Lively v. Baldoni 22 - The Great Subpoena Mystery SOLVED. - with MJ Morley

Transcript

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

0:00:26 Thomas: In gavel heads, it's gavel gavel!

0:00:28 Lydia: That wasn't bad. I don't know. I liked that one. It feels like, it feels like not exactly your vibe, but I don' t know.

0:00:37 Thomas: Man.

0:00:38 Lydia: I perked up.

0:00:40 Thomas: It's gaVEL time! I'm Thomas, that over there is my far too encouraging wife Lydia Smith.

0:00:45 Lydia: I know. I know I think everyone's going to write and be like, knock it off. Don't encourage him. Yeah. Yeah, hi.

0:00:50 Thomas: My biggest fan, everyone. So excited today because we are getting MJ Morley back! She's so good to talk to, really provides a lot of insight that I think people are getting elsewhere. So I'm really, really happy that she's coming on our show. This is now time number two, right?

0:01:11 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:01:11 Thomas: Well, hopefully third gavel's a charm. I don't know. We'll get it on again sometime. But this is an interesting one. Okay. Are fast forwarding a little bit, as you'll probably hear me explain again. Was some interesting news. This IS a little BIT out of order. Now we have been going in docket order. We're going to stick to docket order, but this is a little bit of like extracurricular kind of, it's not something that is part of the docket anyway.

0:01:32 Thomas: So it's sort of exists in a Jeremy Beremy world, like it's, it says it's not within the docket. I feel like anything goes. It's like a time Lord kind of whatever, you know, we've got to step outside the strict space -time docket and address this whenever we want, or at least that's what, how I'm justifying us doing it. But big news. We what the subpoena was, the famous subpoena that we just we could not. So many of us were trying to track down how Blake Lively got these texts from. Jennifer Abel's phone. We knew she got them from Stephanie Jones and we knew what they said in the complaints. We'll go over it. But that has been revealed and MJ is here to break that down for us. And it's really cool and technical and interesting. So we really needed MJ and this is great insight. So, uh, I'm so excited

0:01:46 Lydia: Stephanie hmm. Yeah from a

0:02:17 Thomas: And very important. And I think MJ has got some extra special bonus, breaking stuff. I mean, it's been a while since we recorded this, unfortunately.

0:02:17 Lydia: New York lawyer. Don't know if she's shared it yet.

0:02:26 Thomas: I don't know if she shared it anywhere else.

0:02:26 Lydia: I think I think she's still letting us break the news.

0:02:28 Thomas: That's I I am honored by that. Wow. If that's true, MJ, you are amazing. But either way, I guarantee you most listeners don't know what this is. It is really interesting, something that MJ found and I don't think a lot of people know about. And that'll be kind the end of this. But first, we're going to talk about that subpoena. Really It's interesting to finally know what that is. Let's find out whose predictions were vindicated and predictions we're not. And maybe more importantly than that, why, you know, why exactly were anyone's predictions right or wrong? I think that's very important. So can't wait to get on over to it. We're going to take our usual break. Please support the show. Patreon .com slash gavel pod. Thanks so much to our gavel heads who I don't think ever volunteered for this. I don'T think they ever agreed to be called gavelheads, but Hey, you know, look, this is what happens to everyone on the internet. Think they're embracing it because we hear from the few people who like us a lot. And then we think that means everyone feels that way. Hope most of them appreciate it because most patrons are going to be fans. You know, like there's a few that are like, ah, I'm a patron because I want to hear some extra stuff. But like, nah, Thomas annoys me. You know? There's always those people, which, yeah, fair. I annoy me too. But no, I am just kidding. Gavelheads, thank you so much for supporting the show. Hope I you enjoy all the stuff in the not ads. So we'll take our break and then we'll be on with MJ.

0:03:09 Lydia: They're embracing it. That's what community is.

0:03:51 Thomas: And we're joined again by MJ Morley. How you doing?

0:03:55 MJ: Am great. Thank you guys both for having me back on.

0:03:58 Lydia: Pleasure

0:03:59 Thomas: So excited. Only to have you, but also the big news, a conundrum, a mystery has been solved. Involved. Subpoena heard around the world, I guess. No, it was the emoji heard around the world. This is the subpoENA.

0:04:04 Lydia: An emoji here around the world we'll

0:04:11 Thomas: The Subpoena Heard a Little Bit Around the World. Yeah. It's been revealed. We know what's going on. So I'm so excited to talk to you about this. Don't we reset and remind everyone, because there's so many facts involved here, what subpoena we're talking about.

0:04:11 Lydia: Probably just use that for everything yeah

0:04:26 MJ: About the subpoena that honestly I wanted to find. And I think the first time I was on, we talked about it too. Like, where do you think these documents came from? The whole time I've kind of maintained that there was a subpoena because way back to that initial CRD complaint, Blake Lively's lawyers were referencing a subpoena. As you both know, the internet went crazy saying there was no subpina for months, right?

0:04:51 Thomas: Want it. Yeah. And apologies if you don't mind. I want to this is actually important to me because part what I wanted to do with this and we just we obviously haven't gotten that far. But what I want you to do is start setting up maybe amount of predictions. And when happens, I've wanted to set up us like as a show. What we thought. And here's what happened, because that's what's missing from all other analysis is throw out wild theories. Doesn't fucking matter what's confirmed or not. Nobody cares.

0:05:19 Thomas: And nobody keeps track of, hey, isn't it weird that the first 11 things you were told by, you know, X media personality or law, you personality, isn't it weird THAT THOSE WERE ALL WRONG AND NO ONE CARES and no one keeps track? And nobody, I don't even know if they have to pretend. They just move on, don't they? I mean, it's like, nothing matters. So from early on, I actually have wanted to try to make certain predictions and then make sure we actually track and have accountability if we're wrong. And so I want to up front say what I said and what I thought about this. So this is how Blake Lively had Stephanie Abel's messages essentially right from a certain time period. And it was because clearly it was her using the work phone and Stephanie Jones of Jones works had it and it seemed pretty pretty clear that there must have been some sort of deal or one way or the other, Blake Lavely had them. Now, I you say, the complaints made reference to a subpoena. The New York Times made reference zu a subpena. So I said, and prediction time, and we'll see how it went I think, MJ, it sounds like you said the same thing. Gee, I think there might be a

0:05:32 Lydia: And pretending like they never said those things oh yeah yeah new

0:06:20 Thomas: Subpenia, is what I said. And, and I I will admit, I was wrong. I thought arbitration was going to be the key. So I was incorrect about that because I thought you made the most sense with the time period and like how fast you would want it because, you know, especially if they were working in California, California which at the time seemed plausible or at least possible, I thought the arbitration would explain getting it fast would be a good way to get it signed off on fast. It would be a way that no one would really see it. I didn't have a solid theory as to like how that would happen, but it seemed like, you know, arbitration is mostly if people decide to enter into it, it's fine. That was my theory. I was wrong on that. But I think it's important to note that the fundamentals of what we said on this show, that there's definitely a subpoena because a bunch of people have signed off that there's a subpoena. And it's important to me to say that it matters, like, you're wrong and why. And if anyone on the Internet was saying there's no subpoena, they're just wrong. And the things they thought about this were wrong. The fact that they thought that lawyers who would sign off on Blake Lively's complaint would just lie. The fact of the New York Times would just not check. They were wrong about all those things.

0:07:27 Lydia: Well then there's no telling how much that that colors your perception of everything else downstream now right if you believe that then impacts how you report on or view information later down the line

0:07:39 Thomas: And so it's an attempt to try to get people to listen to more credible sources. Doesn't You mean you're never wrong. It just means like have you reasons you're wrong. You take accountability for it and you figure out why you were wrong. And if the reason, you know, you're right, you don't have to be wrong. You're wrong is, oh, actually, a bunch of lawyers wouldn't lie about something this huge. Like that's a pretty a pretty significant assumption that folks might have been making that was just completely off base and no one ever keeps track of it no one ever cares and yeah I thought it It was maybe arbitration. It turns out, though, we we're still going in docket order. We still have a lot to cover, but this is something we're going to go ahead and cover now because it doesn't really matter too much. It was revealed very recently, and we thought it'd be a great opportunity to talk to MJ about it. It doesn't skip ahead in the story in terms of much else other than the knowledge that the subpoena is out. I don't know. Yeah.

0:08:32 Lydia: It just fills the gap of something that we've previously talked about

0:08:36 MJ: I mean, we've, I'm going to be completely honest with you. I actually went onto the New York state court's docket and I searched for every single company, right? For everyone it could possibly be. I searched Pacer. Am good at finding things in New York State. Like that's what I do. Researched Betty Buzz. I search all the entities I knew they were associated with thinking that something might happen.

0:08:43 Thomas: Same. Yep. I didn't go that far. You beat me on that. Yeah, I just searched for... I tried to search via the Jonesworks route a little bit because I thought it would come up because of her name, but it seems like that was incorrect, possibly. I don't know.

0:09:09 MJ: Did the same thing. Jones works, Stephanie Jones. And that's how I found actually something else. But I looked, I really did look. I thought, I think a couple of days before this all came to a head, I did a deep dive with a friend in California and said, you know what, it was a pre -litigation subpoena through a California court, and that's why I can't find it. And

0:09:34 Thomas: That's so interesting. Yeah, because that... Okay, for some reason, the other attorney we talked to, not on show, But on background, didn't think it was that. And I we I can't quite remember why, because I had another attorney say it was that, too. But she also she wasn't a California attorney. And I was like, yeah, I don't think it's that because of the way that works. I thought I we would still see that in the docket somehow if it was I don't know. There's some. Yeah. Yeah, there's some reason. We didn't think that that would be it. And it turns out, I guess, drumroll, ba ba da ba ba ba. What did it end up being?

0:09:56 Lydia: Eventually

0:10:06 MJ: I'm so embarrassed. But a New York court and a company that we didn't know, a name that we and I'm

0:10:14 Thomas: Entity we didn't know that has nothing to do that we know. Like, name -wise, it just wasn't anything that you would have searched, I guess, right?

0:10:21 MJ: There was no way that I was going to figure out this entity. I wouldn't have searched this name. No. And there's no mention of the other parties here. So any of the

0:10:34 Lydia: Interesting

0:10:34 Thomas: Yeah, it's Van Zandt against Does 1 through 10. So it's a completely essentially anonymous kind of, I don't know, you can explain it better, obviously, but it's like there's no defense. There's no named defendants. That's very interesting.

0:10:47 MJ: It is very interesting.

0:10:49 Thomas: What's VanZandt? Do we know? What is it?

0:10:50 MJ: Well, I actually completely disagree with the entire internet over what Van Zandt is. And I can tell you why.

0:10:58 Thomas: You mean the good internet or the bad internet or both?

0:11:01 MJ: Honestly think it's both right now. We're hearing a lot that Van Zandt is a Delaware corporation or a California corporation. It's not. It says right on page two, plaintiff is a New York corporation. I have checked the New York Department of State. It is an entity formed in New York State. Van Zandt is a think differently because there is record of the business Van Zandt. Opinion, it is this New York entity registering to do business in California. And that's something that, you know, if I form a business in one state, but I am operating in another state as well, or I'm even just doing business there, typically you also have to file with, like in New York, it's the Department of State. Help a lot of companies file there. Of authority with New York so that they can do business in New York. What I think happened here is that this New York entity that owned by Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, it appears to be that way, went to register. The California Secretary of State, which is just a very simple statement And you can see that online.

0:11:23 Thomas: Why do people, we got to make sure people aren't going to have this context. Why does anyone think differently? So,

0:12:17 MJ: When they did it, whoever did it and this happens, linked it to a defunct entity that was in Delaware because it has the same name. This Van Zandt, either Blake Lively or someone on her team. It does look like that happened.

0:12:26 Thomas: Wait, they did? Or how how did the link, how'd they do that? I've registered this exact thing in California, and I can't even think of, how do you do that, huh?

0:12:40 MJ: Don't know, but there's nothing in the document that they filed that shows that Van Zandt is... an active corporation it's not with the Delaware Department of State so I don't think there's any actual ties between the old 2000 and I'm sure I think it's 2010 Delaware Van Zandt and this New York entity that was formed I think that's honestly an error and have talked about that with a few other lawyers who are like yeah that actually looks yeah

0:13:07 Thomas: Sorry, just so I understand, what is the the air, like where does it come up that it shows that or whatever? Like where, what is even the air? So when you go to the California secretary of state place where it shows the, all that it, that's where it's linked to the Delaware thing. That seems hard to do accidentally though.

0:13:13 MJ: They're only they're

0:13:24 Lydia: Open corporates it's listing it as a branch of the Delaware entity yeah

0:13:30 MJ: Open corporates, I'll also say when you use open corporate, it fully says like we scrape information the internet, like this is not a reliable source. So

0:13:37 Thomas: They don't know anything more than, yeah. So your theory is it's an accident, but how does that accidentally happen?

0:13:39 Lydia: It's data collection yeah

0:13:45 MJ: If you look at the California, and honestly could even be the system, I don't know. But I think there's no tie. This entity to that. Van Zandt. I don't have proof of that, but that makes more sense to me than Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively taking over a Delaware entity that hasn't existed for years.

0:14:08 Thomas: Did it ever do bit? It? Like, do we, is off, why does this matter? This matter, and secondly, is there any business history anywhere, of any Van Zandts, anywhere, like, to where we actually see it operating in some way, or is it just a question of records in Delaware versus records in some other state?

0:14:25 MJ: This is really just records, but for people saying that the business didn't have the authority to sue in New York State, that's not true.

0:14:34 Thomas: Yeah, that's silly.

0:14:35 MJ: It's crazy. It is a New York Department of State entity. I looked that up right away. It exists. Have clients all the time that come to us for a filing. And I say, hey, you haven't filed your biennial statement. And we filed that for them. So that is one thing that you can see with this entity that I think they were behind on filing something. But I would say most businesses are in

0:14:54 Thomas: I yep, I'm probably behind on filing whatever whatever our thing is for California. So that's nothing. This is a whole lot of anomaly hunting, by the way. And it's hard because people, again, listening might not have a lot of context, but it's a lot of what you're saying is already responsive to a whole bunch of crap online that's nothing, you know? And so it's like, I'm trying to reset us. Yeah. Like, why does this matter?

0:15:13 MJ: So no, I appreciate that.

0:15:16 Thomas: It's a, it's a Van Zandt Inc. is the plaintiff, DOES 1 through 10, and it's in New York. It's in the Supreme Court of the state of New York, county of New New York. First question, is this the same, who filed this, same lawyers or different lawyers that she has now?

0:15:29 MJ: It is Manat and that's the same firm as the California firm that she's working with right now.

0:15:34 Thomas: Okay. And so I feel like they would have checked if maybe they had a legitimate way to file this in New York, but yeah, nevermind.

0:15:40 MJ: That the entity status is active in New York. I'm looking at the filing right now is no reason that this business could not sue in New York state. It's a New York business, right? Complaint is valid and it is filed by a New York company.

0:15:56 Thomas: This was, it looks like the date on this is 9 -27. So how does that factor into our timeline? It seems early. I think that's I another was going on the assumption that you would need, you know, a judge to sign a subpoena pretty quickly. But I think I was Going on the Assumption that it took them a little longer to get moving because 927, you seems pretty, pretty quick to me.

0:16:18 MJ: And I think it represents that Blake Lively and her team knew that something was happening. And at that point. May have had an idea of who was behind it. This know, this is a strategy, right? When you list a Doe defendant, if you do not know who is responsible for misconduct, but you know that misconduct has occurred, then it's a common legal strategy, they at this point that there was wrongdoing happening.

0:16:42 Lydia: You talk a little bit more about that because I know that that's something that's been kind of picked apart at online when this all came to light is um strategy of using a doe lawsuit like how how common is it really um were you not surprised to see something like this in order to get the subpoena um what happened there

0:17:00 MJ: Know, my initial reaction was this was absolutely brilliant lawyering. Led to a ton of backlash. But if you look at Stephanie Jones complaint, she also lists John Doe's. And I think we talked about that a little bit is that. Experiencing, you know, these websites on the internet and she doesn't know who made those websites. If she puts that in there, then she can try to get information about who may have created those websites and it's kind of similar as to Blake Lively here, right? She, based on text messages that her allegations and messages that we've seen seem to know that there was something going on at point. She needed a way to identify the responsible parties.

0:17:42 Thomas: Okay. So I think I was going On the theory. Assumption would have been that stephanie jones would have just said, hey, uh, because, mind you, thinking back, Jen Abel totally F's over Stephanie Jones. Not that I think Stephanie Jones is like, a you great saint or anything. I don't know. But I think it's pretty clear, in my opinion, anyway, from the from the the that Jen Able really pulled one over on Stephanie Jones and so I thought she would have every incentive to kind of tell Blake Lively or anybody, hey, here's what's going on. Is either not the case or we still can't tell? Because my question is, it's weird that Jones and Jones works isn't on here. And also, how does naming entirely John Doe's even allow you to get a subpoena against a specific person? Like, how Does that even work?

0:18:28 MJ: I mean, honestly, in New York State courts, like we issued, I think, five third party subpoenas last week. And by we, I mean myself and my co -counsel, we sign the subpoenos. We serve them because there is a defendant in this case. We have to serve them on the defendant and on the subpenaed party. Here where it's John Doe, there's no one to serve it on the other side.

0:18:48 Thomas: The third party distinction is what missing from the explanation. So it's not as though you do this John Doe, you and then you serve a subpoena on John Dole. Serving third party subpoenas saying, hey, this is about this thing, read John Doele. And then normally you would have to notify you're saying the other side that you're serving a third party Subpoena, but there is no other side.

0:19:11 Lydia: Don't know who the other side is

0:19:12 Thomas: It's John Doel. So that's why they were able to kind of do it in secret. And now, OK, does that all sound right? Do I have anything wrong there?

0:19:12 Lydia: Yet yeah respond

0:19:19 MJ: That's essentially what happened here. Yeah.

0:19:21 Thomas: OK, so then do we know who all they subpoenaed or I

0:19:24 MJ: And that's what I think is the big thing here. I think there are more subpoenas. I would bet that there are subpoenos here. Yes, we going to Stephanie Jones and Jonesworks and subpoenaing them, but I would

0:19:43 Thomas: But they only had and only used the evidence from clearly, you Jen Abel's phone from Stephanie Jones. Jones. So that means they So Stephanie Jones would have been the only one maybe to produce. Maybe if she, you know, again, there's theories about it being a friendly subpoena. And now I don't even know if it needed to be or whatever that is. But one way or the other, only that evidence from Stephanie Jones was used in the complaints that we saw initially. So when you say there's more subpoenas, do you think that may they have just not responded in time or maybe there wasn't evidence or no way to know? What do you thing?

0:20:16 MJ: I have a couple of theories, but I think we've consistently seen Blake legal team do things that... you a few steps ahead. And I think it's very possible that they are here and that some of this evidence has been exchanged in discovery. That's what's leading to all of this being in the press, because at the end of the day, I actually don't think this really matters too much. And I

0:20:39 Thomas: Yeah. That's for sure. We can get to that at the end, maybe.

0:20:51 MJ: Probably were other subpoenas here. I don't know that we will ever know that.

0:20:56 Thomas: Interesting. Oh, well, that raises a question. Not as though this action converted into the other one. This complaint didn't like this proceeding. So there's no obligation. Actually. Yeah. We should talk about that. This they dismiss their own thing?

0:21:04 Lydia: Was dismissed yeah wow

0:21:10 MJ: And you can do that. Right. For argument's sake, say they really had no idea that Justin Baldoni and the Wayfarer group was responsible for anything. They issued the subpoena and then they received those texts from Jonesworks and they realized, OK, you this might actually be related to what happened on the set. Right. This could be retaliation. This would be a workplace issue. Procedurally, they then had to go file the CRD complaint before they could bring a lawsuit. Right?

0:21:39 Thomas: Right.

0:21:39 MJ: So there's a procedural step there that they had to do, which means they wouldn't be able to just continue this lawsuit. Before Um, doing that, I,

0:21:48 Thomas: Makes sense. I I mean, my only quibble would be, I don't know how they would, in that world, how do they know to even serve a subpoena on Stephanie Jones? But whatever.

0:21:56 MJ: Agree that there's something right. Think this was a friendly subpoena.

0:21:58 Thomas: Have to have more than zero information. Yeah.

0:22:02 MJ: Oh, for sure. This was a because if it wasn't, uh, you would assume that Stephanie Jones or Jones works would have objected, right. Or made a motion to quash or said something on the docket. And we don't have anything about except the summons and complaint and the discontinuance. So

0:22:18 Thomas: So my question, what I was going with there, yeah, means because it's been dismissed, I guess, this means that whatever they got, Blake whatever Lively got, not like they would have to share it with the other side of this current, well, I know there's many, but like, just for simplicity's sake, she wouldn't have to show up. She wouldn't share what she got with Baldoni necessarily, would she? Or maybe in production, I guess she would, but it's Not like, do you have to catch them up as to, okay, here's what I already got, you know, or

0:22:43 MJ: No kind of obligation to do that. But I mean, the Baldoni Wayfair legal team should be asking for all documents produced in responses to subpoenas issued or discovery in this docket number. Right. And it would be very hard, I think, for Blake Lively's team to object to any of those productions.

0:23:01 Thomas: Right. But did at what point do you think Baldoni's side found out about this and how they got it? Would When they have known this exactly?

0:23:08 MJ: Think that if you got a complaint that referenced a subpoena in it. That would should have been your first document request to the other side to produce the subpoena. To me is what you would do based on what Brian Friedman has said in the press. I don't think he was lying about not knowing about this case. It is possible that they really just figured this out when the Internet figured it out, because I don'T I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU LIE.

0:23:33 Thomas: Shoot. Now we have to step back. How did the internet figure it out? And what do you, I don't, statements outside of court here. So you're saying Brian Friedman, yeah.

0:23:41 MJ: And I don't like to do statements outside of court, but

0:23:44 Thomas: So he's saying Brian Freedman said, at what point did he say he didn't know about this? When is that? What are you referring to?

0:23:50 MJ: Think like a week ago, he said that to the Daily Mail and a

0:23:54 Lydia: Deadline maybe yeah

0:23:56 Thomas: Like when already came out and he's saying this is the first time I'm seeing, is that what you're saying? Or what?

0:24:00 MJ: I think he spoke to a reporter saying that he had no idea about the lawsuit.

0:24:06 Thomas: Once this news broke, I just don't know this. But once this news break, you're seeing. OK, wow.

0:24:08 MJ: I think. Yes, I Think he said I had no idea and he was mad. I've watched a couple interviews with that reporter saying that he was Mad.

0:24:18 Thomas: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So, but there's no, the important part is there's no other reason or mechanism by which Baldoni's side would find out about this specific complaint other than that. Right. Because like, there's no part in this process where, you because like you said, it's dismissed that it doesn't like convert over. So they, they just would never have found out until I guess production of if they asked for it. Right.

0:24:41 MJ: Like if Blake Lively had never initiated a lawsuit, they would probably have never known that she had that information.

0:24:48 Thomas: And then how did the, how did the public, how are we talking about this? How did this this happen how do we know okay

0:24:52 MJ: Seems like someone leaked information about the lawsuit. No one except for one, maybe a few different media outlets have actually seen the subpoena.

0:25:02 Thomas: The subpoena itself not this complaint

0:25:04 MJ: Yeah, anyone could find the complaint. Yeah

0:25:06 Lydia: I think I saw daily mail and deadline are the two entities that have seen the subpena itself itself um yeah I don't know if anyone else has seen it yeah

0:25:14 MJ: And obviously, you know, Blake Lively's lawyers who issued the subpoena have seen it and Stephanie Jones lawyers have seen that. And they've maintained since December that there was a subpoena. We don't know how this came out, but I think it is interesting that it did. The speculation about there not being a subpoena was one thing. And then the attacks on the lawyers because there actually was a SubpoENA is, you entirely different thing.

0:25:38 Thomas: We can talk about that so of course it's all goalpost shifting it's just a shifting of goalposts but me I know if this makes make sense to you. Is it worth noting that, as you say, it has been my impression as well that Blake Lively's lawyers are serious and are doing serious lawyer things. And I it's notable that if they wanted to, there was a whole lot of yelling about this and anger about this on the internet. They could have leaked this a long time ago to try to stop that, but they didn't. It seems to me that that's a sign of playing the longer game more, playing the longer legal game, not the short -term PR game. Does that seem safe to say?

0:25:42 Lydia: Of course um

0:26:14 MJ: I think that's fair.

0:26:15 Thomas: Yeah. Interesting. Okay.

0:26:17 MJ: It's just important to look at the complaint and understand that all of these causes of action could apply to someone that's experiencing online harassment. Necessarily mean that it was Justin Baldoni at this point when they list the defendants, the unnamed defendants could have been anyone, you know, publicists, PR team members, other actors, stylists, makeup artists, the way this is written. I think people are speculating like, you oh, this is just totally bogus. They're saying it was someone that was under contract with this company. And no one was under Contract with this Company. We actually don't know that. We do not know Van Zandt could have Been somehow involved.

0:26:58 Lydia: Like we're not privy to all the contracts that existed for, yeah, yeah.

0:27:01 MJ: We have no idea.

0:26:59 Thomas: That's interesting. Maybe we should spell that out a little bit. That's an interesting thought. Okay. So this is, once again, Van Zandt. I can't think of this as Blake Lively or whatever, because it's not. It's Van ZANDT. And the first cause of action says, upon information, I believe plaintiff defendants are parties to oral and or written contracts, which impose certain confidentiality obligations regarding plaintiff's business and reputation and require require the Dole defendants to act in plaintiff's best interest, not take actions in bad faith or to their personal benefit, et cetera, et cetera. So I do see the point that like, hey, that sure sounds like, you Zandt is in some arrangement contractually with the John Doe's might be, which does feel feel perhaps possibly stretching the truth or what you think that there's a way that that'll make sense yeah

0:27:52 MJ: It could be a stretch. It could also be that maybe Van Zandt did have a contract with someone there. Maybe the entity that Blake Lively used to with her staff. No ideia what contracts were in place on this set. It totally could have, it been related. And I don't know that it was, I I DON'T know that. It was, but at this point, I Don'T know. That it wasn't.

0:28:13 Thomas: Well sorry actually that does that go back to a question I've had at the beginning of all this and it's another reason I thought maybe the arbitration or whatever Because I actually didn't even understand why you necessarily need to hide this. Is the advantage of using Van Zandt, something that won't come up in a search or whatever? Because either okay, let's say instead you use Blake Lively and co, whatever, you use something that was more directly Blake Latively or whatever entity you want to say, they could still have done the John Doe's 1 through 10 thing and all the same stuff would apply where they don't, it's not like they have to notify Baldoni or anybody, right? Is there any that they would need to use a different company?

0:28:56 MJ: About the timing of this. So this is September, 2024. The movie came out August, 2024, I'm assuming this is still in theaters. Reporters follow these dockets, right? So New County courts, they are following that docket. Federal dockets. They're following that as well. If Blake Lively filed a John Doe suit here, that would have been all over and

0:29:16 Thomas: Good point. So it might be as simple as that, but I have to imagine it's also the fact that it's Van Zandt is also so random too, to where I wonder maybe there is some way that Van ZANDT is makes it such that that they could do this and not be lying, because let's just say this be to acting ethically as a lawyer who files this, it it be pretty unacceptable to just fabricate this idea that like, well, upon information and belief, they have a confidentiality obligation and the, you know, if, if there was nothing there, yeah,

0:29:46 MJ: Don't know that it would be unethical. Don' think these lawyers are going to act in a way that is unethic. I just. I don't see that happening.

0:29:55 Thomas: That's exactly my point. So I'm wondering if maybe there is some connection to Van Zandt that, that was the reason they specifically chose that you know it's just pure random use something that's not you know doesn't have blake lively's name attached to it

0:30:08 MJ: I would say if you think about it from that perspective, like what's worse, having this complaint blow up in the news at that point when, you know, the marketing for the movie was in full throttle and people were going to see it and, you don't think it would have been smart to file under Blake Lively or Betty Brown or Betty buzz or any of those businesses.

0:30:31 Thomas: So it got that there yeah

0:30:32 MJ: I think maybe Van Zandt does have a tie to this movie or to some of the contracts that might've been in play with the movie or the promotion of the movie. Or anything like that.

0:30:44 Thomas: Come right out and say it and you can feel free to to disagree or say whatever you want maybe it doesn't and who gives a shit like I Acting like Blake Lively's lawyers would need to be perfect Abe Lincoln, whatever, truth tellers at all times and are not acting like, I don't know, like lawyers and Friedman and that they are willing to stretch the truth however they want to in certain ways. And like there ways that you might be stretching the truth legally that are still within the realm of like yeah this is kind of lawyer stuff gamesmanship whatever versus outright just like lying about something and in terms of the harm caused you look at a lawsuit like this and be like well let's say it was them just saying on information belief even though there wasn't really any good good reason to believe that that this contractual relationship existed it's now a lawsuit that's dismissed kind of what's the harm I guess yeah

0:31:39 MJ: I. You know, I have gotten a lot of heat on the Internet for saying this was really smart lawyering and they got the information they wanted. And I mean, their job and their duty is to Blake Lively and protecting Blake Libly when they are hired by her. Right. They are going to do that within kind the ethical bounds of being an attorney. And don't think that they did anything here that warrants kind of This lawyer specifically who getting on the internet.

0:32:07 Thomas: I know anything about this they're getting attacked and

0:32:08 Lydia: Me neither actually oh

0:32:10 MJ: Are whole forums talking about reporting her to the bar and encouraging people to report her to New York State Bar Association, which is absolutely wild. I have a problem with the content creators who say that this is unethical when a even have to go deal with something like that is just ridiculous and shows how kind of crazy the coverage of this litigation has been.

0:32:35 Thomas: It's so it's it's just looking at one side and picking every single little thing apart like there's a million this is that brian friedman has done like a zillion right I mean this is this level like take this assume this is the worst version of this which is there wasn't a contractual relationship and they sort of fudged that that's like the worst version of that I mean that's kind of nothing you know there's I feel like brian friedman's done a lot worse than that but that's just my opinion

0:33:02 MJ: Well, they're very different styles, right? And I agree with Brian Friedman's style, but I would never say go report this man to the New York Bar Association or to the California Bar. Think that's just taking it a different level, right. Why we think that that's something that we should be doing as people who have no idea what's going on behind the scenes here, right

0:33:21 Thomas: Especially when we don't actually know like you say maybe there is some I way that they're they're like technically this entity is connected to some other thing. Who knows? There could be a way, like if this entity is, on paper connected to another entity that is of what Lively uses for contract. Like there's a million ways this could be loosely speaking true, which is in terms of this and the legal system, I feel like that's just every day, right? I mean, come on.

0:33:45 MJ: Is every day. I mean, it really is. And this is one of the best law firms in the country. Right. I worked at a bigger firm, if we were going to do anything that was, you had an ethics question on or a CPLR. So the civil rules and procedural rules, you would go talk to that partner. And Right, explain it. Am sure that this firm has ethics checks and I am And I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt here that that, the outrage over the subpoena is just people maybe not really understanding the legal process.

0:34:15 Thomas: To put it lightly. Yeah, okay.

0:34:17 Lydia: Have a question for something that I've seen kind of pop -up on the reddit conversation about this which is that um other text messages that we have seen um know that stephanie jones shared the texts with leslie sloan right and that timing was august so is this lawsuit then um

0:34:39 Thomas: That makes sense. So that's probably how they they knew then.

0:34:42 Lydia: I mean then I guess the question would would be if was just that they knew the presence of text messages absent any names then I guess the does still make sense but if they had seen anything or a name was you communicated in any way would they have had an obligation to like name jennifer abel um also does one one through ten right

0:35:02 MJ: Don't think they would have had an obligation to name Jennifer Abel, but I think all we've seen is this allegation in Wayfarer's complaint that Leslie Sloan called. Abel and said, I've seen your texts and you're going to be sued. That's just from them. Right. So we have no kind of confirmation that that happened. And I haven't seen a text saying that it happened. I have seen that kind of allegation and that probably is what happened. Right? She probably Stephanie Jones may have called Leslie Sloan to be like, you have no idea what I know or something. Right um. And then she may have called her to say, yeah, like you should, just so you know, you're going to be in trouble. That yes, yep. And that conversation also could have been about Melissa Nathan and Jen Abel stealing a client from Jonesworks, right?

0:35:43 Lydia: I think she called uh nathan right yeah

0:35:54 MJ: That doesn't say you're being sued because of Blake Lively.

0:35:54 Thomas: Oh, that's a good point, yeah. It could have been about something else entirely, or related, but not, yeah, okay.

0:36:02 MJ: Blake Lively and her team really did think that someone, you closer to them with a contractual relationship was using confidential information to kind of go after them.

0:36:11 Thomas: That's a good point. Yeah, and a lot of this stuff is, like, you it, know, normal people don't love it, and I don't love it, but a lot of the contents of complaints is what you can plausibly argue. It's not like nobody sticks to like what you would swear to with a truth serum. That's just not how any of our legal system works. It is not great, but like you can't take a one -sided approach to win. You are super mad about that. That is all I am saying. You know what I mean? Like you can decide all of a sudden you are outraged that someone did something like this. And by the way, The entire alleged harm would be that Blake Lively got access to evidence that she absolutely should have had access to because if she was wrung in this way. And they're mad that they didn't know she had access the evidence. But evidence the is them talking. So they know that they did that. They know what they did. They're just mad that Blake Lively could have found out about it and they not know precisely when she found out about it like I'm missing something like that that's the entirety of their problem with it

0:37:13 MJ: I think that sums it up very nicely.

0:37:24 Thomas: Maybe now would be a good time to, if you, you know, run us through some of the top theories you're seeing on, on kind of that side of things here.

0:37:32 MJ: The best one is that Blake Lively is going to jail for using the subpoena.

0:37:37 Thomas: Subpoena jail.

0:37:39 MJ: And actually happens a lot, right, where I see that Blake Lively is going to jail because of this, because of something. I think it's just crazy and shows how fundamentally the Internet doesn't understand legal proceedings, which is fine.

0:37:57 Thomas: It fine? I don't know that it's fine. I feel like it's bad. Yeah, people are being misled and it sucks.

0:38:01 MJ: To be careful because I don't know. The internet is actually, it's a scary place. And the people that they are, and it almost encouraged to attack like this.

0:38:14 Thomas: So she's going to jail. What what else we got? Do they think she's going to, there's going to like affect the case.

0:38:19 Lydia: I had seen one that van zan they like were looking at the wrong van zand and said that what a company to import goods from britain and so they were like okay so they must have a house in britain and what are they importing from there and then who is receiving the goods like yeah just this this crazy yeah

0:38:38 Thomas: Blow the lid off this whole thing.

0:38:41 MJ: Actually why I went into that crazy Delaware speech that I bored you with at the beginning, because people are claiming that this Delaware entity that had nothing to do with this one formed in 2010 is proof of the affair between Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds that they had while he was married to Scarlett Johansson.

0:38:56 Lydia: To scott johansson oh my god yeah

0:38:59 MJ: So that one just made me be like, you guys are crazy. Is a big one. And then being like, wow, Blake did this herself. Blake to do with this, right? This is a lawyer chess move. Blake is like, okay, you have a way to get us. I don't even know if they told Blake, right, this is how we're going to get the subpoena. Because you don't, right. Just not how that works. Of these attacks on Blake for issues that, you know, her lawyers are making that people claim are unethical. It's, it becomes, you Blake lively's subpoena strategy and Blake lively did this. No, she didn't. Right. Every lawyer you talk to couldn't figure this out, there's no way that this talented actress is figuring out how to subpoeno this company in a way that no one will trace, right? These are expert lawyers who know how to do discovery.

0:39:14 Lydia: They might not have yeah

0:39:45 Thomas: Silly. What would it matter if it were, it seems like if this causes a problem with the case, it wouldn't matter if it was the attorneys or Blake Lively. Like this is all just dumb to me. I'm sorry. I can't even like any part part of this is silly, but like, is there any sense in which, and feel free to talk about more of the great theories you've seen, but is there Any sense in this, you in quotes, causes any problems for the case? You know, it's hard for me to ask that question, seriously, because I think it's the answer is no. But what do you think?

0:40:13 MJ: I think Jen Abel filed her amended complaint against Jones Works and all of her employment claims. And now they're all related to this cell phone and responding to the subpoena. It could Jones if they argue, you know, she had a contractual obligation to not do, I don't see how it impacts Blake. And yeah, a lot of the... arguments are her case is over, the case is done, which just isn't true.

0:40:39 Thomas: It's like, step one, what, what's step one of that? Okay, step five is the case is done. What steps one through four?

