Latest / Serious Trouble / The Verdict

Transcript

The Verdict · Serious Trouble

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, it's Ken White.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's Josh Barrow.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this is Serious Trouble.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Ken,
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank you on behalf of our listeners for recording with us today because
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: you are you're in Iceland.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Does I understand it?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I am in Iceland.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: And Josh, it's a bizarre society.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know why?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: They're having a presidential election and no one seems either furious or terrified.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: I really can't understand it.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: No one seems to think that the whether or not they live or die hinges on the
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: outcome of the presidential election.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Very strange.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: If we go 20 years without Iceland causing a European banking crisis,
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think we can call Iceland an admirably responsible country.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: But they have their troubles just like we do.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you for taking some time.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's no such thing as an emergency podcast, but this is a podcast under emergency conditions.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: A podcast experiencing emergence.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: As it were,
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you asked either of us,
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Josh,
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: what would it take to interrupt a vacation to do an episode of serious trouble?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: The president,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: United States,
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: the former president being convicted of multiple felonies would be one of them.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thirty four counts specifically.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Donald Trump found guilty on every count.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: that was brought against him in the Manhattan DA case over falsification of business records.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And as people remember, each count is like an invoice, a check.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: There was this overall scheme to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels and disguise the
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: payments as payments for legal services to Michael Cohen.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there were a number of various different false records that were created in service of that.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this jury found Trump guilty on all 34 of those counts after about a day and a half of deliberation.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I guess my first question is, was that surprisingly fast?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Not really.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes jury takes a long time.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they don't.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And often the juries deal with things a lot more simply than we do.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: So everyone's been delving into every nook and cranny of this and thinking about
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: all the complex legal issues.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And often juries just don't process it on that level.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: They process it on a big picture,
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: holistic level,
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: and they kind of decide what the story is and then they go with it.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: So that's not every jury, but oftentimes that's the case.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think they just found it a lot less complicated in a way than we all found it,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: which kind of goes to what I was complaining about in our last episode,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Josh,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: about jury instructions.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, I said how ridiculous it is to read for an hour and a half these complex legal concepts.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And expect the jury to follow it.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe they can just because they don't take it too seriously.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Although one interesting thing is that the jury had a few requests about testimony
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: they wanted read back to them.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: There was testimony from Michael Cohen and David Pecker where it kind of looked
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: like they were trying to identify inconsistencies between the testimony from those
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: two witnesses.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they also asked to have the jury instructions read to them again.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: A sort of odd thing in New York is they don't give the jury a print copy of the jury instructions.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: If they want to revisit them, they have to come listen to them again, which strikes me as kind of stupid.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot easier to follow something complicated if you have it in writing.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: But that does seem like a sign that the jury at least thought it was important to
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: hear the instructions again and make sure they were following them.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: To me, it's absolutely crazy not to give them a copy.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think the theory is that you don't want them...
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: emphasizing one part over others or taking something out of context.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: But to me, that's very much worrying about the wrong thing.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not accurately remembering the rules that they're supposed to be following is much more of a concern.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So now that he's been convicted,
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: he's going to be sentenced in July just before the Republican National Convention.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the big questions that people have is, is he going to get jail time for this?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so what is your take on that?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, conventional wisdom would be no, and most people commenting before this have said no.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Friend of the show,
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Mitch Eppner,
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: who's very knowledgeable in New York criminal procedure,
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: said that an E felony in New York for a first-time offender,
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: no violence,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: is generally probation.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: However,
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: there are factors that could lead to some sort of custodial sentence,
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: and those factors are 34 counts,
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: uh absolutely no remorse no sense of responsibility multiple violations of the gag order
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: attitude of entitlement very much in the judge's face and a sense of,
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: the importance of the situation.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: If I were betting, I would still bet no.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: The judge will feel we've talked for a while about how judges dealing with Trump
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: feel obligated to sort of bend over backwards to be fair.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And if anything, you don't wind up being too lenient.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think that will still be the case here.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I would be surprised if he gets jail time, but it is not out of the question.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so on the way to that process,
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: the prosecutors,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: first of all,
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: will have to make a request of their own about what the sentence ought to be,
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think they're going to ask for a custodial sentence?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think they're going to ask for it for a few reasons.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: One is if you're suspecting the judge is going to give you a haircut,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: you always want to start asking for more so that the judge will feel obligated to
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: come out in the middle someplace you can live with.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Second,
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think that they have to ask for a custodial sentence to send a message about how
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: important it is,
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: how bad the conduct was,
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: how unremorseful and defiant he is,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: that sort of thing.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I do think they'll ask for it.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's also a political element here.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Alvin Bragg is an elected official in Manhattan.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Susan Collins, the moderate Republican senator from Maine, had this statement out.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of Republicans who have not generally been super defensive about Trump on
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: this stuff have been critical of this prosecution,
