OA562: Supreme Court Rules Against Trump; Interview with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi

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 562, I'm Thomas, that's Andrew, how you doing my friend?

0:01:23 Andrew: I am fantastic, and and even more fantastic than usual, on about today's episode. We've got, we got a lot of great news that's broken, and and we're gonna do an interview with Representative Rajak Krishnamurthy, which, it's just, I love being able to talk to him, he's he's fantastic, I

0:01:45 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, he was already great on Aisle 45, but it is cool to get…is this our first sitting Congress member on this show? I can't remember, is it? I think it is.

0:01:56 Andrew: I think it is, yeah, yeah.

0:01:57 Thomas: Alright, well that's fantastic. I am excited too, lots to talk about, there is good news, there's also very bad news. News. First, I just want to issue a correction here. I made a comment saying that we should cast Kyrsten Sinema into the sun, and I got some feedback on that. It's not the kind of show I want to be. Look, it turns out it takes less energy to cast her out of the solar system than it does to cast her into the son. And as somebody who has a budding interest in astronomy, physics, I should have known better. Like I, you know, I, I can't be putting out misinformation like that. And in today's economy, we need all the energy we can get. We can't, oh, it's not, it takes, but we have to see, that's the thing. Cause I, my thinking was, I'll give you a window into why I made this controversial comment. My thinking was the giant gravity well at the center of our solar system. That's gotta be an easy thing to just, you would think everything just goes there, you know, like we're all,

0:02:26 Andrew: It should It should be the same amount of energy, just different angular momentum, right? Like, oh, no,

0:03:02 Thomas: We're all roped around the sun, but no, because of our orbital velocity, there's so much of that centrifugal force, you know, uh, it's actually the best we can do is like cancel that out. So it's just going to be way easier if we cast her out of our entire solar system. And I just want to make, you know, we want to get things right on the show. Just, it was important to get the facts right.

0:03:16 Andrew: But don't. Anyway, well, very important correction. Absolutely.

0:03:23 Thomas: Astronomy note, uh. Related story. Voting rights has failed in the Senate because two people don't want to save democracy at the cost of nothing, at the cost of a rule that's an accident, a complete accident, not intended to even be there. It's an accident of history that there's this rule that also doesn't matter when we voted to increase the debt ceiling recently, right?

0:03:43 Andrew: Doesn't matter for purposes of the Congressional Review Act when you are reviewing agency decisions made in the past 90 working Senate days. I mean, you know, it is, and and a spoiler for our upcoming interview, because I have a feeling that sitting members, Democrats in the House of Representatives, are as frustrated as we are over this outcome. But, yeah, the myth of the Senate filibuster is something we have deconstructed on this show. It was not intended by the founding fathers. It shouldn't matter if it was intended by them because, you know, they were governing a loose confederation of agrarian states in the 18th century. Uh but as it turns out, not an inherent function of the Senate, uh, not something that has been used in its current form until very, very recently, and by very, very recently, we mean the Bill Clinton administration. So,

0:04:42 Thomas: And none of this matters because it's people, you know, it's Manchin Cinema wanting to Manchin and Cinema. You know, I don't think it's facts. It is hard Or with Manchin, he might be that thick, like he might just think this is actually some valuable thing. With Sinema, I think she knows better. In addition to everything you just said, it doesn't even do the thing they think it does. It Doesn't create bipartisanship. It does the opposite. It makes it so nothing gets passed because there is no reason for Team R to let Team D pass anything. There's no reason for them to give us a win at all. It does the opposite of what they think it does. It is an outrage. I cannot wait to to work tirelessly to help her primary opponent in 2024. We'll be fundraising, donating. But that's long a time from now, and it will not fix the problems now.

I'll be interested to, when we talk to, I don't know if you know this, Andrew, we got Representative Krishnamoorthi on the show later. Later, uh, big announcement, can't wait to talk to him, we'll probably uh cover this a little bit, I imagine.

0:04:42 Andrew: Yeah. Right. Right.

0:05:46 Andrew: I think that would be an excellent question to ask of the congressman

0:05:49 Thomas: Won't talk about casting Kirsten Cinema out of the solar system. Don't worry.

0:05:50 Andrew: Okay. Yeah. This is, he's gonna, he's gonna love the this five-minute intro.

0:05:57 Andrew: Also, I want to add, for those of you who have been following our coverage of Activision Blizzard, yes, we are aware of the Microsoft deal that was announced to buy Activision Blizzard for 69 billion dollars, and we will be breaking that that down on Tuesday's show. There's just, I think, you know, there's just too much uh to cover this week, but if uh you've been waiting for that antitrust deep dive, and also, you know, how does this impact all of the Activision Blizzard stories, everything, we we've got you covered, and uh and we will be going deep on Tursday.

0:06:36 Thomas: I'm sorry, I'm still not over her statement, I could, we do a Law'd Awful Movies just on Kyrsten Sinema's statement, maybe? Oh God. That's not a bad idea, she says, we can't just, you know, this is a symptom, this will treat a symptom, it won't treat the underlying disease. First off, you treat symptoms like it doesn't, you don't, not treat, oh, I have a headache, well, I could give you ibuprofen, yeah, it's Just that's just a symptom though.

0:06:42 Andrew: That is not a a bad idea. Right.

0:06:54 Andrew: Definitely. Do not take any ibuprofen. Yeah, cough drops are the devil. Yeah.

0:07:02 Thomas: Like, yeah, I know it's a symptom and it hurts and it's bad, and also, you know what will actually cure the underlying disease, making voting free and fair for everybody and making elections free and fair for anybody, and not allowing elections to be stolen in the future by Republic, that that actually will treat the underlying diseas.

0:07:12 Andrew: It we're we right, this is not sustainable, so I don't know what, what Kirsten Cinema is thinking, like, hmm, yeah, sure would be great to have Arizona make it tougher for Democrats to show up, um, how exactly is that going to help her win re-election, um, it's mind-boggling. It it is anyway, let's get to the show.

0:07:34 Thomas: It's it is all right Oh, sorry,

0:07:39 Clip: Down the law, down the law.

