James Comey, Seashell Assassin

Transcript

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

0:00:00 Clip: Thank you.

0:00:02 Matt: They were actually trying to allow Republican senators to collect $500,000 each if they could prove that Jack Smith got their phone records records in conspiracy. It is really a conspiracy against the United States when it comes down to it, to our taxpayer dollars and give them out to people who demonstrably committed crimes and don't deserve to be paid out.

0:00:30 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1259. I'm Thomas Smith. Over there is real-life attorney Matt Cameron. How are you doing, Matt?

0:00:36 Matt: Hey, Thomas, just trying to figure out how much I should be suing the government for. Have you considered your big number?

0:00:42 Thomas: Yeah. You have to be part of Trump's inner circle or Trump himself to make the scheme work, but I see, I like where your head's at.

0:00:49 Matt: I feel like I've been wronged quite a lot just in the past few months. Plenty of emotional distress, a war I didn't want, and all kinds of corrupt stuff happening I didn't ask for.

0:00:58 Thomas: Yeah. And then you figure they'll settle with you for, you know, a couple billion, something like that.

0:01:03 Matt: The pattern. That seems to be how it's supposed to work if I'm looking at these cases correctly. We'll talk about them.

0:01:08 Thomas: They can get a few billion, we could, I mean, could we get hundreds gotta be something, right?

0:01:12 Matt: Give me some scraps here I'm out here every day

0:01:16 Thomas: Oh boy. It's overall. Was, of course, the horrific Supreme Court decision that we're not going to be talking about today because we have our own voting rights expert in Jenessa who's going to coming on Monday's show. So that's when we're going to do a big breakdown on that. It's even worse than you're probably thinking. And I I know what you're thinking right now you're thinking no no I already know it's bad and I'm saying no even one more worse than that all

0:01:35 Matt: In the consequences yeah the it came down and she explained to me how far this could really go and as I'm sure she'll be talking to you about I I've been thinking about it a lot but she's the expert it's a good one for her so I'll leave it to her well

0:01:52 Thomas: Right well what are we going to be talking about today yeah

0:01:54 Matt: Otherwise we got a couple other miscellaneous things here and we got to wrap up the ticket master litigation came out in an interesting way after that settlement that we talked about with the Feds. We have the official end of Purdue Pharmaceuticals, the makers of AxiContin. Interesting kind of wrap -up here after some long litigation history. Got the James Comey indictment we should talk about real fast because, well, you just got to talk about it. I've never seen anything quite like this one.

0:02:18 Thomas: She sells she seashells by the seashore I

0:02:22 Matt: Think you mean he sells death threats by the seashore. That's what you're looking for there.

0:02:25 Thomas: I was doing the bad local news or he sells seashell's by the death threat yeah I don' know good times yeah that seems solid that guy's dead man walking right there let me tell you I I should skip the trial, go straight to the execution.

0:02:35 Matt: Nailed. Nailed. And then we've got a really fun footnote I think you're going to enjoy. I was...

0:02:43 Thomas: He should walk the plank for that one. Might as well do a nautical themed one too.

0:02:48 Matt: Yeah, but what do you call it? Maroon him. Maroon him somewhere. He can have all the seashells he wants. That's right. Got a really fun footnote I think you're going to love. I was going through some officer misconduct reports from Massachusetts. You just start looking at officer misconduct reports in the middle of the night. It's an amazing way you can find thousands of pages of documents.

0:02:54 Thomas: Well, good, Matt, because we need it. Wow.

0:03:10 Matt: So fun nuggets.

0:03:11 Thomas: I got a quick footnote for you now. What's a beginning note? A hand note? A head note.

0:03:17 Matt: Headnote.

0:03:18 Thomas: Is it a head note? Oh, cool. I was just guessing.

0:03:18 Matt: It's a headnote. Yeah, that is a

0:03:20 Thomas: But anyway, yeah, it's funny as you mentioned that. Uh think it's kind of a california news thing but somebody I just saw a headline like so-and-so was convicted in murder for hire plot to to murder like husband of you know some police officer unless I'm like you know hi and it wasn't just like low down officers some sort of I don't know police crap but it was somebody in a position of power and and I guess she hired somebody to kill her husband you're just like what are these people doing who who are cops? What are they? Like that's a weird thing. All right.

0:03:48 Matt: Question we will only continue to answer in today's footnote. I'm telling you, get some

0:03:53 Thomas: Well, I'm excited for that. Well. All Right. We better take our usual break, which you can avoid at patreon.com/law and you can get the goodies. You can get a lot of movies of which you've already heard that preview. I hope patrons enjoy that. But yeah, skip those ads, support the show. All right. We'll pause and then we'll come back.

0:03:53 Matt: Fun ones.

0:04:15 Thomas: Our first story, Matt?

0:04:16 Matt: Right, let's talk about the Comey indictment. Just a little warm-up for you here. Know you've seen some of the details, but it is just so ridiculous. Some of the details. Well, I mean, there's only a detail.

0:04:25 Thomas: Some You mean, in quotes, some of the, in quotes, details?

0:04:28 Matt: Yeah. Just to review with everybody, the actual Instagram post. I should send it to you. I'm sure you've seen it before, but true.

0:04:35 Thomas: Don't want that criminal stuff contraband on my computer, Matt. Don't you dare send that to me. It's a death sentence.

0:04:42 Matt: It's well too late. Sorry.

0:04:43 Thomas: Ah, I'm part of the criminal conspiracy now. Damn.

0:04:47 Matt: So on the fated date of, May, 2025.

0:04:50 Thomas: Seen it. It's seashells. What they don't tell you is pictures of seashell are sort of like, you child sex abuse material where it's like even just possessing a picture of seashells. Is, already a criminal. Yeah. I'm a wanted man now.

0:05:03 Matt: This picture, this is should describe to the people what we're looking at though.

0:05:09 Thomas: I don't even, am I allowed to, I don't even know if I can.

0:05:11 Matt: You get immunity. You're a

0:05:12 Thomas: It's seashells that say eight, six, four, seven. And though eight is white. I don't know why that is. The rest of them are dark. I don't know if that's part of the meaning or just that's the shells they could find. Cause it's an interesting artistic choice, whether if you've got a mixture of white and black shells, whether you mix the the white and black in together, or for some reason, the eight is why is there a meaning there?

0:05:12 Matt: Journalist. I

0:05:33 Thomas: I don't know. Have to ask Poseidon himself.

0:05:33 Matt: Don't know. Or Mr. Comey. I'm not even sure he made this formation. You can see from the caption.

0:05:40 Thomas: No. Yeah. Didn't the tweet say like, oh, he came across this or something.

0:05:43 Matt: It says, cool shell formation on my beach walk. That's all it says. And so of course, MAGA lost their minds and said that he was trying with this standard kind of restaurant, take it off the menu slang. He's trying to say that it's time to kill the president.

0:05:56 Thomas: And there's no way he made that. Like I say what you want about Comey. I'm sure he just saw that someone else did this, right?

0:06:03 Matt: Yeah.

0:06:03 Thomas: Not that that that matters at all yeah that's the real murder trump and oj need to find that pertinent I don't know the real yeah

0:06:06 Matt: Find that person, obviously. The troop. Yeah. So I had to find out what Todd Blanche had to say about this because, I mean, our acting attorney general surely can explain because the indictment itself is exactly what you would think it is. It is two counts. It is knowingly and willfully making a threat to take the life of and inflict bodily harm upon the president of the United States in that he publicly posted a photograph on the internet. That's what it says. Yeah. On Instagram, which depicted seashells arranged in a pattern, et cetera, et cetera, which a reasonable recipient familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to That's right. And restaurant language, I guess. And then count two is that he transmitted an interstate and foreign commerce, a communication that contained a threat to kill. So yeah, that's it. That is the whole thing.

