GG74: The Broadview Grand Jury Transcripts, Part 2

Transcript

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

0:00:01 Clip: All rise. Court is now in session. Court is reconvened. I may be seated. Maintain order. The federal rise to face the jury and harken to its verdicts.

0:00:26 Thomas: Gavalin, Gavalinos. I'm Thomas, that over there is Lydia. How you doing?

0:00:29 Lydia: Hello, I have, I do not have my gavel in hand, but I'm looking at it right now and it's looking mighty fine.

0:00:35 Thomas: Yeah, we were using it for an autopsy the other day and I think I left it over in the crows. That was a weird joke, but it was good. Speaking of Matt, can't wait to go on over to part two with Matt. This man, this broad view. I just it's so good.

0:00:39 Lydia: So gross. Oh God, yeah.

0:00:51 Thomas: It's so good. I mean, yes, it is a horrific sign of the creeping fascism. It is not even creeping anymore. The like running at us fascism already stabbed a bunch of us fascism, but getting to have a good laugh and this at least in this case, it's a good outcome.

0:00:51 Lydia: It's been a joy. Yeah,

0:01:07 Thomas: You know, shitty people were shown to be doing a terrible job trampling people's rights. And maybe, you know, maybe this will bring more awareness to like how unfair this system is. You know, we can always hope. We can always help. But I didn't even say I'm Thomas. That over there is Lydia.

0:01:19 Lydia: Maybe change, yeah? Hello.

0:01:24 Thomas: I didn't even introduce us. That's who we are. You might have no idea who we are right now. How are you doing today?

0:01:27 Lydia: But we love you and we're glad you're here. I'm doing pretty well.

0:01:32 Thomas: Yeah. I'm, I'm excited for more readings of this. Yes oh the lady's getting into the character yeah you gotta yeah well you gotta get into her walk was that like the John Travolta method of like yeah think of your character's walk yeah I think she's very I get the sense that she's a very outcome focused like I love the switching that she does from like tact you know she's like oh we're trying to appeal to be nice and then the minute it's not working I feel like she's on to the next thing so it makes me feel like she's not very like

0:01:34 Lydia: What kind of shoes do you think this lady wears? Yeah, really, I'm thinking costuming. Yeah.

0:02:04 Thomas: I doubt people are like ah I would doubt people have a warm reaction to her you know

0:02:07 Lydia: Yeah, she feels like like she's, I don't know, wants to be really put together and stuff, but also is like a little dowdy. I don't know. I'm trying to think in my head like what this is. I'm looking her up right now. I don't know if that's cheating. Yeah.

0:02:18 Thomas: It's hard too because the thing she's trying to do is objectively fucking stupid so like we don't know one thing and here's the thing about good playwrights they don't just they don't just tell us you know they don't just like spoon feed us the answers on these brilliant characters I get you know I'll ask you as an actor do you think she knows the thing she's doing is bullshit or do you think she's like genuinely trying to get it done what do you

0:02:41 Lydia: I Don'T think she is connected enough to what the expectations are of her in this role anymore. I think she's I think she's gone rogue

0:02:49 Thomas: Think what the hell are you talking

0:02:52 Lydia: In a lot of ways well I don't know like not rogue not rogue from the prosecutor's office I just think that she's disconnected from what the expectations are as for her as an attorney like those ethical obligations and stuff I don't think that she even thinks about that yeah mm-hmm yeah yeah mmhmm yeah you guys tell me mm

0:03:00 Thomas: About oh oh okay yeah well of course yeah yeah in order to do this kind of misconduct I mean you kind of have to but the fact that my question is like do you think she believes in what she's doing because you can make the argument that like the fact that she's pursuing this three fucking times with the same grand jury maybe would tell you that she She does believe in this bullshit, you know, it's a choice you got to make as an actress. And you know what? You don't have to tell us. We'll know from your performance. It's just for you to think, to keep in mind the subtext.

0:03:38 Thomas: So good. All right. This has been a lot of fun. Lydia has been amazing. And I can't wait to get to more of these readings. And of course, with Matt's analysis as well. So thanks for tuning in, everybody. We're going to take that usual first break. And a reminder, patrons are time traveling. They're so far ahead of you. They're on like gg100 already for all I know uh patreon .com yeah we don't even know let us know what it is yeah patreon .come slash gavel pod if you'd like to be a time traveler and be amazing and support the show all right well we'll take that first break and then we'll be back with matt and some brilliant brilliant writing

