The Tates Seek Release, Super-Duper Promise They Won't Flee

Transcript

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

0:00:03 Matt: Trump administration let them back into the United States while they were facing these things, which would not happen with pretty much anybody else facing those kinds of charges.

0:00:18 Matt: They've spent their time here mentoring PhD candidates. They have no criminal issues. She says not even a traffic ticket. On April 9th, ICE showed up and arrested all of them.

0:00:32 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1287. I'm Thomas. That over there is real life attorney Matt Cameron. How you doing?

0:00:38 Matt: Just having another day suing new Attorney General Todd Blanch.

0:00:41 Thomas: I'm good.

0:00:42 Matt: Doesn't really matter if he's acting Attorney General, Attorney General for our purposes. We're just going to keep suing him.

0:00:46 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Well, anything new with that? You win every time, right?

0:00:51 Matt: Yeah no it's uh you know just habeas claims over and over again in which we explain that they are doing the law wrong and then they file a reply saying yes we're doing the war wrong so go ahead and do what you're gonna do and then the judge grants it you know it still feels good every time and I filed like eight of these this week so just keep it going

0:01:07 Thomas: Yeah, I know we've talked about this before, but that's crazy. I mean, you're but one lawyer. That means they're doing this every day times a zillion.

0:01:17 Matt: Yeah times most people in ice custody yeah uh so you pretty much have to have a lawyer to even have a chance at a bond hearing

0:01:24 Thomas: What are the things they're dealing that are illegal that you're suing for most often?

0:01:29 Matt: Well it's the same argument about how anybody who came over the border isn't entitled to a bond hearing, even though that is not the law. It's just the same tricks, just more of it.

0:01:37 Thomas: What exactly does that mean? They just keep people, what does it mean to not have the bond hearing exactly?

0:01:42 Matt: They're illegally denying the immigration court's right to actually review custody of people in ICE custody, and it's supposed to just speed up the deportation machine. And the immigration courts have gone along with it because they are part of the executive branch, and we just have to go to an actual federal court, get an order, come back, have the bond hearing. So just extra time and money.

0:01:59 Thomas: So if you don't have a lawyer, you're just like stuck.

0:02:03 Matt: Yeah, you're going to have to try to go the federal court yourself, and that is not really something most people can do.

0:02:07 Thomas: Wow. Oh boy. Well, that's crazy. It really is nuts to think about how much that is happening then just everywhere. It's crazy that that can't, there can't be a broad injunction against that or something, you know, like, well, how would this have worked in times past? It just wouldn't have happened. They just wouldn'T have ever.

0:02:23 Matt: Wouldn't have happened. Wouldn't have been a question. If somebody is in custody and is eligible for bond, they get a bond hearing But I will say the Ninth Circuit, congratulations to the Ninths Circuit and everybody in the West Coast. They did actually finally find that a habeas order is not necessary. So that's a lot of people who are now helped. I have a client in the Tacoma Detention Center that's got good news for him.

0:02:27 Thomas: That's Crazy. Oh, so what does that do exactly?

0:02:42 Matt: Takes it back to the way it was, basically.

0:02:44 Thomas: I guess my my question is if, if they've just been violating the law, how do they not just still do that?

0:02:50 Matt: That is such a reasonable question, and I still don't really know how to answer it. I'm just so used to this reality that we're in here.

0:02:54 Thomas: If the, already the law wasn't doing it, how does the one extra piece of paper that's like, no, really do it. How's that? What does that do? Okay.

0:03:03 Matt: Well, it forces the executive branch to follow the law. And of course, the immigration courts are not in the judicial branch. They're in the executive branch.

0:03:09 Thomas: So can we just have that? But for every law, why, if that's why make the whole plane out of the black box? Like why, what is going on? Wow.

0:03:16 Matt: That's right. One weird trick. It'll get you right there. Yeah. Of course, Todd Blanch was on my mind because he has just been sworn in as Attorney General, as we talked about on Wednesday's show. So I'm going to just do a quick catch up on today's show about what he's been up to. Too. Yeah, right. Yeah.

0:03:26 Thomas: Yeah we'll do our own swearing we'll swear him in this effing guy you

0:03:35 Matt: So we'll do a Blanche update on what he's been up to in the last few days. And we got to talk about the Tate brothers. We haven't really had a chance to talk about what they've been getting up to, but they have detained, detained. Just more taint. Yeah, it's pretty good.

0:03:41 Thomas: Mean we're going from taint to tate is that what you're saying taint tate

0:03:49 Matt: As far as I know, we've never talked about extradition proceedings, which is something I've always been particularly interested in. And I was just reading through the documents on these proceedings, which are going to be coming to some kind of a hearing soon. I thought people might want to know what they're arguing and what the government's arguing and kind of what's going on with the Tates brothers these days.

0:04:02 Thomas: Yeah I was wondering at white so they're still in u .s custody I guess huh

0:04:07 Matt: Yeah they have pretty good reasons to not want to have to be extradited to the UK and Romania because of the crimes.

0:04:12 Thomas: Oh you're seeing they do but do they it's not like do that because I guess we'll find out if they have any actual argument yeah okay yeah

0:04:14 Matt: Yeah. I don't think they're good claims, but they have arguments. They certainly have the money to pay for them, or not, maybe. I mean, they're also saying they don't have a lot of money, which is pretty funny given their whole brand.

0:04:25 Thomas: Yeah seize his slutty Capri's. Those got to be worth, well, there's not much fabric to them, so I don't know how much they're worth, but it's going to be with a couple of dollars. Yeah. Yeah, we could threaten people to make them wear it unless they give us money. That's all I can think of.

0:04:34 Matt: You could not pay me any amount of money to wear it, but yeah, pretty much. And then I got a deportation story that has really gone under the radar that just came in with a piece in The Nation from one of the people detained, an Iranian citizen detained by ICE. And this is very much kind of the next Mahmoud Khalil situation with Marco Rubio trying to personally get involved with Iranian residents of the U .S. And this one is particularly bad. It's actually in its own way, it's kind of worse than Mahmood Khalil. We've got to talk about it. As always, we have to save room for dessert. And I've got an extra fun footnote this week involving an actual real life heist that involves Nicolas Cage and the legal proceedings that have come out of it.

0:05:12 Thomas: Wow. Nice. That is fun.

0:05:15 Matt: He didn't steal the Declaration of Independence. It's kind of a reverse national treasure. We'll talk about it. Yeah.

0:05:20 Thomas: The Declaration stole him. Wow, I can't wait. I wonder what it did. Made made him act in a movie or something.

0:05:27 Matt: This one I learned a lot, actually, about some California law I was not familiar with before. Also, the responsibilities when somebody is holding on to a screening copy of a movie. We will talk about that.

0:05:34 Thomas: I'm excited for that.

0:05:36 Matt: Got plenty.

0:05:36 Thomas: Oh, yeah. I think I might have seen some headline about this. That'll be interesting. We're going to need that footnote.

0:05:41 Matt: It's a good one. Yeah?

0:05:43 Thomas: All right. Well, that gives us plenty to do. So we'll take our first break and then we'll get right into the action.

