'Veil of legitimacy': Ex-prosecutor shows why this Trump lawyer will likely face charges
Former President Donald Trump's far-right adviser John Eastman is likely to be hit with charges separately from the Trump indictment in the 2020 election plot, argued former prosecutor David Kelley on MSNBC Wednesday.
"You've run these cases," said anchor Ari Melber, himself an attorney. "Sometimes you indict at once, you try, and you close the case. Other times you might indict later. Walk us through, having looked at these cases, what you think Jack Smith might be up to with six unindicted co-conspirators."
"A lot of it is a guessing game, but I'll tell you a couple things," said Kelley. "It's clear they wanted to indict Trump standing alone. I think it makes it more expeditious. At the same time, by naming co-conspirators, what he's done is creating an evidentiary gateway by spelling out what the co-conspirator statements said. Statements are not hearsay, so he can make the case without having the folks in the courtroom."
"Let me slow you down," said Melber. "You're making a point that's relevant in court, not in trial, not any other time, because here on the news we cover all the statements. You're reminding everyone if it was just a random person who talked to Trump, it would actually be harder to bring in what they allegedly said."
"Correct, and there's another gateway here, too, and that is that this gives them kind of permission, if you will, a gateway, again, to continue the investigation," said Kelley. "Three, I think what it helps do is leverage some pressure on these co-conspirators to see if they'll flip, and maybe one or more have already. We don't know."
"Who's the most likely of the six — if you're building a case, if they're not going to do all six co-conspirators, who's the most likely to charge?" asked Melber.
"I would say Giuliani and Eastman," said Kelley.
"Why Eastman?" Melber pressed him.
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"Basically what he did was he was orchestrating this whole operation, which he knew was a butchered legal theory that was being used to give a veil of legitimacy to a plot to engage in the crimes that Jack Smith charged, namely to — the scheme to deprive people of having their votes counted," said Kelley. "They knew that while there was disputes in different states, but none of them were being upheld. They were told there was no fraud. They said, let's try to create this scheme. We'll throw a veil of legal legitimacy on it. And that legal legitimacy, as you hear from the professor who's responded to the whole memo, which is a complete butcher job and mismatch of a bunch of legal stuff that, at the end of the day, was being used to orchestrate this fraud."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
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