Judge Orders Pence to Testify

the twenty twenty election. Pence vowed last month to fight the Special Council's subpoena all the way to the US Supreme Court, but on Wednesday said he hadn't made a decision yet unwhether to appeal the order. We'll be speaking with our attorneys in Washington before the end of the week and sorting out what our next steps are. I obviously have nothing to hide. I've been speaking about those days,

writing about them extensively over the last two years. But for me, it was important that we stand on that constitutional principle. My guest is Victoria North, a professor at Georgetown Law School who formerly served as chief counsel to then Vice President Joe Biden. Pence had raised a novel challenge to the subpoena based on the speech or debate clause. Tell us about that challenge. The Constitution's speech and debate clause says that you cannot be questioned for anything you

say while you're in Congress. So it protects members of the House or the Senate from being arrested because they said something terrible, which is what happened in marry Old England and France before. Actually they tried to do this to some expense at the beginning of our constitutional history. But the idea was that you didn't want anyone like a king, questioning someone for what they said, because it would inhibit them. It would chill their speech about what

was important. So if the Parliament wanted to say something bad about the king, then the king gage just go arrest them, and so on our constitution. We wanted to distance ourselves from that practice, and so he said the members cannot be prosecuted for anything they say while they

are members. Now, Vice President Pence is arguing that he was the President of the Senate at the time of the electoral count, and therefore that is a legislative role for the Vice president the unique role under the Constitution, and he is arguing that given that he was performing that unique role, anything that he said during that period should not be used in any other prosecution. And the Speech and Debate Clause does provide very broad support for

members regarding the use of their statements in other criminal prosecutions. Nevertheless, you know, not all of his statements were actually regarding what the Electoral count Act was doing, and that will matter and the ultimate determination about what he testifies to the judge did recognize the Speech and Debate Clause applies to the Vice president when he's acting as President of the Senate, so Pence won't have to answer questions relating to that. Yes, because you got to look at the

facts of what was going on here. You know, I was a commentator on the January sixth hearing because I'm an expert in Congress. Then if you watch the hearings, you'll see that the Vice president was ushered out of his tiding place in the Senate. They went down to what I think is a basement and he was in his car. I've worked for a vice president, so you know the mini piast with his secret service, and there were pictures of them there. There were pictures of them

exiting the Senate. So during the process of what was going on, he was not actually operating, in my view, in a legislative capacity when he was fleeing the insurrection. So there are things that the judge knows about various conversations that you know, he made that I'm sure the prosecutor suggested were made. I'm sure they have phone records, etc. From the National Archives, because those are presidential records. Whatever he phones on his official phone, showing that he made

various phone calls. But those phone calls weren't necessarily in the conduct of legislative business. So he's probably calling people from and this entirely speculation on my part, but about the insurrection. He wants to know where are the forces. He may have called the president, and that might cause another objection. But not all of his activity was in the conduct of legislative purposes. You know, he wasn't calling anyone to order. He wasn't standing there with the gavel.

He wasn't answering objections, which is what the vice president does in the House and the Clentate. He wasn't acting in a legislative role for a good part of that time, which I'd assumed the prosecutor is very interested in. Why, because the prosecutor wants to know what the thought processes were of the president at the time when he did not act to quell the insurrection. So let's say that there is a call came in from the president or he called the president and said, what's going on here?

You know, why aren't you sending forces here? Etc. Etc. Would he have to testify to that call? Well, that depends. Okay, so there's also a claim of executive privilege that he might make. But you know, that's been further into a crime, a conspiracy to obstruct an electoral proceeding, so the electoral counting that is an official proceeding, and there are various

charges now being made again participants in the insurrection. And if you agree to something like that, and you may take a substantial step or any act toward it, really you're guilty of a conspiracy, and executive privilege is not applied to crime. So that's really what's going to go on. If there's a specific phone call to the president. I

think the prosecutor also doesn't necessarily want that. If I were Pence and I'm just again speculation, and I'm sitting there in the basement, I'm assuming it's a basement with my secret Service and my daughter and a few other friends whoever was in with him. I'm worried for my own life, and I'm worried for my country. I'm not necessarily calling someone who had told me also to bad