0:07:43 Thomas: So, Supreme Court decision. This is, I mean, pretty much how you predicted it. It was 8-1, right? Isn't it just Justice Thomas,

0:07:50 Andrew: It's it's eight one with an asterisk, uh, because of course, uh, Brett Kavanaugh had to uh chime in and and say, uh, don't, I don't want, I don't, you to misunderstand me, I'm still willing to go out on a pretty long limb for Donald Trump, uh, just not one as baseless as this. Um, but but that's right, so when we last covered the uh D.C. Circuit's ruling in Trump versus Thompson, which is, uh, that is Benny Thomson, the chair of the one six commission, uh, in connection, uh, with the request to the National Archives to produce four tranches of documents, uh, with with more still coming, uh, over which the current administration declined to to exercise executive privilege, uh, and and over which the the former guy said, oh no wait, um, those absolutely are privileged, uh, Yeah.

0:08:38 Thomas: Yeah. Ex-presidential privilege.

0:08:41 Andrew: Uh, and the argument that was made, that again, we keep saying, has finally and conclusively been laid to rest, it should be finally and conclusively laid to risk in this opinion, it will not stop Donald Trump and his cadre of idiot lawyers from continuing to raise the argument that executive privilege is absolute, even though the only person that pretends to agree with that is Clarence Thomas, that is something with which even Brett Kavanaugh does not agree.

And even, know, Sam Alito, even the entire howler monkey contingent of the Supreme Court has decisively rejected that argument. It will will not stop them from continuing to make it. So, um, this is one of these, uh, you know, because it's a shadow docket, uh, procedural motion, uh, it's a per curiam opinion, uh, uh that drew one dissent and one thing that I'm calling a concurrence, but, um, it's not labeled as such, right, so the entire opinion says, the questions whether and in what circumstances a former president may obtain a court order preventing disclosure of privileged records from his tenure in office in the face of a determination by the incumbent president to waive the privilege, are unprecedented and raise serious and substantial concerns. And I want to say, I do agree with that, right? Do not want to set the precedent that says incoming president is all that that matters. Right. Because Democrats aren't going to hold the presidency forever.

0:10:06 Thomas: No. Yeah. Only for two more years.

0:10:07 Andrew: Yeah. Well, thanks, Thomas. I appreciate it. I was in a good mood.

0:10:11 Thomas: Unless we stay engaged and vote Democrat and work to make it happen. All.

0:10:15 Andrew: Yeah, There you go. It is live, a and a real question. If you had legitimate claims of privilege and an incoming administration that said, "Yeah, I am totally happy to embarrass President Biden and jeopardize our national security interests because, you know, of the Mitch McConnell rule, right? Because anything that hurts them is good for us." That's not what this case is. And even the Supreme Court recognized that. So continuing, "The Court of Appeals, however, had no occasion to decide these questions because it analyzed and rejected Trump's privilege claims under any of the tests he advocated without regard to his status as a former president." Because the Court Court of Appeals concluded that President Trump's claims would have failed even if he were the incumbent president.

0:11:03 Andrew: "His status as a former president necessarily made no difference to the court's decision." And again, we flagged that for you when we said that the D.C. Circuit was doing its best to bulletproof its opinion, that the court would be interested in that conflict and to put the Supreme Court in a position where it would have to say, "Yes, that there is some kind kind of blanket immunity" was our best chance for getting a victory. That's what they did. And we got an 8-1 victory.

No written dissent from Clarence Thomas, because I can't imagine where you would begin with that. But it just says Justice Thomas would grant the application. On what grounds? Yeah, good for you. Then we have what is labeled as Statement of Justice Kavanaugh Respecting Denial of Application. And this is this is, again, what I'm calling a concurrence. It serves that function. Right. So it Brett Kavanaugh agreed, concurred in the judgment. Right, so this the National Archives is not enjoined, is free to produce the records that are requested. And then Justice Kavanaugh wanted to emphasize that Court the of Appeals suggested that a former president may not successfully invoke the presidential communications privilege for communications that occurred during his presidency, at least if the current president does not support the privilege claim. Again, not sure that's a fair summary of what the D.C. Circuit said. And that sentence, as is typical for Kavanaugh opinions, has no citation to it. So he just said that's you.

0:11:49 Thomas: Huh.

0:12:35 Andrew: You because, again, I can't emphasize this strongly enough that like these these are parts of the cues, right, that lawyers use when when they're figuring out when a judge is just making stuff up. Right. Like when you say the law is X, usually you see the law is X, Smith versus Torres, 357, right? Like, and you have it's followed by a citation. When you just say the Court of Appeals suggested that a former and again, note the weasel word, "suggested," right and suggested that a former president may not invoke executive privilege when his successor disagrees, that you would cite to the Court of Appeal's opinion. Right. If, if that were what they said,

0:12:54 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if doing Supreme Court opinions is just getting to make stuff up and not have to cite anything or doing research, I could do that. Do they need somebody? I could.

0:13:26 Andrew: I think they have enough people with that qualification Already, Thomas. This but, um, then it says, uh, as the court's order today makes clear, uh, I just read you the court's, so you tell me if it makes it clear, those portion of the Court of Appeals opinion were dicta and should not be considered binding precedent going forward. Would argue the court order does not make that clear, uh, and in fact that you can, uh, argue future lawyers for Donald Trump will argue that that that was dicta. And they would do that without being able to cite to this concurrence. Now they will be able to say, as at least one sitting Supreme Court justice has recognized, you know, the the portion of Trump versus Thompson dealing with this is dicta and has zero precedential value. So, you know, it's it's this is is a gift of Brett Kavanaugh to Donald Trump's future lawyers, um, assuming he still has any, yeah.

0:14:19 Thomas: Yeah, for what? Yeah. This is interesting because you already said it's like a statement. It's not even, is it not even officially labeled a concurrence or a, is that common? What, what's going on there?

0:14:27 Andrew: Nope. Yeah, it is. I, it is not common, um,

0:14:34 Thomas: So Kavanaugh went out of his way to put out like a, subtweet of the opinion along with the opinion just to maybe help somebody later on.

0:14:41 Andrew: Yes, uh, to explicitly to help. And and I said Donald Trump, but let me make it more broad. A hypothetical former president who may take views that are opposite the views of the incumbent president.

0:14:59 Thomas: Jimmy Carter.

0:15:00 Andrew: Yeah, I did.

0:15:01 Thomas: Well, that's weird.

