Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Pre Barra was
Speaker 1: the U S Attorney for the Southern District of New
Speaker 1: York for eight years. He racked up more than ninety
Speaker 1: convictions for insider trading and became known as the Sheriff
Speaker 1: of Wall Street. His book is entitled Doing Justice, a
Speaker 1: Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment and the Rule of Law,
Speaker 1: and he joins me now in our New York studios,
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming in, Thanks for having so. The Southern
Speaker 1: District has long been known for those in legal circles
Speaker 1: as the most independent of federal prosecutor's offices. Now the
Speaker 1: general public is starting to hear that is it independent
Speaker 1: enough to bring the investigations into President Trump and those
Speaker 1: around him to a proper conclusion without interference? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think so. I mean, if you if you look at
Speaker 1: the book and read it, it has a lot of
Speaker 1: interesting things to say about the criminal justice system and
Speaker 1: about decision making. But it also reveals a lot about
Speaker 1: the character, the philosophy the people in that office, how
Speaker 1: they deliberate over decisions, how they decide to bring a case,
Speaker 1: how they decide when appropriate and in the interests of justice,
Speaker 1: to walk away from a case. So they have an
Speaker 1: aggressive streak, an independent streak, but they also know color
Speaker 1: within the lines. They don't do things that are inappropriate.
Speaker 1: They don't defy Department of Justice policy or law. And
Speaker 1: as we've been talking about for a lot of weeks
Speaker 1: and months now, whether you like it or not, there
Speaker 1: is a policy in the Justice Department, in an opinion
Speaker 1: at the Office of Legal Counsel, the Special Subdivision of
Speaker 1: the Justice Department, that says you cannot indict or prosecute
Speaker 1: a sitting president. So I don't think that the Southern
Speaker 1: District that I let for almost eight years will do
Speaker 1: that while the president is in office. But short of that,
Speaker 1: I think they'll follow the facts where they lead. They'll
Speaker 1: do with the law permits, and they'll be aggressive and
Speaker 1: fearless about it. But also fair is there a lot
Speaker 1: of interference from main Justice when you're at the Southern
Speaker 1: District and you're running the office. I wouldn't. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say interference that. You know, people want to know what's
Speaker 1: going I don't know what's going on. You look the
Speaker 1: Southern District of New York. Your attorney's office is within
Speaker 1: the Justice Department, and there's a healthy back and forth
Speaker 1: between the mothership in Washington and the office is like
Speaker 1: the Southern District and others. But you know, people may
Speaker 1: not appreciate this. The attorney generally United States is confirmed
Speaker 1: by the Senate, nominated by the President. But so is
Speaker 1: the US attorney. It's not like the Attorney General at
Speaker 1: the Justice Department picks all the US attorneys. The US
Speaker 1: attorneys are picked by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
Speaker 1: So of course we're part of the fabric of the
Speaker 1: Justice Department, and there has to be you know, back
Speaker 1: and forth, and you comply with the department policies and
Speaker 1: you make sure people are in the loop. But the
Speaker 1: system itself, you know, creates a form of independence because
Speaker 1: every single unitate attorney, for good reason, is independently appointed,
Speaker 1: independently confirmed by the Senate. And the presumption is that
Speaker 1: that US attorney knows within reason what you know, the
Speaker 1: priority should be and the best way to use resources
Speaker 1: in that particular district. If you have a lot of
Speaker 1: organized crime, then you should be spending money on that
Speaker 1: and resources on that. If you have you know, cyber
Speaker 1: crime in your district or terrorism, then you should be
Speaker 1: you know, allocating resources to those things. And generally speaking,
Speaker 1: I will say that the the Washington folks generally left
Speaker 1: us alone. Al Right. Speaking of when you're u S attorney,
Speaker 1: you oversaw a crackdown on insider trading that was well publicized.
Speaker 1: Why did those cases gained so much attention? Did they
Speaker 1: merit that much attention? Probably not. Actually, maybe this will
Speaker 1: surprise some people. I would go on programs like this
Speaker 1: and I would be asked to press conferences like, go,
Speaker 1: why are you so focused on inside of training? I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not, I said, you are. You know, we have
Speaker 1: a handful of people who do the insider trading cases,
Speaker 1: like we had a handful of people doing public corruption cases,
Speaker 1: a handful of people doing mafia cases, a handful of
Speaker 1: people doing gang cases. The gang cases didn't get the
Speaker 1: same attention, you know. Nope, nobody ever died and inside
Speaker 1: a trading case in the gang cases. In the gang investigations,
Speaker 1: they did, but there's no Bloomberg Radio on gangs. There's
Speaker 1: no CNBC not to mention your competitors. I apologize, so
Speaker 1: I would draw that, but but there are no there's
Speaker 1: no twenty four hour networks that cover gang violence or
Speaker 1: narcotics violence or terrorism unless there's an attack. So I
Speaker 1: think the interest in the inside of trading cases stemmed
Speaker 1: from sort of, you know, a mysteriousness about them. I
Speaker 1: think there's a purin interest on the part of people,
Speaker 1: whether it's good or bad, when wealthy, privileged people break
Speaker 1: the law, and when they break the law in particular way,
Speaker 1: which is by telling secrets. I means are trading as
Speaker 1: a prime of secrets. And there were some salacious things
Speaker 1: that were not relevant to the legal case, but they
Speaker 1: came out during some of those cases, in those trials
Speaker 1: that I think captured people's interests. I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: reason why people watch the Showtime Serious Billions. It's not
Speaker 1: portrays the United States Attorney for the Southeriders of New York,
Speaker 1: and in various ways it is highly highly fictionalized, but
Speaker 1: you know, people are interested. It appears in seeing, you know,
Speaker 1: the takedown of healthy, privileged people who decide that the
Speaker 1: amount of money they have is not enough. You know,
Speaker 1: we we charge people who had a billion dollars not enough.
