Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: I'm Jacob Goldstein sitting in for Michael Lewis. It's Monday,
Speaker 2: October thirtieth, and this morning the defense finished questioning Sam
Speaker 2: Bankman Freed and the prosecution started its cross examination. Lydda
Speaker 2: jen Kott and Michael were both at the courthouse and
Speaker 2: at the lunch break they talked about what happened this morning.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm Gareth michaelis that side of the courthouse, Yes,
Speaker 3: Lydia jeans.
Speaker 4: We just spent the morning listening to first Sam Bank
Speaker 4: and Freed underdirect which was more of the same and
Speaker 4: it's boring if you read the book, because it's just
Speaker 4: like it. It's just telling the story. And then the
Speaker 4: prosecution has now had a chance to cross examine him
Speaker 4: for an hour and a half and it's it feels relentless,
Speaker 4: but there's not a lot of information coming out. My
Speaker 4: first take is it between uray, the first time Sam
Speaker 4: had any kind of exposure to being cross examined, and
Speaker 4: now he's learned not to talk, and so the fun
Speaker 4: of Sam is just letting him loose and all the
Speaker 4: fund's gone when all he says is yes and no
Speaker 4: or I don't remember. I would say the things that
Speaker 4: jump out of me. It's amazing how little he remembers
Speaker 4: of things he said. I guess if you asked me strictly,
Speaker 4: do I remember exactly what I said to some reporter
Speaker 4: on a book two or two years ago. I probably
Speaker 4: wouldn't remember, at least exactly, but I'd have a sense
Speaker 4: of whether it was sort of plausible or not plausible.
Speaker 4: And the combination of Sam basically being monosyllabic and Daniels
Speaker 4: assumed coming at him with machine guns machine gun worth
Speaker 4: of questions. I was trying to think of what it
Speaker 4: reminded me of. It reminded me when I was pulled
Speaker 4: into the principal's office, or when my mother asked me
Speaker 4: what I was doing last night, and it was like
Speaker 4: giving them as little information as possible, but they're just
Speaker 4: pounding you boom boom, boom, boom boom. It's not that
Speaker 4: fun to watch.
Speaker 3: No, it's a bit painful because someone who didn't get
Speaker 3: pulled into the principal's office. It reminded me of the
Speaker 3: feeling of that one kid in class who's in so
Speaker 3: much trouble and you're watching him being destroyed, and part
Speaker 3: of you is like almost kind of enjoying it in
Speaker 3: like the sick a sick way, like the worst part
Speaker 3: of you, and most of you is just like, thank God,
Speaker 3: that's not me, and then you feel just bad overall.
Speaker 4: Yes, one interesting. I'm in the overflow room rather than
Speaker 4: the actual courtroom to day, and it's actually, in some
Speaker 4: ways a better view because the camera's trained on Sam
Speaker 4: and you can actually see him more clearly than you
Speaker 4: can in the courtroom. So one of the things I'm
Speaker 4: noticing is how little crowd reaction there is the over
Speaker 4: flow room up till now. When I've been there's a
Speaker 4: lot more noise, laughter, sounds of skepticism, whatever it is.
Speaker 4: And for the last hour and a half it's been
Speaker 4: very quiet, like people trying to make sense of what
Speaker 4: this is. I also have I've been being pounded. I mean,
Speaker 4: people have been asking me lots of questions. I get
Speaker 4: in the elevator. I feel like I'm being interviewed by
Speaker 4: ten journalists at once. And the question I keep getting asked,
Speaker 4: is this person on the stand the same person who
Speaker 4: you spent the last year and a half with. And
Speaker 4: I would say on Thursday, I felt, yes, I recognize
Speaker 4: that person. The legal system has completely expunged him from
Speaker 4: the courtroom because he's not talking. So Sam answering questions
Speaker 4: yes or no is a different person. He feels like
Speaker 4: a different person. So it's the character's less I mean,
Speaker 4: I hate to put it this way. It's's less fun,
Speaker 4: it's less interesting. Yeah, that's my two cents right now.
Speaker 2: So Lydia, Jean and Michael went back into court for
Speaker 2: the afternoon. It's now five thirty Monday evening, and now
Speaker 2: I'm here with Lydia Jean. Lydda Jean. You left the courthouse,
Speaker 2: took the subway to the office, and literally like two
Speaker 2: minutes ago, walked into the studio.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's true. I grabbed a cup of water, slacker.
Speaker 2: So I want to talk with you about what happened
Speaker 2: in the afternoon after you and Michael went back into court.
Speaker 2: But before we do that, I want to talk a
Speaker 2: little bit more about the morning. I feel like you
Speaker 2: and Michael sort of captured the vibes, right, but let's
Speaker 2: just talk a little bit more about what happened. I mean,
Speaker 2: first of all, the defense finished. It's what many hours
Speaker 2: long questioning of Sam this morning, and so just to
Speaker 2: step back from that, right, you now have the full
Speaker 2: picture of the defense's direct examination of Sam, like what
Speaker 2: do you think they were doing? Like what argument do
Speaker 2: you think they were trying to advance through Sam's testimony.
