FED UP Jack Smith Reveals SECRET PLAN Trump FEARED

this is Michael popac legal AF look at the glasses check the time it's time for legal af after dark no one will ever accuse Jack Smith special counsel of being a dull boy what has he been up to he can walk he can chew gum he can get a superseding indictment behind our backs at the uh at the grand jury in the District of Columbia against Donald Trump and he can file an 11 circuit brief all at the same time we talk about all of that on legal a F take a listen let's Jump Right In Jack Smith can walk and chew gum at the same time and indict and file 11 circuit briefs at the same time talk about I've done some hot takes you've done some hot takes talk about it from your perspective why don't you explain to the audience what is a superseding indictment what is the meaning of it coming out of an existing grand jury that's been kicking around since 20 since apparently 2023 why did Jack Smith decide to do that rather than or did he have to do that in order to salvage his indictment and what does it mean for the future arraignment uh motion practice um trial in this case why don't you sort of kick it off and then I'll do some commentary when you're done sure so let's start with what is an indictment an indictment is the charging document or charging instrument uh that tells you what the charges are against you and you get the indictment by presenting evidence to a grand jury and the grand jury votes on whether or not there is probable cause to believe that crime occurred it's a lower standard it's not Beyond A Reasonable Doubt and in the federal system you could your evidence doesn't have to be live Witnesses where they come in and they testify and tell you from their firsthand knowledge what happened like you have to in New York for example you could have an FBI agent come in and testify and talk about their summary of the case I mean that's sometimes what what uh prosecutors do so it is quite easy to get an indictment if you have the evidence you go in you swear to tell the truth and you have to uh under oath tell them exactly what the case is about but it's not that complicated to do federally and prosecutors often supersede now a superseding indictment just means it's amended or it's changed and if you're going to add any charges add any words add any defendants if you're going to add anything to an an indictment you have to supersede if Jack Smith were going to just for example take out certain things from the indictment he would not have had to supersede he could have just literally crossed them out and dropped it off of the indictment so so that the fact that he superseded and didn't just crossed things out was uh clue number one that his that the indictment has changed pretty pretty dramatically um in light of the July immunity ruling that the the Supreme Court handed down saying that he the president or any president essentially is immune for official acts and again because he could be just immune from official acts he could have just gone through and and exed things out but he made a lot of changes and and the changes were both substantive and stylistic and was very interesting because he made sure in this new superseding indictment to make this all about Donald Trump his personal capacity or his uh you as a candidate um so not as president and so a lot came out including everything related to the Department of Justice like Jeffrey Clark and and his attempt to install Jeffrey Clark in the 11th hour after the election after he had already lost uh but before inauguration to try and continue this bogus election interference claim with all these ridiculous investigations and to quote unquote fraud right that was he he's like an environmental lawyer at the Department of Justice that he was going to Super Elevate to the role of acting attorney general in these waning days of his administration which is which is just suspect in and of itself and all of that has come out and it and it leads an open question because uh because Jeffrey Clark was Co one of the co-conspirators I think it was co-conspirator number four and and that's just been removed the other co-conspirators that were six total were still there when and when we saw there was a superseding indictment one of my questions that I had to myself was are there are the co-conspirators going to be un are they going to be indicted they're unindicted co-conspirators would you are we going to see a seven defendant or six defendant indictment but no Jack Smith kept it only Donald Trump and but he kept the same four charges he didn't change that the same exact four charges it's just about what he's going to prove and what evidence came in and uh and the indictment takes you through you go through it all and it's very much about candidate Trump and citizen Trump and and Trump in his personal capacity and you know he really he in the but the most interesting thing that that he kept in there was all the references to Mike Pence uh because that could have been something that Jack Smith said you know that's dicey because the Supreme Court said um you know basically your title doesn't give you immunity it's what function your in that gives you immunity and the vice president could be one of those people that goes either way because in addition to being part of the executive branch and being Donald Trump's vice president at the time he was also his running mate right he also was candidate vice president for the next election and he or