The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - #BecauseMiami: Food For Everyone

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

The circus came to town as, for the first time in United States history, a former president is indicted for federal crimes....is arraigned right here in Miami. Tomas Kennedy was our reporter on scene for the spectacle and describes the scene for Billy Corben. David Marcus, one of this country's most sought after criminal defense attorneys, joins us to talk about the defense side of the upcoming federal trial for the former president. And Miami Herald reporter Jay Weaver come on to talk about his investigation into Miami mayor Francis Suarez and what could be the next South Florida based federal indictment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. Francis, you here for the service? You're going to say anything about being investigated by FIA? And of course, the studio-miney police harassing me, protecting the powerful. Someone that's under active FBI investigation Good job guys That was Miami mayor Francis Suarez. He's running away from Tomas Kennedy. Our intrepid because Miami Maga correspondent, what do we call you now?

I'm running away from Miami in general. I love this town. We will talk more about Francis Suarez later in the show. He is running for president. Make it to the world, but if's running for president. You were trying to get him to answer questions, Tomas, about this FBI investigation into him for alleged bribery while you were out covering the Trump Arraignment Circus in, covering something.

Blocks away from here and downtown Miami outside the Wilkie Ferguson federal courthouse. It was a busy day in Miami this week. We will be talking about that case. We'll be talking to an attorney who is not representing Donald Trump because we're on the street as he turned him down for the gig. David O. Marcus will be on the show later. We'll also hear from award-winning veteran journalist Jay Weaver who will talk about that FBI and SEC investigation into Francis Suarez. But onto the big story of the week, the ultimate because Miami moment. The Southern District of Florida, I mean, this was inevitable. There's always a Miami connection.

All roads eventually, especially if you're running away from something, lead here. We deposed dictators, cooking cowboys, and now for the first time in history a former US president indicted for federal crimes 31 counts under the, oh my god, the espionage act, several other counts of obstruction of justice lying to federal agents And of course in the dumbest possible way also dumbest possible way all roads lead Of course the Southern District of Florida where we tried we tried manual noriega, Willie Falconin, Salma Gluda, Fabio Ochoa of the Ochoa family who helped co-found the Medi-in cartel, Yahweh Ben Yahweh, who's buddy you saw, Marie Seminette out there this week. Of course, a litany of public corruption cases as well that did not necessarily end well for the government, but in fact for the defense.

Let's talk about what we didn't see on TV. What was going on out there in front of the courthouse? First thing in the morning, it seemed like it was going to be like the New York Arraignment where it was like... Media-low energy. Right, media-low-sad. Where media was going to outnumber protesters, and then it started to seem like a one-to-one ratio, but how did it end up? No, no, no. There were like, I don't know, a thousand reporters there. The media outnumbered the protesters by like three to one.

I mean, there was media from all over the world, not just local, state, national, but like I saw Saudi Arabian media, Ecuadorian, Colombian. I mean, it was a media spectacle. I mean, granted, right? It's a big story, but they definitely were the bigger number crowd. And who showed up on the protestor side? Was it the usual suspects like the people you saw outside of the Ron DeSantis event in

Brickle? A few weeks ago. I mean, it was a collection of DC list, you know, like, MAGA live streamers and cloud chasers, podcasters, you know, Twitter personalities, the luminary from the last episode I did with you, Laura Loomer was there. You know, there were, you know, some Miami residents, but if you are active, you know,

in like the political scene, I guess, or you go to protest, I recognize not just like these delist and sea list like MAGA influencers, but just like the same faces that you would see in a lot of these like Trump events. He definitely didn't mobilize like the working class masses of Miami to rally for his defense outside of the courthouse. I'll tell you that much.

And it looked like a fair bit of astroturfing as well. You had like a lot of white and Hispanic people wearing blacks for Trump t-shirts. And why did you- lot of white and Hispanic people wearing blacks for Trump t-shirts. A lot of old white ladies wearing blacks for Trump t-shirts. And why can't can we donate some new shirts? They still say 2020 on them. Can we get them some 2024 shirts or where did all the the stop the steel money go man? I think you gotta look up for your people.

Didn't build the wall. I'll tell you that right now. Now maybe maybe maybe the reason a lot of people didn't turn out to Moss is because this is a very confusing situation. It's a 49 page indictment. Maybe people didn't necessarily, didn't understand what's going on.

So I think that our friend Marie Seminette, the founder of Blacksford Trump, an acquitted member of the Yahweh, Ben Yahweh cult. Spitting hot fire. Well, right, as always, but right across the street from the federal courthouse, you were at 50 yards away.

