OA556: Maxwell Convicted; BBC Invites Dershowitz to Comment Despite Massive Conflict of Interest

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 episode 556. I'm Thomas. That's Andrew Torrez, lawyer extraordinaire. How you doing?

0:01:25 Andrew: Well, mostly I'm fabulous, although I learned that my sister just tested positive for COVID. So that's not fabulous.

0:01:33 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it sort of feels like we're all gonna get Omicron, doesn't it? Or at least a lot of us. I I'm all, I'm boosted. I just, boosted as can get.

0:01:38 Andrew: Released me. Me, I'm where every single one of us in my family is, uh, fully vaccinated, fully boosted, social distancing, you know, everything else. So you think it's a good kind of cautionary tale, right? I mean, you hear people basically say, like, done everything and I still got Covet anyway. So, you know, kind of, what's the point?

0:01:46 Thomas: Yep.

0:02:03 Andrew: Right?

0:02:02 Thomas: Therefore do nothing. Yeah.

0:02:04 Andrew: Yeah, and that you did everything and, you know, like, I may get Covet anyway, um, but, you my Covet won't hospitalize me, is the point. And, you know, and again, I mean, I continue to say this, like, in my view, the danger isn't just Omicron, which is, you know, way more transmissible. It is, the more transmissible variants of COVID are, the greater the possibility for mutations that can evade the vaccine vaccine entirely, right? And as long as we're below herd immunity, right, 70 ish percent, um, that's, going to stay in the population. So please, get, get vaccinated, get boosted, do your part.

0:02:12 Thomas: Yeah. Oh,

0:02:48 Andrew: I know our listeners don't need that again, but it's my mind, so

0:02:51 Thomas: I know. I spent an entire day arguing with my family about this. It's frustrating. Very frustrating. We canceled our Christmas get-together people who believe in science of the family didn't really want to go. Yeah, and it's hard, too, because as you say, there's a mindset of, well, now it's just a cold. And it's true that Omicron is less bad. It seems quite a bit less bad in many cases, and that's great news. But it's still, it's just, what's so puzzling to me is just, there's no thought, I think the clean dividing line has been throughout this whole thing, that there are people who think, you know, okay, I'm willing to do this thing, whether it's masking up, distancing, all the stuff we've been doing for, you you know, going on two years now almost not because of me, but because it might protect someone else.

0:02:52 Andrew: Yeah,

0:03:37 Thomas: And then there's people who are like, oh, well, I'll be fine. I'll get a cold. That's fine. So therefore I'll do nothing. And I just, I don't understand how people could not at least, you know? Do their best for other people. You we're not all perfect. We're, you Know, there's certain risks we're going to take here and there and make that calculation. But at least if there, if there's something that's kind of borderline giving a thought to like, well, what's going to maybe help save somebody else? Right here. I'm somebody who's unlikely to suffer any serious COVID complications. Not 100%, but, you know, unlikely. But yeah, like what if I spread it to someone who is likely to have complications and suffer greatly from it? It's really, that seems to be the dividing line.

0:04:16 Andrew: Well, I, I know that our listeners, uh, did not need that extra push. But, you know, kind of on my mind today. So you get to hear it from me. Woo!

0:04:23 Thomas: Yeah, First announcement, Q&A. It's that time of the month. We're going a little later on this. I think we all had some New Year's plans. You know, give us a little extra time. We're gonna go December, Friday, January 7th at 3 p.m. Pacific. That's 6 Eastern. Come join us. It's ton of fun. The last one was great. We love those things. Thread up on the Patreon immediately. And as always, I know I say it every time, but it really does help ask the questions and vote on the questions that you like. I do use that to see which ones people want to to have answered. It's not a perfect, pure democracy, but it's definitely, it's a better democracy than our country, I'll say. It''s more democratic than our current, less gerrymandered. There is one gerrymander district and that's Teresa Gomez. She gets the first question.

0:05:07 Andrew: And less gerrymandered. We we I Said

0:05:15 Thomas: That's just, yeah, exactly.

0:05:16 Andrew: Less Gerrymandered, not not zero Gerrymander.

0:05:19 Thomas: So hop on that, patreon.com/law. Go find that post. If you're a patron, you'll get the email and come join us on YouTube. Everybody can come join us. It's just that Patreon question thread is kind of the privilege for patrons, but we love having you all there and interacting with you. YouTube, So January 7th, 3 p.m. Pacific, 6 Eastern.

0:05:41 Clip: Down the law, down the law.

0:05:45 Thomas: So, we've seen the headlines as well as 97 posts in the Opening Arguments Facebook group. Ghislaine Maxwell guilty on all but one count, I believe. Andrew, give us the breakdown.

0:05:51 Andrew: Yeah. So, obviously, unbelievably, uh, gross, uh, story, uh, Ghislaine Maxwell, I've been calling her Gisling, I Don't Know, but Yes, I Know, yeah, In any event, um, the, uh, right hand woman, uh, to Jeffrey Epstein, uh, was indicted on six counts. Those six counts are conspiracy to entice a minor to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal activity, transporting minors to engage with intent to engage criminal sexual activity, and two counts of perjury related to various depositions that she gave in which she was asked, well, you know, on Jeffrey Epstein trafficking minors, and she said, what? I

0:06:06 Thomas: No, it's like Glenn or something like that.

0:06:46 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:46 Andrew: Have no idea of that. And they

0:06:48 Thomas: I imagine those perjury charges are like this little sprinkles on the top of the prison Sunday though, right?

0:06:53 Andrew: Are.

0:06:53 Thomas: I mean, that's not... I'm

0:06:55 Andrew: We're going to get to it. But but but but seriously, right, if you think I'm being sarcastic here and I that had that overtone count five. Here's the false testimony. Question. Did Jeffrey Epstein have a scheme to recruit underage girls for sexual massages? If you know, answer. I don't know what you're talking about. Question. List all the people under the age of 18 that you interacted with at any of Jeffrey's properties. Answer. I'm not aware of anybody I interacted with other than obviously the plaintiff who was 17 at this point.

0:07:29 Thomas: Guessing that didn't end up being true, is what you're saying.

