Judge Chutkan Forces Trump Into A Corner With Damning Ruling

Judge Tanya Chutkan sided with prosecutors this week, and ruled that Donald Trump will have to officially declare if he's going to use an "advice of counsel" defense in his upcoming trial next year. If Trump says he will use that defense, then it was made clear that he can no longer claim attorney-client privilege over his documents, nor can he claim executive privilege, forcing him to give prosecutors everything they've ever wanted. If he declines, then he can't throw his lawyers under the bus. Farron Cousins explains how badly this hurts Trump.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Donald Trump got some pretty horrible news from Judge Tanya Chut this week when she issued a three page ruling telling Donald Trump that he has until mid-January to state in the affirmative or in the negative if he is going to be using an advice of counsel defense at trial. Now, the prosecution couple weeks ago had filed a motion with Judge Chut saying, judge, we have to get a clear answer from him if he's gonna use the advice of counsel defense, because if he is, then that opens up this whole new world of documents and discovery that we have to be able to access prior to the trial. So if he's gonna do that, he has to say it so we can prepare with those new pieces of evidence. Chucks three page ruling came out this week and she agreed with the prosecution. She said, as he has consented to do, defendant shall provide formal notice whether he intends to assert an advice of counsel defense by January 15th, 2024.

If defendant does provide affirmative notice of that intent, he must also provide the required discovery to the government at that time. Any communications or evidence defendant intends to use to establish the defense and otherwise privileged communications that defendant does not intend to use a trial, but that are relevant to proving or undermining the EV advice of counsel defense in their entirety. So basically what she's saying is, if you are gonna come to court and try to throw your lawyers under the bus, uh, this is for the January 6th trial. By the way, if you're gonna throw the lawyers under the bus, then you cannot claim attorney-client privilege. We have to be able to see those communications. You have to turn them over in their entirety to Jack Smith and the special prosecutor's office. You cannot claim executive privilege over any of it either. So it's not just attorney-client privilege.

He has to waive, he has to waive executive privilege, which he shouldn't have anyway, but he can't even try to make that claim. All privileged claims go out the window if Donald Trump wants to throw his lawyers onto the bus. And to be honest, that probably is his best defense, right? You know, saying, listen, I've, I've said this a hundred times, I should just record it and just push a button to play it every time. But anyway, Trump could easily say, listen, I'm not a lawyer. I don't know the law as well as these guys do. They were telling me I could do this. I listened to them. I can't be in trouble for, for the advice of my counsel. It is a pretty decent legal defense. But in this particular instance, not super great because he did have these lawyers over here, your Giuliani's or Powells, your Eastman's telling him he could do these things. But then you had a whole gaggle of lawyers over here,

Including White House counselor, uh, pat Spel, telling him, no, you cannot, you can't do these things. So it's not a good defense in this particular case, because he had lawyers on both sides telling him what he could do and that he couldn't do it or he could do it, maybe do it. I don't know. He didn't know, but he knew exactly what he wanted to hear. So he chose to listen to the idiots and ignored the advice of the people who knew better. But I think the important thing with her ruling is not only that, you have to say if you're gonna throw these lawyers on the bus, but you gotta give us everything, not just the stuff you're gonna present in court. You have to give us everything else too, because it could be relevant for the prosecutors to undermine your defense. Oh, and you have to give it in its entirety, okay?

You can't pick and choose which ones. You can't black out certain areas. No, no, no, no, no. In its in entirety. She says in her ruling. And if Trump doesn't want to go that route, okay, good. You don't have to turn anything over. You don't have to waive these privileges. But at the same time, that means you can't come to court and try to blame it on anybody else. It's all on you at that point.