Speaker 1: Welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt, and it has
Speaker 1: been quite a month for climate nudes. A week ago,
Speaker 1: the International Energy Agency issued a shocking report for them,
Speaker 1: saying that we need to end new fossil fuel developments now,
Speaker 1: not twenty years from now, not ten years from now. Today.
Speaker 1: This is Henry Kissinger's International Energy Agency, folks, not a
Speaker 1: bunch of tree hugging hippies, and they're saying something that
Speaker 1: even progressive politicians who think we should act on climate
Speaker 1: have been kind of afraid to say. That was a
Speaker 1: huge deal. Then this week, a Dutch court ordered Shell
Speaker 1: to cut emissions from both its operations and its products
Speaker 1: forty twenty thirty. That ruling sets a huge precedent for
Speaker 1: climate cases around the globe, and shareholder meetings in the
Speaker 1: US this week didn't go the industry's way either. Exonmobile
Speaker 1: had to give up two board seats to climate activist
Speaker 1: shareholders who have vowed to push the company away from
Speaker 1: oil and gas and toward climate action, and Chevron shareholders
Speaker 1: voted in favor of a proposal to cut emissions generated
Speaker 1: by the company's products. Chevron shareholders also voiced concern over
Speaker 1: the company's continued pursuit of human rights activist Stephen Donziger,
Speaker 1: who was in court in New York earlier this month
Speaker 1: facing criminal contempt charges related to his work on the
Speaker 1: case against Chevron in Ecuador. I didn't say Attorney Stephen Donziger.
Speaker 1: They because Chevron successfully got Donziger disbarred last year. If
Speaker 1: you haven't listened to our season on that case, it's
Speaker 1: a quick way to get caught up. It's litigation that's
Speaker 1: been going on for thirty years. Today, I've got Paul
Speaker 1: Buzzyminho from Amazon Watch here with an update. He was
Speaker 1: in the courtroom last week and says the judge in
Speaker 1: that case against Donziger seems intent on sending him to jail.
Speaker 1: That update coming up after this quick break.
Speaker 2: Let's maybe start with just like day one showing up,
Speaker 2: what was the kind of the vibe in the courtroom?
Speaker 3: It it was, you know, I've been working in some
Speaker 3: way on this case for fourteen years. Right that rally
Speaker 3: the opening day of Donzier's trial was one of the
Speaker 3: highest energy, most engaged groups that I've seen in a
Speaker 3: decade in the US, especially involved in this case. Like
Speaker 3: we've had many protests that shareholder meetings. There are obviously
Speaker 3: there's more issues with Chevron than just this case, but
Speaker 3: this case is such an important one. But I was
Speaker 3: so amazed at the level and the amount of support
Speaker 3: and interest behind Donzinger, and I see that as the
Speaker 3: failure of Chevron and give some done strategy. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is the last thing that they wanted to make
Speaker 3: Donzinger into a hero. But by going after him to
Speaker 3: the level that they have, they've done that. They've turned
Speaker 3: the narrative around to why would any judge do this?
Speaker 3: Why would the US judicial system allow this? Oh, hustle
Speaker 3: fuel industry is behind this, And then you realize this
Speaker 3: is one guy going up against an unbelievably powerful force
Speaker 3: that is seeking to destroy him, just like he's been
Speaker 3: saying for years. But now people can visualize what that.
Speaker 2: Looks like the private secutor in the fact that the
Speaker 2: private prosecutor has links to Chevron, And then you know,
Speaker 2: I just saw a few days ago when Stephen posted
Speaker 2: the log where they had met with Chevron's lawyer several times,
Speaker 2: and that means time to where I'm just like, this
Speaker 2: just doesn't look good. No matter what you think of Stephen,
Speaker 2: even if you think this Stephen Donziger. Guy is skeeduy,
Speaker 2: this is unheard of. And the fact that he has
Speaker 2: already been on house arrest for what more than six
Speaker 2: hundred days? Now, yeah, let's call it almost two years
Speaker 2: for a crime in air quotes that comes with a
Speaker 2: six month sentence and the crime.
Speaker 3: That's really what the point is about, right. They wanted
Speaker 3: to be officially a crime because all he did was
Speaker 3: resist a judge's order in a civil case. Okay, it's
Speaker 3: a federal judge, and okay, you're supposed to do certain things,
Speaker 3: but that's not a crime. They need criminalize him so
Speaker 3: that when he picks up the one who tries to
Speaker 3: talk to you know, the press or members of Congress
Speaker 3: or other judges outside of the United States want to
Speaker 3: be able to say, you're honor this man has been
Speaker 3: convicted in the United States. Why are you listening to
Speaker 3: him or don't feature him? He's been He's a convicted criminal.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: So what was Judge Presca like in the courtroom?
