Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty and… GUILTY

Transcript

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

0:00:24 Clip: I printed out a sign specially for him using his favorite font, Garamond. Who has a favorite font? I read on the internet that it's not against the law for me to go to the bathroom while the Fasten Seatbelt sign is on, so. But is it against the Law, though?

0:00:45 Thomas: Right, Matt, we are gathered here today. We're going to truly find out the extremes of Matt's energy, you know, like we're going to find out how excited you're even capable of getting and us calibrate going forward. So we've just been told that that the jury, now I thought they did a bit of a fake out because Lydia told me, oh, they're going to, they're going to adjourn for the day. And I was like, yes, I wanted them to, I want to get Gavel Gavel out with Stormy Daniels before they come up with a verdict. That was my goal. I'm trying to do it. I, you know, I bribed everyone I could find. And so I was, like, I'm going to do this. I could almost do this, it could almost work. And then she says, a few minutes later, she's like, wait, there's a verdict and there's a verdict, they need 30 minutes to fill out the jury instructions and at what point, okay, and so what are you thinking then, like, that just happened, what does that tell you, okay.

0:01:34 Matt: Going to send you the verdict sheet. This isn't the Trump one, but this is the standard verdict sheet I'm sending it to you right now. This is what they need to fill out.

0:01:38 Thomas: I'm looking at it is it like a Scantron?

0:01:43 Matt: Yeah, that'd be great. Just fill in that bubble with a number two. No, this is pretty simple if you want to describe what you're looking at here, the verdict sheet.

0:01:52 Thomas: It was just uh, yeah, that's, looks, boy, that's pretty low tech. Just like, so who handles that, the the four person or whatever? And they're just like, count, crime, charge, not guilty, guilty, and I would assume, assume that they have, I know it's a lot of counts, 30 something, what is, 31?

0:01:58 Matt: Yeah, yeah. 34.

0:02:07 Thomas: 30, 34, uh, but it seems like this wouldn't be that hard. It seems like this would have been basically repeating what you already decided, like in some way you had to decide this as a jury, right? You voted or something?

0:02:19 Matt: Right. Well, my thinking has been it's binary, right? It's either all 34 or none, because it's one scheme. You're not going to say like the August check was false, but the December one wasn't, right? So we'll see. Do

0:02:30 Thomas: That seems weird unless it's like they're really somebody's like, I just want to make sure my handwriting doesn't look like shit. That would be me, if I was the foreperson I'd be like, um, can I, can I have a scribe. Is that a, is that a court thing that you do? Somebody give me a scribe and that would take an hour for me. Maybe they just want to make sure they got absolutely right. This is, this is across the T's dot the I's situation if ever there was one. So I don't know. Okay. Well, we'll, we will see. And, uh, Oh, uh my Matt is reporting live. I have not seen anything, Matt. Are you saying there's a verdict?

0:02:44 Matt: I would need one. Sure.

0:03:00 Matt: Am looking at Maggie Haberman and Jonah Bromwich reporting from inside the courtroom. And are you ready?

0:03:06 Thomas: I guess so.

0:03:07 Matt: Got so far one through 11 is guilty for these counts there.

0:03:10 Thomas: Through 11, all guilty. And

0:03:12 Matt: He is a felon.

0:03:12 Thomas: They're just reading off. Count Count one guilty. Count two guilty.

0:03:13 Matt: Yes. Yeah. What we got. And we're up to, oh, we are all 34 counts. That was quick. We have guilty on all 34 accounts, ladies and gentlemen. How about it? It happened. It finally happened.

0:03:23 Thomas: Wow, wow. Guilty on all 34.

0:03:28 Clip: İzlediğiniz için Now it looks like teşekkür ederim. We have some of the verdicts coming in. It is quickly coming in here. From inside, we are starting to hear that there are guilty. There are guilty verdicts from our producer inside. We are hearing guilty on 1 through 5. 1 through 12, we have now 13, 14 guilty. 15 guilty. You may We got it!

0:03:59 Clip: We're up to 18 counts, 19 guilty. Remember, we have 34 here, 20 guilty. It's And over, beast. This We are now 24 counts in, all guilty from inside. This is what we are hearing from our producers, up to 26 guilty. Now remember, 你 被 吹 的 了 But we are now up to 31 counts guilty out of 34. 32 guilty also coming in from inside the courtroom. Our producers now saying 33 and 34. They're saying guilty on all 34 charges. We got it!

0:04:35 Matt: Something resembling justice has been done. And yeah, really, you know, it closes the loop because you and I got to celebrate the indictment back in Serious Inquiries Only about a year ago.

0:04:36 Thomas: That is crazy. Holy shit, that's right. Yeah.

0:04:45 Matt: And here we are celebrating the first American president to become a felon.

0:04:45 Thomas: Wow on opening arguments. You know, Matt, that is, I may get emotional. That's amazing. This is something we built for, you know, and by something I mean, this Trump ever being found guilty of something or facing any consequences has been the, you know, it's how soap operas just constantly go on with no actual resolution to anything, just because they need to go on forever for 50 years or whatever. It felt like that, but with Trump justice, except that's not what we wanted. We would very much like him to just fall off the fucking Yodel Mountain already. And it's goddamn seven years of this show and finally we get a guilty verdict and it's you and I on Opening Arguments, how that's very nice the

0:05:10 Matt: Right. And it's not even his twin brother or anything. It's the real guy.

0:05:33 Thomas: Real guy.

0:05:33 Matt: No soap twists. That'd be great. I

0:05:33 Thomas: Well, Yeah, that, as we, that we know of, we'll, we'll see, you know, sure.

0:05:41 Matt: Mean, there's all kinds of ways this could still go wrong. I don't want to start bringing that up now, but I'm just excited to see that because really, like I said, it is binary. It's black or white and it's either he did the thing or he didn't do the thing. They didn't even have to agree on what the crime he was intending to do was.

0:05:46 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:05:55 Matt: They just had to agree that he intended to do another crime. Maybe someday we'll find out what they thought that was. But for now, they have agreed with the prosecution's theory. So that's all we need to know.

0:06:04 Thomas: Because it's obvious that he's guilty, that was the thing, it's like, you don't count your chickens, but that was, uh, you know, I listened to the show called Gavel Gavel and even though it's barely gotten into this, it's still pretty clear that this guy's guilty, it's very, very clear. Wow, this is gonna break the internet. I feel like I

0:06:24 Matt: Yeah, I do want to see this verdict slip. I do wanna find out how they took 30 minutes to fill this out, in case he was just popping in to ask.

0:06:29 Thomas: Think they just really You know, I would just be nervous about messing up. Yeah.

0:06:34 Matt: Yeah, sure. You wanna really triple check that you checked the guilty box, not the not guilty box.

0:06:38 Thomas: And tell everyone, hey, everyone, go to do a bathroom break before we do this. Okay, everybody, it's like when I'm leaving somewhere with my kids, hey, go, go, no, I don't care if you don't have to go, go, just go to the bathroom, everybody, do that now. What happens there? I have so many questions for you, Matt. This is basically if ever there was a need for something to preempt whatever the hell we were going to talk about, in a way I feel like a, uh, previous president of the United States being found guilty on 34 counts, I think that'll do it. Um, now, what, how does the jury get out of there? Like, do they go out that back entrance and speed away? And then, I know in times past it's like, if the jury wants to, they can, they could go public themselves and talk about it, right? Right. Like, right away.

0:06:53 Matt: Yes, they could. Yeah, the defense can't, I believe, contact them, but I think that they can voluntarily speak out. Yeah, but you could see it happening in other places if it weren't forbidden. But the next question everybody's gonna have, of course, is when is sentencing? And unfortunately, it's not going to be today.

0:07:21 Thomas: I would hope not. Jesus. Yep. I was, I was going to be the next question I have. Hey Matt, the next person I have for you is when is sentencing, but it's a separate process talk about from here.

0:07:37 Matt: Wouldn't we like to know? We should find out pretty soon. But it is

0:07:42 Thomas: So the, the judge, Uh, what happened? We can't be inside the courtroom. No one really can with audio and video. They can, they can take notes, but what basically happened? They reassembled, they got in there. The judge got up on his throne and he's like, uh, Bray, you know, I understand you have a verdict, and they do. And then he, he kind of reads it. And then is what, does he have a spiel, does he, so there's no sentencing, doesn't happen then? I think in TV and movies it's often the judge is like, "All right, death," but that's not how it works. Yeah.

0:07:42 Matt: A separate. Sure.

0:08:10 Matt: Even if death is mandatory or life is mandatory, like even like in cases where there's a mandatory life sentence and everybody knows that's what it is, they can still come back later because they have to have victim statements and they have have to prepare their memos and do the whole thing. So, but in this case, so I will say in my smaller time criminal cases, we usually actually do have sentencing either same day or the next morning or whatever, because it's, you know, it's not much to argue about. They're usually pretty small time sentences.

This obviously is not a case, as we've discussed before, in which jail time is likely, not actual prison committed time. That's not usually what happens in these kinds of charges. We have an old man with no criminal record. And, you Know, as much as he's done all these other things. We're looking at these offenses only and on these falsifying business counts records. I would be very, very surprised if we get actual jail time, but they're going to have to debate that and hold a separate sentencing hearing. And as far as I know, from what I was looking into, New York, there's no reason the judge could probably try to set it for tomorrow.

I don't think he's going to do that given the import of the case. But my best guess is probably, I mean, most likely, honestly, probation for this, but maybe home confinement is very possible. But the judge is going to be very reluctant to do anything that imposes on Donald Trump's presidential campaign and gives him more to whine about, which sucks because that means you're treating him very differently from other defendants. But then again, if the standard sentence for something like this is probation, then that's probably what

0:08:37 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:08:56 Thomas: That's

0:09:29 Matt: He should get.

0:09:30 Thomas: That's What I was gonna say, like, I, I just am tired of him being treated differently, and if it is true, which it, you know, this sounds very plausible to me, it seems to be what you said, seems to me what, uh, Liz said over on Gavel Gavel, by the way, gosh, I wish we had Liz right now. We We may get her later, and I'll stitch it into this if we can. But if the typical thing for a crime like this, for a dude like this with no record, is probation, then he should get probation. Like, whatever. I just want him to finally be treated like, you know, the rest of us mere mortals, you know.

