Being like Jack Webb, just moving from Fatima to Chesterfields. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
Mister Gorbuchaw, Tear down this wall.
It's the Ricorche Podcast with Peter Robinson and Charles S. Cook. I'm James Lilacs. Since there's a lot of legal stuff in the news this week, of course we've got to talk to John and you. So let's ever so was a podcast.
Was asked directly, and he has said he wouldn't pardon his son if he gets convicted.
Let's quit see what happens if he loves Yeah, I mean, but he said it.
And this pardon is all about Joe Biden protecting Joe Biden.
It's shameful and completely unsurprising.
Ladies, gentlemen, as you know I'm in the final weeks of my presidency.
You don't have to clap for that. You can if you want.
Welcome everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number seven, one hundred and eighteen. I'm James Lilacs, overly enunciating for some reason here in Minneapolis where it's cold and crisp and uh trending towards Christmasy a little dusting of snow. We like to have our white Christmases. After that, we're done with it, get it out of here, bring the spring on. But that's months and months away. However, next month brings what well,
an inauguration, and then a new era begins. Here to discuss that cast the rize forward as well as backwards are Peter Robinson and Charles C. W. Cook gentlemen.
Welcome, Thank you, James, Charlie Jesus.
Very polite of you, James, thank you? What was very polite of me saying welcome? Oh well, that is my duty, I guess. I mean you will just raw dogg it as tam.
I appreciate. No.
So we had Thanksgiving before we get to the future. Everybody knows that Thanksgiving is you know, it's done, it's over, we're moving towards Christmas. But yet we ought to stop and think and wonder exactly what we were thankful for.
Briefly, Peter, Oh, well, I mean, my crude political is self is thankful that the other side lost, and I really am thankful for that. Honestly, the uh, the pall that lifted, just a feeling, there is a feeling of I'm in my x feed, Mark Andriesen is making this point a couple of times a day. But here in
Silicon Valley there is a feeling of renewed energies. Now, I know that that may not sit well with the rest of the country, and there are plenty of people here in Silicon Valley about whom I have my own reservations, and some companies about whom I have my own reservations. But the notion that people are free er, much freeer, feel freer, will be freer to invest as they choose to invest, to gather capital, to hire engineers to start new projects, is quite a thing, and to my surpproblem
more than I I would have expected. You can actually feel the difference. Then, of course the usual things which are more important to me but less interesting to everybody else, which is the health of each of my children. Nobody's in jail, nobody's in the hospital, We're doing fine as a family. All that, of course matters enormously, but is of no interest in anybody but me.
Chars like spoken like a true privileged member of the oligarchical overclass doesn't have to worry about being sent to Auschwitz.
On the Rio Grande Auschwitz. Ah, yes, yes, Charles.
What am I grateful for? That's a fellow member of the overclass. Well, I'm very grateful for my family. I am grateful that I have a job. But you know, the thing that struck me this year more than any other was inspired by a comment from Rich Larry on the Editors podcast, which was actually in connection to a discussion of space rockets going up near where? And he said to me, did you ever think you would be able to walk out of your back door and you
would be able to watch rocket launches? And so one No, I wanted to live in America, and I do, and I'm very, very grateful for this. This year, I felt especially grateful for this that of all the things when I was a little kid, I wanted more than anything before I had any politics or any real conception of the adult world.
I just wanted to live in America. And I do. And that's a magical thing. Yeah. Yeah.
What I love about the rockets launching is that it's become so ordinary, It's become almost banal to see this slender tower rising on a pillar of flame to go into the imperium and deposit its litter of satellites connecting to the world. What I love about it, of course, I love the fact that Elon Musk in the back of his head is motivated by the same sort of sci fi tropes that I probably grew up with. Is that you land a rocket on a pad with its legs that come out of the side like they did
in Destination Moon. I'm surprised that he hasn't put up something and looks exactly like the rocket and Tintins and Adventures to the Moon. I never cease to marvel at seeing these cylinders come from the sky and right themselves and land on a platform on the ocean. It's astonishing, and I love the fact that it's absolutely ordinary. People always say, you know, in the future, where's my flying car? You don't want a flying car, trust me, you don't.
You don't want people to be up there buzzing a round. I mean, if anybody actually remembers Jetson's flying cars were actually pretty horrible because you were stuck in traffic all the time in this narrow little band and everybody bunching it up together. So no, I don't want that. I don't want that at all. But I mean, when you look at the size of the starship compared to the
Saturn five. You goggle and you realize we're back. We're back, and this is an extremely consequential moment in human history.
Have you noticed, James, that I seem to be winning an argument that you and I have been having for perhaps a decade now. You keep saying space travel, space travel, the romance of it, it touches something in our souls. And I keep saying, space travel, but only if financed with private money. I'm done. During the Cold War, it was an active war to go to the moon. Fine, we needed to do it in some basic way to defeat the Soviets. That's over. And I keep arguing, fine,
go explore space, but not with the public's money. And the world has taken Apparently Elon has been listening to you and me debate this for over these many years.