0:05:52 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:05:52 Thomas: All Right. Taint number one. Let's start with I'll never forget your title of Trump tries to blanch his taint is the funniest thing. God, it was so good. Anyway, what's going going on with our blanched taint these days hmm

0:06:06 Matt: Yes, the new Attorney General has gone hard, of course, as expected. Now, this could be a coincidence. Maybe it's not. But the day after he was sworn The Office of Legal Counsel, which is the office that has always done the Department of Justice's dirty work, produced a memo in which it extended executive privilege. Now, of course, the OLC produces opinions, but they're opinions that are essentially binding on DOJ. And if people follow the advice in these opinions, they generally are not going to be prosecuted. So that's relevant here because I think the headlines in this have been a bit sloppy. And this is one of those classic OA kind of cleanups that we can do here. The headlines have been suggesting that this memo is the first time that executive privilege has been tried to be extended to private citizens outside of the government. That's not necessarily true. The Clinton administration and others have argued this in the past, that it's possible. I believe from at least one court case that I found in 1997, it seems like there is some acknowledgement that in some cases you might have private advisors who are covered under executive privilege, but it is the scope of this and especially the intention of it, knowing what they want to do with it. Just a couple of highlights from this memo, which we'll link to for everyone to read. First of all, they drop this into a footnote, which I'd usually appreciate, but this really actually probably belongs in the body.

0:07:15 Matt: They define private advisors for the purpose of this memo as anyone the president consults outside the executive branch, whether they be members of the public, state officials, or employees of any other branches of the federal government. So he could just be talking to, I don't know, Ted Cruz, not that he would do that, who wants to talk to Ted Cruz? But talking to somebody or a federal judge or whatever. But most importantly, of course, when you're talking about private citizens, he could be be doing business deals in the Oval Office and have that all be protected as presidential communication, privileged communication, and they can raise it. Now, again, obviously, the privilege can be challenged. And I think that part of the purpose of this memo is just to create a roadblock, assuming, as we all hope, that there is a red massacre in November. I don't mean that literally. I just mean that we take over Congress and that we have the opportunity to start investigating what's been going on for the last couple of years. I think that this memo's going to be in vote quite a lot. It gives license, ostensibly on paper at least, for private citizens the government has been working with, people like, I don't know, Elon Musk or

0:08:12 Matt: Mark Zuckerberg. But specifically for right now, it seems like the general consensus seems to be this is targeting protections for Boris Epstein, who is a private lawyer who works with the Trump administration, who actually is the person who negotiated the deals that we've talked about before, that the Trump Administration reached with law firms around the country to keep them from being subject to the kind of sanctions and executive orders that they watched in the the first few months of the administration. Boris Epstein probably did some pretty illegal or at least extremely ethically questionable things. They have good reason to want to protect him. The ABA has sued on behalf of its members, the American Bar Association, to try to get more information about what these deals were, how this worked, how they were strong -arming law firms into all kinds of things we've talked about where they have to do pro bono work on behalf of the Administration. That's one thing about expanding the idea of private advisors. And again, it's not necessarily that this has never been argued before. This is probably just the most most expansive, and it's probably going to be the most litigated attempt to do it this way. I also was kind of struck by, there's a whole page where they're doing very typical MAGA kind of bait and switch, where they make it seem like they're talking about one thing, but they're talking about something else. They cite Trump v. Thompson along with a couple of their cases, that was the suit against Benny Thompson, the head of the January 6th commission, trying to keep subpoenas from being carried out on Trump for the January 5th investigation. And they lost those cases. And that was about executive branch documents in third -party hands. They're trying to get things that the executive has shared with other people out of those people. But that's not about testimony about conversations you've had with the president, which is what this memo is about. There is even a footnote in this memo suggesting that this could be extended, and they might have another follow -up memo pretty soon, extending it to presidential advisors and people in the White House talking to private citizens, which has just a whole other penumbra.

0:08:26 Thomas: Sorry yeah we're so far in maga trump reverse land what's what's like the normal cool version of executive privilege again just quick I can't remember

0:10:02 Matt: Yeah, good point. Yeah, well, I mean, classic is like, this is actually cited in the memo, but like George Washington, you know, consulting with his advisors about a treaty or about war plans, right, about things that are obviously internal government communications.

0:10:15 Thomas: Right but then what does that

0:10:18 Matt: The main thing is for Congress for their investigating, but also, I guess, different situations where FOIA to try to get public records, but the main thing is for congressional committees. And in that case, actually, that they cite in the memoir, Congress was trying to get information about how George Washington reached the Jay Treaty. There's always been this idea from the very beginning that the president shouldn't have to turn over everything to Congress, that internal debates and conversations and documents can be kept. Obviously, the big case on executive privilege is Nixon v. U .S., where the Supreme Court of the United States found unanimously against Richard Nixon and forced him to turnover the tapes, which pretty much ended his presidency of his Oval Office activities. He's trying to assert privilege and say that anything that happened in the Oval office was privilege. And of course, it's not that broad. They came up with the whole test for it. Obviously, it's in Trump's interest to try to expand this as much as possible and more importantly, to give these private citizens some sense of protection so they can deny these subpoena requests. So you can have Boris Epstein stay. The OLC has said this is covered by executive privilege. These are my communications to the president. You can't have them. And then they have to litigate, which means potentially years.

0:10:22 Thomas: Prevent yeah

0:11:17 Matt: And we know how good Trump is at tying things up. And of course, this Congress may only have two years if we get what we need in November. So this could really be a roadblock for that potentially. We'll see. It's going to have to be litigated. I know I say this all the time, but this is really something where you do have to look out for the footnotes because there's some big stuff in footnotES in this one. There's another footnote where they invoke Trump v. U .S., the immunity case, where John Roberts gave Trump all that immunity.

0:11:20 Thomas: Man

0:11:41 Matt: They're kind of conflating the idea about this privilege and the immunity that would come with it, that you might actually be able to extend immunity to private citizens. That's how I'm reading it. And that the official capacity that Trump v.-U .S. can cover if the president is acting as official duties might extend to people like Boris Epstein, who are private citizens representing the president. All kinds of dangerous possibilities in here. We'll see how they plays out and what it's for, but I don't think it's a coincidence that this came out the day after Todd Blanche came in officially. I think that's something he probably requested a while back and now it's safe to release because he's in.

0:11:39 Thomas: Oh yeah so you wouldn't get questioned about it yeah

0:12:15 Matt: So it wouldn't come up at the hearing. So that's Something to Watch. Also not coincidentally, I think, we have expanded the SPLC, the Southern Poverty Law Center prosecution. You actually picked this one up and sent it to me. Appreciate that. We've talked back in April when this indictment dropped, and we've mentioned it several times since, about the prosecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center, essentially for doing journalism, for paying sources to infiltrate right -wing hate groups. They did promise at the time, and I think we even talked about it back in April, that these prosecutions would be expanded, that more people might be included. They did file a superseding indictment in June that we didn't talk about, in which they expanded the scope of what they were hiding from the banks, allegedly. And this kind of goes to the same thing with Michael Cohen and the Stormy Daniels thing, where he set up a fake company and didn't tell the bank what it was for, except this is not trying to do any kind of crimes. He's not trying to cover an illegal business transaction to mess with an election. This is just a shell company to pay out an informant, which I think there's plenty of defense for that. But the person they're going after now is Heidi Bayrich, who is the CFO of the SPLC. She ran one of their projects to track hate groups in the US. This was the first, I believe, the first individual named out of the SpLC. So it's kind of a big deal. And she's a big dealer in the extremist world and in the sort of monitoring disinformation and right -wing extremism. She's very much the kind of person that Monica would like to target. She testified before Congress. She is very reputable, very well -known in this stuff. She started the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.