for that election for the next Administration and the next the other thing he was was he he was as all vice presidents are he's the ceremonial certifier of the election results in his capacity as president of the Senate so he's essentially part of the legislative branch when he does that and so Jack Smith uh kept all of that in um but all of the Department of Justice stuff is out and the indictment is paired down it's about 10 nine or 10 pages um uh uh shorter and um and he really made it so uh so that there's very little that uh is still on the table for judge chuin to have to apply the the new law to these facts and they I still think she might hold an evidentiary hearing with respect to certain evidence in here there's some evidence that you don't have to that's clearly plainly personal private candidate Trump stuff and a lot of that had to do with uh the fake uh slates of electors Etc in the states and so much of that stayed in there but there Mike Pence stuff I think is is something that she might want to hold a hearing as well as some of the evidence some of the evidentiary uh stuff that Jack Smith had in here like for example pre um the the presidential Twitter account that Jack Smith added language to clarify that sometimes he used it in his presidential capacity but sometimes in his personal capacity so so those are the types of things that that uh judge chuin will have to determine and potentially hold a mini hearing if you will or a mini trial uh with respect to to this evidence at a hearing before the election which might happen but what has to happen first before that is you have to be arraigned you have to be arraigned on this superseding indictment every time there's a new charging instrument the first thing that has to happen is an arraignment and nothing can happen until he is arraigned and knowing that Jack Smith said uh we'll wave the pre um Mr Trump's or defendant trumps will wave his appearance if if the judge wants and if the defendant wants because there's so much Logistics and so much that goes into bringing him there and having him uh have to come to court Etc and to just not delay things but I agree with you popac it's very clear that when Jack Smith asked for some more time he it's because he was he was going into the grand jury and presenting this superseder and you know and it was secret because all grand jury proceedings are by their nature are secret you never know what's going on there so so he's been busy at work and I think we have uh pretty substantial charging instrument here um that's going to pass mustard mustard let me do let me do the end and then then I'll go to the beginning of your commentary on on the end the arraignment my if I was a betting man which I am uh he's showing up for the arraignment um this is like telling an arsonist to stay away from a fire he wants he uses these opportunities and he's running out of these opportunities to to in order to reinforce his whole lawfare weaponization election interference I mean everybody has seen it if not we've reported on it here on the mightest touch Network all of his insane uh insane untethered to reality social media postings about you know election interference again weaponization again he's not going to give up this opportunity he's GNA be like nope nope I want to go to the arraignment because I want to stand in front of those bicycle racks in front of the courthouse again like I did in New York and I want to have my press conference and I want to have all the cameras on me and he's running have opportunities where that happens you know they complain about KLA Harris not giving a um an interview which he's giving and it's going to be reported tomorrow by CNN which I thought just to digress for a moment let's give her a break okay six weeks ago or whatever it was she didn't know she was going to be running for president so in that short amount of time she had to re-calibrate get her entire staff refocused hire new people take over the social media platform the campaign platform get her delegates in shape get actually nominated hold a convention and then do Battleground States while she's picked the vice president and be vice president while she's doing that okay she may not have had time to sit down for a 20-minute Q&A it's not because she's an idiot or she was avoiding it or because she didn't she wants to use notes or anything else it's because she was doing some other really important things in a very compressed period so even the even the Democrats are hand ringing about why isn't she joing a press conference relax I think she'd have a you would you wouldn't want to hear from her if she hadn't already been nominated she's now the vice president the presidential candidate Donald Trump by contrast is going to come to that arraignment um and and it's going to be uh maybe before the debate at the at the rate we're going it looks like it's going to be the sentencing of Donald Trump a week or so after the debate on the 10th of September and this arraignment maybe before what I liked about the this gangster act by Jack Smith is and it doesn't to answer the question I think this where what you're alluding to it doesn't eliminate the hearing the judge the trial judge has been instructed by the Supreme Court and her bosses that she is to take whatever indictment is in front of her yes it was traveled under an original indictment but now take the superseding indictment and and test it pressure test it and make sure that they the the