UNBIASED - JP Morgan/Epstein Victims $290M Settlement, DOE Student Loan Payment Update, Recent Execution, Trump's Federal Indictment

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

1. JP Morgan Reaches Tentative $290M Settlement with Epstein Victims (2:29)2. Department of Education Announces Student Loan Payment Pause to Resume September 1st (7:13)3. Missouri Executes Inmate, Michael Tisius, via Lethal Injection (10:36)4. Donald Trump Federal Indictment Unsealed; Here's What it Says (15:36)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news! Subscribe to Jordan's weekly free newsletter featuring hot topics in the news, trending lawsuits, and more.Follow Jordan on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You are listening to the Jordan Is My Lawyer podcast, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. Happy Tuesday per usual. I have four stories for you today. The first story is going to be about JP Morgan's tentative settlement with Jeffrey Epstein's victims and why JP Morgan was even being sued in the first place. I'm also going to talk about the student loan repayment pause officially coming to an end. The Department of Education just announced that on Monday.

The third story is about the most recent execution in the United States, which happened last week in Missouri. And the fourth and final story is, of course, going to be about Donald Trump's most recent indictment. Now, on the last episode, I did say I wasn't going to talk about it until we found out more. We did, in fact, find out more. So the day that my episode went live, actually, the DOJ unsealed the indictment. So those are the four stories for today. Before we get into it, let me just remind you, as always, please leave me a review on whatever platform you listen. It really helps support my show and also share my episodes with anyone who you think will appreciate unbiased news and the facts just as much as you do. Those two things help me immensely in growing my platform. And the last thing I want to tell you guys about, I mentioned

it last episode, but I have this new newsletter that goes out every Saturday. It's completely free and it recaps not only trending topics in the news, but I also touch on trending lawsuits, some lawsuits you may not have heard of, as well as decisions out of the Supreme Court. So you can stay up to date on those. And then always just a little podcast recap. So if there's any topic that strikes your interest, you can just click directly from the newsletter and it'll take you to the podcast. So it's a very useful, informative resource. I've gotten a lot of really great feedback so far. So I'm really happy about that. If you do want to subscribe, like I said, it's completely free. You can just go to my website jordanismylawyer.com

slash subscribe and you can enter your email address, adjust your content preferences accordingly, and that is it. So without further ado, let's get into today's stories. on monday jp morgan announced a tentative 290 million dollar settlement with the victims of jeffrey epstein if you're unfamiliar with the litigation that the banks have faced not only jp morgan but also deuts Deutsche Bank, surrounding Epstein's actions, you're probably asking yourself, what do these banks have to do with any of this? I will tell you. Remember that New York law that I have touched on a couple of times that was enacted in 2021? It's called the New York Adult Survivors Act. That law specifically allowed victims of sexual abuse to bring lawsuits against others for a one-year period between 2022 and 2023

for abuse that they suffered years ago that has otherwise passed the statute of limitations. This is the same law that allowed E. Jean Carroll to bring her suit against Donald Trump, and this is the law that Epstein's victims are suing under. So aside from this law, these claims would have been barred by the statute of limitations. But this 2021 New York law revived these claims, and now they're going after the bank. But why the bank? Well, for one, Jeffrey Epstein is dead. But also the victims are accusing these banks of being the financial conduit, if you will, that allowed Epstein to continue his sex trafficking operation. Specifically, the lawsuit, which was actually this lawsuit against JP Morgan was only brought

by one victim, whereas the Deutsche Bank lawsuit was brought by multiple victims. But we'll get into that in a second. This lawsuit against JP Morgan was brought by one individual, and it said that JP Morgan, again, provided Epstein with funds and allowed him to withdraw these large amounts of money between the years of 1998 and 2013. Why those specific years? Because the one victim that did bring this lawsuit, she was sexually that J.P. Morgan was aware of his participation in sex trafficking because the bank continued to have him as a client, despite the fact that he was arrested and pled guilty to sex crimes in 2008. So what she's saying is that J.P. Morgan was on notice as of 2008 and yet continued to keep him on as a client until at least 2013. But 2013 is actually when her abuse ended. So that was her lawsuit against JP Morgan. Now, also on Monday, the judge in that case allowed this lawsuit to be made into a class

