Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio Today.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court unanimously preserved access to the abortion pill
Speaker 1: that was used in nearly two thirds of all abortions
Speaker 1: in the country last year. In the court's first abortion
Speaker 1: decision since conservative justices overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago.
Speaker 1: The justices reversed a federal appeals Court ruling that would
Speaker 1: have barred mail order prescriptions from mifipristone across the country.
Speaker 1: The ruling was based on a procedural issue called standing finding.
Speaker 1: The challengers in the case, anti abortion doctors and medical groups,
Speaker 1: failed to show they were injured by the FDA's approval
Speaker 1: of the medication. It was the issue we heard voiced
Speaker 1: by justices across the ideological spectrum during oral arguments, from
Speaker 1: liberal Katanji Brown Jackson to conservative Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote
Speaker 1: Today's who wrote today's opinion.
Speaker 2: I mean, it makes perfect sense for the individual doctors
Speaker 2: to seek an exemption, but as I understand it, they
Speaker 2: already have that, and so what they're asking for here
Speaker 2: is that in order to prevent them from possibly ever
Speaker 2: having to do these kinds of procedures, everyone else should
Speaker 2: be prevented from getting access to this medication.
Speaker 3: Just to confirm understanding issue.
Speaker 4: Under federal law, no doctors can be.
Speaker 5: Forced against their consciences to perform or assist in an abortion.
Speaker 4: Correct.
Speaker 1: But the court didn't even address the FDA's decision to
Speaker 1: loosen the restrictions on MiFi pristone. So this decision doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that the drug is safe from future legal attacks.
Speaker 1: Joining me is an expert in reproductive healthcare rights. Mary Ziegler,
Speaker 1: a professor at UC Davis Law School. Mary, did this decision,
Speaker 1: this unanimous decision come as any surprise after the oral arguments.
Speaker 5: I mean, it was a little bit of a surprise
Speaker 5: that it was unanimous, But I think after oral argument
Speaker 5: it was pretty clear that the plaineiffs were in trouble
Speaker 5: here on standing grounds, and their standing arguments were really weak,
Speaker 5: you know, from the outset. So in that sense, it
Speaker 5: wasn't a surprise.
Speaker 1: And tell us how the court came to its decision
Speaker 1: on standing.
Speaker 5: Well, the court had three different grounds for deciding the
Speaker 5: planeiffs didn't have standing. The planeiffs argued that they had
Speaker 5: standing because they could face conscience based injuries if patients
Speaker 5: had complications for with the Pristone and ended up in
Speaker 5: the emergency room where they were practicing. They argued that
Speaker 5: they would suffer economic harms potentially if forced to treat patients.
Speaker 5: And finally, they argued that their group, their association, suffered
Speaker 5: harms because it was forced to divert resources that could
Speaker 5: have been used for other pro life or anti worsion
Speaker 5: work to oppose Mithi Pristone, and the Supreme Court rejected
Speaker 5: all three of those claims. On the conscience point, this
Speaker 5: is said, essentially, there are lots of federal laws to
Speaker 5: protect conscience, so there's no real threat of injury here.
Speaker 5: On the claims about economic harm, the course of this
Speaker 5: is just way, way too broad, almost to the point
Speaker 5: of ridiculousness. They said. If this was true as a
Speaker 5: theory of standing, firefighters could sue to object to relax
Speaker 5: building codes, and teachers and border states could sue to
Speaker 5: challenge immigration policies, this would be a Pandora's box. And finally,
Speaker 5: on associational standing right the idea that the association was
Speaker 5: diverting resources, the Court emphasized that this would be essentially
Speaker 5: allowing organizations to manufacture standing by spending money to gather
Speaker 5: information and advocate against an action. So all three of
Speaker 5: those standing claims failed. But again they were specific to
Speaker 5: these parties. So it doesn't mean that these claims will
Speaker 5: necessarily go away forever, just that these plaintiffs were unable
Speaker 5: to bring them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. In fact, on the last page of the paion,
Speaker 1: just as Kavanaugh wrote, quote, it is not clear that
Speaker 1: no one else would have standing to challenge the FDA's
Speaker 1: relaxed regulation of mifipristone, and the Texas judge below has
Speaker 1: allowed the states of Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri to join
Speaker 1: the case at the district court level to help press
Speaker 1: the same claims against the FDA. So that's still pending.
Speaker 5: Yes, So there are these other plaintiffs in the district
Speaker 5: court who had initially tried to intervene in the Supreme
Speaker 5: Court proceedings and were turned away, but who are proceeding
Speaker 5: through the lower courts arguing that they understanding that these
Speaker 5: plaintiffs lacked. And it's worth emphasizing too, that isn't necessarily
Speaker 5: the end of it either. There are some local counties
Speaker 5: and cities and what's called the Sanctuary City for the
Speaker 5: Unborn movement that have been mulling bringing suits on the
Speaker 5: same basis and asserting they have standing. So I think
Speaker 5: we're seeing already some plaintiffs in lower court trying to
Speaker 5: say they can bring these claims, and they might be
Speaker 5: the only ones, and.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court can almost get pushed to hear these cases.
Speaker 1: For example, in this case, you have the most conservative
Speaker 1: circuit in the country, the Fifth Circuit, pushing the legal
Speaker 1: envelope and finding that these plaintiffs have standing to sue,
Speaker 1: and then the Supreme Court has to respond and.
Speaker 5: Push back exactly right. And it doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 5: those plaintiffs will succeed either, right, I mean, they might
Speaker 5: not have standing either. But I think all we know
Speaker 5: after today is that the Supreme Court is kicking the
Speaker 5: can down the road. They haven't resolved many of these
Speaker 5: claims permanently, and.
Speaker 1: The Court stop short way short of affirming the FDA's
Speaker 1: decisions to expand access to mifipristone. I mean, they didn't
Speaker 1: consider the merits at all in the opinion, right.
Speaker 5: I mean, if anything, the Court seems sympathetic to the
Speaker 5: idea that people have conscience based objections to abortion. The
Speaker 5: Court seem to be sympathetic to those and the Court
Speaker 5: didn't at all affirm the logic of the FDA's decision
Speaker 5: making didn't say anything one way or another about the
Speaker 5: plaintiff's theory that the Comstock Act operated as if the facto.
Speaker 3: Ban on abortion.
Speaker 5: So we got really no insight, especially no insights that
Speaker 5: would be reassuring to the Biden administration about what the
Speaker 5: Court thinks about those things.
Speaker 1: Just as Kavanaugh wrote, the plaintiffs have sincere legal, moral, ideological,
Speaker 1: and policy objections to elective abortion and to the FDA's
Speaker 1: relaxed regulation of mifipristone. That language is a little troubling,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 5: I agree, I mean, and I think it signals that
Speaker 5: we haven't seen the end of this by a long shot.
Speaker 1: And there's some irony in the fact that Kavanaugh wrote
Speaker 1: a concurring opinion in the Dobbs case which overturned the
Speaker 1: constitutional right to abortion, and he said, basically, the abortion
Speaker 1: issue is now up to the states. We're done with it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody paying attention really
Speaker 5: believed that. But it's ironic, of course, that the Court
Speaker 5: has two abortion decisions in one term. I mean, this
Speaker 5: isn't even the last we've heard from this particular term
Speaker 5: on abortion, which is extraordinary. So this is not, you know,
Speaker 5: not even the end of what we're hearing from the
Speaker 5: justices right now, much less, you know, for the longer term.
Speaker 1: Mary, Does this mean that women in every state can
Speaker 1: get mifa pristone or is it still illegal in states
Speaker 1: that have bands on abortion?
Speaker 5: It's still illegal. This ruling doesn't change the status quo.
Speaker 5: So if a state has prohibited mithrapristone, it's still prohibited
Speaker 5: in the state. If a state has access to mifhra
Speaker 5: pristone or provides that access, the drug is still available.
Speaker 5: So it isn't underlining any state law one way or another.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the second abortion case that's yet to be
Speaker 1: decided over Idaho's strict abortion ban.
Speaker 5: Tell us about that that case involves emergency access to abortion.
Speaker 5: The Biden administration has argued that a federal law called
Speaker 5: the Emergency Medical Treatment in Labor Act Trump's state bans
Speaker 5: when those bands wouldn't allow access to abortion for certain
Speaker 5: medical emergencies that the federal law would require. Idaho, the
Speaker 5: state of Oide administration took to court. Has responded that
Speaker 5: the amtala does nothing of the sort, and that the
Speaker 5: question is either left to the states, or even that
Speaker 5: Imtala offers some protection for the unborn child as Idaho,
Speaker 5: what's it pointing to language in the statue, So that
Speaker 5: ruling remains to be seen and could have pretty important effects.
Speaker 1: After the oral arguments, and then if a priss Stone case,
Speaker 1: it seemed pretty clear what the decision would be. Can
Speaker 1: you glean anything from the oral arguments in the Idaho case?
Speaker 5: I mean, it seemed as if the court was likely
Speaker 5: to side with Idaho, although the oral argument was a
Speaker 5: little bit all over the place, So it's not entirely
Speaker 5: clear that that's going to be true. And if it
Speaker 5: is true, it's not entirely clear on what basis they're
Speaker 5: going to side with Idaho. So I think we're expecting
Speaker 5: a win for Idaho, but on what basis or you know,
Speaker 5: how sweeping a win I think remains to be seen.
Speaker 1: And tell us a little about the lawyers for the
Speaker 1: anti abortion doctors and medical groups here. They're from the
Speaker 1: conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom that's been
Speaker 1: behind a lot of Supreme Court decisions, and so the alliance.
Speaker 5: The plaintiffs here are probably less important than the attorneys
Speaker 5: representing them. Who are the Alliance Defending Freedom. That's the
Speaker 5: group that has really been dominating in some ways the
Speaker 5: landscape of Supreme Court abortion litigation since the Supreme Court
Speaker 5: overturned re Vwad. So this is part of a much
Speaker 5: longer game for them. They have lots of other cases
Speaker 5: and strategies in the pipeline, including challenges involving aborshi pills.
Speaker 5: So we're going to see, I think, much more where
Speaker 5: this came from from them.
Speaker 1: We've talked before about the fetal personhood movement, which is
Speaker 1: an effort to give fetuses the same rights as a person,
Speaker 1: including the right to life. But you mentioned the Sanctuary
Speaker 1: City for the Unborn movement. What's that about.
Speaker 5: This movement has created ordinances in a variety of cities.
Speaker 5: These were the model for Texas's SB eight, which, as
Speaker 5: you may know, is the bounty bill that passed in Texas.
Speaker 5: It's now spreading ordinances based on the Comstock Act. It's
Speaker 5: spreading ordinances designed to limit interstate travel for abortion. The
Speaker 5: man behind it, Jonathan Mitchell, and his colleague Mark Lee Dixon,
Speaker 5: have had a lot of influence on anti abortion strategy
Speaker 5: as well. So I think they're also looking at a
Speaker 5: potential way into helping with this kind of challenge.
Speaker 1: Anti abortion activists are using different kinds of strategies to
Speaker 1: try to prevent abortions, and we see laws passed in
Speaker 1: states that target abortion in different ways. What's the most concerning.
Speaker 5: That's absolutely right, right, So there's very much a kind
Speaker 5: of like throw it at the wall and see what sticks.
Speaker 5: That's going on here. Many of the strategies you mentioned
Speaker 5: jun involve abortion pills, so some of them involve making
Speaker 5: it easier to survey and track who's using abortion pills,
Speaker 5: in part because states where abortion is legal have been
Speaker 5: passing shield laws, some of which allow physicians to mail
Speaker 5: pills into banned states. So some states are looking for
Speaker 5: tools to track and ultimately prosecute that usage. We're seeing
Speaker 5: efforts again to limit travel often called abortion trafficking ordinances
Speaker 5: that criminalize assisting people traveling for abortion. We've seen efforts
Speaker 5: to even do strange things like label mithipristone a threat
Speaker 5: to the environment and to the groundwater that are targeting
Speaker 5: the Environmental Protection Agency. And that's just the tip of
Speaker 5: the iceberg. Probably the most salient rely on the strategy
Speaker 5: that Donald Trump will you know, win the twenty twenty
Speaker 5: four election, and that his Justice Department will be able
Speaker 5: to inform the Comstocks Act as a ban on abortion,
Speaker 5: and that that would of course override not just state laws,
Speaker 5: but even ballid initiatives that voters are deciding for themselves
Speaker 5: when it comes to protecting abortion right. So there are
Speaker 5: a lot of strategies in play here, and this case
Speaker 5: is just a small piece of a much bigger puzzle.
Speaker 1: Finally, Mary, some are breathing a sigh of relief because
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court has allowed access to MiFi pristone. But
Speaker 1: this doesn't mean that mif A pristone is safe from
Speaker 1: legal attack at the Supreme Court and elsewhere.
Speaker 5: No, not at all. I mean, the Supreme Court is
Speaker 5: just saying that these particular plaintiffs don't have standing. I
Speaker 5: mean this case, I mean, these claims aren't even going away.
Speaker 5: That's the most basic point. But I mean it's certainly
Speaker 5: not true that abortion is safe and that other attacks
Speaker 5: on abortion pills or abortion aren't ongoing.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Mary, I always appreciate your in
Speaker 1: depth analysis in this area. That's Professor Mary Ziegler of
Speaker 1: UC Davis Law School coming up next to the Justices
Speaker 1: reveal the extra money they earned last year in addition
Speaker 1: to their two hundred and seventy four thousand dollars salary.
Speaker 1: Guess who's on the top of the list getting a
Speaker 1: nearly nine hundred thousand dollars book advance and what about
Speaker 1: those four thousand dollars tickets to a Beyonce concert? And
Speaker 1: the justice who, like a bad student in school, asks
Speaker 1: for an extension. The justices will be issuing decisions again tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Some of the most controversial cases of the term are
Speaker 1: still in front of them, those involving Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: presidential immunity, guns, social media, homelessness, the wealth tax, and
Speaker 1: the power of agencies to fight things like climate change.
Speaker 1: Of the sixty one cases the Court heard this term,
Speaker 1: twenty six decisions are still outstanding, but the justices do
Speaker 1: have behind them the revelations about their finances. While all
Speaker 1: the justices except Samuel Leto who got the extension he
Speaker 1: requests every year for a reason only he knows, and surprise,
Speaker 1: it was the newest Justice, Katanji Brown Jackson, who topped
Speaker 1: the list with an eight hundred and ninety three thousand
Speaker 1: dollars advance for her yet to be published memoir, followed
Speaker 1: by Justice Brett Kavanaugh Bloomberg New Supreme Court reporter Greg
Speaker 1: Store has looked at all the numbers. Clarence Thomas suddenly
Speaker 1: remembered about some luxury trips back in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: These are the trips that he took with Harlan Crowe
Speaker 3: that were the subject of the first big story about
Speaker 3: this subject about a year ago from Republica, including this
Speaker 3: cruise that he took on Harlan Crow's yacht in Indonesia.
Speaker 3: Now Justice Thomas's disclosure this is a trip in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: and his new disclosure. He mentioned at the end that
Speaker 3: in his original twenty nineteen report he had inadvertently admitted
Speaker 3: a couple items, and he disclosed not the cruise itself,
Speaker 3: but he disclosed the food and lodging he got for
Speaker 3: one night in a hotel in Bali. He also disclosed
Speaker 3: food and lodging in California and a separate trip at
Speaker 3: this retreat known as the Bohemian Grove, So he didn't
Speaker 3: disclose everything about it, but it was at least an
Speaker 3: acknowledgement that these trips seem to have happened.
Speaker 1: But he may now have more trips to account for.
Speaker 1: According to documents released by Senate Democrats just today, Thomas
Speaker 1: failed to disclose at least three more private jet trips
Speaker 1: across the US paid for by GOP, megadnor Harlan Crowe.
Speaker 1: In any event, these trips represent an enormous amount of money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, an enormous amount. There's a watchdog group known as
Speaker 3: Six to the Court that did some very rough calculations
Speaker 3: and came to the conclusion that Justice Thomas received more
Speaker 3: than four million dollars overalling gifts since nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 3: including these trips.
Speaker 1: The most interesting gift to me was the nearly four
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in Beyonce tickets that Justice Jackson got and
Speaker 1: she topped the list.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she did top the list. That was a bit
Speaker 3: of an eye three seven hundred and twelve dollars for
Speaker 3: four concert times.
Speaker 1: I know, I spend that every time I go to
Speaker 1: a concert.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. The author reported two gifts of artwork for
Speaker 3: her chambers at twelve five hundred dollars. Yeah, that was
Speaker 3: certainly the one that captured a lot of attention. You know,
Speaker 3: no suggestion she did anything wrong there, but she made
Speaker 3: a decision that this is the kind of gift she's
Speaker 3: comfortable accepting and then disclosing, and you know, it's not
Speaker 3: something that other justices necessarily do.
Speaker 1: Thomas also disclosed receiving photo albums worth two thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: It just seems to me like it's a bad look
Speaker 1: for justices to be accepting these kinds of gifts. Is
Speaker 1: there any rule or ethical consideration that they have to
Speaker 1: make or are they just allowed to take anything they want?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, they do have to disclose them. That's
Speaker 3: sort of the one rule about that. And if you know,
Speaker 3: Beyonce were involved in a Supreme Court case, you would
Speaker 3: expect Jackson would probably recuse. But no, that's that is
Speaker 3: very much the issue that people are talking about, and
Speaker 3: you know, is it a bad look to be doing
Speaker 3: any of this stuff? And the other element I would
Speaker 3: toss into the mix is that, you know, the Justice
Speaker 3: is collectively collected about a million and a half in
Speaker 3: book income last year, including a big chunk of that
Speaker 3: was Justice Jackson for a book that has yet to
Speaker 3: be published. And we just learned the last few days
Speaker 3: that Justice Kavanaugh's coming out with a book and he
Speaker 3: reported six digits in income from that book. So you know,
Speaker 3: they are picking up extra income in ways that you
Speaker 3: know certainly are eye opening and do sort of raise
Speaker 3: questions about, you know, whether that is the kind of,
Speaker 3: as you put it, look we want from a Supreme
Speaker 3: Court justice.
Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of judges give up lucrative private
Speaker 1: practices to become a judge to do public service. And
Speaker 1: here you have the majority of justice is on the
Speaker 1: highest court in the land, make book deals, etc. And
Speaker 1: making the kind of money that separates them from the
Speaker 1: vast majority of Americans. It may not be unethical, but
Speaker 1: it just strikes me as what's wrong with this picture?
Speaker 1: But I noticed that Justice Kagan never seems to be
Speaker 1: involved with any of these extra income things, books or
Speaker 1: anything else. Was there anything on her financial revelations that
Speaker 1: was noteworthy?
Speaker 3: Now she's really one of the ones who has not
Speaker 3: written a book, is not accepting unusual gifts, and as
Speaker 3: largely steered clear of any of these ethical issues. She is,
Speaker 3: I think fair to say, a good deal more more
Speaker 3: cautious and careful. Along with the Chief Justice. He's the
Speaker 3: other one I would sort of put in that next
Speaker 3: as people who are very careful about what they accept
Speaker 3: in the appearance they give off when they make appearances
Speaker 3: and the like, they make different decisions, And of course
Speaker 3: one of the issues here is that all these decisions
Speaker 3: are up to individual justices. Justice Kagan believes that justice
Speaker 3: should operate a certain way, and she's allowed to do that,
Speaker 3: and Justice Thomas believes something very different, and there aren't
Speaker 3: really any any constraints on him.
Speaker 1: There was an issue about the Chief Justice's wife, right,
Speaker 1: she's a legal recruiter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she left her law practice to become a legal recruiter,
Speaker 3: and there have been there have been some stories about
Speaker 3: her work there. But I think when you talk to
Speaker 3: judicial ethics experts, that's one where in general they tend
Speaker 3: to say, you know, first of all, a spouse does
Speaker 3: have a right to his or her career, and that
Speaker 3: is so separate from the work that the Chief Justice does.
Speaker 3: The idea that you know, somehow it might influence his
Speaker 3: decision making that she is involved in in, you know,
Speaker 3: cooking up a lawyer and a law firm, that that's
Speaker 3: not high on the list of ethical issues we should
Speaker 3: be worried about.
Speaker 1: And so Justice Alito received a ninety day extension to
Speaker 1: file his report and he's done that before. I mean,
Speaker 1: it seems odd since he's filed his taxes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he does it every year. We never get a
Speaker 3: real explanation for it. No other justice, no other active
Speaker 3: justice does it. As a matter of course. Last year
Speaker 3: Justice Thomas got an extension, but that had more of
Speaker 3: an explanation to it because he was dealing with a
Speaker 3: lot of these new revelations and some changing guidance about
Speaker 3: how to file reports, So that made a little more
Speaker 3: sense than Justice Thomas did file his report on time
Speaker 3: this year. Yeah, I don't have an explanation for why
Speaker 3: he does that. We will certainly look at his filing
Speaker 3: when it comes in, but it.
Speaker 1: Puts more emphasis on it if you're the only one,
Speaker 1: you know at a certain time coming out.
Speaker 3: With it, unless you do it at a time when
Speaker 3: all the people who be covering about it are on vacation.
Speaker 3: It's the middle of the summer.
Speaker 1: You make a great point, Greg, You know your Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justices very well. Thanks so much. That's Bloomberg New
Speaker 1: Supreme Court reporter Greg store And yesterday, Senate Republicans successfully
Speaker 1: blocked a bill that would have required the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: to adopt a code of conduct and would have created
Speaker 1: a mechanism to enforce it. Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin
Speaker 1: criticized Chief Justice John Roberts on the Senate floor for
Speaker 1: not doing enough to enforce ethical standards on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, So where
Speaker 1: can you go in Manhattan if you want to see
Speaker 1: some famous politicians, billionaire businessmen, top lawyers, and lots of journalists.
Speaker 1: We'll tell you. Coming up next, I'm June Grosso and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Bloomberg. So where can you go in
Speaker 1: Manhattan if you want to see some famous politicians, billionaire
Speaker 1: bill businessmen, and top lawyers. Go downtown to Lower Manhattan
Speaker 1: where courthouses abound. And we're in the last few weeks
Speaker 1: like a planetary alignment of the justice system. Politicians and
Speaker 1: Wall Street figures have been crossing paths at simultaneous trials
Speaker 1: of former President Donald Trump, Senator Bob Menendez, Christian billionaire
Speaker 1: Bill Wong, and fugitive Chinese tycoon Guo Wangue. Joining me
Speaker 1: is someone who has experienced this firsthand. Bloomberg Legal reporter
Speaker 1: Ava Benny Morrison. How big is the area downtown where
Speaker 1: the Federal Courthouse and the Manhattan State courthouses sit it's.
Speaker 4: Quite a dense little area down there. You have the
Speaker 4: Federal Courthouse, which is on Tel Street, and then across
Speaker 4: the road from that you have the New York State
Speaker 4: Supreme Courthouse. And then there are a couple of other
Speaker 4: federal courthouses state courthouses in the streets around that, so
Speaker 4: it's all very walkabules and they're all very close to
Speaker 4: each other.
Speaker 1: Tell us about the four trials that until last week
Speaker 1: we're going on, and what you called a planetary alignment
Speaker 1: of the justice system.
Speaker 4: Yes, it certainly has been very busy down there. In
Speaker 4: the state courthouse New York State Supreme we had former
Speaker 4: President Donald Trump on trial in the hush money case,
Speaker 4: that was until he was convicted last week. And then
Speaker 4: in the federal courthouse we have free trials going on
Speaker 4: at the same time. Just a few flaws apart. Firstly,
Speaker 4: we've got Bil Kwong, who was the founder of the
Speaker 4: immensely successful family office Arkaeos Capital Wants Management. Our KGOS
Speaker 4: collapsed in twenty twenty one, and that reverberated around Wall Street,
Speaker 4: led to massive losses for a number of big banks
Speaker 4: and almost wiped out Bill Wong's thirty six billion dollar
Speaker 4: personal fortune. He's accused of broad market mutilation and racket heearing.
Speaker 4: We've also got the trial of Senator Bob Menendez. He
Speaker 4: is accused of accepting bribes while he was in office,
Speaker 4: and that trial has been going on for a couple
Speaker 4: of weeks now, and we've had some interesting witnesses, cooperating
Speaker 4: witnesses who testifying against Menendez. And then lastly we have
Speaker 4: Chinese tycoon Miles Glows. Milesgow has been living in New
Speaker 4: York for a few years. He's in a close associated
Speaker 4: Steve Bannon. He's also close with hedge fund manager Kyle
Speaker 4: bat He's accused of fraud and swindling up to a
Speaker 4: billion dollars out of investors. So it's all happening there
Speaker 4: at once.
Speaker 1: Can I assume that while the hush money trial was
Speaker 1: going on, that all the attention and the crowds were
Speaker 1: around that courthouse.
Speaker 4: Yes, they certainly were, But because of how close the
Speaker 4: courthouses were, some of those crowds were spread out. For example,
Speaker 4: every afternoon before about four pm, there was a small
Speaker 4: group of Trump supporters that would gather outside the Federal Courthouse,
Speaker 4: which is across the road from where Trump was obviously
Speaker 4: on trial, and they would turn out with Trump flags,
Speaker 4: make America great again, hats, horns, whistles, and they'd wait
Speaker 4: for him to drive past his convoy when he would
Speaker 4: leave court each day, and he would slowly roll past.
Speaker 4: He wouldn't wind down the window, but he would put
Speaker 4: them away through the very dark windows. And they get
Speaker 4: very excited about that, but they pack up and return
Speaker 4: the next day.
Speaker 1: Wall Street is really watching the Wang trial, and a
Speaker 1: lot of attention is on Menandez too, But Wang seemed
Speaker 1: to have benefited from the concentration on Trump.
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly, especially in finance world and on Wall Street.
Speaker 4: Everyone knows who Bill Huang is and there is a
Speaker 4: lot of interests, as he said in his trial. Yet,
Speaker 4: because of all the other high profile trials going on
Speaker 4: with Menendez Trump, every time Bill Huang walked out of
Speaker 4: the courthouse, he goes largely unnoticed by the people that
Speaker 4: are standing outside and the Trump supporters. In contrast, Menendez,
Speaker 4: when he walks out of the courthouse by himself, he's
Speaker 4: often heckled by some of those supporters who yell things
Speaker 4: at him, and the US marshals have to clear a
Speaker 4: path for him so he can get into a waiting car.
Speaker 4: So it's been interesting that someone like Bill Wong, who
Speaker 4: has such a massive impact on the finance world only
Speaker 4: a couple of years ago, can sort of go in
Speaker 4: and out of the courthouse largely unnotice So I think
Speaker 4: he's definitely benefited from having his trial underway in the
Speaker 4: same building as someone a bit more high profile like
Speaker 4: Bob Menendez.
Speaker 1: Do these famous defendants ever run into each other.
Speaker 4: So even though these men have been on trial in
Speaker 4: separate trials, separate courtrooms, there's often some moments where they
Speaker 4: cross paths, especially in the morning. Everyone who doesn't have
Speaker 4: a path to get into the federal courthouse has to
Speaker 4: line up in security, and that can be a wildly
Speaker 4: different mix of people. You've got witnesses who were testifying,
Speaker 4: You've got people lining up for naturalization ceremonies, You've got
Speaker 4: defendants out of town lawyers. One morning, we saw Bill
Speaker 4: Huang waiting in the marble lobby for you and looking
Speaker 4: at some of the court sketch artists pieces that were
Speaker 4: hanging on the walls that had captured moments in other
Speaker 4: high profile trials that had happened inside that courthouse. Behind him,
Speaker 4: through the glass, you could see Senator Menendez waiting in
Speaker 4: the security line, and just a few people ahead of
Speaker 4: him was Scott Becker. Scot Becker used to work for
Speaker 4: bil Khong at archae Goths, and he was preparing to
Speaker 4: testify against Huang later that day. So it is the
Speaker 4: courthouse has certainly been a melting pot of very interesting
Speaker 4: characters in cases.
Speaker 1: Now, does Wang or Menendez have an entourage?
Speaker 4: Kwang certainly has an entourage. He has had at least
Speaker 4: a dozen people turn up at his court case every
Speaker 4: single day. They take up two or three of the
Speaker 4: benches in the public gallery, and they will often join
Speaker 4: him for lunch inside the courtroom cafeteria. So he's definitely
Speaker 4: got his fair share of loyal supporters around him every day.
Speaker 4: Menendez has been more of a loan figure. I've only
Speaker 4: ever seen him with his lawyers waiting for the elevator
Speaker 4: or outside the courtroom. When he has walked out of
Speaker 4: the courthouse, he's often been by himself. Sometimes he stops
Speaker 4: and gives interviews to some of the Spanish speaking media
Speaker 4: who have been gathered outside, but largely he's coming and
Speaker 4: going from the courthouse on his own.
Speaker 1: The courthouse is there are near Chinatown and Little Italy.
Speaker 1: Do they head off there for lunch, Not that I've seen.
Speaker 4: In the past. There have been defenders who have been
Speaker 4: on trial who have chosen to leave the courthouse during
Speaker 4: the lunch break and go and find some dumplings in
Speaker 4: Chinatown around the corner. But in this case, I've almost
Speaker 4: seen Huang in the court cafeteria every day, sitting down
Speaker 4: with his wife and some of his employees from his nonprofit,
Speaker 4: the Great and Mercy Foundation. He's co defended Patrick Halligan.