0:09:55 Matt: Right. Yeah. Wouldn't that be nice?

0:10:03 Thomas: And I think jail would be pretty crazy for something like this. You know, it would be quite crazy. It would be a pretty extreme. Hey, I'm not going to argue with the judge if he wants to do it. But like, yeah, don't don't give the other side an actual reason to cry foul, although they're crying foul no matter what. So but probation, even the lightest he's going to get off. Let's talk about that. Heaviest could be jail time, theoretically doubtful. But what's the lightiest thing he could get? Like legal? Does the judge what leeway does the judge have?

0:10:23 Matt: Sure.

0:10:48 Matt: Yes, all the leeway.

0:10:57 Thomas: Hold on. So no matter what, Donald Trump is going to have a probation officer. That is, um, that is phenomenal. That is fun. That's going to be a part of the campaign. Like, he'll just be... my, why doesn't he make him, I say him, whoever it is, whoever this probation officer is, should be a part of the campaign. And then, and then when he wins, because he's gonna win, uh, he can have that, will be part of his cabinet, probation officer will be a new standard part of the presidential cabinet.

0:11:29 Matt: Just keep him on the plane, just take him around Air Force One, everything else, if he's on probation for a few years. We've never had a president be on probation before. That's going to be new.

0:11:39 Thomas: Say that, yeah, that's, uh, it seems like I could have answered that trivia question if that was on Jeopardy. I think I could've gotten that one, can.

0:11:46 Matt: Let's hope that he's not the president and he's still just a person on probation, but we have to be prepared for anything. But since it's a white -collar case, I wouldn't expect drug testing, no peeing in cups or whatever, as much fun as that would be to imagine.

0:11:59 Thomas: We test some of his, doc, business documents, though, like a sampling. Hey, you have to turn in some of your business documents for drug testing just to make sure they're not falsified. That's.

0:12:08 Matt: But yeah, no, we will see. I'm going to guess, and I'm just waiting to see if there's any update on what we're going to say about sentencing here yet, because I assume that by the end of this hearing today that they will be scheduling. Ah, here we go. Todd Blanche is asking for mid to late July for sentencing, so I'm I'm guessing they'll probably put a little earlier than that. But, you know, for a felony, it's not unusual.

0:12:25 Thomas: A long time is. That normal, okay? Yeah.

0:12:30 Matt: You know, and I don't know how they do it in New York. I assume from what I've read that it's not unusual to have it within a few days also in some cases, but on smaller cases. But this is a pretty major public case. They want to get it right. Obviously, there's all kinds of issues for appeal that have already been identified here that I've already been watching, you know, as this has been tracking. King, um, so.

0:12:48 Thomas: Well, Appeal was, The next question, do you appeal now, or? After sentencing, how does that normally work?

0:12:50 Matt: Yes. Yeah. After your sentencing, once, We have it all in, One package, I'll file a notice of appeal, um, and, you know, I, obviously he's going to spend all of the money on this appeal, and he's going to pick apart everything he can. And as we've talked about before, if there's a rogue juror who comes out and says that there was some kind of mischief in the juror room, or that, you know, that somebody was talking about having been influenced by something or other, certainly there might be a motion for new trial. That could certainly happen as.

0:12:56 Thomas: Okay. Okay.

0:13:21 Matt: A post -conviction matter.

0:13:20 Thomas: I mean, getting 34 Out of 34, yeah, I mean that would be the next level of devious. Now, we were all worried about like, is there going to be one sneaky rural juror to quote the great What's the Face show from a million years ago that will mess it all up? Now, I'm realizing would it be even more devious for them to go along with it, but then have some really good like appeal material later, like for the jury room?

0:13:36 Matt: Yeah.

0:13:47 Matt: Oh, that would be a motion from your trial. You know, if there was anything, any kind of malfeasance or anything, Any allegations about what was happening. And, uh, I don't really want to read these transcripts again. I would really prefer not to go through a second trial, but it would be, uh... I don't know if we could do a whole second season of Gavel Gavel. That's just the same trial rerun.

0:14:03 Thomas: Well, it strikes me that it is going to be very important to go through all that. Obviously, we're still working through it, in addition to seeing Stormy Daniels and Eli Bosnick as Michael Cohen, by the way, which is reason enough, but also, I think we'll know not like, flagging what could be in the appeal will be important you know we'll be able to go Through that see what it is and listeners will be very prepared for what that's going to contain. And maybe even, you know, God forbid, it's something valid. I don't know. We'll have to see. But what's your impression, if this were a normal trial, on a scale of one to appealable? I don't know. On a scale of one, I'm trying to think of a good example of who should definitely get an appeal and get out. And I don't have one handy. But, you know, this seems to go pretty smoothly, right? I mean, or is there anything here that you, you think, well, this could be a big problem.

0:14:03 Matt: Uh... Hmm.

0:14:15 Matt: Can't wait. Can' wait. Yes.

0:14:59 Matt: It did go pretty smoothly, but I can also There are a number of different issues, starting with the legal issues themselves, right? The actual use of the statute was always a little controversial. It was new. It has been used for election crimes before, but never anything quite like this. And I can see them just tearing that apart, up and down, about how this is an appropriate use and that the judge wrongfully denied the motion to dismiss, and digging into all of just the, even apart from anything else, just looking at the legal issue is about whether this charge should have been brought and sustained. Stained. There are also a couple of things during the trial, including the amount of detail that Stormy Daniels went into, which we'll be getting to pretty soon on Gavel Gavel.

0:15:35 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. There's the Weinstein stuff. We talk about that. We're going to get, by the way, I'm going to get Liz on for a Weinstein breakdown, which will give more context to that. That is a worry for sure. Now, where does this go? At what point do we worry about the Supreme Court? I know that's a long way down the road, but it strikes me that like, okay, in the normal appeals process. Next, we go to who? The New York Supreme Court or something? What's the next phase?

0:15:38 Matt: Right? Yeah, yeah. That'll be great.

0:16:06 Matt: Yeah, there's an intermediate appellate and then a final appellant court in New York. I don't think there's any Supreme Court issue that I can think of here.

0:16:09 Thomas: Okay. Well, they can reach out and grab it, right? I mean, but

0:16:16 Matt: Right, they say you could try, certainly.

0:16:17 Thomas: It would probably be improper. But that hasn't stopped them before. But my point is, okay, in terms of New York, now Weinstein did win. I guess Weinstein didn't win. He didn't get a chance to win. He did win his appeal. But I mean there were some legitimate issues with that one that I can't wait to actually get more of a breakdown on. And it doesn't, I mean, it really doesn't feel like this one is anywhere near that. But let's assume we have, just for the sake of understanding what's happening, Matt, let's presume we have sensible judges, not in the tank for anybody, left or right, just sensible judges on up with these appeals. What would you expect?

0:16:18 Matt: Yeah.

0:16:54 Matt: Well, based on what I understand, um, I wouldn't, so the one thing just, just to close out, and Liz is going to talk about this much more, but that's about introducing sort of prior bad acts that are not directly being charged. And you could argue with the Stormy Daniels thing, they brought in testimony of someone who essentially, uh, more or less testified to something that sounded a whole lot like a sexual assault, even though she said that it was consensual, but you know, she was clearly very shaken, uh. And more than a little traumatized, but from her testimony there, and that was pretty heavy stuff that was extremely prejudicial. So certainly there's a possibility they could try to argue that, but it was also up to them to stop it. They could argue ineffective assistance on the appeal level to say that, well,

0:17:29 Thomas: Right? Well, tell us what the standard is there. Isn't that one of those things where the judge has to make like a clear error or something? What is it?

0:17:37 Matt: If they want to say the attorneys, because the judge basically said, and we're going to get to this pretty soon in Gavel Gavel, but he said to them, to the defense attorneys, why didn't you object more? Like, this was pretty prejudicial stuff. I'm not going to stop. And the judge at some point did try to clarify what was going on here. But if you have it on the record, the judge saying, why didn't you do something to the defense counsel on something as important as this witness, that is potentially grounds for ineffective assistance. And I would fully expect that Trump wouldn't have no trouble turning on a dime on any of these lawyers, obviously.

0:17:46 Thomas: Yeah,

0:18:07 Matt: That's his whole deal.

0:18:06 Thomas: Of course. Yeah. Yeah, it may be already expected. It may be in their playbook, honestly.

0:18:09 Matt: Sure. And sometimes it's just good lawyering anyway. I mean, you can't have any personal feelings about the attorneys. It doesn't matter if they slipped up on something, you have to point it out to the appeals court. And there are any number of places here where Todd Blanche, especially from what I've been seeing, might, you could, yeah, that's the legal term.

0:18:27 Thomas: Sucked? Yeah. But it's not as though the standard is that like, yeah, you know, he wasn't great. You know, like that's not the standard.

0:18:31 Matt: But no,

0:18:38 Thomas: When it comes to a genuinely, like, someone we typically feel has been railroaded by the system is probably an innocent Black man rotting in jail because of the racism of our system. Usually it's pretty hard to get this right. Usually it's like, well, you have to prove that this would have mattered. Right? It's not just like, well, my lawyer kind of sucked. It's like, no, that has to, you have to, because like 34 for 34 guilty and it's about business documents. I think there'd be a strong argument on the other side that, hey, it didn't really matter that this guy, you know, sounded like he sexually assaulted someone. He falsified the business records. Like that, that is what it is.

0:18:38 Matt: That is not the standard. Yeah, it is.

0:19:14 Matt: Sure. But, you know, you also have a lot of prejudicial stuff that makes them look extra bad. The standard, just to clear that up, from Strickland v. Washington, the Supreme Court case, is that it's a high standard. It's not an easy one to meet. I have argued it many times in my post-conviction and appeals work.

