On The Record with Kash Patel, Senior Advisor to President Donald Trump for National Security and Defense

Editor’s note: This interview was conducted on June 6, 2024 and has been broken into two parts for publishing. Part Two dives deeper into Biden’s border crisis, the national security implications, and “The Swamp.” Part Two can be found here. 

Let’s talk about the the the the hush money trial in in New York. How was the mood after the verdict and was it expected?

I was there with the President on that big, final day of trial with Cohen and Costello testifying.

Being a former federal public defender and national security prosecutor, I have been in courtrooms. I tried 60 jury cases to verdict. I’ve seen pro-prosecution judges with a lean and a bias. I read about Judge Merchan’s pro-prosecution bias, but I’ve never witnessed anything like this.

When I got in there and watched the testimony all day, and I saw that Michael Cohen was imploding on the witness stand and getting caught with lie after lie, I have never seen a judge sustain an objection that wasn’t even made and then give instruction to the jury to disregard the testimony. It was as if the prosecution didn’t even need to be there.

Then, when Bob Costello hit the witness stand and blew a hole in the prosecution’s case by saying,”Michael Cohen came to me and told me ten times he had absolutely nothing on Donald Trump when I was representing him as his lawyer,” the judge kicked us all out of the courtroom. Literally, after that statement, the judge kicked out the media and everyone in there.

I’ve never heard or seen anything like that. This guy’s courtroom was like MTV’s Real World meets Jersey Shore and Perry Mason.

Once I saw that, I knew this was going to be a tough case to win.

So, you just have to be realistic. We wanted and hoped that one New Yorker would stand up, but the guilty verdict was, unfortunately, not surprising with the judge basically rigging the case.

How much money has Trump raised for reelection since the verdict?

Since New York, and since the verdict came in, President Trump has raised over $200,000,000. Yes, $100,000,000 of that is from Miriam Adelson, but 25 percent of the rest of that is from people who have never donated in politics. So, that is pretty huge.

Trump is expanding the donor base to the grassroots. This hundred million was a couple of days ago, so it is likely more now, but this is a monumental haul that reflects how people are being energized by what happened to President Trump at the trial. 

What does the appeals process look like moving forward?

So, it gets complicated. It’s a state court case.

Traditionally, you go to the appellate circuit in New York state court, but they’re basically just as bad as the trial judge. Then, you go to the top court in New York. Then, you get to go to federal court at the trial appellate level because there is due process issues and all sorts of constitutional issues for the President to raise.

Normally, you can’t go directly to the Supreme Court of the United States, but this is not a normal situation. I have seen President Trump’s lawyers and President Trump say they’re going to try to make an appeal directly to the Supreme Court, which I think is appropriate because going to the appellate courts and the state level is a tw0- year process.

This is what DA Alvin Bragg, the judge, and the media wanted. They wanted the conviction. They can now say he is a convicted felon and then run out the clock for the appeal.

But, I think the U.S. Supreme Court in this rare instance has to be involved because a president has been convicted. This has never happened before, and I don’t think it’ll ever happen again.

Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. He’s winning every poll.

It should be up to the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether or not this case was constitutionally done, and before the election, so the American public can have that ruling. I don’t even know which appeal issue to start with, but there are so many for the President.

As far as the nomination process goes, the sentencing occurs four days before the GOP convention. What if Judge Merchan sentences President Trump to serve time in prison?

Normally, even in a case like this, putting aside the legal issues, Donald Trump has no criminal history, whatsoever.

He is a 77-year old man who has, whether you like him or not, devoted a chunk of his life to public service. So, any other defendant facing this style of sentencing would receive probation. That would be the recommended sentence by the probation officer in a case like this, but since it’s Donald Trump and this judge wants to take him off the campaign trail, he could sentence him to prison.

If that were the case, what should happen is an immediate appeal staying the prison sentence because President Trump is the Republican nominee to be the President of the United States. That’s the way it should go.

I don’t know what is going to happen. Because this judge, just based on his financial gain through his daughter alone, should have been kicked off the case a long time ago because New York State requires a judge to recuse from a case in which they gain a financial interest indirectly, from up to six degrees of separation.

Clearly his daughter making $15,000,000 off the likes of Adam Schiff, and the information from this courtroom satisfies that.

So, that is one of the major issues on appeal, but that can’t be raised until either the U.S. Supreme Court takes it, or the judge issues sentencing. Then, President Trump and his lawyers can decide where to where to take that appeal. I don’t know if they’re going to wait until then, or try to go to the U.S. Supreme Court before then.

Narrowing in on Nevada… Do you have an idea of what Trump is going to address during his rally in Las Vegas this Sunday?

I haven’t talked to him specifically about it, but I’m sure he’s going to talk about the trial, the unjust verdict, the unconstitutional application of law, and remind everyone that, “They’re gonna do this to you.” Right now, they’re just starting with him.

Today, the judge revoked Steve Bannon’s bond. So, they want Trump’s allies and surrogates to be put in prison. Peter Navarro is already in jail.

So, I believe he would probably discuss those themes, whether or not he mentions people by name. 

One of the biggest issues facing Nevadans is the fentanyl crisis fueled by the border crisis. How does President Biden’s recent executive order secure the border and curb the trafficking of fentanyl and other illicit drugs?

It doesn’t do anything.

It’s an exercise in futility to grab a headline to say that Joe Biden is protecting the border and Americans.

His executive order, or whatever you want to call it, still allows up to two million illegals to cross into our country every year. He has already let in 10 million.

He’s not implementing across-the-board, Trump-era border policies that actually worked.

Biden is not whittling down those in the queue that already got here illegally. He is allowing these folks who have claimed asylum status to stay in the US, unlike Trump who made them stay and wait in Mexico until they were approved or rejected.

99 percent of them don’t have a legal justification to even have a hearing before an immigration judge.  

We would be removing these people, but there is no plan to do that. And, there is no plan to enforce any actual border policies that remove people here who are already here, illegally.

Worse off, there is no plan from DHS or FBI to track down the known terrorists that have illegally crossed into the country. It is pretty scary.