Welcome everybody. I'm a great way to start. Three. One ask not what your country can do for you, at what you can do for your country. Mister Gerbatscheff, tear down this wall, read my lifts. I think the unprecedented indictment of a former president of the United States for a campaign finance issue is an outrage, and I believe the American people will see this for what it is. It's the Ricoche Pondcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Blond.
I'm James Lilac and today we talked to John. You anything more I need to say about that now, So let samersels a podcast. America is a nation that can be defined in a single word. I was foot as welcome everybody. This is the Ricoche podcast. It is, indeed, and it's episode number six hundred and thirty six. If you would just do as a you know, little favor and gobert to ricochet dot com, take a look, join up. You can be part of the most stimulating conversations in
community on the web. And we mean that it's the place you've been looking for. If you want to go someplace where there's a code of conduct and people don't act like idiots under false names and throw bricks at each other. All the time. It's a haven sometimes, No, it's a haven all the time. I'm James Lilacs here in Minneapolis, which is my haven.
Eve though the skuys are slate gray and we're expected to get five inches of snow, and Rob is in New York, where I imagine it's fine and people are strolling about with you know, with the expectation of really, really chill, feel better. Peter, I understand, has not been glimpsing the sun for days in California, but now it's out, and so so we're all in a grand mood where we've we've seen the end of March, We've got the hope of spring and April and taxas ahead of us. What's there
to do? Well, Naturally, we're gonna have to talk about the indictments, all thirty thirty four of them. But Johnny, who was going to be along shortly to discuss these things, because Bob knows what I can say about them, We could discuss the other events of the week. I think the only thing really that stands out right now, days later after the horrible shooting in Nashville is the argument about whether or not this manifesto that the shooter
left behind should be released. Usually people say no, no, don't give them any publicity whatsoever. But then there's the argument that says, well, there might be something to be gleaned from this. As a matter of fact, there was something to be gleaned from Ted Kazinski's manifesto. There are things that tell you the intellectual temper of the times, even though they may be written by somebody who's who's plainly daft. What do you guys think, I
don't don't leap to the mic. No, I suppose. I suppose I'm thinking back to the unibomber. What year was the unibomber? That was a long time ago, now, James seems, uh, maybe you'd better just give us two sentences on who the UNI bomber was. We're gonna the UNI bomber University an airline bomber, I think it was. What it was was a guy with aviator glasses. According to the description that out there for decades.
It turns out he's a guy living in a cabin who was bashing out these manifestos about what the machine age, the computer age, the technocratic age had done to humanity and civilization. Some of his ideas have been taken up by people who say, you know, he had a point. Uh, he just went about it by planning bombs and killing people and taking off their fingers and the rest of it. Um. So yeah, I think it's David Gelertner. Yes, David. He was a victim, right, he
lost a digit or to to the UNI bomber. And it's a fascinating tale because Kauzinski was a very was a very smart man. Obviously twisted, but that doesn't mean that you you look at what he said. He's not talking about snakes and ravens coming out of a whole in the earth to devour this So I mean he's talking about issues that we're still grappling with. So yes,
I mean. My argument is I'd like to see the manifesto, not to give the person any publicity, but to just understand the tenor of the times when it comes to what's rattling around the brains with some of these people on the unibomber. I have a question that we will not be able to answer. Well, you can answer yes or no, I suppose, but I want to set up a conversation for a future show. Does either of you understand, I mean, even at a rudimentary level, does either of
you understand artificial intelligence? It? Kind of? Yeah? Do you understand it well enough to understand why? Some serious people, including Eric Schmidt and Henry Kissinger and who it is a strange duo, but Eric Schmidt used to run Google. Henry Kissinger, of course, is still with us at the age of one hundred, still writing, and they tell us the day I is very, very dangerous. Do you understand enough about it to know why?
Yes, you do, think, uh huh, oh, yeah, I'm in favor of shutting the whole damn thing down now, and I am almost in favor of can you give us one paragraph on why it has absolutely the smarter it gets it as absolutely, there's no reason that it has any investment whatsoever, and the continuing existence of humanity it's utterly irrelevant to it um. There's there's no reason to expect that that what comes out of it at the end of it um is anything other than inimicable to the human creative spark
in human imagination and ingenuity. We don't need it. So I'm a I'm a big tech guy. I'm a big, Yes, bring it on. I'm a star trek. Give me my flip phones, give me pickles, computers, all of that stuff I do. But this, it beyond cannot tell me that this has not advanced the advancement that we've seen since we started just hearing about this. The rapid pains of it is hold on, stop, wait, slow it down before something happens. I mean the example of
the well anyway, rob, where do you stand on this? I know you are not the band TikTok paranoid, no, I mean, but I just I don't like this. I don't like this. I'm I'm a fatalist. Though. I don't think that you can I don't think that you can go back. I don't think you can put the toothpaste back in the tube, as they say. So. I mean, I feel like we have
to figure out a way to live with it. And I just think that living in general and being a human and making decisions is being autonomous and having your human natural citizens sovereignty is just going to take a little bit more, a lot more work going forward. I think we've kind of been sleepwalking on it for a while, and we've thought of that we are sort of looking for like, well, one of the things, I don't have to think
about it anymore. And I don't think that you can ever not think about your own freedom and your own freedom of choice and thought and speak and um, you know, just the your your sovereign rights as a citizen. Up. Does this strike you as a society that's in the mood for more work?
Well, yeah, no, maybe not, but I don't. The problem for me is that if you if you attempt to ban something like this, this technology, then the only people who will use it will be people who are smarter than you are, and they'll continue to use it and we won't know it. And so there's no, there's no banning is not a possible. Um, it's not part of the of the decision array. So what's the decision? Right? It may just have to be that we do more work. I mean, you know, for you this is kind of
a human problem. Definitely, it's a cultural it's a modern cultural problem. Right. People are looking around and saying, like, just thinking about people trying to lose weight. Um, like if you just go on email or TikTok and just say or instagram, Instagram is filled with weight loss infomercials, right basically, and they kind of all say, you know, it's a lot easier than you think. It's actually a lot easier than you think.
