No Way, Bove

Transcript

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

0:00:01 Matt: There's a very strange thing happening here where the government is saying, if you release him, then he'll be a flight risk because we'll deport him. Yep.

0:00:09 Thomas: Boom, lawyered?

0:00:18 Matt: Love it. Love it, yep, yep.

0:00:19 Thomas: Boom, judged. So he really did find like, well, we found a loophole in the bylaws. That's awesome. Do you too want to get absolutely skewered by an angry judge? Well, for the low price of $19 .99.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1170. I'm your host, Thomas Smith. That over there is real life attorney, immigration attorney even. Matt Cameron. Matt Cameron. Matt Cameron, how are you doing?

0:00:51 Matt: I am also having enormous amounts of trouble pronouncing somebody's name today because we have got to talk about Emil Bove?

0:00:57 Thomas: Emile Beauvais. Yeah.

0:00:59 Matt: Bovee? I don't know, I've heard it so many different directions.

0:01:00 Thomas: I think he might say Beauvais based on the hearing, based on the audio, but I like Beauvais, I don't know. Yeah. You can pronounce it not qualified. Yeah.

0:01:04 Matt: I don' t care, really, at this point. As we're going to find, this man should not be a judge. Right. Yes. Not a judge. Pretty much.

0:01:15 Thomas: The original, yeah, what, Italian pronunciation? I don' t know what the origin is, but is shouldn't be a judge is actually the original pronunciation.

0:01:23 Matt: Basically. So, of course, OA fan favorite Emil Bove. Back when he was Trump's defense attorney, we did not see any of this coming during People v. Trump, but we have a lot to talk about because he has just finished up his confirmation hearings. And it looks like Dems are going to try to stop it, but you're going to know why by the time this episode is finished. I'm going to tie this into several different breaking stories, including the big Supreme Court decision on Monday that I know we got to get to.

0:01:46 Thomas: I hate those words.

0:01:48 Matt: Yeah. Oh, Oh, it's even better, Thomas, because the day this airs, there's going to be a whole pile of Supreme Court decisions that we're going to have to get to. Huge pile.

0:01:48 Thomas: Anytime I hear a big Supreme Court decision, I'm not looking forward to it.

0:01:56 Thomas: Don't like it. I'd rather not. Can we decline?

0:01:58 Matt: Last day. So, yeah, I'd love to skip them.

0:02:02 Thomas: Supreme Court, take some time off. Take a year. Take three more years, three years off. You've deserved, you guys work so hard.

0:02:04 Matt: Yeah, we'll be here. That's right. Yeah.

0:02:11 Thomas: You've got a lot of flags to fly and RVs to drive and private jets to ride on. Take three years of doing nothing and the world will be an undoubtedly better place, like a measurably better place if they just quit working. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's good. Yeah, you're right. Oh boy.

0:02:23 Matt: I mean, these rights aren't going to take themselves away. So that's what they're here for. Yeah so yeah basically this is all going to tie back to emile bouvet because I just cannot stress enough how much he shouldn't be a judge and there's also a number of revelations that have come out this week from a whistleblower letter that I don't think is getting enough coverage so that have a lot to do with him as well so we're going to find out what's really going

0:02:41 Thomas: Well, okay. Maybe I missed it, but when did the judge talk happen? Because I thought he was like the person below the other Trump criminal defense attorney, the deputy.

0:02:53 Matt: On yeah todd blanche yeah

0:02:55 Thomas: Yeah. When did that stop happening?

0:02:57 Matt: You know lydia actually flagged this for us like months ago but you know there's so much going on I'd forgotten about it until it came up this week but this is the concerning part and the reason that we have to talk about it I'm just going to say this before before the break, this is the same circuit that Samuel Alito sat on before he went to the Supreme Court.

0:03:11 Thomas: They're not sending their best.

0:03:13 Matt: This guy is a Trump loyalist, and this is exactly the kind of person that Trump wants on the court. I'd not be surprised in a couple of years if he were to make it through, if that's the next step. So he's got to be stopped. You'll see why.

0:03:25 Thomas: Well after the break, I expect an answer to my question of when did he stop being deputy something or other, but okay.

0:03:30 Matt: Oh, no, he's still dead. No, it's still happening. Yeah. He's just trying to get a promotion.

0:03:31 Thomas: He's still that. Okay, so that's still how he's trying to to get a promotion oh boy all right well that all sucks oh

0:03:38 Matt: And then we got a quick footnote on one of our favorite subjects, the use of AI in court. This is a new one. Yeah? This is is a pretty good follow -up to the AI story about the victim witness impact statement being reconstructed. Yeah. This one's not that creepy, but it is pretty weird and it's something that's completely new. It's something to talk about. So we'll get there too.

0:03:42 Thomas: Joy haunts my dreams haunts my dreams okay looking forward to it get the oa breakdown so yeah after this break which you can avoid at patreon .com slash law just little as a buck you can avoid the ads you can get some goodies and that's the last I'll say about it today after the break we'll get to it

0:04:11 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:04:12 Matt: So just to kind of kick this one off, let's hear the man himself explain himself because this quote, what we're about to hear him say, I want you to keep this in mind as we're talking about everything else. This is him introducing himself.

0:04:23 Thomas: Oh we'll hear the pronunciation then oh maybe not defending

0:04:24 Clip: Now I'd like to say a little bit about me. I am someone who tries to stand up for what I believe is right. I'm not afraid to make difficult decisions. I understand that some of those decisions have generated controversy. I respect this process and I'm here today to address some of your questions about But I want to be clear about one thing up front. There is a wildly inaccurate caricature of me I am not anybody's henchman. I'm not an enforcer. I'm a lawyer from a small town who never expected to be in an arena like this, not until Todd called me me and gave me an opportunity to participate in some of the most historic and significant legal battles

0:05:12 Thomas: A fascist

0:05:24 Matt: That's it. All right, so keep that in mind.

0:05:25 Thomas: From coming out strong I would be like dude I don't remember who you are I'll be honest I only know you from opening arguments from gavel gavel it's weird to be like okay I get it everyone's talking about me they can't stop talking about me you all have me on your mind all the time and I'm here to say stop it

0:05:42 Matt: Well, it's never great in a confirmation hearing when you have to open with, I'm nobody's henchman. That is a word. Yeah.

0:05:48 Thomas: Unless you're getting confirmed as head henchman do we have one of those federal henchmen number one

0:05:51 Matt: Oh, he already is. That was already his job at DOJ.

0:05:54 Thomas: Oh yeah that That is kind of what it is, isn't it?

0:05:56 Matt: I just want to remind everybody that Emil Bove is the guy who's responsible for the Eric Adams deal, the one who sat across from the table and told Eric Adams that we can go ahead and drop up this case if you comply with us with our immigration deals. So let's start there. That should be disqualifying in and of itself, obviously. That's corrupt. It's straight up corrupt. But let's go back, because I'm going to take you through a few things that he's been involved with recently, and then we're going to actually see how he was involved with those things. But we've got to talk about DHS v. DVD, our favorite non -VHS release.

0:06:24 Thomas: Somehow not VHS, VDVD.