things on a phone earlier. But I think that they had divided on this issue quite sharply in the weeks before, and he had Council take their position, and he was firm and what he was going to do. He wasn't going to invoke the twelfth Amendments and violate the statute and all of the things he would have had to

do to change the electoral count. And given that, I expect that you would see him calling, you know, perhaps COD or you know, assuming the role of the president, which is what I vice President is trained to do, which is in the emergency, they take control. And you know, I mean Patriot would call the DOT or the National Guard or I mean everybody else was Nancy Pelosi was calling when the Virginia governor was on the line with

somebody else and Murray Ol Bowser. So I would assume that he made those kinds of calls, and that those kinds of calls, since they're not in the course of his official duties as President of the Senate, are things that he could testify to. But I assume that what the Special Council is interested in is his calls with the president, yeah, or the president's aids, and some of them have already been directed. Mark Meadows has already been

directed to testify because of the relationship to a crime. Okay, So ordinarily a vice president cannot be compelled to testify about his conversations with the president because of this notion that there's an executive privilege around the close people to the president that can be overcome in a court of law if there's a special need for it. But it also can be overcome, and this was the Nixon case. It's not absolute. There's never an absolute executive privilege, just

particularly not an absolute privilege when there's a crime. I mean, it disappears so and this was the case with Nixon, who ordered a burglary. Right, We're in a similar situation here, which is to say that perhaps Pens called Meadows, in

which case that would be relevant. Meadows himself I think is going to testify again to what happened in those conversations or other people the Secret Service that might be relevant, And you know, we don't know, but I assume that what's going on here is the same thing that's gone on with some of these other claims of executive privilege, which during the impeachment, which I wrote a book about

for law students, were wildly exaggerated. I mean, the Nixon case is the only case we really have, but it is clearer on one thing. If the president is implicated in a crime, right he has to testify. And that's why Nixon released the tape, because the Watergate burglars demanded that they be handed over, and the Supreme Court of the United States said yes, because for the pursuit of justice, you're going to send these people away to jail. The

president is not above the law. They reaffirmed that in Clinton on his impeachment. Even though this court is not exactly has changed dramatically. I don't see them as undermining that very basic principle that executive privilege, or even the speech and debate clause goes away when there's a crime. And as I say, most of what they're interested in is not, in my view, not statements that were made

during the official proceeding, but perhaps before and after. As far as executive privilege, Trump's legal team separately made objections to the subpoena on executive privilege grounds, and the judge completely rejected those. Can Penn still make executive privileged claims in response to specific questions, he can try that. It'll basically be eliminated, as I said, because it's associated with crime,

and that's already been litigated in the Meadow state. So if it's related to a crime, there is no executive privilege. The president doesn't have a privilege to commit a crime against the government. This is a crime, not just a burglary like an ordinary crime. This is a crime to halt the proceedings of the United States and electing a president during January sixth. So it's a very serious crime. And you know it's a court ordered Nixon to release

his case. I don't see why the court wouldn't find that as controlling President Pence, you know, has spoken extensively about Trump's pressure campaign to get him to try to reject the electoral count, and even a book, I would have thought that there was sort of a waiver of any kind of claim because he's already spoken so much

about it. Well, waiver relays to the specific time and the specific content, so they could argue that other things that he said, let's say, when he was in the basement, which he hasn't revealed as far as I know, I haven't read that book, so you'll have to correct me if I'm don't read that book either. Okay, So you know, the only reason he's raising the privileges he doesn't want to testify, and which is interesting. I mean to me,

if I were him, i'd just go in there and testify. Now, obviously some people have had some interest in you know, some lawyers have said, well, I my client is the institution, and you know he doesn't want to pit vice presidents against president. That's true. Vice president should feel very free to give of all people, forget about the staff, you know, of all people, clear statements to the president, and they shouldn't be open in my view. But this is a crime.

