Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Judge shopping. The term is pretty much self explanatory, and
Speaker 1: it's come up repeatedly in recent years. In Texas As,
Speaker 1: Republican attorneys general and conservative litigants have filed challenges to
Speaker 1: Biden administration actions in divisions where one judge who's sympathetic
Speaker 1: to their causes is automatically assigned all cases. A lot
Speaker 1: of attention has focused on Federal Judge Matthew Kesmark, a
Speaker 1: Trump appointee and former conservative Christian legal activist who hears
Speaker 1: all civil matters filed at his Amarillo, Texas courthouse. His
Speaker 1: decision to issue a nationwide injunction suspending approval of the
Speaker 1: abortion pilm if A pristone merited disapproval from many of
Speaker 1: the justices at oral arguments last week, including Conservative of
Speaker 1: Justice Neil Gorsuch.
Speaker 2: We've had one might call it a rash of universal
Speaker 2: injunctions or vacatures in this case seems like a prime
Speaker 2: example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into
Speaker 2: a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule or any
Speaker 2: other federal government action.
Speaker 1: The federal judiciary's Administrative Arm approved a new policy last
Speaker 1: month aimed at curbing judge shopping by litigants who file
Speaker 1: lawsuits that have nationwide or statewide implications in single judge divisions,
Speaker 1: but just two days later, after a backlash from conservative senators,
Speaker 1: the conference issued a revision making it clear that the
Speaker 1: policy is just a recommendation and that they can't force
Speaker 1: district courts to follow it. Joining me is Alan Trammel,
Speaker 1: a law professor at Washington and Lee Law School, tell
Speaker 1: us about judge shopping.
Speaker 3: There's a difference between court shopping and judge shopping. So
Speaker 3: court shopping forum shopping more generally, is something that happens
Speaker 3: a lot. Lawyers and judges will often question whether that
Speaker 3: is a good practice, but in essence, it is part
Speaker 3: of a lawyer's responsibility to identify the court that is
Speaker 3: going to be most beneficial for a particular client's position
Speaker 3: that has been going on for a very very long time.
Speaker 3: And usually when you're thinking about that, you're thinking about
Speaker 3: whether there is going to be circuit law that is
Speaker 3: going to be most favorable to a particular person's client.
Speaker 3: It's a really different beast when you're thinking about actually
Speaker 3: picking the specific judge, not just the court and the
Speaker 3: body of the law that are going to govern a
Speaker 3: particular issue. And so we see this in a number
Speaker 3: of high profile situations. The myth of pristone litigation that
Speaker 3: ultimately led to oral arguments in the Supreme Court last
Speaker 3: week is really good example of that. You have challengers
Speaker 3: who are going not just to one specific circuit, not
Speaker 3: just to one specific district, but in essence choosing the
Speaker 3: very specific judge who at least in the first instance,
Speaker 3: is going to hear a challenge to a particular piece
Speaker 3: of legislation or a governmental policy. And that again strikes
Speaker 3: a lot of people as a very very different beast.
Speaker 1: Also, I mean you mentioned the mifipristone case and that
Speaker 1: Judge Matthew Kesmarrick, a Trump appointee formerly a conservative Christian
Speaker 1: legal activist involved in anti abortion cases, and he has
Speaker 1: issued major rulings blocking Biden administration policies in addition to
Speaker 1: the abortion pill.
Speaker 3: That is correct, and it is no secret that Judge
Speaker 3: Kasmark is the judge whom conservative activists and conservative litigators
Speaker 3: want to get their cases in frontop. I don't think
Speaker 3: that it's any surprise that this policy is in large
Speaker 3: parts stemming from this really aggressive selection of judge Kesmark
Speaker 3: to hear these kinds of challenges. In theory, it applies
Speaker 3: more broadly set a minority leader. Mitch McConnell decribed this
Speaker 3: as targeted ad litigation by conservative causes and conservative activists.
Speaker 3: But I think that there is a much broader problem,
Speaker 3: even if at this very specific snapshot in time, it
Speaker 3: is going to be felt most acutely in districts where
Speaker 3: there is a conservative judge who is hearing challenges by
Speaker 3: conservative litigators and activists.
Speaker 4: Tell us about that broader problem.
