OA275: Yes, Bill Barr Perjured Himself

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

[0:00:02] We find the defendants incredibly guilty. [0:00:18] I find this ultimate chicken sandwich on brioche bun to be guilty of being delicious. [0:00:30] What section of the Constitution has been breached? There is no one section. It's just the vibe of the thing. [0:00:45] Objection, Your Honor. What? He's leading the witness. To say. Break. We're both lawyers. [0:00:54] Welcome to Opening Arguments, the podcast that pairs an inquisitive interviewer with a real-life lawyer. This podcast is sponsored by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Torrez, LLC for entertainment purposes, is not intended as legal advice, and does not form an attorney-client relationship. Don't take legal advice from a podcast.

0:01:17 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 275. What a good number. You know what? This is the last episode. That's a good...

[0:01:27] you know what? Maybe I should discuss this with Andrew before making these decisions, but you know what, the heck, I feel like you'll agree. Stay, stay tuned for Solo Arguments, the new podcast from Andrew Torrez. Uh, yeah, right, everybody's fantasies. Uh, okay, how's it going, Andrew? It is going fantastic how are you um permanently enraged is that uh is that so you're not I'm definitely that because uh I don't know if you saw that's a fair thing to be donald trump's hype man was uh testified before Congress. I don't know if you saw It was interesting. I don't know why they got to do that, but I guess you get it, so you get like one free

[0:02:06] hype man testimony as president. Is that how it works? It, it, uh, you know, we have talked about this a lot, we're going to talk about this a lot in this episode. I think I hashtagged it "Victory Lap"

0:02:18 Andrew: On, on Twitter. Um, I, I have never seen a public official, uh, embarrass himself as thoroughly as as William Barr did did yesterday. It was just, uh, a performance that, again, you know, you've got to step outside the, the shirts and skins, I, I like, I like the way you put it on your SIO episode, and

[0:02:43] uh, and briefly on here, which was a screaming fit about, you know, Obama's attorney general, yeah, meeting with Bill Clinton on the tarmac of, of, uh, uh, you know, outside of Air Force One for 18 seconds versus Bill Barr, who has obliterated the light, right? Like, you, you have to explain to people now, to, to Trump supporters, uh, that

[0:03:08] the Attorney General is not the president's lawyer. Um, here's somebody, literally, the attorney, Attorney General, like, it's in the, yeah, it's in the name, he's not the attorney, president attorney for the president, yeah.

0:03:22 Andrew: No, it, that, that's absolutely right, and, uh, it's an embarrassment, and, uh, you know, you, you and I differ on this, uh, I think, but, um, I, it, I think Bill Barr's career is done. Um, I think there's going to be consequences, I think he's going to resign, I

[0:03:40] think he's going to be forced. Stat, I think it's, I, I think that's, that's gonna build,, and good luck, so have fun in

0:03:46 Thomas: That reality. Andrew's in some other dream world, that's fun, so that must be nice, but over here on planet Earth where there's no adults left, uh, I'm, I'm thinking, I mean, the only way I think he would possibly be done is if they decide, like, his mission is over, like, he's like, you've done your duty, you may now, uh, retire, you know, like he's a undercover agent, and then he just gets to explode the process of justice and then leave, like, just walk away, I don't know, like a suicide bomber almost, but one that gets away with it, that kind of thing.

[0:04:21] What's the opposite of that, a not suicide, a bomber, I think it's just, I think it's just bomber, I don't know why, I guess The suicide part is his career's over, but like, he did the job, he did what he needed to do. So that's that's the only way I see him leaving. But I don't think there's enough adults left, you know, because the Republicans had a hearing about why Hillary was not investigated more. And also, who's going to investigate the investigators and investigate the investigators of the investigators? That's what their hearing was. So, all right, but we'll get all to that and more. I am excited that, you know, it sounds like you definitely think Barr embarrassed himself. And I can't wait to hear an actual sober opinion based on what the position Attorney Attorney General used to be, you know, and talk about it from that angle. And I'm excited for that historical trip down memory lane. But we'll see what the real world holds for us. First, we need to make a couple announcements. We are going to do the patron Q&A. It is that time again.

[0:05:23] it's going to be May, as the memes all say, it is May. And that'll be this Sunday, that's the 5th at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Pacific time. So that's when we'll do the live Q&A, as

[0:05:38] a reminder, because those are the only two time zones that matter if you live in flyover country. And this is a liberal elitist snob show, you can figure out when it, I mean, we, it's really at any time, if you can incorporate all time zones, so it's every single time at that we can

0:05:57 Andrew: Tell, I have not yet seen uh Avengers: Endgame, but we can tell you've seen a movie involving a time, a time traveling space wizard recently, so

0:06:08 Thomas: So that just a reminder, that's on YouTube, everybody can come watch, you can come be in the chat and participate, but only our patrons get to uh ask the questions on patreon.com/law, that is that thread, I think, is already up right because Andrew's incredibly good at posting that, and uh or if not, it'll be up as

[0:06:27] we speak. Uh, that thread is, oh, it's up, it's up, it's up, because Andrew never forgets, and, uh, You can ask questions there and also make sure to upvote the questions that you like or heart them, I guess, is the Patreon lingo for that. Uh, and that way it tells us like which questions uh you guys would most prefer to be answered because inevitably we do not have enough time to answer them all or even half of them because Andrew

[0:06:52] cannot do lightning rounds. Just like I promised to do at least one lightning round on the next Q&A, just like Zoolander can't turn left without turning all The way to the right. Like, it's that for lightning rounds for Andrew, he's like, "Yeah, I can do a lightning round," and then he talks for an hour, and

[0:07:10] you're like, "That, you called it a lightning round, but it wasn't fast." That That Zoolander comparison is dead on. Yeah, and, and I have three of those suits in my closet. There you go. All right, well, So that's the announcement. We are going to try to, we're actually going to put off Law'd Awful Movies for a little bit because the problem is we've got too much stuff at the end of the month, and one of us, I'm not going to tell you who, one of us is actually a real lawyer who has to do like business-y stuff at the end and the beginnings of the month. And it's been adding up too much for that person. Again, it could be me, it could be anyone on this show. And I think having the Law'd Awful Movies be more in

[0:07:47] the middle of the month will be better for for schedule availability.

0:07:52 Thomas: And it'll also be nice to break it up. So we'll have the Q&A, we'll leave it where it is, kind of right around the end of the month or the very beginning of the next month. And then the Law'd Awful Movies will be more toward the middle and we'll make sure that that doesn't leak toward

[0:08:04] the end of the month, it'll actually catch up and lap the Q&A. No, we'll make sure to stay consistent, so look for a Law'd Awful Movies in, you know, a week or two, uh, at most. Our Law'd Awful Movies is like me

0:08:16 Andrew: In gym class, right, like running the mile, like you're on lap number three, and yeah, uh

[0:08:22] yeah, uh, all right, well, let's get to it. I was not a fast kid, I was little, I was not, I was smaller than I am now, but, uh, but still not, still not, still not speedy. That's okay, we'll, we'll

0:08:35 Thomas: Get. We'll get to it when we get to it. And we've got to start this episode. People are dying to know all the things you think about the Barr testimony. But first, we've got some quick Andrews was rightses and wrongses. So, oh, we've got my favorite Andrew was wrong ever, which if you follow us on Twitter, at OpenArgs, at OpenArgs, follow us on Twitter, you would have seen this. Someone, an amazing

[0:09:02] listener, well, do you have this ready to go? Do you have it queued up? Yeah, I do, go ahead. It is listener Chris