That's the big difference here. So let's say that a vice president told the president, oh, well, you know, I think the court is going to strike that down. My lawyers are telling me that well, you don't want that revealed because it looks like they're undivided. I did about their litigation strategy, right, but no one really knows. They're

just hypothesizing. So that's certainly fair game to keep within the confines of executive privilege and the vice president's dissenting role in the administration, which is to say no. Spiden always wanted to be the last person in the room with President Obama because he wanted to say, look, the staff is telling you X, Y and Z, and I'm telling you, based on my experience for thirty years in Watchington,

that's not going to happen. And that seems to me something that is important of all of the staff privileges for executive privilege. But we don't know the precise statements of the prosecutors looking for I expect it's during the time when the former occupant of the office did nothing to quell the insurrection, sat watching the television. According to the J six hearing, he's going to want to know

what Pence was talking about. And if he hasn't said those openly and hasn't said anything about those particular conversations, then he hasn't weighed the privilege. The thing is that the privilege is just not applicable because he's not operating in a legislative capacity. And even if he were operating in an executive capacity and advising the president, he can't do that one. It's concerning a crime. When he'd filed the objection to the subpoena, he said that he would

take this to the Supreme Court. Now he's saying they're sorting it out and reviewing whether or not they're going to appeal. Do you think an appeal to the Supreme Court would be advantageous to him? It would certainly delay things. Well, if delays in his interests, he can do it. I mean, it would be interesting to see what they would say about this. You know, if delays and his interest people do it, and he might help to get one or

two justices. It's interesting. The court's a new ballgame right now. And you know, I'm out here talking to law professors about how new it is because I decided to read all three hundred of the opinions as they issued in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. You did, Yeah, I have a new website for Georgetown. We're tracking all their decisions. And they've changed a lot, and they're in the process

of changing more this term, so that increases uncertainty. And whenever there's uncertainty in the law, that's a full employment bill for lawyers, which is to say, oh, well, maybe they won't follow the Nixon case. They have departed occasionally for him, not always. You know, he might peel off a justice or two because I think it's pretty clear. I think the reason that the appellate Court is not wavering is because the Nixon case is pretty darn clear.

There is one exception to all of this, and it is a crime to conspire to overthrow the electoral count. And there's really no two ways about that. And I think that they've been very inventive at legal arguments. I don't see the court wanting to take the case to tell you the truth, so they might just not take it. But you could get a dissent from say a Justice Thomas, who dissented in a couple of the Trump cases. It's

just a delaying maneuver. I think. I don't think they'll want because they're going to do lots of big deals. You know, they're going to overturn affirmative action. They've got all these gun cases where there's a massive amount of uncertainty in the state. It's about who can own a gun and who can't own a gun, and that's real on the ground, right, So they've got things they have to decide this term. I don't think they'll want to

decide it, and so then it's a waste of lawyer's money. Really, there's not much delay involved in denying a certain petition. The Special Counsel it seems to keep winning these cases, getting people to testify at the grand jury who don't want to. How big a victory is this particular subpoena for Mike Pence. Well, a victory for pens or a victory for them? Oh, well, tell me which side. I thought it was a victory for the Special Council. But you know who's a victory for this. It is a

victory for the Special Council. And I think it shows that the rule of law, when the rule is clear applied, you know, I mean, this is the rule of lay

is a treasured cultural commodity of the United States. If you go to other countries that are full of baksheishan, you know, kleptocracy, you realize that this is in our DNA, And I don't think any judge to tell you the truth, the Trump judge or not what you know on this kind of a thing to be on the wrong side of history, because this is about history and it's about the future governance of our country. Whether Trump is indicted

or not, he can still run for presidents. Now. I think it was a labor leader who was sent to prison and he ran for president and got one hundreds of thousands of votes. And other members have gone to prison and run for the House. There's no prohibition on that. But I do think it's still affect how history treats what happened on January sixth. And they've seen enough in the DC third, they've seen enough of these defendants, and they're pretty much familiar with the kinds of defenses and