0:06:44 Thomas: Familiar with seashell language oh man my privacy setting should have been set to just my my state and then it wouldn't have been they couldn't have gotten me with the interstate commerce yeah

0:07:04 Matt: So naturally, the press has some questions for Todd Blanch as to how this could possibly be be an indictment. And let's see what he has to say about that.

0:07:15 Thomas: I'm sure it'll be so effective by the end of it he'll be apologizing they'll be like oh you're right I'm a fraud after all it's

0:07:21 Matt: This is quite an answer.

0:07:21 Thomas: Gonna be great let's see uh

0:07:23 Clip: Former FBI director James Comey, a grand jury has indicted the former FBI director for this Instagram post. I want to put it up. I think a lot of folks have seen it at this point.

0:07:30 Matt: Good question.

0:07:33 Clip: 86 -47 in seashells, which the indictment says, quote, a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the president of the United United States. How does that image of seashells amount to a serious threat against the president's life? Well, every case requires an investigation. And what you just showed is one part of that investigation. What you just show it is the Instagram post. Rest

0:07:33 Thomas: She's in criminal now arrest her it comes back and he's slapping cuffs on her oh okay but there were mountains of seashells we found in this guy's he's just we we busted it down his doors seashells just came out like just poured out when we opened the door no

0:08:11 Clip: The career assistant United States attorneys in North Carolina, the career FBI agents, the carrier Secret Service agents that investigated this case didn't just look at the Instagram post and walk away. That's why you saw an indictment last week, notwithstanding the fact that it was last May that the post was made.

0:08:18 Thomas: They all left

0:08:28 Clip: So I am not permitted to get into the details of what the grand jury heard or found, as you know, but rest assured that it's not just the Instagram post that leads somebody to get indicted. Well,

0:08:26 Thomas: Walk away oh

0:08:38 Matt: Todd, literally, that's what he was indicted for. I'm looking at the indictment, you can look at the indictment yourself, it says nothing else. I mean, the idea that I love how he's defending people and saying, well, of course, these career people would never actually do this stupid indictment that I told them to do.

0:08:50 Thomas: These well also it's like all the career ones left so I think it just means this is their their current career. Like they're in this, they're in the career.

0:08:58 Matt: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. They are currently doing that career. Reason it took from May to now is not because they were doing all this investigation of the Instagram post. It was because they couldn't get him on line to Congress. They couldn't even begin to get him online to Congress. And Lindsay Halligan, of course, went down hard because she wasn't actually the U.S. attorney for the jurisdiction. So huge, embarrassing mess. So the a huge embarrassing mess, there's a new one. Why not?

0:09:25 Thomas: Yeah.

0:09:26 Matt: Sense. Just do something even stupider.

0:09:28 Thomas: Just, he's trying to say, look, there's so much more than this, but you're, and he tries to hide behind like well I can't get into what the grand jury excuse but then you're saying yeah but the indictment is just this so what's so

0:09:41 Matt: That's all it says. So if there's some other threat, then

0:09:43 Thomas: It's not like there could be some secret evidence that's not in the indictment okay so he's just a liar

0:09:48 Matt: I it's ridiculous. I guess it's the best he can do is like, you don't know what the grand jury saw, but the indictment could not be more clear about what the great jury saw.

0:09:54 Thomas: For for the grand jury we actually brought in the shells and when you see them in person it is much different well

0:10:03 Matt: I say this every week now, but this is a new law for the Department of Justice.

0:10:07 Thomas: Just right away way she's bringing up the photo in the news why is that not a crime I don't even understand like if that

0:10:14 Matt: Yeah. No, she asks him in this interview, she says, well, you can buy 8 -6 -4 -7 merchandise online. Are you going to indict all those people? He's like, oh, no, of course not.

0:10:16 Thomas: Does she where's that I want to hear that is

0:10:23 Clip: James Comey deleted the post the same day and he wrote, quote, I didn't realize some some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me. But I oppose violence of any kind. So I took the post down. How do you prove intent, Mr. Blanch, when Mr. Comey himself said he didn't understand that some people would look at that and think about violence? You prove intent like you always prove intent. You prove intent with witnesses. You proof intent with documents, with materials. So again, this

0:10:52 Thomas: Witnesses what is mr instagram is like who's who's I what his what's what witness yeah

0:11:04 Matt: They're going subpoena all of his followers and have them come in. I did see this.

0:11:09 Thomas: Documents you know those secret he wrote in his journal ha ha actually did mean that they

0:11:17 Clip: Just about a single Instagram post. This is about a body of evidence that the grand jury collected over the series of about 11 months. That evidence was presented to the grand jury. And it's not the government. It's not The Department of Justice. It's not Todd Blanche that returned an indictment against James Comey. It's a grand jury, part of the judicial process. And this process has to be allowed to play out in the courts. It's no fair to Mr. Comey, it's certainly not fair to the prosecutors for us to be airing your view or my view of this indictment. It's something that will be presented in court at the time set by the judge. Let's delve a little deeper. Conservative legal scholar Jonathan Turley

0:11:23 Thomas: Collected it

0:11:47 Matt: Of this indictment, yes. Other indictments.

0:11:48 Thomas: Yeah stupid yeah

0:11:54 Clip: Said, quote, this indictment is facially unconstitutional, absent some unknown new facts. Are there, are you in fact saying that there are facts beyond this Instagram post that clearly establish an intent to threaten the president's life? I've said repeatedly that this was an investigation that lasted 11 months. If the only facts that existed was the posting of the Instagram, obviously that wouldn't have taken 11 months.

0:12:00 Matt: Wow. You lost Turley.

0:12:12 Thomas: Well I'm certainly implying it then what the hell were

0:12:22 Clip: And so when Mr. Turley talks about whether it's facially unconstitutional, absent unknown facts or circumstances, we will necessarily have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt at trial every element of this crime, which we're prepared to do. Can you and will you let the public know what any of those other facts are? Absolutely. It's called a trial. That's what happens in every single case we indict thousands of cases every year every one of those cases there's an indictment and then eventually there is a trial or some sort of disposition at the trial a public trial that will be open to the public everybody in this country will know exactly what what evidence the government has against mr. Cole I know you can't give me specifics

0:12:22 Thomas: My employees doing for 11 months cut trial I love this yeah yeah other

0:13:01 Clip: But can you give me any insight are you talking about writings are you talking about conversations what it does this other evidence consist of we are are talking about evidence of all sorts. And that means documents. That means witnesses. And that means that means the whole array of what we did. And again, we are not talking about some political guy in D .C. running out and getting an indictment. We are talking about career prosecutors in North Carolina systematically investing a case with the FBI working with them, with the Secret Service working with them. And now we have an indictement. Well, the image, excuse me, is part of of what led to this indictment. It is worth noting that on Amazon.com, we looked this up, there are dozens of products with the same terminology. We're showing it right here, 8647,

0:13:09 Matt: It's amazing.

0:13:10 Thomas: Ocean remnants

0:13:25 Matt: Yes, we are. That's you. You're the political guy.

0:13:34 Thomas: Rest

0:13:47 Clip: Being sold and purchased right now. Should individuals selling or buying 8647 merchandise be concerned that they're going to be prosecuted by the DOJ? This isn't about a single incident, okay? This isn't, I mean, of course not. That's posted constantly.

0:13:47 Thomas: Them all well

0:14:02 Matt: It literally is.

0:14:03 Clip: That phrase is used constantly.

0:14:02 Thomas: Of course not what yeah

0:14:05 Clip: There are constantly men and women who choose to make threatening statements against President Trump. Every one of those statements do not result in indictments, of course. There are facts, there are circumstances, there Are investigations that have to take place. And we have charged dozens and dozens of men and Women this year with threatening President Trump and others. So this isn't a new charge we're bringing.

0:14:26 Thomas: There's some super duper secret that's the important thing in maga world is like if you can just delay the part where you have to produce anything long enough then you can hope people forget or something I don't know this

0:14:38 Matt: This is a prosecutor who didn't do his homework and he's just falling back on well the grand jury found it.

