OA279: Deutsche Wanna Loan?

Transcript

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

[0:00:03] So I hold myself in contempt if you try to pull me up here to court with that attorney. [0:00:19] I'll ask the questions here, carjacker Willie. Objection! I'm going to allow it. It characterizes the defendant as a carjacker. [0:00:30] You didn't kill Thompson, but you did, Mr. Wells. Yes! Yes, I killed Ned Thompson! I killed him! I killed him! I killed him! I killed him! [0:00:45] You're out of order! You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order! They're out of order! [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.

0:01:18 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 279. I'm your host, Thomas Smith. That over there is Andrew Torrez. How

[0:01:24] are you doing, Andrew? I am fantastic, Thomas. How are you? You, I'm good, I mean we, uh, we outran a lot of space pirates to be here today, um, it was, it was a close call, you know.

[0:01:37] Space piracy on the rise. Yeah, space pirates, that's, that is seriously what good friend of the show Ted Cruz is talking about on the floor of the Senate. Like, I hate to murder the premise of, of a bunch of sci-fi, but like piracy already, even normal piracy, it's

[0:01:55] not like a high margin business, you know, like it's not, you got, it's a, it's a horrible business. So take that and combine it with extremely

[0:02:04] massive overhead costs and that's the recipe for success. All I know is, here a new business plan, um, you know, this one is even worse than Proven Innocent Candles. Launch something in the space, so you know, couple billion dollars to do that, and then steal other people's freeze-dried, uh, ice cream out of their horrendous NASA freeze-dried, like

[0:02:29] garbage food, that's the, the step three, profit. Sound good, Andrew? Yeah, it's

0:02:35 Andrew: It's exactly like the Proven Innocent Candles business, if each candle cost like 11

[0:02:41] billion dollars and no one wanted them, and it was just spending money.

0:02:48 Thomas: Um, all right, we've got some announcements here. True to our word, we, uh, got that Law'd Awful Movies number 29 out to you fine, fine patrons a day or two ago. Middle of the month is the new schedule on that. And we did Sovereign Citizen Garbage Volume Two, uh, oh gosh, back due to overwhelming demand. So if you want to learn and how your birth certificate can both be worth billions, but also is a lien on you, I don't, it's several different conflicting things. If you want to learn all that, head over to patreon.com/law and pledge as little as two bucks a show.

And we also wanted to do something a little different regarding Lotawful Movies, a little special. You know, for Lotawful Movies 28, the one last month, we did the Alex Jones deposition, and it was so fascinating and educational, um, I, I really enjoyed that, it was a lot of fun, you know, ask any of our, our current patrons who heard it. So what we're going to do is we're going to release that one to all patrons now. So if you want to, if you know, if you've been on the fence or whatever, if you want to hop on at any patron level, we're going to actually release that Lotawful Movies 28 to all patrons. Normally, it's restricted to higher level

0:04:08 Thomas: Patrons, patrons, or at least the second level patrons. So we just give more people a chance to hear it because it was really good. Andrew did a fantastic job, and it's not really what you'd think. You know, it's, you learned a lot of stuff. I learned a lot of stuff that maybe wasn't necessarily what you would have thought if you had watched that deposition just on your own without some expert analysis. So that's what we're going to do. And I highly encourage you to go to patreon.com, check out both those lot alpha Movies, they're fantastic, uh,

[0:04:37] so how about you, Andrew, any announcements? Yeah, I wanted to give a quick plug to Alex Schaefer, a

0:04:43 Andrew: Long-standing, uh, friend of the show and research scientist, he is putting together some experiments

[0:04:50] on ranked choice voting, um, so ranked choice voting, the idea is you, there are different ways of implementing it, but you, you essentially vote in rounds and eliminate the lowest ranked candidate and then reassign the votes to that candidate upwards. Right. So it's a way of

[0:05:08] preserving the, the idea that, you know, if you, if, for example, in a, in a multipolar primary, you know, if you had five or six candidates on the left and one centrist candidate. Right. Under our existing model, winner take all, you know, that person, the centrist candidate might get a plurality, you know, say a 25 percent plurality, beating all the lefty candidates. But it's clear that the will of the electorate

[0:05:40] right would, would be with one of the lefty candidates. It, so if you could rank and go, yeah, my top choice is Elizabeth Warren, my second choice is, you know, Kamala Harris, my third choice is Bernie Sanders, whatever, you know, however you want to to rank it, your, your votes then get, you know, reassigned

[0:05:59] based on, on the totals. Anyway, that is a big project. It's something that um, one of my favorite guests that we've had on the show, uh, Lawrence Lessig, um, this, this is another area

[0:06:11] that in which he's been very active. He, he consulted with Maine when Maine passed its statute implementing ranked choice voting for precisely the reason that I just described. Right. Like Maine elected a pro Trump clown horn named Paul

[0:06:30] LePage with 48 percent of the vote because the right. Right, yeah, because all everybody else was sort of split, it was like 48, 47 for the Democrat, and then, uh, you know, that the remainder five percent was split among various third parties, uh,

[0:06:49] yeah, yeah, yeah, we know Jill, uh, Jill Stein, yeah, yeah, Schmil Schmein, right, um, so, uh, so look for that in the OA Facebook community, and I think, I think he told me he, he has taken out clownhornvoting.com, so, so I love that, uh, keep an eye out for that, uh, and, uh, and good work, Alex. Yeah, it's interesting, I, whenever we

0:07:14 Thomas: Talk about this, I'm always, you know, putting it in the frame of mind of like, oh, the presidential election, or the way this and that, but like, we could do, quick, uh, audible, Thomas's question, I mean, it wouldn't be that hard to change the, how the Democratic primary works, at least on a state-by-state level, and have ranked choice voting for the Democratic primary, right? Because there's nothing, you know, that's basically, it's up to the party, right? There's no legal, real requirements or, or like, constitutional

[0:07:45] requirements on it. There are no constitutional requirements, and in fact, uh, the

0:07:51 Andrew: The case law is very, very clear that even for federal elections, the U.S. government owes tremendous deference to the states as to how they conduct

[0:08:03] those elections. Right. And, and look, a lot of that has been used for bad stuff. I mean, that's that's part of how, when Ohio enacts incredibly restrictive rules to purge voters from the registration, you know, in general, our courts have deferred

[0:08:23] to how states run elections. So there is no reason not to start using that as as offense rather than, you know, just have it strictly be in the realm of the side that wants to use rules to try and make it harder for people to vote and to limit the number of people who vote. So interesting stuff. And look, I don't mean to suggest RCV is perfect either,

[0:08:48] right?

