In this episode Hawk discusses the events surrounding the release of the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape in October 2016, just weeks before the presidential election. Hawk, details how the tape, which featured Donald Trump making lewd comments about women, was incredibly damaging to his campaign and led many Republicans to withdraw their support or call for him to drop out of the race. In response, Trump's campaign worked with Russian intelligence and WikiLeaks to release hacked emails from the Clinton campaign as a distraction from the tape's fallout.
Hawk cites evidence from the Mueller Report and a 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee report, both of which confirmed that the Trump campaign welcomed and encouraged the release of emails stolen by Russian hackers and funneled through WikiLeaks. Roger Stone, a close Trump ally, had advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks releases and coordinated with the campaign to maximize their impact. The host emphasizes that every key member of Trump's campaign knew the emails had been hacked by Russian intelligence and exploited them for political gain.
The episode also touches on the ongoing criminal trial against Trump for the hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. Hawk suggests that the campaign's urgency to "catch and kill" the Stormy Daniels story in the aftermath of the Access Hollywood tape was a factor in Trump's decision to pay her off. He criticizes Trump's defense attorney, Todd Blanche, for failing to effectively cross-examine Michael Cohen, a key witness in the trial.
Hawk (00:01.294)
All right, guys, welcome back to I guess this episode is another episode of Hawk droppings. It's Wednesday, May 15th. Today was dark as far as Trump's criminal trial goes. Tomorrow, Thursday is day two of Michael Cohen's cross examination. So in honor of that and of all the Republicans showing up.
Hawk (00:31.086)
to shill for Donald Trump and use the talking points that he has given them to violate the court's gag order. Bootlicking supplicants that they are. I'm wearing this T -shirt. I mean, they're they're showing up at they're showing up at the courthouse because Donald Trump is lonely and he doesn't feel like he's getting sufficient support. From Republicans, I guess, while he's on trial.
for the bookkeeping scheme employed after he paid off a woman for sex for one hundred and thirty thousand dollars after he paid off another woman for sex for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to conceal that information from voters immediately before the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton. So some important context in the trial is that the sense of urgency.
between Donald Trump, Michael Cohen and the campaign Hope Hicks to catch and kill the Stormy Daniels story in the days immediately following the release of the Access Hollywood tape on October 7th, 2016, the locker room talk tape. And it turns out that in order to distract from the release of
the Access Hollywood tape that Donald Trump and his campaign relied on Russian intelligence.
as was documented in the Mueller report and as was documented by the Republican -led Senate Intelligence Committee in a report that they released in August of 2020.
Hawk (02:20.973)
confirmed by a Republican led Senate Intelligence Committee. Donald Trump got help from Russian intelligence to distract from the release of the Access Hollywood tape. So let's back up and do a little context that tape was released. It was incredibly damaging. And this is something that Hope Hicks testified about during the campaign. It's something that Michael Cohen.
has testified not during the campaign during the trial. And it's something that Michael Cohen has testified about during the trial as well. And so I went back.
and dug up some quotes from Republicans about Donald Trump and the Access Hollywood tape. And one of the things that Rebecca Westerhout, who's was Trump's secretary. She was the gatekeeper. Her desk was right outside the Oval Office when Trump was president, she decided who got in. And she testified at the trial about this in great detail as well.
She was at the RNC at the time, the Republican National Committee, and she testified that Republican officials considered replacing Donald Trump as the party's 2016 candidate after the Access Hollywood tape was leaked. Bear in mind, this was it was leaked four weeks before Election Day, not even four weeks. And and Republican officials at the RNC and Republican leaders were considering.
replacing Donald Trump as the nominee.
Hawk (04:07.149)
less than a month before election day. So that tape comes out that late that night, that Friday night, Donald Trump issued an apology in a Facebook video.
I've never said I'm a perfect person nor pretended to be someone that I'm not. I've said and done things I regret. And the words released today on this more than a decade old video are some of them. The next morning he tweeted that it's been an interesting 24 hours.