And everybody knows, no, it's not. You just have to eat less and that's hard for a lot of people, including any more right and move more's I wants to do that. It is very easier way. And the truth is that some things aren't easier. We just have thought we've convinced ourselves that they are they should be or related morally, I shouldn't have to do
this or that, And the truth isn't. No, Like, some things are always going to be hard, and it's always gonna be hard, especially as the world gets more busy and noisy and there's more intrusions into our privacy just because everybody's closer to us than they ever were before. It's just gonna be harder and harder and harder to be a sovereign citizen. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it. That actually means it's better. Let me give you a test, Rob Here, are you a citizen in Manhattan?
This is not the test. Yeah, this is not a test. This is a choice. Here's the choice. But then the next five to ten years you may have no traffic in Manhattan. I'm not saying no cars. I'm saying no traffic jams, no trouble parking, no traffic ams, Traffic moves smoothly. There's never another instance of what did it used to be called before Rudy made it illegal? Gridlock? There's never another instance of gridlock. All right, here's the price you have to pay. You will never be
allowed to drive a car on the island of Manhattan again. Do you take the deal? No? I mean, I don't know. I don't think so. I mean the interesting thing about the traffic, I mean, there's a specific issue with traffic in Manhattan. It's interesting because a lot of these streets have been essentially slimmed by two lanes because of the outdoor you know, COVID, you know, little dining huts, and no one is really complained about it. It's more I think that here's where I thought you were going
with it, that you everyone can. You can have the most efficient commute ever in your car, and the only thing you have to do is give up your right to choose your route and for your right to keep your destination private because if the giant auto brain knows where everybody's driving, it will be
able to rout us in the most efficient way. And the benefit of that is that actually, we have these beautiful cars that seem to work, and they are really great, and they're much more efficient in a lot of ways to get you where exactly where you want to go than a train or a bus. Let's be honest. The downside is that there's a million cars going different points. There's no organizational structure to any of this, any of these
sort of packets of people rather than packets of information. So that's what WAGS is. So maybe maybe maybe we'll need to here's the thought. Maybe we can invite David Learner. David and I were David and I were exchanging emails about AI just the other day, and he said, there are many benefits, and he listened some benefits, and of course I'm not a founder of the discipline of computer science the way he is. Some of it I couldn't follow. But he said, here's the risk. I'm pretty sure that in
twenty years you won't even have the option of driving your own car. That's I think that's exactly right. That's where this is going all right. And when they come, when they come for your I mean I would say when they come for your rights, right, when people come for your your sovereignty and for your freedom, they don't they I mean, they don't, they
never they they they're sometime very reasonable. They sometimes come in jack boots and you know, brown shirts sometimes, but mostly they come in friendship offering convenience. Yes, yes, and that is the that is I think the thing we have to fight against. The incremental dimmunution of liberty and agency will always be done by promising an ease and a certain removal of responsibility. Who wants to plan their own trip to get across Manhattan when you could have the autobrain
do it for you. And of course the information is going to be encrypted. Nobody's ever going to find out that we don't know how that works. Hey, listen. One of the things you can do when you're in Manhattan is, you know, drive around and see all the businesses that aren't open and more. But there are some that maintained their businesses through COVID, and are you one of those, perhaps somewhere in the national listening to this podcast.
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owned by missing the deadline. Get started today with a free five minute questionnaire at refunds pro dot com. That's refunds with an s pro dot com and we thank refunds pro re sponsoring this the Rigoesche Podcast, and now we welcome back to the podcast. Oh dude, I just saw we got him again? John? You John you? You know he likes McDonald's and he likes spam Musubi, and apart from these appalling culinary tastes, he's pretty smart guy
and we love him. He teaches legal stuff at Berkeley and it's attached to Aie and Hoover, et cetera. And he's been here in the Rigorshe podcast a lot, in Powerline podcast and so forth. Never seems to wear out as welcome because he's always a cheerful presence and he's a smart guy and he knows his stuff. And hey, John, how are you today? Thirty
four indictments? Wow? What do you think? Guys? Can we all tell the listeners the real truth is that now we can reveal Rob Long has been on this grand jury this whole time, and of the many charges you can bring against Trump, he picked the one that would make the best sitcom the worst sitcom. I mean, you know, as the as the resident, you know, anti Trump are here on this on this podcast. You know these charges are stupid when even I know they're stupid or am I?
Am I stupid about that too? John, I think that this is a terrible case to bring. Even if you wanted to get Trump, you would not want this case to be proud because you can take that for granted in the case of mister Long. So, So, John, what do we know about it? Are you pretty tell us what we know and tell us why you think we know it? Are you pretty satisfied that the reporting on this is good, that the the DA's office is leaking intentionally and accurately and
so forth. Well, I think that DA's office is leaking like a sieve. But it's not just the DA's office. Eve also got reporters sticking out the courthouse and watching the witnesses coming in and leaving the grand jury room. Plus you've got witnesses who come out on TV and start telling everybody what they testified about, which you're not really supposed to do, but there's no way
to stop people from doing that in New York City. So I think we have a pretty good picture of what this is going to be, which is it's going to be about this one hundred thirty thousand dollars hush money payment by Donald Trump in twenty sixteen during the campaign two former I guess current I don't know porn star Stormy Daniels. This is why I thought rob fingerprints were all
over this, so to speak. I mean, he would of course want the main character in this to be called Stormy Daniels, but better ones. Yeah, it does have the ring of the kind of hack writing that I would do. Yeah a little. Can we just get clear for a minute, John, I know everybody wants to jump in, but I just need to know. It's not illegal to pay somebody hush money, right right.
This is the problem about this prosecution, is right. If if it was illegal to pay people for nondisclosure agreements, right, half a Hollywood and half a Wall Street be in jail right now. There's about that. Nothing illegal about that. So what the DA here is trying to say is that Trump mischaracterized like doing your own personal taxes. He tried to charge us to the business and not to himself or not to his campaign. That's the charge.