0:07:30 Andrew: No. That was uh demonstrably demon false right count six testimony question were you aware of the presence of sex toys or devices used in sexual activities in Mr. Epstein's Palm Beach house? No, not that I recall. Question. Do you know whether Mr. Epstein possessed sex toys or devices used in sexual activities? Answer? No.

0:07:33 Thomas: Yeah, oh This is the grossest, most serious thing in the world but I can't help it, they're doing the Austin Powers, that's not my penis bump, like sketch like that's literally, this, I never thought that would really happen, but like it's actually happening is

0:07:58 Andrew: Yeah, yeah. Not going to read the rest of it. But it was just, you know, one of the things we've said on the show, and that prosecutors will emphasize, is that you very rarely prosecute someone for perjury, and it is even more rare that you convict someone for perjuring. This is an example of where you can prosecute and convict someone for perjury. Right. When and the kind of cases in which this happens, in which somebody just uh, you know, bald-facedly lies. You know, did you know whether Mr. Epstein possessed sex toys or devices used in sexual activities? Answer? No. Well, okay, and then they had multiple days of testimony of, you know, she knew exactly that uh that he was, you know, had sex toys and devices used in sexual activity. So, right.

0:08:22 Thomas: That always gets me too, because like, what, why lie about that part do? If you're going to, you already, the craps hit the fan. Just be like, oh, yeah, sure, I know about that. But, like, that's not a crime to know about a sex toy. I mean, at least not currently. It will be in a few more years of Handmaid's Tale. But about

0:09:03 Andrew: No, you know, well, but but it's a good it's a good sidebar, right? Like one of the things that lawyers say that I just can't emphasize how significant this is, is that it is very, very important. Like attorney client privilege Privilege protects you from telling embarrassing truths to your lawyers, and you should take advantage of that. Please tell your lawyer the truth, the full, In every conceivable way, right? And you might be thinking that I'm saying this, you know, and everybody knows I don't do criminal cases, right, that sort of thing. This has come around to, you negatively impact my clients in civil cases. Right. I had a case involving wrongful termination of an employee. And, you he neglected to inform me of various emails that had been sent. And he was like, oh, well, you know, and when it showed up in his deposition and we debriefed that evening and I was like, well, sure would have liked to have seen those documents before today. He was like, yeah, well, I didn't think they'd find them.

0:09:36 Thomas: Your sex toys, yeah.

0:10:20 Thomas: Yeah. Anyway, cut to me just meeting with my lawyer, rattling off every sex toy I've ever had. And he's like, Thomas, this is about your parking ticket we're fighting. You don't need to. No, hold on. And we also have, yeah, yeah.

0:10:22 Andrew: So. Yeah. Sir, this is a Wendy's. To err on the side of your lawyer saying, sir, this is a Wendy's than to say, oh yeah, well, I didn't think they would discover the emails I sent from my work account before they, you know, yeah, no, they, will, they, and again, that's because once you start lying, like, it's really hard to know how to make the story hang together, right? Like when you're telling the truth, you can be like, yeah, man, like, in an alternate universe in which this is the case, right, like I know my boss, you know, is X. And I know he talked about and had Y and Z and A. But, you know, he definitely never did B, C, D, E and F. Right. And if that's the case, then you know exactly where to draw that line and exactly how to give the answers. And here, you know, it was clear that that that Maxwell was just answering anything that had a sexual component to it in the negative, which is real hard to do when it's admitted on the record that, you know, you've had various forms of sexual contact.

0:11:34 Thomas: Why don't you find a more realistic lie?

0:11:37 Andrew: Mean, one of her answers was, I wasn't aware that he was having sexual activities with anyone when I was with him other than myself. Really? OK. So you asked about the significance of this you are 100 percent correct. Right. It is that the the charge that matters here is the transporting minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. The sex trafficking charge of which she was found guilty. That is 18 U.S.C. section 2423(a). It carries a 10 year mandatory minimum and a 40 year maximum. And I have not gone through and done the entire, um, sentencing chart levels, uh, to figure out kind of exactly where she is, Uh, because This is super complicated when you have five convictions and all sorts of aggravating factors. The, the point is, this is a 60 year old woman. This will be the rest of her natural life.

0:12:21 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah.

0:12:34 Andrew: Right, so that's, that's why I didn't do the math. We will see the math come up in this sensing

0:12:34 Thomas: I wonder if the judge can do the equivalent of when you see that meme of the restaurant check and it's like math they write in and then the you know, to make the equal number, can they do that with this, like, all right, math, and then you're just in prison for the rest of your life, like, I don't, with no need to crunch the numbers, uh, you're in there forever.

0:12:39 Andrew: Right the Nice thing is that the prosecution and the defense will, will do that job for you. So, uh, they'll, they'll submit bit sentencing memoranda and, uh, it will be super interesting, right? Like, it is, um, commonplace now, uh, that the sentencing guidelines were ruled advisory by the Supreme Court almost 20 years ago. Now it is customary to request a downward departure, right, from the sentancing and guidelines as a defense counsel, right? And you can understand that, right. And you would say, look, this case is not typical. And so therefore the court ought not to, to follow the sentencing guidelines and not to depart downward and issue a non-guideline sentence that is below the lower range. And, um, that's going to be a challenge for Maxwell's attorney here.

0:12:54 Thomas: Oh Yeah.

0:13:46 Andrew: Uh, but we'll We'll see. We'll So look when those sentencing memoranda get filed. And if there's something interesting in the news that we want to to clear up for you, we will. In addition to explaining and breaking down the verdict here, there was an interesting news story that caught my eye, caught your Eye, uh, the

0:14:04 Thomas: I also saw the screenshot of apparently Alan Dershowitz found some country in which he still could be taken seriously as a legal commentator. Oh, my God. I

0:14:14 Andrew: United Kingdom. The The British Broadcasting Corporation, right, the, the Beeb, um, and

0:14:21 Thomas: Mean, those people let Piers Morgan going to be on the for, air, I don't know how long. So I guess, you know, standards, not the highest.

0:14:28 Andrew: Let's explain how bad this is, right. So, um, immediately on Wednesday, right after Maxwell was convicted, uh, the, BBC brought in Alan Dershowitz, uh, as an impartial analyst of this case to describe what the guilty verdict is. And he wasted no time in spinning the case in a self-serving fashion. He, right, in particular attempted to impeach the credibility of Virginia Roberts, Jeffrey, one of the Epstein and Maxwell accusers and somebody who has independently accused Alan Dershowitz of. Yeah.