Hawk (04:44.396)
But that tape was disgusting and everything that he said on that tape was disgusting. And there was a lot of testimony during the trial. He was like, this is going to absolutely kill me with women in the election a month from now. Guys are going to think it's cool. It's going to absolutely kill me with women. and I forgot to mention you can get this shirt at hawkmerchstore .com along with all kinds of other amazing things that I'm sure you will enjoy.
Immediately after that tape came out, 2008 candidate for President John McCain and his wife Cindy said that his behavior this week, concluding with the disclosure of this demeaning comments about women and his boasts about sexual assault, make it impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy. Cindy, with her strong background in human rights and respect for women, fully agrees with me in this.
Senate Ohio Senator Rob Portman withdrew his support for Trump as well. Former Secretary of State Republican Condoleezza Rice wrote enough Donald Trump should not be president. He should withdraw Utah Senator Mike Lee, who's went on to help Trump try to overturn the 2020 election, wrote I respectfully ask you with all due respect to step aside, step down.
I'm mentioning the women in his own family. Mike Lee said that if anyone had spoken to them the way Trump has spoken to women, I wouldn't hire that person, wouldn't want to be associated with that person. I certainly don't think I would feel comfortable hiring that person to be the leader of the free world. Mike Pence was very upset. According to Mother, he was very, very upset.
The Associated Press quoted a person familiar with Mike Pence's thinking that he was beside himself when he heard the remarks and his wife was furious. Paul Ryan, who at the time was the speaker of the House, one of the one of the most powerful Republicans in in the country, he was scheduled to campaign with Trump that following night or that following morning. That Saturday morning, he.
Hawk (07:07.947)
told Trump not to come he campaigned without him. I'm sickened by what I heard today. Women are to be championed and revered not objectified. I hope Mr. Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than the clips suggest, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sarah Palin went after him. Mitch McConnell went after him these comments are rep.
and unacceptable in any circumstance. The highest ranking woman at the time in the House GOP conference, Kathy McMorris Rogers, went after him, repudiated him, withdrew her support. Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz, who's now a host on Fox News, along with his former colleague, Republican House member Trey Gowdy.
I'm out. I can no longer in good conscience endorse this person for president. RNC chair Reince Priebus said no woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner.
Jeb Bush withdrew his support. Ted Cruz withdrew his support. Marco Rubio withdrew his support, saying the comments were vulgar, egregious, and impossible to justify. Mitt Romney, who had already refused to back Trump, tweeted a strong condemnation. John Huntsman, a former Utah governor, pulled his support. Illinois Senator Mark Kirk said it was time for Trump to drop out.
Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey said the comments were outrageous and unacceptable said Trump should pull out yada yada yada. So this is what the Trump campaign was dealing with in the 24 to 48 hours after the release of the Access Hollywood tape. Less than a month before the election. Stormy Daniels story is still hanging out there.
Hawk (09:08.81)
And so according to Michael Cohen's testimony, Donald Trump said to him personally, just get it done, just take care of it. Yeah. Pay her the hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Just get it done. And Michael Cohen went off and did that. But that's that's the environment.
that was going on right now. It wasn't because Donald Trump was worried about Melania was going to find out. Michael Cohen testified that the phrase locker room talk came from Melania. That was her advice as to how to respond to the Access Hollywood tape. Locker room talk was Melania's language, and that's what became the talking point. Yeah, she knows exactly who and what she married. But.
of also also of great concern, not so much having to do with the criminal case that's going on right now. On Sunday, October 9th, two days after the release of the Access Hollywood tape was a debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. And Donald Trump, again, taking a page of advice from his former attorney, Roy Cohen, if somebody hits you,
Hit them back ten times as hard.
Hawk (10:32.553)
Donald Trump showed up a couple hours before that debate at the debate location and held a press conference with three women who had accused Donald Trump of rape or sexual assault or sexual harassment. And one woman named Kathy Shelton, who was raped and her rapist was defended by Hillary Clinton.
when Hillary Clinton was young and a criminal defense attorney. And that man ended up being convicted of a lesser charge and only served 10 months in jail. The other three women were Kathleen Willie, Juanita Broderick and Paula Jones. And.