0:19:31 Matt: But, you know, eventually, for ineffective assistance of counsel, you have to show that it was below the objective standard of reasonableness for attorneys. I think in Massachusetts, it's like the ordinary standard for, like, ordinarily fallible attorneys or something. And, you know, it was just like regular people. But for the unprofessional errors, that the result would have been different. So you have be able to show they would have found differently just because, because it's something that counsel did or didn't do. It is hard to show, but I would certainly expect, just given the amount of firepower and the money that Trump is throwing at all of this, I would think it's entirely likely there's going to be a motion for new trial filed, and they'll try to stay the appeal and try to get a new motion in front of the court to see if they can put in anything they can possibly put together. This would be normal.

0:20:18 Matt: I mean, I do it all the time, too.

0:20:17 Thomas: So it's two different things. I

0:20:20 Matt: Yes. So if you're challenging what happened at trial in a way that you need to build out the record more, which is what this would be because if you can look at the record you can say well here's the thing that Todd Blanche did but you need to hold a hearing and you need to have a judge determine if that was actually ineffective and then you can take it up to the appeals court but so that is a possibility certainly we have to prepare people here that I think the fantasy has always been that we get 34 counts guilty and then he's let out in chains that day right and that's just not going to happen and even if in the unlikely event I think that there is jail time he would have pretty strong grounds to stay that sentence which is also an option Uh, Yeah, you can stay the sentence pending appeal, but not everybody gets to do that. I've certainly tried in a lot of my cases but uh when you're running for president I think you have a better argument than others on a non-violent

0:20:33 Thomas: See.

0:20:54 Thomas: Because of the appeal? Yeah. I was going to say, yeah. Yeah. What,

0:21:05 Matt: Offense to try to, yeah.

0:21:05 Thomas: What would happen if Trump was just John Q public now? Would he, do you have to be remanded into custody until sentencing kind of thing? Or it just depends again on the crime? How does that work?

0:21:17 Matt: No, I mean this is when it's not a violent offense and there's no clear danger to the public besides the obvious danger he poses as president, uh, that's, you know, I wouldn't expect that. Oh, it's a white collar defendant, I mean it's just a different system. He keeps talking about two tiers of justice, and the, especially in Manhattan, and I'm sure the standard for corporate older white guys is going to be very different from your average street-level pharmacist.

0:21:42 Matt: So, street pharmacist, I should say. So I think, you know, this is going be a slow process. And it would be very interesting to see how it affects polling, how it effects the campaign. I mean, I know it's going to supercharge his campaign and his rhetoric and the way that he talks about all of this. I'm sure I'll be getting three more fundraising emails today about how he's just been martyred by this completely out-of-control judge or whatever. Interesting things happened near the end of the trial that we could talk about in the last couple of days. And obviously we're going to go into depth on Gavel Gavel, but I just wanted to note a couple of things that have happened since the last time we talked about all of this. We had, obviously, closing arguments.

0:21:28 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, sure, sure spoilers. I haven't

0:22:16 Matt: Arguments. Yeah, I

0:22:16 Thomas: Listened to the season of Gabba Gabba. Don't tell me five

0:22:19 Matt: Just wanted to mention, just because I had, we had a couple of questions from patrons I wanted to answer while we're here. Uh, so the defense, I think, was about three hours, something between two and a half and three hours of closing argument, and the prosecution went on for more than five hours, until 8 p.m. on Tuesday. And that is a long time, uh, for a case like this, but it's not unusual for a paper case when you have to stitch together a lot of documents and a lot of testimony. There was a total of 22 witnesses in this case, just two for the defense.

0:22:49 Matt: And so, you know, there's a lot of debate. And Casey and I were just talking about this before I came on here because, you Know, and I think around here in Massachusetts at least and in her practice, and she's worked on a number of homicide cases and other very serious capital cases, rape cases.

0:23:04 Matt: You know, it's not unusual to have 45 minute, one hour closings, two hour maybe at the most. I don't think there's anything wrong with doing a five hour closing.

0:23:11 Thomas: Hour.

0:23:11 Matt: It's what You do, that's, I mean, honestly, if the last thing the jury remembers about you is you kept them past dinner time, like, until 8 p.m., I don't know, it Seems You Know a Little bit Of risk

0:23:12 Thomas: Jeez. Yeah. Did they put on one of the Lord of the Rings extended movies in the middle of that? That's a long time. Yeah I didn't even think, I didn't process how long that is really.

0:23:24 Matt: That Is Yeah, I hope they get a dinner break, uh, but that is a very long time to be talking about paper, um, but from what I saw, and we're going to go through it, I haven't had time to read the closing arguments, obviously, and the jury charge instructions haven't even come out, the transcripts are not yet. I've just read about those too. But the prosecution, it seems like, really stitched up everything the defense addressed. And in New York, this is one of our patron questions, it is very unusual, but the prosecution gets to go last. They get to close out the case. And I guess that

0:23:29 Thomas: Jeez. Oh, that's unusual. Oh, yeah. Usually

0:24:00 Matt: Is unusual.

0:24:00 Thomas: You'd be like, yeah, okay. Huh.

0:24:01 Matt: Yeah, usually defense gets the last word, but it's New York's opinion, apparently. And I've been looking for other jurisdictions. I have not found any information about this. I'm trying to find anywhere else where that is normal, that you have the prosecution go go last. Now, often the prosecution gets rebuttal time at the end, but that's different. That's not like its main case.

0:24:16 Thomas: Rebuttal time? Oh, wow.

0:24:18 Matt: Yeah, that is possible. But in this case, the prosecution, apparently the philosophy in New York is that it is the prosecution's burden and they get to close it out by really reminding you where they've met their burden. But Trump was complaining about this and talking about how it's somehow targeting him and this whole thing is about him when this is how they've been doing it in Newark forever, apparently. And I have to agree, as a defense-minded person, I would really prefer the last thing the jury heard, you know, substantively was from me and from the defense and talking about why the prosecution's wrong.

0:24:18 Thomas: I didn'T know anything about this.

0:24:48 Matt: It'd be what I'd like to have them leave the room with and not five hours of explaining why I'm wrong. Um, but that's what we got here. So that's, um, you Know, and, and the, the patron question here was just, you know, asking for opinions about this and about sort of the debate about which order is favored.

0:24:26 Thomas: Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

0:25:06 Matt: And as Drew Vogel, our patron, was asking about this, and he was asking about information regarding actual analysis about what the influence of the order might be. I couldn't find anything. I didn't have a lot of time to look, but I don't think there's any studies or anything on this, because I think it is fairly rare for the prosecution to close. I can see both sides, I can really see both arguments of this, I guess, because I'm so used to the system where defense goes last that it does seem very strange to me

0:25:30 Thomas: I think that's how it should work. I mean, when we're talking about people's liberty, you know, criminal stuff, that'S important. I think the defendant should get all the, I don't want to say advantage, but like should be not disadvantaged certainly in that way. But so I'm on Trump's side now. I'm a full blown supporter.

0:25:32 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, I agree Okay.

0:25:50 Thomas: And now I think that I think the key of Trump, if you're listening, if you're trying to analyze the game film here, I think the key problem was that you did it. I think that was mainly like you can nitpick. Oh, why did we get to go? How do you last? We didn't get it. Everything's in that voice. They got to go last five hours.

0:25:46 Matt: Yeah. That is

0:26:11 Thomas: That's part. Yeah, that's It's not, you know, it didn't help, but I think the fact that you did it clearly on all counts is, ah, that, that feels, I'm not the analyst, uh, the legal analyst, Matt. So you, you go, but that feels important. That feels like a big contributor to being found guilty is just having actually clearly done the thing.

0:26:32 Matt: The best way to avoid criminal charges, yes, to not do a crime. And certainly the best way not to be convicted. But it didn't help that they also saw him just clearly disdaining the entire process, having no respect for anything that was happening in the room, falling asleep, closing his eyes, scowling, shaking his head, at one point saying some kind of obscenities that that the judge had to reprimand him about, um, you know, that certainly that's, that's he's not a client who can be controlled. And I, you Know, my only regret from all of this is he just didn't testify. I just wish we'd had that beautiful

0:26:54 Thomas: Yeah. Oh God, that would have been the best. That would have enabled gavel gavel to catch up probably like That would've, that would've been, so that would be a circus. Us and you know, his bullshit's gonna be that's why he's found God. They didn't let me the gag he gagged me, he didn't allow me to testify. And the judge has already, you know, told him that's not how that works, but doesn't matter, doesn't care. Oh, man, I

0:27:02 Matt: Privilege of enjoying that, but, uh, just days and days of Trump just trying to explain himself and yeah, but no. Oh yeah, that'S right. They gagged me.

0:27:27 Matt: And we'll, we'll pick Todd Blanche's closing apart, you KNOW, obviously very easy for me to do sitting here in Boston, but I didn't think it was very good closing from what I've seen of it and just having skimmed it. And just to mention this, since people are going to ask about it, Todd Blanche closed his argument right near the end by asking the jury not to send his client to prison, which is, and if you're aware, that Is a 101, extremely basic error. I mean, he knows better. And the judge cleared the courtroom and told him, you know better. You can't say that. You can't remind the jury about the penalties. And not only is that just common, common practice and how you're supposed to do it, and basic ethics. I mean, Casey was telling me about a case where they were seriously considering reporting a defense attorney to the bar because he went into detail about what his claim might be facing punishment-wise, and you're just not supposed to doing that. But the judge had actually specifically, in his motion in limine, specifically said that they can't mention punishment, like,

0:27:35 Thomas: Can't wait what the in

0:28:18 Matt: Just in case you forgot.

0:28:18 Thomas: In Trump, or the one you're talking about now? Seventh

0:28:20 Matt: In this case, yeah, no Trump. And so, like Merchan had an order in writing saying they couldn't do this. And Blanche was a prosecutor, as Rashaun reminded him, for many years. And he knows that you cannot do that. He would object to any defense attorney doing it. Just a weird, I

0:28:36 Thomas: Dimensional chess? Is he really, is is there any possibility he's trying to help Trump with a ineffective assistance of counsel argument? Yeah, because that's more just like you yeah, yeah, if anything it's like, well, you kind of got away with something that might have helped you more rather than, yeah, okay, I

0:28:44 Matt: Don't know. I don't know necessarily even how that helps. But yeah, I mean, I guess I could say it. But at the Same time, I don't know. Maybe you're looking at this guy by this point and thinking, oh, prison, that's an option all right, I don't know, didn't think of that if that's

0:29:08 Thomas: Didn't know that wasn't I wasn't gonna vote guilty if it was just some slap on the wrist, but shit, get this guy in jail.

