Woke AF DailyThis week, Danielle looks back at some of her favorite conversations from the last few years of Woke AF Daily. Today, her conversation with Elie Mystal about Trump's criminal indictments.
Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with Meet your Girl Danielle Moody. Pre recording from the Home Bunker. Folks, it is wokf's holiday week and it is our farewell week as we close out seven years of conversations, rage, information, celebration, and trying to deliver keen political analysis over the last seven years. So this week I am bringing you some of my favorite shows with some of the voices that we've brought took f over the years that I am just so grateful for. First up is my conversation with our friend Ellie Mistell, who is the Justice correspondent at the Nation, and he returns and in this episode he gives his expert perspective on Trump's indictments that we now have known are no longer they've gone the way of the wind. But to remind us these indictments were serious, and had America decided to, oh, I don't know, not vote for a convicted felon, not vote for somebody that had been indicted multiple times, not vote for somebody who showed very little care about the American people but a lot of attention to America's coffers, maybe we wouldn't be in the situation that we're in. But I think that it is important as we wind our way to the second Trump regime, which is certain to be worse than the first one, because now they know where all the keys the kingdom are. The first time around, they were just case in the joint seeing what they could take, and as my friend doctor Christina Grier said, it was a smash and grab job. This time around, they can be methodical, they can be slow because guess what, ain't nobody going and check them? So in this best of episode, Ellie Mistell brings us through the Trump indictments and the mountain of evidence that America will never see. Folks, I am so excited to welcome back to wok F after just too long of a time away, which is our friend Ellie Mistel, who is a justice correspondent for the Nation and the author of Allow Me to Retort, A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution and just all around. I don't know what the fuck we call Twitter these days? Is it X?
Is it? You know?
Trash? It is trash, but you you make it a place still worth going. I will say that, Ellie.
Oh, don't put that. Don't you put that evil on me.
Let me not put that X on you by that. So, Ellie, you know I want to talk to you because I just there are times when I wish that I had not listened to the old white male professor who told me it wasn't smart enough to go to law school, and that I actually went. And it is times when I'm trying to understand how much legal trouble a normal person whose name wasn't Trump would be in, uh if they had all of these indictments that have already come out and one big one still that is looming, actually two big ones that are looming if you're also looking at the state of Georgia. But walk us through, because it's potential, the potential of Donald Trump being indicted for a third time while people are listening to this is very high. So please walk us through where we are in the insurrection case so as not to get people confused with the other indictments that the former twice impeach president has.
Yes, any look, a normal person would be in jail like eight times over by this point. A normal person's children would probably be in jail at least twice over by this point. The normal rules simply don't apply to Trump. The White Rules does do. And that's kind of how where we start with. Right, this indictment that's coming from Jacksmith, potentially already out from Jacksmith, coming at the time that we're recording. To me, this is the big one. This is the one that we should have been working towards. Since January seventh, twenty twenty one. Now, there has been reporting about how Merrek Carlin has slow walked the investigation and basically kind of did everything he could to get Trump off the hook. But finally he appointed Jack Smith. I've said on other shows Danielle that I think I was wrong about Jack Smith. I thought he would be kind of another Robert Muller type, and he has not been run. Now, he is not an actual fucking prosecutor, and he has been putting the wood to Trump, not just in the espionage case, but now finally on the January sixth case. We already know that he has interviewed. Basically, he has finally done the work that Garland should have been doing and that the January sixth Select Committee in Congress already did. Right, He's finally done the interviews with the Cassidy Hutchinson's and the Mark Meadows and the Steve batt Bannons. He's gotten all of that information in and he's prepared to charge Trump with a number of ofugh crimes. Right the biggest ticket would be kind of conspiracy to deprive right through the color of law. That's basically the trying to intimidate and and potentially assassinate Mike Pence charge, Like that's that's what that is. He's going to be charged, we believe, with obstruction and and and and the fake electors scheme as well. And these are the serious ones, not just serious in terms of like legal jeopardy, but serious in terms of actually holding the man accountable for the coup he tried to pull off against the government, Like that needs to happen, and it looks like that that is finally going to happen. The problem, Danielle, is.
That because there always is one elle race, it's.
