UNBIASED - Week in Review: January 30-February 5, 2023

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

1. Jury Finds Elon Musk Not Guilty in Class-Action Securities Fraud Case (1:52) 2. US Secretary of State Cancels Trip to China Amid Balloon Drama (9:05)3. First "High-Profile Detainee", Majid Khan, Released from Guantanamo Bay (17:46)4. Texas Executes Wesley Ruiz Via Lethal Injection (24:50)All sources can be found on www.jordanismylawyer.com.Follow Jordan on TikTok and Instagram for more content @jordanismylawyer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario Helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. You are listening to the Jordan is My Law podcast. This is your host Jordan and I give

you the legal analysis you've been waiting for. Here's the deal. I don't care about your political views, but I do ask that you listen to the facts, have an open mind and think for yourselves. Deal? Oh, and one last thing. I'm not actually a lawyer. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Today we have four stories. We have an execution to talk about just like we have the last few weeks. So our first story, we're going to talk about Elon Musk being found not guilty of securities fraud by a jury in California. We're also going to talk about the Secretary of State calling off his trip to China following the balloon in the air that I'm sure you guys have heard of.

And then we're going to talk about the first high-value detainee being released from Guantanamo Bay. So four interesting stories. And of course, that last story is the execution that I mentioned that took place in Texas. So before we get into it, I just want to give you guys a quick reminder to please leave me a review on whatever platform you listen. I know I remind you of this often, but it really, really does support my show. And I really appreciate it. I am very proud to maintain a five-star review on both Spotify and Apple podcasts. And I have, I believe over 300 views at this point. So we're going to keep

growing. We're going to keep doing what we do. And I hope I can continue to give you guys the best unbiased content possible. So with that, let's get into the first story. This past Friday, a jury found Elon Musk not guilty of deceiving investors with his 2018 tweets about Tesla going private. So let's take this story from the top. On August 7th, 2018, Elon had tweeted that he had obtained the financing to take Tesla private for $420 a share. A few hours after this tweet, he wrote out another tweet that indicated that this deal that he was referencing was imminent. Unfortunately though, there was no funding and there was no deal, but there were two words specifically that got him into big trouble. And those two words were funding secured. So in that tweet on August 7th, he actually wrote that the funding had been

secured. It had in fact not been secured. So following these tweets, the SEC actually filed suit against him. He ended up settling that suit. And what he had to do in that settlement was forfeit his position as Tesla's executive chairman, although he did remain CEO. He also had to pay $20 million in fines and legal fees. So it's safe to say he found himself in some hot water following that tweet, but that wasn't enough because his shareholders wanted some of the pie too, of course, because, you know, we live in this litigious society here in the United States. So specifically, these shareholders that brought this suit, this class action suit, bought into Tesla between August 7th, 2018 and August 17th, 2018.

And when we run through this timeline, you'll see why that one week is relevant or those 10 days, I should say. And just as a note, this lawsuit was filed against both Tesla and Elon Musk himself. So in this complaint, which is linked on my website, jordanismylawyer.com, you can find it in the sources section for this episode. The plaintiffs allege that they lost significant portions of their investments due to the share price kind of shifting in both directions following his tweets. So the complaint accuses him of violating the Securities Exchange Act and SEC rules. And it says, quote, these violations caused plaintiff and the class billions of dollars of damages for which defendants should be held responsible. The complaint goes on to say,

quote, on August 7th, 2018, Musk tweeted, am considering taking Tesla private at 420, funding secured. That day, the share price rose to roughly 11%. And what the complaint says is that Musk knew of the uncertain and contingent nature of any going private transaction for Tesla, as well as the lack of any secured funding at $420 per share or at any other price for that matter. Yet despite that, he still published his tweets, which ended up disrupting the markets in Tesla securities, such as stock and stock options, and it caused billions of dollars of damage to Tesla investors. Again, that is as per the complaint. In support of this argument, the plaintiffs said that Elon knew of the uncertainty of his statement, and they used his admission,

Elon's own admission in the case brought by the SEC in which Elon said that his statements about the going private transaction, quote, were premised on a long series of baseless assumptions and were contrary to facts that he knew, end quote. So they're using Elon's own words against him. Those words, again, coming from the SEC suit, and they're trying to use it in this class action lawsuit against him for securities fraud. So on August 7th, Elon tweets, you know, he has funding secured. The stock price shoots up about 11%. Then on August 17th, 10 days later, the New York Times published an article based on an interview with Elon Musk in which he said that the public investment fund had actually not committed to provide any cash.

