December 17, 2024 • 56 mins
Is Merrick Garland's Department of Justice truly navigating the treacherous waters of Trump investigations as effectively as it could? We dissect the criticisms and expectations placed upon Garland, revealing the intricate balance between the desire for swift justice and the necessity of thorough investigations. Explore strategic considerations, such as the decision to charge the classified documents case in Washington, D.C., and the delicate moves behind the scenes to safeguard evidence. As we examine these choices, we ponder the weight of public perception and the challenges of maintaining trust in the legal system.
The January 6th Capitol attack remains a pivotal moment in U.S. history, but what about the alleged inaction of the Biden administration in holding key figures accountable? We delve into the complexities of pursuing justice against prominent individuals involved in the attack and the controversial fake elector scheme. Our discussion uncovers the roles of Special Counsel Jack Smith and Judge Cannon, probing the impact of their decisions on public trust. With insights into the challenges faced by the Justice Department and the FBI, we evaluate the repercussions of delayed accountability.
Finally, we confront the sensitive topic of allegations, from music moguls Diddy and Jay-Z to broader societal issues. We underscore the importance of due process and the challenge of handling accusations with fairness and patience. With personal anecdotes and high-profile examples, we highlight the complexities of navigating accusations in a world where the truth can sometimes be elusive. Join us for a thought-provoking exploration of justice, accountability, and the power of perception in shaping public discourse.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
so in the last episode of the podcast I told
you I was going to have a listof all of the things that mary
garland and biden's departmentwell, not all the things, but
like a top 10 list basically ofall the things that mary garland
and his department of justice,uh, could have taken over the
course of the four well, I guessthree and a half years, since
(00:25):
he wasn't confirmed afterBiden's inauguration for a few
months there.
But the things that likely youknow likely routes or choices of
action that Garland could havetaken that might have possibly
resulted in a different outcomein the sense that, even though
Trump was charged twice by theDepartment of Justice in Florida
(00:46):
for the classified documentsand in DC for January 6th those
cases didn't go to trial forvarious reasons.
And again.
So there's always been a lot ofMerrick Garland criticism for
not having done enough or nothaving done the right thing or
having done this or that and,generally speaking, I think the
criticism is it's not thatcriticism of garland is
(01:10):
unwarranted, it's that thespecific things that people
criticize him for are justunrealistic largely.
For example, like why didn'tmary garland charge trump the
first day he was sworn in asattorney general?
Well, that's because criminalinvestigations tend to take time
and you can file charges at astandard of proof that's
(01:35):
probable cause but when you getto a criminal trial, you have to
have enough evidence to convictbeyond a reasonable doubt, and
there was not a significantenough investigation done, you
know, over the course of thecouple of months before Mayor
Garland got there to arrestTrump, have him indicted and
have him convicted at a trial.
(01:56):
So it was just going to take alittle bit more time than that.
And of course, there's always acounterbalance here between
like hey, if you wait too long,look what can happen, because we
saw the worst case scenario ittook two years for DOJ to get an
indictment of Trump and itnever made it to trial in either
case.
So, yes, there is a balancethat needs to be struck, but
(02:19):
I've got some specific instancesof things that likely should
have been done or at the veryleast could have been done.
And even even with this list, Ican tell you I'm not.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
We could have been done.
We could have got themotherfuckers from south korea
over here.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Look so yes, look, what happens is when you have an
unexpected hiatus when it comesto recording the podcast, a
million things happen.
I mean, we had the, the fall ofassad's regime, there's an
attempted coup in south korea Ijust like on, and on brazil,
fucking boston yes, it'sabsolutely crazy out here in
(03:02):
these streets.
But on to the top 10 list, sonumber 10.
One of the things MaryGarland's DOJ could have done
and this was likely before JackSmith of a special counsel it
could have charged theclassified documents case in DC
and, again, like could havebrought the charges.
(03:23):
For well, in terms of executingthe search warrant on
Mar-a-Lago, that could have beendone months earlier and he
could have brought the chargesin DC.
Now there would have been, ofcourse, an argument that because
the majority of the crime tookplace in South Florida, the
charges needed to be filed there, florida, the charges needed to
(03:46):
be filed there.
But you could also argue thatthe origin for the criminal
activity was in DC and that hecould have been charged in DC
and that would have potentiallyavoided Judge Cannon presiding
over the case and ultimatelytanking it.
Now, again, that's an argumentthat would have went up
eventually to the Supreme CourtIn all likelihood.
We've seen how the Supreme Courtkicks it.
They are here playing Trump'slegal defense counsel, so it's
(04:09):
possible they could havedismissed the charges.
But again, you have theMar-a-Lago search warrant
executed, say, three monthsearlier.
You get those documents, youget the charges filed in D,
judge Cannon doesn't hold up theprocess by engaging Trump's
demands to look so that thatwhole legal legal fiasco with
(04:34):
the execution of the searchwarrant, the Trump fraud of
court that delayed theinvestigation and ultimately the
charges he ran out the clock.
So this would have beenpotentially a way to try to
avoid running out the clock inmultiple ways, but largely to
circumvent Judge Cannon andagain the Supreme Court probably
could have been like hey, wrongjurisdiction, dismiss these
charges.
It would have been refiledagain in South Florida and we
(04:56):
could have ultimately ended upin the same place.
It's entirely possible.
I don't know Number nine MayorGarland could have immediately
appointed a special counsel andget this.
Most people are saying whydidn't Mayor Garland appoint a
special counsel in January of2021?
Well, he wasn't the attorneygeneral in January or February,
(05:21):
or most of March, for thatmatter.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Biden wasn't even inaugurated to almost the end of
January.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
So yes, but so Garland didn't get confirmed
until March.
His deputies didn't getconfirmed until closer to the
end of the year.
But one of the things MayorGarland could have done because
we did find out last year thathe initiated a small task force
in secrecy inside the Departmentof Justice to go after, if not
(05:46):
Trump, all of the higher rankingco-conspirators.
That would include likelymembers of Congress and, of
course, the war rooms scatteredaround DC on January 5th and 6th
.
Now we don't know the detailsof where that investigation led,
but it eventually culminatedwith the appointment of Jack
(06:07):
Smith special counsel's office,who ended up ultimately
indicting Trump on chargesrelated to the coup was doing
was to avoid publicizing theinvestigation for a couple of
reasons, but largely because ifit had become public that he was
(06:28):
specifically investigatingTrump and Trump's inner circle
and his immediateco-conspirators, it would have
caused him to change theirbehaviors and their actions and
the way they communicate andpossibly led to them, you know,
deleting evidence from theirphones, their emails, any other
type of communications and such.
But again, that's, you know,one of the that is one of the
(06:51):
trade-offs.
You know the investigationwould have moved a lot faster.
In all likelihood it would havebeen well-staffed, it would
have been equipped to go afterTrump the same way Jack Smith's
office did, and on the flip side, you know the way he did it did
ultimately result in charges,but it took longer.
(07:24):
But again, you know, one of theissues here is get to the point
where there was enough evidenceto convict Trump and his
co-conspirators at a criminaltrial beyond a reasonable doubt,
was going to step in at somepoint, as they did, and find a
way to not only delay the trialbut also institute a brand new
(07:50):
set of rules when it comes toprosecuting presidents.
And they did so in such a waythat, even if this, you know,
even if the clock hadn't run outbefore this, got to trial in
terms of presenting evidence,because they basically made a
rule, you know, they made newrules of evidence for presidents
.
Any decisions the court made interms of Judge Chuck in
(08:11):
allowing evidence into therecord, that could have been
appealed back up to the SupremeCourt and we could have just
been going back and forth withthis on loop for eternity,
regardless of when the chargeshad been filed, for eternity,
regardless of when the chargeshad been filed.
So look again, it probablywould have resulted in charges
sooner, but it's no guaranteethe end result would have been
(08:31):
the same.
Number eight Merrick Garlandshould have fired Chris Wray and
all of Trump's holdovers at theDOJ and FBI.
The second he was confirmed tobe the attorney general.
Now this one, like clearlyMayor Garland you know, I don't
know.
Obviously he has the power to,you know ask President Biden to
(08:53):
fire the FBI director.
But you know, biden made itclear that he was going to let
Chris Wray stay on in an attemptto bring the nation back to
some semblance of normalcy.
But the argument I would make is, in terms of all the criticism
directed at the DOJ for whatthey did and did not do in terms
(09:14):
of going after Trump and hiscronies, largely, the DOJ, and
specifically Merrick Garland,were a lot more aggressive than
the FBI wanted.
Merrick Garland were a lot moreaggressive than the FBI wanted
and there was a lot ofconsternation between the two
agencies and it was in alllikelihood so, like in terms of
executing the search warrant.
It was the FBI that didn't wantto execute the search warrant
(09:37):
and then they were the ones thatdidn't want to go in with the
uniforms and all of this andthey tried to delay the search
as long as possible.
It was Merrick Garland himselfthat signed off on the search
warrant and told them hey, goget the shit.
You know we have numerousinstances of former FBI
officials who were appointedunder Trump, doing things to
(10:00):
delay the investigation.
Now you could argue that, hey,maybe they wanted to, you know,
not put themselves in a positionto face Trump's wrath Should he
be reelected, and that's alegitimate concern.
But also you probably just hada bunch of dudes who work for
Trump who were trying to makesure he wasn't brought up on
charges, doing what they couldwithin legal limits to delay the
(10:22):
investigation legal limits todelay the investigation.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
The thing about Biden and Merrick Garland they came
around about the same time inpolitics and their respective
jobs, in that they're kind ofcentrist, they believe in
bipartisanship, they believe inthat we're not there anymore,
but they were still trying toplay by the rules that are no
longer there decision making,because they were going at it as
(11:06):
if they were dealing withrational people in a rational
time and also holding out hopeis what I think that somebody
held on to those principles andvalued the rule of law and
constitution above.
And then you soon found outthat everybody's a fucking sick
of it and and also, at the endof the day, it didn't matter
(11:29):
what they did.
So if somebody it's like, ifyou have a significant other
who's always accusing you ofcheating, cheating and you're
not, and you're not, and you'renot, and then one day you get
fed up, not saying it's right,but you get fed up and you're
like, fuck it, I'm gonna gocheat because I haven't cheated,
but I'm being accused of itanyway and I can't get no
(11:49):
motherfucking sleep.
Bitch about to pour some hotgrits on me like I can't take
this anymore.
So you know, if I'm gonna getscalded, I may as well get the
benefit up.
May as well say okay, I did it.
You know what I'm saying.
So it's like there was going tobe nothing.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
With all the accusations of Biden weaponizing
the Justice Department and theFBI, he should have just
weaponized the JusticeDepartment and the FBI, not
weaponized.
But yes, like you know, even ifit came to the point where it
seemed like they might be superaggressive, fuck it be super
aggressive because this was aserious issue.
And, like again, no one wouldhave faulted Biden for coming
(12:27):
out and saying I'm firing or I'masking chris ray for his
resignation.
He was in charge of the fbiwhen the attack on the capitol
took place.
The fbi received numerouscredible threats.
Uh, that attack was imminent.
They failed to act.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Chris ray deserves to lose his job they should have
also brought fucking michaelflynn back to active duty and
had his ass court-martialed forsure.