0:13:37 Thomas: Weird matt why would why would maga want to target people who go against racists like what I don't get it that's

0:13:43 Matt: Yeah. I mean, you'd think everybody would want to stop extremism and hate of all kinds. She actually was looking at her website on the Project Against Hatred and Extremist. She has a pretty convincing explanation, which of course I agree with as to why they don't do far -left extremist groups in their analysis. Process, and she makes the very reasonable point that such groups do not embrace agendas that attack individuals for their identity traits.

0:13:58 Thomas: Word yeah

0:14:05 Matt: These movements also do not advance rights -restricting agendas, nor do they function to undermine democratic rule. And she also points out that most of the violence, of course, has been on the far right, and there's really no reason to be tracking the far left that way right now. Right.

0:14:05 Thomas: Yeah it's a good point because like yeah there can be of course leftist extremist groups but it's like the splc is not like a police officer they're not like trying to stop terror attacks or something it's okay yeah that makes Makes a lot of sense.

0:14:27 Matt: Right? Yeah, through journalism. Just to kind of make the point, most what we would call left -wing terror or violence has been around things like the animal liberation front, the environmental liberation front. Which generally are going after property and have not hurt people. Again, I'm not condoning it. I'm just saying that that's a different category of thing.

0:14:45 Thomas: Have you ever thought of how that makes the property feel, Matt?

0:14:48 Matt: That's true.

0:14:48 Thomas: Have you never? It's really heartless of you.

0:14:51 Matt: That actually, I listened to your latest series in horizontally with Jenessa about the way that objects feel. I felt that deeply. It's very hard for me to throw things away. And as Jenessa said, not because I'm a hoarder, but because I don't like to think about them sitting out in the rain.

0:15:04 Thomas: Interesting.

0:15:04 Matt: It was a good episode. Well, I strongly recommend for everybody.

0:15:08 Thomas: Yeah, that was fun.

0:15:09 Matt: So the superseding indictment, other than adding Heidi Barich, there's not that that much more to comment. And I did note though, that they made more of a list of the things that donor money was used for. Yes, you're funding the KKK, right? That's what we've talked about. Like you are by providing money to an informant,

0:15:24 Thomas: Is that funding the KKK? Not really. I mean, for

0:15:26 Matt: I guess, literally, but the informants that they're alleging that the informant used the money that donors gave to the SPLC. And again, this is, they're alledging that this money could be traced to purchasing robes and hoods for the the KKK. I don't know. Publishing extremist literature, paying living expenses, recruiting new individuals, forming chapters. Yeah, literally, I guess, if you're giving money that somehow gets its way to the KKK. Again, this is all part of investigating it. And again, law enforcement does this all the time.

0:15:33 Thomas: Like the potluck that they had. Really? Yeah.

0:15:59 Matt: They provide money to informants and

0:15:59 Thomas: Again, what's the crime? Did they add any charges, like actual? Because the whole theory was what, being dishonest to the donors and or the bank. Was that what it was?

0:16:10 Matt: Both. And so what they've added for Bayrich is that she was involved in a conspiracy to conceal, essentially, and to to commit money laundering. And I guess it is literally money launding because you're creating like a fake photography company and using it to pay your sources. But at the same time, like you don't want to expose your sources to risk and have a piece of paper that says you're getting paid by the SPLC that anybody could find, you know, have any kind of paper trail. I think this is pretty defensible in a lot of different ways for the first amendment activities.

0:16:36 Thomas: At the same time, today's headline, they just got rid of that database that was like tracking businesses. And are you freaking kidding me? I just made this connection. Yeah, we weren't even planning to talk about that. But now this is the Treasury Department, I guess, not literally the DOJ. But they're repealing a Biden era reporting requirement for businesses to try to, like, keep some track of the shell companies, you know, and at the same time they're doing that. They're getting rid of that, but they're prosecuting someone literally arrested this lady for paying a informer through a company that isn't doing exactly what it says. It's obvious what's going on here.

0:17:16 Matt: And just to really make the point and just to remind everybody, because we did discuss this, but the FBI was working with them too. Like, I mean, this was like, they were doing law enforcement, which the FBI Was helping with and information sharing. So this was completely condoned by the federal government until it wasn't. That's how it goes. But yeah, that's a great point. That is a direct connection there. So that's the latest with Todd Blanche as of this week. We'll keep following. I'm expecting we're probably going to see some more bolder steps now that he's firmly entrenched.

0:17:43 Thomas: Is the slush fund back yet?

0:17:46 Matt: Oh yeah. He did make a statement about that.

0:17:48 Clip: The president has never gone as far as you have to say that the anti-weaponization fund is dead. Now that you've been confirmed, you know, narrowly because arguably of that anti- weapon weaponization fund, um, just the president said this week, he'd leave it up to you. What's your answer? Is it dead? And is it ever going to come back? Well, so I quibble with that because the president sat in the cabinet meeting that it's dead. Um, he's also said that he likes it, but he has also said it's bad now as for me. And I keep on saying this over and over over again, but I'm happy to say it one more time. I have testified under oath that it's dead. I have testifed in front of the House where I wasn't under oath, where I said it was dead. I have answered questions after my hearing I have rescinded the order that set up the weaponization fund, which means that it does not exist. As we've said repeatedly, there were never commissioners, there was never any money went anywhere. So I'm not sure how I can further say that the anti-weaponization fund doesn't exist or we use the word dead, but if anybody has any ideas, we also have said under oath that if Congress would like to make it a law, that we would support that, as would the White House. So I'm not sure, I get that this is a super fun story to not let die, but I don't know what else to say except that, right, that yes, the president feels very strongly, as do I, that there were people who were victims of a Department of Justice that was absolutely weaponized. And he feels very strongly that he would want to make them whole, as do I. But it will not be through the anti-weaponization fund, which, again, was never set up, and nothing has happened with it.

0:19:32 Matt: So we'll find another way. That that's what I'm hearing. We're finding some other way. I also love how he refers to it it is a super fun story. I can't agree with that.

0:19:38 Thomas: Yeah the super fun story guys I get it I tried to you know steal the entire treasury like carmen san diego and for some reason you guys have a problem with that I I get it you know get over it yeah yeah

0:19:51 Matt: And you're just having a great time covering it. Yeah. I mean, I can say I'm not a little entertained, but not doing this for fun. It's pretty important. Yeah. So this is actually going to my original theory from back when we took a look at the settlement agreement. And again, I want to make the point we made last week, which is of course that the settlement agree with the U .S. Constitution. If it were to be resurrected by the 11th circuit, which has not impossible, The settlement agreement itself still requires DOJ to set this up. So that is still in effect, if it ever were to go back in effect. He was talking about the actual enabling order that he put out, which has been rescinded. But he's saying right at the end, the thing that I said back when we first talked about this, which is that there are other ways that the government can pay out from the judgment fund. And this was basically just setting up a carve out for the judgment fun that was going to be this very easy to get piece of it. But under current DOJ regulations, they could be read to allow people, including a tort suit that was just filed by a bunch of J6ers alleging, of course, that they were the victims of the worst scandal in American history or whatever, which I might want to take a closer look at for another show or maybe gavel gavel. It's quite a document and exactly the kind of thing that he's talking about with the people the president's concerned about. So it doesn't mean anything, as always.

0:20:57 Thomas: Right well uh we've blanched that team now for another one the tates yeah this is I am really interested in them actually facing consequences it's very very important to me. So is this happening ever?

0:21:09 Matt: It is uh well I mean it has to be because at this point just to remind everybody tristan and andrew tate in case you're somehow not aware also I just learned today that andrew tate's first name is emory it's emory andrew taton everywhere then I didn't know that doesn't matter but I can see why you'd rather go by andrew these of course are unfortunately super popular influencers among young men especially who are more than credibly accused of multiple instances of sexual assault of sex trafficking of child sex trafficking child exploitation for the webcam business they were setting up in Romania, as well as a number of things they did in the UK. You know, I don't think we even got around to talking about this, but the Trump administration let them back into the United States while they were facing these things, which would not happen with pretty much anybody else facing these kinds of charges.

0:21:53 Thomas: Yeah, they specifically helped them out.

0:21:55 Matt: Yeah, help them back in. And I guess the only good news from all of this, besides the fact that I think they actually are going to be extradited, is that DOJ is actually trying to extradite them. They're not helping at all. So they at least know better than to sit back and let them fight it. Extradition extradition proceedings are pretty interesting to me. I think that's an interesting thing to talk about. They're often misunderstood. In this case, you've got people that are wanted for multiple very serious felonies, most of them involving sexual abuse of some kind.

0:22:22 Thomas: Even multiple is not high. It's like 30 something, right? It's a lot. Combined maybe? Yeah.

0:22:27 Matt: Yeah. Like 42 -ish, I think, between maybe just UK alone. Yeah, it's so many. And this is kind of a funny thing because, you know, again, as a lawyer, you only have so much to work with sometimes when you're dealing with clients like the Tates. It's kind of funny thing in their motion. So they filed a motion basically opposing extraditon and trying to get release. And that's going to be heard this week. I don't think they're going to be released for reasons we'll talk about. They're trying to say that, well, we haven't been accused of anything since we were released. We've been good, which is often the best you've gotten in a situation like this because it's been a couple of years. That's not even true. They actually, just a couple of weeks ago, were accused of witness tampering because they were threatening one of these women in Romania. So that's not even actually true, which would go pretty far for their credibility in these proceedings.

0:23:03 Thomas: That's right. Oh my God. Yeah and if you talk about them being a flight risk, it's like they were literally here because of avoiding Romania like for a while. They couldn't be more of a risk like just don't let them out yeah yeah I

0:23:19 Matt: These are the flight riskiest people I've ever heard of. I mean, and And I had no idea because I don't follow this stuff that closely. I don' t know how much you guys know. I know you've been talking about some of this work probably.

0:23:27 Thomas: Read the whole article that uh someone did on the the new yorker it was just it wasjust devastating it was just oh oh my god it's devastating yeah you should read

0:23:31 Matt: But yes, I got to read that. The really long one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I will. The amount of traveling they've been doing and the number of passports they hold. One of the reasons that it's been actually pretty hard to track them is they apparently they have passports from Vanuatu of all places.

0:23:46 Thomas: That don't that's what is that I don't know what that is wow

0:23:48 Matt: That's one of those little island Micronesian countries. Probably one of the places where you can buy a passport. Yeah, Nigeria, Vanuantu, other places. Yeah, sure. They're committed citizens of Vanuaktu, no doubt. When we're looking in a federal court about flight risk, we have to look at how easy it would be for you to leave the country, and how many different passports do you hold, and how easy is it for you get access to money? Of course, they've made their career on being wealthy influencers who drive fancy cars and have fancy planes, and he's bragged about it. And what's funny to me, too, is the government attached a whole bunch of ex -posts from Andrew Tate about all the money they have and about how, you know, you haters can't believe we really have a yacht. Here's the blueprint for the yacht they're building for us right now, right?

0:23:54 Thomas: I'm sure that's legit yeah hmm

0:24:26 Matt: So all that gets used against them to talk about how much money theyhave. They are saying in their motion that they only have access to money and that they only have some kind of right to use the yacht or whatever. They're trying to deny that they actually have any of this stuff. They've used false names. They've got passports and false names, apparently. One of the false names he's used is Vladimir Scorpius.

0:24:44 Matt: He made a video in which he identified himself as Captain Vladimir Scorpious. Totally, yes. That was Tristan, by the way, not Andrew, but yes, same deal. But he's got a Mexican passport under the name Vladimir Scorpias and a UK company in that name. The Vanuatu passports have complicated things. And this is another one of those kinds of hung up by your own social media posts kind of deals because they bragged about how much traveling they're doing and how they've avoided all this and how it's all nonsense. Usually the most successful way you're going to actually challenge extradition is to say that the treaty the United States has with any given country does not include the thing I'm

0:24:43 Thomas: What what did jk rowling help them with the fake names yeah yeah good times did

0:25:19 Matt: Accused of. They don't go that far. They kind of try a little bit with some of the British charges, but pretty much every extraditon treaty we have with every country in the world includes sexual assault as it should. And And obviously, it's ex -trafficking and all the things they're accused of. So the best they can do is saying, well, you haven't produced the proper documents to show we're charged with this, which is a pretty common extradition tactic. But mostly, they're just trying to get released. That's the real focus of these proceedings. And they've put themselves in a position where they're globally visible. They're too famous to flee, basically, is the argument here. That's what they're saying.

0:25:50 Matt: But they're also wealthy and have access to things and have all these IDs. And yeah, that's right. That's right, they'll just fall apart.

0:25:50 Thomas: They also argue look we can't even run in these pants like they we're barely can sit down if if the pants don't fit you must yeah

0:26:07 Matt: Yeah. Remit. They must remit, I guess. Yeah. So they're trying to say special circumstances, which is pretty much all they can do for something like this, that special circumstances justify the release. And it's just very funny. They say that there is no greater special circumstance than the Tate's demonstrated compliance with Romania's conditions of release for more than three years.

0:26:27 Matt: That's the baseline. That's not a special circumstance. It's not even true, of course, as we discussed, but that's just like you complied with the law after you were arrested with these things it's just ridiculous no that's not a great special circumstances argument and they're also trying to say that because the uk has attained a surrender order from romania and so there's like some jockeying between uk and romania about who gets them first because you know everybody wants a piece I know they still have the pending charges

0:26:26 Thomas: What yeah I feel like judges wouldn't be super big fans of that argument oh wait did they they get recharged in romania I thought they got rid of

0:26:57 Matt: Romania criminal case in romania is still open it's kind of a weird in between where they're not officially under what's called judicial control measures but they're still under investigation and the the charges are open. So they lifted someone.

0:27:05 Thomas: Those oh okay yeah it might be like the visibility made it so romania might actually because it's just corruption they had connections to romanian police or something because they were able to get them like it wasn't they weren't able to get it dropped but they wereable to getit like you know it was gummed up and I think some of it was witness tampering I mean they they made the witnesses lives absolute hell threatened million didn't just threaten, like sued them for millions.

0:27:28 Matt: No doubt. No doubt. Yep.

0:27:31 Thomas: And we all know how that actually just successfully works. Even if there's zero basis for a lawsuit, it can just intimidate people and cost them so much money. They can't fight it. And so I think through all those things, they were able to at least kind of stop it or like stall it. But yeah, I guess technically it is still open, but I don't know. Is Romania actually trying to extradite them?

0:27:47 Matt: I think they are. Let me be sure about that.

0:27:57 Thomas: Oh, that sounds weird.

0:27:59 Matt: Yeah. From what I can see, the Romanian surrender order is still open. And the UK is perfectly able to get one for itself and to seek its own. You don't have to line up and take a number. You can just, you know, whoever gets the extradition first. And that's one of the things you're trying to say is that they should have to be subject to Romania first, I guess. I don't really know. Obviously, they want to deal with Romania because they have more sway there. There.

0:28:17 Matt: 12 countries on 34 plus international flights from February last year to July this year. That is a lot of travel.

0:28:24 Thomas: Oh, but that's how much they've traveled. OK.

0:28:26 Matt: Yeah, just in the last year. Uh, that is way too many. One of the weirder arguments I thought for that they made was that we're probably going to get bail in the UK. So you might as well let us out now, which is very strange. Like that's not an argument you get to make and it doesn't work. Also probably not true. It does seem like Romania is not pushing extradition, but the argument they're making here is that, uh, I'll just read it here. What the United Kingdom seeks now is to shop for a second forum and a second judge in order to jump ahead of the Romanian proceedings and bypass the Romanian order, the deferred surrender of the brothers.

0:28:55 Thomas: So their argument, they're trying to make that be more than it is because they would rather go to Romania or at least would rather say, like, this is somehow that this extradition is like not valid because hypothetically there could be a Romanian one.

0:29:11 Matt: And because the Romanians already found that they shouldn't hold them and the British shouldn't either, it's pretty weak. But again, you got expensive lawyers, got to do something.

0:29:20 Thomas: Yeah, that argument seems terrible.

0:29:22 Matt: It is, yeah. It's quite bad. Yeah.

0:29:23 Thomas: Whatever the Romanian police have or don't have has no bearing on what UK would have, right?

0:29:29 Matt: Just the fact that there is now from July, 2026, just last month, we've got witness chamfering charges. That really clearly emphasizes the seriousness of this, that you can't have these people out.

0:29:38 Thomas: And that's the UK case.

0:29:39 Matt: That's in Romania.

0:29:40 Thomas: Oh, Romania. Oh, they did add more witness tampering charges.

0:29:44 Matt: They did. Whatever. They can say that's political or it's time to try to mess with whatever, but it stands. It's there. So I don't see that they have much to go to work with here. It seems like DOJ is actually doing their job in this one, which I guess I have to give some credit for. I think they're facing extradition and maybe some actual justice, at least in the UK, where they did commit serious crimes. So certainly Romania has stepped things up in the last month. I'm seeing least investigation, witness intimidation, possible charges. We've got quite a lot more money laundering and sex trafficking.

0:30:15 Matt: This is serious stuff between the two countries and they're bound to face justice. I hope in both, but at least in one of them, I can certainly trust the UK is going to get it done. This whole proceeding though is a pretty good example of how you fight extradition when you have a lot of money. It's often a waste of time because you're just going to have to sit there in a US jail and they'RE complaining about the conditions too, which are pretty standard, unfortunately, conditions, but they could help themselves out of those conditions by going to the UK. You can always agree to extraditon. You don't have to fight it. It's usually, in most cases, not worth trying to fight international extradition. I don't know why people do it so often. Obviously, if you really can show that this is a charge that would never be brought somewhere else, that it is completely nonsense, that it's political, I'm a political refugee or whatever, yeah,

0:30:55 Thomas: Or if we like didn't have a treaty with a country, I guess then you're not really fighting it anyway because they're not trying to do it.

0:30:59 Matt: Right. Yeah, that wouldn't be lawful. Or if it's a statute in that country that doesn't directly line up with the treaty obligations we have, and that happens all the time, there's reasons. But for something like like this when you're wanted for a clearly applicable crime. I don't know why, but it's up to them and the money they want to pay are their lawyers.

0:31:15 Thomas: I think maybe that that means they know it's not going to be good.

0:31:18 Matt: Yeah. Well, I hope it isn't. I hope none of this is good for them. Might finally be time. I would love to never hear from these people again.

0:31:25 Thomas: So you don't think there's anything to those arguments? And when can we expect to see the actual extradition? When can it actually happen?

0:31:33 Matt: Yeah, well, I think it's going to depend on so that they're this week. I think by the time that this airs, they'll have been a detention hearing. And I assume that their detention will be denied. If it's not, we'll certainly talk about it next week. I would hope that at the point at which their detention is finally denied, that they will give up and accept extradition.

0:31:47 Thomas: Wait, detention is denied? What does that mean? Released from... Oh, okay.

0:31:49 Matt: Their release from detention. Sorry. The motion. Yeah? That's the the main thing they want, because they want to flee, obviously. Yeah, permission to flee. Pretty much.

0:31:55 Thomas: Your Honor, we'd like to flee. Yeah. All right. Well, we're going to take a break. And then I think we're probably talking about a bummer of a case in the latest... What did you call it? You said it was the next...

0:32:10 Matt: Mahmoud Khalil, that's very much on that line. Yeah.

0:32:10 Thomas: There shouldn't be a next.

0:32:14 Matt: No, no, they shouldn't.

0:32:14 Thomas: That so that's not good all right well we'll take a break and then we'll get into it

0:32:21 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:32:21 Matt: So I've had to try to piece this together, because as usual, the headlines don't tell you a lot. And the State Department itself has not said a lot, but the fact that Marky Rubio is involved tells me that these are the extremely unusual charges for deportation. When I say charges, of course, I mean civil charges in immigration court. The same thing that was brought against to Mahmoud Khalil, alleging that he presents, in and of himself, some sort of threat to the foreign policy of the United States. That's the only way this could work. The people involved here did come on diversity visas or did get their residency through diversity visas. There might be some power from the Secretary of State over those. We might find out more. This caught my eye because one of the detainees, Mariam Tamasabi, wrote a really gripping piece in The Nation from custody. She's a professor, and of course, she's very articulate about her situation. And she's being held in Dilley, which is one of the family detention centers that got a lot of attention under both Obama and Trump for having pretty bad conditions for families.

0:33:12 Matt: She's being held with her minor child in Dilley, and her husband is being held separately. He's also a professor. She's a professor of psychology and statistics at Los Angeles Pierce College, and he is a professor in the business psychology department of Chicago School. And they've spent their time here mentoring PhD candidates. They have no criminal issues. She says not even a traffic ticket. And on April 9th, ICE showed up and arrested all of them.

0:33:13 Thomas: It sounds familiar wow wait for what they're professors and they're so wait how that what was their status I missed

0:33:39 Matt: They were lawful permanent residents, so they have green cards. So this isn't even very much like Mahmoud Khalil. As we've discussed before, it is much harder to terminate the status of somebody with residency than it is somebody on a more temporary visa, like a student visa or a professional visa. Even then, you have to have a standard of proof to show that you can cancel that visa, but you still have to do something. But this is really appalling. I don't want to wade too much into Iranian -American politics. That's not something I know anything about right at this point.

0:34:03 Thomas: That wow I'm not a fan of either country really to be honest with you oh

0:34:07 Matt: The Iranian - American community, apparently, there is at least an outspoken representation of the Iranian American community. I have no idea for whom they are actually speaking or how powerful this actually is, but there has been kind of this movement to try to identify people that are associated with the Iranian government in the U .S. and calling them Iranian operatives, which is ridiculous. There's been this campaign because her husband is the son of someone who was very prominently involved in the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979. And there's no allegation that he's been up to anything in the US or that he holds any opinions that we have problems with. It's literally just bloodline. This is like Game of Thrones stuff. This Is like you're in the wrong family and we're going to cancel your green card and deport you. I went looking to try to see if that's really what is going on and I can find no evidence that is not what's going on. I mean, that's literally in the Marco Rubio statement, the official press statement, they talk about his mother. There's a suggestion that he's refused to denounce his own mother, which I don't even, I mean that's not a crime. That's not even an immigration problem. You don't have to denounce your own mother.

0:35:05 Thomas: Yeah like in what for like an official denunciation proceeding or what like

0:35:09 Matt: Yeah. I I mean McCarthy straight straight up. I mean, this isn't real. This is ridiculous. One of the more shocking things she says in the interstatement here, which I believe because I've certainly seen this happen before, is the family offered to self -deport, to accept voluntary departure and leave, and the government wouldn't let them do that. They would not agree to that, and the immigration judge denied it. That's something I should explain very quickly because voluntary departure is actually considered to be a privilege because you're leaving without a deportation order. The government wants to punish them to the extent that they are going to cancel their green cards and issue a deportration order to make it that much harder for them to come back.

0:35:39 Matt: And I think that's why they're still in custody because because they're fighting that. It is just painful. I mean, even for everything we've been talking about, even obviously the injustice of the Mahmoud Khalil case was so much worse because his wife was giving birth while he was in custody and he missed that. That at least was tied. And again, I don't think he deserved it. I don'T think there was anything I understand about his activities that would begin to explain why he would present in and of himself a threat to the foreign policy of the United States. But at least it was things he was actually doing. The allegation here is about the mother of this man.

0:36:11 Thomas: Yeah that's the thing I I mean, it's not impossible that there could be foreign agents, you know, like that's that's happened with different countries for sure. But like, you need to see some evidence of it, because there's also just a lot of Iranian Americans who probably support America more than Iran, I would think.

0:36:29 Matt: Yeah, yeah, no doubt. And I think that's pretty dangerous to start identifying people who are related to Iranians that we don't like. There's a trend, too. When I went looking for this, we've also done the same thing to a woman and her daughter who arerelated to Qasem Soleimani, who is, of course, the general that Trump assassinated on the runway. I just really am not comfortable with any of this, obviously. But the idea of punishing people for the people they're related to, and I understand we're in a state of, I guess, war with Iran. I don't really know what to call it, but yeah, right.

0:36:57 Thomas: I thought we won that several times.

0:37:01 Matt: This is kind of the stuff you start to do before you round people up and put them into Japanese internment camps, you know, that kind of thing.

0:37:07 Thomas: They wouldn't put Iranians into Japanese internment camps, man. That doesn't make any sense.

0:37:09 Matt: Yeah, right, that's true. Yeah. I just wanted to provide some context, but yes, it is very concerning. And I would strongly advise anybody with residency in this country with green card status who has Iranian citizenship to try to naturalize. This story, it only came to my attention when I read her account and they've been in custody for for four months now. I somehow missed this one, and I think a lot of other people did too.

0:37:31 Matt: So I wanted to be sure we highlighted it today, so people are aware. To go to the effort to not only round these people up, and they even posted a picture of him and tried to make it seem like they're living in some kind of opulent conditions. I mean, they're university professors, they have a nice life. Talk about how they're a threat to the United States because of his mother, and then deny them the chance to even leave the country and hold them in these torturous conditions. People really need to read the piece that she wrote. I'll make sure we link to it, but it's pretty powerful, and it's something people should know about.

0:37:58 Thomas: So a professor has been in custody with her son?

0:38:02 Matt: Yeah.

0:38:02 Thomas: With her, like, how old?

0:38:04 Matt: Mariam Tamasabi has been in custody with her 16 -year -old son for three months or four months now.

0:38:09 Thomas: Jeez, that is, wow, I'm sure it's not the best conditions.

0:38:14 Matt: The Dilley Center is designed for families and it is slightly better than your average ICE detention center from what I've heard, but it's not good. It's not a place you want to be. Slightly better doesn't really mean much. So this is completely unjust and you can read the piece. She's calling for assistance and maybe there's ways people can help. Even by the standards that I'm used to every day in the things I'm seeing people getting deported for. This is a new law.

0:38:37 Thomas: What's the legal argument, and can they win? Can they get out? I mean, this is the, because they had residency, right? So how is this happening? What happened with Khalil? I thought that turned out okay -ish.

0:38:43 Matt: Yeah, not quite. He is still fighting that. He was just released from custody, which that didn't happen here. Ramesa Ozturk was facing the same allegation, but she had only a student visa, so it was a little weaker defense. But that actually she got lucky because you might remember the government forgot to certify a copy of Marco Rubio's letter and the immigration judge terminated it.

0:39:05 Thomas: Yeah. I do remember that.

0:39:07 Matt: But unfortunately, she did leave the country. I mean, she was a student. I don't think she intended to be here forever, but he's back in Turkey now.

0:39:13 Thomas: Right, dang.

0:39:13 Matt: And I certainly can't blame her for that after everything we put her through.

0:39:15 Thomas: Do we know when anything is going to be forced to happen or

0:39:18 Matt: From what I can tell, I think they're going to end up having to be deported. I think that's from what I can tell that they've already lost this fight. And I will remind everybody that the Khalil case is on appeal right now. The order issued against Mahmoud Khalil because, as we've discussed, this provision, which is extremely unusual and has barely ever been used in U .S. history, which just allows the Secretary of State to designate somebody a foreign policy threat. The Board of Immigration Appeals found that they had to agree, even though it's really nothing much more than a letter, because the president allows him to do this by a letter. So it's going to have to go up to the circuit and beyond. But at least Khalil was back with his family and doesn't have to be detained during this time. They weren't able to do that. We will just keep a watch. And I think that this one though, I don't see it working out for them from everything I understand about it.

