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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. President Trump tweeted

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Speaker 1: up a storm this morning about the Special counsel's investigation,

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Speaker 1: denying he knew in advance about the now infamous June

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Speaker 1: meeting in which Russians had promised to provide dirt on

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Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton, and lashing out of his former attorney, Michael Cohen.

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Speaker 1: It followed Trump's current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani's attack on Cohen's

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Speaker 1: credibility on CNN last night. There's no way you're gonna

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Speaker 1: bring down the President of United States on the testimony

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Speaker 1: uncorroborated of a proven liar joining me as former federal

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Speaker 1: prosecutor Elihnick. He's special counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and executive

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Speaker 1: director of the Rutgers Institute on Secure Communities, so elliot.

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Speaker 1: Giuliani was reacting to CNN's reporting that Cone is willing

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Speaker 1: to testify that Trump knew in advance about the meeting

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Speaker 1: in Trump Tower. Let's start with Giuliani's assertions, what do

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Speaker 1: you think about the credibility of Cohen versus the credibility

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Speaker 1: of Trump? Yeah, So, anytime you have a cooperating witness,

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Speaker 1: the first thing you have to think about is the

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Speaker 1: word you use, credibility. Is this a person I can trust?

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Speaker 1: And is this a person I can put on the

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Speaker 1: witness stand in a trial potentially, uh and have a

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Speaker 1: jury believe him. And you know a lot of people

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Speaker 1: have said, well, this is what he said, he said scenario.

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Speaker 1: Cohen says yes, Trump says no, how do you know?

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Speaker 1: And the answer is corroboration. You have to look as

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Speaker 1: a prosecutorency, well, what are the other facts show us? Um?

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Speaker 1: What are the external factors indicate? And here, if I'm

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Speaker 1: looking at Cohen Cohen's account versus trumps account, I look

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Speaker 1: at two big things. First of all, why all the

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Speaker 1: wise from the Trump camp about this June two, sixteen meeting.

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Speaker 1: You know, you'll recall they first try to say it

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Speaker 1: was about only about adoption and the and the story

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Speaker 1: changed and change and changed over the year, uh years

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Speaker 1: since then. And also the story about what Trump knew

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Speaker 1: and when he knew. It has changed over and over again,

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Speaker 1: So why are they lying about this? That that's sort

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Speaker 1: of factor number one that I think ways in favor

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Speaker 1: of coincide. Uh, the other factors remember those those phone

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Speaker 1: records that showed that Don don Jr. Called a blocked number,

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Speaker 1: and we know that his father had a block number,

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Speaker 1: and the investigators will easily be able to figure out

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Speaker 1: who it was. But let's let's assume it's the president.

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Speaker 1: Right after this offer came in to Don Junior on email,

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Speaker 1: and then right after the meeting happened, and so again

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Speaker 1: that's another corroborating circumstances that sort of leans in Cohen's direction. Now,

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Speaker 1: how important is this meeting to the investigation and to

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Speaker 1: the possible charges that might be lodged? Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of different charges that could come out

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Speaker 1: of this. I mean, you know, there's a look, there's

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Speaker 1: a lot that remains to be seen about what Cohen

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Speaker 1: has to say and will he cooperate. But you know,

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Speaker 1: the Trump Power meeting, for example, could give rise to

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Speaker 1: liability for for what what people call collusion, but it

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Speaker 1: really means conspiracy. You know, if there was some coordination

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Speaker 1: or attempt to coordinate with these Russian hackers, uh to

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Speaker 1: get dirt on Hillary Clinton. That was it was called.

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Speaker 1: That would absolutely be a crime. You know, there's other

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Speaker 1: avenues that Cohen has also talked about, UM, including the

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Speaker 1: payment or the repeated efforts to pay off women who

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Speaker 1: Trumpet allegedly had affairs with in the past in order

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Speaker 1: to silence them to protect him for the election. That

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Speaker 1: could be an election campaign finance violation. Does it seem

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Speaker 1: as if the Cone investigation by the Southern District of

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Speaker 1: New York is morphing into the Special Council's investigation. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's clearly there's been overlap, and there will continue to

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Speaker 1: be overlap. You know, these things are not sort of

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Speaker 1: so neatly siloed. And I think that anything that Cohen has,

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Speaker 1: if he does come in to cooperate UM, that that

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Speaker 1: spills over to the Muller piece, the Russia piece. They

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Speaker 1: I would absolutely expect the Southern District to share with

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Speaker 1: the Special Counsel and they can sort of work out

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Speaker 1: between them who charges what. But they're not operating in silos.