0:14:41 Thomas: Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, say, yeah, this is not normally cool to like comment on a case that you're, you have a bit of a conflict of interest, right?

0:15:13 Andrew: This is and I'm going to explain how it's a legal conflict of interest in a minute. Right. So of of Joffrey, And this is going to read the statement because as soon as I read it, you will see how icky and gross it is. Right. Like so is Dersh. The government did not use as a witness the woman who accused Prince Andrew, who accused me, accused many other people because the government didn't believe she was telling the truth.

In fact, she, Virginia Joffre, was mentioned in the trial as somebody who brought young people to Epstein for him to abuse. And so this case does nothing at all to strengthen in any way the case against Prince Andrew. So now he's on BBC News. You can understand the the focus on the Prince Andrew aspect. No self-respecting lawyer would draw that level of conclusion from the prosecution's decision not to call a particular witness. Um, in terms of piling, uh, on the BBC here, uh, Dershowitz, of course, was also invited on Fox News on Wednesday to discuss, uh, the Maxwell verdict, uh, but, um, when Fox News had him, they on specific at least, uh, disclosed, uh, Dershowitz's connection, uh, to, to Joffrey. When I say that this is a legal conflict of interest, mean this in the highest possible sense of a breach of ethics, that is a case we have discussed on this show on multiple occasions, right? And that was the separate lawsuit by Virginia Joffre against Ghislaine Maxwell,

0:15:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:16:06 Thomas: I feel mm-hmm.

0:16:51 Andrew: Joffre sued Maxwell for defamation in the Southern District of New York. And that went up to the Second Circuit. Just And one more little bit of background. Right. Remember, we covered the entry and the reopening of Jeffrey Epstein's 2008 sweetheart plea deal. Right. In connection with that, Joffrey, other victims filed a lawsuit under the Crime Victims Rights Act seeking to void that plea deal and ultimately were successful. We told you about that in prior episodes. So while that's happening, that means that these folks, including Virginia Joffre, and the reason we're naming her is because she has publicly come out and said, right, consent to talked about, right?

She's brought civil lawsuits in her own name, not under a pseudonym. We're not naming other underage victims because they have not done so. So I just want to be clear with respect to that. So Joffrey and others came out and said, hey, we think this is terrible what happened in 2008. We think it's unconscionable because Jeffrey Epstein did X, Y and Z. And so folks like Ghislaine Maxwell came out and said, oh, these people are just lying there. They're making it up. You know, it's all nonsense. This is the plea deal was totally appropriate. And so this happens to be a perfect example of how and where you bring lawsuits for defamation.

0:17:31 Thomas: Oh,

0:18:23 Andrew: Right. When you say, I am accusing this person of serious sexual crimes and they say, you're a liar, you're making it up, you sue them for defamation. So she did. That suit involved allegations against Alan Dershowitz. Right. This is the famous, Alan Dershowitz. I received a massage while on Jeffrey Epstein's plane, but I never took my underpants off. Right. Point in drawing this all to a close is that Dershowitz moved to intervene in that case and argued that certain documents that were all sealed by the court should be unsealed. And his request, he was joined by Mike Cernovich. So, you know, fantastic company, Dershowitz Keeping, and the Miami Herald, which is, you know, perfectly fine newspaper.

That's the newspaper that brought down Gary Hart. Dershowitz, Cernovich, the Miami Herald all moved to unseal those documents and they won at the Second Circuit. And so Dershowitz has directly opposed Virginia Joffre in court, not just as a lawyer, although he did represent himself, but as a litigant and as a lawyer to then use to then go on television, uh, and talk about what, you know, a, uh, a terrible person, and, and, and was going to say slander, which would, but I would be meaning that in the, uh, non-legal sense of the word, right? Like, I'm not saying that what he said on the BBC amounted to legal defamation.

0:19:12 Thomas: Yeah. Great company does

0:20:05 Andrew: He went on to impeach the character of somebody that whom he is an opposing party and opposing counsel in court at the Second Circuit. It's hard to imagine a larger breach of an attorney client ethics than that. And, right, here he's his own client. But that is just, no lawyer would do that. Right. If I went on TV and, you started talking about like how great certain things were, you know, and it turned out that all the things that I was talking about were clients of mine, I, you know, I'd never practice law again. Dershowitz should never practice law again. Yeah. Well, yeah.

0:20:41 Thomas: He practice I feel like he hasn't been, he's just been a mouthpiece for the worst people, like just trying to come up with plausible sounding arguments for excusing the worst kind of behavior for the last six years, five years, six years, anyway, I think the question that a lot of people have on this, and what I'm seeing, you being posted and shared around, is, is essentially, essentially, where are all the people who these girls were sex trafficked to? You Ghislaine Maxwell sex traffick those girls to nobody? And where are those men and are they going to face consequences?

0:20:56 Andrew: Yeah.

0:21:16 Andrew: And so, A, don't know. B, particularly with the passage of time, it makes it very, very difficult to bring those kinds of charges. But

0:21:27 Thomas: Well, why any harder than these? Yeah, I

0:21:29 Andrew: Well, because the Maxwell indictment was 2020. Right? So it's it's a year and a half harder. One advantage of I've seen the question phrased this way. And that is, will this verdict help in going after the men to whom those girls were trafficked? And the one unambiguous yes is that in terms of statutes of limitation, where appropriate, right? And some sexual crimes have no statutesof limitation. Limitation. But conspiracy, the statute of limitations does not run until the last link in the conspiracy chain ends, the last activity, right? So ongoing conspiratorial actions keep that statute of limitation moving forward.

0:22:21 Andrew: And here you will have a December 2021 verdict, verdict that has found, on on multiple factual grounds, ongoing conspiracy by Colleen Maxwell in connection with various sexual crimes. And remember, she was found guilty on both of the conspiracy counts, right? The conspiracy to entice a minor to engage in illegal sex acts and the conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. So that that makes it easier to piggyback additional conspiracy charges against the the men to whom those those girls were trafficked. So that's the the positive answer that I can give as a result of that, that. And I guess I would give a second positive answer, is so long as we continue to have, right.

