He Went to Prison for Bribing Susan Collins. She's... Totally Fine Somehow?

Transcript

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

0:00:00 Clip: Thank you.

0:00:02 Matt: The federal government doesn't believe that it is responsible for this, and the state government does not believe that IT is responsible. No

0:00:08 Thomas: So you get to do whatever you want then yeah

0:00:17 Matt: Pretty obvious, straight up quid pro quo, that he He used illegal methods to do it that he's now being indicted for is the illegal gratuity where you have her calling to say, hey, thanks for giving me all that money.

0:00:34 Thomas: And welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1299. Ooh, next one, next one. Oh, it was kind of like between you and Jenessa, who gets to be 1300, and I'm sorry, Matt, I'm announcing you've lost. Anyway, how are you doing?

0:00:45 Matt: On the edge, I'll take it, I'm living on the Edge, Thomas, as always, it just another week in deportation defense, just don't even know where the time goes, but getting it done, we're still winning, things are happening, I

0:00:56 Thomas: We, you know, this podcast pays a tax that not a lot of podcasts pay, you know? It's like so many of the podcasts people listen to, they get to, you know, they have a person who's just a personality who gets a comment on stuff. Stuff. Matt's like out there in the trenches having to both be an immigration attorney and then come on and do a show. And sometimes it just sounds like it's a lot. It just sounds like a lot, Matt.

0:01:20 Matt: Think I actually am the only full-time practicing immigration attorney who's doing a podcast that anybody listens to, and happy to be that person, but I did not think about it when Joseph Robinette Biden was president. I'll tell you that in 2024 when I took this job.

0:01:26 Thomas: That might be true. That's true. Things kind of changed.

0:01:36 Matt: Lot more to talk about.

0:01:36 Thomas: Facts kind of changed underneath you.

0:01:38 Matt: Yeah, happy to do it. And I love coming in and talking to y'all. But yeah, what a week. But you know what? What a week in the news, as always. We have two blockbuster stories, like massive stories. One of them is getting a lot of attention, one of them not so much. I'm kind of obsessed with both of them, and they're both nationally, very important. So we got some time here.

0:01:55 Thomas: And the stuff we're not even going to get to is also Also, like there's there's a lot. So what do we what do we land on? What two what two stories are we going to be talking about?

0:02:00 Matt: Always. Well, we got to talk about Susan Collins, of course, in the big pro -publical report. And I kind of want to break down the crimes that she could have been charged with, maybe should have been judged with, but why she will never be charged with crimes, not just because Trump interfered, but incredible. The guy that did the bribery is going down and he's being indicted and he is going to go down pretty hard, but she will not be. And I'll explain why and the crimes that she'll get away with.

0:02:06 Thomas: Oh, my God. Wow. Doesn't seem right.

0:02:26 Matt: Really doesn't.

0:02:27 Thomas: I if I had to choose and it was like, all right, as a society, we punish pick one. You get to punish the briber or the powerful elected official who accepts the bribe. I'd be like, well, Well, pretty easy choice for me because, because punish that person, then other ones won't want to take bribes and that'll kind of solve the problem more so than trying to punish every single potential briber.

0:02:40 Matt: One of 50 people who runs half the legislative branch. Yeah.

0:02:53 Thomas: But no, we're going a different way in this country. Okay.

0:02:53 Matt: Yeah, yeah. To talk about the law of bribery and just about how hard it is to be convicted of bribery if you happen to be in congress uh as a senator especially so yeah we'll get into that yeah

0:03:04 Thomas: Every time we talk about it, it's dumber than you think. Every single time.

0:03:07 Matt: And even the dumbass supreme court case we talked about a couple of years ago that I still think about snyder that doesn't even apply here like it's not even

0:03:14 Thomas: We even get to that test or something. Think.

0:03:16 Matt: We will talk about it

0:03:17 Thomas: Should I be surprised? I admit I was surprised. Like I have obviously never liked Collins, but I a little surprised to find out. Oh, that is why you suck. Like, I thought you sucked for some different weird Maine specific reasons.

0:03:31 Thomas: I did not know you sucked. For the normal Republican reasons. Just run of the mill corruption.

0:03:27 Matt: But yeah I mean I also I'm gonna say it's and also maybe maybe not an and but or an or rather uh it's a and but yeah no for sure it really does explain though the uh And the fact that Trump was able to shut this down and make sure that she would never actually face anything, it says a lot. And I think it explains some things about Susan Collins. The other thing that we have to talk about that I have not seen that much out there, and this is more in my direction, is the complete investigation of Alligator Alcatraz from the Trump administration. And there are multiple reasons why this is incredible, starting with the fact the Trump administration actually investigated Alligator Allcatraz.

0:03:37 Thomas: Fair. Yeah, Yeah

0:04:09 Matt: As. Also when I tell you about who this guy is that did the investigation, and then when you look at the investigation you to imagine what they're not putting in here because this is bad. This is one of the worst reports I've ever seen about, I mean it really is, about detention at all. We already knew that this weird illegal facility that was being run by Florida was very bad. We've already seen the pictures, we've heard the stories, but to have the inspector general detail it in this report, we'll read some excerpts, I'll show you some pictures, we'll talk about who actually put this out. But everybody needs to see this. Everybody needs to take a look at this report. It's not too hard to read. I mean, it's pretty hard to reading, but it's an easy read otherwise. I just don't think it's getting talked about enough because of the hurricane of shit that we're all living in right now. So I just want to make sure we get that out.

0:04:50 Thomas: Is it the kind of thing where it's like oops they forgot that there's someone who still does the job of investigating things and they didn't get to it or because when you say the Trump administration investigated like how much is that actually fair to

0:05:03 Matt: Whole thing happened under them and this is their, I mean it's a OIG that Trump appointed and only reason it didn't come out sooner is actually because DHS was shut down for a few months. Um make the point of saying it would have come out sooner but yeah yes and

0:05:12 Thomas: I mean he has fired a lot of inspectors general before my feeling would be like oh did he just not get to this one yet

0:05:21 Matt: I this one is one of the main ones and he's still there but we will talk about the office that he did destroy that would have provided a lot more information and should be investigating the next facility which there's it turns out I learned from this report there's a whole other florida facility that nobody's talking about so we'll talk about that too, yeah.

0:05:34 Thomas: Dear god crocodile alcatraz and then I'm not gonna know the difference between them my kids are gonna be like what's the difference we're doing crocodile albatraz and alligator one of them's like a longer nose or something I can never remember yeah they're both human rights abuses that part I know like they're oh the

0:05:39 Matt: It lives in the Everglades. Yeah, I know that's actually another, right, with silly names. And actually this one has a silly name too, but I'm going to save it. We're going to wait on that silly name. I'll tell you when we get there.

0:05:57 Thomas: The next iteration you're saying oh

0:05:58 Matt: Yes, yeah, the one that they're using now, which I didn't even know about. Yeah. And then finally, of course, we got to have a footnote. And today's footnote is one of my favorite subjects, tracking the use or abuse of AI in legal briefs. And we have another milestone. We've so many different milestones. I've been circling this story for a while. There's a video of the hearing we're going to watch a little bit of in which this lawyer was sanctioned. Been avoiding it because it is so cringe. It is just incredibly cringe to have to sit through. I have watched a lot of it now, but we'll talk about the facts and circumstances here. But another dismal AI milestone that we'll have to talk about. It's pretty ridiculous.