Speaker 3: I think the story that he basically told is that
Speaker 3: he really didn't know about a lot of the things
Speaker 3: that were happening with Alameda, and he just thought Alameda
Speaker 3: was a very successful company that was doing really well,
Speaker 3: and so was FTX, And he had no idea that
Speaker 3: Alameda was, you know, had even the potential to be
Speaker 3: insolvent until FTX crashed in November, And he cast all
Speaker 3: of the conversations that he had with Caroline Allison, Gary Wong,
Speaker 3: and Nishad saying in a totally different late, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, maybe the subtext of what you're saying, or the
Speaker 2: implication of what you're saying is their actual defense was
Speaker 2: not some kind of logical argument, but rather, this is
Speaker 2: a good person who was sort of out of his depth.
Speaker 2: Take pity on him one juror, and just refuse to
Speaker 2: find him guilty.
Speaker 3: And I think the crux of it is that he
Speaker 3: didn't know that anything bad was happening. He thought both
Speaker 3: of these companies were chugging along just the way that
Speaker 3: they were supposed to. He was making these calculations and
Speaker 3: they were a little bit off and that was his bad.
Speaker 3: But it's because they didn't have a risk compliance officer,
Speaker 3: which they should have had, But it was because the
Speaker 3: company was growing so quickly, and you know, human errors
Speaker 3: were made, but no fraud was committed.
Speaker 2: That is a version of the story the defense told,
Speaker 2: did you buy it?
Speaker 3: I felt like there wasn't enough there for me to
Speaker 3: buy it. I needed to know more. Why would everyone
Speaker 3: around him have these stories of how they knew this
Speaker 3: was happening and this was bad? And told him, you know,
Speaker 3: it's just hard when there's three against one.
Speaker 2: Three meaning the three other senior people at FTX who
Speaker 2: testified against him exactly. So that's the defense's direct examination
Speaker 2: of Sam. And then also today you heard many hours
Speaker 2: of the prosecution's cross examination of Sam. You and Michael
Speaker 2: talked about the beginning of the cross at lunch, but
Speaker 2: a bunch more has happened right since then, So what
Speaker 2: were the highlights from that? What was the sort of
Speaker 2: key takeaways from cross examination today?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so cross is really the reason why reporters lined
Speaker 3: up extra early this morning. Everyone was really excited to
Speaker 3: see it. And it's in part because Danielle Sasuon, the prosecutor,
Speaker 3: has kind of become a bit of a cult hero
Speaker 3: of the trial, I would say. And the thing about
Speaker 3: her is that she's pretty petite, she's kind of hunched,
Speaker 3: very smiley, and she kind of comes across as a
Speaker 3: little bit goofy Early in the trial, she told the
Speaker 3: judge that she accidentally walked into the jurors room and
Speaker 3: the lawyers really are not allowed to talk to the jurors,
Speaker 3: and she said that she apologized and they all laughed
Speaker 3: at her, and she just wanted that to be on
Speaker 3: the record. You know, her mom comes to the courtroom sometimes,
Speaker 3: so that's kind of her vibe.
Speaker 2: Do you took her accidentally walking into the jury room
Speaker 2: was not an accident? Do you think that was some
Speaker 2: kind of ten dimensional chess?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: I don't think that.
Speaker 2: I mean it could be, right, Like I presume she's very,
Speaker 2: very very smart.
Speaker 3: Yes, but I also think she's a woman who really
Speaker 3: really respects rules. Okay, and that's why she's a prosecutor.
Speaker 2: So okay, so you're setting her up. She's this interesting
Speaker 2: cult figure. This is her big dramatic moment, right, this
Speaker 2: is her You can't handle the truth moment.
Speaker 3: Yes, And it's a huge deal right to be getting
Speaker 3: to do cross examination to this, you know, in call
Speaker 3: her case where the defendant who's the CEO, actually took
Speaker 3: the stand. And the other thing I want to say
Speaker 3: is that when she does cross examination, it's like she
Speaker 3: completely transforms as a person right Like she does that,
Speaker 3: her hunch becomes straight, her voice becomes really commanding. It
Speaker 3: feels like, you know, like a knife cutting almost like
Speaker 3: it's really it's scary. You definitely think you don't want
Speaker 3: to wrong her. And that's why I think people were
Speaker 3: looking forward to see this battle of her versus.
Speaker 2: Sam Danielle the knife sassoon versus s.
Speaker 3: Behalf exactly, and I would say she one hundred percent delivered. Wow,
Speaker 3: it went really really fast, Like she would ask Sam
Speaker 3: Bankman free to question, and usually his answer would be
Speaker 3: something like I don't recall that, and then she would
Speaker 3: show us a tweet or play a podcast clip or
Speaker 3: pull up a news clip that shows the opposite of
Speaker 3: what he said, and they just went back and forth.