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Speaker 1: I don't believe they should be. UM. Let's let's talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about also the New York Times story

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Speaker 1: that said Mueller is looking into whether Trump tweets add

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Speaker 1: up to obstruction in the investigation, and President Trump also

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Speaker 1: tweeted about that this morning. What what do you think

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Speaker 1: about using tweets in a criminal case? Go for it, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: I mean, tweets are fair game. You know. One of

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Speaker 1: the basic rules of evidence is you can use a

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Speaker 1: defendant's own statements against them, and clearly tweets our statements. Um.

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Speaker 1: And you know we in law enforcement, we use uh,

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Speaker 1: we use social media more and more now and social

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Speaker 1: media can provide fantastic evidence. Um. And you know, it's

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Speaker 1: particularly relevant to intent. One of the big questions is

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Speaker 1: going to be what was in the president's head when

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Speaker 1: he when he did various things, when he fired Comey,

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Speaker 1: when he when he took various steps and you know,

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Speaker 1: he's saying it out loud. And you know, one of

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Speaker 1: the standard uh, instructions that a judge gives to a

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Speaker 1: jury is, you know, in determining intent, it's important to

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Speaker 1: note that that science has not yet devised a way

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Speaker 1: to peer into a person's brain. And that's true, but

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Speaker 1: Twitter comes pretty close. So, um yeah, Twitter absolutely could

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Speaker 1: be used against the president. Now, um, let's let's talk

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Speaker 1: about the Manifort trial for a moment, that's going to

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Speaker 1: start next week. How important is a verdict in that case,

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Speaker 1: a conviction for prosecutors? How important is that to the

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Speaker 1: Mueller investigation as a whole. It's it's huge, you know,

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Speaker 1: even though the man charges don't directly tie into the

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Speaker 1: president or the Russia election interference, it's going to be

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Speaker 1: seen as as a huge bellweather no matter which way

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Speaker 1: it comes out, Right, if there's a conviction, then that

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Speaker 1: will be an important moment of legitimizing the Muller investigation.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it should need legitimizing, but but Heaven

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Speaker 1: helped the Muller team if there's anything short of a conviction,

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Speaker 1: because you can already see that the tweets that are

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Speaker 1: going to come out from the from the Trump people

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Speaker 1: and it's a fraud and the and the jury found

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Speaker 1: it was a fraud and it's a witch hunt and

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Speaker 1: it's rigged and all that. So, yeah, the outcome is

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Speaker 1: going to be very important, at least symbolically. And what

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Speaker 1: what about his defense in that case? It seems as

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Speaker 1: if the prosecution has an enormous amount of evidence. They

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Speaker 1: have something like five hundred plus exhibits. They have witnesses,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a testify. They have Rick Gates, who

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Speaker 1: who turned state's evidence on on unmanifort. Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: you nailed it. I think if I'm looking at this

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Speaker 1: from a prosecutor's point of view, it is a rock

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Speaker 1: solid case. And it largely, as you said, is a

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Speaker 1: paper case. It's not a case where you really have

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Speaker 1: to put on a you know, a shaky cooperating witness

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Speaker 1: and hope the jury believes him. You can make most

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Speaker 1: of this case with financial documents, bank records, that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing. Gates will flesh out some of the details,

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Speaker 1: and there's some accountants lined up. Um, but it's largely

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Speaker 1: a paper case. But my worry if I was prosecuting

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Speaker 1: this case would be about nullification. And nullification means when

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Speaker 1: a jury, jury or an individual juror says, I don't

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Speaker 1: forget about the facts, forget about the law. I've got

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Speaker 1: a statement to make care whether it's a personal belief

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Speaker 1: of political opinion, whatever. And my fear would be you

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Speaker 1: get one heavy Trump supporter who believes this rigged witch

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Speaker 1: hunt stuff and they decide this is my moment to

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Speaker 1: send a message they'll hold out and you'll have a

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Speaker 1: hung jury. And even though a hung jury is technically

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Speaker 1: sort of a tie, you know, they almost always get retried.