0:08:49 Andrew: It's on the whiteboard. We will do a show on it. Maybe we'll get Professor Lessig back on. I would love to have that and kind of hit him with the toughest

[0:09:00] questions that I have for RCV. Be, um, uh, you know, I suspect he's going to be able to persuade me that the benefits outweigh the, uh, the costs, but, um, but anyway, so, uh, so it'll be neat. So, uh, so thanks, Alex, check out clownhornvoting.com. Apparently, uh, all right, we've got a, just a steaming pile of a, uh, Trump

0:09:25 Thomas: Episode to get to, so let's get to it. It's time to yodel, and it's not going to be fun, I don't think,

[0:09:33] because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. So you're not aware of any context during the course of the election. How many times do I have to answer this question? Can you just, Russia is a ruse, I know you have to get up and ask a question, so important, Russia is a ruse, well I'm not a crook, all right. Well Trump pardoned, um, no, I didn't get a chance to read too much into the story, so I can't wait for your breakdown, Andrew, but he, he pardoned someone, a billionaire named Conrad Black, who I'm gonna guess was in prison for hunting human,

[0:10:05] the, the most dangerous game, is that, if I had to guess, like, he probably, close, uh,

0:10:11 Andrew: He is, he's a, uh, he's a rabid Trump supporter, yeah, so of course he's in prison

[0:10:18] for fraud, embezzlement, and obstruction of justice, um, unrelated to Russia, I should say, but you know, obstruction of justice, fraud, and embezzlement seem to be uh the the favorite crimes of yeah, that's the

[0:10:30] Trump signature cocktail of crimes. Yeah, right, yeah, we, we have a couple drinks on the menu here, this is uh, this is a uh, a one third each of fraud, embezzlement, and obstruction of justice, we call it a Trump Negroni, but um, no, look, uh, there are a couple of things that are that are worth pointing out here, and um, and this This really piggybacks on the point you have been making loudly and longly regarding

[0:11:01] the the double standard of the press freak out over Loretta Lynch meeting with Bill Clinton on the tarmac versus, you know, the the lack the comparable lack of outrage when that behavior is is is. Enacted or is engaged in on a on a far worse degree on the right. Immediately what came to mind when, when Trump pardons, but, and, and, and, and let's be clear here, Trump has pardoned Black solely because Conrad Black has written a book called Donald J. Trump, A President

[0:11:40] Like No Other. Yeah, um, when you go to Conrad Black's website, which I will not link in the show notes because, you know, screw that guy, he, he has written over and over again in pieces that have gotten picked up by the National Review, which, you know, is a garbage dump of, of, of a magazine, but uh, arguing that Donald Trump is headed for a Nixon-like landslide in 2020, uh, to to be re-elected. So hold on, they

[0:12:12] voluntarily took on the Nixon comparison? Yeah, yeah, right, I mean, that was the first thing that came to mind. He also says, you know, or Reagan-esque, right, but not since Stalin was re-elected will there be, like, what, why are you, right, yeah, um, so uh, okay, so he's a Trump bootlicker, uh, and it must be hard, like, one part of the sentencing of, of criminal proceedings now, I was like, you're, you know, we've sentenced you for fraud, for embezzlement, for blah blah, and uh, your sentence will

0:12:43 Thomas: Be, you're gonna have to try to write a book about Trump, because it's only, let's face it, it's the only way some people who are not even authors are gonna have to be like, crap, now I have to start, give me the typewriter, I'll start writing a book about Trump, just see, see if I can get

[0:12:55] pardoned. Yeah, and and what I want to flag here is, prior to Donald Trump taking office, the notion that you would use, that a president would use his pardon powers for cronies and friends who had

0:13:14 Andrew: Inarguably committed crimes was in a bipartisan way thought of as

[0:13:20] violating the the the code of ethics of the presidency, thought of as an abuse of the presidential pardon power. And, and I refer folks to the Mark Rich pardon controversy. Right, on the last day, there's a reason why Bill Clinton pardoned Mark Rich. Mark Rich was uh a

[0:13:40] a tax cheat. He owed, I think it was on the order of 50 million dollars in unpaid taxes, um, and so he was convicted of 51 separate counts of tax

[0:13:52] fraud. And on the last Last day in office, Bill Clinton pardoned Mark Rich. We don't know why, but we can suspect it had to do with the fact that the Rich family had made substantial donations to the Clinton Library and to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign.

[0:14:11] It smelled, right? And that was an example where it did look really, really bad. And Democrats were like, yeah, it was bad. And it's another reason to knee Bill Clinton, right, squarely in the groin, if you see him, you know, don't, don't take assault advice from a podcast, metaphorically. Yeah, but metaphorically knee in, I mean, after you're done with, like, I don't know, 25 Alabama uh state senators, you know, yeah, right, right, start

0:14:41 Thomas: There first, and then, once you've got a good, once you've got a range of motion going on your groin kneeing, you know, like if you're loosened up, you know, you're, you're, you're ready to go, then, then maybe you can, you can tack on Clinton. So

[0:14:54] we should maintain outrage about this. Pardoning cronies who have committed crimes is an abuse of the presidential power. It's not an impeachable abuse, right, but it's, it's, you know, I mean, anything is impeachable, but, like, look, if, if this

0:15:13 Andrew: Were a Democratic president who did this in the middle of her term, we would be on the show saying that this is an abuse of the pardon power. It wouldn't be something that I would be immediately behind impeaching that Democratic president over, uh, it's standing alone, uh, but um, but, but it's, it's gross, it's an abusive office.

[0:15:32] It shouldn't be tolerated. Oh, and by the way, Conrad Black is also a gigantic racist.

0:15:38 Andrew: Right, would you, would you like to hear what he said about the Charlotteville, uh, the Unite the Right? I don't think there's gonna be a lot

[0:15:44] of listeners are like, damn, lost that bet in terms of him turning out to be a racist. Yeah, so here's what he said in an article entitled Who Was Really at Fault in Charlottesville, quote, almost everything about the Charlottesville riot was disgraceful, except the conduct of the president. The move to take down the statue of General Robert E. Lee was nonsense. Lee has few rivals

[0:16:10] as the greatest general in American history, blah blah blah, uh, he was less dedicated to the virtues of slavery than Thomas Jefferson. This terrible incident started out as a reasonable civic demonstration by Southern traditionalists who were not hostile to African Americans, but objected to the shamed renunciation of

[0:16:29] a great American heroic and folkloric figure from Gone with the Wind. I, it, it then it says Scarlett O'Hara statue or, yeah, right, right, um, as the day unfolded, it was clear that orders had been given to the local police to ensure that a serious fracas occurred. It must be assumed that orders for insufficient law enforcement and ineffectual rules of engagement emanated ultimately from the governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, the The ne plus ultra. I know I'm screwing up that French, but you know, that the without peer of Clintonian zeal and cynicism, and former Democratic Party chairman. So there you have it. It was just good old Southern traditionalists at Charlottesville, and the real parties to blame were the Democrats for sending out secret orders to the police to make sure that A riot took place.