It's never just good news. The problem is that that accountability, that trial over these charges will most likely happen in twenty twenty five, and will only be allowed to happen if Trump loses again another presidential election, where he will again try to steal it and potentially again try to do another coupe, right, Like this is all because of the timeline, because of Merrick Garland's slow walking to get us to this point. We are now in a situation where it's just very unlikely that any of these trials are going to happen before the election. And that's not and there's almost nothing we can do about that. Like the timeline is the timeline, and so Trump will get to run again.
But but let me ask you, let me ask this.
I want to say why.
I don't even want to say I will say why. But so you have first in the Document's case, ailing Cannon has set the date from May twenty four, twenty twenty four, right, yep, And so that is several months prior to the election. Why is it that? And then Donald Trump prior to that? I believe that Donald Trump, it has the another Egen Carroll case that I believe is happening in October. Why wouldn't this case, which is going to be heard in Washington, DC, because it has such a long runway given a Leen Cannon's timeline, and there is no need for security clearance in the way that the Document's case requires security clearance. Why wouldn't that be set for the end of the year or January because.
Trials take a long time. I mean, it's just like there it is. It is just true that trials, especially trials of rich white people, take a long time to process through the system, and the defense lawyers remember, like a lot of times, here's here's the thing that listeners have to think about a lot of times when they hear about court cases or trials from television, news or even most print media. They're caring about it from the perspective of a prosecutor, right, And the prosecutors are always like, go now, go now, we can do this now. And when they are when the prosecutors are facing criminal defendants who are underfunded, underprivileged black Latino, the system is very happy to go as quickly as humanly possible to get a black and brown people in jail. But when it happens to white people, the defense attorneys have usually legitimate reasons and arguments to delay trial. Right. One of the biggest ones is that the defense lawyers need time to go over all of the evidence that the government has and prepare an adequate defense. Right. So in these cases I always argue kind of in favor of the defense, because I realize that more often than not, what I'm doing is arguing on behalf of black and Latino people who are being railroaded through the system. Right, So I understand and I guess the need for defend's attorneys to have time to prepare their cases. Is Trump getting more time than normal? It depends on what you think normal is. Right. If you think normal is what we do to black people, then hell yeah, he's getting way more time. Is he getting more time than he should? The brass tacks of it is, if you look at the espionage case, at least, given when Smith was allowed to make these charges, I think May twenty fourth is about the right day. I think that's about the right time. Now. The question is, and I think that this is the bigger problem. It's unlike May twenty fourth is unlikely to hold up. You know, sorry, May twentieth, twenty twenty four is unlikely to hold up because as we get closer to May twentieth, twenty twenty four, Trump's lawyers will again ask for a delay. They will say they were overwhelmed, so they'll be there. They're busy running a campaign. They'll say whatever they have to say, and with Trump Judge Eileen Cannon having already own a willingness to the lay this trial for six months, it's I think, but this is.
This is why I think that the insurrection case has the potential to go before ailing Cannon's case. And my feeling is one because it's going to be held in DC. I don't know. And this is a question for you, who do we think that that judge is like what circuit is this going through? Is that this is actually about this about national security?
Right?
You're talking about somebody who is going to be indicted on charges that I am going to assume one of them may in fact be seditious conspiracy, which we have seen both keeper folks and others get charged with and it stick. So I guess, like, am I being in two naive Ellie in thinking that the fate of our democracy and the person who instigated and incided the riot on the Capitol and told people to overturn the government who is running for election, that that would be caused for a speedy trial.
I think you're right. I think it should. I think that the differences in the January sixth case versus the espionage case lend itself to a faster timeline than what Eileen Canon has set up for the espionage case. As you point out, this is happening in DC, that means that the judge, we don't know what judge will get right, and it will be a random choice from among the judges that sit on in the DC circuit. Right, that circuit is generally pretty split. Generally, it's not as conservative as the Florida circuit where Canon was pulled from, is not as conservative as like the Fifth Circuit if it was out in Texas or Louisiana. It's a pretty pretty evenly split circuit, you know. But it's still going to come down to kind of a random dice roll in terms of which judge we get right. If you get an aggressive judge, you will have an aggressive timeline. And yeah, there's there's a good chance that they will set a date before the next election. But then the defense lawyers will appeal that date. And don't forget that these appeals about the timing of the of the of the trial could go all the way to the Supreme Court, where Trump has stacked the Supreme Court with his own hand picked judges. Brett Kavanaugh in particular, is very susceptible to arguments that this is happening too close to the election for us to do anything about it, like he's made that argument before in cases involving outright racism in electoral jerrymandering. Right, So I am not confident that an aggressive timeline will will work in front of Brett Kavanaugh or the other Conservatives. So we'll still have to wait and see, but I think that it is very likely that this trial will somehow, some way get delayed until after the election.