0:06:28 Thomas: Times yeah we've got milestones got where both sides were using it we've gotten where like the judge used I'm wondering is it going to be like both sides the judge and the the jury all somehow yeah and the criminal was actually ai something like that we'll see we'll get there well

0:06:36 Matt: Federal judge. Yep. Someday we're getting there. I mean, yeah, probably by now. Right. Yeah. Completely fictional. Yeah, pretty incredible. It's really a warning to all lawyers, everybody, anybody who practices law should know this story. So,

0:06:51 Thomas: That sounds Like a full show and we need to get to it so let's Take that first break uh hey avoid the break patreon.com/law and you heard that lot awful movies preview that matt hasn't heard yet, but I'm getting it out just in the timeline. You will have heard it. So if you want to hear that whole thing, patreon .com slash law. And that was a lot of fun. Also skip the ads, get the goodies, the usual stuff, the book club. Hey, that's coming up soon, right?

0:07:17 Matt: That's right. Sunday, the 27th, we will be talking to author Dave Wedge, who we've had on the show recently to talk About his new book on the Karen Reid trial, really the only book on the current read trial. So if you have any interest at all in that, patrons, please join us 4 .30 p .m. on Sunday for a Zoom call.

0:07:31 Thomas: A world of everything being in shitified, please try to support the few remaining things that aren't quite shit.

0:07:37 Matt: We're here for it.

0:07:37 Thomas: That's my, that'S my Patreon plea. Right, Matt, which one of those did you want yeah bribery alcatraz all

0:07:47 Matt: Which of the massive federal crimes would we like to pull up first? Let's talk about Susan Collins. That's the big story today. We don't expect much out of Congress, but this is bad. It's really quite bad. Kind of review here. ProPublica story broke. It is a very long, very well researched story. She obviously is denying everything, as she will. It's pretty hard to argue with a lot of what's in here. And we know about a lot this because the other person on the side of this transaction was indicted and started talking through his cooperation and provided quite a lot in the FBI investigation.

0:07:52 Thomas: Thanks we're not going to use any of that but

0:08:18 Matt: Yeah, right, exactly. But thanks for your time.

0:08:20 Thomas: Yeah we just wanted to talk you know it's like fun to chat with you how

0:08:24 Matt: Yeah. So let's get the details here, because I know that not everybody's going to have heard what's even going on with this. So remember this is 2019 and Susan Collins is very much in jeopardy. Like she is not expecting like an automatic reelection here. A lot of people do not like her in Maine. Of people have good reason not to like her and they certainly won't now. A bakery meeting, an infamous big in the corner bakery in late 2019. We've got the head of her super PAC named Scott Reed. And he meets with an executive for a company called Navitek, which is at the center of the scandal. And I'm going to say this is a scandal. I want to keep using that word. We don't need to retire it it truly is I know a financial scandal a bribery scandal how about it it sounds like I'm talking 18th century here when I use a word like that but

0:08:55 Thomas: Quaint matt a scandal wow yeah I was actually picturing that I was like well I'm picturing different clothing like titanic era clothing for some reason came to my mind a

0:09:06 Matt: Yeah they're meeting in a bakery with gas lamps yeah um guy martin cow is the ceo of navitek and his whole deal he's worked out a way that he thinks that he's legalized bribery because His previous patron, Daniel Inouye, had died. He's from Hawaii, right? So InouYE was a Hawaiian senator.

0:09:25 Thomas: Yeah that guy ruled okay

0:09:27 Matt: He was great. No implication that Inouye was doing anything wrong, but basically he was his kind of champion of getting money from Congress to this company. Company. And again, this is a legitimate defense contracting company. This isn't, you know, out of nowhere. Course the problem is the methods here. And he called it the method when what he would do is he would basically hook up with a university in your home state. And he had deals with a lot of different states. And then he would aggressively lobby the representatives and senators from that state and get them to fund a bunch of money into NAVATAC, right, to kind of go through this, using this home state university program as a nexus. Are not necessarily products that the Navy wanted or needed. There are a lot of questions about what they were doing here. And again, I said it's a legitimate company and they're making real products, but they're not anything the Navy asked for, as I understand. They're doing like whole type research, different kinds of parts of ships. Um this meeting is pretty straightforward I think it sounds like martin cowell wanted a funding guarantee and reed promised him that susan collins would know where the money came from if he was able to set up a shell thing because he's a he's a contractor contractors are not allowed to make contributions to federal candidates for obvious reasons that's why this is extra extra corrupt now

0:10:09 Thomas: I mean I thought free speech or whatever right

0:10:34 Matt: You're a defense contractor like you can't be like directly giving I mean it doesn't yeah that makes sense right and but of course you can get your mom and you know all of your relatives and everybody else to give um he didn't just do that the usual way he actually set up a shell company and donated about 150 000 through reed in his email reply the head of the super pack actually put in writing he thought this was very smart he liked this very much. Collins called Kao a week later after his $150,000 donation to thank him. You can't say that she didn't know. And we'll talk about sort of the fine line here between being aware that somebody is breaking the law to do it and actually having it done on your behalf. And again, this is going through a super PAC, so there's some deniability here. Pretty obvious, straight up quid pro quo, that they made a deal in this bakery, that it was carried out, that he He used illegal methods to do it that he's now being indicted for having done it. It's $150 ,000. It's a lot of money to do through a shell LLC when you know you're not supposed to be giving money at all. You're not suppose to be arranging any of this. Top of that, he committed PPP fraud like so many people did during the pandemic with the pandemic funds. Started to get more and more investigations. Interesting sort of side note here that Cleta Mitchell, the Republican lawyer you've heard over the years, was associated with Trump. Uh actually became aware of this when the campaign legal center flagged the llc as a possible shell thing and she actually proposed a whole scholarship cover -up like to help out that's a whole other side thing but I just wanted to know

0:10:37 Thomas: I gotcha yeah okay proposed

0:11:54 Matt: That she's actually implicated in this thing yeah basically cover-up to say that this is actually what the money was going for I don't really know what the details were but she was like as a lawyer actively trying to help out it sounds like in a cover-up uh this money yeah when it became clear it was going to be investigated. So pled guilty in 2022. He got 87 months for, Senator A is referenced all the way through here, obviously Susan Collins, as the person he was bribing.

0:11:55 Thomas: A skull sorry what oh wait what wow oh my god how did we not like this out then the

0:12:20 Matt: And that's a great question actually. And I don't know why that wasn't really in the news because maybe, yeah. But the FBI sat down with him and opened up a broader bribery probe in 2024 because he gave them 50 pages in which he named a dozen other members of congress not just collins because he was doing this in a lot of different states I graham was actually implicated now uh you know R.I.P. of course uh know we can't get him on this but originally I guess that they the investigation they were going to go forward was centered on lindsay graham which actually also raises some questions now that I think about it I actually thought about this till right now um that's just one more thing that trump would have known about Lindsey Graham potentially that because trump did shut down the office that was doing all of this that's where where this is all going, of course.

0:12:24 Thomas: News hose oh right sorry shut down the office that was doing what exact thing investigating okay wait

0:13:01 Matt: Based that was doing this stuff. Aside the statute of limitations, because obviously that's relevant for a 2018-2019 deal. It was just getting to the end of the statute limitations, I believe, when Trump took this over. Even assuming that they have caught her in time, got straight up bribery because this is obviously contract steering. Like you've We've got official acts under the McDonald case, which is kind of the big one for now. And we'll talk at the end here about the legal case law that kind of applies to all this, because the law of bribery has been distilled, as we know, quite a lot, has been watered down. And the Court has made it a lot harder. Know, we've talked before about like how you have to have an explicit quid pro quo that it has to be. I'm going to do this because you gave me this money. There's still, I think, account for bribery here. There is honest services wire fraud. Anytime that you use these emails back and forth where you're making this agreement, this conspiracy. There's definitely some kind of conspiracy to defraud the FEC going on between the Super PAC and Collins's knowledge. Is the illegal gratuity where you have her calling to say, hey, thanks for giving me all that money.

0:13:57 Thomas: I thought tips were fine though because you know right

0:13:59 Matt: Question. This is actually, I had the same thought. And I went back and looked at Snyder, which is the case, There was a case we talked about two years ago, right? And right, an Apple, Starbucks card. That's right, that's right. Well, thing about that case, that actually, that whole thing doesn't apply to Congress. It only applies to state or local officials and organizations. So it doesn't reply to federally elected officials. So actually, technically, she could still be, could have been up for the gratuity thing. That was my first thought too, because we had so much fun with talking about that. That case. Case. Value has to be received personally. So she didn't get it personally. It was going through the super PAC. So I think that's deniable. My thought, just kind of looking through the possibility. I was looking through statutes and thinking about what might work here.

0:14:01 Thomas: Because this it was uh yeah where cavanaugh's like what if what if you want to tip your son's teacher a starbucks card yeah is that bribery I see yeah all and super packs are so completely disconnected from, yeah.

0:14:42 Matt: Totally different thing. How could you even think that was Susan Collins? But all kinds of campaign violations. I mean, soliciting a federal contractor, knowing, of course, he can't make a contribution, knowingly accepting contributions through a shell company, knowingly accepting the straw donors and like her father and like all this other stuff, his father, excuse me. Mean, there's just so many different things that in a reasonable society you would charge a U .S. senator for, for doing this because we so badly want to discourage this, or we should want to. She won't be charged because statute of limitations, the conduct we're talking like 2018, I think the latest I could find was February 2020, 2020, and it's a five -year statute of limitations, so, you know, too late now.

0:15:20 Thomas: Okay. I guess she can just still be a Senator the time ran out on your crimes.

0:15:22 Matt: No problem, fine, just re-elect her. Yep, you ran out the clock and Trump helped you. Yep. Thing that was kind of concerning to me when I really thought this through is, once again, the speech and debate clause, which is a good thing for the most part, that we can't use things that people are doing in the course of their jobs against them, except in this case you really want to, because you want to introduce at trial that she really pushed this money, right? That she put this appropriations thing right in on behalf of Navitek. But that would be inadmissible. You couldn't actually use that against her as criminal evidence. Plenty of other evidence around this, but the actual thing that she did to make this quid pro quo happen would be an admissible. And the Supreme Court, I went looking for this because it's hard to believe, but there really is no exception to that. Like they basically, you can do all kinds of corruption right on the open. There has to be other evidence.

0:16:08 Thomas: Sorry. Remind me how exactly she gets away with that. Like what's the thing that she did as long as you say it out loud? What?

0:16:15 Matt: Well, I mean, because it goes straight to a bill that she wrote, right, Right. So you can't use like a bill that you put into Congress is speech and debate. It can't be used as criminal evidence. So that would be inadmissible and excluded. Yeah, I know.

0:16:26 Thomas: Is that always been true? Cause like, I mean, bribery has existed, right? I mean if you bribe someone for a bill then you're fine that's

0:16:27 Matt: Yeah, yeah. That goes way back. There's going to be other evidence, presumably. The actual text of the bill, as my understanding, would not be able to go in as criminal evidence. But you'd have lots of other things saying like, hey, thanks for passing that bill for me or whatever. Right. Or other testimony and communications. But like, I just think it's interesting that the actual text of the bill, which would be the thing I want to see if I were in the jury of like, well, how specific was this language, right?

0:16:52 Thomas: A little weird yeah so

0:16:54 Matt: You could introduce a New York Times story about it or something. But, there was also outside evidence that she was pressuring the navy about this contract so that could potentially be used in some way um the doctrine here really what we're talking about here is for the proof of the quid pro quo is mccormick vs from 91 and you're talking about a campaign contribution specifically, it has to be an explicit quid pro quo. Here was a campaign, a campaign contribution. And that is kind of a problem. Like you're talking about the super PAC mediator here. You've got something in the middle. Public actually kind of gets it wrong because it makes it sound, it kind of even suggests that Snyder might be at issue here, which is not, it says that recent Supreme court cases would complicate this. It's not really true because what I can tell McCormick would be the controlling case here. Really the issue from 91. Again, I'm just talking speculatively if the statute of limitations didn't matter, because I think we should think about these as crimes. These were crimes. These are things that we shouldn't be doing as elected officials. I was really amazed that the legislative act, even if there's open amounts of corruption, the legislative Act, this is USV Johnson, by the way, from 66, if people want to look this up about, it's a pretty longstanding thing with the speech and debate thing. The prosecutors obviously can use all the evidence of the money. They could use any promises of future legislative acts. If you're saying, obviously, I'm going to do this for you. If you have any indication, it sounds like Scott Reed from the Super PAC made some pretty serious promises. You've got Cal's testimony about what she told him, that it was $32 million that she was pledging to essentially to give. All of the other non -legislative acts, like all the different kinds of like emailing the navy um the award itself like the actual outcome is it could be used as evidence against her I just think that's interesting like about how you actually

0:18:22 Matt: Prosecute not the text of the bill but everything around it basically um

0:18:22 Thomas: So not the text of the bill but the okay okay what was the guy's scheme where he was like I've got a great way to get around bribery what exactly what was the way he was getting around it was it just the supreme court already exists

0:18:37 Matt: You mean in this case martin cow yeah

0:18:38 Thomas: I thought you said something about the guy was like hey I've Got this one weird trick what

0:18:42 Matt: It he literally called it the method and like there's a lot of internal emails apparently within navitek about his method but because obviously Susan Collins has every right, and it is in fact her job to help direct money to the University of Maine. That's part of her deal. She wants to make sure that her gets the best research, gets the best opportunities for programs. So he's talking about setting up partnerships with all these different academic institutions, and then she gets to get behind that instead of giving the money to him directly. But of course, it's also about making sure that we end up getting appropriations in the course of that that go directly only to Navitek. That is how it worked out. A bad idea. I I mean, excuse me, not legal advice, but like in terms of how you're going to do a bribery.

0:19:15 Thomas: In terms of getting away with crimes yeah

0:19:17 Matt: Right. And how you set up a bribe like that's it's not it's there's a certain kind of genius in it. I think they just left way too much of a trail here. We don't have the 50 page report that the FBI put out. I'd been very interested in what other people were named. I mean we can kind of guess because there are a number of other states that Navitek was working with. But I'm sure there are lots of other States that he was approaching or that maybe they were in talks about, you know, that some of these representatives and senators might have actually been pretty close to or in other ways. Supporting Navitek, but it sounds like this thing went pretty far. Is exactly what we need ProPublica for. I know they've had some issues recently with their employees and such, but are the best we've got for this kind of investigation. See the New York Times doing this kind of degree of depth in going after corruption. So I really do appreciate it. It's a great story. You should take a look and really appreciate the amount of journalism that went into this, because obviously you're going to put something out like this about a U .S. senator. Her, you got to get it right. You got to come correct. And I really think they did from what I can tell here.

0:20:07 Thomas: What's gonna happen nothing I feel like the statute of limitations on federal like accepting bribes should be longer why could that not be longer so

0:20:17 Matt: Agree. I completely agree. But that's the way it is. It's still going to be five years. Think that the standard response here is that, well, you know, consequence is when it goes to the voters. And, yeah, sure. But she should have been out years ago. I t know. That doesn't really help when she's already taken the bribe and the money's already been distributed.

0:20:33 Thomas: So she gets away with it for because she it wasn't discovered or it was I wasn't totally clear on the timeline like they would sound like they started investigating getting a while ago, right?

0:20:45 Matt: I mean, that is her best defense here, is that the Biden DOJ had a chance to look at all this. They talked to them. It sounds like this was still kind of going, that the investigation was still going at the time when Trump came in. That's my understanding. I mean the ProPublica was framing this as Trump shut it down. I don't think that's incorrect. But an opportunity to do something about her earlier.

0:21:01 Thomas: Oh boy. Well, this sucks, Matt. Nothing's going to happen. Is

0:21:05 Matt: She did give back the money, I guess, at some point when she had to. But that doesn't really matter either when she solicited it. So yeah

0:21:11 Thomas: Well, what are we even talking about here? She's a saint. Why are you going after an innocent woman?