0:09:08 Andrew: Least Famous Rock, which, by the way, that's an A-plus Twitter name too, uh, at Moogle

[0:09:14] Moogle, at Moogle Moogle, at Moogle Moogle, Chris did a great Andrew was wrong, where

0:09:21 Thomas: Because Andrew said that the, you like, uh, the the Supreme Court, the fulcrum gets moved to the right, you know, once uh once Scalia died and was replaced and all that, or no, I guess it would be when Kennedy, sorry, when Kennedy retired, I think you were talking about, uh, and that moved the fulcrum to the right, and then our physics friend Chris drew us a very helpful diagram, official physics

[0:09:46] diagram, uh, go ahead and do you want to describe it? Yeah, so here's Chris's point, which is a

0:09:52 Andrew: Duh, for anybody who's taken physics in the past, however slightly longer than And it's been for me to have taken physics last. The center of gravity of the court has shifted to the right. And when that happens, the fulcrum switches

[0:10:08] to the left, which is like, that's how fulcrums work, right? Well, or the fulcrum stays there, and

0:10:14 Thomas: There's just more weight on the right or left, but it depends on how you're talking about it. But if you move the fulcrum to the right, it actually makes the whole thing shift left, I think is the point. So I guess someone moved the fulcrum to the left. But it's sort of like saying, oh, that's uh, below par, you know, that that was subpar. It's like, wait, that's good. It's sort of like that, where if you say, now it has the wrong meaning. If I, if you were to say, oh, he moved the fulcrum left, I think everyone would think the wrong thing. So I'm gonna kind of defend you on this. However, the picture is hilarious, and I love it. It's

[0:10:45] The best Andrew was wrong ever. He drew it, he drew it, before and after on the Supreme, and look. Like, Like, you have

0:10:51 Andrew: To go, right? So I will include the link in the show notes. You should follow us on Twitter. You should follow Moogle Moogle, and you should definitely check out the graphic. But I was wrong. I should have said center of gravity. I said fulcrum.

[0:11:04] Those are not synonyms. There you go. We want to be physically accurate on this. Absolutely. All right, and then I guess we have another, I don't know if you were right or wrong. You don't have it listed here, so you'll just have to tell us. Ms. Vito, please answer the question. Does the defense's case hold water? No. Andrew is wrong. Are you sure? I'm positive. Oh, this is another thing I was wrong about, so that's probably why I don't have it listed. It um, Episode 273, which I really, really enjoyed. We got some good, good feedback on the uh, storytelling

[0:11:44] of the uh, the decline and uh, and and assisted murder of Sears. Yeah, but in that episode I was talking about how uh, after the Kmart merger, the new team came in and, under Eddie's direction, sold off all of Sears' assets.

0:12:04 Andrew: Assets, and in my defense, the graph in the complaint was mislabeled along the y-axis, right? So the units were wrong, and what I said was, uh, combining both the narrative and the graph, that Sears went from $11 billion in assets at the time of the takeover to $400,000 today. And um, at Stupid Goalie Twitter, our buddy Chris, uh, wrote to say it can't be $400,000, right? Like, it's

[0:12:35] It's, it's Sears, they have to have more than 400 000 in assets. That's like, you know, uh uh, an above average income in New York City, right? Yeah. Um, and uh, and and look, That didn't trip my radar, because it's entirely possible that Sears, you know, all of the things that you, oh, because

[0:12:53] It was like so desperate. Yeah, right. That, that, you know, that that everything, like, on the shelves is depreciated, right? You know, that that the stores are now all leased. So, so that didn't strike me as impossible, uh, but in fact, the axes were mislabeled. They were labeled in millions, uh, but they should have been labeled in billions, in

[0:13:12] Billions. In $400,000 billion? No, no, no, no. It, it, the the little ticks were labeled in millions, and they should have been labeled in the billions. Okay, and so it looked like it was, you know, four tenths of the way up to one million, and it's four tenths of the way up to one billion. Um, so Sears has $400 million in assets. Look, that is

[0:13:37] still right, a sell-off of 97 percent of their assets in 10 years.

0:13:43 Andrew: Right, it is, the the point is still made, uh, but um, but no, they did not go from From $11 billion to $400,000.

[0:13:53] I wonder who splits hairs better, William Barr when defending Trump, or Andrew when talking about

0:14:00 Thomas: An Andrew? No, I'm just kidding. That was slander. I shouldn't have. I just thought it was funny, like the comparison of you

[0:14:06] defending your Andrew was rights and wrongs. Like, no, no, I'm grappling with the word asset. I had food poisoning over the weekend. So, like, I've been violently sick to my stomach, and I don't know what hurt more, the way I felt this weekend, or the punch to the gut that I just felt. I was just kidding, it was just a joke. All you know what it was, is it was a desire for a puzzle and a thunderstorm sketch is what it was. I want them to write a sketch where, like, you're defending, you're splitting hairs and defending your thing. All right, you got one more, I think, and this was, uh, this was Andrew was right.

[0:14:43] Yeah, so this, this goes back to episode 272. We responded to a listener

0:14:49 Andrew: Question, a listener who wanted to defend Glenn Greenwald and who also pointed us in the direction of a Byron York article in The Washington Examiner

[0:15:02] that said, no, that that bit about Trump trying to soften up the language in the GOP platform related to Russia and Ukraine, that that's all been debunked. Debunked, and only Glenn Greenwald had the courage to point that out. Um, so we thoroughly debunked that debunking in 272. Um, I will point out, boy, this is not a good week to be Glenn Greenwald, who said, you know, well, I can't believe MSNBC has gotten away with

[0:15:33] you know, suggesting that Bill Barr lied about the contents of the Muller report. Well, if I know Glenn Greenwald, I'm sure he's come, come out with a heartfelt apology statement. He's studying. I'm sure he does a Glenn Was Wrong segment, right? Yeah, constantly. So, um, constantly. Uh, so I I just want to point out, in addition to all of the evidence that we uh, put forth in episode 272, um, I went back and checked the Mueller report, because the Mueller report itself talks about, there's a subsection on events at the Republican National Convention. And J.D. Gordon, who was a senior campaign advisor on policy

[0:16:17] and national security, testified to Mueller's investigators.

0:16:23 Andrew: So they have his testimony as to what actually happened. Here's how the Mueller report summarizes it.

[0:16:32] First, and again, we should point out just how narrow this is.

0:16:38 Andrew: It says the investigation did not establish that one campaign official's efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican Party platform on providing assistance to Ukraine

[0:16:51] were undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia. Okay um and that is based on Gordon's testimony. That being said, uh, if you go, this is page 124 of volume one, the Muller report in detail explains that in preparation for the 2016 convention, foreign policy advisors to the Trump campaign, working with the RNC, reviewed the 2012 convention's foreign policy platform to identify divergence between the earlier platform and candidate Trump's positions. And then, unambiguous statement, the campaign team discussed toning down language from the 2012 platform that identified Russia as the country's number one threat, given the candidate's belief that there needed to be better U.S. relations with Russia. That's from Gordon's testimony. The RNC platform committee sent the 2016 draft

[0:17:49] so that that was not even the scandal right Right. Like that that occurred.

0:17:54 Andrew: And this platform was drafted differently than, you know, we told you in 2012. Right. Mitt Romney was right. And Barack Obama owed him an apology. Right. That identified Russia as the number one foreign policy threat right off the bat. Trump's Trump's team came in and said, yeah, we're not going to say that

[0:18:13] anymore. And then 125 describes the process exactly as we described it on episode 272. And the person who flagged Denman's amendment was J.D. Gordon, a member of the Trump campaign team. So we now know exactly what happened, and

[0:18:39] it is as close to accurate as you can get, right? So it even goes kind of a step before, right? Like I said, if the original Washington Post headline had just had the word historical in it, there would be no argument. I mean, now I'm not sure that it even needs that. Right. Like the Trump team came in, looked at 2012 and said, you know, we're going to be different from 2012. We're going to be softer

[0:19:04] on Russia.