It was the old federal courthouse where he and his alleged co-conspirators were tried in a massive racketeering, you know, rico indictment involving 14 murders, a fire bombing, multiple attempted homicides. He was acquitted. The leader of the organization, the organization temple of love was in fact convicted i don't know how he thinks it's gonna get which way it's gonna go for donald trump uh... his new leader but he tries to sum it up in a way that i think everybody can understand i would say elegantly

that's why we must watch the movie three hundred zirxies who was king sirens his son he had a more in more army. He sent a black man to go talk to Leonon's first. Now when he did that, the Britain had worked because he went to him as a hey. Listen, Ishmael is not in. I am, he's Bill Martin, he's the false god.

I'm the real one. And King Sirens, which is Trump, is the king that's anointed by Yawry, and I'm telling you, he's not racist. He's here to deliver you out of their hand and give you your country back, like you gave me to Virginia, Africa, and Israel, back to us. It is impossible to argue with his logic. I didn't try. I mean, I know, I mean, it's literally impossible. I cannot, I don't even know where to begin. Oh, no.

What do we, I was just like, what do we, what do we think? We think like the 300 DVD just got stuck in his DVD player and he couldn't get it out and it's just been playing on a loop at the boss mansion. That's the name of his house, by the way, it's called the boss mansion. Off of,

that's, he told me, he told me this, this story about how racist, rhino, a Republican, Renegar, see I tried to get his house condemned because a staged murder happened there. A different story, but yeah, it was wild. A murder didn't fact happen there. It's like kind of a rental party house. And his claim is that this was Rhino Republicans

trying to frame him. And okay, this is obviously, told me that like the dead person that was murder then like showed up alive I can't I don't know obviously a story for another pod. Yeah, but I didn't do my I didn't investigate it Roy could you track that did you follow Maurice Seminette aka Michael the black man there? No Well, have you seen the movie three? Yeah, I've seen the movie three on Well, have you seen the movie three? Have you seen the movie three on it?

Yes. Yes. Yes. And you couldn't, you couldn't fall. Okay. No. So, so Tomas God bless you for going out there. Yes, God bless you.

Talking. Yeah, God bless you. I feel bad. I was mingling. I feel bad. I really wanted to be out there. Of course, Mike Ryan didn't want to be out there and he wound up out there.

You keep sending me these like dangerous. You and Mike Ryan. Yeah, I didn't want to be out there. You did. That's why I went to Las Vegas. That's right. You, you, you, you've phoned it in literally, bro. No, it was a long, long day for Donald Trump.

He of course went into, disappeared into the courthouse for a while. No cameras or audio recording devices are allowed in federal court. Something we'll talk about later. But he pled not guilty, of course. People were celebrating outside. People were Laura Lumer led the the Manga crowd in a rendition of Happy Birthday out there, because I think it was the day before. I think so. Donald Trump's birthday. And now there wasn't just protests and media. There was also some arts and entertainment and the cultural event.

Like any great variety show or circus. There were musical guests Including for Giato below a floating native You Democrat scared of the orange man No politician Trump's up is this man We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win.

We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win.

We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win.

We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going to win. We're going's go. I'm on my country. I can take that away I guess all I see made for Jennifer Us pay three years will let you lucky away Santa you say Santa you

I Want to take my boat and my boarding power away for that Roy's new ringtone was Loving this like they were going hype and by the way, it's a bit cliche to point it out But he did sample born in the USA, which is a protest It's a protest song miss you song for out probably like music history It's a song to protest America's involvement in the Vietnam War. Maybe he tried to sample band in the USA. It was an uncle Luke throwback.

Born in the USA, nobody like listen to the lyrics. Born in the USA has to be the most misunderstood hit song, but the other than in former's like a snows in former. Like that has like the lyrics are pretty clear though. I don't like that joke. I owe you Like that has like delivered some pretty clear though. I fucked up that joke. I owe you $5. You let the boom boom down.

Oh, well played. Well played Roy. I want to say though, if you watch the show on YouTube, you'll see the video that Tomas took out there, which includes a unicycle riding Uncle Sam, who's kind of featured on the track. He heard him kind of spitting in the background Yeah, he was definitely the flavor of the operation It's really worth watching the video

But and I also want to read to you the first paragraph of for Giato blows Wikipedia entry just so we know Kurt Jans professionally known as for Giato is A American rapper, not an American rapper, but A American rapper whose lyrics feature conservative themes in support for former President Donald Trump. Jans is a pioneer of the Trumpist hip-hop subgenre of Mug-a-Rap. I just, he is a progenitor of Mug-a-Rap. I love this town!

After this spectacle, the motorcade, this is a big jiff day for Roy. Like, everything Roy's doing, all of Roy's reactions today are just, they're waiting for the internet right now. But the Motorcade headed to your Versace on Kiocho, which since 1971 is probably one of the most famous restaurants. Certainly the most famous restaurant in Miami, probably the most famous Cuban restaurant in the world. It has become a real focal point of Cuban exile, just like culture and politics.

And it's like Liberty University in Virginia. It is a must stop on the campaign trail for mostly Republican candidates. And whether you're running for office, or you're, I don't know, coming back from pleading, not guilty to a 37 count under the SBA Naja Act, it is the place to be. And Felipe Vols, who opened Versace in 1971,

almost a decade before that, he built the first ever like invented the Ventanita, which is like a huge part of Miami culture, which is a coffee window. It's a walk-up window, basically. But it's like a major... I walk through, you could talk. It's a yeah, not a drive-through, walk-up,

and it sounds like nothing, but it's like kind of hugely important and influential in just politics and culture and cheese may and gossip in Miami. People were talking to me in this city. But it's also kind of like a beacon of hope this place. It's like a lighthouse for immigrants and not any more if it ever was. Well, it's kind of a bummer because Donald Trump went there.

He was greeted. They obviously tipped everybody off that he was going to stop there on his way to the airport. And a producer for Sky News in the UK, Sophie Alexander was there and trying to ask a question because Donald Trump faces decades. I mean, really the rest of his life in prison in the long shot chance that he is convicted of this. And this is what happened to Sophie Alexander at Versailles. President Trump, are you ready to go to jail?

President Trump! Are you ready to go to jail? I'm gonna go out, out, out, out! Let's run it here. Where's it on J- You stupid... Oh, no! There must be said that this is not a protester. This is a journalist for Sky News that was asking, challenging, provocative question. A provocative question?

But it's a question. You know, like that behavior, it's disgusting. Part of the job is to ask... Not the know, that behavior is disgusting. Part of the job is to ask... Not the journalist, how she was treated. Yeah, part of the job is to ask provocative questions, to get provocative answers, to elicit some compelling response. I mean, honestly, I would like to hear Trump's response

to that question, and it'll probably be appalling, but certainly worthy of some air time in the UK. Also, people in the UK, I mean, succession was basically about, it's a British show. The creators, the writers, directors are all from the UK. It's basically like, people in the UK trying to figure out what America has done to itself. It's like, you fought a war against us, you got your independence, and to get away from a monarchy,

to get away from a church running, your lives and your country. And this is what you made of this experiment, just a few hundred years later. I feel like that's like a provocative question like that from a UK journalist is, they wanna hear what he has to say about that. And the more I hear from Republicans about how like this indictment is turning the country into like a banana

republic or the third world country. It's like, no, y'all did that by electing this guy in the first place like what are we talking about it we've been down that road yeah i mean because my amy i mean the my amy of today is the the the first of the united states of tomorrow is the american tomorrow absolutely and this is living proof of it and to watch these religious leaders by the way not just christophashists there was a rabbi

but like a jubin rabbi with this keep on praying over Trump to try to see insure that communism never comes to the shores of America. I want to say this for the record. There is no communist threat to the United States of America, zero none. Okay, if you ask any of the intelligence agencies or any of the FBI or any law enforcement, the greatest threat is right wing violence. It always has been and it always will be. And just rampant corruption in all sectors of government. You know, that's like just crippling

our political and economic system. The greatest threat to our way of life, to democracy, is not communism, it's crony capitalism. Because that's, that is the perversion of the free market economy. It's like who you know and who you're related to and who's your uncle and who's your nephew and your cousin, your brother, your son, your daughter. That's what creates the destruction of a system in which government is afraid of the people

and the people aren't afraid of their government. You don't have an oligarchy. You have the people deciding what's best for you and people who truly represent the people in power and not representing the rich and the powerful. So it's kind of depressing to see this kind of display, especially out there at Versailles. And we laugh about it because if we wouldn't laugh,

we would cry. And we do cry because it's sad one more because my any moment i want to play the clip of what donald trump told the crowd in the restaurant are you ready you ready food for everyone and Thank you so much for Trump. Thank you, thank you very much.

And of course, in classic Trump and because Miami style, the Miami New Times reported that Donald Trump said, foods on me and dipped 10 minutes later with the open tab and nobody paid for it. I mean, I should say everybody had to pay for it because Donald Trump- Oh, still in here, like I'm from Latin America. At least in Latin America or like populist will actually like buy you food for your vote. Like this guy won't even do that.

