OA404: Rule of Law Not Found

Transcript

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

0:01:17 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is ep- uh oh, Andrew, episode not found.

0:01:24 Thomas: It says it's blank for me. Do you have a, do you know what episode it is? I

0:01:26 Andrew: Uh, because I can disconnect from the internet, I'm slightly older than you. Uh, This is episode 404. Uh, but because we're both older than like half of our listeners who were like, I don't get it, what the hell is that, like, like it It's like, when was the last time you got a 404 not found on the, like it's been. It's been a while

0:01:29 Thomas: Oh, Does that not still exist? I Don't I just tried to access that memory of mine and it said 404 not found. So I don't know, different. Anyway, isn't just an absolutely full episode today because there's so much news. Andrew tells me that this, we could literally do two Friday episodes. So it's we got an update in the Michael Flynn case. We've got, of course, I don't know if, if you all caught this, but Donald Trump, commuted the sentence of Roger Stone. We just don't have enough outrage to give in this country. And that's been true for probably years. Like, it's too much. It's too much. It's overload. But anyway, we're going to talk about that. Andrew again has a wild card segment typed up, but uh, I don't know what the point of that is, we're not getting to that. No, but uh, he'll be able to give a summary of it uh before we get to that. Let's, announcements. Uh, Law'd Awful Movies, uh, legal action featuring Sam from Comedy Shoeshine. That was a ton of fun, go check that out.

0:01:50 Andrew: Yeah, Oh, Legal action, the, the Law movie about law words with no law in it. Oh, it's, it was so good, we uh, it's

0:02:40 Thomas: Yeah, it's like mayonnaise, the, the movie, it's just so bland, but also, but not, not bad or anything, it was just weird, weird movie.

0:02:41 Andrew: Uh, we Had a lot of fun, it's always great when we get to put the band back together again. And uh, and and Sam can join us, so uh, yeah, that was good. In for two dollar and a patrons right now, should be in your feed.

0:02:51 Thomas: All Right,

0:03:00 Andrew: Really, really significant development. I'm going to explain exactly what happened. Remember, the OA thesis is contrary to what the mainstream media is telling you. The Supreme Court rulings with respect to Trump's tax returns in the Trump versus Mazars and Trump versus Vance cases have the ability to influence the 2020 elections. There are real possibilities that these cases are not going to get delayed into oblivion. And proof of that, the Southern District of New York just held a hearing today, status conference, in Trump versus Vance. This is about turning over, Mazars turning over Trump's taxes to the New York District Attorney's Office, State District Attorney'S Office, Cyrus Vance, to prosecute Trump.

0:03:50 Thomas: So it's not Bob fans. No,

0:03:51 Andrew: No, no. No. As we presume, prosecute Donald Trump for tax and real estate fraud. Again, going to talk about this on in-depth on Tuesday's show. But here's the schedule. Donald Trump is very clearly trying in both of these cases to run out the clock. We know that that's that that'S the game plan. But the courts know that THAT'S the GAME PLAN, too. And judges don't like it when you do that. Right. So here's the schedule. Donald Trump is going to file an amended complaint by July 27th. Right? That's a week from Monday. Vance's motion to dismiss is due August 3rd, six days after that. The Trump opposition is due August 10th. That's a week after that. The Vance reply is due four days after that on August 14th.

0:03:52 Thomas: Okay. Yeah,

0:04:39 Andrew: And then briefing is done. No discovery, no other nonsense. And again, you know, I tweeted out hearing a immediately thereafter. And, you one of our listeners on Twitter was like, thereafter, now, and I'm meaning anywhere between zero and 400 days. Look, I get the cynicism, and that was funny. But very clearly, Judge Marrero in this case is aware that the Trump administration's goal is to delay, delay, delay, delay. And the judge is in control of how quickly it takes him to rule on those objections. The subpoena becomes enforceable at that point. So again, I'm not saying that definitely going to see Donald Trump's taxes become public and he will definitely be indicted before the election.

0:05:31 Andrew: That's not my position. That's not the position of the show. It is the position to the show that everybody preaching doom and gloom, uh, is maybe overreacting, and today's hearing is a good sign of that.

0:05:43 Thomas: But who, is that's not going to go back to the Supreme Court, right? That's all done, it's just the appellate court, that, or the circuit court, but

0:05:48 Andrew: It They can continue to appeal, but once the district court rules that the subpoena is valid, then the onus would be on Trump to stay the enforcement of that judgment pending appeal. And under the operative legal standards, there's no chance he's going to win that motion. There's none.

0:06:07 Thomas: Will it take enough time to No, so

0:06:09 Andrew: No, no, no. That's what I'm saying. So remember, when a trial court rules on the merits, you have to comply with that ruling. Right. The only way in which you don't have to imply with the ruling is if the judgment is stayed pending appeal. Now, how does that happen? Happen. Sometimes, for example, in large civil damages cases, you have to post a bond, right? So in other words, right, there's a verdict, right. Monsanto adjudicated guilty. They owe, you know, a million billion dollars to the plaintiffs. They don't have to turn over the million billion dollar. What they have to do is they have post a sufficient bond for the court to then stay the judgment.

But when the ruling here is injunctive relief, right, or declaratory judgment saying this is a valid thing, That becomes, that goes into effect when the court issues its mandate, unless there is a invalid ruling either by the trial court or by an appellate court with jurisdiction to stay those proceedings. And those stay petitions, right, get resolved almost immediately. Right. So, yeah, if Judge, if Marrero orders Mazars, you know, issues a declaratory judgment that the subpoena is valid and enforceable, effectively ordering Mazars to turn over those documents within 30 days by the terms of the subpena to the New York District Attorney's Office, then Trump, at all, will try and move to, to uh, to stay that from going into

0:07:45 Andrew: Effect. But, but the standards on the stay do not remotely favor Donald Trump at that point.

0:07:51 Thomas: That, where's that put, it's like September, October, all

0:07:51 Andrew: Yeah, That puts us late September, October surprise territory. So,

0:07:57 Thomas: Right, Well, yeah, maybe that's a good time for it, okay. Well, any more announcements before we actually start the show?

0:07:58 Andrew: Yeah, Yep, Yep, yep. Yeah, next week we are also going to talk about a topic that is near and dear to many of our listeners, and that is the status of the bar exam during COVID-19. So, will not affect Thomas taking the bar example, but does affect many of you, obviously.

0:08:19 Thomas: Yeah. No, I'll be in the hospital and Andrew will still make me take these questions. That's just, yeah. And now let's get to our first segment.

