Trumped Up Charges: Tshibakas Discuss Political Persecution in Disguise
Jun 05, 2024
Kelly Tshibaka and Niki Tshibaka
In this segment of the "Stand with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka" podcast, hosts Kelly Tshibaka and Niki Tshibaka discuss their top five takeaways from former President Donald Trump's recent trial in New York. They argue that the trial relies solely on the questionable testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney, and that the judge's actions against Trump violate his First Amendment rights. The hosts suggest that the indictment was politically motivated and aimed at manipulating the 2024 election through "forum shopping." They emphasize the importance of staying calm and getting involved in positive ways to counter the perceived injustice and corruption. The segment also includes a report from Alan Dershowitz, who witnessed the judge's alleged misconduct during the trial.
In this segment of the "Stand with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka" podcast, hosts Kelly Tshibaka and Niki Tshibaka discuss their top five takeaways from former President Donald Trump's recent trial in New York. They argue that the trial relies solely on the questionable testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney, and that the judge's actions against Trump violate his First Amendment rights. The hosts suggest that the indictment was politically motivated and aimed at manipulating the 2024 election through "forum shopping." They emphasize the importance of staying calm and getting involved in positive ways to counter the perceived injustice and corruption. The segment also includes a report from Alan Dershowitz, who witnessed the judge's alleged misconduct during the trial.
Welcome to Stand with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka. This is where courage becomes contagious. I'm your host, Kelly Tshibaka, former government watchdog and candidate for US Senate in Alaska, currently the chair of the Trump campaign in Alaska, and I'm joined today by my co-host, Niki Tshibaka, who was formerly a civil rights attorney at the Department of Justice. We're excited to bring you Stand from the last frontier of Alaska. You can join us at stanshoworg, where you can find all of our episodes. Make sure to hit subscribe on our social media pages or at one of your favorite podcast streaming platforms. Today, we have an exciting episode for you. We're going to be commenting on the Trump trial, some latest exposures from a whistleblower, from Google, and an interesting election that has happened in Alaska that has some consequences for voter turnout across the country. Let's get started.
Kelly Tshibaka:
Last Thursday, Niki Tshibaka, president Trump was convicted on 34 counts of interfering with the 2016 election, so we want to break down for our audience the top five takeaways of this trial for you, in case you haven't been following it. Number one this trial hinges solely on the testimony of Trump's former attorney, michael Cohen. It's the only evidence that they have for these counts. This guy is a serial perjurer, a liar and a thief. He's lied to the Senate, he's lied to the House, he's lied to federal judges, he's lied to state judges, he's lied to his own attorney, he's lied to his family and then he stole from the Trump organization because he was angry and mad. He's got an ax to grind with President Trump because he was pissed off that he didn't get appointed to the Trump administration in 2016. And that anger and bitterness has been driving him ever since. And he probably didn't get appointed because he's got some serious credibility issues.
Kelly Tshibaka:
So this case rests on the single phone call that Michael Cohen made to, allegedly to President Trump, but actually the defense said and proved that this was based on a text message he sent to Trump's bodyguard saying I'm getting these prank phone calls. I need to talk to you about it. Bodyguard says call me. The call happens. It's less than 90 seconds. Therefore, they showed that's like the amount of time it takes to leave a voicemail. There's no way the phone could have been passed to President Trump. You could have explained that Stormy Daniels was threatening to go public and ruin his reputation on some made up claim and gotten his approval for some big hush money payout, and that was the entire case. So now Trump is facing over 100 years in prison solely based on the word of this Michael Cohen, remember. The standard in a criminal case is beyond a reasonable doubt, and it seems like there's a lot of doubt left here of whether this actually happened.
Niki Tshibaka:
Yeah, I mean a lot of doubt is an understatement. I think that was generous on your part. The judge has also fined Trump multiple times and threatened criminal punishment if he criticized witnesses or the judicial process or what was happening in the courtroom. That was a blatant and brazen violation of President Trump's First Amendment rights. I mean, imagine that Fining him for exercising a constitutional right, and the first of our constitutional rights, the foundation to our constitutional rights right, the right to free speech. And on top of that, to make things worse, the judge also put Trump and his team not only putting them under a gag order. He let the prosecution and their team say whatever they wanted and their witnesses say whatever they wanted.
Niki Tshibaka:
Michael Cohen was on TikTok on cable news TV saying whatever he wanted. The whole point was to tip the scales and silence Trump. There was no credible, in my opinion, no credible, justifiable reason, much less a legal reason, for Trump's First Amendment rights to have been curtailed and violated in that way. I think that's going to be an appealable issue in this case.
Kelly Tshibaka:
So not only did they throw out the Constitution, but it also seems like our entire American judicial system has been deeply eroded by what just happened.
Kelly Tshibaka:
There was never any plausible evidence that Trump actually committed these crimes and no legal basis for the DA's indictment. In fact, the Justice Department under Joe Biden passed on this case a while ago because it said there's no case here. So the integrity of our judicial system has been absolutely threatened and undermined by what Biden and Bragg and their team have done. In this reckless zeal to destroy Trump and try and manipulate the outcome of this 2024 election, Biden and Bragg have unleashed an absolutely horrendous abuse of power through the judicial and the executive branches. They've established a new norm here. Here we've got this case of prosecuting your political opponents, even if the charges are baseless, and then we'll see if they get overturned on appeal, but in the meantime you get the results you want. So if you can't beat your opponent at the ballot box, you can just try and beat them at the jury box and at least through the delayed court system, you get the outcome that you want. It's appalling and it poses a grave danger to our democratic norms.
