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Unprecedented Trump Fund & Mangione Rulings · Bloomberg Law

0:02
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June grosseol from Bloomberg Radio.
0:08
Speaker 1: Another unprecedented action by President Trump and his Justice Department
0:14
Speaker 1: the creation of a one point eight billion dollar fund
0:17
Speaker 1: to pay victims of so called government weaponization as part
0:22
Speaker 1: of a settlement to n Trump's thirty billion dollar lawsuit
0:25
Speaker 1: against the Internal Revenue Service, a settlement that was not
0:29
Speaker 1: approved by a judge. Under questioning by Democratic Senator Chris Coons, today,
0:35
Speaker 1: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had to admit it was
0:39
Speaker 1: a first.
0:40
Speaker 2: Has it ever happened that a sitting president sued his
0:44
Speaker 2: own government for ten billion dollars and then directed the
0:48
Speaker 2: settlement of the case and the establishment of a payout fund?
0:51
Speaker 3: Not that I'm aware, but there's a lot of things
0:53
Speaker 3: that President Trump's the first of it.
0:55
Speaker 1: And in response to questions from Democratic Senator Chris Van Holland,
1:00
Speaker 1: Lanche would not rule out that rioters who attacked police
1:04
Speaker 1: at the Capitol on January sixth could receive payments from
1:08
Speaker 1: the fund.
1:09
Speaker 3: Well, individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible
1:13
Speaker 3: for this.
1:13
Speaker 4: Fund well, as it makes plain.
1:17
Speaker 2: Just let me know if they're eligible for the.
1:19
Speaker 4: Fund, as was made plain, yesterday.
1:22
Speaker 2: Anybody in this country is eligible to apply.
1:26
Speaker 1: My guest is an expert in constitutional law, David super,
1:30
Speaker 1: a professor at Georgetown Law. David, starting with the lawsuit,
1:34
Speaker 1: let alone the settlement. Have you ever seen a lawsuit
1:37
Speaker 1: like this, a sitting president suing part of his government
1:40
Speaker 1: for monetary damages.
1:43
Speaker 4: No, there hasn't, and there have been some pretty compelling
1:47
Speaker 4: cases where you might imagine that happening. You could imagine
1:50
Speaker 4: President Reagan suing for the Secret Service failure to protect
1:54
Speaker 4: him from John Hinckley. You could imagine some presidents suing
1:58
Speaker 4: for terrible medical care that they receive the estate of
2:01
Speaker 4: President Garfield. Perhaps, but this is an example of norms collapsing.
2:08
Speaker 4: Every president previously, even ones who allowed much more independence
2:14
Speaker 4: of the Justice Department than President Trump does, understood that
2:18
Speaker 4: it would be grossly inappropriate for them to sue a
2:23
Speaker 4: justice department that reported to them.
2:25
Speaker 1: Basically, the same person is controlling both sides of the lawsuit.
2:31
Speaker 1: The plaintiff and the defendant are Donald Trump.
2:35
Speaker 4: Yes, this is a textbook example of collusive litigation. When
2:39
Speaker 4: there's no adversity, when no claims a fact or law
2:44
Speaker 4: are checked by anybody with a contrary interest where they're
2:48
Speaker 4: all agreeing together. It's a settlement agreement between Donald Trump's
2:53
Speaker 4: private lawyers and Donald Trump's Justice Department lawyers, and the
2:57
Speaker 4: Supreme Court has said that you can not in the
3:00
Speaker 4: power of the federal courts on a collusive case. The
3:03
Speaker 4: federal courts are only there to resolve genuinely adverse controversies,
3:09
Speaker 4: which this is not.
3:11
Speaker 1: This was settled and they avoided a Wednesday deadline in
3:15
Speaker 1: court that would have had them explain whether a case
3:18
Speaker 1: or controversy exists. So they seem to have settled this
3:22
Speaker 1: to get around having to appear in court and explain
3:25
Speaker 1: this case.
3:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're really trying to have it both ways. They
3:29
Speaker 4: settled it in a big hurry this weekend to avoid
3:34
Speaker 4: having to explain to the courts why this could be
3:38
Speaker 4: a case, because they can't, so they make the case
3:41
Speaker 4: go away before the judge can dismiss it for lack
3:44
Speaker 4: of jurisdiction. But they use the fact that this case
3:48
Speaker 4: was here as a justification for this settlement, which provides
3:54
Speaker 4: a slush fund for whomever President Trump wants to serve.
3:57
Speaker 1: Doesn't the court usually have to approve a settlement.
4:01
Speaker 4: The court has to approve a settlement that involves an
4:04
Speaker 4: order of the court, but this settlement provided for the
4:08
Speaker 4: dismissal of President Trump's claims, and courts generally don't have
4:13
Speaker 4: to do that. There are a few exceptions, but this
4:15
Speaker 4: doesn't really fall into one of them.