0:19:06 Andrew: And and the Mueller investigation has said, now, look, we can't prove that's because they got a giant sack of money and intel from the Russians. But by the way, they got intel from the Russians and

[0:19:18] maybe a giant sack of money. We don't know. So those are not hard dots to connect. So there we go. Not giving up on this story. This administration is soft on Russia. That is an objective fact. This administration has taken numerous policy positions to

[0:19:37] weaken the United States with respect to Russia. And as we talk about in the bar hearing, it is appalling the degree to which now to become a Trump defender, you have to not care about the security of the nation vis-a-vis a hostile foreign power. But I guess that's where Trump

[0:19:57] defenders are these days.

0:20:01 Thomas: And you're the optimistic one who thinks there's going to be consequences for Barr after you after you just said. I do. I do.

[0:20:07] Because I believe. Yeah, there we go. Okay, we'll get to it. We'll get to it. Finally, everybody, we're going to get to the main subject today, which is the Barr testimony.

0:20:21 Thomas: I just want to check with something. So, by way of introduction, what I learned from watching this testimony is, Andrew, I believe it's illegal to tamper with an investigation. That's called obstruction with justice, justice, unless you pinky swear that it's a witch hunt, and then it's fine, game on, right? Is that, that's

[0:20:39] what I gather from, from bar it bar's answers were nonsensical, uh, have resulted in the most vociferously

0:20:54 Andrew: pro-Trump circles, right, the institutional defenders, the sycophants and flax on Fox News, and and folks who write for the National Review, to retreat to

[0:21:07] this argument. Okay, and and and this is a near direct quote that I have seen on Fox News and written in the National Review, and that is, well, you know, sure, uh, Bill Barr probably shouldn't have written that ridiculous memo, but like everybody's got

[0:21:26] the full Muller report now, so what does it matter, um, that, that. That is literally the position that they have been forced to retreat to because Barr's actions are indefensible. And look, there's an easy way to determine whether Barr's actions are indefensible, and that is just look to see if all of a sudden now your Aunt Kathy is a big fan of Bill Barr, right? Right. The guy with the MAGA hat

[0:21:56] and the, you know, pickup truck with the decal of Donald Trump peeing on liberals, which, by the way, is parked down the street from my house. Oh, God. It is. So, I'm not, I'm not.

0:22:08 Andrew: That is not a disparagement of pickup truck owners. I'm describing an actual pickup truck in my neighborhood that makes me vomit every

[0:22:15] time I jog by it.

[0:22:18] You've been doing a lot of vomiting lately. Just side, side. Yeah. Way to look into that. Okay, I'm on the Eli Bosnick diet. No, uh, I look, the fact that those guys are now out on Twitter going, yay, Bill Barr, greatest attorney general, like, tells you everything you need to know, right? Tells you that Barr is a flag-waving, hat-wearing member of the team now, um,

[0:22:43] that's not the job of the attorney general, and and and again, right, there are folks who, out of self-interest, do not want that to be the job of the attorney general, uh, there

[0:22:55] are Republicans who care about that, I, I have to believe, right, not Lindsey Graham, right, like I I agree with that, not, not the Trump-hijacked wing of the party, uh, but um, but but this is, you know, it's it's an embarrassment, so yeah, so

0:23:13 Thomas: One of the questions is whether or not Bar perjured himself by giving this kind of inaccurate answer. Now, once this letter was leaked, this Mueller letter, which I'm sure you're going to talk about, it kind of put lie to some of Barr's previous testimony when he said something along the lines that he didn't know whether or not Mueller agreed with his summary, that kind of thing. So I want to hear all about that from your angle, whether or not he perjured himself. If I were to take a guess, it would be that because you can never prove without a doubt that he said in his heart 45 times in a row, I want to perjure myself, and then wrote an email saying, I would like to perjure myself, and then sent it to everybody, like, unless you have that level of intent evidence,

[0:23:57] I've learned that you can never prove this, but uh, what do you think? Am I too pessimistic there? I think you're too pessimistic. So I'm going to say this, this Bill Bar perjured himself and holy moly, yeah, it, it's, it's odd to me. I'm gonna link right, because I know what you're talking about, I'm gonna link an example

0:24:16 Andrew: Right from the New York Magazine, but there are lots of sources on the left that I think are sort of weirdly like buying into kind of the Greenwald narrative of like, well, you know, since there don't seem to be any consequences for anything, you know, let's get law professors on who are going to say, well, this is probably perjury, but who

[0:24:35] knows. It's super hard to pull, hold on, hold on, this is not a Glenn Greenwald thing, this is an Opening Arguments thing, this is a, like the bribery, bribery, hold on, sorry, like the bribery

0:24:47 Thomas: Laws that, you know, that are nothing, like you cannot, you have to prove like the intent to an insane degree. We, this, this is, I'm getting this from Opening Arguments history, you know, like. But there was, I think, back during the Kavanaugh hearings, I think it was, where we talked about the possibility of someone of him having perjured himself. And it sounded, if I remember right, it seems like the bar is set pretty high.

[0:25:12] But now I'm very curious to hear you zagging when I thought you were going to zig. So here we go. I love it. Let's hear it. So look, as kind of a top-line matter, right, if you want to get on a lawyer or a law professor to say, hey, it's really, really hard to prove perjury,

0:25:32 Andrew: And it's really, really hard to prove specific intent, that's all true, right? Like, you can say that, and that's what a lot of these articles are saying, right? Right. So, for example, you know, the the New York Magazine piece is entitled "Bill Barr Didn't Commit Perjury, But Still Misled Congress." Right. And and I'm just using this one as an example. I've read a dozen articles that that that come to the same that come to the same

[0:25:57] conclusion. Here's what I think they're not getting right. That is, look. It is it is certainly the case that it is difficult to prove that a statement is false. But here's the statement that is false, okay?

[0:26:15] So Barr first testified as Attorney General regarding the Mueller report to Congress on April 9th and April 10th. On April 10th, my senator, Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, asked Barr if Mueller supported the four-page summary

[0:26:34] letter that he disseminated. And Bar's answer was, I don't know whether Bob Muller supported my conclusion. Okay, now let's sidebar for a minute and talk about how hard it is to prove, we've talked about how the standard dodge in perjury is to give an evasive answer, one that is literally true

[0:26:57] but not responsive, right? Yeah. Did you have sexual relations with, right? Yeah, with that woman. Well, you know, I, I did have sex with a woman outside a wedlock, you know, but right. Like, and, and you don't answer the question, and a bad lawyer is like, okay, well now I'm going to move on. Right. And, and what the Supreme Court has said is

[0:27:16] that the onus is on the lawyer to ask the question the right way. Right. And that's how people get out of perjury. They don't answer the question. And then when called upon to answer the question, they give an evasive answer until you give up. Um, there's... there's a couple of examples of that, right, like, um, when we talk about the specific testimony, we talk about Kamala Harris, for example, um, at at the very beginning, right, like Bar sort of wriggles his way out of, uh, of Kamala Harris asking, uh, whether anybody in the Trump administration suggested that they open up an investigation, and eventually, because she's only got five minutes, she sort of gets, you know,

