Julie Kelly: Biden’s DOJ Will Indict Trump Before the Midterms

BUCK: We’ve been talking about the flurry of subpoenas sent to people in Trump’s orbit having to do with January 6th; they seized some cell phones. This has all been escalating recently. What is going on here? What is the endgame? Well, we’ll get into it. Julie Kelly, senior writer at American Greatness and author of January 6: How Democrats Used the Capitol Protest to Launch a War on Terror Against The Political Right is with us now. Julie, good to have you back.

KELLY: Hey, guys, thanks for having me on.

BUCK: So, Julie, we’re trying to always gauge how much of this stuff is political theatrics and intimidation to affect the midterms, to distract people from what’s going on, and how much is actually preparation for a seismic legal maneuver by the Democrats, I mean, a huge move, which is what going after a former president would be.

What do you make of the recent…I think it was 40 subpoenas that have been reported on the last week or so that have gone out to Trump allies. What’s the game plan that they’re running with here?

KELLY: I think it’s all of the above. I think it’s political theater. I think it’s optics. I think that’s what the Mar-a-Lago FBI raid on August 8th was – was just optics to justify what eventually will be a criminal indictment of Donald Trump. Obviously, this is an ongoing campaign and crusade of terror and intimidation, not just against Trump and his allies and his advisers, but also, of course, the nearly 900 Trump supporters who have so far been arrested, had their homes raided, charged with ridiculous offenses related to mostly nonviolent participation in the Capitol protests more than 20 months ago.

So, this is a multifaceted operation that we’ve all talked about that will lead to criminal indictment of Donald Trump on at least a few charges, probably obstruction, conspiracy, tampering with evidence, witnesses, et cetera. And of course, this is to influence the election because we see now how this time line is all shaping up right before the beginning of November.

CLAY: So, I don’t think that they’re gonna charge — I agree with you that — I’m increasingly convinced that they’re gonna try to charge him with something, Julie, and I think we had this conversation before. I don’t think they’re gonna do it before November, but I think they want the drip, drip, drip of storylines to be coming out because really Joe Biden can’t run on his own record.

He has to run against Trump because he’s been a disaster. So, let’s… I don’t know if you agree. Do you think it’s gonna happen in 2022 or 2023 that he might be indicted?

KELLY: I think it’s going to happen this year, and I think it’s going to happen before the election.

CLAY: Oh, you think before the election?

BUCK: Yeah, expand on this.

KELLY: Well, first of all, they’re not gonna abide by any 20-day DOJ rule to not interfere in an election. They never have, and they certainly are not going to in this case. My argument is because they keep ratcheting this up higher and higher every single day. So, now we see it with this new flurry of subpoenas. I feel like there’s a chance they might raid Bedminster now.

They don’t think all the classified documents… If they don’t indict Donald Trump, the Democrats will pay a political price in November. They can’t keep stringing this along for the next four or five, six months. They can’t keep — they can because their base is stupid and gullible and vengeful.

BUCK: Tell us what you really think, Julie.

KELLY: Well, look. You know, if it weren’t for the base of the Democrat Party, this wouldn’t be happening. These people have a blood lust in them, not just for Donald Trump but for all of his voters as well. So, we can’t just make this about the leaders of the Democratic party. This is about the base.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Julie Kelly —

KELLY: So, Democrats will pay a political price.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Julie Kelly from American Greatness where she’s a senior writer. Julie, how should we think of Mar-a-Lago documents, National Archives upset, classification stuff, yada yada, plus January 6th subpoenas flying.

Are they doing the all-of-the-above approach when it comes to legal abuse, or do you see how these pieces specifically fit together, right? So, is this just like the shotgun to see what they hit, or they actually taking… are these two things going to together in a way that’s already apparent to you?

KELLY: I mean, I think they’re throwing everything at the board that they possibly can. And a lot of it sticks, especially related to the criminal prosecution and what’s happening in this D.C. court system. The DOJ’s getting away with everything that they want to. When you have a D.C. grand jury that signed off on at least six grand jury indictments for seditious conspiracy.