0:06:26 Matt: DVD is actually a Cuban man from Massachusetts who is right now in Djibouti, along with a number of other deportees, and he's being held as what is described as a shipping container, although it's more like sort of temporary military housing. And he's been held there along with ICE officers that have to guard him. And the government could turn around and bring him back to the U .S. anytime, but they're making a point of holding him in the shipping container in a very dangerous part of Djibouti in a military base where there's Houthi rebels with rocket launchers all around and disease running through and bad sanitation. So this decision on Monday from the Supreme Court ties directly to all of this and is a direct result of Emil Bouvi's actions. So we're going to talk talk about it. So I'm sure you've seen the headlines, and the headlines and the description of this case, I think, are a little not quite enough. I've seen a lot of people not really understanding what this case is about. This is, once again, in my wheelhouse, so I'm going to do my best to explain it. We've been talking about DHS v. DVD for a while. It's the one that has to do with removals to third countries. So you already have a deportation order. This has not the Alien Enemies Act. This isn't some of the other things you've been seeing. This is the one with people that have removal orders that have already issued to third countries. I think all of them in this case are because they committed serious aggravated felony criminal offenses. And I will tell you, for this particular set of people that they chose to send to Djibouti on their way to South Sudan, they purposely chose some of the worst offenses they could find, like serious child sex

0:06:47 Thomas: Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:07:43 Matt: Abuse and rape and murder, just to make the point that these are people that don't deserve rights.

0:07:47 Thomas: You've called out that strategy for a long time.

0:07:50 Matt: Yep. And that's what they're doing.

0:07:50 Thomas: And we will not be sucked into the trap of giving a shit about how bad these people are. That doesn't matter when it comes to taking away people's rights and treating them terribly.

0:07:52 Matt: Nope. Right. Because we're next. And everybody gets the same rights.

0:08:00 Thomas: Yeah. It's a practice run.

0:08:01 Matt: And I will tell you for sure, having worked with people with serious records, that you don't know that what somebody did 30 years ago is who they are now anyway. And that's always good to remember. So as it is, this case is out of Boston. We've got Judge Murphy here. What the government was trying to say is that they could just throw somebody on a plane and kind of ask them as they're loading the plane, hey, you got a problem with going to South Sudan. Would you mind if we send you there? And they were basically saying, because nobody yelled loud enough, they didn't want to go to South sedan, that they Could just send them to a third country. That's not how deportations work. Now, remember, these are cases in which the people's countries don't want them. They will not accept them back. They're basically like, I don't know you, never met you. I don' t see a birth certificate. I do' n't have have any record of you. You don't belong here because they don't want to deal with people with these felonies. So because of that, the government has to try to send them to a third country or they have to release them and keep them in orders of supervised release in the community, which has generally worked out fine, but they're really intent on removing everybody that has a removal order right now. So the strategy here was to just start finding countries like South Sudan, and they briefly were teasing Libya. Remember we talked about this, that both of Libya's governments were saying they wouldn't take them. Never a good sign when both governments... Yep, exactly. But South Sudan is actually the newest country in the world, and

0:09:00 Thomas: They paused to like agree on that oh

0:09:08 Matt: It's not in good shape. It's not doing well. So this is not somewhere that you want to send. And especially, remember, these are people from all over the world who have no connection to Northern Africa. They've never been there. They don't speak the languages. They Don't Know Anybody. You're just going to throw them in the middle of the desert in South Sudan. And so Judge Murphy said, look, the law is the law here. It is a little unclear, but it definitely says in the Convention Against torture. In 8 U .S .C. Section 1231, there's not exactly a process, but it says very clearly that you can't remove somebody to a third country. And then there's, again, there're multiple steps about how you can remove somebody a third -country that is not their own. But one of the things it says is that you can' t remove somebody into a third county in which their life or freedom would be threatened, especially on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, and the other asylum factors. And there's no specific process spelled out, but you think about it, when you're getting a deportation order, that deportation is to your country. So it doesn't mean we can just decide to throw

0:09:58 Matt: You to another country. We have to have some kind of process if we're going to send you somewhere else.

0:10:00 Thomas: Sort of one of those things where it's like we didn't think we needed a process because why would this happen or what

0:10:05 Matt: It barely ever happens, right? And it's just, but again, it is kind of implied from this language that there has to be some way to object. And so Judge Murphy is looking at this and he's like, well, obviously there has to be someway that, I mean, you can't just put them on a plane and give them the notice while you're flying them out of the country, which was what they did basically. None of these people are from this region of the world, but you can imagine a situation maybe that you're trying to deport a plane load of Jewish detainees to Iran, right, maybe, or somewhere else that they're not going to be very popular. Or maybe a bunch of Christian Russian converts to Pakistan where they'll be killed. You know, there's all kinds of reasons that you might want to make an objection to a particular country beyond, I don't want to go there. So Judge Murphy said, you got to give them access to lawyers. You got to get them to notice which country they're going to. And you have to give him a chance for these interviews that are required under these circumstances, because just because they have a removal order doesn't mean that you can just send them anywhere you want.

0:10:16 Thomas: Doesn't seem right right right I like that you use the christians appeal to their stupid yeah what if you sent a white person to south africa where they're they just get killed on the spot don't they can't even live They're just, bam, done.

0:10:57 Matt: That's right. Well established. That's just fact. Yeah. Yeah I was just going like the easiest kind of asylum kinds of claims. Religion is always popular. So judge Murphy initially issues a temporary restraining order and then clarifies it with a preliminary injunction that becomes the subject of Monday's decision from the Supreme Court. And this is a shadow docket case because we're talking about an injunction. We're not talking about the merits. We'RE not even getting to the point where they're arguing about whether or not it's appropriate to do what he did. They're just saying, we're going to suffer irreparable harm because we'RE going to have to give notice to all these people. And it's just going to be too much trouble. Yep.

0:11:25 Thomas: That's so hard. I'm on their side. How could you even do that?

0:11:27 Matt: Pieces of paper and setting up phone lines.

0:11:30 Thomas: I gave notice one time, threw my back out for a week.

0:11:33 Matt: That's right. Real inconvenience to have TO GIVE SOMEBODY A PIECE OF PAPER AND and let them call a lawyer. So Judge Murphy, again, kind of crafted a set of orders that said, here's how you're going to do it. And this is what we're going do. And when they didn't do it, he came back with a remedial order, which is very important for what I'm about to talk about on May 21st. He issues a follow -up order saying, no, I meant it. This is how it's going to work. Now, what they appealed was his preliminary injunction, not the remedial border, which is going to become very relevant. So this is a shadow docket case, which means the majority doesn't have to justify itself. And as I'm sure you've heard, it came down 6 -3 in the usual way. And the majority decision in this is one paragraph and it says nothing there's no explanation whatsoever it just says the preliminary injunction that the court in massachusetts had issued that is state pending the disposition and administrative language there'sno explanation for their decision which is really cowardly it's pathetic I mean it's like where's the decision what are you doing because this and then sotomayor of course joined by the others jackson and kagan does the usual sotomaior thing and writes this beautiful dissent and the first line of this is dissent I want you you remember, everybody, this is what the majority disagrees with, is this language right here. In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution. That's the dissent. That should not be the dissenter. That shouldn't be the beginning of the majority opinion.

0:12:38 Thomas: Hmm. Okay. Wrong. Yeah. Oh, but is she talking about the life and death question of having to give notice to people, though?

0:12:54 Matt: Right. Yeah.

0:12:54 Thomas: Because that can be really, you could die giving someone notice a little bit more ahead of time.

0:12:57 Matt: That's right. It's one of those things where I just do not understand the government's argument, except for just pure cruelty, right? And evil. So in this case, the government took the opposite approach of caution. And so she's pointing out something that's very important for understanding this I didn't get to yet, which is that in this litigation alone, the government has already violated court orders multiple times, including the one that we talked about a couple of weeks ago in OCG, which as part of this litigation, which was the Guatemalan man that ended up in Mexico. And he was actually returned, fortunately, very recently. He had to come back because it was found to be such an blatant violation of a court order that they sent him back.

0:13:01 Thomas: Push your eye out. Yeah, it's just evil. Yeah.

0:13:35 Matt: And Sotomayor points out that because they didn't turn the planes around, they deported people to South Sudan in violation of Murphy's order. She's saying the government's now complaining about something that's fully in its control, though it could have just followed the order. And it's already violated, so it doesn't have clean hands, right? You're coming before the court, basically having already messed this up, and this is on you. And she has this great metaphor where she says that the government is acting like an arsonist who has just started a fire and then calls in a noise complaint when the firefighters showed up. I really like that. That's a great metaphor. But she's got some strong language. She calls the court's use of discretion here a gross abuse. She talks about how it's incomprehensible, about how this is, we're talking about torture and death is on the line and that just can't possibly compare to the irreparable harm they're trying to claim and that they haven't addressed any of this. And she's, you know, once again, morally and legally and factually correct, and the majority is not. So what this does by staying this preliminary injunction is it means now, unfortunately, and this is going to directly impact some of my cases right now as we're talking, I'm already trying to think about what I'm doing for next week for one of my big cases. It means that they can just start deporting people without notice to third countries with removal orders that they can't get to their home countries. And I think they're going to abuse this immediately.

0:14:43 Matt: I'm very concerned about where this is going to go. But I have to give full credit here to Judge Murphy in Massachusetts, because he absolutely held the line the same night that this order came down. He's like, yeah, no, it doesn't apply. Because the parties came before him and the plaintiffs said, we don't think this actually applies to us for reasons I'll explain in a minute. And he agreed. Agreed. He confirmed same day in a short order that's just on the docket, it's not even a published order, that the remedial order, which is the thing that was instructing them to actually do the thing, to actually fix this now that they're in Djibouti and stuck with these issues, the order remains in full force in effect, notwithstanding today's stay of the preliminary injunction. That's badass. I love that. Just Supreme Court's wrong, I'm right.

0:14:54 Thomas: Good yeah wow yeah I want more of

0:15:25 Matt: He quotes Sotomayor's dissent, which was great, because she points out that the district court's remedial orders, which the thing he's enforcing, were not before this court because the government has not appealed them nor sought to stay pending a forthcoming appeal. So only the injunction of March and not the May remedial orders. So he's saying all that stuff I told you to do for these people, you still have to do. Love it. Love It. Yep.

0:15:43 Thomas: This boom lawyered boom judged so he really did find like well we found a loophole in the bylaws that's awesome

0:15:51 Matt: And if you wanted this appealed you should have appealed it. So now they have to take up a clarifying appeal probably and we'll see what happens with that but and you know these people in Djibouti like they're holding them there to make a point and they're complaining about how these poor ICE officers are stuck there with these people and terrible conditions and you Know there's some sort of toxic fumes around and and whatever. But again, any time, they could just bring them back. It's not that hard. And they could give them the proper process here in this country while they figure it out. They don't have to release them. They can keep them detained. That's the case with a lot of these things.

0:16:18 Matt: But they don't have to keep them in Djibouti. That'S just not necessary. But this whole thing is a disaster of their own making. And that's been the ongoing theme of all of this. So yeah, this all has to do quite a lot with Abilbove. Abilbove has been effectively running DOJ, more or less. I haven't heard a lot from Todd Blanche, but we've seen quite a little bit of him. We've seen a lot responsible for a lot of the worst stuff. Even before Pam Bondi was sworn in, there was all that time before where he was in charge.

0:16:34 Thomas: Yeah beauvais

0:16:45 Matt: Beauvais was in there. And officially, he is Blanche's second command, but he's really the enforcer. He's the deputy. He actually specifically said he's not an enforcer, but it's very clear that he is.

0:16:43 Thomas: Or blanche okay oh is this because of the vacancies he's hacked

0:16:56 Matt: It was before either Bondi or Blanche had been sworn in. They both had to go through a lot more. He could just be appointed.

0:16:59 Thomas: Right yeah because they have to go through the the actual yeah

0:17:02 Matt: That's right. Yeah. But because he's second command. So he had quite a while where he could run things, and that's when he did the dirty deal with Eric Adams. But he also was allowed to sort of settle into this position. And you might remember at the Adams thing, he showed up and Liz was talking about how unusual that is, right? That he actually came from DC to New York because nobody else would do it. Because you might Remember part of the deal that happened is we'll talk about during the Eric Adams disaster was that most of SDNY, their top leadership quit

0:17:18 Thomas: Nobody else would do it yeah remember

0:17:27 Matt: Because for obvious reasons, right. Because they're ethical people.

0:17:30 Thomas: That some guy had a really weird name what was it it was great damn it uh we'll see if it comes to us

0:17:33 Matt: Oh, it was fantastic. Yeah. I'm not going to remember it, but it was real classic name. Yeah,

0:17:45 Thomas: This absolute criminal in eric adams who by the way now the entire mainstream political world is rallying around to defeat the zaran mamdani and the socialist threat or whatever that he represents this absolute absolute criminal Eric Adams.

0:17:46 Matt: The terrible looking Zoran Mondami, me, according to Donald Trump. He said he was terrible looking.

0:17:55 Thomas: Wrong.

0:17:56 Matt: Every accusation is a confession. He's a good looking man.

0:17:59 Thomas: Yeah, that's crazy.

0:17:59 Matt: I don't know how you could, that's like the least thing you could say about him. Anyway, June 24th, 2025, just as Buve's hearings are about to get going for his confirmation to the Third Circuit, which are already controversial, this letter drops from Erez Ravani. Now we've mentioned Erez Vani in the past because he, during the DVD hearings, was a little too honest with a judge and he was suspended the day after. And I'll just remind you, This is actually during the Obrego -Garcia hearing. So very similar, not the same as the DVD litigation, but still in the same vein of wrongful deportations and violations of court orders. And the court asked him, can we talk about then very practically, why can't the U .S. get Mr. Obrega -Gracia back? The question on our minds for months. And Rivani says, Your Honor, I will say for the court's awareness that when this case landed on my desk, the first thing I did was ask my clients that very question. I have not received to date an answer that I find satisfactory. That's quite a thing to have to tell the government.

0:18:48 Thomas: All I've gotten back is fascism noises. I don't know what to tell you.

0:18:52 Matt: Right. No actual answers. And it's also really rare for DOJ to call the government my clients, right? You're really trying to distance yourself at that point. So this is what he was put on leave for, but it's not, it turns out from this letter, we find out what he Was fired for. What he was fired for was something else.

0:19:06 Matt: So Erez Ravani is not somebody we would usually like that much. He's pretty conservative. And he was actually been with the Office of Immigration Litigation, which is, you know, that's DOJ's premier immigration office. Like they send people around the country to do arguments in front of appeals courts. They're very good lawyers. I've I've been up against them myself. But he won awards during Trump's first term for defending the Muslim ban and leading litigation against sanctuary cities. So, you know, he's not a liberal. They're trying to paint him now as a DOJ. So this letter is from an insider, from somebody who was a Trump believer and rewarded by Trump in the past. They'RE TRYING TO PAINT HIM AS SOME KIND OF DISAFFECTED LIBERAL NUT NOW, OF COURSE, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THEY ALWAYS DO.

0:19:29 Thomas: What? Who makes awards for that? Yeah. Hmm.

0:19:45 Matt: But this letter is damning. It is bad. I mean, this is a really solid inside look at what's going on in DOJ right now. And I want to just go through a few things. And he's putting it through the lens of the most egregious violations, which all have to do with these wrongful deportations. So he's talking about Obrigo Garcia and about DVD for the most part.

0:20:02 Thomas: So this is, you're saying this is the same guy who said too much in the, in the case. And how how do we have this letter? Is it, what is it exactly? Oh. Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. Yeah.

