Full transcript of “Jeanine Pirro signals DEFEAT in stunning concession”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 You're watching the legal breakdown, Glenn. We have got an abject humiliation for one of Donald Trump's top foot soldiers. That's Judge Janine, Janine Piro, the US attorney for the Washington DC office. Can you explain what just happened at the hands of Janine Piro? >> Yeah, Brian. Um, Trump flunky Janine Piro has decided to abandon her efforts to prosecute the innocent. I mean, we all saw the reporting not that long ago that she sent somebody into the grand jury in Washington, DC seeking felony indictments of six members of Congress, two senators for representatives, even though they had committed no crime. These are all military veterans or veterans of our intelligence
0:45 communities. And they said accurately, truthfully, and in accordance with military law that military members are obligated to disobey unlawful orders. Black letter military law right there. Take it from this old army jag. And somehow someway Donald Trump convinced Janine Piro to go into the grand jury and try to indict them for what? Treason or sedition. We don't know exactly what the proposed charges are. The problem is the prosecutors didn't know what the proposed charges were either. But mind you, these are offenses potentially punishable by death. So, she sent a prosecutor in to try to obtain indictments in a potential death penalty
1:32 case even though no crimes had been committed. Brian, you cannot make this up. No Hollywood script writer could come up with this. Well, now the new reporting is after the grand jurors sitting as the conscience of the community does not only did they not indict these six members of Congress, the vote was zero. Zero grand jurors voted in favor of an indictment. Let me tell you, I've never heard of that happening. Well, now the reporting is Janine Piro has quote shelved her quest to indict the innocent to prosecute people who had committed no crimes. And it looks like this investigation may now be dead. There's no guarantee that she can't try again at some point. But this
2:19 is a good development for the rule of law. And we can talk in a few minutes about how I perceive this. not so much as a failure of Trump and his dirty DOJ leadership, but as a defeat at the hands of we the people sitting in the grand jury as the conscience of the community. Glenn, if I remember correctly, Senator Mark Kelly had actually brought a lawsuit against Pete Hegth for uh the fact that Hegth was part of this whole charade against these Democratic lawmakers and members of Congress. What happens to that lawsuit now? Does that become moot or is there still grounds to move forward with that lawsuit because these Democrats were the were the targets of these vindictive prosecution attempts anyway? >> Yeah, Brian, great question. So, for a minute, I'm going to mix civil apples
3:06 with criminal oranges. What do I mean by that? So, this was a criminal indictment that they sought against these six members of Congress who had committed no crime. Um the Senator Mark Kelly piece and there's overlap because he was one of the senators that they tried to criminally indict. Um the the military the Department of Defense Pete Hegsth tried to punish him also for making these same truthful accurate statements about military law requiring soldiers, sailors, airmen, seammen to um to disobey unlawful orders. He brought a civil suit against Hegth to put a stop to Hegsth's attempt to punish him for that speech by busting him down in rank and basically stealing some of his retirement pay. That case went to court,
3:53 there were some preliminary arguments and a hearing held. And one day after the grand jury refused to indict Senator Kelly and the other five members of Congress in a civil case, a judge ruled that Pete Hegth violated the Constitution by trying to punish Senator Kelly for again speaking the truth. So that was literally back-to back defeats of this attempt of the Trump administration to punish members of Congress of the opposite party. Shocking for speaking the truth. So, um, it looks like now both of these things are resolved unless one, Janine Piro tries again, contrary to today's reporting, to
4:38 criminally indict them, or two, the Department of Defense, Pete Hegth, tries to appeal the judge essentially ruling against Hegsth's attempt to punish Senator Mark Kelly. So, I want to talk about the impact that this decision um especially, you know, by these members of the community, not one of whom uh voted in favor of indicting uh any of these Democrats. I want to talk about the implications that that's going to have on future efforts by the Trump administration to engage in these vindictive prosecutions. But first, I just want to give a quick note or quick request to those who are watching right now. If you'd like to support our work as we continue to cover any and all legal breaking news, the best way to do that is to subscribe to both of our channels. I'm going to put those links in the post description of this video.