0:29:13 Matt: On the table. But you know, I see it as a big unforced error, because what had to happen was Mershon comes back, just like with the Bobe thing, right, and well, they let him finish, but then you know, there's an objection and they let them finish, and then they, they talk to Merchan, and but before the prosecution, yeah, that's

0:29:19 Thomas: Yeah, interrupts your flow, yeah, oh, okay, they weren't like, hey, pause, the two towers extended, ended edition. Oh, no, that's for, that's the other side. Oh, it's the best part, he just kicked the helmet, and I was gonna say that Aragorn broke his toe in real life when he kicked. Ah, ruin my flow, judge. Five

0:29:29 Matt: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the middle of the prosecution closing. Yeah.

0:29:41 Matt: Yeah, Rashaun was not happy at all. He was very upset about it. And he specifically gave a curative instruction, which, you know, that's not something you want after your two hours, three hours of closing. You don't want the jury to hear that you just said something you were not supposed to say, and then they have to disregard that. Not a great way to go into the prosecution's five -hour rundown of why your client did it. But yeah, yeah, I'll be looking forward to of reading every word of that, yeah,

0:30:01 Thomas: Hours, wow, that's blowing my mind you're gonna have to read five, that's impossible, no human has ever done that, man, I wish people understood how alien that is to me. Like, I bake jokes about it, but I don't, I think if someone said, hey, you need to read that whole transcript, like, just on paper and read it and focus the whole time, or we're burning down your house, I'd be like, I guess I'm just going to go buy a tent. Like, I can't, I can't do this.

0:30:10 Matt: I'm used to it, I read a lot of transcripts, um, but I also mentioned well,

0:30:33 Thomas: There's no, I

0:30:33 Matt: It's uh, literally my job, so uh, happy to do it, I enjoy it.

0:30:37 Thomas: Know. I'm juste saying it's amazing. Like nothing seems more impossible to me. It's, I don't know how you do it, but that's cause I'm a weirdo. I don'T know. But anyway, sorry, you were going to say something.

0:30:39 Matt: Oh, Yeah, I was just gonna mention the other thing in his closing that I thought was stupid was, uh, and I really appreciated that in the live stream, a number of reporters noted that the jury had no response to this, where Blanche really thought this was cool. I think he was trying to do like a cool, like, OJ-style tagline, you know, and it didn't work.

0:31:02 Thomas: He grabbed a glove. He grab a document and he tried to put put that on your hand, Mr. Trump. The document doesn't fit. A pen. Yeah, the pen doesn't fits. He couldn't have forged that document or falsified that document.

0:31:07 Matt: That's right. If it doesn't read, you must... I don't even know what to do with that. But yeah, no, he called... So he spent, as you'd expect, and I fully anticipated, he spent a lot of time at his closing.

0:31:21 Thomas: If he didn't remit, you must acquit.

0:31:25 Matt: If he didn't... Yeah, I can't think of a document -related rhyme.

0:31:28 Thomas: That's the best I could do. I thought remit is not good. I thought it was good. Is that not good? No. Do you remit a document?

0:31:34 Matt: Actually, you know, you're right. That's pretty good,

0:31:35 Thomas: I don't know.

0:31:36 Matt: Because there were checks. We're talking about money. So yes, there we go. If you did not remit. Okay.

0:31:38 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah Okay. Thank you. Thank You.

0:31:40 Matt: All right. Thank you. Yeah. Full credit. A plus.

0:31:40 Thomas: Appreciate it. If he didn't deposit, then you must acquit.

0:31:49 Matt: But yeah, Blanche used, and again, obviously this is not going to play to me specifically, as you know, but he, he talked about Michael Cohen being the MVP of the wires, which I thought was a really stupid line. Like the, is it like the New York wires? Is that a team? Are they like a league? Like, is there, I just like

0:32:01 Thomas: Yeah, the MVP of liars. The most valuable player of liARS. Yeah.

0:32:10 Matt: They, they have a conference or something where they vote on this. I mean, it's a really stupid line.

0:32:14 Thomas: Sports stuff doesn't work on Matt, but I, I will, um, I'll be honest, Matt, MVP is a pretty common place, like that I'm not I'm not saying that was like an amazing rhetorical flourish, but like, it's not maybe as weird as you're taking it. Like, yeah, he's the MVP of liARs is like, most people be like, okay, yeah, he's the, he's the best liar, but it doesn't matter.

0:32:20 Matt: Well, I know, but I might be overthinking it. But it doesn't really help when—well, your client, though. Your client is a pretty well -known MVP of liars. I think I'd put Trump above Cohen as a liar.

0:32:38 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. He's the Wayne Gretzky of lying. Like, there hasn't, even, he's set records that will never be broken in terms of lying.

0:32:47 Matt: No, it is true for all time, especially for presidents. Let's hope that he is the MVP of presidential liars." And the other thing that Blanche said was that he was the gloat, the greatest liar of all time. So another sports thing, which gloat.

0:32:52 Thomas: God. I don't know. Yeah. I actually love that. Never mind. I'm voting innocent, not guilty, the gloat.

0:33:06 Matt: I mean, like, again, that's another word that we can associate with your client who's sitting right there with his eyes closed. Like, I just, I don't know. Seems like the wrong association to me. But yeah.

0:33:13 Thomas: That's funny, though. What if you just, now I think about it, this is more of a gavel-gavel question. I've been, I've been loving asking you two real lawyers about like how this stuff goes. And we got, by the way, teaser, the one that's coming out, I'm going to finish it, uh, editing it. I should be able to tonight, um, involves a PowerPoint presentations and the, some PowerPoint presentation strategy that I really had never thought of. But I, what if you just did a standup routine? Like, now I'm thinking, again, we're all so dumb. I feel like maybe I'm too cynical, but like, what if you just were like, hey, what's the deal with guilty verdicts? Huh? They say that. And you're just like, like, if you were really entertaining, and then they're like, man, I like that guy. I'm going to vote not guilty because his lawyer gloat is pretty good. Like that would, I'm not going to lie. I would, that, that would make me smile enough that I'd be like, eh, okay. You know?

0:33:52 Matt: Yeah. Didn't work on the jury, right?

0:34:01 Thomas: Yeah. No, it's not going I was joking about that, but, but in the, you know how they have, when they evaluate TV, sometimes they have people like literally turning a dial the whole time to like, Oh, I like this now. I hate this now that would have been, I would have ticked it up a little bit on that. I'd be like, okay, that's stupid. I like it. It's stupid in a way that I like.

0:34:02 Matt: Right Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I according to the people in the courtroom, the jury did not. So Like, they just Didn't respond to it, so, you know, but that's always a risk that you take when you try to say something even a little funny. In court. It's always a risk.

0:34:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, and then he did, hey, is this thing on? Oh, hey. Yeah got no respect. No respect to me.

0:34:30 Matt: Yeah. I, well, he, I think it's safe to say he bombed, um, this room but but yeah so that's uh that's where we're at for now I you know I I'm yeah I

0:34:39 Thomas: Yeah I've seen, I don't know if you had another patron question, but I've seen speculation about, and in fact, I think people may be wrong about this. This is sort of a bit in real time, but Trump won't be able to vote in his own election, and I'm actually seeing that that might not be true because as we know Florida likes to not let felons vote and but I guess I'm looking at PolitiFact right now and for one Florida voters approved making it easier for felons to regain voting rights excuse me for two I think they also when it comes to out of state apparently it's like if the felony would not let you vote in your in that that state, then Florida will kind of mirror that. And because, and it says New York law says a convicted felon who is not incarcerated is eligible to register to vote. So I think that means he probably can vote in November.

0:35:02 Matt: Right yes Yeah. Yeah.

0:35:43 Matt: That was my thinking. If it's not a Florida crime, I don't think that was, uh, gonna be, but you Know.

0:35:47 Thomas: No, those are later. No. I guess those are federal. Does he have any Florida crimes or is it, he just did federal crimes in Florida? I can't remember.

0:35:48 Matt: Yeah right Yeah, but still Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no actual Florida charges as of yet, um, but yeah, I mean, you know, know one more Republican vote in Florida isn't going to kill us, but, uh, but

0:36:04 Thomas: It's just, yeah, no, it's just fun for us, man. We like, we enjoy him not being able to vote in is on election, right?

0:36:06 Matt: It's interesting. Yeah. No, it's fun. No, that would be a funny thought. Uh, yeah, there is another patron question. Actually, let me, let me address this very quickly. So, uh, Joshua Tamayo asks, uh, he wants to know why juries don't get written copies of things like transcripts or even jury instructions, which I was also surprised to learn, another weird New York quirk, so yeah

0:36:25 Thomas: Because we saw them ask like, hey, can you, can we review some stuff, right?

0:36:30 Matt: And we had, and that was one, honestly, I felt pretty good this morning about things when I saw what they were asking for, because they were asking to play back. And then they had the court report a readback testimony, certain testimony from Pecker and from Cohen about what amounts to the conspiracy, the Trump Tower conspiracy, as they called it in the opening. And that tells me that they're probably drilling down on thinking about the crime that he was intending to commit. That's a good sign. But I was surprised to learn that they don't get copies of jury instructions. And there the jury that the judge read out yeah there's a lot a lot to talk about

0:37:01 Thomas: 53 okay look this is not, this system is not designed for someone with ADHD, let me just tell you, I, there's no, how in the world, I already told you I can't read, but like, if the choice is between, yes, you have to listen to someone read 53 pages and then try to retain it, versus, here, I'll give, give you a copy of this so you can look up the part you obviously forget, the, the parts you obviously forgot instantly, which is 52.7 pages of it, then at least I can look it up, I can check that, for real, I would like legitimately ask for accommodations if I were in a jury for some of this stuff because, like, I can't, there's no way, what are you talking about?