0:20:08 Matt: This letter was published by the Government Accountability Project, which now represents him as a whistleblower. So, he's coming out. Yeah, this is real. This is very real. So. He's making disclosures in a 35 -page letter about his time at DOJ in the last few months. And it is things that the people need to know, which is why we're talking about it now. And a lot of it centers around Bouvet and his directions and the people at the top of DOJ. Because we've been asking for a while, and we've talked to Liz about this as well, how could DOJ have gotten this corrupt this quickly? They've really stepped it up. And as we've be talking about, it just takes a couple of people from the top to make people act like this.

0:20:43 Thomas: Yeah. Trickle down doesn't work for economics, but it does for fascism.

0:20:47 Matt: Absolutely trickle -down fascism. So here's the big centerpiece. I'm going to let you enjoy reading this. Thanks to this letter, this is going to be an explicit episode.

0:20:58 Thomas: I gotta get into character. Am I Mike Lindell or? Darn. My two characters are Mike Lindelle and Norm MacDonald. So not, not Norm Macdonald either. It's gotta be one of them or I can't do a good reading. What's my motivation here?

0:21:02 Matt: No you're very serious no do your best uh the

0:21:15 Thomas: Oh, okay. Sure. Beauvais did not provide further details and Beauvais indicated and stressed to all in attendance that the planes needed to take off no matter what. Beauvoy then made a remark concerning the possibility that a court order order would enjoin those removals before they could be effectuated. Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts, fuck you, and ignore, and that's in quotes, quote, I should add that, quote. That's not just like him characterizing the, that's actual quotes, and ignore any such court order. Mr. Raveni perceived that others in the room looked stunned and he observed awkward, nervous glances among people in theroom. Silence overtook the room. Mr Raveni and others were quickly ushered out of the room. Notwithstanding Bove's directive, Mr. Ruveni left the meeting understanding that DOJ would tell DHS to follow all court orders.

0:21:37 Matt: Truth yeah yeah just think about that a meeting of senior doj leadership and again doj are like the absolute justice nerds like the people that are like that like that don't smoke weed and you know pick up all their litter and you've got the guy that's telling them what to do telling them it's time to tell the courts that we've reached that point. And we all knew that that was happening, but just to hear it described, like to have somebody in the room, yeah, that's more explicit than I would have expected, I will say. So that's what got my attention in this letter.

0:22:12 Thomas: Yeah. Dorks. I don't know. Yeah, that's pretty explicit. Literally.

0:22:31 Matt: That was kind of the marquee thing about this letter, right, is doing that. But then there's a bunch of other stuff too. And this is all, like you said, trickle -down fascism. So now Drew Ensign has been representing, he's a Deputy Assistant Attorney General, has been presenting them in a lot of these cases, in these deportation cases. Andthis is again with Judge Boasberg in the Obrega -Garcia case. So Ravini's revealing in in this letter for the first time that they had received an email from plaintiff's counsel about the planes taking off to El Salvador. And then Ravini is sitting there watching Ensign tell Judge Boesberg in court and in the private meeting that they Had with him in camera that he had no information about the flights. He hadn't heard anything at all, right? So that's just lying to the court straight up, that they knew that there's reason to believe that things are happening. And that's something that Boasberg obviously was very concerned about when he realized that there was some reason to belief that they know. Ravani kept emailing everybody because he's an upstanding guy in his own way.

0:23:19 Thomas: Paper trail.

0:23:19 Matt: He wants to make sure that they're following. And he's starting to panic because he's trying to see that there's a good reason to believe that DHS ignored everything and is deplaning them and letting them into SECON, into the horrible prison in El Salvador. And the response from DOJ, he realizes at one point that Emil Buve went over his head and just stopped CCing him on things and told DHS to proceed, basically just took it on, right? So he was working on how they were going to start responding to this. And then he got this weird passive -aggressive stuff. DOJ leadership insisted on inserting a footnote in his memo saying that the operational effects of the judge's order is, that's a direct quote, is ambiguous, not are. So it's not. It was not an ambiguous order. It Was Turned the Planes Around. The operational effects were ambiguous? Come on.

0:24:03 Thomas: Just try to corporate speak your way out of that. How do I effectuate your order of turn the planes around? Do you mean literal planes? What if that's metaphorical planes? I don't know.

0:24:13 Matt: Like how many degrees around?

0:24:15 Thomas: Let's touch base on this.

0:24:16 Matt: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, gonna need like an actual flight plan.

0:24:19 Thomas: Yeah, we'll circle back.

0:24:20 Matt: Yeah circle back. Yeah we'll interface later. So there's this funny thing I just really enjoy reading about bureaucratic email exchanges. It's just one of my little perversions. So it's a very funny thing that happens here, though, where DHS responds on behalf of DHS because they're all cc'd on these emails. My take on these e -mails is that DOJ leadership and DOJ litigators don't agree on the strategy. Please keep DHS out of it. It's pretty bad.

0:24:42 Matt: And Rivani asked again, like, DHS, what is their position? And he responded, I don't know, ask your leadership. So this is a mess, right? DHS and DOJ are fighting. DOJ is fighting inside itself. They know they're in violation of a court order. Like, they know, right? They've been trying to pretend they didn't know or there was some reason to think that it was ambiguous. And then, of course, the next day, when Ravini talks to Dr. Anson by phone, during the mid to late afternoon, Anson informed Mr. Ravani by phone that it would be advisable to stop sending emails with so many recipients. Classic. Yeah.

0:25:10 Thomas: Stop writing down your crimes.

0:25:12 Matt: Like, we don't want to read about it anymore. We get it. You think it's bad. We don't.

0:25:16 Thomas: Writing down our crimes, I guess.

0:25:18 Matt: Yeah, and so here's the thing. I had thought, and we all thought, because he was suspended the day after he told the judge that he didn't understand why they weren't following the court order. It actually turns out that he was actually fired because he refused to sign on to the idea that Kilmer Obrega -Garcia was a criminal terrorist. So full credit.

0:25:34 Thomas: That's like worse.

0:25:36 Matt: Yeah, no, it is worse. Because now, especially now that we know what the indictment is, and we're going to talk about that real quick on a sidebar here. But now that we know, you know, as we discussed last time about how stupid these charges are and how completely falsified everything is, you know, it's just getting worse and worse. So he knew what was in front of him. He knew he couldn't argue that. And so he refused. To actually say that he Was a bad guy, that he Was going to be wanted for terrorism or gang affiliation, that there's some reason they he should be in C -Con. So final straw for him was when a supervisor told him that he needed to sign the brief and that he'd signed up when he accepted the deputy position. Remember there's that Pam Bondi memo where she told DOJ like within days of coming into office that everybody at DOJ had to follow orders, could not have any kind of personal conscience about anything. Top to bottom, this is what happens, right? Because he's being told that he has to sign the brief. And that when he signed up to be deputy, this Is what it was. He has to Sign off on DOJ's positions. And Rivani responded, I didn't sign up to lie.

0:26:13 Thomas: Yeah oh yeah that's oh my god that's right.

0:26:25 Matt: So somebody else had to sign it. And it was filed early in the morning. And that was the point at which he was placed in administrative leave. So it wasn't what he told the court. It was his failure to comply with a law. So that's like he said, that's worse. So there's a lot more in this letter. We're going to link to it. I don't have time for all of it, but it goes through step by step, lots of other places where it's clear that they violated the law and they knew they were violating the law. And it's really gratifying, honestly, because we knew this already. It's not that much of a surprise. But to see somebody from the inside detail using the emails that he has and the evidence he has, and like blow by blow, times and dates, you know, this is progress. This is good. And it is extra good because this is right ahead of the time when Emil Bovia is coming in to be confirmed, allegedly. But this is probably a good time for a break, though.