Well, good for him and good for you, and yes, I'm happy however we get there. I wouldn't have mined the expenditure of public funds because I think it's an act of sort of civilizational philanthropy. But that's just me and everybody's got their little carve out. You know, I don't want you to spend on that. But this is my pet project which tickles my gizzard. So do this. Yes, well here we are then good, so we're all grateful. I was actually not in America. I was in Mexico on Thanksgiving Day?
And was that why you were so to you look rather be basted yourself?
It was? It was. It was wonderful, and they put on a Thanksgiving dinner for the Americans who come to come to the resort, and it's always there. We're in Mexico, Cancun, which, as I say in my upcoming podcast, doesn't really qualify as going to Mexico. It's getting into one little sealed, pressurized tube and going to a place, getting briefly scammed, getting out of the scam, and then taking a car to a nice little walled garden where you can pretend
you're in Mexico. But I still will take it napped and I'm you know, we were, We actually were, but we got out of it, and Barren hangs it. Well, inasmuch as we were the do I have to go into this. We were the victim of a scam at the airport. Uh And by victim, I mean to say that I walked right into it and actually had the misfortune of trust trusting a man with a badge. Uh, never trust a man with a badge in Mexico, is what I have learned since now we were not actually
probably in any physical peril. We wouldn't we ended up would have ended up spending twice as much money as we needed to get to our resort, but we would have got there. But it was. It was still a thing that makes me look back and say, ha ha, you old can't coon hand, you idiot. But we had a Thanksgiving dinner in Mexico which was amusing because they can't get it right and it's not that hard. But they had a turkey that was The stuffing was basically hagas.
That's okay, I love hagus too, but it wasn't but it's not but it's not is great.
Un American to love has Charlie, Well, it's illegal.
It was for me pizza because it's a Scottish dish. I'm pretty it's a former Englishman.
You can't get it here because it's illegal. They don't allow you know, loves foods in America. But there's this stuffing was wrong. There was no pumpkin pie. There was pumpkin cake and everything was all the details were a little off, but it was you know, it was like it was like being in the zoo run by aliens, where they've studied enough of your culture to be able to try to make you feel at home in the special day. So that was great.
Yes, May I mend my thanks? Yes, And it's your tales of Mexico that bring this to mind. It has been in my mind the last couple of days post Thanksgiving, but still I'm thankful for it. Survey the world and France is in a constitutional crisis. The Fifth Republic does not see the Constitution of the Fifth Republic does not seem to have taken into account the kind of circumstance in which a government has fallen, but it is not legal for the President of the Republic to call a
new election for something like a year. Germany is facing a series of elections in which the general expectation is that the two parties that the Part of the Right and the Party of the Left, will have to go into coalition to avoid the Party of what everybody is calling the far right. In other words, we have paralysis. The government of Prime Minkre Starmer only a few months old in Britain is now polling below, well below thirty
percent paralysis in Britain. In Mexico, conversation with a friend of mine who an American who ran the American branch of a bank in Mexico City, and every single person of the rank of vice president and above had either been kidnapped or had a family member kidnapped. Mexico beautiful country where some large portion of the economy is run by cartels, and everybody knows it. Gentlemen, we live in
top country. The country that is not having a constitutional crisis, despite all the nonsense, all the claims that Donald Trump would represent a threat to democracy. The country that is functioning is this one. It is good to be in country number one.
Mm hmmm. I'll give you an example of this. You left out Syria, of course, well we left out the whole Middle East. But Syria is in a perilous state at the moment, and it's going to be interesting to see how that shakes out. But while in Kancun, I had the con I had the opportunity to talk to people from every nation because a lot of people come Germans come there.
Oh, I didn't know that that's it's popular with the Europeans. I didn't realize long.
Way to get there, Brits talk to some Britz talked to a lot of Canadians, everybody who's unhappy with their country. Everybody was unhappy with their country, and across all kinds of demographic and money lines. There's some you know, this man Mountain Kinoko is talking to it. The bar Slam of Tequila was a miner in Manitoba. Guy who's down there with a pickaxe, and they all are drastically unhappy with their with their country, and they're all really giving
a thumbs up to America and for Donald Trump. Now there was a German I was speaking to who was when I finally got him going, and it took a
little while. Uh went on a rant about decarbonization and renewables that was just epic in its scope and scale, about the idiocy of it, and how they've undercut their own security and their own industrial capacity and made themselves rely on others, and how it isn't going to work and the numbers aren't there, and it's absolutely I mean, it's just it was, it was, it was, It was operatic. And I asked him, I said, wow, yeah, I agree with you. What do you what do you do for
living in Germany? And he looked down and then he looked up and he said, I sell photovoltaic rooftop equipment solar and there you go, there you go, uh, you know, complicit in it up to his neck and knowing exactly what's happening. But that seemed to sum up some of the some of the attitudes anyway. Charles, Yes, right, well, he.
Likes the regime just because he has to carry out his orders, just fulfilling.