I shouldn't be paying his fourhundred thousand dollars.
My tax dollars shouldn't begoing into paying finn's fucking
pension, while he's left foryears to just run around being a
traitor.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I'm with you there and like just the way that
trauma's going around trying toaccrue to everyone under his
employ.
To help him with January 6th,there's absolutely no question
that he tried to ask Chris Wray,number six, or rather number
seven, mayor Garland should havecharged the fake electors with
(13:18):
conspiracy to commit forgeryslash defraud of the United
States.
I think this would have beenthe easiest possible charges to
prove.
Were the fake elector documentsforged?
Yes, were they sent in togovernment agencies in an
attempt to change the outcome ofthe result of the 2020 election
?
Yes, open and shut.
You know conspiracy somewhatdifficult to charge, but I think
(13:40):
in terms of forgery, you gotthem cold on that and a lot of
hands touch those fake electorcertificates.
Senator Ron Johnson AbsolutelyFor three seconds.
According to him, of the likeyou know, the speech or debate
(14:02):
clause section of theconstitution does not confer to
attempting to use forgeddocuments to subvert a
presidential election.
I think that would have beenpretty open and shut could have
got that done in months, butagain, that likely would have
required a special counsel,because I don't think the route
that Mayor Garland'sinvestigation took got to the
(14:26):
fake elector plot for monthsafter his appointment.
Number six should haveconferred with the January 6th
committee and made sure thatthey share their evidence with
the Department of Justice andthe FBI.
If everyone who's been accusingyou know the Department of
Justice for waiting around forthe January 6th committee to do
(14:48):
their work before they made anymoves, you're wrong.
That investigation into Trumpand his cronies started, you
know, approximately April of2021.
One of the issues that held upthe department, though, is the
January 6th was also goingaround taking these depositions
(15:08):
and collecting evidence, andwhat you can't have is the
department filing chargesagainst Trump and other
co-conspirators and then itcomes out that these other
witnesses have testified to agovernment body and then
testimony differs, and then ifthere's any sort of
inconsistencies, you know Trumpand his people were going to get
off and they decided to holdoff on that information until
they finished theirinvestigation and held hearings,
(15:29):
which made the department lookbad.
But instead of like encouragingthe department to investigate
leads that they had that maybethe department didn't, and they
try to be selfish with theinformation now again, like you
got to take your ego out of this.
If you're the JusticeDepartment, you got to go to
them and be like, hey, this iswhy we need this, we need to
de-conflict and we need to makeas many moves as soon as
(15:50):
possible to make sure that Trumpdoesn't run out the clock.
So, in that regard, yes, theDOJ should have, you know, maybe
done some reaching out, butlike I'd hold the January 6th
committee responsible forsending on as much information
as they did for as long as theydid, which helped Trump run out
of the clock.
So you can kind of, in thatregard, I think the blame is
(16:12):
largely on the January 6thcommittee.
But sure, doj, they can.
They should have took someinitiative on that Number five,
it should have immediately heldvoluntary interviews with Trump
administration officials andcampaign staff.
If not, you know, the secondthat Biden took office, when
Merrick Garland was confirmed tobe the attorney general.
(16:34):
Now, what I mean is the sameway that Robert Mueller and his
investigation.
Once he was appointed he wentaround talking to Trump campaign
staff and people who worked atthe White House.
Went around talking to Trumpcampaign staff and people who
worked at the White House,gathering information and
getting people on the recordabout what they knew or what
they had witnessed, got that onthe record.
There were numerous peoplecaught up in that investigation
(16:55):
in those voluntary interviewswho ended up lying.
And what happened?
Robert Mueller basicallyoffered them an agreement where
if they cooperated, they wouldget hit with the 1001 charge,
which is basically lying to afederal agent, largely end up
(17:15):
getting probation in exchangefor cooperating in the
investigation.
Doj should have like looked atwhat happened in that particular
investigation and employedthose same tactics to get
everyone on the record.
They likely would have hadcooperating witnesses because
people lie, and they would havehad like a clear insight into
(17:37):
the Trump campaign and the Trumpadministration in their attempt
to overthrow the government onJanuary 6th, which likely would
have sped up the process, whichwould have meant you know
charges far sooner than whenthey actually occurred.
So number four, jack Smithspecial counsel's office should
have moved for the recusal ofJudge Cannon for her
(17:57):
interference in the execution ofthe search warrant and just the
way she handled all of theissues regarding pret a level of
clarity in all of her emotionsand whatnot and she ended up
(18:24):
basically making it impossiblefor anything to be filed in
public on the docket, whichmeans she had to make all of her
decisions in private.
Everything that wascommunicated in terms of trying
to make the trial go forward wasjust hidden from public view.
I mean, she was.
It was a whole disaster.
She got overturned by the 11thcircuit twice and was likely on
her way to being overturned athird time.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, but she learned from that and that's why she
started being real careful withthe things that she said to not
give it a chance to go and betaken to the 11th circuit again
yeah, special counsel's officeshould have just moved to have
her thrown off the case becausewe knew where it was going.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
So when, when you know, the charges were first
filed, we talked about it on thepodcast quite often.
But once it became clear thejudge cannon was never going to
let that go to trial, how oftendid we, like you know other
podcasts and kudos to thembecause you know we deserve to
understand like the process andhow it plays out.
But you know a lot of otherlegal podcasts.
We're going over everydevelopment in the case in
(19:24):
florida and I was like, hey, man, we're not talking about this
again until it's clear it wasgoing to trial and it never went
to trial.
So we never talked about itagain.
Because you know, I told youguys pretty much it's not gonna
happen with judge canaan on thatcase and she was basically
installed after trump lost theelection in his district to
ensure that any trump relatedcases that went before her got
(19:45):
squashed and she did her job.
So I mean, you know, good winfor trump.
But like again.
So there was this.
There's this show foundation onapple tv.
I mean I don't care if youwatch it or not, but there is a
fantastic quote from a characterin that show that says you
cannot play chess with someonewho is willing to set the board
on fire.
(20:06):
Well, yeah, that's pretty cutand dry Full stop, largely
speaking, surrounding thefailures of the Justice
Department to hold Trumpaccountable.
All regard, you know allrevolve around the fact that
they were playing chess andTrump and his co-conspirators in
the Supreme Court and JudgeCannon and Republicans in
(20:27):
Congress were willing to set theboard on fire and look, it
worked out for them.
So number three charge all theTrump's co-conspirators in
Congress.
I think this one's prettystraightforward.
Trump was the only one involvedin the fake elector plot on
January 6th.
Like you know, there weremultiple arms of the coup.
One was the violentinsurrection, the other one was
the fake elector certificates togive Mike Pence an opportunity
(20:50):
to either certify those or delaythe certification of the 2020
election to a point in which thestates could decide and you
know, I think, the rule there iscongressional no state
legislatures basically make thedecision and because Republicans
(21:13):
have a majority, they couldhave handed the election to
Trump.
Like, charge everyone who isaware in that regard of the plot
.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I mean, and the way that they moved so quick like
Michigan, arizona and what otherstate?
It was one other state, was itColorado or Georgia?
Georgia, yeah, I think Georgia,but they really it pretty much
was a slam dunk and that wouldhave been a good place to start.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
So here's the thing.
So you charge members ofCongress that, like the pretrial
proceedings are going to playout over the course of years,
probably weren't going to getthem to trial before the
election.
But again, what it would havedone is got information out to
the public.
It would have paintedRepublicans into a corner and it
likely would have decided theelection in favor of Democrats,
(22:08):
which in turn would have giventhe Department of Justice more
time to prosecute these fuckersand get Trump.
Prosecute these fuckers and gettrump.
So, um, you know, and now Iagain, I understand the plan
here was to indict trump, getthe slimmest possible indictment
that you think has the leastamount of issues, to get it to
court before the election.
And didn't work.
And at the very least, once itbecame clear, um, after the
(22:29):
supreme court stepped in, aftercannon dismissed, dismissed the
charges in florida, that hey,like this, ain't going to try
before the election, indict allthe co-conspirators, at least
get the evidence out into thepublic, out into the public
spotlight, because sunlight'ssupposed to be the best
disinfectant, but apparentlythat was not the case.
Number two subpoena slashcharge Jenny Thompson for her
(22:54):
role in the fake elector plotyes yes, back to the your
opponents being willing to setthe board on fire.
Once it was clear, uh, thatclarence thomas and a number of
his other cohorts believe thatthey had impunity to step in and
defend trump in in any mannerthat they see fit.
Uh, it probably should have beena clear indicator that anything
(23:17):
appealed out of these Trumpcases that went to the Supreme
Court is probably going to go inTrump's favor, and the way you
combat that is you set the boardon fire.
So you know, jenny Thomas was incommunication with numerous
officials in swing states aboutthe fake elector plot, which you
kind of have to ask yourselfyourself how the fuck did she
even know right?
(23:37):
And then also, she's married toa supreme court justice who's
making decisions on these cases.
You make her a witness or slasha co-defendant, like you
basically eliminate any ofClarence Thomas, the ability of
Clarence Thomas to weigh in onthese cases, while the pressure
would have mounted for him torecuse, if not resign.
And there you go, you got.
(23:59):
Either you have one less voteto rig the system for Trump or
you might even have anotherSupreme Court justice at this
point, which would have in fact,prevented the Supreme Court for
stepping in and helping Trumpand bailing him out in numerous
ways, but, you know, again lostthe opportunity, something they
(24:20):
should have thought about andtook action on.
So I do Again.
It's not a guarantee that thiswould have worked, but like.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
It definitely would.
It definitely would have sent amessage.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
It would have sent a message.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
It would have sent a message, and more of a no one is
above the law message, evenbefore trump took to go, because
she was very, very brazen, herarrogance and then clarence.
Thomas, this motherfucker, saton the bench for a decade and
didn't say a fucking word, buthe sure could not stop yapping
like a goddamn canary after hestarted to feel emboldened and
(24:55):
shit, and now he won't shut thefuck up now he won't shut the
fuck up and if nothing else, itwould have distracted his ass
because he loved him some jenny.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So I think what it would have done most is put all
of the conservative justices onthe supreme court in fear of
intervening in this and puttinga target which he would have
deserved, and somebody weak likecavanaugh would have made his
ass think twice.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
See.
See alito and thomas.
They don't give a fuck.
However, roberts is a squishcavanaugh's weak baron she's.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
She is a unicorn in her own right.
Like she's super conservative.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
She's made some decisions that have shocked me.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
That's the other thing.
There are, in some cases,principled decisions that she
makes that don't necessarilyalign with what you think of far
right conservative, but beyondthat, the point really here is
try and take as many pieces offthe chessboard as possible to
ensure, you know, the departmentof justice was able to carry
(25:57):
out his goals.
And it did not do that.
Um, and the number one thing,the number one thing mary
garland should have done is it'sfairly obvious once I'm once, I
say it is he should havecharged trump with obstructing
robert muller's that's a goodone.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, so Mueller made it fairly clear that Trump
obstructed his investigation innumerous ways in you know, a
couple of specific instances youcan go with.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Like yeah, interfere with the federal investigation
obstruction.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Well, trying to have Mueller fired.
That was one.
