Beginning his annual radio tour across our Republic, President John Pudner traveled deep into the heart of Texas to join Ernie Brown in discussing controversial moves related to the indictment of former President Trump in Georgia. In particular, Pudner analyzes the recent appointment of a special prosecutor for Georgia Lt. Governor Burt Jones’ case in relation to his alleged involvement in appointing alternate electors in the case that Trump would have won the state following legal proceedings. This move comes as the prosecutor in this case, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, not only had a conflict of interest, as she had campaigned for Jones’ opponent, but was going ahead with her case despite this, only being stopped recently by judge Robert McBurney.
Both discuss how this not only brings up important questions when it comes to the indictment, but also how this acts as Exhibit A on whether or not this should be considered a politically motivated prosecution. This also brings up questions about the indictment itself, as Pudner mentions criticism from lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who represented Al Gore’s presidential campaign during the famed Florida recount, relating the charges to efforts his team conducted, noting, “It's not the grand jury who indicted, it's the prosecutors.”
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The following transcript from this interview is presented in its entirety with minor edits:
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Lt. Gov Burt Jones, judge, electors, prosecuting, Trump, democracy, case, election.
SPEAKERS
Ernie Brown and TBOR Action President John Pudner
Ernie Brown 00:00
Let's talk a little bit about the indictments against President Trump and the people around him because there's also another case against the Lieutenant Governor of Georgia. I don't know if the case has been filed yet, but there was a conflict of interest with the County District Attorney, so they appointed a special prosecutor in this case, and I'm not clear on what this guy is accused of. So, John is here to kind of clear that up for us, John Pudner. Thanks for coming on.
John Pudner 00:25
Thanks for having me.
Ernie Brown 00:26
What did Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones do?
John Pudner 00:30
Well, he's lumped in with all the others in this attack on the alternate electors, who would have voted if Trump had been declared the winner in Georgia. This really should be exhibit A for the argument over whether everyone's being treated the same under the law because the district attorney did not recuse herself initially. She was going to prosecute Lt. Gov Burt Jones, along with the others, but the judge told her she had to recuse herself because she had hosted a fundraiser for Burt Jones' opponent. I mean, if that's not exhibit A on whether or not this should be considered a politically motivated prosecution or not...the judge had to tell her that! How can you seriously be prosecuting him? No, you can't. So, that's why we have a special counsel just to break him off from the others. It's basically the same case, though.
Ernie Brown 01:20
Alan Dershowitz wrote a piece yesterday that I read, and he said that, in 2000, he helped Al Gore look for votes, and he said he did much the same thing that Donald Trump did, except people believe we did it in good faith, and they don't believe Donald Trump was doing it in good faith. He said that's not a crime, and yet, he's being charged with one.
John Pudner 01:40
That's right. That was a great parallel. Another one was this talk that this attempt would have thwarted democracy -that having an alternate list of delegates, while you were deciphering it, that that subverted democracy. In 2016, there were barricades of people trying to prevent electors from casting their votes for Trump. I mean, Politico, a pretty left publication, had a headline saying, "Electors Under Siege", and talked about how you've never had death threats of electors before, etc, so it suggests the 2016 attempt to stop the electors from casting their votes, as they were obligated to do, was a much bigger threat to democracy than having an alternate slate of electors ready and trying to criminalize now.
Ernie Brown 02:35
John, one of the things that's disturbing to me is that you mentioned about there being an obvious conflict of interest here, but one of the things that the press does now, that drives me crazy, is they talk about the the Trump appointed judge, the Obama appointed judge, the Clinton appointed judge, giving the idea that because this person was appointed by somebody in another party other than person they're prosecuting, that they're not legitimate, that, in part, is undermining our faith in the justice system.
John Pudner 04:09
That's correct, and we talked about threats to democracy, I mean, the left seems to have coined that the threats to democracy are all from the right, but that attempt to undermine - and we know their partisan judges out there on various things, but typically, I think that comes into place more with trying to void an executive order, or their political rounds, where I think maybe you do want to look at who appointed whom - but in the justice system, everyone was appointed by someone. If the only guilty to not guilty is out there in the entire judicial system based on who judges are appointed by, then our system doesn't work, and I think it does, for the most part.
Ernie Brown 04:48
Here we are coming up a year from a presidential election, then it'll be midterms, and back to a presidential election. back to midterms. Will we ever see a smooth running election again? Will we ever just kick back and say "Okay, our guy lost this time. maybe next time."
John Pudner 05:03
Boy, yeah, you make such a good point, and I just keep reminding people all the reactions to 2016, and Trump winning , and the inability of the left to accept that victory by Trump, and the number of Democrats who viewed that election as not legitimate, whether it be because they said Russians were flipping votes, etc. I mean, the last elections weren't that different in the reaction.
Ernie Brown 05:33
That's a good point - the elections remain the same but the coverage was different. Never thought about it like that. All right. John Pudner is President of Take Back Our Republic Action. Thank you, John. We appreciate it.