0:37:04 Matt: Yeah I hear you yeah it's 50 and I apologize, my commitment to accuracy on this show, it is 55 pages of jury instructions I just looked and uh, yeah that's a Lot it's a Lots some of those are half pages or you know because they're kind of they stick in like the boilerplate from different things but it's still 55 pages and it took a long time to read and so they came back asking for some of these these instructions for sections and there's actually a published case on this I went looking because I had to know what the deal was because that's not how it works in Massachusetts. You just get the jury instructions. And in People v. Owens in 1987, the New York court found that it's actually a reversible error. It's not harmless error if

0:37:44 Thomas: Jesus. That's a lot. Yeah. Oh.

0:38:16 Thomas: Wow, what

0:38:16 Matt: You give the jury a portion of the charge in writing. So they were doing the same thing where they're coming back and asking, can we see this part of it? And the defense objected, and they found that that was a reasonable objection and they should not just see a portion of the thing. But they also, Also, for whatever reason, there's no discussion here of just giving them the entire 55 pages. I don't know why they wouldn't do that. That might be something Liz can offer some insight on, but I have never heard of anything like that.

0:38:38 Thomas: Is this. Because our system dates back to before the printing press and they're like, well, no one's ever gonna do that.

0:38:42 Matt: We have to handwrite copies of these.

0:38:43 Thomas: Yeah. No.

0:38:44 Matt: I don't know. This is a 1987 case when I think they were able to print text. But I know what you mean.

0:38:49 Thomas: I mean, but the rules date back forever.

0:38:50 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a strange one.

0:38:50 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Because that seemed that's nuts to me. I don't know, I feel like the jury instructions are so important that like they should be on the walls of the room that the jury's in. I'm not even joking. Like I would I think that's the most important thing for jurors to like keep in mind because they are, they are important, like it's, it's a, it's very underrated part of the, the process for non-experts to, to think about, I think like they, they are that you argue about them, right? Like both sides debate or then they try to get like adjustments to the jury instructions. You have like standard ones, right. That kind of come with, with each thing. And then, and like it, they fight over it. It's important. Uh, and, and for that to just be like, yeah, the judge will read it once and then remember 55 pages, everybody. That seems nuts.

0:39:02 Matt: Right. No. Yeah.

0:39:14 Matt: Sure. Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yep.

0:39:37 Matt: It should be on the table in front of you when you come into the jury room. Everybody should have a copy. I totally agree. And I've wondered that myself as I've sat through plenty of jury charges and I just wonder how much is getting in there, how much has been absorbed. In Massachusetts, we have this delightful thing, I like it a lot, called the Webster Charge that goes back to, I just wanted to check actually, 1850.

0:39:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:39:56 Thomas: Webster's dictionary defines the Webster charge.

0:39:57 Matt: Yeah, pretty much. It's the venerable Webster Charges. It is very well known, and about the moral certainty that you have to feel to reach. And it's like, you know, it's 1850, this is language that we're still using in Massachusetts. She says, I think it's great. I think it's actually very clear and very poetic, but I think maybe it might be nice to update that maybe to 1950, and we could consider that, I don't know, up to the 20th century. But, you know, you sit through hours sometimes of jury charges, and I just really wonder, because the judge is giving a little mini lecture in the law, right?

He's just instructing them on what the law is, and, you know, they've just sat there and listened to 22 witnesses over four weeks or whatever it's been, and they've got all that in their heads, and now they have to add the law and then they have to apply all of the stuff they just heard from the witnesses and the closing arguments to the law of the justice. I mean, I think it's an incredible system. I really do.

I think that the jury system, they certainly could use improvements, but I love the idea. And I love the idea that we trust regular citizens to come together to do these judgments. I think they obviously got it right here. There were two lawyers on the jury, I believe. So that probably helped maybe for getting some of this

0:40:10 Thomas: Yeah. Wow.

0:40:59 Matt: Law narrowed down.

0:40:59 Thomas: How did I miss that? I thought they didn't like that normally.

0:41:01 Matt: Yeah, normally, but you know, it's not unusual. Here in Massachusetts, we've had plenty of lawyers lawyers, and even judges, you know, they'd have to have some proof of that. They'd have to have, like, some, you know, some proof of, like a really, you know, if you, obviously, if, like, the lawyer is going around, like holding a gun to somebody's head and saying, this is my opinion and you have to go it and you have to do it. But generally speaking, you know, yeah, it's not too bad. No, I was going to say, I mean, it's not, it's, we don't presume that just because somebody's a lawyer, they're going to throw the jury. I think other states it's maybe more so, but, you know, we've had judges get seated on juries in Massachusetts. It That'd be weird,

0:41:02 Thomas: Oh, wow. Oh. Is this an appeal thing? Is this going to be something they appeal? I'm like, look, these lawyers misled everyone on the jury.

0:41:24 Thomas: Well, they're... Yeah. Oh God. Sorry.

0:41:39 Matt: Right?

0:41:39 Thomas: He's like in the robes too. Like that would be really funny. You got a judge in the jury box and he's like constantly second guessing the real judge. Oh! Oh, oh, you're doing it that way. Okay. Okay. You're agreeing with that objection.

0:41:41 Matt: Yeah.

0:41:51 Matt: Overruled. Interesting.

0:41:51 Thomas: Oh, wow. Overruled? Overruling. Really? Okay. He's got the full like British wig thing going, like just sitting in there. Jeez. Can you believe this judge? Yeah. I would never do that. This judge. Oof. Okay.

0:41:52 Matt: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Backseat judging.

0:42:06 Thomas: Wow. Well, I'm realizing, I think we're probably just putting this right up live, Matt. I'm sure people already, you know, like that normally I would like to clean up and take take out 75 % of my comments and jokes. So just know that you heard a little looser version now, because I think it was worth getting this up right away. And I think it was a pretty smooth recording, actually. We didn't have to stop and look anything up for an hour, which we normally do. So I think this will be good to get it out.

0:42:34 Matt: Pretty familiar with this case, I've got to say by now. So this is what happens.

0:42:36 Thomas: Yeah, you're pretty well prepped on this one. Yeah.

0:42:39 Matt: Yeah, I don't know.

0:42:39 Thomas: Well, is there anything else we should, we should talk about? So sentencing, okay, that's gonna be, we still won't know when that is for a while, I assume. Oh,

0:42:47 Matt: Oh, no, I'm sorry. Yes. So sentencing has been scheduled for July 11th. That is formal now. That is done.

0:42:50 Thomas: Oh, It has been oh, I thought you just said they, like, asked oh,

0:42:51 Matt: Yes. Now, they were arguing for it, but I hadn't seen the latest update. So we do have sentencing July 11th, so we can revisit then. Obviously, we're going to be keeping on all of this, and I'm going to be very interested in the appeal. That's something that I specialize in. I'm gonna be watching it closely, but we got a lot of time for that. That's going to be, it's going to be quite a while.

0:42:54 Thomas: July 11th.

0:43:06 Thomas: Now will they be cooking that up right now and then on July 12th or July 11th, that, you know, whatever o'clock, they'll just, like, pop that bad boy, file that thing. Is that how it'll work? You think Well,

0:43:18 Matt: Well, the notice of appeal is just a form. It's a very simple, straightforward, just, you know, we appeal.

0:43:21 Thomas: No, I, oh, oh, So you just need to provide notice. And then I'm just saying they would want to appeal as soon as possible is all I'm saying. So, yeah.

0:43:24 Matt: Yeah. And then briefing. Oh, they will. No doubt. Yeah, They'll be doing that right away. They're going to be sentencing. And I'm sure they're already starting to think through their arguments and, you know, meeting with the appellate council, I'm sure, as soon as possible to get this through. But, you know, we won't even see briefs on this until at least the end of the year if not later, so.

0:43:29 Thomas: Oh, damn.

0:43:44 Matt: Yeah, it's a slow process. Um, we could talk very quickly about Alito because I did want to talk about that later response, but we could leave it here too. It's up to you. No

0:43:53 Thomas: Oh. Oh sorry. I was just reading some JD Vance loving juror thing. Did you see this? I actually missed it, but someone, I'm sorry. Just was scrolling through to try to find any, any information to react to here on the fly. And there's the, the, it's LOL GOP. Maybe this is just a joke, but it says a JD Vans loving jurors saving Trump was nightmare But now it's just the funniest thing that's ever happened in American history. And that's referencing some report on the bulwark or something. It says, like, when J.D. Vance came to court, that juror's face lit up. It wasn't the only time. The juror also reacted favorably to reps Anna, Paulina, Luna, Lauren Boebert, Byron Donalds, Matt Gates. The jury could barely suppress a smile when Blanche appeared to trip up Cohen. In, so, this was like, okay, so this, I hadn't seen this, but this was some like mega, I, who knows how accurate this was, also, could they have been an alternate? Do the alternates sit in with them?

0:43:58 Matt: Really? Wow. Yeah. So that's something else I looked into. The alternates had to sit outside and I guess Yeah, and then even if one of the people in the jury room had a heart attack or whatever, I think think the defense would still have to consent to one of the alternates taking part.

0:44:50 Thomas: Oh. My God, really?

0:44:59 Matt: Yeah, that's pretty weird, isn't it?

0:44:58 Thomas: That is weird.

0:45:01 Matt: You'd think they would still get to sit inside the jury room and then step in if necessary.

0:45:01 Thomas: I know there's a real put-me-in-coach vibe. I would feel like, come on, come on, oh, that got that juror, his knee, I saw it, I saw these guys, there's little limp, he can't yeah. You're like trying to trip him in the hallway. Oh, he's down, I gotta go in, there's no. No.

0:45:07 Matt: Yeah. It's over the line. Yeah yeah.

0:45:20 Thomas: Yeah, that's funny. I don't know if that was real, but now it makes me want to look into that more, but it would be really funny. Now, here's what also would be funny about that juror. And I want to emphasize, this was just some tweet from the Bulwark or some shit. I haven't verified this, but it's the first time I've seen it and I thought it was funny. It would be really funny if that jurors was like a me or something, or somebody that was so into like tracking these assholes that he's like, "Oh, that is one of the assholes." That, like, if I saw one of the people we cover on Where There's Woke, I'd be like, "That's that asshole that we cut, hon, come over here." So, like, that would be funny if that was how it was.