4:17
Speaker 1: The Justice Department has already been approving seven figure payouts
4:22
Speaker 1: for some Trump allies who claimed they were wrongfully investigated
4:27
Speaker 1: or prosecuted. For example, one point twenty five million to
4:31
Speaker 1: former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn, who had actually
4:36
Speaker 1: pleaded guilty to line to the FBI, and a similar
4:39
Speaker 1: amount to Carter Paige, a former advisor for Trump's twenty
4:44
Speaker 1: sixteen campaign. So that's already going on. How is this
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Speaker 1: fund different?
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Speaker 4: This is different because it isn't paying damages. I would
4:55
Speaker 4: be a terribly offended if President Trump ordered the fund
4:59
Speaker 4: to pay him some large sum of money. That would
5:02
Speaker 4: be another example of abuse of the fun inclusive litigation.
5:06
Speaker 4: But this goes much farther. This is basically taking away
5:10
Speaker 4: the power of the purse from Congress. It is creating
5:14
Speaker 4: a whole new program that Congress never authorized, that Congress
5:18
Speaker 4: never appropriated a dime for, and creating it entirely within
5:24
Speaker 4: the executive branch to spend tax dollars.
5:27
Speaker 1: How did they even come up with this number one
5:30
Speaker 1: point eight billion dollars? Where did that even come from?
5:33
Speaker 4: Well, I'm guessing it came from some marketing person because
5:36
Speaker 4: it's one point seven seven six billion dollars, which I
5:41
Speaker 4: guess is meant to invoke what happened in the beginning
5:46
Speaker 4: of our revolution. But that's rather ironic because our revolution
5:50
Speaker 4: was against a king who claimed absolute power to himself
5:56
Speaker 4: and didn't take legislatures and the people very seriously. It's
6:02
Speaker 4: ironic in the extreme that we are naming something after
6:06
Speaker 4: our moment of liberty that collapses a very important part
6:10
Speaker 4: of that liberty.
6:11
Speaker 1: They're saying that there is going to be a committee,
6:14
Speaker 1: but the president can fire anyone he wants on the committee.
6:17
Speaker 1: I mean, are there any safeguards in place?
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Speaker 4: Absolutely none. This is at one hundred percent slush fund.
6:23
Speaker 4: The President or the Attorney General will appoint, without Senate confirmation,
6:28
Speaker 4: all five members of this committee. If any of them
6:32
Speaker 4: do anything the President doesn't like, he can fire them
6:35
Speaker 4: and replace them with whomever he wants. So the committee
6:39
Speaker 4: is completely subservient to the president on both a macrell
6:44
Speaker 4: and a micro level. So this is allowing the president
6:48
Speaker 4: to distribute one point seven seven six billion dollars to
6:54
Speaker 4: whomever he wants, based on whatever they want. There are
6:57
Speaker 4: plenty of people sitting in federal prison right now who
7:01
Speaker 4: are clearly innocent and can prove it. But the Supreme
7:05
Speaker 4: Court has sharply narrowed habeas corpus and similar forms of relief,
7:10
Speaker 4: So the fact that you are actually innocent is not
7:14
Speaker 4: sufficient to get your conviction overturned. These are people who
7:19
Speaker 4: have no evidence that they were innocent, have no evidence
7:23
Speaker 4: of prosecutorial misconduct, none of that's required here. We're simply
7:27
Speaker 4: paying them because they are on Team Trump.
7:29
Speaker 1: I mean, is there anything you can compare this fund
7:32
Speaker 1: to where the idea even came from.
7:35
Speaker 4: Well, I could probably find you some precedence in Tammany
7:38
Speaker 4: Hall and other corrupt political machines. I wouldn't be surprised
7:43
Speaker 4: if Victor Horbon had a few of these kicking around.
7:46
Speaker 4: But within the context of American democracy, No. The Dustice
7:51
Speaker 4: Department's press release compares this to a fund that compensated
7:56
Speaker 4: Native Americans under the Obama ministry, but that was an
8:01
Speaker 4: adversarial lawsuit between the plaintiffs and the Justice Department, and
8:07
Speaker 4: that settlement was approved by a court. It was a
8:10
Speaker 4: court order, and had there been anything improper there, the
8:14
Speaker 4: court was entirely free to reject it if it thought
8:17
Speaker 4: the litigation was collusive, if it thought the settlement was
8:21
Speaker 4: unjust or was not in the interest in the United States,
8:24
Speaker 4: there were clear safeguards. By contrast, this whole thing is
8:27
Speaker 4: designed to avoid judicial scrutiny. They didn't want the judicial
8:31
Speaker 4: scrutiny that would come tomorrow with a court saying, how
8:35
Speaker 4: can you possibly be adverse to one another when you're
8:38
Speaker 4: both controlled by Donald J. Trump.
8:41
Speaker 1: You've written about this for the Balkanization. Explain why you
8:44
Speaker 1: think this fund is unlawful.