0:03:46 Lydia: -hm of course wow they beat us how'd they do

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0:04:19 Matt: The part where she's kicked out the grand jury, because this is going to be the thing that I think the judge would have actually, and this is the thing they should be sanctioned for. I mean, this is so bad. They have no authority to do this whatsoever. You can't condition their participation on how much they agree with you, or if they're going to keep an open mind to what you're saying. That's just not how it works. She's sort of like weaving in the standard for a trial jury, right? What you might do in voir dire. If somebody told you, well, I'm just not going to listen to the government, right. I means, if somebody said that in voir dere, you'd have to excuse them, right, but that's not how works here. It's not at all how it work here. It's just crazy. This is like straight -up structural error. You're redefining the composition of the jury in the middle of it, right? I mean, it's just ridiculous. And the court noted that, and I'll just read that part where she said this. Third, the prosecutor excusing grand jurors who disagreed with the government's case from the deliberations process. And this is what happens on the 16th. You might notice this transcript. This transcript ends very abruptly because... Yeah, right, totally. Now, we actually found out in the sentencing hearing, when Beatrice comes in, her boss says, well, I found out that a grand jury had been inappropriately excused during these proceedings, and I came down and I stopped the whole thing. He says that in the sentencing here. And he's saying it like he wants a gold star. And the judge is like, okay, why did that happen? Why are we talking about this? This never should have happened, right? Why do you have somebody in your staff who's doing this? And so that, again, I think of all all the things we're talking about, it's just bad. But now let's talk about the other one that I found pretty shocking when the judge talked about it. We didn't know anything about this part because it was kind of glossed over in the sentencing hearing, but let's talking about the ex parte contact. So in the, in the sendencing hearing the court notes, second, improper prosecutorial communications of a substantive nature with the grand jurors outside the grand jury room. So this is not just like, where's the men's room? This is, we're actually in a conversation about the case outside the grand jury room one -on -one. Very bad. Exactly. Exactly, right? Yes. So bad. So Boutros, again, you might remember from the sentencing hearing we read this, Andrew Boutro, her boss, the US attorney, was making a big thing about how, I do at least commend the prosecutor who was in the grand jury and who did have the ex parte contact. She had the wherewithal to put it on the record so it could be captured. So he's trying to give the office us all this credit for somehow, even though they did all these stupid things that they're always putting on the record. But let's look at the way that she puts it on the recorded because it's not good. It's really not good at all. So we can go to the third day when she puts on the record because she has to come back. Now, again, remember on the 16th, abruptly stops because her boss comes down and is like, what are you doing? You just committed structural error. You just actually interfered with the entire grand jury. You have to end this. Yes. And the last thing on there is that this is like a battery issue with the recorder but uh brutro says that he stopped it totally all right so let's go to the next transcript october 23rd

0:05:14 Thomas: She rage quit this this is the best character in the history of gavel gavel well this isthe best character and that jurors the best juror it's it's both because Cause she's Lydia's doing such a good job too of like this, like kind of pretending to be patient for a sec, but then the minute stuff's not going your way. She's just a total asshole. Oh my gosh. Hey, look, it's Mr. Asshole who thought my case was a piece of shit. Fuck you. Shouldn't have ever been let into the Thursday crowd. Fuck you! Oh, oh my God. Oh, I was going to say, I wish the transcriptionist could use emojis, just like that big eyes one or whatever. Like, yeah, very

0:05:17 Lydia: Yeah yeah yeah right yeah what can I do to make you change your mind on this like Jesus Christ it's crazy yeah the the note on the transcript itself says whereupon the testimony was abruptly stopped. Yeah. Yeah, the one, like the side eye. Three different people prepared these. Like I can, yeah, very, very different.

0:07:53 Thomas: Different styles.

0:07:53 Matt: There's some spelling errors in there but yeah different fonts uh different font styles rather

0:07:57 Thomas: Yeah, they get their own font. They get to pick their own. The trends. Wow. Okay.

0:08:00 Matt: Let's go to page three and you're gonna see her mea culpa as it's spelled in the record yeah yeah now our buddy here the crock of guy right is clearly the person at the end of October 9th, he was arguing with her and saying, I see it completely the other way, right?

0:08:08 Thomas: Mama mia culpa.

0:08:17 Lydia: Okay.

0:08:17 Thomas: Right. Because she's like, oh, yeah. I remember. He's back. So when he got excused, what happened? Or did he not actually leave? Oh okay oh wow

0:08:17 Matt: And then, right, exactly. I know you. So he's going to be back, our hero. Well, no, she's going to talk about that. So she's gonna explain it from her perspective. But the way she explains it is so patronizing and so much worse than the thing she did, I think. Yeah, I'll let you decide though. So there's a blank here. I'm not sure what that's about, but it starts over at one.

0:08:39 Lydia: So I'm going to leave that to you. Before we start, I have to do a mea culpa because I'm the one who knows the rules and I did something today that I'm not supposed to do. I had conversations with two grand jurors outside of the grand jury room. So I need to put it on the record. I think it's the pages are

0:08:57 Thomas: Yeah it's the pages are weird and

0:08:57 Matt: So yeah, it must be something messed up. Okay, that's fine. Yeah. Let's recap this. So let's recap what she's doing here. Yes, there's so much going on here. Remember, this is the person who's supposed to be presenting the case and convincing them. And again, it really gives you insight into the mind of a prosecutor who goes in front of grand juries a lot because she really thinks that she has the righteous truth at all times. Right? And he apologized to me for saying that this case was a crock of shit. It is a croc of shit. He's correct, right? I told the Granger I accepted his apology. And again, now she's vouching for the entire idea that he did something wrong. And at most, maybe he was disrespectful by saying it was a crap of shit, but whatever. I mean, she's wasting his time. And now she is wasting his more. Yes. Mm -hmm. Yeah. And it's also, and again, I wasn't in the room. We don't have stage directions here. We don' t know exactly what happened when he left, but she's suggesting that he walked out. What I saw in that transcript was, well, have a good night. Get out of here, right? I mean, is that what you saw? Maybe he was on his way out at the time. Maybe he wa s actually just walking out. I don' t know, right. He's not allowed to leave, right, he knows that, and she's being super rude and telling him, have a good night, you know, we're done with you, and now she's characterizing it as he shouldn't have walked out the way that he did, because she knows, because she's just been yelled at by her boss, that she never should have let let that happen. She shouldn't have even suggested that he needs to leave, let alone actually kicked him out. So she's preserving herself on this record, you know, and yeah. Oh yeah, no, no. No, for sure. It is that too. No. That is what it is. Yeah. Right. Right? And you know the rest of you are going to cooperate, so I'm good with that. Basically, yeah. Now here's the other one. Let's just do the second instance. Again, yeah, I mean, she does have to report this contact because this was contact outside the room. But she's doing it in that very teacherly, like, I accept your apology. You're in the wrong, I'm in the right at all times kind of thing. It's very much to them.

