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Is Michael Cohen a Good Witness? · Serious Trouble

0:09
SPEAKER_01: Hi, it's Ken White.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: And it's Josh Barrow.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: And this is Serious Trouble.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: So,
0:13
SPEAKER_01: Ken,
0:13
SPEAKER_01: as the Trump trial in Manhattan has been proceeding this week,
0:17
SPEAKER_01: there's been this interesting phenomenon going on where Donald Trump obviously is
0:20
SPEAKER_01: subject to this gag order.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: He's been repeatedly slapped by Judge Juan Mershon for his violations of the gag order.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: And so now there's surrogates appearing at court with him,
0:32
SPEAKER_01: attending court with him,
0:33
SPEAKER_01: and also making statements to the press outside the court.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: People like Senator Rick Scott, Senator J.D.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: Vance,
0:39
SPEAKER_01: Senator Tom Tuberville have been coming to Manhattan and making the sort of
0:43
SPEAKER_01: statements that Donald Trump is not allowed to make under the gag order.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: Critical of Michael Cohen, critical of the jury pool, critical of even the judge and his family.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: And I guess the thing,
0:54
SPEAKER_01: first of all,
0:54
SPEAKER_01: to say about this is the gag order doesn't apply to these people,
0:57
SPEAKER_01: right?
0:57
SPEAKER_00: It does not.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: Although the gag order does say that Trump can't make or direct others to make the prohibited statements.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, you see the problem of it.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: You've got these people who are many of them vice presidential hopefuls who have a
1:14
SPEAKER_00: long history of sucking up to Donald Trump.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: showing up to say things that are the sort of things they might say anyway.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, nobody has to ask Tommy Tuberville to be a dick, except perhaps God.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: So when he shows up to say basically that he thinks that the jurors are illegal aliens—
1:32
SPEAKER_00: That's just him being Tommy Tuberville.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: So it would be difficult to pursue a claim here that Trump is directing this.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: You'd have to examine these people.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: You'd have to see how they made the decision.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: They'd no doubt just say it was pure outrage based on their observation of the trial.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean, the look of it is pretty bad.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: It sure seems as if
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Trump,
1:52
SPEAKER_00: who for a long time has been complaining he has not been getting sufficient support
1:56
SPEAKER_00: as he's on trial,
1:58
SPEAKER_00: has gotten these people to show up to show the flag and show support for him and
2:02
SPEAKER_00: then say what he wants him to say.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: And then he comes out and basically brags about how his polling numbers are great,
2:09
SPEAKER_00: even though he's on trial.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
2:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
2:10
SPEAKER_01: Rick Scott,
2:11
SPEAKER_01: for one,
2:11
SPEAKER_01: told The Washington Post that he was not there because of the gag order,
2:14
SPEAKER_01: that he wasn't there because Trump had asked him to be there.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: He said, no, I'm here because I'm fed up.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: And regardless of whether or not that's true,
2:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
2:21
SPEAKER_01: I understand what's difficult about this situation for the court,
2:25
SPEAKER_01: but I can't imagine how you would pursue that remedy.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're describing there you'd have to examine these people.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: The idea – and prosecutors haven't even asked for the judge to do this – but the
2:34
SPEAKER_01: idea that you would call US senators before a trial court in New York to ask them
2:39
SPEAKER_01: why they made statements they made about a matter of broad public concern.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: I mean that feels like an uncomfortable thing to do in the American political system.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: You're not supposed to call politicians to account for expressing opinions about
2:53
SPEAKER_01: matters of public concern.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, exactly.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: And it's just something that would be extremely disruptive of the trial to get involved in.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of a way for Trump to get around the gag order if he's got willing
3:08
SPEAKER_00: people wanting to suck up to him,
3:10
SPEAKER_00: which he does.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: So I think this particular method of getting his message out there is going to continue.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: However,
3:18
SPEAKER_00: the existence of these statements and the fact that the judge no doubt knows about
3:22
SPEAKER_00: them is probably going to make the judge less patient,
3:24
SPEAKER_00: less tolerant if Trump crosses the line again.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: Right.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: And so do you think this is actually disruptive to the trial on an ongoing basis?
3:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
3:33
SPEAKER_01: at this point,
3:34
SPEAKER_01: the things that have been said about the judge's daughter's political activity,
3:38
SPEAKER_01: for example,
3:38
SPEAKER_01: have already been said.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Is it actually more difficult to conduct this trial because these statements are
3:43
SPEAKER_01: being made outside the trial?
3:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean –
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Michael Cohen is already on the stand.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to scare him off of it.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, the jurors are already seated.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: I think it's unlikely to be disruptive,
3:55
SPEAKER_00: although I suppose these people that some people might vaguely recognize from the
4:00
SPEAKER_00: news sitting in the back of the courtroom might mildly distract the jurors.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: But,
4:03
SPEAKER_00: you know,
4:04
SPEAKER_00: when you're a jury,
4:04
SPEAKER_00: you're pretty much hungry for anything other than the dull march of the testimony.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: So it may actually wake them up.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: The other thing about these statements is that for me,
4:14
SPEAKER_01: again,
4:15
SPEAKER_01: I can't feel the same way about the statements about Cohen that I can manage to
4:19
SPEAKER_01: feel about statements about the judge's family or about the jury.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: It feels to me like Cohen really is fair play here.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: And most of the statements about Cohen have even been accurate.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: that he was convicted of perjury.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: Tuberville managed to get it wrong,
4:33
SPEAKER_01: managed to claim that he'd been released from house arrest in order to be here at trial.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he was released from house arrest several years ago.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: But by and large,
4:42
SPEAKER_01: the criticisms of Michael Cohen are true and valid and relevant to this trial,
4:46
SPEAKER_01: since his credibility is an important matter that we're discussing this week.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, sure.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
4:51
SPEAKER_00: you know,
4:51
SPEAKER_00: some of these people are saying that no reasonable person should possibly believe
4:55
SPEAKER_00: Michael Cohen,
4:56
SPEAKER_00: and that's an argument.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: But that's an argument that the jury gets to evaluate,
4:59
SPEAKER_00: and they evaluate it not,
5:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
5:01
SPEAKER_00: in isolation,
5:02
SPEAKER_00: but whether or not the other evidence tends to corroborate Michael Cohen.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: And,
5:08
SPEAKER_00: you know,
5:08
SPEAKER_00: that's the way the system works,
5:10
SPEAKER_00: is that you can put even scummy people on the stand,
5:12
SPEAKER_00: and the jury gets to decide whether or not even though they're scummy,
5:15
SPEAKER_00: in this instance,
5:16
SPEAKER_00: they're believable.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: Michael Cohen's testimony is still ongoing.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: What have you made of it so far?
5:32
SPEAKER_01: The prosecutors would use him basically as a vehicle to bring in evidence,
5:37
SPEAKER_01: that there would be invoices and documents and recordings that are associated with
5:42
SPEAKER_01: Michael Cohen.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: And Michael Cohen would come in and talk about them,
5:44
SPEAKER_01: but then people could look at what's on the document,
5:47
SPEAKER_01: and they would try to limit the extent they would actually have to believe the
5:50
SPEAKER_01: verbal testimony from Michael Cohen.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: Has that been the pattern that we're seeing so far?
5:53
SPEAKER_01: No.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: The prosecution has been more aggressive with his testimony than they might have been.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: They have not limited it to just, you know, here's this invoice documenting what happened.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: They have fairly broadly asked him about his communications with Trump,
6:10
SPEAKER_00: about Trump's instructions,
6:12
SPEAKER_00: really about things going to Trump's intent,
6:15
SPEAKER_00: the conversations and that sort of thing.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: So beyond the things that are directly explicitly corroborated,
6:22
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that's a choice.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: And it may be effective if they the jury find that he's corroborated enough.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: We have not yet seen a cross examination and cross examining Michael Cohen is a target rich environment.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: So we'll see how effective the Trump lawyers are on that.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: But the D.A., I think, is feeling fairly confident with how the trial is going.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: And so they are being fairly expansive in what they ask Cohen.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: And Cohen,
6:48
SPEAKER_00: to his credit,
6:50
SPEAKER_00: is behaving for the most part and not giving easy openings for shots at him later.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was interested in that.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I guess, you know, even though he was not a good lawyer, he was a lawyer.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: Does that make him likely to be better at being a witness here?
7:06
SPEAKER_00: No, no.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Josh, I'm a terrible witness.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: I am an abysmally bad witness.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: I am, yes.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: Lawyers generally are.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: But he has had it beaten out of him, I think.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: So he's actually behaving better than Stormy Daniels did on the stand in terms of
7:20
SPEAKER_00: answering the question,
7:21
SPEAKER_00: not going off on tangents.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: So...
7:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he is doing a workmanlike job.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: You know,
7:28
SPEAKER_00: the moves,
7:28
SPEAKER_00: obviously,
7:29
SPEAKER_00: you're going to watch for are the cross-examination establishing that he's a
7:32
SPEAKER_00: convicted felon and a notorious serial liar.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, he's been on this crusade against Trump and all this type of thing.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: And then what you watch for is the absolute classic response from the prosecution
7:44
SPEAKER_00: in closing saying,
7:45
SPEAKER_00: well,
7:46
SPEAKER_00: of course,
7:46
SPEAKER_00: he's a notorious liar.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: That's why Trump hired him.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: All the qualities that the defense is bashing him for are the very qualities that
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Trump kept him around for to do things exactly like what he did in this case.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: That's the classic collaborator-cooperator move.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: You say that,
8:02
SPEAKER_00: well,
8:03
SPEAKER_00: you know,
8:03
SPEAKER_00: when you're dealing with scummy people,
8:05
SPEAKER_00: they don't surround themselves with angels.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: They surround themselves with other scummy people.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: And so,
8:10
SPEAKER_00: of course,
8:11
SPEAKER_00: one of the witnesses who was privy to all the inside knowledge of this was himself
8:17
SPEAKER_00: a scummy person because they were scummy dealings.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned the prosecution being more aggressive than they might be in terms of
8:22
SPEAKER_01: what they're relying on Michael Cohen for and trying to get to Donald Trump's intent.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: One thing they discussed with him is why Trump made these payments to keep Stormy Daniels quiet.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: And he said that Trump was not concerned about Melania hearing about this.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: And in fact,
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Melania later came up with the locker room talk line about the Access Hollywood tape,
8:43
SPEAKER_01: suggesting that Melania was even in on some of these conversations to deal with
8:47
SPEAKER_01: Negative fallout from negative behavior toward women from Donald Trump.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: But this idea that you can rely on Michael Cohen to say, no, he made this payment for a campaign purpose.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: The reason that he was concerned about this getting out was that he wanted to be
9:00
SPEAKER_01: elected president and was not that he was concerned about his family hearing about it.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: That goes to a potential defense that we'll see here,
9:06
SPEAKER_01: which is that the payment was not made for a campaign purpose,
9:09
SPEAKER_01: and therefore it was not an illegal campaign expenditure.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: Relying on Michael Cohen for that,
9:14
SPEAKER_01: is this sort of a freebie,
9:16
SPEAKER_01: like when we talked earlier about Trump's books and them looking to Trump's books
9:21
SPEAKER_01: to say,
9:21
SPEAKER_01: well,
9:21
SPEAKER_01: Trump says that he keeps really close eye on his records and his books,
9:24
SPEAKER_01: and that must be true.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: And we said, you know, that's kind of a weak argument.
9:27
SPEAKER_01: But the prosecutors might as well offer it and see if the jury likes it and there's
9:31
SPEAKER_01: a zillion other arguments they can offer.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: Is this a similar thing where once you have Michael Cohen on the stand,
9:35
SPEAKER_01: you might as well have him offer his account of why Trump made the payment and if
9:40
SPEAKER_01: the jury doesn't find him credible,
9:41
SPEAKER_01: then they just sort of cast it aside and you rely on the other evidence?
9:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's true.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: And I think that they think he's up there.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: And as long as they don't sort of like hang the entire case on it and on what he says,
9:54
SPEAKER_00: then it's kind of no harm,
9:56
SPEAKER_00: no foul.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: Juries tend to process things in a kind of an on-off switch way.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: So they'll decide what happened.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: They'll decide the big picture story.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: And then they'll evaluate credibility based on that,
10:08
SPEAKER_00: which sounds backwards,
10:09
SPEAKER_00: but that seems to be the way they process things.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: So they'll sort of decide, yeah, Trump clearly was doing this for the campaign.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: And then they'll say,
10:17
SPEAKER_00: well,
10:17
SPEAKER_00: and therefore,
10:19
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
10:20
SPEAKER_00: Cohen's a scumbag,
10:21
SPEAKER_00: but on this,
10:22
SPEAKER_00: he was probably telling the truth.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of a backwards process from the way we think people ought to make decisions,
10:28
SPEAKER_00: but it's probably realistically the way people do.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Do you have thoughts then about what's the big picture narrative that the defense
10:35
SPEAKER_01: is going to be trying to get the jury to accept there if you're a juror who is
10:40
SPEAKER_01: sympathetic to President Trump here?
10:42
SPEAKER_01: What is the big picture story that you're using that you're then going to fill in the gaps with?
10:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know what particular theory they're going to go with when it's their turn.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Their opening was not perfectly clear on that.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: I think that mostly their theory is just sort of Erwin's a liar and none of this
11:02
SPEAKER_00: happened and all this was innocent without really picking a lane and sticking to a
11:06
SPEAKER_00: specific coherent theory.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of more of appeal to jury nullification or to a holdout than it really is
11:13
SPEAKER_00: to a specific coherent theory.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: Because, you know...
11:16
SPEAKER_00: they have problems with how do you reconcile this idea that he paid this money with
11:23
SPEAKER_00: the idea that it's just so his wife won't be embarrassed when it's pretty clear he
11:28
SPEAKER_00: doesn't particularly care about his wife being embarrassed.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: So I think they're kind of going for a big picture look as opposed to a really narrow specific theory.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, we will keep watching as this trial rolls on in Manhattan.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: Let's turn to South Texas.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about Henry Cuellar,
11:45
SPEAKER_01: who we talked about this congressman,
11:47
SPEAKER_01: this new character for us who was recently indicted.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: We talked about him last week.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: There's been more bad news for him since our last episode.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: Three associates of his have pleaded guilty.
11:57
SPEAKER_01: That includes two political consultants that he worked with, Colin Strother and Lencho Rendon.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: And then also this woman, Irada Akondova.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: This is an Azerbaijani person,
12:09
SPEAKER_01: I believe,
12:09
SPEAKER_01: who was an agent of the Azerbaijani government and the state-run oil company.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: They've all pleaded guilty for their roles in this bribery scheme.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: And the first two that I mentioned,
12:19
SPEAKER_01: they were sort of conduits for these payments where the money would come in and
12:22
SPEAKER_01: then they would pass it on to Cuellar's wife,
12:25
SPEAKER_01: trying to keep his fingerprints off the whole thing.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: These guilty pleas,
12:28
SPEAKER_01: I assume,
12:29
SPEAKER_01: are really bad news for him as we figure out how strong is the government's case
12:34
SPEAKER_01: that Henry Cuellar was really receiving these payments as bribes.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: This is the other shoe that you might remember we talked about would probably drop
12:42
SPEAKER_00: when we talked about this case last week.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: And said,
12:44
SPEAKER_00: what is there other than,
12:46
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:47
SPEAKER_00: this deeply suspicious structure and these shell companies and the wife's name and
12:52
SPEAKER_00: all this stuff?