0:23:06 Andrew: The level of, of public outrage that has accompanied this case, right. What was so distressing when we broke down and got, you know, and you, I mean, you remember Remember, like that was a hard episode going through the 2008 Florida plea deal. Right. And I don't blame anyone because that was a textbook example of how if you are rich and powerful and connected, you get away with things. And here you have somebody who was rich and powerful and collected who didn't ultimately didn't get, you know, got away with it for decades, but ultimately didn'T ultimately was held accountable. Think that those are two kind of very positive signs. And, you know, I certainly think connection is the not lost, right? Like, don't think it's a coincidence that Dershowitz was, that the first thing out of his mouth was to badmouth, you You Virginia Joffre on the on the Beeb like that's he cannot be sleeping peacefully at night thinking that, he's in the clear on this because he's not.

0:24:05 Thomas: Actually just saw a New York Times headline that was like, the BBC is looking into this. This was not properly, you know, disclosed. But I guess I'm sorry, I don't totally understand the answer here. Are you thinking we will see any further prosecutions of people who actually did this stuff? I mean, I can't blame people for being, myself included, for being really angry about this when you see all these pictures of different people, Trump, among others, Clinton, lots of people with, you Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Now, obviously, a picture doesn't mean a sex crime necessarily, like just because they were palling around, but like nothing, no other. I mean, as far as I know, there's no other actual prosecutions of people who did the things. There's just the trafficking.

0:24:10 Andrew: Yeah.

0:24:52 Andrew: So here's what what's hard to answer, right. So I agree with you that I pivoted from your question to give you the ways in which this verdict could make it easier to bring future prosecutions. If your question is, will there be future prosecitions? The answer to that is we don't know, right? Again, grand juries are convened in secret, right, prosecutorial decisions are made in secret. Um, there's no way to know. Uh, but I would say, right. However, incrementally more likely sort of where you want to put that on the sliding scale. I think this verdict makes it more likely, uh, that those prosecutions will come. Um, does het put it into highly likely, right? Like it's, it's very, very difficult to say.

0:25:12 Thomas: Okay. Yeah, I think the question maybe I'm trying to get at, and sorry if I'm not phrasing it correctly, but I do want to get this straight because I think a lot of of people are, are very angry about this, is the kind of evidence that would result in this conviction, which you would imagine would have to do with victim testimony. You know, I didn't, I wasn't at the trial. I didn'T, but you would Imagine it's that kind of stuff. Why isn't that same stuff? Like, oh yeah. And Bill Clinton was there and he did that. Like, why isn't that also effective to actually prosecute those people?

0:25:43 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, as well, they should. I think it would be effective to prosecute those people. That's, yeah, I mean, that's the best answer I can give you. The question then becomes, prosecutor want to try and build that case and match up? So one of the things that I don't know that my guess is that the prosecutors very much do know in connection with the Maxwell case is how to match individual girls with the criminals to whom they were trafficked. And I prosecutors have a very good line of evidence, and it seems to be pretty clear that they do, then you look at that and say, okay, well, now we've that this type of prosecution was effective.

0:26:15 Thomas: Hmm. Okay.

0:27:02 Andrew: We saw it persuade a jury in a case that, you know, like, you know, was was no sure thing from the outset I think that makes it a more likely occurrence and I just don't know how to hang a bigger percentage on it than that because, you know, we're talking about there, you know, in the Donald Rumsfeld sense, right? Right. The unknown unknowns are so large that it's really hard to to evaluate the overall decision.

0:27:29 Thomas: All right. Well, Well, apologies for grilling you. Thanks for anything else so one last follow up then. You said that the Dersh thing is not, that doesn't sound like just a faux pas. That sounds like an actual legal thingy. Any consequences coming for Dersch, you think?

0:27:32 Andrew: No, I love it.

0:27:46 Andrew: When you say consequences, I am thinking in terms of violation of the the the rules of professional conduct. Absolutely.

0:27:52 Thomas: Being disbarred or?

0:27:57 Andrew: If you were in I don't know what other other than Massachusetts, what other jurisdictions Dershowitz is admitted. I don't know if he were to care if disbarment proceedings were to be initiated. I mean, you know, he's 80 years old, but

0:28:09 Thomas: No, but that would be, look, we need to start actually doing that, though, because it, it would make an enormous difference. I I mean, I the channels like the BB or whoever is still having them on Fox News, they might hesitate if it's disbarred.

0:28:14 Andrew: Agreed. Agreged. Yeah. Disgraced former attorney Alan Dershowitz. I agree with that.

0:28:24 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. Um, it would make a difference.

0:28:27 Andrew: And let me say look through the model rules. There is no single rule that you can look at and say, yeah, it's the vibe of the thing.

0:28:34 Thomas: Hmm. It's just the vibe of the thing. It'S the vibe.

0:28:38 Andrew: Right. Right. There's no single rule that you can look at and go, you know, like would be a knockdown if he, you revealed attorney client privilege on The air or something like that. But I would point out that, there's also, you no, aspect of the model rules of professional conduct that says, you know, you can't, you know, stick affidavits from Spider and Terpsichore all in your pleadings. Right. At some level, um, there there is, uh, the Attorney Grievance Commission, uh, has the ability to evaluate, uh, conduct which is detrimental to a member of the bar, right, detrimental to being an officer of the court, um, and I would say, uh, deliberately misrepresenting, uh, the nature of your personal, personal representation of yourself, uh, would fall within that purview, um, if you're Derish, right, your defense is going to be, well, I told them all about it, and, you know, the BBC just, uh, you know, forgot to put that up there or something like that, right?

0:28:45 Thomas: Mm hmm. Uh,

0:29:31 Andrew: So, you know, that to me, to me, that is kind of fully vetting, right? We've both seen the uh reports where the Bc is going, going be like, we're going to figure out what went wrong here. Um, but, you know, look, Dirt Dash would have a reasonable, in terms of, I don't think he he wouldbe sanctioned at all, other than, you know, maybe a letter in the file, right, like a, you written sanction, um, if these are the facts, right, that, uh, the BBC called him up and said, hey, come on, are you free to come on and talk about the, uh, Maxwell verdict? Never asked him about his prior affiliations.

