.

.

.

.

.

Hi, this is Josh Marshall, and this is the Josh Marshall podcast with Kay Riega.

I think you know the topic we have to discuss this week sort of, I can't say it's out of the blue exactly.

I mean, in a sense, we have known this Jan 6 stuff was coming for two and a half years.

And beyond that, I think we, I mean, obviously for a lot of the first year and a half or so or maybe a little longer, we actually didn't know.

And that was a matter of great suspense for, I mean, I'm sure it was a matter of great suspense for Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows and these kind of people.

But among Democrats, Trump critics, just people who don't like coups, it's been a matter of some suspense about is there going to be any consequences for this?

Are, you know, are, are, are the laws going to be interpreted in some extremely narrow way that you say, well, you know, there's no, there's no specific fake collector law.

So what are we going to do? Or again, what has been in suspense and has made a lot of people on edge and angry and all those kind of things is, are they just going to decide that like, yeah, it was a coup, but we need to turn the page.

And is it, is it more damaging to make the country relive these things or is it despite the criminal conduct? Is it somehow worse to create a precedent that the president, the incumbent president, brings charges or the justice department of the incumbent president, brings charges against his predecessor or his challenger in the next election.

And all this kind of stuff. But I think, you know, my, my memory of how all this unfolded is not, is not necessarily that precise. But my general sense is that we have known that there is a serious January six investigation going on.

It's kind of since the beginning of this calendar year. And it, there's a number of things, just, you know, kind of leaks you hear about and not necessarily leaks. And, you know, sometimes what are called leaks are just the defense attorneys of the people who went before the grand jury, saying that their client went before the grand jury. And that, that may not be on the record, but that's not a leak. People can, you know, you can talk about your own grand jury appearance.

And then you had the appointment of the special counsel, all that kind of stuff. But of course, now we have had Trump getting his target letter. And in lesson until, and I suspect until we actually see the news of indictments, that's about as close as we're going to get to kind of like it's happening.

And one of the additional matters for that, because for those of us who have covered criminal prosecutions and political scandals and so on and so forth for a long time, you know, target letter means the actual intent, the reason there are such things isn't just to help out reporters to kind of game out if there's, if there's an indictment coming.

It's basically a way of keeping everybody honest or I mean, sort of too late for probably for the, for the perp. But, you know, it's basically so the, so the person who was facing indictment can't come in and say, hey, I came in to talk to the grand jury. You didn't tell me I was going to be indicted. I thought I was just there as a witness or like, I was just kind of nearby or something like that.

It's to make everybody to have that clarity. Like, don't say we didn't make really clear to you. You're the one who's probably going to be indicted and act accordingly. It's sort of like a, you know, low five Miranda warning in a sense, although it doesn't have just to be clear for all you lawyers out there who're going to correct me. No, it doesn't have any legal constitutional meaning in the same way, but it's it has some parallels. In any case, I think the other thing that.

Oh, what I was going to say about that is that. So that's what a target letter is. And if you're, if you're in the business of, of covering these kind of cases, you know what it means. And yet, none of us are in the business or have really any experience of former presidents facing criminal indictments. So kind of like what exactly doesn't mean in the case of a former president. Well, just what was it a month or so ago, we found out.

Right. When, when, when, when Donald Trump got his target letter and in pretty short order, he got indicted. So I think we know this is, this is coming. And all of the, all of the politics that surround that all of the legal ins and outs that that surround that.

...