This

question comes

in a tweet from Twitter user at Rami James, who asks, doesn't the latest recording from Trump at Bedminster give the DOJ probable cause to search there, hashtag AskPreat. So, of course, you're referring to the recording that the government has actually had for some period of time. In fact, it's recited and a partial transcript is contained in the indictment that was unsealed some weeks ago. What's new this week is that CNN and various other outlets in the media have obtained the actual audio recording of what the government has already had in its possession and has already recited in the indictment. Now, this question about why the government didn't search Bedminster has arisen from time to time, and Joyce Vance and I talked about the recording generally and what it means and how powerful it is on the cafe inside of this week. Just because there's a recording that's finally been released to the public doesn't mean you have automatic probable cause to search a particular premises because the freshness of the PC, as prosecutors will say, and as judges will say, may not be there. So, the conversation we're talking about occurred in the summer of 2021. The indictment came two years later. The leak of this audio recording came even after that. There are some questions, I think, that are legitimate about why the government didn't seek to search Bedminster when there's clearly some evidence of misconduct there and maybe mishandling of documents there in addition to Mar-a-Lago. And we're deseculating at this point, but it seems to me, and I think the best conclusion, is that at the time that the government was putting its case together, it did not have recent enough evidence that particular documents or particular contraband was located in particular spots at the premises of Bedminster. But hopefully, we'll get more facts and we'll find out what the true story is. This question comes in an email from Maureen who writes, I missed the days when I did not know what Title 18 US Code 2384 represented, but here we are. Question, did the Congress actually write and pass all of these 18 USC codes? It's hard to imagine that they did so given the near stalemate of late. If not Congress, where do these codes come from? Maureen, thank you for reminding everyone about 18 US Code 2384, which, of course, is a statute relating to seditious conspiracy, which had been in the news lately because a number of people have been convicted on that charge, which is rare, in the history of prosecutions in this country. So, not with saying your skepticism, Congress actually did write and pass all of these statutes. By definition, if it's a statute, a federal statute, it was duly passed by Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States at the time. In fact, in the federal system, to be convicted of a crime, you have to have violated a particular statute written and approved and passed by Congress. There's no such thing as a common law, criminal violation. So, people have to know with particularity and have notice as to what actions and what conduct can be penalized by criminal sanction, by indictment, by trial, and by conviction in a court. And when you say it's hard to imagine, given the stalemate of late, how all these laws got passed, well, many of these laws have been in the books for a very, very long time. The citizens of conspiracy, some of the other laws who have been hearing us talk about on the podcast over the last number of years, including 18 US code, Section 371, which relates to conspiracy, 18 US code 1001, which we talk about all the time, which relates to the making of false statements, to law enforcement, wire fraud, mail fraud, the various espionage counts that have been leveled against Donald Trump. Those are all statutory, they've all been passed by Congress. They've also found in my time as a prosecutor and also as a Senate staffer, then when it comes to criminalizing things, they're often is not as much of a stalemate. A debate for a different day is whether or not there are too many criminal statutes and whether or not we in this country have over criminalized conduct. From time to time, the Supreme Court says, yeah, Congress has, and they invalidate a law as being vague and that's happened recently, or they will sometimes say law is unconstitutional. And that may be the fate of some of our gun possession laws, as we've also talked about on the podcast and on the cafe insider. Thanks for your question.

I'll be right back with my conversation

with Suzanne Nassell.