Speaker 1: Welcome back to The Michael Cohen Show on our continued
journey to two hundred and fifty thousand subscribers. I mean,
we're about four thousand shy, so hit subscribe, watch and share.
It's important to share because there's a lot that's going on.
So let me start with this one. Around one o'clock
this morning, Volume one of the Special Counsel Jacksmith's report
on Trump's involvement in the January sixth insurrection, it was
released and despite Trump's many, many attempts to block the
release of the report, even Judge Eileen Cannon, who we
all know is a Trumper, is a maga, she even
ruled that it could be released, and so it was
last night. Now, one thing you're going to get continuously
on this show. It's not partisan. And people may say, bullshit, Michael,
your partisan. No, no, because you have heard me say
that this report should not have been released, all right,
and now that it was, I feel extremely confident that
my position was correct. And let me tell you why.
All right. I want both sides of the aisle. I
want whether you're a Republican or Democrat, to follow this
point and I hopefully hopefully will be able to change
some people's mind. It's no different than for example, if
you total your car. All right, you total your car,
what's the point to change the tires. What's the point
to repaint the car it's totaled. No point, That's my point. Trump,
by the way, was not happy about this being released.
And I want to show you first what he posted
on truth Social put up the first part. He turns
around and he goes right back to the same rhetoric.
Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the political
opponent of his boss, Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends
up writing yet another report based on information that the
Unselect Committee of political hacks and thugs illegally destroyed and
deleted because it showed how totally innocent I was and
how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi and others were. Jack is
a lame brain prosecutor who was unable to get his
case tried before the election, which I won in a landslide.
The voters have spoken. The second one says, to show
you how desperate deranged Jack Smith is. He released his
fake findings at one am in the morning. Did he
say that the Unselect Committee illegally destroyed and deleted all
of the evidence. Okay, let me start by saying this
first and foremost, Jack Smith is not deranged. This has
nothing to do with Nancy Pelosi. There is no unselect committee,
and so on. Again, this is just Donald Trump ranting
because he didn't get what he wants. He didn't get
it the way that he wants it. And the point
that I was trying to make when I said that
I didn't believe the report should be released, it goes
to the essence of what's the purpose. So people will
say to you, well, it's now part of history. It's
a historical document. I say to that big shit who cares,
maybe had Merrick Garland done what was needed to be done,
acted more expeditious instead instead of being cautious as he is,
maybe this report would have been released one year ago.
Maybe today would be January fourteenth of twenty twenty four,
not twenty twenty five. Maybe then, as Jack Smith and
I will show you in the first four pages of
his writing to Merrick Garland, why this case might have
been relevant and my position would be completely different. And
I wanted then go through the first four pages with
you because it explains to you my position on why
I did not believe that this report should have been released.
Let's go to the first page. He turns around and
he writes, dear Attorney General, and he's talking, of course,
to Merrick Garland. In the fall of twenty twenty two,
former President Donald J. Trump was a subject of two
separate criminal investigations by the DOJ. The first was an
investigation into whether any person violated the law in connection
with efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power
following the twenty twenty presidential election. The second investigation focused
on the possession of highly classified documents of missis to
Trump's Maro Lago social club following his presidency. It goes
on to say that on November fifteenth of twenty twenty two,
mister Trump declared his candidacy to UNSEA President Joseph R.
Biden Junior, who had previously stated his intention to stand
for reelection. Mister Trump's announcement created a highly unusual situation
in which the Department, an agency within the executive branch
headed by President Biden, was conducting criminal investigations regarding his
newly declared challenger based on a longstanding recognition that in
certain extraordinary cases, it is the public interest to appoint
a special prosecutor to independently manage investigation and prosecution. You,
as the Attorney General, promptly did so. Here to underscore
the Department's commitment to both independence and accountability and particularly
sensitive matters. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland remarks on the
appointment of a special counsel Washington, d C. Again that
stated November eighteenth of twenty twenty two. On that day
I was appointed, I pledged that I would exercise independent judgment,
file the best tradition of the DOJ, and conduct my
work expeditiously and thoroughly to reach whatever outcome the facts
and law dictated. All right, take that down, because here's
something interesting. That's twenty twenty two. This report didn't come
out now until twenty twenty five. When you talk expeditious,
and you have somebody who is being appointed as Jack
Smith was because Donald Trump had declared his presidency and
did so for obvious reasons. You don't need to You
don't need to get the testimony of a thousand people.
You don't need a million documents. You need merely a
handful and maybe one hundred documents with it which to
prove your point. Go to the second page, because what
Jack Smith does in this document, it's almost it's personal,
which it's not supposed to be. Very few times have
you ever seen four pages written to explain why you
are releasing the document, why the document was done in
the first place. Normally it's oh, it's pursuing to agreement
that that dot, and they move on. Jack Smith makes
this personal, and that too, my friends, is a mistake
and one of the reasons why I said this report
should not be released. Attorney General Edward H. Levy, who
assumed the Department helm in the wake of Watergate. Watergate,
now we're going back to the seventies. He turns around
and goes one paramount concerns must always guide our way.
This is the keeping of the faith in the essential
decency and even handedness in the law, a faith which
is the strength of the law, and which must continually
renewed or else it is lost. He goes on to say,
addressed to the Los Angeles County Bar Association, which again
nineteen seventy six, I had been a career This is
Jack Smith. Now I have been a career prosecutor in local, national,
and international settings over the last three decades, working shoulder
to shoulder with hundreds of prosecutors in that time. The
prosecutors and staff of the Special Counsel's Office are, in
my estimation, without peer in terms of accomplishment, capability, judgment,
and work ethic. More importantly, in my book, they are
people of great decency and the highest personal integrity. The
intense public scrutiny of our office, threats to their safety,
and relentless unfounded attacks on their character and integrity did
not deter them from fulfilling their oats and professional obligations.