12:53
SPEAKER_00: And we said, well, we have to watch for cooperators.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, here are the cooperators.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: And,
12:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:58
SPEAKER_00: two of them are basically admitting that they would take in the money,
13:00
SPEAKER_00: keep a cut,
13:01
SPEAKER_00: pass the loan to the shell companies,
13:04
SPEAKER_00: etc.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: And then you've got one who's on the Azerbaijani side of it.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: So that is very bad because,
13:10
SPEAKER_00: you know,
13:11
SPEAKER_00: once you start getting a wide array of different types of evidence,
13:15
SPEAKER_00: that's where the federal prosecutors kind of shine when they can combine all that
13:20
SPEAKER_00: stuff and show why,
13:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
13:21
SPEAKER_00: you have all these corroborations from different directions.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: So that is profoundly bad news for the Quayars.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: And so I assume sort of similarly to one of the lines of questioning to Michael
13:33
SPEAKER_01: Cohen on the stand was,
13:34
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:34
SPEAKER_01: you sent these invoices.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: Did you actually do any legal work in exchange for these invoices?
13:37
SPEAKER_01: And Cohen keeps saying no.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: Here,
13:40
SPEAKER_01: there's going to be this similar question,
13:41
SPEAKER_01: at least a defense that Cuellar is offering in the press is that,
13:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:44
SPEAKER_01: my wife is a talented woman who was doing real and genuine consulting work in
13:48
SPEAKER_01: exchange for these payments.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: So I assume one of the things they will ask people who are around these financial
13:53
SPEAKER_01: arrangements was,
13:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:54
SPEAKER_01: gee,
13:54
SPEAKER_01: did did Imelda Cuellar ever,
13:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:56
SPEAKER_01: actually provide any,
13:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:57
SPEAKER_01: useful guidance on correspondent banking?
14:00
SPEAKER_01: that was really helpful to this Mexican bank.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and these guys are going to say, nah, that lady doesn't consult shit.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: And basically describe how it happened and the way it happened is in an informal,
14:13
SPEAKER_00: skeevy way that's going to corroborate that it was not legitimate for services.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: Once again, the government's going to have to deal with people who are sort of admitted criminals.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: But the way this is different than Michael Cohen and stronger is that if they're criminals,
14:30
SPEAKER_00: then the Coyars are breaking the law.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: If they're not criminals, then they're not.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: But they've pled guilty to being criminals.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: And so you would kind of say, why would you admit to doing a crime just to take down a Texas criminal?
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Congressman, it's not very credible.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: So they kind of come in with having admitted guilt with an extra layer of credibility.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: Right.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: And also,
14:54
SPEAKER_01: I can't conceive of a way to argue in this scheme that Cuellar was involved
14:59
SPEAKER_01: innocently and other people around him came up with a corrupt scheme that he was
15:03
SPEAKER_01: that he was unaware of to enrich himself,
15:04
SPEAKER_01: which is an argument that,
15:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:06
SPEAKER_01: we're potentially going to see in the Robert Menendez case,
15:09
SPEAKER_01: which is just about to start trial or actually they'd start a jury selection on Monday.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: where one possible defense to Robert Menendez is basically going to be,
15:18
SPEAKER_01: my wife came up with all of this and I didn't realize what she was up to.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: The description of Cuellar's activities and the official acts that he undertook,
15:26
SPEAKER_01: it's very hard to see how he could possibly argue that he didn't know what these
15:29
SPEAKER_01: people around him were up to.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: Probably a tough argument for Menendez also.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
15:35
SPEAKER_00: he wouldn't be the first guy to try to throw his wife under the bus and say,
15:37
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:38
SPEAKER_00: Imelda kept urging me to take these particular policy provisions on the merits.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, I didn't know she was getting in all this money.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: I thought she was really just really good at the household budget.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, it's a stretch.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: There was also an interesting piece in The New York Times,
15:56
SPEAKER_01: by the way,
15:57
SPEAKER_01: about Henry Cuellar's personal finances.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: He came from humble beginnings.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: He spent most of his career as a lawmaker, first in Texas and then nationally.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: He's also had some real estate investments on the side and has had some political
16:10
SPEAKER_01: involvement with people he's also invested.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: But they're describing that sort of around the time that he starts receiving these payments,
16:17
SPEAKER_01: you look at his financial disclosure forms,
16:19
SPEAKER_01: and it looks like he's getting somewhat overextended,
16:21
SPEAKER_01: taking out more debt,
16:23
SPEAKER_01: moving into a fancier subdivision,
16:25
SPEAKER_01: reporting a lower net worth.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: And so, I mean, at some point, I guess we're bouncing the rubble here.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: But this seems like,
16:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:32
SPEAKER_01: in terms of why would the congressman start taking these bribes,
16:36
SPEAKER_01: this seems like a piece of evidence you could offer that he had these expenses that
16:40
SPEAKER_01: he couldn't keep up with.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: And this was a way to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra money.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Financial need is a classic motive that the government tries to prove all the time.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, because it's jurors get it.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: They understand it.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about Robert Menendez.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: So jury selection started on Monday.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: They did not seat any jurors yet on Monday.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: This case is supposed to take six or seven weeks.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: One detail that I found interesting here was that Menendez had a jury consultant in
17:14
SPEAKER_01: the courtroom with him as they were selecting a jury and that there are records
17:17
SPEAKER_01: showing that his campaign has paid $150,000.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: firm of this jury consultant.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: And so I guess one good thing about being a U.S.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: senator is that you have a large campaign fund you can tap for trial expenses.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: Is it worth spending $150,000 on a jury consultant?
17:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it makes you feel better about yourself.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: So this is a controversial area.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Some people swear by jury consultants.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: They think they're real.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm less convinced by it.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: I think it's kind of
17:46
SPEAKER_00: I question the science of it.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: I question their kind of attempts to make rigorous and numerical things that are
17:56
SPEAKER_00: very inherently touchy-feely and artistic.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: So I think they get paid a huge amount of money.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: I would not pay that money.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: I question whether it's money well spent.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: But if you've got all this money sitting around the campaign fund and you're on
18:10
SPEAKER_00: trial for your life,
18:11
SPEAKER_00: basically,
18:12
SPEAKER_00: your political life,
18:13
SPEAKER_00: You might say, why the hell not?
18:15
SPEAKER_00: Let's give it a shot.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: What could it hurt?
18:17
SPEAKER_01: But so how do you even become a jury consultant?
18:21
SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you become – I mean, wasn't – Dr. Phil was sort of in this business at one point?
18:25
SPEAKER_01: Well, you order business cards, Josh.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: Don't you know how to order business cards?
18:30
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, there's a gloss of science over it.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: And some people claim they've had this elaborate education and training.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Right.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: But in my view, it is – I'm going to get in trouble with jury consultants.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like dowsing.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: I know people have done it all the time, but I question how scientific it is.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: I think there are a lot of sort of –
18:56
SPEAKER_00: general feelings and truisms about how people work.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: And you can try to make it appear that you have that in some sort of rigorous and
19:04
SPEAKER_00: scientific type of rubric.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: You can be very familiar with all the studies and, you know, everything everyone's written about it.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: But ultimately,
19:13
SPEAKER_00: you're talking about sort of a lot of kind of folk wisdom stuff about juries and
19:18
SPEAKER_00: about people and how they decide and relying on broad generalizations.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
19:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
19:24
SPEAKER_01: we got one email from a listener last time we talked about this who said that they
19:27
SPEAKER_01: were involved in a very expensive trial and there was a jury consultant.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: The jury consultant's advice at the end was basically like,
19:32
SPEAKER_01: you want black jurors and you don't want Asian jurors.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe it was the other way around.
19:35
SPEAKER_01: I forget whether it was the plaintiff or the defendant,
19:37
SPEAKER_01: which is illegal,
19:38
SPEAKER_01: first of all,
19:39
SPEAKER_01: to select the jurors based on their race.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Yes, but the truth is, I mean—
19:46
SPEAKER_00: The rules of jury selection are often a combination of racism,
19:51
SPEAKER_00: classism,
19:52
SPEAKER_00: religious bigotry,
19:54
SPEAKER_00: and sort of vapid stereotypes.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: Many years ago,
19:57
SPEAKER_00: I had a trial partner incensed with me that I didn't strike a ballerina because he said,
20:03
SPEAKER_00: obviously,
20:03
SPEAKER_00: you don't want a ballerina on your jury.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, why?
20:06
SPEAKER_00: Come on, it's a ballerina.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: It's self-evident.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't get it.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: But I guess, you know, to that person, it's obvious that a ballerina will never convict somebody.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I would have thought the other way.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: Like a ballerina has to have tremendous precision and probably is, you know, a very stern person.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Discipline, right?
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: I thought it's someone who works hard.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: And,
20:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
20:27
SPEAKER_00: that's the profile that the prosecution generally wants,
20:30
SPEAKER_00: someone who's disciplined and works hard.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: But I don't know.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: This just goes to show that I think a lot of it is bullshit.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: So—
20:38
SPEAKER_01: The funny thing here is that,
20:39
SPEAKER_01: like,
20:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
20:40
SPEAKER_01: you don't think that there's no point in doing anything active in voir dire,
20:44
SPEAKER_01: right?
20:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you use your peremptory strikes.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: You do.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: You have some theory of your own of, you know, which jurors you want and which jurors you don't.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: Is it your view just that,
20:52
SPEAKER_01: like,
20:53
SPEAKER_01: any person is equally good at exercising that kind of judgment,
20:56
SPEAKER_01: but the judgment has some value?