0:45:54 Matt: His beard looks even stupider in person. It's perfect.

0:45:55 Thomas: Yeah. Look at that eyeliner, it's even more powerful in person than on TV. How does he do it? Yeah.

0:46:01 Matt: That is pretty weird if your eyes light up when you're seeing all these MAGA superstars though. That's a strange reaction.

0:46:05 Thomas: And yet still guilty on 34 out of 34 counts is really funny. So I maybe I'll look more into if that was actually real or someone's, you know, bullshitting, but, um, okay. Well, also, I love this tweet from "Discussing Film." "Home Alone to star Donald Trump has been found..." Home alone to call, or, yeah, "Lost," the New York Star. Donald Trump hasn't been found guilty of 34 felony counts. What a good day to be on social media. It's rare we can say that, you know, but this is, a, this is, let's all rejoice together. This is so nice, man. Um, now I, I guess we did want to talk, you want to talk Alito a little

0:46:09 Matt: Yeah no. The system works.

0:46:42 Matt: Real

0:46:42 Thomas: Bit while we're here? I mean, I'm committing to not editing because I want to just put this out there. I think people should hear this right away. So if you feel ready to do so in a way that lends itself to that, well then let's do it. Because that asshole.

0:46:42 Matt: Quick. We got some Alito to talk about. Sure. This is how we do it. I do. Yeah. All right. So yeah, I just wanted to address it real quick, because this is funny. I just think it's funny. It's sad. It's obviously the demise of our republic. But you know, there's you got to find the jokes where you can. So Dick Durbin and the Senate Democrats, and then also a set of Senate, excuse me, a set of congressional Republicans, sent letters to John Roberts asking John Roberts to, you know. Know, do something about all of this. They said they want to meet with him. They want to talk about the ethical codes. Then obviously they want him to try to get Alito to recuse. So John Roberts did eventually respond to this letter. But of course, before that response, Samuel Alito decided that he needed to respond.

0:47:31 Thomas: I was going to say, we got yeah, we gotta talk about the Alito letter. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

0:47:34 Matt: That's the important part. Yes.

0:47:35 Thomas: Amazing.

0:47:36 Matt: But again, this letter was not addressed to Samuel Alito. He's just taking the opportunity to respond to something that was not written to him. So this letter is, it's astonishing in a number of different places. I'm just going to highlight what those are. But starting with the fact that he cites at the beginning of the end of the letter, these are slightly different letters, but they have the same content, essentially. I don't know why he didn't just do form letters to both of them. Maybe they asked different questions.

But the disqualification standard from the Code of Conduct, which was finalized in November 2023, I'm going to read you the standard versus what he puts in the letter because they're in the same letter. A justice should disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the justice's impartiality might reasonably be questioned. That is, where an unbiased and reasonable person, aware of all relevant circumstances, would doubt that the justice could fairly discharge his or her duties. That's the standard. Pretty straightforward.

Now, in the close of his letter, he restates this as if this is the standard, but he's actually making something up. Before I get into any of the weird other stuff he says, I just wanted to point out that he's just making up a new standard.

0:47:46 Thomas: Yeah. Oh,

0:48:35 Matt: This is a Supreme Court justice. Justice. Yes. Making up the law.

0:48:36 Thomas: Cool. And it's not from like the new, you know, they adopted Where was that standard you just read from?

0:48:40 Matt: No, that's what he's quoting from. That's what he's quoting from, the code of conduct. Yeah.

0:48:42 Thomas: Oh, he is. OK. Yeah. All right.

0:48:44 Matt: So what he says, and remember everything I just said was about, you know, reasonable person, unbiased, you know, aware of the circumstances. He says in his final paragraph to the Senate Democrats, a reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases. Just throw that in there.

0:49:05 Matt: I have a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases. I guess I'm not a reasonable person. Would conclude that this event does not meet the applicable standard for recusal. So again, the standard that I just made up, but that is not, yeah.

0:49:04 Thomas: OK, oh, I see. So he's adding in a little, like, sassy comment of, like, because essentially the standard is like a reasonable person would, you know, in order to stay on the case, a reasonable person can't think that, you know, there's going to be some reason you're biased. And he's adding in, yeah, a reasonable person and someone who's not trying to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases would never think that I need to recuse myself. So he's just adding in a little sass. Okay.

0:49:42 Matt: And also not motivated by political or ideological considerations, which is not the standard. The standard is just an unbiased and reasonable person. So he's just really like digging it in. It's like, this could be the only reason anybody's asking these questions is because they're biased and they want, you know, the politically and they they want to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases.

0:49:51 Thomas: Okay.

0:50:00 Matt: But that's not even the most ridiculous part of the letter. That's just, I think, the most offensive part of the letter, well, yeah.

0:50:02 Thomas: Oh yeah. The entire thing. How long is it? Can I do a dramatic reading or is it not worth it, it's okay, yeah, give me, so I'll Google it because I was almost this guy I know, I've got one of them up here, letter from uh, oh, so there are two different ones, it says Durban and White House on it, though, okay, sure, the

0:50:08 Matt: I think there's a part you should do a dramatic reading of. Now, here, I'll extend it to you. The Durbin one? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. The second one is to the other people. The House. The other one.

0:50:28 Thomas: Other, eight billion people in the world, I don't know, I'm just kidding,

0:50:29 Matt: Yeah. Yes, that is. That's right, that. So if you go down to on page two of the Durban and White House response letter, the last paragraph of page two is the one that deserves a dramatic reading.

0:50:38 Thomas: That starts with, I think, I want to go back to set the context, actually, that, no, this is fun, guys, this, this is OK. Here's the thing. This all sucks in a deeper sense. This, this is a guy who knows that he faces no consequences. This is not unlike President Trump, until today. You know, somebody who knows that he can just say whatever. I think it's important to get in here.

We didn't get it in the episode because this flag story just keeps developing and developing, the neighbors, people obviously found the neighbors that he was talking about who, you know, whose name calling justified the riot flag, you know, the insurrection flag, because that's how things work, uh, reporters found them, and it's not just that he, they said, they said, because the neighbors also have, here's the text I sent, and here's when I called police, and here's whatever, and obviously Alito's just completely lying, this conflict took place after the flag, like long after, it wasn't like, oh, they called my wife a name and the only thing she could do, of course, was put up an insurrection, like no, it's like they had an argument, it's kind of a bizarre thing, but you know, honestly, it really really sounds like interactions that I've heard of with Fox News boomers, like just, you can't really even talk to them in some ways because they, the stuff, their brain has been so addled by Fox News and whatever, or whatever else, that's

0:50:43 Matt: Yes, absolutely.

0:51:58 Thomas: Yeah, oh sorry, good, yeah, yeah, and

0:51:58 Matt: No, I was going to say it, February 15th, just to make the point, because, you know, the flag was flying a month before. And this is, it's astonishing. I mean, nothing has surprised me anymore, but he's just openly lying about this. Or maybe his memory is just that bad.

0:52:11 Thomas: Here's, here's one thing I loved, one detail though, because they, they swore up and down, they said, and that meant it was a couple, and the, the husband called my wife a word that I can't even repeat. And then when they talked to the real couple, the woman said, oh no, that was me, I will definitely cop to that. She was like, I called her the C word, I admit it.

0:52:35 Matt: Yeah. And apparently Mrs. Alito herself used some sort of expletive, unstated. So, yeah, that's what it says.

0:52:39 Thomas: Probably. But so it's entirely, the point I'm making before reading this very funny letter is this isn't, he's entirely lying. I think he knows he's lying. Although sometimes with these people, you know, whatever, it's not that important, but sometimes sometimes they're such narcissists that they've convinced themselves. So who knows if he knows he's lying, but he's line. He's lying in every sense of the word and he knows he can get away with it. So that context sucks, but it is a very joyous day in which another narcissist asshole is now a convicted felon. So I think we can enjoy the absurdity of this fucking letter.

0:52:42 Matt: Yes. Yes. You never know.

0:53:07 Matt: Oh, yeah. Well, and thank you for the context. That's very important. Actually, you should read the third paragraph of the second page because that is extremely relevant.

0:53:14 Thomas: I honestly, I might read the whole second page

0:53:16 Matt: The whole thing, yeah, that's pretty great.

0:53:17 Thomas: Cause it's like pretty funny. It's

0:53:18 Matt: Yeah, it's true.

0:53:19 Thomas: Amazing. All right, here, let's get, let'S get Alito's version. All right. And, and Matt, Uh, if you need to pause me to fact check Alito, please, by all means.

0:53:21 Matt: All right. I will. And so the factual recitation starts at that second paragraph. Yeah. My wife and I.

0:53:28 Thomas: I'm just gonna start on Uh, yeah, so he's got the letter, he talked about disqualification, and then I'm juste gonna go where he talks about the the incidents. Here, the first incident cited in your letter concerns the flying of an upside down American flag outside the house in Virginia where my wife and I reside. In considering whether this event requires recusal, an unbiased and reasonable person would take into account the following facts. Oh, it's so good, he's really, he's this, this is a, this is the letter, Matt, like he's put thought into this, he's, he has, he has clerks, he has some of the best and brightest helping him with this, potentially, right? No?

0:53:32 Matt: Yeah? Yeah. Sure. Sure.

0:54:03 Matt: I will point out, he actually used the correct standard in this paragraph, right after when he cited the law, but by the end of the letter, he's forgotten what the standard is, or restated it. I don't know.

0:54:12 Thomas: No, but fair, but I'm just talking about in terms of strategy, in terms of like running this by someone like, he is like, "All right, here, here, reasonable person, just wait for the, wait for these facts," and you're gonna just, you're going to feel so dumb as I've said aid publicly, I had nothing whatsoever to do with the flying of that flag. I was not even aware of the upside down flag until it was called to my attention. As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down, but for several days, she refused.