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: have said,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: this specific one is sort of BS.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing she said was that Alvin Bragg campaigned on the idea that he was
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: going to prosecute Donald Trump,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: which is not
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Quite true.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Bragg made some comments during the campaign that I think he probably should not
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: have made,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: claiming that he had experience suing Donald Trump and he was the right person to
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: hold him accountable.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing about Alvin Bragg is that actually,
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: there was an open criminal investigation into Donald Trump under Bragg's predecessor,
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Cy Vance,
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: who had been the Manhattan DA.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that was into the matters that had to do with valuations of properties,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: the things that Attorney General Letitia James ended up bringing a civil case about.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that that was the open investigation at the time.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And people wanted to know, well, what is a new DA going to do with that investigation?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then when Bragg came into office, in fact, he shut that investigation down.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of, you know, resistance type figures were pretty mad at Alvin Bragg at the time.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, they were furious.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't look like he was eager to do a Trump prosecution generally.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's certainly not that one.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then a couple of years later,
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: it came around and they had this different theory about falsification of business
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: records and Stormy Daniels,
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: which was not what the DA's office had previously been investigating.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: He brought charges around that.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple of theories you could have about that.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: One is,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: he looked at the facts and decided that even though the stuff about lying about the
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: values of his property,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: in certain ways,
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: it could be more serious misconduct,
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: but it was harder to prove up as a criminal case.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this,
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: even though the theory is a little bit novel,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: and we'll talk about that in a moment,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: it may have been a simpler case.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he obviously did, in fact, obtain convictions on it.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: The other way you could look at it is that,
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: like a lot of progressive prosecutors,
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Alvin Bragg has come under political pressure over the last couple of years.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the successful prosecution of Donald Trump,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: is something that certainly shores him up as a Democratic elected official today.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: in Manhattan who might be concerned that he'll face a primary as a number of other
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: progressive prosecutors have.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so applying that political lens,
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly,
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think that Alvin Bragg,
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: if he didn't even ask for prison,
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: a bunch of people would be upset about that.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's another reason for him to go in and ask for a custodial sentence.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I think he's proven that he shouldn't be listening too hard to people being mad at him.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: He's been vindicated.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: You hope that the reason it turned out this way was that he evaluated and decided
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: the other case is too hard or the evidence isn't there or it's not right.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go with one.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: We can win.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then he did.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And if so, good for him.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: There could have been political considerations as well.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: As for all the Republicans coming out of the woodwork to condemn this, it's a little contrived.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Susan Collins,
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Susan Collins,
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: I hear also said that it was outrageous to convict him of 34 counts because clearly
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: he learned his lesson after the first one.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: So good on Bragg.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think you commented, Josh, that he's going to dine out or get elected on this for a long time.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a big risk and it played out for him.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing on the way to sentencing, is there some sort of interview with the probation office?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: How does that work?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Does Trump have to meet with a probation officer?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, although in the last few years it's become common to do it by video.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is something called a pre-sentence report.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Many, many jurisdictions, federal and state, do them.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Basically,
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: the probation office,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: which is often an arm of the court,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: does an investigation into your background and your history and that sort of thing,
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: and they give a judge what amounts to sort of a little mini-biography of you,
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: which,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: not so much needed in this case,
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: but...
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, often very helpful.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Your education, your health, your family, some comments about the case.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then in many jurisdictions,
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: the probation office makes a recommendation of what they think the sentence should be,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: which is taken seriously because they're an arm of the court and they see so many cases.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of thought they had this institutional knowledge.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Judges often take that quite seriously.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so then,
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: once the prosecutor's request is in,
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: that report from the probation office is in,
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: then Judge Mershon will decide on a sentence.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so custodial sentence,
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: would it be literally a prison sentence,
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: like more than a year that he ends up in prison?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or are we maybe talking about, you know, a few months in jail at Rikers?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yes.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it could be longer than a year, which would theoretically be prison.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: It could be less.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think if anything,
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: there are probably more security concerns with local and jail than with prison,
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: because I think it would be harder to protect them in a Rikers or local type environment.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it's all very speculative.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still putting my money,
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: and I've been wrong before,
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: on him not getting a custodial sentence,
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: but Judge Bershon putting some conditions on the probation that are deliberately
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: punitive and to someone like Donald Trump somewhat humiliating.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: some sort of community service.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think he's going to be picking up trash on the side of the road like
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: prisoners you see in many states.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: But,
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think Judge Marchand is going to think that he has to be punished in some
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: significant way,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: largely because of his complete defiance.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So what would the community service be if it's not picking up trash?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: It can be all sorts of things.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: It has to be approved usually by the court.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Often there's a specific office that coordinates it.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: It can be everything from volunteering in a library or a soup kitchen type place to,