Now, of course it wasn'tsuccessful, but obstruction
doesn't have to be successful tobe a crime.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I'm also lying.
You don't have to get the moneyto have tried to rob a bank.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
No, Mueller submitted Trump numerous written
questions, and even in thewritten, you know, in lieu of an
interview and even in thewritten questions, trump lied.
He could have charged him withthat, you know.
And look, I don't know whatBill Barr did after the
conclusion of Mueller'sinvestigation to ensure that no
(27:04):
charges would be filed, like I'msure there were some
shenanigans being played in DOJon the record, or at least you
know, confidentially on therecord in terms of making it
difficult to charge Trump.
And one of the things Bill Barrdid was he went to the Office
of Legal Counsel to get anopinion saying that you couldn't
file obstruction chargeswithout a crime.
And I know you're thinking well, well, that's, that's seals the
deal.
(27:24):
Trump wasn't charged.
Well, that's not entirely true.
Robert Mueller charged numerouspeople, including Russian agents
and Trump co-conspirators, andTrump tried to obstruct the
investigation that resulted inthe charging of those people.
Therefore, you're still inalignment with the OLC opinion.
There were charges filed, trumptried to obstruct that
(27:45):
investigation.
You charge Trump with that.
You can do that within thefirst couple of months on the
job, if not weeks, that likelywould have ended with a trial
and a conviction uh, before theend of 2022.
So there were numerous andagain, you know I'm not saying
that's 100, sure, but it wouldhave been an opportunity, should
(28:07):
have been done, likely, couldhave been done.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
He had a lot of spaghetti to throw at the wall.
He could have gave it the oldcollege.
Try, you know.
I mean it's not like he didn't.
Yeah, you know, it's not liketrump didn't, when he was in
office with hillary, nothingwith hunter before they
investigated hillary clintonright up until the day trump
left office yeah, they did.
(28:31):
He had like four fuckinginvestigations like going on and
I was like reading that waslike the, uh, the western
district of texas, um one ofthem.
He was like bro, there ain'tnothing here, like no nothing
now.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So you know I've been accused of being like a mary
garland glazer.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I love mary garland well, you and allison, both,
because allison has been hangingin there too, no, but here's
the thing.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
it's like I've been saying, like it's not that
Merrick Garland is abovecriticism, it's just the shit
people be criticizing him for.
It'd be stupid.
And look, I just laid out awhole entire list of things that
Merrick Garland, doj, evenBiden himself could have done,
including firing Chris Wray,since he's going to resign
anyway Should have got him outof the paint and out of the way
and, like it's entirely possible, the investigation and the
(29:18):
outcome of the criminal chargeswould have been faster and maybe
have ended in a differentresult.
So it's not that I'm, like youknow, pro Merrick Garland to the
point where I'm not objective,like I clearly have, you know,
some ideas about what could havebeen done differently and
should have been donedifferently.
Now, again, there's a costbenefit to all of these.
You know possible actions, likethere are ways that attempting
(29:42):
to do those things could havebackfired.
But again, we live in a worldof consequences and sometimes to
do the right thing, you got todeal with whatever potential
fallout might exist.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Now what they need to do is just they need to release
everything they can, and Ithink that they need to erase.
They need to erase, they needto release the January 6th
report because Trump's going toerase it.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
We're going to get the report in January.
The problem is that there's alot of information and evidence,
likely obtained by the grandjury, that can be released to
the public without an order fromthe court.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
They need to release what they can at least.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Well, I think Smith's going to do that and I think
they're going to find a way tomake sure as much information as
possible gets into the recordhere.
But there's a lot of evidencethat I would suggest that they
go to judge chuck in and try andask her to uh, you know, unseal
for the public since the caseis being dismissed.
But again, you know, thepossibility of doing that is if
(30:48):
it, if chuck orders that andthat information is made
publicly available.
Uh, there could be argumentsmade in the future should there
ever be federal charges againstsome of trump's co-conspirators
but you know what I?
I don't even care yeah, you,just right now, the information
we gotta move like there is no,four years from now yes, we
gotta move and move like thecharges are gonna go away
(31:09):
forever, because in alllikelihood once trump is in
office, then they're gonna.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
They're gonna erase every fucking thing.
They're gonna erase everythingyeah and so we need to they.
Yeah, it needs to be.
I don't care how they get itout there.
I don't care if he get hop onone of the motherfucking drones
and drops it over the new jersey, over the hudson, like I don't
care and look man, so much stuffhappened while we were gone.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
I mean I got page 36 like I don't care yeah, you know
the republicans, you know topwitness and trying to impeach
biden and lock up hunter.
He is apparently going to pleadguilty to crimes of lying to
the feds.
I mean, it was wild out there,all right.
So we had a crazy story lastweek where an accuser came
(31:57):
forward accusing well, a womancame forward accusing Jay-z of
rape during a party after the, Ibelieve, the VMA Awards in 2000
and just like it's.
It's an insane story.
Trigger warning here.
Anyone who's been like a victimof sexual assault you this this
is probably tough for you tohear just want to let you take a
(32:20):
second.
It turn off the podcast if youtrigger warning yes, we have a
clip of the woman in aninterview with the outlet here
the night of the 2000s vmas.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
She says a friend drove her from Rochester, New
York, to Manhattan, a more thanfive-hour drive.
Her attorney provided NBC Newswith the name of the friend who
has since died.
The woman says she spoke toCombs' limo driver who offered
her a ride to an after-party.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
I stumbled upon Diddy's driver, who told me that
I was exactly what Diddy waslooking for.
What did you think when he saidthat to you?
I thought it meant that I wasjust for.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
What did you think when he said that to you?
I thought it meant that I wasjust pretty.
She went to a White House, shesays, where she spoke to
musicians Benji Madden and hisbrother.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
I'm talking to Benji Madden about his tattoo, because
you know I have a really isabout his tattoo.
That's the last supper, becauseI have a religious background,
so it was just something to talkabout.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
In a statement to NBC News, a representative of the
Maddens confirmed that they didnot attend the 2000 VMAs and
that they were on tour in theMidwest at the time.
At the after party she says shehad a drink that made her feel
woozy.
Then she says Combs and Cartertook turns raping her while a
female celebrity watched.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
JC comes in and rapes me.
Well he's, well he.
At that point I was fighting,trying to get away from him, and
he put his hand over my mouthand told me to stop it, cut you
it, cut the after the allegedrape, she says she ran to a gas
(34:00):
station where she called herfather, who picked her up and
drove her home we wrote home insilence.
He didn't ask me what happened.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
He didn't ask me what I did or where I was in an
interview with nbc news, herfather said he could not verify
the claims Quote.
I felt like I would rememberthat and I don't.
I have a lot going on, but Imean that's something that would
definitely stick in my mind, hesaid.
When we asked the woman aboutthe contradictions in a phone
interview on Friday, she saidthat she stands by her
(34:28):
statements.
I have made some mistakes, shesaid Honestly.
What is the clearest is whathappened to me.
Mistakes, she said Honestly,what is the clearest is what
happened to me.
The inconsistencies in heraccount of an incident alleged
to have happened 24 years agodoes not necessarily mean the
allegations are false.
The accuser's attorney, tonyBusby, said because we have
interrogated her intensely, shehas even agreed to submit to a
(34:49):
polygraph.
This has been extremelydistressing for her, to the
point she has experiencedseizures and had to seek medical
treatment due to the stress.
In a statement to NBC News,sean Carter said this incident
didn't happen and yet he filedit in court and doubled down in
the press.
True justice is coming.
We fight from victory, not forvictory.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
All right.
So you know we're in a post MeToo movement, era Right,
post-MeToo movement, era right.
And you know I'm in a positionof like when women come forward
and, you know, accuse otherindividuals of sexually
assaulting them.
Generally speaking, you know Iwant to be sensitive to that.
I like to leave as much spacefor that as possible because,
let's be honest here, you knowso many more women in the world,
(35:31):
and specifically the UnitedStates, get sexually assaulted
than ever come forward.
So you know we have to takeallegations like that seriously
and but I'm also in a positionof like, you know, generally
speaking, if some regular randoon the street is accused of
sexual assault, I'm like youprobably did it, because there's
absolutely no reason why awoman would make this accusation
(35:53):
, generally speaking, withoutthere being some truth to it.
But you know, and like thismight piss some people off, but
I generally feel like, if you'rea celebrity and you're a man
being accused of this, ifthere's no history of it in your
past and there's absolutelylike no evidence, you know, over
the course of your life or youryou know the time you've been
(36:15):
in a public space of beingaccused of things like this, I'm
willing to, you know, give youthe space to defend yourself as
well, Cause there are occasionswhere you know it's rare, but it
does.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
And that that that is fair.
You know, that is fair, andmore so, um would say, like the,
the lack of history.
Not that it's not possible,because absolutely somebody
doesn't have a history yeah,just because someone has
somebody's not.
You know.
Somebody isn't a killer untilthey kill.
You know what I mean soabsolutely it's, it's so that
(36:49):
definitely I'm giving some graceum, but his vehement denial and
he seemed really I was likewhen I was reading you know his
response boy.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
So let's, let's back up for a second, because that
was just some context.
So jay-z did put out, put out aresponse on social media the
other day.
It wasn't even really of anahemant denial, it was more so I
felt like it was but well no,but he wasn't really, you know,
attacking like the accusation asmuch as being like dog.
This is ridiculous.
(37:21):
Y'all know I didn't do this andhe was mad.
And you know, typicallyspeaking, you know celebrities,
wealthy individuals they usuallygo through a PR firm or their
lawyers when putting out astatement in in regards to these
allegations, but Jay-Z, itlooked like he typed this up
himself.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Like he typed it up.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah, no, I get that.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Where they'll issue this kind of generic denial
response through their PRspokesperson for Jay-Z said but
this was like he was like giveme that pen.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Give me that pen.
Yeah, let me write this up.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Give me my phone, you know, it looked like something
he said himself as as a sasurvivor, I want to give
everybody grace when they are apotential survivor, even nancy
crazy ass grace, regardless ofwhat I think about her.
You know, I give her, you know,grace as well.
Um, in that aspect, but yeah,but I can, I can get you know
(38:16):
what you're saying.
Um, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
I've kind of where I am mentally with this accusation
yeah, let's talk about this onespecifically, right, because
yeah, well, I'm just saying I'min the same headspace as I was
with the kobe situation, so I'm,I'm um when that happens.
So we don't have to rush thejudgment on this one.
We can let the facts come out.
But, so let's, let's talk aboutsome of her.
(38:39):
You know the interviewspecifically.
So one of the things she saidwas so, she's from upstate New
York.
You know she had a friend dropher off for the awards.
She was 13 at the time, youknow again.
Look, you want to talk aboutkids sneaking out and doing
crazy shit like that.
That it does happen.
(39:02):
Five hour drive, five hourdrive.
So she's at the ward, she can'tget in.
She's hanging around outside.
She's checking the limousineseeing if she can get you know,
find someone that could get heraccess in.
She runs in the uh, I think shesaid she runs into diddy's limo
driver.
He's like I can't get you in,but you, you know you come to
the after party if you want to.
You seem like you know Diddy'stype or whatever.
So they take her to the party.
(39:23):
She ends up in a room.
Well, she ends up having somedrinks.