But that charge ran out. He had two years to bring that after it happened. That should have been brought by two eighteen, and it wasn't. That's the real problem. Brag has is an order to try to stick it in now right, seven years later, he has to claim this is really a felony, not just any felony, but it's a felony because Trump essentially gave himself a campaign contribution by paying off. I want to sum to this
point before you go. If indeed he did do what Michael Cohen said and misrepresentation claim hush money as legal payments on his somewhere in his huge accounting book, that would have been a misdemeanor, and the charges would have had to have been brought within two years. So as of five years ago. First of all, who would bring a misdemeanor charge of this guy? Anyway, as far as I can tell from reading around in New York, they don't
bring They don't charge that stuff. They don't worry about it. They have worse problems. But it would have had to have been brought five years ago. Okay, gone, can't do that. So therefore, to chart to indict Donald Trump, we must do what exactly explain this, which is everywhere being called I love this phrase a novel legal theory, untested, slash rejected, slash unconstitutional. I would say legal theory Okay, can you explain it?
Yep, yes, So in New York you can claim it's a felony, and a felony is a crime, more a serious crime, more punishable by a significant jail time. So I think most things you've heard of, like murder, Ray Basalt Rob, those are felonies. Those have a longer statue limitations. To try to get it to that level, excuse me, try to get to that level the DA here, Alvin Bragg has to say, Okay, Trump cooked the books to conceal some other crime. That is
a felony in New York law. The problem is, you know, that's Rob's question is what's the other crime? Right? What he did here is not illegal. So this is where it really gets into the gymnastics, the acrobatics is he says Trump violated the election laws, right, not the New York state of the United States, he violated federal election law. And then it gets even are with me here? This is when you when you have to take this long to explain to someone what the criminal charges are already going
free, right? Yeah, So then what he has to say is, oh, when Trump paid one hundred and thirty thousand dollars to Stormy Daniels during the campaign, he was really making a campaign expenditure to stop bad press getting out about him, on account of how does that to stop bad press? Right? Yeah, uh okay. So because because no one would have ever imagined that Trump would have ever paid it would have been so shocking to hear that Donald Trump paid a cortn star off. It's like like, yeah,
yeah, I was made a big matt um. Obviously, Rob. This is where Rob should have been a criminal defense lawyer because of great Trump's great defense to this charge is I'd do this all the time. This is not about a campaign. I've got thousands of women I happen happens of dollars two over the years. We just so, John, I mean, I've been reading about this last two days. Obviously we have been here before. This case has already appeared Imcortt, not with Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels, but
with vice former senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards and Real Hunter. Essentially, he paid her off, he used campaign funds. They took him to court and he was acquitted. This theory that you're giving yourself an illegal campaign contribution by paying someone hush money has never been accepted by any court as far as I know, and the only time it was put to the test was with John Edwards and a jury acquitted him. Because the claim is this is
not a campaign expenditure. This is just someone something any normal person would not one out there in public, and they would have paid it no matter what, whether running for office or not. Campaign contribute. So, for example, you can't take your campaign funds and spend them on stuff you do every day anyway. You can't like pay your home mortgage off with campaign funds,
although I don't know if Hillary tried that one. She might have, But you can't use your campaign funds to put your kids in fancy private schools, or pay for your dry cleaning and your dinners and lunches and everything. So Trump's defense is going to be as Edwards's defense was. I would have done this anyway, it didn't matter if I was running for president or not. When you mentioned Hillary, though, wasn't there something about her using money to
buy the Steel dossier and writing it off as legal expenses? What is actually a campaign expense? I heard something about that. Yes, No, I do think people who are claiming this is unjust prosecution have a point. And this is what gets to the unconstitutional point of this is, at least in the case James is mentioning, at least in the case that Rob's mentioning, the federal government. The Justice Department investigated, they decide not to charge Hillery.
They charged Edwards and lost. The prosecutors remember this, They're not going to push this theory. This case was also prosecuted before. This is why Michael Cohen, Right, prosecutors brought these charges for this exact conduct here against Michael Cohen because he was the bagman. Michael Kohen was Trump's lawyer, and he carried apparently transmitted the money. The US attorney went after him, and
he played guilty. Right, he's the bagman. So the problem here is, and the reason why I think it's unconstitutional, is state prosecutors can't go around saying I'm going to get you for federal law. Only federal prosecutors the Justice Department prosecutes federal law, and only state prosecutors prosecutes state law. So think about what happens. This is a question I asked. I asked my friends, you know, my liberal friends, which is most of my friends.
