'That’s a crime': Legal analysts gush over exposure of Trump’s 'twofer' scheme
During Sunday night's episode of Inside with Jen Psaki, legal analysts Neil Katyal and Andrew Weissman explained why new NBC Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker's recent interview with ex-President Donald Trump was successful.
During Welker and Trump's conversation, the former president boasted that he followed his own instincts when it came to his efforts to overturning the 2020 presidential election — not the guidance of his counsel.
"Jen, any critic of Kristen Welker Meet the Press who's like 'oh, she's not making news' — she just made huge news this morning," Katyal said. "Because Donald Trump's defense to January 6th has been one basic thing, which is, 'I relied on the advice of my lawyers. I did not have bad criminal intent, it's my lawyers who were telling me to do this.' And she got him through masterful interviewing and playing to his ego to go, 'Oh no, I did it all myself.' If you're Jack Smith this morning, you're going, 'Thank you. That's what I always thought. And yes, you hired these kind of crazy lawyers. But at the end of the day, this was you through and through.' This demonstrates his culpability right there and then, and I think makes this case that Judge Chutkan has going to trial on March 4th a lot easier."
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Psaki then said, "So, Andrew, if you're Jack Smith's team, what are you doing, is that footage going to play in the courtroom, you think?"
Weissman replied, "It could be. Just to add to Neil's excellent point, the other thing that Kristen Welker got the president to say was essentially a part of this scheme, a part of the obstruction, a part of the 241 civil rights scheme, which is the stop of the electoral count. If you will remember, everyone thought there would be a red mirage — that the night of the election, Trump would be ahead. because the mail-in votes had not been counted. And sure enough Trump had said, 'Stop counting.' Well, that's a crime. He was saying at the time and he just said it on air to NBC stop counting the votes. That's not allowed. That is part of the scheme here so there's sort of a a twofer here. One, as Neil said, not relying on counsel and two, saying that he wanted to stop the votes of American citizens."
Watch the video below or at this link.
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