they're not very good defenses. And I think they've seen enough not to be particularly sympathetic. Now, if you knew the law, you would expect that, you know, if you knew the Nixon case, there there's only one a case like you got to be a super expert to understand that you cannot the president cannot conspire to commit a crime. And if like Nixon, he aids, and it bets that that then his testimony is relevant. So I would have said that Jack Smith would win, and I think I

did at some point. But I think people think that the laws up for grabs now because there's so much uncertainty in general, not just about not about this particular doctrine. The speech and debate clause also adds another wrinkle, because that's if you're an expert in that, you think, oh, well, maybe it could apply. There's all sorts of reasons why you think it might apply, but it's just the facts

that show you it doesn't. Because he's in the basement and he's not performing as legislative duties, that could be that wrinkle. And it's just the court has been doing things in general that makes people nervous about the rule of law. So they wonder whether Trump judges are going

to give him a break. They wonder whether, you know, the law has somehow changed, And so I think it's you know, these judges are really in an interesting place today because they are worried, and that general uncertainty is what it has prompted Pence to be able to make these kinds of claims. So it didn't surprise me that Jack Smith would win. He also knows more than we know, so he knows the phone calls, he knows what other people have testified to that we don't know, and some

of it may be particularly damning. I doubt it's in a book that Pence wrote. I think if these conversations that he already knows one side of the conversation from somebody else, and that person called Pence, that's relevant and I think they wanted to try, you know, for probably know it was some political gesture to be somewhat solicitous of the president, But as a ruling from a judge on this particular case at this particular time, it doesn't surprise me. Well, we'll find out in the coming days

whether Pence will decide to appeal this ruling. Thanks so much for your insights. That's Professor Victoria Norris of Georgetown Law School. The US has taken its most forceful move yet to crack down on crypto exchange Binance Holdings and its chief executive officer, Chang Pen Chao. The Commodities Futures Trading Commission alleged in federal court in Chicago that Binance and it's CEO routinely broke American derivatives rules as the

firm grew to be the world's largest trading platform. Joining me a securities law expert, Anthony Sabino of Sabino and Sabino. He's also a professor of law at Saint John's University. So Anthony, what is the CFTC charging Binance and it's CEO with well June. It's a pleasure to be on with you today. And I have to say my very first impression, and a very strong one, it is, is the massive allegations made here, the massive tome that has been filed by the CFTC. I mean that both quantitatively

and qualitatively. First of all, this complaint filed by the Commodity's Futures Training Commission against Champenzau, Binance, etc. And also their compliance officer Samuel Limm, or more properly former compliance officer, is simply massive. It's seventy four pages. And that's significant because if you look at it when the SEC file it's civil complaint against FTX, that was only about twenty

eight pages. The entire criminal complaint, and I mean the superseding indictments again, Samuel Benkman freed bowed by the Department of Justice here in New York US Attorney so the district that was less than a dozen pages. So the mere quantity pages tells you a lot. Secondly, in terms of quality, this again reflects a very in depth investigation

here with the most serious of allegations. And what struck me is this the Commission knows specifically many times that there has been, as they caresorize it, a lack of cooperation, a lack of forwardness, of openness with Binance. But yet if you look towards the latter half of the complaint, there are very detailed allegations apparently based upon transactions with certain trading firms, and the trading companies are not named per se, but they called trading from ab etc. And

one can only surmise. And again I admit this is a guest, but I would hope it educated guests. Is that that information was revealed to the CFTC by virtue of the Commission going after these trading partners account holders with Binance, who basically will probably front was a choice aid to cooperate fully with CFTC or be implicated yourselves.

And I think it's fairly clear that they got a lot of information from outside sources, but in addition to that, they still a substantial amount of information that came from within Banance, although it was probably extracted with a great deal of difficulty. But essentially what the Commission is looking for here is at the very end okay, the werefol closers were called. The bottom yfe of the commission is this. They want to very much put Banans out of business

within the United States, Okay. They want an injunction to shut them down for the US operation. They want to scorgement of all profits that finance is made, which allegedly open the many millions of dollars. They want a restitution for customers, and they basically want to make sure that Banan as presently constituted, cannot do business in the crypto space at all in the United States of America. So

these are very severe allegations. And again, given the very international scope is painted so well by the sea of seeing the complaints, Banance might very well, okay, continue to do business in other parts of the world. But if this comes to its ultimate conclusion the way the CFTC wants it, all right, they will be absolutely forbidden from doing business or let me rephrase, legally doing business within the United States of America and with the importantly American customers.