action lawsuit, which obviously, you know, gave this lawsuit the capability of bringing in other victims, which in turn would have resulted in more money for the defendant, J.P. Morgan, in this case, down the road. So last month, Deutsche Bank settled their lawsuit for $75 million. But J.P. Morgan's tentative settlement is obviously four times that amount, $290 million. Why would J.P. Morgan settle? There's a multitude of potential reasons. One could be, again, this just got the approval to become a class action lawsuit, so they knew more victims were likely going to join in and the damages were going to increase. Two, they likely don't want this to be a huge story. People say that any publicity is good publicity, but in this case, maybe not so. Obviously, the banking

industry is kind of going through it a little bit right now, and maybe JP Morgan's just like, we don't want our name in the news when it comes to this. Also, they probably didn't want this to make it to trial because when you go to trial and you go through discovery and all of that, more things come to the surface, more facts, more evidence comes to the surface. They probably didn't want to deal with that. They could have also settled because of Deutsche Bank's settlement. Maybe they were like, Deutsche Bank got rid of this, we want to get rid of this too. So like I said, it could be a multitude of potential reasons, but nonetheless, J.P. Morgan did decide to settle. This settlement, I called it a tentative settlement because it does have to be approved by the judge. But despite reaching this settlement, J.P. Morgan still denies all of

the allegations, and they actually filed a lawsuit against its former executive, Jess Staley, saying that this former executive was one of Epstein's friends, actually, and he hid Epstein's crimes to keep Epstein as a client, and essentially pointing the finger. So that lawsuit is still pending. And JP Morgan also has a suit against it from the U.S. Virgin Islands. And that lawsuit is still pending. But as far as this settlement goes, JP Morgan issued a statement which said, in part, any association with Epstein was a mistake and we regret it. We would never have continued to do business with him if we believed he was using our bank in any way to commit heinous crimes, end quote.

So again, like I said, that settlement will have to be approved by a judge, but that is the news nonetheless that they reached a tentative settlement. That takes us into story number two, which is that student loan repayments will begin again. After more than three years, the government's student loan payment suspension is officially ending. According to a Department of Education spokesperson on Monday, student loan interest will resume on September 1st, 2023. Payments will be due starting in October. Now, this announcement obviously files the agreement between the president and Speaker McCarthy, in which we know the debt ceiling was raised in exchange for some terms that the Republicans were seeking. One of those terms was that the loan payment pause ends. So it was

included in the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The text in the act is a little bit cryptic. So what the text in the act says is this. It says, 60 days after June 30th, 2023, the waivers and modifications shall cease to be effective. So a little bit of confusion because 60 days after June 30th actually puts the effective date at August 29th. But the Department of Education is saying September 1st. So no one's really sure where that discrepancy lies. I read through multiple media outlets, as I usually do in preparing for this episode, and they were all kind of saying the same thing. There's some discrepancy between press reports, and they're not really sure where that discrepancy lies. But even though it only seems like a few days, it's actually a lot when it comes to

interest accrual for the government. So the Department of Education has actually estimated that the pause saves borrowers roughly $5 billion in interest each month. That's roughly $167 million in interest that accrues each day, which is crazy to think about. So whether the pause ends on August 29th, which is 60 days after June 30th, or September 1st, as the Department of Education just announced, you're talking about a difference of $500 million potentially in accrued interest. So the Department of Education has said that they're looking into ways to ease borrowers back into repayment, whether that's by offering a grace period where for the first

several months, borrowers wouldn't necessarily be penalized for missing payments. But the Department of Education did say, quote, in spite of our opponent's best efforts to sabotage our work to support student borrowers, we are fully committed to helping borrowers successfully navigate the return to repayment with the pandemic now behind us. Keep in mind that this expiration has nothing to do with the Biden administration's controversial student loan forgiveness program. That was obviously before the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court is set to make a decision on that in the next month or so. This effective date just applies to that student loan pause that we saw. It's been paused since March of 2020. So like I said, it's been

