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This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
Nia Rodgers: Hey, Aughie.
John Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?
Nia Rodgers: I'm fine. You know why I'm fine?
John Aughenbaugh: Why is that?
Nia Rodgers: Because my name is not in 800,000 point font on the top of every newspaper in the United States being declared a felon. Now, I'm not saying that that is not in my future, I'm saying that I am not currently in that position. However, I did want to ask you a question.
John Aughenbaugh: Well, hold on. Listeners, if you haven't figured out what Nia is referencing at the beginning of this podcast episode. We are recording on May 31, 2024, that is one day after. For the first time in US history, a former president of the United States, one Donald Trump.
Nia Rodgers: Donald John Trump.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, Donald J. Trump was found guilty in Manhattan, New York court room, 34 times.
Nia Rodgers: Thirty four counts.
John Aughenbaugh: Thirty four counts.
Nia Rodgers: It was a clean sweep as it were.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Found guilty of falsifying business records to hide in sexual affair with a former porn star and corrupt the 2016 presidential election.
Nia Rodgers: The money was for payments for her to not talk to anybody about that, isn't that?
John Aughenbaugh: Correct.
Nia Rodgers: It's not technically a felony to have an affair because boy, wouldn't that be an interesting world to live in?
John Aughenbaugh: That is correct. The question that you have Nia is?
Nia Rodgers: Let's say for the sake of argument. Now I'm asking for a friend.
John Aughenbaugh: Of course you are.
Nia Rodgers: That that friend was president of the United States. Let's say that they may have who knows, acquired a nuclear weapon and walked off with it or whatever one might say is a felony, I'm assuming that's probably high treason, but anyway, and they're found guilty. How do I put this? I would be going through the same process as any other person who had been found guilty of a felony, correct?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: I would get about what? Four hundred appeals, and I would get right, because I get to appeal an appeal of an appeal of an appeal because that's how appeal courts work? If I must say, sentenced. Say I was going to be sentenced on, I don't know, July 11th. I'm again, asking for a friend. I'm going to be sentenced on July 11th, that doesn't mean that on July 12th, I'm showing up in my orange jumpsuit on CNN doing the walk of shame to the jail. That's not how this is going to work.
John Aughenbaugh: There are a number of different levels that we can analyze former President Trump being found guilty. One level of analysis is what's going to happen next because he's been found guilty. Nia, as you pointed out, the judge in this particular case has already announced that sentencing will take place next month on July 11th. Until that point in time, Trump will be out on bail.
Nia Rodgers: Because he made bail.
John Aughenbaugh: He made bail. Well now, because the court sessions are no longer taking place, he's free to go ahead and campaign.
Nia Rodgers: And complain because he's not on trial.
John Aughenbaugh: But he is scheduled for sentencing on July 11. At that point in time, once he sentenced, then he has nearly a full month to decide whether or not he wants to appeal. The way this is going to work, and we would be all shocked.
Nia Rodgers: There is zero chance that he will not appeal.
John Aughenbaugh: Appeal, that is correct.
Nia Rodgers: Zero chance.
John Aughenbaugh: The New York court system has three levels of appellate courts. He could file an appeal if he loses at each of the three levels. They have an appellate level, then they have the Supreme Court, then because New York does it somewhat differently, then they have a court of last appeal. Let's say Nia, he loses at all those levels.
Nia Rodgers: Wait, first, let's say he doesn't. Let's say he wins at the first level, then either the prosecution has to decide to appeal that or he's done. At any point when he wins, if the prosecution decides not to come back for a second bite of the apple, he's done. He walks away. The only way it continues is if somebody appeals, if there's a loss on either side, and somebody appeals to the next level.
John Aughenbaugh: But let's say, for instance, Trump loses on his appeals in the New York court system because of what he was charged with, that he violated state law, that affected a federal election, he would more than likely then be able to appeal to the United States Supreme Court because a number of the 34 charges were predicated on the fact that he used campaign funding to make the hush payment to Stormy Daniels.
Nia Rodgers: If he hadn't been running a presidential campaign, he would not have had the money in that account.
John Aughenbaugh: It would not necessarily violate federal law. Now, that's one level of analysis.