These are intensely good people who did hard things well.
I will not forget the same sacrifices they made and
the personal resilience they and their families have shown over
the last two years. Our country owes them a debt
of gratitude for their unwavering service and dedication to the
rule of law without pause. They have upheld the Department's
commitment to the impartial and independent pursuit of justice. For that,
I am grateful, as I know you are as well.
Let me be very clear about something I am not grateful.
I believe that this report needed to have come out earlier,
as I said, a year earlier. And while yes, they
did sacrifice their time, and they produced this one hundred
and seventy two page volume one of their report. What
good is it? So read it? Read it, knock yourself out.
As I'm going to read the entire thing. I'm about
a third of the way through. But what good is
it going to do? January twentieth of twenty twenty five,
Donald Trump will be standing in the Capitol with his
hand on the Bible and being sworn in as the
forty seven president of the United States. This document, this volume,
produces nothing. Go to the next page where he turns
around and he says, step by some of the most
experienced prosecutors in the Department. My office operated under the
same department policies and procedures that guide all federal prosecutors.
The regulations under which I was appointed required that we
do so, and our work benefited from those processes. The
Department has long recognized that proceeding with uniformity of policy
is necessary to the prestige of federal law. All right
goes Our work rested upon the fundamental value of our democracy,
that we exist as a government of laws and not
of men. He goes back to John Adams for God's
sakes seventeen seventy five. Again, he's writing this for the
history books, not for the purpose that it was designed
or its intent. In making decisions as special counsel, I
considered as a first principle whether our actions would contribute
to upholding the rule of law, and acted accordingly. Now
he's becoming very self righteous, inness, and he's protecting his
own reputation. Our committed adherence to the rule of law
is why we not only followed department policies and procedures,
but strictly observed legal requirements and dutifully respected the judicial
decisions and precedents our prosecutors prompted. That is also why
in my decision making, I heeded the imperative that in quotes,
no man in this country is so high that he
is above the law. Simply go to the next page.
It turns around says the Department of Justice is guiding
mandate which my office strove to uphold is that power, politics,
influenced status, wealth, fear and favor should not impede justice
under the law. When I assume responsibility for the matters
you assigned to me. I came to the work with
no preconceived notion of what the just outcome of the
investigation would be. I was not yet familiar with all
of the relevant facts and had not yet researched the
relevant law. Depending upon what the investigations revealed, I was
equally comfortable closing the investigations or moving forward with prosecutions
in one or both of the matters, having done both
in high profile matters throughout my career. Again self laudatory.
He goes on to say, indeed, mister Trump's cases represented
ones in which the offense was the most flagrant, the
public harm the greatest, and the proof the most certain.
Goes back to Jackson. He's going back to Jackson in
the federal prosecutors all right, let me go on where
he turns around and he states, it is equally important
to me to make clear that nobody within the Department
of just As ever sought to interfere with or improperly
influence my prosecutorial decision making. The regulations under which I
was appointed provided you with the authority to countermanded my decisions,
but you did not do so. Now again, he's protecting
who is protecting Merrick Garland and the DOJ. Nor did you,
the Deputy Attorney General, or members of your staff ever
attempt to improperly influence my decision as to whether to
bring next page charges against mister Trump. And to all
who know me well, the claim from mister Trump that
my decisions as a prosecutor or influenced or directed by
the Biden administration or other political actors is in a word, laughable.
This is not the type of document that you see.
All Right goes on today. Accompanying this letter, I am
providing you a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination
decisions reached by the Special Council. Report consists of two volumes.
Volume Money goes On talks about volume, but both volumes
minimize the identification of witnesses and co conspirators, consistent with
accepted Department practice. And we have provided a redacted version
of Volume two that identifies certain information that remains under
seal or is restricted from public disclosure by federal rule
of criminal procedure, because Volume two discusses the conduct of
mister Trump's alleged co conspirators in the classified Documents case,
Walter Nada and Carlos del la Vera, consistent with Department policy,
Volume two should not be publicly released while their cases
remain pending. And then, finally, finally, this is what he
goes on to say, though not required, prior to finalizing
the report, my office provided an opportunity for counsel for
mister Trump to review both volumes, and for counsel for
his former co defendants in the classified documents case anonymous
to to Olivera to review Volume two. After their review,
counsel of mister Trump wrote a letter to you, and
we have provided a written response to you, both of
which you will find as an addendum to the report.
He goes on to turn around and to say in
this document that there is no doubt in his mind
that had he had the opportunity within which you could
take that down, had he had the opportunity within which
to present this case, that Donald Trump would have been
found guilty of the charges. Specifically, the ones that I'm
referring to are the ones that are enumerated and identified
in Volume one. Once again, once again my point is,
what is the consequence, Where is the accountability? Where is
all of the taxpayer money that into this investigation over
two plus years over two years. In fact, it could
even be closer to three years. There will be no
accountability as Donald Trump again will be sworn in on
the twentieth of this month. And so with that, I
turn around and I say, great, we now have something
to talk about. You'll be now watching this episode and
finally understanding that they waited too long. Goes to the
adage too little, too late. And with that, as always,
thanks for listening. Hey everyone, First of all, thanks for watching.
I mean, we're going to be posting daily episodes with
reactions and talking about politics. We'll be talking about everything
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