over three years. That pause is now coming to an end. So borrowers will have to start paying back their loans. And then that student loan forgiveness program, which forgives $10,000 to $20,000 in debt per borrower, is a whole other issue that the Supreme Court will decide. Last week, Missouri executed a man named Michael Tysis, who was convicted of killing two officers in a plan to help one of his friends escape from jail. Michael Tysis, who was convicted of killing two officers in a plan to help one of his friends escape from jail. Michael Tysis received the lethal injection, which is one lethal dose of pentobarbital in Missouri. As you guys know who have heard me report on this before, the lethal injection really varies by state. Some states use just one drug, as Missouri does. Others use two,

three. Nebraska uses four. So the protocol just really varies by state. But in Missouri, it is one lethal dose of pentobarbital. So let's talk about what Michael Tysis did to land himself on death row. June 2000, Tysis was in a county jail on a misdemeanor charge where he met an inmate named Roy Vance. Tysus was actually getting out of jail. He was going to be out in a couple of days when he devised a plan with Vance to get Vance out of jail once Tysus was out. So June 22nd, 2000, just after midnight,

Tysus goes to the jail with Vance's girlfriend, tells the officers at the front that he was there to deliver cigarettes to Vance. He then pulls out a pistol and shoots both officers. So he actually shot one of the officers first. The other officer started coming at him and he shot that officer as well. This was all testified to, by the way, by Vance's girlfriend who was there with him. After he shot those two officers, he then grabbed the keys. He tried to open Vance's cell, but couldn't. So then him and Vance's girlfriend got back in their car, drove away, fled the scene.

Their car broke down later that day in Kansas, where they were eventually arrested and he confessed. Now, as for Vance and his girlfriend, they're both actually serving life sentences on murder convictions. So although they didn't commit the murders, they obviously were involved enough to where they were also sentenced to life. Now, Michael Tysus, the one who pulled the trigger, he was given the death penalty. There's always going to be appeals in cases like this. You probably know this if you've heard me talk about it before. So let's talk about a couple of Tysuses. So a week before his execution, a federal judge put his execution on hold because there was a claim that a juror was illiterate and couldn't speak English. This didn't last very long because a few days later, an appeals panel reinstated the execution.

It then went to the Supreme Court, who then affirmed the execution. The Supreme Court also heard an appeal based on Tysus's age when the crime occurred, but they declined to halt the execution over that. This is an argument we typically don't hear. Usually it's mental incompetency or something like that, but in this case, Tysus's attorney argued over his age because the Supreme Court has said that executions are prohibited for people under the age of 18 at the time that a crime is committed. Tysus's attorney, though, their argument was that even though Tysus was 19 at the time that the crime took place, emerging science plus information about Tysus's own brain dictates that the Supreme Court should

actually change that rule to 21. So what they're saying is, hey, look, we're progressing in our research. And yeah, 18 is young, but so is 21. And as more research comes out, we know the brain isn't fully developed and yada yada. Combined with the fact that Tysus has mental issues, you know, he had a rough upbringing and all the usual things that we hear. So Tysus's attorney was just saying, you know, yes, he was a rough upbringing and all the usual things that we hear. So, Tyson's attorney was just saying, you know, yes, he was 19 at the time, which is acceptable under current Supreme Court precedent, but maybe the Supreme Court should think about changing that

rule to 21, which the Supreme Court said, nope, we're good. We're not going to change it. His execution is going to go forward. His final words or his final statement was pretty interesting in that it had an American Idol reference. So if you've ever seen American Idol before, you will know where this reference comes from. If not, I will explain it after. But his statement, which was provided to media outlets by the state corrections department, said in part, quote, I really did try to become a better man, and I pray that God will forgive those who condemned me, just as he forgave those who condemned him. I am sorry, and not because I'm at the end, but because I truly am sorry. And I need to say that I love you, Truffle. Seacrest out. That reference is, of course, Ryan Seacrest used to host American Idol, and at the end of every episode, he used to say

