What do you say about this?

know i i think this is going to come down to a couple of things don number one it'll be a standoff uh for as long as the president wants it to be i don't anticipate that he's going to flatly uh just deny the the order in perpetuity but i do anticipate that he will have a disregard for the timing of when that is done and the reason i say that is You know, we can speak frankly.

We're all people of a certain hue here.

The attitude is, who going to check me? The attitude becomes, who going to check me? If he does it an hour later, then the judge says, what's going to happen? If he does it two hours later, then the judge says, what's really going to be the penalty? And that, I think, is the unfortunate reality here.

of why it is so important to understand how tyrannical someone in this space can be and what it is that he's doing to abuse the power of the executive office.

I think that ultimately he is going to comply with the judge's order, but the way that he complies, and this is the most important part, the way that he complies is going to be very different than the way you, myself, Teslin, or the judge will comply.

And the reason I say that is because we all know, the four of us know, that if we were issued an order from the judiciary to do anything, that we would need to make sure that that was done before the deadline and that the I's were dotted and the T's were crossed.

I want to

Am I wrong with that, any- anybody?

Well, at the end of the day, as a former prosecutor, what I'm gonna tell you is this, Don.

Uh, the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office put themselves in a difficult position by refusing to, uh, give the public information as this case progressed.

They breadcrumbed the family, uh, with paltry bits of information about the investigation.

And so now this notion of transparency in the 11th hour after the grand jury has made a decision, uh, when you've kept the public and the family in the dark, strikes as very, very hollow.

Uh, while I can appreciate the process of jurisprudence, the process of a, in, uh, of an investigation that has integrity, what I also can appreciate is the notion of transparency, because information is necessary in the pursuit of justice.

So if this is something that's been on the up and up for the entire time, then it certainly raises the question as to why everyone has been kept so much in the dark throughout the entirety of this investigation.

Mm.

Can you go into that a little bit more and why the Supreme Court has allowed this to become the central issue time and time again?

Well, Jackie, I think that's hitting the nail right on the head in as much as we're seeing a tug of war of power between the executive branch and the states here.

And I think that it goes back all the way to, you know, if we want to go back to seventh grade civics class to Hamiltonian versus Jeffersonian politics.

And as much as Donald Trump has continue to push the limits of executive power into spaces that the Constitution specifically enumerates for the states.

And in this example, it's elections.

The Constitution allows states to make pretty broad determinations about how they choose to run their elections.

And in this case, what Donald Trump is attempting to do is relegated to the states by the Constitution.

Do those votes just go uncounted?

What's your assessment, Mr. Coleman?

Well, Don, the only thing that I can say that they did positive is explain to the public why these young men have been making the statements they have, because if this is who they're getting guidance from, and I think that this is something you said earlier, that point has to be underscored.

If this is the group of folks who are advising these young men, it makes total sense why they're doing what they're doing, because these people don't seem like they would have enough strategy to get out of a paper bag.

They may be fine trial attorneys, but they certainly know nothing about case management or PR, for that matter, because that interview was abysmal.

Nancy Grace approached that the way that a prosecutor would in terms of the questions that they asked or that she asked, and their inability to sort of answer those questions and deal with them in detail, to me, showed a complete lack of preparation or consideration for what was possible in terms of the discussion and where it was going to go.

They clearly had an agenda But I think that it reminded me, Don, of what it is when someone imagines a fight and how a fight is gonna be choreographed, but they've never actually been in a fight before.

Because the, the, the way that Nancy Grace approached the interview was very straightforward and was to be expected if you are someone who is a trial attorney with even a modicum of experience with media and PR.

Yeah

yeah.

I'm going to say a couple things here.

The first and foremost, first and foremost is, you know, I am not going to ignore the platform upon which these gentlemen chose to go and give that interview.

Obviously you have a choice in platform and that's fine, but there was something about that particular platform and I'll leave it to the viewers to ascertain for themselves why they would have felt comfortable giving that interview in that space.

And what I will say is that this is likely a forum that they felt was going to be friendly and comfortable and non-confrontational.

As a former prosecutor, without any sort of aspersion or conclusion around guilt or innocence.

