Judge rejects Trump’s bid to get Georgia election case dismissed

This is CNN breaking news.

Thanks for joining us on CNN News

Central this afternoon.

We begin with breaking news.

A judge has upheld

the criminal indictment

against former

President Donald Trump in Georgia.

The judge there

rejecting the argument

that Trump's efforts to overturn

the 2020 election were protected

under the first amendment.

CNN's Zachary

Cohen is part of the team that broke

this story.

Zach, walk us

through this decision

by Judge Scott McAfee.

Yeah, Boris, you remember that we heard.

We watched a hearing in Fulton

County, Georgia, just about a week ago.

And Trump's lawyers argued strenuously

this entire case should be thrown out

because in his argument

that the political speech

and that the claims about voter fraud

that Trump was pushing after the 2020

election are protected

by the First Amendment now.

The judge today roundly

rejecting that argument,

as we've seen him

do multiple

other times in this case

for other defendants

in Georgia, saying, look quote

the defense has not presented,

nor is the court able

to find any authority

that the speech and conduct alleged

is protected political speech.

He goes on to say that

this argument is one

that should be heard by a jury,

not one that should be decided

during pretrial motions.

That was the argument

that prosecutors in Georgia

made about a week ago

in court before Judge McAfee.

So this is just an example of this case

in Georgia

inching towards a potential trial.

We know that the D.A.

there has asked for a trial

to start on August 5th.

But Judge McAfee has not put a start date

on the calendar yet.

That really is the big thing

we're looking for.

But again,

the judge continuing

to work

through these pretrial motions

in Georgia, continuing to work toward and

and address

these issues that have to be addressed

before a trial can take place.

And Zach,

Judge McAfee is not the first judge

to make

a ruling like this

related to Trump's efforts

to overturn the 2020 election

being related to the First Amendment.

Judge Tonya Chuck and also rejected

that argument from Trump's attorneys

in the federal case

against him for election subversion.

I'm wondering,

have you

heard anything from Trump's

Georgia attorneys

about this decision, how

they plan to proceed

Trump's lead

attorney in Georgia,

Steve set out,

has immediately

declined to comment on this ruling.

I'm sure we'll hear from him

eventually because he did push

and he was the main person

the main defense attorney

arguing this in court.

When we saw this hearing

take place just about a week ago.

And look,

Steve Said has filed a civil several

similar motions

to try to get this case thrown out

before a trial even happens.

Obviously, you know,

Trump is fighting multiple,

multiple legal fronts.

As you mentioned,

he tried the same argument

in his federal case with Judge

Tanya Chuck in who similarly rejected

the first minute arguments.

And when we saw the hearing

take place in Georgia,

you know,

prosecutors

referenced Judkins

ruling on this

First Amendment issue, too.

And like I mentioned earlier,

this is a similar argument

that some of Trump's

co-defendants in Georgia

have also tried to make,

and it was also rejected by Scott McAfee.

So we're going to see there's

other attempts

and unaddressed

attempts and motions on the table

still to try to get this case dismissed.

But for now,

the case in the indictment

against Trump in Georgia remains intact.

Is that Cohen?

Thank you so much for the update.

We have CNN's Sara Murray with us.

She's part of the team

that broke this story.

Sara,

walk us through some of the details.

Yeah, well, look,

we heard these arguments last week,

especially from Trump

attorney Steve started out

saying that, you know, everything

Donald Trump did in the state of Georgia

to overturn

the 20, 20

election should just be covered

under the First Amendment.

It's protected political speech

that the indictment

should just be tossed out.

The judge today

ruling he is not going to throw out

the indictment.

He did have some comments

about how essentially

using this speech

in furtherance of an alleged crime

means that is not protected

under the First Amendment.

He made that very clear.

Now, he didn't rule out the possibility

that defendants, including former

President Trump, could bring this up

later, potentially at a trial

in front of the jury.

And we heard from Trump

attorney Steve

State out today saying

while they disagree

with this ruling,

from the judge,

they're going

to look at their other options

moving forward, guys.

And so the timeline here,

what is the latest on this?

When might this actually get started?

You know, it's a great question, Sara.

Tell us everything I know.

I'm going to look into the tea

leaves here. Look what we saw.

Crystal ball.

Yeah.

What we know is Fulton

County District Attorney Connie

Willis wants to get this trial underway.

She's made it clear that she is

ready to go to trial as soon as August.

And, of course,

the Trump

team is happy

to let this take as long as possible.

And we have not heard from the judge.

It's up to him

when he wants to set this trial date.

He's been a little bit skeptical

about the notion

that Trump

and his 14 remaining co-defendants

should all go to trial together.

But he hasn't made any comments recently

about a potential trial date

or how he might want to split up

this bucket of remaining codefendant.

There's also speculation

out there, partly because of his

ruling on funding.

Well, it's being able to stay on the case

that we may

see a gag

order, a filing,

asking for a gag order on the D.A.

from the Trump team.

What are you hearing from sources

about that?

That's right.

My colleagues at Cohen and Jason

Morris and I are reporting out

that there have been some discussions

among defendants for these Trump allies,

and their attorneys are saying,

is it time for us

to go to the judge and say, you know,

you got a gag, funny witness.