0:15:02 Andrew: Sort of takeaways are, and essentially what Kavanaugh argues in his quote unquote concurrence here, is that the standard should be the 1974 standard in United States versus Nixon, defining executive privilege for presidential communications. In other words, conceding the argument that the sitting president and the past president have an identical claim to executive privilege. Will say that I don't know how that argument would fare before the entire court. Right. If that would gain additional very conservative votes, that strikes me as I mean, insofar as I said, I would not extinguish a former president's right to assert executive privilege down to zero.

0:15:56 Andrew: Um, I, certainly don't think I would maintain it at at a hundred percent of the incumbent. Right, the incoming president, uh, has significantly broader knowledge. Circumstances change, right. You would want to, at least in the case of a tie, right, defer to the incoming president. Um, and and I will say, uh, I'll read this bit from from Kavanaugh in which he says, "It could be argued that the strength of a privileged claim should diminish to some extent as the years pass after a former president's term in office. In all events, the Nixon and Senate Select Committee test would provide substantial protection for presidential communications while still requiring disclosure in certain," he means to say, "in certain other circumstances. The Court of Appeals concluded the privilege claim at issue here would not succeed even under the Nixon test."

0:16:47 Andrew: Therefore, that's why he's joining in the relief. But he wants to emphasize that he thinks the same test should be applied to a former president that should be be applied to an incumbent president. And think, I again, even if the situation were reversed, right, past Democratic president, current Republican president, don't think you would say, right, the past president's invocation of executive privilege is on the same order as the current president's decision as to whether that's valid or not.

0:17:15 Thomas: Yeah. So what does somebody have the documents now? What does this mean?

0:17:20 Andrew: These documents will now be produced to the One Six Committee, which at its discretion may may make them public. But but as of right now, good. I mean, I'm actually I think it's good question to ask Representative Krishnamoorthi in our next segment. But but as of right now I don't think that that anybody outside of the folks who have conducted the privilege review, right, have seen those. And you would not, that's part of your job as a lawyer. You would not then disclose documents you've reviewed that were subject to a potential assertion of executive privilege. You would let

0:17:56 Thomas: But for everybody who doesn't pay painfully close attention to everything, January 6th and all these documents, like what kinds of things are we hoping to see here? What might happen as a result of this?

0:17:57 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

0:18:08 Andrew: These are, uh, communications by and between the White House and the Department of Justice and others on the days leading up to and on the day of January 6th. So, yeah, what might be in these documents? Um, all sorts of explosive stuff, right? Um, and Uh, and again, we don't know it. Could it be benign? It certainly could be.

0:18:28 Thomas: Yeah, they sure are putting up a fight for us not to see it.

0:18:35 Andrew: They you don't often go to the Supreme Court requesting emergency relief over things that you think are no big deal. All

0:18:43 Thomas: A bunch of quotes of Trump being like, oh, these horrible people, please stop it. Yeah, I don't think it's going to be that. This is a stain on our nation's legacy. See, and I can't, yeah.

0:18:43 Andrew: Um Right Yeah, if Look, we know what, what President Trump's public statements were in solidarity and support of, uh, the folks who, who were insurrectionists, um.

0:19:02 Thomas: Also know which of His children had his phone number and which didn't, which I think is hilarious, Ivanka Called him and to try to get him to stop, and then I think, uh, was Eric, Don was like asking somebody else to ask him to get her to stop, uh.

0:19:03 Andrew: Yeah. Right.

0:19:17 Andrew: Uh, so, uh, yeah, so look, we do not know, is, is the, is the answer, um, in terms of what the documents say, uh, but we can draw some pretty significant inferences, um, and I am very, very pleased at that, an area where we went out on a limb and said maybe there's some cause for optimism, that, uh, that there was in fact some cause for optimism.

0:19:42 Thomas: All right. Well, I think it's time to get Representative Krishnamurthy on the phone and do our first interview of a sitting member of Congress. What do you think? And we are now joined by Raja Krishnamoorthi, Congressman representing the Illinois 8th District in the House of Representatives. Congressman, thanks so much for coming on the show.

0:19:50 Andrew: Absolutely. Yeah.

0:20:04 Raja: Thank you for having me my friends.

0:20:06 Thomas: It is our pleasure.

0:20:08 Andrew: Uh, Congressman, I thought I would start off because, uh, we've had some breaking news since, uh, the last time, uh, you and I were able to chat about, um, you know, what was. But it sort of a mixed bag concerning the the one six House committee where you are maintaining kind of close oversight on on what they're doing, as well as the parallel DOJ efforts to hold former President Trump accountable. Since then, we've gotten unambiguous good news, right? Right. We've, we've gotten the the first seditious conspiracy indictments that were unsealed by the DOJ against the leader of the Oath Keepers and others. And just yesterday, as of, as of this record, the Supreme Court eight to one allowed the National Archives to release documents over which President Trump claimed executive privilege and President Biden declined to assert executive privilege.

0:21:04 Andrew: Privilege, um, what's your reaction to those two developments where, where do you think we're headed in terms of, uh, holding the folks who tried to subvert our democracy accountable?

0:21:11 Raja: Well, I think those are both positive developments. The one with regard to the Supreme Court was a pleasant surprise in that eight out of the nine justices agreed that these documents should be turned over to the 1-6 Committee. On a side note, I have been intrigued by the fact that the Trumpsters didn't destroy the documents on their way out the door. They sent it over to the Archives, which I was glad to hear. But, you know, just so your listeners know, a lot of those documents are, for instance, correspondence between the White House and the Department of Justice on the days leading up to the 6th and afterwards. It could be very important in the inquiry.

0:21:54 Andrew: That makes a lot of sense, other than the White House has obviously done a privilege review, um, and the National Archives, who's, who has seen these documents? Do know.

0:22:05 Raja: I don't think the investigators have seen them yet. I think it's mainly just the Whitehouse lawyers, the DOJ probably is my guess. Basically, the review would consist of figuring out what documents should not be disclosed in the interest of our national security. And I believe that the White House actually did flag certain documents that they did not want to turn over on that basis. I got to think that that also added to the credibility or bolstered the argument that whatever they did did not object to should be turned over.