0:21:17 Matt: I know that maine's senate race has had some problems recently but obviously shout out to Troy Jackson I don't even know who he is or anything about him Elizabeth Warren's getting behind him he's not Susan Collins And he didn't, as far as we know, sexually assault anybody. So here we go. This is our guy. Let's go, Maine.

0:21:31 Thomas: Here we go. Vote that guy, whoever.

0:21:36 Matt: Yeah. The guy who isn't Graham Platten or Susan Collins. Now's the time.

0:21:40 Thomas: Right. Well let's Let's take a break and then we're going to talk about Crocodile Alcatraz.

0:21:44 Matt: Yeah. I got to do it.

0:21:46 Thomas: Oh, good times. Matt. So big report that someone accidentally let someone write?

0:21:53 Matt: Yeah. Amazing that the Trump administration is capable of producing this. And what I tell you about this guy, which first question when I started reading this report is who the hell is this guy? How is he still have a job? Like, how is it possible that an honest inspector general is working in this administration? And what's interesting is to me, this man was appointed in 2019 by Trump in the first administration and Biden kept him on. Happens sometimes, obviously, if you're just kind of a regular inspector general, you're doing your job just because you're appointed by Trump doesn't mean you're the worst, but there's a lot of evidence that he's the worst actually um think this is great actually I didn't know this existed but there is an inspector general integrity committee that watches the watchman basically

0:22:29 Thomas: Oh, there's inspectors general of the inspectors. General.

0:22:32 Matt: It just all the way to the top and I presume they have some sort of oversight too but

0:22:33 Thomas: Sweet. Yeah. Boy, it's eventually it gets out of hand.

0:22:38 Matt: A 1000 -page report about joseph v kafari again, who has held this job since July 2019. Turns out just straight up, he lied to Congress in his confirmation. Yeah.

0:22:46 Thomas: But didn't fire him.

0:22:49 Matt: Some of this came out, during Biden's term, but I don't think that this came up enough. A thousand page report, this is in October, 2024, by the time that report came out. So Biden presumably had other things to do. Hundred pages, four years of complaints, just a few samples here. Confirmation paperwork, he said that he had never been the subject of an ethics investigation and had never left a job to avoid misconduct proceedings. Those things are both untrue.

0:23:12 Thomas: Way. That be like thing one for an inspector general like what are

0:23:16 Matt: Have you been investigated for ethics violations?

0:23:19 Thomas: You the kind of person who should be inspector generaled like should somebody be inspector generaling you right now yes or no cool

0:23:27 Matt: Was an inspector general at DOJ. He actually got a start inspectors generaling at the Air Force, And he's just been kind of doing this for a while. 2013, he retired from DOJ to get out of a report for ethics violations. And so he completely lied about that. But the really bad thing is during his time as IG, like, some really weird things about his education. Like, again, this is exactly what you're saying. It's the kind of thing that you'd be investigating somebody for if you're an honest oversight committee. Said that his degree was in philosophy. It was business management, which was kind of weird. I don't know why you'd lie about having a philosophy degree, not a business management degree under these circumstances. But that's not the worst of it. The problem is that there were three senior employees in his own staff that questioned his qualifications. And spent $1 .4 million of government money to hire Wilmer Hale to investigate those people and then fired one of them before the investigation was done, to investigate the people that were trying to get him exposed, basically, as definitely having done some things he shouldn't have. Was a settlement from Deputy IG Jennifer Costello for $1 .7 million, which means that we paid about $2 .5 million just between the settlement and the firm that was billed to investigate her that she ended up suing over. Committee in this case found clear circumstantial evidence that he definitely abused his authority. He was investigating all these people as a reprisal for whistleblowing. He straight up was just trying to intervene for investigation. Like this is nuts. This is all stuff that we shouldn't be doing. Committee referred him to the president and Biden didn't do anything about it. So, you know, this is very much on Biden as well.

0:24:50 Matt: Yep. Mean, this has gotten to the end of Biden's term when I don't think he was all that present and he probably, there's a lot of other stuff to manage. But Trump did fire a bunch of IGs as we talked about back in, you know, when he was inaugurated, he didn't fire this one. I think he liked the cut of his jib and fully investigated, but this is also referred up. Not fully investigated. But it sounds like he helped cover up some sexual harassment. He people with domestic abuse allegations keep their jobs and their guns.

0:24:56 Thomas: He's really tired yeah isn't this guy doing what

0:25:19 Matt: Of other stuff that potentially is out there. Also, January 6th stuff. He's one of the people responsible for making sure that the Secret Service was never investigated for all the texts that were deleted around January 6th. Himself admitted to the House that he routinely deletes his own texts and didn't back them up, which he's not supposed to do. That's just weird for an inspector general. But he determined that texts that could have been recovered were not recoverable and just kind of moved on and then did not investigate. He was also asked to investigate the Lafayette Square thing with Trump, you in to talk to that church with the protesters, the BLM thing, like completely didn't investigate any of this. There's a lot of issues she is with this inspector general that should be probably inspected.

0:25:51 Thomas: We're doing a segment on alligator Alcatraz and we haven't even gotten to it because this freaking guy is so corrupt or something. I

0:25:58 Matt: I wanted to tell you all of this because it this report is so shocking and he doesn't really soft pedal it, which again makes me wonder what else is in here. Of all, let's, let's talk about Alligator Alcatraz and we'll get into the report. So of course, just to remind everybody, this was a facility, fortunately no longer exists. It was sued out, it was sued into submission basically because it was in the middle of the Everglades. It Was a huge environmental disaster on tribal land, but that was not the worst of it of course what it was doing to people was called it a soft shell facility or something it never had an official name except kept calling it alligator alcatraz it essentially a state facility and it was a black site it was literally a black site where they were just dragging people in and they didn't have access to immigration judges they didn't even access to lawyers that's one thing the report finds is that the lawyer line didn't never really work for some reason. They were just held there. And I remember immigration attorneys talking about it at the time. Like, I have somebody in there, and I don't know how to reach him. I don' t know if he has an immigration court. I do' n't know if they' re even being held for immigration court, I don'' t understand what' s going on. Report helps to understand a little bit better about what they said was going on, but it also brings out the fact that this was not only a horrific place to be, but that it was completely illegal. It as directly as they could, but It' s pretty obvious from reading through this. Ime, let' s look I want to talk for a minute about maria salazar who made the news uh I meant to bring her up this week anyway um salazar is a representative from miami she does not directly represent alligator alcatraz but she represents a district very close to it and she went there and she toured it so she recently released a campaign ad just to kind of set the tone here I of amazing. I

0:27:21 Clip: Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50 % of the 50 ,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policies. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today. You can be for immigration when Lincoln was for slavery and Reagan was for communism. I'm not talking about giving them amnesty. I'm talking about them a dignified life in this promised land. And only you can do that. In

0:27:52 Matt: So September 2026, Maria Salazar is thinking, wait a minute, maybe, and she was a full Trump supporter, maybe Trump's gone too far in immigration. Now she's saying that. Of course, she's said this before the midterms, and now she's potentially cooked. Ad made some waves, obviously, because you have to be a complete idiot to think that you didn't know that Trump was going to do all this. I wanted to especially focus on her because she went to Alligator Alcatraz with a delegation. And the contrast between what the Democrats were saying when they came out of this facility and what Maria Salazar was saying, it's worth watching in full, this Fox thing. It's only a couple minutes. She's being brought in as the voice of the Republican Party to say that Alligator Alcatroz is fine. I've seen it. It'S not a problem. Up front. You'll hear the introduction that has the Democrats talking, saying things that are very much substantiated by this report. Then we'll hear a little bit of Maria Salzar. Yeah

0:28:36 Clip: Turn, conditions that we saw inside this internment camp, which it is nothing less than that description, were really appalling. These detainees are living in cages. This is a total cruel political stunt meant to have a spectacle of political theater. We saw humans being held in cages, and we saw them being held by the police. It is as bad as it can be. Oh, my God.