I guess is what are you going to do when the shoe's on the other foot. Now every Republican DA and Texas and Florida is going to start investigating the Biden family. Right, That's exactly my first thought. Do they really think the House of Representatives can't find anything and the Hunter Biden laptop that would enable them to bring charges against the president? No? Absolutely face. Okay, So and you're so, how do your friends? How do your
friends reply, John? How do your liberal friends of your friends liberal friends? That's a redundancy. How do your friends reply? It's a it's a um. So. The Trump exception rule I think of it is Trump is such a danger that it is worth breaking all these rules or not worrying about the future consequences on institutions to get him because he's a unique danger to Democrats at the at the exact moment right now, the Manhattan District Attorney I was
responding to a letter from the House Republicans. House Republicans have said, hey, and we want to know what you're what's going on in those grand jury rooms. We want to know what you're looking at. And he responded in a letter that said basically, hey, buzz off, I'm the I'm a district attorney. You have no you have no power over me. You have no And yet a week later he's meddling into federal jurisdiction. So I mean,
I say this as a New York resident. Meanwhile, there's a lot of bad guys on the street, like like the Manhattan District Attorney is not supposed to be. I mean, I mean, I actually feel I mean, maybe I'm wrong. I don't know that much about federal election law, but it always seems to me that FEC violations are how you get the person that you don't like, and it's usually over something like this or some kind
of quasi ill defined number. And you know, denish to SUSA, whatever you think of denish to SUSA should not have been wearing an ankle bracelet for federal for FEC violations. That's it. It does seem like this is not only be as but a waste of time, right, And this is why we actually say, federal government, you're in charge of your crimes. State
das, you're in charge of your state crimes. Because Rob is reacting the way any misbegotten resident of New York City being from Philadelphia, I can say that the misbegotten resident New York City should react, which is, we put this guy into office to make our city safer. How is this advancing any kind of priorities that help New York City at all? Right, And if federal prosecutors want to charge Edwards and not charge Hillary, well we can hold
them responsible. But when you start saying, oh, the State DA in New York is going to start prosecuting people for campaign laws, there's no way for us to hold anybody accountable who's responsible. That's why I think this is a This is a very dangerous precedent because this is not just going to be right candidates for the presidency. What if this becomes started this part of the standard operating procedure for political operatives in every campaign. Why not do this to
Senator where Costa Rica, Honduras? This is a Banana republic. This is a way for the nation. Now we vote for the president. There's no way for us to hold Alvin Bragg accountable. Right, So John, let me let me sum up and ask and just ask the you set it, but I'm out of who you say it really quotably Quotably, the indictment rests on a legal theory, which is at a minimum tortured. There's a jurisdictional
overreach which is likely unconstitutional. And in prosecuting the case, in trying the case, the Manhattan DA will be required to rely on the testimony of an admitted liar. All three of those are correct, right, all right? Is it conceivable that such an indictment would have been brought against anyone other than Donald Trump? I can't imagine it. Okay, I can't imagine it.
So those of us who are saying that this is a really a grotesque misuse of the legal system, that this is a political and ideological prosecution, are simply correct. We're not overheated, we're not being hysterical. That's simply what has happened here. Right, Even the judicius John You would say that, Yeah. I mean, you have a guy who was elected to office as a Democrat in New York City, one of the most bluest of the Blue states, who said he was going to go after Trump. And that is
a violation of everything a prosecutor should do. It's long been a principal prosecution. You don't go after a person, you go right, That's how the Soviets would try to run criminal justice. Right. I think Burria said, I think here's the head of Stalin's secret service. Show me the man. I'll show you the crime. That's the worst of what a justice system.
It's not even a justice system. Our justice system is you have prosecutors who judge what is the best case to bring to protect the public, and these charges based on this, the facts as we know them is so weak it only reinforces that it's political. This is the other political point I'd make. It's not really polic points legal. Such political point is by being first, Bragg is going to give Trump enormous ammunition to rightly attack the prosecution is politicized.
It's going to cloud all the other I think much more meritorious investigations that are going on right now into January sixth, or classified documents at Mari Lago or the district attorney down in Georgia. Right, Trump, I think is going to read I think I saw a poll today are saying that a two to one. I think Americans think this prosecution is political. That could right,
in fact, all the other prosecutions to come. But there are people who don't mind that it is. There are a lot of I mean, and I've been talking to people who just it's like, well, this may not be the thing. Really, it's those other things. It's mostly January sixth when he told everybody to go and break in and kill people, but
you didn't mean. We'll get to that in a second here. But you know, this will do in the absence of anything else, this will do because he's just kind of guilty in a meta sense as well as a micro So you know, get him on this, then they get him on, which to me is a dangerous way to look at the law. I mean, you do, it's like, finally come up. It's after all these years of the walls closing in and the end is coming and the rest of it. If you know, we didn't get him on we didn't get him
on being a putin stooge who took money from the Kremlins. So we'll get him on this and that'll be fine because in the karmic sense it works, which is really not a good way to run a republic. But the two thoughts about that one is people don't realize in this country we don't have many police, we don't have a lot of prosecutors. Americans willingly comply and cooperate with law enforcement because Americans have great faith in the integrity of our justice system.
If they start by pulling two to one thinking our politics, I mean our law enforcement are political, then that means we're going to have a lot of trouble enforcing our laws and maintaining law and order in the country. And then the second thing is James's repeating what I have here from my friends when I argue them about this and my responses. Think about the future incentives you're creating. Think about what you're doing to the presidency. Who's going to want
to be president in the future. And then when they have to make tough decisions, do you want them factoring into their minds, Oh, someday I'm going to get sued investigated, my family is going to run up millions of dollars and legal fees because I have to make a tough call, right, And then going to subject presidents, senators, to members of the House cabinet, members to the whims of any elected prosecutor anywhere in the country. Is it really the way we want to run about They know they know. If