She gets woozy.
I guess the assumption is thereshe might've been drugged.
I mean, diddy's been accused ofthis, like this there's
multiple instances ofaccusations of Diddy drugging,
you know, guests at his partiesin order to engage in some kind
of sexual, sexually compromisingposition.
(39:45):
They go into a room.
You know there's.
There's three celebrities thereJay-Z, diddy and a female
celebrity who's currentlyunnamed.
She says she was sexuallyassaulted by Diddy, and a female
celebrity who's currentlyunnamed.
She says she was sexuallyassaulted by Diddy and Jay-Z.
And then she leaves the party.
She gets to a gas station, shecalls her dad.
(40:07):
Her dad supposedly has to drivefive hours to pick her up and
take her home.
And the dad says hey, you know,I don't even remember this
happening.
I mean, I guess it's possible,but it seems like something that
would stick out.
And then she talks about, youknow, seeing another celebrity
at the party having aconversation.
It turns out that that thatindividual was not actually in
the state at the time, so thereare some holes in her testimony.
Now, look, I'm not gonna sithere and intact the woman
(40:30):
because, generally speaking,even in terms of like false
allegations, I just don't attackwomen.
I mean, mean, you know it's notideal.
We don't, and again like sothere's, while it's entirely
possible that this happened,it's also entirely feasible,
given what we know currently,that it didn't happen.
That aside, you know, like,what Jay-Z is doing here
(40:54):
currently, and even if thisallegation turns out to not have
any kind of truth in regards toJay-Z's participation, what it
is is Jay-Z paying a price forhanging out with some weirdos.
That's, that's what it is Right.
So you know you friends withDiddy.
You know this is blowing up interms of accusations surrounding
(41:16):
Diddy.
You're associated with the guylike and look, there have been
no, so so we talked about.
there's no history in terms ofJay-Z in anything, any sort of
allegations of any kind ofimproper behavior in this regard
.
So you, in that respect, I gavejay z some space, but it's been
(41:38):
all kinds of allegations foryears now about diddy, so you
knew who you was rolling with inthis well, yeah, that's exactly
what I was going to say.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
I 100 believe go oh yeah, but I I was going to, I
was going to comment on thatthat I I 100 believe that jay-z
knew and you know I rememberthem video, vixen days, double
xl and smooth mag and you knowthe gloria velez's and the karen
(42:09):
steffens and yeah, you know,back in the day there was some
times and so he absolutely, Ibelieve, knew maybe he didn't
fuck with it like that, but heknew what the hell was going on
and he knew who did.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
He was yeah, let's make a delineation here, right.
So you know, in terms of theindustry, you have associates
that you work with and throughthat sometimes you become
friends with those people.
But then there's like an eventighter group.
It's it's your crew dog, it'slike the people you roll with.
Now, jay-z ain't like rollingwith diddy all the time they
(42:42):
they didn't have that kind ofrelationship.
But they were friends, they wereclose, they talked all the time
.
Like you know, they talkedabout things between themselves.
Uh, you know that.
That.
You know, jay wouldn'tnecessarily talk about with
other people.
But here's another thing.
So while you so, while Jay-Z isa victim of the people he
associates himself with in thisregard, at this point he was
(43:05):
also look, he's currentlymarried to Beyonce.
I don't know how to evendissect this, but they've known
each other since she was ateenager, before she was an
illegal adult.
So you know that could possiblyraise some questions about
Jay-Z's particular intentionsand they've been together.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
what 20 years now?
I think it's been a long time.
I think somebody said I thinkthat's when Beyonce's album when
Bonnie and Clyde came out.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Yeah, so they've been married for a while.
He knew her before she was ofthe age of 18, also, you know,
working in the industry, and wasassociates with alia when she
was underage and then dame dashwas dating her.
Yeah so look you, you've gotsome questions about like the
possibility of jay-z beinginterested in underage girls
(43:59):
potentially.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
R Kelly, wasn't everybody circled to?
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Yeah, so R Kelly and Aaliyah ended up getting married
, but then she, you know,unfortunately is no longer with
us, thanks to a plane crash, Ibelieve.
And then, of course, you knowwe know how R Kelly was kicking
it.
Jay-z and R Kelly, I think theyput out a couple of albums
together.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
They went on tour together.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
So, whether or not Jay-Z actually was involved in
this particular incident, likeyou know, who am I to say?
The evidence suggested?
Likely not.
But also, on the other hand,dude put himself in this
position where enough people cantake these allegations to be
credible because of who he'dbeen hanging around.
Yeah, and like I don't know,like I'm not the moral judge on
(44:43):
this stuff, like I'm just somerandom dude on the internet with
a podcast.
But also you got to be like heyman, like you're a celebrity
now and you're at a point whereyou know you wear the mantle of
black excellence, at least interms of our entertainers.
You're one of the few guys tomake it out of the entertainment
arena and step into thebusiness arena and compete with
(45:05):
the giants.
You are up there, you sit attables, did very few of even the
most popular artists we everget to, and you've been hanging
out with dudes that do weirdstuff Now again.
So you know Tony Busby, thelawyer representing the he's
representing a lot of theaccusers, isn't he?
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah so like the Ben Crumb of the yeah Well so.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
So he is probably most prominently known for
representing numerous victimswho filed lawsuits against Sean
Watson, the former quarterbackof the Houston.
Oh really Cleveland?
Yeah, so he's.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
And like this is not necessarily to say that Busby is
not a credible attorney, buthe's like the male Gloria Allred
, because you knoworia allredrepresents a lot of celebrity
accusers like yeah, yeah, that'skind of her.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Thing now so he can.
He's been accused of being likean ambulance chaser he out here
trying to get these checks andhe's probably taking on cases
whether they have merit or not.
That doesn't mean none of themhave merit.
That doesn't mean all of themhave merit necessarily.
You just have to judge eachcase individually by the facts
presented.
But so he's currentlyrepresenting numerous women who
(46:24):
have accused Diddy of similaractivities as this woman's
accused Jay-Z of.
Scientifically like it's, it'stough to try and figure out what
sounds real and what doesn't,and I would just personally say
you ain't got to make up yourmind on any of these cases.
You can just wait until thedecision is made before you can
(46:44):
come to any conclusions.
But in terms of diddy heabsolutely out here doing some
weird nasty shit and he is likein jail is likely the correct
outcome.
As far as jay-z is concerned, Idon't know, and like I don't
know, what the correct responseis to being accused of sexual
assault.
Um, when you haven't done itright, like when when the
(47:06):
accusations are not true or youknow you have it that is true,
and that's just, you know, justa sidebar, really quick.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
But I remember back and, um god, her name was Nina.
I can't remember her last name,michael Irvin oh yeah and I was
living in Dallas when thathappened and when it broke and
of course I'm in Dallas, so it'severywhere.
And you know he was, and thoughhe was wild, you know man liked
to party but that wasn't his.
(47:35):
I mean, the cowboys was wildbehavior was not his stelo, you
know what I mean.
But yeah, but when theaccusations came out it was like
whoa, and then it turned outthat it did not happen.
So that was, you know, one ofthe most high profile that I can
remember, where it was reallylike just a blatant attempt to
(47:57):
extort and and lying and whatnot.
And then, but it gave peoplesome pause and people were kind
of looking at him a little withsome side eye because he did
like to get down and party.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
He was the bad boy.
He did like the cowboys Likethey had they had him a whole
little crib off on the sidewhere they would just go kick it
and bring the girls over.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
I would go to this place called the Cowboy Cafe.
We ain't going to talk aboutthat, okay.
I don't want to know, but yeah,but yeah, so and so, yeah, but
yeah, but I understand in thatand like and I'm reserving
judgment on this on this one Ido feel like I need more
information.
I'm not, I'm not, um,dismissing or discounting any of
(48:44):
her experience or what she hasto say, but I'm also going to
give him a little bit of graceand I and I do want to see, and
I don't think that there'sanything wrong with being unsure
and and saying you know what Idon't, I don't know what I think
about this, I don't know uspersonally.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
We can't speak for, like the legal system, but just
us personally.
We, we don't.
You do not.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
If you're listening to this podcast, you do not have
to come to a conclusion one wayor the other yeah, and because
he's got billions of dollars,and whether or not you know
jay-z was the perpetrator orparticipating in that act, it
does not mean something didn'thappen to her that night either,
and that's also true.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Now, look, I don't want to talk about the woman's.
You know mental state or heremotional capacity, but you know
clearly she's got some issuesthat she's been dealing with and
she's autistic now again, likeautism is a spectrum, so I
wouldn't make any necessarilyjudgments about.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
You know her cognitive abilities and 24 years
ago, it wasn't something thatpeople really knew, and so, when
I'm thinking, it was like shewas 13 at the time.
Who was this friend?
This friend had to be at least16, because they had a car yeah
and a license, and they droveher five hours and then left her
there yeah and then, I guess,drove back as crazy as that
(50:06):
sounds, shit like that doeshappen.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
So I mean no, I mean absolutely, but.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
But I'm just saying so.
I'm like, who was this friend?
How much of a friend were theythat they just left this 13 year
old girl?
Because, obviously they wereolder because they drove.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
Well, the friend is deceased so they're not going to
.
There's no way to get like adeposition from the girl, the
friend whether it be a man orwoman, I'm not particularly sure
, but yeah, it's just.
It's unfortunate Now what Iwill say again.
So back to my point about notknowing how to respond to sexual
assault allegations when you'vedone nothing wrong.
I have no idea.
But I can tell you like I havebeen privately accused of, you
(50:44):
know, being inappropriate on theInternet, here in someone's DMs
on formerly known as TwitterNow.
So the way that came about isso, you know, an Internet
acquaintance of mine that I'mfond of started DMing me out of
the blue one day.
I was like, okay, hey, nice totalk to you.
So we chatted for a few daysback and forth, off and on, and
(51:06):
then after about a week or soshe you know she was like the
reason why I actually contactedyou is because someone else said
that you were beinginappropriate in her dms, so I
just wanted to see you know ifthat could possibly be true, how
you rocked in the dm.
Yeah, she was trying to see howI move out here in these streets
and she nancy drew.
(51:26):
No, no, I mean, but again, youknow when.
Again, so we are.
This is that dilemma wherewomen make these accusations,
you want to, at the very least,you know, not demonstrably uh,
chastise them, but you want totake them seriously.
But she was like I will verifyfor myself and you know, because
(51:46):
I wasn't dming, dming anyone,when she told me that I was like
, well, yeah, that's totalbullshit because I wasn't
talking to anybody, and she'slike I figured that and know the
way you've been acting lendscredibility to the idea that she
was just making this up and,you know, wrongfully accusing
you.
Now, I don't specifically knowwho the person was that did this
(52:08):
or why they would even do it,but she was giving you both the
benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
It seems, I guess, that she was giving that person
the benefit of the doubt butalso knowing you somewhat to a
degree, and it didn't, I guess,jive with what her perception of
you were, was or is.
So they wanted to see if theythrew a bone or what.
Yeah, Kind of yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
She wanted to see if the girl was like what she was
saying was even feasible and itturned out that wasn't the case.
Now my response to that becauseyou know it was a private issue
it's not like somebody was likeaccusing me openly and trying
to take me to court.
Yeah, like I don't know howwould I respond in that regard,
but, like in this case, I waslike I know I didn't do anything
, so I was like that's crazy.
(52:53):
I don't know what was wrongwith that girl and I just say
this and I say that just to saythis like it's entirely possible
that I'm Jay-Z and somebody outhere is in these streets.
You know the lawyer is tryingto take advantage of a woman
where something may havehappened to her, but it didn't
necessarily involve Jay-Z andthis was an opportunity for dude
to get a paycheck.
I have absolutely no idea andall I can say is wait to find
(53:18):
out.
You don't have to rush to anykind of judgment whatsoever.
The facts will eventually speakfor themselves.
No-transcript.
so in the last episode of the podcast I told
you I was going to have a listof all of the things that mary
garland and biden's departmentwell, not all the things, but
like a top 10 list basically ofall the things that mary garland
and his department of justice,uh, could have taken over the
course of the four well, I guessthree and a half years, since
(00:25):
he wasn't confirmed afterBiden's inauguration for a few
months there.
But the things that likely youknow likely routes or choices of
action that Garland could havetaken that might have possibly
resulted in a different outcomein the sense that, even though
Trump was charged twice by theDepartment of Justice in Florida
(00:46):
for the classified documentsand in DC for January 6th those
cases didn't go to trial forvarious reasons.
And again.
So there's always been a lot ofMerrick Garland criticism for
not having done enough or nothaving done the right thing or
having done this or that and,generally speaking, I think the
criticism is it's not thatcriticism of garland is
(01:10):
unwarranted, it's that thespecific things that people
criticize him for are justunrealistic largely.
For example, like why didn'tmary garland charge trump the
first day he was sworn in asattorney general?
Well, that's because criminalinvestigations tend to take time
and you can file charges at astandard of proof that's
(01:35):
probable cause but when you getto a criminal trial, you have to
have enough evidence to convictbeyond a reasonable doubt, and
there was not a significantenough investigation done, you
know, over the course of thecouple of months before Mayor
Garland got there to arrestTrump, have him indicted and
have him convicted at a trial.
(01:56):
So it was just going to take alittle bit more time than that.
And of course, there's always acounterbalance here between
like hey, if you wait too long,look what can happen, because we
saw the worst case scenario ittook two years for DOJ to get an
indictment of Trump and itnever made it to trial in either
case.
So, yes, there is a balancethat needs to be struck, but
(02:19):
I've got some specific instancesof things that likely should
have been done or at the veryleast could have been done.
And even even with this list, Ican tell you I'm not.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
We could have been done.
We could have got themotherfuckers from south korea
over here.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Look so yes, look, what happens is when you have an
unexpected hiatus when it comesto recording the podcast, a
million things happen.
I mean, we had the, the fall ofassad's regime, there's an
attempted coup in south korea Ijust like on, and on brazil,
fucking boston yes, it'sabsolutely crazy out here in
(03:02):
these streets.
But on to the top 10 list, sonumber 10.
One of the things MaryGarland's DOJ could have done
and this was likely before JackSmith of a special counsel it
could have charged theclassified documents case in DC
and, again, like could havebrought the charges.
(03:23):
For well, in terms of executingthe search warrant on
Mar-a-Lago, that could have beendone months earlier and he
could have brought the chargesin DC.
Now there would have been, ofcourse, an argument that because
the majority of the crime tookplace in South Florida, the
charges needed to be filed there, florida, the charges needed to
(03:46):
be filed there.
But you could also argue thatthe origin for the criminal
activity was in DC and that hecould have been charged in DC
and that would have potentiallyavoided Judge Cannon presiding
over the case and ultimatelytanking it.
Now, again, that's an argumentthat would have went up
eventually to the Supreme CourtIn all likelihood.
We've seen how the Supreme Courtkicks it.
They are here playing Trump'slegal defense counsel, so it's
(04:09):
possible they could havedismissed the charges.
But again, you have theMar-a-Lago search warrant
executed, say, three monthsearlier.
You get those documents, youget the charges filed in D,
judge Cannon doesn't hold up theprocess by engaging Trump's
demands to look so that thatwhole legal legal fiasco with
(04:34):
the execution of the searchwarrant, the Trump fraud of
court that delayed theinvestigation and ultimately the
charges he ran out the clock.
So this would have beenpotentially a way to try to
avoid running out the clock inmultiple ways, but largely to
circumvent Judge Cannon andagain the Supreme Court probably
could have been like hey, wrongjurisdiction, dismiss these
charges.
It would have been refiledagain in South Florida and we
(04:56):
could have ultimately ended upin the same place.
It's entirely possible.
I don't know Number nine MayorGarland could have immediately
appointed a special counsel andget this.
Most people are saying whydidn't Mayor Garland appoint a
special counsel in January of2021?
Well, he wasn't the attorneygeneral in January or February,
(05:21):
or most of March, for thatmatter.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Biden wasn't even inaugurated to almost the end of
January.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
So yes, but so Garland didn't get confirmed
until March.
His deputies didn't getconfirmed until closer to the
end of the year.
But one of the things MayorGarland could have done because
we did find out last year thathe initiated a small task force
in secrecy inside the Departmentof Justice to go after, if not
(05:46):
Trump, all of the higher rankingco-conspirators.
That would include likelymembers of Congress and, of
course, the war rooms scatteredaround DC on January 5th and 6th
.
Now we don't know the detailsof where that investigation led,
but it eventually culminatedwith the appointment of Jack
(06:07):
Smith special counsel's office,who ended up ultimately
indicting Trump on chargesrelated to the coup was doing
was to avoid publicizing theinvestigation for a couple of
reasons, but largely because ifit had become public that he was
(06:28):
specifically investigatingTrump and Trump's inner circle
and his immediateco-conspirators, it would have
caused him to change theirbehaviors and their actions and
the way they communicate andpossibly led to them, you know,
deleting evidence from theirphones, their emails, any other
type of communications and such.
But again, that's, you know,one of the that is one of the
(06:51):
trade-offs.
You know the investigationwould have moved a lot faster.
In all likelihood it would havebeen well-staffed, it would
have been equipped to go afterTrump the same way Jack Smith's
office did, and on the flip side, you know the way he did it did
ultimately result in charges,but it took longer.
(07:24):
But again, you know, one of theissues here is get to the point
where there was enough evidenceto convict Trump and his
co-conspirators at a criminaltrial beyond a reasonable doubt,
was going to step in at somepoint, as they did, and find a
way to not only delay the trialbut also institute a brand new
(07:50):
set of rules when it comes toprosecuting presidents.
And they did so in such a waythat, even if this, you know,
even if the clock hadn't run outbefore this, got to trial in
terms of presenting evidence,because they basically made a
rule, you know, they made newrules of evidence for presidents
.
Any decisions the court made interms of Judge Chuck in
(08:11):
allowing evidence into therecord, that could have been
appealed back up to the SupremeCourt and we could have just
been going back and forth withthis on loop for eternity,
regardless of when the chargeshad been filed, for eternity,
regardless of when the chargeshad been filed.
So look again, it probablywould have resulted in charges
sooner, but it's no guaranteethe end result would have been
(08:31):
the same.
Number eight Merrick Garlandshould have fired Chris Wray and
all of Trump's holdovers at theDOJ and FBI.
The second he was confirmed tobe the attorney general.
Now this one, like clearlyMayor Garland you know, I don't
know.
Obviously he has the power to,you know ask President Biden to
(08:53):
fire the FBI director.
But you know, biden made itclear that he was going to let
Chris Wray stay on in an attemptto bring the nation back to
some semblance of normalcy.
But the argument I would make is, in terms of all the criticism
directed at the DOJ for whatthey did and did not do in terms
(09:14):
of going after Trump and hiscronies, largely, the DOJ, and
specifically Merrick Garland,were a lot more aggressive than
the FBI wanted.
Merrick Garland were a lot moreaggressive than the FBI wanted
and there was a lot ofconsternation between the two
agencies and it was in alllikelihood so, like in terms of
executing the search warrant.
It was the FBI that didn't wantto execute the search warrant
(09:37):
and then they were the ones thatdidn't want to go in with the
uniforms and all of this andthey tried to delay the search
as long as possible.
It was Merrick Garland himselfthat signed off on the search
warrant and told them hey, goget the shit.
You know we have numerousinstances of former FBI
officials who were appointedunder Trump, doing things to
(10:00):
delay the investigation.
Now you could argue that, hey,maybe they wanted to, you know,
not put themselves in a positionto face Trump's wrath Should he
be reelected, and that's alegitimate concern.
But also you probably just hada bunch of dudes who work for
Trump who were trying to makesure he wasn't brought up on
charges, doing what they couldwithin legal limits to delay the
(10:22):
investigation legal limits todelay the investigation.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
The thing about Biden and Merrick Garland they came
around about the same time inpolitics and their respective
jobs, in that they're kind ofcentrist, they believe in
bipartisanship, they believe inthat we're not there anymore,
but they were still trying toplay by the rules that are no
longer there decision making,because they were going at it as
(11:06):
if they were dealing withrational people in a rational
time and also holding out hopeis what I think that somebody
held on to those principles andvalued the rule of law and
constitution above.
And then you soon found outthat everybody's a fucking sick
of it and and also, at the endof the day, it didn't matter
(11:29):
what they did.
So if somebody it's like, ifyou have a significant other
who's always accusing you ofcheating, cheating and you're
not, and you're not, and you'renot, and then one day you get
fed up, not saying it's right,but you get fed up and you're
like, fuck it, I'm gonna gocheat because I haven't cheated,
but I'm being accused of itanyway and I can't get no
(11:49):
motherfucking sleep.
Bitch about to pour some hotgrits on me like I can't take
this anymore.
So you know, if I'm gonna getscalded, I may as well get the
benefit up.
May as well say okay, I did it.
You know what I'm saying.
So it's like there was going tobe nothing.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
With all the accusations of Biden weaponizing
the Justice Department and theFBI, he should have just
weaponized the JusticeDepartment and the FBI, not
weaponized.
But yes, like you know, even ifit came to the point where it
seemed like they might be superaggressive, fuck it be super
aggressive because this was aserious issue.
And, like again, no one wouldhave faulted Biden for coming
(12:27):
out and saying I'm firing or I'masking chris ray for his
resignation.
He was in charge of the fbiwhen the attack on the capitol
took place.
The fbi received numerouscredible threats.
Uh, that attack was imminent.
They failed to act.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Chris ray deserves to lose his job they should have
also brought fucking michaelflynn back to active duty and
had his ass court-martialed forsure.
I shouldn't be paying his fourhundred thousand dollars.
My tax dollars shouldn't begoing into paying finn's fucking
pension, while he's left foryears to just run around being a
traitor.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I'm with you there and like just the way that
trauma's going around trying toaccrue to everyone under his
employ.
To help him with January 6th,there's absolutely no question
that he tried to ask Chris Wray,number six, or rather number
seven, mayor Garland should havecharged the fake electors with
(13:18):
conspiracy to commit forgeryslash defraud of the United
States.
I think this would have beenthe easiest possible charges to
prove.
Were the fake elector documentsforged?
Yes, were they sent in togovernment agencies in an
attempt to change the outcome ofthe result of the 2020 election
?