What I will tell you is this, Don, it is never a good sign when someone starts asking, why wouldn't I have done this? Or why wouldn't I have done that? Or why would I do this? And leaves you to speculate, as opposed to just affirmatively saying, we did this because, and we did not do this because, xyz that is always a telltale sign that someone is desperately trying to get you to believe what it is that they are saying because they want you to speculate in a way that would have made sense as as opposed to just saying i would not have done this because and it would not have made sense for me to do that because um we see it in everyday life in terms of storytelling and how people do if you ever listen to someone who tries to say like well why we're not done this there are a million and one things that anyone could do in response to a situation but coordinating a story and sitting there with potentially three other co-defendants as a means of putting this out to the court of public opinion may not necessarily be the smartest thing to do I am very much so looking at that attorney askance, which is one of my favorite words, because you are showing yourself as a bit of an amateur in terms of your chops from a PR perspective.

yeah

I just wanted to make sure.

Okay.

I think it's an intentional signal that is being sent by the family in this respect.

They are intentionally letting people know sort of where they are in terms of what can feel like a dog whistle.

This is absolutely in line with what it is that we are seeing.

I wanted to go back for a quick second, Don, to what you were just doing in terms of talking about the threatening of witnesses and how much how much the public has sort of gotten involved in trying to manipulate how this case is going.

And I want to say as a former prosecutor that this is starting to feel like.

Transparency would be beneficial to everyone in this case.

Sorry to cut you off.

Yeah, no, no.

At this point, they realize it.

Like, you know, you can say, well, Jackson County doesn't necessarily handle a ton of high-profile cases, and you might be right.

But at this point...

when you don't necessarily have clarity around where you're or when you plan to release your autopsy report, when you don't have clarity around how you are, when you are preparing to go in front of the grand jury, when you don't have clarity around a number of different things that are circulating in the public view, you are inviting this type of tampering from the outside.

And so I'm stopping short of saying that they are complicit, Don.

Transparency would be beneficial to everyone in this case.

said why'd you do that but that's all right

because i i got ambushed but that's a whole nother conversation i didn't know what i was walking into i thought i was doing a regular panel it turned it out to be something else so here's what i'm going to say i have as much reason to debate the existence of racism and structural racism in america right now as a fish would debate the existence of water as it's spinning as it's swimming in the ocean i i refuse to to to do that now if you genuinely want to understand how these concepts work and you want to understand the difference between structural racism and bigotry and curbside bigotry and curbside discrimination i have no problem explaining to you how those things are different but if you want to sort of deny or debate me on the existence of structural racism in 2026 that's a non-discussion that is that's not something that i'm even entertaining because it's intellectually disingenuous on multiple levels um what i will say is in this moment uh ironically ironically don ben crump People like me, people like you, other people who have been vocal about speaking out and calling for integrity and justice for Nolan Wells and not ignoring the idea that race could in fact be an issue here.

We have been branded as race hustlers.

And the thing that I find so interesting about this is that the only people who make the accusations of calling us race hustlers are the ones themselves who would like to race and hustle it for profit it is a very surreptitious tactic and if you're not like able to pick up on it and you're not astute enough to really see it it can actually work it's something that like actually makes people say oh my gosh yeah you guys are making everything about race you guys are the race hustlers And unfortunately, there are always people who are willing to profit from other people's fear.

And throughout history, what we have seen is that there is never a shortage of people who look like me and you who are willing to step to the front of the line and put their reputation, their own dignity and their own overall sort of like wellbeing on the line to ardently defend folks who wouldn't give a damn about them on any other day of the week.

And that is just the unfortunate reality of what we see in community.

With all jokes aside, People, and I'm not gonna spend too much time on this point, Don, but I will say this.

You think that are they conscious of it or maybe they're doing it and they don't even realize

said, why'd you do that? But that's all right.

Because I got ambushed, but that's a whole nother conversation.

I didn't know what I was walking into.

I thought I was doing a regular panel.

It turned it out to be something else.

So here's what I'm gonna say.

I have as much reason to debate the existence of racism and structural racism in America.

I mean, I think that they're.

Is that what we're just getting right now?

That pretty much is what we're looking at right now because there's nothing that can be done jurisdictionally if Janine Pirro has decided that she's not going to pu- pursue this matter, and it would be very, very unwise for Todd Blanche or anyone else who's going to be heading up the DOJ to try to supersede that d- that, that decision because they just don't have the jurisdiction to do so.

So for me, as I'm looking at this, watching the president continue to beat this drum when we've heard from the chief prosecutor in the jurisdiction where the Re- Reflecting Pool exists, uh, say that there's nothing here and that they cannot prove this sort of case for vandalism, unless there's some new facts that either the, the, the, that Janine Pirro doesn't know and the Secretary of the Interior has not put out, this needs to go no further than it already has gone.

Okay.

But what I will say is that in this si- in this instance, she demonstrated what prosecutors are supposed to do.