0:22:43 Andrew: That makes a lot of sense. So essentially, none of us know exactly how significant these documents are. But the fact that their release was opposed by the former president, I think, us some indication. What about the second half of that? What do you think the significance is that the Department of Justice has said and now formally brought indictments against those who were not physically present at the Capitol on 1-6 for coordination, for attempting to have a quick response team to ship guns into the Capitol once it had been breached? And that they're being charged with seditious conspiracy, with treason, effectively.

0:23:26 Raja: A lot of us have been waiting for this particular charge to be brought because we know that there were 2,000 people who breached the Capitol that day, but there was a lot of planning and forethought before any of those people arrived at the Capitol. And in fact, detailed maps and other information indicates that they were looking for certain people in certain places, and they knew how to navigate their way through the Capitol, which is not super easy to do, by the way. I mean, there's all kinds of strange hallways and passageways, which, by the way, I'm still discovering every day and I'm in my sixth year. And so the bottom line is, I'm really glad that they brought these charges. They're very serious, as you said. And I think that they probably mustered quite a bit of evidence before they would bring such charges because of the gravity of those charges.

0:24:21 Raja: I would like to see them do more of that. And I'd like to see them, for instance, get the bomb makers. As I told Andrew before, a bomb was planted 200 feet from my office window. We still don't know who made the bomb, who planted the bombs. Until we get those people along with the plotters, this is an investigation that we still have a good ways to go on.

0:24:46 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. So maybe transition over to the not so good voting rights news. Democrats in the Senate are not going to overturn the filibuster to pass that. What's your reaction? What do you think is the next steps?

0:24:58 Raja: Sure. It's not the result we wanted. And perhaps this whole debate and the issue of voting rights should have been brought up much sooner in 2021. But now we are where we are. If there's a silver lining in any of this, I can point to a couple, possibly. One is we now have everyone on the record. A lot of people were thinking that there were more than just two Democratic senators who were were against reforming the filibuster. And basically what ended up happening is I think a lot of votes moved into the pro-filibuster reform column. And so now we're left with two, namely Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, which we knew about, but I'm glad that the others voted in favor of filibustery reform.

0:25:48 Raja: And so now we have to hold them to account. And we have to hold the others to account who don't want to reform the filribuster, including Republicans, Republicans including in swing states during the election. The second is we're going to have to now mobilize like never before under the rules that have been put in place in a lot of these states that unfortunately do limit ballot access, do put new restrictions and provisions for counting ballots. I think they are absolutely unacceptable, but now we know that they're probably going to be in place for the 22 election. We've got to get ready and mobilize our forces. And we've got a show that we're going to be able to express our voices despite these restrictions, even as we try to reform the law.

0:26:35 Raja: And then finally, I think the final silver lining, if there is any, is I'm hearing talk about reforming this Electoral Count Act. It's kind of a consolation prize, quite frankly. It's not the main thing that we wanted. But as far as I'm concerned, I never want to hear about the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which I didn't understand in the first place and which caused so much confusion and uncertainty on January 6th.

0:27:07 Thomas: Pretty sure no one understands that one. Am I, I'm not the lawyer. But yeah.

0:27:09 Raja: It's So weird, man, it's

0:27:11 Thomas: Is

0:27:11 Raja: Like, I mean, they, as someone else said, you know, it's all these weird rituals and, you know, putting the whale bone up to the sun and trying to figure out what time of day it is. I just don't get it, but, you know, now we have to kind of clarify that once and for all, and at least for the certification of elections, we can't have junky laws like that cloud the picture.

0:27:32 Thomas: That going to be able to happen because for we control the vice presidency. So Republicans are, yeah, you know, actually, yeah, let's, let's iron that out a little bit, like

0:27:40 Raja: Right, right, right. It might. You know, it's a very good point you make, Thomas. But I do think that it sounds like Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski and some other Republican senators are joining up with Democrats. And if we can get that something, again, it is not everything we wanted or even a big chunk of what we wanted, but at least it clarifies that ancient law.

0:28:05 Andrew: Well, agree 100% with what you've just said, which is it isn't enough. But I do want to emphasize for our listeners that the ambiguity in the Electoral Count Act was the basis of the John Eastman memo that was the handbook for insurrection, and we have seen Republicans active in swing states to propose legislation that would make it easier to have alternate slates of electors and, and, you know, overturn, uh, the the democratically elected will of the people, which is rather terrifying, so, um, I think, I think that's good news. I want to, I want to work backwards through your answer because there was just so much in that. Also want to emphasize the first point that you've made, which is there really was significant doubt as to whether Democrats had 48 votes move.

0:28:58 Andrew: And my understanding was that procedure that was offered was, it was essentially a talking filibuster in this case with specific reference to the Freedom to Vote and the Voting Rights Act in that omnibus bill. Right. So now we know we have at least 48 votes for that. And, you know, one of the things we've been saying on the show since day one is, you if you're frustrated by Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the way to do that is to elect two more Democratic senators so that, you know, that, that, that doesn't matter as much anymore. And yeah.

0:29:28 Raja: Swing states, I brought it up before, but whether it's Pennsylvania or, of course, Wisconsin has a rather strange senator in Ron Johnson. But in some of these states, with enough mobilization, you really can maybe get to a place where this could become an agenda item that makes it to the top of the debate. And I think that's really important.

0:29:39 Andrew: Well.

0:29:53 Thomas: We could make them irrelevant. Like, I don't have to hear about Kristen, Kyrsten, Sinema and Joe Manchin every single day. Make that should be the slogan, make them irrelevant again, I don't, I DON'T WANT TO, but in a serious question, is there anything to be made, made of what they're trying to do, like, it, like, as a lawmaker, what are you doing with the statements that Cinema made, for example, I, I don't understand what she wants, is it just me, is it that she thinks that somehow Republicans are going to join up with you and give us all these good things, I, what do you make of it?

0:29:59 Raja: Correct.

0:30:24 Thomas: Okay.

0:30:23 Raja: I don't know.

0:30:25 Thomas: So, it's not just me. Okay, good, yeah,

0:30:25 Raja: You know, there's, there is 100. Just someone mentioned this the other day, I think there's 160 exceptions to the filibuster rule in the Senate, everything from now Supreme Court nominees to administration officials, and so confirmation of administration officials to make the 161st exception, and make it about voting rights. Why does that have to be the hill that you die on? You know, I don't understand that at all. And it's in any case, I agree with you. We got to find a few more senators to elect in those other states and and move on.