So funding was, in fact, not secured. That day, Tesla shares dropped by almost 9%, erasing over $5 billion of Tesla's market capitalization, meaning that the investors that believed Musk's statements about the funding and purchased the shares at that artificially inflated price hoped it would ultimately pay $420 per share. They ended up losing millions of dollars. Therefore, the complaint says, by misleading investors regarding the proposed going private transaction and its funding, Musk, either intentionally or with deliberate recklessness, harmed virtually every single other person and or entity trading Tesla securities during this time period. Elon's defense was that, look, he was like, my tweets don't dictate Tesla's stock price. He said the causal relationship is clearly not there simply because of a tweet. But early on in the trial, he gave eight hours of testimony and he insisted that

he actually believed he had lined up funds from Saudi Arabia's public investment fund to take Tesla private. And he said in part during his testimony, quote, I had no ill motive. My intent was to do the right thing for all shareholders, end quote. And he was insinuating that he was trying to put his shareholders on notice that the company's run as publicly held may soon be coming to a close. So Elon's attorney argued that while his word choice wasn't exactly the best word choice, it didn't rise to the level of fraud. So his attorney said that the tweets were quote, technically inaccurate, but quote, just because it's a bad tweet doesn't make it fraud, end quote. And that is true. To be found guilty of securities fraud, the jury had to have found

that Elon intentionally misrepresented or omitted material information in connection with the sale or purchase of a security or a stock. On top of that, the plaintiffs had to have shown that they relied detrimentally on this misinformation, causing losses and resulting in harm. And there has to be a causal relationship between the information or lack of information and the resulting harm to the plaintiffs. So after the three-week trial and less than two hours of deliberation, the nine jurors reached their verdict and Elon won. So it's very possible that while the jury may have found that, yeah, the plaintiffs detrimentally relied on Elon's tweet and they sustained damages because of it,

they weren't necessarily believing, it appears at least, that Elon intentionally misrepresented the information surrounding the funding. Because if they had believed that Elon intentionally misrepresented the information, then there's a good argument that he's guilty. But it doesn't look like that is what they found. It doesn't look like that's what they believe. Following the verdict, Elon tweeted Friday evening, quote, Thank goodness the wisdom of the people has prevailed. I am deeply appreciative of the jury's unanimous finding of innocence in the Tesla 420 take private case, end quote.

So Elon dodges another bullet, but they don't seem to stop coming towards him. So I'm sure this is not the end of Elon's litigation that we'll hear about. This takes us into story number two, which is that the United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, called off his trip to China very last minute. He was supposed to leave on Friday. He called it off Friday morning due to this Chinese balloon floating over the United States. So I'm sure you've heard of it, but if you haven't, I'm here to fill you in. Before we really get into the story, I need to make a little editor's note because this episode was actually recorded Saturday morning. And then at around 2.30 PM, this Chinese balloon was shot down. So in the original recording of the episode, which you will hear, I talked about how Washington

had made the decision to not shoot down the balloon because President Biden was afraid that the debris could harm people on the ground because it was such a large balloon. Well, of course, a few hours after I recorded the episode, news changed as it usually does, and the balloon was shot down. So I'm going to give you an update on that, but the story will remain the same as I recorded it, and this update will just pertain to the balloon being shot down. So it was shot down on Saturday at 2.39 p.m. Two fighter jets from Langley Air Force Base attacked the balloon six miles off the coast of South Carolina. So they basically waited until the balloon was off the coast to shoot it down.

That way, the debris that fell from the balloon wouldn't harm anyone on U.S. land. One of the F-22 fighters fired a sidewinder air-to-air missile, which downed the balloon. And the balloon at the time was flying between 60,000 and 65,000 feet. The debris then fell into 47 feet of water, and the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard recovered it, or at least attempted to recover as much as they could. Some Republicans have criticized the Biden administration, saying that the president waited too long to shoot down the balloon, and it showed weakness in handling the crisis. President Biden and his aides, though, argued that downing the balloon overpopulated areas would have created, you know, the risk of the debris fallout. In addition, they said that the United States picked up valuable

intelligence monitoring the balloon's equipment before it was destroyed. So they got some intel as to what that balloon looked like and the powers that it had, if you will. Now, China is not happy with the United States' decision to shoot it down. The Chinese foreign ministry declared its strong discontent and protest at Washington's decision to shoot down the balloon, claiming that it was a civilian aircraft that had accidentally hovered into the United States, and that China will resolutely defend the legitimate rights and interests of the enterprise involved and retains the right to respond further. So they said it was an excessive reaction and that they will do what they have to do to respond, whatever