[0:27:59] she's gotten all she's gonna get and she gives up and moves on, which, which is fine, um, that's an example of being evasive and not answering, but the, I don't know, I think people are used to, I

[0:28:12] don't recall, right, as a, as an evasive answer, but but notice, this is a specific question, right, do you know if Bob Muller supports your decision, answer, I do not know, right? Right. That is an affirmative assertion of a fact, right, I, I, I do not know. Now, what we now have is documentary evidence that in fact he did know that Bob Muller did not support his decision. You can't say I don't know when somebody has written you a letter. Yeah, we now have a letter dated March 27th from Bob Muller to Bill Barr, and it recites the following facts. First, it says, hey, look, you know, we

[0:29:02] prepared summaries for you that could be released to the public, uh, that clearly don't violate, uh, rule A federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6e, they don't contain any grand jury testimony, there's no concern about redactions, you could release these to the public, we asked you to release them to the public. And then here's, this is paragraph three, here's what it

[0:29:22] says. As we stated in our meeting of March 5th and reiterated to the department early in the afternoon of March 24th, that's right before, that is Sunday immediately before Bar releases his letter. Yeah, the introductions and executive summaries of our two-volume report accurately summarize this office's work and conclusions. Then it says, and this is the unambiguous part, the summary letter the department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24th

[0:29:53] did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions. We communicated that concern to the department on

[0:30:05] the morning of March 25th. Um, so look, uh, and I could, you know, this whole letter is only a page and a couple of lines, I'm gonna link it in the show notes, you should read it if you haven't already. Um, there is no way, no, if intent means anything, right, and and and again, our argument on this show has not been intent means there's not a crime, it means intent means it's tough, but when somebody communicates to you three weeks before you do it, immediately before you do it

[0:30:37] immediately after you do it, and then the two days after that, it is really, really hard for you to step up on the stand and go, "Yeah, I don't know, I have no idea, I do not know if he supports my conclusion." You did know that, and to me that is unambiguous, we got them, everybody, it's over. Um, I I I really really do, look, like as we know through all of this, right, like remember how you felt the first two days after

[0:31:15] Bar's letter came out regarding the Muller report, yeah, right, we came on here and and told you that letter was deliberately misleading and hang on, the narrative is going to change, and uh and the narrative changed, and when the evidence came out it was even worse than we could have possibly thought. Um, I, it, I think, like, I am tempted, the show notes may be Bill Barr, the show title may be Bill Barr

[0:31:39] may be out of a job by the time you get this. No way, I believe that. I I look, I'm not, and I don't think he will be out of a job by the time this, this show drops, uh, but I do think that that we are headed

[0:31:52] to a critical juncture. Who is the mysterious deity that you think is going to make this happen?

0:31:59 Thomas: Like, well, I get that on substance it sounds, I totally agree, like, I, it was never a doubt that he actually totally lied and stuff, I just thought it was going to be some, you know, weasel words that get him out of it, but like, even putting that aside and saying, okay, it's not, he can't weasel his way out of this, he definitely perjured himself, who is the person that's going to make some consequences happen? Because I, that frankly I don't see that in our world anymore, so

[0:32:23] what, how does that work? Yeah, what's the process? It depends. So, I, I'm glad you asked, step one, we get a letter from the god that says this, right, like, what it depends on

0:32:36 Andrew: Somebody who is independent of Trump, right? So, so here's who it needs to be, and I'm

[0:32:42] and I'm gonna talk about a positive sign from the hearing that, um, uh, that I'm curious about your commentary on, um, it, it needs to be the opposite of Lindsey Graham, right? Like, we're we're all watching what Lindsey Graham is doing, here is somebody who called Trump a kook and unfit to be president in 2016, right, and is now turned into, uh, Trump's fullest, deepest-throated, uh, defender, and and the reason for that is stunningly obvious, right, Lindsey Graham is standing for re-election in South Carolina in 2020, and he estimates that his likelihood of losing a primary to a stronger Trump supporter is greater than his likelihood of losing a general election to

[0:33:32] a a Democrat. So he's become a howler monkey, so he turned into the mouth of Sauron, I get it. Yeah, yep, exactly right, so who's a good, who's a good anti lindsey Graham, right? Well, we already talked about Mitt Romney, um, on on on the Senate Judiciary Committee, a really, really good candidate, and somebody who asked really good questions, the only Republican who asked questions was Ben Sass from Nebraska, right, and again

[0:34:03] Ben Sass is in no danger of losing his job, right, Ben Sass is no liberal, um, he's no friend of the show, uh, but I I believe, right, watching and and and listening to his questions, right, I believe Ben Sass, who who also is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, that he's concerned about an atmosphere in which, in

[0:34:28] order to be a Trump supporter, you now have to say, yeah, you know, I mean, hostile foreign powers bankrolled by billions of dollars are gonna hijack our elections, like, yeah, what

[0:34:41] you gonna do about it, right? And and Sass asked the question, right, uh, of Bill Barr, he said, uh, what, imagine, he said, I want clarity here, if if China is hacking our elections, right, can a foreign government pay

[0:35:00] to have Democratic Party operatives on its payroll, and and what was notable, right, and he did not let that go, right, and and And Barr's answer was, like everything Barr says, unbelievably evasive, right? Like, Barr's answer, I went, I got the transcript on this one because I wanted to make sure I was recording it accurately. Barr said, well, it depends upon the specific circumstances, the nature of the agreement, who the person is representing. Are they representing the interests of

[0:35:31] a foreign government? Are they a foreign agent? It's a slippery area. Um, this is not a slippery area, right, and and you could see Ben Sass troubled by that answer, right, Ben Sass turned and said, look, I want clarity, I'm on, and this is when he said, I'm on the Intelligence Committee, we know there will be efforts to disrupt our elections in 2020. And I want to know, I want the nation's highest law enforcement official to give directives to campaigns as to what they can and can't do so that we're not in this place. Um, and and Bar wouldn't do it. Um, and and I don't know if if they, uh, collaborated, I don't know if Coons changed, uh, his line of questioning, but he was followed by Chris Coons from Delaware, who who picked up on exactly that line of questioning and said, look, what if North Korea offers a presidential candidate dirt on a competitor in 2020, do you agree with me that that candidate it should

[0:36:40] immediately contact the FBI? And again, Bar gave a Bar answer, right, he says, well, you know, if if a foreign intelligence service does, yes, right, which is which is of course exactly the kind of hairline distinction you need to make in order to defend the

[0:36:59] the Trump Tower meeting. Well, but isn't that not even true, because the law is just a, for it doesn't, doesn't the law doesn't say they have to be foreign intelligence, does it? No, yeah, that, yeah, you are 100, like, so, a, it is not a correct statement of the law, right? Yeah, the law, we've we've been through this, uh, you know, a dozen times, right, the relevant campaign law says that it's a violation of the election law for any party to solicit or receive or, you know, in any way anything of value from a foreign person, party, government, agent, uh, it's it's bilateral, it is similarly a violation of the law for a foreign agent to, uh, offer or attempt to offer anything of value to any campaign, right, like the campaign laws, um, unsurprisingly are super clear, right, foreign governments don't get to meddle in our elections. Um, and and and so a, you know, you have the attorney general summarizing the law incorrectly, that's kind of troubling, um, and and b, you know, you have the position where he's summarizing the law incorrectly and giving these hairline

[0:38:14] distinctions, right, in order to exonerate the Trump Tower meeting, right, and and you can see Ben Sass going, "Look, if China wants to give Liz Warren

[0:38:26] You know, dirt on Donald Trump in 2020, I don't want her to get that, right? And I don't want her to get that, right? Like he said, I want there to be a a bright line rule that says American political campaigns can't get assistance or offers of assistance from foreign, from hostile foreign powers. And you know what, there is a bright line rule, it's called the election laws. And and so So really what that means is I want you to be consistent about how our election laws ought to be enforced. And the fact that Bill Barr isn't, right, the fact that you have to be in that position in order to defend Trump, like this is just one of the many tensions. Right. And look, maybe

[0:39:10] it matters. Right. Maybe it matters nothing. Nothing um, maybe it goes to the mat and Bar sticks around and he's a laughingstock and you know, and Republican senators privately try and get the White House to

[0:39:23] dismiss him and uh and it goes nowhere. Um, Bar has already said he's not going to testify, uh, today. He did not show up to testify, just didn't show for the House, I said, just didn't show, just uh, nope, sorry. Sorry, not going to appear before the House because I'm scared of it. And look, the House can seek contempt. They can get a bench warrant for his arrest. The attorney general is not the president. There is no—it does not pose the same kinds of problems that, you know, that trying to compel the testimony

[0:40:00] of the president does.