0:14:43 Thomas: Is a town to town monorail salesman

0:14:45 Matt: What are Yeah, he does have that look.

0:14:48 Thomas: So you're gonna there's gonna be it's a whole investigation there's 11 months I really wonder what that will I would love insight into that yeah

0:14:56 Matt: He know that we can read the indictment, that it is public? Because it does say exactly why they're indicting him and for no other reason, and it's specifically this post. So when she's saying, you can buy this stuff online, they're claiming that this is a direct threat to kill the president. All these people are just selling t -shirts that just say, kill the President, I guess, in

0:15:13 Thomas: So he's just trying to take advantage of people not knowing the legal system like it's yes you so what's the interplay of the indictment and the whatever the evidence I mean yes there's obviously going to be like additional stuff at trial maybe but how does that work I there can't be like a whole different set of things that you're charged with like

0:15:31 Matt: He wasn't even saying there's more charges coming. He wasn't saying that they're still presenting a case. They're just saying this is what they had. And you have to be able to show for that interstate communication thing that he subjectively intended as a threat, which obviously, as she said, he took it back and said, I had no idea it meant that. And it doesn't necessarily mean that. It also has to be a true threat, and the Supreme Court has been very generous about what's a true threat. Was it in Watts in 69, they returned the guy that said that if I ever get LBJ in my sights, very a Vietnam protester. Is just so obviously protected speech and it is such an embarrassment to bring this when so badly the first time trying to bring that other stupid charge. So I just thought it was worth taking taking a minute on.

0:16:15 Thomas: He certainly has no infinite capacity for shame he just takes as a vessel for like youre an idiot youreanidiotyourean idiot doesn't matter he'll just take it and just no no you'll see you'll all see a trial at the trial yeah like What are the odds this is going to trial, Matt?

0:16:28 Matt: Trial. I know. Yeah, they seem pretty low. They think they just want to make him spend some money on defense attorneys and annoy him. I don't think anybody thinks this is going to trial and if it does that'll be gabba gabba material. We're getting that transcript. It's gonna make the sandwich trial look pretty good.

0:16:49 Thomas: Oh, man. All right. Well, is that all we have on that stupid thing?

0:16:53 Matt: That's that's James Comey indictment.

0:16:54 Thomas: Know, it was really hard for us to summarize an 11 -month investigation in this short segment, but we found a way to do it.

0:17:00 Matt: I thank you Todd Blanche for that explanation. Let's talk for a minute about Purdue Pharmaceuticals. We got another minute here before the next break. Obviously, the makers of OxyContin, I think everybody should know, if they don't know the story, that they intentionally marketed a product, which a way that they said that you could take it every 12 hours, but they knew it would wear off after 10 or 11 hours so that you'd have to take it in such a waythat it would become addictive, that it was almost inevitably going to become psychologically, physiologically addictive for pain patients. That, of course, spurred a massive crisis in this country, which continues now with opioids and drove the sales of heroin. A recommend the book Dreamland, The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones. This is one of my favorite nonfiction books in a while that kind of tells the story of not just what happened with Purdue and OxyContin, but then also the incredibly interesting story of the very quiet and nonviolent cartel that started to install itself in places where there'd never been drug sales before to pick up on the heroin market coming

0:17:56 Matt: Out of that. These are drug dealers. These are high -level drug dealers who knew exactly what they were doing and killed a lot of people and destroyed a lot of lives. On this. We were talking last time about the corporate death penalty and about what happens when corporations plead guilty to things. Were some guilty pleas way back. There was a round of criminal cases in which some executives, I think the most that had to happen was that there were fines, some criminal fines paid, but nobody went to jail for this. I try not to think too much about it because it is something that will actually make me angry when I think about the people I've met who are serving many, many years for selling small small amounts of street versus these people with this organized conspiracy. Had been a lot of back and forth. We didn't end up covering the Supreme Court case from a couple of years ago. It was a very unusual case where they overturned the settlement agreement. That's kind of what stalled this out for a while. It Was a 5 -4, but it was a very unusual 5 - 4. The dissent was actually Kavanaugh joined by Roberts, Kagan, and Sotomayor. And was whether that bankruptcy settlement could bind third parties or protect third parties, in this case, the Sackler family. And the agreement that had been reached in that case would have allowed the SACKLER family immunity essentially and to keep running the business. And that was overturned. I think that was the right call because they should be paying for this. There should not be any

0:19:06 Matt: Money left in the Sackler family. I mean, they knew exactly what was going on here. Finally now, after many, many years, the settlement agreement was in 2020. But it has finally become final, and going to turn the pharmaceutical empire into a non -profit that can't really mitigate. I mean, you cannot bring back these people who died, and you cannot end the years of it's gonna be called Noah Pharma, K -N -O -A, I don't know where that comes from, but it's settlement. $7 billion is going to be paid out by the Sackler family members, about $900 million from Purdue. And going to be distributed to state and local governments for the most part. The payouts to individual victims are pretty disappointing. I saw that it works out to something like $16,000 each in the $750 million. A lot of other smaller payouts, but

0:19:44 Thomas: Who's technically a victim on that how's that okay

0:19:47 Matt: Well, anybody who I think joined this settlement agreement could have... There's so many people, obviously, the long -ranging effects of the opioid epidemic.

0:19:56 Thomas: I wasn't sure if there's like it had to be somebody died or somebody like what what qualifies are

0:20:01 Matt: Individual victims are going to range from about about 8,000, maximum I think about 16,000. And this has to be people who can prove that they were prescribed or otherwise can show medical records that they were taking OxyContin. Were 140 ,000 initial claims. And I guess because it's so hard to get proof now, it's been decades in some of these cases, it's expected that there's not going to be as many individuals as there would have been. But is the settlement. This is it.

0:20:29 Matt: This and it doesn't close out obviously the opioid epidemic or the long -ranging consequences but it is at least some kind of justice and corporation itself did actually was found guilty and was dissolved uh

0:20:39 Thomas: I'm glad we punished that corporation doing all those that stuff I mean the p the people who make all the money from the the corporation we're like oh no don't do oh and then the corporation did the epidemic and but we punished the corporation for it so that's good people

0:20:53 Matt: So that's that's at least that yeah

0:20:55 Thomas: Are like damn it why did that corporation do that I'm

0:20:58 Matt: Know how it is born

0:20:58 Thomas: The sackler family's like we're as mad as you are everybody that our corporation did that sucks

0:21:03 Matt: Apple of a corporation you rotten

0:21:09 Thomas: Oh god yep it had bad corporate parents

0:21:12 Matt: That's right bad parent corporation years of therapy to deal with your bad parent cooperation uh yeah so I mean that is at least it is a resolution it is good news um it is some kind of justice but it's nowhere near what it should have been quick speaking of justice the ticket master verdict is at last some good news before we get on to our next subject um talked about last time a few months ago in march about about the settlement agreement that was kind of very much kind of a backroom thing the federal government reached with Ticketmaster over some very obviously monopolistic practices. And you can go back and listen to that episode.

0:21:14 Thomas: Parent corporations yeah yeah yeah and it was like during the yeah not to rehash the whole thing was like during it was during the trial or almost the trial was kind of going and it surprised the even the lawyers working on it right judge was not very happy about it.

0:21:56 Matt: No. And it was negotiated kind of at the highest levels with DOJ, and it kind of came as a big surprise. And I think the federal government actually thought the states might join it because there were, I think, 33 states total involved in in DC. The states thought better, and it's a good thing that they did, because did actually reach a verdict on April 15th, and I just wanted to very quickly update because this is such a big decision. They came back and found Ticketmaster liable in every single claim of the antitrust violations and anti -competitive behavior.

0:22:21 Thomas: That seems good.

