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CNN Live Event/Special

First Televised Hearing in Trump Georgia Case. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired September 06, 2023 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: The judge has to decide whether to try all of these 19 defendants together or to break them up into smaller groups. What do you anticipate?

LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, first of all, just think about the fact that we're going to see all of this right now. It's televised. Unlike a federal courtroom, we're going to actually see a lot of this unfold. And we will get the demeanor of the judge, what his take -- does he -- is he going to scoff at the notion of having 19 people try it together or not?

Can Fani Willis us give us some indication of whether or not her discussions about the movements to have a speedier trial, will that be all of them? And, remember, keep in mind, all this can happen, even though we don't yet know what the fate of Mark Meadows' motion to move to federal court would be.

It's very easy to be able to look at this through a vacuum. But, remember, there's already a motion right now to say, can I get some of these cases into federal court? This is all considering and assuming that's not going to happen, because, without Mark Meadows or others, it would be not 19 people.

But this is going to be a very interesting hearing to get the room, the temperature of what's happening there. And, also, what is the preparation like right now for Fani Willis? Is she really ready to go? And are those defense counsels who asked for an earlier trial date, were they calling a bluff or will their bluff now be called?

BLITZER: And we will find out fairly soon.

Sara, it's interesting, because we know that, as all of this is unfolding right now, a federal judge could rule at any moment now whether to allow the former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to move his case from a state court in Georgia to a federal trial.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.

And the question really with this Mark Meadows motion is, what does it mean for everybody else? If Mark Meadows is successful in moving his case to federal court -- and, frankly, are a lot of people watching this who say, it could be a relatively low bar for Meadows to clear to be able to do this? They wouldn't be surprised if he succeeds. What does that mean for the other defendants? We have seen Jeffrey

Clark, who, again, is another defendant in this case, a former Justice Department official, already argue in court filings: I should be in federal court, and everyone else should come along with me.

So the federal judge is going to have to weigh that. And, frankly, it's going to be up to the federal judge in a lot of ways to decide that, to litigate that. They could make what this state court wants to do essentially moot.

BLITZER: We see the judge has just entered, Judge Scott McAfee, and he's asked everyone to rise. Now everyone is seated.

Let's listen in.

JUDGE SCOTT MCAFEE, SUPERIOR COURT OF FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA: All right, let's go on the record with 23SC188947.

Who do we have as lead counsel for the state today?

NATHAN WADE, GEORGIA SPECIAL PROSECUTOR: Good afternoon, Judge.

Nathan Wade, special prosecutor for the state. Here present at the counsel table with me, I have executive district attorney Daysha Young, deputy district attorney Will Wooten, and special prosecutor John Floyd.

MCAFEE: All right, thank you, Mr. Wade.

And for Mr. Chesebro, who's lead counsel today?

SCOTT GRUBMAN, ATTORNEY FOR KENNETH CHESEBRO: Good morning, Your Honor. My name is Scott Grubman. I'm representing Mr. Chesebro.

And with me, I have co-counsel Manny Arora.

MCAFEE: All right. And, Mr. Grubman, have you received express authority to waive your client's presence today?

GRUBMAN: I have, Your Honor.

MCAFEE: All right.

And who do we have for Ms. Powell?

BRIAN RAFFERTY, ATTORNEY FOR SIDNEY POWELL: Brian Rafferty on behalf of Ms. Powell, Your Honor, and I have received express permission to waive her appearance today.

MCAFEE: OK, thank you, sir.

All right, so just a few preliminary thoughts before we kick things off.

To be clear, the scheduling order we entered for Mr. Chesebro earlier last week didn't contain any kind of a ruling on severance. So the plan would be to try to resolve as many of these issues as we can this week and to begin entering scheduling orders for the remaining defendants by either the end of this week or the early next week.

So, with that, is there anything else we should take up before diving into argument, Mr. Wade?

WADE: Just the court had asked the state to be prepared to respond in its notice of the hearing, asked the state to be prepared to certain questions, a good-faith estimate in terms of time, how many witnesses, and so forth. We're prepared to do that if the court would like.

MCAFEE: OK. Well, let's do that during your argument, in response, after we hear from defense on their motions. OK.

OK, so I think, just taking it alphabetically, there were two motions we'd scheduled to be heard today from Mr. Chesebro.

So, Mr. Grubman, floor is yours. And I think the idea would be to try to limit this to 20 to 30 minutes. We will see where the discussion takes us and go from there.