Speaker 3: So I was I've been thinking about how to how
Speaker 3: I would raise this. I'm not I was not at
Speaker 3: all surprised, but I was continually shocked by her level
Speaker 3: of disdain and dismissal for Donziger and the defense team.
Speaker 3: She didn't even pretend to hide the fact that she
Speaker 3: was going to keep arguing with the defense and that
Speaker 3: she was so happy to be listening to the prosecution,
Speaker 3: except for when she felt like reading the paper, which
Speaker 3: she did several times and.
Speaker 2: What like during the defense.
Speaker 3: During the trial, Yeah, during all parts, almost every day,
Speaker 3: I saw a newspaper on her desk, and occasionally she
Speaker 3: would flip the page. And you know, this is a
Speaker 3: criminal trial, like someone's fate of going to jail hangs
Speaker 3: in the balance. You shouldn't be reading a newspaper. And apparently,
Speaker 3: you know, they're allowed to have that on the desk.
Speaker 3: It's not like you can't file a judicial miscondent complaint
Speaker 3: for that, but you should be able to, especially when
Speaker 3: her demeanor towards like Marti Garbus, who's you know, a
Speaker 3: renowned that claims lawyers work you know with with Nelson,
Speaker 3: Mandela and so many other leadership, says our Chavez, and
Speaker 3: here's this iconic defender of the rights of people who've
Speaker 3: been attacked by governments and others, and she argued with him,
Speaker 3: she raided him. She continually stopped him in mid sentence
Speaker 3: whenever he was trying to speak, and he was bringing
Speaker 3: some really important constitutional challenges now with the caveat right,
Speaker 3: I'm not a lawyer. I've just spent so many times
Speaker 3: in court listening to all this stuff. His argument was
Speaker 3: that Rita Glevin and Sorting Kissel had said on the
Speaker 3: record in court that they were not being supervised in
Speaker 3: any way by the Department of Justice. Now, this Rule
Speaker 3: forty two thing, which is really bizarre, allowing a federal
Speaker 3: judge to appoint a private prosecutor. It doesn't mean that
Speaker 3: once they do that, they can therefore act however they
Speaker 3: so choose. Right, they build over a million dollars already, Right,
Speaker 3: a federal prosecutor would not do that. They can't do that.
Speaker 3: They shouldn't never charge by the hour, because it's not
Speaker 3: in their interest to enrich themselves to prosecute a crime.
Speaker 3: But they should have some oversight by a government institution.
Speaker 3: So Garbus was trying to argue that we need to know,
Speaker 3: the defense needs to know what the DOJ was or
Speaker 3: wasn't doing, and Prescot would not allow him to seek
Speaker 3: that kind of discovery, saying that it didn't pertain strictly
Speaker 3: to these contempt charges, and she said on day one
Speaker 3: that it wouldn't matter whether or not Captain's orders were
Speaker 3: overturned on appeal by the Second Circuit. He received an
Speaker 3: order from a federal judge, didn't comply with that order.
Speaker 3: He was held in contempt. So she said pretty much
Speaker 3: right at the outset, like I'm convicting you. I see
Speaker 3: that you have committed contempt of court. And that's what
Speaker 3: these charges are. And that's why Donzeinger realized, Okay, there's
Speaker 3: no point in testifying. This isn't about us mounting a defense.
Speaker 3: This is about getting things on the record so that
Speaker 3: when we appeal, a fair minded judge will actually look
Speaker 3: at what's the orchestration of this entire effort to lock
Speaker 3: him up. And that's how the questions on cross examination
Speaker 3: were phrased to show how many hours did Getson done
Speaker 3: volunteer to work with the prosecutor. How did you expect
Speaker 3: that Stephen Donzinger was going to pay back the eight
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars that Gibson done, said it owes in
Speaker 3: legal fees. Gibson done was trying to get his law
Speaker 3: license taken away. Makes it kind of hard to make
Speaker 3: a living as a lawyer if you can't to pay
Speaker 3: the money back if you have no profession. There were
Speaker 3: arguments that they spent way more money going after him
Speaker 3: than they ever expected to collect, because of course the
Speaker 3: objective was not about the money.
Speaker 2: Did this stuff about, you know, Chevron's attorneys meeting with
Speaker 2: the private prosecutors come out in the in the trial.
Speaker 2: Could you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 3: It was quite interesting because to the two principal witnesses
Speaker 3: were Anne Champion and William Thompson from Gibson Done. And
Speaker 3: Champion started as an associate before the Rico charges were filed.
Speaker 3: She was involved in the seventeen eighty two filings, so
Speaker 3: prior to twenty ten, I think, and then she was
Speaker 3: involved all the way through the reco case. And so
Speaker 3: she has kind of when the prosecution asked her, she
Speaker 3: had kind of an encyclic takes knowledge of the case.