0:22:22 Matt: Yeah, great win. It's going to take some time to stage. We'll see exactly what Ticketmaster has to do. I think they're going to have to be broken up somehow because of the way that Live Nation and the other concert promoters and venues, we talked before about how there's way too many stadia that are involved, big venues are part of their thing and the way they've done exactly what they're not supposed to do, which is steer everybody at extremely high prices, imposing high fees into their venues and using their promoters in their promotion. So will see. There's going to be a very very long remedies phase. So it's probably not going to see the end of it this year. I'm going to keep watching this one, but I just want to make the point that this is actually a great way to introduce our next topic because you've got the federal government preemptively settling when there's no reason to do that, when the jury was clearly going to come back and find against them. So, and as you said, on the eve of trial really brings it out. Just note that Arkansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, in South Dakota all went in on the Krupp deal and all the other states stuck it out.

0:23:19 Thomas: It's so dumb. I mean, I don't even know why they did that. The It's easy answer is that they're just doing Trump stuff, but it's not good for them or their people or anything. I don't, you know, I don't even know why they would do that.

0:23:20 Matt: Why? Why do that? Oh, yeah, I don't think they had the kind of losses that New York and New Jersey were showing to their citizens, because obviously those are much bigger venues there. So there's that. Think of the largest arena in South Dakota. Can't think any famous concerts there, but sorry, South Dakota.

0:23:44 Thomas: Yeah, that's fair. Like, one, we plan on having a concert someday, you know, and we don't want to –

0:23:48 Matt: We've got lots of space. We can put a lot of people here.

0:23:51 Thomas: We've been trying. We think it's because of them that we haven't. Ticketmaster seems like very good news, right? I mean, I don't know how much it will ultimately change what we need to have change, but step in the right direction. But about the Purdue thing? What was your overall take on that? That I mean that's always seemed like just not nearly enough at all ever but

0:24:09 Matt: Was reached after a great effort from the states, from a lot different plaintiffs. It was always going to have to be some kind of large global resolution. They were never going to be able to just do every single case that could possibly exist. So from what I can tell, I mean, this is probably about the best they could have expected. I just really want to see criminal consequences, and that's obviously not going to part of this, other the consequences of the company. But the company was never going to survive this. Nobody really thought that. Know the net worth of the Sackler family, but I would hope that $7 billion would put a dent in their fortunes. A year prior to his death, the head of the Sackler family was estimated to have a net worth of about $13 billion, and it's possible they have about $11 billion now as of the last sort of review. So I think they're going to be left over with a few billion still. They'll be all right. A few billion too many yeah yeah

0:24:48 Thomas: Those poor souls hey I'm starting a gofundme for them because they're only gonna have you know a handful of billions what how what how are you supposed to live I

0:24:56 Matt: How can you even staff your sixth vacation home with that kind of money I wouldn't know

0:25:02 Thomas: So look for at the link in the show notes I really it's really really personal to me that

0:25:07 Matt: Only gonna have two yoga teachers instead of four no

0:25:09 Thomas: God I can't you're right I'm getting bummed out we gotta go to break well hopefully we can we that but uh all right we'll take a break and then we'll get on to other stories all right Matt it's a settlement theme today um talk about out more settlements hmm

0:25:13 Matt: Yeah settlements a grab bag for you here I just when I started looking because there's been a couple in the news recently and then I just started going back because we haven't talked about any of these, and there are so many. Let's start with the media, because we had talked about the Trump lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal. He was seeking enormous amounts of money, billions of dollars from the Wall street Journal, because they had the audacity to publish a drawing with text that he definitely produced, whether he made it himself or had somebody else make it for Jeffrey Epstein.

0:25:49 Matt: They went in the infamous Epstein birthday book.

0:25:49 Thomas: Well hold on did they publish it because I thought what happened was they had a description of it and then that was the weirdness of it

0:25:56 Matt: They didn't publish the picture. Right, but they were still acknowledging its existence and Trump sued to say that this was a complete lie, totally false.

0:26:02 Thomas: They they stuck by it though when he was like ah it doesn't exist they're like we stand by our sources it's it does exist

0:26:09 Matt: We've seen it. We know what it is. Yeah. And of course, they came out, the actual official picture did come out eventually from the Epstein files, from the birthday book itself, which is disgusting. It was actually much worse than I expected, having read the whole thing now for work.

0:26:21 Thomas: Just trying to refresh because I do know there was one that that came out initially that turned out wasn't it was just somebody guessing and I'm crazy I think the real one turned out being not that that dissimilar from that hold

0:26:31 Matt: Right. Yeah, pretty much what you'd expect, but it was the signature in the pubic area.

0:26:36 Thomas: To so that did come out in the

0:26:37 Matt: Did come out from the Rote book because we got the whole thing from the Epstein files. So know for sure that the Wall Street Journal was correct when it had multiple sources telling it that this existed. I never doubted that. For the Wall street journal, obviously for not settling. Was a motion to dismiss, obviously, because you have to be able to prove since Donald Trump is the most famous person in the world, you have to be able to that it was actual malice that they're acting with reckless disregard or actual falsity they didn't go out of their way to try to research this and see if it was actually true. And of course, in their response to his suit, they'd already detailed extensively about everything they did reporting -wise to make sure that they knew that this was as true as it could be. And they gave him a chance to respond in the story. And of coarse, he said it was false in the story. So what else are you going to do, right? On April 13th, earlier about a month ago, found that there was no actual malice. They said that Trump didn't even really claim actual malice. They basically just repeated the words actual malice and didn't even really try to explain why they thought it was actual malice because they can't. There's just no way to do it. They know that the Wall Street Journal actually investigated this. As he said, a plaintiff has to show the defendant deliberately avoided the veracity of the statement in order to evade learning the truth. That's a pretty high standard for a journalist that you had to basically close your eyes and publish the story without checking on anything. Thing. The judge in that case gave Trump until the 27th of April to file an amended complaint. He said, go ahead. If you want to try to amend, allege actual malice, you can do that. And he didn't. So that's the end of that. That case has been dismissed.

0:27:59 Matt: Yeah. So, that's good news. I want to start with a good one. Contrast, just to remind everybody, the CBS settlement, I don't know if we talked about that at the time, but of CBS editing Kamala Harris's interview to make her look smarter or whatever, and just publishing Trump's interview and pretty much anything you publish from Trump's interview is not going to make him look good. Completely baseless, totally nothing to it. But because, and this is true, because CBS was trying to sell Paramount to Skydance and the merger was held up, they settled for $16 million, just to remind everybody that that happened. Went back and checked the dates. The settlement was at the beginning of July. And by the end of July, the FCC had approved the merger with sky dance in 2025. So I can't really think that's a coincidence. Just a reminder too, the ABC previously settled over the Stephanopoulos story. George Stephanopoulos was talking about reporting on the E. Jean Carroll verdict where he was found liable. And again, I just always want to be clear about that because people often say he was felt guilty. He was found civilly liable, not for rape, but for sexual abuse. That

0:27:59 Thomas: Darn oh my god yep

0:29:01 Matt: Just kind of a slip of the tongue, I think he said liable for rape, which is completely understandable because it's not that different. Was certainly sexual touching, they settled for $15 million when they definitely could have fought that one. Just a reminder that could be worse. So that was a good one. I thought that the judge finally dismissed that. It was about as frivolous as it gets. Of frivolously, we've got Trump suing the IRS. You heard about this one?

0:29:07 Thomas: Unreal oh I don't know which one I feel like there's been maybe multiple of this there's the tax return stuff there

0:29:28 Matt: Super corrupt. These things I'm going to tell you about are definitely corrupt to one degree or another because are collusive lawsuits. There's a whole doctrine about this. You can't have a suit in which the two parties are essentially agreeing one sues the other what it's going to be. To remind everybody, this is Donald Trump suing over the Internal Revenue Service's actions while he was president under a commissioner that that he appointed, and he's saying that they were negligent when they allowed Charles Littlejohn, and they didn't, of course, allow it, but Charles Littlejohn did a number of years of his tax returns. And so the suit is Trump and the Trump companies all suing. Did time on this, as we've talked about, because he thought that people should know.