[0:17:23] This guy just got a full pardon from Donald Trump for the crimes, again, of fraud, embezzlement, and obstruction of justice. This should be a scandal. Don't let people just kind of whitewash over and be like, oh, well, you know, presidents pardon their friends all the time. A, presidents shouldn't have friends who are felons.

[0:17:42] And B, no, they don't. I love it, too, because the, oh, no, good people on both sides, that is totally wrong and inappropriate.

0:17:48 Thomas: There were good people on only one side, the racist side, those trying to keep the statue. Hello, it's a different, uh, take than I was expecting, like, yeah, not good people on both sides, good people on one side, and no, no, no,

[0:18:01] no, not that side, the other, the other one. Yeah, yeah, well, that, there you go. Conrad Black, free man. All right, well, I can't wait for that to have no consequences and not matter, but uh, that's just, that's just me. Opening Arguments is brought to you by The Great Courses Plus. You know, sometimes we all need a break from this news cycle. Don't stop listening to OA. You have to listen to OA. However, you might also want a break, and The Great Courses Plus is that perfect escape. And it's so empowering as well. With the streaming service, you can pick up a new hobby or build your knowledge on virtually any topic

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[0:19:53] Slash O-A. I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign. I have no idea. If I have not, I said the President United States, there is not a single bit of evidence the President United States committed the only crime you could commit here, conspired with the Russians to hack the DNC. And here we are, that's right, we're still yodeling the Muller report. We don't live and die by the just the Muller report alone. Yodel Mountain is forever, and, uh, uh, hopefully Trump won't be forever, but, you know, we're gonna cover scandals and things that are in the news and, uh, Deutsche Bank, I think they, I'm curious to hear about this, but, uh, I believe they loaned Trump

[0:20:31] 11 billion dollars that he promptly lost, or what's going on with Trump? V, yeah, so, uh, and

0:20:37 Andrew: Here I want to steal the, uh, the title for this episode from our friends over at

[0:20:43] Muller, She Wrote, who refer, who refer to Deutsche Bank as Deutsche One Alone, which I think is spectacular. Um, the Muller report is very, very clear on this, that Deutsche Bank became the lender of last resort to Donald Trump, uh, that there were internal debates

[0:21:02] over, uh, the, the incredible lax standards under which Deutsche Bank advanced Trump billions of dollars, and, uh, and so as part of the Congressional oversight role, the House Committee on oversight served subpoenas on Deutsche Bank and on Capital One for financial records related to Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Melania Trump, and the Trump Organization, because they use Deutsche Bank, that was, and and Capital One, I guess, for their, like, it's weird to think of, you know, because you're right, like, I have a Capital One bank card,

[0:21:47] you know, that was the first credit card I ever got, and it, uh, it had a limit of like 23 dollars, okay, it was absolutely useless, Capital One, well, it's, it's why I still have my Capital One card, because it's, I've had it for so long that, you know, it's, it's made out of wood, continued to increase the credit limit and stuff, and, and, and they, for a while, their, um, their savings bank had the highest, and by

[0:22:12] highest I mean it was like, hey, hey, we're not sponsored by them yet, uh, yeah, we're definitely not, yeah, but anyway, um, it's weird to imagine, like, Ivanka pulling out an ATM card, right, being like, oh, I need to get a couple 20s from the from the bank, but, uh, but I think that's, I think that's how they used Capital One. Um, there's no, there are no allegations that that Capital One advanced Trump, uh, or his, you know, no

[0:22:36] talent kids bids, uh, substantial sums of money, but, but they got the subpoenas, and, and remember, right, part of the significance of this is what we've talked about, like, I, I loved your introduction, but is the disaggregation of all of the various avenues by which to obtain the kind of information that we need to hold Trump accountable, and one of them is, uh, serving a subpoena on a giant multinational corporation, which otherwise informed Donald Trump that absent a court order, it intended to comply with the subpoenas and turn over all of Donald Trump's financial information, all of the responsive records to the Congressional Oversight Committee. And so Donald Trump, as you might imagine, ran to court and sued Deutsche Bank to get, he had an injunction to block Deutsche Bank from having to release those records and comply with the subpoena. And that's what this lawsuit is about. The Congress, the Congressional Committee intervened, right, moved to intervene in the litigation. And Deutsche Bank filed a statement a couple of days ago on May 10th that said, hey, look, we take no position on this, right,

[0:23:59] leave, leave us out of it, we'll comply if you tell us to comply, we'll not comply if the court tells us not to comply, but this is really a dispute between Donald Trump and the House Oversight Committee, and it is, and the principal argument that Trump is making is an argument that, uh, the subpoenas are, our good friend, ultra virus, that they are beyond the power of the House to issue because they relate to efforts to to ascertain criminal activity, and not to any legitimate legislative purpose.

0:24:40 Thomas: So what's the cure for ultra virus?

0:24:44 Andrew: I think our patrons will tell us this.

[0:24:48] So, before we get into that question of whether this is really beyond the scope, scope, um, I, I want us to to take

[0:25:01] a little bit of a look at Michael McFaul. Okay, Michael McFaul was, the was Barack Obama's ambassador to Russia, he was a Stanford University professor, he's somebody who was widely recognized as, and, and here, this a conservative scholar, uh, who called McFaul, quote, Quote, the leading scholar of his generation, may be the leading scholar, period, on post-communist Russia. So when he was made ambassador to Russia, he was confirmed unanimously, 98 to zero, by the Senate.

[0:25:44] And he became the first ambassador to Russia who came out of academia. Right. Who was not a a career diplomat. Right. Usually that's who you put in that space.

