Trump Electors Targeted in Georgia Criminal Probe

into criminal interference in the presidential election. In May, District Attorney Fannie Willis took the unusual step of requesting a special grand jury, and in an interview with CNN, she was clear about her intent to cast a wide net, including this election of a fake slate of Trump electors

in Georgia. We're gonna look at anything connected with interference with the election, and so I've allowed that to be a broad scope, not just the president's phone call that you played there, but other things that indicate that there may have been interference with that election, to include fake electorate. Now it appears she may be closer to announcing charges. Willis has sent so called target letters to sixteen Republicans who served as fake Trump electors to warn them that

they could be indicted. My guest is Michael Moore, the former U S Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia and a partner with Moore Hall. Did willis really have to call a special grand jury because that special grand jury can indict? Well, she's using the special grand jury because she's limited on what she can do investigative wives with a regular criminal grand jury in Georgia. So in Georgia, the criminal grand jury, the rule is that you have

to present them with an indictment. We would call it laying an indictment on the table before the grand jury, and that would mean you had already determined which parties you were going to ask to and diet what charges specifically you're going to ask to die at all. And she didn't have that information yet, and she could have done that on some limited charges and sort of the target approach, But here she's using the special grand jury statue to allow her to investigate. And that's sort of

the difference in federal and state grand juries. The federal grand jury has the party issues to penas, to investigate cases, to call witnesses before them as they appropriate, and the special grand jury mirrors a little bit of the federal grand jury. The only difference, as you mentioned, is that this special grand jury does not have the power under

the state statue to issue a diet. They would send the issue a report or a recommendation that'd be given to her answer the court, and she would then make a decision with orne. She then wants to present a limited case to a regular criminal grand jury. So she's using this to gather information, to bring in witnesses who may have been relurked to testify, to gather documents and text messages, this kind of thing, and then she'll ultial in making decision whether or she wants to present that

to a to a regular criminal granjeur. Michael, what does it tell you that Willis sent these target letters. It's an interesting play of events right now. That is, I think there's some interest in this fake elector scheme, and she has been digging into that. You wouldn't have to look very hard to feel like that she's in fact expanding the scoop of what could have been a very narrowly tailored case, a clean cut case against Trump if she wanted to do it, based on the telephone called Raffersburg.

But it appears that she's broadening it out to other people maybe in that orbit or closer to the inner circle, and dealing with the efforts to basically avoid out the electors who were from Georgia and to avoid apple votes that have been cast here. So I'm not surprised to

see or do that. It's a little interesting that she would do it in such a public way, especially given some of the political alliances that she has, And I think that may come into play here that she has actually sent out to notice in the middle of a peated campaign season, because typically you don't always see a prosecutor be quite as public about those types of things, and I think for a good reason. So I think

she's clearly broad in the scoop. I think she may be fishing with a little bit too broad and met right Naviga. Sometimes that's where you get caught, you tangled up in your own men. And I think some of the public comments about the target letters who they went to in the time of the may open rose some questions down the road a public courts. She last week subpoenaed members of Trump's inner circle, former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Senator Lindsey Graham's six other attorneys, and Graham has already

indicated that he's going to fight it. So this will drag out. If she's trying to get people from out of state, it will. And I think you know there you've seen I think it was yesterday or the day before, Georgia Congressman. And he also now has served notice that he intends to have the challenge heard in the federal court. I think there's a federal court here and set up for next week has been scheduled there on the Chavison

subpoenas you to him. There's a specific provision under the federal statutes that allows for sort of a high ranking member of the executive brand, if there's a civil or criminal action in which their allegations against it, you can serve notice and assets case be transferred to the federal court. And I think you're gonna see them taking advantage of that. And it's a good process in the sense that sort of limits overreach by the as who may be aggressive.

We're not saying she is in this case, but as a general principle, it's a sort of a safety valve there. But it also is naturally going to drag out the time, and her grandjeury is authorized. The special purpose Granders author us to convene for about a year. But you also have to be thinking that we're getting into election seasons, and prosecutors must be they must be conscious of how the actions that they undertake may be perceived around election time.