She already realized that, hey, I've really embarrassed myself already to a significant degree by claiming to have facts that I clearly did not, and not having done my homework.

And that type of break, that type of independence from this president creates a, a, a, a real gap in terms of there being a, a working relationship that's, that's there despite her appointment.

We saw President Trump talk about this in his tweet.

Did you watch the press conference today with the family?

I did, Don, and I actually did my own reel on this today on Instagram, so anybody who follows me can go see it, and anybody who hasn't, you can follow me on IG and check that reel.

I want to echo the sentiments of my very good friend, Attorney Merritt, who was just talking about the importance of process, speaking as a former prosecutor.

I think that What I can say is public pressure has its place in terms of how things are.

But we live in an age where things get distorted so quickly that sometimes too much public pressure from the wrong places in the wrong ways can give cover to a bad investigation.

Because what ends up happening is that law enforcement And other entities just end up saying, oh, well, you guys are all just a mob.

And they just sort of ignore the legitimate and rightful requests and demands for an investigation.

Lee, you want to say something? I mean, not Lee, Charles.

Send us your voting information, or we are going to try to block you from using mail-in ballots."

Katie, this is such an interesting as well as concerning example of how this administration continues to stress test the American democracy checks and balances system.

And I've said for a very long time that the future of America is in the hands of the judiciary, and we see it play out today because ultimately, this president decided that he was going to try and strong-arm a institution like the USPS into doing its bidding around voting in a way that further federalized voting which we all know constitutionally is something that's supposed to be in states' control.

And the courts have said, "No, you cannot do this.

You cannot backdoor your way into trying to federalize state elections."

Is the Supreme Court gonna allow it?

Well, that's a great question.

I think that the last segment that you did where you were talking about the ideological split of the Supreme Court should be of concern for people who are watching this.

Charles.

Yeah, Don, you know, today is a day that I think people need to look at in terms of not red and blue- Not Democrat or Republican, but understanding fundamentally what this means around American democracy.

And the reason I say that is because you had half of the judges who were looking at the intention of clearly defining powers of branches of government and giving more power to the executive branch.

And then you had the other justices who were thinking about the impact that these decisions were going to have.

So Sonia Sotomayor, for example, was talking about the impact, understanding that regardless of whether you make this facially neutral in terms of the powers that you're giving to the president, the impact that it is going to have in this particular moment is going to affect human life.

People are going to die.

And our viewers need to understand that at least on the surface, the six justices, particularly with respect to the TPS case, their reasoning was allegedly, allegedly not based on what countries were going to be immediately affected, but rather the amount of power that they were going to allow the executive branch to have in terms of setting immigration policy.

Yes

So you think the punishment is too severe or the time, Charles?

Absolutely, Don.

I think that the punishment is absolutely too severe, and we have seen in many cases that this is consistent with what we know around sentencing data in America, where you have a alleged Black perpetrator who is a male and a, a, uh, a white male victim.

Those sentences are usually disproportionately higher than any other race combination that you've seen and that you will see.

And so in some ways, this tracks with the data, but if you're looking at the totality of violent crimes and how they are sentenced, this is way beyond what you would normally find, particularly for an offense where the motive could not be esta- where the, the intent could not be established to be, for example, something that was premeditated, something that was sort of preplanned.

Those sorts of offenses, even though they are deemed to be higher in terms of the, the, the, the grade of the, the offense, if you will, they are usually sentenced to l- given the nature of, uh, Karmelo Anthony's lack of criminal history and things of that nature, a person would usually receive less of a sentence than he did.

And so I absolutely agree with Monique that the sentencing here is high, although I don't see that as being the, the, the only factor worth consideration in this conversation.

Go ahead, Charles.

Uh, go ahead, Charles.

I do wanna point out for viewers in terms of, and this is a little bit in the weeds, the process that Monique was just talking about with respect to a Batson charge.

There may be, on behalf of Karmelo Anthony's defense team, an opportunity to appeal the notion of a Batson, uh, of, of the way that the Batson, uh, charge was decided, only because, uh, what typically happens, and Monique can attest to this, when you are at trial and you are going through jury selection, and you raise a challenge to a witness based off of something that you believe, you know, would preempt them from being on, on trial, um, you will at times have a judge or, or say that, that they should be str- stricken for cause.

In a Batson challenge of this nature, the judge can have an opportunity to have a sidebar with the witness and attorneys present and ask them whether they can be fair and impartial.

