Jill Wine-Banks Of Nixon Impeachment Fame Talks Trump With Stephanie Miller
Jill Wine-Banks Of Nixon Impeachment Fame Talks Trump On the Stephanie Miller Show
Stephanie Miller’s favorite legal eagle and member of Nixon era Watergate investigation team is Jill Wine-Banks. She had a talk about Trump and his failure to be shielded from investigation and prosecution. Despite the best efforts of Republicans trying to cover for him. Jill tells us this has progressed beyond Watergate level Congressional action. I believe this is what was said.
Stephanie Miller:
Good morning Jill Wine-Banks. I am good because we’ve had almost the whole dinner table from PolitiCon on the show this week. Jennifer Rubin this morning. Harry Lippmann. Yesterday Malcolm Nance, of course, you. It’s a cavalcade of stars.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Isn’t that great! We should do another dinner. That was so good.
Stephanie Miller:
Also speaking of celebrations Watergate Girl your memoir. It’s available February 25th, right? You can pre-order online everywhere (INCLUDING RIGHT HERE) your favorite bookstore. It tells, “My stories the only woman on the special prosecutors trial team portrays the thrills hurdles and me too moments I and all women faced and still do plus some secrets.” You saucy little minx.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Yes, it’s coming out soon. I’m just talking to Holt Publishing about where I’m going to appear on that week at the Strand Bookstore in New York Wednesday, February 26th and in Washington at Politics and Prose on the Friday the 28th.
Stephanie Miller:
Jill. Lots of breaking news just this morning I want to get your take. So the appeals court refuses to block House subpoena for Trump’s financial records from Deutsche Bank and Capital One. So I guess my question is, legally, I think what normal people don’t understand is how can they keep delaying and delaying. Because it says this will be stayed for seven days to give Trump time to apply for an extension of the stay. How long does stuff, can stuff like this, go on.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Well, I mean theoretically, indefinitely but in a reasonable world it does not and I think the courts are starting to say. You’re seeing language that says, and this had to do with McGann’s testimony which had an equally good opinion from Judge Jackson, said I believe the damage to the public of a further delay means that it should not be delayed and I will no longer delay this. Now they have already gone to an appeals court that has sort of suggested that they will delay it, but the district court is saying that the impeachment inquiry is a pressing need and that it should not be delayed anymore.
So those are the McGann and the Deutsche Bank are two very important decisions. One of them, you know I was very excited because those two decisions made me very happy, but then William Bar has pre taken down the IG’s report. Which has been leaked. The headline, sort of, is the FBI was perfectly justified in starting the investigation. He’s saying I don’t agree with their opinion.
Stephanie Miller:
It’s Barr memo part 2 isn’t it?
Jill Wine-Banks:
It is Barr being an improper defense lawyer and not representing the American people. The reason you have an Inspector General is because that person, he or she, is an independent voice, takes a neutral position, and is not motivated by a political bias. Then you have the [Barr] political bias just screaming out there and it’s disgusting.
Stephanie Miller:
It is. People that just tuned in and don’t know what we’re talking about, the Justice Department’s Inspector General expected to release a report December 9th Dispelling claims that the FBI placed informants in Trump’s campaign, engaged in politically motivated wiretapping, He will release a report undercutting claims from conservatives that the FBI exhibited systematic political bias against Trump. You know, and here we go. This whole thing. Like the Muller report before it I will say the FBI acted properly in opening the investigation.
Jill Wine-Banks:
To get your own copy of her book The Watergate Girl – Click Here
It’s attacks. Not one single fact. It doesn’t because it can’t. There is no countervailing fact but what it does is it says this is a biased process and it’s all garbage. Then it makes assertions. There is no evidence to show A, B, C, D. No evidence to show that the [White House] meeting was withheld. No evidence to show that the money was withheld. When of course there is evidence. They don’t say there is evidence it shows the opposite. Because there is no evidence that shows the opposite.
Trump’s Court Defenses Are All BS!
They just make a flat-out statement and saying it does not make it true. I don’t care how many times they say there is no evidence. The House Intelligence Committee majority report will make clear what that evidence is. Anybody who was listening to the hearings over the two weeks that they were held heard at each session. Adam Schiff did a summary of the evidence and he gave a very dramatic closing. Where he summarized basically the threats of democracy, the threat to our elections, why it matters to us that the president did this, and he laid it out in a timeline that shows that the money was withheld at his direction, and was released only because he got caught. I just think that the facts are there and the problem is what the Republicans have said.
I mean Lindsey Graham proudly announced. “I’m not going to read any of this because I don’t care. Nothing could change my mind. I am going to vote for him to be acquitted.” That’s a problem that was sort of foreseen by our framers of our Constitution but I don’t think they ever really foresaw that it could be as bad as this.
Stephanie Miller:
Yeah. I’ve been saying over and over Jill, We just played a sound clip of Kelly Ann Conway saying that Adam Schiff is a fact witness and they need to call Adam Schiff. I mean, this is like them calling the Watergate prosecutor, right?
Jill Wine-Banks:
Their attempt to divert and unfortunately to convince a good number of millions of people that this is correct. Adam Schiff has nothing of value to add to this. His report will say everything that he has to say and he is not a fact witness period. The whistle-blower has legal protection and has absolutely no evidence that hasn’t been provided by actual fact witnesses. So he says I was told X, Y & Z. X, Y, and Z have been established now by the witnesses who were part of those episodes. Not by someone who reported those episodes, but by the person who was the witness.
