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