane on Air Force One, and he came back and visited with the reporters briefly. This would have been shortly after he was inaugurated. And then went out and did a rally because he did rallies right away as president and started hammering against the media. And I kind of felt like saying, I wish I could tell this crowd the kind of very cordial interaction we have just had. So, I use that as an example to show that there are lots of contradictions and complications in how he is.

John Yang: Carrie, the government, the Justice Department says they want to get this done fast. They want a speedy trial. What signals has the judge sent about that?

Carrie Johnson: Yes, the judge, Tanya Chutkan, a former public defender, an Obama-appointee to the bench, has said through the magistrate judge who presided over this arrangement this week that she is going to set a trial date at the next hearing, which is at the end of August.

So, she seems to be taking a very no nonsense approach to this at a time when the former president and his lawyers are signaling delay may be their main strategy in this case, delay maybe until after the election. We're going to have to see what Judge Chutkan says at that hearing on August 28th. But she may want to get this done before then if it's at all possible.

John Yang: Carrie, if she does that, if she tries to get it done fast, could it open her up to criticism that she didn't give the defense enough time to prepare?

Carrie Johnson: Well, Trump's main defense lawyer, John Lauro, has said that there are reams of evidence in this case. He is expecting a lot, lots and lots of documents and electronic evidence, and he wants months potentially to prepare. He could have an argument if he's not given enough time to prepare a zealous defense. That could be a legitimate argument, but delaying the trial all the way after the election and beyond, that's a little much for this courthouse.

Hugo Lowell: Right, especially like in the classified documents case. We're talking about having a trial this time next year, and that's including all the CIPA protections, the government's process it has to go through to ensure that classified information isn't surprised onto the government at trial.

And so if we don't even have the Classified Information Procedures Act in this case, then I think we should expect to see this go to trial much sooner.

John Yang: Hugo we've heard two possible defenses being floated. One, that his speech was protected, First Amendment speech, that he has a perfect right to talk about the election. The other was that he's just following lawyers' advice. What do you make of those?

Hugo Lowell: So I think on the first offense or the first potential defense, he is not being charged for political speech. And, in fact, in the indictment, the special counsel's office makes very clear that he is allowed to advance lies about the election if he wants to but not when he then uses that to commit a crime. And so when you're looking at and of an official proceeding and these other charges that are being brought, a First Amendment defense isn't really going to help him.

As for an advice of counsel defense, that I think is probably going to be up to a jury to decide if that's something that's salient. And he has a colorable argument because there were kind of a bunch of crackpot lawyers, right, as Mike Pence has said around him. And yet, at the same time, you can't use that defense when they are all in on the conspiracy with you. And so I think that's the difficulty that Trump is going to have.

Carrie Johnson: And in order to exploit an advice of counsel defense, Donald Trump may have to testify. And that's a very risky proposition, given his record in public and in courts recently.

John Yang: It would open him up to cross-examination by the prosecution.

Carrie Johnson: Which might be devastating.

John Yang: Carrie, there were six co-conspirators identified in the indictment. We actually don't know if they've been indicted separately and sealed or something. But why weren't they named as co-defendants in this case?

Carrie Johnson: Well, one of the strategies the special counsel seems to want to employ to move this along is to focus like a laser on Donald Trump himself. And adding five or six people who gave him legal advice would bog down this prosecution and certainly delay it for months and months, if not years.

Another reason is that he may still be trying to decide if there's enough evidence to charge some of these as yet unindicted co-conspirators. And a third reason is that maybe them seeing the specter of Donald Trump in court being arraigned this week will cause them to rethink their approach to the special counsel and decide to cooperate with this investigation, making them witnesses in court, potentially, against the former president.

John Yang: Hugo, another thing the defense has signaled is that they're going to ask for a change of venue. They say that D.C. is -- you can't get a fair trial in Washington, D.C. because it's so heavily Democratic.

Hugo Lowell: Yes, there have been a number of January 6th riot defendants who have made that same argument. And, really, it comes down to, well, if you're charged in D.C. for committing a crime in D.C., you're going to get a D.C. jury.

And, actually, we have seen on multiple occasions that D.C. juries have been very, very fair. In some of the biggest prosecutions that the Justice Department has brought, for instance, with the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, with kind of seditious conspiracy charges, there have been instances when the jury has not convicted these defendants. And I think that kind of speaks to the jury process as a whole. And if you have a problem with that, you really have a problem with this country's jury system.

John Yang: Carrie after this hearing on Yesterday, the president this evening put something up on social media saying that if you come after me, I'll go after you. Is that likely to be something he'll be asked about in court?

Carrie Johnson: One of the standard conditions of release for any defendant in D.C., John, is a warning about not attempting to bribe somebody or threaten them or retaliate against witnesses, while Trump's statement and who he was focusing on is unclear. Was he talking about Jack Smith? Was he talking about potential witnesses against him? We don't know.

I think it's quite likely the judge is going to want to ask the defense to explain itself. But at this point, it's hard to really put a gag on the former president, who's also running for re-election to the White House in 2024.

Jeff Mason: I think it'll be enormously difficult for President Trump, former President Trump, to be quiet. I mean, it just goes against every grain in his body. And I think it will be very interesting to see his next rally, because he often uses those forums to come out and test ride some thoughts, test ride some new phrases and test ride some new attacks. And I imagine that we will hear some. And my guess is they will not just be focused on President Biden.

Francesca Chambers: Particularly because, at this point, he's actually really campaigning on the indictments. He's campaigning and telling his supporters that, no, no, no, it's not just me. They're trying to come after you, so you've got to put me back in office, sort of thing.

And you also have some of his competitors who are doubling down on this argument as well. You have Vivek Ramaswamy, who is saying that he would get rid of the FBI. He would get rid of the entire Federal Bureau of Investigations at this point. So, you're hearing this filter through the rest of the GOP field as well.

John Yang: Jeff, another thing he's doing pretty aggressively is raising money off this.

Jeff Mason: Yes.

John Yang: A lot of fundraising appeals going out, but he's also running through a lot of that money paying legal fees. Could this put him at a disadvantage in the campaign?

Jeff Mason: Well, you need money to run a good campaign. And then to piggyback off of what Francesca was saying, I mean, it has been an effective fundraising tool for him, and that is showing not only in his coffers but also in the polls because his base is so eager to take what he says as gospel with regard to the charges and with regard to really everything else that he says.

But, yes, it could be a challenge if he starts using up that coffer, as it were, to pay legal fees. That said, money hasn't really been a big problem for President Trump, and I think, as he continues to dominate nominate in the polls, he's going to continue to get fundraising backing.

Francesca Chambers: And you have to put this in the context of the broader field and how much money that the other candidates are bringing in. Many of his competitors don't even have anywhere close to the fundraising that he has in the first place.

And they're facing a situation right now where some of them barely have the money to even be able to compete in these early states, don't necessarily have enough money to be able to put ads on this air, at least in a sustained way, maybe introductory ads, but not in a sustained way. So, he certainly has significant resources in this race.

John Yang: And, Francesca, I think the big bounce that Mr. Trump got after the raid at Mar-a-Lago last year, are these indictments, are these charges, we talk about problems in the courtroom or legal troubles, are they helping him politically?

Francesca Chambers: Well, he continues to be far in front of his GOP competitors. Now, granted, he's not as far ahead in some of the recent polls. We saw the new New York Times/Siena poll, for instance, in Iowa, where he was, I believe, at 44 percent compared to Ron DeSantis at 20 percent. That's not as far ahead as in some of these other polls where he was more than 30 points ahead nationally. But that's a significant amount. And you're not seeing, again, his Republican competitors be able to catch up with him despite all of these legal problems that he is facing.

Now, there are other reasons for that that we could get into on this panel, and I'm sure we will, for why some of their campaigns are struggling, including Mr. DeSantis, but they have had problems despite what would seemingly be legal disadvantages to him to catching up.

Jeff Mason: I think history and the evidence over the last six years show that controversy only helps him, and that has applied to these legal cases as well.

John Yang: Let's talk about the other side, how they're responding to this. Jeff, you just spent the week in Rehoboth Beach, tough duty with President Biden on vacation. You did ask him about this. He didn't respond. Is that their game plan, to sort of not get involved in this?

Jeff Mason: Well, it's certainly their game plan, yes, to keep some distance. President Biden rode right by us on his bike. He did a bike ride every day while he was there. And I asked him, another reporter asked him as well, and he just sailed right past.

And, yes, I think it is emblematic. I think the president is eager to show and has been eager to show for the two and a half years or so that he's been in office that the Department of Justice is independent and separate from the White House. And I also think he doesn't want to give oxygen to the arguments that the Republicans have made, that it is he who is taking on his political opponent.

John Yang: But at the same time, he did run in 2020, talking about contrasting himself to the chaos of the Trump administration. Before the midterms, he gave speeches about the threats to democracy. Do we really think he can go through the whole campaign without addressing this?

Jeff Mason: I think it's going to be a challenge. And you're right to mention those things. I mean, it's one of the main reasons he has cited as to why he ran for president in the first place. And before those midterms, he gave a speech at the Union Station talking about threats to democracy, talking about January 6th against the advice of some Democrats who thought, hey, let's not push that too hard. And it turned out to be a very salient, not only a point, but to have a lot of impact on the voters.