Seacrest out. His final meal was two cheeseburgers, curly fries, regular fries, and a chocolate shake. The next execution in the United States is actually scheduled for today. So Tuesday, the day this episode goes live. And that's in Florida. Missouri's next execution, which is who executed Tysis, is scheduled for August 1st. And that's a man named Johnny Johnson, who was convicted of sexually assaulting and killing a six-year-old girl in 2002. So I will keep you updated on the executions as they play out. But that takes us into our fourth and final story, which is the Donald Trump indictment. On Thursday night, former President Trump was indicted for a second

time, this time on federal charges. So what's the difference between his last indictment and this indictment? The last indictment was state charges out of New York. This is federal charges from the DOJ. Now, as I said, I mentioned on my last podcast episode, I didn't want to talk about this until we had more information. And now we do because the indictment was unsealed on Friday. So first, let's talk about what an indictment is. In the simplest of terms, an indictment is an accusation. So it's not a conviction. It's an accusation. The Fifth Amendment requires that the federal government seeks an indictment from a grand jury in order to prosecute someone for a felony. And it's up to the grand jury, which can be 16 to 23 people, to determine

whether there is probable cause for criminal charges. What does that mean? Has a crime probably been committed? That is the answer presented to the grand jury. Knowing what you know based on what you've seen, the documents you've seen, the testimony you've seen, everything you've seen, has a crime probably been committed? It's a pretty low standard. It only requires a simple majority of the grand jury, so it does not have to be a unanimous decision. And it isn't until the case goes to trial that the standard of proof is higher. At that point, the standard of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt. But for indictment purposes, it is, has a crime probably been committed based on what you know? This was a

49-page indictment. It includes 38 counts, 37 of which pertain to former President Trump. One of them pertains just to one of his aides, but let's talk about it. This indictment was against both Donald Trump and one of his aides. The first part of the indictment starts with detailing what the wrongdoing was, a fact pattern, if you will. People have asked, you know, what's the difference between what he did and what President Biden did or what Hillary Clinton did? And some people argue that there is no difference, right? Ron DeSantis recently said, we have two different standards

of justice in this country. But then you have others saying that there is a difference between Biden and Clinton and Trump. And the difference lies in the way that Trump handled it once he was asked to turn over documents. So let's get into it. The indictment says during his presidency, he kept things like newspapers, press clippings, letters, notes, cards, etc, etc. And among these materials were classified documents. Now, as we know, this isn't a crazy concept, taking classified documents, right? We've seen many politicians do it. President Obama had some. President Biden was just found to have some. Former Vice President Mike Pence just had some. So politicians do it. Where the waters get murky is what happens once these documents are requested back. So some of the classified

materials that were in former President Trump's boxes that he took from the White House included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries, United States nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attacks, and some plans for possible retaliation in response to foreign attacks. All of this is laid out in counts one through 31, which we'll dive into in a bit more detail in a second. But the indictment then goes on to say that when he left his presidency, he took these boxes to Mar-a-Lago, which is his club in Palm Beach. And it talks about how he showed some of these documents to other people. One of the

instances was at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he showed a quote unquote plan of attack that was prepared by him and the Department of Defense. And this conversation, it's an audio recording. And this recording is where the DOJ says that he admitted to knowing he didn't declassify this information where previously he had said that he did declassify everything, right? So in this audio recording, he is heard saying as president, I could have declassified it. Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret. So what the DOJ is saying here is he knew he could have declassified it.

He said that and he didn't. But this whole time he's been telling everyone that he's done everything he needs to do. So then the indictment talks about how the fbi investigation was opened in march of 2022 the federal grand jury investigation started in april 2022 and soon after that federal grand jury investigation began is when all documents with classification markings were subpoenaed the indictment says that from there trump did a multitude of things that obstructed the investigation. And again, this is where we get into this is what all of the charges of the subpoena. This included also having his aide, the aide that's included in the indictment, move boxes to conceal them from not only the FBI and the grand jury, but also his own attorney. Also included in the indictment is that he provided

some of the documents, but not all of the documents, and then had his attorneys submit a certification to the FBI and the grand jury that all of the documents, and then had his attorneys submit a certification to the FBI and the grand jury that all of the documents had been produced. And this was despite knowing that all of the documents hadn't been produced. Keep in mind that this certification was provided by his attorneys, not him. The way that the indictment reads makes it seem like Trump submitted the certification, but it was his attorneys. But what the indictment is saying is that Trump caused his attorneys to submit this false certification because Trump had his aide move some of these boxes before the attorneys went in and reviewed.

So basically, these attorneys go into Mar-a-Lago, they review all the boxes that are, you know, in the storage room or his office, wherever, and they sign off that they had done a complete review and there were no more classified documents when in reality, Trump had his aid move some documents elsewhere and therefore he caused a false certification. So at this point, 197 documents with classification markings had been produced. So remember I said the indictment alleges that he produced some of the documents, but not all of them. So at this point, 197 documents with classification markings had been produced. Thereafter, on August 8th, is when the FBI executes that search warrant and takes an additional 102 documents that have classification markings. And then the indictment

talks about various places and points in time at which the boxes of documents were stored at Mar-a-Lago. So it says at some point some of the boxes were kept in more open places like the bathroom and one of the ballrooms. But we don't know from the indictment if these boxes were in those places for a day or a month. We just don't know. What we do know is that when the FBI search took place at Mar-a-Lago, boxes were only found in Trump's office and in a storage room. So let's get into the counts before we finalize this discussion. So basically counts one through 31 were willful retention of national defense information. And it's one count for each of the documents listed

in the indictment. And you might be asking, why are there only 31 counts if there were 102 documents obtained from the execution of the search warrant? Again, the indictment doesn't give us a ton of information. Note that the word willful is important here because willful obviously means intentional, deliberate. So that kind of goes back to what I was saying before, where the DOJ is saying that the reason for these charges pertains to his refusal to give all of these documents up and the things that he did to conceal these documents.

So again, each of the 31 counts pertains to one document, and each of these documents has a corresponding description on the indictment if you're interested. So I do have the indictment linked on my website, as I usually do with all of my sources, so you can check it out there. It pertains to the conversations that they had about moving these boxes and documents that were not included in the attorney's review. And this count also deals with at one point, I guess Trump suggested to one of his attorneys that the documents be hidden or destroyed so they didn't have to be produced. So that's count 32. Count 33 is withholding a document or record. This again is against both Trump and his aide and pertains again

to Trump telling his attorney to hide or conceal documents and moving the boxes so the attorney wouldn't find them. Count 34, corruptly concealing a document or record, again referencing the moving of the boxes so his attorneys didn't find them. Count 35, concealing a document in a federal investigation. And count 36, scheming to conceal. Again, same thing, moving these documents so the attorney wouldn't find them. Count 37 is false statements by Donald Trump. This pertains to statements that were sworn to in the certification by Trump's attorney. So remember that certification I talked about where the DOJ is

saying that Trump caused this false certification to be submitted by hiding these documents from his attorney. So they're saying that the statements that were sworn to in this certification were false statements. Count 38, the last count, is false statements specifically by Trump's aide. And this stems from a voluntary FBI interview that his aide did. So just to give you an example of some of the questions and answers, he was asked by the FBI, are you aware of any boxes being brought to Trump's home? To which he said no. And obviously there are text messages and things that show otherwise. Another question he got asked in this interview was, in knowing that we're trying to track the life of these boxes and where they could have been kept and stored

and all that kind of stuff, do you have any information that could help us understand where they were kept, how they were kept, were they secured, were they locked? To which he answered, I wish I could tell you. I don't know. I honestly just don't know. Again, the indictment says that these statements were false because he himself had not only seen the boxes, but had also moved them to and from various locations for Trump. Now, just like in the last indictment, this does not affect his ability to run, right? From a legal standpoint, nothing in the Constitution prevents a charged or convicted individual from running.

Not that he's been convicted, but he has been charged. Nothing prevents a charged or convicted individual from running. Not that he's been convicted, but he has been charged. Nothing prevents a charged or convicted individual from running for president. He himself has said he's not going anywhere. And he is actually set to make some remarks on the indictment on Tuesday evening at 8.15 from his New Jersey golf club. And so we will hear more from him then. We also know that two of his attorneys withdrew from his team and he is currently looking for replacements in Florida.

He flew from New Jersey to Florida on Monday in preparation for that hearing on Tuesday and Miami is currently doing a lot to protect the area surrounding the courthouse because they're expecting anywhere from 5,000 to 50,000 people to show up. So of course, we'll know more tomorrow. Again, this episode is dropping on the day of the hearing. So if there are any updates worth mentioning or talking about, I will cover them on Friday's episode. But that concludes this episode. Please don't forget to leave me a review and share this episode with your friends. And also don't forget about that newsletter. Trust me, it is a great free source that you do not want to miss out on. So again, that is at jordanismylawyer.com slash subscribe.

I hope you have a great week and I will talk to you on Friday. Bye.