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Speaker 1: While most people have had their eyes on the Russian investigation,

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Speaker 1: the firing of James Coomey, and the latest presidential tweets,

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Speaker 1: Attorney General Jeff Sessions was undoing President Obama's legal legacy

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Speaker 1: under the radar. Since taking over the Department of Justice

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Speaker 1: in February, Sessions has made more than a dozen changes

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Speaker 1: affecting almost all facet of federal law enforcement, ratching up

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Speaker 1: his war on crime and instructing federal prosecutors to do

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Speaker 1: the same. I expect them to prioritize violent crime cases,

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Speaker 1: identify the most violent people in their jurisdictions, and work

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Speaker 1: with their state and local counterparts to take them off

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Speaker 1: the streets. Joining us as Bloomberg News financial enforcement reporter

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Speaker 1: Tom Schoenberg to talk about what you may have missed

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Speaker 1: while keeping up with Trump. Tom, Let's start with sentencing

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Speaker 1: for non violent drug offenders, where you can clearly see

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Speaker 1: the Obama roll back. Sure yes, uh back In May,

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Speaker 1: um Sessions issued a new charging policy UH department wide,

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Speaker 1: and it calls for charging the most serious UH crimes

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Speaker 1: that you could prove as a prosecutor. And this was

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Speaker 1: sort of a a reversal of what Eric Holder Obama's

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Speaker 1: first Attorney General had put in place that took kind

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Speaker 1: of a more individualized approach uh to charging certain offenders,

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Speaker 1: specifically non violent drug offenders, so as not to trigger

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Speaker 1: kind of harsh mandatory minimum sentences. Tom, do we know

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Speaker 1: yet whether that directive is having much of an effect

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Speaker 1: on the ground. There is this issue about uh, Trump

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Speaker 1: being slow to a point U S. Attorneys and the

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Speaker 1: Senate being slow to confirm people like that. What's happening

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Speaker 1: on the ground right The policy has you know, been

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Speaker 1: in been in effect for you know, just a little

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Speaker 1: over a little over a month, um, but yet all

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Speaker 1: the U. S. Attorney's offices are currently being run kind

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Speaker 1: of acting U S attorneys. Trump has the Trump administration

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Speaker 1: only recently nominated uh you know, maybe a little more

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Speaker 1: than a dozen uh you know, nominees for U S. Attorneys,

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Speaker 1: so kind of until those folks kind of get up

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Speaker 1: and running, uh, you know, those offices are just kind

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Speaker 1: of being you know, run interimately. But they also though

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Speaker 1: he did direct uh you know, in the meantime, a

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Speaker 1: specific sort of each office has to identify someone that

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Speaker 1: is going to coordinate with Washington to kind of make

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Speaker 1: sure that their priorities are a kind of being met.

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Speaker 1: Tom Sessions has been clear about his disdain for consent decrees.

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Speaker 1: What has he done? I know that in April they

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Speaker 1: began a review of prior settlements with police departments. But

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Speaker 1: has he done anything actually done it? Well? They they

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Speaker 1: tried to stop the Baltimore, uh Baltimore consent decree from

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Speaker 1: going forward. It was kind of in pipeline when Sessions

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Speaker 1: came into office and was and was hammered out by

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Speaker 1: the Obama administration U shortly before before they left office,

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Speaker 1: and uh, he tried to get the judge to kind

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Speaker 1: of you know, not rule on that consent order, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, saying that you know, he thought it would

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Speaker 1: be imposing an expensive monitor on the city and really

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Speaker 1: kind of handcuffing the police department. And uh, the judge

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Speaker 1: didn't see it his way and moved forward with that, which,

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Speaker 1: of course he was not happy with, and actually, uh

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Speaker 1: you know, uh made some remarks on it as well

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Speaker 1: as published an op ed where he kind of went after, uh,

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Speaker 1: went after these kind of consent degrees publicly sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, saying that at a time when violent crime

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Speaker 1: was rising in certain cities, police shouldn't be uh you know,

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Speaker 1: handcuffed from doing their jobs. Tom All, this tough on

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Speaker 1: crime talk from Jeff Sessions seems to be focused on

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Speaker 1: a lot of It seems to be focused on violent crime,

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Speaker 1: drug crime. How about white collar crime? Is that is

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Speaker 1: that also a crackdown area? Well, he is, you know,

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Speaker 1: he has made some remarks to the you know, the

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Speaker 1: white collar bar um. He there was a lawyer kind

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Speaker 1: of a lawyer convention here recently in Washington, and so

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Speaker 1: he did speak that he would kind of continue moving

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Speaker 1: forward with uh, you know, corruption cases, form corruption cases

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Speaker 1: and such. Uh, you know, he used the same event

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Speaker 1: to talk about the violent crime um. Yet sort of

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Speaker 1: the you know one look at that charging the new

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Speaker 1: charging policy. Uh, number of white collar lawyers kind of

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Speaker 1: were quick to come out with alerts to their clients

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Speaker 1: saying they don't really believe it's going to have much

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Speaker 1: of an effect in sort of the the corporate fraud world,

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Speaker 1: where they say sort of issues of intent and in

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Speaker 1: various things that get into more nuanced parts of that

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Speaker 1: policy are going to kind of, you know, prevent it

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Speaker 1: from sort of really you know, causing prosecutors to to

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Speaker 1: bring you know, harder charging or sentencing decisions. So marijuana

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Speaker 1: use remains a crime at the federal level, Tom, but

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Speaker 1: more and more states are legalizing it for either medical

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Speaker 1: or recreational use. Sessions is against marijuana use. He even

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Speaker 1: asked Congress to lift a legal barrier to prosecuting people

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Speaker 1: for using medical marijuana. So what happens to the country's

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Speaker 1: nearly seven billion dollar legal marijuana industry if he moves forward? Right,

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Speaker 1: everybody's still waiting to see how he's what he'll eventually

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Speaker 1: do in that space. He obviously we saw what he's

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Speaker 1: sort of did with testing Congress to see whether they

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Speaker 1: would be interested in removing a barrier to prosecuting medical marijuana.

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Speaker 1: Uh issues, Um, you know right now there's a couple

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Speaker 1: of memos at the at the Justice Department that he

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Speaker 1: could do away with that sort of are stopping prosecutors

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Speaker 1: from going into the states and you know, resting people

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Speaker 1: in jurisdictions where they've legalized marijuana. Well, that certainly is

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Speaker 1: not the violent crime offensive that he's been talking so

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Speaker 1: much about. Well, we'll hear more about Jeff Sessions from

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Speaker 1: Tom as the months go on. Thanks so much for

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Speaker 1: being with us, and um, we are going to be

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Speaker 1: talking coming up on Bloomberg Law with the head of

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Speaker 1: the legal director of the a c l U about

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Speaker 1: the legal agenda ahead. It's the organization whose name you

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Speaker 1: see on so many lawsuits involving the protection of American

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Speaker 1: civil liberties and fundraising has been just going through the

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Speaker 1: roof since President Trump took office. This is Bloomberg