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: it's honestly to me kind of hard to see how having Donald Trump volunteering for
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: your charity would not be more of a burden than a benefit.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, maybe someone's very clever can weaponize him and use him to actually achieve something.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, you know, like, could he like raise money for a charity or something like that?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: it's sort of possible to imagine a number of things that,
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: a very famous person who is popular with a lot of people could do that would be
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: helpful to some sort of charitable organization.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're not the sorts of things that really feel very punitive.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you're maximizing the actual value generated to the community,
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: that might be different than than acting in order to punish him.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why,
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: you see when influencers do something to get in trouble,
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: you see them asking asking to be an influencer for the Red Cross or something and judges.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, you're going to actually do something.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Do the courts approve that?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: No, judges are not cool with that.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: So,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think Judge Mershon is going to be super concerned with bending over backwards to
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: avoid looking politically biased,
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: punitive,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: anything like that.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: But he's got to do something that is a deterrent,
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: a general deterrent and a specific deterrent against Trump.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so what would be the reason for his impulse to bend over backwards there?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think in some other contexts,
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: it's like the judge is bending over backwards because he wants to avoid creating
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: issues for appeal.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: The judge is taking a pass on enforcing certain things related to the gag order
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: because it would be so disruptive to the system to try to do things like jail him
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: for contempt of court.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: What would be the reason that he would feel compelled at the sentencing stage to
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: to do that?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: is it literally just,
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: he's a presidential candidate and there would be huge national ramifications to
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: jailing someone who might be elected president?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Tanya Chukin,
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: for example,
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: has seemed extremely clear about that sort of thing is not a consideration in her case.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what we've seen about Mershon.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that we can read into the fact that it was like,
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: let's just get to the end of this trial instead of having more proceedings over the
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: gag order.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that we can read into that what he might do about sentencing.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you necessarily can either.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: But it does seem that he is conscious of his role in history and that doing
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: something like putting Trump in jail could have historic consequences for the country.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And also that he really in some ways holds the legitimacy or the perceived
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: legitimacy of the system in his hand.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that I think he
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: He has a concern about the appearance of bias and the appearance of being
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: politically punitive in addition to the reality of it.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you tie yourself in knots that way.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that's plagued all of the judges, criminal and civil, who've been dealing with Trump.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then supposing Trump does get a sentence involving probation or I've seen the
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: sort of distinction between probation and conditional release where,
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: you still have conditions on you under conditional release,
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: but you don't necessarily have to check in in the same way that you would if you're
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: on probation.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, is he like is he going to need to get permission to travel from some sort of office?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: even if he's president of the United States,
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: is he going to have a parole officer or probation officer rather like supervising
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: his day to day activities?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to depend on the terms that the judge puts.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the judge will probably put terms that will be appropriate and not overly
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: burdensome to the probation office.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: So when you have someone who is going to be routinely traveling multiple times a day,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: then the judge might decide,
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: this isn't someone we're worried about fleeing the jurisdiction or something like that.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: We're not going to put restrictions there,
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: but I am going to put restrictions on,
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: other things appropriate to Trump.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then Trump is going to appeal this decision.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: My first question about the appeal is if Trump is sentenced in July and if there is
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: a custodial sentence,
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: is it likely that they will delay actually jailing him until the appeals have run?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's in Judge Bershon's discretion whether or not to let him out pending appeal.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And the questions include whether he's a danger to the community or flight risk and
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: whether he has a good argument on appeal.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: The factors,
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: that weigh against him are his sort of defiance of orders and contempt and contemptuousness.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: If Judge Mershon refuses to give him bail pending appeal,
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: then I think the appellate division can overturn him if they find that's an abuse
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: of discretion,
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: which is a difficult standard.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: And again, here, Judge Mershon is going to be saying, well,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: If I had another white collar guy,
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: first conviction,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: no violence,
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: who was a total asshole,
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: would I keep him in jail pending appeal or not?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: And he'd kind of try to look at it that way.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: My sense is Judge Marchand is making an attempt not to make Trump carry the burden
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: of having been Trump for the last six years and the impact that's had on America.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of commentators about this, a
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Some judge doesn't jail him instantly are wanting the judge to be sort of the voice
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: expressing how America feels about what Trump has done to America.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really not the judge's role.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: but I mean,
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: it would be improper to,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: consider like all of what you described there as a factor in making these sorts of decisions.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: But is it improper to consider his behavior during the trial?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that seems like something that might weigh against Trump, right?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: contemptuousness,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: repeating a violation of the gag order,
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: making it defiance,
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: making it clear he has no remorse and doesn't take the system or the process seriously.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: All those are legitimate factors.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think Trump stands a decent chance of getting this overturned on appeal?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: I would say no, I have not heard.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: So again, go to SeriousTrouble.show and upgrade.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to have you join us.