She said Paul Jones had previously sued Bill Clinton for sexual harassment.
And she said, I'm here to support Mr. Trump because he's going to make America great again. I think they should all look at the fact that he's a good person and he's not what other people say he's being like Hillary.
Donald Trump, he's just misunderstood. He's a misunderstood good person, which is why he's on trial right now for 34 felony counts for paying hush money to cover up two extramarital affairs that he had a year after he had married his wife while she was pregnant or nursing their baby son, Barron.
Hawk (12:06.472)
Yeah, so Donald Trump, you know, he's a showman. He's a reality star, a reality TV star at heart. And that's how you hit back. He hit back by showing up at the debate two days after the Access Hollywood tape came out.
with four Clinton accusers.
Hawk (12:34.343)
It's just so there's going back and reading over this history. It's just like, is this is this real life, man? Is this real life? We I've said it so many times before. It's like we had so many off ramps to avoid this fucker getting into office and we didn't take any of them. We didn't take any of them. We didn't take any of them. Why? That's right, because his supporters are dumb, gullible, loud, mean, easily manipulated, MAGA.
His supporters are the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet, man. They are so gullible.
my god. But so let's get back to my original point. How did Russian intelligence assist Donald Trump when it came to the Access Hollywood tape? Well, less than an hour after the Access Hollywood tape was released, Wiki WikiLeaks released its first trove of emails.
from Hillary campaign advisor John Podesta, long time Clinton friend. I think it was 35 minutes. 35 minutes after that Access Hollywood tape was released, WikiLeaks released all these Podesta emails, which they had gotten from Russian intelligence, who had hacked into computers at the DNC and had phished emails of a bunch of
Clinton campaign officials and John Podesta being the boomer that he is got an email that had a link in it. He clicked on the link, which downloaded the software into downloaded the virus into his computer, which allowed Russian intelligence, GRU, Guccifer 2 .0 and whatever the other one was, Huggy bear, something like that from the internet research agency, which was run by Purgosian.
Hawk (14:39.015)
as a part of Russian intelligence and they got all of his emails and they released all of his emails and amazingly enough if I'm remembering this correctly
There were there. It's a campaign. OK, it's a campaign for president. People work in really, really long hours, days and days and days and days and days in a row. You don't get a day off from a presidential campaign. You work every single fucking day for a year. And there were times when campaign people in the campaign ordered pizza.
And they would circulate emails. What would everybody like on their pizza? And John Podesta was on some of those email threads. I think even Hillary Clinton was on some of those email threads about pizza. That is where pizza gate came from. I'm not kidding. That's where pizza gate came from, because the toppings on the pizza. That they would order became code. For child sex abuse activity.
That's right. If they ordered a cheese and pepperoni, see P. C. P. means child pornography. I'm not kidding. That's yeah, that's where pizza gate came from. And the QAnon crowd was like, my God, he ordered cheese and pepperoni. That means child pornography.
Hawk (16:09.574)
Yeah.
They're that stupid. They are exactly that stupid. So how do I know all of this? Here's the executive summary from volume one of two of the Mueller report. The Internet Research Agency carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation of social media campaign.
The Internet Research Agency was based in St. Petersburg, Russia, received funding from Russian oligarch Evgeny Prokosyan and companies he controlled. He's the guy who was heading the Wagner Group fighting in Ukraine mercenaries. And when he became dissatisfied with Vladimir Putin last year, he took the Wagner Group and they marched on Moscow and they were like, we're going to take over.
And before they got to Moscow, Putin talked him down. And then a couple of months later, Prugosian was in a plane that was shot down and he was killed.
It's like the Ukrainian war version of falling out of a window. The. At the same time that the IRA operation began, its focus on supporting candidate Trump in early 2016, the Russian government employed a second form of interference, cyber intrusions, hacking and releases of hacked materials damaging the Clinton campaign.