Speaker 3: It goes back to the difference between simply selecting the
Speaker 3: courts selecting the specific judge, because it does strike me
Speaker 3: as a difference in kind when you're selecting a court
Speaker 3: versus a judge, and the shoe can always be on
Speaker 3: the other foot. I mean, that's the thing that we
Speaker 3: always have to remember is even if today it is
Speaker 3: conservative activists who are targeting a particular conservative judge and
Speaker 3: bringing their cases in front of that specific judge, if
Speaker 3: there is a Republican president and you have liberal activists
Speaker 3: who are trying to challenge a particular policy by Trump
Speaker 3: administration or another conservative president, then You've got to be
Speaker 3: wary of whether you're going to be in a situation
Speaker 3: where progressives and liberals are going to be able to
Speaker 3: engage in this exact same kind of behavior that, if
Speaker 3: we zoom out, seems antithetical to the rule of law,
Speaker 3: which is supposed to be more neutral and not dependent
Speaker 3: on the specific judge hearing the case. It is true
Speaker 3: that there are not that many single judge districts where
Speaker 3: you have a progressive or a Democratic appointee the way
Speaker 3: that you have with AIG, for example, Judge Psmark right now.
Speaker 3: But that can change. That can change through congressional action
Speaker 3: and just through the evolving nature of the way that
Speaker 3: the judicial vacant these are created.
Speaker 1: What that brings to mind is that during the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: Republicans complained and now say, well, Democrats were doing the
Speaker 1: same thing. They were going to friendly districts in California.
Speaker 4: Is it the same?
Speaker 3: In some ways? It is different, because what you're dealing
Speaker 3: with here is not simply the phenomenon of progressive activists
Speaker 3: going to courts that tend to lean towards the left
Speaker 3: versus conservative activists going to courts that lean to the right.
Speaker 3: When you're thinking about what was going on during the
Speaker 3: Trump administration. Yes, it is absolutely true that you had
Speaker 3: progressive lawyers and progressive clients who are trying to challenge
Speaker 3: various Trump administration policies early on that included the so
Speaker 3: called Muslim Ban, where the Trump administration was essentially denying
Speaker 3: entry into the United States by people from predominantly Muslim countries.
Speaker 3: Having said that, even though progressive activists were going to
Speaker 3: the Ninth Circuit, there wasn't this phenomenon where you would
Speaker 3: have divisions within a particular district where there was a
Speaker 3: single progressive judge whom progressive activists and litigators were trying
Speaker 3: to target. They basically didn't exist. So it is a
Speaker 3: different in kind, and I think that it is much
Speaker 3: more severe when you're looking at what is going on
Speaker 3: right now, where again you have conservatives who can identify
Speaker 3: a very specific judge in a particular division within one district. Again,
Speaker 3: that just doesn't really exist on the left.
Speaker 1: So on March twelfth, the Judicial Conference, which is the
Speaker 1: policymaking body of the federal Judiciary, announced this new policy.
Speaker 1: Two days later, after getting pushed back, they revised it.
Speaker 1: But let's talk first about what the initial policy said
Speaker 1: that is.
Speaker 3: In some point, it's difficult because they announced a policy,
Speaker 3: but they didn't give us really specific language to latch
Speaker 3: onto to figure out whether it in fact was going
Speaker 3: to comply with existing statutes or whether there was going
Speaker 3: to be any room for change.
Speaker 1: Tell us about the broad outlines of the policy then.
Speaker 3: So that was essentially saying that in districts where there
Speaker 3: are these separate divisions, that litigant is not going to
Speaker 3: be able to necessarily select the specific division, that the
Speaker 3: court is going to need to randomize the assignment of
Speaker 3: cases throughout the entire district. And so there's not going
Speaker 3: to be this possibility under the proposal for a litigant
Speaker 3: to go to a specific division within the district and
Speaker 3: essentially handpick the judge. There's going to be some sort
Speaker 3: of random distribution of the cases throughout the district if
Speaker 3: the proposal goes into effect. Again, they are not trying
Speaker 3: to address the broader phenomenon of litigants being able to
Speaker 3: pick the districts and the circuits where they're litigating. So
Speaker 3: a circuit is going to embrace a number of states,
Speaker 3: and each circuit essentially develops its own interpretations of the Constitution.
Speaker 3: And the various federal statutes that they apply, and there
Speaker 3: can be differences between the circuits until the Supreme Court
Speaker 3: resolves those differences. That's been a phenomenon that we've had
Speaker 3: since Congress designed the present organization of the Federal Court
Speaker 3: in eighteen ninety one. So none of this is super new.
Speaker 3: The phenomenon that the Judicial Conference was trying to address
Speaker 3: is when you have not just a district within a state,
Speaker 3: but even divisions within that and there is going to
Speaker 3: be a single judge within that division. Now, that's a
Speaker 3: relatively rare phenomenon, and it's going to be even more
Speaker 3: rare that you can identify a very specific judge with
Speaker 3: a particular political bent who is going to be especially
Speaker 3: receptive to your case. So I don't want to say
Speaker 3: that it is a solution in search of a problem.
