Fox News contributor: “There is nothing wrong with saying over the phone, hey I need to find 11,000 votes. That's not criminal. That's just speech.”
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From the August 15, 2023 edition of Fox News' The Faulkner Focus
HARRIS FAULKNER (FOX NEWS ANCHOR): If you're a Trump supporter and you're looking at this and all you're hearing is that the indictments are going to be a wall against this president, there'll be a stopgap against him. But what you're telling me is that this could go on for a very long time. So not effectively so? Or what does the enduring mean in the overall picture?
LEO TERRELL (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): Harris, you know, these four indictments, historic, the two impeachment historic, they're trying to stop Trump from running for president. It's not going to happen. What they're doing is they're trying to wear him down. They're trying to distract him from the campaign of running for the highest office in the land. It's not going to work. But the Democrats are using the legal system. This is why this is so weird. They're using the legal system for political gains. And basically what they're doing is they're attacking a opposing candidate through the legal system. That's not how our legal system works. These cases, in my opinion, do not have any merit whatsoever. From all the four cases that have been charged for indictments. These cases are purely political. That's why it's so hard as a lawyer of 30 years to see these cases through the legal lens of how justice is served.
FAULKNER: Well, look, I mean, you're going to school, all of us on this. I've only read this, but I understand that the charges that are all under Georgia's Racketeering Influenced and Corruption Organizations Act, or RICO is we often hear it, usually are used for mobsters and drug rings. How far a legal reach is this D.A. making and could Trump countersue?
TERRELL: Well, I'll tell you right now, first of all, the answer to your last question, the countersue, if that's going to happen, that's going to happen after this case has been resolved. But normally, RICO is used for, again, for the mob, criminal elements, for fraud and violence, intimidation, violence. This is, however, being used under the Georgia election laws. And they do have specific election laws. But whether or not there is merit to these charges, for example, the D.A. claims that there's 161 overt acts – like tweeting, like a phone call. So she has basically thrown the kitchen sink at Trump. I don't think the case has merit from a standpoint of the fact that Trump was basically articulating his right as president during the time and his First Amendment right.
FAULKNER: As an American citizen.
TERRELL: There is nothing wrong -- as an American citizen. There is nothing wrong with saying over the phone, hey I need to find 11,000 votes. That's not criminal. That's just speech.