0:54:12 Matt: Oh, no, yeah. No, sure. I just... Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, she refused.

0:54:36 Thomas: It's a good thing we went back that far, because that's the best. Yeah.

0:54:37 Matt: I love that. Imagine sitting over dinner as they're staring at each other in this account, right? If this is true.

0:54:44 Thomas: Yeah. They're like, "Oh, did you see the, uh, the neighbor kids, uh, got a, got a paper route, that's pretty cool. Um, hey, oh, oh, I, I meant to ask you, could you take down the, the insurrection?" No. Oh Okay, sorry." Yeah.

0:54:56 Matt: Still no? Okay.

0:54:57 Thomas: Oh, sorry, I brought it up, god damn, okay, anyway, pass the salt. Yeah, sorry, stupid, I shouldn't have said that. My wife and I own our Virginia home jointly, she therefore has the legal right to use the property as she sees fit. I love that too, like, what if she didn't, would that mean she has no legal right or whatever to use this property

0:54:57 Matt: All right. Yeah. Well, he loves women's legal rights. Don't forget. That's very important to him. I

0:55:17 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. She's like Alito's like, "Ordinarily women don't have rights, but because she happens to be on the paperwork work here, she does have the right to use the property as she sees fit. And there were no additional steps that I could have taken to have the flag taken down more promptly."

0:55:32 Matt: Don't know how to take a flag down.

0:55:36 Matt: I'm lost. I have no idea how to pull a flag down.

0:55:38 Thomas: That's incredible.

0:55:39 Matt: It's so good.

0:55:40 Thomas: He might as well be like, "I considered adding a second flagpole with a correct flag just to offset that and put our names on it. So it'd be like a his and hers flag situation. But the... I talked to a guy, it would be too expensive. It seemed unnecessary." This is so so ridiculous yeah My wife's... oh, this is so good. I'm so glad we're reading this, man. "My wife's reasons for flying the flag are not relevant for present purposes, but I note that she was greatly distressed at the time, due in large part to a very nasty neighborhood dispute in which I had no involvement. A house on the street

0:55:53 Matt: There were no, I'm with stupid flags. Yeah. Yes.

0:56:09 Matt: In one month from the future, in the future. This will happen. I

0:56:10 Thomas: Yeah She she... well, my wife's a medium, you see, and she was, uh, she was consulting a crystal ball and she thought, oh, that future looks grim. I'm pretty mad about this." Yeah. A house on the street displayed a sign attacking her personally and a man. Yeah, okay, okay. Look, it's important that we have the real context because that does sound pretty insane. I mean, all right, maybe not that insane. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if someone was like, oh, that's Alito, you know, the asshole and that's his wife. This is before Roe is overturned, right? Roe struck down? That this happened?

0:56:22 Matt: Am getting something. Yeah,

0:56:46 Thomas: I think so. Yeah yeah And so it, it would be a little weird if there was just a sign that was attacking his wife personally kind of around that time for no reason, like pretend, pretend nothing else has happened. It would be a little weird for a house on the street to say, "Hey, screw your wife in particular," not just like, you know, F Alito or something. So that reeks to me of definitely not true, like already.

0:56:46 Matt: Yes, that's right. Yep.

0:57:06 Matt: Yeah oh yeah.

0:57:09 Thomas: And now that we Know the facts, that makes no sense. The sign was referring to them as fascists, like, later, because of what she had been doing. But anyway. And a man who was living in the house at the time trailed her all the way down the street and berated her in my presence using foul language, including what I regard as the vilest epithet that can be addressed to a woman. And that is "full citizen with equal rights to men." That's the epithets that I will never hear. He dared to insinuate that my wife had full rights as a woman, and I will not stand for it. No, and of course, as I've covered, that that was not the man. It was the woman who said, "Yes, no, that was definitely me. I woke up to that," which I thought was funny. "My wife is a private citizen, and she possesses the same First Amendment rights as every other American. She makes her own decisions, and I have always respected her right to do so." Come on, man.

0:57:10 Matt: Yeah this is just trolling.

0:58:01 Thomas: It's obviously trolling.

0:58:01 Matt: I mean like I respect women's rights Rights to choose? Is that what you're saying?

0:58:03 Thomas: Come on. Come on dude. Such an asshole.

0:58:05 Matt: Is that really what you'RE saying?

0:58:07 Thomas: Okay. She has made many sacrifices to accommodate my service on the Supreme Court, including the insult of having to endure numerous loud, obscene, and personally insulting protests in front of our home that continue to this day and now threaten to escalate. I am confident that a

0:58:21 Matt: I wonder why. I wonder why they're having all these protests.

0:58:28 Thomas: Reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations, or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases would conclude that the events recounted above do not meet the applicable standard for recusal. I am therefore required to reject your request. Yeah. Okay. So, and it's funny there because now I'm going to, uh, and not to, not to argue with you, but the fact that he's saying this reasonable person and he's adding his own little spice there, right? But he says they would conclude that the events recounted above do not meet the applicable standard, that means, I think he's not stating that as the standard, you know what I mean, or am I reading that wrong? So

0:59:15 Matt: Yeah. Well, I mean, he's, he is sort of reading and saying, I mean, I see what you are saying there, but it's still like, he's adding something for sure.

0:59:16 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. He is, he's adding, like

0:59:22 Matt: He's adding a whole layer of, yeah.

0:59:22 Thomas: His little thing, like, only, only an asshole who wanted to affect the Supreme Court would ever think that, you know, flying an insurrection flag would be something that a Supreme Court justice shouldn't tolerate at his home, this oh, it gets worse at the end too.

0:59:26 Matt: Right. But by putting required in there makes it sound like that language is somehow involved, but yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah

0:59:37 Thomas: I love, love it. Yeah. Foreshadowing because the end, it gets even, even sillier. We're almost done. Don't worry, but this is just too much fun. The Second incident concerns a flag bearing the legend "An Appeal to Heaven" that flew in the background, sorry, that flew in the backyard of our vacation home in the summer of 2023. I recall that my wife did fly that flag for some period of time, but I do not remember how long it flew and what is most relevant here. I had no involvement in the decision to fly that flag. My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not. My wife was solely responsible for having flagpoles put up at our residence and our vacation home and has flown a wide variety of flags over the years. In

0:59:37 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah no, it's too good.

1:00:14 Matt: Here it

1:00:14 Thomas: Addition to the American flag, she has flown other patriotic flags, including a favorite flag thanking veterans, college flags, flags supporting sports teams, state and local flags, flags of nations from which ancestors of family members came, flags of places we have visited, seasonal flags, and religious flags. I was going

1:00:14 Matt: Comes.

1:00:31 Matt: I'm sending my wife to flag rehab. I can't take it anymore.

1:00:32 Thomas: To say, how did did she even have time to fly the insurrection flag for months, right? Like, we're certain it's at least months at this one, right, because Google Street View has it.

1:00:34 Matt: See, I don't want to point out he's got an outlet right here when he says flags from nations from which ancestors of family members came, I, I, this is my joke from the beginning, just say your flag guy, like, said it was a Lebanese flag and you've got like ancient Lebanese relatives, right? Because that's the pine tree, you know, you gotta, you gotta trust your flag

1:00:54 Thomas: You're a flag guy. Yeah, at this point, my wife is so addicted to flags, she has a dealer, you see, and this flag dealer, he's not a reputable fellow, it's hard to get all the flags that my wife needs, you know, sometimes you have to look at the black flag market.

1:00:59 Matt: That's right because you know, he said it. It was Lebanon, but it was baking powder, you know? So, you don't know how it goes.

1:01:15 Thomas: It's so crazy. I was not familiar Boy! Boy! Matt, two for two on the coincidences there for the wife. Yeah, Mrs. Alito. Wow, what are the odds? You would fly an upside-down flag right around insurrection time, and another flag that's very connected to the Stop the Steal movement. Been two for, that's bad luck, what are the odds that she would accidentally, I mean, now another argument, eludo, may have just a, you know, devil's advocate, when you fly as many flags as she apparently does, you're gonna accidentally hit a few insurrection flags, just odds wise, right, just sheer probability, you run out of other fabric. I think when you run that many flags, yeah, yeah,

1:02:01 Matt: Just in the rotation, sure. And then you feel like you don'T have enough legs. You have to run some of them upside down sometimes, you know, just to mix it up.

1:02:13 Thomas: Yeah. She did not fly it to associate herself with that or any other group, and the use of an old historic flag by a new group does not necessarily drain that flag of all other meanings.

1:02:25 Matt: Kind of does in this case, but sure. I've looked into this.

1:02:27 Thomas: Yeah, is he gonna, next, is he going to make the old swastika argument that, well, it used to be a sign of peace, and yeah.

1:02:31 Matt: Yes. Good luck symbol. Yeah, sure, yeah.

1:02:34 Thomas: As I said, in reference to the other flag event, stupid, my wife is an independently-minded private citizen. She makes her own decisions, and I honor her right to do so. Our vacation home was purchased with money she inherited from her parents and is titled in her name. It is a place away from Washington where she should be able to relax.

1:02:53 Matt: Do you not go there? Like, it's just her house? Is that really what you're saying? Come on.

1:02:57 Thomas: A reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases would conclude that this event does not meet the applicable standard for recusal. You ready for this last sentence, everybody? I am therefore duty-bound to reject your recusal request. Sincerely, yours. Asshole.

1:03:15 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. I got a rule on these January 6th cases. Very important. I conclude that Samuel Alito is a whiny baby. That's what I conclude. There's no way they're around it. It's just a child. I mean, this is just, and it's so much better that we like the same day we find out it's lies, that it's actually like demonstrably lies. That's just, I mean you know it's a lie, it's just reading it. But like now we have journalistic confirmation.

1:03:18 Thomas: Duty bound. Such a piece of shit. God, he's the worst.

1:03:32 Thomas: Yeah. Incredible. Yeah, I controlled Congress, I know we're not going to get the votes for an impeachment. But what do we need, Matt, to I'm putting you on the spot in an unedited episode. So, you know, granted, feel free to punt on this one. But What What do we can we start doing hearings? Can we do something to to make noise about this eventually.