Nia Rodgers: The Streams then could decide to take it or not take it.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right. If you're talking about time frame here, these appeals probably won't play out in full until at the earliest, at some point in 2025.
Nia Rodgers: Because each court has to have time for briefs from both sides, then they have the hearing, then they have the time that the judge gets to read the briefs and think about the hearing and look at the law and all that other kind of stuff before making a decision. We're talking 3-4 months at each level, you're looking at a year.
John Aughenbaugh: Easily a year.
Nia Rodgers: That's not including the Supreme. That's New York.
John Aughenbaugh: By the way, listeners, beyond the fact that Trump, like many people who have now been found guilty in a trial.
John Aughenbaugh: He's got any number of grounds on which to appeal from the uniqueness of the case against him, to some of the witnesses that were allowed to testify to the jury instructions issued by the judge.
Nia Rodgers: Which had to be clarified.
John Aughenbaugh: He's got any number of grounds. Not only was the case itself complicated, the appeals are going to be complicated. Which is going to add to the time it will take for appellate court judges to issue decisions, and write their opinions justifying their decisions. That's one level of analysis. Now the most obvious level is, it is the first time that Donald Trump has been found guilty in a criminal trial. Now, he was found responsible in a civil trial previously and a couple of civil trials in fact, but this is the first time that he has suffered this kind of personal defeat. Based on previous, shall we say experiences, when Donald Trump loses he doesn't lose well?
Nia Rodgers: Yeah, gracious loser is not in his list of accomplishments?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. This was a huge hit for him personally.
Nia Rodgers: Has to be a psychological blow, has to be, whoa, hey, I've never been in this situation.
John Aughenbaugh: There's that level. But because he is more than likely going to be the Republican Party nominee for president this fall then the question arises Nia, how is this going to affect the campaign in the election? I've read experts who have gone ahead and say this will hurt his campaign, because in polls you've had undecided voters or voters who previously voted for Democratic candidates. Who have indicated that if Trump was found guilty in any of his criminal cases, they might not vote for him
Nia Rodgers: By the same token there is a whole subset of people who are like, the man is out to get him.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: This is just proof of that, I am going to vote for him even more strongly than I would have voted for him before.
John Aughenbaugh: That is correct.
Nia Rodgers: I have a certain sympathy those feelings, because I am uncomfortable with the idea of using the court system to remove an opponent.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: I'm not entirely certain about the motivations of the people who brought this case.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: Now that being said, this case is complicated for me in those instances. The case of the documents down at Mar-a-Lago is less complicated for me. You don't own that stuff, you should have given it over. When you were asked to, you didn't. You're being a giant booger head and now you're going to be punished. That case seems more clear to me, this feels politici. I know that's not a word but you know what I mean. Tammany Hall this feels like there's an x-adult film involved.
John Aughenbaugh: Let me help possibly make the distinction you're drawing somewhat clear.
Nia Rodgers: Good luck. Sorry, sometimes my thought process just isn't clear, but let's see if you can Nia whisper.
John Aughenbaugh: Listeners, the one case that Nia just referenced was the fact that we have a federal special prosecutor, special counsel by the name of Jack Smith. Who has indicted former President Trump for the way Trump took classified documents with him after his one term in office concluded. This was or is seemingly in violation of a well known federal law in regards to presidential records, that was passed after Richard Nixon attempted to take all of the tapes of his conversations in the White House with him after he resigned.
Nia Rodgers: Right. He only got 14 minutes.
John Aughenbaugh: That law is well established, and it's pretty clear the process that a former president has to go through to get approval and we discussed this in a previous podcast episode.
Nia Rodgers: It involves the National Argus, there are rules . You can't just take off with what you think is interesting, that's not how it works.
John Aughenbaugh: This is pretty clearly in law nearly 50 years old. What Trump was charged with in Manhattan required the Manhattan district attorney to basically argue, that in violating New York State law in regards to falsifying business records, the falsification occurred because Trump was trying to conceal an affair and used federal campaign money and the way they recorded the payments violated state law. But the underlying if you will offense breaking federal election law, Trump was never charged with by the Federal Election Commission. Here's the distinction. It looks like the Manhattan DA is using a convoluted legal theory, to take out a political opponent that nearly every Democrat in the United States can't stand, it would really like to see go away forever politically
Nia Rodgers: It looks like padre retribution, and I'm not a fan. I know on this podcast we try to be as responsible in our language as possible, but do I think that Trump borders on the tawdry sometimes? Yes, I do. I think he has in past he has said things we will not discuss where he grabs women, but if you grab them by that apparently they like it.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, he's sleazy.
Nia Rodgers: I think he in fact takes a certain pride in that, that he's that kind of individual. But that is not illegal, it's just gross.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: That's where you have to be in my mind careful about I don't like people's behavior, and so I'm going to punish them by taking them to court over it.
Nia Rodgers: The reason that I supported the other case against him, the civil case that you're talking about, is that that was an assault case and the jury found that that happened. That an assault took place. That is reasonable to punish. That is chargery behavior that is reasonable to punish.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: But just being gross, I don't know. He had an affair with a porn star. Good for him, whatever. That's between he and Melania.
John Aughenbaugh: His wife and if she's willing to go ahead and forgive him, fine.
Nia Rodgers: God love her. That's her position in life.
John Aughenbaugh: But in regards to elections, Nia, I'm with you on this. There's a couple of things here that trouble me.
Nia Rodgers: You've got to be careful how you win.
John Aughenbaugh: One you've already mentioned. A couple of things you've already mentioned. One, you have this idea that you're using the court system to remove a political opponent, if you're trying to go ahead and squash a political opponent, then defeat them in an election and defeat them soundly.
Nia Rodgers: You've run somebody who they can't even come close to.
John Aughenbaugh: Part of the reason why Trump is still hanging around politically is that the 2020 presidential election was as close as it was.
Nia Rodgers: Right. The 2024 is going to be close.
John Aughenbaugh: Close.
Nia Rodgers: If Beyonce was running in the 2024 election, Donald Trump would have gently withdrawn by now. He would have said, I'm going to get out of the way of this fabulous African American woman, I support her like everybody else because he knows that she would stomp him into the ground. I'm just saying that if there was a candidate like that. But because the candidates are close, it's not in his best interest to quit. He has just as good a chance as anybody.
John Aughenbaugh: The second thing that troubles me about this is that the Manhattan DA was criminalizing a practice that has for good or bad been widely accepted and used by politicians of both political parties for decades if not centuries, which is,
Nia Rodgers: Hush money.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. When somebody has some dirt on you,
Nia Rodgers: You pay them to go away.
John Aughenbaugh: You pay them to go away.
Nia Rodgers: Candidates from all stripes of political background have done that. Like that's just, is it right? No.
John Aughenbaugh: No.
Nia Rodgers: Is it how politics works? There's a lot of money sloshing around in politics, and there's a lot of questionable money. If you want to talk about this, you also have to talk about lobbyists.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: You have to talk about people who buy influence in other ways. This is not a can of worms that most people should open.
John Aughenbaugh: If we go down this road,
Nia Rodgers: It will hurt everybody.
John Aughenbaugh: It will hurt everybody.
Nia Rodgers: This is the gun that shoots in all directions.
John Aughenbaugh: Again, I'm really afraid that the net result is, we're not going to end up with better candidates in the future. We're just going to end up with candidates who have never, ever made a mistake and that becomes almost impossible to find.
Nia Rodgers: Or candidates who are better at hiding it.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: That's what we're going to end up. What we're creating is super villains. Because normal villains, you can eventually catch, but super villains are a lot harder to catch. Just saying that's not a thing we want to encourage super villain. I'm going to figure out a way to do this so that it can't be tracked. Do we really want that?
John Aughenbaugh: Does it necessarily break my heart that this particular candidate, this particular politician,
Nia Rodgers: Got caught?
John Aughenbaugh: Got caught? No.
Nia Rodgers: No. Aughie and I are here to advocate for the New Yorker cover that's coming out next week, which is hilarious.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Listeners, when you hear this episode if you've not seen it before yet,
Nia Rodgers: Go look for it. It's pretty funny.
John Aughenbaugh: It is pretty funny.