I've had this happen to me before, where I have risen, where I've made, I've made a char- a, a challenge to a witness, and because of the challenge that I've made, the judge will try to rehabilitate that witness by asking them, "Are, is, you know, do you have a problem with being a teacher, understanding that there are going to be students and witnesses who are c- uh, connected to schools? Can you still be fair and impartial?" And on those bases, the judge has either allow- and the, and the witness will usually say, "Yes, I can be fair and impartial," or, "No." And if they say yes, on that basis, the judge will usually allow that person to sit and deny the ability to, to strike them.

And so I don't know whether that happened in this case as a result of these Batson charges, but I do wanna make clear for the, for our viewers or for the audience, that there are additional steps of recourse that the judge did have in this case when a Batson ch- when a Batson challenge is raised in order to try and rehabilitate a juror so that they can actually serve.

If there is an appeal on Batson? What, what are the chances of that?

It's hard to say, Don, because I don't know...

I'll start with you, Charles.

Yeah, Joy, I appreciate that.

I often talk about the fact that America's future is in the hands of the judiciary, and I continue to say that and will continue to say that because from a policy and from a legal perspective, this is something that I very much so believe.

And I think the point that you made hits home and underscores that in as much as it's such a curious thing that this president and this party will invoke the Constitution, and in doing so, it seems like they're talking about a document that they've never read.

And I'm not even talking about the way that they sort of hypocritically in, uh, uh, engage it.

I'm talking about the fact that they, they literally don't seem to understand how it works.

And what we have seen in the courts more and more and more, it took a little bit of time, but I knew that it would, is that they're being told, "No, you're not able to do that.

... that there are five monarchists at least on this court.

[laughs] Yeah, I'm just saying, it's, it's outrageous.

Don, I'm old enough to remember the fake fiasco that erupted after allegedly there was some controversy about you as an investigator, as a journalist, getting information about Jussie Smollett, and that being a whole big deal that was nothing, that people tried to make something out of.

And, and when you talk about the hypocrisy here, what happened to drain the swamp? At the end of the day, this is a president who, 48 hours ago, you and I talked on this very platform, and we were really speculating on how he would address the Epstein documents in his State of the Union.

We saw one hour and 48 minutes of this man saying nothing, with these victims present in the gallery, around the Epstein documents at all, and yet and still, media has largely not touched the fact that this was a complete omission.

So in a lot of ways, the hypocrisy is not only apparent, but it is the fault of so many people who have microphones for not keeping the pressure on, as you've already talked about.

This is the story of the day, and it's the story of the day on a global perspective, because as you look around, there are other countries who have taken measures to take action against pedophiles.

And the fact that we have sort of engaged this space of cover-up with the DOJ is not a good look for America.

"Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over the election." They're trying to steal the election, Charles.

Former prosecutor-

[laughing]

And to me, Charles, that's one of the insults about this entire process in taking people through it who have no business being under arrest, because even if the charges are ultimately dismissed, which surely they will be, you have still been through an ordeal.

Absolutely, Monique, and I've said on a number of occasions, uh, that for the right, the punishment is the process here.

That the, the punishment is the process of trying to attach a stigma of going through this, of the expenses that are associated with this.

And at the end of the day, whether it's Don Lemon, whether it's James Comey, whether it's Letitia James, it doesn't matter whether the conviction is ultimately secured, at least for the right, because they tend to continue to feed red mea- red meat to their base.

But for people who are unfamiliar with the notion of these proceedings, do not think that this does not take a mental toll on you, a financial toll on you, as you go through the various stages of what-

Mm-hmm

... and, and so we have not seen an apology, and keep that in mind.

So the fact that it was deleted means absolutely nothing, because it shouldn't have been there in the first place.

The second thing that I wanna say is, we have to, at this point, if we haven't already, understand that for those people who continue to say, "This is not America, this is not America, this is, this is so un-American," this is yet another example that re- that reflects that Donald Trump has taken a sledgehammer to the American veneer.

The veneer that has allowed so many people to turn a blind eye, and maintain the lie or the notion that this is not America.

This is exactly the America that we have been telling people exists, and has existed since 1776.

So as we're in our 250th year, having a great time on...

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

I felt like Chris, um, soft-shoed his way around that.

And, um, it was, you know...

I, I, I, I, I don't profess to know anything about you all's relationship.

I just remember interacting with him years ago when I was, you know, doing more with, with that network.

And, um, I realized that, like, where he is now may require a little bit of a different cadence or a song and dance, and maybe that was reflective in his remarks.

But I think that, um, to me, I'm identifying him in particular because in this moment, if you are on the sidelines, then you are standing with someone who means us no good.

