WEBVTT - Trump vs. His First Big Fraud Verdict 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:05.080 Welcome to Crash Course, a podcast about business, political, and 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.080 social disruption and what we can learn from it. I'm 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:13.360 Tim O'Brien. Today's Crash Course. Trump versus his first big 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.919 fraud verdict. Donald Trump's civil fraud trial in New York 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:20.760 is drawing to a close. Testimony recently ended, and sometime 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:23.400 in early twenty twenty four, a state judge will rule 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:26.400 on the case. It's within the judge's power to impose 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:28.240 a fine of as much as two hundred and fifty 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:31.720 million dollars on Trump and permanently ban him and his 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:35.479 company from ever doing business in New York again, the 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.720 state where Trump grew rich, may send him into financial exile. 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:43.040 State prosecutors alleged that Trump arbitrarily inflated the value of 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.840 his assets to secure bank loans and deceive insurers, while 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.240 deflating the value of those same assets whenever he wanted 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.760 to lower his tax bill. Trump, his two eldest sons, 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.080 and their lawyers all say they never misled anyone and 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:01.400 nobody suffered any financial damages. They say, no harm, no foul. 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.440 The New York case is one of several lodged against 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.640 the former president. He also faces criminal fraud charges in 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:11.400 New York state election fraud chargers in Georgia, and two 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:14.520 federal cases involving the January sixth insurrection at the US 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:19.240 Capital and the misappropriation of classified documents. All of this 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:21.280 is landing while Trump appears to be well on his 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.600 way to securing the Republican nomination for the presidency next year. 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.480 It's serious, it's a mess, and the rule of law 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:32.160 is being severely tested. So I am jazz to discuss 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.399 all of this with Andrew Wiseman. Andrew, a professor at 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.760 NYU Law School, spent many years as a federal prosecutor 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.160 and investigator. He tackled organized crime cases with the US 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:45.959 Attorney's Office and fraud cases at the Department of Justice. 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:48.960 President George W. Bush appointed him as the FBI's lead 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:53.520 investigator in the infamous Enron case. Special Counsel Robert Muller 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.800 recruited him to be the lead prosecutor in his probe 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.840 of Team Trump's intersection with Russia before and during the 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:04.240 twenty sixteen presidential election. And Andrew, the author of Where 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:08.680 Law Ends, knows a lot. Welcome to Crash course, Andrew. 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:09.880 So great to be here. 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.079 You know you had this reputation as a pit bull prosecutor. 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:17.320 That's what they said during the Enron prosecution. And I'm 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:19.799 sure that Trump team were freaked out when Robert Muller 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:22.200 recruited you to join in his effort. And I've always 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:24.919 found you to be an absolute sweetie, you know, easy 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:30.000 to talk with, articulate, judicious. I would never call you 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:32.600 a pit bull. But I actually haven't ever been prosecuted 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.280 by you either, so. 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:37.680 I haven't had that pleasure yet. 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.160 I haven't had that pleasure yet. Would you describe yourself 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:40.800 as a pitbull? 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.360 A friend of mine on the Mueller's Special Council team said, 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.800 you know what the secret is, You're really squishy. So 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:52.560 I think some of that has probably deserved. When I 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:54.799 started at as a young prosecutor and I was doing 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:58.360 organized crime work here in New York, I think, like 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:01.520 a lot of young prosecutors, probably a bit over the 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:05.680 top and impurious, So I think that that may have helped. 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:09.200 But I think it then just becomes in some ways, 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:14.079 it's kind of a useful thing for defendants to fear you, 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:16.119 because you know, you're trying to get people to cooperate, 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.480 and if they think that you're really tenacious and you're 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.960 going to find everything out. That's not a bad thing 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.680 for defendants and their counsel to think. I do think 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.320 it's a bit undeserved, but you know what it is 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.280 what it is, and people make their own judgments as 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:32.280 to what they'd like to think. 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:34.880 I mean, that's very much the way I think about it. 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:36.920 When I think about you. You know, we're not friends, 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:40.560 we're acquaintances. We've done some TV together, we recently chatted 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:42.280 over a couple of glasses of wine at a party 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.880 of Manhattan. But interacting with you in these situations and 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:48.120 then watching your professional life, I do see these sort 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:53.240 of dualities. You're a very normal, judicious man personally, and 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.279 you take your role very seriously, and you were prosecuting 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.400 people like John Gotti, I would mention, and the Enron 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:03.400 folks boy scouts as we all know, but in a 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:05.720 broader way. Tell me how you think about the role 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:09.880 of prosecutors in our society, Like, what is their fundamental 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.280 role in terms of ensuring that the rule of law 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:15.000 is a viable and stable thing. 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:20.839 Well, I think that prosecutors have enormous amount of power 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.479 and they also have a lot of discretion where there's 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:29.440 spec to who gets charged and who doesn't. So there's 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.359 an ineffable quality that I think you look for when 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:37.000 you're hiring people to be a prosecutor, which is maturity 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:40.839 and judgment. But exactly what that means in any particular 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.800 case can vary, and it's also hard to articulate that. 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:50.520 But I think it's really important to understand how weighty 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:56.080 that power is and the dual function of a prosecutor, 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.719 which is to do justice, and that means it doesn't 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:04.040 mean just winning the case. It is adherence to the 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:06.960 rule of law, even if it's not going to help 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.640 you win. I won't say there's nothing worse, but it 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:13.279 is incredibly upsetting to people who've been in the department 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:19.120 when you see prosecutors who are not scrupulously adhering to 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.760 that dual role of what it means to be a prosecutor. 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.480 So let's spend a minute and talk about the Muller 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:29.160 probe and the Attendant Muller Report, which you wrote about 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.960 in your book How Law Ends. I read your book 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:34.880 and I found it to be poignant in a way 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.960 in that you were surrounded by great people. Robert Muller 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:42.960 an admirable and legendary prosecutor and investigator himself, taking on 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:47.719 a seminal political and national security issue involving Donald Trump's 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:50.040 intersection with Russians, whether they helped them in the election 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.640 or did other things to thwart Hillary Clinton. And you 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.479 got a lot of results out of that. Paul Mannifort 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.720 and Michael Flynn were indicted, thirty four individuals and three companies, 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.840 char you got eight guilty. Please. At the end of 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:05.400 the day, Muller decided not to charge Donald Trump with 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:08.160 obstruction of justice, which is one thing I wanted to 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:10.240 talk with you a little bit about. He also chose 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:12.960 not to follow the money trail, which always perplexed me. 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:17.000 And then you know, William Barr, donald Trump's attorney general, 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.560 in a four page statement, got to redefine a four 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.839 hundred and forty eight page report in the popular imagination. 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:25.760 I think you refer to the report in your book 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:29.159 as mealy mouth, if I'm quoting you correctly, and that 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.520 Muller might have been overly confident himself in Barr's own 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:34.400 respect for the rule of law or how he was 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.520 operating as a political player. So that's a lot of 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:41.240 preamble from me to kind of ask you about how 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.159 you think about that experience, you know, in the Muller probe. 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:48.160 Well, that was a lot of different aspects. So let 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:49.960 me just go back over a couple things in that 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.320 I'll go back to the big picture of your question. 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:57.400 I think that I did in my book describe certain 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:02.479 conclusions in the book as mealy mouth. Particularly the conclusions 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:07.839 of Volume two of the Mellow Report was about the obstruction, 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.520 and you know, it had famously the line about if 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.440 we could conclude that he did it, we would not 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.360 say this. It would have like three double negatives, and 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:21.600 it was just very hard to follow, and I always thought, 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.800 who are we kidding? Volume one said essentially that the 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:29.760 proof didn't rise to the level of being able to 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:34.680 say that there was actual coordination as opposed to a 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.560 lot of people on both sides who wanted to coordinate, 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:41.040 and there was active assistance from Russia, but we didn't 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.840 see enough evidence of actual coordination. 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:47.840 To prove it criminal conspiracy. There was certainly cooperation, but 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:49.040 not enough evidence to say it. 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:52.240 We're doing that in volume one, who's going to really 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:54.720 be fooled? In volume two, where we're not saying that 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.520 it's like so obvious that we're saying there is it 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.480 turns out it turns out I was wrong. It's like 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:04.080 that kind of double negatives had people going, Gee, what 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.560 are they saying? So I thought that was merely matt 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:08.040 that I thought we should have just said it. The 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:11.120 other thing that's really important to note is we could 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:16.160 not charge the then president of the United States with 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:21.200 a crime because the DOJ policy was that a sitting 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.160 president could not be charged by the Department of Justice. 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.280 There were two Office of Legal Counsel opinions on that, 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:30.560 and even though we're in the Special Council's Office, the 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.800 Special Council is part of the Department of Justice. We 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.880 had to adhere to Department of Justice rules, so we 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.160 did not have that authority. So, you know, one of 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.920 the things that I talked about in my book is 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:47.840 that I thought of being really great if, like Rob Rosenstein, 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.040 when he appointed us, had made it clear to people 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.600 what our purview was and what we could and could 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.520 not do. You know, we were all very aware that 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:00.719 people in the public were thinking, oh, day, now there 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.160 could be an indictment of the sitting president, and we 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.480 were like, that's not even remotely on the table. We 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.840 cannot do that, we would have rightly been fired. I'm 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:12.880 not saying that the policy is necessarily a good one. 