8:47
Speaker 4: Article one of our constitutions says that no money shall
8:51
Speaker 4: be drawn from the Treasury except where Congress has enacted
8:56
Speaker 4: and appropriation, and the Anti Deficiency Act, which goes back
9:01
Speaker 4: over one hundred years, gives teeth to that and makes
9:04
Speaker 4: it a federal crime with two years in prison if
9:07
Speaker 4: you distribute federal funds without a valid appropriation. This is
9:14
Speaker 4: an attempt to circumvent that. They're claiming they can use
9:17
Speaker 4: the judgment fund, which is an appropriation, but it's four
9:23
Speaker 4: settlements arrived at in accordance with law, and one provision
9:27
Speaker 4: of federal law says you cannot obtain the jurisdiction of
9:31
Speaker 4: the federal courts collusively. Another provision of federal law says
9:36
Speaker 4: that federal lawyers have to follow the same ethical rules
9:39
Speaker 4: that apply in their states, and those rules prohibit collusive litigation.
9:46
Speaker 4: So the very fact that this case is Donald Trump
9:49
Speaker 4: versus Donald Trump means that it is not eligible to
9:53
Speaker 4: be settled under the judgment fund.
9:56
Speaker 1: So, in light of the settlement, the judge has closed
9:59
Speaker 1: the case involving Trump's suit against the irs. But Democrats
10:04
Speaker 1: are asking a court to block the settlement, saying it
10:08
Speaker 1: lacks the bare minimum required to file a lawsuit. Two
10:12
Speaker 1: opposing parties and nearly one hundred Democrats signed in a
10:16
Speaker 1: meekus brief in the District Court for the Southern District
10:20
Speaker 1: of Florida. But do they have standing to bring a lawsuit?
10:25
Speaker 4: Arguably they don't need standing, because every federal court is
10:30
Speaker 4: obliged to determine its own jurisdiction even if nobody was standing.
10:35
Speaker 4: Raises it if you and I decide that we're going
10:38
Speaker 4: to have a lawsuit in federal court and there's no jurisdiction.
10:42
Speaker 4: The court will kick us out, even though you and
10:44
Speaker 4: I are both very happy to be there. So the
10:48
Speaker 4: Democrats can ask the case to be kicked out. The
10:52
Speaker 4: problem is it already has been. That's the essence of
10:55
Speaker 4: the settlement is that Trump the plaintiff, agreed with Trump
10:59
Speaker 4: the defendant, to dismiss the case. And the worst that
11:03
Speaker 4: a court could do probably is dismiss the case. I
11:07
Speaker 4: suppose they could sanction the lawyers.
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Speaker 1: Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue
11:12
Speaker 1: this conversation with Georgetown Law professor David Super. Are there
11:16
Speaker 1: any remaining legal impediments to this weaponization fund? I'm June
11:21
Speaker 1: Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. The US government has
11:28
Speaker 1: agreed to permanently drop tax claims against President Trump as
11:33
Speaker 1: part of a settlement deal to resolve Trump's ten billion
11:36
Speaker 1: dollar lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak
11:41
Speaker 1: of his tax returns. The same deal is resulting in
11:44
Speaker 1: a nearly one point eight billion dollar fund to compensate
11:48
Speaker 1: individuals who believe they were targeted politically. I've been talking
11:53
Speaker 1: to Professor David Super of Georgetown Law. David doesn't seem
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Speaker 1: like the Justice Department has covered all the bases. Is
12:00
Speaker 1: there any legal impediment to this fund?
12:03
Speaker 4: I don't think so. Usually when the administration does something
12:07
Speaker 4: Congress doesn't like, the answer is, well, cut off funding.
12:11
Speaker 4: But here Congress never provided funding for something like this,
12:15
Speaker 4: so there's no funding to cut off. Congress. I suppose
12:18
Speaker 4: could try to pass a law saying don't do this.
12:21
Speaker 4: The President would obviously veto it. But even if they
12:25
Speaker 4: did that, the President would say what's done is done.
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Speaker 4: This is gone. The Supreme Court could entertain a lawsuit
12:35
Speaker 4: that this is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court held many years
12:40
Speaker 4: ago that the only way to enforce the establishment clause
12:44
Speaker 4: that prohibits government from funding religion is to allow individual
12:48
Speaker 4: taxpayers to sue that their moneies are being inappropriately spent.
12:52
Speaker 4: They could say absolutely the same thing about the appropriation's clause,
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Speaker 4: that when taxpayers allege that their money is being taken
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Speaker 4: without an appropriation from Congress, that they can get into court.
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Speaker 4: But given how cooperative this Supreme Court has been with
13:06
Speaker 4: the president, I don't see that very likely.
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Speaker 1: And so we had Todd blanche in his testimony not
13:13
Speaker 1: ruling out anything, not ruling out heyout to people who
13:17
Speaker 1: are convicted of attacking police officers. So there are no
13:22
Speaker 1: boundaries here. Also, there's no indication that any of this
13:26
Speaker 1: would be known to the public. You know, Blanche started
13:29
Speaker 1: talking about privacy concerns.