that means. So that is the latest with the balloon. I'm sure we'll hear, you know, some updates on this as things progress, because as you'll hear in my original recording, the United States and China already have tension, and this just kind of escalated things. So I'm sure there's going to be updates, but that's just the nature of the news. You know, you record an episode and then the news changes in a matter of hours. So I wanted to provide you guys with this update, but now let's get into the original recording and talk about why Antony Blinken canceled his trip to China. Despite the public being notified on Thursday, the U.S. government detected a high-altitude surveillance balloon traveling over the country as early as Tuesday. So this

balloon is traveling at about 60,000 feet. To give you an idea, commercial flights typically travel at around 30,000 feet. And the North American Aerospace Defense Command released a statement on Thursday saying that they're continuing to track and monitor the balloon closely. It doesn't pose a military or physical threat to people on the ground. And NORAD also recommended against shooting it down, which was briefly considered by the Pentagon senior officials and the president. But ultimately, President Biden said shooting it down could potentially harm people on the ground because this is such a large balloon and the debris fallout, et cetera, et cetera. So as of Thursday, the U.S. had an idea that the balloon belonged to China, but China didn't actually confirm it until Friday when it said in a statement, quote,

the airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes. I don't know why I can't say that word. Continues on, says affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course. The Chinese regrets the unintended entry of the airship into U.S. airspace due to force majeure. Force majeure is basically an unforeseen event beyond anyone's control. So force majeure can include things like natural disasters, war, labor strikes, infrastructure failures, etc. And the statement finishes by saying the Chinese side will continue communicating with the U.S. side and properly handle this unexpected situation caused by force majeure, end quote. Now, here's the thing. The balloon was seen traveling over Montana at one point,

and Montana just so happens to be home to one of America's three nuclear missile silo fields. So if we're going to read into China's statement, they didn't necessarily lie, right? They said civilian airship used for, quote, research, although they did say mainly meteorological purposes. Holy wow, why can't I say that word? But that doesn't necessarily rule out surveillance, right? Because surveillance could be described as research. And I'm not the only one who thinks this because a senior Pentagon official also was kind of on board with this idea. He or she told reporters on Thursday night that the balloon was clearly a surveillance balloon that was flying over sensitive sites to collect intelligence. So because of this, Antony Blinken, who is the U.S. Secretary of State, was like, I'm out. I'm

not going to China. Not happening. This was the last straw because tensions have been high between the United States and China for various reasons. I mean, everything from something as small as the TikTok drama. Obviously, TikTok is its parent company, ByteDance, is owned by China, and it's been banned here in the United States on federal government devices because they're unsure as to what China's actually using the data for. And actually, the CEO of the company is set to testify in front of Congress next month. But that's just obviously on the smaller scale of things. There's also tension because the Chinese president has been forging alliances with Putin. Obviously, with this whole Russia-Ukraine situation, we're on Ukraine's side. On top of

that, China's been packing on the military aggression against Taiwan. And then more recently, the United States announced it would expand its presence in Southeast Asia with access to more bases in the Philippines. And this came after Beijing expanded its territory into the South China Sea, which is where the Philippines is located. So there's just been a lot going on between the United States and China. And so the Secretary of State was supposed to go and that would have followed up on Biden's trip there fairly recently. But this balloon situation just really heightened the tension and he was like, I'm not going. So again, he was supposed to head there on Friday and he was going to meet with the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

But Friday morning is when he bowed out and he was like, not happening. So in a phone call with China's Director of central foreign affairs, Blinken called the balloon an irresponsible act and that the decision to take this action on the eve of his visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that he was prepared to have. So his trip has been postponed indefinitely. And this balloon is supposed to remain in U.S. airspace for the next couple of days. So we'll see. Now, all of the articles that I did read said that the reason that they're not really so concerned about the balloon is because it's not capable of giving them any additional information than what they

already have with satellites. So it's not like the biggest deal, but it's more of a disrespectful act than anything, which is why Blinken was, you know, like, no, I'm not, I'm not going to do this. So we'll see if and when these tensions clear up with China, but for now, it's not looking great. on thursday majid khan was released from guantanamo bay after he sued the biden administration for unlawful imprisonment he is the first high value detainee to be released from guantanamo if you're unfamiliar with guantanamo it's a united States military prison on the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. It first opened in January 2012, following 9-11, so about three, four months after 9-11, and it was meant to hold suspected al-Qaeda members captured in the invasion of Afghanistan.