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.880 I'm not even sure that the law requires that a 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:20.760 sitting president cannot be charged. I have a whole theory 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.880 as to why I actually think a sitting president could 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.040 be charged by the federal government. I think the States 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:29.880 raised a very separate issue, but we didn't have that 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.840 luxury because we just couldn't make up DOJ policy. We 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:35.400 had to adhere to it or be fired. 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.640 Also, remember it was in the context of Trump having 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:42.319 fired Jim Comey as the head of the FBI after 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.200 he was probing some of these issues himself. 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.160 Yeah, well that, and you know, it was just a 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:51.880 very hard investigation to do. I remember feeling very much 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:53.840 the same feeling I had when I worked on the 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:58.160 Enron Task Force, which is, you feel an enormous amount 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:03.680 of pressure that's coming from within you to be thorough, 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.520 not make any mistakes, and to work as hard and 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:12.360 as fast as you can because the time clock that 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.120 you feel the pressure of that is that you feel 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:19.600 like the public deserves an answer, the political system deserves 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:23.400 an answer, as fast as humanly possible. So that it 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:28.280 was a very intense twenty two months, and a lot. 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:30.720 Of the dynamics you encountered during that probe are the 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:34.480 ones that still exist around all of the current Trump prosecutions. 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.280 He's an unusual person to prosecute or investigate because he 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:45.120 inveighs willy nilly against law enforcement officials, judges. He's threatening. Often, 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:47.960 he calls up his troops. You know that Trump's supporters 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:50.360 across the country to get on his side in these matters. 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:54.640 So you've lived already through what other prosecutors and investigators 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.640 are dealing with right now. I want to come back 0:10:57.679 --> 0:10:59.960 to one thing. On the Russia part of the probe. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.480 Was always curious to me that money as a reason 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:06.880 for Trump's intersection with Russians beyond just his own interest 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:11.320 in a political victory or defeating Hillary Clinton. But he, obviously, 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:13.800 you know, came into the twenty sixteen race with a 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.160 long history of voracious deal making, and if you put 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:19.760 a bag of cash on Donald Trump's desk, he would 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.520 bark and bark and bark again. It seemed to me 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:27.160 like a good and useful evidentiary path for Mahler's team 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:28.360 to go down. 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.480 You are, there many things that I totally agreed with 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:35.320 what my boss, Director Miller, was doing and the calls 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.560 he made. It Obviously it's his decisions. It wasn't mine 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.440 or anyone else who reporting to him. But there's somewhere 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:46.080 I disagreed. This is one where I understood initially why 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:52.760 we did not investigate the financial aspect of the case initially, 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.240 but disagreed why we didn't come back to it. And 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:58.079 the reason I say that I wrote about this in 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:01.400 the book, which is if you were remember early on 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:04.760 we were just sort of up and running. In June 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.840 of twenty seventeen, Donald Trump had said that sort of 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.960 essentially a kids relationship with Deutsche Bank, the financial stuff 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:14.959 was sort of off limits in a red line, And 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:19.400 when we were just starting out, I could see saying, look, well, 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.120 there's so much else to do. Let's get a toe hold, 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.560 let's get our feet wet and see where these cases 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:29.200 are going, and then be able to figure out how 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:33.480 the financial piece could play into any particular part of 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.800 the investigation. I was doing sort of manifort and all 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:42.360 things manifort related, and so my remit did allow for 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:46.840 a financial investigation with respect to them. Remember, we had 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:51.280 to follow Rod Rosstein's parameters with respect to what we 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:53.599 could look at. It was not like being in the 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.640 US Attorney's office, where it's like any federal crime. So 0:12:56.800 --> 0:13:00.720 I had that luxury. But my colleague Gene Ree, who 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.559 headed up Team r which was Team Russia, I was 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.520 Team M which is we were not very creative. M 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:11.360 was Manafort, So she didn't have that sort of broad remit. 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.200 And I think what the thought was in the beginning, 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.679 like why cross a line that we didn't necessarily need 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:19.959 to cross at that point we didn't even understand at 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:23.640 the moment we now learned that Don McGahn had been 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:27.320 approached by the President to fire US, and you know, 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.200 there was just a few weeks into the investigation. So 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.120 I think that that is a more justifiable time period 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.080 to have said there's no reason to do it now. 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.920 My issue is I thought that, for instance, as Michael 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:46.600 Cohen came in and talked about the Moscow project, that 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:52.120 gave some more impetus for doing a financial investigation. 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:55.240 Then, just for our listener's sake, the Moscow project was 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:58.800 a real estate project in Moscow to build a Trump 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:04.520 tower in Moscow. Trump was actively trying to make real 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:07.240 both during the campaign and then the run up to 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:10.439 the campaign, it wasn't a past issue, and it obviously 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:14.000 you don't build anything in Moscow unless Vladimir Putin wants 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:16.040 to let you build something in Moscow. And that always 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:18.600 seemed to me like a very clear evidence of a 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.320 presidential candidate who could get played by a foreign power. 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:25.080 Yeah, and remember, people think of the Michael Cohen case 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:27.600 as one that was solely prosecuted by the Southern District 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:30.240 of New York, and in fact that isn't the case. 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:35.640 We were looking at Michael Cohen saw the Moscow piece 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:39.600 of it, we retained that because it was within our remit. 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:44.320 But when we saw that there were personal crimes and 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.680 sort of other crimes unrelated to our remit, those we 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:51.600 spun out to the Southern District of New York. And 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:55.280 obviously there was coordination of that, and he ultimately pleaded 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:59.240 guilty to both sets of charges. So that's why you 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.000 sort of have the different pieces, And that's a very 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:06.840 good way of understanding that we had limited jurisdiction because 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.280 we had to stay within what Rod Rosenstein said was 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.880 something we were allowed to investigate. If we had just 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.400 been in the US Attorney's office, we would have done everything. 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:18.800 So, in other words, none of this was arbitrary. The 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:23.160 reason the money trail wasn't pursued was because the remit 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:25.240 had reasonable and narrow boundaries. 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:27.680 That's true. But I do want to say I do 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:32.960 think that as our case progressed, there were grounds that 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:35.680 we could have used to do more. And so that 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:37.680 is an area where I do think that we could 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:41.160 have revisited it and could have made the arguments about 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.840 doing more on the financial front as our case got 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:49.560 deeper and we had more factual predication for that type 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:52.440 of investigation. So I don't think I can blame the 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:56.720 limited remit entirely for why we didn't do the financial 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.480 piece as broadly as you would if you were in 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:00.760 these turn office. 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.560 Since we've talked about the money trail, this brings us 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.160 to Leticia James's case, which is all about the money. 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:08.320 I want to before we get into that, take a 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:10.520 quick break so we can hear from one of our sponsors, 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:12.560 and then we get back. I want to dive into 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:20.440 that case with you. I'm back with Andrew Weissman, and 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:24.520 we're discussing the New York Attorney General's prosecution of Donald Trump. 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:29.120 So Letitia James, the New York State Attorney General, begins 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:32.680 investigating Donald Trump in twenty nineteen for financial fraud, as 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.000 I noted in the top of the show, and in 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:39.280 twenty twenty two she sues him, his company, his three 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:43.480 eldest children, and two officers of the company, his CFO 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:47.640 and his chief operating officer for financial fraud. Their defense 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:52.560 really is Trump always exaggerates, no one was harmed, fake issue. 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.240 This is a political prosecution. That's essentially what their defense 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:57.040 is boiled down to. 0:16:57.360 --> 0:16:59.320 I'm going to complicate that, and you can tell me 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:03.880 what I'm missing. So I think that the parts of 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:08.600 the case that seem very strong from the outside. I 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:14.560 think that the information about Trump Tower and his apartment 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.520 and the fact that it was valued at three times 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.560 the square footage seems like a rock crusher. I don't 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.240 know how you get around that. And it's not just 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.080 that because somebody who would do that, you have to ask, well, 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:30.080 if they're going to do that, and it's so blatant, 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.440 do you really think that's the only time that they're 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:34.480 willing to do it. And if you don't have the 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.879 marl fiber to be saying, that's not what I'm going 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.600 to engage in why would you just draw the line 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.320 there when the other things are sort of harder to catch. 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:48.919 I also think the valuation at mar Lago seems pretty 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.520 not quite as but pretty open and shut, and that 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.679 is that he valued it taking away all sorts of 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:02.920 restrictions that he'd agreed to on that property. And a 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.920 similar thing happened in other real estates eleven Springs. 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:08.360 They stayed up exactly where. 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:10.800 He would, for instance, say well, I'm assuming that this 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:13.280 was not rent regulated, and you know I live in 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:15.679 New York City. The idea that I'm going to value 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.560 something is if there weren't rent control departments in the building. 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:21.800 Just to give you an example, I mean, it's obviously 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.040 there's a really big difference in terms of valuation if 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.240 you have tenants who are rent controlled versus free market. 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:32.080 So I know that Trump's team put on a defense 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.040 expert to say that that's legit to do that. That 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:39.560 just seemed really strained to me as accurate. 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:41.440 Well, but I think I'm sorry to jump in here, 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:42.800 but I think the thing that we got to get 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.800 clear about is what was he doing with these valuations? 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:47.800 So you know, we can all say it's bonkers that 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:51.240 Donald Trump valued this triplex at the top of Trump 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:53.840 Tower that looks like it was designed by like Louis 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:56.760 the fourteenth on a drug trip and put on his 0:18:56.800 --> 0:18:58.840 own papers, and what he was saying to the press 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.080 and everyone that yes, this is three times what it 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:03.440 really should be, and my jet is worth ten times 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:06.480 and it has golden toilets, and you know, I've got 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.639 these towers everywhere they're ten x what everyone else is 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.879 building is worth. But if he's actually not using that 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:18.119 exaggeration to either secure loans he shouldn't get and banks 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:21.440 are duped in the process, or you know the converse, 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:23.440 which under the top of the shows that he overly 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:26.560 deflated the values of those some of those same assets 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.119 when it lowers his tax bill, that there's actually a 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:33.800 consequence of his inflation or deflation, that the act of 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.520 inflating is just so what Donald Trump has spent sixty 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:39.959 of his seventy seven years doing this kind of stuff. 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:42.560 Oh yeah, there's a motive for all of that. The 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.480 motive is money. I mean, the motive is either as 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:47.960 you said, to pay less than taxes or to get 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:49.000 greater loans. 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:51.320 But isn't that the thing, though, Isn't that where the 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.879 bar here is for the prosecutors is to show it 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:58.080 isn't the simple act of him treating valuations like a 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.960 yo yo, It's that he used yo yo to hurt 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:03.040 someone and to defraud someone. 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:05.840 Yes, but that's sort of a legal piece, which is 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:08.600 so there's already been one cause of action which the 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:13.440 judge found before the trial started, found liability. And that's 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:17.960 because that first cause of action doesn't require mens rea, 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:22.960 doesn't require intent to defraud, nor did it require materiality 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.800 or reliance. So it's a very broad cause of action 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:29.440 under the law. I mean that is New York law. 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:32.399 I think the judge got that right. The other causes 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:38.120 of action that were on trial do require materiality and intent, 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:40.560 and so a lot of the things that we've been 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:44.600 talking about could go to Donald Trump's intent that he 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:47.480 wasn't intending to defraud because there was an expert who 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.560 said you could do this, et cetera. And also, remember 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:53.080 the standard here is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:56.040 It's just a preponderance, which is fifty percent and a 0:20:56.119 --> 0:21:00.840 hair anything over fifty percent, this state has establish it's 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.320 a case. And this is where I think that they 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:05.880 are parts of the case where I think they seem 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:11.200 stronger than others. And I'm curious as to what you thought, Tim, 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.439 because they did have people from Deutsche Bank, one of 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:19.360 the main lenders, saying essentially, hey, we did our own work, 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.880 we wanted to do work with him, we did our 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:28.440 own valuations, so essentially like we weren't really relying on 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:32.800 what he wrote down. Now, reliance is not actually an 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:36.560 element of the causes of action, meaning that the state 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:39.479 doesn't have to prove that Deutsche Bank relied. They just 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:43.400 have to show that there was an intent to deceive 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:47.199 Deutsche Bank, and that the kind of information that was 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.600 being put forward would be material. In other words, it's 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.240 not like what's your favorite color, it's something that would 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:56.639 be relevant, and I think all of this is the 0:21:56.720 --> 0:21:58.720 kind of thing that would be relevant. In my argument, 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:01.480 it would be if this isn't material, then why even 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:04.359 have the application? If it really doesn't matter what you 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:06.360 write down and you can make up the numbers, why 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.080 even have the application? And I think if you were 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:11.600 to ask the general counsel of Deutsche Bank, they would 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:14.040 have to say, well, of course we want truthful information 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:17.200 and we do care what people write down it would 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.399 be pretty unusual for a bank. For the general counsel, 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:23.120 the chief compliance officers say, we don't really care whether 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:26.240 or we're giving to customers who are just defrauding people 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:29.480 all the time. That obviously has to be material. I 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:33.600 just don't know how good a job this state did 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:39.199