You simply cannot if the goal is to preserve the confidence in the court system and in the prosecutor's decisions and then charge of decisions that are made, you cannot be seen is somebody who's attempted to be be used the criminal process to influence the outcome of an election. You'll remember that was one of the big issues with Trump and the Department of Justice. I mean he wanted to use the department sort of look at political enemies. Well, you can't do that as a prosecutor. I mean, they're

bar implications, their coat of ethics implications. And so the timing may become a factor for her, and the law ofness goes out whether we're in the federal court having federal judges rule on motions to quash that may be found for certain sutainas, or whether or not we're in the appellate court system. Because their privilege issues and a

turning client protection issues that come up. Then that is maxually going to delay ultimately this this special purpose grand jury issue, and they report thinking about all the evidence she started out with, including that taped phone call, and now she also has the testimony she's taken from state officials. I'm wondering why it's taking so long for her to decide whether or not to indict Trump. Sure, and I

think that's a question is well placed. I don't think there's any questions she could have based on the tape recording as she had, which is for two of us. I mean, how many times do you get bostly recorded confession. She could have tried to bring charges forward in a regular ranger without the nief the special grander. She simply could have, you know, in between two regular alleged felons. She could have stuck the truck in Nightinga right in the middle of it, and and the grudgery could decided

with him out there going to issue the indictment. You know, I understand that she may have had some reticence on the part of Rappensburger, who was at the time in the middle of a heated primary battle and he may have been fact and reticence to come forward because it would have appeared that he was cooperating against the former president. But she had the recording, and so he tells me

that she's simply broadened it out. She's looking for other people who may have been involved in the planning or the efforts to overturn at least the vote totals in Georgia, and making it more of a guess, more of a spider web and which she can catch more flight as opposed to support of the clean cut case. At the end of the day, I don't know if that have been the right call. And again I don't I don't

want to second guess everything she's doing. I mean, she may have and does have access to facts and evidence that I don't have and the pelic doesn't have. But as you look at it, I mean, one principle usually remains true, and that is that when you keep it simple, it often makes for a better case. It's easier to prove, it takes less confusion for a jury, it creates less defenses.

It also creates less pellet issues that would be often decided about pelt courts, which in Georgia as you may know our pelt courts are basically controlled by Republican appointees are good judges and friends of behind and such. But you have to wonder about the survival of some of these allegations that may be pushing an envelope a little bit if they got to the a Pelic court. In recent court filing, she has indicated I understand that charges

including racketeering and conspiracy are being considered. That would become a really complicated case, wouldn't it. It's an extraordinary complicated case. And you think about racketeering and conspiracy cases when you think about organized crime rings, and you know, if you're trying to bring down a mafia family in New York, he might be talking about racketeering cases. So you're bringing

it down a drug distribution enterprise somewhere. You think about reco cases um conspiracy cases, and so it is legally permissible, I will say in in circumstances, the question of is whether or not it's wise In a case like this, there are many prosecutors who will tell you that you should not consider sort of the policy implications and what may be out there, other than just following the fact and following evidence. We're a little bit in uncharted waters here, No,

not a little bit. We just from off the Deacon and uncharted water. So that is that, you know, we're talking about whether or not an indictment is going to issue for a former president for conduct that he is alleged you have committed while in fact he was president out his states, and you have to consider that, and you have to consider what it means for the country,

for the future people who hold that office. And again, I think the appellate courts were then we're talking about the Supreme Court of Georgia, where we're talking about the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, a federal quarter, where we're talking about the United States Supreme Court, I think they're gonna be cognitive. The fact that this could be setting a president that is dangerous. And so when you overreach and when you sort of fish with too big a net,

you bring a lot of these issues at play. If you had taken a simple approach and you said, look, as a prosecutor, I feel like this is called Rapidsburger was in fact illegal, that it was an effort to put pressure on the elections official, that it was an effort to solicit somebody to commit election fraud and this is a very clear case. Or you say, well, look there's evidence of witness tampering. And I'm thinking now about the prominent justice looking at if in fact allegations coming

out from a general cist committing or true. Do you look at those and so that was conduct committed post presidency, that's something that may not have those same policy implications going forward. Those soon to me to be much cleaner cases for appellate course to the side, and I think

maybe less dangerous as a president going forward. Again, we've not faced this, and I can tell you State d a's don't face this where they have to sit down and make a decision whether or not they're going to die upon the president and so um, it's a little bit maybe some decisions may be a little bit made on the fly. I think there's no text put to go back and look at this the side, but this is how we ought to do it, this is what we're going to do. I just worry sometimes it's complicating