Niki Tshibaka:
Yeah, it really is dangerous. I mean, the left, with Biden at the helm, is quickly transforming our nation from being a shining city on a hill to a smoldering city in ruins. None of us wants to live in a country where political prosecution or should we, I mean, live in a country where political prosecution, or should we, I mean really, more appropriately said persecution becomes as normal as eggs for breakfast, right, Like it becomes the norm. None of us wants to get used to living in that kind of a post-democracy society. Post-democracy society.
Niki Tshibaka:
Fortunately, and here's the good news we can still reverse course. I don't know how much longer we have we don't have an infinite running lane here to recross this Rubicon that we've crossed but we can still reverse course in November. We, the people, reverse course in November. We, the people, run this country, not some DA in New York City or a judge in New York City, all of whom were biased, clearly biased against Trump. This was totally and pun intended here a trumped up charge. We have an opportunity to take a stand for freedom and justice at the ballot box in November, and here in Alaska, we're going to be taking the last stand for freedom at the ballot box come November.
Kelly Tshibaka:
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. There is a great opportunity for government, by the people, to really come out strong here and say we don't agree with this. To your point number four, this was a horrific case of forum shopping. We're going to throw all of these cases, all these indictments, all these charges at Trump. We're just going to see what sticks. And it really hasn't stuck across the US. But this one happened to stick. It is unlikely to stick through the appeal process and people are saying at this point it'll take longer than the election to see the outcome of that appeal, and in the meantime we're going to have an election and America gets to decide what the outcome is. But forum shopping until you get to persecute your political opponent the way that you want is not how our country is founded and it is not what the check and balance system of the three branches of government was intended for. And so that is what we, the people, get to be the ultimate check and balance on our system of government, on the establishment. That's what the vote of the people is. And so that takes us to number five.
Kelly Tshibaka:
It is so critical in this time, where we have heated passion and so many people trying to divide us, that people who support President Trump and I would say, people who support a way forward in America that is calm and peaceful, that we actually stay calm and get involved in positive ways.
Kelly Tshibaka:
I even see now in this week that has passed, a lot of effort by the media to try and stoke the fire and make it seem like things are worse than it is. Oh, Trump is doing horribly, oh, the polls are so bad, oh, he's lost support, when in fact and we'll talk about this in a little bit he's actually leading in the polls and all the swing states he's doing great in his election and he's leading in fundraising. So the message and the narrative is there and designed to get people upset and to get us mad and, in fact, what we need to do is get involved in the positive ways that are actually within how the system works Donate, volunteer, campaign and, especially, vote. There are so many people who choose to stay voiceless because they won't vote. Your vote is your voice, so we can stop the spread of injustice and corruption that we're seeing simply by getting involved. To paraphrase what Benjamin Franklin said, we still have a republic if we can keep it.
Niki Tshibaka:
Yeah, I really think that's a wonderful way to put it that we still have a way to turn all this around and we still have lots of things that we can do. We need to remember that. Like I said earlier, there are a lot of appealable issues in this case and this case will get overturned eventually. The problem is, it's most likely going to get overturned if you have to go through the state court system after this election. But we can send a resounding message to those who would seek to use the levers of power to enshrine themselves and ensconce themselves in the White House in positions of power. That's not how America works, that's not who we are, that's not who we want to be, and we're going to change that because America is to be run by, and for we, the people, absolutely.
Kelly Tshibaka:
So those are our top five takeaways from the trial, and I want to take you to something that happened inside the trial, just so you get a take of it. Our friend, Alan Dershowitz was there. He is Trump's former impeachment attorney and he's coming to Alaska on June 27th. You can get your tickets to see him on our website, stanshoworg. This is what he said him on our website, stanshoworg. This is what he said. So he is a Democrat and he was there to see how this trial actually went. He was horrified at what he saw.
Kelly Tshibaka:
He said the judge actually threatened to strike all of the defense's leading witnesses testimony. This guy's name was Costello. He's an attorney, the former attorney for Cohen. The judge threatened starting to strike all of Costello's testimony because Costello raised his eyebrows at the judge. So if he raises his eyebrows again, he's going to strike all of his testimony. That, of course, would have been unconstitutional, Dershowitz wrote, because it would have denied the defendant, Trump, his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses and to raise defense. It would have punished the defendant for something a witness was accused of doing. Even if what Costello did was wrong and it was not it would be utterly improper and unlawful to strike his testimony, testimony that undercut and contradicted the government's star witness, meaning Cohen. The judge's threat was absolutely outrageous, unethical, unlawful and petty. There you have a report from Alan Dershowitz is considered America's greatest lawyer, a Democrat, reporting from inside the courtroom what he saw about this abuse of power. That's what happened and that's why so many people are saying what you said, Niki. This is likely to be overturned.
Niki Tshibaka:
Yeah, America's greatest defense attorney.
Kelly Tshibaka:
So we're coming up on a break and we'll see you right after this. Stand by. We're at standshoworg. That's where you can get your tickets to see Alan Dershowitz live, if you're in Alaska, and make sure to hit subscribe so you can follow all of our great shows. We'll see you in a minute.