1:03:47 Matt: Bring it. Thank you.

1:03:55 Thomas: You know what I mean?

1:03:55 Matt: Thank you. That is okay. So Dick Durbin tweeted a couple weeks ago that he was specifically not going to have a hearing on any of this after the first flag came out. And then he sent this letter to Roberts. I think they thought that was the thing they could do is meet with the Supreme Court justice. And Roberts, of course, writes back in a very short, simple letter saying, separation of powers, we're not going to do that, even though Supreme Court justices, I checked, have appeared in front of Congress. Basically, there was a period there between 1963 and 2011 where they were appearing every year for one reason or another.

1:04:02 Thomas: What?

1:04:20 Thomas: That's weird, Matt.

1:04:21 Matt: But he's saying that absolutely won't talk about separation of powers issues. Under our rules, it's completely up to Alito what he wants to do, and I can't tell him what to do. But here's my thing. I would like to see Dick Durbin call Samuel Alito in for like 10 minutes. That's all we need. Just ask him under oath what this was about and confront him with this journalistic stuff that shows that he's lying and make him explain himself under oath. And then we get him on the record and then see where things go from there. I would just, I think we deserve at least like a basic accounting.

1:04:47 Thomas: Well, he wouldn't show up though, right?

1:04:49 Matt: I mean, probably not, but there's, that's your message there too, right? That he doesn't, you know, but I mean I look Supreme Court has the power to over rule, to strike down acts of Congress. Why shouldn't Congress have the power to ask them questions, like basic questions about what they're getting up to and about why why they're still involved in cases.

1:04:53 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe Robert should have consulted an attorney before making a statement like that because it seems pretty legally ignorant to me. Who am I? But the fact that Congress literally can remove you if they get enough votes tells me that there's... there's not some harsh, like, border wall, you know, between the Congress and the Supreme Court. Like, that's not how that works.

1:05:14 Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They get to ask questions. I mean, in my world, holding the hearing is a courtesy before the impeachment, or maybe to avoid impeachment. Maybe you get a chance to explain yourself and you get to come in with your stupid stories about these flags. But I just really think it's a real whiff for the Democrats, especially in election year, when they could have a chance really pull him in and make him answer questions or say, look, he's not even showing up. So maybe we just, even just look into starting impeachment proceedings. That was all it took for Nixon eventually, was just getting it going.

1:05:29 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that would be, so that would mean, would that be in the House, though? So we don't control the House.

1:05:51 Matt: Yeah, but that's not going to happen. I'm just saying,

1:05:52 Thomas: So fair enough. But could the Senate do?

1:05:52 Matt: Right. But I'm, but I'm just saying if, if we get there, right,

1:05:55 Thomas: Yeah. But could, and, you Know, if the election somehow went well, we could control the house. But the Senate could, there's no reason they couldn't do some sort of hearings on this, right?

1:05:55 Matt: Yeah.

1:06:05 Matt: No, not in the least. It says, I mean, Durbin is the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is their ambit. This is what they do. Bring him in, make him answer questions. And I just, yes, under

1:06:11 Thomas: Yeah. At least give us all the information. Why not? What is that? What harm is that so frustrating?

1:06:17 Matt: Oath, I want to hear the guy talk. And, and I just feel like, you know, he, he survived his confirmation hearing in four or five days under oath, he can do a 10 minutes on this. And yeah, no, it is, it's really, I don't know.

1:06:29 Thomas: More and more progressive candidates. It's all we can do. We have to work toward that more and more progressive candidates, yeah.

1:06:34 Matt: And no, I mean, it's, this is really, it mean, It's funny. It is funny to read. But it is bleak that, you know, this Is, this the response, and we're just going to accept that this is the response. And one of the things that Robert said is that, well, this a partisan thing, we're only I'm only gonna be meeting with Democrats, but obviously, Republicans don't care. It's not like they have any incentive whatsoever to look into these ethical issues. But you do you remember I just wanted to mention uh Antonin Scalia in 2004, I went back and double checked, 21 pages, he issued a 21-page memo on why he was not going to recuse himself from the case in which he was, uh, when he'd gone duck hunting with the guy a couple weeks before, one of the parties.

1:06:44 Thomas: Oh,

1:07:08 Matt: And that was a masterpiece of indignation, I mean, that was, makes Alito look like, I mean, everything that Scalia did makes Alito look like an amateur, honestly, because Scalia sucked, obviously, but he was so much better at it, being whiny, just the whiniest of all, um, but you know, this is what we, we get, this is the response we have, he clearly does not care, um, how it looks or what we think, um, or maybe he cares too much, I don't know, a little both

1:07:08 Thomas: That sounds familiar.

1:07:31 Thomas: No, yeah, it's I think it's interesting. I think they know they're not idiots. They know that they are unaccountable. They know there's literally nothing anyone can do, but it is true that you're right, that there's still like a defensive, like I need to set the record straight thing here, or so, like, it's hard to say, like, maybe it does come from a position of feeling like they genuinely are just in the right all the time, probably, is that with Alito it's

1:07:33 Matt: Yeah for sure and apparently there was enough left of Martha and Alito to continue to throw into the bus a second time, so great work, I mean, this, I, I'm just imagining like their home life right now after this letter, I mean, just completely blaming your wife for everything, yeah, that's true, she she I

1:08:01 Thomas: So good oh she's fine with it I think she's okay I kind of believe, as crazy as this is, I kind of believe at least his version of events, I, the difference is, I don't think it matters, like, I don't think you get to just be like, well, I live with a person who's an insurrectionist, and that, that doesn't have any impact on, you know, I'm married to an insurrectionist and that's fine. That is no reasonable person would ever conclude that that would, you know, make my judgment questionable at all. I could be wrong, but that's kind of how I look at it. I actually kind of believe that, that his wife is, is this, and that he's not, um, like honestly, and I think she doesn't care. Like, I think, I don't think she really is bothered by this. She's probably like, yeah, no, that, that accurately sums everything up. Sounds good.

1:08:26 Matt: Can't relate to any of this, that's just so strange. Could you imagine just like completely in public to the entire world just being like, yeah, no, I don't know, I can't control my wife, she does nutty stuff, I just, I don't know, it's, it'S such a, or

1:08:52 Thomas: Why don't any of the left, uh, justices, yeah, I don't know, partners, why can't they be like Antifa or something, you know, like, we don't get that version, we only get assholes whose wives are Nazis gone in insurrecting, and then, like, we don't imagine, imagine if one of the left judges' husbands was Antifa or was anything like this, imagine, imagine.

1:09:27 Matt: Even like DSA or like anything. I mean, they, they would, they Would find anything they could. And I mean you know, I, and I still think the Lebanon thing would have been better than any of this, but nobody asked me, so it does kind of look like the Lebanese flag a little bit anyway.

1:09:30 Thomas: So rough.

1:09:43 Matt: Anyway.

1:09:41 Thomas: All right. Well, I think it's time to call it. This is going to be released on edit again. Apologies for more of me talking than I normally let in and also any noises you may hear. I don't know. But just a reminder, let me check the news. I just want to make sure here. Year. Yep. Still guilty, Matt. He's still guilty on all 34 counts.

1:09:46 Matt: Yeah.

1:10:01 Matt: I almost forgot. Thank you for reminding me. Awesome.

1:10:04 Thomas: And, uh, I don't know that we have the tape, but same day, former producer of The Apprentice says that the 20 year NDA has expired and that he definitely heard Trump use the N word on set. And I don'T know if that matters, but it's on the same day. So that's nice. We can all remember this day.

1:10:10 Matt: Yes. And yeah, just it would be, I mean, this could be the next Access Hollywood and maybe it'll have about as much effect. Who knows? But it sounds like it was a really blatant and completely just out of nowhere use of the word too. It wasn't, I don't know. It suggests somebody who uses it a lot. That was my impression.

1:10:33 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, no way. The guy whose son said, we're going to get away with this because we're white the other day, like to a crowd of people. No racist. No.

1:10:34 Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Who knew?

1:10:42 Thomas: All right. Well, this is so much fun back to work on Gavel Gavel. I was, I was a little worried about how I'd feel about Gavel, Gavel after this verdict, but now it's like, I, I'm more excited. Like I want to get to that testimony. I want to get it out as fast as we can, especially Michael Cohen with Eli is going to be a lot of fun. And, and it is true that like, I want to, for one, I want another details of what happened, and how we got there, but also preparing for that appeal, the inevitable appeal. I think it'll be really cool to have all that down in the podcast feed permanently. Someday we'll be on a public feed. I haven't even started one for Gavelpod. Sorry. I'm trying. So much to do. But yeah, if you want to hear more on this and Liz, who's an actual New York attorney who works in that court, was in that courtroom today, not the courtroom, the courthouse, was on that courthouse dot com slash gavelpod.

1:10:44 Matt: Yeah.

1:11:33 Matt: She's fantastic.

1:11:33 Thomas: Gavel pod. What's that? Oh,

1:11:36 Matt: And, uh, you know, she's fantastic and I was going to say, just cause you know how succession ends, it doesn't mean you're not going to go back and watch succession again. Right. So that's

1:11:42 Thomas: Boy. That's true. That's certain, I want to do that right now. Actually, how

1:11:43 Matt: It. And if, yeah, if anything else, like you want to watch it to sort of see how they're showing you how it's going to end. Yeah. Cause and we can do it.

1:11:47 Thomas: They got there yeah, all right. Well, this was so much fun. Thank you, listeners. Uh, this was truly, we can all have a nice thing today, a couple nice things, and uh, sharing that. And thanks so much, Matt. Uh, really, uh, cool to be here with you on this amazing day of consequences for an, an asshole.

1:11:56 Matt: Yes.

1:12:05 Matt: And thanks to the jury for coming back at exactly the time that we already planned to record. Fantastic. Love it.

1:12:08 Thomas: Yeah. Wow. That's so nice.

1:12:10 Matt: Great work.

1:12:11 Thomas: All right. We'll see you very soon, listeners.

1:12:12 Matt: Okay. This is fun. Later.

1:12:15 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.