So those people are unnecessary. Hunter Biden and Joe Biden are irrelevant to what the president did, period. If the Republicans in the Senate and remember they control the Senate. They can start their own investigation. They could have done it when they controlled the house and the Senate, but they didn’t because there’s nothing there.
Stephanie Miller:
Also Joe Biden wasn’t running for President would be the operative thing.
Jill Wine-Banks:
That may be the actual reason but the truth is there is no factor that would have justified them doing it. So they didn’t, but they still control the Senate. The Senate can start a hearing. You know, let them start a hearing if they want to have it.
Stephanie Miller:
As we found out though in Ukraine, Jill. You know that they know there’s no there, there. They know there’s no wrongdoing by Joe or Hunter Biden. They don’t want an investigation, they want the appearance of some investigations. So they can do the same thing they did to Hillary, right?
Jill Wine-Banks:
Like a hostage, he doesn’t have that opportunity just speak freely. So it’s, as he phrased it. You did not hear him saying anything like that.
Stephanie Miller:
Can I double back real quick on McGann? Because you brought that up and I was wondering. Obviously the judge, in denying the request for the stay In the McGann testimony, she added that the Department of Justice’s chances of winning the appeal were exceedingly low. So again, what is the time frame on that? Because he is an actual fact witness.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Well, there is unfortunately no time limit because courts can do whatever they want, but based on my experience in Watergate and based on the judges language here which is very clear. That she believes that the law is clear enough that the House will win and that the Department of Justice will lose. That is, president Trump will lose and based on how expedited. Our case on the subpoena was heard during summer recess.
They held a special session and did not go into recess in order to hear our argument. We skipped the court of appeal. We got permission to go directly from the District Court to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court sat during summer recess and issued a decision within a week of argument. So in a world where the court sees the imperative to act quickly, they can. We had from our subpoena to a Supreme Court decision was three months.
Stephanie Miller:
Wow. I saved the best for last. I don’t know if you’ve seen this. Robert Reich says Article 2 Section 2 of the Constitution gives the president a power to pardon anyone who has been convicted of offenses against the United States with one exception. In cases of impeachment. He writes, if Trump is impeached by the House, he can never be pardoned for these crimes. He cannot pardon himself and he cannot be pardoned by a future President. Even if a subsequent President wanted to pardon Trump in the interest of, say domestic tranquility. He writes she could not. Oh boy! I hope he’s right on that! He says had the House impeached Nixon, Ford’s hands would have been tied. Which you know I’m sure you feel, you wish that was the case.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Actually someone asked me that question on Twitter yesterday. I answered exactly the same way and said no, the pardon power is not available in cases of impeachment. it is specifically exempted. So it is completely correct that the president once impeached cannot be pardoned from the impeachment. Nor from if he were to be removed. The removal is final.
Stephanie Miller:
Because that’s what people were trying to explain on Twitter, right? Is that Nixon was never actually impeached. So this is -as you and many of them, but you would know best. Is that this is way beyond Watergate and we have got to. I mean, we can not say, oh our long national nightmare is over. We’ve got to move on We cannot allow this precedent to stand.
Jill Wine-Banks:
Yes I really have been saying for a long time that the future of democracy depends on holding Donald Trump accountable. Because whatever he gets away with, it’s gonna be hard to hold the next one accountable for that. Although the Republicans I am sure would say well it’s okay for a Republican to do that but a Democrat can’t and they’re brazen about this. The way they said, well within a year of an election you can’t appoint to the Supreme Court. There is no rule that says that. There is nothing, it’s incredible. The President is President until 12 o’clock at 12:01. Then a new President takes over and he exercises the full authority of the President until a new President is sworn in. That’s it.
That goes back to even the time of John Kennedy’s assassination. The reason that Lyndon Johnson was sworn in immediately on the plane right after he was, Kennedy was, declared dead was because there has to be a President. So there, for a brief moment, was from Kennedy’s death until the swearing-in, there was no President. I mean, this whole thing has gotten to the point of absurdity in terms of facts. Kelly Ann’s prediction about there are alternative facts, well apparently there are alternate facts but not in a court of law. Thank heaven for our courts because they have really made clear that they are standing up for the facts and the law. They’re not ignoring it.
Stephanie Miller:
Jill Wine-Banks:
You know, there are plenty of me too moments in that. I just had one on the radio. I’m on a show with a new defense lawyer for Donald Trump. She was very defense-lawyer-like but she was also very Fox-News-like. She spoke over the host and didn’t answer questions, but she said what she needed to say and wanted to say.
Then I’m on with someone named Bob Bianchi, who’s a former New Jersey prosecutor, and we were talking about the case for impeachment and he said well you know I actually know her and she’s a nice girl. Oh. I never interrupt another guest but I did and I said, I can’t believe you just said that, and he said, why what should I have called her? I said you should have called her a defense lawyer. That’s what she is and he said well she’s a nice woman. That’s a step up from nice girl but it’s not a step up to where we need to be.
Stephanie Miller:
That’s why Jill’s book is ironically named Watergate Girl.
Jill Wine-Banks:
To capture the 70’s, but it should not capture today.
Stephanie Miller:
Thank you. Thank you Jill. We’re out of time I we always go to long because we love you so much you are perfect for every era.