[0:26:02] Um, McFaul also advised George W. Bush, right, so again, he's he's a Democrat, he was appointed by a Democratic president, uh, but not somebody, you know, he's not Bernie Sanders,

[0:26:14] he is not a partisan Democrat, as far as I can tell, he's just an expert on Russia. Disturbingly, this is something, it flew beneath our radar and it shouldn't have, July of last year, Russia announced that it wanted to question McFaul in related, in relation to their investigations of the ongoing Russian efforts to file lawsuits against Bill Browder. Bill Browder, in turn, is the guy, that the, the, um, he's a, uh, he's a British

[0:26:56] economist, um, and he is the person who is most responsible for bringing Sergei Magnitsky's, uh, case to the United States. Um, and, uh, he actively lobbied the United States to pass the Magnitsky Act, and, um, so you can understand why Russia, uh, is not too keen on on Bill Browder, uh, you can understand why

[0:27:27] uh they if they think McFaul, who is very anti-Putin, uh, helped collaborate with Browder, uh, why they would want to interrogate him, and when Russia wants to

[0:27:40] question you, right, I mean, that's that's a pretty scary scenario, what makes this truly, truly terrifying is that Putin made the request to Trump at the Helsinki summit in 2018.

[0:27:57] And as reported in the White House news conference two days later, right, again, again, this was that Helsinki summit, one of those for which there were no transcripts available for the, uh, for the meeting conducted between Trump and Putin, um, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Trump described Putin's suggestion that they turn Michael McFaul, American citizen, over to the Russians as, quote, an interesting idea, end of quote, and neither rejected it out of hand nor made a

[0:28:29] firm commitment. Several days later, the Senate voted 98 to 0, uh, to adopt a resolution that states that no current or former diplomat or other government employee

[0:28:41] should be made available to the Russians for interrogation. Um, so it is it it is astonishing, I mean, this, this again, this goes back to, we haven't heard from our, our friend that, uh, submitted the challenge to us on, on, uh, the, the Russian platform, uh, Change, but, uh, but if you want another link in the chain of the massive amounts of evidence that the Trump

[0:29:07] administration is personally pro-Putin, the idea that you would entertain that somebody could sit in the room and be like, hey, we'd, we'd like to, quote, interrogate this guy, uh, for being a civic activist, and that the President of the United States would call that, that it's kind of interesting, I'll think about it.

[0:29:26] That's appalling. That is.

0:29:28 Thomas: And we don't, I, you know, we don't have time to get into it here, but I've heard actually a few interviews with Bill Browder and podcasts

[0:29:34] about this. And, you know, it might be one thing if it was like, okay, someone committed a crime in Russia and like fled to the U.S. and, you know, maybe that would be like one thing, but like this couldn't be more evil, you know, like Magnitsky was, was was literally beaten to death and ignored and with with all the kinds of medical conditions that led to his death, uh, and he was just a a guy, like he was just an accountant who and who got caught up in, uh, you know, I think it was something to do with Putin's power grabbing, you know, got caught up in, uh, something to do with that, with Putin, uh, seizing assets and stuff like that, and, uh, the, the idea that like we would be anywhere on the other side of this than with Magnitsky and Browder as a country is is sickening. It really is. It's just absolutely sickening. Yeah, absolutely.

[0:30:27] So McFaul, not going to be turned over to the Russians, has been working with

0:30:33 Andrew: The House Intelligence Committee investigating Russian efforts into interfering with the U.S. elections. And I'm going to link his recent this. This was March 29th of this year, 2019. I'm going to link his report in the show notes.

[0:30:53] A lot of it are more details of things that, you know, right, which was Putin's overall goal was to undermine Hillary Clinton and strengthen Donald Trump.

0:31:06 Andrew: There there were details. There are details in this that I didn't previously know. But the

[0:31:12] interesting part for purposes of this lawsuit is in discussing how Putin spreads his influence around the world, McFaul ticks off a list of six different concerted strategies, right? Some of them is the Internet Research Agency stuff, right? But here he talks about using Russian companies, and he says, in parallel with Putin's use of money, corruption, and property rights as instruments for governing inside Russia, the Russian government instructs its economic actors to make deals with foreign entities to establish increased leverage and influence within these countries. The use of these economic incentives and operations can be highly cooperative and coercive, as laundering money, for example, can be lucrative for partnering entities in the West, but also blackmailing.

0:32:06 Andrew: Gazprom, for instance, does not seek to maximize profits for its shareholders. Its mission is instead to advance the Kremlin's foreign policy interests throughout the world, but especially in Europe. The construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline serves primarily to weaken Ukraine and less to achieve profit maximization. Rosneft's investment in Venezuela also served Putin foreign policy objectives. Most, if not all, Russian state-owned enterprises function to varying degrees as instruments of Putin's foreign policy objectives. However, not all Russian private companies investing in trading abroad should be considered Kremlin agents.

0:32:47 Andrew: Untangling the difference is an important subject that demands further investigation from both the U.S. intelligence community

[0:32:53] and academia. Okay, so to me, that paragraph is really, really significant, right? Number one, it points out a kind of economic coercion that is possible when you have these massive state-owned companies that you can then direct them to engage in activity that is detrimental from a business standpoint, but advances your political strategic interests. And especially the idea that you would launder money for entities in the West, right? That you would essentially be stripping money out of the coffers of Gazprom and Rosneft in order to then have blackmail data on entities in the West, right? Right. So deliberately engaging in bad business deals in order to prop up, in order to gain leverage from a political standpoint.

0:33:57 Andrew: The last part of that is what's relevant to this lawsuit, which is

[0:34:03] McFaul telling the House, hey, look, we know Putin does this.

0:34:09 Andrew: We know he uses state run companies as political leverage. But, look, that doesn't mean every company in Russia is doing that. That doesn't mean that we should embargo all of Russia and refuse to do business with any Russian business. It means that we need to be smart about this. It means that we need to figure out exactly how these companies are exercising leverage over

[0:34:35] the United States, and that is the argument. There are others, but that is the principal argument that the House Committee is arguing is the basis for

[0:34:47] issuing the subpoenas. Right, so Trump has moved, uh, for preliminary injunction, we're going to talk about the legal standards on that in a minute, and I'm you a a pre-ttbe quiz, um, but, uh, yeah, pre-tbtp, yes. But the gravamen of the argument is the ultra virus, right? There's There is also an argument about uh the um Economic Records Act, and I think that the law is pretty clear that that doesn't apply to Congress, so I'm not going going to talk about that in connection with this lawsuit. I've been through the cases, and uh and the the statutory claim, I think, is is really, it's not a good argument that it applies to Congress, that it only applies to executive agencies. But the argument with respect to executive agencies is, look, Congress isn't really trying to investigate anything, uh, in terms of passing legislation, legislation, um, all they're trying to do is uncover Trump crimes, and that's not the job of the legislature. Um, I should point out that when you are reduced as the president's lawyers to having to argue the crimes that the

[0:36:02] president has committed are none of your business to the Congress in print, that's a tough spot to be in, right? Um, but but nevertheless, right, like that that they are correct that if this, if the subpoenas are not in furtherance of any legitimate legislative purpose, then they are ultra virus, then they are beyond the

[0:36:27] powers of Congress to issue, uh, and Trump would be entitled to to have them quashed. The good news is I don't think they have any hope of prevailing on this argument, um, and I don't think they have any hope because, um, because of two things, right? Because of number one, the the Mcfall argument that I just made, right, because Congress has said, and and as interveners, the the House Committee said, look, um, we we don't deny that we are seeking information, uh, about Donald Trump, uh, and in particular the extent to which he may be compromised by Russia. That is very relevant to us considering legislation as to how best to protect the United States of America from ongoing efforts to subvert our elections, and

[0:37:19] that's point one, and point two is the case law is just abundantly clear, over and over again, that a court is not going to second guess a legislature for saying it has a legitimate legislative purpose. This passes the smell test, right? If, if you want to argue that seeking Trump's tax returns, um, you know, is not going to be related to passing a new tax law, you know, you can make that's a stronger argument, I think, but but the idea that you are seeking the business records Of Deutsche Bank to the Trump Org in order to ascertain whether Russia has financial leverage over the president, in order to figure out how this works, in order to pass legislation that protects the United States from future efforts

[0:38:14] by Russia to subvert our democracy. I cannot imagine any court in this country, including the Supreme Court, I would add, saying that's not a legitimate

[0:38:26] legislative purpose. And I think the Trump lawyers know this. I think they're expecting to lose on this, and and there's an interesting way that

[0:38:40] uh that that you can divine this from the arguments that they make in their brief, and I'm gonna set you up for, we haven't discussed this, so I'm gonna set you up for it because I think you're gonna, I think you're gonna hit this out of the park. Great.

[0:38:53] So, Thomas, this lawsuit seeks an injunction preventing Deutsche Bank from turning over the financial records in compliance with the subpoena to the House Oversight Committee.

[0:39:08] What's the standard for granting a preliminary injunction? Oh, well, yeah, I mean, I always get like one or two of these.

0:39:17 Thomas: Preliminary injunction, likelihood of success on the merit, balance of like the harms, whether or not it's, you know, how detrimental it's going to be if you let it happen versus the weight of harm if you don't let it happen. And I think there's one other one that I always forget.

[0:39:36] So that's my- Irreparable harm. Irreparable harm? Yep. So that is harm that can't- So you got two out of the four, right? Four, yeah. Meh, it's

0:39:49 Andrew: Okay. Likelihood of success on the merits, uh, then balance of the equities favors the party moving for relief, right, which you got those two. Um, the moving party must show irreparable harm, and by irreparable harm, that is injury that cannot be compensated with money, right? Um, and then, uh, uh, fourth is that the, the injunction is in the public interest, right? And that's a super vague, and every injunction I've ever argued, you know, you put like kind of a paragraph at the end and both sides are like, it is in the public interest, it isn't in the public interest. And I have never seen the question of public interest be dispositive. Yeah.

[0:40:26] They should just get rid of that, that prong. Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I agree, uh, because I think that it's, that that's borne out by, you know, know, the balance of the equities, right? Like if something is

[0:40:38] in the, redundant, someone wanted a fourth item for some reason, they're like, well, what can we think of? Yeah, so, but you got the important one right, uh, which is likelihood of success in the mayor. We've said this on the show, you know, 30 or 40 times, right, that that's the, that's the key, you've got to show that you're going to win before the court will issue an injunction, even if you have all of the other. As it

[0:41:04] turns out, this lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York, which is under the purview of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. And as it turns out, the Second Circuit has an alternative formulation. I did not know this until I started researching. They have an alternative formulation for when they grant, uh, injunctive relief, and I I should add, the four prongs that that you described, that you mostly described, come from a Supreme Court case, right? They come from a case called Winter versus National Resources

[0:41:43] uh Defense Council Inc, 555 US 7, 2008 case, right, um, and so then the Second Circuit had to determine, okay, did this 2008 Supreme Court case, does that mean we have to change our alternate standards for granting injunctive relief, and they said no, we don't think it does, um, and that

[0:42:09] case, um, a case called city group Global Markets, which is a a 2010 case out of the Second Circuit, I'll also link that in the show notes, uh, in the city group case, they said, yeah, we think that despite Winter, um, that the Supreme Court intended to allow us, uh, to

[0:42:28] to use a more flexible standard. I'm going to tell you what that standard is in a minute, um, but, uh, and that, and the Supreme Court denied cert, uh, in in that case, um, which does not mean that they approve of the reasoning, uh, but it does mean that as of right now, in the Second Circuit, in addition to showing a likelihood of success

[0:42:53] on the merits, you can show quote "sufficiently serious questions going to the merits make them a fair ground for litigation, and a balance of hardships tipping decidedly towards the party requesting the preliminary relief." So what does that mean?

[0:43:11] That means, if the, if the balance of harms is really, really strongly in your favor in the Second Circuit, you can move for an injunction even if you can't show a substantial likelihood of success on the merits, even if, as the Second Circuit points out, it may not be possible to judge whether you would win or not, right? It might be 50-50, it might be be indeterminate, as

[0:43:37] long as you can show a greater degree than usual of the the the harms that would come to you if the injunction is not granted. The reason why, and this is really, really interesting, the reason why I think the Second Circuit is correct in saying that that's not, that doesn't run afoul of the standard formulation for injunctive relief, is because, as as we've also talked about on the show,

[0:44:07] all, when you have those four factors, lots of cases interpreting them that basically said, look, you know, the stronger any one factor is, right, the less of a showing is required for the other factors, right? So if you have a really, really strong showing of irreparable harm, then, you know, it's less important for you to show that you are really, really likely to prevail on appeal, and vice

[0:44:32] versa.

0:44:33 Andrew: So this is a way of preserving flexibility and saying, yeah, okay, maybe we can't show an overwhelming likelihood of success on the merits, but we can show a massive

[0:44:45] amount of harm. And it's not a total shot in the dark, right? There are serious questions that go to the merits that make Make them a fair ground for litigation.

0:44:58 Andrew: And that's the standard that Trump has argued for in this case.

[0:45:04] Now, the reason you start with that standard is because, you know, you cannot argue with a straight face in court that you are likely to succeed on the merits. And they don't. They say,

[0:45:16] We don't think, we're not going to argue that we're likely to succeed on the merit. We're just saying it's a real question, and our hardship is overwhelming. Why? Because once the economic records come out, those are private records. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. And even if the House Oversight Committee promises that they won't release those records, you know, you know, Congress, they leak like a sieve. That's, that's actually what they've argued in print. Um,

[0:45:46] I do not, and, and by the way, briefing on this concluded yesterday, right? Concluded Wednesday, March 15th. Um, so this is before, uh, the Southern District of New York, the, the District Court for the Southern District of New York. Um, I do not think the court will sit on this for very long. Uh, a ruling may come out by the time, uh, this episode drops.

0:46:13 Andrew: Uh, and and I think, very, very, I'm willing to make a prediction, Thomas.

[0:46:20] Go ahead, put it down in the, in the OA Wiki. Uh, I think that, uh, the Southern District is going to deny the injunction. But the argument, it, it's, it's interesting, like, I tell you, when you know Trump is in court with, you know, with no leg to stand on here, um,

[0:46:39] this was, this was the papers here were well drafted, right, it was not. The arguments are not frivolous. Um, I think they're wrong, and and it's why I went through all of the standards. I think at the end of the day, the Southern District, uh,

[0:46:58] the District Court for the Southern District New York is going to say, yeah, we defer to Congress in its legislative findings that there is a valid legislative purpose here. And in any event, even if we didn't, there is substantial evidence cited in the papers that this has a legitimate legislative purpose. We're not going to argue that it doesn't. Like I said, I think the other claim here, the statutory claim, Trump is just dead wrong. I don't even know why they raised that one, other than maybe they misread the statute.

[0:47:35] But it's not a crazy argument. And they've couched it in the best possible way to garner a favorable verdict. I don't think they will. I think they're going to lose at the district court. I think they're going to lose at the Second Circuit.

[0:47:54] And I think, I hate to predict any negative Trump outcome at the Supreme Court, but I think they would lose at the Supreme Court on this. I don't see how those, how you're going to get a court to block a valid congressional subpoena for a legitimate legislative purpose. Well, especially because then they can't continue to try to get Hillary impeached. You know, I know they're still, they're still pursuing that. They are. I mean, you're being a little bit facetious here. No, but yeah, I'm being serious. They will want to be able

[0:48:34] to launch

0:48:35 Thomas: BS investigation after BS investigation of President Elizabeth Warren in 2020. Exactly right.

[0:48:41] Exactly right. And that is what will be going through the minds of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court. Because, yeah, is Brett Kavanaugh personally loyal to Donald Trump? Maybe. I don't

0:48:59 Andrew: Know. I don't know what's going on in their heads.

[0:49:03] I would be shocked, right, if Samuel Alito has any personal loyalty to Donald Trump. What Samuel Alito has is a commitment to, a yeah, a strong dedication to making the world worse. Yes, that's exactly right. And and and he's going to look at this and go, Donald Trump isn't gonna be president forever. And, you know, I want, I do not want to have a situation where we have said that the, that the Congress cannot issue subpoenas, because, because, and you can come to the court and get a judicial order blocking Congress from subpoenaing a party in connection with a congressional investigation. I cannot see that this court would want to do that for the reasons that you've said. So this is all sort

[0:49:59] of part of our continuing theme of how you can use the conservative ideology on the Supreme Court and in a lot of the federal judiciary to your advantage. And I think we're going to see that happen in this case.

0:50:18 Thomas: All righty. Well, how long is this whole process going to take? I mean, this is another case where they're getting very good at, you know, yes, we should see this, whatever, such and such business records or whatever, but we

[0:50:31] can stall it long enough to where effectively maybe it won't matter. What are you expecting? And in fact,

0:50:37 Andrew: That is the argument, right? I've praised Consovoy's lawyering in this document, but they actually, in the balance of the equities section, here's what Trump's lawyers have argued with a straight face. So they say, the serious question standard applies here, right, and just explain what that was, because the equities tip decidedly in plaintiff's favor. Denying a preliminary injunction would forever moot this case, foreclose plaintiff's right to judicial review, and destroy the confidentiality

[0:51:08] of their sensitive financial information.

0:51:11 Andrew: Granting a preliminary injunction, on the other hand, would at most delay the committee's receipt of plaintiff's information. Um,

[0:51:17] and and and now you're sitting there thinking wait what what do you mean it would delay the receipt of the information, and and what they mean by that is you enter the injunction now, and then you litigate the merits of the case, and if the Congress is right, they're still going to oppose it, right, they're still arguing you don't get this at all, but if they're wrong on that, right, right, then on the merits, then the court could, then would then release the information after that determination has

[0:51:48] been made. Right. So it's, they're out in front that saying, yeah, basically, like what we want to do is kick this down the road. And and I think the Southern District is going to see through that, right, I think that it's part of why I'm pretty confident that, uh, they are not going to issue the injunction. Um, Trump will then immediately appeal to the Second Circuit. I would assume that, uh, the House Committee will move for an expedited briefing schedule. I think they'll get it, uh, and I would expect the Southern Circuit to affirm, and then it's in the hands of the Supreme Court. And then, you know, could the Supreme Court try and run out the clock? They could, right, they could, uh, but, um, but I don't see how, uh, you get beyond, you know, a couple of months, uh, before this question

[0:52:38] comes before the Supreme Court. And I, then can't see the Supreme Court, right, if, if, if this is, if you have a decision by the Second Circuit in the summer, um, the Supreme Court's gonna have to take, take it on cert, and and then, uh, you'll have briefing in the fall, and, uh, and you'll get a decision, um,

[0:52:57] in the beginning of 2020, and you know, is that is that running out the clock? Sure, but it's not running out the clock nearly as badly as waiting, as saying, oh no, there's no harm in just having a full determination on the merits. The court knows exactly what

[0:53:14] that harm is, right, which is time. Yeah, and so I, I think we're going to move quickly on this. We'll see. Opening Arguments is brought to you by Joybird. Folks, can you believe it? Baby Arlo is almost

0:53:26 Thomas: A month old. And you know what that means? That means I've been sleeping on my wonderful, comfortable, amazing Joybird pullout couch for about a month. That is the reality of parenting. The only way I have any chance at being rested enough to record OA for you is to get some sleep on our awesome Joybird couch. I love it, and I highly recommend Joybird. Joybird empowers you, you, to create the furniture and space that brings you joy. With Joybird, you get one-of-a-kind furniture crafted to your unique taste. Turn your ideas into reality with hundreds of styles and

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[0:55:00] slash OA and receive an exclusive offer for 25% off your first order by using that code OA. All right, well, time for a listener question. He who questions training only trains himself at asking questions.