5:23 So, if you're not yet subscribed, it's 100% free to subscribe, but it's a great way to support us and our work. So, you can go ahead and hit those subscribe buttons. So Glenn, seeing that this effort was completely unsuccessful by the Trump administration, what kind of an impact does that have moving forward as the administration inevitably attempts to engage in yet another vindictive prosecution as they've been so want to do for the past year? >> Oh, and they inevitably will try again and again, I fear. But you know, this is a great and important result writ large. And here's why. Even though this doesn't count as precedent, what happens in a grand jury with respect to whether they vote to indict or not um is not precedent in any other case or in any other investigation. But it does show that Donald Trump and his administration
6:10 have prior. They have prior trying to vindictively prosecute, indeed vindictively indict people who have committed no crime. And just as when Senator Mark Kelly um filed his civil suit against Hegth, you bet he raised in that the fact that the Trump administration was also trying to vindictively criminally prosecute him, not just pursue him civily. So Donald Trump is is sort of racking up the priors. You know, think criminal history, you know, a a a criminal record as long as my arm. Well, that's what Donald Trump is now establishing for himself. And in every future potential vindictive prosecution case or investigation before the grand jury, the target of those attempts by Trump will
6:57 undoubtedly have all of this evidence to present to a court, including what just happened in Trump's efforts to indict corruptly criminally notwithstanding that they committed no crimes, indict six members of Congress. So all of this couldn't be more valuable. And something else I want to just jump in and add, Brian, you know, people are forever, myself included, talking about how Donald Trump is failing. He's failing on so many fronts. I don't see this as a failure. So, you know, when I think of Donald Trump failing, I think of his health failing. I think of his mental faculties failing. We the people have no impact on those failures. That's just Donald Trump failing in various ways. But when it comes to what's happening in
7:43 grand juries and in courtrooms, I see that as we the people defeating Donald Trump, his dirty DOJ leadership, including Pam Bondi and Todd Blanch, right down to Janine Piro, the DC US attorney. The reason I view these as defeats is because, you know, failing conotes or suggests kind of, you know, passivity. This is the people rising up as the conscience of the community first in the grand jury when Donald Trump tries to indict everybody from senators to sandwich throwers. And literally over and over and over and over and over again and on and on, grand jurors sitting as the conscience of the community. We the people have stood up and said, "Hell no, there's no evidence of crime or if there is, you don't have
8:30 probable cause. You can't meet your evidentiary burden for us to return an indictment. Brian, that is we the people defeating Trump's dirty DOJ leadership. Similarly, when Janine Piro fumbles forward, when she can't get felony indictments, for example, you know, for the the guy who threw the sandwich at a police officer or the woman who kind of stepped in between some law enforcement, some immigration officers and somebody they were trying to detain and they tried to indict her for a felony, that the grand jury said, "Oh, hell no." She fumbles forward and tries to charge them with low-level misdemeanor crimes, which does not require a grand jury indictment. Only felonies do. Janine Piro can simply sign a criminal
9:16 complaint and charge somebody with a misdemeanor and take them to trial. When she's tried to do that repeatedly, what happens? Well, now it's the trial jurors standing up as the conscience of the community, representing we the people, and finding them not guilty in a DC minute. So listen, in in so many ways and not just in courts and in courts of public opinion and in the polls and in marches and protests and rallies assembling to petition our government for a redress of grievances and we got us some grievances against our government. We the people are defeating Donald Trump. He's not just failing, we are defeating him. >> Glenn, I'm I'm particularly focused on Janine Piro's involvement in all of
10:02 this. I I I don't think it's a stretch to say that she abused her position by trying to criminally prosecute um members of Congress for repeating what is in the Uniform Code of Military Justice in plain text, black and white. And so is there are there any sanctions that she would have to shoulder? Like is there is there any recourse here when you have somebody who is a US attorney who is not using their position um to follow the the law, but rather using their position to abuse it? Like what about Janine Piro's culpability in all of this? Are we just supposed to sit idly by while somebody with a ton of power gets to just wield it to hurt Democrats for the crime of being Democrats? Brian, there are at least two and potentially three viable sanctions.