GRUBMAN: Would Your Honor -- would it be acceptable for Your Honor if me and my co-counsel, Mr. Arora -- there's kind of a natural split.

I'd like to talk about the kind of groups of facts that will go to both of our motions, both the motion-to-sever counts and the motion to sever from Ms. Powell. I believe the court indicated you would want to hear arguments on both.

And then Mr. Arora will talk more specifically about the statutory factors, if that's OK with Your Honor. And it won't take up more -- we won't take up more than time than any one of us would have.

[13:05:08]

MCAFEE: OK, have at it.

GRUBMAN: Thank you, Your Honor.

Your Honor, I want to start off by saying we recognize this is a RICO prosecution. We recognize that. And we do recognize that part of RICO is providing prosecutors, at least the state would argue this -- and there is some case law to suggest this -- providing prosecutors with a little more ability to bring in conduct that's maybe broader than had they charged a direct crime.

For example, in this case, there are, I would argue, three, four, or five separate alleged conspiracies really contained in one alleged conspiracy in this indictment.

Mr. Chesebro is only concerned, in terms of the evidence or allegations with what I'm going to call the alternate elector alleged conspiracy. The allegations contained in the indictment -- and, of course, I'm not saying that I believe they are true, but accepting them as true, shows that Mr. Chesebro, at most, was only involved in that aspect of the conspiracy. Specifically, the allegations showed that Mr. Chesebro sent received approximately eight -- sent/received approximately 18 e-mails, all in his role as an attorney for the Trump campaign, asked to opine on the application of the 12th Amendment to the United States Constitution and the electoral contact, and then several other e-mails.

Most of those additional e-mails were simply transmitting the memos that Mr. Chesebro wrote that are alleged in the indictment, and one or two other e-mails to certain state officials discussing the logistics of how to go through the electoral contact.

So, that's what I will call the alternate elector alleged conspiracy. Mr. Chesebro has been indicted as part of that conspiracy. He's alleged to be part of that conspiracy. Obviously, we will defend those charges. But that's conspiracy A, if you will.

Then there are two or three other conspiracies. With all due respect to Ms. Powell -- and nothing I say, of course, in this should indicate whatsoever that I'm commenting on the evidence against Ms. Powell. I apologize. I know that's not Ms. Powell, but her representative, Mr. Rafferty.

Ms. Powell is alleged to have engaged in a conspiracy, again, just accepting the allegations in the indictment as true, dealing with the computer systems down in Coffee County, Georgia.

And those computer systems, as we allege in our indictment, Mr. Chesebro -- or -- I'm sorry -- in our motions -- Mr. Chesebro is not even alleged to have undertaken anything even remotely related to the Coffee County conspiracy, which I will call it.

Then there's a third alleged conspiracy. And that third alleged conspiracy, I will call -- I don't necessarily want to use her name because of the circumstances, but the poll worker conspiracy, where there are allegations that certain individuals named in the indictment went and tried to apply some pressure tactics to a certain poll worker that I believe works here, lives here in Fulton County.

That is also a conspiracy that in no way, shape or form involves Mr. Chesebro. And, again, that's not my defense take on it. That's according to the allegations in the indictment.

Now, again, as I started off, Your Honor, I understand that RICO does provide flexibility. What I would argue to the court, however, is that, of course, RICO does not overrule all of the rules and statutes and constitutional provisions that ensure that Mr. Chesebro not only has a speedy trial, which, of course, he's already demanded, but a fair trial.

And Mr. Arora will talk more about the detailed case law. But it's pretty clear here, Your Honor, that if this case were allowed to go to trial with either all 19 defendants, which, obviously, it seems like that's probably not going to happen, but even with just Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell, you're going to have two cases in one.

You're going to have -- and I will be very interested to hear the government's good-faith estimate of evidence and witnesses. But you are going to have days, if not weeks, God forbid, maybe even, say, months, given some experience in some other high-profile cases that are happening in this building under the RICO statute, you're going to have weeks, if not months, of testimony just related to the Coffee County allegations.

And because if you -- just reviewing the publicly available information related to the Coffee County allegation shows that, at least how the state indicted it, it's an alleged wide-ranging conspiracy involving various people, involving very specific allegations about computer trespass and the like.

[13:10:05]

And then you're going to have a full trial, same trial, but somehow you're going to have to have another full trial within that same trial about the alternate electors.

Now, I suspect that the government is going to -- or the state -- I'm sorry -- is going to say, well, it's all connected with the same purpose and, therefore, it makes sense to keep all these charges together and keep all these defendants together.

