Chapo Trap House - Unlocked: Will Talks to Steven Donziger About Taking on Chevron

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

From episode 503, Will catches up with Steven Donziger, the human rights attorney who has been under house arrest for over 500 days as a result of his work suing oil giant Chevron for their reckless polluting of Ecuador. Since we last talked to Steven there’s been some movement in his case, so we’re getting an update and continuing to discuss the fairly obvious collusion between Chevron, private prosecutors, and the New York Judge involved. Catch up on Steven’s first appearance here: https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/418-the-cool-zone-feat-steven-donziger-41119 For more information, go to www.makechevroncleanup.com. To learn more about or get involved with Steven’s case, or even dial in and listen to his hearing on March 10, go to https://www.freedonziger.org. You can follow him on Twitter: @SDonziger.

All right, hey everybody, you may remember a while back I did a bonus interview with the lawyer Stephen Donzinger about the circumstances that led to his quite lengthy house arrest and his ongoing, I don't know, how do you say, persecution by a law firm prosecuting him and their relationship with the very people that he won a lawsuit against. So his trial's coming up and we decided that we should check in again with Stephen Donzinger. So I'm joined again, once again, by the lawyer Stephen Donzinger. Stephen, how's it going? Good, thanks for having me.

Well, it's good to be here. All right, so maybe for the people who haven't listened to the first episode or are unaware of this story, could you give our listeners just like a brief background regarding your case and the rather extraordinary way in which you've been confined to your home for like well over a year and a half now? Sure, so, you know, it's a 27 year story, but I'm going to sort of reduce it to about a minute. I'm a lawyer, live in New York, right when I got out of law school in the early 90s,

I went down to Ecuador with a group of lawyers and investigators to look at what really was called the world's worst or related catastrophe and it involves Chevron and its predecessor company Texaco over a period of 25 or so years in the Ecuador and Amazon, they deliberately dumped billions of gallons of cancer causing oil waste onto indigenous ancestral lands in about a 1500 square mile area, wrecked the region, completely poisoned the water, the fresh water sources, the rivers, the streams, the groundwater, and over time hundreds, thousands of, even thousands of people have died of cancer or been stricken with oil related diseases. Indigenous cultures have been decimated and it's really the world's worst oil related

catastrophe. It was done as a matter of planning and engineering, it wasn't an accident, you know, Chevron decided to just dump the stuff rather than pay for a proper disposal. I got involved and sued Texaco and Chevron in New York in the early 90s, they insisted the trial be held in Ecuador, it was moved to Ecuador in the early 2000s, Chevron accepted jurisdiction there, the trial took eight years, we won, there were massive, voluminous scientific evidence proving their guilt, their culpability, 64,000 sampling results, 100 expert reports. As we were about to win, they sued me in New York as retaliation, claiming that I had bribed

a judge in Ecuador and their evidence, I did not bribe a judge in Ecuador just to be very clear about that, their evidence, so-called evidence was they paid a witness $2 million to come up from Ecuador, they coached him for 53 days, he then went into this courtroom in New York in the same court where we originally wanted the trial to be held and he testified that he was in a meeting with me in Ecuador while I approved this so-called bribe and it never happened, there was no corroborating evidence, the witness ended up admitting that he had lied and recanting his testimony in a later proceeding, but on the basis of that with no jury, Judge Lewis Kaplan, who's a federal judge in New York, found that I had

obtained the Ecuadoran judgment via fraud and in the meantime 29 other appellate judges in Ecuador, Canada have validated the judgment, completely rejected Kaplan's findings. This is really a battle between corporate power and indigenous rights being expressed through the means of the judicial system right now and because we had so much success in holding Chevron accountable, Chevron went back to Judge Kaplan, claimed I owed them money for their court costs, they demanded to see my computer and cell phone to figure out where my accounts were and that had all the confidential information on the case. When I appealed that request, Judge Kaplan charging with criminal contempt of court

and had me locked up, this was on August 6, 2019, it's about 575 days ago, my criminal contempt charge is a misdemeanor, the longest sentence ever given a lawyer who's been convicted of this is 90 days of home confinement, I've been in home confinement now six times. This is an extraordinary part of this, I mean you said like the longest penalty ever given to a lawyer who's been convicted of misdemeanor contempt is 90 days, you have not been convicted of misdemeanor contempt and you have been confined in your house under house arrest for well over 500 days now. Yeah, I've been confined six times longer, I'm confined without trial six times longer

