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