0:08:26 Andrew: Yeah.

0:08:30 Clip: Because people have got to know whether or not their president's 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? To a large extent, it's corrupt and it's fake. Ask the president of Finland a question, please.

0:08:48 Thomas: When we last left, uh, Michael Flynn, uh, I had written a really good, um, amicus brief. Now, did that, did that work? Are we getting an update on that? Do it, okay.

0:08:56 Andrew: This is an update on your amicus brief.

0:08:58 Thomas: Well?

0:08:58 Andrew: As we've mentioned on the show, on June 24th, leading a 2-1 panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Judge Naomi Rao issued an opinion that was complete and utter nonsense, granting Michael Flynn mandamus relief against Judge Sullivan, requiring him to dismiss the case under Rule 48A, which would mean without considering the amicus briefs that you and I both filed that could aid Judge Sullivan in his determination.

0:09:35 Thomas: This is an outrage, Rich.

0:09:36 Andrew: Yeah, it is an outrage. And we predicted that soon thereafter, because under local D.C. Circuit court rules, any judge of the of the D.C. Circuit can request that an opinion be reheard en banc. And, yeah, right.

0:09:56 Thomas: We can get actual, like, real judges to to listen to

0:09:59 Andrew: Exactly right. That was required within 14 days. And somewhat shockingly to me, that didn't happen.

0:09:59 Thomas: Okay, cool, is this an, Andrew is wrong?

0:10:12 Andrew: No, because here's what did happen. Judge Sullivan, in his capacity as respondent, moved for an en banc reconsideration of the case. So that was filed actually Thursday evening, a week ago today, right after we recorded the show, because of course. Right, I want to break this down a little bit, because Judge Sullivan's arguments, I think, on the merits are are very, very good. There is a procedural question that I don't know the answer to, and it is this. So, um, let me cut to the punch line first, before we talk about the civ pro geekery, because I'm staying optimistic for at least this segment. Uh, you know, pre-show, show plus this segment, I'm Optimist Prime. The B segment, I'm going to yell and scream a lot, but, you know, we'll get there when we get there. At the end of the day, I think the DC Circuit will rehear the mandamus opinion en banc, and I think they will reverse.

0:10:13 Thomas: No.

0:10:22 Thomas: Okay, don't

0:11:10 Andrew: But is an interesting question. The rule about petitioning for rehearing en banc is governed by Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, and it says that a party may petition for rehearing en banc if it meets one of two criteria. I'm going to discuss those criteria in a minute. I don't know is whether Judge Sullivan counts as a party to the case. He was a respondent, right? He was directed by the court to respond. But I don't know that he has an interest in the way in which that has been defined. I will also tell you that under Rule 35E, ordinarily, when a party petitions for rehearing en banc, you do not have to reply.

0:11:58 Andrew: And in fact, no reply is permitted to the court unless the court says they would like a reply, um, and and again, and this is one of those things that's sort of paradoxical, like, where when the court says we want to hear arguments to the contrary, is actually a very good thing about the initial petition. Right, when when the court doesn't want to here a reply, it's because they're are going to summarily deny your request for rehearing en banc.

And here, good sign, on Friday, July 10th, the court issued a minute order, right? So that is, it just shows up in the docket, but it's not a separate order or opinion, saying that by July 20th, right, four days from today, next Monday, Flynn shall file a response, and the government, in its discretion, may file a response to the petition for rehearing en banc. That going to break down? As I've said, petitions for rehearning en banc, are govern by Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. And assuming that Judge Sullivan is properly a party and it will be really interesting to see if either Sidney Powell or the government raise that issue in their opposition briefs, I would. But, you know, we'll see if they do. Yeah.

0:13:22 Andrew: Look, if they're waiting till Friday to draft these opposition briefS, like they're probably already in trouble. So it if they argue that the for rehearing en banc is improper because it was not filed by a party pursuant to Rule 35 and the entire D.C. circuit agrees with that analysis, then, then yes, they, they could toss it out. I would say the odds of that are super duper low. Um,

0:13:20 Thomas: Tell them, I Okay. Yeah.

0:13:51 Andrew: But you know, it, it that's a possibility. And if the DC circuit says, you know just decides that they are exhausted and they're done with this and you know what's it matter anyway, um, that's unavailable out. I don't think the DC circuit feels that way, but I could be wrong. So I do want to put that out out there as a possibility and as an argument that, you know, from a civ pro geekery perspective, it would be interesting in the abstract if it didn't serve to benefit Donald Trump.

Now, assuming that the petition is valid, I think there's no chance that the D.C. Circuit will not want to revisit this opinion on bunk. And here's why. The standard is Rule 35B, And it says that the petition must begin with a statement that either this is 35B1, and then the sub provisions are: 1A says that the opinion to be reconsidered conflicts with a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court or of the court to which the petition is addressed. That is the D.C. Circuit, and consideration by the full court is therefore necessary to secure and maintain uniformity of the court's decisions. And that makes sense, right?

That's a way of saying, look, I don't know what this panel did, but full circuit, you don't want this opinion to stand because it's blatantly contradictory to other holdings in this circuit, or worse, to holdings by the Supreme Court, right. And the D.C. Circuit really, really cares if a panel is off creating law that contradicts its prior precedent or, you know, contradicts the Supreme Court, because, you know, you can't do that.

0:15:33 Andrew: B option, and Sullivan's counsel did not pursue the B option. We're going to talk about that in a second, is that the proceeding involves one or more questions of exceptional importance, each of which must be concisely stated. For example, a petition may assert that a proceeding presents a question of exceptional importance if it involves an issue on which the panel decision conflicts with authoritative decisions in other U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals that have addressed the issue. So Sullivan did not argue that one, Be, exceptional importance point at all. And the reason he didn't is really just a tactical decision, decision. Under federal rule 35, he is limited to 3,900 words in, yeah, in explaining why the court should rehear everything on bunk.

0:16:29 Andrew: That is about 15 double spaced pages. Right. Um, and Now, you know, that seems like a lot.

0:16:36 Thomas: We got a real Three Amigos situation here. Are you fan of that movie? Be Yeah, put on show, uh, he has to shorten all the, there's going to be a real miscommunication here, I think it's gonna be hilarious, consequences yeah.

0:16:39 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. But yeah. And just for example, right. Our amicus brief was almost nine thousand words long. Right. Right. So, yeah, 3,900 words.