But, Your Honor, I would ask you to please keep in mind that the purpose that we're talking about here, I mean, I guess you can say the purpose is to elect Donald Trump president. But if that were the purpose and a prosecutor could use lead -- could use a purpose of that magnitude to try to tie together charges and defendants that otherwise have nothing to do with each other, then, before we know it, I mean, millions of people, literally, millions of people could have been charged in this conspiracy.

These are totally separate cases, Your Honor, and I believe, as you will see from my colleague, Mr. Arora, who will get up and talk about the case law -- thank you for allowing us to do that, because he's a lot more on top of that than me.

And as you will hear from Mr. Rafferty, I suspect, on behalf of Ms. Powell, it is going to significantly affect these defendants' rights to a fair and impartial trial. Why should Mr. Chesebro have to deal with a jury who's going to sit there for weeks, if not months and listen to all of this evidence related to Coffee County and Ms. Powell?

He's never been there. He's never met Ms. Powell. He's never e-mailed, text or called her. He's never spoken with her directly or indirectly. And although I'm not trying to steal the thunder from my colleague Mr. Rafferty on behalf of Ms. Powell, same is to be said for Ms. Powell.

Why should Ms. Powell have to sit there for weeks and months hearing evidence and testimony about the alternate slate of elector alleged scheme, when she's not even alleged to have any involvement in that? And, again, for the third and last time I will go back to, I do understand that RICO exists.

Whether we like it or not,the prosecution chose to bring this case under RICO, although they could have very well brought this case specifically against individuals who are charged with individual crimes, but they chose not to, and that's their discretion.

But, Your Honor, that should not override Mr. Chesebro's right to a fundamentally fair trial. It's in the state Constitution. It's in the federal Constitution. It's in the Georgia code. And I'm really worried that allowing evidence related to all of these other counts and all of these other defendants, in particular in this case Ms. Powell, will very seriously jeopardize this.

I think, as Mr. Arora will make clear, it is clearly well within the discretion of the court, if not, as we argue, mandatory, to grant this severance from Ms. Powell and also to grant the severance we asked for related to the counts that don't affect Mr. Chesebro.

So, with that, Your Honor, I'm sure you would like to hear some case law or supporting authority, so I will let my smarter co-counsel, Mr. Arora, get up and deal with that. Thank you.

MANUBIR "MANNY" ARORA, ATTORNEY FOR KENNETH CHESEBRO: Good morning, Your Honor.

Which motion do you want me to address first, the severance of the counts or the parties?

MCAFEE: Yes, why don't we dive into the severance of defendants? I think that's the one we might have more to talk about.

ARORA: All right.

Well, I think, Your Honor, I, when you were a DA, probably battled against each other on some of these types of issues, trying to get severances together, but that was in another lifetime, I guess.

I have tried to put most of the case law that we have got that's in the briefs, because, in the end, I will give you some more 2023 cases that just came down a couple weeks ago, both federally and in the state system.

But in the end, I think fair assessment is, it's your decision. I mean, there's nothing that says, if X, then Y, or if Y, then Z. It's just basically you're going to have to weigh the options.

Is it my voice, or is it ringing?

MCAFEE: There might be a little bit of a feedback.

ARORA: OK.

So, with regards to the severance with regards to Ms. Powell, I will go ahead and start the court off with Henderson v. State. And I have highlighted it for the state. And may I approach, Your Honor?

MCAFEE: Sure.

ARORA: (OFF-MIKE) two-and-a-half weeks ago, Your Honor. And if you go towards the second-to-last page on the back, I have highlighted that for the court and for opposing counsel, though, as you will see, at headnotes 40, 41, and 42, like it says, everything's basically in your discretion.

But in this case that just came down a couple weeks ago, what we were talking about is sort of highlighted in regards to -- sort of similarly of the facts in our case, right?

[13:15:03]

The first issue is going to be, is there going to be any confusion about the evidence? Are there conflicting defenses, antagonistic defenses? And in the end, is there going to be confusion as far as that goes? There will not be any antagonistic defenses, because the two people don't overlap at all in the indictment or any evidence that I have seen.

The issue is going to be, what's the confusion? And one of the remedies is obviously jury charges. And, in your case, the question becomes, how many jury charges can you bring -- can you provide to the government -- the jury, as far as trying to understand all these types of things?