Speaker 3: When the defense asked her questions, all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: she kind of had a hard time remembering things. But
Speaker 3: as they were going through questioning her, you know, Ron
Speaker 3: Koby for the defense would ask how many meetings did
Speaker 3: you have with it with the rita Glevin and Sorting Kissel,
Speaker 3: calling them the private prosecutor, not giving them the not
Speaker 3: really respecting the idea that they're supposed to be acting
Speaker 3: as federal prosecutors. They were called the private prosecutor. And
Speaker 3: she talked about meetings that went on for several hours,
Speaker 3: like seven hours long zoom call with her and other
Speaker 3: partners that gets and done, all preparing for this testimony.
Speaker 3: Now that you know they have it received subpoenas to testify,
Speaker 3: but they haven't received subpoenas to meet with the prosecutor.
Speaker 3: That's something that they did of their own free will.
Speaker 3: And as Ron Kobe would ask, he would say, so,
Speaker 3: how many hours did you volunteer? And both lawyers would say, well,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't. I wouldn't put it that way. I wasn't volunteering. Okay, Well,
Speaker 3: then were you compelled to do so by law?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: I wasn't. Well were you billing Chevron for the time
Speaker 3: that you spent? Well, no, because this doesn't pertain to
Speaker 3: Chefron's litigation, So that means you volunteered, Like that's the
Speaker 3: definition of volunteering your time. But they were so belligerent
Speaker 3: that they refused to even respond with a yes or
Speaker 3: no when asked yes or no questions. A great example
Speaker 3: was a one point ron Kuby said, so did Caplin,
Speaker 3: So Kaplyn rejected that order a request of Gibson done
Speaker 3: and one of the back and forth right, and the
Speaker 3: response was, well, I wouldn't say that he declined to
Speaker 3: accept it. Fobes like your honor, can you please just
Speaker 3: direct the witness to answer the question yes or no?
Speaker 3: And it got to the level of the absurd when
Speaker 3: they Ron put up an exhibit which was the filing
Speaker 3: of the reco charges, the first document filing the reco
Speaker 3: charges and Randy Master's signature is at the bottom of
Speaker 3: the page and a line checking a box that says
Speaker 3: damages to be assessed to be determined at the trial,
Speaker 3: because originally they were seeking money damages, and then the
Speaker 3: box was checked for a jury. Right of course, we
Speaker 3: know famously they dropped the money damages. They didn't want
Speaker 3: a jury and they never got it. And you know
Speaker 3: Kaplin refused to give Steven donzing Our a jury. But
Speaker 3: it was Randy's signature at the bottom. Everybody could read that.
Speaker 3: It was up on the screen, William Thompson's like I
Speaker 3: can't quite tell what that is. So ron Koby's like, okay,
Speaker 3: do we need to go through this That first letter,
Speaker 3: would you say that that looks like an R? And
Speaker 3: William Thompson's like, yeah, I could say that that could
Speaker 3: be an odor. The next letter, does it look like
Speaker 3: that could be an A?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that might be an A.
Speaker 3: And they went through every letter of Randy Master's name
Speaker 3: before he would admit, Okay, yes it looks like Randy
Speaker 3: Master for what purpose? Like there, it's not a crime.
Speaker 3: There's nothing nefarious about Randy mastero being the one who
Speaker 3: signs it. It's just a thing you want to give
Speaker 3: the defense. Even that she overturned every single objection of
Speaker 3: the defense but one, and she sustained every objection to
Speaker 3: the prosecution butt one. So it was so clear from
Speaker 3: the beginning that this was Presca, you know, going through
Speaker 3: the motions, getting in on the record so that she
Speaker 3: can get to a conviction. And that's why I really
Speaker 3: think Steven Donzrier made the right move and not testifying
Speaker 3: because it wouldn't have helped him in any way.
Speaker 2: So what happens next now the you know, everything has
Speaker 2: rested right, So I imagine Presca will have a decision soon, so.
Speaker 3: She gave two weeks. They have two weeks to file
Speaker 3: their final papers, so there's no like closing arguments, but
Speaker 3: each side files last documents after that, so two weeks
Speaker 3: from yesterday and then she said she would rule very quickly,
Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean Sole sentenced very quickly. So we
Speaker 3: don't know how long it's going to take before she decides,
Speaker 3: if there's any jail time, if it's partial, if it's
Speaker 3: six months the maximum. We'll find out at some point,
Speaker 3: probably in June, maybe the end of June, but it's
Speaker 3: really hard to say. And you know, Stephen Downzier is
Speaker 3: just wondering every day if and when he's going to jail. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: he's still stuck on home detention. He's still wearing an
Speaker 3: ankle bracelet and still fighting these orders from Kaplan.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, two things. One would any part of the.