0:17:00 Thomas: I can pull mine up, just for people who are interested, and figure out the word count. I'll pull it up, go ahead. Keep talking, I'll figure out mine, right.

0:17:04 Andrew: All right. Yeah. Sullivan made the tactical decision to only argue 1A, and that is that it conflicts with, first, a Supreme Court decision. And here, the Supreme Court position that it arguably conflicts with—and I think it does—is Rinaldi, which, again, we talked about in episode 399 when we broke down our amicus brief. That is the Supreme Court's only real case interpreting Rule 48a. And the argument is that the Supreme court in Rinaldi said that there is some scrutiny, even though it's very limited for the district court in considering Rule 48 a motions. And if you grant mandamus, you're saying there's no discretion, right? There's no scrutiny whatsoever, because that's the definition of mandamus. Right.

0:17:51 Andrew: Like, you have to do this thing because the judge doesn't have any discretion. It seems very clear to me that this ruling contradicts Reynolds.

0:18:00 Thomas: It's not op damis, that's man man damis by the way, uh, the real brief was 1321 words, if I took out cursing, I think I could get that bad boy down to a thousand, probably, so

0:18:02 Andrew: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Man, Davis. Yeah. But that is, I mean, I just want to point out a third the length of of the maximum that you could file here, right, like so. So, no, that's right.

0:18:13 Thomas: Yeah. And mine wasn't long Exactly. They'll

0:18:23 Andrew: So their argument was, one, conflicts with Rinaldi. And then part two, it also conflicts with prior decisions of the DC Circuit. And here they had two subcomponents, right? That is, A, it conflicts with Prior Mandamus decisions that say you don't grant mandamus if you have alternative remedies available to you. And again, this is a no brainer because Michael Flynn has alternative remedies available to him. Right. And those alternative remedies are let the court consider the Rule 48a motion. And if the court denies the motion to dismiss under Rule 48A, appeal it. That's what normal people do when they lose in court.

0:19:10 Andrew: They just appeal. And, you know, you could say Flynn is not in jail at the moment. That decision would be stayed pending appeal or could be stayed, pending appeal. So, like, there's literally no prejudice to him whatsoever in denying mandamus and saying, yeah, well, let's let's see what Sullivan does first. Right. It was that this is part of what was truly astonishing by by Judge Rouse ruling. And And then the second part of part two is that it conflicts with prior D.C. Circuit Court rulings on mandamus because Flynn did not establish, quote, a clear and indisputable right to relief. Right. And that's the other. And again, I think this is a knockdown argument. Right. If if the court has discretion to hear stuff below, then that's not a clear and indisputable right to relief.

0:20:02 Andrew: Right? You have to have zero discretion. So those are the arguments raised in the very brief petition for rehearing on Bonk. We will track Monday's reply. And then again, the D.C. Circuit is going to rule fairly soon, question mark. And the question that I know you want answered and I know our listeners want answered is, can we file our amicus brief in support of the petition for rehearing on bunk? Right. Can we get it in now at the D.C. Circuit and and try and and help the court adjudicate? And I have good news and bad news on that. You

0:20:44 Thomas: Let me do it. But not you, okay. All right, I'll get working, yeah.

0:20:45 Andrew: Yeah, kind of. It's close. Yep. So here's the bad news. And this is a little bit more Civ Pro geekery. So I'm happy to share it with everyone. In addition to the operative rules, each court has local rules that they file that clarify those rules, both on, you know, stuff like timing and spacing and font, but also as to substance. Right. So, for example, when you bring a lawsuit before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, the operative rules there are either the federal rules of civil procedure, if it's a civil case, or the federal laws of criminal procedure, if it is a criminal case, right? But then the District Court of Columbia also has local rules, right, and those local rules are things like, as I've said, what font the brief has to be in, how many courtesy copies have to go to which people, that sort of thing.

0:21:48 Andrew: Well, the same thing is true of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. They have to file the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, the FRAP, that we just discussed. But then they also have their local DC Circuit rules. And those rules track the FRAP, the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, number by number. So, in addition to Rule 35 in the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, there's also local D.C. Circuit Rule 35, and Rule 35F says no amicus curiae brief in response to or in support of a petition for rehearing en banc will be received by the clerk except by invitation of the court.

0:22:37 Andrew: And an amicus brief will not be accepted if participation of amicus would result in the recusal of a member of the en banc court. So the D.C. Circuit has made it pretty clear, like, hey, man, we don't want to see your amicus briefs in determining whether to rehear.

0:22:48 Thomas: Well, I got my invitation, did you not get yours? Oh, oh shoot I just, I'm sorry, I just assumed we both got those, but I, okay.

0:22:55 Andrew: No, I'm sure mine's lost in the mail. Does yours have a plus one with it, yeah. Okay.

0:23:01 Thomas: I got mine, so I'll just, I'll work on my, really?

0:23:04 Andrew: Well, that's good. Um, so that's... look, that's bad news, but here's the good news, right? Number one, I understand why the D.C. Circuit has that rule, again, I wish we could file our amicus, but I get it, right, like at this point in time our interests and Judge Sullivan's interests are entirely aligned, right? We're not presenting any new argument. Now, again, the argument I would make would be the 1B argument, right, so we would make and cast it as an additional point, but we don't have different interests at this stage. So I do kind of get why the court says, hey, man, let us decide whether we are going to rehear this all en banc.

0:23:49 Andrew: I think they will. Look, look, if I'm wrong on that, I've been like that will that will be a really worldview shattering day. I mean, it really will, because this seems clear as Kushner to me that that that the panel decision was was blatantly incorrect. And I think the D.C. Circuit is going to want to revisit it. So when they grant rehearing on Bonk, we will then file our respective amicus briefs in support of Judge Sullivan's position. So it and it's going to require a little bit more work and a littlebit more tweaking. We've already investigated the process for how to do that. So as as Morgan tweeted out, Morgan Stringer, a associate, tweeted out. We are back in this fight, baby. Maybe.

0:24:43 Thomas: Well, we don't get to write a, you mean assuming they're going to rehear it, okay. All

0:24:46 Andrew: Yeah. Assuming they get to rehear on bunk. So and I think they will look and but let me add one more optimistic thing to that, which is unlike a lot of these other cases here, timing is our friend. Right. The longer it takes for the court to resolve these issues, the longer the possibility it is that, you know, we're looking at adjudicating it beyond the point in time in which Donald Trump is in office. Us. So, yeah, like, look, do I expect that if this is still out there or if Michael Flynn is sentenced that, you know, Donald Trump is going to pardon Michael Flynn on his way out on, you know, at the end of January of 2021? I do. Right. But as we've said all along, this is not about what happens to Flynn. Right? This is about a victory for the rule of law.