0:08:57 Lydia: Messed up. Yeah. And for those grand jurors, I'm not naming you. You can either confirm, deny or speak up. I don't care. But I'm just going to tell you, you didn't do anything wrong. I'm the one who knows the rules. But it's very hard when someone talks to you who, you know, to not talk back to them. So the first one was one of the Grand Jurors and I ran into each other in the elevator. This this grand juror, I'm going to summarize to the best that I can. The grand jurors apologized to me from last week. And I told the grand jurora that I accepted his apology. I wasn't mad. I understand people have feelings. The Grand juror said at that time that he did have feelings and he's sure that he's right, but he shouldn't have walked out the way he did. So that was one conversation. New monologues for the rep. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I had another very brief conversation. I was up here and somebody, one of the grand jurors said to me something about out last week. And he said, I'm sorry. I can apply the facts to the law. I understand that people have feelings, but we have to apply the effects to the laws. And I said, that's true. That's exactly what we're asking you to do. Something like that, to the best of my recollection. So yeah. Now we get Professor Skiba back.

0:09:41 Thomas: He's sure that he's right God, she's the best this is a rich text yeah I'm 100%, I'm like wow the subtext I couldn't write something this good yeah yeah yeah this this looks less like she's being forthright with the saying that she had ex parte and more like she wants to bring it in front of the crowd she says oh you can speak up or not you know like if you want to like uh you know if you want to affirm what I'm about to say you know like she's trying to use this to say hey you all know this asshole he apologized for being so wrong last time and like that's what this is yeah he wouldn't have gone if not for her he wouldn't it wasn't even part of the thought process if not incredible I really think it's more about the the crowd I really I mean it might be both but yeah I really think she the point of her saying all this detail is like this guy apologized for being so wrong okay so yeah can you read that

0:12:36 Matt: Yeah. She says persepsis several times. Yeah. And keep going.

0:12:41 Lydia: So it's on the record. I won't do that again. If I see you and I just say, hello, how's the weather? You'll understand it's nothing personal. And other than that, I'm going to, we're going to do two things today. We're going to start over with the law with Professor Skiba. And then we're going to call in. She's, yeah. Yeah, yeah, watch.

0:12:41 Thomas: Paragraph sorry

0:12:49 Matt: That's how it's supposed to work, yes. Yeah, yeah. And she also, she vouches for him at the beginning of this and says, oh, he did such a great job last time. He's going to do this again now on the 16th. So, know yeah but he but the judge did find we don't have to really read this because she found that this was appropriate more or less and this cured it because you know um this is how it worked

0:12:59 Thomas: I really thought the first time it was like a bit like she's being like all right let's start with Professor Skiba and our class but she's actually just saying well we're gonna start all over with Professor Skeba what yeah yeah I'll

0:13:28 Matt: So they're talking about the video of the of the

0:13:32 Thomas: Be skeeva for this then I guess for a little bit and uh I'm going to go back this individual right here is mr straw and here he is right here again and here is actually mr rabbit as

0:13:37 Matt: Incident

0:13:45 Lydia: Ran up to the car.

0:13:47 Thomas: Well yeah and you could see I mean look at how much room there is for mr straw to maneuver if he wanted to but he intentionally went to the front of the vehicle yeah doing the the play -by -play so

0:13:55 Matt: Okay now I just want to point out they're playing footage of something that is pretty easy to understand right I mean it's fine if you just want to find out here's this defendant here's his defendant whatever right but they're narrating they're characterizing this is argument they're doing argument right but he intentionally went they're ascribing intent you know to the front of the vehicle this is really bad but I thought thought this was interesting what happens

0:14:02 Lydia: Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:14:14 Thomas: I think um does anybody need to see any parts of the video again do you bring up later for the testimony exactly what they're saying I can't always understand what they are shouting get a real job shame up with liberation yeah yes ma'am

0:14:19 Matt: Here

0:14:25 Lydia: I think that we can tell you because the agent, they're hearing lots of things. So we can tell you because if you hear it, you decide if you can hear what we hear. So you listen to it. They're screaming, excuse my language, I'm just repeating what they're saying, and I'm not supposed to swear in the grand jury. Fuck this pig. Over and over. Fuck this pick. Fuck this pic. They are screaming, yes, shame, and they're screaming something like a down with deportation, up with liberation.

0:14:55 Thomas: They were also clearly saying I believe that we will win yeah and uh through the agent I'm

0:14:59 Lydia: Yes, that's right. There's another question.

0:15:03 Matt: Okay so this is an interesting little piece here to me the way that this little I love the guy you guys nailed the dialogue good work on the read here uh for a first time read uh doing the table read on on the uh the play here but uh but the way

0:15:08 Thomas: Sorry it's

0:15:13 Lydia: Yeah yeah it is a table

0:15:16 Thomas: Real I mean it's really down down to the playwright like we just have we have the play right to think like it's just down we I don't want to take any credit yeah I mean they are the ones making this work making what we do possible yeah exactly yeah so good well I love it because you're like can we hear what they're actually saying and then oh well we could tell you you know well and they're saying like well Well, we had the agent heard, you know, as though like that means they have the real info. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. That's definitely an episode of The Office where and also they would have to get more and more ridiculous. Like you said, they'll like swallow a huge giant cock, you fucking pig. I think it was like your mom. It's just.

0:15:20 Lydia: Read yeah

0:15:20 Matt: The that's true this the real artist here that's right yeah you're just reading the words on the page it's true uh like a true actor so what we have though is this funny kind of almost almost like comedy duo thing of like, I think it's funny. Yes. Yeah. The agent is available. He's there. He's, he's there to testify and they just have to call him and say, what were they saying to you? Right. But instead we get their characterization where they're, they're giving us their version of what they heard. They could play the video again and turn it up and say you can hear what you can here basically, or you can ask the agent or whatever. But instead, we get this kind of comedy routine where they are like clearly making fun of these people and repeating the things. Yeah, right.