than the longest sentence ever imposed on a lawyer who's been convicted of these charges. So in my view, this is punishment, to understand what's happening, when you're charged with criminal contempt, you're charged by the judge, not by the regular prosecutor, but the judge is obligated to go to the prosecutor to do the case, to prosecute it. In this case, the prosecutor refused to prosecute me, refused the charges. So Judge Kaplan who charged me appointed a private law firm to prosecute me in the name of the government, while hiding the fact the law firm had Chevron as a client, Chevron being the company that I had won this big judgment against.

So essentially, I'm the first example of ever in US history where the government, in this case Judge Kaplan has given big oil the power to prosecute its critics and that's what's happening to me, it's a conflicted case and it really in my view needs to be thrown out and the fact that I'm the only lawyer in history on a misdemeanor ever held for even a day pretrial makes it all the more shocking. I mean, yeah, this is how I found out about your case and this is what led me to be so interested in it is, I mean like the terrifying idea of a lawyer or any private citizen being prosecuted by a private law firm on behalf of the state and not just any private law

firm, a law firm that has directly an invested interest in a client that you won a fairly adjudicated legal settlement against, it's just like it is very clear what's happening here which is that like Chevron and a private corporation is using the state and our legal system to not just punish you personally but to send a message to anyone who would dare win a lawsuit against them. That's exactly right and fundamentally this is about an attack on the people of Ecuador who won the judge and they're doing it through me and it also as you point out is about sending a larger symbolic message of intimidation to all human rights activists, all human rights

lawyers and people who are going to hold these big fossil fuel companies accountable for their environmental destruction and that's what this case is about and like it's being expressed through these very personal attacks on me, I have a wife and a 14 year old son and we're hurting, I mean we live in New York City in a relatively small apartment and we've been here now for almost two years trying to figure this out, I can't get a trial because of COVID and other reasons, there's really no trials happening in New York and they won't let me out, you know and Chevron loves this, I mean I haven't been convicted of a crime, I don't have a passport, I have an ankle bracelet and it's been 18, 19 months

now unable to travel, unable to walk out of my apartment, that suits them fine right because they don't want me working on the case and holding them accountable. I mean like you know as more and more people are aware of this, I mean when people find out about your case, I mean like there are, you have attracted the attention and support of a lot of the really you know luminous figures in the legal community like lawyers, judges, people in international law who have you know signed petitions and statements attesting to the truly extraordinary miscarriage of justice that you're being subjected to here, I mean like it's just like as this goes on, I mean like how, how do like Judge Kaplan

and the people prosecuting you continue to justify this or account, I mean or just simply that they don't have to because nobody, not enough people notice it or they're not being subjected to like the pressure from any, any quarter outside like certain parts of the legal community no matter how sort of August and impressive the names are. Well it's a great question you know it just fiddles me that they can get away with it. There is a lot, there are a lot of people who've spoken out you know great lawyers Marty Garbus Rick Friedman, you know some of the great human rights lawyers in our country Amnesty International has written letters and you know a lot of environmental groups.

These two judges who are after me are conflicted, I mean one is a former tobacco lawyer, the others a member of the Federalist Society to which Chevron is a major donor, they're working together, the judge who charged me appointed the judge who's presiding, she locked me up Judge Presca, the prosecutor comes from a Chevron law firm, they're all, they all financial ties to Chevron, I mean Chevron is in effect prosecuting it and I think for a lot of people you know it's hard, there's no framework to even understand this in the United States of America like he's talking they're like what and we need more people to speak out I mean you know these judges have lifetime appointments there's virtually no accountability,

no one has tried to stop them, you know the appellate judges have not tried to stop them like oh just let the trial happen or if you lose you can appeal it, I mean that's like another two years while I'm in house arrest, so it's a serious situation Will, I will tell you you know I think this is a egregious human rights violation on American soil in the middle of Manhattan where I live, I'm a mile from the New York Times, they have not covered this, I have gotten coverage from independent media like you guys and you know the Intercept and the Nation and others, Chris Hedges wrote a great story but you know the main you know the large media outlets have completely ignored the story, Chevron's

advertising dollars are all over the place and I think you know it's a real game for Chevron to try to contain the story such that most people don't find out about it and the judges then have a free path to try to get away with it, you know we're fighting as hard as we can, you know if I was in Turkey or Saudi Arabia or Russia I think there'd be a lot of members of the U.S. Congress speaking out and condemning my treatment just like you know they're condemning the gentleman who just, Navalny I mean appropriately you know that's not how you treat people but you know look at my situation, it's happening right here and they don't speak out.