Orders that have been placed by legitim customers.
Charlie, Charlie, it was seventy years ago. Let it go, Let.
It go, absolutely not. I will never let it go.
I grew up with this being the running joke. Frequently returned to running joke. We have junkies, but every Saturday afternoon we had Dad's Army Lolo and it was just make fun of the Germans day and the local pub that we would go to, even when I was a kid. In the bathroom, the men's bathroom, all over the wall, they have a collection framed each one of Gallow's humor cartoons drawn for the newspapers during.
World War two.
During the war, and of course that's the point at which it wasn't funny at all. And still the British managed to make joke after joke after joke about the Germans and Hitler and Son.
So I will not let it go.
Actually, well there you go. I would like to say something about something, but Rob isn't here, so I'm not even going. I want Rob to know that there's not even a commercial ad segue for him to spoil. I want him, in whatever monastic cell he is right now, to just all of a sudden, bolt upright and bang his head on the bunk above and say it. I could be spoiling the segue, but I'm not because frankly, I just want to stop and tell you that Charles is going to give what I believe to be on
the Flagship Podcast his first personal endorsement. Now you're wondering for what he is going to be for a fine fine you know, golf cart accessory, Is it going to be for a great American monitor or what he drinks? But we can find out that you know what it is. It's sheets. M h. And if you're thinking, oh, I've heard this, no you haven't. No, you haven't because I'm
here to tell you about Cozy Earth. Cozy Earth we have a goal, and the goal is to help you create a sanctuary within your home, a refuge from the demands of the outside world. Cozy Earth understands the significance of finding comfort and tranquility in our hectic lives. You're five to nine, as we like, the college should consist of relaxation, rejuvenation and unwinding and embracing a sense of calm. And with Cozy Earth, you can transform your space into
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I love these sheets, but you know I did the smart thing when I was choosing them, which was not to choose them, but instead let my wife choose them.
So she use sexist pig is what a thing.
To say, because if I had if I had ordered Cozy Earth sheets of my own choosing, I would have got it wrong. You see, not because the sheets would have been wrong, because they're all terrific, but because I would have got the wrong color or got the wrong size or got ones.
You know.
So I said to my wife, and I don't just need to endorse this on behalf of myself. Although I do love these sheets and they are nice and cool, but my wife absolutely loves them.
Was extremely excited at the prospect.
So far from being sexist picked she jumped with joy when I said, you can go onto the internet and choose some sheets and then put them on the bed and then sleep in them, which we do every night, and staying cool is actually extremely important and quite difficult sometimes here. So cozy sheets are terrific. Everything James said is true. Go buy them.
Well, there you have it. You can go on the internet, you can buy them, you can have them delivered, you can put them on the bed and then you can sleep on them. Imagine that.
You have to do it, and actually otherwise it won't work.
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Tell him you heard about Cozy Earth from the guys at the Ricochet Podcast, and we thank Cozy Earth for sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast. I now we happily bring to the pot. Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we had that other guest. Oh, I know.
The only reason I'm here is because someone canceled last Yeah, so.
All right, we got John you, Professor of Law UC Berkeley, also seen your research fellow Civitas Institute, University of Tech at Austin and a non resident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. I hope they upgrade you at some point. He's the author of several books, most recently Defender in Chief Donald Trump's Fight for Presidential Power. Hey John, how are you doing good? Good?
How are you guys?
Got?
I can't Are we talking about Pardons or Penny Penny?
Well, let's let's talk Penny first, because Pardons is bigger and thicker and richer and deeper. But wow, are we gonna have a mistrial? And then and then they're gonna do this the smart thing and say, nah, we're not gonna try him again.
This is why electing prosecutors in the DA can be an important thing. Because here's a guy, Alvin Bragg, who put Penny on trial, I think for doing something heroic. He now has a choice if this goes into a mistrial, whether to retry Penny again, continue taking his freedom away right, put him on trial for his freedom for years, or whether you, I think, do the right thing and use
his discretion to drop the case. Here's the guy, this is the same Alvin braggart course, who decided to spend years and millions of dollars going after Donald Trump in the hush money case and not bringing certain felonies for a violent crime in New York City and Manhattan while pursuing people like Donald Trump. So I think, unfortunately this guy is this guy Alvan Bragg is probably gonna retry Penny again. If this mister just declaire.
Yeah, well, because maybe they're not completely stupid and a wetted finger can tell them that there is a there is something of a vibe shift even in New York when it comes. I mean, then I'm one. I would love to hear exactly what the jury's jurors are discussing precisely. Yes, how many of them? The herodon who got up there and you know, made the case case about the white man doing this thing. It's prime a facia. I don't think that they had anything with it. Again, I'm not a lawyer.
Yeah, so can you tell John a lawyer that you are? Or can you can you give us I can speculate? Can you give us informed speculation? How could it be that there are any jurors at all who want to convict this guy.