13:31
Speaker 4: Well, they require a confidential report of who is paid
13:37
Speaker 4: to be submitted to the Attorney General. Now, what is
13:41
Speaker 4: and it's not a public record is not a matter
13:43
Speaker 4: for the Attorney General or the president to determine. It's
13:49
Speaker 4: a matter of the Freedom of Information Act. So I
13:51
Speaker 4: believe there's a good chance that this will eventually come out.
13:56
Speaker 4: But in the meantime, they have a slush fund that
13:59
Speaker 4: they can pay any one they want. And saying we
14:02
Speaker 4: wouldn't make a payment to people who assaulted police isn't
14:06
Speaker 4: very persuasive from people who have pardoned or commuted the
14:10
Speaker 4: sentences of people who assaulted police. Clearly, if you assault
14:14
Speaker 4: police on behalf of team Trump, there's a different standard.
14:18
Speaker 1: We've watched as Todd Blanche has had James Comi indicted,
14:23
Speaker 1: he has you know, indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center.
14:27
Speaker 1: You know, people say this is sort of him trying out,
14:30
Speaker 1: trying to be the attorney general that Trump wants. This
14:34
Speaker 1: seems to be like the highlight of it. They're doing
14:37
Speaker 1: this without any supervision from a court, just doing what
14:41
Speaker 1: they want. It seems to me like one of the
14:43
Speaker 1: most egregious things the Justice Department has done under Trump.
14:48
Speaker 4: They have been for some time taking advantage of the
14:52
Speaker 4: Supreme Court's restrictions on access to federal court to do
14:56
Speaker 4: things that are not legally defensible, but where they won't
14:59
Speaker 4: be forced to defend themselves in court because the Supreme
15:03
Speaker 4: Court disallows the challenges. So the notion of doing something
15:08
Speaker 4: that's unlawful but unlitigable is actually old news for these people.
15:14
Speaker 4: They didn't put together something that's legal here. They actually
15:18
Speaker 4: misdrafted the papers. So this isn't really eligible for payment
15:23
Speaker 4: from the judgment fund because the amount that is specified
15:27
Speaker 4: in the press releases is not in the settlement papers.
15:31
Speaker 4: So you can't say that they have to draw one
15:34
Speaker 4: point seven seven six billion from the judgment fund to
15:39
Speaker 4: settle the case, because on the terms they settle it
15:42
Speaker 4: for one dollar would suffice everything above. That is Todd
15:47
Speaker 4: Blanche giving a gift to his boss, probably in the
15:50
Speaker 4: hopes of getting the word acting knocked off of his title.
15:53
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to explain. So there is a
15:56
Speaker 1: fund where the Justice Department doesn't have to get court
16:00
Speaker 1: approval and can pay out settlements to people like it
16:04
Speaker 1: has done to Michael Flynn, even though Michael Flynn had
16:07
Speaker 1: pleaded guilty and then took it back and Carter Page.
16:10
Speaker 1: So they have other ways of compensating people that they
16:14
Speaker 1: want to without needing any approval from a court.
16:18
Speaker 4: They do so in that sense, this is nothing new.
16:21
Speaker 4: This is taking it to an industrial scale, and it's
16:24
Speaker 4: saving the people who were tried and convicted of assaulting
16:30
Speaker 4: Congress or other unlawful acts and saying you don't have
16:35
Speaker 4: to pay for a lawyer, you don't have to file acclaim,
16:38
Speaker 4: you don't have to go through the procedures anyone else
16:40
Speaker 4: would go through. Just send us a letter, tell us
16:43
Speaker 4: how you were harmed, and the check will be in
16:45
Speaker 4: the mail.
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Speaker 1: The second Trump administration has been all about trying to
16:49
Speaker 1: erase what happened on January sixth, and it seems to
16:53
Speaker 1: be more and more blatant, and that the Justice Department
16:58
Speaker 1: doesn't care anymore about following the rules, or at least
17:03
Speaker 1: giving the appearance of following the rules.
17:06
Speaker 4: No, they don't, and the very sloppiness with which this
17:09
Speaker 4: is drafted. The huge departures between the press release and
17:14
Speaker 4: what's actually in the document, and the blatant disregard of
17:18
Speaker 4: federal law and the Constitution is rather striking. Here, I
17:22
Speaker 4: should say this is not limited to January sixth people. Indeed,
17:25
Speaker 4: January sixth isn't even mentioned in the settlement, So it's
17:29
Speaker 4: whomever they want to give money to. If you want
17:32
Speaker 4: to give money to a campaign worker who says that
17:37
Speaker 4: they were stressed out when Trump lost, there's nothing to
17:41
Speaker 4: stop them from doing that and no way to check it.
17:45
Speaker 4: The only limitation here, and this may be real, is
17:49
Speaker 4: that because these are payments without a valid appropriation, they
17:52
Speaker 4: are violations of the Anti Deficiency Act, which means they're felonies.
17:56
Speaker 4: And I think most people will expect that on the
17:58
Speaker 4: way out, President Trump will arden Todd Blanche and Stanley
18:02
Speaker 4: Woodard and all the top level people. But if you're
18:05
Speaker 4: a rank and file Treasury or Justice Department official and
18:09
Speaker 4: you're being asked to participate in this thing, this is
18:11
Speaker 4: a felony. You are perting yourself in personal criminal jeopardy.