0:30:04 Matt: Yeah, I think he's still there now. Yeah. That's right.

0:30:03 Thomas: He's in prison isn't he yeah it's it's really bad yeah

0:30:07 Matt: Yeah." And his reason for doing it was he thought voters should know before the 2020 election that Trump had hardly ever paid his taxes, including out of 15 previous years, there were no taxes paid. Is painful. This complaint is so bad. So many of these things we're going to talk about where he's essentially trying to literally capitalize on just bad stuff, stuff that he did wrong. I understand that little John broke the law, he knew that himself when he did it, but yeah, yeah. Are the things you expect as somebody who really, I'm sure he fully expected that was going to happen.

0:30:33 Thomas: Looks like little john will be in prison release date of october 22nd 2027 so pleaded guilty and still got almost the maximum

0:30:47 Matt: And I mean that was actually, and again I'm not condoning this for people who might be in a position to do it, but that was a public service at the end of the day that was not a punitive thing that he was doing just because he hated Trump. It was something that people do need to know about. People are running for president and presidents have released their tax returns so it's not that crazy.

0:31:04 Thomas: Yeah. It's to release the things that every other president ever has done. Well, not ever, but like for a long time.

0:31:11 Matt: Candidate, yeah. I just wanted to read here from the complaint. Because of defendants' wrongful conduct, that's the IRS, plaintiffs were subject to, among many others, at least eight separate stories in the New York Times which wrongly and specifically alleged various improprieties relating to plaintiffs' financial records and taxpayer history. My favorite here was false allegations that President Trump engaged in quote-unquote tax avoidance. How dare you?

0:31:36 Thomas: But hold on. False allegations.

0:31:38 Matt: That's what they're saying. They're claiming that those are false allegations.

0:31:41 Thomas: I get that he's always going to say that. But like if the whole thing is like, hey, you releasing my tax returns caused this problem and then you're saying the problem is false allegations well then why would the tax returns do anything wouldn't you have to admit they were true but just people shouldn't have known about them oh

0:31:58 Matt: Don't you say the New York Times if how that goes for you. There's other different examples of this too of talking... Different headlines that are talking about how equally his businesses weren't doing well, which is true. That's why he was writing off so much. That'S something else people should know.

0:32:01 Thomas: Yeah good point but right away wouldn't the well again it's him suing himself so but I would think if this was real the irs would be like look how could we be liable for someone else's false allegations doesn't even make any sense does it like

0:32:22 Matt: But false allegations based on what you're conceding are true tax returns. It's a very good point.

0:32:27 Thomas: If I take something that somebody released and then I make something up, I think that you would be liable because you had a piece of paper that I used to make something up. I don't think that's how the law works. I'm not the lawyer of the show.

0:32:39 Matt: I guess they just have to say it this way because otherwise you're going to say that it caused people to release the truth.

0:32:45 Thomas: BECAUSE HE ALWAYS HAS TO DENY IT. I'M JUST SAYING, I FEEL LIKE THAT WOULD UNDERMINE THE ENTIRE THING. BUT I GUESS IF YOU'RE BOTH SIDES OF THE THING, THEN MAYBE, YEAH, THERE'S NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE JUDGE TO BE LIKE, THIS LOOKS FAKE, ALL

0:32:52 Matt: So that is what just happened. That's why I want to talk about this. Is an Obama appointee. I she's very reasonably wondering what is going on here, her President Trump avers that he is bringing this lawsuit in his personal capacity, he is the sitting president, and his named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction. Accordingly, it is unclear to this court whether the parties are sufficiently adverse to each other. Thank you. Just a bit of sanity there. That's nice.

0:33:19 Thomas: Yeah, they don't let you do like a friendly lawsuit. Just a friendly game.

0:33:23 Matt: That is the collusion doctrine, collusive lawsuits, you can't do it. Actually not only ordered both sides to produce briefs about how bad this is, she also appointed six private attorneys to get together to provide a memo on whether this could even be a legitimate lawsuit and not a collusive one. So I think this has to be dismissed. And if this were allowed in any amount, just a horrible precedent, obviously, like

0:33:43 Thomas: I hope so. Have the other ones worked? Because, I mean, they've been ones like from the DOJ, from all this stuff. Like, have those have any of those gone through yet or or have they been stopped in similar fashion?

0:33:58 Matt: Going to be talking about them, but is one in particular I'll talk about next that I think should not have settled, that has settled.

0:34:03 Thomas: Settled as in it's a done and gone and he's gotten money.

0:34:06 Matt: Trump, but in terms of people people that probably shouldn't have been paid out. But as far as I know, Trump himself has not received any money from the US government yet.

0:34:11 Thomas: Gotcha. OK. Oh OK. That's really.

0:34:16 Matt: And this is the case in another one we're going to talk about as well, but Elizabeth Warren had to introduce a bill to make it very clear that presidents in the future and vice presidents can't do this. They can't just see the IRS or the government this way and try to collect and get in these collusive lawsuits. Bill you wouldn't think you would have to file, but that's where we're at. Want to mention too, he made noise about suing over the Mar-a-Lago raid. He said he was going to bring that for $230 million, but it doesn't appear that's ever been filed. I shouldn't even use the word raid. It was a service of a search warrant. It went very smoothly and he wasn't even there. Just the fact that he would float that, that we're even in a world where the president can just openly talk about suing the DOJ for rightfully taking a look at classified documents in his house, or that he Would sue the IRS for this thing that happened under his watch and try to reach a settled agreement while he's still the president. I mean, I just wanted to really point out where we're at. I'm glad that Judge Williams could see it too.

0:35:11 Matt: One that has settled that that I think really shouldn't have, was the case of Ashley Babbitt, of course, who was killed on January 6th. Should have been, if anything is going to be qualified immunity, this really should have Been qualified immunity. You remember from our conversations about qualified immunity before that have to basically show that something like this has happened before. So what the last time that someone tried to break into the house chamber when or during a riot in the Capitol started by the president. Anybody remember?

0:35:31 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. That's right. In order to pierce it, in order to kind of get around it.

0:35:43 Thomas: Yeah yeah. Yeah. And the conduct would have to be like wrong.

0:35:48 Matt: That too. Yeah, he's been getting to the next part. But right, yeah. DOJ, of course, completely cleared the officers in 2021. It was an emergent situation. They heard glass breaking. They thought they heard something else, but I mean it doesn't matter. There was an emergency happening. They see this person trying to get through the... They have no idea how many people are armed. They know that there are people in there with weapons. Think they took a shot outer shoulder. They were trying to find an unlethal shot. But again, we've seen so many police shootings that are so much less justified than this that have been cleared.

0:35:50 Thomas: It's also that. Yeah.

0:36:16 Matt: And DOJ, of course, cleared this one. So you've got a combination of no wrongdoing and very obvious qualified immunity. This was definitely filed late too, like a couple of these seats we're going to talk about. You have two years under the Federal Tort Claims Act, And think we talked about this before, but under the Federal Tort Crimes Act, you have to file something called a Form 95 to initiate it before you go to court, and you have to see what their answer is on that. And if they don't answer within a certain period of time, that's an answer, and you can proceed. They are trying to say that even though they tried and tried and tried and kept having all these denials that they never appealed and never went to court for, that it was this last one that for some reason they get to proceed on. It's way too late. Because it was too late by the time they thought to do this, I guess. John Sauer, as in so many of these cases, our Solicitor General, had to file something to to say, we're giving up and we're reaching a settlement of $4.975 million. That was last June, but I just wanted to mention it. They sued for $30 million. They sued for 5 million. Police shooting is a tragedy, but in

0:37:12 Thomas: More tragic than others.