they don't know it is specifically, they know it instinctively. That if indeed that happens and the Republicans start to go after the Democratic candidates, that they will have an entire media apparatus on their side to show how this is baseless, is politically motivated, and these people are just being mean to people who are blameless, because generally the people who will come from the left will be blameless. They're not motivated by avarice by any sense. They're not motivated by
power. No, They're motivated by doing the good things that need to be done. Whereas we know that the people on the right will be the ones who are justifiably investigated because they're corrupt in essence, in philosophy and dealings and the rest of it. And there's you know what will it take to get immedia to turn on somebody on the left if they're investigated, No, they will defend them up and down. The Hunter Biden case was just an example
of that. Rob, you had something else standard that I was gonna go, wait a minute, hold on a second, here, I forgot should we make John sit through a commercial or should we do a nice John's got to sit to a commercial, hit through a commercial. He's got nothing to do. Look at him, he's just sitting around with his headphones on it. Do you know where I am? You guys are left like this. I'm in my mother's retirement home where I'm eating retirement food, which I really
like. So I'm getting ready for retire I was like, can I put my name down now using the retirement home gym? I love being in a retirement home. I'm like, how did I not know about this? Leland? How oldly do I? How old? How young can I be before I sign up? How is your mom? By the way, she's great. She's turning eighty five this weekend. Man, and she was still practicing medicine until COVID stopped her and she couldn't go to the hospital. I like,
I like this retirement. It's like being back in college, but everybody's fifty years older. Listen, I met your mom, your mom versus COVID. I feel sorry for COVID. She should have been in the hospital, she should have been working. I turned to eighty five the other day, but what it was doing I was turning up the thermostat because it was cold in the house. It really was. But now we're getting into the night,
the weather where it's going to be nigh. Even though it's just clammy here in New York sounds like it's a little bit shy warm, it's warmer. Weather is coming and you're going to spend time outside, which is glorious, and see all the green as a bedecks the world anew. Gather with your loved ones outside, have a you know, something sparkling or something or with a little nip to it as you as you know, we have the fires, and then the sun just doesn't go down until nine, the great
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twenty percent off at Bowland Branch dot com. That's Bowland Branch b O, L A and D Branch dot com promo code Ricochet. Exclusions apply see the site for the tails and we do thank Bowland Branch for sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast. And I'll back to John you where we were asking him legal questions. Glory you forgot when mentioning Bragg. Of course, that's that he's Soros adjacent, which apparently is a way of completely delegitimizing any criticism that's made of
the man. Right, So part of this is, look, I got no problem with people running for district attorney on a partisan platform, and I got no problem with Bragg saying to the voters in New York, to people like Rob, I'm gonna stop prosecuting a lot of people, right, I'm gonna start letting them back out on the street. You're gonna love it. It's going to be great, right. But that is why he can only prosecute crimes under his own law, so that people like Rob can say this
has been a disaster, We're voting you out of office. The problem is Bragg trying to reach out and interfere, and then we should we should neglect this part, not just with the treatment of an ex president, but with the current front runner of one of the two major parties elections for president. Not only is he punishing past presidents, but he's this is Ida in New York City directly, I think interfering and for the purpose of interfering with this
prosecution a national election. That's also something we should really be concerned about. And again, how can the rest of the country hold him, this DA in New York City accountable for the way he is interfering with national issues? John, can I go through just another couple of legal ask you for another couple of legal explainers. Ron de sand has tweeted last night, I'm quoting from his tweet, Florida will not assist in an extradition request. What's he
talking about? And that was kind of interesting, But I don't think it's gonna be necessary because what I can what I've read, is that Trump is going to surrender himself on Tuesday at the courthouse. Right he'll where he'll be, you know, fingerprinted. There'll be a mug shot. You know, I'm wondering whether he's going to have a happy mug shot or a defiant mug
shot. I expect a non smiling mug shot. And then he'll be presented to a judge and he'll be asked for his plea and there'll be a request for bail, which I soon would be granted, and then he'll come out onto the front steps of the courthouse, which I expect will be like I don't know if you've ever seen at that time, he was on a you know, on a WWF ring. You know, we walked into a World
Wrestling Federation match and just sort of took over the ring. But if Trump had resisted, that's why what De Santa is saying is somewhat relevant, but not anymore. Is posed Trump had said not showing up, come and get me right. Well, New York can't send police to Florida. They'd have no authority in Floridas. So the way it works is usually if you're being prosecuted and the other the defensive police to a state, you can go ask
that other state to arrest them for you and extradite them back. And it's a very routine thing usually because we're one country, so the states are supposed to accept the validity of the demand for arrest and sending them back to the other state. But DeSantis, again, this is how this prosecution is corrupting the law. DeSantis was suggesting that he would not perform that he'd get this constitutional duty to send Trump he gets to exercise his judgment on whether the indictment
is valid in the first place. Usually you don't do that. Usually you he could legally do so there's nothing for that. No, I mean, I guess theoretically if someone was completely trumped up charges right and thing that aren't even really crimes. But no, you're supposed to basically do it automatically. Okay, I guess what I'm getting at is the unprecedented nature of what's taking place is placing pressure on ordinary legal practice in all kinds of ways that we're
just beginning to glimpse. Whoever, who would have conceived of a governor saying, wait a minute, I'm not so sure I'll extradite this guy if it comes to that. That was inconceivable forty eight hours ago, and now Rod de Sanders has said it. Everybody sort of read it and moved on to that. It's just okay. Next question, how do you get to you've explained the novel legal theory. How do you turn that into a couple of dozen counts, which is what the New York Times was reporting, or thirty
four counts, which is what CNN is reporting right now. How do you get this multiplicity of counts. Well, everybody's wondering whether there's more in there than just the stormy Daniel's hush money past. People are saying, maybe there's hush money payments to other people. Again, I says discussion Rob. That actually helps Trump's case. The more the more rush money payments he did made.