So let me understand something. Is Bonance allowed to trade in the United States now or with US customers? Isn't that forbidden? That's correct, okay, and that's the crux of the complaints. Nance is unregistered with the Commodities Troops Trading Commission. Okay, they have not filed and not maybe appropriate regulatory filings registration. They have not complied with American law, with federal law that regulates commodities and encrypto he views the commodity here.

So their transaction, if any United States with American based customers are absolutely illegal. But the crux of the complaint here from is well, you aren't registered, they're not authored through business in the US, but you've done it anyway, which is why we now want to take steps to utterly bar you from the United States. You've been doing business here you're not supposed to. So a let's get you out of the United States. Let's exclude you, okay,

let's exalt you forever from our shores. But also to make sure you get out and stay out, we want massive financial penalties. So in essence by property from these violations of doing business in American when you're not registered, license, et cetera. We want to get all that money back and essens to make sure that crime does not pay in this participal expence. So binance, is it finance or binance? I always say finance, But okay, I think it's finance.

I think it's fine. I have to you know, I thought I knew, and they were talking about it and I've forgotten. Okay, So anyway, finance finance. That's the way Finance said. Okay, So Finance said, We've made significant investments over the past two years to ensure we do not

have US users active on our platform. But the CFTC said that Finance's own documents for the month of August twenty twenty showed the platform earn sixty three million fees from derivatives transactions, and then about sixteen percent of its accounts were identified as being held by US customers. Also, the complaint quoted text messages from the CEO, So it seems like the CFTC has evidence. Yes, And again one

has to wonder where that Evans has come from. One for the moment, I would assume that the FFTC is active within the law, so I'm not going to question the resting of these allegations. And again let me praise it this way, these allegations, and we have to remember

their allegations. It doesn't become fact or truth unless proven in the court of law, if indeed that they e becomes Nevertheless, just as allegations, these are the damning set of accusations share because what they're saying is we have this literal amount of evence And again this is why the mass of this complaint, Okay, the ship both of it at seventy four pages is amazing because again they quote text messages, emails, all these other chat wounds stuff

directly coming from this to zang okay sometimes referred to with CZ the CEO and also the former CHIE compliance officer, mister Samuel Lynn, where basically they think that they are doing this Nance States with the most customers. Now, you mentioned and well said that the nance's position has been well, you know, we've instituted compliance programs, et cetera. However, the CFTC has fairly stridently said, okay, you've told us your compliant. But the truth of the matter is what you say

and what the reality is are It's completely different. Okay, you claim to have compliance programs in but you don't. And furthermore, even though okay, your claims were following the law, you still have never registered with US, so you're still not authorized under the Commodity Exchange Act the CPA. And the bottom line is so without that registration and so forth, without filing accurate reports your truth. Also what I found,

and I have to use the word stunning here. I don't need to be melodramatic, but I was stunned by this is the allegations and again their allocations. They're not the truth yet, but it's alleged that, among other things, financed deliberately and willfully okay, and especially with Missus Dao as the CEO, and the company self deliberately and willfully sought to disguise American customers US based customers so they

would not appear to be from the US. They apparently had a category of what they called the v I P customers, whatever that means, but it also means that they essentially engaged in to be frank a subterfuge to shall we stay in or otherwise hints to US based entities. Look, okay, we can't do business with you as US based entity,

but you should essentially disguise your identity. And now they get into all the lingual of VPN's virtual protocol network wherever it is, okay, but that the virtual address, but basically hiding their identities. And also something that again if true, is quite dam in itself, is the allegation where the HTC says that again you mentioned the sixteen percent, that's very significant because when you're talking sixteen percent of billions of dollars in trades, that's a lot of money. That

