Trump claims free speech protects him from Georgia prosecution
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.4 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 29 March 2024
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Bart Jansen explains how former President Donald Trump's lawyers are trying to use the First Amendment and free speech to get the election interference charges in Georgia dismissed.
USA TODAY spoke exclusively to the commander of the Army Corps of Engineers about how the Francis Scott Key bridge cleanup will happen.
USA TODAY White House Correspondent Joey Garrison shares the significance of having two former presidents join President Joe Biden Thursday night in the biggest fundraiser of the campaign cycle so far.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will spend more than two decades behind bars.
Fast-food workers are losing their jobs in California after a minimum wage increase goes into law.
And finally, today marks the one year anniversary of the arrest and imprisonment of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich by Russian authorities. To show your support, please visit https://www.wsj.com/news/evan-gershkovich.
Episode Transcript available here
Also available at art19.com/shows/5-Things
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Wunderry Plus subscribers can listen to USA Today's the excerpt ad free right now. |
| 0:05.0 | Join Wunderry Plus in the Wundery app. |
| 0:08.0 | Good morning, I'm Sarah Gannum filling in for Taylor Wilson. Today is Friday, March 29, |
| 0:18.0 | 2024. This is the excerpt. Today, former President Donald Trump makes another attempt to get charges of election |
| 0:29.3 | interference in Georgia tossed. |
| 0:31.9 | Plus a USA Today exclusive about what's next for the cleanup of the Francis |
| 0:37.0 | Scott Key Bridge. And FTX founder Sam Bankman Freed is given a lengthy prison sentence for stealing billions from customers. |
| 0:47.0 | Former President Donald Trump's lawyers were back in court in Georgia yesterday, arguing that Trump should not be prosecuted for trying to |
| 0:54.8 | steal the 2020 election. For more on what happened I spoke with USA Today |
| 0:59.6 | Justice Department correspondent Bart Janssen. Bart, |
| 1:02.8 | Bart, thanks so much for joining the excerpt. |
| 1:05.2 | Thanks for having me. |
| 1:06.2 | What happened? |
| 1:07.2 | What did Trump's lawyers argue yesterday? |
| 1:10.0 | Trump's lawyer was trying to throw out the charges based largely on the argument that every time that he's accused of doing something that basically he was saying something or conveying a message and his his lawyers were saying, well, he was talking about politics |
| 1:27.0 | and the management of elections. |
| 1:29.0 | That should be the highest level of protected speech under the First Amendment and so how could you |
| 1:35.2 | possibly charge somebody for just exercising their right to free speech? |
| 1:39.2 | And how did prosecutors respond? Well they said even if the stuff was true that he was |
| 1:44.8 | saying that you could still charge him because he was effectively coordinating or |
| 1:50.6 | directing criminal activity by others, which is why the overall charges in the case are a conspiracy. |
| 2:00.0 | The allegations are that 19 people got together and through various illegal activities conspired to try to steal the 20-20 election. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from USA TODAY, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of USA TODAY and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.