0:40:02 Andrew: And, you know, there's a little bit of a game of chicken there going on, and right now, uh, Bar is sort of feeling like, uh, you know, he's driving the more aggressive tractor. But um, uh, I love that, is the best scene in all of American cinema, fight me on this, um,

[0:40:21] the uh, the tractor chicken sequence from Footloose. Uh, I haven't seen an American cinema, I haven't seen Footloose. Anyway, we need to, uh, we need an entire episode on that, I'm sorry, but okay. Okay. A lot of movie. So there's, there's, there's tractor chicken going on and you know, it's, it's slow and it's going to, but I think Bar will swerve. So that's, oh yeah, definitely put, put the prediction

0:40:45 Thomas: Down. Opening Arguments is brought to you by Hymns. Listen folks, it can be embarrassing to go to the doctor for certain stuff sometimes. I mean, it just is because you got to go in there and you got to, first you got to fill out a form, and then the, the nurse will ask you about the stuff you just wrote. Oh, it's about, be it hair loss, be it sexual wellness. Oh, okay, and then they have you clarify. And then the doctor comes in and you gotta tell the doctor and that's embarrassing. But HIMS allows you to avoid all that time and potential embarrassment and extra money because 4hims.com is the one-stop shop for hair loss, skincare, and sexual wellness for men. And they connect you with real doctors, doctors, and medical grade solutions to things like hair loss. You know, people try gas station supplements and other weird witch doctor stuff that doesn't even work, when there's actual science and actual prescription medication that could help. HIMS uses well

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[0:42:24] 4hims.com slash OA. That's F-O-R-H-I-M-S dot com slash OA. 4hims.com slash OA. Whether it's for hair loss or sexual wellness or whatever it may be, spare that awkward doctor visit and check out 4hims.com. So just to just get you on record now, I have to say before I impugn your character here, I have to say that the your episode on the bar memo being misleading, you know, was so right on and and so prescient and exactly right. And you predicted pretty much all of this. And we should never stop doing Andrews was rights on that because you nailed it. However, the idea that Ben Sass is going to come to our rescue and slam the cuffs on Barr and get him out, I just don't understand the process by which this happens. He might even send a Romney-esque tweet that's like, hmm, I'm very concerned. That's all I see happening. Ooh, I'm concerned about some of the things going on. Cool, you're concerned, awesome, that's what'll happen, same, same as Romney, but uh, so there's our predictions, we can uh, feel free to uh, Wiki team, feel free to hold us

[0:43:38] to these, I, I, I want to be held to it, I think Bill Barr is done, I, I do not think you can continue in the job, uh, of attorney

0:43:51 Andrew: General when every Republican privately knows that you're a laughing, laughingstock and

[0:43:58] every Republican privately knows that Trump is a laughingstock. Yeah, I agree. But the president is not going to resign. The president can't be replaced with some other flunky, like uh, Bill Barr can. And yeah, and and I think he will be, Pence anyway, uh, yeah, no, I disagree. Okay, um

0:44:17 Thomas: What else do you want to talk about regarding Barr? There's, there's a lot. I was really impressed with Kamala Harris's questions. I know you mentioned it already, but just this idea that she said, has any, has anybody in the White House, is the president or anyone in the White House, uh, recommended an investigation, or or, you know, that kind of thing. And then I like how Barr, Are spent a few minutes trying to avoid it for, you know, trying to split hair. Oh, what's, what's recommended? What does that mean? Or what was the word he, he homed in on there? Suggested. Yes, I'm stuck on the word suggested. And then she's just like, OK, cool, how about hinted? Gave

[0:44:54] him every synonym in the book just to get an answer. And then he went, ah, I love that he cared enough to try. Well, I'm trying to get a precise definition here on this word. And then he's like, they

[0:45:06] just made like a, a walrus noise. And then she's like, so is that a noise? That is so good. Well, he's, he looks like a walrus in a video game. Who's going to like give it, I don't know. Like you're going to help. He's got glasses. I don't know. That's what he looks like to me anyway. And then he just,

[0:45:24] he just decides he's just like in a kid's video game, you know, like you're going to help this walrus fight pollution or something. I don't know. That's what he looks like.

0:45:33 Thomas: And he just gives like a wall, he's just like, mer, and then she's like, is that a yes walrus or no walrus, and he's like, I don't care what, who's gonna make me do anything, and she's like, you're right, I can't, no one can make you, anyone do anything. Now

[0:45:46] and then he's like, okay then, and then it was over, that was what happened. So, so yes, um, I, I continue to, yeah, the official answer position is yes to all of that. Yeah.

0:45:59 Andrew: Yes, watching Bill Barr testify is like playing the water level in, uh, in, in any, you know, NES game from the 1990s. I'm with you on that one, um, in terms of frustration. And you know, every time, every five minutes you got to go back to the beginning and uh, there's like pointless

[0:46:18] obstacles being put in your path and things that are, yeah, I love how, I think someone said something to the effect of, like, isn't it

0:46:24 Thomas: Amazing that whenever Kamala Harris starts talking, nobody can understand, stand her in hearings. Like, this all of a sudden, it's what?

[0:46:31] Oh, louder, oh, oh, what's this word, like, all of a sudden magically, just, she's just incomprehensible. Yeah, she's, she's very, we've talked about this before, right? It, in, in particular, uh, she came on my

0:46:43 Andrew: Radar at the uh, the Jeff Sessions confirmation hearings at a time in which uh, you

[0:46:50] know, my my position was, boy, lots of senators use, use this time to grandstand and, you know, sort of make political points, but ask stupid questions. And she does the opposite, right? Like she asks very, very pointed questions and doesn't give up until. And again, this just sort of illustrates the weakness of the, you know, five minute at a time approach, right?

[0:47:14] Like she also kind of knows when, like, okay, I got to go now, right? Right.

0:47:22 Andrew: And and Barr, you know, as as we pointed out, I mean, he he wriggles off the hook of the suggested question at the end. Right. She you know, he's like, I guess I don't know. And she's like, OK, so your your answer is I don't know.

0:47:34 Thomas: Yeah. You don't know if someone in the White House suggested that you do an investigation. How, how do you not know that? Can somebody just be like, so are you an idiot? Can that

[0:47:47] be a follow up question? Oh, question, are you a moron then? Like, you just don't even know, do you, know what human sounds, are do you know? Like, well, am I wrong, goes, no, no, no, no, this goes back

0:47:59 Andrew: To the reason you don't have to ask that question is, you know, goes back to what I said at the very beginning of this, of the segment, right? I don't know is a definitive answer in

[0:48:12] in legal terms, right? So saying, oh, so if you get the proof later on, yeah, which we won't get, look, again, it's really, really hard to to prove perjury, but yeah, if there's an email out there, if there's somebody, uh, who's willing to testify, like, oh yeah, you know, Jared, and we know, but Trump does not use, use emails. Um, Jared Kushner uses email, right? Uh, I've

[0:48:37] talked to uh government employees, you know, who have said, uh, yeah, we get, we get, uh, emails from, yeah, from his unsecured phone, that's like on, still on his parents, on a separate server, that's, you know, like, yeah, um, it's, uh, you know, he's definitely still on his parents' Verizon plan and using jay kush 69 at aol.com Um, but uh, it's got the little logo down at the bottom.

[0:49:06] He's like, I'm grandfathered into my parents' unlimited data plan. I'm not leaving it. I have six more CDs. Well, I guess

0:49:12 Thomas: That makes sense that she accepted the I don't know walrus sound as an answer, so that later they can be like, please play back

[0:49:18] The walrus noises he made in this particular question and answer. And I want to compliment Kamala Harris again in the sense that, as anybody who listens to this show knows, um, I would be terrible in a five minute question. Yeah, well, what's the origin of that? Who decides that? Why is it five minutes? Again, uh, because, so that's just set

0:49:44 Andrew: By the Senate rules, and it's because, in in general, right, these are not meant to

[0:49:50] be, uh, you know, prosecutorial proceedings. Um, the the house has already said, or they've already said that they are considering, when, uh, Bar does testify, uh, using the Kavanaugh, you know, delegate all

[0:50:09] of your time, which is why there's, why he's so scared and won't, yeah, absolutely. It is, right, because that's, that's the only way to get anything done in a in a legal setting, uh, is to have you know, two uninterrupted hours as as a block of time, because you lay the foundational questions, then you, I mean, we we talked about this at great length, uh, when we were breaking down the, uh, the Alex Jones deposition, right, you lay the foundational questions, you ask some open-ended stuff, you pin them down on a question, and then you show the contradiction, right? It's the only way you can possibly get anything useful out of questioning somebody who's a lawyer.

[0:50:46] Right, and, um, uh, and so obviously, obviously, you know, there would, there's no such thing as a as a as a legal gotcha question, right? Like, that is the, uh, you know, make way for a series of surprising witnesses, each more surprising than the last, right? Like, there's no magic bullet, uh, there's just kind of doing the hard work and laying the foundation, and, um, you know, and so, right, I mean, look, at the reason we were able to lead this off with, "Here's where Bar definitely perjured himself," was because Chris Van Holland asked a very specific question with a specific answer, uh, and

[0:51:24] and, you know, wasn't, didn't ask a question that allowed you to give you know, an evasive, or, in my opinion, kind of response, or, you know, like, contrast that with the responses that Bar gave on, you know, "Well, so would any campaign candidate, you know, would any campaign have to turn over information it got from a hostile foreign power?" "Well, if it came from a foreign intelligence service, right?" Well, you know, that's classic, how you evade perjury, non-answer

[0:51:56] answer.

0:51:59 Andrew: So, yes, my advice to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to anybody in Congress who gets to ask a question of a hostile witness, is ask a specific question that calls for a specific answer, right? Yes or no, even the better, and

[0:52:17] um, and don't settle for anything other than an answer to that question. When you hear clarifiers, ask the question, be like, "Okay, I get that you said, uh, still foreign intelligence, what about," and ask it without the clarifier. And, um, you know, that's, uh, that's good, good cross-examination technique.

0:52:36 Thomas: Yeah, all in all, I mean, this is just, like I said in the beginning of the show, I'm just permanently enraged at this because it's, it's

[0:52:42] watching the two realities. It's the weirdest thing, you know. You Did it, was it always this way? You're, you're, uh, slightly older than I am, was this how it always was, where you have a hearing and two sides compete to have their reality be the reality? Like, what it's, it reminds me, like, uh, when you're a kid and you do the thing with your siblings, like, you pretend they're, they're invisible and you can't hear them, you know, you're like, "Oh, dude, does anyone know where Thomas is? Where is Thomas?" It's like, that's what the Republicans do for their time. And you're like, no, I'm, look, I know the fact, like, for example, for, for example, Lindsey Graham off the bat says, "Well, Mueller left the decision to Barr as to whether or not to," Bill Barr, as to whether or not to, you know, charge Trump or whatever. It's like, no, he specifically did it. Like, there's no, am I nuts? So one side can just make a new reality and then the other side has to try to be like, "No, this, the reality is this." Is

[0:53:44] that how it always was? It absolutely was not always this way. And look, the clearest proof that it was not always this way is in a sort of mini

0:53:56 Andrew: Controversy in the Democratic primary field right now, the way in which Joe Biden

[0:54:02] conducted himself in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, right, it was the, in which Joe Biden, uh, attacked and attempted to discredit Anita Hill, uh, in favor of the, uh, Republican. Well, okay, if you're setting that up as the alternative, like, this is the good old days, then never mind, I'm not saying that, that's obviously, right, I, I've used the language to indicate, like, I didn't support what Biden did at the time, uh, and, and I don't, uh, you

[0:54:34] know, I don't, don't support it now, but, but what I'm telling you, you know, you want, I've, I've long talked about, uh, you know, Bob Dole, uh, taking to the Senate floor to break the Jesse Helms filibuster on Martin Luther King

[0:54:46] Day, right, like it, I wanted to come up with, I want to come up with an additional piece of evidence, um, but, but no, right, it, it, it was not like this. Um, the blame for this is in two, two components. It begins in the 1990s with Newt Gingrich being elected to Congress and then ascending to the speakership. Newt Gingrich taught a class on, literally taught a class on messaging, on how to oppose President

[0:55:18] Clinton. And then a generation of idiots grew up listening to the Newt Gingrich class, and then implemented that full scale with the Mitch McConnell, "We are going to destroy the Obama presidency, we are going to prevent him from having any meaningful accomplishments."

[0:55:37] And now that's where we are, and, uh, it, it, I'm sure we will get folks writing in, you know, uh, what I am very confident on this assessment that while partisanship has been with us since the 18th century, the idea that you have competing

[0:56:03] worldviews that are artificially constructed reality is very, very new. So, uh, no, it wasn't always like this, and yes, we have to

[0:56:15] find some way to get back to where we were, back when Congress could pass laws. Um, but uh, but we're not there. Oh, can, can I do 30 seconds on Rule 60?

[0:56:28] Oh, yeah, 30 seconds, sure, yeah, 30 seconds everybody, yeah, go ahead, start your timers.

0:56:35 Andrew: Yep, start the timers. I, I don't want to leave without talking about Bill Barr's opening. Which is everything you would expect from Bill Barr, which is

[0:56:47] to say there is nothing in there that is perjury, question mark, but there is everything in there that is ridiculously misleading. The key takeaway, the thing you need to know, is that Barr says over and over again that the primary reason he has not released the unredacted report is grand jury information, the disclosure of which is prohibited by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6E. Even Congress has not received the unredacted, the full unredacted Mueller report, including the quote, 6E material. I want to tell you, I will link Rule 6E in the show notes.