0:24:50 Thomas: Optimist Prime, that's what you come to the show for everybody now. Yeah.

0:25:40 Andrew: This is about establishing that you can't do what the Department of Justice is trying to do in this case. And and I think that's important and I Think that will be a real victory. This is I think we just heard the classic breaking down the law intro, which I love. That dates all the way back to episode one, one of my favorites. It's important because a lot of news stories are getting this wrong. Let's do a little definitions here. The first is clemency, right, and clemenci is the overarching term that covers both pardons and commutations, and it comes from Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution, which says the president has the power to, quote, grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, comma, except in cases of impeachment.

0:25:52 Clip: The law breaking down

0:26:03 Thomas: Yeah.

0:26:43 Andrew: Clemency is a super duper good thing unless you're Donald Trump and you corrupt literally everything that you touch, which this administration has done. I don't have time to go through, so I'm to link the article in the show notes story from NPR. But these These stories are ubiquitous that Donald Trump. And again, I just want to be clear on this. Donald Trump is misusing the clemency power of the office of the president in a way that no Republican ever has. Right. This is not about, you know, we like clemency when Democrats do it, we dislike it when Republicans do it.

No, like we should encourage more presidents to have a stronger exercise of the clemency power granted to them, regardless of their political affiliation, unless they're only strategically using clemenci to grant pardons and commutations to their political cronies, which is, of course, all Donald Trump is doing. And I want to underscore this because, you don't know what this episode is going to be titled. Right. I've suggested I think six or seven of them to you. But one of them is Roger Stone is the real scandal, and Roger Stone is the real scandal.

0:27:58 Thomas: The only Tough part about that is that there are so many real scandals. I would also argue that, you know, hundreds of thousands of dead people from coronavirus, it's a real scandal. Not to shoot a hole in your whole thing, but yeah.

0:28:15 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. No. No, no, that that kids in cages are the real scandal. Like, that

0:28:20 Thomas: Like, There are a lot of real, real scandals, because this is the worst presidency since, I don't know, Andrew Jackson or something.

0:28:23 Andrew: That there are, I mean, I I just did, uh, Muller, she wrote the Daily Beans, you know, talking about, uh, Ivanka, you know, poisoning You know, posing with the Goya beans, right, like that, and think, and that was done to switch the news cycle, to distract from this, because you know, this level of like, like, yeah, yeah.

0:28:35 Thomas: Yeah, of course. Yeah. That's, that's all they have. And I, you know, I actually think people are starting to see through it a little bit. Like just a few more people on the margins are like, Hey, um, we're dying and the country shut down and you're selling beans out of the white house. Like, is that there's not everybody, not, not Trumpers that are never going to get it, but like Like, a few people, I think, are like, maybe this is not a great president.

0:28:58 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:07 Thomas: Anyway, back to our real scandal.

0:29:08 Andrew: No, I I think That's I think. That's right. So. So here's the thing. Here's the way pardons and especially commutations are meant to operate. And I'm going to distinguish between those terms when we get there. But let's kind of lay out the preliminary. There is within the Department of Justice, the office of the pardon attorney. It will not surprise you to learn that there is no chief pardon attorney under Donald Trump. There is, in fact, an acting pardon attorney. That's because as far as I can tell, and I want to say this, the acting pardon pardon attorney is a woman of color, African-American, Rosalind Sergeant Burns, longstanding civil servant, somebody who joined the office in 2008.

0:29:10 Thomas: Oh,

0:29:57 Andrew: And so, right. Join the office before Barack Obama, right after after the election of Barack Obama. But before he was president as an attorney advisor, has worked in multiple different positions, is a career civil servant, not a Trump hack. And as a result, Donald Trump, as far as I can tell, has never listened to any of her reports or reviews. Use. That's problem because that's the way the pardoning process is supposed to work, right? Like you as a prisoner, you file a petition for a pardon or a commutation with the pardon attorney's office and they review thousands of these every year. And look, most of them, right, they filter out and say, all right, well, you've made your case, but we're going to deny.

0:30:47 Andrew: But in meritorious cases, they get run up to the highest levels of authority. And every source of information, again, going to link in the show notes, I'm going to just summarize experts quoted by NPR that Trump's exercise of clemency have gone, quote, to people he knows personally or has learned about from Fox News. Trump also prefers to disregard the advice of the office of the the pardon attorney. And there is, as we'll see in the Roger Stone case, Roger Stone is not even eligible to have petitioned the pardoned attorney for commutation in this case. And it's clear as Kushner.

So the office is supposed to be a situation where the executive gets to check the judicial branch and say, hey, there are cases in which the application of the law has resulted in a conviction of X person. But our review by the Justice Department and signed off by the President of the United States is that this seems like this is a miscarriage of justice. So I'm going to come out and specifically say in this individual case, yeah, great, right, faithfully execute the laws, The rules are the rules. But in this case, right, there should be an exception, because in order to do justice in the individual case, we've got to disregard the proper application of the rules, that's the way it's supposed to work.

0:31:26 Thomas: My God. With

0:32:15 Andrew: That's the way it has worked through Democrats and Republicans.

0:32:20 Thomas: An asterisk that, of course, Bill Clinton was a POS as he left office. And so, right,

0:32:22 Andrew: It did it with with an asterisk that you can pick individual cases of pardons in particular. But by and large, the commutation process has not been political.

0:32:35 Thomas: Right. They still actually used the process for the most part until Trump just decided that process didn't exist. And it was like, if Kid Rock told him to pardon somebody, he would do it. Or who was it? Was it Kim Kardashian, what was that one, anyway. It was somebody, what?

0:32:40 Andrew: Yep. Yeah, it was Kim Kardashian. Yeah.

0:32:52 Thomas: So I remembered that, I was like, that surely that can't be true in the Trump era, you got to remember that your stupidest thought and memory is actually right. So, sorry, okay.

0:32:54 Andrew: Yeah, you would. You would think. Yeah, correct. So distinctions now. So now let's go so that there are two types of clemency. There is the pardon versus the commutation. So a pardon is like a Catholic annulment. Right. It retroactively says that conviction never, ever happened. It goes away. It restores all of your rights. Rights. A pardon, as we've discussed on this show, must be accepted unless that pardon is issued posthumously, right? So of dead people. And we talked about how Bill Clinton did that for the first time in 1999. And I mean, in a real case of injustice, a civil rights case. A pardon can prospective, right?