[0:55:16] What, okay, Rob Bait asks, I think I hear you guys saying that Muller's declination to prosecute on the conspiracy charges in part one of his report, well, I already would quibble with that wording, but okay, we'll continue, uh, means that he found not enough evidence of conspiracy with the Russians by anyone in Trump's campaign to charge conspiracy. It seems to me that if the investigation was, was obstructed, then it follows that investigation into conspiracy was necessarily incomplete. Do you feel the charges of collusion are a done deal as far as Mueller is concerned? Yeah, I've made this exact point. It's if you flush the drugs, you know, before anyone gets a chance to find them, then it's not fair to say, well, there's never any drugs.

0:56:03 Thomas: Oh, that's so that part's solved. Now, was there obstruction? Well, no, because there wasn't, you know, there's no crime, so no obstruction. Um, yeah, that's the, certainly the point I've been making, but I do feel like the charges of collusion are pretty much a done deal. Cause I don't know who else would possibly look into them. What do you think, Andrew?

[0:56:20] Yeah, I, I agree 100% with everything that you've said, right? So the, the, the

0:56:26 Andrew: Short answer to Rob's question here is that, right, right, Mueller's work is still done, right? As of now, everything has been handed off with respect to what Mueller can do, uh, what what he can do is testify before the House Oversight Committee. He's going to do that. There were initial reports that they had reached a date of today by which Mueller would testify. Obviously, that didn't happen, or this show would have looked a little different today. But the House is, they're going to hear from Robert Mueller, and they are going to ask him the terminal question. This is what Donald Trump is terrified of. It is the end game of everything that Bill Barr has tried to do because the House committee

[0:57:16] is going to say, Mr. Mueller, you cite to the Office of Legal Counsel memorandum multiple times in your report as to what you believed was your inability to indict a sitting president. If the defendant were not

[0:57:35] Donald J. Trump, president of the United States, would you as a career prosecutor have recommended that that defendant be indicted? And I think it's very, very clear from reading the Muller report that the answer to that is yes. I would hope, and that I've thought about this very thing, and I just sincerely hope that

0:57:54 Thomas: Muller gives a good answer, but I just want to remind everybody that Ken Star was a political hack bent on destroying the Clinton presidency, presidency, and Robert Mueller is a Republican. So, like, I just wish we could all keep that in mind as we think about, you know, comparing this investigation, different presidential

[0:58:13] investigations.

0:58:14 Thomas: Somehow, you know, I don't know how, but we've all kind of absorbed that, like, okay, this is what should be happening. We should have a Republican investigative Republican. And I guess we're cool with it because Mueller seems like a stand-up guy, but, like, still, still, that's going to have some effect, you know, if this were the Clinton years, it would be like, I don't know, having Pelosi investigate Trump or something, you know, like, or even worse, I don't know, or even more

[0:58:39] to the left. So just keeping that in mind. Yep. And and and then I agree entirely

0:58:46 Andrew: With that, and um, and the only other thing that I would add on Robert's question is declination decisions are not binding, right? That is an exercise of prosecutorial discretion. If

[0:58:58] additional evidence surfaces, uh, then you can revisit that. Yeah, because that's, didn't we have a double jeopardy question about that at some point or something, because, because, yeah, or it might have been a bar question. Yeah, that's very

0:59:10 Thomas: Interesting. I didn't think about that. So they, isn't there a Supreme Court case or something, or it eventually was decided that if you decline to prosecute, it's not that, that doesn't count toward double jeopardy because you never were actually, uh,

0:59:23 Andrew: You were never in jeopardy. Yeah, that's exactly right. Um, jeopardy attaches at the moment that, uh, you have been charged, and so not being charged is just not being charged. Now, right, are there crimes for which the statute of limitations may run out? Sure.

[0:59:42] But look, the way, again, if you've got an Uncle Frank and you're trying to make this clear to them, James Comey reached a declination decision on Hillary Clinton, right? Right. Uncle Frank doesn't think that that's binding.

0:59:58 Andrew: So if that's not binding then neither is Bob Muller's decision not to charge, uh,

[1:00:05] Donald Trump um so uh so keep that in mind all right good

1:00:11 Thomas: Question. Thanks for the, uh, the question there, and as always, everybody's questions and emails are really, really good. Uh, we have such a great audience and intelligent audience, and now it is time to thank our patrons, who I hope are enjoying the Law'd Awful Movies, uh, 29, and enjoyed 28, uh, and we're going to thank our top patrons, our Hall of Famers, all-time greats, over on patreon.com/law, and we begin with Increasing My Knowledge Law Skill to Pass the Bar Exam, okay, Dragonfly.eco, books about nature and the environment, reviews and interviews, stuff and polls, uh, Sherry, autistic people aren't puzzles, stop with the puzzle pieces, Darth Bandy Pants, John Richards, well-deserved Patron Number 239, Donald J. Trump Presidential Library at Rikers, I'm, and I'm brewing, Bar Prep Buddy.com, coming soon, soon. Adam Costa, 13th century gravel

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[1:04:04] your turn, Andrew. Alright, and thank you to join your labor union, together we bargain, alone we beg, town

1:04:11 Andrew: Of Greece v. Matthew, Chapter 6, verses 5 through 10, uh, go look that one up. I think that's the uh, "don't pray out in public" thing. Uh, maker of things out of other things. Let's have Andrew read the second half of

[1:04:23] the names for a change. Well, you got what you wish for, James. Andrew's epitaph will link all his sources in the stone notes. Yeah, unless something happens to the stone, uh, technology that screws

[1:04:35] him up. Sorry. Sorry about that.

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[1:05:01] Chalmondeley Featherston Hall? Yeah, we can't win, because, like, that one's for me, but the

1:05:08 Thomas: Other one was like, oh, Andrew should read the second half. Sorry, we just, there's no way to win. We, we do what we do. GSV

1:05:14 Andrew: Unfortunate Conflict of Evidence. WordOrigins.org, your source for legal terms from 13th century Saxony. Chugga

[1:05:21] chugga chugga Batman. Yeah, the three chuggas is, I'm with you, it's got to be an even. What? Oh, you're with me. Oh, okay, I thought you were saying you were. Yeah, yeah. We need to talk about Bill Barr's Sharpie Huffing Addiction. Derek. George Michael Jackson Brown. Mark Clayton Richard Simmons Mattresses. A Pack of Howler Monkeys who have now been slandered on GAM 2. Barack Obama wrote about Change of You.com on Facebook. Well, I would, I would be excited if Barack Obama wrote about OA on Facebook. So, uh, good job, Liz, uh, overturned Citizens United to unseat Conrad Michaels. Big

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[1:06:17] Endgame, so, uh, I guess we could, we could ruin it for everyone and talk about our, we'll do a in-depth, uh, law, uh, review of it. Yeah, well, you know, we actually could. Could do a Law'd Awful Movies of, what, Civil War, right? The Sokovia Accords? Oh, good idea. Rhonda Apple, Howler Monkeys Doing Shots at the Lukumi Bar, Malika Chandler, Abacus Flinch, Volunteer with Camp Quest this Summer, CampQuest.org, Soggy Pants, Sam Denao, Greg Sullivan, Michael Patrick Porkins, Taffy Lee Fubens,

[1:06:48] and Bart Harley Jarvis. All right. Fish Officers in Spice. In Spice.

1:06:56 Andrew: Zabby, Matthew Vernon, adopt a homeless pet and opposed declawing and ear docking, Aaron Graddy, Heather L., Jeremiah's

[1:07:02] fancy microwave emporium. Sakashite. F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F, F. Chris Wattle, I have no idea, no idea, but we read it. Ian and Ally. Yeah. Oh, wow, rest assured, it's like a brilliant reference to some British politics thing that we never get, but it's, but, you know, we don't get it, but I'm sure it's great. Yep. I, I am thrilled, I don't know who Yarrow is, but, uh, to have, to have gotten in with a, uh, with a

[1:07:33] reference from, uh, from last night's, uh, I'll give you, uh, one guess at who would be so prompt and brilliant in their name changing, I think, we Andrew takes the patron exam, go, who is it? Yeah, that's gotta be Theresa. Go, you nailed it. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Oh, I should have known. Neil Gorsuch is a Clown Horning Monster. Eli Bosnick, Mitchell Aaron is

[1:07:58] pro-cloning so he can cannibalize himself, have some Found Guilty with your Proven Innocent candle. Oh, nice. I mean, when you need both of them, right? Yeah, you kind of, they're complimentary. Yeah, yeah, I like sipping tea while, uh, enjoying the beautiful scent of a candle, an anagram of Lindsey Graham is Angrily Shamed. Yeah, I sure hope so. And our all-time great, our number one, he who shall never be overthrown but keep trying, Conrad Michaels. All right,

1:08:30 Thomas: Thank you, fine, fine, fine patrons. And, uh, now it is time for a little TTTBE. And since Andrew aced the patron exam, I, I feel I'm feeling extra pressure now. Although I feel

[1:08:43] like your question was a little bit easier than whatever this is going to be. Yeah, yeah, there's really only one answer. Oh, no associate this firm has ever failed the bar exam. No kidding. All right.

1:08:55 Andrew: Thomas, we have a, uh, criminal law question. I think, I think these tend to be fun. So in a criminal trial, the evidence has shown that the defendant's neighbor entered the defendant's house with a knife and told the defendant that she was going to kill him. Oh, nice, uh, gender, uh, equality here. Yeah, equal

[1:09:13] opportunity stabbings. Equal opportunity stabbings. The defendant ran to his bedroom, picked up a gun and told the neighbor to back off. The neighbor did not stop and stabbed the defendant in the arm. The defendant then shot the neighbor twice. The neighbor fell to the floor and lay quietly moaning. After a few seconds, the defendant fired a third shot into the neighbor. The case has gone to the jury, which has thus far found that the neighbor died instantly from the third shot and the defendant was no longer in fear of being attacked

[1:09:44] by her when he fired the third shot, of which of the following degrees of criminal homicide, if any, can the jury properly convict the defendant? A,

[1:09:57] attempted murder only. B, manslaughter only. C, murder or manslaughter. Or D, no degree of criminal homicide. Wow, this is a interesting one. Um, I like it. Okay.

1:10:15 Thomas: Well, I would think that I can eliminate A pretty easily. Attempted murder only. I mean, you, you done un-murdered him, so, or her, I guess. I, I would hope that that's not it. Uh,

[1:10:28] so it's, look, this is interesting. It sounds like the question is, you know, is there any, obviously the person was not in any danger anymore and so it's like a self-defense manslaughter kind of thingy is, I seems like that would be not what it is, but it's, it's saying which can the jury properly

[1:10:47] convict the defendant.

1:10:49 Thomas: So, that's going to be tough to know, like, what is proper there? Who decides what's proper?

1:10:56 Thomas: No degree of criminal homicide. I mean, that's a possibility. So, hold on, go through them. So, eliminating A, attempted murder only. That doesn't seem right. B, manslaughter only.

1:11:08 Thomas: I'm not sure about that. C, murder or manslaughter.

1:11:13 Thomas: And D, no degree of criminal homicide, so, okay, so I mean it makes it a little easier because murder isn't one of them, like only murder isn't an option, so it's, I'm really leaning towards C, murder or manslaughter, it seems like that's going to be, that's going to be what the jury's going to be deciding, uh, whether or not that, this, this was the fact that maybe you're still kind of in fear, but let's see, thus far found that the neighbor died instantly from the third shot and that the defendant was no longer in fear of being attacked. The following degrees of criminal homicide,

[1:11:48] if any.

[1:11:51] Criminal homicide means murder.

[1:11:54] Murder. Now, is the problem that murder has to be premeditated at certain, or isn't there a sudden, and now I'm forgetting my degrees of murder, could this be murder, I feel like, Like, yeah, I mean, I, I really feel like it's C. I don't know. I think that, you know, when you've incapacitated someone and then you wait a few seconds and then you decide, hmm, gonna murder them. I feel like there's, that's pretty murdery. So I'm going to go with C. I mean, maybe there's going to be something weird. You're going to tell me it's actually D for some reason or B, but I don't know. I'm pretty solidly not A. I'm going to go with C. It's hard to eliminate it down to two because I can't really think of a logical reason. Maybe I'll eliminate D. Go between B and C and I'll go

[1:12:46] with C. All 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 TTTB,

1:12:55 Andrew: Include your guests and your reasons therefore, we will pick a winner and shower that winner with never-ending

[1:13:01] fame and fortune. Fame and fortune not guaranteed. All right, thanks for listening. Thanks so much, patrons. Enjoy Law'd Awful Movies,

1:13:07 Thomas: Uh, and all patrons enjoy Law'd Awful Movies, Alex Jones deposition, which was phenomenal. So, uh, have fun and we'll see you for a very depressing, uh, abortion law related episode, episode on

[1:13:20] Tuesday. Oh, yeah, this is not, that was a very an upbeat one. No, no, but I'm so sorry. Back to positivity. A lot of the movies. Okay, there we go. And on positive note,

[1:13:36] 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.

[1:14:25] This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

[1:14:34] 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

1:14:46 Andrew: A big thank you to our Facebook group moderators, Alicia Cooke, 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 is used

[1:14:58] with permission.