Tru's not a legal question, that's a psychology question. Well, all right, or you're not a psychologist either, Peter, although you play one on TV. So here here's the thing. So for a hungury or what we're seeing now, you only need one person actually to hold out. So they may only be one person on the jury who wants to convict I see, and eleven other people who don't.
So hungary just means that the jury couldn't come to agreement, all right, And that's why you can That's why the usual possibility after is you can have a whole new trial and try with a different jury. So it's neither an acquittal or a conviction. Now, why this is happen?
How long can the judge just a technical question? How long can the judge? I guess Actually I was about to say, permit this to go on, but it's actually the judge who's insisting that they continue to deliberate. When does the judge say, all right, that's it, hung jury on?
We go?
Well, how long does he have? How does his does his discretion come into play?
There?
Oh, he doesn't have months or even weeks. Usually judges get right to it. So what they've done now is issued what's called an alan charge, which is I think of it as the pretty please, pretty please issue from the judge which he goes to the jury and the aland charge just says, could you guys really really think hard and try to be reasonable and come to a unanimous verdict. If that fails, then usually the jury can come out and say, even with this Island charge, we
still can't come to a unanimous decision. Then usually the judge right away will declare mistrue.
Well okay, And does the judge know if it's six six or one versus eleven? Does he have any indication of how hung they are?
So to speak?
No, but I think you're allowed to find out afterwards after the trials are Then you see all the jurors will rush out to the TV cameras accompanied by Jonathan Early and we'll find out pretty quickly what.
The But the notion that the judge issues of an Alan charge does not imply that he thinks there's only one or two holdouts who could be tek.
He doesn't know, He doesn't know. The Alan church is usually judges. If you think about a trial, judges spent and the state, the you know, the public spends a lot of time and resources to put on a jury trial. It takes months if this one, you know, takes months, so they don't want to The judge doesn't want to waste all that time. Plus the judge is gonna have to do it all over again for a new trial. So most I think most of the time they do
issue an allan charge. It's not unusual to do something like this.
So, Charlie John, as far as I understand this, there are two charges, the second degree manslaughter and then there's negligence. So if the jury is hung on the second degree manslaughter to charge, it can still convict of negligence. If that's the case, do you think that would diminish Alvin Bragg's desire to try the manslaugh to charge because he'd have got something out of this. He'd be able to say we didn't waste time, It wasn't a crazy prosecution, and Daniel Penny is going to pay some.
Price, a bit I think unjustly for his actions.
An interesting question, Charli. Yeah, there's two different charges, and the jury so far has hung only on the first one. They haven't proceeded to the lesser charge. The first charge is what we call reckless manslaughter. That's different than the murder we see on British TV shows that Peter likes. If you can see Peter's background, he's watching Masterpiece Theater right now on his little screen. We know it and
I know it. If you were a first degree manslaughter, you know, intentional murder, you know, with deliberation and planning some usually that would be different things. This is reckless. This means that Penny acted with disregard, right, that he acted recklessly and that led to the death of subwry writer. Even if he's not convicted. That Charlie's choir right, there's a lesser charge, which is just negligence, which is just kind of like, well, even if you weren't reckless, you
still shouldn't have done what you did. Now, the important thing I think for Charlie's question this gets more into the political aspect of it is I think that really depends on the sentence. Suppose a jury convicts on this, you were merely negligent, as I understand that the sentencing range could be zero. There is no required sentence, so that's when we will really see. In response to Peter's question,
what the judge really thinks about all this. The judge could sentence him to zero and say I think you know that. Actually, yeah, you've been through and what you did had a lot of benefits to society. Then brag looks I think. Then brag looks the worst. Right then you have a judge saying this should never have been brought and I'm giving you zero years in jail. Now he could also I think, give him up to I think the sentence arrange could be up to four years,
so it gives a full sentence of four years. Right, then Alvin Bragg, as Charlie suggests, might come out looking good and not need to retry him on the tougher first charge.
And to raise the obvious issue here, meaning we have to get to this issue before we let you go, John, one way or the other. Presidential pardons. If the judge slams this guy with a maximum sentence, wouldn't that be a case where Donald Trump.
That's the state, Yes, the clause.
We got to rely on the guy for Britain to read the text of the constitution.
Charlie's John, if the guy not even even worse the guy from Florida, Charlie makes you and Richard Epstein look perfectly ignorant.
John, I want you to.
Well, it's right here.
So the.
Pardon power only has two exceptions for impeachment, and as Charlie just said, it only applies to federal crimes. This is a state crime. But I'm going to start suggesting this. That doesn't mean Donald Trump can't do something about this. In fact, I'm surprised he hasn't thought of this already. Maybe after he listens to this podcast to start doing it. Why doesn't Donald Trump go out and say, I think the criminal justice system in New York is broken and wild.
I'm cutting all federal funds off to the City of New York's justice system. I'm not giving anymore police grants, I'm not giving any more law enforcement effected. I'm sure the federal government sends millions and millions of dollars to
New York City's courts and police officers. And I'm going to have the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department conduct an investigation and to whether the New York City Prosecutor's office is racist, because here I see case after case of innocent white guys being prosecuted for things like being heroes on the subway, where I see right, dangerous felons who may be minorities, not being prosecuted by Alvin Bragg. He could launch an investigation, would drive that office bonkers.