0:27:09 Thomas: This show's brought to you by Fireflies. Are you buried under nonstop meetings and struggling to remember all that was discussed and what was agreed to, what the next steps were, and all that kind of thing? Well, I'm answering yes. Well, I've got the perfect solution for you. It's called Fireflies, it's your AI teammate that keeps track of all of that. From key takeaways to next steps, Fireflies keeps you organized. No more missed details or forgotten follow -ups. I know AI can be this intimidating thing and there's some applications of it that seem scary. This is is something that AI is perfect for. Because Fireflies is so good at not only integrating across everything you and your team probably already rely on with more than 60 different apps like Zoom, Google Meet, Slack, Asana, and so many more. It's incredibly good at listening, transcribing, summarizing, and analyzing all of your meetings so that things don't fall through the cracks. That happens so often to me where it's like, you'll have a great meeting, you got a bunch of ideas, and then the ball is dropped either by, let's be honest, me or sometimes other other people. Fireflies is the perfect solution to that. You can join the over 500 ,000 companies already using Fireflies and start turning your meetings into action. And right now, when you sign up for a yearly Fireflies subscription, you get your first two months free. Just go to fireflies .ai slash opening. That's right. Two months free when you go to fireflies dot AI slash opening one more time. That'S fireflies .ai slash open. Yeah.

0:28:37 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:28:37 Matt: So let's talk a little bit more about him because, you know, back when Liz and you and I were talking about him, we just knew him as a defense attorney who had previously worked at DOJ. We didn't think to go too deep on him because and I think some of the stuff hadn't come out because he wasn't that important, like you said.

0:28:49 Thomas: He's like like second chair, really, right?

0:28:51 Matt: Right. Yeah. And he and just as a reminder, Emil Bovan and Todd Blanche, to remind the audience, have worked together at DOD before. They were friends. They went into business representing Trump together. And then they were both promised jobs in the administration. And now they're working closely together at DoJ. Blanche is only named a few times incidentally in this letter. He's not really the target. Of it. So I think that's interesting. Not that he's not culpable. I think that Nabove is just the enforcer. But there's a bunch of stuff that's come out and some things back in February that I should have noticed before. I just wasn't really, there's so much to pay attention to in February. But Politico had a piece, and now more has come out since then, about how bad he was when he was back at DOJ before.

0:29:25 Thomas: The first time? Okay.

0:29:25 Matt: Now, remember, he was at SDNY. Yeah. He was at SDNY for nine years.

0:29:30 Thomas: Beauvais was? Oh. I didn't remember this. It didn't stick with me because I didn' t think it mattered at the time.

0:29:36 Matt: It didn't really. But we talked about his minor career before. But I mean, again, as we know, SDNY is a big deal. That's the biggest prosecution opportunity. And he became one of the leads of the criminal division of SDNY. That's a big job. That is a lot of responsibility. So his reputation, though, I'm just going to read you a few things because it's pretty bad.

0:29:56 Matt: This is not somebody who should be a judge. This does not somebody should be running DOJ. There were so many different reports about how bad he was at his job, not at being a lawyer, but just at managing and just being awful to everybody around him. I mean, to the point that back in 2018, before anybody saw any of this coming, but that saw that he was going to go beyond SDNY in the way that he did. There was a letter from a number of senators asking about this guy, who they'd heard about. And yeah, it's pretty bad.

0:30:19 Thomas: Wow. And they had a bigger fish to fry back then.

0:30:22 Matt: Yeah. But they're saying like, here's the guy running the criminal division. And what we're hearing is, he's a prosecutor version of a drunk driver, completely reckless and out of control. He's repeatedly backed out of promises. He has encouraged agents who are totally out of Control. These are all direct quotes. These Are all anonymous direct quotes from people that they trust. I really distrust him and would never cooperate with him again, if I could help it. He is quick to bully and threaten.

0:30:43 Matt: He's always looking for leverage and power. I can't say I saw anything unethical, but at some point, someone could be so rude and unprofessional that it comes close. He has totally hung up on a power trip, and he needs adult supervision.

0:30:41 Thomas: My God. It's so weird that he ended up being around trump and gravitating toward that

0:30:57 Matt: Remember, we were wondering the whole time during the Trump trial what it must be like to have to work closely with Donald Trump, but it turns out they're just the same guy. It's fine.

0:31:03 Thomas: Yeah apparently I think in my mind this guy just went down as like not really that important in the trial and probably just cashing a check I think I was wrong about that I think it was very quiet

0:31:10 Matt: Yeah. No, he's ambitious. He was on his way. SDNY wasn't good enough. Remember too. That puts another spin on the Eric Adams thing, because he was intent on destroying SDNY. He clearly didn't like anybody there, and he was enthusiastically burning through their top leadership by pushing them on this stuff, right? So it kind of puts another angle on this to realize that he's got personal beef. I saw some research recently that revenge is actually potentially addictive, just as an act. It causes so much dopamine. And that's a scary thought.

0:31:19 Thomas: Wrong yeah right huh oh maybe next high court I'll do a couple hits of revenge we'll see you do you ingest some uh some weed I'll uh get a nice revenge hit.

0:31:51 Matt: Might want to just not disclose how you're going to do that but uh

0:31:54 Thomas: Yeah, no, it's Dish Best Surf Club. Wow.

0:31:55 Matt: Yeah do it your own way that's right that's right so and again that's just from this 2018 letter and then politico publishes this thing it comes out after 2018 it turns out because he was he was in there up to 2021 the other thing to remember about it's just so many different things here he was involved in prosecuting some of the january 6th people and then he turned right around as soon as he ran doj and enthusiastically endorsed all of trump's pardons and you know clearing everybody and then enthusiastically endorse the idea that these were people who were wrongfully convicted, which is nuts.

0:32:23 Thomas: Lee convicted by who? Bovee?

0:32:25 Matt: Yeah, right.

0:32:27 Thomas: Aquaman?

0:32:28 Matt: Exactly. He helped to investigate. I don't think he actually prosecuted, but he was on his way out. He was investigating. And he, at the time, thought that SDNY should get more involved. Because again, SDNY was not the main office prosecuting January 6th people, but there were people with lots of connections to New York, obviously. And he also was working with the FBI people that he ended up turning on and trying to fire because of their involvement on January 6. And what I think is interesting too, I mean, Beauvais, I think he's a much more interesting character than somebody like Stephen Miller, who's just evil and a bully and like,

0:32:52 Thomas: I don't know. After this exposure to more of him, he's feeling a little bit more like that, though. More in that direction than I thought.

0:32:58 Matt: Oh yeah, he is a bully, but he's not the yelling kind. Stephen Miller is known to yell at everybody, but everybody agrees.

0:33:05 Thomas: You're right. He has a Gus Fring thing going on a littlebit.

0:33:09 Matt: Yep. Yep, he does have that look a little bit, you're right, and the sound.

0:33:12 Thomas: He's going to be from now on typecast in every fascist dictatorship leadership. We want to branch out, do different stuff and be like, we kind of wanted you to be a smart, quiet, not suspicious, fascist criminal who ultimately is the most evil person there is. It's like, God damn it. Every role.

0:33:27 Matt: He and Todd Blanche can go up on a Los Pollos Hermanos. But this is kind of the reputation is he's soft -spoken, and you could hear that when he's talking to the confirmation panel, right? And as somebody who barely ever raises his voice for any reason, I certainly can go with that.

0:33:42 Thomas: I'm not going to say never, Matt. I am going to confidently say you never raise your voice ever

0:33:44 Matt: Yeah, I'm certainly never in anger, barely.

0:33:47 Thomas: Once in your life. I don't think you know how to do it. I I'm going to call you out right now.

0:33:50 Matt: I barely know how to get people's attention. Honestly, I feel like I'm yelling at you right now as we're talking, and this is probably a normal tone of voice.

0:33:55 Thomas: I can barely hear you, Matt.

0:34:00 Matt: Honestly I feel exuberant and I'm screaming at you.

0:34:04 Thomas: Yeah, that's interesting.

0:34:04 Matt: That's how I feel as I'm talking to you right because I'm trying to keep that energy in my voice. But he's well known to make all these super mean cutting comments in just a totally straightforward way, which I think is much more effective than yelling at people. I think that making people lean in to hear your insults is actually a lot more effective because you can kind of write off a yeller. I've been yelled at plenty, but the I'm very disappointed kind of stuff, that cuts deep. But abusive is the overall theme of what it's like to work with this man. But they investigated him and he was denied a promotion at one point, but The Executive Committee of the entire U .S. Attorney's Office had to open into a formal inquiry into his management style in early 2021.

0:34:40 Matt: Never a good good sign. And he had to beg to his bosses to allow him to stay, and he promised he was going to do better and that he'd fix his behavior. But yeah. Yeah.

0:34:50 Thomas: This is the exact kind of person, the exact kind of man that rises up in fascist governments. I mean, it's just it's their opportunity to get even, to exploit their authority, petty grievances, all that stuff.

0:35:01 Matt: No, it's straight up. No. This is really like, as we have been continuing to say, fascism requires layers, and it requires these kinds of layers. The people that would do anything and say anything and just really don't think anything of other people. This is terrible leadership, awful management, and I can only imagine what he would be like to people from the bench, right? I mean, this is not somebody, you have to have a pretty good temperament. You have to be pretty well balanced to be a good judge. The scariest part of all of this is thinking that there is a pathway to the Supreme Court for this man, who is an absolute Trump toady at this point. So confirmation hearings have concluded and Democrats are intent on trying to stop him. And I hope they will. I hope that Susan Collins doesn't talk to him and decide that maybe he could be changed and she could fix him. We will see. But as it is, I want to talk about just kind of touching on that, because this, again, is directly related to Kilmer Obrega -Garcia as well. So I just wanted a very quick update on Obreaga -Gracia before we move on to our footnote. We talked about the indictment at some length and about how bad it is. And it turns out that the magistrate judge in the Middle District of Tennessee, this is very gratifying, to be honest, because she ripped it apart in her own

0:36:06 Matt: Decision. So the government moved for a bail review, because here's what's going on. They brought brought him back, he's in criminal custody because he's being charged with federal crimes. And there's a very strange thing happening here where the government is saying, if you release him, then he'll be a flight risk because we'll deport him. Yep. Literally. That's not even an exaggeration. Let me just read what the judge thinks about this. The government emphasizes that absent to stay, it will incur the irreparable injury of Abrego possibly facing deportation from the United States pursuant to the immigration detainer. If deported, the government argues, DOJ will be deprived of the opportunity to pursue its criminal charges. At bottom, the governor asks the court to save it from itself, because it may suffer irreparable harm completely of its own making. This contravenes basic legal understanding of what constitutes quote -unquote irreparable crime. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep.

0:36:40 Thomas: My God. My God, unbelievable. Yeah, that is incredible. And that's the one time they care about the point we always make that deporting people is actually contrary to justice a lot of time. The one time like, wait a minute, if it's deported, then we won't, if we deport him, we won'T be able to prosecute him. Right? Isn't that what they're saying?

0:37:14 Matt: Yep, yep. And who could possibly stop this deportation, Judge?

0:37:19 Thomas: Yeah.

0:37:19 Matt: Not the federal government, certainly. I mean, they do it all the time. They'll hold people for prosecution all the Time. It's not unusual. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right. Yeah.

0:37:25 Thomas: It's sort of like, it's weird. Yeah. To tell a judge, judge, if you don't rule in my favor, I am gonna jump off a bridge and that's irreparable harm like well I don't think that works legally because just don't do that okay

0:37:37 Matt: That's your call, right? That's, that's something you, um, but so what is it for the, under the bail reform act very quickly, they have the opportunity to bring a motion for detention pretrial, right, in a federal case. And it happens all the time, but there are a couple of different ways that are relevant to this. And you might remember that in the Abrego Garcia indictment, and apparently Abrega Garcia, according to his attorneys, likes to go by Abre go. Uh, so I'll, I'll try to keep using that, But in the indictment, they made these ridiculous allegations about trafficking that just don't even begin to comport with – the judge points this out, that it's almost impossible that he could have been doing any of this based on what we know about his life. They're alleging thousands of hours of involvement in gang -related trafficking. But there's a particular thing here where they're also alleging involvement with minors, and they're making some really horrific allegations about not only those trafficking minors but there might have been some sex abuse of minors. And again, this is just going straight to the QAnon, like, always make it about child sex abuse if you possibly can, right? The worst thing that anybody can do. So the judge takes some time, pages, to look into the allegations about the fact that there might have been a minor in the car when the traffic stop occurred. The famous traffic stop that is the only part of the indictment that's supported, which is the weakest part of it. The traffic stop is basically just that he was stopped on his way back, as we talked about last time, some contradiction about where he was even coming from. But this trooper wrote down the birth date of one of the people in the care, and the The court agrees with the defense that there is a credible argument here that someone, not saying who, but someone, changed 2001 to 2007, which is pretty easy to do, to change a 1 to a 7. And when you look at it, it does kind of look like somebody wrote over a 1

0:38:05 Thomas: Got nothing Oh my God, no way! My God, come on!

0:39:10 Matt: And just kind of made it a 7, yep.

0:39:13 Thomas: Well it is a crime to have a person born before a certain year in a car

0:39:17 Matt: Yeah, in your car, right? Of course. And the government is also alleging, by the way, that he often took his own kids along while he was trafficking people. They're not even saying it's necessarily one of his kids. But the government has to make an argument to deny bail in this case by saying that it's a case involving a felony that is not otherwise a crime of violence that involves a minor victim. Remember, the felony alleged here is just trafficking. There's nothing to do with violence or any kind of sex abuse or anything. They're just saying in passing in the indictment that he's also allegedly abusing people. But they're saying that It's enough to hold him because the trafficking may have involved minors. They don't even saying they can prove it involved miners. They just saying it may have involve minors, which is normal, by the way, if you're conducting human trafficking, you're going to traffic families and you'll have kids. But also they have the right to make this argument in any other situation where the defendant is a flight risk. And they're arguing that it's flight risk because ICE is going to take him and deport him. Once again, don't need to rehash how stupid that is. And so none of that actually applies. And she gets into it and she tears the whole thing apart. And it's very gratifying. And I wanted to read one very quick part here, which gets into what we were talking about, about how bad this indictment is. Is. And you might remember that the whole thing, the whole case is based on cooperators who were already convicted of human trafficking, who are themselves Salvadoran, who were themselves subject to deportation, and could be heading to the SECOD for all they know, right? And we don't have time to get into all of the many things she points out. She does a great job. 51 -page decision, we'll link to it. But just to really summarize this, the first cooperator who provided interview statements and grand jury testimony has two prior felony convictions, has been previously deported five times,

0:40:44 Matt: And was released early from a 30-month federal prison sentence for human smuggling as is part of his cooperation in this case. So they already know. This is more than we knew. We already know that he's been released as part of this case for cooperating. So yeah, that's huge. He's the purported domestic leader of the human smuggling organization in which Abrego is accused of participating. He has been granted deferred action, which keeps him from being deported, in exchange for his testimony. Again, keeps him from being deported to El Salvador, where he could go to the SECOD.

0:41:08 Thomas: About the worst possible witness you could think of

0:41:11 Matt: It's so bad. And the second cooperator is also an avowed member of the human smuggling organization and is now in custody charged with a federal crime for which he hopes to be released in exchange for his cooperating grand jury testimony. He's also been previously deported in his request deferred action in exchange of his cooperation. The second cooperator is a closely related family member of the first cooperator. And then the first female cooperator, she goes on. She's just breaking the case apart. Exactly.

0:41:38 Thomas: So not for nothing they are very much giving kinder treatment to actual criminals and traffickers who might actually I don't know you tell me if I'm wrong but might actually be pretty dangerous pretty bad people

0:41:43 Matt: They're allegedly gang members or involved with gangs while trafficking. So yeah, pretty likely.

0:41:46 Thomas: And they're like hey we'll give you whatever whatever sweetheart deal you want if you give us information on this dad who drove a car once.

0:41:54 Matt: We can literally let you out of prison and stop you from being deported if you tell us what we want to hear.

0:41:58 Thomas: Unbelievable.

0:41:59 Matt: And that's kind of what I was suggesting when we were looking at the indictment that something like this had to be be going on, but she just lays it out.

0:42:04 Thomas: We already know it has nothing to do with safety. We already know that. But like, could there be a starker indicator? Like whatever you want to say about like, oh, well, you know, it's about safety. So, you know, maybe they just have a lower tolerance for crime and maybe they're more, you know, more about crime. No, it is not that. It is the only principle here is we are right and get to do whatever we want.

0:42:24 Thomas: That is the only principle that is consistent in this.

0:42:24 Matt: And also, we are so intent. Remember, the reason that they charged him, the reason he's indicted, is that they didn't have to follow the quarter to bring him back. So they had an excuse to bring him back, and that's just so lawless in itself. And again, this all goes back at Emil Bovo's feet, because we know already that the Tennessee U .S. attorney, the deputy who was supposed to file this indictment, quit rather than file this indictment. We know that Rivani quit rather then tell a court in a different proceeding stating that Abrego Garcia was a criminal or terrorist. So what does that tell you, right? You've got the good people are quitting and the bad people are filing these briefs and Amil Bove is directing it. So this person should not be a judge. And that's, I just wanted to tie all this up with that so that we really understand just how bad this all is. You know, these are the kinds of people we have to keep out of government, let alone the judiciary.

0:43:09 Thomas: We need to get them out of the house. Just like lock the doors. Lock your doors when you see them. We just need to keep them out of polite society.

0:43:17 Matt: I mean, he should be disbarred for the Eric Adams thing alone. And we've talked about this, like he shouldn't be a lawyer that just as a minimum. So we've already given him more than enough to send him to SICA. So we should probably move on to the footnote.

0:43:27 Thomas: Gosh. Yeah. All right. I hope this footnote is going to make us feel a little better. We'll take a quick break and then we'll get to my favorite segment, the footnote.

0:43:39 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:43:39 Thomas: Ladies and gentlemen, the footnotes. That needs to be it. It is because it's the last thing before the weekend too. Oh, I love it. Ladies and gentlemen, the footnote. What is it, Matt?

0:43:43 Matt: We made it. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right, that's true.

0:43:51 Matt: So I got some audio for you. This is some audio of, and you're going to get to see the video, but the audience will get the idea from the audio. This we're going be learning about Jerome DeWald, who is a pro se litigant. Now, this is a little more complicated than it's going to sound from this video, this video is amazing.

0:44:07 Matt: I'll explain the context a little bit more after we watch it. But this is in front of the First Department Appellate Division in New York. And so he's taking up an appeal from an employment case. The details don't really matter, but from just from my brief skim of what he's trying to argue, it doesn't make a lot of sense. The argument is somewhat incomprehensible and seems to be relying on the idea that he didn't sign something that he clearly signed. So he's going to pull something that nobody has ever attempted in court before involving AI. So let's just go ahead at 1929.

0:44:21 Thomas: So standard pro se stuff. A 1080 kickflip. No, I'm just kidding.

0:44:37 Matt: That's right. Triple Axel.

0:44:39 Thomas: Wow.

0:44:39 Clip: Mutual is being called out of turn, and the appellant has submitted a video for his argument. OK, we will hear that video now. May it please the court I come here today a humble proceeding before a panel of five distinguished

0:44:59 Matt: Now, let's pause and describe this. Let's describe who this is on the video. It's not the person before the court. The appellant himself described this as a big, beautiful hunk of a man named Jim. So this is an AI Jim. He's not a real person. Yeah.

0:44:59 Thomas: Oh, good. No, come on. I don't know. Who is it? I don'T actually... Is it somebody I should know?

0:45:14 Thomas: Oh, okay. But is this an AI-generated person or was it like... Okay, I wasn't sure if it was modeled off of somebody or something.

0:45:20 Matt: So, this is a video that is going to present his case. This, again, is a pro se litigant. This is not a lawyer. This isn't even an AI of a lawyer, it's just an AI video that's gonna present his case. And the judges are about to react pretty much the way you'd expect.

0:45:31 Clip: Justices may it Please the court. I come here. Today a humble proceeding panel of five distinguished justices. Is this hold on? Is that counsel for the case? I generated I generated, that is not a real person. Okay, it would have been nice to know that when you made your application. You did not tell me that sir, I received the application. And you have appeared before this court and been able to testify verbally in the past. You have gone to my clerk's office and held verbal conversations with our staff for over 30 minutes. Okay I don't appreciate being misled so either you are suffering from an ailment that prevents you from being able to articulate or you don't. You are not going to use this courtroom as a launch for your business sir so if you are able to shut that off if you want to have in time, you may stand up and give it to me.

0:46:44 Thomas: So wait, was she saying that like he's duped them in the past? I'm not sure which way she meant that. Did she mean like you've talked to us a bunch of times and it's been AI this whole time? Or did she mean you talked to a bunch times, you're perfectly capable of doing that. Therefore, you can't use this AI.

0:47:01 Matt: I don't know if he's been in front of this court before, but it sounds like he's had a lot of discussions with the clerk's office and he is well known to the court through this case. Now I will say that Jerome DeWald has a business for pro se litigants. And one of his, basically his entire business is helping people use AI to do their own court cases.

0:47:18 Thomas: To get their ass handed to them by a judge. Do you two want to get absolutely

0:47:21 Matt: Yes, this is not a good advertisement for your business uh now he contracts yeah uh for up to six hundred dollars a month actually I so there there's so much going on here we don't

0:47:27 Thomas: Skewered by an angry judge? Gosh well for the low price of 1999 oh my god for the for the high price of 599.99 a month do you enjoy being dressed down out of your mind do you have a humiliation cake because I don't know actually that might be it that might mean we've landed on

0:47:48 Matt: Have exactly that's right a very specific one

0:47:50 Thomas: It that's how you can charge those prices yeah yep

0:47:53 Matt: Have to be it has to be judges that are doing it so you have to bring your own lawsuit and then do something very stupid so a few things here mr Mr. DeWald is a colorful character, obviously. I'm going to show you something else. So he was claiming, and you know, I don't want to, well, I do a little bit. I was going to say, I didn't want to question this too much, but he had throat cancer 25 years ago, and he's claiming that he can't talk for more than a few minutes at a time. But she made a point of saying, you were in the clerk's office yelling at them for 30 minutes, right? That like, we know that you're capable of speaking. We've heard you do it.

0:48:14 Thomas: I gotcha that's so that's That's how she meant that. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. She's like, you've been too capable of speaking, actually, in our opinion. It'd be nice if you were less capable of it.

