UNBIASED - May 13, 2024: Michael Cohen Takes Hush Money Stand, Airlines Sue Biden Admin, OpenAI Announces GPT-4o, Google and Apple Release Tracking Alert Feature, and More.

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

1. Multiple Major Airlines Sue Biden Administration Over New Fee Transparency Rule (0:44)2. Michael Cohen Testifies in Trump's Hush Money Case; Here's the Gist (3:19)3. OpenAI Introduces New GPT-4o Language Model; Language Models Explained (10:25)4. Quick Hitters: Senator Bob Menendez's Bribery Trial Started Today, Federal Judge Halts Enforcement of New Rule Capping Credit Card Fees, Apple and Google Announce New Feature Alerting You of Tracking Devices (13:40)Get EXCLUSIVE, behind-the-scenes content on Patreon.Watch this episode on YouTube.Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok.All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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call the Conax Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Monday, May 13th, and this is your daily news rundown. I hope you had a great weekend, maybe took a little break from the news, relaxed a little bit, but it's time to get right back to it. So let's do it. If you love what you hear today, you love the unbiased approach that this episode provides, you feel more informed after listening, please go ahead and leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen, share this show with your friends, and if you're watching on YouTube, please go ahead and hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel if you're not already.

Thank you so much, and without further ado, let's get into today's stories. We're going to start off with a story from Friday that I didn't get a chance to cover because obviously I don't drop episodes on Friday. But it is that multiple major airlines, including JetBlue, Delta, American, United, and others, have sued the Biden administration over a new federal rule which requires airlines to disclose service fees alongside the airfare. On top of that, the rule requires baggage or flight change fees to be individually disclosed the first time flight information is provided on the airline's platform rather than being displayed through a hyperlink. And finally, the new rule requires airlines to let customers know that seats are guaranteed.

In other words, customers can but are not required to pay extra for better seats. The administration implemented the rule along with a few other rules a few weeks ago, saying that these rules would help customers avoid unexpected fees. But the airlines argue that one, this rule is going to be confusing for consumers. Two, the executive branch has exceeded its authority in attempting to regulate private business operations in a thriving marketplace. And three, that the rule is arbitrary and capricious. Now, I talked a little bit about the arbitrary and capricious standard either last week, maybe the week before, but essentially an agency rule which is deemed to be arbitrary and capricious standard either last week, maybe the week before, but essentially an agency rule

which is deemed to be arbitrary and capricious by a court cannot stand. Typically, when a court assesses whether a rule is arbitrary and capricious, the court will look at whether the agency's rule is supported by evidence, whether the agency in implementing the rule failed to consider an important aspect of the problem which the rule seeks to solve, or whether the rule seems just outright baseless. If the court determines based on these questions that the rule is arbitrary and capricious, the court will strike it down. So that's why in almost all lawsuits challenging an agency action, the entity bringing the lawsuit will almost always argue that the action is arbitrary and capricious because if they can prevail on that argument, the rule is struck down. Once this case goes, you know, before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and is actually argued because that's the jurisdiction where the suit

was filed, those are the things the court will have to consider when assessing whether this rule can be implemented. And then, of course, the court will also look at whether the Department of Transportation exceeded its authority and whether the rule will confuse consumers. The second story is from today, and that is that the prosecution's star witness, Michael Cohen, took the stand for the first time in Trump's hush money trial. So let's talk about it. As I've mentioned before, the reason Michael Cohen is the number one witness or the star witness for the prosecution is because he's the only person that is able to testify about firsthand conversations he had with Donald Trump about

covering up negative stories, hush money payments, and the structuring of any alleged schemes. And I don't want to be redundant here because I've definitely talked about this a little bit, but in case I have some people who are new here, which I know I do, just very quickly, the whole basis of this case against Trump is that in reimbursing Michael Cohen for the hush money payment made to Stormy Daniels, not only did Trump allegedly improperly record the reimbursements on his books, but that the payments were part of a larger scheme to suppress negative information ahead of the 2016 election. So the prosecution, to get the conviction that it's seeking, must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Michael Cohen and Donald Trump had an agreement

where Trump would reimburse Cohen for a payment that Cohen made to Stormy Daniels to hide a story about an alleged affair she had with Trump, and that those reimbursements, despite being classified as a legal retainer on the books, were really to pay for this cover-up. If the prosecution can prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, it'll secure guilty convictions for misdemeanor charges of falsifying business records. But what the prosecution really wants is to also prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the whole scheme was to suppress negative information from voters before the election. of falsifying business records. Because in that case, the falsifying of business records, that being classifying the payments as a legal retainer when it wasn't, would have been done in furtherance of another crime, which is suppressing information from voters. And then it would become a felony rather than a misdemeanor. So that's why Michael Cohen is considered the star

witness here. He can testify to any and all arrangements that he may have had with Donald Trump and what was discussed between the two of them. He's really the only person that knows all of the details that pertain to these specific charges brought in this case. So when Stormy Daniels was on the stand, she could testify to her alleged affair, but that didn't really go to the heart of the charges. So that's why Michael Cohen is so important. Now keep in mind there's a few key players here. Donald Trump, obviously. Michael Cohen, who's Trump's former attorney. Stormy Daniels, who says she slept with Trump and was looking to sell her story. As well as the CEO of American Media, which owned the National Enquirer, and that CEO's name is David Pecker. Pecker had testified earlier on in this case about his relationship

with Trump and Michael Cohen and about how he would often act in Trump's best interest in buying negative stories so they were never published or alerting Donald Trump and Michael Cohen to certain stories that were circulating or even in some cases publishing negative stories about Trump's political opponents. With that said, here are some key points from Michael Cohen's testimony today. Cohen testified that he originally learned about Stormy Daniels looking to sell her story from an editor at the National Enquirer. And he testified that the story would have been catastrophic for Trump's presidential campaign and that he told Trump that, that it would hurt him and that they needed to take care of it. And Trump said, okay,

then do that. Get rid of it. In fact, Cohen testified that Trump told him, quote, I want you to just push it out as long as you can. Just get it past the election because if I win, it will have no relevance because I'm president. And if I lose, I don't even care. End quote. Cohen then testified that in October 2015, the National Enquirer editor sent a text to Cohen and Stormy Daniels attorney, Keith Davidson, to connect them about the quote unquote business opportunity. The following day, Cohen and Davidson agreed that Daniels would be paid $130,000 in exchange for the rights to the story, and that agreement also contained a $1 million damages clause in case Daniels violated the agreement, which Cohen said

was his idea to include. However, Cohen also testified that Trump's goal in this whole thing was to delay the payment of the $130,000 until after the election because it was very possible that he wouldn't have even had to pay anything because it wouldn't have mattered at that point. And Cohen said that at some point, Daniels actually wanted to cancel the agreement because the funds hadn't been received. And this is actually something that Daniels herself testified about when it was her turn on the stand last week. She said she knew that if she wasn't paid before the election, there was a chance she may not be paid, so she really pressed on it and at one point threatened canceling it, which led Cohen to testify that he was trying to figure out how to avoid

Trump's name being tied to the payment, but once that was taken care of, the payment was sent. He also testified that Donald Trump was not concerned about Melania Trump at the time, but was rather concerned with his campaign. And Cohen testified about the way he structured the deal and the purpose of the transfer. So specifically, he said that he set up two LLCs, Resolution Consultants LLC and Essential Consultants LLC, which would be used to buy the rights to the stories, and that despite the Essential Consultants business account stating that the purpose of the wire transfer to Daniels' attorney was quote-unquote retainer, the real reason for the wire was to pay Daniels to execute the NDA and ultimately obtain the rights to the story.

Now, Cohen also spent time testifying about the agreement with with Pecker about placing positive stories about Trump and negative stories about other candidates, the deals to buy other stories and reimbursements that either took place or were supposed to take place. But keep in mind that this particular trial is about specifically the Stormy Daniels story and what happened when that particular story was bought. So everything else that Cohen testifies to is really, or anyone else for that matter, David Pecker, Stormy Daniels, it's really just for the prosecution to lay its foundation of the relationship that existed between Trump, Cohen, and the publication, as well as the foundation of some of the agreements that were previously in place, just to sort of prove that, you know, the foundation of some of the agreements that were previously in place, just to sort of prove that, you know, the dynamic of that relationship. So that was the general gist of Michael Cohen's testimony.