Speaker 5: Judgment like force him to comply with Kaplan's order? And Two,
Speaker 5: what's happening with the civil contempt charge? Because I know,
Speaker 5: like the judgment and that was expected, and you know,
Speaker 5: if that were to go, if that were to be dismissed,
Speaker 5: it would sort of eliminate the whole basis of this charge, right,
Speaker 5: So what's happening with that.
Speaker 3: Well, as far as what this does, I don't think
Speaker 3: actually it does. He's already surrendered his passport. I think
Speaker 3: this would just be jail time. I believe it's the
Speaker 3: other orders, because this is just about the contempt. It's
Speaker 3: not about the orders. Did he or didn't he go
Speaker 3: into contempt and he volunteered that he was willingly going
Speaker 3: to civil content, not criminal.
Speaker 4: Contempt right the other you know, it's been all.
Speaker 3: That Donzinger could do to defend himself against this. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: mounting an appeal of all these other things with the
Speaker 3: second Circuit takes a lot of time and energy and
Speaker 3: legal muscle, and most of this has done pro bono,
Speaker 3: you know. So I'm not sure where all of those
Speaker 3: appeals stand. But what's really significant to this case was
Speaker 3: that the recent decision in Donzinger's favor was about clarifying
Speaker 3: Caplin's order about what he could or couldn't do with
Speaker 3: the judgment and selling basically shares of the judgment in
Speaker 3: order to finance enforcement efforts. So he was continuing to
Speaker 3: work with people to do that, which is how Canada happened,
Speaker 3: and presumably more enforcement actually would happen, and Caplan's order
Speaker 3: was too vague because Kaplin's order basically says, as you know,
Speaker 3: Steven can't monetize the Equatorian judgment in the United States,
Speaker 3: he can't find it from it, But it doesn't say
Speaker 3: that he can't take portions of other people's portion of
Speaker 3: it and then bring it to investors and others to
Speaker 3: support the case. And Chevron said, no, he can't do that.
Speaker 3: Stephen said, yeah, the way I read it, we can't
Speaker 3: do that. Caplain, can you please clarify this, which he
Speaker 3: refused to do for a year, and then the Second
Speaker 3: Circuit came down, and trust me, there's nothing that they
Speaker 3: hate more than overruling Caplin. They wanted to. If they
Speaker 3: could have figured out how to dismiss all of his appeals,
Speaker 3: they would have, but they couldn't because it was so
Speaker 3: poorly written.
Speaker 4: They agreed this was not clear. So that's the underlying
Speaker 4: basis for all the subsequent stuff that Chevron was throwing it.
Speaker 4: But PRESCA wouldn't allow that to be brought up in
Speaker 4: any way as part of the defense. And that's the
Speaker 4: real crux of why this wasn't a case about justice,
Speaker 4: because if you don't get to explain what's happening and why.
Speaker 4: If it's just a matter of you were told to
Speaker 4: do X, you did, why therefore, Z you.
Speaker 3: Could have a computer issue a burden. You don't need
Speaker 3: a human being to make a decision. So in what
Speaker 3: goes forward now, he still has to continue appealing some
Speaker 3: of Kaplan's orders, and I don't honestly, I don't know
Speaker 3: when or if they will come down and say, yeah,
Speaker 3: we're rejecting everything and now you need to turn over
Speaker 3: your computer and cell phone. That could still happen, and
Speaker 3: you know, as he has said, if that happens, he'll
Speaker 3: do what he's supposed to do. He never said he
Speaker 3: was going to defy every court. He was going to
Speaker 3: appeal and then act on that decision. So I don't
Speaker 3: know when that's going to come. But honestly, right now
Speaker 3: he has to appeal the criminal contempt charges, so everything
Speaker 3: gets pushed even further and this could be another year
Speaker 3: before the decision is even made on those things. And
Speaker 3: while you know, everybody loses sight of the fact that
Speaker 3: every single day this contamination is still affecting people, and
Speaker 3: that's every day that judge says come back tomorrow. We're
Speaker 3: a journey like you can adjourn for lunch in New
Speaker 3: York and have a nice little lunch in the cafeteria. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: tens of thousands of people are still affected by the
Speaker 3: water and equidard that knows the FEEDA.
Speaker 1: That's it for this time. Thanks for listening. If you
Speaker 1: would like to support our work, you can join us
Speaker 1: at Patreon. That is patreon dot com slash drilled. We
Speaker 1: are bringing you several stories on the natural gas industry,
Speaker 1: it's history, its impacts, and some of its crazy tactics
Speaker 1: coming up starting in June and running through the end.
Speaker 3: Of the year.
Speaker 1: We've also got some more projects coming up on disinformation
Speaker 1: across industries and several international climate cases, So stay tuned
Speaker 1: for all of that and we'll see you soon.