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Speaker 1: I've had hung jury, their their losses for the prosecution,

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Speaker 1: and um, just about a minute here. But it's surprising

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Speaker 1: that that Manafort, even though he's now awaiting trial in prison,

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Speaker 1: that there's been no deal and he's facing not only

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Speaker 1: this trial but another trial. I agree with you. I

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Speaker 1: don't have I mean, nobody has any information. There's been

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Speaker 1: no reporting on this. But if he were to work

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Speaker 1: out a plea deal at the last minute, it would

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Speaker 1: not shock me at all. I don't understand from from

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Speaker 1: Manafort side why he wouldn't with one one thing. Let

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Speaker 1: me hold off on that. You know, like you said,

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Speaker 1: he's got it. He's got two trials coming. He's got

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Speaker 1: to get acquitted twice. The odds of that are enormous.

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Speaker 1: You know, the stats say something over eighty or I

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Speaker 1: think maybe over of federal defendants get convicted. And so

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Speaker 1: Metaphort's got to go into Virginia starting next week. He's

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Speaker 1: got to get acquitted there, and then he's got to

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Speaker 1: go into d C and beat that case. And if

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Speaker 1: he loses eat at one. He's sixty nine years old.

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Speaker 1: He may die in jail. He's gonna leave it there. Ellie,

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Speaker 1: so much to talk about. We'll have you back again.

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Speaker 1: That's Ellie Honick of Loewenstein Sandler and the Rutgers Institute

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Speaker 1: on Secure Community Community. Here's Mike Moore, the former Mississippi

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Speaker 1: Attorney General who successfully sue the tobacco industry, speaking with

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Speaker 1: NBC News. Basically, they did the same thing that tobacco

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Speaker 1: companies did. They lied about the indictive nature of the opioids,

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Speaker 1: and then they went out and marketed these things and

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Speaker 1: told doctors everywhere, Okay, it's say and it's created this

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Speaker 1: huge opioid epidemic. And there are a number, a great

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Speaker 1: number of opioid lawsuits. And Bloomberg Analysis has done the

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Speaker 1: first real glimpse into the money at play and what

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Speaker 1: may be one of the biggest legal challenges in US history.

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Speaker 1: And joining me are two of the reporters, Andrew Harris,

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg News legal reporter and Jared Hopkins, Bloomberg News farmer reporter. So, Jared,

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Speaker 1: let's start with who's suing and how many lawsuits are there?

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Speaker 1: So there are hundreds of lawsuits and UH brought primarily

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Speaker 1: by cities and counties across the country UM that have

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Speaker 1: generally been consolidated in Ohio before a federal judge. And

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Speaker 1: they are suing a handful of the opioid makers, including Perdue, Pharma,

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Speaker 1: Johnson and Johnson, and some others, as well as the

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Speaker 1: wholesalers such as McKesson and Amria source bergen Um for

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Speaker 1: their alleged roles in the opriate epidemic. Andrew explain the

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Speaker 1: legal challenges here for the plaintiffs, drug companies and drug

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Speaker 1: distributors liable for a crisis that somewhat predates UH the litigation.

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Speaker 1: There have always been heroin addics, there have always been

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Speaker 1: opiate abusers, and going back to the nineteenth century at

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Speaker 1: least UM. So the question here is to what degree

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Speaker 1: can you prove that this current surge, this undeniable crisis.

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Speaker 1: Pretty much everybody agrees there's a crisis, can be late

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Speaker 1: at the steps of the manufacturers who are allegedly under

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Speaker 1: underplayed those addictive propensities of the drugs, and the distributors

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Speaker 1: who the plaintiffs lawyers say failed to flag suspicious orders

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Speaker 1: and re dumping millions of pills into tiny bergs where

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Speaker 1: the number of per capita consumption was just off the

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Speaker 1: charts and should have been a red flag. So Andrew

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Speaker 1: mentioned a little bit there what might be that the challenges,

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Speaker 1: But explain a little bit more, Jared, what the defenses

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Speaker 1: are going to be. Well, the one of them is

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Speaker 1: that the f d A approved these drugs, so there's

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Speaker 1: a safety aspect of that. And they also point out

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Speaker 1: that the government UH might not have done its entire

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Speaker 1: job either in monitoring this sort of situation. And they

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Speaker 1: also feel that they've that they've followed the letter of

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Speaker 1: the law in a lot in a lot of respects

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Speaker 1: um that they they're not admitting or conceding that they

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Speaker 1: did that they did anything wrong here at this point.

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Speaker 1: So Andrew, you write that if the plants collect anything

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Speaker 1: close to the maximum fifty billion dollars that a global

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Speaker 1: settlement may yield, a handful of attorneys could pocket at

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Speaker 1: least one quarter of that. That seems amazing. Explain why

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of money, Jared, and I, over several

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Speaker 1: months collected up through four your requests, about a hundred

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Speaker 1: retainer agreements between these suing municipalities and their outside Council,

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Speaker 1: and there's a range anywhere from twenty contingent fee of

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Speaker 1: the gross recovery, So at just a quarter of that,

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Speaker 1: that's a lot of money. That's twelve and a half

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Speaker 1: billion dollars for the lawyers. But to be fair, there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of lawyers working these cases, and right

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Speaker 1: now they're at least in the federal court over nine

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Speaker 1: hundred of them. But your article says Andrew that there

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Speaker 1: are a few main lawyers who have an incredible record

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Speaker 1: with these kinds of lawsuits. Yeah, this isn't their first rodeo.

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Speaker 1: There have been a lot of mdls and some of

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Speaker 1: these guys go back to the big tobacco litigation of

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Speaker 1: the nine nineties which resulted in a two forty six

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Speaker 1: billion dollar settlement exclusive of attorney's fees. And you know,

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Speaker 1: they've rounded up the troops so they're ready. One thing

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Speaker 1: I found very interesting in your article, Jared, among others,

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Speaker 1: is the way UM the local outreach to getting plaintiffs

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Speaker 1: and counties on board. Explain that so this was in

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Speaker 1: a way built up where the UH plaintiffs attorneys who

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Speaker 1: are around the country, but there are three main ones

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Speaker 1: um UH, Joe, Rice Paul Farrell Paul Hanley, who are

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Speaker 1: are well known plaintiffs attorneys in the United States. Uh,

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Speaker 1: They and other attorneys used intermediaries, local connections. They would

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Speaker 1: make pitches between before city councils two in order to

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Speaker 1: get approval and to get these retainer agreements and to

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Speaker 1: represent the counties. But sometimes there was a local politician

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Speaker 1: or sometimes there is a political consultant who knew somebody. Um.

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Speaker 1: John Clemaco, who is a well known attorney in Cleveland,

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Speaker 1: UM ended up representing a bunch of municipalities in Ohio,

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Speaker 1: being throughout a political consultant there, um, including uh, the

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Speaker 1: city of Toledo. Um. Sort of like door to door lawyers. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: very recruiting, so speak So Andrew. A lot of people

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Speaker 1: might say, you know the whole thing again, lawyers who

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Speaker 1: do this kind of mass tort litigation. The amount of

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Speaker 1: money they're going to get is enormous, but they're also

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Speaker 1: taking taking a risk. Explain the risk they take, Well,

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Speaker 1: these are personally these aren't personal injury cases, but they're

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Speaker 1: being handled almost as though they were their municipal injury cases.

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Speaker 1: But they're being taken on a contingent fee, no money

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Speaker 1: down basis. The law firms get no money, not even

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Speaker 1: reimbursement for their outlay unless they win. So there's big

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Speaker 1: incentive for them to win. Yes, a lot of incentive

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Speaker 1: for them to win. And just about a minute here,

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Speaker 1: so in thirty seconds, what's the likelihood Jared of a

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Speaker 1: global settlement sort of like the tobacco settlement. Well, that's

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Speaker 1: the that is the expectation by many is that things

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Speaker 1: are are headed towards that way. In fact, the federal

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Speaker 1: judge Dan Polster is encouraging all the sides to reach

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Speaker 1: a global settlement at some point, but that that could

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Speaker 1: be several years, a decade away, could be next year.

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Speaker 1: So it's a really great article, a lot of research,

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Speaker 1: really fantastic. It's called justice for opioid communities means massive

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Speaker 1: pay day for their lawyers. Congratulations to both of you

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Speaker 1: digging up all that information. That's Jared Hopkins, Bloomberg News

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Speaker 1: Farmer reporter and Andrew Harris, Bloomberg News Legal reporter. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe

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Speaker 1: and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud and

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Speaker 1: on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This

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Speaker 1: is Bloomberg,