Hawk (17:44.037)
The Russian intelligence service known as the main intelligence directorate of the general staff of the Russian army, GRU, carried out these operations. In March of 2016, the GRU began hacking the email accounts of Clinton campaign volunteers and employees, including campaign chairman John Podesta. In April 2016, the GRU hacked into the computer networks of the DNC and the DCCC.
The DNC is the Democratic National Committee. The DCCC is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, running the campaigns and contributing to the campaigns of members of the House of Representatives. The GRU later released additional materials through the organization, WikiLeaks.
presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump showed interest in WikiLeaks releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton. WikiLeaks began releasing podestas stolen materials on when October 7 2016, less than one hour after a US media outlet released a video considered damaging to candidate Trump. I love
that the Mueller report described the Access Hollywood grab him by the pussy tape as a video considered damaging to candidate Trump.
Hawk (19:18.628)
Section three of this report details the office's investigation into the Russian hacking operations as well as efforts by Trump Court campaign supporters to obtain Clinton related emails, yada yada yada. There's a lot more in this report that is pertinent, but it's written in an incredibly boring manner.
And I don't really want to bore you guys that much. You get you get the gist. You get the overall point. That and and well, I'm not going to get ahead of myself. So remember what happened when the Mueller report was released? It wasn't released by Robert Mueller. Bill Barr was attorney general at the time, and based on the statutory requirements of what Robert Mueller was, I can't I think he was special prosecutor. Can't remember his exact title.
But the requirements were that he write his report. He wrote a two volume report, one on Trump campaign contacts with Russia. And the second volume was Trump's efforts to stop the investigation into his campaigns, contacts with Russia. The second volume listed out, I think it was at least 10 examples of obstruction of justice on Trump's part, including firing James Comey.
you know, after being in office for less than four months. And then the next day, telling the Russian ambassador and the Russian secretary of whatever that I fired James Kobe because of the Russia investigation, I've relieved a lot of pressure because I fired James Comey because of the Russia investigation. He told that to the Russians. And again, you know, everybody on the right was like, that's fine. No, that there's nothing that's totally that's totally normal and completely fine. And.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a president of the United States doing any of those things. And here we are.
Hawk (21:21.22)
But so Mueller turns over his report containing that information that I just read to Bill Barr, the attorney general, who was like, I can't release this and I can't release the executive summaries to the public yet because we need to make redactions, which took four weeks. And when the final versions of the reports came out, there were hardly any redactions at all. However. When Bill Barr was making this announcement.
And by the way, each of the execs, so each volume comes with an executive summary, which is basically a summary of what's in that volume. Because I think each one of them was 400 pages long or something like that. It was very lengthy. I've read the whole Mueller report. It's a dry read. Put it that way, but you can find in fact, I'll I'll send my brother a link.
to the two executive summaries. They're 10 pages each and they're a super easy read and you should read them. Reading the executive summaries for each one of each volume of the Mueller report. Again, it's just one of those moments where you're just like, how the fuck did this guy get away with this shit?
Bill Barr because Bill Barr lied when he said, we have the report. I need to redact it. Shouldn't take more than a month. However, Robert Mueller concluded that there was no collusion whatsoever between Donald Trump and the Russians and that nothing that Donald Trump did in the form of obstruction of justice rises to the level of criminal culpability, which is not what Robert Mueller said.
And Robert Mueller actually sent Bill Barr a letter saying you lied about this. And Bill Barr was like, fuck you, what are you going to do? Because if Robert Mueller had released any of it to the public himself, he would have been subject to criminal liability on his own. And. And it was a couple of years, so that came out, I think it was in 2018, a couple of years later in early 2020.
Hawk (23:38.626)
A federal judge on Thursday sharply rebuked Attorney General William Barr's handling of the special counsel's Russia report, saying that Barr had made misleading public statements to spin the investigation's findings in favor of Donald Trump and had shown an incredible lack of candor. U .S. District Judge Reggie Walton delivered the criticism in a 23 -page order in which he directed the Justice Department to provide him
with an unredacted version of the report so that he could decide if any additional information from the document could be publicly disclosed. A federal judge wrote a 23 page order saying that Bill Varr, still then the attorney general of the United States of America called him a liar. Said, you're a fucking liar. And you lied about this of all things. You lied about the Mueller report and you did it on purpose.
to help Donald Trump because it's a campaign year. He's running for reelection. I mean, what Bill Barr did with the Mueller report is no better than what the Russians did in 2016 to help Donald Trump get elected. Now, I should say this.
Russia did interfere in the 2016 election for the benefit of Donald Trump. I do not believe those efforts are what got Donald Trump elected in 2016. I think there were two much more significant primary factors. One, Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate and ignored the upper Midwest almost entirely.
Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio.
Hawk (25:25.889)
I mean...
especially Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. She lost all three of those states. Those three states had been part of a democratic blue wall for years and years and years. Democrats didn't lose those states and she lost them by incredibly small margins. Well, there were three factors. Factor number two, Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate or whatever.
She it was either Michigan or Wisconsin. She got more votes than was the margin of difference between the number of votes between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. So like if the margin between Donald and Hillary was ten thousand, she got forty thousand votes or something like that. And third, and I think most important, I think the person who is most, most responsible for getting Donald Trump elected in 2016.
was FBI Director James Comey. I think that lands squarely on his head for how he handled the investigation into her emails and his incessant press conferences and reopening that investigation publicly 10 days before election day.
that probably distracted from the Access Hollywood tape as well. But anyway, getting back to Russian intelligence hacking DNC email servers, stealing tens of thousands of emails for Clinton campaign related email accounts, funneling those directly to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and WikiLeaks dumping them out into the marketplace.
Hawk (27:13.057)
on an ongoing basis during the second half of 2016. Again, I believe it was also in 20, yeah, it was August of 2020.
the Senate Intelligence Committee. Now, bear in mind that in August of 2020, the Senate was controlled by Republicans. So the Senate Intelligence Committee was controlled by Republicans. The chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee was little Marco Rubio. They concluded an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election four years earlier. And in August of 2020, they released a thousand page report.
detailing how Russia launched an aggressive effort to interfere in the election on Trump's behalf and to Hillary Clinton's detriment. It says the Trump campaign chairman had regular contact with a Russian intelligence officer and says other Trump associates were eager to exploit the Kremlin's aid, particularly by maximizing the impact of the disclosure of Democratic Party emails hacked by Russian intelligence officers.
That's from a Republican run Senate Intelligence Committee run by Republicans. That report came out three months before the election in 2020 and nobody gave a shit.
Nobody cared.
Hawk (28:44.513)
There's a section in that report, section B, pages 170 to 256, and that section is entitled Hack and Leak.
Hawk (28:59.969)
That section contains the frankest statements describing efforts by the Trump campaign institutionally and by Trump personally to take advantage of Russia's efforts through WikiLeaks to damage Hillary Clinton's candidacy. Quoting from the report, while the GRU and WikiLeaks were releasing hacked documents, the Trump campaign sought to maximize the impact of those materials to aid Trump's electoral prospects.
Trump and senior campaign officials sought to obtain advance information about WikiLeaks, the leaks that were coming out of WikiLeaks, through Roger Stone. In 2016, prior to Julian Assange's public announcements of the stolen documents, Stone advised the campaign that WikiLeaks would be releasing material harmful to Clinton. Following the July 22 DNC release, Trump and the campaign believed that Roger Stone had known of the release,
had inside access to WikiLeaks and repeatedly communicated with Stone about WikiLeaks through the summer and fall of 2016. Okay, so remember that the Democratic National Convention in July of 2016, I think it was on like the first day or first or second day of the convention, WikiLeaks released a whole slew of emails from
members of the DNC, the Democratic National Committee. And those basically formed the basis of, you know, people in the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party base being able to make credible allegations that Hillary and the DNC had colluded with each other to steal the Democratic Party nomination for president that year from Bernie Sanders.
And they released it on the first they released those emails on the first or second day of the convention. And the convention just fucking exploded. There were protests on the floor. People were freaking out on all sides. It just became complete and total mayhem. And the DNC, the convention looked like an ungovernable bunch of lunatics. All of which was being broadcast live.
Hawk (31:23.393)
nationwide every night of the convention. And it's like you had all these Bernie delegates that wanted to burn the place down. And it was just crazy. It was frickin mayhem. And it was it was hacked and stolen emails from the DNC that had been hacked and stolen by Russian intelligence, by the GRU and the IRA and then given to WikiLeaks and WikiLeaks released them and WikiLeaks.
somebody at WikiLeaks was in communication with Roger Stone, giving him advance notice of this. And that happened throughout the summer of 2016. And this report details incident after incident and the fact and the fact that Donald Trump and Trump's campaign were fully aware and had been advised by the government that, hey, these emails were hacked.
by Russian intelligence hacked in, they hacked into the DNC servers and they fished emails to all of these senior campaign officials. Russian intelligence stole all these emails and gave them to WikiLeaks. And you guys are encouraging that. You're encouraging Russian interference in the 2016 election. And Trump and Roger Stone and Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner and Don Trump Jr. were like, okay, so what?
If it's negative for her, then it's a positive for us. We don't care where it came from. Openly welcomed and encouraged Russian intelligence interfering in the 2016 election. And the report goes on and on. I'm not going to read all this stuff for you guys. It goes on and on and on and on about all of that. Steve Bannon, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, Jared Kushner, Don Jr., Ivanka Trump Jr.
Ivanka Trump directed campaign staff after October 7th to make sure that two tweets per day went out spaced apart in Donald Trump's Twitter account at the time, linking to WikiLeaks documents two times a day from October 7th to the campaign to the to Election Day. Instruction from Ivanka Trump, the Golden Child, and they did that.
Hawk (33:49.729)
Steve Bannon, who was campaign chairman at that point, you know, formerly editor in chief of Breitbart was obviously still working with everybody at Breitbart. He was having them do the same thing. Then we get to October 6th. So remember, you may not remember this testimony from the trial. Hope Hicks testified that somewhere around October 4th was when she got the first
press inquiry from David Farrant told at the Washington Post about the Access Hollywood tape. He had emailed her asking her for the campaign to comment on it and attached to that email was a transcript of the Access Hollywood tape, including everything that Donald Trump said unedited. She circulated that email to Kellyanne Conway, Steve Bannon, Don Trump Jr., Jason Miller, Stephen Miller,
Jared Kushner, all the senior campaign people and like we have to deny, deny, deny, deny, deny. So three or four days before the tape was actually released, the campaign knew about it and they knew it was coming out on October 4th is when they knew about it. On October 6th, Roger Stone tweeted, Julian Assange will deliver a devastating expose on Hillary at a time of his choosing. I stand by my prediction.
hashtag handcuffs for Hillary.
Hawk (35:24.38)
On the afternoon of October 6th, Roger Stone received a phone call from the phone of Keith Schiller, Donald Trump's body man and bodyguard. And it had been widely reported that Donald Trump used to use Keith Schiller's phone to make phone calls so that those phone calls wouldn't show up on his cell phone records. They were on the phone for 20 minutes.
Hawk (35:49.852)
After it became clear to Trump associates that the famous access Hollywood tape would be coming out. Roger Stone sought to time the much sought after release of john podesta's emails by WikiLeaks to divert attention from the tape.
Stone wanted the Podesta stuff to balance the news cycle either right then or at least coincident. And Stone got his wish at approximately 4 .32 PM on October 7th, approximately 32 minutes after the release of the Access Hollywood tape, WikiLeaks released 2050 emails that the GRU had stolen from John Podesta, repeatedly announcing the leak on Twitter and linking to a searchable archive.
of the documents.