0:40:46 MJ: Don't know how they get to her case over, or the judge is going to lose it on everyone. Was such a huge deal, then the minute Brian Friedman found out about it, he would have been going to the court, which he didn't, right?

0:40:59 Thomas: And

0:41:00 Lydia: Yeah no that's a great point that if if this is so terrible then yeah why hasn't the other side actually spoken up in court to

0:41:08 Thomas: Not like they don't love crying the judge because they cry to the judge about a number of things already.

0:41:13 MJ: You have to be very strategic with what you go to the judge with, um, cases like this, because if you're running to the every time something happens that you don't like, you're going to annoy the judge. Right. And I've said that from the beginning that you do not want to get on the bad side of the judge, right. Happens very easily where there's a lot of parties and a lot of discovery and a

0:41:36 Thomas: So just to sum up, in case anybody is confused, is all stuff that she would have access to anyway in discovery. She should get this. She will. She probably already has. Right. I mean, she might already have gotten all this in discovery for this case right this is all stuff she should have for the most part I mean I get well okay I guess it's possible that stephanie jones provided some stuff in the subpoena that I guess we don't know what she provided so maybe stephanIE jones could have provided extra stuff or something but in terms of this complaint this controversy this thing if if you're somebody who thinks that baldoni did nothing wrong then there wouldn't be evidence that's anything anyway like there's no Like you could argue, oh, it's a privacy violation or something. But like if the harm is that now she can prove that wronged her, then it seems to me the was that Baldomi wronged or not the order in which the information was received. Like, like you'd be arguing then he should have been able to get away with it. Like, that's what you're arguing. He should have Been able to Get away with It if it weren't for this, these meddling kids in

0:42:37 Thomas: The subpoena. You no way to have, it's like having it every which way, I think. Think.

0:42:41 MJ: I mean, practically speaking, she could have made the exact same complaint without the text messages, right? The harassment and then alleging their retaliation just based on what we saw, the retaliation we saw. Would her New York Times article have been as good without those text messages in it? Not, right. And that might be the argument. I mean that's what I would... to argue, I guess. Yeah, completely like of this information is going to be produced and more, right. There's probably worse things.

0:42:56 Thomas: Way Yeah. We've got, I've said, I made that point so many times, we've only seen stuff from Jen Abel's phone from one particular period of time. Like, imagine what could be in other people's phones. We'll just say, not for us, but it will come out for them. It's important to say, we'll get stuff, but

0:43:21 MJ: Exactly. Right. And that's all, that's

0:43:31 Lydia: We get bits and pieces we'll see what kinds of things that they attach to motions and stuff but yeah mystery

0:43:36 MJ: And I think there will probably be some strategic motions. I think we talked about that previously.

0:43:41 Thomas: We covered that last time. I'm excited.

0:43:43 MJ: Interesting to see we do get.

0:43:45 Thomas: So, I solved, I guess. I mean not solved so much as there, you know, there's somebody else in a jail cell got a confession from somebody, you know we didn't solve the case. It was more like someone just leaked it, but I guess it answers that question, you Know, and, and my theory about arbitration was wrong. But I think a lot of our coverage, I think, has shown to be like in the main in terms of what was going on here. And it's a low bar. I'm not this is like I did. But it's important because nobody keeps track of this crap. We said there's a subpoena. We read the New York Times and the lawyers would not lie about that. And when you know it, there's subpoenas. It's like that. That should matter. Like we need to get to a point in our society where information fucking matters. Matters again. And this is like part of why we took this on is like, I just want to show here's how we were incorrect. Admittedly I was making a guess. I didn't, it was just a guess

0:43:47 Lydia: Solved everybody

0:44:31 Thomas: I had. Yeah. But like, what's important is not being correct on every guess you make, but what assumptions you're taking and when those and correct them when shows otherwise. Like the assumption that these lawyers were willing to just outright lie about the existence of a subpoena, that assumption was incorrect. Just my personal hobby horse.

0:44:53 MJ: Agree. And I've been yelling the same thing, I think, for a week, is that it's to to argue that they would have been lying, right? Like you said we need to like reset here and and think about how we approach lawsuits and and know alleged victims and uh just gets scary sometimes right

0:45:10 Lydia: Um also uh you know I'm sure you've seen this but an entire reddit thread where someone took um commentary on when this came out and ran it it through chat GPT to

0:45:19 Thomas: We have you dead to rights this is an ambush MJ we're gonna confront you with this

0:45:28 Lydia: It down. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

0:45:33 MJ: Have to go find it. My brother -in -law told me I'm not allowed to go on Reddit anymore.

0:45:39 Thomas: That's a good idea

0:45:39 Lydia: Yeah, I had that exact same conversation with my sister a couple years ago when we were going through our stuff. Yeah.

0:45:44 MJ: Yeah, I my friend actually said you know what chat gbt actually agreed with you a lot so I'm like okay good They're not dismissing this lawsuit, right? This lawsuit isn't going to be dismissed because of this subpoena.

0:45:49 Thomas: I bet.

0:45:58 MJ: Thank you.

0:45:57 Thomas: Claim. We'll track that one as well. Yeah, we'll let you know when you're wrong about that. No, duh.

0:46:03 Lydia: Do you think like you're because I mean you've been covering this for quite some time and like like some people have know you kind of gotten into it based on your coverage if they're you know super on team justin or whatever um they don't like what you're saying but um do you think it was about this and your threat on this because like I this is the first time I've seen the breadth of attacks against you and your coverage and your your ethics and your integrity and like your professionalism like all of those things like why what do you Think it was this that like like really sparked that kind of reaction.

0:46:39 MJ: Honestly don't know. I had started posting on TikTok a little bit. I'm not doing that anymore.

0:46:46 Thomas: Shoot.

0:46:46 MJ: Stick to threads to save her place. And I what I've experienced, I don't want to be part of the story. I'm trying to cover the story and they kind don't let you do that, which is very interesting to me. Know, I'm not claiming to be an expert or the best lawyer ever. And I like it when they try to say, oh, this person thinks she's so great. No, I think there's a lot of things I don't know, but I do know a lot more than a lot people, especially those that, you're giving credibility to online who don't practice.

0:47:17 Thomas: To not name any names. Yeah,

0:47:19 MJ: Yeah. I mean, who don'T practice in New York and, you enjoy covering it. I think to me, this is a much bigger story if the allegations are true. And if we look at the world we live in politically right now and, I think this matters, covering it matters and the outrage for people. Don't know. I block a ton of people now and a lot of them have no followers and no other posts.

0:47:46 MJ: Right. So that's strange. It's like, what is happening right now?

0:47:38 Lydia: That's good. Oh it's Jed Wallace. Just kidding.

0:47:50 MJ: Well, I'm like, yeah, it's a really interesting thing to cover for sure.

0:47:51 Lydia: Don't don't sue me. Hey teased a little bit at the beginning. We've kind solved the mystery of this subpoena but you mentioned you've stumbled on some other subpoenas

0:48:06 MJ: Are, let me see the list here. Are really interesting because they show that when Stephanie Jones initiated her lawsuit in New York County Court. Almost immediately sent subpoenas to Gab AI Inc., Messenger. I am not going to like put them on the internet because they identify other people that might be involved.

0:48:26 Thomas: What's that? Oh, wow. Okay.

0:48:41 MJ: Phone numbers I can see, you Heath, Justin Baldoni, I can all these phone numbers.

0:48:40 Lydia: Interesting oh wow yeah so

0:48:47 MJ: They subpoenaed, you for all account and subscriber information for the accounts listed below. So names, addresses, telephone, email addresses, documents related, reflecting changes to the account, documents relating to account opening or closure, any groups of which the account is a member, any documents reflecting changes and I it was really interesting that it was Stephanie Jones attorneys that were for that information

0:49:15 Thomas: Well, she is trying to track down that website.

0:49:17 Lydia: Tied to that website yeah

0:49:18 Thomas: Yeah that that website she someone thinks yeah gab

0:49:19 Lydia: I it's interesting you know like obviously we've all heard of whatsapp we've always heard of signal um know if you follow anything about the trump administration you know about signal and pete hexf but gab is something that I'm not familiar with and I just I pulled it up and it says that it's known for its far right user base and so I'm wondering like yeah who who in this list does she have belief is engaging in conversation on an like that

0:49:41 Thomas: Interesting yeah

0:49:50 MJ: That's gab inc that that and

0:49:52 Lydia: It says widely described as a haven for neo -nazis white supremacists white nationalists anti -semites the alt -right supporters of donald trump conservatives right libertarians and believers in conspiracy theories such as q anon very curious about that

0:50:05 Thomas: We breaking this news to you, MJ?

0:50:07 MJ: Didn't know what it did yeah I really didn't oh

0:50:11 Lydia: I wonder why why that like why is that getting pulled into here

0:50:14 MJ: Wait it's gab ai inc what's that the same one yep

0:50:17 Thomas: That is Gab AI?

0:50:18 Lydia: It's a it's one of the services of gab gab ai is one of their

0:50:22 Thomas: But they're specifically subpoenaing the AI part? Is that maybe about generating or something?

0:50:29 MJ: Wow it could be

0:50:30 Lydia: Racist ai chatbots have been instructed to deny the holocaust so um yeah

0:50:36 Thomas: Okay, but that, okay, but so they can't get, remind me, they can'T get like message content necessarily from this. It's about kind of that metadata stuff or could they no

0:50:46 MJ: So typically, yes, like when you subpoena a cell phone provider, you're not going to get the content of the messages. They're just not there, but you can get records of the And it is a problem. Something that I've fought over in discovery, like WhatsApp is really hard to documents from. Okay, I'm sorry, I am bringing you back to this gab. Subpoena, but they're looking for all communications and documents between Gab and the owner of the account, Stephanie Jones one, including, but not limited to any principal agent or employee of the owner. Of the account. Oh,

0:51:15 Thomas: Weird

0:51:20 Lydia: Interesting yeah so someone using her name and likeness kind of thing

0:51:22 Thomas: Did someone did she allege that someone impersonated her yeah huh interesting I can't wait to find out more about this yeah

0:51:27 MJ: Possibly. If I can see these and the only reason I can't see these is because they had to be served on out of state entities. So, um, this case, I think they were Delaware businesses, right? So in order to serve a subpoena on a business within another state, you have to go through that state. And each state has a different process. The only reason I can see these because they had to be filed in different courts. Can say this, it is safe to say that there are so many third -party subpoenas that have been issued in this case. I don't even want to try to guess. And the only way we're going to know is if they are fighting it. Like we have the Marvel, Marvel's fighting their subpoena right now.

0:52:00 Lydia: Yeah I bet yeah

0:52:09 Thomas: Marvel

0:52:09 Lydia: Marvel marvel issued a letter to judge lyman um to

0:52:12 Thomas: Oh they were subpoenaed is about the stupid Deadpool thing oh my god that is so silly well we can't get ahead of ourselves but wow that is really interesting so So I'm curious to find out what's going on there.

0:52:15 Lydia: Pool yeah yeah

0:52:17 MJ: It is so silly.

0:52:23 Thomas: But thanks that with us. That's very fascinating.

0:52:27 MJ: There's something going on.

0:52:29 Thomas: So overall, brilliant bit of legal tactics, it sounds like. I mean, this successfully got them the information they wanted, at least in part, chart without the tipping off the other side. That's brilliant.

0:52:23 Lydia: The scoop it's

0:52:39 MJ: And I think there are a ton of arguments for why have done it the way they did. But overall, the lawyers got what they wanted out of this lawsuit and subpoena. So if I think it's great lawyering. If problem with anything, it should be blamed on Blake Lively's lawyers here.

0:52:49 Thomas: Sounds like good lawyering. All right. Well, once again, so you're going to be on threads. We won't plug your, uh, your, almost said vine. We will plug your tick tocks. Maybe you should get on vine. Now it doesn't exist. I a hundred I'm a thousand years old and how COVID am I a lot? No, but MJ, thanks so much. We always love having you. It's an absolute pleasure. Yeah, I'm glad you're not, you the stuff. Eventually, that's where we got. I That's my advice. Block anyone who sucks. Don't ever feel bad about it for a second. It's not worth it. It's so awesome.

0:53:04 Lydia: How old are you quickly and often

0:53:27 MJ: Is my new motto for sure. So thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you guys so much for having me on.

0:53:29 Lydia: Hey racist ai chatbots have been instructed to deny the holocaust so

0:53:58 Thomas: It's GAVEL time!