So this case that I gave you is a RICO case involving gang-related- type charges. And what it basically says is, those two people were charged with the same crimes, and, in the end, the court didn't sever those matters. We don't have that here right out of the gate. There's no antagonistic defenses.

So, I'm not going to get into factor three. There's really just overflow and spillover as far as that goes. And so the question is, is the evidence against Ms. Powell going to impact her? And the reason I say that is, we're charged in the RICO and then six predicate acts.

The predicate acts only deal with the elector slate, as far as, who filled out the electors, was that fraudulent or not? With regards to what happened in Coffee County, you're going to have a ton of other charges, from witness intimidation, computer hacking, fraud that has nothing to do with Mr. Chesebro.

The other thing you look at is, are these other pieces of evidence going to be similar transactions, potentially, which wouldn't be in this case because they have nothing to do with one another. There's nothing similar about it.

So, when the government argues that it's RICO and we get to bring in anything and the kitchen sink, I think the cases that I'm going to cite you -- there's a couple more also from 2023 that talk about, yes, you can bring in everything. And it's mostly been like gang RICO-type cases or some type of violence that's out there.

It still gives you an out based on what you think. And the reason I bring these up is, in all those cases, everybody's charged with the same things. Here, they can argue it's a similar activity, but -- not to speak for Ms. Powell, but essentially, from what I understand from the public record is, she was fired before this conspiracy actually even started up, because she said something that was supposedly crazy.

And the Trump people got rid of her. And whatever she did was sort of on a lark on her own as far as Coffee County goes. That's just my understanding from the public. Again, I just want the court to focus in on what type of evidence would come in against Ms. Powell versus what we're charged with, which is solely paperwork and legal opinion on three different memos and some e-mails.

So, with that, I will approach the court on a RICO case that dealt with drug-dealing that just came down in federal court in March of this year. (OFF-MIKE)

Again, I have highlighted everything that's -- that I believe to be relevant with regards to this case.

MCAFEE: Mr. Arora, what's the cite on that?

ARORA: The cite will be 2023 Westlaw 2620418.

And if Your Honor would look at just above headnote seven, it's going to be about three or four pages in -- I realize the bottom of my pages have sort of been cut off, but it would be if you just fold over three pages. And I have highlighted it.

And so, again, there, they talk about co-defendants being charged in conspiracies and why there's a joinder in these matters. But, again, factually speaking, if you look at it, the charges are the same against each person, and then the severance isn't necessarily going to change anything as far as that goes.

And, again, I know I'm repeating myself, but we don't have similar charges. It's completely different if you look at the indictment, as far as that goes. Again, I will emphasize we are charged solely with the elector portion and the ballots that they filled out that were sent up to Washington, D.C., v. Ms. Powell isn't charged with any of that.

She's charged with, I guess, computer fraud and some other things as it goes to Coffee County. And, lastly, before I rest on this part of this argument, the seminal case that came down dealing with the question would have been Zafiro v. United States back in 1993, Z-A-F- I-R-O. Again, I have highlighted that, Your Honor.

And this also was a drug conspiracy, because almost all the RICOs and the conspiracies, unfortunately, dealt with drugs and violence. And this is sort of an outlier or a case of first impression for all of us here.

And if Your Honor goes to the headnotes that are labeled 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 on the third page over, they talk about the risk of a fair trial in this situation. Again, in Zafiro, they didn't grant the continuance -- I'm sorry -- the severance -- because the parties interacted.

And they just mostly talked about antagonistic defenses, because one co-defendant would say, the other guy did it. I didn't know anything about anything. But they also talk about what evidence could have been admitted that wouldn't be considered against someone else.

[13:20:03]

And so and our position is, if you look at Georgia case law, it talks about, would they be similar transactions, so they could come in or some other vehicle? None of that exists here in this case.

And like Mr. Grubman said, they're essentially different mini conspiracies within this entire RICO Act.

MCAFEE: And so what evidence are you pointing to that's inadmissible in your trial than would be in another?

ARORA: With regards to Ms. Powell, we would object to a lot of that stuff, because it would impugn our character as far as being associated with somebody, which they'd have to prove.

Now, granted, it's admissible if we're going to trial together, but you would have to give limiting instruction, after limiting instruction, after limiting instruction as far as that goes. And, at some point, if we're going for a week or a month or however long the trial is, I don't want the baby to get thrown out with the bathwater.

That's why I'm emphasizing we are charged with sort of the intellectual part of this case, right? We wrote some memos talking about how the ECA and the 12th Amendment works, and that's a separate motion we filed that we will need to take up in the future about those issues.