Nia Rodgers: But that aside. Is that how we really want politics to run? What we do is persecute or prosecute our enemies out of politics. Be careful about that. That is a slippery slope, and you're standing on the top of saying, so if you're going to do this to Donald Trump, fine, but what happens when the guy after Biden does it to Biden, and what happens when the guy after that does it to the person after that? Like it's a dangerous.
John Aughenbaugh: This is the kind of thing that you typically see in third-world under developed countries, where the people keep on electing not so nice, not so good people.
Nia Rodgers: They like the Banana Republic.
John Aughenbaugh: The opposition party was just like, let's use the courts to go ahead and take out our enemies but then the courts become politicized.
Nia Rodgers: Exactly.
John Aughenbaugh: So you've damaged two institutions in the process instead of just one.
Nia Rodgers: Right. Then jurors don't know what to do.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: That's the other part of it, too, is way to be making jury duty even harder. Hello, it didn't suck enough before and now we have to raise the suckage level. That's not cool. I think we both agree that while this may be in brief a celebratory outcome for some people, in the long term, this is not a good idea.
John Aughenbaugh: No.
Nia Rodgers: This is not how we should be dealing with political differences. What we should do is find candidates on either side that people want to vote for instead of finding candidates that people just want to vote against.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. But we'll follow up in future episodes.
Nia Rodgers: I do have one follow-up question for you really quick. If for some reason, Donald Trump fails all of his appeals, his felony convictions stand, he is given who knows what. I doubt he would be given prison because can you imagine the nightmare of trying to protect a president in prison? The Secret Service would have a nervous breakdown as a group. But let's say that he has to pay restitution and he has to do community service. That doesn't prevent him from being president, correct?
John Aughenbaugh: That is correct. There is nothing in the US Constitution that has any language disqualifying somebody from serving as president, if they've been found guilty of either a misdemeanor or a felony. That's correct.
Nia Rodgers: I assume the only thing that would disqualify you from presidency is if you were found guilty of treason.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: You would not be able to serve if you had been found guilty. So short of that, none of this would prevent Donald Trump from being president of the United States.
John Aughenbaugh: Correct.
Nia Rodgers: If only elected to do so.
John Aughenbaugh: Correct.
Nia Rodgers: Just one to make sure, so technically it doesn't matter how long this takes to play out?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: Because Donald Trump can still serve as president.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, he could still serve as president, and with the way the Republican Party is currently, they might think it is a badge of honor that he was found guilty and that the again, liberal establishment tried to take out their candidate through a court proceeding, and he still was elected president and could still serve.
Nia Rodgers: That's a great point to make here at the end of this is that this has the potential to backfire against people who might have been doing it for political reasons, because if he does win, then one, it alters whether this sort of thing works or not.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Actually maybe that's a good thing. Maybe people won't try it in the future. But also it makes your candidate look even worse. You couldn't beat a guy who'd been found guilty of 34 felony charges? The pressure on Biden has just jumped from where it was up another 10 notches. I would assume. Because now he really has to perform or it really is going to look like a Banana Republic. It really is going to look like it doesn't matter what you're found guilty of.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. I thought some of the analysis before the jury came back with the verdict that said that Biden had to be hoping that the jury either acquitted him or was deadlocked, which would have led to a mistrial, because just for the point that you mentioned, if he can't beat a guy found guilty of 34 counts, of criminality.
Nia Rodgers: That is not a good look.
John Aughenbaugh: Then it calls into question the outcome of 2020. Because it gives further, if you will, impetus for people to say Biden couldn't have won in 2020. He couldn't beat our candidate after our candidate was found guilty.
Nia Rodgers: That's a good point.
John Aughenbaugh: This is a narrative that does not play well.
Nia Rodgers: This is the all-bad channel, I think, is what you're saying.
John Aughenbaugh: Unless Biden wins decisively this fall.
Nia Rodgers: Right. Goodness, that's a happy thought.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: On that fabulous note, I'm going to go lay down and put a cold compress on my forehead. Thanks, Aughie.
John Aughenbaugh: Glad to be of service. You enjoy that cold compress now.
Nia Rodgers: Yeah. Thanks.
John Aughenbaugh: Bye Nia.
Nia Rodgers: Bye.