0:30:51 Thomas: That

0:31:06 Andrew: Of the things I, I really wrestle with is, uh, I, am, and, and I think you're a kindred spirit in this, a, a, you know, a geek about the law and the documents, uh, and process, uh, but at the same, same time, I recognize it's very, very hard to run on and make a political issue out of a procedural event, right? People care about what affects their lives. Do How you do that in the case of the filibuster, right, how do you get the average person who, you know, maybe can't name the Vice President of the United States, right, to come out and pull the D lever and say, "I am voting to end the filibuster on key issues."

0:31:45 Raja: I think rather than talk about necessarily the filibuster and the process, I think talking about the principles that you're trying to fight for and make that the key question, in any kind of debate or a political contest is really important in getting voters to understand. So I think making it very specific. So just as an example, do you believe that dark money should be part of our election system? Do you believe that a presidential candidate should have to disclose their campaign finances? Questions like that, I think, are ones that people understand a little better and have have strong viewpoints on, as opposed to, you know, talking about this arcane procedural rule, and then, you know, kind of explaining what it takes to get to the principle, to achieve the principles that they want. I think that's really the key.

0:32:41 Thomas: Totally reflects what I, I remember of the polling as well, which is that, yes, when you specifically ask people about the filibuster, they might have an opinion on it. But when you just ask them about getting things done, it really feels like, from the data, it doesn't much matter how we do it. You know, they're not like, "Oh, great, you passed this fantastic bill." Wait, but did, did you have to get rid of some arcane rule I don't care about or not? People just care about the bottom line, I really think.

0:33:01 Raja: I think so. And they want to understand what's in the way of getting that done, and they want to get rid of that obstacle.

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0:34:56 Thomas: If, and so, listening to this podcast is a great start. But I got another one for you. Blinkest. I read a lot, actually. I listen to a lot of books. But there's always more books, is the thing. I this is mathematically provable. The number of books that you have time for is always going to be less than the number of books that are worth reading. That's just, that's just a fact. There are a lot of books in the world.

And so one great way to squeeze in a few more, and maybe many more, is Blinkist. Blinkest is a great way to take a book that you want to get the key insights from and deliver those insights in a short dose. That'll be basically as if you read the book, but without all the time. So again, this is a way to get more done. There's so many titles. Politics ones include What Happened, Fire and Fury, A Promised Land, Fear. One. I've You blinked Fire and Fury, for example, because I didn't need to read another Trump book, But I got the key insights from that.

I got, example, the details about how much Trump's inner circle of advisors were at constant odds with one another, the battling going on there, the fact that Trump wasn't at all prepared to win the presidency, stuff like that. I, you know, I didn't need to read the whole book. I used Blinkist and and I suggest you do as well. Right now, Blinkest has a special offer just for our audience. Go to Blinkist.com slash opening to start your seven day trial and get 25% off a Blinkist premium membership. That's Blinkist spelled B-L-I-N-K-I S-T Blinkist.com slash opening to get 25% off and a seven-day free trial. Blinkist.com slash opening. Well, I think maybe we should talk about the Ban Conflicted Trading Act, can you tell folks what what it would do, and maybe where you are in the process of trying to get that passed?

0:36:47 Raja: The Basic issue here, just so your listeners know, is that members of Congress are allowed, allowed to trade individual stocks. And they can do so just by disclosing that they did it. But that doesn't remove the presumption that we have access to information that the public doesn't have and that we are trading based on insider information. And there are hundreds of examples now of members trading individual stocks at times, even during the pandemic, that made it look like they did so to profit off of inside information about the pandemic itself. And I say that, regardless of whether you disclose it or not, we have tremendous appearance of impropriety issues.

0:37:33 Raja: And so that's why I've proposed to ban the trading of individual stocks. The number of co-sponsors on this legislation is growing every day at this point. But I think that we are gaining momentum. And I'm hoping that we can do that to help to restore a little bit of trust back in Congress, that people aren't just out for their, they're in it for public service, not for their stock portfolio.

0:37:59 Thomas: This something that crosses party lines? Because You it seems like it would be a perfectly apolitical kind of bill, you know, in principle. I could see people on both sides thinking, yeah, why would we not want this? So what's your sens of the politics on it?

0:38:14 Raja: It is bipartisan. I think it's also a little bit generational. I Think that quite frankly, a new crop of members of Congress on both sides the aisle understand that this looks really bad, that we're able to do that. In fact, there's no law that prevents members of Congress from sitting on a corporate board, a for-profit corporate board. So in fact, There was a member of Congress who was indicted and went to prison. He was pardoned by Trump from the state of New York, who not only traded based on inside information, but he also sat on a corporate board at the same time. So just everything, it's kind of an anything goes type of situation. It's got to change.

0:39:00 Andrew: And I just want to emphasize that in the text of your proposed legislation, that is section three B, also prohibits any sitting member of Congress from serving as an office or a member of any board of any for-profit corporation. So it targets both of those things, buying and selling of stock, with a reasonable period, a six-month period, to put your stocks in a in a trust or to sell.

0:39:28 Raja: Or to just put them into like a mutual fund or exchange traded fund. We're not saying to people, look, if you join Congress, you can't be invested in the stock market. It is just that we are saying you can not trade individual, individual securities while you're a member of Congress. So if you want to put it in an exchange traded fund, a mutual fund, if you wanna hold it, and you can't trade it during the time that you're in Congress, that's fine. But if you're member of Congress or senior staff, don't get out your Ameritrade in the middle of the day and start buying.

0:40:03 Andrew: Right.

0:40:03 Raja: And selling, because I guarantee you people are gonna ask the question, did you do that because you just had a classified briefing? Is it because somebody else, a friend of yours, just introduced legislation harming or benefiting this company, or it's because you know of an investigation that's afoot? Those are very, by the way, that's what we do every day. That's our job. And so, you know, just don't pull out your Ameritrade in the middle of the day.

0:40:30 Andrew: That, makes perfect sense to me.

0:40:32 Thomas: Yeah. Or, for example, do you know more about a pandemic than the public and you're telling the public it's not real while also profiting on the fact that it is, just an example off the top of my head?

0:40:42 Andrew: Thank.

0:40:42 Thomas: Could I squeeze in a final a final question, if you don't mind a quick one? I know a lot of voters like me, a lot OF Democratic voters are very discouraged by the voting rights news and some other things. I just wonder if you have a quick message for Democrats out there who maybe are losing hope, maybe are finding that it's a challenge to be hopeful about the future and what we should be fighting for. What would you say to try to inspire people to stay in the fight and to keep supporting Democrats in Congress?

0:40:42 Raja: Right. Okay, sure.

0:41:08 Raja: I guess there are three things I would say. One is we have been able to get some really important legislative accomplishments done in the last year, including the American Rescue Plan, as well as the infrastructure bill. I just did a press conference near a bridge that is structurally deficient that's going to be replaced under the infrastructure bill. And I can't say that I thought I would be doing that anytime soon. And yet this is going to Be happening in America across thousands and thousands of different places, whether it's new bridges or roads or highways or electric vehicle chargers or replacing lead pipes. That's a big deal. The second thing I would say is if you aren't sure why we should elect Democrats as opposed to Republicans, think about January 6th and think about what happened that day and think about Donald Trump and the big lie, which has kind of become dominant in the GOP narrative about America.

0:42:07 Raja: And do you really think electing Republicans or just allowing Republicans to get elected would further stabilize or unsettle our democracy? And then the third and last thing I would say is, although there have been challenges, I have to say that the Biden administration has done a lot to fight COVID. And think about what Donald Trump did when he was in office and what Republicans do even today. You know, at my place of employment, namely the U.S. Congress, I'm surrounded by Republicans who aren't wearing masks, many of whom aren't vaccinated. At least they're not going to reveal their vaccination status. And as a consequence, we can't possibly allow them to be in charge. So I guess what I'm saying is it's a dark place in some ways right now for various reasons.

0:42:58 Raja: But we're gonna get through this, and we're going to get to a better place, and we have to do everything we can to win every contest in 2022.

0:43:09 Thomas: Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it.

0:43:13 Raja: Hey, thanks so much. Thanks guys.

0:43:15 Thomas: Well, that was so much fun. That was really cool, Andrew. I'm just happy to have had Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi on. And you want to talk a little bit more about the Ban Conflicted Trading Act,

0:43:26 Andrew: You, we I just, I want to be, uh, clear, because I like being clear, uh, exactly what the bill is and what it does. And, and, you know, you could hear in Representative christian Murthy's voice, right? His pride. He's the author of this bill, and it is designed to be bipartisan in the classic sense of the words, right. And I thought that was a really great answer that he gave with respect to, you know, maybe the sort of generational differences.

0:43:55 Thomas: Yeah, me too. It's interesting. It does give you some hope for the future. It really does seem like there's an age divide. You know, there's a lot of dinosaurs and I'll include Nancy Pelosi in that. She seems to be a prominent opponent of this bill. And I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, like how long that's going to last. I feel like if it got popular enough, I feel like she would change her mind, but it's worth noting, like the leader of the house of Democrats in the house, uh, opposes this.

0:43:56 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, I think. So I, I think it's worth emphasizing exactly what opposing this bill would mean. And the actions that it prohibits, we discussed in the phrasing of our questions to the congressman. But essentially what it says is that it is any covered person that is a sitting member of the House or the Senate may not purchase or sell any covered investment or enter into a transaction that creates a net short position in any security. Right, because, you know, think about it, you could actually, you're not selling, right, you, you're actually short selling and then buying afterwards, right? So it's meant to, um, cover the landscape there. You can, you can neither buy stocks that you think are going to go up, nor short stocks that you thing are going go down, or nor sell stocks, right, if you, you have holdings. Yeah. Go

0:45:17 Thomas: And this is so, This seems so no nonsense. I, you know, there's a lot to say about this, and, and we only had a very short amount of time with the Congressman, even though he was very generous and gave us a little more time. But yeah, one thing to, to say, members of Congress can invest in the market as a whole or some sort of funds that are indexed or that kind of thing. That makes perfect sense. I mean, everybody's going to want to have a retirement account.

Even members of Congress should have a, you know, retirement account that's going be invested in the marketplace. But like buying and selling single stocks is, by the way, something that just personal finance advice for those of you out there, nobody should really be doing. Like it's not even good investing. Like you want to have a diversified portfolio. And the people who do this kind of thing either think they have some information or some reason to know that company A might go up or whatever, short company A or whatever it might be. And most often, if it's you or I or normal people, like we don't actually know that, and we're tricking ourselves, I think, in my opinion. But with members of Congress, they may actually be privy to information.

And so it's, because this is something, buying and trading and shorting individual companies, that kind of thing, because that's something that's kind of a bad investment strategy for normal people anyway, it kind of signals to me that the only reason they might be doing this is if they have some sort of information, you know, because otherwise it's not a good investment strategy unless you're,

0:45:50 Andrew: Yeah.

0:46:37 Thomas: Unless you're Warren Buffett or something. But like, it's not for an individual, for a normal person, it's not really what you want to be doing. Mm-hmm.

0:46:43 Andrew: Lot to unpack there. I really love it. I mean, I thought that Representative Krishnamurti's answer really backed up that point, which is, look, it is impossible for a member of Congress to be doing their job on a daily basis and not have insider information that is relevant to the potential stock price. Right. And, and it doesn't have to, to be a position where you say, oh, man, we're about to have a super serious pandemic, so I'm going to go buy up a whole bunch of biotech stocks. Is just knowing you get a communication that says the Fed is about to raise or lower interest rates. Right. That's part of your background knowledge as a sitting member of Congress that, you know, the moment that's announced, right, that that is going to drive, in general, stock prices either up or down. It's almost impossible to do that transit, to that transaction, any kind of individual stock purchasing transaction, at arm's length. And that's why that, you know, that's what this prohibits.

0:47:01 Thomas: I'll

0:47:48 Andrew: I want to point out, because it was implicit in your answer, that it is also explicit in the definition of covered investment, right, that says it does not include a widely held investment fund described in Section 102F8 of the Ethics and Government Act of 1978. That means a mutual fund. Right. So, yes, members of Congress can put their individual stocks into trust. They can sell them within six months of being elected to office and they can continue to buy and sell mutual funds. You this does not prevent members of Congress, almost all of whom are millionaires, from continuing to grow their millionaire funds. The last point that you made, I want to not let that pass by too easily.

0:48:37 Andrew: There is substantial academic literature that strongly suggests that professionals, the people who work for mutual funds, are unable to pick stocks with any kind of accuracy. Right, and so, you know, when you, uh, hire that investment, you know, Ken, the investment guy, uh, and he's like, you know, over the last three years, I've made 11 Yeah.

0:49:01 Thomas: We've Beat The S&P. Yeah, yeah.

0:49:03 Andrew: Right, exactly, we beat the S&P, like, that is again the academic literature strongly suggests that that's random. Right. That that is all just noise.

0:49:11 Thomas: And Then what happens is, you there's a bunch of people doing it, so statistically some people are gonna end up up ahead, and then they can market on the fact that they ended up ahead. Uh, but it may just be, again, statistical noise, chance, you.

0:49:24 Andrew: And I will say I have put this evidence on at trial in in my Career. Right. Like I represented, one, one of the things that I did, uh, when, when I was a partner at Zuckerman, was I was often the guy they would call in on, like, complex math questions, right? Uh, and so I, um,

0:49:28 Thomas: Hmm. Oh, wow.

0:49:44 Thomas: Knew we we were friends for a reason.

0:49:44 Andrew: Yeah. And so, uh, you know, we had, we had a case involving a hedge fund manager, and we had to put up our expert and cross-examine their expert on the various methodologies of stock picking and whether that was a productive enterprise or not. And so when I say that this is a prevalent position in the literature, I've read those papers. I have prepped an expert witness with information. So, really, really good point. And then, as we talked about with the congressman, it also, I cannot believe this, right? Like, I'm glad it said the bill, it prohibits a member of Congress from serving on the board of a for-profit company. How,

0:50:30 Thomas: Yeah. Goes in the category of, I can't believe we needed to say this, which

0:50:33 Andrew: I can't, That's exactly right. And I want to add one more thing, that with respect to, uh, the way in which this bill operates, right, we've already talked about the the, the six month, um, safe harbor provision that you can sell for the first six months in office, right, so it's not, um, you know, you don't even have to deal, there's a bunch that's too lenient in here, I'm going to get to the second part that I think is a little bit too lenien, again, I think deliberately. So, as a way of bringing in a broad based consensus. Right. And so if you're opposed to this, what you're really saying is, I like that members of Congress are unregulated with respect to obvious conflicts of interest between their financial well-being and the well- being of the country.

Country, and I would just say to that, like, why put somebody in that position, you know, um, I like to think that the folks we elect, at least on our side of the aisle, uh, you know, if you said, hey, um, you have two votes that you can cast, right, if you cast vote number one, you're going to make an additional 30 million dollars, if you cash vote number two, you're going to do what's best for

0:50:50 Thomas: Is too lenient for me, by the way, for my tastes.

0:51:37 Thomas: Hmm.

0:51:37 Andrew: The country, right, like, I, I, let's not put our elected representatives to that test, um, you know, I don't, I don't want to, I don't to play morality, purity tests as to, you know, whether I would cast a single vote against my interest for, you know, a legal 30 million dollar gain, um, that'd be real hard for anybody to turn down, um, so let's NOT give them a chance to to to to take it. The last thing, I guess, I just want to end with is that enforcement, right, this is a civil penalty, right? So it's not a behavior. You're not talking about slapping the handcuffs on sitting members of Congress. And it is a simple penalty of not less than 10% of the value of the covered investment that was purchased or sold, or the the security in which a Nets short position was created in violation of this act, as applicable.

0:51:46 Thomas: Yeah, does Does it do anything to their position in Congress, or is that just still for the voters to handle?

0:52:33 Andrew: It says, great question, it says that the Select Committee on Ethics of the Senate and the Committee on Ethics of the House of Representatives are authorized to issue guidance on A, whether a covered person may hold a stock option or similar instrument that had not vested before the date on which the covered person was elected, and B, the process and timeline for which a covered person shall no longer serve as an officer or member of any board of any for-profit association, corporation, or other entity. So in other words, there's a narrowly circumscribed set of what the ethics committees for the House and the Senate can promulgate, the rules that they can promulate in connection with this bill. But if you're asking, it specifically say the Ethics Committee shall do X, shall, you know, recommend that you get kicked out of Congress for violating this act.

0:53:23 Andrew: It does not say that, right? That doesn't prevent the Ethics Committee from affirmatively voting in that way, right, like they would have the discretion to say, you X member of Congress violated, flagrantly violated this act, and therefore we recommend expulsion from the House. Or, you know, we recommend, you a note be placed in their permanent record or, you know, whatever other kind of mostly worthless sanctions the ethics committee hands out. But that would be at the same discretion that we have right now. So, yeah, a slightly long-winded way of saying we got Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi back on the phone and said, would you like to beef up These three enforcement provisions, right? Greater fines, maybe a criminal activity, certainly a demand that somebody be at minimum censured.

0:54:13 Andrew: But, you know, repeat violators expelled from the House, explicit terms of what happens if you decide to serve on the board anyway, because, right, right now it's not clear what the remedy for that would be. I think he would say yes, and I think he would say right, but but what I'm trying to do is get us to at least agree to the principle that sitting members of Congress shouldn't trade in stocks, and so, you know, as you point out, if, if somebody's not on board with this, that's that's that's the position they're taking, they cannot say, oh, well, you know, the devil's in the details and it really does this thing that would be bad for the market or whatever, it doesn't, right.

0:54:53 Thomas: No.

0:54:53 Andrew: It it is it is kind of the bare minimum

0:54:55 Thomas: There's no good reason to be against this, and I'm very disappointed in Pelosi, but can can change. And I imagine it could.

0:54:57 Andrew: Yep yeah I I think you're right

0:55:04 Clip: Oh, no associate of this firm has ever failed the bar exam. No kidding.

0:55:10 Thomas: And now it's time for T3BE. Thomas takes the bar exam each and every week. I attempt to answer a bar question using only my wits. But now it is the ethics exam.

0:55:23 Thomas: T32E. E2, I don't know. Either way, let's see if I can be ethical again.