So obviously, after 9-11, that's when the war on terror started, and anyone captured in Afghanistan that was a suspected member of al-Qaeda would be kept and detained at Guantanamo prison. Since the prison first opened, 780 people have been detained there and roughly 730 have been transferred elsewhere. It's like 730, 735, something like that. Nine people have died while there and the rest are still there. According to Human Rights Watch, only 16 of the 780 detainees were ever actually charged with criminal offenses. So initially it was set up as a temporary detention facility called Camp X-Ray, but the complex now has seven detention camps, and all of them are labeled

according to the order in which they were built, so all of the remaining detainees are either in camps five or six. Guantanamo Bay has been a pretty controversial site since its opening, at least the prison. George W. Bush is the one who was in office when it was opened, and he actually said that he would eventually like to see it closed, but that he knew it wasn't going to be easy. When he left office and Obama took over, Obama promised to close the camp, but that didn't happen because he was met with strong bipartisan opposition from Congress. Congress actually then passed laws to prohibit Guantanamo detainees from ever being imprisoned in the United States. If you're in Guantanamo, you are never coming back

to the United States. So during Obama's administration, the number of inmates, although it wasn't closed, the number of inmates was significantly reduced from about 245 to just 41. Then in January 2018, President Trump signed an executive order to keep the camp open indefinitely. And then in February 2021, the Biden administration declared its intention to shut it down at some time before Biden leaves office, but there's been little to no steps in the direction of closure, so that likely won't happen. But as you can see, there is a trend here. So Majid Khan, to give you a little background on him, he was born in Saudi Arabia, although he is a citizen of Pakistan. That's where he spent his childhood. But he moved to the United States when he was a teenager, and he actually went to high school in Maryland. He speaks fluent English, so he was very Americanized. But following 9-11,

he moved back to Pakistan and joined Al-Qaeda. He was a direct subordinate to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, otherwise known as KSM, who is Al-Qaeda's senior operational planner and the principal architect of 9-11. KSM is currently detained at Guantanamo, just a fun fact. So KSM tasked Khan with delivering $50,000, as well as another senior Al-Qaeda figure, to carry out a deadly attack on the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in August 2003. And according to the U.S. government, KSM also intended to use Khan to attack U.S. gas stations and water reservoirs in another terrorist attack attempt. But Khan was captured by U.S. forces in 2003, and he was first held in a secret CIA prison. They're called Black Sites. He was held there for three years until

2006. That's when he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay and he eventually pled guilty six years later in 2012. So he ended up agreeing to cooperate with the U.S. government and he testified in October of 2021 about his torture by the CIA at that black site that he was held at for three years. That cooperation made him eligible for release in March of 2022. So rather than serving 26 years, like he was originally sentenced to, he only ended up serving 10. But by the time March 2022 rolled around, he wasn't released. He was supposed to be released, but he wasn't released. So he filed suit. What the government says is the reason that he wasn't released is because they couldn't find a place for him to go. So since

March of 2022, U.S. officials had contacted 11 countries about taking Khan and his family in, and there were no takers. Why couldn't he go back to Pakistan, you ask? Well, according to his lawyers, Pakistan is no longer considered safe for him because of his cooperation with the United States. And why couldn't he return to the U.S.? That's because of that law I was just talking to you guys about, where Guantanamo Bay detainees can never enter the U.S. again for any reason. So finally, Belize agreed.

The U.S. had to negotiate a deal with them, and Belize agreed to take in him and his family, but not before he filed a lawsuit, of course. In a statement, Kahn said in part that he deeply regrets the things that he did in the past and that he has taken responsibility and has tried to make up for them. He has vowed to be a productive law-abiding member of society and acknowledges his second chance in life. There's actually a like 30 page statement from him that I have on my website if you're interested in reading, but it basically talks about, you know, how remorseful he is, what he did and a bunch of stuff.