Absolutely. He just absolutely shits on his supporters. Every chance he gets and they love him for it. Please sir, may I have another, and what he was really doing out there, if you put two and two together, is he was there to taint the jury pool These are potential jurors in the Southern District of Florida was there It was like literally was like, you know, Kephasito for a quiddle. Oh good podcast now. I know I know Sullivan's right

He's he's selling is writing down right now redefining Kephasito talk Yeah, Tomas Kennedy. Thank you doing the Lord's work Tomas is the co-host of the podcast why are we like? Which I had the pleasure of joining last week to try to explain why the hell we are like this. You can also find them on social at Tomas can T O M A S K E N N Twitter Instagram substack. Check out our episode with Billy where we talk about the true villain of Miami, the county, the state attorney Catherine Fernandes Rundle who has in power since 1993, has impose the cuter public corruption cases. That was a hell of a sneak preview for another podcast. Hola, alguien me escucha, necesito ayuda.

Estoy en Barcelona y las criaturas están por todas partes. ¡A rise, look, look! ¡A rise! ¡Escucheis lo que escuchéis! ¡Tapos los ojos! La calle vamos todos a cieras, pero lo más aterradores no se ha veringuido. A la esbloque, a la esloque. Escuchéis lo que escuchéis. Tapados los ojos. La calle vamos todos a cieras, pero lo más aterradores no saberen que confiar. Uy de las personas que os piden que mireis. Si queréis seguir convido. Earlier this week in Miami, the Trump Arraignment Circus came to town here to talk with us about it is one of America's most sought after criminal defense attorneys in the interest of full disclosure.

He represented me when I got in trouble for tweeting during jury duty, a story for another pod, which we should definitely do. Our company Rackentour also produces his fantastic podcast for the defense, which you can find it for the defense podcast.com. He talks to other renowned defense attorneys about some of their most famous cases. He has worked on everything from defending drug charges against Boozhu Bantan to protecting voting rights for the campaign of Barack Obama. Most recently he got Andrew Gilemoff and he also helped get him acquitted and also acquitted

on one charge and deadlocked the jury on the other 18. One of the politicians he is not representing is Donald Elizabeth Trump. Here, here to talk about that and so much less, David O. Marcus. By the way, he's not Irish, he's not O-Marcus, oh, is his middle initial. You know, I read a lot of indictments, you read a lot more than I do. I mean, they're overcharged, they're full of superfluous and prejudicial details,

some things like you can tell or a relevant or taken out of context. I read this 49 pages and I know you're, you know, you are for the defense, very much so, that is your life's work, but this one seems pretty lean and pretty scary for the defendant. When you say lean, I mean, I disagree with you, Billy. I mean, 49 pages is not a lean indictment in my book, especially with all the pictures,

transcripts, and everything else. I've called it a show and tell indictment. I think it's pretty detailed. It's a speaking indictment. And so I think you can see a lot from it. It's not bare bones like you see in a lot of federal cases. This one has quite a bit of meat packed in and pictures, transcripts and the like. I think what I meant by lean was that it's not filled with things that help connect the

dots of the case. It seems like there's a lot of relevant material and evidence in this. Yeah, they do include a lot of evidence. They don't connect the dots. That's true. And there's a lot of wrangling left to be done with connecting those dots. I think you're going to see tons of motions,

tons of litigation in the next couple of months, which is going to string this thing out. People are talking about speedy trial. Jack Smith got on the air and said, you know, we want a speedy trial for the government. Of course, it's the defendant's six amendment right to a speedy trial, not Jack Smith. But he ain't getting a speedy trial for the government. Of course, it's the defendants six amendment right to a speedy trial, not Jack Smiths, but he ain't getting a speedy trial in this case. It's going to take a long, long time to get this thing to trial. So not going to wrap up

by the presidential election in November of 24 is what you're saying. No way. I mean, under the best of cases, if this was a simple case, this would take a couple of months, but you have to get the lawyers cleared under the classified information acts at SEPA. So that's going to take many months. You have to get all the discovery out. You know, remember the prosecution had what over a year to prepare this case. It's only fair to give the defense that amount of time to get ready, especially when, by

the way, it's going to be new lawyers. He doesn't even have a local lawyer on the team yet. Yeah, you said it. He doesn't even have a local lawyer on the team yet. Yeah, you said it. He doesn't have representation. And I understand that is not for a lack of trying. He showed up here in the Southern District of Florida without a trial team, without an experienced, well, I don't know that anybody's experienced an espionage act cases per se. But why do you think the former president is having trouble getting an attorney down here? You know, it's really interesting. I mean, as you know, Miami's sort of the epicenter for criminal defense,

everything happens here first in the criminal defense world, including in a former dictators being charged, the head of the Cali Cartel being charged. And there's tons of criminal defensovers. I think what's different about this case, of course, is the client, the type of case the circus we have, but you would have to clear your docket. You would have to take all your cases, put them on hold for the foreseeable future to deal with this case. That's not an easy proposition to do, and certainly I think is affecting a lot of folks. Is that why you didn't take the case? Well, I've been reluctant to talk about why or why I didn't take the case.