Refusing to use federal money to control a state apparatus and then investigating them for racial preferences instead of racial neutrality. That's fascism straight up.
So what about Biden's pardon of Hunter, and what about this notion of preemptive pardons? He could do that, couldn't he He could say as far as that goes, he could say, everybody in the state of Delaware, I here by every pardon everybody in the state of Delaware, and according to the Supreme Court it's done. Everybody in the state of Delaware is pardon correct.
This is actually a question where George Washington and Abraham Lincoln set the precedence, not the Supreme Court. At the Court, the pardon power doesn't say anything about whether you can pardon people for actions, not charges. So what Peter's asking is, can you pardon someone for things they did? But there's been no investigation, there's been no prosecution. There may we may not even know about it yet. It just happened in the past. So this is this is and you
could have gone the other way. If you look at the text of the Constitution. You could have gone the other way and said, oh no, the part and power really exists only for people who are charged or people are actually sentenced and in jail. That would have been the narrower reading. So what happened in the first time the part of power is used by George Washington is in the Whiskey Rebellion, which sounds like rob Long at
a bar i digress. So in the wisky rebellion, Yeah, well, with whisky reboundon, there's a people out in western Pennsylvania, my home state, who still hate taxes to this day. They didn't want to pay tax on whiskey, so they actually kind of attacked the courthouse and harassed federal officials. George Washington came out at the head of an army. I mean he actually led the army in the field to suppress it. But then after he put down the rebellion with no loss of life, he pardoned the ring leaders,
as you're saying, preemptively before they were even charged. And then the biggest one we've ever had in our history was Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson pardoned all the members of the Confederacy. Millions of people as a way to heal the nation after the Civil War. So because of those presidents, we've always accepted this idea, but it's not i would say natural from the text of the Constitution.
Is there a difference, John, between preemptively pardoning someone in say the Whiskey Rebellion for an act that is by definition cabined because Washington had to intervene and giving them a blank check. For example, the Hunter Biden pardon was issued at I think eight pm, but it lasted until midnight, so everyone joked, you know, Hunter has four hours to
go out and do whatever he wants. But the potential preemptive pardons that are now being debated in the White House, apparently without Joe Biden's involvement, if you read the reporting, seem to be completely black.
In other words, it's not Washington.
Saying, we know we just had this rebellion, I am pardoning you in a blanket sense for your involvement in it, or Lincoln saying I am pardoning you for being involved in the Confederacy. That I assume the crime being treason. That this is if you are somebody we suspect that Trump might not like you, cannot be federally.
Prosecuted for anything anything. Is that different or not.
I think it is different in the sense that there haven't been examples of this from American history. So now we must blame our forebearers and Charlie's direct ancestors. We would have to go back and look at English constitutional history leading up to seventeen eighty eight to see if the English king had ever issued a pardon like this. My memory is that Queen Elizabeth, I swear to God, might have issued in like this. This has never come
up to the Supreme Court before. Usually what has happened is the prosecutors just choose to recognize the pardon and never bring charges or even investigate. It has become a kind of immuniy shield. But I think you're quite right. We never had pardons that didn't mention any particulars of a crime. Right, as you say, it's just a time period, and it's just like anything you might have done in this time period. I mean, that would be an interesting challenge,
but I don't. I think the courts would probably still uphold pardons like that. But it is really different in nature because you see, take all the arguments that the liberals have made about why the Trump presidential Community decision is so bad, right, oh, undermines the rule of law, so on and so forth. The Supreme Court still gave the immunity because of the singular importance of the presidency.
What these prospective pardons are doing is giving that immunity to lots and lots of other people who aren't the president, and in fact they are private people. In many cases they get the same kind of right the fucktor shield from all federal investigation and prosecution, which is Supreme Court is really said, should only really be applied to the president.
So okay, so you're in the White House. By the way, James, I think said a moment ago, or what was Charlie, that the debates are taking place without the involvement of President Biden.
If that makes difference in the other exactly, if a debate has taking place, you can be sure it's without his involvement.
Okay, So these bright sparks at the White House, say, Anthony Fauci, he had to do all kinds of things. We don't know whether they were criminal. There's this question about whether he he permitted funding of gain of research function and wuhan. But we're for sure. We for sure feel that Trump and his people are going to go after Fauci, and so we're going to issue a pardon for Fauci for anything he might have done from date A to date B. One, do they have to get Fauci's permission?
Can they do it?
Because I think Fauci is on record A saying he doesn't want to pardon. Do they have to get his permission?
Two?
If there are these constitutional questions, who has standing to take to object to who has standing to take that to the Supreme Court? How does that get litigated?