0:39:57 Thomas: Man all right well uh we're gonna need a good uh footnote matt so why don't we take our last break and then uh yeah it's very good

0:40:03 Matt: I got one. Let's do it. It is.

0:40:10 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:40:11 Matt: All right. So this footnote presents a whole new legal question I'd never thought of before. There's some pretty entertaining stuff in here. First of all, it involves a movie that I think I'd like to watch. It's called Fortitude and it is about the Serbian spy Dusko Popov, who was actually, and this is true, one of the inspirations that Ian Fleming had for James Bond.

0:40:11 Thomas: All right footnote you fetishist

0:40:30 Matt: He was that cool. He's like kind of a playboy figure who did a lot of work for... No, rapist.

0:40:30 Thomas: Hmm wow was he a rapist like james bond boy standards have changed to the james but I don't know if you watched any of those old movies But yeah,

0:40:41 Matt: Oh, yeah, not great on consent. That's true. Yeah, I don't like the old Bond movies. Pop -Up was part of Operation Fortitude, which is one of the coolest things that the Allies did in World War II to mislead the Nazis about where D -Day was going to be, all those cool things they did to make them look the other way so they wouldn't know it was coming. It's a great story. And I'm sure, I mean, I can't help but like like Nicolas Cage and pretty much everything. I'm sure it'll be great.

0:41:03 Thomas: That means you've watched and like every movie then because he's done every single movie. Yeah. When will he be out of whatever tax trouble or something? Whatever, whatever bet he lost, whatever it is. When's that done?

0:41:05 Matt: But this man, apparently, so many, I haven't begun to watch all of them, but great question. Yeah, I don't know. I've been keeping track of his finances. That was actually my first thought when I saw this movie was just another Nicolas Cage movie that he made to try to get out of taxes, but it actually sounds like it's pretty legit.

0:41:30 Matt: And this guy, Simon Afram spent like $45 million every seven years to get it made. He really believed in the story and wanted it to happen. Question though, and there's definitely some issues here. I think the plaintiffs have a point. Simon Afram is suing, along with his production company, they're suing Netflix because they dropped off a screener copy on a hard drive of this movie because obviously they want Netflix to buy it. They made special arrangements. And I'd never really thought about how this works. But of course, when you've got a screener coffee, you have to have pretty good security around it. You don't want them leaking. You don'T want copies getting out there.

0:42:00 Matt: And so you have somebody hand deliver it and then you make arrangements to pick it up again. Netflix made arrangements to receive it. One thing I thought was really strange. It's not really commented on in the complaint, which I think there's a reason they didn't comment on this. It was not an encrypted hard drive. And apparently I was looking into this, like the industry standard would be that you would have a special encryption. And they actually mentioned this, that they're like, please give us the key if you have one. There was not encrypted. So anybody could have gotten this hard drive and copied everything that was on it. Not great for the purpose of the rest of this. Netflix presumably watches the movie and then they continue to ask for the movie back. And Netflix keeps putting off giving the movie be back. And then finally the plaintiffs receive an email under the subject line. Yeah. Just kill still watching it. Yeah, can't get enough. Right.

0:42:37 Thomas: We love it. We, you know, we just, my kid keeps watching it. We keep watching it repeat views, you Know, it's just so it's that good. Yeah.

0:42:46 Matt: Imagine you're getting this email after the holiday weekend. The title is stolen DCP. And the DCP of course is the screening copy. And they explain that someone stole a good amount of drives from our office desk this past week. It's quite a thing to say. Netflix informed the plaintiff's that they were working through this, that security had not had any luck in figuring out what happened. And there's a lot of sort of back and forth about whether they went missing or somebody actually intentionally stole them about what else was involved. But I think one reason that they're not really going for a negligence claim here is because there would be comparative negligence because they didn't keep up with industry standards. That's my guess in encrypting the DCP. They should have done that. But really interesting legal stuff here, because this isn't stuff I usually think about and some interesting points of California law. So first of all, when you leave stuff with somebody for your benefit, it. Again, they didn't leave it. I mean, Netflix gets the benefit of watching the movie, I guess, but obviously the purpose of dropping off the screener copy was so that Netflix would buy the movie.

0:43:41 Matt: So this is, it forms a bailment contract when you drop it off like this. So California law controls as to a bailment contract. And the bailment contract can be as simple as, I mean literally it could be like, can you watch my laptop while I go use the bathroom? Like you're creating a bailment contract at that point, right?

0:43:54 Thomas: Okay. It's not like pawn shop type stuff or is that kind of a different? Oh, okay.

0:43:57 Matt: It is, no, it's that too. Yeah. But it's like a whole range of stuff that you wouldn't really necessarily think about because you're not signing a contract when I get to use the classroom, but that's what you're doing, right. What I thought was really funny about it, I've never seen this legal standard before. In In California, if you form, informally or otherwise, a bailment contract with somebody that is to your benefit, not one that's to their benefit, the standard of care is slight care. I thought that was great. Slight care. You just have to care a little bit.

0:44:17 Thomas: Slight care. Wow, yeah. Yeah.

0:44:22 Matt: You could spill coffee on the laptop while I'm in the bathroom and, you know, if it was negligent, it's fine, basically, like, unless you didn't, unless he dumped coffee on the laptop, right? That, that would not be slight care. Yeah, I thought, that was really funny. Yeah, that's a very, very low standard. I mean, you could leave it out in the rain or something, right. Right? I mean, or leave it outside, I guess, if you thought it wasn't going to rain. I don't know. But anyway, so this is interesting because I think they've actually reversed the claims that I just kind of looking through this and thinking about kind of procedurally. I had a little too much fun looking at this complaint because this is so different from what I do. I get kind of involved in these things once I start looking at them. And they're claiming both the bailment contract, which I think is pretty strong because it seems like it's pretty obvious that they did form a bailment contract under these circumstances because they had such a formal agreement to have them keep it for a certain period of time.

0:44:27 Thomas: Hmm but you can't just be like Like, sure, I'll watch it and then just leave. That's not slight care. Slight care? Huh.

0:45:08 Matt: And this isn't even a question about liabilities. It's really more about damages because they pretty obviously are liable because they lost track of it.

0:45:14 Thomas: Yeah, what is actually the damage?

0:45:16 Matt: So that's the other question is they're saying, because nothing is leaked yet, they're saying it could leak, but nobody knows where this thing is and it hasn't leaked. And what they're say is that we now have to disclose that there's a copy of it potentially floating out there and that's going to be bad for sales. It's going be hard to sell this movie if people think it could leaked. I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. I think they'd have a much stronger case if it actually had leaked. There's also the fact that they waited about a week to tell them what had actually happened with it, which is obviously some kind of negligence there.

0:45:20 Thomas: Oh, it isn't. Oh, okay. Hmm.

0:45:43 Matt: The thing that I think is less strong is they're arguing conversion, which is when you take property and make it your own, basically. In California law, you have to show an intentional act of dominion. That's the standard. And I don't see it. This is negligence. They're not intentionally trying to take it. There's no allegation even that they didn't.

0:45:57 Thomas: And this, like, copied the file.

0:46:00 Matt: The thing. There's this weird kind of thread that is not pulled in the complaint that I'd really like to know where Netflix offered to provide another DCP after it was missing, which means they have a copy. And I was really wondering why the plaintiffs didn't make a bigger point about that. Like you clearly have held onto something if you're offering another DCB, but I don't know because they didn't explore that.

0:46:19 Matt: This is the kind of stuff that'll come out in discovery in this case. But you know, it's just like passive loss. If you just kind of carelessly lose it, that's negligence and kind of a breach of bailment at that point of the contract. But they didn'T do anything affirmatively to convert the drive to their own. And I just don't understand why they led with that. Anyway, I thought that was interesting. As to the damages, obviously, the literal damages are one hard drive. So, you know, 150 bucks or whatever, right?

0:46:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Wow, those are pricey nowadays. Depends on what kind.

0:46:45 Matt: But that's true. It's probably a pretty high quality drive that's going to be holding a movie that you're going to watch. Probably pretty big.

0:46:50 Thomas: Or it's just a little thumb drive.

0:46:52 Matt: Yeah, that's sure. I don't know. They're looking for $105 million. When you don't have a leak. No. Yeah. That's a lot of money.

0:46:56 Thomas: I don't think drives are that expensive yet. The if we're talking about a 50 90 video card maybe but but not uh not not just a drive

0:47:04 Matt: Yeah yeah. This Actually, though, this might kind of blow things open in Discovery about how Netflix holds on to screening copies, because this is pretty shocking that they would just kind of allow this pile of hard drives to disappear. You'd think they'd have a safe or something when you're holding onto people's property like this, but slight care was taken, from what I can tell here. So I think that the liability is there, from What I Can Tell, the argument has been, yeah, right, pretty much, pretty match, and try to maybe keep the water and coffee away from it, and that's about it.

0:47:26 Thomas: Slight care they have to put up a sign that says like don't steal please don't

0:47:39 Matt: Because negligent loss is not enough to establish conversion. I don't really know if they can say that punitive damages really matter when there's nothing that's actually happened out of this.

0:47:38 Thomas: Take yeah

0:47:46 Matt: I don'T know what the damages are actually going to be.

0:47:46 Thomas: Yeah and it's hard to just the idea of punishing anyone for not taking slight care is like it's like it should just be a firm talking to if that not even a firm talking to fell short of slight care it should be like a reminder like the court should issue you an official reminder to take slight care, please.

0:48:05 Matt: And the defendants should have to issue a one paragraph written apology. That's pretty much it. Not $105 million.

0:48:12 Thomas: But if it were to be leaked, I mean, how does that work? Let's say there's the worst version of this. It's leaked and it causes all kinds of, I don't know, problems or losses or something. Does that like get factored in or is the like still ultimately with that kind of stuff? It's like the thing you did is still the thing you did. It'S like, are you responsible for someone leaking it, you know, or not?

0:48:33 Matt: Yeah so then you really would have damages potentially because a bunch of people may not pay to see the movie or might not go to Netflix to watch it. He put $45 million of his own money into this thing so I understand the concern here but but they obviously can't show that. And I think you're also going to have to,

0:48:48 Thomas: Well, It's still not Netflix's fault. Isn't like proximate cause whatever, you know, it's, it still, the person who stole it and leaked it, they're the ones who leaked it. But it would never have happened if not for Netflix. So like how much of that can even be pinned on to Netflix?

0:49:03 Matt: Then if you're getting into a negligence analysis, like I said, there's going to be comparative negligence and you're going to able to show that, well, you guys didn't follow the standard of encrypting it. Then you'd have to have an extensive discovery about Netflix's practices around screener copies and how they actually handled this one and sort of the communications that were happening around, you know, shit, it seems like we lost a pile of hard drives.

0:49:21 Thomas: Yeah. That, that's all the same. Keeping that all the time. I'm asking if there's like, is there a difference between if someone ends up leaking this or not? Like, does that actually affect how much the money they might get or the case, or is it just philosophically it's kind of the same netflix did the same thing either way that's what I'm trying to ask does it change it if someone makes that decision to leak it or not

0:49:42 Matt: It doesn't change the liability. I think the liability is still there. I think there's got to be some, but I think it is definitely goes to damages because then you can can show lost profits you can't do that right now because nothing's happened

0:49:50 Thomas: Right but isn't there some like there's definitely a limit to that right especially when you're talking about something like slight care it sounds kind of funny because if if I someone hey watch my laptop and then I'm slightly paying attention but then I don't and it gets stolen and they're like hey that's the nuclear codes I can't be like well shit I didn't know about you know like am I I responsible for that? You know, like there's, there has to be a line in terms of, and I'm just wondering when it comes to Netflix, the thing they did is still the thing that they did, regardless of what this person later on does or doesn't do with it.

0:50:23 Thomas: So I, I just wonder like, would they even be liable for, or like, Would that add to the damages or not? I guess it would make it easier for them to claim damages or try. Yeah.

0:50:32 Matt: I think it would yeah because you'd have something to hook on to at least you'd Have a number potentially of some kind but right now I don't think they're entitled to that much but I absolutely see the point and I think that it's worth filing a lawsuit probably but it's an interesting look at how this stuff works in hollywood I didn't I'd never thought about it before about the secrecy around screener copies and the liability that is incurred when you create what's called a gratuitous bailment. And the slate care that follows that.

0:50:55 Thomas: Slight care is a new one. That's cool. I like that. I want to see an argument over slight care, like, like the courtroom drama, except it's slight care his head was looking he was looking at it he sort of kept an eye on it a little yeah wow that's hard to do you would think you just accidentally do ordinary care right yeah interesting well

0:51:02 Matt: I mean, it's actually less than ordinary care, which I think is very funny. It's like, yeah, I mean that's pretty much how I treat all my property, unfortunately, is slate care. I'm pretty reckless. Not reckless, I'm just clumsy. I'm clumsy. What can I say?

0:51:26 Thomas: We'll see if this uh nick cage movie comes out or

0:51:29 Matt: We get a really meta movie about the theft of the movie.

0:51:31 Thomas: Not oh yeah that's true coming to a to a bit torrent near you maybe I don't know All right. Well, that's our show. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks so much to our patrons. Most of all, patreon.com/seriouspod. Avoid those ads. And we have a lot of movies. We're recording that very soon. Can't wait to get a new one out to you guys.

0:51:48 Matt: It'll be a good one.

0:51:48 Thomas: So we'll have a good week and we'll see you on Monday.

0:51:51 Matt: All right. See you later.

0:52:28 Thomas: Look, we can't even run in these pants like they were barely can sit down.

0:52:33 Matt: I don't like to think about them sitting out in the rain. It'S a sad thing.

0:52:37 Thomas: Your Honor, we'd like to flee.