Speaker 1: They cheated to get a little bit more money. There's
Speaker 1: something fascinating about that. And when you sent the word
Speaker 1: out that, you know, Wall Street, if you're listening, we're
Speaker 1: coming for you. Basically, do you think that frightened people
Speaker 1: into behavior? I don't know if I don't know if
Speaker 1: it frightened people. The the reason I said something like
Speaker 1: that was before my time. My predecessors decided to use
Speaker 1: a pretty aggressive tactic, which makes a lot of sense
Speaker 1: when you realize that inside of trading is basically a
Speaker 1: crime of communication. You communicate an inside tip to someone
Speaker 1: else and then they act on it, they trade on it.
Speaker 1: So we use wire taps, fully authorized by the statute,
Speaker 1: hadn't been used before because, as I say in the book,
Speaker 1: you know, lots of things seemed very obvious after the fact,
Speaker 1: and you know, creative people who preceded me in the
Speaker 1: Southern District began to use wire taps to pursue insider
Speaker 1: trading cases, insider trading conspiracies. We pursued those further, and
Speaker 1: we built on those, and we use it ourselves and
Speaker 1: I thought it was important for people in Oh. You know,
Speaker 1: you can decide to make a particular trade, you can
Speaker 1: decide to convey inside information, but just be aware law
Speaker 1: enforcement is listening and you want to have a turn
Speaker 1: effect on folks. That's the correct quote. I got it
Speaker 1: a little bit wrong there, paraphrasing. So you reached your
Speaker 1: dream job really early in your career. I did. So
Speaker 1: what's your next dream job? I know you're podcast now,
Speaker 1: I know, and you're teaching at m Y you but
Speaker 1: what about a judge ship or u S attorney, the
Speaker 1: attorney general under a perhaps a different president. I'm spending
Speaker 1: my time telling people about the book, how they should
Speaker 1: read it, if they care about justice as they care
Speaker 1: about truth, if they understand that what's happening in America
Speaker 1: is unusual and we've got to get back to basics
Speaker 1: and first principles, and if they want some page turning
Speaker 1: stories about inside our training cases like you mentioned mafia cases,
Speaker 1: terrorism cases. We had a case once involving the so
Speaker 1: called accountable cop. And so I want to emphasize that
Speaker 1: it's not a book for lawyers or for people involved
Speaker 1: in criminal justice, but for everybody who has to make
Speaker 1: a decision about things West, under stand what truth is
Speaker 1: and who likes a good story it is. And as
Speaker 1: I mentioned to you before we started on air that
Speaker 1: my favorite quote is from your daughter who said, Daddy
Speaker 1: stopped being such a drama queen or words for those effects.
Speaker 1: Understand what that means and why that's in the book.
Speaker 1: You'll have to buy one exactly Before we go, one
Speaker 1: last question, what do you regret? What did you not
Speaker 1: do in your role as as U S attorney. I
Speaker 1: don't have any particular regret, which is not to say
Speaker 1: we did everything perfectly, which is not to say I
Speaker 1: didn't make mistakes. I mentioned some things in the book
Speaker 1: where I thought, you know, maybe I I spoke a
Speaker 1: little too valuably about a couple of things. Um, but
Speaker 1: you know, I feel I feel pretty good about the tenure.
Speaker 1: We didn't We didn't get a conviction in every case.
Speaker 1: We didn't bring every case that maybe justice would have
Speaker 1: required because we didn't have the evidence. But overall, I'm
Speaker 1: proud of the fact that we we kept up the
Speaker 1: principle in that place, which I say in the book
Speaker 1: repeatedly that was told to me, and I said to
Speaker 1: them that the dimission of the places to the right thing,
Speaker 1: in the right way, for the right reasons and only that,
Speaker 1: and to the extent people lived up to that, and
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of it. The book is doing justice
Speaker 1: of prosecutor's thoughts on crime, punishment and the rule of law.
Speaker 1: That's pret Berrard, thanks so much for being here. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe
Speaker 1: and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and
Speaker 1: on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brasso. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg