Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grassoe from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: The trial is over, but the controversy is not. The
Speaker 1: Roger Stone case has been unprecedented in many respects interferenced
Speaker 1: by the President and the Attorney General, the withdrawal of
Speaker 1: the four prosecutors handling the case, and social media post
Speaker 1: by the defendant against the judge, and now the federal
Speaker 1: trial judge is harshly criticizing the president and false news
Speaker 1: reports for promoting claims of bias that helped fuel threats
Speaker 1: to the jury. Judge Amy Berman Jackson made the comments
Speaker 1: during an unusual hearing on Stone's request for a new trial,
Speaker 1: during which three of the jurors, including the four person
Speaker 1: were questioned. Joining me is Brad Moss, a partner at
Speaker 1: Mark Za. Have you ever heard comments like this coming
Speaker 1: from a judge? So judges are known on occasion to
Speaker 1: make rather pointed remarks where necessary. What is someone unusual here?
Speaker 1: Is why became required given the political circus and the
Speaker 1: circumstances of a US president, So repeatedly and brazenly, you know,
Speaker 1: chiming in on the case talking about a bias judge,
Speaker 1: talking about a biased jury for a person and arguably
Speaker 1: saying that the entire prosecution should not have happened in
Speaker 1: the first place. So that was kind of somewhat unprecedented situation,
Speaker 1: I mean, and the judge made it clear and addressing
Speaker 1: the merits of Roger Stone's motion for her to recuse
Speaker 1: that it was arguably more designed just to you know,
Speaker 1: put the words judge and biased into a media chiron
Speaker 1: for Fox News, that it was based on any kind
Speaker 1: of actual legal merit. And so that's what makes this
Speaker 1: somewhat unusual. And it's what even you know, irritated the
Speaker 1: Attorney General. Is it made clear about a week or
Speaker 1: two ago Stone is asking for a new trial, and
Speaker 1: his claim is that the jury was biased. Why does
Speaker 1: he think he deserves a new trial. So before you
Speaker 1: ever go to trial, you have to pick a jury,
Speaker 1: and both parties, you know, the government lawyers and the
Speaker 1: defense counsel's lawyers, gets you question or what's called guadire
Speaker 1: each of the individual perspective jurors. You get to ask
Speaker 1: them a whole bunch of questions. They fill out a
Speaker 1: questionnaire addressing various issues, and you have the right to
Speaker 1: challenge them as a prospective juror with this particular individual,
Speaker 1: who we found out was later selected on unrelated reasons
Speaker 1: to be the fourth person by the jury. She has
Speaker 1: apparently had some public social media posts, and she was
Speaker 1: very clearly not a fan of the president, not a
Speaker 1: fan of Roger Stone necessarily. But what we found out
Speaker 1: was she didn't evolve the entirety of that information in
Speaker 1: her questionnaire. She simply said, I don't remember the extent
Speaker 1: to which I may have, you know, read news on
Speaker 1: this issue, were commented on it publicly. Now, a competent
Speaker 1: defense team would have searched public records, would have searched
Speaker 1: public social media posts, and would have seen what she
Speaker 1: had their online, none of which was set the private,
Speaker 1: and would have bounced her during guadir. They didn't do that.
Speaker 1: That was just a complete fellure of criminal defense one
Speaker 1: on one. So now they're trying to basically get a
Speaker 1: second bite at the app both saying well, we missed
Speaker 1: it up the first time, but her answer on the
Speaker 1: questionnaire was, you know, somewhat misleading, and so we didn't
Speaker 1: think to look. That is, to say the least, a
Speaker 1: rather thin legal argument. I don't anticipate it will ultimately succeed.
Speaker 1: But again, this isn't about legal merits. This is about
Speaker 1: setting up a part in down the line. The defense
Speaker 1: actually had a jury consultant working with them. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where this is Alex said
Speaker 1: this Literally all you had to do was google the
Speaker 1: person's name and pull up their social media posts. This
Speaker 1: is not exactly a glowing endorsement for that jury consultant
Speaker 1: and his or her work prowess and professionalism. What's the standard?
Speaker 1: Because the jury four person, she might have omitted certain things.
Speaker 1: So basically what the judge has to assess it was
Speaker 1: a couple of different things. One if the person's uh
Speaker 1: statements on the questionnaire were deliberately or knowingly misleading or false.
Speaker 1: Given the way it was couched. And we heard some
Speaker 1: of the testimony from the fourth person herself during the
Speaker 1: hearing yesterday, it's thin it best the argument that she
Speaker 1: was deliberately misleading them. She didn't say I haven't read
Speaker 1: anything on this. She says, I don't remember the full
Speaker 1: details of what I've seen, so you know, you can imagine.
Speaker 1: She also said, I post all other kinds of things
Speaker 1: on Twitter, but all kinds of other manners of topics,
Speaker 1: so it could be understandable and reasonable that she might
Speaker 1: not remember those specific posts, but everything else they probed into,
Speaker 1: you know, discussions with other jurors. Jurors all denied that
Speaker 1: this person had tried to push them a particular way.
Speaker 1: They all denied that she had tried to, you know,
Speaker 1: impose her political views than any of them, and they
Speaker 1: actually said she was the one, the four person was
Speaker 1: the one who made clear that everybody need to be
Speaker 1: very careful and review everything very in depth when looking
Speaker 1: over some of these charges. It certainly didn't provide any
Speaker 1: real substantiating evidence of bias or impermissible behavior by the
Speaker 1: fourth person in terms of how this jury ultimately deliberated
Speaker 1: and found Roger Stone guilty. And again, this is all
Speaker 1: just them setting up apart, and if this were any
Speaker 1: other case would be a hail mary that everybody would
Speaker 1: be rejecting. A matter of course, the only reason it
Speaker 1: has legs is because it's the president's old friend, Roger Stone,
Speaker 1: and the president's media allies are hyping it. The judge
Speaker 1: said that the filing was somewhat hyperbolic, like the motion
Speaker 1: for recusal, It's marked by a tone that I haven't
Speaker 1: seen previously in pleadings in this case and was particularly
Speaker 1: reliant on adjectives. That's according to the judge. When the
Speaker 1: facts on his side, you argue law. When the law
Speaker 1: is not on your side, you pound on the desk
Speaker 1: and yell. And that's what Roger stones lawyers were doing here.
Speaker 1: The government had him nailed to write. It was very
Speaker 1: clear that what he had done was had crossed the
Speaker 1: line into criminal liability and that's what happened at the trial.
Speaker 1: He was convicted properly and even the Attorney General agrees
Speaker 1: with it that it was a righteous prosecution. This was
Speaker 1: all meant for media consumption. Those motions were drafted to
Speaker 1: hype up media awareness and particularly the president's views that
Speaker 1: he and his friends have been unjustly persecuted. It was
Speaker 1: not necessarily meant to win before the judge. I've been
Speaker 1: talking to Brad Moss of Mark Sade about Roger Stone's
Speaker 1: motion for a new trial. The judge denied a previous
Speaker 1: request for a new trial based on claims that a
Speaker 1: different juror was biased against Stone over the weekend. As
Speaker 1: you referred to, she rejected Stone's claim that she herself
Speaker 1: was biased. So does it seem like we can make
Speaker 1: an educated guess where this motion is going to end up.
Speaker 1: I think it's highly unlikely, but I can obviously rule
Speaker 1: it out, but highly unlikely that the judge will be
Speaker 1: granting the motion for a new trial here. I'm sure
Speaker 1: roger Stone will appeal that will put any sentencing the
Speaker 1: forty months, that will put that on hold pending appellate review.
Speaker 1: Probably of that appeal of the motion for a new trial.
Speaker 1: I don't have any reason to believe that roger Stone
Speaker 1: will actually spend a single day in jail. Even if
Speaker 1: the President is defeated in November for reelection, he will
Speaker 1: almost certainly issue a pardon then during the lane duck
Speaker 1: prior to departing office. Roger Stone is just stalling for time.
Speaker 1: Speaking of stalling for time, can he drag this out
Speaker 1: until after the election where he will not have to
Speaker 1: report to jail, because if Trump wants to give him
Speaker 1: a pardon, I assume he would want to wait till
Speaker 1: after the election so he can. But it's ultimately somewhat
Speaker 1: subject to the whims and discretion of the judge. So
Speaker 1: assuming the judge the next week or two denies the
Speaker 1: motion for a new trial, she could if she wanted
Speaker 1: order Roger Stone to surrender within two weeks and start
Speaker 1: his prison sentence while any appeals are ongoing. It is
Speaker 1: more than likely, though, given the notoriety of the case
Speaker 1: and given the non violent circumstances of the charges, that
Speaker 1: she will permit him to remain out on bond pending
Speaker 1: the appellate review of her rulings on a motion for
Speaker 1: a new trial is if only to avoid, you know,
Speaker 1: possibly getting smacked down by the d C Circuit later
Speaker 1: on for having put him in jail. President Trump ramped
Speaker 1: up his unorthodox battle with the judiciary and continued his
Speaker 1: assault on judges by demanding that Supreme Court Justices Sonya
Speaker 1: Soto Mayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg recused themselves from future
Speaker 1: cases involving him or his administration. Let's begin with the
Speaker 1: dissenting opinion by Soto Mayor that led to President Trump's comments.
Speaker 1: So to Mayor, in a case in which, in a
Speaker 1: five to four vote, conservative justices are allowing the administration
Speaker 1: to start enforcing its new immigrant wealth test in Illinois
Speaker 1: before the case is heard in the lower courts, explain
Speaker 1: her dissent. Basically, what justice so to Mayora's complaint was
Speaker 1: was that the courts were abdicating their responsibility and essentially
Speaker 1: giving the executive branch too much leeway here on something
Speaker 1: that could have a monumental impact going forward on how
Speaker 1: we handle immigration in this country and allowing it to
Speaker 1: occur while the litigation was still ongoing. But what was
Speaker 1: caught up in what Fox There's an all the conservative
Speaker 1: media was the very hyperbolic nature of some of her
Speaker 1: language in the descent. It was a very fiery descent.
Speaker 1: And there's a long history of justices on the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court and lower courts, you know, issuing occasional fiery descents,
Speaker 1: and she was, as far as I can recall, she
Speaker 1: was largely on her own in this particular descent, And
Speaker 1: so it caught Win and some of the individual and
Speaker 1: conservative media had a whole bunch of issue with the
Speaker 1: nature of the verbiage and the language and saying it
Speaker 1: was suggesting it was reflecting of her particular ideological bias
Speaker 1: against the president, and that of course, for Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: he thinks any judge who said something bad about him
Speaker 1: is inherently biased and has to accuse, which of course
Speaker 1: is not the standard. Well, the numbers are on Sodo
Speaker 1: mayors side. I've done many segments on the Trump administration
Speaker 1: taking this step of bypassing the appellate courts and running
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court claiming it's an emergency. Also, recently
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court allowed him to take money from the
Speaker 1: Defense and the Pentagon to start building his wall, when
Speaker 1: that case isn't at the Supreme Court yet. Well, and
Speaker 1: so what she's speaking to, and it's partially arguably in
Speaker 1: the end really commenting on the breakdown and political order,
Speaker 1: is that the reason this has become so necessary for
Speaker 1: the Trump administration is because the nature of these controversial policies,
Speaker 1: much of which are being done strictly out of the
Speaker 1: executive branch, such as redirecting a funds appropriated by Congress
Speaker 1: to build the walls, such as stuff like the travel bands,
Speaker 1: such as stuff like this immigration welfare review. It's being
Speaker 1: done without proper oversight by Congress and arguably without any
Speaker 1: scrutiny by Congress. And so her complaint is ultimately that
Speaker 1: the courts are not supposed to be used as a
Speaker 1: way to circumvent the other political branch and the Trump administration. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: it's making rather you know, novel and effective use of
Speaker 1: this emergency stay ordered from the from the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: like they did in the other case that you mentioned,
Speaker 1: to basically allow them to start implementing the procedures, start
Speaker 1: implementing the policy while the legal fight within the branches
Speaker 1: and amongst the Executive Branch and relevant third parties remains ongoing.
Speaker 1: And it's it's a dissent and her view of how
Speaker 1: this is an abuse of the process, although not necessarily
Speaker 1: one that the Supreme Court obviously at the moment, is
Speaker 1: willing to address. There are no rules for when the
Speaker 1: jocision should recuse themselves. They're sort of on their own,
Speaker 1: and there has been some critique that there should be
Speaker 1: some rules. Yeah, and so the problem with imposing rules
Speaker 1: there is because the Supreme Court is basically the only
Speaker 1: piece created by the Constitution, and the qualifications are established
Speaker 1: by the Constitution. It's the one situation where Congress doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily have the ability to impose requirements or change any
Speaker 1: of those qualifications, or impose recusal requirements absent a constitutional amendment.
Speaker 1: Unlike you know, lower court judges and unlike you know
Speaker 1: a pelic court judges, a lot of which is derived
Speaker 1: from Congressional creation Supreme courts somewhat different there, So these
Speaker 1: in court justices take it upon themselves to decide if
Speaker 1: they have to recoose him. You think of Justice Thomas,
Speaker 1: His wife is a very prominent political operative, has been
Speaker 1: extensively involved in any number of campaign of political operations
Speaker 1: over the years, including during the Obama administration, was very
Speaker 1: you know, active and very involved in expressing her views.
Speaker 1: And Justice Thomason was never required or you know, forced
Speaker 1: to recuse himself from any number of issues legal issues
Speaker 1: that came before the court that obviously implicated his wife's interests.
Speaker 1: And that was just the reality the situation. There's nothing
Speaker 1: in Justice Ginsburg's comments or in Justice so of Myers
Speaker 1: comments that require them to accuse from Trump related matters.
Speaker 1: This is the President hyping a political argument that has
Speaker 1: no base in reality. Does this complicate in any way
Speaker 1: the administration's legal fights on his behalf? You know, it'll
Speaker 1: certainly annoy someone like Justice Roberts, but I don't anticipate
Speaker 1: that in the end the legal merits will be impacted
Speaker 1: by this plitical circus. By enlarge, these justices are well
Speaker 1: situa wells situated enough in their their confidence their self
Speaker 1: esteem and their egos to not be swayed by whatever
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump says about them. They've been and gone
Speaker 1: through worse. Uh, this is not the first one of
Speaker 1: the last time they're gonna have to deal with, you know,
Speaker 1: an executive branch they dislike. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: conservative justices who disliked them of what the Obama administration
Speaker 1: to President Obama in particular said about them. You know this,
Speaker 1: This isn't going to sway the legal merits. Ultimately, those
Speaker 1: cases will be dependent of some rather narrow issues, especially
Speaker 1: on stuff like the president's tax returns and its financial records.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being on Bloomberg Law, Brad. That's Brad Moss
Speaker 1: apartment in Mark. Say. I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Ye