18:15
Speaker 4: The statute of limitations is five years, which will run
18:19
Speaker 4: after this term of presidency is over. I think we're
18:23
Speaker 4: going to see some people making some very difficult choices
18:26
Speaker 4: in those agencies as to whether they want to be
18:28
Speaker 4: involved with this and risk criminal liability.
18:32
Speaker 1: This issue, though, does seem to be resonating with people.
18:36
Speaker 4: I think this is resonating with people because of the
18:39
Speaker 4: blatancy of the corruption of it. I was speaking earlier
18:42
Speaker 4: to a reporter from another country, and she said, excuse
18:46
Speaker 4: me for asking. I'm from such and such a country,
18:50
Speaker 4: which is very corrupt, and I said, well, I'm an
18:52
Speaker 4: American and at this point we're pretty corrupt too.
18:57
Speaker 1: A New York State Court judge has ruled that secutors
19:00
Speaker 1: can use a gun and notebook seized from Luigi Mangioni's
19:05
Speaker 1: backpack against him at his trial for the killing of
19:08
Speaker 1: United Healthcare Group executive Brian Thompson, but ruled that other
19:13
Speaker 1: evidence was improperly obtained. Judge Gregory Carro said police had
19:18
Speaker 1: obtained a warrant when they seized evidence, including a nine
19:21
Speaker 1: millimeter gun and a notebook where Mangioni discussed his desire
19:26
Speaker 1: to quote Whack a CEO, but that officers in Altoona, Pennsylvania,
19:31
Speaker 1: improperly searched his backpack at a McDonald's earlier that day,
19:36
Speaker 1: joining me his former federal prosecutor Robert Mintz, a partner.
19:40
Speaker 1: McCarter in English, Bob, give us the background here to.
19:44
Speaker 3: Set the stage here, police responded to a McDonald's in Altuna,
19:48
Speaker 3: Pennsylvania after receiving a call about a suspicious person who
19:54
Speaker 3: looked like the alleged shooter of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
19:59
Speaker 3: Local police showed up and began questioning mister Mangioni and
20:04
Speaker 3: later searched his backpack.
20:06
Speaker 4: The focus of.
20:07
Speaker 3: The hearing was whether or not the evidence discovered by
20:12
Speaker 3: local police and later by the federal government in connection
20:16
Speaker 3: with the search of the backpack would be admissible at trial, and.
20:21
Speaker 1: The defense claimed that the police needed a warrant before
20:25
Speaker 1: they could search.
20:26
Speaker 4: Yeah.
20:26
Speaker 3: So this is really interesting because it was a critical
20:30
Speaker 3: hearing for the defense. Should the defense succeed here and
20:35
Speaker 3: should the court have ruled that the evidence that was
20:38
Speaker 3: later found in Luigi Mangioni's backpack would be excluded a trial,
20:42
Speaker 3: it would have been a huge setback for prosecutors. There
20:45
Speaker 3: was an enormous amount at stake here for both sides.
20:49
Speaker 3: The defense argued in a day's long hearing last December
20:53
Speaker 3: that the evidence in the backpack should be thrown out
20:56
Speaker 3: because police searched the backpack, which contained mister many belongings,
21:01
Speaker 3: without a warrant. They said that basically police did not
21:04
Speaker 3: follow a proper protocol, that he posed no threat to
21:07
Speaker 3: them at the time, and that there was no basis
21:09
Speaker 3: to search the backpack. And the fact is that a
21:12
Speaker 3: warrant was not obtained for the search of that backpack
21:15
Speaker 3: until seven hours after mister Mangioni was in.
21:18
Speaker 1: Custody and tell us about the judges ruling.
21:21
Speaker 3: So the judge ultimately issued a mixed ruling, which was
21:25
Speaker 3: largely a victory for prosecutors but also gave some small
21:30
Speaker 3: victory to the defense. The judge ruled that prosecutors could
21:35
Speaker 3: use certain evidence that was seized at an inventory search
21:40
Speaker 3: later at the police station, but could not allow evidence
21:44
Speaker 3: that they seized during a search at the McDonald's. Basically,
21:48
Speaker 3: the judge decided that the search at the McDonald's that
21:52
Speaker 3: was conducted while they were questioning mister Mangioni was an illegal, improper,
21:56
Speaker 3: warrantless search. The prosecution tried to argue that local police
22:01
Speaker 3: searched the backpack at the McDonald's for public safety reasons,
22:05
Speaker 3: but the judge did not accept that, saying that the
22:08
Speaker 3: backpack had been moved out of mister mangoni's reach and
22:12
Speaker 3: no longer posed any public health or safety issue, and
22:17
Speaker 3: therefore that search was not permitted. There was a subsequent
22:21
Speaker 3: search after mister Mangioni was arrested and brought to the
22:24
Speaker 3: police station. That was an inventory search, in other words,
22:27
Speaker 3: a search that was done in connection with going through
22:31
Speaker 3: the belongings of somebody who was then under arrest. An
22:35
Speaker 3: items seized during that inventory search, the judge said, would
22:39
Speaker 3: be permitted to be used by prosecutors at the trial.