a case. As I say, not only gives issues for the defense and the appellate courts, it makes it more confusing for a jury and it brings in other factors that I think in reality we have to consider. Aside from that, does she have the chops to prosecute a former president because we've seen that the new Manhattan d A doesn't seem too he backed off that case as soon as he got into office. Well, she's a good lawyer, she's a good prosecutor. She has experienced. Again, not the

second guessing her at all. If you think about it from sort of a general rule or general principle, I think it's better if we talked about the Department of Justice acting when it comes to a case like this than just a local be a. I mean, think about what happens if Joe Biden goes to Texas and he makes a speech near the border about America wealth and all people and all people ought to come and you know, and then suddenly some local DA decides that they're going

to prosecute Joe Biden for solicited people to commit immigration crimes or something. You know. That may sound extreme, but weird extreme waters here, and so I think you have to think about it that way. You know, the Congress obviously they were the statute says that when this kind of thing happens, you can ask that if we transferred to the federal course, So that strikes me as a place where this type of case is probably more appropriately heard.

The prosecutors have a duty to prosecute crimes within the jurisdiction if they think that something is there. She clearly has moved forward with some belief that she thinks there

may be evidence of a crime committed. But again, you are talking about prosecuting for a state crime a formal president for crimes that he committed while he was president of the United States, and that we take Trump out of it and bring in and you can choose, you know, bring in whoever you believe was the most beloved prison history. I'm sure you may find some state prosecutor somewhere who

disagreed with something that he had done. Would it be appropriate for that state prosecutor to a dike that president for crimes that he committed while he was president of the United States? And that's a question I think that is looming out because we have these kind of discussions. A lot of people say that the Georgia investigation is the most serious case facing Trump. Do you disagree with that? Then?

I disagree in the sense that I think a case brought forward by the Department of Justice would be the most serious case, no matter what that case may be. And really the reason is this, I think the likel here that you would ever find the former president sitting

in a Georgia penitentiary be slim or none. I just don't think that's going to and even just logistics, just because he would have been convicted of that crime with former presidents that the private the Secret Services Texas, so I don't think you're gonna find a secret service bucking up with him, you know, at the state prison. And

I just don't think so happened. So when I think about cases and whether or not they're serious, jail tip sort of offer table, I do think there's self than to be said about the message of his fins to have the United States Department of Justice moved forward on the case with career prosecutors that are to be a political and free the allegations against a sense of the

chief executive of the United States. And I don't know if they'll be able to produce the evidence to prove their allegation or not, but if in fact they can prove that either the former president ordered someone to try to influence a witness or he himself tried to influence a witness to this telephone call. They're able to tie those ins together. I think that makes a pretty strong rope that would be used to tie not around it.

That to me is conduct. Again, not to repeat myself, but when I look at it, I think about conducts that would be performed after it was president of the United States. You know, we have an impeachment process that is really supposed to clean up messes about the aptitude, and we have a twenty put the amendment process. Just because somebody is reckless while they're in office, or somebody negigent while they're in office, or somebody is derelict, it

is part of his duties while they're office. That's why we have the impeachment process for a president president. That's why we have ah amendment process for the cabin to come in if they think that there's been something here. I think that, you know, looking back and based on the evidence that we say, we could say at least I will say hopefully, I think the Senate failed. I think that they there was a clear evidence that would

have supported the conviction, but only impeachment charges. They didn't do that, and that is our system. So we they're just going to rely on state d as to do the job that the Senate didn't do. And I would just lean towards the fact that I think that charges brought by the United States Department of Justice within that ben not only more serious, but would sort of carry the weight of the justice system behind behind those charges.

Is Trump's intent the biggest problem and all these the biggest challenge in all these cases, it's certainly a required element for criminal prosecution, ands in is a sort of the cornerstone from bringing criminal charges, and I think to come to play in a number of cases. In the Georgia case presence the telephone call, well, you know, I can think of ways that who could argue that he was simply a tender who was calling saying, can't we find more votes? Can't you just find that twelve hundred,

twelve thousand, eleven thousands of under eighty votes? Whatever it was? To so I overcome this depths that I mean, I can, I can think of ways you can argue, and I'm not that's not how I happen to feel about his call, but I could I can see as somebody can make that argument that he didn't really have the intent. He was simply a losing candidate who was searching for ways to overcome an elect election. That's when you think about

any of the allegations against him. I mean, there's been much made about, you know, whether or not his direction to allow people to come into the speech on January six and not worried about going through battle detectives and somehow that's some indication that he was intending to send him down to the to the Capitol. Well, you could also be argued that he's just a narcissist and he was trying to build his crowd size, which we know from the inauguration day for has been a cornerstone for

him or something that's the extraordinary portant. How many people show up in his rallies, how many people attended as an auguration, how big the crowd coming to hear everything. Is he adored by his fan and so you can make arguments, I think, you know, one way or another. That's why things like emails, that's why things like text messages. That's why direct statements that people bring in and not just hear such statements that that to me is important

improveing intent. You know, we we we really have to be careful not to as we talk about charges against a former president, and we don't need to just get

kind of lost in our onn echo chamber. You know, the fact that he threw a plate against the wall and some ketchup was on the wall, or the fact that he slammed his hands on the desk and yelled at people in the meeting, Well, let me tell you my belief at the bottom of my heart is that it's not the first time of plate's been thrown in the lighter, the first time somebody has yelled in the

oval office. And so it makes for sexy commentary, but it's not necessarily I think, indicative of and in and it may be out of what we'd call societal norms and and social graces, but that's not enough the end of itself, to to to prove a criminal intent. It's a big bourden, and it should be when you're talking about people's liberty and proving that they did violated criminal statute. It's a It's a big birden and we want it

to be. And we don't want to shift that or change that just because it might be a Trump's scenario. We still want prosecutes to have to prove intent, and that's why they I think going through the witnesses and at the end of the day, we're seeing witness the subpoena and even in the federal grand jury case to find out was there any direct communication, with any direct orders of commands from Trump. You don't prosecute inner circles, you know, outside of conspiracy charges. We talked about that.

You have to look and see can I prove it? If you think about it this way, So, think about the Godfather and he sends a direct command to somebody. Well, the fact that the horse head is of being in somebody's bed in the Godfather, unless you could prove that the Godfather ordered to be slipt, you can't prove his intent. But if you've got somebody who said the Godfather told me to cut the horse head off and take it

to sell us those bed, that's a different thing. And so they've got to sort of get to that place and build that bridge between both the facts and the allegations. And that's that's where intent comes in. She hasn't ruled out subpoena Trump, but if she's after Trump, if he's the target, can she subpoena him, or should she subpoena him.

She should not subpoena him. I mean, generally a prosecutor would not be putting somebody up who's a target just to claim the Fifth Amendment in front of the grand jury. So I would I would be surprised that she would be subpoena him, and maybe that she's talking about her. She's wanting to subpena him for evidence in another case that he's not a target. But I can't believe at

this stage. And that's a that's a great example two of um you know folks who say, well, prosecutors shouldn't take into account of policy and that should just move forward by still the fact of others and anybody who believes that somehow this case is not being handled differently because as a former president, let me just ask him to tell me how many special grand juries are going on in flolting counterybody. Of course it's being handled different

because it's the former president, you know. I mean, that's we know that. And so I think it would be a mistake to subpoena him in and with the legal challenges that would come with that. And I also think that if the prosecutors generally are they know not to bring in people who have constitutional rights even if they were there, they certainly have costUS rights to take the

fifth and you did typically don't bring them in. You never see that, and you know, I don't think you'll be at the pointer or folks in the d as al should be able to point to cases where they bring in criminal defendants to mostly sit there in front of a grand jury and say well, I'm gonna make you take the fifth in front of the strandur. You don't often see that. You have the cases where you bring people in and say well, I'll give you immunity to testify, and we're gonna allow you know, use of

immunity here. But I just would be surprised if she actually subpending to him to come in and testify in a case against himself. Thanks Michael. That's Michael Moore of more Hall. Michael Novak was once the most powerful person in the gold market. Now he's on trial with two other former JP Morgan Chase employees for operating a criminal conspiracy inside one of Wall Street's largest banks. Facing decades

in prison. Prosecutors set a corrupt group of traders and sales staff manipulated gold and silver markets for the benefit of the bank and its prized clients, scamming the market for years with so called spoofing trades. Joining me a securities law expert James Cox, a professor at Duke Law School, Jim explain what spoofing is well is keep the fun simple.

Ground is submitting on order to buy in order to sell without the intent of really wanting to buy an up seller the price order stated, and it's intended to allure the unsuspecting into thinking that the market is moving one direction or another. The whole purpose of spoofing isn't to close and order, but rather to create the impression that prices are moving or rightly to move in a certain direction because of a build up of demand demand on the sales side or demand on the buy side.

So all it is is a false order that's being sent to the marketplace and a series of false orders to create an idea that there's like a surge or price. For example, let's assume that you said a whole bunch of false orders to buy to create the image that there's a lot of demand out there at ten dollars, and maybe the price will go up to ten ten, and so therefore you should be wanting to go out and buy in the market at ten or tennel five with the expectation that those markets will suddenly go to

ten ten. So you go out in the market and you're willing to pay more than the current market price of ten because you think it's going to go up to tennel five, and you close the pennel five minute the market stays at ten, So you've gotten clipped. So the whole idea of spoofing is to dupe another person of believing that there's a shift in the marketplace. So now in this case, unlike past cases of allegistrating fraud, the prosecutors have sort of up the anti here. They're

accusing the defendants of a racketeering conspiracy. That's a lot you usually see more with the mafia than banks. This is true. They're using the RICO and other legislation that's been passed over the decades is designed to go after purposeful intentional misconduct. We rarely see that used in most securities or commodities cases, but they're doing it in this case. And I believe it's the fact that we now find

that certainly with this administration. When you look at who the use attorneys are, who's at the SEC, who's at the Commodity's Future Trading Commission, those are all now democtratically controlled prosecutor offices. And there has been the belief that the markets have gotten more and more up through a variety of practices, not just spoofing, but spoofing is one

of those practices where it's rampant. And what's interesting in the case that's being prosecuted now is that part of the defense is the fact that, look, I came in a young broker here and I saw how things were working, and people did this practice which turns out to be spoofing, doing it all the time, and I just thought that was normal and routine processes, and I had no corrupt

criminal attempt behind it. And the fact that that defense in this case has some salience to itself where I think that that could be actually the key defense to this case is that everybody's doing it indicates that this is a pervasive problem. But it also explains why we're suddenly seeing spoofing cases being brought, and particularly this spoofing

case being brought in the criminal arena. That is that this is not a question of just getting an injunction against somebody making them disgorge the commissions that they may have earned by spoofing, or maybe even the gains that they made by spoofing. This is the perhaps put somebody away for some period of time in prison, and the reason for that is that the markets are filled with spoofing. Some of the prosecution's witnesses are former traders who are

cooperating after pleading guilty. So would they be able to testify as to what the intent was? Yes, you know, the important thing is to describe the phenomenal so the trier of fact can really understand why this is manipulative conduct and not legitimate business practices. So they would be explaining that to explain the consequences of the misconduct. So the witnesses are doing that, and I think that they're also going to be helpful in describing the likely mental

state of the defendants in this case. That is that brokers all knew that this conduct was illegal, that it was pervasively practiced and there was a way to making money, and that there were victims, not those who were practicing spoofing, but rather the other traders on the other side who are innocent, and we're victimized by false appearances about market movements.

So I think that all of that's important. And the fact that they'll be able to get some other traders to cooperate while at the same time admitting that they had engaged in this conduct makes it more likely that

the defendants in this case could be found guilty. According to the defense evidence that the trial will show that the vast majority of all market orders are canceled and the typical lifespan of an order is just a couple of seconds, and I think that that would understanding pretty much in the literature for some time that spoofing has

been a problem. It's surprising that it took as long as it did to be prescribed as a violation, and it's surprising that we haven't had more cases brought to you know, it's hard to say this is gonna be a watershed case, but it's certainly going to be a case. It's going to change industry practices if the prosecution sticks. Federal prosecutes have been going after spoofing for years, haven't they.

They have been, and they're they're complicated cases. You know, the difficulty you have is the defense are well aware that they're probably in better shape if they can have the case before not a judge, but have the trial effect be a jury since it's a criminal case, because juries are persuaded by the many times the equities. When the defendant comes and said, what this wasn't manipulative because everybody was doing it. It was at the practice and

everybody knew what was going on out there. Prosecutors can say what they want to about that they're innocent people who don't expect there to be spoofing, But at the same time the defense that everybody's doing it has had an effect on juries. Thanks Jim. That's James Cox of Duke Law School. Coming up, we'll talk to Bloomberg Special

Medals reporter Eddie Spence, who's covering the trial. We've been talking about the trial of three former JP Morgan employees, including the veteran head of the press just Metals Desk, the most ambitious government effort yet in the crackdown on market manipulation and spoofing. Joining me is Bloomberg Special Metals reporter Eddie Spence, who's covering the trial. Tell me a little bit about who these defendants are basically all three

of these guys work. Take Morgan, one of them, Mike Novak used to run the precious metals business at Jape Morgan, which is by far the biggest precious metals business are a commercial bank in the world. Pretty much, you can really think of Mike Novak as the top guy in the entire gold market. And along with him is Greg Smith, who was Mike Novak's top trader, and Jeffrey Ruffo, who used to handle sales to hedge funds like more Capital and Tudor. It's a really really big players in the

concert to this market. The prosecution's attempt to prove a criminal conspiracy here, is that a reach. It's really difficult to say at this point, but it's a pretty crucial part of their indictment in trying to prove a criminal comperiracy. What they're trying to do is stand up the rico charges they've they've put against them, which are they're basically charges that are usually used against like Matthews and gangs,

and they're applying it to white collar crime essentially. So it makes it very interesting, and it also makes the kind of sense that these guys might get significally more severe and if the prosecution a lot more leeway when it comes to introducing evidence, and also a lot more

kind of plot with the jury. You know, if you're being told for deeply Morgan traders are equivalent to you know, Gambino crime family or something like that, that's a pretty striking thing that gives it a bit more jury appeal. So tell me about the prosecution's case here. So basically what they are trying to prove is these three guys conspired to spoof precious metals markets, in this case cold

and silver, over the courts of about eight years. So spoofing is a form of market manipulation where basically you show the market huge false orders on one side in order to get your orders that are smaller on the other side fill other participants. It's considered these days essentially a form of fraud because you're basically misleading the market about what your true trading intentions are in order to prices.

A lot. The prosecutors are basically trying to improve is that over eight years, these guys use spooping to essentially enrich themselves, enrich their clients, and also to enrich the precious meat of disks and what does the defense appear to be. So the defense in these type of cases

a lot of the time it's focused around intent. So basically what they say is these markets moving incredibly fast, party fans, you know, the advent of algorithmic trading, so it's necessary for traders to cancel sometimes when they feel like an algorithm is trying to pee back off them. It really is that frucial point of intent. Basically, whether these guys intended to spook the markets when they were placing these orders, or whether they were canceling them for

legitimate reasons. And there are logismic reasons to cancel orders after you've placed them, but you can't intend to cancel them before you place them. So that's what the defense is really going to focus on. That intent point is quite because in previous cases or someone has come down to is you know a Bloomberg message or you know WhatsApp text or something like that where one of the defendants has kind of explicitly said that he knows what he's doing is is illegal, or you know that he

actually intends to cancel the orders. But that's the real crucial point, is intent among the first witnesses was a former trader who made a plea deal with the government, John Edmonds. So John Edmins was an interesting one. At the time he was working with these guys at jp Morgan, he was quite a junior trader. I guess what was striking in his testimony is he seemed to suggest that he was basically just taking part in what was considered

standard practice on the desks entire career. And he said he knew it was wrong, but to an extent, the fact that everyone else is doing it made him feel like he didn't really have a choice but to do the spoofing. You know. I mean, he had a pretty great career ahead of him, um and you know these days he's a car salesman because of this. That that was pretty striking. The defense tried to attack his credibility, Edmund's credit ability on cross How did that go? That

was a pretty interesting moment. So what they were basically doing was bringing up a previous civil case regarding spoofing involving JPMorgan, where it turns out that John Edvans had lied basically about what the reason was for one of his colleagues being fired. It turned out the reason was spooping, but he said he lies because his attorney told them to do so. And obviously, as soon as you start lying on drow, you know, even in the civil case,

that really does affect your credibility. It was interesting in that moment because in the courtroom got quite heated, should we say, is the kind of defense laid into into edmands in that case, And it was a really long cross examination as well, so it was pretty grueling for Fred. Do you have any inkling as to whether any of the defendants is going to testify? We don't at this stage, essentially, the reason being the defense can wait until the prosecution

respece case before they made that decision. But I've asked the defense laways about this um. That's what they've essentially told me. It will depend on the prosecution's case goes and whether the defense lawys feel like they need to put up the defendants to I guess have a better chance of getting a not guilty verdict. Thanks so much. That's Eddie Spence, Bloomberg Precious Metals Reporter, 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