0:15:29 Lydia: Yeah yeah really is well we'll just let's just do it for you guys we'll just do yeah he told us so we're gonna tell you and then yeah yeah yeah exactly yep yep your mom your

0:16:32 Matt: Fuck this pig, fuck this pig. And that's not something the judge flagged, but Boutros also in his very self -serving monologue to the judge about how everything was fine with all of this, he mentioned some of these chants and he was talking about the mood at that day and talking about how these people should have been convicted even even though he's dismissing the case. You might remember that, right? He said, basically, thank God nobody got hurt when this ICE agent drove into a crowd. Yeah, anyway. There's another point earlier in the last transcript where they'd said something about how they're not going to touch politics with a 10 -foot pole, and we're putting our blinders on, and we'RE not doing any politics in this room or whatever. And this is politics, right ? I can imagine the tone of voice that they're using as they're repeating these things to each other. You know probably not too far away from where you were

0:16:41 Lydia: Mom yeah yeah

0:17:20 Matt: So check out let's go back to october 9th for just a second page 72

0:17:24 Thomas: -huh so if the person comes and stands in front of my car do I have the right to drive against him it happened he moved it's just luck well let me go back to my

0:17:30 Lydia: We are not going we don't need to address that today because it didn't happen it did not happen that he drove into any of them such that any of them were actually knocked over, hit. No, it wasn't luck. Oh, no, it was not, sir. It was not luck. It was his calmness and his judgment to drive as slowly as possible as he could and not hit anybody. It wasn't just luck. Yes,

0:17:59 Thomas: Question so can I drive slowly without the intent of harm to that person who is standing in front of the vehicle the argument is they are they are pushing back so they won't get hurt he was driving toward that

0:18:04 Lydia: It would depend on the circumstances. I don't want to give you people advice if you go do it and say, oh, no. Sheri said. I don' t want to be the one to tell you. It would depend upon the circumstance.

0:18:23 Lydia: And my argument to that would be, you saw in the video, space all around where they could have walked away. They didn't actually have to stay there. Am I losing people? I don't want to lose you. So we could debate all of these hypotheticals all afternoon, but my next person is probably screaming about me. So I don'T want, you know, we could debat it. We believe that we've shown you probable cause for what we are asking for today. I'm going to tell you that the indictment has count one under 372 conspiracy for all of those people. And it says what they were each doing and then counts two through seven through six I'm sorry through seven is a count for each of these people for the misdemeanor 110 111 and I see that this printed a little bit off but if you sign it I will get the right one to the court yeah

0:18:31 Thomas: Well we're way over I'm sorry I have one more question the felony for the

0:19:12 Lydia: Yes oh yeah yeah yeah

0:19:12 Thomas: Conspiracy oh this is the one we already did right okay so that went into that damn

0:19:13 Matt: Oh yeah we did that yeah we can we can cut that yeah yeah yeah but I thought this is a really interesting back and forth where she is again vouching for the agent she's talking about a state of mind she's doing this like it's a closing or like it'S you know she's got this

0:19:22 Thomas: And she's doing a con that it's like I we just it's so late if you just sign here whatever is that what it said it seems like if you sign it I will get the right one to the court right like it's just yeah Yeah. She's like, ah, I don't want to lose you. We could, we could debate back and forth guilty, not guilty, whatever, you know, but if you just sign, I'll just, I can just do it. Just get. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, my next victim is, is waiting for me. So if you could just sign this here. God, this is so good. This is a brilliant playwright who wrote this. Like it just, it's so good I don't know that any of them would be this good, Matt, like this sometimes it's lightning in a bottle yeah yeah right oh

0:19:27 Matt: Argument yeah yeah oh that's another yeah yeah don't we all want to get out of here yeah yeah no it is I I wish we had so many more grand jury transcripts available because because you could do a whole show of these. Yeah, no, it's true. But in these moments when they know that they're not ever going to come out, what grand jury transcript is ever actually going to see the light of day? I mean, they can just do whatever they want. This really does show, it is a prosecutor's show. And to remind everybody, defense is not in the room, defendant's not inthe room, the defendant never knows what happens and never has a chance to argue about anything they saw. And as I said, it takes a lot legally to actually say that grand jury proceedings were so bad. Like they have to basically completely lie to the jury or bring a case that's based on lies. They have to do something extremely prejudicial to get the entire indictment tossed. But the judge was, and again, it became moot in this case because they only proceeded on the information.

0:19:27 Lydia: Like like she's really just trying to push them yeah sign this incorrect document

0:20:51 Matt: Here's another interesting point. I want to return to the conspiracy stuff because their literal conspiracy theory in this case is such a mess on how this is conspiracy. So the court on May 21st, Judge Perry says, I will say that having reviewed the grand jury transcripts myself in full and unredacted form, there are significantly bigger problems than misinstructions to the grand jurors. Now, I will note, actually, one of the things I want to do before we quit here is I want to go through the places where we know they're redacted because that's going to be fun.

0:21:17 Matt: But let's go to October 16th, page 13, where the jurors are getting into testing the theory. Remember, this mirroring thing she sort of said in her opening is not really how this works.

0:21:28 Thomas: So the act of mirroring someone else doing impeding without talking and expressly agreeing we're going to do this together at that moment you're saying that constitutes conspiracy so I see them pushing like I'm going to push too that's a conspiracy You're saying yes. Under the law. And that's yes. And that's based on a couple of things. One, it's an overt action. They it's not just they are thinking in their head. I want to be a part of this. They took some actions. They were, you know, there was a concerted effort to block this agent A from doing his job.

0:22:06 Matt: So see the kind of slide he's doing here from he's agreeing straight up. He's agreeing with the juror because the jury is clearly skeptical that just mirroring, that copying somebody, that just sort of saying, oh, they're doing this, I'll do this too. That's not conspiracy. The jury knows this. That's why they're asking. And he's saying yes. And then he's going on to overt action and concerted effort as if they're working together. And that's just not how any of this works. This is just wrong. And I can forgive Skiba for this more because he's a very new lawyer. But this shouldn't have been presented this way.

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0:22:44 Matt: I want to talk about the redactions, about when actually, because of course, that was the thing that upset the judge more than anything, understandably, is that they gave her a transcript, which she doesn't need redactions. She's the judge. Obviously, the version that is released here still has a few redactions because there are still things we can't necessarily see from this. Because we don't have the actual redacted transcripts, as far as I know, those have not been released. At least I couldn't find them. But we know for sure from what the judge said, and the reason she was so angry, is they redact the part that we read at the beginning in which she talked about how you can trust me and you know me, the actual vouching.

0:23:19 Matt: They just redacted that. In some cases, the judge made a point of saying there were pages missing, not just black bars, but entire missing pages that accounted for most of the testimony of the agents. There was 30 lines of dialogue that were mischaracterized by the government that had been redactED that basically in the sentencing hearing, when she's kind of yelling at them about about this. They basically allowed her to believe that it was about an IT issue, but it was actually one of the colloquies with the juror that you just read. And there were the ex parte communications part.

0:23:19 Lydia: Wow that's crazy was redacted

0:23:53 Matt: That whole thing was redacted. Yeah.

0:23:55 Lydia: Yeah so basically just trying to protect Mecklenburg because they know that yeah sorry

0:23:59 Matt: Yes. And of course, the removal part, because they didn't want the judge to see that. But she was onto it because there's just way too much of this missing. And so she finally demands the unredacted, and that's when things really pop off. So I just thought that was it's very important again we don't have the exact redactions but we know that that's the stuff they were trying to actually cover up and now we have the benefit of the entire thing so yeah well we can take a look now at the indictment and see what actually got through

0:24:24 Lydia: And did you say that sanctions happened they're on their way okay so okay I mean like like this isn't necessarily a sanction I guess but like if I were in charge of this office, Mecklenburg wouldn't be trying cases anymore. Like, she'd be at a desk. Oh, really? Okay.

0:24:26 Matt: I know they're on their way so there are potentially hearings coming but she's been pretty clear that she wants sanctions and that she wants the defense to move in that direction no yeah she's already lost at least she had she has some kind of job on the senate judiciary committee like she has kind of a political thing and she's lost that because of this misconduct that's come out. I don't know if there's been any further consequences in the office, but I'm sure there must be because we'll get to that at the end, but there are some things that have developed since then. So the part you were just about to read where Skiba's getting into the force or intimidation, very interesting thing happens here. Let's go to page 14. The thing that he's going to cite too is pretty weird.

0:25:13 Thomas: OK, so I'm going to put up here the next question. What is force, intimidation or threat? So this case that I have referenced here out of the Western District of Texas is for a comparable statute. This is a criminal statute that we are charging here, but there is a civil statute that is more or less the identical language that also has this force, intimidation or threat language. Now, this was a case, and you can see it here, surrounding a bus with about 100 cars in the interstate and attempting to control its movements by physically blocking with their vehicles and driving dangerously. It could reasonably constitute force. Now, we are not saying that you need to find that it rose to this level of seriousness, but the point is, in this case, out of the western district of Texas, what the court says, the vehicle surrounded another vehicle and physically blocked it and stopping it from going forward. That, in that case, constituted force, intimidation, or threat. What this case also says is, and this is a direct quote above, the most commonly understood dictionary definition of intimidate is to place a person in fear. Now, as you're going to hear from Agent A in a little bit, you're gonna find out that he was in fear for his own life and safety because of the actions of the co -conspirators. Does anybody have any questions about this portion of the statute uh matt yeah yeah uh is that gonna be man oh is that the the campaign bus thing yeah right yeah

0:26:37 Matt: Yes. Yes, I do. So many questions, Matthew Skiba. What is going on? What drugs have I just taken? What are you doing? Okay. He's talking about a civil case in the Western District of Texas. Now you might recognize those facts. Do you recognize the story that he's telling? This is the Harris campaign bus. This is the Trump train case where the Biden administration actually did not prosecute this criminally, but there was a lawsuit brought because this was a super scary thing that happened. And I think if I remember correctly, I think the driver was held accountable and had to pay something, but this is a civil case. It's not a criminal case. And he's using the civil standard under what I've got here is 42 U.S.C. 1985, which is obviously stupid in itself that you're going to use a completely different statute and a civil standard, which obviously is very different for our purposes. I don't know why he's doing this, why he thinks that's the touchdown here, but it really doesn't help his case because that's a much more serious situation. He does say this isn't what happened here later when he talks about this another time, but surrounding a bus. But there has to be a better authoritative source that you could be using than this Texas. It's just weird. The Sybil case, I don't understand why he's doing it.

0:26:42 Lydia: Interesting. Yeah.

0:27:29 Thomas: Yeah that was cars right so if you block it with a car that's the same as if you block it with your incredibly fragile weak little human body yeah yeah they're desperate

0:27:30 Lydia: Right. Things that could actually be used as weapons. 5 -2 body. Yeah, Yeah.

0:28:07 Matt: Yeah, no, it's weird. So I just wanted to note that weird little moment.

0:28:12 Lydia: I was perusing a little bit and going back to October 9th. There's actually some like a really interesting conversation again between one of the grand jury members in Mecklenburg where yeah, if you guys want to check it out, it's page 55. But for right now, these are six people who we are comfortable have been identified. Identifications continue. I'm not bringing you anyone who we think we might have identified, but not sure.

0:28:23 Thomas: Matt she's just trying to get herself more lines well how about the stop

0:28:41 Lydia: Court reporter says they can't hear this?

0:28:42 Thomas: Following up on the other

0:28:45 Lydia: Following up on the other question, he said, couldn't he have stopped? Well, didn't you hear the testimony that he said he was afraid to stop because he was scared they were going to break the windows and pull him out and he would be injured? So he said the testimony was that he was concerned about stopping for his own safety. He was concerned about the safety in the front, so he had to balance it. And this is not testimony now, but I would argue he did a pretty good job of balancing it because nobody got hurt. So you want to talk about the right thing. What if he had stopped?

0:28:45 Thomas: Question couldn't he have stopped if he's afraid of running over people isn't the right thing to do to stop Well, I know but it's the flip of the thing is can't you say he was trying to run the people over? Well, no, it's a bad question.

0:29:22 Lydia: Did you really think when you saw that video I understood like what this is what a weird interaction it's just like caught my

0:29:34 Matt: Yeah, it is. That's a good one.

0:29:34 Lydia: Eye because yeah it's like and then the grand jury to just kind of like back off a little bit and be like it's a bad question like are they saying that about their own question

0:29:44 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, there are. Well, I think, I mean, imagine the grand jury. I mean there's still, I'm sure it's kind of intimidating to be like questioning the prosecutor kind of thing. Yeah that maybe that was a woman. I don't know where they like didn't feel as comfortable. Who knows? Yeah. I feel like the crock of shit guy was a guy, I don't know. That could be me being sexist. I don' t know.

0:29:47 Lydia: Huh yeah I know it just made me feel for them like oh, could be to call it a crock of shit, yeah.

0:30:09 Matt: So let's talk about what happened after all of this and how it got to the point of the sentencing hearing, because, you know, we now know the whole picture. We know at least as much as we're possibly going to get, because we've got these transcripts. We've got what Boutreau is trying to explain at the hearing. We got the judge's findings. And I think we can kind of authoritatively say what happened. So just to remind everybody, first time, October 9th, they go in, they do not get the true bill. The jury finds, you know, there's this obvious pushback from it. A week later, they come in, she presents it again, or Professor Skiba presents it this time, jurors start to push back a lot of stuff we're seeing. People are invited to leave if they can't keep an open mind. There's all this talk about, you know, basically, you're with me or not. And in the middle of the driver's testimony, the alleged victim in this case, it's cut off mid-testimony because the chief prosecutor, and allegedly Boutros has found out at some point, has found out about these jurors being kicked out. And so no indictment, it just keeps going. October 23rd, they come back the next time for the third time. It is restarted anew. And this is when we hear about the expert day communications this is when they finally return a true bill on the felony conspiracy and the 18 U.S.C. 111 misdemeanors. Now if we had never seen the grand jury transcripts it's very likely those all would have gone forward but things started to move in the direction of grand jury transcripts because they heard these reports about these conflicting ideas of conspiracy about how maybe the law wasn't presented very well which it wasn't about how there may have been some other issues and they get these issues And allegedly at this point, sometime in April, as we're getting closer to this hearing, sometime in April Boutros finds out about the vouching and that's what apparently spooks him enough that they withdraw the felony part. So they drop the felony charges, felony conspiracy charges, which they should have dropped to begin with. And they're only moving forward on the stuff they can proceed with information. So if they had just done, I mean, again, they shouldn't have run any of this, but if they had just brought the minimal charges of the basic stuff, it'd be much easier to prove that these people were impeding an ICE officer in the business of his job on account of him being an officer or just in the course of his duties, they probably could have gotten some convictions. But it was just insisting on this conspiracy thing and completely messing that up is the reason we know about all this. So from all of that, that's how we get to the entire episode that we did about what happened with Judge Perry in May, where she finds out she gets the redacted transcripts, she demands the unredacted transcripts. And finally, Boutros has to stand up after a long justifying speech and bring an end to all of this and bring this dismissal. Since that time, I will just point out that everybody's now off. So basically we have, and we keep calling the Broadview six, but by the time it got to May 21st, when the case was dismissed, there was only four left, Sharp and Walsh, those defendants that had been dropped, I think by March. And the others were dismissed with prejudice as we discussed. Now the defense has pursued a motion to recoup its costs and to probe why the case has brought it all to try to get more history and discovery about the communications around this case. Defendants have been pretty open about the fact that they believe this is a political prosecution. It's hard not to see it that way. And the judge was very clear at the hearing that she wants to see sanctions. She wants to see motions for sanctions and a possible defense motion to disqualify the three trial EUSAs from any further proceedings. So that's where we stand right now. There's probably a little bit more to come, but I wanted to note the news about Sheri Mecklenburg. I sent you a piece here from the Chicago Tribune that just came out a couple of days ago. And I wantedto read some of these details about just, because clearly this is not somebody who's only doing it at this hearing. If she acts like this, she's acting like this all the time, probably in front of most of her grand juries. Check out, do you have that open, Lydia? So if you want to read the first couple of paragraphs, it really kind of says it all.

0:33:44 Lydia: Saying he was interested in upholding the, quote, presumption of regularity for his office, U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros on Monday moved to drop charges in an arson case after discovering grand jury, quote. Irregularities by the same prosecutor who handled the Broadview Six investigation. Among the misconduct uncovered by his office. Boutro said in a motion he personally filed Monday were, quote quote, ex parte communications between the prosecutor and grand jurors during a July 17th, 2025 session, including comments that she, quote, can prove this case, that most defendants, quote, aren't as smart as they think, and that, quote. The white collar guys think they are the smartest in the world.

0:34:25 Lydia: During the exchange, which was captured on an audio recording, but not on any official court reported transcript, one of the grand juror's could be heard asking the prosecutor, quote, do they think they're off like scot-free? The prosecutor responded, quote, the ones that testified, no, they are not. But that, quote Allah Ishkarot probably does, according to the motion filed by Boutros. At the end of the discussion, the prosecutor could also be heard referencing media reports about a sprawling fraud case she was handling against former executives of Loretto Hospital. Yeah.