22:42
Speaker 1: Why to take police seven hours to get a search warrant?
22:47
Speaker 1: I mean, is that unusual? They concluded that it was
22:49
Speaker 1: Luigi Mangoni, and he was the suspect before they left
22:54
Speaker 1: that McDonald's.
22:55
Speaker 3: Well, once they arrested him, they certainly could have obtained
22:59
Speaker 3: a warrant based upon evidence that they had. Mister Mangoni
23:03
Speaker 3: had presented a false identification, and there was other evidence
23:07
Speaker 3: that they had that tied him to the crime, and
23:10
Speaker 3: he was certainly a prime suspect at that point in time.
23:13
Speaker 3: Prosecutors could have gotten a warrant, but waited, and instead
23:17
Speaker 3: local police searched the backpack in connection with this inventory
23:22
Speaker 3: and the judge allowed it in. That would have been
23:24
Speaker 3: a major blow to the prosecution if that evidence was excluded,
23:30
Speaker 3: but in this case the judge excluded certain items. He
23:34
Speaker 3: excluded for example, a loaded magazine, a passport, a wallet,
23:39
Speaker 3: a cell phone, and a computer chip. All of those
23:41
Speaker 3: items were taken from mister Mangoni's backpack at the McDonald's,
23:46
Speaker 3: and the judge ruled that that was an improper warrantless search.
23:49
Speaker 3: But the big victory here for prosecutors was at the
23:52
Speaker 3: subsequent search back at the police station, they found a
23:57
Speaker 3: gun which was allegedly the weapon u to shoot the
24:01
Speaker 3: victim here, and also a notebook that contained, according to prosecutors,
24:07
Speaker 3: mister mangon He's manifesto. This is where he has writings
24:10
Speaker 3: where he goes on about national health care and about
24:14
Speaker 3: how insurance companies are doing damage to people by delaying
24:18
Speaker 3: and denying them coverage. This is really the critical piece
24:22
Speaker 3: of evidence because it goes to his intent, it goes
24:25
Speaker 3: to a state of mind, and there's no question the
24:27
Speaker 3: prosecutors will be relying largely on that notebook and on
24:32
Speaker 3: what they will allege is the murder weapon itself. When
24:35
Speaker 3: this case goes to.
24:36
Speaker 1: Trial, why do you think the federal judge, who look
24:38
Speaker 1: at the same circumstances decide to let everything in.
24:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good question.
24:43
Speaker 3: He had two judges, one State Cork judge, one federal judge.
24:47
Speaker 3: They were applying different law. The New York judge looked
24:50
Speaker 3: at the case differently than the federal judge.
24:52
Speaker 4: The federal judge.
24:53
Speaker 3: Allowed everything in. As you said, there was nothing that
24:56
Speaker 3: was suppressed by the federal judge in the second trial.
24:59
Speaker 3: But the State a Cork judge here, I think, was
25:02
Speaker 3: somewhat troubled by what went on at the McDonald's and
25:05
Speaker 3: suppressed certain pieces of evidence, But at the end of
25:08
Speaker 3: the day, the critical pieces of evidence was allowed in.
25:12
Speaker 3: And I think here, when you look at the decision
25:14
Speaker 3: by the State Cork judge, he put great weight on
25:17
Speaker 3: the fact that the police officers began to search through
25:21
Speaker 3: the backpack and when they found the gun magazine, they
25:25
Speaker 3: immediately stopped. They also found the notebook, but allegedly did
25:28
Speaker 3: not look in to see what the writings were, but
25:31
Speaker 3: they stopped searching at that point, and the court seemed
25:33
Speaker 3: to give certain weight to the fact that they held
25:36
Speaker 3: off searching at that point and then did not continue
25:39
Speaker 3: to search until mister Mangoni was in custody back at
25:42
Speaker 3: the police station, and then the search was done in
25:45
Speaker 3: an inventory search, not at a search incident to arrest
25:49
Speaker 3: at the McDonald's.
25:50
Speaker 1: So, defense attorneys often, I don't know always, but very
25:55
Speaker 1: often make motions to have evidence suppressed. Have you ever
25:59
Speaker 1: seen a case where the judge was, I don't know,
26:01
Speaker 1: gutsy enough to throw out all the evidence from a
26:06
Speaker 1: tainted search. I mean, it seems like these are just
26:09
Speaker 1: uphill battles, no matter what the facts are.
26:11
Speaker 3: Well, they are uphill battles. And you're absolutely right that
26:14
Speaker 3: this is the type of motion that is made in
26:17
Speaker 3: every criminal case. Whenever there is a search, whether it's
26:21
Speaker 3: done by search warrant, or a search is in to arrest,
26:24
Speaker 3: and evidence is obtained as a result of that search
26:27
Speaker 3: that's critical to the prosecution, the first thing defense lawyers
26:31
Speaker 3: are going to do is to try to suppress that evidence,
26:34
Speaker 3: because if that evidence doesn't come in at trial in
26:37
Speaker 3: certain cases, it can be very difficult for prosecutors to
26:40
Speaker 3: make their case. This case, given all the notoriety and
26:44
Speaker 3: the publicity surrounding it, put enormous weight on the court
26:48
Speaker 3: in making a decision, because a judge, when you put
26:51
Speaker 3: in a difficult circumstance if they rule to suppress key
26:55
Speaker 3: evidence in a case like this where there's so much publicity.
26:58
Speaker 3: But in this case, the word judge certainly spent a
27:02
Speaker 3: long time. There was an extensive hearing, There were days
27:05
Speaker 3: of testimony. They judge sat through hours and hours of
27:08
Speaker 3: bodycam video footage and her testimony from many law enforcement
27:13
Speaker 3: officers on the scene at the time of the arrest.
27:15
Speaker 3: So the judge spent a considerable amount of time considering
27:18
Speaker 3: this and then it took him months to finally render
27:21
Speaker 3: a decision on this. But at the end of the day,
27:23
Speaker 3: while he gave some small victory to the defense, he
27:27
Speaker 3: did largely rule in favor of the prosecution. And if
27:30
Speaker 3: you're the prosecutor and you have the alleged murder weapon
27:33
Speaker 3: and you have the notebook containing the alleged manifesto, you're
27:36
Speaker 3: feeling pretty good about your chances of conviction at the
27:39
Speaker 3: end of a trial.
27:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, now let's talk about statements that man Gioni
27:43
Speaker 1: made to police in the McDonald's. The judge also parsed
27:48
Speaker 1: that very carefully down to the minute, after.
27:52
Speaker 3: Hearing extensive testimony from law enforcement about the circumstances surrounding
27:58
Speaker 3: the arrest. The court ultimately rule that statements made by
28:02
Speaker 3: mister Mangeoni at the McDonald's before he was in custody
28:06
Speaker 3: will be allowed as evidence a trial, but not statements
28:09
Speaker 3: he made in response to police questioning after he was
28:12
Speaker 3: in custody. The judge said he would allow jurors hear
28:15
Speaker 3: mister Mangoni's statements to correction officers while he was incarcerated,
28:19
Speaker 3: but that's because those statements were, the judge found spontaneous
28:24
Speaker 3: or part of casual conversation and not in response to questioning.
28:28
Speaker 3: So what the judge basically did here is he found
28:31
Speaker 3: that the statements that were made before mister Mangoni was
28:35
Speaker 3: actually in custody we're.
28:37
Speaker 4: Going to be allowed.
28:39
Speaker 3: But he did find that once he decided to no
28:43
Speaker 3: longer talk with law enforcement, that law enforcement should have
28:47
Speaker 3: stopped questioning him, and statements he made in response to
28:50
Speaker 3: that questioning after he was in custody will not be
28:52
Speaker 3: permitted at the trial. Will be admitted, and so prosecutors,
28:56
Speaker 3: I think are not too discouraged by this ruling.
29:00
Speaker 1: Point. As you mentioned, it seems like the strategy of
29:02
Speaker 1: the defense has been in both the federal and the
29:05
Speaker 1: state case to try to get evidence excluded, to try
29:08
Speaker 1: to get statements excluded. Now we're coming up on trial
29:12
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering what the defense strategy could be in
29:16
Speaker 1: light of the fact that the prosecution has so much evidence,
29:20
Speaker 1: seemingly has so much evidence tying him to the scene.
29:24
Speaker 1: I mean, we haven't heard anything about it insanity defense
29:27
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Is it just jury nullification.
29:31
Speaker 3: Well, there's a huge difference between being a prosecutor and
29:35
Speaker 3: being a defense lawyer in the way the case is
29:37
Speaker 3: presented a trial. Prosecutors have the burden of proof. It's
29:41
Speaker 3: beyond a reasonable doubt. It's the highest standard in our
29:44
Speaker 3: legal system, and so their job is to present overwhelming
29:48
Speaker 3: evidence that the defendant is guilty. The defense, on the
29:52
Speaker 3: other hand, doesn't have to present anything. They don't have
29:54
Speaker 3: to put their client on the stand, they don't have
29:57
Speaker 3: to present any witnesses. They have no proof whatsoever, and
30:01
Speaker 3: so what they will typically do is not necessarily present
30:06
Speaker 3: a counter narrative, in other words, a different version of events.
30:10
Speaker 3: But they will try to poke holes in the government's case.