0:30:06 Thomas: Like, Hey, we need someone to bash the victims of sex trafficking. You down? Oh, yeah, sure.

0:30:07 Andrew: And Yeah. Are you? Do you know anybody who might be into that? Yeah, um, and he just came on and failed affirmatively to disclose, right? If he said, look, like had they asked, I would have, you know, fully and forthrightly said X, Y, and Z, but they didn't, um, that would be a very good fact for Dershowitz. Conversely, right, it would be a very bad fact if the BBC investigation comes out and says, hey, anything we need to know about before we put you on the air?

0:30:11 Thomas: Yeah. Oh.

0:30:36 Andrew: And he's like, nope, we're we're all good. I'm your man.

0:30:40 Thomas: I'm a giant piece of shit, that's one thing, maybe I don't know, just off the top, can't All

0:30:43 Andrew: Yeah. You did call me. So, you know. Yeah. So that's how that's How I think that would break down. And I think we just need to know, you know, what, what due diligence, if any, the BBC did versus, you versus how much did did Dersh shade the truth or just fail to disclose in terms of there being consequences?

0:30:48 Thomas: Right. Should We be, uh, complaining to the bar? I know you've done that in the past, right?

0:31:07 Andrew: Again, let's find out. Let's let's find out what if it turns out there's credible evidence that he was asked and that, you know, the BBC said incredible evidence is right. The booker says, yeah, I called him up because he's on our list. And I asked, do you have any conflicts of interest? And he said, no, that would be super great evidence. And we should 100 percent our Massachusetts listeners should write into the Attorney Grievance Commission. So, but let's find out. We do not know that that is the case yet. We don't not know, but we do not now.

0:31:08 Thomas: Okay. Mm-hmm.

0:31:40 Clip: YOU BETRAYED THE LAW!

0:31:37 Thomas: And Now it's time for our second story, Trump's 1-6 lawsuit update. This is about the documents. This is going all the way to the Supreme Court.

0:31:50 Andrew: Yep. So background right on October 18th. 18th. That was when Trump filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to stop the archivist from turning over documents that were subpoenaed by the House 1-6 Committee. That was after the archivist and the president of the United States made a determination that these records, and there have been three tranches of records, There's a fourth that is due January 20th. Right. So, you know, that is forthcoming. And Right? The archivist, the current president said, yeah, no attorney client privilege, no executive privilege attaches to any of these documents. You can absolutely have them. Donald Trump came in, moved for injunctive relief to stop the production of those documents.

0:32:41 Andrew: The single argument that Trump has been raising in all of these cases, the exact same. We've been through this. We went through this here. It's the exact sam argument John Eastman raised. Right. It is the One Six Committee isn't a real congressional committee. It's not really trying to reform legislation, legislation, it's just a witch hunt out there to improperly bring down indictments, indictments are criminal activity, those belong to the executive branch and are not properly a function of the legislative branch. That last sentence, by the way, is a true sentence, everything else was nonsense. But it is true, right, that if Congress issues a subpoena and the purpose of the subpoena is to criminal activity by an individual, that that is an improper congressional subpoena.

0:33:34 Andrew: Law enforcement belongs to the executive branch. However, as we have seen, right, Trump has been, you flogging this argument since the Mazars case, right? And the Mazars case gave us exactly the rules of the road that we needed to adjudicate when you have a president that is seeking to cover stuff up and a Congress that is looking to uncover that. And that is, so long as there does not have to be presently existing legislation, although in this case there there is, so long as the requests reasonably relate to a legitimate potential legislative objective that's within Congress's power. And so with Trump's taxes, like, yeah, could that uncover criminal tax fraud by Donald Trump?

0:34:23 Andrew: I'm going to say it could. We all know the answer to that is it will. Well, it does. But, you know, could it? Yes. But is it relevant for Congress to want to know what's in Trump's taxes in order to craft legislation requiring congressional candidates to disclose their tax returns? Of course it is. Right. And that goes back to a year one episode of this show, which we had an accountant on. We had the infamous Tony D. And he laid out the case that, like, Trump's taxes may not tell you exactly what you think. Right? Right. Like, if he got a big payoff from Russia and it was run through three different LLCs, getting Trump's taxes is just going to show, you know, income.

It's trivially easy. If I were arguing the Mazars case, one of the things you would say is, I get an affidavit from Tony D. And I'd be like, if, if one random accountant can say, you here's how I would, if I, if I had a client that was looking to the kind of evidence that Congress would find relevant in crafting a law, then don't you think, like, we ought to have the real world example of the person who maybe did that, so that Congress can craft the law? That just, that doesn't just say presidential candidates must release their tax returns, but also presidential candidates must release the tax returns of every pass-through LLC entity or,

0:34:44 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Mhm.

0:35:50 Andrew: You know, every business organization in which they own five or more percent or, right. And I can't even craft what that is because I haven't seen Trump's taxes. Seeing how he evaded the law helps you craft the law. Right. And that was that argument won at the Supreme Court. And it's going to win. It's going to win and carry the day here with respect to executive privilege. Well, we're going to we're about to talk about it because the argument is that, you know, the one six committee is just interested in holding Trump accountable for the insurrection. And the response is No. Remember your guy, John Eastman, the one who wrote the Wargaming, the Various Scenarios memo on 1-6? Your side has conceded and is actively arguing that the Electoral Count Act of 1887, right, 3 U.S.C. 15, is, in Eastman's words, unconstitutional. I think that argument is nonsense. But but in our side, right, like and and various legal scholars, including, you know, our old buddy Larry Lessig, including the folks, Neil Buchanan, right.

0:35:59 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Is it?

0:37:01 Andrew: Right. Who wrote the initial Blue Wave Redshift article that that we focused on leading up to the election that really changed my mind on me, will Donald Trump try to steal the election? They have all argued, I think, persuasively so, that, yeah, it isn't so much that the Electoral Count Act of 1887 is unconstitutional as that it makes no sense. Right. Like, it's really, really hard to figure out. Right. When it, when it says, you know, this entire sentence is thirds of a page long and three hundred and thirty-five words. Words.

0:37:38 Thomas: One sentence?

0:37:39 Andrew: One sentence. Yeah. So I could I could know a speed read.

0:37:41 Thomas: Wow. Did Eli write it?

