This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio. The classified documents case against former President Donald Trump came to us stunning an abrupt conclusion today as Florida Federal
Judge Eileen Cannon dismissed the case outright. The case charging Trump with illegally hoarding classified documents was widely considered to be the strongest against him, with the breadth of the evidence, including surveillance footage from Trump's own security cameras at Mara a Lago, the testimony of close aids and former lawyers, and because the conduct occurred after Trump left the White House in twenty twenty one and lost the powers of
the presidency. Cannon has faced criticism for her handling of Trump's case, from the substance of her rulings to her decision to indefinitely postpone setting a trial date. But this decision came as a surprise even to her critics. My guess is former federal Prosecutor Robert Mentz, a partner McCarter
and English Bob. Even though Judge Canon has issued a lot of mystifying and unorthodox decisions, this decision dismissing the entire classified Documents case still caught most legal experts by surprise.
This is really a stunning decision by the federal judge of Florida just throw out entirely the classified documents case against former President Trump. It's something that I would suspect that not even the Trump legal team was expecting based upon the hearing that they had on this issue before the judge. But what the judge did here is basically find that the appointment of the Special Council Jack Smith
violated the Constitution. It does not address the merits of the case, it doesn't address the evidence, it doesn't address a defense that was raised by the Trump legal team. It's all about the appointment of the Special Council, and the judge found because that was done improperly, the only remedy is to dismiss the case.
Why did she say it was done improperly? How did she find that?
Well? The judge wrote a ninety three page, very detailed opinion which focused entirely on the Constitution's Appointments clause and said that what happened here was that the appointment of the Special Council was done inappropriately because it was a violation of that clause. In other words, the judge found that the appointment had to be approved by the Senate, had to be confirmed by the Senate, given the level of independence that jack Smith was given by Attorney General
Merrick Garland. The judge also found that the appointment violated another clause in the Constitution having to do with the expenditure of money that was not ultimately the basis for the dismissal of the indictment, but she also found that the appropriations clause also was violated here because money was being spent improperly, again because it was done without congressional oversight.
Canon wrote that the issue of a special council was a novel one, but it's not a novel one. This has been decided by other courts before.
No, that's exactly right. This issue of an appointment of a special council is something that has been done by different administrations over the years, dating back many years. Both Republicans and Democrats have used the special council as a way to investigate politically sensitive cases and it has been challenged before and every time in every court. This type of appointment has been upheld not only by district courts but also by the Court of appeal.
Also, she contrasted Smith's appointment with the appointment of David Wise, who is the special counsel in the Hunter Biden case. And she said, because Weiss was already a US attorney and Smith was a private citizen when he was appointed. But the Code of Federal Regulations says that a Special Council appointee shall be selected from outside the federal government. So where does she get that from.
Well, the case of David White was a situation where the US Attorney had already been investigating Hunter Biden. Then there was a change in administrations, so the US Attorney in Delaware was appointed by President Trump when he was in office, and President Biden decided, along with his Attorney General, to allow that US Attorney to continue that investigation because he was so politically sensitive, So it was essentially carried over. Now, the US Attorney in Delaware is confirmed by the Senate,
as all US attorneys are. But the Special Council is an entirely different role. It's being done in a situation where there's political sensitivity, and the whole idea of the Special Council is to give a certain degree of independence, And that was basically the argument that the Trump team
used in order to gain this victory. They argued that because there was this independence, the Special Council was operating without real oversight from the Department of Justice, and therefore they were what's called a principal officer, something that required
sended confirmation because of that level of independence. Now, the government countered that argument by saying the Attorney General is not monitoring the Special Council on a day to day basis, but ultimately does have authority over the Special Council and
does have authority over major investigated decisions. And that's basically been the process by which the Special Council has been upheld in all of these cases over the years, and most recently by the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Muller and the investigation between the Trump campaign and allegations of
collusion with the Russian interference with the election. That issue was raised in the context of Muller's appointment, and again it was approved by two district courts and ultimately by the Court of Appeal.
It seems like she took a recent concurrence by Justice Clarence Thomas to heart in the presidential immunity case, Thomas raised concerns about the constitutionality of the appointment of the special council, which wasn't part of the immunity case, and Canon cited that opinion, which no other justice had joined in three times in her opinion.