This is an offense so rare no American’s ever been convicted of it. But yet you have the D.C. grand jury at the behest of federal prosecutors indicting 16 Americans who, by the way, participated — did nothing violent on January 6th. So, this is all…so look at what’s gonna happen over him the next months.

So, we have now these new subpoenas, we can potentially have a raid of Bedminster. We have a new January 6th committee hearing scheduled for the end of September, two days after the major trial of the Oath Keepers begins in Washington, D.C. The January 6th committee has delayed the September 13th release of their report until October 18th.

So, this is how all these parts are moving together because, of course, you know, the committee working with the DOJ, working with the media can make this all happen. So, this is gonna hit a crescendo before November to interfere in the election but also, I think to justify criminal charges against Donald Trump.

CLAY: Okay. So let’s say you’re right, Julie, and Trump gets charged with crimes. What does that mean, in your opinion, for Trump as a potential 2024 nominee? Because I think that’s actually the most fascinating part about this.

Do charges actually make him more likely to be the Republican nominee? Less likely? How does this play out as you consider what the primary season would look like during all of 2023 and then into the 2024 primary elections themselves?

KELLY: I mean, that is a great question. I really don’t know politically how it will play with Republican voters. I know that there are people who, after the Mar-a-Lago raid, have achieved a new level of outrage and even support for Donald Trump. You know, this is how he’s going to be treated and by extension all of us, we’ll walk through burning…you know, broken glass to make sure that he is elected in 2024.

Of course, they want to turn off the squishy Republican, you know, this cul-de-sac, suburban wine moms, who they’re easily turned off anyway. But how this will energize the base, I feel like it already has and will continue to do so. But look, what they want with an indictment of Trump before the election, they want more violence.

They want the MAGA violence, fascism that Joe Biden and the regime said, they want this to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, that’s what they’re hoping another goal is of this indictment being announced before the election.

BUCK: Julie, is there any —

CLAY: You’re calling so many shots here.

BUCK: I know. I’m trying to keep track of it all.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: So, if they go with the obstruction charge against Trump, what kind of penalties do we think they would go for? I mean, do you think that…is their goal to prosecute Trump so that he is just…

Obviously, there’s gonna be a political wounding effect of that and, “Oh, he’s the first president to ever be indicted in this way.” But do you think they would actually take it to the point where they’d say no we actually think he should serve six months, you know, we actually want him to be incarcerated.

KELLY: Oh, absolutely. They definitely do. So, I’ve said all along I believe he will be charged at the very least with an obstruction of an official proceeding. You see the language directly pulled from that statute now included in the subpoenas which has to do with anyone who corruptly attempted to impede or obstruct an official proceeding.

That is language that’s being used directly in the subpoenas. So, yes, look it’s a nonviolent felony but it’s punishable by up to 20 years in prison. You have people who are going to jail for four, five, six years after either plea deals or being convicted in court on that nonviolent felony.

So, this will be sort of a no-brainer, not only for the prosecution, but for any D.C. jury because we already have several plea deals and convictions. Now, it is on appeal right now; so — in the D.C. appellate court, this particular charge.

If for some reason this court invalidates that count, it will have downstream ramifications, especially for the president, for President Trump. But there are other charges they can bring — conspiracy, tampering with evidence, other kind of garbage essentially that they’ve come up with since January 6th. But, yes, they will definitely seek jail time for him, no doubt about it.

CLAY: Julie, we’re gonna keep having you on. I love all the reporting that you’re doing. And if you nail all this, you’re gonna look — you’re gonna be one of the most brilliant analysts out there.

KELLY: Or craziest. Let’s see, I’ll go from crazy to maybe not so crazy. That’ll be good.

CLAY: Hey, welcome to the team.

BUCK: Yeah, I was gonna say, Clay likes to call shots deep up into the upper deck; so, you guys are in good company here. Julie, thanks so much.

KELLY: Thanks, guys. Have a great day.

CLAY: I love Julie the way she just, like, almost Kari Lake style just kind of off-handedly, what did she, cul-de-sac wine moms? I mean, that’s a great line —

BUCK: We’re gonna lose them anyway because they’re unstable and crazy; so whatever. I’m like, yep. Fair enough.