You know, maybe he said, I've got this rotating what are they called line of credit at Silicon Valley Bank for people for women to draw, and every time that's why the place went under they ran out of money or something. But you know, the more he did it, and the more it was regular, the more he gets you, the more he gets out from under it. But look the thirty and if you're a prosecutor, this is how you would do it. Each time Trump made a payment to Cohen,
that's an indictable count. So suppose he made five of them. Suppose there were six changes to the accounting rules. Each of those is accounting every conversation he had with Cohen where he told him to do it, But that could be account and then you have conspiring as account. So I look,
you know, the indictments under seal. All we really know is that the leak's coming on the DA's office and then the witnesses coming in and out, and we haven't seen witnesses, you know, who are involved maybe with the Trump organization or her might be involved with, you know, some other kind of crime. They all seem right. Michael Cohen came back several times. Trump sent this fellow Costello, who had been Cohen's lawyer, who now they
had a breakup and now he testified against Cohen. He apparently went, all these people been on TV talking about you know what they were saying, which you're not really supposed to do. And so I think we have a pretty good idea what's in the indictment. So just the thirty four counts, it's still really focused on the hush money. The bag man Michael Cohen and just reporting it under a campaign finance law. Rob Okay, So John, you're
you're now appointed chief council to Donald Trump Incorporated. You're sitting in the turned down many many times. Yeah yeah, well yeah, yeah, right. You're sitting at the Marlago patio and you know he's having a big mac and you're having your beloved McRib You guys are like vibing, as the young people say, and you're telling him, look, it's it's not going to be fine. You're gonna get up to go up there and you're gonna get printed
and all that stuff. But you're gonna be able to know you're Donald Trump. You'll be able to turn this into a media opportunity. Right, don't worry about this one. Your odds on this one are pretty good. What are you telling him to worry about? What are the many cases that he is now facing in Georgia, Florida, etc. What is he what should keep him up at night? So, the of the investigations, I think the one that would be easiest to prove against him would be the mari Lago
classified documents where apparently people have testified. We'll find out more, but apparently people have testified that Trump directed them, directed these employees of his to move classified documents around to hide them from searches and special prosecutor. Correct, that's
under Jack Smith, special counsel in Washington. The one that's the most important serious, because I don't think the classified documents cases actually really is all that important established, right, other than restaurants, yeah, other than he wants he wants to keep have some box that keepsakes basically, but the one that's the most serious. But I think it is harder to prove and harder to make out. But you could see the investigation is gonna is moving forward quickly
on. It is a January sixth investigation. Did Trump conspire in any way with the people responsible for the riot at the Capitol and or did Trump how involved was he with efforts to pressure Mike pens to block So you you you think I did not expect that you to say this, because I mean my legal mind and as you know it, but I have a steel trap legal mind. I may I had not packed full disclosure. I've not passed the
bar in New York State. But um uh, I I thought, I'm I look at this January six stuff, and I say this as the resident you know, Trump aiter like the guy just I mean, he's a jerk and he's you know, you know how I feel about him. But this, this didn't. This didn't. It's a very confusing crime. Calling up the sitting governor of Georgia and saying, find me the votes. Here's what I need. I need eleven thousand, nine hundred and seventy three votes.
That seems to me to be a little bit more you know, legal exposure. But then again, I haven't passed the bar in the state of California, as you know, so educate me. Well, the thing about the Georgia case, it's difficult, is one. I mean, so again, we've got another problem. We've got a state officer trying to investigate a president for something that might really be a federal crime, not a state crime. So what's a state crime? Is it going to be some kind of fraud
in the election? Well, what are these words find me one hundred and ten thousand votes mean? Is he saying, you know, there there's got to be a legal there's got to be a cash off legal votes that you guys have overlooked, or is he really pressure him to say defraud the vote count right, This is this is a question that's very difficult to prove. It depends on Trump's mental state. Does that really want to see a trial
about Trump's models? Trump? Really? But if I'm the prosecutor, I say, you know, you call the exit the governor, you say, hey, listen, you make sure you count all those votes. I'm sure I have more votes. I know I had more votes. You better count them, all right. That's one thing to call and say I need eleven thousand four under whatever it is number of votes. To actually know the number seems like I don't know. That seems it seems like it's more of a
that gun has smoked more to me than the January sixth stuff. But again, I have not, as you know, passed the bar in the state of Massachusetts. So explain the January your opinion on the January sixth. January six I think has got more exposure because first, you know, everyone's focused on Trump gave this speech on the ellipse. Is an incitement to commit violence? I don't think it is. I think it is protected by the free
speech clause. But that's not really where Trump is vulnerable. Where Trump might be vulnerable are where Trump campaign officials texting, emailing, calling with whoever were the ringleaders of the violent attack on the Capitol. Were they talking to Trump about it? You only need the testimony of one or two people, say a Rudy Giuliani for example, or what's her name? Kraken woman to Sidney
Powell to say, oh, I had a conversation with Trump. I told him there were these people who wanted to go into the capital and stop the vote count, and he said, yeah, thumbs up, they'll be beautiful. Right. That's maybe all you need to get conspiracy that Trump was involved. Or the other possibility is how much pressure did Trump put on Vice President Prince to stop the electric count? Did he try to really coerce him.
I think the reason why I think this is where there's a lot more vulnerability is we've got a lot we can see in public, a lot of what happened in Georgia, a lot of what happened in New York City. I mean, Brad Raethlisberger, the secondary state in Georgia, recorded the phone call he had with Trump and released it. Right, So there's a lot more facts that we don't know. But with January six, I think there's still a lot more to come. I don't think we really know much about what
was happening inside the White House with Trump talking to campaign officials. We've not really heard Rudy Giuliani's story. Wait wait, wait, wait, you don't think that the January sixth Committee has already released every bit of damaging material, damaging to Donald Trump that they possibly could, but they didn't get the cooperation of people like Giuliani, a John Eastman, a Sidney Powell. That's what I think a prosecutor can do which a congressional committee cannot. He can supine
to John Eastman and put him under a row. You could say, look, Rudy Giuiani pulls the same line he did with the Congressional Commite, says I'm not going to help you. I'm not appearing ore. Steve Bannon right, could have been a conduit too, and they just say they get you know, they stiff him. That's what Bannon did, right, He just
refused to complete, well prosecuting get through your ass in jail. You say that with relish John, Oh yeah, I mean people who refuse to cooperate, you know, with a legitimate investigation, they should spend some time. Yeah, Okay, listen, can I ask We're going to have to I'm sure you and Richard are going to devote at least an entire law talk to this. Well, you mean Richard will spend forty five minutes and then I'll
spend ten minutes trying to get up a stop. Well, but I have one one last question here for me, at least I don't I don't want to preclude Robert James from coming in again. But the politics of the thing, my heart sinks. I'll just tell you the way it looks to me, and I want to know if you agree. Rob Is. Rob has been anti Trump for a long long time. I thought he had three three ok years COVID hit things went sideways, and then after the election it was
just outrageous. But even I've come around to the opinion that we've got to get rid of this jackass. He just needs to depart the scene. And it looked to me as though Rohn de Sandis was going to be able to make the case to satisfy the Republican impulse for fighting back while still being intelligent and disciplined and honorable, and that Rohn de Sandis was going to be able to deny Donald Trump the Republican domination. It's gone. That's just gone.