0:33:47 Andrew: It can say, I will pardon you for crimes that you have committed, but for which you have not yet been charged. And the clearest example of that was Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon in 1974, right. And again, we want to be clear here. Can't you can't give somebody a get out of the purge pardon, right, you can'T say I, I, President Torres, pardon Thomas Smith for any and all crimes that he may commit in the future.

0:34:15 Thomas: It's only crimes you've committed but haven't yet been convicted or whatever charge.

0:34:16 Andrew: Yeah, correct. Right. And again, for the president, they have to be federal crimes. President, as we discussed way back in episode 90 and episode, I'm super proud of, um, the president can self-pardon. Right? I feel really sure, and a lot of folks on the left have made arguments to the contrary. Tribe, Eisenpainter, like, those guys are all smarter than me. But I think they're wrong on this one. I think the president very clearly can self-pardon. One more thing about pardons. A pardon, like a commutation, can be conditional, right? You can say, I'm going to pardon you so long as you don't commit any other offenses, or you don's commit any of the you

0:34:22 Thomas: Okay. You

0:35:02 Andrew: Know, X kind of offenses. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah,

0:35:03 Thomas: Well, how does that work? Because if you said, you know, it's like the annulment where it never happened, and then all of a sudden 30 years later I do some shoplifting or something, that's like boop, undo. You now actually did do whatever crime, uh, pirating uh somebody, that what's his name's book, instead of whatever it might be, whatever the crime is hypothetically, so you're saying it'll just come back like

0:35:22 Andrew: It. Yeah. Yeah, that's that. You just described it exactly right. Like if you if you have an imaginary undo, you can have an imaginary redo. And that's, that'S the way it works.

0:35:27 Thomas: Wow. All right.

0:35:34 Andrew: So that's a pardon. That's not what Roger Stone got. And I'm going to explain why he had his sentence commuted instead of getting an outright pardon. And again, we're going to put to rest some liberal nonsense.

0:35:34 Thomas: Right.

0:35:50 Andrew: Nonsense is too strong a word, but well, I don't know. Maybe it's not too strong a word. Anyway, commutation is the other half of that. That is the power to grant reprieves. And it is the to reduce or eliminate the remaining sentence of somebody who has been convicted or has pled guilty to a crime, right? So the first thing to know about this is that a commutation can be variable, right, like with a pardon, it's the undo button, right. Right. That never happened. And is a binary question. Right. Did Richard Nixon commit treason? Whoops. Pardon. Nope. He definitely didn't.

0:36:28 Thomas: It's binary until you put in that conditional thing, and then there's some really weird quantum entanglement happening, to did it happen? Well, no, but in the future, maybe. Yes, we'll see, right.

0:36:36 Andrew: Yeah. I did a fair point. I never thought about it that way, but that that's a fair point. But but what I mean by by variable is I can say Thomas Smith is currently sentenced to 11 years in prison, and I'm going to commute that sentence down to three years, right? And suppose

0:36:58 Thomas: So it still happened, I'm just not going to be in prison as long, right?

0:37:02 Andrew: You're one year in, right, I can say, I'm going to come commute your sentence today and reduce it from, you know, it was 10 years, you've served one, so you'd have to serve nine more, and I can say I'm going to commute down to 3, and now you have to to serve two more years. So, uh, in other words, it is any reduction. Now that reduction as with Roger Stone and boy, are we going to read the, the Roger Stone commutation? Because if you're not already angry, you'll, you're, more angry. Um, you will get angry. And if you are already angry you'll get more angry. But, but you, you have a full range of, of what you can commute for a sentence Like a pardon, it can also be conditional. And in fact, most commutations are conditional.

0:37:51 Andrew: Right. Because most of these come through the office of the pardon attorney and are recommendations in nonviolent drug cases that say, hey, man, this guy is scheduled to serve another 25 years in prison for possession of marijuana was like, let's let's commute down the sentence. But part of the commutation is going to be that, you know, he still serves his supervised release. And if he commits any future offenses, all of that springs back. Right. That's the typical way in which a commutation works. So crucial to that, a commutation does not imply innocence, does not undo the conviction and does not require acceptance. Acceptance, right?

So what Trump did for Stone, he left the conviction intact but commuted down Roger Stone's sentence. And I'm going to include the link in the show notes, but I'm going to read from this executive grant of clemency, because again, I don't think your blood pressure is high enough. So it says, uh, there's a whole bunch of whereas clauses, you, whereas this is no longer in the interest of justice, I commute the entirety of the prison sentence imposed upon the said Roger Jason Stone to expire immediately. And this was issued four days before Roger Stone was to report to prison. I also commute the integrity of the two-year

0:38:32 Thomas: Yeah.

0:39:18 Andrew: Term of supervised release with all of its conditions. There's no reason to commute that. And finally, Finally, I remit any unpaid remainder of the $20,000 fine imposed. So, yeah, when you see lying sack of crap, Lindsey Graham, get on TV and say, well, this is really about he's he's he's a man in his 70s and blah, blah, blah. Well, yeah.

0:39:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:39:44 Thomas: Coronavirus. Yeah.

0:39:45 Andrew: Right. A. Roger Stone is not in his 70s. He's in his 60s. He is.

0:39:45 Thomas: Oh. He looks like he's in his 90s.

0:39:51 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And B, that does not explain why you would get rid of this supervised release or the twenty thousand dollar fine. The only thing that explains that is Roger Stone is my buddy. Oh, and by the way, and we're going to talk about this in a future episode, the lesser redacted. I've been calling it the unredacted Mueller report, but obviously the grand jury stuff is still redactive. The lesser redacted Mueller report that I have now reviewed in its entirety contains allegations that, in my view, very strongly demonstrate that Trump committed crimes, including obstruction of justice and 18 U.S.C. 1001 lying to Robert Mueller in his written answers to interrogatories, specifically with respect to Roger Stone. So, yeah,

0:40:00 Thomas: Uh-huh. All right, well, speaking of Muller, we got a mullet, was so enraged he wrote a sternly worded crunch rap. Yeah.

0:40:56 Andrew: He did. He did write a crunch rap.

0:40:57 Thomas: Cool. Uh, that fixed it, right? Didn't that, that fixed everything up. Yeah.

0:41:02 Andrew: This is, this is why this is and should be a scandal. This is very clearly the president weighing in and getting a get out of a literal get out out of jail free. Right. Right. No, you don't have to pay the 20 000

0:41:08 Thomas: Yeah. How much Don't you want to bet Trump hits him up for half of that $20,000?