So first, usually the practices, you have to accept the pardon, so you can you can turn it down. It's a defense. So if you want to don't want to rely on it, you don't want to accept it, you don't have to you say I don't want the pardon. And often there have been people exactly like doctor Fauci said, I'm innocent, I don't want to pardon. Don't give me a part, and I won't accept a pardon because they maintain their innocence throughout. So there's a number of interesting ways that
would come up legally. One thing is this will come up with the Hunter case. Interesting because despite Charlie and I talking about how broad the partner is, it's not a comple get out of jail free card. Hunter can still be investigated for state crimes. I mean, the basic things he's been accused of, money laundering, influenced pedling are state crimes too, So the story's not over for him.
Wouldn't be over for doctor Fauci either. I mean he's a simple fraud and lying is still state crime, primarily a state crime, So it could come up in several ways. For example, Congress, would I expect say, now that you're an under under threat of prosecution Hunter Biden or doctor Frauchi, you come up and testify. So one the beginning thing will be, would Hunter Biden be able to claim the Fifth Amendment anymore as he has been doing?
It doesn't seem like it.
No, No, you would think not. But he could say, what if I get prosecuted by some red state DA what if Ken Paxton and Texas comes after me, I'm still going to claim the Fifth Would doctor Fauci do the same thing with a pardon? That could get litigated because Congress could then go to court and say, Nope, you don't have the right to refuse US pardon could also come up in a state prosecution. Donald Trump is actually this is interesting. Donald Trump is actually making the
same claims in court now. Right at the beginning of the week, he filed briefs in his New York and Georgia cases basically saying, well, on the same ground. I mean, I don't think it makes sense legally, but he's saying rhetorically, because Joe Biden said such terrible things about the Justice Department and its corruption and the need to give Hunter Biden to pardon, you should drop these cases because I'm even more important than Hunter.
Right right, what could they get Founci on. I mean, I know, in our gutta guts, what we all think happened was that Obama signed the degree that said that we're not going to be weaponizing coronaviruses anymore. And then consequently, as it goes the story, Fauci in cooperation with Eco Health and some other people off shortage to Wuhan send some money their way, and the stuff continues, so that they could put together a robust catalog of viruses that
they could then have the antidote for the vaccine. That was the idea, you know, we got to make the absolute worst devil superbug, so we can figure out how to beat it. And then it got out of hand because bad, bad management, bad protocols, It escapes and the next thing you know, you got millions of people dead. Now you think that that's sort of criminal. But is it? If it's the line to Congress. I mean, people get up there in the line to Congress all the time.
It can't be that. So what is the what would Joe I mean? I know we've said this before, but exactly what would by Joe Biden pardoning Faunci. I think a lot of people who hadn't paid any attention this would swirl their head up and say, wait a minute, what did he do?
I think the first one is, as you mentioned, lying to Congress, right, doctor Fauci said, I believe he said to investigators that he had no knowledge and was not involved in any diversion of funds to this nonprofit, and then they sent it to China, right to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The second thing is it could be criminal if right, this is kind of like Iran contra. Right, he took money from appropriated funds and he diverted it to this group with the intention of sending it to
China to conduct illegal research. Is that really that much different than the Iran Contra? Fair You remember that's where the Reagan national security officials diverted funds and sent them to the contras that was supposed to go back into the treasury. So you could say, I mean, you could
investigate him at least for misuse of federal funds. I mean, this is actually if he did it with that, really lot of it depends on his understanding and intention of where the money was going and why he approved those funds. But if he did that, that's criminal, great abuse of federal funding. It's like it's almost like stealing federal money.
Well, if there arecopenis, let's have doctor j Bonicharia delivered them.
Yeah, exactly. I think we should issue Jay a pardon right now. Hey, John grade grade, Merrick Garland, how partisan has he been? Really? And grade? Jack Smith? Those two what grade would you give them?
But Jack Smith, just as a federal prosecutor, suppose I agreed with Jack Smith, agreed with the just Department that Donald Trump and I've always said, you know a lot of these prosecutions were focused but not the January sixth prosecution. If there really was involvement with president by President Trump in an attack on the Capitol, that should be investigated by prosecutors and could be charged. If that's the case. Jack Smith is one of the most incompetent federal prosecutors
run across. I mean, he had two years to at least get charges in and get the case going, and he failed. Not only did he fail, but you look at the indictment, you look at the documents, it doesn't seem he discovered any new facts. Plus he got whooped on this unity case. I mean, if you look at the outcome, is he left Donald Trump stronger than when he found him. I mean, he has been so you
just look at the results. He has been a tertorable federal prosecutor, even if you agreed with everything in terms of purpose of the investigation. Marek Garland, I feel a lot of I feel actually that he's not as partisan as people make him out to be. I think actually he turned out to be quite a week attorney general. And that's the reason you saw because he could have said at the beginning, much like the Supreme Court ultimately said, you know, we're putting this page behind us. We are
not going to investigate a former president. We're certainly not going to investigate the major opposition party candidate for president in the middle of an election. So that would have been, you know, a strong controversial I think that would have been the right thing to do. Or putting it on the other hand, you could have said, starting in twenty twenty one, we're going to open an investigation into Donald
Trump because of what we all saw January sixth. He spent over a year and a half dilly dallying right and then ultimately to appoint Jack Smith as a special counsel. Was in admission that the Justice Department couldn't handle this. So I actually think we're going to look back and see, I say, Merk Garland was a torch bearer for the Democratic Party or for Joe Biden. I think ultimately turns out he was a weak, vacillating attorney general. He didn't
show any leadership. And this is this is actually my view of the Biden administration as a whole, that lack of leadership just let the machinery of bureaucracy, which is always progressive in nature, just go ahead and do what it wanted.
To do.
And Jack, that's Jack Smith. He's the ultimate expression of the unelected professional bureaucracy and the machine. But without leadership, it's not that competent most of the time.
Charlie or James, I can't pronounce scrammetti, So I'll leave that one to you guys.
Skibbitty, it's pronounced skibvity. Charlie, you want to take that.
That case, yes, please?
But John, did you listen to the oral arguments?
No?
I never do. I can't stand hearing other people talk about the Constitution.
Even Clarence Thomas, with that beautiful voice, he doesn't say very much.
I did read, I did read the I did read about the oor argonists, but I didn't listen to them.
Do you have a view on it?
I mean, I will preempt this by saying that to me, it just seems self evidently ridiculous that the fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, written in eighteen sixty six, ratified in eighteen sixty eight would micro manage the state's capacity to prevent the cutting off of the genitals of eight year olds. But perhaps you have a different views, as.
They say in court, asked and answered, yeah.
No, one's coming to Charles. They're just rendering them useless for the rest of their lives. Let's not go There's a.
Lot there are a lot of interesting things in the oral argument, and the briefing is really interesting because I read most of the important briefs and I learned a lot actually about what's been medical, what's actually place, yeah, what's actually been happening, but also the prevalence of this disorder. One interesting thing I did not know is that for decades, the number of adults who have this gender dyspharia problem
is something like point five percent of the population. So one question is, why are we re ordering all of our social relations and our rules, our bathroom sports, blah blah blah for point five of the population. But here's the interesting thing. Well, I can do that, yes, but go on for minors. For kids, for many, many decades, it was also point five percent of kids had reported this issue, and then starting about ten fifteen years ago, it tripled to one point five percent. What happened then
social media? I think, But this is an interesting question that the actually Tennessee and other states that have issued these bands have said, is we're not banning this. We just don't understand the problem. Yet we're not saying we
could never allow this kind of procedure. But if miners are suddenly saying triple rates that they have this problem, and adults the numbers flat, Yeah, is it really a wise thing to do to allow these kind of permanent surgical changes when we really don't understand what's going on. I thought that was interesting factory Legally. The other thing,
I totally agree with Charlie. There's no way the fourteenth Amendment was intended to recognize gender dysphoria as a protected class on a par with blacks and women.
It's just like, so you have a less expansive view of the Fourteenth Amendment. Then, for example, Justice Gorsicic, who.
Charlie did listen to the oral argument you should note was utterly silent, was and the reason why, But the reason why is I think he's embarrassed because the logic that Charlie offered to make fun of comes from Justice Gorsuch's decision about Title seven in a case called Bostock right, where he didn't ask Boskas. Does the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act provide protections to people based on their
sexual orientation, not their sex. Of course they wish their sex to be as conclusion, didn't he Yeah, and he did. He ignored. Actually, the way Charlie put the question, did the people who wrote the sixty four Act what they have ever thought they were providing protections for this? Obviously all the evidence was overwhelming.
So you got your living in your breathing don't you. You got your living breathing constitution right, So it has to be elastic enough to accept the definitions, the new, brave, new world definitions that we come up with. And if we shake off our old archaic notions of gender and sex and the rest of it and come into a new world in which these things are understood to be kaleidoscopically varied, well, then of course the Constitution must must must bend to that. That's what they say. I mean that.
That's why this is important to them, because it is a validation of the whole gay rights but queer right, the queering of the Constitution in order to make it some sort of you know, Procrustrian bed that can be is what they want. And the line that's being drawn in the sand here is important, is critical, and I'm not going to any conclusion that I can actually think of,
because I already passed my segue. I'm afraid I would. John, you were going to be present in for an actual commercial segue, but the moment has been lost.
Would you like it?
Ever been in a commercial?
All right?
Have you guys finally been sponsored by McDonald's.
I've been waiting, no, but it's coming along well. I wanted to talk about the constitution being living in breathing. Of course, I was thinking of breathing, and I was thinking of luhin as you would do if you had a lumen. You got a lumin, John, you got one of those.
I have no idea what that is, but you are going to tell me.
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It's a piece of it's a thing of beauty, sits in its little stand. I just I love it. You will too, And like I say, a great gift, and we thank Luman for sponsoring this the Ricochet podcast. Well before we go here and John is still with us, let's get out of the law for a second here and discuss if you will, John, I'm sure you've been following this other case in Manhattan where the CEO was shot down on the street. And there's an for all the people who are saying that Twitter is a cesspool
of hate and anti and neo Nazi behavior. There's a lot of people running around on Twitter saying good, good, they got one. There's something very disturbing about the reaction that we're seeing to the murder of this guy.
It's a great contrast to what we started talking about here. On one hand, you've got Penny, Right, I think, is a genuine hero who just walks onto a subway car and he witnesses this person threatening the health and safety of his fellow pastors, intervenes to save the life. Right, And conservatives don't like him being prosecuted, and I think, I think rightly want him acquit it or charges dropped.
Then on the other hand, you have a guy who clearly carries out a planned, premeditated murder, and the liberal blogosphere is saying, what a great hero. Doesn't that just show you the difference and values these days between conservatives and progresses, where you have one one group. Loss of life occurred, We're sorry about it, but it was a way necessary to save the lives of more. Here's, on the other hand, someone who did nothing wrong. You know, it was just walking across the street to go to
the Midtown Hilton. By the way, I was like, he's going to shut down Hull all guys, because if you're bound to the Midtown Hilton. The street corner is where the whole all guys started and they're still there. The best best Egyptian food in New York anyway.
Well, yeah, the liberals have finally discovered the idea of a good guy with the gun.
Yeah, but they want them to kill corporate executives. I don't know if you guys are watching this TV show The Jackal, have you guys?
Yes?
Yeah?
I love the show. I remember the original movie, you know, The Day of the Jackal. I think the TV show is really good and the you know it's it's you know, it's ten episodes, so it gives you more of the story. This is they're praising. They're praising a guy who's basically assassin who goes and plans out them and in the in the Jackal show, he goes CEOs that's the main target. And I'm sorry to give out this John.
Was this crime?
Was this crime essentially unpreventable? Or does it indicate a decay in policing in New York when Bloomberg was mayor could this have happened?
I don't see how the level of policing could have stopped someone who's got I mean, look, if this is like Godfather too, you know, Michael says, if history has told us anything, they said, you can get anyone if you really want to, right. I think that's true. Well, I don't see what police could have done here. Now. I think it seems, you know, this speculation, but it seems obvious that someone was helping this guy because how did he know exactly when I was going to cross
the street without any security detail. It's a little after six in the morning to go from the hotel Hey's staying across the street to the shareholder meeting, and the shareholder meeting wasn't for a few more hours. You look at the tape, this assassin arrives I think five to ten minutes early right before. How would he know when this guy was going to walk cross street that he'd have no security where he was going to be exactly in that moment?
John, Is this a state level first degree murder or is this terrorism? I've seen some people suggest that because the assassination was of somebody who worked in a particular industry, and because there were words on the bullet casings, and because the assumption is that this was a revenge message driven killing, that this could be classify as something other than a first degree murder that you would see prosecuted in New York all the time.
I don't think so. I mean, it might meet rhetorically what we might call terrorism, okay, But in terms of the criminal law, terrorism has involved some component where the murderer is attempting to use islence to coerce the population, the government or the people of the United States to change a policy. So it's you know, with this is
revenge or not. It doesn't. This doesn't seem to be I am right going to shoot this guy because I want the United States government to change its Medicare reimbursement policies or insurance possible. So legally, I don't think you could charge him.
But right for the cold.
Bloodness of this murder means I don't think there's any lack of things to charge this guy with. And you know, if New York State were a normal state, you'd be charged with, you know, capital murder with the possibility of the death penalty. But right Alvin Bragg's not going to go that far. Who knows if Alan Bragg will even charge the guy.
Well, he did right the he did write out his manifesto on the bullets, and he wrote three words which have come to be connected with insurance company behavior. So there it is. Is So it's going to be hard for him to say that he was just temporarily seized by some sort of brainfasm, a brain phantasm. No, I mean this was targeted and this had to This had
an ideological component. And it just reminds you how many people are completely at ease with seeing political violence used in the street if it's in the application of furthering the right thing. So, but what's amusing, of course, is all these people who believe that if the government just paid for everything, then there'd just be more of it.
We'd get, we would have absolutely the anesthesiologists would just you know, they'd put that mask in your face for ten twelve hours or so and didn't care what they were paid, instead of course being rationing and denial of services and death panels and all the rest of it. Speaking of death panels, this show is dead in the water because it's come to a stop because we have to leave. But what we want to do, or a
couple of things we want to remind you. The podcast was brought to you by Cozy Earth, our new sponsored great sheets and by Lumen support them, support us works works out one hand washing the other, scratching the back and the rest of it. You love it and join Ricochet dot come, won't you? I mean? I mean there's been like seven hundred podcast where I reminded you of this, maybe seven ones the charm, But go there and you'll find the sin to right sane civil conversation you've been
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by the moderator. John. Thanks for joining us today, Charles, as ever, give my regards to Florida. Peter, give my regards to California. I accept your regards from Minnesota if you have any and what else can I say, except we'll see you all in the comments at Ricochet for point zero.
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