The Manhattan DA has so bungled this, from my point of view, has put put together an indictment that when Donald Trump I just looking at the new now he's called the thing a total political witch hunt, and astonishingly enough, he is exactly correct. And the impulse to rally to Donald Trump, if only to protest the injustice, the damage to the American system on the Republican among Republicans is going to be overwhelming. Yeah, this jackass is going to
get the GOP nomination. So tell me I'm wrong, Tell me I'm wrong.
So if you were to be really machiavellian and suspicious of Democrats who don't all operate as a single mind and one plan, but maybe Bragg, by being incompetent, has done the biggest favor you could have done to the Democratic Party, because you could say, maybe this is the turning point when Trump sewed up the nomination exactly exactly what I'm afraid of, and then meaning Joe Biden will win real action, even Joe Biden could defeat Donald Trump exactly my
fear. So, actually, maybe this partisan Democratic prosecutor in Manhattan has pulled a fast one on all of us. It's entirely possible. But you know what the thing of it is is is as much as I may think that it is a political prosecution and it's thinly sourced and it's a bad idea and the rest of it, it doesn't make me want to take a letter opener, gouge out an eye and then shoot myself in the foot. There are
other things. I'm not going to rally to this man and hope that he gets the nomination and surely lose, just to show them what I think of their ever know, the way that you show them what you think is to put somebody in power who is effective and who can undo so much of what has been done, and rally a whole part of the country to a new way of looking at these ideas that isn't tied to nonel Trump. Now, they already have got de Santis branded as the fascist who's going to bring the
jack boot rain over the rest of us. But that is a lesson that they're going to learn is not true. Yeah, it's gonna help Trump, but but how many people like Peter are just want the guy to go away, not like they're going to sacrifice absolutely everything in order to rally to his side. But sadadly, look at the polling out in the last two weeks while this has been going on, we've all been talking about it, Trump
has increased his lead over to Santis. Right, he's now over fifty percent the choice of over of Republican primary voters, and he's got by two to one Americans believing this is a politicized prosecution. So right now, that's true, that's all true, just with the with a short attention span that we have. In the likelihood that something else is going to happen, we'll see, we'll see. The great thing about it is when something else does happen, we'll have John. You back, John, Thank you so much.
Wait, No, I'm not going I'm staying on. Yeah, John, John, Really, here's here's my real last question. Are you taking your mom up to Atlantic City to get into a little time at the tables? Actually, you know what, We're going out for a breath fay to a restaurant that has been in this town since seventeen ninety. I hope the food hasn't been there seventeen ninety, but the building has been there in the restaurant.
I think it's been a continuously operating restaurant since the eighteenth century. So I'm expecting, you know, a hunk of venison and some what what do you call suck atash Is that what it's called? And other culinary glories of the eighteenth century. Yeah, Ucatashan's Asparilla. Well, enjoy yourself. It's been great as out as ever, and we'll see you the next time something breaks, John Gentleman, thank you, John. Um, And he's in Florida. Right did we get that at Dezi Oh? Right, right,
right done. You can leave now, okay, yes, you can stop at the introjections so we can get on. He's there. He goes and cut the cord. Cut the guy. He's a bolt cut or whatever. You need launchers or something. Yes, indeed, Well, Philadelphia, big city, big city, Rob. I have to ask you, Um, what is the last time you were in Philadelphia? Oh my god, Yeah, it's been a long time. Actually, I mean I drive past it all the time down to Baltimore, but I don't I haven't been filled Alphian
at one time. Interesting. Well, when you drive, of course you have to fill up from time to time. And as most people know, when you go to the gas pump at home, yeah, there's a couple of prices. There's the price that it says on the on the pump, but there's also that little you know, ten percent off you get because you shop here, or you do this, or you got this rewards program. I got that here in Minneapolis. It's great ten percent off. But you
know what, I can't always go to that station. Sometimes there's another brand and I don't have ten cents off a gallon there. You know, you can't always fill up at the same place. Well, finally, there is an easy way to get cash back at multiple gas stations. It's called Upside. Upside is the incredible app for anybody who buys gas. With Upside, you can get cash back on every gallon of gas you buy. How well Upside managers to offset inflated gas prices by giving you cash back on purchases.
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and we thank Upside for sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast. Speaking of Ricochet, Rob is here to briefly tell you I'm sitting the time at nineties seconds here about upcoming Ricochet promos, which is where people get to meet actual other human beings, not ai, not avatars, actual human beings, or he won't or can you live read James? I guess he's talking about you. He's on mutube, so he's gonna oh sorry, yeah, no, I
was gonna say Chartha not even ninety seconds now. Um yeah, it's not chat GPT, it's chat I r L against my new you know, I'm gonna trade Marriya. By the way, I invented that. Um. Before we go for I want to say that we should think Ricochet as a is a member organization. We want you to join and become a member. And one of our members, Randy Wivoda, is kind of, you know, helping arrange all these meetups and kind of organize them. And I think he's
organizing, especially the one in New Orleans. But I'm gonna be too. I'm gonna be in um and um. You know, that's part of the fun of Ricochet is that these are real people and they they are real life people, and that's a rare thing. Real life nice people too. So we got a New Orleans meet up in a couple of weeks away. It's for we'll be in the French Quarter for the French Quarterfest. Go to Rickchey
dot com check it out. I'll be there, Charlie Cook will be there, and we're gonna have a it's gonna be a big bash on Friday, so make sure you're there on Friday. And then following weekend members in Stillwater, Minnesota, April twenty second, they'll be gathering and then there's a mid July one information in Winston Salem. It's being worked out. So if you're in the area and you have suggestions or whatever, you go there. Go
to Rack and Schey dot com and check out Winston Salem meet Up. If you want to do that and you're not a member, there is only one way, and that's to become a member. So Matt Balster just sent notice about an annual German Fest extravagance that will be happening in Milwaukee in late July, which actually sounds a lot of fun. And she and that's her Rick and shat handle name. She's not the and a preferred pronoun. It's not
the President of China. The President of China wondering whether members want to be kind of funny if she was setting up for Beijing. What if members want to do a meetup in the Pittsburgh area because there's a Willie Nelson concert in the Pittsburgh area. I'm a big Googlie Nelson fan, not necessarily politically, but you know, he's a cool dude, and it's a ninetieth birthday tour. He's ninety, so you know he probably only has another thirty years left.