Every key member of Trump's campaign knew that the emails coming from WikiLeaks had been hacked and stolen by Russian intelligence.
Hawk (36:55.131)
I think the first release was sometime in like June of 2016 and that went all the way through Election Day and continually, continually, continually encouraged it, encouraged it. Roger Stone had inside track with WikiLeaks. And then as a result of some of these activities on July 10th, 2020, Donald Trump commuted Roger Stone's sentence on seven felony crimes for which he had been convicted.
sparing Roger Stone from a 40 month prison term.
Hawk (37:31.003)
Russian intelligence helped Donald Trump distract immediately following the release of the Access Hollywood tape, the release of the Access Hollywood tape, which really lit a fire under Donald Trump and Michael Cohen to lock down the catch and kill of Stormy Daniels story for $130 ,000 because they couldn't have that coming out in the three weeks before the election day, right after the release of the Access Hollywood tape.
Hawk (38:04.507)
People say it like it's a cliche.
With Donald Trump, all roads lead to Russia, all roads, including this criminal trial that we're in right now. It's fucking mind blowing anyway. Tomorrow's Thursday, it's day two of the cross examination of Michael Cohen and defense. Todd Blanch, the defense attorney, better pick up. He better get his shit together because he's not getting the job done.
on his cross examination if he wants to get if he wants to get his hung jury because they're not going to get an acquittal. And I mentioned this to a guy this morning. I keep getting these comments from Trump, Humphries that are like, I can't wait until he's acquitted. I can't wait to see your tears when Trump is acquitted. And so let's walk through that for a second. There are 34 felony counts.
they're all basically identical. Because there's an invoice, there's a check, there's a ledger entry, then there's an invoice, there's a check, there's a ledger entry. So it's like three counts together that are inextricably linked. And those same sets just stack up on top of each other. So it's not like the jury is going to find him guilty on count nine, and not guilty on count 22.
They're all basically the same. So for any, when you're in a criminal trial, whether it's a conviction or an acquittal, it has to be unanimous. So the MAGA chowder heads that are saying Donald Trump's gonna be acquitted are saying that a jury of 12 are going to agree unanimously on a not guilty verdict for each.
Hawk (40:01.946)
of 34 felony counts. There's no universe in which that happens.
Donald Trump's best hope and the best hope of his defense attorneys is a hung jury. Meaning that the jury isn't unanimous on some or all of the counts when as it relates to a guilty verdict. So and there's a chance that there'll be a hung jury there very much is that's always a possibility. Fortunately.
Trump's lead defense attorney Todd Blanch can't find his ass from a hole in the ground and made a bunch of commitments to the jury in his opening statement as to what the evidence will show and the evidence has not shown what Todd Blanch said it was going to show. It just hasn't. And that was a commitment that he made to the jury and he has fallen short on that commitment. So, but I think that Michael Cohen is going to be the last witness in this case. I don't think the defense is going to call any witnesses at all.
I think they're going to drag out the cross -examination of Michael Cohen, at least through tomorrow. So that, and remember that we're not in trial on Friday because Donald Trump is going to his son Barron's high school graduation. So I think they'll finish up like redirect and recross examination of Michael Cohen, probably the first half of Monday. And then we will move on to jury instructions and closing arguments.
and I will probably talk more about those this weekend. So I hope everybody enjoys the rest of your week. Tomorrow is another day of court and everybody be safe. All right. I'm tired. I'm going to go to bed. Have a wonderful week.
Hawk (41:52.312)
I should have said this at the beginning. If you're hearing this, my brother and I put out several podcasts a week. You can find those at HawkPodcasts .com. There are four podcast shows that we put out between four and six times a week, depending on the news. And the other ones are super fun and extremely cool. And you will learn a tremendous amount from them.
If you subscribe to those podcasts, it will make you a better human being. I promise. I promise. I mean that. So Hawk Podcasts dot com and you can get these super cool t -shirts at Hawk Merch store dot com. All right. I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed. Thanks, everybody, for subscribing and I'll talk to you guys soon.