Speaker 3: It's not at all. But the very specific problem that
Speaker 3: the Judicial Conference is addressing is pretty narrow. There are
Speaker 3: a whole host of other concerns with forum shopping that
Speaker 3: the Conference essentially said that it's not addressing in this
Speaker 3: particular proposal.
Speaker 1: There was a backlash from conservative senators, including Minority Leader
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell, who characterized this as an attempt to grab
Speaker 1: power from conservative jurists in isolated jurisdictions, and he said
Speaker 1: that it's up to Congress to decide how cases should
Speaker 1: be assigned to the lower courts.
Speaker 3: Part of this, I think was geared at addressing the
Speaker 3: basic idea that somebody who is a plaintiff should be
Speaker 3: able to sue at home. Now, there are all sorts
Speaker 3: of doctrines that are going to limit that, but one
Speaker 3: of the things that Senator McConnell talked about was the
Speaker 3: Judicial Conferences proposal was going to limit access to justice,
Speaker 3: and that if I'm a plaintiff and I'm suing somebody
Speaker 3: who has harmed me here at home, then it shouldn't
Speaker 3: result in the case being sent to some far flung
Speaker 3: place elsewhere in the district. And that point I think
Speaker 3: is generally well taken. What the Judicial Conference said in
Speaker 3: its clarification is, look, we're trying to train on the
Speaker 3: very specific phenomenon of challenging broadly applicable statutes broadly applicable
Speaker 3: policies by hand selecting a very specific judge. In other words,
Speaker 3: they were trying to identify the very specific problems of
Speaker 3: challenges to nationwide policies or statutes, regulations, or otherwise when
Speaker 3: activists will go to a specific judge in one of
Speaker 3: these single judge divisions. They were trying trying to make
Speaker 3: clear that they were leading alone the normal process of
Speaker 3: litigation where you and I have a breach of contract
Speaker 3: and I'm suing in the place where we had formed
Speaker 3: the contract or where the election breach happened. In other words,
Speaker 3: they were saying, in the mind run of cases, we
Speaker 3: are leaving well enough alone. We're really trying to home
Speaker 3: in on the specific problem of identifying a specific judge
Speaker 3: who's going to give a favorable nationwide ruling.
Speaker 4: Coming up next.
Speaker 1: A Texas district says it's not following the guidance I'm
Speaker 1: June Gross when you're listening to Bloomberg shopping for judges.
Speaker 1: It's come up repeatedly in recent years in Texas As.
Speaker 1: Republican attorneys general and conservative litigants have filed challenges to
Speaker 1: Biden administration policies in divisions where one judge who's sympathetic
Speaker 1: to their cause is automatically assigned all cases. Last month,
Speaker 1: the federal judiciary's administrative arm approved a new policy aimed
Speaker 1: at curbing judge shopping by litigants. But two days later,
Speaker 1: after a backlash from Senate Republicans, the conference clarified that
Speaker 1: the new policy was just a recommendation. I've been talking
Speaker 1: to Professor Alan Trammell of the Washington and Lee Law School,
Speaker 1: So basically, in its revision, the conference said that this
Speaker 1: new policy was discretionary.
Speaker 3: They did say that it was discretionary, and I think
Speaker 3: that that is in part to make sure that their
Speaker 3: policy is going to be consistent with the federal statute
Speaker 3: that says that the chief judge of a district is
Speaker 3: in charge of distributing cases to the judges within that district.
Speaker 4: That was going to be my next question.
Speaker 1: I was wondering whether you thought that the initial policy
Speaker 1: was within federal statutes or whether they were violating that
Speaker 1: statue you just mentioned.
Speaker 3: There is a decent textual argument that the policy could
Speaker 3: have violated a federal statute. It could have worked an
Speaker 3: incursion on the chief judge's ability to assign cases as
Speaker 3: the chief judge does fit. I think that there is
Speaker 3: a better argument, which is that the policy and the
Speaker 3: federal statute are consistent. And again we need to see
Speaker 3: how the policy is actually crafted. We need to get
Speaker 3: language in front of us. But I think that if
Speaker 3: the Judicial Conference is careful, they will craft the policy
Speaker 3: in a way that is not going to be inconsistent
Speaker 3: with the governing statutes. It's going to essentially find a
Speaker 3: way to address this particular problem without again working an
Speaker 3: in persion on the statutory authority that a chief judge
Speaker 3: has to assign cases. My view is that a chief
Speaker 3: judge is going to ignore this policy at his or
Speaker 3: her own peril. I think that there is a good
Speaker 3: way of viewing this policy again, if it's put in
Speaker 3: the correct language as being consistent with the federal statute.
Speaker 1: In a letter on Friday, the chief Judge of the
Speaker 1: Northern District of Texas said that the judges in his
Speaker 1: district met on Wednesday, quote, the consensus was not to
Speaker 1: make any change to our case assignment process at this time,
Speaker 1: so they decided not to follow the policy.
Speaker 3: I don't know that they are not following the policy,
Speaker 3: because again, we don't really have hard and fast language
Speaker 3: in front of us. I think that there's going to
Speaker 3: be a lot of give and take, and I guess
Speaker 3: it is true that the Northern District seems to be
Speaker 3: conveyed that they are not interested in altering their behavior
Speaker 3: in any way whatsoever with respect to the assignment of cases.
Speaker 3: But this is an iterative process. I suspect that the
Speaker 3: Judicial Conference is going to come back with more specific language,
Speaker 3: and at that point we will see whether courts are
Speaker 3: essentially coming their noses at the conference or if they
Speaker 3: are trying to find some sort of accommodation. Again, I
Speaker 3: think that there is a genuine concern here. It is
Speaker 3: small board. It is a small piece of a much
Speaker 3: larger puzzle with respect to access to justice and perceptions
Speaker 3: of cherry picking particular courts or judges. But I don't
Speaker 3: think that the Judicial Conference has gone out too far
Speaker 3: on a limb here.
Speaker 1: This judge Shopping didn't address patent litigation or bankruptcy cases exactly.
Speaker 3: So Judge Hoe on the Fifth Circuit, which includes Texas,
Speaker 3: was essentially saying, look, you've addressed one tiny piece of
Speaker 3: the puzzle, But the bigger problem is not a single
Speaker 3: judge division such as Judge Kesmark. It's the fact that
Speaker 3: you've got certain districts that have become magnets for patent litigation,
Speaker 3: bankruptcy litigation, and the light So the Eastern District of Texas,
Speaker 3: for example, has developed its own law on patent litigation,
Speaker 3: and so called patent trolls often flocked to the Eastern
Speaker 3: District of Texas because of the unique rules that have
Speaker 3: developed around patent litigation. I would agree that that is
Speaker 3: a much bigger concern in the broader scheme. But just
Speaker 3: because the Judicial Conference has focused on one aspect of
Speaker 3: the problem, namely single judge divisions, doesn't mean that it
Speaker 3: can't also address some of these other problems. I can
Speaker 3: see the point from the perspective of the conservative blowback
Speaker 3: that this looks a little bit too cherry picked, that
Speaker 3: if you're concerned about access to justice the impartial administration
Speaker 3: of the law, then you should be focused on all
Speaker 3: of this. Again, I agree with that. I think that
Speaker 3: certainly the Judicial Conference should be looking at the extent
Speaker 3: to which particular districts within the country have become magnets
Speaker 3: for patent and bankruptcy litigation. But that's a slightly different
Speaker 3: issue and I think more complex. It's a little bit
Speaker 3: more complicated to resolve than trying to address the problem
Speaker 3: of single judge divisions that have attracted some of these
Speaker 3: cases seeking nationwide injunctions against the current administration.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned nationwide injunctions, and when Judge Jeffrey Sutton,
Speaker 1: who's the chair of the Judicial Conference as Executive Committee,
Speaker 1: announced the change, he said it was prompted by the
Speaker 1: plethora of national, statewide injunctions being.
Speaker 4: Issued by judges in such cases.
Speaker 1: And during oral arguments last week we heard from Justice
Speaker 1: Neil Gorsuch complaining about the issuance of these nationwide injunctions
Speaker 1: and how you know during FDR's tenure there were none.
Speaker 1: Is it up to the Supreme Court to put its
Speaker 1: foot down and stop these nationwide injunctions.
Speaker 3: I think that nationwide injunctions are a huge part of
Speaker 3: this problem, but I think that it's a separate conversation.
Speaker 3: That is to say, nationwide injunctions have been with us
Speaker 3: for much longer than justice courses, and some scholars have
Speaker 3: wanted to acknowledge. It is true that there has been
Speaker 3: a proliferation of these nationwide injunctions, particularly starting with the
Speaker 3: Obama administration, and then we really see them explode in
Speaker 3: a lot of ways during the Trump administration. It seemed
Speaker 3: as though every single time you had individuals and organizations
Speaker 3: challenging particular Trump administration policies. The remedies that they would
Speaker 3: seek would be a nationwide injunction, not just an injunction
Speaker 3: limiting the effect of a particular regulation or policy to
Speaker 3: those particular plaintiffs. So, yes, there is a broader conversation
Speaker 3: about whether federal courts are abusing their discretion in the
Speaker 3: types of remedies that they are issuing, whether the remedies
Speaker 3: are are too sweeping, encompassing far too many individuals. I
Speaker 3: don't think that that is necessarily a constitutional problem, but
Speaker 3: I do agree that the Supreme Court should probably provide
Speaker 3: some clarity about the circumstances under which nationwide injunctions are appropriate. Now,
Speaker 3: the way that this ties back into the problem of
Speaker 3: single judge divisions is that if you know the judges
Speaker 3: are willing to issue these really really sweeping at junctions,
Speaker 3: and you can then choose the specific judge you want
Speaker 3: who is going to hear your particular challenge, then that
Speaker 3: just ratchets up the stakes. It means that if you
Speaker 3: are a plaintiff and you can identify one single judge
Speaker 3: in the country, then you might be able to undermine
Speaker 3: an entire policy nationwide in less than until the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court steps in and as we've seen with the the
Speaker 3: Pristone litigation, that can take time even when there's been
Speaker 3: expedited briefing an argument.
Speaker 1: Does this all show, I mean, has the federal judiciary
Speaker 1: become more.
Speaker 4: Polarized in recent.
Speaker 1: Years with the confirmation of a lot of Trump appointees
Speaker 1: who were not just conservative but ideologues.
Speaker 3: I certainly think that that is true. I think that
Speaker 3: it's always been true that different judges bring their backgrounds
Speaker 3: and experiences to bear on the cases that they hear.
Speaker 3: But there's really been a conservative effort by the conservative
Speaker 3: legal movement to, as you say, not just place conservatives
Speaker 3: on the various federal courts, but to place the ideologue.
Speaker 3: That is not to say that every single judge appointed
Speaker 3: by President Trump is an ideologue, but I think that
Speaker 3: some of the most ideologically motivated judges were indeed placed
Speaker 3: on these courts by President Trump.
Speaker 1: Could Congress solve this by passing legislation to curtailed judge.
Speaker 3: Shopping, absolutely, and that's been part of the debate and
Speaker 3: part of the pushback. After the Judicial Conference announced its policy,
Speaker 3: you had a number of members of Congress saying, this
Speaker 3: is not really the province of the Judicial Conference, This
Speaker 3: is something that Congress should be doing. I agree with
Speaker 3: the second part of that. This is absolutely within Congress's
Speaker 3: power to regulate the federal judiciary, to design the shape
Speaker 3: of the judiciary, the shape of the districts, the circuit,
Speaker 3: so on and so forth. All of that I think
Speaker 3: is unquestionably within Congress's palace. The open question, though, is
Speaker 3: what happens if Congress doesn't act. Is there any other
Speaker 3: body that could act on its own? I think that
Speaker 3: the court system, on its own could act. And then
Speaker 3: the question as well, is the Judicial Conference a step
Speaker 3: too far removed from, say, the office of the Chief Justice.
Speaker 3: I don't think that it is. I think that the Judicial
Speaker 3: Conference is there to provide guidance in exactly these kinds
Speaker 3: of situations. They obviously need to make sure that they're
Speaker 3: not running a foule of statutes that are on the books.
Speaker 3: But there's always been a cooperative interaction between Congress and
Speaker 3: the judiciary itself with respect to managing some of these
Speaker 3: questions of judicial administration.
Speaker 1: Finally, a lot has been said about how an outside
Speaker 1: share of the Supreme Court's biggest cases come from the
Speaker 1: most conservative Court of Appeals in the country, the Fifth
Speaker 1: Circuit because its far reaching rulings are proving difficult for
Speaker 1: the justices to ignore what I'll call judge shopping because
Speaker 1: those cases, a lot of those cases come from Texas.
Speaker 3: I think that that is absolutely right. You have the
Speaker 3: Fifth Circuit, which has become increasingly ideological, you have one
Speaker 3: of these single judge divisions in Texas, namely Judge Casmark,
Speaker 3: and you have a Fifth Circuit that is really pushing
Speaker 3: the boundary. So the Supreme Court, even a very conservative
Speaker 3: Supreme Court with a supermajority of conservative justices, is policing
Speaker 3: some of these more I will say adventurous ruins by
Speaker 3: the Fifth Circuit, and we'll just.
Speaker 1: Have to wait and see whether the Judicial Conference actually
Speaker 1: manages to get anything done with regard to judge shopping.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Alan. That's Professor Alan Trammel of Washington
Speaker 1: and Lee Law School. Coming up next on the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Lawn Show. Why Homeland Security agents raided Shawn didty Combe's
Speaker 1: homes in LA and Miami. I'm June Grosso and.
Speaker 4: You're listening to Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Heavily armed Homeland Security agents rated Seawan didty Combe's homes
Speaker 1: in La and Miami last week, handcuffing some of the
Speaker 1: people inside the home as they carried out their search
Speaker 1: for hours. The raids are reportedly part of an ongoing
Speaker 1: investigation into sex trafficking. According to the Associated Press, these
Speaker 1: raids follow multiple lawsuits filed against Combs in Reces months
Speaker 1: with allegations of sexual assault and sex trafficking. Joining me
Speaker 1: is Albert Soler, chair of the Entertainment department at Scarncy Hollindbeck.
Speaker 1: These raids were very visible, conducted with search larrants.
Speaker 4: What does that tell you?
Speaker 5: What it tells me is that they have a very
Speaker 5: solid basis for wanting to obtain additional evidence and just
Speaker 5: just a little bit of background this all started, and
Speaker 5: of course their allegations, right, I always like to say
Speaker 5: that because everybody has their day in court. But this
Speaker 5: was prompted by the lawsuit by Cassie Ventura and that
Speaker 5: was a former longtime partner of Ditty's Sean Comb's, and
Speaker 5: there are worthy initial allegations came out about the sexual
Speaker 5: abuse and so that prompted the initial eyeballs on this situation,
Speaker 5: followed by the February lawsuit of Rodney Jones, the producer
Speaker 5: Lil rod and so what happens is when you start
Speaker 5: getting lawsuits like that on a civil level, then on
Speaker 5: the criminal side, the attorney generals have to start paying attention,
Speaker 5: the district attorneys start paying attention. And that's what happened
Speaker 5: in this case. So because other women came forward with
Speaker 5: corroborating type of accusations and similar type of accusations, then
Speaker 5: Homeland Security is permitted to obtain the search warrant. And
Speaker 5: they did conduct the raids on Miami and LA homes,
Speaker 5: but it was primarily because you had multiple sources making
Speaker 5: the same accusations, which allowed them to obtain the search warrant.
Speaker 5: So yes, after they started coming forward, it gave them
Speaker 5: enough cause to obtain the search warrant and raid its homes.
Speaker 1: So what does it tell you that it was the
Speaker 1: raid was done by Homeland Security agents not by the FBI.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, they do share jurisdiction on a lot
Speaker 5: of these type of cases. I have seen other matters
Speaker 5: where Homeland Security actually actually conducts the raids. It's not
Speaker 5: necessarily for one reason or the other, just who happens
Speaker 5: to have the resources at that time, and who's in
Speaker 5: the area at that time, and who they to go.
Speaker 5: I don't know that it was a specific reason why
Speaker 5: that is, but I have seen both. I've seen the
Speaker 5: FBI do it, and I've seen the Department Homeland Security
Speaker 5: do it. But I will say that I think what's
Speaker 5: important here is that those type of raids are serious
Speaker 5: and the way they conducted them were very aggressive, which
Speaker 5: leads me to believe that they had a lot of
Speaker 5: corroborating evidence for what the allegations may be and.
Speaker 3: That support the allegations.
Speaker 5: So just in case, what they're looking for there is substantiating,
Speaker 5: corroborating evidence to support the allegations asserted against him by
Speaker 5: the three women and by Cassie Ventura and by Rodney Jones.
Speaker 5: And they're primarily looking for things like videotapes. They're looking
Speaker 5: for photographs, looking for pictures, records of flight, where were you,
Speaker 5: who was there? And they're trying to find support so
Speaker 5: that they could actually bring charges. If they find the support,
Speaker 5: they can bring charges against mister Comps.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So now I understand that they handcuffed three people, including
Speaker 1: two of his sons, during the rate at his La home,
Speaker 1: and handcuff four during the rate at his Miami home.
Speaker 4: Is that unusual.
Speaker 5: No, it's not unusual. Just to be clear, no charges
Speaker 5: have been brought against any of the sons, any of
Speaker 5: his affiliates. What it is is similar to a traffic stuff.
Speaker 5: Sometimes when you are serving kind of a high stake
Speaker 5: warrant like that, or when you are conducting a raid,
Speaker 5: you just want to make sure that the folks inside
Speaker 5: aren't armed. You want to make sure it's not an ambush.