Yes, open and shut.
You know conspiracy somewhatdifficult to charge, but I think
(13:40):
in terms of forgery, you gotthem cold on that and a lot of
hands touch those fake electorcertificates.
Senator Ron Johnson AbsolutelyFor three seconds.
According to him, of the likeyou know, the speech or debate
(14:02):
clause section of theconstitution does not confer to
attempting to use forgeddocuments to subvert a
presidential election.
I think that would have beenpretty open and shut could have
got that done in months, butagain, that likely would have
required a special counsel,because I don't think the route
that Mayor Garland'sinvestigation took got to the
(14:26):
fake elector plot for monthsafter his appointment.
Number six should haveconferred with the January 6th
committee and made sure thatthey share their evidence with
the Department of Justice andthe FBI.
If everyone who's been accusingyou know the Department of
Justice for waiting around forthe January 6th committee to do
(14:48):
their work before they made anymoves, you're wrong.
That investigation into Trumpand his cronies started, you
know, approximately April of2021.
One of the issues that held upthe department, though, is the
January 6th was also goingaround taking these depositions
(15:08):
and collecting evidence, andwhat you can't have is the
department filing chargesagainst Trump and other
co-conspirators and then itcomes out that these other
witnesses have testified to agovernment body and then
testimony differs, and then ifthere's any sort of
inconsistencies, you know Trumpand his people were going to get
off and they decided to holdoff on that information until
they finished theirinvestigation and held hearings,
(15:29):
which made the department lookbad.
But instead of like encouragingthe department to investigate
leads that they had that maybethe department didn't, and they
try to be selfish with theinformation now again, like you
got to take your ego out of this.
If you're the JusticeDepartment, you got to go to
them and be like, hey, this iswhy we need this, we need to
de-conflict and we need to makeas many moves as soon as
(15:50):
possible to make sure that Trumpdoesn't run out the clock.
So, in that regard, yes, theDOJ should have, you know, maybe
done some reaching out, butlike I'd hold the January 6th
committee responsible forsending on as much information
as they did for as long as theydid, which helped Trump run out
of the clock.
So you can kind of, in thatregard, I think the blame is
(16:12):
largely on the January 6thcommittee.
But sure, doj, they can.
They should have took someinitiative on that Number five,
it should have immediately heldvoluntary interviews with Trump
administration officials andcampaign staff.
If not, you know, the secondthat Biden took office, when
Merrick Garland was confirmed tobe the attorney general.
(16:34):
Now, what I mean is the sameway that Robert Mueller and his
investigation.
Once he was appointed he wentaround talking to Trump campaign
staff and people who worked atthe White House.
Went around talking to Trumpcampaign staff and people who
worked at the White House,gathering information and
getting people on the recordabout what they knew or what
they had witnessed, got that onthe record.
There were numerous peoplecaught up in that investigation
(16:55):
in those voluntary interviewswho ended up lying.
And what happened?
Robert Mueller basicallyoffered them an agreement where
if they cooperated, they wouldget hit with the 1001 charge,
which is basically lying to afederal agent, largely end up
(17:15):
getting probation in exchangefor cooperating in the
investigation.
Doj should have like looked atwhat happened in that particular
investigation and employedthose same tactics to get
everyone on the record.
They likely would have hadcooperating witnesses because
people lie, and they would havehad like a clear insight into
(17:37):
the Trump campaign and the Trumpadministration in their attempt
to overthrow the government onJanuary 6th, which likely would
have sped up the process, whichwould have meant you know
charges far sooner than whenthey actually occurred.
So number four, jack Smithspecial counsel's office should
have moved for the recusal ofJudge Cannon for her
(17:57):
interference in the execution ofthe search warrant and just the
way she handled all of theissues regarding pret a level of
clarity in all of her emotionsand whatnot and she ended up
(18:24):
basically making it impossiblefor anything to be filed in
public on the docket, whichmeans she had to make all of her
decisions in private.
Everything that wascommunicated in terms of trying
to make the trial go forward wasjust hidden from public view.
I mean, she was.
It was a whole disaster.
She got overturned by the 11thcircuit twice and was likely on
her way to being overturned athird time.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, but she learned from that and that's why she
started being real careful withthe things that she said to not
give it a chance to go and betaken to the 11th circuit again
yeah, special counsel's officeshould have just moved to have
her thrown off the case becausewe knew where it was going.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
So when, when you know, the charges were first
filed, we talked about it on thepodcast quite often.
But once it became clear thejudge cannon was never going to
let that go to trial, how oftendid we, like you know other
podcasts and kudos to thembecause you know we deserve to
understand like the process andhow it plays out.
But you know a lot of otherlegal podcasts.
We're going over everydevelopment in the case in
(19:24):
florida and I was like, hey, man, we're not talking about this
again until it's clear it wasgoing to trial and it never went
to trial.
So we never talked about itagain.
Because you know, I told youguys pretty much it's not gonna
happen with judge canaan on thatcase and she was basically
installed after trump lost theelection in his district to
ensure that any trump relatedcases that went before her got
(19:45):
squashed and she did her job.
So I mean, you know, good winfor trump.
But like again.
So there was this.
There's this show foundation onapple tv.
I mean I don't care if youwatch it or not, but there is a
fantastic quote from a characterin that show that says you
cannot play chess with someonewho is willing to set the board
on fire.
(20:06):
Well, yeah, that's pretty cutand dry Full stop, largely
speaking, surrounding thefailures of the Justice
Department to hold Trumpaccountable.
All regard, you know allrevolve around the fact that
they were playing chess andTrump and his co-conspirators in
the Supreme Court and JudgeCannon and Republicans in
(20:27):
Congress were willing to set theboard on fire and look, it
worked out for them.
So number three charge all theTrump's co-conspirators in
Congress.
I think this one's prettystraightforward.
Trump was the only one involvedin the fake elector plot on
January 6th.
Like you know, there weremultiple arms of the coup.
One was the violentinsurrection, the other one was
the fake elector certificates togive Mike Pence an opportunity
(20:50):
to either certify those or delaythe certification of the 2020
election to a point in which thestates could decide and you
know, I think, the rule there iscongressional no state
legislatures basically make thedecision and because Republicans
(21:13):
have a majority, they couldhave handed the election to
Trump.
Like, charge everyone who isaware in that regard of the plot
.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I mean, and the way that they moved so quick like
Michigan, arizona and what otherstate?
It was one other state, was itColorado or Georgia?
Georgia, yeah, I think Georgia,but they really it pretty much
was a slam dunk and that wouldhave been a good place to start.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
So here's the thing.
So you charge members ofCongress that, like the pretrial
proceedings are going to playout over the course of years,
probably weren't going to getthem to trial before the
election.
But again, what it would havedone is got information out to
the public.
It would have paintedRepublicans into a corner and it
likely would have decided theelection in favor of Democrats,
(22:08):
which in turn would have giventhe Department of Justice more
time to prosecute these fuckersand get Trump.
Prosecute these fuckers and gettrump.
So, um, you know, and now Iagain, I understand the plan
here was to indict trump, getthe slimmest possible indictment
that you think has the leastamount of issues, to get it to
court before the election.
And didn't work.
And at the very least, once itbecame clear, um, after the
(22:29):
supreme court stepped in, aftercannon dismissed, dismissed the
charges in florida, that hey,like this, ain't going to try
before the election, indict allthe co-conspirators, at least
get the evidence out into thepublic, out into the public
spotlight, because sunlight'ssupposed to be the best
disinfectant, but apparentlythat was not the case.
Number two subpoena slashcharge Jenny Thompson for her
(22:54):
role in the fake elector plotyes yes, back to the your
opponents being willing to setthe board on fire.
Once it was clear, uh, thatclarence thomas and a number of
his other cohorts believe thatthey had impunity to step in and
defend trump in in any mannerthat they see fit.
Uh, it probably should have beena clear indicator that anything
(23:17):
appealed out of these Trumpcases that went to the Supreme
Court is probably going to go inTrump's favor, and the way you
combat that is you set the boardon fire.
So you know, jenny Thomas was incommunication with numerous
officials in swing states aboutthe fake elector plot, which you
kind of have to ask yourselfyourself how the fuck did she
even know right?
(23:37):
And then also, she's married toa supreme court justice who's
making decisions on these cases.
You make her a witness or slasha co-defendant, like you
basically eliminate any ofClarence Thomas, the ability of
Clarence Thomas to weigh in onthese cases, while the pressure
would have mounted for him torecuse, if not resign.
And there you go, you got.
(23:59):
Either you have one less voteto rig the system for Trump or
you might even have anotherSupreme Court justice at this
point, which would have in fact,prevented the Supreme Court for
stepping in and helping Trumpand bailing him out in numerous
ways, but, you know, again lostthe opportunity, something they
(24:20):
should have thought about andtook action on.
So I do Again.
It's not a guarantee that thiswould have worked, but like.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
It definitely would.
It definitely would have sent amessage.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
It would have sent a message.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
It would have sent a message, and more of a no one is
above the law message, evenbefore trump took to go, because
she was very, very brazen, herarrogance and then clarence.
Thomas, this motherfucker, saton the bench for a decade and
didn't say a fucking word, buthe sure could not stop yapping
like a goddamn canary after hestarted to feel emboldened and
(24:55):
shit, and now he won't shut thefuck up now he won't shut the
fuck up and if nothing else, itwould have distracted his ass
because he loved him some jenny.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So I think what it would have done most is put all
of the conservative justices onthe supreme court in fear of
intervening in this and puttinga target which he would have
deserved, and somebody weak likecavanaugh would have made his
ass think twice.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
See.
See alito and thomas.
They don't give a fuck.
However, roberts is a squishcavanaugh's weak baron she's.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
She is a unicorn in her own right.
Like she's super conservative.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
She's made some decisions that have shocked me.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
That's the other thing.
There are, in some cases,principled decisions that she
makes that don't necessarilyalign with what you think of far
right conservative, but beyondthat, the point really here is
try and take as many pieces offthe chessboard as possible to
ensure, you know, the departmentof justice was able to carry
(25:57):
out his goals.
And it did not do that.
Um, and the number one thing,the number one thing mary
garland should have done is it'sfairly obvious once I'm once, I
say it is he should havecharged trump with obstructing
robert muller's that's a goodone.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, so Mueller made it fairly clear that Trump
obstructed his investigation innumerous ways in you know, a
couple of specific instances youcan go with.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Like yeah, interfere with the federal investigation
obstruction.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Well, trying to have Mueller fired.
That was one.
Now, of course it wasn'tsuccessful, but obstruction
doesn't have to be successful tobe a crime.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I'm also lying.
You don't have to get the moneyto have tried to rob a bank.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
No, Mueller submitted Trump numerous written
questions, and even in thewritten, you know, in lieu of an
interview and even in thewritten questions, trump lied.
He could have charged him withthat, you know.
And look, I don't know whatBill Barr did after the
conclusion of Mueller'sinvestigation to ensure that no
(27:04):
charges would be filed, like I'msure there were some
shenanigans being played in DOJon the record, or at least you
know, confidentially on therecord in terms of making it
difficult to charge Trump.
And one of the things Bill Barrdid was he went to the Office
of Legal Counsel to get anopinion saying that you couldn't
file obstruction chargeswithout a crime.
And I know you're thinking well, well, that's, that's seals the
deal.
(27:24):
Trump wasn't charged.
Well, that's not entirely true.
Robert Mueller charged numerouspeople, including Russian agents
and Trump co-conspirators, andTrump tried to obstruct the
investigation that resulted inthe charging of those people.
Therefore, you're still inalignment with the OLC opinion.
There were charges filed, trumptried to obstruct that
(27:45):
investigation.
You charge Trump with that.
You can do that within thefirst couple of months on the
job, if not weeks, that likelywould have ended with a trial
and a conviction uh, before theend of 2022.
So there were numerous andagain, you know I'm not saying
that's 100, sure, but it wouldhave been an opportunity, should
(28:07):
have been done, likely, couldhave been done.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
He had a lot of spaghetti to throw at the wall.
He could have gave it the oldcollege.
Try, you know.
I mean it's not like he didn't.
Yeah, you know, it's not liketrump didn't, when he was in
office with hillary, nothingwith hunter before they
investigated hillary clintonright up until the day trump
left office yeah, they did.
(28:31):
He had like four fuckinginvestigations like going on and
I was like reading that waslike the, uh, the western
district of texas, um one ofthem.
He was like bro, there ain'tnothing here, like no nothing
now.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So you know I've been accused of being like a mary
garland glazer.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I love mary garland well, you and allison, both,
because allison has been hangingin there too, no, but here's
the thing.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
it's like I've been saying, like it's not that
Merrick Garland is abovecriticism, it's just the shit
people be criticizing him for.
It'd be stupid.
And look, I just laid out awhole entire list of things that
Merrick Garland, doj, evenBiden himself could have done,
including firing Chris Wray,since he's going to resign
anyway Should have got him outof the paint and out of the way
and, like it's entirely possible, the investigation and the
(29:18):
outcome of the criminal chargeswould have been faster and maybe
have ended in a differentresult.
So it's not that I'm, like youknow, pro Merrick Garland to the
point where I'm not objective,like I clearly have, you know,
some ideas about what could havebeen done differently and
should have been donedifferently.
Now, again, there's a costbenefit to all of these.
You know possible actions, likethere are ways that attempting
(29:42):
to do those things could havebackfired.
But again, we live in a worldof consequences and sometimes to
do the right thing, you got todeal with whatever potential
fallout might exist.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Now what they need to do is just they need to release
everything they can, and Ithink that they need to erase.
They need to erase, they needto release the January 6th
report because Trump's going toerase it.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
We're going to get the report in January.
The problem is that there's alot of information and evidence,
likely obtained by the grandjury, that can be released to
the public without an order fromthe court.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
They need to release what they can at least.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Well, I think Smith's going to do that and I think
they're going to find a way tomake sure as much information as
possible gets into the recordhere.
But there's a lot of evidencethat I would suggest that they
go to judge chuck in and try andask her to uh, you know, unseal
for the public since the caseis being dismissed.
But again, you know, thepossibility of doing that is if
(30:48):
it, if chuck orders that andthat information is made
publicly available.
Uh, there could be argumentsmade in the future should there
ever be federal charges againstsome of trump's co-conspirators
but you know what I?
I don't even care yeah, you,just right now, the information
we gotta move like there is no,four years from now yes, we
gotta move and move like thecharges are gonna go away
(31:09):
forever, because in alllikelihood once trump is in
office, then they're gonna.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
They're gonna erase every fucking thing.
They're gonna erase everythingyeah and so we need to they.
Yeah, it needs to be.
I don't care how they get itout there.
I don't care if he get hop onone of the motherfucking drones
and drops it over the new jersey, over the hudson, like I don't
care and look man, so much stuffhappened while we were gone.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
I mean I got page 36 like I don't care yeah, you know
the republicans, you know topwitness and trying to impeach
biden and lock up hunter.
He is apparently going to pleadguilty to crimes of lying to
the feds.
I mean, it was wild out there,all right.
So we had a crazy story lastweek where an accuser came
(31:57):
forward accusing well, a womancame forward accusing Jay-z of
rape during a party after the, Ibelieve, the VMA Awards in 2000
and just like it's.
It's an insane story.
Trigger warning here.
Anyone who's been like a victimof sexual assault you this this
is probably tough for you tohear just want to let you take a
(32:20):
second.
It turn off the podcast if youtrigger warning yes, we have a
clip of the woman in aninterview with the outlet here
the night of the 2000s vmas.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
She says a friend drove her from Rochester, New
York, to Manhattan, a more thanfive-hour drive.
Her attorney provided NBC Newswith the name of the friend who
has since died.
The woman says she spoke toCombs' limo driver who offered
her a ride to an after-party.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
I stumbled upon Diddy's driver, who told me that
I was exactly what Diddy waslooking for.
What did you think when he saidthat to you?
I thought it meant that I wasjust for.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
What did you think when he said that to you?
I thought it meant that I wasjust pretty.
She went to a White House, shesays, where she spoke to
musicians Benji Madden and hisbrother.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
I'm talking to Benji Madden about his tattoo, because
you know I have a really isabout his tattoo.
That's the last supper, becauseI have a religious background,
so it was just something to talkabout.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
In a statement to NBC News, a representative of the
Maddens confirmed that they didnot attend the 2000 VMAs and
that they were on tour in theMidwest at the time.
At the after party she says shehad a drink that made her feel
woozy.
Then she says Combs and Cartertook turns raping her while a
female celebrity watched.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
JC comes in and rapes me.
Well he's, well he.
At that point I was fighting,trying to get away from him, and
he put his hand over my mouthand told me to stop it, cut you
it, cut the after the allegedrape, she says she ran to a gas
(34:00):
station where she called herfather, who picked her up and
drove her home we wrote home insilence.
He didn't ask me what happened.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
He didn't ask me what I did or where I was in an
interview with nbc news, herfather said he could not verify
the claims Quote.
I felt like I would rememberthat and I don't.
I have a lot going on, but Imean that's something that would
definitely stick in my mind, hesaid.
When we asked the woman aboutthe contradictions in a phone
interview on Friday, she saidthat she stands by her
(34:28):
statements.
I have made some mistakes, shesaid Honestly.
What is the clearest is whathappened to me.
Mistakes, she said Honestly,what is the clearest is what
happened to me.
The inconsistencies in heraccount of an incident alleged
to have happened 24 years agodoes not necessarily mean the
allegations are false.
The accuser's attorney, tonyBusby, said because we have
interrogated her intensely, shehas even agreed to submit to a
(34:49):
polygraph.
This has been extremelydistressing for her, to the
point she has experiencedseizures and had to seek medical
treatment due to the stress.
In a statement to NBC News,sean Carter said this incident
didn't happen and yet he filedit in court and doubled down in
the press.
True justice is coming.
We fight from victory, not forvictory.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
All right.
So you know we're in a post MeToo movement, era Right,
post-MeToo movement, era right.
And you know I'm in a positionof like when women come forward
and, you know, accuse otherindividuals of sexually
assaulting them.
Generally speaking, you know Iwant to be sensitive to that.
I like to leave as much spacefor that as possible because,
let's be honest here, you knowso many more women in the world,
(35:31):
and specifically the UnitedStates, get sexually assaulted
than ever come forward.
So you know we have to takeallegations like that seriously
and but I'm also in a positionof like, you know, generally
speaking, if some regular randoon the street is accused of
sexual assault, I'm like youprobably did it, because there's
absolutely no reason why awoman would make this accusation
(35:53):
, generally speaking, withoutthere being some truth to it.
But you know, and like thismight piss some people off, but
I generally feel like, if you'rea celebrity and you're a man
being accused of this, ifthere's no history of it in your
past and there's absolutelylike no evidence, you know, over
the course of your life or youryou know the time you've been
(36:15):
in a public space of beingaccused of things like this, I'm
willing to, you know, give youthe space to defend yourself as
well, Cause there are occasionswhere you know it's rare, but it
does.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
And that that that is fair.
You know, that is fair, andmore so, um would say, like the,
the lack of history.
Not that it's not possible,because absolutely somebody
doesn't have a history yeah,just because someone has
somebody's not.
You know.
Somebody isn't a killer untilthey kill.
You know what I mean soabsolutely it's, it's so that
(36:49):
definitely I'm giving some graceum, but his vehement denial and
he seemed really I was likewhen I was reading you know his
response boy.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
So let's, let's back up for a second, because that
was just some context.
So jay-z did put out, put out aresponse on social media the
other day.
It wasn't even really of anahemant denial, it was more so I
felt like it was but well no,but he wasn't really, you know,
attacking like the accusation asmuch as being like dog.
This is ridiculous.
(37:21):
Y'all know I didn't do this andhe was mad.
And you know, typicallyspeaking, you know celebrities,
wealthy individuals they usuallygo through a PR firm or their
lawyers when putting out astatement in in regards to these
allegations, but Jay-Z, itlooked like he typed this up
himself.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Like he typed it up.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah, no, I get that.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Where they'll issue this kind of generic denial
response through their PRspokesperson for Jay-Z said but
this was like he was like giveme that pen.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Give me that pen.
Yeah, let me write this up.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Give me my phone, you know, it looked like something
he said himself as as a sasurvivor, I want to give
everybody grace when they are apotential survivor, even nancy
crazy ass grace, regardless ofwhat I think about her.
You know, I give her, you know,grace as well.
Um, in that aspect, but yeah,but I can, I can get you know
(38:16):
what you're saying.
Um, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
I've kind of where I am mentally with this accusation
yeah, let's talk about this onespecifically, right, because
yeah, well, I'm just saying I'min the same headspace as I was
with the kobe situation, so I'm,I'm um when that happens.
So we don't have to rush thejudgment on this one.
We can let the facts come out.
But, so let's, let's talk aboutsome of her.
(38:39):
You know the interviewspecifically.
So one of the things she saidwas so, she's from upstate New
York.
You know she had a friend dropher off for the awards.
She was 13 at the time, youknow again.
Look, you want to talk aboutkids sneaking out and doing
crazy shit like that.
That it does happen.
(39:02):
Five hour drive, five hourdrive.
So she's at the ward, she can'tget in.
She's hanging around outside.
She's checking the limousineseeing if she can get you know,
find someone that could get heraccess in.
She runs in the uh, I think shesaid she runs into diddy's limo
driver.
He's like I can't get you in,but you, you know you come to
the after party if you want to.
You seem like you know Diddy'stype or whatever.
So they take her to the party.
(39:23):
She ends up in a room.
Well, she ends up having somedrinks.
She gets woozy.
I guess the assumption is thereshe might've been drugged.
I mean, diddy's been accused ofthis, like this there's
multiple instances ofaccusations of Diddy drugging,
you know, guests at his partiesin order to engage in some kind
of sexual, sexually compromisingposition.
(39:45):
They go into a room.
You know there's.
There's three celebrities thereJay-Z, diddy and a female
celebrity who's currentlyunnamed.
She says she was sexuallyassaulted by Diddy, and a female
celebrity who's currentlyunnamed.
She says she was sexuallyassaulted by Diddy and Jay-Z.
And then she leaves the party.
She gets to a gas station, shecalls her dad.