But look, so's that's what's coming up. If they're too far away, if the dates don't work, there is only one way to fix that, joint Ricochet, and just announce that you want to put one closer to you on a date that you can make it, and Ricochet members will arrive there ready to chat. Irl for details on all of this, including Ricochet, including members, including joining, including all that stuff, go to ricche dot com slash events for events. There's a module in the sidebar on a
website, and we want to see you. And if you're suddenly available to come to New Orleans, please do. And if you go to ricochet dot com join and go to the member's site and say, hey, how come nobody here is talking about baseball? You can start talking about baseball, and people will chiming. You can start talking about anything I would not. I mean, I go to the member feed all the time. I love reading what people are saying and thinking and dipping in and saying this or that.
I would not participate in a baseball opening day thing because I don't care. But here's the thing. I am glad baseball exists, and I'm happy that it brings people the joy that it does. And America would not be America
without it. And I love those old bugs Bunny cartoons where they they bring back this sort of nineteen forties attitude of baseball that you think still pervades is still there under the under the modern corporate heart, that there's still the smell of the cheap hot dogs, the red hots and if nickel beer, and the creak of the wood and the stands and the rest of it, and
the men with their straw boaters and all those archaic things. You like to think that that's still sort of in the beating heart and soul basement, even though you know, I'm looking down the street here and there's a massive, massive stadium down there with a massive corporate presidents, and it's bagan the broads are seventeen dollars and fifty cents in the beer costume, an arm and or
a leg um. But I'm still glad it's there. And that was the point at which either of you would drop in and say, yes, I do too. But since you're obviously sort of having a sugar crash or a glucose crash from a coffee cup, sugar and glucose and medical may I rise very briefly to speak in defense of modern medicine. I didn't know if anybody was attacking it, but do go well. Actually, in my own mind, I sometimes attack it. It's too expensive, it's bureaucratic at all.
Okay, I just want to say two things. All my life, I've had a slightly irregular heart beat, and in the last three years it's gotten a lot worse and it's become a problem. And this past week, attacking cardia was the problem. It would wake me up at two in the morning. I'd lie there doing nothing and my heart would be racing it one hundred and sixty beats a minute. Oh unpleasant. And this past week I had something called a heart oblation, and I was wheeled into a room with more
equipment than I have ever seen before in my life. I was wired up this way, that way, the other way. There opposite the table was a huge flat panel television with pictures of my heart kaboom, kaboom, kaboom, and pictures showing each of the different leads they had on my body showing heart activity. I think there may have been as many as a dozen professionals
in the room. And they opened up a bit in my leg and sent a catheter up to my heart and very carefully mapped the cells that were misfiring and cauterized those cells. And the following day, for the first time ever since owning one of these little watches that records my heartbeat, my heart beat, the little thirty second test on the heart on the watch came back and
said, my heartbeat is normal. So I don't know what the insurance company is going to get build for that fantastically elaborate, but I can only tell you that it worked, that it's procedure that's only been invented a couple of decades ago, that it would have been impossible without technology and specialization and all kinds of drugs and new the new ability to read the electrical discharges in the heart and it made my life better. I just want to say that in
defense of technology and medicine, A we're glad. We're glad. Yeah, that's good. Be in defensive tech. We all have these little moments every day and to not something as life changing or as important as yours, where we realize how much of our existence is just improved in a little little bit by this, and we wonder if the trade off is Okay. We think back to the days when we were kids, and you know, the phone
rang two or three times a day. If that didn't you didn't make long distance after eleven and the kids were out until the street lights came out, all those healthy on things. But then you think we live at the apex of civilization right now, if if we really look around it, and that's
in what you've talked about is one of the examples. See, you would like to think that most of tech these days, that the real brilliant people who are going into this want to do things like they did for you, not to just disrupt for the sake of disrupting, not to come up with a new way to spy and sell information and repackage nonsense, but that actually, tech can still continue to be a force for good in our lives as it was for you and d. If I ever have to have that happen,
I'm going to ask them to put something else on the television screen because I'm not necessarily sure I want to watch that stuff all, you know. I mean, either I'd rather watch I'd rather watch Colombo. Yeah, Colombo's great. I'd rather watch anything. Well except for that last episode they did in season five or Patrick mcguan directed, and they blew the whole thing up. Look who I'm talking to. One of the worst expation I've ever seen in my life. I want to want to want to shout at Clumbo every
time I see a Clumbo it's Jack Cassidy. He did it right away, Robert or Patrick McGowan, who had forts like that. The problem is, of course, is that more that you look at it now you realize every single case that the loot and that's why he's still a lieutenant after all these years and never got promoted, every case he tainted, every case that he did, and none of that stuff that would stand up in court. And if there's anything that relies on any sort of cigar ash to be around.
He contaminates every scene that he goes to. Really, we didn't know that back then, we did anyway, Peter, glad, You're glad, You're great, and you know now you know that when the heart starts beating a little bit, it'll be a fruit. Yes, the patriotic reason, a piece of you know, some marvelous example of pulkertude was strolled by on a summer spring day. What I'm that marvelous example of pulkertude would of course be my wife. There you go. That's why he's lived this long and he's
buried this long. You know, you know he knows a instincts kick in. Hey, this podcast brought to you by upside by Bowlin Branch and Refunds pro Please support them for supporting us. Good idea. And if you would leave that five star review, now make it a six star review. You're thinking, I thought it was just five stars. No, no, you should go to Apple right now and give us the six star review, just
to see on Apple. Podcast reviews surface the show, as they say, and lets more people find us, which means more members, which means Ricochet prospers and grows into the next decade. And oh why don't you see the changes the week at coming up, But for the moment, we'll see you in the comments in Ricochet four pointo. Next week, Boys, next week Ricochet. Join the conversation.