So, I think that President Biden is going to want to come back to that, but it's going to be tricky because he's going to want to be careful about the legal implications.

Francesca Chambers: At the same time, there are other Democrats, though, who wanted him to lead into that harder, who -- remember that they wanted him to name Donald Trump specifically before the midterms when he wasn't, and they were frustrated by that.

But he has come back to it in the sense that his first campaign had when he launched his re-election bid mentioned the democracy issues, to a certain extent, he also just hasn't been campaigning right now, so it hasn't come up either. But it is going to be a fine line between saying his Department of Justice is both separate but also as a candidate, especially if he ends up facing Trump in the general election, wanting to have that argument.

Carrie Johnson: I think that is enormously risky, in part because one of the things Donald Trump in this Donald Trump indictment is him leaning on people inside his Justice Department to do his bidding and announce sham investigations of nonexistent voter fraud in swing states, okay? So, it's actually part of the criminal charges against Donald Trump.

And the second thing is that every Justice Department I have ever covered, there is a sharp intake of breath whenever the White House, specifically any president, says anything about an ongoing criminal investigation.

And were President Biden to say something about the Donald Trump prosecutions, I think Attorney General Merrick Garland and Special Counsel Jack Smith would be incredibly unhappy about that.

John Yang: Hugo, how does Donald Trump run campaign with this going on?

Hugo Lowell: Well, I think it's basically because even his legal team is fit around the campaign. I mean, I think the one thing that I've been struck with in the last kind of ten months is that Trump runs a campaign first and his legal team follow on in behind.

I mean, that was the way that it worked during the grand jury investigations, both the documents case and for the federal January 6th case. And we have done extensive reporting on how the lawyers often felt second to the campaign and that they had to go through people like the in-house legal counsel. They had to go through other kind of political people around him in order to even get a word in with the president.

And that's going to be a real challenge as they get into the pre-trial phase and then the actual trial phase of these cases because it's going to require more and more of his time in a way that he's probably not used to and probably not kind of willing to do.

Francesca Chambers: And that's an argument that the GOP contenders are making right now, is that if he ends up being their nominee, that he could be facing all of these court proceedings and it could take him off the campaign trail. That is one of the most salient arguments they've been able to land thus far, especially for some of the candidates who've just not been able to lay a glove on him otherwise.

John Yang: Francesca, the Republicans are making the argument about a two-tiered justice system or two systems of justice by pointing to the Hunter Biden case. How is the Hunter Biden case getting wrapped up in this? And is there any sense at the White House that they're worried that the Hunter Biden case is going to hurt them?

Francesca Chambers: So, even before this latest indictment, allies of President Biden were telling me that they believe that the reason that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was now saying that the allegations against President Biden were rising to the level of an impeachment inquiry was specifically to distract and deflect from Donald Trump's problems, partly because he could end up being their nominee, but also because they think that it would hurt President Biden in the election.

John Yang: Is he going to have to say more about this? I mean, he says the White House line is Hunter Biden is a private citizen. This is something that's being taken care of. But is he going to have to come out and say more about this, Jeff?

Jeff Mason: I think he'll be asked about it and that will force him to. I don't think he will do it on his own. I think that the White House is really representing his opinion when they say this is a private family matter.

And you see how difficult it is to get information out of the White House about things like his seventh grandchild, which they eventually talked about in a statement to People Magazine late on a Friday night. That's emblematic of how he deals with things like that.

But it is a soft spot and it is a vulnerability for President Biden and that's one reason why the Republicans have zeroed in on it.

However, I think it's really important to say that it is not even close to apples for apples with what the former president is facing in terms of the charges against him.

John Yang: Carrie, what about that? You covered the Justice Department, actually, Hugo too. Is there anything to the complaints that the Republicans are making that Hunter Biden is getting special treatment?

Carrie Johnson: Well, there was a plea agreement that apparently was not a real meeting of the minds, according to the judge. And now, both sides have gone back to the drawing board, and within a month, we're going to see whether Hunter Biden is pleading guilty or not to some misdemeanor criminal offenses.

Certainly, investigators spent five years looking at him and they found some evidence that gave rise to concern. But based on some of the talking points coming out of the House GOP, some of the allegations they're making don't match with what the witnesses are actually telling them.

John Yang: Carrie, you got the last word, because we got to end it right there. Thanks for all the panel for being with us tonight and bringing your excellent reporting and analysis.

And don't forget to join me on PBS News Weekend on Saturday for a look at Japan's plans to release more than a million tons of wastewater water from the Fukushima power plant 12 years after the country's deadly and devastating earthquake and tsunami.

And be sure to be back here next week for the beginning of this program's exciting new chapter. There will be a new moderator, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, and a new name, WASHINGTON WEEK with The Atlantic.

For now, I'm John Yang. Good night from Washington.