0:37:45 Andrew: Yeah, but but yeah, I mean, this is the one that's like, you know, if more than one return purporting to be a return shall have been received by the president of the Senate, then those votes and those only shall be counted, which which have been regularly given by the electors. And and it just goes on and on. And there are so many dependent clauses that I think everybody agrees that we can probably figure out what this what this law means, but it really ought to be replaced. Right.

0:37:45 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:38:16 Andrew: Like, we really ought ought to have a like, here's what happens. You do X, then you do Y, then you do Z, then you do A if, somebody you is arguing that votes are illegal, but they don't have a slate of electors, they get to go home. If right, like, and and you just specify exactly what that is. And so, in my view, that is a knockdown argument against the, you're really using this for political purposes no

0:38:21 Thomas: Mm hmm.

0:38:43 Thomas: Is that something, by the way, is updating that something that was at all discussed in the voting rights package that might?

0:38:49 Andrew: It is not discussed in that in the in the Mansion uh expanding access to voting uh bill that that we have lauded here it I don't want to say because of Mansion but but that bill kind of deliberately steps away from any of the kind of Trump third rail issues right and

0:38:49 Thomas: No. OK, sure.

0:39:07 Thomas: Sure. I mean, I could imagine this being presented in a perfectly, you non-political way, just like clarifying old language from the run-on sentence act.

0:39:08 Andrew: Yeah I could too but it's not

0:39:21 Thomas: You know?

0:39:21 Andrew: Andrew Torrez will not be sponsoring the ending run-on sentences act of 2022 I

0:39:25 Thomas: Yeah. The dependent clause limit decree of 2021, or whatever, 22. Too, hey

0:39:30 Andrew: Am sure you can find a 335 word sentence in somewhere in the archives of of Opening Arguments. So I'm probably equally guilty.

0:39:40 Thomas: Look speaking off the cuff is a different standard than writing down a law for you know all time in your as a country So

0:39:50 Andrew: So fast forward, that lawsuit, district court says, you're kidding, not going enter an order in joining the archivist. And in fact, the Archivist is free to do whatever they want. That went up to the D.C. Circuit on December 9th. Uh, D.C. Circuit, we broke that, we broke down that ruling in detail, we talked about uh how it was designed to bulletproof the Supreme Court, um, and from footnote 20 at the very end of that opinion, December 9th, said, uh, this court's uh administrative injunction preventing the archivist from turning over the documents will be dissolved in 14 days reflecting the amount of time, the former president's counsel requested to file a petition for writ of certiorari and accompanying motion for injunction pending review in the Supreme Court.

0:40:37 Andrew: That would have been December 23rd. If such a motion is filed, the administrative injunction will dissolve upon the Supreme Court's disposition of that motion. And sure enough, Trump's lawyers did that on December 23nd. They petitioned for cert. They moved to stay the mandate. They moved the to expedite consideration of the cert petition. Um, and all of that is pending, um, and you could ask, uh, I did, uh, in looking at that, could the D.C. Circuit have kind of put the screws to the Supreme Court and said, you uh, you've got a file by the 23rd and the injunction will dissolve on, you know, midnight of December 31st. Right. You know, tonight, as you hear this, they could have done that.

0:41:22 Andrew: Courts Right. Have done that in the past. Think looking at a court that that, again, you know, I am reading tea leaves here. I think this court is trying to send every signal possible to the Supreme Court not to get get involved, And right? I think the reason they left that in place is to allow the Supreme Court to take a pass on granting certiorari, not have to grant interim relief, right, because again, their administrative injunction will stay in place, quote, until or upon the Supreme Supreme Court's disposition of that motion, right, for certiorari. So in other words, have put the screws to the Supreme Court and said, well, if you don't decide by X, then we're going to dissolve the stay and we're gonna let the archivist turn over the documents.

0:42:13 Andrew: Um, the Supreme Court doesn't like being told what to do. Uh, and I think that would have immediately then been met with, um, an administrative stay at the Supreme court level and would have allowed the Supreme Supreme Court to engage in the same kind of delays that they engaged in in the Mazars case, right, where it took nine months for them to, you know, kind of finally get around to taking a look at the merits. And meanwhile, this administrative injunction, continued to run that entire time. Here, I think that the idea was to sort of put your eggs in the basket of, you know—this is an open and shut case. You just did Mazars. This is no new evidence, right?

0:43:00 Andrew: This is no new legal principles. It's just a straightforward application of what you've already done. Don't, right. Let it stand. Take your time. We're not not going to wreck your holidays, you know, John Roberts can go spend

0:43:13 Thomas: What you're saying is the circuit court has to talk to the Supreme Court like it's my four-year-old basically you

0:43:14 Andrew: Uh yeah yes, no, it is no longer sufficient to just persuade John Robert's or just shame John Roberts, you've got to bring along somebody who's incredibly difficult to bring alone, right, you've got to bring along a Gorsuch, a Kavanaugh, a Clarence Thomas. And those are the three, right, that you can pick off in various circumstances. Thomas being obviously the biggest wildcard among them. I mean, Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, like what what exactly are you going to get from them? That isn't, you know, I want to take the case so that Trump doesn't have to turn over these documents to those damn dirty liberals. Yeah. So it's a tough spot to be in.

0:44:18 Andrew: Have said. So this is just supplemental brief filed by, uh, insurrectionist Jesse Binnall, right? Member of the, uh. Sedition Kraken lawyer team. Um, and this says here, I'm going to, I'm gonna read it to you, uh see if you can spot the non sequitur. Um, it says, uh hey, I just read a Washington Post article and in that article the, the Post interviewed the one sixth chairman, Benny Thompson, who admitted his goal of uncovering information that could result in criminal referral to the Department of Justice. The interview disclosed that he's seeking to access tape recordings of Trump from the afternoon of January 6th, 2021, which he alleges that Thompson alleges will reveal that Trump was reluctant to issue a message to protesters, acting them to leave, asking them to Leave the Capitol.

0:45:04 Andrew: The Post quotes Chairman Thompson remarking, quote, that dereliction of duty causes us real concern. And one of those concerns is that whether or not it was intentional and whether or Not, that lack of attention for that longer period of time would warrant a referral. OK, so that's the evidence.