0:34:55 Matt: So this is not an isolated incident. This is how she's been running things. And it's just amazing that she, I mean, I don't know how long she was doing grand jury work. They kind of rotate through these things, but it seems like somebody would have noticed before that she's reacting like this. It really makes me wonder how common any of this is with federal prosecutors.

0:35:10 Matt: It just makes me see the whole thing differently.

0:35:13 Lydia: What would a path be for like some sort of audit mechanism for this? Like, like there has to be, I don't know. I just, I just think about the situation here and how many times things have not gone appropriately and a defendant would never even know.

0:35:33 Matt: That's a great point.

0:35:33 Lydia: Like you have no idea.

0:35:34 Thomas: What's the reasoning that like defendants, like defense attorneys can't get this? What's the logic behind that?

0:35:41 Matt: I mean, so you can see how this could go awry, for example, if you have somebody that is not indicted and you should never be able to get, I mean except obviously in this situation, you should not be able the grand jury proceedings from someone who's not indited because the case didn't proceed. It's supposed to be secret.

0:35:59 Matt: Nobody's ever supposed to know they were even investigated. But you could see a situation where maybe you could get that transcript and use it at trial or try to show the jurors that there's some other stuff going on here to create a reasonable doubt and bringing in somebody who's not, because the government's decided not to proceed against. But yeah, I mean, generally, I think the idea is to have a forum where the prosecution can kind of, I mean, you can use hearsay. The rules are bent in all kinds of ways.

0:35:57 Lydia: Idea

0:36:22 Thomas: Yeah, so my question is, is there a reason why the system couldn't work so that once you get to the trial phase or something, or some part of the proceedings, the defense attorneys could get the transcripts of this yeah but what's yeah what's the problem yeah yeah well I don't know about the standard part of the trial it's like but if it's part of the discovery like because there's discovery and obviously they have to share the evidence against your person right yeah okay yeah that's what I was saying

0:36:35 Matt: The only reason that you can is if you can show that there is misconduct that got you here. That's a good point though. I am trying to think about it. Yeah.

0:36:40 Lydia: But then yeah but then what and then what would how would you know if there was misconduct without having access to this stuff it's it feels like if you establish what like perhaps it's a high bar of you know very very specific things regarding ethics violations and stuff that if those are the things that you can call into question you can't like nitpick over is the right thing to do I'm saying access to it being a standard part of the trial and then if it meets that threshold then then the defense counsel has the opportunity to petition the

0:37:23 Thomas: Too yeah how do how would they find out about this and actually now I'm like now that you say that so like why what do you think is the main reason that we did that They did have enough information to kind of pursue this, if you could remind us. Right. Okay. So it's just like somebody tells somebody, like a juror says something or somebody, you know, a transcription to say, you know, is that what you're saying? Like they just had heard rumblings of it. Okay. So when do they find that out? I guess I'm trying to find like where in the process, you know, like how did they even know that there could be a problem? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah then it all like spills so the key was like having some reason to kind of get a hold of a little bit of it and then because it was so bad it was like they redacted it and then it's from there it's like the judge is gonna be like yeah what the what the fuck

0:37:41 Matt: So the initial concern, which was very reasonable, was that the jury had not been properly instructed on the law because I think they heard one way or another that there were issues with this, that they'd restarted it several times. And well, I mean, even just finding out that there were three different sessions where they tried to indict this with the same grand jury does make you wonder. They started over three times. Did they give them the same instruction? Yeah, Yeah, I'd have to find that motion so I can see exactly what it was. I know the motion that they requested was just to get the section of the transcript that showed the part where they presented the law, which is reasonable, right? Then you're not getting anything else. But they wanted, they expressed some kind of concern, I think. I'm actually looking now at the sentencing hearing because I see how the judge characterized it. The defendants expressed concern that given the evolving theory of the government's case that the jury had been misled, the evolving thing, right? So anytime you think that maybe the government didn't end up where they started when they they were presenting the case and they were only bringing it so that they could present a different version of the law. I think that's a good reason to ask. And what happened was, of course, when even just looking for this portion of it, they had to redact the part or they felt like they had to redirect the part where she starts her presentation of the Law by talking about how much you can trust me. So the defense says, what's going on with these redactions? They felt another motion after that saying, there's real red flags here. And at that point, of of course, the judge agrees and then unfolds. Yeah, just enough. Yeah. So a very unusual chain of events all around and the way that they chose to handle this, it's very much on them. All of this is on the prosecution for how they did this.

0:39:25 Lydia: Court like this looks weird yeah what

0:39:38 Thomas: Oh yeah of

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0:39:49 Thomas: Course yeah yeah getting bored of this one yeah yeah practice makes perfect yeah yeah oh my gosh yeah it's like the bad lab scientist kind of thing yeah but I'm sure she's the only one doing anything like this though yeah all right we I

0:39:49 Lydia: Do you think happened on the 23rd to get the jury to sign off on this the grand jury to sign off on us okay I just want to eat my pizza in peace yeah yeah.

0:39:56 Matt: It was the best presentation of the law. So there is that. And I guess, I mean, there is something to be said for this is the third straight week they're hearing this case. I do have to wonder, like you're pounding us over the head and you you must think this is important. If we no -bill it again, I guess, right, exactly. I want to hear about a different case at some point, right? I don't want to spend the next six months hearing this over and over again. This is Groundhog Day, just grand jury session. I don' t know. But that's an argument I would make, certainly, is that there's a point at which the grand jury is just going to acquiesce because it's a pretty low threshold, and what's the harm? Just let it go. But I don''t know. Yeah, it's good. I mean, it does seem like having read these transcripts 23rd, obviously, is the all -around best presentation, but it was also their third attempt. It's the third time they got to do it. So yeah, I don't know. And it still wasn't great. Yeah, exactly. So I just think, again, in terms of autopsy, we already know how the case died, but it's pretty fun to just pull the body apart a little bit and just see all of these different moving parts and all the different ways, just to, I guess, to use another metaphor to turn the rocks over and just See What's Underneath Everything, because I would love to do this in so many other their cases. Maybe I'll try to get a hold of more grand jury transcripts where they have come out so we could do more of these because they're actually more fun to read than trial transcripts like consistently, because you've got regular people just jumping in and asking questions because they want to get it right. And I think that's great. That's how it's supposed to work. Yeah. Doubting Thomas's. There we are. You've never heard that one before. More. That makes sense. That's right. One bad apple. The one federal prosecutor in a department of justice that can barely keep anybody employed right now or find anybody to work for them that is doing this. Yeah.