immunity decisionmaking about evidence about official conduct stretch to its outer boundaries constitutional core presidential conduct and private conduct has all been properly made out now I like the fact that rather than just blue penciling the indictment he decided you know what while we're in there let's beef up all the references to the private attorneys and the private ellipse campaign speech and the and the lack of a role for the president in the Electoral count process while we're at it and let's also beef up the fake elector certificates and Donald Trump's role in it because that is completely a way to salvage the fif the 18 USC 1512 counts for obstruction of an official proceeding that was the blueprint left to them the path left to them by the United States Supreme Court F six to3 Maga right-wing decision so you know they were diligently on their own running this through the filter uh of it but now judge chuin has to do her job I'm not sure about evid enture hearing first of all as I said in a prior hot take here on the network uh it's been reported that and he's right Jack Smith doesn't want to showcase his his trial strategy his evidence he doesn't want to T the last thing you want to do is tip off an outmatched and stretch too thin Donald Trump legal team I don't want to give them a show of what i' I've done many and summary trials in front of juries you don't want to do it if you don't have to you don't want to do it and I think this new indictment superseding has to rise and fall on its own merits can't be supplemented by other pieces of evidence from the secret grand jury it either it either does or does not State a a a uh State uh criminal actions against Donald Trump for the for counts based on the elements that have to be alleged from this or or if it has deficiencies because of the way the grand jury handled it or otherwise that's for the judge to decide uh ultimately I don't think she has to hear from any Mike Pence doesn't have to come in and and tell a story in order for her to understand just like any other indictment has to rise and fall on its own Merit so I think they're going to push for briefing no evidentiary hearing Trump wants delay so he's going to push for who knows what yes I want to hear a preview of what the prosecutors are going to put on and we're going to hear from that and then you have the question of what this does to the trial and my argument if I was Jack Smith even though I know you framed it as this a substantial rewrite back in old Hollywood when they used to rewrite you know the script rewrite of the of the original indictment that is one way to argue it and I think Trump's going to argue it's a rewrite another way to argue it is that the Essential Elements except for Jeff Clark being removed and a couple of window dressings about private councel and a little more beef up on the fraudulent false selector certificates it's essentially the same it still tells the same story about Battleground States what Trump Giuliani and others did in Wisconsin in Pennsylvania in Michigan in Arizona still still telling the same story about juliani pressuring uh Rusty Bowers the Speaker of the House in Arizona the fake legislative hearings with the die dripping Giuliani in Pennsylvania oh they left that part out uh it it still tells the essential same story and same for counts same co-conspirators except one has been removed and then the other aspect of it I wanted to hit on here to get your view Karen is that the the fact that we now have reporting that the grand jur we now know more about the grand jury the grand jury was not recently convened in 2024 in order to reite Donald Trump they went back to an existing grand jury that's been kicking around since 23 a grand jury whose number is 23-8 who sits in DC and has been doing lots of things over the last year and a half including indicting Gen 6 insurrectionists it's the same grand jury apparently that indicted the carjacker for justice so um and you know I could just see Jack Smith sitting around the table like hm we're going to reite where should we go should we do sp and somebody said well we got a 23-8 grand jury sitting around they've been doing Gen 6 stuff why don't we go into them great idea when when do they meet let's bring him let's do it and my one of my one of my takes on this is I am not sure that juliani Boris Epstein Ken chesboro and uh John Eastman who are still listed as unindicted co-conspirators one through whatever I'm not sure they're out of the woods yet because if I was Jack Smith while he's got the chance and he's still this e e e e e e e e e e e welcome back were you wondering what legal AF stood for well now you know we sit at the intersection of Law and politics every Wednesday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time right here on the midest touch Network and then uh we do what we just did we curate the top four or five stories the intersection of Law and politics we don't blow smoke or Sunshine but we talk about it thoughtfully from our vantage point of PR as practicing lawyers in the courtrooms and cour houses that we talk about how how refreshing if you like what we're doing join us Wednesday Saturday 8:00 p.m. eastern time you can watch us live record and live chat with us during the YouTube version of this podcast legal AF or you plug in legal AF to your audio podcast platforms and you'll find us there as well so until my next hot take until my next legal AF this is Michael popac reporting for