10:49 One, she abused her official duties as a prosecutor. It is so far beyond the official duties of a US attorney or any federal prosecutor to try to indict the innocent that subjects her to personal legal liability. So absolutely these six members of Congress could bring a lawsuit in her personal capacity because she is not cloaked with the protection of immunity, sovereign immunity as a a government officer. If she acts beyond her the scope of her official duties, which she did, they could sue her and I suspect they would have a robust and potentially winning case. Second uh possibility, she can and should be
11:34 referred to bar counsel and she should go the way of Trump's other lawyers who end up being disbarred for misconduct in office. Misconduct that was undertaken either at the request of or for the benefit of Donald Trump. And then three, and this might be the outlier, but I never want to forego the possibility of criminal culpability. She has engaged in a conspiracy against rights. What is that? If you try to do something, if you abuse your official power to try to deprive somebody of a constitutional right like the fourth amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures or the fifth amendment right to due process of law, both of which arguably are
12:21 violated when you try to prosecute the innocent, somebody who has committed no crime. I think she potentially subjects herself to criminal liability. And when the rule of law comes back into the light of day, we have a legitimate um not just US attorney for the District of Columbia, but attorney general and president in the Oval Office who actually respect the law and the constitution. There needs to be a criminal investigation launched against Janine Piro. >> I want to finish on that point. Do you think that the Democrats, if we are lucky enough to take control ever again, have the stomach to do it? And what do you say to the subsequent attorney general uh who has to make that decision to you know do what Democrats always do
13:07 which is just move forward in deference to healing the country or try and seek some accountability for people who have abused their positions so that there is some deterrent effect for the next person who tries to come in and abuse their position like Janine Piro is doing here. Brian, if our nation's leadership, particularly law enforcement leadership, again declines to seek accountability for those who have committed crimes against the American people and in violation of our Constitution, then frankly, we don't deserve to keep our republic. We tried it as far back as 1974 when Richard Nixon committed all kinds of crimes against the American people and we decided that we were just going to put the long national nightmare behind us by declining to hold a
13:55 criminal president accountable for his crimes. We did it again after Donald Trump launched an attack on not just the US capital but on the democratic process, tried to invalidate the expressed will of the American voters and deny Joe Biden his election win and you know steal the power of the presidency for himself. We had an attorney general and Merrick Garland who just decided we really need to just put it all behind us and didn't pursue accountability for Trump's crimes until virtually the last minute when it was too late. Jack Smith once he appointed him as special counsel when gang busters aggressively appropriately so in the direction of accountability but it was far too little too late Brian if we choose the same path of no
14:40 accountability we don't deserve to keep our republic and I fear we won't keep our republic >> all right well that is a a message loud and clear to the people who come next uh in terms of what their priorities should be and and look I think you know you and I have spoken about this at length I think uh Merrick Garland gave the blueprint of what not to do and the world that we're living in right now is a testament to exactly that. And I know there are going to be people who who are upset that that you know the the focus that that I'm talking about Merrick Garland but the reality is Donald Trump unhinged like emboldened does not happen uh if Merrick Garland takes a stronger approach which he didn't do and now look at the look at the results of of that inaction. So, uh, again, that that
15:26 message loud and clear, I think, is, uh, is exactly the kind of message that needs to be amplified. Again, for those who are watching right now, if you'd like to help elevate our voices in this ecosystem and see more legal news as it continues to break, the best way to do that is to subscribe to both of our channels. I'm going to put those links right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. 100% free to subscribe, but a great way to support our work. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen >> and I'm Glenn Kersner. >> You're watching the Legal Breakdown.