0:37:15 Matt: And by this logic, they should be paying out to everyone who's ever been shot by a federal officer, including Rene Good's family.

0:37:21 Thomas: Imagine thinking, yeah, I was going to say, imagine thinking this was valid, but then like Renee Goode or yeah, it's probably like,

0:37:26 Matt: That looks pretty, right? Just bad shots. Goes to show, as were some of the other ones, who we think is worth getting government money and who isn't. And this is especially painful, of course, because we all I'll just have to pay our taxes or at least put an extension to pay our taxes last month. So on my mind. You're not paying your taxes. I wouldn't say that on the air as your attorney. Then we've got Carter Page. I hadn't heard that name in a while, but that was the Trump campaign advisor who wiretapped in the – remember all those with the Russian election interference? This feels like so long ago now. It was 10 years ago. I guess it was.

0:37:41 Thomas: Going to stay. I'm not bothering. Who cares? Oh, yeah. Yeah, God.

0:38:00 Matt: The thing is that he's not wrong. The FBI did not do a good job with the warrant. And the whole thing raises a lot about the FISA court and how they operate. There were multiple misrepresentations made to get that warrant. The FBI left out a whole bunch of things, including their knowledge that he actually had never talked to the person that they're saying that he might have talked to. He had more of a legitimate complaint, but it's also extremely hard to get a settlement or to get him to get any money, any kind of FTC claim. Is another one that was late. He knew about the issue as of 2017. He didn't bring the suit until years later, more than two years later. That's one that should have been dismissed out of hand. This And was, again, its way up to the Supreme Court.

0:38:39 Thomas: I was gonna say, so how wasn't, it's just that the other side doesn't, the government side doesn'T try to get it dismissed. It's not something that the court's just like, nah, it was too late.

0:38:45 Matt: Well, they should in an honest claim. But page had lost in both the district and the appeals court because these were definitely time-barred claims he brought them too late uh just no question like the government said had an easy defense and this is going up to the supreme court and john sauer filed a brief this is how we found out about it saying that they had reached a settlement and that the whole thing was moot and it turns out the settlement was worth $1.25 million dollars in a case that he filed too late that was already pretty hard to prove even with misconduct that was involved and this Honestly, of the things we're talking about, this is the closest thing to actual governmental misconduct. I would be pretty annoyed if they got a search warrant against me based on what they got on him. And I have to be honest about that. Do have these two-year statutes limitations for a reason. We can't just have people suing whenever they want to. Completely defensible case that the government has already fought to this point, and then suddenly out of nowhere, before it gets to the Supreme Court, paying out $1.25 million. It says a lot. I think that's a pretty obvious one. The big one that has gotten a lot of attention rightfully is Michael Flynn though. Amount of money. I'm not sure why both Michael Flynn and Carter Page were due $1.25 million, like why that's specific number. Brought a suit in the middle district of Florida for $50 million in 2023. was initially dismissed for failure to state a claim. I remember this is Michael Flint, it should be very clear, who initially pled guilty to lying about his communications with the Russian ambassador. And Bill Barr came back later and as obviously the favor to Flynn, the Trump administration moved to dismiss this case even after he'd been convicted and after pleading guilty. Acknowledge any wrongdoing. They didn't say there's anything wrong with what had happened. They just said it wasn't appropriate essentially for him to have this conviction.

0:40:24 Matt: Doesn't necessarily have a basis here for anything. There's a really good letter that we're going to link to from Jamie Raskin. Basically, just going through about the fact that there's no reason to be doing this. He pled guilty. He got lucky that his case was initially cleared out. Because you've decided at this point that you want to give your friend some money. Already won. It's done."

0:40:23 Thomas: Sure, got to reward the loyal, punish the disloyal.

0:40:48 Matt: Filed before was dismissed to the point that the court almost sanctioned his lawyer for bringing this. They said it was so frivolous as malicious prosecution, because it's very hard to say malicious prosecution under these circumstances when you've already entered this guilty plea and there was no wrongdoing admitted. The only reason that his conviction was vacated was because Barr said that the The conversations weren't material to the Russian interference investigation, but it doesn't matter because they didn't say they did anything wrong. So is just voluntarily voluntarily the government deciding that it did something wrong to pay out Michael Flynn, a friend of Donald Trump, who did him some favors. Question about that. Wanted to mention that the Republicans attempted, I don't know if you caught this, but a few months ago, I meant to mention this one before, but they squeezed into a bill to reopen the government, a provision that allowed any senator, any Republican senator who had had their phone records searched by Jack Smith had received subpoenas because they were possibly potentially involved in January 6th, because we know that there were members of Congress who at least knew what might be happening. And it wasn't unfair at all, I think, of Jack Smith. Yeah.

0:41:51 Thomas: I could be wrong. I watched a lot of these hearings because I watched the Jack Smith hearings. It's not even that, it'S that they're, they're trying to establish the people they're talking to as well it's not like they were necessarily even suspects

0:42:00 Matt: That's right. Right. No, exactly. But they were just saying that you should never get any member of Congress's phone records, but that's ridiculous. If they're involved in crimes, they're like anybody else, right? Stuck this in a bill that had to pass, and the Senate was trying to make it happen. Later unanimously voted to repeal it because it's such a bad idea. But they were actually trying to allow Republican senators to collect $500,000 each if they could prove that Jack Smith got their phone records records in connection with January 6th investigation. It's ridiculous. I mean, people like Jim Jordan, who were definitely, I'm not going to say involved, but I think he knew some things. I think if anybody knew some Things, Jim Jordan knew some thing. There was probable cause to take a look and see who he was talking to and what he might've known. That's a good one that didn't go forward. It was a good thing. I'll mention in passing that mark meadows is asking the justice department to reimburse him for legal fees as chief of staff that he incurred while they're investigating trump nothing's exactly been filed yet but I'm sure they're going to reach some kind of agreement with him um there's the two big suits relating to january 6th there's sullivan uv us South of the Middle District of Florida, looking potentially, this suit, if this were actually allowed on this theory, could allow anyone was pardoned for January 6th, which is 1,600 people, to potentially collect from the US government. These are people who participated in a riot that we all watched, many of whom assaulted officers or otherwise put themselves in a position where they could easily get hurt by riot police. They're suing for negligence and assault. They're saying for negligent lack of control during, you know, a violent, chaotic riot. They're assuming for a lot of money, just they're looking for 18.4 million for 46 people. So that actually divides out a little less than I thought. Somebody injured in a black lives matter, right. Getting anywhere near being able to file something like this. I don't know. I just, I can't, a police right. I should say not a black lives matter, but something where the police acted the way that they do. We've seen the footage. We know that the Capitol police were vastly outnumbered and they were just doing what they could and they suffered pretty heavy losses. And yeah, they've had something to say about these lawsuits, obviously. The other one is filed by Enrique Terrio of the Proud Boys, and it's pretty much what you would think. One, at least for now, the Department of Justice is fighting, but I would not be surprised at all to see a settlement on this. And this is a small group of plaintiffs who are looking for $100 million, $100 million, people who were convicted and then pardoned by Trump. And these are some of the people at the highest levels. Terrio, of course, the leader of the proud boys. Ways. Wouldn't be surprised at all. I'm actually surprised that DOJ is still fighting it, but I wouldn'T be surprised to see a settlement on this one.

0:42:10 Thomas: Oh nice yeah yeah

0:44:25 Matt: Something to watch, but know, the idea that it's kind of a new way that you can get money out of the Trump administration to just sue them, find out, come up with some reason to do that and get a nice settlement out of it. That's not how it's supposed to work. It's more collusive.

0:44:41 Thomas: I like how you present that that's like a thing people are doing it's like no this is something the administration is doing for specific people right I is the kind of thing where it's like normally we ask like oh surely there's some way to stop this and it's just like well Well, there is, but no one's doing anything about it. This is like, I don't even know. Anyone anticipate this anywhere in our history? I don' t know. What would even be the remedy for this kind of thing?