I'd imagine he's on the stand for at least another day, because Trump's attorneys still have to cross-examine him, and then the prosecution will redirect. So at least another day of his testimony, but that's what happened today. In other news, earlier this afternoon, OpenAI announced its most recent artificial intelligence language model called GPT-4.0. But I want to back up for a second because the world of AI can be a little confusing. So I do want to quickly talk through what a language model is for those who may not know, because the story will make a lot more sense after that. A large language model is the name given to the algorithm that is able to understand,

summarize, generate, and predict new content based off of not only large data sets that it studies, but also pre-learned techniques. So as an example, you know how sometimes when you're texting on your phone, your keyboard will automatically predict what words you're going to type out next? That is an example of a feature that uses a language model. So the reason your phone is able to predict what you might type next is because of the algorithm or the language model that it's trained on. So I'm sure you've heard of ChatGPT. It's a software where you can have conversations and it'll, you know,

generate ideas for you or generate text for you. ChatGPT is trained on language models such as GPT-3 and GPT-4. And those language models are what enables ChatGPT to converse and interact with its users. So today, OpenAI announced a new language model, GPT-4.0. And the reason OpenAI and AI enthusiasts are so excited about it is because this new language model will not only allow ChatGPT to interact using text, which it was able to do before through older language models, but also through voice and what they're calling vision. Obviously, GPT-4.0 can't actually see, so what the developers mean when they say vision is that GPT-4.0 can actually read uploaded

screenshots, pictures, charts, documents, things like that, and then proceed to converse about those uploads. Executives from OpenAI posted a video illustrating all of these new features of 4.0, which I do, of course, have linked for you in the sources section of this episode. But in the video, the individuals using ChatGPT can be seen and heard actually getting not only real-time instructions for things like solving a math problem, but also getting coding advice and also conversing about an image of a chart that they had actually uploaded. In another part of the video, ChatGPT was actually able to sense the stress of one of the executives who was breathing heavily and encouraged him to calm down. Alongside these new features, OpenAI's chief technology officer also said ChatGPT will now have real-time translation capabilities as well as memory

capabilities, which means that it can actually learn from previous conversations and retain information for future conversations. So if you do want to learn more about the new 4.0 language model, you can find the video link in the sources section by either clicking the sources link in this episode description or by going to jordanismylawyer.com and locating today's episode. The sources are always at the bottom of each web page. And finally, let's finish with some quick hitters. Quick hitters are just short stories of the day, usually in just a few sentences or less. So we'll start with the first one, which is that jury selection began today in the corruption trial against Senator Bob Menendez. Menendez is facing 16 charges, including bribery, fraud, and acting as a foreign agent.

And I did cover his indictment in much more detail back in September when it was announced. It's specifically my September 26th episode, but his charges all tie into this relationship that him and his wife had with these two businessmen and their work for the government of Egypt. Menendez's wife was also charged, but she's being tried separately. Number two, a federal judge in Texas temporarily halted a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule, which caps credit card late fees at $8. The judge cited to a 2022 ruling out of the Fifth Circuit, which found that the bureau's funding structure was unconstitutional. So in relying on that ruling, the judge presiding over the late fee case wrote, quote, consequently, any regulations promulgated under that regime are likely unconstitutional as well. End quote. Keep in mind that this was

just a preliminary injunction, which means that the court still has to issue a ruling on the actual merits of the case at a later date. This ruling just pauses enforcement of the $8 cap until the final decision is made. And number three, Apple and Google announced today that updated iPhones and Android phones will show alerts warning users that there is a wireless location tracking device nearby. This move is intended to put users on notice in case they weren't aware that they were being tracked. An Apple press release wrote that the update will help mitigate the misuse of devices designed to help keep track of belongings. Most notably, Apple AirTags, which were introduced in 2021. They're great at locating lost items, but unfortunately,

since their introduction, criminals have used them to track people, sometimes placing them in people's purses, backpacks, or even cars. So with this new update, specifically iOS 17.5 and Android 6.0, if you're being tracked and you don't know it, your phone will alert you. And from there, you'll be able to play a sound that will help you locate the tracking device. And you'll also receive instructions as on how to disable it if it's not your tracking device. That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. I will be with you again tomorrow for some more news just so you have an idea of what this week will look like. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday are normal episodes. And then Thursday is going to be a special report of sorts. So stay tuned for that. And I will be with you tomorrow.