Trump back in DC after 3rd indictment, a look at possible co-conspirators: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Trump heads to Washington after third indictment

USA TODAY National Political Correspondent David Jackson previews another big legal day for former President Donald Trump, as he returns to Washington after his latest indictment. Plus, USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer takes a closer look at the possible co-conspirators in this week's indictment, a man is sentenced to death for the antisemitic mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, Moms for Liberty clash with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on mental health care in schools, and scientists have discovered the heaviest animal that ever lived.

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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Thursday, the 3rd of August 2023. Today, what's next for Trump as he heads to Washington in the wake of his third indictment. Plus, we take a closer look at the co-conspirators in the indictment, and the man responsible for the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history receives the death penalty.

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Former President Donald Trump is back in Washington today where he will head to a federal courthouse after being indicted on Tuesday for charges that he organized a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election from President Joe Biden. I spoke with USA TODAY National Political Correspondent David Jackson for what to expect today and going forward. David, welcome back to the show.

David Jackson:

Hey, thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Trump is back in Washington today. What can we expect?

David Jackson:

That's a darn good question. The only thing we know for sure is that he is going to roll over to the federal courthouse down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House and plead not guilty to the latest charges that have been lodged against him. But beyond that, we're not hearing much. It's an unusually late time, it's at 4:00 PM and that's much later than usual. And it doesn't give Trump a lot of time to skedaddle back to New Jersey for any kind of event, but we'll see.

Taylor Wilson:

And David, I've asked you this on a host of other issues concerning Trump, but how likely is it that we could see the former president behind bars?

David Jackson:

Well, it's certainly possibly he could wind up, but I wouldn't expect that anytime soon because even if he's convicted on the three or four cases that are pending before him, he will no doubt appeal that and the government will likely agree that he wouldn't be imprisoned until those appeals are somehow resolved. So on all of these cases, I think we're talking about years and years of litigation. So it'll be sometime before Donald Trump is put in prison if he ever is.

Taylor Wilson:

And in terms of the political impact of this latest indictment, what are others around the GOP saying this week? And how might this play with voters, many of whom have stood by Trump during his other legal sagas?

David Jackson:

Well, most people expect the voters to stick with him and to continue, at least Republican voters to stick with him and rally around him because they're buying into this idea that he is somehow being persecuted by the Biden administration. So on the voter's front, I think the expectations is that he'll get a little bit of bump and the question is how long might that last. Because we're hearing more and more criticism, I think, from more and more candidates, including Vice President Mike Pence who is in the indictment. He's one of the people that Trump pressured to try to spike Biden's electoral votes and hand Trump the election. So he's been pretty vocal in terms of saying that Trump acted wrongly. He's not sure if Trump committed a crime, but the president was definitely in the wrong by what he tried to do. And I think we're going to hear more and more criticism from Pence. And that is somewhat new and it wouldn't surprise me if other candidates came along and joined him on that.

Taylor Wilson:

And David, what's next for Trump's calendar on this case and the rest of his legal concerns going forward?

David Jackson:

During his past two indictments, he had a rally after pleading not guilty to try to rally the troops, but we're not hearing about anything on Thursday night, at least not yet. We're kind of waiting on pins and needles to see what he'll do. He'll definitely say something. The question is in what venue will he choose to do that? It may be just an online statement. His next public appearance is supposed to be in South Carolina on Saturday night at a meeting of the South Carolina Republican Party. That's an early primary state. It's a very important state, and so we fully expect Trump to air his grievances about the legal system during that speech. And he is also got an event in New Hampshire, another early primary state on Tuesday at 2:30. We'll be hearing plenty about Trump about the alleged unfairness of all this, but we may not hear too much from him on Thursday.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. USA TODAY National Political Correspondent David Jackson. Thanks as always, David.

David Jackson:

Thank you, sir.

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Taylor Wilson:

The federal indictment handed up Tuesday list six co-conspirators in former President Donald Trump's alleged schemes to illegally stay in power. They include Jeffrey Clark, a high ranking Justice Department official in the Trump administration. It also says there are other potential co-conspirators known and unknown to the grand jury, suggesting that future charges are possible. To get more on this, I caught up with USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer. Josh, thanks for making the time as always.

Josh Meyer:

Always a pleasure, Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

I want to get to the possible co-conspirators. One of them is Jeffrey Clark. What do we know about him and his alleged role here?

Josh Meyer:

Co-conspirator 4 is outlined in the indictment as, "A justice department official who worked on civil matters, and who with the defendant, the defendant being Donald Trump, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud." So that one was pretty easy to figure out because Jeffrey Clark was a high ranking Justice Department official in the Trump administration at the time. Clark is known to have drafted letters with false claims of election fraud to coerce officials in key battleground states to open investigations into their elections as part of this broader effort by Trump to illegally stay in power and overturn the results of the election.

Taylor Wilson:

And what other co-conspirators might be involved here, Josh?