0:41:10 Lydia: Yeah, that'd be fun. Thomas's just in the room. Yeah. Yeah, but it looks like in the Chicago Tribune article, they cite that, you know, the Broadview 6 situation, or I guess 4 by the time it was dismissed, isn't the only one that's like kind of fallen apart as a result. Like like they're talking about the arson case but then they say additionally so far 10 defendants in three separate cases have seen pending criminal charges disintegrate due to the scandal and that they're auditing basically all of Mecklenburg's grand jury work now a hundred grand jury cases that she's been involved with dating back to 2007 they're looking at now yeah oh yeah the only person in the entire nation who's doing something like that exactly yeah

0:42:21 Matt: No, I mean, this is just a fascinating look at a part of the system we never ever get to see, and they never want us to see. And I'm really glad that we got to do it. It might actually be worth, if you guys wanted to do a full reading of the whole thing, it might be worth just producing it so people could listen to it.

0:42:34 Thomas: Think there's a lot of good stuff in here all right well I just would like to thank the playwright and it's the writers you know the actors get all the credit but it's it's writing that really makes this happen yeah

0:42:39 Lydia: It's a character development that they put into this yeah oh

0:42:45 Matt: Yeah, it's true.

0:42:45 Thomas: it'S just so good what a rich character what a rich character this needs to be played by somebody uh let's see who would be good at this role well lydia did a great job but I mean like what famous actress you know yeah yeah yeah I'm sorry are we really to believe what is this uh what's his name who I hate are we ready to believe some random juror just had all these great questions about this is aaron sorkin you know like yeah for some reason I like her too much she needs to be more like like, yeah, well, she's brilliant. She's good at everything she does. I don't, Sarah Paulson, I think. Is that her name? Yeah, I think she would be perfect for this. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. She would be great. And actually, that character isn't too far off of this. Yeah, a little bit. Carrington Lane. Yeah, little bit like, how do you remember that? Okay. Often you just remember though like yeah uh well that was a lot of fun thanks gavali gavaleers gavalystas e gavalystos and uh matt of course uh this was wow well I'm glad they're all free now right it's

0:42:53 Lydia: Thank you so much merit weaver merit wever I think would be a good one maybe a little young but I think she would have like the good kind of like beats of this character yeah yeah okay I could see sarah paulson you mean from our favorite tv show of our own opening arguments all's fair remember that remember that guys how could you forget that incredible yeah sarah paulsen as Carrington Lane as that was the name yeah Sheri Mecklenburg I looked it up yeah I mean it's true I do usually remember but that was a little too far back yeah unless you want to exactly what what's the timeline for uh for knowing about sanctions do we know all right all right good to know.

0:42:55 Matt: I will say, I thought Mecklenburg a little over the top. You could tone it down a little. Not the acting, I mean just the writing. I don't think it's believable. And she actually does vouching using the word vouching? Come on, Send this back to the writer's room. Come on. I actually forgot she was in that already because I just can't believe she was associated with it. I know. Yeah.

0:44:24 Matt: Yeah, everybody's back to their lives. And as the judge said at the end of the hearing, I hope you never have to come in this building again unless you want to. I appreciated that she said that. I'm going to go sanitize my gavel now. It's done quite a lot of autopsying. We'll keep a watch. Yeah I don't know. I mean, It could be slow, but at the very least, anybody can report them to the bar, anybody who's read this transcript, so feel free. But the defense certainly can move for other sanctions, so we'll see.

0:45:14 Lydia: What day of the week is this group? Because this is a, I thought that they, let's see, October 23rd is not seven days after October 16th. So, yeah. Oh, it says Thursday. So did they date this incorrectly? No, it was the 9th and the 16th, yep. Hang on, I'm going to pull Pull up my account. I'm going to pull it up because I want to know. Oh, wait. Nope. I can't do math. I said I can't do math it's seven and six gets me every time seven seven six and seven and five. Yeah, no, we're cutting all that. It can't even go in the bloopers. That's too embarrassing. Yeah. No, don't worry about it.

0:45:16 Matt: It's got to be Thursday. It says Thursday. Yeah, Thursday. Oh, that's advanced math there for me. Maybe the previous one wasn't a Thursday? No, it says the 16th of the Thursday too. And then 23. No? It says 2-29. Oh, and then it says 23rd day of September on this when I know it's October. Okay. I'm so glad it's not just me. Okay?

0:45:20 Thomas: Always the thursday crowd uh maybe there's maybe they dated when they finished the transcript or something? I don't know. No, they're Thursday. It must just be when they did the transcript, or something. Or somebody messed up a date. Wait, did you mess up the math? Seven and six. Oh, I wasn't listening. What was the... Okay, I didn't hear any of the dates, so I didn't have a chance to laugh at you. Damn it. What did you just say? Okay. Oh, and I went to 2026.

0:46:13 Thomas: That's not going to do anything. All right, fine.

0:46:13 Matt: Fuck

0:46:14 Lydia: No. I already checked. It's fine. All right. So it is a Thursday.

0:46:19 Matt: This pig. Fuck this peg.