You can't have her out here

making comments about this case.

She's appeared at a number of events.

She's suggested

that some of the scrutiny

that she's getting is racially motivated.

In his ruling,

Judge McAfee allowing

funny Willis to stay on the case,

he all but invited defense attorneys

to come to him and ask for a gag order.

He said it might be time to preclude

any kind of public comments.

Now, they still have

this appeal going on.

They're still trying to

get Willis disqualified

from the case, though.

A number of attorneys are kind of like,

you know, let's wait

and see if we can get her

kicked off entirely.

That would be our

our preferred outcome here.

But in the meantime,

this is something that

they're sort of discussing.

The other caveat here.

No, no defendants in this case

want this to boomerang back around.

They don't want a judge to say,

okay, fine,

Willis can't talk about the case,

but neither can Donald Trump.

Neither can Rudy Giuliani.

Neither can Georgia

GOP Chair David Shafer.

These are all people

who have been out here

talking about the case.

And finally with us on social media

and in interviews

That's a really,

really interesting point.

Sara, thank you so much for that.

I want to go now

to Kara Scannell in New York.

And I know, Carrie,

you have some new reporting

concerning the bond

that Trump paid in a separate case,

the fraud case there.

What have you learned?

Right.

This is the fraud case

involving the New York attorney

general's office.

And Trump

posted the $175 million

bond on Monday night.

Now, the New York attorney

general's office is saying

that they want more information

and they want more information

because the underwriter of that

bond night

specialty is based in California

and it's not regulated by New York.

And so they want to ensure that this

this bond will actually

can be backed

and supported by the underwriter.

Now, the head of that company, Don

Hankie, told my colleague Matt Egan

that Trump had posted

$175 million in cash as collateral.

But the new York attorney

general's office is saying,

because this company

is not regulated here,

they can't get a certificate

from the New York regulators ensuring

that they're financially sound.

So they want more information

from the bond underwriter

and from Trump

about what is backing this bond.

And they say that they want this

within ten days

or else the bond is not valid.

So again,

putting more pressure

on Trump to come up with this.

Now, I just spoke with a lawyer

who does a lot of these bond deals,

and he told me that,

you know,

this is an appropriate

step by the New York attorney

general's office

and the options that Trump

has is either

getting pairing up with another company

that is regulated in New York

that is allowed to do

these types of bonds in New York

or getting a court to agree to this.

So, you know, again,

this will be more filings.

But before Judge Arthur

Goren, who is overseeing this case,

but the AG's office now

challenging this bond

and challenging

whether or not

the company can support the bond

should they ultimately prevail

after this appeal.

Brianna for us.

Tara Scannell from New York,

thank you so much.

Let's bring in CNN

legal analyst and former

federal prosecutor Jennifer Rogers.

Jennifer, your reaction to this request

in New York and Letitia James, this move

this skepticism

that she apparently has about

the bond company and whether they

can financially back Trump

now?

Well, Letitia James

has been skeptical of Trump all along.

We've seen it

and it looks like she's just trying to do

what she can

to ensure

that if the attorney general's office

is when the appeal

and the judgment stays as it is

that they'll be able to collect.

Now, of course,

the amount of the bond is much less

than the amount of the judgment

that Judge and Warren found

was ill gotten gains.

So she still will have to go

after the Trump Organization

and the other defendants

in order to collect

the balance of that money.

But she wants to make sure

that at least

the first hundred

and 75 million is easy to get.

So it seems appropriate to me

and we'll see what steps need

to be taken to ensure

that that money

is there and available

for the people of the state of New York.

And Jen, Trump's

lawyer, Steve

Saito,

just reacted to the Georgia ruling.

He says the defense will continue

to evaluate our options

regarding the First Amendment challenges.

And the court's ruling made clear

the defendants were not foreclosed

from again raising the challenge,

which indeed they were not.

What do you think about this?

What other challenges could

be in the works

Well, this

First Amendment challenge is one

that Team

Trump has made in every single case.

The notion

that because he was the president

and because he's

a presidential candidate

and because he opens his mouth and words

come out,

everything that he says

should be protected

is something that they've been pressing

in all the cases.

And it's not really about the merits,

Brianna.

I mean,

there's no question

that evidence can be used, a speech

that is made by defendants

in the course of committing crimes.

This, to me

is just more of a delay tactic.

They're just trying to find ways

that they can appeal

and delay these proceedings.

So that's what this is all about.

I mean, you can't say

if Trump robbed a bank and walked in

and said, I'm running for president.

Let me tell you about how great I am.

And, by the way, stuffed

some bags full of money

because I'm robbing this bank.

There's no question

that you can put that speech

and even if it's sort of intertwined

with political speech.

So the merits are a no go.

This is just all about pushing

every avenue they possibly can

to delay these things

and possibly

to get some of these arguments

in front of the jury in some capacity.

The prosecutor's job

then will be to get

a very strong instruction

from the judge

about what

the limits of political speech are

and how criminal speech

is not protected by the First Amendment.