I think another element here is it like if this was happening to you because you were a dissident against the U.S. state directly I think it would like that's easier for them to talk about like in terms of the mainstream media you know discussing you know the government like directly violating or oppressing political speech or just like you know punishing someone for winning a lawsuit essentially but the fact that like it's not just the government doing it to you it is the it is a private corporation like you said it is Chevron prosecuting you with the authority of the U.S. state behind them it like I said like it opens up all kinds of questions about like you know the nature of our government and the media as it relates

to these giant multinational corporations that I think is very it's not always difficult for them to talk about it but like they don't know what to make of it or they don't want to follow up on the implications of what this really what this really means. I think you're right I will say I mean you know those of us who follow Cummings and goings in America see the increasing corporate power that's permeating various aspects of our society over the last 20 30 years I can tell you in this case it's a new frontier like this has never happened this is a new step forward for the consolidation of fossil fuel and corporate power in America like to be able to have for Chevron to have its private

law firm prosecute the guy the lawyer who won the biggest judgment ever against Chevron and block him up in his home when no lawyers ever been locked up in his home before for this supposed charge which I dispute completely that really ought to scare everybody because it really is a playbook that the industry the fossil fuel industry is going to keep trying to use as long as they can get away with it. And I would you know venture against it it's not just the fossil fuel industry following this closely I think it's every major industry who looks at like any attempt to use our courts to hold them to account or provide any level of redress for people who have been victimized

by their their policy which is basically putting profit over human life. That's exactly right and you know Chevron for example won't pay the nine point five billion dollars it's the people of Ecuador in a case that we want it's been 10 years okay people are dying in Ecuador because Chevron won't pay the judgment yet Chevron has lobbyists right now in Capitol Hill trying to preserve the $40 billion public subsidies for the fossil fuel industry that the Biden administration is thinking of getting rid of you know they're grifters you know they went down to Ecuador and sucked out profits out of the Amazon and left behind all the pollution for the local you know for the vulnerable

local communities suffer you know and they're doing the same here they they live off taxpayer subsidies and they're basically in Ecuador what they did is they they lost the case and rather than pay they're like we're leaving sold their assets and like Ecuador is left with the cleanup tab in the meantime they go after me because I have helped hold them accountable by representing the indigenous groups down there and and they locked me up you know so they have too much power and like if judges don't stop this stop this kind of behavior this misconduct this abuse of the system we are going to be living in a very dark place soon and we already are to some extent but people need to wake up and really

look at this and also if I can say I mean we're signing up people we have 25,000 people now in our campaign and if people can help please go to my website it's called Donziger defense dot com Donziger defense dot com you can make a donation the cost to deal with this or significance deal with lawyers and expenses and that kind of stuff although most lawyers work for very low cost on my team but also even if you can't give please sign up for the campaign we put out a newsletter every couple of weeks explaining what's happening asking people to take various actions like right now Amnesty International wrote a letter to Merrick Garland the new AG and Attorney General asking him to review the case and

take it back from Chevron's private law firm like it take it back into the Department of Justice so we can deal with professional prosecutors not conflicted you know private prosecutors yeah I mean the idea of a private prosecutor is so bone chilling to think about I mean even if it's an unjust prosecution the idea that like you know you should be prosecuted by a representative of the US state the Justice Department whose boss is accountable to voters theoretically that's exactly right and I will add this Judge Kaplan in the court created some sort of taxpayer fund to pay these private prosecutors and they're billing taxpayers three of them are billing each billing $300 an hour and so far this is just what

we know they have been paid by taxpayers $464,000 to prosecute me in a misdemeanor when the United States Attorney's Office refused to take the case you know so yeah again grift or right like I mean like I just I don't even like it's so hard to even figure out if you like cuz like you know I'm not an expert but like it's someone who has like a rudimentary understanding about how our legal system is supposed to work if the prosecutor declines the prosecuted case doesn't I mean like why it shouldn't end there if they're saying hey we've had nothing here so how did this get to think with the judge it's this it's this bizarre and rather open collusion between this judge and and Chevron and their law firm that's

exactly right it's a Chevron prosecution facilitated by a judge it's inappropriate it's in my view unethical it's a conflict of interest it's unconstitutional in my view and it's illegal under international law and it's happening in New York so you know yeah and and ultimately you know I have great hope that I will get through this and some judge or some appellate court somewhere will stop this or at least reverse it you know I mean they're trying to put me in jail I mean they already have put you in jail and they put me in jail in my home and they're gonna try to put me in jail jail without a jury and this is denying me a jury there's no jury trial for this so it'll just be what it'll be like up to the

judge's discretion about it's up to the judge it's up to the judge to decide if the the prosecutor is that they appointed themselves met the standard for whether you're guilty or innocent in a misdemeanor charge yeah but think about this the judge who's locked me up 575 days now is the judge deciding whether I'm guilty or innocent of the underlying charge I mean the word Kafka s gets thrown around a lot but man Jesus Steven I mean I guess like I mean the other thing like this the the absurdity of this is is that the terms of your your your house arrest and confinement you have not been convicted of this you're awaiting trial on a misdemeanor and you have an ankle bracelet you have an ankle monitor

on like how does that how does that happen like there are people listen get charged with murder who get to walk around free before their trial yeah I know I mean listen the four cops who killed George Floyd are all free right now yeah I'm I'm locked up and I what I did wrong quote unquote was when a big pollution judgment against Chevron and it's obvious why this is happening is because Chevron is has you know has has bet the will of a certain element of the federal judiciary to its wishes and you know we're supposed to have an independent judiciary to check that kind of power instead that you know Chevron has bet that to its will and it's just it's really controlling it and that's the world we live in right

now with this case and it's really not right it's frightening and it you know if it were happening in any other country the entire US Congress would be passing a resolution condemning it so I mean you're you're still awaiting trial but like is there a trial date set is there is there something coming up that like is like something's gonna happen that'll like maybe just a break in this limbo that you're existing in right now so a couple of things there's there's two important dates on March 10th which is just a few days from now I have an argument before the appellate court to get off home detention and you know anyone can dial in and listen and we're urging people to listen and to bear witness you can

go to this website that we set up for this purpose it's called free Donziger.org free Donziger d-o-n-z-i-g-e-r.org we'll put the phone number on there once we get it a couple of days before the argument it's at 10 a.m. Eastern on the 10th which I believe is next Wednesday so people should just mark that down dial in and yeah like I just like if I can make an appeal here I mean like the fact that you can dial in and listen to it listen to this this this hearing I think is very important I think the more people do this the better because I think that this is basically being allowed to happen to you because not enough people know about it and I think like just like at the more exposure that the the

absolute absurdity of what's what's what's happened to you here I think it's more people know about it I think like that is what can only help your defense and can only hinder the you know like I said the the open corruption and you know oppression of you that is being carried out by a private law firm on behalf of the government yeah and by the way the law firm's name is Seward and Kissel S-E-W-A-R-D-K-I-S-S-E-L last week 300 law students from 52 different law schools in America wrote their managing partner a letter saying they will never work at that firm there's a boycott of the Seward and Kissel firm by law students to protest what they say is an unethical prosecution of me so you know there's a lot of people

who are really upset about this and the Seward and Kissel law firm you know they have significant ties to the oil and gas industry Chevron's a client they work for a company called Oak Tree Capital that's two executives on Chevron's board of directors it's just unbelievable you know and when Judge Kaplan appointed this law firm you know first of all when the case was rejected it should have dropped but he wanted to appoint a private lawyer to prosecute me there's hundreds of disinterested like neutral former federal prosecutors he could have appointed why did he appoint the one firm that has close and deep financial ties to Chevron and the oil and gas industry because he wanted to ensure that I would that they

would do what he wanted to try to crush me as so-called punishment for having the temerity to take on Chevron's success on behalf of indigenous peoples so this is a this is a closed loop. Do you feel like for people like Judge Kaplan to go to take this extraordinary step I mean like do you think like in their view of the world or their view of the law what you did to Chevron by you know bringing this case in the first place much let alone winning it it just amounts to basically extorting a private company like I think there's basically that how he looks at like people who seek you know environment take environmental cases

against large corporations that it's just basically it's CD it's sort of pseudo criminal in the first place the question or even like you know like to even bring up the fact that like maybe they have some sort of monetary responsibility to the thousands of people who have been stricken with cancer as a direct result of their actions. I think it's that I think he just hates lawyers who take on the cause of human rights and cause of environmental justice I mean he's a he was a former tobacco industry lawyer he worked for Brown and Williamson for many years and he just thinks like the corporate form is like the best expression of like an economic system and American greatness you

know it is really scary he hated me from day one I could tell he never let me present evidence in my in the underlying racketeering case he let Chevron file against me he wouldn't give me a jury he wouldn't let me testify on direct he kept the names of witnesses secret from me there were massive due process violations throughout in his court and the irony is he concluded that inequitable there were you know that the somehow the trial court didn't function properly when in his court that actually was the case and it was not in Ecuador but I don't know if I've mentioned this yet there's been 29 different appellate judges in Ecuador and Canada from the validity of the Ecuador judge Judge Kaplan's the only one who said

it wasn't valid and he wouldn't even look at the evidence relied on by the Ecuador court to find it you know to find against Chevron and the whole I mean we talked about this in the first time he came on like their whole effort to get the trial in Ecuador in the first place was something they thought would be very much to their benefit yeah they did until until you know we organize a team of great Ecuadorian lawyers who mitigated the case and presented the evidence in one as they should have the evidence against them is just overwhelming I mean they admit it they admit that this is what they did they just claim it didn't hurt anybody you know they admit they've done massive amounts of

toxic waste into rivers and streams that indigenous peoples were relying on for their drinking water and many have died including young children of leukemia I mean babies are dying of leukemia down there so you know they just went down there and cut and run I mean they took out all the profits socialized the cost and fled the country and then they come up here and act like you know they can avail themselves of our legal system to attack those who held them accountable it's really again it's unprecedented and it's something people need to pay attention to obviously. You mentioned the on the March 10th hearing about your confinement but what was the second

important date that's coming up for you? That's the trial on May 10th where I'm going to be represented by Ron Kuby, Marty Garbeth, various lawyers who are working to help me pro bono and they're really good lawyers and they're going to be going toe to toe with this private Chevron process in court and people can come to the court you know potentially it depends on COVID but they can also listen in and that trial could take several days I'll be testifying and we plan in that trial to tell to show the truth of what happened which is that I did nothing wrong I was charged criminally as a way to silence me.

Thousands of lawyers in America did exactly what I did to appeal a potentially unlawful discovery order no one was ever charged with criminal contempt locked up other than me. So obviously this is I think a selective malicious prosecution and there will be how it won't be a jury the conclusion if Judge Peska stays on the case that's the judge appointed by capitalism member of the Federalist Society she'll definitely find me guilty but let people be their own judges and bear witness listen to the evidence because I believe I'm not at least bit guilty but you know if I had a jury this would not be happening and there's a reason they're not giving me a jury because they want to engineer the result of my view.

Well I mean Stephen I got like you know just to close things out here I mean like you know I've been thinking about you ever since you know I first talked to you I've been trying to you know promote your case because I just think like I think just people more people need to know about this because I think the more people who knew about it the harder it would be for these people to do what they're doing and I'm not saying like you know I mean they would probably still be doing what they're doing but could we get like like you said like this is in Manhattan could we get the New York Times or like any of the papers of record just to cover this trial just to like just to even mention what's going on here it

would seem to be like a pretty compelling story from a news angle. It's an incredible story I mean you know I'm a Harvard law grad I was in the same class as President Obama and I'm like locked up for a year and a half in my home after winning the biggest environmental case ever why is that not being covered by the New York Times I just I'm astounded and you know look people need to engage you know go to the website and sign up because there's going to be there's one group I think Sunrise is organizing an event at the courthouse on March 10th to express their disdain their upset at what's happening to me and there's a lot of actions that can be taken again go to free Donziger.org and

or DonzigerDefense.com and just get engaged because we need as many people as possible to to speak out about this even if you're not around like if you live wherever not New York you can call into these proceedings and you can send emails and stuff and we'll tell you how to do it to really raise your voices in defense of me and my family and the people of Ecuador who with whom I've worked for now 27 years who really are tenacious determined sophisticated courageous people who united indigenous peoples and rural farmer communities and took on one of the world's most powerful corporations in one you know so this needs to be recognized I want to say this no I was going to say like in following your case like

I've always been been been very impressed with like it's obviously with the absurdity and horror of what's happened to you is one thing but you've always been very clear that like this this is about this is about Ecuador this is about the victims of what of Chevron to basically doing a Chernobyl level environmental disaster on purpose in their country like these are the people who are who are being oppressed by this corporate this this conclusion of corporate and government power like like this is the real violence and it's directed at them yeah and then they're yeah and they're attacking me to attack the people of Ecuador I'm just I'm like roadkill in between because I'm here but I mean the people of Ecuador

the indigenous leaders and the community leaders are amazing and it's been a privilege to represent them all these years and they won the case let me be very clear Chevron has lost the communities in Ecuador have won and these attacks are happening because our side the Ecuadorian leaders won historic judgment so they're attacking their lawyer it's that simple you know this is not happening because they did something wrong or something went amiss this is happening because they did something right and everything worked out so that's why we need to protect yeah and that's why they're attacking you is because like this like we said this is that this is the message that they're sending to every other lawyer

in the country and in the world who looks at this case and goes oh like I can think of 10 other examples of a corporation who's done something similar in the world and like you know maybe like you know yeah they should be sued for it they should be held to account and like they know they're guilty as hell I mean and then they know they lost the case their entire law fair legal strategy to try to destroy the case and go after me is in itself criminal racketeering I mean it's basically a conspiracy to put in false evidence to pay a witness you know this this guy they pay two million dollars to as a way to bring down a legitimate judgment one in the court of a sovereign nation it's been affirmed by two

Supreme Courts one in Ecuador one in Canada and 29 apologizes I mean that's the racketeering conspiracy right there it's the Chevron lawyers and the Chevron executives and their allies who have orchestrated this and that is that is the very definition of a conspiracy but they act like they're the ones protecting the rule of law we're protecting the rule of law the judgment that was born in Ecuador that needs to be enforced and by the way I just want to mention there's we have a this case does not live and die based on what happens to Steve and Donziger personally you know we have other lawyers working on this who are exploring ways to enforce the judgment against Chevron's assets to force the company

to comply with the rule of law and pay what they owe well I mean Stephen I guess like I just for anyone listening out there I mean like he was hearing this and wants to get it he was interested in the case or wants to support I mean I just think everyone should think very seriously about what it would mean if they were allowed to not just get away with this but to get away with it in such a way that almost nobody even is aware of it or that there's that there's no even out even outrage in the mainstream media or in any like traditional source of any institution that's meant to hold be a check on this kind of power or this kind of abuse of power I should say I think people should consider very carefully

like what the implications of like the larger implications of this case mean for not just your ability to challenge corporate power but like even more frightening your ability to I mean like how like what will be done to you if you successfully challenge corporate power in any way yeah that's that's that's the big question right I mean if you don't if you're not successful this kind of stuff tends not to happen and I will say this for those who really want to dig in and follow like daily events please follow me on Twitter at sdanziger d o n z i g e r and you can get a ton of information about the case you know multiple times a day on my twitter feed all right Stephen we will have we'll have the

links to your to your website we'll have information about how to call into the trial I know they on March 10th we'll just any any any way to support you we all all the information and relevant links and information will be in the show description of this episode of the show so I just and finally I just want to say Stephen thank you so much for what you're doing and I would just like to say you know please stay strong and hang in there thank you will and appreciate the support of you and the show means a lot to us thank you so much Stephen Donzinger ladies and gentlemen like I said like look look into this case and you will be interested to say the least if not terrified like I am so thank you so

much for your time and I hope everyone can can support in some way or call into the trial or show up at the courthouse or just or just just just spread just even the fact that this story exists on your own like it would be would go a long way because it like as I said it was it's very hard to imagine them being able to do something this outrageous I mean as powerful as these people are and as unscrupulous as they are it is very hard for me to imagine they would have be able to do this so easily if more people knew about what was happening thanks man appreciate it.