is significant business. And it's been allege that on their various financial disclosures for lack of the better term, pie charts, et cetera, as we find again literally pie charts and grifts in the complaint that US based business US based customers. It's allows they deliberately obfuscated that by changing instead of US or USA put it under UNK and I don't

mean United Kingdom UNK as an unknown. So there are again numerous allegations of all these artifices, all these devices where Banan knew they were dealing with parties in the United States, knew they weren't supposed to be transacted business

for them, and they did it anyway. And then even as a subset but still damming allegations, they talk about the extension of margin trading leverage okay, which apparently BANCE encouraged amongst all customers, but also particularly with US based customers. And again that's something that's also extremely regulated. You and I, and you're sophisticated audience knows that if you're buying stocks

on margin, okay, that's highly regulated by the SAC. The same essential principle applies to buy commodities, including crypto and addrivatives of crypto on the commodities exchanges. And since they did not comply at all with the rules regarding reporting leverage, etcetera, etcetera, Okay, that's a serious allegation. And once again it just gets worse.

It goes from the fine pain as the fire. There's the allegations, not dissimilar to what we saw against FPX, that there were violation lack of compliance with the anti money laundry laws that AMLS has been known that basically are in place to make sure that terrorist organizations, criminal organizations are not transacting business are otherwise on the securities in commodities markets, things that have to be tracked to

deter criminal or terroristic behavior. And again Banance is way out of compliance with that because they simply don't have any methodology in place. Now. Banance certainly says the opposite. I believe one of their other high ranking executives is quoted in the complaint of saying, only yet, but we've been working on this for years and we've done thustin soone they can progress, and we're going to continue to

do so. But in essence, the retort from the commission it is, that's what you said, but that's not what you're doing. So you're out of compliance and you're not even trying. You say you've got something, but your controls are inconsequential, ineffective, and we said we don't biased if you know what, we gave you a chance. You haven't fixed it, all right, So if you can't fix it, you're out. Okay, we want to borrow you from the

US forever. And once again, I think one of the most troublesome things you're hearing is the fact that these folks have allegedly been doing business in the US when they're not supposed to when they're unregistered, where they don't full reports, where they don't fall in the rules. But yet they've done it anyway, so they're already not supposed

to be here. So in terms of like excluding them, it literally is the Commission, by virtue of injunctions, decrees, monetary penalties, they're speaking to expel the nance, if you will,

from the US markets forever and ever. Do you see this the lawsuit being an attempt by the CFTC to assert its authority over the crypto trading world while it's in something of a petition with the Securities and Exchange Commission over crypto Unequivocally, yes, I'm not faulding the CFTC for following their statutory duty to police the commodities market, but there is definitely an element of competition with the SEC, if you will. In fact, at one point to complaint

there's sub mention of icos Ico's initial corn offers. Now in more recent years, especially as Gary Densler has moved from CFTC chairman to SEC chairman, he said, Okay, icos are security, so therefore the SEC is going to regulate that. But once again, okay, the CFTC also would like to say, well, WAYMNT, what is you selling in the Ico. You're selling or you maybe selling the commodity that's our territory or turf.

So definitely there is an element here of CFTC stame Look, crypto and crypto derivatives and so on and so forth. They are commodities. They're essentially of the same nature as you know pork bellies and gray and wheat and gold and silver which have always historically been regulated by the CFTC for its predecessors, and therefore it's our our sovereign

duty to regulate that. And again I also know that our funds interest me that this case is filed in the Northern District, Illinois, in other words, Chicago, and that makes a lot of sense historically because the complaint specifically mentions the CBOE Chicago Board of Options and the CME Chicago Mercantile Exchange, because basically for all of American history, Chicago has been the heart of the commodities market in America. Again, that's not the Nine Mexican with the former Nine Mexican

in New York. But the bottom line is, when there is wrongdoing in the stock market, the government goes to where the stock market is found Wall Street. So that's why those actions for example FTX and S and SBS Damon Backman freed, those will venue in the southern New York. But when you talk about commodities, the heart range of commodities is literally the American heart random that West Chicago.

