Speaker 1: But the rule of law exists in this country. It
Speaker 1: came to this verdict, and you know at this point,
Speaker 1: thank you to the jurors, thank you to this judge.
Speaker 1: Thank you to all the court security officers and the
Speaker 1: witnesses and everybody who's they and their family members had
Speaker 1: to walk into the belly of the beast to do this.
Speaker 1: But this is the system working in a fair way.
Speaker 2: The system working in a fair way. They were giddy
Speaker 2: all afternoon and evening on MSNBC yesterday and just the
Speaker 2: rule of law has been restored. No one is above
Speaker 2: the law. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: To discuss the proceedings and reaction to them, please welcome
Speaker 3: back to the Armstrong and Getty Show. Retired Superior Court
Speaker 3: judge Larry Goodman, who retired a few years back after
Speaker 3: thirty one years in the Superior Court handling mostly murder
Speaker 3: trials in Alameda County in the Bay Area of California.
Speaker 4: Mister judge, sir Larry, how are you.
Speaker 5: I'm doing good? How are you guys this morning?
Speaker 4: Good?
Speaker 3: Initial question, you're a superior court judge. Now do you
Speaker 3: start in the inferior court? Get promoted to the mediocre
Speaker 3: court and end up in the superior court.
Speaker 4: How does that work?
Speaker 5: Well, actually, I got appointed initially to the municipal court
Speaker 5: and I was there for two and a half years
Speaker 5: and then elevated the Superior Court.
Speaker 2: I have a superior tone.
Speaker 4: Does that help?
Speaker 2: Sometimes?
Speaker 5: That's why you can't fall back on yeah.
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, baffle them with bullets, as they say. All right,
Speaker 3: More seriously, Larry, what was your initial reaction to the
Speaker 3: news of the verdict yesterday?
Speaker 5: It was like a gut punch. I mean, it's it
Speaker 5: was hard to take because I know what went on,
Speaker 5: and I know how most of the people that I
Speaker 5: worked with took their oath of office as a judge
Speaker 5: to do the right thing, regardless of how you felt.
Speaker 5: And this judge, obviously that oath didn't mean anything to him.
Speaker 5: His rulings, his mannerisms, his uh, the instructions, the whole
Speaker 5: thing was just such a farce that it actually made
Speaker 5: me sad and made me angry.
Speaker 3: So, without getting into the real legal weeds, what was
Speaker 3: it about the instructions that bothered you?
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, I don't know why you don't
Speaker 5: give the instructions to the jurors so they can go
Speaker 5: in and read them when you've got fifty five pages.
Speaker 5: But also the idea that they didn't have to have
Speaker 5: unanimous as to what the underlying one of the three
Speaker 5: crimes were that was supposed to make this a felony,
Speaker 5: the fact that they referred to Cone as an accomplice,
Speaker 5: which implies that there must be a crime, All those
Speaker 5: different kind of things that I guess he took the
Speaker 5: standard instructions and did some creative writing to kind of
Speaker 5: dri direct it towards the guilty verdict.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been a little cautious because I'm not an
Speaker 3: attorney nor judge. But the idea that our system has
Speaker 3: this sacred principle that you've got to be convicted by
Speaker 3: jury or your peers beyond a reasonable doubt of a
Speaker 3: specific offense that is laid out quite specifically by the government.
Speaker 3: But you can take a felon I'm a misdemeanor and
Speaker 3: mutate it into a felony based on I don't know
Speaker 3: a crime, some crime, whatever crime doesn't matter, So you
Speaker 3: can supercharge a specific charge with a vague reference to
Speaker 3: some crime that may or may not exist.
Speaker 4: That bothers me a lot.
Speaker 5: Well, it should, particularly if you're the defendant. I mean,
Speaker 5: we talked about this last week or the week before that.
Speaker 5: A real judge would have made the prosecution state, specifically
Speaker 5: before the trial ever started, what are the underlying crimes
Speaker 5: that you're going to prove to make this become a felony.
Speaker 2: Well, he stated the opposite in the closing argument or
Speaker 2: in his dury instructions. Right, you can have different three
Speaker 2: of you could think this is the crime, three of
Speaker 2: you could think this is the crime whatever.
Speaker 5: It was a smortus board of possible crimes to get
Speaker 5: to a felony. And then the idea that the defense
Speaker 5: has to go first in closing arguments. They have no
Speaker 5: chance to rebut what the prosecution says when they finally
Speaker 5: did start laying out with the potential underlying crimes might which.
Speaker 2: Is which is why some of my favorite legal pundits
Speaker 2: say it's obviously a due process problem because you can't
Speaker 2: you can't rebut what you're being charged with because you
Speaker 2: don't even.
Speaker 5: Know exactly exactly. I mean, that's the key to the
Speaker 5: Bill of Rights and the right to do processes. You
Speaker 5: have to be able to know what you're charged with
Speaker 5: so you can mount a defense.
Speaker 3: All right, So just let's bottom line this. So I
Speaker 3: were to say to you, hey, Larry, I think this
Speaker 3: is a fine judge, and this verdict it will stand
Speaker 3: up on appeal. I'll bet you a fifty thousand bucks.
Speaker 3: I'm right, What do you say?
Speaker 5: I'll take the bet. Really, No, it's going to get
Speaker 5: reversed unless unless this corruption goes all the way through
Speaker 5: the appellate level of the New York courts, which I
Speaker 5: don't think it does. There's just so many things he
Speaker 5: did wrong. From the question should have been a change
Speaker 5: of venue. He definitely should have recused himself, the instructions
Speaker 5: the way they were given, the rulings that he made,
Speaker 5: not letting the guy testify that was the FEC expert.
Speaker 5: And even though he couldn't testify, one of the underlying
Speaker 5: crimes was a violation of the federal election laws, and
Speaker 5: they I bet the jury didn't know what the federal
Speaker 5: election law was that he supposedly violated. So, I mean,
Speaker 5: there's just tons of things that are going to be
Speaker 5: to be reversed.
Speaker 2: Okay, then you've made a perfect argument to set this up.
Speaker 2: And this is where I've been confused since yesterday afternoon,
Speaker 2: when I would hear legal experts say, very unlikely Donald
Speaker 2: Trump will do any jail time, Very unlikely. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Guy with this guy with that. Okay, this is the
Speaker 2: same judge you just described that's gonna make the decision.
Speaker 2: Doesn't that mean there's a chance that he's going to
Speaker 2: decide that this guy that has bad mouthed me and
Speaker 2: my family and I've had to hit him with a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of warnings and fines and has shown no
Speaker 2: contrition whatsoever. Screw this rich guy who thinks he can
Speaker 2: do whatever. I'm gonna throw him in jail.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I never underestimate what this judge will do.
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't think he will do that. I
Speaker 5: think there would be such a total outcry. I think
Speaker 5: there would in the public. I think there would be
Speaker 5: avenues where they could the defense could probably stop him
Speaker 5: from the actually putting him in jail. But this is
Speaker 5: the same judge that presided over the Trump Organization case.
Speaker 5: He presided over Trump's financial guy for one of his corporations.
Speaker 5: He's got the Steve Banyer case. He's making a career
Speaker 5: out of Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: So so we're talking to Larry Goodman, retired Superior Court
Speaker 3: judge about the Trump trial and verdict. Obviously, so, Larry,
Speaker 3: I'm sure you've seen as a judge for several decades
Speaker 3: bad attorneys, good attorneys, great attorneys. Our theory around here
Speaker 3: was that the Trump defense was more a political defense
Speaker 3: than a we're going to win this trial no matter
Speaker 3: what it takes defense. What did you take away from
Speaker 3: the Trump defense team's performance.
Speaker 5: I've never been real impressed with the defense lawyers that
Speaker 5: he's had, and I'm not sure why. It's just they
Speaker 5: seem to kind of plod through things. They don't come
Speaker 5: up with any like really creative defenses or any cohesive defenses.
Speaker 5: They kind of respond rather than attack, and so I
Speaker 5: think it was political. I think they set it up.
Speaker 5: I think they kind of saw the writing on the
Speaker 5: wall and they kind of mounted the defense so he
Speaker 5: could end up being the martyr before Berdy came back.
Speaker 2: Which might be smart. I mean, based on a lot
Speaker 2: of the reaction we've seen today, it might have been
Speaker 2: the smartest move. I heard somebody point out what they
Speaker 2: would have liked best was an acquittal, but they decided
Speaker 2: that was very, very unlikely. So what they would like
Speaker 2: second best is a guilty verdict. Yeah, for the martyr
Speaker 2: reasons you just said, Well.
Speaker 5: He makes the martyr won't be reversed on appeal before
Speaker 5: the election. So you got to get what you can
Speaker 5: get and build use it to your advantage, which is
Speaker 5: look what they did to me. I'm a political like
Speaker 5: you said yesterday, I'm a political prisoner.
Speaker 4: Oof.
Speaker 2: That's a little strong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, mine, Well he raised about the GDP of France
Speaker 3: in three hours. Larry, I'm gonna put you on the spot.
Speaker 3: Creativity wise, I think anybody with a conscience and reasonable
Speaker 3: intelligence understands why this sort of law fair where you
Speaker 3: have a local prosecutor attempting to bring down a national candidate,
Speaker 3: is so dangerous. How easy would it be if the Republicans,
Speaker 3: for instance, said, Okay, this is the way you want
Speaker 3: to fight, We're gonna we're gonna get to work on
Speaker 3: cooking up some more of this sort of thing.
Speaker 4: How easy would it be for, say, I don't know.
Speaker 3: What's a good conservative city an Omaha prosecutor to cook
Speaker 3: up something. If I don't know, maybe Joe Biden gave
Speaker 3: speeches in Omaha through the years and got paid for
Speaker 3: him or whatever. How hard would that be to get
Speaker 3: this really cranking.
Speaker 5: Well, the genies out of the bottle, and you can't
Speaker 5: put the genie back in the bottle, So it'd be
Speaker 5: pretty easy. What about the Attorney General of Arizona suing
Speaker 5: majorcas or charging him with a violation of the borders
Speaker 5: of their state, or adding to crime or some conspiracy
Speaker 5: to allow drug dealing to go on in Arizona. I mean,
Speaker 5: you can come up with all kinds of things. And
Speaker 5: the thing that's kind of interesting, Republicans don't seem to
Speaker 5: play dirty like that a lot, and they play they
Speaker 5: play hardball. Republicans play softball sometimes. But it's certainly easy
Speaker 5: to do.
Speaker 3: Well, and especially if you remember, as I'm just remembering,
Speaker 3: you don't need to get a conviction necessarily, right, You
Speaker 3: just want to drag him through the mud, make them
Speaker 3: spend money and time exactly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, it's that's all they did. I mean,
Speaker 5: they got the conviction, but even if they'd been a
Speaker 5: not guilty verdict, they succeeded in making him the story
Speaker 5: and making him look bad for what six weeks was it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the question really of this whole thing, is
Speaker 2: is this an outlier blip or is the Genie out
Speaker 2: of the bottle, and this is where we're going to
Speaker 2: go from here on out. That's that's the question of
Speaker 2: this whole thing to me.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't know how do you end go? No,
Speaker 5: I'm just I don't know how you would undo. Once
Speaker 5: it happens, it's the path has been started, So I
Speaker 5: don't know how you bring it back.
Speaker 3: Well, only if there's a recognition among conservatives and moderates
Speaker 3: that this is a terrible path. This is an incredibly
Speaker 3: dangerous Pandora's box. We've opened here and we need to
Speaker 3: shut it but fast. Although I don't know if you
Speaker 3: heard the freedom loving quote of the day this morning
Speaker 3: at the very beginning of the show. It was from
Speaker 3: a Greek historian who's talking about precedence and how no
Speaker 3: matter how narrow the path upon which they enter, they
Speaker 3: create for themselves a highway where they wander with the
Speaker 3: utmost latitude, and no one thinks the course is evil
Speaker 3: for himself, which has proven profitable to others. Wow, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: how appropriate is that? Man?
Speaker 4: Human nature does not change.
Speaker 5: Nope, And like I said, once they do it, and
Speaker 5: if they're successful, they'll do it again.
Speaker 3: Retired Superior Court judge Larry Goodman, Larry, we always appreciate
Speaker 3: the time and the insights.
Speaker 4: Thanks a million.
Speaker 5: Hey, thank you guys. Take care we well.
Speaker 2: And since this was a you know, this was a
Speaker 2: local New York guy in New York, it wouldn't have
Speaker 2: to be for instance, if you just if Gavin Newsom
Speaker 2: is the nominee, it doesn't have to be a red
Speaker 2: state that goes after gavinet. It could be a red
Speaker 2: county in calib blue blue California, because there are our
Speaker 2: red counties and red towns. And you get that person
Speaker 2: to sue Gavin Newsom because the homeless problem you've allowed
Speaker 2: has cost us this much money, you know, that sort
Speaker 2: of thing, and you tie them up in court.
Speaker 3: And yeah, there were some ren counties during the utterly
Speaker 3: unconstantutional and I mean, by the specific wording of the
Speaker 3: California Constitution, the unconstitutional shutting down of the economy during COVID.
Speaker 3: They're closing the schools. But the red counties really just
Speaker 3: kind of said, hey, we're coming at you unless you
Speaker 3: you soften up and do the right thing, as opposed
Speaker 3: to actually dragging them into court and making it happen.
Speaker 3: But yeah, the Pandora's box is open now we.
Speaker 2: We and it's it's interesting to me that, at least
Speaker 2: on the left leaning channels, I didn't see one person
Speaker 2: bring up, you know, a possible downside to this, not one.
Speaker 3: That is striking and at the risk of sounding hyper partisan,
Speaker 3: I am more than willing to take on their arguments
Speaker 3: and beat them in this discussion one hundred percent. That's
Speaker 3: our job. I mean, that's your job as a voter
Speaker 3: and as an American. They don't even they pretend as
Speaker 3: though the counter arguments don't even exist, as you've just indicated,
Speaker 3: which is well, let's a measure of something.
Speaker 4: You can call it what you want.
Speaker 2: Joe Biden made a big decision on Ukraine yesterday that
Speaker 2: may have happened the day of the verdict so that
Speaker 2: it didn't make the news. Really I'm not sure. Seems
Speaker 2: like a heck of a coincidence. Anyway. Other stuff to
Speaker 2: talk about too, and more on the Trump trial, all
Speaker 2: on the way Armstrong and Getty