Speaker 3: Someone who was in the courtroom said that it was
Speaker 3: like they were playing ping pong and the jury was
Speaker 3: just going from moving their heads, from Sassoon to Sam,
Speaker 3: from Sassoon to Sam Well and.
Speaker 2: Who was scoring more points.
Speaker 3: I don't know if Sam BigMan Freed really scored any points.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, so Sassoon won. If it was a ping
Speaker 2: pong match.
Speaker 3: I would say that so far Sassoon won. I mean,
Speaker 3: what's funny is that nothing really new came out because
Speaker 3: she was really just using his own words to bury him.
Speaker 2: Really nothing new in terms of what has been news,
Speaker 2: or nothing new in terms of what the jurors have seen.
Speaker 2: I mean, was there stuff that was new to the jurors.
Speaker 3: I think definitely nothing new that's news because it was
Speaker 3: mostly based off of news. It was a great day
Speaker 3: for the reporters since you know, the New York Times
Speaker 3: was mentioned.
Speaker 2: We all got to see their work up on the screen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Zeke
Speaker 3: Fox's book, and it was all things that we had
Speaker 3: covered earlier. Basically, you know, Sam BigMan Frey talked a
Speaker 3: lot about how there's this wall between him and all
Speaker 3: and how he wasn't involved in trading on Alameda, and
Speaker 3: then she pointed out all these conversations that he had
Speaker 3: with Caroline Allison and Sam Trabuco, who also used to
Speaker 3: be the head of Alameda where he was suggesting trades,
Speaker 3: and then she played a podcast of him saying that
Speaker 3: he doesn't give a podcast episode of him telling a
Speaker 3: journalist that he doesn't offer Alameda trading advice because of
Speaker 3: the wall. So it was things like that. It was
Speaker 3: all things that we knew, but all coming very rapidly,
Speaker 3: and all just kind of painting a picture of Sam
Speaker 3: Makman Freed being a man who you can't trust.
Speaker 2: And so when you take in your mind now the
Speaker 2: balance of Sam's testimony on direct questioning by defense and
Speaker 2: then his testimony on cross by the knife, what you know,
Speaker 2: what do you make of it all? Where do you land?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just much easier to feel like the
Speaker 3: prosecution did better, if for no other reason then that
Speaker 3: it feels like Danielle Sassoon is very sure of herself
Speaker 3: and knows exactly the story that she's telling, and on
Speaker 3: direct it didn't feel that way. It didn't feel like
Speaker 3: the defense lawyer brought that same sort of conviction for
Speaker 3: the story that he was telling.
Speaker 2: We'll be back in a minute with one last thing,
Speaker 2: Lady Jane. It's been a minute and now we're back
Speaker 2: with one last thing. I feel like we're getting to
Speaker 2: the stage of the trial where where we're almost to
Speaker 2: one last thing left in the trial. Not quite though, right,
Speaker 2: So what is left? What still has to happen before
Speaker 2: this trial is over?
Speaker 3: Exactly? It's more like a few last things.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: We have two more hours of cross examination with Sam,
Speaker 3: and then redirect, which is when the defense lawyers can
Speaker 3: go back and ask Sam a few more questions, and
Speaker 3: then the prosecution is going to put on a rebuttal case,
Speaker 3: which will also be short. That's just two witnesses who
Speaker 3: will each be on the stand for about thirty minutes.
Speaker 2: Rebuttal meaning rebudding the defense case exactly, okay.
Speaker 3: And it'll be a data analyst from the FBI. And
Speaker 3: then someone who works at Apollo, Sam Mcmunfreed was hoping
Speaker 3: that Apollo would rescue FTX when it, you know, exploded, okay.
Speaker 2: Apollo is a giant private equity firm.
Speaker 3: I believe, yes, And the question at issue is what
Speaker 3: did he tell people at Apollo? Okay? And then we
Speaker 3: have you know, closing statements and jury instructions.
Speaker 2: And then the jury goes off and tries to come
Speaker 2: to a.
Speaker 3: Verdict and no one knows how long that will take.
Speaker 2: Good to talk to you as always, Lyddy Jine, Hope
Speaker 2: you get to.
Speaker 3: Talk again, Souper Yes, talk to you seeing Jacob Bye.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in your feed soon with more expert
Speaker 1: analysis and news from Sam Bankmanfreed's trial. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: This episode of Judging Sam was hosted by Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 1: Lydia jin Catt is our court reporter. Catherine Gerardau and
Speaker 1: Nisha Venken produced this show. Sophie Crane is our editor.
Speaker 1: Our music was composed by Matthias Bossi and John Evans
Speaker 1: of stell Wagon Symphonet. Judging Sam is a production of
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