The positive is where are you going for the positive? Because you have already put my feelings and my hopes and dreams in the dumpster along with our democracy. So what road trip are we go not for the positive side?
The positive is this the last time Trump lost an election, he should have immediately been thrown into jail for his efforts to overturn it. And obviously the system wasn't ready to do that. We picked Merrick Garland instead of like a better person. You know, lots of issues happen. We weren't ready. The system wasn't ready to throw his ass in jail after he lost the last election. If he loses the next one, the positive here is that I really do believe that if he loses the next election, there will be you know, tiny little handcuffs waiting for him at the end of that road. Like he needs to win the election to stay out of jail. And if he loses, and he should lose because he's a terrible person and a terrible candidate and blah blah blah blah, if he loses, there should be handcuffs waiting for him if he loses.
And right now we're at a fifty to fifty fucking toss up that that is going to be the reality, right Like it's fifty to fifty that Donald Trump doesn't have the maneuvers still to lie, cheat and steal his way to the White House. Now, I think that the upside, if in fact we call it that because it's not the floor, the upside is that, I hope, because we have tried the Jurassic Park version where they have touched all of the fences and folks have been you know, are there are sixteen fake electors that are being charged in you know, in Michigan. You got other people that are being investigated. I think that in my opinion, and I want to talk about this case next the dragnet, if you will, is coming out of Georgia, because I don't think that Trump is the only person that Fannie Willis is looking at when she's prepared to drop her indictments. And so again we our democracy held on by a thread and was tested over sixty six times in court with Rudy Giuliani, with these fake electors, with the phone calls, and so I think folks are prepared for what they know could be coming their way. That's the only hope here. That and you know, a fourth indictment, the fourth and final I don't know, coming out of Georgia.
Yeah, I mean, if we're looking for hope, that's where we find it. Right like that, people will be more prepared that are there, elections will be more resilient this time than they were last time. Of course, you also have to worry about the fact that, you know, one of the reasons why it's so important to prosecute people who attempt coups is that if you don't prosecute them, and if you don't hold them accountable, they just try it again, and the second time they're better. So as much as we can say that like, okay, our elections, our election system should be better prepared to defend itself from Trump. We also have to understand that Trump and his forces will make a better coup attempt round two, having potentially learned lessons from round one. We know that they've done a lot to stack the courts, to stack the secretaries of states in ways that are amenable to various coup attempts, whether the legal ones, the quote unquote legal ones of fake electors and whatever. We all, but we also know that his more violent forces, you know, have also learned some lessons about how to violently overthrow the government, and we can we have to at least expect that they will be coming again. You know. We know, for instance, one of the biggest organizing things that Trump used to put the coup out there with social media, and after you know, being banned, we know that he now has an ally in Elon Musk and social media potentially to organize another coup. So like, yes, there are more defenses, but also they're going to be new attacks, and so we have to be you know, I am still hopeful that he loses, and I'm still hopeful that after he loses, he loses all of his attempts to overthrow the election. But I'd be a fool to think that they're not going to be It's not going to be like, you know, we're watching TV on November whatever and CNN says no, the winner is declared for and then that's it. Right. We know there's going even after he loses at the balance, we know there's going to be another attempt, and we're prepared for that too.
We shall see. Let's switch gears a little bit just to go down to Georgia and then I want to go to the Supreme Court. So down in Georgia, you do have Fannie Willis. You do have another what I deem as another very serious case right that she's been building an unlike the slothlike pace of Merrick Garland, she's actually been going full steam ahead for the last two years. So give us your thoughts on where Fannie while Willis is in terms of her You know, she gave us an announcement several months ago that said we were to be on the lookout between July and September. Well we're headed into August now, So what do you think about her case and the timing and then how again this all measures up as we head into the fall a year out from the presidential So I've.
Always thought Georgia had the strongest case because they have the motherfucker on tape trying to overturn the election. Right, They've got, like everybody's heard the tape where he tries to find eleven thousand votes, which has just happens to be exactly how many he needs to overturn the election. So I've always thought that just kind of evidentiary, that is the strongest case against him. But one thing, and I do believe that Fannie Willis has been a dedicated, kind of hardworking public servant and is trying to do things the right way. But we have seen that Fannie Willis is also sensitive to political pressure, and so you know, we saw her say before the midterms that she wouldn't release any news within a kind of zone of secrecy around the midterms so as to not unduly influence the midterm elections, which is not a legal position, it's a political position. So, you know, not something that I would have done. But okay, so now again what we what we worry about with Willis is not whether or not she's going to diligently charge a crime that she can prove, but whether or not that trial comes off before the election, and you know, if Fannie Willis is not willing to make any an announcement within a zone of secrecy around the midterms, you know, is she gonna be willing to put this man to trial and let's say July twenty twenty four, right before the Republican National Convention, or he will be crowned the GOP nominee. Again, I don't know that. I don't know that she'll do that. I don't know that I don't know that a judge will let her do a Georgia judge will let her do that. So again, the I just am not sure, despite the immense legal jeopardy he's under, I'm just not sure that any of these trials, the Willis one, either of the Jack Smith ones, I'm not sure that any of them come off before November twenty twenty four.
So essentially we're fucked right, And essentially we've all played into Donald Trump and his lawyer's hands in knowing exactly how they were going to use this, how it was going to be spun, the timeline that was going to be created, and the person to blame isn't just Donald Trump and his lawyers, because we always know the tactics that we're going to be made. It is Merrick Garland and his desire to not play politics and play the most insane politics at the same time, which is, let me not go after Donald Trump because I don't want to look like this is something partisan. Let me waste twelve months of time, and now we're here.
The analogy that Ivan mcgarland is like a basketball referee who swallows the whistle and refuses to call a file, and that referee says like, Oh, I'm just trying to be neutral and fair to both sides. I'm not going to call file. I was going to let the games play out. That's not being fair and neutral. That is benefiting the team that fouls. If you don't call the rules correctly, you benefit the team that breaks the rules. And that's Merrick Garland and his alleged attempt to be non political. He has. All he's done is completely politicize the process. And that the reason why I've been screaming about Merrick Garland for two years prior to this is because at some point his failure becomes unrecoverable, right like you can't and This is where I'm talking about the timeline. Because of his delays, it's now very hard to squeeze everything in before the election. I mean, Danielle, riddle me this. Okay, Let's say one of these trials goes off and he gets convicted. Is he gonna get sentenced before the election. Is he gonna be sent to jail before the election? How does that even work? Are we gonna actually send federal marshals to arrest the Republican nominee for president eight weeks before the general election? Is that really something that's gonna happen in America? Because that's gonna look like something that happens in you know, other cut and true Banana republic countries. Right. So, because the timeline has been so truncated, I just don't know how any of this happens before he's allowed to run again. And so even if he's tried and convicted, if he wins the presidency, he will pardon himself from that conviction commute, I think at that point is what you would call what he would do, And so he would never face actual accountability even if he was convicted, and he's convicted on the state charges where he can't pardon himself. I mean again, are the Georgia State troopers gonna go arrest the president of the United States? Is that at some point the practicality kind of trumps the theory of the case, right, Yeah, and and and so that's my problem, that's my that's my worry. Like all of this, all of this looks great on paper, right when you actually when it actually comes to time to try convict and jail this man before the election, I just think it's too late. It wouldn't be too late if we were having this trial right now, right. And that's again where the failure of Garland where the slow pace of all the investigations really take a hole. If you think about where we were at the end of the January sixth Select Committee process, right where Trump could have been charged that day based on that final report from the Congressional Select Committee, right, like an aggressive prosecutor would have been really ready to charge his ass that day. At the end of twenty twenty two, then we're talking about a trial that happens not in May twenty twenty four, but May twenty twenty three. Yeah, we're talking about a sentencing process that's happening over the summer. We're talking about the legitimate ability to capture and jail this man before Labor Day, a year and a half before the election, and that would have been doable. Now I don't know. I just it's very hard to see it happening.
God, this was depressing.
Well again, if he loses straight to the pokey right, if there's no addition like the again, the other way to positive to spend this positively is that Trump is using his last get out of jail free cards and as long as we don't give him four years of another one, right, as long as we don't give him another draw for those cards, he's gonna run out eventually and we should be able to put his ass in jail.
Okay, I mean, here's hoping, right, I have no faith, but you know, here, here's hoping. Before I let you go, Ellie, I'm gonna scrap Scotis because you know they've scrapped democracy in the country, integrity. But I do want to get to someone who I believe that both of us probably grew up listening to, whose music had resonated, and who has clearly had a fucking lobotomy. And that is the one and only ice Cube, who was just recently filming with none other than Tucker Carlson, Please take the floor.
I would like our friend Torrejo was big, you know, feature pieces titled from Fuck the Police to Fund the Police, the punk bitification of ice Cube.
I'm texting him right now like that, that.
Is what I want to read, because how this man has gone from where he was, where he was one of the what what the what the over educated black folks like me like to call one of the urban poets who is you know, talking about police brutality and the devastating effects that has on the black community to this point where he's kissing their ass is just one of the biggest devolutions that I can think that I have seen in my lifetime. Now I have a theory about this, Danielle. I call it the special black Man theory is that there are there are you know, one of the and this kind of They're gonna call me a critical race theorist after this, but like you know, one of the issues that I think a lot of black people chafe against is the fact that we're always grouped in with everybody else, right, We're always we're always you know, collectively viewed as if we are a monolithic people and we're not right, and some but some special black men like chase at that more than others, right, And so then their idea is just that whatever most black people are doing, they gotta do something different just to prove that they special, they not like the rest of us. Right. And so you could argue, and this is why I want again a scholar like Terrey to kind of explain it to me. You could argue that maybe he was never really about fuck the police. Maybe he was always just about being special, just just saying that special thing that makes him a little bit different than the other black And so now it actually so maybe it's not incongruous. Maybe it actually perfectly tracks. He was fucked the police when the most black people were like, okay, we have to have belize what can we do? And now that most black people are like, you know what, fuck the police, he's like, oh, actually no, Tucker and I tan our balls together, like because he's just like that special guy. Like that's my that's my theory. But I have not studied, and so I study want somebody explain it to me.
You as I mean, but I think that everything that you just laid out is right. Maybe we're the ones that got it wrong, and he just wanted to be a standout, and so at a time in the eighties and early nineties he was going to be that standout with Fuck the Police. But maybe we too closely associated his rapping in the way that like Chuck D of Public Enemy, actually is that fucking guy right who believes what it is that he is rapping about and has always right been that rapper of thought. And so maybe it fell on the rest of us that this motherfucker has just been a performer that has played the industry, played his fans, and this is who he is.
Maybe for ice Cube that was just the song man. It was raw, like you you write a song for Kesha and she's gonna say it and it's gonna be awesome, And maybe that's all it was. For him. It was just a song, you know, and and and it wasn't you know, he's not as you say, He's not Chuck D. He's not k R. S One. He's not one of these guys who actually live that life or or or live that progressiveness. He was just a guy singing a song.
He was just a guy singing a song, how fucking sad. I want my money back, but I don't know I I.
I want a deeper dive into what's happening because the other thing, Daniels, and you know, we're old enough and black enough to have seen this. There is always the like negro gets a bit of money and loses their damn mind, right, Like, they get a bit of money, and it's like, you know the black people who when they meet the I R s for the first time as an adult, it's wait a minute, what are these tax I? Don't like these? Ronald Reagan told me, and that that's how it happens, right, Like, It's not uncommon for people of any race, color, or creed to get a little bit more conservative as they get older and get more money and start to try to figure out how to keep it. That's not uncommon. This is just the kind of extremist, extrema extremophile version of that, you know, normal aging process.
I don't know, Well, I'll just tell you breaking news. Tore just said, good idea. I can't wait, So so you know, folks who will have to wait and see got Danielle.
I'm like, oh my god, I'm gonna be able to read something like I don't want to read more about what the hell is going on?
Yeah, so well we'll see, we'll see what because I have to, I have to tetch them like in the moment, so we won't see. Uh, we will see uh where that goes. But you know, you could be right for a tour Ray, you know, I mean, for for a tour Rade, this would be the interview I'd want to see. But for ice Cube maybe that's the title of it. It was just the song. We took it too seriously evidently. As always, my friend Ellie Vistal, it is a joy and a pleasure when you bring the bad news, but you bring it with such passion and flair to WOKF. I always appreciate you.
Thank you so much for having me.
That is it for me today, dear friends on wok F. As always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.