You know, I know there's been a lot of reporting out there. I'm really busy and I've tried five cases in the last 18 months. I'm taking some time in July off. So it's going to, it would be hard for me to get involved in a case like this right now. So were you called by the former president as has been reported? Billy, I'm not going to comment on whether I spoke to the president or not. There's been a lot of reports about that, and I just don't think it's right for lawyers to get on and comment about that kind of thing.

It strikes me that this, not all of the indictment, but a lot of the seem to rely on text messages, a lot of the photographs in the indictment are in fact text messages that are being shared by Trump staffers. So when Trump complains that, oh, I wouldn't let the box fall down like that, those were text messages being sent between Trump's own people saying that this is what's happening here at Mar-a-Lago. I'm wondering though, reading this, a lot of it seems to

stem, particularly the obstruction and lying charges to a federal agent, seems to stem from the fact that they were able to pierce the attorney client privilege. Could that be a concern as well of lawyers in taking this case that if you believe the indictment and the testimony apparently from some of these anonymous attorneys that he was attempting to recruit them into some kind of criminal conspiracy against the United States, no less. I have to say I'm really troubled by the ruling piercing the attorney client privilege. You know, you should be able to talk to your lawyer without fear that those text messages, those reports,

those memos are going to just show up. And it seems like Jack Smith went to a judge in DC, not the judge handling the case down here, got a favorable ruling and got all that stuff. I believe that will be relitigated now in front of Judge Cannon. And I think we should be very careful before we cheer about a lawyer's notes becoming part of a prosecution's case. That's gonna chill a lot of folks from speaking to their lawyer.

Imagine if our text message is Billy when public, I don't think anybody would like to see those. I'll read them right now. What are you talking about? I'll read them right now. Live on the air. Let's talk about the judge, Eileen Cannon. Much has been said about her.

She was the appeals court devastated her in the early part of her involvement in this case. What about her experience in her impartiality here? So yeah, she's been crushed in the media. She got an unfavorable ruling by the court of appeals. One thing that I think is unfair to criticize her about is her trial rate. It's about 2% of her 200 plus cases have gone to trial,

which sounds like a small amount, right? Only 2%. That's the rate in our criminal justice system of cases that go to trial around the country. It's not just Judge Cannon. So to criticize her for saying only 2% of her cases go to trial, that to me seems misguided and wrong. It is true. She doesn't have a ton of trial experience, but that's true

of a lot of judges out there. Because a lot of cases just aren't going to trial. That's the state of our sad criminal justice system. We do need more cases going to trial. We should be happy that this case is going. I've seen a lot of pundits out there saying, oh, Trump should talk plea or now to should talk plea. Why in the world would they suggest that? It's never gonna happen, of course, but don't we want this to be a trial? Don't we want to see this unfolding?

I sure am for a trial on this case. It also strikes me that maybe some of the assistant, US attorneys don't have that much trial experience because you hear about this 97 plus percent success rate or conviction rate. At the vast majority of that is people pleading guilty. They see their name under the United States of America against little me and they head for the hills.

I mean, they make a plea bargain right away. So I don't know that this is a, even reading it as strong as it is. I don't know that this is a winning case where you're going to get a unanimous conviction, particularly in the Southern District of Florida, particularly from the jurors at Versace. You know, we saw this week. Well, two things you mentioned there. One is the prosecutors' experience, and that's very true. Prosecutors aren't trying many cases anymore.

You know, in the 80s, in the heyday of trials, about 20% of cases went to trial. Now, we're down under 3% about 2% of cases go to trial, really sad. So prosecutors aren't getting experienced. They don't have, especially experience in complicated cases, like these, they get experience in gun cases, drug cases, but not in complicated white collar cases like this one. And so they're going to have a lot of trouble. And plus the jury issue you raise, yeah, I mean, a South Florida jury here is, he's going to have a ton of support,

about 20% of cases in South Florida result in a Quiddell's case that go to trial in federal court. And that number is going to be a lot higher when the defendant is either famous or the former president, someone who's got cheering crowds at Versailles. It's going to be hard to get 12 people to unanimously find him guilty. I think it's a be hard to get well people to unanimously find some guilty. I think it's a huge uphill battle for the special counsel's office. David Marcus, last question,

I wish you pretty close to my heart as a journalist and documentary filmmaker, and here and here and here as you try to talk about it and CNN before you were cut off the other night, but you said you wanna see this go to trial, you want us to be able to, the public to be able to witness this process, but there are no cameras in federal courtrooms.

There is no audio, even the Supreme Court live streams audio and records oral arguments, but this is a secret proceeding. This is a former President of the United States being indicted under the Espionage Act. It would happen right here in Miami and unless you were in that courtroom, you really, and we have cartoons,

like a children's book for crying out loud, is that really the way we're gonna, we're gonna have to see the trial of the first, federal trial of the first former president in the United States? It's completely outrageous. And by the way, there's bipartisan support. There's very few things that have support on both sides of the aisle and right now,

but there's bipartisan support to have cameras in the courtroom. Forget about for this case, for all cases. In this case, a historic case, the case of the century, we're not gonna be able to see it, it's really troublesome. Not only can we not see it with a camera, if this was in state court, by the way, in Florida you would or you'd be able to hear it, if it was in the Supreme Court,

reporters can't even bring in their cell phones to tweet about it, to text. They had to get high school students from Palmetto to be running back and forth to a pay phone, which they had to be instructed on how to use because they had never seen a pay phone before to get news out. I mean, this is mind boggling. It should upset everyone. But what can we do?

What can be done? What are the solutions? What can be done is Congress needs to pass a bill to allow cameras in the courtroom. It would pass immediately if it was brought to the floor or our chief judge can get together with judge canon and agree that this case can at least have live audio. They can have a rule that reporters can have their their cell phones in at least so that they can report as things happen. I mean, otherwise, we're going to be in the dark waiting until the end of the day.

What is this? 1950. It's just it's outrageous outrageous. Attorney David O'Marcus, find him at Marcuslaw.com or for the defense podcast.com. If you are in trouble in Florida, this is the guy you want to call. I speak from personal experience. Although this rate, it looks like Donald Trump's going to hire John Morgan, Morgan and Morgan, or somebody on a bus bench. David O'Marcus, thank you for being here. Thanks, Billy. Thank you. He's a fraud in my estimation. She was off base, she wants to slander me for overwhelming evidence of racial cherry mandering. haters want to say that I can't get the job done just cause I'm an underhanded man child

fail son. 305 till I die, represent. All time I'll full mare but maybe I could be the president. Literally bro. I'm running. Super Pat Katch, you can trust me with your funds bro bro Don't google Miami Corner, ask me where the money goes Citizens are assable because it disappeared Y'all have a Miami miracle as Una Manteera

Don't get up and arms just because my comms director Wimped out for child porn as an accused job molester Unelectable, there's no need to wonder The only thing that's lower than my IQ are my polling numbers. And for pain, this guy's human garbage and that's good for our pain. If you put garbage in, you're gonna get garbage out. A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A- Well, it's official. Instagram official and otherwise, Miami mayor, Francis Suarez, is the third Florida man to enter the GOP presidential primary.

He is also the third Florida man to enter the GOP presidential primary who is currently under criminal investigation and or indictment. We know that because the outstanding work being done now with the Miami Herald by an investigative team, which includes Sarah Blaskey, Joey Fletchis, and Pulitzer Prize winning veteran federal courts reporter at the Miami Herald since 1999, since the turn of the century. Is that right, Jay?

That's about right. That's about right. If people mist your reporting this past week, Jay, which you can't blame them, things are kind of memory hold pretty quick these days, especially with all the, uh, the Haasarai down here in the Southern District of Florida, which you have covered now for over two decades, can you please just bring people up to speed on what it is that you've learned about the Miami mayor and the various federal agencies looking into his dealings. To step back for just a second, the mayor had failed to disclose that he was receiving $10,000 a month from a Miami developer who had a condo and commercial project in the mayor's backyard in Coconut Grove. backyard and coconut grove. And he needed permits for this project. And he got them presumably

through the help of the mayor. Why do I say presumably? Because there's a lot of corporate records that we have obtained at the herald showing how this developer Rishi Kapoor and his company location ventures was asking the mayor for help to get these permits last year. There was a big concern about getting them. They were denied, then they were approved. The mayor himself supposedly had a meeting with this developer and the city manager last summer.

They all deny it. But the reality is these corporate records from location ventures, so summary of meeting minutes, where they say that, gonna ask the mayor for help. Mayor agreed to help. And I met with the mayor, got the permit, and it's all kind of this consistent timeline, corroborating what was going on at City Hall

in the efforts by location ventures to get their permits. So, when we broke this story, and it was really broken because somebody gave me a tip about a former chief financial officer for location ventures, the developer, who was complaining about not getting some back pay from Rishi Kapoor. And in it, he lists a bunch of grievances. And among the grievances is, as CFO, there were a lot of improprieties. And one of them wore these $10,000 a month payments to the mayor of Miami for unknown services with no written agreement over a pretty long period of time getting back to September 2021. So when we broke the story, the original story based on that lawsuit allegation, then got even more

information from corporate records and financial records showing the payments, you know, the FBI woke up, you know, they were interested in it from a public corruption's perspective, and it had already been reported that the State Attorney's Office and Miami-Dade ethics commission were looking at it as well. And I think the idea behind the investigation is straightforward. Was he making legitimate money or was he getting paid to do favors for Rishi Kapoor? That's still the question out there. They'll be working on this case for quite a while.

The mayor himself who's been really kind of elusive, evasive, and not very forthcoming about any information says, I've never used my office as mayor for personal gain at City Hall, but the reality is, one wonders Billy, whether he ever even would have gotten this consulting contract with the developer, you know, but for the fact that he was mayor. And bear in mind, he told us that he was doing this work

strictly to raise funds from investors in the community to invest in Rishi Kapoor's projects. Meanwhile, Rishi Kapoor says the mayor was hired for marketing and branding and PR for the developer's projects. And what it is, and there's never disclosed it. And yet there's a third explanation, which you just explained was in the corporate records that he was hired specifically for the purpose of overcoming the zoning issue, which in fact, it appears as though the mayor's office did help this developer.

So there's three explanations now that we have heard. Only one of them, incidentally, is in writing from the developer to his investors that presumably would be fraud if you were lying in that document. And so that seems to be the one that we could rely on, particularly as you explain the timeline of events. But I want to ask to normal people in normal towns of which you and I do not reside. But here's the thing, we don't know who the mayor's clients are

unless you get a tip or unless somebody files a lawsuit, right? Or unless somebody slips Joey Fletchis or you or Sarah Blaskey some sort of record that says, hey, I think the mayor, and every time we learn who one of his clients are, it always appears to be at least some kind of conflict of interest. Do you explain to people why and how that happens? How the mayor has these secret side hustles that are like a, I don't know, a minefield of conflicts with his public position. Right. I mean, it's totally fair game and a totally fair question.

He as a part-time mayor, quote unquote, is not a number of the commission. He's kind of a ceremonial figure. So as a result, you know, he and the commissioners got an opinion from Victoria Mendes, the city attorney basically saying, you can do outside work as long as it doesn't conflict with the work you do for the people of, you know, my am. And but how do we know if he's not disclosing who his clients are? Well, that's just it.

You know, when he's saying it's none of your business, is supposed to file as all local politicians and county politicians and state politicians are supposed to file these disclosure forms. Well, it just so happens, this is really, really telling. So when he's finally caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, and he has to like confirm that he does have this consulting contract with this developer, Rishi Kapoor, and location ventures, then he has to say, but guess what folks?

Iron's so much income back in 2021, which would have been the first period I could have reported in July of 2022, I didn't list him on my list of employers for my side hustles as you described it, because it represented less than 5% of my income that year. So the reality is he would have been making $600,000 that year, because he was paid by developer, $30,000 in 2021 and the latter part of the year, another $110,000 in 2022, when the developer got the permits for his project and coconut grow, and at least another $30,000 in 2023.

We still don't even know if the mayor's working for this guy, even while he's announced his bid for the GOP nomination for president and while he's under investigation by the FBI. And I might point out that Securities and Exchange Commission has been looking at this developer's business since January based on whistleblower complaints. And so, you know, they have an open investigation. How that ties in with the mayor who raised funds from investors for these projects, you know, run by this developer, don't know, but the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking at whether

these were actual securities unregistered being sold by Rishi Kapoor to individual investors. And how much did he raise? Quite a bit of money, about $150 million, as well as another probably 200 to 300 million from lenders, you know, institutional lenders like a bank or private lenders. So there's a lot of money mixed up in these projects. The question is, you know, what did the mayor do to earn this money? We don't know because he won't disclose it or any of his clients. I'm sure the mayor would never be involved in in any company selling some unregistered security other than my me coin of course but you make an interesting point about would he have gotten this gig

or any of the other gigs that he's getting if he wasn't the mayor of my me and i think that point you made about what reflects five percent or less than five percent of his income would be some you know you'll have to be a math genius to figure out that he's a classic politician who's a lot, who's net worth has gone up considerably and income has gone up considerably since he became mayor than it was according to his own financial disclosure forms prior to that. But I want to ask you this, Jay, before we go, you're not an attorney, but you've been covering the federal court system and the feds for so long. I kind of wonder in light of the spectacle that we witnessed here, the first ever

arraignment for federal crimes of a former president of the United States, you know how risk averse and politicize the DOJ and particularly the Southern District of Florida, the US attorney's office down here who is not anxious about public corruption cases because they don't seem to win a whole heck of a lot of them down here against Miami politicians with Miami juries. My question is, does Francis Suarez jumping into the race protect him or shield him to some extent because the feds are gonna say,

well, listen, how many GOP presidential primary candidates are we going to indict here in Miami? And this might actually help him, you know, in terms of prosecutorial discretion here, get off Scott free, or maybe they'll want to flip him against the developer and, you know, and let him go. No, the answer is no. And the reason why the answer is no is because the FBI agents with the public corruption section have already started interviewing certain witnesses in the case, as it relates to whether he may have taken bribes. I'm not saying he did,

but he may have taken bribes in connection with doing favors for this developer at City Hall. And the reality is, they are going to be moving full speed ahead on this as is the State Attorney's Office. The question ultimately is, what these public corruption cases is, right now looks like a circumstantial case. They'll look at his IRS records, they'll look at his bank statements,

they'll look at whether he actually reported this $10,000 a month income that it was paid in a gross manner. No taxes deducted from this developer. They're going to look at whether or not the developer was disclosing all this information. To what extent the developer was manipulating funds and paying off people, you know, one investor or another or self-dealing to himself, you know, for his cocoa plum, you know, home or for his yacht or for his McLaren, all of that. So, no, they're going to move full speed ahead, checking, you know, with the IRS, all the bank accounts, all the receipts, they can subpoena everything and they will and they can do a lot of stuff behind the scenes

and these guys will have to cooperate. The mayor is worried, he's not talking but his lawyers have been pushing back. I don't wanna mention my names, but he's already been loyered up, they were trying to get us to delay the story, they didn't succeed and the point is, is that they know that this is going to not only hurt his fundraising efforts, but hurt his efforts to become sort of the Hispanic, you know, kingmaker among

the GOP, you know, firmament, if you will. And so if he can generate a lot of funds from Hispanics and get them out to vote for Republicans, he might get a cabinet post out of it. Who knows? But he is suddenly extremely tainted in the eyes of donors and his political peers when you see FBI next to his name. And again, this isn't a certainty. I'm not saying he may be entitled to will be indicted, but the mere fact that they're looking at this to determine whether there's any kind of probable cause of a crime to go further with a full-fledged investigation in a grand jury, he is worried.

I'm certain of it, and he is not sleeping at night. This is not a Bitcoin scandal. This is about his personal freedom to be a US citizen and to pursue a political career. It may come down to that. I love how that last answer turned into like a Miami madlib. We had Cocoa Plum mansion, McLaren yacht. I mean, it was just, it was amazing. J. Weaver, I know that this is despite all the extraordinary work you guys have done so

far. This is just the beginning of the story. There's already angles here involving the mayor's cousin and the mayor of Coral Gables, which we'll have to get into some other time. But I mean, this cancer seems to spread throughout Miami-Dade County, and I look forward to talking with you more about it. J. Weaver, MiamiHerald.com. Thank you.

Keep up the great work. You're a must welcome. Thank you. The FBI investigation isn't the only thing Francis War has doesn't want to talk about. Here is a guy who built his entire brand on Miami and crypto. HeMirror Crypto Row." ["Mirror Crypto Row." ["Mirror Crypto Row." ["Mirror Crypto Row." He never talks about crypto anymore.

I don't know if you've noticed. And he has been running away from Miami for years. And in fact, he announced his presidential run 3,000 miles away from Miami in Simi Valley at the Ronald Reagan presidential library. So I think part of that reason is that people in Miami see right through him. They know that he is and they are tired of it. And so this week's Miami moment, we returned to the scene of the crime or at least the

scene of the arrangement earlier this week outside the federal courthouse while Donald Trump was inside. Mayor Ponzi Post Alita, Francis Suarez decided to show up for no reason at all other than he heard that there was a ton of cameras from all over the world and was looking for a photo op. I mean, this is the kind of guy, Roy, he just hopes that they spell his name right on the indictment, okay? That's the kind of guy he is.

And he shows up to the courthouse and this is how he is greeted by his admirers here in Miami. You swam monster! The swaps get rounded up baby! The time's coming baby! The swaps can't take it down! And you can't take it down brother! What a season for the heat, what a season for the Panthers. Cocains.