0:45:24 Thomas: That was one of those run-on 250-word sentences. I

0:45:27 Andrew: So that's the evidence now. See if you can spot the non sequitur, very next paragraph in his petition. President Trump explained that the committee is acting as an inquisitorial tribunal seeking evidence of criminal activity. Now the Washington Post has confirmed what was already apparent. The committee is indeed seeking any excuse to refer a political rival for criminal charges, and they are using this investigation to do so yeah

0:45:53 Thomas: Feel like there's a lot of nuns sequitur in that. So can you cite what a Washington Post article said is like the gospel? Is that,

0:45:56 Andrew: So that's an excellent point, right, do not, we've talked about this before, that in adjudicating the legislative purpose of a subpoena, you are not bound by, and in some cases it may not even be evidence, evidence, what a member of Congress says that thing is supposed to do. Right. And here's like classic example of that. Right, is, of the Republican senators who voted against the first infrastructure bill and then went back and told their constituents, I cast a vote to bring, you, you know, millions of dollars to the state of Kentucky and Tennessee. And you're like, well, no, you didn't. You lied about what you voted about, right? Like lying to your constituents is a thing that we protect. And so I do not know the responses do as we're recording, because of course it is. I do not know what the one six committee might respond to it. But it is is certainly plausible, right?

It's not the greatest thing because, you know, you'd have to craft this really, really carefully or else, you knows, Fox News is going to have a field day with it. But certainly one of the things that's possible is Chairman Thompson's opinions regarding his role on the committee when electioneering to constituents, when speaking in the media in an environment

0:46:35 Thomas: Oh, yeah.

0:47:25 Andrew: That he thinks will help him win reelection are not binding of on the committee's internal deliberations and intent in issuing a subpoena um

0:47:35 Thomas: And I think this is all, I'm guessing based on how you set this up, this is All Kind of Interesting Questions, but also the quote wasn't even that, right? The quote was like, it may result in criminal referral, not we're looking to put them away.

0:47:35 Andrew: Yeah that is that, is exactly right, that

0:47:54 Thomas: I'm picking up what you're putting down.

0:47:55 Andrew: Yep I'm going to read a paragraph from it. We'll link in the show notes. And if the discussion continues, which hope it doesn't, because I hope the Supreme Court just kind of washes its hands and says, yeah, we're not taking cert on this. We don't care. Turn over the documents. That's a plausible outcome, right? I don't know that it's the most likely outcome, but it's a possible outcome. And if that happens, this debate doesn't need to take place. But buddy Randall Eliason wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post on Monday, the 27th, the same day that this was filed, that basically cautions the 1-6 committee about publicly talking about or even making criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.

0:48:22 Thomas: Yeah.

0:48:40 Thomas: So this is, he didn't write a piece on Duck, Duck, Gray Duck. Okay. Yeah, this is about the other thing. Got it.

0:48:43 Andrew: Yeah, it's the second thing that he's known for.

0:48:47 Thomas: Right. His other op-ed. Okay, good.

0:48:50 Andrew: So, uh, he begins a criminal investigation of Trump for crimes related to the Capital riot is indeed warranted. Okay, so, uh, let's, let's be clear, uh, Randall's on our side. Um, we, all think that Trump, uh, should be investigated by the DOJ. Goes on but a criminal referral from Congress would undermine the goals of both the DOJ and the House January 6th Committee. It's a bad idea. A criminal referral has no real legal effect. It's simply Congress informing the Justice Department about potential criminal conduct. It does not compel or allow prosecutors to do anything they can't already do.

The department may decide the matter is not worthy of investigation, may investigate and decide not to bring any charges, or may decide, decide to prosecute, the same options it has with any information it receives. And then it goes on, you know, to talk about what we just described, which is, if Trump's argument is the one six committee is, you know, just a potential referral generating factory in disguise, the best way to evade that argument and to kind of defang it is for the one sex committee not to do, right, to to focus on presenting information to the American public. And then the DOJ can act on that public information. They could request it from the one six committee once its findings are done.

0:49:29 Thomas: Yeah.

0:50:19 Andrew: And, you know, really kind of keep an arm's length. I, I'm not convinced I agree a hundred percent with it.

0:50:24 Thomas: Well, I think we need to leave it for another time. I read that and I wanted to discuss it, but we were just plumb out of time. And as always, reminder, this show is a very, very fast turnaround, perhaps one of the fastest turnarounds in the business. So if people always say, oh yeah, do it. We'd let you you go for three hours. That'd be fine. Be like, yeah, someone has to edit those three hours in about three hours, so apologies for that.

0:50:25 Andrew: Yep, yep, edit this show tonight, put it together in about three hours worth of time. Yeah, no, and And in fairness, right, Randall Eliason, long-standing friend of the, the show, and yeah, so if we're gonna, if we're gonna, uh, if we're gonna pick nits. Yeah, we might have him on. Let's hope we don't have to, right? Let's hope that the Supreme Court, uh, decides to what it ought to do.

0:50:53 Thomas: We love Professor Eliasson. May we have him on?

0:51:04 Thomas: Well, I'm not going to hope we don't have to have Randall Eliason on. I love having Randall Eliason.

0:51:06 Andrew: I think he would take not coming on the show for the Supreme Court not granting cert, uh, but we'll find out.

0:51:13 Thomas: Well, either way, we should have him one. If we don' need to talk about that, we can argue DuckDuckGrayDuck. If do need to about that we'll talk about the op-ed.

0:51:22 Andrew: There you go. All right.

0:51:24 Clip: Oh, no associate of this firm has ever failed the bar exam. No kidding.

0:51:31 Thomas: And now it's time for T3B. That's Thomas takes the bar exam each week. I apparently get pranked really hard by Andrew. Because that last week was, I don't even know what to say. That was a prank.

0:51:40 Andrew: Right, that was ridiculous. It was, it was ridiculous.

0:51:44 Thomas: You got me. All is fair in law and war. So let's try it again. Maybe I can break my, I do not know, two, three questions skid. Let's have it.

0:51:44 Andrew: Um, A man was driving home from work one cold December day and noticed a large, heavily decorated Christmas tree sitting outside of city hall. I want to tell you no, absolute coincidence.

0:51:59 Thomas: Okay. What a great question. Did you do this on purpose or is it just luck? Total luck.

0:52:09 Andrew: Yeah. The Christmas tree. Yeah.

0:52:09 Thomas: Wow. It's Christmas miracle. This is the only Christmas miracle I believe in is this question.

0:52:12 Andrew: It's It's Christmas, Theo. It's a time for miracles. The Christmas tree stood alone, was brightly lit with Christmas lights and had several red and green ornaments decorating there, were no other holiday or religious symbols on the city grounds. The man, who practices Judaism and is a taxpayer in the city, was offended. He sued the city, arguing that the city exceeded at its constitutional limits in erecting the Christmas tree. Assuming the man has standing, will the man prevail in his lawsuit? A.

0:52:16 Thomas: There you go. Where is this going? Oh, geez.

0:52:50 Thomas: No, because the swing justice is Brett Kavanaugh. That should be one of the answers, I think.

0:52:54 Andrew: Your actual answers, none of which involve Amy Coney Barrett or Brett Kavanaugh. A. Yes, because the city's display violates the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. B. Yes. Because the city'S display violators the establishment clause of the First amendment. C. No, because the city may engage in free speech and spread whatever message it desires, desires to, so long as it does not prohibit citizens from engaging in the same free speech.

0:52:55 Thomas: Okay. Oh, Huh. God.

0:53:22 Andrew: Or D, no, because the city's display does not violate the First Amendment.

0:53:27 Thomas: This is such a loaded question. I, because I Oh, man.

0:53:30 Andrew: I love it.

0:53:31 Thomas: Look.

0:53:31 Andrew: I love It. I love I love

0:53:33 Thomas: I know from this show that apparently the government can maintain a 9 000 foot cross in the middle of a freeway or whatever the heck that was, and that's that's kosher, that's fine. So I I mean, I can't imagine this being a yes answer, I just can't. And I know, you know, like also there's Christmas trees uh outside of city city's hall all the time. I I think I have to be a no answer, but I mean, we'll see. All right, I'll go through it. So we got a Christmas tree, just to recap the facts, Christmas three, right outside of the hall, it stood alone, brightly lit, I don't know if anything that matters, several red and green ornaments decorating creating it. No other holiday or religious symbols on city grounds. So can a Jewish citizen be like, this sucks, I'm offended.

0:54:23 Thomas: All right. A, yes, because the city's display violates the free exercise clause. I think that cannot be right. Even if I were going to entertain a yes answer, I don't think it violates free exercise. I don'T think that's where we'd be going. It doesn't, having a tree doesn't stop anyone from exercising their religion, I don't think. B, yes, because the city's display violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Now, that's one that I would like to be true, you know. I don't Maybe a Christmas tree isn't that big of a deal, but if we had a very vigorous separation of church and state, which I think maybe we should have, then B would probably be the answer. It's more establishment-y than free exercise, I think. C, no, because the city may engage in free speech and spread whatever message it desires to, so long as it does not prohibit citizens from engaging in the same free speech.

0:55:19 Thomas: Hmm. I don't like that answer in any way, shape, or form. I think that, I mean, having just been pranked hardcore, I don't know what to believe anymore. More. So that's tough, but this feels wrong to me. Like may engage in free speech and spread whatever message it desires so long as it does not prohibit citizens from engaging in the same free speech. No, that can't be right. So the city hall could just like preach all day as long as it's not stopping other citizens from preaching. Nah, that Can't be Right. So not C. D. No because Because the city's display does not violate the First Amendment. I think D is really where I'm leaning. I guess I'll do the usual thing, which is I'll eliminate two. I think I would go between B and D.

0:56:07 Thomas: I think that perhaps in my ideal world, the answer would be B. I don't know. I'm not sure how much of a scrooge I am as regards that. I like Christmas. I like Christmastrees. But I also get that we should be fair and represent everybody. So maybe in a just world, you would make sure that if a citizen felt they weren't being represented in their beliefs and they're kind of being treated unfairly, that there'd be some recourse there. But I sadly think it's D. I think I'm trying to think of the reasoning. And honestly, I think it'S D just because the court is right wing and religious. That's my honest answer. So I'm going with D, no, because it doesn'T violate the First Amendment.

0:56:45 Andrew: All right. If you want to play along with Thomas, you know how to do that. Just share 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 fortune not guaranteed.

0:56:59 Clip: And thank you, Let's go!

0:57:01 Thomas: Now it's time to thank our new patrons at patreon.com/law hope you enjoyed that recent Law'd Awful Movies you'll have another one within a few weeks here and uh all the goodies the ad free episodes the uh asking the questions for the q a all that good stuff andrew why don't you start us off thank our New Patrons and

0:57:20 Andrew: Thank you to SEBreak, or seabreak, one of those two, to black_Kage, to Tag Hooper, to witch'sFISTS, that sounds awesome, Jen the Librarian, Liza green, Joel Martin, Brenna Rose, Cave_Dweller, Blake Krippendorf, and Corey Stanton. Take it away, Thomas. Oh,

0:57:32 Thomas: Thank you to Sabrina Hofmann, Spaniard's Vietnam's expat paying his accrued debt to OA. Oh thank you. Scott Lyons, Spencer Watz, Eaklebee, Jimmy McCormack, Salim Fadhley, Mackenzie Powers, Steven Bennett, and Stefan Keehnen. Thank you so much. And that's our show. Have a happy new year. I know I've said it 11 billion times, Andrew, but as I go to download my podcast today and virtually every single one on as a repeat. I'm just so happy. Enjoy our new content. And I know as a listener, I enjoy it. So thanks so much, Andrew, for working so hard to get everybody that new content, even on holiday weeks. We love it.

0:58:14 Andrew: Thank Thank you for what is going to be a delightful edit in the, the next couple of hours. This is uh, so much fun.

0:58:34 Thomas: All folks next time 2022.

0:58:39 Clip: I move for a bad court thingy. You mean a mistrial? Yeah, that's why you're the judge and I'm the law talking guy.

0:59:12 Clip: www.openargs.com. Be sure to join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash Yodel Mountain and follow us on Twitter at OpenArgs. This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media LLC, all rights reserved. It is produced with the assistance of transcriptionist Heather Leverage, production assistant Ashley Smith, and additional contributions from Morgan Stringer and Debra 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 Arguments 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.