0:41:18 Andrew: Yeah. And more than, that's the Trump way, um, and uh, and it is for somebody who has political and legal criminal information on the president of the United States. This is 100% impeachable conduct, it is a real scandal. Now, now, I need to address the liberal nonsense. Oh, wait. But before I do that, I told you that Roger Stone was not even eligible to petition the office of the pardon attorney. And that's because 28 CFR section 1.3 says, in order to be eligible to file a petition, no petition for commutation of sentence, including remission of fine, should be filed if other forms of judicial or administrative relief are available, except upon a showing of exceptional circumstances, which are not present here.

0:41:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:42:17 Andrew: Right. So Roger Stone has said he's lying about this, by the way. He has said, I am going to appeal my conviction. Here's how I know he's lying about that. It would be unbelievably stupid for Roger Stone to now appeal that conviction because the remedy, if he won on appeal, would be a new trial for which this commutation would not apply. Right. That's the difference between a pardon and a commutation.

0:42:45 Thomas: Well, here's hoping there's some justice in the world and because they're so stupid, they accidentally appeal themselves into a new crime. That would be cool.

0:42:53 Andrew: Let's let's hope. But I

0:42:56 Thomas: Probably not, though.

0:42:56 Andrew: Don't think that's too terribly

0:42:59 Thomas: And just to remind everyone and make sure I have this right, Andrew, the reason that you're saying there's all these rules around when they can blah, blah, bla, and the reason they don't matter is the Constitution just says the president can do this and this and this as regards pardons and commutations, my favorite greeting that I say to people.

0:42:59 Andrew: Likely. Like,

0:43:17 Thomas: But also, you know, all these rules are kind of, they're just like a formal system of doing things that they created around that, right, but they're not like mandatory per se. It's not like they're law, like the rules of the pardon process. It is that it was a process created to kind of just practically deal with this very broad power that the Constitution gives the president, so I think the question everyone is likely asking among many is, was there anything state level that we can still get

0:43:17 Andrew: That is 100 percent correct. There are no plausible state law crimes here against Roger Stone, um, that, that that just aren't, um, so yeah no I agree, so I, so now I want to dispatch with the terrible argument I have seen in liberal circles, which is the reason for commuting his sentence rather than pardoning is that, you know, if, if he had pardoned, then there would be no self-incrimination problems and he could be compelled to testify and testify against Trump. And, and that's, it isn't it

0:43:55 Thomas: Dang it. But look at him. Sorry.

0:44:25 Thomas: Well, that was an interesting thing we talked about, back, I don't remember because time is impossible, but there was something that we talked about like that, right, where that is technically speaking true, that if you pardon someone then they can no longer plead the Fifth around that particular thing okay so that part is right

0:44:40 Andrew: That offense. That's that's correct. But but but it has to be comparative because the problem is that when you commute someone's sentence, you leave their conviction intact for which ordinary double jeopardy attaches. Right. So he's under no future liability in connection with these crimes either way. Right. There is is no distinction. He has been convicted. And and in one of the definitely cruelest ironies of this situation, and I mean that in the original sense of the word, Roger Stone is a resident of Florida. So if it were not for Amendment 4, he would not be eligible to vote in the 2020 presidential election. Um, it goes to show just how ridiculous Florida has been because, right, if you're Roger Stone, you get your $20,000 fine wiped out by the president of the United States. If

0:45:02 Thomas: Gotcha yeah

0:45:37 Andrew: You're in prison on a, you know, marijuana possession, uh, and yeah, yep. And you have a fine that the state no longer intends to collect. Uh, congratulations, you don't get to vote, but Roger Stone does, does, so, um, so yeah, look, it, it, it, the first, that, that's why I wanted to address it, right, because the first half of that is legally correct and is clever, right, and you're sort of sitting there going, oh well, maybe it's right, but it's the second half that, that, that makes no sense, right like

0:45:41 Thomas: From 1973 somehow well that makes for usually the best viral stupidity which is part of it is right, and then you're like, but, but also that's dumb.

0:46:08 Andrew: Uh-huh yep yep There's an encouraging thing behind this, right? The reason Trump commuted Stone's sentence was to enable him to make a dumbass political argument. You have probably seen this. We know that this was coordinated and made by the White House because it appeared on Fox News the next day in bar graph form. And that argument is, Obama commuted 1,715 sentences, and Trump has only commuted 11. That is 100 percent true. That's because virtually all of those 1700 Obama commutations were drug possession offenses with ridiculously harsh mandatory minimum sentences recommended by the Office of the Pardon Attorney and commuted down.

0:47:02 Andrew: By the way, not commuted down to zero. In virtually all of those cases, there was like a ramp down period of several months. All of them, every single one of the 1700, had conditional supervised release. And most of them had the ramp down period, except for the ones who, who the

0:47:21 Thomas: Like he utilized the procedure and the office and the position that is there to help make that process make sense.

0:47:28 Andrew: Way it should be used right, so so yes, right, like the fact that Trump has only commuted 11 people is bad, right, the fact that those 11 people are all political cronies are way worse, right, so the graph is true and is just meant to arm your dumbass Trump supporting friend with a, like, oh, now you're against commuter? No, we're against, against commuting your political crony who has evidence against you. We're not against commutations. There should be lots more of them. So now you understand the whole problem.

0:47:29 Thomas: Yeah, gotcha.

0:47:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, and by the way, in the time of coronavirus, he's only commuted 11. If we had a real president in there, they would have commuted thousands of people at this time to try to get them out.

0:48:05 Andrew: Yeah, correct. A real Mitt Romney would be commuting sentences right now, right? This is not a political thing. So why do I say you should be slightly encouraged by this? You should be slightly encouraged for two reasons. Number one, it shows that within Trump world, they are still worried about the optics of political exercises of clemency. And I'm going to include a Politico article describes the people who urged Donald Trump not to commute Roger Stone sentences. Sentences.

0:48:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:48:45 Thomas: Heroes. Yeah,

0:48:46 Andrew: Yeah, those people are Kevin McCarthy, Elise Stefanik, the New York representative who was one of the loudest howler monkeys on the House Judiciary Committee, the minority, and Attorney General Bill Barr. You will not be surprised to learn who Roger Stone's biggest champion in the House of Representatives is. Come on. So you have a one in 435 chance here, And I'm betting you will nail this in one.

0:48:46 Thomas: That's awesome. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Matt Gates. Yeah.