0:45:04 Matt: It's judges. I mean, obviously, they have to stop it, but they have to show it's collusive.

0:45:07 Thomas: Well, but let's say they don't. Like, I guess I'm saying, let's says they don' t. Is it just, do they get away with it? Like, it's, I'm, I was assuming they're getting away with it. I meant like, yeah, like if we take power again, I mean, is there anything that can be done or is just like the whatever trains left the station, but

0:45:22 Matt: Well. Raskin and others have filed a bill which would keep people from collecting from things they did on January 6th. So that's probably the best way right now to cut it off. Think I that would be good while these cases are still pending.

0:45:33 Thomas: Can we get anybody for the corruption that this whole thing is? I mean, can we punish the people who are doing the incredibly corrupt thing?

0:45:36 Matt: Yes, that's an even better question. And I do think that there's going to be communications, I'm sure, that could be gotten by a future administration. It's just hitting that statute of limitations, trying

0:45:50 Thomas: What's the statute? I was just going to say statute of limitations on what crime? I don't even know. Like, what is this? don'T think this was anticipated by anyone. I don' this is, yeah. Wow.

0:46:00 Matt: Conspiracy. It is really a conspiracy against the United States when it comes down to it, to take our taxpayer dollars and give them out to people who demonstrably committed crimes and don't deserve to be paid out. Just thinking about where we started today with James Comey, who now has a great claim for selective prosecution. These people are all claiming that they were maliciously prosecuted things that they did on camera. Can claim that, then Comey certainly can.

0:46:18 Thomas: Unreal. Unreal just lock them all up literally any democrat run on locking every single one of these pieces of shit up for everything I don't I don'T CARE IF IT'S GONNA HAPPEN OR NOT START RUNNING ON THAT THEY DIDN'T THEY DIDNT LOCK UP HILLARY BUT IT WAS WHAT THEY RAN ON AND IT PROBABLY YOU KNOW HELPED ENERGIZE THEM SOMEBODY RUN ON THAT OR ARE YOU JUST LOOKING UP IF THEY LOCKED UP HILARY YOU'RE LIKE CHECKING WAIT DID THEY SURE HERE YOU TYPING JUST MAKING

0:46:31 Matt: Too late. Yeah. It's still free, it looks like. Yeah, I'm seeing, yeah. No, I was just trying to find one other thing, yeah, but these cases, I mean, these are just a few examples. There's so many more that are becoming. We'll try to keep a watch on them, but just use of the Justice Department as a payout system for your friends and for yourself, potentially, It can't stand.

0:47:04 Thomas: Just unheard of. Right. I mean, there's nothing else. Am I wrong about that? There's nothing else like like has this ever happened in our history in this country? Yeah.

0:47:10 Matt: Not this country. That I'm aware of. Is ridiculous to keep saying things like this, but imagine even 15 years ago, the idea of a president trying to sue himself and get a huge payout from the Department of Justice for $10 billion because his tax returns were leaked.

0:47:28 Thomas: Ridiculous. Couldn't even imagine a president not releasing his own effing tax returns back then. So our candidate. Yeah, oh right. Let's have some maybe fun. I don't know. It still sounds a little dark, but we'll take a break and then we'll get to Matt's fun footnote.

0:47:32 Matt: How far we've come. Right, well, we should come back and have some fun with some police misconduct. All

0:47:47 Thomas: Right, Matt, what do you have for us? Better be good. Need cheering up. I may feel less bad.

0:47:49 Matt: Right. Well, I'm you a document here. Yeah. We're going to have some fun taking a look at some of these.

0:47:55 Thomas: Okay. Love documents.

0:47:57 Matt: Document heads over here. 1,115 pages, and these are what are called post are post reports from the Police Officers Standards Training Commission. And this is as of 2020, we have really good public records now that have to be released about every time that police officers get involved in anything that involves bias, excessive use of force, serious bodily injury or death, and unprofessional conduct, which is the most interesting part of this to me. Um, only exceptions to these are minor matters, which they call discourtesy, basic work rule violations, inattention to detail, tardiness, equipment or grooming violations.

0:48:30 Thomas: Using the wrong fork at dinner.

0:48:32 Matt: Exactly. Equipment or grooming violations and similar infractions. So, I'm just going to give you some highlights starting on page one.

0:48:39 Thomas: Yeah, this is 1,115 pages, Matt.

0:48:41 Matt: Uh, you got some time? Let's do it.

0:48:44 Thomas: Yeah? We're going to go through all of it?

0:48:46 Matt: Page one, center, right. Let's take a look at the that starts with body -worn camera violation. Not going to name these people. I feel like maybe that's not necessary. Well, is public, yeah.

0:48:53 Thomas: I mean, it is public, but you know, whatever. This was this everywhere I'm gonna miss that was

0:48:59 Matt: The state. This is a state commission that looks at police misconduct. Lot of these are from the Boston Police Department. No surprise to me.

0:49:05 Thomas: Still I guess I was surprised I was like is this a national thing it just seems like a lot

0:49:09 Matt: State probably has something like this, listeners, so it's worth taking a look to to see if you can, you too can enjoy something like this.

0:49:15 Thomas: How many freaking police people are there this is there's that much many things okay all

0:49:20 Matt: There's so many things. And are so many little stories. There's like little vignettes, little movie scenes that play out in these tiny little paragraphs. I'd wanted you to read a couple. So let's take a look at this one in the middle.

0:49:30 Thomas: Activated body-worn camcorder during the stop but abruptly turned the camera off when the vehicle's operator inquired about the collision. Officer did not put the cruiser in park. The cruiser then rolled into the motor vehicle that was pulled over for the traffic stop. Officer did not immediately notify the operations division of the accident. Wait, are those two different events?

0:49:48 Matt: You go. Was the same event. So they're just different charges, basically like different allegations. It says a policy violation, and then there's a motor a vehicle accident, you're supposed to always report your accidents. So obviously, yeah, yeah, that's all you get for negligently failing to put your car in park and then turning off your camera so that you didn't have evidence that you just crashed into somebody when comes over to ask what just happened.

0:49:52 Thomas: Okay. Related to the same event. Suspended one to five days. Hmm. All right. Some ways you're like, okay, I could kind of relate to being embarrassed about offender, bender, but it's like, Like, shouldn't we hold police to a higher standard? You know, shouldn'T this be like, well, if you're willing to cover up evidence in something this small, are you willing to do it in something big? The people who do evidence things. So maybe don't let people who cover up evidencEVER be in charge of this or be involved.

0:50:18 Matt: Well, exactly. And just imagining exchanging insurance information with a cop. I mean it's just like you have to notify notify the people. It sounds like he wasn't charged with a crime. He leave the scene, but he didn't notify the operations division, which is going to be expecting, I assume, an insurance claim. Check out page nine. Got a kind of a fun one on page nine from the middle of the page here. Officer was redacted.

0:51:00 Thomas: What? I don't, sorry. Oh, just middle of the page. Do I read, where do I start the reading? Uh

0:51:07 Matt: Is somebody who resigned in lieu of discipline. And I just want to know the story here, but it's so serious that we don't get to find out, but interesting redacteds.

0:51:15 Thomas: So we got the different charges commissions that provide a substantive summary of the complaint in light of laws placing restrictions on dissemination of criminal offender record information okay other criminal conduct officer was redacted then truth or professional integrity so oh I guess it's we kind of went from From top to bottom, you know, it's like from more serious to less serious. Form of untruthfulness, those are the categories. Officer was not truthful about redacted. And then finally, officer violated BPD rule and regulation when he had redact it. And that one was conduct unbecoming.

0:51:50 Matt: But it's something that he resigned over, it had to be pretty bad. It was so bad it was redacted. Let's go to page 42. This one isn't as funny, but it's an interesting insight into what's going on with our cops.

0:52:01 Thomas: What's the point of this thing if it just says redact? What is it? I mean, just because they resigned, I guess it's no longer like relevant or something.

0:52:07 Matt: Yeah, they strong union. Obviously, cops are the best union on earth, and I think that they around having this stuff reported if they can work out a deal like that. Is on page 42.

0:52:17 Thomas: Think I know which one you're looking at. Is it officer engaged in a sexual relationship with a known domestic violence victim where he met on duty while in his official capacity as a Boston police officer?

0:52:29 Matt: Yep.

0:52:30 Thomas: Hey, Matt, why does it say suspension one to five days?

0:52:33 Matt: You would think that would go a little further.

0:52:35 Thomas: That can't be. Plus, there's another one. Officer used his department issued mobile phone to communicate with complainant through text messages and phone calls. The context of these conversations was outside the scope of his official duties as a Boston police officer.

0:52:48 Matt: You don't say.

0:52:50 Thomas: Suspension one to five days for that. Wow.

0:52:54 Matt: Really like one of the worst ways you can take advantage of your position when somebody's coming to you with a domestic violence report and you're like, hey, you do anything tonight? You want to go out next week? Can I get your number? Well, that's pretty bad.

0:53:07 Thomas: But I mean he's been suspended one to five days so I'm sure he he learned his lesson.

0:53:09 Matt: To five days. He learned a lesson. He'll never do it again. 61. Let's take a look at the neglect of duty charge on 61.

0:53:15 Thomas: Yeah is this person uh has a lot of thingies uh and they're all numbered sequentially so they're probably they're all related I guess neglect of duty the officer failed to devote full attention to assigned responsibilities by engaging in extended personal sexual communications during duty hours hours. But we

0:53:35 Matt: This is another one who resigned in lieu of discipline. It sounds like there was a whole pattern of stuff here. Other allegations about unwelcome comments, hostile work environment. This is a real real pattern. This sounds like somebody who has a pretty bad egg.

0:53:37 Thomas: Resigned, retired. Oh, I gotcha. Harassment. Wow. If you wait till you're old enough, you can retire and you're fine. Maybe, potentially.

0:53:51 Matt: Just while you can.

0:53:53 Thomas: Wow, was this our new podcast? We could go forever through this. Okay, which one?

0:53:54 Matt: 66. 66, the top one.

0:54:01 Thomas: Officer made sexual and inappropriate remarks to a 16 year old female okay well at least this person got terminated termination or similar what is similar to that fired

0:54:06 Matt: Keeps going. Yeah, or similar. Yeah I don't know what's similar to being fired.

0:54:13 Thomas: A handgun out of motor vehicle out duty it appears this was done for fun not shooting at anyone oh

0:54:16 Matt: Put the commentary on some of these. These are all different incidents, obviously, I hope. But an indecent A and B, which means an inappropriate sexual touching. We've got one where he abused discretion, used judgment, and did not act professionally.

0:54:26 Thomas: That yeah oh god on a person person 14 and older at they got fired okay and

0:54:40 Matt: That's what we like to see. 68. There's quite a story on page 68, and on cop violence here.

0:54:46 Thomas: Okay so we got a summary officer exhibited inappropriate language and conduct toward a fellow department member uh use of obscene and decent sent profane or derogatory language while in uniform officer used derogator language and threatened to harm another officer while arguing in the police station parking lot oh he set up some seashells while uh in the parking lot yeah

0:55:04 Matt: So it should be 86. fight appears 26 times by the way in this document of these thousand pages. Alcohol appears 459 times so think that's relevant intoxicated 48 times yeah but you can see like the down here the failure to be considerate and polite at all times to all department personnel and maintain good relations with their superior and fellow employees in a spirit of mutual concern for their common objectives this guy was just an asshole at work nobody liked him one to five days yeah

0:55:29 Thomas: In fairness this goes back some years I might have missed that how far does this go back I

0:55:33 Matt: These records are at least to 2018 I think I've seen a few that a little earlier no

0:55:37 Thomas: See something that says 2007 seven yeah

0:55:39 Matt: Law requiring them to release them this way only came out six years ago. So I'm not sure exactly when they start.

0:55:43 Thomas: Did they have to release them going back then okay guess that makes it not as many as I thought given the time frame uh

0:55:46 Matt: Interesting. We don't have the worst cops in the country in Massachusetts, but we've got some bad ones, obviously. There are bad cops everywhere. Yeah. Here we go. Page 79. fun redacted.

0:56:01 Thomas: Okay so somebody was suspended 30 plus days let's see for redacted in violation of rule redactED okay and then a bunch of involvement in a fight while off duty in violation rule 15 section 4 there's like a bunch bunch of those wow

0:56:08 Matt: Crimes involving redacteds. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to know more about this one. Lots of fighting.

0:56:17 Thomas: It's a big brawl first

0:56:18 Matt: Yeah. We right, exactly. Rule redacted.

0:56:19 Thomas: Rule of officer fight club is redacted yeah all

0:56:24 Matt: Page 106, center right. We've got some pretty disturbing stuff on page 106.

0:56:29 Thomas: These ones are in all caps I feel like they're not normally yeah drinking on duty prescription pill abuse and marijuana use geez all at once That's truthfulness in interviews for investigation. Well, I guess so not that. Professional responsibilities by posing in a Hitler salute. Okay.

0:56:31 Matt: They really mean it. Conduct unbecoming.

0:56:46 Thomas: Purchasing and possessing prescription pills without prescription. Conduct unbecoming consisting of drinking on duty, associating with persons involved in criminal activity.

0:56:55 Matt: Termination are similar. Yeah.

0:56:57 Thomas: Person's first name is Courtney. And I just wonder, is that a woman or a dude named Courtney? You just wouldn't have thought. Based on the Hitler salute and the whatever, but who knows? Wow. Are the cops all right?

0:56:59 Matt: Was wondering. Yeah, No, definitively no. they hate these reports, obviously. But this is what happens when you give people this kind of power and a tremendously good union. And honestly, I think we might have some of the best transparency in the country. But I so many more reports, and we're just just getting through the first couple hundred pages, but you've got multiple officers engaging in sexual relations while inside restricted areas of the police station with redacted. Got using company device to record sexual activities. You've got off -duty outbursts while intoxicated. Oh, officer's decision to engage in a physical fight with a family member reflects unfavorably on the department. Discharging service weapon while off -duity and intoxicated, stuff that you see on TV that you don't really think happens, but I guess totally happens.

0:57:50 Thomas: This isn't stuff you see on TV. Like this is like, I think we need to show more of this on TV, we need to show how bad cops are.

0:57:57 Matt: Yeah. We got one here that was doing firearms training under the influence of alcohol. Not great.

0:58:03 Thomas: Well, that one does, it depends on how he did. Like if he's like, hey, I nailed it, you know, if he hit every target, it's like okay, okay I oh boy

0:58:10 Matt: Somebody noticed. Apparently he reeked of alcohol, according to this report. So this is Massachusetts. We'll link to this so people can find their own favorite examples of police misconduct. But we talk about the police, this is the kind of stuff we're talking about, and we need this kind of sunshine on these things to hold these people to account.

0:58:29 Thomas: Yeah we just need they at the very least uh we should be more skeptical of them uh we Should Not uh lionize them as heroes all the time because there are a lot of them aren't uh right thanks matt for the breakdown um thanks uh the the thanks to the boys in blue you know for for for being really shitty doing a bunch of dumb stuff uh for the podcast uh thanks listeners and we'll see you on monday for a deep dive on how bad the supreme court decision on the voting rights act case was so

0:59:01 Matt: I'll be listening to that one. All right, see you soon.

0:59:02 Thomas: We'll See you then

0:59:07 Clip: This has been Opening Arguments, produced by Thomas and Lydia Smith, with editing help from Peter Baird. The intro is by Thomas Smith. This outro is by Matt Cameron. Support the show at patreon.com/law. Contact us