0:48:25 Matt: Yeah, right. We're like, I'm not going to do it, I'll do it We've, we've heard quite a lot about you. Yeah. But you know this is interesting though, because Because on one side, obviously, if you're going to bring a lawsuit, you should appear before the court and represent yourself if you don't have a lawyer, like you should be speaking for yourself. But at the same time, you know, and again, I appear in court, I love appearing in court. I don'thave stage fright about this stuff. But I completely understand if you've never been in court before, it must be terrifying to be in front of a panel of judges, right? And if you just want to show them a video, but that's not really the point of an appeals court. The point of the appeals court is you answer questions, you don t make a presentation and sit down. And so his AI hunk is not going to answer questions. And maybe someday in the future, you could feed an AI your entire case and it generates a video advocate that, but again, that's not, I don't know. I don'T want that to happen, obviously.

0:49:05 Thomas: Well, okay. So it sounds like to take this slightly seriously for a second, I suppose, one, if it was a genuine accessibility question, of course, we would no doubt be on the side of accessibility always. I don't know if this is the right solution to that, but like, of course we would. But I guess, you know, if Galaxy Brain or something kind of making the best argument for this, it is true that there's a lot of injustice in that if you're, you know, people who are better looking, people, whatever, like not to mention race, all kinds of reasons why you might get treated worse by the system. It isn't the craziest thing to think, hey, what if we actually required everything to just be like video AI for everybody, actually? I mean, I think you should still have to probably write what it's saying.

0:49:49 Thomas: You know, I don't think it should be AI just like spewing whatever. But like, I could almost see an argument for that. So then it's like everybody's neutral under the eyes of the law kind of thing.

0:49:57 Matt: There are so many different factors in oral arguments that can play in. I mean, just the way you're dressed, your haircut, right? How attractive you are, your gender, right. These are all things that can absolutely, depending on the panel, that can really be a problem. And the old expression goes that you're not going to win a case at oral argument, but you could lose it. That's sort of the conventional wisdom. Him. It's an interesting point that what if we just kind of evened it out? I mean, again, I love oral advocacy. I love being in front of appellate courts. I would like to keep doing that. I'd rather not be replaced by an AI in any sense. But one more quick thing about Jerome DeWald that is relevant. The reason he was fired and the thing that came, the employment dispute that came out of this was that he lied about never having been convicted of a felony. And the felony that he was convicted of was obtaining money over $600 ,000 by pretending to be a PAC and getting political donations.

0:50:38 Matt: So he's a complicated man. And now he's trying to run this pro se litigation litigation thing, which again, there's a cynical read of this that as the judge was saying, you're coming in here and you're showing this video so you can show people how they can use a video judge or a video advocate. And of course, he bombed it.

0:50:47 Thomas: To promote your business. Yeah. Yeah.

0:50:53 Matt: So I don't want anybody to take this as any kind of endorsement. I think this is bad business.

0:50:57 Thomas: When he's trying to make the ad out of this, he can include like a tenth of a second. Your honor. Yeah. See, it works great. Anyway, that's all of the footage I got for that one. Video cut out right after that. That I'm only allowed to show you a little preview, though, you know, for some reason. Yeah.

0:51:13 Matt: Trust me, winning argument killed it. I want to show you one more thing because one of the things he was saying was that he was trying to make an AI version of himself and that he Was using some some kind of trial product to do that. And that honestly, that's kind of interesting, right? If you're saying that, legitimately, let's play this out. Let's just say you do actually have a speech impediment or that you're recovering from throat cancer. Again, we are both very sympathetic to that. If you want to make an AI version of yourself giving a speech, right, but at the same time, you can also just ask the court to waive a law argument if you're a pro se litigant and decide it on the papers, right.

0:51:41 Matt: I mean, oral argument is not the end of everything. And so you're not entitled to it necessarily. And oral argument was also discretionary in many courts. I don't know if it is in this one about whether they decide they think it's something they should put on for a war game at all. But I thought that was interesting that he was saying he couldn't generate an AI version of himself, that it just wasn't working out because he has an AI version of itself on his website. And I want you to take a look at it and just go ahead and describe to the audience.

0:52:03 Matt: There's a video. This is his website, just play a few seconds, actually, like skip into the middle of that video or something and watch his eyebrows. That's how I knew it was an AI video.

0:52:11 Thomas: So skip into the middle. It's only a minute. Okay.

0:52:14 Clip: Draft professional motions that rival expensive law firms and organize evidence in ways that

0:52:23 Thomas: His eyebrows are going wildly up and down.

0:52:25 Matt: It's all over the place. Right.

0:52:26 Thomas: I mean, his eyebrows barely exist. So I think it would be way funnier if he had, like, I don't know. He just doesn't seem to have much hair at all. Maybe that's the problem is the algorithm like struggling. Are these eyebrows or are these part of his head? Yeah. And you can always tell because the mouth just moves a little too freely independently of other parts of them.

0:52:36 Matt: Where are the eyebrows? Eyebrows? Shouldn't there be eyebrows?

0:52:40 Clip: Win cases. They're saving thousands in legal fees while actually improving their outcomes. Here's what's different about my approach. I don't just know legal procedures. I live and breathe the latest AI developments. That combination gives you an edge that's

0:52:57 Matt: Live and breathe

0:52:58 Thomas: If I were presented with this or if I were like, I'd be like, well, not ready yet, but maybe eventually I could use this.

0:53:06 Matt: Yeah sure you know if you don't care about what your eyebrows look like they're deeply disturbing they're jumping all over his face

0:53:10 Thomas: His eyebrows are doing the equivalent of what's that gif where the guy's like the black guy's like smiling kind of you know that one where he's like his mouth is like wildly

0:53:18 Matt: But like the creepy kind of yeah

0:53:21 Thomas: Yeah it's like wildly pursing kind of smile I don't know what that is but it's like his eyebrows ARE doing like that it's so funny yeah

0:53:27 Matt: Yeah so you know complicated man complicated situation interesting idea and like like you said put a pin in the idea that maybe there's a way that we could help pro se litigants with accessibility issues that are legitimate and again I'm not I'm not even really even questioning his disability or what he's saying. It just seems like he's really insisting on using this video and that he kind of snuck this into court, said that's not cool.

0:53:47 Thomas: Yeah regardless you don't do a non-consensual AI thing

0:53:50 Matt: Right. Right, and I mean, that judge's reaction was pretty harsh. It goes on a little more, but she's not wrong, obviously. You expect the person to make their own argument. There's no precedent whatsoever, and there's no rule that allows you to just show a video when you're in court. That's just not fair. So yeah, another weird use of AI in the law.

0:54:07 Thomas: Oh boy that was fun I love it you can't see my eyebrows right now but they're going wild just totally threw up and down. Yeah, everyone should check out that video. I'm sure we'll put it in the show notes. Well, that did make me feel better, Matt. I appreciate it. The footnote is the best. You're never allowed to have AI do the footnote for you.

0:54:25 Thomas: You need to, I want from the horse's mouth.

0:54:26 Matt: It is always a human production, as is everything we do here, and I will say that I do hope that someday soon that Imabove will be a footnote of his own, and maybe we can remember him as a footnote and nothing more. Wouldn't that be nice?

0:54:38 Thomas: All right, well, another great episode. Thanks, Matt, for the breakdown. Thanks, patrons, for supporting the show. Thanks so much, listeners, and have a great weekend. We'll see you next week.

0:55:08 Thomas: He's going to be from now on typecast in every fascist dictatorship.

0:55:06 Matt: The appellant himself described this as a big beautiful hunk of a man named Jim.