It's an interesting read if you're into that, but that is on my website, again, in the sources section of this episode description webpage. Now, before we move on from this topic, I just want to hit you guys with a quick fun fact. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, 34 total detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay. 20 of those are eligible for transfer. Three are eligible for a periodic review. Nine are currently involved in the military commissions process, meaning that they're

going through the military court process right now, and two have been already convicted in these military court proceedings. Now, the nine that are involved in the military court process have been involved for quite some time. These court cases, I mean, it's not like it is here in the United States. These can take years and years and years and years. So there are still 34 detainees. Khan's attorney has said that he thinks Khan's release will further the steps to close Guantanamo Bay because he says that because Khan was released, now those other 20 that are eligible for transfer, you know, it'll get the wheel going. And now those 20 individuals will be transferred as well. And then you're left with, you know, 14 left. So we will see. Now we are ending the episode talking about the first execution of the month of February. So Wesley Ruiz was executed in Texas

via the lethal injection on February 1st. As I'm sure you know by now, Texas is one lethal dose of pentobarbital. So what did Wesley do to get himself on death row? On March 23rd, 2007, he fatally shot a 30-year-old Dallas police officer named Mark Nix after a high-speed car chase. And when I tell you what happened, I mean, it's just, all of it's pointless. None of this needed to happen. So the chase started because Wesley was driving a car that was erroneously identified as being involved in a recent homicide that authorities later concluded Wesley played no part in. So that obviously begs the question, why did Wesley run? We don't know. But the chase ultimately ended when he lost control of the car.

He crashed the car. That's when Officer Nix then approaches the car, attempts to bash in the passenger side window with his baton. Wesley is hiding out in the backseat of the car and shoots officer Nix in the chest through the back passenger window. Wesley himself was then shot nine times by responding officers, but he survived his gunshot wounds. So he was ultimately sentenced to death in 2008. At trial, his defense was that he shot the officer in self-defense because he thought the officer had fired at him first after the chase ended when he was hiding out in his car. But obviously the jury wasn't believing that, and he was sentenced to death in 2008. So of course, the procedural history of the case does not end there. There's always the appeals after the fact. In one appeal, he argued that the jurors relied on overtly racist

and blatant anti-Hispanic stereotypes while weighing whether or not he should be sentenced to death. And in support of this argument, his lawyers used recently obtained affidavits from the jurors in the case that used racist language to describe Wesley and Hispanic men generally. And the affidavit included the foreman of the jury calling Wesley a thug and a punk. The foreman also said that he was scared of Hispanic people in the courtroom because he believed that they were gang members. He described feeling threatened once while driving because he believed someone to be Mexican was behind him in a flashy car. And he also said that he convinced another juror to opt for the death penalty despite her hesitancy. So all of that information that was used in support of the argument is basically to show that the jury was racist, or at least the foreman was racist. But nonetheless, Texas courts rejected this

appeal based on late timing. He also joined in the battle of other inmates in arguing that the use of pentobarbital was cruel and unusual because the state prison system actually extends the expiration dates of its execution drugs. This isn't necessarily new, but kind of surprising. So over time, more and more pharmacies are unwilling to provide execution drugs. That's just something we've seen over the course of the last decade or so. Because of that, supply is low. So because supply is low, the state prison system has taken it upon itself to extend the use-by dates of its existing pentobarbital supply. This action has already been challenged before and it failed, but it's being challenged again.

And rather than the Texas courts halting the executions until the challenge plays out and some sort of decision is rendered, Texas's high courts are actually still allowing the executions until the challenge plays out and some sort of decision is rendered, Texas's high courts are actually still allowing the executions to go forward. The lower court halted the executions, then the higher court was like, no, you can't halt these executions. We're allowing them to go forward. Now, just as a fun fact, if you're anything like me, you're wondering what the expiration date for pentobarbital is, it's actually a lot shorter than I would have expected. So the Texas Pharmacy Act is what sets forth the storage requirements, and it sets expiration dates for compounded pentobarbital at just 45 days if kept frozen,

but that goes down to 72 hours if refrigerated and 24 hours if stored at room temperature. So this drug does not have a long life. But nonetheless, despite this challenge still playing out, Wesley was executed. He was pronounced dead at 6.41 p.m. He did not get a last meal because Texas does not allow it. And his final words were, quote, I would like to apologize to Mark and the Nix family. I hope this brings you closure. I want to say to all of my family and friends around the world, thank you for supporting me. To my kids, stand tall and continue to make me proud. Don't worry about me. I'm going to be okay. And he finishes by saying, all right, warden,

I'm ready to ride. And that is when the pentobarbital was injected. So the next execution in the United States is scheduled for February 7th in Missouri. So we will see if that ends up going forward. As you guys know, some of these executions get halted at the 11th hour. So I will definitely keep you updated on that. If it does go forward, that will be included in my next episode. And that includes today's episode. i hope you guys enjoyed it please don't forget to leave me a review on whatever platform you listen i so so so appreciate it i hope your month of february is off to a great start the month of love i hope you're feeling it and with that i will talk to you on monday