Speaker 4: I've think him a couple of times eating lunch outside
Speaker 4: in the patio, which I've got to say has quite
Speaker 4: beautiful views of the Brooklyn Bridge, so it's a nice
Speaker 4: place to sit, especially as the weather gets more of
Speaker 4: mar Menendez though, hasn't been seen around the cafeteria, so
Speaker 4: I don't know where he's bunkering down to lunch each day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Cork cafeterias often have you know, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges,
Speaker 1: defendants all in this one place with their treys. It's
Speaker 1: really unusual, you know, the feel of it, because they're
Speaker 1: normally on opposite sides. It can seem sort of surreal sometimes.
Speaker 4: Absolutely and jurors aren't allowed to go to that cafeteria
Speaker 4: because there are defendants, witnesses, prosecutors, defense lawyers coming and
Speaker 4: going constantly. But it certainly has been a buzzer of activity.
Speaker 4: There are people lining up for sandwiches, and one day
Speaker 4: you can be standing next to a federal court judge.
Speaker 4: The next day you're standing next to the prosecutor who's
Speaker 4: presenting the government's case in the massive racketeering trial upstairs.
Speaker 4: And then you see a defendant sitting down with his
Speaker 4: white next to the court security officer who's in charge
Speaker 4: of during everyone's behaving himself in his court room. So
Speaker 4: you know, they're human beings. They need to eat at
Speaker 4: some point, So it's interesting just to see the mix
Speaker 4: of people that end up sitting next to each other
Speaker 4: snacking on chicken salad or slice a pizza. Avalanche.
Speaker 1: And these trials, the Menendez trial, the Quang trial, and
Speaker 1: the Guo trial, are they expected to take much longer
Speaker 1: because they have been going on for quite a while.
Speaker 4: They have been going on for a while, and they
Speaker 4: still have a bit to go. I check in on
Speaker 4: the Bow trial morning, and I think that the prosecution
Speaker 4: is only about halfway through its case. In the Huang trial,
Speaker 4: the judge estimated that it may well fill into July
Speaker 4: at this point, and the Menendez case, the prosecution is
Speaker 4: still presenting it's evident, so we've still got a few
Speaker 4: weeks to go. In each of these trials, it's been
Speaker 4: a real juggle, I think for the reporters covering it,
Speaker 4: trying to run between each courtrooms.
Speaker 1: And former President Trump complained about the courthouse, the Manhattan
Speaker 1: Criminal Court, I mean, the federal courthouse is much nicer
Speaker 1: than the state courthouses.
Speaker 4: Yes, it is. The Federal Courthouse is quite grand. Got
Speaker 4: a big, open marble lobby. The courtrooms have great acoustics,
Speaker 4: which is very important when you're trying to hear whatever
Speaker 4: I'm saying. Beautiful views over the city and over the
Speaker 4: Hudson River. There's a great, big test room there that
Speaker 4: we all work out of, so it is a lot
Speaker 4: easier to work out of there than it is, I
Speaker 4: think in State court, which is a lot older, A
Speaker 4: lot of bit of reporters who were covering the Trump
Speaker 4: trial had to line up for hours each day to
Speaker 4: get a spot in an overflow room. So there have
Speaker 4: been totally different experiences covering trials, and each of those courthouses.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a really interesting time to be covering trials
Speaker 1: in downtown Manhattan.
Speaker 4: It's really bozzy as prosecutors everywhere, lawyers everywhere. You just
Speaker 4: run into people what the most random of places. Everyone's
Speaker 4: sort of saying, what are you going to or what
Speaker 4: are you covering all these persons up in this trial?
Speaker 4: Or quick, let's get down to this. So it's a
Speaker 4: really fun time to date there.
Speaker 1: Okay, Ava, you'll have to report back to us as
Speaker 1: the trials wind down. Thanks so much. That's Bloomberg Legal
Speaker 1: Reporter Ava, Benny Morrison, and that's it for this edition
Speaker 1: of the Bloomberg Law Podcast. Remember you can always get
Speaker 1: the latest legal news by subscribing and listening to the
Speaker 1: show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at Bloomberg dot com,
Speaker 1: slash podcast, slash Law. I'm June Grosso and this is
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