WTH is Going On with the Trump Indictment? John Yoo Weighs In
What the Hell Is Going On
AEI Podcasts
4.4 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 14 June 2023
⏱️ 50 minutes
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Summary
When the Founders conceived the U.S. Constitution, they were under the assumption that the head of state in America would be guided by honor – that an impeachment would virtually never be necessary, that the shame of the prospect would force the accused to step down from office. That model of leadership with integrity is absent in today’s political climate. In former president Donald Trump’s second, and more serious indictment, he has been charged with 37 counts relating to his retention of classified documents. Yes, Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden should also be prosecuted – but that does not exonerate Trump. But it is also true that we have never prosecuted Presidents before: not Clinton, not Nixon, not LBJ, not even Jefferson Davis. The DOJ is crossing a line - not a constitutional line, but a “bright line” of institutional practice, as our guest calls it, and that is enormously significant. Where did statesmanship go? Just where will this Trump indictment lead the nation?
John Yoo is a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department. He is the Emmanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. He is also a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution. His most recent book is Defender in Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is brought to you by the American Enterprise Institute. |
| 0:03.0 | If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and share. Thanks for listening. Here's our show. What the hell's going on? What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on? I don't know what the hell is talking about. You don't have to know what the hell is on it. What hell's the matter with these guys? We don't know what's going on. What hell's going on? |
| 0:01.1 | Who in God's name |
| 0:21.7 | knows what it's all about. Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka. And I'm Mark Dyson. Welcome to our podcast. |
| 0:38.5 | What the hell is going on? Mark, what is Donald Trump done now? Well, what the hell is going on, which is the question you usually ask me, is it's your birthday, Danny. Oh, yeah. Today is my actual birthday, June 12th. Today is your actual birthday. How old are you, Danny? I'm 60, thank you, Mark. are 60 years young, right? |
| 0:35.0 | No, I won't. |
| 0:36.1 | If you ever catch me saying that, you can come over and slap me. I am not 60 |
| 0:59.5 | years young. I'm 60 years old. Well, I want to slap you every podcast, so there you go. |
| 1:04.8 | That's a ton. And vice versa. If only I could reach over there. But we do have something serious to talk. |
| 1:12.1 | More serious than my impending. |
| 1:13.9 | Something more important is going on in the country than your birthday? |
| 1:15.7 | Well, only slightly. |
| 1:16.8 | But go. |
| 1:17.4 | What is happening is that the former president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, has been indicted. |
| 1:23.9 | It is, as our guest, John U. points, the first time that a president, former president, |
| 1:29.6 | has been charged with federal crimes, and the first time that an executive branch held by |
| 1:35.9 | the incumbent party has indicted the leading presidential candidate of another political party. |
| 1:41.2 | This is, you know, there's two parts of this that I want to discuss. |
| 1:45.3 | One is the law itself, and then the other is the politics. But as I think, the truth is you can't separate them. Right. I mean, we should be able to look at and say, okay, what's the law? Clear cut. Here it is. And then the politics is sort of, we're supposed to put that aside in our justice system and all the rest of it. But our postis system has been so politicized. |
| 2:02.7 | And it's all wrapped up in this, you know, it's like a cancerous tumor that's, you know, |
| 2:07.7 | surrounding an organ, you know, at that and you can't separate it. |
| 2:11.5 | Well, you can't. It's funny. |
... |
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