Yeah, that was unusual because he did have a situation in connection with the presidential immunities case where Justice Thomas made a comment about the appointment of a special council. It really was outside the scope of the opinions, and as you say, none of the other justices commented on it.
But it does seem to perhaps have affected the judge's decision here because if you can look at the body language and look at the way she reacted to the arguments during the hearing, she seemed to suggest that she would go along with the other courts in the way that special councils had been appointed over the years, because there was a long standing president over many years and many different administrations to appoint special councils in this way.
And yet we now have this decision which really has done the legal community because it has thrown out of precedent that has been in existence for at least twenty or twenty five years. With regard to the appointment a special council.
What was also unusual about the hearings is that she allowed outside groups to participate in the oral arguments. Have you ever seen a district court judge on a motion allow outside groups to argue?
No, that's something I've never seen before. You see that on an appeal situation where you have friend of the court briefs that are submitted when there is an issue that has a broad legal precedent. But this was a hearing before a trial judge and a very specific issue where both parties were arguing, and I have never seen a circumstance where a judge allows entities outside of the case.
In other words, parties that are not actually parties to the case don't really have any particular standing to make these arguments to nonetheless come into court and argue for or against a particular position.
We've talked about this before, but just go into a little bit of an explanation of how Judge Cannon has not only slow walked this case, but her decisions and the way she's handled it have subjected her to a lot of criticism for going, you know, outside the normal procedures.
Well, people who have been watching this case from the beginning have been a little bit mystified by the way Judge Cannon has handled this case, in that she has given a lot of time and devoted a lot of energy to arguments that most judges, based upon past president, would have dismissed summarily. In other words, it's not surprising at all for a defense team to make all kinds of arguments, including some that are very far effect. That's something defense lawyers will try to do because you never
know what might actually pique a judge's interest. But most of the time, judges very quickly dismiss arguments that are out of the mainstream to try to keep this case moving, to try to keep the case focused. In this case, it seemed that Judge Canon was giving an exceeding amount of deference to arguments that most judges would have dismissed out of hand, and this has slowed down the trial considerably. And now we have sort of the culmination of all
of that. An argument that seemed like a far sexed argument, an argument that was really kind of a hail mary argument in the eyes of most people, given the lengthy legal precedent supporting the appointment of the Special Council, and yet she has now found out as a basis to dismiss the case altogether.
The government is most likely going to appeal this to the Eleventh Circuit. At the same time they appeal, could they ask for her to be removed from the case.
Well, that's the question now as to whether or not this is an appropriate time to do that. She already does have a bit of a shaky history with the Eleventh Circuit. If you remember, during the beginning of this case, when the search warrant was executed, she asked that an independent monitor come in to review the documents that were seized by the government, something that was highly unusual and really there was no basis in law to do it.
She more or less found that because the subject of the search was a former president, that there was a certain level of due process that had to be accorded
that was different than anybody else. That was immediately overturned by the Eleventh Circuit, and she was really rebuked by the Court of Appeals for going way outside of the mainstream and trying to create a basically two tier system where somebody, because they were a former president, got a certain level of deference on a certain level of due process that every other citizen in this country would not get.
This is now going back up to that same Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and will be interesting to see what they do with this decision and whether or not they overturn her ruling.
Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue this conversation with former federal prosecutor Robert Mentz and we'll talk about how this decision might affect the Special Council's prosecuteu of Trump over election interference in DC. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. Donald Trump has been on a legal winning spree. The highlight was this month's blockbuster Supreme Court decision finding presidents are at least partially
immune from prosecution for official acts. That has dealt a near fatal blow to the efforts of Special Counsel Jack Smith to go to trial in the election interference case before the November election, with the Conservative majority ordering District Judge Tanya Chutkin to decide the full extent to which
the allegations are off limits to prosecution. The decision has also led to a delay in Trump's sentencing for the hush money conviction in New York, and then today federal Judge Eileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, unexpectedly throughout the case, accusing Trump of mishandling classified information, finding that the appointment of Special Council Jim jack Smith was unconstitutional. The classified documents case was widely considered to be the strongest case
against Trump. After all, remember this explanation from Trump.
If you're the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it's de classifate, even by thinking about it, because you're sending it tomorrow, lago or to wherever you're sending it, and there doesn't have to be a process. There can be a process, but there doesn't have to be You're the president. You make that decision, so when you send it, it's the classifate. I declassified everything.