30:13
Speaker 3: And so what they'll do is they'll see the way
30:15
Speaker 3: the case goes into trial, They'll cross examine the government's witnesses,
30:18
Speaker 3: and if they can find any area where the government
30:22
Speaker 3: may have a weakness, they try to exploit that and
30:25
Speaker 3: ultimately argue to the jury that there's reasonable doubt here
30:28
Speaker 3: that the government has not met its burden. So I
30:31
Speaker 3: suspect what will happen here is that the defense will
30:34
Speaker 3: be largely based on the government's not meeting its burden
30:38
Speaker 3: of proof, arguing that the prosecution could have presented more evidence,
30:44
Speaker 3: that the prosecution hasn't nailed down every piece of evidence
30:48
Speaker 3: tying luigi ev angility to this crime. But at the
30:51
Speaker 3: same time, I think we can certainly expect the undercurrents
30:55
Speaker 3: of a jury nullification argument, and that is basically arguing
30:59
Speaker 3: tours that even if the defendant committed the crime, you
31:04
Speaker 3: shouldn't convict him for some other reason. It's not a
31:07
Speaker 3: legal defense, it's more of an emotional reaction by jurors.
31:12
Speaker 3: And this case has already generated a ground spoil of
31:16
Speaker 3: support for Luigi Mangioni, which is surprising. He allegedly gunns
31:21
Speaker 3: somebody down in cold blood on the streets of New York,
31:24
Speaker 3: and yet there are many people even showing up at
31:26
Speaker 3: these hearings so far, and certainly will be present at
31:30
Speaker 3: the trials supporting him because of the position he allegedly
31:34
Speaker 3: took with regard to healthcare in this country, and specifically
31:38
Speaker 3: with regard to health insurers who many people, according to
31:42
Speaker 3: mister Mangione's manifesto and others, believe are improperly denying people
31:48
Speaker 3: reimbursement and the ability to have access to proper health care.
31:52
Speaker 3: So I think you can expect to see the defense
31:54
Speaker 3: play that card and play that up at trial in
31:58
Speaker 3: the hopes that at least one menamber of the jury
32:01
Speaker 3: may be sympathetic to him and to his cause and
32:04
Speaker 3: to be willing to overlook some of the evidence that
32:08
Speaker 3: prosecutors have at trial, and if they can get even
32:11
Speaker 3: one juror to agree with them, lay will at least
32:13
Speaker 3: get a mistrial and prosecutors will have to try the
32:16
Speaker 3: case all over again.
32:18
Speaker 1: Bob, do you think it'll be difficult to get a
32:20
Speaker 1: jury because this is the kind of case. I mean,
32:22
Speaker 1: not only people who sympathize with him. But there are
32:26
Speaker 1: people who want to get on famous cases, and I'm
32:29
Speaker 1: wondering how hard it will be to, you know, for
32:31
Speaker 1: the state. I guess mostly for the state to sift
32:34
Speaker 1: those people out.
32:36
Speaker 2: Well.
32:36
Speaker 3: As you say, a very high profile case, you're going
32:39
Speaker 3: to find lots of jurors who will have heard about
32:41
Speaker 3: this case. But the standard for getting on the jury,
32:45
Speaker 3: when jurors are questioned by the court and questioned by
32:49
Speaker 3: both council is not whether they know anything about the case,
32:52
Speaker 3: but whether they can remain impartial. In other words, whether
32:56
Speaker 3: they can make a decision based solely on the evidence
32:59
Speaker 3: that's presented at the trial and not based upon any
33:02
Speaker 3: outside information or any preconceived notions going into the trial.
33:07
Speaker 3: A case like this, there is a lot of notoriety.
33:10
Speaker 3: There may be people who will want to be on
33:11
Speaker 3: the jury just for the opportunity to say that they
33:15
Speaker 3: sat in a jury for a case like this that
33:17
Speaker 3: has so much publicity, And both sides are going to
33:19
Speaker 3: be challenged to pictures who each side believes could be fair.
33:24
Speaker 3: Prosecutors are going to look for somebody who is by
33:28
Speaker 3: the book, who follows the rules, a law enforcement type
33:31
Speaker 3: of person, not somebody who necessarily has a particular bent
33:37
Speaker 3: towards social justice and that sort of thing, more of
33:40
Speaker 3: a law and order type person, while the defense is
33:43
Speaker 3: going to be looking for jurors who might look at
33:46
Speaker 3: the case through a different lens, somebody who will listen
33:50
Speaker 3: to the arguments that they may make, not only about
33:53
Speaker 3: the insufficiency of the government's evidence, but also perhaps be
33:57
Speaker 3: sympathetic to mister Mangioni's overall cause if you believe the
34:02
Speaker 3: information that was presented in his notebook, and if the
34:05
Speaker 3: defense argues that the information in the notebook was something
34:10
Speaker 3: that mister mange Joni believed, although he never acted on
34:13
Speaker 3: those statements, and they're going to certainly deny that he
34:16
Speaker 3: committed the crime. So they're going to be looking for
34:18
Speaker 3: two very different types of jurors. That'll be very interesting
34:21
Speaker 3: to see who ultimately ends up on this jury and
34:25
Speaker 3: which sides gets more jurors who might be predisposed to
34:29
Speaker 3: listen to their arguments.
34:30
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Bob. That's former federal prosecutor Robert Mintz,
34:34
Speaker 1: a partner at Carter in English. And that's it for
34:37
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