20:59
SPEAKER_00: So there are a few things.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: First, you use voir dire to the extent the judge lets you ask questions to build a rapport with the jury.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: Right.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: to introduce yourself to the jury,
21:08
SPEAKER_00: to introduce some themes to the extent you can get away with it to the jury and to
21:12
SPEAKER_00: see how they react to questions about particular issues.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: A lot of the times the things of value you get are just sort of asides or offhand
21:21
SPEAKER_00: comments or things that the jury doesn't really intend to convey.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: Like I remember doing a civil rights case a long time ago and one of the jurors said,
21:32
SPEAKER_00: I don't have any problem with
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Blacks or whatever you're supposed to call them now.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that's kind of a tell.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Right.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: You decide not to take that person.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: So even if the voir dire only gives you firm feelings about 20 percent or 30
21:50
SPEAKER_00: percent of those prospective jurors,
21:52
SPEAKER_00: that's better than not having firm feelings about any of them.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: So this, as I said, this trial is supposed to take six to seven weeks.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: Later this week, we should start getting opening statements in the beginning of this trial.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: And so as we actually get into the meat of it,
22:04
SPEAKER_01: we will have more coverage about what will befall Bob Menendez.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: Steve Bannon, his appeal of his conviction for contempt of Congress when he
22:15
SPEAKER_01: was subpoenaed before Congress,
22:16
SPEAKER_01: and he just didn't show up and said,
22:18
SPEAKER_01: oh,
22:18
SPEAKER_01: I thought executive privilege,
22:19
SPEAKER_01: blah,
22:19
SPEAKER_01: blah,
22:19
SPEAKER_01: blah.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: He was tried and convicted, and now the D.C.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: Circuit Court of Appeals has said that that conviction is valid.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: So when does he go to prison?
22:26
SPEAKER_00: Well,
22:27
SPEAKER_00: the Department of Justice has just filed something asking the judge to order him to prison,
22:32
SPEAKER_00: to surrender on a date certain on his four-month sentence.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: And remember, generally, you want –
22:40
SPEAKER_00: the Bureau of Prisons to have designated you in an appropriate facility before you do that.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: Because if you just show up kind of,
22:47
SPEAKER_00: oh,
22:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to serve a sentence,
22:48
SPEAKER_00: you're going to wind up in a very unpleasant holding facility,
22:51
SPEAKER_00: like something like,
22:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
22:52
SPEAKER_00: Metropolitan Detention Center.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: But if they have time to designate you,
22:57
SPEAKER_00: they'll probably do it to something appropriate to your security level,
23:00
SPEAKER_00: a club fed type thing.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Bannon would probably normally go to a lower security thing,
23:04
SPEAKER_00: unless they just showed up and they saw how he was dressed and they might decide,
23:09
SPEAKER_00: you know...
23:10
SPEAKER_00: Some sort of rehabilitation facility or something.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Anyway,
23:14
SPEAKER_00: Bannon had appealed saying,
23:16
SPEAKER_00: first of all,
23:17
SPEAKER_00: that he wasn't willful because,
23:19
SPEAKER_00: you know,
23:19
SPEAKER_00: he had an attorney tell him he could assert executive privilege and he sincerely
23:23
SPEAKER_00: thought it.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: And what the Court of Appeals said is, no, that's not what willfulness means in this context.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: It has to mean that you, you know, deliberately and intentionally did.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: didn't comply.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: And not that you had some sort of internal story in your head about why you were allowed to do that.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: It's not willfulness in the sense of knowing that you're doing something illegal.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: It's willfulness in the sense of intentionally not responding to a subpoena.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: And there's no question that's what Bannon did.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: We've talked a lot about the level of intent that the government has to show for a
23:54
SPEAKER_01: crime being related to how likely you are to be wearing a suit when you commit the crime.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: And there are certain things like campaign finance violations where the bar is
24:02
SPEAKER_01: often extremely high and you basically have to know what you were doing was illegal.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: And so what you're describing here is that that's not the case here.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: You just have to know that you're doing the thing you're doing.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to know that it's illegal.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that's called scienter or mental state.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: And for some crimes, you have to know that you're breaking the law or intend to break the law.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: But for most crimes, you don't.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: And here what they're saying is you have to know that you've been ordered to appear
24:26
SPEAKER_00: and deliberately not appear or respond.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: But you don't have to know that your headcanon for doing that is incorrect.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: They also rejected some of Bannon's other arguments.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: He had tried to subpoena a bunch of members of Congress,
24:43
SPEAKER_00: I think in part to suggest that it's a political witch hunt and in part to suggest
24:47
SPEAKER_00: they didn't think he necessarily had to show up on that date.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Court said the judge was fine to reject that because it's not relevant.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: The court agreed that his invocation of executive privilege was not a reason not to
24:59
SPEAKER_00: show up and not to respond to the document request.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Again, all this might have gone very differently in
25:04
SPEAKER_00: had Steve Bannon shown up and say,
25:06
SPEAKER_00: I assert executive privilege,
25:08
SPEAKER_00: and responded to the document request with an objection saying,
25:12
SPEAKER_00: I assert executive privilege.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: But he didn't.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: He just blew it off completely.