Though the Justice Department will most likely appeal Cannon's decision and has a strong case based on precedent, the trial, which had already seemed unlikely to proceed before the election, now certainly will not. And if Trump wins the election, the cases against him are likely to dissolve one way or another. I've been talking to former federal prosecutor Robert Mintz, a partner McCarter and English Bob Judge Canon was slow
walking this case. Now she's completely stopped it. If this goes up to the Eleventh Circuit and they have oral arguments and decision time, I mean, it seems just about impossible that the case could be tried before the November election.
Either way, this seems to be a tremendous win for the Trump defense team because in the first instance, the case has been completely thrown out, and even if the Court of Appeals does reverse it, it's going to slow the case down to make it nearly impossible to have
this case tried before the election. And this is really troubling for the government because let's remember, this was really viewed by many people as the strongest case that was brought by the Department of Justice and in fact by even state prosecutors against former President Trump because it did not involve a novel legal theory as some of the other cases did, and because it was focused almost exclusively on actions after he left office, which removed it from
some of the immunity issues. That ultimately is going to be a problem for Special Counsel Jack Smith and connecting with the January sixth case. So, while this case was perhaps not the most exciting, it involved improperly removing classified documents according to the government, and then the government alleged that former President Trump obstructed the government in terms of
their ability to retrieve those documents. While it's not the most exciting case out there, it was really on the most solid legal footing, and prosecutors, i think, thought that this might be the best chance they had out there to gain a conviction in one of the federal cases.
This decision has nothing to do with the DC case. But Trump's attorneys hadn't challenged Smith's appointment in the DC case, they might now challenge his appointment in the DC case as well. Where do you think that would end up?
Well, you're absolutely right. They have not made the argument in the DC case, which is somewhat interesting considering the facts are entirely the same. It has nothing to do with the merits of the case. That has nothing to do with the charges. Again, this simply has to do with the appointment of the special Council, which would be the same in the DC case as it would in
the Florida case. So it's interesting that they made the argument in Florida, perhaps in front of the judge that they thought was going to be more sympathetic as opposed to the judge and the District of Columbia who they thought would be less receptive to that argument. But now that they have this win in Florida, I think we can expect them to rely upon that and make the same argument to the Court of the District of Columbia.
Although let's remember that the District Court decision of Florida is not finding legal precedent in any way for the judge and the District of Columbia, But nonetheless they can cite that length of the opinion, try to make the same arguments before Judge Chuckin in the District of Columbia, and if she rules against them, there's another opportunity to perhaps appeal that decision and further delay that case.
Also, as you mentioned before, there's precedent in DC for the appointment of a special council in the Muler case.
Absolutely, yes, that's exactly right. So the chances of success of the District of Columbia on this argument seemed to be extremely low, but that may not stop them from making the argument anyway. Citing the reasoning from Judge Cannon in Florida and at the very least perhaps delaying that case even further. So.
Trump has been on a winning spree with these criminal cases. You have the classified documents case dismissed at this point, the DC election interference case on hole because of that controversial Supreme Court decision giving him immunity for certain official acts. The sentencing in the New York hush money case also on hold because of that Supreme Court decision. And in the Georgia case, Trump is seeking to appeal the ruling that allowed the district attorney to stay on the case.
What does this say about the legal system? People looking at this must say four cases for criminal cases against Donald Trump, only one went to trial and the rest have been put on hold for one reason or another.
Well, I think people who have been watching these cases closely, if they're not lawyers, are probably scratching their heads at the legal system. They're seeing a system that seems to be falling down of its own weight in the sense that the arguments are delaying the case over and over again. And even lawyers who've been watching this case, I think, for the most part, are somewhat surprised at what has happened in many of these cases. Lots of these arguments
that were made were real long shot arguments. Even the presidential immunity argument. I think most expected that the Supreme Court might not take that case, or if they did, they certainly would not carve out the type of presidential immunity that they did. So I think it's a case that has really shocked the public, and it's shocked the
legal community. It's not gone the way that one would have expected, and it certainly is a huge win for the Trump defense team because if the ultimate goal was to delay these cases, they have certainly succeeded in doing that. And it's now likely that the only case that we'll have gone to trial before the election is the case brought by the Manhattan DA, And now even that case, as you mentioned, is being held up presenting purposes because
of the presidential immunity decisions. I don't think it's likely that the judge in that case will throw that case out or that he'll decide that the presidential immunity decision has any real bearing on that case. I think that are going to point to certain testimony in that case the defense will and argue that the presidential immunity case requires that case to be overturned. But I think ultimately the trialgy judge there will call that cumulative evidence or
harmless error, and that that case will stand. But in terms of all these federal cases, they are very much up in the air now, both legally and in terms of whether or not any of them will ever be tried before the election, or will ever be tried at all.
Trump had two co defendants in the classified document's case. What happens to the cases against them.
Well, the case is dismissed as to them as well, because remember, this argument was not something that was unique to former President Trump. It's not about immunity or something that applies only to a president or to a former president. This goes to the question of whether or not the special counsel who brought the case was properly appointed. So it essentially requires the entire case to be dismissed, not only against former President Trump, but against all of the
defendants in the case. So you have to look at this decision as an incredibly bold and sweeping decision from the standpoint that it has thrown out the entire case not only against former President Trump, but against all defendants. Generally, judges will be reluctant to make those types of decisions, and generally judges will be reluctant to make decisions that
are based on purely procedural grounds. When the case that involves a criminal prosecution, what judges always have to do is to weigh the rights of criminal defendants against the public's rights to have prosecutors prosecute cases for the safety of the public. And usually what we'll find is judges trying to find some type of middle ground. They want to make sure they're protecting the rights of defendant. But
it is unusual to throw a case out entirely. It does happen if a search warrant, for example, is done improperly and the evidence is suppressed. Sometimes that will result in the entire criminal case being thrown out. But this falls into that category of the rare case where a judge finds a procedural violation by the government and throws out the entire case. So it's really unusual in that respect.
Because the case against former President Trump, the case against his other co defendants is now over unless it's overturned by the Court of appeal.
From a legal point of view, it will be interesting to see what the Eleventh Circuit, which is a conservative court, does here and whether Jack Smith asks to have Canon remove from the case. Thanks so much, Bob. That's former federal prosecutor Robert mintz Im maccarter and English. Trump posted on his Truth social platform that the dismissal of the Florida case should be just the first step, calling for an end to criminal and civil cases against him in
other courts. He repeated his claims that all of the legal action he's faced after leaving the White House represented political attacks aimed at stopping him from retaking the presidency. Coming up next on the Bloomberg Lawn Show, we'll take a look at the judge's decision to throw out the criminal case against Alec Baldwin with prejudice, meaning that the actor cannot be retried. I'm June Grosso. When you're listening to Bloomberg.
The court concludes that this conduct is highly prejudicial to the defendant. The jury has been sworn, jeopardy has attached, and this disclosure during the course of trial is sole late that it undermines the defendants preparation for trial.
And with that New Mexico Judge Mary Marlowe summers throughout the involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin in the middle of his trial and rule he can't be tried again. Upon hearing her decision, Baldwyn cried and embraced his attorneys. The judge said state prosecutors showed signs of scorching prejudice by withholding evidence related to bullets from the defense in a case over the fatal shooting of the cinematographer on the set of Baldwin's film Rust in twenty twenty one.
Joining me is former prosecutor Joshua Castenberg, a professor at the University of New Mexico Law School. Josh explain what the judge found the prosecution withheld from the defense.
Here, so the prosecutor knew apparently that there were rounds that were obtained by the special investigator that were not handed over to the defense, and those rounds came from a friend er and the associate of Hanna goudierrasreed the armorer. The rounds were never tested by you know, the Sheriff's office or by the investigating arm They were visually looked at, which is not good practice to just say, well, we
don't think that they're related to this case. The special prosecutor, she made a snap decision these aren't related to the case. They put them in a box with a separate case number that wasn't relevant to the Baldwin case, and they put them away. And so here you have evidence that may have been much ado about nothing, or it may have been very significant on the issue of how the
bullets got to the gun. The judge got set up with it because it's a sixth Amendment violation, and the only remedy available at this point was to dismiss the case with prejudice.
I don't understand what difference it makes whether it came from this prop supplier or you know, it came from hanaguccierres. I mean, the fact is that live bullets were on the set.
Ironically, you hit the nail on the head, not because of you doing any irony or meeting. But this was an unknety, a completely unnecessary act by the prosecutor. Because the prosecution's theory for the Baldwin case was that every person has an independent duty to make sure the gun is safe, a gun that they handle is safe, and that had nothing to do directly with where these bullets
came from. With one potential arguable thing, and that is if there were a bunch of live rounds that had been on the set and Baldwin knew these were live rounds that had been on the set, that would be worse for him. Or if he assumed that they were only you know, blanks, and these extra bullets here, once they were analyzed, they were either inert or they were blanks. That could have helped this case. But I don't think these bullets one way or the other would have made
a huge difference in the case. The case was sort of primed in my mind for an acquittal anyway, So the self inflected wound, it's bad for the confidence of the public.
Why do you think the case was prime for acquittal?
Well, I think the case was likely to be an acquittal. I wouldn't bet my house on it, but I think the case was likely headed towards an acquittal for two reasons. One is, the judge made some pretty significant rulings under the rules of evidence which were absolutely on point, and that was, you know, Baldwin's past conduct towards other individuals and Baldwin's position as a producer were off limits unless the defense opened the door for them bet evidence to
come in. And the defense is very good in this case, and I don't think they would have opened the door for that evidence to come in. The other reason why I say that is after the judge sort of gutted some powerful evidence from the prosecutor's case. People generally have a difficult time dividing guilt, and in this case, you have divided guilt in a negligence case, you know, And I think that's difficult. It's not like an conspiracy to commit a crime. It's Hana Goodyer, as read, was criminally
negligent because of her misconduct as an armorer. So if that's the criminal part of this case, then where is Baldwin's criminality. It's clear he's negligent, But where's the criminality part of the negligence there? And I think that's what the jury would struggle with.
The judge said, dismissing a case with prejudice, which means you can't bring it again, the prosecution can bring it again, was an extreme sanction. Couldn't she have dismissed the case without prejudice?
Well, she could have, but I would say a couple of things to that effect, and yes, that would have been reasonable to do as well, But this judge had gotten frustrated at the prosecutor's office on other matters, and the judge of frustration reflected reality. It wasn't a judge just having a short temper for the stake of being
short tempered. And I think that it showed up in the midst of trial rather than that the very beginning pushed the judge to the conclusion that the extreme sanction was necessary because Baldwin could not have gotten a fair trial in the first judicial district.
Tell us about this chaotic hearing on Friday where the special prosecutor called herself to the stand.
Well, let's step back even before that. There were two special prosecutors on Thursday night, before the Friday hearing, right, one of the special prosecutors stepped off the case. And what that tells me goes back to a basic rule of ethics. You cannot, as a lawyer, be a part of a cause of action that you do not believe in. And what I mean, but do not believe in is
one of two things. It's either that the facts do not justify going forward or that another party's rights have been so trampled on you cannot in good conscience continue on in the case. So we can speculate it's the ladder in this. So you have a special prosecutor saying I'm done, and then you have the special prosecutor taking the stand and trying to defend herself. Well, she's a career,
a very distinguished career criminal defense attorney. And again this is speculation on my part, but I think this was done more to salvage your reputation than it was to salvage the case. Because any prosecutor knows or should know that whenever you have what's known as a Brady violation, and your fingerprints are on that Brady violation, that's the right to the government's evidence, whether they use it or not.
And if your fingerprints are on that Brady violation, as the prosecutor, you need to explain to the court why that is. Otherwise you lose the case, and you might also not just lose your reputation, but there may be recriminations under the state bar for that. So I think that's why she testified.
The judge said, if this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith, it certainly comes so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching. Explain what she found the prosecution had done to establish the Brady violation.
Okay, So the sixth Amendment has always stated within the language that a defendant has the right to know the charges against them, and that includes all of the government's evidence. Now, for years prosecutors would have said that means the evidence I'm going to introduce. But the war in court in a case called Brady versus Maryland, said no, it's broader
than that. It's all the evidence in the prosecution or in the government's possession, and it's up to the court to decide whether it's relevant or not, not to you, the prosecutor. And that makes perfect sense, because prosecutors are attempting to achieve a conviction on someone, and they're not the arbiters of the law. When there's a Brady violation, if it rises to the level that it undermines a defendant's ability to defend themselves within the meaning of the
of right, the judge has a couple of choices. If the trial hasn't begun yet, One is to grant a delay so that the defense can be better prepared the others to caution an indictment or dismiss charges without prejudice, meaning telling the government you really messed up, but you know what, go back and seek a new indictment. Double
jeopardy hasn't attached, and the third one is dismissed with prejudice. Now, you can only dismiss with prejudice if you find government misconduct at that stage, at the stage this occurred, trial had already started, the double jeopardy would have attached in the judge's mind. Now, when the judge said what she said, the quote that you gave, she wasn't immediately making a
decision to the special prosecutor. You've committed misconduct and you've engaged in unethical activity, she said, In other words, there is enough evidence here for me to think that way, And I think that's a cue to the state bar to investigate this. It's not the judge making a final determination, which she could have done. But judges are trained to be objective and to make sure that they don't hold someone in contempt or they don't find an outright act
of malfeasons unless they have all the facts. And you can't make that decision from the bench immediately, and so I think the judge gave the strongest language she could, but it's also a very strong hint to the state bar investigate this.
Do you think part of this was that the defense claimed that the prosecution had hidden other information like forensic reports, emails until the eve of trial. Do you think that was part of her frustration.
Yeah, I think so. You know, in this case, first brew it up, I thought, you know, really savvy defense council. Sometimes I'll sit on a deficiency and say, oh, you're on our jeopardy. Must have applied. We didn't have this in our possession and the government did, and they should have handed it over. You know, judge will make a rolling no, it is a violation. But what I'm going to find here is that I'm dismissing without prejudice because I don't see any mal intent on the part of
the prosecution. It's the law enforcement that messed up, or it's you know, it's an investigator that messed this up, or it's a newly found witness. But in this case, every time it seemed like the judge was frustrated because of belated evidence discovery, the prosecutor's fingerprints were on the matters that were being decided before the court, emails, technical reports, and now the bullets.
If the prosecution wanted to, they could appeal her decision.
They could, But you know, there's a couple of things that would have to happen. One is, if I'm the elected DA, you know, at what point do you confess error to the public and say we messed up, or continue to spend taxpayers money and say we're going to appeal this only to have the new Mexico Supreme Court, or first the Court of Appeals and then the Supreme Court say, you know, the standard that we review this
dismissal on is abusive discretion. And abusive discretion is a standard that means that the facts did not justify the decision, and the law was not on the judge's side and the ruling, and I got to say this, I might not have done what this judge had done. I might have dismissed without prejudice, but she has the law and the facts on her side, and this is an unwinnable appeal.
So if I'm the elected DA, I'm calling it a day and saying to the public, we messed up and we owe the victim and the victim's family a huge apology on this one and then just move on.
The whole case has sort of been chaotic.
Well, and it has been. And I got to say this, I'm not sure these missing bullets are going to help on a read in the long term. But I could see a court of appeals overturning the decision and the conviction be saying, you know what, she didn't have full discovery either, and we're going to overturn this conviction. Now,
then the prosecutor could retry the case. But at what point do you go to the public and say you trusted us with your vote for us, and we spent a few hundred thousand dollars of your taxpayer money and we've really messed up all around on this.
Attorney Gloria Alred, who's representing the cinematographer's parents and sisters, said it may be a little premature for Alec Baldwin to be having his party. Does this affect at all the civil case against him?
Does this affect the civil case against him? No, it doesn't. I mean the tour attorneys are going to be able to prosecute their civil case as vigorously as they've ever been able to do. This doesn't affect anything in fact Baldwin is facing. You know, I don't want to say anything bad about my state. I love my state. But there have been some very large awards recently given against companies like FedEx, and I think that this is another one of the those cases that is going to be that way.
What is the basis of their suit.
Well, it's a wrongful death suit. It's premised on negligence, but the burden of proof is much lower than in a criminal case, and they'll be able to bring in things about Baldwin that the criminal trial won't like Baldwin as a producer, Baldwin, you know, and the responsibilities that there are with that Baldwin is kind of pushing people around.
If that is true, I mean, I don't know if that's true, but there's been some talk about sort of his cavalier conduct and bullying, and if that's true, they'll likely be able to bring that into evidence, and the prosecutor couldn't. So I imagine that they were going to be settlement talks. But I also think about the plainest bar and the attorneys, and they may set a line in the sand at a number that's a lot higher than Baldwin and his insurers are willing to bear.
We'll see if the prosecutor and takes your advice. Josh that's Professor Joshua Kastenberg of the University of New Mexico Law School. And that's it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Podcast. Remember you can always get the latest legal news by subscribing and listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at Bloomberg dot com, Slash podcast, Slash Law. I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg