Trump Says He Wants to Hear From Kavanagh Accuser

sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Speaking at the White House earlier today, President Trump commented on the matter, we want to get it over with. At the same time, we want to give tremendous amounts of time. If she shows up, that would be wonderful. If she doesn't show up, that would be unfortunate. Joining me is Greg Store, Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter. So, Greg, the story seems to change by the hour. What's the latest? It sure does well.

As you heard the President this morning, uh said he wants to hear from from professor Ford. Uh. He's also again saying he a short delay is is okay with him, But he's reiterating his support for Brett Kavanaugh. In terms

of UH. Folks in the Senate Republicans are also saying we'd like to hear from her UM and they have, and Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee UH, is signaling he will move ahead one we or another if she does not agree to testify in this hearing that is scheduled for Monday, or in talk to the committee in some other fashion. Well, let's clear up the

FBI part of this, because I've heard conflicting reports. If the committee asked the FBI to investigate, will it investigate? As a general matter, the FBI is acting at the behest of the White House, That at least has traditionally been how things have worked. If the White House asked the FBI to look into these allegations, it certainly would. I don't know that it's clear what would happen if it were just a Senate committee that we're asking the FBI.

Certainly they don't have the power to order the FBI to do something. UH. That that may be some uncharted waters. Republicans want to handle this in one hearing with just the two witnesses, not even with the third person who Ford claims was in the room. That night. Explain how this differs from what happened at Anita Hills testimony and how many people testified there. Well, in some ways it's similar in the sense that that was a he said,

she said situation with Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas. There were other women, women who we now understand UH had had levied UH similar allegations about Clarence Thomas, who might have been willing to testify. They didn't testify. Um. The Republicans seem as though they want to keep this very narrowly focused, not bring in a whole lot of additional complication aations, But they have the same sort of thing

where it's just the two people talking. Where do those two critical votes Republican Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski stand right now? Well, that's the sixty four million dollar question. They have not said how they will will vote. Uh. Senator Collins did uh clearly say she wanted to hear from Professor Ford. Um. It's not clear what would happen if the Republicans moved ahead with a committee vote not

having heard from her, because she hadn't agreed to publicly testify. Um. Uh, you know this is one of these things that we're gonna have to watch them very closely, but for now they haven't tipped their hands. Let's turn to another issue. President Trump has demanded the immediate declassification of sensitive materials about the Russia investigation. So here's another what's happening now question? Yeah, so, um uh, these are materials. This is is um uh,

perhaps an unprecedented move move. These are materials that Republicans had been clamoring for for quite a long time. As a general matter, the president and the executive branch doesn't reveal these sorts of materials while an investigation is going on. Um uh It. We're gonna be very interesting to see what ultimately happens here. Um Yet another issue. Trump has, as we have discussed many times, been very critical of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and his latest is perhaps one

of the most severe. When he spoke to hill To TV yesterday, tell us how he has sort of ratcheted up this his problems with Sessions. Yeah. He his words were, I don't have an attorney general. It's very sad. Uh, you know the the um. He has frequently said that he is disappointed in the way that Jeff Sessions has has handled this job. Um. You know what is striking about the comments that he made was that, Um, you know, the attorney general is not just somebody who works for

the president. It is somebody who is the attorney general of the country. Um. You know, Jeff Sessions is is, by all appearances, you know, performing that job. And the way he thinks is is appropriate. It is not the way that Donald Trump thinks is appropriate. Um. But but Trump uh seems as though he wants somebody who will show more loyalty to him. And he was even critical of Jeff sessions moves in as far as immigration are concerned. In that is an area where it seems as if

Sessions was in lock step with what Trump wants. Yeah. One of the great ironies of of Trump's criticisms of Sessions is that putting aside the Russia investigation, where Sessions has recused himself. Um, Sessions has been one of the most active and some would say successful, of Trump's cabinet members and promoting policies, and certainly he has been a staunch advocate for the President's crackdown on illegal immigration. But even there, the president is now saying that that Sessions

is not doing enough. And what do you make of his critique now two years later of Sessions hearings for confirmation as a g Yeah, Um, June, I'm gonna duck that question because I missed that part of the interview and I I don't know exactly what he said. A sorry about that. That that's all right? Well, do we see Sessions pushing back in any way? He's done that before. He has done that before. Um. Uh, you know, we may see it again in a sense. You know, Sessions

pushes back every day he stays on the job. Every day he stays on the job as a day that Uh, it makes it much more difficult for Trump to squash the Robert Mueller investigation. Um. It may be after the election. There there have been some signals from the President, including in an interview with Bloomberg, uh, that he might make a change after the election. But for now, Uh, Sessions is still Attorney general. He has recused from the Muller investigation,

and that that one's going forward. And what it has changed though, is that it seems as if there are several senators on the Republican side who are willing to talk about and think about having Sessions stepped down. Yeah, M Lindsay Graham is perhaps the most prominent name because he has been somebody who has been both a supporter of Jeff Sessions and somebody uh willing to push back against the president and and Senator Graham has said that um uh recently that the president is entitled to an

attorney general. He has confidence in um and it's clear he doesn't have confidence in Jeff Sessions right now. All right, thanks so much, Greg. That's Gregg's store. He's a climber news Supreme Court reporter. That funding secured tweet by Chairman Elon Muskin August continues to haunt him and Tesla. The Justice Department has now opened a criminal investigation into Tesla. Joining me is Robert Hockett, professor at Cornell Law School. Bob the sec was already investigating Mosque. Explain how a

Justice Department investigation is different? So it really I guess there's some key things to say. The first is the sense in which it would be different is that if it were actually to pan out into something, there would be the prospect of criminal penalties, including even jail time, that could be uh brought against Mr Muskin. Perhaps others as well. That being said, however, I hastened to add the second thing, which is that this is sort of

a routine matter. Right. There haven't been subpoenas issued by the d o J so far as far as we know. Um, this is just kind of kind of looking around, sifting through the through the data a bit um. And it would have been actually quite surprising that the o' day didn't do at least that, given the degree to which the SEC has moved forward. The investigation, as you say, is in its early stages. But where could it lead? Are there any restrictions on where prosecutors take this nothing?

I mean generally, you know, in order to issue particular subpoenas, which would be sort of the next stage, you would have to sort of explain precisely what you're looking for and precisely why. Right, it can't just be kind of

gratuitous across the board fishing expedition. That being said, it's not difficult at all to sort of articulate, um, that which you're looking for or that which you know that the sort of concern in relation to which you're seeking documents fairly broadly, and there do seem to be a number of uh, what are arguably our problems that have afflicted you might say, Tesla of late over the last

couple of months. And you could imagine at least the d r J wanted to conduct an inquiry uh in connection with each of those, or maybe a kind of a plenary inquiry that embraces all of those. Well, explain a little further what they'll be looking into, what areas? So you know, there was this tweet ill advised. We know what happened. What's the criminal aspect of that? Yeah, so the criminal the criminal aspect is is exactly the same.

It's the same aspect the sec would be looking at, and it's it's it's just that um, it would just uh, the question would really be whether the offense was sort of serious enough as to warrant actual criminal penalties, including

possible jiltum. So remember as we talked about this last time, that we we found that the problem was or at least that the possibilities were a that there was a kind of a reckless use of language on the part of Mr musk uh that really wasn't designed to manipulate the market, but that really you know, where he should have been more careful in light of the um obviousness of the fact that this would probably lead to some sort of market changes in the price of the stock.

But in a possibility, was that he you know, it was intentional, right, he was sort of trying to sort of reduce the price of the stock before you know, tipping after tipping off friends that he was going to do this, um thereby enabling people to earn money on trade they would otherwise people to do. So far, you know, as far as we know, there's no allegation that anything

like that has happened. But but the SEC and the d o J are both interested in whether something like that might have happened, basically what the motive of the tweet was, because you know, depending on the motive, the sanctions could be more or less severe, and indeed they could turn out to be none at all. Right, it might be viewed as a sort of innocent error in the end, and we just don't We have no way of knowing until things go kind of further. We've talked

before about Musque's frustrations with short sellers. Does that have anything to do with the criminal probe? It certainly could, right, I mean, because if this was a design. If if the aim was sort of get back at the short sellers um by trying to in effect influence the behavior of the shares in the markets, by you know, conveying information that he knew to be false or that he knew that he was a sort of exaggerating, that would

be an offense in its own right, right. It wouldn't be It wouldn't be quite the same thing as insider trading, but it would be sort of on the same level as it were. It would be the same kind of offense in the sense that he would be misusing information with a view to manipulating a share price, in this case, not necessarily to profit himself or his friends, but in order to harm the shaft somebody like the short sellers.

And that's not permissible either because it's still been it would still be manipulous behavior if that's in fact what he was doing. Bob, does his recent conduct play any part in this? You know, this this smoking marijuana on a podcast show, and also the you know, the two people in his organization who have left after a brief time. M hmm. I think I think this is very much front and center here. This is the real core story

in my book. And remember we talked about this a little bit before the last time we chatted about Mr must But I think you know, he's a little he seems to be a little bit overextended. He wears multiple hats at Tesla itself, but then in addition, he wears multiple hats in so far as he is involved with lots of firms in addition to Tesla, and he seems to have in a way bitten off more than he can chew. Right, he's sort of got too many irons in the fire, as they say, are too many ponds spoiling.

He seems to be having a little bit of trouble keeping up with it all. Seems to be chronically sleep deprived and overstressed. That often leads to sort of erratic or irrational behavior. And uh there in a sense, right, this is coming back to sort of fight him. I mean, many people seem to be leaving Tesla now to go back to the tech firms that they originally abandoned in

order to go to Tesla. Uh. In the first place, there's this strange lawsuit that's now I shouldn't say, there's this libel suit of course, that's just been filed against him for his strange behavior referring to a British man uh in connection with the Thaie flood last year as a pedophile with apparently no no ground. Um. So he's now brought you know, potential liability against himself on that ground. Um. There's of course, you know, the cannabis smoking on the

on the podcast. There's also of course rumors about similar behavior actually at Tesla itself. Who knows the truth or otherwise of these rumors, but there's a general feeling then of kind of chaos, of things kind of spinning out

of control. Uh. And it might, as we talked about last time, it might be a good idea I think even for mr Mr Tesla, Mr Tesla, maybe to take a time out, you know, take a little time out and step back, maybe a trim back a little bit on what he does, um, and maybe also divide the role of CEO and UH and chairman of the board at Tesla and so that he's not having to do so many things at the same time. All right, thanks so much, Bob, I'm sure we'll be talking about this again.

That's Robert Hocket. He's a professor at Cornell Law School and The SEC already was investigating whether Musk's vehicle production production forecast misled investors before the SEC started scrutinizing whether he had secured funding for a Tesla buyout. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I am June Brosso. This is Bloomberg