(40:07):
Her dad supposedly has to drivefive hours to pick her up and
take her home.
And the dad says hey, you know,I don't even remember this
happening.
I mean, I guess it's possible,but it seems like something that
would stick out.
And then she talks about, youknow, seeing another celebrity
at the party having aconversation.
It turns out that that thatindividual was not actually in
the state at the time, so thereare some holes in her testimony.
Now, look, I'm not gonna sithere and intact the woman
(40:30):
because, generally speaking,even in terms of like false
allegations, I just don't attackwomen.
I mean, mean, you know it's notideal.
We don't, and again like sothere's, while it's entirely
possible that this happened,it's also entirely feasible,
given what we know currently,that it didn't happen.
That aside, you know, like,what Jay-Z is doing here
(40:54):
currently, and even if thisallegation turns out to not have
any kind of truth in regards toJay-Z's participation, what it
is is Jay-Z paying a price forhanging out with some weirdos.
That's, that's what it is Right.
So you know you friends withDiddy.
You know this is blowing up interms of accusations surrounding
(41:16):
Diddy.
You're associated with the guylike and look, there have been
no, so so we talked about.
there's no history in terms ofJay-Z in anything, any sort of
allegations of any kind ofimproper behavior in this regard
.
So you, in that respect, I gavejay z some space, but it's been
(41:38):
all kinds of allegations foryears now about diddy, so you
knew who you was rolling with inthis well, yeah, that's exactly
what I was going to say.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
I 100 believe go oh yeah, but I I was going to, I
was going to comment on thatthat I I 100 believe that jay-z
knew and you know I rememberthem video, vixen days, double
xl and smooth mag and you knowthe gloria velez's and the karen
(42:09):
steffens and yeah, you know,back in the day there was some
times and so he absolutely, Ibelieve, knew maybe he didn't
fuck with it like that, but heknew what the hell was going on
and he knew who did.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
He was yeah, let's make a delineation here, right.
So you know, in terms of theindustry, you have associates
that you work with and throughthat sometimes you become
friends with those people.
But then there's like an eventighter group.
It's it's your crew dog, it'slike the people you roll with.
Now, jay-z ain't like rollingwith diddy all the time they
(42:42):
they didn't have that kind ofrelationship.
But they were friends, they wereclose, they talked all the time
.
Like you know, they talkedabout things between themselves.
Uh, you know that.
That.
You know, jay wouldn'tnecessarily talk about with
other people.
But here's another thing.
So while you so, while Jay-Z isa victim of the people he
associates himself with in thisregard, at this point he was
(43:05):
also look, he's currentlymarried to Beyonce.
I don't know how to evendissect this, but they've known
each other since she was ateenager, before she was an
illegal adult.
So you know that could possiblyraise some questions about
Jay-Z's particular intentionsand they've been together.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
what 20 years now?
I think it's been a long time.
I think somebody said I thinkthat's when Beyonce's album when
Bonnie and Clyde came out.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Yeah, so they've been married for a while.
He knew her before she was ofthe age of 18, also, you know,
working in the industry, and wasassociates with alia when she
was underage and then dame dashwas dating her.
Yeah so look you, you've gotsome questions about like the
possibility of jay-z beinginterested in underage girls
(43:59):
potentially.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
R Kelly, wasn't everybody circled to?
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Yeah, so R Kelly and Aaliyah ended up getting married
, but then she, you know,unfortunately is no longer with
us, thanks to a plane crash, Ibelieve.
And then, of course, you knowwe know how R Kelly was kicking
it.
Jay-z and R Kelly, I think theyput out a couple of albums
together.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
They went on tour together.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
So, whether or not Jay-Z actually was involved in
this particular incident, likeyou know, who am I to say?
The evidence suggested?
Likely not.
But also, on the other hand,dude put himself in this
position where enough people cantake these allegations to be
credible because of who he'dbeen hanging around.
Yeah, and like I don't know,like I'm not the moral judge on
(44:43):
this stuff, like I'm just somerandom dude on the internet with
a podcast.
But also you got to be like heyman, like you're a celebrity
now and you're at a point whereyou know you wear the mantle of
black excellence, at least interms of our entertainers.
You're one of the few guys tomake it out of the entertainment
arena and step into thebusiness arena and compete with
(45:05):
the giants.
You are up there, you sit attables, did very few of even the
most popular artists we everget to, and you've been hanging
out with dudes that do weirdstuff Now again.
So you know Tony Busby, thelawyer representing the he's
representing a lot of theaccusers, isn't he?
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah so like the Ben Crumb of the yeah Well so.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
So he is probably most prominently known for
representing numerous victimswho filed lawsuits against Sean
Watson, the former quarterbackof the Houston.
Oh really Cleveland?
Yeah, so he's.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
And like this is not necessarily to say that Busby is
not a credible attorney, buthe's like the male Gloria Allred
, because you knoworia allredrepresents a lot of celebrity
accusers like yeah, yeah, that'skind of her.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Thing now so he can.
He's been accused of being likean ambulance chaser he out here
trying to get these checks andhe's probably taking on cases
whether they have merit or not.
That doesn't mean none of themhave merit.
That doesn't mean all of themhave merit necessarily.
You just have to judge eachcase individually by the facts
presented.
But so he's currentlyrepresenting numerous women who
(46:24):
have accused Diddy of similaractivities as this woman's
accused Jay-Z of.
Scientifically like it's, it'stough to try and figure out what
sounds real and what doesn't,and I would just personally say
you ain't got to make up yourmind on any of these cases.
You can just wait until thedecision is made before you can
(46:44):
come to any conclusions.
But in terms of diddy heabsolutely out here doing some
weird nasty shit and he is likein jail is likely the correct
outcome.
As far as jay-z is concerned, Idon't know, and like I don't
know, what the correct responseis to being accused of sexual
assault.
Um, when you haven't done itright, like when when the
(47:06):
accusations are not true or youknow you have it that is true,
and that's just, you know, justa sidebar, really quick.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
But I remember back and, um god, her name was Nina.
I can't remember her last name,michael Irvin oh yeah and I was
living in Dallas when thathappened and when it broke and
of course I'm in Dallas, so it'severywhere.
And you know he was, and thoughhe was wild, you know man liked
to party but that wasn't his.
(47:35):
I mean, the cowboys was wildbehavior was not his stelo, you
know what I mean.
But yeah, but when theaccusations came out it was like
whoa, and then it turned outthat it did not happen.
So that was, you know, one ofthe most high profile that I can
remember, where it was reallylike just a blatant attempt to
(47:57):
extort and and lying and whatnot.
And then, but it gave peoplesome pause and people were kind
of looking at him a little withsome side eye because he did
like to get down and party.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
He was the bad boy.
He did like the cowboys Likethey had they had him a whole
little crib off on the sidewhere they would just go kick it
and bring the girls over.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
I would go to this place called the Cowboy Cafe.
We ain't going to talk aboutthat, okay.
I don't want to know, but yeah,but yeah, so and so, yeah, but
yeah, but I understand in thatand like and I'm reserving
judgment on this on this one Ido feel like I need more
information.
I'm not, I'm not, um,dismissing or discounting any of
(48:44):
her experience or what she hasto say, but I'm also going to
give him a little bit of graceand I and I do want to see, and
I don't think that there'sanything wrong with being unsure
and and saying you know what Idon't, I don't know what I think
about this, I don't know uspersonally.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
We can't speak for, like the legal system, but just
us personally.
We, we don't.
You do not.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
If you're listening to this podcast, you do not have
to come to a conclusion one wayor the other yeah, and because
he's got billions of dollars,and whether or not you know
jay-z was the perpetrator orparticipating in that act, it
does not mean something didn'thappen to her that night either,
and that's also true.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Now, look, I don't want to talk about the woman's.
You know mental state or heremotional capacity, but you know
clearly she's got some issuesthat she's been dealing with and
she's autistic now again, likeautism is a spectrum, so I
wouldn't make any necessarilyjudgments about.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
You know her cognitive abilities and 24 years
ago, it wasn't something thatpeople really knew, and so, when
I'm thinking, it was like shewas 13 at the time.
Who was this friend?
This friend had to be at least16, because they had a car yeah
and a license, and they droveher five hours and then left her
there yeah and then, I guess,drove back as crazy as that
(50:06):
sounds, shit like that doeshappen.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
So I mean no, I mean absolutely, but.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
But I'm just saying so.
I'm like, who was this friend?
How much of a friend were theythat they just left this 13 year
old girl?
Because, obviously they wereolder because they drove.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
Well, the friend is deceased so they're not going to
.
There's no way to get like adeposition from the girl, the
friend whether it be a man orwoman, I'm not particularly sure
, but yeah, it's just.
It's unfortunate Now what Iwill say again.
So back to my point about notknowing how to respond to sexual
assault allegations when you'vedone nothing wrong.
I have no idea.
But I can tell you like I havebeen privately accused of, you
(50:44):
know, being inappropriate on theInternet, here in someone's DMs
on formerly known as TwitterNow.
So the way that came about isso, you know, an Internet
acquaintance of mine that I'mfond of started DMing me out of
the blue one day.
I was like, okay, hey, nice totalk to you.
So we chatted for a few daysback and forth, off and on, and
(51:06):
then after about a week or soshe you know she was like the
reason why I actually contactedyou is because someone else said
that you were beinginappropriate in her dms, so I
just wanted to see you know ifthat could possibly be true, how
you rocked in the dm.
Yeah, she was trying to see howI move out here in these streets
and she nancy drew.
(51:26):
No, no, I mean, but again, youknow when.
Again, so we are.
This is that dilemma wherewomen make these accusations,
you want to, at the very least,you know, not demonstrably uh,
chastise them, but you want totake them seriously.
But she was like I will verifyfor myself and you know, because
(51:46):
I wasn't dming, dming anyone,when she told me that I was like
, well, yeah, that's totalbullshit because I wasn't
talking to anybody, and she'slike I figured that and know the
way you've been acting lendscredibility to the idea that she
was just making this up and,you know, wrongfully accusing
you.
Now, I don't specifically knowwho the person was that did this
(52:08):
or why they would even do it,but she was giving you both the
benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
It seems, I guess, that she was giving that person
the benefit of the doubt butalso knowing you somewhat to a
degree, and it didn't, I guess,jive with what her perception of
you were, was or is.
So they wanted to see if theythrew a bone or what.
Yeah, Kind of yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
She wanted to see if the girl was like what she was
saying was even feasible and itturned out that wasn't the case.
Now my response to that becauseyou know it was a private issue
it's not like somebody was likeaccusing me openly and trying
to take me to court.
Yeah, like I don't know howwould I respond in that regard,
but, like in this case, I waslike I know I didn't do anything
, so I was like that's crazy.
(52:53):
I don't know what was wrongwith that girl and I just say
this and I say that just to saythis like it's entirely possible
that I'm Jay-Z and somebody outhere is in these streets.
You know the lawyer is tryingto take advantage of a woman
where something may havehappened to her, but it didn't
necessarily involve Jay-Z andthis was an opportunity for dude
to get a paycheck.
I have absolutely no idea andall I can say is wait to find
(53:18):
out.
You don't have to rush to anykind of judgment whatsoever.
The facts will eventually speakfor themselves.
No-transcript.
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