And then, specifically, in Georgia, we sent two e-mails to the head of the Republican Party as alleged. That's it. And the RICO count -- in RICO count, there's 160-some-odd overt acts. As the court knows, there's an overt act which doesn't have to be a crime, and there's predicate acts.

We are not labeled as having committed any predicate act in the RICO conspiracy in this case. We then have six substantive counts, all that deal with whether the electors are fraudulent or not and whether they filled out the paperwork was forgery or not. That's essentially all of it.

With her, you don't have that. You have got what happened in Coffee County as far as, did we have computer fraud, computer trespass, did we intimidate people, were we suppressing the vote, things like that, that I have read about and I have seen the public atmosphere, which is going to come up.

That has nothing to do with us. Our whole point is, we were 1,000 miles away from here. We wrote intelligent memos based on our experience in the Gore v. Bush campaign, which we also worked on, and we basically said, if there is a valid underlying offense, then the ECA and those arguments that I'm making could be valid.

We had nothing to do with the actual shenanigans, allegations, whatever, in the state of Georgia necessarily themselves. And that's where I'm trying to distinguish it, because you could very easily say, it's just two defendants,so there may not be a confusion of who's what, but you're essentially running two trials simultaneously in here.

And so I don't think giving limiting instructions and me objecting to all of it is fair. And I think that's what Zafiro and some of the other cases talk about. And I brought those up because, even though they ruled against us and everything, the analysis was relatively sound.

And in the end, it says, you can do what you wish because there is no specific X, then Y situation. So that would be my argument with regards to Ms. Powell.

MCAFEE: So let me unpack a few of those, because -- so, under the kind of traditional three-pronged metric we're looking at, one of the recurring themes is spillover evidence.

And if you're saying that essentially what we have got are two different trials or two different conspiracies that have been joined under this umbrella, and you have said that Mr. Chesebro never even interacted or knew Ms. Powell in any way, where is the spillover there, if there's -- if they have actually never interacted and these counts are entirely separate, as you keep kind of pointing out?

ARORA: Well, the spillover is, essentially, I mean, we can't hide sort of the elephant in the room that sort of overglosses all this stuff.

I don't know what evidence the government's going to try to present with regards to how they prove the RICO conspiracy or the knowledge or those types of things. What I'm saying is, yes, there's going to be separate evidence going up against Ms. Powell, but, at some point, the sheer volume of it all, there's going to be sort of a connection.

We're sitting at the table together. And that carries a lot of weight. Your Honor is one of the very few judges that's done a ton of trials as far as that goes, and you know the impact that's going to have as far as that goes. There's just a reality.

I don't know if there's a legal theory that says it out there, but you and I both know that's going to happen.

MCAFEE: And I'm not discounting that it might be, obviously, inconvenient and burdensome, and it might take a lot of time.

But do we have any case? You cited to the Price (ph) case, I think, as a reversal of a denial of severance.

ARORA: Yes, sir.

MCAFEE: Have there been any other cases in the 43 years since then where a denial of severance was reversed?

ARORA: It's incredibly rare. I haven't found it. I'm sure somewhere in this country that's happened as far as that goes. But what I was trying to say is severance, traditionally, even, like, when you and I interacted, is in a group of three or four people accused of committing a crime together. Specifically, you murdered this guy, or you sold these drugs. You did this.

It's not, you sold drugs, you murdered on a separate day, a month apart, whatever it might be. There's a time lag here. There's a completely different set of facts that go with it. There's no interaction or knowledge as far as the parties go.

So there's no way for us to presume room how much damage that the evidence against one person might eventually spill over, regardless of the instructions. And that's what I cited to you in the Griffin case out of Georgia from 2000 by the Supreme Court.

[13:25:00]

It's a decision you have to make. I can't presume any of that. But having a ton of experience, you having a ton of experience in trials, you know that that is a substantial risk as far as impacting a fair trial, because her charges are way more provocative versus the boring old charges that we have as far as just sort of the paperwork-type situation.

And that's what I worry about, because it tinges on racial issues, voter suppression. All those kinds of things are going to come up, based on what's happening in Coffee County, and that scares the heck out of me.

MCAFEE: So, are you saying that, in line with Price -- I think the way Price has been distinguished over the years is one defendant had overwhelming evidence and the other defendant didn't really have much.

Are you saying there's a defendant here who has overwhelming evidence as compared to your situation?

ARORA: Well, I don't have a discovery yet, so I can't necessarily say.

I can just base it on what I think the evidence is going to be. I don't know if I'd call it overwhelming. It's completely different, and I'm sure there's going to be a ton of it, from what I have seen in the TV coverage and the public media as far as people speaking out on Coffee County, whereas, on our side, we will have intellects talking about, is the ECA constitutional? Is it not? What is the 12th Amendment?

I mean, frankly, judge, prior to this case, I didn't know what the 12th Amendment was because I'd never even thought about it. I don't know if anybody in this room had really thought about it, or the ECA. It was just people vote and somehow it all works out.

And so I have had to learn a lot of that stuff. It's just a completely different trial. I think you can see that in sort of reading just the indictment in itself. And that's the fear. At some point, do we just sort of mix it all together and stop paying attention? I don't know. And then how many limiting instructions are you going to give in this

case? Is it going to be ahead of every witness that comes up against Ms. Powell, which, of course, I will have to object to as not relevant to us and impeaching and all these kinds of things.

And so I just think it'd be easy to have a clean trial. It will be a much shorter trial, in my opinion, as far that goes. So that would be my position. And I will let Mr. Rafferty address it. And then I can address the second issue.

MCAFEE: Why don't we just go ahead and set you up, and we will talk about severing counts? Because, that one, I wanted to make sure I understood exactly what you were asking for.

Is there -- are you saying there should just be a redacted indictment if you proceed to trial alone? Are you saying that the state shouldn't be allowed to introduce any evidence other than what Mr. Chesebro has specifically been charged with?

ARORA: What I'm asking for is a redaction.

And we typically do that on cases where we have hearings on certain charges or a co-defendant falls out. If there's multiple murders or multiple drug deals, you sort of block it out. I don't know how else to phrase it, except for maybe a severance of counts. We have seven counts. I get it.

I don't necessarily think they're related, but I'm not going to challenge that, because the law is weak on those issues. The 34 other counts involve a total of 13 defendants that we're not affiliated with. Our counts are involving six total people.

But the other 34, again, as Mr. Grubman said, are multiple conspiracies within the conspiracy. And I don't see how that's relevant or even admissible in this case. It's not similar transaction material.

So I'm just asking it to be redacted, I guess, if that's the correct word, because we're not being judged on those counts. So we shouldn't be telling the jury all this kind of things, just like you would redact some of the names in the indictment.

MCAFEE: So, to be clear, it's more just a logistical thing that the jury would get an indictment that's been changed just to reflect your case...

(CROSSTALK)

MCAFEE: ... not that they couldn't have witnesses talking about the entire RICO enterprise, as they allege it?

ARORA: Right. I'm not saying that at all. That's a matter of different objections down the road as to admissibility or relevance.

But, on this matter, I'm just saying the jury shouldn't be seeing the other 34 counts that are out there or the, I guess, 18 other defendants or 17 other defendants that are out there.

MCAFEE: OK.

ARORA: I did cite Durden (ph) as far as your discretion, but that's, again, more about counts I have been charged with, trying to sever something apart.

We don't have that time distinguishing. All our actions are within basically two weeks. So I'm not going to waste your time with that. I'm just saying what the other 34 counts deal with, the time frames are different. The people are different. The charges are different.

And so I would just like a sanitized indictment, whether we go alone or with Ms. Powell, as to those counts, because I think the court can see obviously there would be some prejudice there, having to read off a 98-page indictment, when only I think six or seven pages apply to us.

MCAFEE: OK. Fair enough. Thank you, Mr. Arora.

ARORA: Yes, Your Honor.

And will I be able to rebut if the government chooses...

MCAFEE: Let's see where we go.

ARORA: OK.

RAFFERTY: Good afternoon, Your Honor.

The case against Ms. Powell is in a slightly different procedural posture than against Ms. Chesebro. And I just thought it appropriate to sort of start with the fact that we filed the speedy trial demand within a day or two of the speedy trial demand of Ms. Chesebro. We -- Mr. Chesebro.

And we have not yet received a scheduling order or a ruling or anything else about when the trial of Ms. Powell will occur.

My experience as a former federal prosecutor and in federal court under the Speedy Trial Act is, in situations where you have multiple defendants like this, if one defendant makes a demand for a speedy trial or two, as we have here, the court has the discretion under the Speedy Trial Act in federal court to still push the case down, because some other defendants, as we have in this case, have said they're not ready for trial.

That's ordinarily what happens in federal court.