So that's why the CFTC filed there. Have no doubt not to mention the fact that the judges both at the District court level Northern District in Chicago and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals which sits in Chicago, they have enormous six piece with respect to the Commodities Exchange Act and enforcing those laws, in interdicating those cases and

so forth. So essentially, not only is sticking out its own territory, making sure is being assertive with respect to commodities regulation, of which they say Crypto is a part of, They're also going to what in many ways is their home court. They're speaking home court advantage by going to the court that they are regularly in front of, that

they know the judges, so on and so forth. But again, what you're indicating there, and I quite agree, is the fact that this is not the end of it, I would not be the least bit surprised to see the SEC also step in. And again one hopes that these two agencies work collaboratively and not competitively, all right, to stored out this mess and basically protect the integrity of

the commodities market. So how does any agency regulate finance when the CEO ZAO has even avoided designating a corporate headquarters and said wherever he is, that's where the corporate headquarters is. So if it's crypto and they're not even located in a place, how do you control them? Exactly? Okay, And again you highlighted one of the more startling areas of the complaints, and I found this absolutely astounding. This zoo for example, Okay, his present location is not exactly specified.

The complaint indicates, okay, a belief that he's currently in Dubai in the United Arab emirths. So he's beyond the reach of US law enforcements. Okay, As you noted, and this is one of the keys to the complaint here is that this entity right basically claims to be international and it refuses to give an address, and of course that is fatal to any attempt to be properly regulated and registered in the US as a commodit trading platform, okay, as a swap exchange, so on and so forth, because

you have to provide the most pedestriate information. In other words, state this is where we are. Okay, hello, CFTC, this is where you can find us. Then you're mail to us. If you need to subpoena our records, if you need to crash our party and these our records, this is where you're going to find us. We need a physical location. So the fact that Banan refuses and apparently works very hard, it is very assiduous at working at making sure you

can't find them. I think that speaks very much the fact that they're trying to evade the long arm of the law. Okay, and certainly with respect to mister Zao, I who have no expectation that this gentleman will ever ever spend five minutes in front of a US judge of before, because he's simply beyond our reach. That leads to very practical problem okay, of then how do you regulate these guys? I think the purpose of this complaint, among other things, is not just to enforce the law.

Okay again, astudents allegations have proven true against mister Lynn Performance CEO, CCO compliance officer, against mister zao Is CEO, and against the entity itself. It's not just to basically exclude them exile them from the US. I think it also sent a powerful message to anyone who has done business with them as an accounts basically based because what says to meet you is gif you se say, look, okay, we're after Banans. If you've come business with them, you

are next. If you are have an account with them, we can find you because you are US based, and we can shut you down. We know who you are, we know where you live, okay, and we can shut down. And again, even in a global economy that we have today, is we all well known We see this every day is the fact that money moves globally, but one of the places, one of the stops that makes constantly is within the US, especially in New York through the money

main money center banks. So if you go to basically shut down Banance in the US, that means they can't access cash in the US or any of the kind of assets. They can't transact any business here, and certainly right now. If I was at any any bank, be it Major Mind or anywhere on the spectrum between, the bottom line would be, hey, okay, make sure we have nothing to do with Banance. And if we have a customer who's banking with us and they're doing business with Banans,

we don't want to have these people's customers anymore. We don't want to be entangled with this mess, all right. So I think it's more a matter of again a powerful message to commodity treators put go creators, okay, legitimate and also maybe you let's call them some up borderline people, people in the gray area, basically saying, look, okay, even if mister Zoo is in a foreign nation, we can get him. We certainly know where you are and we

can certainly get you. So okay, back off, get away from Banan, okay, because that's how we're going to shut them down by basically excluding their customer base. Okay, who in them off? If you will, fencing them off from yours customers, Thanks so much for lending us your expertise. Anthony, that's Anthony Sabino of Sabino and Sabino. And that's it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg

Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot bloomberg dot com, slash podcast slash Law, and remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every week night at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg