Advisory Opinions - Trumped Up?

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

With possible Trump indictments looming, Sarah and David meet face to face to discuss. Will the Manhattan D.A. set a precedent on prosecuting a former president based on a shaky theory of law? From New York to Georgia, the indictments are coming..(?) We need a better political class in the country The Bob McDonnell Option The Rule of "Bad Guy Goes to Jail" WTF Rand Paul (and House Republicans) Also: Sarah's news Show Notes: Sentencing Memorandum for Michael Cohen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You ready? I was born ready. Welcome back to Advisory Opinions, and yes, I do have a special guest today. It's one David French, but there is something special in that we're together. Yes. And it's always an honor to join you, Sarah. You're welcome. I appreciate the continued invites. I truly do. And look, today is special because we're in the same room together. It also is a bit of one of

those days. We are led to believe that there is a grand jury currently convening in New York City right now, maybe right as we're speaking. Yep. And that was not going to stop us from talking about the atmospherics around this potential indictment, though it's worth noting we don't have an indictment to look at. Yep. So instead, this advisory opinion is going to be so much fun stuff that you never knew you really wanted to know. Like, I mean, equitable tolling.

Who doesn't love a good equitable toll? We could talk for an hour in equitable tolling and people would demand an hour more. Demand it. But we are going to jump into all of the conversation around the indictment, which I think is really fascinating legally. And there's a little bit of Supreme Court stuff to talk about. Plus some cleanup from last time. Let's go. All right. Number one, LLM. We actually did get a lot of questions because I mocked LLMs, but didn't actually say what it was. because I mocked LLMs but didn't actually say what it was.

So now I have to explain my joke, which kind of makes me a jerk. So LLMs are like a master's in law. Yes. They are most often used for international students because oftentimes in foreign countries, you basically major in law for your undergraduate and they don't have sort of a JD. And so they have sort of an undergraduate, for instance, British degree in law. They come over here and they get an LLM so they can practice

at an American law firm. Right. Also, though, there are specific subject matters that American lawyers can get LLMs in, like tax. Right. So why was I making fun of them? Well, and remind people how you made fun of them. Oh, it was at the Duncan thing that someone said the student holding up the particularly crass sign was an LLM. And I said something to the effect of that figures. Yes. Right. So why does that figure? I don't I shouldn't have made the joke, right? It was an unkind joke. But I think lawyers got the joke. Yes. Let me put it this way. There are some LLMs who are not familiar with our customs and ways. There. Yes. That's a good. Thank you.

Including our presumptive deference or respect for federal judges. I think that's a nice, nice summary. OK, we had some Supreme Court happening. So it's an argument. Couple weeks here. This week is, for the most part, the boring arguments like arbitration cases. And you know what, guys? I'm saying boring on purpose because if you want to make your case that some of this week's cases

are worth us talking about, come on over. Tell me why. Now, there is a case being argued this week, actually right now, that will be worth us talking about. And it's on, drumroll please, trademark infringement when it comes to satire. And yep, it's Jack Daniels versus a Jack Daniels dog toy. So we are going to talk about that. But next week is really fun. Lots of interesting criminal cases to get to. So we're going to do more SCOTUS next week.

There was also one opinion, David, a unanimous opinion from Gorsuch. It was actually a really sad case, and it's on ADA accessibility and IDEA for children, and basically when you have to exhaust administrative remedies. You know, I don't know that the details are AO.O. worthy, but the facts were A.O. worthy in how sympathetic they were. Basically, a student is deaf attending public school. You are required under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to provide him an education appropriate to his disability. Instead, this school district provided him with aids to translate classroom instruction into sign language, but instead provided either unqualified aids, including one who attempted to teach herself sign language, or aids that were simply absent

from the classroom for hours at a time. And so then he doesn't, he's not able to graduate high school. And the question is, what remedies do the parents have? They have forward looking remedies where the school now needs to pay for him to basically have further education. But they also potentially have backward looking remedies. Unanimous opinion. We don't talk about the unanimous opinions enough, David. Here it is. Yeah. No, we don't talk about them enough. And I, for one, am looking forward to the continued term because we're actually going to start getting more opinions coming soon. Less unanimous, more opinions. Less unanimous, more opinions. But in the meantime, we don't lack for explosive, contentious legal developments to talk about.

You must be talking about the Munsingware vacature opinion from Justice Jackson. Well, of course. What else? What else would I be talking about? All right. No, we're going to push Munsingware to next week because it's a little more SCOTUS-y feeling in the weeds. And we're going to move directly into the Trump cases.

So let me just give the big picture view of where all the cases are and then move to New York. So one, Department of Justice, Special Counsel Jack Smith, known for being an aggressive prosecutor. Not a partisan one, just very aggressive. He's a dog on the hunt, man. Yes. And you don't want to be a duck. So he is three under his purview. Donald Trump's specific relationship to January 6th, the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and obstruction related to the classified documents. I don't feel like those cases are close. Right. Okay, next.

Georgia. This is Fulton County. Very close. I think we're days, weeks away, right? We're there. Any day. I mean, any day is my view. Yeah, I sort of thought we'd already be there.

I'm a little confused on the holdup. That is the case about Georgia law related to Donald Trump's actions after the election. This is the, you know, can you find me 12000 votes and related conversations? This is the grand jury for person who does the rounds, all of that. All right. So any minute now? Yes. And I think the only real delay there is my guess is we're looking at many indictments. And the real question isn't whether there will be indictments, but is President Trump one of them? So you're just talking about a much bigger case and scope because that's false electors. That's a lot of moving parts. So how many people are going to be indicted to me is the big question, not in addition

to who's indicted. It's just a more complicated case. It's just a bigger case. And it's a cleaner case. Yes, if you will. Now, I've said before that I have some really 30,000 foot questions on a when it relates to Trump on a state prosecutor bringing criminal process against even a former president. But for actions he took while he was a former president, but for actions he took

while he was a sitting president. There's some interesting separation of powers questions there. But I mean, again, 30,000 foot interesting. There is a law. There is a crime. There are facts that are going to fit within that crime. Yes. That's going to differ a bit substantially from what we're about to talk about. Yes. The Georgia case is and I agree with you completely. The Georgia case on its face is very straightforward in a way that the case we're about to talk about is not very straightforward. There's a criminal solicitation to commit election fraud statute in Georgia that prohibits criminally prohibits an attempt to solicit someone else to commit election fraud. And in this circumstance, the smoking gun evidence is Trump's call

to the secretary of state of Georgia saying, you got to find me 11,780 votes and then not so subtly hinting at criminal prosecution for the secretary of state if he doesn't. And just to put that in kind of an understanding, sort of in a framework to help us understand, imagine someone is running, say, for sheriff of a county in Georgia and he's losing his election by, say, 80 votes. And he goes to state election or county election officials and says, you need to find me 80 votes or, you know, it's quite possible, possible you could be in handcuffs. That sheriff would already be arrested. OK, so this is this is a very this is very straightforward.

But I agree with you, Sarah. There's going to be a 30,000 foot defense. That's, in my view, a stretch. It's a stretch, but it's a defense to make that, hey, he was acting in his capacity as. Is it a stretch in your mind like a yoga stretch or like a Gumby stretch? Oh, this is a Gumby stretch. I think it's like a very limber yoga stretch. But OK. Yeah. So let's move to New York then. OK. So anything could happen when we get this actual indictment. But let's talk about the conversations that have been happening, which is in New York state law, there is a misdemeanor crime called falsifying business records that has a two year

statute of limitations. However, aggravated falsification of business records has a five-year statute of limitations if you can show that the falsifying of the business records was to further another crime. Right. All of those words are going to be very important in a few minutes. Oh, man. Yes. So the theory goes that when Donald Trump signed off on, in whatever sense, putting the Stormy Daniels hush money payment into the Trump organization books as a legal expense. That was falsifying a business record.

That's just that. That is more of a yoga stretch at best to me, but I think there is some stretching there. We'll talk about that in a second. But in furtherance of another crime in this case is a federal campaign finance violation. All right. So we've got we've got our ball of yarn here. We've got a statute of limitations problem. We've got maybe I mean, I don't think we'd be talking about problems necessarily with falsifying business records case, but it's worth just a second on. Yeah. And then we've I've got a big problem with the federal campaign finance question of law and. The federal part of the federal campaign finance from a question of state law, it's a huge problem. I kind of want to start with the statute of limitations. So the reason they're not going after the misdemeanor is because under any circumstance,

the two year statute of limitations has run. Let's use the most charitable date here of September, October of 2016. Remember, it's not the day he would have paid the money. It's the date of the falsification of the business record. So late 2016, of the falsification of the business record. So late 2016. That two years, in theory, ran by the end of 2018. However, there is an argument that we're about to have to answer, which is if you can't indict a sitting president, do you toll the statute of limitations under something called equitable tolling? Right. Meaning it's not in the law, obviously, that you get to toll the statute of limitations. Unlike, for instance, various types of fraud, there is a specific type of tolling that you would get because obviously if you can't uncover the crime because of the fraud,

then it tolls. Not here. So a equitable tolling is based on equity. It's a fairness idea. So first off would be, do you get to equitably toll the statute of limitations the entire four year period that Trump is in office and get a whole like you get your full five years? Or is it simply that, for instance, if there had been a two year statute of limitations, you have the opportunity to then indict him when he leaves office for some reasonable amount of time. Right. Because, you know, if he committed the crime while in office, there was no chance to indict him. You get some time after. In this case, fine, you didn't need to indict him right before he became president. But upon leaving president, leaving the presidency,

you get some amount of time and it's up to courts to sort of determine what that is. If that were the case here, they have a big problem because their office did consider these exact charges and decided not to bring them. Yes. And we're more than two years since he left office. Oh, correct. But I mean, under the five year. Oh, well, we haven't gotten to the five year part yet. So let's let's talk about the misdemeanor. Yeah. OK. For a minute. So the misdemeanor would be related to just the pure falsification of records. I'm pretty convinced they've got him on the misdemeanor, but it's moot in many ways because under no possible legal reading of tolling a statute of limitations or whatever, can

they bring the misdemeanor charge under the two-year statute of limitations? So the misdemeanor charge and look, the evidence, in spite of what Trump says on Truth Social, does not just depend on the testimony of Michael Cohen. We can walk through it just a little bit. This was the payoff of one hundred and thirty thousand dollars to Stormy Daniels to not talk about her alleged affair with Donald Trump shortly after he after Melania had given birth to Barron. And the evidence there includes not just Cohen's testimony. There's canceled checks. There's financial records. There's a lot of other evidence to corroborate Cohen.

We can put in the show notes the sentencing memorandum for Michael Cohen, where he pled guilty to campaign finance violations related to this. So my view is the falsification of business records is the strongest part of this case. I agree with that. But it's absolutely barred by the two-year statute of limitations. So why are we talking about this? If you can tie the falsification of business records to a felony, then you've got a five-year statute of limitations. But the problem there is, aren't we outside of the five-year statute of limitations for

it? Even if you're sort of saying when the last payment was made, the crime was still ongoing while the payments were being made. Even if you're looking at, say, the last payment made, we're still beyond arguably or getting right around that five-year mark. Even if you're looking at, say, the last payment made, we're still beyond arguably we're getting right around that five year mark. And so that's where the equitable tolling comes in. Is there a way equitable tolling essentially means delaying the clock or stopping the clock

for a period of time for reasons that are related to fundamental fairness? And that's where, Sarah, I think your comment about, wait a minute, this has all been investigated already. And the previous DA very famously declined to bring charges. And I say very famously that because it triggered an outpouring of anger, including from members of his own legal team. Yeah, two people quit over it. Two people quit. And I believe one wrote a book. An outpouring of anger, including from members of his own legal team. Yeah. Two people quit over it.

Two people quit. And I believe one wrote a book. Yeah. So this is this was something that was already declined. They already declined to prosecute, assuming that the underlying crimes are the ones everyone's talking about. Right. And so I think it ruins their equitable case.

Now, there's other problems with the equitable case, which is, you know, DOJ has those Nixon era and Clinton era memos on the indictability of a sitting president. Right. But DOJ, Office of Legal Counsel here, they have every incentive to write that you can't indict a sitting president. They protect the executive branch. I think that this case would then focus on the difference, for instance, between indictment, arrest and trial. I think it's pretty clear under, you know, the Constitution and sort of what we're talking about, that you cannot put a president through criminal process like arrest and trial while he is the sitting president. You have to impeach him first and remove him from office for all the reasons that the OLC opinion mentions. It's distracting. It, you know, could be used to move him away from focusing on his

job as president that he's been elected to do do all those things. The indictment is a little different. I don't know that you couldn't separate out the indictment question. And again, to the equitable part of this, New York could have brought an indictment against the president while he was president and say, we're happy to sit on this until he leaves the office.

Have the president then try to quash it. Have that court fight then. Have the court tell you, actually, we're quashing this indictment, but the statute of limitations is told until he leaves office. But from an equitable standpoint, you did the dumbest thing, which is you waited for the last possible action movie sequence where you're now hanging off the end of the cliff. Right. When you had all these opportunities beforehand. So their equitable case is pretty weak on the statute of limitations. Yes. In my mind, the equitable case is extremely weak.

I would want to see an indictment that says that there is some act in furtherance of this criminal scheme that occurred after, you know, March 23rd or March 22nd or whatever of of 2018. Then, OK, or all right, I'm much more open to that. But if all if the entire criminal scheme was complete by March 20th, 2018, and you're relying on equitable tolling, I call that bank shot number one. That's right. We've got more to come. Yes. So you talked about the the strongest part of the case, which is that misdemeanor falsifying business records. I agree. It's the strongest part part. I will say that I think there is a defense that this was a legal expense, that it was potentially going to be a lawsuit from Stormy Daniels. In fact, she did sue him. So look, you know, legal expenses cover all manner of sin, if you will. And that this, in fact, was a legal expense. Maybe they could have been more clear. Yada, yadaada yada yada again i think it's the strongest part of their case the weakest defense argument

that donald trump has but there is a defense there yes i would put the my view of the false of the false business records part of it is strong prosecution reach defense yeah and then i'm going to flip it around. Yeah. All right. So then we get to the next part, which to get that five-year statute of limitations, you need to tie it to another crime.

Again, we believe that they're going to tie it to a federal campaign finance violation. Let's start with just the word federal. It is not clear that a New York state prosecutor can try a federal crime, which is what they're going to have to do here, basically. Yeah. federal crime in order to reach the state crime. And there are there's plenty of precedent out there that if a state ties their crime to a federal statute, basically there already needs to be a federal conviction of some kind. You don't get to then go through. This is sort of a I mean, I'm reaching back into fed courts here, but there's plenty of state laws that do tie into a federal statute of some kind.

It is meant to. Yeah, I mean, it's it's meant to double up on a federal prosecution. Right. The feds here specifically declined to bring that case. Hmm. So what do you just think of the federal tie in part? Yeah. So this is let's talk about this for a bit. So when the Cohen guilty plea emerged. I wrote that a criminal case against Trump, similar to the John Edwards case, explain the John Edwards case. The John Edwards case was an attempt to cover up an affair by this was a Democratic presidential candidate, former Democratic vice presidential nominee.

And just side note, man, we need a better political class in this country. He engaged 10 years ago, and it's an incredibly similar case. Yes. And so he has an affair with a woman, I believe, by the name of Riel Hunter. And to cover up this affair, he has a very old donor. And I believe by the time the case went to trial, she was over 100 years old. Literally, I believe she was 101. Pay large sums of money to help sort of maintain Riel Hunter and keep all of this quiet. And the argument was this was actually a campaign expenditure disguised as a personal expense. And under federal election law,

you're supposed to disclose your campaign expenditures. And Edwards is basically saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is not a campaign expenditure. It's a marriage expense. Exactly. This is me trying to keep bad information from my wife. You can think terrible things about me. You might should think terrible things about me. But this is an expenditure I'd make no matter what. And there were six counts. Jury hung on five of them, acquitted on the sixth count, and DOJ dropped the case after that.

Right. And the problem is that it's just difficult to prove these kinds of cases when you're talking about hush money, because you've got a pretty powerful argument that I would I would cover this up no matter what. Now, on the Trump side of this, and one of the things that I argued at the time would be in favor of the prosecution, is that this is a very old affair. would be in favor of the prosecution is that this is a very old affair. This was an old affair, but the hush money payment was absolutely in the middle of a campaign. You're going to have a you're going to have a stronger argument that the payment you're making here and now

is because of the campaign. I disagree. And a lot of people disagreed with me. Bradley Smith, Bradley Smith, whom I respect a great deal, wrote my former professor. Yeah. Wrote in National Review. We had a back and forth about this. Yeah. And he strongly disagreed with me about it. And at the end of the day, it's not like the chairman of the FEC. The guy who actually is in charge of this is disagreeing with you. Guy who has an opinion. I mean, maybe a little bit more qualified than just maybe a little dude with an opinion. But the idea. I just say that because Brad's taking my side. Right. Of course. But let's just say it would a case prosecuting Trump under those facts would have been a battle royale over the question of in over the question of is this a campaign expense or not?

When it's quite obvious that there are multiple non-campaign reasons to cover up an affair. to cover up an affair. And so that case, well, I thought under the Edwards precedent and there was actually a legal analysis, you know, the federal judge entertained a motion to dismiss by Edwards that he dismissed, went to jury trial. In that circumstance, I thought, you know, Trump could face jeopardy here. But here's a really important factor. Southern District of New York never brought this case. Southern District of New York, as in the federal U.S. attorney's office, declined to bring this case. Never brought this case. So then you're in a situation where the Manhattan DA

would be in a position of trying to claim that the strongest part of its case, which is absolutely time barred, is rendered stronger by a federal felony that was never prosecuted and that also the new felony prosecution that he's bringing might also be time barred. So there's your double bank shot. So it's bank shot number one is, wait, no one prosecuted this alleged federal felony. And then bank shot number two is, can you prosecute it anyway with the five-year statute of limitations? Which is why, Sarah, I have this, and I could be totally wrong about this, but I have this nagging thought in the back of my head. Surely, maybe there's more here. Maybe there's more. Maybe there's more. And we'll take a quick

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Use code ADVISORY at checkout to save. Terms and conditions apply. I don't want to leave the merits of the campaign finance because I want to take up Brad Smith's case here. One, your timing thing is important because it is different than John Edwards. Yes. But the pushback on that is that, correct, Melania was far more likely to find out because Stormy Daniels was far more likely to say something publicly when he was running for president.

That doesn't make it a campaign expense. That puts your marriage in greater jeopardy because of the attention you're going to get as a presidential candidate. you're going to get as a presidential candidate. Another part of this that's most relevant to me is on the really nitty gritty of the campaign side. OK, so it is well known and you can argue about this, but it is nevertheless the case that like you cannot buy a new suit with campaign donations and say that I needed it for the campaign because the need for to dress oneself exists separate and apart from the campaign. This actually became a bit of a thing during the 2008 campaign around Sarah Palin using campaign donations to buy pantyhose. Right. There was an argument that actually Nicole Wallace bought the pantyhose and then Sarah Palin really wanted the fancy pantyhose,

whatever. But everyone agreed that even though you can argue that actually I wanted the fancy pantyhose, whatever. But everyone agreed that even though you can argue that actually I don't wear pantyhose unless I'm running for president. Nope, not good enough. The need to dress oneself exists. Same with dry cleaning. You can say, yeah, but I don't dry clean my clothes unless I'm out in Iowa and I'm not at home. Doesn't matter. You can't use campaign donations for dry cleaning. And this extends to all sorts of things around this legal settlements. If you're in business, if you're in business, you're sued a lot if you have run a big business and settling a lawsuit is normal course of business, even if it's undertaken in the middle of a political campaign.

Yeah. Or let's say your business, you know, you know that you're going to do a lot of news interviews in front of your business. So you decide to repaint it. That is not a campaign expense. Now, let's flip this around. So you cannot use campaign donations for any of those things, including hush money payments to your mistress. Right. Because they would argue that need exists regardless of your candidacy. But the entire premise of these prosecutions, by which I mean John Edwards, Michael Cohen's plea agreement. Well, let's asterisk that it was an agreement. Michael Cohen agreed to plead to something in order to not deal with a whole bunch of other stuff. And his plea agreement is not legal precedent.

That's right. OK, so the Donald Trump hush money payments, the John Edwards hush money payments, I think are on this really shaky legal ground that you would have been prosecuted for using campaign donations to do it. But you're going to get prosecuted for not using campaign donations to do it too? That can't be the law. Now, of course, there is a way through this thicket, which is that you would pay with your own money to do the thing because then you're not using the campaign donations,

but you would report it as nevertheless a campaign expenditure, which would get you out of that other jeopardy. The problem with that, though, is I can't think of anything where it's a campaign expenditure that you couldn't use campaign donations for. So I don't understand the theory by which you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't under federal law. That doesn't make any sense to me. And the John Edwards case, I agree that a judge didn't throw it out. I'd be curious what would have happened on appeal. I think there's a reason DOJ dropped the case.

Yeah, it is. No, I that you have you have stated your position is Bradley Smith's position. Absolutely. Totally get it. And, you know, but my my what I was focusing on was in the facts of the case with Trump, I believe we're stronger in some ways in the facts of the case with Edwards. I agree that the facts are stronger in showing that it was intended to benefit the campaign. I disagree that it gets far enough, but it is stronger.

Yes. But nevertheless, he still couldn't have used campaign donations to do it. So then you can't arrest him, quote unquote, for not using campaign donations to do it. Huh? Right, right. It doesn't work that way. Well, it actually does work that way by the letter of the law. OK, so that's so that's that's my issue.

I think campaign finance law is. Really broad and really intrusive and so far deemed to be constitutional. And so one of the things if I'm a lawyer, if I've got a potential candidate and they're saying, you know what, I have this affair 10 years ago with a porn star and they're asking me to pay one hundred and thirty thousand dollars to cover up this affair. And I'm going to look at the law. things I might say to them in response to this is, have you considered not running for president? Because campaign finance law is going to put you into a real bind here, because what you're telling me is you're going to make one hundred and thirty thousand dollar payment to cover up an affair because you don't want it coming out in the campaign. And under the black letter law, that's going to be a campaign expenditure. But you can't make that campaign expenditure.

And if you try to cover it up and say that it's personal rather than campaign, when we all know it's campaign, then you've got a legal jeopardy. And so that was where my issue with Bradley Smith was. That was where my issue with Bradley Smith was not with his understanding of the no win position that the person trying to pay hush money is in. I agreed with him. That's a no win position for a person trying to pay hush money. My disagreement was that's what federal law was intending to do. And so far it's not been deemed to be unconstitutional. So

under the actual text of the law itself, Trump's got a real problem. And I think his best, you know, one of his best options was sort of what you might call the Bob McDonald option. Yep. And the Bob McDonald option for those who haven't followed the ins and outs of public corruption in the United States of America. Bob McDonald was prosecuted and convicted for taking money, essentially, essentially, functionally bribery. And that's what he was are in exchange for this money. And so is his defense had the quid, but not the quote. Right. His defense was not necessarily on the facts. The defense was fundamentally on the law.

The law just did not encompass these facts. And that's the best defense in my mind for Trump in campaign finance law is that the law just it's written in a broad way, but applying the law of lenity that we've discussed that this it just should not encompass this exact kind of behavior. But this gets back to an additional problem that, frankly, the Department of Justice may have. You are in a messy, messy part of federal campaign finance law as a state prosecutor had any business prosecuting the elements of a federal crime where DOJ has chosen not to do so. And I think there's a problem there for the state prosecutor as well.

Well, and now this brings up a wild card. There has been some discussion of what about state campaign finance law? But he wasn't running for state office and is not bound by New York state campaign finance. You got the problem there. Thank you. Play again. Yes, I've seen that. Right now, the best argument against it is, well, wait a minute.

These are 50 state elections and you're running for these are state electors that are essentially being elected. Now that then now you're at your triple bank shot. elected, now you're at your triple bank shot. Yeah. And look, as someone who has sat there and put together all the binders of state election law for presidential campaigns, the state election law for your purposes on the 50 state elections are the actual mechanics of the elections themselves. If there is a problem with an election machine, who is the judge who's on duty? What is the affidavit that you need to have prepared? You do not go through state election felony, which pre indictment to you and I both

seems like the only obvious path that he's taking. So there has to be something else. No, there doesn't have to be because we've seen people do things they shouldn't do all the time. Okay. But it does raise in my mind. Surely if you're going to be the person who's going to be the first DA to indict a former president of the United States in the whole history of the United States, and this is it, this is it. Yeah. two people who do not like Donald Trump. Don't think you got it. Not even close. It's, I... Right, so, okay, things that could be. You've mentioned witness tampering.

That around the time of Michael Cohen's arrest, between his arrest and the plea bargain, there's some witness tampering. That would have been in 2018. Right. Okay? That would have been in 2018. I'm confused because that was federal. Yeah. Yeah. But OK. But maybe there's some other witness with whom to tamper, et cetera. there is new evidence. So this does in no way implicates double jeopardy, but somewhere in between the principles of double jeopardy and this equitable tolling issue is this idea that your office already looked at all of this evidence and declined to prosecute this exact case. Now someone new comes in and you're just going to relook at the evidence and bring the case again.

And now someone new comes in and you're just going to relook at the evidence and bring the case again. That's not great in our system. Again, it's not barred by double jeopardy or anything. You actually have to. There's plenty of law on exactly what steps a jury being convened, for instance, that would your double jeopardy clock has started. But nevertheless, to not have new evidence or something that allows you to revisit that case in the first place, aside from simply I'm a new person. I don't like that. No, no, I don't love that either.

So new case that we're not thinking of. Right. New evidence that allows them to revisit this and makes their equitable tolling case stronger. Maybe, although frankly, the new evidence doesn't really help with the equity part. Statutes of limitations for listeners who may think like, why do we have statutes of limitations? You should just be able to indict crimes when there were crimes. Yeah. It's actually a really old part of our common law tradition that you don't want people living with something hanging over their head for their whole lives. And there are some crimes that you do murder. Right. But on falsifying business records. Well, and murder, by the way, has no statute of limitations. That's my point. Yeah. We say that's going to hang over your head for life

at any point that we think we can charge you with murder. We're going to charge you. Right. We don't mind that you don't sleep well at night on that one. Right. Yeah. And, you know, when you're talking again about this case, you're going to hear people who are countering our argument and what they're going to say. And the Times has a really good report where they went back and they looked at more than a hundred examples where the falsification of business records was turned into a felony by connecting it to a larger felony. And they're going to say it's very common. To turn the falsification of business records misdemeanor into a felony under New York state law.

This is a common way in which white collar criminals are prosecuted. All of this is completely normal. OK, from a 30,000 point of view, it is not abnormal to turn a falsification of business records case into a felony prosecution. But you have to look at what was the felony, the underlying felony. And what I've yet to see is an example of a falsification of business records case turned into an underlying felony through a federal, not state offense that was never indicted or prosecuted. That's that's the difficult connection here. And under a theory that even if it had been indicted and prosecuted at the federal level,

would have been subject to row, very robust legal defenses from the get go. So even if you take my position that in 2018, the feds had a credible case for indicting him. I mean, they did it with John Edwards. They didn't. They didn't. OK, I want to do a little big picture stuff and then get to extradition. Yeah. Oh, so fun. Okay. We'll do extradition at the end. That's dessert. Okay. I am very upset. Like really, truly, it is bothering me and causing me to lose sleep. I'll be very honest. Literally lose sleep. It is a little. Like I think about it as I'm going to sleep because how do I explain this? So there are lots of smart, thoughtful lawyers out there who are making the argument

that I'll put them into a few buckets, if you will. One version of the argument is, hey, it's like Al Capone, man. You get him on what you can get him on. I want to get back to that one. Yeah. Two argument is. Well, it might not be ideal, but what the House Republicans are doing is worse by trying to meddle in the investigation. Sort of a what about ism argument. But the third one is the one, I mean, they all bother me, but the third one is the one that deeply, deeply bothers me. And I know it's coming. He had it coming. You know what? I feel nothing for Donald Trump. He's a bad person. And so, yeah, look, doing what you got to do, right? A bad person winds up in jail and maybe it's a little bit of a sketchy case and maybe the statute of limitations had run. I'm going to sleep fine at night because Donald Trump deserved it.

He has bent the law. He has undermined the rule of law. And so, yep, that's what we're going to do to get Donald Trump. OK, so I want to take these in order and try not to sound like a crazy person. On the Al Capone thing, yes, Al Capone actually committed tax evasion, though. That's the difference. I have no problem arresting someone

and putting them in jail for however long for a crime that they committed with provable facts, even if that's not the worst crime that you think they committed, but you couldn't prove the other crime. That's the Al Capone example. As I think we've just walked through, that's not the case here that we have.

You don't have the dead to rights felony on some minor Stormy Daniels hush money payment. I'd have no problem with that. If this were 2018 and you wanted to nail him on misdemeanor falsifying of business records, as I said,

I don't know that we'd even be talking about it on this podcast other than like, well, that's happening. So the Al Capone example is simply incorrect to me on the facts and the law. Okay.

Number two, what the House GOP is doing worse. Nope. The House Republicans are partisanly preening with a letter that would,

if they had any ability to do anything with it, perhaps, attempt to meddle, I'm going to put that in quotes and get back to it, with a criminal investigation at the state level. But again, if what we're saying is true, and this now bleeds into bucket number three, you are saying that we're going to basically suspend the rule of law

and due process in order to get a bad guy. And I'll just point out the police don't frame people they think are innocent. They frame people they think are guilty. And we don't think that's OK to then frame people. And yes, I'm going with a man for all seasons. You know, I am. Mm hmm. Would you cut down all the laws of England to get to the devil himself? William Roper? Yeah. Yes, I would. And Thomas More. Oh, and when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper?

The law's all being flat. That is what they are talking about here. That is tyranny to change the law, to bend the law, to try to get a quote unquote bad guy. It is like the Nazis marching in Skokie. I feel like this same group of people would have said, yeah, but look, it's the Nazis. I'm going to sleep fine at night at the Nazis. The Nazis can't march in Skokie if their free speech rights are slightly diminished because they can't have a

march through a very nice Jewish neighborhood to terrorize these people. And this gets, by the way, to a whole Gen Z problem where I know that they wouldn't let the Nazis march in Skokie. And it's like, no, you don't. They don't let the Fed federal judges go to Stanford. So, no, you never have to stand up for free speech for the nice people because we all are fine with them speaking. The time where you stand up for the rule of law or for free speech is when it's the bad people. And that's how you know that your rights are protected. And I am so offended by this idea of everyone sleeping fine at night because Donald Trump, quote, had it coming.

He had it coming if he committed a crime under the law. Right. So can I push back on the House Republicans? They're really bad. OK, so this idea that we're going to haul a D.A. in front of Congress to have him justify this, his actions or Rand Paul tweeting out that he should go to jail, the D.A. should go to jail. Yeah, I don't like any of it. So that's really bad. I don't want to get into the game of is it worse or what's I. By the way, the number one way to make me tune you out if you send me a message that's very angry, it is this.

OK, I'm going to grant that X is bad, but I'm not going to listen to you and you tell me why is worse. All right. I can say X and Y are bad, and I don't have to then go into the partisan weighing option, the partisan weighing and saying why is worse. Look, here is a fundamental reality. Donald Trump is going to, if he is indicted, he is going to be able to deploy maximum resources in his defense. Uh, and he's going to be able to deploy maximum resources in his defense. And he's going to be able to challenge the indictment on its legal basis.

He's going to be able to challenge it on its factual basis. If he's convicted, he's going to have a layer of appeals. And look, I I Sarah and I are in total agreement on the that this indictment is. I think the word I keep using is double bank shot. See, I wouldn't use that word because that is like we're in March Madness. You can make a double bank shot. It's unlikely, but you could. This isn't a bank shot when you are bending and changing and re re jiggering laws all to get to one person, not for the thing you actually want to get to them for, because you think they're bad. Well, no, that's the argument for, well, let's just get him because

he's bad. No, if the argument is he falsified business records and furtherance of a federal crime, I think that that was not prosecuted by the feds. I think that is an unwise prosecution. feds. I think that is an unwise prosecution. It does not strike me as an assault on the rule of law. It's an unwise prosecution in the way the Bob McDonald prosecution was a stretch prosecution or there are a number we can go through a number of white collar cases, for example, honest services cases are a notorious example of where prosecutors try to extend legal theories. And what we do when prosecutors try to extend legal theories is you go hard at prosecutors in court because the rule of law is both substance is the charge just and process. Do we have a mechanism and a means of defense and so in my view the rule of law here on the substance i think the indictment as we see it is as we expect it to be if it happens pretty darn shaky but does that pretty darn shaky indictment mean that House Republicans get to intervene

and or should intervene in this process in a way? Now, them tweeting stupid stuff is just to be expected. But to then have the U.S. House of Representatives intervene in an unprecedented manner into a state prosecution where Donald Trump has ample due process to contest those charges. To me, that that's a that's a problem. OK, so one, I agree that the strongest pushback is that Donald Trump will be able to challenge this at various points as anyone can.

But we don't think that's an OK reason to arrest people. You know, your grandmother, they don't get to arrest your grandmother, make up a charge after the statute of limitations has passed. And we're like, well, that's OK, though, because she's not OK, but it's not a made up charge. So this is not going after the statute of limitations. I think it is. Well, again, so the question is going to be, and if this was something where they're making up charges, again, the way in which you defend this is you defend this in court. The House of Representatives stays out. Hold on.

I'm going to get to them. I'm not going to defend them. I'm just going to explain why we actually think arresting someone on. On trumped up stuff is bad all by itself, even if they could challenge it in court. And so arresting someone after the statute of limitations has told or has passed, that's bad, even if they can then go to court and say the statute of limitations has run. You can't do this. Totally agree. We still think it was bad. This like building a state case that relies on a federal case, which we're not even sure you can do on a federal case that the feds declined to prosecute on a weird theory of federal law

that is not I mean, all of that I find really horrible, frankly. Again, it's saying that you don't really need the Nazis marching in Skokie, which is something I just feel like is one of the proudest moments in our country. And I'm concerned, I guess, overall with the tenor of both sides, it feels like saying, well, the other side already has undermined the rule of law so much. Our means are justified. OK, so let me get to the House GOP thing and why. I mean, it's bad. As I said, I'm not going to defend it. Right.

But why I think I'm not as worked up over the rule of law aspect of it, it is partisan hackery. The Rand Paul tweet is disgusting. Yeah. The DA should be in jail. Literally, he was asked, for what? And he said, we'll stick by the words in our tweet. What the?

Yeah. Frick, Rand Paul. Yeah. And you're the libertarian. So again, just underlining. Yeah. Frick, Rand Paul. Yeah. And you're the libertarian. Mm-hmm. So again, just undermining, underlining. I am not defending any of this. But a sitting senator sending a tweet, does not the rule of law undermine, to me, the

House GOP requests, so to speak, in that stupid, stupid letter, would in no way prevent the prosecution from moving forward. It is partisan, puffing, hackery, cable news, bait. Totally agree. Bullshit. E-rating. E-rating. Yeah, I know. And, you know, their idea that they're going to defund the Manhattan DA. I don't even know their theory for this, but it appears that their theory is based on grant money that DOJ through justice programs gives to state and local law enforcement. Good luck. You can't rescind grants because you don't like that D.A.'s office. Right. That's not how that works.

In fact, it was tried during my time at the Department of Justice over the sanctuary city stuff. And we've talked about those cases and federal courts rebuffed it every time, basically saying, look, you can get rid of the program. You can not give grant money to, you know, if they don't do X, Y or Z related specifically to the purpose of the grant, but you can't make up new grant conditions and you can't basically have a viewpoint discrimination for those grants. So also my point is they have no ability to do what they're talking about as far as I'm concerned. So it's just a press release. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not offended in the same way by a press release i am offended by it

because it's stupid yeah but stupid is different than my cutting down all the laws in england to get to a bad guy and everyone's shrugging because he's a bad guy i know he's a bad guy yeah i don't think many people think he's worse than i do by the way yeah so when like that's the Nazis, I don't like the Nazis. I don't want to hear what they have to say. I don't think they should march through that nice little Jewish neighborhood outside Chicago. But you don't get to tell everyone else they can march and not the Nazis. Right. That's the First Amendment. This is the rule of law. And everyone seems to be looking for how other people are acting worse. Well, and then you have the extradition point.

OK, let's get to extradition. Yes. Yes. Oh, gosh. So and this is like a little bit of fun, really, when it comes down to it, because it is so dumb. The idea is literally how will this go down? Because if Donald Trump declines to do what most people do, which is self-surrender at the appointed time, and he just builds a, you know,

Les Miserables style barricade around Mar-a-Lago, what can be done at that point? New York police do not have jurisdiction in the state of Florida. And so this question of, quote unquote, extradition has come up. And there's been then political pressure from Donald Trump's allies on Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, to refuse to extradite Donald Trump. Looks, let's just get to the bottom line. This is a whole lot like Mike Pence can decide who the next president is on January 6th. It's in fact nearly identical from a legal argument standpoint. There is a ministerial role that the governor of the state of the Asali here plays. It is ministerial.

place. It is ministerial. There is, unlike January 6th, lots of case law on exactly what extradition means. I'm just going to read Article 4, Section 2, Clause 2 to you and then turn it over to you, David. A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime who shall flee from justice and be found in another state shall on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled be delivered up to to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime. Shall on demand of the governor of New York be delivered up to New York. There's no discretion there. There's no I saw some tweets. Ron DeSantis should refuse to extradite Donald Trump. Ron DeSantis does not have that power at all. He does not have that power. And so, you know, I've seen a number of the defunding the Manhattan D.A., as you said, is absurd, but also frivolous. That's just not something that the House is really got the power to do.

Then you have the. Don't extradite him absurd, but also frivolous. Here's what's absurd and not frivolous. Here's what's absurd and not frivolous. And what's absurd and not frivolous is the Trump essentially calling out protest, protest, protest without the very important addendum of peaceful protest. So one thing I do worry about is that the argument that this is a completely politicized prosecution is then going to lead to self-help when it comes from Trump and his supporters, which to me is much more of a concrete danger to the rule of law than House grandstanding or the dumb arguments that Ron DeSantis is not going to block extradition. He can't. And so he can just not lawfully, not lawfully. And as a matter of show any interest in doing so unlawfully.

Yeah, it's a matter of. But ultimately, could he? Because you can enlist under the Extradition Act federal authorities over whom DeSantis has zero control to carry out the arrest. And so the thing that I do worry about, although less than I did on January 5th, I do worry about the sort of self-help, the the violent response. I don't think that Trump has the same hold that he had on January 5th, but he doesn't have to have the same hold on that many people to cause a real crisis. I I don't know that I agree with you on that last part. OK, so you might be more pessimistic than me.

OK, I think so. But again, this to me is the catastrophizing of both sides. You know, Donald Trump already undermined the rule of law. So we'll just do whatever it takes to get him. And it's okay if we undermine it a little too, because we're simply, we have to fight fire with fire. And then on the other side, look at what they are doing to the rule of law. We have to do whatever it takes. And if that means taking up arms to defend someone instead of allowing that political process to play out, so be it. We are simply doing what they are doing.

They are in equivalent using the arms of the state. Yeah, so I don't love that. I just wanted to run through some things that have already been tried in the US Supreme Court on this extradition stuff. You cannot use habeas corpus to refuse to surrender the accused based on speculation about the accused trial in the demanding state.

Sound familiar? Yep. You cannot refuse to turn them over because of the accused arguments that the statute of limitations has expired. Wow. 1917, eh? Biddinger v. Commissioner of Police. How appropriate. statute of limitations has expired. Wow. 1917, eh?

Biddinger v. Commissioner of Police. How appropriate. That the demanding state's prison would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. You know, that it would violate the Eighth Amendment if I turn them over. No. The only thing that seems to have ever worked is habeas corpus for clear and satisfactory evidence that he was outside the

demanding state when the crime occurred if however evidence is conflicting then nope you still got to go we're not we're not actually litigating your alibi right but if you've got proof and they've got none and it's just you know your name name is David French and that's pretty common. But this David French has never been to the state of New York. That might allow Ron DeSantis not to turn you over. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, the extradition thing has been.

Bottom line, they got to turn him over. Also, he's going to turn himself in. I don't see a world in which. Probably. Yeah. But, you know, one thing that I suspect there are some defense attorneys who are listening to this jumping up and down going, you think it's novel that prosecutors try double bank shots and overcharge and try to extend statutes of limitations. And all of my clients just had to go to court and fight it out. And that's the ultimate reality for Donald Trump. The bottom line for Donald Trump is even if the if the Manhattan D.A. does exactly what we expect that

he'll do and file a charge, he shouldn't charge. The bottom line is Donald Trump's got to go to court and fight that out. Yeah. And let me try to make a somewhat nuanced point here. That is OK with me. What isn't OK, what I'm getting worked up about. Are the people who believe it is not a real charge that the statute of limitations has run. Yeah. And aren't that bothered. Right. That's what bothers me. Now, Alvin Bragg may not be one of those people, the DA. He may believe that they've got the case. The statute of limitations is fine. All of that.

That bothers me in some like you're legally dumb, but like there's legally dumb things that happen all the time. As you said, like your clients have to go in and prove it in court. No problem. Truly, I don't think court. No problem. Truly. I don't think I have any problem with that.

My problem was with people who who just don't think it's a very big deal. As long as it's a bad guy, you're going to completely agree, completely agree. And then to say that, like, look, Donald Trump's a bad guy. They're going after a bad guy. Yep. They're bending the law to do it. But House GOP, these guys are egregious. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think one is significantly worse than the other, and I think it's the tyranny of using not real criminal law. I think what House GOP has done so far is cable news fodder BS. Like I said, I don't like it. It's bad, but it is not tyranny. Right. Right. And I, you know, as you said, I'm firmly of the belief if you can get Al Capone on tax evasion. Do it, man. Do it. But he's got to have committed tax evasion. And you've bought to bring the statute, the charge within the statute of limitations. It cannot be that, well, it's really, really, really wrong to have an affair covered over with hush money payments and then try to conceal that from the

public before a presidential election. Oh, by the way, at the same time that he does a ton of other really, really wrong things. And so therefore, I'm not going to cry any tears if he's subjected to a stretch of illegal prosecution. That's not the way this thing works. And by the way. Here's one thing I do wonder about, Sarah, and this is just I'm I'm asking you to put on your political expertise hat combined with your legal expertise hat. There are other cases that we've just. That's what's so frustrating. That we've just. This is insane.

This is. There are other cases that are so much more straightforward. And my concern is that in a lot of the Republican public, they will not see the other cases for what they actually are because this first case, this first ever in American history indictment of a sitting president is so weak on so many levels that they are going to be ripe for the argument that Trump is being subjected to a wave of political persecutions. And. I it's not that I wonder if that will happen, I know that will happen, that I know that will be the way it sinks in with a lot of people.

I think it's actually the reason why a lot of these lawyers are telling themselves it's OK to be OK with this prosecution, because they don't want to feed that beast on the right that just to me is not an excuse no um you should call him like you see him especially when it comes to the rule of law again you do not cut down all the trees to get to the devil himself um i you you get there to a really interesting point, which is individual incentives are not the same as group incentives. And boy, is this a good example where Alvin Bragg's individual incentives are so different than the incentives of, say, the group of people who think Donald Trump should be held legally accountable for things he has done wrong. Yeah. Because if that group got to vote,

you would do Georgia first. But. You know, and I don't want to actually speculate on the motives of Alvin Bragg here. Right. It's just that he's representing New York. He doesn't get to care about Georgia. Right. He has individual prosecutors, Again, two of them quit. One of them wrote a book, which I have all sorts of ethical problems with. Yeah. You don't get to take the evidence that you uncovered as a district attorney, an ADA, and go write a book about someone who you did not charge. Right. That's again, like that would be disbarable in a different planet. But OK, that happened. And, you know, and I didn't say anything because like, well, it's Donald Trump, right? Like he has a big bully pulpit. Unlike other people, he can argue back.

But it does. It undermines the rule of law just a little. And I don't like it. And this idea that like, oh, what, Joe Biden can call and tell him that what he won't help him win reelection if he does this. I don't think Joe Biden can call and tell him that what he won't help him win reelection if he does this. I don't think Joe Biden can do that. Or Joe Biden can guarantee he'll win reelection if he doesn't do it. No, I don't think Joe Biden has those kind of coattails either. Alvin Bragg, it's already baked at this point. I think he is so tied to this. And unfortunately, like we talked about with Congress

or the presidency and the Supreme Court and sort of those separation of powers issues, three years from now, when this case is thrown out, it won't matter because all the headlines were Alvin Bragg brought the first indictment against a former U.S. president in U.S. history. Yeah, I'm I am highly distressed about this situation. Just me too. Highly distressed. And this isn't like fun legal time. No, no, no. This I am highly distressed because on on the Alvin Bragg's on the Alvin Bragg, the rationalizations and the justifications, your Thomas Moore, a man for all seasons quote

is spot on. And then when you turn around and you're going to have a bunch of people saying, don't extradite, get in the streets, block the arrest, et cetera, then that's another rule of law violation there. And so we're just in this position where an unwise action. And how many times have we said this, that in many ways, Donald Trump has been so fortunate in his opponents, just so fortunate in that, you know, if you're going to be talking about if his entire narrative is the grievance narrative. My goodness, does this feed into that? And and I am not of the view that the indictments will cause him to win elect the presidential election. I am of the view that this really is a bind for a lot of of Trump's primary opponents. There's going to be a very strong argument that they need to unite with him to condemn this indictment. At which point there is less of an argument. How do you make the nuanced case? This indictment's BS, but also you probably shouldn't nominate someone who has a messy situation.

Right, right. OK. And then the next indictment comes along if it does. Right. And then they're going to say, OK, but this one's fine. Right. Right. OK. And then the next indictment comes along if it does. Right. And then they're going to say, OK, but this one's fine. Right. It's it's oh, man, it's a mess. It is an absolute mess. OK, so I'm pretty much mad at everyone. Oh, and by the way, if you're wondering why I am, again, less worked up about. Not not worked up, less worked up about, not worked up, less worked up about the people who might take up arms in the street over this Donald Trump indictment. It is because they are not doing it with the force of the state. And I don't mean literally the state of New York. I mean, of government, the arm of state

that a district attorney has. It's an incredibly powerful job. And if we simply say the district attorneys get to go after bad guys, that's how you frame guilty people, quote unquote. And then it turns out that they weren't guilty after all. And as we've talked about in past podcasts, perhaps like I have worked on some of those cases. They're heartbreaking, but nobody thought they were putting an innocent man in jail. Nobody along the whole way did. Yeah, but they did. You think about the Bob McDonald situation. I'm sure he is incredibly grateful for his Supreme Court vindication eight to zero. And I don't defend on moral grounds the way he handled his office. I think the way he handled his office was pretty immoral.

was pretty immoral. But my gosh, think about the legal ordeal that he went through. He was going to be a leading contender for the GOP nomination. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

So again, this idea that like arrest comes with no cost because you get due process. That's not how we've ever thought of the rule of law. And that's why the rule of lenity that we've talked about is important. Don't stretch to prosecute people, even the bad, even the bad people. You got tax evasion. Go for tax evasion, man. But make sure you got tax evasion. All right. And with that, a few housekeeping notes, if you've made it to the end of this podcast. So we didn't have an earlier episode this week because I ended up being really, really sick and with a fever.

And there's one thing I learned from my teenage childhood years. When I have a fever, I think I can still do everything just totally the same. And then I would go to like take some major test in high school and fail it. And I was like, why did I fail that? And they're like, because you're delirious. I thought that CIA helicopters were circling my house at 4 a.m. one of the nights. It turns out that actually there was a helicopter circling the house. But like I had this whole like Donald Trump had been indicted and like this whole thing in my head with this fever. It was a Fairfax County Police Department helicopter.

Now, I have questions, Fairfax County, on why you're running a police helicopter at 4 a.m. over my house. But nevertheless, that's why we didn't do the podcast. There is, however, another reason that I didn't know I was as sick as I was, because part of that was that I was incredibly nauseous and couldn't eat anything. And I was confused about that symptom because I've been incredibly nauseous for about 10 weeks now, David. Why is that, Sarah? Tell us. I have, in fact, not told you guys that for the month of January, all podcasting equipment had to be moved to my bed. And I was doing all the podcasts from bed so that I didn't throw up on screen, at least on poor David. So I am 16 weeks pregnant with with a little a little bit. The brisket has called him popcorn. So I don't know

that brisket and popcorn go together, but they do now. Oh, wonderful. Yes. OK, I'm going to act like I didn't know this. That's fantastic. You knew because I was in bed. You literally knew before anyone. That's what I'm going to act like. I don't know. That's fair. I'll be the stand in for the listeners. OK, yeah. Congratulations. That is wonderful, wonderful news. That's fantastic. So hopefully I'm coming out of I've moved from the bed now, at least I'm in the office today. But this has been some touch and go.

And we have a lot of babies coming at the dispatch in the next six months. Yeah. Well, in my oldest daughter is about to have a baby boy any moment. Yep. Yep. Yep. Any moment. So, yeah. We've actually reversed because Nate is six months ahead of Lila. And then this baby for you, number two, is going to be six months ahead of my number two. That's right.

Yeah. So that'll be fun. Yeah. Yeah. And I have the advantage of being the grandparent in this situation. So I'm going to be sleeping fine. And producer Ryan is with us today

and they have one coming like in two weeks? Four. Three. Three to four weeks. Goodness. He says. So again,

there's just babies popping all over the place here. But I wanted to share that with you guys because, yeah, because this is family too. Yeah, absolutely. So awesome. We'll see you guys next week. We'll have lots of Supreme Court arguments, criminal law, et cetera. And maybe, maybe we'll be shocked by the witness tampering indictment that's coming down today.

That would be hilarious if we have a whole ranting episode. I'm so worked up. And the indictment has nothing to do with what we just said. We'll then decide whether we even put it out. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know whether we'll put out this episode if we turn out to be totally wrong on everything. It's good to have humility and for people to see that we're totally wrong on things. We'd record a new intro. But it might not be a good use of your time. Yeah. This is a fantastic episode about a mythical indictment.

The unicorn dragon episode. Yeah. All right. Bye, y'all you