0:49:14 Andrew: Matt Gaetz. Yeah.

0:49:15 Thomas: I cheated.

0:49:16 Andrew: Roger Stones.

0:49:17 Thomas: I think I saw a news thing about that. I saw it, yeah.

0:49:18 Andrew: Yeah, I retweeted it out this morning. So, you know, yeah, Roger Stone thinks he wants to run Matt Gaets' presidential campaign. So you know if that's all that's on.

0:49:20 Thomas: Yeah, that would be, why I saw, yeah, that's kind of thing where it's like, sure, you know, you deserve each other, because I don't believe Roger Stone really has any skill or talent in any meaningful way, I think they all got really lucky, so, you know, what knock yourself out. Yeah.

0:49:36 Andrew: Yeah yeah. I am with you. Yeah. That is a tiny, tiny silver lining in a really, really ugly black cloud. But the fact that they are still going through this political calculus means that that Trump's position pre reelection is not. Well, I can just pardon whoever the hell I want. Right. He is concerned. Look, that's his mind.

0:50:04 Thomas: This is a very tiny

0:50:07 Andrew: I agree. But that's that that is certainly his mindset. But his political advisers are telling him, hey, look, there are voters that you could lose by by undertaking this action. Now, I am truly worried about what a, you know, about what November and December of 2020 and January of 2021 are going to look like. But, you Know, we'll, we're still, hopefully we'll still be on the air then and we'll cover it. But, You know, there is, you gotta, you got to pick out these threads where you find them. So there you go.

0:50:07 Thomas: Tiny, tiny, tiny silver lining, Andrew.

0:50:47 Thomas: Not all of us are armed with the electron microscope of optimism to find that silver lining that you have, but I'm sure everyone appreciates you finding it. You also just wanted to say that, yes, this is absolutely impeachable if we lived in a real world right now. This would be an impeachible thing. I still think that, personally, my view is the House should just be issuing these impeachments like they're a newsletter every week. Here's this week's impeachment that we did of the president. I know it's not going to do anything, but I don't, what else is doing anything? Are they doing something that matters?

0:51:20 Andrew: They should have a standing committee on impeachment that is compiling the record. Absolutely. One hundred percent. They should.

0:51:28 Thomas: They should do that. Okay, quick wild card. I know we don't actually have time for it, but you wanted to at least give a very quick summary on this. Here we go. Yeah.

0:51:37 Andrew: Yeah. Last night in the middle of the night, the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, you know, when I say 5- 4 vote, quote, you know what that means, allowed the federal execution of Wesley Perky to go forward. Wesley Perkey is 68. He is suffering from Alzheimer's. And the undisputed record below is that he, quote, lacks a rational understanding of the basis for his execution. And we're going to cover that case in detail on Tuesday's show. But just as a as a preview, if if you're sitting there thinking like good old moderate John Roberts, um, this is where our Supreme Court still is allowing the federal government, and and and the fact, when I get into both the facts and the procedural history, you will be even more outraged than this top line summary, but federal government to execute Alzheimer's patient.

0:51:47 Thomas: And Okay. Well, I'm looking for, no, I don't know, we'll tune in Tuesday. I don't what to say about that. That's not a, that sounds horrible. Uh, John Roberts is not your friend, as the episode a couple episodes ago stated, despite the fact that sometimes we get lucky with a decision or two.

0:52:52 Clip: And thank you, Let's go!

0:52:53 Thomas: Now it's time to thank our new patrons and at patreon.com. Hope you're enjoying the Law'd Awful Movies that we just put out, as we said, very much, very fun. Uh, just a short list, I'll go ahead and and handle it today. Thank you to Ray Judicata and the Attractive Distractors. Love that band David Christopher or Isaac Pollak, Morgan Schreffler, Rebecca Stewart, and I promise you that apples do not exist. Thanks, thanks so mucho folks. Hope you enjoy the bonus content as always. All it's time for T3BE. Let's cheer me up by watching me get a question almost right but then get it wrong at the last second. Here we go.

0:53:09 Andrew: That's an excellent name.

0:53:26 Clip: Oh, no associate of this firm has ever failed the bar exam. No kidding.

0:53:38 Andrew: Right uh And no better way to really keep the T-3BE train going than with a real property question.

0:53:46 Thomas: Now you're just messing, messing with me.

0:53:48 Andrew: I'm sorry. So, Thomas, a man decided to give his farm to his nephew.

0:53:49 Thomas: Yeah. Proper form of a deed and above a dozen. Wow.

0:53:57 Andrew: A man took a deed to his attorney and told the attorney to deliver the deed to the nephew upon the man's death. The man also told the authority to return the deed if he asked. None of these instructions to the attorney were in writing, and the deed was not recorded. The man then emailed the nephew, informing him of the arrangement.

0:54:19 Thomas: The Bar has email now? Holy

0:54:22 Andrew: Shortly after, the nephew died tested. In his will, he devised the farm to his daughter. Several years later, the man died untested, survived by two sons. The nephew's daughter immediately claimed ownership of the farm and demanded that the attorney deliver the deed to her. Must the attorney. Deliver the deed. To the daughter.

0:54:45 Thomas: Moly. Well, Better luck next week. Okay, are

0:54:56 Andrew: No, because a gratuitous death escrow is void unless supported by a written contract. And I encourage everyone listening to try and say gratuitous death escro as quickly as possible.

0:55:03 Thomas: The Yeah. We had Some Outtakes of uh, of Andrew turning into the guy from Princess Bride for a minute, you know that, yeah, that too. Life of Brian, huh?

0:55:10 Andrew: Yeah, Yeah. B No, because the man never placed the deed beyond his control. C. Yes, because the death of the nephew rendered the gratuitous death escrow irrevocable by the man.

0:55:25 Thomas: Okay. What Gratuitous death. I do that. So I didn't see in the question that anyone was like attacked by a bear and then a tractor fell on them and then the tractor had a bomb on it that exploded. That's a gratuitous depth. I don't know what this question is. All right, we'll figure it out. Hold on, sorry. D, okay.

0:55:51 Andrew: And D, yes, because the deed to the nephew was legally delivered when the man took it to his attorney.

0:55:59 Thomas: All right, here we go, everybody, buckle up. Man. Man decided to give farm to nephew, took a deed to his attorney and told the attorney to deliver the deed to the nephew upon the man's death. Okay. So as always, I do not know what actually makes somebody have land. I don't, I still don't. It's like question one of real property. Is it when you write down the deed? Is it when you think about writing down a deed?