0:29:05 Thomas: What?

0:29:06 Clip: Democrats lawmakers making their messes clear after their visit to Alligator Alcatraz last weekend. Florida GOP Congresswoman Maria Salazar was also there. She joins us now to set the record straight. So you went to there actually the same day. You talked with some of the inmates. What did you learn?

0:29:07 Matt: He

0:29:25 Clip: Well, I wanted to talk to them, and I thought that it was a mistake from the authorities not allowing us to talk. I was able to shout in Spanish. There were like around 40 of them in shackles and I tried to talk to them and ask them and one of them said yeah and I asked them how are they treating you and one of them said pretty good the other one said not so bad but I really wanted to engage they did not let me but I did go in one of those cages and of course no one likes to be one

0:29:46 Matt: Good not so bad yeah

0:29:43 Thomas: It fine? Doing fine. Yeah? Oh, okay. Sorry. I know there's a lot we're going to get to, but I already need to pause to catch up on what we've heard so so far so first off we've got this asshole for fox who is like oh my god can't even believe like mumbles as it's as the democrats are yeah all that stuff we heard I we can guarantee I'm sure that those are the worst examples of like bad speakers and bad moments of the like they're gonna pick whatever makes democrats sound the worst or the you know and it's still yeah exactly and it still like uh what's happening here and then we come in a set the record straight yeah Yeah. I wanted to talk to him. I mean, they didn't, they didn't really let me at all. I shouted in Spanish and they said stuff like, you know, yeah, we're fine. They didn't let me talk to them. It's like, wow.

0:30:09 Matt: These democrats yeah still pretty compelling what they're saying yeah right yeah

0:30:43 Thomas: Okay. I feel better. I Feel 100 % better.

0:30:45 Matt: And I'm sure that they they felt completely safe and open and talking to the congressman who's walking through with no consequences I'm sure they you know didn't they weren't concerned for themselves at all but

0:30:53 Thomas: Unbelievable. So that's where we are so far, but there's more. I got to hear the rest of this yeah

0:30:57 Clip: Of the said pretty the other said not so bad I really want to engage they did not let me but I did go in one of those cages and of course no one likes to be inside a cage but I want to tell you that the cages were clean I sat in one of the beds they were soft they had three metal toilets with a little um like a little wall to cover people when they're doing their business they had two telephones where they can call their attorneys or the loved ones then they took us to another recreational national area also caged in no one likes to be in a cage of course with a little uh with some uh a grass where they could um run or do some

0:31:08 Thomas: No of course yeah oh god I thought about moving in there it's nicer than my apartment but I'm yeah

0:31:12 Matt: There's cages were clean a little while yeah

0:31:40 Clip: Exercise uh there was another area where there were bibles in spanish I reached out and I saw that there were spanish bibles and other types of religious material another area of where they can be sitting with their attorneys I mean I can tell you on and on so uh it's it meets the highest standards for any federal uh facility I've been to a ton of prisons jails as well this sounds like the typical uh facility uh

0:31:54 Thomas: But they weren't allowed to see you that's nothing like what are you talking about dude yeah

0:32:06 Matt: So yeah let's stop a second here so they're showing pictures while she's talking and you can see how awful it is right but also what she's describing is the baseline bare minimum like yes you have to have bibles you haveと have toilets with some privacy right you have to have attorneys access which they weren't even really providing like she's describing what they are required to do not like these are luxuries like

0:32:29 Thomas: I want to hear the like the back the backing assumptions of the average viewer what are they thinking is like the bad version of the story are they thinking it's like alligators are actively eating people and then if they hear like oh no it's just a horrible concentration camp they're like oh what you guys complaining about yeah

0:32:47 Matt: Fact that an elected member of Congress is saying to Fox News, yeah, they're cages, but the cages are clean. They're clean.

0:32:52 Thomas: People don't like being in cages but they're yeah the

0:32:55 Matt: Degree to which these are cages, I don't know, have you seen the pictures yet?

0:32:58 Thomas: Well I'm watching this I don't know the

0:32:59 Matt: You haven't seen anything yet. Oh, they were cages. These are cages.

0:33:03 Thomas: One cage that they let me, a politician check out was clean is what you should have said. You

0:33:10 Matt: This is part of her job, like explicitly part of every member of Congress's job is to be able to walk into any federal facility, especially if it's anywhere near district and and like if people from your district are going there like you absolutely should be checking it out you should just show up on a tuesday anytime you want to and they're supposed to let you in and not taking it seriously obviously like the fact that she's just accepting that oh yeah I don't get to meet with any of these people like you should get to talk to a couple of people if you want too especially

0:33:33 Thomas: Could take everything she's saying and do the same words, but in a different tone. And it would be like, dear God. Well, they wouldn't let me talk to them. They have like just like a toilet and there's a little thing so you can kind of get some privacy. See like, yeah. Do you hear yourself?

0:33:38 Matt: The cages were cleaned yeah so what we're going to read in this report is obviously obviously true. I believe everything in here, but I also, as I said, I think it is the floor for what is happening and what happened in Al -Qaeda, and certainly not the ceiling of what they probably were doing to people. With an incredible sentence at the beginning of the, what we found first page, first paragraph. Honestly, we should do a gavel gavel on some of this. I mean this is, but I'm just going to read a few excerpts here.

0:34:14 Thomas: What we found September 11th, 20. Oh yeah. Okay. At the time of our inspection in January, 2026, Florida soft -sided facility soft could not clearly identify which detention standards they used for holding detainees on immigration related charges that's not a good what

0:34:22 Matt: That's what they have to call it. It's a tent.

0:34:32 Matt: What? Soon as I read that, I was like, well, yes, when you think about it, because we don't know if it's a state or federal facility, right? But like fact that the inspector general can't be told by the people that run the place which standards they're using. It's incredible. So a little more on this one.

0:34:44 Thomas: What which is I mean this is government like that stuff is just so second nature that's That's just, everyone there could rattle off exactly what stands, like in a normal situation.

0:34:50 Matt: Built in. Yep. Yep. A good start.

0:34:59 Thomas: That's how it goes. I mean, I did work, again, I worked in budgets for prisons in California. It's like everybody who works in any facility would be like, well, this is the current lawsuit. They would cite like the lawsuit that has made them do a certain thing. They would all know that. This is insane. What a great first sentence.

0:35:18 Thomas: Do you want me to read on? The absence of well -defined standards at detention facilities increases the risk that detainees might not receive may not receive appropriate care. Yeah. Yeah. If they don't.

0:35:17 Matt: Know. It really catches your attention, doesn't it? Yeah, I read this paragraph. It's great.

0:35:26 Matt: You think? Don't know what the rules are? Must

0:35:31 Thomas: This has been fun to read. OK, we're talking. Write this like you're talking to a first grader about. Yeah .If you don't know the standards, how would you meet the standards? Standards. Due to the lack of clarity regarding applicable standards, when we identified a concern during our inspection, we reviewed both the Florida model jail standards and U .S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ISIS, National Detention Standards 2019. 2019, is that the latest one or something?

0:36:03 Matt: Be. Yeah. Good point.

0:36:04 Thomas: Applied the more restrictive standard to findings.

0:36:08 Matt: How generous of you to apply the more restrictive standard.

0:36:11 Thomas: Yeah, what does that mean, more restrictive on you? Because I would have read that to be like more restrictive on the government in terms of what's allowed but okay hmm

0:36:16 Matt: Think, the one that holds the governments to a higher standard, yeah, I would assume would be the more restricting standard. Assume that's if you're the OIG, you're going to say you're doing that. And I would think, believe it or not, I think the ICE one is probably more restrictive than the Florida Model Jail Standards, from what I understand. Was given a chance to respond to this, by the way, and their response is in appendix C, it is one page, and it is very strange, as he's going to note. Whole theme here is that the federal government doesn't believe that it is responsible for this, and the state government does not believe that IT is responsible. No standards, nobody cares. Yep, yep. Yep.

0:36:44 Thomas: So you get to do whatever you want then yeah dhs

0:36:48 Matt: Going to talk about some of the findings here, we can skip this part, but the DHS response part, I just want to mention legally how weird this is, because I hadn't actually heard what the legal justification was from Florida, because they've been so shady about this whole thing, right? Look at DHS's response.

0:37:01 Thomas: Response the department's management response appendix c did not address our recommendations excuse stated that florida detained illegal aliens at fssf god that is the hardest four letters to say Jeez. FSSF. Pursuant to authority delegated under Section 287G of the Immigration Nationality Act, DHS contended that the state, not the department, maintained authority over the facility's day -to -day operations. F SSF ceased operations in June 2026.

0:37:30 Matt: So 287G, as we've talked about before, is a real problem. So 277G is the one that, exactly.

0:37:34 Thomas: The police cooperation thingy yeah

0:37:37 Matt: So had never heard of this before. And I went looking, I had, I never heard of 277 being used to justify long -term detention in a state facility right doesn't no it does not I am sure of that and I think that there's got to be some kind of federal tort claims act and I'll talk about the liabilities at the end here but I did confirm this has never been argued before but because like that's a whole other thing like they're allowed to again people for 48 eight hours at a time in a local jail under 287G, right? They can have an agreement with the jail to hold on to people with detainers, but these people didn't have detainer. These are not people that ICE was necessarily looking for. These were people that Florida grabbed off the street basically and was holding and offering up to the immigration courts and ICE. Some of the detainees, I don't know. We don't have no transparency on a lot of this, but unit of delegation for 287 G is two officers, the officer's employees that they qualify and train and certify to work with DHS. They don't certify entire state detention facilities.

0:37:45 Thomas: Like you can run a jail for us that can't be right matt you need a lot of staff to run something like this yeah

0:38:31 Matt: It's completely illegal. Like nothing at Intuitive 7G that I'm aware of or anything around this that like, so basically the immigration officer functions are in relation to the investigation, apprehension or detention of aliens. It certainly doesn't say anything about holding people indefinitely. It's detention in the course of all of that, right? In the course OF turning them over to ICE. That's what you're supposed to be doing. Is a pretty novel theory. To say the least. The operator was the Florida Division of Emergency Management. And their response, this is so weird, DHS OIG talks about it being paid for by the FEMA Detention Support Grant Program. And the DHS response is talking about it under the Shelter and Services Program, which doesn't make any sense. It can't be both. Those are different things. That's just one of many issues I'm finding when I'm looking through this. But let's take a look now at some of the actual horrible things that are going on. So let's check out, let's start at the worst one, page 11. to see some pictures. We'll come back to those pictures as you're scrolling. What you're looking at on this page is not necessarily the thing that are going to be described. Essentially what we're talking about here are very small enclosures, not just cages, but like cages.

0:39:29 Thomas: Geez you our inspection we we observed at least two small metal enclosures in the outdoor recreation areas. According to facility staff, the small metal closures measure approximately 4 '3 by 4 '4 by 7 '9. not a lot of room at all.

0:39:43 Matt: By four by is nothing.

0:39:46 Thomas: Facility staff described the small mental enclosure as calming areas for detainees to de -escalate and have time alone.

0:39:54 Matt: Is so dark. Calming. It's like so fascist. Like you're going to calm down in a place you can't sit in.

0:40:00 Thomas: Further maintained that detainee's asked to spend time in the small middle enclosers. We found at least one instance in which the small metal enclosures may have been used as a disciplinary tool.

0:40:04 Matt: They did. Think they were used as a disciplinary tool. Amazing.

0:40:13 Thomas: Boy. Documentation provided by FSSF noted that one detainee who spent 26 minutes in a small metal enclosure failed to comply avec un command lawful.

0:40:22 Matt: Now next page, you will see the picture. Even any kind of bench or seat or anything. So imagine how calm you're gonna be.

0:40:28 Thomas: Like a plywood bottom.

0:40:30 Matt: Yeah. It's just a cage it's a literal human cage like there's nothing else you can call that I don't know what other purpose that has but

0:40:37 Thomas: Don't like being in cages. I get it, Matt. And that

0:40:41 Matt: They're clean the cages are cleaned and

0:40:42 Thomas: Somehow means it's okay to do it.

0:40:47 Matt: Then check out the next page where they he actually in full reprints the posted policy on the small metal enclosure check out what it says at the top it's

0:40:53 Thomas: The South Detention Facility. Respect, care, and dignity. What? Cell. Purpose. The purpose of a holding cell space is to provide a safe and secure place in general population for detainees to reflect on their behavior choices, manage their emotions, reduce stress, and practice self -directed behavior. What is this, a daycare? Are you talking about? The supervisor must approve assignment to the holding cell. The detainee may have a maximum of two hours to spend in the holding cel and may leave at any time by detainey request or per staff directive. That doesn't really sound like what you said a second ago.

0:40:57 Matt: Fascism like about that no no

0:41:29 Thomas: The holding cell will be monitored by detention staff. A staff member may recommend to the supervisor to remove move the detainee at any time depending on the behavior or other circumstances and either return the detaining to their housing unit or initiate the process of assignment to the smu is that like a yeah detainees will be provided water upon request oh

0:41:29 Matt: Segregation yeah there you go they get water that's fine yeah Yeah. So they have actually a breakdown of the amount of time that people, and the very longest amount of times they could find was just short of two hours, like seconds short of two hours. This is really bad. This is not something that any prison should ever be doing. It's clearly punishment. It's not something that meets with any standards that I'm aware of. And the fact that, of course, you have to have like a plaque on your calming area answers questions about your calming area, as they say.

0:41:52 Thomas: There's water in there yeah yeah but the plaque already answers yeah all

0:42:21 Matt: Yeah, that's right. Let me the worst thing that jumped out, of course, but there's a lot more and were talking about living finding one.

0:42:28 Thomas: Key finding one, FSSF did not comply with environmental health and safety standards. FSS did not provide detainees with sufficient living space. Less than half of what is required. Wow. Creating cramped conditions for detainee who spent most of their time in their housing units. The lack of living space risk detaines wellbeing and may negatively impact their physical and mental health. Yeah. The applicable standards standards require at least 75 square feet of floor space per inmate in dormitory housing units. At maximum capacity, the FSS housing unit provided 28 square feet per detainee, well below the required minimum. Yeah, that's getting more toward like a third. Detainees spent most of their time in the housing units, they could only leave the units for mealtime three times a day, recreation one hour a day, three days a week. Wow.

0:43:21 Matt: Most of them Didn't Get That. We'll talk about that in a minute.

0:43:23 Thomas: Really? Showers three times a week and medical reasons.

0:43:27 Matt: Week.

0:43:27 Thomas: Holy crap.

0:43:28 Matt: I bad. Found, though, when they went on is that only the protective custody DTNAs even really got recreation. They talked to one DTN that went eight days without any recreation time, which mental health issues. And again, just to take you through, because we don't have time to go through all this right now, but a few other highlights. No law library, no legal materials. In the segregation unit, the phones were inoperable, that was actually confirmed straight up. Detainees were denied access to counsel. Again and again is just, like – nobody's responsible for this. It's nobody's fault. Know, we're going to move on in a minute here, but you can see these pictures as you flip through of just these big open cages with bunk beds in them. And you know bright lights um and of course all kinds of issues with the water like none of this is like it's all just a camp like it'S it's a it's literally in a tent that's what the soft side thing means like you're you're talking about tents to begin with um with the personal hygiene stuff, like three times a week is obviously that's way too limited. You're talking about, of course, a place that has very bad climate control and is a swamp.

0:44:22 Thomas: Was going to say we're in Florida, right? No

0:44:25 Matt: Yeah. Get a personal hygiene kit with soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothbrush, etc. But they can only bring the toothbrush back. And if they need more hygiene items, they have to request them. And the staff supervise their use. If they requested toothpaste, a staff member applies the toothpaste to his toothbrush. Like what kind of weird paternalistic stuff what is going on um are not great anywhere but this is and ice facilities aren't great anywhere But you know insect infestation and the stuff with the recreation areas and you can see the pictures again like this place is so bleak and nothing like this should ever happen again and as I said at the beginning what they found was now they have shifted this entire operation over to a prison that had been closed called baker and now they call it deportation depot that's the new thing that is the new hotness in florida and so basically the oij is saying it's time to take a look at this now uh this this whole thing was closed in june they made 10 very serious recommendations here that obviously weren't followed because it was closed they'd inmates were given like the ICE detainee manual, like they're definitely working with ICE, like there's no question this was an ICE thing. Quickly I just want to highlight this letter yeah

0:45:23 Thomas: Other response.

0:45:24 Matt: Uh check out paragraph two of the response here. This is a September 3rd response to the entire draft report. It's a very short response.

0:45:32 Thomas: I'll just read the whole thing. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this draft report. The department is committed to maintaining a positive working relationship While FEMA provided funding for the Florida soft -sided facility under the Shelter and Services DHS did not have a contract with Florida to manage the detention space within the facility. The state of Florida authorized the repurposing of the center from the Dade Collier Training Transition Airport into a state detention center on January 6, 2023.

0:46:06 Thomas: Florida detained illegal aliens at this facility pursuant to its authority delegated under Section 287G of the Immigration and Nationality Act. A 287G agreement does not give the federal government authority over the physical operations at any facility or over the state employees, except to the extent they are performing the functions of an immigration officer. Even as to a facility where a state detains aliens under 287g authority, the state maintains authority over day -to -day operations of that facility. ICE will continue to utilize its national detention standard and will review this document in line with the OIG recommendations for consideration. In January 2026, the FSSF has been permanently closed. As such, OIG indicated that it has administratively closed all 10 recommendations. They're saying like, because of the 287 G and I guess this, this kind of would make sense. Like if you had a 287 g, that means the state police are doing something that doesn't mean like the federal inspectors can come, you know, it's like a federalism thing or a state's rights thing or whatever. Right. Where it's Like, it doesn't mean the federal government can come tell you how to run your entire police station or whatever, but

0:47:21 Matt: That would be true if it were the police station, but this is a detention facility, which

0:47:23 Thomas: But, and, and the, And it sounds like it says the only extent they can is the extent to which you're performing the duties of an immigration officer, which I think is kind of the giveaway where it's like, is the duty of an Immigration Officer to set up a prison? Like, is that a duty?

0:47:32 Matt: They weren't. Yeah, No, this a page on this too, I can just summarize very quickly. ICE information posters, all the way through the facility, they give them the ICE DTD handbook when they come in. ICE personnel were on site to assist the staff. Department and the state of Florida made multiple representations in the course of the lawsuit that ended up shutting this thing down, that the whole thing was operated with ICE oversight under 287G. That Florida is doing under 288G is supposed to be supervised and directed by ICE. But here they are just completely disclaiming any responsibility. Ability I don't know you know just acting like this is some rogue black site that they had never heard of like awful like it it's really bad and I just can't believe that we even have as much oversight as we see in this report which is pretty solid like this is a you know it's not a bad report again again I'm sure there's a lot that's not even in here but I can't say it doesn't cover quite a lot of stuff that's pretty shocking already yeah so everybody should know about this yep and they're gonna try it again like they're gonna try to do another state -based thing and and no doubt like this baker thing should be investigated but you know they like the corn husker clinker and all this other bullshit they're trying to do so keep a watch on this and not let states run detention facilities obviously if that federal government shouldn't be running these detention facilities but let's maybe not let florida do it at the very least come on it

0:48:42 Thomas: Right. Well, let's take a break and then we get hopefully a fun footnote. Matt, an AI footnote? Okay.

0:48:49 Matt: Is a little more fun it's more fun than this tell

0:48:51 Thomas: Yeah. How like on a scale of one, how many, uh, how many human rights violations were there in this footnote?

0:48:57 Matt: Just severe ethical violations so let's just go with that

0:48:59 Thomas: I can, I can deal with that. That's fine. Right, Matt, the next AI, uh milestone.

0:49:08 Matt: This is really something so we talked a while back about a civil suit in which uh was was suing, I believe it was ChatGPT at the time, for having essentially, when they Googled him, when he Googled himself, that it came up saying that he'd stealing money from some organization. It was completely fictional, right?

0:49:21 Thomas: It was like defamation kind of, right? Yeah.

0:49:23 Matt: Course of that, it basically made up a bunch of stuff about a lawsuit. That's the closest thing I've seen to this, but this is a whole other level because this is someone in a murder brief, a defense attorney filing an appeal from a murder case in a statement of facts. And this is kind of scary for everybody who uses is OAI products. I really want to make sure that attorneys especially know about this. Let is a decision from the Supreme Court of New Mexico last week about Stephen Ahrens, an attorney who is presently at least licensed to practice law in New Mexico. Just check out paragraph four. We're going to watch him explain himself in a minute, but paragraph four really sets up what happened here.

0:49:54 Thomas: Respondant admitted to the court that the brief in chief contained false testimony from a from a wholly fabricating witnesses holy fabricated witnesses batman officer michelle amarillo officer sanchez manal al -jibri and theresa marquez false testimony from danny stanton that he received threats which he took seriously from defendant appellant false testimony form linda stanton about the threats her husband received false testimony from mariah chavez and teresa marquez fabricated witnesses in parentheses regarding the shooter's clothing and appearance and misrepresented legal authority in state v lopez 2005 etc it's the state v manis it says oh

0:50:39 Matt: That there's fake cases in there is like the the cherry on this right I mean it's it's this is the statement of facts this is the part that you're not supposed to get wrong like he did is of course he fed the entire transcript to chat gpt and he had it write a statement of fax and then he didn't read it and is actually a direct tie -in to this month's uh of movies uh cody b acne uh a major ethical violation that I noted in the movie in which we have an attorney who files a massive filing that he didn t read and that is a pretty serious ethical violation in any state in any jurisdiction so really cringe thing about this of course is that the state of new mexico has all of this on video that you can watch and we're going to watch this uh a moment of him explaining himself here so the first thing we're to watch is stephen aaron stepping up to the podium explaining while we're here um

0:50:42 Thomas: My god oh my God mmm it's

0:51:24 Clip: A little concrete to know that my stupidity is what brings us together this afternoon I really only have two points to add to the response that I filed a couple days ago. One, exactly what happened with that proof, and two, what measures might prevent others from repeating my mistake. When a computer generated an unofficial transcript of the trial, and I handed that transcript the record proper of the statement of issues, and some of the discovery over the ChatGPT-3, I assumed that it generated a bulletproof summary of proceedings, not as the 10th Circuit described in this field, this hallucinated falsities, quote unquote. In this case, several witnesses who were never called at trial, and one witness who was called, but the brief got the name wrong.

0:52:23 Matt: Who didn't exist, actually. He's going to be defending himself throughout this. And one of the things he's going to be saying is that you know if only the court had made us certify that we didn't use ai in this and the court does not understand why he's even saying this because

0:52:37 Clip: So, counsel, do watch the news? Do you listen to radio? Do anything about the world because the problem with relying on the solutions is an above the story every single day. So either you buried your head in the sand and that's a choice to do that an intentional choice to be uninformed or you took a gamble and neither of those are consistent with the code of conduct and so I'm really struggling with your response saying well I didn't understand I didn 'y know about hallucinations my 13 year old nephew knows about hallucination my 75 year old stepmother knows about the hallucinations so either you made a decision not to be aware of what's happening in the world in using this tool appropriately or which is a choice and I don't know which one of those it is it probably doesn't matter Perhaps it doesn't. I would say perhaps the former I'd also point out that this is a year ago. I mean, a lot has come out in the last year. The argument section, again, is different because these other cases dealt with non -existent cases or cases that stood for a different proposition. I disagree with you. The means about the candor towards the tribunal, that's the one that bothers you the most. There's at least eight or nine provisions in the Code of Conduct that you violated. That you violated the candor to the tribunal applies with equal force whether it's the facts or the law and there's just there's there is no support for what you did and I don't think it's a material distinction between saying there's a case called state versus snoop and it stands for x and there is such thing that candor the tribunals extends with equal Equal force to the statement of the facts. I

0:53:31 Thomas: Make me watch the news the

0:55:07 Clip: Agree.

0:55:07 Matt: This is really important I want to stop here because this is such an important distinction that I think many lawyers including myself may not have thought of when we're using AI because transcripts into AI. Again, we deal with a lot of information. We deal with pages of documents. And again, I do not put anything into the court, to be clear, that I have not read and checked out myself. And I write everything that I put into the Court. But if I want a quick summary, and I do that for the show all the time, of like, here's a Supreme Court transcript. Show me everything that Clarence Thomas said in the Supreme Court. It just happened today and I get the transcript same day. I'm not going to be able to read the whole thing necessarily before I come on. Know, I wouldn't expect that it would would just make up a Clarence Thomas quote, like they just wouldn't assume that or like add facts. I actually asked Quad how this could happen. To see.

0:55:44 Thomas: Only way is the oldest possible chat gpt this doesn't happen anymore really oh

0:55:50 Matt: Not. And that's what he was saying is ChatGPT-3. Apparently, I think we're up to six now. I don't use it much. But do like to use Quad for some things occasionally, but like, I don'T rely on it in my life. And, you know, he's probably right that maybe these new models wouldn't do that. But apparently, you know if it will, like if it doesn't want to read the whole transcript, it'll just fill in gaps based on what it knows about murder trials. And if probably what happened kind of thing, right? There's a really good summary from one of the judges about sort difference does it make, right is basically saying like I just relied on this tool because I thought it was reliable and he is like well yeah, you rely on your attorneys in your office because you think they are reliable but you still have to review their work, you still have to put your name on the brief and file it and everything in there is yours, right that you own it and

0:55:54 Thomas: Yeah what Yeah. Oh

0:56:26 Matt: That's how it goes. There is one more piece of information that comes out and this was the super cringy part that I had seen that originally caught my attention in this case uh yeah this is really bad uh

0:56:33 Thomas: Worse.

0:56:36 Clip: You doing work in this case on a public defender contract? No. Or are you a private counsel? I'm a private counselor, although I haven't been paid. Well, it's private. I'm sure that's going to happen. Have you disclosed this to your client? I have not. He's a Spanish speaker and I wanted to see what happened today. So he has no say in whether you might give him the ability to even think about whether you're the right person to represent? Well, I think that we have talked. He's somewhat non -communicative.

0:57:03 Thomas: What?

0:57:04 Matt: So bad I

0:57:11 Thomas: Jesus Christ. Maybe

0:57:23 Clip: You know you're not answering my question you've not communicated to this to him so that he can make an informed decision you don't need to answer that because it's apparently apparent because you haven't told him right

0:57:34 Thomas: This guy shouldn't be a lawyer what

0:57:36 Matt: May not BE for long there's

0:57:38 Clip: And trying to get to the chief justice's point and senior justice's point what should we do to discipline you for your conduct everything Everything else is, the court should do these things to educate the lawyers. That's what your proposed penalty is here. No, I don't think so. Which is to you, and there's a part two to that. What should we do to discipline you? What should you do to protect your client?

0:58:08 Clip: I don' know, I'm the last person that can say, I feel a little like the criminal defendant who messed up, and it's up to the judge to decide what the appropriate penalty is.

0:58:23 Clip: And I do intend to talk to him about it, and it seems to me that what happens today is a factor in it. He is aware, by the way, of this, even though I didn't directly tell him yet. What do you mean by that? He's aware of this?

0:58:49 Matt: So painful What?

0:58:50 Clip: Well, I've been in touch with his brother, and I guess she isn't a sister, she's a cousin, but they're the ones that hired me, and it's, he doesn't, he's difficult to reach, he was difficult to talk to, but at least. Wasn't he in prison? He was in prison.

0:58:48 Thomas: My god yeah

0:59:08 Matt: He's in prison. Yes.

0:59:14 Clip: Oh, they were literally aware of.

0:59:14 Thomas: He's being a real jerk about being there

0:59:17 Clip: Well, they're aware that there was a problem with the first brief that I filed, and that the court's looking at that.

0:59:24 Thomas: Was a problem with I

0:59:27 Clip: That's pretty much it. So you didn't say, I relied on ChatGPT, and it submitted lies to the court, and the court is mad at me, and now there's a hearing. I'm guessing you didn'T tell the client's family members that. I didn'T talk about ChatGpT. I just said there wasa problem with that brief thatI filed. Let me just ask one quick question, of course. Did the client get a copy of the order to show costs? He does not. Thank you.

0:59:30 Thomas: Effed up not in so many words

0:59:56 Matt: A terrible way to end this, but that is the end. That's the end of the hearing. So has just had to admit to the New Mexico Supreme Court that his client has no idea that any of this is happening, which point at which you are in trouble for this, the point in which you were under discipline, you have to withdraw. Like you can't keep representing him knowing all this. Like that. So there's just a whole violation right there. But is quite a lesson I hope for everybody, for all of us, because this is a a mistake. I mean, I can see, especially older lawyers, if you just think it's the magic box that produces the perfect results. And even if you've heard about hallucinating cases, you might still think it can produce a perfect summary of your transcript. Know, it produces beautiful summaries of things, but you got to read it and you have to know your own facts. And if you had read your own brief and if you knew your own case, you'd know that there was no Officer Emerio or whatever, right?

1:00:21 Thomas: Words yeah yeah you gotta know enough to be able to check it for sure but also a spring for the more expensive models if you're a freaking lawyer this also sounds like somebody who's just putting in the least amount of resources because they don't care about their client at all well he speaks spanish so I figured I don't have to tell him that I'm a criminal essentially that I am the the shittiest lawyer in the world.

1:00:42 Matt: Like seriously. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, it's pretty bad.

1:00:58 Matt: And this is a man who maybe was rightfully convicted of killing the mother of his children, but he deserves a defense and he deserves a lawyer and he's not getting one. He's getting chat GPT.

1:01:07 Thomas: Yeah. That's Not even again, chat GPT three. It's like, yeah, geez. Oh boy. Well, yeah, that's another new low when it comes to, uh, lawyers and AI.

1:01:10 Matt: Not even the good one. And it won't be the worst.

1:01:19 Thomas: Right .Well, that is our show. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Thanks Matt for the breakdown. Oh man. Lots of process from that one. Have a great weekend everyone. And, uh we'll see you Monday.

1:01:27 Matt: You soon.

1:01:31 Clip: This has been Opening Arguments, produced by Thomas and Lydia Smith, with editing help from Peter Baird. The intro is by Thomas Smith. This outro is by Matt Cameron. Support the show at patreon .com slash law. Contact us through Patreon or openarguments at gmail .com. Make sure to follow our blue sky at OpenArgs. But most of all, please share the show. Thanks for listening.

1:02:03 Thomas: Cavanaugh's like what if what if you want to tip your son's teacher a starbucks card yeah that bribery I

1:02:11 Matt: Fabricated witnesses batman officer