Speaker 5: The officers a home mad security agents don't know what
Speaker 5: they're walking into, right, So when you walk into a
Speaker 5: situation where the principal of the home has been accused
Speaker 5: of sexual crimes and other crimes, it's just for the
Speaker 5: safety of the homeland security agents. But they don't know
Speaker 5: what they're whether they're going to face guns, whether it's
Speaker 5: going to be people that are armed security folks that
Speaker 5: may confuse them for somebody else. So what it really
Speaker 5: is just a protective measure to give them time to
Speaker 5: assess the situation without risk.
Speaker 1: And they did, according to NBC News, they did find guns.
Speaker 1: Do you think that they could have gotten a search
Speaker 1: warrant based on the allegations in the civil cases alone?
Speaker 5: As I said at the start, I think it's really
Speaker 5: important to understand that the basis for the criminal cases
Speaker 5: that may come and for the search warrants were the
Speaker 5: civil cases. Because you have a civil case asserting criminal conduct.
Speaker 5: So the civil cases that assert the criminal conduct are
Speaker 5: also the basis for why it is that the criminal
Speaker 5: cases started to develop and why they had a responsibility
Speaker 5: to investigate. For example, sex trafficking obviously is a criminal matter.
Speaker 5: So when it's asserted and a complaint on the civil level,
Speaker 5: and they mentioned it during the complaint and then the paperwork,
Speaker 5: then obviously it raise his eyebrows. And when it happens
Speaker 5: two or three times, as it did in this case,
Speaker 5: because if you recall there were three women that filed
Speaker 5: civil suits subsequent to Cassie van Turro's is when you
Speaker 5: start getting a lot of repeat type of accusations, which
Speaker 5: really can see interest of the criminal focus on that side.
Speaker 5: So it was the civil assertions in the civil lawsuits
Speaker 5: that prompted the criminal investigation, that was the basis for
Speaker 5: the criminal investigation.
Speaker 1: Do you think that these civil lawsuits are giving investigators
Speaker 1: sort of a head start or a roadmap to the
Speaker 1: criminal investigation.
Speaker 5: Yeah, one thousand percent, that's absolutely right. And if you
Speaker 5: remember what the civil complaints are going to have is
Speaker 5: they're going to have a very detailed fact section and
Speaker 5: they're going to pretty much spell out the elements of
Speaker 5: those claims. So whatever was asserted, all the actions, all
Speaker 5: the illegal supposed activity is going to be supported by
Speaker 5: factual assertions in the complaint. So on the criminal side,
Speaker 5: you kind of have a roadmap as to what was
Speaker 5: happening and supporting evidence for the criminal conduct. In fact,
Speaker 5: that's probably what they were looking for whatever was mentioned
Speaker 5: in the complaints as far as this happened at this party,
Speaker 5: this type of activity has happened at parties. You had
Speaker 5: underaged that these events, whatever the allegations were, is what
Speaker 5: they're trying to find evidence for by conducted the race.
Speaker 5: So it does give them a roadmap, and it gives
Speaker 5: them a lot of factual assertions to go by when
Speaker 5: they walk into the home and when they raid the homes,
Speaker 5: they know exactly what they're looking for at that point.
Speaker 1: So Rodney Jones, as you mentioned, filed that lawsuit and
Speaker 1: in it he also talked about Brendon Paul, who was
Speaker 1: described as a confidante and drug mule. Now he was
Speaker 1: taken into custody on suspicion of cocaine and a control
Speaker 1: substance laced candy. But did he was not taken into custody.
Speaker 5: Oh, because what happened there My understanding was that he
Speaker 5: actually had the candy on him. It's like if I
Speaker 5: had illegal drugs on me, they would arrest me and
Speaker 5: not the person next to me. So it's the one
Speaker 5: carrying it. And so he actually had I believe the
Speaker 5: drugs or the candies that were laced with what they
Speaker 5: believe of drugs, which gave him cause to arrest him.
Speaker 5: Did he wasn't involved in that because he didn't have
Speaker 5: any anything on him. Had he had the same candies
Speaker 5: or products or items, then he would have been arrested
Speaker 5: as well. So it's pretty much because he got caught
Speaker 5: with the illegal substance on him that automatically he was
Speaker 5: arrested for that. But did he didn't have that? And
Speaker 5: real quick, I do want to say something about the labeling.
Speaker 5: That happens a lot, right, and it's very important to
Speaker 5: say that these are allegations because nothing's been proven yet.
Speaker 5: They're looking, they're investigating. So for example, in the celebrity world,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of parties where are there are listed
Speaker 5: drugs all the time, and there are folks that provide
Speaker 5: those drugs. And here I always find it interesting how,
Speaker 5: you know, the media and everyone then labels him a
Speaker 5: drug mule when it was probably just a guy who
Speaker 5: you know, procured these things for these kind of entertainment parties,
Speaker 5: and it happens rather frequently. So I just want to
Speaker 5: point that out too, because it seems like they're kind
Speaker 5: of repeated over and over. Now he's a drug mule,
Speaker 5: now he's a gun runner, when in reality, these things,
Speaker 5: you know, they're pretty common when it comes to in payment,
Speaker 5: but they are illegal and they're not correct obviously, right.
Speaker 1: The sex, drugs and rock and roll, I mean, do
Speaker 1: they get a bit of a pass on things people
Speaker 1: in that industry?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 5: No, I think that you know, everyone's held to the
Speaker 5: same standard. It's just that, you know, it's very hard
Speaker 5: to police everything, and depending on who you are and
Speaker 5: the artists that you are and the type of events
Speaker 5: and parties you throw, there may be that there may
Speaker 5: not be that, but I think nobody gets a pass
Speaker 5: as is shown here. I mean, these these activities were
Speaker 5: described by first Miss Ventura and then other people that
Speaker 5: corroborated it, and now they went into a full blown
Speaker 5: investigation of it. And the gentleman who had the drugs
Speaker 5: on him, regardless of who he was associated with, was
Speaker 5: also arrested around the spot. So there are no passes.
Speaker 5: But I always want to always want to emphasize the
Speaker 5: presumption of innocence until there's actually a conviction and evidence
Speaker 5: comes out.
Speaker 1: Does this echo or in any way follow the pattern
Speaker 1: that we saw in the cases of R. Kelly and
Speaker 1: Harvey Weinstein.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think it does, because what happens
Speaker 5: is that nothing really happens until you start to get
Speaker 5: that one case, that one accusation. And what happens is
Speaker 5: when somebody is accused of these kind of crimes in
Speaker 5: the case of R. Kelly, very serious, in the case
Speaker 5: of Harvey Weinstein, very serious, in the case of the
Speaker 5: Ditty very serious. It's when you get multiple cases underneath,
Speaker 5: multiple accusations that kind of mirror each other. Right, in
Speaker 5: the case of Harvey Weinstein, you had many women. In
Speaker 5: the case of Bill Cosby, you had many women. So
Speaker 5: when you start getting tons and tons of victims coming
Speaker 5: forward or alleged victims, then it peaud the interest and
Speaker 5: then you start getting the investigations. Wait a minute, if
Speaker 5: fifty people must be saying this must be something to it,
Speaker 5: we have a responsibility to investigate, and the criminal folks
Speaker 5: investigate to make sure there's something there or nothing there.
Speaker 5: So I think it is a pattern. I think the
Speaker 5: key here is that you do have multiple accusers, and
Speaker 5: when you have multiple accusers for legal activity, you typically
Speaker 5: do have an investigation that's serious, it's aggressive, and they
Speaker 5: want to make sure that the conduct, if it's occurring,
Speaker 5: stops immediately. So I do think it's similar.
Speaker 1: They're talking about the trial almost twenty five years ago
Speaker 1: where Shahn Colms, then known as Puffy, and his bodyguard
Speaker 1: were arrested following a shooting inside a Times Square club
Speaker 1: and he was represented by Johnny cochrane and he got off.
Speaker 1: And now they're saying that he has bragged about bribing
Speaker 1: witnesses and jurors in that case.
Speaker 5: Right, And so what's interesting there is that obviously you
Speaker 5: have a statute limitation usually on these kind of of
Speaker 5: allegations and on the type of claim. However, there's an
Speaker 5: exception when there's new evidence that was previously unknown, right,
Speaker 5: you do have the ability to bring that before the
Speaker 5: court the judge, and usually you are afforded the opportunity
Speaker 5: to revisit those based on brand new evidence that did
Speaker 5: not or could not exist back then. So if Diddy
Speaker 5: is going around saying that and admitting that he did
Speaker 5: that into this, obviously tampering with witness is a serious,
Speaker 5: serious accusation. It's not to be taken lightly, and so
Speaker 5: that would definitely be grounds for possible revisiting of that claim.
Speaker 5: So yeah, that's interesting and I could see them revisiting
Speaker 5: that again. And he's just in a very difficult situation
Speaker 5: right now, facing legal challenges at multiple fronts, and it'll
Speaker 5: be interesting to see how that plays out.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being on the show. That's Albert Solar, Obscurency
Speaker 1: Holland Beck and that's it for this edition of the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law Podcast.
Speaker 4: Remember you can always get the latest legal news.
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Speaker 1: and at Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast, Slash Law. I'm
Speaker 1: June Grosso and this is Bloomberg four