25:16
SPEAKER_01: I think Steve Bannon's hope here has been to run out the clock.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: He's already been pardoned once by Donald Trump for the matter related to the We
25:24
SPEAKER_01: Build the Wall scam where they collected money from gullible Trump fans who saw ads
25:30
SPEAKER_01: on television and then did not actually spend the money building a wall on the
25:33
SPEAKER_01: Mexican border.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: I think he's presumably been hoping that Trump will be elected president and will again pardon him.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: But it seems likely that he'll actually end up going to prison and serving the sentence before January.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not a long sentence.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: It's four months.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: He'll probably do it in a low impact type of location.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: But it does seem as if he's going to have to do it.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: But then Trump may pardon him to wipe it off his record if Trump is elected.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: Since we're talking about prison assignments, can I ask you about Sam Bankman Freed?
26:02
SPEAKER_01: There was this jailhouse interview that William Cohan of Puck gave.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: conducted with Sam Bankman Freed.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, mostly it's SBF saying the same stuff about, you know, it was really a liquidity crisis.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: And if they had let me stay in charge of FTX, it would be worth $80 billion right now, blah, blah, blah.
26:17
SPEAKER_01: The most interesting thing in here was this discussion of he's currently at the MDC
26:21
SPEAKER_01: in Brooklyn,
26:22
SPEAKER_01: where you're discussing as a particularly bad place to be.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: And he's likely to get a more permanent assignment somewhere in California close to his family.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: And one concern that he and people around him have is that the way they might
26:34
SPEAKER_01: transfer him to California is by putting him on a bus and keeping him on this bus
26:38
SPEAKER_01: for a really long time,
26:40
SPEAKER_01: like weeks or even months.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: as it makes stops at various prison facilities around the country,
26:45
SPEAKER_01: picking and dropping people off before it finally gets to California with him.
26:49
SPEAKER_01: Is that really how it works if you're being transferred from a federal facility in
26:53
SPEAKER_01: Brooklyn to one on the West Coast?
26:54
SPEAKER_00: It can be.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you might get relatively lucky and be on some variation of Con Air where you're flown around.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: with other inmates.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: Occasionally,
27:05
SPEAKER_00: you're even sort of specially moved by a couple of marshals,
27:08
SPEAKER_00: like on a commercial flight or something,
27:10
SPEAKER_00: although they haven't done that as much since 9-11.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
27:13
SPEAKER_00: the vast majority of them are just on decrepit federal buses,
27:17
SPEAKER_00: kind of trundling across the grand scape of America,
27:22
SPEAKER_00: stopping at various federal prisons and adding and subtracting people.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: And it's not luxury travel.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: But really months to get across the country?
27:32
SPEAKER_00: It can be.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: And when your client is being transported in this method, they're kind of in this black hole.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: It's not that you can check where they are on a website or something like that like
27:42
SPEAKER_00: you can once they're at a facility.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: So it can be very frustrating for families and for attorneys when the client sort
27:49
SPEAKER_00: of drops off the earth for a while while they're being transported.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: I think that the whole thing about taking months is the exception rather than the rule.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: but it can definitely take a significant amount of time.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: Finally this week, let's talk about Rudy Giuliani.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: He's being sued again by Ruby Freeman and Wondrea Moss for defaming them.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: Remember,
28:12
SPEAKER_01: these are the two election workers in Georgia who he claimed had been part of a
28:15
SPEAKER_01: conspiracy to steal the election in Georgia for Joe Biden.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: They sued him sort of in Steve Bannon style.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: He didn't really cooperate with the legal proceeding against him,
28:24
SPEAKER_01: and he ended up losing a default judgment.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: He owes a ton of money.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: He's filed bankruptcy as a result of that.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: They're actually on the – they're represented on the creditors committee trying to
28:33
SPEAKER_01: figure out what to do with whatever assets Rudy Giuliani has.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: And he has continued to run his mouth and make the same claims again about them
28:41
SPEAKER_01: stealing the election in Georgia.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: And so now they're suing and they want the court to order him to stop lying.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: right this is not a suit for damages this is a suit for injunctive relief and we
28:50
SPEAKER_00: actually talked about how this might eventually happen months ago when when rudy
28:55
SPEAKER_00: got hit with that uh judgment they are asking the judge to order him to stop making
29:00
SPEAKER_00: this particular set of statements that he has stipulated were false because
29:04
SPEAKER_00: remember he he got in that situation he didn't answer discovery uh the judge was
29:09
SPEAKER_00: going to enter some sort of default against him and he kind of
29:12
SPEAKER_00: He settled that part of the case by stipulating to a certain array of things so
29:16
SPEAKER_00: that the judge wouldn't put more damaging sanctions for not answering discovery.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: And some of the things he admitted was that these statements were false.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: He's been going around saying,
29:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
29:26
SPEAKER_00: these women,
29:26
SPEAKER_00: they were counting the same votes two,
29:28
SPEAKER_00: three,
29:29
SPEAKER_00: four times.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: It's all right there in the video, blah, blah, blah.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: The same thing he's admitted is false.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: And so normally, Josh, you can't get an injunction against speech ahead of time.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: The rule is you're supposed to get damages after bad speeches happen.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: So that's called the doctrine of prior restraint.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: So it's very, very rare exceptions.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: You can't go in and get an injunction against somebody to stop saying something.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: One of the exceptions is if there's been a final judgment made.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: that something is defamatory,
30:04
SPEAKER_00: you might then be able to get an injunction against the person repeating that
30:08
SPEAKER_00: specific thing.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, this rule usually applies when you've had a jury trial or a jury finding.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sure how extensive the law is about what if it's a default judgment or
30:19
SPEAKER_00: what if it's by stipulation or something like that.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: I think because he stipulated this stuff was false and the judgment was premised on that,
30:25
SPEAKER_00: that's probably enough to trigger the exception.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: But basically, this is just Rudy running his mouth and getting into trouble again.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: He's unable to stop saying the things he's admitted are false.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: And I think they'll prevail on this fairly easily,
30:39
SPEAKER_00: really by he'll be prevented from denying it based on the prior case.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: And then the question is whether he'll keep doing it after there's an injunction,
30:47
SPEAKER_00: which could put him in danger of contempt of court.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: So that's because one question is, why does Rudy behave like this?