0:57:34 Andrew: You can

[0:57:36] read it. But Rule 6E sub 3 has exceptions, and the exceptions say that disclosure of a grand jury matter may be made to an attorney for government for use in performing that attorney's duty to any government personnel, including those of a state, state subdivision, Indian tribe, or foreign government that an attorney for the government considers necessary to assist in performing that attorney's duty, duty to enforce federal criminal

[0:58:08] law, or any person authorized by statute. It further provides that you may petition the court to disclose grand jury material. So if Bill Barr were remotely honest, if he were remotely interested in getting an unredacted copy to Congress, he could have gone court, he could have gone to DDC, filed a motion to release redacted material, to release

[0:58:37] unredacted material, uh, that would otherwise be subject to Rule 6E, and every court on the planet would have granted him that, that request. He did not do so, uh, there are numerous exceptions. This is a

[0:58:53] it's as close to a lie as you can get, which is kind of, we need to define that, that's what a bar is, right, like, telling something that is as close to a lie as you can possibly. Yeah, except you started this off with saying he actually did perjure himself, so it's, I guess that would be not in this opening statement.

0:59:11 Andrew: He did not, gotcha, perjure himself in that one. Um, boy, did, is there, you know, and if we had a two-hour show, uh, I had a long, I'm gonna have to cut pages and pages of my notes here. Uh, I had a long fisking of this opening statement, um, because it's just, uh, it

[0:59:29] is high octane nonsense, but, um, but that's the takeaway I want you to know, if, if if you have Mega hat wearing friends, uh, out there who were saying, "Oh, you know, grand jury, 60," tell them

[0:59:41] to read 60, uh, and yeah, link them to our show, good luck with that. Who would, oh, Andrew,

0:59:48 Thomas: The world you, you living, I love it. Tell those Trump supporters about 6e. Yeah, everybody, tell them to read

[0:59:54] that, that's, that's how that goes. Ask them, say, "Look, what have," you're saying that this is material don't even get that far, they just say witch hunt and the total exoneration, there's nothing. If no, they don't even, not even, anyway, okay, in Andrew's world everyone is smarter, and I do like that, and I appreciate that about

[1:00:18] you, that you, that's the world you live in, getting there, that's the world we're building. It's not, yeah, it's not the world I live in, but that's okay, that's okay, it's, you know, I like, I appreciate your, uh, your optimism as always, but wiki

1:00:00 Andrew: That can't be disclosed under Rule 6e of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Have you read Rule 6e? They

1:00:31 Thomas: Team, definitely write down those predictions so that I can be right and Andrew can be wrong. I mean, I'm rooting for you, don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for you to be right, that Bar will face some consequences, but, uh, but I don't really think that's gonna happen. Okay, uh, it is time to thank our patrons over at patreon.com/law, our top patrons, our Hall of Famers, and reminder, patrons get those questions in for the q a that's happening Sunday. I want to remind you again, Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Pacific, will be live on YouTube, uh, get over there and ask the questions on patreon.com/law. And Andrew, why don't you start us off with thanking our Hall

[1:01:08] of Famers. Yeah, thank you to Stuff and Polls to Sherry, autistic people aren't puzzles, stop with the puzzle pieces, I'm sure, but that's a reference to, but I, I support the idea that are autistic people are are definitely not puzzles, uh, to Mount Shasta Atheist has reached Yodel Mountain base camp, yeah, us too, Darth Mandy Pants, John Richards, well-deserved, patron number 239, um, and Hum Brewing, uh, and, and, boy, how was that, uh, how was that beer time, yeah, me had one last, 13th Century Saxony Gravel Truck Lawyer Impeachment Brand Laxative, capable of handling the worst obstructions, Adam

[1:01:49] Costa, to Bar Prep Buddy.com, coming soon, yeah, uh, to Clarence Thomas the Tank Engine, Jay Alden, wall to

1:01:58 Andrew: Jennifer Crock, and, and Jennifer, I apologize that apparently we've been mispronouncing your name the whole time, but, uh, you know, uh, my mispronunciations are all 100% my fault, Thomas's mispronunciation are

[1:02:10] part of what you are, also, so your fault, oh, okay, to BB, BBB, to the Cure for Ultra Virus, Cut Maps, we're gonna build a Death Star and make Alderaan pay for it, GSV Eccentric Contact Nature and Substance, listening to OA while training for the Batan Memorial Death March, Steven Balta Katai Sandoval, impeach bill Bill Barr, yes, impeach Bill Barr. The Mueller Files, I want to believe the truth is redacted. Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia is recruiting at gsowteam.org. To V Frank, to, hey Alexa, turn off all the lights. God, I hope that works.

[1:02:54] If your ongoing matter persists for more than four hours, see a lawyer.

1:02:59 Andrew: John Bilderbeck, civilpoliticsradio.com, Fridays at 7 p.m. Eastern on Valley Free Radio. The Registry

[1:03:05] Matters podcast. The difference between oral and rectal thermometers is taste.

1:03:11 Andrew: Incorrectly pronouncing Latin to avoid the accidental summoning of demons.

[1:03:15] To yes, honey buns.

1:03:17 Andrew: To dataheck.com, business automation making the menial automatic. HOTAS and the Taint Team 2020, Eric Alsman. Thomas Smith is my favorite attorney. Andrew is a close second. Me too. Michael C. Sampson, Chris Rowden. Love with your heart. Use your head for everything else. To Kiowa Valley Exports for Australian red meat and craft beer. Michael Cohen is a no-talent ass clown. Let me be totally clear. I like being totally clear. The Getting Off Podcast. Milo Meadsong, The Halfling Bard, and SIU3L. To Redacted Karaoke Legend, Cosmo, Redacted Blues, Redacted, Redacted. Sam Buck, Mike the Intactivist, join your labor union. Together we bargain, alone we beg.

[1:03:57] And to Imagine Being Trump's Secret Service guard would you take a bullet I'll leave I'll leave that one out there and thomas why don't you take away the second hand all right maker of things out of other things Hey, Lucy, the Kiwi lawyer, are you enjoying my OA recommendation?

1:04:13 Thomas: The Fighting Mongooses. Andrew Zeppertaff will link all his sources in the stone notes.

1:04:21 Thomas: Sources in the stone notes. Andrew's my favorite lawyer. Kim Kardashian is a distant last. Well, not last. There's lots, lots before her. Like, say, Bill Barr. David in Brooklyn. Devin Nunes as the arch nemesis of the Taint Team is canon now, right? Anonymous Buttercups Legal Services sent Bill Barr a hiss and growl letter. 831 Cat Law. One incoming transmission from Junior Missions Operations Manager Nirmat Bundaloy. Weird Trump rolled his stats and got all natural ones. Monica Miller is, if, my favorite guest. Andrew Seidel is a close second. Oh, wow. That is. I kind of maybe agree with you. That's a club.

[1:05:04] Both great, but that Monica Miller was exceptional. And, oh, we're gonna get angry emails from Randall Elias and supporters too. Oh, yeah, I mean, they're all great. Chris Kristofko has fans, I mean.

1:05:16 Andrew: We've had, let's be honest, we've had some great guests on the show. We have. But Monica Miller was amazing. I, I love that. And

[1:05:23] she was the most recent, so we can say she's our favorite of all of our guests. She was the most recent.

1:05:29 Thomas: Willful Ian, with Melissa. Forethought. Word Origins.org, your guide to legal terms from 13th century Saxony. Chugga chugga chugga chugga. Batman, we need to talk about Bill Barr's sharpie huffing addiction. Derrick Eddie, George, Duke of Earl Warren. Jeff's Beck.

[1:05:47] Hansen, Brothers Johnson. What the Batman Death March is just called, the DC Cinematic Universe of hers.

1:05:56 Thomas: Barack Obama wrote about Changeofyou.com on Facebook. I saw that. I totally saw that. That's crazy. He did. He put it in his recommendations. Overturn Citizens United to unseat Conrad Michaels. Big Easy Blasphemy, a string of mostly unpronounceable characters. Brandon Smith, When Life Gives You a Lemon Test, Make Lemonade v. American Legion. Time is my favorite infinity stone. Reality is a close second. Ronda Apple, Howler Monkeys Doing Shots at the Kumi Bar, Malika Chandler, Abacus Flinch. Volunteer with a Camp Quest this summer. Campquest.org. Soggy Pants, Sam Denow, Greg Sullivan, I went oh for eight in my bracket challenge. Anti-perfect bracket for the win. A marijuana strain named Spiru Agnew,

[1:06:44] is some is some uh Uh, Ditchweed. Well, there's some cursing in there.

1:06:50 Thomas: Zabby. Matthew Vernon. Adopt a homeless pet and oppose declawing and ear docking. Aaron Grady. Trump conspired with WikiLeaks. Jeremiah's Fancy Microwave Emporium. Ian and Allie. Teresa Gomez. Neil Gorsuch is a clown horning monster. Eli Bosnick. Mitchell. Too frustrated to be clever this week. I'm with ya. Proven Innocent Candles, the smell of freedom. Coming to an OA merch store near you. Originalists must wear powdered wigs and only write with quill pens. And finally, the number one all-time great, Conrad Michaels, top patron for the ages. Good luck catching them. You should all try, and uh, that's our top patrons. Okay, it is time for TTTBE. I'm glad that I, and fellow lawyer Monica Miller,

[1:07:39] got the last week's question the same but wrong. Um, but that's, there, there you go. I like how you're like, if I'm going down in flames, I'm taking everyone around me with me. No, it's not. Did I make Monica Miller choose the, did I make esteemed lawyer who has argued in front of the Supreme Court, Monica Miller, choose the wrong answer? No, I did not. Or if I did, then I'm amazing. How did I made a lawyer who argued in front of the Supreme Court choose the wrong answer? Either way, looks good for me, so I was happy

[1:08:10] with last week. Let's see, uh, see what we can do this week. Oh, no associate this firm has ever failed the bar exam. No kidding. All right, well, from the land of food poisoning, I bring you a gross food themed law question. So, um, you, you eat six meals

1:08:29 Andrew: A day at McDonald's, you. This ought to be right up your alley, so here we go. A consumer became, became physically ill after drinking part of a bottle of soda that contained a large decomposed snail.

[1:08:43] The consumer sued the store from which she had bought the soda to recover damages for her injuries. The parties agreed that the snail had been put into the bottle during the bottling process, over which the store had no control. The parties also agreed that the snail would have been visible in the bottle before the consumer opened it.

[1:09:01] Will the consumer be likely to prevail in an action against the store? So, totally straightforward question. Here are your potential answers. A, no, because the consumer could have seen the snail in the bottle before she drank out of it. B, no, because the store was not responsible for the bottling process. C, yes, because the consumer was injured by a defective product sold to her by the store. Or D, yes, because the store had had exclusive control over the bottle before selling it to the consumer. Wow, this seems hard. I,

1:09:39 Thomas: Actually, I'm not sure what I mean. There's, there are many different plausible answers for this one for me, because it's trying to say, oh, the snail would have been visible, so does that mean, you know, like if you drink something that obviously you should

[1:09:52] notice is tainted, uh, but you know, but, but also the store could have seen it then, uh, but also the store didn't do the bottling. I, this is a, a tough one. I see a lot. Okay, let's, I'll just go through the answers.

[1:10:06] A, no, because the consumer could have seen the snail in the bottle before she drank out of it. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to say it's not that, because I don't think that it would be required that the consumer have that level of like awareness of the, I'm just going to say that that's not going to be it. You know, like maybe for all we know, maybe the

[1:10:32] consumer was seeing impaired or, you know, like didn't have their glasses on. Like, I don't think that should be what gets them out of being liable. So I'm going to go no on A.

[1:10:45] B, no, because the store was not responsible for the bottling process. I could see that being the answer. I'll leave that one in there. C, yes, because the consumer was injured by a defective product sold to her by buy the store. That seems like the most straightforward one. I got to leave that in there. D, yes, because the store had exclusive control over the bottle before selling it to the consumer. That's the kind of answer that sounds like, okay, they're bringing in the legal terminology from what I'm supposed to remember from law

[1:11:16] school.

1:11:17 Thomas: Exclusive control over the the bottle before selling to the consumer, so will that be the better yes answer? So well, okay, now that I reread the question, I think D, I was interpreting D a different way, because I think the fact that the question says, uh, the parties agreed that the snail had been put into the bottle during the bottling process, over which the store had no control, I think that's, that's probably means that yes, because the store had exclusive control over the bottle before selling it to the consumer.

I was taking that to mean like they had control of it for a time, but now that I think about it, I think that's contradictory. So I'll go ahead and eliminate D. That's going to be, it could be some weird thing where it's right, but I'm between B and C. So B, no, because the store was not responsible for the bottling, or C, yes, because the consumer was was injured by a defective product sold to her by the store. I don't know, because I could see this going either way. I mean, if you give, if you're a vendor and you give a, or like you're a manufacturer rather or something, and you give a product to be sold in stores, and the product is like sealed, you know, and there's no reason for the store, like what if it's a sealed bottle of Tylenol, but it was tainted in the, you know, in the Tylenol factory or something, you know? I don't, is the store liable? It almost doesn't seem like they should be. However, does the fact that this should have

[1:12:41] been visible, does that, I mean, I feel like the store would be liable if there's some obviously spoiled milk, you know, even if it wasn't spoiled when they got it. So I, this is tough. I'm going to go ahead and pick C. Yes, because the consumer was injured by a defective product sold to her by the store. I'm not happy with it. I'm not like super in love with this answer, but I, I'm going to go with C, and, and I, I think if Monica Miller were here, she would probably pick something different and be right, so I'm not too happy, but that's what I'm going with. All

1:13:13 Andrew: Right, and if you'd like to play along with Thomas, you know how to do that, just share out this episode on social media, include the hashtag TTTBE, include your answer, your reasons therefore, and we will pick a winner and shower

[1:13:25] that person with never-ending fame and fortune. Fame and fortune not guaranteed. All right, thanks. Thanks for listening,

1:13:32 Thomas: And again, see us for that Q&A, and Lotawful Movies will be coming at you in the middle of the month. Thanks for listening, and as always, I'm so glad that Andrew lives in a more optimistic world than we do, but we'll find out which is the real world coming up in the next few weeks.

[1:13:50] Until Tuesday, stay fresh, cheese bags.

1:13:56 Thomas: Stay fresh, cheese bags. You betrayed the law!

[1:14:04] This has been Opening Arguments with Andrew and Thomas. If you love the show and want to support future episodes, please visit our Patreon page at patreon.com/law. If you can't support us financially, it'd be a big help if you could leave us a five-star review on iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever podcast delivery vehicle you use, and be sure to tell all your friends about us. For questions, suggestions, and complaints, email us at openarguments@gmail.com. The show notes and links are on our website at www.openargs.com. Be sure to like our page on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at OpenArgs. Until next time.

[1:14:53] This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

1:15:02 Andrew: Opening Arguments is produced with the assistance of our editor Brian Ziegenhagen, our production assistant Ashley Smith, and our researcher Deborah Smith. Special thanks to Theresa Gomez and the entire OAWiki team, follow them at at @OAWiki, and

[1:15:14] a big thank you to our facebook group moderators alicia cook natalie newell emily waters eric brewer and brian check out the Opening Arguments Facebook community, and finally, thanks to Thomas Smith for creating the show's theme song, which which is used with permission.