Is it you type out the deed and sign the deed, is when you deliver the deed to the lawyer, I don't know, I, I'll have to form an opinion for this question and my opinion will be it's when you give the deed to the person or something, so that'll be my, I'm just that's going to be my opinion. We'll go with that. Under that theory, man took the deed to his attorney, so I, so I don't think anything's been delivered there yet, or I don't think the land's been transferred. Told the attorney to deliver the deed to the nephew upon the man's death. The man also told the attorney to return the deed to him if he asked. Okay, I don't know if that matters, we'll see. None of these instructions were in writing and the deed was not recorded.

So that sounds like the deed was, now I think we've had in the past, you, the recording isn't necessary, I don't think, for something to be transferred, but it's kind of of part of it still, like the recording is just like you tell the county, here's what we did, I think, but it doesn't mean everything, if I remember right. Okay, deed was not recorded. The man then emailed the nephew, informing him of the arrangement. Okay, so that sounds like something, so he's

0:57:36 Thomas: So he told, he's even in writing, he's told the nephew of that arrangement, but then the nephew dies, and he dies testate, which I had, I'd only ever heard dying in testate, I didn't think about the fact that there's another version of that, so that means he had a will, I suppose. Okay, so he's already, he's dying before the older guy and saying like, hey, I have this farm coming to me for sure, 100%, I'm giving the farm to my daughter. So then years later, which, which he doesn't even have yet. Okay, several years later, the man dies in intestate, if that's how you pronounce that, survived by two sons. Nephew's daughter immediately claimed ownership of the farm and demanded the attorney deliver the deed to her. Gosh, I feel like you can't will someone something that you don't have yet, I think, or can you? Either you can or you can t.

0:58:32 Thomas: And I'm, but yeah, but I, thanks for chiming in. That helps. Yeah. Either you can't, I think maybe you can't because he doesn't have it yet. Like he just has a promise that he will get it. I feel like that's a tough thing to like put in a will. Somebody promised me that they would give me a farm someday. Here it is. I'm giving that right to you. It doesn't seem like you could do that. Okay, so must the attorney deliver the deed to the daughter? So I'm leaning toward a no answer. No, because a gratuitous death escrow, oh my God, what the hell is that? Is void unless supported by a written contract. So what would be a gratuituous death escow? How is there even an escrow in this?

0:58:30 Andrew: It's definitely one of those two. I will, I'll give you a hint.

0:59:21 Thomas: Real properties is just the dumbest thing ever. You know what the answer to this bar question is? I'd look it up. If I were an attorney today, I would look up what in the world's going on here and then I would use that information I looked up to answer this question. I don't need to know this. But anyway, no, because the man never placed the deed beyond his control.

Maybe, I mean, that's a very weird way of putting it, but real property is weird, so perhaps that's it. See, let's see if the answers help me figure out what a gratuitous death escrow is. See, yes, because the death of the nephew rendered the gratuitous death escrow irrevocable by the man. That can't be right. I, there's no way that's right.

I, I guess I'll have to assume that the gratuit, gratuitous, I don't know what, anyway, I don't know what about it is gratuitous, but I'll do assume that that's what you call it when you're like, hey, when I die, give this to somebody else, which is not, why isn't that just something you put in your will? But whatever. I will say it's gratuitous death. So, "The death of the nephew rendered the gratuitous death escrow irrevocable by the man." That cannot be right. I'm saying C is 1 million percent wrong. If that's right, then I don't know anything. D, which, which is probably true. So guess C, everybody, playing along.

D, "Yes, because the deed to the nephew was legally delivered when the man took it to his attorney." See, I don't think that's right. I don't even think that's true in any way. Like, I don't even think that turns on the question of whether or not it's transferred when you take it to your attorney, because the nephew died first and the whole instructions to the attorney were, "Deliver this to my nephew if I die."

1:01:05 Thomas: I. So I think that C and D are not right. So I'm very certain of a no answer and I can't wait to get the wrong one. So I'm eliminating C and E. Andrew, I know you love when I'm bold. Eliminating C and E. Get those answers out of here. They're not right So A, no because the gratuitous death escrow is void unless supported by a written contract. Whew. Know, I like that answer. Or B, no, because the man never placed the deed beyond his control.

Gosh, dang. Now that answer sounds like one that I will get wrong and it's right. So I'm going to go with answer A and I'll tell you why. Well, wait, he emailed, oh shoot. He emailed the nephew informing him. Would that count as a contract? But in a contract, you usually have to have consideration or whatever. Whatever, email the nephew informing him of the arrangement, so I, what I was going to say is this sounds like exactly the kind of thing the law would want in writing, because you don't want to have people be like, oh yeah, my uh, my grandpa was dying and on his deathbed he said, hey, if I die, I'm giving you the farm, kind of things, like I feel like this is the kind thing that you would want in writing for that kind of reason, so I like A because of that, but also he did email the nephew and you could produce that and be like, hey, here is the arrangement.

That What's interesting is none of this seems to matter. Gosh, you know what, I, I'm, oh man, this sucks, I'm going with B, final answer, I don't want to hear it, I'm gonna get it wrong, but I'm growing with B, I just because like I feel like since The since the nephew died before the deed was ever beyond the old man's control, it's like he never had anything to will to his daughter. So, think that's it, but I don't, whatever. B Final answer, this is a hard question, you're

1:02:38 Andrew: All right And uh, if you want to play along with Thomas on this uh self-described hard question real property question, you know how to do that. Just share out this episode on social media, include the hashtag T3BE, include your answer, your reasons therefore, we will pick a winner and shower that winner with never-ending fame and fortune. Fame and fortunate not guaranteed. Oh.

1:03:14 Thomas: Gonna want to pick a all thanks for listening, everybody. We will see you on Tuesday.

1:03:17 Andrew: See you then.

1:03:18 Clip: He's not even a lawyer and he's kicking your ass.

1:03:51 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC. All rights reserved. It is produced with the assistance of transcriptionist Heather Loveridge, production assistant Ashley Smith, and additional contributions from Morgan Stringer and Deborah Smith. Special thanks to Teresa Gomez, who runs our live shows and heads up the OA Wiki. Follow at OA Wiki on Twitter. Additional thanks to the moderators of the Opening Argiments Facebook community, Emily Waters, Alicia Cook, Eric Brewer, Natalie Newell, Brian Ziegenhagen, and Teresa. And finally, thanks to Thomas Smith, who edits the show and created the fabulous theme music, which was used with permission.