Mm-hmm

Mm-hmm

... means that they get in front of microphones without having the mics, but without having the facts in front of them, uh, early enough.

And, um, you know, as a lawyer, I'm sort of trained not to do that, or to avoid doing that, because at the end of the day, these are public records, and so they can sort of come back to bite you.

Uh, so the less you say early on, the better.

I know a lot of times the public gets a little frustrated when you say, "We're still looking into things, we're still investigating things," but there's a reason why people do that.

And the reason they do it is because you don't wanna end up like Kristi Noem, where you've given the public one account of one thing, and then later on, the ocular evidence does not support what it is that you've said.

But because this administration has been such, uh, so dogged in their want to control narrative, they sort of jump in front of cameras and microphones and characterize people using all sorts of, uh, inflammatory language to describe people and to describe things that, quite frankly, I won't say never happened, but did not happen the way they say they did.

[laughing]

Uh, why don't you go, Charles?

Well, Don, uh, the first thing I say is, I continue to talk about the fact that America's future is in the hands of the judiciary, and even where this administration seems to look past the rule of law, uh, it is up to the judiciary to make sure that that rule of law is upheld.

And so when you have a magistrate judge, for our audiences who don't understand how this works, usually what happens is, these sorts of warrants and, and other sorts of pleadings, whether it's a search warrant, an arrest warrant, they are brought to a magistrate judge.

They are assigned to someone who is generally covering a miscellaneous part for the week, and that person will review the various sorts of pleadings that come before them.

They are not necessarily going to be the trial judge on that case, they just have this particular assignment for a, for a day or for a week.

It's usually a, a period of about a week.

And so the fact that a magistrate judge refused to sign the pleading says a lot about what the pleading did not have, in terms of being able to make out what they felt was a prima facie case that would allow for the probable cause necessary in order to effect an arrest.

Now, I do know that one of my guests has a, a time issue, so Charles, if you have to go, just let us know, and, um-

So thank you, though.

I, I, I, I think that that is important.

Um, th- there's so much to be...

I, I know that we're here for legal analysis, and Monique's gonna get at me for the legal analysis, and we can do that.

But I will say, um, as someone who has had to sit through, in, in, in different capacities, and watch Alvin Bragg indict and ultimately convict Donald Trump, and watch Bennie Thompson sit at the chair of the Select Committee on January 6th, and watch Letitia James, uh, execute a civil case against the Trump Organization, and then also face the retribution from that.

Um, uh, you know, I do wanna point out that, and this is very apropos for the day that we are observing, the history of what it is of people, of Black people in America, standing firm and being resolved that they are on the right side of right.

And yet again, this is something that falls directly in line with this, at a point when the administration has so characteristically attempted to overplay its hand.

I am That Man.

Any justification you see in this?

No. I've tried to analyze the footage that I've seen from, uh, uh, the angle of being a former prosecutor, being an agent of the court, uh, as well as, as, as a civil rights attorney and, and, and the violations that I am looking at as I am watching this footage that continues to circulate and citizen journalists are posting, uh, is just really an aberration in terms of how the rights of these individuals are, have been violated.

Uh, even going to the video footage that has, that we've seen around the actual shooting itself, there is a significant question as to the viability of legal force being used.

It's important to understand that, uh, a fleeing car that does not im- immediately pose a threat to, uh, a law enforcement officer or the public in general, um, is, is not a, a viable, uh, cause for a lethal threat to be employed.

And so, or lethal, lethal, uh, uh, violence to be employed.

And so even those actions weren't significant scrutiny and, and I do not believe rise to the level of what we're seeing.

But Don, there's a bigger, bigger problem here, and that problem is beyond the, the actual facts of this instance-

Mm-hmm.

It's

at the bottom of the list of priorities for everyone we're having a conversation about.

Lisa just talked about the fact that Letitia James is on this list.

And at the bottom of that list is the notion of consistency and propriety.

We're looking at a situation, Michael, where at the end of the day, this Department of Justice is doing a great job of providing Letitia James and her counsel with more and more support for malicious prosecution defense.

And I think that people need to understand that for everything that they're going after her for and continuing to go down this road after no bill twice now on an indictment and a dismissal on top of that to continue to press forward with this issue, especially in light of the myriad facts that you just mentioned, along with other inconsistencies around other.

Public officials like Scott Besson, like Kim Paxton in Texas, like others who have had very similar run-ins with respect to actual mortgage fraud being committed and no prosecution or investigation in those veins, you're now opening the door to further substantiate what many have believed is very much so a political prosecution and something that has been malicious abuse of prosecutorial discretion.