30:53
SPEAKER_01: And I realize that in large part, this is a question for the psychologists.
30:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, he's crazy.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: He's a gerontologist.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: But there's another factor, which is that he's already bankrupt.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: He's already financially ruined by what's happened here.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: And so I guess he doesn't have a lot of reason to be afraid of more monetary
31:12
SPEAKER_01: damages being awarded against him.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: But as you know, in theory, he could be jailed.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: He could be.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: If this injunction is issued and then he violates it.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think that assuming this goes back to the same judge,
31:23
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a strong possibility he'd get jailed if he kept doing it because
31:27
SPEAKER_00: this judge is unimpressed with him and his compliance,
31:30
SPEAKER_00: sees him as sort of a complete scofflock,
31:33
SPEAKER_00: contemptuous of the process,
31:34
SPEAKER_00: believing he's above the law.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly the sort of person that judges enjoy putting in their place.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: And frankly, Rudy has, I mean, that's the theme of the complaint, by the way,
31:45
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it opens enough is enough.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: Contrary to his delusions of grandeur,
31:50
SPEAKER_00: the law does apply to Mr.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: Giuliani and it's beyond time to make him follow it.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: So that's very much the theme there that he he keeps lying about something he admits is a lie.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: It's worth noting,
32:00
SPEAKER_01: not only does he not seem chastened by that risk,
32:03
SPEAKER_01: he has spent the last few days complaining about getting fired from his gig as a
32:07
SPEAKER_01: weekend radio host on W.A.B.C.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: radio here in New York.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: And he was fired for continuing to make false claims about the 2020 election.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: He was fired by John Katsimatidis,
32:17
SPEAKER_01: the supermarket mogul who owns the radio station,
32:20
SPEAKER_01: who's also a fixture in Republican politics in New York.
32:23
SPEAKER_01: And Katsimatidis basically said to the New York Post,
32:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:25
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be involved in this legal dispute.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: And we saw this with obviously with Fox News.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: Right.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: And with other platforms, they have to worry about their own legal liability.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: if they broadcast what are known to be false claims.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: And again, you have this final judgment about these claims being false here.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: So it seems to me like,
32:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:42
SPEAKER_01: maybe WABC was actually even a little bit late in moving against Rudy Giuliani.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, because that's another deep pocket for these plaintiffs to go after if they feel like it.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: And it's not like this is just something that Rudy Giuliani blurted out once and
32:55
SPEAKER_00: there's no way you could have anticipated it.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: This is a situation where you have a specific statement specifically adjudicated to
33:01
SPEAKER_00: be false that they know he's continuing to say on their network.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure the lawyers were taking people by the lapels and shaking them to get
33:11
SPEAKER_00: them to do something about that.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: It is a remarkable indication,
33:13
SPEAKER_01: though,
33:14
SPEAKER_01: about Rudy Giuliani's psychological posture right now,
33:16
SPEAKER_01: though,
33:16
SPEAKER_01: that his concern is not just,
33:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:17
SPEAKER_01: I want to stay out of jail or I want to,
33:19
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:19
SPEAKER_01: avoid having more judgments against me.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: It's I should have my radio show, damn it.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: Well, Rudy, there's always podcasts.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: There's always podcasts.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: Ken, I think that's a good place for us to leave it this week.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, as always, for speaking with me.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Josh.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: Serious Trouble is created and produced by Very Serious Media.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: That's me and Sarah Faye.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: Jennifer Swadek mixed and produced this episode.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jennifer.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: Our theme music is by Joshua Mosier.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening, and we'll be back with more soon.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: See you next time.