0:55:28 Andrew: Yeah, so far you're one for one on ethics. So, uh, let's see how this works.

0:55:31 Thomas: Yeah. This one is going to be like, Thomas, you have insider information on a company and should you be be allowed to, yeah.

0:55:39 Andrew: A state prosecutor was assigned to a murder case in which the defendant had confessed to committing the crime. The same confession, the defendant had also confessed to committing many other crimes over many years, including the murder of a young woman in another jurisdiction. In investigating the defendant's confession, which the prosecutor knew to be credible, the prosecutor discovered that another individual had been convicted and sentenced to prison for the murder of the young woman. Based on the defendant's confession, for which there was corroboration, the prosecutor knew that it was reasonably likely that the individual convicted of murdering the young woman was innocent. The prosecutor did not tell anyone about the defendant's confession of the murder of the young women. Was the prosecutor's conduct proper?

0:56:19 Thomas: Yikes. Boy. One would hope not, huh?

0:56:28 Andrew: A, no, because the prosecutor failed to promptly disclose the information regarding the defendant's confession to a court or the chief prosecutor in the other jurisdiction. B, no, because the prosecutor fell to investigate to determine whether the individual convicted of murder young woman was innocent. C, yes, because the defendant's confession was information related to the prosecutor's representation of the state. Or D, yes, becausethe prosecution of the other individual for murdering the young womanwas final. All

0:57:02 Thomas: State, I think D is the Antonin Scalia answer, I'm pretty sure, uh, if I remember right, that innocence isn't enough to to get you off of death row. I think it's not, not enough of a reason, but I mean, this is, look, I, my instinct before was that ethics exams are usually not going to be like purposefully tricky. I, I, maybe this one could be, but I really think it has got to be a no answer. I mean, you would hope that knowing that someone confessed to it, credibly confessed to a murder that someone else has been convicted of, you would think you have some duty to tell somebody who, let's see. All right. So was the prosecutor's conduct, so the prosecutor did not tell anyone about the defendant's confession to the murder of the young woman in the other jurisdiction, for which someone else has already convicted.

0:57:50 Thomas: All right. Was the conduct proper? A, no, because the prosecutor failed. So A is the basic answer. A is like, we're taking, this is a joke. Ethics is easy. We're just answering the obvious answer, which is highly likely to be my answer, I think. No, because the prosecutor failed to promptly disclose the information regarding, promptly, yeah, let's, yeah, regarding the defendant's confession to a court, to a cort, or the chief prosecutor in the other jurisdiction. That's interesting. Is that who you would do? Yeah, I guess, I guess so, to cort. You just tell a cort. Hi, cort, you all know each other, right? Right? Other, tell this other court to, yeah, I don't know. B, no, because the prosecutor failed to investigate to determine whether the individual convicted of murdering the young woman was innocent.

0:58:35 Thomas: That doesn't make sense. So that, that makes it like you need to go be a, be a detective. I don't know, feel like that's too much to ask of the prosecutor. So let's see if there's any of yes answers that can can sway us here. See, yes, because the defendant's confession was information relating to the prosecutor's representation of the state. Don't, yeah, I mean, that's that's like some sort of attorney client privilegey thing, but not like, because that, this is, you're prosecuting a defendant, you're not representing him, you're prosecuting him. Defendant's confession, confession was information relating to the prosecutor's representation of the state. So like you wouldn't be allowed to tell anybody else about, yeah, C can't be right. That doesn't make sense. D, yes, because the prosecution of the other individual for murdering a young woman was final.

0:59:24 Thomas: There's no, do we know that? There's No Appeal possible. There is no like new evidence appeal-y thing you can do. I feel like that's something. Yeah, I think we have to go A. I just don't, I don't think there's any other answer, but A, I'll go between A and D actually. That's like the only thing I can think. I don't even know what the second best answer is, but I'm going to go with A.

0:59:46 Andrew: 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, which we are not changing even when it's ethics. Uh, and uh, include your guess, your reasons therefore, we we will pick a winner. Shower that winner with never-ending fame and fortune. Fame and fortune not guaranteed.

0:59:54 Thomas: Good choice.

1:00:03 Clip: And thank you, Let's go!

1:00:04 Thomas: And now it's time to thank our new patrons on patreon.com/law. Law'd Awful Movies, a little delayed for reasons for Andrew scheduling reasons. We will get it out to you. We have a great movie planned a little bit delayed this month, but bear with us in any any case, pretty soon you find patrons at patreon.com/law. We'll be able to enjoy our breakdown of a legal movie and movies.

1:00:28 Andrew: Oh, and we have a good one for you.

1:00:30 Thomas: The mother load. Yeah. And movies are very bad at the law. So it's very fun. Check that out. Patreon.com. Let's thank our new patrons. Thank you. Shane Theibert, Robert Pixley. I'm fast at sex. Okay. Cake Meister, Margaret D John, Jill Tompkins, we're no stranger to love, you know the rules and so do I, and Lauren Brown, your turn, the

1:00:44 Andrew: All right.

1:00:55 Andrew: Thank you to Patrick Goulding, Ronald Rumbaugh, Brian Beccia. Welcome back, I think, Brian. Canadian James in Ohio. The CDC says take legal advice from a podcast. Well, that's that's one more thing they're wrong about. Heather Tipton, Karis Ford, the quantum cue ball. I really, really hope that is one of my ex debaters. She knows who she is. And Nick Duhamel, you know, maybe, hey, hopefully a relative of Josh Duhamil. So thank you. Thank you all. Or not. You know, either way, that

1:01:29 Thomas: CDC says take legal advice from a podcast is a very good one, I think we need those have been good. Oh man, alright, thanks so much, new patrons and

1:01:33 Andrew: Is that is a pretty classic, I will say. Yep yeah if you want a shout out like this head on over patreon.com/law and uh for a little as a buck an episode we'll uh we'll read whatever your name is uh here in the segment

1:01:51 Thomas: That's our show. Thanks so many people for listening, thanks to Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi for coming on, so exciting, exciting to have him on. And hopefully, you know, maybe that'll be the start of a trend. Get some other members of Congress on the show. It's lot of fun. All right. We'll see you next time.

1:02:02 Andrew: Me

1:02:07 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.

1:02:41 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.