Josh Meyer:

A lot of this is basically triangulating the information in the indictment with the findings of the January 6th House Committee, the special committee investigating the January 6th attacks. And they did an extraordinary amount of work. They held nine hearings, they investigated for 18 months. And so if you combine the information and other public information, what we think is that co-conspirator No. 1 is Rudy Giuliani, who of course was Trump's main lawyer in a lot of the election fraud cases. We think that co-conspirator No. 2 is John Eastman, who was the West Coast lawyer. Basically, what they're saying is that Eastman was leaning on Vice President Mike Pence to use his position as vice president to knock out the rightfully elected electors and put in a slate that would help Trump allegedly try to stay in office, which of course is illegal.

We're fairly certain that co-conspirator No. 3 is Sidney Powell, the lawyer for Trump that even Trump himself said was doing some kind of crazy talk. You may recall that she's the one that was saying that basically that there was a conspiracy between people in Venezuela and other countries and even maybe from satellites and outer space to mess with U.S. election voting machines. Trump even said that those were unsupported and that the co-conspirator 3, who we believe was Sidney Powell, "sounded crazy."

No. 4 was Jeffrey Clark, we think. One where they're not entirely certain about is co-conspirator No. 5, but we think that was Kenneth Chesebro, who is another Trump attorney. In the indictment, he is identified as a lawyer who helped devise and implement the plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification procedure. So that was part of Operation Green Bay Sweep. And No. 6 is much more of a wild card. It could be several of the lawyers working with Trump. It's described in the indictment as an unknown political consultant who helped implement the plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to help overthrow the rightful election of Joe Biden.

Taylor Wilson:

And Peter Navarro, Trump's former White House director of trade and manufacturing, openly talked about scheming to delay certification of Biden's election win in his book.

Josh Meyer:

We don't think that he's one of the six co-conspirators named in the indictment. But one thing that's very telling and that hasn't been really the focus of a lot of the media coverage, is that this investigation, according to Jack Smith, the special counsel, is ongoing. So he might end up being a co-conspirator at some point.

Taylor Wilson:

And Josh, what do we know about the federal judge assigned to oversee the case? Tanya Chutkan?

Josh Meyer:

I just did a profile of her and I think that there's a lot of people that are expecting that this is a big win for the Justice Department because she is one of the judges who has been most strict in her rulings of January 6th protesters and rioters. She's given them much stiffer sentences than all the other judges, according to an analysis by Associated Press. And so, people say that she might throw the book at Trump. But she is also a very experienced defense counsel. She was a public defender and she spent decades representing people in high profile criminal cases against the government. So experts I talked to, including some former prosecutors and even White House counsel, have said that they think that she's not only going to give Trump a very fair shake, but that she will be very sensitive to his concerns as defendant in a high profile case that could, if convicted, send him away to prison for a very long time.

Taylor Wilson:

Josh Meyer, thanks as always.

Josh Meyer:

My pleasure.

♦

Taylor Wilson:

The man who killed 11 worshipers at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue in 2018 will be sentenced to death. The man responsible for the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history was found guilty on 63 criminal counts in June, including 11 counts each of obstruction of free exercise of religion resulting in death and hate crimes resulting in death. The 50-year-old man was found eligible for the death penalty last month when jurors decided that he intended to kill, substantial planning went into his attack and he targeted the vulnerable. Prosecutors argued that he was driven by his hatred of Jewish people, while defense attorneys argued he had a serious combination of mental illnesses that could inform the level of intent required to make him eligible for the death penalty. This now becomes the first federal death sentence to be imposed during President Joe Biden's administration.

During the trial sentencing phase earlier this summer, survivors read victim impact statements. One survivor, Carol Black, talked about her 65-year-old brother, Richard Gottfried, who was killed in the shooting. She said it's a huge void in their family for him not to be here. You can read more about the victims with a link in today's show notes.

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The latest item in the Moms for Liberty's Conservative Parents' Rights agenda, no to mental health care in public schools. The group said as much in a social media post last week as a response to President Joe Biden announcing his new strategy to improve mental healthcare by adding more providers and expanding access. But that position appears to clash with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who the group has vocally supported in his push for the White House.

In Florida, mental health care has been a top bipartisan priority since 2018 when a shooter killed 17 children at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In a public safety act under the school's name, school districts in the state are required to have mental health care. And DeSantis himself signed a law last year requiring that school districts certify that at least 80% of school personnel have received youth mental health awareness training.

It's not yet clear how this particular difference in policy might impact the relationship between DeSantis and Moms for Liberty. In addition to the Moms' general support for his attempt to win the GOP presidential nomination, the DeSantis administration has endorsed Moms for Liberty members in school board races across the state.

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Scientists have discovered what they say could be the heaviest animal that ever lived on earth, a gigantic ancient whale. According to a study published yesterday in the British journal Nature, a part of the whale skeleton was discovered recently in Southern Peru, and it may have been two to three times as heavy as the modern blue whale. It's estimated to have lived about 39 million years ago. The findings also suggests that the trend toward gigantism in marine mammals may have begun earlier than previously thought.

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. If you like the show, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And if you have any comments, you can reach us at [email protected]. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.